I don’t know what happened to me this weekend, but all the stuff I normally pay attention to, I completely spaced out on.
It started on Saturday, when Tottenham played Arsenal. You know, their top rival, the team they hate. These matches even have their own title, “North London Derby.” Since I started follow Tottenham, these games have been a big deal, usually both teams are in a “need to win” position, and the games are exciting and dramatic. This Saturday, totally spaced on it. Just forgot.
Same thing happen on Sunday, when I spaced on the Cowboy game against the Saints. But to be honest, the Cowboys played so bad, it was better that I missed it.
And because comedy and drama both follow the rule of three…
Then Sunday night, I forgot about the Emmy’s. When my wife pointed out that they were on, even my kid was surprised that I wasn’t watching them. (I am a sucker for an awards show.) It was like the Emmy’s snuck up on me and then I ignored them. (Though I did get to see that very weird Johnny Walker backstage bar moment.) Oddly, I had watched most of the shows that were nominated this year, so I sort of did know what was happening.
Not that any of this really matters in the big scheme of things, yet I still found it odd that I whiffed on three events that normally are rather important to me. Such as I make plans to watch them. But for some reason, I missed all the ads for these things, or I missed the conversations about these things. It left me feeling like I was running behind everybody else.
(If this isn’t making sense, it doesn’t make it lies…)
In the spirit of self improvement, I have decided to go for the lowest of hanging fruit on the personal empowerment tree; I’m trying to go to bed at a normal time. This one should be easy, real no brainer. This is actually the hump I am having trouble getting over. Did you know, all the cool stuff happens at night? It’s a fact! Look it up! Also, that’s when all of the worst movies come on tv. Anyway, going to bed is a real trick for me. My body wants to fall asleep, I get very tired in fact, and then I find a second wind and decided that tonight needs to be the night that I watch “Sorceress” on Prime. But not anymore. I want to become boring, and healthy. I want to get in better shape, and have a better out look on life, and my doctor told me that I have to get more than five hours of sleep a night. So… poop.
But, the flip of this is that I now get up early and get shit done, right? Well, sort of. Getting a jump on the day is nice, and I have also found it very rewarding to make breakfast for my family. I’m not talking cereal in a bowl, but actually making breakfast food for them. I started making gimbap for the kid – that one’s more of a special occasion breakfast – but most mornings it’s omelets, and egg sandwiches, and I even make a pot of miso soup. The one thing I would like to tweak, is that I do sit on the couch and stare at my phone for like thirty minutes before I get going. There is a part of me that thinks I should be using that time constructively.
I took a walk with the kid around Central Park today. She’s off from school, for some reason, and I needed her to get off the screen and do something outside. The Park seemed like the best idea. It is the one place in the City that I pass by daily, but only visit twice a year at most. And one of those two times will be to cut through it to get to the East Side. The fun thing about walking around the Park with the kid today was that she noticed that you can be in parts of the park, and not see or hear the City. Like a magic trick.
The only constant in life is change – nothing stays the same forever. The older I get, the more I think about this. There are things I wish would stay the same forever, but I also know how foolish of a wish that is. And then there were times in my life that I thought nothing would ever change, only for the ground to slowly shift under my feet. These were some of the thoughts I had as I was reading Bryan Washington’s “Last Coffeehouse on Travis.”
The story is set in Houston in the very recent past. Specifically, in the Midtown neighborhood before gentrification changed the area. At the start of the story, the narrator is being politely kicked out of his aunt’s home and is going to live with Margo and her son Walter. In exchange for a free place to stay, the narrator will have to work at Margo’s coffeeshop not too far away. Margo is master coffee maker, and the majority clientele at the coffeehouse are recently arrived white gentrifiers. But there is to be a solid group of regulars, mainly black and latinx, who form the community of this story. As Washington lets his story develop, mainly through Margo’s coffee making and the narrator’s attempt to learn from her, we come to see people in states of change, both wanted and unwanted.
Now that I have that very simplistic description out of the way…
There were a couple of times that I felt that this story could fall off the rails and land in a pool of clichés; The narrator continually trying to make a cup of coffee that impresses Margo, or a character reveals some deep dark secret trauma from their past, or the climax being some explosion of a fight between two characters that should be working together. No, Bryan Washington was playing with me, because he crafts full, lived in characters that I could see myself running into on my block and having a conversation with. These are characters that want to learn from each other. Characters that have pain and mistakes in their past, but that pain doesn’t define them, nor stop them from going out and living and trying to make connections.
Then there is the craftsmanship to Washington’s writing. The very subtle touches he uses to forward the story and develop characters. How Margo never asks, she tells people what to do. The very short but efficient descriptions of the neighborhood, to create the feel of this setting, as something that is slipping away, but at this moment, it was very alive. Another aspect that I thought was well written was how gentrification was this underlining menace to the story and its characters. Change maybe unavoidable, but it is not always good. We know from the beginning of the story that the neighborhood will change, and Margo and the coffeehouse won’t be there in the future. It’s touched on in the right way to amplify the theme without belaboring the point. This is good writing, where nothing felt wasted or superfluous. This story was made the way it needed to be.
Which brings me to how well the climax of this story worked. Again, I go back to the fact that Washington was playing with our expectations by starting this section with, “The morning that it happened…” My mind went to dramatic ends of what could possibly be coming. In fact, the final paragraph of the section before, the narrator even acknowledges that no matter how well things are going, it can’t stay this way forever. (See, Bryan Washington is priming us.) But what follows are characters understanding that it is time for them to move on to whatever is next, because things are changing. There is a rise in action, a true climax, but it is treated in an honest way that I wasn’t expecting, and I am also trying not to ruin this story for people. Sorry that’s vague.
I love reading Bryan Washington’s work. It moves in ways that feel familiar but also unexpected at the same time. I loved being with his characters, not at the most dramatic moment in their lives, but a very pivotal one. These are moments that take us to the next place, and Bryan Washington reminds us how valuable those moments are.
I should have made snacks last night. The wine was good, but I needed something to eat. If only I had some popcorn…
The spin has begun from what happened last night between Harris and Trump. Consensus is that Harris won the debate, and I have to agree with that. I won’t waste your time, as there are plenty of news outlets you can go to find out why and how this happened. I do find it odd that you would come here first, though I am flattered, as I do not believe that I am a solid or creditable news source.
The one thing that I noticed last night with the spinning and analyst, and even in the paper this morning, is that the criticism, for both Harris and Trump, concerns that they didn’t go into detail about their plans. They didn’t give enough information.
I’m sorry, but that’s not what televised political debates are about, and it has never been about information. Look, the first one, Nixon and Kennedy, what does everyone remember about it? Nixon sweating under the lights and Kennedy looking calm and in control. Does anyone remember the tax policy they discussed?
What do people remember about these debates? Reagan’s “Four Years” line, or the “Not exploiting his opponents youth and inexperience.” How about, “You’re no Jack Kennedy,” or Bush looking at his watch, Gore loudly sighing, binders full of woman… I think you get the point.
These debates are about creating and capturing emotional reactions. Logic has no place here; it’s window dressing. Besides, everyone is sitting at home with a smartphone in their hand, so when they want to find something out, like is that how tariffs work, or how does the child tax credit get paid for, they just look it up. Why would a candidate waste valuable screen time, getting all wonky on policy, when they can work to get voters comfortable with the idea of them being President? I believe Trump and Harris are of this thought.
So please, political talking heads and hacks, please drop this crap about not learning about policy in these debates. You should know better.
I bought a bottle of wine which I plan on splitting with my wife, as we watch the debate and yell at our TV. But not too loud, as our kid will be sleeping in the next room.
I thought about buying snack foods that are orange, but that seemed a little too silly.
No, I will celebrate Debate Night, the way my forefather’s celebrated all the way back in 1960; slightly tipsy.
To be honest, not looking forward to the debate. I didn’t watch the last one between Trump and Biden, as something told me it would be a train wreck. I mean, it was a train wreck, but not the way I thought it would be. There isn’t anything that will happen tonight that will make me change how I am planning on voting. I guess something could happen, it’s not impossible, but not probable either. No, Trump will try to act all normal, but will slip into “Trump” mode and say some weird shit. Harris has a bunch of canned one-liners, some focus group zingers, that she’ll try to land, but will come across as wooden. You know, like Chris Christie’s Donald Duck line…
Sadly, these things, these “debates,” aren’t informative, just entertainment. It’s a tightrope walk, and we are only here to see who will fall off. There are such things as debate contests, which have rules, and allow people to stake positions, and have the other person question them, and rebuttals, and so forth. I mean, if we really wanted to know where these candidates stand, we could ask them to, you know, really debate.
But we don’t.
We like this form of competition. It gives both sides the ability to claim that they won. We’ll get a bunch of memes out of tonight. I will have Twitter on and follow the outcry/outrage, or general hilarity of people commenting on what is happening.
It does make me wonder if any of this really matters?
