My core is still sore from the yoga class yesterday-- so I'm doing lots of TV . . . as it is the last days of my Spring Break; Cat and I are binging Mare of Easttown-- I shouldn't complain about a sore core after watching that show, so many tragedies and Kate Winslet is so good at portraying them; we are watching the trippy third season of Goliath as a family; I am watching old Atlanta episodes with Ian, and I watched the new Atlanta episode with Alex.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query TV. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query TV. Sort by date Show all posts
Cooperation vs. Competition
While I love competition, I love it in particular forums (darts, cornhole, basketball, soccer, pedantry, stealing rocks from the park, miracles) and I readily acknowledge that the bulk of human interaction is cooperative-- in fact, nearly everything I do in the course of a day is a cooperative venture: driving on the highway, walking in a crowded space, holding a discussion in class, coming up with a new lesson plan, having a laugh in the office, running soccer practice, cooking dinner, dealing with the kids, and even watching TV (I only watch TV with other people, and I make a lot of comments and ask a lot of questions) and this makes me wonder about the actual benefits of competition-- while it's certainly fun, I'm not sure if it's all that significant for our species, as we are at the core, social animals; conservatives claim to love the unfettered competition in capitalism because they insist that it produces excellent results, but I wonder how many of these folks that espouse this philosophy have ever played competitive sports . . . because anyone who is competitive and has participated in competitive sports knows that the referees and umpires and officials and rules and regulations are VERY important because people tend to act fairly berserk when they are competing, which leads me to believe that competition is NOT our natural state (which is why we need yellow cards and personal fouls and the penalty box and the Geneva Conventions) and also leads me to believe that we either need to adopt a different metaphor for our economic system (and a different culture to go along with that new metaphor) or we need regulations in capitalism that allow for stronger penalties and even ejection from tha game.
The Test 36: TV Themes and Beatboxing
The gang reunites this week on The Test for Cunningham's perpetually astounding, perplexingly astounding TV Theme Song quiz (I've been channelling Walt "Clyde" Frazier lately) and-- warning-- Stacey and I have some serious cognitive difficulties with this one . . . Stacey gets philosophical about her malfunctioning brain and says something very poetic: "I can't even remember my memories," and I get frustrated and angry and claim I have Alzheimer's, and then I attribute my intellectual failures to the fact that it was Friday afternoon after a long week of teaching, which is ridiculous . . . anyway, we finish strong, with an amazing display of vocal prestidigitation; so take a shot, keep score, see how you do, and don't be stingy with the points . . . also, if you like it, give us a rating on iTunes and/or Stitcher . . . thanks!
Medium Apostrophe
Sometimes I complain that there are too many good TV shows and it's impossible to keep up with everyone's recommendations, but that's not a complaint, it's actually the opposite of a complaint, it's a compliment . . . so great job TV, you've become so excellent you've completely overwhelmed me, to the point where I don't watch you at all.
Dave's Favorite Story About Dave
Other readers have shared their Favorite Stories about Dave, and most have these have been in the Awkward Moments of Dave genre, but I would like to tell my favorite story about Dave, and it's not awkward at all, in fact-- believe it or not-- I am the clever hero of the story, in the tradition of cunning tricksters like Odysseus, Loki, and Br'er Rabbit, but don't worry, this theme won't be a recurring feature because it never happened again, so enjoy the one time I came through in the clutch: several years ago, when my two boys were quite young-- just able to walk and talk-- and we took a trip to the Newark Museum, which has a mini-zoo, art galleries, a fire museum, and a natural history section . . . and we were walking from the mini-zoo to the elevators, and the only way was through the art galleries, and so I was making the best of it, pointing out things my kids could recognize in the paintings, boats and cars and colors; the museum was empty-- a ghost town-- and so the guards, who were probably bored out of their minds, started chasing Alex and Ian around a bit, which my kids loved . . . Ian went one way and Alex ran the other, and I chased Ian because he was younger and then I heard BEEP BEEP BEEP from the room next door and when I got in there, I saw Alex touching a large painting, and this had triggered the alarm system-- so I told him you couldn't touch the paintings and apologized to the guards, but they weren't upset at him, of course, since they had instigated the running around, and when we finally got to the elevators, there was a post-modern sculpture next to the doors-- it was an intimidating pile of seven or eight televisions, and the top and bottom screens showed a silver Buddha head floating on the ocean, being buffeted by the waves, and all the screens in the middle showed the same rotating Buddha head, but each screen was tinted a different color-- red, green, blue, yellow, purple-- and right next to the tower of TV's was a video camera and a rotating Buddha head-- the same Buddha head that was on all the TV screens-- and so I wondered if the camera was actually filming the head and sending a live-feed to the televisions, or if they were just playing a loop of film, so-- naturally-- I stuck my hand in front of the camera (I also wanted to see if my hand would appear in a different color on each screen) and I was rewarded with both the image of my hand on every screen and the BEEP BEEP BEEP of the alarm-- like a child, I had set off the system, but when the guard jogged in to check out why the alarm was going off, I pointed to my son Alex and said, "Alex, I told you, you can't touch anything here-- it's a museum!" and then we got into the elevator and made a clean getaway; this is the only time in my life I was able to think on my feet and say the right thing at the right time, and-- even though I threw my eldest child under the bus-- it felt wonderful.
This Time I Am Determined to Finish!
I am moonlighting (or daylighting, as David Foster Wallace calls it) a bit on Infinite Jest . . . and I know the last time I did this I ended up quitting the novel -- but it's four years later and I have learned my lesson, this time I am committed, but I just need a little break to read Brett Martin's new book with this double-coloned mouthful of a title: Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad . . . his thesis is that TV has entered a "third Golden Age" and that these new high quality cable shows are like nothing before -- they are neither episodic nor mini-series -- instead they resemble Victorian serialized fiction, like Dickens, and because of this format, they are much more beholden to the writers and creators -- rather than the actors and producers -- than any TV before, and these writer/creator folks happen to be moody, flawed, ambitious and brilliant men, and this personality type reflected in the "heroes" of these shows . . . characters such as Vic Mackey and Walter White and Don Draper and Tony Soprano and Jimmy McNulty.
2/8/10
Together is a Swedish film about a commune in the mid-seventies, and the moral is that you can't fight human nature: no matter how much of a hippie you, no matter what your beliefs are, no matter how committed you are to changing the world order, your kids will still desire meat (the kids picket for hot dogs in the kitchen one night) and TV and play violent games (there's a great scene where one kid plays Pinochet, the Chilean torturer, and forces the other to "say you like Pinochet!") and adults will desire stability and loyalty and family . . . as Birger says, "It is better to eat porridge together than pork chops alone," and-- like this sentence-- the plot rambles through the lives of all the members of the commune and a few outsiders . . . there's no need to focus on a particular story, it's really more like surreal episode of the TV show Big Brother, but from the seventies and with deeper characters and a nostalgic look that makes it more like an artifact from that era than a film; I give it one congealed glutinous Socialist bowl of porridge out of one, I loved it.
The Wu Tang Claim Helps Dave Understand the Election and More
I'd like to assure Zman that yes I am working on a post about the election results, but I'm taking my time and trying to process and digest everything before I put it on wax, and-- oddly-- one of the things that's helping me think about what happened is Tim Wu's new book The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads . . . the book is ostensibly a history of advertising in America, from snake-oil salesmen pitching addictive spurious cure alls to the first fake news stories created purely to garner attention (my favorite is a report in the New York Sun that Sir John Herschel had discovered four foot tall hairy bat men on the moon . . . people were surprisingly willing to accept this as fact) to Lucky Strike's brilliant campaign proposing that the secret ingredient in their brand of cigarette protected your throat from cough and irritation (It's TOASTED!) and then Wu moves on to things more recent and familiar: radio advertising, product placements, TV commercials for the masses, TV commercials for the unique individual, email, Oprah, clickbait, data harvesting, Google Adwords, Twitter, Facebook, ad-blockers, etcetera . . . as advertising gets more modern, more data-driven, more insidious, and more fragmented, Wu gets more severe in his warnings-- he frames the epic battle to get our attention as a series of technological leaps, which the advertisers soon harness for their own purposes, followed by a revolt of the masses against that particular kind of advertising . . . but we may have reached the end of the road: Wu sees Buzzfeed, essentially clickbait on "the fourth screen," and social media sites like Facebook as the purveyor of "news" as particularly egregious forms of media and while there is hope once more-- for those willing to find it, Netflix and HBO offer some of the best ad free content ever created-- but you've got to pay for it . . . and if you want to learn about it, you can find something of quality on Youtube or in the podcast universe . . . if you're willing to do some research; now I'd like to bring this back to the election and make my Tim Wu Tang Claim: that the media-- driven by clicks and views-- totally dropped the ball with their coverage . . . they focused on speculative poll clickbait instead of doing on the ground journalism-- talking to Trump supporters and doing in depth coverage of the policy and issues that these supporters desired and imagined could Trump deliver, and contrasting this with Clinton policy promises . . . but instead they focused on scandals and silliness; of course, there is a better alternative to mainstream media: I'm quite proud of how I analyzed the race and what I learned about the issues; I avoided internet clickbait for the most part and listened to high-quality long form podcasts like The Weeds, Slate Money, Waking Up With Sam Harris, Radiolab, Common Sense, This American Life, and Planet Money, and I even did my due diligence and listened to Dan Levin and Rush Limbaugh (who were both repetitive blowhards pushing the mainstream media to be less about policy discussion and more about clickbait scandal) and I became something of an expert on the major issues and policies: healthcare and jobs and trade agreements and immigration (and even the spurious email "scandal") and if you like, you can find media that is not fragmented and not totally driven by clicks and views-- there is an alternative to the Facebook/Twitter style news platform, which propagated fake news and bite-sized weirdness (and while some would argue that the podcasts I've listed have a left-leaning slant, if you listened to the many many episodes about the election, they took a much more empathetic and sincere analytical look at the Trump phenomenon than anything on the right di with Hillary Clinton . . . Dan Levin simply chanted "crooked Hillary" and "lock her up" on his show . . . so the mainstream media went right along with this internet model, casting the election as a horse race, with this scandal or that scandal affecting the polls, someone is up, someone is down-- the kind of reporting that could be done without getting out of bed-- and there was no discussion of global warming-- an existential threat-- or the actual implications of repealing NAFTA, or the pros and cons of allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, or how unionization might help the jobs we still have in America or anything of substance) and Wu ends with a quotation from William James, who believed that "our life experience would ultimately amount to whatever we paid attention to" and I believe this too, which is why I make my students park their cell-phones at the door and pay attention to me . . . because I truly believe I'm paying attention to and what I'm making them pay attention to is better than the things the vast majority of the American people pay attention to, and that might be elitist and judgmental, but it's also true . . . I spend my attention reading books written by people smarter than me and listening to long, intelligent podcasts presented by experts in various fields; Wu also reminds us of this by quoting the ironically named James Williams: "Your time is scarce, and your technologies know it," and I think the ultimate lesson here is that we all need to remember this (myself included, while I generally use my attention for critical thinking and creative enlightenment, I still occasionally get sucked in to my stupid fantasy football team, which is great on paper and finally peaking, but it's too late . . . I'm 2 - 9 and I could have spent that time reading or practicing the guitar, instead of shuffling players around an imaginary line-up).
7/6/2009
It's frustrating to read Daniel Boyle's book The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How at age thirty nine, when my myelin production is soon to wane, and realize that I could have been whatever I wanted, a cartoonist, a guitarist, a ballerina, if I had only practiced deep enough and long enough-- that there really is no such thing as talent, only perseverance, failure, time, and persistence-- and that if you put in your 10,000 hours practicing the right way, with the right motivation-- you need to be in a situation that keeps telling your brain better get busy, as opposed to "better watch TV" or "better be well rounded"-- then you will be a world class talent, and people will look at you and think you are "gifted"-- so since it's too late for me to truly master anything (and judging by this rambling sentence, I could use 9000 more hours of writing practice) all I can do is start torturing my kids and it's never too soon to start . . . so what do I want them to master?
Two Decent Movies You Probably Haven't Seen . . .
If you're sick of committing to another TV show (or get in trouble if you watch the "family" show when all members of the family are not present, e.g. Ted Lasso) here are a couple of highly-rated movies buried on Amazon Prime and Netflix:
1) Blow the Man Down . . . a taut, slightly ironic thriller reminiscent of the Coen Brothers' classic Fargo, but set Downeast in Maine, this one has some superb acting, predominantly by a cast of women that covers every age bracket;
Two Reasons Why I Will Never Get a Vasectomy
I will never get a vasectomy.
My rationale is based on two very solid reasons. They’re not the two reasons you are thinking, although I do value those two things as well.
I acquired one reason from a TV show and the other from a movie.
That’s where you learn stuff, right?
Reason #1 is obvious.
I don’t want anyone — advanced medical degree or not — going near my testicles with a pair of surgical shears. Michael Scott expresses this better than I ever could during “The Dinner Party.” If you haven’t seen it, you need to (especially if you are thinking about getting a vasectomy).
This is what he tells his girlfriend/condo-mate/ex-boss Jan Levinson (in front of an audience of co-workers).
When I said that I wanted to have kids, and you said that you wanted me to have a vasectomy, what did I do? And then when you said that you might want to have kids and I wasn’t so sure, who had the vasectomy reversed? And then when you said you definitely didn’t want to have kids, who had it reversed back? Snip snap! Snip snap! Snip snap! I did. You have no idea the physical toll, that three vasectomies have on a person.
My second reason for refusing to get a vasectomy is much more profound.
I should point out that I’m certainly a vasectomy candidate. I’m fifty. I’m happily married with two children. My wife and I are done procreating. Once in a while, when I see a cute little infant I turn to my wife and say, “We should have a baby!”
My wife wisely says back to me: “That store is closed.”
She’s right. We’re done with that stage in our life.
Or she is . . .
My wife uses some kind of hormonal IUD that I should know more about. I do know that birth control is often left up to women, and it’s often a pain in the neck (a pain in the vagina?) There are plenty of side-effects. Headaches, weight gain, nausea, pelvic pain, irregular bleeding, acne, breast tenderness, etc.
The United States is not particularly good at subsidizing sex education and birth control, which is ironic, because a huge swath of our country is violently opposed to abortions. Male sterilization should be another tool in the box to prevent unwanted pregnancies. A better understanding of birth control of all types will decrease abortions, allow more women to finish school, and prevent infants from entering the world in a state of poverty. Men should understand this. Birth control should not be solely left up to women.
So I get it. Undergoing a vasectomy is not a big deal. I don’t want an old man poking around in my mouth with a drill, but I still go to the dentist. One in ten American males has been voluntarily sterilized. 500,000 men a year. I have friends that have done it. It’s not supposed to be that bad. I’m all for vasectomies. In fact, I urge YOU to get one.
If I really wanted to, I could get over Reason #1.
The MAIN reason I’m not getting a vasectomy is inspired by the ending of the classic Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.
Reason #2
I might be called upon to repopulate the planet.
My friend Ann finds this portion of my argument silly, and it’s not. It’s deadly serious. So let me explain.
Dr. Strangelove was made in the 1960s. The world was worried about the madness of MAD. Gigantic nuclear arsenals were supposed to deter nuclear war, but in the film, an Air Force high alert mission goes awry — with the help of the homicidal General Ripper — and his breach of authority sets off a cascading chain of events that results in an impending nuclear disaster.
If you haven’t seen this movie, you need to.
Dr. Stranglelove — an ex-Nazi in charge of U.S. military weapons R&D — suggests that the survivors of the initial nuclear blast could hide out in “some of our deeper mineshafts.” Radioactivity wouldn’t penetrate down there and in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in the dwelling space could be provided.
In the plan that he proposes to President Merkin Muffley, several hundred thousand citizens would need to remain in the mineshafts until the radiation subsides: one hundred years.
Peter Sellers plays both roles.
PRESIDENT MUFFLEY: You mean, people could actually stay down there for a hundred years?
DR. STRANGELOVE: It would not be difficult Mein Fuhrer! Nuclear reactors could, heh… I’m sorry. Mr. President. Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plant life. Animals could be bred and slaughtered.
The plan then takes a more eugenic slant.
Dr. Strangelove suggests a computer program should be used to determine who gets selected go down into the mine shaft (besides present company in the War Room . . . they get a free pass, of course).
And then we get to the real mission. The population in the mineshafts would have a “ratio of ten females to each male” and the women would be selected for “highly stimulating sexual characteristics,” Dr. Strangelove estimates that within twenty years the U.S. will be back to its present gross national product.
Even the highly distractible General Buck Turgidson finds this plan interesting. As does the Russian liaison.
GENERAL TURGIDSON Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn’t that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
DR. STRANGELOVE Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious service along these lines . . .
Since the Cold War ended, we haven’t been as concerned about all-out nuclear war. But COVID-19 has given us a sneak preview of another kind of apocalypse. And this one kills men at a higher rate than women (though it’s negligible).
But what if it wasn’t negligible?
What if there were a highly contagious virus that targets the Y chromosome and kills all the men? Or nearly all of them. This COULD happen. I read about it in a comic book.
What if this hypothetical virus kills all the men except me?
Or me and a couple of guys who have had their tubes snipped?
Then it will be up to me to repopulate the planet!
Regrettably, this will “necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship.”
I’m willing to make that sacrifice and do “prodigious service” for the human race.
Here’s how I envision it. I’m lounging on a beautiful white sand beach of some lush tropical island, being tended to by a cadre of incredibly beautiful women from around the globe. Occasionally — perhaps once a week or so — a boat sails into the harbor.
A number of bikini-clad attendants lower one especially beautiful specimen into the water. Then they all stride through the surf, beads of saltwater on their bronze or brown or black or white skin.
I beckon them to come forward.
They present some delicacy from wherever they hail: Iceland, France, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Goa, the Sudan. I taste the food. I admire the women. The queen bee smiles coyly at me. She rubs my tan feet. Then we head into my candlelit bamboo hut and get to down to business.
Perhaps — if I’m feeling up to it — I bonus impregnate a few of the attendants as well. Why not? This is my job. I embrace it. Then they sail off, my future progeny lodged in their uteruses.
Though my friend Ann found my description of this scenario ludicrous, she was still willing to play along. “If you’re pretending this could happen, couldn’t you pretend that you were fertile? Even if you had a vasectomy?”
For a little while. But in nine months, the gig would be up. That’s too soon for such a sweet post.
Plus, who would be a better Adam for the planet than me? I want to do this. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. So though it’s highly unlikely, I’m playing this lottery. Not having a vasectomy is the golden ticket.
I haven’t run this by my wife yet, but I’m sure she’ll be on board. If she trusted me to be the father of her offspring — if need be — why shouldn’t I father of the entire human race?
My rationale is based on two very solid reasons. They’re not the two reasons you are thinking, although I do value those two things as well.
I acquired one reason from a TV show and the other from a movie.
That’s where you learn stuff, right?
Reason #1 is obvious.
I don’t want anyone — advanced medical degree or not — going near my testicles with a pair of surgical shears. Michael Scott expresses this better than I ever could during “The Dinner Party.” If you haven’t seen it, you need to (especially if you are thinking about getting a vasectomy).
This is what he tells his girlfriend/condo-mate/ex-boss Jan Levinson (in front of an audience of co-workers).
When I said that I wanted to have kids, and you said that you wanted me to have a vasectomy, what did I do? And then when you said that you might want to have kids and I wasn’t so sure, who had the vasectomy reversed? And then when you said you definitely didn’t want to have kids, who had it reversed back? Snip snap! Snip snap! Snip snap! I did. You have no idea the physical toll, that three vasectomies have on a person.
My second reason for refusing to get a vasectomy is much more profound.
I should point out that I’m certainly a vasectomy candidate. I’m fifty. I’m happily married with two children. My wife and I are done procreating. Once in a while, when I see a cute little infant I turn to my wife and say, “We should have a baby!”
My wife wisely says back to me: “That store is closed.”
She’s right. We’re done with that stage in our life.
Or she is . . .
My wife uses some kind of hormonal IUD that I should know more about. I do know that birth control is often left up to women, and it’s often a pain in the neck (a pain in the vagina?) There are plenty of side-effects. Headaches, weight gain, nausea, pelvic pain, irregular bleeding, acne, breast tenderness, etc.
The United States is not particularly good at subsidizing sex education and birth control, which is ironic, because a huge swath of our country is violently opposed to abortions. Male sterilization should be another tool in the box to prevent unwanted pregnancies. A better understanding of birth control of all types will decrease abortions, allow more women to finish school, and prevent infants from entering the world in a state of poverty. Men should understand this. Birth control should not be solely left up to women.
So I get it. Undergoing a vasectomy is not a big deal. I don’t want an old man poking around in my mouth with a drill, but I still go to the dentist. One in ten American males has been voluntarily sterilized. 500,000 men a year. I have friends that have done it. It’s not supposed to be that bad. I’m all for vasectomies. In fact, I urge YOU to get one.
If I really wanted to, I could get over Reason #1.
The MAIN reason I’m not getting a vasectomy is inspired by the ending of the classic Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.
Reason #2
I might be called upon to repopulate the planet.
My friend Ann finds this portion of my argument silly, and it’s not. It’s deadly serious. So let me explain.
Dr. Strangelove was made in the 1960s. The world was worried about the madness of MAD. Gigantic nuclear arsenals were supposed to deter nuclear war, but in the film, an Air Force high alert mission goes awry — with the help of the homicidal General Ripper — and his breach of authority sets off a cascading chain of events that results in an impending nuclear disaster.
If you haven’t seen this movie, you need to.
Dr. Stranglelove — an ex-Nazi in charge of U.S. military weapons R&D — suggests that the survivors of the initial nuclear blast could hide out in “some of our deeper mineshafts.” Radioactivity wouldn’t penetrate down there and in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in the dwelling space could be provided.
In the plan that he proposes to President Merkin Muffley, several hundred thousand citizens would need to remain in the mineshafts until the radiation subsides: one hundred years.
Peter Sellers plays both roles.
PRESIDENT MUFFLEY: You mean, people could actually stay down there for a hundred years?
DR. STRANGELOVE: It would not be difficult Mein Fuhrer! Nuclear reactors could, heh… I’m sorry. Mr. President. Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plant life. Animals could be bred and slaughtered.
The plan then takes a more eugenic slant.
Dr. Strangelove suggests a computer program should be used to determine who gets selected go down into the mine shaft (besides present company in the War Room . . . they get a free pass, of course).
And then we get to the real mission. The population in the mineshafts would have a “ratio of ten females to each male” and the women would be selected for “highly stimulating sexual characteristics,” Dr. Strangelove estimates that within twenty years the U.S. will be back to its present gross national product.
Even the highly distractible General Buck Turgidson finds this plan interesting. As does the Russian liaison.
GENERAL TURGIDSON Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn’t that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
DR. STRANGELOVE Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious service along these lines . . .
Since the Cold War ended, we haven’t been as concerned about all-out nuclear war. But COVID-19 has given us a sneak preview of another kind of apocalypse. And this one kills men at a higher rate than women (though it’s negligible).
But what if it wasn’t negligible?
What if there were a highly contagious virus that targets the Y chromosome and kills all the men? Or nearly all of them. This COULD happen. I read about it in a comic book.
What if this hypothetical virus kills all the men except me?
Or me and a couple of guys who have had their tubes snipped?
Then it will be up to me to repopulate the planet!
Regrettably, this will “necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship.”
I’m willing to make that sacrifice and do “prodigious service” for the human race.
Here’s how I envision it. I’m lounging on a beautiful white sand beach of some lush tropical island, being tended to by a cadre of incredibly beautiful women from around the globe. Occasionally — perhaps once a week or so — a boat sails into the harbor.
A number of bikini-clad attendants lower one especially beautiful specimen into the water. Then they all stride through the surf, beads of saltwater on their bronze or brown or black or white skin.
I beckon them to come forward.
They present some delicacy from wherever they hail: Iceland, France, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Goa, the Sudan. I taste the food. I admire the women. The queen bee smiles coyly at me. She rubs my tan feet. Then we head into my candlelit bamboo hut and get to down to business.
Perhaps — if I’m feeling up to it — I bonus impregnate a few of the attendants as well. Why not? This is my job. I embrace it. Then they sail off, my future progeny lodged in their uteruses.
Though my friend Ann found my description of this scenario ludicrous, she was still willing to play along. “If you’re pretending this could happen, couldn’t you pretend that you were fertile? Even if you had a vasectomy?”
For a little while. But in nine months, the gig would be up. That’s too soon for such a sweet post.
Plus, who would be a better Adam for the planet than me? I want to do this. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. So though it’s highly unlikely, I’m playing this lottery. Not having a vasectomy is the golden ticket.
I haven’t run this by my wife yet, but I’m sure she’ll be on board. If she trusted me to be the father of her offspring — if need be — why shouldn’t I father of the entire human race?
Spring Break Coronavirus
It's back to work this week for my wife and me, but our kids are still on Spring Break. Remote teaching is fairly awful-- it pretty much strips all the fun out of teaching and makes it much more transactional. It makes me think of this scene from Office Space.
I've been getting a lot of my news through podcasts, and the news hasn't been very good. The Indicator: The Story So Far gives a quick (nine minute) run down of some economic indicators that run from interesting to grim. Americans aren't traveling-- very little traffic on the ground and in the air, and we aren't consuming as much electricity. Both entrepreneurship and state/local budgets are suffering. So new businesses and jobs aren't being created, and local governments are starting to lay people off. Pretty ugly. And the pandemic is exposing income inequality. White collar jobs are suffering less than service. The poor are dying at a more rapid clip than the rich.
But everyone is dying, from all walks of life. To hear about this in greater detail, you can listen to the new episode of The Daily. "24 Hours Inside a Brooklyn Hospital" gives you a picture of what it's really like in a medical center overwhelmed by Covid-19. It's scary and fast-paced and utilitarian. There aren't really drugs that work. All sorts of people have the potential to go downhill.
I listened to these podcasts this morning while walking through the park. It's officially closed and it was empty. I guess it was early enough (and cold enough) that I was able to avoid detection, but when the weather gets nice and we're all stuck walking up and down the street, I'm sure they will bolster security.
I whiled away the time on Spring Break playing low-stakes Texas Hold'em on Pokerstars. You can play nickel/dime or even penny/two-penny. It's great practice. I'm going to try to set up a friendly game on there for folks who are interested (though you probably have to live in New Jersey). You can make a club, invite your friends, and play for whatever amount of money you like.
Catherine and I also did some community service-- we are shopping for old people. They like soup and pineapple chunks and Ritz crackers. We have to wear masks! The ones they gave us are very uncomfortable and make our glasses steam up, but now we have more fashionable face wear. The daughter of a friend made us some. Thanks Kaylee!
The kids and I have been playing a lot of darts, ping-pong, and tennis. There are still a few tennis courts open in the vicinity (but if I told you where they were, I'd have to kill you). One set of courts we frequent had a cheesy lock on the gate but it was easy enough to pry open. A maintenance worker came by while Ian and I were playing and asked if we had put the lock on. We said no. Apparently, someone had taken the initiative to try to lock the court privately. The maintenance guy said he was going to cut it off. We went back yesterday and the lock was gone.
The kids have been obsessively watching Adventuretime and they finally finished yesterday. We've been watching The Wire and Better Call Saul as a family. The boys and I watch Letterkenny and The Expanse. Catherine and the boys watch cooking shows. I never watch TV alone (which is a great trait during regular times but not so much during the pandemic). Ian has been playing Magic and D&D with friend online. Alex has a group of friends that go running everyday. We're all sore from working out so much. I miss low-impact weightlifting at the gym.
If anyone wants to join my book club, I'm trying to read three mammoth books: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding, The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Andrew Treuer. I have a feeling I will finish all three by the end of this.
Quarantine has been relatively uneventful for us, and I hope it stays that way. We took down some collapsing ceiling tiles in the basement and found an old ceiling above the newer ceiling. I've sent a sample out for asbestos testing. I really hope it comes back negative-- I don't need asbestos lung damage on top of the possibility of Covid lung damage.
I hope your quarantine is healthy, boring, and uneventful. Hope to see some of you in person soon.
I've been getting a lot of my news through podcasts, and the news hasn't been very good. The Indicator: The Story So Far gives a quick (nine minute) run down of some economic indicators that run from interesting to grim. Americans aren't traveling-- very little traffic on the ground and in the air, and we aren't consuming as much electricity. Both entrepreneurship and state/local budgets are suffering. So new businesses and jobs aren't being created, and local governments are starting to lay people off. Pretty ugly. And the pandemic is exposing income inequality. White collar jobs are suffering less than service. The poor are dying at a more rapid clip than the rich.
But everyone is dying, from all walks of life. To hear about this in greater detail, you can listen to the new episode of The Daily. "24 Hours Inside a Brooklyn Hospital" gives you a picture of what it's really like in a medical center overwhelmed by Covid-19. It's scary and fast-paced and utilitarian. There aren't really drugs that work. All sorts of people have the potential to go downhill.
I listened to these podcasts this morning while walking through the park. It's officially closed and it was empty. I guess it was early enough (and cold enough) that I was able to avoid detection, but when the weather gets nice and we're all stuck walking up and down the street, I'm sure they will bolster security.
I whiled away the time on Spring Break playing low-stakes Texas Hold'em on Pokerstars. You can play nickel/dime or even penny/two-penny. It's great practice. I'm going to try to set up a friendly game on there for folks who are interested (though you probably have to live in New Jersey). You can make a club, invite your friends, and play for whatever amount of money you like.
Catherine and I also did some community service-- we are shopping for old people. They like soup and pineapple chunks and Ritz crackers. We have to wear masks! The ones they gave us are very uncomfortable and make our glasses steam up, but now we have more fashionable face wear. The daughter of a friend made us some. Thanks Kaylee!
The kids and I have been playing a lot of darts, ping-pong, and tennis. There are still a few tennis courts open in the vicinity (but if I told you where they were, I'd have to kill you). One set of courts we frequent had a cheesy lock on the gate but it was easy enough to pry open. A maintenance worker came by while Ian and I were playing and asked if we had put the lock on. We said no. Apparently, someone had taken the initiative to try to lock the court privately. The maintenance guy said he was going to cut it off. We went back yesterday and the lock was gone.
The kids have been obsessively watching Adventuretime and they finally finished yesterday. We've been watching The Wire and Better Call Saul as a family. The boys and I watch Letterkenny and The Expanse. Catherine and the boys watch cooking shows. I never watch TV alone (which is a great trait during regular times but not so much during the pandemic). Ian has been playing Magic and D&D with friend online. Alex has a group of friends that go running everyday. We're all sore from working out so much. I miss low-impact weightlifting at the gym.
If anyone wants to join my book club, I'm trying to read three mammoth books: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding, The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Andrew Treuer. I have a feeling I will finish all three by the end of this.
Quarantine has been relatively uneventful for us, and I hope it stays that way. We took down some collapsing ceiling tiles in the basement and found an old ceiling above the newer ceiling. I've sent a sample out for asbestos testing. I really hope it comes back negative-- I don't need asbestos lung damage on top of the possibility of Covid lung damage.
I hope your quarantine is healthy, boring, and uneventful. Hope to see some of you in person soon.
Litmus Test of Dave
There is no more surefire way to a judge a person's character-- according to Dave-- than by inquiring about their devotion to the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia . . . the more they like it, the more I like them (and while there may be an exception to this rule of thumb, I haven't encountered a black swan yet).
An Ode to Thanksgiving
There are four major reasons why Thanksgiving is the best holiday: 1) no gift-giving 2) no compulsory decorating 3) cranberry sauce 4) football on TV during the daytime.
Some Good Movies and TV You May Not Have Seen #3
I love pretty much everything documentarian Errol Morris has done, but if you're going to get into his work, you might as well start at the beginning, with Gates of Heaven-- which Roger Ebert claims to have seen over thirty times and makes his short list of the ten best movies ever-- it's ostensibly about pet cemeteries, but I'm sure the meaning of life is buried somewhere in this film: "There's your dog, your dog's dead . . . but where's the thing that made it move? It had to be something, didn't it?"
My Wife is a Tough M#therf&cker
The other night I fell fast asleep before 9 PM. I woke to the sound of fisticuffs in the hall bathroom. Apparently, Alex was trimming his toenails and would not let his younger brother enter to get his toothbrush.
I'm not sure why Alex took this position-- in my book, brushing your teeth trumps cutting your toenails-- but Ian forced his way in and they went at it. This woke me up from my slumber, but I didn't have to intervene. My wife heard the commotion from downstairs, where she was watching TV, and summoned them.
As I was falling back to sleep, I saw Alex come into the room and grab a full laundry basket. I learned the next morning that my wife had immediately assigned them some chores; reparations for the fight and waking me up. I really admire this about my wife: she can immediately think of an appropriate consequence for bad behavior and execute the punishment quickly and justly. Plus, she's got my back when I'm sleeping.
When I'm left in charge of discipline, I tend to lecture the kids for a while, as I process what they did wrong. In doing this-- the long lecture on expectations and behavior-- I work myself into a greater and greater frenzy. This furious lather doesn't help anyone, and the punishment I eventually mete out in no way reflects the crime committed (or even correlates with sane behavior). I'm either too angry or too empathetic or too flabbergasted to think straight.
My wife is feeling even more confident and powerful than normal because she has joined a kickboxing gym. She comes back from these sessions energized and amped-up. Yesterday she was practicing her roundhouse kicks on my legs, pretending to kick me over and over. Lola, our dog, came to my rescue. She inserted herself between my wife and me.
This made me happy. I've got two tough bitches in the house.
I'm not sure why Alex took this position-- in my book, brushing your teeth trumps cutting your toenails-- but Ian forced his way in and they went at it. This woke me up from my slumber, but I didn't have to intervene. My wife heard the commotion from downstairs, where she was watching TV, and summoned them.
As I was falling back to sleep, I saw Alex come into the room and grab a full laundry basket. I learned the next morning that my wife had immediately assigned them some chores; reparations for the fight and waking me up. I really admire this about my wife: she can immediately think of an appropriate consequence for bad behavior and execute the punishment quickly and justly. Plus, she's got my back when I'm sleeping.
When I'm left in charge of discipline, I tend to lecture the kids for a while, as I process what they did wrong. In doing this-- the long lecture on expectations and behavior-- I work myself into a greater and greater frenzy. This furious lather doesn't help anyone, and the punishment I eventually mete out in no way reflects the crime committed (or even correlates with sane behavior). I'm either too angry or too empathetic or too flabbergasted to think straight.
My wife is feeling even more confident and powerful than normal because she has joined a kickboxing gym. She comes back from these sessions energized and amped-up. Yesterday she was practicing her roundhouse kicks on my legs, pretending to kick me over and over. Lola, our dog, came to my rescue. She inserted herself between my wife and me.
This made me happy. I've got two tough bitches in the house.
Caliban's War: Expanding on the Expanse
My memories of The Expanse TV show and the series of novels are beginning to combine and unravel-- perhaps I have been infect by the protomolecule and soon I will be paid a visit by Detective Miller-- anyway, I can't help imagining all the folks from the show as I read the books, and this one (Caliban's War) gets far more in depth with the politics between Earth, mars and the Belt and there are many more scenes with protomolecule monsters; this book ends with the formation of the Ring (which might be in Season Three of the show?) and I think I will be forging ahead at some point, and perhaps even checking out the prequels, as this is some kick-ass sci fi-- nice job James S. A. Corey (including the Shakespeare allusion in the title, in reference to the half-man/half-monster protomolecule monster soldiers).
As American as Basketball and Enchiladas?
A recent study found that negative social media posts can have a domino effect on the mood of readers, sending them into a moody spiral of downbeat posting and grouchiness . . . but the opposite is true as well, and so I'm going to focus on something positive today to brighten the collective soul of the internet . . . while I know the expression is "as American as baseball and apple pie," I think I experienced something equally or even more wonderfully American on Wednesday night: I played basketball for an hour and a half-- a sport that is arguably now more American than baseball-- and then I came home and ate a late dinner of some insanely spicy and delicious home-made enchiladas (made by my Irish wife) while watching "Shameless" on Blu-ray on my giant HDTV . . . sports, deserved gluttony, Mexican food, and a big TV . . . you can't get much better (or more American) than that.
A Psychological Tactic
Our Hero: Pickleball
A priest, a bunch of med students, some frat guys, the requisite old dudes and ladies of various races and ethnicities, and a guy with a mullet walk onto a pickleball court . . . and everyone gets along and plays pickleball-- this sport may just save America from polarization, tribalism, fake news, misinformation, income inequality, obesity, and reality TV.
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