Rachel Cusk

“A journalist recently told me that she had been sent to find out who I was,” Cusk said. “There seems to be some problem about my identity. But no one can find it, because it’s not there—I have lost all interest in having a self. Being a person has always meant getting blamed for it.”

Five songs from this week #1

1. Alanis Morisette -Oughta Know: A song for C and his big day.  "Jagged Little Pill" has aged better than people think it has, I think.  I dunno.  The community on Rateyourmusic thinks its dated and "90s" but the "90s" stuff is kinda delightful now, and everyone on RYM is a misogynist anyway, amirite?  The verses are oversung but come on you got to get down with that chorus.  Real fury there!

2. Eurythmics - Missionary Man: This band is probably underrated.  Do people listen to them?  How big is their fanbase?  They seem sort of like Blondie: cool female singer, a lot of hits but remembered mostly for two or three really big ones, consistent innovation and wide-ranging interests, good danceable rhythms.  I heard this first when the Dirtbombs covered it.  Eurythmics version is better because Annie Lennox singing about being a Missionary Man is just eternally cool and interesting.

3. Guided by Voices - Everybody Thinks I'm a Raincloud (When I'm not Looking): If Big Star had released "Half Smiles of the Decomposed," no one would shut up about it.  But because it's just one more in Bob's million-album canon... We forget about songs like "Everybody," which is a classic GBV "bury-the-hook and then bring it out big" surpriser.

4. Shawn Colvin - Sunny Came Home: The first time I heard this song was when a Texas friend's mom was driving us to the water park.  Another one that's probably derided for being very "90s" but the lilting quality of the chorus is just impossible to resist.

5. Kraftwerk - Europe Endless: Happened to be on in the background as we shot a phone video of two babies staring each other down.  The miracle of life

Salient qualities of pittsburgh

1. Unnavigable roads
2. Trash on sidewalks
3. Old buildings
4. Bridges
5. French fries on sandwiches
6. Parking nowhere
7. Wine shops, liquor stores, beer stores: never altogether
8. Weird hours
9. A beautiful garden somewhere
10. The word "chicken" spelled without an "e"

Cs Wedding

How much did Jack drink this weekend?

Let's find out:

FRIDAY

Half a "Goldmine" Beer
1.5 shots of run
Quickly chugged can of Bell's Two Hearted
A beer?
Several more shots of rum
Another beer?

result = hangover lasting until at least 4 PM

SATURDAY

Gose beer
Great Lakes Eliot Ness
Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold
Something heavier... an IPA?
Several Yuenglings
I had a cigar, too

result = bad sleep, no hangover

SUNDAY

Wee Heavy scotch ale
2 glasses Chardonnay
Gin and Tonic
Flute o' champagne
Two glasses Pinot Noir
2 Penn Pilsners
1 Belgian Witbier thing

result = I feel great

total number of drinks = 23 (7.6 a day)

Moral = less rum, more wine.

obviously the moral

Is Steely Dan a good band?

This is a major question in my life.

Alexa

Commanding Alexa to do your vile bidding... It's not a good look.

Master slave situation

The embodied man

Mad props to the folks who actually use their bodies.  Mine is just this conduit for my brain.  My fingers are for typing.  My legs are for getting out of bed and going to the computer.  My eyes are trained to screens.

But athletes, dancers, construction workers, gymnasts, linemen (?), fitness trainers, custodians, etc?  Those are the people who are really doing it.  They're the ones on the front lines of the fight against machines.  They're shouting with their movements, they're saying "I am fully in control."  I wish I had more grace and strength.  The people who possess those qualities-- some come by them naturally, but even those people need to keep working, day in and day out, to maintain themselves.

I'm not talking about optimization.  I'm not a machine.  I'm talking about experiencing life with every facet you own.  I'm talking about human bodies!  Walt Whitman understood.

It's so hard to write

I think many things, some even in complete sentences!  But the idea of sitting at my computer and writing?  For, like, several minutes at a time?  Can't do it.

I'm using this blog post to remember this phrase which AO Scott used to describe the new re-make of Aladdin: pointless in a particularly aggressive way.

Real human weekend

Alright, let's do it!  Come on, y'all!  Right now!

The purpose of this blog

It's for things that I think that I shouldn't be saying on Facebook.

If I say something on Facebook and people like it, then I'm a tool who derives their emotional satisfaction from dumb shit like being popular.

If I say something on Facebook and people dislike it, then I'm a bad person, even though I can't really be a bad person, right?  I mean, once you get to know me.

I think I'm secretly a bad person.  If I hadn't been raised in a nice house, I would be so fucked.

You were my god in high school

I was so eager to graduate from high school.  It was my understanding that other people were as excited as I was to stop being a dumb kid and start being a cool adult.  The thing that was so confining about high school... It wasn't the work, it wasn't the teachers... It was just the total lack of self-determination.  In college, and especially after college, I got to make choices by myself, for myself, for better or worse.  This is a thrilling process for me.  But apparently some people aren't into it.  Because everyone wants to do the thing where we have "cliques," where this person said this thing about that person to this other person, where small little nothings are magnified into these enormous sins because no one has the courage to just be okay with other people.  That's what being a real adult is, in a nutshell, right?  Just being fucking okay with other people.  Not loving them or hating them.  Maybe loving a few and hating a few.  But in general, you're supposed to just... Handle it.

Why would you intentionally place social barriers on yourself?  Why would you intentionally misinterpret another person's words?  Why make enemies?  If a person is a fascist, you must oppose them.  But most people are not fascists!  Most people are just people.  They are okay.  You should be able to handle them.  I hope I don't sound too much like Jordan fucking Peterson when I say, "You should be able to handle them."  Just talk and listen and the unreal beauty of being an American adult will begin to fill your life.

Nightmares on wax

Listening to trip-hop and drinking Maker's Mark.  It's a good combination!  Had a Labatt earlier.  Talked to H and watched the Bruins beat the Canes for the third straight game.  Argh.

My conversation with H made me realize all the things I take for granted.  Even things I think I don't take for granted, I probably do.  Yeah I hate my job but I'd hate any job.  It's not terribly difficult.  I don't get hurt or have to hurt anyone on a regular basis.  I like my boss!  I like my co-workers!  Most of them?

I have peace and stability and that's cool.

Survivor season finale tomorrow.  Thinking a lot about the longest blog I've written yet, which had nothing to do with me or drinking and everything to do with a dumb reality TV show.  I might have misspoke throughout that whole thing.  I dunno.  I respect Victoria's play but I still think Rick Devens is the winner, that he deserves to win, that I'll be okay with his win, even if strategically he's a bit, err, inconsistent.  I dunno.  Maybe I see myself in Rick Devens.  He's playing the Survivor game that I'd probably end up playing.  Crackin' jokes and having big hammy testimonials.  "Working hard."  Making a fuckton of mistakes.  And pissing off the Survivor internet purists!

Fuck internet purists!  Of all kinds!

Retail lyfe

I don't think anyone who's worked in retail for more than a year has any illusions about, oh, "the inherent goodness/worth of humanity."

Slowly turning into trump

Sometimes I'll catch myself saying things and writing things that sound suspiciously close to Donald Trump.  Either Trump's speech patterns are creeping in on my own or I've always kind of had speech patterns similar to Donald Trump.  Like when I send a text and it just ends with a one word exclamation.  Ridiculous!

We've got a lot in common, me and Donald.  I just listened to the Daily about Trump's taxes.  Donald inherited his wealth from his father.  All of his storied business dealmaking only ever translated into losses.  He was basically a big suck on his dad's resources.  I can relate to this.  My Dad made more money with the cable companies than I will ever make.  He probably made more in one year than I've made in my entire adult working life.  I've never expected my dad to bail out my "businesses" with a 15 million dollar donation.  But I have asked him for various financial favors of the years.  And I've not translated those loans/grants/etc into anything of value.  Unless all the beer I've drank, and this resulting blog, strikes you as valuable.

Maybe Donald Trump is just me raised to the tenth power.  Trump lost thousands time as much as I ever will lose.  But he also gained the presidency, fucking somehow, which is a bigger achievement than I'll ever attain.  I've borrowed and lost smaller amounts to achieve smaller things.  I tell myself I've never deliberately hurt people the way President Trump does on a daily basis.  I'm not sure if that's true, though.  And someone like me, who has benefited from having a rich dad, ought to be doing more than "breaking even," morally speaking.  I should be helping people.  It is my destiny.  Unless of course I kill Donald Trump.

If you publish those words, "I kill Donald Trump," does the FBI immediately open a file on you?  We'll see.

Last night

I've been sleeping better because I haven't drunk as much the last couple of nights.  Sunday was Cinco de Mayo so me and E had margaritas at a Mexican restaurant with E's mom and uncle.  The conversation mostly revolved around the same things it always does, these days: Trump, history, Michigan and Ohio, Trump, black history, the weather, travel, sports, and Trump.  We went back to E's mom's place afterward and I had a can of Budweiser.  Budweiser is good.

Last night the Jackets were expelled from the Stanley Cup playoffs by way of an anemic power play, a few soft goals by Bobrovsky, at least one extremely questionable call, and the supposed resurgence of Boston's star players.  As I watched I chugged a Labatt and then had a little mini-snifter (tulip?) of Maker's Mark, which I bought for Kentucky Derby-related festivities.  I took my time with the whiskey.  I poured it around 10:30 and didn't finish until close to 1.  I had stopped watching hockey at that point and had moved on to reading Lydia Davis and listening to my New Age ambient electronica shit.

Kids stuff

I have to leave the room when I hear adults talking about Pokemon.

A new theory of Survivor

Like with any other game (or any other narrative), we would like the winner of Survivor to be the player who "deserves" it.  But the place where Survivor is situated on the entertainment spectrum-- "reality," but heavily edited, to the point where expectations about players can never be very personal-- makes the question of "deserves" difficult to answer.  (Can anyone not "on the island" ever really determine the worthiest of the castaways?  All the information we receive we are getting secondhand.)  Typical "deserving" qualities in a Survivor winner include strong alliances, relationships with other players, dynamic play (i.e. strategy that adapts to always changing circumstances), ability to "read" the game, persuasive ability, and most of all, having a good "resume," i.e. a list of "accomplishments" (voting off a potential threat, winning immunity challenges, successfully playing idols) to present to the jury during Final Tribal Council.

In many Survivor online communities, some of these "deserving" qualities are more valid than others.  The ability to retrieve and play hidden immunity idols is not considered a vital part of the game; the willingness to search high and low at all costs (including forming relationships to other players) indicates a "tryhard," a pejorative for a player who receives an edit that emphasizes idol-finding, "making it to the end," and yes, "trying hard" even when "on the bottom."  Recent Survivor Ben, who used several immunity idols and won a controversial fire-making challenge en route to a narrow victory over supposedly more "deserving" opponents, embodies the "tryhard" archetype.  The "tryhard" excels at elements of the game that seem arbitrary to many viewers.  Accusations of producers/Jeff-Probst stacking the deck in favor of certain players typically follow around the "tryhard."

On the other hand, one current metric that seems popular is "vote accuracy."  This theory maintains that a good Survivor player is one who consistently votes "correctly," i.e. casts their vote against the player that is then eliminated.  The ability to play along with the crowd, to know the numbers and throw in with the group that is dominant, demonstrates many strategic assets that are highly valued especially among the supposedly closest readers of the game.  An accurate voter prizes above all else the need to stay in the game through at least one more Tribal Council.  They value the short-term gain which is crucial in a contest that constantly changes.

In the current season of Survivor, "Edge of Extinction," we have two players who demonstrate these differently valued Survivor qualities.  "Edge's" resident tryhard, Devens, is a player who even a casual viewer would argue has benefited from extraordinary luck.  Voted out early, Devens was able to crawl back into the game from this season's "Extinction Island," where all voted off players get a second chance (providing they are willing to endure even less food, shelter, and general comfort than normal Survivor).  Since that point, Devens has done many things that have simultaneously endeared him to the "casual viewer" (and, it looks like, the current jury) and alienated him from the "intense/hardcore viewer": he has "misread" the game on multiple occasions, committed to alliances that were weak, voted "wrong" more than half the time, and had to be "rescued" several times by other players/immunity idols/secret advantages.  To the casual viewer, this might look like the up-and-down journey of a fun-loving guy.  But to the "close reader" of Survivor, it looks like extraordinarily weak gameplay, premised on the "arbitrary" sort of advantages that would never have saved a poor player in the days of "classic" Survivor.

Contrasting with Devens is Victoria, the accurate voter, who has yet to throw in with anything but the majority against the player who was eventually voted out.  On her resume therefore are the heads of four returning players, at least one (Aubry) who Victoria was directly responsible for eliminating, and multiple other semi-talented players, including the strategic threats of The Wardog and Ron Clark.  In taking at least a small role in the destruction of so many potential winners, Victoria must count as one of the most lethal players this season.  And yet, to the casual viewer, Victoria is barely there.  Her "edit" has not emphasized her quiet strategy but for a few occasions (particularly the Aubry vote).  We have learned extremely little about her personality, her life "outside of the game," her relationships with other players, or her motivations for playing Survivor.  In other words, Victoria is not receiving a "winner edit," and even with her smart gameplay, she doesn't seem to have a reasonable chance at winning the game.

For the online fan community, this gap between possible winner, supposedly poor player Devens and unlikely winner, supposedly good player Victoria is maddening.  How can the game (and its editors) be rewarding a survivor who makes so many mistakes, who so consistently misreads the game, who hasn't voted "correctly," who has gotten lucky so many times?  And how too can they be "burying" the much more sound gameplay of Victoria, who is putting together a truly impressive "resume" almost entirely behind the scenes?

But to me, I dunno, I think it's fine.  Because Survivor is not a normal game.  There are no established "rules" to determine success, and I believe finally that the question of "deserves" is too fucking strange to answer in any sort of satisfactory way.  The typical ways of determining a "deserving" player among the hardcore Survivor community seem premised on notions of "objective" good gameplay that might take us beyond our compromised, heavily-mediated viewer experience... But I doubt they can.  In viewing the game from home, we're experiencing it a totally different way from any of the players.  Our criteria for evaluating a "deserving" player are necessarily also different from the jury's criteria.

Right now, the jury-- four of whom are returning players, i.e. the folks you could argue have the most sophisticated take on the game-- seems to like Devens, quite a bit.  You could argue that this is clearly a "playing favorites" situation, i.e. the jury likes Devens because they got to know him so well on Extinction Island (he's "one of them").  You could argue too that the multiple reactions we've seen of the jury enamored with Devens are the producers trying to guide the viewer into thinking that Devens is a "deserving" possible winner.  It could be that Victoria is getting these kinds of reactions, too.  We don't know and can't say.  But I think it's fair to argue that the jury doesn't, err, dislike Devens, that their reactions are genuine, that he makes them smile, that they respect him, a least a little bit, as a player.  If earning the respect of the jury is finally the thing you MUST DO to win Survivor, then why can't we argue that it is Devens who is truly the most "deserving" of his tribemates?

Somewhere along the way, Devens has convinced the others that he is a (1) friend (2) threat (3) combination of the two.  It's the "friend-threat" combination that makes Devens such an intimidating force.  He has balanced building strong relationships-- we've seem in especially align with David, but also join forces at different times with Ron, Julie, The Wardog, etc-- with a presence that suggests "strategic force," even if the vote tallies don't always suggest that.  Basically, Devens is a possible winner because of his personality, not his gameplay, which I'm arguing now is just as legitimate a path to Survivor victory as the more commonly accepted, "hardcore" Survivor idea of being on the right side of the votes.

I'm going to suggest here that one element we at home cannot come to grips with, but which the jury uses to guide a significant part of their voting strategy, is the emotional turmoil that comes with being in a state of constant paranoia, with the potential of being stabbed in the back, with not being able to trust anyone.  It's not as simple as saying the jury is, oh, voting with their hearts, and not with their head, because so much of Survivor is a heart game.  It flips so many standard social dynamics upside down.  Perhaps the player most deserving of a victory is the player who is able to play the game while still holding on to their humanity...

I think this is what Christian meant last season when, while casting a Final Tribal vote for Mike, he suggested that the pampered celebrity challenge nothing who never seemed comfortable in any alliance had played a "transformational game."  Mike got as far as he did not because he helped out around camp, or caught fish, or because he made all the right moves at the right time.  He got to the Final Three, and stole a couple of votes from Nick, on the strength of personality.

Let's assume the 42 minutes we see every week was as perfectly accurate a summary of many dozens of hours of gameplay as could possibly be managed.  What would we make of the remaining cast of this season?  We'd probably say that Devens has an outsized influence on the rest of the players, for better or for worse-- that every decision is being made with him somewhere in mind.  We'd say, in short, that he is the biggest character of the season... But that he was "big" in such a way to get him further.  He hasn't overwhelmed others with abrasiveness (Reem) or absurdity (Big Wendy) or insults (The Wardog) or a sense of being more strategic than the rest (the returning players).  He's been "big enough" to gain respect, but not "too big" to ensure his removal.  He's occupied that middle space that pushes you forward in Survivor, a space we recognize in normal life as, well, a place of social and emotional intelligence.

Am I saying that Survivor is a popularity contest?  Maybe.  Am I saying that's a good thing?  Perhaps.  I don't know.  Maybe I just think we sometimes miss the forest for the trees, here.  In focusing on the details of editing, the vote counts, the things we can tally and control as viewers, we miss the masses of humanity which finally determine who decides which player is truly "deserving" of being sole survivor.  Character counts, friends.

And so do hidden immunity idols.

Second Post

I woke up at 7 with a headache.  I figured more sleep would take care of it.  But when I woke up, for real, at 11, I still had a headache.  I drank coffee and ate cereal and tried to be healthy and alive.  I eventually resorted to popping two Ibruprofens, which made me feel better.

This evening I mixed a vodka/triple sec/lime/water combination and drank it on the porch.  I wanted something festive and tropical with which to read books in the sun.  Unfortunately there wasn't much sun this evening.  Oh well.  I finished the vodka drink while preparing nachos for me and E.  We watched the Jackets game (they lost 4-1, a depressing but understandable result).  I drank one and a half beers over the course of it.  I'm finishing the second beer now.  Alternating between sips on beer and water.

There is no point to finishing this beer.  It has already been paid for.  Consuming these last fews gulps will not make this night more interesting or fun.  It can only make tomorrow morning worse.  But I couldn't just dump it.  It just doesn't seem right.

First Post

Drank three beers with Y tonight.  Talked mostly about work.  Talking about work outside of work is fun but occasionally exhausting.  But most topics that are discussed alongside alcoholic beverages should contain a degree of exhaustion.  If me and Y were happy people, we wouldn't be drinking three beers, staying up till 2, putting needless cash into the jukebox, etc.  It's the stress that brings us together.