things that are not a baby

I. Trump Will Win in 2020

Matthew Walther is both the best and worst of opinion journalism. When he's wrong, he's archly provocative, sensitive to the point of defensiveness, insulting, and childish. When he's in good form, he puts aside his contrarian safety blanket and practices what is essentially a stylized common sense. He's also right about why Trump will probably win in 2020:

A contest between a generic neoliberal and Trump would be a battle of airs and grievances, a duel for feigned moral superiority utterly divorced from practical moral and economic questions. It would be phantasmal, like the rest of our political life. Only a progressive candidate who could articulate the ways in which the Trump administration is a continuation of all the ills — the shocking accumulation of unimaginable power and wealth by a handful of large tech companies, the relentless financialization of the economy, the absence of meaningful and well-remunerated full-time work, the crippling debt, the social breakdown that has made family life a privilege for the upper-middle class — of his last three predecessors would meaningfully alter the terms of the engagement.

II. Denis Johnson Likes to Buy Milk Barefoot

I mentioned Denis Johnson recently - hard not to what with his dying last year, his final collection being published this year, and his influence on almost every writer I know (and me) - but an old, unpublished interview was just put online. There's plenty of gems, including:

[A]s I got older, five years later, I thought, what difference does it make [if I steal stories from my life]? Everybody I meet knows [I'm not right in the head] within seconds. There’s no hiding it. And the people who don’t meet me aren’t going to care that somebody wrote these stories.

I mean, one day it just dawned on me it made no difference at all how much of me might or might not be revealed in the stories.. . . I think after going through the common humiliations of a human life, I realized it just doesn’t matter. There’s nobody who can disguise himself. Eventually we’re all outed in one way or another.

III. Freaks and Geeks
I'm finally watching the TV show Freaks and Geeks. While it's famous for being a treasure trove of actors who will become bona fide celebrities - Seth Rogen, James Franco, Linda Cardellini, Martin Starr, John Francis Daley, Busy Phillips - it's one of those projects where the salient thing people say about the show still somehow undersells the show. It's honestly the only time I've thought James Franco was a good actor. I get through maybe half an episode every other day, catching it while I'm home with Annabelle. Every time she looks at the screen I'm certain I'm turning her into a degenerate. This is a different subject, but the opium of the people has always been opium, until we invented TV and created analogical meth. The internet and gaming is the synthetic stuff. The delivery system, when it comes to entertainment, determines at least half the toxicity. Also, highly recommend you watch. Great cast. I have Netflix track marks on both arms. 

VI. Things That Are Not Your Baby (Unpopular, if Lighthearted, Opinion Alert):
Your dog is not a baby. Nor your cat. Your book, for sure. Dear God, I'm serious - your book or album or Masterpiece Theatre teleplay is not a baby. The analogy isn't even false so much as belittling to every feature of the analogy. You don't need a baby. That's the better, empowering truth. Your car, your plants, the thing you care for which is not a baby, is not a baby. Jokingly calling something a baby off the cuff is fine. Even fun! Calling yourself a mom because you have a cat is akin to a disorder. You're not a cat-daddy. Your cat has a daddy. It probably abandoned him. Cats are like humans that way. All this baby talk used to drive me crazy because it minimizes babies; now that I have a baby I find it insulting to all my friends who don't want babies. Especially if you're in the Christian church, where we have one of the greatest traditions of spiritual friendship and celibacy in the world. Having a baby is probably the best thing in my life, but also I was happy before I had a baby. Babies, to be clear, are great. Have babies if you feel so inclined! Also, the opposite. And if the opposite, do not succumb to the group-think, normalizing pressure of calling anything you love a baby, as though without baby-love your non-baby life is somehow void. That's false. Not so false as calling a dog a baby or yourself a daddy if all you parent is a goldfish, but false all the same. Dogs are great because they are dogs. Thank God they're not babies, you guys. Come on.

Clarification: my mom always jokingly said if you can keep a plant alive, get a pet; if you can keep a pet alive, you're safe to have a kid. One, good joke. Two, puppies obviously need you to care for them with benevolent selflessness in such a way that may foreshadow other obligations. But this is merely a lesson on the common-sense order of what should be given dignity and love. If you'd willingly feed your baby to a dog in some extreme survival situation, then and only then can you call the dog your child. But also, that'd be insane.

In conclusion: Dogs and babies and cats and plants and your book are great, but different.

This newsletter is my baby.