Rebuttal

I’m not all that interested in the presidential and vice presidential debates, to be honest. Does that make me some sort of irresponsible citizen?

I started watching the first Obama-Romney debate and just got really bored a half hour in and started reading. I caught about the first two minutes of last night’s Biden-Ryan debate and turned it off and started reading. I was mostly bitter that Parks and Recreation was not on. Diane Sawyer called it “one of the most important vice presidential debates in history.” Faint praise.

It didn’t help last night that they immediately started going on about Libya and the recent troubles. I’m sorry but I just don’t care. I’m barely aware of what’s happening there — I know a few people died and there was some unrest — but it seemed like it blew over rather quickly. I’m not terribly interested in foreign affairs anymore. If it’s something like a war in which our soldiers are involved then that’s certainly worthy of attention but if it’s just unrest in one region of the world, I just feel like it’s one goddamn thing after another over there and those countries can solve their own problems. We have far more pressing domestic problems and I’d rather see a debate about that.

Am I shallow? Do I not care? I do care about who governs this country, of course, but I’m not sure the debates are the best forum for that, at least not this election.

There’s just been so much attention paid to the posing that goes on in debates. The general consensus was that Romney won the first debate because of his forceful attitude and that Obama lost because he just sort of stood there like a limp banana. The general consensus was right but the analysis was just so surface-oriented. Both candidates are coated in a thin layer of bullshit, because that’s how politics works, and I would rather read the post-mortem analysis of what they said rather than tune in for the theater.

In particular, Romney explained his economic plans but they still didn’t make sense to me. So what’s the point of declaring him the winner and praising his assertiveness if it’s still basically bullshit? There are better ways to weigh one candidate against another and it’s not some tabloid-esque analysis of every smirk and sigh the candidates do at the podium.

The night Ben folded five

My experience at the Ben Folds Five concert was mostly hearing an opening riff and saying, “Oh, I love this song” and taking a few seconds before realizing what song it actually was. I like the band but sometimes I have a hard time recognizing songs until they’re a bit of the way in. Steve was probably happy I didn’t keep asking him, “What’s this song called again?”

I very much enjoyed the show. I had never seen the full band together; just Ben solo on a double bill with Tori Amos. It was sublime hearing the three band members break into a harmony on the gorgeous “Missing the War,” one of my favorite of their songs. I’m a sucker for a good harmony. The guys played pretty well all night. 

The show was pretty much some selections from the Five’s new The Sound of the Life of the Mind and other greatest hits, making it perfect for someone like me who isn’t familiar with a lot of deep album cuts or B-sides. The end of the show was especially fun, with Ben Folds Five tearing through “Philosophy,” “Kate,” “Song for the Dumped” and another of my favorites, “Army.” The final song “One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces” was rollicking. I think the best of their songs project an atmosphere of bitterness that’s somehow jaunty and insouciant. 

There were a few other songs I would like to have heard, like the grandiose “Narcolepsy,” and Steve had lamented that they didn’t do much from The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. The only Ben Folds solo material they did was “Landed” and Steve noted that during this, Robert Sledge and Darren Jessee had looks on their faces like Pink Floyd did as they gritted their teeth through their reunion a few years ago. 

Of course, there was “Brick.” I wonder if the band only performs this because they feel obligated. Like Radiohead’s “Creep,” when I heard “Brick” on the radio, it was a song I thought Ben Folds Five couldn’t top but then I heard the rest of their discography and discovered they had much better material. The song doesn’t fit in with the rest of their upbeat stuff and I just can’t get sing along to a ballad about an abortion. 

One thing I noticed at the show – do we still do this? – was that people were throwing around a beach ball. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were at an outdoor Jimmy Buffett show. I’m all for fun but batting around a ball just didn’t fit with a concert on a rainy night at the Tower Theater. The guy next to us caught the ball and deflated it. 

Anyway, I’m glad I got to see the group live.

Ignorance Is Bliss

I live under a rock in a remote cave on the dark side of the moon. I am out of it. I have no idea what’s going on.

Apparently there’s some song called … “Gangnam Style”? By some outfit named … Psy? Or PSY? In some genre known as … K-pop? And there’s a video of this song on something called … You Tube? Am I getting that right?

This kind of thing buzzes at the peripheral edge of my consciousness but I have somehow managed to avoid it. The song is viral and is No. 2 on the Hot 100 and it’s racked up millions of You Tube views. (I always take You Tube as a measure of popularity with a grain of salt, at least in music. Of course popular songs will garner all these views because they’re free. Ask people to pay and see how “viral” the song is.) There are even parodies of the song. The Internet is always imploring me to “Watch kindergarten class parody ‘Gangnam Style’ video!” I’ll get right on that, Internet.

I am sure this video is great and have nothing against it but sometimes I take a perverse pleasure in staying completely in the dark about things. It can be restful sometimes to go through life with headphones on, ignoring the jackhammers tearing up the street around you.

How did this happen? How did I become so ignorant? This “Gangnam Style” has apparently been online for some time but I only became aware after it metastasized. I don’t get it. I’m online all the time. I read gossip columns and entertainment sites and even if I’ve never seen or heard the phenomenon in question, I at least am aware of it most of the time. So how do these things sneak up on me? It’s another thing that in the future, when people make references to it, I will stare like a deer in the headlights.

This actually doesn’t concern me overmuch.

Things to Do in October

It’s all over but the crying. Even though the season didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, I did enjoy watching the Phillies, and will miss them in the off-season. They at least made a bit of a run in September, avoided the indignity of a losing season and I have some hope for next year. Still, it was painful to watch the Nationals clinch the National League East and for the Phillies’ divisional dynasty to end.

Let’s look on the bright side: I’ll have a bit more free time this October. For the first time in six years, I won’t have to stay up late watching playoff games and holler at the TV. Yay? So here’s a list of things I can do for the rest of the month to pass some time.

* Throw baseballs at my life-size cardboard cutout of Bryce Harper
* Laugh at the Mets, who still finished below the Phillies
* Strategically root against any MLB playoff team that has stymied the Phillies since 2007
* Clean the house
* Cry and collect the tears in my 2008 World Series glass
* Bang my head on the wall
* Offer a prayer of thanks for not having to listen to Joe Buck
* Plan our wedding
* Be especially vigilant of falling lead pipes
* Read a book
* Eat a cheesesteak topped with bitterness
* Devise a highly conceptual Halloween costume that will be discussed through the ages
* Catch a Flyers ga … oh, wait …
* Watch the DVD of the 2008 season on a loop until April, sighing heavily the whole while

Enjoy your month!

Well, I never!

I am regularly appalled at the questions I hear people asking strangers. I read about these things in online articles and advice columns. I am not always the model of decorum but there are certain things I would never, ever say to a stranger.

One of the things I would never do is ask a visibly disabled person, “What happened?” A woman in a wheelchair wrote a recent article saying people often asked her this and that flabbergasts me. I see someone in a wheelchair and just think, “I don’t know this person and it’s not my business and this person may not want to discuss some horrible circumstance.” If it’s someone on crutches, I think you might be safe asking, “What happened?” because it might be some temporary injury that the person will recover from. But for people in wheelchairs, I always figured maybe they are just sick of a lifetime of discussing something private with strangers. It’s none of my business. Let them bring it up if they want.

I would also never ask, “What’s that?” when I see someone with any kind of skin condition or goiter or whatever. That is something a child asks because they don’t have a sense of boundaries yet; not an adult. An adult should be able to suppress his or her curiosity so as not to put someone on the spot about what might be a sensitive subject. That person’s facial tumor might be an amusing factoid to us but the person in question may not want to talk about it. So it’s best to keep one’s mouth shut.

I’ve read some advice columns by parents of adopted children who have strangers ask them why the child does not look like the parents. I am flabbergasted that people would do this. When two blond-haired, blue-eyed parents introduce their dark-skinned, dark-haired daughter, it doesn’t take much intelligence to think “adopted” (or maybe conceived through some other method that is not remotely anyone’s business). And people with propriety would smile and keep such thoughts to themselves. I can’t stand when I read an article that says something like, “The Smiths have two daughters and an adopted son.” Unless the article is highlighting adoption, who cares? The article should say, “The Smiths have two daughters and a son.” Nobody should qualify their kids. The only introduction I need is, “Here’s my child.”

No way in hell will I ever inquire if a woman is breastfeeding or plans to circumcise her son. I figure, it’s not my breast or my penis so I should stay out of it. Pregnancy turns people into such vultures about personal things that really don’t concern them.  

There Goes Honey Boo Boo

I can’t even really tell you what Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is. As near as I can tell, it’s a reality show about some blond woman and her blond daughter, and I have absolutely no desire to know any more. My desire to know registers at 0 degrees on the Kelvin scale — absolute zero. I could not be more pleased at being completely in the dark as far as our national cultural conversation regarding this show. I don’t care who Honey Boo Boo is or where she’s coming from or where she’s going. I am completely apathetic about the nature of this girl’s nickname. I am incurious about every member of this family. I do not want to know how they live. I do not want to know what they think. I do not want to know about their family history. I do not want to know their dreams or fears. And I certainly hope to God I never actually have to watch any of their show. The following is a partial list of things I’d rather do than watch Here Comes Honey Boo Boo: Scrub the toilet, wait in line at the DMV, get a cavity filled, sit in traffic for several hours, stub my toe, shovel snow, stay late at work on a Friday or clean the litter box. I have complete torpor about watching these people on a serious or ironic level. I refuse to watch them just to laugh at them. I cannot bring myself to appreciate them as any sort of cultural phenomenon. I do not understand in general that things are “like a car crash — horrible but you can’t look away” because I never stop to look at car crashes so I refuse to rubberneck at these people’s lives. I regret to say that I will not be participating in any kind of sociological analysis of Honey Boo Boo as a person or analysis of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo as a TV show. I cannot watch these people and wring my hands and make them into a synecdoche about American culture because I cannot even muster the truly negligible effort required to hit “guide” on my remote to find out when and where the show airs. Because I just don’t care. At all. Likewise, I cannot use Here Comes Honey Boo Boo as a lament of what television has become because even by hate-watching a show to make fun of people or complain about the depths of reality TV culture, you’re still participating in that culture and you might be better off picking up a book once in awhile.

The Roof Over My Head

The weird split in our upstairs ceiling is like a metaphor come to life. I often get the pervasive sense that so many things in my life are rickety. The creaking floorboard means we will crash down into the basement. The hitch in my engine means my car will break down. Everything seems fragile and my fear was always that someday we will notice a crack on the ceiling — the ultimate symbol of a lack of security. And now it’s happening. It’s almost funny if I think about it.

It’s not really a crack on the ceiling. It appears to be some sort of thick wallpaper that the previous owners painted over and now that wallpaper is splitting at the seams. So there’s no damage to the ceiling that I can see but this is a cause of concern or curiosity. There’s a very faint halo of water damage but it’s only something you can see if you turn the lights on and really look for it. For all I know, it’s old damage that somebody fixed and covered up.

There haven’t been any drips, even with the heavy rain we had last Saturday, so I’m not noticing an actual leak. It’s the only place in the house that it’s happening so maybe we’re catching whatever it is early. This is right outside the bathroom so maybe the steam from the shower is collecting and that’s what’s making the wallpaper split at the seams. Is it my imagination or does the ceiling feel just slightly damp after a shower?

Who knows? Maybe this isn’t a big deal in reality. But it is in my mind.

Steve told me not to worry about it until we get an answer because he knows how I’ll get. My mind can be like a runaway freight train and I go from zero to worst-case scenario in four seconds. I know it’s irrational but the split is bigger in my mind’s eye.

This is not something that keeps me up at night but it does chip away at my sense of security. I worry that this little crack will foretell roof work that will cost thousands. I worry that this problem will be something that I could have solved a long time ago if I’d been more vigilant and then I will hear a voice in my head saying, “How long did you know you had this homework assignment due?” I worry what festering threat a roofer will uncover. Of course, we could also need a minor resealing, which I don’t think costs a lot for rowhomes.

Yeah, I know I signed up for this as a homeowner but it would be nice to get a break for at least a little while since the last year or two, it’s been one thing after another with replacing appliances and needing other work done. On the bright side, needing a new roof is like the biggest thing a homeowner can replace and once we deal with that, we’ll have gone through it and hopefully won’t need to face that fear again.