On Taking Things Seriously

There has been no shortage of effort to explain the man who's been the main character of American politics for the past decade and who will, now, remain said character for at least the next four years: attempts to rationalize his support, assemble his platform with the stray planks and nails he wantonly tosses, construct a passable salad out of the many angry, nonsensical, and often contradictory words he says when trying to convince people only he can fix "it." 

The one that has always stuck with me - and baffled me, as we’ve heard variations of it over the years -  is the idea that we need to take him "seriously, not literally." How we're too focused on what's coming “out of his mouth rather than look[ing] at what’s in his heart." It’s the excuse you'd give for someone who says "great to see you" to a grieving family at a funeral, not for someone petitioning to represent us at the highest levels of public service and wield unprecedented executive power.

Because if he doesn't literally intend to deport 11 million or so odd immigrants from the country, then what does he seriously intend to do? If he doesn't literally intend to pull funding from schools with a vaccine mandate, or decline to recognize the existence of transgender citizens, or remove the protected status of legal migrants, or increase tariffs to anywhere from 20 to 60%, or provide "record breaking military funding" (but probably not to Ukraine), then what can we, the citizens, actually expect? 
Presumably, somewhere between "what we're doing today" and "the thing he said," regardless of how terrible the results actually turn out to be within those shades of gray. And if he should stop short of the upper bound, then it's a concession. It's a win. It could have been a lot worse. Be grateful.

Plus, politicians fail to fulfill their campaign promises all the time, whether due to changing priorities or checks and balances, and so being a braggart doesn't make him much different from other politicians, you see. He's got a lot of feelings, you see, a list of grievances just like 51% of the country, but because he wants to be president, because he actually needs to put pen to paper and do something about all of it, he has to list some specifics, so here they are, but they're not important. If he doesn't do exactly what he says, he's going to try. Take him seriously, you see, not literally.

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I've talked with several friends and family members over the past year or so who were still solidly in Trump's camp. They offered various explanations for their support: "He's better for business." "I need to look out for what's best for me and my family and my neighbors, not immigrants." "He's friends with Elon Musk, and say what you will but that guy knows how to run a business." Largely, it came back to business, either literally or as a proxy for the economy, as if the economy OR business is strictly about the figures in the books instead of the people exchanging the goods and services.

I explained my positions on the man to them in kind. Some of my counterarguments were on the basis of policy and (un)intended consequences, but if any of this actually had to do with policy*, it would have ended as soon as the man said he had "concepts for a plan" to replace the Affordable Care Act, or any of the times he floated economic ideas that grabbed traditional small-budget, free market Republican values and shoved them over a desk.** For a substantial portion of the country, this is about feelings, about what's in your heart, serious feelings about less than literal concepts or factual stories. It's about a present sociopolitical environment that reassures instead of challenges, that takes a sales-oriented approach to governance, that says "damn the facts, what you're feeling matters, and here's some sirloin to satiate those feelings, rare, just how you like it.”

And if that red meat causes fear and distress for others, if it curtails or threatens to erase their liberty or their livelihood, it can't be helped. Freedom, prosperity, joy, safety...they're all zero sum concepts after all. Maybe not factually, maybe not literally, but seriously.

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I am not a Democrat. I am not a Republican. I'm somewhere between "libertarian" and "center left" these days, which in South Jersey essentially makes me Barry Goldwater. This stopped being about *just* policy for me too a long time ago, but in particular around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the man's willingness to put his head in the sand, hide facts from the public, and generally dismiss the immediate needs of the medical field made the work of healthcare workers (like my wife) materially harder and jeopardized or ended the lives of millions of his own citizens.*** It's augmented by the way he carries himself in public, the way he talks about my country and my family members and my neighbors and my fellow citizens with such disdain, the way he comported himself on January 6, 2021. I'm insulted by the man, and I - a straight white male - am seldom his target.

Because if we must take a man seriously but not literally,**** it means taking the whole of him seriously, warts and pocks and venom and selfishness and all. If we can't take what he says literally - if it's about what's in his heart - it means taking him seriously as an avatar for the nation, as a standard bearer for the values and virtues we should aspire to as citizens of said nation. It means telling the next generation - your sons, daughters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews - that this is the man you believe should lead us, this is a man you should be more like. Or it means telling them that none of that stuff matters after all if it's in service of some other goal.
 Over half of the country***** - including many people I love, many people you love, maybe you - looked at the full record of this man's public life over 40 years, and in particular the last nine or ten years he spent either being or angling to be president, and agreed with one of the above.

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The world does not come down to one man occupying one job in one building, as uniquely unfit and unqualified as I believe that man to be. (and as much as that man would like it to come down to him) There is a world beyond those walls, as much as it can bend to the will of that one building sometimes.
And when I say he is unique, I mean in part that people seem to flock to him and him alone. His vice president elect was, until the last weeks of the campaign, historically unpopular. The ideas proposed by his political opponents are, largely, popular. "Cult of personality" is not an overstatement for a man whose previous campaign ran on a platform of "whatever I feel like, man." He said what many wanted to hear, ugly as it could be, and they have rewarded him with dauntless support regardless of policy position. He is one of one and will not be around forever, even if many of the policies and appointments and edicts he makes will outlive him. No one will storm the Capitol for JD Vance. No one will go to jail for Nikki Haley.

The nation survived his last presidency and all its risk, though one can make the argument that the three years before COVID were "lucky." I believe it will persist again because it already has, because I want it to, because I have to. I believe it will persist because my wife and I owe it to the two beautiful, joyous children we brought into this world, into this country, who aren’t old enough to understand most of this yet and just need us to take care of them, to dance with them, to read them “Spoonful of Frogs” for the dozenth time, to let their minds focus on growing and not worrying. 

We owe it to them to make it so, whether by continuing to work hard for them each day, getting and remaining involved in our local politics, straddling the fine line between "staying informed and diligent" and "doomscrolling,"****** and simply not allowing our anxieties about the future to wash over them, too. We owe it to our friends and family who will be more affected by the new administration's stated goals than we will. We owe it to ourselves.

I don't know if that's helpful or comforting or not. I'm no historian or political scientist. I'm just a guy trying to keep chugging along, trying to keep finding the good in life, trying to take things seriously.

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*Also, it wouldn't have taken many long to find many, many similarities between Trump's positions and those of Kamala Harris, particularly on the economy, the thing most will couch their support of Trump in.

**I still cannot believe a man who partook in this has won the highest office in the land twice. 

***Operation Warp Speed was an objective success. Whether it offsets his other actions between January and November 2020 is up to you, I suppose.

****Even if you do not take Trump "literally" on what he intends to do, or if it isn't important to him, it is worth taking literally the ideas of those he chooses to surround himself with, because it's important to them and they're about to have varying abilities to enact them. (I am of course speaking of the guy who wants to ban Doritos)

*****Worth noting that Trump won just about the same number of overall votes in 2024 that he did in 2020, but is beating Harris by over 5 million votes this time after losing to Biden in 2020. Nonetheless, the move to the right was a nationwide phenomenon.

******For anyone who cares (no one should care), I actually fell asleep at 8:45 last night in the chair outside our daughter's room, then woke up at 9:30 and migrated to our bedroom without checking the news. I then stirred awake at 4 AM and, having trouble going back to sleep, decided to rip the band aid off and check the results to that point. Good morning!

I'm Going to Bed

On Thursday afternoon, we officially voted.

My wife and I filled our ballots on Wednesday night at our kitchen table after spending a few evenings looking up some of the local down-ballot candidates for board of commissioners, school board, and the like. The next day, en route to our daughters' daycare for their annual Halloween parade, I stopped at the township office on Mercer Street and dropped my and my wife's respective ballots, each properly signed and sealed, in the drop box around back, the way we've cast our votes in nearly each election since 2020.* It was quick, convenient, and unceremonious. I did not get a sticker. I will live.

I voted for Democrats and third party candidates all the way down this year, including some preposterously-named "parties" that certain school board candidates purportedly represent.** For the first time I can remember, I did not vote for a single Republican, mainly because nearly each one I would have considered voting for on the basis of policy also somehow inextricably tied themselves with the MAGAfication of the GOP in either their messaging or campaigning, as if no conservative would deign to consider voting for a county clerk if they don't also promise to, like, stop the steal or whatever.

So we've done our civic duty. I can't say I did any phone banking or other "Get Out the Vote" initiatives, but I did write this, which I hope was enough of a catalyst for someone to at least cast their vote for The Big One, if nothing else. If you didn't vote yet, you still have time - all day tomorrow, as a matter of fact, if memory serves. If you did vote already, right on.

Tomorrow, I will help get my kids out the door for daycare, then go to work. I will undoubtedly check the news a few times and scroll social media once or twice at minimum. At the end of the day, I'll pick up my kids and go do something fun - maybe the library, or the park if the weather cooperates - before heading home for dinner. Once my wife gets home and the kids are (finally) (reliably) (soundly) asleep in bed, I will go to the gym, sneak in a quick workout, come home, and shower. Maybe I'll watch a couple minutes of election coverage with my wife to get caught up or play some Switch to decompress after a long day.

And then, I will go to bed.

I am not going to watch the news all night long. I am not going to watch Steve Kornacki gesticulate wildly in front of electronic maps and charts and tables like he's Bill Henley tracking a nor'easter, detailing down to the pixel which candidate stands to benefit from what cul-de-sac whose votes have yet to be counted. I will not watch Wolf Blitzer flatline on national television, nor will I watch Jesse Waters or Brett Baier or whoever is anchoring Fox News' coverage explain the ramifications my vote has for my masculinity. I am about as interested in watching Brian Williams' lying ass reading results on Amazon Prime as I am in watching Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit call NFL games on the streaming service, which is to say not at all.

It will be days before we know the final results of many of these races, in particular The Big One. Whoever wins at the federal, state or local levels is going to win whether I stay up until 1 AM, desperately awaiting any morsel of news. If a result is reached, it will still be the result when I wake up the next day. And if not, I'll get caught up then.

In the case of The Big One, there are 76 days between Election Day and Inauguration Day, and if recent history is any guide, it will take each and every one of those squares on the calendar to suss out the future of our nation's government, and in turn the future of those citizens most heavily impacted by who gets elected to public office. It will be weeks of new information, new developments. There will be plenty of time to fuss and fret and - if needed - take further action.

The future can be a big, dark, scary unknown, in my experience darker and scarier the further you are from sunup or sundown, when your brain fills the darkness and the silence of the hour with the most uninhibited thoughts it can muster. But when the sun does rise on Wednesday (likely before, in the case of my sleep-averse toddler), regardless of what transpired the day before, my family will need me. My friends will need me. My job will need me. And I ought to be ready to meet those needs, as I need them all too, day in and day out.

As for everything else, I've done what I can do for now. So I'm going to bed.

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*I forgot to vote last year - we had just moved and I believe we had also just learned we were having another baby and...yeah. My bad.

**School board candidates get to put a "slogan" by their name instead of a party affiliation. They could have just said "you can't be affiliated with a political party if you're running for school board" and been done with it, but they get a catchphrase instead. I'm sure there is a fine reason for this, but I'm also sure it throws off someone intending to vote straight D or R to now have to consider whether "Innovation Engagement Fairness" or "Compassion Excellence Reliability" best aligns with their party. 

On Concepts of a Plan

Aren't you tired of this?

Set everything else aside for just a second. Aren't you tired of talking about him? Aren't you tired of any discussion of serious political or social matters at any level - federal, state, local, community - somehow eventually being sucked back into the howling void he has created over the past ten years? Aren't you tired of the top story each day being what he has said or insinuated and what it means or doesn't mean and how serious he was or wasn't, whether some state or local official is proposing policies aligned with his philosophy or pledging fealty to him, whether he is most akin to one of history's worst leaders or if it's actually...aren't you tired of that?

Aren't you tired of the bitching? How aggrieved a man with a net worth greater than the GDP of Fiji can be about a system that has facilitated fame and fortune beyond anyone's wildest dreams? How the media, and the courts, and debate moderators, and the rules writ large, and his political opponents (simultaneously bumbling, senile idiots and Charles Ponzi-level schemers), and, like, department stores have been so mean and nasty to him? How much whining can come from a man alleged to exude such strength and traditional masculinity, who has never been for want for anything in his life?

 
And all this while you struggle to balance the budget, to work 12-hour days to make ends meet, to decide whether to go to urgent care or pay the electric bill because you can't afford to do both, to save for a house to raise your kids in, to break off part of your precious time and savings to help a struggling friend or family member, to work two jobs while attending school just to afford to keep going. The common cruelties for those of us without gilded bank accounts. And we're supposed to feel sorry for him? We're supposed to grant him the privilege of representing our nation? Of representing us?

Aren't you tired of being told, day in and day out, how f***ing horrible everything is? Not that our country is flawed or has real problems that require real solutions produced by qualified adults, but that the very fabric of our country is tattered beyond repair? That the well is poisoned and the only person who can purify it is a man who had four years to do it already? That any place in the country with more than two high-rise buildings is a warzone despite all evidence to the contrary? That the solution to all problems - crime, drug addiction, housing prices - conveniently hinges on the existence of a group of people who likely do not look like you? That you should be afraid, always afraid, and angry, but mostly afraid, because "they're" coming for you? Aren't you tired of the crux of the strategy being how much, and how quickly, and how broadly he can hurt someone who isn't you in service of returning to a nebulous "greatness?"

Aren't you tired of pretending that he has any clue what to do about the economy besides "press the button that makes the treats come out?" Isn't that what you can't stand about the Other Guys? Aren't you tired of the party of fiscal responsibility and free markets spending as much, if not more money, than the Other Guys, but on different stuff?

Aren't you tired of him telling you, in no uncertain terms, that he has no plan, no interests, no new ideas generated in the four years since he was relieved of his duties, no strategy beyond plumbing the depths of knuckle-dragging ugliness and hatred? Imagine interviewing someone for a job - because that's what this is, after all: prospective public servants being interviewed by us, the citizens and employers, for a job. Imagine asking one of the candidates how they would do part of that job and hearing him respond that he can't tell you because he doesn't have the job yet (but he has "concepts of a plan," be assured). Isn't that insulting? Aren’t you insulted by that answer?

Aren't you tired of him not knowing how the job actually works? How a tariff works? How federal agencies work? Aren't you tired of a candidate for the most powerful office in the world citing "people on television" as a reliable source? Aren't you tired of him trying to sell you "As Seen on TV"-level junk while positioning himself as the Savior in Chief (again)?

Aren't you tired of the incessant drone, the same story told in marginally different ways for nearly a decade, by the same angry, boring old man? Aren't you sick of the goddamn circus? Don't you want to see what comes after?

Aren’t you tired of all this yet? And if not, why aren't you?

On Odubel Herrerra, Deshaun Watson and Uniting the Art With the Artist

The Phillies swept the Pirates last weekend in a series I won’t pretend I watched. I’m a Phillies fan, don’t get me wrong - went bananas when they gifted Philadelphia its first major sports championship in forever back in 2008 and happy to see their current late July/early August hot streak - but your thirties tend to run your sports fandom through a Brita filter with only the most vital teams/players/events remaining when you pour yourself a glass. Between work, family, other commitments, and a slavish devotion to other clubs, something eventually gets relegated to the backburner, and for me, it’s usually been the team that plays 946 games a season and hasn’t sniffed the playoffs since Psy was screaming at butts.

Sports apps and social media make it easier than ever to keep tabs on a team, too, even when you're preoccupied with caring for a sick baby or eating a particularly delicious apple. It’s through the former that I was notified nightly of the Phils’ success in the Steel City, and through the latter that I was reminded of the existence of Odubel Herrerra, who knocked in a meaningless run in the final game.

This happens every so often when I watch or read about the Phils, but it’s not that I somehow forgot Odubel was a Phillie. Heck, if you asked me to name the first five 2022 Phillies that came to mind, he’d be in there with Bryce Harper, Zack Wheeler, and the guys who won’t let Canada tell them what they can put in their bodies. Odubel was here forever and been about the same player since the Phils snapped him up in the Rule 5 draft in 2014: a hitter with plenty of talent and not an ounce of plate discipline, an outfielder with great speed and zero tracking ability, like a fighter jet piloted by Malfunctioning Eddie the Car Salesman. I turned on a game over the July 4th weekend and watched him end it by flailing at three pitches in the dirt. It was frustratingly familiar; death, taxes, and Odubel failing to reach base.

No, I was “reminded” of Odubel Herrerra again because I was certain I would never see him play another inning in red pinstripes after May 28, 2019, the day word got out that he’d been arrested for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend Melany Martinez-Angulo at a hotel in Atlantic City. The 20-year old girl “had visible signs of injury to her arms and neck” when police found her, and though charges against Herrerra were eventually dropped - a development that wasn’t all that surprising given the regularity with which domestic violence cases don’t receive a verdict (and the myriad reasons why) - the Phillies and Major League Baseball tried to memory hole him for a while. They suspended him for the rest of the season.  They struck him from the All Star Game ballot. They took his picture off the banners hanging in the rafters of Citizens Bank Park.

Considering both the team’s and the league’s respective track records on handling players charged with DV in the past, it was a welcome, if not unexpected change of pace. The cynical calculus that comes into play whenever a professional athlete gets charged with a crime is common knowledge by now: is the player good enough to weather the storm? Is it worthwhile to keep this person around, absorb the bad press and the outrage, and bet on the number of torches and pitchforks dwindling as the incident becomes a speck in the rear-view mirror?

In Herrerra’s case, MLB and the Players Association had agreed on a shiny new domestic violence policy in 2015, and the league was happy to employ it against a player who was, in the grand scheme of things, unessential. The league wasn’t bringing the hammer down on Mike Trout or Mookie Betts; they were bringing it down on a player whose hitting had declined for four straight years and whose inconsistency and disappointing play had made him a lightning rod for criticism. Fans already disliked Odubel for his on-field play; now, they could dislike him on moral grounds, too.

But the Phillies never cut Herrera. Whether that was because they weren’t allowed to until the league concluded its own investigation or because it would have cost them millions of dollars wasn’t totally clear, Instead, they sent him to the minor leagues before the 2020 season. Then, a certain once-in-a-century pandemic happened, turning the 2020 baseball season into a strange three-month exercise in managed expectations, one which didn't involve Herrerra playing major league ball.

Then the 2021 season appeared on the horizon, and hey that’s weird, Odubel Herrerra got invited to Phillies spring training, and that’s odd, they sent him to the minors again instead of trading or releasing him, and what a coincidence, the team happens to have a dearth of playable outfielders, and wouldn’t you know it, the team called Herrerra up to the big leagues again on April 26, 2021, less than two years after he left the Golden Nugget casino in handcuffs, less than two years after team’s then-manager called the allegations  “deeply disturbing.” The Phillies had the eventual National League MVP and the Cy Young runner-up on their team and still found it necessary to overlook Odubel’s past and put him in the lineup to be a league-average hitter.*

–

My reckoning with Odubel once again last week dovetailed with the news that Deshaun Watson would likely be suspended six games for violating the National Football League’s personal conduct policy. Watson, for those who aren’t aware, has been sued by 24 female massage therapists over the past two years, women who accused the superstar quarterback of all manner of sex crimes ranging from guiding their hands towards his exposed privates during treatment sessions to outright forcing one therapist to perform oral sex on him.

Punishments meted out by professional sports leagues for actual crimes always draw comparisons to those handed out for “league” offenses, though it’s understandable why the NFL is appealing to at least double Watson’s suspension:, if the six-game ban holds up, Watson will be suspended for fewer games than Falcons star Calvin Ridley was for basically playing Draftkings for a week, fewer games than countless players received in the past for using marijuana.** But if “justice” is a questionable idea in our actual system of law and order, it’s a completely foreign concept in athletics. Sports leagues are not justice systems just because they conduct their own “investigations'' and issue their own “rulings'' any more than Tom Brady is this generation’s George Patton just because he gets called a “field general.” How could you ever map a number of football games to a DUI or sexual assault or domestic violence without it feeling wrong?

Besides, the NFL as a collection of teams, owners, executives and coaches made its own ruling on Watson months ago. With the aforementioned lawsuits still pending, a Texas grand jury declined to bring criminal charges against the then-Houston Texans quarterback on March 11, 2022. With the prospect of jail time no longer on the table, the Deshaun Watson Sweepstakes was on. Exactly one week later, after being wined and dined by nearly every team in the league, Watson had a fully-guaranteed $230 million deal with the Cleveland Browns, a contract structured to minimize the financial hit Watson would take when he was inevitably suspended.

In a league that rarely fully guarantees a contract to anyone (besides coaches, executives, and maybe the military), the Browns hadn’t just backed the Brinks truck up to Watson’s front door: they’d done everything short of replacing Ben Franklin’s portrait with Deshaun Watson's face saying "I never disrespected any woman" on every hundred dollar bill. There’s the Court of Public Opinion, then there’s the Court of Public Opinion Among People Who Sign the Checks.***

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Much ink has been and should be spilled on the subject of what the Watson suspension means for relations between pro sports leagues and their players unions, and on what the adjudication of the case says about pro sports leagues’ relationships with victims of domestic violence. I want to address a far less consequential issue, so if you were expecting me to solve labor unions or sexism in one post, you might be barking up the wrong blog. (though if you have any questions about the NFL’s relationship with its female fans, I have a few thousand pink caps and visors to sell you)

But I’ve spent a lot of time as an adult thinking about exactly how much compartmentalizing I’m willing to do watching sports. The Eagles were among the many, many teams rumored to be interested in trading for Deshaun Watson even after the laundry list of lawsuits were filed. I’m under no illusion that every person who ever played a down of football in midnight green was worthy of canonization, but the stories frustrated me just the same. Every few weeks, the rumors would resurface, and I’d get upset all over again, nervous that the persistence of this trade scuttlebutt was a sign that a deal was right around the corner rather than just being further proof that attaching the Eagles to any player on the market will get me and many other fans to spend days going “But should they???”

There are certainly folks who don’t have that same moral quandary. They don’t seem to be as vast in number as I would fear, but they undoubtedly exist. I remember talking with a friend a little under a year ago about Watson, just before 2021 football season, who said he made a point to try and separate a player’s on-field prowess from his off-field life. Sports are a form of entertainment, a distraction, a gift for getting to the end of another day/week of work, and having to wrestle with social, moral, ethical, or political dilemmas while you’re just trying to enjoy your free time seems unfair, makes it seem like you can’t ever escape.

Setting aside the fact that social, moral, ethical and political dilemmas are inextricably connected to pro sports in the same way they’re connected to the economy or education or art or really any institute of day-to-day life, I can empathize with this perspective to an extent. Humans are complicated, all of us, and just because someone didn’t break the law or social mores doesn’t mean they aren’t a scoundrel or a bad person. Do you want to spend precious sports-consuming time evaluating the terrifying truth of every athlete you root for, or do you just want to see them sock a few dingers?

Besides, in Watson’s case, he’s since settled all but one of his lawsuits and was never charged with a crime, and if it’s good enough for the justice system, it’s good enough for many sports fans appealing to that authority, looking for any reason to wipe their brow and go “phew, glad that’s over with” before getting back to discussing defensive schemes and three-team parlays. There’s no doubt many share that sentiment regardless of what team they root for, all but confirmed by the fact that the Browns just made a $230 million dollar bet on just that.

But in Philadelphia, sports fans (myself included) spent the past year excoriating Ben Simmons, a now-former 76er, for refusing to show up to work, refusing to work on his shooting, throwing his teammates under the bus, and basically acting like a loser. A few years ago, my wife and I attended a Sixers-Pelicans game in New Orleans, and the few NOLA fans that showed up occupied themselves for most of the game by booing the Pelicans’ star big man Anthony Davis, who had recently requested a trade because he was sick of playing for an organization that had steadfastly refused to build a winning team around him.

Fans hated watching Chad Johnson and Terrell Owens play football because they were flashy showboaters, prima donnas, divas, and all sorts of other coded insults. They hate Tom Brady and LeBron James for being cornballs who win all the time. They’ve threatened to boycott the NFL for being too woke, for being too violent, for players being paid too much, for all the commercials, for playing an extra song before the game.****

Sports fans will find the most trivial reasons to despise an athlete or a sport, and for the most part, that’s within their right. It’s sports. But if it’s fair game to consider all these extraneous factors when judging an athlete or a team, why would the line be drawn at the player’s off-field transgressions? If it’s okay to boo and despise John Rocker for ripping the New York Mets, how could you not expand that to the bile he spewed about everyone in the city who isn’t a straight white male? If you hated Pete Rose because he was a tryhard pest on the baseball diamond or a compulsive gambler off it, why wouldn't you also factor in his boorish, predatory behavior when considering whether to put the man on a pedestal? And if a player's charity and community service enhances our fandom, why wouldn’t the moments that they detract from the community do the opposite?

It didn’t matter to me - and still doesn’t - that Odubel Herrerra hasn’t spent a day in jail and is innocent in the eyes of the law. I’m not the law. I’m not required to like an athlete or pay money to watch them play sports because a judge or jury didn’t throw the book at them. I’m a Phillies fan, and I know how I felt about him. It bothered me to see him out there again. It made things less fun. I’m glad I don’t have to make the value judgment that my favorite football team trading for a remorseless creep and naming him their franchise quarterback would have forced, because it would have been awful difficult to justify enjoying the team knowing what kind of person he is or what his presence communicates to women and abuse survivors who *also* just want to sit down and watch a damn game sometimes.

I don’t know if there’s a blanket answer to the question of whether to separate the art from the artist in all fields, but I think it’s something worth engaging with, if only as a bit of a measuring stick for your own values. I can’t separate it with sports any longer, but I know many either don’t agree with the conclusion or don’t care enough to bother with the question. Maybe they answer enough tough questions during their day jobs and just want to watch the sports guys do sports when they punch out at day’s end. Or maybe they just love their team and the game so much that the threshold of what they’re willing to accept character-wise from the men and women they cheer for is fairly low.

I get that, I truly do. At the end of the day, it’s just people playing with a ball or a puck or a bat within a set of very clearly-defined lines. It’s just sports. It’s not the most important thing. But for me, at least, looking at the full picture and leaving the "art" and the "artist" connected helps me remember what is.

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*-Coincidentally, Herrerra was released by the Phillies on Tuesday after they traded for another outfielder that finally made him expendable. They also released pitcher Jeurys Familia, who also had a domestic violence misdemeanor charged and dropped in 2016; the Phillies signed him as a free agent this year.

**-Some of these suspension lengths are dictated by the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the player’s union, but just because something gets agreed upon during a labor agreement doesn’t make it look any better in execution. (I’m also aware that marijuana possession, use, etc. is still an “actual crime” in many states)

***-I’m simplifying the Watson situation a bit for brevity. A few weeks before Watson was first accused of sexual assault in March 2021, he requested a trade from the Texans. The team decided to deactivate him for the entire 2021 season, which started in September of that year; how much of the decision was due to the trade request vs. the pending lawsuits he’d racked up between March and September isn’t really clear. It’s just worth noting that on top of everything else, the Browns decided to pay a ton of draft picks and an unprecedented sum of guaranteed money for a player (admittedly an elite one) who hasn’t played a snap of meaningful football in over a year and a half.

****-The correct number of songs, patriotic or otherwise, that should be played before a sporting event is zero, unless the song is "Dreams and Nightmares" by Meek Mill or “Sandstorm” by Darude.

On "Hustle" and Hurdling the Lowered Bar

When a sports team becomes part of your identity, especially if it’s not a particularly successful one, the people in your life who have picked up on your deviant behavior will gleefully send you any article, video, or piece of content related to that team, as if to say “hey, look! Those weirdos you like? Other people know who they are!”

So it wasn’t much of a surprise that four separate people reached out to me over the past two weeks to say “Hey, you know what movie seems up your alley? 'Hustle!'” The subtext: “You know, 'Hustle,' the movie filmed in and around Philadelphia, with cameos from multiple members of the Philadelphia 76ers, that team you like, but like, way more than you’re supposed to?”

And yes, I’m a 76ers fan, in much the way anyone that grew up in the PA/DE/NJ tri state area could be assumed to be a 4-for-4 Philly sports fan until they prove otherwise. But more than that, I’m a Process-trusting sicko, the kind of Sam Hinkie Kool Aid-guzzling monster that overlooked three years of intentional losing, gleefully argued the merits of TJ McConnell vs. Scottie Wilbekin for a full summer, and treated the signing of JJ Redick as a franchise-legitimizing moment on par with the Red Sox breaking the Curse of the Bambino or that one time the Lions got real close to winning a playoff game. I would watch a two-hour documentary on the team’s disco-tastic victory song if (when) it was made, so of course a movie centered around the team would seem designed to appeal to me specifically.

Of course, all this conflicts with a big, loud, “Chanukah Song”-playing albatross hung around the film’s neck. At this point, it’s about as lukewarm a take as possible to be condescending about Adam Sandler’s movies , and to be clear, I've watched too many episodes of "The Circle" to consider myself a connoisseur of the finer things in movies/television. Yet it’s true that I haven’t found much need for or merit in Sandler's work since the Clinton administration, and even the most generous recollections of the two "classics" that lend his production company its name survive, as many comedies do, on nostalgia and Internet memes. 

And yet, "Hustle" has been extremely well-received by critics and fans and framed as one of Sandler’s growing portfolio of Surprisingly Good Serious Films^TM like "Uncut Gems*," "Punch-Drunk Love," and "The Meyerowitz Stories" that give Sandler critical cache that "Grown Ups 6" or "Fart Police 3" couldn’t muster. And Sandler – who I am required by law to mention can actually ball – certainly seems passionate about pro hoops, invested enough to make a quality sports drama.

The thing about "Uncut Gems" is that as good as Sandler was in that role (and he was!), the film’s overall feel wouldn’t seem markedly different if you dropped, say, Al Pacino or Leonardo DiCaprio or even John C. Reilly in his place. Aside from the requisite appearance of Sandler’s famous friends (Kevin Garnett and Mike Francesa), Gems was the vision and the creation of Josh and Ben Sadfie, through and through, as Punch-Drunk Love was Paul Thomas Anderson’s and Meyerowitz Stories was Noah Baumbach’s. I won’t claim to know much of the work or style of "Hustle" director Jeremiah Zagar, and I don’t need to, because "Hustle" has the Sandman’s fingerprints all over it. It’s a standard Sandler joint dressed in "The Natural’s" clothes.

 

Digging the Fed Donuts sweater though

Sandler plays Stanley Sugerman, which also happens to be the name that comes out when you input any first and last name into an “Adam Sandler Character Name Generator.” Stanley is a beleaguered international scout for the 76ers who’s logged three decades of work in the NBA in hopes of one day making it to coaching. He finally gets his chance when the team’s elderly owner Rex Merrick (Robert Duvall) promotes him to assistant coach; that same day, however, Rex passes away, leaving his jerkass son Bryan Colangelo-er, Vincent (Ben Foster) in charge of the team as owner and ostensible general manager. A few months later, Vince returns Stanley to his role as scout to find the team’s “missing piece,” in part because the prospect Vince just drafted (against Stanley’s recommendation) already looks like a bust.

Stanley travels to Spain and finds an immensely-talented player named Bo Cruz (NBA player Juancho Hernangomez) dominating a local pickup game. Stanley brings Bo to the US to try to get the Sixers to sign him. When the team refuses, Stanley quits his job and devotes himself full time to train the talented but raw Bo into the NBA Draft. Eventually, after a few setbacks and blowups that bring the two men closer together through their similar struggles and love for their family and respective daughters, Bo proves himself and makes it to the NBA, while Stanley gets rehired by the Sixers as assistant coach.

It's possible you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, thanks for the spoiler alerts, jerk!” But I assure you that the only way I could have spoiled "Hustle" for you is if you are five years old, and if you are five years old, please stop reading this blog and go play outside! Otherwise, you could not possibly identify a single story beat or plot element that you couldn’t have predicted from having watched any other cookie-cutter sports movie:

• ·The gifted-but-raw prospect pulled out of poverty by a middle-aged coach figure putting everything on the line for one last shot.
• The initial embarrassing defeat that shows how far said prospect has left to go to reach his/her potential.
• The training montage, which in "Hustle" lasts for an indefensible ten minutes.
• The argument that drives coach and player to a near-breaking point before the two come to understand each other and become even closer.
• The precocious, sports-ignorant child suggesting something that’s just crazy enough to work – in this case, Stanley’s daughter suggesting they put Bo’s playground showdowns on social media and then press the big red “GO VIRAL” button to get him into the combine.
• The player’s “last chance” after all hope seems lost.
• The female characters that serve no apparent purpose other than to show how much the male leads love their families, illustrate some familial issue, or – in the case of Heidi Gardner’s character – disappear for 75% of the movie only to suddenly reappear at the end to grant Stanley his “happily ever after.” (Seriously, Stanley’s wife, played by Queen freaking Latifah, was a track star in college. What exactly does she do now besides exposit some otherwise-unapparent travel-driven gulf between Stanley and his high school-aged daughter? Why does everyone have so much time to help Stanley train this stranger he flew in from overseas?)

You’ll likely guess the next twist or turn full minutes before they happen, which is a bummer because there were several opportunities to take "Hustle" off the beaten path. My wife noted how frequently Stanley’s wife warned him to eat healthier or he’d have a heart attack; maybe he’d have an actual health crisis stemming from years of eating junk food on the road, forcing Bo to go it alone at the combine? (Nah) When Stanley first calls Vince Merrick imploring them to sign Bo, Vince balks, suggesting there were “other factors”** to consider. What were they? Was the front office getting pressure from an agent or some shadowy league figure to take a different player? (Nope! Never gets mentioned again) The closest "Hustle" comes to a variation on the “sports movie” stereotype is at the end when it borrows from romantic comedies, sending Stanley on a race through the airport to get Bo for a last-second, last-chance talent showcase. Eat your heart out, "Love Actually."

What about the setting? It’s cool that the film was shot almost entirely in Philadelphia and reps a number of local spots, perhaps most prominently the hills of Manayunk. But outside of a crack Stanley makes about Philly sports fans and a single line that might be a Meek Mill reference, the film feels mostly generic, universal, like the playground courts could be in any city with even a modicum of passion for its NBA team. There are Philly-based Easter eggs, sure, but the movie rarely see Stanley or Bo interact with ordinary non-NBA folks, and the Manayunk training sequences take place at 3 AM, not exactly prime "gather a crowd of Philadelphians to cheer you on" time.The references could be swapped in and out like Legos without substantial story impact, the film reskinned with St. John’s, Walt Frazier, and Katz’s instead of Temple, Julius Erving, and Pat’s. There’s a difference between a sports movie set in Philly and a sports movie that embodies Philly.

 

"Trust me, this one *killed* on the set of 'Jack and Jill.'"

A heartwarming, unchallenging sports movie with a predictable plot isn’t the gravest sin. "Remember the Titans" still holds a special place in many hearts without anything remotely resembling a “twist,” and not because of its “based on a true story” designation. It’s the other part, the part I feared most coming in, that bothered me most, the Sandler factor that presumably would have lent this boilerplate flick its originality and character. Admittedly, Sandler is perfectly fine as Stanley, basically acting like late-career Adam Sandler but a little quieter, and with the angry yelling parts accented by dramatic lighting instead of a taser. But if you have an Adam Sandler movie cosplaying as a sports drama, there’s still an Adam Sandler movie hiding under the getup.

Just before the halfway point of the film, Stanley is training Bo in the art of weathering trash talk on the court, because somehow – despite years of playing street ball in Spain and trading verbal barbs with every ball player in his neighborhood – Bo’s one glaring weakness is that he becomes completely incapable of playing basketball well after one (1) American player says “Olé, bitch” to him during a game. The first insult Stanley throws as Bo mid-jumper is “Your mother’s a whore,” and it escalates from there, including a few hastily-translated Spanglish (get it?) invectives. After Bo hits a few shots in a row and seemingly conquers his bugaboo, Stanley closes out the scene as such:

STANLEY: By the way, you mother’s not a whore.

ME: Oh hell yeah, here it comes.

BO: Oh yeah? Thanks.

ME: Hang on, we’re coming in for a landing.

STANLEY: Yeah, whores get paid. Your mother shakes that ass for free.

ME: YEEEEESSSS!

If I could see anything from a distance the way I could see that punchline coming from a hundred miles away, I wouldn’t need the glasses I never wear anyway.

Sandler’s comedic sensibilities are unmistakable. He simply cannot help himself. Every bit, every setup, every recurring joke has its bones in a prior Sandler work, which in turn almost certainly finds its DNA in another prior Sandler work. It’s a self-referential Jenga tower. It’s scenes like Stanley meeting Bo’s family where the misdirection is obvious from the moment Bo’s mother Paola says that Bo “lost” his father at a young age. (Surprise: it also involves the word “whore!”) It’s the body-shaming “titties” joke in an early pool scene. It’s the cartoonishly cruel antagonists pouring it on with that one extra, needlessly-personal dig straight out of the Jon Taffer playbook to justify the protagonist snapping, even when they would’ve been warranted in doing so 20 seconds prior. It’s the many, many, many porn jokes.  It’s the one-note joke character introduced near the beginning of the film and dragged back out near the conclusion for something resembling a callback (this time around, it’s Boban Marjanovic’s ambiguously-aged “Big Serbian,” which I suppose is an improvement over Rob Schneider’s “You can do it!” guy or Steve Buscemi’s homeless veteran) Any time "Hustle" tries to weasel in a moment of comedic levity, it feels imported from a completely different movie, like if all the quips in "Bull Durham" were being delivered by Bobby Boucher.

 

Tobias Harris out here risking a $180 million contract for the Gram.

I’ve done a lot of griping, but I wouldn’t say "Hustle" is a bad movie. The story wraps up far too neatly at the end, but the actual basketball sequences are solid and the acting is fine on balance. Plus, Sandler and SpringHill Company (the production company founded by LeBron James and business partner Maverick Carter) truly flex their muscle in the cameo department.

The abundance of actual NBA players and personalities dotting every scene does a good job of establishing verisimilitude while giving basketball fans the extra treat of identifying all the familiar faces (shout out Aaron McKie), although it’s a bit confusing that a majority of players appear as themselves – Dirk Nowitzki, Trae Young (BOOOOO), and Tobias Harris (who presumably is still making $36 million a year in this world but still inexplicably risks his body to play this random Spanish prospect in one-on-one on the streets of Philadelphia in the movie) – but a handful, like Timberwolves star Anthony Edwaards and the aforementioned Hernangomez, play fictional characters. Marjanovic, a fairly recognizable player in his own right, plays a character identified only as “Big Serbian,” while poor Moe Wagner gets stuck playing the schmuck German prospect Haas. Most confusingly, Kenny Smith plays an agent named Leon Rich (presumably a reference to real-life NBA agents Rich Paul and Leon Rose) instead of…you know…Kenny Smith, co-host of "Inside the NBA," one of the most watched sports studio shows on television. No matter how many times Stanley called him “Leon,” it’s impossible not to think “Oh, that’s Kenny Smith. This Sixers scout is friends with Kenny Smith” any time he made it on screen. (Compounding the problem, "Hustle" includes an "Inside the NBA" clip that features Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley, and Ernie Johnson opining on Bo Cruz’s draft prospects. Where oh where was Kenny during that broadcast? Shooting a movie?)

So no, "Hustle" is not a bad movie, it’s an unchallenging movie. It’s a “love letter to basketball” as several critics all managed to determine all on their own somehow, easily-digestible without quite sinking to junk food level. It’s comfort food cooked with a standard-issue story, eye-rolling Sandlerness (which I am sure is comforting to somebody) and a deluge of big names. It shouldn’t be a shock: Adam Sandler and LeBron James weren’t going to jeopardize their league-wide relationships by creating an adventurous, irreverent challenge to the NBA hierarchy. And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with enjoying comfort food or comfort media. Sometimes, you don’t want to have to wrap your head around dream extraction to enjoy a movie. Sometimes, you just want to sleepwalk through Sleepless in Seattle or Sleepless in Seattle on an AOL Trial Disk. It’s fine!

What’s confusing – and a little annoying to me, a very petty person with misplaced priorities – is how something so basic could become one of the most well-reviewed films of Sandler’s career. "Hustle" is “one of the most textured and affectionate basketball that’s come along in a long time.” It could turn Manayunk Hill into a local landmark the way “Rocky did for those 72 stone steps leading to the Philadelphia Art Museum.” (what?) Sandler “may receive another Oscar nod for this portrayal,” the reviewer apparently awarding Sandler a nomination he didn’t actually get for Uncut Gems.

The only explanation I can come up with is that we’ve all been bamboozled in different ways. Having fed us a consistent diet of low-brow dreck, Sandler’s recent attempts to even touch the accelerator after decades of coasting is like biting into an Applebee’s hamburger after subsisting on exclusively hardtack sandwiches and Diet Swill for years. There’s a growing narrative that we’re experiencing something of a “Sandlerssance” based on his output the past few years, a perception only sustainable by ignoring "Hubie Halloween"**** and a Sandler-produced “David Spade as Adam Sandler” comedy sandwiched between "Gems" and "Hustle." But everyone loves an underdog story, whether it’s a down-on-his-luck Spanish hooper fighting to make the big time or a 90’s SNL star rebounding from a career of keeping Nick Swardson on the payroll to make Surprisingly Good Serious Films^TM.

And to be clear, I count myself among the bamboozled. I saw the trailers, took the recommendations from my family and friends, got excited about seeing Tyrese Maxey and Matisse Thybulle in a movie, and decided to trust the process. I came in for a great sports movie, and I got an Adam Sandler movie in disguise.

----

*-"Uncut Gems" was one of the last movies I saw in theaters before the pandemic and I really enjoyed it. Coincidentally, "Gems’" plot also centers around the Sixers, specifically their 2012 playoff series against the Celtics. My near-perfect recollection of how each game in that series went was a minor, though not prohibitive spoiler of certain parts of the movie. Brandon Bass can still go to hell.

**-As it turns out, there were “other factors” in Bo’s past that came back to haunt him when he tried to enter the United States, but the Sixers didn’t know about this at the time.

***-For those keeping track of LeBron James' passive aggressiveness, I noted only one appearance by any of his current Lakers teammates in "Hustle": a post-credits highlight of Anthony Davis getting punked by Boban Marjanovic in a real game.

****-Apologies to my wife, who loved "Hubie Halloween." It was a pandemic, guys.