Guy Walks into a Bar, Asks for a Beer, Gets into a Fight, Gets Stabbed, Kills Some Dudes, Tosses a Bill on the Bar, Leaves without Saying Goodbye, and Goes Home to His Huge Loft Apartment to Listen to Sinatra

(A Subjective Take on Movie and Television Tropes)

Movies and television couldn’t exist without tropes. Genre fiction in particular is reliant upon themes and ideas that we’ve seen a hundred times (let’s face it, at base level, there are only so many three-act stories to be told). It’s what each individual project does with these recurring motifs that make them feel either new and thrilling (Hereditary) or tired to the point of cliché (The Conjuring: Any of Them).

Certain tropes have become such an ingrained part of filmed fiction that we just go with it to keep the story moving, and, sometimes even enjoy them on their own merits. What follows is a (subjective, as always) list of movie and TV tropes, some that I hate, some that I can deal with, and a few that I even like, rated on a scale of 1-10, being least to most annoying. Note that I am primarily discussing genre films here, and there are certainly exceptions to all of these (some of which we’ll discuss). 

1. SHITTY SHARPSHOOTERS (Annoyance Level: 10)
My most hated cliché in film and television: Our hero is outgunned ten to one. He has to run across an open parking lot to get to safety while being sprayed with hundreds of rounds of automatic gunfire by highly-trained snipers. And every single bullet misses. This particular cliché is borne (no pun intended) of the kind of one-upmanship that forces filmmakers to elevate a simple gunfight (that has real tension and sense of danger) to a cartoonish spray of so many bullets that, in real life, would undoubtedly make Swiss cheese out of the fleeing protagonist.
SEE: John Wick, The Punisher (all iterations), Captain America: The Winter Soldier, most James Bond films. 

2. EXPLODING EVERYTHING (Annoyance Level: 6)
Sometimes in movies, things blow up. People like to see things blow up. BOOM! Did you see the thing blow up? Wasn’t it cool? Explosions are fine when the item making the big boom is something incendiary enough to create such a massive fireball (usually being things with gas tanks). But in too many movies, items that would never create an explosion bigger than your average bootleg firework erupt like a silo full of TNT.

SEE: Road House, The A-Team, the Lethal Weapon series, any Michael Bay film. 

3. SINGING WOOD (Annoyance Level: 2)
It is a cliché etched in Hatori Hanso steel: No metallic weapon—knife, sword, scimitar, sling blade, screwdriver—can be extricated from any housing without it making a sharp, ringing sound… even if the sheath is a leather scabbard or wooden knife block. Simple physics can be distracting when ignored (other annoying impossible sounds: screeching tires on dirt roads or grass, soft-heeled shoes making clopping noise, that goddamn red-tailed hawk speaking for every predatory bird on Earth).
SEE: Gladiator, Kill Bill (both volumes), Xena: Warrior Princess, Conan the Barbarian

4. GENERIC DRINK ORDERS / UNCLOSED TABS (Annoyance Level: 5)
While blatant product placement can be a distraction, it’s nowhere near as annoying as when a character bellies up to a full bar and orders, “A beer.” As someone who’s slung suds for a living, I can tell you that’s the beginning of the order, not the end (unless the bar is in England or some other godforsaken land where the pub only has one thing on tap)!
Equally as distracting is the frequency with which characters will abruptly leave a bar or restaurant without (a) finishing their drink or (b) paying their tab, often just tossing a few bills on the bar, presumably hoping that it’ll cover it. But what if it doesn’t? And what about the tip? What about the tip?!? 
SEE: Blue Bloods, Cocktail (ugh), Cheers (don’t get me started on Cheers)

5. KILLING WITH IMPUNITY (Annoyance Level: 8)
I get it, sometimes a friend or family member gets killed or kidnaped and the cops just won’t do what needs to be done and so you gotta take the law into your own hands. Hey, we’ve all been there. But when revenge becomes a killing spree that leaves a string of dead bodies across numerous time zones and international borders, why does it seem like almost every vigilante just goes back to life as normal (at least until the sequel when another family member is killed or kidnaped again)?
SEE: Taken, Taken 2: The Tookening, Taken 3: Tooked Again, pretty much anything with Liam Neeson

6. PROBABLY TOO BEAUTIFUL HOMES (Annoyance Level: 1)
Okay, sure, that spacious downtown loft with the exposed brick and beams and the floor-to-ceiling windows and the hardwood floors and the chef’s kitchen and the amazing lighting and all the plants that aren’t dead would be beyond the financial reach of that waitress that accidentally saw that mob hit. Most of the time, I don’t care. Show me the houses beautiful! I’ll never be able to afford one, let me live vicariously! I’ve stuck with terrible movies just because I wanted to see more of the fabulous living spaces.
SEE: Ghost, Bosch (Harry got that movie money), Rear Window (but I will not say FRIENDS. Fuck them).

7. RESILIENCE (TO AN EXTENT) (Annoyance Level: 4)
One of the many things that makes Die Hard the best action film of all time (but it’s not a Chr… oh, forget it) is that John McClane gets hurt. We feel his pain as he struggles to defeat Hans Gruber’s merry band of bandits with bloody feet and bruised bones. Sure, with each successive sequel, despite getting older, Bruce Willis’ grizzled detective seems to develop nigh-invulnerability, ultimately shaking off having a building collapse on him in A Good Day to Die Hard like a bald Wile E. Coyote. But anyone who’s ever been in a real brawl knows that, again, if movies were like real life, all physical confrontations between regular humans would be over as quickly as they began. Being punched / stabbed / shot / et al hurts! So it doesn’t bother me too much when Bruce Lee gets back up after being kicked around by a hundred martial arts assassins. Nor should it you.
SEE ALSO: They Live, The Killer, Oldboy, and all of the Fast & Furious franchise (it’s all about family, you know)

8. REALLY, REALLY RECKLESS DRIVING (Annoyance Level: 9)
I’d imagine Driver’s Ed teachers scream at the TV an awful lot. Let’s set aside the removal of all rear view mirrors in cinematic vehicles, I understand why, but c’mon, people, at least put on your seatbelt! And, fer cryin’ out loud, if you’re in the driver’s seat, stop looking at the person next to you or in the back seat while conversing with your shotgunners! They can hear you just fine! Keep your eyes on the road, pal!
As for car chases, in a post-Bullitt / French Connection world, they are rarely believable in the slightest (Ronin being one exception). Anyone who’s been in the midst of a congested rush hour knows that some crazy (Baby) driver trying to race 100 MPH on a busy street ain’t gonna get that far (even if they do jump the curb). I’ll suspend my disbelief to an extent, but when a speeding car chase suddenly goes against traffic, that’s where I draw the line. It’s simple physics, people!
SEE: Iron Man 2, at least one Mission: Impossible flick, and I think most of the Bourne movies. 

9.  A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF FAN SERVICE (Annoyance Level: Varies wildly)
While it wasn’t enough to salvage the entirety of Wonder Woman 1984, Lynda Carter’s cameo as Asteria did elicit a whoop of joy from this aged fanboy who thought the absence of an appearance by TV’s Wonder Woman of the 1970s was one of the first film’s few missteps (that and giving Ares a thin mustache and a sibilance). As most genre filmmakers in the 21st century are lifelong fanboys themselves, it’s understandably difficult to resist the temptation to put in everything they’ve been dying to see in a Star Wars / Trek / James Bond / Spider-Man / et al film since they were kids playing with action figures. And a little bit of fan service is a beautiful thing (FX’s Fargo pays just the right amount of homage to its cinematic inspiration). But when it’s overdone (Terminator: Genysis, Daredevil (the movie), any and everything by JJ Abrams), it becomes more distracting than enjoyable.
SEE: The Avengers, Better Call Saul, Star Trek: Picard (right on the edge, that last one). 

10.  ACCENTED ENGLISH IN LIEU OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES (Annoyance Level: Contingent upon how good the accent is, but on average, about a 3)
It’s a ludicrous construct if you think about it. But having an actor speak English with a foreign accent in place of using the character’s native language has become ingrained shorthand in film and TV. It only truly becomes noticeable if only SOME of the actors are doing it (ala The Death of Stalin). I have a much harder time with a science fiction film in which alien cultures have a mix of Earth accents. C’mon, Star Wars, either make them all from Space England or not!! Make up your mind!
SEE: All American Godzilla movies, the Mission: Impossible franchise, Jojo Rabbit, and anything else with Nazis. 

11. GLIBNESS IN THE FACE OF DEATH (Annoyance Level: 3)
It’s called “comic relief” for a reason. If characters reacted to life-threatening situations as you or I would in real life, movies would be populated with people mostly doing nothing but screaming, running, and cowering in the corner. Oh, and live-streaming the incident on Instagram. But movies that get our heart rates up need to have leveling agent, which usually takes the place of a well-turned phrase or perfectly-timed joke. Sure, pith in the face of peril is as unrealistic a scenario as being stalked by a knife-wielding serial killer or a marauding alien, but when they work, it as much a tension breaker as when your racist uncle decides to leave the cookout early. Or something. I’m having a hard time coming up with a funny simile, perhaps because my life is not currently being threatened.
SEE: Independence Day, Midnight Run, Thor: Ragnarok (actually TOO many jokes in this one!)

12. IN SPACE, EVERYONE CAN HEAR EVERYTHING (Annoyance Level: 5)
Adherence to the “science” part of science fiction is spotty at best in most movies and TV shows, nowhere more so than ignoring the fact that the vacuum of outer space precludes there being sound (hence, Alien’s classic tag line, although since there are audible explosions in that film, I have to imagine you could also hear someone scream). One of the things I loved about the Battlestar Galactica reboot was its silent space battles). Sure, when the Phantom Zone villains are having a freaking conversation on the moon in Superman II, that’s a bit much to take. But you know what? This stuff’s not real. Let the Star Destroyer and the Klingon Bird of Prey go boom. It’s fine.
SEE: Again, almost everything except Battlestar Galactica, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and one quick scene in 2007’s Star Trek reboot. 

13. FRAAAAAANKIE! (Annoyance Level: 1, and then only if it’s “My Way” or “New York, New York”)
Music Supervision is a great job. You help filmmakers select and/or secure songs to be used in movies and TV shows. The best ones have an encyclopedic knowledge of music that allows them to avoid the usual aural clichés that have been done to death (can we just ban “Bad to the Bone” and “Walking on Sunshine” from ever being used in anything ever again, please?).
But while some might think the work of Frank Sinatra is overused, I shall never wince at the placement of a well-placed Sinatra side. He’s got a song for every possible human emotion you can wrest out of existence, and most of the time, they’re great. I mean, there are exceptions (I’d be okay with never hearing “New York, New York” again as long as I live, let alone when a movie transitions locations from the heartland to the Big Apple). But you can plop “Fly Me to the Moon” or “The Best is Yet to Come” in every wedding scene put to film— or “One for My Baby” over a sad guy at a bar — or “It Was a Very Good Year” any time an older character is feeling wistful— and I’d be okay with it.
SEE: Blade Runner 2049, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Elf

No doubt some of you disagree with my sliding scale on these tropes, and probably have your own list of things that grate your cheese when you’re trying to relax with eight consecutive episodes of that show you’re streaming. Tell ya what… I’ll meet you at that place near the thing that we went to that time and we’ll hash it out over a pint of unnamed beer. Just promise me that if it gets heated, you won’t stab me and walk out on the tab. 

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READ THIS PIECE ON MEDIUM. 

No, Really, Why So Serious? Or, Why JOKER Doesn't Work.

There are lots of times when my opinions on pop culture don’t line up with the mainstream. That’s been the case my entire life. But there are also times when I find myself at odds with people of usually like-minded opinions. Such is the case with a movie most of my fanboy friends are rallying behind, one that left such a bad taste in my mouth I had to take to these here Internets to get some things off my chest about JOKER.

SPOILER ALERT! Many spoilers ahead. Consider yourself warned.

From the initial announcement, I was not really jazzed about this movie. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Batman mythos, and think the Joker is perhaps the greatest supervillain of them all. But one of the things that makes the Joker so great is that, since his introduction in Batman #1 in 1940, he’s remained a mystery. In eight decades of Joker stories in the comics, he’s never had a real name or a full backstory (aside from a 1951 explanation of how he got his distinctive appearance). Sure, Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke gave him an ostensible origin, but that tale was (a) not supposed to be considered in-continuity (despite becoming so retroactively) and (b) acknowledged in-story as perhaps being an unreliable memory of the Joker (“Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another… if I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!”). Gee, that sounds familiar, no? 



We know that the Joker is nuts. We know that he’s dangerous. That’s really all we need to know. As such, the prospect of a full-length motion picture origin for this character wasn’t something that held any interest for me.

Also, I rankled at the idea of making Joker the protagonist of a film. True, he’s popular enough to warrant it, but that doesn’t matter. The Joker without Batman is like doing a Professor Moriarty film without Sherlock Holmes. What is the point? In the 1970s, DC Comics gave the Joker his own solo series, one that lasted only nine issues. One of the reasons for the title’s failure was that DC found it difficult to make the “Clown Prince of Crime” function as the lead. He worked best… worked only, in fact… as the villain, as the antagonist, preferably towards the Batman. Numerous “solo” Joker graphic novels in the decades since almost (if not) always included the Caped Crusader as a nemesis.

The view from my apartment

But I decided to go see JOKER for two main reasons: First, parts of the movie were filmed in the towns where I live (Newark, NJ) and work (Jersey City), and I was curious to see them onscreen. The entire opening scene of the movie takes place on the very block on which I live (I could see the set from my window), and some friends and I dumpster dived for set memorabilia after Market Street had been returned from its faux 1980s Gotham City dilapidation to its current actual dilapidation. 

The other, primary reason I had to see JOKER is that once it came out, practically every person I’ve ever met in my life was asking what I thought.

So I went (by myself, hoping not to set off any alarm bells amongst the incel-fearing staff). And yep. My instincts were right. Didn’t like it.

It’s not that JOKER is poorly made. It accomplishes what it sets out to do. It’s just that I hate what it sets out to do. By giving the Joker a sympathetic backstory and making him the anti-hero of the tale, JOKER commits the cardinal sin of comic book adaptations: It utterly misses the point and the essence of the character.

Now, before you start accusing me of being an intractable pedant, I understand what Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix were trying to do. I get that this is a different take on a well-established character. But in every conceivable way, it’s wrong. Arthur Fleck never feels like the Joker. He feels like (as was widely presumed from pre-release materials) an amalgamation of Travis Bickle and Rupert Pupkin in clown makeup. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance reeks of pathos, anxiety, depression, delusion, paranoia, and instability, but he never comes close to evoking the terrifying, sheer anarchic malevolence of (you knew I was going here) Heath Ledger in THE DARK KNIGHT.

I realize that this movie ain’t that movie, but comparisons are inevitable (to this and every other version of the Joker). Prior to TDK, we had Cesar Romero’s campy gagster (fine within context) and Jack Nicholson’s wannabe artiste (too likeable and Jack-Nicholsony, just one of innumerable flaws in Tim Burton’s stiff melodrama), neither of which truly captured the essence of the character created by Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, and/or Bob Kane (the precise creative provenance will forever be in dispute).

But then came 2008, and Christopher Nolan’s Bat-masterpiece, THE DARK KNIGHT, at long last giving Batman fans a Joker for whom they’d longed. What Nolan (along with co-writers Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer) understood was that in order for the Joker to be a truly horrifying, existential threat to the Batman, as well as all of Gotham—cops, crooks, and gen-pop alike—he had to remain a mystery, an “agent of chaos,” someone for whom money, order, or any semblance of normalcy felt like a complete anomaly. Heath Ledger’s performance, with all its verbal and physical tics (contrast his long fingernails with Phoenix’ gnawed nubs), took what was on the page and brought it to indelible and unshakeable life. The white may have been makeup, the rictus a scar under lipstick, but godammit, this felt like the Joker.

Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck isn’t the embodiment of anarchic malevolence. He’s just… pathetic. Pitable. Except of course, when he’s killing finance bros and exploitative talk show hosts. Then you’re supposed to… what, cheer for him? I guess? Or at least revel in his numerous slow-motion dances to questionable soundtrack selections?

It just felt… off. And not the kind of “off” that was the point of JOKER’s far superior antecedents, Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER and THE KING OF COMEDY. It felt like the work of filmmakers who thought they were making something entirely different than what ended up onscreen. At least to me. I didn’t get any deep treatise on mental illness or metaphor for heartless capitalism, I just got... Ugly. Superfluous. And worst of all, self-indulgent.

(Also, if I can veer off of character and into plot for a second, the entirety of the Murray Franklin part of the story strains credulity at every angle. Showing the [how’d they make that?] video [without permission] in the first place [it’s not that funny], inviting Arthur on the show, letting him go on in clown makeup during a riot in which criminals are running around in clown makeup and masks, not vetting his material [or even giving him a pre-interview], not running a security check on him, letting him call the shots [pardon the pun] on his appearance, not cutting to commercial and having security haul him off the second he admitted to the subway killings, the entire subplot is comically ridiculous. If, as some have suggested, Arthur's appearance on the show is yet another of his delusions, it makes more sense, but only adds to the pointlessness of the whole thing.)

In another boneheaded twist, JOKER also gives us Thomas Wayne as a villain. Depicting Batman’s doomed dad as a power hungry, tone-deaf, rich asshole goes against the character as much as Jonathan Kent being a callous paranoiac in Zack Snyder’s MAN OF STEEL. If Thomas Wayne has no empathy for the downtrodden of Gotham City, if he’s not using his wealth for philanthropic purposes, then his death isn’t a tragedy (or not as great a one, anyway). Also, if Thomas Wayne is Donald Trump, then that means Bruce is Donald Jr., and you know who Donald Trump Jr. doesn’t become? Motherfucking Batman, that’s who! Hell, this movie even makes Alfred into a dick! So who cares what happens to them?

Oh, right, we’re not supposed to care about the Waynes, we’re supposed to care about Arthur. He’s the star. He’s the hero. Sorry, anti-hero.

All of this role reversal might’ve been a bit easier to stomach if the movie didn’t bow to so many Batman conventions. Despite his claim of JOKER not being a DCEU film, Phillips really wants to have his cake and eat it, too. Not only do we have to yet again witness the murder of the Waynes (cascading pearls and all), there’s also an homage to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns in the form of the bank of TV screens after Arthur kills Murray. That’s a lot of Batman in a movie that’s not supposed to be a Batman movie.

But, as I said at the beginning, this is another case of me being woefully out of touch, with both the mainstream and much of the comic book cognoscenti. And while I’ll take this opportunity to toss in my mantra of “it’s all subjective,” this is also one of those cases where I simply do not understand how a dyed-in-the-wool Batman fan can get behind this film.

The other day, one of the dozen or so ads for bootleg memorabilia that scrolls into my social media feed on a daily basis pictured a Joker tee-shirt that redrew an old Irv Novick image (of a character called Willie the Weeper from the cover of The Joker #2) in the Joaquin Phoenix outfit and makeup (which I hate, by the way…forgot to mention that), with the tagline in the ad reading, “He is the hero, not a villain (heart emoji)!” I mean, seriously… what the fuck?

Loving the character (which I do) is one thing. But you’re not supposed to side with the Joker. And, perhaps even more egregiously, when he kills people, you’re not supposed to think that’s a good thing. Unless you’re, you know, John Hinckley Jr. Or maybe Jared Leto (oof, at least the silver lining here is that hopefully we never see that guy again). 

The bottom line is, the world of JOKER is not a world where I wanna live, fictional or otherwise (even if it is on my block).

But hey, I guess that’s just me. The damn thing just became the most successful R-rated film of all time. So you guys go ahead, paint on a happy face, dance to music by pedophiles, and let the darkness wash over you. Me, I’ll go watch THE DARK KNIGHT for the 400th time and revel in a world that’s not exactly sweetness and light, but where you can at least tell the good guys from the bad.

Asshole America

In 1987, after being acquitted in a high profile racketeering trial, New York mob boss John Gotti earned the media nickname, “The Teflon Don” due to the inability of any of his charges to stick. Gotti was eventually sent to jail in 1992, and died a decade later of cancer, but even if he had avoided those fates, he’d still have to abdicate the nickname to the true “Teflon Don,” the melon-tinged, racist, wannabe autocrat who currently holds the position of President of the United States, one Donald J. Trump.

Adam Zyglis

When the failed businessman (if we’re being honest) turned reality TV star was elected President in 2016 despite decades of recorded conduct that would’ve rendered any other candidate ineligible, there was a contingency that opined once he took office, he’d straighten up, tone down the coarseness and the divisive rhetoric, and become more “presidential.” 



Only that didn’t happen.

If anything, as Trump’s delicate, yet oversized ego began to get even more inflated by the power and the glory of his new office, he doubled down on the kind of behavior that is—shall we say—unbecoming of a world leader. He continued to call opponents “losers” and other schoolyard pejoratives, he used his position to further the financial interests of himself and his cronies, he embraced despots while alienating longtime allies on the world stage, he did everything in his power to try to derail a legitimate investigation into collusion with Russia… oh, hell, you guys know the list. It’s unending.

Rob Rogers

And with each new twist of the knife into the heart of the Republic (and for which it stands), a chorus of hopefuls would think, “This is it! This’ll finally turn Uncle Joe and Aunt Dotty against him! This is the thing that’s going to take him down!” 

But none of them did. Not taking Putin’s side over ours (“I don’t see why it would be!”), not the Mueller report (“Completely exonerated”), not another round of accusations of sexual misconduct (“She wouldn’t be my first choice, believe me”), not the constant tweeting of racist dog whistles (“Go back to your countries!”), none of it has made a dent in his base or his support in the Republican party. NONE. OF. IT. STICKS.

How can this be? Why is this unrepentant asshole so untouchable? I think the answer is simply… because he is an unrepentant asshole. If someone is totally unpossessing of shame, humility, empathy, and self-awareness, it’s kinda hard to cut through that armor with things like empirical evidence and civility. It makes him invulnerable to criticism. And so every assholish thing that this assholey asshole does and gets away with only solidifies his support amongst Asshole America.

John Cole

We need look no further than his rallies. Those fucking rallies (over FIFTY since taking office!). Arenas and auditoriums and expo centers full (or partially full, anyway) of mewling sycophants who gobble up every mouth turd that falls out of his puckered face hole (that probably smells like a mix of rotting meat and Life Savers): Lies and self-aggrandizement and race baiting and lies and media bashing and let’s not forget the lies. Speaking off the cuff, he rambles and dishes out his greatest hits and says absolutely nothing of substance, but to many of his base, (and please forgive my repeating myself) WHAT he says isn’t as important as HOW he says it. That sniffling, gravelly tenor of his, punctuated with barks and growls and the occasional “Am I right?” has the same Pavlovian effect on his base as chirping, “Who’s a good dog? You are! Yes you are! You’re a good dog!” to an excited Jack Russell Terrier who doesn’t understand what you’re saying, but really wants to go outside and chase his own tail for an hour.

If you need any evidence that the tone is key, look no further than the rally in June of 2018 at which he declared, “We got more money, we got more brains, we got better houses and apartments, we got nicer boats, we're smarter than they are and they say they're the elite. You're the elite, we're the elite!”



Dr. Jack & Curtis

Putting aside his usual poor grammar, let’s look at the content. He’s presuming that everyone at the rally is (a) super wealthy, (b) possessed of a MENSA level intellect, (c) living in the finest appointed homes, and (d) spending their weekends on the water in their yachts or some such conveyance.


But he made this speech at a rally in North Dakota. A landlocked state. And yet still, they whooped with wild enthusiasm (if that’s redundant, I apologize, I’m a little worked up). Did anybody in the crowd turn and look at the person next to them and say, “I don’t have a boat. Do you have a boat? Also, I’m living paycheck to paycheck in my parents’ basement, what the fuck is he talking about?”

David Plunkert

It’s doubtful (and not just because I’m sure there were some people there who WERE well off and maybe even owned a boat, that’s not the point). For many people in Trump’s crowds, they FEEL his anger, they can taste the bile in his throat as if it were their own. Whether it’s borne of fiscal anxieties, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, whatever happens to be their own particular peccadillo, it doesn’t matter if he speaks to it directly or not. He’s mad. And so are they. 

Asshole America just loves being validated by the person holding a job that was once considered a bastion of dignity and restraint. Unlike other Presidents who strove to inspire and unite, this one is content to JUST BE PISSED AND DIVIDE. Rather than those snooty college boys telling you to “ask not what your country can do for you” or some similar kinda highfalutin’, unselfish bullshit, they finally got a leader who just bitches about brown people and those damn furr’ners and his own personal enemies and who (again, no doubt disingenuously) brags about the size of his mushroom shaped joint. 

Trump revels in his anger. It defines him. That’s his message to Asshole America: “Go ahead and be an asshole!” They’ve never been so fully and completely sanctioned by someone whose job it is to lead (you know, aside from Grand Wizards). If the most powerful person on this doomed planet can be such a colossal dick and get away with it, then why can’t they? Why CAN’T they be openly racist instead of just behind closed doors? Why CAN’T they be rude and demanding at a restaurant? Why NOT park in a handicapped spot if they want? Hey, let’s buy some more guns! Where’s the nearest Walmart? Anyone who thinks it’s a coincidence that hate crimes have increased in the past two and a half years is either kidding themselves or holding office as a Republican. Or both.

I’ve watched pundit after pundit after pundit try to parse this seemingly inconceivable state of affairs, wringing hands over uneaten plates of breakfast pastries, begging historians for hopeful precedent to end this national nightmare, asking Democratic POTUS hopefuls how they can defeat Trump next November, all digging way deeper than they need to.

It’s simple. It’s superficial. It’s the ultimate triumph of anti-intellectualism, greed, hatred, and selfishness. It’s more insidious than Idiocracy. We’ve officially become Asshole America. And I honestly don’t know if we can ever recover.

TEN LUMPS OF COAL: A List of Christmas Things That Bring Out the Pre-Epiphany Grinch in Me

First off, it must be stated: I love Christmas. As soon as the Halloween decorations come down, I’m ready for the holly leaves, twinkling lights, and jingle bells to go up in their place. Thanksgiving? Pfft. That’s for gluttons and fans of terrible parades. Bring on Santa, Baby! This time of year, I become a mushy, festive mixture of Clark Griswold, Charlie Brown, and Scrooge’s nephew (actually, that kind of describes me most of the time, for better or worse).

But I don’t love everything about the season. I mean, really, aside from Buddy the Elf and Ed Grimley, who does? I’ll admit that there are a handful of aspects of Christmas that turn me into Nick the Bartender railing against atmosphere-givin’ characters ordering a mulled wine (heavy on the cinnamon, light on the cloves)! Herewith, counting down my mistletoe miseries from 10 to 1:

10. GAG GIFTS
To me, part of the warmth of the holidays comes from letting those humans who make your life worth living know so. That means a gift that’s a genuine expression of said affection, not a tool with which to roast their chestnuts. I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of gag gifts in ANY context, but I can deal with them on a birthday or retirement party or some other event that’s less reverent. But for Christmas? Nah. Gotta be from the heart (even… or maybe especially if it’s a normally crusty one). 

9. “THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS”
There is no war on Christmas. Get over it, Fox News pundits. A Starbucks cup doesn’t have to depict The Three Wise Men to reflect the season. Saying “Happy Holidays” is not an insult, rather, ‘tis a pleasant greeting of well-wishing to be received gratefully. Kwanzaa is not a threat. Keeping a nativity scene off of any state run organization’s lawn is not taking myrrh from the Baby Jesus’s mouth (or wherever the heck you put myrrh). Inclusivity is not a bad thing (and to ALL a good night!).

8. SANTA CON

Ugh. First of all, it’s not a “con.” “Con” infers tables of geeky merchandise for sale and panel discussions with fervent diehards (speaking of… see next lump) and nerdy acolytes. Call it what it is: “Holiday Costume Bar Crawl for Douchebags.” What makes this ersatz St. Paddy’s Day debauchery even more risible is (a) kids should never see any Santa other than Billy Bob Thornton getting into a fistfight, and (b) it gives holiday overindulgence a bad name. On the plus side, the puke puddles over which we must leap at the end of the night are laden with pretty sparkles.

If this is a Christmas movie, then so is Iron Man 3. And it ain't.

7. “DIE HARD IS A CHRISTMAS MOVIE.”
Don’t get me wrong; I love Die Hard. I think it’s the quintessential action flick. And while I enjoy the holiday angle of the film, the bottom line is, just because it takes place at Christmas time DOESN’T MEAN IT’S A CHRISTMAS MOVIE. Is it ABOUT Christmas? No. Does John McClane deliver presents to girls and boys? You know, besides bullets to bad guys? No. Does Karl dance to “The Nutcracker Suite?” No. Does Hans Gruber have an epiphany at the end of the film and see the folly of his ways and have his band of thieves join the party, pal? No. Die Hard is many things. It’s fun, exciting, funny, and yes, even a bit moving at times. But it ain’t a Christmas movie. SO STOP TELLING ME THAT IT IS. ‘TIS A TIRESOME AND ERRONEOUS CLAIM.

6. INFLATABLE LAWN DECORATIONS / TOO MANY LAWN DECORATIONS

Decorating your house and lawn for Christmas is one of the (arguably) handful of upsides of suburban living. Ain’t nothin’ purtier than colored lights hung outside on a snowy evening. But as with everything, editing is crucial. First, please, I’m begging you… never, ever use those godawful blow-up figures of Santa, Rudolph, Jesus, Frosty, et al… they evoke the kind of puffy, poorly rendered characters you see on the covers of budget holiday books and DVDs in the cheapo bins at Costco. Equally distracting / annoying are those houses that fill every last square foot with lights and decorations. The resultant sensory overload is as muddy and headache inducing as your electric bill must be. Plus, I hate how you people gobble up every last set of discounted leftover lights on December 26th  before I can even grab one box! 

5. HALLMARK CHANNEL CHRISTMAS MOVIES
I’m not averse to seasonal cinematic schmaltz. I freely admit to getting misty at Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life and that episode of Happy Days where Richie invites a lonely Fonzie to spend Christmas Eve with the Cunninghams. But the tears that I shed for the seemingly endless stream of cloying mush known as the Hallmark Channel Christmas movies are not joyful, but rather reflective of the death of culture (I hesitate to even post this link, but you gotta check some of this shit out). I used to think these sparkly rom coms (with names like, I kid you not, A Shoe Addict’s Christmas) were written using a Christmas Mad Libs and a bottle box of White Zinfandel, but I’m guessing it’s more likely an icy cold computer algorithm. 
(Full disclosure: I have never seen a single one of these movies in their entirety, but I have sampled enough to know what the hell I’m talking about)

4. DECEMBER 26th

I call it PXMD, as in Post-Christmas Depression. Remember when you were a kid, and it felt like Christmas took FOR-EVVVV-ERRRR to get here? The agony of waiting for December 24, and the traditions and goodies that were about to unfold over the following glorious two days? Okay, maybe your experience varied, but you probably know what I mean. Now, if you’re in the middle aged portion of your life (as I am… firmly), you know that Einstein was a smart mother-effer and that with age, time now FLIES by, and before you can even finish everything you wanted to get done for Christmas, it’s over. Just like that (it’s one of the reasons I don’t mind starting the season right after Halloween). And yes, I try to stay in the holiday spirit after “the big day,” keeping my decorations up well into January, listening to the music until it just doesn’t feel right anymore, but… there’s always something about waking up on the day after Christmas (or, Boxing Day, as some weirdos call it) that forever bums me out. Sigh. Where’s the nog? 

© Jeff Stahler

3. CLIMATE CHANGE
Someday, not too many years from now, a young child will hear an old Christmas carol and ask their parent, “Mommy, I don’t understand ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Winter Wonderland’ and ‘Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!’… why are they singing about it snowing at Christmas? It only ever snows around Valentine’s Day!” And the mother will question why she ever thought it was a good idea to bring a child into a world that is doomed to become barely habitable in their lifetime. And Christmas will be ruined. Me, I just miss snow in December (and yes, it used to happen fairly often, kids).

2. BAD CHRISTMAS MUSIC

Granting a subjective prejudice, to my ears, the chasm that gapes its maw between good and bad Christmas music is as deep and vast as to make the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the sidewalk. When done right (Julie Andrews & André Previn, The Ramsey Lewis Trio, Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Les Brown [no relation], The Ventures, Brenda Lee, Vince Guaraldi, Frank Sinatra, Andre Kostelanetz, and SOME Johnny Mathis, to name but a few), Christmas music is a transformative aspect of the season. A finely crafted carol can put you in the spirit as well as a dozen strings of lights and a gallon of egg nog with two gallons of rum in it. But done WRONG (no links to follow, sorry / not sorry)… (Mariah Carey, Kenny G, Mannheim Steamroller, Mitch Miller [and his “gang”], Celine Dion, almost any modern country or R&B artist, and the aural pestilence known as Pentatonix, again to name just a few), these cheesy, overproduced, saccharine cash grabs exemplify the kind of hollow, crass commercialism that drove Charlie Brown to pick that sad little tree (and Charlie Brown knows what he’s talking about). The fact that this crap dominates holiday playlists kills me every time it pierces my eardrums and stabs my brain. Most people hate Christmas music because pap like “The Christmas Shoes” is what they think of when the genre is mentioned. 

1. CHRISTMAS HATERS

Then again, some people just hate Christmas; All aspects of it, from the music and the ugly sweaters to the forced frivolity and gift giving. I’m not exaggerating to say that these people… well, they break my heart. Look, I fully understand and agree that the holidays can be stressful and expensive and aggravating and unrelenting and exhausting. All o' that stuff. But that doesn’t have to define the season. Because (unlike with every other major holiday) here’s the best thing about Christmas: It’s a la carte. You can pick and choose whatever aspects (of the literally dozens) suit your own wants and needs. Don’t believe in God? That’s cool (I don’t!)… most of the fun stuff about the holiday—feasting, gift giving, decorating, general winter revelry— existed as rituals in pagan celebrations long before the Catholic Church appropriated them in the 4th century AD when they shifted Jesus’ birth to December and decided to put the Christ in Christmas. Don’t like shopping for gifts? Cool, make something (like cookies or art or frame a favorite photo) or donate to a charity in the name of the person you got in the family pull. Hate Home Alone? I don’t blame you, that movie’s no fun at all. Watch any of the many great versions of A Christmas Carol instead (I’m partial to the 1984 TV movie starring George C. Scott, myself). There’s gotta be SOMETHING about the season that you can enjoy, even if it’s just pretty lights or a little spice in your stout (mmm, Christmas beer). Don’t close yourself off to the whole shebang just because most of it seems like shit. Don’t forget, Dr. Seuss and Charles Dickens were trying to make a point. People tend to think of the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge in their pre-epiphany states, when they hated the holiday. But in the end, they both realized that, in fact… Christmas is pretty damn great.

Geez, that didn’t end as you expected, did it? I promise a list of stuff I loathe about the holiday and it ends up being a gushy ode. Well, whattya want from me? I warned you at the beginning that I love it! And so, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!



Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go make some more cookies…. 

The Cantaloupe-Colored Mea Culpa

I realize that the last thing the world needs is yet another piece by a terrified, angry liberal screaming into the void / preaching to the choir about Donald Trump, but I have to make a public mea culpa. See, I thought… and often loudly opined… that he’d be gone by now.

Since the day Donald Trump was elected the President of the United States (you all remember that, right? Shortly after Halloween, couple’a years back?), my prediction was that he wouldn’t fulfill even half of his term. My window for his departure (whether through resignation or impeachment) was 15-18 months. 

Well, it’s now August 2018, and as the perpetual pit in my stomach confirms, Boss Tweet is still firmly and flabbily ensconced in the Oval Office (or, more likely, one of his golf clubs). 

In the beginning, my theory was that enough impeachable dirt would be rather quickly uncovered that would make it difficult for him to stay in office, and that he’d resign, but spin it as “finishing the job early,” so he could move on to creating his new media outlet, or just go back to slapping his name on crap, or whatever. Because while I never bought the theory that he didn’t want to win (he ALWAYS wants to win, even if his primary motivation for running was spite), it’s a given that he never wanted to do the actual hard work. Doing work is not his thing, man. 

Well, certainly, dirt has been uncovered. And his behavior in office continues to bring disgrace to the entire country on practically a daily basis. He has said and done things that would’ve been political suicide for anyone else in any of the branches of government. 

But there are three things on which I didn’t count. One, that none of this would matter to his intractable base, the true wall that he has built around the country, one made out of flesh and ignorance. Two, that Congress would turn out to be cowardly toadies who make excuses for Trump rather than hold him to his oath of office. And three, that the POSPOTUS himself would become hopelessly addicted to the power and sycophantic glory his position engenders. 

And while I still think there’s a wee bit of a chance he doesn’t make it to the end of his term, if he does evade being ousted from the post for which he is so brutally unqualified… I think it’s more likely than not that we’re in for another four years (or more, if he has his way). But even if Donald Trump ceased to be President tomorrow, enough damage has been done that I don't think it'll be fixed in my lifetime, if ever. Maybe we are now living in the Idiocracy that Mike Judge predicted (only we got there 490 years earlier than the movie's timeframe. Isn't that cute?). 

I was not one of those optimists who felt that Trump didn’t stand a chance in 2016. I’m cynical enough that I believed the country's  heapin' helpin' of gullibility, hate, and misogyny left a decent chance that he could beat Hillary Clinton (who, without getting into pointless rehashing, was in my opinion, the worst possible candidate to go up against him). 

So I was not shocked on November 9, 2016, when I awoke to the confirmation that the Captain Bonespurs had beaten his cocky and  entitled opponent. Horrified, numb, depressed as fuck, sure. But not shocked. 

As I rode the train to work that morning, I got a taste of the divisive environment that was about to ripen in America. Sitting across and down the car from me was a young African-American man reading the newspaper, and when I locked eyes with him, he scowled, shook his head in disgust, and went back to reading. I thought maybe I was being paranoid, but as I stood and crossed to the door as the train pulled into the station, I glanced over at him, and he repeated his repulsed reaction. I wanted to try to explain that I wasn’t the enemy, that I was as mortified and disgusted as he, but I decided to let him have his resentment. He deserved it. 

As a quick side note, while I held my nose and pulled the lever for Clinton, I can’t side with those who blame voters who chose Gary Johnson or Jill Stein or any other third party candidate for the results of the election. Nobody should be vilified for voting their conscience, for refusing to choose “the lesser of two evils,” regardless of the ramifications. If fingers must be pointed (an ironically pointless exercise), aim them at those who actually voted for Trump, or the 40-some percent of the eligible voters who abstained altogether, whether out of apathy, laziness, or whatever other lame excuse they mustered. 

18 months in, my own grief has turned to anger and dismay. Not to put too fine a black point on it, but I truly think we’re doomed. What we’ve witnessed as this presidency has edged closer to dystopia is the triumph of narcissism, anti-intellectualism, and willful, arrogant ignorance. His followers not only don’t want to hear any of your fancy “facts,” they are proud of their aversion to (gag) “FAKE NEWS,” that Pavlovian, unbreakable, catch-all rejoinder that carries about as much intellectual heft as a surly teen’s “Whatever.” You can (and we do) have concise, carefully corroborated, and non-partisan laundry lists of malfeasance and lies perpetrated by their Great Orange Leader, and they reject it without even taking a nanosecond to consider ANY of it might be true. None of these people have ever typed Snopes into their browsers.

Even when, at one of his seemingly ceaseless rallies (which are not held for the benefit of the attendees, but rather for the fluffing of his own perpetually needy ego), Trump spouts some nonsense that has NOTHING to do with the audience—like, say, implying that they have better houses and boats than the so-called elites—they scream and froth and lap it up like melted Velveeta… because WHAT he says matters less than HOW he says it. His anger and hatred and dismissiveness reflect their own and they feel validated, even empowered. “I can be a dick to people because the leader of the free world is a dick!” This is why old white men think it’s okay to accost a young brown woman for daring to wear a Puerto Rico tee-shirt in America. It’s why hate groups have not merely proliferated under this administration (up 20% since 2014), they’ve felt emboldened to come out in the open and proudly fly their flags. 

So, if facts have completely ceased to matter (after all, truth is not truth), how can the left appeal to the 2016 fence-straddlers who ultimately jumped onto Trump’s side, and then drank deep from the well? Aye, there’s the rub: I don’t think we can. Setting aside the ballooning deficit, unless the economy stops improving (a trend that began before Trump took office, but for which he naturally takes full credit), nothing’s going to make the Trumpsters turn against their Great and Powerful leader. And maybe not even that. Aside from some who are beginning to see the downsides of Trump’s tariffs, most of his followers don’t seem to care how much he’s worked against their own self-interest (particularly if they have kids who are going to have to live with the environment —both literal and cultural—he’s curating). At this point, their love for him is a matter of personal pride, even if he could not give one flying fuck about any single one of them. 

Because this is the thing that I truly don’t get: How anyone, regardless of politics or social status or any sociological dividing line you wanna draw, cannot see that the ONLY thing he cares about is his own ego stroking. That’s it. The beginning, middle, and end. Much as I loathed some of the Presidents that preceded this one, I still believe that every one of them felt that they were doing what was best for the country (Okay, maybe not Nixon, but I was too young to have had issues with him at the time). Not this guy. This guy doesn’t give a shit about you. Unless you happen to be Ivanka reading this thing right now, in which case, THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOUR FATHER WANTS TO BANG YOU, GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HIM! 

So. Sigh. Here we are. We’re stuck with him. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the Mueller investigation, no matter what we hear on any more audiotapes, no matter what he tweets or says or does, he has succeeded in relentlessly bludgeoning the republic into a state of numbness. Nothing matters anymore. The United States of America is Trumpland now. Paint the White House gold and slap his name on the outside. He’s here to stay. 

FOREVER. AND EVER. AND EVER. 

Ghad, I hate being wrong.

__________________________________________
POSTSCRIPT, August 23, 2018: I posted this yesterday morning, having no idea (of course) that later that afternoon, two of the biggest bombshells in the ongoing investigations into Trump would be dropped: Paul Manafort's guilty verdicts on 8 of the charges against him, and Michael Cohen's guilty plea for campaign finance violations, incriminating "a candidate for federal office." While the news media went into overdrive pontificating what these two events meant for Trump, I remain convinced that the answer is, ultimately, nothing.