The Month That Was - January 2018

I don't make New Year's resolutions. If it is important to do something, why wait until 1/1? Just start doing it. Waiting until some point in the future is just rationalizing procrastination. If it's a bad habit you are going to quit, I seriously doubt whether giving yourself a some cushion time to continue your bad habit before you go cold turkey on 1/1 is going help at all.

On the other hand, it's just a harmless little cultural touchpoint and I should stop being such a wet blanket.

I've pretty much distilled my plan for good living down to two principles:

1. 1) Whenever possible, enhance the lives of the people I care about.
2. 2) Fight sloth (the Deadly Sin, not the adorable forest creature).

If I do those things, most everything else falls into place. I've been fairly successful at #1, I think. Probably less so at #2. In any event, they will remain for now.

Like many people I spent the bulk of January sick. I only had a head cold of sorts -- no flu -- but it was a doozy and while a standard cold lasts four days with me, this one hung on for a full two weeks. Then, after a couple of days good health, I caught another cold which continues to this day (which is why this is so late). I can barely remember what it was like to breathe freely.

[TV] Forehead Sweat of the Flukeman
[Ann Arbor] Stupid Drunken Kids, Yesterday and Today
[Travel] Messin' With Texas

[TV] Forehead Sweat of the Flukeman

In a thousand years, when the bizarre cyber-humans look back at these times, they will sneer smugly at the pathetic ignorance of the last millenia, just like every generation of humans before them has, but not without pausing to observe: "But Darin Morgan sure was great, though."

Many years ago I wrote an appreciation of Darin Morgan's work on the original X files and it's short lived spin-off, Millenium, which has, remarkably, totally vanished from the Internet. I didn't think you could make something completely disappear from the internet if you tried, but I can't even find it in the Wayback Machine. I originally published it on blogcritics.com. (The happy, friendly old site, not the new slick one, from which it has been summarily removed along with apparently, virtually all articles from that time. Or at least all my articles. Somebody should open an X-file.)

The good news in that I get to write it again for you now, in honor of another brilliant effort from Morgan on the latest X-files, "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat". Before we get to the resurrected X-files, let's review what he wrote for for the original series and Millenium.

Humbug -- Set in an encampment of carnival freaks, Mulder and Scully investigate the Fiji Mermaid which turns out to be a parasitic twin. Extended ruminations on the nature and desirability of normalcy and abnormalcy. Also self-impalement and cannibalism, all in good humor.

Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose -- an Emmy winner. Clyde Bruckman can see your death when he touches you. So naturally, he's a life insurance salesman. The topic here is free will versus determinism. Also autoerotic asphyxiation is no way to die.

War of the Coprophages -- A lighter theme of how we react to perceptions rather than reality. Robot cockroaches cause mass hysteria, an entomologist named Bambi and a Stephen Hawking doppelganger mix it up with Mulder and Scully.

Jose Chung's From Outer Space -- Quite possibly the finest teleplay ever written. Seemingly about the way reality can be shaped by second-hand description, the episode is exceedingly technically adept. There are moments where you are three flashbacks deep, yet you never lose your place. The step-by-step plot of is almost too complicated to describe. Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek are Men in Black. Charles Nelson Reilly is Jose Chung. You will fear Lord Kinbote. Just an tremendous accomplishment all the way around.

Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense -- Jose Chung returns, this time to Millenium and in a battle with a Cult of Selfosophy (probably meant to parody Scientology) and its founder, failed writer Juggernaut Onan Goopta. Fun is made of all the trouble that comes from worrying about being "too dark," a criticism leveled at the series itself.

Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me -- Another from MIllenium. Four demons share coffee and recount their adventures that brought them into contact with Frank Black. The dark comedy of the stories only serves to reveal the pathos of the demons.

Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster -- From the first season of the reborn X-Files, this seems like a standard issue b-movie horror film from the 50s, but a twist at the end makes you wonder who the monster is. Also, Mulder is confounded by his iPhone. (Probably Darin's weakest work, but still head and shoulders above the rest of that abysmal season.)

The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat -- Which brings us to the latest and a brilliant return to form. A strange man appears and tries to convince Mulder and Scully that all their memories are fake, that he was their partner in the X-files over all those years and that there is one man out their, Dr. They, altering everybody's reality with impunity. This is Morgan's take on the "post-truth" world (and he does take a cheap shot or two at Trump, specifically). Whatever the reality, at least we know it's not parallel universes -- that's just crazy. This episode should have been the series finale, since it appears there will be no more episodes after this season.

In all of these scripts, Morgan uses self-referential parody to break the show's tone, opening up his own canvas. His characters then spin in a blender of existential moral and philosophical conundrums, which remain unsolved and broken, leaving them with only their humanity to hold on to. At the end of Jose Chung's From Outer Space, all the supernatural and conspiratorial machinations are for naught and we are left with the bewildered adolescent who started it all, sadly declaring his unrequited love. In Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me, when the demons are done cackling and bragging about all the chaos, sorrow, and pain they've sown, Frank Black looks at them and hits home with, "You must be so lonely." In The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat, once all the surreal upending of the truth has passed, Scully yearns to hold on to it saying, "I want to remember all of it. Exactly as it was." This is where Morgan suprasses the crowd. In the end, it all comes back to simple heartfelt emotions, often elegiac. In the face of the mad and the madcap, when all is said and done, what remains is humanity.

My words do not do justice to the supreme irony, humor, and structural elegance of these stories. You should binge them. You're welcome.

[Ann Arbor] Stupid Drunken Kids, Yesterday and Today

One of the first things I did when I left for college was get drunk a lot. The year was 1978 and the drinking age was 18. The following year it would be raised to 21, without a grandfather clause. Thus I was legal to drink for a year before the privilege was taken away. Like everyone my age, I was righteously indignant and saw myself as horrible repressed. The fact is, it was probably the right move for the State of Michigan, at least based on my performance during my year of legality.

The place to get drunk for me was an Ann Arbor bar called Dooley's. It was an absolute zoo. Surly, power-drunk bouncers mixed with pompous, trouble-seeking frat boys in the land of 2-for-1 pitchers of Budweiser. The place was two levels tall, reeked of mold and vomit, and was packed Thursday through Saturday nights. Many nights were spent there downing cheap and horrendous lagers with assorted groups of my dorm floor buddies. The epic drunken stagger back to the dorm could involve anything from lewd behavior to public urination to property damage. One thing it never involved was women. We skillfully avoided harassing women by being pretty much invisible to them. We also never got our asses kicked by equally drunken athletes, though we might have deserved to now and then.

I don't recount this in the spirit of laughing at the folly of youth as a warm memory. We were idiots; myself most prominently. Stupidity and waste are nothing to celebrate even in youth. It's tempting to say that I had to spend some time as a complete fool to learn how not to be one, but there are plenty of people who manage to be solid citizens without a long and glamorous stage of asshattery. Be that as it may, it is factually the path of my life. Hopefully I can laugh about it without taking pride in it.

All this comes to mind because after the drinking age was raised, Dooley's became the place you knew you could probably get a drink without getting carded. I do not know if this was intentional or not; whether the bartenders chose to ignore the law or if they were just as stupid as the patrons. Sited many times for violations of the years, Dooley's closed its doors and after an incarnation or two as an unsuccessful restaurant the building re-opened a few years ago under new, but like-minded management, as Scorekeepers. Turns out, some things don't change. Here are a smattering of Google review quotes:

• What a terrible place for anyone over 20. I totally advise against even thinking about entering the premise. It's full of frat boys and college girls with little else to do than drink. Terrible.
• Probably the filthiest place in all of downtown Ann Arbor. Just walking by it smells horrific.
• Like the atmosphere but got kicked out after some kid was trying to start stuff for no reason
• Smells like hot garbage and raw sewage every day walking past this place. The city ought to shut this place down.
• Best college bar in existence. Debauchery, babes, cheap drinks.
• Staff is very rude and banned me for something that makes no sense after being a loyal customer each week for years and causing no issues. Tap lines are never cleaned is why the draft beer tastes bad. They also pack the bar to over double the recommended capacity so many fights result.

Ah, yes. Those brought back memories. But under the heading of Deja Vu, it looks like the same story line from 40 years is replaying: The cops want to shut 'em down.

The business model of Have a Slimy Bar that No One in Their Right Mind Would Go To and Make Profit on the Underaged Who Can't Go Anywhere Else is a time honored one. So sure close 'em down. Another one will rise in short order, probably in the same building. Demand dictates supply and as long as the kids want to drink, some place will come along to fill the bill and make a quick few years of profits before getting shut down.

It's the circle of life in a college town.

[Travel] Messin' with Texas

I was in Texas. I've been to Texas before. It's a bit of an odd place to a Great Lakes boy.

Dallas is like any other big city, although the lack of zoning gives it an unusual flavor. Residential areas and commercial areas are deeply intermixed.

Austin is, of course, a one-off. It's really a displaced coastal town with a western theme.

I once drove Carlsbad NM to Las Cruces NM on I-62 which is a stretch of freeway that runs through West Texas and El Paso. I stopped for a hike in the Guadalupe Mountains (lovely, and sparsely visited). I was stopped at a border patrol station and quickly scanned for illegals. And I was stunned by the endless strings of used car lots along the border.

This time I was in Houston, about which there is little to say. It seems like a decent place. Folks there are proud of their reaction to the recent hurricane and their resilience, and rightly so. I remember how the hand wringing in New Orleans went on for years. There was no such reaction from Houstonians. For the fourth largest city in the nation, it's remarkably unremarkable (that's a compliment). And it's growing enormously. Houston is growing at a rate of 9-ish percent since 2010, but that is obscuring the fact that the surrounding cities such as Pearland and College Station and are growing at rates beyond 20%. The area in what is probably a four hour drive radius including San Antonio, Austin, and Houston is just exploding. One suspects it will overshadow L.A. and D.C. given time. The country will be the better for it.

Texans have strong identity. It waxes and wanes in different parts of the state though. Houston and Dallas I saw little of it. I saw some in Austin, although there it is tinged by hipster irony. It is pretty prominent in San Antonio (notably, the seventh largest city in the U.S.), home of The Alamo, and the target of a side trip. The Alamo is a fine place to visit. It strikes a good balance of history and curiosity. It is one of the rare U.S. monuments that is clearly geared toward Red Staters; most such places hold the mainstream leftish-progressive line in their tone. It's just off the famous Riverwalk, which is also a fine place to visit and a unique social center. Luckily it was chilly and off-season, otherwise it would have been packed to the gills, and rightly so. The bars and restaurants on the Riverwalk proper are not particularly outstanding, but it's the setting that counts. Well worth a visit.

Nowhere in Texas have I ever stayed long enough to get a real feel for the place. But, as is clear, it's not just one place. Visiting for a day or two here and there and then passing judgment on Texas is like visiting Hong Kong and Beijing and claiming you understand China. My guess is that it's just fine, and while I wouldn't go out of my way to live there, I would be disappointed if I found myself a resident. Judging from its population and economic growth, the market thinks it's one of the best places. That's a more valuable recommendation that my opinion.