Alright, guys, I'm out of here for a couple of weeks. Gettin' hitched and then away on honeymoon.
While I'm gone, make sure to check out my brief write-ups for Nos Populus, and all the excerpts, too. If you like those, you may also enjoy the story of my self-publishing experience. And, if you still want more for whatever reason, well, you might as well go order your copy of Nos Populus.
I know I've been heavy on sports lately. That's mostly because I find sports relatively easy to cover at a time when I've had too much on my plate as is. Plus, the campaigns have (probably deliberately) been keeping quiet during this pre-convention phase and there'll be plenty of time to cover the election over the next 22 weeks or so (yes, really). And as the summer rolls along, there'll be more book and movie reviews, as well (eight weeks until The Dark Knight Rises!). And plenty more besides; inspiration is never a problem--time is.
So until next month: take it easy. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Or, you know, do. I'm not your boss.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Kerry Wood
**Yes, I know this is a few days late. Shut up.**
Kerry Wood retired last week after getting one more strike out (for an even 1,582 on his career) in a losing effort to the White Sox. I've sometimes been rough on Wood since he returned to the Cubs from his brief sojourn to Cleveland and New York. But even when he was cradling an 8.34 ERA and blowing easy saves, part of me knew this was the natural result of another formerly brilliant young pitcher whose form was never properly adjusted to preempt injury because pitching coaches (like Larry Rothschild) never like to fix what doesn't appear to be broken. Until it is.
He and Mark Prior were the collateral damage of the 2003 NLCS. Both had phenomenal arms and near-limitless potential, but too much pressure on increasingly strained shoulders did them in. I've always thought that Prior had it worse in many ways--the man on the mound for The Bartman Game endured the baseball version of PTSD (Wood started the more fateful but easily-overlooked Game 7 of that series). This was in addition to the physical injuries that kept Prior sidelined for chunks of the next couple years before being signing a one-year deal with his hometown San Diego Padres, who eventually opted to resign him to their minor league squad. He's bouncing around the minors even today. At least Wood was able to remain a big leaguer to the end.
But Prior was never "Kid K," the 20-year old who, in his fifth big league start, struck out twenty batters in a single game, tying Roger Clemens' record and becoming a force during the Cubs' 1998 Wild Card season. He was not the fastest ever pitcher to reach 1,000 strikeouts and he does not hold the second highest mark for strike outs per inning, as Wood was and does. Wood stuck around through the rougher years around the turn of the millennium and came back from Tommy John surgery to throw a 12-6, 3.36 ERA season in 2001. He didn't miss a single start the following year and then went 14-11 with a 3.20 and a couple of Divisional Series wins in the inauspicious 2003 season. And, like Prior, that's when things started going bad, with injuries mounting and expectations for the whole team achieving that strange kind Chicago Cubs brand of schizophrenia, weighing everyone down. He had taken on the reliever role for the twin train wrecks of 2007 and 2008 and by the next year, he had been shuffled away, along with so many following the official century mark of the Cubs' title drought. In 2011 he turned down other offers to return to the "family." And though he was never going to be what he once was, we were happy to have him and were sad when he showed significant age at 34 and 35, in a position that regularly showcases 40-somethings.
That's mostly because, for a franchise that twice traded the best pitcher of the last fifty years, Wood was all we could have dared dream. More importantly, he was a Cub through and through and not just because he said so. He shined so brightly so young, personifying the fabled eternal hopes of the Cubs Fan, making our old and badly aged franchise feel as young as he was. He took the mound in times of plenty and times of poverty, each time reminding us of those early days when everything was possible and we really had a future. And though he left briefly, it was not his choice and when he did, it was because he found it impossible to know home anywhere else (it's modern baseball poetry that negotiations for his resigning began the day of Ron Santo's funeral). And like our hopes, year after year, he broke down and flamed out earlier than he deserved.
So long, Kerry. And thanks.
Kerry Wood retired last week after getting one more strike out (for an even 1,582 on his career) in a losing effort to the White Sox. I've sometimes been rough on Wood since he returned to the Cubs from his brief sojourn to Cleveland and New York. But even when he was cradling an 8.34 ERA and blowing easy saves, part of me knew this was the natural result of another formerly brilliant young pitcher whose form was never properly adjusted to preempt injury because pitching coaches (like Larry Rothschild) never like to fix what doesn't appear to be broken. Until it is.
He and Mark Prior were the collateral damage of the 2003 NLCS. Both had phenomenal arms and near-limitless potential, but too much pressure on increasingly strained shoulders did them in. I've always thought that Prior had it worse in many ways--the man on the mound for The Bartman Game endured the baseball version of PTSD (Wood started the more fateful but easily-overlooked Game 7 of that series). This was in addition to the physical injuries that kept Prior sidelined for chunks of the next couple years before being signing a one-year deal with his hometown San Diego Padres, who eventually opted to resign him to their minor league squad. He's bouncing around the minors even today. At least Wood was able to remain a big leaguer to the end.
But Prior was never "Kid K," the 20-year old who, in his fifth big league start, struck out twenty batters in a single game, tying Roger Clemens' record and becoming a force during the Cubs' 1998 Wild Card season. He was not the fastest ever pitcher to reach 1,000 strikeouts and he does not hold the second highest mark for strike outs per inning, as Wood was and does. Wood stuck around through the rougher years around the turn of the millennium and came back from Tommy John surgery to throw a 12-6, 3.36 ERA season in 2001. He didn't miss a single start the following year and then went 14-11 with a 3.20 and a couple of Divisional Series wins in the inauspicious 2003 season. And, like Prior, that's when things started going bad, with injuries mounting and expectations for the whole team achieving that strange kind Chicago Cubs brand of schizophrenia, weighing everyone down. He had taken on the reliever role for the twin train wrecks of 2007 and 2008 and by the next year, he had been shuffled away, along with so many following the official century mark of the Cubs' title drought. In 2011 he turned down other offers to return to the "family." And though he was never going to be what he once was, we were happy to have him and were sad when he showed significant age at 34 and 35, in a position that regularly showcases 40-somethings.
That's mostly because, for a franchise that twice traded the best pitcher of the last fifty years, Wood was all we could have dared dream. More importantly, he was a Cub through and through and not just because he said so. He shined so brightly so young, personifying the fabled eternal hopes of the Cubs Fan, making our old and badly aged franchise feel as young as he was. He took the mound in times of plenty and times of poverty, each time reminding us of those early days when everything was possible and we really had a future. And though he left briefly, it was not his choice and when he did, it was because he found it impossible to know home anywhere else (it's modern baseball poetry that negotiations for his resigning began the day of Ron Santo's funeral). And like our hopes, year after year, he broke down and flamed out earlier than he deserved.
So long, Kerry. And thanks.
Friday, May 18, 2012
A Lesson From Sweden
That's what I wanted to say to him, anyway. Only thought of it later, after being so taken aback that I could only mutter something like "No. Gotta go. Bye." I still regret not having the better retort on hand. The French have a phrase for that situation--it literally translates as "the wit of the staircase." But this isn't about the French--it's about the Swedes.
That there's a recruitment ad for the Swedish Armed Forces. Here's another one along the same lines. This series of ads has won some awards and been mildly popular in some corners of the Internet. If you're an American, however (and most of you reading this are), you're probably wondering, "How could they say that about their own military? And where's the super soldier science fictiony heroics? Where's the lava monster?"
Ah, that's better. Was starting to feel disoriented with all that down to Earth, relateable stuff about acquiring real world skills for real world jobs. Thank you, lava monster. And thank you, Kid Rock and 3 Doors Down for over-achieving on your usual manipulative pablum with those ads that play before movies, which are likely their own overlong, overblown, unrealistic ads for military service. Or, in an admittedly ingenious ploy, an overlong but more realistic ad for military service. Between them, Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich have melted our collective, what do you call them? Brain bones. It's hard for us to get stimulated by anything less than adrenaline-fueled, patriotism-exploiting action shots, with lots of quick-cutting to distract us from how bad the CGI (CGI!) is. So when the military constantly needs fresh blood (literally), it has to resort to some really stupid gimmicks, just like any other organization.
Yes, the world of advertising is anything but subtle and accurate. But shouldn't we expect something better out of our armed forces? You know, something that appropriately captures the things we make them do for us and doesn't mythologize them into something that makes us think they're always there, ready to bomb whomever we need in order to advance our short-term political interest? Or is this the price we pay for living in an era of war and mass communication in a post-draft society?
As a final comparison, look at this ad for the British Royal Marines:
It's not much less subtle than our ads, but you can taste the tonal difference, can't you? This is not glamorous, it is not fantastical, it is not romantic. It doesn't make promises. It tells you up front that you will not be able to do this, don't bother applying, we don't even want you. The only people still standing are those who can do this (or think they can) and they will push themselves for their country. Those of us left behind are legitimately impressed and appreciative of the tools we have in them. "Let's make sure we don't waste these tools on any vanity wars," we say. "You know, unless our mates in America insist we should."
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
In Brief: Ever So Simple
Rich Cohen of The Wall Street Jornal has finally figured out the secret behind the Cubs' century of woe. Turns out it was Wrigley Field. Oh, is that all it was? And to think we thought it was an ownership that was alternately disinterested and incompetent (and at one time likely so racist that it took someone of Ernie Banks' talent to get them to sign a black player). Or the disproportionate amount of day games played in Midwestern summers. Or fans and players and ownership alike putting too much emphasis on legendary curses, turning them into self-fulfilling prophesies. What fools we've been and what a relief it is. It's this simple: all we need to do is dynamite Wrigley--the institution that's basically insured the Cubs' status as the third or fourth largest market in baseball during a lengthy winning-drought--and fans will stop going purely for fun and instead go to see the winner that isn't there and hasn't been in over one-hundred years.
Seems that Cohen, formerly of Chicago, has taken up in New York, where Yankee Stadium has shown him the light. All baseball teams need are bland, soulless stadiums and then trophies will rain down upon them like the shards of glass from The Natural: electrocuting us and slicing our eyes open and blinding us with their terrible beauty. It's the same reason the Rays have won every World Series since their birth in 1998 with the power of their ugly monstrosity. And why the Phillies have been so lousy since moving out of their old, non-loserly eyesore and into that distastefully attractive Xanadu of a stadium. Why do you think the World Series trophy is the ugliest of the four major sports? Because baseball excels at ugliness above all, you morons.
It doesn't make any sense for thecontrollers of the means of production
job creators to build a winner when the fans are only paying for the pretty
stadium. You can only have one or the other. It's really all the fans fault, those cheap-thrill yokels. What the hell's wrong with you, you sons of bitches? Don't you know that ivy on the walls is the first step toward welfare queen-ism?
If the Cubs and their fans stop choosing to be losers, they'll stop being losers. Bootstraps, America, Oorah. Jesus, how could we have been so stupid and myopic and irritating and undeserving of an article on major national newspaper's website?
Seems that Cohen, formerly of Chicago, has taken up in New York, where Yankee Stadium has shown him the light. All baseball teams need are bland, soulless stadiums and then trophies will rain down upon them like the shards of glass from The Natural: electrocuting us and slicing our eyes open and blinding us with their terrible beauty. It's the same reason the Rays have won every World Series since their birth in 1998 with the power of their ugly monstrosity. And why the Phillies have been so lousy since moving out of their old, non-loserly eyesore and into that distastefully attractive Xanadu of a stadium. Why do you think the World Series trophy is the ugliest of the four major sports? Because baseball excels at ugliness above all, you morons.
It doesn't make any sense for the
If the Cubs and their fans stop choosing to be losers, they'll stop being losers. Bootstraps, America, Oorah. Jesus, how could we have been so stupid and myopic and irritating and undeserving of an article on major national newspaper's website?
Monday, May 14, 2012
The Inherent Illogic of Sports Fandom
The Cubs' season being what it has been thus far (awful, if improving maybe, but probably not) I've had cause to recall this Economist article from last July. And for the same reasons that I was able to recall a short blog post from ten months ago, I cannot let it pass now. This is not just for Cubs fans, but for any sports fan who has ever felt anything for a team. Look how far this guy misses the mark:
An aside: as you may have surmised, I am a Cubs fan. This is largely because my father was a Cubs fan. And his father was a Cubs fan before him. My early adolescence coincided with the 1998 season and the Sosa-McGwire home run race (whatever the numbers say and whatever shit has come to light and whatever my current feelings regarding Sosa, his name will always come before McGwire's) and the Cubs winning the N.L. Wild Card. The Cubs hit their high-water mark of the post-1945 era during my late teens. I was sixteen going on seventeen when The Bartman Game happened (an aside within the aside: ESPN Films' documentary Catching Hell is well worth your time if you're into the Cubs, or the topic of the overzealousness of sports fans). By the time I left home--and for all intents and purposes long before--my fandom was signed in blood. I never had a say in who I ended up cheering for, or at least no time to ponder it before it sunk in irretrievably.
And I've had the chance to switch loyalties. I had just moved to Washington when Major League Baseball announced that the old Montreal Expos would be coming. And while the decision to become a Nationals fan might look pretty good right about now, it was never realistically going to happen. To have been here a few short months and have already assimilated that much and, implicitly, shunning my former beliefs? Just a year After Bartman? Any sports fan worth their memorabilia understands that there was never any conflict there. Because, at the risk of invoking an overplayed meme, one does not simply choose a sports allegiance.
I could've become a Red Sox fan and helped mankind achieve new heights in the field of obnoxiousness. I could've become a Phillies fan and learned how to hate life and myself, regardless how well the team does. I could've become a Yankees fan and never had to worry about thinking or feeling anything ever. I could've become a Rays fan or an Indians fan and ceased to exist. But this all assumes that there is ever a point at which a sports fan sits down and consciously decides what team to root for. This happens on occasion but it never sticks in any case that I've ever seen. And why should it? Without the revelatory moment of "I love this team" the interest withers as soon as the moment stops being exciting.
We're talking about cheering on millionaires with overactive pituitary glands chasing a ball around a meticulously landscaped field in large and ostentatious (and often taxpayer-funded) stadiums. We wear clothing with the team logos and our favorite athlete's name and number on them, signaling us as part of the flock. We have traditions and superstitions that we follow when watching these events--events in which we the fans have no direct effect upon the outcome whatsoever. We refer to the domes and stadiums at which these events take place as "cathedrals" and "holy ground;" at the older ones, we talk about the ghosts of long gone athletes and coaches watching the action--perhaps even playing small roles of their own, when convenient for the narrative. In these places, logic and reason are checked at the gate along with outside food and beverages.
Comparing sports fandom to genuine religious faith isn't fair, but the concepts share similar seeds. Most are born into it, as I was; the faith handed down through the generations. Others are raised agnostic and only come into their faith later, following moments of great excitement that forever bonds a fan with her team. Some others will marry into a faith, either having abandoned a previous one--opening harsh wounds with old friends and family--or never having had any of their own. Still others will experience a tragic rift with their team, anything from decades of poor performance to scandal to a team leaving town and having to start anew; though, especially in the last example, the aggrieved will often not return to any faith, having been too heartbroken to trust again. The point is, no fan ever really feels as though they choose their fandom--those that seem to can most often thank happenstance and serendipity, rather than reasoned analysis of the options. And if you ask fans, they'll tell you they couldn't change their affiliation if they wanted to (and sometimes, even despite the fact that they might want to). How could they, when they've already found Truth?
That's not to say we're unquestioning. We question frequently. And we'll abide or ignore the sometimes awful things done by our teams and the members of it because the team is, or needs to be, above than the foibles of mere mortals. More often, we'll rage at our athletes and coaches and front offices when things aren't going well. We'll appeal to the names of the aforementioned ghosts of the stadium and demand that those spirit-legends be counseled on everything from personnel issues to jersey colors. We'll spew our rage for weeks on end, but unless we've done it for years, we rarely leave the church altogether. Even those that do still carry around acres of old wiring; the ex-fan--unable to ignore Mother Team thanks to the interference of friends and family who remain within the fold--ever peripherally aware of his former team's transactions and transgressions, outside trying not to look in.
Sometimes, we become overzealous and even ruthlessly violent. We'll hound players and our fellow fans if they have not properly rewarded our faith and do not satisfactorily atone; we'll run them out of town on a rail (yes, that's another plug for Catching Hell). After absorbing enough alcohol prior to the sixth inning cut-off, we may resemble the religious fundamentalists of our modern age, decrying the unbelievers and the infidels and lashing out at those who enter our temples. Sometimes we attempt to exclude them from profaning our sanctuaries entirely. If not for the fact that we actually need other teams to exist in order for our teams to have opponents, we could probably stoop to much worse.
The point is: There are forces involved in sports fandom that cannot be reckoned with metrics and formulas and statistics. The phenomenon exists in a realm beyond analysis. And nothing about it--in all its communal glory and corrupting groupthink--can or should be examined with a spreadsheet.
It would be like trying to explain an economist's compulsive need to categorize everything around him for the sake of another blog post.
No "real costs." Said the same way that only people who have never been in love say "better to have loved and lost..." And filled with the same detached half-understanding endemic to any behavioral economist, ignorant of--and apparently unconcerned with--the realities of sports fandom.To pick a team that is known to lose is technically to anticipate a loss, but in a manageable, predictable way. There is no real loss to avoid; a win would merely be an unexpected bonus. Backing a more successful team raises the stakes by making wins just as viable as losses, so losing is more of a loss.
Teams like the Cubs give people a safe space in which to lose. Fans get the benefits of commiseration without incurring any real costs.
An aside: as you may have surmised, I am a Cubs fan. This is largely because my father was a Cubs fan. And his father was a Cubs fan before him. My early adolescence coincided with the 1998 season and the Sosa-McGwire home run race (whatever the numbers say and whatever shit has come to light and whatever my current feelings regarding Sosa, his name will always come before McGwire's) and the Cubs winning the N.L. Wild Card. The Cubs hit their high-water mark of the post-1945 era during my late teens. I was sixteen going on seventeen when The Bartman Game happened (an aside within the aside: ESPN Films' documentary Catching Hell is well worth your time if you're into the Cubs, or the topic of the overzealousness of sports fans). By the time I left home--and for all intents and purposes long before--my fandom was signed in blood. I never had a say in who I ended up cheering for, or at least no time to ponder it before it sunk in irretrievably.
And I've had the chance to switch loyalties. I had just moved to Washington when Major League Baseball announced that the old Montreal Expos would be coming. And while the decision to become a Nationals fan might look pretty good right about now, it was never realistically going to happen. To have been here a few short months and have already assimilated that much and, implicitly, shunning my former beliefs? Just a year After Bartman? Any sports fan worth their memorabilia understands that there was never any conflict there. Because, at the risk of invoking an overplayed meme, one does not simply choose a sports allegiance.
I could've become a Red Sox fan and helped mankind achieve new heights in the field of obnoxiousness. I could've become a Phillies fan and learned how to hate life and myself, regardless how well the team does. I could've become a Yankees fan and never had to worry about thinking or feeling anything ever. I could've become a Rays fan or an Indians fan and ceased to exist. But this all assumes that there is ever a point at which a sports fan sits down and consciously decides what team to root for. This happens on occasion but it never sticks in any case that I've ever seen. And why should it? Without the revelatory moment of "I love this team" the interest withers as soon as the moment stops being exciting.
We're talking about cheering on millionaires with overactive pituitary glands chasing a ball around a meticulously landscaped field in large and ostentatious (and often taxpayer-funded) stadiums. We wear clothing with the team logos and our favorite athlete's name and number on them, signaling us as part of the flock. We have traditions and superstitions that we follow when watching these events--events in which we the fans have no direct effect upon the outcome whatsoever. We refer to the domes and stadiums at which these events take place as "cathedrals" and "holy ground;" at the older ones, we talk about the ghosts of long gone athletes and coaches watching the action--perhaps even playing small roles of their own, when convenient for the narrative. In these places, logic and reason are checked at the gate along with outside food and beverages.
Comparing sports fandom to genuine religious faith isn't fair, but the concepts share similar seeds. Most are born into it, as I was; the faith handed down through the generations. Others are raised agnostic and only come into their faith later, following moments of great excitement that forever bonds a fan with her team. Some others will marry into a faith, either having abandoned a previous one--opening harsh wounds with old friends and family--or never having had any of their own. Still others will experience a tragic rift with their team, anything from decades of poor performance to scandal to a team leaving town and having to start anew; though, especially in the last example, the aggrieved will often not return to any faith, having been too heartbroken to trust again. The point is, no fan ever really feels as though they choose their fandom--those that seem to can most often thank happenstance and serendipity, rather than reasoned analysis of the options. And if you ask fans, they'll tell you they couldn't change their affiliation if they wanted to (and sometimes, even despite the fact that they might want to). How could they, when they've already found Truth?
That's not to say we're unquestioning. We question frequently. And we'll abide or ignore the sometimes awful things done by our teams and the members of it because the team is, or needs to be, above than the foibles of mere mortals. More often, we'll rage at our athletes and coaches and front offices when things aren't going well. We'll appeal to the names of the aforementioned ghosts of the stadium and demand that those spirit-legends be counseled on everything from personnel issues to jersey colors. We'll spew our rage for weeks on end, but unless we've done it for years, we rarely leave the church altogether. Even those that do still carry around acres of old wiring; the ex-fan--unable to ignore Mother Team thanks to the interference of friends and family who remain within the fold--ever peripherally aware of his former team's transactions and transgressions, outside trying not to look in.
Sometimes, we become overzealous and even ruthlessly violent. We'll hound players and our fellow fans if they have not properly rewarded our faith and do not satisfactorily atone; we'll run them out of town on a rail (yes, that's another plug for Catching Hell). After absorbing enough alcohol prior to the sixth inning cut-off, we may resemble the religious fundamentalists of our modern age, decrying the unbelievers and the infidels and lashing out at those who enter our temples. Sometimes we attempt to exclude them from profaning our sanctuaries entirely. If not for the fact that we actually need other teams to exist in order for our teams to have opponents, we could probably stoop to much worse.
The point is: There are forces involved in sports fandom that cannot be reckoned with metrics and formulas and statistics. The phenomenon exists in a realm beyond analysis. And nothing about it--in all its communal glory and corrupting groupthink--can or should be examined with a spreadsheet.
It would be like trying to explain an economist's compulsive need to categorize everything around him for the sake of another blog post.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Come On, Jurassic Park Scenario
Jack Horner, world-acclaimed paleontologist and technical adviser for the Jurassic Park movies has a plan to reverse-evolve chicken embryos to bring a living dinosaur into our world. I'm going to skip the part about how Horner--who, and this can't be repeated enough, helped guide Spielberg's dinosaur-crafting hands on Jurassic fucking Park--should recognize the danger in this plan. I'm also skipping the science, not because I don't entirely understand it (I don't) but because screw the details, the world needs dinosaurs again!
Of course, some of Horner's partners in this plan say it's merely about scientific curiosity and learning about what happened to these wonderful, amazing creatures as they died out and otherwise turned into birds. Now, as I recall (and I recall correctly), that's the exact same curiosity that led to Scottish-born entrepreneur John Hammond funding the technology to reproduce these animals wholesale. They can guise their work in any way they want because we know where it leads: someplace awesome.
My generation--people who were kids in the 90s--has shamefully forgotten its childhood. And by childhood, I mean the beautiful summer of '93 when we were all about Jurassic Park. Come on, you remember. That Jurassic Park t-shirt your mom had to beg you to let her wash once in a while. Those toys--the best bloody toys ever merchandised from a major movie franchise. That dinosaur book you carried everywhere you went because you weren't yet old enough to care that girls found it weird. Some of the more advanced among us even attempted to read Michael Crichton's original novel and understood maybe half of it but we didn't care because we understood the only words that mattered: T-fucking-Rex. And admit it, when you first read the word "dinosaur" up there, John Williams' theme immediately burst into your head.
2012 finally rolls around and the best our imaginations can do for apocalypse scenarios are zombies and global warming? Please. At this rate, we don't even deserve to be chased and trampled and eaten by Rexes and Raptors and other Clever Girls. To be pushed so far in our desperation to be rid of the terrible Thunder Lizards we've re-wrought upon the Earth that we use all of our most destructive weapons and take ourselves out in the process? But, sure, keep holding tight to your End Days fantasies of robots and super-viruses and Jesus. Guys like me and Jack Horner will be sitting over here, scoffing at your limited visions.
Fuck yeah, it is.
Of course, some of Horner's partners in this plan say it's merely about scientific curiosity and learning about what happened to these wonderful, amazing creatures as they died out and otherwise turned into birds. Now, as I recall (and I recall correctly), that's the exact same curiosity that led to Scottish-born entrepreneur John Hammond funding the technology to reproduce these animals wholesale. They can guise their work in any way they want because we know where it leads: someplace awesome.
My generation--people who were kids in the 90s--has shamefully forgotten its childhood. And by childhood, I mean the beautiful summer of '93 when we were all about Jurassic Park. Come on, you remember. That Jurassic Park t-shirt your mom had to beg you to let her wash once in a while. Those toys--the best bloody toys ever merchandised from a major movie franchise. That dinosaur book you carried everywhere you went because you weren't yet old enough to care that girls found it weird. Some of the more advanced among us even attempted to read Michael Crichton's original novel and understood maybe half of it but we didn't care because we understood the only words that mattered: T-fucking-Rex. And admit it, when you first read the word "dinosaur" up there, John Williams' theme immediately burst into your head.
2012 finally rolls around and the best our imaginations can do for apocalypse scenarios are zombies and global warming? Please. At this rate, we don't even deserve to be chased and trampled and eaten by Rexes and Raptors and other Clever Girls. To be pushed so far in our desperation to be rid of the terrible Thunder Lizards we've re-wrought upon the Earth that we use all of our most destructive weapons and take ourselves out in the process? But, sure, keep holding tight to your End Days fantasies of robots and super-viruses and Jesus. Guys like me and Jack Horner will be sitting over here, scoffing at your limited visions.
Fuck yeah, it is.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Obama Likes Gay Marriage. Good For Him.
I posted my review of Albert Brooks' 2030 right about the time Obama was telling ABC News that he "personally" thinks gay couples should be able to get married (and since I've been grading everything lately, I give Obama's endorsement a "B"). I knew it was happening even as I was completing the review, but wanted to finish that first because, well, I cared more about that. Like most everything else in Obama's presidency, my reaction to this was a measured "Cool. Now what?" If that sounds lukewarm, it's because it is; I long have been on him. I like him more than any other politician, but I learned long ago not to get too attached to any of them. Not because they're inherently untrustworthy necessarily--I've always found that point-of-view much, much too easy--but because their job descriptions and the people who would want those jobs are fucked up.
The left-wing moaning about "great timing," intoned in the most sarcastic voices they can manage, is stupid. As is all of their domestic issues-related hand-wringing over this guy. Yes, his (and others') vacillating is annoying, especially if you're of my generation and gay marriage is a no-brainer. But for a man of his generation, it's tougher. That's not to forgive the unforgivable hemming and hawing that leaves a whole segment of the population swaying in the wind with regard to their basic human rights, but how much do we seriously expect Obama to be able to do, even with an historic endorsement like this? At least for now, states decide the matter. I don't like that--it means the rights of the minority frequently take a backseat to the irrational whims of the tyrannical majority, but it's the system we have. Some will point to DOMA, but that's more Congress' ballpark and how often have they seen eye-to-eye with Obama these last few years? Now, if you are gay and especially if you're in a committed relationship and especially if you're living in North Carolina (or any other state that refuses your right to happiness)... I got nothing. I'm truly sorry. The worst part of government interference in people's personal lives is that it's turned a whole segment of the population into collateral damage, all because some screeching homophobes see nothing but a political football with which to score points. Smear the queer, indeed.
Some of my Republican friends will flog that pathetic canard that "both sides do it" and say that this constitutes a flip-flop. Yeah, it does. Obama supported gay marriage back in 1996 and then reversed that sometime prior to 2008, then supporting civil unions. That was the real flip. Now he's just flopped back. But if a presidential candidate is going to reverse himself on this issue, I greatly prefer thisevolution (let's please stop abusing that word) change of heart to Mittens' direction. Not that I care much about politicians' flip-flops. I expect it and, if not done too frequently, almost prefer it. It demonstrates that they are not unthinking or--more often--that they can respond to changing facts on the ground. What I do demand is coherence, something Romney often seems to lack, perhaps particularly on this.
We should take Obama's announcement for the brief "finally" it deserves and get back to things that can actually impact the issue, like overturning the existing nonsensical bans and making sure they don't get put in place in other states this year.
Next time: Dinosaurs!
The left-wing moaning about "great timing," intoned in the most sarcastic voices they can manage, is stupid. As is all of their domestic issues-related hand-wringing over this guy. Yes, his (and others') vacillating is annoying, especially if you're of my generation and gay marriage is a no-brainer. But for a man of his generation, it's tougher. That's not to forgive the unforgivable hemming and hawing that leaves a whole segment of the population swaying in the wind with regard to their basic human rights, but how much do we seriously expect Obama to be able to do, even with an historic endorsement like this? At least for now, states decide the matter. I don't like that--it means the rights of the minority frequently take a backseat to the irrational whims of the tyrannical majority, but it's the system we have. Some will point to DOMA, but that's more Congress' ballpark and how often have they seen eye-to-eye with Obama these last few years? Now, if you are gay and especially if you're in a committed relationship and especially if you're living in North Carolina (or any other state that refuses your right to happiness)... I got nothing. I'm truly sorry. The worst part of government interference in people's personal lives is that it's turned a whole segment of the population into collateral damage, all because some screeching homophobes see nothing but a political football with which to score points. Smear the queer, indeed.
Some of my Republican friends will flog that pathetic canard that "both sides do it" and say that this constitutes a flip-flop. Yeah, it does. Obama supported gay marriage back in 1996 and then reversed that sometime prior to 2008, then supporting civil unions. That was the real flip. Now he's just flopped back. But if a presidential candidate is going to reverse himself on this issue, I greatly prefer this
We should take Obama's announcement for the brief "finally" it deserves and get back to things that can actually impact the issue, like overturning the existing nonsensical bans and making sure they don't get put in place in other states this year.
Next time: Dinosaurs!
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
2030: The Real Story of What Happens To America
One of my favorite anecdotes involves a young comedian running into comedy legend Albert Brooks outside a grocery store. The young comedian stands in amazement and says, "I'm sorry to bother you, but I love your work." Brooks replies, "Do you? That's wonderful! Here, have all of my change!"
Albert Brooks' novel 2030: The Real Story of What Happens To America is not as funny as that. It never tries to be. What it does try to do is examine the debt crisis from the perspective of--you guessed it--the year 2030. Brooks establishes that not only has the debt crisis has not been solved by this point, it's actually gotten much worse. True to life, people have spent the intervening decades complaining about the debt, and making political hay out of complaining about the debt, but nothing's gotten done, aside from create a government where literally nothing can get done anymore. I mean, really nothing getting done, not even rebuilding Los Angeles after it gets leveled by a 9.1-magnitude earthquake. In 2030, people at first can't believe that the federal government can't do anything. Then they remember why that is.
Brooks gets a few heartstring tugs out of the devastation, usually centering on property loss and the resulting personal debt many face, particularly the older members of the population. Debt seems unavoidable and omnipresent at all levels, except for those lucky individuals who earned enough billions to no longer have to care, or inherited enough millions that it no longer impacts them, though they might pretend it does.
Brooks mentions that President Matthew Bernstein, the steward and likely victim of these impossible crises, was born in the 1980s. That makes him my age, to within half a decade, and gives him a perspective on the problems of debt and never-ending end-of-life care that are somewhere between the older generations' insistence on holding on to all they can, and younger generations' much more extreme bitterness over the fact. And then there are the political considerations, dragging Bernstein this way and that in the resources' tug of war, while he has several other things he'd rather attend to.
The word "boomer" is used twice in the book, once in the context of a generation soaking up resources as a matter of course while living seemingly forever, and that in a brief, emotion-driven dialogue piece. This is one of a few minor points where Brooks ignores a serious cause for the debt problem. Much of the potential insolvency of earned entitlements in the real world is due to the Boomers. Not in their refusal to die (no generation can claim that desire as their own), but in their size. Between the Greatest Generations' apparent disdain for contraceptives and new technologies keeping people alive longer, the Boomers attained--and have maintained--the prized status of demographic anomaly. They'll brag about all that was accomplished during the sixties, forgetting that it's a lot easier to make an impact through dropping out and protesting when you and your cohorts make up that much of the population. And their grip on power is not diminishing, as Brooks makes clear in 2030. He satisfyingly casts the AARP as a semi-major obstacle in most attempts to alleviate the crisis; their constituency being so vast by the year 2030 that its collective eyebrow raising is understandably terrifying for democratic leaders.
Of course, no resource is finite and that means there's a younger population getting screwed as "the olds" live longer and longer (among other things, cancer's been cured). Given that, one could see why the younger generation would be but resentful, except to the olds, who refuse to sympathize even at the expense of their own children and grandchildren, as Brooks explicitly writes at one point (and I'd be lying if I said this kind of childish refusal to understand the plight of those born into the situation didn't strike a chord). What starts with unconnected assaults on the olds soon grows into organized movements, requiring only leadership. It was impossible for me not to notice the similarities between 2030's Max Leonard and Nos Populus' James Reso. While Brooks' radical firebrand and my own do seem to share some DNA, they differ in a few key areas. James, of course, plays a much larger role in my book than Leonard does in 2030, and they have very different motivators, though a comparable devotion to their respective work. Leonard's radicalism is present nearly from the beginning, while James' bubbles up over time, after years of frustration. Finally, negotiations with their presidents is better planned-for by Leonard, but ultimately handled (marginally) better by James. Nevertheless, they share some very similar fates and resulting legacies.
It's a testament to Brooks' fair observation of the situation (he himself is a first wave Boomer) that he never anoints a hero. When the young refuse to engage or instead engage through terrorism, they lose any moral or practical grounds to improve their situation. Self-serving and overpowering though the olds are, they cannot be entirely blamed if the young are not organized and reasonable in their response, which the young of 2030 are not. In this way, 2030 reminded me of Christopher Buckley's excellent Boomsday in its depiction of an America so divided--not by ideology but by age--that the best hope of solving our problems are zany or terrifying strategies that sound effective but may never match our expectations.
The resulting inability for anyone to do anything about the debt means that when Los Angeles is destroyed, not even China is willing to help anymore, unless the U.S. is open to a somewhat radical new arrangement. And if you've ever heard a government official grouse about crippling debt (and you have), you can imagine the sorts of things that the government would be open to doing. Honestly, the deal that's made with the Chinese is intriguing to me at least on an aesthetic level, even if it does seem to cement the olds' untouchable status. And among Brooks' more potentially prescient moments (aside from a dozen or so consumer electronics he invents) is China's increasingly weary attitude toward its largest debtor giving rise to a previously unthinkable--though not necessarily offensive--outcome.
Brooks wisely does not attempt to solve the debt crisis. By the end of the book, with attention divided between L.A.'s rebuilding and the fallout from Max Leonard's mad scheme, the debt that had dominated the consciousnesses of everyone in the book has taken a backseat, while never truly being done away with. At least, the conditions that created it are still present, and a new president appears ready to double-down on some of them. The country cannot, will not shake itself free of its commitments and its debt. Maybe by 2050.
Grade: B+
----
Afterword: On the off chance that Albert Brooks ever reads this review: Hi. I know that I'm posting this almost exactly one year after the publication of 2030. I'm sorry. In my defense, I've only had this blog for about six weeks. Also, can I have all of your change?
Albert Brooks' novel 2030: The Real Story of What Happens To America is not as funny as that. It never tries to be. What it does try to do is examine the debt crisis from the perspective of--you guessed it--the year 2030. Brooks establishes that not only has the debt crisis has not been solved by this point, it's actually gotten much worse. True to life, people have spent the intervening decades complaining about the debt, and making political hay out of complaining about the debt, but nothing's gotten done, aside from create a government where literally nothing can get done anymore. I mean, really nothing getting done, not even rebuilding Los Angeles after it gets leveled by a 9.1-magnitude earthquake. In 2030, people at first can't believe that the federal government can't do anything. Then they remember why that is.
Brooks gets a few heartstring tugs out of the devastation, usually centering on property loss and the resulting personal debt many face, particularly the older members of the population. Debt seems unavoidable and omnipresent at all levels, except for those lucky individuals who earned enough billions to no longer have to care, or inherited enough millions that it no longer impacts them, though they might pretend it does.
Brooks mentions that President Matthew Bernstein, the steward and likely victim of these impossible crises, was born in the 1980s. That makes him my age, to within half a decade, and gives him a perspective on the problems of debt and never-ending end-of-life care that are somewhere between the older generations' insistence on holding on to all they can, and younger generations' much more extreme bitterness over the fact. And then there are the political considerations, dragging Bernstein this way and that in the resources' tug of war, while he has several other things he'd rather attend to.
The word "boomer" is used twice in the book, once in the context of a generation soaking up resources as a matter of course while living seemingly forever, and that in a brief, emotion-driven dialogue piece. This is one of a few minor points where Brooks ignores a serious cause for the debt problem. Much of the potential insolvency of earned entitlements in the real world is due to the Boomers. Not in their refusal to die (no generation can claim that desire as their own), but in their size. Between the Greatest Generations' apparent disdain for contraceptives and new technologies keeping people alive longer, the Boomers attained--and have maintained--the prized status of demographic anomaly. They'll brag about all that was accomplished during the sixties, forgetting that it's a lot easier to make an impact through dropping out and protesting when you and your cohorts make up that much of the population. And their grip on power is not diminishing, as Brooks makes clear in 2030. He satisfyingly casts the AARP as a semi-major obstacle in most attempts to alleviate the crisis; their constituency being so vast by the year 2030 that its collective eyebrow raising is understandably terrifying for democratic leaders.
Of course, no resource is finite and that means there's a younger population getting screwed as "the olds" live longer and longer (among other things, cancer's been cured). Given that, one could see why the younger generation would be but resentful, except to the olds, who refuse to sympathize even at the expense of their own children and grandchildren, as Brooks explicitly writes at one point (and I'd be lying if I said this kind of childish refusal to understand the plight of those born into the situation didn't strike a chord). What starts with unconnected assaults on the olds soon grows into organized movements, requiring only leadership. It was impossible for me not to notice the similarities between 2030's Max Leonard and Nos Populus' James Reso. While Brooks' radical firebrand and my own do seem to share some DNA, they differ in a few key areas. James, of course, plays a much larger role in my book than Leonard does in 2030, and they have very different motivators, though a comparable devotion to their respective work. Leonard's radicalism is present nearly from the beginning, while James' bubbles up over time, after years of frustration. Finally, negotiations with their presidents is better planned-for by Leonard, but ultimately handled (marginally) better by James. Nevertheless, they share some very similar fates and resulting legacies.
It's a testament to Brooks' fair observation of the situation (he himself is a first wave Boomer) that he never anoints a hero. When the young refuse to engage or instead engage through terrorism, they lose any moral or practical grounds to improve their situation. Self-serving and overpowering though the olds are, they cannot be entirely blamed if the young are not organized and reasonable in their response, which the young of 2030 are not. In this way, 2030 reminded me of Christopher Buckley's excellent Boomsday in its depiction of an America so divided--not by ideology but by age--that the best hope of solving our problems are zany or terrifying strategies that sound effective but may never match our expectations.
The resulting inability for anyone to do anything about the debt means that when Los Angeles is destroyed, not even China is willing to help anymore, unless the U.S. is open to a somewhat radical new arrangement. And if you've ever heard a government official grouse about crippling debt (and you have), you can imagine the sorts of things that the government would be open to doing. Honestly, the deal that's made with the Chinese is intriguing to me at least on an aesthetic level, even if it does seem to cement the olds' untouchable status. And among Brooks' more potentially prescient moments (aside from a dozen or so consumer electronics he invents) is China's increasingly weary attitude toward its largest debtor giving rise to a previously unthinkable--though not necessarily offensive--outcome.
Brooks wisely does not attempt to solve the debt crisis. By the end of the book, with attention divided between L.A.'s rebuilding and the fallout from Max Leonard's mad scheme, the debt that had dominated the consciousnesses of everyone in the book has taken a backseat, while never truly being done away with. At least, the conditions that created it are still present, and a new president appears ready to double-down on some of them. The country cannot, will not shake itself free of its commitments and its debt. Maybe by 2050.
Grade: B+
----
Afterword: On the off chance that Albert Brooks ever reads this review: Hi. I know that I'm posting this almost exactly one year after the publication of 2030. I'm sorry. In my defense, I've only had this blog for about six weeks. Also, can I have all of your change?
Monday, May 7, 2012
The Avengers (needs more Batman)
There are a lot of words floating around about how staggering it is that The Avengers movie was even allowed to happen. And yet more about how stunningly good a movie it was in the face of seemingly everything working against it. Both things are true, but I'll leave the former miracle for someone who's more of a Marvel fan to, erm... marvel about.
The Avengers is the definition of everyone's favorite adjective for this type of film: "fun." It's fun and it's exciting and it's extremely satisfying (favorite bit: Hulk hilariously beating the shit out of Loki). It's everything comic book fans dreamed and has almost everything a casual summer movie-going audience could want. It effectively balanced the four or five or six separate characters--and added two or three more to boot--giving each one the time they needed, with every one shining at least once or twice and no one getting shafted. Most impressively, Avengers is a film that could stand on its own, neither requiring the last five films (Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger) for context, nor laboring over back stories for those who might've missed out; having seen the others helps marginally, but is in no way mandatory. The movie even avoided--or downplayed--some of the other potential pitfalls I was worried about. Top of the list: the Whedonisms. They were there, of course, in all their pithy charm and grating neediness. A verbal spat amongst the members of the group halfway through the film starts out as a great dialogue scene, snappy and gripping, before descending into an overlong "look at Joss write and write and write." And simple bits of powerful dialogue sometimes got weighed down with unnecessary explanation (Banner's explanation of his suicide attempt) and some overwrought comic booky dialogue (Stark's "avenging the Earth" line, which Downey sold like a champ, though not even he had the charisma to pull it off). I realize that those last few sentences are irrational on my part and more than likely have something to do with my natural inclination to disproportionally highlight Whedon's negatives because... someone needs to, I guess (a post for another time). But the fact remains that the movie is great and the stuff I said above about the being fun and successfully balancing the ensemble cast is probably 75% Whedon's doing, with his comic book background and subsequent love and affection for these characters. The movie came together so beautifully because of him, not in spite of him.
You don't care about my grade, but because I might as well: A-. We'll see how it holds up on multiple viewings. The loss of the full "A" has something to do with a probably unfair anticipatory comparison. Because we'll have another superhero movie later this summer aiming not merely for popcorn fun, but for something much more.
For me, Avengers is an appetizer for The Dark Knight Rises. Avengers was the movie that needed to open the summer; it's big, explosive, and fun--there's that word again--and that's how people want to kick off the month of May, as the weather warms up and they prepare for the joys of summer they remember from childhood (even if they're now working adults and haven't had a proper summer vacation in five years or ten or twenty). One cannot watch this and think that TDKR will be Avengers fun. And I'm fine with that. In part because these Batman films have not gone for the same type of feel (perhaps excepting Batman Begins, but that was never Avengers territory) and also because I prefer the grittier--bordering on foreboding--type of story that Christopher Nolan has put together. One story celebrates superhero exploits in all their blood-pumping glory. The other explores the psychological and philosophical ramifications of those exploits and satisfies the superego as much as it does the id. One seeks to provide momentary escapism from the uncertainty of the modern world. The other holds a mirror up to the uncertainty, a bat-themed commentary on the state of the nation. One unabashedly screams "Make Mine Marvel!" The other is Batman, brooding on a rooftop. The superhero genre has room for both.
Phrasing it as a "debate" between the films is a little overblown, but the philosophies are worlds apart and deserve a comparative evaluation. The Marvel movie universe has been all about popcorn fun and, for the most part, succeeded wildly especially with this most recent one. Nolan's Batman, on the other hand, has taken the gritty route, something Batman is uniquely suited for. A regular man (if insanely wealthy and perhaps also psychotic) choosing to become a superhero not because he was born with or acquired special powers, but because he has the means, the motive, and the opportunity. Iron Man is similar, but even he has his high-tech robo-suit (and though a grittier take on Tony Stark would be possible, Marvel Studios has preferred to plant him firmly in the fun camp). Batman is very much vulnerable to even the most pedestrian weapons--guns, knives, lethal laughing gas, etc. Which brings up a point many have pondered before: why would someone do this without actual superpowers? Well, put simply, it makes him badass. And not Wolverine's "I can't die, so where's the dramatic threat?" badassery, either. Batman is a mortal being who devotes himself so thoroughly to his mission that he can regularly hang with the likes of Superman. Something every comics fan knows about Batman: given time to prepare, he can take anybody. He is forged by a world that looks very much like our own--give or take a few homicidal clowns. But when he needs to step up to fight intergalactic threats, he will. And he'll hold his own in those battles. Because he's Batman. That's badassery and its why, superpowers or no, he's the most recognizable and, arguably, popular superhero the world over. It's what makes him not only my favorite superhero, but my favorite fictional character period.
But examined in any semi-realistic context (with which one would never examine, say, Thor), it brings up some uncomfortable truths about what this character would have to be. Rather than use his fortune to improve the lives of the less fortunate, or hire Gotham's thugs at Wayne Enterprises and keep them off the streets, he spends his nights spying on citizens and beating up, torturing, and generally scaring the hell out of criminals--even the low level ones. At some point, his very mission becomes quixotic, and possibly self-defeating; Batman may be as responsible for his villains' existence as they themselves are. And if you're going to have a film franchise specifically highlighting Batman's relative plausibility, you eventually have to address the fact that not only will he not be necessarily popular, but that he might not even be necessarily right. Much as the concept confuses Robert Downey, Jr., heroics are sometimes not enough. A man without godlike powers sometimes needs to accept what he can't do and stop being the hero. This requires a kind of reflection that Avengers never attempts--wisely; it indulges a world where people "believe in heroes." There would be no room for pesky things like moral ambiguity even if it were dealing with only one hero. Nolan's Batman films, on the other hand, take their cue from the post-1980's deconstruction of the superhero. When you bring these characters into our world, they lose some of their luster and become susceptible to consequences. Imagine what Hulk's rampage in the Manhattan financial district would've done to an already crippled economy. Avengers doesn't have the right tone to properly address things like this. There's some brief hand-wringing about SHIELD's construction of weapons of mass destruction, but it's ignored in due time. Nolan's films give us a world where consequences are unavoidable and often painful. And they're leading us to the very real possibility that Bruce Wayne is not Batman at the end of this trilogy. Or, more alarmingly, that he may not even survive. And though it puts me in the minority, I will always choose this type of somewhat headier film over popcorn fun.
Warner Bros. will reboot Batman in a few years' time. They'll likely try to make a Batman that fits better with the Justice League team-up movie that's now going to happen. Yes, it will. It's financially irresistible. The question is, will it be good? I don't know. A lot of that will depend on the choices that Warner and DC make. If they get their heads out of their asses, get a good team behind them, take cues from The Dark Knight and not Green Lantern, it could be great. But even if it is, it will still have to confront the other pressing question: whether or not Avengers took all the air out of the superhero room. Because it might have.
It was that bloody good.
The Avengers is the definition of everyone's favorite adjective for this type of film: "fun." It's fun and it's exciting and it's extremely satisfying (favorite bit: Hulk hilariously beating the shit out of Loki). It's everything comic book fans dreamed and has almost everything a casual summer movie-going audience could want. It effectively balanced the four or five or six separate characters--and added two or three more to boot--giving each one the time they needed, with every one shining at least once or twice and no one getting shafted. Most impressively, Avengers is a film that could stand on its own, neither requiring the last five films (Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger) for context, nor laboring over back stories for those who might've missed out; having seen the others helps marginally, but is in no way mandatory. The movie even avoided--or downplayed--some of the other potential pitfalls I was worried about. Top of the list: the Whedonisms. They were there, of course, in all their pithy charm and grating neediness. A verbal spat amongst the members of the group halfway through the film starts out as a great dialogue scene, snappy and gripping, before descending into an overlong "look at Joss write and write and write." And simple bits of powerful dialogue sometimes got weighed down with unnecessary explanation (Banner's explanation of his suicide attempt) and some overwrought comic booky dialogue (Stark's "avenging the Earth" line, which Downey sold like a champ, though not even he had the charisma to pull it off). I realize that those last few sentences are irrational on my part and more than likely have something to do with my natural inclination to disproportionally highlight Whedon's negatives because... someone needs to, I guess (a post for another time). But the fact remains that the movie is great and the stuff I said above about the being fun and successfully balancing the ensemble cast is probably 75% Whedon's doing, with his comic book background and subsequent love and affection for these characters. The movie came together so beautifully because of him, not in spite of him.
You don't care about my grade, but because I might as well: A-. We'll see how it holds up on multiple viewings. The loss of the full "A" has something to do with a probably unfair anticipatory comparison. Because we'll have another superhero movie later this summer aiming not merely for popcorn fun, but for something much more.
For me, Avengers is an appetizer for The Dark Knight Rises. Avengers was the movie that needed to open the summer; it's big, explosive, and fun--there's that word again--and that's how people want to kick off the month of May, as the weather warms up and they prepare for the joys of summer they remember from childhood (even if they're now working adults and haven't had a proper summer vacation in five years or ten or twenty). One cannot watch this and think that TDKR will be Avengers fun. And I'm fine with that. In part because these Batman films have not gone for the same type of feel (perhaps excepting Batman Begins, but that was never Avengers territory) and also because I prefer the grittier--bordering on foreboding--type of story that Christopher Nolan has put together. One story celebrates superhero exploits in all their blood-pumping glory. The other explores the psychological and philosophical ramifications of those exploits and satisfies the superego as much as it does the id. One seeks to provide momentary escapism from the uncertainty of the modern world. The other holds a mirror up to the uncertainty, a bat-themed commentary on the state of the nation. One unabashedly screams "Make Mine Marvel!" The other is Batman, brooding on a rooftop. The superhero genre has room for both.
Phrasing it as a "debate" between the films is a little overblown, but the philosophies are worlds apart and deserve a comparative evaluation. The Marvel movie universe has been all about popcorn fun and, for the most part, succeeded wildly especially with this most recent one. Nolan's Batman, on the other hand, has taken the gritty route, something Batman is uniquely suited for. A regular man (if insanely wealthy and perhaps also psychotic) choosing to become a superhero not because he was born with or acquired special powers, but because he has the means, the motive, and the opportunity. Iron Man is similar, but even he has his high-tech robo-suit (and though a grittier take on Tony Stark would be possible, Marvel Studios has preferred to plant him firmly in the fun camp). Batman is very much vulnerable to even the most pedestrian weapons--guns, knives, lethal laughing gas, etc. Which brings up a point many have pondered before: why would someone do this without actual superpowers? Well, put simply, it makes him badass. And not Wolverine's "I can't die, so where's the dramatic threat?" badassery, either. Batman is a mortal being who devotes himself so thoroughly to his mission that he can regularly hang with the likes of Superman. Something every comics fan knows about Batman: given time to prepare, he can take anybody. He is forged by a world that looks very much like our own--give or take a few homicidal clowns. But when he needs to step up to fight intergalactic threats, he will. And he'll hold his own in those battles. Because he's Batman. That's badassery and its why, superpowers or no, he's the most recognizable and, arguably, popular superhero the world over. It's what makes him not only my favorite superhero, but my favorite fictional character period.
But examined in any semi-realistic context (with which one would never examine, say, Thor), it brings up some uncomfortable truths about what this character would have to be. Rather than use his fortune to improve the lives of the less fortunate, or hire Gotham's thugs at Wayne Enterprises and keep them off the streets, he spends his nights spying on citizens and beating up, torturing, and generally scaring the hell out of criminals--even the low level ones. At some point, his very mission becomes quixotic, and possibly self-defeating; Batman may be as responsible for his villains' existence as they themselves are. And if you're going to have a film franchise specifically highlighting Batman's relative plausibility, you eventually have to address the fact that not only will he not be necessarily popular, but that he might not even be necessarily right. Much as the concept confuses Robert Downey, Jr., heroics are sometimes not enough. A man without godlike powers sometimes needs to accept what he can't do and stop being the hero. This requires a kind of reflection that Avengers never attempts--wisely; it indulges a world where people "believe in heroes." There would be no room for pesky things like moral ambiguity even if it were dealing with only one hero. Nolan's Batman films, on the other hand, take their cue from the post-1980's deconstruction of the superhero. When you bring these characters into our world, they lose some of their luster and become susceptible to consequences. Imagine what Hulk's rampage in the Manhattan financial district would've done to an already crippled economy. Avengers doesn't have the right tone to properly address things like this. There's some brief hand-wringing about SHIELD's construction of weapons of mass destruction, but it's ignored in due time. Nolan's films give us a world where consequences are unavoidable and often painful. And they're leading us to the very real possibility that Bruce Wayne is not Batman at the end of this trilogy. Or, more alarmingly, that he may not even survive. And though it puts me in the minority, I will always choose this type of somewhat headier film over popcorn fun.
Warner Bros. will reboot Batman in a few years' time. They'll likely try to make a Batman that fits better with the Justice League team-up movie that's now going to happen. Yes, it will. It's financially irresistible. The question is, will it be good? I don't know. A lot of that will depend on the choices that Warner and DC make. If they get their heads out of their asses, get a good team behind them, take cues from The Dark Knight and not Green Lantern, it could be great. But even if it is, it will still have to confront the other pressing question: whether or not Avengers took all the air out of the superhero room. Because it might have.
It was that bloody good.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
On Mittens' Governing Potential
There's been much talk about the resignation of Mittens' foreign policy spokesman, Ric Grenell. Or maybe it just seems that way to me because I read a lot of Andrew Sullivan and he's spent the last day or so pummeling this thing as thoroughly as any non-Sarah Palin issue in recent memory. The reason for the brouhaha (a word that I will continue to try to revive the usage of) is that Grenell was, by all accounts, forced out of the campaign. Not because he wasn't of the proper ideological bent--he was a fiery eyed-neocon, and probably had the dodgy CT scans to prove it--or because he was inexperienced--he's been 'round since the mid-90s. Those reasons would make too much sense. The real problem was, he's openly gay.
Liberal readers are feigning shock right now. As did I. But many others--including even Sullivan--often need to be re-reminded just how far gone the modern GOP is. Liberals understand that implicitly; it's the reason many of us are here to begin with. The alliance Republicans made with the religious right all those decades ago sealed it; and you don't shrug off a group that large and that devoted without painful consequences. Especially not when you're a guy like Romney, who doesn't have the chops as far as many of them are concerned. When you're as suspect as he is, you have to tread carefully and the path you have to tread is further to the right than it would be for a genuine far right-winger, who'd be allowed a certain degree of impurity on occasion--already a trusted member of the club, and all that.
I don't know Romney's position on Grenell. Or gay rights. Or anything, really, except wanting to be president. But I do know that this counts as a bizarre capitulation over a very small thing. A bolder man could've withstood the brief firestorm from the extreme flank of his party, a firestorm that was sure to pass as the general drew nearer. He could've pointed out that Grenell was exactly what Republicans want in the field of foreign policy thought right now. He could've retained his anti-gay rights position to please the base and mention (rightly) that Grenell's position as foreign policy spokesman didn't matter--clearly Grenell didn't care about that until recently. He could've even survived the resignation handily, if he hadn't already borne the flip-flopper stain (he said in 1994 that he'd be more pro-gay rights than Ted Kennedy). But Mittens could not do these things.
How would such a man govern, you think? With a Congress that will not be any less conservative after November, regardless who wins the White House, and a base that will bay for blood and will not stop because they will have a president who will give them all they demand. And how, as others have pointed out, can you huffily say that you'd have stood up to bin Laden*--or anything else--when the homophobes of your own party just beat you down?
*A statement Grennell could make for you... oh, right.
----
Afterword: I'm reading some things saying that Grennell's leaving might've had more to do with the long trail of angry, bile-ridden tweets and blog posts he's left (and had tried to excise). Possibly. But even if this is the case, it's still demonstrative of a poorly run campaign not vetting well enough in a post-Palin environment. And then preferring to spin the version that makes it look like it backed down from the far right of the party. That's much better, right?
Liberal readers are feigning shock right now. As did I. But many others--including even Sullivan--often need to be re-reminded just how far gone the modern GOP is. Liberals understand that implicitly; it's the reason many of us are here to begin with. The alliance Republicans made with the religious right all those decades ago sealed it; and you don't shrug off a group that large and that devoted without painful consequences. Especially not when you're a guy like Romney, who doesn't have the chops as far as many of them are concerned. When you're as suspect as he is, you have to tread carefully and the path you have to tread is further to the right than it would be for a genuine far right-winger, who'd be allowed a certain degree of impurity on occasion--already a trusted member of the club, and all that.
I don't know Romney's position on Grenell. Or gay rights. Or anything, really, except wanting to be president. But I do know that this counts as a bizarre capitulation over a very small thing. A bolder man could've withstood the brief firestorm from the extreme flank of his party, a firestorm that was sure to pass as the general drew nearer. He could've pointed out that Grenell was exactly what Republicans want in the field of foreign policy thought right now. He could've retained his anti-gay rights position to please the base and mention (rightly) that Grenell's position as foreign policy spokesman didn't matter--clearly Grenell didn't care about that until recently. He could've even survived the resignation handily, if he hadn't already borne the flip-flopper stain (he said in 1994 that he'd be more pro-gay rights than Ted Kennedy). But Mittens could not do these things.
How would such a man govern, you think? With a Congress that will not be any less conservative after November, regardless who wins the White House, and a base that will bay for blood and will not stop because they will have a president who will give them all they demand. And how, as others have pointed out, can you huffily say that you'd have stood up to bin Laden*--or anything else--when the homophobes of your own party just beat you down?
*A statement Grennell could make for you... oh, right.
----
Afterword: I'm reading some things saying that Grennell's leaving might've had more to do with the long trail of angry, bile-ridden tweets and blog posts he's left (and had tried to excise). Possibly. But even if this is the case, it's still demonstrative of a poorly run campaign not vetting well enough in a post-Palin environment. And then preferring to spin the version that makes it look like it backed down from the far right of the party. That's much better, right?
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Scott Meets Family Circus
It's days like today that I really miss Scott Meets Family Circus. Nothing especially rough or meaningful has happened to me today, but I get these pangs every so often. In times of plenty or in times of want, there's always something satisfying about seeing a bland, undeserving American icon get shat upon. Not broken down and analyzed, or even sliced apart, as with a rapier--that would be boring and useless--but mercilessly beaten, as with a sledgehammer, for little reason other than because it's so easy.
From September 2008 to August 2011, Scott irregularly but hilariously harassed The Family Circus family. It didn't matter that they could never fight back. If anything, it probably helped--their passivity was a natural partner for their banal exploits and inoffensive observations. Scott was an anarchic force so alien and unknowable to the family--and yet inevitable--that his presence was that of an emotional and psychological tornado. He may not directly hit every character on a given pass, but he'll have touched someone or something they cared about. And he'd be coming back. He was a dose of hyper-reality, crashing into an ever-unchanging universe, exposing The Family Circus' personal hell of being incapable of expressing real thoughts about real situations. Aside from the ill-advised and brief existence of Dante, a side story that showed hints of promise but was never right for the format, Scott was a freight train running full bore into the complacent family, forcing them to confront the real world and their reactions to it in whatever feeble way they could manage. In that way, Scott was the invaluable dramatic element that the family never knew they needed, and could never be done without again. Even if they might've preferred to.
I know nothing about Scott Gairdner, that creepy-looking weirdo with the penchant for intimidating and belittling cartoon pre-kindergartners before banging their mother. I don't know what his circumstances are or why he hasn't posted anything in almost nine months. It seems probable that the death of creator Bil Keane in November lightened Scott's heart and he decided to quit, or at least go on hiatus (even though the strip continues with Keane's son at the helm). I hope it's not a lack of inspiration or decline of interest on his part, though these things do happen. But wherever you are, here's to you, Scott, you magnificent bastard.
I know nothing about Scott Gairdner, that creepy-looking weirdo with the penchant for intimidating and belittling cartoon pre-kindergartners before banging their mother. I don't know what his circumstances are or why he hasn't posted anything in almost nine months. It seems probable that the death of creator Bil Keane in November lightened Scott's heart and he decided to quit, or at least go on hiatus (even though the strip continues with Keane's son at the helm). I hope it's not a lack of inspiration or decline of interest on his part, though these things do happen. But wherever you are, here's to you, Scott, you magnificent bastard.
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