The Ballad of Brian Robinson Jr.: A Parable for the Age of Globalized Violence and Marketing By the time the medics reached Brian Robinson Jr. on that humid August evening in Washington, D.C., the bullets had already logged more international air-miles than most diplomats. One slug, ballistics later suggested, began its brief résumé in a…
The Law Wins Again—But Only on Streaming: How a Forgotten 1977 Cop Flick Became the Planet’s Favorite Political Allegory Dave’s Locker — International Desk In the spring of 1977, while New York City flirted with bankruptcy and the Baader-Meinhof gang still held Europe’s imagination hostage, Columbia Pictures quietly released “I Fought the Law,” a derivative…
Florian Wirtz: Germany’s Quiet Rebellion Against the Age of Noise by Dave’s International Desk They say the world has never been louder—an endless carousel of hot takes, geopolitical tantrums, and influencers explaining crypto while brushing their teeth. Yet in Leverkusen, a 21-year-old in neon-green boots is conducting a counter-insurgency against the racket, one velvet touch…
Tyler Lockett and the Quiet Art of Being Too Good for This Timeline By Dave’s Locker Global Affairs Desk (Seattle Bureau, Sub-Basement 3) The planet keeps finding new ways to disappoint us—crypto winters, methane tsunamis, election cycles that feel like recurring dreams of dental surgery—yet every Sunday at roughly 1:05 p.m. Pacific (21:05 UTC for…
Brock Purdy and the Strange Miracle of American Excess By Elias Delgado, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker Global Desk In the grand bazaar of geopolitical crises—where grain ships dodge Russian missiles in the Black Sea and lithium wars simmer beneath Bolivian salt flats—it is comforting, in a perverse sort of way, to know that the United…
Mark Davis, the 69-year-old owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, is currently enjoying the sort of international fame normally reserved for tax-dodging pop stars or small Balkan strongmen. From the neon canyons of Nevada to the neon karaoke bars of Seoul, his silver-and-black hair-helmet has become the unofficial flag of late-stage capitalism—equal parts brand asset…
Chip Kelly and the Global Gospel of Hurry-Up Capitalism By Dave’s Locker International Desk PARIS — Somewhere between the 15th arrondissement’s stubborn cigarette haze and the fluorescent glow of a Buffalo Wild Wings streaming Pac-12 After Dark, Chip Kelly keeps sprinting. Not literally—his knees filed an injunction years ago—but philosophically. While the rest of the…
Al Davis, the late czar of the Oakland Raiders, never held elected office, never commanded armies, and—astonishingly—never learned how to use e-mail. Yet his silhouette still looms across the planet like a stubborn smog cloud, proof that the most durable empires are sometimes stitched from shoulder pads and bad attitude. From the dockyards of Naples…
Brock Bowers’ Knee Becomes an Unwilling Diplomat By the time the news had ping-ponged from Athens, Georgia, to Athens, Greece, the anterior cruciate ligament of one 20-year-old American football prodigy had already achieved what most career diplomats only fantasize about: uniting the planet in a single, synchronized wince. From a smoky sports bar in Buenos…
Elle Fanning and the End of the American Empire, as Told from a Café in Sarajevo By “International Correspondent Who’s Given Up on Pretending to Be Optimistic” Sarajevo, 07:14 a.m. CEST — A thick Bosnian coffee hisses on the table, the kind that once fortified Ottoman viziers and now fuels NGO interns who still believe…
Dakota Fanning and the Quiet Apocalypse of the American Child Star By Dave’s Foreign Correspondent (currently self-exiled in a Reykjavik basement where the northern lights can’t find me) If you squint through the smog of 2024, Dakota Fanning still looks exactly like the prophesied Last Good Kid—blonde, polite, preternaturally articulate, the sort of child you…
Cameron Heyward: The Last Man Standing in a League Bent on Self-Immolation By our man in the cheap seats, Brussels Bureau Let us begin with the obvious: Cameron Heyward is a very large human paid to run into other very large humans on behalf of a city whose river once caught fire. This is, on…
