I'm Seriously Asking Here

Is this year different? Or is it just me?

It could just be my increasingly waning interest in football. Or the lack of cable in my house, allowing me to more easily curate the media I absorb. I'd be happy to find out that it's just my feeling and not a wider thing. But the buildup to this year's Super Bowl has been... dimmed. Less bombastic. And when football coverage loses bombast, my instinct is to ask if it's feeling okay. Yeah, media week was still there in all its grasping, repetitive glory. It's all still happening: the game, the ads, the halftime show. But it feels to me as though it's going through the motions. It's happening because it's what we do. Market forces wouldn't have it any other way. And, really, we all need it, too. Or, at least, we usually do. The Super Bowl is always, if nothing else, a fun distraction from the bleak midwinter. But it's not enough this year. Even if it were enough, distraction is not what we need right now.

Drew Magary has already written about the incongruousness of all this:

"Things are NOT going smoothly right now. Right now everything is deeply fucked, and to willfully ignore it is either impossible or irresponsible. The last thing I need is the NFL trotting out a showy display of allegiance both to the flag and its own, relentless tunnel vision. The whole thing feels tone deaf at best and passive-aggressive at worst... a tacit demand that you sit there and adore all this pageantry, or else."

I can't quite bring myself to say that it all feels wrong this year; a few hours of frivolous fun is crucial to self-care. But I know that it's not right, either. There will be pageantry, the kind that pretends everything is okay. That everything is normal. And that's great, necessary even, when it comes at a moment in which we all need to be told that everything will be okay. But in this moment, everything is not okay. None of this is normal. The most important thing we can do this year is remember that.

Watch the game. I will. But in the down moments, (during commercials, if the score gets out of hand, while Joe Buck is throwing up on America between plays) plan your calls to your representatives, make some donations, and keep on top of the news. Because something will happen. What better time to make something truly horrifying happen than in the middle of the biggest TV event of the year. Recall that the Muslim Ban was announced on a Friday night.

I've said before that I love sports because they're not important. And that remains true. In the face of so much importance, in a world that's dangerously low on trivialities, we find ourselves fighting a two front war: to preserve our stupid distractions, while also remembering where they rate. And if we stay strong, if we resist, one day we can go back to enjoying our distractions like we deserve to. We can have our frivolous things again. I promise.

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?

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 see how if the good balances it out.

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. 

In point of fact, each of these bad news bullet points comes back to how we as fans interpret them. Taken one by one, they're really not too bad (and several will be rebutted in the good news section below), but when they add up and impact a team that we all thought was headed for '27 Yankees status, it's hard to see through the resulting fog. So let's turn to...

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. 

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, 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.

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.

NFL 2014: The World's Worst Tyrant

One of these years, I'm going to make good on my yearly promise to quit torturing myself with football. It was one thing when it was just the concussions. And the bullying. And the tax-payer funded stadiums (to replace stadiums not even old enough to buy cigarettes). And the exploitation of even non-players. And Dan Snyder. The whole Washington enterprise, really.

We now have Ray Rice and his subsequent milquetoast punishment. Though apparently the next time this happens, we'll see a more "severe" penalty because the NFL could not have foreseen that people would be upset by their terrible decision had to maintain a low bar when they punished Jim Irsay. And it's not even as though Rice is the only player with a history of spousal abuse; it's tempting to make some kind of connection between these guys' day jobs and how more than a few of them handle their personal lives. But we wouldn't want to be irresponsible. Meanwhile, Josh Gordon is done for the year for testing positive for pot (granted, he's now a repeat offender, but his first suspension was for the same length as Rice's, so yeah). Roger Goodell is the world's worst tyrant, in that he is terrible at being a tyrant. Except that the empire he runs is extraordinarily good at winning--and keeping--the hearts and minds of the country. Occupying powers the world over drool at what the NFL has managed so seemingly effortlessly. We continue to consume their tainted (but oh so delicious) product in spite of ourselves. It's easy to shove in our faces and vastly more difficult to digest, but humans are, at heart, short-term thinkers.

If you're not a football fan, the current state of affairs looks horrific. If you are, it's horrific and deeply depressing, with a tendency toward heartburn-inducing (the Bears have a great offense, parts of a decent defense, and a difficult schedule, ensuring that I won't be sleeping much between now and when they're officially knocked out of playoff contention. So, thanks in advance, guys). We can't keep this up forever, NFL. How about this: I'll watch one more season, then I'll quit cold turkey. No backsies.

So, as I said in my baseball post this year, I could afford to have a lot more fun with these picks. Because it really does not matter. At all. Even a little. And there's no penalty for being wrong. But it's too easy to make them all joke picks. I'm going to have to find some kind of balance as I do these going forward, but for now here are my kind-of-serious-but-who-cares-go-fuck-yourself picks for 2014:

• NFC North: Green Bay Detroit Minnes... fine, Green Bay
• NFC East: Philadelphia 
• NFC South: Carolina
• NFC West: Richard Sherman
• NFC Wild Cards: New Orleans, Chicago (who will not be allowed a starting defense in the playoffs, but will be allowed two starting offenses in an effort to finally exorcise Mike Ditka)
• AFC North: Cincinnati
• AFC East: Division is vacated because no one cares
• AFC South: Houston
• AFC West: Denver
• AFC Wild Cards: FC Bayern Munich, Indianapolis
• NFC Championship: Richard Sherman over Philadelphia
• AFC Championship: Denver over Indianapolis
• Super Bowl XLIX: Denver over Richard Sherman initially, but Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy beats them both in the long run

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)

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-

Still Drowning

Imagine a movement that urged former students striving to pay off their student loans to just stop. Don't make the payments, dry up the coffers, and force an overhaul of the system that many of us are drowning in. Sounds fun. And it would probably open up some funds for a Playstation 4.

Two problems spring to mind, though. One, it's hard to imagine the agitators of this hypothetical movement not getting taken down on some kind of criminal conspiracy charge. This would need to be an overwhelming movement with a lot of visibility and a central leadership to keep this borderline-extortionist movement steady. If the point is to send a shock to the system, we need everybody. Which leads us to problem number two: if even a third of former students continue paying up, those of us opting out are sunk: still in debt, and now also defaulting on our debt, with no message being sent and little leverage to be had. I'm pulling that "one-third" number out of my ass, but you see my point.

As Matt Taibbi's recent Rolling Stone piece, "The College-Loan Scandal," makes painfully clear, the only thing worse than owing the government for that diploma of yours is defaulting on what you owe and watching your $38,000 debt balloon to $100,000. That's the actual story of Alan Collinge, one of several cases that Taibbi highlights in his investigation of the government's surprisingly well-run student loans racket.

Taibbi is most interested in these cases of default, the mob-like tactics of the creditors--whose returns on defaults are stunning (see 'Collinge' above)--and why no one in government is willing to do anything about it (in short: Democrats like to brag about sending people to college and Republicans don't care about anyone who isn't them). The defaulters provide dramatic examples; students paying off their crippling debts is less dramatic because it's more commonplace. It's commonplace because these debts are, well, necessary. Taibbi mentions the New York Times article from earlier this year about how a bachelor's degree is what a high school degree used to be and writes,

"If they don't have the degree, then they have no chance at all. So if they even want a clerking job, they must dive face-first into the debt muck and take their chances that they won't end up watching the federal government take bites out of disability checks while their law degree gathers dust downstairs somewhere. So, yes, a college education is a great thing, and you probably need one now more than ever – the problem is that it may very well be mandatory, may have less of a chance of ever getting you a job, and you may still be paying for it on your deathbed no matter what."

And there's the rub. College is no longer a status symbol for the manor-born. Those still-spiking tuitions are the entry fee to adulthood for people my age.

I've sung this song before. I piled on debt (fairly light compared to my peers) mostly obliviously because I was a goddamn teenager. Now, I can live with that. But, in order to have the career I want in the field I want, I'm going back, knowing it'll fling me further into debt on the chance that it gets me where I want to go. That's the gamble I'm taking and while I'm not exactly forced into it, neither am I doing it entirely willingly. If you don't understand the difference, you may not be ready for this debate.

A final note: in the next lane over from myself and my cohorts are all the teenagers choosing not to go, as enrollment continues to fall. Opting-out in a different way. I don't know whether this will be a wake up call to schools to reassess tuition rates (I suspect not) or how these people will fare in a job market still not inclined to let go of its degree requirements (well, I hope). But perhaps it's a start. It might at least get some heads out of the sand.

The Student Loans Grotesque

There's nothing like starting the week in a boiling rage over this country's surrealistic student loans situation. For me, it actually started last week, when a friend of mine posted this Seattle Times article to Facebook, describing how, once upon a time, summer jobs could pay for college because college costs were stunningly low. And how that experience taught an entire generation--the awesomely responsible people who are in charge today--that hard work and elbow grease were the ticket out of debt, so they can comfortably look the other way on the debt their children have incurred. They graduated debt-free (or debt-negligible, anyway) and then shut the door behind them. As Danny Westneat writes,

[L]ast week The Seattle Times featured a crop of harried UW students looking rueful and broke. The story said skeptical state legislators often say how “they worked their way through college. And then they ask: Why don’t students do that today?”

Of all our delusions, we old farts cling to this bootstrap one the most. We worked our way up on sweat and chicken grease, we say. Can’t this generation? What’s wrong with them?

What’s wrong is that after we got ours, we cut it off for them.

And then this morning, Salon's Joan Walsh explores the toxic student loan culture, aided and abetted by, yep, Congress, those lovable scamps. On one end of the Hill, we have a Senate that apparently refuses to stop the coming student loan interest rate hike from 3.4% to 6.8% (which goes into effect today). On the other end, the House has a bill that introduces market based reforms. This is presumably the same market that's going to take a staggering blow when an entire generation can't buy houses or cars, or generally engage in the "consumer economy" market-obsessed wonks think about when they masturbate.

Walsh links to this piece by David Dayen, who describes how student debts are lot more like indentured servitude than traditional debts. They can't be altered, refinanced, or even forfeit via bankruptcy. Even those who don't graduate end up paying their tab, which would be a reasonable rule, if not for the fact that we're taking about 17- and 18-year olds doing what they're told to do and signing on for ballooning tuition costs. Dayen, after highlighting various congressional proposals, says that "this entire system must be overhauled," which is a terrifying revelation in our current problem-solving climate.

I ended up lucky among some of my fellow private school alums, amassing merely $16,000 in debt. And my wife didn't have any. But now she's just finished grad school and I'm going to start in the fall (at an in-state public school this time). When all is done, she and I could be looking at six figures of debt and can anticipate paying that off for the next thirty years--or longer, if interest rates rise again. And why the hell shouldn't we expect that?

If you want to tell us that the problem is ours, just for having gone to school, you can--politely--fuck right off. We live in a part of the country that all but requires post-graduate degrees, particularly for people whose career prospects have dwindled in a stagnant economy that crippled our generation's prospects before we even entered into it. Maybe we can blame ourselves for buying too much into the allure of education as the silver bullet, and for (speaking only for myself here) not taking school as seriously as I should've. But even those admissions are distractions, shouted into the maelstrom in an effort to downplay the very real concerns about spiraling costs and an economy that still demands college diplomas. The conversation is driven into the quagmire of lazy talking points, from which no problem emerges solved.

This is the problem with issues that affect other people. In the future. As long as the media has aberrational Joe Mihalic figures to point to, student debt will never seem severe enough and it will never garner the attention it deserves. Never mind the fact that it deeply affects a rising generation that has enough problems averting lost generation status, with belittlement and patronization flying at us from newsstands. Student loans will, by extension, impact everyone in the not too distant future. But we can't deign to fix these problems, to examine why college is so expensive, to reinvest in public education, perhaps even to explore debt forgiveness. We can't do those things.

Because... money, I guess.

I'm not even entirely joking when I say that global warming and a post-apocalyptic future suddenly don't sound so bad. As I stalk the wastelands, fending off the hungry fangs of the über-mutants, hoarding the half-gallon of fuel that I wrested from the stiff fingers of a small child--my only currency save my poor, worn out asshole--I will take significant solace in the knowledge that no one will be left to extract student loan payments from me.

The Continuing Promise of The Walking Dead

The best part about cautious pessimism is that it leaves just enough room to be proven wrong and not feel too bad about it. The worst part is that the cowardice of the lack of position allows no ability to gloat when you end up being sort of right. So when I wrote last fall that this third season of The Walking Dead had all the pieces to form a really solid action/horror/drama series but it that it might not do it, I wasn't saying much. I had been burned by the show before, but loved the spirit of it too much to bury the thing. And here we are, about to enter the second half of a mostly-terrific third seasons and I haven't a cowardly leg to stand on.

That'll show me. I won't be looking, but it'll show me.

Quick rundown on what went right in the first half: Lori is dead. Carl's growing into a stone cold zombie apocalypse survivor. Rick is half-mad. The Governor is more so. The town of Woodbury is one of the most interesting sociological experiments I've ever seen on television. We now have real inter-character conflict brewing, rather than a dull back and forth "what now?" And Daryl is still Daryl.

The dialogue remains a wet fart in a dark room. Too many of the characters (particularly the female ones) are still wooden and conspicuously bad at decision-making. And come season's end, we might be able to look back on some uneven pacing. But the show has made enormous strides. And for someone who's wanted to be a fan since the first promos back in 2010, that feels great to be able to say.

I've recently been playing through The Walking Dead tablet game. As an interactive, plot-driven story, it delivers a far more immersive experience than the show does. It features characters that the player may not necessarily like, but are developed enough to have what qualifies for pathos, something rare even amongst the more popular characters of the show. And because the plot branches into new directions with each decision from the player, there's much less remove from the events of the story and it's easier to feel the emotional impact of bad consequences. I haven't yet gone back through to play the game with different decisions, but it seems that most consequences are bad consequences.

The narrative differences between television and video games deserve a post or two to themselves, so I won't go too in-depth with that analysis just now. Suffice to say, there are some types of moments that may always fail to land as well as we'd like. But the moments that do are sweet.

A few episodes ago (specifically, "When The Dead Come Knocking"), Glenn was tortured for information about the group and then narrowly avoided becoming walker-chow while tied to a chair. These made for some genuinely harrowing moments, made all the more dire by Maggie's parallel experiences, after which she gave up the desired information in order to save Glenn. I don't know if the writers intentionally chose to put two of the characters the audience likes most in this situation (at least I do; my wife has expressed some misgivings about Maggie), but the episode is better for that decision.

This is what the show needs. They've shed a lot of the--sorry--dead weight. And I look forward to more of the good times. Good times for us... Rick's people suffer for our entertainment, after all.

Football Is A Drug, Super Bowl XLVII Edition

A few months ago, the 2012 NFL season began and I and millions of others magically regained the ability to ignore the realities of the brutal, multi-billion dollar game we love. It's a talent we've been forced to utilize every fall, because for many of us, we can't help it. Speaking for myself: I can guess at the potential consequences every vicious hit carries and I keep on watching, anyway. I mean, c'mon, it's exciting. And the hits play a large roll in that excitement. I watch a highlight reel like this and my human brain knows this isn't right, but because my adrenaline is pumping, it's my lizard brain that's in control.

It's a drug and we're addicted. It's not like we're stupid (well... most of us aren't); even those of us without medical training can look at the punishment being sustained and know on some level that this isn't healthy. Players know the risks when they sign up, we tell ourselves (maybe). But whether or not that makes it okay to watch is another question.

I recommend perusing Ta-Nehisi Coates' rundown of the NFL's recent history of concussion evasion. You should also check out Bob Costas on The Daily Show earlier this week. Or you can trust your own eyes and watch the play from this year's AFC Championship game that Costas discusses with Jon Stewart, in which Ravens safety Bernard Pollard clobbers Patriots running back Stevan Ridley. Watching live, I was expecting to see Ridley still prone on the field, surrounded by team trainers and doctors, as soon as the replays ended. By the grace of football's traditionally generous gods, Ridley walked off under his own power almost immediately. It says something--I'm not sure what--that Pollard has since acknowledged the potential consequences for the NFL's style of play.

Some will argue that anyone cheering for Baltimore this Sunday (as I am) is rooting for a murderer. Or at least a team that is led, physically and emotionally, by a probable accessory to murder. And there's some validity to that, just as there's some validity to the idea that cheering on any football team might lead one to incidentally root for a criminal of one class or another (somewhat greater odds for Cowboys fans). That's a gruesomeness that we as fans have learned to live with ignore. What happens off the field stays off the field, we rationalize. But on the field, we're watching men kill each other. Slowly but inexorably. We sit, not exactly passively, and watch these athletes devastating each others' mortal, if gargantuan, bodies and turning each others' brains into scrambled eggs in ways we're only just beginning to grasp. I'm not much for hashing out moral comparisons, but certainly we can't all claim to be clean.

So my prediction for Sunday is: injuries. Lots of them. All of the injuries will happen and no one will be spared.

And it'll be exciting as hell.

Baltimore over San Francisco, 31-23.

Halloween Costumes

(Image via WTF Costumes)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bad Roommate

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

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

When The Walking Dead Shows Promise

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

The problem with The Walking Dead has always been one of expectations. The show as a whole was probably never going to live up to that amazing pilot that set the bar so high, but neither was it totally unfair of us to expect that it would. The conceit of the show promises one of two things, either of which could make for great television:

1. A sustained psycho-drama focusing on the slow deterioration--and possible resuscitation--of the human spirit in the face of crushing apocalypse.
2. Straight-up zombie-killin'.

Sadly, TWD never really succeeds at either of these. Not consistently, anyway. The show occasionally finds time for really creative zombie kills (such as last season's "Triggerfinger," when the walker came for Lori, while she was trapped in an upside-down car). However, those comprise about ninety seconds out of fifty-two minutes. The rest of the run-time is often devoted to Rick's vacillations about what the group should do next. That in itself could be worthwhile if it didn't stretch for ten episodes. And if the creators had better staged the Rick vs. Shane, good vs. evil struggle for the group's soul. But they never could and the group went nowhere. And then Shane was dead.

Meanwhile, characters bicker back and forth and engage in aimless relationship squabbles--yes, relationship squabbles, because no one on this show has a sense of perspective. And that's how, like any other soap opera, all the characters become unlikable no matter how much you really want to like them. Well, not "all the characters;" the show could improve immeasurably if they kill off every character whose name doesn't rhyme with "barrel." 

And this disappointment is made worse because it's borne out of frustration. Because every so often, TWD demonstrates what it's capable of.

The first season--limping some after the pilot--ended with the destruction of the CDC and a group of survivors on the road, with no safe haven. That could make for some great drama in the second season, with these people moving into new, hostile territory every week and learning about the post-zombie apocalypse world. Then the whole group is consigned to The Farm. Promising new arcs were teased there, only for most of them to fizzle out, if they got that far. Lori is pregnant and Shane is dead. You're caught up.

Then, the climax of "Pretty Much Dead Already" capped off a half-season-long arc about Sophia's whereabouts in an earth-shattering way. It was stunning. And heartbreaking. Yeah, the slow-burn reveal came about two episodes later than would've been ideal, but we could let that slide. After all, this meant they finally got to leave The Farm. It meant several characters confronting new realities and new roles within the group. It meant that the writers were finally done biding their time. And then... they stayed on The Farm. And nothing changed except that instead of talking about "finding Sophia," they were talking about "remember how Sophia used to be alive?" It was remarkable how fast the show fell back into a rut.

Then there was that season's finale, which opened with a literal barnstorming: a big, lengthy group kill-in of invading walkers. It was exciting and satisfying in every way that this series had missed out on being since the pilot. Now they had to leave The Farm. And now the group was split up, promising new drama. But, just moments after Rick is breaking down over the fact that his wife is missing and his group has splintered, most of the group rolls into view, hugs are exchanged, and nothing more is said. Andrea is missing, I guess, but she runs into Michonne, who--even for those (like myself) who haven't read the comics--already looks crazy badass. Meanwhile, back at the group, people are getting hyper-pissy about Rick keeping secret the thing about everyone being infected. Which, yeah, dick move. But, really, what were you going to do with that information except moan? You know, like you're doing right now. Just twenty minutes previously, we were wallowing in zombie-rific action and now we're mired in the same old go-nowhere muck, with a slight hint at an exciting new direction. Like the direction we've been promised before and have yet to see the fruits of.

And yet we tune in. Because we know the tools are there. We know the material exists in abundance because we've seen them tease some truly great stories and we can't help but think about the possibilities. As Cracked's Dan O'Brien has written:

The Walking Dead is successful because people are tuning in but watching a different, better show in their imaginations, every single week.

Which leads us to last night's season three premiere. The Farm is a (bad) memory. The group is on the move and Rick is finally looking assertive and decisive; nothing like killing your former best friend/cuckold/would-be murderer to get the blood flowing. The introduction to the prison has pitfalls of its own, but it might be worthwhile for the introduction of a new crew of survivors, assuming they don't squander that opportunity, as they did in "Nebraska" last season. The Governor may force some interesting character choices.  And T-Dog got more than half a line. There are a lot of places to go from here, most of them good. Things might finally be looking up for The Walking Dead.

But I think I've said that before.

9/11

I remember one of the history teachers--one of the ones everybody liked--interrupting our gym class to tell us what had happened after another student had asked about the rumors of what was happening in New York (no word of the Pentagon or Pennsylvania yet).  Afterward, the gym teacher took us right back into... basketball drills, I think?

The next day, most students and teachers were not wearing red, white, and blue. They wore camouflage: marking themselves as ready for the next attack, which would surely be targeting rural Virginia because "that would scare people--no one would suspect that."

Beyond such Fuck The 9/12 Project anecdotes, I'm afraid I'm useless for any kind of 9/11 remembrance. For that, there are more qualified people you can turn to.

Why Are You, Adam Sandler?

Posts have been a bit rare 'round here lately.  I've been working on a longer piece I hope to have up in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, I'm going to recommend Steven Hyden's recent article at Grantland.com (a site I'm reluctantly coming around to liking) exploring Adam Sandler's long journey from the naive yet charming man-child we loved in Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison to the more aimless man-child we tolerated in Waterboy and Anger Management to the obscenely-wealthy-and-not-giving-a-shit man-child we wanted to retire in Grown-Ups, Jack and Jill, and, now, That's My Boy.  One might argue that he never really gave a shit.  As Hyden points out, it wasn't never so much that he said funny things--he just said them in a way that was kind of funny (compare to Will Ferrell, who, at the top of his game, usually managed/manages both).

And it's not as if Sandler's not aware or can't do better (Funny People provides proof enough against both).  He just has a good thing where he gets paid millions of dollars to play versions of himself in different careers in films that are filmed in his own mansion.  Guy's one step away from not even having to bathe and making bank for it.  I'm not going to blame a guy for grasping onto that.  But I can begrudge the ratio: there's nothing wrong with popping out an expensive turd once every few years in order to bankroll smaller projects that aren't putting food on the table.  Sandler seemed to be on this path at one point, but a quick glance through his filmography of the last decade shows that this has not been the case.  There was Punch-Drunk Love and Funny People, demonstrating that he has the ability and at least some of the interest to put some effort into his movies.  But on the vastly heavier side of the scale, we see the likes of 50 First Dates, The Longest Yard remake, Click, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, You Don't Mess With the Zohan, Grown Ups (which is apparently getting a sequel?), Just Go With It, That's My Boy, and writing and producing credits on Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star and I don't care if Sandler thinks it's fair to include it--he lost the high moral ground when he attached his name to that one. 


All of which leads me back to my original question: Why are you, Adam Sandler?  And why do you insist on making us sad?

In Brief: The Sea is Full of Horror

Eons ago, the greatest horrors of our world returned to the sea from whence all life originated.  Some say that said horrors were banished there, as though such things could be banished, or would accept banishment.  Others say they took to the deep because the land had no challenges for them.  The truth lies somewhere in between, if much closer to the later.  Beneath the surface of gentle ocean waves, they look and act as beings of purest grade nightmare fuel.  On our surface world, they'd be reduced to hunting (or, for them, playing).  But in the vast darkness, these things of seemingly eternal lifespans (we don't actually know how long many sharks, for instance, live.  But does this look like a thing that can die?  Case rested) need not sink to something so base and can be patient, waiting for us to make the mistake of coming to them.  And we will.  Oh, we will. 

The brief glimpses we get of their tricks--that octopus above, for example--are but parlor tricks for simple amusement.  Their simple amusement.  Their true games are played much deeper, down where the light refuses to stretch.  It is no coincidence that H.P. Lovecraft identified the ocean floor as the location of R'lyeh, resting place of Great Cthulu.  From where else could an incomprehensible horror from beyond the stars rule without prematurely annihilating the planet through terror-driven insanity? 

Most people think that burying Osama bin Laden at sea almost a year ago was a geopolitical maneuver; no one really wanted the bastard, plus it denies his adherents a grave site for pilgrimages.  But those are mere fringe benefits, logical explanations for a world that does occasionally demand logic, if only because it has trouble contemplating the non-Euclidean horrors that lie beneath.  The truth is far more ghoulish than we mere land-dwelling mortals dare attempt to absorb.  In the place where the monster bin Laden now rests, he is not worthy of the title "monster."  Or even "terrorist."  Down there, he'd hardly rank as an amateur.  Nothing we could have done to him would have been fitting enough.  But we could feed him to the seeping moist, to be forever surrounded by those malevolent, invisible, slithering, toothsome creatures, with escape an impossibility. 

They will terrify him and then kill him.  Again and again and again.  Because fear is the most delicious condiment of all.  

*Credit to my wonderful fiancee on the title.