Award-winning documentary filmmaker Chris Farina, in 2016, began work on a new project with the working title “Death Becomes You,” with the idea of tackling what is very much a taboo subject: death.

For obvious reasons, we don’t like talking about it – death – because, while it’s inevitable, it’s, you know, it’s death, the end.

The film, as he envisioned it, at the outset, would have Farina, a 1982 UVA alum, speaking with funeral directors, hospice workers, grief counselors – people whose jobs bring them into daily contact with that which the rest of us don’t want to think about, much less base our lives around.

The goal: to get us thinking, get us talking, and maybe edge us toward accepting death as a natural part of life.

Then, as happens, life intervened.

First, it was other projects – “Seats at the Table,” a documentary on a class taught by UVA lecturer Andrew Kaufman that brought together university students with residents of a maximum-security juvenile correctional center through the study of Russian literature; “Pep Banned,” a doc on the rise and fall of the irreverant University of Virginia Pep Band; “A Bridge to Life,” which tells the story of The Bridge Ministry, a Buckingham County-based ministry that works to save lives of men dealing with serious addiction issues.

Then, the intervention was, life itself.

Farina was diagnosed with ALS in 2022.

How you can help

Rosalia Films is currently raising funds to support the film's release to create significant social impact. A generous donor is matching every dollar raised up to $35,000, meaning roughly $5,000 more in new donations would trigger the full match. The goal is to raise the funds quickly, so the film can be shared while Chris is here to see it happen.

Donate (tax-deductible via The Film Collaborative):

thefilmcollaborative.org/fiscalsponsorship/projects/deathbecomesus

Baltimore Orioles fans are going to be upset at the news of the trade of former #1 overall pick Adley Rutschman to AL East rival Boston, and that the O’s didn’t get back any big-league talent in return.

No need to fret: this one’s actually a good deal.

The Stafford County man who died by suicide on Sunday while in custody at the Rappahannock Regional Jail never had a chance.

“He said, ‘Sissy, I didn’t do this, but men don’t beat rape charges. I’m going to die in jail,’” said Elizabeth Self, whose brother, Christopher Lee Franklin, 40, was awaiting an Aug. 19 jury trial on charges related to the alleged Jan. 17 rape of an ex-girlfriend in Stafford.

Not the oligarchs, surprisingly. The obscenely wealthy are nothing new; their obscenity dates back to the ancients.

It's MAGA voters, the far, far, far, far, far left, and elected Democrats who don't want to rock the boat - who are afraid to stand up, and so, give up.

Those people piss me the eff off.

#democrats #maga #politics

There’s an alternate universe, in which the Virginia Supreme Court follows the law instead of trying to write it, in which Adam Dunigan is running for a congressional nomination in a district that represents Augusta County.

The Marine Corps and CIA veteran is now focused on pulling an upset in the Eighth District, where the incumbent is Don Beyer, a Democrat seeking a seventh term in Congress.

I caught up with Dunigan on Friday to talk about his upstart campaign, and the issues of the day.

The 30-win UVA Basketball team had one second-round pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, in Ugonna Onyenso, the backup center.

Ryan Odom can squeeze value out of the talent, I tell you.

I break down how Onyenso fits at the next level, and the impact of new NCAA eligibility rules on UVA Hoops, here in the pod.

We’re all tired of the headlines about the latest nonsense coming out of DC, and while we can’t change how we got here – 2016, 2020, 2024 – we can change things going forward.

It’s not enough to snark online, to your spouse, among friends.

I’m not the biggest fan of just going to rallies with signs, though if that helps you vent off some steam, by all means.

The 2026 midterms are four months and change out from now.

There are millions of doors that need to be knocked on.

The right at 175,000 Social Security recipients in the Sixth District in Virginia could vote en masse for the party that has a plan for saving Social Security from going insolvent by 2032, and in so doing, get us moving toward saving Social Security from going insolvent by 2032.

We all know that won’t happen.

Sixty percent or more of that population will still vote for the MAGA incumbent, Ben Cline, whose bright idea is to raise the retirement age to 69, which justs kicks the can down the road a couple of years.

All I can do is try to convince you to do what’s best for you.

I can’t make you drink the water.

So, that’s on the podcast today, along with:

This time last year, UVA Basketball coach Ryan Odom was introducing a bunch of strangers to each other, and trying to convince them, and everybody else, that they could get Virginia Basketball back to where it had been not that long ago.

Heading into his second summer as the head coach, Odom is building on a 30-win season, and it’s looking like he’s put together a roster for next season that … might be an improvement?

We discuss, plus go over the latest news from the world of UVA Football and the non-revenue sports on Grounds.

#uva

#uvabasketball

#basketball

#collegebasketball

#sports

#virginia

It was odd that Waynesboro and Staunton were each able to maintain their local daily newspapers for so long, given the realities of the media market, but we couldn’t keep the good thing going forever, it seems.

The News Virginian, based in Waynesboro, let go its final remaining full-time news reporter earlier this year, and now The News Leader, based in Staunton, appears to be licensing out its local content to its competitor.

Could what we’ve been seeing here the past few months be a sign that we could soon be losing both of our local papers?

#TeamAFP editors Chris Graham and Crystal Graham discuss – and, spoiler alert: we sure hope what we’re seeing isn’t what we think we might be seeing, if only because, the more of there are watching local government, the better, is our opinion on the matter.