TV Real Good 2021

We watch a lot of TV so here is the annual countdown of the best shows I saw this year. There are a few shows I’ve heard good things about but haven’t seen, and a few shows I only just started so I can’t rank. This is a rough ranking. The top two shows are basically tied. I couldn’t decide between them and could always reverse myself once they’ve had more time to sink in.

 

13. The Handmaid’s Tale. It was an improvement over seasons two and three, which spun their wheels while June kept almost escaping Gilead only to get pulled back again. Once she got out, The Handmaid’s Tale took a good look at how captivity changed June, and it wasn’t entirely for the better: She could sometimes use her fellow handmaids as pawns and raped her husband. I am looking forward to more of life outside Gilead and the eventual end of the republic.

 

12. Good Girls. I could have used a little more of this show before they canceled it, just to wrap some stuff up. It was starting to get into an enjoyable area of farce and examining how Beth’s relationship with Ruby could be toxic, and I thought there was more there to explore.

 

11. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. This show was a meaningful look at Sam Wilson’s character and establishing him as the new Captain America. I also liked everything with Isaiah Bradley. However, they could have fleshed out the problem with the repatriation council more, and I take some points off for the terrorist with the heart of gold. I guess you can get sympathy for bombing a hospital and almost killing a bunch of people on a helicopter if you have puppy-dog eyes.

 

10. Midnight Mass. It was an interesting look at the parallels between Catholicism and vampirism, and the idea that what might look like an angel to some people is really a malevolent vampire. But the Easter vigil episode, with parents making their kids drink the poison, was just too close to Jonestown for me to enjoy.

 

9. Get Back. It was astonishing to watch Paul McCartney bang out “Get Back” on the spot—he just, like, banged it out—during an idle moment during rehearsals. It was poignant to watch Paul tear up while observing “And then there were two” when it was just him and Ringo in the studio, not knowing they would be the only two left standing one day. This miniseries clarified a lot of mythology around the breakup of the Beatles: namely that it was much less rancorous than I’d heard, and that Yoko didn’t really seem to be bothering anybody. Ultimately, I thought Get Back showed four friends who, while they may have gotten exasperated and tired of hanging out together, were close enough that they could get to that point in the first place.

 

8. What We Do in the Shadows. Technically this show probably shouldn’t be on this list since I only include shows that aired during that year, and we’re not caught up yet. But I just have to say this show is a riot. It’s endlessly inventive. I’m rooting for Guillermo to get his vampire fangs, and I love everything with Colin Robinson.

 

7. American Crime Story: Impeachment. In telling the story of the runup to President Clinton’s impeachment, this show examined power differentials in a smart way in the episode when the FBI agents keep Monica Lewinski in a hotel room all day in an attempt to question her. She uses every stereotypically feminine tactic she can to get the feds off her back: She asks to go shopping, says she’s cold, has to keep using the bathroom, etc. Meanwhile, the agents invoke stereotypically male traits like anger and yelling to get her to talk (the lead agent puffs up in rage but knows he’s screwed) and only back off when Lewinski’s lawyer calls to curse them out. Beanie Feldstein was great as Monica and Sarah Paulson gave some humanization to Linda Tripp while also showing what a piece of work she was. I loved Clinton’s unbearably clever “depends on what the meaning of is is” deposition. I was amused and horrified how many right-wing figures from 1998 are still around today, from Brett “I Can’t Conduct Myself Like an Adult at My Job Interview” Kavanaugh to remoras like Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham.

 

6. The Morning Show. Season two of The Morning Show was beautifully ridiculous by the end. Morning anchor Alex Levy (an operatic Jennifer Aniston), febrile with COVID-19 and “cancelled” by the public for her association with her disgraced costar, does a one-woman streaming show about surviving the pandemic, a mix of righteous assertion and Nixon-crying-about-his-mother–level self-pity. I enjoy the soapiness of this show as well as the implied message that if you want to cut off someone messy in your life, cut them off, but otherwise, you’ll have to own their messiness. I also appreciated the satire of the quickness of “cancellation” when Levy goes to bed a redeemed superstar after her cohost defends her against allegations of sleeping with her former cohost, then wakes up a pariah again after damning viral footage surfaces.

 

5. Kevin Can F*ck Himself. This was a clever satire of all those sitcoms where a beautiful, competent woman is paired with a doofus man. In the laugh-tracked sitcom world, it seems like the husband is having harmless fun at his long-suffering wife’s expense, but it turns into something darker when you look at it as a drama through the wife’s eyes. I’m curious as to where they are going with this show.

 

4. The White Lotus. One thing I like about TV is that I get to judge fictional characters, and I don’t have to feel bad about it because they’re not real people. So it was fun telling Jake Lacy’s hotel guest that he was acting like an ass in not letting go of his grievances about the lesser room he got on his honeymoon, but also criticizing the hotel manager for not doing the very reasonable thing and giving him a refund for the hotel’s mistake. The White Lotus was a thoughtful and entertaining look at what destruction even well-intentioned people leave in their wake when they’re careless. The young hotel guest has admirable ideas about economic fairness, but they get the hotel employee thrown in jail. The grieving woman (a perfect Jennifer Coolidge) has good intentions to help the masseuse start her own business, but ends up stringing her along and walking away without a second thought.

 

3. WandaVision. It’s one of the highest concepts in TV in a long time: A superhero works out her grief following the death of her brother and boyfriend by transforming a whole town into the idyllic suburb she always wanted to live in, and imagines herself as part of family sitcoms through the decades. What a subtle, versatile performance by Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch, my favorite superhero (tied with Storm). As a TV viewer, I appreciated the show’s view of grief, as well as the formal daring. As a comic reader, I loved the show’s take on the notorious plotline of Wanda’s children, and the looks at the Vision, Agatha Harkness and fan favorite Monica Rambeau. I do take a few points off for Wanda ensorcelling a whole town against their will to salve her grief (most people just ho to a support group) but it looks as if upcoming Marvel movies will address this.

 

2. Succession. Dammit, I should have recapped this show this year! There’s been some discussion the last few weeks about whether Succession, marketed as a drama, is really a comedy, since its characters are mostly in stasis and go back to the status quo the next week. I agree about the stasis, since the Roy children keep trying and failing to succeed father Logan as CEO, but I find this sad rather than funny. You could say it’s sitcom-like for the show reset to the status quo after the company escaped legal consequences for the cruise ship rape scandal, but isn’t it ultimately depressing? Sure, this can be the funniest show on TV, but the Roy children are trapped in tragic cycles. Kendall is an addict who has alienated himself from much of his family and can neither defeat nor escape his father. Shiv had a semblance of an independent life but once she fell back into Waystar Royco’s orbit, she immediately lost her scruples and had nothing to show for it, with her father openly mocking even her victories. And poor Roman Roy. In a subtle, disquieting performance, Kieran Culkin plays Roman as using jokes and nasty insults to mask the reality: He’s been physically and emotionally abused by his father. There was some movement in the plot in the series finale, as the kids teamed up to take control of Waystar Royco, only to be betrayed by their mother and the neglected and treacherous Tom (a great Matthew McFadyen). (And I loved the scene at the wedding when Tom was offering Greg power in exchange for his soul. The way the candles were shining balefully at the exact right moment right after sunset was satanic.) Despite the dark comedy, parental abuse is at the heart of Succession, and there’s nothing funny about that.

 

1. Mare of Easttown. I came for the Delco accents but stayed for the characters and story. It was an embarrassment of acting riches, with Emmy-winning performances by Kate Winslet, Evan Peters and Julianne Nicholson. The murder and kidnapping dramas were interesting but for me, the best part was the exploration of a community’s ties between people that can bind them together or tear them apart. Mare is a lifelong resident of Easttown and her knowledge of the people of that community gives her the ability to solve Erin’s murder. The flip side is that when she discovers her best friend Lori has been hiding the truth from her—Lori’s son killed Erin—it tears her apart. This is powerful, and when Mare forgives Lori for this, and forgives herself for her son’s suicide, it’s even more powerful.

The Albatross Around My Neck

I seem to speak less and less these days. I haven’t said too much in this forum lately. I’m still here, just pretty busy. I think my resolution for next year will be to actually write more, and to work harder at my career as a failed writer (it’s not as easy as it looks). I’m barren of ideas lately. I just seem to have this static overlaying my brain lately and I can’t think of too much to say.

 

One of those reasons for that static is the challenges the last few months related to our old house, which we’ve been renting since we moved (as a way of waiting it out until we could pay down the mortgage and sell). The tenant left at the beginning of October when her lease expired. It’s been a lot of work but the house is now on the market, so I’m hoping we can sell and that albatross around my neck will finally die. 

 

So the last two months I’ve spent every weekend at the house, taken off on weekdays, run over after work, run over when I’m supposed to be working, et cetera, trying to repair the damage. We were lucky enough to have the enormous help of Steve’s parents, who were not afraid to get their hands dirty or help us do the work in whatever way they could, and we’re very grateful.

 

What damage needed to be repaired, you ask? The tenant basically trashed the house. It was a disaster—like, DIZZASSTER—the first time I went over after they left. They left all their furniture in the house, as well as dozens of bags of trash and crap. The fridge wasn’t working and was full of spoiled food. (The fridge was fine; the circuit breaker had tripped. So these dopes apparently never wondered why all the kitchen appliances and lights died at the same time. Still, the fridge was unusable after all that.) So I had to have everything removed from the house and haul bags full of former food to the trash.

 

Once everything was removed, I could see some other problems with the house. The hardwood floors in the living room were covered in some sticky, unmentionable animal matter and dog hair. The remaining carpeting was ripped up and hopelessly dirty. Everything was filthy and there was food everywhere. It smelled so much that you had to take a shower after doing anything at that house, and I swore I could still smell it on me later. Her dog had damaged two doors and another door was missing with no explanation.

 

There were so many other weird little things wrong with the house, that make you wonder, “Why would someone do this?” As I cleaned, I found dried dogshit, cigarette butts, and a chicken bone in the bedrooms. The decorative stained glass part of our ceiling fan was disconnected and left on the deck, because that’s where you leave that kind of thing. They removed the banister on the basement steps and part of the kitchen peninsula. The metal shed was damaged, clearly from an SUV hitting it. There were no smoke detectors in the house.

 

They left a trashcan full of dogshit on the deck and the rain had gotten in, making it a toxic stew. I had no choice but to throw the trashcan over the deck (I wasn’t bringing it through the house) so it would land on the grass beneath. Unfortunately, some of the biological matter also got on my pants and my car. I cleaned it as best I could and muttered curses under my breath.  

 

This was the first house Steve and I lived in. This was the house Jarvis lived and died in, and Cerys’ first house. I said my goodbyes when we left and let go of the idea that it was mine, but it was still upsetting to see it that way.

 

So over the last two months, we painted every room, got all new carpeting, treated for roaches, patched drywall, and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. We were not thrilled with the expense (compounded by having to pay the mortgage on that house for months before the tenant left after she flaked out on rent) but we had no choice. If we hadn’t done all the work, the house would have sold for a comically low amount.

 

Little by little, the house healed. At one point we realized we didn’t automatically need to shower after going over there. The house has been stripped of all evidence of these people. It almost looks like we still live there.

 

Maybe soon we will finally be able to breathe easier without the burden of worrying about this house—about rent coming in time, about what will break next, about the next trip to Crazytown with the tenant, etc. I’ll be happy to focus on our current house and not the money pit. I am grateful we lived there but now I’m more than ready to let someone else start a life there.

 

And I’ll also be grateful (knock on wood) once I can go tearing out of the parking lot after settlement and speed to the bank with that cashier’s check.

[STET] Matters

Nobody likes to be corrected when they’re wrong, but it seems like special venom focuses on “grammar Nazis.” They (we) are the people who can tell you when you should use “whom” or an en dash.

 

Of course, nobody should be a jerk when correcting someone or something who is wrong. But it always seemed to me that people who correct other people’s grammar or style, no matter how politely or humbly they do it, get a special type of sneer that mathematicians or scientists don’t get when they correct other people. People seem much quicker to get their backs up. Why is that?

 

I’ve thought about it and I am convinced that when people sneer at those who correct the written word, sometimes buried under that sneer is the idea that what people like me do doesn’t have any value. They’re wrong about that. I’m not going to let anybody imply (not infer) that my profession doesn’t have any value.

 

I hate to come off like I’m beating up on a strawman here but I do get an overall impression, not from anybody I know but in general, that there is condescension toward people in the editorial profession. It’s like people in the more left-brain fields are just too good for the guidance someone like me could provide. Like they’ve mastered a real field and they’re not going to let some diaeresis-pusher like me correct them. Who cares about that stuff, right?

 

With the explosion of the internet and social media over the last 20 years, there are more avenues than ever for people to express themselves in the written word. This makes it more important than ever to have people who could help people, if they want it, express themselves more clearly.

 

We push kids into the STEM professions and of course it’s important to get kids involved in professions that will materially improve the world and provide good jobs. But even in the more scientific fields, you still need somebody who can help you express your ideas clearly and accurately. I’ve been a medical editor for a long time—as of today, 20 years at the same company—and believe me, if people can’t read your paper, it doesn’t matter how brilliant the research is.

 

Those scientific studies you see quoted on weight loss or COVID vaccines or climate change? I’m one of the people who makes sure those data are communicated as clearly as possible. I’m a cog in a machine (I only do peer-reviewed articles part-time at my job) but I do help in making sure the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed in my tiny corner of the world. (Yes, I did look up the style of “i’s” and “t’s.”) I think that’s important because you can be a brilliant scientific mind but may need some help getting your ideas across correctly. That’s what I’m here for, and my philosophy has always been that it’s OK if a doctor’s writing isn’t perfectly polished because that’s not their job; their job is the science. Everybody can use a second set of eyes on something because anybody can make a mistake (God knows how many I’ve made). There’s a difference between a “25-week premature infant” and a “premature 25-week infant” and those are the types of things I’m supposed to catch.

 

I don’t mean to sound self-important in any of this. I’m very lucky to have been able to work in my profession continuously since graduating from college, 20 years of which have been with the same company. I have enough experience now not to listen to anybody who condescends to me or thinks what I do doesn’t have value.

Doughnuts

Don’t ever show up with a box of doughnuts. It’s a nice thought, sure, but the presence of those fried dollops of sugar portends something dark and mournful or perhaps just annoying.

 

Boston crème means an early Saturday morning, showing up bleary eyed with the chill of dew and fog still on you.

 

Chocolate means you are ready to work, building a deck or painting two coats, or even moving that friend you once knew better, dragging boxes of spatulas and fitted sheets up the steps to a new life.

 

Jelly means you put on a gray suit and black tie and meet at the house before heading off to church to hear the eulogies and “On Eagle’s Wings.”

 

The gesture is nice but doughnuts are the bribe and the reward for doing something you don’t want to do. But I will do them all anyway because that is what adults do. Thank you but I can make my own breakfast at home.

I can't stand Dan Abrams

He’s the guy who does legal analysis for ABC News. Like me, you might see him in the morning when you’re having breakfast or in the evening when you’re having dinner and there’s some legal issue to comment on.

 

Dan Abrams really annoys me and it doesn’t help that ABC drags him out anytime there’s an attorney’s opinion to be opined, which is constantly. He doesn’t offer any more than dime-store legal wisdom. He sounds authoritative but it’s nothing more than variations on, “Look, the prosecution is going to try anything it can to win this case.” It sounds smart because of the way he talks but if you listen to the substance, it’s just dopey and obvious. I have no legal training and I could have told you most of what he says. Plus, it always seems like he’s sneering.

 

I don’t have any actual transcripts or quotes of what Abrams has said but here are some examples of what he’s said about recent legal issues in the news. I made these up but they’re in the spirit of how he talks:

 

On Brian Laundrie as a suspect in Gabby Petito’s murder (before they found him dead): “Look, there’s been a lot of speculation on the evidence in this case but the prosecution isn’t going to release any information to the public unless they’re really sure they can make a case against this guy. They need to prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, their case to a jury. That’s how you win a murder case.”

 

On the Supreme Court hearing on the Texas abortion law: “Look, the question here is: Does this law infringe on women’s rights or is it consistent with the Constitution? Right now, we’re looking at a divided court on a controversial issue. If five justices find the law to be constitutionally unpalatable, then they can send it down to the lower courts for review. But if five justices find the law passes a Constitutional test, we could be looking at strong abortion prohibitions in the Lone Star State.”

 

On the shooting on the set of Alec Baldwin’s movie: “Look, it all hinges on whether or not there was negligence on the set of the movie. Once an investigation has established that, only then will they look to determine who may or may not be culpable. Right now, we can’t rule anybody out.”

 

On Steve Bannon defying a subpoena from Congress: “Look, this all comes down to whether or not a private citizen can defy a congressional subpoena and not have to face consequences. Can a former president claim executive privilege to protect Bannon? And those questions are going to make their way through the court system, perhaps all the way to the Supreme Court.”

 

Once you really listen, everything Abrams says is a variation on “We’re just going to have to wait and see.” I’d rather see a lawyer with specific experience in the subject matter at hand offer a specific opinion, rather than this Jack-of-all-trades say nothing in particular.

 

I know it’s a really specific complaint about a random media figure but Dan Abrams just annoys me and once I realized what bothered me, I couldn’t stop seeing it. I guess I could always just turn to another channel during breakfast and dinner.

Atom Bomb of Sadness

I’ve been trying to write this for the last few days and I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it. I just kept breaking down. There was just too much sadness. In trying to find the right words to discuss my devastation, I shed so many tears that even the Word document on my laptop somehow got soaked and I had to update my operating system.

 

You know what I’m talking about. It’s Adele’s new single.

 

I can say without exaggeration that it’s the saddest thing that ever happened in modern history. It’s as if they shot Old Yeller during the saddest part of Princess Diana’s funeral. It’s sadder than a mash-up of commercials for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and Sarah McLachlan pet adoptions. It’s like the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb of sadness on everyone in the world and that bomb was the sound of Adele’s wailing voice shattered into 8 billion pieces but each piece somehow has the same amount of sadness as the whole.

 

I mean, you thought “Someone Like You” made you collapse into a pit of despair and stalking? The new one makes that sound like “Everything Is Awesome” from the Lego Movie. You think you sighed a billion sighs over lost love when you listened to “Hello”? This new song will have you sigh so hard, your esophagus will bleed and you’ll need an oxygen tank. You think you know sadness, just from deaths and other heartbreaks in your own life? Nah. Baby, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet.

 

I had a hard time even listening to Adele’s latest. Just brushing my fingers past the play button on my phone put a lump the size of Greenland in my throat. I finally pulled myself together enough to push play and when I heard the first few notes, I was sobbing—just sobbing. Crying ugly. Big, whooping, honking, embarrassing tears. It was like being in permanent therapy and having every breakthrough at once. After a year and half of tragedy and isolation, every single person in the world needed this catharsis.

 

Anyway, it took me all weekend to listen to the song since my keening would drown out the music and I’d have to start again. This was inconvenient since I went to a remote spot in the woods to listen so I could just keep collapsing to my knees and screaming, so nobody would be around to call the cops. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to listen to it at home.

 

Man, if we’re this emotional now, can you imagine a whole album of this? A whole album of sad ballads by Adele?! We’re going to be so dehydrated from crying, we’ll need an IV. This song and album will definitely sweep the Grammys. Of course, we may have a hard time hearing the winner’s name through all that sobbing and howling by the announcers. Maybe they could hire robots to announce. But then the emotions of the music would cause the robots to have self-awareness, and then they’d cry, too.

 

There is simply no way to overstate any of this. Every chord is a family member’s funeral. I am proud to lend my voice to those on social media who are expressing the hysterical tears that come with any new Adele song. But my review is the most florid! Notice me! Pay attention to me! Push me to the top of the Google search results! SOB.

Haunted House

You walk up to the house a few hours after dark and see someone has left a light on in the bedroom. Either you’ve watched too many horror movies, or you’re too stressed out by the last few months, but you wonder if there’s somebody still in the house. They told you they were gone and the keys were in the mailbox where they promised, but you still feel uneasy.

 

In the living room you see their cracked and ruined leather couch, half-used bottles of mustard still on it. There are disassembled coffee tables, a desk with scattered papers, speakers unconnected to anything, a portable heater, and decorative mirrors on the wall. There is a clock still set to the manufacturer’s time of 10:10, as if they’d never had the heart to set it. Cleaning products are scattered around the room—though none used on the hardwood floor, which has a sticky black goop all over it.

 

The empty packing boxes give it away. The same boxes were there two months ago when you were here last. They just took off and left their stuff behind for you to clean up. It’s all abandoned furniture and plastic bags full of crap.

 

What else did they leave behind? It’s late and you’re afraid to go down the basement—too many horror movies. You calm your heartbeat and walk down the stairs, unable to see what is around the corner until you get to the bottom.

 

There’s no demon or vampire or dead body or vengeful tenant to greet you. Just the more ordinary horrors people leave behind. Ruined exercise equipment and luggage. Bags of clothes. Unwanted hardbacks, books on languages, and school materials. An overturned wooded box spills out tiny earrings and baubles. Then you spot dogshit smeared on the basement floor, and your sadness and pity begin to curdle into anger.

 

Something tells you to look in the fridge. It’s room temperature inside and who knows how long it’s been that way. Inside it’s crammed with spoiled food. It’s almost-full bottles of salad dressing, sriracha sauce, wedges of fancy cheese, whipped cream, and a tray topped with aluminum foil that you couldn’t be paid to unpeel and look at. On the counter is a carton of Ben and Jerry’s. Just left there.

 

The fridge must have died and rather than tell you, they must have closed it for all time like a tomb. Your anger rises and rises. The next morning, you will throw it all in trash bags and stomp down to the curb with them. One bag will drip something unspeakable onto the kitchen floor and another bag will break in the driveway. And you will curse these filthy, inconsiderate pigs.

 

Upstairs, you find that of course nobody is still in the house. Somebody just left a lamp on with the shade askew. The bed and furniture are all still there, sheets still on the mattress. More furniture in the other bedrooms. On the floor is more black stuff that may or may not be able to be cleaned.

 

So they’re finally gone. Nobody is still in the house but you’re still unaccountably creeped out. You almost think you hear sounds, like someone moving in another room. It’s probably just the neighbors or the house settling. It can’t be ghosts, right? That would be ridiculous.

 

But there are always ghosts in one form or another, aren’t there? The ghost of us whiling away an ordinary evening watching TV while a cat purred on one of our laps. The ghost of everyone gathered near the light of the Christmas tree while the windows fogged with the steam from a crock pot and the warmth of us all together. The ghost of sitting on the deck watching a thunderstorm roll in from the west, planning and hoping we’d someday have a better view out back than power lines and a stray shopping cart.

 

And there is always something to haunt us. If you’d done something different, would this not have ended in squalor and chaos? Should you have been more vigilant? This whole house—this septic wound—could haunt you and drag you down with it if you let it.

 

So you will not. You will take dripping bags of trash out to the curb. You will scrub the floor on hands and knees. You will make the calls and deals you need to make. You will fix what you had neglected. You will give the next person the keys and walk away with something and plan bigger and better things in the place that really matters.  

I could die without regretting that I never did the following things

Tweet

Own a gun

Listen to a Joe Rogan podcast

TikTok

Go camping

Listen to a Taylor Swift album

Engage with anyone in the Kardashian or Jenner families at any level, in any capacity, or devote more than a stray, involuntary thought to any of them

Invest in cryptocurrency

Knowingly be influenced by an influencer

Eat cauliflower cleverly disguised as or substituted for a much better food

Take Libertarian ideas seriously

Go to a Billie Eilish concert

Get baited or taunted into eating excessively hot food

Get baited or taunted into competing to win something I don’t care about

Sit through Joker

Eat a stuffed pepper

Read any more Charles Dickens

Feel actual guilt when indulging in a guilty pleasure

Eat an insect

Lead a conga line

Care what people think of my weight

Run with the bulls in Spain

Go ice fishing

Visit the reptile house

 

Excuse Me

Hey, I’m just going to push my way in here for a second while you’re busy doing something. Doesn’t matter what that “something” is. You could be making dinner or folding laundry or having your purchases rung up by a cashier or reaching for an item on a shelf or fixing something. I’m just going to insert myself between you and the thing you were already working on. Will only take a second.

 

And I’m just going to do it again a few more times while you’re busy with the same thing. I’m going to reach in front of you, walk across your path, grab something in front of your face, interrupt you when you’re doing something. Just a few more times and I’ll be out of your hair. It’s because I forgot something/dropped something/lost something/just can’t wait my turn. You can accommodate my lack of preparation/patience/consideration.

 

Not that I need to explain anything. Because I’ll just be a second. I’m just going to barge into your space and grasp and push and usurp and do whatever I need. Don’t mind me! I certainly don’t mind you.

 

Hey, just let me force my way in here again. I’m technically asking but you’ll notice the tone of my question is rhetorical, because I’m already pushing in before I finish asking. So we’ll never know whether or not you’d agree. I’m just going to use my too-big-to-fail personality to dominate your space in small but insidious ways; to steamroll people who are less assertive than me, then act like they’re “just being stubborn” when they’re only standing up for themselves like I stand up for myself. I’ll just be disruptive for a few seconds, then leave you alone until the next time I disrupt you.

 

… What do you mean, “no”? Oh, lighten up. Life’s too short for you to get all huffy about people who push themselves in front of you, and it’s certainly too short for me to pass up an opportunity to push my way in front of people without asking.

But we're in love

So, you see, it would not be fair or reasonable to ask us to stop holding hands for a few seconds and walk single file so someone approaching us can share this sidewalk and not have to step off and walk in the busy street beside it. We are in love, and we’re just going to continue in our blissful reverie, side by side and taking up the width of this sidewalk.

 

I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to step out onto the very narrow shoulder and risk getting hit by a car. There is nothing we can do for you.

 

For how could we be separated even for a moment as we walk hand in hand? We love each other. See how as we walk, we are sort of folding into one another? It’s almost as if we were one person. Asking us to break formation to walk single file—even for a moment—would be a crime against Love.

 

Maybe you don’t understand that if you’re just walking down the sidewalk alone, without anyone to share the experience with. You’ll just have to step aside when couples come along. Walk through the dirty water that runs into the gutter and let us pass. 

 

As we walk, we talk in hushed, intimate tones. I cannot miss a moment of my lover’s conversation. For we are planning a future of love together. To ask us to detach to accommodate the needs of someone who isn’t us would break the spell of love. It would risk our gossamer dream tearing in two. Even if we were to detach and reform our positions milliseconds later, it would never be the same. Something in us would have died.

 

So don’t even try to be bold enough to walk down the right side of the sidewalk without stepping completely out of our way. You will only be met with our perplexed and outraged stares as we absorb your unmitigated gall and look at you like you have three heads. Our love is big enough to take up two lanes and we cannot be expected to make the sacrifice of walking in momentary single file.

 

You’re just going to have to clear the way and take your chances in traffic. For we are in love, and all those little examples of common courtesy and consideration suddenly seem very far away, drowned out by the perfection of our reverie.  

You’re violating my HIPPA rights!

How am I? How am I?!? How dare you ask me that! You’re violating my HIPPA rights!

 

You have a lot of nerve, passing me in the hallway and saying a casual, “How are you doing.” You might think this was just some breezy greeting but it’s not. It’s actually a major violation of my right to privacy, which has been enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America for 250 years.

 

Where is HIPPA in the Constitution, you ask? I don’t know. It’s one of the amendments. I don’t have time to check which one. I do know you’re not allowed to ask me how I’m feeling today and even asking that question is a felony. This will result in major fines and jail time.

 

How I can I be sure, you ask? Um, I used to own a CrossFit gym and helped people fight obesity, so yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m an expert on federal health care laws. Plus, I’ve watched numerous YouTube videos on the subject. Last time I checked, the “P” in HIPPA stood for “Privacy,” so yeah—my privacy rights are protected. (I assume the second “P” also stands for privacy. Privacy was such an important concept to the Founding Fathers that they had to say it twice in that acronym.)

 

So you can’t ask me how I’m feeling or for any of my sacred health information. “Did you sleep OK?” Completely forbidden. “How’s your headache?” Blatantly illegal. “You doing alright?” A constitutional abomination. Every single person and private company and federal, state or local institution or official is prohibited under HIPPA for asking me anything about my health, even obliquely. I have business cards I hand out saying “Asking me my personal information is a HIPPA violation and you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law” whenever anyone invades my privacy with chit-chat. I also have a little HIPPA siren I set off to alert the authorities when people do ask because that information is between me and my doctor.

 

You’ll be hearing from my lawyer. I’m going to employ the services of the finest team of HIPPA lawyers and we’ll sue you in Federal HIPPA Court and you will be ruined for all time, as the law and the Constitution demand!

Who is Kang and what did he conquer?

Kang the Conqueror/Immortus makes his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the last episode of Loki. I didn’t care for this show. I liked the first episode but I quickly lost interest. I don’t care about Sylvie or the relationship between Loki and Luke (or is it Owen?) Wilson. The pace of the show was mired in molasses at times with a lot of Significant Looks that were held a beat too long. Plus Loki was curiously underpowered for a Norse god. I know he was powerless in the grip of the Tennessee Valley Authority but once free of the TVA, the only things he really did were throw a few energy bolts and conjure a blanket. This show just didn’t grab me. But anyway.

 

I’m in a holding pattern this week at work so I’ll briefly explain the long and twisted history of Kang. He debuted way back in Avengers #8 in 1964 and since then, he’s been the team’s foremost nemesis, even more so than Loki or Thanos. He’s a regular human with no powers but does have access to a time machine and advanced technology. Kang has taken on several different identities over the years.

 

Kang’s real name is Nathaniel Richards and he is an apparent descendant of Reed Richards’s father, also named Nathaniel. Kang was born in the 31^st century and to liven up the tedium in his life, sought out Dr. Doom’s time machine and traveled back to ancient Egypt in a ship shaped like the Sphinx. There he took on the identity of Pharaoh Rama-Tut and was defeated by the Fantastic Four, who were unstuck in time themselves. (This was about a year before Kang’s debut so his first appearance in publishing history was as Rama-Tut in Fantastic Four #19.) 

 

Kang ends up traveling into the 41^st century and conquers an already troubled Earth. He decides he wants to conquer a less war-torn planet so he travels back to the 20^th century and battles the Avengers, who defeat him. He returns to battle the team repeatedly and becomes involved in the search for the Celestial Madonna, who turned out to be the Avengers ally Mantis, who was destoned to birth a powerful child (a story that went nowhere). Kang ended up falling in love with Ravonna, a subject from one of his conquered worlds who later fell in love with him.

 

There was that time when it was revealed that Kang had been manipulating Iron Man from the beginning, and caused Iron Man to betray the Avengers and nearly kill the Wasp. This led to Iron Man being replaced by “teen Tony” from an earlier point in the timestream. Everybody hated this story and it has mercifully been forgotten.

 

Aside from Rama-Tut, Kang also assumed the identity of the Scarlet Centurion and fought the Avengers. His son Marcus later became the Scarlet Centurion. Kang’s other aspect is Immortus, basically an elderly Kang. The young Kang resents who he becomes as an old man, subservient to the Time Keepers. (Technically, the character in Loki may actually be Immortus, since it’s the end of the timestream and his costume is flowy like Immortus’ costume. However, the design of the statue at the end of the episode is pure Kang.)

 

So with all the time travel, Kang has split into many versions of himself. This tracks with Loki’s variant theory. There’s basically a whole lot to Kang’s history and I don’t even understand all of it.

 

Of course, there was that time when Kang actually conquered present-day Earth for a time. He warned the Avengers about the possible terrible futures they faced (everyone irradiated and dying, the Avengers being replaced by Ultron versions of themselves, etc.) and announced he would take control of the planet to keep it safe from those possible futures. He fought a vicious war against the Avengers with the help of the villainous tribes of the world, like the Atlanteans and the Deviant Inhumans.

 

This story started in Avengers comics in 2001 and ran for over a year, with many subplots and long-running stories getting resolved in the larger story. Usually, comics have a blurb on the cover saying “Part 1 of 6” or whatever. But the Kang story just went on and on and on, which was kind of cool since it mimicked a real war in that nobody knew when it would end. After a long battle, Kang nuked Washington, DC (which made Thor snap and leave the team since he couldn’t take the grief of surviving the attack when so many civilians died) and forced a surrender. The president of the United States went to sign the articles of surrender but Kang instead made then–Avengers chair the Wasp sign, just to stick the knife in further. Earth rebelled against their conqueror and it ended with Captain America punching out Kang in outer space.

 

The weird thing was, no other Marvel comic referenced the fact that Earth had been conquered, and nobody ever referenced this story again. You think you’d remember a thing like that.

That's what the money is for

If there is any kind of ticker-tape parade for Richard Branson or Jeff Bezos as the first multi-billionaires to go to space, I will not be attending. Call me old fashioned but I do not believe space should be open to filthy-rich tourists. Space should be for research to aid us in solving the very real problems we have on Earth—problems that are much more pressing than whether to charge six or seven figures for some oligarchs to take a pleasure trip.

 

We should not be lionizing either Branson or Bezos at all for what they’re paying to do. Luckily, I haven’t seen too much lionizing outside of the predictably dopey-dope morning news “Space Race!” stories. (Why investigate deeper or put these space flights in the context of their times when there’s a rhyming chyron that writes itself?)

 

There are already people who we should be lionizing for space travel: Astronauts. You know—people who have worked and studied for years and decades to get to space, rather than just paying for it. After Branson’s trip to space* ABC News interviewed the actual astronaut who went with him for about 3 seconds and cut her off at the end. Can’t waste valuable time interviewing someone who’s not a wind-burnt billionaire!

 

The whole stupid thing with the Virgin space plan is that it’s just another way for Branson to make money by selling trips into space for $250,000 a pop. So he’s ultimately doing it out of self-interest. I don’t find this inspirational. Maybe I’m just a cynical old person but I don’t dream of things like paying that amount of money to be weightless for a few minutes. I’d rather dream of things that are feasible on this plane of reality, and while I’m grateful for everything I have, there’s no way I’d ever be able to spare $250,000 for a space trip. If I ever did have a quarter of a million to spare, I’d probably just do something boring with it anyway, like donate to a bunch of food banks.

 

For just $28 million, you can travel to the Karman line at the edge of outer space and brag how you got higher than Branson. And you can count how many angels can dance on the head of a pin while you’re there, because those distinctions between altitudes, while scientifically important, mean little to us poor suckers on Earth. It’s Bezos who pisses me off more. Amazon has a long list of mistreating employees and avoiding taxes. I’m sure Bezos will announce some grandiose foundation to tackle the dire issues the peons on this planet are facing but you know how he could most effectively help? He can pay taxes, both on his own wealth and his company’s value, and let the government use that collective power in the service of our citizens. Again, call me old fashioned, but that’s another thing I believe in.

 

Bezos could also use some of that money to treat his employees better. I don’t know exactly how much he’s invested into going to space, but disseminating it to real people could probably go a long way to help the Amazon drivers who are pissing in bottles because they don’t have time to go to the bathroom.

 

Jeff Bezos is worth over $200 billion. That is an obscene amount of money that nobody could ever spend on themselves. He can afford to pay higher taxes, treat employees better, and do something better with his money.

 

Yeah, you might say, “It’s their money and they can do what they want with it.” But we live in country where a lot of people will glare at people in supermarkets who are using their EBT cards to pay for any food nicer than gruel. “Those are my tax dollars paying for that pork chop,” people huff. Let’s expand some of that financial scrutiny to people who are richer than Croesus yet do not pay their fair share of taxes—taxes they could easily pay and not even feel.

 

What will really rankle me is if people like Branson and Bezos and Elon Musk expect the public to fawn over them once they go to space, like they need another reward. If they’re rich enough to do all this stuff, they’ve already received their reward. As Don Draper told Peggy Olson, “That’s what the money is for.”

 

So these people can fight among themselves about who’s going to space first and roll around in their money, but don’t expect a parade. It’s hard to argue any of these people care about the public when they’re paying to leave the planet.

The Next Sky

I cannot yet know what the next sky will bring, still a flip of the horizon away.

 

Will it be big, blooming dollops of cumulonimbus flirting between summer sun and thunder, giving at least a probability that the day may still be mine? Or the surer pall of clouds pulled over the day like a funeral shroud, calling an end to any recreation?

 

Maybe we will luck out and as the world turns eastward, nothing but the bluest skies will finish out my afternoon. But I cannot know the combination of blue and white and gray awaiting me.

 

For the moment, the sun peeks tenaciously from between clouds and systems, and so I take the plunge. Thunder echoes, too far away for lightning but I seize the salt water while I can and do not let go of it until nature forces me. 

 

Of course it broke

I’ve whined about this before but this is a periodic reminder that the Christmas Tree Shop sucks. Most everything I’ve bought from there turns out to be a cheap piece of crap that breaks, and the store is annoyingly crowded and everyone in there moves like molasses.

 

I avoid that place but was in there a few weeks ago to buy pool noodles, since Target was out of them. I figure, it’s no big deal if a pool noodle is cheap and breaks since they don’t last more than a summer. While I was there, I bought an umbrella I saw while waiting in line. I needed one because I lent my son my umbrella that morning since it was raining and he was going to be outside all day at camp. I ran a few errands at a few stores and couldn’t find an umbrella so I figured, what the hell. I’m in line and it’s right here. I also figured, this thing won’t last long.

 

I got literally two uses out of the umbrella and of course it broke. I mean, why wouldn’t it break? I’m surprised it didn’t explode while I was walking out of the store. It’s still usable so I’ll keep it for a backup but one of the spokes is loose.

 

I’m sure the Christmas Tree Shop has its fans but for me, it’s just a bunch of cheap crap—dollar store quality but more expensive. The last thing I got was a patio umbrella because our other one broke so I needed one soon and it was cheap. I should say it was inexpensive and also cheap. The umbrella had no holes at the top to ventilate air so I had to cut some. It would still be taken easily by the wind so it was always sort of rotating around. But I figured, this is already a sunk cost, so I’ll stick with it. I didn’t notice how crappy the umbrella was until I got a new one this year and it stayed perfectly still. Sometimes you’re just better off paying more.

 

Instead of Christmas Tree Shops, they should call the store the Shit Shack, or Sunk Cost Fallacy, or False Economy, or Ritzy Dollar Store.

Green Lights

If I end up making it there and if it is true that Heaven is indeed the place where we get what we want, where we get our way, then my Heaven will be a highway of green lights. I will make them all. Get where I’m going with no delay or hassle.

 

But perhaps that is not enough. A true Heaven would turn every traffic light yellow at the exact moment my afterlife car passed under it. So I could feel I were getting away with something.

 

Even in the embrace of paradise, I would not be immune to looking back to see those poor suckers stuck behind me at the red lights Heaven was not kind enough to hold long enough for them. Even there, I would find perfection in feeling I were getting somewhere quicker than the people behind me. Even with all the time in eternity.

That's not the world we live in

No, it shouldn’t be a big deal when a public figure or athlete comes out, but I think it still is.

 

That’s why I thought some of the reaction to Carl Nassib of the Raiders coming out as the only gay player in the NFL was weird. A lot of articles I read seemed to be of the “NFL player is gay, not much to see here, it’s 2021, moving on” variety. Defector, a sports website I like that’s usually pretty good about these types of stories, wrote a perfunctory story that was dismissive and didn’t rise to the occasion (and the LGBTQ commenters in the story were very disappointed and gave much more thoughtful perspectives than the actual article).

 

I understand the idea behind “Why is this news?” when someone comes out because it’s increasingly common to see visible LGBTQ people. The idea that “it shouldn’t be a big deal” has good intentions behind and maybe when the world changes a little more, it won’t be a big deal. But that’s not the world we live in. We live in a world where it is big news when a professional athlete comes out. This is self-evident in that there’s exactly one out gay man in all four major professional sports leagues. There’s a reason for that.

 

I think in yawning at public coming outs, no matter how well-intentioned it is, people can come off as dismissive of the experience of the person who comes out. Nassib said he’d struggled for the past 15 years over whether to come out. There’s a lot of pain behind that statement.

 

I think that’s true for a lot of LGBT people. I didn’t have a dramatic coming out. My family was accepting and welcomed Steve into the family. But you still don’t know how it’s going to go until you do it. One online comment I read said when you’re in the closet, little questions like “What did you do this weekend?” can be a minefield because gay people are afraid to say they did something with their partners. It’s a type of trepidation people (understandably) can’t understand unless they’re in that situation. So saying “no big deal” to a coming out can come off as flippant, even if it’s not intended to.

 

There are plenty of gay people in every walk of life, but not all of those are visible or accessible to everyone. The NFL is accessible to pretty much everybody in America. People perceive football as tough and manly so the fact that Nassib is a football player gives this extra resonance, since a lot of people still think gay people can’t be tough or manly. This type of visibility—seeing LGBTQ people where you may not expect us—can help a lot of kids who are questioning how their future’s going to go.

 

We’re not yet living in that world where gay athletes are commonplace to the point where nobody really has to come out and everybody shrugs. If we were, there would be more out men in sports—and just statistically, you know Nassib has to be far from the only one in the four major leagues.

 

Once a bunch of NFLers come out, maybe then we’ll be living in that world and people will yawn. For now, let’s live in the world we have, where a gay man on an active sports roster is a huge deal.