the bone conductor

Roger Angell of the New Yorker wrote this a while ago. It explains something that I’ve given a lot of thought to, especially since, in my group of nerd friends in particular, I’m very well acquainted with the “amused superiority and icy scorn” phenomena and just how exceedingly fucking annoying it is to be condescended to about this.

Anyway.

“It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look — I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring — caring deeply and passionately, really caring — which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete — the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball — seems a small price to pay for such a gift.”

Of course, my nerd friends do care, as ardently as the most lunatic sports fan… about computer games. Which, apparently, aren’t “sports,” which I think is “bullshit.”

This doesn’t explain the phenomena of why most Raiders fans are unbearable assholes, or why most Boston fans period, of any sport, should have thier faces sewn to the underside of an elephant for a week or two.

(btw, I got that quote from the sports guy on espn.com.)

the caption for this, in my mind, has to be: “mmm… braaaanes… fressshh braaaaanes…”

If my recollection serves, he started off on the sports page. Which, I suppose, is a good place to hone one’s sense of misplaced outrage and self-righteous blatherings about things you are only faintly acquianted with at all, and chronicling (literally, in this case) experiences that other people have had with a knowing, assured attitude, despite never having done any of those things. You have to love the level of clueless condescension that goes into this kind of treatment of a civic question - it’s like someone turned the city pages over to Jackie Harvey (”Newsflash! Apparently some of the Muni buslines are savagely overcrowded! No wonder there’s been talk about a “subway” through the Chinesetown! Mayor Agnos really needs to look into this…”) Although, lord knows I’d love a Washinton Square terminus to that line. San Francisco appraoching the 20th century! SO cuuute…

Anyway, then he goes for what can only be called The Gusto, parroting the moronic and thoroughly unscientific line that somehow the number of liquor stores in a certain area contribute to alcoholism, as well as city waste on ambulances and hospitalization for the miscreants and etc. etc. Because an alcoholic certainly wouldn’t walk an extra 3 blocks for some St. Ides. And if you want to “solve” the problem of alcoholism, I don’t think adopting even more hardline bullshit about what kind of booze a liquor store can sell is going to work. What almost certainly would work would be affordable (free) treatment for alcohol abuse for anyone who wants it, as well as affordable (free) and effective job training and placement programs. Trying to outlaw alcoholism, especially in an area that because of it’s relative affordability tends to attract people with problems of one kind of another in the first place, by changing the liquor store regulations is just self-righteous and asinine, as well as ignoring the fact that for many of the people around there, those corner stores are where they do most of their shopping, period. It’s called “urban.” Everyone doesn’t get in the 4wd Volvo wagon and head to Safeway. After living in the Tenderloin on a couple of different occasions during the early and mid-nineties, I think I can, unlike idiots like Nevious, speak to this with some actual experience and knowledge of both the hood and the folks in it. Better yet, Nevious completely ignores a story in his own paper that goes a long way towards proving how stupid the “city wasting money on ambulances for fuckups” argument is. It’s not that it isn’t necessarily true, so much as that it’s the city’s (and the community’s) fault for not addressing the problem intelligently in the first place.

Also, most of those recidivist ambluance users, as it were, are homeless, not necessarily residents of the Tenderloin in particular. As a visit to where the Haight hits the park, or Washington Square, or the Wharf, or any other part of town where homeless tend to congregate, would surely indicate, if one was paying attention…

no word on whether or not there is a correlation between the invisible man in the sky fixation and some other prevalent belief, uh, systems. although there is also evidence that people don’t know what the fuck they believe.

You know, I don’t even know why anyone would read this, much less feel the need to respond in some way, much much less actually register to be able to do so. Not to suggest people shouldn’t do those things; by all means. Recreational typing: it’s not just for breakfast. And crom knows I have zero desire for playing comment nazi or whatever. And yet, despite all that, my point is really that if you DO feel the need to make your participation known, a good way to go about it is to not submit the following as your initial comment (and request for registered official typey-type approval to do more of the same in the future, apparently):

PROCRASTINATION IS LIKE MASTERBATION YOU DO RELIZE IT TIL
IT’S TO LATE THAT YOU’VE JUST BEEN FUCKED.(OR FUCKED YOURSELF)

Indeed, my friend. Indeed. Oh, by the way, Fark called earlier; your room is all ready to go there. Have fun!

tomorrow i’ll write something about it.

It’s amusing to see the Clinton folks (among others) hitting Obama over his lack of “legislative accomplishments.” I’ve got an accomplishment for you: how about not letting mindless hysteria and horrendous judgement become convincing arguments for rolling over on your constitutional responsibilities, and then claiming later to have been hoodwinked by what might be the dumbest, most arrogant, most blatantly, obviously corrupt administration since Boss Hogg? Does that count?

Damn hippies, slouching along towards Ragnarok with their heads in their asses and their little special pipes and beads and beanbags slouching along with them in a sort of high-speed stop-motion animation, a staggering, spasmodic, semi-ambulent sprint towards conflagration and wonderful, delicious doom.

I don’t really think I expect too much from postal service employees. People bitch too much about the postal service here anyway. I mean, I mail something, it costs me forty-one whole cents, and it gets all the way across the country in three days tops, usually more like two. Here in the City it’s next day. (London was the best about intra-city delivery like that; if you sent something early enough in the day, it had a good chance of getting somewhere else in town the same day. Usually even the somewhere else it was supposed to go to.) I’m not seeing a problem. Sure, maybe not so much for overnight/express stuff, but hey. As Marx famously said, “I’m not a vegetarian, but I eat animals who are.”

Anyway, given the experience I just had, we’ll see if I actually get a new passport in a few weeks or not. Or if I ever see my old one again.

Also, Tuggey’s Hardware blows. They need to close that place down and get over it.

He sent me a note about this shit right here, and I wrote this, which I found somewhat amusing through the haze of caffeine and remorse:

Having once again decided that he’s got the most importantest job in
the whole universal galactica, and that must be better than some
stupid laws that he didn’t even write himself, the president has
issued another “I’ll do just as I damn please, skip-daddy” proclamation
and added a couple of “nyah nyah’s” for good measure. The “co-equal”
branch of government that is NOT the president, if you can believe
such a thing might be - the framers of the constitution obviously
thought that in times at the crisis-roads, what was extra-criticalest
thing was, e.g “is”, (was) that some super-man should leap forth, seize
the reins of protectorhoodate and In-Charge-Guy, and do whatever he
thinks is best, perioder. It’s all right there if you just read it -
this co-equal branch jumped on the plan with wild emboldenment, sent
out a batch of stern, uncompromising fundraising letters, and left
town for the first two weeks of their 6 months of paid annual
holidays. Which is almost as much as the president, who has to get more because
he’s the betterest of all! Yay president-man! Yay democracy! Yay USA!