Modern Fart (A Critical Review of I, Frankenstein)

This piece is officially under a Raphael Warning. I will henceforth be cool, but crude. Please stop reading now if you're offended by hypothetical penile trauma and/or you are my parents (or Aaron Eckhart, I guess?).

This evening, I stumbled upon what I believe to be the world's greatest hypothetical.

For those of you who can't see it. The question reads as follows:

Would you rather take a three second minor shock to the dick hole for free, or pay $25 to see I, Fartenstein?

Ignoring the iPhone's questionable take on the proper spelling of "dickhole," I feel like this is a question that bears dissection. (Though I fear that I've tipped my hand by christening it I, Fartenstein in my original question.)

For a refresher, here's the trailer.



The film (which I have not seen) apparently stars Aaron Eckhart as Frankenstein, a naming convention that I assume to be a decision of convenience by the filmmakers. His character should rightly be called Frankenstein's Monster or Monster T. Frankenstein, if he's adopted his creator's surname. Bill Nighy plays some kind of generic bad guy, who I've named Business Jerk. Yvonne Strahovski is also in it, playing Blonde.

At the start of the trailer, Frankenstein declares, "I am like none other," before confusingly announcing, "There's an entire army of monsters like me, tens of thousands of them," roughly a minute later.

I assume there is a reason for this, but I'll probably never find out what it is. I bet Frankenstein was cloned or something, or maybe someone found Dr. Frankenstein's notebook. Also, there are gargoyles? (And not cool ones like the Manhattan Clan.)

This appears to be your standard steampunk inspired bust 'em up featuring a some sort of superhuman protagonist with vaguely defined powers. You've seen this movie before.

Now lets turn to the other end of the hypothetical, the dickhole shock.

I haven't really worked out the delivery method of the shock (I'm not a weirdo), let's just assume it's convenient and you can do it without the presence of an audience. As defined in the question, it only lasts three seconds and is mild (think 9-volt battery on your tongue).

Let's do a comparative analysis of the two experiences.

• Dickhole shock is almost assuredly something you've never experienced before. I, Frankenstein is just Van Helsing all over again.
• Dickhole shock lasts 3 seconds. I, Frankenstein is 92 minutes.
• Dickhole shock costs you nothing. I, Frankenstein (in this scenario) costs you $25. With that kind of money you could see any other movie twice. 
• I, Frankenstein stars Bill Nighy, which is, admittedly, a point in its favor that Dickhole shock can't match. 

Being a consummate researcher, I've decided to expand my inquiry beyond just a simple comparative list. I presented eight of my friends with this very hypothetical and have catalogued their responses below:

"Dick shock for sure."
"I would rather see I, Fartenstein. That dick shock sounds unpleasant."
"Both."
"Yeah, put me down for simultaneous."
"Both as well. Have you seen the scars on his chiseled chest?"*
"It's really not that bad."

Unfortunately, my scientific survey went about as well as my score on the AP Stats test (2) suggests it would have. Out of eight responses, we got one for dickshock, one for the movie, three unsures, a non-response, one that was a mean joke that I won't reprint and one endorsement (?) from someone who had already seen the film.

*

You may ask why this film in particular has so raised my ire, especially now that I'm trying to follow Mack Brown's advice and abandon snark to embrace sincerity and kind-thinking. I, Frankenstein, has forfeited that mercy by being the latest in a long line of cynical, shallow, stupid and derivative movies that attempt to capitalize on the name recognition of characters that are conveniently out of copyright.

I, Frankenstein and its ilk are testaments to the laziness of the modern studio. It is grist for the mediocrity mill, and the mediocrity bakery never tires of producing soggy, inedible loaves of garbage-bread. That the film has gone so far as to deface our hallowed institutions like Muscle & Fitness magazine with seedy buzz marketing is unconscionable.

Let's be clear, I don't blame the thousands of cast and crew that worked on I, Frankenstein. I don't even blame the writer for churning it out. People have to eat, and I don't begrudge them work. I just wish their talents had been directed toward something better. You can make big, dumb action movies that don't hinge on high-concept nonsense to be successful. The best and most successful current action franchise is doing that every year.

I think the worst part about I, Frankenstein is that it was CLEARLY DOOMED TO FAIL. One look at the trailer was enough to know that it would never succeed, and it's not. It grossed $8 million on its opening weekend, which isn't a good sign of it making back its modest $65 million budget - especially factoring in whatever payola was involved in that magazine cover. That doesn't even show up on the official books!

I'm upset because I like movies, you guys. I want movies to be good and I wanted talented people to produce things of value. I don't even mind a bad movie if it at least tries to be interesting, but we're currently at peak steampunk monster capers and that's no good for anyone.

Stretch your wings, Hollywood, fly like the mighty gargoyles in the trailer. Crush your fears like so many Bill Nighys beneath Frankenstein's boot-heel. Heed my prophecy (you guys are into those right?) otherwise, audiences will continue to stay home and opt for dickhole shocks, and you'll have none to blame but yourselves.

Writing about Dr. V (A Losing Proposition)

Because the world is what it is and because I live in it, I feel obligated to write a response to the recently published, praised, criticized and now apologized for Grantland piece "Dr. V's Magical Putter" by Caleb Hannan.  Clocking in at around 8,000 words, the piece is the perfect low-culture, high-drama story for a journalistic atmosphere that puts increasing emphasis on the Longformification of news. After all, there can be no think pieces if we have nothing to think about.

As I write my response to this, it should be noted that I am only a journalist in the barest sense of the word. Like Hannan, my reporting has largely been confined to the world of sports. Unlike Hannan, I've never published anything that took up more than a few days of research, much less the seven months he spent reporting this story.

Unlike Hannan (as far as I know), I studied a field (religion) that actively intersects with many issues at play in his piece, namely, privilege, in-groups vs out-groups, patriarchy, oppression and LGBT issues. 

Despite this, like Hannan, I would have been utterly unprepared to report the story he eventually published. 

The gist of the story, if you haven't read it, is that Hannan was inspired to research a new putter he saw pitched on Youtube. The enigmatic Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt, inventor of the putter, agreed to let Hannan do a story on her work, on the basis that he focus on the creation and not the creator. 

(In order to avoid doing what Hannan did and exploit the mystery of Vanderbilt for the sake of narrative, I'll say up front that he learns that Vanderbilt is a trans woman.) 

Over the course of his investigation, Hannan discovered that Vanderbilt was not the brilliantly educated inventor that she told him she was. Vanderbilt claimed to be a doctor of physics with degrees from both MIT and Wharton, she did not possess those degrees. Nor did she work on the stealth bomber for the Department of Defense, another one of her claims. 

The "science" that Hannan was ostensibly reporting on turned out to be as scientific as those stupid focus necklaces that baseball players wear. 

This in itself is a pretty good story that would probably have occupied 10 minutes of your average Grantland reader's day.

Hannan didn't stop there.

In addition to uncovering Vanderbilt's phony credentials, Hannan also learned that Vanderbilt was a trans woman, which served to simultaneously explain why he was having so much trouble with his background check and also to "send a chill up his spine." 

Armed with this new information, Hannan tries to flesh out more of Vanderbilt's background. It's certainly chaotic - featuring several lawsuits, out of control finances and a suicide attempt. 

Vanderbilt is undoubtedly duplicitous. She is also a trans woman. These two things are not to be conflated, but the way Hannan writes the story, it sounds like they inevitably must be. 

In his efforts to confront Vanderbilt about this new information, Hannan only served to agitate the inventor. His excitement over his find eventually led to him outing Vanderbilt to an investor.

The story ends with Vanderbilt dead from suicide and Hannan wrapping up his piece rather abruptly, claiming that, "Writing a eulogy for someone who by all accounts despised you is an odd experience." 

This story came across my radar on the day it was published, with many of the sportswriters I follow praising it as a solid piece of reporting. I opened it, but didn't read it, because, well, I don't care about golf that much and I have a job and can't devote all my time to reading 8,000 word articles about a sport I don't follow. 

It came across my radar again a few days later, when the activist side of my feed started tweeting angrily about the story and responding to it. This is when I decided to read it.

Well first, I read a piece that my friend Audrey wrote on Autostraddle. Audrey's critique is relatively even-handed and instructional. She focuses less on the uproar the story caused within the activist community and more on educating people on how to report on trans issues. What I find most admirable about her work is that she manages to communicate a profound sadness that doesn't overwhelm the didacticism of the piece. 

Then I read Josh Levin's piece at Slate, because it had been recommended to me on Twitter. Levin's piece is more of a meditation on ethics and empathy within journalism. When you're in journalism school, you learn a lot about the first and only a little about the second. I remember in an early journalism class (one I shared with Audrey, in fact) being offput by the cavalier way my instructor talked about the subjects of some of her previous stories, as if they were merely performers in a narrative, rather than living human beings. As I understand it (keeping in mind that I have very little newsroom experience), most of the time, empathy is less important that a good story. 

It's through these two lenses that I actually first read Hannan's story. 

As I read, I looked for signs of malicious intent within what Hannan wrote, but I struggled to see it. What I found instead was inexperience, ineptness and a lack of compassion. 

(The paragraph that I just wrote is troubling to me as a human being. Regardless of Hannan's ambitions, his story likely deeply traumatized Vanderbilt and assuredly traumatized many trans people and allies that read it. I should, by all accounts, accept this as justification enough to let the story be what it is and not offer my own commentary. I will never understand what it's like to read this story through the eyes of a trans person, and any observations that I make are so much chaff to the winds of the internet. I have the luxury of writing about it almost dispassionately. 

[I'll confess that my lack of passion {or compassion} for a story in which someone takes their own life probably doesn't bother me as much as it should. Death, even tragic and avoidable death, is an aspect of the human experience that one inherently becomes desensitized to - unless it strikes you in a vulnerable part of your own soul. I don't believe this to be an admirable trait, but it's also probably necessary if you want to function - particularly as a journalist.]

I will say that I have no desire to defend or to vilify Hannan, and I don't know how much of that I can ascribe to my own privilege. Do I, as a young, cis writer, somehow feel a subconscious urge to defend/identify with someone who made several mistakes that I could easily see myself making? 

[Again, this line of questions raises further doubts within me. Is it appropriate for me to even consider my own thoughts and feelings on this story when nothing will change except that maybe my friends on Facebook will be made aware of this controversy? The trauma that the story inflicted will remain, and I will remain incapable of fully processing it.

{Of course, is this line of questioning inherently devaluing of my own contribution <however meager> to the discourse? Should I automatically recuse myself from writing about things just because I can't feel them in the way that others can, or in the way that I would like to?

<We descend down the nautilus further and ask, Does it matter how I feel? Are my thoughts germane to the discourse on any level? Is all of this just an exercise in stupid hubris? This whole exercise sort of makes me feel like I'm being callous in the face of tragedy, and that's not the person I want to be.>}])

I found the following issues with Hannan's piece:

He was clearly trying to tell me something, which is why he began emphasizing certain words. Every time he said “she” or “her” I could practically see him making air quotes. Finally it hit me. Cliché or not, a chill actually ran up my spine.

Hannan's eureka moment is remarkably poorly worded. Not only does the spine chill imagery conjure up a sinister vibe, it's at this point that he (perhaps unintentionally) begins to suggest a correlation between Vanderbilt's gender and her duplicitous business practices.

Here is what I now know about Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt, inventor of the Oracle GX1 putter. She was born a boy on July 12, 1953, in Philadelphia. She was given the name Stephen Krol, a person who has not received degrees from MIT or the University of Pennsylvania. She has been married at least twice, and the brother of one of Krol’s ex-wives says Dr. V has two children, possibly more.

This information may be pertinent to Hannan's investigation, but it isn't necessarily pertinent to the story of Essay Anne Vanderbilt, professional huckster. Also, a cursory viewing of any of the style guides for writing about trans people (which, in the wake of this, have been widely tweeted) would have immediately let Hannan know that the phrase "she was born a boy" is not appropriate.

(I am kind of interested to see how the language that we use when we talk about trans people evolves. "She was born a boy" contains an inherent disconnect between pronoun and noun, but functions as a piece of descriptive [if offensive] language. I wonder, as trans people and their stories become more integrated into the mainstream, if the rhetorical edifice that has been created around the group will begin to naturally erode? I suppose not anytime soon, especially as some of the more perverse denizens of the internet seem to take great joy in misusing pronouns solely for the purpose of hurting people. There's also the move toward gender neutral pronouns, which I don't see taking off, for no other reason than that people can't be bothered.)

Things get more complicated from there. Were I Hannan, I would probably have done my best to report the story without outing Vanderbilt or revealing her previous name, but he's already decided on his course of action.

She worked as general manager at Trax Bar and Grill, an LGBT bar in Kent, Washington. She was the subject of three separate harassment claims from her time there, including one from a male coworker who said she made “inappropriate comments about her breasts and genitalia.”

Again, we have a seeming conflation of Vanderbilt's identity with her aberrant behavior. Relating these harassment claims themselves is a bit of an ethical quandary outside of the outing issue. Hannan is clearly painting a picture of an unstable person who is defrauding her investors, but are these misdeeds germane to his story? (I don't think they are, but I also don't think anyone would have attacked Hannan for publishing them if the story had just been about a shady inventor, with no mention of Vanderbilt's trans status.)

Hannan continues with some more pronoun waffling, but seems to be doing his best to use masculine pronouns when referring to Vanderbilt at the time she identified as male and feminine ones when she identifies as female. (Again, style guides say to always use the pronoun that the subject requests, but I don't think Hannan was being deliberately hurtful in this instance.)

The darkest discovery was something that occurred after Krol had decided to live as Dr. V. In 2008, she tried to kill herself with an overdose of prescription drugs and carbon monoxide poisoning from closing herself in a garage with her car running.

What should have been a warning sign to Hannan about the potential destruction that his story could unleash instead turns into another chalk on the "Vanderbilt is Unstable" ledger. Upon realizing the depths of her troubles, he should have tried to find a graceful way to wrap up the story or spiked it.

(I'm not naive enough to believe any editor would spike a story like this.

[Also, this isn't to say that a history of self-destructive behavior is reason enough to stop reporting a story. In this instance, however, Hannan was reporting on what appeared to be a particularly at-risk person from a particularly at-risk group.])

What began as a story about a brilliant woman with a new invention had turned into the tale of a troubled man who had invented a new life for himself.

Stop doing this, Hannan. Stop equating her deceit with her identity.

Things get even weirder once Hannan backs off of his quest to uncover Vanderbilt's past. He goes back and talks to the investors that he seems to believe he is protecting, and they all seem to like the putter and take no issue with Vanderbilt's fabrications. So this whole expose eventually comes to naught, which could have been a funny ending, if Hannan had just written about his obsessive quest to expose a fraud who didn't actually hurt anyone. Instead, he exposes Vanderbilt's trans status to her investor and provokes her further. Vanderbilt eventually breaks off contact.

Over the course of what was now eight months of reporting, Dr. V had accused me of being everything from a corporate spy to a liar and a fraud. She had also threatened me. One of the quotes I was able to type down during our last conversation was this: “You have no idea what I have done and what I can do.” It’s not all that menacing when transcribed, but her tone made it clear she believed she could harm me. Yet despite all that, the main emotion I felt while reading her desperate, last-ditch email was sadness. Although there were times when I had been genuinely thrilled with the revelation that Dr. V’s official narrative didn’t line up with reality, there was nothing satisfying about where the story had ended up. People had been hurt by Dr. V’s lies, but she was the person who seemed to be suffering most.

Well, no one appeared to have been hurt in any lasting way, and any suffering imposed on Vanderbilt appears to have come from Hannan's prying. How much is related to her being exposed as a fraud and how much is related to her being exposed as trans, I can't say.

This doesn't excuse Vanderbilt's behavior. Had Hannan published the story without outing her to anyone, I would say that she earned any consequences that came her way. When you defraud people and agree to a story about said fraudulent enterprise, I can't blame a journalist for digging.

That's beside the point, though, as we'll never know what would have happened if Hannan had published that version of the piece.

Not long after she sent her email, I got a call from a Pennsylvania phone number that I didn’t recognize. It was Dr. V’s ex-brother-in-law, who represented the closest I had gotten to finding someone who could tell me what she’d been like in her previous life. “Well, there’s one less con man in the world now,” he said. Even though he hated his former family member, this seemed like an especially cruel way to tell me that Dr. V had died. All he could tell me was what he knew — that it had been a suicide.

The fallout from Vanderbilt's suicide (and it's reveal) are handled almost clinically. Hannan wraps up his piece and that's about it. There's no mention of the high incidence of suicide amongst the trans community and no real soul-searching by Hannan about whatever role he may or may not have played. It just ends, and then the commentary begins.

Some of that commentary suggests that Hannan's story is the reason that Vanderbilt killed herself. This is reductive and a bad way to talk about suicide and mental illness. Suicide is a uniquely personal act, and, just as it would be unfair to blame Vanderbilt's partner for her previous attempt, so would it be unfair to blame Hannan for her death.

Beyond all of the points I made throughout Hannan's piece, the thing that most baffled me was that it seemed that no one at Grantland thought to ask for the input of a trans writer or editor. Grantland is bothersome in many ways, but it is an outlet that strives for inclusivity. That they wouldn't think to use this simple stop-gap truly baffled this blogger.

(I didn't know at the time whether they had any trans writers. I would soon learn that they do not, but ESPN as a whole does.)

Other points about the gross insensitivity of the piece stand, and as I read them, I somewhat morbidly awaited the official response from Grantland.

I truly had no idea what to expect, as deliverer of said response was to be Grantland's Editor-in-Chief Bill Simmons.

Simmons is an avowed bro who has never done any reporting in his life. He somehow ended up the head of the most prestigious of ESPN's many appendages with his scintillating insights into which 80s starlet Rajon Rondo most embodies. Why any outlet looking to do serious reporting would entrust him with editorial oversight is beyond my ken.

I was surprised by the thoughtfulness of his piece when it went up this afternoon.

In it, Simmons apologizes and offers up the best explanation that he can.

To be clear, Caleb only interacted with her a handful of times. He never, at any time, threatened to out her on Grantland. He was reporting a story and verifying discrepancy issues with her background. That’s it. Just finding out facts and asking questions. This is what reporters do. She had been selling a “magical” putter by touting credentials that didn’t exist. Just about everything she had told Caleb, at every point of his reporting process, turned out not to be true. There was no hounding. There was no badgering. It just didn’t happen that way.

I have no way of knowing whether Simmons is telling the truth here, but if he is, I understand why Grantland and Hannan didn't seem to recognize how destructive the story could be to Vanderbilt. As far as Vanderbilt (and Hannan) knew at the time, the story wasn't going to out Vanderbilt.

Of course, Vanderbilt may not have believed Hannan when he claimed that he wouldn't out her. She may have seen his unearthing of her past as a violation of the "science not the scientist" agreement, and therefore been disinclined to trust him.

(I, personally, don't believe that Hannan violated said agreement when he researched Vanderbilt's credentials. He did not do so with malicious intent, and, when he discovered that she was a fraud, the story of the science and the scientist became inseparable - gender identity notwithstanding.)

Caleb’s biggest mistake? Outing Dr. V to one of her investors while she was still alive. I don’t think he understood the moral consequences of that decision, and frankly, neither did anyone working for Grantland. That misstep never occurred to me until I discussed it with Christina Kahrl yesterday. But that speaks to our collective ignorance about the issues facing the transgender community in general, as well as our biggest mistake: not educating ourselves on that front before seriously considering whether to run the piece.

This is unconscionable and speaks to the worst parts of sports reporting. It's a male dominated field that, up until the past decade, was the bastion of the "moralist" using thinly-veiled codewords to perpetuate racist and sexist ideas that were really only tenable in the backward world of sport. Recently, it's been a field at war with itself, as the progressive voices doing battle with the fuddy-duddies are dismissed as illegitimate by established powers.

Grantland is one of the outlets that attempts a synthesis of these styles, and it's baffling to me that Hannan (who is only 31) didn't realize how inappropriate it was for him to out Vanderbilt, even in "private." It's even more baffling that someone on the Grantland staff didn't recognize this.

As we debated internally whether to run the piece, four issues concerned us. First, we didn’t know about any of the legal ramifications. That’s why we had multiple lawyers read it. Second, we were extremely worried — obviously — about running a piece about a subject who took her own life during the tail end of the reporting process. How would that be received externally? Was the story too dark? Was it exploitative? Would we be blamed for what happened to her? And third, we worried about NOT running the piece when Caleb’s reporting had become so intertwined with the last year of Dr. V’s life. Didn’t we have a responsibility to run it? The fourth issue, and this almost goes without saying: Not only did we feel terrible about what happened to Dr. V, we could never really know why it happened. Nor was there any way to find out.

1) Don't lead with that, Bill. It seems callous.
2) Justifiable concerns.
3) Irrelevant.
4) Tasteless, but honest?

Maybe that should have been enough of a reason to back off. In fact, we almost did. Multiple times. We never worried about outing her posthumously, which speaks to our ignorance about this topic in general. (Hold that thought.) We should have had that discussion before we posted the piece. (Hold that thought, too.) In the moment, we believed you couldn’t “out” someone who was already dead, especially if she was a public figure.

Not knowing that post-humous outing was wrong is ridiculous and stupid, but believable, and again leads me to think that neither Hannan nor Grantland had any malicious intent in reporting the story. This could be wishful conjecture on my part, and I acknowledge it as such. Simmons is also really stretching the definition of "public figure."

(I don't know why I seem to want to believe that Hannan and Grantland didn't intend to out Vanderbilt while she was alive, especially after their bungling makes it clear that their grasp of trans issues is less a grasp and more some sort of half-hearted swat. I do though. I don't know if it's because I want to believe this all could have been avoided. Come to think of it, I don't know why I'm seeking a justification for this story to exist at all. My life would not be any different if this story had never been reported, but Vanderbilt may still be alive.)

Whether you believe we were right or wrong, let’s at least agree that we made an indefensible mistake not to solicit input from ANYONE in the trans community. But even now, it’s hard for me to accept that Dr. V’s transgender status wasn’t part of this story. Caleb couldn’t find out anything about her pre-2001 background for a very specific reason. Let’s say we omitted that reason or wrote around it, then that reason emerged after we posted the piece. What then?

Simmons is correct in saying they should have solicited input from the trans community. He's incorrect in saying that Vanderbilt's identity is a part of the story, had Grantland not reported it, Deadspin or some other blog would have eventually unearthed that part of it and Grantland would likely have been praised for doing the right thing in not reporting it.

Before we officially decided to post Caleb’s piece, we tried to stick as many trained eyeballs on it as possible. Somewhere between 13 and 15 people read the piece in all, including every senior editor but one, our two lead copy desk editors, our publisher and even ESPN.com’s editor-in-chief. All of them were blown away by the piece. Everyone thought we should run it. Ultimately, it was my call. So if you want to rip anyone involved in this process, please, direct your anger and your invective at me. Don’t blame Caleb or anyone that works for me. It’s my site and anything this significant is my call. Blame me. I didn’t ask the biggest and most important question before we ran it — that’s my fault and only my fault.

I don't have much to add here. Simmons takes responsibility, but in a way that really has no consequences or meaning beyond being a symbolic act that any editor would do.

That mistake: Someone familiar with the transgender community should have read Caleb’s final draft. This never occurred to us. Nobody ever brought it up. Had we asked someone, they probably would have told us the following things … 

1. You never mentioned that the transgender community has an abnormally high suicide rate. That’s a crucial piece — something that actually could have evolved into the third act and an entirely different ending. But you missed it completely. 

2. You need to make it more clear within the piece that Caleb never, at any point, threatened to out her as he was doing his reporting. 

3. You need to make it more clear that, before her death, you never internally discussed the possibility of outing her (and we didn’t). 

4. You botched your pronoun structure in a couple of spots, which could easily be fixed by using GLAAD’s style guide for handling transgender language. 

5. The phrase “chill ran down my spine” reads wrong. Either cut it or make it more clear what Caleb meant. 

6. Caleb never should have outed Dr. V to one of her investors; you need to address that mistake either within the piece, as a footnote, or in a separate piece entirely.
(And maybe even … ) 

7. There’s a chance that Caleb’s reporting, even if it wasn’t threatening or malicious in any way, invariably affected Dr. V in ways that you never anticipated or understood. (Read Christina Kahrl’s thoughtful piece about Dr. V and our errors in judgment for more on that angle.) 

To my infinite regret, we never asked anyone knowledgeable enough about transgender issues to help us either (a) improve the piece, or (b) realize that we shouldn’t run it. That’s our mistake — and really, my mistake, since it’s my site. So I want to apologize. I failed.

It's here where I admit that I don't know what I would do if I had been Bill Simmons in this situation. Neither his publication, nor his writer, planned on or threatened to out Vanderbilt. Still, she killed herself, possibly due to pressure from Hannan's reporting. What do you do with the story now that she's dead? You could do what they did, you could spike it, or you could try to rewrite it tastefully. Honestly, none of those options really appeal to me.

So for anyone asking the question “How could you guys run that?,” please know that we zoomed through the same cycle of emotions that so many of our readers did. We just didn’t see the other side. We weren’t sophisticated enough. In the future, we will be sophisticated enough — at least on this particular topic. We’re never taking the Dr. V piece down from Grantland partly because we want people to learn from our experience. We weren’t educated, we failed to ask the right questions, we made mistakes, and we’re going to learn from them.

"Learning experiences" are often overvalued. It's a sentimental trick we play on ourselves to try to escape the shame of past failures. In situations where a life is lost, the "learning experience" maxim rings even more hollow.

It's also the only response Simmons can have in this situation. You may think it's a deplorable sentiment for Grantland to whitewash a death with this hackneyed idea, but what's the alternative? At a certain point, the phrase "blood from a stone" comes to mind. Grantland fucked up in a profound way. That's the thing about tragedy, it's profoundly pointless and people will do whatever they can to construct a meaning around it. Grantland (and the media at large) using this experience to ensure that something like this never happens again in the world of journalism doesn't in any way mitigate the loss of Vanderbilt's life, but it will hopefully serve as a sobering reminder of how journalistic intentions can have mortal consequences.

If you've somehow made it all the way through my drivel, I'd encourage you to read What Grantland Got Wrong - a piece by ESPN baseball writer and trans woman Christina Kahrl. She's a better writer than me and offers a real perspective on this issue. 

Things I Like of the Year (Twitter Edition)

When I was in journalism school, one of the big buzzwords was "content curation." Apparently, all of us were going to make a living finding and disseminating content, rather than coming up with it ourselves.

This seems to be a viable strategy if Buzzfeed and the various Buzzfeed clones are to be believed, but I'm not convinced it's a sustainable way for an entire generation of journalism students to find employment.

The reason it's not sustainable, of course, is because you really only need one content curator, if that curator has impeccable taste. He or she could be the lighthouse of the digital age, guiding us through the murky ebbs and flows of the world wide web.

Where could we find such a person, such a paragon, such a savior?

Look no further noble netizens, for I have revealed myself, Kyle, the once and future content curator.

Look upon these tweets with amusement and wonder, for I have traveled across the ages to bundle them for you.

Come, take a peak inside my stupid head. Please don't judge me for my weird sense of humor.

Here are some Twitter accounts that I liked from 2013 (and before and beyond):

Twitter Japesters

@wettbutt

ive done time. i was actually in a prison yard gang: the Prison Is Bad boys. we would show the guards our "i hate jail" tats...they HATED em
— John V (@wettbutt) January 13, 2014

[looks at sky] futile [looks at city] futile [looks at forests] futile [looks at awkward gif from television show] i believe in unseen order
— John V (@wettbutt) January 11, 2014

Tired of the rampant backstabbing going on online these days. just want fucking peace for earth but instead theres digital pain spreading
— John V (@wettbutt) January 11, 2014

John V amuses me because he uses the tools of internet culture to make fun of internet culture. In his tweets, he often references being owned online as if it's an actual thing worth caring about, pointing out the inherent absurdity of such concerns. His tweets make it sound like he despises the prevalence of irony (or at least what that word has come to mean in our current culture), but he doesn't necessarily traffic in sincerity (irony's chief rival), he's operating on another plane, post-irony. John V is at the forefront of the irony wars, he will one day pilot a mech constructed entirely out of Jonathan Safran Foer novels.

He also sometimes tweets earnestly about the work he does as music therapist, which is a cool thing to do and elevates him beyond joke robot status. He's partially responsible for The Subpranos.

@bransonbranson

if it was 10000 years in the past i would be so good at fighting others with axes and instead i gotta be like 'uhh yeah im a team player'
— BRANSON (@bransonbranson) January 13, 2014

Branson is cool because he's a big guy from Missouri with a beard and a puffy coat. He likes sports, which is also cool. I like the Appalachian flair that he brings to Twitter, it's a nice change of pace from bi-coastal know-it-alls. He also invented Teen Orc, which is one of my favorite twitter things ever. (Between when I wrote this [Wednesday night] and now, he posted this Teen Orc Retrospective, which is great.)

Characters

I like twitter characters because they give me something to follow when I'm at work and can't watch TV.

@dadboner

Havin' issues gettin' my snow business, "K-Money's Klean-up Krew" off the ground. Spray painted the initials on my coat. Kinda concerning.
— Karl Welzein (@DadBoner) January 10, 2014

Walkin' around the Flint area with KKK spray painted on your coat is like...well, it's like what it sounds like.
— Karl Welzein (@DadBoner) January 10, 2014

Have to wear my KKK winter coat inside out now. Can't zip it up that way so I have to pre-zip and pull it over. Takes 20 minutes to get off.
— Karl Welzein (@DadBoner) January 10, 2014

Sad-sack Karl Welzein is a pretty well known Twitter commodity at this point, so much so that creator Mike Burns has released a book based on the character. While Karl may have slowly devolved from a bored dad to a self-destructive idiot, there's still something inspirational and true in his perpetual belief that K-Money Welzein will overcome his sad station and actualize his inner rockstar, only to thwart himself by jettisoning these dreams as soon as he finds a distraction. Karl is America.

@love_that_goku

one year ago i was on top of the world i hit the police w/ my car look at me now i reside in a toyota camry
— love_that_goku (@Love_that_Goku) November 12, 2013

Goku had a beautiful home and look at me. living in a car with my uncle and his androgynous thundercat wife
— love_that_goku (@Love_that_Goku) November 12, 2013

i am concerned Small Christian is struggling to pack on muscle mass. I must get him up to 30 lbs before he turns 11 months
— love_that_goku (@Love_that_Goku) January 15, 2014

i need to get Small Christian on a strict protein based diet but my sister watches him very closely
— love_that_goku (@Love_that_Goku) January 15, 2014

i shall sneak him hotdogs while his mother slumbers
— love_that_goku (@Love_that_Goku) January 15, 2014

Love_that_goku (aka Christian H.) is a teenage immigrant from South America who aspires to be Goku from the seminal, glacially paced anime Dragon Ball Z (also Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT). His quest for power has led him to allegedly burn down his neighbor's house, attempt to sabotage his Quantum Leap loving uncle's wedding and leave his infant nephew in the woods in order to build strength in the child. The only thing that rivals Christian's passion for DBZ is his hatred of the police, which led to several confrontations between he and the local police force. He was also once cyber-bullied by Blues Traveler.

i am being cyber bullied by blues traveler
— love_that_goku (@Love_that_Goku) August 12, 2013

My favorite thing about Christian is his overwhelming positivity in the face of adversity.

when life seem tough you can think of my words: you have an endless supply of potential, you are strong+brave. you look great
— love_that_goku (@Love_that_Goku) June 2, 2013

The guy that runs this account, Lucas Gardner, has a couple of other funny characters, but none touch me like this young warrior from Ecuador (I think that's where he's from).

@PFTCommenter

goign from watching Kapernick verse Newton 2 Manning verse Brady is like going from reading Chingy album liner notes 2 reading the Bible IMO
— PFTCommenter (@PFTCommenter) January 13, 2014

if sean payton really wanted 2 make New Orleans seem like Seattle he should of just started a litracy campiagn
— PFTCommenter (@PFTCommenter) January 8, 2014

PFTC started as a little joke account mocking the thinly veiled racism and general backwards-ass nature of the commenters on Pro Football Talk, but his empire has quickly grown to the point where he's regularly posting editorials on both SBNation and Kissing Suzy Kolber. Whoever runs this account is a genius and regularly pulls transcendent pop culture references into his idiotic breakdowns of NFL action. My favorite PFTC joke is either when he described Jeff Garcia as a "Gruden Grindr" or, after a game in which the Patriots lost on a close call to Carolina and Tom Brady chased the refs into the locker room, he said that it may have been a "stand your ground situation" if Cam Newton had tried to do the same thing.

Real People

@jon_bois

i now declare the mlb hot stove open for business! it will be interesting to see who will make some moves … and who will be hung out to dry
— Jon Bois (@jon_bois) January 15, 2014

i truly feel that 2014 will be known as the year of consumer tech
— Jon Bois (@jon_bois) January 13, 2014

Jon Bois is a writer for SBNation from Louisville. His tweets are charmingly silly and direct, kind of like a sports and pop culture takes through the mind of a child or a web-savvy grandfather. When he's not tweeting goofy jokes, he does Breaking Madden and manages SBNation's vast archive of GIFs. He also invented SupperJumpin'.

@emilynussbaum

Do bad guys in real life really lick their victims? Who invented this sinister gesture?
— emilynussbaum (@emilynussbaum) January 14, 2014

There is no grosser corporate buzzword than "content."
— emilynussbaum (@emilynussbaum) January 13, 2014

I mean, I get that people need something to refer to everything from books to TV shows to Vines to tweets to Cronuts, but it is so sinister.
— emilynussbaum (@emilynussbaum) January 13, 2014

Emil Nussbaum is the television critic for the New Yorker. Her tweets don't often make me laugh, but she's far and away my favorite TV critic. It helps that she's not hamstrung by having to do weekly recaps like my two other favorite critics (Todd VanDerWerff [@tvoti] and Alan Sepinwall [@sepinwall]). It probably also helps that we have nearly identical tastes. She was the first proponent of the "Bad Fan" Breaking Bad theory and she's one of the few public defenders of unfairly maligned shows like The Mindy Project and unfairly ignored shows like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. She's also quite chatty with her readers on Twitter, which I always appreciate.

@TCUCoachP

#recruitingisheatingup
— Gary Patterson (@TCUCoachP) January 16, 2014

Great pass rushers!RT @GoogleEarthPics: Transient Bigg's Orca on the Move, Marina Island, Canada #EarthPics http://t.co/Dn4ALlyy0V
— Gary Patterson (@TCUCoachP) January 10, 2014

On the sideline, TCU head coach Gary Patterson looks like a humorless orb of defensive acumen. On Twitter, however, he is perpetually delighted by pictures of animals moving in ways that remind him of his gridiron pupils. While colleagues Kevin Sumlin and Steve Sarkisian take a slightly more understated approach to announcing new commits on twitter (tweeting "yessir" and "woof woof" respectively [though now that he's at USC, I don't know what Sark will tweet, judging by his proven tendency to stick with the same thing over and over, probably "woof woof"]), Coach Patterson knows that subtlety is just another tool of the deceiver, and instead chooses the phrase "#recruitingisheatingup." It may be patently silly, and also potentially violate NCAA bylaws regarding social media, but CGP is nothing but a straight shooter. Just look at his response to haters.

YesRT @OKStateProbs: Is there a school in Texas that plays defense?
— Gary Patterson (@TCUCoachP) January 2, 2014

:)RT @perfectbabies: Christmas puppies! pic.twitter.com/ls1M3IIqT5
— Gary Patterson (@TCUCoachP) December 14, 2013

It is impossible to dislike this man.

@UT_MackBrown

Prior to Mack Brown resigning as the head coach of the Longhorns, his Twitter account was filled with useless inspirational coaching pablum like this.

“When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.” – Terry Bradshaw
— Mack Brown (@UT_MackBrown) December 3, 2013

I can only imagine this was because someone like Nick Voinis in the athletic department was handling Mack's social media duties. Now that he's divested himself of his duties as a head coach, Mack's Twitter is genuinely spectacular. From live tweeting the MNC game and the Golden Globes, to these weird genuine bursts of human enthusiasm, Mack has become a must follow.

Never been to a tail gate before. That will be fun. I could learn to like that
— Mack Brown (@UT_MackBrown) January 9, 2014

Just having some fun! That's ok. We all need to have more fun
— Mack Brown (@UT_MackBrown) January 9, 2014

Twitter is fun when used right. Thx for joining in
— Mack Brown (@UT_MackBrown) January 9, 2014

Congrats to my great friend Matthew Mc on his Golden Globe for Dallas Buyers Club. Great movie. He is the Best. Love U my friend
— Mack Brown (@UT_MackBrown) January 13, 2014

Mack is like Wall-E (the robot from the film Wall-E), he's spent the past 30+ years as a football automaton, and now we're watching him rediscover his humanity online. He's got good taste in TV too.

We all enjoyed Friday Nights Lights. Kyle Chandler is a great actor & man. Miss the show & look to his future acting pic.twitter.com/jCINurTJAj
— Mack Brown (@UT_MackBrown) January 12, 2014

Even his inspirational doofiness has improved.

"I've learned that something constructive comes from every defeat." Tom Landry
— Mack Brown (@UT_MackBrown) January 15, 2014

Love all Coach Landry stood for but would still rather win and be less constructive. Ha!
— Mack Brown (@UT_MackBrown) January 15, 2014

He's appropriated Karl's trademark "Ha!" at the end of tweets. How did we ever fire this man?

@kyleagregory

I have a zit on my back.
— kyleagregory (@kyleagregory) January 4, 2014

I am the best at Twitter.

My Friend, Aaron (A Commissioned Piece)

It's hard out there for a young hustler, gang, so today I'm doing something heretofore unseen - I'm writing a blog on commission.

Because this is The Web 2.0, I did not ask for monetary compensation, instead, I will be paid in page views, the currency of the future. In the land of the luddite, the content generator is king.

My subject for this piece is my erstwhile roommate of three years, Aaron. I was going to post a screencap of Aaron's request, until I realized that he had written something inappropriate. (Poor form, Aaron).

I met Aaron at a very weird time in my life. It was my first semester at UT and, as a transfer student, I wasn't as able to seamlessly integrate into friend groups the way I imagine a freshman might. I spent most of my time with my friend John, who was from Lubbock, and a handful of girls that I met through John.

It was also the most explicitly churchy I think that I've ever been. In a bid to make friends, I joined a Christian student organization (I'll just say that it's Ignite, which is a great org, despite what the thoughts of young Kyle may make it seem like as this entry progresses) that John's roommate, Matt, had been a part of. I was also attending Austin Stone and Campus Crusade every week, as well as a weekly bible study.

(I've mentioned this before, but, it was actually due to said bible study that I stopped writing when I got to Austin. I told the leader that my biggest aspiration was to be a famous writer and without missing a beat, he asked if I had asked God to take that away from me. He was, I now realize, making a misguided point about pride, but I took it to mean that it was sinful of me to myself on a pedestal as a "creative." [All of this churchiness eventually led to a profound crisis of faith at the end of that semester that took several months to shake.])

Despite being surrounded by lots of friendly people who were very much like myself, I only grew increasingly more isolated. As the doubts began to creep up around the edges of my mind, I felt like a phony whenever I went to an Ignite meeting. Externally, I was growing more and more proficient in navigating the world of the Christian collegiate underclassman (which was even more obsessively positive than my Evangelical high school), but internally I felt more and more conflicted about who I was.

It got to the point that I was using faith religiosity as a weapon. I remember walking past Fiji house or down West Campus and seething at all the sinning going on - halfway earnestly and halfway resentfully. Couldn't these folks see how futile their ways were, and how much more noble my path was?

(My 20-year-old self was possibly more slavishly devoted to academia than even present Kyle. The conflux of first year philosophy [where I was, I believed, reinventing myself as a modern day Platonist {with an extremely limited understanding of Plato}] and physical anthropology [where what I was learning about evolution seemed deeply at odds with what I was learning about sin and death at Austin Stone {it was actually my anthro professor who helped to untangle me from my web of confusion, simply by showing me grace after I missed an assignment}] were creating some bastard stoic skeptic who was convinced that he could overcome the folly of man solely through will power.)

It's unsurprising then, that, in the midst of this ontological quagmire, I found it difficult to connect with the shiny happy people of Ignite. To my mind, there were only a handful of honest ones among them. Everyone was putting on show, lacking the courage to admit to their own doubts and faults. (I was being more courageous, obviously, by holding back my festering cynicism, sparing them my Old Testament rebuke of their false piety.)

My transformation into a full Doubting Thomas (he of the original fear masquerading as piety) utterly isolated me from the good people of Ignite, though I was loathe to blame anyone but the Stepford Christians that I was bearing witness to.

(Through the lens of age, I'm able to see that Young Kyle was not entirely wrong in his assessment of those early days in Ignite. There was an element of duplicity present, but that veil of holiness lifted some when everyone returned for their second year of school. At that time, I started to suddenly like all of these people I had previously resented [whether that was more a product of them being more honest or me being less of an asshole, I can't say.] Said veil was fully cast aside once everyone could drink and that last barrier between virginal Christian naif and Lutherian besotted theologizer was lifted.)

Despite my apprehensions about the overall tenor of Ignite, I, like your racist great-uncle, was willing to admit that there were a handful of good ones.

I started eating lunch regularly at the Kinsolving cafeteria with an assortment of friends and acquaintances who had come together through some combination of Ignite, orientation, church and high school. It was there that I first met Aaron, jew-froed, aggressively asexual and unabashedly dorky. Aaron had not been in Ignite, he'd found his way into my orbit through a mutual friend. He also didn't come from an Evangelical background, which lent him an air of authenticity that I was struggling to find in those early days. He was also attached at the hip to Erik (another future roommate), but I wasn't as fond of Erik in the early going because he was macking on a girl that John had a crush on, and I'm a loyal friend.

(Erik's macking ultimately produced no fruit [nor did John's, actually] a theme that would continue for the majority of his college career).

Early on in our lunch club days, I determined that Aaron might make a suitable friend when I learned that his ringtone was a White Stripes song. Sure, the White Stripes weren't as cool as whatever I was into at the time (mopey white-boy rock), but it wasn't Hillsong, which was a welcome change of pace.

(My estimation of Aaron fell almost immediately when I learned that his phone was going off because he'd contacted someone on Craiglist about buying Wolfmother tickets. [This exchange did provide several years of fodder about Aaron giving someone a handjob for Wolfmother tickets, so it was ultimately worth it.])

What drew me to Aaron was his sincerity and the way he honestly seemed happy every time he saw me. My affection for him was cemented one day when, on the way to a football game, John and I passed him and he gave me the friendliest hello I'd ever received. It's still the image that I conjure in my mind whenever I think about Aaron.

The months of the calendar turned and I started hanging out with Aaron and Erik more frequently.

At some point in the Spring, a group of us, Aaron and Erik included, went camping out at some state park outside Bastrop. We went on a hike and took the stupid midair pictures that everyone was obsessed with in 2010. I spent over three hours trying to boil rice and failed because I couldn't figure out the camp stove. (Everyone ate it anyway out of politeness/severe hunger.) Aaron showed off his Eagle Scout abilities by failing to start a fire.

After night fell, a group of us broke out the hookah (mistress of my youth) and cigars, while the other, decidedly more female, group sang around the campfire as a friend of ours tried to impress the assembled girls with his musical skills.

Thirty minutes into the caterwauling, a park ranger appeared to chasten us for being so noisy. He noticed the hookah, questioned us about it briefly and then went on his way. Rather than use this as a moment of reflection, the guitar crew immediately began griping about how the smoking was the real issue.

Regardless, everyone turned in and only Aaron, Erik and I remained huddled outside the campfire. (Conventionally, I normally refer to the two as a unit as Erik and Aaron, I've been using Aaron's name first so far since the piece is ostensibly about him.) It was around that campfire that we had the crucial God, girls, family talk that solidifies male relationships. Then we all retired, bonded, to the coldest and least comfortable tent I've ever tried to sleep in.

Aaron and Erik were the first two guys that I really connected to at Texas, and that moment was especially cathartic for me. I hadn't realized it, but I was desperate for companionship.

Of course, that moment didn't do a whole lot to knock down the edifice I had constructed around myself. I had friends, but I still saw myself as a role model to these young bucks fresh out of high school.

My role modeling didn't really manifest itself in any form of mentorship, it mostly came out as pedantry and mockery.

Erik, Aaron, our friend Matt, Aaron's brother and myself joined forces officially the next year and rented a house not far from campus. Because we were too cool for frats, but not too cool for juvenile irony, we went out to the Hobby Lobby and purchased a plywood B and a plywood V, which we fashioned into a delta, then spray-painted and hung above our door. The Beta Delta was born.

(The Beta Delta moniker took on a weird life of its own amongst our friends. In truth it didn't stand for anything, but somehow it came to be whispered that it stood for "booty dooty" or "boner donor" [a phrase that only led to more mysteries. Who was donating the boner? Was it the possessor of the boner, or was it the person that inspired the boner? Debate rages on.] I like to think it stands for Big Dawg, but I lay no firm claim on the acronym.)

Moving into the Beta Delta coincided with me turning 21, which led to me asserting my hipness and authenticity by quietly drinking by myself in front of everyone whenever my roommates had people over. At this point, Erik and Aaron had joined Ignite and I had left it. They knew some of my feelings about it, so there was tension there (at least on my end, it was probably exclusive to my end). They had also started leading a small group through Austin Stone, a church that I had left on principle, which led to more tension whenever folks would come over and repeat sermons that I found personally abhorrent and damaging to the image of God.

(No one is so ardent a defender of the image of God as a 21 year old who's gotten his or her first taste of the academic study of spirituality. It was far easier for me to sit in silent judgment with a Big Dawg Rita in my glass than it was to try to engage with anyone in a meaningful way.)

It would have been cool if I had tried to actually do something remotely mentory in my younger roommates lives, but I did not. It's something I spend a lot of time regretting whenever I think about it.

It wasn't all me being an obnoxious know-it-all. We had lots of adventures. We put a pool on the roof (used once.) We hosted campfires in our backyard. We bought baby chicks and subsequently held a viking funeral for them in the same campfire. We got into squabbles with our nefarious landlord, Raheem. It was a pretty great time.

Throughout it all, Erik and Aaron were growing up and I was retreating more and more, internally. I remember calling Lindsey one evening and crying because I didn't feel like I had any friends in Austin. I was being melodramatic, but it really did feel like my roommates were moving on without me, making friends with cool people like Patrick and horrible, intrusive midwesterners like Zach.

This would have been a great time to modify my behavior and be a more open and loving person. It took a while for that to happen.

Eventually, after one squabble too many, we parted ways with Raheem, while Aaron's brother found his own place, and rented a four bedroom in East Austin - Beta Delta 2.0.

It was at this point that I finally started to overcome the slide that I started down the winter of my sophomore year. I started to redevelop a cohesive sense of self that wasn't necessarily predicated on being somehow cooler than everyone else. (It should be emphatically noted that I have never in my life been especially cool.)

Aaron and Erik finding new friends forced me to be nicer to people and, shockingly, I made new friends of my own. I was still more isolated than the pair, as a lot of my time was occupied with my internships and freelancing, but college was shaping up into what I had always imagined it would be.

We spent most of our days watching TV, eating unhealthily and generally living without care. (They did a lot of homework, but it never looked terribly strenuous to me.)

I don't think I've ever been happier than in my two years at the Beta Delta 2.0. It was the most comfortable place I've ever lived. We all knew what to expect from each other and we all enjoyed each other's company. It was like living in a hangout sitcom, where I knew that every day I could come home and crack jokes with my best friends. (My brother, Ryan, once famously declared, "My brother's life is a TV show.")

Aaron and Erik started to come into their own as well. They both went on unsuccessful dates, birthing the Curse of Eastside Cafe. They also both finally came of age, which began the two-day birthday celebraish tradition. They then began interning, which meant that I could mooch in earnest.

I was Templeton at the fair.

The Beta Delta eventually came to an end. The night the boys graduated, we went to Sixth Street and then came home and talked on the porch until the sun came up. It was one of those moments that you know is definitively the end of an era, and you don't want to give it up even though you have to.

It was during those hours on the porch that I felt most poignantly the regret of my previous hubris. I would've given anything to turn back the clock to those first days in Kinsolving, to re-experience the birth of these friendships that would change me forever - to try to do it over and actually be a mentor or a role model. I realized that this is sappy, but I am nothing if not a profoundly sappy person. I'd rather be sappy than cynical, and I wish it hadn't taken me so long to learn that.

I'm glad that I have though, I'm thankful for my friends that were patient with me, through all of my dipshittery, until I stumbled upon that conclusion.

So this is my blog about Aaron, which, as all things are, is really about me. Maybe I'll write something less self absorbed for his wedding. (Barring that, we've still got the funeral.)

Epilogue:

Aaron's Brother now works as an engineer in Houston, every time that I see him, he's in good spirits.

Matt recently graduated and works as an engineer in Austin. He got to prolong his college experience beyond BD because he took an extra semester, lucky guy.

Ignite people have all more-or-less grown into real human beings, and the organization itself was dutifully cared for by many people that I love and respect. I'm sure if young Kyle joined the organization now, he'd find a community that was loving and honest and met his perceived needs.

John finally found some macking success and is now married and living what appears to be an awesome life in Northern California.

My female friends from early college are all still great, I ended up spending less time with them after those first semesters because I began dating Lindsey. Their loss, I'm sure.

Erik also found macking success and is "working" in Austin. If snapchat is to be believed, all he does is wear t-shirts to work and get to drink beer with his co-workers.

Patrick has taken over my role as the weird older guy living with a bunch of college kids. He'll be a doctor one day and probably have to drop a digit on a bunch of dads.

Zach lives in the metroplex like me. He was born for this town.

Aaron's wildest dreams have all come true. He has a girlfriend, makes roughly 3x my salary and eats a lot of Popeyes. I can only imagine where he'd be if I'd have been a proper mentor.

Things I Like of the Year (Podcasts Edition)

Now that we're well into 2014, I've decided to do the timely thing and post some of the things that I liked in 2013 (and, so far, 2014). Due to the 2-3 hours I spend everyday in the car, I'm uniquely positioned for this particular category - "Things that I Like of the Year (Podcasts Edition)."

I, unfortunately, don't have exact stats for how much podcast content I listened to over the past year. My phone did a weird thing that reset all of my Stitcher statistics (and I listen to several podcasts through the nigh unusable Apple Podcasts app), but as of October of 2013, I've listened to 195 hour and 517 of podcasts through Stitcher. For those keeping track at home, that's over eight days of my life. (I would calculate how much time I've spent in the car over the past few months, but I don't want to depress myself before I embark on this listicular journey.)

So, without further adieu and in no particular order, here are the podcasts that I liked in 2014. (Some these clips aren't totally indicative of the show, but I'm too lazy to cut my own.)

Improv4Humans - Earwolf

The conceit of Improv4Humans, the self proclaimed "Best Podcast in the Universe," is that UCB co-founder and instructor, Matt Besser gets together with three other improvisers and does long form improv inspired by tweets, youtube videos or news stories (and audience suggestions during live shows). The show tends to start strong, as the assembled comedians tell stories based on the suggestions, then fluctuates as they work out bits of varying quality. Generally, the later bits are stronger, as the crew is able to work in callbacks to previous jokes.

Part of my enjoyment of I4H is just that it's a consistently funny show, but another, and maybe larger part is that it allows me to indulge in a fantasy while I listen to it. My ultimate goal (as you know dear readers) is to be a comedy writer in LA, and taking classes at UCB is one of the first steps I plan to take upon arriving on the West Coast. The show cycles through so many improvisers that I start to feel like I really get to know the people that either teach or perform at UCB. I like to play along in my head and try to work out how I would respond to the bits. It's a fun way to get engaged during my largely crushing commute.




Tell 'Em Steve-Dave - Smodcast

I was an early adopter of Smodcast, as it started right when I was in my Kevin Smith wheelhouse. I've since outgrown the flagship show for the most part (as well as Smith in general), but I still really enjoy Tell 'Em Steve-Dave, which features some of Kevin's friends from New Jersey. It started as kind of the hang out sitcom of podcasts, with comic clerk Walter Flanagan serving as the curmudgeon, unemployed creative Bryan Johnson as the wildcard and fireman Brian Quinn as the sound guy turned co-host/voice of the youth.

The show was pitched basically as a way to keep Johnson (who suffers from depression) engaged with his friends and the outside world in general, but has since evolved into a realized audio world, complete with running gags and a robust cast of supporting characters. The show really took off once Flanagan took what amounts to creative control, pitching bits, games and special episodes - the first of which, "Makin' Hay" featured the three hosts traveling to a nearby flea market, recording their adventures and then providing a running, mocking commentary over the recorded dialogue.

The show has gone through cycles of stagnation, Flanagan and Johnson were cast on AMC's Comic Book Men, while Quinn is on TruTV's Impractical Jokers. While the trio is shooting, most of the talk tends to focus on TV related stuff, which can be funny, but gets old after a while.

The best part of the show is the clear love that the guys have for each other and for the people that orbit the show and the comic shop in which it is recorded. There's non-stop bickering and ball-busting, but it all appears to stem from a place of deep concern and affection.




You Made it Weird - Nerdist

I love You Made it Weird mostly because of the way it stands in contrast to many other podcasts, and, in particular, it's closest podcast corollary, WTF. While WTF's Marc Maron is clearly an intelligent guy, his self-loathing schtick can be grating. YMIW's Pete Holmes, on the other hand, really, really loves himself, and seems to love all of his guests.

It's a longform interview show that usually features one of Pete's comedy friends, so the interviews are often less about learning anything about the performer, and more about Pete goofing off with a pal, but it's generally worth it for the last section, where Pete asks the guest about his or her religious beliefs.

Pete grew up in an environment similar to the one that I did, conservative and devoutly religious - even more so than me really, as he attended a tiny Evangelical university. This gives him an insight into religious sentiment that you don't often see in the LA comedy community (though I will give Maron credit in this regard, his show is always fascinating when broaching this topic). Pete's gentle probing as to why people believe what they believe and his amiable non-judgment sparks profound and honest conversation. It's the rare public space where religion is discussed in a way that doesn't make me uncomfortable.

It's almost as if the show is ancillary to the real through line, which is Pete working out his own spirituality. He goes so far as to feature Rob Bell on an episode, which is something I never thought I'd see on a podcast by a comedian. The Jay Mohr episode is probably the best introduction to the show.




The Flophouse  - All Things Comedy

I listen to a handful of movie podcasts, but The Flophouse is my favorite. It's typical of movie podcasts in that hosts Elliot Kalan, Dan McCoy and Stuart Wellington watch a bad movie prior to the recording, and then riff on why it sucks. Unlike most movie podcasts, they tend to stick with recent films (outside of theme episodes).

The show is most successful when the crew stops talking about the movie at hand and digresses into weird hypotheticals and word games. They even participate in a Beta Delta favorite game, intentionally misidentifying actors, actresses and movies (one of my favorite lines is when Elliot refers to "Keith Ledger's iconic role as 'The Japester'").




The Adam Carolla Show - Carolla Digital

I'm aware that I paint myself as a neanderthal by admitting to being a fan of Carolla, but what can you do? I often disagree with his ideas, but he communicates them in an entertaining way. I also don't buy the narrative that he is racist, sexist, homophobic etc., he tends to paint with a broad brush when discussing groups as a whole, but his interviews with minority guests tend to be the most fun, as he asks questions that don't often come up on these shows and the guest seem to respond well.

The central reason Carolla doesn't bother me is that I believe his views come from a place of identification and compassion, as opposed to hate and distance. He doesn't oppose hot breakfast programs because he hates kids, rather it's because he's seen first-hand (Carolla grew up very poor) the dehumanizing effects that well-intentioned social programs can have.

He's also spent a ton of time in radio and podcasting, so his show is the most professional and smooth that I listen to.




The Bugle

 I get most of my world news from The Bugle, hosted by Jon Oliver and Andy Zaltzman. The two Britons usually set their satirical sights on events outside of the US, and without them I would never have my deep-felt appreciation for Silvio Berlusconi, former Italian PM and transcendent buffoon.

Jon and Andy's rapport (honed over years as friends and comedy partners) is top notch, particularly Jon's frustration with Andy's unbearable pun runs. Producer Chris is also a nice target of mockery.

Video Games (Swinging in the Backyard)

My good friend and human genius, Jordan, emailed me a link today to this article, I, School Shooter by Dave Owen over at Polygon.

(Allow me a second to plug Polygon and SB Nation, two sites that kill it in their respective coverages. I'm real impressed with what Vox Media has accomplished in the past few years and I'm glad it's having such success.)

The article explores the independent video game Super Columbine Massacre RPG! and features interviews with the creator, Danny Ledonne, who was in high school at the time of the Columbine shooting, and Samuel Granillo, a filmmaker who attended Columbine at the time of the shooting.

The game itself is an RPG where the player controls Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris and recreates their rampage against helpless students and teachers.

Owen writes, "With SCMRPG!, Ledonne seeks to understand the event by putting the player through as accurate a representation of the massacre as possible. As he developed the game, Ledonne read through the 96,000 pages of reports released by Jefferson County police, and frequented websites that compiled firsthand accounts. He estimates that around 80 percent of Harris and Klebold's in-game dialogue is what they actually said during the attack or wrote in their personal journals beforehand."

Exploring school shooting through art is nothing new and has been done successfully (Elephant, We Need to Talk About Kevin) and less successfully (American Horror Story [though I will give that show credit for capturing the horror of such an event pretty powerfully, if exploitatively]), so I don't really care to debate the merits of Ledonne's work or the success of its execution. I'd rather discuss his stated motivations and how they intersect with gamer culture.

Owen writes,"The aim was, by having players walk in the shoes of the shooters, to trigger a conversation that Ledonne believed the media wasn't having. Following Columbine, a huge number of elements were blamed: bullying, violent video games, antidepressants, gun culture, the internet."

Throughout the piece, Ledonne comes across as fairly articulate and informed about the power of using this particular medium to explore such a uniquely horrific event.

Ledonne said, "The goal of a game is to give the player an opportunity to experience something in a new way. So the layout of the school being identical to Columbine was less important than recreating the feeling of walking down the hall, chasing students who are unarmed, shooting them down and then reflecting on the anxiety or depression of the shooters themselves, and reflecting on the havoc they have caused as a result of their own histories and the choices that they made."

I think the first half of Ledonne's quote speaks to the real value in his work, which is that it is forcefully and confrontationally experiential. There is a marked psychological difference between seeing shootings depicted on film or on the page and actually executing them within the context of a game. It's a twisted form of skydiving, where instead of pointless thrill seeking, one engages in a pointless exercise in depravity, and, hopefully, uses the experience to inform his or her own existential understanding and morality.

I think what's less valuable is the second part of Ledonne's stated aim, getting the player to consider and/or empathize with Klebold and Harris. What they did is something no healthy person would ever do, and no amount of exploration will ever lead to a satisfying explanation of why they did it or even a real understanding of their mental state.

Ledonne goes on to explain why this was such a personal project for him.

Owen writes, "Although he aimed to spark a wider conversation, there was also a personal need for Ledonne to try to understand why Harris and Klebold made such a fatal decision. They were bullied, ostracized from their classmates, and their hatred grew in isolation from the world. Ledonne found that he could empathize with this aspect of their lives, and he worried that, with only one or two different decisions, his life could have taken a similar course."

Ledonne said, "What makes [Harris] and [Klebold] compelling historical figures is the fact that what they experienced in high school is incredibly common, but that the choices they made for the shooting are thankfully rather uncommon," he says. "The shooting at Columbine kind of forced me over the course of several years to re-evaluate the course of my life."

It's these statements that bring me to my real point. Honestly, it's somewhat unfair of me to use Ledonne as a jump off for this discussion, but I read this article today and it stirred up some thoughts that I routinely have when reading about video games and, particularly, video games and violence.

Why does Ledonne identify with Harris and Klebold? Because they were bullied? Because they liked Doom? Why do data points like these make Ledonne (who admits in the article that he was never remotely near a "school shooting" level pathology) feel like he's in some way spiritual kin with these two men?

Gamers (a term that is now so culturally loaded that I am loathe to use it and most especially to ascribe it to myself [and I'm really not a gamer, the only system I possess is a 3DS and I got it for Christmas this year]), are rightfully very quick to point out the fallacy of media using video games as a scapegoat for destructive and anti-social behavior, but what they (and the media to some extent) fail to recognize is that gaming culture proudly carries the banner for deliberate social isolation.

This is probably a holdover from the early days of geek culture, where we're led to believe that D&D players and computer nerds were utter pariahs.

(A depiction that I question on two levels. First, it's actual accuracy. Most of our understanding of early geek culture is filtered through the lens of film and television, mediums where geeks have profoundly more influence than their erstwhile bullies. Secondly, I wonder how much of the isolation these early nerds brought upon themselves through the arrogance that comes with being on the cutting edge - follow @bitcoin_txt to see a living example of this behavior from a safe distance. If you want in your face mortification, wander downtown Austin during SXSW Interactive.)

Regardless, it's always odd to me when people choose to associate themselves with monsters just because they feel like they've had a similar formative experiences and interests. I question whether it's healthy behavior. If gamers wanted more respect from the mainstream (which they already have, aside from steadfastly backward institutions like television news), it seems like they would try to present a friendlier public image. Instead, when they're not warring with mainstream culture, they're warring amongst themselves.

At times I feel like this kind of behavior is slowly slipping away, as gaming has become essentially ubiquitous, but then I wander over to /r/games and I'm quickly disappointed. Gaming is one of the last bastions of the ironic detachment of Gen X. As more and more media start to be subsumed by the New Sincerity (which, to be fair, has been warped by cultures that intersect with gaming into something that is almost equally off-putting [cf. Bronies]), it's only natural that there will be creative people seeping into the industry that are influenced more by David Foster Wallace than by 90s-era Vertigo and it's possible that the product that so many blamed for turning gamers weird will in fact be the vehicle through which the culture is redeemed.

Until then, I will play Pokemon Y only behind closed doors.

The Ballad of Stinkpooch (It's a New Year)

It's been over a year since I graduated and it's still very difficult for me to come to grips with that fact. 

It's my own fault, as most of my troubles are. For some reason, even since childhood, I've been smitten with the idea of college and academia. I'm sure a lot of it stems from the fact that I was a damn weird kid (and I seem weirder and weirder upon reflection as I age), and the promise to all damn weird kids is that you'll eventually figure it out in college and come into your own (which is not always true, as reddit.com will testify). 

College did turn out to be pretty much everything I hoped. I learned a lot, I found a girlfriend and I goofed around with my buddies for over four years. Of course, the whole time I was doing this, I never really considered what I would do after and now I'm sitting here, all caught up in after, and it's not super-fun.

I have a good job and I really like the people that I work with, but I'm the youngest person there by 15-20 years, so there's not a lot of shared cultural shorthand. Couple that with my established difficulty integrating into social groups and it's a recipe for a somewhat solitary work life. 

To add to that, I spend about three hours of every single day in my car. I live with my grandparents, which comes with all kinds of benefits (no rent, free food, grandma does my laundry), but it's 50 miles from my office. It's incredibly demoralizing to get home at 6:30 and realize that you've got all of four hours of free time before you have to get up again at 5:30 and do the drive over. Add in the lack of interaction with anyone within my generation and the whole ordeal becomes spectacularly dehumanizing.

Whenever I get unhappy, I begin to withdraw (which really just exacerbates the problem, but withdrawing is the only form of self-destructive behavior that I'm cool enough to engage in), and I begin to blame others for my own unhappiness.

And so it was on New Year's Eve this year. I was spending the holiday with my girlfriend and over the course of the weekend I'd been surly and rude and distant. We didn't really have plans for the actual evening, but, around 8:30 p.m., I decided that I wanted sushi and Lindsey though that sounded like an OK idea.

We'd only just pulled out of the apartment complex when we spotted a dog loping down the sidewalk, I assumed that she'd been scared by the fireworks and I pulled into the parking lot to see if she had a tag.

Lindsey and I chased her around for a little but before I eventually got her to come to me. She had a collar, but no tag. I tried to call animal control and the local shelters, but no one was picking up.

Lindsey decided that we should take the dog in and take care of her until we could get her to the shelter.

The dog itself was a little Australian Shepherd, and she was old old old. Her muzzle and face were gray and one of her eyes had some sort of glaucoma or cataract. We loaded her into the truck and she promptly laid down in the backseat. Lindsey was quite smitten with how sweet and quiet she was, though she was put off by the smell.

We grabbed some dog food and a toy and a leash from HEB and brought her back to the apartment with the intention of stashing her in the bathroom while we went to dinner. Lindsey went ahead of me to put up all of her various potions and make ups while I led the dog around in hopes that she would do her business in the grass.

The dog's business acumen was found wanting, so I decided to just risk it and lead her upstairs. She made it about two steps before flopping down and refusing to climb anymore.

As I carried her up the stairs, I got my first real look at her. Not only was she old, but she was in rough shape. Her nails that weren't broken were inches long, what fur she had was matted and dusty - it was absent in large patches on her hind legs. The worn away fur gave her tail that unsettling fleshiness of a rat's tail.

I led her into the bathroom and we set her up with food and water before heading out to dinner. Lindsey didn't seem to notice that the dog was in such bad shape.

We ate sushi (at one point a tuna roll had so much wasabi that Lindsey cried, which was a nice change of pace from me making her cry) and returned with intentions to give the dog, now being called Pooch (and, less affectionally, "Stinkpooch"), a bath.

When we opened the bathroom door, we discovered that Pooch was heavily favoring her right leg and I realized that not only was she missing fur, but that she clearly had some sort of tumor on her hindquarters and some sores on her legs. I felt bad for her, but also, rather shamefully, somewhat revolted.

(I don't do very well with body horror at all. It's why I don't like most scary movies. I don't like thinking about the body very much in general. In middle school, I had a brief dalliance with building model airplanes [see the earlier statement about me being a weird kid] and I sliced my finger with an exacto knife. It started to bleed and I nearly passed out. In the 8th grade, we were discussing bacteria and whatnot and I got to contemplating the fragility of the human body and I had to leave the room and get water. I had the same experience covering the same material in bio class my sophomore year of college.)

Lindsey, on the other hand, was nothing but sweetness. She dug around in her cabinets for something to clean the beast with (I chuckled when she pulled out travel bottles of Paul Mitchell shampoo AND conditioner) and kept telling it encouraging things. I loaded Pooch into the bathtub and Lindsey began to bathe her.

The image of Lindsey caring for this poor lonely animal is indelible in my mind. As she rubbed shampoo into its fur, she said, "It's okay. Someone doesn't love you, but we love you."

It was such a true and honest and beautiful thing to say that it immediately snapped me out of my selfish haze. How could I take out my insecurities and unhappiness on this gentle and loving person?

"Someone doesn't love you, but we love you."

I'll never forget that phrase. There's something incredibly powerful about that combination of love and tenderness tempered by bitter honesty. Someone may love Stinkpooch, but it's also likely that she was released, tagless, intentionally - sent out into the street to die. Regardless, we are going to choose to love this pitiful sweet animal that we just met, because she deserves it just for existing.

There is a divinity in that statement and in that action - a reflection of the gospel message that things may be profoundly fucked up, but that love will remain and love will succeed.

The whole experience served to snap me out of my selfish cloud, especially the next day when I apologized to Lindsey and was open with her about my anxieties and insecurities. I realized that I spent a lot of time blaming other people for my unhappiness, rather than doing anything in particular to alleviate it.

So, I'm going to do what I can to pursue my own happiness. Starting with more writing (for serious this time, you guys). Hopefully it will lead to something more.

Stinkpooch, by the way, was eventually taken by the Williamson County Animal Shelter, who said they would contact her people if she has a chip before putting her up for adoption. Hopefully she gets back to her family.