Bullshit

Jeff Somers, International Man of Ignorance

Author: October 1, 2018 0 Comments

FRIENDS, I am not a particularly bright or capable man. Once, when attempting to earn my Cooking merit badge in the Boy Scouts, I cooked an entire package of hot dogs before realizing they were individually wrapped in plastic of some sort. Once, when driving a rental truck and helping some friends move, I engaged in a series of slow-motion maneuvers that resulted in $2,000 in damage to the truck despite the fact that I was never going more than 5 MPH. Once, when I was in 7th Grade, I was convinced by my teachers to wear ladies pantyhose for a performance in The Taming of the Shrew … and allowed myself to be filmed[1].

None of these failures, however, has ever been quite as total and complete as my attempts to learn a second language.

Mi Llamo es Gofredo

I blame my Sophomore Year Spanish teacher, who convinced me that my name in Spanish would be Gofredo. Sure, it’s a variation of Jeffrey, and yes, it is Spanish in origin. But teaching me to say Mi llamo es Gofredo! instead of just Mi nombre es Jeff set me up for failure and humiliation.

Now, I’m not a traveler. In fact, I hate travel. If I could I would live my life inside a virtual reality box, growing large and mushroom-like and never actually interacting with real, actual human beings, because real, actual human beings are awful. But I married The Duchess, who has not heard of a country she does not want to explore. Here’s a real, actual conversation:

DUCHESS: Oooh, Syria, sounds exotic! Let’s go there next year.

ME: <horrified>

So I know I am doomed to travel the world until the sweet release of death, and I am determined to do so with a modicum of class. So I have a rule. Or, more accurately, I attempt to have a rule: When I travel to another country I must at least make a sincere effort to learn the local language. So, for example, when The Duchess insisted on a trip to Italy a few years ago I made a concerted effort over the course of a few months to learn Italian. Upon arriving in Italy, I attempted to speak Italian many times, and was met with, in descending order of frequency: Amusement, irritation, complete lack of comprehension, and violence. There are basically two possible scenarios:

SCENARIO ONE:

ME: <something vaguely Italian-ish>

ITALIAN PERSON: … we speak English, yes?

SCENARIO TWO:

ME: Ciao! Mi chiamo Jeff.

THEM: <rapidly> Ah, parli italiano! È fantastico! Dimmi, come ti piace l’Italia finora? Da dove vieni in America? Inoltre, perché non indossi i pantaloni?

ME: <feigns seizure, falls down, lies very still until everyone leaves>

Since my inability to learn a foreign language hasn’t been due to a lack of effort, I can only conclude that I am dumb. Which doesn’t really surprise a very large number of people who have interacted with me during my lifetime.

Go Along to Get Along

This all wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that I am a non-confrontational, go-along-to-get-along kind of guy. Which means that I always prefer to pretend I understand what’s happening around me even if I am alarmed and confused by events. I’ve tried being a better person, but I always fall into the same trap:

ITALIAN PERSON: <in Italian> This is not the museum. People are often confused. This is a bondage club and you will immediately be bound and gagged upon entry.

JEFF: <not understanding a word> Cool, cool. <enters house, is never seen again>

Of course, when you behave a stupidly as this because you can’t abide anyone thinking you don’t understand everything perfectly, you more or less deserve what you get.

The one upside to this is that when I meet people here in the States who struggle to make themselves understood with ESL, I am more than sympathetic. Even if your English is tortured and broken, I am impressed, because I can’t even make myself understood in a second language at all. In this way my own failings have made me an incrementally better person.

Luckily, no matter where you go you don’t need words to order booze. They just take one look at my jaundiced complexion and bloodshot eyes and direct me to the local imbibery.

[1] If this video exists, my life as I know it is over.

Bullshit

Give It Away

Author: September 10, 2018 0 Comments

Friends, the Somers genetic code contains a large section devoted to hoarding. As I write this there are several ancient computers in the basement of my brother’s house, which is the house we grew up in. Those computers are old. As in, unusuably old. You know how you can sometimes take an old computer and repurpose it as a print or media server or something? These are so old you can possibly repurpose them as planters, but that’s about it. And yet my brother will not countenance throwing them away.

They aren’t even his computers.

It’s a disease. I got a bit of a cure when Hurricane Sandy destroyed half my house; after the insurance settlement and the renovation there was just a lot less stuff in the place, and I liked it, and decided I would no longer keep things like an old hard drive cooling fan from 15 years ago or a harmonica I got as a Secret Santa gift in 1997 that very likely cost less than $10. I also decided that when I decided to replace better stuff—stuff that was actually useful and had some value—I wouldn’t stuff the old things into the closet and keep them for 20 years before finally throwing them away in disgust. I would sell them, or, barring that, I’d give them away.

Or at least try to.

Like a Sucker

Friends, the Somers genetic code also contains a large section devoted to laziness. I am so prone to laziness it makes you wonder how the Somers genetic code made it this far. So, when I decide to upgrade something or make a change that leaves me with some extra stuff, the idea of trying to sell it just makes me exhausted. This is privilege, of course, but the fact remains. I’ve sold stuff on eBay and Craigslist and such, and it’s always way more work than it’s worth. So I prefer to use a site like Freecycle to just get rid of things. This way, I don’t have to worry about handling money, or haggling, or dealing with begging choosers. I just list an item and someone comes to pick it up, and I feel good about not having thrown something useful away, and maybe helping someone out. Sure, maybe the folks taking my free shit are then turning around and selling it for yuge profits, but if so, I don’t care. I didn’t have to deal with it, so I’m happy. It’s easy.

Or should be.

As it turns out, trying to give stuff away is hard work. I’ve basically had the same three scenarios happen over and over again whenever I’ve tried to give away my still useful junk:

1. The Ghost. Someone will email me and ask if the item is still available. “It is!” I respond. Then … nothing. They are never heard from again. Sometimes they actually make arrangements to come get the thing and then are never heard from again.

2. The Project. Someone will claim the item, and we begin an extended correspondence because they can only come by to pick up the item every second Wednesday during leap years, or so it seems. I get that people have jobs and other problems, but a) they know the town I live in, so if it requires 6 buses and a parachute to get to my house they probably shouldn’t claim it, and b) this usually includes at least two postponements and at least one complete no-show.

3. The Chatterbox. These folks may or may not pick up the item I’m offering, but man they are lonely. Texts and emails quickly become novels, with lengthy chapters on whatever they’re going through at the moment. What their hernia surgery has to do with the old guitar amp I’m giving away I have no idea, but I’m gonna hear about it. And hear about it.

Of course, I’m probably being punished for my aforementioned laziness. The gods look down and see this smug asshole giving stuff away because he can’t be bothered to skim a $1 profit off of eBay, and they reach down the Stick of Karma and hit me on the head with it, and the next thing I know I’m reading a lengthy email about how the person coming to claim my left-handed smoke shifter traveled to Hoboken, Georgia by mistake.

Bullshit

The More Things Change

Author: August 20, 2018 2 Comments

I recently got rid of my last stereo receiver. For those of you of a certain tender age, that’s a big black box that you plugged speakers and other components—like a CD player or turntable—into and which put sound into your speakers. The past was truly a terrible place.

Getting rid of it is about more than simple technology, though. It’s just the latest example of shit I used to be obsessed about that I no longer care about at all. Whether this is personal growth or senility is an exercise for whoever’s reading this. All I know is, I used to work extra shifts at my part time jobs to be able to afford a humongous stereo system, and two decades later I just gave away my last link to that person. And, honestly, I’ll never look back, because I haven’t used that receiver for more than a few minutes at a time in years.

This has nothing to do with technology. There’s no big point, either, no sweeping generalization about people or society. I’ve just changed, and it’s weird to stand back sometimes and realize it. I can remember the first stereo I ever had, a terrible cheap thing bought from Sears (where the Somers family got all their supplies) that was combination turntable, dual cassette deck, radio, and 8-track. 8-Track. Look on my works ye mighty and wonder what in fuck.

Still, I loved it. It was a stereo. I suddenly had the ability to curate my own personal soundtrack, and I spent a good 20 years curating the hell out of it. And then, slowly, in stages, I fell in love with MP3s and Spotify and the convenience of digital music, and at the same time bought a home with shared walls and realized how hell is other people’s music. And so I lost interest in stereos. It just happened.

The Jacob deGrom Effect

When I was younger, I was seriously into baseball. As much as that makes me a cliché—ooh, white man loves baseball!—it is what it is. I used to wear a baseball cap every day. I watched lots of games. I knew stats off the top of my head.

And sometime around 15 years ago, I sort of lost interest. Then I was in denial for a while. But now? I accept it. I just don’t care much about a game I once lived and breathed.

Part of it is the way the game has changed, that’s true. The fact that Jason deGrom’s 2018 season is making him a serious contender for the Cy Young Award is just wrong. He’s an incredible pitcher. He’s very talented. He’s having a great year, technically. I wish him well and millions of dollars. But a guy on pace to win 10 games shouldn’t win the Cy Young unless he’s instrumental in getting his team to the playoffs. And as a long time Mets fan I can say that the Mets are not going to make the playoffs this year.

It’s also the focus on role players, the lack of complete games, the drugs and performance enhancements, the fact that I feel like I’ve seen everything the game can show me. It’s all me. Plenty of people still love baseball and good on them. For me, the most notable thing here is the fact that I once knew every single player in the game, and now I don’t think I can name more than a handful.

Shifting Gears

Something else I used to be obsessed with: A car. I used to feel like my legs were broken when my car was in the shop, and whenever I didn’t have a car, I would walk around and lust after cars. Today? Haven’t had a car in years, and don’t miss it. Actively regard cars as a pain in the ass I don’t need.

Again, this isn’t some statement. Many people need cars to live. Many people legit love cars and enjoy them. What’s remarkable about it, to me, is the way I’ve fundamentally changed. Because other people don’t seem to have shifted to quite the degree that I have. I don’t know what that means; it’s quite possible that it means I am a lazy or shallow individual whose interests and passions were never all that deep or powerful to begin with. It’s just remarkable to realize that Today Jeff is so fundamentally different in so many ways from 1998 Jeff that we wouldn’t recognize each other.

Of course, the other way Today Jeff and 1998 Jeff are different is the fact that 1998 Jeff thought drinking Coors Lite and Jack and Cokes was acceptable adult behavior. If I met 1998 Jeff in a bar today, I would punch him in the nose.

Bullshit

I’m Walkin’ Here

Author: July 1, 2018 2 Comments

I’m a pretty brisk walker, and I hate crowds. This is kind of a Somers Trait, as my brother is basically Juggernaut once he gets a head of steam going; the man will walk through walls and straight past loved ones once he attains escape velocity. I’m not quite that bad, but I do have a tendency to zone out and just walk, and since I walk faster than most people (who seem to largely treat walking a as a quaint notion from long ago) I find myself creeping up behind folks a lot. Because, in case you missed it, y’all are slow. Slow as balls.

As a result, I am an expert in a very rare field: The Way People Behave When You are Coming Up Behind Them.

You’re All Weirdos

I know there’s a lot of instinct and genetically-programmed stuff going on when I am I walking up behind someone on a sidewalk. I know their ancient and primitive fear of predators kicks in when they hear the slap of my Vans on the pavement, and it’s likely my own ancient and primitive wiring that makes me want to murder them when they react in one of three standard ways:

  1. The Terrified Glanceback. Sometimes, when I am motoring up behind someone, a man with things to do and no time for their bullshit, they will suddenly turn to look back at me like they’re checking to see if I’m carrying a machete or something, possibly with blood dripping from my mouth. I take this personally.
  2. The Wanderers. Sometimes people are completely oblivious, not just to me, but to every other living ambulatory thing in the universe, and as I come up behind them they drift lazily around the sidewalk, making it impossible to pass them as they dance a slow waltz to the crazy music in their heads.
  3. The Easily Startled. And sometimes people don’t notice me at all until I spy a weakness in their crazy, random movements and dart past them, and they act like I am David Bowie in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and I don’t care if you don’t get that reference.

And then there are the bicyclists. The bicyclists who refuse to ride in the street and insist on either wobbling up behind you and expecting you to step aside so they can pass you, or who hurtle towards you at speed and expect you to make room for them. I’m a petty, passive aggressive guy, and you can imagine the petty, passive aggressive things I do when people insist on biking on the sidewalk. Those people rank just above folks who walk around public places playing music very loudly.

Look, I get that most people regard walking on your own legs as a horrible thing only poors and kidnappers engage in, that normal people drive everywhere or bike everywhere or, I dunno, scooter everywhere. And I get that I am a cranky old man. But dammit, I am walking here.

Bullshit

The Unreliable Unreliableness of “The Affair”

Author: June 27, 2018 0 Comments

When it comes to television, The Duchess and I have very low standards. We’re talking The Ranch on Netflix low. I will not apologize.

So, take my thoughts on the scripted dramas I consume with a grain of salt, because I am a guy who is at least willing to feign amusement at watching The Ranch in order to make his wife happy. Though I do not, it should be noted, feign it well.

Another show we watch is Showtime’s The Affair, starring Dominic West’s American accent and Ruth Wilson’s epic eyebrows. If you’ve never watched it, it’s about a middle-aged man who blows up his affluent family by having an affair with a woman he meets while on vacation in the Hamptons, and the ongoing ripples going through everybody’s lives as a result. It’s a bit melodramatic and soapy, but it’s fun. Except for the unreliable aspect.

Part of the show’s pitch (which I’ve discussed in a previous post about the show) is that each episode is divided into two sections, usually, from two different points of view. For example, the Season 4 premiere was split between Noah and Helen, a divorced couple, showing much of the same events from their different POVs. In theory this is interesting—sure, it’s been done before, but unreliable narrators that are explicitly unreliable are always interesting, in my opinion. Playing with the idea that reality isn’t set, that we all bring our bullshit to our memories—not to mention the fact that memory is itself incredibly unreliable to begin with—has a lot of potential. And there is some fun in the way The Affair will show us how one character perceives another. In Noah’s section in the premiere, for example, he sees himself as occasionally confused or upset, but generally sane and rational. In Helen’s memories he’s a jittery asshole who causes more problems than he solves.

Cool. Cool cool cool. The main problem is that instead of making these differences subtle and rational for the viewer, they go off the deep end.

Seriously, Mariachis?

The unreliable nature of everyone’s memories make the characters seem insane, because they are remembering vastly different things—in every sense. For example, in the premiere Noah tags along with Helen, their kids, and her new beau to a Mexican restaurant. In Noah’s recollection, the place is a lowbrow joint with a Mariachi band and a lot of loud chaos. Helen’s memory sees every detail of the place differently. There is no band, there is no noise, and the place looks totally different.

Why does this bother me? Because when two people go to a restaurant they might remember the evening differently, but they rarely hallucinate a Mariachi band. Or the lack of one.

In other words, the show is using a machete on the unreliable device where a butter knife would do. I’d argue that the unreliable aspect of the POVs would be even more effective and powerful if they kept the spot-the-difference stuff to the small things, the tiny details, and made those details more thematically interesting. I can totally buy that Noah and Helen remember each other completely differently. But when you throw in such stark differences in the visuals and physical aspects of their memories, I get distracted.

There’s a lesson there for us writers, of course: Less is more. Unless your whole point is that more is more, in which case of course you can ignore this lesson, this supposed rule I just made up, and do your thing. You can break any ‘rule’ or do any sort of ill-advised literary trick if you can pull it off. The Affair‘s problem is that it’s not pulling off what it’s trying to do.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Someone Else's Writing

Haircuts & Writing

Author: June 12, 2018 3 Comments

I’ll take one of each, thanks.

When I was a kid, I was an insufferable bootlicker. My brother, older and smarter, was socially inept and often difficult in public, and thus despite my slightly dimmer mental prospects I was often the Golden Boy in the sense of being relatively well-behaved in public. For example, at the barbershop, where my brother fidgeted and complained and generally made it a torturous experience for all involved. Knowing that he’d fallen short of the mark, I made an extra effort to be the perfect little kid in that barber chair with the kid booster. I sat rock still, responding like a puppet to the whispery touch of the barber as he positioned my head.

The fact that we have to occasionally trim back our horrifying, disgusting bodies has always bothered me in the same way the fact that I have to spend 1/3rd of every day unconscious bothers me. It’s curiously intimate, to the point where I’ve spent a lot of energy in my adult life seeking out a person who will cheerfully cut my hair without speaking a word to me. Being a captive audience while some jackass with a pair of scissors insists on small talk is a terrible thing, and I’ve burned through a ton of barbers in my search for the Glorious Silent Barber.

Between sitting on that booster seat and my Gloriously Silent Barber, I’ve had plenty of haircuts. I suffered through haircuts as a teenager where my barber not-so-subtly rubbed his crotch against me as he strained to reach the top of my head. I’ve endured a savage, brutal act of hair vandalism when I took my longhaired college mullet to an old Italian barber and asked for a “trim”; his disdain and dislike for me resulted in a haircut that took five seconds and left me looking like I’d recently jammed my head into some sort of terrifying machinery. I’ve spent plenty of awkward hours in SuperCuts resisting their incessant effort to upsell me hair product and shampoos, conversations that usually started with a gaslighting campaign regarding the awful state of my hair in terms of health and appearance, leading to a heartfelt endorsement of some bottle or other guaranteed to make me look like a normal human being again.

I’ve spent my time in the hair trenches. Which is why haircuts fascinate me; I tend to announce them on social media, and I write about the experience more than is normal, which is to say at all.

Socially Acceptable Weirdness

Getting a haircut is a strange experience for a guy who, you know, isn’t exactly a fan of being touched by strangers, much less touched on the head. It’s weirdly intimate. You might not mind, or even enjoy the experience, jetting off to head-touching orgies in Ibiza and the like, but to each their own, and my own does not include a weird old man putting his sweaty hands in my hair.

The other aspect of a haircut is the forced socialization. In every aspect of my life I aspire to having zero conversations with any of you people. Ironically, the only people I do want to have conversations with are the people who also don’t want conversations; the moment that changes I lose my will to speak with you. So making small talk with someone while their sweaty hands are in my hair is possibly the worst experience known to man. If anyone is ever going to spontaneously develop the ability to teleport themselves, it’s gonna be me, through sheer force of will, while some barber is telling me about his weekend.

Being Alone with Yourself

So what does all this have to do with writing? Nothing and everything.

There’s precious little time in the modern world to just sit and be alone with yourself, to have a conversation with yourself. To meditate in some sense. Yes, you can make that time, but there’s something special and creative, in my experience, with the sudden and surprising moments when you’re prevented from distracting yourself. Getting a haircut is, for me, one of those moments, because I am sloppy and pay little attention to my grooming. So my haircuts are always spur-of-the-moment things.

And then I’m sitting there, and if the damned barber will shut up I have a half hour of just staring into the void while I am groomed like a dumb animal, and I do some good thinkin’ under those circumstances. And some occasional napping. Hell, I fall asleep when I’m at the dentist. The barber has no chance.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Writing

Avoid Lady Puzzles

Author: February 15, 2018 1 Comment

One of the double-edged aspects of streaming services like Netflix is the fact that, in a sense, you’ve pre-paid for all the content it offers. That often means that when you stumble on some piece of obvious trash—like, say, The Cloverfield Paradox—at 1AM, the bar for pressing select is pretty low. After all, you’ve already paid for it, and you’re obviously looking to waste some of your life. And hey, every bad movie or TV show you watch actually amortizes the amount of money you spent on each bit of media. You have a duty to watch moar.

Now, I’ll pretty much watch anything with time travel in it, which is my thin excuse for having fired up When We First Met on Netflix the other night. I was aware of the film from a few scabrous reviews that took the film to task for its rapey-rapey premise (guy meets girl of his dreams, screws up and becomes her best friend [obviously, gross] while she meets and marries a perfect guy, then stumbles into a mystical time travel photo booth and gets the chance to relive the fateful night so they end up bangin’, which of course he pursues with stalkerish glee despite the fact that his crush is, you know, happy with her dude) which is basically Groundhog Day if it was all about nailing someone who thinks you care about them as a person.

Still, I watched it, which means I am partially responsible for the rapey romcoms to come. Sorry about that.

Let’s put aside the odious premise and the fact that When We First Met is just simply not that good (to be fair, the story does try to bury a less-rapey twist as the main character learns and grows; it’s just unfortunate that guys in bad SFF movies have to use the awesome power of space/time manipulation to try and score a lot before they can grow as people). I want to focus in on one particularly terrible aspect of the story that could be a lesson for guy writers everywhere: The Lady Puzzle.

The Lady Puzzle

Interestingly, Groundhog Day is itself guilty of Lady Puzzle Plotting, but it’s saved by it’s brilliance and a few other things we’ll get to. First, what is Lady Puzzling? In essence, it’s that story where a guy thinks that women are essentially Encrypted Sex Robots. If you want to sex a lady, you need the encryption code, which is generally imagined to be secret intimate knowledge of their likes, dislikes, and opinions. None of which is ever treated as, you know, the sacred inner life of a living being, but rather as bullshit you have to memorize like you’re passing a sophomore year bio exam.

In When We First Met, when our Hero figures out he’s traveled back in time to the day he first met the object of his totally-normal obsession, he weaponizes the years of intimate knowledge he’s gained about her by being her friend [again: gross] to anticipate her every desire. So you get idiot ball stuff like him asking her what her favorite cocktail is only to interrupt her before she can answer so he can parrot her favorite drink at her as if it’s his own.

The idea is, time travel or no, the secret to getting into a lady’s panties is figuring out the Secret Code that will uncross her legs. Like, claim to like the same music or politics that she does! Learn her odd and obscure hobbies and pretend to like them!

You could call this the Taylor Swift Gambit: “Find out what you want / Be that girl for a month.”

Worse, in the film this works. Sort of. In the first iteration, his creepy knowledge of everything about her does indeed get him back to her apartment, but he’s ruined by an earlier interaction which convinces the girl that he’s a creepy stalker instead of a magical male version of herself. Ha ha, subversion of tropes! Except, it was working. Now, ask yourself: If a stranger came up to you and started claiming all of your personal tastes as their own, would you be charmed, or alarmed? In a Lady Puzzle plot, they’re charmed, because ladies must follow programming if you’re giving them the correct input.

Groundhog Day For the Win

I am fond of saying that there are no bad ideas, only bad execution of ideas. So, why then does the Lady Puzzle aspect of Groundhog Day not get a razzie award? For one, the aforementioned brilliance of the movie; it’s sharp and insightful, unlike When We First Met. Second, the character of Phil Connors is presented as pretty much an asshole at the beginning of the story, so the fact that he would use his time loop powers in order to gather information on a lady and use it to crack her encrypted code isn’t surprising—and his evolution away from such behavior is thus affecting and emotionally powerful. In When We First Met we’re supposed to take the main character’s “niceness” at face value—he’s really in love, yo, and so his antics as he tries to speak the magic words that will get him into her pants is just a manifestation of his desperation to build a life with her. That this is kind of the fundamentals of “Nice Guyism” is completely lost on the folks making this movie.

Finally, in Groundhog Day, the Time Loop Pickup Artist technique is shown to be only intermittently successful. Yes, Phil does manage to seduce one woman using the trick, but it fails spectacularly with the woman he really wants—over and over again. She reacts with increasing alarm and suspicion as he tries to construct the perfect evening that will lead to sexy time, culminating in an epic supercut of face slaps. It’s not until Phil leaves off and becomes his true self that he escapes his time loop and winds up with the girl.

To be fair, as alluded to earlier When We First Met does ultimately concede that the Lady Puzzle approach is a bad idea (spoilers, in the unlikely event you watch this movie, follow). After several failures, our hero realizes that his crush will never truly love him no matter how he manipulates reality, and slowly begins to realize that his crush’s roommate is actually the woman who has always been there for him, and with whom he’s had a true connection. It’s meant to subvert the whole Friend-zoney, Red-pilly vibe of the premise, but I’m not sure it’s entirely successful. You’ll have to judge for yourself … though I wouldn’t recommend it.

When writing stories, something else I don’t recommend? A Lady Puzzle plot. Somers out.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Someone Else's Writing, Writing

The Clicks

Author: January 13, 2018 0 Comments

My wife, The Duchess, often gets irritated with me due to my reaction to celebrity sightings. We live near New York City, and are frequently there, so there’s a non-zero chance we’ll run across a famous person. When we do, invariably The Duchess doesn’t notice but I do, and my reaction is to wait about three blocks and then whisper to her that someone famous was hailing a cab or being raptured or something back there. The Duchess curses my name, turns, and races back to see if she can still see them.

I do this for three reasons: One, my wife’s rage and antics are amusing to me. Two, I think people are The Worst and thus cannot think of anything worse than strangers intruding on my life. And three, I don’t give a shit about celebrities, and there’s an unreasonable, ornery part of my personality that doesn’t want to feed their famewhore machines with my attention unless they’re performing for me like some sort of court jester or pet monkey.

The Clicks

I carry this attitude to the Internet, where the famewhoriest of famewhores all live. This translates to a truculent refusal to click on things that are very clearly designed to make me click on them—and this goes triple for things that are Outrage Machines, the sort of video or blogger presences that are there to be controversial and upsetting solely so middle aged idiots like me will rush to click on them and see what’s so terrible. So that we can then rush back to our own Internet backwater and write up breathless condemnations, defenses, hot takes, or other reactions. In an attempt to scoop up e second- and third-hand clicks in the wake of the flagship controversy.

The problem with my obstinate refusal to give these folks clicks is that it means I can’t actually see what’s casuing all the fuss.

In the past, if you watched some controversial thing or gave in and listened to something, you could often do so without rewarding the jackass that created it. These days, however, if I click on something just to find out why everyone’s so pissed off, I am in fact rewarding that jackass with a Click. But if I refuse to bestow that Click, then I can’t really judge for myself. It’s a very strange place to be, especially since I myself am out there with my virtual tin cup, begging for Clicks just like everyone else.

Does this mean we’re all living in an episode of Black Mirror? Probably. But as long as I don’t have to fuck any pigs, I’m okay with that.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements

The Last Mile

Author: November 26, 2017 3 Comments

Pierre le Chat, 2003-2017

My cat died two weeks ago. I know that not everyone understands the curiously powerful emotional bond some folks forge with a pet, but I’ve always looked at it this way: These animals don’t choose to live with us, we do that for them for our own selfish reasons. In exchange, we owe them a good life. We owe them the basics, plus affection. I’ve always thought my role was to ensure they were never afraid, or unhappy.

And for 14 years, we managed that for Pierre. For 14 years that cat wanted for nothing, never doubted that he was loved, and knew nothing but security and the curious joys of a routine observed obsessively. And then we hit the Last Mile problem.

####

Pierre wasn’t my first cat to die. When I was a kid, my brother and I rescued a gray and white cat from a neighbor’s house; she was headed to euthanasia because their son had moved out and left the cat behind and they didn’t want her. So my brother and I took her in. We named her Missy, and Missy spent every night in my bed, purring away as if she knew she’d been saved. Ten years later, I was in college and Missy’s kidneys failed her, and I selfishly let my mother take care of her and when the time came to put her down I visited her at the Vet, scratched her ears, and left, and I look back now and feel like 19-year old Jeff was a coward.

20 years later, another cat had a stroke and literally died right there in the room. It was a terrible shock and we cried, but at least we thought he simply died. No suffering.

A few years later another cat hurt his paw, and had to have a claw amputated. He died on the operating table. Just never came out of the anesthesia. While I was bothered that his last memories were filled with fear and confusion being in a place he hated with people he didn’t know, at least I thought he died while unconscious.

####

Pierre had heart disease. Heart disease in cats is tough, because they often show zero symptoms. Pierre had lost weight, but he’d been fat and I’d spent years trying to find a diet approach to get him slimmed down a little, so for a long time I thought I’d simply finally hit on the right dietary approach. He wasn’t diagnosed until 2 months before he died, and throughout those 2 months he still seemed more or less normal. He was hungry, affectionate, and occasionally playful. We thought maybe the medicine would make him feel stronger and he might gain back some weight. We thought it was reasonable, based on his behavior, that he might go another few years on the meds.

Then one night he couldn’t go to the bathroom, and started breathing very heavily, and wandering the house restlessly. Twelve hours later we made the painful decision to put him down. His last few hours were awful; this roly-poly, delightful cat just lay on the floor, gasping, foaming, staring. And that’s the Last Mile problem: We gave Pierre 14 great years. But his last 12 hours were awful. He didn’t die in peace, in a warm bed surrounded by those who loved him. He died in a exam room, with an IV line in him, afraid and in much discomfort. We were there petting him, but I’m not sure how much that helped.

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As you get older, and enough people and pets die on you, you start to realize that this is true for most of us. We have control over our lives and can make ourselves happy and comfortable until the Last Mile, when it all goes to shit. When the end comes, it often comes suddenly, surprisingly, and with a violence and pain that is shocking to all involved. As a kid I was taught by TV and movies that people tended to die in ways that allowed for catharsis—for final speeches, for confessions, for closure.

Maybe this happens sometimes; I mean, apparently people also sometimes spontaneously combust, so anything is possible. My experience is that this doesn’t happen. Death comes and it’s chaos and confusion and before you know it you’re getting a call from the hospital or the palliative care place and you’re rushing to get there before the end. Or you’re being told by a veterinarian that you should seriously consider putting your cat out of its misery. At that point, you have choices, but no control: Every choice leads to more suffering, except one.

You can control an animal’s existence for optimal comfort, health, and affection, until you can’t. The Last Mile will always defeat you. Someday the Last Mile will kick in for me, too. I’ll be able to compensate for life’s little tricks with medicines, therapies, and lifestyle changes, until I can’t. And the Last Mile will be as terrible for me as it for every other creature.

####

Life goes on. We adopted a new kitten in honor of our departed buddy, as we’ve done before, seeking to convert grief into a small, good thing. This kitten has a Last Mile waiting for it as well, but hopefully not any time soon. In the mean time, I will write novels and take trips and eat great dinners, I’ll kiss my wife and shake hands and hug friends, I’ll watch great movies and laugh at great jokes. Life goes on. Until it doesn’t.

Pierre, February 2004

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements

“American Vandal” and the Art of Parody

Author: November 11, 2017 0 Comments

Look at all the dicks indeed.

Netflix’s American Vandal is a good show, a pitch-perfect parody of both true-crime documentaries in the vein of Serial and Making a Murderer and mysteries in general. It’s also kind of hilarious. This is a show, after all, that concerns itself with an act of vandalism that sees bright red penises painted on 27 cars. This is a show that uses WHO DREW THE DICKS as a catchphrase, hashtag, and secret handshake.

Here’s what American Vandal does 100% right: It comes from a place of affection for the very things it’s making fun of.

The Right Way

A lot of parody gets this part wrong. A lot. People tend to parody stuff they despise, because they need to channel that rage somewhere, but that sort of parody is rarely funny. It tends to go for the jugular with a viciousness and blackly humorless violence that simply doesn’t translate into anything entertaining. Look at all the Trump-centric parodies out there; you might agree with the sentiment, but they are rarely actually funny.

That’s because the authors of such parodies don’t actually like what they’re trying to mock. But American Vandal does. You can tell from the fantastic attention to detail; not only do they get the rhythms of these documentaries exactly right, they also get the rhythms and tone of high school life, the varied look and feel of different Internet services, and the way a mystery works right.

And that’s the key to it’s success, really; it offers a well-constructed mystery, populated by interesting characters, and it takes its universe seriously. When characters are funny, they are funny because of their personality traits and quirks, not because the creators are just mercilessly mocking them and making them into strawmen and caricatures. The fact that every charcter in the Vandal universe takes the mystery and its surrounding subplots seriously is why the show clicks. This is best demonstrated by the simple fact that they demonstrate real stakes: The accused dick-drawer, Dylan, faces being held accountable for $100,000 in damages, likely felony criminal charges, and the ruination of his college ambitions. Dylan is bit of a dick, it’s true, and in the early episodes he’s played for laughs as this dumb, self-absorbed prankster (we all knew a Dylan in high school, seriously). But as the show goes on his predicament is shown to be really terrible. Being accused of drawing the dicks could ruin his life (and kinda does, anyway).

Those stakes are key. It shows that everyone in the show is taking it all very seriously, and so the mystery works, and so the parody works. Coming at a humorous subject with disdain isn’t a recipe for hilarity. You have to come at it from a place of affection.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Someone Else's Writing