Volume 5, Issue 54: The Blue Comet

"You believe this f--ing weather? End times, huh? Ready for the rapture."

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My kids go to a lot more movies than most other kids. In the same way that, because of my parents, I grew up knowing a lot more about hospitals and electrical grids than most other children, my kids know more about movies, college basketball and interior design than anybody they go to school with. Our generation grew up going to the movies, sitting in the dark with strangers having a shared experience, but this is a rare experience for kids now. It’s not rare for my children though. I host a weekly movie podcast. They get dragged to the theater all the time.

This July, a couple of weeks before school started back up here in Georgia, I took my son Wynn to see Twisters. As I worked upstairs, he watched the first Twister movie downstairs, the one with Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt (and Philip Seymour Hoffman and Tar director Todd Field), and when I came back down to drive us to the theater, I noticed he had already started watching stormchaser videos on YouTube. My kids, because they are not monsters, know not to talk during movies, but I noticed during the film that he was unusually rapt as he stared at the screen, a feeling I know well, a feeling anyone that who loves movies is always chasing. After it was over, he didn’t say a word until we got to the car. He then turned to me. “That was awesome,” he said. His eyes were glassy and his mouth was slack. I knew that look. He’d gotten bit.

It started slowly at first. A few more YouTube video rabbit holes, a couple more rewatches of the first Twister, little tornado sketches in his notebook. Then we noticed that, rather than watching cartoons on Saturday mornings, he was up watching The Weather Channel. Every time my wife would pick up her iPad, the last page visited was perpetually Accuweather. Then Wynn found “Storm Chasers” on MAX, an old docureality series that followed real-life scientists like the ones from Twisters as they drove around Oklahoma in their massive trucks (called “The Dominator” and “The Dominator II”) tracking down tornadoes and gathering data. This show ran from 2007-11, before Wynn was even born, but it was all new to him. He became obsessed with the individual storm chasers, their stories, their quests, their scientific backgrounds. We began hearing the name “Reed Timmer” constantly around the house, which turned out to be the name of the lead storm chaser on the show, and after Wynn found Timmer’s YouTube channel, he began watching the live streaming of Timmer’s attempts to chase tornadoes and other extreme weather events throughout America’s heartland. Next thing I knew, Wynn was asking me if I could take him to Oklahoma to chase storms. I told him that this probably wasn’t a good idea, he was 10 years old, dangerous storms were not an appropriate place to take a child, Dad doesn’t drive a massive truck called the Dominator—he drives a sedan. Wynn said that was no problem: “When we get there, they’ll be able to reinforce the vehicle.”

Wynn then began tracking his own storms, and weather patterns in general; he was always letting us know when we should be expecting rain, when conditions were ripe for a storm, what dangerous storms were coming (and why The Weather Channel was stupid for giving them human names; “they’re just trying to scare people and get viewers,” I’m not sure I’d ever been more proud when he said that) … and he was always right. He started researching the best colleges for meteorology—it turns out the University of Illinois has a pretty good one, which then got me excited— and talked about the importance of studying extreme weather patterns “in the years to come,” and boy is he ever right about that one. You always look for a spark that’s going to set your kid alight, the push that sets him off, the origin story he’ll tell decades later. It sure felt like he’d found his. I even got him a Cameo message from his hero Reed Timmer for Christmas. Watching it on Christmas morning was one of the few things that has ever left him speechless.

During the break between Christmas and New Years, Wynn even decided to start writing a weather newsletter, called Real Storm. I set him up with a website, my wife made him a logo, and he created himself a Substack. It has become a compulsion for him that I very much recognize; Athens got its first snow yesterday in several years, and Wynn was constantly tracking the storm and updating his readers on its progress. You always gotta be producing content. It is thrilling to watch. It is his thing.

One of the primary gifts I was ever given in this world was knowing what I wanted to do at a young age. Before I knew much about myself at all, I knew I wanted to be a writer. Having that sort of focus gave me a north star, a place to always point toward no matter whatever else might have come up in my life. It made sure I’d never get too far off track. It was something my parents never really understood but still supported, which is maybe the best thing a parent can do: Have their kids’ back even if they might not personally understand why. I do not understand storms, or weather patterns, or the science of wind and vortexes and air pressure, and I’m certain I never will. I’m a “I’ll find out what the weather is when I step outside” kind of guy. But to see how it has inspired Wynn—to see how deep into it he’s truly willing to get—is undeniably inspiring. It’s all you could want out of your kid.

It is also, of course, important: If there’s one thing I’m pretty sure is going to be a growth industry over the next several decades, it’s the study of extreme weather phenomena. He will have plenty to study. We’re going to need a lot of kids who see what’s happening, and who want to do something about it. They’re going to have to save us.

Now, he’s 10: It’s always possible, even likely, he changes his mind entirely about what he wants to do a dozen of times in the next two months. (After all, it wasn’t that long ago that he was going to be a guitar player.) But whatever his thing ends up being, it’s clear that there will be a thing. What I want most for my children, long term, is not for them to make money, or have a clear career path, or even have a family of their own—that’s all up to them. What I want from them is passion. I want them to be fascinated by this world, to want to jump into it with both feet, to not cower from the perils of this world but instead fling themselves forward into it—to love this world and to love to find their place in it. I don’t know anything about weather, but that Wynn knows so much—that he wants to know so much—could not possibly make me happier.

In this case, a silly movie with Glen Powell was the spark. Who knows what the next spark will be? Who knows where that one will lead? As you get older, your world can’t help but shrink. Your focus narrows, your options become more limited, you start to think of the world as something to manage your little corner of, rather than as a place with infinite avenues to explore. But to see a kid’s eyes get wide, to see him licking his chops, to see him want to take that world in in huge, heaving gulps, it reminds you of what life once was for you—and, just maybe, what it might be again.

LOS ANGELES

The images out of Los Angeles this week have been devastating: Everyone is at most one person of separation from someone affected. The great Christy Lemire posted the above graphic in her must-read newsletter this week as a guide to how you can help. If you are out there, please stay safe, and as strong as you can.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. Just How Expensive Is It to Be a Sports Fan Right Now? New York. Very expensive!

2. Predicting the Next Ten World Series Winners, MLB.com. A fun piece just to make stuff up every year.

3. The First Power Rankings of the Year, MLB.com. The first sign of a new year.

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, we’re back for our first show of 2025 tomorrow night, but you should listen to Dorkfest again.

Waitin’ Since Last Saturday, we recapped the season.

Morning Lineup, I did Friday’s show.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“Casual Viewing,” Will Tavlin, n + 1. If you have wondered why movie people are so up in arms about Netflix, this will explain it perfectly. This is precisely it.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers! (Got some more of these out this week, stand by.)

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“All Along the Watchtower,” Jimi Hendrix. It has been very enjoyable to see a whole bunch of people going down Bob Dylan rabbit holes in the wake of A Complete Unknown; everyone has remembered Dylan’s pretty great! I’ve actually gone down my own rabbit hole of Dylan covers; I’ve gotten into Cat Power’s cover of the Royal Albert Hall concert (which wasn’t actually at the Royal Albert Hall, but long story) myself. But let us not forget the greatest Dylan cover at all, a cover so great even Dylan himself has long considered it Hendrix’s song first. And he’s right.

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section. Let this drive your listening, not the algorithm!

Also, there is an Official The Time Has Come Spotify Playlist.

Yep, we got snow in Athens.

Have a great weekend, all.

Best,
Will