Wednesday 10/26/22
* One encounters many Woke women on dating sites. They have no inner lives, and no purpose to their outer ones. You spot them in the space of two words, and recognize them as the interchangeable forms they are. Today I saw where one of their number wrote, "I'm rooting for everyone Black." This is how the actual racist expresses themselves. Not rooting for someone because of who they are, what they do, whom they help, what they stand for. Not even rooting for an individual. Denying, in essence, the individuality of all of the members of a race of people. What is more degrading than that? What is more racist?
* I stopped reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road with two pages left. I just couldn't care less. I really couldn't. I'm surprised I pushed on that far. He's a sloppy writer. You can always tell when a writer knows what they are doing and executes what they want to execute. McCarthy is as far as you get from that. And his editor should be in a different line of work and is obviously a coward. Then you have these people who talk of the impressive raiments of the emperor, but in reality it's a naked fat dude in the middle of the street looking all sloppy and being lauded. Tells me a lot about you if you need to pretend otherwise. Tells me you're weak. You're insecure. You pile on, after you've made sure enough other people have gone before you. You carry water. Or you don't have a clue. Spend your time reading things that are actually good. And soul search, before it is too late. And it can get to be too late awfully fast. You are better off making peace with yourself.
* I wrote an excellent piece today on "Eleanor Rigby" as a short story. How it works as literature. I began another piece that is already excellent on the Grateful Dead and a show they gave on Halloween in 1971. I also created a different version of an op-ed on F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu.
* I am surprised the Bruins are 6-1. Why are they 6-1? They are without their two best players, so how is this happening? Was Bruce Cassidy really holding them back? If that's the case, boy was I wrong. I think he's a good coach. The issue, amazingly, was that he was too mean. I definitely think that's why he was fired. If you were my coach and you were frightening and all of that, I'd have no problem with that so long as it wasn't personally directed at me alone or in particular. That's just how you were. I like coaches like that. Maybe it was a generational thing. But they are 6-1. Ullmark has pushed ahead as the lead goalie, but I think that will prove cyclical and they're going with the hot guy right now. I'm pretty sure how McAvoy will be when he gets back, but much less certain with Marchand. Surgeries on both hips--and at his age. Or at any age, really. Marchand's game is built off of his quickness. Not his speed--his quickness. And his shiftiness. His edge work. His lateral game.
* Last night was the anniversary of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. I still can't believe that happened. Watched some of it again last night. The beginning. Vin Scully was a treat to listen to.
* Bad move by MLB to have this hiatus before the World Series. Start the thing a couple days after the last championship series game in and play the games during what would have been nights without competition from football.
* Asante Samuel really hates Bill Belichick. Samuel is also the reason the Patriots did not win the 2007 Super Bowl and have a perfect season, though I must say it didn't bother me that much because that Patriots team was overrated, one-dimensional, and soft on defense and people would say they were the best team of all-time and I don't think they were anywhere close to that. The 2004 Patriots are the best football team of all-time.
* Mac Jones is 2-7 in his last 9 starts, with 9 TDs and 12 INTs. A guy who performs like that should not be the starter. He is the starter because of a stretch of games in the middle of last year when they caught a lot of bad teams with key injuries and COVID issues. He was terrible at the end of last season and terrible at the start of this one. I'm not suggesting Zappe is the guy, because I don't think he is, but Jones shouldn't be starting.
* The confidence of Patriots fans baffles me. I don't get it. I would not expect this team to win any of their remaining games. They will win some, and a bunch, maybe. But to watch this team play and expect they're going to win next time out is foolish to me. This is a bad team. They will not be a good team again until the house is cleared. Get rid of the people in place and the atmosphere of cronyism and nepotism. You also won't win with Joe Judge and Matt Patricia as this two-headed offensive coordinator beast of dysfunction.
* Have nearly completed a 2700 word story called "Your Story." As radical as anything I've ever done. Masterful and new and bursting with energy and invention. There is nothing remotely like it. Unclassifiable. And hilarious.
* Listened to the soundtrack to Creature from the Black Lagoon and an album of themes from the Hammer horror films.
* I have a funny Stephen King story--actually, it's depressing and likely shocking to those who don't know how this industry works--about behind-the-scenes matters at a prominent newspaper and how his books are covered--they have a rule--but if I had to use one word to describe the quality of his prose, that word would be pedestrian. It's just so utterly bland and ordinary. A lot of suckers are born every minute.
* Did 100 push-ups.
* My nephew has a championship baseball game tonight. He's playing a lot of baseball, it seems, and is in all these leagues. I texted my sister and said to tell him I said good luck, and also to remember that winners win and losers lose. Relax. I didn't say the last part. Though it's true.
* People are really letting Tom Brady have it. The idiot punditry. (Do you think Stephen A. Smith said to himself, "I am really fucking dumb, so what I need to do to cover that up is talk really loud, and really fast, like I have a clue, and also so no one else can point out what an absolute joke I am as thinker"? I think he may have.) This is making me root for him. Slightly. It's the blood in the water effect. When you are great, or great at what you do, people want that blood in the water so they can pounce. These people are not great at anything. Then again, I don't think there's anything to Brady other than football, and he's saying a bunch of dumb things. He's cracking under the strain. I read one passage--I believe in Forbes--where the author said all of us age out of our profession, and the key is to do this gracefully. I will not age out of what I do. Until the very last day, I will be inventing, and I will be more than I was the day before. Of this I promise. Defeatist attitude. I hate a defeatist attitude.
* Sad to see Jules Bass died. Lived a good, long life that brought happiness to many lives, including mine. This is a piece I once wrote on Rankin/Bass’ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, one of 100 or whatever the number is that should be up in the Film writings section of this site and is not yet.
* What one sees below is typical. We are an illiterate society.
