The Weekend in Foolish Attention

Bits and bytes of the week

I love the idea that liberals conspired to get Taylor Swift to date Travis Kelce and then rigged the playoffs because this somehow abstractly helps Biden. That’s where we shine. We can’t get free healthcare but perfectly execute a Riddler-esque conspiracy to ruin a football game. — Andrew Nadeau

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Bad tidings. The General Manager at the radio stations and I have not seen eye to eye for going on a year now. I don’t dislike the man. He is simply from a small town with a small town grind about him. Our Operations Manager is leaving after twelve years later next month due mostly because of the GM which puts the place in peril as a functioning business. Over the course of the year, the GM’s health has been at risk and he had a toe amputated to fend off infection due to diabetes. This week he announced that he had his leg amputated.

Holy shit. I can’t even imagine the fear, anger, and despair someone in his shoe is going through. Sure, I’ve had my fair share of rotten luck but at least I have both of my legs. He’s also just a few years older than I am so it hits a bit different than if he were in his eighties.

I feel awful. For him, of course, but for everyone else working there because with the GM out of commission for who knows how long and the Ops Manager splitting, the place is officially in freefall. I don’t feel awful enough to stick around for the shitshow but still…

Yes, it’s my berfday. I am fifty-eight years old today and with that comes the inevitable list of things I’ve learned this year. I put it up over at Literate Ape, so check it out.

I had come to a point where I sort of dreaded my birthday—not because I was older but because my third ex-wife had a way of making me feel small on my birthday. One of the best parts of living in Kansas for the past year and a half is that my family does birthdays correct. They make me feel genuinely celebrated and isn’t that the whole freakin’ point? They’re effing grand.

Oscars? I haven’t been into the Academy Awards ceremony for a while but the list of movies this year is pretty great. Of the ten nominated Best Pictures, I’ve seen Anatomy of a Fall (brilliant), Barbie (hysterical), Killers of the Flower Moon (c’mon, right?), Maestro (Carey Mulligan is a freaking treasure), Oppenheimer (epic and a return for RDJ as a non-Stark), Past Lives (slow, sad, and lovely), American Fiction (so much smarter than other satires on race in America), The Holdovers (a Dead Poet’s Society with Giamatti as a sad, angry, scared Captain), and Poor Things (best film of the year, imo). I have this week to catch The Zone of Interest. Just a fantastic year for film.

No predictions but my guess is that Oppenheimer sweeps this one.

A note for the Self-Loathing Liberals Out There. You love Starbucks. You love Vanilla Lattes and Soy Chi Frappuccinos. You fucking LOVE Pumpkin Spice.

You love Survivor. Both the show and the 1980’s band.

You love Werther’s Originals. You have a stash of them in a drawer at home and, once in awhile, just pop one in your mouth and fill yourself with caramel and recrimination.

You love that iPhone. You may own a plastic Android phone but you covet that iPhone 15 and would light your mother on fire for an Apple Watch.

You love the WWE. Sure, you don’t pay to see it live but you would if you could without your friends finding out.

You love the movies of Steven Spielberg, Batman, and The Simpsons.

You love mimes. You love tennis.

You love Mike’s Hard Lemonade and PBR.

You love Boston, LED Zeppelin, and Journey.

You hate colonization but you would do it if you could. You hate the police unless you get hired to be one or are facing a carjacker at night. You hate late stage capitalism but you’d strangle a Baby Yoda if you could get hired by a Fortune 500 company and make $500,00 a year.

You love Denny’s, hamburgers, fries, spaghetti, and Coca Cola.

You love Guy Fieri. You love Shark Tank. You love Nora Ephron. You love 5Ks. You love The Crown.

Yes, you love Black Panther but you love Spider-Man more.

You love white people shit so just stop.

The 3% Who Spoil the Party. Jack sits in a small room. He used to think the room was a lot bigger. It’s not. In fact, it seems more crowded than his memory serves. Photographs of the room 100 years before appear more spacious, less people. Today, however, there are exactly one hundred people in the room (including Jack). It feels crowded.

Most of the one hundred are quiet, going about their business. Working on projects in groups or alone. Some seem hungry, others angry, a few others appear to be content.

In the center of the room, however, there are three. Each has an electronic megaphone. Two of them are pointing their megaphones at one another and are barking ideology at one another, randomly calling out and cancelling the other. The third stands in between them and broadcasts through the megaphone jokes, wry observations, and tales of travel and food and pets.

For the most part, the rest of the one hundred ignore these three despite how goddamned loud they are. They tune them out because they don’t have megaphones and can’t find it in their minds to care much about all the yelling.

Somehow, these three are pushing a narrative on the rest with a sense of ego and narcissism that is a bit astonishing. All because they have megaphones.

There are 7.7 billion people on the planet.

There are 216 million Twitter X accounts.

Happy UN-Valentines Day. As I look at at February, of course, there is the natal day but there is also the holiday created to sell jewelry and chocolate. I’m so jaded as to eschew all romance in the world yet my experience requires a step back. Why not buy that ex-spouse a copy of I Didn’t Marry a Prostitute…? It sure puts things in perspective.