Nick's LIFESTYLE Newsletter

Not the Onion. Like everything these days.

THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION

Hello again everyone. It's been a few weeks/months/years? Who the fuck knows. A strange few weeks/months/years. A mundane few weeks/months/years.

1. This is the cat video you need right now (or at least I do): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzhSV1fFn7o. You probably never heard my beloved cat Johnny purr because he was hiding from you, but this is one of the 3 types of purrs he had and it was AMAZING.
2. If you haven't seen this yet and are in the intersection of people that enjoy a) quarantine art & b) Stanley Kubrick, this is an amazing shot-by-shot remake of the final 10 mins of 2001: 2020: an isolation odyssey
3. I've been pushing through my Steam backlog during quarantine and am finally starting to see the bottom. Another year or two and I should be good. Just finished Max Payne 3 again and I loved it even more. Now I'm about 6 hours into Y's Origin, the prequel to my 2nd favorite RPG series.

THIS IS THE END OF THE INTRODUCTION.

3 THINGS THIS WEEK:

ITEM THE FIRST:

THE ADOLESCENT PARTY. I read this really great article on Political Wire that really resonated with me and helped make sense of some of the amazing stupidity we are living through. It is behind the paywall, so I am going to be a dirty pirate and copy it below:

More than two decades ago the linguist George Lakoff defined Republicans as the “strict father party” and argued that they won elections and maintained power because of their success in appealing to the many Americans who seek a strong authority to guide and protect us in a difficult, dangerous and morally complex world. Lakoff’s analysis soon became conventional wisdom, and many continue to view the two parties through the Lakoff lens: Republicans as “strict fathers” and Democrats as “nurturant parents.”

But given the Trump mutation of the Republican Party, perhaps it’s time to retire the “strict father” metaphor and replace it with one more descriptive and fitting for the contemporary GOP. Consider it now the juvenile or adolescent party.

It’s great to be an adolescent when the wind is at your back, you’re carefree with few worries in the world because the times are good and your future looks promising. You can act on impulse, think only short-term, even do some bad and contradictory things — because the consequences may not feel so serious when jobs are plentiful and society has lots of shock absorbers to lessen the impact of policies gone awry.

So jump into the convertible with the reckless driver who cuts corners ethically, bullies the less powerful, and thumbs his nose at conventions, norms and the common good. For many, it’s fun, it’s defiant, it’s anti-establishment, and it’s everything that confers status among one’s enablers and peers, especially when you have an entire media network cheering you on.

Yes, go ahead and cut taxes for the wealthy even if it worsens inequality and does little to spur productivity — because others will end up paying the price. Yes, show those environmental scolds that you can tear up international agreements and face few if any consequences. Yes, attack those who try to rein in your impulses and challenge your judgment — call them the “enemy of the people.” In the juvenile worldview, it’s a binary perspective: you’re either with me or against me. Such is the Trump hold on the Republican Party.

The problem is when things turn sour, when the car careens out of control and crashes into realities that the juvenile dared to defy or ignored even as horrified onlookers shouted warnings. The damage is real.

But true to many adolescents, they avoid contrition and double down on their justifications. They fit facts to rationalize their actions and decisions. They continue with the same behavior, convinced of their invincibility, enraged that anyone with more knowledge is trying to correct their course and offer expertise, ready to demonize and belittle anyone who disagrees. They also try to displace blame on others and look for anything that could draw attention away from their recklessness.

Such is exactly what so many Republicans have been doing during the pandemic crisis. They refused to plan ahead, seeking immediate gratification and proclaiming their rights and freedom regardless of how it might affect others. That wearing a mask or honoring social distance can in any way be interpreted as oppressive is a sure sign of an arrested development adolescent. And unloading responsibility on others, in this case putting the onus on governors, mayors and local officials — that’s the juvenile mantra, my freedom is your responsibility.

Or as the President has said regarding his role in the pandemic, he has “total” authority but “I don’t take responsibility at all.” A party that goes along with such leadership is a party stuck in an adolescent mentality.

As for the Democrats, that’s for another article, but they’re less the “nurturant parents” in the Lakoff model than older siblings who strive, want to please and do right, assume responsibility, secretly envy their rebellious youngers, and stand determined to make a difference. That may be the right ethos to carry this political moment.

But America throughout its history likes the defiant types. Ours is the first nation in human history to elevate the worldview of youth over its elders. We rebelled against a king and our media has a fascination with the lone wolf and the outlaw. To many Americans, Donald Trump epitomizes that anti-establishment spirit. He and the GOP may lose in November because the stakes are too high for adolescent governance. But that doesn’t mean Americans will always want to be led by the older sibling.

ITEM THE SECOND:

PART 5 OF AN ON-GOING SERIES "MY BODY HATES ME." Over the past few weeks I am sadly feeling the rejection of my glowing personality by a body that is increasingly hostile to me. I've been having a hard time with cardio workouts since my DEATH COLD in February, and that is still ongoing. However, I've had quite a few nights where I am putting some Tiger Balm on due to shoulder pain from playing guitar. My last injury was the DUMBEST. I had a day a few weeks ago where I took a day off of work and sat and played video games all day. I did not work out, but did get up to eat or chat with Melonie, but I was playing for about 10 hours. The next day I woke up with the worst back pain ever and it lasted for about 2 weeks. FUCK YOU BODY.

The latest twist to it is that I went to the eye doctor for my once every 2 years eye exam. I sat in the chair enjoying the fun tests and weird robot things and went "oh...shit. I can actually see better with this...uh oh...." Then they took pictures of my eyes with another robot and it showed that I have a bunch of degeneration on one of my eyes that we need to monitor. ALSO, I have glasses now. I don't need to wear them all the time, my vision is still pretty good, but I'm supposed to wear them when I am using a computer to keep the strain to a min and block THE BLUE LIGHT~!. So, now I have BLUE BLOCKER COMPUTING GLASSES. Nerd alert.

All things being equal, I realize it could be MUCH WORSE, but this slow moving train wreck is a weird thing to experience. This has been a year where not 1, not 2, but 3 FRIENDS OF THE LIFESTYLE have had leg breaks or surgeries. FUCK 2020. How are all of you doing out there?

ITEM THE THIRD:

ALL COPS ARE BATMAN. This is by far my favorite take on police over the past year. By @StorySlug

One of the big problems with "dark and gritty" Batman movies is that the people writing them can't craft a mystery that's so complex only Batman can solve it, so Batman's "superpower" ends up being "the ability to violate people's Constitutional rights."

Batman "gets results" because he doesn't have to follow the rules that cops do, thus implying that cops would be so much more effective at their jobs if they didn't have to follow those rules.

And the grittier the Batman movie is, the fewer powers he's granted through his wealth. In a heightened reality Batman has supercomputers, ninja skills, fascinating nonlethal gadgets. A gritty batman has all the same powers as a cop in riot armor with no legal restrictions.

If Jim Gordon tied up a criminal and beat the shit out of him while screaming "Tell me where the girl is!" he would be subject to lawsuits, suspensions, etc. Batman's only "superpower" in a gritty movie is that nobody can stop him from hurting people.

The Batman of the 80s and 90s had "wonderful toys" that did set him apart from the police force, and they emphasized his battles against similarly-heightened supervillains with ray guns and magic plants and exploding rubber ducks. He's not just putting muggers in wheelchairs.

When Batman was first created, policing was very primitive, and the gulf between what the cops had – six-shooters and cars that didn't have seatbelts – and what Batman has was much greater, which made the necessity of Batman seem much greater.

Nowadays though, when a GCPD officer calls in that the suspect is driving a "black… tank?" it gets a laugh, but why? Cops have tanks. Cops have lots of tanks. They have armor on-par with what a gritty Batman wears. They have shock guns and gas grenades and thermal imaging.

Physically, cops nowadays have pretty much all the same capabilities as Batman does. The only thing that makes him different from them is that he's gets to be WORSE than them.

his is what makes Batman an advertisement for abusive policing, packed movie theatres cheering for brutal violations of our social contract and an implication that we could have thousands of Batmans if we'd just look the other way and let cops take care of things.

And truly, I've got a lot of Angry Facebook Uncles who have said just that when talking about the protests in our cities these last several months, "If we all just looked the other way for a night the cops could take care of this once and for all."

How does one address this? Simple: make Joe Chill a cop.

It's hardly beyond the scope of imagination that a crooked cop in an economically-blighted city could be committing crimes on the side. Our real history is full of cops committing domestic abuse, rape, murder.

So make Joe Chill into Officer Joe Chill, ten-year veteran of the GCPD. He tries to rob the Waynes, things go sideways, and he guns them down. Bruce identifies him at the station, the other cops cover for him, say Bruce is confused.

Joe Chill says that yes, it was his police sidearm used in the murder, but that's because his gun was stolen from him. You know how these animals in Gotham can be. He gets two months paid leave as punishment for losing his sidearm.

So instead of spending ten years learning how to fight against street crime and mob bosses, he spends ten years with his eyes firmly fixed on police corruption, the blue boy's club that protects murderers.

Bruce knows that when cops die, that's when cities crack down in new and horrifying ways, so he's careful to never take a life. When he catches a cop beating his wife, or shaking down a store owner, or abusing a black man at a traffic stop, he leaves them tied up and dangling.

Conservative pundits around Gotham would immediately label Batman a menace, and even as Batman starts using his computers and surveillance cameras to prove he was in the right, that these cops were dirty, people would still flock to defend the cop's bullshit version of events.

Joe Chill, of course, is now the Commissioner. Untouchable, beloved by the public for a series of high-profile crackdowns on things like petty theft and homeless people sleeping on subway vents for warmth.

He's sending in cops in riot armor to break up tent villages under overpasses, he's arresting people who try to feed the homeless, he's making the cops more and more militarized, and Gotham's wealthy elite love him for it.

Jim Gordon is explicitly called out in the story for being the coward he is. In most portrayals of his early career he's seen as a lone good cop surrounded by corrupt ones, but Batman shames him for the things he's allowed to happen right in front of him.

Bruce Wayne, meanwhile, has returned to Gotham after a long absence and is upsetting the wealthy elite with the way he behaves. He's opened Wayne Manor to the indigent of Gotham City, the entire grounds are swarming with poor people. He doesn't allow cops inside.

The people have had enough, they're rising up in protest against the cops. And the cops are out for blood, riot shields at the ready, gas grenades prepared. They've got beanbag rounds and tasers and batons.

But the people of Gotham have Batman. When the cops get ready to assault the peaceful protesters, that's when Batman drops out of the sky, neutralizing their "less-lethal" armaments, taking them down before they can hurt anyone.

Batman takes control of the satellites around Gotham, broadcasting live to the whole world with instant replay what each cop was trying to do before Batman intervened.

Eventually, as happens sometimes, the tide of public opinion turns enough that some officers start getting disciplined, and when that happens furious cops start quitting the force in droves, closing down entire precincts in protest. "You'll be begging for us back" they say.

Except they don't. That's when Bruce Wayne steps in, using what's left of his money and privilege to fund new alternatives to policing in that part of Gotham. Showing a new way of doing things. Volunteers going door to door to help their neighbors.

And each volunteer wears a bat pin on their chest.

#DefundBatman

THE HOPE SPOT: Lots of hope spots today because FUCKING CHRIST DO I NEED SOME HOPE.

Look at you, Asheville, North Carolina!: North Carolina City Approves Reparations for Black Residents. Spin up those truth & reconciliation commissions and let's do the work for egalitarianism and true equality.

Look at you, Sarah Grimké, you're amazing! I wish I would have known your story before a tumblr thread alerted me to it. Then I fell down a hole and read even more. YOU ARE A BAD ASS QUAKER. Seriously people, read this Wikipedia entry. What an inspiration.

Look at you, Sudbury!: The Sudbury model: How one of the world’s major polluters went green. A really good article about how one of the biggest polluting cities has balanced the past with the future and the citizens have compromised to chart a path forward. IT CAN BE DONE. I think you just need socialized health care to provide a safety net first. Then you can think the BIG THOUGHTS like what a better tomorrow looks like, when you are not so worried about the present.

GRATITUDES: Tami, Wade, Zach & Melonie. In our quarantine bubble, we played through the entire campaign of Betrayal Legacy and while it is a terrible, terrible game, they made it tolerable and even enjoyable at times. We developed a rich backstory of German heritage and made it a unique experience. My favorite part is that we had a cat companion named Johnny 2 that saved the day and will live on in that copy of the game forever. Thanks buddy.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark "ok to print"):

none

FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EARHOLES THIS WEEK:

I have unintentionally made this year my year of Japanese City Pop and Kayōkyoku music. I think in these terrible times, the retro flavor of the music and the bass vibes are keeping me nice and relaxed. Recently, I listened to the only album by Chieri Ito and it is pretty good. This is perhaps the best christmas song ever.

I TURNED IN MY BALLOT TODAY.

WE MAY NOT BE AS DOOMED.

IT IS UP TO US TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN.

THAT IS ALL.