Of all meals, it is perhaps breakfast that has best withstood the test of time. Everyone loves breakfast. Ron Swanson loves breakfast. Our society invented brunch, a whole new meal, just so we could have breakfast again. And I'm pretty sure that breakfast-for-dinner pre-dated brunch, but, whatever the chronology, we're up to a potential three breakfasts per day. We live in the Land of a Lot of Breakfast, and all I want is a bagel and a cup of tea or two. And a vegetable juice. And perhaps some bacon. Okay, I like breakfast, too. I won't be a contrarian on breakfast. Which is probably why Dogfish Head's Beer For Breakfast Stout didn't immediately scream "cheap stunt" to me. That and because Dogfish doesn't do cheap stunts. Even when their experiments fall flat, I'm usually glad they tried. And when they have a beer that they tell you up front involves scrapple, you believe them.
BFB pours very dark: syrupy dark.
Light on the nose, but there's an unmistakable smokiness, reminiscent of pork smoke. But not midday barbecue pork. More like first-thing-in-the-morning, bacon smoke.
The smoke comes back on the tongue. BFB isn't classified as a rauchbier, but could nearly pass for one, disrupted only by the hefty malt profile and quite a bit of coffee. Smoke, bread, coffee. It's almost like there's a theme happening here.
It's heavy-bodied, almost like one of those counter-intuitive breakfasts that puts you right back to sleep, but in a good "it's a long weekend" kind of way.
What might've been a novelty concept in another brewer's hands turns out to be a satisfying beer here. Hearty and comforting, BFB makes for a good breakfast, but I'll recommend it as a nightcap instead. Beer for dessert. There: we're up to four breakfasts now. Thank you, Dogfish Head.
Grade: A-
Friday, December 30, 2016
Monday, November 7, 2016
I'm With Her
False equivalencies between political candidates are likely as old as democracy itself. "Thucydides is corrupt and Aesop is a liar. It's rigged. We live in an oligarchy, man," someone wearing a toga may have said, probably. I know nothing about Ancient Greece.
These false equivalencies become genuinely destructive when they give comfort to the worst impulses of those they accurately depict. If all politicians are thought to be unscrupulous liars, the most unscrupulous liars have an advantage over the less capable liars, who in turn have an advantage over those who want to act ethically. It's not long before the first group has feasted on the bones of the latter two.
It's one thing to be dissatisfied with your choices this election; that's understandable. It's quite another to let that dissatisfaction convince you that somehow these two candidates are equally unpalatable. Better people than I have broken down the juxtaposition between Hillary Clinton, former senator and secretary of state, and Donald Trump, former reality TV host and vodka salesman. And yet we're still here, actually hashing this out because we as a nation remain committed to the idea that these two figures must be comparable until the final tallies have been made tomorrow night. Anything else would be unfair.
No one wants things to be unfair. Which is why it's perfectly fair that Clinton, (twice) declared clear of any wrongdoing by an agency that clearly has it out for her, can be compared less than favorably to a man who, whatever the result of the election, will be on trial for fraud later this month. Because fraud is hard to establish in the court of public opinion (even when the defendant has put in an impressive amount of time in courtrooms), but putting "Clinton" and "emails" in the same headline is easy.
It's not unfair to point out that the Clinton Foundation presents an ethical quagmire that might act as a breeding ground for corruption. But we need to wait for the verdict to come in before we can say that Trump University was, provably, a Ponzi scheme.
It's also perfectly fair to question Clinton's judgment in her choice of advisors, particularly after the estranged husband of her closest advisor wasn't content to torpedo his own career and managed to posthumously damage Clinton's as well. Never mind that Clinton, more than perhaps anyone in the universe, is someone who can have empathy for Huma Abdein and that standing by her friend proves extremely inconvenient for all those "cold, insatiable, power-hungry Hillary" fantasies so many of us have had swimming around in our heads for so long. But we have to be careful when documenting Trump's relationship with a former campaign manager who thought little of physically restraining a reporter for asking a question. Or how the KKK's newspaper (yes, they still exist and, yes, they have a newspaper, I guess?) formally endorsed Trump. The Trump campaign rejected the endorsement, duh, but most people, in that same position (you know, all those people who would've somehow, perhaps as a result of a silly mix-up, found themselves the recipient of an endorsement from the Klan), probably would've responded with an Arrested Development meme rather than barreling forward. But that's the kind of thing that happens when you are your own best advisor, apparently.
And it's perfectly fair to hammer Clinton on her "basket of deplorables" comment from a few months ago (I'll remind you of the KKK thing from the last paragraph; no reason). But we have to allow for some nuance when Trump mocked a disabled reporter (for being disabled), when he attacked a gold star family because he (the billionaire presidential candidate) had "a right to defend himself," when he offered to pay the legal fees for any of his supporters who attacked protestors at his events, when he got those same supporters to harass the media at those events while wearing t-shirts with this printed on them and... I... I don't have the energy anymore.
One of these things is definitively not like the other. You may not like the taste of fennel, but right now it's either that or raw sewage.
 |
| Using this again because I like it. |
There's a school of thought among some observers that we need to apologize for our support of Clinton. I don't buy that. And I find it disingenuous and a little cowardly, too. I'm going to go over some points I made more succinctly on the podcast this month, but these cannot be overstated if only because she deserves to be thought of worthy of this office and not just a (much) better alternative to her opponent.
To start, the woman is strong as hell. She has put up with more nonsense than any presidential candidate of my lifetime. Some of that is just the kind of shit a woman puts up with in a male-dominated field. Some of it is the insane fixation so many people have had on her for so long; the same gross impulse that has forced so many to qualify their support of her. But our country could use a dose of whatever it is she's bringing to the table. Not only because it stands the smallest chance of decreasing the nonsense that ambitious women put up with going forward, but because we've all gotten pretty whingey lately and could use a steel-toed designer pump up our collective ass right about now.
Because despite everything, she not only gets up every morning, but does so with a genuine desire to go to bat for us--us!--who put her through this every day. I'd have had myself sealed in a whiskey barrel after a week of the kind of treatment she gets. After a month, Trump would be on the ground in the fetal position, mumbling "losers" over and over again. She's done this for thirty bloody years. Who's going to stare this woman down? Putin? China? Some other international threat I don't have the psychic energy to focus on right now?
Another point, and I touched on this in the podcast (seriously, go there for the short version--we also talk about clowns): I believe in the value of a functioning government. If you follow the insidery talk, you know that Republicans who knew and worked with Clinton when she was a senator... actually kinda like her. Behind closed doors, some even praise her. They won't admit to it in public (admitting that you like Clinton is worse for your career than threatening to not even listen to her should she get in), but people who know her like her. It's the rest of us who are perpetually giving her the stink eye.
So while we're still looking at gridlock and Potemkin investigations, so much of that will be due to Congress' broken nature, something no president can fix. Underneath that, we're going to get basic governance: mildly acceptable deals being made, nothing set on fire, what we've come to expect. I suspect she'll actually fair better than Obama, who took the same "shut up, I don't care" tack that all good-hearted and reasonable people would've done when working with Congress. But Clinton's been stewing in the swamp for a long time--she can go to work for four years and deliver us a few wins. Underwhelming? Sure. But as long as we're not hurtling headlong toward Ragnorak, I can chalk it up as a win.
Clinton's had her hands on various levers of power over the last few decades and if that sullies her in some peoples' eyes, it's because there is a dangerous shortage of optometrists in the country. The experienced pol may seem unclean, but hiring someone who's never done anything like governing is madness. Politics is the only field where someone with less experience is considered more qualified to do the job, because modern politics is Wonderland, apparently. But you don't hire a tattoo artist to perform heart surgery on you and you don't give our nuclear arsenal to a newb. That shouldn't require explanation. Clinton knows how Washington works (and how it doesn't), she knows how to get things done, and she has advisers that aren't herself.
The Atlantic magazine has a venerable, 160-year history. I'm a dick with anxiety issues and access to the Internet. I am not on the same level as The Atlantic. But when it issued its third ever presidential endorsement this year, extolling Clinton in the same measure with which it denounced Trump as "the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American presidency," it gave dicks like me a a little bit of cover. And while words like "fascism" have lost a lot of power through overuse in the last decade and cries of impeding doom for our republic are way too easy to make, there is a lot that about Trump that I cannot let slide.
Someone who says he may not accept the results of the election, and tells his supporters that that election is rigged (before it's even finished), solely because he is losing does not have the temperament to be president.
Someone who talks about women and minorities the way he does, and treats people the way he does, does not have the humanity to be president.
Someone with so little regard for the first amendment does not have the integrity to be president.
Someone who orders his steak well-done does not have the judgment to be president.
This whole awful thing is almost over. What comes after might be worse, whether through a Trump presidency, Trump contesting the election (regardless how close the finally tally), or a slicker politician running with the ball that his tiny hands fumbled. But if we can get one moment, akin to the one we got eight years ago, when we make an historic choice and choose the eminently qualified woman, with all her flaws, and reject the Raging American Id of hate and divisiveness and pettiness... well, that might actually make the last sixteen months worthwhile.
Right?
Friday, November 4, 2016
Anno Catulorum
They were down three games to one. Of course they had to go down three to one. Of course they'd have to come back to tie the series only to blow a 5-1 lead late in Game 7. Of course once it was tied, the rains would begin to fall, delaying extra innings (a phenomenon already observed by a time-traveler). And of course the Cubs would have to escape a 10th inning rally by the skin of their teeth to... yes, we can say it now... win the World Series. The baseball gods wouldn't allow them to win any other way. Nor would they allow Cleveland to lose any other way. They consider cruelty a virtue.
I envy baseball fans who had no rooting interest in this World Series. It must've been a blast. I aged two years in a week. And it was worth it.
If this World Series had been done as a movie, everyone would walk out because it would be insulting and obnoxious. The screenwriter would be a hack. The director would be a treacle-addled fluff-merchant. Joe Maddon would be played by Eddie Redmayne. It would be terrible. This is why sports are better than movies. But, some time in the next few years, this will be turned into a fantastic documentary (it'll
Next year was this year. And, baseball gods help us, next year will also be next year. This is a great young team that will mostly be intact, just a couple of pieces gone: Grandpa Rossy (enjoy your retirement, old man, you've earned it); maybe Fowler (get paid, dude, you deserve it); Chapman (good). But they'll get Kyle Schwarber (Bambino Mark III) back full-time. They'll have a hopefully refurbished J-Hey (dare we dream of having 2015 Heyward on this squad?). And a whole crew of young guns who have been to the mountaintop. The physical gifts of youth paired with the mental fortitude granted by having won: imagine the fear that a mature Javier Baez could strike in opposing teams and fans alike. This team is going to continue being very, very good. They'll need to be.
The Dodgers are still very good. The Nationals are hungry--and ready. The Mets are a decent trainer away from being a threat. And the Cardinals... the Cardinals. Meanwhile, over in the AL, Cleveland will be healthy and angry and terrifying.
But for now, the Cubs are world champions. So celebrate, family. Laugh. Cry. Toast those who didn't get to see this.
Next year, we go for another.
Go Cubs Go.
Friday, October 7, 2016
It's October.
The best record in baseball. The best pitching in baseball. The best defense. Two solid MVP candidates. Two (or three) solid Cy Young candidates. One mad genius of a manager.
And eleven wins to go. Eleven wins until a lot of heartache is relieved. Eleven wins until a century of faith is validated. Eleven wins until we, the fans, achieve new heights in the field of obnoxious fandom.
Let's go.
And eleven wins to go. Eleven wins until a lot of heartache is relieved. Eleven wins until a century of faith is validated. Eleven wins until we, the fans, achieve new heights in the field of obnoxious fandom.
Let's go.
Friday, September 16, 2016
It's Only September
The division is clinched. Homefield advantage is within striking distance. If ever there was a Cubs team that was made to win, Maddon & Co. are it. We, as Cubs fans, should be enjoying this ride because this year has been fun as hell. Even the pre-Break slump helped provide a baseline of sorts--a lengthy reminder that, yes, we're still watching the Cubs--and that just made what came after all the more exhilarating. And on both ends of that slide, they've been frighteningly good. Their bats are so solid that even when one or two guys go cold (Heyward and Zobrist, as I write this), they still have three or four other guys who can fill those holes (Soler, Russell, and Contreras, as I write this). Bryant, meanwhile, is putting together a convincing MVP campaign that's sometimes been obscured by the funhouse that Rizzo's been building. Their rotation includes Arrieta, Lester, and Lackey, but its their number three starter (Hendricks) who's boasting a baseball-leading 2.03 ERA, with Lester just behind him. They went 22-6 in August. 22-6.
This summer has been way too hot and the wider world has been unrelentingly awful and I almost don't care about any of that because the Cubs have been so, so, so good. My point here is that one day we're going to look back on 2016 and realize that it was a lot more fun than some of us are currently appreciating.
But to tell myself that I need to relax and enjoy the spectacle means I that have to ignore my own struggles with anxiety. Academically, of course, I can do that: I can lay out all the reasons why I should strap in and devote myself to the journey, not the destination. You can analyze any situation rationally and verify everything, making sure that the logic is 100% sound, and know in your higher brain functions that every little thing is gonna be alright. But anxiety doesn't work that way.
Just because I can run through the numbers doesn't mean that I don't get flashbacks to the 2008 squad that dominated the league from April to September only to shit the bed in a three-game slow motion nightmare in October. And with the phrase "slow motion nightmare in October," I'm now getting flashbacks to 2003. If we care to dig through some more numbers, 538 calculates that the Cubs have a 22% chance of winning the World Series. And that's actually really high; the Red Sox, with the second-highest odds, sit at 15%. But that still leaves a 78% chance that the Cubs don't get it done this year. And Fangraphs puts the Cubs' odds at 17.2%, (with the Sox at 15.5% and the Dodgers at 14.8%), leaving a failure to convert chance of 82.8%. Winning the Series is just that dependent on dumb luck and fleeting hot streaks. So we shouldn't even be looking at numbers like that, but part of anxiety's power comes from its ability to make you look for and provide its own fuel.
So, again, I know that, rationally-speaking, I have every reason to stop putting so much stock in a World Series title. I've had panic attacks over genuine anxieties that, if they came to pass, would've been far more devastating to me than whether the Cubs go another year without a title; I owe anxiety some credit in forcing me to have some perspective. But those experiences have also left me with some blindspots when it comes to less crucial subjects. My anxiety and my Cubs fandom likely have very little to do with one another; the former is so skilled by now that it would find something to latch onto, regardless what club I cheer for. Although, I do suspect that the pressure to see my team win (can you feel pressure in an entirely passive situation?) has not paired well with my anxiety. But because I live with both, I end up spending a lot of time trying to keep that anxiety from poisoning my fandom. Luckily, I've had some practice.
When considering the benefits of trying to enjoy this season while it lasts (mindfulness, as some professionals call it) the anxious mind can become divided against itself. If one can focus on smaller scale hurdles, anxiety's instinct to mull over all the nightmare scenarios becomes distracted by the little steps along the way. Clinching the division, and then securing homefield, and then each series in turn once October begins. It's the long stretches of nothingness that allow anxiety to stretch its legs; it's the same reason that your brain suddenly summons everything it thinks you should be worrying about just as you're trying to fall asleep. Because your brain hates you. But the good news is that anxiety doesn't have be conquered en masse (it's really not advisable to do it that way). Just day to day, game to game, series to series. I am not a trained therapist.
This year has been more fun than we ever could've imagined. And after last year's finish, we imagined quite a lot. And, since Spring Training, they've been setting us up for one hell of a finish. But that's for next month. For now, it's only September.
This summer has been way too hot and the wider world has been unrelentingly awful and I almost don't care about any of that because the Cubs have been so, so, so good. My point here is that one day we're going to look back on 2016 and realize that it was a lot more fun than some of us are currently appreciating.
But to tell myself that I need to relax and enjoy the spectacle means I that have to ignore my own struggles with anxiety. Academically, of course, I can do that: I can lay out all the reasons why I should strap in and devote myself to the journey, not the destination. You can analyze any situation rationally and verify everything, making sure that the logic is 100% sound, and know in your higher brain functions that every little thing is gonna be alright. But anxiety doesn't work that way.
Just because I can run through the numbers doesn't mean that I don't get flashbacks to the 2008 squad that dominated the league from April to September only to shit the bed in a three-game slow motion nightmare in October. And with the phrase "slow motion nightmare in October," I'm now getting flashbacks to 2003. If we care to dig through some more numbers, 538 calculates that the Cubs have a 22% chance of winning the World Series. And that's actually really high; the Red Sox, with the second-highest odds, sit at 15%. But that still leaves a 78% chance that the Cubs don't get it done this year. And Fangraphs puts the Cubs' odds at 17.2%, (with the Sox at 15.5% and the Dodgers at 14.8%), leaving a failure to convert chance of 82.8%. Winning the Series is just that dependent on dumb luck and fleeting hot streaks. So we shouldn't even be looking at numbers like that, but part of anxiety's power comes from its ability to make you look for and provide its own fuel.
So, again, I know that, rationally-speaking, I have every reason to stop putting so much stock in a World Series title. I've had panic attacks over genuine anxieties that, if they came to pass, would've been far more devastating to me than whether the Cubs go another year without a title; I owe anxiety some credit in forcing me to have some perspective. But those experiences have also left me with some blindspots when it comes to less crucial subjects. My anxiety and my Cubs fandom likely have very little to do with one another; the former is so skilled by now that it would find something to latch onto, regardless what club I cheer for. Although, I do suspect that the pressure to see my team win (can you feel pressure in an entirely passive situation?) has not paired well with my anxiety. But because I live with both, I end up spending a lot of time trying to keep that anxiety from poisoning my fandom. Luckily, I've had some practice.
When considering the benefits of trying to enjoy this season while it lasts (mindfulness, as some professionals call it) the anxious mind can become divided against itself. If one can focus on smaller scale hurdles, anxiety's instinct to mull over all the nightmare scenarios becomes distracted by the little steps along the way. Clinching the division, and then securing homefield, and then each series in turn once October begins. It's the long stretches of nothingness that allow anxiety to stretch its legs; it's the same reason that your brain suddenly summons everything it thinks you should be worrying about just as you're trying to fall asleep. Because your brain hates you. But the good news is that anxiety doesn't have be conquered en masse (it's really not advisable to do it that way). Just day to day, game to game, series to series. I am not a trained therapist.
This year has been more fun than we ever could've imagined. And after last year's finish, we imagined quite a lot. And, since Spring Training, they've been setting us up for one hell of a finish. But that's for next month. For now, it's only September.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
An Uncomfortable Question
In Andy Warhol Was A Hoarder, author Claudia Kalb examines the lives of various historical figures and consults with psychologists and mental health experts to search for an understanding of how those figures were fueled by ailments that medical science did not yet fully understand (and, in some cases, still doesn't). From Warhol's hoarding, to Marilyn Monroe's borderline personality disorder, to Howard Hughes' OCD, Kalb provides compelling cases for what they might be diagnosed with according to the DSM-5. The book probably falls short of perfect analysis, but it's also a lot higher than typical pop psychology, treating its subjects with sensitivity and sympathy.
One of the sections I found most striking was the chapter on architect Frank Lloyd Wright, about whom I knew nothing going in. But reading Kalb's analysis of the man, an examination of narcissistic personality disorder, I found myself drawing comparisons that I had no business drawing, not least because those comparisons immediately seemed too... facile? Too obvious? One of those, probably. Kalb writes: "Impertinent, pioneering, and dramatic, Wright embraced his ego throughout his life, used it to get ahead and promoted it to the world without an ounce of modesty."
A bit further on, discussing Wright's less-than-reliable autobiography, she says: "Rewriting one's past is characteristic of narcissistic people, who become adept at embellishing life stories to enhance their self-image. What matters is that Wright's account is the truth that he fashioned and wished others to believe."
Later, she lays out the checklist for NPD: "a grandiose sense of self-importance; a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love... ; a need for excessive admiration; a sense of entitlement; exploitative behavior in relationships; a lack of empathy..." To name just a few.
Where could I possibly be going with this?
The comparison between Wright and Donald Trump, a thatch-roofed bologna loaf, is not a perfect one-to-one. Kalb cites Wright's son, John, in noting that "money didn't have value, other than getting [Wright] what he wanted." For Trump, however, money is everything--both the means and the end to anything a person might pursue. Also, Wright could be cold, even cruel, toward his children; John reported that, while working for his father, Wright Senior would deduct from John's salary everything that his son had cost him throughout his life, "including obstetrics." Trump, on the other hand, adores his children. Although that adoration does sometimes express itself in inappropriate and horrifying ways.
And yet. Both Wright and Trump are builders. They both revel in self-promotion. They've even both set up, ahem, schools to spread their wisdom to future generations. At Wright's Taliesin, "apprentices took part in running the day-to-day operations of the 200-acre estate... They hoed the fields, tended the manure pit, cooked meals, did laundry, hauled stones, cut trees, and built their own lodging. There was no formal instruction; instead, apprentices were awarded the opportunity to work alongside Wright in his studio. The annual price tag for this privilege was steep. Initially set at $650--more than Ivy League tuition--it quickly grew to $1,100." At Trump University... well, maybe I should reserve judgment until the lawsuit is finished.
Now, the Goldwater Rule exists for a reason. And I am not a trained psychologist. And I have not spoken with professional mental health experts, as Kalb did. And truth be told, I can only spell "psychiatry" with the help of spellcheck. So for me to try to analyze a man I have never met is not so much 'irresponsible and unethical' as it is 'dumb and pointless.' But as someone who thinks about these subjects far more than is healthy, I can say that I've reached a very uncomfortable conundrum.
In his delightful book, How To Fight Presidents, Dan O'Brien puts forward that "Only a person with an unfathomably huge ego and an off-the-charts level of blind self-confidence and an insatiable hunger for control could look at America, in all of her enormity, with all of her complexity, with all of her beauty and flaws and strength and power, and say, 'Yeah. I should be put in charge of that.'" And in my review of that book, I wrote, "Presidents are insane. We need them to be or we'd have no one else willing to do the job." I bought O'Brien's assertion. I still kinda do. So where does that leave me vis-a-vis Trump, who so energetically embodies that assertion?
Feeling a sudden need to take a very long shower, it seems to me that the best way to analyze Trump by O'Brien's standard would be to call him overqualified for the presidency. I know, I know: gross. But it's a pill that might be worth swallowing. Because that's a diagnosis that I feel comfortable applying. And if we believe that all he really wants is the attention, maybe in this case we should give the baby his bottle.
One of the sections I found most striking was the chapter on architect Frank Lloyd Wright, about whom I knew nothing going in. But reading Kalb's analysis of the man, an examination of narcissistic personality disorder, I found myself drawing comparisons that I had no business drawing, not least because those comparisons immediately seemed too... facile? Too obvious? One of those, probably. Kalb writes: "Impertinent, pioneering, and dramatic, Wright embraced his ego throughout his life, used it to get ahead and promoted it to the world without an ounce of modesty."
A bit further on, discussing Wright's less-than-reliable autobiography, she says: "Rewriting one's past is characteristic of narcissistic people, who become adept at embellishing life stories to enhance their self-image. What matters is that Wright's account is the truth that he fashioned and wished others to believe."
Later, she lays out the checklist for NPD: "a grandiose sense of self-importance; a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love... ; a need for excessive admiration; a sense of entitlement; exploitative behavior in relationships; a lack of empathy..." To name just a few.
Where could I possibly be going with this?
The comparison between Wright and Donald Trump, a thatch-roofed bologna loaf, is not a perfect one-to-one. Kalb cites Wright's son, John, in noting that "money didn't have value, other than getting [Wright] what he wanted." For Trump, however, money is everything--both the means and the end to anything a person might pursue. Also, Wright could be cold, even cruel, toward his children; John reported that, while working for his father, Wright Senior would deduct from John's salary everything that his son had cost him throughout his life, "including obstetrics." Trump, on the other hand, adores his children. Although that adoration does sometimes express itself in inappropriate and horrifying ways.
And yet. Both Wright and Trump are builders. They both revel in self-promotion. They've even both set up, ahem, schools to spread their wisdom to future generations. At Wright's Taliesin, "apprentices took part in running the day-to-day operations of the 200-acre estate... They hoed the fields, tended the manure pit, cooked meals, did laundry, hauled stones, cut trees, and built their own lodging. There was no formal instruction; instead, apprentices were awarded the opportunity to work alongside Wright in his studio. The annual price tag for this privilege was steep. Initially set at $650--more than Ivy League tuition--it quickly grew to $1,100." At Trump University... well, maybe I should reserve judgment until the lawsuit is finished.
Now, the Goldwater Rule exists for a reason. And I am not a trained psychologist. And I have not spoken with professional mental health experts, as Kalb did. And truth be told, I can only spell "psychiatry" with the help of spellcheck. So for me to try to analyze a man I have never met is not so much 'irresponsible and unethical' as it is 'dumb and pointless.' But as someone who thinks about these subjects far more than is healthy, I can say that I've reached a very uncomfortable conundrum.
In his delightful book, How To Fight Presidents, Dan O'Brien puts forward that "Only a person with an unfathomably huge ego and an off-the-charts level of blind self-confidence and an insatiable hunger for control could look at America, in all of her enormity, with all of her complexity, with all of her beauty and flaws and strength and power, and say, 'Yeah. I should be put in charge of that.'" And in my review of that book, I wrote, "Presidents are insane. We need them to be or we'd have no one else willing to do the job." I bought O'Brien's assertion. I still kinda do. So where does that leave me vis-a-vis Trump, who so energetically embodies that assertion?
Feeling a sudden need to take a very long shower, it seems to me that the best way to analyze Trump by O'Brien's standard would be to call him overqualified for the presidency. I know, I know: gross. But it's a pill that might be worth swallowing. Because that's a diagnosis that I feel comfortable applying. And if we believe that all he really wants is the attention, maybe in this case we should give the baby his bottle.
Monday, August 8, 2016
Suicide Squad
WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW
Somewhere there's an alternate universe where alternate me didn't previously know about Suicide Squad's last minute re-shoots. Or that, for a time, there were two competing cuts of the film that stemmed from WB's anxiety over the critical response to BvS. One cut was of director David Ayer's grimmer original vision, the other was a lighter and more colorful ode to the well-received (and outstanding) trailers from earlier this year. But once I knew about them, it was hard not to see it. A victim of the struggle between the grimdark that WB had initially embraced for the DCCU and the lighter fun that moviegoers turned out to actually want, Suicide Squad is a confused and conflicted offering whose back-and-forth tonal disparities hurt an otherwise engaging flick.
The final cut is a mix of the two that were screened for test audiences, plus bits from the re-shoots, and that shows in choices that might not have been so odd if not for their placement together. In one moment, Enchantress is darkly conjuring her doomsday weapon while ominous music swells, in another she's shimmying her shoulders while monologuing for Amanda Waller. Meanwhile, El Diablo, a metahuman with pyrokinesis, states at various points that his powers came "from the Devil," but it's still jarring when he turns into an enormous literal fire demon in the climax. And a few members of the Squad get two different introductions, one loving and indulgent with lots of neon highlights, the other grimmer and stingier on time.
I don't know which cut deserves credit for the soundtrack. We should probably just thank Guardians of the Galaxy.
Despite the tonal problems, Squad soars with some excellent character work. Ayer and the actors push through limited screen time to outline some decent motivations and the film allows just enough space to showcase some strong personalities (it's almost like they're out of a comic book). Please excuse the bullet points.
- Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn was a worry for me going in because Harley is one of my favorite characters in comics and I recommend Amanda Conner's run on her book to anyone who will listen, but Robbie brings all of Harley's charm to the screen without making us sick of her. Actually, Squad could've used more of her. I had also worried, based on the marketing (and Hollywood's preoccupations) that Harley's ass would be at least as prominent a character as the rest of her. Her ass is certainly present, but not as much as I had anticipated. Still, it could take a backseat (I see what I did there) in her solo movie... or her team-up movie with Poison Ivy.
- I have personal problems with Jared Leto. I might explain those problems in writing one day. Until then, I will remember that he had the fearlessness to follow Ledger. And that the Joker's aesthetic probably wasn't entirely up to him (I don't see Joker sitting still long enough to get tattoos, do you?). And though he seemed to try too hard to put his own spin on the character, somewhere around the Ace Chemicals flashback, he had me buying in. The Joker-Harley relationship is horrifying and tragic. The romanticization of it is creepy and a bad-read and diminishes Harley. The spirit of that weirdly engrossing relationship is here, poking up through the rushed backstory. It's a highlight of the film. But then I recall Leto's moronic pranks during filming and I'm back to rolling my eyes. People will like you more if you stop trying so hard, Jared Leto.
- Will Smith is impressive as Deadshot.
- I didn't know much about Jay Hernandez or El Diablo going in, but his emotional trauma provided a nice touchstone, while also grounding a character that would've been crazy overpowered for this team.
- Joel Kinnaman had a tough act following Tom Hardy's departure, but he holds up well in a role that could've been little more than hard-ass military dude trying to boss around a bunch of comic book villains. However, I wonder if either cut of the film had June Moone stay dead following Rick Flag's killing of Enchantress, adding meaning to that sacrifice. Still, I'll look on the bright side: Moone wasn't fridged.
- Finally, holy shit Viola Davis. A movie that's not trying would depict Amanda Waller as a stoic government agent with access to a lot of important secrets. But Waller requires presence. She requires unspoken authority. She requires awe-inspiring dread and a Machiavellian will to play anyone and everyone like a fiddle until she doesn't need them to play anymore. Batman should be a little afraid of Waller. So I shouldn't need to tell you how gratifying it is to see that Davis nails the Wall. I know that Bruce Wayne/Batman is supposed to be the connective tissue for the DCCU, but that role could just as easily fall to Waller. And I kind of want it to.
Not all characters get the lingering lamp shade treatment. It's a very large cast. And I'd like to spend more time with each of them. The ones who are still alive, anyway.
I liked this movie. But I wanted to really, really, really like this movie. And that, I believe, is the DCCU's primary hurdle right now. The bulk of the audience for these movies was given grandiose adventures by the DCAU of the 90's and early 00's. Add in what Marvel's done with their properties in recent years and it's easy to see how an underwhelming movie becomes OMG TEH WORST MOVIE EVAR!!!1!!
If this sounds a lot like my thoughts following BvS, it's because I feel the same now as I did then: this is going to be a process and I'm willing to stomach some growing pains if the larger universe can grow in the right direction. There are some great elements here. In addition to Batman and Wonder Woman, we now have Harley, Waller, Deadshot, and the Flash. Meanwhile, Squad largely ditches BvS's cynicism. And while the tonal problems keep the movie from achieving more, the fact that WB is shifting its direction so openly, if also awkwardly, is a good sign.
Grade: B-
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Infomocracy
"You would think, with all the access to Information, that people would pay more attention to what their governments do in other centenals, but you know what they say: you can give a voter Information, but you can't make him think."
--Malka Older, Infomocracy
In a semi-distant future, a social mega-network named Information provides the infrastructure for people to do seemingly everything, from business to play to politics. Using one of the global micro-democracy's decennial elections as a stage, author Malka Older follows a handful of political operatives and social network bureaucrats to examine the intersections of information and democracy and what humanity does at those intersections.
As a guy who loves information and people having access to that information, I find Information (a kind of Facebook-Wikipedia hybrid for everyone and everything) to be bloody fantastic. As a guy who loves privacy and the scrupulous use of information, I find Information to be bloody scary. That dichotomy is something that Older explores in Infomocracy's better touches. In an early scene, one of our lead characters, Ken, a political operative whose principles appear to be flagging, checks the personal Information of a flight attendant who has allowed some of her Information to be public. While he doesn't pick up much beyond what is public, another lead character, Mishima, an agent for Information, frequently uses her considerable skill and access to peruse Information in a way that someone like Ken would never think to. In a smaller, more personal story, where the stakes didn't have to be--literally--worldwide, there would be room for Older to explore this tension between the usefulness and creepiness of near-unlimited Information.
Such a story might also give us more time with Mishima, a fantastically drawn character who, in less-skilled hands, might've become a competence porn figure. Her hyper-competence and workaholic nature are balanced by her mistrust and paranoia, faults that she not only possesses but acknowledges (if only to herself and, later, to Ken) in a refreshing take on an old trope.
Information, like information, is neither good nor bad but can and is used for both. Its indispensability makes it both revered and distrusted, depending on which character Older is working with. It doesn't matter so much what types of information one makes available, it's who's using it. And why. With a tool so big and necessary, the micro-democracy, and therefore the world, is ripe for hi-jacking.
In an election year, you'd think--or at least I had thought--that the micro-democracy and election-hacking would be the most intriguing items. Curiously, this wasn't the case. The idea and execution of the elections were interesting, but the shadowy machinations were a bit too shadowy. It would help to know what the stakes are: who the political parties are (policies, like some characters, are sometimes only briefly outlined) and what the characters behind the conspiracies stand to gain or lose. The techno-thriller that takes up the last act of the book loses momentum because I know that I should be outraged by the scheming (and in theory, I am--election-hacking is bad) but my level of investment was not what it might have been.
Still, Older has constructed a wonderfully flawed and detailed society. And there were clearly a lot of details left on the cutting room floor, such as how the world gave itself over to the micro-democracy and how Information managed to become the conduit for that democracy (the theme of "who's really in charge here" is a nicely subtle one throughout the book). Having had experience rendering too much exposition, I appreciate Older's wisdom in not bothering to explain everything.
Indeed, she seems to want to share a lot more. By giving us a world-spanning, high-stakes, high-concept sci-fi thriller, she leaves us with the broad strokes, sacrificing some of the juicy detail that might be better provided from an on-the-ground viewpoint of someone living in the micro-democracy, under Information. More time with someone like Doumaine, an under-utilized character who is working to undermine the micro-democracy until he mostly disappears for the second half, would give us a new take on Older's society, fleshing it out. If Infomocracy has one flaw, it's that there's too much to show and too little space to do it in. But maybe that's what the sequel will be for.
Grade: A-
--Malka Older, Infomocracy
In a semi-distant future, a social mega-network named Information provides the infrastructure for people to do seemingly everything, from business to play to politics. Using one of the global micro-democracy's decennial elections as a stage, author Malka Older follows a handful of political operatives and social network bureaucrats to examine the intersections of information and democracy and what humanity does at those intersections.
As a guy who loves information and people having access to that information, I find Information (a kind of Facebook-Wikipedia hybrid for everyone and everything) to be bloody fantastic. As a guy who loves privacy and the scrupulous use of information, I find Information to be bloody scary. That dichotomy is something that Older explores in Infomocracy's better touches. In an early scene, one of our lead characters, Ken, a political operative whose principles appear to be flagging, checks the personal Information of a flight attendant who has allowed some of her Information to be public. While he doesn't pick up much beyond what is public, another lead character, Mishima, an agent for Information, frequently uses her considerable skill and access to peruse Information in a way that someone like Ken would never think to. In a smaller, more personal story, where the stakes didn't have to be--literally--worldwide, there would be room for Older to explore this tension between the usefulness and creepiness of near-unlimited Information.
Such a story might also give us more time with Mishima, a fantastically drawn character who, in less-skilled hands, might've become a competence porn figure. Her hyper-competence and workaholic nature are balanced by her mistrust and paranoia, faults that she not only possesses but acknowledges (if only to herself and, later, to Ken) in a refreshing take on an old trope.
Information, like information, is neither good nor bad but can and is used for both. Its indispensability makes it both revered and distrusted, depending on which character Older is working with. It doesn't matter so much what types of information one makes available, it's who's using it. And why. With a tool so big and necessary, the micro-democracy, and therefore the world, is ripe for hi-jacking.
In an election year, you'd think--or at least I had thought--that the micro-democracy and election-hacking would be the most intriguing items. Curiously, this wasn't the case. The idea and execution of the elections were interesting, but the shadowy machinations were a bit too shadowy. It would help to know what the stakes are: who the political parties are (policies, like some characters, are sometimes only briefly outlined) and what the characters behind the conspiracies stand to gain or lose. The techno-thriller that takes up the last act of the book loses momentum because I know that I should be outraged by the scheming (and in theory, I am--election-hacking is bad) but my level of investment was not what it might have been.
Still, Older has constructed a wonderfully flawed and detailed society. And there were clearly a lot of details left on the cutting room floor, such as how the world gave itself over to the micro-democracy and how Information managed to become the conduit for that democracy (the theme of "who's really in charge here" is a nicely subtle one throughout the book). Having had experience rendering too much exposition, I appreciate Older's wisdom in not bothering to explain everything.
Indeed, she seems to want to share a lot more. By giving us a world-spanning, high-stakes, high-concept sci-fi thriller, she leaves us with the broad strokes, sacrificing some of the juicy detail that might be better provided from an on-the-ground viewpoint of someone living in the micro-democracy, under Information. More time with someone like Doumaine, an under-utilized character who is working to undermine the micro-democracy until he mostly disappears for the second half, would give us a new take on Older's society, fleshing it out. If Infomocracy has one flaw, it's that there's too much to show and too little space to do it in. But maybe that's what the sequel will be for.
Grade: A-
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Anchor Argonaut Collection: Flying Cloud
Lot of beers lay claim to flight. Fish. Dogs. And I guess that's about it. But now Anchor has unveiled Flying Cloud, the first of its Argonaut Collection that I've had the pleasure of drinking. Now, I love beer, as all good-hearted people do. But if I were going to assign flight to an alcoholic beverage, beer would not be first up. Beer is heavy. Even the light ones are basically alcoholic bread. So "flying" is not what I feel like doing after having a beer or two or seven. And yet so many aspire to flight. I admire the ambition. As to what alcohol would fly? I don't know. Champagne? It's light, it's fluffy. It's an overrated experience that seems to get more expensive every year. The cork achieves liftoff. So, yeah, champagne gets to have flight.
Flying Cloud pours deep black, with a head that's a bit closer to brown. Not sure how these colors make for a "cloud," but... it's named for a boat? Huh.
It comes at you with a very malty nose, but it also includes a syrupy-chocolate smell that's very enticing.
The Cloud is very dry, with just a little coffee coming through. The beer also puts every bit of its 7.4% ABV on the tongue. That's not a complaint.
It's surprisingly light-bodied for a stout, with a hint of carbonation. I was initially worried that I had found this one at the wrong time of year, but the lightness balances the rest in a way I don't usually expect of a stout.
Despite the body, this is still one to hold onto until late fall, when it will be more welcome. Dark and dry with a slightly-above-average ABV, Flying Cloud already feels to me like a solid go-to, at least it would if not for Argonaut's limited nature. Craft beer can be such a tease sometimes.
Grade: B+
Flying Cloud pours deep black, with a head that's a bit closer to brown. Not sure how these colors make for a "cloud," but... it's named for a boat? Huh.
It comes at you with a very malty nose, but it also includes a syrupy-chocolate smell that's very enticing.
The Cloud is very dry, with just a little coffee coming through. The beer also puts every bit of its 7.4% ABV on the tongue. That's not a complaint.
It's surprisingly light-bodied for a stout, with a hint of carbonation. I was initially worried that I had found this one at the wrong time of year, but the lightness balances the rest in a way I don't usually expect of a stout.
Despite the body, this is still one to hold onto until late fall, when it will be more welcome. Dark and dry with a slightly-above-average ABV, Flying Cloud already feels to me like a solid go-to, at least it would if not for Argonaut's limited nature. Craft beer can be such a tease sometimes.
Grade: B+
Monday, July 11, 2016
It's Only July
Remember a few weeks back when, despite seemingly everything going my way as a Cubs fan, my neuroses and insecurity still managed to bubble up, thoroughly ruining any enjoyment I fully deserved to enjoy?
Dammit, do I hate being right.
As of this writing, the Cubs are going into the All-Star break having just narrowly avoided a sweep in Pittsburgh, which happened to end a five-game losing streak (which would've been a nine-gamer if the Reds had started last Monday's rally a bit sooner). That caps off a 10-17 record dating back to June 13th, a month that includes getting swept by the Cardinals at home and a particularly humiliating four-game sweep at New York. And, yeah, they're still seven games up in the division, with the second best record in baseball. But this is where they're sitting after a 43-18 start. And yet... maybe we're just spoiled following that historically notable start. Is this little more than an extended slump? Or something more horrifying?
A lot of this is nothing more than the natural neurosis of being a Cubs fan. But precisely because this year was supposed to be the Season of Destiny, it needs to be broken down, if only to explore and understand the demons we're currently dealing with. I usually like to start with the bad news, and then seehow if the good balances it out.
The bad news:
The good news:
So repeat after me: It's only July.
Dammit, do I hate being right.
As of this writing, the Cubs are going into the All-Star break having just narrowly avoided a sweep in Pittsburgh, which happened to end a five-game losing streak (which would've been a nine-gamer if the Reds had started last Monday's rally a bit sooner). That caps off a 10-17 record dating back to June 13th, a month that includes getting swept by the Cardinals at home and a particularly humiliating four-game sweep at New York. And, yeah, they're still seven games up in the division, with the second best record in baseball. But this is where they're sitting after a 43-18 start. And yet... maybe we're just spoiled following that historically notable start. Is this little more than an extended slump? Or something more horrifying?
A lot of this is nothing more than the natural neurosis of being a Cubs fan. But precisely because this year was supposed to be the Season of Destiny, it needs to be broken down, if only to explore and understand the demons we're currently dealing with. I usually like to start with the bad news, and then see
The bad news:
- The pitching staff, Arrieta included, turned mortal sometime after Memorial Day. Remember last year, when Arrieta's Cy Young season was being lauded in particular because he had never pitched that many innings before? 229 innings in 2015 after never having pitched more than 156, only breaking 100 four times in seven seasons. And then, free to let fly all year, he turned into a beast. At this point, you obviously worry about how that workload affects him going forward. So when he starts to show a little wear midway into his post-Cy Young year, it feels as though his arm has literally fallen off. All because his ERA isn't below 2.00 anymore (count a vote for us being spoiled).
- The break that the All-Star Game is supposed to provide is lost because the Cubs have seven guys going to San Diego (yes, I share some responsibility for that, you're welcome) and if the National League gets slaughtered, everyone in baseball will know how vulnerable this once indomitable Cubs team is.
- The spate of injuries (and injury scares) starting with Schwarber's ACL has been... troubling? That's probably a strong word. The DL seems a lot longer than it actually is, at least it did to me. But when a team is already struggling and you get yet another mobile update saying that Zobrist or Bryant (or both) have been taken out of the game, it doesn't engender a lot of confidence. Which leads me to my final negative...
- Us. You don't have to travel too far to find Cubs fans bitching about this skid. Maybe it feels like we've deserved the chance to moan, but recall that we've created needlessly oppressive atmospheres before. Too many Cubs fans aren't reflective enough to understand how much harder we make an already difficult task.
The good news:
- As stated, the Cubs are still seven games up in the division. Sure, it was more fun to be fifteen games up, but apparently neither the Pirates nor the Cardinals have been interested in taking advantage of the opportunity that's been dropped in their laps. And if that gap narrows further, you know what's more fun than throttling the rest of the division all season long? A year-end divisional race that keeps your team loose and ready for October.
- The trade deadline looms and the Cubs have some very recent and painful experience with teams that explode after making the right deals. If we're really good, maybe Baseball Santa will leave us with a whole new bullpen. Except for Rondon. Leave Rondon alone, he's fine.
- Hector Rondon.
- A chunk of this fall-off is the result of injuries (and injury scares), Fowler most notably. Those guys will come back. Too many late season collapses happen because guys are tired and, as it stands now, a lot of guys will be well-rested.
- Meanwhile, Maddon is a guy who knows how to adjust. And his teams historically do better in the second half.
- Relatedly, this is the kind of time that a great start is supposed to buy--a chance to see what's on the horizon. Simultaneously, it offers a couple of months for slumping starters to work through whatever's causing them to blow games in innovative and interesting ways. What else is July for?
- After all, this slump could've happened in September. Then we'd be right to panic. There's a lot--perhaps too much--baseball left to play.
So repeat after me: It's only July.
Monday, June 27, 2016
Fremdschämen
You're probably familiar with the concept of schadenfreude, a German word meaning to take pleasure in someone else's misfortune. It's a common enough feeling and it never takes much for a person to drop the word whenever it's remotely relevant; it's kind of like "irony" was before we ruined that word. But there's another German word, similar but with a different spin and at least as relevant, that I think we're going to want to be familiar with.
Fremdschämen (first recognized in German dictionaries in 2009) is the feeling one gets from being crushingly embarrassed for someone else. The state of experiencing fremdschämen is simply "fremdscham," without the cool yet mildly annoying umlaut.
Fremdschämen (first recognized in German dictionaries in 2009) is the feeling one gets from being crushingly embarrassed for someone else. The state of experiencing fremdschämen is simply "fremdscham," without the cool yet mildly annoying umlaut.
Fremdschämen, I hope you'll agree, is at least as useful a concept as schadenfreude. Whole friendships are built on navigating through and around fremdscham-wracked moments. A chunk of modern day child-rearing is geared toward avoiding fremdscham. Fremdscham is the reason The Office worked. To feel fremdscham is to be embarrassed not by someone else, but for them, indicating that some degree of empathy is necessary. Fremdschämen, then, is a perfect complement to schadenfreude because experiencing it tells us that we are not sociopaths.
Having mentioned embarrassment and sociopathy, it may finally be time for me to turn to Donald Trump. Alright, here's the deal: I don't want to talk about Trump. One of the benefits of my semi-voluntary hiatus was not having to think about the campaign this deeply. I had plans to do some other things with this blog in the next few months--pleasant things. But there's a short-fingered gorilla in the room and, with him addressed, I'll be able to move on. So hold your nose with me, reader, we're going in.
Trump, a poorly-carved Jack o' Lantern that's been left to rot since October, gets most of his press these days for remarks that have been construed as offensive. And racist. And misogynistic. And incoherent. And untethered from reality. And these are all valid observations worth examining. But there's another aspect of the way he expresses himself that I would like to address.
You may have seen the great video about Trump's use of language that first made the rounds a few months back, although that had more to do with his sentence construction. What I'd like to explore isn't new for Trump. Consider his longstanding nickname: "The Donald." It's just his name with "the" in front of it. It's simple, it demonstrates way too much self-regard, and it's profoundly stupid if you spend any time thinking about it. And he was just allowed to do it. Anyway, I fear that his stranger communicative habits have been lost in the more recent (and, again, valid) concerns over the substance of his campaign rhetoric. This is worth exploring because I believe that these tendencies are indicative of a deeply-troubled mind and we need to dissect it before we unleash it on the world in a presidential capacity.
Tweets, short as they are, are not be the best metric for a person's perspicacity. However, this is Trump's most prolific medium (never mind that a real billionaire shouldn't spend so much time on Twitter) and provides a more direct path to his brainwaves than anything else available to us. So let's dive in.
A little weird, right? Now, I don't know a lot about IQ tests (I refuse to take them because no result I could get would ever make me happy). But I do know that Trump's IQ does not appear to be a matter of public record. Here's The Mirror speculating on Trump's IQ based on where he went to school (weak, I know, but it's the best we have) and coming out to a decent estimated score. But even they hedge their bets and conclude that his IQ is "far from genius level."
So unless Trump wants to release his IQ test results (along with his school records and his tax returns while we're at it), we're just going to have to infer his intelligence based on his actions. Like his 2006 assertion that the mid-aughts were a "great time to start a mortgage company." Or the time that he brought his mistress along on a family vacation. Or the time that he addressed the fact that his campaign is a tire fire, hemorrhaging staff:
We must allow that Trump is at least addressing his hilarious campaign problems. That's refreshing in its own way, right? Hillary Clinton would certainly never acknowledge such problems (she'd never have to). It takes a brave man to acknowledge his short-comings. Not that Trump has any of course. Just ask him--he can do anything.
No they didn't. Okay, maybe a couple of people on his payroll told him that. After he asked them. What could even prompt this very specific ambition that he'll never pursue? Why would Agent Orange even want to host Meet the Press? One possible answer: Trump-coverage would generally become more positive. After all, by November, he'll probably be out of credentialed media to tail him, so Donald Trump's Meet the Trump, Presented by Donald J. Trump, Classy™would be a good way to keep the free publicity train on the tracks. By the way, we all understand that what Trump really wants is his own media empire, right? It's pretty clear when you think about it.
Lambasting the media, in addition to providing red meat for the marks, helps bolster Trump's insistence that the media is hostile toward him. Truth is, the media hates Trump like a fat kid hates cake. I could say that he's just too easily offended, but somebody already put that criticism to him and Trump replied in Strong Bad-esque fashion: "I don't have thin skin... I have very strong and thick skin."
This assertion from a man who still occasionally mails photographic evidence of the adequateness of his finger-length to Graydon Carter, original coiner of "short-fingered vulgarian." Twenty-five years after Carter first anointed him with the title! Short-fingered or not (he is), that's a damn long time to hold a damn weird grudge. And this guy may possess nuclear codes come January. The lack of both self-awareness and of the very meaning of the words he tosses about so cavalierly (whether orally or digitally) should be enough to prompt fremdscham in any decent person with a bare minimum of compassion.
Who the hell talks like this?! Apparently, no superlative cannot be applied to him (by himself), however irrelevant to the conversation at hand. I truly don't know if this is about burnishing his brand--the brash, self-aggrandizing patter that I find gross but, to his credit, has probably made him what he is today (alternate take: maybe all of his successful business deals are a result of the other party getting sick of listening to him and just giving him whatever he wants to make him go away). And maybe that's just been translated in to the what we're seeing now: this ham-fisted (small hams, obvs) manner of selling himself and his campaign.
Or maybe this is just the way he talks to people in every day situations: "I didn't fart in the elevator, okay? But if I had, you would have loved it. I have the best farts, the best-smelling farts. People tell me I do and I believe them."
In the proper spirit of fremdschämen, maybe you aren't able to feel embarrassment for Trump. I don't blame you. But whatever happens in November, Trump is a reflection of a part of us now. A considerable chunk of America has voted for him. Many more will do so in November, if only to avoid voting for Clinton. Even if he loses, history will forever record that he won electoral votes. And that "if" is necessary because, in a two-party system, events beyond the control of either candidate could easily slip Trump past Clinton just in time for a horrifying election night.
I know it was funny at first. We had all gleefully anticipated the schadenfreude we'd experience when he had to tuck and run before the primaries were even over. But now we're looking down the barrel of a self-fremdscham. And I'm not even sure if there's a word for that. Get to work, Germans.
Trump, a poorly-carved Jack o' Lantern that's been left to rot since October, gets most of his press these days for remarks that have been construed as offensive. And racist. And misogynistic. And incoherent. And untethered from reality. And these are all valid observations worth examining. But there's another aspect of the way he expresses himself that I would like to address.
You may have seen the great video about Trump's use of language that first made the rounds a few months back, although that had more to do with his sentence construction. What I'd like to explore isn't new for Trump. Consider his longstanding nickname: "The Donald." It's just his name with "the" in front of it. It's simple, it demonstrates way too much self-regard, and it's profoundly stupid if you spend any time thinking about it. And he was just allowed to do it. Anyway, I fear that his stranger communicative habits have been lost in the more recent (and, again, valid) concerns over the substance of his campaign rhetoric. This is worth exploring because I believe that these tendencies are indicative of a deeply-troubled mind and we need to dissect it before we unleash it on the world in a presidential capacity.
Tweets, short as they are, are not be the best metric for a person's perspicacity. However, this is Trump's most prolific medium (never mind that a real billionaire shouldn't spend so much time on Twitter) and provides a more direct path to his brainwaves than anything else available to us. So let's dive in.
Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure,it's not your fault— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 9, 2013
A little weird, right? Now, I don't know a lot about IQ tests (I refuse to take them because no result I could get would ever make me happy). But I do know that Trump's IQ does not appear to be a matter of public record. Here's The Mirror speculating on Trump's IQ based on where he went to school (weak, I know, but it's the best we have) and coming out to a decent estimated score. But even they hedge their bets and conclude that his IQ is "far from genius level."
So unless Trump wants to release his IQ test results (along with his school records and his tax returns while we're at it), we're just going to have to infer his intelligence based on his actions. Like his 2006 assertion that the mid-aughts were a "great time to start a mortgage company." Or the time that he brought his mistress along on a family vacation. Or the time that he addressed the fact that his campaign is a tire fire, hemorrhaging staff:
I am getting bad marks from certain pundits because I have a small campaign staff. But small is good, flexible, save money and number one!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2016
We must allow that Trump is at least addressing his hilarious campaign problems. That's refreshing in its own way, right? Hillary Clinton would certainly never acknowledge such problems (she'd never have to). It takes a brave man to acknowledge his short-comings. Not that Trump has any of course. Just ask him--he can do anything.
So many people have told me that I should host Meet the Press and replace the moron who is on now. Just too busy, especially next 10 years!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2015
No they didn't. Okay, maybe a couple of people on his payroll told him that. After he asked them. What could even prompt this very specific ambition that he'll never pursue? Why would Agent Orange even want to host Meet the Press? One possible answer: Trump-coverage would generally become more positive. After all, by November, he'll probably be out of credentialed media to tail him, so Donald Trump's Meet the Trump, Presented by Donald J. Trump, Classy™would be a good way to keep the free publicity train on the tracks. By the way, we all understand that what Trump really wants is his own media empire, right? It's pretty clear when you think about it.
Lambasting the media, in addition to providing red meat for the marks, helps bolster Trump's insistence that the media is hostile toward him. Truth is, the media hates Trump like a fat kid hates cake. I could say that he's just too easily offended, but somebody already put that criticism to him and Trump replied in Strong Bad-esque fashion: "I don't have thin skin... I have very strong and thick skin."
 |
| Weird boasts. Questionable claims to money/strength/power/good taste. A connection to professional wrestling. Okay, look, I worked really hard on a "Trump is Strong Bad" post and it didn't pan out. Let me have this analogy. |
This assertion from a man who still occasionally mails photographic evidence of the adequateness of his finger-length to Graydon Carter, original coiner of "short-fingered vulgarian." Twenty-five years after Carter first anointed him with the title! Short-fingered or not (he is), that's a damn long time to hold a damn weird grudge. And this guy may possess nuclear codes come January. The lack of both self-awareness and of the very meaning of the words he tosses about so cavalierly (whether orally or digitally) should be enough to prompt fremdscham in any decent person with a bare minimum of compassion.
I know some of you may think l'm tough and harsh but actually I'm a very compassionate person (with a very high IQ) with strong common sense— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2013
Who the hell talks like this?! Apparently, no superlative cannot be applied to him (by himself), however irrelevant to the conversation at hand. I truly don't know if this is about burnishing his brand--the brash, self-aggrandizing patter that I find gross but, to his credit, has probably made him what he is today (alternate take: maybe all of his successful business deals are a result of the other party getting sick of listening to him and just giving him whatever he wants to make him go away). And maybe that's just been translated in to the what we're seeing now: this ham-fisted (small hams, obvs) manner of selling himself and his campaign.
Or maybe this is just the way he talks to people in every day situations: "I didn't fart in the elevator, okay? But if I had, you would have loved it. I have the best farts, the best-smelling farts. People tell me I do and I believe them."
In the proper spirit of fremdschämen, maybe you aren't able to feel embarrassment for Trump. I don't blame you. But whatever happens in November, Trump is a reflection of a part of us now. A considerable chunk of America has voted for him. Many more will do so in November, if only to avoid voting for Clinton. Even if he loses, history will forever record that he won electoral votes. And that "if" is necessary because, in a two-party system, events beyond the control of either candidate could easily slip Trump past Clinton just in time for a horrifying election night.
I know it was funny at first. We had all gleefully anticipated the schadenfreude we'd experience when he had to tuck and run before the primaries were even over. But now we're looking down the barrel of a self-fremdscham. And I'm not even sure if there's a word for that. Get to work, Germans.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
The Returned
This is the state I find the country in upon my return? Trump. Jon Stewart retired. Lemmy, Bowie, and Prince dead. Trump.
What were you guys doing while I was gone? Come on, I go away for just... fifty-nine weeks? Wow. That's a long time. Okay, maybe we've all been letting each other down a little.
There's a lot to catch up on, most of it stupid. But in the interest of being excellent to each other, I'm going to try for a quick wrap-up of some of the easier to digest bits from the last several months. (Not the election, though--not yet. I still can't manage to keep that down.)
Batman v Superman/DC on Film
I gave most of my thoughts on this on the podcast. But just to sum up: Affleck was fantastic (cautious optimism pays off!), Gadot was damn-near a revelation, while Superman (and most everything else) was... Snyder-ific. I don't know how Zack Snyder got that job. More importantly, I still don't know how DC/WB subs him out for Affleck, who can bring more to a film than interesting action choreography. Your ambition to be the smarter Marvel is a perfectly fine one, DC--if you can pull it off. But thirty minutes of interesting thematic building cannot give way to a punch-fest that is pointless, devoid of character, and unjustified even within the scope of a thin story.
The up-shot is that DC/WB has too much invested to pull out now, so they'll get a couple of shots to do it right. Suicide Squad later this year and Wonder Woman next year, followed by Aquaman. You can read a lot of negatives into the reshoots and the insistences that future movies will be more fun: desperation, for example. But the first step toward fixing a problem is admitting there is one. And I choose to believe that, somewhere, a tiny voice is shouting at DC/WB execs, urging them to right their ship.
Keep listening to those voices, guys. They'll serve you well. As Silby said on the podcast, Harley Quinn, you're our only hope. Luckily, she's a damn good character to hang your hopes on.
The Cubs
Last year was so much simpler. It was one of the most exciting seasons Wrigley has seen in a long, long, long time: 97 wins, the third best record in baseball, a drive to the NLCS behind a young team with a super-chill manager in his first year with the club. It didn't even matter that they didn't pull it out in the end because they weren't even supposed to have gotten that far. Not that soon, anyway. Then they had that so-unbelievable-it-became-funny winter. And now this year...
Yes, it's exciting as hell, I know. But I could do without the talk of how historic the 2016 Cubs have been to this point. I could do without the expectations. And the heart palpitations. It's only May. I know this franchise. I know that if any team could win 120 games with a run differential of +400 and then get swept in the NLDS, it's this one. It's only May. There's a lot of baseball left to play... too much.
I still have hope, of course. Always will. And this team has more than earned that hope (that they've struggled the last few weeks against bad teams while beating up on the good ones helps remind me that underneath it all, they're still the Cubbies). But I've been on this ride before--and I'm not sure that I've ever seen it go this fast. Because their ticket for October might already be punched...
And it's only May.
America Beer
Okay, now we need to talk about something that is deeply stupid. Something that is deeply insulting. Something that will be with us at least until November. You think I'm going to make a joke about the election here, don't you? I'm not. There'll be time for that later. Anyway, this is probably worse.
What the hell, Anheuser-Busch In-Bev?! No, shut up a minute. I don't actually care--that was rhetorical. Stop it. Just stop... everything. Ideally, everything you do would just stop but I'll settle for you not wrapping your iced stormwater runoff in a flag that's already had too much done to it in the last few months.
Used to be, they'd settle for slapping some stars and stripes to the can or bottle some time between Memorial Day and the Fourth (a lot of breweries have long done this, even some very good ones). That was fine, it was subtle. It didn't have to mean anything. But this country doesn't do subtle anymore. This time, they've dragged the very name into the slop, affixing the word right on the can: America. It can't be ignored anymore.
If a person walks into a bar and orders "an America," a thoughtful bartender will slide a ridiculously large glass of bourbon their way and all would be well. If the thought occurred to make the request a beer, I don't know, maybe something that's still American-owned, that takes chances and doesn't try to please everybody? Isn't that how we like to see ourselves? There are a lot of good options in that direction. But if the person orders "an America" and is expecting a Budweiser (he (and it'll be a he) will be wearing some combination of a visor, aviators, a polo shirt, and a smirk that says he knows what he's doing is pissing people off, but otherwise why get up in the morning?), a thoughtful bartender will shut the establishment down until the bar patrons and wider community can overcome the douche-chill shockwave.
There's an easy line here about me loving America more than In-Bev does. I mean, I do. Most everybody does; it's a low bar. That a Belgian company would use the name "America" to enhance the already-bloated brand of a watered-down slap in the face to Bavarian/Czech tradition probably says more about early 21st Century geopolitics than I'm capable of parsing. But, like Trump, it's not the fountainhead that concerns me: it's the people who will lap it up, ensuring we'll be dealing with this again next year. And the year after. Until "America" replaces "Budweiser" entirely and we'll all look at ourselves, not quite sure when we hitched our star to the wrong wagon, but picking up on the unshakable sense that alcohol had something to do with it.
It's good to be back, everybody.
What were you guys doing while I was gone? Come on, I go away for just... fifty-nine weeks? Wow. That's a long time. Okay, maybe we've all been letting each other down a little.
There's a lot to catch up on, most of it stupid. But in the interest of being excellent to each other, I'm going to try for a quick wrap-up of some of the easier to digest bits from the last several months. (Not the election, though--not yet. I still can't manage to keep that down.)
Batman v Superman/DC on Film
I gave most of my thoughts on this on the podcast. But just to sum up: Affleck was fantastic (cautious optimism pays off!), Gadot was damn-near a revelation, while Superman (and most everything else) was... Snyder-ific. I don't know how Zack Snyder got that job. More importantly, I still don't know how DC/WB subs him out for Affleck, who can bring more to a film than interesting action choreography. Your ambition to be the smarter Marvel is a perfectly fine one, DC--if you can pull it off. But thirty minutes of interesting thematic building cannot give way to a punch-fest that is pointless, devoid of character, and unjustified even within the scope of a thin story.
 |
| Zack Snyder as a child. Also as an adult. |
Keep listening to those voices, guys. They'll serve you well. As Silby said on the podcast, Harley Quinn, you're our only hope. Luckily, she's a damn good character to hang your hopes on.
The Cubs
Last year was so much simpler. It was one of the most exciting seasons Wrigley has seen in a long, long, long time: 97 wins, the third best record in baseball, a drive to the NLCS behind a young team with a super-chill manager in his first year with the club. It didn't even matter that they didn't pull it out in the end because they weren't even supposed to have gotten that far. Not that soon, anyway. Then they had that so-unbelievable-it-became-funny winter. And now this year...
Yes, it's exciting as hell, I know. But I could do without the talk of how historic the 2016 Cubs have been to this point. I could do without the expectations. And the heart palpitations. It's only May. I know this franchise. I know that if any team could win 120 games with a run differential of +400 and then get swept in the NLDS, it's this one. It's only May. There's a lot of baseball left to play... too much.
I still have hope, of course. Always will. And this team has more than earned that hope (that they've struggled the last few weeks against bad teams while beating up on the good ones helps remind me that underneath it all, they're still the Cubbies). But I've been on this ride before--and I'm not sure that I've ever seen it go this fast. Because their ticket for October might already be punched...
And it's only May.
America Beer
Okay, now we need to talk about something that is deeply stupid. Something that is deeply insulting. Something that will be with us at least until November. You think I'm going to make a joke about the election here, don't you? I'm not. There'll be time for that later. Anyway, this is probably worse.
What the hell, Anheuser-Busch In-Bev?! No, shut up a minute. I don't actually care--that was rhetorical. Stop it. Just stop... everything. Ideally, everything you do would just stop but I'll settle for you not wrapping your iced stormwater runoff in a flag that's already had too much done to it in the last few months.
Used to be, they'd settle for slapping some stars and stripes to the can or bottle some time between Memorial Day and the Fourth (a lot of breweries have long done this, even some very good ones). That was fine, it was subtle. It didn't have to mean anything. But this country doesn't do subtle anymore. This time, they've dragged the very name into the slop, affixing the word right on the can: America. It can't be ignored anymore.
If a person walks into a bar and orders "an America," a thoughtful bartender will slide a ridiculously large glass of bourbon their way and all would be well. If the thought occurred to make the request a beer, I don't know, maybe something that's still American-owned, that takes chances and doesn't try to please everybody? Isn't that how we like to see ourselves? There are a lot of good options in that direction. But if the person orders "an America" and is expecting a Budweiser (he (and it'll be a he) will be wearing some combination of a visor, aviators, a polo shirt, and a smirk that says he knows what he's doing is pissing people off, but otherwise why get up in the morning?), a thoughtful bartender will shut the establishment down until the bar patrons and wider community can overcome the douche-chill shockwave.
There's an easy line here about me loving America more than In-Bev does. I mean, I do. Most everybody does; it's a low bar. That a Belgian company would use the name "America" to enhance the already-bloated brand of a watered-down slap in the face to Bavarian/Czech tradition probably says more about early 21st Century geopolitics than I'm capable of parsing. But, like Trump, it's not the fountainhead that concerns me: it's the people who will lap it up, ensuring we'll be dealing with this again next year. And the year after. Until "America" replaces "Budweiser" entirely and we'll all look at ourselves, not quite sure when we hitched our star to the wrong wagon, but picking up on the unshakable sense that alcohol had something to do with it.
It's good to be back, everybody.
Monday, May 2, 2016
The World's Only Podcast
Where the hell have I been?
Anyway: today marks the launch of the first episode of the World's Only Podcast (the Only Podcast in the World)!
In partnership with my dear friends at aois21, and their growing podcast network, Josh Silberman and I are co-hosting a monthly discussion/gripe-fest on the issues of the day. This month, we're talking about Donald Trump, comic book movies, sex-bots, and other harbingers of the downfall of our Republic.
I'm excited about this because I love podcasts and this is a pretty cool thing to be a part of. You can listen at iTunes, Sticher Radio, Google Play, and at aois21.com. We hope you enjoy! And if you don't,go to hell we'll do better next time.
Anyway: today marks the launch of the first episode of the World's Only Podcast (the Only Podcast in the World)!
In partnership with my dear friends at aois21, and their growing podcast network, Josh Silberman and I are co-hosting a monthly discussion/gripe-fest on the issues of the day. This month, we're talking about Donald Trump, comic book movies, sex-bots, and other harbingers of the downfall of our Republic.
I'm excited about this because I love podcasts and this is a pretty cool thing to be a part of. You can listen at iTunes, Sticher Radio, Google Play, and at aois21.com. We hope you enjoy! And if you don't,
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