The Uffda Times-Picayune

Noah

An irreverent newsletter/podcast with musings, hobbies, and ephemera. "A NEW LOW FOR THE WRITTEN (AND NOW SPOKEN) WORD" uffdatimespicayune.substack.com

  1. Feb 20

    Please Don't Add My Mom Back on Facebook: An Oral History of A Social Network

    The year is 2009. The first decade of the new millennium is coming to an end. The economy is in shambles. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is released to great acclaim. I am in 7th grade, and Facebook just arrived in my middle school. I was an active internet user from a young age. I regularly used the “kitchen computer” for Wikipedia wormhole dives, YouTube videos, and online games like Runescape. I’ve had consistent, pretty much unfiltered access to the internet since I was probably 11 or 12. I remember bits and pieces of early Facebook. The girl I had a crush on (and our whole friend group) had all made Facebook accounts around the same time. It wasn’t MySpace, and the part that worried me the most was using your real name and likeness. While the internet was largely unblocked and my site visits largely unmonitored, I was only allowed on Facebook if I didn’t use my full name, so I used my then online alias Yankeefanboy123, stylized “Yankeefanboy Onetwothree.” No, I do not like the Yankees anymore, and yes, I have always been an obnoxious contrarian. I was also very worried because I thought they (Facebook) would find out (classic Noah) I was under the age requirement. Welcome to Please Don’t Add My Mom Back on Facebook: An Oral History of a Social Network. Growing up online at the blooming stages of social media was complicated, but I think a lot of my peers have reverence for the early days of Being Online. Reflecting on Facebook’s influence on my life is also complicated; it’s the easiest way for me to revisit memories, both good and bad, of my late mother, whose descent into addiction and isolation is laid fully bare on her still archived and technically active Facebook page. This week, we’re going to cover those formative years, which for me coincided with being in middle school. What a f*****g nightmare. Thanks for reading and listening. And why didn’t you poke me back? Dude, did you see Stanford is on theutpbook.com now, too? That’s crazy. I think we’ll get it pretty soon. Give me your email and I’ll let you know. Part 1: Parent Permission Required (2009-2011) I was on Facebook doing Facebook things probably every day, once I had access to my own computer. My dad would buy extremely-cheap, used business laptops from his work, which was how I had my “own” laptop. I didn’t have a cell phone, so Facebook messages were the only way I could message people. This was before most kids had smartphones, and Facebook had a text-to-message feature, same with text-to-post. There was an incredible crossover era where people had online forum-esque signatures for SMS messages, so every Facebook message would have a My Chemical Romance quote or something at the end of it. Incredible stuff~~xxX Welcom 2 Tha Black Parade MCR4EVA Xxx~~ Facebook was liberating. It was the first time I was somewhere online where I was interacting with people I actually knew in real life. MySpace was already falling out of fashion, and Facebook was also seen as being more “private,” which is hilarious in retrospective. This wasn’t Runescape or Xbox Live, but something totally different to me. Despite being 11 or 12 years-old, I was legitimately using Facebook to “catch up” with people, the timeless marketing gimmick used for Facebook once it outpaced its original market of current college students. I had a pretty major move in 3rd grade, and my now 6th/7th grade-self used Facebook to re-connect with my neighbors and school friends who I had drifted from, and even a few who had moved to other parts of the country. For me, the best and cringiest part about going back to old Facebook posts is without a doubt how earnest I was in sharing basically everything I was doing. Of course, everyone I know wants to see pictures of me in front of the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota. Of course, everyone wants to know how long it took me to read John Green’s Looking for Alaska. There’s an excitement to the novelty of writing out these silly UTP articles and essays for my friends that takes me back to a different internet that was optimistic and exciting. It’s fun to reminded that it’s cool to be earnest, actually. I also want to be up-front that, as the title suggests, a significant part of my early Facebook memories are of my late mother, who, like all good suburban moms that are also children of the 80’s, used Facebook to reconnect with friends, share life updates, and play games. Nothing had her in a vice-grip quite like f*****g Bejeweled Blitz. She was putting up World of Warcraft playtime numbers in a Facebook match the colors game. This was also around the time her addiction began to consume her life. She was ostensibly more connected with friends than ever, even as she began to isolate herself. I have many, many memories of being in the kitchen talking to my mom while she played Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook on the Kitchen Computer, which typically transitioned into a frenzy of YouTube viewings, where my mom showed me all the things people always say they wanna show their kids. This is how I saw famous scenes from The Brady Bunch, cheesy 70s kid’s shows, and whatever nostalgia trip my mom was currently on. My parents always treated “showing me things for grown-ups” as a rite of passage, especially movies; I was a Quentin Tarantino fanatic at age 12. My mom loved to laugh. She introduced me to sketch comedy, stand-up, and was almost always trying to crack jokes. If she wasn’t using Facebook to try to catch up with you, she was trying to get you to laugh, her posts, comments, and messages full of bad one-liners and cheap punchlines. Linda was an avid prankster, frequently in trouble at her Catholic high school, and later on crank calling people when she was probably a little too old to be doing that (read: 40s). She enjoyed chatting with old friends and making new ones. She had a network of mutual friends that were all prolifically active on Facebook, including a few she never knew IRL. I have my suspicions about the real intentions of befriending men across the country on Facebook but she did make a lot of interesting connections, including a guitar player who played in The Meat Puppets for a short period of time in the early 90s. This man was in attendance at the infamous Nirvana MTV Unplugged Live in New York recording, which to me was tantamount to being present for Christ’s crucifixion. I have old messages begging for information about Kurt Cobain or what it was like to be there. He was clearly drunk while messaging me. I had a smaller, but just as active cohort of the other 12-year-olds I knew that had Facebook. It was well before my grandparents were on, or even my dad and siblings. I was documenting everything I did, and complaining a lot. As I mentioned earlier, ever the contrarian, I used Facebook to remind everyone just how special I was because I was a fervent Yankees fan, triggered by 2009 playoffs fever and a few years of baseball card collecting. I was also unusually upset about the Minnesota Vikings bringing Brett Favre in, and certainly didn’t like his wavering commitment to the team I barely understood. I wasn’t a football fan in any way, but caught the bandwagon spirit of 2009, what with Adrian Peterson and all. I made a litany of memes mocking Favre and Vikings mana… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com

    Please Don't Add My Mom Back on Facebook: An Oral History of A Social Network

  2. Feb 5

    There Is No More Regularly Scheduled Programming

    Alright. Alright, alright, alright. The b***h is back. Sound the trumpets. Lay down the red carpet. Bring out your offerings. UTP is back for 2026. Originally, I had written a whimsical intro about the razzmatazz and pizzazz of welcoming the new year and my overcoming a writer’s block that has afflicted me for the better part of two months. I was actually finalizing the edits to this very edition while sitting in a Powderhorn, Minneapolis coffee shop the morning of January 7th, when Renee Good was murdered just over a mile away as the crow flies. I had actually taken that as a mental health day, if you can believe it. I can’t emphasize enough how much worse things have gotten in the last few weeks. I’ve actually been paranoid to write anything about this but I just don’t give a s**t anymore—Minneapolis did nothing to deserve this and the constant trauma and grief of everyone has so successfully been channelled into productive anger by people who are far braver than me. There is no figurehead making the media rounds. It is so decentralized it’s almost baffling that anything is coordinated. People act on good faith. Minnesota’s unique culture of civic participation, one that’s been stamped out in neighboring Wisconsin—which by definition is not a democracy, prepares a variety of responses. It is the most inspiring thing I have ever experienced. Believe it or not, living in a total police state is actually Not Great. South Minneapolis, particularly, is now teeming with SUVs with license plates from far-away lands, if they have any at all, filled with masked, armed goons who will turn any bystander—observer or otherwise—into a prop for their twisted fascist marketing campaign for a worse world. I mean, s**t, I’ve gone to mass twice this month. Thank God for Father RJ at St. Thomas More in Saint Paul. When I was revising this to write about the ongoing conflict in Minneapolis, I originally started writing about schools; the highly public assault of Roosevelt High School students on the same afternoon Renee Good was murdered was the high school the kids on my street attend. I was aghast at the cruelty of the decision to do that, and there was no naivete in my thinking that this was just the beginning. This is going to get worse. And it did. So here we are, weeks later. I can’t and won’t recount more of the events for you: I know you are paying attention. Don’t look away. I have an idea for a Minneapolis-centric gonzo piece about being a Regular Person In All This B******t, but that’s not what we’re doing today. Instead, I still want to share what I wrote, and maybe provide a little friendly humor in these trying times. They want you to be afraid. They don’t want you to enjoy jokes that made my Greatest Generation grandfather nearly faint. “I wasn’t expecting so many four-letter-words,” was his review of Putting the Moron in Moroni. They don’t want you to read UTP. The original bout of writer’s block was broken by a guest appearance at a local wrestling show, so I’ve got some of that below. Emily and I watched a dating show about virgins on Hulu and I have some things to say about it. And finally, I saw and am here to report on my Official Opinions of Wicked: For Good. Sorry ahead of time. Hang in there. Stay safe. Minneapolis is the greatest city on the planet and it’s not even close. RINGSIDE WITH UTP BREAKING: EDDIE KINGSTON SHOWED UP AT NIGHT ONE OF WREMIX AND IT WAS THE GREATEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE January means a lot of things to a lot of people, but for local wrestling fans, we know it as the first of local wrestling promotion F1RST Wrestling’s shows of the year, Wremix, one of their signature flagship events that combines burlesque dancing, pro wrestling, and music into a damn fun few hours of entertainment where the bar has no line, and getting ringside is achievable without shoving and pushing people out of the way. The show was re-branded from “WrestlePalooza” after WWE shamelessly ripped the name away from them to counter-program AEW’s September pay-per-view, All Out. Sure, it was an old ECW PPV brand name, but really? You gotta f**k over F1RST and AEW? F**k off. These shows usually have surprises—it is a wrestling/rock concert/burlesque variety show at the Twin Cities’ best “danceteria,” First Avenue, that venerable bus-station-turned-nightclub of old. This night was no exception, and my God what a treat. This was our first time attending both nights of this event. We had done much hand-wringing over whether we were actually going to go to the first night, but we decided a day or two beforehand that it was going to be worth the feet pain, little sleep, and extra cost and got tickets. F1RST has been host to stars from across the wrestling world in the past, and it’s not unheard of for stars like Swerve Strickland, Orange Cassidy, and Danhausen to make appearances at shows. My review of Saturday Night Nitro in September has many examples, like Ultimo Dragon, Shotzi, and Priscilla Kelly. We arrived early and stood in the same spot we always stand. The show started a little late and after the video hype package and following promo monologue by F1RST Wrestling’s own blue-haired host we love to hate, John Maddening. The first match begins with the walk-out of current Uptown VFW Champion Jordan, the toothless all-arounder billed by his full home address, who is also my coworker’s friend’s ex-boyfriend. He walks out to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” which always come back when he positions his opponent on the ropes and asks the crowd “Can I kick it?" with the required “Yes you can!” cheer in response. The match was billed as having a surprise opponent. “Can I Kick It?” starts to fade out and the lights go out. After a few beats of silence, the distinctive Phantom of the Opera-esque organ of the fake-DMX theme song of only one wrestler in the world: god damned f*****g Eddie Kingston. EDDIE KINGSTON? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The same Eddie Kingston I’ve been writing about for the past months since his triumphant, if disappointing AEW return late last year? The same Eddie Kingston of whom I have a magnet of a chibi version of on a filing cabinet at my desk at work? The same Eddie Kingston who had to fight for everything he had? Yes. It was. Eddie came out and didn’t say much. Billed as “The Mad King” Eddie Kingston, he and Jordan had a well-matched bout until the match was rudely interrupted by the perennial F1RST Midwest indie circuit darlings None More Violent, which features “The Freakshow” Cho (who threatened to murder me at the 2024 Doobie Dabbler) and the extremely scary and equally pretty Jinn Hallows, who is always killing it in a crop top. Eddie and Jordan teamed up (twist!) and fought None More Violent, but not before Eddie cut a little promo (thank God! Give this man the microphone!). The match featured an amazing moment where the crowd grew quiet and Eddie shouted “F**k you, you m***********g c********r.” Incredible to hear in person, literally 10 feet away. I didn’t mention that Eddie Kingston did make eye contact with me. We usually stand within eyeshot of the front right ring post on the ground level. Between the two shows, I: * Made eye contact with Eddie Kingston, * Drunkenly called for Jordan’s attention (on night 2) and, when I had his attention, I screamed “I saw you walking around at the state fair last year!” Emily hid her face in shame like Marge Simpson, * Double main-eventer and man whose career I thought we watched end at MOA, Gringo Loco, was given superpowers by me pointing at him and screaming as we made eye contact twice, * We also saw local music stars The Gully Boys hanging out at the Depot Tavern attached to First Ave before night 2. If I reviewed every match, it’d be the whole damn newsletter/podcast and I also don’t remember them all, but my favorite wrestler I had never seen before was Effy, the TNA legend (who is strangely anti-AEW) whose whole gim… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com

  3. 12/12/2025

    The Juice is Loose and Making Sound Investment Decisions

    Hey this is Noah Hansen saying howdy to all the girls out there in Radioland. Or Newsletterland if you’re reading this instead. Hey listening audience, did you know this is also written down on Substack? You don’t just have to read the auto-generated “show notes” on Spotify. Anyway, it’s been a long week. Eddie Kingston tried to “do it the right way” and lost to Samoa Joe, but not before Joe could make a salute to John Cena as Cena nears the end of his retirement run. Cena acknowledged him on Instagram. I had to miss banjo class because of the snow, so that’s been a thing (if you’re reading this I’m soooooo sorry Julie) that ruined my week. Thankfully I’m still riding the high of the Minnesota Vikings shutting out the Washington Commanders a week after being shut out for the first time in two decades by the Seattle Seahawks. In today’s edition of UTP, we’re highlighting the heroic comeback and meteoric rise of the Bang Bang Gang before they take on FTR for the AEW World Tag Team Championship in Cardiff, Wales on Saturday. We’re also looking at the mechanical keyboard I got at the Goodwill on Black Friday—a first-ever thrift find even if I am finding the keyboard impossible to type on. …And another thing, I’m really annoyed that Warner Brothers has two potential buyers. Every link is a gift link if I call it that. Send this “gift link” to your friends because even if they don’t care what I’m writing about, maybe they’ll think I’m funny. You will tell them I’m funny, right? RINGSIDE WITH UTP THE JUICE IS WORTH THE SQUEEZE: THE BANG BANG GANG IS STRONGER THAN EVER (EVEN IF 2/5THS OF THEM ARE OUT INJURED) Throughout the history of independent wrestling (that is to say, not WWE), promotions have struggled to break through the Fed noise and make a cultural impact outside of the niche world of dorks fighting online about simulated combat interrupted by poorly written, acted, and directed soap opera scenes. World Championship Wrestling (WCW), the only true pre-AEW competitor to what was then called the WWF, did do so in the 1990s with perhaps the most commercially successful non-WWF wrestling brand, the New World Order (nWo), a villainous wrestling stable whose t-shirts you have almost certainly seen over the many years. Though, it should be said that a) the entire gimmick was former WWF Superstars teaming up to take over the competitor during the peak of the so-called Monday Night Wars, and b) basically every star, including the kayfabe leader of WCW, Eric Bsichoff, would end up as part of nWo. Are they really rebels if the entire establishment belongs to them? Across the Pacific, New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW or just New Japan), had success with a legally-distinguishable but extremely similar gimmick, Bullet Club, a stable primarily made up of foreign-born wrestlers in Japan, which debuted in 2013. I am not a wrestling historian by any means, but the Bullet Club logo and accompanying brand is still wildly popular with wrestling fans stateside. If you go to any wrestling show, there’s a damn good chance you’ll see a handful of people wearing Bullet Club shirts. Twin Cities hip-hop-person-turned-pro-wrestler Nur-D sells shirts with a modified version of the Bullet Club logo. Bullet Club’s popularity led to multiple sub-factions/spin-offs, perhaps most notably, The Elite, the wrestling stable that is the namesake of All Elite Wrestling. The Elite were the primary driving force behind the early success of AEW; the 2018 All In pay-per-view (organized by The Elite) was the watershed moment that proved there was a market for large WWE competitor in the US, and this was primarily boosted by the wildly popular YouTube vlog series Being the Elite (BTE), which follows the lives of the members behind the scenes. Today, only three groups of the original Bullet Club exist: the Bullet Club War Dogs, The Elite (which hasn’t been considered a Bullet Club faction since 2018), and Bullet Club Gold, also known as the Bang Bang Gang. The War Dogs almost exclusively exist in New Japan, and I’d recommend watching the 2025 match-of-the-year contender from Wrestle Dynasty back in January where Kenny Omega fought War Dogs leader Gabe Kidd in a nearly hour-long bout that was largely driven by Kidd’s hatred for the “traitor” Kenny Omega. The fight is easily in my top three of the year and famously left NJPW legend Hiroshi Tanahashi in tears. So that just leaves Bullet Club Gold, also known as the Bang Bang Gang. When I started watching in 2023, they were still billed as Bullet Club Gold, and even wore Bullet Club-branded apparel, albeit modified. The Bang Bang Gang debuted a few months before then, when “The Switchblade” Jay White (who led Bullet Club in Japan after The Elite left) made his debut in AEW saving fellow Bullet Club alum “Rock Hard” Juice Robinson (not to be confused by “Freshley Squeezed” Orange Cassidy). Within a few months, they were joined by Austin and Colten Gunn, the twin sons of wrestling legend Billy Gunn. Together, they put the Bullet Club name to the side and called themselves “The Bang Bang Gang.” Jay White, Juice Robinson, and the Gunns were immediately fan favorites. The Gunns had been stuck in the shadow of their dad for a pretty mid trio storyline, but they fit right in alongside Jay and Juice. Their signature intro has them standing in a circle facing out, with the lights out, with one lone spotlight directly above. As the fog machine blows into the beam, we can only make out a bit of each member’s face. Austin Gunn will say in a sorta bad guy (?) voice “By the order of the Bang Bang Gang.” Juice Robinson has long been the Charlie Kelly-esque “wild card” and would do what I could only describe as a crazy Street Fighter character’s idle animation, sporting a long, scraggly beard, and wild untamed curly hair. Picking up off our discussion of The Acclaimed at the end of last week’s UTP, there was a very amusing time after the Bang Bang Gang turned face in 2024 where the Acclaimed and the Bang Bang Gang joined forces in a supergroup they called the Bang Bang Scissor Gang. Billy Gunn was reunited with his sons and everyone got to scissor all the time. It didn’t last, of course, but it was an incredible few months before Jay White and Juice Robinson were both injured. In fact, in the two short years I’ve been a viewer, either Juice or Jay have been injured pretty much the entire time. There was a roughly year-ish long gimmick where they used a cardboard cut-out of Jay White called “Card-blade,” and would do the same for Juice as well in 2025 when both Jay and Juice were injured. This summer, the Bang Bang Gang announced a new member, Ace Austin (who was in the original Bullet Club), would debut in AEW as part of the stable. On July 12 at All In: Texas, Juice Robinson made his triumphant return from injury as part of the Casino Gauntlet match, AEW’s response to the Royal Rumble. He had a new look: no more trunks, he had a black and gold one-piece. He’s clean shaven and not acting like a monkey man. He doesn’t do well, but does get a nice pop when he comes out. A few days later, AEW releases a dramatic sit-down interview between backstage presenter Renee Paquette and Juice where he candidly says he is tired of being a punchline, and that he wants to do something different with his character. We don’t get much development until an episode of Collision before Full Gear, where the Bang Bang Gang are given the opportunity to win $200,000 in a match on pay-per-view. Uncharacteristically, Juice is the voice of reason between himself, Austin Gunn, and Ace Austin (confusing, I know), and proclaims the funniest line he’s said in a promo in recent memory: that they plan to save the money they win and invest wisely using deferred savings accounts, including a 401(k). Extremely funny stuff. They did win, and since then, Accountant Juice is mostly gone, but this past Saturday (December 6) on Collision, something magical happened. Austin Gunn and Juice Robinson came out to harass current Tag Team champs FTR while they were grandstanding a promo shitting on some other tag team. They come out, and it’s f*****g insane. Instead of the typically silly or humorous take on a wrestling promo, Austin and Juice deliver on building some massive hype for this Saturday’s Winter is Coming: AEW Collision, which will be from Cardiff, Wales. Cash Wheeler says Austin Gunn will never be more than Billy’s son, and Juice will never be more than “Mr. Toni Storm” (Juice Robinson and Toni Storm are married). The Bang Bang Gang takes the mic and cranks things up a notch. Austin says he’s the son of a wrestling legend and that Juice is the son of a carpenter, while Cash Wheeler is the “son of his first cousin” and Dax is “just a son of a b***h.” Juice takes the mic and delivers more verbal abuse about how they’re going to be the next AEW World Tag Team champions. Juice delivers the classic Bang Bang Gang catchphrase. “And if you don’t like that, then we’ve got two words for you:” Juice pauses. We hear a loud “Guns Up!” from the crowd before Juice moves in closer to Dax Harwood, grits his teeth, and says “And New,” which is the phrase used in wrestling (particularly AEW marketing) to introduce the new champions. The crowd Ooos and Aaahs because this was…shockingly good and has me pumped for the future of the Bang Bang Gang. Juice Robinson and Austin Gunn of the Bang Bang Gang will be taking on Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler, FTR this Saturday on AEW Collision on TNT at 3:30 Central. UTP THRIFTS AFTER A DISAPPOINTING BLACK FRIDAY CLOSURE, THE SAVAGE GOODWILL RISES LIKE A PHOENIX FROM THE ASHES On Thanksgiving, Emily and I were doing our once weekly or so tradition of “TikTok Time,” where we watch the TikToks Emily had sent me over the week (I used to be a TikTok-er but stopped using it earlier this year). Sh

  4. 12/05/2025

    Soundwaves: Alright, Let's Wrap It Up

    Welcome back, friend, to the newsletter and podcast that puts the UTP in perfect utopia: The Uffda Times-Picayune. This one would be a good one to read and follow along with the voiceover, especially for the third article. I’m getting better at podcasting! As our brave and noble movement of journalistic malpractice marches forward and onward to victory over the dreaded menace, truth, we’ve also picked up a number of new readers and listeners that must be reminded of just what the hell we’re all doing here, and who better to do it than the propaganda arm of UTP, the Ministry of What’s It To Ya and Nunya Business (WITY-NB): NOAH THE EDITOR was born some time ago along the sacred mountainside of suburban Denver. The Glorious Editor was born of a sunbeam, carried by a flock of pigeons, before the infant Editor completed their first of sixty-seven most glorious perfect 300 games of bowling at the Bowling Alley of the Revolution. Shortly after, Noah delivered an edict: Friend’s Humorous Newsletter to Make Life Worth Living. The most excellent and factual newspaper of record was christened with the raising of 1000 doves, a procession of 16 military wives, 32 softly focused brightly-colored eyes, and the heralding of 500 trumpets. The first edition featured the holy revelations of blessed AEW kayfabe scripture, another testament of "Hangman" Adam Page, a review of the first Wicked, and complaining about living in a nation of scams. It was truly what the brave, chosen people of UTP-land needed from their Glorious Editor. May we Uffda onward for one thousand generations! So anyway. Welcome to my personal mouthpiece for infodumping (did you know I wrote nine newsletters about Mormons?), complaining, opining, trying creative writing, and really whatever I want. Don’t take it too seriously. Hell has frozen over in Minneapolis. Ice is on the streets, despite the city’s promises to do what they can keep it out. It’s gotten mighty slippery out there. Keep an eye out for yourselves and others! Not only does your face hurt if you walk outside, but we also have a development on the Eddie Kingston-Samoa Joe storyline in AEW. They had their big promo, which they had hyped up on Collision on Thanksgiving, on this week’s Dynamite, and I couldn’t have been more disappointed. Eddie needs to be going after the Death Riders, not wasting his time with The Opps and Hook. I know Hook betrayed him, but they also weren’t really friends? Like they were teammates for like a month and two TV appearances. Just really disappointing. At least we’ll probably get an MJF return in the next 1, 2, 3 weeks. In this edition of UTP, I review the national tour of The Phantom of the Opera that stopped in Minneapolis, we give the green monster a run for their money as we do Noah’s iPod 2025 Wrapped, and I address the wrestling songs on my other wrapped top list. This is UTP Soundwaves, where we chat everything music. Thanks for reading (and listening!). It’s not spam if you send it to your friends. Give them a phone call. Why don’t you call anymore? Should we be getting landlines? UTP AT THE THEATRE PHANTOMS AT THE OPERA This past long weekend I had the privilege to attend the traveling production of perennial UTP person of interest Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1980’s 1890’s fever dreamThe Phantom of the Opera. Phantom is my partner’s favorite musical. One of our first experiences with musicals together was when I showed her the theatrical Jesus Christ Superstar, and she showed me the 2012 Royal Albert Hall anniversary production of Phantom. We had the pleasure of seeing the 50th anniversary production of JCS at the Kennedy Center in 2022, and we saw the non-equity tour at the DECC in Duluth in February 2024. But we haven’t had the chance to see Phantom. I’ve since seen the 2012 version of Phantom multiple times, the film version once, and shockingly good high school productions on YouTube. I’ve watched the horrific sequel Webber based on a 1999 Phantom fanfic, Love Never Dies, where the Phantom leaves the catacombs beneath the Parisian opera house and moves to, I shit you not, Coney Island. I’m not going to re-litigate Phantom. The story is relatively simple (even though I probably had to see it like 5 times to fully grasp what the hell was going on). Two buffoons buy an opera house, with an established pair of stars, when a mysterious playwright who lives in the catacombs of the opera, known only as the Phantom of the Opera, uses written threats and dubiously supernatural techniques to frighten the owners into substituting another cast member, the soprano Christine Daaé, who had a young love fling with the opera’s newest patron the Vicomte de Chagny Raoul. Drama ensues. Phantom is fun (and confusing if you are stupid, like me). This production was among the best of the best. In fact, Emily said that of the four times she’s seen it live, this was the best version. I was not a theater kid; band was my jam. But I did play in pit orchestra, including the single worst pit of all time for The Music Man. People thought our playing was a joke. One instructor affiliated with the production famously called us (in retrospective) the “worst pit orchestra ever.” I did play a Phantom medley in concert orchestra, but that was my only experience prior to meeting Emily. That and the drum corps version (which was so popular they did it two years in a row). But despite my lack of theater kid credentials, I can appreciate this production’s extraordinarily intricate tech. We got the full chandelier experience, explosions, swinging, and all. The Phantom’s eerie voice was piped in using surround sound speakers around us. The way the curtains were so intentionally used as set devices, both in diegetic (Phantom has multiple musicals-within-a-musical) and non-diegetic senses (dynamic curtain draws and lifts seamlessly took us from place to place) was truly enamoring. This production did NOT f**k around. The cast was incredible. Isaiah Bailey delivers an all-time great performance as the titular Phantom, a character who is functionally an incel terrorist that does double-duty as an all-time favorite of the romance genre; he’s a misunderstood softie who is only evil because society forces him to be, secluded away hiding his talents and skills. Bailey is perfect opposite Jordan Lee Gibert’s Christine, and I would say that the casting is damn near perfect. You’d think Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the musical for these people. “I don’t get it. Why am I supposed to care about him? He killed people!” - my brother after the conclusion of the 2012 version. Our showing was marred by a technical issue, though. In the midst of the beginning of the final descent into the Phantom’s lair, I think the boat (an all-time silly Broadway prop) got its wheels jammed or something? They stopped the show and lifted the lights for about 8 minutes, but honestly, I don’t think a single person cared because the intricate production is worth the wait. No one wants to see half-assed Phantom of the Opera. Less interestingly, an opp from my past sat down right in front of us. A ghost from my past. A phantom at the opera, if you can believe it. I don’t believe in real ghosts, but I sure as hell believe in metaphorical ones. Anyway, the real Phantom of the Opera was f*****g awesome. 5 stars. The only downer was that the production was priced appropriately… around $90/ticket. But if that’s what it takes to pay the high quality union crew, then that’s fine with me. SHAMELESSLY RIPPING OFF THE GREEN MONSTER NOAH’S IPOD WRAPPED 2025 I had a humorous idea on my personal Instagram story: what if I had a Spotify Wrapped, but for the music that’s just on my iPod? Well here you go. My partner Emily got me a purple iPod Nano for my birthday earlier this year. When I was a kid, all I f*****g wanted was an iPod, and finally, I had one. The timing was nice—King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, my fa… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com

  5. 11/29/2025

    Please, God, Give Us the Donald Trump Face Turn

    Happy Black Friday UTP’ers. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving and made a point to bring up controversial topics and plug my newsletter to your coolest family members. I really appreciate it. I also hope you full-body-checked five dads for a good TV deal, but I know you didn’t, because that America we were promised is gone. RETVRN! Actually, I thought people didn’t shop on Black Friday in-person, but I swear to God the traffic in and around both the Eagan outlet mall and the Mall of America was worse than I’ve ever seen it. Easily a thousand-plus cars between the two locations just trying to get in. At 3PM! Insanity. I wanted to make a note that picks up off last week’s UTP. You may recall I published a diatribe about AEW CEO Tony Khan’s fumbling of Eddie Kingston’s return after a year-long injury. Well, Tony must have read my newsletter, because last night, on the Thanksgiving episode of AEW Collision, we were treated to three courses of whoop-ass as Eddie Kingston cut a self-described “shoot” promo, where everything was off the cuff. Unfortunately the YouTube video version cuts out a good minute or two of preamble, but this is the first promo since his return where Eddie is ruthlessly real. Please watch the 2-minute clip. I hope you’re enjoying the long weekend are prepared for more snow if you live in da Great White North. Oh yeah, we’re on Instagram now. Thanks for reading. COMING SOON TO YOUR INBOX HOLE AND SPOTIFY OR APPLE PODCASTS FEED: Facebook had an outsized impact on my adolescence, as well as my late mother’s adulthood. Early Facebook signaled the final stages of transition from bulletin board systems and forums to multi-billion user websites and apps that define most people’s experiences online. In this sentimental special (hopefully not a series, lol), I’ll reflect on Facebook’s power to connect yet isolate, its stupid f*****g games, and more on Zuckerberg’s zombie social network, from when I made my account at age 12 in 2009, to today’s malformed monster that is Meta. Coming soon. Thanks for reading The Uffda Times-Picayune! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. U(TP) DECIDE ‘26 THE DONALD TRUMP FACE TURN: THE (OTHER) SWERVE AMERICA NEEDS This week we got the first piece of political news out of the White House this calendar year that brought me true joy: the bonkers, totally unexpected press conference Donald Trump held with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office. There were conflicting reports. In the morning, there were rumors Trump had backed out of the meeting. I had seen a headline or two that it might be happening, but I was shocked when I saw the N** Y*** T***** email subject line that Trump was “heaping praise” on Mamdani. Excuse me? In case you weren’t paying attention to the New York Mayor’s race, MAGA-land had come out in full force as anti-Mamdani. Although not in force enough to rally behind the endorsed Republican candidate and living Grand Theft Auto character Curtis Sliwa—Trump actually endorsed Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former Democratic Governor of New York who was making a pathetic attempt at keeping moneyed Democrats (read: Republicans) in power. Cuomo lost in a blowout. The anti-Zohran campaign was heavily focused on Mamdani’s identity. Brown man, socialist, non-white name, baddie Hinge-wife. Crash-outs a-plenty across social media after Mamdani’s decisive win. There were even threats to deport him, despite his citizenship. It’s been a couple of weeks since then, and a lot has happened, but MAGA-land has towed the party line, as everyone would expect them to when they spent the entire campaign regurgitating racist comments and seek to discredit then-Representative Mamdani’s reputation simply because he isn’t white. In this context, we get the Oval Office meeting. It’s a press conference. The administration has not been afraid to use these exact opportunities to humiliate wavering allies at home and abroad, and to welcome some of the most evil warlords on the planet (an ex-Al Qaeda leader and MBS—in the same week). So we expected the worst. Only problem, Trump fuckng loves Zohran. Even the Donald isn’t immune to Zohran’s infectious charm, positive attitude, and focus on getting things done, or at least that’s what he told us. “He said some things that were very interesting and very interesting as to housing construction and he wants to see houses go up. He wants to see a lot of houses created and a lot of apartments built. We actually—people would be shocked. But I want to see the same thing.” Pardon me what? When the f**k was the last time Donald Trump talked about the idea of “housing.” Like what? I don’t have much more to say about this press conference except that it gave us a Trump we really haven’t seen in a minute. I saw a tweet remarking that he hasn’t looked this happy since the McDonald’s banquet lunch he held for the Crimson Tide during his first term. He was genuinely happy to meet with Zohran. He took him on a tour of the White House, and most notably, took a photo together in front of a painting of FDR that Mamdani had said was one he liked. In the photo, Mamdani seems to struggle to even half-heartedly smile, while the President is beaming from ear-to-f*****g-ear. We are way past due for a Donald Trump face turn. Using wrestling parlance when talking about who is good and who is bad with Donald Trump are actually pretty apt, not just because I have no other frame of reference with culture other than wrestling. Did I mention I didn’t start watching wrestling until I was 26? If you didn’t know, in the aughts, Donald Trump was a frequent guest star on WWE programming. Trump is famously friends with Vince McMahon (which makes a lot of sense knowing how they’re both pervert sex pests). I was never a WWE fan, so I can’t tell you many of the angles, but I know they ran an angle where Trump had “purchased” RAW, and was going to be making booking decisions. Another, and perhaps the most famous angle, was when Donald Trump and Vince McMahon had “their” respective wrestlers duke it out, and whoever lost, had to have their head shaved. Trump would go on to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013—our first WWE Hall of Fame President. Trump’s appearances on WWE programming are sporadic over the years, but his friendship with McMahon goes deeper than just occasional attendance at WrestleMania. Vince’s kids were groomed much in the same way as Trump’s to be underlings for dad. Vince has appeared on The Celebrity Apprentice as a guest judge and “expert” promoter (read: carny). The entire premise of a huge chunk of challenges on The Apprentice involve who can be the most obnoxious on the streets of New York for attention. Hillary Clinton was more right than anyone will give her credit for when she called Donald Trump a “carnival barker.” Like all her clunky, intellectualized insults, this one could have been refined to just “carny b*****d.” My personal favorite intersection of prescient-politics-and-wrestling that was more foreboding than anyone could have expected was during an in-ring promo at WrestleMania XX in 2004. Former Minnesota Governor and WWE Hall of Famer Jesse Ventura conducted an in-ring interview with Donald Trump, who was running as the presidential candidate for Jesse’s Reform Party, a half-hearted publicity stunt that famously got Roger Stone connected with Trump. Ventura asks about the likelihood of a wrestler, suggesting himself. As Ventura touched Apollo, the stage was set for Donald Trump to make himself the main storyline in American culture for the first quarter of the 21st century. If you watch old episodes of The Celebrity Apprentice particularly, you see a different kind of Trump. Trump’s not usually the one running the show in the board room (where deliberations happen before he fi… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com

  6. 11/21/2025

    Oh Boy, Another Diatribe About Wrestling

    Welcome back to another edition of the world’s most recommended newsletter/podcast to my friends’ coworkers. This week we’re back to normal after we wrapped up Putting the Moron in Moroni last week. I’m really proud of what I put together and I hope you’ll give it a read/listen if you haven’t already—start with episode 1 here. Also: this newsletter is also a podcast, which you can now listen to on the Substack app/browser, or on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. All 9 episodes of Putting the Moron in Moroni are on there. Now, celebrate with me as we talk about more important things: banjos, wrasslin’, and transit-focused YouTubers. Did you know? 100% of all Uffda Times-Picayune subscribers are extremely hot. You don’t want to be ugly, do you? BOTCHED! GRIPES ABOUT GRAPS EDDIE KINGSTON’S 2025 REBOOT “I drink to drown my demons—but they know how to float.” -Eddie Kingston On May 11, 2024, around 3,000 people gathered at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, CA for the New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) Resurgence pay-per-view. The second to last match was NJPW star (and terrifying person) Gabe Kidd vs. the 17-year indie wrestling legend Eddie Kingston. Eddie is a beloved wrestler among the nerdiest wrestling fans because he never wrestled in WWE. AEW Founder (and head of booking) Tony Khan has tapped decades-old rivalries Eddie Kingston has with other indie veterans, particularly those in Ring of Honor. Eddie’s nickname is “The Mad King,” which was made a pejorative turned term of endearment: “The King of the Bums.” He loves to talk about being from New York, he wears untied, floppy-ass Timbs, and his favorite joke/catchphrase is “Deez Nuts.” Eddie Kingston’s favorite artist is DMX, and his AEW theme song is like a discount DMX song set to music from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Kingston loves to tell his story. He is well-known among wrestling fans for his tenacity on the microphone. “Promos” make up roughly 20% of a good episode of wrestling TV, and it is shockingly difficult to be good at it. I happen to have a mutual friend who happens to be in an acting class with an active WWE Superstar in Orlando, and a former-WWE star took public speaking classes taught by a friend of mine at UMN. Based on his comments about the student’s performance in the class it’s not shocking to me he was let go by WWE. Promos can be a lot of things. There are pre-recorded segments and backstage interviews. Many times, the wrestler will come out to the middle of the ring and rail on whatever they need to by hyping up for the next big show or pay-per-view or fight later that night or whatever. In some cases they might be plot-moving segments like MJF and Chris Jericho’s NYT award-winning performance in the Dinner Debonair Wrestling TV Show Broadway Musical Sketch. Promos are all about being good at extemporaneously speaking and improv. Yes, and? The good promo makes the good show. I covered an amazing Swerve/Hangman promo earlier this year that I still recommend watching. I’m also proud of D.E.N.N.I.S.’ing Joe Goldberg. And the COVID/Second Gilded Age Airbnbs they seem to film at a lot now. Eddie Kingston, whether because of his tough Yonkers upbringing, his time as a union ironworker, or something else entirely, can f*****g go for it on the mic. I’ve linked a 2.5 hour compilation of his best promos on AEW. My favorite is the spring 2022 period where Chris Jericho attempted to seize AEW and make it more like the WWE—the full promo starts at 1:31:00. Chris Jericho’s faction was called “The Jericho Appreciation Society” (incredible name) and featured wrestlers that used to wrestle at WWE. Their gimmick, was that AEW needed to embrace “sports entertainment,” which is the marketing speak Vince McMahon used to describe what professional wrestling is. Jericho amusingly refers to the AEW fanbase as the “AEW Galaxy,” parodying the absolutely real “WWE Universe.” The JAS even start calling themselves “Superstars,” which is the WWE marketing-speak name for wrestlers. One last WWE marketing-speak (because this one annoys me so much): pay-per-views are now "Premium Live Events (PLE).” Eddie Kingston is the perfect foil: he never wrestled in WWE, and is perhaps one of the most committed wrestlers to maintaining kayfabe, the carny term for what is canon in the wrestling storyline. Eddie threatens to kill people. Eddie tells stories about his tough childhood, how he had to scrap and fight to stay alive. “Do you know— SHUT UP, I swear on my mother, shut up. Do you know what a hit means? Do you know that Chris? Look into my eyes. LOOK IN MY EYES, I LIVE BEHIND THEM. When you say ‘a hit’ in my world, you end things…you need to be ready to put a person IN THE GROUND. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it to you—no hesitation.” - Eddie Kingston in a face-to-face confrontation with the Jericho Appreciation Society There’s so many others—the promo right after that one in the AEW Timelines video is another favorite, where Eddie Kingston calls into an episode of Dynamite and threatens to make Chris Jericho “feel the pain” his wife must feel as she “fears for his life” because he’s just that mad at Chris Jericho. I just really love the idea that a wrestler can just call in and threaten you. I love wrestling. Anyway, back to NJPW Resurgence (2024). I couldn’t even tell you the storylines—I don’t watch New Japan—but I know that the match ended with a gnarly botch of a table spot that broke Eddie Kingston’s leg, and tore his ACL and his meniscus. He was the AEW Continental Champion, having literally just won the first Continental Classic. In the time since, Kazuchika Okada (the New York Yankees of Japanese wrestling) took his title and it was consolidated into the new AEW Unified Championship. We got radio silence on Eddie. He is 42 years old, mind you, so there was speculation that he might be out for longer, or even that he might have to hang it up. Wrestling dirt sheets had rumors throughout summer 2025 that Kingston was nearly cleared to wrestle, but AEW hadn’t said anything. That was until an early-August ’25 promo from Big Bill, the beloved 7 foot-something wrestler most recently aligned with “The Learning Tree” Chris Jericho, but that bit is gone (as is Jericho, probably). His promo was calling out an unnamed wrestler but ended saying it was addressing Eddie Kingston. The next episode of Collision featured a promo-of-few-words when we saw a remote segment of Eddie Kingston accepting Big Bill’s challenge, from his home in New York. We would not see a single promo from The Mad King before his return at All Out in September. There’s not really a good reason for Big Bill and Eddie beefing. Why not have Eddie join in on the Death Riders storyline? He famously f*****g hates Claudio Castagnoli in kayfabe, and one of his greatest rivalries in AEW was Jon Moxley? We never find out and the Mad King’s entrance is largely unceremonious. He wore an orange t-shirt that says “CLAUDIO SUCKS EGGS,” as well as two rosaries—not much for da big pay-per-view. I think the orange shirt was a sub-textual preview of him entering “Team Taz,” the now-defunct faction of orange-wearing wrestlers associated with Taz and the “outlaw” FTW Championship, which Chris Jericho was the last fighting champion of. He fights Big Bill and I’m gonna admit, he looks pretty rough. He’s still somewhat nimble but it’s clear this last injury did him real good. I’d compare the performance of his comeback to Jamie Hayter’s—underwhelming and a little scary…please don’t get injured ag… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com

  7. 11/14/2025

    Joseph Smith's Timely Death, or The Last Mormon One

    “When you go home today, especially you young kids, I want you to write in your journal one thing you felt while you were here.” - Senior sister missionary to us following our tour of Carthage Jail Note from the author: Welcome to the very last main edition in this godforsaken series. I’m going to do some kind of haul-type rundown of the books and other paraphernalia I got on this road trip and in the making of this newsletter. New around here? Start with Part 1 now. This edition is longer than the rest and won’t fit entirely in an email. I recommend reading it on Substack, or listening to the podcast version of PtMiM:MM&MiM on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. All 8 episodes out now. Don’t forget to follow UTP on Instagram @uffdatimes At long last, this is the place: the timely and well-deserved passing of Joseph Smith, Jr., the highly influential and controversial inventor of Mormonism. For 14 years, Joseph had constructed an absurdly successful fandom for his sloppily-retconned fanfiction of the New Testament, where America becomes the main setting and Jesus is no longer the main character. He also made a long, frequent habit of agitating those neutral or opposed to him and his cult. Joseph Smith was the poster child for recidivists; since the first issue of this limited series, I’ve mocked his frequent interactions with the criminal justice system. The man committed crimes, sometimes minor like a bar fight or scuffle, then would tell his followers that Satan will work to prevent him from prophesying by jailing him for his crimes, and it would obviously happen, which only emboldened the faith of his followers. If you can downplay petty/misdemeanor charges as politically/religiously-motivated, no one will believe authorities when you commit far more serious crimes (read: sex crimes). The legacy of the criminal prophet lives on in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), and their truly evil leader, Warren Jeffs, who continues to run his sex cult Mormon sect from prison following conviction for child sex abuse crimes in Utah and Arizona. They claim they are the only true successor to Joseph Smith’s church after the official church abandoned polygamy to curry favor with the US government in the late-19th century. This was just another in a long line of schisms after Joseph Smith left a power vacuum in 1844, with no heir apparent. But this power vacuum had to be created, and last week we saw the beginning of the end for Smith as he focused the vast majority of his time to three pastimes, none of which were particularly helpful to the creation of Zion: * Running for President on a platform of forcing the feds to dispatch troops to deal with “angry mobs” (curious…) and to abolish the carceral prison system (don’t ask why we toured not one but two jails on this trip), * Using the uniquely-granted political power of the Nauvoo city government to punish political enemies and religious dissenters alike, while protecting himself, and; * Being a philandering polygamist sex pest. It’s only fitting that the founder of the most American religion ever would also become the first presidential candidate to be assassinated during a campaign. This is Putting the Moron in Moroni: Martyrs, Mormons and Misery in Missouri. This week is our final regular edition: the dramatic conclusion to this several-month series about a three-day weekend road trip I did like four months ago. We visit Carthage, IL, a small town about 25 minutes from Nauvoo and the location of Joseph Smith’s death. We’ll take a guided tour of a jail (talk about a fun vacation) and we see the ugliest summer outfits on poor Mormon women stuck wearing garments (read: at least three layers) in the 95-degree humid-corn-sweat summer. Thanks for joining us. Avoid the awkward situation where I demand the destruction of your printing press because you besmirched me. Subscribe for free to receive new posts, and follow UTP on Instagram, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Trust me, I’ll know if you don’t. Before we can set out for Carthage and take the much-earned Dairy Queen lunch break around the corner from the jail, we have to catch up on what Joe’s been up to. As you’ll remember from last week, Joseph was in the throes of a presidential campaign that turned Mormon proselytizers into politickers as the campaign supposedly had a presence in every state at the time. A robust committee was set up to serve as a political and ecclesiastical body in the so-called “Theodemocracy” the Mormons planned to create. But at the same time, Smith made several significant revelations related to baptisms for the dead, making temple ceremonies more Freemason-like, and introducing polytheism, where faithful Mormon men will become gods themselves. As you might imagine in a world without widespread literacy but full of frontier justice and religious fervor, this was not well-received, especially as the details of Smith’s polygamy became harder for Mormons and outsiders alike to ignore. In May 1844, the same month that Smith’s Reform Party nominated him for President, William Law, a prominent local disillusioned ex-Mormon leader, announced the creation of a new newspaper: The Nauvoo Expositor. The Mormons’ usage of the press was the catalyst that enabled their sudden and astronomical growth. In fact, one of Smith’s first commands to the Mormons that arrived in Missouri was to set up a printing press and start publishing pro-Mormon propaganda. While he knew the pen is mightier than the sword, he also knew its power could be used against him. In early May, Law circulated a notice in town that the Expositor would begin publishing scandalizing information about Joseph Smith, specifically publicly exposing his polygamy, which was still secret at this point. Joseph Smith was enraged, as was the county prosecutor, who indicted Joseph on charges of perjury and “fornication and adultery” based on sworn affadvits from multiple former members. Smith publicly proclaimed that it was ridiculous to believe he was a polygamist and that all of the accusers are liars. On June 7, the Nauvoo Expositor published their only edition: a four-page paper featuring poetry and fiction stories, but also sworn testimony and statements from former Mormons putting it in the paper how mad they are at Joseph and Hyrum Smith for perpetrating and then lying about the Principle. Smith convened the Nauvoo City Council—he was mayor at this point—and declared a trial would be held to address the Expositor. In a sham “trial” that lasted just 2 days, Smith’s Nauvoo declared the newspaper as a public nuisance and called for the destruction of the printing press on June 10. An angry mob of over 100 men raided Expositor offices at Joseph Smith’s command, and destroyed the press. The backlash was immediate and intense. Local non-Mormons were incensed; this was a blatant attack on the First Amendment. TheWarsaw Signal and the Quincy Whig, two papers with a history of criticism of the Mormons called for the arrest of Smith and feared he would seek the same outcome for other critics. An arrest warrant was issued, but Smith petitioned the Nauvoo City Court, which he effectively controlled, to dismiss the charges, which it did. The Signal was outraged and ramped up attacks and scandalous coverage of the Mormons. On June 13, citizens of Hancock County petitioned the governor for assistance. In return, Joseph Smith declared martial law in Nauvoo and his 5,000-man strong force, preventing people from leaving or entering the area without approval from Smith’s effective theocracy. The governor responded by showing up to Carthage on June 21 and the Illinois state government breached Nauvoo by June 23. Smith was nowhere to be found, but two days later, Joseph and his brother Hyrum tur… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com

  8. 11/04/2025 ·  Bonus

    When Joseph Smith Ran For President—And How It Got Him Killed

    When I was in high school, 10th grade was the year we took American History, and I opted to take the Advanced Placement version of the class, colloquially known as AP US History (APUSH). If you don’t remember or your school declined to participate in the gifted kid industrial complex, these classes were billed as college-level courses and provided as a substitute for an honor’s class, but instead of providing college credit outright, you had to take a test and hope whatever college you go to will accept your score. I got a 3 on the APUSH exam. My second trimester was a breeze, an easy-A learning about post-Civil War and 20th-century American history. No problems there. But the first trimester? My teacher was a football coach who started every single 54-minute class period with a 10-25 minute “Convo Question” that was literally just the teacher shooting the s**t with us. It was fun, but painfully obvious that we weren’t being set up for success. I was never really required to learn much about pre-Civil War America. My PoliSci degree was largely focused on the modern era, and when I did learn history, it was almost always 20th century. You’ll be surprised to learn that in my search for learning more about the early Mormon church that national politics were always at arm’s reach from Joseph Smith, and thus, I know now who the Know-Nothings are, and why the Whigs were important, and the steamroller on civic life that was the Jacksonian Democratic Party. It’s really hard to overstate just how shockingly powerful Joseph Smith had become in the 14 years since publishing the Book of Mormon. When the Mormons arrived in Illinois, they elected not to yoke themselves to the Whig or Democrat wagons, instead opting to stay “neutral,” and take advantage of Smith’s massive voter base to sway politicians towards his whims. Nauvoo was the closest thing to the Kingdom of Zion that Joseph saw in his lifetime. Joseph Smith was the prophet, mayor, justice of the peace, and gave himself the title of Lieutenant General of the Nauvoo Legion, a militia with real legal authority with 2,500 members under Joseph’s command, which was 1/3rd of the size of the entire United States Army. At the same time, Joseph Smith was amassing a, for lack of a better word, harem of “plural wives,” he was marrying in secret. He had successfully, on multiple occasions, pressured and coerced dozens of women and girls (remember: he was a pedophile) to be “eternally sealed” to him, whether they were married already or not. So what’s next for the Prophet? Running for President, obviously. This is Putting the Moron in Moroni: Mormons, Martyrs, and Misery in Missouri. This week we're celebrating election day in Minneapolis with a bonus edition to cover Joseph Smith’s 1844 campaign for president of the United States, something that did, indeed, actually happen. We know why he did it (he was insane), but what did he believe? What kind of bonkers policies does a conman criminal with no real political experience put forward in a long-shot campaign for President? What did his friends and followers think? Did it get him killed? Thanks for reading and listening. I swear to God there’s only one more mainline article and one more bonus and then I’m done with the Mormons. Stick around for the funnier ones and subscribe now. Joseph Smith had ambitions beyond his theocracy in Nauvoo: he wanted power, and he wanted power that was illusive. One of Mormonism’s hallmarks is the secretive nature about what they “actually believe.” Depending on how out of the loop you are, you’ll be shocked learning about the various America-centric beliefs, like both reviling and worshipping Native Americans, or their unique eschatology and beliefs about the afterlife. Or maybe you’re just as surprised as most TBMs to learn just how terrible Joseph Smith was and that he claimed to translate the book (he couldn’t read) using “seeing stones” and looking into a hat. The secretive nature lends itself to Mormonism’s cult-like tendencies, while also building fervor, zealotry, and a large in-group. I’d argue this is largely out of Joseph Smith’s obsession with Freemasonry, most of which can be traced to John C. Bennett’s brief time as Joseph Smith’s number one man. Bennett, a Mormon, urged Smith to join and by 1844, Nauvoo had not one, not two, but three Masonic lodges. Many aspects of Mormon temple ceremonies, like secret “grips”/handshakes, passwords, special names, special clothes, are stolen one-for-one with Freemasonry with added Mormon flair. However like the Mormons, Masons were the target of significant public ire throughout the first half of the 19th century. A shockingly powerful national anti-Mason movement began in the 1830s, who were courted away from their one-issue political party, the Anti-Masonic Party, and fell under the tutelage of the Whigs by 1838. The most baffling way this connects with our Mormons is not necessarily that President Andrew Jackson was a Mason, or that the Mormons planned to usurp Democratic power by joining the Whigs. Instead, we have to turn our attention to William Morgan, a prominent upstate New York (of course) anti-Mason who was in the process of publishing a book revealing all of the scandalous secrets of Freemasonry. Morgan was arrested on trumped-up charges, and was disappeared and likely murdered in 1826 in an act widely believed to have been carried out by Masons trying to prevent his book from being published. His death bolstered national anti-Masonic views and led to the creation of the Anti-Masonic Party. When William Morgan died in 1826, his wife Lucinda would remarry, and move to Missouri, where she converted to Mormonism. I don’t think it’s an accident, however, that Lucinda has been identified and is generally accepted to have been one of Joseph Smith’s first plural wives, because of course f*****g Joseph Smith would marry the widow of the most prominent and infamous Anti-Mason activist. Joseph Smith’s obsession with (and frankly jealousy of) Freemasonry led to perhaps the biggest innovations in Mormonism; many of the “revelations” from this time took an already high-demand religion and made it more and more cult-like, with secret rituals and teachings, barring all non-members from Temples, and one-of-a-kind theology like baptisms for the dead. And it all came from the Freemasons. I’m sure no one will ever have an issue with this. I bring this story up because it has multiple important intersections with Mormonism and the end of Smith’s life: * Mormonism’s secretive ceremonies are a sham, and whatever supposed divine purpose they have is really just so he could copy Masons, * Smith’s public support for Democrats in Illinois, on top of his private and public support for Freemasonry, pissed Whigs the f**k off, * His affair with Lucinda Morgan shows his promiscuity and carelessness with “the Principle” at the time; it doesn’t matter how prominent a Mormon woman or girl is: if Joseph Smith is interested, he’ll stop at nothing to get his way. You can probably imagine how a man as powerful and reckless as Smith would become paranoid. He feared and frequently risked his legal and physical safety, but also saw the fragility of his political and religious leadership. The arrival, ascension, and excommunication of John C. Bennett was proof Smith saw his church’s leadership, members, and political allies as disposable. And while the Anti-Mason Whigs and the Mason-friendly Jacksonian Democrats welcomed the Mormons, that didn’t last long. An angry mob always seems to be around the corner, will Illinois protect the Mormons when the mobs inevitably come to Nauvoo? Over the years since first arriving in Jackson County, Missouri, the Mormons had become intimately familiar with the legal system, even beyond Joseph Smith’s extensive arrest record. Mormons were frequently in DC adv… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com

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About

An irreverent newsletter/podcast with musings, hobbies, and ephemera. "A NEW LOW FOR THE WRITTEN (AND NOW SPOKEN) WORD" uffdatimespicayune.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Noah
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    17
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Noah Hansen
  • Show Website
    The Uffda Times-Picayune