The Highs and Lows of Professional Sports

I've really enjoyed watching the Dodgers this year. Joe Torre is a consummate professional and has been a fantastic manager. My dad has questioned if Joe is worth the money, but I asked in return, "How much are those 15-20 games you are winning because he subs pitchers the right way and is smart with his line-ups worth? He's a huge upgrade over Grady Little or Jim Tracy, trust me.

I had tickets for game 4 of the Cubs series, I've never been happier to miss a game. For the NLCS, I was fortunate enough to get tickets to games 3 and 4, which were essentially must wins after dropping the first two in Philly. I've never been to a playoff game outside of NCAA basketball (when I trailed UCLA to the Final Four, which was incredible) and Dodgers games have an electric atmosphere already. Game 3 didn't disappoint, it was one of the best live experiences I've had a long time.

It had everything. Brush-backs, beanings, retalliations, and a near-brawl. The Dodgers offense was impressive and it's pitching was clutch. The first three innings were incredible, and then the Dodgers sailed comfortably to the win as the crowd relaxed. I left the game with a huge smile on my face.

Game 4, unfortunately, went the other direction. Both teams pitched impressive games until the 6th, when the Dodgers took control. Alas, it was the story of botched opportunties- a double play with bases loaded and one out, a failed stolen base-and untimely mistakes. Although the Dodgers charged ahead at one point, 2 2 run HR from mediocre Phillies in the 8th buried us and the oxygen rushed from the crowd. It was really over at that point, although the Dodgers still had 6 outs left.

Although it looks like the series is over, going to two games in the NLCS was pretty epic. The Dodgers haven't been this good since I was a kid. The last time they were in the NLCS I was 4. You have to go to these games, you just have to. Sometimes they are amazing, memorable experiences like game 3 and sometimes you pay for the privilege of getting your heart broken. But the great memories, the memories of watching championships with your dad are the ones you will talk about in 30 years and they are important to have. You have to take a chance, and sometimes it doesn't pan out. Oh well. Good times.

"Body of Lies" and "Quarantine"

I've been to the movies twice this weekend, something hasn't happened to me in a long time. As I was purchasing my ticket to "Body of Lies," it struck me that there were a host of movies I'd had varying interest in seeing: "Nick and Norah", "Rachel at the Wedding", "Religulous", "Rock'n'rolla", and "Appaloosa." Hell, I'd probably see "Ghost Town." At any rate, these are by no means summer blockbusters and there are finally well-made movies worth seeing that don't insult my intelligence in theatres (I'm looking at you Shia Le Beouf for making two of the dumbest of the dumb, Indiana Jones AND Eagle Eye). Spielberg is determined to screw up his credibility I guess.

Quarantine
As a horror fan and a zombie connoisseur in particular, I loved this movie. I was so anxious in the theatre and was pumping my fists as the zombies began to take over the situation. "Quarantine is a shot-by-shot remake of "[Rec]", which I've been dying to see. These represent another hand-held camera entry in the horror genre, joining "Blair Witch", "Cloverfield", and "Diary of the Dead." We are led to believe that no one knows what has happened in the building that has been quarantined but this footage has been found. As a brief side note, I was super irritated that the ad campaign was showing the last scene of the movie all over the place. I guessed the ending about 15 minutes into the film. I mean obviously we know everyone dies, but I'd rather not know exactly how it all ends. Spoilers start here.

The film was really interesting and had a few great takes on the genre. The cameraman even uses the camera as a weapon at times in the film, which I thought was awesome. The "zombies" have been infected with an extremely fast-moving form of rabies spread by rats, a kind of plausible and awful black plague. Victims start crying, foaming at the mouth, and then attacking. I don't want to give too much away, but the filmmakers cleverly use the constrained space to create a claustrophobic nightmare where we are forced to acknowledge the necessity of the quarantine, but also feel for the victims who are casualties to prevent the spread of the zombie menace throughout the rest of society. The film crew is obviously way too nosy for its own good and the authority figures, a fireman and a policeman, are in way over their heads, completely unable to control the situation. However, it is not until the CDC arrogantly intervenes that all hell breaks loose. The movie builds up for a long time and quite effectivley so when the hits start coming, even when I knew what was about to happen I was shaking and cringing. That said, there wasn't a lot of zombie attacks and there were mostly littered throughout the film. When the zombies did attack, it was off-putting, reminiscient of "28 Days Later." The hand-held camera was an extremely effective conduit for this film.

Grade: A-


Body of Lies
I know this movie got pretty mixed reviews and maybe low expectations played a role for me, but I really liked this film. Too often Ridley Scott is content to make an okay movie rather than make a great one, but I felt he played to his strengths and made a great thriller. Leonardo Di Caprio is excellent as Russell Crowe's right-hand man on the ground coordinating anti-terror efforts in Iraq. In particular, they are looking for a man named Al Saline, who is the force behind a number of very public attacks on the West in Amsterdam and Manchester.

Crowe, Di Caprio, and the supporting cast are excellent and the script is taut here. Roger Ebert mused that "Body of Lies" is a James Bond plot with modern headlines, but I tend to disagree. Perhaps this is how a CIA Bond would behave in Iraq, but the fake terrorist cell in particular is contrary to the methods of Bond, who prefers to run in shooting. I never felt that my willing suspension of disbelief was violated or that the script was insulting my intelligence with the liberties it was taking. Yes, it was probably too slick to be real and had some limitations, but they were well-hidden and much less egregious violations of the audience's trust than we're used to seeing in previous years.

I know that the critical reaction is partly a reaction to having been forced to endure years of mediocre Middle East thrillers, but I truly believe that this is among the best of them. "Syriana," which even garnered notice from the Academy, was very inferior to "Body of Lies." Where "Syriana" attempts to be comprehensive and represent all the totality of perspectives, "Body of Lies" is focused and still manages to get the point across effectively. "Syriana" was a bloated, nearly 3 hour film that suffered from a lack of focus and represents the worst of the "Pulp Fiction" derivatives. It tries to say so much that the stories hardly blend together at all and the connections are limp at best. "Syriana" has a total lack of continuity that even "Babel" was able to deliver, as flawed as that film was as well. In the face of these decadent and over-arching films, I was refreshed to see a taut, well-written move slickly navigate the landscape. I still believe that "Body of Lies" forcefully establishes the errors of the American MO as represented by Russell Crowe and shows precisely how America can be blamed for the conversion of new terrorists everyday, but it also knew what kind of movie it wanted to be. "Body of Lies" is an unapologetic thriller, but who's to say that doesn't mean it can't simultaneously an intelligent one?

Grade: A-/B+

David Foster Wallace Speech

via Wall Street Journal

I thought I'd post the whole speech David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon's graduation in 2005. His speech is more than just a reflection on work, it's a reflection on thought and attitude and the choices individuals have in life. His ideas are reminiscent of Viktor Frankl in an odd way. Read the whole thing, it's worth it.

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There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

If at this moment, you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude -- but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense.

A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here's one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default-setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: There is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real -- you get the idea. But please don't worry that I'm getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called "virtues." This is not a matter of virtue -- it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.

People who can adjust their natural default-setting this way are often described as being "well adjusted," which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.

Given the triumphal academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default-setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about college education, at least in my own case, is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract arguments inside my head instead of simply paying attention to what's going on right in front of me. Paying attention to what's going on inside me. As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head. Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal-arts cliché about "teaching you how to think" is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: "Learning how to think" really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about "the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master." This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. And I submit that this is what the real, no-bull- value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default-setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out.

That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in, day out" really means. There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

By way of example, let's say it's an average day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging job, and you work hard for nine or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out, and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for a couple of hours and then hit the rack early because you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home -- you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job -- and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the workday, and the traffic's very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping, and the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out: You have to wander all over the huge, overlit store's crowded aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, and of course there are also the glacially slow old people and the spacey people and the ADHD kids who all block the aisle and you have to grit your teeth and try to be polite as you ask them to let you by, and eventually, finally, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day-rush, so the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your fury out on the frantic lady working the register.

Anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and pay for your food, and wait to get your check or card authenticated by a machine, and then get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death, and then you have to take your creepy flimsy plastic bags of groceries in your cart through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and try to load the bags in your car in such a way that everything doesn't fall out of the bags and roll around in the trunk on the way home, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour traffic, etcetera, etcetera.

The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line, and look at how deeply unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid g-d- people.

Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default-setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic jam being angry and disgusted at all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just twenty stupid feet ahead in a traffic jam, and I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are, and how it all just sucks, and so on and so forth...

Look, if I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do -- except that thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic it doesn't have to be a choice. Thinking this way is my natural default-setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities. The thing is that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way: It's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive; or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am -- it is actually I who am in his way. Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have much harder, more tedious or painful lives than I do, overall.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line -- maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept. who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible -- it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important -- if you want to operate on your default-setting -- then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars -- compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship...

Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out.

Recruiting and Reflection

Recruiting is really an interesting process. It sucks a lot of time out of my life, but it helps me a lot as well. First of all, I need to sell, spin the job, and be positive to the recruits so I'm always thinking about the great stuff at work. I'm thinking about the World Cup, international transfers, and the culture, the good stuff. You don't describe 80 hour weeks in epic detail to the recruits. At the same time, I'm remembering where I was at that time, how excited I was to get an interview and then the job offer, and what brought me back there in the first place. It's a time to remember what I'm thankful for about the job and reminds me that at this time a lot of people don't have jobs.

Simultaneously, you're forced to really reflect. I've been asked about my ten year plan, how long I'm going to stay, and what keeps me at my current job. I'm asked about how many hours per week I'm doing, detail about my case experiences, and to synthesize my experience in larger terms than I'm used to. The usual pattern is to get lost in the details and survive week to week, but being forced to reflect in broader strokes is always an invaluable exercise. If nothing else, recruiting compels one to do so while speaking to enthusiastic soon-to-be-grads who've yet to spoil their idealism with real world, perpetual work. It's entirely different when it's not a for a finite period of time, uncomprehendingly so.

David Foster Wallace said it with amazing grace in a graduation speech he gave at Kenyon College:

"The truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. And I submit that this is what the real, no-bull- value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default-setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out.

That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what 'day in, day out' really means. There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about."

It's hard not to be at least a little bit cynical after joining the working world-you simultaneously undergo the incredible change of working, a change most people never recover from and find soul/dream crushing, and adjusting to a whole new system (of acronyms, of customs, etc.) and corporate culture, which is hard enough on it's own. It's a far bigger change than going to college. I'd argue the biggest change in a young person's life is the post-student adjustment. Our parents become more sympathetic and heroic as we understand their plight. I understood what commuting 2 hours a day did to my dad and what a toxic corporate culture can do to the enjoyment of one's job. Youth is wasted on the young they say, and it couldn't be more appropriate. You don't realize the value of your free time and the luxury of being a student until you don't have it anymore. That's why you go BACK to school.

Turn and Face the Strange

We live in turbulent times. Turbulent times indeed. Normally I would use this time to rail against the bail-out, but I feel like my anger about bailing out inefficient giants, loose credit policies, and Bernanke-led Fed policies have been well established since I started writing this blog. I'd rather not relive those memories and accept that a horrendous, nearly trillion dollar burden accompanied by riders and special interest garbage has been added to the backs of future taxpayers without any concern for the future.

It is our consistentI've been promoting the idea with our boy James here for months that the Fed has been fighting this recessionary period of devaluation and it has really hurt our economy in the long-term.

Last night, I framed this debate with a friend by saying that the bailout was consistent with our exclusively short-term thinking. CEO's live quarter by quarter, investor's call by investor's call and don't ponder the long-term like they should. I have a job because CEO's are only good at thinking short term. But years and years of short term thought means that the long term is ignored and people eventually ran out of gimmicks to gussy up their 10-K and had to take HUGE risks to please the investors. The moral hazard here is the bizarro disincentive that as a result of the current buyout climate you SHOULD take those risks. If you win, your stockholders win big, if you lose your firm will be swollen enough with acquisitions to warrant a taxpayer bailout because of your importance to the economy. It's bullshit. Take the big risk, no big deal if you lose, you get a $10 MILLION dollar golden parachute.

Anyways, this bailout is also short-term thinking. And its passage has really done little to save the Dow Jones hasn't it? I think it's actually been dropping, just like it did before...

But here's my beef. I think that we are going to have our next top President (elected by text message) succeed in the following two fronts (ironically in the same two fronts our current president failed to succeed in) to be considered great:

1) Stabilize our foreign policy and world standing. Bush found a way to ruin the seemingly bottomless political capital that he had after 9/11 and blundered his way into Iraq in the name of the War on Terror. Our next president will have to figure out how to gracefully withdraw from Iraq while fighting extremism and finding a way to keep from breeding new terrorists to replace the ones we are killing.
-Neither candidate overwhelms me here. Obama has come up with at least 2 (we're winning the war and can pull out, we're losing the war so badly we have to leave) reasons to leave after 16 months so far this campaign. I protested the war in Iraq and was adamantly opposed to it, but we need to be sensible about how we leave - Iraq will not reassimilate and stabilize like Vietnam and will most likely result in genocides if properly handled. That said, McCain's position is the other extreme and I fear he wants to invade Iran. While I acknowledge that Obama will buy us good will with the world, I think this issue is a wash.

2) In the face of a downward trend/bubble burst, find a way to guide America's economy in the right direction by thinking LONG TERM and investing in infrastructure, green technology, and other areas that will create growth for years to come rather than succumb to quarter by quarter thinking. In addition, this will require balancing our governments fiscal spending and paying down the national debt.
-Watching the debates, Obama looked awful and this is what really worries me about him. We had an ideological president with a host of pet programs (nation-building, war, defense) who spent us into the hole and it looks like we'll have one whose programs lie in the opposite direction. Instead we're spending billions in programs that yes, are important, but need to come at the expense of cutting fat elsewhere. This is what worries me about the Obama tax increase - I would wholeheartedly support it if its only role were to pay off the national debt, but I don't want to increase spending. When asked, repeatedly, he refused to pick where he would cut spending at all. He used the brilliant rhetorical devices: "I want to use a scalpel, not a hatchet" and "I'll go through the budget, line by line, and cut unncessary problems," but does anyone believe him here? I don't. Not for a minute.
McCain has became something of a one issue man here, but it's not an issue I mind him having. He constantly talks of earmarks (only $18B, true, but an important ideological starting point) and corrupt Washington politics. When pressed, he actually advocated a SPENDING FREEZE of all programs (with a few exceptions like veteran affairs) and has talked repeatedly about how entitlement programs HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO be cut and future generations cannot enjoy nearly the benefits of the present retirees. These are unpopular and quite frankly amazing political issues I've never heard brought up before. If there is ONE THING I can be confident John McCain will do as president, it is cut spending. This may be my number one voting issue, way more important than taxes. Palin is also a fiscal hawk, the only quality I truly like about her, and I know she fights the same fight.

In the end, on these two issues in isolation - I'm voting for McCain. Here's the issue: McCain has changed considerably on his public positions on social policy. The same man who called Falwell evil has buddied up to him and he has even given lip service to gay marriage and abortion bans. I refuse to believe this is more than a blatant copy of Reagan's electoral policy: court the radical right with rhetoric and refuse to act on it while President. McCain will be fighting bigger issues. This is where Palin bothers me because she has the bandwidth to fuck with this stuff, but I'm still not convinced his administration will be acting on these issues. I don't think we need Obama's social change right now. Although important, we can't expand government the way he wants to in the name of equality and I'd rather have someone cut the shit out of the government to finance these programs in the future. Even better, have them actually spend education effectively, since I think we are throwing plenty at the problem. Take a look at LAUSD, by far the highest per pupil average in the state, it's all just wasted on bureaucracy. We need to work on how we spend our money currently, not expand the government budget with new programs. This takes dedication.

More importantly is his Supreme Court appointments, which will be decisive. This is the best argument against McCain. I'm not sure how to argue against that, but ultimately I'll argue that controlling government spending is more important I guess.

I guess I'm voting for McCain, but I could always vote from the libertarian candidate. My vote doesn't matter in Cali anyway.

First in a flurry: "Choke" Review

I don't know if I could pinpoint exactly where I knew that "Choke" was going to be great, but it's safe to say that it was pretty early on in the film. I'm a huge Chuck Palahnuik fan and I really love his way of making even the most abstract and absurd situation seem entirely familiar and related to the universal themes of the human condition. I never thought I could relate to a transvestite stealing prescription drugs from the elderly or a man struggling to become a hegemonic televangelist until I got carried away in the magic of his books. His characters seemed flawed in a way that I could not only associate myself with, but learned profound truths about identity and what makes us human. Perhaps most importantly, his books were quirky, unique, and really fun to read.

"Choke" was an immensely difficult film to write and script. Palahnuik's books tend to be in the first person, centered around an eccentric protagonist whose life spins out of control around him and "Choke" is no exception. Our hero is a sex addict going through his 12 step program and working at as a historical tour guide in a 17th century recreation. He funds his mother's expensive nursing home stay by choking at fine restaurants and endearing himself to those who save his life so he can hit them up for money. His best friend is constantly in the town stocks and trying to get into a relationship with a stripper. This material is not the easiest source matter with which to create a movie that normal people find believable or create a coherent plot around. However, Clark Gregg does a masterful job adapting the book and the movie really works.

Sam Rockwell is pitch-perfect as Victor Mancini, the lead, and the rest of the cast is also game, which creates an atmosphere that can sustain the material - which was no easy task. Similar to "Fight Club," "Choke" was either going to be the Hindenburg or work beautifully and I'm glad to say that it lived up to my expectations. I couldn't figured out how Gregg was going to tie it all together because the book itself unravelled and struggled to tie together the loose ends. In the end, he managed to make Rockwell something of a sympathetic hero who's transformation and love changed the world around him in a touching way. I think it's important to acknowledge that the world that we live in is changed by deeply flawed individuals the same way it's changed by the archetypal heroes of our mainstream Hollywood films.

While "Choke" is not perfect and the narrative can sometimes seem a bit choppy as it cuts back and forth from Victor's past and present, it works surprisingly well and has a much bigger heart than I thought it might. I really enjoyed this film and would highly recommend it.

Grade: A-