October 30

I am in the brief writing zone. When this happens, it is like everything else just falls away and all I can focus on, like Claire Danes in Homeland is the case law and the arguments I am structuring. I get to work early. I am incredibly productive. I am writing and editing, composing and rearranging, tweaking and copy and pasting things with clarity. But everything else is just noise. I will forget to eat or use the bathroom. Papers pile up and I dig through them to find the phrase I need. I have five different tabs open on my computer, toggling between the brief and Lexis Nexis, back and forth, trying to find just the right words put in just the right order to make my case. It is exhausting but exhilarating.

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October 29

I went on a second date with someone yesterday. We met for lunch. It was a good sign when she texted to tell me she would be a few minutes late but would be there in "two shakes of a lamb's tail" and I immediately recognized that somewhat obscure quote as being from Pulp Fiction. Lunch itself was good and the conversation was enjoyable. The thing is, no matter how well I might get along with her, there is a nagging part of me that makes it *really* hard for me to to be open. To trust. To not be on constant alert for the slightest hint of a character flaw that sets off an alarm.

It is weird. I just read Malcolm Gladwell's newest book. One of the things he talks about is how we default to trust and ordinarily that makes sense because trusting people is the correct way to view the world. In doing so, however, we open ourselves up to sometimes being taken advantage of because some people are shitty and will use your willingness to trust against you. While Gladwell notes that some skepticism is healthy, too much is bad. And that is really my problem. I invariably expect that other shoe to drop (if only because IT USUALLY DOES) and so, do I end up sabotaging things before they are even given a chance or end up getting fucked over because I stepped on the same rake for the bazillionth time?

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October 28

This is one of those weeks I know is going to suck based solely on the things I know I have to do. I'm not even accounting for the random shit that pops up in the ordinary course. These are the worst weeks and it is hard to be in the right mental space to get through them. Typically, I focus on being task-oriented, just getting through one thing at a time, knowing I can't do everything at once. Sometimes it works, sometimes my reservoir of patience wears out and I start snapping at people and losing my shit. I don't deal with this kind of pressure as well as I once did, so it could be a bumpy ride.

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Has The Good Place Run Out of Things to Say?

About midway through The Good Place’s third season, Michael, an evil demon who went from torturing humans to helping them, makes a startling discovery - modern life has become so fraught with unintended consequences that even the most virtuous among us is resigned to eternal damnation. If the morally upright have no chance of making it to the good place, what chance do the merely mediocre have of a heavenly afterlife?

The Good Place has always been interested in the ethics of living. It is a morality play inside a love story inside a high brow social commentary with enough twists and turns along the way to keep viewers on their heels. The show began with a simple premise - what would happen if a self-proclaimed Arizona dirtbag named Eleanor Shellstrop, a “bad” person who lived venally, selfishly, and with little regard for others, was accidentally sent to heaven instead of hell? But with its plot twist season one finale, in which we learned that Eleanor, along with her three friends Chidi, Ta-Hani, and Jason, were actually in a simulacrum of the good place being operated by the guy they thought was a benevolent guide, and were actually lab rats in a bad place experiment he created to see how long they could torture each other, the show entered the cultural zeitgeist. 

The show’s second and third seasons did much to prove that acclaim was well-earned. At first, Michael merely snapped his fingers and relaunched his experiment, but over 802 reboots, his four self-proclaimed cockroaches kept figuring him out. THIS IS THE BAD PLACE! Eleanor would inevitably realize (except reboot #649 when Jason figured it out, which really hurt) and <snap> another attempt would launch. Along the way, the show mused on goodness and morality and whether people can become better. 

As to the final question, the show creator, Michael Schur, gave an emphatic yes. Eleanor and Jason, both shady characters during their lives, find grace in the afterlife. But beyond that, intention also came into view. Ta-Hani was a philanthropist motivated by a desire for adulation, not altruism. Chidi was so paralyzed by his own indecision that he never found love even though he lived his life by the tenets of the philosophers he revered. Each had their own hurdles to overcome, their own reckoning to acknowledge. 

There was something intuitive about the show’s mediation on our lives on Earth. Every day, we calibrate our behavior, navigating the tricky calculus of right and wrong and good and bad. That these choices could be assigned values that would determine whether our after life will be spent in Eden or an eternal hell of penis flattening, bees with teeth, or an unremitting succession of New Yorker magazines has a facile logic. 

By closing its bravura second season with a different kind of reboot, this time sending the humans back to Earth with a second chance at life after what were now just near death experiences, The Good Place looked to be firing on all cylinders. The show use that finale and the early part of the third season capturing what I think is at the core of much of the human condition. We try, we fail, we try again. We might be better but then we backslide, dust ourselves off, and give it another go. But the characters were never given a full opportunity to see how they would do without interference from the higher powers. Ever since, the show has relied on constant reinvention to mask a shrinking reservoir of plot. It is easy to miss the forest for the trees because the sleights of hand are so frequent (and executed so deftly) but at bottom, the core points the show was driving at - that it is possible to become a better person and that modern life is littered with too many unintentional consequences for anyone to make it to the Afterlife Hall of Fame - were made halfway through the third season, the show has treaded water ever since. 

Do not get me wrong, at the granular level, The Good Place still delivers good laughs and witty banter, but thematically, it is a spent force. Rebooting the neighborhood with new characters would feel like a jump the shark moment except these new characters do not even rate, they are so underdeveloped as to be afterthoughts, barely given any time to shine. If the proof of concept is that the Soul Squad can get an entitled, middle aged white man to be slightly less of an officious jerk and a gossip blogger to be a touch less catty, that is fine, but should the future of all humanity rest on such a thin reed? Placing Chidi’s girlfriend in the mix is sort of interesting, but she was already a good person and her placement feels like a jerry rigged way to address the Chidi/Eleanor storyline. Ultimately, the early episodes of season four have felt like so much filler. 

Schur should be applauded for creating a show of such originality that packs sight gags, snappy dialogue, and larger questions of the human condition into twenty-two minute chunks of deft storytelling, but a third of the way through the show’s final season, it looks like The Good Place ran out of runway. 

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Links to reviews of Seasons One, Two, and Three. 

October 27

It is a very rainy day in the Garden State today. I was out in the mess early to grocery shop and then went to the gym in what was a steady, sometimes driving rain. Now I am home, will turn on the gas fireplace to keep everyone nice and warm and lay on the couch for the rest of the day (which is what you are supposed to do on days like this).

Go Nats!

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The Miami Dark Star Show

Thirty years ago today, the Grateful Dead ended what was arguably their best tour of the 1980s. What began in Hampton, Virginia 18 days before with two unannounced shows that included the reintroduction of foundational songs like Dark Star, Attics of My Life, and the return of the three-part suite of Help on the Way > Slipknot > Franklin’s Tower then traversed up I-95 for five nights in East Rutherford, New Jersey (including a no-doubt-about-it candidate for show of the year on Weir’s birthday), down to Philly for a three-night run that found the band commenting on an earthquake that hit their home town of San Francisco, to a quick two night stint in Charlotte, had landed at the water’s edge in Miami. 

Much has been written about what happened on that final night - murmurings of dark energy that caused fans to flee the arena, itself parked in a dicey part of town, and we will get to that, but the hints of anything other than a capable ending to an exceptional three weeks of music were not present when the band opened with a cheerful version of Foolish Heart. This late-era addition to the band’s repertoire was still finding its place within the set list but Weir’s cover of Little Red Rooster offered a counter point to the show opener’s upbeat tempo. Brent Mydland’s verse turn and B-3 leads gave the song a menacing tone and Garcia’s selection of Stagger Lee - a revenge tale with a bad ending - picked up on the theme. Weir’s cowboy combo of Me and My Uncle > Big River offered more tales of loss and duplicity with a rollicking beat and frisky interplay among the musicians. 

After a perfunctory Brown-Eyed Women the band took up Victim or the Crime, the point at which many people who have written about the Miami Dark Star show point to as the guidepost for the insanity to come. To be sure, Victim which, like Foolish Heart, was a song the band was still figuring out musically (they would receive a fair amount of criticism for playing it immediately after midnight on January 1, 1990, essentially heralding the new decade with a downer of a song that freaked people out) but its weirdness was already well-established. This night would be no different, with nearly two minutes of spacey feedback that lands on a breezy version of Don’t Ease Me In. It was as if the band was giving the audience a taste of its power without overwhelming it. 

Whatever restraint the band showed in closing out the first set was nowhere to be found when they waltzed out to some brief Finniculi tuning and then plowed into a muscular version of Estimated Prophet, in a rare second set opening position. Here, we see the band in peak fighting shape, a sharpened blade of musical force honed over the dozen shows that preceded it, every lead landed, every musical handoff flawless, with a splash of Healy-inspired vocal creepiness as another bread crumb of whatever psychic vibe was passing through South Florida. The outro jam led into Mydland’s signature tune Blow Away, a divisive song among Heads at the time and one that the manic-eyed keyboardist performed with an intensity that could only come from a source of pain and anguish, which made sense, considering the song was about his crumbling marriage. 

At this point, things come to a bit of a halt. This would be the first and only time the band opened a second set with Estimated > Blow Away and the extended pause taken to consider their options suggests they might not have been entirely sure what to do. That they chose Dark Star was fitting. This iconic song had been in mothballs since 1984, but the band’s revival of it at the beginning of the East Coast tour in Hampton became a touchstone for the legend that grew around this five-city romp. The Hampton version was strong although not overly ambitious, as if the band wanted to make sure it had a proper foundation before stretching it out to celebrate Weir’s 42nd birthday in New Jersey seven days later. Each of these three versions is revered for different reasons, but the words most associated with the Miami Dark Star are some iteration of “out there.” 

The band’s performance is strong from the start. The musicians’ confidence in both the melody and the detours they could take to explore different themes is evident soon after the two minute instrumental melts into the first verse. Garcia sets the tone with various MIDI-influenced notes that his band mates circle around and comment on. And just as it appears the jam might flag, the band segues back toward firmer ground, finding the second verse in a way that might leave you thinking perhaps they had decided to cut the proceedings short, but it is then that the real freak show begins. 

For the next ten minutes, the band engages in what one reviewer called a sonic drive by shooting, as if they were unloading every creepy sound effect and negative piece of energy that had been stored within their beings. It is at best uncomfortable to listen to, and at worst, a hair raising aural adventure that I can understand people walking out on (especially if they were dosed). It is more than a simple Space, less benevolent and experimental and more hostile and aggressive. This Dark Star is not meant to be tripped out to, it is meant to be freaked out on - a direct challenge to the listener to see how much they can take. The tone is unremitting and unrelenting, loud, ugly, and in your face. 

To call it white knuckle listening does not do full justice to the musical carnage that the band leaves in its wake. Clocking in at nearly thirty minutes, the entire version is exhausting and the Drums > Space that follows suggests the band needed to catch its collective breath. Even The Wheel that rounds the bend toward home is modest, while Watchtower picks up the intensity level, that too is short-lived. Garcia’s reading of Stella Blue is traditional, with a few lovely, shimmering leads as the song builds to its conclusion. The set closes with a free spirited (albeit MIDI-heavy) Not Fade Away that cleanses the palate, as if the windows were opened to air out whatever dark forces still remained. The band ended the night spiritually with We Bid You Goodnight, another Hamptons “bust out” that had not been heard live in almost two decades. The mellow vibe and a cappella rendering providing a final salve of redemption and call for love during a night when neither was in much supply. 

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October 25

I am FUMING. Just spitting nails. There are days when I walk out of my office and just want to tell my boss to fuck off and quit. But here's the thing. I make good money and I'm old. Starting over is not the kind of thing you do at my age. You (mostly) tamp down your frustrations and anger and just grin and bear the humiliations, the petty slights, the mistreatment, because when you walk out of the office, your life is your own. Today, I let a bit of my frustration out and in the wrong way - email - but I was so mad I did not care. I will undoubtedly pay a price come Monday morning, but for now, I am putting my shit job and my shit boss out of my mind.

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October 24

Caught a new case at work yesterday. I do not do much litigation anymore, and I do not like it (the older I get, the more my anxiety kicks in before a judge) but what are you going to do? On the plus side, the Nats won (again). I go to bed every night they play assuming they will lose and wake up the next morning to find they won. Last night, they were up 2-0 and promptly killed their own rally when I changed over. I flipped back and SS gave up a 2-run home run. It is very on brand as a Jew to assume you're bad luck - that you cannot watch a team you love or they will lose, so you have to not watch in real time and just catch the highlights the morning after. 

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October 23

Writing is hard. Even coughing out a couple of sentences on a blog each day can be tricky, but when I try to write longer pieces, it can seem impossible. I have two going right now - one on The Good Place and one on the cover story in New York magazine (from a month ago!) with a third in mind (a review of She Said). Between work and home and the other things I need to do during the course of a day, it is easier to abandon ideas than complete them.

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October 21

I have been tracking the monthly mileage on my new car. Last month (beginning with the day I bought the car, not the first day of the month) I drove 518 miles. In New Jersey, that is nothing. Some people drive that in a week, but here I am, in my car less than 20 miles a day. 

A lot of it (I think) is how deeply I was affected by my car accident last year. It easily could have been worse and in the immediate aftermath, my concern was not for my own well-being, but how I would have been able to care for my cats if I had been seriously injured. I am also driving a lot more defensively (which, in New Jersey is something you have to do on everything from the Turnpike to neighborhood streets, drivers are SO aggressive). It's not great. I am avoiding traveling anywhere I do not need to, and so, you get this really low mileage. I'm not sure there is anything that can be done about it, and will likely get even more extreme once winter starts because I hate driving in bad weather.

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October 20

I had a nice coffee "date" today. Dating is weird, obviously. You now have this preliminary date, much like Greg's "pre-meeting" with Michelle Pantsil, during which you gauge your interest in actually going out on a date. I don't know, I try not to dwell on it too much anymore. It can feel like a job interview sometimes (one was actually going on a few tables away) but if, after the first few minutes of awkwardness (reminder: this is basically someone you know very little about) things start to feel more organic, a well-timed comment is met with a smile or a shared interest is discovered, it can be pleasant. 

Today's chat went on for almost two hours. It probably sounds like a long time, but if there is one thing I am able to do, it is hold a conversation. What will happen next is TBD. I'm so unaccustomed to the idea of anyone finding me attractive or desirable (my intellect and humor are usually not the problem) that it is hard for me to contemplate sexual intimacy. I think I have had sex maybe three or four times in the last three years and those were in a small cluster of time. I am sure I project some of that insecurity out (which probably creates its own vicious cycle - I'm insecure, it's picked up on, making me less appealing, which feeds the insecurity ...) but it is not an easy thing to hand wave. Oh well, here's hoping this time is different ...

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October 19

The tyranny of technology is crashing down on me. I have a perfectly serviceable iPhone 5s that I bought (new!) for $200 almost 3 years ago. It does what I need it to do but alas, the evil corporate hand of Cupertino has slowed its abilities. Text messages occasionally do not get sent, apps do not open. As Apple updates its iOS and demands more memory, it just snuffs out older models. So I need to shop for new tech and let me tell you folks, I am *not* psyched. I do not like talking to people and especially sales people. Online is an option but then I have to do the set up myself and since I'm an "old," it seems daunting (although I did it myself with my current phone). I remember thinking how ridiculous it was 20 years ago when my then-mother-in-law was still going to a bank teller to withdraw money because she did not know how to use an ATM, but now, I am her. I am that old person who is afraid of technology and does not know how to use it. It's not great.

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October 18

I just finished Because Internet. I was mildly disappointed. I was expecting something a bit pithier and witty, and while there were points where the book was that, it also felt a bit overwrought. In any event, one thing that the author put her finger on was something I have thought a lot about but could never contextualize. She talks about how early Internet adopters, people (like me) who came online in the early/mid 90s, created an alter ego the was different than their “IRL” personas. The idea was that internet was an alternate space separate from the real world you lived in. On the other hand, people who came online once the internet was ubiquitous and everyone joined Facebook and iPhones folded the market, did not do the same thing - their online and "IRL" personas are the same.

It made sense once I thought about it. Back in the day, the internet had a vaguely mysterious air about it; chat rooms and message boards, there was almost something illicit about it - like, the idea you would meet a person you met on the internet seemed ... risky and dangerous in ways it no longer does. Our office has a social media policy that envisions people expressing opinions online that are easily connected to them because most people don't bother creating that alter ego (like, say "scary lawyer guy") that was once common.

Anyway, that part of the book really resonated with me. It is very hard to find information about me on the internet and I prefer it that way. Y'all who blur the line, I just do not get.

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The Problem With Low Self-Esteem

I have low self-esteem. It's something I've struggled with for a long time, probably because no achievement was ever good enough for my parents or my ex-wife, IOW, the most important support system you're supposed to have, except mine was constantly moving the goal posts on me instead of giving me atta boys. 

Anyway, this morning, a woman I had matched with on Tinder sent me a message that was vaguely insulting and instead of confronting it (and her), I just "unmatched." It's my move - avoid confrontation. An hour or so later, when I was more awake, I thought about what could have been an adult, but not mean, response, but by then, much like the "jerk store" episode of Seinfeld, it was too late. 

My mood turned this afternoon when I solved a problem at work for a colleague. This particular colleague is a bit of a cold fish, and the fact that I not only solved his problem but that he showed uncharacteristic graciousness, had me feeling better, like almost high, on the fact I had done this thing. That lasted all of an hour when one of the partners I report to kneecapped me on an email with a client and I sat at my desk stewing for a good 20 minutes wanting to reach through the computer and strangle him with his own self-importance. And away I went down the familiar shame spiral of feeling unworthy and useless, so that was fun.

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October 17

I've written a bit about physical fitness and the importance of routine. I will admit, as I near 50, even my typical iron resolve is starting to falter. Yesterday was a good example. A day that started mild and even a bit sunny turned cold and rainy in the afternoon. Looking out my office window, I pondered whether to go to the gym and every fiber of my being was saying "no, go home. It's raining, get on the couch under a blanket and over eat." Thankfully, the route to the gym and the route to my house are one in the same for about 75 percent of the trip and so, in my mind, I said "you can choose one path or the other once you're on the road." And so, I went right instead of straight and made it to the gym. It is always a good decision. Always. As much of a hassle and as much of a struggle, when the work out is over, I felt better and I know it is another small investment in my health, piled atop the other credits I have earned over the last 20 years and, hopefully, for 20 more to come.

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October 16

Well, the Nats won the pennant last night. I watched them run out to a 7-0 lead and then nervously went to bed hoping a repeat of 2012 did not happen (when they were ahead of this same St. Louis team 6-1, I went to bed, and woke up to watch them cough up the lead (and the series) in the 9th inning). 

Growing up in Washington without a baseball team was no fun, and of course, the team did not move to the nation's capital until a year or so after I had moved to New Jersey. But I have followed them closely, first just because we finally had a team, through the lean years, and then the myriad of gut punch playoff losses once the team became a perennial contender. Mostly, they have been a team you can root for - the owners are not assholes (like Dan Snyder), although they can sometimes be pennywise and pound foolish, the players are also not assholes (at least now that Bryce Harper left town ha ha) and this year's Baby Shark movement with Gerardo Parra has revealed an unmitigated glee among the players that did not exist in prior years. When Parra, then Anibel Sanchez, and finally Max Scherzer all smothered Stephen Strasburg in a hug after his 7 innings of dominance Monday night, it was just great. 

DC fans get dinged for not being sufficiently passionate or ~ unknowledgeable ~ about baseball, you know, failing to properly applaud a good sacrifice or when a runner takes an extra base, but that all seems like sour grapes now. That Harper, now marooned in Philadelphia for another dozen years getting heckled every time he goes 0-for-3 having to watch his former mates win the NL title is icing on the cake. He may one day have a celebration like this too, but for now, it feels particularly sweet.

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Did Logan and Kendall Pull A Fast One on Everybody?

As all of us basked in the plot twist ending of the Succession season finale, the Greek tragedy of Kendall metaphorically killing his dad by blowing the whistle on him, Tara Ariano, the co-host of a Succession podcast The Sweet Smell of Succession had an alternate theory. To Ariano, the whole thing seemed like a clever ploy by Logan to do the thing his shareholders were demanding (having him step down) but done so in a way that made his number one boy look heroic, thereby swaying the wavering institutional shareholders to toe the line and vote against Sandy and Stewie’s proxy slate. 

There are two large holes in Ariano’s theory (one of which was pointed out by her co-host Dave Chensky) about which I will discuss later, but let us conduct a quick thought experiment about why this might be the best reading of what happened.

First, Succession is nothing if not intentional. The main storyline during the second half of season two (the cruise line scandal) was a seed planted all the way back in the fourth episode of season one. How many times were we reminded that Gerri is the placeholder if anything happens to Logan? The decision was made in the second season’s first episode, but her position was referenced multiple times, at Tern Haven (by Logan), at Argestes (by Roman), and again in last night’s season finale. Even if Logan is unaware of the weird thing between Gerri and Roman, he noted his youngest son’s good work in attempting to lock down the sovereign wealth money, re-instituting Roman as lone COO while Shakespeare Frank is left to clean up the mess in the cruise line division. Logan, understanding Gerri’s loyalty (something he also mentioned in the finale), Roman’s sudden competence, and handing the actual shit work to a trusted and long-time staffer, would set up Waystar nicely in a post-Logan world.

Second, Logan likes using the hidden hand technique. At several times in season two, Logan successfully masked his role (and intention) by using proxies. The first time was in The Vaulter where he used Kendall as a Trojan Horse to convince Lawrence to cough up the real information about the site and to tamp down the staff’s pending unionization. The cloak and dagger worked - Larry turned over all the information Kendall needed to find the profit centers (weed and food) while avoiding the messy problem of almost 500 unionized employees, who were instead shitcanned with no notice and little severance. 

The second time was in Return, where he used Rhea to trick Shiv into having Rhea float her name as a possible CEO of PGM. The whole move was done to get Shiv to stop asking about taking over for Logan and again, it worked. And of course, Shiv’s prominence during the attempted PGM acquisition had a lot to do with her gender and her politics, both of which Logan understood would make his offer to the Pierces more palatable. 

Considered in this context, Kendall’s betrayal could be seen as the ultimate hidden hand maneuver. Logan’s sacrifice of Kendall was done in front of his entire brain trust and after every other option had been exhausted. If he wanted to make sure everyone would fall for the ruse, he had to dismiss the sovereign wealth idea, the negotiated settlement with Stewie, and cycling through all the other non-Kendall employee options before getting to the obvious answer. 

By having everyone buy into the idea that “it has to be Ken,” it makes the fake betrayal all the more believable (while also exposing everyone else’s venality as they collectively breathe a sigh of relief to be off the chopping block). Logan takes the heat off his company by taking the fall for the cruise line problems, the company moves on (presumably with greater transparency and policies), and most importantly, remains in the family. 

From a storytelling perspective, it also makes the most sense. While all may look chaotic, Logan can quietly work behind the scenes continuing to play puppet master even as he is presumably barred from publicly participating in any Waystar business. It also frees up Kendall to continue with the company, leaves Tom in place (and untouched by the scandal) with Roman, Shiv, and Gerri all jockeying atop the pyramid. 

The one big hole, and it is a glaring one, in this theory is the final scene between Logan and Kendall. While the characters may need to see Logan’s actions in a particular light, the audience does not. Logan’s whole Inca sacrifice story is unnecessary to anyone other the the viewer if this is all a work. Put differently, that scene is not only unnecessary if Logan is pulling a stunt, it actively undermines the storytelling by including it. It is not a small thing and to me, the most compelling evidence that this was not some three-dimensional chess maneuver but rather, a final break between father and son. 

The second hole is smaller, but worth noting. The hidden hand theory assumes that Logan was tipped about Greg’s continued possession of incriminating documents and pulled him in to the plot. It is, as we say in the law, assuming facts not in evidence. Granted, we did not see Greg’s testimony and during Tom’s, Greg melted down so bad Logan kicked him out of the war room they were using. Of course, Logan did tell Greg he liked him when Greg dropped his “Grexit” bomb in Dundee, so maybe Greg, ladder climber that he is, tipped Kendall (who did him the solid of hooking him up with a condo) about his secret stash (which would also take the heat off Greg with Grandpa Ewan). 

I guess we will find out when season three airs.

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Succession Power Rankings - This Is Not For Tears

Previous Power Rankings:

DC Dundee Return Argestes 

Tern Haven Safe Room Hunting The Vaulter

This week on Succession … Roman makes an escape. Shiv has a present for Tom. Kendall hatches a plan. And now, the Power Rankings:   

1. Kendall Roy (last week: 3): While all of us expected a biblical conclusion with the old man sacrificing you at the altar, your eyes were firmly set on Greek mythology. It is hard to know what was the final straw that made you decide to make a kamikaze run at your dad. Maybe it was when he dragged you into the home of the boy you killed or the tepid response to your KenWA rap. He may not have liked the good reviews you got when you fricasseed Gil Eavis or he simply could not stomach the idea you found a little bit of happiness with a kindred spirit across the Roy/Pierce divide. Whatever it was, you realized that blackmail stops working when you no longer allow yourself to be pressured by it. Might your dad go nuclear and spill the tea on your own personal Chappaquiddick? Maybe, but you decided it was time to take a stand and show him you are a killer. And so, with the help of a cousin who returned the favor of your giving him a sick condo by handing you the receipts that will blow the cruise line scandal wide open, and in front of an assembled media horde who expected you to take the fall, you pulled the pin on a grenade that might end up sinking the entire ship Fuck Off. But at least you are free. 

2. Sandy Furness & Stewie Houssani (last week: not ranked): It looks like slow and steady may yet win this race. Without doing much of anything, you now have the whip hand. While the Roy family flailed about trying to evade your grasp, you just kept plugging along, picking off shareholder support. You were confident enough in your position that you passed on Logan’s last minute peace offering and that was before his number one son pulled off the biggest heel turn since Hulk Hogan joined the nWo. The only question is whether you still want this now poisoned chalice. 

3. Cousin Greg(ory): (last week: 9): Perhaps we did not appreciate the subtle game of one Gregory Hirsch. After all, when we first met him, he was smoking swag weed and vomiting out of the eyes of an amusement park costume. His toenails are not aesthetically pleasing and he is socially awkward, a benign fungus, if you will. But Greg has quietly navigated Roy family politics, an affable Ichabod Crane riding the bench and doling out high fives when the coach calls a time out. Sure, he picked up a bit of a coke habit and does not exactly shine when the lights are brightest, but he wisely switched horses mid-stream, moving out of Tom’s orbit and making a key ally in Kendall. While Greg needed some time to find good dealers to keep our number one boy on an even keel, he recognized the value in having a corporate secret or two up his sleeve. Now, Greg(ory) finds himself in an enviable win/win scenario. Turning evidence against Uncle Loges might get Grandpa Grumps to reconsider disinheriting him and riding shotgun with Kendall may turn out to be even more profitable than the $250 million hanging in the balance. Kudos Greg, you negotiated your own Grexit.  

4. Logan Roy (last week: 1): Self-pity is not a good look even when you are staring down an existential threat to your rule, but you spent much of the time on your floating city ruminating on the injustice being hurled against you. Stepping down would be the right thing to do, but that is not the way you roll. It was telling that when you had a nautical Boar-on-the-Floor without the sausages, every person in your inner circle immediately pointed fingers instead of taking responsibility. This is the culture you nurtured. Gil Eavis may have pompously quoted Emerson, but he was not wrong, the company is a reflection of the man, and in this case, you value self-preservation over all else. You had no problem doing the sterile corporate math that one Kendall was a greater blood sacrifice than Gerri, Tom, and Karl (with a Greg sprinkle) combined. And when it came time to break the news to Ken, the best you could do was a half-hearted gesture to the nobility of sacrifice, but your heart was not really in it. When your son wanted the one thing you could have given him even if it was not true - validation that he could have done the job - you showed your true stripes, grumbling that he did not have what it takes. As Ken publicly turned the tables on you, was that half-smile an admission that you underestimated him or a frisson of excitement at the next game afoot? 

5. Shiv Roy (last week: 2): When handed the opportunity to play CEO, when you were at the most intimate of tables, the place you yearned to be, with a man deciding the future fate of his company, your birthright, and a future he promised, you folded. You may be able to push around scared whistleblowers and be glib in front of a crowd of fellow one-percenters, but when the time came to swing the sword, when emotion had to be removed from the equation, your midwestern meat puppet, the man you have been stepping on and humiliating even before you exchanged wedding vows, finally forced you to find the tiniest sliver of humanity. Will it last? Will it matter? Who knows. If your dad finds a way to maintain power, you have one less sibling to worry about, but in the meantime, you need to do more than spoon feed Tom a fantasy threesome to make your marriage work. 

6. Roman Roy (last week: 4): The hero of Asia closed out the season on a high note. Ro got a verbal agreement from a shady oligarch with enough fuck you money to take Waystar private, but was honest enough with himself (and Logan) to admit that if the money was actually needed, the offer was not solid. With Ken on the chopping block, he even got his old job back, but the victory may be pyrrhic. On the personal front, Tabs seems to be MIA, but you are more than happy to throw yourself in front of Gerri to save her bacon. Your unlikely ascent to the throne could still happen, you just need something untoward to happen to your dad and for Sandy and Stewie to decide the squeeze is no longer worth the juice. Keep your powder dry and your little dick ready, Mole Woman and Tarzan may yet run the show. 

7. Gerri Killman (last week: 6): Sometimes putting emotional labor into a relationship pays off. Your partner treats you to a nice evening out on the town or is simply present when you need to process the struggles of your day. And while it would be nice to let your hair down and have a companion to mix you that martini as you try to wash off the latest dirt you had to handle on behalf of the Roy family, Roman steering the herd cull away from you was a greater reward for helping him work out his sexual kinks than any day at the spa. 

8. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 10): I will not lie, the early returns did not look good. You were the least enthusiastic participant in a threesome in, basically, the history of threesomes. You were the logical man to toss overboard after your embarrassing performance in front of the Senate and, not for anything, you actually did cover-up all the dirty dealings in the cruise line division. If someone deserved to have his head put on a spike, you were definitely at the top of the list. But you pulled a trump card. You looked at Shiv with those sad eyes and told her your marriage was not working. YOU’RE NOT A HIPPIE FOR GOODNESS SAKES! You are just a square from the midwest with old-fashioned values like not being cool with your wife catching some random cock when she feels like it. You were no longer going to be the doormat she wiped her feet on or the robot who mindlessly carried out her orders, even if it meant giving up the lavish lifestyle you have grown accustomed to. You stood up for yourself. You ate Logan's chicken. But in true Wamgsganian fashion, it may have been too little, too late. 

9. Jess (last week: not ranked): It would be unfair to close out the season without acknowledging our number one boy's number one assistant. As is usually the case, Jess's lines are few, but her presence is meaningful. Serving as Kendall’s assistant is no picnic, between arranging satellite offices for a soon-to-be-shuttered website to triaging the payouts for his petty thefts, hers is a thankless job. But it may turn out to be an important one if Kendall survives the civil war he just started among the Roy clan. 

10. Connor Roy (last week: 5): Tough week for Connor. Just as the nascent Conn-Head movement is picking up steam and his campaign is gaining traction by making his Senate hearing fist pump go viral, all those suction cups connected to his bank account  - the real deal pieces of shit political consultants and the rent-a-girlfriend-who-is-not-really-a-playwright who saw a mark a mile away - have finally milked him dry. The Bank of D-A-D is ready to give you that $100 million lifeline, but there is a simple string attached, two actually. One is the obvious - ending the horse shit pipe dream you had of being President. The other, less so, the truth bomb he dropped, that you are basically as useless as the fake Napoleon dick you bought for half-a-mil. Time to head back to the desert, Connor. 

Not Ranked: Marcia Roy; Willa; Tabitha; Hugo Baker; Karolina; Jamie (Laird); the unnamed yacht employee with whom Shiv and Tom were going to have their threesome; the merlot waterboard; Gil Eavis; Nate; Eduard; Naomi Pierce. 

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October 13

Yesterday, I watched an HBO comedy special called The Great Depresh. It was stand-up comedy done by a guy named Gary Gullman. Gullman's style is mostly observational (he had some good takes, like one millennials getting dragged for accepting participation trophies in actual sports from Gen-Xers who give each other trophies in fake sports like fantasy football and another on how technology has changed tracking missing kids - we now have social media and Amber Alerts whereas when he grew up we used the side of milk cartons) and four square within what I would consider the Seinfeld line of comedy.

But the broader theme of the special had to do with Gullman's decades-long struggle with depression and anxiety, culminating in his spending three weeks in a psychiatric ward and being treated with electro-shock (convulsive) therapy. It was raw stuff and at times difficult to watch. Gullman, who is a year younger than me, put his finger nicely on the fact that when we were growing up, boys were not allowed that emotional vulnerability, that acknowledgement of weakness or struggle. We were told, in essence, to "get over it," and be stolid unfeeling capital M men. I am not sure, as Gullman says, the choice was quite as binary as Clint Eastwood or Richard Simmons, but it was not that far apart either. 

I admired Gullman's willingness to discuss his struggles, the anxiety he felt that kept him from leaving his home, the on-and-off cycles of medications he took, the friendships he lost, the people who were close to him who wondered if the time they spent would be the final one with him. It is hard to explain to people who do not experience these things how insulting it is when we are told to just "get over it," as if we ask to be miserable, that we want to be anxious about being in social situations, or choose to shut ourselves off from others. Why would anyone make the affirmative choice to be unhappy? 

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October 12

An unusual thing appears to be happening in my neighborhood - someone might be moving. I say "appears" and "might" because there is no FOR SALE sign on the lawn, but, a neighbor a few doors down has had some cosmetic work done to her house (a few trees trimmed, others cut down, a fresh paint job on the front door and garage, a yard sale). My street is the kind people put down roots on. it is literally tree-lined and in the almost 15 years I have lived here, one house has gone on the market among the ten closest to mine. 

A little old lady lives in the house that is undergoing these changes. Her husband died a couple of years ago. "Frank" was the kind of guy who, even into what appeared to be his 70s (?) was out there shoveling the snow and raking leaves. I did not know him other than the brief exchange of pleasantries or a quick wave that people tend to do in suburbia, but I still felt bad when he died - he seemed like a nice man. Anyway, their kids are over frequently, but it makes sense that they would want their mom to not have a big house to deal with anymore. She did get a couple of Shi Tzu dogs last year and she walks them in the morning and at night, but other than that, it feels like the closing of a chapter for her. 

Selfishly, I do worry about what will happen if she sells. The street has its own unwritten rules and customs, everyone pretty much keeps to themselves, but, as is the case in suburbia, are militant about outward appearance - it seems like there is a race to see who clears their driveway first when it snows and whose lawn is best maintained. You never know what happens when you introduce a new variable into the mix, maybe she is just freshening things up for herself because this is an odd time to put one's house on the market, but I guess we will find out soon enough.

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October 11

If you had told 19-year-old me that 49-year-old me would be a Subaru driving teetotaler who no longer eats red meat, goes to the gym four times a week, puts on a suit and tie Monday through Friday, rarely dates, never has sex, and whose two closest friends are cats, 19-year-old me would have asked for a hit of whatever it was you were smoking. I have successfully drained all the fun out of life. Go me. 

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October 10

The Nats won last night, and in a particularly dramatic fashion (which was totally unexpected). I did not stay up for any of it (the game ended at close to 1 am) but it was a nice thing to wake up to. Now the countdown to 50 stars, trying to make today a positive thing. One step at a time.

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49

Today is my birthday. There will not be any presents or a cake, I do not have anyone to share this day with. It seems ridiculous, I mean, who cares about birthdays when you reach a certain age? It is more the loneliness of it. It is self-centered to say, but I feel lonelier when there is no one to celebrate a day that "belongs" to me than any holiday. I do not know, I guess I just wish there was someone in the world who made be feel special, even for one day. 

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The Danny and the Redskins

The Redskins fired their head coach yesterday. The owner, Dan Snyder, did the deed in a particularly embarrassing way, dragging in Jay Gruden at 5 a.m. to shit can him. The media response was predictable – a chorus of laments that Snyder was banging another nail in the coffin of a once proud franchise, another milestone in a 20-year run of ownership typified by incompetence, imperiousness, and incoherence.

While true to a point, the historical record suggests that Snyder’s reign is less the exception than the rule when it comes to Washington’s football team. In one of the more egregious examples of recency bias, there is a widespread belief that the team’s decade of excellence that began with a win in Super Bowl XVII and ended with one of the most dominating victories in modern history in Super Bowl XXVI, was reflective of the team’s history instead of what it was, a curious anomaly in an otherwise mediocre eighty year existence.

For pundits (and more importantly, the few Skins fans willing to show their faces), a brief history lesson is in order. The Redskins moved to D.C. from Boston in 1937. The team came out of the gate hot, playing for the NFL championship five times over the next eight years (winning twice). After that, the Skins were a regular cellar dweller for the next 25 years, rarely finishing above .500 and more often, lingering in the bottom of the standings. The Over the Hill Gang of 1972 offered a brief moment in the sun with an improbable run to Super Bowl VII (which the team lost to the undefeated Miami Dolphins) before the team settled in for the remainder of the decade as a competitive, but not exceptional squad.

Gibbs’s four Super Bowl appearances (with three victories) are what Washingtonians remember, but those occurred largely because of the confluence to two things – good drafts and little player movement. In the era before free agency, a talented scouting department could put together a competitive team for years because it was nearly impossible for players to leave. The Skins’ 1992 Super Bowl victory occurred as free agency came to the NFL and the team was not prepared. Just two years after dismantling the Bills to win that third title, the team was 3-13 and has been mediocre (at best) ever since, winning just two playoff games in the last quarter century.

This is not to excuse Snyder’s mismanagement, his itchy trigger finger with coaches, or his heavy handed tactics with the media or the public at large. He is, by all accounts, a terrible owner who has chased off a large chunk of the area’s rabid (if unrealistic) fan base. But the reality is that there is precious little that can be done to force any changes. The hundreds of millions in guaranteed revenue owners receive from the league’s TV contract is far more lucrative than the ticket gate, concessions, or parking fees on game day. The various “official sponsors,” from pizza to credit cards, put yet more millions into their pockets. Short of a scandal of the sort that forced the sale of the Carolina Panthers or the Los Angeles Clippers, Washingtonians are stuck with Snyder for the foreseeable future (he is only 54 and has shown no sign of wanting to sell the team).

While it is possible that public shaming, stands filled with opposing teams’ jerseys, or takedowns by sports show talking heads might move the needle, Snyder has withstood two decades of negative publicity, cocooning himself every further from public scrutiny while watching the team’s value grow to the billions of dollars. And that might be the only thing that gets him to cash out – a fear that we are approaching the top of the market for sports franchises and the temptation to take the pay day instead of another 20 years of ridicule.

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Succession Power Rankings - DC

Previous Power Rankings 

Dundee Return Argestes Tern Haven

Safe Room Hunting The Vaulter

This week on Succession … Logan and Kendall go to Congress, Roman takes a trip, and Shiv visits a playground. And now, the Power Rankings: 

1. Logan Roy (last week: 1): You are plausible and appealing even when you are lying. Karolina and Hugo drafted a great opening statement for your testimony in front of the Senate, not a single word of which was true. You sent off Roman to search for your white knight sovereign wealth fund savior while telling Rhea all was good in the world. This is what you do, this is who you are. But in that quiet moment when the ATN anchors are flooding the media bloodstream with your preferred spin and it looks like you are in the clear, you are honest enough with yourself (and your suddenly back-in-favor youngest child) to know that tossing a middle manager like Bill to the wolves will not be enough. No, you are about to go biblical, sacrificing your number one boy at the altar of public opinion to save yourself and avoid losing control of the company you have run for a half-century. 

2. Shiv Roy (last week: 3): In the shitstorm of conflicting interests swirling around that hearing room, you knew just what to do. There was no saving your helpless husband from a verbal beatdown by your former boss, but that was just a sideshow. The real action was taking place behind the scenes. In D.C., everything is transactional. Gil did not accept Bill as the scalp to hang on his wall because he thought he had your dad over a barrel in the form of a second whistleblower who would put a human (and more importantly, female) face on the dirty dealings in the cruise line division. But you outmaneuvered Gil. It may have been soft skills lady duty shit work, but you wove a story with just the right amount of believability, earnestness and faux sincerity to a frightened witness who knew she was in over her head. Is that dinosaur cull you promised at Argestes going to happen? Probably not. But in that moment, when you needed to sell it to a vulnerable woman unsure of her next move, you made it sound believable. 

3. Kendall Roy (last week: 4): Our number one boy has come a long way from that stuttering "dad's plan was better" appearance on TV at the beginning of the season. Then, Ken was still in shock over the life he had taken (not to mention the spa treatment that was so rudely interrupted). Now, he has the chops to go mano-a-mano with a candidate for President of the these United States and walk away with his head held high. Of course, they say no good deed goes unpunished, a lesson it appears he is about to learn. Kendall's reward for trying to clean up the cruise line division while he was in charge and then taking charge when Logan started to mumble incoherently during his testimony will be serving as the sacrificial lamb to the shareholders in order to put down Sandy and Stewie’s takeover attempt once and for all. But hey, at least Naomi showed up to support him. Better not mention you have been drowning in pussy Kendall, she will either be jealous or want phone numbers. 

4. Roman Roy (last week: 6): People like you Roman. You are the kind of guy who can keep rich white men loose during a hostage situation, sorry, administrative action function, with a quick game of  “fuck/marry/kill.” And while no one will mistake you for Vince Lombardi when it comes to giving pep talks to football players (football, soccer, do you even know the difference?) your dad got you hyped up enough to convince you that you can stick your little dick into the right hole and have $10 billion fall out of it. Assuming you make it out alive, you may be able to tell your dad you got laid, even if it had nothing to do with actually having sex. One step at a time. 

5. Connor Roy (last week: 10): Just a steady week for our Don Quixote of Iowa, tilting at straw polls. Sometimes it is enough to be there for moral support and not-so-subtle fist pumps when your half-brother shish-kebobs a stuffed-shirt Senator while low key eyeballing the domain you wish to rule. If there is time, you might even duck into a Conn-Head meeting before flying back to New York hoping ticket sales for Willa's play have improved.

6. Gerri Killman (last week: not ranked): When the bear is chasing two people, you do not need to outrun the bear, just the other person it is chasing. For someone who everyone agrees is neck deep in the shit, you keep walking away smelling like a rose. From Boar on the Floor to the halls of Congress, nothing sticks to you. Now that you have escaped D.C. unscathed, it is time to go home, pour yourself a martini, and wonder why Roman has not called for his nightly verbal humiliation.  

7. Rhea Jarrell (last week: 2): Well, it was fun while it lasted. You did not really believe you could seamlessly shift from being CEO of PGM to Waystar Royco, did you? Nan’s company is Shakespeare and star gazing. Logan’s is a dumpster fire pirate death ship constantly teetering on the edge of disaster. At your first meeting with Logan you told him you had a delicate tummy, making a joke that the one thing they eat at PGM is Pulitzer, but it was clear you had no stomach for doing the dirty work required to keep the good ship Fuck Off churning along. When it came time to put the screws to Kira, you begged off, and now you get to start a new chapter in your life working at a telephone company. Hey, it’s all gravy, right?

8. Gil Eavis (last week: not ranked): That brief moment in the sun when you worked Tom like a speedbag is providing this temporary return to the Power Rankings, but when it came time to tangle with Kendall and Shiv, you were the one knocked on your ass reaching for your mouthpiece. Instead of taking the easy win - a bad guy to pin the blame on (Bill) and covering fire from ATN, who would go after your political opponents, you did what you always do, you overreached. You are the kind of guy who thinks quoting Emerson makes you smart, but when the gloves came off, they had knives and you had a book on philosophy. 

9. Cousin Greg(ory) (last week: 8): You fucked up the easiest game of "Let's Make A Deal" in history. Behind Door #1 was a quarter of a billion dollars. Let me repeat that. A. Quarter. Of. A. Billion. Dollars. All you had to do was quit your job vetting ATN on-air talent for Nazi sympathies and not spend your Thanksgiving shredding evidence of corporate malfeasance. That is it. Behind Door #2 was a misguided belief your Uncle Logan would protect you and not throw you overboard faster than you can say "no real person involved" when the world found out you hitched your wagon to a guy who emailed you "you can't make a tomlette without cracking a few greggs" 67 times. Sure, you are still in line to inherit $5 million when your sturdy grandpa finally passes on, but that kind of money will make you un poco loco Gregory. It is not enough to retire on, but too much to force you to work. Instead of a quarter bil, you are now the world's tallest dwarf, the weakest strongman at the circus. 

10. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 9): You earned that pithy B+ (bad plus terrible) grade Frank tagged you with. Did you really think a lack of preparation was the reason why you melted under the hot lights of the Senate committee room like the smirking block of feta cheese The Atlantic said you were? If you were not married to the boss's daughter, you would have been banished from the Power Rankings long ago. 

Not Ranked: Marcia Roy; Willa; Naomi Pierce; Don Grundham and the Conn-Heads at the Institute for a Competitive America; Bill Lockhart; Karolina; Hugo Baker; Jamie; Eduard; Hearts FC; Dave the Security Guard; Colin; Stewy; Sandy Furness (who may or may not have syphilis); the Brightstar Cruise Line; the Florida Gang; Senator Roberts; Nate; the Great National Latrine; Sandy's Six Shell Companies; The Cruise Ship Dirty Sex Cover-Up Party; Kira; James Weissel; Tabitha; Karl. 

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October 6

My birthday is in a few days. I am dreading it. It is just no fun to get older, especially when you are alone, it just underscores how little you have in your life. I think a lot about how it will end, in some dingy nursing home or assisted care facility, not able to wipe my ass anymore and gumming my food, no one aware that I am even still around. It does not fill me with what one might call hopefulness. 

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October 5

Today was a pretty chill day. I slept really well and then had a nice breakfast at my local diner. I went to the grocery store and picked up some things for P & G as well as for me. I came home and took a late morning nap before heading out to the gym. Now, I will stare at the TV, scroll Twitter, take care of the cats and be in bed before 9 because nothing screams winner like that plan of action for a Saturday night.

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October 4

You have to hand it to Trump, there is a benefit to constantly doubling down. He is openly admitting to crimes, even more evidence is coming out showing he committing other crimes, and yet, none of it seems to matter. He is basically daring Democrats to impeach him knowing he won't be removed in the Senate. He is relying on his right wing echo chamber, foreign disinformation, and the "both sides" police in the mainstream media to transform this into just a heightened version of a basic D.C. scrum. If he burns down the country, destroys the rule of law, and makes everyone hate government, who cares? He will walk away one way or the other - as a re-elected President having proven the witch hunt could not take him down, or a former President nursing a grievance while pocketing millions from his various enterprises. I hate this time line.

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October 3

The heat (finally) broke last night. Only the fifth time in the last 100 years when it has been 90 degrees in October. I will sleep much better (and with the windows open) tonight.

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October 2

Well, the Nats won last night. When I went to bed they were losing 3-1, when I woke up this morning, they had won 4-3. Very un-Nats like. 

I did a dumb thing yesterday. My ex-girlfriend created a down-low Twitter account when we dated. On a lark, I checked it yesterday, I don't know why. Maybe I was feeling bad for myself, but anyway, it was largely inactive but for a couple of @ me tweets she had exchanged a few months ago with some guy, which made me sad. Pro tip - don't do this, nothing good can come of it other than getting bummed out. 

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October 1

The Nats are playing tonight. Each previous trip to the playoffs has ended in a different, but equally painful kick in the balls and I fully expect the same this time. Scherzer is pitching the one-game play-in game even though he has not been as good as Strasburg over the past few months (he was also injured for a few weeks) on top of the fact that Strasburg was *nails* in Game 4 of the NLDS against the Cubs and has a better overall playoff record. 

With the Nats, you have to hold two competing things in your mind at the same time - the team is fun to watch during the regular season and will shit the bed like Kendall at Tern Haven once the playoffs start. I hope this time is different but I do not think it will be. 

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