Just to address the elephant in the room, I'm fatter than I was a few days ago. I don't really appreciate being addressed as "elephant," but who am I to come between you and your casual cruelty?
I don't have a definitive number for you in terms of weight gain. Seeing as it's only been about 36 hours since I ate my Thanksgiving meal, it's a little early to get fully quantitative in terms of overall outcome, but I've been on a low-fat diet for about 18 months now to control cholesterol. I'm pretty sure whatever reductions I've made have all been outdone in those 36 hours.
I seem to be on some kind of mission. There's absolutely no reason for an adult person with reasonable self-control in other areas of his life to eat three pieces of pie in one sitting. And no, the type(s) of pie in question are not germane to the story, nor is the quality of the pie even if said quality was produced by the person doing the eating. It turns out that calorie and fat intake are functions of science, not of quasi-theological concepts of fairness that are open to negotiation.
Oh yes, the other thing worth noting is that I obviously forgot to post yesterday, a Thursday. Hence the weird Friday thing happening before your eyes, whenever your eyes happen to find this, probably not actually on a Friday. Sometimes I forget how blogs work. And time.
I looked back at previous years to see if there was any kind of thematic through-line I'd been maintaining on Thanksgiving posts, given that I post on Thursdays so it always seems to end up here. Want to guess what I found? A bunch of shit that I'm thankful for. Super original. But then I'm almost always under the influence of an amount of carbohydrates that can only be described as "masochistic."
As this is Friday, this should not be the case today. I should be not at all addled by butter or starches or the demon tryptophan, and yet here I am, flirting with self-administered hyperglycemia, because I can't stop. And the real bastard of it is: I didn't even cook, so I don't have a bunch of leftovers laying around. I'm going out and finding ways to continue to eat garbage, in every manner short of eating actual garbage (so far).
So I'm not up to listing the shit I'm thankful for at the moment. Sorry. Expression of that sort is going to have to wait until I bounce up from the rock bottom that awaits at the end of this shame spiral.
For now I'll have to be content with being the stand-in for the voice we all have screaming at us from the inside on Thanksgiving evenings going THAT'S TOO MUCH COOL WHIP, MY GOD, CAN'T YOU LOVE YOURSELF?! Except just directed at me. I wouldn't dare judge any of you. Especially not after missing the regular Thursday posting deadline. I owed you this. And the me not judging you thing, that just makes us all square, right? Great.
See you next week. On time. After about eight thousand crunches. Promise.
Friday, November 24, 2017
Thursday, November 16, 2017
You Poisonous Snake!
Some weeks you just don't want the news cycle. Those are the weeks when there's so much going on in your actual life that you just to stretch out, clear some space and cherry-pick the bits of information you allow to drift out of the darkness in all directions and pollute your moment of easy breathing and bright light.
This has been one of those weeks. There's a bunch of churn and swirl, I'm happy to say most of it ranging from neutral to pretty frickin' good. On top of that, it's the week I'm supposed to be preparing myself for the inevitable disappointment that will be Justice League. A third movie featuring Superman that will almost definitely somehow cripple him with doubt and mood and tone in a clumsy attempt to address the narrative challenge of making an all-powerful character relatable AND not simply able to solve the central challenge in the first thirty seconds of the film. The Christopher Reeve films did it by making the stakes the lives of the people around him and scaling up the threats to match his abilities. Hell, they did it so well they even had to add a bunch of stuff* he can't actually do. These ones just made him sad all the time, and poorly lit.
Important though that is, it's not the only thing going on. There's work stuff and kid stuff and other stuff, none of which is bad, it just requires my attention. So I can't be out here policing who is and who isn't a monster. And yet, somehow, the news (as it has been since election day last year) is a parade of monster floats poorly made of chicken wire, sandpaper and earwax all held together by a broad and stunning palette of various types of animal feces. It's been twelve months and I just kind of want a day off.
But no, the brazenly inhuman election of an anti-human as our president has, in the lone positive development, completely flipped the script on male privilege and its tendency to excuse, obfuscate and perpetuate sexual violence against women, children, even other adult straight men. Outside a couple moments of accidental levity, which themselves usually end up being desperate and ultimately humiliating as much for the observers as anyone, it's been one catastrophe after another, up to and including the impending threat of nuclear war. That's all.
I am not complaining, even as the quickening chorus of outings claims yet another person I'd accidentally led myself to believe was one of the good ones. I've said before that racism, the foundation on which all of America is built, is only about 400 years old as an idea. Patriarchal misogyny, however, is way down at the root of all of western culture, dating back to the earliest shit anyone bothered to write down. It's such a given that no one in all this time had ever really been able to conceive that it was possible to directly challenge it. It started falling too late for Hillary Clinton, but maybe without her (still stinging and confusing) loss, none of this would have come together and a shitbag like Harvey Weinstein would still have a job.
The interesting thing will be to see how deep this spear of redress will pierce and whether it will be allowed to poke at the heart of this thing. Alabama will be an interesting test case. I've long joked that Alabama would elect a child molester before it would elect a Democrat to statewide office, at least since all the high-profile doctrinaire racists left for the Republican party after Lyndon Johnson started being sort of thoughtful about black folks. Well, now we have our chance to test literally that. I'll believe it when I see it, but think of the elements this has: an avowed Christian known for presenting defiance of all things other than his religion, even costing him his previous government positions; a sex scandal involving underage girls; lying robocalls designed to confuse the issue by injecting the unpopular northeast lame-stream media AND good ole fashioned Jew-baitin' anti-semitism. All we need is a little sprinkling of outright racism and it will be the most American thing that has ever occurred. And oh look! Yahtzee!
The tropes are old and a little confusing. I mean yeah, "the liberal media doesn't know us down here in real America, and that's in large part because they are Jews." Got it. It seems really outdated as most old-style anti-semites are, well, old. And Alabama isn't made ENTIRELY of old people. It sure seems like the younger, supposedly post-racial millennials would abhor this kind of tired rhetoric, but I always like to give ethnic animus the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure at some point, every generation seemed like it would be the last one to hold such stupid ideas, and yet somehow, those loving young people turned into old racists, replacing their dead parents in the self-winding social clockwork. Why would we think the new young people are any less susceptible to the same process? Are they stronger than a thousand years of anthropology somehow? Why, because Obama was president for what now seems like roughly 90 seconds?
I don't know what to think of Alabama. The patriotic Americans there seem like they're leaning toward defining me to be a regionalist anti-Southern bigot. Best case scenario is obviously they prove me wrong.
---
*Not limited to levitation beams from his fingers, teleportation, creating a stone doppelganger of himself, amnesia-inducing kisses and a giant plastic S-shield he peels from his chest and throws at his enemies like a net.
This has been one of those weeks. There's a bunch of churn and swirl, I'm happy to say most of it ranging from neutral to pretty frickin' good. On top of that, it's the week I'm supposed to be preparing myself for the inevitable disappointment that will be Justice League. A third movie featuring Superman that will almost definitely somehow cripple him with doubt and mood and tone in a clumsy attempt to address the narrative challenge of making an all-powerful character relatable AND not simply able to solve the central challenge in the first thirty seconds of the film. The Christopher Reeve films did it by making the stakes the lives of the people around him and scaling up the threats to match his abilities. Hell, they did it so well they even had to add a bunch of stuff* he can't actually do. These ones just made him sad all the time, and poorly lit.
Important though that is, it's not the only thing going on. There's work stuff and kid stuff and other stuff, none of which is bad, it just requires my attention. So I can't be out here policing who is and who isn't a monster. And yet, somehow, the news (as it has been since election day last year) is a parade of monster floats poorly made of chicken wire, sandpaper and earwax all held together by a broad and stunning palette of various types of animal feces. It's been twelve months and I just kind of want a day off.
But no, the brazenly inhuman election of an anti-human as our president has, in the lone positive development, completely flipped the script on male privilege and its tendency to excuse, obfuscate and perpetuate sexual violence against women, children, even other adult straight men. Outside a couple moments of accidental levity, which themselves usually end up being desperate and ultimately humiliating as much for the observers as anyone, it's been one catastrophe after another, up to and including the impending threat of nuclear war. That's all.
I am not complaining, even as the quickening chorus of outings claims yet another person I'd accidentally led myself to believe was one of the good ones. I've said before that racism, the foundation on which all of America is built, is only about 400 years old as an idea. Patriarchal misogyny, however, is way down at the root of all of western culture, dating back to the earliest shit anyone bothered to write down. It's such a given that no one in all this time had ever really been able to conceive that it was possible to directly challenge it. It started falling too late for Hillary Clinton, but maybe without her (still stinging and confusing) loss, none of this would have come together and a shitbag like Harvey Weinstein would still have a job.
The interesting thing will be to see how deep this spear of redress will pierce and whether it will be allowed to poke at the heart of this thing. Alabama will be an interesting test case. I've long joked that Alabama would elect a child molester before it would elect a Democrat to statewide office, at least since all the high-profile doctrinaire racists left for the Republican party after Lyndon Johnson started being sort of thoughtful about black folks. Well, now we have our chance to test literally that. I'll believe it when I see it, but think of the elements this has: an avowed Christian known for presenting defiance of all things other than his religion, even costing him his previous government positions; a sex scandal involving underage girls; lying robocalls designed to confuse the issue by injecting the unpopular northeast lame-stream media AND good ole fashioned Jew-baitin' anti-semitism. All we need is a little sprinkling of outright racism and it will be the most American thing that has ever occurred. And oh look! Yahtzee!
The tropes are old and a little confusing. I mean yeah, "the liberal media doesn't know us down here in real America, and that's in large part because they are Jews." Got it. It seems really outdated as most old-style anti-semites are, well, old. And Alabama isn't made ENTIRELY of old people. It sure seems like the younger, supposedly post-racial millennials would abhor this kind of tired rhetoric, but I always like to give ethnic animus the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure at some point, every generation seemed like it would be the last one to hold such stupid ideas, and yet somehow, those loving young people turned into old racists, replacing their dead parents in the self-winding social clockwork. Why would we think the new young people are any less susceptible to the same process? Are they stronger than a thousand years of anthropology somehow? Why, because Obama was president for what now seems like roughly 90 seconds?
I don't know what to think of Alabama. The patriotic Americans there seem like they're leaning toward defining me to be a regionalist anti-Southern bigot. Best case scenario is obviously they prove me wrong.
---
*Not limited to levitation beams from his fingers, teleportation, creating a stone doppelganger of himself, amnesia-inducing kisses and a giant plastic S-shield he peels from his chest and throws at his enemies like a net.
Thursday, November 9, 2017
We'll Be Back To Pick You Up Later
I'm probably good looking. It's hard to say for sure seeing as, out of all the things, that's the thing that is the most subjective. Well, among regular people it's subjective. The subjectivity of attractiveness exists on a couple of different scales. There's the one down here for us yahoos, with our body hair and our measurable body fat, doing the best we can relative to the people we happen across. And then there are the billboards and the swimsuit issues and the perfume ads and the superhero movies... all the two-dimensional spaces where we keep our Platonic ideals of morphic symmetry and golden ratios. It's a world populated by exotic, endangered species like Thandie Newtons and Kate Uptons and the entire gaggle of Hemsworths. They exist in an ethereal space separate from the rest of us, only occasionally let out of their pens to skitter into the wild, usually at the Farmers Market on Fairfax in LA. After that they're huddled back into captivity and put to work doing what they were born to do: remind the rest of us of our inadequacies and sell us mouthwash and moisturizer and bar soap. We know it won't really help, but you let yourself imagine that at least you can smell like Audrey Hepburn, even though deep down you know that plebeian brick of tallow and lye would never touch her impeccable skin she probably only lightly cleanses in a bath of fresh lavender petals in first-press unicorn milk.
I don't have to be better looking than Brad Pitt* to be actually attractive down here among us Normals. I don't even have to be comparable. We're all running around out here with our Picasso-esque lines, eyes and noses and mouths and hairlines all scattered and askew. To pull it all together into inducing something approximating the involuntary rush of laying eyes on an actual, objectively attractive person, we're forced to fill in the gaps and shore up the wobbly physical foundation with personality.
And now we've thrown objectivity right out the window. Now we're talking about the weird interpersonal alchemy most usually and inappropriately called chemistry. Just to be clear, chemistry is a science with testable propositions and measurable results to either confirm or rubbish the initial theorem; it's definitive. It's progressive, and further, self-progressive as the triumphs and catastrophes of chemistry push other chemistry (if not all of science) forward. Murder enough designer mice and eventually you get to grow a dying boy some new skin.
Human attractiveness does not work like that. I won't say it's less methodical as any woman on an online dating site will tell you: you get all the attention from literally all of the men. There's a method at work, to be sure. But it's certainly less rigid in its approach and produces far, far fewer quantifiable results. Software algorithms pool users by compatibility, the idea being they will find their covalent bonds through the sharing of the outermost ring of foundational ephemera. I'm not sure how many people had their first sexual encounter as a couple with an episode Game of Thrones on pause half way through, but I'd bet it's more than one.
See, we're all, in our own ways, weird looking and just weird as people, so we're forced to rely on our quirks and tendencies to make us attractive to other humans. And all this even though we know in the long term the goal isn't to be attractive, it's to be tolerable. But that's another blog post.
Those of us not blessed with an undeniable aura of human beauty have to measure out a series of patient steps to gauge our subjective attractiveness exactly as is demanded, according to the conclusions of the subject. They have to see, they have to watch and, most importantly, eventually they have to say, one way or another, yes or no.
Options that should not be on the table? Jerking off in front of people not in a position to safely withhold consent. And not "even" if you're a beloved entertainer, but especially if you're a beloved entertainer. Does it suck to be weird-looking and fat even while everyone is telling you how great you are? Maybe. But frustrated and lonely is a way better way to go through life than "registered sex offender."
---
*Thelma and Louise Brad Pitt I'm thinking, not current day Craggy Sad Old Stoner Brad Pitt. I know my references are dated, but I let my subscription to Tiger Beat expire in 1990. I'm a little behind the times.
I don't have to be better looking than Brad Pitt* to be actually attractive down here among us Normals. I don't even have to be comparable. We're all running around out here with our Picasso-esque lines, eyes and noses and mouths and hairlines all scattered and askew. To pull it all together into inducing something approximating the involuntary rush of laying eyes on an actual, objectively attractive person, we're forced to fill in the gaps and shore up the wobbly physical foundation with personality.
And now we've thrown objectivity right out the window. Now we're talking about the weird interpersonal alchemy most usually and inappropriately called chemistry. Just to be clear, chemistry is a science with testable propositions and measurable results to either confirm or rubbish the initial theorem; it's definitive. It's progressive, and further, self-progressive as the triumphs and catastrophes of chemistry push other chemistry (if not all of science) forward. Murder enough designer mice and eventually you get to grow a dying boy some new skin.
Human attractiveness does not work like that. I won't say it's less methodical as any woman on an online dating site will tell you: you get all the attention from literally all of the men. There's a method at work, to be sure. But it's certainly less rigid in its approach and produces far, far fewer quantifiable results. Software algorithms pool users by compatibility, the idea being they will find their covalent bonds through the sharing of the outermost ring of foundational ephemera. I'm not sure how many people had their first sexual encounter as a couple with an episode Game of Thrones on pause half way through, but I'd bet it's more than one.
See, we're all, in our own ways, weird looking and just weird as people, so we're forced to rely on our quirks and tendencies to make us attractive to other humans. And all this even though we know in the long term the goal isn't to be attractive, it's to be tolerable. But that's another blog post.
Those of us not blessed with an undeniable aura of human beauty have to measure out a series of patient steps to gauge our subjective attractiveness exactly as is demanded, according to the conclusions of the subject. They have to see, they have to watch and, most importantly, eventually they have to say, one way or another, yes or no.
Options that should not be on the table? Jerking off in front of people not in a position to safely withhold consent. And not "even" if you're a beloved entertainer, but especially if you're a beloved entertainer. Does it suck to be weird-looking and fat even while everyone is telling you how great you are? Maybe. But frustrated and lonely is a way better way to go through life than "registered sex offender."
---
*Thelma and Louise Brad Pitt I'm thinking, not current day Craggy Sad Old Stoner Brad Pitt. I know my references are dated, but I let my subscription to Tiger Beat expire in 1990. I'm a little behind the times.
Thursday, November 2, 2017
Don't Seek Happiness
It's not possible to log on to Facebook without having half or more of the postings erupt into motion, like the most predatorily capitalist version of Harry Potter's newspaper. If you asked anyone even 15-20 years ago what it would mean to them if they were able to access, without buffering or effort, something as seamless as embedded video, they'd be at turns either skeptical or awed. And then they'd immediately deduce that we would have found a way to turn it into something either tacky, schmaltzy, irritatingly insistent or a threat to western democracy itself. Remember, these would have been a cynical people living through the era that gave us the Crystal Pepsi debacle. They would have earned their darkness.
The problem with the never-ending Facebook video scroll is its ability to distort the flow of both space and time. I was going to say "that's probably not what Zuckerberg intended when he stole the idea from the Winklevoss twins" but you know what, the more I hear that Elon Musk talk out loud about Mars colonies and magic tunnels, I realize I have no idea what these nerds are thinking, or at what scale. When all this shit blows up in a sudden puff of silent, instant ash, it'll be Richard Branson's fault probably.
What I mean is that video, once it exists, is evergreen. Well, that's not actually true as sometimes the clothes and music are dead giveaways that will date something, but for the most part, music beds can be replaced and some fancy graphic overlays can make anything seem slick and of-the-now. For example, just mindlessly running through the ribbon of non-information that is Facebook while waiting for my branded beverage in a Starbucks* I came across a video of writer-comedian-monologuist Tim Minchin giving a commencement address somewhere. It was all very Tim Minchin-y, meaning it was self-aware and slightly cutting, but clever and a little sweet, but I was watching it (with subtitles, not in full volume in a public place because I AM NOT A MONSTER) thinking stuff like "ooh, he's talking about Trump right there!" and the like. Turns out it's from 2013, so there's me projecting.
The speech is structured around these nine life lessons which include... well, yes, I have forgotten most of them, I'll be honest. And the transcript is in the link above, the page for which I already have open, but I can't be bothered to check. I think one of them was something about seat belts maybe? I don't know. Seems like a good advice either way: seat belts, everybody.
No, the one I do remember is "define yourself by what you love," meaning generally "don't just hate stuff," which is ironic considering, again, I got this off Facebook which exists mostly for people to talk in the most facile way possible about a thing they hate. OK, it's not Twitter, the world's brain sewer, but in my feed at least it's a constant stream of reminders of how everyone is liking things wrong: political parties, politicians, movies, music, even other humans. The whole thing is predicated on making the active choice of who you consider a "friend" and to what degree. The presupposed automatically implied rejection stretches to literally all of the rest of the internet-connected world.
Joke's on him though because this is something I was already trying to practice. Truthfully, I am a little ahead of Tim Minchin and behind him at the same time. I don't think this had occurred to me by 2013, when he actually said this shit, but I definitely had arrived there before this morning in 2017, when I saw him say it. See, I told you Facebook was bending spacetime.
What I mean is I'd made the decision, in the face of a lot of haranguing about the things I liked, to give up the idea of guilty pleasures and the related action of shaming others for theirs. I like what I like. You can like what you like. I assume it fits your needs and brings you some kind of joy or pleasure or, as we all seem to increasingly need in the last year or so, solace. So I already try actively to define myself by what I love and leave others to do the same.
With one exception. You're probably going to guess "country music." And oh, you're so close! That's taken the most work, but I'm at the point where I can let you enjoy that without deciding that you have given up on what it means to actually live. No, I'm talking about the Los Angeles Dodgers.
See, sports is a little different. In every league there are like 30 or more teams. Only one gets to win every year. The odds of it being YOUR team is almost zero. Ask a Cubs fan. Ask an Indians fan. Ask a Mariners fan. Even my team has only won the World Series one time and that was 15 years ago. So in order to stay engaged, you HAVE to hate someone else a little. This isn't a question of life and living, more just about having a rooting interest. That can be negative in origin and still work exactly the same as a positive one.
So this World Series, I rooted hard for the Houston Astros. I've never been to Houston. Not interested in ever going there. Seems like a nondescript Texas nowhere city with a recent run of shit luck. Plus they're a divisional rival of my team. I should hate them. But the Dodgers... every year on Facebook I like to post a little note on the day it becomes clear they will not be winning the World Series. Is it petty and childish? Yes, but then again, so is baseball.
And this year, to have it stretch aaaaaallllll the way to Game 7 of the World Series before having their hearts stepped on, well... It's the second best possible season-ending scenario for me outside of an Angels victory.
Well, almost. I was faced with the possibility (briefly) of a Yankees-Dodgers World Series. This is the one scenario--EXACTLY ONE--where I would ever find myself rooting for the Dodgers to win anything. So I stayed out of the Upside Down, and the Yankees AND Dodgers had their hearts broken. Am I a vampire of some kind? Maybe slightly. This doesn't make me a good person and Tim Minchin would disapprove. But do I need his life lessons anyway? He's a white Australian guy with matted dreadlocks. He's not exactly batting a thousand on his life decisions.
---
*Oh god they've got 100% of my time accounted for, don't they?
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