Obama Has Lunch

With a struggling single mom. This is nice and paints a picture of Obama's true calling: an inspirational ex-President for the less-advantaged in America. I'm serious. I think Obama will be a great ex-President.

While Vlad Putin does his best Tywin Lannister impression in the Ukraine by having airlines shot down and Israel invades Gaza and ebola breaks out in Nigeria and the BRIC countries make the first strategic move to wrestle the American dollar out of the position of the world reserve currency, our President is going to inspire a single mother to stay in school.

I honestly don't mean to be snarky, because I do think this is a ground-up, not top-down world. And inspiration for people to improve themselves should not be mocked. But as an executive - which is what the President IS - Obama doesn't really seem to have a grasp of priorities. He's more of a Ghandi or MLK figure with a good political apparatus to get people out of vote. Strange, this 21st century.

Grading By Race

A plan to give grades by racial background at University of Wisconsin.

First of all, I think this happens already in some classes. I had a history professor (the class and teacher will remain unnamed) in college who I believe gave grading advantages to students by race.

The problem with "diversity"is the rabbit-hole factor. The purposefully amorphous word is used so as to make anyone opposed to the idea seem like a racist fool, but the meaning - and actions by institutions  - can vary to the whims of any unskilled administrator or flunkie who weasels their way into a position of power.

Diversity - as used by institutions - means nothing. It means whatever the people saying it choose it to mean in their present emotional state. It means quotas, basically. But what's worse, it won't actually spell out the quotas it is trying to impose -- and will move and shift at the whims of the politically correct consensus. I dare to think this whole idea of diversity might be one of the most poisonous elements of American culture and could be one of the major causes of our bigger social and political problems - a stagnant economy, unemployment, failing education, lack of trust amongst the citizenry, destructive family structures in the lower classes, disagreements on immigration policies. It is breaking up the core idea of American identity by playing favorites and handcuffing the most competent people in our country and further, doesn't truly help those it purports to. If you want to talk about American decline, you could start in a worse places.

The End of Old Movies?

Netflix is moving away from subscription services. Fox is trying to buy Warner Brothers. Movies are going pure digital and from what I can tell, old movies are going to be forgotten. At least half of movies I want to watch are not available on streaming. I wonder if they ever will.

Not Good For America

BRICS set up bank to counter Western financial influence.

If the dollar loses status as the reserve currency, our economy is going to tumble and be revealed as a pyramid scheme in many sectors.

I Like This

Great, cheaper places to live in LA.

Mar Vista flats, the poor man's Venice

True.

Logging

Film: Begin Again

It was fine. I'd watch Ruffalo do most anything - the guy is a great actor. Nowadays, I notice the little things he does to make the character alive even when he's not talking or otherwise active. The times I laughed most in the film were little odd things his character did that were clearly not scripted and were probably throwaway gestures on certain takes. He tries his best to make up for a movie with a fairly low overall emotional intelligence. And it was so soft. They cast some real-life music people like Adam Levine, who when his face comes on the screen makes one want to turn away and check email. Good lord, it takes someone with negative screen presence to demonstrate the value of photogenicity. Speaking of, Kiera Knightly is in the film and she certainly has the face. But she's a mixed bag for me - she seems to choose an awful lot of lame roles - she must have a sympathy for British/Irish directors or settings.

The Semi-Finals

I rather enjoyed the game today, although I imagine many marginal soccer fans would consider 120 minutes of 0-0 boring. The quality of the game was high, in particular the defensive organization and tackling. It was the first game where Messi and Robben were both ineffective and essentially taken out of the game by the other team. Argentina has impressed me in the last two games. They seem incredibly disciplined and stingy in the back and patient in the attack. They are content to let their skill players up front come up with magic. They miss Di Maria, probably their most skillful player up front other than Messi, so we'll see how they do against Germany.

My impression of Germany-Brazil was that of a defensive and organizational letdown as opposed to a crushing defeat imposed by Germany. The first goal was a joke - Mueller was completely unmarked. The second goal was a nice play, but it was essentially 2 on 4 and they made a criss cross run and Klose got loose. Again, sloppy defending. In fact, most of the goals and much of the game was just completely wide open for Germany. It was strange to see a letdown at such a high level, but clearly Brazil was playing above themselves for the tournament and didn't have the talent of the other three final teams.

As for the final, I root for both Messi and Ozil. Ozil has had a lousy tournament and it would be sweet for him to have a heroic moment. But it would also be nice for Messi to get a World Cup to add to his resume and make the greatest of all-time debate more fun.

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Film: Atlantic City

A pretty good gambling movie with a young Susan Sarandon. Surprisingly light given the story.

Sterling

Donald Sterling lashes out at wife in court.

"Make no mistake today," Sterling shouted toward the end of his second day of testimony in the trial to determine his wife's right to make a $2 billion deal to sell the Clippers, "I will never, ever sell this team and until I die I will be suing the NBA for this terrible violation under antitrust."

He was followed to the stand by wife Shelly, who tried to approach him in the front row of the courtroom after she was done for the day. "Get away from me, you pig!" Sterling shouted. The judge then admonished him to make no further comments.

Our society allowed ourselves to get worked up in outrageous anger over the ramblings of a man with Alzheimer's.

Prediction: bad.

Fincher is picking worse and worse material.

Seinfeld

25 thoughts on the 25th anniversary of the pilot.

I think Matt Zoller Seitz was right when he wrote that Jerry and George helped pave the way for Tony and Walter. TV’s slow transition from telling stories about pleasant people whom you liked to showcasing unpleasant people whom you loved to watch is what sparked the artistic revolution we’re still enjoying to this day. “No hugging, no learning” could have been pinned to the wall in the writers’ room of everything from The Wire to Game of Thrones.

Logging

Restaurant: RepubliqueLA

I'm noticing a style of hip restaurant in Los Angeles -- maybe they've been around awhile and I'm late to the game -- but Bestia and Republique fall into a similar category of intensely flavorful, almost extreme-eating restaurants. The flavors and weight of the food are incredibly intense. As are the prices. These are not regular-night-on-the-town food excursions. These are splurges, I just got a raise or bday party type of spots. Nothing we ordered will sound too exotic - beef tartare, charcuterie, a couple salads, roast chicken, beef short rib, a couple pasta dishes - but everything was intense. There is almost no other way of putting it. You should not eat like this often, I imagine one would become quite unhealthy. My favorite dish was the roast chicken. Roast chicken is usually the most boring dish on a menu and rarely made better than one can do at home (or get from Pollo a la Brasa on Western). But here, the meat was delicious and the drippings very juicy and tasty. I'm sure it was expensive butter (and lots of it), but yum.

I want to also note, the "Martinez," their version of the Martini was one of the best - if not the best - "alternative" martini I've ever had. A real simple drink - gin, vermouth, maraschino, and bitters - it was not a martini, but a riff on a martini and I quite enjoyed. In some ways, it was like part-martini and part manhattan.

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Film: Jane Eyre, the 2011 Cary Fukunaga version

A beautiful movie that felt completely unnecessary. As a novel, Jane Eyre is a decent plot made great by the writing and internal POV of the character. Why this story has been made into so many movies is beyond me.

Hawks said a movie is three great scenes and no bad ones...well, this film had one great scene...when Rochester and Jane first chat in front of the fire.

I Don't Know...

The A's trade the number 3 prospect in baseball for starting pitching relief.

Normally, I favor moves like this. The future is too uncertain and who knows about these prospects. The A's have the squad to compete this year, so why not go for it? But I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the news. Earlier this year, I thought Russell would be called up and starting for the A's by the end of the year. Maybe they see something they don't like in him or perhaps they are simply happy with the way Lowrie is playing and figure they aren't going to use Russell this year and this is the best chance to win the World Series.

Logging

Film: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I can never remember seeing this film in its entirety. Then I watched it and remember I've seen it multiple times. Strange. I feel like I'm supposed to love it more. I imagine the movie played spectacular at the time -- it probably felt incredibly radical and zany. Today, the experience I think is a bit of nostalgia trip for fans. Still, John Cleese wrecking havoc through the wedding was fantastic.

2008-2014

An intelligent article about "The Obama Temptation" from way back in 2008. In hindsight, who was more correct -- those who believed in "Change" or the guy who wrote this:

But beyond the elites and the media, my greatest concern is whether this election will show a majority of the voters susceptible to the appeal of a charismatic demagogue. This may seem a harsh term to some, and no doubt will to Obama supporters, but it is a perfectly appropriate characterization. Obama’s entire campaign is built on class warfare and human envy. The “change” he peddles is not new. We’ve seen it before. It is change that diminishes individual liberty for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social policies and government corruption (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a justification for a massive expansion of centralized government. Obama’s appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the “the proletariat,” as an infamous philosopher once described it, about which a mythology has been created. Rather than pursue the American Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits Obama would set for the rest of us — today it’s $250,000 for businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he’s now officially “rich.” The value of his physical and intellectual labor must be confiscated in greater amounts for the good of the proletariat (the middle class). And so it is that the middle class, the birth-child of capitalism, is both celebrated and enslaved — for its own good and the greater good. The “hope” Obama represents, therefore, is not hope at all. It is the misery of his utopianism imposed on the individual.

I voted for him. But remember our other choices.

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Film:  Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

I'd heard nothing but good things, so I was a bit disappointed. The self-referential narration probably seemed clever to some, but to me, it felt self-conscious and reflective of narrative insecurity. I didn't find the POV of Los Angeles particularly insightful. There was some snappy dialog that made me laugh and I enjoyed the overall idea of the movie, but I just didn't find it executed all that well. The plotting was weak and confusing. All said, it wasn't a BAD movie, just not a very good one. I prefer The Last Boyscout, which uses all the same noir tropes without the self-conscious narration. And it has the creepy and prescient opening scene of an NFL player shooting himself on the field (google Jovan Belcher).

Ugh

People are proposing college classes in dating. Disgusting. The new world is being made in the image of computer nerds and life is becoming much less joyous.

The Not Beautiful Game

Let's dispense with the obvious - the US played bravely, did well to get out of the group of death, and had Wondolowski finished (or subbed Green earlier or brought Donovan or coulda-shoulda-woulda fill-in-the-blank) maybe we move on. Fine. I hear ESPN radio guys talking positively about the US - the future is bright, the US are fan favorites in Brazil, our young guys Yedlin and Green looked impressive. But I'm a little more pessimistic. Here's why:

1. Our record in the World Cup games was 1-2-1.

2. Our performance this year was not substantially more impressive than in other World Cups. We've gotten out of the group stage before.

3. We only outplayed the other team in one game (Portugal)

4. We never had the best player on the field in any game.

My problem with US Soccer is with our structure and the way we approach developing talent. We are clearly doing something wrong. We play the same style of soccer, albeit a little better, than we did in 1994. We play hard, we play as a team, we have well-conditioned athletes, and we hope to wear down superior teams by toughness and organization and try to score on counterattacks. This is how we played today and how we played 20 years ago. Approaching soccer in this way gets us into the World Cup in the weak Concacaf. If we get a little lucky, we get out of the group stage. If we get very lucky, we could win a 2nd round game. If we get a little unlucky, we don't get out of the group. If we get very unlucky, we won't qualify.

To improve, we cannot just continue down the same path. We cannot hope to get very far in the World Cup when every team we play has superior on-field talent. We need difference-making field players and currently, we don't know how to find or develop them. We find gritty players. We find strong players. We even sometimes find fast players. But we don't find players capable of brilliance and we certainly don't find multiple brilliant players.

Think about these guys --

Hazard/Lukaku/Mertens - Belgium
Robben/Van Persie - Netherlands
Gyan/Asamoah - Ghana
Drogba/Yaya Toure - Ivory Coast
Modric - Croatia
James/Falcao - Columbia
Suarez/Cavani - Uruguay
Vidal - Chile
Dos Santos/Guardado - Mexico

I purposely did not include the soccer heavyweights who have won the World Cup in the last 50 years and who routinely find top level talent - Spain, France, England, Germany, Italy, Brazil, and Argentina.  I won't even bring up Ronaldo or Messi. I'm just talking about countries who managed to find - in some cases numerous - better players than anyone on the US team in the past 20 years.

What the above list suggests is that wide variety of other countries with varying soccer histories, resources, size, athletic tradition, so on, are able to find more creative, dangerous field players than we are. This should be a major cause of concern.

And I see no movement or effort to find these kind of players. We are content to continue in our style and pray for luck to get better. In no other sports or American endeavor would this be good enough. Imagine a basketball team with a bunch of players like Derek Fisher, Chris Anderson, Andre Iguodala, Shane Battier, etc. They would play hard, work hard, and occasionally beat a better team. But anyone with a shred of intelligence would see the flaw: we need a creative play-maker. We need offensive.

So this is my plea for American soccer -- we must think about the game differently -- we must open our minds to creativity and artistry in the game. We must find our Ozil, our Iniesta, our Mueller, our Pirlo. They are out there - they must be - because they exist in most every other soccer country in the world. We must study how the other countries do it. How did Messi become Messi? How did Vidal get discovered? And we must look for our diamonds in the rough.

A SIDE NOTE:

We've gotten better at soccer since 1994 - I do not mean to dismiss our accomplishments and growth - but other teams are better as well. Belgium is not a traditional soccer powerhouse, but their skill, strength, and speed is world class. Germany is better. Portugal is better. Ghana is better. To improve at the margins will leave us in a similar position because the world moves too. I only mean to say - our analysis of soccer is wrong - we must either be content to stay in the middle of the pack or we must change how we approach the game - we cannot continue along the same path and expect different results.

The Real Question:  Trust

Facebook is conducting studies on the emotional impact of the news feed. They promise it is "no big deal." Of course not.

To me, it sort of feels like waking up in the middle of the night and finding your roommate in your room staring at you. Technically, they've done nothing wrong or illegal, but it feels creepy because it indicates a capacity for creepy behavior. And it feels like the tip of the iceberg.

Here's the thing: there isn't a single reason in the world to trust Facebook with your data. Not one. The only argument is that your data doesn't matter. But Facebook and their investors are gambling your data does matter (to them), and I trust them to do only what is in their interest, not mine.

Goals of the Tournament, Thus Far...

1. Robin Van Persie vs. Spain

My buddy insists this goal wasn't all that impressive, skill-wise. I couldn't disagree more. The play begins at the half line with a long ball cross to the 18 yard box. Casillas cheats out to either cut off the cross or VP's first touch. VP sees it and powers a header into the upper corner, leaving Casillas still on his feet. The play looks "simple" in some sense because VP just headed the ball along. But in addition to being simple, it was also deceptive. Spain did not expect to be attacked that way. And ask yourself how many header goals you've seen scored on a cross from midfield at around the 18? The answer is not many. This alone points to the degree of difficulty.

Additional points are given because this goal punched Spain in the gut, opened up the floodgates to the Dutch victory, and crushed the spirits of the defending champ. This goal set the tone for the tournament.

2. James vs. Uruguay

You've seen the replay. Ridiculous. James' goal against Japan was a pleasure to watch, but the stakes did not matter. The stakes were huge right here. Uruguay was all set to play a conservative, tough game  and James just destroyed their plan with a chest-to-volley. Pure individual brilliance.

3. Cahill vs. Netherlands

The left-footed volley out of the air. Class.

4. Sneijder vs. Mexico

Until that moment, Ochoa was making a case for being the player of the tournament and Concacaf was feeling plucky. And while there was sloppy marking on the play, the sheer brutality of the finish was shocking. It was like watching the Red Wedding. Couldn't you just see Sneijder pulling Ochoa aside after the game and whispering afterwards "Tywin Lannister sends his regards." Because Europe are the Lannisters of international futbol.

5. Messi vs. Iran and Jones vs. Portugal

Very similar goals -- just pure, perfect strikes from distance hooking into the corner of the net. Messi's was backbreaking to a brave Iran performance in the final minutes. The goal itself probably didn't matter - Iran was going home and Argentina was moving on regardless - but it was just a crushing moment at the end of a game. It would have been the greatest performance in the history of Iran soccer and maybe caused the mullahs to get just a little bit nervous as the streets of Tehran danced. Instead, Messi put things back into order.

Jones' goal was the type the US could not score in the past. World class skill is required to finish a shot like that in the World Cup against a European team. And we needed it. We needed the goal because we were playing better, but still needed someone to make a brilliant play to break the seal. The US can score -- on headers -- on crosses -- on shots inside the 18 -- on deflections -- but rarely do we score goals from distance or with individual brilliance. This year, we did.

Logging

TV: Tyrant

I rather enjoyed it. FX is probably my favorite non-HBO channel. And less pretentious. They don't pretend to be more than TV.

A Foreign Policy Thought

When the media talk about the Iraq War as a giant folly, we must consider the failures of non-interventionist policies as well. Take for instance, Libya, where we did the bare minimum to support the insurgents and still, the country is in chaos.

We must remember, the Iraq war was the result of having no good options in the Middle East. When we adopt a hands off attitude, humanitarian disasters occur - see Saddam and the Kurds, see the Syrian or Lebanese Civil Wars, see Libya, see the Iranian Revolution. When we adopt a pro-active, interventionist stance, it also tends to end up problematic, see Iraq.

The Dems want to blame the Bush administration for Iraq and all subsequent Middle East policy failures. They do this full well knowing the majority of them supported the invasion and knowing we didn't have any good options and cynically use it to political advantage. Now, the Republicans are doing the same, suggesting Obama pulling the troops has caused this ISIS group to take over a third of the country. Neither side has argued in good faith about these crucial issues since 2004.

Costa Rica - Greece and other thoughts...

Watching this was a throwback to how soccer was played in the early 1990s. Boring. I can appreciate Costa Rica's stingy defense playing with 10 --  but come on -- if all World Cup games were like this, we'd tune out.

I am anticipating a somewhat stupid response by American sportscasters to Robben's penalty and the flopping. Russell Westbrook and Dwyane Wade routinely flop worse. In basketball, we call it drawing a foul. In soccer, there is a perception that it is a "cheap" play. This is the observation of an amateur.

Alexi Lalas criticized the water breaks and suggested it should happen in all games. Another dull observation from a dull person. I'm fine with the water breaks in extreme conditions. It does not ruin the game or give undo advantage to one side. When you see the stands empty in sections of the stadium because of the heat, you know the players are dealing with really tough conditions. These are people who travelled thousands of miles and spent thousands of dollars to watch their national teams in the World Cup and it's so damn hot, they go into the grandstands to cool down.

Also, it sends the signal that as big a deal as these games are, they are just games for entertainment. The water breaks do not take away from the entertainment factor. Our culture has become insane when it comes to sports meaning something more than a fun pastime. From NFL fans criticizing players for not playing hurt (Jay Cutler) to the insane scrutiny we put star players - particularly basketball players (LeBron James) - under for "not winning," often it seems we've very much lost perspective on things.

And there are ramifications to the fans/media perspective when we put too much on these things. I find it unseemly that LeBron, Bosh, and Wade are again collaborating to get players to join their team. It is the equivalent of going to a playground game and all the best players deciding to be on one team and then taking on the competition and winning game after game easily. It is unsportsmanlike.

But aren't the players simply behaving rationally to the system of the NBA and fandom? LeBron's manhood was questioned for being unable to win in Cleveland. So what he did - fixing it to play with other good players - was a legitimate, rational reaction to an irrational set of expectations put on him. I suppose it isn't the worst thing in the world and there is still competition in the NBA, but something about the way the league is headed -- to the players basically self-selecting themselves and the teams -- feels new and less connected to the franchises, cities, and fans.

Mexican Agony

What a terrible way to lose. Mexico made a tactical mistake to play defensive too early in the game. The Dos Santos substitution surprised me. With over 30 minutes left in the game, Mexico decided to pack it in and try to hold on. Sometimes this strategy can work - particularly if your strength is stingy defense like a traditional Italian team - but for Mexico it was a mistake in this game. They were equal to the Dutch, but played like they thought they were slightly inferior. I thought both teams offense was stronger than the other teams defense and looked dangerous. Mexico was playing them straight up, scored first, and decided to change their tactics. This allowed the Dutch to possess more, got Mexico tired, and allowed the Dutch many more opportunities. Ochoa made a brilliant (or lucky) save, Mexico's defense was disorganized on the Sneijder goal, but the finish was awesome. Maybe the penalty kick was a weak call, but Robbin was dominating that Mexican defender all game, so something like that was likely to happen. Then again, if they held on for five more minutes, we aren't having this 20/20 hindsight discussion.

The Dutchman's penalty kick celebration was my favorite goal celebration of the tournament.

I'm very sad to see Mexico out of the tournament. They were certainly one of my favorite teams. They are flawed, but I love their crew of attacking players.

World Cup Thoughts

If I were a betting man, I'd put money on Columbia to beat Brazil. I think Brazil looks weak and Columbia looks great. They beat a gritty Uruguay team (granted without their best player). James is the player of the tournament so far.

I suspect the US is in trouble with Belgium. Man-for-man, they look much stronger to me, but we will see. US has performed well so far.

Best first round I can remember. The games were incredible and the biting incident has been loads of fun.

Logging

Film: Two Lovers

Watched the other day -- a nice reminder there are still adults making cinema, although it seems fewer and fewer each year.

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Film: Snowpiercer

I quite enjoyed the film, but not as much as Mother or Memories of Murder. Walked to a show in Koreatown and the theater was packed. I don't understand why the movie is not being released wider. Tilda Swinton is a lock for best supporting actress.

The Big Game

What a game. The final minute goal is what will be remembered, but I think the headline should be the US came back to score 2 goals after being down 1-0 at halftime against a solid European team. In the past, this would have been unthinkable. And the way they came back, wasn't flukey or even lucky. They made chances for themselves by playing solid soccer. Jones' goal was a brilliant shot. That requires skill.

Portugal is not a great team and Ronaldo was clearly not at 100%. Still, any team from Europe in the  World Cup is strong considering the competition they must get through to qualify.

We must credit Klinsman. Sure, the US got outplayed by Ghana and was fortunate to win. Ghana has superior players. But we were tactically sound during the game and our defense was strong. We played in a way to give ourselves a chance to win and it worked. Against Portugal, the luck went their way at the beginning of the game. Our team didn't panic, however, and played solid. Not too risky, not too conservative and over time both teams were getting chances in the 2nd half. We capitalized.

Now on the final play, Bradley made a huge error by giving the ball away in the midfield. I know the US commentators will say Portugal was still very far from the goal -- but this demonstrates soccer ignorance. Giving the ball away in that position is death -- the middle of the field is the most important and valuable position -- especially in transition.  This is the equivalent of missing a tackle on a 4th down play in football when the other team is driving on offense to win the game.  Sure, you don't give up a score, but you have a chance to end the game and you give life to the other team.

Bradley honestly could have one touched the ball into the corner (or banded it up the field for to the goalie or for a goal kick) and the game would virtually be over. He should have have treated the play like a clearance with the time remaining. Sure, he has a midfielder's instinct to control the ball there and normally the skill to do it. But he didn't. He was tired. Of course he was tired. He hasn't been playing at his top form. He made a costly mistake.

I rewatched the goal this morning and our defender on the play also made a mistake. There was only one Portuguese guy in the box. When Ronaldo was lining up the cross, he needed to get a body on the player and not be watching the ball. All defenders get lazy at points during the game and this happens all the time. But the better way to play defense is to obstruct the guy from having a clean header on the ball. He didn't do it. Nevertheless, the ball Ronaldo played was unbelievable. I cannot fault the defender too much because Ronaldo had not got a ball off his foot like that all game. It would sort be like criticizing the Iranian defender for allowing Messi to get off the left footed shot from distance (in 20/20 hindsight, you must force Messi right).

Nevertheless, giving up a goal in that manner is bound to get analyzed. Still, I think the US should be proud of the result. We learn from this as a soccer nation. I know it feels heartbreaking, but I, like Klinsman, know the US will not win the World Cup. So whether we make the 2nd round or not, is not the only thing that matters. What matters is we play hard, play creative, play with skill, and battle.

Corruption

Nearly 1/4 of public company deals involve insider trading.

With decimation of the newspaper industry, corruption will rule the day in business and politics. David Simon warned of this.

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TV: Louie, Elevator 6

Excruciating. Louie must've lost me a little while back as I've paid little attention to the recent season. I randomly watched this lone episode just now and felt like I was caught up in a narrative masturbation fantasy. It is either indicative of auterism run amok or the limits of stand up comedians translating their POV to visual storytelling. Or maybe he just had an off night.

Anyhow, it was sleep inducing.

60% of Young Adults Receive Help From Their Parents

And one in five live at home.

That sounds about right. What are we to takeaway from this? I'd argue a couple factors:

1. Employment structure. My general impression is that decades ago most folks could get an entry level job in their field pretty easily. I think it is more difficult today. More people, more competition, less confidence by companies to invest in the future.

2. Entitlement. Young people are now encouraged to follow their passions whereas in the past they were encouraged into practical fields where they could make a good living. Maybe in the long run, this'll prove beneficial - more happiness/satisfaction/excellence - but in the medium run - it seems more challenging financially.

3. Willingness. In the older days, I think parents had less and a lesser willingness to assist.

4. Real Estate. Real Estate prices have been juiced by government policy since at least the Clinton administration. This - in effect - puts money in the pockets of home owners (ie parents) and makes it more difficult for young adults to buy homes. I imagine much of the parental assistance comes in the form of helping to buy a first home or as the article directly mentions, in free/discount rent.

5. College loan scandal. I consider it a scandal, even though it is not publicly acknowledged.  College loans, collectively juiced by the colleges, government policy, and conventional wisdom, have put many more young adults in debt, and thus hurt their overall financial prospects.

Travel Awards - England / Ireland - Part 1

Best place to stay: Temple House, outside Sligo, Ireland. In Ireland, you can stay on at a manor house on a 1000 acre plot of land. This is sort of like spending the night in Downton Abbey. You dine with the other vacationers in a big group meal, take pre-dinner drinks in a sitting room, and can do an after dinner stroll out to some castle ruins on the land which were built by the Knights Templar over 800 years ago. I'm serious.

Best meal: The Habor Bistro, a restaurant in Portsrush, Northern Ireland. You know how ribeye steaks are always said to be the steak of steak lovers? I never got it - until eating at the Harbor Bistro. They serve it thin - somewhere in between a ribeye at an American steakhouse and how the Koreans slice Galbi thin for the BBQ. This is the way to prepare a ribeye. It helped that the steak cost only a little more than a burger costs at most pubs and the Guinness on tap is the freshest in town.

Best name of a town: three way tie between Bourton-on-the-water, Upper Slaughter, and Lower Slaughter. These are all names of towns in the Cotswalds and you can walk between them along footpaths being grazed by sheep.

Best deal: Deals are hard to find on vacation, usually you are deciding between being ripped off or ripped off outrageously. But we found a flight on Ryanair between Bristol and Dublin for 20 pounds (roughly 33 dollars). To put in perspective, a train ride from London-Cambridge was 12 pounds and filling up a tank of gas was about 30 pounds.

Best drink: The bitter ales are terrific in England (and you'll feel buzzed after 2), the Irish serve three great beers: Smithwicks, Guinness, and Heverlee, but the best drink in the UK are Gin & Tonics because their tonic has quinine and I have no idea what it is, but it makes you feel like you're sipping one on the steps of an Embassy before the Great War in some faraway land like India, Burma, or Singapore.

Best English Saying: "Is it of interest...?

Best English or Irish Breakfast: Ye Old Kings Head in Santa Monica makes a better "full British" than I had in all of the UK.

Most Ridiculous Site They Wouldn't Have in the US: Cliffs of Moher. 700 foot cliffs that fall straight down into the sea (for a film reference, watch the "Cliffs of Insanity" bit from Princess Bride, it was filmed there). Anyhow, you can basically walk just along the top of the cliffs with literally no barrier whatsoever. People stand less than a foot away from a 700 foot fall. Truly, the Cliffs of Insanity. No wonder I noticed so many Irish people walking around with injuries.

To be continued...featuring Best Drive, Best Car Rental, Best English Candy, Best Irish Saying, and some Worst Of's...

Roid Rage

The Seahawks try and murder each other during a no practice scrimmage. Animals.

Blogging May Be Slow, But Some Parting Thoughts...

1. I enjoy listening to podcasts, but I often find them depressing. I think the nature of the podcast makes one feel like an outsider, non-participant, and over time, disengaged. The irony, of course, is that podcasts are designed to be intimate and feel like "discussions," but there is nothing being discussed, only people being listened to.  Podcasters are not your friends, but they want to feel like them.

2.  Oberyn Martell, RIP.  Well, GOT did it again, and managed to rip the hearts out of its fans.  On a positive note, Martell got what he wanted: a public confession from Clegane.  What's the lesson?  Don't get cocky...?  Who knows...the lesson from GOT is "all men die." So Martell died like he lived, with style.

3.  Skimmed a Michael Connelly novel.  Who read these things?  Skimming worked perfectly fine.

4.  Prediction/Hope: Spurs will win the NBA finals.  Duncan will move up historically relative to Kobe.  It will be a victory for team basketball over individual bball if the Spurs manage to beat the two MVPs - Durant and LeBron - back to back - ie win major series without the best player on the court (and in the case of OKC, not even having the 2nd best player on the court).  If the Heat win, however, where does that put LeBron historically?  The guy will be in his prime with a three-peat under his belt. Not bad.  And it won't be a Kobe 3-peat either where he played second fiddle to Shaq and somehow everyone chooses to forget. It will be a legit LeBron took the team over and lead them to a 3-peat. Hmmm...

5.  World Cup begins soon.  I haven't been paying attention at all because I know the tournament will be incredibly engrossing and time consuming by itself.

6.  Random BBall thought: David West is the heart and soul of the Pacers. Now remember those CP3 Hornets teams with David West and Tyson Chandler...both guys who have now proved themselves pretty damn good on other teams, when healthy.  Does this disrupt the narrative that CP3 brought the Hornets to the playoffs all by himself and basically took a good Lakers team to 6 games?  And also, CP3 still hasn't gotten to a conference finals with some pretty good teammates.  Granted, he always loses to good teams, but still...I think the lesson is not that CP3 isn't great - he is - it is that under 6ft players in a sport like BBALL are rarely MORE VALUABLE to team success.

Grandeur

Thinking about movies, particularly American movies in relation to the rest of the world.  I was blown away by Mother and it made me feel a bit sad about the state of American independent film.  This new film, Blue Ruin, is getting decent press.  I was surprised by the smallness of the movie.  And I don't mean small in a good way.  I mean, the ambitions and thoughts put into the film were small.  The story was routine and not particularly well put together.  The acting was low-level.  There was no envelope being pushed.  There was no grand ambition.  My impression of a lot of American films is they are satisfied with merely existing.  They take poses rather than positions.  They say "I belong to this form of pop culture, I listen to this kind of music, I like these kind of other movies, and so forth."  In short, they are largely driven by ego.

Maybe Americans no longer believe in our mythos, particularly amongst the chattering classes.  Maybe we really do believe we are just like any other country and place in the world.  And if we believe that, we should just recede into the shadows and allow other places with bigger ambitions and self-belief dictate the way the world ought to be (Russia/China).

Where is the grandeur?  Where is the belief in something larger than ourselves?  Where are the ideas?  Where is the sacrifice? The tragedy? The joy?

I'll give it to James Gray, he strives for these things, if not always successfully.  And I want to be generous to first time filmmakers.  People need to learn and start small.  But remember, Badlands was a first film. As was Citizen Kane. As was Hard Eight.  Just saying.

Logging

Film: Mother by Bong Joon-ho

Is Bong Joon-ho one of the best living filmmakers?  Watch Mother and consider it.  While earlier this year, the American literati went wild for True Detective, over in South Korea five years ago, a filmmaker makes a crime thriller considerably more sophisticated in filmmaking form and narrative style.  Consider the central relationship - a possessive mother has a dim witted son who is accused of committing a murder in a small South Korean town. He is caught and convicted within one scene and the mother insists on the impossibility of her son committing and murder and takes it upon herself to find the real killer.  Both characters are completely unreliable.  The film both uses and upends nearly ever convention of the mystery-thriller and utilizes it utterly unique ways.  Take for instance the convention of learning about a hidden secret about the victim...used in just about every Law and Order episode to lead toward the real killer. Mother waits until near the end of the second act to use this device and instead of it leading to discover the killer, it plunges the character into deeper madness.

As a screenwriter, I was blown away by the storytelling. As a film lover, the direction was stunning - disciplined, evocative, controlled.  No one will talk about some show-offy 5-6 minute tracking shot.  The filmmaker is more subtle and skilled than that.

Memories of Murder and Mother. As much as American audiences love the mystery and crime thrillers, it's shocking the most sophisticated use of the forms are made in South Korea by this one guy.

It look me overly long to notice Bong Joon-ho because I was not a fan of The Host.  Maybe I'll need to revisit, but honestly, his two additions to the mystery genre are enough to cement his legacy as a filmmaker and the guy is still only 40 or so.

Logging

Film: The Immigrant

My least favorite James Gray film. Here, Gray gets away from genre and goes for opera. It doesn't quite work on first viewing.  The style doesn't match the content.  It is both too realistic (set design, classical shooting style, acting style, dialog) and then, too stylized (melodramatic plot).  For film watchers, the dialog is too "on the nose" and the characters behave foolishly (unbelievably) at times.  This could work in other forms and clearly he is going for something, I just don't think he quite succeeds.  Still, worth watching.  Formal qualities great.  I still think he gets better performances out of Joaquin Phoenix than anyone else.

Logging

Novel: They Don't Dance Much

Best noir I've read in a long time.

Dazed and Confused

Watched a bit last night and it made me feel like America used to be a more pleasurable place to live.

Brilliant

Action cinema has become chaos cinema.

Wowza

Now that would be a squad:

Your 2014-15 Cavs (potentially): LeBron, Love, Kyrie, Varejao, Tristan Thompson, Jarrett Jack, Dion Waiters and their choice of three ring-chasing veterans who would commit murder to play on that team. A little more palatable than that 2014-15 Heat roster … right?

It'll never happen because predictions by the press never happen.

Decline Is A Choice

Delivering mail is now too expensive. A new proposal to get rid of mailboxes to save money. Really? We can't figure out a cost-effective way to deliver the mail?  Our ancestors really were better people than us, weren't they?

Westbrook

Good article on Westbrook.

When he’s hurt, OKC feels not just worse but smaller. Durant is a glorious basketball player in just about every way. He’s glorious partly because he’s capable of playing the game in exactly the way he imagines it. But no one is capable of playing the game in exactly the way Westbrook imagines it. He raises the stakes just by walking into the arena. Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see; Westbrook sees a target no one else would even recognize as a target. And once you’ve looked at the moon, how are you supposed to aim at anything else? He’d be the only player in the NBA to vote for an 11-foot rim.

I'd hate to play with or against Westbrook, which is what makes him a fascinating player.  In some ways, he reminds me of Kobe.  Or perhaps, the end of Kobe.

Dumb, Meaningless Criticism

I'm sure Gosling's film isn't good, but if I hear this criticism once more I'm going to vomit:

Here he seems to be just imitating stuff he’s seen on the screen, not in life.

When movie work they get called "brilliant homages" to other films.  When they don't, the filmmaker is a imitator, a hack.  People routinely talk about how awful movies are -- what about the criticism -- which is in my opinion, worse.

Equality as a False Norm



Too much common sense for this day and age. You need to find vintage stuff nowadays.

Tyrion

Last night's Game of Thrones vaulted Tyrion into one of the greatest TV characters of all time, if he wasn't already.  I can't decide which scene was better -- the one between him and Bronn or the one between him and Prince Oberyn.  The Bronn scene was a suburb expression of the limits of male friendship. The Oberyn scene was incredible and Dinklage killed it. His sad reaction to the Oberyn story about Cersi squeezing his baby penis to his joy of Oberyn granting him a new lease on life. What a turn of events!

American Women

First "Can Women Have It All," then "Lean In," then now another big feature in the Atlantic about "The Confidence Gap."  The central point: how unfair and difficult it is to be an upper-to-upper-middle class American woman these days.  I'm tired of this noise.  American women of this social standing are among the most privileged people to every walk this planet and we are expected to devote cultural energy to figure how this group of people ought to be "doing better." Please.  At least the old aristocrats knew and acted like the privileged people they were rather than lamenting how bad off they had it.

Shockingly Fun

Laser Tag. Beats the hell out of paintball in my opinion as paintball attracts trained military types.

Logging

Film: The Yards

American film lovers owe James Grey an apology.  Why is he so neglected?  He gets better performances from Joaquin Phoenix than Paul Thomas Anderson.  The lighting in the Yards is better than anything I've seen in years.  He's trying to make the Godfather, for chrissake.  How do we reward this ambition?  Middling reviews.  Treating the films as middle-tier entertainments.  I am as guilty as anyone. I loved We Own The Night and it's taken me years now to watch The Yards.  All his other films are going to the top of my Netflix cue immediately.

I don't love PTA as much as most film buffs, but I used to think of all the working filmmakers, he had the best chance to make "the greatest film of all time" or the next Citizen Kane type of thing.  I'm not so sure James Grey isn't equally capable.

"Smart Growth"

SF Bay Area housing prices 3x relative to wages since the 1970s, the result of policies designed for "smart growth," ie less growth and the inability of demand to meet supply.

Look - the Bay Area is gorgeous - with tons of still open spaces all over the place. And traffic is still a problem, so I don't have a particular problem with it.  But that's probably because I don't live there and want to buy a house there.

Logging

Film: Legends of Oz, Dorthy's Return and Blue Ruin

Movies done on the cheap, by irregular companies.  Is this the new normal? Take away the tentpoles, and unquestionably more movies made by indy and foreign financing are in the theaters.  They don't tend to be particularly good, but there's still some enjoyment in going to the theater.

Not to get specific, but bad movies possess the same story structure as great movies.  What does that suggest about structure?

The Mob Is Coming

The Liberal mob is coming after everyone. Someone should point out the Internet is helping.

No Free Speech

A number of commencement speakers out because of protests from the left.  We should very much worry about this development.

Magic vs. Donald

I love Magic Johnson, but one must admit his interest in buying the Clippers and outspokenness against Donald Sterling has a whiff of corruptness.

Tryion's Go-To Move: Trial By Combat

Am I the only one who thinks the legal system of Westeros doesn't work optimally?  With the trial-by-combat option, a guilty party always has about a 50/50 shot at freeing oneself while an innocent man can opt for the trial. The theory of trial-by-combat leaves something to be desired.

Flight 370

Another theory: the flight is in Pakistan, hidden by the same group of ISI who were hiding Bin Laden.

The wreckage in the Indian Ocean theory is losing traction because of no supporting evidence other than the radar lead (which is hardly bulletproof).

My question: why?

The Death Of...

...fill in the blank.  Will Self talks about the death of the novel.  Marginal Revolution points to the death of the NFL.

Foolish declarations.  Maybe I should become a bookie and offer futures bets and see whether these folks are willing to put their money where their mouths are.  Too many suckers bet on the new and dismiss the old.  They forget the old have survived the rigors of the world and remained while the new are more likely to die under increased scrutiny and demands for utility.

I predict I'll die before either the novel or professional football.

Logging

Film: Neighbors

Wesley Morris liked it.

Eh. I found it pretty forgettable. Mostly just gag after gag. Didn't build to anything substantial, didn't offer anything particularly interesting to say except "Am I still cool?" Made me wonder if it was a movie as opposed to a series of stunts.  Comedy films seem to be moving more towards Borat and Bad Grampa kinda humor -- basically raunchy gags strung together by a weak, uninspired, character arc.

I guess I still hope for a movie to be a movie - to be a story foremost and a genre second - but maybe comedy is different. I laughed a few times, but not very hard, and in no way cathartically.

And so can we safely say Zac Efron is on steroids?

Michael Rapaport

On the BS Report makes a smart comment about editing your movie: first you gotta love it, then you have to hate it.

30 of 32

The Niners passing ranks 30th in the NFL.  Now explain to me why Kaepernick deserves a big contract?  He got the Niners exactly as far as Alex Smith did.  He basically has the same record.  Granted, the NFC West did improve, but still.  Does he deserve the big money?  Do we pay for potential or results?

Don't Get in a Pissing Match With a Skunk

Shelly Sterling will try and hold onto the Clippers.  The NBA acted emotionally and not strategically when they banned Donald Sterling.  It made everyone feel good for a few minutes, but the whole thing was not thought through.  That said, I am looking forward to seeing how the drama unfolds.  Remember my radical proposal to do nothing.  When this is all over, we will see which was the smarter move.

Let's see if the NBA gets into the business of punishing people for marrying idiots.

Spiritual Sickness

Finally, some decent reporting in Deadline. The ASC President talks about a spiritual sickness in the Hollywood filmmaking community.  Also, separate, but related, Deadline also reports that Network TV shows can't find showrunners since they cut back hiring staff writers in the past 10 years.

Every network wants The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, but would a young David Chase or Vince Gilligan get hired today?  And perhaps more importantly, would they get trained?  Do people in the industry feel any responsibility toward the next generation? Toward making good product?  Sure, everyone wants a hit, they want want to be successful, but the overriding sense -- and these articles suggest the work has become about ego, vanity, and money and not about providing memorable stories that help shape a national character.

And I wonder if there is any correlation to the content...isn't it strange how many popular dramas on television presently feature cannibalism (Hannibal, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones)?

Something is amiss.

Yes, They Will

Sooner or later, the mob is going to trample the voice of someone you like.

Online liberalism, as I’ve said many times, is not actually a series of political beliefs and alliances but instead a set of social cues that are adopted to demonstrate one’s class background– economic class, certainly, but more cultural class, the various linguistic and consumptive signals that assure those around you that you’re the right kind of person and which appear to be the only thing that America’s 20-something progressives really care about anymore.

Logging

Film: Le Weekend

Saw this about a week ago.  Very disappointing. Does the world really need another expression of boomer narcissism?  Got late-life love problems? Go to restaurants and hotels you can't afford and stiff them with the bill.  The consequences?  None.  Just safely non-end the film with a Godard reference.  Le Weekend should remind us of the indignity of a life spent trying to be cool.  You will end up a beggar, hating your children, your peers, and yourself.  What a way to non-live.  The director indulges Jeff Goldblum and the result grows more and more tedious through the film.

Outrage

The NBA suspects ZBo for a Game 7 for a weak-ass incident.  I guess they want to see OKC advance.  Horrible.

The Catastrophe of Suicide

Is suicide a moral affront or a public health concern?  The article argues for bringing back the moral element.  And Louie CK agrees.

Jason Whitlock on Donald Sterling

He's only sensible person on the issue.

In our zeal to appear righteous or courageous or free of bigotry, a ratings-pleasing mob hell-bent on revenge turned Donald T. Sterling -- a victim of privacy invasion and white supremacy -- from villain to martyr.  

In a society filled with impurities, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers committed the crime of speaking impure thoughts in the privacy of a duplex he apparently provided for his mistress. And now an angry, agenda-fueled mob provoked NBA commissioner Adam Silver into handing Sterling a basketball death sentence. 

My Favorite Random NBA Players

1. "The Professor" Andre Miller. You gotta love the professor. He looks like an old man playing against high school kids. His shifty moves, clever passes, and inability to run or jump -- awesome. Brains over brawn.

2.  "Z-Bo" Zach Randolph.  I love when Z-Bo uses his bullhead to create just enough space for himself to get off his little lefty shot.  Z-Bo's dirty, old school, post game is pure old man skill.

3.  John Wall. Does this guy have a nickname yet? It should be "Arms" or something.  The guy's arms are incredibly long.  I'm new to watching Wall, but I like the guy.

4. Tony Allen. He's a pitbull, a junkyard dog you sick on your best player. Durant is having nightmares. Love the guy.

5. Patrick Beverly. He's similar to Tony Allen, but smaller and faster. Fearless.

The Thought Police

The NBA bans Donald Sterling for life.  The sanctimonious crowds cheer and claim another scalp in the quest for "racial tolerance."  This is social justice on the cheap because it costs no one anything - except, I suppose, Donald Sterling.  And another creepy case of The Thought Police going after jobs and reputations much in the way of the Hollywood Black List of the 1950s.  Note -- the CEO of Mozilla who just got fired for "supporting traditional marriage," Armond White, the film critic who got banned from the NY Critics Circle for "heckling,"and now, Donald Sterling for racism.  You could also toss Alec Baldwin and Michael Richards into the mix for saying "offensive" things.

Bret Easton Ellis calls this "outrage culture." And the trend you'll notice is none of the people actually did anything illegal or immoral.  They merely thought wrong, or uttered wrong, or supported an unpopular political position.

The Donald Sterling story is not about white master culture and black slaves.  The Donald Sterling story is about outrage culture and the horrible glee with which we like to take people down.  This is a reflection of misery and anxiety about the future (ie economic) and taking these "scalps" gives a temporary sense of satisfaction that others are "worse people" and being punished.

You ask how I think society ought to handle the situation? Do nothing. Ignore him. He's a doofus, not a threat to the social fabric.  But Big Brother won't stand for it.  Orwell was wrong about one thing - he thought Big Brother was the government - but it turns out - Big Brother is us.

Donald Sterling

"Don't bring black people to my games."

So bizarre.  Is it legal for TMZ to record private phone conversations?  Why does a racist own an NBA team, a league that is predominantly African American?  How can an owner be punished by the NBA?  He's the owner!  And what did he do?  He said something uncouth in private.  Why is being racist the worst thing a person can do in 2014?  Criminals get more respect than racists.  Again, why does a racist own an NBA team?  Why did Sterling say this in the middle of the playoffs when the Clippers are contenders for the first time in ages?

I hope the players and Doc try to ignore the situation the best they can and keep winning.  But imagine them refusing to play or something in protest.  Now that would even be more bizarro.  Political correctness meets big business meets sporting competition at the highest level.  Enjoyable. Very enjoyable.

Baseball

One thing about the Bay Area : when I'm here, I follow baseball.  Prediction: Oakland A's will win the World Series this year.  They are GOOOOOD.  Right now, they have the 2nd best record in baseball with a rocky start by their bullpen and two injuries to starting pitchers.  Combine this with a stud prospect who will be brought up at some point in the year (Puig, Trout, Harper, anyone?) and the A's just have that feel.

Government Spending

A good 12 point summary on econ.  My favorite one:

10. When a government spends, its citizens eventually pay, either today or tomorrow, either through explicit taxes or implicit ones like inflation.

Obamacare Flaw

One of many, seemingly.

Defining Success and Failure

Ross Douthat tries to come up with metrics to determine whether Obamacare works or not.  It's hard.

But then again, life in general is kinda like this...how do you measure how you're doing?  I'd say most of the time there are both positive and negative signs.

What Could Go Wrong?

Jews in Eastern Ukraine ordered to register with pro-Russian authorities.

Should We Force People to Save For Retirement?

Asks Megan McArdle.  Short answer: no.

In my experience, forcing people to "behave" never solves the underlying problem - discipline - and tends to create host of other, unanticipated ones.

Wow

A brief, brilliant essay on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

In the episode with Mr. Seinfeld and David Letterman, the departing host of the “Late Show With David Letterman” on CBS, the guest seems uncomfortable being in an actual coffee shop, speaking within earshot of actual people.  

 “Can we just ask these people to leave?” Mr. Letterman says. 

 “We don’t own this place,” Mr. Seinfeld answers. Mr. Letterman allows himself a chuckle, then says, “We can change that, though, can’t we?” They can. Must be nice.

I enjoy the show, but the guy is right. We're turning into a caste society, at least on the coasts.

Logging

Film: Election by Johnnie To

The comparisons to The Godfather are inaccurate. If anything, Election and Triad Election more resemble Goodfellas.  But the comparisons are meaningless -- the films are not as strong throughout as the American classics. But the final scene of Election is so remarkable...I can think of nothing to compare it to other than 2001 Space Odyssey (hint: not the end bit).

An Oldie, But A Goodie

The Niners should not pay Kaepernick.  This article nails it. Excerpts:

Put emotion aside. Think who Kaepernick is and what he’s accomplished. The 49ers dumped Alex Smith and anointed — yes anointed — Kaepernick to win the Super Bowl. Nothing less. They didn’t anoint him to lose the Super Bowl, something he’s already done. And they didn’t anoint him to lose in the NFC championship game. Smith already did that and he came pretty cheap. The 49ers expect Kaepernick to be above the Alex Level and you could argue forcibly he is not. The 49ers inserted Kaepernick into the best team in football as the final ingredient and he did not come through. For that, a man does not earn $20 million. Or $15 million. 

Still, if I’m the Niners, I don’t pay Kaepernick Flacco money. I don’t make him obscenely wealthy because I think one day he just might win a Super Bowl, not sure when. I don’t pay for hypotheticals. I pay for production. And I sure don’t ruin my salary structure for Kaepernick, don’t risk losing in free agency Anquan Boldin, Donte Whitner, Phil Dawson, Tarell Brown and others. I do not degrade my team to make Kaepernick happy.

The Super Bowl champion Ravens degraded their team — goodbye, Anquan — to satisfy Flacco, and they tanked this season. No thanks. 

I’ll tell you something else. If I’m the 49ers, I don’t sign Kaepernick to Flacco money because I (me being the 49ers) don’t ask much from my quarterback — at least not from Kaepernick as he currently exists. Flacco, Cutler, Russell Wilson, Philip Rivers — you name them — are vital to running their teams’ offenses. But the Niners run a glorified college passing game. I’m not the first to say this. Every Kaepernick read is predetermined — even that last failure of a pass to Michael Crabtree in Seattle. It’s something like, “Colin, just make the throw we tell you to make.” The 49ers do not ask him to read the field. It’s more like they tell him to look at the defense, decide in advance — hope — which receiver will be open and throw that sucker. This is not difficult. This is not Peyton Manning studying the field. Why should the Niners pay big money for something so remedial? I mean, really. The 49ers could get someone else to do that. On the cheap. 

Question: Why don’t the 49ers let Kaepernick play out his contract year and then slap the franchise tag on him after that? 

Offer Kaepernick a contract extension — although I’d have no problem making him play out his contract year for bupkis. But OK, offer him an extension for the goodwill of it. Offer $7 million a season, $8 million a season, stuff like that. Modest. Sensible. What he’s worth. Don’t expect him to take it. Let him play out his contract. If he wins the Super Bowl, give him the big bump he wants. If he doesn’t win the Super Bowl and wants more than you think he’s worth, let him walk.

I'm In

A Most Wanted Man.

This looks like my kind of movie.

First Good Simmons Article In Awhile

On Letterman retiring.

After Johnny Carson retired in 1992, David Letterman became the king and stayed the king, even as his show transitioned from antiestablishment to establishment. Leno drummed him in the ratings without matching Letterman’s relevance; he never mattered as much as Letterman did.

and this:

After Carson retired, only Letterman intimidated guests with his fame and talent, and later, everything else he came to mean. It’s probably not happening again. Even after I stopped watching Letterman regularly, like so many others, I always liked knowing he was still there.

Conan grabbed his “cool” corner first, then Stewart hijacked it for good (and graciously shared it with his buddy Stephen Colbert). But the multiyear Leno-to-Conan-to-Leno debacle kept Letterman relevant, if only because he seemed classier and more impressive by comparison. In 2014, “Jimmy vs. Jimmy” replaced “Jay vs. Dave” as late night’s ongoing narrative, with Fallon unexpectedly thriving by tapping into a new generation of Internet-savvy viewers. Fallon gushes over guests, plays mindless games with them and basically acts like they’re sleeping over in his bunk bed. He gravitates toward ideas that might catch on virally, like Kevin Bacon becoming the Footloose guy again, or Arnold saying “Get to the choppa.” It’s a relentlessly happy, well-structured, well-produced show built around a talented performer who doesn’t want to have a coherent conversation. With anyone. Nobody will ever fear going on Jimmy Fallon’s show. That’s the way he wants it.

You Better Have the Right Opinions

The new CEO of Mozilla was fired for having a political opinion.

We are now a country who goes after people's jobs when we disagree with one another.

I suppose we've tossed the old liberal saying "I don't agree with a word you said, but I'd fight to the death for your right to say it" and replaced it with "I don't agree with one of your opinions and therefore I'm going after your job."

And Will Saleton puts the shoe on the other foot.

Dissension. Building the team. Don’t fit. Sounds a lot like the case for removing Eich.

Two months ago Wayne Shimer of Des Moines, Iowa, sued his former employer after he was fired from his job at a convenience store. According to Shimer’s lawsuit, the store manager found out Shimer was gay and told him not to act "feminine" because it would “make customers and co-workers uncomfortable.” Shimer’s attorney says the manager made clear that “she didn't want his 'feminine behavior' to scare off the customers, and she was concerned that it may have some impact on some of the employees.”

Scare off customers. Make co-workers uncomfortable. Does that ring a bell?

Instapundit gets it right on American liberals:

I think, rather, that their view of liberalism is like Erdogan’s view of democracy — it’s a bus that you take until you get to your stop, at which point you get off.

Logging

TV: Banshee, pilot Episode

Almost good, but just a tad too cheesy. Some of the actors are good - the bad Amish guy, the female lead, Frankie Faisan. But others bring it down - the transvestite, the lead, and the Russian mobster. The show has some good ideas, but it'll be tough to stick with it.  Serial dramas are real challenges -- they inevitably become soap operas unless they have fantastic source material (ie GoT, Deadwood).  Even as good as True Detective was, it was smart to end where it did because the drama was going to spin into nonsense.  The Sopranos and The Wire are exceptions that prove the rule, in my opinion.  Both were created by men with massive stories to tell about cities they lived in -- and could draw from a massive well of source material (ie Mob coverage and/or city of Baltimore stories).

Logging

TV: Game of Thrones and Hannibal

One is my guilty pleasure (is guilty pleasure something you are embarrassed to enjoy?) and the other is the most impressive show on television.

Hannibal is preposterous, but the preposterous is just what franchises need.  And make no mistake, Hannibal Lector, a fictional cannibalistic serial killer, is one of the biggest franchises around.  What Marvel Character can stand up to this?

Red Dragon (book)
Manhunter (film)

Silence of the Lambs (book)

Silence of the Lambs (film)
Hannibal (novel)
Hannibal (film)
Red Dragon (film)
Hannibal Rising (novel)
Hannibal Rising (film)
Hannibal (TV Show)

I'd say none.  What this says about our culture, I don't want to know. But someone ought to write a dissertation on it.

Hannibal the TV show is the third best of the book adaptations after Silence of the Lambs and Manhunter.

Hannibal the show is far more creatively ambitious than anything Marvel does with their universe in the film and television realm.

Nothing to say about GoT other than I'm looking forward to the next episode.

Logging

Film: Enemy

Excellent filmmaking. Less interesting story. Overall, the movie a bit academic for my taste. Found myself checking email and the time. Also, a bit lacking in emotion. Nice ending, though. Spooky.

How long before Sarah Gadon gets cast as a Targaryen?

NCAA

Enjoyable final. One great aspect of the NCAA tournament is watching fatigue become a factor. The guys get really worn out at the end of the game and in a one-and-done tournament, there is no tomorrow. Great match up of speed and quickness versus size and strength.

My Letter to the Editor

Please stop the insanity of CicLAvia.

The last thing Los Angeles needs is more traffic.  Of all the streets in town, why close the main thoroughfare of the city, Wilshire Blvd?  There are plenty of other spots: Downtown; Skid Row, Figueroa St; Angeles Crest Highway; Ocean Blvd in Santa Monica, PCH.

And why are the events never well publicized to the residents?  It sneaks up on the locals and there's nothing worse than driving to an engagement and finding Wilshire completely closed and terrible traffic on Western and La Brea thoroughfares.  Carmageddon, the LA Marathon, all these events manage to publicize and allow residents to plan around them.  Even TV shows notify people in the neighborhood when they will be filming.
Traffic is one of the biggest problems in Los Angeles.  The organizers of CicLAvia seem to take a perverse delight in exacerbating it.

I doubt it'll get published.  So I'm glad to have a blog.

The Honorable Schoolboy and How I Knew The New Arrested Development Would Suck

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is one of my favorite books. It would come with me to the desert island if they said pick 5 to read for the rest of your life.  There's only a few big novels I've read multiple times - East of Eden, Tinker, Tailer, American Tabloid, Lonesome Dove -- can't think of others off the top of my head --

And yet, I've tried to read The Honorable Schoolboy (the sequel) at least 3-4 times now and I get progressively less far before putting it down.  Maybe it's because I own the "Quest for Karla" 3-bound books in a single volume and it feels weird to read it that way.  Maybe I need just a paperback.

But it says something strange -- that here there is an all time favorite -- and you go with same author, some of the same characters, the same world, and even a continuation of the same story...and it becomes unreadable. How does such a thing happen?  Because writing and creating fiction is a magic trick and a mystery.

The Sitcom

In my opinion, the greatest of the TV forms.  It can pull things like this off.

TV Drama, on the other hand, can only deliver lesser versions of what the cinema or novels already do.  I suppose the best of the TV dramas give the non-readers the closest approximation to reading and a good reason to sit on the couch.

Who Will Replace Letterman?

I assume they'll use the Louie episode as a rough draft.

The only interesting person I can think of would be Seinfeld.

Logging

Restaurant: Church and State

Fancy French Bistro very near skid row. Strange town, Los Angeles. Charcuterie plate good. French onion soup good. Gin martini good. Salad good. Overall, a tasty, hip, pricey place to dine. I probably won't be going back soon.

Hike: Ferndell Street. Up to the observatory. My new favorite LA hike. No need to ever do Runyon. Santa Monica mountains still great, but for the proximity to my place and sites, this one is tough to beat. Can't believe I've lived in LA all these years and never done this one. Dumb. And you can get coffee and treats at the Trials restaurant.

Logging

Film:  Carrie (1952)

Directed by William Wyler, starring Laurence Olivier.  I believe the filmmakers of The Artist were influenced by this film.

I didn't love the movie, but it was good and certainly falls under the category of "they don't make them like they used to."

Logging

Book:  The Secret Pilgrim by John Le Carre

My third favorite of Le Carre after Tinker Tailor and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.  Clever structure, a bit like a book of short stories, divided by chapters, but has a cohesiveness I enjoyed.  My favorite short chapter was about Smiley giving a pair of parents a chance to remember their criminal son fondly.  I got misty.

And now check out what Smiley said in 1990 and think about Crimea and Putin today:

"The first is no, we can never trust the Bear. For one reason, the Bear doesn't trust himself. The Bear is threatened and the Bear is frightened and the Bear is falling apart. The Bear is disgusted with his past, sick of his present and scared stiff of his future. He often was. The Bear is broke, lazy, volatile, incompetent, slippery, dangerously proud, dangerously armed, sometimes brilliant, often ignorant. Without his claws, he'd be just another chaotic member of the Third World. But he isn't without his claws, not by any means. And he can't pull his soldiers back from foreign parts overnight, for the good reason that he can't house them or feed them or employ them, and he doesn't trust them either. And since this Service is the hired keeper of our national mistrust, we'd be neglecting our duty if we relaxed for one second our watch on the Bear, or on any of his unruly cubs. That's the first answer."

There is a second answer as well and Le Carre, as usual, is of two minds.  Maybe our foreign policy establishment should read more fiction.

Maybe I'll Only Appreciate Kobe When He's Gone

Kobe is an asshole.  But sometimes assholes are what society needs.  He's right on this:

When I brought up LeBron James posting online a photo of the Heat players dressed in hoodies, with their heads bowed, in solidarity with Trayvon Martin, as political expression, Bryant seemed nonplussed. "I won't react to something just because I'm supposed to, because I'm African-American," he said. "That argument doesn't make sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and as a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African-American, we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we've progressed as a society? Well, if we've progressed as a society, then you don't jump to somebody's defense just because they're African-American. You sit and you listen to the facts just like you would in any other situation, right? So I won't assert myself."

7 Million

Does the 7 million number make Obamacare a success?

The jury is still out.  And just wait until people start getting fined for not signing up.  Then we'll see if the so-called "mandate" works.

Did The Game Really Happen?

If you can't watch the Dodgers in LA, did the game really happen?

Magic Johnson better get on this one...

Gangster Bankers

Get ready to be outraged.  David Simon predicts we are entering the golden age of corruption because the local press is decimated.  I'd say we're already here.

Smart, But...

Sheryl Sandberg sells half of her Facebook shares.  A smart move, no doubt, but if your COO is bailing out of the stock, it doesn't exactly bode well for the long term prospects of the company.  Just goes to show what I already suspect: the whole thing is a pyramid scheme.