Resident Alien

When Resident Alien premiered, I was hooked immediately. It was, to say the least, unconventional - a show about an extraterrestrial sent to Earth to destroy it who assumes the identity of a man he kills in a small town in Colorado that has Native American influences and an oddball cast of characters. But in the hands of show runner Chris Sheridan it somehow worked. Alan Tudyk, starring as the alien (in human form a doctor named Harry Vanderspiegle) brought an offbeat combination of deadpan humor and smarmy pretentiousness to the lead role. The fish-out-of-water aspect allowed for the inclusion of plenty of pop culture references (Harry learns English watching Law & Order reruns and becomes an obsessive fan of Jerry Orback), no-filter comments (after being admonished about his bedside manner with a patient, Harry gently reassures a female patient she was smart to come in and have a lump in her breast examined before blurting out "now let's see that tit"), and an outsider's observation of the human condition.

It was there that the show hinged. Harry thinks Earthlings are poor stewards of the planet they live on (which is why he is going to destroy it) but his interactions with *actual* human beings begins to change his mind. He is called into town to investigate the murder of the Sam Hodges, the town doctor, and meets Asta Twelvetrees, the lead nurse at the town clinic, who he strikes up an uneasy friendship with as they try to figure out how Sam was killed. He also comes into contact with the neurotic Mayor (Ben), the overly confident Sheriff (Mike), his deputy (Liv) and is clocked as an alien by Ben's son Max, who is able to "see" Harry's alien form even though it's camoflouged in (the real) Harry's body. 

And for the first five or six episodes of that first season, it clicked on all cylinders. There were the humorous asides like Harry getting high with Asta and her best friend D'Arcy, who owns The 59, the local bar, and getting the munchies, or clumsily googling information while giving a pelvic exam to a female patient, blended with elements of spirituality, particularly as it relates to Native American culture. Part of the reason Harry begins rethinking his assessment of humans is a visit he and Asta take to a reservation where he meets and hangs out with her extended family. Of course, all of this is being done while Harry is frantically looking for the device he was supposed to detonate to destroy the planet and also hiding his identity from everyone, but it worked. The show balanced its science fiction elements with a sensibility that reminded me of shows like Northern Exposure, Ed, and Newhart, all of which also incorporated small towns and quirky characters into a satisfying narrative. 

The worm turned slightly towards the end of that first season when Asta learns of Harry's true nature as the two are stranded in an ice glacier where Harry's doomsday device was located but it did not seem to be that big a deal until the second season opened. The show was a modest hit and received good critical buzz so its second season episode order was increased from the ten that aired to eighteen. The second season lost so much of what made the first season great. The humanist elements, the day-to-day in Patience, Colorado, the exploration of the characters all got shunted aside as the show went all in on the "alien" aspect of its storytelling. Suddenly there were multiple alien species all vying for control (or destruction) of Earth. The secret government agency that was also tracking Harry in season one became more prominent and the show simply lost its grounding while also being bloated and having episodes go by where seemingly nothing happened.  The resolution of Sam's murder was, of all things, that the real Harry Vanderspiegle was the culprit, but instead of mining that revelation for plot building, it was resolved quickly and never mentioned again until the show's finale. 

This reversal led to a significant cut in the third season order to just eight episodes, which suffered from the same problems as the second season. It was almost as if the writers had forgotten what made the show good in the first place and simply could not get out of the storytelling box they had placed themselves in. Ratings suffered and I often found myself asking why I was even still watching the show. Gone was the charm and humor of the early episodes. The clinic, a source of much of the humor in the show, was largely jettisoned. Side stories, like Asta's relationship with Jay, her daughter that she gave up for adoption as a child, withered, and the main focus became the idea that aliens were snatching residents of Patience and taking their children. It was dark and unsettling, while also drifting further and further from the show's roots. 

Surprisingly, at least to me, the show got a fourth season renewal and it finally got closer to its origins only to have the network bigwigs decide that this would be the show's final season. At least it somewhat got back to what it did best in season one. Yes, the alien aspect was still there (something called a Mantid shape shifts into different forms when it's not murdering people and lopping their heads off) but the human element came back to the fore. Harry, now stripped of his alien powers (don't ask) fully appreciates and understands what it means to be a human. His interactions with Asta's family help him understand how people connect with one another and how we are connected to the Earth we inhabit. It was these grace notes that I always thought were at the core to the show's appeal, the voice overs Harry provided that talked about the complex and often frustrating experience it is to be alive but how we strive to help, connect with, and support one another. It was a relentlessly optimistic view of humanity that was too often missing from this middle seasons where I think the show probably lost many of its viewers. 

I will always believe there was a better version of the show that could have been made but also cherish the laugh out loud moments it provided. When the real Harry's wife shows up a few episodes into the first season and it looks like he'll be leaving Patience, he seethes with jealousy as everyone fawns over Dr. Ethan, his replacement. Ethan is good looking and a do gooder (he not only served with Doctors Without Borders but speaks French too) and Harry can't stand him. The two arm wrestle and Harry nearly rips Ethan's arm out of its socket and then peacocks around the bar expecting everyone to congratulate him but of course they are tending to Ethan's who shoulder is relocated into its socket as Harry looks on despondently. By the finale, Ethan is back, except this time, he, like Harry, is inhabited by an alien. Instead of killing him, Harry gets him drunk, as Asta did with him on his first day, and in that moment, the alien experiences a small slice of what it is to be a human and Harry can leave Earth knowing it is no longer in danger. It was a nice call back for long-time fans and an uplifting way to bring the show to an end. 

Sirius Is Not Going To "Fire" Howard Stern

I woke up this morning and fired up the old Twitter machine and saw unsubstantiated rumors that SiriusXM is not going to renew Howard Stern's contract when it expires at the end of the year. Having listened to Howard on and off for more than 35 years, let me be the first to call *partial* BS on this story. 

The man is 71 years old, so the idea he would sign up for another five years was far-fetched to begin with but it's equally far-fetched to believe the company he basically single-handedly saved from bankruptcy would toss him to the curb like some old piece of furniture. Yes, Sirius is a much different (and bigger) company than the one Howard joined in 2006, and his schedule is far more modest than it once was, but I think the more likely scenario is that Howard re-ups for 1-2 years and here is why:

1.    Being able to promote a "farewell" tour for Howard is too lucrative an opportunity for Sirius to pass up, especially since Howard has done so much work to bring in "A" list interviews in recent years. 

2.    While management at the company may not be the same as it was when Howard first started, I have to believe there is an interest in thanking him for his 20 years on the air. He promised an audience and he delivered. The messy litigation he initiated because of a dispute over a bonus he claimed he was owed happened 15 years ago. Otherwise, he shows up to work every day he's contracted to be there, has been a loyal soldier in terms of promoting the company, and, not only saved the company from going under but became the pivot point for the merger between Sirius and XM.

3.    Howard is loyal to his audience and to his staff. He would not leave longtime employees in a lurch where they have less than 4 months before they have to look for new jobs. Re-signing for a year or two will allow his staff to set up their next move. Similarly, it will give fans the chance to say a proper farewell to a guy who has been the soundtrack to their lives. 

So slow your roll, internet. I don't think Howard is going anywhere (for now).  

Book Review - What Is Wrong With Men?

For a roughly 10 year period between 1985 and 1995, Michael Douglas was on what they call in sports a “heater.” Douglas starred a string of box office hits playing everyone from police detectives to the President of these United States. He got flashed by Sharon Stone and went on South American adventures with Kathleen Turner. And at his peak, he nabbed an Academy Award for his portrayal of the venal Wall Street trader Gordon Gecko whose “greed is good” speech helped define the ethos of the Reagan years. 

In Jessa Crispin’s hands, Douglas’s oeuvre is the jumping off point for her examination of modern masculinity in her recently released book What’s Wrong With Men? By examining the characters Douglas played, Crispin argues that you can track the slow death of “the partriarchy” which, in lay terms, was a societal structure where men, whether their colors were white or blue, were assured of a steady job, a stay-at-home wife to care for his kids, and whose primacy was never challenged. Men basically did whatever they wanted and rarely suffered consequences for their actions. 

And in this way, Douglas makes a compelling avatar. Although not technically a baby boomer (Douglas was born in 1944, two years before the start of the post-war baby boom) by the mid-1980s, boomers were ascending into positions of power but doing so in a workplace that was more racially, ethnically, and sexually diverse than ever before. But Douglas’s characters were often at sea in this evolving cultural moment. In movies like Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction, Douglas is confronted with women who have agency and power, money and lives that are not reliant on the things men were traditionally relied on to offer. He can’t blithely ignore Glenn Close after their weekend fling anymore than he can match the wealth and success of Sharon Stone. The former is done in not by Douglas but his doting wife and the latter outfoxes him and is going to bury an ice pick in him as we fade to black. 

As society evolved during this time period, this sense of emasculation reached its apotheosis (at least in the Douglas canon) in Falling Down, where he plays a divorced, recently laid off defense contractor. Stripped of the traditional roles of husband and provider, Douglas’s character lashes out in ever increasingly violent ways, not against his former employer, but by punching down against those who subject him to petty indignities like the fast food manager who refuses to serve him breakfast as the restaurant shifts to its lunch menu. Falling Down is a sort of canary in a coal mine for the mass shooters of the modern day whose manifestos were littered with similar feelings of inadequacy, frustration, and rage. 

On the other end of the spectrum is Gordon Gecko. Who uses all the tricks in the book to accumulate wealth and power. For decades, this kind of behavior was winked at and nodded to, a passing mention of a deal in a country club locker room or over drinks in a university dining club where no one was the wiser, but those days were coming to an end and Gecko is ultimately brought down by his surrogate son, the dirt under his nails protege who finally realizes that breaking the law in the service of getting rich is not worth losing your soul. 

And it was a bit surprising that Crispin gave Wall Street short shrift in her book because that movie also telegraphed where we are today. The zero sum tactics in that movie, the idea that if you’re not cheating you’re not trying, and that wealth is its own reward perfectly define the era we now live in. Look no further than who is occupying the White House right now and how that person has bent and broken laws, stiffed business partners, and marketed himself as a business genius while hocking everything from crypto coins to sneakers to his gullible supporters who all believe they too can get rich like him. In retrospect, the only surprising thing about Wall Street is that Gecko ends up going to jail. 

In Crispin’s telling, the fall of the patriarchy was simply replaced by a new and equally flawed model - meritocracy - which promised a level playing field but in reality simply allowed people who already had wealth and power to consolidate their standing and shut the door behind them, leaving the masses out in the cold. As Crispin traces this post-patriarchical world, she argues that the splintering of society manifested on the left in renewed interest in socialism (most notably through the Occupy Wall Street movement) and on the right by manosphere influencers and bloggers who preached a lewder, more hateful version of male superiority that belittled women, demonized minorities, and told alienated men they had been sold out. 

But when it comes to offering solutions, like many critics, Crispin is light on details. Perhaps it is because she has a tendency to paint with an overly broad brush, particularly when she directs her fire at the political system. To her, the Sorkin-esque version of government reflected in Douglas’s role as President Andrew Shepherd in The American President, fetishizes a moderate, common sense liberalism divorced from reality and the Obama Administration’s failure to prosecute bankers after the 2008 housing crisis created the space for Trump’s populist pitch to alienated white working class voters. She is also quick to call out the two party system but in doing so, goes too far in suggesting there is no difference between the two. While Crispin is entitled to her opinion, T\that type of nihilism, manifested in voters who turned to Ralph Nader in 2000 and Jill Stein in 2016 had a devastating effect on the future of our nation.  At best, she suggests community-based solutions with low bore stakes that do not demand a CVS receipt-length checklist of qualifications and interpretation of a man’s views of the world in order to have allyship. It’s a weak tea finish for an otherwise engaging and thought provoking book. I encourage you to read it and draw your own conclusions. 

(Half) A Commute From Hell

Since I don't have anyone in my real life to vent to, you, the handful of people who read this dopey blog, get to hear my tale of woe. 

I had to go to Newark yesterday for two meetings that could have unquestionably been handled remotely, but the powers that be demanded my presence. Fine. Not ideal, and I had no say in the matter, so I shoved my laptop into a bag, along with a book, a bottle of water, and a piss poor attitude and headed to the NJT station for a day I had already mentally prepared myself was going to be miserable. I should also mention the weather. It was already close to 80 when I left a little before 8 with humidity at "Florida" levels making it feel even worse and I was of course in a suit and tie (although I carried the jacket for obvious reasons).

In fairness, the trip up could not have gone smoother I got a spot in the parking garage and the train was literally on the platform waiting for me, the express that would get me to Newark Penn in 45 minutes. Upon arrival in Newark, I shuffled down to the Light Rail, which was ALSO waiting for me on the tracks. Two stops and a four block walk later, I was at the office. Door to door in a little over an hour. 

In the afternoon, I had my eye on the 4:33 train. The problems started as soon as I left the office. What had been uncomfortable but tolerable heat in the morning had turned into sidewalk-melting discomfort that made even the couple of block walk unpleasant and of course I had not refilled my water bottle before I left. This time, I had to sit in the Light Rail for like 10 minutes, a dank, humid wait but nothing compared to the sauna that hit me when I got to Penn Station. To add insult to injury, what should have been a roughly 10 minute wait for the NJT train stretched to close to 30 minutes due to delays, and I just was sitting there, slowly melting, dabbing my forehead to clear off the sweat and really struggling since there is no air conditioning in Penn Station, nowhere to really sit and be comfortable (the benches are literally designed to discourage you to sit on them too long to discourage homeless people to use them), and of course the mass of humanity simply added to the heat and humidity. 

When the train finally arrived, there was little relief. The car was of course packed and the air conditioning was not doing much. I tried to stay calm but just felt my energy sapping away, wondering if I was suffering from heat stroke (and of course stressed that poor P and G were waiting patiently at home, no doubt starving even though I'd left a little food for them). After about 20 minutes, I could not read anymore and just basically shut down, the trip interminable. Once I got to my stop, me and what felt like half of Mercer County got out and I had to hump it up 4 levels to get to my car, where I practically collapsed before sitting in full blast A/C for five minutes just to get my energy up a little. A commute that took about an hour and twenty minutes in the morning took twice as long in the afternoon (and with weather about 10x worse). 

It took a good 10 minutes just to get out of the lot because so many people were leaving and I got home like 5 minutes before a massive thunderstorm broke out. I guzzled some water and about half a bottle of Liquid IV which helped and I also jumped in the shower, but of course, like two minutes later, yes, reader, the power went out. Thankfully, it was brief, but still, just an awful cap to the day and that isn't even getting into how out of sorts P and G were, how hot the house was because I set the A/C at 76 when I'm not there but when it's 95 degrees out with a "feels like" of 100 plus, it does not do much, so it was several hours before I unwound properly and the house also cooled enough to get to sleep. What a M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E day. 

The Pitt

Since I'm an old, I still consume most of my TV on, you know, A TV, and not on a phone or an iPad or any other screen, I'm not much of a streamer. So it was a happy coincidence that HBO decided to run a marathon of The Pitt about a week ago. What a great show. The elevator pitch would be 24 meets ER as we follow a group of emergency room doctors (ER) in real time (24) through a 12-hour shift (that extends out to 15 hours due to a mass shooting event). It is propulsive viewing and its binge-ability (for lack of a better term) is both a blessing and a curse. 

The show pretty much draws you in from the get go when we meet Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle, another ER connection), the attending doctor of the emergency room at a Pittsburgh hospital, as he arrives for his shift, talks down Dr. Abbott, his opposite number (literally) off a ledge before digging into the day with his merry band of doctors and nurses. His senior residents Drs. Collins and Langdon, and more junior staff, including Drs. Mohan (aka Slo-Mo for her pace of treatment), McKay (a single mom embroiled in a custody dispute with her ex husband), King (an empathetic, but socially awkward (possibly on the spectrum?)) second year resident, Santos (a mouthy go getter who gets on everyone's nerves), Javadi (a 20-year-old prodigy whose mother is also a doctor in the hospital), and Whitaker (a wet behind the ears medical student from Nebraska). There is also the charge nurse, a no-nonsense but has a heart-of-gold type named Dana and the rest of the staff. 

Over the course of the day, the drama comes fast and furious and all manner of societal ill slaps you in the face. Human sex trafficking victim? Check. Dad molesting his daughter? Check. Little girl drowns in backyard pool? Check. And that says nothing of the more routine gun shot wounds, heart attacks, and mentally ill patients the doctors treat. It is A LOT to absorb and watching it in binge mode can feel like sitting on a train watching the countryside go past. It's all a blur. You simply don't have time to really sit and think about the 19-year-old who dies from an accidental fentanyl overdose because your attention is immediately grabbed to the possibility Dr. Langdon is a drug addict who tampered with medication to hide his problem. Dr. Collins literally miscarries during the middle of her shift, splashes some water on her face, and heads right back out without missing a beat. Each episode covers roughly an hour of the shift but it is so packed with story telling it can be hard to keep up with all of it but the show is so absorbing, you want to immediately start the next episode. 

The binge gives the show a kinetic feel that puts you in the doctors' shoes and a sense of how quickly they must move on because the rigors of the job demand it. Ironically, it is not until the late in the season episodes covering how victims of a mass shooting are treated that the show slows down. There is less time for the personal or dramatic because the sole job is saving lives. And it is to the show writers' credit that during that arc several new doctors (night shift) are introduced with a fully lived in feel that makes you want to get to know them even more.

The acting across the board is top notch. Wyle's Dr. Robby is at turns compassionate, hard assed, and sympathetic. He goes above and beyond to continue doing tests on the teenage overdose victim to placate his parents even though he knows the kid is brain dead but cuts to the chase when two adult children attempt to override their elderly father's living will requests. He is also dealing with trauma of his own - the show occurs on the fourth anniversary of his mentor's death during COVID, and Robby feels responsible for the man's death even though he was not to blame. When Dr. Robby briefly breaks down while the bodies start filling up the ER in the wake of the mass shooting, he feels like he has let down his team. It is to Dr. Abbott, who Robby had talked down at the beginning of the day and who came in to help treat patients to explain that losing it for a minute or two is natural and ok. 

The supporting cast is also outstanding. Each character is so well drawn but also so well acted, it is like they have been playing these characters forever. The show traffics in BIG emotions, be it the waiting room fight between patients arguing over whether a child coughing for an hour should wear a mask to the aunt who brings her niece to the hospital for a medication abortion only to have the mother show up to stop it, the crushing experience (which happens more than once) of parents having to say goodbye to a child, or the fear of a new mother who fears her baby has been stillborn (this was a particularly graphic scene not for the faint of heart) and on and on. I literally gasped at the end of the ninth episode when Dana, taking a smoke break outside, is cold cocked out of nowhere by a disgruntled patient. But to me, it was the smaller moments that felt the most earned. Dr. King relating to an autistic patient with a sprained ankle by turning down the lights in the room and turning off devices that make noise in order to make him feel more comfortable. Whitaker, bouncing back from a couple of very tough experiences early on to show empathy toward Robby when he sees his boss crumpled in a corner reciting a Jewish prayer. Abbott, unwinding with his colleagues after the mass shooting event and taking off his prosthetic leg, saying so much without saying anything at all.

While there are a few nits one could pick like the overbearing administrator who shows up every few hours to complain to Robby about wait times and patient satisfaction, or the not-so-subtle riffs about how doctors and nurses are overworked and underpaid or the patient who was part of a civilian squad of people in the 1960s who helped create the modern 911 system, these are minor critiques in a 15 hour season that is some of the best TV I have seen in a long time. Honestly, my fear is that the show's success will lead the creators to try and top it in season 2. I hope instead they realize the show's strength is in its inter-personal relationships, its examination of how decision making is reached under pressure, and that these are people who are doing the best they can under impossible circumstances. 

30 Years Ago Today

I saw my last Grateful Dead show thirty years ago today, in Pittsburgh. Of course, I did not know at the time that I would never see Jerry again, but it was a fitting end, and I will tell you why. The Dead, for me and my friends, was not just a musical act, the band, and all the attendant swirl around it, was, for a time, basically our lives. We traveled with the band up and down the East Coast and for me at least as far away as Chicago and Indiana. We ditched classes in college to go to shows, we jotted down set lists in little notebooks that themselves became part of the experience. We met strangers in parking lots and became friends, we had weird little interludes, passing moments that we probably did not appreciate fully at the time because no one thought it would ever end.

By 1995, we were expert at the arcane rules for getting mail order tickets and a friend of mine and I were able to secure two for Pittsburgh, a roughly three hour drive from our homes in the DC area. We had no real plan other than to leave in the morning, drive to the show and then turn around and drive back after the show was over. It would be a long day, but when you're young you don't really think about such things. 

Three Rivers Stadium was a concrete mausoleum. Built in the era when multi-purpose stadiums were all the rage, it was a big donut-shaped monstrosity at the confluence of the Alleghany, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers. After doing the standard loops around the parking lots we headed in to our seats on the floor. The show itself was unremarkable for the most part. We did see the band perform a cover of the Talking Heads song "Take Me To The River" (perhaps owing to the location of that day's concert) and they replicated (in part) the "rain" themed songs they had performed at the last show we saw at RFK Stadium just five nights before. A pre-drums Terrapin was .. fine, and a rare Gloria encore closed things out. 

But that wasn't the real story. The real story was a quintessentially Grateful Dead experience we had at the show. To wit, in a stadium of I don't know, 60,000 people, when we got down to the field and to our seats, not fifty feet away from us was a guy we knew in high school who my friend had also went to college with but neither of us had seen in several years. Aside from the randomness of running into someone we had not seen in so long (I mean really, what are the odds?) even more fortuitous was the fact his girlfriend was from the Pittsburgh-area. We spent the show with them and then she graciously offered us a place to stay at her parents home so we did not need to make the long drive back that night. 

Her family home was more like a farm, about 20 minutes outside the city and it was very welcoming. We showered off the "ick" (what I used to call the combination of sweat, stink, and general body odor that accumulated when you spent a summer's day at a show) and slept in something akin to a guest house. A full spread of breakfast was waiting for us when we woke up and our buddy and his girlfriend then led us back out to the interstate so we could head home.

It was that kind of kismet, those random experiences and interactions that I miss, almost more than the music. That day remains a cherished memory and I wanted to acknowledge it.

Matlock Was Always Going To Let You Down

There was a scene about halfway through Matlock's two-part season finale that got me thinking, of all things, The White Lotus (Thailand). Over the strains of Fleetwood Mac's Landslide, Maddie Kingston (aka Maddie Matlock) takes down the so-called crime board she, her husband Edwin, and their grandson Alfie had created to answer the question of who, among the attorneys at Jacobson Moore, had removed an incriminating report from a discovery production done by their pharmaceutical client Wellbrexa highlighting the danger of addiction posed by its opioids. The Kingstons' daughter (and Alfie's mother) Ellie had died from opioid abuse and the trio believed the firm culpable for her death by hiding the report that would have pulled the drug from the market long before her death. 

As Maddie plucks photos and post its off the wall, a montage of her interactions with Olympia, Julian, Sarah, Billy, and Senior flash across the screen. Maddie infiltrated the firm as a sort of sleeper agent, ingratiating herself into the workplace with her cornpone Southern accent and disarming references to her advanced age to piece together most of the mystery of the missing document. But she also remembers the many good times she shared with people who constantly surprised her with their dedication, willingness to fight for what was right, and their friendship. What she had expected to be a quick hit penetration of a place whose lawyers she thought of as amoral was a more nuanced experience, particularly her bond with the hard charging Olympia, who slowly allowed Maddie in as a confidante and whose betrayal Maddie felt acutely.

Once the board was cleared, Maddie thumb tacked a photo of her, Edwin, and Ellie to the board and in that moment, much like the look of serenity that came across Rick's face after meeting Jim Hollinger and seeing him not as some arch villain who ruined Rick's life and killed his father, but as a frail old man, part of me thought Maddie would simply let sleeping dogs lie and instead of going forward with her plan to expose the firm, and in particular, Olympia's now ex-husband Julian as the guilty party, simply continue working there while letting go of her desire for revenge. 

And, much like Rick's inability to let go, Maddie could not either. Both shows and characters are bent on revenge, but as Matlock hurtled toward the end of its season, it did a great job of examining the same question The White Lotus broached - what cost is paid when we seek revenge? In Rick's case, he paid with his life and that of his partner Chelsea. For Maddie, the costs were more nuanced, but no less devastating. Her lies lost her the trust of Olympia, triggered Sarah into risking her job by taking on a client unbeknownst to Olympia (and in violation of firm policy), and led her to take advantage of other people in the firm, manipulating them into helping her get the information she needed. At the same time, while Edwin was preparing for them to return to their old lives, Maddie's passion for the law had been reawakened through her work at the firm. He looks forward to tackling the bucket list items they have back in San Francisco, she wants to continue working as a litigation attorney in New York. The desire to find justice for their daughter has not only consumed their lives but altered how they each view what their lives should be and affected the lives of the people Maddie works with. 

Of course, the beauty of The White Lotus is that each season is self-contained. Stories resolve and the cycle starts anew. Matlock is a procedural and so its season one ending was inevitably going to be ambiguous. Olympia, unwilling to accept that Julian would violate basic ethical duties, is committed to exonerating him, but in doing so, she is drawn into precisely the kinds of manipulative actions that Maddie now realizes poisons relationships. Doing so lands her in a bank vault with a safety deposit box opened and the incriminating study binder clipped within it. If finding the literal smoking gun was not enough, Julian shows up and confirms he did in fact remove the document, at his father's direction, nearly 15 years earlier. He pleads his case, or at least tries to explain that as a young lawyer trying to make his dad happy, Julian did something he understood was wrong and argued that he is a different (and better person) than he had been all those years ago. 

The price revenge exacts on the one seeking it comes into sharp relief. Had Olympia not pried into Maddie's background, she never would have learned of her duplicity and by extension, learned of her ex husband's perfidy. As a partner, she now has two massive problems - she has a fiduciary duty to the firm and now knows it would experience humiliation if Maddie's infiltration of the firm and exposure of their malpractice becomes public. Moreover, she now knows the father of her children did it, which exposes him to public humiliation as well. On the other hand, Olympia believes strongly in doing what's right and, as a mother, empathizes with Maddie's desire to see the people who she sees as being responsible for her daughter's death be brought to justice. 

While the writers set up Season 2 to answer these questions, they lack the whodunit-ness of Season 1. After all, the mystery that triggered Maddie's desire for justice has been solved, it is just a question of whether Olympia will tell Maddie what she discovered. And while that is enough to fill some storyline, the finale showed that the writers know far more needs to be put on the plate to fill out the meal. Billy's ex-girlfriend Claudia is pregnant with their child, Sarah is feeling herself after notching her first trial victory but has drawn the attention of her nemesis at the firm, who suspects Sarah of obtaining this client against firm policy, and Alfie's father shows up at the family's front door. Are his motives to simply be in Alfie's life or attempt to take the boy away from his grandparents? That is a lot of narrative runway to fill a season and suggests the Wellbrexa storyline will just be one of many, not the central focus. The big reveal of Julian's complicity was not a Perry Mason moment, rather, it was a melancholy and muted ending that will require Olympia, and to a lesser extent Maddie, to decide whether revenge is worth it and what justice looks like. These are existential questions that can lack the flash and pop that TV procedurals traffic in, but the show has, to its credit, tried to reach for a higher plane than most of what is still on network TV. As they say in the business, stay tuned ... 

Book Review - There Is No Place For Us

One of the joys of reading is coming across a book so profound, so thought provoking, it lingers with you long after you've finished reading it. Such is the case with There Is No Place For Us, Brian Goldstone's heart wrenching tale of five low income families living on the societal margins of Atlanta, Georgia. 

Goldstone's remit is quite broad. Over 365 pages, his lens zooms in to the granular struggles of the working poor, who live one bad decision or one decision out of their control, from losing their homes and spiraling downward toward homelessness. But he also zooms out, challenging conventional wisdom about the benefits of gentrification, the failed governmental and private sector attempts to address poverty, and the rapacious desire of corporations to profit off the poor in America. 

It would be reductive to suggest there are heroes and villains in this story, although there are plenty of both; rather, Goldstone asks readers to move beyond the stereotypes we associate with the poor and homeless. The families we meet are to a person hard working, often in physically demanding jobs for little pay who live (at best) paycheck to paycheck but are never secure. Things spiral quickly for one family of four, a husband and wife with full-time jobs and two kids, when the owner of the condominium they rent decides to sell. Unable to find an apartment anywhere near the rent they were paying to her, they are forced to move into an apartment they know they will be unable to afford in the long run and when the inevitable eviction occurs, they must move to an extended stay hotel, where they pay even more than either of their two other homes and for far less room, worse accommodations, and no legal remedies or protections. 

The other families are single parent, led by mothers whose grit and determination is at once inspiring and also deeply saddening. They are on a hamster wheel that never allows them to get ahead and often has them taking one step forward and three steps back. For one woman, the triggering event is an ex-boyfriend who, while she and her children are out of the house, sets it on fire. Not only does the corporate owner of the house do nothing to assist her in finding a new home, it goes through the process of evicting her even though the home was inhabitable. Having the eviction on her credit score makes it nearly impossible to rent an apartment and she and her children get sucked into a vicious cycle of extended stay hotels, boarding houses, and living on the street. For another woman, it is discovering her boyfriend is cheating on her, leading her to move out and on her own, but with little money to house herself and her three children, she toggles between the couches and floors of family and friends until the inevitable blow ups occur and she is left to start anew. 

Over the course of telling these stories, Goldstone teases out so many of the contradictions that exist in the housing industry and the stringent but often capricious rules that make it so hard to establish stability. One woman Goldstone profiles loses her Section 8 housing when she allows a family member, an ex-offender, to live with her temporarily, something prohibited by the program. Unable to secure another apartment that accepts Section 8, she ends up at yes, the dreaded extended stay, where she quickly falls behind on her bills and is summarily evicted, left to panhandle, using her two-year old daughter as bait to garner sympathy from passersby. Of course, that same woman's credit had basically been destroyed years before when her own mother convinced her to apply for an apartment on her behalf because her own credit was poor, but when the mother falls behind on rent and gets evicted, its her daughter whose credit is now ruined. 

For other families, it is "the system" that keeps them down. Federal agencies who define homelessness differently, making it impossible to access needed services. State laws that provide renters almost no legal rights and tilt heavily toward landlords, who more and more simply rely on algorithms to determine whether they will rent to you even as they pocket application fees many of these families can ill-afford to lose but have to spend that money on the off chance they get approved. On the other end of the spectrum are the companies, private equity groups, and other conglomerates that scoop up residential properties in the growing Atlanta market. Some avail themselves of federal programs allowing them to obtain the benefit of tax credits for purchasing distressed assets and then flipping the properties before they would otherwise be able to because lobbyists stick loopholes into the federal tax code allowing them to do it. Meanwhile, the families who lived in those rent-controlled complexes are left to fend for themselves, and typically with little help or guidance.

Credit scores not only complicate the effort to find housing, but bleed into other aspects of these families' lives, particularly in transportation. The interest rates they are charged to borrow money to buy even a used car are usurious and overwhelmingly result in repossession, leaving them the unenviable task of using a wonky public transportation system that turns 20-30 minute commutes by car into multi-hour trips by bus and train. All of this while attempting to raise children, many of whom shuttle between family members' homes while losing ground at school. As these stories unfold, it is like watching a movie knowing a car crash is about to happen. Any time a family seems to be on the path toward a better tomorrow, the cruel hand of fate intervenes. 

When one woman takes her children away for a quick weekend trip, the friend she is staying with moves out of the apartment they were staying in. By the time she returns, the locks have been changed and not only is she left homeless, vital documents, like her family's social security cards and her kids' vaccination records were tossed out without her knowledge. Another mom works with a non-profit that offers to cover an entire year's rent but when the woman finds an apartment, a needed inspection takes too long and the property owner rents the place to someone else. When another apartment comes free, instead of risking losing it, she switches to a less generous program the non-profit offers, where they simply cover the security deposit and one month's rent, leaving her to take an overnight job, leaving her three kids, all under the age of 12, alone all night. She unscrews the knobs to the stove and hides all the sharp objects to mitigate the risk anything bad will happen while she's away, but lives in constant fear of it or of a neighbor reporting her to the authorities. 

It is a grim tableau and much of it is centered on the extended stay hotels that become makeshift temporary homes for these families. The facilities are expensive while also being filthy, with burst pipes, non functioning air conditioning units (not a small thing during the summer in Altanta), and the standard risks of crime, drugs, and prostitution. It is one of the cruel ironies of the story that the lower down the housing totem pole you fall, the costlier it is to find stable housing. And because there is so little governmental support for the working poor, in a booming city like Atlanta, families must put more and more of their modest income toward housing, which can force them to triage paying other bills. Utility cut offs, car repossessions, and even cell phone plan terminations are routine and of course, any time this happens, it is another mark on their credit score, not to mention increasing the instability these families already face. On top of all that, the laws in Georgia tilt heavily toward landlords, reducing the chances that tenants, especially ones in a precarious financial situation, will complain about leaky plumbing, mold, or cockroaches for fear of being evicted. The common thread you see through so much of this book is the willingness of companies - be they in hiring, housing, or lending - to take advantage of the desperation of the people who need them.

But even in the face of these challenges, Goldstone manages to find humanity's better angels. Be it an overnight shift worker at a gas station who allows one of the mothers Goldstone profiles to sleep in her car with her kids in the station's parking lot, promising to keep an eye out for them and allowing them to use the bathroom to clean up in the morning or the manager of a 24-hour laundromat who lets another of the women Goldstone profiles and is also homeless at the time, to use the phone to make calls in an attempt to find help. Still another, a colorful community activist named Pink is a whirling dervish of effort, dropping off meals to families, finding second hand clothes for their kids, and even putting up families for a few nights in her own home while trying to connect them to community programs. The grace notes are their own form of heartbreaking. One woman, Celeste, who, over the course of the book, gets and loses several different places, is diagnosed with cancer, spends six months living in a boarding home with her young child and other renters who range form the schizophrenic to the sociopathic, hands over a large chunk of her COVID stimulus money (which she really needs) to her eighteen year old daughter, so she, her boyfriend, and baby can stay in yes, you guessed it, an extended-stay hotel.

While Goldstone is comfortable in pointing fingers (and rightly so) at the slumlords who take advantage of these families, less is said about the decisions some of these families make, particularly when it comes to having kids. I did find myself shaking my head at the decisions that led to several of the women profiled in the book having multiple children with multiple men even as they struggle to make ends meet. Men are also vanishingly absent from the story. Of the five families profiled, only one is headed by a husband and wife. Every other adult male is either absent, derelict, or actively sabotaging the women we meet.

And the people you feel worst for are the kids who did not ask to be brought into this life or these circumstances. The children are exposed to drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, shootings, unemployment, evictions, and so much more. One child, a young teen named DJ, effectively becomes the parent to his two younger sisters when his mother goes on a weeks-long drinking bender that renders her incapable of doing the bare minimum of parenting. Schooling is often an after thought and one can only imagine the psychological damage being raised in such squalor will have on these children, but the likelihood is they will fall into the same vicious cycle of dead end jobs, scarce resources, and housing insecurity that their parents did. 

If there is one conclusion Goldstone comfortably reaches, it is that we, as a society, have largely turned a blind eye to the working poor among us. The federal government has largely removed itself from the problem, outsourcing public housing to an ill-conceived, ill-funded voucher program that cannot meet the needs of all the people who want to access it or have the available rental stock to house them. Instead, gentrifying downtrodden neighborhoods that replace public housing with pubs, bistros, and yoga studios has become the norm. While this may be in the public interest, it has been done with little thought for how to help working people who still need a place to live. The book ends on an uncertain note. The epilogue does not update us on what happened to these families, whose stories end sometime in 2021 or 2022. But perhaps that is the point. As Goldstone shows, the uncertainty and instability that marks the lives of the working poor make it difficult to find a happy ending. 

The Selfish Jerks Across The Street

As a childless home owner in an affluent suburb of New Jersey, I am not wild about paying property taxes to fund the public schools I never have, and never will, use. You would think I would be the last person to support a referendum that would allow the township to borrow almost $100 million to upgrade the facilities at the elementary, middle, and high schools. HOWEVER, I understand that paying those taxes is a civic need to educate the children in my township who will go on to college and beyond to take over the economic heavy lifting that will be needed for our country to remain competitive. I also understand that having good schools is a lure for couples who are willing to shell out a lot of money to live in my township, which will accrue to my benefit when I move out of this god forsaken state. So I will vote in favor of this referendum.

On the other hand, the first people you would think would support this referendum are my neighbors, a married couple with two kids, who have utilized these public schools for the last 20 years, as one child went through the K-12 system and is now in college and the other is graduating this year, but lo and behold these selfish jerk offs have a VOTE NO lawn sign in their front yard. Apparently, paying property taxes so their kids could be well educated was fine, but paying a little more so the next generation of kids can enjoy those same benefits is not. I will never understand people. 

Ignoble Endings - O.J. Simpson

 

Ignoble endings: A periodic series examining the sad conclusion to the careers of some of the greatest sports icons in history.

Prior posts

Joe Namath

Babe Ruth

In 1973, Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson was the greatest football player on the planet. That “The Juice” as he was also known, had reached the pinnacle of the sports world was not surprising, only that it had taken him so long to get there. O.J. burst onto the sports scene as a running back at the University of Southern California. His unique blend of speed and power combined with peripheral vision that gave him an uncanny ability to avoid defenders earned him the Heisman Trophy as he led the Trojans to the national title. In 1969, O.J. was drafted number one overall by the Buffalo Bills. Although the Bills had been competitive in the old American Football League, winning back-to-back titles in 1964 and 1965, as the decade came to a close and the AFL’s merger with the NFL neared, their fortunes had taken a turn for the worse. More so, after the merger became final in 1970, the Bills found themselves in the AFC East, competing with the still powerful Baltimore Colts and the ascendant Miami Dolphins, who had a pipeline of young talent that would lead them to three straight Super Bowl appearances.

Simpson’s first few seasons with the Bills were solid, if unspectacular. Perhaps owing to the dearth of talent around him, defenses loaded up to stop the run. O.J. was limited to eight games in his second season but even in years one and three, where he played all 14 games, he failed to crack the 1,000 yard barrier and the team won just eight games in that three year stretch.

The tide began to turn slightly in 1972. The team was a little better and Simpson notched his first 1,000 yard season. But the following year would be his masterpiece. With a better offensive line and more playmakers, the Bills started out 4-1 and Simpson broke out of the gate with a 250 yard performance in the team’s season opening win. Seven games into the season, O.J. topped 1,000 yards and the unthinkable was actually on the table – could he eclipse 2,000 yards in a single season? A three-game skid dashed the team’s hopes of a playoff berth but they – and Simpson -  closed strong. Riding a three-game winning streak into the season finale at Shea Stadium against the New York Jets, O.J. was just 61 yards away from breaking Jim Brown’s single-season rushing record of 1,863 yards. The field was in awful shape. Snow mixed with mud and grass to make for difficult footing, but none of it bothered Simpson. He bested Brown in the first half but he was not close to being done. Although the Bills had put the game was out of reach, quarterback Joe Ferguson (who only threw five passes the entire game!) kept feeding O.J. the ball. In the fourth quarter, Ferguson pitched the ball to O.J., who followed his fullback Jim Braxton over the left side of the line for a seven yard gain, going over the magical 2,000 yard mark. In the end, O.J. carried the ball 34 times for 200 yards, ending the season with 2,003 yards. To this day, he remains the only player in NFL history to go over 2,000 yards in just 14 games.  

For this singular achievement, Simpson won the MVP award and he followed up the 1973 campaign with a solid 1974 (more than 1,100 yards and his lone playoff appearance), an even more impressive 1975, where he came within just 46 yards of again surpassing Brown’s previous record while tallying more than 2,200 yards of total offense from scrimmage and setting a then-NFL record of 23 touchdowns, and another first-team All-Pro performance in 1976, where he topped 1,500 yards. That five-year stretch, from 1972-76, is among the greatest in NFL history, with O.J. playing all 14 games in each year and totaling 7,699 yards, an average of more than 1,500 yards a season and 110 yards a game. Indeed, O.J. was so far ahead of the competition, no other running back came within 2,500 yards of that five-year total.

The Bills rewarded Simpson for his efforts. Before the 1976 season, he signed a three-year contract extension through the 1979 season for a then-unheard of amount of $2.2 million. A knee injury limited O.J. to seven games in 1977. While he recovered from surgery and with two years left on his deal, the Bills shipped O.J. back to the West Coast. While the Rams and Raiders both balked at the trade compensation needed to acquire Simpson, the San Francisco 49ers bit, sending Buffalo five draft picks while picking up the tab on the remainder of O.J.’s contract.

It was a calculated risk. The 49ers were not a particularly good football team, they won just five games the season before trading for Simpson, but with O.J. just 2,129 yards away from breaking Brown’s all-time rushing record, perhaps they thought he still had enough left in the tank to lift them into contention while the team could market his attempt to break Brown’s record as a means of goosing attendance at their games. The bet did not pay off. In 1978, the first year the NFL went to a 16-game schedule, the 49ers won just twice, averaging an anemic 14 points a game while committing more than 60 turnovers. Like his early seasons in Buffalo, O.J. was running behind a weak offensive line, but with more than 2,300 carries under his belt, the wear and tear of nine seasons in the cold and snow of Buffalo, and the injuries he suffered to his knees, O.J. no longer had the speed to avoid tacklers, the agility to cut back, or the strength to break long gains. Still recovering from knee surgery, O.J. played in just 10 games that year and rushed for less than 600 yards. Worse still, one of the draft picks the 49ers traded for him ended up being the first overall in the following draft owing to the team’s 2-14 record.

The 1979 season would be O.J.’s final one. Whatever magic he once had in his legs was now gone. He was a shell of the player he had once been and his performance on the field toggled between mediocre and poor. Relegated largely to a back-up role, O.J. would tally just 85 yards in his final five games, a total that earlier in his career he would have eclipsed in one half of a single game. In nine of the 13 games he played, he gained 30 or fewer yards. With the team on its way to matching its woeful 2-14 record of the previous season, O.J. was handed the ball just twice in the final game of the season, a loss at the Atlanta Falcons. It would be the last game of Simpson’s career.