2017 may have been that year when identity politics hit a brick wall - and slumped limply on the pavement.

As machines take over the decision-making that saves lives, we are left with fewer chances to save lives later.

I know that if I say something that's considered outrageous, a group will take it, create an email blast, and use me to raise money or to do whatever, to build their profile.

I know that, often, people in entertainment are surrounded by 'yes' men who tell you everything is 'go.' That's never been an issue for me.

When I imagine my viewer - and it sounds saccharine - but it's a family thing. People in line for my books came as families.

My best writing is often early in the morning and, sometimes, while working out.

For years, we talked about how the only way to really win the political battles was to win the cultural ones. And rather than simply ignore pop culture, it would be far better to give it a big fat bear hug.

I've said it before: If Queen had died and reincarnated as one person, it would be Devin Townsend.

If Obama was a sonnet, Trump is a limerick. And really, which ones do you enjoy more?

Trump says what he thinks at that moment. He's a totem pole of transparency.

The rise of ISIS, the orgy of identity politics, and the political changes they brought - how could Obama not see that coming? I blame the golf.

Hollywood is always about Hollywood.

Sully's' upbeat message is that we still need humans. It was the heroically human Sully who saved those people, not some cold equation written on a chalkboard.

President Obama's farewell speech soared, towered, dragged. True, it was longer than Reagan's, Clinton's and GWB's speeches combined. If it got any longer, it would have qualified as a third term.

Normally, 'Saturday Night Live' is about as entertaining as an ocular migraine.

Something to keep in mind, whether you adore Obama or Trump: Drooling toadyism is not a good look on either side, and it paves the way for evil. Because while hate can drive people to do many things, love permits leaders to do all things - none of them good.

I guess coming out against actual evil takes guts.

Imagine Earth as a crime-ridden town, and there is one safe house. How do you keep that safe house, America, always safe? It is called vigilance.

Before there was radical Islam, immigration and terror didn't mix.

Terror, married to technology and accommodated by progress in travel, has turned evil individuals into traveling ballistic missiles.

Islamists are nothing but guided missiles that pride themselves on taking out as many infidels as possible.

Trump's policies are a mix of fairly traditional things. Even his immigration stuff isn't really that new.

As a New Yorker, this is what you do: you confront, jab, and slap, sometimes wrongly, then smile and forget about it.

The frothing Trump-haters' extremism turns whatever criticism they have for the guy into mere parody.

It's the great deception in modern culture: Bad things call for noble names to cloak their evil outcomes.

Before language, cavemen simply grunted, and then they used the club. Communication changed that. It's the mechanism that created civilization and prevents its own destruction.

The federal government is enormous; it never shrinks. And the interest is killing us.

ObamaCare was a lemon, but the media were his lemonheads.

The modern progressive movement believes that dissenting language is objectionable, which then removes the brakes between anger and violence.

Language turned apes like us into civil creatures.

By silencing speech, the new Left makes life more dangerous by leaving violence as the only option. Maybe that's what they want.

An actual scientist embraces debate because it sharpens their research.

In the American 'melting pot,' identity politics wants to smash that pot - to bring us back to the Dark Ages, when collaboration was sparse.

I've done two shows every day for years, but I don't think I could work on just one show a week. I would go crazy, and I would drive everybody nuts. I've got to feel like I'm under pressure.

It's not misogynistic to criticize a legendary female pop singer; it's misogynistic to think a legendary female pop singer can't handle it.

Generally, I don't bother trying to keep up with prolific bands - but Thee Oh Sees demand it.

If pop culture is a pool, it never hurts to dive into the deep end once in a while.

Ariel Pink would be a regular on the Mike Douglas Show. Both a master songwriter and a charismatic figure, he'd wander the set like a cherubic, more likable Jim Morrison. His songs would be all over KFRC - the way Boz Scaggs ruled for one summer with 'Silk Degrees.'

At a certain point, we need to figure out how to reward those who choose a path that offers, often, almost no reward.

The girls I dated liked or disliked me, whether I weighed 140 or 150; and six-pack abs had no relevance on their love or repulsion.

If you can have a skewed sense of your body, it stands to reason you could develop the same kind of thing about your relationships with others in a social network.

FNM didn't really become one of my favorite all-time bands until after I'd had all their records for a couple of years. And realized I was playing them every day.

'Sol Invictus' works like your basic FNM record: the sequencing is an artful job, hustling you politely through all the gentle, harsh, weird surprises that follow - and then when it's over, you get back on the ride and start over, just like Space Mountain.

Listening to a FNM record is like a visit from a mysterious relative who knows more about your family than you did.

I realize Twitter can be good, providing a video game of creativity for your brain.

Creating a fan base of both fervent feelers and fanboys, Trump magnificently played off many fawning commentator's insecurities - using the deep desire to be liked or noticed by Trump as a method to keep their criticism of him tamped down.

Work together. Do not purge your allies because of purity.

It may feel good to think you're right. But it's better to allow the possibility that you're wrong.

If America oppresses, why do so many people risk their lives coming here to be oppressed?

The good and bad thing about online trolling: it's not on the street, and it's not on the street! The good: nothing physical erupts; the bad: there are no brakes to stop it.