Pop Cesspool

SPORTS

There was a whole lotta bluster on ESPN this morning about how Indianapolis Colts kicker Mike Vander Jagt should keep his mouth shut because he's, well, a kicker. That's horseshit. There are few things more cliched in sports than the idea that kickers are pussies who don't know anything about football. Sure, many are not tough guys, and some don't know anything about the sport. Thus the cliche. But I think it's fair to assume that some kickers do have an intelligent concept of what makes a good football team. They're on the inside, whether they're gladiators or not. More importantly, they're co-workers of the actual gladiators. That's right -- another great football cliche comes into play: It's a business, with customers and managers and low-level functionaries and analysts and so on. Any fan with half a brain can tell you that the Colts are playoff choke-artists. Vander Jagt just happened to put a little insider spin on the concept. He questioned his co-workers' intangibles (excuse me for using that cliche), not their tactics. Seems fair to me. Tony Dungy is his boss, too. If Vander Jagt were any other starting player but a kicker (even punters seem to get more respect), and he'd said the exact same thing, his credibility never would've been questioned. If he'd criticized the team's offensive schemes, then the backlash might be more valid. Sounds like I have a chip on my shoulder, doesn't it? It's my low tolerance for corporate-heirarchy machismo. Sometimes the grunts and the pussies and the low-level functionaries know exactly what they're talking about. And they can be right without aspiring to be gladiators.

PLUG

An old PSU newspaper and writing-class colleague of mine, Laura Wexler, has written a book that's been getting some serious ink. Here are reviews from The Washington Post and Salon.com. I know she worked on it for a relatively long time. For somebody who's used to the instant gratification of a record review or a half-baked blog entry, her effort has served as a lesson that truly meaningful writing projects don't wrap up tidily in a few weeks. I haven't read the book yet, but I plan to.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Why didn't somebody buy the rights to virtually advertise on Shania Twain's thighs during tonight's halftime show? I mean, that's the kind of thing digital technology was made for. Side note: Until tonight, I was pretty sure that Sting and Gwen Stefani were the same person. Maybe one of them was digitally inserted into the picture.

HOUSEKEEPING

Forgot to post this: My review of Division of Laura Lee at the Black Cat. It's the third one down.

HINDSIGHT

Watching a VHS tape of the most recent "American Idol," I thought about my own karaoke triumphs. Some nights are just good nights:

1. "Feelin' Alright," Joe Cocker, Crystal City, Va., Fall 2001. A veritable volcano of post-Sept. 11 angst.
2. "Luck Be A Lady," Frank Sinatra, Allentown, Pa., Spring 2000. Too much class. Lost my voice.
3. "South Of The Border," Frank Sinatra, Yardley, Pa., Summer 2001. Won a large can of meat sauce.
4. "Dancin' With Myself," Billy Idol, Allentown, Pa., Spring 2000. Broke into a death metal growl.
5. "Folsom Prison Blues," Johnny Cash, Crystal City, Va., Fall 2001. Faked the harmonica and guitar solos via mouthrock skills.
6. "Centerfold," J. Geils Band, Moorestown, Pa., Winter 1994. Honorable mention -- my first time solo at the karaoke mic.

WARNING

Beware. The soul-sucking jerks are everywhere. They are bored with themselves, so they vacuum up your vivacity. It is rare to find a soul-sucker who once actually had a soul. They're not like vampires. They dress well. They are still alive. Sometimes they are clones. They are agog at your essence, they squeeze it between their fingers when they can. Some souls are irreducible, quick or mighty. Yours might not be. Some people probably would wear bioports on their foreheads so the soul-suckers could have easy access. The testing ground would be Washington, the great sterile salt flat for the development of soul-sucking excellence.

JUSTICE

Thanks to Jorge for passing along a nice lil' piece about Jah Rule and Ashanti hearing the boos of the unsatisfied Veterans Stadium crowd on Sunday at halftime. Listen to the mp3 clip if you get a chance. He sucks, this much is true.

COMFORT

My life on the chain gang isn't completely horrible these days: For the first time in years, I've started to bring headphones to work, and nobody has complained yet. I forget to bring CDs most days, and I don't like the idea of storing a lot of mp3s on my work machine. So I've turned to BBC Radio for tuneage, and it keeps me afloat at times. The only problem is that it doesn't offer round-the-clock streams. Most of the Beeb's music programming is formatted by the hour, so a lot of the best shows run out before they get going. Faves: John Peel, the electronica shows (that stuff is better in tight doses, anyway), Andy Kershaw, the reggae DJs (nobody in America does it this well), the Album Chart, the American guys that play punk, and just about anything that shoves a bunch of genres together.

WISDOM?

Pitchfork says The Dismemberment Plan is breaking up. Doesn't make much sense to me, because they were obviously onto something great with Change. (That Othermusic.com review is a little bit pragmatic. I'd say it was the first record that I tolerate after the Sept. 11 attacks -- a combination of the familiar and appropriately unsettling.) Maybe they're taking the Mike Schmidt approach: Go out respectfully with the same team you broke in with.

TURLET TIME

The Wook has been busy lately. Lots of tight writing and seat-of-the-pants thinking on there, perhaps more politically oriented than ever. I still think one of the Philly weeklies should hire him to write a column.

A HEARTBREAKING INTERCEPTION OF RIDICULOUS CONSEQUENCE

A HEARTBREAKING INTERCEPTION OF RIDICULOUS CONSEQUENCE
Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post writes: "The irrational pessimism of the Eagles, epitomized by their booing fans, ran headlong into the irrational optimism of the Bucs, a team aflame with the wolfish ambition and almost comic energy of their new coach, Jon Gruden." Come off it, Boz. Philly fans are pessimistic for a reason (42 years since the last championship), and they at least have enough integrity to express their displeasure. These days, the NFL is packaged as entertainment; I liken the games to rock concerts. If something sucks, the people paying $75 for the cheap seats should be able to boo if they want to. None of the anti-Philly pundits seemed to notice that the Veterans Stadium crowd largely took its medicine on Sunday. Once Ronde Barber ran back that knife-to-the-gut interception, there were boos, of course, but it seemed as if everybody left the scene without much fuss. The Inky noted that much. Ah, but Boswell writes for a newspaper that kisses the Redskins' collective ass; even when the Post is critical of Danny Snyder's gang, it keeps in mind that most 'Skins fans begin each season as if this is the year.

WHOOOOOO!

Every day I log on to my Internet provider, and every day the top headline takes one of three forms: "Bush Mad At Saddam," "Saddam Tells Iraqis To Be Mad At Bush" or "Weapons Inspectors Find Stuff." I have this nagging feeling that I've heard it all before, but in a slightly more tangible form. Oh yeah -- it was Hulk Hogan vs. The Iron Sheik (also available en Español). Except, like, The Iron Sheik was Iranian. Oh well. Do I think Saddam is a good guy? No. He's a gangster, and gangsters tend to meet an end they deserve. But as far as Hollywood scripts go, this one has the plodding pace of a Schwarzenegger vehicle. There needs to be some heaving boobies, some drugs, an errant cruise missile or two, maybe some vomit on a foreign dignitary. See defunct scripts "Clinton" and "Bush One" for ideas. Break glass on "Reagan" and "Carter" only if things get really lame.

TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS

I don't own a PDA, and I've never had the urge to buy one, a disposition reinforced by the proliferation of stylus-poking, self-important jackasses I see around me in DC every day. I'm no Luddite -- you're reading me on a blog, for starters -- but I'm waiting for the backlash, when organic memory skills and mental discipline are celebrated as the true differentiators between the uber-geeks and the merely techno-reliant. I'm also not exactly Mr. Mnemonic -- my anti-forgetting talents are weak in comparison to some of the other semi-geniuses in my social circle -- but I rarely forget the basic shit in my life. A couple of index cards in my wallet hold some phone numbers that I need but don't use regularly. That's as lazy as I get. On the gizmo tip, I crave an MP3 player, sure, but I just can't see myself plunking down $399 for an iPod, and that's probably the only model I'd buy right now. Of course, I'll probably forget something important in the next two days, and all of this ranting will look utterly silly. I'm willing to take that chance.

BEAR THY ASS WHENEVER POSSIBLE

You're going to hear more and more about the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program, which is basically just a fancy term for broad-scale data mining. It's a spooky concept, even if the government makes guarantees against abuses. The ever-conscious Electronic Privacy Information Center has its head wrapped around the issue. Start with those DARPA and EPIC sites, and then catch the latest from the Washington Times. Senate Democrats are starting to get antsy about TIA, probably in part from this site, which seems to be the source of a letter-writing campaign to the outgoing committee chairmen. I think Sen. Russ Feingold has scheduled a news briefing for Thursday on the topic. No big surprise; he's mentioned high-up on that page.

CALLING MR. CHASE

If this story isn't fodder for a "Sopranos" subplot, I don't know what is. It has that Esplenade/HUD scam feel to it, especially because of the "free money" factor from the Eagles. And all the surnames (including Fumo, of course, who has been around forever) fit the profile.

THE AMERICAN DREAM

Want a job where it's your responsibility to address seedy, odd, vulgar, offensive and mischievous facets of society almost every day? Try being eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove. For instance, check out this story about a family that tried to auction itself for $5 million online. Pursglove's name appears in the second paragraph. He's almost a celebrity. Do a news search for "Nazi and eBay" or "guns and eBay" or "dildoes and eBay" or anything similar combination, and his name will probably be in the article. He does, however, have to be the killjoy in most cases. The common construction is Pursglove telling a reporter that the company invoked some sort of no-fun rule. A hypothetical example: "eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove confirmed that a vial of Marlon Brando's testicular sweat was removed from the auction site Thursday because of concerns by the reclusive and eccentric actor that someone would use it to clone him."

NEWCOMER

I believe this to be the first online dumping ground of thoughts by The Devil (perhaps you've seen me reference him before). It certainly adds a little intellectual and political balance to the usual ramblings you'll see here.

MASTERY

Yo, if anybody out there needs a consultant who's earned his scout badge in Quark Xpress stylesheets, ring me up. I've been buried up to my neck in that schitt for two weeks, and it ain't pretty. The font set Myriad is unconscionably annoying for purposes of simple typesetting. It has that friendly san-serif action going on, and it's sorta versatile as a display font. I could see why it was chosen for those purposes, although it wouldn't be my first pick. If you try to use it in a more utilitarian body-copy setting (i.e. for, say, sidebar contrast with most of your regular text-action) it often raises seriously unpleasant kerning issues and whatnot, especially when you take a lighter weight of it and attempt to make it bold. There is a breath of fresh air in the midst of this fresh hell: I'm rocking the New Caledonia for general read-lots-of-this situations. Again, it wasn't my place to choose, but the work of Mr. Dwiggins is much easier to accept than the Myriad.

DUNNO

I'd like to think that I have endless reams of witty, crass, and insightful stuff to slap up here. But that's not the case. My freelance career has become pretty busy in the past year, and in the process, I feel like this lil' outlet is getting short shrift at times. I think it's a matter of efficiency: Most of my writing/thinking time outside of work now goes toward projects that earn me money. Plus, I'm working more hours at my job than ever before. The combination leaves my brain with little time to get weird -- it's still a devil's workshop, for sure, but the stoopidity generators are gathering a little dust because the other gear earns more immediate profits.

NASTY, BRUTISH AND SHORT

I'm not a big fan of gag Web sites, but this one seems so harmless and brief that I had to alert y'all to it. Plus, I like the Dick Diesel-esque sentiment that it expresses.

CULTURE

I couldn't watch the whole video because it was a little too loud for an office environment. I sense a huge online business opportunity there: The Shrillest Karaoke Videos Ever, or something like that.

SPORTS

It was a morning of dillweeds on ESPN. The big story was Bill Parcells taking the helm of the Cowboys. What an embarassment. My bowels loosened as I beheld one of the sharpest men in American sports become the dutiful deputy to Jackass Jerry Jones himself. The "Sportscenter" interview with the two of 'em was silly: Parcells, normally articulate, struggled to succinctly answer questions about how he'll deal with Jones' meddling ways. Maybe he took the job with the secret intention of emasculating Jones. In that case, the next stop on the Parcells tour would have to be Washington, where he could be a thorn in the side of Doofus Danny Snyder. We can only hope. Dillweed No. 2: Jeremy Shockey of the Giants. Yeah, he's good. But he's a TIGHT END. Only in New York could a tight end become a glamour guy. Shannon Sharpe never got this kind of hype. But Mark Bavaro did. Ugh.

CLARIFICATION

The Devil gave me minor shit in response to my Michael Moore post. Let me simplify the argument:
1. I think Moore is right that Americans are fed unhealthy doses of fear, particularly from the nightly TV news. It doesn't have to be that way.
2. Art and journalism should put fear in perspective.
3. Michael Moore should run for Congress because he has the heart of a politician.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Let's face it: America's premier stock-car racing league is supposed to be the most heterosexual thing going, even moreso than pro wrestling. It's the sport of middle American values and all that, right? But if you've seen the following two things:
1. The racer who advertises for an an anti-hairloss product
2. The movie-theater promo for Coke involving a buncha drivers
... then you know NASCAR is/has been the home of some patently effeminate dudes. I'm not necessarily a Billy Joel fan, but honesty is a lonely word, indeed.