Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking about AirPods, T-shirt hoarding, Hitler’s dog, and more.
Your letters:
Todd:
Am I the last guy in America who walks around his neighborhood without AirPods in, either listening to music or talking to someone on the phone? Will we ever again have an era where we say hi to our neighbors or strangers walking the opposite way? I feel like this is just another way the American soul is dying. Hold me.
The AirPods people are among the most dangerous people I encounter out on the bike paths. I can ring my little bell. I can give the “on your left” at max volume. But if I’m coming from behind someone lost in their phone, I already know that none of my heads-up efforts will be sufficient enough. Those AirPods folks stay in the deadass center of the trail, and I have to ride onto the grass—like a DOG!—to get around them without accidentally committing manslaughter. How rude.
But this, of course, is the least of our macro concerns when it comes to tech that allows people to shut out the world around them. My old GQ colleague Lauren Larson wrote a big thing on noise-canceling shit a couple of years ago. Too much modern technology is designed exclusively to isolate its user from the outside world: smartphones, chatbots, earbuds, delivery apps, you name it. Human beings tend to be awkward and unpredictable, so these devices make your life easier by obviating the need to deal with those creatures face to face. Around Y2K, the sales pitch was that a cell phone would bring you closer to the people you loved. Carriers don’t bother with that shit anymore. Now they’ll just pay Billy Bob Thornton $2 million to tell customers that they’ll never lose a signal, and that every data plan comes with all-you-can-eat internet at a low price. That’s all they give a shit about, and all customers do either.
So what happens as a result? You get Americans caring far more about the virtual world they inhabit on their phones than the real world that they physically live in. Republicans are very good at attracting people like this, who are ever growing in number. Democrats are fucking terrible at it. That’s Donald Trump’s secret. He embodies the so-called “working American”—stupid, vain, entitled, disconnected from reality with no interest in going back—far better than some mythical dockworker struggling to pay the electric bill. Democrats either haven’t figured this out or, more likely, refuse to accept it. This is why they lose. If you want to win an election in this country, you better know how to lie and how to attract stupid people. Trump gets this. His opponents rarely do.
I talked with David Roth about this a couple of weeks ago, but it’s worth reiterating how the internet, and all of the accessories that go with it, have disrupted the natural learning curve. You learn new things by seeing things you otherwise wouldn’t want to see, and by hearing things you wouldn’t otherwise want to hear. But suddenly here’s a genie—one who looks suspiciously like Clippy—busting out of your desk lamp and granting you the power to avoid all of that pesky confrontation. You can just do everything online, where no one wants to ever feel vulnerable, or appear emotionally wounded. What happens to you once that wish is granted? You socialize yourself to laugh at the hurt and vulnerable instead. The triggered. The woke. You are now an emotionally stunted brat, just like the people running this shithole of a country.
And you won’t get out of my way on the goddamn bike path.
Michael:
I've heard three people (outside of work) make derogatory statements about insurance salesmen this week. It's not the job I dreamed about having as a kid, but I make a decent living. I’m honest with my clients and don't upsell shit they don't need. Is my profession really looked down upon that badly by the general populous? What can we, as insurance salesmen, do to earn their trust back?
I’m afraid there’s no other option: You will have to find and kill Jake from State Farm. He and he alone has tarnished your profession so terribly that so long as he lives, your collective reputation will suffer.
Levity aside, you guys are also victims of people like me using “insurance salesman” as their default option when trying to think of a dull occupation off the top of their heads. Chartered accountancy also suffers from this casual stigma. Some quarterback fucks up on TV and I’m like, “He should be selling insurance.” In other words, he’s a nondescript guy who deserves the nondescript job to match. He doesn’t deserve an exciting job like quarterback, movie star, or Defector staff member. He deserves obscurity: the worst vocational fate imaginable in an attention economy. Do I actually look down on insurance salesmen? No, it’s just that I never pay them any mind. That’s the key.
Meanwhile, I’ve got an insurance broker of my own (“broker,” as a word, does wonder here) that I can’t live without. If I have some issue with my car insurance or my house insurance, I call their office and OMG! A real person answers the phone! They know who I am, what’s in my policy, and how to address my needs. Without that broker, I’d be stuck on hold with Progressive for 25 minutes anytime I needed shit. This is how arson happens. I also find doing my taxes oddly fascinating, too! These are all necessary people who do good work. They’re the REAL frontline heroes. So when it comes to brainstorming dull jobs, I’m not making enough of an effort here. I gotta think of something that’s both stultifying AND of no real use to anyone. You know, like U.S. Senator.
Sam:
How many T-shirts are too many T-shirts for a grown-ass man, with a regular office job that does not allow wearing T-shirts? I fell behind on my laundry, and as I went through the stack of T-shirts I realized that I have waaay too many. At the same time, most of them mean something to me: a cool playoff hockey game I attended, a race I ran, a concert I loved, Bluth's Bananastand, etc... In no world do I need twenty-five shirts, but I also can't get rid of any. Help!
I publicly swore off wearing T-shirts on this very website four years ago. Guess how long that holdout lasted? Turned out I just hated wearing all the T-shirts I owned back then, because they were old and grubby and made me look frumpy. So I went buckwild at a nearby Nordstrom Rack and loaded up on discounted tees from more upscale brands. Then I wore those shirts out and kept buying new ones—usually concert tees—to cycle in. Overworn/pitted-out shirts now go into a separate drawer for workout clothes. Old workout tees go either into my wife’s “to Poshmark” pile or the garbage. Usually in the garbage. That is my system now. You’ve never been so fascinated.
The point here is that it’s less about what kind of garment you’re wearing (I still own more than 25 T-shirts) than the quality of that garment. I wore a cheap Macy’s polo shirt on national television once. No one complimented me on my drip for it. Quite the contrary. Had I worn an attractive shirt of any kind that day, a Google image search of my name wouldn’t look like a housefly’s view of a failed Delta pledge. Instead, Scott Conant roasted my ass from the judge’s table and I walked home with the most bittersweet 10 grand you can win without being injured in a car accident. I threw the shirt out the second I got home.
My wardrobe has only marginally improved in the interim, but at least I’ve started to learn how to curate it. You don’t have to keep every T-shirt that has sentimental value to you. It’s just a T-shirt, and no one will be impressed by the GO HARD OR GO HOME tee you scored during Senior Week at Chugsalot State. Keep what looks good on you now in the rotation, and let go of the rest. This is where being married helps. There are certain items that I need someone else to give me mental permission to move on from. My wife is all too happy to provide it. I still own too many T-shirts, but I’d have triple the current number if she wasn’t here to curb my entry-level hoarding instincts.
Matt:
There are plenty of examples of women as assistant coaches in men's professional sports. But which of the four major men's sports leagues will have the first woman as a head coach?
Basketball is the obvious choice here, given the prominence of female assistant coaches in the NBA. Becky Hammon was one of the most highly regarded coaching prospects in the league when she worked for the Spurs. And Pacers assistant Jenny Boucek just helped lead her team to the Finals. Boucek wasn’t hired for decoration. She knows her shit so well that she’s got credibility with everyone associated with the Pacers organization, head coach Rick Carlisle foremost among them. If that team keeps barging into the Finals over and over again, maybe Boucek has a shot to get a head job over the 450 male retreads who keep getting offers.
I’m not gonna hold my breath, though. Hammon moved over to the WNBA and immediately started racking up titles, but the NBA still didn’t make her an offer. Fifteen women hold full-time coaching positions in the NFL, but none of them have risen to the level of coordinator, let alone head coach. When it comes to progress, the final leap is always the hardest one.
And even when the ceiling is finally broken, nothing is guaranteed after that. Carl Nassib came out as the first openly gay NFL player four years ago. I figured his announcement would encourage more gay NFL players to come out. Zero did. Nassib toiled as a rotational pass rusher before retiring in 2023. I can’t begin to tell when another player will follow in his wake. Maybe it’ll be this season. Maybe not for 15 years. This shit doesn’t work on a fixed timeline, especially when 2025 America is about as friendly an environment for diverse hires as medieval England. As with Trump’s supposed impending death, all of it falls into the “I’ll believe it once it happens” bucket.
Michael:
What do you think about a movie theater that plays everything with the captions on? I'm used to watching movies at home now with them on. Then I recently saw one in theaters without them and it was all I could think about the whole time.
Apparently some movie theaters are gonna start displaying captions onscreen, which is silly when you consider that the average Cineplex plays every feature at rocket launch volume. Chain owners know that the asshole sitting next to you will take a 50-minute speakerphone call during the movie, so they jack up the sound levels to drown all of that ambient noise out. The second a theater goes to captions, the volume will come back down and speakerphone guy will have won the war.
Despite my hearing loss, I still usually avoid turning captions on when I’m watching movies at home. Sometimes, especially if the sound mixing is poor, I have no choice but to succumb. But otherwise, I don’t want the extra screen clutter. I also want to see the character’s faces when they’re saying the words. Some streamers have addressed this issue by moving the captions around on screen, with the words closer to the lips of whoever’s saying them. I also appreciate Hulu putting their captions under the picture entirely for shows like Alien: Earth. If I can’t quite make out the dialogue, I can refer to the text in the black HD bar. If I want to ignore that text, I can do so easily. This pleases me.
But if there’s no one else around and I can crank the sound bar up to the point of pain, that’s better. I’m pro-human like that.
HALFTIME!
Jeff:
Why do football coaches still wear those massive headsets with wires? Couldn't AirPods do the trick?
No, because of security issues. If coaches used AirPods, they’d first of all be dodging the social compact that I thoughtfully outlined a few letters above. More important, the Bluetooth connection would be easier for extended members of the Belichick family to intercept. I know, because the Bluetooth connection in my house gets intercepted by my kids all the time. I’m working out with my pill speaker cranking “Disposable Heroes” up to 11, then all of sudden I hear a BLOOP BLOOP come over the song, and then suddenly I’m listening to YouTuber screaming about how badly he got owned in Minecraft just now. The worst.
I know society is now in ruins, but seriously: How have our Silicon Valley overlords not given me a decent alternative to Bluetooth? It’s wonky, it eats up more battery life than it should, and it puts any user in constant danger of having the audio from the Pornhub clip they’re watching suddenly start playing over the Alexa unit in the family kitchen. I can’t live like this. No citizen of the world can. Down with Bluetooth. Forever.
Jamie:
I was trying to explain movie tie-in music videos to my sons the other day and realized, as the words were coming out of my mouth, that I sounded like an insane person. The eight-year-old wanted to listen to Smash Mouth's "All-Star" in the car as pump-up music for his soccer game, and as it was playing I thought, "Why does this song make me think of Ben Stiller standing on top of a limo screaming?"
Anyway, you and I were in junior high and high school around the same time during, arguably, the peak of the genre. So which movie tie-in music videos, good or bad, did you watch the most? Mine probably were:
5) Bon Jovi / “Blaze of Glory” / Young Guns II
3) (tie) U2 / “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” / Batman Forever and Seal / “Kiss From a Rose” / Batman Forever
2) Bryan Adams / “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” / Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
1) Guns N' Roses / “You Could Be Mine” / Terminator 2
This the second time this year I’ve somehow gotten a question regarding “Blaze of Glory,” which is two times too many. Next thing you know I’m gonna start assembling my dream cast for a Teen Wolf reboot. Slippery slope.
It’s funny how splicing movie clips moved from popular music videos in the 20th century to pregame show hype videos in this one. I much preferred the former arrangement, mostly because “You Could Be Mine” was such a kickass video. Shit, I even liked the Bryan Adams video that Jamie listed above. Like when Adams hits that swell on the bridge, and sings, "YEAH I'D FIGHT FOR YOU" over footage of movie horsies galloping across the screen? I got some goosies from that. You’re the first people I’ve ever told.
But that doesn’t mean all of those tie-in videos were winners. The one I was subjected to the most often, by far, was “I Will Always Love You,” which Whitney Houston recorded as a tie-in to The Bodyguard. I hated that song. I can admire it in retrospect, because I am no longer forced to listen to/watch it 600 times a day. But back then, it was as inescapable as Trump. Rough times for little Drew. And not long after as that song faded from the rotation, Celine Dion came along to beat the Titanic theme into my eyes and ears. Again: respect now, contempt back then. Any movie tie-in video needed to have loud guitars and even louder guns to make me happy.
To that end, I’d just like to give a shoutout to the Last Action Hero soundtrack, which was 1,000 times better than the movie that spawned it. And to Madonna’s “Live to Tell,” which is not only a good song in its own right, but provided a flawless bedrock score to At Close Range, which is as cool an '80s thriller as was ever made. Also, “Seasons” by Chris Cornell still plays in my head even though I haven’t listened to the Singles soundtrack (the only Cameron Crowe movie I’ve ever liked) in 20-plus years. This paragraph has been a remarkable waste of your time. Let’s move off of it.
Jeff:
Our son is turning two in November, and we are expecting our second boy in October. I'm feeling very emotional about everything. Our little guy is growing up so fast, I look back at old pictures on my phone of him and want to cry. He even got his first haircut today and I felt so emotional about it. Everything is making me an emotional wreck lately. I'm just curious if these emotions go away as your kids get older, or are you still tearing up at early pictures and memories of your kids even now?
I am no longer quick to tears. I’m sure that my meds factor into the equation here. I take one pill to manage the brain injury I suffered in an accident seven years ago, and I take an anti-anxiety pill to keep my mood (and my compulsions) level. That reduces the hormones in my system that make me all weepy.
But it’s not all that. I used to be like Jeff up there, where even a shitty movie trailer would have me doing the whole “Is it getting dusty in here?” thing. But now my kids are much older, and I’ve grown too familiar with love and loss over my 48 years that I’m not knocked off kilter as easily as I once was. I still go “awww” whenever I see a picture of my kids from when they were babies, but that’s about it. I am now a stoic, as my Midwestern upbringing foretold. Sometimes I wonder if something is wrong with me. Sometimes I think, “Hey man, shouldn’t I be a complete wreck right now?” But then the old man inside of me tells me to shut the fuck up and deal. Life hardens you like that. It’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s healthy. You’re the older generation, which means you should be the levelheaded, wise one.
You’ll get there one day too, Jeff. Not having to watch Pixar movies anymore will be the key turning point.
Michael:
What are your feelings on Wite-Out? Both the liquid and roll on versions? I take notes with a pen throughout the day and hate leaving scratch marks, so I choose Wite-Out. However both versions are awful and blot your pen for several minutes afterwards and leave bad streaks. Do you have a recommendation?
My recommendation is to stop using Wite-Out. I haven’t used that shit since I was in middle school. And even then, I sucked at applying it. I’d go to cover one typo and accidentally brush over half a paragraph. Then I’d write over the Wite-Out before it had dried and my pen would have a pretty little snowcap on its ballpoint for the rest of Spanish class. Misery. When they came out with the roll-on version, I was blown away. Oh my God, look at what science has given us! Somehow I sucked at using that one, too. Eventually I realized that I wasn’t the one to blame, the Wite-Out was. It’s not a user-friendly product. It’s low-grade nail polish. I’ll never touch it again.
This is easy for me to do, because I write almost everything on my computer, and because my handwriting is so lousy that the scratches in my notebook only help to improve things. But if you’re more of a neat freak than I am, and I completely understand if you are, here’s a line of erasable pens to wean you off of Wite-Out for good. [Thomas Dolby voice] Science!
Mikey:
A few weeks ago I heard someone say that we truly know how horrible Hitler was because he killed his dog before he killed himself. I've been thinking about that ever since, because I completely disagree. I love my dog more than anything in the world. But I cannot imagine killing myself and forcing her to forage for food in my empty apartment, being confused and scared and sad about my dead body, and then eventually eating me because she is starving to death. I think Hitler killing his dog is the second kindest thing Hitler ever did (the first is killing himself, obviously, not the Holocaust).
I appreciate the clarification. But also, couldn’t Hitler have found a new home for his dog prior to dying by suicide? I know he was trapped in a bunker and that ALL of them were gonna die, but still. He could have listed Blondi (that was the dog’s actual name) on PetConnect or something before chomping down on a cyanide pill. That’s what I would have done. You have to take care of your affairs before you die, not destroy them. If I get terminal cancer and am given only two weeks to live, I’m not gonna put a bullet in my wife’s dome before checking out. There are other ways to handle the situation.
Email of the week!
Barry:
Staying at my brother's in the burbs. While I was finishing the pot roast for the fam, he just walked into the kitchen from the bathroom and said this:
“When I blow my nose while I'm peeing, it makes me fart.”
Did you ever have a moment when a guy opens up unexpectedly about something and it's weirdly bonding? My brother and I have never even talked about sex....we are WASPs for God's sake. I froze because my head was swimming with soooo many questions. I just slowly repeated his statement to get my head around it.
When I blow my nose. While I'm peeing. It makes me fart.
Standing or sitting? “Standing.” Why not blow before or after? “I like multitasking.” Do you blow your nose one-handed? “No.” How many hands do you have? “Two.” Umm... how do you do it? “Point, set and unload..... sometimes I floss.” Do you do this to MAKE yourself fart? “No.” Does flossing make you fart? “No.” When you look at the sun, do you sneeze? “Yes.”
Drew, my Brother never told me anything this endearing, weird or intimate. But it's absurd right? Who blows their nose while they're peeing!? Sitting maybe, but standing!? I don't get it, but I found it very informative and bonding in a guy-ish way. I've haven't felt this heard since my freshman year, when my dormmate asked if it was ok if he wanked.
I told my brother he just became 13% more interesting to me. Then I told him that my greatest dislike is a sudden unavoidable sneeze while I'm taking a shit. Bonding Bros!
Which is worse, Drew, a sudden unavoidable sneeze while shitting, or voluntarily blowing your nose (sometimes flossing) while stand-peeing that makes you fart, and then telling an uptight WASP about it?
I love my brother.
Still trying to work out the flossing part here. Seems unnecessary.
