Wednesday Night Rumble
Warren goes metal and MLB players go mental
Don’t watch the debate on Wednesday, I told myself. You’re not going to miss anything. Read a book! Watch some of those shows you’re woefully behind on! Write some poetry! And then this happened:
That video — if you click through — has over 5-and-a-half million views already. It’s Elizabeth Warren channeling one of Michael Bloomberg’s former constituents and straight ethering the 108th Mayor of New York City. You can literally see the moment when the man’s soul exits his earthly vessel for parts unknown. It is sublime.
I will leave further discussion of the Democratic primary for another time, except to say that I hope we see more of this Elizabeth Warren going forward. Drew Magary was correct - Wednesday’s debate was the first legitimately entertaining Democratic debate I’ve seen in nearly 15 years, and there’s nothing wrong with that! Let them fight! Way too many Democratic voters are terrified of candidates going at each other, and I’m just done with it.
Democrats have this idea that when it comes time to debate Donald Trump, assuming it happens, whomever gets the nomination is going to wipe the floor with him based on facts and argumentation and logic. That’s like me trying to debate dinner time with my cat Hector.
Hector side-eyeing me before I feed him his favorite wet food.
Trump doesn’t know jack about his Presidency; hell, he’s barely aware he’s President. You’re not going to beat him on facts or logic or argumentation, because he doesn’t care about them. No, the way you get at Trump is by going straight at him, at a visceral level. By trash-talking him, and disrespecting him, and hammering him the way Warren did to Bloomberg last night.
Before I go further: hi, I’m Raf Noboa y Rivera, this is The Miscellanies, a biweekly collection of my thoughts on various things like politics, tech, sports, and generally what it’s like to be a man in 2020. If you’re reading this, it’s either because someone shared this with you, or because you signed up. If it’s the latter - thank you! Either way: welcome! I hope you enjoy reading this.
Dark stars over baseball
Speaking of angry: that’s the current condition of every major league baseball player who’s not a Houston Astro, current or former. And, well, can you blame them? Justin Turner went ham:
He’s right! It wasn’t! It’s absolutely ridiculous for Astros players, management, and ownership to blow off their cheating by saying that stealing signs didn’t make a difference in their winning games. Are you serious with this? Are we seriously to believe that the Houston Astros rigged their video systems, contrived coded communications, and transmitted that information, that data, to their hitters just for shits and giggles? Really? Really?
Come. The. Fuck. On.
This, right here, is why fury towards the Astros rages across baseball. To the point that even Mike Trout - the imperturbable Mike Trout, easily the most laidback, anodyne player you can possibly imagine - was moved to comment. Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer let it rip with a thousand words and change over 10 minutes, basically saying: I told you so, I told you so, dammit, I TOLD YOU SO. Braves outfielder Nick Markakis literally called for vigilante justice, saying that every Astros player “needs a beating” — and if you don’t think Houston is going to lead this coming season in players hit by pitch, I don’t know what to tell you.
The fury is rampant and raging and righteous, and it should be. Literally 100 years after the Black Sox Scandal - no, not Biden-literally, literally literally - another baseball contender cheated so thoroughly that it calls the very integrity of the sport into question. And were it not for a Howie Kendrick home run in Game 7 of the 2019 World Series, we could easily be looking at three straight compromised World Series: this last one, the 2018 World Series (won by the Boston Red Sox, now clouded by suspicion because then-manager Alex Cora helped orchestrate the Astros’ cheating), and the 2017 World Series.
Think about that. Three World Series, all tainted. How can this end now? It can’t.
I don’t know where this ends. I do know we’re just getting started, and the wondrous thing is just how open and naked players are about the depth of their feelings of betrayal. But this isn’t ending with the Astros, and there’s almost certainly going to be further punishment. I don’t think we’ll see titles stripped - regardless of how badly Turner would like that - but there’s too much pain, too much anger for this to go away anytime soon. And it shouldn’t. There needs to be consequences.
What I’m reading and watching
In one of my private chats, a friend asked for some book recommendations. I just finished Jonathan Fenby’s France: A Modern History, and I’m almost done with Enrique Krauze’s Mexico: Biography of Power. Also in my rotation of books (all links either Indiebound, eBay or, if I can’t find it elsewhere, Amazon):
Hats in the Ring, Brad Koplinski: A collection of interviews with Presidential candidates about their campaigns. It’s uneven, but there’s some gems there, especially when the candidates open up. (Amazon)
Futbolera, Brenda Elsey & Joshua Nadel: A sublime history of how women navigated an exceptionally male-dominated preserve in a culture suffused with machismo. (Indiebound)
The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt: Just started this, and already I can tell this is going to be one of my favorite novels ever. The description (a single mom raises her son with the help of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai as a role model, among other things) can’t do it justice; if you see this, get it. At its core, DeWitt’s idea is that any mind is capable of feats we ascribe to genius. (Indiebound)
Love, Inc., Laurie Essig: this is a fascinating look at how we use “romance” (as embodied by apps, Big Wedding™, and so forth) as a coping ideology to deal with our lack of control over the societal, economic, and political structures that surround our life. Reading this because I’m interested in all things love, and, well, it’s February, QED. (Indiebound)
Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972-1976, Jules Witcover: so, in the beginning there was Theodore H. White. White memorialized the 1960 Presidential campaign in The Making of the President: 1960, which was probably the first modern “tick-tock” history of a Presidential campaign. Anyway, that was a huge hit, relatively speaking, because it covered a campaign in a way no one else had seen - novelistically. That begat White’s books covering the next three campaigns, through 1972. Witcover - no mean slouch at telling a story himself, a masterful political reporter who’s still working today, in his late nineties! - picked up the baton here, retelling the story of the 1976 Presidential campaign. I’m reading this because that campaign, more or less, resembles this one, and while history doesn’t repeat itself, it does resemble itself. (eBay)
As for what I’m watching: I have a free subscription to TV+, which is slowly gathering up the intellectual capital that’s departing HBO as AT&T mismanages it, so I decided to start watching For All Mankind. Why? I’m fascinated with space, and Mankind is premised on an alternate history in which the Space Race never ended (the Soviets land on the Moon first, beating us by a month), and America’s response is to fast-track women astronauts. You should watch it, especially because you probably have a free subscription to TV+, too, whether through Apple or your phone carrier or something.
Also in my TV queue: Star Trek: Picard (CBS All-Access), The Expanse (Amazon Originals), Dickinson (TV+), The New Pope (HBO)
OK, that’s what I got. I love you all so much. This week - though short - has been exhausting, and we’re just getting started with 2020. Let’s take care of ourselves and each other. I love what you’re all doing, I think you’re awesome; we may not be perfect people, but we’re called to a perfect mission, as one of my political and rhetorical role models once put it. Let’s rest up this weekend, so we may pursue that mission come the week.
If you think someone would like this, share with them, please? Thank you. And if you need anything, or just want to talk, I’m here; just hit reply. I’ll be listening.