Plot points

I can’t shake the feeling that the Plain Northeast Ohio Dealer Media Group is hiding behind the phrase “An Opposing View” just so the editorial board can endorse both candidates in a given race. Today: Sittenfeld and Strickland. Endorse ’em both! Last week: McGinty and O’Malley! Fuck it, vote for both of them! Listen, I’ve never cared for newspaper endorsements — I remember a long discussion in my Opinion Writing class at Ohio University — but this new schtick is a mockery to the process. This is also dangerous. Too many idiots take their voting cues from the major local daily’s endorsements. If you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth and arguing both sides of a point, then nothing makes sense and nothing can be trusted.

I’ve been working on a lengthy indictment against the second annual “Pizza Fest,” to be held at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds. It’s become very indulgent — the piece, not the event — and I’m still trying to parse out a sense meaning. (I didn’t attend the first annual “Pizza Fest,” which sounded like a complete nightmare, so I feel out of place even trying to write about it. There’s something representative about the event, though, I think, and about the widespread condemnations from attendees. I dunno. We’ll see where that goes. The piece is called “Quality.”)

I’ve had “Doobie in my Pocket” stuck in my head all weekend/morning. I love the drums in that song. In fact, those snare rhythms call to mind Jeremiah Green, longtime Modest Mouse drummer. When I find someone who plays like Green, it becomes inescapable, infectious music in my life. Anyway, this tune’s a great time. (Do take note of the “key change” wink-and-nod to the listener.)

David Foster Wallace’s Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from it All plays into my piece on Quality and “Pizza Fest.” Read the Harper’s version here. It’s one of my favorite essays.

I’m glad Spotlight won Best Picture at the Oscars last night. It’s the only contender I had seen going into the awards show, and it’s also just a brilliant examination of investigative reporting and, i.e., its importance in the development of our society.

Walter Holland tackles Trump as “a trailing indicator of some extremely dangerous low-level problems with our republic.” (The unavoidable subject matter, yes, I know.) My friend was not a fan of this piece, but I quite like it. Wax touches on the laziness of an electorate that might have had power at one point but, like picking up sand on the beach, now sees the last vestiges trickling out of grasp. The result? It’s inertia. Enough jilted voters turn a blind eye, well, all that’s left is for the bovine hordes of America to chant “Trump!” and usher in the woefully coifed 45th president.