Monday, December 31, 2012

In Praise of the Gym

I topped out at about 270 pounds in high school. So when I say I'm in better shape than I was then, I'm telling the truth, but that truth doesn't mean a lot. I'd been a fat kid since third grade or so, but for most of my youth, the fatness would be covered by a series of growth spurts. Gain forty pounds, grow a few inches, repeat. As a result, I was usually just "the big kid:" obviously fat, but literally heads and shoulders above my peers, so it was a wash (also, basketball was awesome). However, some time into high school--10th grade, maybe?--I leveled out at 5'11" and it was clear that my luck had run cold.

I don't recall what my wake-up call was exactly, but I knew that I didn't want to be relegated to a Rascal scooter before the age of thirty. So, the summer after 11th grade, I would go out running every morning; walk-running at first, building up strength until my fat didn't hurt and I could run a few miles without blowing out a lung. I also cut my meal portions down. Way down. Honestly, it probably wasn't the healthiest way to lose weight, but teenagers can get away with that type of that thing more easily.

Over that summer and into the fall, I lost 65 pounds. The first comment I got upon my return to school was "Did you just get out of surgery?"

I've fluctuated up and down in the years since, most notably in college, where chicken tenders were plentiful and the gym was all the way down there. Then I graduated into the sort of plush office job that the human body has in no way evolved for (eight or nine hours sitting in a chair; who'd have thunk that would've been deleterious for our health?). Turns out that losing weight is relatively easy; the body responds well to minor shocks and the first weeks of a resolution pack enough adrenaline to help you fight through the irritation of hunger pangs and the indignity of shorts. It's maintaining any loss that's tricky.

Still, I've never gotten back to anything like what I was as a teenager. It helps, in some ways, to have that low bar. As long as I don't drift north of 230 or so, I always felt okay. But a low bar is still a low bar. Just because I'm doing better than I was in high school, doesn't mean I don't look like hell compared to other people, particularly my own wife, who kicks her ass a few times a week to continue looking hot.

Last New Year, sitting at 225 pounds, I resolved to drop twenty. I lost twenty-six. I then gained back eleven. Score this year as another wash. Now, I don't like doing endorsements, but I can't not recommend myfitnesspal.com, which despite its irritatingly twee name was crucial to the weight loss I did achieve. I only really started gaining it back once I stopped using their calorie counter. I never saw myself counting calories because I hate dieting and math (in that order). But with their exercise calculator I discovered something about myself: I like working out. While the thought of dieting in any way makes me want to punch celery sticks and rice cakes, an hour or so at the gym actually sounds kind of nice. More time at the gym in order to eat some cake? Why the hell wouldn't a person do that? Obviously going to the gym will not excuse every sin of ingestion and there's no good reason for some of the portion sizes we foist upon ourselves, but if I need to hit the elliptical a little harder to work off an anticipated beer night, I will gladly make that trade.

And once I started going to gym, I discovered other benefits of shape-building that blubbery, 13-year-old me would've dismissed as the rationalizations of a sell-out; seriously, that version of me and the current version of me would come to some serious blows... and current me would totally win. Getting up at 5am on a weekday does suck, but not only does it beat going after work (time which belongs to my precious X-Box and/or wife), I feel more awake when I finish at 6am than I do when I try to wake normally at 6am and that alertness remains throughout the day. Plus--while this should sound incongruous--I get better sleep at night, too. Repeated over time, it gets easier and easier to force myself out of my comfy, comfy bed, which, really, is the hardest part of those mornings. Everything after is pretty smooth sailing.

And weekends, though most gyms are usually busier then, allow for longer workouts, incorporating different exercises--cardio and weight-training. Weekends is actually when I prefer to do weights; you can dismiss this as my hatred of math shining through, but reps are harder to count at 5am than at any other time of the day. And back to that whole dieting thing that I hate: when I've gone to the gym and I'm better rested, I get fewer hunger pangs during the day. Not to mention the psychological aspect of not wanting to blow burned calories on the more fleeting culinary pleasures. I love you, Cheez-Itz, but damned if I'm going to undo my work on the treadmill for a few handfuls of you; better to save that for something more satisfying. Burger and a beer, perhaps.

Really, my hopes are relatively simple. I don't want a bro-ish P-90X type system, whose results are negligible and bank account clearing at best. I also don't want to slim down; I have a larger than average-sized head, something that could be quickly spotted on a smaller man. And I certainly have no interest in becoming an engorged anatomy chart. My ideal body type for myself is early 20th Century boxer: square, blocky muscles separated by formidable strips of fat. A solid, utilitarian machine fueled by whiskey, flapjacks, and mustache wax. The kind of thick and impenetrable torso advocated by Ron Swanson.

My goal this year is to drop fifteen pounds and then maintain that. One I'm pretty sure I can do. The other, we'll see.

The Half-Drunken Scribe will not become a weight loss blog, I swear. I don't do peppy boosterism. And tracking my own progress is likely to attract even fewer page hits than my usual topics. But putting this in writing, in front of tens of regular readers, should help keep me more honest this time 'round. Too many people to lie to, you know.

Friday, December 28, 2012

In Brief: NFL Rivalries

I'll address my pre-season NFL picks next week, when all the results are in. They're looking okay so far, but that's what happens when you pick chalk in the NFL. As for this weekend:

The talk in town is all about Sunday night, as it should be, since Cowboys-Redskins is by far the most interesting match up in Week 17. I can't tell you how much I threw up just typing that sentence (hint: my monitor is visible, but streaky). See, there is a persistent belief among Redskins fans that the Cowboys-Redskins rivalry is special. It's not. The Redskins have exactly the same relationship with the Cowboys that the Eagles and Giants do. And what the fanbases of the NFC East frequently forget is that everyone hates the Cowboys. You could move them to any division tomorrow and they'd be the most hated team in that division by the end of the week. This is a testament to the instant, reliable unlikability of the franchise, its players, its fans, its continually fawning media coverage, and its ownership (an ownership that remains only marginally more detestable than Redskins owner Dan Snyder). Anyway, I, like the rest of the nation, am calling for a Redskins win. Let's say, 24-13.

Turning to a better the best rivalry, I want to get this on the record: as a Bears fan, I'm not thinking of it as cheering for the Packers. Rather, I'm cheering for the Vikings to shit the bed, something precedent should bare out. But, mostly, it spares me the cognitive dissonance of having to cheer for State Farm reps, giving their spoiled, nothing-else-to-live-for fans the satisfaction of being a booster for their over-saturated, nationally beloved franchise that, historically speaking, does nothing more than win a lot while playing in an anomalously small market in which every citizen is literally invested in the team, forcing you to wonder if your large market, underperforming, one or two amazing years in the Super Bowl Era franchise isn't actually the bad guy of the division.

No. No, it's Packers fans who are wrong.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Corsendonk Christmas Ale

Corsendonk's Christmas Ale pours reddish brown, a shade or two lighter than their flagship Tripel.

Caramel greets the nose first, followed by some floral alcohol notes, the only hint of the Strong Dark Ale's 8.5% ABV.

Whatever promise is offered by the Monastic pedigree and agreeable nose is dulled in the taste, however, hitting the tongue first with a nice, wheaty character that is supplemented with a bit of fruit. But the beer follows up with a sugariness that borders on too sweet, smothering the few hints of smoky spice that--with a stronger presence--might have made all the difference.

The smooth, light-body is pleasant enough, but seems to belong to another ale, not something meant to satisfy yuletide appetites and warm the Christmas spirit.

A promising yet ultimately disappointing Strong Ale doesn't quite match the spirit of the season. Too bad it doesn't seem to fit anywhere else on the calendar, either.

Grade: B-

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Assassin's Creed III

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Assassin's Creed's greatest strength has always been its focus and commitment to history in a way that only the video game medium can provide: gorgeous, immersive renditions of historic cities and landscapes, with stories drawn from history--albeit a vaguely alternate universe history. AC at its best is the anti-Call of Duty. Unfortunately, AC's best runs right alongside its worst.

From the beginning, Ubisoft felt the need to give its alternate history lesson some context. This context came in the form of the charisma-less Desmond Miles and the hunt to save humanity from the evil Templars. Also from the 2012 apocalypse, though the Mayans don't appear to be involved (admittedly, I zoned out more than once during the exposition). These cutaways from the historical action have always been a brief nuisance. But in ACIII they cease to be brief, forcing the player to spend more and more time with Desmond and his Assassin comrades in their makeshift cave base. The only plus to this focus is that Desmond ends up dead.

All this time in the present day helps to fog the dullness of main character Conner, another charisma-less lead around whom things happen (the AC franchise seems to have spent all its likable protagonists; we were spoiled by Ezio Auditore). After some initial stop-start fun playing as Haytham Kenway, we transfer into Conner, Kenway's illegitimate half-Native American son. From there we run around the wilderness hunting animals and learning our way around ACIII's various collectibles (seriously, so many collectibles). Conner later becomes an Assassin, but the allegiance seems little more than a hobby for Conner. And he's slightly more interested in secret society-ing than he is in the American Revolution, which is another thing that happens here and there in a herky-jerky plot that never gains a solid foothold anywhere. The game seems almost aware of the fact that no one mission-type is especially fun and so offers seemingly dozens of different of mission types and mini-games in an attempt to distract players from the creeping monotony. Naval battles, for example, start out tedious, but become genuinely fun with a little practice. Unfortunately, when an aspect of a video game starts tedious, it's not usually a sign of a job well done.

The parkour remains the same as ever, if a little more fluid than past games, though this is broken up by environments that aren't as flush with easily traversed rooftops. This is not to mention the intense attention the player can draw from redcoat guards, who are T-1000-like in their persistence when they get a smell of Conner. When free-running is your second-biggest draw, it doesn't seem a great idea to actively make that harder to do.

It's some small consolation that the main game missions and grinding missions alike take place in some gorgeous environments. 18th Century cities, the open seas, the wilderness areas: all beautiful and fun to explore. I can almost forgive Ubisoft for making the "frontier" stage so large: it can't have been easy to stop painting that canvas.  In the midst of the hunting and stalking in beautiful scenery, I was reminded of Red Dead Redemption, which is good because I love RDR and bad because ACIII is not RDR.

The game features a few additional triumphs. Among others: never giving into the America Fuck Yeah approach that would've been so easy. And neither was ACIII a full indictment of the occasional hypocrisy of early American leaders, which must've been tempting. The game instead opts for a neither totally good nor totally evil that might strike some as CNN-esque false equivalence, but sits reasonably well with my understanding of the period.

ACIII continues to do a few AC-type things well, though it's several less than previous games managed. It is, overall, a dull ride with a few, not as frustrating, high points scattered throughout. With Desmond gone, the franchise may finally be ready to move on to its full potential of historical Assassin-ing in immersive environments that other games never offer: ancient Babylon, feudal Japan, early 20th Century Russia. The possibilities should be endless. Ubisoft has the tools and the care, they just need to throw caution to the wind again.

Grade: C-

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

One Week Till Christmas

Kids like Snoopy. They might like Woodstock, too, I don't know. But they definitely dig Snoopy. More so than they do Charlie Brown, who, analyzed as the ostensible child that he is, always seems soaked in a self-pity that keeps him ever at a distance, however much we might want to relate to him. Or Linus, a savant who swaps back and forth between eloquent wunderkind and eminent pushover. Lucy's just a bitch. No, the World War I Flying Ace was always more relateable to a seven-year-old Half-Drunken Scribe than the rest of the gang ever was.

The staying power of Peanuts has always been its nostalgia, fueled by adults who strongly identify with Charlie Brown's myriad plights of conscience. Christmas is one week away, and while the smaller, Snoopy-liking version of myself would be ready to burst at the seams, adult-ish me frets and stresses over all that must be done in the meantime and all that will have to be done afterward. Kids don't have an after-Christmas. There is no after-Christmas for them. School just sort of starts up again. But adults have pre-Christmas, Christmas, and post-Christmas. And while our yuletide responsibilities change rapidly, our expectations are much slower to adapt.

At the risk of invoking White People Problems, I, like Charlie Brown (always full-named, by the way, never "Charlie;" Peppermint Patty calls him "Chuck," of course, but that's the joke... I think), can't help but wonder how much of it is worth it. How much should be scaled back, just so the holiday can have a chance to meet expectations without killing us. Because Christmas is a perfectly fine holiday. There's just too much baggage (sometimes literally).

And I don't even have kids.

Anyway, here's Linus' from-memory recital of Scripture, overdubbed with Orson Welles' "cuckoo clock" speech from The Third Man. Crude? Maybe. Childhood wounding? Definitely. Briefly funny? Oh yes. And in the end, isn't that what the holidays are about?

Probably not, no.

Monday, December 17, 2012

The Internet Likes Cats, Right?

 
Olivia was a months-old kitten when she was found abandoned in the woods of West Virginia. Starving and probably cold in the mountain air, she was nursed back to health by a co-worker of a friend. Said co-worker was unable to care for Olivia for long (work commitments, or something, I never got the complete story), and reached out to whoever could provide a decent home.

My wife--then my girlfriend--had been asking for a cat from (quite literally) the moment she could speak. She cites destiny for the fact that she was wearing black and white the day she learned that a small black and white cat needed a home. I classify it as something more like coincidence. Wearing a cat costume on the day she learned of Olivia: that would've been destiny. Nonetheless, Olivia would be L's a few days later.*

---
*I don't think I've mentioned this before, but my wife will remain unnamed here, per her request. I suggested some code names for her (she shot down both "Starfox" and "Shaniqua"), but she decided that the initial "L" will suffice, alternating with "the wife."
---

Olivia didn't yet know or trust L or myself--especially myself. During my first stay-over following Olivia's adoption, L woke in the middle of the night to find Olivia literally pissing on her; the wife blamed my apparently disconcerting presence, I blamed the cat. At several points, I reiterated my desire to name her "Goddammit" because, when it comes to cats, a name like "Goddammit" just saves time.

Goddammit Olivia mostly calmed down over the next few weeks, which is why I felt more or less comfortable taking her in when L had to go out town unexpectedly. And so, after a nice dinner at L's, we proceeded to pour Olivia into her carrier (a first for Olivia, whose hatred for the plastic box both peaked and plateaued that night) and, with no car and no convenient bus route, lugged her mewling, sobbing, pooping ass a mile and a half to my apartment. Once there, the wife cleaned cat shit from both Olivia and the carrier while I called my cat-allergic roommate to explain the temporary situation (I felt significantly less bad when I learned that while we were doing this, he had been at the Samuel Adams brewery, tasting a then-experimental offering that would later become Latitude 48).

A few months later, we threw Olivia back into her carrier and moved her into our first apartment together. Three years and two apartments later, Olivia remains a crucial element to our household. A crucial, noisy, haughty, dumb, adorable element. The sort of element that mews intermittently during the night, occasionally climbing on top of us as a reminder that she's still awake and why the hell aren't we? An element which, in spite of some obvious learning disabilities, has figured out a way to make her nine-pound frame take up a third of the bed. An element that will demand to be played with, get us to play with her, grow bored two minutes later, start demanding more play ten minutes after that, and get us to go along with it every step of the way. An element who runs from everything and everyone and still gets it in her head that she'll hunt us: running after us at top speed down the hallway, pulling up short at the door, and then slapping her paws against the door frame, demented eyes staring up at us, as though to remind us that we only continue to live at her whim.  This terrifies my wife and makes me fear for my wife's sanity; "it's not the ability, it's the intent," she testifies, each time that much closer to a psychotic break.


And yet. 

As a matter of routine, we'll get home from work at the end of the day, crumple onto the couch, and flip on comforting, predictable Seinfeld reruns in order to summon the strength needed to rise and make dinner. And like clockwork, this little hairball plops down into our laps, looks up at us with those big, black pupils, and begins to rumble. And, knowing full well that it's a trick--a trick keeping us from doing something we need to do--we melt. Because that's what cats do to earn their keep: fifteen seconds of minimal labor per day that makes them absolutely indispensable once they've wormed their way into your heart. The rest is unreconstructed id. And you love them for that.

This post has nothing to do with acquiring page hits (it kinda does). There's context for this. Or, rather, this is the context for a future post that had grown too large already. But, as she would remind me--and as I'm sure the wife would agree--Olivia deserves her own post, anyway.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

It Was an Elementary School

I didn't write about Newtown yesterday because there's something dirty to me about writing while details of such an event are still coming in. And I didn't do it earlier today because there are qualified people writing about it. But with a shooting of this scale, with these targets, and being that it was the second shooting this week (and a third in Alabama this morning, though luckily only the shooter seems to have been killed), letting it pass would be an unforgivable oversight for me. So, two quick things:

1. Guns are not the full problem. And gun control is not the full solution. But a sane society would acknowledge the relevance of both of those things.

2. If you haven't seen this video following any of the how-many shootings we've witnessed over the last few years, please do it now. Your watching it won't fix anything, of course, but it deserves to be absorbed. The news media's pathological exploitation is usually merely irritating. But it can also be dangerous (let alone offensive) when put into the hands of self-absorbed prats, oblivious to the impacts of their desperate pandering. Umpteen interviews with small children who had just been through an intensely traumatic event does nothing for anyone.

Those kids and those teachers deserve more than squabbling over who's to blame. But they also deserve to have their lives be given some meaning beyond unfathomable tragedy. As so many others have written, I'd like to not be writing another post like this in a few months.

Friday, December 14, 2012

In Brief: Susan Rice

John McCain got his wish on Susan Rice. In exchange, Obama is still president.

Rice may not have made for a great Sec.State. But it has nothing to do with Benghazi. It's because she's a lousy diplomat. Republicans could use that argument, but then they'd have to face John Bolton comparisons and admit that Rice is just the kind of condescending, truth-bending operative they usually adore. And then they'd have to let John Kerry keep his Senate seat, which is all they really want.

I was going to stay off of politics until January (a decision that partly explains the lack of production around here), but it's worth coming back to point out again what inconceivable jackasses the Republicans are. The party for whom elections only have consequences if they win. For whom everything is permissible, so long as it serves ideology. For whom politics is a game to be won or lost because governance is for nerds.

Seriously, fuck these guys. I hope they all get pink eye. And then they pick at it for a few weeks, making the infection worse and rendering them unfit to appear on Sunday morning talk shows without wearing paper bags on their heads. And the paper bag headed Republican leaders all blame Obama, their voices slightly muffled by the bags and the pus seeping down into their mouths. Then Obamacare kicks in and they all get the care they need and walk away from the hospital clean and healthy and ready to continue working. And as they try to cross the street, they all get hit by a bus. The bus doesn't even slow down, just keeps going.

That's what I seriously hope happens. 

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Man of Steel teaser, Take Two

 
I'm think I'm going through a reverse of that Statler and Waldorf bit. It's the same process I went through after the first Man of Steel trailer. And the recent poster, come to think of it.

I know that Zack Snyder movies and Superman movies have each had great trailers, only for the films to turn out passable at best. And I know that with Batman on the shelf and Justice League looking like more and more of a cluster-fuck of decent ideas and bad ideas, MOS is a hot target for a lot of frustrated expectations that I'm wont to temper.

But it's growing on me, this new Superman. 

Thursday, December 6, 2012

I Forgot "Mr. Plow"


The A.V. Club acknowledges up front that no ten episodes can truly summarize The Simpsons. This admission takes some of the sting out of their snubbing of season five. One could nearly summarize the series by picking ten episodes from that season alone. Maybe it was an unadvertised challenge, leaving season five and making a difficult task even harder for no good reason. But then we scroll down and see "$pringfield" and "Bart Gets Famous" hanging out with the honorable mentions, teasing us. Like God teased Moses in the desert.

Still, it's not a bad list. It's not as though any of the ten episodes chosen by A.V. Club contributor Kyle Ryan fail to meet the criteria; "most quintessential" is easily conflated with "best" but is not the same. If I were allowed to list the thirty most quintessential episodes, I would surely hit all ten of Ryan's choices; and that would be thirty out of the 248 pre-fan fiction era episodes. That Ryan considered all 24 seasons for inclusion makes the job... well, marginally more difficult, anyway (his list includes the season eleven finale, "Behind the Laughter," while season fifteen's "The Regina Monologues" is among the also-rans). And that I agree with just four of his top ten has as much to do with the fact that the series is difficult to encapsulate as it does with the fact that Ryan is a stupid moron with an ugly face and big butt and his butt smells and he likes to kiss his own butt. 

This is a difficult task and it's probable that no two lists would look exactly alike. But that's the point of lists. You see someone compile a list of the greatest albums of all time and they put Nevermind at 18, while Led Zeppelin IV languishes at 69. Now you have to make your own goddamn list because that'll show 'em! Then you get stuck, because you know that London Calling and Born to Run both belong in the top five, but one of them has to give and, Jesus, this is hard, but at least it'll be better than that other list!

I had narrowed this list down to about thirty entries when it began to get hard. Ten cuts later, it got heartbreaking. That's why God gave us honorable mentions. It helped to remember that this is not a list of best or favorite episodes (still, cutting "Homer Goes to College" really hurt).
  • "Treehouse of Horror" - Included here as a stand-in for all the "Treehouses" that followed. As the show went to hell, you could usually expect good things from these, even when they were airing closer to Thanksgiving.
  • "The Way We Was" - Ryan chooses this one for its indispensable Simpsons mythology. And while it wasn't the best flashback episode they'd do (that would be "Lisa's First Word"), it did make the rest possible.
  • "Marge vs. the Monorail" - The Simpsons does singing and dancing better than the original musicals it parodies. Of course, it helps when you have Phil Hartman. 
  • "I Love Lisa" - Lisa gets an unfair rap from fans, oblivious to how important pathos is to comedy. And this episode has that in spades. And some prime Krusty material to boot.
  • "Last Exit to Springfield" - Call and response time: "Dental Plan..."
  • "Cape Feare" - You want to know how wrong Ryan's list was? No Sideshow Bob. On a list of the most quintessential Simpsons episodes, Bart's second mortal enemy goes unlisted. No stepping on rakes, no Die Bart Die, no H.M.S. Pinafore, no "Hello, Mr. Thompson." For shame, Ryan. I Kill You Scum.
  • "Rosebud" - While "Last Exit" provides a decent dosage of Mr. Burns, no such list is complete without the full Monty.
  • "Bart's Inner Child" - Two things: 1, Albert Brooks. 2, Springfield's easily provoked mob mentality, displayed more beautifully here than in perhaps any other episode. 
  • "Bart Sells His Soul" - The Simpsons did religion/spirituality better than anyone before or since and this one toes the line of spiritual crisis without spilling into melodrama, something the subject often seems prone to. The sheer volume of Milhouse doesn't hurt, either. Plus, you know, ALF. In pog form.
  • "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" - There, but for the Grace of God... 
Comic Book Guy: Last night's Itchy & Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world. 
Bart: Hey, I know it wasn't great, but what right do you have to complain? 
Comic Book Guy: As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me. 
Bart: What? They're giving you thousands of hours of entertainment for free. What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe them. 
Comic Book Guy: *pause* Worst episode ever.
Also ran:
  • "Homer at the Bat"
  • "Homer the Heretic"
  • "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie"- Possibly the first to ever to be dubbed "worst episode ever"
  • "Lisa's First Word"
  • "Homer Goes To College"
  • "The Boy Who Knew Too Much"
  • "Itchy & Scratchy Land"
  • "You Only Move Twice"
  • "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment"
  • "Behind the Laughter"

(Picture courtesy Simpsons quotes that nobody gets anymore)

Monday, December 3, 2012

Lincoln

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD (kind of... you know, if you fell asleep in history class, in which case you're probably not going to see the movie, anyway)

Lincoln was never going to match the expectations. The best it could hope for was to pull a King's Speech and not be quite as Oscar-baity as the trailers indicated. Spielberg accomplishes that. As a director, he's always excelled at taking in a lot of ideas, processing them down, and parceling them out without the audience gagging or getting bored. That sounds like a back-handed compliment, but the man deserves all the credit in the world for being able to create palatable dishes out of material girthy enough to choke an elephant. And even when that becomes a bit much, he can at least retain the verisimilitude, keeping us locked in the room of his choosing without suffocating us. In this case: Washington, DC, in early 1865. Lincoln does not suffer because of its director.

The acting is worthy of the material and then some. Just sorting through the central characters: Daniel Day-Lewis achieves a new method acting miracle by actually growing two inches for the lead role. Tommy Lee Jones' performance as Thaddeus Stevens steals the show through the noted advantage of having been right (his unrestrained distaste for pro-slavery pols is satisfying). Sally Field wisely does not go full tilt with Mary Todd and opts for frustratingly selfish (full Mary Todd crazy would've been immediately dismissed as campy and outlandish). And would it now be too weird to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt play John Wilkes Booth? Because I really don't think that guy's up for enough hypothetical roles. So the cast isn't the problem.

The issue, I'm tempted to say, is with the script. And that's not fair because the script is perfectly fine--the story is solid and the dialogue is generally engaging--but the trouble is in the bevy of source material that the script must draw upon. There is no way to tell the story of the Lincoln Administration through the passing of the 13th Amendment and do either any justice (Lincoln believes it can do both). We were never going to get a fifteen-hour epic spoon-feeding us every tidbit from Team of Rivals, so it's probably unfair to judge the movie based on what it decides to cut when cutting anything was near-criminal. Now watch while I judge it on that metric, anyway.

Criticisms of the film as a depiction of white superheroes saving blacks from a state those same superheroes had imposed are well-grounded. Black people in Lincoln are the object in a passive sentence. It's not as if President Lincoln wouldn't have come in to contact with freemen of the District. I mean, I don't expect a heartfelt speech from Lincoln's barber, but maybe a token appearance from Frederick Douglass? No. Something must give in historical dramas (which trend toward a bloated carriage, anyway), and so all we get is Mary Todd's confidant/dressmaker and Stevens' housemaid/lover, who only shows up after all is said and done. It's not that this is a particularly offensive omission (although it kind of is), but it is a gaping one. Lincoln, like Congressman Stevens, is served by historical advantage: it gets to ride its premise for so long because that premise is correct (slavery is bad). But no premise can be ridden forever and if Lincoln must go to Petersburg in order to comprehend the carnage he somehow hasn't comprehended until now, then we can at least be afforded a sit-down with a former slave. Or maybe a stand-up with a former slave: more scenes of Lincoln towering over everyone!

But if it must make these omissions, then at least it wrings all the drama it can out of what it keeps. Maybe it's because college zapped away enough of my soul, or maybe I just enjoyed watching James Spader being awesome, but I'll always love horse-trading scenes in smoke-filled back rooms, where sausage is being made. Lincoln's biggest success lies in not romanticizing the process. Until the end, when ratification seems assured (and I honestly can't recall whether that was a fair presumption at the time, or whether Lincoln is bluffing in order to change the subject with Confederate peace negotiators), the moral and political compromises are center stage and the film's drama is better for that acknowledgment. Yes, it makes for an incomplete dramatization, but you accept that sort of thing going in. The teary, elated celebration after the Amendment's passage through the House (spoiler number one) almost undercuts this, trading muddy politics for Spielberg's giving the audience what it wants, but as in real politics, the fact that something important got accomplished at all is worthy of celebration.

This disinclination toward romanticism mostly extends to it's its titular character. That is until the end, when Lincoln's assassination (that's the other spoiler) prompts a bleary-eyed flashback to his second inaugural address: the one that was supposed to lift our spirits and tell us what we could be, even while Lincoln's machinations sometimes involved everyone except the better angels. This is some of Spielberg's trademark manipulation, to be sure (see above), but it's not so different from our customary lionization of slain leaders, anyway. And while he's alive, we see every Lincoln action figure ever sold: tortured Lincoln; lawyer Lincoln; magnanimous Lincoln; shrewd politician Lincoln; happy family man Lincoln; reluctant family man Lincoln; backwoods, story-telling Lincoln (Secretary Stanton's reactions to the stories are a plus--that an actor has to wear that beard and play it straight is dichotomy at its finest). Day-Lewis plays them all wonderfully and these various versions ably highlight the man's many conflicting natures and his nimble, if over-wracked, brain. But they also remind us of just how difficult the man is to sum up in a 150-minute film. Surely, even after all that running time, there must be more here. And then we get thinking about all that could've, should've been. If we judge a film on what it's trying to do, then Lincoln has set the bar admirably high.

And we're back to the expectations thing. Like it's meta-textual subject (Lincoln is Obama, in case you missed it), we can't help but be underwhelmed when confronted with the real thing. And that feeling leads us to believe that the thing is less than it is, even if that thing isn't so bad in and of itself. Because truly, Lincoln is a fantastic piece of filmmaking whose only real flaw is being an impossible film to make.

Somebody should try for a James Polk biopic.

Grade: B

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Half-Drunken Time Travel

As you know, part of the 21st Century Social Contract is that the first person to gain access to a working time machine has to go back and kill Hitler. Preferably before he reaches apex Hitler. You may choose to take him down in, say, 1914; he's easy enough to spot (the guy knew how to stick to a look). If you're really lazy, you could opt to take on Hitler circa 1895. I mean, how easy would that be? No matter what age Hitler I got, I'd rub a little dog shit on his upper lip, indulging in some irony that literally no one will ever get because he's not going to live long enough to tarnish an already ugly mustache (by the way, this would also save Michael Jordan from later inflicting this upon himself and the world). And whatever you do: don't just leave Hitler for dead. You don't want to run the chance that he'll survive, get some hyper-advanced prostheses (Nazi scientists), and come back even angrier than before. Then you're responsible for Steampunk Hitler.

The only trouble is, this option is an easy out on the admittedly annoying  "what would you do with a time machine" question. You're not going to use the thing once, surely. Especially not after the kick-ass job you just did saving history. So. How do you celebrate killing Hitler?

I'd start by going back to 1527 and challenging Henry VIII to a drinking contest. Bare in mind: I'm not picking this fight to win control of the not yet extant Anglican Church, or anything; I just need to know how well I'd do.

At this point, I--drunk out of my mind and undoubtedly having forgotten that I've already killed Hitler--would try to kill Hitler again. Upon seeing my past self doing just that, however, I would probably  become confused and disoriented and would have to sit down until my head stopped throbbing. I'm speculating here, but drinking while time traveling cannot do wonders for the cognitive faculties in the short term.

Once my head is clearer, I'd take in a dinosaur fight or two. Because so would you.

Then I'd head over to 1953 and find a young Donald Trump. And I'd be nice to him, really nice. I'd play with him for a few hours, offering to do whatever he wanted to do. And just before we parted ways, never to see each other again, I'd give little Donald a great big hug, look him in the eye, and tell him that he's a really good, sweet kid and that no one can ever take that away from him. 

Feeling good about myself, I'd finish my journey by jumping to 1690, where I'd promptly take credit for composing Pachelbel's Canon in D. Now, another man might use that status to get all kinds of syphilitic 17th Century ass. But, having seen dinosaur fights, I would know there's more to live for than easy, Enlightenment Era orgies. I just want the credit for creating modern pop music. Plus, marriage vows probably apply across time and space.

Of course, here and there, you have to stop and check out the important things. Be in the room when Johannes Gutenberg first explains his invention (to a smart person). See Lincoln at work in the Oval Office (the man just let people wander in, as though no one was looking to waste him). Hear The Beatles record "Love Me Do." Be at NASA headquarters for the Moon landing. Convince a teen-aged Park Jae-sang to go to med school instead of pursuing a career in music.

These are some of history's seminal moments. Missing those would be like walking by the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and not stopping in to check on Oscar Wilde's grave. Or walking by the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and not stopping in to spit on Jim Morrison's grave. These are the drab must-dos of time travel. Or, to put it another way, the things people expect you to tell them about when you return, so that you can't be accused of wasting your time. This category is not to be confused with the things that may seem like wastes to other people, but that made all the difference to you in ways that would be impossible to explain to someone else.

Time travel, like life, is filled with the things we must do, the things that will define who we have been. And those things will get done. But fully ignoring the things we want to do deprives us of a fuller journey that gives the must-dos purpose and meaning. It's like science and art; one we need, the other we wouldn't want to live without. Put yet another way: Doc Brown's orthodox sense of responsibility and Marty McFly's caution-to-the-wind sensibility are disastrous separately. Together, they make each other worthwhile. Occasionally these two categories will overlap into a beautiful amalgam and you'll get to kill Hitler or watch raptors wail on each other. But the rest of the time, we have to find the balance.

Oh, bring a T-Rex to 1914 to kill Hitler! Yes. Nailed it.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Thanksgiving Kills The Expectations Game

Thanksgiving is the most underrated holiday. This is not to be confused with "the best holiday." Thanksgiving, in fact, earns most underrated because no one ever expects it to be the best.

Think about Thanksgiving. All those extra portions you wish you could eat the rest of the year, but think better of? Jiminy Cricket is visiting family for the day, so everything goes. Annoying dinner guests? Tryptophan is a miracle drug--if they can fight through a coma, you might want to consider inviting an exorcist, too. You have to watch the Lions? View it as an exercise in schadenfreude: "take that, Michigan; produce Mitt Romney, will you?" The annual embarrassment of seeing the President pardoning a turkey? Think of it as the best argument for legalizing pot (it makes so much more sense when you're high). And, yes, the Black Friday nonsense and looming Christmas pressure hanging over everyone because Santa can't keep his bitch mittens to himself. But I'd wager that I'm not the only private sector employee who gets the day off just because his boss hasn't yet discovered that Black Friday deals can be found online.

You may have noticed that there's some significant qualifying and hedging going on here, but that's the point of comparative ratings. Especially as they apply to the expectations game. I'm not arguing that Thanksgiving is perfect; I'm not sure any healthy and fulfilled adult is. But no one in history has ever had their pristine perception of Thanksgiving shattered by having a bad one. Charlie Brown never worried himself into an hilariously premature ulcer about the corruption of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving wins because, like going to a Judd Apatow movie, you go in with middling expectations, you get what you expect, and you leave happy.

And consider the competition. Proceeding chronologically from today:

Christmas is clearly the most overrated holiday, so we can throw that out immediately. And I don't have a lot of direct experience with Chanukah, but being perennially stuck in Christmas' obese shadow doesn't help; you know why there was no Chanukah door in The Nightmare Before Christmas? Trick question: there was a Chanukah door. You just couldn't see it through the Elven black magic laid down by the fat man. As for Kwanzaa, you know there's a problem when Futurama has covered you better than anyone ever--and even that ended up having more to do with giant space bees than holiday send-ups.

New Year's is a fine holiday. Taking off the day after the celebration? Brilliant. And that move nearly gives New Year's the win. But the holiday is ranked about where it should be, given that the celebration has to cover for the disappointment of Christmas. New Year's does that job admirably, but it's a steep hill. Maybe if we could do New Year's as well as the Scots...

Then we get into the slushy soup of the late Winter holidays. MLK Day: good, if you get the day off, which I don't. Super Bowl: I'll admit that this one hasn't been the same for me since I had to endure that Packers-Steelers match-up a few years back, but when you consider that the best-played games of recent memory were the twin Giants-Patriots match-ups, it really underlines the bittersweetness of the day. President's Day: kind of a gip, even for those of us too young to remember when that was two holidays. Groundhog Day: who the fuck are you kidding?

Then we get St. Paddy's. Look, I'm half-Irish and (probably not entirely coincidentally) I like to drink. So I kinda get this one. But if you're the type to hit up an Irish pub on St. Paddy's, you're begging for an underwhelming night (you may also be a tool). They're all crawling with green-clad drunks making a mockery of Irish culture. And while a non-Irish bar is marginally better, it never feels right, does it? And then you're expected to show up at work the next day... hangover or no. That's called entrapment. There's a recent movement underway to get March 17th made into a federal holiday, which would be nice but, as with New Year's, shouldn't we aim for the day after?

And that would be a good time for another holiday, during the long Spring slog between President's Day and Memorial Day. Not that Memorial Day is much of a contender. According to my rigorous market research (hint: it's all about projection), if you're reading this blog, you're the type to take Memorial Day for granted and feel guilty about it, but not guilty enough to actually do anything. So you spend the last day of your three day weekend in a funk.

The Fourth of July: another very good holiday that tends to get rated exactly as it should. Unless something magical happens, which no one can fairly expect. So that one's out.

Labor Day: see Memorial Day, except apply this more broadly to an American public that's blithely ignored the systematic neutering of the labor movement. Honestly, I'm surprised Labor Day hasn't yet been moved to Black Friday, just to rub some salt in the wound. But that would screw with the beginning of the school year, which is exactly why the day never reaches public acclaim: kids get conditioned to know what's coming and that wiring remains intact through adulthood.

I've already covered one of Halloween's major pitfalls. The expectation-to-satisfaction ratio for Halloween often seems to approach Christmas levels.

And then Veterans' Day: see Memorial Day. Also, not a universal day off.

Which leaves us with Thanksgiving: the feast day smart enough not to promise you the world. It tampers down your expectations and apologizes for not having done better. It stands amidst the onslaught of the end-of-the-year holidays and does... alright. Enjoy today. If for nothing else then because at no point all year will your expectations be so thoroughly matched.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Cut It Out, Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh. Explanation please:


You've worn these things twice now. Stop it.

I think I speak for all Bears fans when I say that the best news I heard at the start of this season was that the Bears would no longer be wearing these monstrosities. If we can do it, so can you.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

David Petraeus (Ret.), Reality TV Star

I feel like I'm supposed to care about the Petraeus thing. I tried, too. Nothing's clicking for me on this one.

As far as I can tell, there's no deep national security significance, at least not given that Petraeus has resigned and the biography's been written (unethical, maybe, but that's more on Broadwell than Petraeus) and that he's still available for any questions we might have. Sure, it could mean the guy's ego was so huge that he thought no one could take him down. But it's just as likely that the guy was humble enough to know that he needed to step back. All character hypotheticals are moot now that he's gone, anyway. At worst, this thing makes him the last in a line of 2000s-era War on Terror guys to to have the bear eat them, rather than the other way 'round. Probably not great for national morale, but what from the Bush II years is? I say junk the whole lot of it. Forward, etc.

And this is the CIA, for Christ's sake. When did morality become a standard for judging anyone over there? You don't have to be an adultery apologist to see the disconnect of priorities here. Drone warfare? Shit, what's that? Powerful guy consensually boning two separate women who aren't his wife? Raging media hard-on. Sure, it's slimy, but come on.

It doesn't matter how long ago graduation was, we're all stuck in high school. And where do semi-powerful, emotionally-stunted-at-high-school, semi-powerful adults best fit in? That's right: reality TV. I've seen several people comment that the entire embarassment would make for some ripping good melodrama. That should be a sad observation, but I say let it be done. At least there, it'll be relegated to a realm I don't have to pay attention to. Put them out there and let them play in the sandbox of their making, wallowing in the precise amount of dignity they've earned for themselves. And we'll watch them, chortling and groaning in equal measure, because TV's bottomless chum bucket has claimed Vanessa Redgrave respected, high level government officials.

Monday, November 12, 2012

NaNoWriMo

A post about National Novel Writing Month would've been timelier a week or so ago. But this blog was focused on something else

I'm of two minds about NaNoWriMo. In the first corner is the sick, contrarian part of my brain, the part that balks at anything smacking of booster-ish trendiness. The cutesy portmanteau is enough to readjust the relative position of my eyebrows. And I'm not sure what writer needs Internet-based camaraderie to get them to write. Also, if you're going to pick one month in which to write a novel, wouldn't a thirty-one day month serve you that much better?

While finishing one book that no one wanted doesn't entitle to me to a lot of elitism on the subject, I can say that books are generally not written in a month. A person may be able to write 50K words in thirty days' time (and good on them for doing so), but then there's the editing. And the re-writing. And then the next few rounds of editing after that. It's neither pithy nor romantic to say so, but these are the forgotten elements of writing. The site says--apparently seriously--that the program values "enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft." I blacked out when I first read that one. Woke up a couple of days later, wearing blood stains on an otherwise clean, white smock that I had never seen before. Since I've lost so much time, I'll keep this short: enthusiasm is good, perseverance is great, but it's the painstaking craft that stitches them together.

On the other hand, I really do appreciate anything that encourages people to write more (or any). Writing has usually been a rewarding experience for me and it's something I recommend to anyone who thinks they have might have something to say. There's nothing better for organizing one's thoughts than writing them down. The subject of writing is the closest I've come to proselytizing for anything, if only because advocating for the healing powers of alcohol remains a touchy subject in many circles. And though I'm not sure if everyone has a book in them, as is often claimed, you never know who does until they try. Meeting NaNoWriMo's goal leaves a writer with 50K words at the end of the month, words she can expand upon, or perhaps cut down for a short story. Or even re-purpose altogether to something else that can begin anew in December. That's the test of a writer: knowing how and when to continue or start over and seeing it through regardless. If NaNoWriMo can give people the impetus to start exorcising a long simmering dream, letting my intrinsic distaste for pithy methodology stand in the way seems, well, douchey.

Don't write because this particular month happens to make for some neat alliteration with which to advertise the project. Don't do it because other people are doing it. And don't stop on November 30th (likewise, come next year, if you think up a great idea for a book on October 26th, start then). Write because you have a story you want to tell. If you start with the hope of writing a novel and find that you have a much better short story in the works, run with that: the quality of your output means a hell of a lot more than the quantity. And if your project isn't working out and it's November 25th and you don't have time to start over, start over anyway; nothing is more arbitrary when it comes to writing than start and end times.

Essentially, if you're going to write, write.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Skyfall

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Apprehension sets in when we arrive at the Bond family manor in rural Scotland, the name of which lends Skyfall its title. The Bond films of the last fifty years seem to have made a pointed effort to not delve too much into James Bond as a coherent person--all the easier to replace aging actors, a cynic may say--and all we've gotten is "007." This works fine, assuming the films are good, but they're not always (I will never fully understand anyone who claims that Roger Moore achieved better than one or two decent Bond films). If Casino Royale truly was a reboot, then maybe we now deserve to see everything that made Bond who he is. We previously knew that he was an orphan, but little more. Skyfall introduces the blood and flesh, brick and mortar of his youth, revealing there is a person inside the agent, rather than an agent inside a person. And though these revelations all but kill the intriguing theory of James Bond being more of a code name than a person, the film series will prove the better for it. 

Outside of the character and the mythology, Daniel Craig is the greatest beneficiary of this development. What was once (on his good days) a two-dimensional hired killer is now a fully fleshed character, who happens to be a hired killer. There is a psychology and a reasoning behind the action hero. And this, by the way, is what the best so-called "gritty reboots" have always done: pare down the gimmicky action and give us a reason for the stunts. Craig is in the driver's seat of one of the most interesting heroes in cinematic history, one who changes and grows, if usually for the more grim and haunted. The brash, sharp-edged rookie from CR has evolved into a hard, field-ravaged machine. This owes as much to Craig's vulnerable, not-so-clean-cut performance as it does to the careful writing. There's always a lot of hyperbole surrounding this discussion, but I find it fair to say that Craig is quickly approaching the top of the Bond heap, with Connery still in the lead only because he was first. 

Judi Dench--even during the earlier Brosnan films--has always been an inspired choice for M, finally bringing a few measures of depth to Bond's boss. Where once MI6's boss could sometimes seem little more than a careless, bemused old man, enjoying Bond's antics, Dench brought a severe professionalism to the character, and a patience for Bond that could occasionally run out. But it's perhaps not until Skyfall that Dench is used for all her acting talents, delivering an M that is defiant but faltering. She is old, outmoded and, her slow understanding of that fact is sad because we realize how attached we've become to her, how attached Bond has become to her. Her death is sudden--a minor quibble, as that might've been handled better--but it could not have ended at any other time; she was never going to retire. Dench's M gets shuffled out not because we need her to move on, but because Bond needs her to and because MI6 needs her to. And that the story has more to do with her than any world-in-peril super-plot is a welcome development in a series that has too often felt the need to top itself over and over, in an increasingly impersonal fashion. 

Perhaps the bigger news--even bigger than M's fate--is the return of the eccentric, theatrical Bond villain. Javier Bardem (once again proving that if you give him a funny haircut, he will make it terrifying) brings an ebullient energy to Raoul Silva's quest for vengeance. When Silva arrives at Skyfall for the climax on a helicopter blaring The Animals' "Boom Boom" over a megaphone--one of several scenes in which Bardem simultaneously inspires both terror and glee--we see the flip side of the gritty reboot's gift for grounded transcendence (yes, I'm sticking with that description): the song is an organic pairing for his mission, a spurned madman's way of announcing himself and his plan. There is reason and history to Silva's mad methods and even his home base gets a back-story. When you make the villain interesting on his own terms--more than just someone for the hero to fight--you elevate both. 

I don't have as much to say about Naomi Harris' Moneypenny, other than that I like her. A lot. That this Moneypenny has been in the field--and can hold her own there--gives her much more interesting possibilities than someone who just has an easy and fun rapport with Bond (which, yes, this Moneypenny also has). 

Same with the new Q: a high-tech whiz kid with both feet planted firmly in the 21st Century. Portions of MI6 might prefer someone with an equal grounding in the old ways, but that's what Bond is for, right? 

The Bond series has flirted with irrelevance more than once. Skyfall boldly makes that theme central to its story and comes out the better for it, injecting desperately needed humanity into a series that can still be about escalating action, exotic locales, dangerous women, and insane villains, as long as there's a beating heart at the center. 

Grade: A-

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

And He Didn't Even Need Ohio.

A bunch of barely related, late night thoughts

Mitt Romney ran for president for seven years and still lost to the black guy in the sluggish economy.

Barack Obama is a two-term president. Savor that one. Say it aloud a few times. Taste it... know it... love it. We are pregnant with a second Obama term and, yes Republicans, it is a gift from God.

Mitch McConnell needs to Go. The Fuck. Away.

Nate Silver needs no defending. Not from me, anyway (especially when others have done it so well already). But, next time you want to slander a decent, hard-working nerd for saying something you don't like: remember this night. Hard numbers, boring though they may be, are nothing to fear. The end of your relevancy as lazy media dinosaurs, okay, that'll be kinda scary. We still don't care.

Next time Andrew Sullivan feels like hyperventilating, he needs to toke up. And then blog at us.

However, in fairness to Sullivan, Obama now needs to explain that first debate performance. We gave you another term, dude, you're golden. Just tell us what the hell happened. A real answer--not the campaign-caliber answer you gave Jon Stewart. Was it an Ambien kick? Malaria? Just trying to make things interesting?

Karl Rove sure is funny, ain't he? And looks like "a really sad Benjamin Franklin impersonator," as my wife said. My question: has Fox always been this entertaining? Why have I been missing this? Is this where their ratings come from? Whatever it is, they can look forward to four more years of those.

Good night, everybody. I'll see you in the morning, when a bitter, entitled Mittens is still refusing to concede.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

America Flips a Coin

It's. Almost. Over.

Two years and a couple of billion dollars later, here we are.

Remember to keep a drink on hand for the vote-counting tonight. The traditional method, as I'm sure you know, is to take a shot for each state your candidate of choice wins (legend has it that the brain and liver damaged incurred during Ronald Reagan's overwhelming 1984 victory led directly to the conservative talk radio boom). But if, like me, you have work tomorrow, that's probably not a wise choice. So, for a long, cold night such as this one, I recommend curling up with a somewhat darker, heavier beer. Suggestions: Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale, or possibly the Anchor Brewery's Brekle's Brown. But, then, I'm partial to brown ales.

Lastly, for those who haven't seen it, here's my endorsement of Barack Obama that no one was waiting for.

So, I've done my part. And while I'm probably going to Early Vote next time around, it was still worth doing. Now: get out there and make sure your voice is drowned out by millions of others. And then drink some beer. For America.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland

"If the victories we create in our heads were let loose on reality, the world we know would drown in blazing happiness."
--Patton Oswalt, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland
Having never written stand-up before, I'm not sure what the difference is in writing for that versus writing for something that's meant to be read. I assume that each--done well--will have differences, as evidenced by some of the literary output of even the best comedians. George Carlin's books did little more than make me want to listen to Carlin; Napalm & Silly Putty, for example, is funny and easily heard in Carlin's voice, but seriously wants for his skill with poetic meanderings. This track record is the reason I put off reading Patton Oswalt's Zombie Spaceship Wasteland for so long. But I was wrong to do that. Ass-wrong.

In ZSW, Oswalt wisely combines biographical elements (laced with his gift for obscure pop cultural references) with one-off concepts, such as an academic examination of old hobo songs ("Hobos were, for some reason, insistent that 'oatmeal' rhymed with 'blue.'"). Doing this, no single aspect weighs down the book too much. Like the best stand-up routine, every worthwhile topic gets its own space to breath.

Among the more insightful one-offs is an examination of the personality types of teenage outcasts that gives the book its title. I won't try to lazily lay out the differences between zombies, spaceships, and wastelands here, not when Oswalt does it so perfectly (and honestly, if you were a teenage outcast, playing board games in the library during lunch, you can probably figure out who was which already). At the end, I'm probably a Wasteland. But if I'm allowed to have crossover elements, there's probably some strands of Zombie in there, too.

The biographical chapters range from the heartbreaking (Uncle Peter), to the experimental (I shit on stream-of-consciousness, but it may be the only proper way to revisit childhood snow forts), to the transcendent (if the conclusion of "The Victory Tour" isn't enough to make you pump your fist on a crowded train, I don't want you reading my blog anymore).

The last couple of chapters see Oswalt delve into his archives of writings-in-character, a gambit that might've fallen flat if deployed by a lesser talent. In these, the pseudonymous Erik Blevins and Neill Cumpston battle for the title of Most Gifted Writer to Ever Set Pen to Paper in the English Language. I won't spoil you for any of Blevins' magical, criminally-ignored film treatments,* but Cumpston probably deserves a spot of attention here, in a space that features more than it's share of mindlessly effusive film reviews. Among Cumpston's finer observations (regarding The Passion Of The Christ):
"Everyone's pissed at Jesus. They all want him dead. But this is back in Bible times, when they didn't have shotguns and chainsaws, and back then when you want to kill a superhero you have to rain two hours of whomp-ass on him and then nail him to something, sort of like a message to other superheroes. And they must have gotten the message, because there weren't any more superheroes until Superman."
I've done some gushing about Oswalt before. And that praise is re-earned here, in an entirely new way. Given the weirdest gun-to-my-head proposition I'll ever encounter, I'd choose to listen to Finest Hour, but ZSW goes a long way toward being the next best dose of Patton you'll ever be able to shoot uncut.

Grade: B+

*Actually, both "Blevin's" and "Cumpston's" work can be found online. I'll trust you to work the Google machine.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Obama, Head Bee Guy


Let's get this out of the way up front: no, he's not the golden god too many of us expected he would be. He was never going to be. But whose fault was that? Remember: we endowed him with the "I Got This" aura and then didn't show up to vote in the 2010 midterms. Sure, he kind of embraced the idea in 2008. But what functioning politician wouldn't in the heat of a campaign?

"We have a substantial check here for a Mr. Abraham Simpson."

"That's right, I did the Iggy."

The whole Hope and Change thing--as much opportunistically taken on as it was naively thrust upon--was the Obama Administration's original sin. And like the theological concept, it's outdated and unfair because nothing can be done about it now. But let's check the ledger:

Barack Obama achieved the single most important domestic legislation in a generation, rescued the U.S. Auto Industry, signed fair pair legislation (which had somehow not come to pass until 2009), backed gay rights as thoroughly as any president could, got us out of Iraq, laid the ground-work for the Afghanistan exit, didn't get bogged down anywhere else, and all but dismantled al-Qaeda. You're welcome, right? It's frustrating to me, too, that he's either incapable of or unwilling to tout his credentials well, but that's also part of the reason I like him: his hesitancy to play the game so publicly. You can chalk that up to arrogance (a stupid word to use, anyway, since presidents need to be arrogant), however it's a much more attractive kind of arrogance than that of his predecessor.

There's a thing about the modern American left that nothing ever seems good enough. You've heard it before: we could've had real universal healthcare, etc. First, no we couldn't have. See above about the Lilly Ledbetter Act: it took us long enough to get us something that should've been common sense decades ago--so how much can we reasonably expect? Second, Obama's not a liberal. At least, he doesn't govern as one. He has enough working against him when he doesn't (did you know that he's foreign-born and that he lied about his college grades, or some stupid thing?). See, Obama--like Obamacare--is a bridge to a less insane America, not the new America incarnate. The fact that some don't like these gradual, evolutionary adjustments is part of the reason the left has lost its foothold in the political discourse over the last generation. Yes, this quickly becomes a lesser-of-two-evils argument. It's always a lesser-of-two-evils argument. Nut up and dance with who brung you. Or vote third party.

And the NDAA and the ongoing drone wars? Yeah, okay, those bother me, too. Obama's given himself and future presidents far-reaching tools that should chill every American to the bone. And if he's lost any supporters over these matters, well, I can't fault that too much. However, this is the long-fermenting result of a power-amassing executive branch predicated upon the idea that the American people truck for "strong leadership," an idea that Americans have not generally disputed. But it helps to understand that the bloated security state and foreign policy apparatus exist almost independent of the whims of ideology these days: self-reinforcing structures that no president seems interested in tackling anymore (the last president, to my mind, who came into office with a greater interest in foreign affairs than domestic ones was Nixon). Romney, suffice to say, does not seem inclined to reverse that trend.

So, no. Obama ain't perfect. But we were never going to get perfect. Not in this economic and political climate. On the economy, he inherited an historic financial meltdown that he's mostly steered back to normalcy. It's amazing how easily that's been forgotten: how much can we fairly expect of a president in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 30's? And, however badly we might be hurting, notice none of us are living in Bushvilles.

Then there's the political climate. Or don't you remember the right-wing opposition that has snarled and gnashed their teeth for four years straight, doing everything they can to halt whatever they think Obama might be up to? An unconscionable congressional opposition that has explicitly made it their mission to destroy him. This is also the first president to have a 24-hour news network dedicated to slandering him. Fox News has raised a yammering army of Obama-deranged personalities for their cause; that a talking cat anus like Donald Trump has been allowed to make himself into a regarded commentator speaks volumes about the dearth of substance in our media. Think about what Obama could've accomplished with the kind of mindless obeisance that Bush II enjoyed at one time. In a robust polity, we would call out the hateful, childish tactics for what they are (political and economic terrorism) rather than rewarding them.

Of course, it could be argued that no man has the answer to being president in the Internet Age, where facts are fuzzy at best and all discourse is subject to the most primal instincts of an angry and imperfectly-evolved species. So on that front, I'm not sure Mr. Romney can hope to fair any better. After all, if the politics of obstruction prove feasible, what's to stop the left from making likewise?

And what of the president's opponent: that grinning parody of every shifting, shameless politician you've ever seen in TV or film. I once called John McCain one of the most cynical men ever to vie for the White House. And, with luck, the Sarah Palin pick will long stand as a high-water mark for miscalculated pandering. But Mitt Romney has found ground even McCain never dreamed of. What we have in Mittens is not an empty vessel of the Palin variety, but of its own, more terrifying kind: one that can be emptied and refilled again and again (sometimes stunningly quickly), never minding the slow erosion of its own self.

Romney, in his businessman-type way, believes that he is a product to be marketed, rather than structurally improved. It's easy to laugh at his tragicomic attempts at humanity, but it's in these moments that we see the truth: there is no there there. He is whatever he thinks will get him the prize. Not the stoic ship captain Obama has been (a trait even Gov. Christie now seems to appreciate), but the hapless, quick to ill-planned action sitcom dad.

And remember that thing I said about dancing with who brung you? President Romney will know that well. He'll have to work with a House and potentially a Senate comprised of the Limbaugh wing of his party. This is the social party of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock. The fiscal party of Grover Norquist and Paul Ryan, Romney's VP and a signer to Norquist's juvenile no-tax pledge (and who publicly admits that he thinks Ayn Rand is a good writer). And then there are the Court appointments, several of which have been dangling for a decade or so as the justices get older.

He'll wear the Moderate Mitt Mask for now--it plays well with the marks in the 'burbs--but at some point he's gotta make good on that selling point about working with legislatures (balancing a state's budget is a lot easier when it's mandated by state law; and while we're here, I seem to recall Bush II touting similar credentials in reaching across the aisle--what is it about Republican governors that makes them think party dynamics work the same in state capitals as they do in Washington?). And the unmoored GOP that shrugged and said "okay, him," will want to cash in their chips for allowing Romney to go up against a president that they themselves had so handicapped. So guess who'll get to pick Mitt's next mask?

Now think on what kind of leverage Obama gets when he returns from re-election, able to look John Boehner square in his orange face and say, "I ain't dead yet, Oompa-Loompa."

Take this as you will. The lesser-of-two-evils. The devil you know. Not the president we deserve but the president we need. It's several parts of each. But in this week when the nation's two major news media centers have been hammered by much larger events (actually, DC got off relatively easy), we're in a place to put this campaign into perspective and think about the role of government as more than a philosophical debate. And, hopefully, with a better understanding of what the choices are.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

The Stark Knight Rises

Marvel Studios debuted the first Iron Man 3 trailer this past week. I liked it, though it's hard for me to say why. I mean, I'm seeing a grimmer tone, suggesting an emotional and tonal weight; indications that no character is safe from the stakes; a black and white/dark blue color palate; a wall-to-wall Zimmer-esque score; and a purposeful villian with a funny voice.

It seems so familiar but I just can't place where from.

While it's probably a good idea for the Iron Man franchise to return to its Nolan-aping routes after the underwhelming Iron Man 2. Marvel's carved out a very nice (and lucrative) niche for itself as the lighter, popcorn-y universe; I've written about this before. Suddenly shifting away from that--if that is what they're doing--seems unnecessary. But I applaud the ambition. Let's just hope something's not lost in the transition.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Another Tip

Jumping off of my suggestion from last week, why doesn't the Obama campaign dust off this ad from the Spring and run it near-nonstop (particularly in the Rust Belt) for the next thirteen days? As I wrote at the time, it's as effective as it is artistic. And it's as powerful now as it was in the summer. And if I'm going to have to stomach these things, anyway, I might as well get some entertainment value out if it.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Halloween Costumes

(Image via WTF Costumes)

Is it possible for a person who doesn't wear a costume to a Halloween party to avoid being labeled "the asshole?" Sure, if someone else decides to forgo the ritual, in which case you're merely "an asshole." But the directness of the article is probably not the bit you're concerned about.

It doesn't matter if you can be considered --in most respects--a functioning adult (Lewis Black has covered that point). Or that you like Halloween but your time/money/creativity is a little short. Or that you--really and truly--just could not be bothered this year. Or that you know from hard-won experience that, halfway through the night, any decent costume will prove bothersome to yourself and perhaps also to others; and that the resulting irritation will be remembered long after people have forgotten how impressed they were when they first saw your get-up. Or that it's not actually Halloween but the weekend preceding Halloween or, heaven forbid, the weekend after Halloween, like some latter-day Treehouse of Horror. Or that it's a Friday and you've come straight from work (you might get that one to fly if you show up late enough, but really, why?). None of this matters. Because everyone must don a costume. Because it's fun. And if there's anything Christmas has taught Halloween, it's that fun can be--and, yes, must be--made compulsory.

Some of you are saying: "This is America. I'm as free as I please to not wear a costume." Certainly. As free as you are to express yourself in any other way in a country with a First Amendment: at the risk of some minor, if pointed, abuse. Because if you chose not to wear a costume, in a roomful of costumed revelers, you are the freak. And people notice freaks. Especially when your lazy freak ass thinks it's entitled to the same candy everyone else has earned.

"Hey!" you'll hear, "someone went to a lot of trouble to set up this party and you couldn't even be bothered to make yourself into whatever the hell topical thing that guy over there did that seemed clever when we first saw it, even though none of us will remember it when we look at the Facebook pictures four months from now."

You can reply with any of the excuses above--even the good ones--and you only dig a deeper hole. Because, even if you actually like Halloween and appreciate what others do with the holiday, you're the Halloween Hater. And the only thing worse than a Halloween Hater on Halloween is a Halloween Hater making excuses on Halloween. "Don't commit your hate crimes here! Hate crime!!"

Then there's the way that even reasonable people react if you tell them that you didn't want to wear a costume: put off by your attitude, dispirited by your indifference. The only person whose face brightens when he gets a load of you is the guy who spilled the punch on the host's new sofa (a tragedy that could've been averted if Captain Hook were allowed to have two hands)--you've taken a lot of heat off of him. And it's the silently disappointed ones who bring the point home, making you feel like the bad guy. "I guess I could've found a funny hat... or something," you mumble, knowing deep down that you brought this on yourself.

Or consider the pitfalls of your explanation for not attending the party, just so you could avoid such a situation: "I didn't want to put on a costume;" really, say it aloud and try not to punch yourself. No self-respecting person could ever say "I didn't want to put on pants" to avoid a regular party and expect to be allowed back into decent society again and the same applies to Halloween and... Halloween society... that's a thing, right?

You like candy, you like booze, and you like socializing where there's candy and booze. Isn't that what Halloween is about? Wasn't that the moral of It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown? No, it's not, and no, it wasn't. Never has been. This is the sick pact we made with one another a long time ago when mortality rates started to plummet and we needed something to keep ourselves entertained during what used to be harvest season. Dress up for Halloween, or be a temporary pariah. A few hours of relative discomfort in a costume, or a few hours of relative discomfort for not having worn a costume.

So, no, there's no way to avoid the "asshole" label.

But you can turn it around and own it, making the label work for you. Just remember the MBA curriculum: embrace the asshole you were going to be anyway. So, this Halloween, do something to make people remember what you did, at least until Thanksgiving. Make people spew their winter beers in stunned wonderment when they see how much you missed the point of Halloween. Shoot the moon and travel so far into "asshole" territory that you come out as "magnificent bastard."

That's why, this year, I'm dressing as Santa Claus.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Bad Roommate

I've linked to Doorman before. But do yourself a favor and check out his real life, three part tale of roommate fuckery in Manhattan, featuring Smuttynose beer, rash decisions, legal threats, and Vitamin Water bottles filled with cigarette butts. It's the fizzle-out stories that are the most haunting, I think; they run counter to our conditioned expectation of the climatic encounter that's supposed to close every plot. When we don't get that encounter, it sticks with us.

Read Doorman's story. And, if you have a good roommate, find them, pull them close to you, and whisper into their ear that you are prepared to die for them, while softly hushing their protests of confusion.