It’s fascinating, and I hate using that word (except I use it all the time).

Klein’s interview prompted me to buy the book, and what’s interesting about his talking about it and about reading the work in question is this hastily-assembled maxim: The more people get to know Fred-6, the less they like Fred-6, especially Donkeys. 

I’m not that far into the book yet – I just bought it a couple hours ago – but I suspect that The Amateur is what the media wanted Game Change to be: an inside-DC account of what the American electorate hath wrought.

Also, as I was telling Xtina: “When Bill Clinton is the most magnanimous, deep-thinking person in a book about American politics, you know there is a fan, there is shit, and the two are fighting like dogs.”

More/less. Buy it – read it – enjoy. /brex

It’s true that prolonged exposure to him might impair your vision. But even more now than he did five years ago, he imparts a kind of joy — in being on TV, in being alive. That’s ultimately what these clothes are. They’re terribly, terribly alive. And Sager is so happy and comfortable in them. The only man who could wear nonsense of this caliber and seem as remotely full of mirth is Payne Stewart, a star who played golf in attire that most other men would wear only as the entertainment for their 5-year-old’s birthday party. But Stewart was always kind of pleased with himself. He was so … put-together. What I love about Sager — what I think we all begrudgingly love — is that this is the only self he has, and it feels utterly, inarguably true. He spent some of March Madness in a marbled suit with the brackets printed on his black necktie. Would anyone else dare? Should they?

via Craig Sager’s Suits and Sideline Sartorial Disasters – Grantland.

I really liked the teacher who presided over my reading of it in 1991, and I enjoyed it, but it never grabbed me. The curious thing about good lit is that lines can be drawn, dots can be connected, and at some point, shiz gets real. In the last week or so, I”ve read a few pieces connecting these dots, and this chunk from Mark Steyn’s latest brings it home. To wit, time to re-read TGG:

In a post-modern America, the things that Gatsby attempted to fake – an elite schooling – Obama actually had; the things that Gatsby attempted to obscure – the impoverished roots – merely add to Obama’s luster. Gatsby claimed to have gone to Oxford, but nobody knew him there because he never went; Obama had a million bucks’ worth of elite education at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard Law, and still nobody knew him (“Fox News contacted some 400 of his classmates and found no one who remembered him”). In that sense, Obama out-Gatsbys Gatsby: His “shiftless and unsuccessful” relatives – the deportation-dodging aunt on public housing in Boston, the DWI undocumented uncle, the $12-a-year brother back in Nairobi – are useful props in his story, the ever more vivid bit-players as the central character swims ever more out of focus, but they don’t seem to know him either. The more autobiographies he writes, the less anybody knows.

via Mark Steyn: Eternally shifting sands of Obama’s biography | obama, ever, white – Opinion – The Orange County Register.

I had tickets to Dallas, but skipped the show and gave my tickets to a street kid begging change downtown (no, I’m not making that up). I had a bad feeling about the show and where I was staying, so I just packed my shit up and left. Just got word that the Dallas show was terrible – sound issues and too-long pauses between songs, and I noticed there is zero traffic over at the forums regarding the Dallas show.

I’ll be honest – I haven’t had a stellar time at a DMB show in three years. The last show I saw that was worth a shit was the second night of West Palm Beach in 2009. I had great fun with an old friend in Houston and I wasn’t exactly disappointed, but as I was telling Xtina, I want to hear at least three of a group of about 20 songs, and of that broad list, they played two. To put that in perspective, three’s a minimum – they usually play at least a half dozen of them. In Houston, no Ants, no Two Step, no Warehouse, no Everyday, no Jimi – just Crush and 41 among what I consider their god-tier songs, and the version of 41 they played was dramatically reduced, virtually no jam.

I’m still thinking about going to West Palm Beach for both shows, but after that, this is the last year I drop the coin I do on the band. I love their music and it’s gotten me through some pretty wretched times and problems, but I don’t need to spend nearly $200 on two tickets and another $100 on two shirts and a poster to get myself through hard times.

They have a new Lillywhite-produced album coming out this summer, but didn’t play one fukken song from it – that was annoying. I guess either I’ve gotten too old, or the band has – not sure which at this point. I got more bang for the buck from my $40 Pixies ticket in a show that lasted 80-minutes than 150-minutes of DMB on the opening night of a tour that marks their comeback after taking a year off. In short, I expected more.

Second look at Phish?

No fukken way, but I gotta find a new jam band to get into. Suggestions? Derek Trucks Band maybe?

Although it’s not an issue that gets my passions going, I don’t have a problem with same-sex marriage, especially in the context of what marriage has become in America. That being said, I don’t kid myself about which side of the issue I’m on – regardless of how much the media tries to mainstream SSM, it remains politically unpopular. Additionally, although I don’t have a problem with it, it’s not something I want to see decided by judicial (or mayoral, or gubernatorial et al) fiat.

My parents have been married nearly 50 years, and both of them are opposed to the legal right of SSM while being sympathetic to the various plights of z’gehys. They are much more invested in the institution of marriage than I am, and their view is in the overwhelming majority of people of the so-called Lost Generation and, likely, the so-called Greatest Generation.

I think what is at the root of this is parallel to something Rush Limbaugh talks about quite a bit – the giant gap between Fred-6′s “likability” versus views on his actual performance as POTUS. To wit, when polled, I think many people are either uncomfortable or unwilling to admit they are for the traditional, onemanonewoman view of marriage, so when asked by pollsters, they say that yeah, they’re all for SSM but vote quite differently.

The difficulty for me on this issue is a macro/micro one, perhaps lapsing into the meta-: I’m not opposed to SSM in theory, but I do believe the traditional role of hetero-marriage in American civic life is in fact a civic virtue, one that has been eroded over the last 30 years or so. We clearly don’t take marriage seriously in this country; the deck is now loaded in favor of the woman if the marriage dissolves – in many cases, a woman in an unhappy marriage has great incentive to file for divorce; and thanks to the removal of the stigma of divorce and the aforementioned added incentives in many cases, marriage is now little more than a legal contract for many, many people. There is nothing sacred or civic about it, and thus the bloom falls off the rose. Ergo, from a cynical point of view, if

Furthermore, I don’t like being on the side of proponents who I generally don’t agree with on most other things. The media’s incessant normalization of the pro-SSM view is enough reason to view the invented institution with skepticism, but at the same time, I’m not particularly reactive with my politics – that’s what liberals are for.

The bright side for Conservatives in this is that it’s a win-win for our side, even if I’m on the “wrong” side of it. A politician’s views on SSM will not sway my vote, but for a liberal politician, being on the “wrong” side of it can keep a lot of people home – witness the fury with which the religious black community has responded to Fred-6′s evolution on the subject. While our gay friends might flock to Facebook and Twitter to rejoice in the POTUS’s politically calculated move, it will dampen more of his base than solidify it – electoral results do not lie, and being on the same side of this issue as I am is a sure loser for a national politician.