Succession Power Rankings - Dundee

This week on Succession … Kendall meets a woman. Connor has a sand problem. Roman buys Logan a gift.  And now, the Power Rankings:

1. Logan Roy (last week: 1): A dollar bill got you the fuck out of Scotland and on your way to becoming one of the richest, most influential men in the world. Your family, friends, and even some enemies have convened in your hometown to celebrate your life’s achievements but you are so preoccupied you do not see the walls are starting to close in. Your big brother did not fly in to reminisce about the birds you once spotted at the bandstand. No, he came to Dundee hoping to dance a little jig on your grave when all that dirty laundry you have threatened, cajoled, and paid people off to keep quiet about all these years goes public. Plus, you might have been a bit hasty in renegotiating your last divorce because Marcia has one foot out the door. 

2. Rhea Jarrell (last week: 2): We see your game here at the Power Rankings and are not unimpressed. You lean into your smallness - a mere hummingbird, or perhaps a butterfly in the ointment - to mask your sharp elbows and taste for the jugular. The Roy kids tried a death-by-a-thousand-cuts move (have you been tested for STDs? is your mom a democratic socialist?!) and you countered with a little game of divide and conquer. On the surface, it seemed to work. Sure, Roman scoffed when you complimented his instincts and Kendall knows he is not getting out of the rock tumbler (or wearing the Big Trousers, s/o Tom Wamgsgans) anytime soon, but your fawning had its intended effect. They, and Connor (who has his own problems to deal with) bailed when Shiv issued her call to arms to take you down. But you have not been around the family long enough to see the error in your strategy. The kids are not going anywhere no matter how many wedges you try to insert between them. The real action is out in the stables, where the shit shovelers are failing to make the latest scandal disappear - precisely the type of intel an incoming CEO would want to know before accepting the job and having that bomb explode in her face. 

3. Shiv Roy (last week: 6): Your dad made you an offer and you are going to redeem that coupon or go down swinging. Your brothers are unwilling to join the Resistance but that ended up accruing to your benefit. While Kendall is off with Jennifer, Connor is sweating his finances, and Roman is flirting with Eduard, Gerri, Frank, and the rest of the What The Fuck Are We Going To Do Committee looked to you for their marching orders. No one wants to tell Logan that the storm warning threat or the eight figure hush money offer failed to move the needle with the Weasel-Man. He is going to spill the cruise line's secrets publicly and whoever Logan announces as his successor at Dundee will get hit with the sharpnel. So, you play the double game masterfully. You keep the bad news away from your dad and, with every ounce of faux sincerity you can muster, tell him he needs to trust his gut, knowing he will go with Rhea, thereby sending her directly into the line of fire for what you hope will be the shortest CEO tenure in history. 

4. Ewan Roy (last week: not ranked): If revenge is a dish best served cold, the plate you handed your younger brother must have been sourced somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. Sure, the quarter billion dollar inheritance you are dangling over your grandson’s head is there because of Logan’s hard work, but you cannot see past your own bitterness and resentment that he made it and you are living off his success. Are you the silent deep pocket funding the whistleblower? Maybe. Does it matter. Nope. You are seeing red, but when you call Logan morally bankrupt, accuse him of whoring for the climate deniers, and mock his empire of shit, you are really just projecting your own insecurity onto him. Give me Uncle Fun over Grandpa Grumps any day of the week. 

5. Kendall Roy (last week: 9): Some lessons are harder learned than others. For most of the season, you seemed to understand that keeping your head down, your dad properly medicated, and your mouth shut was the best way to stay in the old man's good graces. Were there downsides? Sure. You know full well your barely-under-control drug habit and the messy little business with Andrew Dodds will forever keep you out of the top job, but a cozy perch in the C suite was a nice consolation prize. Unfortunately, you could not leave well enough alone. You stood up to Logan when he backhanded Roman at Argestes and you questioned his judgment in carrying on an affair with Rhea. So you got punished. A quick visit to the home of the young man you killed resulted in a predictable change in attitude. Instead of playing the game of thrones, you brushed up on your white man rapping skills (Ken-W-A in the mother fucking house, y'all) and engaged in some century-defining fucking with the star of Willa's will-not-even-make-it-to-opening-night play; and when she embarrasses you in front of your dad, you still have the good sense to ship her ass back to the City faster than she can say "awesome" (again).   

6. Roman Roy (last week: 5): There is an old saying that you should not confuse motion with progress and for much of the season, Roman has been languishing in the middle of the Power Rankings pack, spinning his wheels but never actually going anywhere. This episode was a good example of why. If the Power Rankings were measured solely on who gets in the most sick burns, he would be our number one boy every week; but when it comes time to do the nuts and bolts of ladder climbing, he can never make it past the middle rung, largely because he skips the small details, like remembering the football club his dad supports or knowing the price of a gallon of milk. Roman's plan to reach the top revolves around something untoward happening to Logan so his kink-friendly general counsel will put him and his little dick in charge. Seems thin. 

7. Marcia Roy (last week: not ranked): You may not pee the carpet at every crack of thunder, but you do have your pride. If Logan wants to dip his quill in another ink well, that's fine, so long as he is discreet about it. But when his latest paramour throws a very public party for him, you can only keep up a brave face for so long. Over your years, you have fought and won and you have fought and lost. File this one away as a loss and be thankful you are about to fuck off just as the Waystar ship hits the iceberg. Let’s hope Logan is still liquid enough to make your golden years comfortable. 

8. Cousin Greg(ory)(last week: 4): Negotiating the finer points of the Grexit is not in your skill set. Getting a tip from Uncle Logan that your grandfather is a coward who would never have the balls to cut you out of his will is a $250 million bet you cannot cover if he is wrong. In the meantime, see if Colin can track down some Neosporin to take care of those sand mite bites before they get infected. 

9. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 10): I can't decide what was more humiliating, almost having a super awkward moment with the peasant Shiv boned while you were playing Boar on the Floor or your clumsy attempt to flirt with Rhea. Your season started with dreams of an accelerated timeline that would put you in charge of the whole company. Now, you are sitting at the kids table, hoping the adults still know you are around. But don’t worry Tom, it is not like the whole cruise line division story is about to blow wide open resulting in your having to testify before Congress. Everything is fine. 

10. Connor Roy (last week: not ranked): You forgot the first rule of having a sugar baby - don't fall in love. Now, you are learning that Willa is not actually a playwright (shocker) and that there is a major difference between construction sand and desert sand. Even if you dodge the inevitable lawsuits stemming from the mites lurking in those nine tons of white powder you now own, it does not matter, your bank account is tapped out. You may super love your dad but I would not hold my breath on his giving you that bridge loan to keep things afloat. 

Not Ranked: Willa; Jennifer; Shakespeare Frank; Eduard; Gerri Killman; Colin; Stewie; Jess; Sandy Furness (who may or may not have syphillis); Ratfucker Sam; Sno-Jo; Hearts FC; Karolina; The Jack The Ripper Women's Health Clinic; Hugo Baker; Tacitus; The Calispatron Franchise; The Pushy Sound Engineer; Rosebud; The Barrymore Theater; DJ Squiggle; The Denver Chronicle.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

Previous Power Rankings:

Return
Argestes

Tern Haven

Safe Room

Hunting
The Vaulter

September 29

Nothing much to say today. I went to my Sunday morning boxing class, came home, ate lunch, fell asleep on the couch and will toggle between football and Succession until I go to bed.

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September 28

So .. instead of going on a date (b/c the woman I was supposed to meet ghosted me in case you were wondering why I am so cynical about ever finding anyone) I got to watch the movie Booksmart. It was funny and clever. Well written with some laugh out loud moments but also just smart. These high school shenanigans movies get me because I had to have attended at least a half-dozen of them when I was that age, long before the Internet or smart phones existed (thank god). It is also like a bazillion degrees even though Tuesday is October 1st and it is annoying the shit out of me.

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September 27

I missed it earlier this week, but Hunter died. There was the predictable outpouring on Twitter, mostly lines from Ripple and Brokedown Palace. For me though, Box of Rain is his defining song. Box was the first Dead song I "got into," and without knowing its backstory, which I learned about some years later during a VH1 documentary called Anthem to Beauty. Hunter talked about how Lesh gave him a cassette of Lesh just humming the music to which Hunter placed lyrics quickly. Hunter went on to say that it was a song about a young man whose dad was dying. And as it turns out, that is exactly what was happening to Lesh's dad. I identified with the experience for having lost my dad when I was around Lesh's age and made it even more meaningful. 

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September 26

I am sure I will end up being sorely disappointed, but today, for the first time, it feels like Trump might actually get booted from office. I know there are a million ways this can go sideways, but the preliminary reports - the whistleblower complaint, the existence of other witnesses who know Trump's dirty dealings, the "notes" from his call with the President of Ukraine, the exposure people high up in his Administration have (and fear they might get prosecuted) - all of that looks really good for getting Trump removed from office. I really hope it happens while also fully expecting the media to fall down on the job, Republicans to protect him, Fox News to undermine the case, and on and on. 

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

Keep It Simple, Nancy

Ask anyone old enough to have lived through the 1992 presidential campaign and they can still tell you the pithy four word message the Clinton campaign used to win the White House - “It’s The Economy, Stupid.” 

There is something to be said for the sound bite. Republicans have been far more successful in their messaging over the years than Democrats - lower taxes, smaller government, a strong military. It is simple and easy to understand. Whether it’s true or not (much less fair or not), the reality is that simplicity sells. So, let me give Nancy Pelosi some unsolicited advice - keep it simple.

There is an understandable temptation to launch a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry into every nook and cranny of Trump’s unethical, immoral, and probably illegal activity. The tax fraud, the Stormy Daniels payoff, the emoluments, and on and on and on. But doing so would both bog down the inquiry and leave it open to criticism as being overreach, dragging on for months on end not unlike the Mueller investigation, regardless of the outcome.

Instead, a focused, narrow, impeachment inquiry into the whistleblower complaint that, at a minimum, suggests Trump leaned on a foreign nation to gin up bogus charges of wrongdoing by Joe Biden’s son (and maybe Biden himself) that may or may not have used hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance as a carrot/stick to get the Ukrainians to do it. 

It is a simple scandal to understand and explain. It goes to the heart of a non-partisan ideal we have in our country - that Presidents should not solicit the assistance of foreign nations to attack his political enemies - and could be investigated quickly. Trump will retain the support of Republican voters, but the people Democrats should be speaking to, and particularly leaning into the patriotism argument, are the sliver of independents who, if they turn on Trump next year, will sink his battleship. Oh, and the side benefit of having wall-to-wall cable news cannot be overstated. 

This really should not take too long. There is a discrete universe of witnesses - the whistleblower him or herself, the inspector general who reviewed the complaint, Rudy, Mick Mulvaney, other White House staffers who may have been involved in withholding the funds, and (perhaps?) John Bolton. The document request would also be modest - the whistleblower’s complaint and responsive documents from the White House and State Department, any transcripts or recordings that exist, and that is about it. 

If this was a criminal trial, it could be done in a few days. Of course, the Trump team will try to throw sand in the gears, challenging subpoenas and all the rest, but that underscores even more the importance of keeping this to the limited issues I discussed above. Wrap it all up as quickly as possible and either introduce article of impeachment or move on. Democrats should resist the temptation to try and investigate everything, especially because this one thing is more than enough to impeach Trump.

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September 24

Mondays have become a bit dicey of late. Now that I am committed to doing the Succession Power Rankings, Sunday night runs a bit long ... like past 11 pm long, and that is not an hour of the night I usually see. Adding to my long day yesterday was a longer-than-planned afternoon nap (almost 2 hours … oops), so I knew I was going to have trouble falling asleep regardless, but when you are trying to churn out ~ content ~ when your brain should be downshifting into chill mode even though you slept through the afternoon, it is just a bad combination.

Of course, I am doing all of this to, at best, get 200 page views for something I am wrecking my internal sleep clock for (the rest of the week will be an exercise in playing catch up for the 5 or so hours of sleep I got last night) while reminding myself that I do this because I like doing it, not because I expect anyone to see it (yeah right).

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Succession Power Rankings - Return

Previous Power Rankings:

Argestes

Tern Haven

Safe Room

Hunting
The Vaulter

This week on Succession … The Roys visit England and Tom and Greg have a cookout … Now, the Power Rankings:

1. Logan Roy (last week: 2): After last week’s humiliation, Sandy and Stewy are throwing sand in your eye with a cheeky little video to the shareholders. It is time to hunker down. Your inbox is the size of Argentina, so let's cross a few things off the list: 

• Item One: Bolster support with major shareholders. No problem. Your ex-wife has 3% (or is it 4%, who can remember the minor details?) of the voting shares and while you cannot so much as bribe her for her support, you can re-open your divorce settlement and drop an eight-figure present into her lap. Coughing up $20 million and forgoing Christmas with your kids instead of relinquishing your $150 million Hamptons getaway was not a tough call. 
• Item Two: Withdraw the CEO offer to Shiv. “Dinosaur-gate” was the final straw in a series of moves that made you sour on naming your daughter as your successor. Luckily, you have a new hatchet woman close by who can make that problem go away. 
• Item Three: Corral your wayward sons. If one is getting a bit too mouthy about your extra curricular activities, a quick trip to visit the family mourning the loss of the guy he killed should snuff out his insolence (not to mention his happiness). If the other is owed an apology for having had his face meet the back of your hand, you just feign ignorance - did you even make contact? 

2. Rhea Jarrell (last week: 8): Like you told Shiv at Argestes, you’re easy come go, easy go, but you backed up your surgical deconstruction of the Roy children with a deft move that handed Logan some breathing room from his hard charging daughter. You did not rise to CEO of a major media corporation by being a mere hummingbird. You know that corporate intrigue is like the game of thrones, you win or you die. For now, you could not have sketched out a better second act than riding shotgun on the Waystar corporate jet while Logan tells you to put together a list of potential CEOs who (coincidentally) will be impressive but flawed, resulting in his defaulting to you as his logical heir.

3. Caroline Collingwood (last week: not ranked): Being the mom to three Roy children is … complicated. You may have threatened to withhold support in the proxy battle to screw over their father or simply squeeze the kids for a visit and a few extra zeroes in your bank account. Regardless, you can handle the easy parts of motherhood like Roman’s tepid negotiating tactics and at this point, guilting Shiv is second nature. At the end of a pleasant meal, you're $20 million richer and will be hosting the kids for Christmas (let's hope you use some of that newfound wealth to hire a chef). But when it comes to the thornier aspects of motherhood, you know, the inconvenient moments when all you want to do is sip some tea and crawl into bed but your eldest son is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and wants to unburden himself, you beg off, promising to pick things up in the morning before predictably bailing on doing even the bare minimum of parenting. Mother of the Year, folks.

4. Cousin Greg(ory) (last week: 6): Like Greg’s ascent within the Waystar empire, this elevation is probably not entirely earned. After all, inviting some like-minded millennials to your lux condo for a confab on ~ the next wave ~ cannot mask your utter ineptitude when it comes to covering up corporate malfeasance. Pro tip Greg, if you are going to foil the polyglot geniuses looking to crack your code, do not label the folder with the highly incriminating documents “secret” and do not blurt out the conspiracy while your iPhone is rolling without getting the target to admit his culpability. Make no mistake, the haircut was a nice touch, but the only reason you have clocked a new high on the Power Rankings is the utter incompetence of the people surrounding you. 

5. Roman Roy (last week: 10): First, the pluses. Well, plus. You got about as close to an apology as you will ever get from your dad after he went Ike Turner on you at Argestes. The rest? Not so great. Gerri considered your Rock Star/Mole Woman pitch seriously right up until her bottom feeding oppo researchers unearthed allegations like “jerked off by your trainer” and “face tattoo," to which you claimed a foggy memory. Sure, Rome. To add insult to injury, your mom does not respect you enough to negotiate her pay off for supporting your dad in the proxy fight, but, like Greg, you are benefitting from your siblings’ almost pathological ability to step on rakes. Oh, and Rhea thinks you have potential. I am sure she is thinking of a nice spot in the Parks division where you and Brian, he of the promiscuous intellect and work hard, play easy vibe, can develop that killer VR concept. 

6. Shiv Roy (last week: 4): You spent the entire episode playing a game you cannot win - "What Does My Dad Think?" That mission statement with the large fonts, generous spacing, and affirming quotes from Thomas Aquinas and Amelia Earhart might work among the idealists you are used to working for, but it's raw meat for the school of piranhas on the Good Ship Fuck Off. For someone steeped in the dirty business of politics, how your Spidey sense did not go off when Rhea floated your name as a possible replacement for her at Pierce suggests her pithy assessment of you - not as smart as she thinks she is - was right on the money. Instead of seeing Rhea’s offer for what it was, a hidden hand move by your dad to get you off his back, you walked right into her trap. Now you are treading water, hoping for a team up with your brothers to take her down.

7. (tie): Stephon Strauss and Kenneth Chen (last week: not ranked): Whatever report you two cough up will probably never see the light of day, but it would be unfair not to reward your efforts in making Tom squirm under the most basic of questioning. 

9. Kendall Roy (last week: 3): Just when you spy a glimmer of sunlight, the dopamine high of successfully navigating the logistics of taking a dick pic for your equally damaged girlfriend, you opened your big mouth and told your dad you thought Rhea might be playing him for the fool. Bad move. Instead of spending the afternoon at the Regent's Park Zoo, starring in your own little Simon and Garfunkel song, your dad turns on you with a vengeance, forcing you to do a walk of shame right into the home of the poor young man whose life ended at your hand on the rainy night of your sister’s wedding. No words were needed. The shellshocked expression on your face said it all. And when you were finally ready to unload the months of shame, when you needed to come clean to the one person in this fucked up world you thought might listen - your mother - she could not be bothered. And so, you are left shoving a few thousand pounds through the mail slot in the middle of the night to assuage your guilt before you hop on the company Gulfstream, hipster beanie firmly affixed to your head, and the embryonic makings of a sibling partnership to rid the family of a foreign invader afoot. 

10. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 5): In football terms, you are a 3-13 team trying to convince the fan base the playoffs are right around the corner. That flaccid presentation at Argestes may be the high point to your season. You walked into your interview with the Blanch and Partners interrogators expecting a bubble bath and some softballs; instead, they smacked you across the face with a 2x4. You may have treaded water with your “do not recall” and old lady bladder routine, but there is a very good chance you are being set up as the holder of this bag of shit. Your wife can't be bothered to pay you any attention and even worse, while you were refilling your lighter, Cousin Greg was rebooting his blackmail scheme against you. We (not) here for you, Tom. 

Not Ranked: Marcia Roy; Connor Roy; Willa; Gerri Killman; Shakespeare Frank; Karolina; Hugo Baker; Kerry; Stewy; Sandy Furness (who may or may not have syphillis); Tabitha; Naomi Pierce; Serge, the overly chatty pilot; Bill, the Big Sperm Whale; Edward's Hell Hole in Mayfair; Jack the Ulsterman; the Museum of Wartime Foods. 

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

September 22

I went on a date today. I should really use quotes because the dating people do now is much different than the dating I did way back in the 1990s before I was married. Now, you match on a dating app (Tinder in this case), you exchange some text messages to gauge interest (there was), and then meet for a quick coffee (which in this case turned into a lovely two-hour chat). The process past this is a bit murky to me, sometimes things elevate to a dinner or lunch, or maybe a movie, but fizzle shortly thereafter. We will see how things go, but a small glimmer of hope.

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September 20

I have such a love/hate relationship with the New York Times. Its national political coverage is one step removed from tabloid-quality, but the rest of the paper is still first rate. Today was a perfect example. The Weekend Arts II section had a review of a photography exhibit at the Bronx Museum of Art by an artist named Alvin Baltrop. Baltrop's work was done in the 1970s and 1980s in the Meatpacking District and was notorious for its dilapidated buildings, vagrants, shooting (drugs) galleries, and as a safe haven for gay men. It’s now home to the Whitney, multi-million dollar condos, and that tourist death trap known as the High Line.

Baltrop documented a place and a time in New York City through thousands of black and white photos and to little public acclaim (the critic notes Baltrop only had two public exhibits of his work while he was alive and one of them was at a bar he worked at). Late in life though, Baltrop was "discovered" and after he passed away his archive of photos was saved. Now, years later, a serious examination of his work is being done at a legitimate art museum.

I loved this article first and foremost because the Times's critics, be it ones who write about art, books, television, or movies, are consistently superb. Criticism is a specialized form of writing that few can do well (trust me, I have tried for years) and it seems like the Grey Lady has a corner on the market on talented critics. I also found the subjects Baltrop studied of great interest. In the same way Diane Arbus found the humanity in society’s outcasts, Baltrop documented the lives of those who were on the margins, at risk, but just trying to be. I also loved the review of Baltrop's exhibit because it reminded me that art must be done for its own sake and that you cannot control whether or not your voice will ever be heard, only that you are putting it out for the universe to (hopefully) discover.

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September 19

If yesterday was about ruminating on the one relationship I wish I got to do over, today is about the one relationship I wish I never had. If you didn't think God, or whatever higher power you believe in, does not have a sense of humor, my ex-wife's birthday is the day after my college girlfriend's birthday.

I hate my ex-wife. I know, as Henry Francis said to Betty on Mad Men, "hate's a strong word," but hey, if the shoe fits. It is not so much the prime years I wasted married to a psychologically abusive alcoholic that makes me hate her, it is the ending - the unjustness of it. The fact that after ridiculing and belittling me for more than a decade because I was not the earner she thought I should be, she happily took what money she could, burned every freaking bridge behind her, and dragged out her exit for as long as possible just to make me miserable.

I could tell you stories about how when we were married she accused me of sleeping with her then-18-year-old niece because that niece had the temerity to trust me with a secret and not my ex-wife or the habitual drunk driving she did, or  how she had to be taken home from a family event because she was so bombed, or about how she was convinced her failure to get pregnant had nothing to do with the fact that she was overweight, smoked, and had a uterus that was 90 proof b/c of all the vodka she drank, no, it could not be any of those reasons, it had to be because I, a physically fit man in his 30s who did not smoke or drink, <gasp> smoked pot 10 years earlier. And when I got checked out and the OB/GYN told my ex wife that the sample I provided was one of the most motile ones she had ever seen (that means my "boys" were Michael Phelps-level swimmers) the look on her face was just fucking priceless. Suffice to say that we never had kids was a true blessing for all involved.

But even after all of that messiness and drama, all of that mental torture, had she just left like an adult and not like a petulant child who thought she did nothing wrong, I might have just chalked it all up to two people who grew apart over time with one having a problem she needed to get help for and maybe one day would. But no, she did not do that, so fuck her, fuck her right in the ear. I spent a lot of time after we got divorced wishing her true ill will, some karmic comeuppance that might balance the scales of justice, but that shit will not happen any sooner than an apology from her for the emotional carnage she left behind.

September 18

Today is my college girlfriend's birthday. If I had the power to go back in time and redo any relationship, this one would be it. I have never loved anyone more innocently or deeply than her. If you asked me to pick the 10 greatest days of my life, she plays a prominent role in at least 2 of them, maybe 3 or 4. When you meet someone at that age, when the possibilities are endless and time seems to go on forever, it is easy to take it for granted. As you get older, and the time behind you is greater than the time in front of you, there is a tendency to wallow in regret, especially if you are like me and unhappy with the path you have created for yourself.

Instead, you take comfort in the past, a weekend spent at a beach in Delaware, a night of partying that ended with a straight-out-of-a-rom-com-grand-gesture profession of love. You wish you could whisper in your younger self's ear and tell him not to fuck this up, to appreciate the young woman with the frizzy blonde hair and the smile that lit up a room. The one who believed in you but would also call you on your shit. The one whose heart was generous and big. Who could make you feel a purity of love by just looking at her while she talked on the phone over the strains of "No Woman, No Cry." What you are left with is those memories, seared into your soul and tormenting you with the idea of what could have been.

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Succession Power Rankings - Argestes

Previous Power Rankings:

Tern Haven

Safe Room

Hunting
The Vaulter

This week on Succession … Logan gets sick, Tom goes for a walk, and Greg needs some coke. And now, the Power Rankings: 

1. Nan Pierce (last week: 2): It turns out there was a limit to the amount of fumbling you would tolerate from the market before you closed your skirt and went back to your funny little house. Your head kept trying to justify a “yes” but your heart was screaming “no” long before you found out Mo(Lester) was playing Mr. Fiddle Sticks with cruise line dancers and blackballing those who did not submit to his advances. You’re not going to wear a lanyard around your neck and you’re certainly not going to get in bed (metaphorically) with a crazed man who claws at the locked door to your Mercedes as you speed back to Tern Haven, where Rosa is waiting with a fresh Break Bumper and a bill for at least one new set of bed linens while you consider candidates to serve as CEO. 

2. Logan Roy: (last week: 1): We here at the Power Rankings take our cue from the godfather of the art form, Mark Lisanti, whose rule of thumb when it came to this feature when writing about Mad Men was that Don Draper got the top spot unless something drastic happened. We think both literally and figuratively vomiting all over yourself meets that standard and that is not even taking into account smacking the hell out of your son. Maybe it was the altitude, or perhaps Kendall was not as diligent with the pills as he should be, but our hairy old newsman was off his game this week. With the PGM deal now dead, bad publicity about the cruise line division in the news, and Stewie and Sandy still circling, the Waystar Gulfstream may not be the only thing running out of gas. A temporary demotion is in order. 

3. Kendall Roy (last week: 3): There were some clear signs of life this week for our number one boy, I am just not sure they were all channeled in the right direction. Dressing down the suits Logan has tasked with hashing out the fine points of the PGM acquisition seemed gratuitous and Ken’s opinion on how to handle the New York magazine piece left a bit to be desired, but he did have the canned corporate response to it down cold until Shiv kneecapped him. The more she tries to force her way into the conversation, the closer the old man pulls Kendall into his orbit, but did Logan shake loose Kendall's dormant humanity when he cold-cocked Roman? Kendall's instinctive defense of his younger brother would suggest there once again appears to be a human being lurking in that body, not just a robot with skin and a coke habit he is (sort of) managing. 

4. Shiv Roy (last week: 8): Shiv revealed all of the things that make her both Logan’s logical successor and not-ready-for-prime-time. Her instincts when it comes to crisis communications are strong and she is the one person the Pierces view as palatable even as the New York magazine story breaks. But she also has a tendency to try and bigfoot things. As she put it in Safe Room, “clumsy old Shiv stomping all over it in my work boots.” Making a public pitch to do a dinosaur cull of your own family’s company so fresh eyes and clean hands can take over is not going to go over well with the old man, regardless of how it plays in the room, and swooping in nine minutes before your brothers go onstage to gum up the scripted explanation they are going to give ended up as a Tern Haven redux of dueling-banjoes sibling rivalry. She may be going with a “fuck it” strategy of antagonizing her dad as a means of standing up to him, but this one-foot-in-one-foot-out power play can only take her so far. 

5. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: not ranked): When you are up on that stage and the lights are bright, you cannot see the smirks on the faces of audience members as you stumble through a presentation any competent executive could do in his sleep. In that moment, it is easy to imagine the best version of yourself - not the one who gets cock blocked by his own wife when he is trying to close the deal at a nightclub or the one whose Airbus Culture and Leadership Walk is interrupted by an underling telling him the tag line he assiduously poll tested can no longer be used. No, with the mic looped comfortably around your head and your wife telling you how turned on she got from seeing another woman trying to get into your puffy vest, you imagine getting both the nut and fruit box and the champagne and paper weight. 

6. Cousin Greg(ory): (last week: not ranked): A nice bounce back week for Greg. Just getting an invitation to the ultra-elite Argestes conference would have been enough, but when your chalet is stocked with cashews the size of boomerangs and you may have touched Bill Gates, you know you have arrived. Sure, you still lack the experience of carrying your own powder for that little boost of confidence needed in the company of tech titans and super models, but at least you and Tom came up with a clever tag line. Be Best, Greg(ory).   

7. Gerri Killman (last week: 6): On the one hand, there is a future for you as CEO (or Chairman, whatever) of Waystar Royco sitting atop a pile of fuck you money that would allow you to ignore the existential threat of climate change because you will own a swath of land in New Zealand guarded by a small army, on the other, all that dirty talk with Roman got you was a backhanded compliment as a competent filing cabinet who will play Mole Woman to his Tarzan. You’re better than this, Gerri. 

8. Rhea Jarrell (last week: 4): Playing both sides is a dangerous game (just ask the woman right above you in the Power Rankings). You need to be deft and nimble, always vigilant for shifting tides, but you got caught short. Maybe it was the vision of a huge payout dancing in your head or maybe you thought once the Roys took over PGM there would be a spot for you; either way, you now have to update your LinkedIn profile.

9. Del Simmons (last week: not ranked): Things were going south between Nan and Logan before you stepped onstage to emcee the Argie Awards, but a few zingers at Waystar Royco finally pushed her over the edge. Kudos Del, a few minutes of lukewarm comic roasting torpedoed a $25 billion media merger. You have earned what will surely be a one and done spot on the Power Rankings. 

10. Roman Roy (last week: 6): Maybe you were better off swirling caramel apples at Brightstar amusement park because all your old habits - the smarminess, the immaturity, the overt attempts at manipulation - are back with a vengeance. While it is comforting that your siblings rode to your rescue after you spent the weekend belittling and mocking them, that they had to do so because you tasted the back of the old man’s hand is not a good sign. 

Not Ranked: Marcia Roy; Connor Roy; Stewie; Sandy Furness (who may or may not have syphllis); Hugo Baker; Leah; Jess; Karolina; Shakespeare Frank; Willa; The Quarterly 10-Q Meeting; J. Alfred Prufrock; The $75 Cobb Salad; Toxic Masculinity Monthly; the new Jonathan Franzen.

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Podcast Review - The Last Days of August

On the night of December 5, 2017, while wildfires raged in Ventura County, a twenty-three year-old adult film actress named August Ames (real name: Mercedes Grabowski) hanged herself in a public park in Camarillo, California. Ames’s death and the murky underworld of the porn business are the subject of Jon Ronson’s interesting, if somewhat unsatisfying podcast The Last Days of August.

Ronson, whose 2015 book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed examined what happens when public figures are roasted online for their misdeeds is an apt narrator for a story that starts as an extreme example of that phenomenon. At the time of Ames’s death, reporting suggested she was driven to take her own life because of online bullying she experienced when she tweeted that she had refused to partake in a sex scene with a male partner who also shot gay porn. One reply to her tweet that drew particular attention after she died was one that told her, in so many words, to go kill herself. But Ronson is after more than just a tidy rumination on the evils of online bullying because he tells us early on that the pointed-to tweet was sent after she was dead - she never saw it. 

With this reveal (which occurs early in the second of the show’s seven episodes) behind him, Ronson delves into Ames’s backstory, finding the people in her life - her brother, her husband, her close friends - and others in the world of adult entertainment to try and untangle things. And to his credit, Ronson does yeoman’s work. He is cursed at, insulted, hung up on, and dismissed. His interviewees toggle between friendliness and undisguised animosity. But each also has an agenda, and as they all admit, the industry they work in is full of hustlers and liars. All of which makes them unreliable narrators and separating truth from fiction an almost impossible task. 

Ames’s husband Kevin is eyed with suspicion as a controlling misanthrope who Ames was ready to leave and whose behavior the night she died (and his description of the events) seemed rehearsed and unemotional. Kevin, on the other hand, lays blame at the feet of another actress, Jessica Drake, who helped lead the online pile on after Ames’s initial tweet. Ames’s own mental health problems, stemming from childhood molestation and including at least one prior suicide attempt, are also considered, as is the negative effect a scene she shot shortly before her death had on her. Her male partner, a porn actor named Marcus Dupree, it was suggested, was overly rough with her, veering toward (if not across) the blurry line of consent that exists in the industry. 

The best Ronson can do is compare stories and, where it is available, look to objective evidence to figure out where the truth lies. For example, he does identify some minor discrepancies in Kevin’s story of the night August died, like when the power went out at their home (which he explains, is the reason he stayed at a hotel almost 20 miles away while she was still missing). More importantly, Ronson views the unedited scene Ames shot shortly before her death with Dupree who, Ames claimed, went beyond her consent, roughed her up, and basically made her feel like she had been raped. The scene plays out in some respects just as Ames had described it contemporaneously to a friend named Ryan, but in other respects cannot be verified.

Similarly, Ryan tells an entirely different story than Kevin about Ames’s prior suicide attempt - Ryan said Kevin did not show up to the hospital for seven hours, Kevin said he was with doctors during that time. Kevin claimed Ryan and August were not friends and that she changed her phone number after she was released to avoid people like him. Ryan shows that he had her new number. But while this information is helpful, it does little to answer the underlying question of why Ames ultimately decided to take her own life. Instead, it reinforces the unreliability of the people telling the story, leaving listeners to draw their own conclusions. 

Last Days also searches for, as is understandable when someone takes her own life, alternate explanations. Some people Ronson speaks with speculate that Ames would have been unable to climb the tree she was found hanging from. There are also suggestions that Kevin’s overbearing personality drove her to kill herself. But again, the objective facts (to the extent they exist) elide neat conclusions. A pathologist who reviews Ames’s autopsy finds no sign of foul play and opines that Ames’s decision to hang herself in a public park was likely the result of not wanting a loved one to find her. The one clue Ronson cannot unearth is Ames’s suicide note, which remains in her widowed husband’s possession but which he will not reveal the full contents of. Meanwhile, he acknowledges the flaws in their marriage but disclaims any responsibility for the mental state she was in when she died. 

And therein lies the limitation of Last Days. There is a lot of smoke but no fire. When word gets out that Ronson is sniffing around the story of Ames’s suicide, he gets a nasty talking to from a woman named Lisa Ann, a well-known actress who berates him for causing trouble. Others rise to defend Marcus Dupree, the man whose rough scene with Ames is viewed as a triggering cause for her decision to take her own life. Still others come to Kevin’s defense, indicating that there was love between he and Ames even though, like many married couples (forget ones who work in porn) they had their difficulties. The industry is revealed as cliquish and quick to defend itself but there is just not the evidence to lay blame on it or any one person within it for Ames’s suicide. If anything, the series argues for greater access to mental health treatment for adult performers, because Ames was one of several women who died just that year from suicide or drug overdose. 

There is also an overarching theme of how older men in the adult industry prey on young, vulnerable women. The cliches practically write themselves, but Ronson is not above driving the point home - lots of young women with daddy issues end up being ill served by men much older than them who lack the maturity to do anything other than use these women for their own gratification and then shrug their shoulders when things go south and they are unable to cope with it. 

In the end, we are left with a sort of Murder on the Orient Express type of solution. No one person was responsible for Ames’s death but the contributing factors - social media, online bullying, mental illness, a lack of emotional support - all came together at a time when Ames felt particularly vulnerable and did not think there was any way out other than to take her own life. 

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September 14

It is Saturday. I do love the weekends, fleeting as they are. The overnight was cool, but a little uncomfortable, a 2 AM wake-up (bladder) and some fussy cats are par for the course, but what I would not do for a few consecutive nights of uninterrupted sleep. Anyway, I did some shopping this morning and will go to the gym in a few hours. There's a good chance a nap might happen too. This is how you spend eternity when you have nothing (and no one) else in your life ... 

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September 13

It can be hard to post every day. Life intrudes or there is nothing interesting to say or I pull my punches on something I might not want to share publicly (even though less than 20 people will read this). Yesterday was a good example. I saw a tweet that bugged me. It was sent out by someone I follow and was one of those "here is some stuff you should do to appreciate life" (e.g., "pet a dog," "call your parents," etc.) with some really dumb advice ("quit your job") that could only be sent by someone who is either clueless or super entitled and has no idea how their advice might read when they share it right after returning from a two-week all-expenses-paid trip abroad courtesy of those parents who she told you to call. I mean, if you live in NYC and most of your feed is tweets about the Bachelor and your Pilates class, maybe you're not the best person to dole out advice to, oh, I don't know, a single mom with two kids who has to rely on her parents to watch the kids while she works a job she can't afford to quit? 

I guess it also highlighted something *I* do not want to accept - that even having the time to mindlessly tweet suggests a certain amount of privilege and that it is fine (?) to tell your likewise privileged followers and friends that it's ok to eat the extra cookie and book that trip because hey, you don't know or have the struggle that most people do. I guess the difference is I am not out there bragging on it, I grew up modestly and know from humility and why it is better to just keep that shit to yourself. 

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September 11

Today is the anniversary of 9/11. Like anyone of a certain age, I remember the day well. I remember people huddling around a TV in the conference room of the office I was working in at the time. I remember it taking me 3 hours to get home that afternoon (we were let out early) even though it usually took me 10 minutes. I remember driving past the part of the Pentagon every day for months watching crews reconstruct it. I remember having an odd feeling of missing out - that less than a year before, I had been working at the Department of Justice and imagining what I would be doing had things turned out differently.

As time went on and the revelations dripped out, that the Bush team ignored briefings and warnings about Al Qaeda, the spiraling catastrophe in Iraq played out, Afghanistan was forgotten, and Bin Laden got away, it started to look different. It started to look like competency and experience actually mattered. That putting an incurious legacy hire in the most important job in the world was a bad idea. History has erased this signal failure, reimagining it as an attack that we could not imagine (even though there is plenty of evidence that people in the intelligence community did just that) and giving Bush and his cronies a pass for the worst terrorist attack in the history on the country. 

Now, it has just sort of faded into the background. I guess it is like Pearl Harbor. At a point, it loses its impact. People who lived through it die off or we move on, but, the brief euphoria around Obama's election aside, 9/11 was just the prologue to 20 really shitty years.

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September 10

Soledad O'Brien retweeted me today. It is flattering when someone with a much bigger social media presence recognizes you. It has happened to me a few times before and I try to do the same thing I would if someone with far fewer followers retweets me - nothing. I just keep moving. I do not acknowledge it. I do not fan boy for the blue check mark. I do not reply. 

One of the things that appeals to me about Twitter is the little "d" democratization of the public square. Ordinary people (like me) and the famous (like Ms. O'Brien) co-mingle with few barriers. The last thing I am going to do is mark out for someone just because they appear on TV or carry a byline in a publication I read. On Twitter, we are all equal.

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Succession Power Rankings - Tern Haven

Previous Power Rankings:

Safe Room

Hunting
The Vaulter 

This week on Succession … Kendall makes a friend. Connor drinks some port. Roman goes to the bathroom. And now, the Power Rankings: 

1. Logan Roy (last week: 1): At the end of the day, after all the hoops you have been made to jump through, all the pre-meeting briefings you had to do with your brain trust, and the petty humiliation of watching your clan of big, vulgar, boisterous barbarians embarrass you in public, you know one thing deep down in the pit of your dark soul - money wins. Your company is wounded, but you have kicked the tires on Pierce and you know it is in an even more precarious state. So, when Nan goes beyond the easy asks (editorial independence, a few seats on the board, shitcanning Tom) and drifts into the no-go zone (publicly announcing Shiv as CEO-in-waiting), you pull the classic negotiating tactic of storming out - and it works. In the time it takes you to chopper back to the Big Apple, the ultimate prize is within your reach, you have brought your overly eager daughter to heel, and Sandy and Stewie’s takeover bid is on life support. Now, you’ll just have to tell Jamie you need to borrow an extra billion.

2. Nan Pierce (last week: not ranked): You played your hand masterfully. You summoned the powerful Logan Roy and his dysfunctional family to your country home and watched them self-immolate in a conflagration of over sharing, over drinking, and over excitement. And even as you were reveling in their infighting, you knew all that drama could not hide the fact that your company was in trouble and, as distasteful as it might be, accepting $24 billion so generations of Pierces unborn can comfortably sip their Brake Bumpers without fear of having to work a day in their lives was the right thing to do. But instead of just taking the deal (sweetened with an extra billion you would not be able to spend in your lifetime) and walking away, your pride got the better of you. You are still going to get your money, but you are not going to tell Logan Roy how to run his company. 

3. Kendall Roy (last week: T-3): Just execute the plan, son. Sure, Logan paid lip service to keeping his number one boy clean for the weekend, but when you find a kindred spirit at the banquet table, you improvise. While the other kids were trying their dad’s patience, Kendall’s night of partying with Naomi paid major dividends. Instead of torpedoing the deal, she does a 180 after Kendall points out that the wealth she will secure once it goes through will allow her to start anew. Was this coke-infused wishful thinking? Of course. But when you live a life of such entitlement that you can literally shit the bed and have someone else clean it up, anything seems possible. 

4. Rhea Jarrell (last week: 2): It did appear you had one thing right. The incompatible cultures seemed apparent. The Pierces are all old money WASP tradition - Latin phrases over the door, Shakespeare quotes, wood-paneled Jeeps and sensible, low thread count sheets. The Roys are new money immigrants - brash and loud, indelicate and offensive, consumed with the material trappings of their .0001% world. You have also hedged your bets nicely. If things go south, your fingerprints are nowhere to be found. If the deal is consummated, you squeezed an extra billion out of Logan Roy, which will fatten your golden parachute if you are shown the door. 

5. Naomi Pierce (last week: not ranked): You hold a special place in Cousin Nan’s heart. You can appear earnest in public, mindlessly aping the family traditions of silver scepters and English literature, but your tongue is razor sharp. You are not impressed with an entitled little boy who thought he could order your family business like it was a meal from Uber Eats, but his older, damaged brother is catnip when it is time to drop the veneer. What you really needed was a friend, a fellow traveler who could get you to believe that money will solve all your problems. 

6. Roman Roy (last week: 7): There are two ways to move up in the Power Rankings. You can either do something good or be less bad than someone above you. Professor Can’t Fuck did a little of both. He has (mostly) kept his head down, slinging kettle corn with the hoi polloi in management training, grinding away for a crumb of his father's approval. His actions at Tern Haven are a little more iffy. Glib retorts and sick burns may work against his siblings, but ad libbing your reading list to a guy juggling three books plus a memoir (you know, just to see what bubbles to the top) did not end well. His reaction to finding out that his follow-the-rules tour of duty learning the company ropes has been for naught because Shiv will be taking over was almost as bad as his attempt to have normo sex. The humiliation Gerri heaped on was just the cherry on top of the kink sundae. But at the end of the day, Shiv’s power move blew up in her face and by definition, that helps him. 

7. Gerri Killman (last week: 6): You did not do anything wrong per se, but you also need to remember that if you are going to help Roman work out his sexual peccadilloes, he may not keep his big mouth shut. You may be able to brush off his indiscreet admission that he spent the night pulling his pud in your bathroom, but at some point, this is going to get messy (and not in the sex positive way you perverts may think). 

8. Shiv Roy (last week: T-3): It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment your ambition got the better of your judgment. It might have been when you made an off-hand remark to cousin Mark, seemingly mocking his efforts to obtain a second Ph.D. Or, it could have been when, hyped up on adrenaline from your cuckolded husband’s pep talk, you boldly revealed your father’s succession plan publicly. But when Logan quickly acceded to Nan’s request that Tom be jettisoned while speaking favorably of your more liberal politics, the blood started to drain from your face. Your father does not like being told what to do, not by you or by the head of an acquisition target. Your presence may have merely been a way for him to make his takeover of PGM look more palatable or he may legitimately view you as a future CEO, but you did yourself no favors this week. While you are still in the game by virtue of your last name and your brothers’ weaknesses, your usefulness to Logan may be nearing an end. 

9. (tied): Mark Pierce and Maxim Pierce (last week: not ranked): There is something to be said for the perfectly pleasant Pierce cousins who know from social grace and appropriate manners. While the Roy children spend most of their time seeking locations on each other’s backs in which to insert knives, the Pierces are more erudite. Mark, no longer the learned astronomer he was when he got his first Ph.D, nevertheless is working on doctorate number two, all the better to know shit twelve seconds faster than he would if he looked it up on Wikipedia. Maxim toils away at the Brookings Institute churning out white papers that will be read on the DC cocktail circuit, but this stuffed shirt is happy to compromise his ideals if you get him drunk and offer him Foggy Bottom. These guys are going to be fine. 

Not Ranked: Marcia Roy; Tom Wamgsgans; Cousin Greg(ory); Tabitha; Shakespeare Frank; Willa; Richard the Butler; Marnie Pierce; The Electric Circus; His Majesty Spinach, the King of Edible Leaves; Representative Ferdinand D. Who Gives A Shit From the Great State of Nobody Fucking Cares; Mondale the Dog; Rosa; Jess; Sandy Furness (who may or may not have syphillis); Stewie; The penis cat; Teddy Roosevelt’s butler and his secret recipe for the Brake Bumper.

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September 8

The plan for the day is simple: go to boxing class, come home, shower, eat, then spend the next 9 hours on the couch watching football and Succession. Go to bed. 

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September 7

I read a review of a new TV show in the NYT yesterday. It's a show that follows couples in therapy and the writer quotes her own therapist, who, in discussing someone in the writer's life (I forget who) told her "he's reporting the vicious facts of life as lived by him." 

The idea was that our experiences are often minimized by others, but they are real to *us*. It is something that I think about a lot. So many people in my life, from childhood on, wanted to deny me that lived experience. I am not sure it was so much gas lighting (though there was some of that) as it was the idea that just because, on the outside at least, I appeared to have many things people want, that somehow denies me the right to unhappiness. I never quite got it but I also did not challenge it. I let other people convince me that was true. I think that is part of the reason I am so mistrustful of people now. I am constantly on alert for that sentiment and will shut people down (and out) at the first whiff of it.

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September 6

Football is back. I will admit, I do not care as much about sports ball as I once did, but the NFL has done such an effective job of providing ancillary content - pregame shows, postgame shows, panel shows - you can put on the NFL Network for hours on end and half pay attention to it while you do other things around the house. It is background noise. It is wallpaper. The games themselves are fine, more time killers than anything else, but they fill a lot of empty hours for me over the weekend.

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September 5

I turned off the central air conditioning in my house yesterday for the season. I usually do it around Labor Day and it so happened that yesterday a final (hopefully) 90 degree day ended with a cold front dropping the temperature into the 60s overnight. 

There was an article out a few weeks ago telling people to keep their house at 78 degrees in summer and there was a collective Twitter freak out but I just quietly nodded my head. Maybe it is a remnant of my post-divorce years when money was tight, but I keep the house between 76 and 80 degrees in the summer. It is not great, but it is tolerable (my house is surrounded by a lot of trees so it keeps things shady). Anyway, mother nature will be in control until November, when I will start running the gas fireplace until winter really digs in and central heat will kick in. 

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September 4

Today is my sister's birthday. We have not talked in years. The last time we communicated was about three years ago. Pumpkin was recuperating from her near death experience, a cone around her neck and stitches running the entire length of her right hind leg. My sister was helping my mom move out of her apartment and into an assisted living facility. She emailed to tell me she had found a few of my old suits and asked what I wanted done with them. As if I was in a position to drop everything and drive down to D.C. while my cat was near death. As if she could not just be a bigger person and stick them in the mail or, god forbid, drive them up herself (she literally never visited me after I moved to NJ), so no, instead of fighting her, I just told her to do what she wanted with them. There is no use fighting with people who refuse to change. And that was the last time I talked to her.

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September 3

Back to work. Oh joy. I dread the first day back after a vacation, which, parenthetically, was not that great. I really needed another day or two, but here we are.

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September 2

One of the reasons I am enjoying this season of Succession is its character study of Kendall Roy. In the same way I immediately identified with Don Draper - recognizing the artifice of his suburban life and rebelling against it - I saw Ken from the outset. The ambition, the drive, and the crippling self-doubt, of wanting, desperately, to prove that he was The Man. Now that he has been neutered, stripped of a future ("it ain't gonna be me" he assures younger sister Shiv when discussing who will take over for their dad) but kept within shouting distance of the brass ring that will elude him, it is no surprise he feels trapped. 

It is an odd thing to act as a glorified assistant, fetching pills and escorting executives into meetings, while also being a trusted advisor to the person in charge. I have been there too. I worked for a powerful person whose coffee order I knew (two-thirds french vanilla, one-third decaf) and for whom I was the person standing curbside when the muckety-muck du jour arrived to greet and bring into the building. I then seamlessly took a seat at that table to frame the agenda, fill in the substance behind the broad strokes, and kibbitz after-the-fact on how to proceed. 

It is heady and easy to get lost in the bubble of privilege that envelops you. But what I learned the hard way was how quickly the bubble can burst. Once it does, unlike Kendall, whose dad thoughtfully places an anti-suicide barrier on the roof of the Waystar building (just in case Kendall gets any dumb ideas) there is no one there to brace you, you're just left beating your head against that (glass) wall, pondering what kind of life you will have when your ambition has been thwarted, your dreams dashed, and your future is just a succession of the same day, over and over.

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September 1

Can I tell you a secret? The cats left me alone yesterday and it was delightful. I know we are not supposed to admit that we do not want to spend every waking second with our children, but every now and again, it is nice to have a few hours to myself, especially because I never go anywhere and wait on my cats hand and foot (paw?) Yesterday, after breakfast and trips to the litter box, P & G basically just hung out on one couch until dinner - no poops, no pees, no lunch break, no nudging dad for anything, they just napped, so I had the day to myself, and I appreciated it.

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