Ira Madison's collection of pop culture essays, Pure Innocent Fun, is the elder millennial Black gay man's dishier version of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs-- a book that Madison says inspired him-- and while Klosterman is around my age and evrything he writes about resonates with me, Ira Madison-- who is 39-- came of age in a slightly different pop culture environment and I was not familiar with all pop culture touchstones-- according to Madison, Gen Xers watched Beavis and Butthead while Madison connected with Daria . . . we do both love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but for Madison, Buffy is a bad-ass bitch who is also in a secret club-- which he related to as a closeted gay Black man at a very white and preppy high school in Milwaukee . . . Madison is also a fan of soap operas-- which I never watched-- and the film Soapdish, which I remember loving but I haven't seen it in a long time . . . and he has inspired me to watch the movie Bring It On, which he claims "might seem to be a frivolous cheerleading movie" but it is "one of the only good films about cultural appropriation that’s ever been made and most certainly one of the best films about race in America"-- I hope this is true because I love a good sports movie . . . we shall see.
Something Happened
When I was young, you specified the thing you were listening to, watching, or reading: I'm reading the new Stephen King book; I'm listening to the new God Lives Underwater album; I'm watching Melrose Place . . . but now I people often mention the platform they are using instead of the specific content: I'm watching Netflix/YouTube/TikTok, I'm listening to Spotify, I'm going to sit down and read my Kindle-- I'm sure Marshall McLuhan would have a field day with this trend-- the delivery method and the algorithm are more important than the content; we don't own content any more-- we just breeze though it, separate from everyone else and because of media fragmentation, no one is watching/reading/listening to the same thing . . . and I find this is a little sad and scary.
"very rough trail through boulder field"
Dave Gives it the Ol' Viticulture Try
At Least It Wasn't a Heart Attack . . . Ack ack
Apparently, pianoman Billy Joel has canceled all his upcoming concerts because of "normal pressure hydrocephalus," which I believe (though I am not a doctor) may have been caused by the shrill and annoying synthesizer sound in his song "Pressure"-- and due to the symptoms of the disease: general sensory malfunctions and confusion-- Joel obviously doesn't want to get up on stage and perform . . . because he might forget the words and sound like Leslie Knope in this fantastic video-- let's all hope for a speedy recovery (but I'm certainly fine if he puts "We Didn't Start the Fire" on the shelf-- too many lyrics to perform with hydrocephalic pressure and it's also a really irritating song).
Dave Does NOT Use This Concept and Suffers For It
A couple of days ago in the comments my friend Rob coined the term "psychic hedge"-- but this might not be the best name for this concept (which is to bet AGAINST the team you are rooting for so that you win either way . . . if your team wins, you are excited and happy but if your team loses, then at least you gain some cash-- so either outcome, you win something) but apparently when you google the term "psychic hedge" you get results for two unrelated topics:
1) hedge witches? and magical hedge barriers?
2) using your psychic abilities to enhance your gambling acumen
so perhaps we should call this practice of betting against the team you are rooting for a "psychological hedge" or an "emotional hedge" and then the next step is to determine exactly how much money you need to bet in order to offset your rooting interests-- this is a relative proposition, of course, and depends on how rich you are and how ardent of a fan you are . . . or you could just go the Seinfeld route and bet $182 against your team and then see how you feel if you gain this amount . . . although I'm not sure there's any amount of money that could offset the Knicks epic collapse last night-- they blew a 14 point lead with three minutes left and lost in overtime . . . I definitely put in more than $182 of emotions and fanaticism, and I was not smart enough to place a very large psychological hedge bet to counterbalance my disappointment.
Good Ideas . . . What the Fuck?
Just Turning on a Giants Game is a Gamble
After listening to Michael Lewis talk about fandom and sports gambling-- he was on Armchair Expert and he's doing a season of his own podcast on this topic-- I am convinced that the irrationality of sports fanaticism and the way the sports gambling companies have preyed on this irrationality, which mainly resides in the hearts and brains of young men, and how these sports gambling behemoths have leveraged these emotions in an unethical manner to make boatloads of cash, designing sites and promotions to incentivize the stupidest bets and literally banning anyone who shows skill, rationality, and competence-- and, like the old time tobacco manufacturers, figuring out how to hook them when they're young-- I now believe that just watching a game and rooting for your team is enough of an emotional gamble-- there's no reason to put any money on the line because you're already emotionally invested on an outcome you can't control and probably won't go the way you want, so why lose money too?
The Creeping Jenny Controversy
Groovy
Time to Prep
No time to write a sentence, as I need to continue brainstorming ideas for a Netflix pilot-- Monmouth County is about to become the new Hollywood.
Che Cazzo?
Perhaps you have not experienced the surreal absurdist joys of the animated "Italian brainrot" characters and perhaps you are better off not going down this very stupid road, but perhaps, in these troubling times, Italian brainrot is exactly what the children need (and, of course, the high school students introduced me to this-- but I guess it's more than high school kids enjoying this silliness, as the latest episode of Hard Fork also features a segment on this comedic trend) and while you might think this is the end of civilization as we know it, you should remember that the youth always wants to adopt language and humor that the previous generation does not understand . . .
Exhibit A: Mr. Hankey
Exhibit B: Beavis and Butthead
Exhibit C: Strange Brew . . . hoser.
THIS Is Where You Get a Break From the Smelly Teenagers?
Due to a damp and rainy week, the English Office-- the place where my colleagues eat, hang out, swap stories about the youth, and escape the pungent odors of teen spirit-- today our office smelled, as Hamlet might put it: "rank and gross in nature" or as I put it: like sweaty mildewed socks.
Boy's Life
Horror and mystery writer Robert R. McCammon's 1991 novel Boy's Life is something weird and different and special and I highly recommend it if you're looking for a sprawling tale to get lost in . . . the book is set in the 1960s and has Southern Gothic elements, a sprinkling of magical realism, a murder mystery, and an eccentric cast of characters in a small town in Alabama-- but it's really a coming-of-age story and the end of innocence in America: Southern charm and the Civil Rights movement butt heads and the narrator tries to maintain his childlike innocence in a world determined to screw with him and his emotions in every way feasible-- plus there's a rampant dinosaur.
Del is One Funky Homosapien
Yesterday's sentence was a bit grim-- we're really feeling the effects of technology at my job, and it's casting a dark cloud over everything digital-- but today, inspired by this Rob Harvilla podcast, I started going through Del the Funky Homosapien's back catalog on Spotify and I must say, it's nice to have just about every album every recorded-- though digitally flattened and compressed-- at your digital beck-and-call.
What's Happening in Those Other Timelines?
Sometimes-- like when my wife and I are walking on the sidewalk on Easton Avenue in New Brunswick and we almost get knocked over by a dude on a little electric motor scooter puttering along, staring at his phone-- I think we are in the dumbest technological timeline . . . we've harnessed all these vast technological powers and we use them for predatory sports gambling apps, crypto meme coins, space tourism, social media, isolated echo chamber polarization conspiracy mongering, floating sea homes for societal drop-outs, and cheating on homework . . . meanwhile there seems to be no no incredible and exciting systemic changes on the horizon (not even a lane in city for motierized vehicles, so they have to weave along on the sidewalk and occasionally veer into traffic).
Check ME Out!
This morning, while I was in the produce aisle at ShopRite, doing the grocery shopping so my wife could relax on Mother's Day, I overheard several women chatting, and they were wondering why the hell they were grocery shopping instead of their husbands-- and I almost said something to them but then thought better of it.
If You Trace a Pair of Shoes, They Look Like a Pair of Testicles
If you ask twenty-one fifth-graders to trace their shadows on the school playground blacktop-- as my wife's colleague did-- then you might end up with twenty-one drawings that look vaguely phallic-- which is troublesome if all the parents are coming to school for the Spring Concert (which they were).
