Travel Rewind: The Gold-Plated Swamp (2002): (The second of two trip reposts from long ago, in honor of my most recent trip to the Sunshine State.)
What kind of idiot goes to Florida in the middle of August?
Look, the day I left Michigan it had been in the 90s for most of the past three weeks, so exactly what sort of heat was I avoiding by staying up north? Besides, I had some long neglected family down there, I was about to collide with my company's use-it-or-lose-it vacation policy, and I really needed some distance from my life to get myself back into the groove of fiction writing. Combine this with off-season rates and it all made sense. I wanted to see Sanibel Island and points south, so I arranged to fly into Ft. Myers, drive north to Sarasota for a couple of days for the family visit, then back down to Ft. Myers for a week of gulf-coastal exploration.
After a blessedly uneventful flight on Delta, I picked up my rental car from Alamo with an equally blessed eventlessness. For the heck of it, I rented a Jeep Wrangler.
A Jeep Wrangler is an intentionally crude vehicle. Road and wind noise are deafening. The engine howls in pain at the mere thought of acceleration. The ride will induce you to pass blood in your urine. Parts just fall off -- quality control is vintage 1970s American Motors. The tires whine at the slightest turn of the wheel. And it sucks gas faster than Michael Moore sucks chocolate shakes, primarily because it is somewhat less aerodynamic than a block of cement. All this is part of the genuine military, off-road, old-fashioned, no sissified luxuries, Jeep mystique (except for the CD player, A/C, automatic transmission, cruise control, and so forth).
But: the top peels off, the doors pop off, the windows zip off -- and in that condition there is no better way to tool around southwest Florida.
The first stop was Sarasota, a city I've visited many times over the years and it's become a pleasant surprise. It used to be a bunch of strip malls and fairly nasty restaurants and a lot of old folks driving around at 30 miles an hour no matter the speed limit. Now it's gone fully upscale. There are any number of fine restaurants, high-tone shopping malls that pride themselves serving the nouveau riche, and the place is crawling with latest model German sedans, and I don't mean Volkswagens (all going 30 miles an hour).
I stayed at the Holiday Inn on Lido beach, a lovely stretch of sand on one of the keys just off the mainland. I was only staying for a day or two, so I didn't much care about where I stayed and the description sounded decent, plus I got a good rate. Remembering the Holiday Inns along the highways from family road trips when I was a mere lad, I honestly didn't expect much. I was pleasantly surprised. The Lido Beach Holiday Inn sits directly across a lightly traveled shoreline road from the Gulf of Mexico. About a ten minute walk will get you to St. Armand's Circle, a terrific little shopping/dining location situated around a large circular turnaround in the road. No Holiday Inn is a Hyatt or a Ritz, but this one had a lot going for it -- a lounge in the lobby, a nice restaurant on the top floor where you could sit and watch the sunset, a decent pool, and, like I said, a prime location. Given the great off-season rates I can see it being a great place for a family on a budget to spend a week. I wouldn't hesitate to stay there again.
One of my all time favorite Sarasota activities is the Ringling Museum of Art, founded by John Ringling of Ringling Bros. Circus fame. Lest you think that's the equivalent of the Krusty the Clown Opera House, understand that John Ringling was a great patron of the arts and the Ringling Museum is probably the premier fine arts institution of the South. Yes, there is a Circus museum on the grounds, but it's much deemphasized. The art museum is loaded down with great works. You are hit with a series of towering Rubens upon entrance -- the collection is heavy on Old Masters. In the center is a beautiful courtyard filled with classical statues. It's really quite picturesque.
Another gem is Ca d'Zan, the Ringling family mansion. Probably the best way to describe it is that you could just picture Jay Gatsby wandering around on the terrace amidst scores of revelers. Everything about the house is ornate in the extreme. The guided tour gives you the impression that that partying never stopped and no expense was spared. I had been through the house years before when it was in an advanced state of disrepair, but after a long and expensive restoration, it's a site to behold.
All this is situated among verdant pathways with enormous banyan trees at every turn. It's a wonderful spot for a museum junkie like me to spend a day.
Following a 2-hour freeway ride in the Jeep (not a pleasant experience), I was back in Ft. Myers and checking in to the Sanibel Harbor Resort, which would be my base of operations for explorations south.
I cannot recommend Sanibel Harbor Resort. Have you ever seen Singing in the Rain? The premise is that there is this famously beautiful actress who made her fame in silent pics, but along come the talkies and everyone discovers her voice is cringe-inducing. That's what Sanibel Harbor Resort is like. It is unbelievably beautiful -- the grounds, the views -- and filled with friendly employees, but scratching that pristine surface is like nails on a chalkboard.
Among other things, they provided a wired in-room internet connection but the only Ethernet cord they provided was about two feet long and the jack was beneath around the back of a night stand so effectively I had to sit on the floor and use the bed as my desk. They left the sliding door to the balcony open one day and I came back to a room full of mosquitoes. They left the door to my room wedged open for several hours such that anybody could have walked in and stolen my $3000 laptop. And to finish up, they completely ignored my pleas for redress to management. NEVER STAY AT SANIBEL HARBOUR RESORT. [update: I am bitter about it to this day - dam]
Just across a short toll bridge sits Sanibel Island. About half of Sanibel Island -- the side of the island facing the mainland -- is protected wildlife habitat. On the rest of the island development is strictly controlled and there are obviously extensive regulations controlling commercial ventures. There is effectively one long two lane road that runs the length of the island. It is along here that most for the commercial activity goes on. Shops boutiques, restaurants abound, but are for the most part set back from road, with small, tastefully done signs and cute names like The Hungry Heron and the Lazy Flamingo. My personal favorite was the sushi at the open air Key Lime Caf‚.
The beaches are the same broad, white sand, clear green water beaches you get throughout the southwest gulf coast. They are especially prized for shell collecting (not a big hobby of mine), and one of the largest shell stores in the world, Sanibel Seashell Industries is located on the island. Beach parking can be expensive by the hour, or you can go the route of buying a permit. Either way there is no guarantee of space availability.
One thing about Sanibel: they do not make it all that easy just to drop in for a visit. Traffic is horrendous in-season (they say), and parking is tough and expensive. And it's three bucks and a bit of a wait in line just to get on to the island from the mainland. This is undoubtedly done intentionally to make sure anyone visiting does so out of desire and not whim, making a visit to Sanibel a planned event and something to be done with a certain sincerity. Probably this helps them maintain the island and keep the riff raff away. It works. Despite the development and numerous resorts, some of significant size, it retains a little, hidden away, tropical island feel that accounts for its charm and popularity.
Telling facts about Sanibel Island: 1) There is a $500 fine for littering. 2) There is a $500 fine for feeding an alligator (it's a bit worrisome that such an activity needs to be actively discouraged). 3) There is only an $80 fine for not yielding to a pedestrian at a crosswalk. It's all about priorities.
I can't think of a better place to spend a day bopping from beach to bar to beach in a Jeep Wrangler with the top dropped than Sanibel Island.
Ft. Myers Beach, immediately south of Ft. Myers proper, would have to be considered the area's party focus. A resident described it to me as a "former Spring Break destination" and I could see that. (Like everything else, spring break has gone upscale from gulf beaches to exotic Caribbean and Mexican destinations.) Whereas the rest of southwest gulf coast pushes hard to focus on the upscale Ft. Myers Beach is all about fun. It's definitely a younger crowd. The beaches, though still broad and white sand, are swarming with active folks; Frisbees, beach balls, and various objects are being tossed about; Boston Whaler-esque boats are flitting back and forth; and there appears to be an unbroken line of beach bars about half a mile long -- something I saw nowhere else along the coast. There's even a beachside Hooter's. You won't see that on Sanibel. Ever.
Accommodations at Ft. Meyers Beach are of the mostly of the motel variety -- right on, or across the street, from the beach. There don't appear to be any big resorts (but the motels probably treat you better than Sanibel Harbor Resort anyway -- sorry, bitter moment). As you move further south, there are a number of larger buildings labeled as "beach clubs," with severe-looking parking attendants to prevent beach crashers. "Beach club," as it turns out, is a euphemism for time-share condos. Cute.
I can see where Ft. Myers Beach would be an ideal destination for a family road trip. Check-in to an inexpensive motel. The kids play in the water while Mom gets all nice and tan while reading the latest Grisham, and Dad sneaks away for an afternoon Bud Light or two at the Hooter's beach bar. Work in a day trip to a shell store, a couple rounds of miniature golf, a parasail ride, a fishing expedition, and lots of snapshots with a disposable camera and you got yourself a family vacation to make Chevy Chase green with envy.
The furthest point south I reached was Marco Island. It barely rates a mention. In marked contrast to Sanibel, Marco Island appears to have been leveled of anything resembling nature then re-populated with megalithic condominium high rises. It has one publicly accessible beach, Tigertail Beach, that was mis-located on my map and if it wasn't for my laser surgery flawless vision I never would have seen the microscopic roadside sign to point me in the right direction. The rest of the beaches -- none of which you can see from the road since they are blocked out by the high rises, are for residents only. By the time I got to Tigertail Beach it was late afternoon so I passed on the three dollar entrance fee and decided to drive around the island to see the sights. There are none. Just huge buildings and a bunch of strip malls. Basically, Marco Island is your standard land-locked suburb dropped on to an island off the gulf coast.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Head back north again from Marco Island and your next stop is the heavenly city of Naples. Where to begin? I liked Naples so much I went twice.
Central to Naples are the 3rd Street South shopping district and the 5th Avenue South shopping district, both filled with boutiques on a par with Rodeo Drive, and many, many fine restaurants with sidewalk cafes or open air bars. Naples is one of the wealthiest cities extant. I grabbed a sidewalk lunch and wandered about a bit to get my bearings, then walked down to the beach.
I know it seems like beach after beach has the same monotonously perfect description: broad white sand, and clear green water. The beach at Naples was like that, only more so. I still can't describe why it was the best one of the trip. I don't know what it was. Maybe the water was just that much clearer. Maybe the sand was just that much whiter. Maybe it was the sight of folks strolling along the long pier, as opposed to the unbroken shoreline everywhere else. I just don't know how I knew, but I knew this was a special spot. I didn't have my bathing suit so I had to be content with a barefoot walk along the edge of the waves and promise to myself to return.
Back in town, I stopped for a quick drink at the excellent Yabba Island Grill. A friendly, open-all-the-French-doors restaurant designed to exude a strong Caribbean vibe, and accordingly, they specialize in rum. Now, lots of places have great wine lists. Lots of places have great beer lists. Lots of places have great lists of Single Malts. There are even plenty of places with excellent lists of Bourbons. But this is the first place I've come across that has a huge Rum list. This is not mix-with-Coke or blend-in-your-daiquiri rum. This is sipping rum -- meant to drink straight. So that's what I did, I tried one called Anniversaro from Venezuela; it has a delicious, complex flavor that made me vow to spend more time with quality rum in the future. Yo-ho-ho.
On my second visit I took a short time-out to visit the Naples Zoo. It's not a big zoo, really, but it was a nice diversion. There is a large central pond filled with alligators and turtles where they hold feedings every few hours. This amounts to someone dangling whole fryers from a rope, demonstrating how high the gators can leap out of the water to get it. It worked a couple of times, but the gators are so fat and happy they get bored. So to fill out the show, questions along the lines of "Does anybody know how long alligators live?" are shouted out to the crowd. Without exception, the children in the audience knew the answers to every question. They may not know who won the war of 1812, but they've got the world according to Animal Planet down pat.
Funny thing about southwest Florida: for all the development and commerciality along the coast, there are reminders everywhere that it is just a civilized face covering a palm and cypress swamp. You are, after all, on the edge of the Everglades. Anyone who has visited Florida can attest to the ubiquitous presence of those ever-so-cute little lizards. I was lazing by the pool one day when I noticed an injured fly on the ground struggling to escape the ants chaotically swarming about, looking to make a meal of it. Suddenly, one of those lizards darts out from under a bush and snags the fly with one bite, leaving the ants looking like they had been mugged. It was sort of like a scene from a National Geographic nature special in miniature.
Alligators loom large everywhere you go, from the signs prohibiting feeding on Sanibel, to the staged gator feeding at the zoo, where you are informed that the gators don't hesitate to take birds
and any other fauna that happens near their pond, to the fact that the highway that cuts across the Everglades to Miami is called Alligator Alley. South of Naples there are long stretches of road, what we would call 'country road' in the Midwest, with the cypressy, swampy, grass crawling almost up to the edge. A broken down Jeep, a man on foot, a snap of a tail, a lot of sharp teeth, and yours truly would have become just another tourist causality statistic. That is, if the gator left enough uneaten to be identified.
Back to Naples beach, this time with the appropriate gear. In the residential area just outside the Naples shopping districts there are a string of east-west streets which dead-end on small parking areas adjacent to the beach. I pulled the jeep into one spaces only to find myself without any change for the meter. No way was I going to waste precious beach time trying to find change for a buck so I just double parked.
I spread my towel, slathered on SPF 30 and lay in the sun. I realized I had been rushing around trying to be a thorough traveler ever since I arrived in Florida. I became aware of a tightness in my jaw and a worried furrow in my brow. I tried to read, but I couldn't keep my concentration. I tried to sleep but only drifted fitfully. I rose and went for a brief walk up the beach.
A largish family were chattering in some vaguely Eastern European dialect while their kids darted in an out of the water (imagine the Florida gulf coast versus, say, Belarus). A woman had her lounge chair placed at the very edge of the surf so she could tan while dipping her toes in the water. Two teenage girls walked by, complaining about boys. An infant boy cried out in terror when the surf got hold of his sand pail, until his father retrieved it. Some people sat serenely under umbrellas. Others, already too tan, lay drenched in oil, angled to maximize exposure. Out in the water, gulls dive bombed for unsuspecting fish -- completely submerging before arising with their prey not ten yards from swimming humans; more Darwinian nature amidst civilized luxury.
I waded out until the dead-calm water was up to my chin. Schools of minnow-like fish stayed in close proximity, hoping my presence would deter the gulls. I floated on my back allowing the buoyant salt-water to support me. The sky was bare and blue. And I found something I had been looking for. For a little while, I stopped.
Stopped wondering if the double-parked Jeep would get a ticket.
Stopped fretting over lousy hotels.
Stopped wringing my hands about what awaited me when I returned to work.
Stopped agonizing over my stalled writing career.
Stopped mentally preparing for the trip home.
Stopped plotting how I would do things differently if I could.
When I finally did pull myself off the beach and drag myself back home, I was able to see all the small events of the previous two weeks as part of the whole of a fine coastal tour, laced with all the enjoyment and frustration that are why we travel.
Even to Florida in the middle of August.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Monday, February 02, 2009
The Month That Was - January 2009
The Month That Was - January 2009: We had a string of days in the middle of the month where I glanced at the thermometer in my car and consistently saw a minus sign for the outside temp. Ugh. Actually, the whole month has been a bloody aggravation. I had tech issues (see below). I took my car into the Toyota dealer for a half-hour oil change and left 4 hours later down $800. I tried to figure out a way to get down to Florida for a break from the cold, but failed miserably. Combined with a couple of other major foul-ups I think I am out around $1200 in unexpected repairs and idiotic purchases. Let's just say this year's tax refund can't come soon enough. And worst of all, after I wrote last month about Chad Pennington being the sort of rock solid QB a team needs to win in the NFL, he proceeds to meltdown in the biggest game of his life. Thanks for getting my back, Chad.
Check out my photos of the local winter over at SmugMug. T.S. Eliot was wrong. January is the cruelest month.
Tech Annoyances
Book Look: Resume with Monsters
Flick Check: I'm Not There
Book Look: Ficciones
Know Your (Planck) Limitations
Broken Record on Detroit
Travel Rewind: Detroit Auto Show '03
Check out my photos of the local winter over at SmugMug. T.S. Eliot was wrong. January is the cruelest month.
Tech Annoyances
Book Look: Resume with Monsters
Flick Check: I'm Not There
Book Look: Ficciones
Know Your (Planck) Limitations
Broken Record on Detroit
Travel Rewind: Detroit Auto Show '03
Tech Annoyances
Tech Annoyances: The new year started out with the Zune bug. I guess it was actually New Year's Eve, but every Zune of a certain model -- a first-generation 30 gig model -- suddenly stopped working at midnight Greenwich Mean Time on 12/31/08. This is, of course, the model I have. What happened was, in the middle of the night when I was fast asleep, the Zune kicked on, got locked on the splash screen with the hard disk whirring along at top speed, and no combination resets or USB connections or four letter words would have any effect. Trolling the web soon revealed this to be a global epidemic triggered when SkyNet became self-aware...no wait, I mean triggered by a chip from a third party vendor that gacked when confronted with the 366th day in the year. Yes, three years ago, some idiot software developer hard-coded a 365-day year into the device.
It took about 5 minutes for the internet to light up with reports of this. Before the guys at Microsoft even got out of bed, somebody had pointed out that since it happened to everybody and it happened shortly after the internal clocks of the devices crossed over into leap day, the likely culprit was some idiot programmer hard-coding 365. By about 6 pm Microsoft finally confirmed what we already knew -- that some idiot programmer had hard-coded 365 -- and said to just let the player run down until the battery drains, then recharge it and let it restart after the New Year and you would be good to go.
In treading the Zune.net boards looking for info I was amazed by how many people still owned and used this player but I shouldn't have been. Despite being a generation or two old, there is no reason not to. Unlike Apple, MS has been good about keeping their legacy players up to date with new software and functionality. And you would be surprised how much music you can store on 30 gig. My entire music collection only takes up about 20.
The other thing I was surprised about was how the user comments on the Zune.net bulletin boards ranged from utterly useless to completely insane. Even after the official response from MS was posted, people by the hundreds felt the need to post saying their Zune wasn't working (we knew this, it was the reason the thread existed). Others felt the need to demand an immediate fix from MS (um, even if MS could get a fix written and tested in less than 24 hours, your Zune was locked up, how are they supposed to get the fix on your player when you player doesn't work - some kind of Jedi mind trick maybe?). Some howled about whether there would be the same problem four years from now. (Well, they have four years to post a fix. If they fail, you will be without your then 8-year-old Zune for twenty-four hours at the end of the year 2012 -- it'll be hell, but I suspect you'll survive.) Unreal.
Despite the short outage, I still love my Zune. I would take it over even the flashiest iPod any day (except leap day).
I had a more serious problem with Sirius (heh heh). Simply put, my original old school Sirius Sportster, that lives in an aftermarket cradle in my car, stopped working. The audio was intermittently failing more and more often until finally, it ceased altogether. This was a bigger problem than it seemed because they no longer make the original Sportster model, which is the only one that will fit in my cradle. A call to Sirius support confirmed that It's Dead Jim.
So now I had a decision. A) I could hunt around for a used one. Relatively inexpensive, but risky. B) I could buy a newer version of the Sportster, but that would require a new cradle purchase and a new installation. And another problem is that the Sportster transmits it's audio to the car radio via FM. Because of an FCC ruling, the newer Sportsters transmit a much weaker signal than the older ones. Would the weaker signal still work? Expensive and somewhat risky. C) In addition to a new Sportster and cradle I could also get a new el cheapo car stereo that has an aux input jack in the front so I no longer have to use the FM transmission. Very expensive. 4) I could get a new car stereo that has built Sirius built in so I don't need an external unit at all. Also very expensive.
I went the cheap route. Won an auction on eBay for a used original Sportster via some egregiously cutthroat last minute bidding -- $47, and it came with a boombox. A quick call to Sirius to transfer my account almost became more expensive that the unit itself. Apparently there is a $75 fee to transfer a lifetime account to a new unit. I pled my case that I was not upgrading by choice, my previous unit died. Fee waived. I must say that Sirius tech support was exemplary in my calls to them. Zero wait; intelligent and knowledgeable reps; seemed anxious to help rather than just get you off the phone.
I do recommend Sirius (although I don't think you can get a lifetime sub anymore). It is about a million times better than terrestrial radio. Often people ask, "Who needs radio? Why not just listen to your iPod in the car?" The answer is that radio can be fresh. If you are only used to terrestrial radio with its typical playlists of about thirteen songs in rotation, you may not realize that with the enormous number of formats Sirius offers, you would have to have a pretty big MP3 collect to match it. You can think of Sirius stations as a set of giant, constantly updated playlists for various music formats, all set on shuffle. As much as I listen to my Zune collection, sometimes it's just better when you don't know what is coming next. Personally, my unit has been set to the Little Steven's Underground Garage for many months straight.
So my two tech annoyances this month had happy endings. Speaking of good experiences, if were to give away annual tech awards, my award for most reliable gadget would go to my SMC wireless router. I went through a NetGear and a Linksys unit, both of which failed immediately after their warranty was up. The SMC has been barreling on through power outages and equipment updates without a hitch. Never. Not one. Since I got my SMC I have never lost my wireless connection. That's saying something given my router history. No doubt I've jinxed myself.
It took about 5 minutes for the internet to light up with reports of this. Before the guys at Microsoft even got out of bed, somebody had pointed out that since it happened to everybody and it happened shortly after the internal clocks of the devices crossed over into leap day, the likely culprit was some idiot programmer hard-coding 365. By about 6 pm Microsoft finally confirmed what we already knew -- that some idiot programmer had hard-coded 365 -- and said to just let the player run down until the battery drains, then recharge it and let it restart after the New Year and you would be good to go.
In treading the Zune.net boards looking for info I was amazed by how many people still owned and used this player but I shouldn't have been. Despite being a generation or two old, there is no reason not to. Unlike Apple, MS has been good about keeping their legacy players up to date with new software and functionality. And you would be surprised how much music you can store on 30 gig. My entire music collection only takes up about 20.
The other thing I was surprised about was how the user comments on the Zune.net bulletin boards ranged from utterly useless to completely insane. Even after the official response from MS was posted, people by the hundreds felt the need to post saying their Zune wasn't working (we knew this, it was the reason the thread existed). Others felt the need to demand an immediate fix from MS (um, even if MS could get a fix written and tested in less than 24 hours, your Zune was locked up, how are they supposed to get the fix on your player when you player doesn't work - some kind of Jedi mind trick maybe?). Some howled about whether there would be the same problem four years from now. (Well, they have four years to post a fix. If they fail, you will be without your then 8-year-old Zune for twenty-four hours at the end of the year 2012 -- it'll be hell, but I suspect you'll survive.) Unreal.
Despite the short outage, I still love my Zune. I would take it over even the flashiest iPod any day (except leap day).
I had a more serious problem with Sirius (heh heh). Simply put, my original old school Sirius Sportster, that lives in an aftermarket cradle in my car, stopped working. The audio was intermittently failing more and more often until finally, it ceased altogether. This was a bigger problem than it seemed because they no longer make the original Sportster model, which is the only one that will fit in my cradle. A call to Sirius support confirmed that It's Dead Jim.
So now I had a decision. A) I could hunt around for a used one. Relatively inexpensive, but risky. B) I could buy a newer version of the Sportster, but that would require a new cradle purchase and a new installation. And another problem is that the Sportster transmits it's audio to the car radio via FM. Because of an FCC ruling, the newer Sportsters transmit a much weaker signal than the older ones. Would the weaker signal still work? Expensive and somewhat risky. C) In addition to a new Sportster and cradle I could also get a new el cheapo car stereo that has an aux input jack in the front so I no longer have to use the FM transmission. Very expensive. 4) I could get a new car stereo that has built Sirius built in so I don't need an external unit at all. Also very expensive.
I went the cheap route. Won an auction on eBay for a used original Sportster via some egregiously cutthroat last minute bidding -- $47, and it came with a boombox. A quick call to Sirius to transfer my account almost became more expensive that the unit itself. Apparently there is a $75 fee to transfer a lifetime account to a new unit. I pled my case that I was not upgrading by choice, my previous unit died. Fee waived. I must say that Sirius tech support was exemplary in my calls to them. Zero wait; intelligent and knowledgeable reps; seemed anxious to help rather than just get you off the phone.
I do recommend Sirius (although I don't think you can get a lifetime sub anymore). It is about a million times better than terrestrial radio. Often people ask, "Who needs radio? Why not just listen to your iPod in the car?" The answer is that radio can be fresh. If you are only used to terrestrial radio with its typical playlists of about thirteen songs in rotation, you may not realize that with the enormous number of formats Sirius offers, you would have to have a pretty big MP3 collect to match it. You can think of Sirius stations as a set of giant, constantly updated playlists for various music formats, all set on shuffle. As much as I listen to my Zune collection, sometimes it's just better when you don't know what is coming next. Personally, my unit has been set to the Little Steven's Underground Garage for many months straight.
So my two tech annoyances this month had happy endings. Speaking of good experiences, if were to give away annual tech awards, my award for most reliable gadget would go to my SMC wireless router. I went through a NetGear and a Linksys unit, both of which failed immediately after their warranty was up. The SMC has been barreling on through power outages and equipment updates without a hitch. Never. Not one. Since I got my SMC I have never lost my wireless connection. That's saying something given my router history. No doubt I've jinxed myself.
Book Look: Resume with Monsters by William Browning Spencer
Book Look: Resume with Monsters by William Browning Spencer: If the name Cthulhu and the mythology behind it are unknown to you, much of this book will be lost on you. However, if you even have a passing familiarity with H.P. Lovecraft's horror classics you'll get a kick out of the exceedingly clever premise behind Resume with Monsters.
Philip Kennan is a loser who has been bounding from one dead end office job to another for decades and is now on the cusp of middle age. He's divorced. His girlfriend has dumped him. Horrible childhood memories of his father's descent into paranoid madness haunt him very deeply. All of this angst, along with whatever energy he can summon, gets hopelessly poured into a rambling, gargantuan novel based on Lovecraft's creations. Philip's problem is that he really believes in Cthulhu and the other unspeakable ancient monsters. They are the things responsible for all the horrors in his life from his Father's insanity to his wayward career. Our problem is that, as he describes the day to day happenings at his office jobs in Lovecraftian terms, we're not sure he's wrong.
The plot is b-movie stuff, and the ending is worse, but the premise and the view of contemporary activities as subtle forms of a prevailing demonic influence in the world keeps things interesting until the plot needs to be resolved. The prose is straightforward with occasional plunges into horror stylings. Nicely done. A good escapist read for the most part. Think of it as Office Space meets Stephen King.
Philip Kennan is a loser who has been bounding from one dead end office job to another for decades and is now on the cusp of middle age. He's divorced. His girlfriend has dumped him. Horrible childhood memories of his father's descent into paranoid madness haunt him very deeply. All of this angst, along with whatever energy he can summon, gets hopelessly poured into a rambling, gargantuan novel based on Lovecraft's creations. Philip's problem is that he really believes in Cthulhu and the other unspeakable ancient monsters. They are the things responsible for all the horrors in his life from his Father's insanity to his wayward career. Our problem is that, as he describes the day to day happenings at his office jobs in Lovecraftian terms, we're not sure he's wrong.
The plot is b-movie stuff, and the ending is worse, but the premise and the view of contemporary activities as subtle forms of a prevailing demonic influence in the world keeps things interesting until the plot needs to be resolved. The prose is straightforward with occasional plunges into horror stylings. Nicely done. A good escapist read for the most part. Think of it as Office Space meets Stephen King.
Flick Check: I'm Not There
Flick Check: I'm Not There: A Bob Dylan bio-pic worthy of Dylan. That is to say rambling, enigmatic, vague, and pretentious, yet oddly compelling with flashes of brilliance. The movie leaps around interpreting Dylan's career, music, and personal life through a series of different actors/characters. Rightfully, the most renown was Cate Blanchett playing the rebellious folkie going electric and the experiencing the excesses of fame. She did quite a good job with the role, especially considering that the slightest misstep would have turned it into parody or novelty. The other threads coincide with flex points in Dylan's career and life (and, presumably, his precedent in the form of Woody Guthrie) but have less impact and reveal nothing that anyone familiar with Dylan doesn't already know. The fact is there are no clear themes to Dylan's life or work. He's really just being a singer and songwriter and going through the changes that life brings. Everybody thinks they see some profound storyline but there isn't one. He's not there. If that's what director Todd Haynes was going for, he succeeded.
If you never liked Dylan or saw the attraction, this movie will not awaken your interest. If you have a passing interest in Dylan or greater, it's an interesting document. I give it major points for getting through almost the entire film without playing "Like a Rolling Stone," which turns any such project into cliche. There is a brief excerpt over the final credits, but it seems tacked on and I'm betting the network suits forced that on Haynes.
If you never liked Dylan or saw the attraction, this movie will not awaken your interest. If you have a passing interest in Dylan or greater, it's an interesting document. I give it major points for getting through almost the entire film without playing "Like a Rolling Stone," which turns any such project into cliche. There is a brief excerpt over the final credits, but it seems tacked on and I'm betting the network suits forced that on Haynes.
Book Look: Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
Book Look: Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges: The seminal collection of short stories from one of the founding fathers of modern Latin American literature. I have previous discussed the opening story, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (second entry), which is the best of this collection and one of the finest short stories ever written. The remainder of the stories vary in quality from stunning to passable.
Borges stands out for his unmatched imagination. A list of the topics covered by some of the stories here (besides Tlon, above) will give you a good idea:
"The Babylon Lottery" -- imagines a civilization where all facets of life are left to the chance of lottery drawings. The history of the lottery is described wherein it becomes more and more prevalent and more and more secretive until it takes on the aspect of God.
"The Library of Babel" -- an unimaginably large library of hexagonal rooms filled with books of an identical length. The books contain every possible combination of 25 characters (22 letters, space, period, comma). As such, although the vast majority of them are total gibberish, they also they must contain every concept that it is possible to express and every bit of knowledge that can be known.
"The Garden of Forking Paths" -- A Chinese spy in England in the employ of the Kaiser in WWI is the descendant of a man who wrote strange book with no apparent logical structure -- characters die only to reappear later, events show little causal continuance. The spy happens to cross paths with a man who has determined that his ancestor was writing a single story but following the different ways it could have played out. Each decision made by a character opened a new thread of reality. Interestingly, this corresponds to, but predates and presages, the many-worlds theories of quantum mechanics by a decade. (Don't dig into it without clearing your schedule.)
"Funes the Memorious" -- the story of a young man who remembers everything in exact detail. He passes the time by reconstructing a full day's memory, an act which takes him a full day.
You get the picture. Borges existed at the intersection of speculative fiction, metaphysical epistemology, and literature. He was well ahead of his time in that respect, but to the modern reader some of this can seem unimpressive simply because imitators have done it to death over the ensuing years. Borges prose can be very dense and, to my eye, it is oddly parsed but that may be the result of translation more than anything else. If your taste is of an imaginative turn, Ficciones is a good book to keep handy. The stories are short and it's good to dive in at any point as a kick-starter for your neurons.
Borges stands out for his unmatched imagination. A list of the topics covered by some of the stories here (besides Tlon, above) will give you a good idea:
"The Babylon Lottery" -- imagines a civilization where all facets of life are left to the chance of lottery drawings. The history of the lottery is described wherein it becomes more and more prevalent and more and more secretive until it takes on the aspect of God.
"The Library of Babel" -- an unimaginably large library of hexagonal rooms filled with books of an identical length. The books contain every possible combination of 25 characters (22 letters, space, period, comma). As such, although the vast majority of them are total gibberish, they also they must contain every concept that it is possible to express and every bit of knowledge that can be known.
"The Garden of Forking Paths" -- A Chinese spy in England in the employ of the Kaiser in WWI is the descendant of a man who wrote strange book with no apparent logical structure -- characters die only to reappear later, events show little causal continuance. The spy happens to cross paths with a man who has determined that his ancestor was writing a single story but following the different ways it could have played out. Each decision made by a character opened a new thread of reality. Interestingly, this corresponds to, but predates and presages, the many-worlds theories of quantum mechanics by a decade. (Don't dig into it without clearing your schedule.)
"Funes the Memorious" -- the story of a young man who remembers everything in exact detail. He passes the time by reconstructing a full day's memory, an act which takes him a full day.
You get the picture. Borges existed at the intersection of speculative fiction, metaphysical epistemology, and literature. He was well ahead of his time in that respect, but to the modern reader some of this can seem unimpressive simply because imitators have done it to death over the ensuing years. Borges prose can be very dense and, to my eye, it is oddly parsed but that may be the result of translation more than anything else. If your taste is of an imaginative turn, Ficciones is a good book to keep handy. The stories are short and it's good to dive in at any point as a kick-starter for your neurons.
Know Your (Planck) Limitations
Know Your (Planck) Limitations: Many, many years ago, when I was a college freshman, I got into a moronic metaphysical conversation with a few other people in my dorm hall. The topic was not moronic, the people discussing it were (which is redundant to point out since I already said we were college freshman). Naturally the topic of discussion was nothing less than the nature of the universe, which we were going to determine, and being a lifelong, knee-jerk contrarian I argued that the universe was discrete, that space-time was not infinitely divisible. This was met with sarcastic missives about all of us walking around like images on film, moving in chunks at a time, or living as drawings on a deck of cards being flipped through. Patently absurd, right? (Actually I think this conversation started as a discussion about Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise.)
In all honesty I had no actual reason for making the argument other than it was not disprovable, and because then as now, I love to be the outlier, and because then and hopefully not as now, I was something an ass. (Did I mention I was college freshman?) But current research indicates I may have been right.
We all know about the universal speed limit, right? Nothing can go faster than the speed of light (~186,000 miles per second). Not even relatively. If you were in a car going 50 MPH and another car was going the opposite direction at 50 MPH and you hit it with a radar gun, the gun would tell you the other car's speed in 100 MPH. Makes sense. If both cars were going 186,000 miles per second, the radar gun would not measure the other car at 372,000 miles per second, but 186,000 miles per second. Makes no sense whatsoever.
The reason it doesn't make sense to us is because of evolution. The human animal has never seen, heard, smelled, tasted or touched a world with conceptual limitations. However fast anything was, there was always something that could go faster. However far away something was, there was always something a bit farther. You can divide things into smaller and smaller pieces, but you can always divide it again. Our minds accommodate infinity. That our brains evolved with the understanding of a limitless existence was probably a tremendous gift. It is almost certainly the basis of the species continued struggle to see beyond current boundaries and thus make constant improvements throughout the millennia.
It took a particularly highly evolved brain (Einstein) to discover that we were wrong; that when you reach magnitudes well beyond our current purview, there is a limit. No matter what you do, or how hard you strive, you will never exceed the speed of light. Perhaps one day, our brains will evolve such that that is as intuitive as limitlessness is now.
But how weird is that? Here we have this time-space continuum that is essentially limitless except for velocity. Other than velocity, there are no limits that we know of, right? Why just the one? Well, there is not just the one after all; the speed of light is just the most famous one. The other limits grow out the work of another highly evolved brain named Max Planck, who was one of the founders of quantum theory. Quantum theory states that energy is not infinitely divisible. In other words, a particle might have energy equivalent to 1 unit, and it might have energy equivalent to 2 units, but it cannot have energy equivalent to 1.5 units. Again, this is entirely illogical to our evolutionary ingrained sense of limitlessness.
From this understanding of energy only taking discrete values (quanta) Planck came up with something called Planck Length -- the shortest possible distance there can be; Planck Time -- the shortest possible time interval (which intuitively corresponds to how long it would take something at the speed of light to cover Planck Length); and a slew of others. I'll be damned if the universe is not discrete after all. The structure of the universe, to the best of our knowledge, is a thing we can calculate and imagine but not naturally comprehend.
Actually, that only goes as far as our current knowledge level. There is a phenomenon called Quantum Entanglement that makes even less sense that a limited universe. Two particles can be linked in such a way that no matter the distance between them, one reacts simultaneously to a change in the other. Think of it this way: two spinning tops both rotating clockwise are sent off in opposite directions. Eventually one suddenly begins spinning counterclockwise. The other does also, at the exact same instant. How does the other one know the first one changed? It couldn't be from having seen it or received any signal from it because we know the speed of light is finite, there would have to be a time lag before the second one changed, however small. But there isn't. No matter how far separate the two tops, they are perfectly in sync at all times. This is so bizarre that physicists have referred to it as "spooky action". It may indeed open the door to limitlessness again at some point in the future once we better understand it. Or it may be something even weirder.
I have no reason to delve into all this other than stumbling across an article in New Scientist about the world being a giant hologram that took me back to that conversation from freshman year. I guess the lesson is that no matter how obnoxious some little twerp can be he still might have a good idea. Doesn't mean he shouldn't be smacked-down on principle, though, just for being an ass.
In all honesty I had no actual reason for making the argument other than it was not disprovable, and because then as now, I love to be the outlier, and because then and hopefully not as now, I was something an ass. (Did I mention I was college freshman?) But current research indicates I may have been right.
We all know about the universal speed limit, right? Nothing can go faster than the speed of light (~186,000 miles per second). Not even relatively. If you were in a car going 50 MPH and another car was going the opposite direction at 50 MPH and you hit it with a radar gun, the gun would tell you the other car's speed in 100 MPH. Makes sense. If both cars were going 186,000 miles per second, the radar gun would not measure the other car at 372,000 miles per second, but 186,000 miles per second. Makes no sense whatsoever.
The reason it doesn't make sense to us is because of evolution. The human animal has never seen, heard, smelled, tasted or touched a world with conceptual limitations. However fast anything was, there was always something that could go faster. However far away something was, there was always something a bit farther. You can divide things into smaller and smaller pieces, but you can always divide it again. Our minds accommodate infinity. That our brains evolved with the understanding of a limitless existence was probably a tremendous gift. It is almost certainly the basis of the species continued struggle to see beyond current boundaries and thus make constant improvements throughout the millennia.
It took a particularly highly evolved brain (Einstein) to discover that we were wrong; that when you reach magnitudes well beyond our current purview, there is a limit. No matter what you do, or how hard you strive, you will never exceed the speed of light. Perhaps one day, our brains will evolve such that that is as intuitive as limitlessness is now.
But how weird is that? Here we have this time-space continuum that is essentially limitless except for velocity. Other than velocity, there are no limits that we know of, right? Why just the one? Well, there is not just the one after all; the speed of light is just the most famous one. The other limits grow out the work of another highly evolved brain named Max Planck, who was one of the founders of quantum theory. Quantum theory states that energy is not infinitely divisible. In other words, a particle might have energy equivalent to 1 unit, and it might have energy equivalent to 2 units, but it cannot have energy equivalent to 1.5 units. Again, this is entirely illogical to our evolutionary ingrained sense of limitlessness.
From this understanding of energy only taking discrete values (quanta) Planck came up with something called Planck Length -- the shortest possible distance there can be; Planck Time -- the shortest possible time interval (which intuitively corresponds to how long it would take something at the speed of light to cover Planck Length); and a slew of others. I'll be damned if the universe is not discrete after all. The structure of the universe, to the best of our knowledge, is a thing we can calculate and imagine but not naturally comprehend.
Actually, that only goes as far as our current knowledge level. There is a phenomenon called Quantum Entanglement that makes even less sense that a limited universe. Two particles can be linked in such a way that no matter the distance between them, one reacts simultaneously to a change in the other. Think of it this way: two spinning tops both rotating clockwise are sent off in opposite directions. Eventually one suddenly begins spinning counterclockwise. The other does also, at the exact same instant. How does the other one know the first one changed? It couldn't be from having seen it or received any signal from it because we know the speed of light is finite, there would have to be a time lag before the second one changed, however small. But there isn't. No matter how far separate the two tops, they are perfectly in sync at all times. This is so bizarre that physicists have referred to it as "spooky action". It may indeed open the door to limitlessness again at some point in the future once we better understand it. Or it may be something even weirder.
I have no reason to delve into all this other than stumbling across an article in New Scientist about the world being a giant hologram that took me back to that conversation from freshman year. I guess the lesson is that no matter how obnoxious some little twerp can be he still might have a good idea. Doesn't mean he shouldn't be smacked-down on principle, though, just for being an ass.
Broken Record on Detroit
Broken Record on Detroit: The powers du jure of the City of Detroit have been repeating endless mantras about rebirth for the last 50 years. The Lions have been talking about "restoring the roar" for the last 50 years. And I have been hammering Detroit mercilessly on this site for the last 3 or 4 years. It's all a broken record and you are probably getting sick of it. There's nothing I can do about the Lions or the City, but I should probably lay off for a couple of months in the interest of not boring you to death. But permit me one more rant...
My problem is that I want to scream when I read some of the profoundly delusional opinions on Detroit -- the same things that have been said in various ways for the last half-century to no effect whatsoever, yet people keep repeating them. The latest overarching case-in-point comes from Detroit's favorite celebrity writer and hometown hero Mitch Albom via Sports Illustrated. I'm afraid I'm going to have to rip into it:
"There's a little too much glee in the Detroit jokes these days. A little too much flip in the wrist that tosses dirt on our coffins. We hear a Tennessee player tell the media that the Thanksgiving win didn't mean much because "it was just Detroit." We hear Jay Leno rip our scandalous former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, by saying, "The bad news is, he could be forced out of office. The good news is, any time you get a chance to get out of Detroit, take it."
We hear Congress tongue-lash our auto executives for not matching the cheaper wages of foreign car companies. We hear South Carolina senator Jim DeMint tell NPR that "the barnacles of unionism" must be destroyed at GM, Ford and Chrysler. Barnacles? Barnacles are parasites without a conscience. Sounds more like politicians to us.
Enough, we want to say. The Lions stink. We know they stink. You don't have to tell us. Enough. The car business is in trouble. We know it's in trouble. We drive past the deserted parking lots of empty auto plants every day.
Enough. We don't need more lofty national newspaper laments on the decay of a Rust Belt city. Or the obligatory network news piece, "Can Detroit Be Saved?" For too long we have been the Place to Go to Chronicle the Ugly. Example: For years, we had a rash of fires the night before Halloween -- Devil's Night. And like clockwork, you could count on TV crews to fly in from out of town in hopes of catching Detroit burning. Whoomf. There we were in flames, on network TV. But when we got the problem under control, when city-sponsored neighborhood programs helped douse it, you never heard about that. The TV crews just shrugged and left."
Unbelievable. What an enormous load of tripe. And the fact is, sentiment like that has been a rallying point for Detroiters for decades. Read through the entire article. It all comes down to "It's not fair" and "People are picking on us" and "Nobody talks about the good stuff". Then we get to the punch line:
"Do you think if your main industry sails away to foreign countries, if the tax base of your city dries up, you won't have crumbling houses and men sleeping on church floors too? Do you think if we become a country that makes nothing, that builds nothing, that only services and outsources, that we will hold our place on the economic totem pole?"
So let me see if I have this straight: Everyone is mistaken, Detroit is really a fine place with lots of good stuff; and even if it's not you shouldn't talk about it; and even if you do talk about it you should realize that Detroit is just a victim of circumstance, and you could be too one day if your city is ineptly governed as Detroit has been for decades on end. Unbelievable.
Mitch Albom is a paradigmatic sentimentalist. He sells billions of books with maudlin storylines that really tug at the heartstrings. I say that in admiration, by the way: all successful writing in any venue or genre takes talent, and Mitch's talent for goosing your emotions is second to none. But -- and this is the key thing I am trying to get across -- sentiment don't feed the bulldog. Detroit has fought the world using sentiment as its primary weapon for fifty years and look at the results. People who live in Detroit, who experience the reality of it -- not just the view from afar or the words in the press -- have been fleeing like Cubans in a boat lift.
Mitch thinks he is doing good by bucking up the fine folks of Detroit but we have long passed the point where bucking up is damaging. I do not know how to fix Detroit. In fact, I suspect it cannot be fixed, that it must simply die. That is mere supposition, of course. There may be people out there with the ideas and energy to save the City. I will guarantee you that if there are, the decisions and the actions they will have to take are draconian, cold-hearted, and hard-headed. How can anyone pedaling such a painful strategy compete with the uplifting prose of hope from Mitch Albom.
For a clearer, more honest picture read Matt Labash's stunning elegy from the Weekly Standard:
"Its recently resigned mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, he of the Kangol hats and five-button suits, now wears jailhouse orange as he's currently serving a four-month sentence as part of a plea agreement for perjuring himself regarding an extramarital affair with his chief of staff, which yielded soupy love-daddy text messages that would make Barry White yak in his grave. Those in Detroit who are neither recipients of sweetheart contracts nor Kilpatrick family members on the city payroll at inflated salaries think he got off easy. Because what led to the perjury was concealing an $8.4 million payout from city coffers to settle a whistleblower suit brought by cops who'd been fired for investigating, among other things, the murder of a stripper named Strawberry who, prior to her death, was allegedly beat up by Kilpatrick's wife when she caught her entertaining her husband.
In a city often known as the nation's murder capital, with over 10,000 unsolved murders dating back to 1960, the police are in shambles through cutbacks and corruption trials. (They have a profitable sideline, though, as one of the nation's largest gun dealers, having sold 14 tons of used weapons out-of-state.) Their response times are legendarily slow. Their crime lab is so inept that it has been closed. One Detroit man found police so unresponsive when trying to turn himself in for murder that he hopped a bus to Toledo and confessed there instead.
Detroit schools haven't ordered new textbooks in 19 years. Students have reported having to bring their own toilet paper. Teachers have reported bringing hammers to class for protection. Declining enrollment has forced 67 school closures since 2005 (more than a quarter of the city's schools). The graduation rate is 24.9 percent, the lowest of any large school district in the country. Not for nothing did one frustrated activist start pelting school board members with grapes during a meeting. She probably should've reached for something heavier.
An internal audit, which was 14 months late, estimates next year's city deficit to be as high as $200 million (helped along by $335,000 embezzled from the Department of Health and Wellness Promotion). With a dwindling tax base--even the city's three once-profitable casinos are seeing a downturn in revenues (the Greektown Casino is in bankruptcy)--the city has kicked around every money-making scheme from selling off ownership rights to the tunnel it shares with neighboring Windsor, Canada, to a fast food tax. It's perhaps unsurprising that Detroit now has the most speed traps in the nation.
It also has one of the highest property tax rates in Michigan, yet has over 60,000 vacant dwellings (a guesstimate--nobody keeps official count), meaning real estate values are in the toilet. Over the summer, the Detroit News sent a headline around the world, about a Detroit house that was for sale for $1. But it's not even that uncommon. As of this writing, there are at least five $1 homes for sale in Detroit."
And that is quite literally the least of it. Read the whole thing. It's mind-blowing. And if you can stomach anymore, the very best ongoing documentation of the death of Detroit is done over at detroitblog.org. Try this entry for example, which starts off: "Throughout Detroit there are still little libraries full of books that half the residents can't even read", and goes downhill from there.
Thanks for pat on the back, Mitch, but the bulldog is still starving.
My problem is that I want to scream when I read some of the profoundly delusional opinions on Detroit -- the same things that have been said in various ways for the last half-century to no effect whatsoever, yet people keep repeating them. The latest overarching case-in-point comes from Detroit's favorite celebrity writer and hometown hero Mitch Albom via Sports Illustrated. I'm afraid I'm going to have to rip into it:
"There's a little too much glee in the Detroit jokes these days. A little too much flip in the wrist that tosses dirt on our coffins. We hear a Tennessee player tell the media that the Thanksgiving win didn't mean much because "it was just Detroit." We hear Jay Leno rip our scandalous former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, by saying, "The bad news is, he could be forced out of office. The good news is, any time you get a chance to get out of Detroit, take it."
We hear Congress tongue-lash our auto executives for not matching the cheaper wages of foreign car companies. We hear South Carolina senator Jim DeMint tell NPR that "the barnacles of unionism" must be destroyed at GM, Ford and Chrysler. Barnacles? Barnacles are parasites without a conscience. Sounds more like politicians to us.
Enough, we want to say. The Lions stink. We know they stink. You don't have to tell us. Enough. The car business is in trouble. We know it's in trouble. We drive past the deserted parking lots of empty auto plants every day.
Enough. We don't need more lofty national newspaper laments on the decay of a Rust Belt city. Or the obligatory network news piece, "Can Detroit Be Saved?" For too long we have been the Place to Go to Chronicle the Ugly. Example: For years, we had a rash of fires the night before Halloween -- Devil's Night. And like clockwork, you could count on TV crews to fly in from out of town in hopes of catching Detroit burning. Whoomf. There we were in flames, on network TV. But when we got the problem under control, when city-sponsored neighborhood programs helped douse it, you never heard about that. The TV crews just shrugged and left."
Unbelievable. What an enormous load of tripe. And the fact is, sentiment like that has been a rallying point for Detroiters for decades. Read through the entire article. It all comes down to "It's not fair" and "People are picking on us" and "Nobody talks about the good stuff". Then we get to the punch line:
"Do you think if your main industry sails away to foreign countries, if the tax base of your city dries up, you won't have crumbling houses and men sleeping on church floors too? Do you think if we become a country that makes nothing, that builds nothing, that only services and outsources, that we will hold our place on the economic totem pole?"
So let me see if I have this straight: Everyone is mistaken, Detroit is really a fine place with lots of good stuff; and even if it's not you shouldn't talk about it; and even if you do talk about it you should realize that Detroit is just a victim of circumstance, and you could be too one day if your city is ineptly governed as Detroit has been for decades on end. Unbelievable.
Mitch Albom is a paradigmatic sentimentalist. He sells billions of books with maudlin storylines that really tug at the heartstrings. I say that in admiration, by the way: all successful writing in any venue or genre takes talent, and Mitch's talent for goosing your emotions is second to none. But -- and this is the key thing I am trying to get across -- sentiment don't feed the bulldog. Detroit has fought the world using sentiment as its primary weapon for fifty years and look at the results. People who live in Detroit, who experience the reality of it -- not just the view from afar or the words in the press -- have been fleeing like Cubans in a boat lift.
Mitch thinks he is doing good by bucking up the fine folks of Detroit but we have long passed the point where bucking up is damaging. I do not know how to fix Detroit. In fact, I suspect it cannot be fixed, that it must simply die. That is mere supposition, of course. There may be people out there with the ideas and energy to save the City. I will guarantee you that if there are, the decisions and the actions they will have to take are draconian, cold-hearted, and hard-headed. How can anyone pedaling such a painful strategy compete with the uplifting prose of hope from Mitch Albom.
For a clearer, more honest picture read Matt Labash's stunning elegy from the Weekly Standard:
"Its recently resigned mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, he of the Kangol hats and five-button suits, now wears jailhouse orange as he's currently serving a four-month sentence as part of a plea agreement for perjuring himself regarding an extramarital affair with his chief of staff, which yielded soupy love-daddy text messages that would make Barry White yak in his grave. Those in Detroit who are neither recipients of sweetheart contracts nor Kilpatrick family members on the city payroll at inflated salaries think he got off easy. Because what led to the perjury was concealing an $8.4 million payout from city coffers to settle a whistleblower suit brought by cops who'd been fired for investigating, among other things, the murder of a stripper named Strawberry who, prior to her death, was allegedly beat up by Kilpatrick's wife when she caught her entertaining her husband.
In a city often known as the nation's murder capital, with over 10,000 unsolved murders dating back to 1960, the police are in shambles through cutbacks and corruption trials. (They have a profitable sideline, though, as one of the nation's largest gun dealers, having sold 14 tons of used weapons out-of-state.) Their response times are legendarily slow. Their crime lab is so inept that it has been closed. One Detroit man found police so unresponsive when trying to turn himself in for murder that he hopped a bus to Toledo and confessed there instead.
Detroit schools haven't ordered new textbooks in 19 years. Students have reported having to bring their own toilet paper. Teachers have reported bringing hammers to class for protection. Declining enrollment has forced 67 school closures since 2005 (more than a quarter of the city's schools). The graduation rate is 24.9 percent, the lowest of any large school district in the country. Not for nothing did one frustrated activist start pelting school board members with grapes during a meeting. She probably should've reached for something heavier.
An internal audit, which was 14 months late, estimates next year's city deficit to be as high as $200 million (helped along by $335,000 embezzled from the Department of Health and Wellness Promotion). With a dwindling tax base--even the city's three once-profitable casinos are seeing a downturn in revenues (the Greektown Casino is in bankruptcy)--the city has kicked around every money-making scheme from selling off ownership rights to the tunnel it shares with neighboring Windsor, Canada, to a fast food tax. It's perhaps unsurprising that Detroit now has the most speed traps in the nation.
It also has one of the highest property tax rates in Michigan, yet has over 60,000 vacant dwellings (a guesstimate--nobody keeps official count), meaning real estate values are in the toilet. Over the summer, the Detroit News sent a headline around the world, about a Detroit house that was for sale for $1. But it's not even that uncommon. As of this writing, there are at least five $1 homes for sale in Detroit."
And that is quite literally the least of it. Read the whole thing. It's mind-blowing. And if you can stomach anymore, the very best ongoing documentation of the death of Detroit is done over at detroitblog.org. Try this entry for example, which starts off: "Throughout Detroit there are still little libraries full of books that half the residents can't even read", and goes downhill from there.
Thanks for pat on the back, Mitch, but the bulldog is still starving.
Travel Rewind: Detroit and the North American Auto Show (1/25/03)
Travel Rewind: Detroit and the North American Auto Show (1/25/03): (In honor of the North American Auto Show's dutiful continuance in the face of the Carpocalypse, here is a re-run of my attendance from back in '03. The only thing I can say about this is that the comments about Detroit are as accurate today as they were then. Although I should have been less snarky, I claim validation.)
In the days before I attended the North American Auto Show, there was a minor dust-up going on about this article wherein some English journalist trashes Detroit.
"This is the biggest annual motoring festival in the United States but is held in the bleak and frozen inner-city wasteland that is Detroit. They advise you not to go out alone after dark in the centre, not that you can walk far in Motor City, where the pavement is a mere add-on to the wide roads and the cold freezes your breath on your lips."
The good people of Detroit loosened the thick woolen scarves from around their faces to shout in outrage. They fumed behind their triple locked doors. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (who gives new meaning to the term Black Irish) dashed off an angry letter to the London Times in protest. Detroit may be a fiscal mess, but he has his priorities. How dare they?
Now, I'm generally delighted to lambaste some euro-weenie who takes the opportunity to dis' things over here. After all, what business does this clown have denigrating the weather? Does he miss the year-round sunshine and balmy North Sea breezes of England?
But sadly, I'm on his side with regards to Detroit. Many, many people, including some of my friends, bristle when someone complains about Detroit. It just the reputation, they say, in reality it's not that bad.
Well, I'm sorry, but it is that bad. Oh I know, you can have some fun -- Greektown is fine and there are casinos and new stadiums and so forth. But that all misses the point.
While much of the country has experienced significant drops in violent crime, Detroit has always been one of the most dangerous cities. It may not be the murder capital of the nation anymore, but I bet it has never slipped out of the top five.
It is dirty and run down everywhere you look. They may have built a glistening new stadium, Comerica Park, yet directly across the street is a building that has been abandoned for ten years, covered with boarded-up windows and graffiti.
The infrastructure is atrocious. The People Mover? Don't make me laugh. As transportation it is only slightly more effective than the horsey ride outside of Wal-Mart. Streets lead off in seemingly random directions and it's not like you have any signs you can follow. Basically, you should not drive in Detroit unless you already know how to drive in Detroit.
The civil servants rival those of Washington D.C. for discourteous deportment.
Example 1: Naturally, due to the Auto Show, traffic was a mess down there -- bumper to bumper. At one point someone to the left of me needed to cut across in front of me to the right lane so that he could make a right turn. I let him through, but before he could make the turn he found himself being berated by some traffic cop for cutting across lanes. Now, there was no danger here, no one was going more than half a mile-per-hour. The guy was probably from out of town, just struggling to find his way around. But if you are a Detroit traffic cop, why pass up the opportunity to get in someone's face?
Example 2: I'm in a throng of people, now about 27 minutes into a wait on the People Mover platform. We have all been shepherded back a safe distance from the tracks by a transit worker. One couple is trying to keep their little kids under control but, bored from standing around for almost a half-hour, one of them breaks free and crosses a couple of feet out beyond the safe distance. The transit worker shouts, "Now I'm not a babysitter! You are going to have to keep those kids under control!" Even as a veteran of many trips to Washington D.C., the capitol of dismissive rudeness, I was amazed at the manner of these people at a time when the city should have been on its best behavior.
When you point things like this out to Detroit defenders, they say "that's just one bad experience" or "all cities are like that" or the classic, "it's not that bad." The underlying assumption is that everyone is just reacting to an unfair reputation. Despite all the statistics and all the experiences that make people flee Detroit, the powers behind the city proclaim it's really just an erroneous perception. So the response is to use public money for enormous rebuilding projects and to run PR campaigns claiming that Detroit is on the road to Renaissance and everyone should lend a hand.
Detroit has been rebuilding for the entirety of my adult life. Businesses are regularly duped or guilted or bribed into locating downtown, only to find that no one wants to work down there. Yet you can always find someone to appear on the local news express indignation at any belittling of the city, invariably invoking the phrase, "it's not that bad."
Yes, it is that bad. You can build all the bright shiny monoliths tax money can buy and they will still be outnumbered by the boarded up edifices between them. You can put on sporting events and festivals and auto shows, but people are still treated rudely, and every visitor to Detroit has the crime rate in the back of his mind.
Pretty buildings and public relations do not make it better. Convincing a lot of people to say "it's not that bad" doesn't make it better. The only thing that will make it better is to actually make it better in reality, not just words and facades.
But I was going to talk about the Auto Show.
One thing I noticed was, in contrast to the outside world, the Auto Show was not dominated by enormous SUVs.
I dislike SUVs. They are gaudy and crass. They block your view at almost every turn. They cause you to have to back out of your parking space blind. What's worse, the only way to see beyond them is to buy an SUV yourself. They are like an automotive virus.
And yet, if I was still in the market for a new car I would consider buying one just to irritate people who feel that SUVs help terrorists. That has to be one of the silliest, most poorly reasoned opinions I have ever heard. The supposition that oil consumption "helps terrorists" is ludicrous. By that way of thinking, if we did away with all petroleum based products and lived in caves, we might impoverish the terrorists to the point where they had to live in caves. That's terribly inefficient. It is more efficient, and less troublesome, to pay for the A-10s and Special Forces to make the terrorists live in caves. And to do that we need to buy the A-10s and pay the Special Forces. And to do that we need to have a strong economy that generates enough tax money. And to have that we need to a lot of commerce, which requires the use of petroleum. I'd be willing to bet there's a strong correlation between oil-consumption and tax revenue.
So why pick on SUVs as if oil consumption for SUVs is evil, as opposed to other oil consumption? Simply, because they block your view and disrupt your parking and generally annoy you in many ways. But you can't really get on your soap box and build yourself a noble cause out of fighting something that is just annoying -- you have to fight something that is immoral. Thus, the effort to ally SUV drivers with terrorists.
That's why I would consider actually buying one; just out of righteous indignation towards the righteously indignant.
But I was going to talk about the Auto Show.
I attended the Auto Show as part of a marketing project put on by a company called Gongos Associates, who were quite obviously employed by GM. My mission was to spend time evaluating three exhibits and responding to survey questions about them. In return I would get free admission, $8 for parking, and $75 for my trouble. The Saturn, Pontiac and GM Advance Tech exhibit were assigned to me. I suppose there is relationship between me getting those exhibits and the fact that I recently bought a Toyota Camry, but I cannot fathom what it is.
The results of my evaluation: Saturn had a very cool setup. Terminals where you could build your own car (virtually, of course) and they had a rotating platform with seating -- about the only place in the entire show that had seats. But the cars remain some of the most plain vanilla vehicles ever produced. [Update: still true. - dam]
Judging from the Pontiac display, they are about to go the way of Oldsmobile. Nothing much to show, no razzle dazzle, and pretty dour looking employees. They had a couple of things that looked like video games, but I don't think they actually did anything except play a video when you sat in them. Weird. [update: Despite the short-lived G8, I still maintain there is no reason for Pontiac to exist. - dam]
The GM Advanced Tech exhibit had one interesting tech demonstration -- a Drive by Wire car. Drive by Wire basically means all inputs are computer controlled. For example, when you hit the gas, instead of a mechanical link to the carburetor or fuel injection system, a sensor measures the pressure you exert and transmits an electronic signal to tell the fuel system how hard to kick it up. Similarly, instead of a mechanical link between the front wheels and the steering wheel, desired changes in direction are transmitted electronically. The effect is that control is much more consistent and precise, and there are safeguards built in to stop you from doing something stupid, like causing a spin out. Think of it as anti-lock brakes in the extreme. Advanced military aircraft have had this for years. It's a much better use of modern technology than, say, voice recognition. Have you ever spoken to a machine? I don't know about you, but I'd feel like a complete tool sitting in traffic and talking to my car.
Other than that there was nothing special at the tech exhibit. There was a truck standing up on four hydraulic lifts being jostled around, and an engine being run under various stressful conditions. These were designed to demonstrate how committed GM is to testing and quality -- despite their reputation -- thanks mostly to Cadillac, which is always bringing up the rear in any quality surveys. [Caddy's doing better these days. -dam] Speaking of Cadillac, they had a sofa sized, 16 cylinder, 1000-HP engine on display. Terrorists praised Allah.
With my assigned duties completed I was able to spend time wandering the rest of the show. As I said, SUVs are on the way out. The new big things are station wagons, which were last seen as new big things in the '60s. These new-breed station wagons have a little SUV influence. They are a little taller and sit a little higher of the ground than normal cars, but they don't go anywhere near the extreme of SUVs with their truck pretensions.
I like these nouveau wagons. They are technically referred to as Crossovers, as in they cross-over the line between cars and SUVs. They come in all shapes and sizes, and offer a good deal of character. Despite the commonality of the station wagon, the designs vary considerably.
Getting a lot of attention was the BMW xActive, which had a number of interesting features, not including the cutesy high-tech name. Along the same lines is the Infiniti FX45. There's even the Maserati Kubang. These are meant to meld the look and vibe of quality sports cars with the practicality of the station wagons. They are quite fetching, and I would consider getting one, but I'm afraid I would have to become a player first -- you know, read GQ, buy art deco kitchen appliances, hit on women at Starbucks, and so forth.
Some crossovers are just funky cool -- the Dodge Kahuna for example, although I would never buy a Chrysler product for quality reasons (I know three people who have had Chrysler products spontaneously combust). Equally funky and fun is the Honda Element. Yeah it looks goofy, but it's my kind of goofy. Of all the cars I saw, this was the one I would have possibly purchased over my Camry, had it been available at the time. [Not a bad call - dam]
Of course there was plenty of extravagance out on display also. Daimler introduced the Maybach. At 330,000 simoleans, the target audience is those who find the top of the line Mercedes too downscale. The Maybach was placed in the middle of a large platform behind velvet ropes and under high security -- the peasants were allowed to view from afar, not touch. Problem: even from afar you could tell that the Maybach is just plain ugly.
Less expensive but equally ugly is the entire line of Cadillacs. Sorry, but that toothy grill and those chrome encircled headlights make me think of a dorky looking guy with thick glasses and braces. In their commercials, they always show these freaky things in contrast to beautiful tail-finned classic Caddies from the '50s. Talk about advertising your faults. [Not a good call - dam]
These cars are for people who are long on money and short on taste. They are the automotive equivalent of Anna Nicole.
Is the Auto Show a good time? Yeah, sort of. It could be. There are lots of shiny cars to see and sit in. There are big flashy displays. There are smiling spokesmodels. On the other hand, it's crowded all the time. You might think mid-afternoon on a weekday would be less popular, but no -- it is always filled with people.
It would be fun to casually walk through for about an hour or so, but that's it -- unless you had another purpose: you were actually in the market for a car or you were with some friends and planning on dinner and gambling afterwards at Greektown. Absent something like that, it really becomes just a big auto showroom that you must survive the squalorous insanity of Detroit to reach.
How to make it better? Have it in the summer -- outside (or at least open air), give it twice as much space and locate it somewhere you can actually get to without having to adopt an eat-or-be-eaten mindset to survive.
Until then, I'll pass on future Auto Shows, unless I get offered a lot more than $75.
Originally posted 1/25/2003
In the days before I attended the North American Auto Show, there was a minor dust-up going on about this article wherein some English journalist trashes Detroit.
"This is the biggest annual motoring festival in the United States but is held in the bleak and frozen inner-city wasteland that is Detroit. They advise you not to go out alone after dark in the centre, not that you can walk far in Motor City, where the pavement is a mere add-on to the wide roads and the cold freezes your breath on your lips."
The good people of Detroit loosened the thick woolen scarves from around their faces to shout in outrage. They fumed behind their triple locked doors. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (who gives new meaning to the term Black Irish) dashed off an angry letter to the London Times in protest. Detroit may be a fiscal mess, but he has his priorities. How dare they?
Now, I'm generally delighted to lambaste some euro-weenie who takes the opportunity to dis' things over here. After all, what business does this clown have denigrating the weather? Does he miss the year-round sunshine and balmy North Sea breezes of England?
But sadly, I'm on his side with regards to Detroit. Many, many people, including some of my friends, bristle when someone complains about Detroit. It just the reputation, they say, in reality it's not that bad.
Well, I'm sorry, but it is that bad. Oh I know, you can have some fun -- Greektown is fine and there are casinos and new stadiums and so forth. But that all misses the point.
While much of the country has experienced significant drops in violent crime, Detroit has always been one of the most dangerous cities. It may not be the murder capital of the nation anymore, but I bet it has never slipped out of the top five.
It is dirty and run down everywhere you look. They may have built a glistening new stadium, Comerica Park, yet directly across the street is a building that has been abandoned for ten years, covered with boarded-up windows and graffiti.
The infrastructure is atrocious. The People Mover? Don't make me laugh. As transportation it is only slightly more effective than the horsey ride outside of Wal-Mart. Streets lead off in seemingly random directions and it's not like you have any signs you can follow. Basically, you should not drive in Detroit unless you already know how to drive in Detroit.
The civil servants rival those of Washington D.C. for discourteous deportment.
Example 1: Naturally, due to the Auto Show, traffic was a mess down there -- bumper to bumper. At one point someone to the left of me needed to cut across in front of me to the right lane so that he could make a right turn. I let him through, but before he could make the turn he found himself being berated by some traffic cop for cutting across lanes. Now, there was no danger here, no one was going more than half a mile-per-hour. The guy was probably from out of town, just struggling to find his way around. But if you are a Detroit traffic cop, why pass up the opportunity to get in someone's face?
Example 2: I'm in a throng of people, now about 27 minutes into a wait on the People Mover platform. We have all been shepherded back a safe distance from the tracks by a transit worker. One couple is trying to keep their little kids under control but, bored from standing around for almost a half-hour, one of them breaks free and crosses a couple of feet out beyond the safe distance. The transit worker shouts, "Now I'm not a babysitter! You are going to have to keep those kids under control!" Even as a veteran of many trips to Washington D.C., the capitol of dismissive rudeness, I was amazed at the manner of these people at a time when the city should have been on its best behavior.
When you point things like this out to Detroit defenders, they say "that's just one bad experience" or "all cities are like that" or the classic, "it's not that bad." The underlying assumption is that everyone is just reacting to an unfair reputation. Despite all the statistics and all the experiences that make people flee Detroit, the powers behind the city proclaim it's really just an erroneous perception. So the response is to use public money for enormous rebuilding projects and to run PR campaigns claiming that Detroit is on the road to Renaissance and everyone should lend a hand.
Detroit has been rebuilding for the entirety of my adult life. Businesses are regularly duped or guilted or bribed into locating downtown, only to find that no one wants to work down there. Yet you can always find someone to appear on the local news express indignation at any belittling of the city, invariably invoking the phrase, "it's not that bad."
Yes, it is that bad. You can build all the bright shiny monoliths tax money can buy and they will still be outnumbered by the boarded up edifices between them. You can put on sporting events and festivals and auto shows, but people are still treated rudely, and every visitor to Detroit has the crime rate in the back of his mind.
Pretty buildings and public relations do not make it better. Convincing a lot of people to say "it's not that bad" doesn't make it better. The only thing that will make it better is to actually make it better in reality, not just words and facades.
But I was going to talk about the Auto Show.
One thing I noticed was, in contrast to the outside world, the Auto Show was not dominated by enormous SUVs.
I dislike SUVs. They are gaudy and crass. They block your view at almost every turn. They cause you to have to back out of your parking space blind. What's worse, the only way to see beyond them is to buy an SUV yourself. They are like an automotive virus.
And yet, if I was still in the market for a new car I would consider buying one just to irritate people who feel that SUVs help terrorists. That has to be one of the silliest, most poorly reasoned opinions I have ever heard. The supposition that oil consumption "helps terrorists" is ludicrous. By that way of thinking, if we did away with all petroleum based products and lived in caves, we might impoverish the terrorists to the point where they had to live in caves. That's terribly inefficient. It is more efficient, and less troublesome, to pay for the A-10s and Special Forces to make the terrorists live in caves. And to do that we need to buy the A-10s and pay the Special Forces. And to do that we need to have a strong economy that generates enough tax money. And to have that we need to a lot of commerce, which requires the use of petroleum. I'd be willing to bet there's a strong correlation between oil-consumption and tax revenue.
So why pick on SUVs as if oil consumption for SUVs is evil, as opposed to other oil consumption? Simply, because they block your view and disrupt your parking and generally annoy you in many ways. But you can't really get on your soap box and build yourself a noble cause out of fighting something that is just annoying -- you have to fight something that is immoral. Thus, the effort to ally SUV drivers with terrorists.
That's why I would consider actually buying one; just out of righteous indignation towards the righteously indignant.
But I was going to talk about the Auto Show.
I attended the Auto Show as part of a marketing project put on by a company called Gongos Associates, who were quite obviously employed by GM. My mission was to spend time evaluating three exhibits and responding to survey questions about them. In return I would get free admission, $8 for parking, and $75 for my trouble. The Saturn, Pontiac and GM Advance Tech exhibit were assigned to me. I suppose there is relationship between me getting those exhibits and the fact that I recently bought a Toyota Camry, but I cannot fathom what it is.
The results of my evaluation: Saturn had a very cool setup. Terminals where you could build your own car (virtually, of course) and they had a rotating platform with seating -- about the only place in the entire show that had seats. But the cars remain some of the most plain vanilla vehicles ever produced. [Update: still true. - dam]
Judging from the Pontiac display, they are about to go the way of Oldsmobile. Nothing much to show, no razzle dazzle, and pretty dour looking employees. They had a couple of things that looked like video games, but I don't think they actually did anything except play a video when you sat in them. Weird. [update: Despite the short-lived G8, I still maintain there is no reason for Pontiac to exist. - dam]
The GM Advanced Tech exhibit had one interesting tech demonstration -- a Drive by Wire car. Drive by Wire basically means all inputs are computer controlled. For example, when you hit the gas, instead of a mechanical link to the carburetor or fuel injection system, a sensor measures the pressure you exert and transmits an electronic signal to tell the fuel system how hard to kick it up. Similarly, instead of a mechanical link between the front wheels and the steering wheel, desired changes in direction are transmitted electronically. The effect is that control is much more consistent and precise, and there are safeguards built in to stop you from doing something stupid, like causing a spin out. Think of it as anti-lock brakes in the extreme. Advanced military aircraft have had this for years. It's a much better use of modern technology than, say, voice recognition. Have you ever spoken to a machine? I don't know about you, but I'd feel like a complete tool sitting in traffic and talking to my car.
Other than that there was nothing special at the tech exhibit. There was a truck standing up on four hydraulic lifts being jostled around, and an engine being run under various stressful conditions. These were designed to demonstrate how committed GM is to testing and quality -- despite their reputation -- thanks mostly to Cadillac, which is always bringing up the rear in any quality surveys. [Caddy's doing better these days. -dam] Speaking of Cadillac, they had a sofa sized, 16 cylinder, 1000-HP engine on display. Terrorists praised Allah.
With my assigned duties completed I was able to spend time wandering the rest of the show. As I said, SUVs are on the way out. The new big things are station wagons, which were last seen as new big things in the '60s. These new-breed station wagons have a little SUV influence. They are a little taller and sit a little higher of the ground than normal cars, but they don't go anywhere near the extreme of SUVs with their truck pretensions.
I like these nouveau wagons. They are technically referred to as Crossovers, as in they cross-over the line between cars and SUVs. They come in all shapes and sizes, and offer a good deal of character. Despite the commonality of the station wagon, the designs vary considerably.
Getting a lot of attention was the BMW xActive, which had a number of interesting features, not including the cutesy high-tech name. Along the same lines is the Infiniti FX45. There's even the Maserati Kubang. These are meant to meld the look and vibe of quality sports cars with the practicality of the station wagons. They are quite fetching, and I would consider getting one, but I'm afraid I would have to become a player first -- you know, read GQ, buy art deco kitchen appliances, hit on women at Starbucks, and so forth.
Some crossovers are just funky cool -- the Dodge Kahuna for example, although I would never buy a Chrysler product for quality reasons (I know three people who have had Chrysler products spontaneously combust). Equally funky and fun is the Honda Element. Yeah it looks goofy, but it's my kind of goofy. Of all the cars I saw, this was the one I would have possibly purchased over my Camry, had it been available at the time. [Not a bad call - dam]
Of course there was plenty of extravagance out on display also. Daimler introduced the Maybach. At 330,000 simoleans, the target audience is those who find the top of the line Mercedes too downscale. The Maybach was placed in the middle of a large platform behind velvet ropes and under high security -- the peasants were allowed to view from afar, not touch. Problem: even from afar you could tell that the Maybach is just plain ugly.
Less expensive but equally ugly is the entire line of Cadillacs. Sorry, but that toothy grill and those chrome encircled headlights make me think of a dorky looking guy with thick glasses and braces. In their commercials, they always show these freaky things in contrast to beautiful tail-finned classic Caddies from the '50s. Talk about advertising your faults. [Not a good call - dam]
These cars are for people who are long on money and short on taste. They are the automotive equivalent of Anna Nicole.
Is the Auto Show a good time? Yeah, sort of. It could be. There are lots of shiny cars to see and sit in. There are big flashy displays. There are smiling spokesmodels. On the other hand, it's crowded all the time. You might think mid-afternoon on a weekday would be less popular, but no -- it is always filled with people.
It would be fun to casually walk through for about an hour or so, but that's it -- unless you had another purpose: you were actually in the market for a car or you were with some friends and planning on dinner and gambling afterwards at Greektown. Absent something like that, it really becomes just a big auto showroom that you must survive the squalorous insanity of Detroit to reach.
How to make it better? Have it in the summer -- outside (or at least open air), give it twice as much space and locate it somewhere you can actually get to without having to adopt an eat-or-be-eaten mindset to survive.
Until then, I'll pass on future Auto Shows, unless I get offered a lot more than $75.
Originally posted 1/25/2003
Thursday, January 01, 2009
The Month That Was - December 2008
The Month That Was - December 2008: Kiss another year goodbye, so I'm starting to think about projects for next year. I need to start getting this place (this site) organized and sorted out. First, all the media I review are now going to get their own posts rather than doing "flick notes" and "reading roundups". This will make it easier for folks to zero in on things when they do web searches. Second, I want to get all the travel reports that are linked to the left worked into the actual blog, so I will likely be editing and reposting them as "travel rewinds" or something like that, and getting all the pictures up on SmugMug; the goal is to get all the content in the blog or on SmugMug, again for the sake of searching and linking.
My writing projects are to either finish Misspent Youth and/or my top secret other project, and to get Apple Pie and Business as Usual formatted for the Kindle. Figure I'll finish about half of everyting I want done.
Right now Michigan is swirl of dead tree brown and salt road grey. The only remedy, of course, is travel planning. But that'll wait until the new year.
The End of Vegas?
Book Look: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Book Look: Europe's Last Summer
Book Look: Last Night at the Lobster
The Decline and Fall of HBO
Christmas in New York
Football (With Regrets)
My writing projects are to either finish Misspent Youth and/or my top secret other project, and to get Apple Pie and Business as Usual formatted for the Kindle. Figure I'll finish about half of everyting I want done.
Right now Michigan is swirl of dead tree brown and salt road grey. The only remedy, of course, is travel planning. But that'll wait until the new year.
The End of Vegas?
Book Look: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Book Look: Europe's Last Summer
Book Look: Last Night at the Lobster
The Decline and Fall of HBO
Christmas in New York
Football (With Regrets)
The End of Vegas?
The End of Vegas?: For I don't know how many years now I have spent my Thanksgiving in Las Vegas. (Photos on SmugMug.)I don't know whether it's me or the city, but I simply don't feel the excitement I used to feel going there. Bill Simmons once wrote that there are three places in the U.S. where just being there makes you feel like you're in a movie: Manhattan, Bourbon Street, and the Vegas Strip. But familiarity takes all that away. I don't get those feelings anymore after multiple visits, especially in Vegas.
I used to get geeked up for blackjack sessions, but once I mastered basic strategy it became rote (plus they started getting all namby-pamby on the rules like shortening the payouts for a blackjack). I tried the other table games, mostly just to have had the experience, but again, once I had done it I didn't feel compelled to continue. Poker was good for a while, and it can be a stimulating challenge; on the other hand, I don't ever recall being at a poker table that was fun (like a good blackjack table). The only gambling left for me is NFL betting.
Likewise, I've experienced the other aspects of Vegas life now. I was never truly interested in clubbing, other than as an observer of humanity. They are generally horrible places where if you want to sit you have to buy $400 table service otherwise you get to stand and order $15 drinks provided you can elbow your way to the bar. No conversation can be had over the music. The shows can be fun, but how many Cirque du Soliels can you see before they start to run together in a colorful blur? Gentlemen's clubs? Even the best come off as seamy.
So now I tend to haunt the sports books and visit my favorite restaurants -- Vegas has not let me down food-wise. It's hard to imagine more great food concentrated in walking distance than you get on the Strip. The big new development since I was last on the Strip is the Palazzo, which is an addition to the Venetian. It has its own upscale shopping mall and its own canals and some truly top notch restaurants, the best of which was Carnevino, Mario Batali's Italian Steakhouse. I forwent steak and had the Ravioli Di Stracotto, a duck liver ravioli in a balsamic sauce. It may have been the single most tasty thing I have ever eaten in my life. Also at Palazzo is Cut, Wolfgang Puck's steakhouse where I snacked on some tasty steak tartare, and Woo, a nouveau Asian spot with an awesome ginger chicken dumpling appetizer (I did a lot of snacking around, rather than big meals). I indulged in sushi and sake for the first time in ages; it was a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner.
Generally with respect to the Strip I know where I want to go and what I want to eat and who I want to bet on. As a result, two nights on the strip was just about right. Friday morning, when the masses were flowing into the city for the long weekend I was on my way out, headed toward San Diego.
There are two paths to San Diego from Las Vegas. One is to head westward towards L.A. and then swing south just before you get into the meat of Los Angeles. That's the fast way -- maybe 5 hours. The other option is to head south out of Vegas, through the desert. Once outside the city, the landscape goes barren fast. In Michigan we often find ourselves dodging squirrels and chipmunks as they dart through traffic in pursuit of God knows what. South of Vegas, you see a little critter making its way across the road and by the time you get up to it, you realize it's a tarantula. Three times I sped past these hairy beasts, all eight legs working to get them across the tarmac. Ick.
These long straight roads take you through the Mojave Desert and skirt Joshua Tree National Park. Apart from the tarantulas, all that exists are a few dusty little towns and a few outdoorsy resorts geared toward four-wheeling (which looks like an awful lot of fun). Then, after a few hours, civilization suddenly reappears in all its glory. Resort communities spring up fully-formed and golf course-green: Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Desert Hot Springs, etc. The whole area exists as a way for west coasters to get away from urban life and escape to "The Desert". (We have a similar habit here in Michigan we call "Going Up North".) The streets are all lined with symmetric rows of palm trees while BMWs and Lexuses weave in and out of the gated communities and country clubs. These folks have more money than God, and play more golf than Him, too.
I only had time to stop for a late lunch in Palm Desert, but I was thinking it would surely be nice to hang there. I took a brief walk up El Paseo, which looks to be the Main Street of Palm Desert -- shops, restaurants, etc. -- and had a nice al fresco lunch at City Grill, then it was off to meet Chevy Chase and Ted Knight on the first tee at Bushwood. Actually, it was back on the road to San Diego.
And this is where taking the road less travelled paid off. Exiting Palm Desert you find yourself on the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail for a brief period, which entails snaking through hairpin turns up through astounding photo-worthy mountain passes. It turns out that locked between the shiny worlds of Las Vegas and L.A. are some strikingly scenic high desert vistas. From there on it's a dash down from the peaks to the coast and into San Diego, or more specifically, Del Mar.
I have never "gotten" Los Angeles. I know it is supposed to be paradigmatic of Southern California and its praises are raised in story and song, but I don't see the attraction, relatively speaking. If you are not in the film industry, or angling to get in, I see absolutely no reason anyone would prefer L.A. to San Diego. I find San Diego to be about the most beautiful large city I have ever seen. It is a city of easy charm versus the teeth gritted smile of Los Angeles.
North of San Diego sits the famed suburb of La Jolla, and just beyond that sits Del Mar -- possibly a bit downscale from La Jolla, but equally beautiful if not more so. The first time I was in San Diego, several years ago on business, on my one free day I rented a car and asked the desk jockey where he would go if he had one day at the beach. He said would go to Del Mar which, in his opinion, had the most beautiful beach in Southern California. I took his advice back then, and this time I went back. I have to admit that I have kind of fallen in love with Del Mar.
Del Mar seems nothing more than a little surfside town with a main shopping and dining area and a couple of state parks along the shoreline. There is a famous racetrack there, and Torrey Pines Park, which constitute its main public attractions, but my impression is the vibe is still that of a small, beach community. I snagged a decent room at the Best Western Stratford Inn, which is a five minute walk to the bluff overlooking the beach. You walk down a very pretty little side street and come to a set of railroad tracks over the shore along which runs Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner service, from San Diego all the way up past L.A. to San Luis Obispo (gotta try that sometime). You can walk north along the bluff looking down on the beach (or climbing down to hit the surf), eventually the bluff slopes down and merges with the beach proper at Powerhouse Park, where everyone gathers for the sunset. Me, I could have hung out shooting pictures all day and fantasizing about learning to surf.
San Diego proper is only a few minutes away and my only full day free was dominated by a visit to Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo. I had picked the perfect day, it was sunny and not too hot. I managed to be one of the first into the zoo and got to enjoy it before it got too crowded. The SD Zoo is an exceptionally well-designed place. Most all the critters are easily viewable, the exception being the pandas, for which the viewing line was ludicrously long from the opening of the gates. They have foot-saving busses that run throughout the park and an aerial tram that takes you from the far end back to the entrance.
Outside the Zoo are the other attractions of Balboa Park which is, effectively, a museum campus -- Art, Photography, Air & Space, History (both natural and manmade), Cultural this and that -- all with a certain local angle to them. The grounds are nicely landscaped. It is a place where San Diegans go to promenade on a sunny afternoon. I snagged a bite to eat from one of the cart vendors and found a comfy spot on the lawn to watch the world go by for an hour or so in the late afternoon. I do awfully like San Diego. And in my visits (maybe 4 of them over the years) I have just scratched the surface.
After a sunset photo shoot and a quick dinner back in Del Mar, I was up the next morning and headed back towards Vegas. In an effort to save time I took the road more traveled back. Ugly gray freeway all the way; hideous truck stop towns outside L.A.; a bizarre place called Primm just inside the Nevada border that looked like a parody of commercialism: a huge flashy casino and outlet mall in the middle of a barren desert. And for the hundreds of miles from L.A. to just outside Vegas the traffic was stop and go in the other direction as the folks I passed on the way out Friday were returning to the West Coast from their long holiday weekends. What a living hell for them: After a grueling Thanksgiving with the annoying relatives, you crawl through traffic, turkey-nauseated, to the Vegas strip, spend the weekend overpaying for your room, overeating in buffets, and losing your shirt in blackjack or on the slots, then you claw your way back to L.A. at a snail's pace. Thank you, God, for making me a contrarian.
I closed out my trip on the outskirts of Vegas at the Red Rock Resort. I chose Red Rock for three reasons: 1) I could easily make the run into the strip to collect on my NFL bets (I broke roughly even), 2) it is about the nearest place to Red Rock Canyon State Park, and 3) it was supposed to be beautiful. All three were true. Red Rock Resort has a sweet pool area and would probably be a killer spot to hang in the summer when pool time is an option. The rooms are big and awesome with high-def flat screens and gigantic marble bathrooms. There are a ton of restaurants on the property; you could have a decent trip if you never left the resort. But that would be silly because Red Rock Canyon is only 7 miles away.
Red Rock Canyon is called that because it is dominated by a canyon of reddish rock, go figure. But there really is a good deal of geological diversity in relatively small area (it's barely a blip on the map relative to major national parks). Technically it is not a National Park, but a National Conservation Area, which I believe differs from a park in that there are minimal facilities and maintenance. Basically it's just a chunk of land that no one is allowed to develop. There is a 13-mile one way road through the place with a visitor's center at the start. There are a handful of parking areas and overlooks, each with a primitive restroom and a trash can. From many of the stops there are hiking trails through various regions, generally starting from the road and heading into the canyonland.
I took off for a quick hike through an area called the Calico Tanks, and promptly found myself off the trail, with no idea where I had lost it. This is par for the course considering my hiking habits and usually I pass it off to my congenital trailblindness, but this time I cut myself some slack in that these are some very poorly marked trails over and around boulders; I think it would be tough for even experienced hikers to keep on these trails.
The good news is that I was able to make my way fairly deep into the crevices and recesses of the canyon. Surrounded by towering walls of red boulders, it was eerily dark and astoundingly quiet. The only sounds came from within the strewn-about thickets where birds engaged in periodic screeching matches. I am not particularly aware of what might be termed the "spiritual essence" of a place, but some combination of isolation, security, silence, and the cool desert air inside that canyon made me feel as though I was in some sort of secret hiding place.
Apparently a fit chap with some time on his hands could make his way all the way to the top of the ridge, scrambling up large boulders the whole way, no special rock climbing skills needed. I debated finding my way back to the car to drop off my Nikon then doing just that, but decided against it. I wanted to see the rest of the park. As it was, I still got to do a good deal of rock-hopping, followed by crab-walking down the steeper parts just finding my way back to the trail. Good fun; definitely lined up for a return visit. The remainder of the road loop is lovely and offers some decent desert hiking, just not the drama of the red rocks proper.
So that's how I spent my Thanksgiving. Despite my misgivings above, I'll likely go back next year. Even if the Strip is fading in esteem, Vegas offers all the opportunity I need to Southwest exploration. I still have never been to the Grand Canyon or Hoover Dam (damn contrarian). Besides, by next year Wynn's Encore and MGM's City Center will be open, and I have to see those. There's plenty of opportunity left for giving thanks in Sin City.
Photos on SmugMug.
I used to get geeked up for blackjack sessions, but once I mastered basic strategy it became rote (plus they started getting all namby-pamby on the rules like shortening the payouts for a blackjack). I tried the other table games, mostly just to have had the experience, but again, once I had done it I didn't feel compelled to continue. Poker was good for a while, and it can be a stimulating challenge; on the other hand, I don't ever recall being at a poker table that was fun (like a good blackjack table). The only gambling left for me is NFL betting.
Likewise, I've experienced the other aspects of Vegas life now. I was never truly interested in clubbing, other than as an observer of humanity. They are generally horrible places where if you want to sit you have to buy $400 table service otherwise you get to stand and order $15 drinks provided you can elbow your way to the bar. No conversation can be had over the music. The shows can be fun, but how many Cirque du Soliels can you see before they start to run together in a colorful blur? Gentlemen's clubs? Even the best come off as seamy.
So now I tend to haunt the sports books and visit my favorite restaurants -- Vegas has not let me down food-wise. It's hard to imagine more great food concentrated in walking distance than you get on the Strip. The big new development since I was last on the Strip is the Palazzo, which is an addition to the Venetian. It has its own upscale shopping mall and its own canals and some truly top notch restaurants, the best of which was Carnevino, Mario Batali's Italian Steakhouse. I forwent steak and had the Ravioli Di Stracotto, a duck liver ravioli in a balsamic sauce. It may have been the single most tasty thing I have ever eaten in my life. Also at Palazzo is Cut, Wolfgang Puck's steakhouse where I snacked on some tasty steak tartare, and Woo, a nouveau Asian spot with an awesome ginger chicken dumpling appetizer (I did a lot of snacking around, rather than big meals). I indulged in sushi and sake for the first time in ages; it was a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner.
Generally with respect to the Strip I know where I want to go and what I want to eat and who I want to bet on. As a result, two nights on the strip was just about right. Friday morning, when the masses were flowing into the city for the long weekend I was on my way out, headed toward San Diego.
There are two paths to San Diego from Las Vegas. One is to head westward towards L.A. and then swing south just before you get into the meat of Los Angeles. That's the fast way -- maybe 5 hours. The other option is to head south out of Vegas, through the desert. Once outside the city, the landscape goes barren fast. In Michigan we often find ourselves dodging squirrels and chipmunks as they dart through traffic in pursuit of God knows what. South of Vegas, you see a little critter making its way across the road and by the time you get up to it, you realize it's a tarantula. Three times I sped past these hairy beasts, all eight legs working to get them across the tarmac. Ick.
These long straight roads take you through the Mojave Desert and skirt Joshua Tree National Park. Apart from the tarantulas, all that exists are a few dusty little towns and a few outdoorsy resorts geared toward four-wheeling (which looks like an awful lot of fun). Then, after a few hours, civilization suddenly reappears in all its glory. Resort communities spring up fully-formed and golf course-green: Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Desert Hot Springs, etc. The whole area exists as a way for west coasters to get away from urban life and escape to "The Desert". (We have a similar habit here in Michigan we call "Going Up North".) The streets are all lined with symmetric rows of palm trees while BMWs and Lexuses weave in and out of the gated communities and country clubs. These folks have more money than God, and play more golf than Him, too.
I only had time to stop for a late lunch in Palm Desert, but I was thinking it would surely be nice to hang there. I took a brief walk up El Paseo, which looks to be the Main Street of Palm Desert -- shops, restaurants, etc. -- and had a nice al fresco lunch at City Grill, then it was off to meet Chevy Chase and Ted Knight on the first tee at Bushwood. Actually, it was back on the road to San Diego.
And this is where taking the road less travelled paid off. Exiting Palm Desert you find yourself on the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail for a brief period, which entails snaking through hairpin turns up through astounding photo-worthy mountain passes. It turns out that locked between the shiny worlds of Las Vegas and L.A. are some strikingly scenic high desert vistas. From there on it's a dash down from the peaks to the coast and into San Diego, or more specifically, Del Mar.
I have never "gotten" Los Angeles. I know it is supposed to be paradigmatic of Southern California and its praises are raised in story and song, but I don't see the attraction, relatively speaking. If you are not in the film industry, or angling to get in, I see absolutely no reason anyone would prefer L.A. to San Diego. I find San Diego to be about the most beautiful large city I have ever seen. It is a city of easy charm versus the teeth gritted smile of Los Angeles.
North of San Diego sits the famed suburb of La Jolla, and just beyond that sits Del Mar -- possibly a bit downscale from La Jolla, but equally beautiful if not more so. The first time I was in San Diego, several years ago on business, on my one free day I rented a car and asked the desk jockey where he would go if he had one day at the beach. He said would go to Del Mar which, in his opinion, had the most beautiful beach in Southern California. I took his advice back then, and this time I went back. I have to admit that I have kind of fallen in love with Del Mar.
Del Mar seems nothing more than a little surfside town with a main shopping and dining area and a couple of state parks along the shoreline. There is a famous racetrack there, and Torrey Pines Park, which constitute its main public attractions, but my impression is the vibe is still that of a small, beach community. I snagged a decent room at the Best Western Stratford Inn, which is a five minute walk to the bluff overlooking the beach. You walk down a very pretty little side street and come to a set of railroad tracks over the shore along which runs Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner service, from San Diego all the way up past L.A. to San Luis Obispo (gotta try that sometime). You can walk north along the bluff looking down on the beach (or climbing down to hit the surf), eventually the bluff slopes down and merges with the beach proper at Powerhouse Park, where everyone gathers for the sunset. Me, I could have hung out shooting pictures all day and fantasizing about learning to surf.
San Diego proper is only a few minutes away and my only full day free was dominated by a visit to Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo. I had picked the perfect day, it was sunny and not too hot. I managed to be one of the first into the zoo and got to enjoy it before it got too crowded. The SD Zoo is an exceptionally well-designed place. Most all the critters are easily viewable, the exception being the pandas, for which the viewing line was ludicrously long from the opening of the gates. They have foot-saving busses that run throughout the park and an aerial tram that takes you from the far end back to the entrance.
Outside the Zoo are the other attractions of Balboa Park which is, effectively, a museum campus -- Art, Photography, Air & Space, History (both natural and manmade), Cultural this and that -- all with a certain local angle to them. The grounds are nicely landscaped. It is a place where San Diegans go to promenade on a sunny afternoon. I snagged a bite to eat from one of the cart vendors and found a comfy spot on the lawn to watch the world go by for an hour or so in the late afternoon. I do awfully like San Diego. And in my visits (maybe 4 of them over the years) I have just scratched the surface.
After a sunset photo shoot and a quick dinner back in Del Mar, I was up the next morning and headed back towards Vegas. In an effort to save time I took the road more traveled back. Ugly gray freeway all the way; hideous truck stop towns outside L.A.; a bizarre place called Primm just inside the Nevada border that looked like a parody of commercialism: a huge flashy casino and outlet mall in the middle of a barren desert. And for the hundreds of miles from L.A. to just outside Vegas the traffic was stop and go in the other direction as the folks I passed on the way out Friday were returning to the West Coast from their long holiday weekends. What a living hell for them: After a grueling Thanksgiving with the annoying relatives, you crawl through traffic, turkey-nauseated, to the Vegas strip, spend the weekend overpaying for your room, overeating in buffets, and losing your shirt in blackjack or on the slots, then you claw your way back to L.A. at a snail's pace. Thank you, God, for making me a contrarian.
I closed out my trip on the outskirts of Vegas at the Red Rock Resort. I chose Red Rock for three reasons: 1) I could easily make the run into the strip to collect on my NFL bets (I broke roughly even), 2) it is about the nearest place to Red Rock Canyon State Park, and 3) it was supposed to be beautiful. All three were true. Red Rock Resort has a sweet pool area and would probably be a killer spot to hang in the summer when pool time is an option. The rooms are big and awesome with high-def flat screens and gigantic marble bathrooms. There are a ton of restaurants on the property; you could have a decent trip if you never left the resort. But that would be silly because Red Rock Canyon is only 7 miles away.
Red Rock Canyon is called that because it is dominated by a canyon of reddish rock, go figure. But there really is a good deal of geological diversity in relatively small area (it's barely a blip on the map relative to major national parks). Technically it is not a National Park, but a National Conservation Area, which I believe differs from a park in that there are minimal facilities and maintenance. Basically it's just a chunk of land that no one is allowed to develop. There is a 13-mile one way road through the place with a visitor's center at the start. There are a handful of parking areas and overlooks, each with a primitive restroom and a trash can. From many of the stops there are hiking trails through various regions, generally starting from the road and heading into the canyonland.
I took off for a quick hike through an area called the Calico Tanks, and promptly found myself off the trail, with no idea where I had lost it. This is par for the course considering my hiking habits and usually I pass it off to my congenital trailblindness, but this time I cut myself some slack in that these are some very poorly marked trails over and around boulders; I think it would be tough for even experienced hikers to keep on these trails.
The good news is that I was able to make my way fairly deep into the crevices and recesses of the canyon. Surrounded by towering walls of red boulders, it was eerily dark and astoundingly quiet. The only sounds came from within the strewn-about thickets where birds engaged in periodic screeching matches. I am not particularly aware of what might be termed the "spiritual essence" of a place, but some combination of isolation, security, silence, and the cool desert air inside that canyon made me feel as though I was in some sort of secret hiding place.
Apparently a fit chap with some time on his hands could make his way all the way to the top of the ridge, scrambling up large boulders the whole way, no special rock climbing skills needed. I debated finding my way back to the car to drop off my Nikon then doing just that, but decided against it. I wanted to see the rest of the park. As it was, I still got to do a good deal of rock-hopping, followed by crab-walking down the steeper parts just finding my way back to the trail. Good fun; definitely lined up for a return visit. The remainder of the road loop is lovely and offers some decent desert hiking, just not the drama of the red rocks proper.
So that's how I spent my Thanksgiving. Despite my misgivings above, I'll likely go back next year. Even if the Strip is fading in esteem, Vegas offers all the opportunity I need to Southwest exploration. I still have never been to the Grand Canyon or Hoover Dam (damn contrarian). Besides, by next year Wynn's Encore and MGM's City Center will be open, and I have to see those. There's plenty of opportunity left for giving thanks in Sin City.
Photos on SmugMug.
Book Look: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Book Look: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami: I've written about Murakami's fiction before. I'm a big fan. I confess I didn't know he was such a dedicated runner. And this book is a short, quick reading, deceptively simple memoir about his avocation. He talks about how he runs, where he runs, when he runs, and most interestingly, what he thinks about why he runs. There is nothing special about this book beyond the fact that it is exceptionally personal -- a rare thing for the somewhat withdrawn Murakami. Over the years, he had just recorded his thoughts about running and has followed them to a deeper understanding of himself and the world, and organized them into this book. It is not profound in any way, but there is a sort of elegiac quality to the resigned acceptance of things. If you run, you will almost certainly identify with some of the sentiments. If you don't, you probably will too.
Book Look: Europe's Last Summer
Book Look: Europe's Last Summer by David Fromkin: I have always had an odd fascination for WW1, specifically the events surrounding its outset. The romantic view of WW1 is that, apart from being a horrific from a military standpoint, it was a clean demarcation of modernity. Although the old order had been crumbling from within for decades, the Great War was the nail in the coffin. It ushered in the world we know and love by kicking off the bloodiest century in human history.
That's cynical comment, but not inaccurate. Modernity has brought us in the West very good lives for the most part, but there is also much we have lost, as Fromkin reminds us early on when he notes that in the summer before the war it was possible to travel anywhere without a passport, take up residence anywhere with no documentation, and generally live wherever and however you wanted with little or no interaction with any governmental authority whatsoever. Although there has been undeniable scientific and industrial progress, and there has arguably been a good deal of social progress in some quarters, those simple freedoms are gone from us now and likely never to return. How did this happen? Or put another way, who or what really started WW1?
Fromkin does a bang up job of incorporating relatively recent scholarship into his analysis. This is the sort of stuff that wasn't really known when I was memorizing WW1 facts in junior high school. (And now that it is known, the topic is likely no longer in public school curricula.) As revisionism goes, this is very mild. It's more of a clarification -- a well-reasoned expansion of context. In the end Fromkin concludes that the culpability rests primarily with the German General Staff. However, he also notes a striking bit of irony. As events tumbled toward finality, the only ones who could have and would have likely stopped them were two paragons of the old order, living parodies of obnoxious monarchs, Archduke Franz Ferdinand (by then assassinated) and Kaiser Wilhelm II (effectively neutered by the German political establishment). Modernity was born of blood not from the death throes of the old order, but from self-inflicted wounds.
That's cynical comment, but not inaccurate. Modernity has brought us in the West very good lives for the most part, but there is also much we have lost, as Fromkin reminds us early on when he notes that in the summer before the war it was possible to travel anywhere without a passport, take up residence anywhere with no documentation, and generally live wherever and however you wanted with little or no interaction with any governmental authority whatsoever. Although there has been undeniable scientific and industrial progress, and there has arguably been a good deal of social progress in some quarters, those simple freedoms are gone from us now and likely never to return. How did this happen? Or put another way, who or what really started WW1?
Fromkin does a bang up job of incorporating relatively recent scholarship into his analysis. This is the sort of stuff that wasn't really known when I was memorizing WW1 facts in junior high school. (And now that it is known, the topic is likely no longer in public school curricula.) As revisionism goes, this is very mild. It's more of a clarification -- a well-reasoned expansion of context. In the end Fromkin concludes that the culpability rests primarily with the German General Staff. However, he also notes a striking bit of irony. As events tumbled toward finality, the only ones who could have and would have likely stopped them were two paragons of the old order, living parodies of obnoxious monarchs, Archduke Franz Ferdinand (by then assassinated) and Kaiser Wilhelm II (effectively neutered by the German political establishment). Modernity was born of blood not from the death throes of the old order, but from self-inflicted wounds.
Book Look: Last Night at the Lobster
Book Look: Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan: What a perfect slice of life. Manny is the manager of a Red Lobster on its last day of business. The outlet is closing and Manny is being transferred to a nearby Olive Garden (and taking a corresponding demotion to Assistant Manager). Things are complicated by the fact that a massive snowstorm is upon them so the place is empty, and that he can select five employees to bring with him to Olive Garden, then rest get to pound the pavement for a new job. Things are further complicated because Manny is still hopelessly infatuated with one of the waitresses to the point of having elevated their erstwhile affair into heavenly bliss.
Among its many virtues, Lobster gets the whole day in the life of a franchise restaurant dead on perfect. An old chain restaurant employee (such as myself) cannot stop nodding in recognition at virtually every setting and all the little actions and attitudes that fill the day. Although I worry those details may make things seem a bit slow going for folks not familiar with that life.
The bigger achievement is the portrayal of Manny. An underachieving, aging, everyman with an excess of belly that disturbs him and a longing to recapture the one passionate time in his life. Manny is a true believer. It's the last day the restaurant will be open, but he is going through the processes and following the guidelines as best he can, all the while understanding and honoring of the disinterest of other employees. He soldiers on trying to do the right and responsible thing when it doesn't count a whit if the place is open or closed or clean or filthy. He hopes by hanging on to paychecks he can keep enough staff from deserting so he can stay open, but whatever chance there was for a solid final performance is lost in the debilitating snowstorm. He's down to a skeleton crew of folks who are really just hanging out to help him through the end.
The final insult comes when a bus load of seniors show up and he's convinced they can do one last heroic act to get them served and satisfied, except all they want is to make use of the bathroom and get back on the road. Manny laments his lost chance to do something special, mirroring his lament for his lost lover. Only for the briefest moment does he sense that the fact that some staff actually stuck it out to closing, despite already having their checks, despite being terminated the next day, despite simply not caring about their jobs, for no reason other than to support him, counts as a special achievement. It's an act of gratitude that he has earned over the years for his basic honorability despite the negativity and disappointment of his staff.
There are millions of people like Manny out there. They have lost any pretense of their own special value, without anything hope for passion or greatness, yet they press on, working hard and being responsible because it is the right thing to do and because they know no other way. They are the finest of the faithful. All they can hope for is some marginal form of justice in the end; meanwhile dirtbags, deviants, and sore thumbs get their stories told and wallow in their own infamy.
Well done Stewart O'Nan! More people should write books like this.
Among its many virtues, Lobster gets the whole day in the life of a franchise restaurant dead on perfect. An old chain restaurant employee (such as myself) cannot stop nodding in recognition at virtually every setting and all the little actions and attitudes that fill the day. Although I worry those details may make things seem a bit slow going for folks not familiar with that life.
The bigger achievement is the portrayal of Manny. An underachieving, aging, everyman with an excess of belly that disturbs him and a longing to recapture the one passionate time in his life. Manny is a true believer. It's the last day the restaurant will be open, but he is going through the processes and following the guidelines as best he can, all the while understanding and honoring of the disinterest of other employees. He soldiers on trying to do the right and responsible thing when it doesn't count a whit if the place is open or closed or clean or filthy. He hopes by hanging on to paychecks he can keep enough staff from deserting so he can stay open, but whatever chance there was for a solid final performance is lost in the debilitating snowstorm. He's down to a skeleton crew of folks who are really just hanging out to help him through the end.
The final insult comes when a bus load of seniors show up and he's convinced they can do one last heroic act to get them served and satisfied, except all they want is to make use of the bathroom and get back on the road. Manny laments his lost chance to do something special, mirroring his lament for his lost lover. Only for the briefest moment does he sense that the fact that some staff actually stuck it out to closing, despite already having their checks, despite being terminated the next day, despite simply not caring about their jobs, for no reason other than to support him, counts as a special achievement. It's an act of gratitude that he has earned over the years for his basic honorability despite the negativity and disappointment of his staff.
There are millions of people like Manny out there. They have lost any pretense of their own special value, without anything hope for passion or greatness, yet they press on, working hard and being responsible because it is the right thing to do and because they know no other way. They are the finest of the faithful. All they can hope for is some marginal form of justice in the end; meanwhile dirtbags, deviants, and sore thumbs get their stories told and wallow in their own infamy.
Well done Stewart O'Nan! More people should write books like this.
The Decline and Fall of HBO
The Decline and Fall of HBO: I suppose True Blood was OK. That is to say, it's not worth watching other than as a mild distraction. The concept of vampires as an oppressed minority with religious and quasi-right wing human supremacist forces out to get them is about as heavy-handed and conceptually confused as anything I have seen. It also appears to have no actual point. Beyond that, True Blood is a generic combo of soap opera and murder mystery, just add vampires. Attempts at humor are not particularly funny. Attempts at suspense are not particularly arresting. Attempts at romance descend into dull pseudo-porn. Producer Alan Ball's reputation now rests on American Beauty, an overwrought movie which gets exponentially worse with age; Six Feet Under, which had one great season, and one good one, and also has no staying power; and the shrug-inducing True Blood.
(By the way: I am already sick to death of frickin' vampires. Let's declare a moratorium on any more vampire crap. Let the undead rest in peace for a while, wouldja?)
A better pointless time waster is Entourage because it doesn't profess to be anything more than tissue-thin and therefore doesn't require the effort to be disappointed, and you only end up wasting 30 minutes instead of an hour. Plus, there is always The Piven to liven things up.
Upcoming for HBO is a sitcom called Hung and I refuse to describe the premise, but you can probably guess. I'll just say that if you are one of those people who believes TV is a lurid cesspool, you're about to get a reload of ammo, as if you needed it. All this is made more poignant because they have just re-run the final season of the finest TV show ever made, Deadwood.
I know some people claim The Wire to be best, but they are wrong. That show's source of brilliance was the treatment of the series as a contemporary Greek Tragedy, but it was marred by the very contemporary setting it so valued. In the end outside forces like David Simon's axe grinding weighed heavily on it, and I grew to sense an uncomfortable voyeurism, as if it a certain class of elitist progressives were gawking at the portrayal of some horrible primitives, while congratulating themselves on their broad-minded evaluations. The ambition for social relevance inevitably makes the living reaction to the show part of the experience; "contemporary" is a double-edged sword. I rank The Wire at #3.
The Sopranos also bears mentioning, but to be honest, it was 6+ seasons when it should have been about 4. There were stretches that were carried almost entirely by James Gandolfini. However, it benefitted supremely from Matt Weiner's subtle and honest insights into humanity (now obvious thanks to Mad Men). The characters were as deep and the relationships as complex as any ever created. The Sopranos comes in at #2.
Deadwood rises above the others simply by the scope of its ambition. The Wire was about impotence in the face of a cold-hearted, dehumanizing system. The Sopranos was about the lies we tell ourselves and how we work to preserve them. Excellent and timeless themes, no doubt; well-plumbed throughout the history of the arts. But Deadwood was about how civilization emerges from barbarism. Go find examples of that anywhere else in the arts or humanities. Forgive me if I don't wait. If it wasn't totally original, it was pretty rare. And I'll wager anything you do find in a similar vein is mawkishly simple in comparison. More likely you'll find high-minded expositions about how we are no different from savages.
But more than that is the language. As far as I know Deadwood is the only TV show, and one of the few recent works of drama in any form, to use the English language in something other than a utilitarian, realistic way. The dialogue had a rhythm and tone all its own -- it approached having a meter. People spoke in complete sentences and paragraphs. There were regularly soliloquies. All of this was intermixed with some of the most poetic profanity imaginable. I know the gangsters and gangstas in the other two shows had the lingo right for their idioms, but that was for the sake of genuineness. The dialogue in Deadwood wasn't aiming to be genuine; it was aiming to be beautiful. And it was. Just an amazing work of art.
Deadwood never got a chance to end, because it was more important to have time slots for something like Hung. Where once HBO had the balls to greenlight epic drama, they now only have the balls to greenlight epic genitals.
(By the way: I am already sick to death of frickin' vampires. Let's declare a moratorium on any more vampire crap. Let the undead rest in peace for a while, wouldja?)
A better pointless time waster is Entourage because it doesn't profess to be anything more than tissue-thin and therefore doesn't require the effort to be disappointed, and you only end up wasting 30 minutes instead of an hour. Plus, there is always The Piven to liven things up.
Upcoming for HBO is a sitcom called Hung and I refuse to describe the premise, but you can probably guess. I'll just say that if you are one of those people who believes TV is a lurid cesspool, you're about to get a reload of ammo, as if you needed it. All this is made more poignant because they have just re-run the final season of the finest TV show ever made, Deadwood.
I know some people claim The Wire to be best, but they are wrong. That show's source of brilliance was the treatment of the series as a contemporary Greek Tragedy, but it was marred by the very contemporary setting it so valued. In the end outside forces like David Simon's axe grinding weighed heavily on it, and I grew to sense an uncomfortable voyeurism, as if it a certain class of elitist progressives were gawking at the portrayal of some horrible primitives, while congratulating themselves on their broad-minded evaluations. The ambition for social relevance inevitably makes the living reaction to the show part of the experience; "contemporary" is a double-edged sword. I rank The Wire at #3.
The Sopranos also bears mentioning, but to be honest, it was 6+ seasons when it should have been about 4. There were stretches that were carried almost entirely by James Gandolfini. However, it benefitted supremely from Matt Weiner's subtle and honest insights into humanity (now obvious thanks to Mad Men). The characters were as deep and the relationships as complex as any ever created. The Sopranos comes in at #2.
Deadwood rises above the others simply by the scope of its ambition. The Wire was about impotence in the face of a cold-hearted, dehumanizing system. The Sopranos was about the lies we tell ourselves and how we work to preserve them. Excellent and timeless themes, no doubt; well-plumbed throughout the history of the arts. But Deadwood was about how civilization emerges from barbarism. Go find examples of that anywhere else in the arts or humanities. Forgive me if I don't wait. If it wasn't totally original, it was pretty rare. And I'll wager anything you do find in a similar vein is mawkishly simple in comparison. More likely you'll find high-minded expositions about how we are no different from savages.
But more than that is the language. As far as I know Deadwood is the only TV show, and one of the few recent works of drama in any form, to use the English language in something other than a utilitarian, realistic way. The dialogue had a rhythm and tone all its own -- it approached having a meter. People spoke in complete sentences and paragraphs. There were regularly soliloquies. All of this was intermixed with some of the most poetic profanity imaginable. I know the gangsters and gangstas in the other two shows had the lingo right for their idioms, but that was for the sake of genuineness. The dialogue in Deadwood wasn't aiming to be genuine; it was aiming to be beautiful. And it was. Just an amazing work of art.
Deadwood never got a chance to end, because it was more important to have time slots for something like Hung. Where once HBO had the balls to greenlight epic drama, they now only have the balls to greenlight epic genitals.
Christmas in New York
Christmas in New York: I flew into DC to meet Miss Kate and we took the Amtrak up to NYC for Christmas Day. We quickly came to the realization that the traditional Christmas, where a family stays in huddled around the tree, is long gone. The streets were packed. Rockefeller Center was packed stem to stern with cops directing the foot traffic. It was simply astounding how many people were scurrying about. We walked up toward Central Park and tried to get into the Oak Room in the Plaza for a drink -- no go. We finally found some respite from the crowds in Central Park itself which was quite lovely even in bare-treed winter, although that too took a little bit of seeking out the path less travelled. There was even a line for the horse and carriage rides.
With sundown approaching we made our way to the Lobby Bar in the Mandarin Oriental on Columbus Circle for a pre-dinner drink. Stylish and expensive, don't bother unless you have some green. Drinks are twenty bucks each. Next we made it to BLT Market in the Ritz-Carlton for a very tasty, if somewhat overpriced dinner; eight dollars for a cup of tea and they add in a 20% gratuity on a table of 2 -- shameful, but that's the Big Apple. Then it was time for the train ride back to DC. A short but enjoyable adventure that was appropriately festive and certainly beat the hell out of sitting home watching old movies.
The next day we hit the newly renovated Smithsonian Museum of American History and it was filled to the brim; folks lined up outside just about every exhibit. Sheesh. So we made our way over to the Freer/Sackler museum of Asian Art, a real hidden gem and deceptively large. I like Asian art and one nice thing about the Freer/Sackler Museum is that it is never crowded. Currently there is a big exhibit on Indian art that was fascinating in many ways, but with all the wandering of the previous day, my feet were throbbing. After a last beer in Crystal City, Kate dropped me at Reagan National and I was winging my way home.
Travelling on holidays can be good, but it works best if you are heading away from standard tourist destinations. My ultimate lesson for the holiday season: It pays to be a contrarian.
Photos on SmugMug.
With sundown approaching we made our way to the Lobby Bar in the Mandarin Oriental on Columbus Circle for a pre-dinner drink. Stylish and expensive, don't bother unless you have some green. Drinks are twenty bucks each. Next we made it to BLT Market in the Ritz-Carlton for a very tasty, if somewhat overpriced dinner; eight dollars for a cup of tea and they add in a 20% gratuity on a table of 2 -- shameful, but that's the Big Apple. Then it was time for the train ride back to DC. A short but enjoyable adventure that was appropriately festive and certainly beat the hell out of sitting home watching old movies.
The next day we hit the newly renovated Smithsonian Museum of American History and it was filled to the brim; folks lined up outside just about every exhibit. Sheesh. So we made our way over to the Freer/Sackler museum of Asian Art, a real hidden gem and deceptively large. I like Asian art and one nice thing about the Freer/Sackler Museum is that it is never crowded. Currently there is a big exhibit on Indian art that was fascinating in many ways, but with all the wandering of the previous day, my feet were throbbing. After a last beer in Crystal City, Kate dropped me at Reagan National and I was winging my way home.
Travelling on holidays can be good, but it works best if you are heading away from standard tourist destinations. My ultimate lesson for the holiday season: It pays to be a contrarian.
Photos on SmugMug.
Football (With Regrets)
Football (With Regrets): I can't do it. I can't make it through the whole year without writing about football. Sorry, but the Dolphins won their division (by a tie-breaker, but still) and in the process slammed the door on that insufferable diva, Brett Favre. That cannot go unnoted.
I knew I was going to have withdrawal over giving up my NFL column, but you can't imagine the self-control it took not to go off on novel-length savaging of Lord Favre when he was doing his little golly-I-changed-my-mind-about-retiring-why-are-you-being-so-mean-to-me episode at the outset of the season. Favre has always been overrated and manipulative, but he finally reached Terrell Owens level selfishness.
In case you don't remember, the Packers, having already named Aaron Rodgers as the starting QB before the King decided to Return, did the honorable thing and kept their promise to a guy who patiently waited in the wings all those years while The Diva was padding his consecutive start streak. They offered Brett the back-up job, even though he would be a locker room cancer at that point. Playing second fiddle was, as you can guess, intolerable to Ms. Hilton...er, I mean Brett Favre.
So after all the wheedling and whinnying, His Lordship ended up on traded to the Jets. Having landed His Royal Brettness, the Jets summarily shipped their previous starting QB, Chad Pennington, to lowly 1-15 Miami, where this supposed mediocrity would mingle with existing mediocrities and offer no sort of threat to the Jets, even though they are in the same division. Favre must have been in hog heaven at that point. Not only did he have all the attention he could ever want, but he had the reputations of two other QBs (Rodgers and Pennington) hinging on his performance. Imagine the boundless self-validation of wielding such influence.
In the beginning of the season, things were going exactly as planned. The Jets were winning and sports journalists were trumpeting the glory of Lord Favre across the land. The Jets were brilliant and Favre was a true-life superhero. Still, even with Brett at his high point, there were flaws that were apparent to anyone who follows closely. You have no idea how many times I came close to punching out a column at that point, but I would have needed to new keyboard for every paragraph from hitting the keys so hard.
Readers who kept up with my erstwhile football column will remember that there are rules for having a winning football team. The first rule is: The Offensive Line is the Most Important Part of Your Team. That rule doesn't really have much bearing since the Jets O-line was marginally better than average. The second rule is: A Reliable, Consistent and Accurate Quarterback is better that a Star that Makes Big Plays. That does apply.
Another thing readers of my football column will recall is that I that place a lot of faith the cold, heartless statistical analysis that comes from Football Outsiders. That analysis indicated for most of the year, that Favre was putting up a less than middle-of the-road year at best. He was benefitting from a ridiculously easy schedule more than anything (as was all the AFC East). Meanwhile, down in Miami, where mediocrity was supposed to rule the day, the Fins were hanging in there with Jets and the Pats for the division lead, and Chad Pennington was putting together an outstanding season, albeit with roughly the same easy schedule benefit.
But it was still all about Favre -- he may throw an interception for every touchdown, but he's a game changer. You're never out of the game if Brett is your QB. Just knowing he's behind center raises the play of the entire team. God how I hate that nonsense. You can imagine how frustrating it was for me to watch that crap. And for a while it looked like injustice would be served as the Jets had the postseason in sight.
Sometimes, however, even in this chaotic world of chance and happenstance, things work out the way they are should. It seems that all the praise and puffery couldn't mask the truth forever. The Jets began to crumble. True to his history, the King of Intangibles started winging the ball to the guys in the wrong jerseys. In week 13 Favre could only manage 17 points against the Broncos, who were sporting the second worst defense in the NFL since 1995 (again, per Football Outsiders -- the 2008 Broncos are second only to the 2008 Lions). In week 16, against the craptastic Seattle Seahawks who had nothing to play for, he couldn't even manage a touchdown.
Down south, the Dolphins were still plugging away with Pennington doing what he always does (when he's not injured) -- being accurate, sticking to the plan, following his progressions, not wasting passes, and never drawing attention to himself. The Fins won four straight going into week 17, including 3 on the road. AS a result, they were in the driver's seat for the final week showdown with the Jets, a match heightened by Pennington's returning to the place he was cast out of for "someone better".
When truth, justice and beauty all coincide, it's a rare and wonderful thing to behold. The Fins played smart and steady. Chad completed 73% of his passes with 2 TDs and no interceptions. Brett completed only 50% with a single TD and 3 big ol' gunslinger interceptions. His final desperate pass of the game, and possibly his career, was an illegal forward lateral. In the immortal words of Nelson: Ha Ha.
So the Fins deservedly get the playoff berth and The Diva gets to go home and contemplate his next dramatic episode. Back in Green Bay Aaron Rodgers had a fine year, finishing as a top ten QB (per Football Outsiders), but the Pack simply didn't have anything go their way. Their play-by-play performance suggested they should have ended up with nine-ish wins -- instead they got six. Look for a big rebound next year as the statistical flukery reverts to the mean. That'll cook the Legend of Gunslinger for good.
In the fallout, the Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum, having discarded a better QB for a worse one and costing themselves a postseason berth, needed a fall guy. One of the only-hinted-at issues of the Jets season was a simmering conflict between the coach, Eric Mangini, who is a system guy, and The Diva, who didn't like to be told what to do or how to play. Mangini would sometimes question The Diva on his improvised decision-making. This is Something You Do Not Do To His Brettness and Tannenbaum had to side with Brett or admit he messed up by making the trade in the first place. Mangini was fired after the game. You live by The Brett, you die by The Brett.
The whole story is just 900 kinds of awesome. I wish I had written about it now, so I could look back at all the doubters and say "Neener, neener, neener"!
I knew I was going to have withdrawal over giving up my NFL column, but you can't imagine the self-control it took not to go off on novel-length savaging of Lord Favre when he was doing his little golly-I-changed-my-mind-about-retiring-why-are-you-being-so-mean-to-me episode at the outset of the season. Favre has always been overrated and manipulative, but he finally reached Terrell Owens level selfishness.
In case you don't remember, the Packers, having already named Aaron Rodgers as the starting QB before the King decided to Return, did the honorable thing and kept their promise to a guy who patiently waited in the wings all those years while The Diva was padding his consecutive start streak. They offered Brett the back-up job, even though he would be a locker room cancer at that point. Playing second fiddle was, as you can guess, intolerable to Ms. Hilton...er, I mean Brett Favre.
So after all the wheedling and whinnying, His Lordship ended up on traded to the Jets. Having landed His Royal Brettness, the Jets summarily shipped their previous starting QB, Chad Pennington, to lowly 1-15 Miami, where this supposed mediocrity would mingle with existing mediocrities and offer no sort of threat to the Jets, even though they are in the same division. Favre must have been in hog heaven at that point. Not only did he have all the attention he could ever want, but he had the reputations of two other QBs (Rodgers and Pennington) hinging on his performance. Imagine the boundless self-validation of wielding such influence.
In the beginning of the season, things were going exactly as planned. The Jets were winning and sports journalists were trumpeting the glory of Lord Favre across the land. The Jets were brilliant and Favre was a true-life superhero. Still, even with Brett at his high point, there were flaws that were apparent to anyone who follows closely. You have no idea how many times I came close to punching out a column at that point, but I would have needed to new keyboard for every paragraph from hitting the keys so hard.
Readers who kept up with my erstwhile football column will remember that there are rules for having a winning football team. The first rule is: The Offensive Line is the Most Important Part of Your Team. That rule doesn't really have much bearing since the Jets O-line was marginally better than average. The second rule is: A Reliable, Consistent and Accurate Quarterback is better that a Star that Makes Big Plays. That does apply.
Another thing readers of my football column will recall is that I that place a lot of faith the cold, heartless statistical analysis that comes from Football Outsiders. That analysis indicated for most of the year, that Favre was putting up a less than middle-of the-road year at best. He was benefitting from a ridiculously easy schedule more than anything (as was all the AFC East). Meanwhile, down in Miami, where mediocrity was supposed to rule the day, the Fins were hanging in there with Jets and the Pats for the division lead, and Chad Pennington was putting together an outstanding season, albeit with roughly the same easy schedule benefit.
But it was still all about Favre -- he may throw an interception for every touchdown, but he's a game changer. You're never out of the game if Brett is your QB. Just knowing he's behind center raises the play of the entire team. God how I hate that nonsense. You can imagine how frustrating it was for me to watch that crap. And for a while it looked like injustice would be served as the Jets had the postseason in sight.
Sometimes, however, even in this chaotic world of chance and happenstance, things work out the way they are should. It seems that all the praise and puffery couldn't mask the truth forever. The Jets began to crumble. True to his history, the King of Intangibles started winging the ball to the guys in the wrong jerseys. In week 13 Favre could only manage 17 points against the Broncos, who were sporting the second worst defense in the NFL since 1995 (again, per Football Outsiders -- the 2008 Broncos are second only to the 2008 Lions). In week 16, against the craptastic Seattle Seahawks who had nothing to play for, he couldn't even manage a touchdown.
Down south, the Dolphins were still plugging away with Pennington doing what he always does (when he's not injured) -- being accurate, sticking to the plan, following his progressions, not wasting passes, and never drawing attention to himself. The Fins won four straight going into week 17, including 3 on the road. AS a result, they were in the driver's seat for the final week showdown with the Jets, a match heightened by Pennington's returning to the place he was cast out of for "someone better".
When truth, justice and beauty all coincide, it's a rare and wonderful thing to behold. The Fins played smart and steady. Chad completed 73% of his passes with 2 TDs and no interceptions. Brett completed only 50% with a single TD and 3 big ol' gunslinger interceptions. His final desperate pass of the game, and possibly his career, was an illegal forward lateral. In the immortal words of Nelson: Ha Ha.
So the Fins deservedly get the playoff berth and The Diva gets to go home and contemplate his next dramatic episode. Back in Green Bay Aaron Rodgers had a fine year, finishing as a top ten QB (per Football Outsiders), but the Pack simply didn't have anything go their way. Their play-by-play performance suggested they should have ended up with nine-ish wins -- instead they got six. Look for a big rebound next year as the statistical flukery reverts to the mean. That'll cook the Legend of Gunslinger for good.
In the fallout, the Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum, having discarded a better QB for a worse one and costing themselves a postseason berth, needed a fall guy. One of the only-hinted-at issues of the Jets season was a simmering conflict between the coach, Eric Mangini, who is a system guy, and The Diva, who didn't like to be told what to do or how to play. Mangini would sometimes question The Diva on his improvised decision-making. This is Something You Do Not Do To His Brettness and Tannenbaum had to side with Brett or admit he messed up by making the trade in the first place. Mangini was fired after the game. You live by The Brett, you die by The Brett.
The whole story is just 900 kinds of awesome. I wish I had written about it now, so I could look back at all the doubters and say "Neener, neener, neener"!
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