All systems are go and The Midpoint has launched. I think you’ll find that commenting is much easier over there. I would love it if you would join me over there!
HNTB will still see the occasional update, but the bulk of the blogging from now on will be at the new place.
I know there’s not many people reading here, but thank you very much for reading. I hope to hear from you over at the Midpoint!
I’m watching the MLB all star game on FOX and regretting it more and more. Not only is that asshole Tim McCarver part of the broadcast team (I think my cat knows more about baseball than he does) but they’re playing this horrible, cheesy music while Willie Mays throws out the first pitch. They’ve got him wearing a jersey that says "Say Hey" and it’s just so goddamn contrived. It’s Willie Fucking Mays assholes, you don’t need to dramatize it any more! Don’t tell me how charismatic Willie Fucking Mays is, Joe Buck, I know how charismatic he is. Why do I know that? Because he’s Willie Fucking Mays, you dick.
Why does FOX have to ruin every fucking sporting event? It’s bad enough I have to listen to these assholes every Saturday, but they’re doing the all star game and the World Series.
Add to that the fact that I have to watch commercials reminding me that shit like "According to Jim" and "Two and a Half Men" is still on the air and Veronica Mars isn’t. Son of a bitch.
I finally got my pictures developed from the Portsmouth trip. It’s only been a month 
The Virginia Sports Hall of Fame and Museum was a great place to hold this conference. On the final night of the conference, there was a banquet with an auction and some really cool speakers. I got to spend some time with the players and make some new friends. We also got to play on all of the interactive parts of the museum. There was a racing simulator (yay!) a radar gun to measure how fast you could pitch and other fun things like that. My fastball tops out at 64 mph, which isn’t quite Major League level stuff. (My curveball was a pathetic 41 mph and my slider didn’t slide. I don’t want to talk about my knuckleball).
Of course, at a conference like this, we all spent one night at the ballpark. Our former Negro League players were honored before the game, and of them got to throw out the first pitch. I sat with my new friend, Rick.
Rick is a professor of Ethics at the University of Central Florida. He gave a great presentation on Negro League Baseball in Florida. Specifically, how the newspapers treated (and still treat) black baseball in the Sunshine State.
Now I don’t want to be hard on him, he’s a great guy, but I am a little bit disappointed in the picture he took of me at the game. 
For a guy who spent many years in newsrooms up and down the east coast, he sure doesn’t know his way around a camera (Just giving you a hard time, Professor.)
It was nice to watch a ballgame with so many former players. They all
had lots of stories about different games in different cities all over
the country. It was also nice that they didn’t seem too bothered by my
drunk ass self.
At one point, all of us baseball nerds started arguing about teams and players and baseball nerd things. It was fun, if a bit heated for such a silly topic.
The opposing pitcher was a left-hander with good control and a funky, overhand curveball.
The opposing batters all had good plate discipline and walked a ton.
And of course, it wouldn’t be America if someone wasn’t trying to start the wave. 
Sometimes it seems like India is trying to out-crazy Japan.
Yikes, this was a bit of a surprise.
As has been pointed out, Stepney was the first technical guy to be hired by Ferrari when Jean Todt took the team over and began making a juggernaut out of them. Not to blow this thing out of proportion, but if these allegations are true, this guy’s got more to worry about than his job. The drivers are risking their lives when they get into these machines, to make them any less safe is pretty nasty.
F1: …which by taking the vector cross product yields the solution…
F2: No, the divergence is the dot product of the gradient.
F3: It’s got to be 4:20 somewhere.
F4: No, dumbass…
F5: *sigh* Danger! Danger! Will Robinson. There are you happy?
F6: You’re like the superstring of morons, you’re stupid in 11 dimensions.
F7: Are you ready to rock? -PAUSE- I can’t heeeear you.
F8: Hey, is that Schroedinger’s Cat behind you?
-shift F8 - activate rapid reverse.
F9: I’d love to go but I have urgent physicist business tonight.
F10: I’m flattered but I’m married.
F11: Alert! Alert! Launching surface to air missile! Ha ha just kidding.
F12: It’s not you, it’s me.
I couldn’t remember the last time I was able to get out of town for a solid week. I didn’t realize how badly I needed to do so. I’ve been in a serious creative and intellectual slump for months now. This is not what I needed with a demanding new boss at work. I had to actually get out of town to realize how bad I was slumping. When you’re sitting on the deck on the beach in the dark after you’ve had a bottle of wine and are drinking your third beer after your second ‘Papa Jer’ (that’s Stoli Vanilla and Extra Spicy Ginger ale) and you’re smoking a cigarette because, fuck it, you’re on vacation, you have a lot of time to think. I did a lot of thinking. I resolved to break out of my slump. I thought about the last time I was able to mentally break out of my loop. Suddenly, I did remember.
It was September 13th, 2003. I had finished graduate school only 4 months before and I was putting that Master’s degree to good use at Kinko’s as a delivery driver. I was going to Fredericksburg, VA to meet with two friends from graduate school and one friend of ours from undergraduate.
Aaron Reed was smart enough to not go to grad school after college, he got a great job at Virginia Power and moved his young family to Richmond. I didn’t get to see him much after college, but we kept (and still keep) in touch. He would be meeting us at Will’s place in Fredericksburg.
Will was a friend from undergrad and grad school. He was probably the smartest of us all (although he always said that about me, but we all knew it was really him). He was from Asheville and very laid back. After grad school he took a job with the Naval surface warfare center in Dahlgreen, VA where Trey lived.
Trey was, like Will, a friend from undergrad and grad school. His given name was Willard Bernard Jackson III. He was born near the intersection of Willard St. and Jackson St. in Durham. I drive by there sometimes, the intersection is near the ballpark in Durham. He worked with will at the NSWC and had a house in Dahlgreen right on the Potomac river. It was a sweet deal. He was renting this huge house for $400/month as long as he mowed the lawn! Along with the house, there was a 4-wheeler and a sailboat that he could use whenever he wanted! He used the money he was saving on rent to buy a power boat!
We all went over to Trey’s on this unusually warm September day to watch our beloved NC State Wolfpack take on the top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes in football. It was a huge game for the Pack, and were excited about drinking beer and watching the Wolfpack storm to victory and (therefore) recognition on the national scene.
What happened instead was a flurry of Ohio State touchdowns. In the first quarter. The Pack was quickly down 24-0.
It was the first time since graduation from undergrad 3.5 years before that the 4 of us had been together. We decided to not spend the time watching the Pack get smashed, and instead go out and have fun.
We took the boat out and I have never in my life been so scared. We were flying through the river at top speed, bouncing all over the place. I was clutching the railing and holding on for dear life to my beer (and the railing). We went to these little islands and played horseshoes and drank and talked shit. We took the boat to some town and walked into a pizza place stone cold drunk. We had the nastiest greek Pizza I’ve ever eaten in my life. We had one of the most fun days of my life. We got back to Trey’s to check the final score and to our surprise found that the Pack had made the most miraculous of comebacks while we were out fucking around. However, they fell just short, losing in triple-overtime to the Buckeyes 44-38. I didn’t care.
Sitting on the deck, watching and listening to the waves crashing, I thought back to that day and how good it felt. Since becoming an atheist, I find myself re-examining a great deal of my old memories and feelings in this new light. I wasn’t an atheist that day. If I was, I probably would have been a little more careful on that boat.
I also wasn’t an atheist on the day, a little over a year later, when I got a call from Will. I was at King’s barcade for trivia night, so it was a Monday. Will told me that Trey had gone out with his friends on his boat late Friday night. He was standing on the bow and helping them to navigate with a flashlight, while one of his friends piloted. He was looking for buoys to avoid, but there was no way he could see the giant one they hit on the other side of the boat. He went over and they didn’t find his body for two days. He was dead and he wasn’t 30. The funeral was in Raleigh where his parents live. It was at a Baptist church. Although I was a catholic at the time, I took comfort in the religious message of the funeral, and the thought of Trey smiling down on us from heaven.
Sitting on the deck, looking at the ocean, I could see that boat flying through the water with our dumbasses on it and Trey at the helm, smiling. It was a nice thought, until I remembered that I was an atheist and that revisiting that particular memory as an atheist is terrible. Trey’s gone, period, and nothing will ever bring him back. He’s gone forever. It’s tough to swallow a second time.
I really miss you, buddy.
Ahem. Whew. Okay. Of course, it wasn’t all depressing. In fact, most of it was quite uplifting. I though of some cool things as well. I decided that I rather enjoy this blogging thing, and that I would like to do some more of it. I’ve come up with an idea for a blog, and I’m in the steps of making it happen. I’ve registered a domain name and I’m getting some wordpress software set up. Sadly, this will mean the end of HNTB. However, you’ve all been so kind to put up with my silliness here, I hope you’ll join me at the new place! More details as they come available.
In the meantime, we’ll be having fun over here closing out HNTB. Look for more posts soon, I plan on embarrassing myself in whole new ways!
Blog version of Veronica Mars article in the Hatchet.
I’m not afraid of Jack Bauer. His gritty voice and itchy torture finger may
strike fear into the (apparently) thousands of L.A. terrorists (and provide millions of
right-wingers with masturbatory glee), but it doesn’t inspire any fear in this
reviewer. Dr. Gregory House’s insults
are easy for me to brush aside. Vic
Mackey may keep LA’s drug dealers huddled in fear, but he can’t frighten me at
all. These small-screen titans do
nothing to intimidate me, because for the last three years I’ve watched the true
face of ruthlessness on television, and it belongs to a 5’3” blond California teenager
named Veronica Mars.
I’d sooner drive past the precinct
featured in Law & Order: Criminal
Intent with my middle finger extended than fuck with Veronica Mars. I’d rather walk into a house and be greeted
by Dateline’s Chris Hansen than know
that Ms. Mars was looking for me. It
would be easier for me to stand tall against an onslaught of Battlestar Galactica’s Cylons than to
think I could get away with crossing the petite sleuth.
This is what TV in a post-Sopranos world is supposed to be
like. It was Dark, gritty, intelligent,
and rewarding to watch. The first show
in years that I would rush home to make sure I saw. Everyone involved in its production, from
writers to directors to cinematographers to actors, was at the peak of their
game, and it showed. In an era where so
many female characters on television shows are relegated to be mere objects of
affection or damsels in distress, here we have a strong female protagonist not
the least bit lacking in femininity or humanity.
In addition to a multifaceted lead
character, Mars offers long and
compelling dramatic story arcs. Princeton University economics professor and
liberal stalwart Paul Krugman writes of what he calls ‘The disappearing middle”
in his essay “For Richer” (a highly recommended read at http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/ForRicher.html)
. In this treatise, using copious amount
of economic data, Krugman show what we’ve all known for years: the rich are getting richer, the poor are
getting poorer, and the middle class is converging into a thin line smeared
between the two. While Krugman warns of
the dawn of a new gilded age in America,
Veronica Mars shows us how the divide
plays out in the fictional seaside town of Neptune. There are several recurring themes in the show, but I have always found
this to be the most compelling. It’s a
question to be asked of any high-dollar real estate area: where do the fast food workers live? The local sheriff/ private investigator and
his daughter? The help and the children
of the help? What is life like for them
in the playground of the obnoxiously wealthy and disgustingly
unscrupulous?
How fitting
then, that the show debuted in 2004, a little over a month before the
‘re’-election of the man who’s doing more to maintain this divide than anyone
else. While the quality of the show is
apparent (and I predict it will seem so even when we look back on it years
later, much like other shows canceled too early) it makes more sense for it to
take place in these times than it would in any other. During the Clinton 90’s, when wealth
increased across the economic spectrum, the story of the privileged class turning
a town into their personal playground would have been less poignant, would have
rang less true. No, it is only now, when
a chorus of voices on the right would have us believe that the inheritance tax
is a greater sin than the rampant poverty in many of our nations’ cities that
the message of this show rings clearest. Now, when our political dialogue labels any who question the fast
tracking of wealth to the wealthy as ‘class warriors’ is when a show such as Veronica Mars has the most meaning.
It is this
that I will miss the most about the show. In the first and third seasons, the effects of the class divide were
implied in various facts about Neptune. The discrepancy between the Camelot Inn and
the Neptune grand is a fine example. The seedy Inn, where the series begins, is
used by the poor and criminal elements of Neptune. This is laid out in stark contrast to the opulence
of the Neptune Grand, the hotel where Neptune’s
powerful live and play. Also the very
fact that Veronica and her best friend were forced to work jobs and apply for
scholarships, while the 09ers spent all of their free time on the beach while
corrupt doctors were bought wrote fake diagnoses of exhaustion paid for by
their rich parents.
During the
second season, however, the class divide in Neptune was ambitiously brought to the front. It
was an ambitious, season-long story arc which highlighted the machinations of
the powerful few in Neptune and their
disregard for the well-being of the majority of its residents. I won’t ruin it for you DVD watchers, but it
was a beautifully executed realization of the implicit message of the
show.
So why did such a great show meet such a horrible fate?
Glad you asked. While
show-creator Rob Thomas and company refused to insult our intelligence, the
same can’t be said of the CW (or of Mars’
previous home, UPN). The show was
plagued by low ratings since its inception on UPN, just like most of the other
shows on that poorly run network. The
combination of a constantly changing timeslot, running opposite of top-rated
shows on other networks, and poor lead-ins from other low-rated UPN offerings
made for constant ratings bottom-dwelling for Mars. The contraction of
half of UPN’s lineup when the network merged with WB to form the CW probably
had more to do with the renewal of Mars’ third season than the campaigns
launched by the series’ small, but enthusiastic fanbase.
Upon its arrival to the CW, the
poor vision in promoting the show was apparent. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it to be a spin-off of Dawson’s Creek. It’s shameful that a show which tackles so
many subjects and presents so much dramatic tension through its deeply involved
mysteries is represented by commercials which can essentially be described as
‘Will Veronica and Logan kiss?’ Did CW
executives even watch this show? While
the network made no secret of its desire to dominate the young female
demographic, it seems ironic that their strategy for doing so would be to
reduce television’s strongest female protagonist to a Sweet Valley High
caricature in its advertisements.
Unfortunately, as much as I’d like
to write pages and pages condemning the CW for taking the best show on network
television off the air, I can’t do so in good conscience. Television networks are amoral operators
whose main concern is maximizing profit. While Veronica Mars had an
absurdly low budget (It is rumored that the frequent absence of major
characters for weeks at a time was due to the producers’ inability to afford
said talent), it was still an unprofitable show. In its sole season on the CW, Mars was given the gift of Gilmore Girls’ huge lead-in, which it
did not take advantage of. The ladies
from Star’s Hollow had the most popular show on the network, but apparently
their viewers watched something else at 9pm.
It’s tempting to state that the
season-long serialized nature of the program made it difficult for new viewers
to enjoy the show en medius rae, but
one need only look to ABC’s Lost to
see that people will watch a serialized drama in droves, even if it appears to
be made up as it goes along.
I believe the most insight can be
obtained by looking at other dramatic mystery shows on television. What I love about Veronica Mars is the show’s utter refusal to shove your face in its
answers. I’ve found myself mentally
untangling the various plot twists of several episodes long after the credits
have rolled and Steve Daniels is informing me of the winning Powerball numbers
(hint: not mine). This is only partially
due to the fact that I’m borderline retarded; people with IQs in the triple
digits have reported similar phenomena. However, a quick viewing of, say, Numb3rs or any member of the CSI franchise will remind you that most
TV mysteries are written for Larry the Cable Guy fans. Veronica Mars was never going to appeal to
these people. Kudos to Rob Thomas and
the excellent writers for never compromising their vision, but it was clearly a
vision with little mass appeal.
Thomas did the correct thing with
this show, it was full with ambition. It
was this ambition which allowed it to reach the incredible heights that it did
in 3 seasons. However, it is this same
ambition which made it difficult for many viewers. I must admit that I did tire of some of the
subplots regarding Veronica’s various love interests. I imagine that other viewers who tuned in to
see those boys were bored with the treatise on the distribution of wealth in
modern America. I mean this not to admonish, as the show
never wasted a second of the limited screen time it had. Instead, I believe that any show with such
sweeping vision will instantly attract a fanatic contingent of loyalists, while
alienating the broader general public.
As I write this, the finality of
the show’s cancellation still hasn’t hit. (ed note: yes it has. )
It’s Tuesday, and I have a Tuesday routine of looking forward to
watching Veronica Mars. That’s over now,
like it was for Arrested Development, and Freaks and Geeks and so many other
shows canceled way too early. There is
talk of a movie, but there was also talk of a season 4. I think the best thing to do is use the
awesome power of IMDB to keep track of the writers wherever they go next, and
wait for the next brilliant show to captivate. Oh, and although I told myself I wouldn’t go here: Fuck you, CW. Seriously.
But I’m back now. A week at the beach was definitely needed. We shared a big house and had lots of fun. I’m going to spend the next few days seeping alcohol out of every orifice. More later.
