The Weekend in Foolish Attention

Bits and bytes of the week

POST HOC, ERGO PROPTER HOC. Reading about the financial troubles over at WBEZ and the huge dismissal of 20% of the Sun-Times staff feels strangely familiar. I left the station in 2017 under similar conditions—effectively a buy-out for very different reasons—but I empathize with those being given the boot. Journalism across the board is feeling the same shuffling around. The Chicago Reader, once a bastion of all things good and right in Chicago, is laying off most of their freelancers and some of the articles sound more like a funeral wrap-up than a call to action.

The tendency to blame our plight on the bugaboo of the hour is normal. When things went bad during the Obama administration, I remember folks sarcastically barking out “Thanks, Obama!” as a method of placing fault with a president for the cost of healthcare or a stubbed toe.

“Did you hear about the layoffs at the Tribune?”

“Yeah. Fucking Trump.”

Blaming the chaotic mess of Trump for the fall of journalism is silly. This has been a slow decay brought about by advertising first, then the internet, and most recently AI writing models. Social media sharing news articles for free that journalists wrote and newspapers required money for contributed to the decline. As journalism began to fracture into partisan viewpoints and a stream of op-eds and opinion panels, it became less relevant and more infotainment.

The arts have suffered similarly. Musicians (unless they’re selling out stadiums) often operate at a loss. Theaters are fighting the same fight they were in the 2000’s. We like our stuff for free or at the very least convenient.

None of this is a result of Obama or Trump, or Biden, or Trump again.

IT’S ABOUT THE MONEY AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. Alright, let’s cut through the nonsense and talk about why DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—should be focusing on economic class instead of race or gender. Because let’s be honest, folks, the real game isn’t about skin color or chromosomes. It’s about money. And who’s got it. And who doesn’t.

See, when you talk about race and gender all day long, you’re playing right into the hands of the people who actually run things. The big boys. The ones with all the cash and all the control. They love when we’re busy arguing over identity politics, because as long as we’re at each other’s throats over pronouns and privilege, we’re not paying attention to the fact that they’re hoarding all the wealth, rigging the system, and laughing all the way to the bank.

The people telling you how important DEI is—corporate executives, Ivy League universities, billionaire philanthropists—these people have plenty of diversity in their boardrooms. They’ve got women, Black people, LGBTQ folks… and guess what? They’re all still rich as hell. The janitor? The warehouse worker? The guy delivering your Amazon package at 10 PM? Probably not pulling six figures, no matter his race or gender. But hey, at least the CEO is a woman now, right?

Here’s the scam: they want you to believe racism and sexism are the only things holding people back, so you don’t ask the bigger question—what about poor people of every race and gender? What about the people getting crushed by the economy, drowning in debt, working three jobs just to afford rent? They don’t care if you’re white, Black, male, female, non-binary, or Martian—if you’re broke, you’re screwed. But you won’t hear that in most DEI training sessions. No, they’ll teach you about microaggressions instead of the macro-oppression that keeps the working class at the bottom.

And let’s talk about those corporate diversity initiatives. These companies don’t care about you! They just want to cover their asses so they don’t get sued. They’ll hire a few diverse executives, slap a rainbow logo on their website, and send out a memo about “inclusion.” Meanwhile, they’re still paying starvation wages and making sure you never see a union. But hey, at least your boss went to a sensitivity seminar! That makes it all better, right?

The truth is, the real diversity problem is economic. A rich white guy, a rich Black guy, and a rich woman all have more in common with each other than with a poor guy of any race or gender. But you won’t hear that on TV, because the people owning the TV networks are all rich too.

So here’s an idea: if we really want equity, how about we focus on making sure working people can afford to live? How about a DEI initiative that raises wages, reduces debt, and evens out the playing field—not just shuffles people around at the top so the PR department can pat itself on the back?

Because at the end of the day, it’s not about black vs. white or man vs. woman—it’s about rich vs. poor. And if you don’t see that, congratulations: you’ve fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

A SLICE OF CHICAGO. This past weekend my niece and her boyfriend drove up to Chicago to catch a show at my workplace and spend a few days exploring the city. It was his first time and in between working, I wanted to make sure they had a good time.

The show was a hit and they seemed to dig my theater. We spent the next morning checking out the Bean and Millennium Park followed by a fantastic breakfast at Wildberry. They went to the Field Museum then I took them to The Gage (a high end place I used to take dates when I was working to impress them—those were the days, huh?). They hit the Planetarium. I’ve been extolling the virtues of Pequod’s Pizza for as long as I’ve been in Chicago—it is, in my opinion, the zenith of pizza in the world—so we grabbed lunch. It did not disappoint.

One of the best parts of living in a world-class city is showing it off. No one can even get a real taste of Chicago in two days but the appetizer is amazing.

Hopefully, they come back and we can get into the corners of Chicago outside of the Loop and we’ll get down to 75th for some Lem’s BBQ.

I love her boyfriend—he’s a great guy—and I’m so happy to know her as she has grown up to become a genuinely cool person.

THE POUTING PARTY. The Dems in these past few weeks seem to be holding the same position as a beta male, feminist guy with a man-bun and a monocle unable to understand why the women don’t really see him as dating material. He says all the right things, supports the right causes to remain on the right side of history, but the chicks aren’t buying it and he’d rather blame them than himself and his bespoke fedora.

The party is an OnlyFans girl, living well on the cash from poses and utilizing the male gaze as fodder for employment, complaining that quality men won’t come around because of her incredibly high body count.

The Dems are the mean girl desperately trying to make unpopular things popular by shading anyone not in step with these ideas rather than convincing the rest of the school that her ideas are, indeed, worthy of popularity.

The data-driven reality is if all registered voters had turned out, then Donald Trump would’ve won the popular vote by 5 points [instead of 1.7 points]. So, I think that a “we need to turn up the temperature and mobilize everyone” strategy only makes things worse.

The Dems desperately need to come to grips with the fact that the Apprentice didn’t win this time around—they lost. Losers need reflection and adjustment, not doubling down on the losing strategy. The kicker is that, for the most part and minus the extreme overcorrections created when there was a lot of free money, the Left is on the right side of freaking history. Protections for our most vulnerable, focus on affordable and equitable healthcare, regulation on corporate greed, oversight of both the police and military, and a social network to provide resources to those least able to acquire them are all too important for them to lose.

SPEAKING OF NEW STRATEGIES… For every lunch meeting with Trump, each Democrat should make sure that everyone seated gets a four-star meal but Trump only gets a bag of McDonald’s. Every. Single. Time. Have the bag served to him in one of those silver tops by a French transgender waitress who wishes him “Bon Appetite!” with a kiss to her fingers.

Those people aren’t attacking Tesla dealerships. They are tourists showing love. I learned that on Jan. 6, 2021. — unknown

SETTING EXPECTATIONS IS NOT SEXY. It was a meet-cute situation. In the Starbucks and her app was glitching. I was in line waiting for a big ass black coffee. I offered to cover her drink because A. I was running late and B. she was pretty cute. As we were leaving to go our separate ways, she asked for my number.

Later that morning she texted. She wanted to know if I wanted to get a drink after work. Again—cute— so sure.

We met and sat down at the bar. We ordered and, because I didn’t want to assume that she asked me for drinks that I expected her to pay, I casually told the waiter we needed separate checks, please. Her demeanor changed in an instant.

“What was that?”

“Huh?”

“Separate checks?”

I laughed. “Ah. Fair. I’ve just found myself in a spiral of transactional relationships in the past couple of years. I recently went out with a woman who expected that I had to buy her kids dinner, too. Weird, right? Just setting expectations I suppose.”

“So, you’re not buying the drinks?”

How did I miss all this before?

“I did buy you coffee this morning, right?” I grinned. “Technically, you should buy me a drink but I’m not into the dollar for dollar exchange for time to get to know someone.”

“So you don’t make money? Is that it? Maybe you shouldn’t date if you don’t have money. Cheap and broke is not sexy.”

I took my drink, paid my bill, and walked to the other side of the bar. She didn’t follow.

I’m not entirely certain what’s going on lately. I’m not really looking. I’m not lonely and I’m quite busy most of the time so I doubt I seem hangry for companionship. Maybe it’s the tie? I suppose I’m decent enough looking to approach and I carry myself well enough. It’s flattering to be asked out but the trend these days is the expectation that, in order to spend any amount of time with another person, the wallet must come out and cash should flow in one direction.

Given my history, that ain’t sexy, either.

IN SEARCH OF A FRANCHISED CINEMATIC UNIVERSE. It’s the ultimate Hail Mary pass in an industry beset with newer, more costly platforms for distribution and fewer and fewer writers with any sense of story. Go all in and try to recreate the MCU 32 film franchise success.

The problem (one even the MCU post-Endgame is struggling with) is that without flawed characters who persevere we can’t be bothered. Look at the Big Three of the earlier Marvel flicks. Iron Man is less a good guy/bad guy melodrama filled with CGI battles and more a search for redemption from a character whose past comes to haunt him after a near death capture. Thor is a family drama with the main character finding humility and belonging in a universe he had taken for granted. Captain America: The First Avenger is, sure, a movie about a super soldier fighting an evil Nazi, but at the heart of it, it is about a young man willing to sacrifice everything to follow his moral compass.

The Eternals aren’t human and struggle with issues of being gods among us rather than being us. Captain Marvel’s obstacle from becoming a hero is the years of being treated like a girl. She-Hulk gets her powers by accident and somehow, without struggle or effort, is miraculously just expert.

To create that long-lasting 32 film franchise, the audience has to care about the characters. There is a difference between the heroes of DC and Marvel. DC has gods who must struggle with their place among humans. Marvel has humans suddenly imbued with god-like power and that is simply more relatable. If those humans gifted with power are only saddled with oppression as their obstacle, their struggle was always someone else’s fault and despite our current culture of identifying ourselves as hapless victims in the face of systemic oppression, without a human flaw, an internal battle waged for the soul of the character, the whole thing collapses under the weight of poor character building.

World building starts with character every time.

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And there you have it. Thanks for reading, subscribing, and sharing. Spring is poking her head out so go outside. Take a walk. Get some sun. Five years ago we were all terrified of leaving our homes so take advantage of being able to enjoy the outdoors and maybe a gathering of other people. Grab lunch with someone who doesn’t look like you but can only afford Taco Bell. Tell some stories. Listen to some stories. Laugh.