The Stormy Present – Society

Jeff and I were talking on the phone the other day and the conversation turned from our disagreements about Lost into a discussion about whether or not there had ever been a well written TV show. After much thought we decided that there were only a few shows that have ever successfully done the things that good writing should do: have a good and thoughtful plot, have overarching themes, never or rarely waste plot arcs or twists, and develop the characters on the show.

We agreed to discount certain shows like Seinfeld and the Simpsons because even though they are well written comedies the characters never develop. Really no comedy show does that with it’s characters so we started focusing on dramas but even there you run into problems like you can’t count it because it’s based on a true story and therefore didn’t necessitate any new writing (ie Band of Brothers).

So I present to you what we came up with and then ask that you suggest any other shows that presented all the elements of good writing.

The Wire – Ok, I have only seen season one, but there isn’t a wasted line in the whole thing. Everything that happens is pertinent to the storyline and there are no stagnant characters. This show is probably the best written thing I’ve ever seen.

West Wing – Really only the first 3 or 4 seasons (season 4 is good up until they send Donna to Gaza). When Sorkin was writing this the plot was complex, dove tailed, and then came back to a central theme. Every character could stand alone and had a lot of stuff going on. And even by the end of season 4 the characters were different from where they started, which is impressive in terms of developing so many characters over such a short period of time.

Sex and the City – I know, I know we grimaced at the thought too. But even though we didn’t like how the characters developed (they started out shallow bitches and developed into super shallow megabitches), you have to admit that they did develop. And the plots, even though trite, dovetailed with each character but got brought back around to an underlying theme. Again, the subject matter was stupid, but the writing was actually good (unlike Carey’s “I had to wonder …” writing style).

Sopranos – Toward the end there were a bunch of forgotten story arcs and wasted scenes, but in it’s heyday it was great. When he was still going to shrink that was the best thing on TV and it was complex and smart and occasionally funny. Plus the characters and were always developing.

And that’s it. We thought maybe ER but I never watched that show and get the feeling it was more about medical emergencies than character development. This mourning I came up with Californication, but while the first season was fantastic the second season of Californication was subpar. And that got me thinking of Dexter, which actually does develop the main character a lot and plot elements always get brought around so maybe that could be considered. But both of those are on showtime so no one sees them.

Anyway, let us know if you can think of any other well written dramas on tv presently or in the past.

I read that during his term former President Bush and Karl Rove had a reading competition to see who could read more books in a calendar year. The article, written by Rove, says they each of them was pushing 100 books in year one of the competition, before the pace slowed to around 40 to 50 books per year for the next two years. Of course you could argue about how much of the information in the books they retained, but that’s not the point. All I’m saying is I read that article and decided if the leader of the free world and his number one adviser can crank out 40 books per year and I usually only do about 10 in a year, I should up my game.

As it would happen, I’m only three books into my amped up reading schedule and two of the books can be combined to explain modern American society and its problems (or at least my problems with it). After reading The Sun Also Rises (which has nothing to do with this post, it’s just a good book), I finally got around to reading Into Thin Airby John Krakauer (a book I’ve been meaning to read for about 10 years), and am now deeply immersed in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffsby Chuck Klosterman. The latter two books, I believe, have imparted me with great insight into modern society; why it sucks and why I’ve always known that it sucks but could never really nail down the underlying reason.

In 1996 I was in 9th grade and beginning to really foster my outdoorsman desires (by that I mean I went camping with my friends so we could get drunk and potentially hook up with any chicks that we could coerce into coming along with us). During that time I read an article in Outside Magazine about a journalist who went to Mt Everest for the magazine to write about how commercialized and lame climbing Everest had become. As fate would have it, 1996 was the most deadly year on Everest as 15 people died on the mountain that season. During the day Krakauer made his summit attempt a storm trapped climbers in the death zone, killing 8 people who attempted the summit along with Krakauer (there were two companies leading people up Everest that day along with an Indian-Tibetan border police team that was attempt to summit on the other side of the mountain; 4 people on Krakauer’s team died including the head and assistant guides, the guide for the other American group died, and 3 of the Indians died on the mountain’s North side). Needless to say an article just didn’t do all that went on during the assent justice, so Krakauer wrote a book about it. It’s an exciting book and I recommend it to anyone that digs adventure reading or fantasizes about climbing Everest.

I myself fantasize about climbing Everest and after reading that book I now realize that this is a problem. Ultimately, Krakauer chalks up what went wrong on the mountain to the over commercialization of Everest and the idea that anybody can conquer the world’s tallest peak. In fact, Everest doesn’t demand a whole lot of technical climbing skill so it would appear that if you are in good enough shape to walk up a steep incline and lucky enough to avoid altitude sickness then Everest is do-able. Truth be told, many people with little to no climbing experience have indeed summited Everest and gotten down safely. Add to that the fact that you can use supplemental oxygen, plus there is a rope to latch onto essentially the whole way up, plus companies like the one Krakauer was a part of have guides whose job it is to make sure you get up and down the mountain safely and it would seem that the greatest obstacle Everest presents is having enough to disposable income to bankroll the trip (just to get on an assent team costs around 60 grand, then you’ve got to buy the plane ticket to and from Nepal and all the equipment you’ll need).

Since everyone thinks they can do it and since safety demands that only a limited number of teams be allowed on the mountain, you have an economic situation where demand is high and supply is extremely low (there’s only one mountain after all). So the Nepalese government makes bank by charging people to go on the mountain. The idea is to limit the number of teams on Everest for safety, but Nepal is a Third World country in need of foreign currency so they push the envelope as far as they can by granting permission to as many teams as they possible without obviously making things unsafe. Furthermore, the companies on the mountain are competing with each other, so they are under pressure to successfully get their clients to summit lest they be perceived as a failure and thereby lose clients to companies that have a better summit success rate. The result is a mountain full of people who are supposed to be responsible for safety pushing the envelope in order to secure financial viability.

Krakauer does an excellent job exposing the dire consequences of commercializing something as dangerous as Everest, but he fails to meaningfully delve into the reason that drives such commercialism; postmodernism.

This is where Chuck Klosterman is helpful. Klosterman’s book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is a collection of articles about modern society with philosophical observations drawn out of contemporary examples like Pam Anderson, the Real World, and The Sims. Though he makes many different points, the underlying philosophical theme is postmodernism. What counts as beauty or celebrity or love is just whatever has been socially constructed by a society that is encouraged to make these social constructions at every turn. While I find all this fascinating, I also find it insanely frustrating because I think he’s right and I wish he wasn’t.

When I was getting my BA in philosophy I quickly realized two things: Utilitarianism just plain makes sense and postmodernism is the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard. Therefore, if postmodernism defines modern society, then that explains why I am so negative and critical of modern society.

Postmodernism at its most basic level just means that everything is subjective. For that reason artists and hipsters who like art love postmodernism because it means ‘anything and everything can be and is art!’ I personally hate art. I mean I appreciate people who can paint pretty things or whatever, but that’s not what modern art is. Now, it’s a toilet seat on a wall or a drawing of Jesus standing is piss. See these douche bags realize that all you have to do is throw something in a museum, make up some story about an obscure ‘truth’ or point you’re trying to make and boom, you are a famous and celebrated artist. Given my hatred for art, the idea that postmodernism could be used to accurately describe the modern society in which I’m confined sends shivers down my spine.

Nevertheless, I’m slowing realize that postmodernism actually does describe modern society. Klosterman’s observations aren’t just funny, they’re accurate. Once you look at the world through the lens of postmodernism, all the ridiculous stuff (Paris Hilton, political pundits, movies, bands, and tv shows that suck, etc) makes sense inside that paradigm.

At some point, I don’t know when exactly but I imagine it was some time either in the 60s (when personal freedom was emphasized) or 80s (when computers and corporations flattened the world and made it accessible to the individual [Thomas Friedman sucks because even though he coined that phrase he would never ‘get’ the point I’m using it to make]), radical individualism became the name of the game and therefore shifted public morality away from any semblance of community, pluralism, and objectivity in favor of a random collection of individual subjective morality. Hence, everything counts a la postmodernism.

But here’s why I find Klosterman infuriating, he just sort of accepts this reality. He diagnoses the disease but is fine with living with the ailment rather than trying to cure it or amputate the infected bits. He beautifully analyzes how MTV’s Real World started off as a social exception but became a social norm. Initially the people on the Real World were crazy. They were people that you’d never ever come into contact with because they were exceptions to the general public. As he puts it, they all had a one dimensional personality, which used to be a personality anomaly. No one you knew back in high school or college would try to fight you for accidentally opening your mail, no gay person you knew back then insisted on constantly talking about how they were gay, etc. Now, however, the people on the Real World are just like every kid you and I see on the street. They are utterly shallow trend chasing douche bags that overreact to anything and everything. Today’s general public actually aspires to have the once anomalous one dimensional personality. Instead of being exceptions to the rule, the current cast members are the rule and the general public follows their lead instead of ridiculing them as we once did. In that sense, it’s actually more of a reality show now than it was back in the day.

That’s why I don’t watch the show anymore. I can’t take that these people are now the norm. Klosterman, on the other hand, continues to watch (or he says “study”) the show. (He also points out how the NBA is inherently unfair, but continues to watch it whereas I hate the NBA). This gets us back to Krakauer’s book.

According to our postmodern society, any goal is valid and anyone is capable of anything. Thus, there are people who have no business climbing Everest, littered all over the mountain. And while certain measures have been taken to prevent another disaster like the one in 1996, the fact that people in a postmodern society will continue to think they can climb Everest will ensure that high demand continues to commercialize the mountain and therein make it as unsafe as it was in 1996. Another disaster on Everest WILL happen because the underlying cause of that disaster is the social disaster of postmodernism, which validates the faulty thought that anyone can climb the highest mountain in the world.

As I said in the beginning, I fantasize about climbing Everest and now recognize that this is a problem. It’s a problem because I’ve never climbed more than a tall tree but if I had the money I’d go climb Everest. The thing that separates me from most people, I think, is that I am able to recognize that this Everest fantasy is OBJECTIVELY INVALID. I have no OBJECTIVELY viable justification for why I OUGHT to climb Everest. In a NORMATIVE sense, I am just plain wrong.

The reason I’ve capitalized those words is that they are all terms that imply an objective philosophy. I still believe in an objective world view despite realizing that postmodernism defines our current context and I think that’s where I lose Klosterman. I reject postmodernism and if that means rejecting modern society then so be it. I’m glad to be a cynic is a supposedly golden age. I’m glad to sink to the bottom if the top is a bunch of bullshit. I’m glad I don’t have to just accept Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan as a simply reality of the times we live in and can objectively say they are wastes of space. And I’m glad that I’m wrong to want to climb Everest (which doesn’t mean that I’ll stop wanting to climb Everest, just that I acknowledge that I’m objectively wrong to do so) because it means that there is something objectively right for me to want. It means that there’s something greater than myself, that things are limited, that reason leads to objective answers and things are discernable.

And it means that I don’t have to watch Lost.

Some people, such as Time Magazine, like to jump the gun by naming their Person of the Year before the year is actually over. Not me. I like to put that shit off for three weeks into the New Year. Either way, it is my great pleasure to present the 2008 SPPOTY to Jon Stewart.

As host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart has served a vital role for American society since he took over the show over in 1999. By consistently holding the feet of politicians, celebrities, and the general public to the fire, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show temper our far flung ideas. Historically Americans have a tendency to take an idea and push it to its furthest logical (or illogical) conclusion. This is why we are great and why we are occasionally insane. Jon Stewart beautifully delivers satirical humor that pokes holes in our overly enthusiastic optimism or negativity. He masterfully points out the absurdity of the media, pundits, and politicians while insisting that the proper reaction is not to simply give up but rather to become more involved.

The essence of satire is temperance. Don’t get so excited about something that it blinds your judgment so that you take it too far. Don’t get so negative about something that it arrests your belief in a better world. No one so perfectly walks that line and eloquently delivers that message better than Jon Stewart.

In a year in which the detractors of President Bush so ferociously wanted his term to end, a year in which the primaries so often brought out the worst in people, and a year in which people more or less deified President-elect Obama, the need for temperance in 2008 was greater than ever. Jon Stewart rose to the occasion.

Stewart can’t make things better or worse politically nor can he make all the absurdity disappear, but for those of us who watch him and are inspired to think critically about ourselves and our world he serves a vital insofar as he pulls back on our emotional reins in favor of reason.

Thus, for his service in keeping all the insanity out there in check, or at least documented, and for inspiring people to think critically, Jon Stewart is the recipient of the 2008 SPPOTY.

(plus he got Crossfire thrown off the air)

Four or Five years ago my TiVo introduced me to the Bravo network.

One March day, birthday money in hand, I ventured to Best Buy ready to meet my new best friend.  I bought the best TiVo unit that was offered, 80 hours record time and dual tuners. The first thing I did was set up a “Season Ticket” for “The West Wing.” The next day I went to school and then straight to work, all the while wondering what my TiVO was up to at home. I was surprised when I arrived home to see that two episodes of The West Wing were recorded from the Bravo Network. Up until this point I was under the impression that Bravo was what is now the Logo network. After this continued for a few weeks I figured that Bravo must be a pretty good channel if they were showing so many West Wing episodes. So with this knowledge I added Bravo to my regular channel lineup.

Over the next few months I was pleasantly surprised by Bravo with shows such as Celebrity Poker Showdown, Inside the Actors Studio (James Lipton is unintentionally funny), and of course The West Wing. One day I saw a preview for a new show called Top Chef. As a, eight year veteran of the food service industry and as a guy who likes to eat, I figured that this was going to be another quality program from Bravo. Season Ticket… check. And it delivered.

The first two seasons were great. Contestants made to live together while competing against each other in cooking competitions. Like Iron Chef meets The Real World. It can’t lose.

Then came the third season. Of course I tuned in to watch the premiere and it was pretty good. Although I couldn’t help but notice that everywhere the camera turned, there were Gladware plastic containers strategically positioned with their labels for all to see. I found it odd, but moved on. The next episode came and they immediately announced that there would be a Gladware quick fire challenge. What the fuck? A Gladware challenge? It was a Gladware challenge in which the contestants would cook food that could be packaged in Gladware and reheated in GE microwaves. Okay this is bullshit. I watched 2 minutes of commercials, only to have to watch 6 more? Get the hell out of here, I’m done.

Well after a year and one missed season I decided that maybe I’d give Top Chef one more chance. So I tuned in tonight. Guess what… Quickfire challenge involving Gladware, GE, AND Diet Dr Pepper. Fuck me…

How is someone supposed to take this show seriously when they are forced to make shitty food just because the sponsor want you to use their products? It works in sports because the products actually enhances the players performance. Nike shoes, Under Armour, Gatorade all enhance the play of the game. Diet Dr pepper… seriously? No well respected cook, scratch that, no one who can throw together a meal in 10 minutes for some drunk college friends would ever consider using Diet Dr Pepper as an ingredient.  I think I saw a preview for next week’s quick fire challenge involving Gladware, Kool-Aid, a Burger King Whopper, and a quart of Quaker State. I’m sure it will be great.

As someone who constantly spell/grammar checks signs, notes, etc. I thought this was funny. Especially because I usually make the same mistakes that I point out.

In case you missed it.

According to the website “What Would Tyler Durden Do?”, which is where I get all my obnoxious celebrity news, the 66th Golden Globes were last night and nobody watched them. The award show averaged 14.6 millions viewers over the three hours it aired on NBC (3 hours?!?!). The article goes on to point out a bunch of other TV ratings jargon, but the point is this was the lowest rated Golden Globes since 1996.

I can proudly tell you that I didn’t even know the Golden Globes was on. In fact, I’ve never in my entire life watched an award show in it’s entirety except for the 2 or 3 MTV Music Award shows from my youth when the awards weren’t going to people like Katy Perry.

Clearly, I’m the furthest thing from an expert in the area of celebrity and award shows, but I feel like bringing the up fact that the Golden Globes was only watched by old people who keep the TV on to keep themselves company for the following reason:

I feel like I often bemoan the state of American society (and politics, but that’s on the other site). Sometimes after writing some of these critiques of the modern society that I’m forced to cope with I’m a little bummed at the sorry state of my world. So it’s with great pleasures that I say, “American society might be getting better, way to go America!” What has led me to this optimistic conclusion? The fact that people had something better to do than watch the Golden Globes.

Good job America. There really is absolutely no need to watch actors collectively give themselves a pat on the back for the ‘incredibly difficult task’ of reading in public; because that’s what acting is, trust me I took Acting 101 in college for an easy A. Sure every now and then you’ll come across a great acting performance, but most of the time it’s just someone that is better looking than 98% of the people you’ll ever meet repeating words they’ve memorized. Seriously, I went and saw Valkyrie. It wasn’t a terrible movie or anything, but Tom Cruise basically just puts on a costume and recites words. That’s it. That’s acting.

You know who deserves an award show instead of the douche bags that just look good in formal evening wear and who ‘work’ for 15 minutes and then go back to a trailer that’s better than any apartment/house you’ll ever live in, confident in the knowledge that they could steal any man or woman’s girlfriend/boyfriend if they wanted too? Writers. I couldn’t have written Valkyrie and it’s based on a true story. I could have stood in front of a camera and said stuff, which is essentially what Tom Cruise does. Give me a couple of weeks at the New School in New York and I could probably do a better job at “emoting” than Cruise. But writing is more difficult. You’ve to be creative AND organized; two things that don’t usually go together.

So James Lipton and everyone else who praises actors for their ability to look pretty while speaking, stop trying to convince me to worship people that are useless and uncreative and start heaping your praises on the people that deserve it; the people who write the words that actors say.

Maybe you think I’m being overly mean toward actors or diminishing “THE CRAFT” of acting. But I’ll leave you with this final thought. Batman the Dark Knight was undoubtedly the best movie of 2008. We can all agree on both that fact and the fact that Heath Ledger did an outstanding job as the Joker. We can probably all also agree that the director did a good job with the movie. And I’m willing to bet that most of us had made these observations (Batman was a great movie, Ledger was awesome as the Joker, and it was a well directed movie) to other people in a discussion at a bar or around the preverbal water cooler. But I’m also willing to bet that almost none of us have even considered the fact that someone had to write that shit and whoever that was did an outstanding fucking job. Sure Ledger was great, but he was great because his lines were well crafted and that’s not Ledger’s doing, that’s the writer’s doing.

So America we’re half way there. Clearly we’ve made the first step by not watching a bunch of superficial people congratulate themselves for being good-looking. Now, let’s make the next step toward a better American society and recognize that the creative people behind the empty vessels (actors) are the ones deserving of praise because they actual have more to them than perfect skin or chiseled abs; they have intellect and the ability to transfix us with the words they write.

We can do it America, we can make our society better. Yes We Can!

I’m not big on New Years resolutions. I think the problem is you typically try to keep your resolutions manageable by aiming low. This seems to make sense because a small goal is attainable and therefore, it is argued, you’re less likely to become discouraged and give up. But a lifetime of slacking has taught me that small, attainable goals are also the easiest to put off because, after all, since their so small and attainable you could really do them anytime; so what’s the rush. Next thing you know its New Years again and you haven’t accomplished your resolution from last year because you kept procrastinating.

Or maybe that’s just me; a procrastinating hopeless romantic who favors big ideas rather than small ones. But whatever the case I figure the beginning of a new year is a good time to discuss the list of things you’d like to do before you die.

There are actually two lists, one on at SP Sports and one at the Society page. That’s because when I started my personal list a year ago (I know I’m a nerd for keeping such a list) I quickly realized that it broke down into two parts: life goals and sports goals.

So what we’re doing here is the list of life goals, things you want to do before you die. I’ll put down my list and you do the same in the comment section because I’m sure I’m leaving out some cool stuff that I should aspire to do. Between the lot of us we can come up with the most complete list of things someone should do before they die.

See the Western US – I’ve been to Africa like a half dozen times and lived in England for grad school but I’ve never been west of the Mississippi River. That must be remedied. And by “see the Western US” I mean extensively, not just drive by it. I want to see the pacific ocean, the Grand Canyon, Vegas, Area 54, all the big stuff, but I’d also want to do the little stuff like the seeing the largest ball of twine or just stopping at a diner in the middle of nowhere Arizona/New Mexico.

Travel Cairo to Cape Town – A lot of people do this, but they do it like the faux hippies or yuppies that they are. No traveling first class, no spending lots of money to buy creature comforts, no waxing poetic. Just hardcore, real traveling; with no itinerary, no timeline, and the absolute minimum of money and supplies.

Write a Book – Jim, how actually has written a book, and I have always wanted to write a book about the two of us traveling from Cairo to Cape Town. So I could knock out two in one go if I did that. And yes, there are a number of books about someone making that trip, Dark Star Safari being the most famous, but they are typically unsatisfying for me personally. The guy in Dark Star Safari is a 40 year old guy travels like a 40 year old guy would travel; on luxury liners and first class trains. Anyway, the book doesn’t have to be about that, it could be anything. And it doesn’t have to be long, get published, or even be that good.

Learn a Cool Language – I took a total of 8 years of Spanish and barely remember any of it. So wouldn’t it be cool to learn like Xhosa or Zulu or Tibetan because even if you only remembered a little of that language you’d still know more of it than your average Joe? And I’ve always had this weird fantasy of me and my kids (were I to have them) knowing a secret language (like Zulu) that we could speak to each other in without anyone knowing what we were saying.

Own a Boat – Preferably a catamaran large enough to travel the world in. This is the most unrealistic of all my goals because not only would I have to strike it rich to afford a boat, I’d have to live by the ocean.

Own a Motorcycle – I’ve already got one picked out: a 2008 Harley Davidson DYNA Super Glide (black). The price starts at 12 grand. And for 1 grand more I could get the Super Glide Custom and have a seat big enough to put my ladyfriend on the bike with me and could get it in Pearl Blue (sort of a Duke color).

Learn Automotive Repair – All I want to do is take a class or something that grants me enough knowledge to do the basic stuff. I’m not trying to build a hotrod or anything, I just want to be able to look under the hood and know how to fix a broke down car.

Learn to Surf (Well) – I’ve been surfing and I know ‘how’ to surf but I suck at it. Plus, I’ve only done it on a long board, which is too easy. I want to carve on a short board and be able to surf big waves and stuff (kind of a sports one now that I think about it).

Travel – To narrow that down I’ll just list the countries I’d like to go too: Turkey, Spain, Egypt, Morocco/Tunisia, Mali, Australia, Argentina (I’m sure there’s more, but anyway, if traveling is your thing too just list the places you’d like to go as I’ve done).

Ok, that’s it for me as of right now. Figure out your list and put it in the comment section. Or just leave a comment ridiculing my list, your call.