The Weekend of Foolish Attention

Bits and bytes of the week

Culinary research gone wrong. My niece has a birthday party tonight and, as my family has figured out, I’m a decent enough cook. She requested my version of the Birria Tacos she loves from a local Wichita joint. I had never made this complex dish so I headed over to the restaurant and researched theirs. They were fine but, man, maybe the meat had been sitting out too long or something but my gut screamed for two days straight. I mean, food poisoning that knocked me on my ass.

On the other hand, I’m almost 100% certain mine will be better and not give anyone intestinal distress.

Foreboding vibes. As things continue to ramp up in the Middle East and divisions over the Israel/Palestine circumstances are rendering the Democrats into hardcore ideological freefall, it’s starting to look seriously like what experts call a pre-war state. China just removed Israel from its largest map platforms. Israel is in Gaza trying to root out Hamas while cross-border fire has continued between Israeli forces and the Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Yemen-based Houthis say they have conducted three attacks on southern Israel since the war began.

As a man three times to age to be called to war, it’s a helpless place to witness as it all spins out of control. I have no stake in college students going all out in anti-semitic speech and threats and even less investment in the big global political scene that is China. As a friend once told me “China has been around for thousands of years. America is just a bad hair day.”

We aren’t the America that entered WWII. We aren’t ready and willing to sacrifice for the good of the country. My gut says that this is going to go badly fast. Better horde some toilet paper and duct tape cuz that’s what modern Americans do in crisis.

The clown car has arrived. Robert DeNiro is on trial for subjecting a former assistant to unwanted physical contact, sexually-charged comments, “stereotypically female duties like housework,” and other “office wife” duties like making her “scratch his back, button his shirts, fix collars, tie his ties, and prod him awake when he was in bed” even after De Niro made her an executive at his Canal Productions label. When I read the complaint, the inclusion of things like scratching his back and tying his ties undercuts any credibility to the vague ‘sexually-charged comments.’

DeNiro offered exasperated responses like “Give me a break with this stuff” and “You got us all here for this?” while reacting to the list of things he’s been accused of while on the stand. The accuser is seeking $12 million for being forced to do housework for one of the greatest actors in history. One wonders why the judge didn’t toss this out before even wasting time.

The demise of sex. Looks like a solid grouping of Gen Z polled has decided that sex is icky. They want less sex on TV and in movies and more platonic relations portrayed. It seems like the aversion to sex culturally started in the late seventies when the specter of AIDS made the idea of unprotected sex as deadly. I’d suggest that both the rise of publicly declared kink and fetish combined with the wholesale repudiation of flirting (now known as nonconsensual harassment and, in some cases, full-out sexual assault) has made the very prospect of sex among adults simply too complicated to bother with in the first place.

Looks like the Evangelical Christians are winning the war against sex without any help from everyone else.

Oh, Martin. It’s a tentpole movie moment whenever Scorsese drops a film and Killers of the Flower Moon delivers. Expansive, brilliant performances, a spectacular script, easily in the top five of his canon. I saw it in the theater (so should you) with my mom. As the credits rolled, she looked over at me and uttered one word. “Masterpiece.” Agreed.

Reigning in the provocative. Since the divorce and finally feeling a bit more human, I’ve found myself on a verbal tear to offend as many people as is possible. Sort of a stretching back into the person I was before being slowly whittled down by my ex. When you live with and love someone who finds your every utterance to be off-putting, eventually you get smaller. It’s just natural.

I’m realizing that in the reclamation of me, I might be going a bit overboard. Saying whatever comes into your mind can be exhausting for everyone around you so I’m going to practice some discretion moving forward. Need to save the verbal bomb-throwing for when it counts, amiright?