And how you can buy us a cup of coffee if you like us, if you really like us
By Douglas John Imbrogno | june28.2005
Only hard-core Talking Heads fans will get my rather tortured pun in the headline of today’s post, referring to one of the band’s initial albums that first made me a Heads’ head. (You’ll see the ‘Buildings’ and ‘Freud’ references below.) First, though, I recommend another venture by the band’s former headman, David Byrne. His newsletter, ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful,’ is a non-profit publication describing itself as ‘A weekly dose of dopamine for your inbox.’
Lord, do we need uplift these days to counter the martial drumbeat from the appalling handiwork of “The Broken Man Who is Breaking America.” I recommend, also, a post with that title at ‘The Hartmann Report,’ a substack by Thom Hartmann (maybe after first a bracing dose of ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’). Thomson is as clear-eyed and impassioned a chronicler of Trumpism’s crimes against humanity as you’ll find, with a new book out, “The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink.” I’ll quote below a smidgen from his post, but I recommend a deeper dip into his writing since he gets at something key about Trump’s psycho-pathology. And how we might understand the clinical term word ‘sociopath’ applied to this deeply damaged human:
… Most people don’t know what sociopathy is or what they can expect from—or how to identify—a sociopath … I did a deep dive into Trump’s childhood and history to discover the roots of his behavior—and how we can deal with it and repair America from it … In the book and in future articles here I lay out a variety of ways Americans can deal with this national mental health crisis and the consequences with which it hits average working class people. The first and most important step, though, is to identify his disability and spread the word … Not only is that the first step toward constraining him and those around him, but it’ll also help voters avoid electing more troubled man-babies to public office in the future.
MORE BUILDINGS
Speaking of substack—and to quote from WestVirginiaVille’s mission-y statement—this occasional substack journal is devoted to ‘essays, images and multimedia focused on culture, news & informed, sometimes cranky commentary on that state of mind called West Virginia. It might not necessarily be what you think …’ Now that we have some cranky commentary out of the way (more on Trumpism’s direct assault on West Virginia’s populace in a future post) let’s jump to imagery.
As an itinerant, irrepressible iPhonegrapher, my usual thought is to pick the single shot that speaks to you most from among numerous snaps of a striking view. But I don’t know—I really like both the B&W and color of St. John’s Episcopal Church, snapped moments apart one June night in Charleston, W.Va. (And, yes, shot separately in B&W and color, not cheating by de-saturating the colorful one.) On one hand, I’ve sought for years (maybe decades—lord, I’m old) to capture that awesome red-door-and-spire combo on many an evening stroll across West Virginia’s capital city. I may finally have the correct capture in hand.
Yet as a fan of chiaroscuro portraits set against darkening skies, the B-W one conjures a whole other reaction palette. Your call? I put the shots up for a Facebook vote and the predominant choice was the color version. Yet a resolute minority preferred the sulkier visage with St. John’s looking like a medieval fortress tower or maybe some primo Middle Earth architecture. (My people …). Below is a sample comment from friend Katoni, who liked both but had this to say about the dark side of the spire:
‘Love that moon shining through barely broken clouds above the retro Eastern European style church. It all has a creepy-cool Gothic appeal.’
Yet the red door really spoke to voters, as in this comment from my Italian cugina, Mary:
‘Love B&W, but the red door is compelling.’
I suppose I most appreciated my friend Barbara’s remark:
‘I like the gothic feel of the first one and the colors in the second are vibrant and joyful. I like them both very much.’
IT’S A MAYOR THING
The West Virginia Building, one of Huntington’s biggest buildings, put on a show for Pride Month in the Mountain State’s second largest city. It was among my favorite of the kaleidoscopic splashes of color this month-long observance celebrating LGBTQ pride brought to the state. Yet we live in an era of poisonous Trump-adjacent politics everywhere, leeching toxins into cities and towns across the land. So it was that new and conservative Huntington Mayor Patrick Farrell and crew chose not to fly a Pride flag at City Hall this year, a tradition begun by former mayor Steve Williams. This led to protests and media coverage. As Casey Day observed in a Huntington Herald-Dispatch article, ‘Residents speak out against City’s decision not to display pride flag’:
“The LGBTQ community is still very much in danger and under attack, and I think that a lot of people still try to deny that … For me, the pride flag means, like, community, love, togetherness. It’s not just about who you are in a relationship with.”
‘COLOR ME THIS’ | Four views of the West Virginia Building in Huntington, W.Va., all dressed up for Pride Month 2025. | WestVirginiaVille.substack.com photos | june2025 | CLICK TO ENLARGE
A West Virginia Watch article quoted Ally Layman, the first openly gay member of Huntington City Council:
“The decision not to fly a Pride flag represents the opposite of what the city—under Mayor Patrick Ferrell’s leadership—is claiming … To me, the feeling that you are supported by your local government—especially in this time and in a state and in a country that are trying to pass laws against your community—is so important. The flag is a simple but powerful gesture that says LGBTQ+ residents matter and that they belong here. To have it stopped this year without a real explanation, well, it felt like that was being taken away from us … I know it’s cheesy to say, but you can’t have community without unity. It means so much to me for folks to fly the flag and to show—especially to young people in our area that have been targeted by the Legislature—that it’s not just one person’s voice saying we matter. It’s so, so many people that are standing beside them to show them that they are seen, that they are loved, and that they belong here.”
WORTH FOLLOWING, W.VA-WISE
We fledging new media publications and newsletters need all the help and attention we can muster as part of the flora and fauna sprouting in what I call ‘the Media 2.0 landscape.’ In hopes of spreading the love to some fresh Mountain State-located efforts online, I direct your attention and support to three West Virginia-connected substacks worth reading and heeding.
The West Virginia Weakly, (I’m a big fan of the sardonic name) was founded by Giles Snyder, a self-described ‘NPR Newscaster but a local news guy at heart. Posts mostly about West Virginia, my home state.’ The Weakly’s ‘About’ page describes its mission as: ‘Curated news from around West Virginia and anything else that strikes us as worthwhile.’ The site undertakes the much-needed task of collating, reprinting, and pointing to some of the worthy stories, news, features and commentaries related to West Virginia that might slip below your radar in our info-drenched timelines. (And thank you for regularly flagging WestVirginiaVille’s work, Giles!)
Also check out his intriguing “Porte Crayon Applejack Society,” a free substack devoted to the life and work of David Hunter Strother, a 19th century writer, artist, soldier and diplomat known to readers of “Harpers New Monthly Magazine” by his Porte Crayon pen name. As the substack site notes: ‘Strother was famous for his illustrated stories about the high mountains of what is now West Virginia but also for his travelogues from New England to the American South.’
I am delighted to see a long-time pal starting to regularly post to her self-named substack, Honey May, begun in November 2024. She and I were self-encouragers of each other’s work in the efflorescence of blogging at the turn of the century. (You know you’re getting on in years here in the middle of the the 21st century’s second decade when you can employ that phrase). She is a natural writer, with a personal style and fresh, sidewise, and frequently funny look at daily life, at ambition or its frustration, while also being politically and socially engaged—or dis-engaged depending on the needs of her day. I also hereby deem her Feb. 28, 2025, post now out-of-date: ‘15 Ways Not to Write.’ Since, after all, eight posts have followed since her witing about not writing. Plus, keep an eye on her growing penchant for writing about the therapy of hanging out with horses. If you have to ‘ride or die,’ a horse is probably the best being with whom to ride.
RIDE WITH WESTVIRGINIAVILLE
If you’ve spent time as a tourist in Substackistan, you know many substacks offer limited engagement with their content or you can pony up a subscription for the full menu of a writer’s offerings. I’ve held off erecting a paywall her, partly because I’ve been too occasional in posting (although you can pledge your support if I do). But also because all these $5-per-month subscriptions add up quickly into serious coin if you follow lots of substacks. (Most of those I pay are either political voices that challenge me in dark times—Jen Rubin and Norm Eiasen’s The Contrarian and Matt Yglesias’ Slow Boring among others). But you may buy me a cup of coffee (or more!) if you like what I do here at WestVirginiaVille or at my writerly site TheStoryIsTheThing.substack.com. Use the QR code to quickly get to my support page or click this link: coff.ee/douglasjohnimbrogno
And, please, write on, you fellow substackians and those in the wings. And, please, you readers—support the ones that benefit your lives and your psyches.
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