So I Can Be Batman Now?

In light of what many of us grudgingly anticipated, corporations (which, as we know, are people, with hearts and brains and souls) can now exercise their religious convictions and flout democratically-enacted law whenever it interferes with the practice of said faith (even when that faith proves inconsistent with itself). To celebrate this new freedom, I plan to now break several different anti-vigilantism statutes as I don the cape and cowl in the name of Our Lord, Batman. Because that is my faith and I will brook no infringement upon it.

The fact that Antonin Scalia looks kind of like The Penguin leads me to believe that I should start at the Supreme Court. I'll teach him the meaning of Original Intent... Of Fear.

Batman out.

Sorry, Brazil (World Cup 2014)

 
I enjoy the Olympics theoretically. Spectacle is good, controversy is mildly better, but the athletics feel like filler. It's not that it's not impressive--it totally is and I couldn't dream of performing any of it even at an amateur level against asthmatic kindergartners. I'm just not terribly invested in people running or swimming or whatever the hell else is going on. The thing's a damp squib.

The World Cup, on the other hand, is about a sport I actually like and understand. And that makes all the difference. You still have spectacle, of course. And controversy: if you haven't already seen John Oliver's take on FIFA's truly Herculean corruption, it's worth thirteen minutes of your time. I, for one, am patiently waiting for Qatar 2022 to totally implode. And on top of all that, we also get a genuinely exciting game to watch with it.

Admittedly, part of me looks forward to the Cup because somewhere a Fox News personality is dusting off his incredulous face for all the attention the World Cup will get. "But it's soccer," he'll sneer (and it'll be a "he") and that just makes me want to watch more. More than that, though, it's surprisingly easy to get caught up in something when everyone around you is really, really into it. Even the most defiantly contrarian among us notice when a religious fervor sweeps through our peers, regardless of other identifying factors. You may not necessarily glom on to the thing in question, but only a terminally incurious person doesn't at least take a look for themselves. Deign to travel abroad and the American will find that, true to stereotype, that thing is soccer.

I came home with the foreign malady some years back, and it's hard to maintain the symptoms when the conditions for the virus aren't around you all the time (a shiny donkey to whoever who can point out exactly where I stretched that analogy too thin). The World Cup is a booster shot, gearing even apathetic Yanks back into the game. That's why I don't begrudge the bandwagoners. Half the reason I root for the USMNT is in the quixotic hope that a U.S. win will keep the celebration going and supplant other athletic fixations with the beautiful game (I mean, do we need hockey?). Knowing that even that won't do it allows me to cheer for England on the side without much guilt, another largely fruitless endeavor (I have my reasons). And though we're nothing if not hopeful, a lot of Americans develop an easy secondary attachment in soccer--Brazil, or Spain, or somebody else who may actually win. And it's not just international tournaments either--how many people prefer MLS to La Liga or the Premier League? That bet-hedging and internationalism probably does nothing to improve soccer's standing among its American detractors. And if I thought anything was likely to bring them around, I'd suggest we quit it.

So it's left to the rest of us to absorb the dichotomy of our love for this great sport and the organization that runs it. Sure, the NFL can be impressively shady, but it's a girl scout compared to FIFA. You'd think the reflexively anti-soccer crowd would cite FIFA or Sepp Blatter in their arguments, but that would involve rather more effort. And anyway, it hardly addresses the quality of the on-field portion of the sport. Still, whether it's the Olympics, the Super Bowl, or the World Cup, hosts get stiffed with a staggering bill and not much in terms of benefits. You know, aside from the fun of figuring out what do to with all those new stadiums and villages and airports. And the pride. Can't forget the pride. $11 billion worth of pride. SPORTS!

As for picking a winner, a kinder, sensitive soul might think Brazil is the way to go. After all the money they've spent and the nightmares they've endured, it just seems to give them a little ray of light, doesn't it? But then the ray of light is the story and everyone forgets how shitty it is to host such an event and no one--anywhere--learns any kind of lesson (no, I don't know why I feel people should be learning something). So I'm going with Portugal, because then you have a soccer megapower throwing a party for its former imperial overlord and the enormity of what's happened can't help but dawn on everybody. Also, Portugal at least has a shot at winning. Otherwise, for maximum facepalm, you choose somebody like Iran. Sorry to make you the fall guy, Brazil, it really isn't personal (I love churrasco!).

Enjoy the matches, everyone. 

(Image via Project Babb)

Gotham

Far be it from me to lay into a series that hasn't yet aired.

There's so much that might be good here.

A Gotham Central-esque show could be fantastic. A slowly crumbling city, served by a still barely above board police department, that can work as a conduit for any crime story you want to tell. It's also some fertile soil for original stories and ideas because pre-Batman Gotham remains fairly well uncovered. I'm not sure audiences realize how amazing a character Jim Gordon can be, but he is well worthy of a central role in a TV show. And people love procedurals--just give viewers sixteen of those every year while slyly feeding us an overarching tale of decay. Like The Wire, but with occasional hints of Batman. Plus, Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock? Bill Rawls as... someone?! Yes, yes. Oh God yes.

And it could still be all of that. But.

Just after the one minute mark of the trailer, we see a freshly-orphaned Bruce Wayne hanging out, talking to Gordon. Nothing alarming so far. But then he's... standing on the roof of Wayne Manor? Prepping his rooftop posing routines? No. What? Why? Now those "occasional hints" are brushing against the backbone of the story, which is worrying because Batman's origin is a story that's not only already been told, but has already been told very well. It's precisely because we know what's coming that we don't need to dive into it immediately. There's something original and unique waiting to be told and it's very quickly succumbing to familiar yarns. Or worse, dull ones. Pubescent Bruce is about as un-Batman as Bruce gets. Maybe we'll delve deep into his goth phase.

(Fan-fiction idea that nobody wants: season one's finale opens with the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne and closes with Detective Gordon--a few months into his tenure in Gotham, a little less naive and a little more prepared to drag his adopted city out of the sewer--comforting young Bruce. If we have to wait to see that, it means the show has enough other things going on that it hopefully won't be using Lil' Batman as a crutch.)

Meanwhile, foreboding text shouts weird promises at us: "before Penguin," "before Catwoman," "before Riddler," "before Poison Ivy" in between smash cuts of the junior rogues because Fox is grittily rebooting the definition of "before," apparently. I wouldn't even mind, since these characters are a part of this universe in one form or another. An up-and-comer on the black market named Oswald Cobblepot, for example, could very easily be the focus of a strong season one plot line. But inside of two minutes we get written confirmation of four future villains, with Batman still some ten years from debuting in Gotham. Stay tuned for season two, when Joe Kerr, an albino child with a flair for card tricks and purple suits, confounds the GCPD's psychological profilers.

Why is thirteen-year old Selina Kyle dressing up as a cat burglar and standing on the edge of a rooftop (more rooftop brooding--is nothing sacred)? And what does it have to do with Jim Gordon? I'm going to have to watch to find out, aren't I? They're going to make me watch this thing, aren't they?

All we have is a trailer and already the Easter eggs are cloying. Like the worst excesses of Smallville (except Clark already had his powers). Or the shaky foundation of needless foreshadowing that the Star Wars prequels were built on. There is an assumption that we care about these characters from the start when in fact we need to be given a reason to care. And even when we do care, cramming them all together gives no one time to breathe and makes a lush, complex world achingly small. The more disparate elements you drag in, the less it resembles Gotham Central and the more it resembles Batman Babies.

Comic book mythologies are bloated because they've been developed over decades by dozens or hundreds of creators. The best stories pick a single conceit (or a couple of simple ones) and follow it to a new conclusion, inadvertently creating more mythology. They don't throw everything at the wall, desperately reminding fans that they haven't forgotten about everyone's favorite corner of the canon. They also don't shout out to the casual fans: "hey, don't worry, you already know this story," because they understand that those fans can sometimes care, even if they don't know exactly what's going on from the outset.

(Fan-fiction idea that nobody wants: GCPD Cyber Crime specialist Eddie Nashton grows slowly disgruntled as his efforts go unappreciated and starts a few elicit side projects trying to earn a name for himself. Casual fans get caught up in his slow turn from smarmy good guy to obnoxious quasi-villain before realizing who he's going to be. Meanwhile, diehard fans shit themselves upon recognition of his name--that's the kind of balance the Marvel movies excel at.)

Am I a pedant for reading too much into a trailer for pilot that's only just been picked up for a series? No. I'm a pedant for other reasons. Since this show is going to happen anyway, I can make but a simple request to an uncaring universe. I'm looking at something that could be a landmark for Batman storytelling getting bogged down in canon-service. Good Batman stories have already been told. Good Catwoman stories have already been told. Tell a good Jim Gordon story. Tell a good Harvey Bullock story. Tell a good Gotham story. And let the fans wind that into the rest of the mythology on their own.

How To Fight Presidents

"The desire to be president is a currently undiagnosed but very specific form of insanity. 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 in charge of that." Only a lunatic would look at a job where you get slandered and scrutinized and attacked by the media and sometimes even assassinated and say, 'Sign me up!'"
--Daniel O'Brien, How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country

The worst aspect of school is that I don't get much time to read for pleasure. I mean, I do still read for pleasure. I just feel guilty about it in a way that I didn't before.

With How To Fight Presidents, Cracked's Dan O'Brien has constructed a better written, more entertaining counterpoint to Christopher Hitchens' assertion about voters getting the mad, narcissistic politicians they deserve. Not in the sense that Hitchens was wrong, just that we might as well embrace the inevitable. As long as this land has a job with that much responsibility and people who are "crazy ambitious and obsessed with power to an unhealthy degree," this is the system we're going to have. Not that this is always a good thing--and O'Brien is quick to lambast the likes of Van Buren, Fillmore, and Buchanan--but at least it's sometimes an entertaining thing. In the long run. You know, after we've had time to process their horrific insanity.

Unfortunately, that process takes so long that by the time we've done it, we've also thoroughly sanitized these men (all men, so far--I wonder if part of the appeal of a female president is to see if the insanity manifests any differently). By the time we're ready to learn about an historic figure, we've eliminated all of the worthwhile information, shamefully cutting the most savory chunks of history from our cultural awareness. By bringing tidbits such as Zachary Taylor's bizarre cherry-fueled death to the masses in digestible form, O'Brien is truly doing the Lord's work.

O'Brien highlights a lot of facts about presidents that the dutiful nerd already knows. Like Andrew Jackson's crazed duel lust (that is, a lust for dueling and violence more generally). Or William Howard Taft and the bathtub. Or the fact that Teddy Roosevelt was basically President Batman, while his fifth cousin, Franklin Delano, was Iron Man (making James Madison... Ant Man? O'Brien never says).

However, I was less familiar with Calvin Coolidge's Norman Batesian disposition. Or John Quincy Adams' disturbing fondness for literal self-flagellation. And while I could've surmised LBJ's dick-centric egotism (who couldn't have?), O'Brien presents a few juicy more details to back that up (okay, I'll give you one: Johnson would casually pee on secret service agents' legs when it was a convenient solution).

If any of these revelations are surprising, it's only because of the aforementioned sanitized history that we were all fed in school. We get the dull falsehood about George Washington and the cherry tree, not the discomforting admission that Washington enjoyed being shot at while in battle. This is the most demanding, scrutinized, personally devastating job on the planet and not only do these men think they can do the job, they think they can get a majority of the electorate to agree with them.

Presidents are insane. We need them to be or we'd have no one else willing to do the job. It's our solemn, patriotic duty to enjoy the ride.

Grade: A-

Two Half-Drunken Years

This past Sunday was the 75th birthday of the world's greatest fictional character. Two days later, I mark a somewhat less momentous occasion for a somewhat less momentous creation: the second anniversary of this here blog-space.

My second year was not as fruitful as my first (a snap presidential election would help me out, if anyone knows how to get one of those off the ground), but there were a few good posts, I think. Right? No? Well, here are some highlights, anyway:

• That time Time told millennials, "nyeh-nyeh, I'm not touching you!" 
• The Student Loans Grotesque, a piece that was at least as disheartening to write as it is to read.
• When I unfairly tried to apply the D&D alignment chart to The Wire.
• Nine Billion Copies!, in which I brooded over the slow burn of self-publishing. I posted a spiritual follow-up on that theme a few weeks ago.
• On Anglophilia, a self-reflection. 
• My semi-insidery coverage of last year's asinine government shutdown (remember that?) and the follow-up about Washington receiving shit for the things the people's representatives do with their 90% reelection rates. 
• Bat-Affleck, my much-too-rushed appraisal of the Batman casting, which, as far as we know, might actually be the best part of that movie. 
• And my unrealistically optimistic attempt to reason with the get-off-my-lawnism plaguing a generation of child athletes. That one also got a follow-up.

What a strange, meandering year it's been. Let us never speak of it again. 

One last thing: aois21 publications--my new marketing guys--have themselves a Kickstarter campaign to expand their business helping self-published authors and launch a couple of journals. Go help them out, it'll be fun.