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 butter parties, severance packages, finding new hobbies, and more.
Before we go any further, I demand you give it up to Albert Burneko for so capably filling my shoes here a week ago. Truly, Bert is the king of kings.
Your letters:
Tom:
Been watching some WNBA this year as my fiancée has gotten very into it, and I am just continually shocked at their insistence on stepping on a rake at every turn, and this Cunningham thing is particularly egregious. Is there any other league on earth that would allow itself to be so transparently rope-a-doped into an astroturfed right wing grievance campaign by a bench player on a middling team? I didn't even know she existed until that dumb pointing meme and now she has everyone by the figurative balls.
Let's go back for those who aren't caught up yet. Tom is referring to Indiana Fever bit player Sophie Cunningham, who gave an interview to ESPN a couple of weeks ago where she spewed a bunch of transphobic horseshit. She made these remarks all under the bad-faith guise of "I support women!" straight out of the Glenn Youngkin playbook. To add another cliché to the pile, Cunningham also boasted to ESPN that she just does not FRICKIN' care what people think about her, and she don't care who knows it!
All that Kid Rocking earned Cunningham instant right-wing folk-hero status, with a feckless WNBA going out of its way to punish a co-owner for telling Cunningham's supporters to fuck off rather than calling out Cunningham for saying a bunch of nasty shit. As a result, Cunningham is already laying the groundwork for a second career in right-wing grifting. And she'll succeed, because the right wing will take in any jackass so long as they're bigoted enough.
Meantime, Fever superstar Caitlin Clark has—not necessarily by choice—become the right's de facto Flower of Southern Womanhood, with poison peddlers imagining every foul committed against her by a black player to be a reverse-racism hate crime of the highest magnitude. Because this is a woman's league, and because the heart of its season takes place in a relatively quiet stretch of the American sports calendar, MAGA America has projected all of its bullshit onto the W with full force. And guess what? It fucking blows. I earnestly just want to stick to sports here, but they won't let me!
Which brings us to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who becomes the easy and obvious target for observers who aren't into the culture war and want to find someone to blame for its proliferation. Engelbert sucks—she has a terrible relationship with the players, the league's refereeing problem just keeps getting worse, and she tends to either shrink from the spotlight or put her foot in her mouth every time one of these right-wing campaigns against the league flares up. So it's easy for someone like Bill Simmons to spend five minutes at the end of his latest podcast calling for Engelbert to be fired while fantasizing about how quickly David Stern would have whipped the league into shape if he were in charge, and also not dead.
Simmons couldn't articulate what Talbots' most valuable customer could do better as steward of the WNBA, especially as it relates to this Cunningham controversy. But I can: Engelbert could have forcefully and publicly condemned Cunningham's transphobia, then made it clear that her league would be welcoming to trans athletes and fans. She didn't, because she's just as cowardly as the average American executive.
As any other modern league commissioner, really. Engelbert is an empty suit who was tasked by WNBA owners to pretend to be a figurehead, and to deal with controversy in a reactive and cowardly manner. It's the same job that Roger Goodell and Adam Silver have been doing for many years now. I suppose I hoped that the WNBA, which has assumed a truly unique place in the sporting culture, would employ a true visionary to shepherd it through its recent meteoric rise in popularity. I should know America better by now. The cowards always win here.
Mike:
One of the coolest and most annoying experiences in life is flying on an airplane. However in my years of travel I have increasingly felt like my pants are unclean after I get off an airline flight. I cannot accomplish any tasks till I reach home and change my pants. Is there a minimum flight time in which pants or clothes are fine or are all airliners dirty petri dishes and we should all be stripping down in the laundry room as soon as we get to our destination?
Oh I always have to shower after traveling. Doesn't matter if my flight was an hour long or a redeye, I can feel myself stewing in my own juices, and I don't like it. Same deal with any long car ride. Once I'm back home, my priority is to strip all of my clothes off (rawr!) and wash the trip off in the shower. It's also why, if I'm on a business trip, I try to check into my hotel and shower before I do anything else. If I gotta interview Craig Newmark or some shit while I still have airplane germs teeming all over my body, I'm not gonna be at my sharpest. I need to reset. I also need fresh undies. I don't care what the science behind it says, I'm just following my best instincts.
Andrew:
A recent Funbag entry featured a guy and his platonic work friend. He mentioned he got laid off with a nice severance package. Being a blue collar schlub who gets paid hourly, the idea of getting laid off with pay for a few months sounds like an amazing dream! I could learn a new skill, get rid of this beer gut, sleep in, go for bike rides, read a book in the park like a French person. Put a ship in a bottle. So much free time! Have you ever been laid off with severance? Was it as awesome as I think it is? Or were you too filled with anxious dread at the thought of your approaching job search to enjoy it?
The first time I got laid off, I got three months' severance. I was elated. I was like, "Fuck yeah, three-month paid vacation!" The excitement was short-lived. Three months sounds like a long time when you're in your early 20s. But ask anyone who's been laid off with severance of any length and they'll tell you that then money runs out fast. VERY fast.
In 2001, I think I lasted about a week before it hit me that I had to find another job before the severance ran out. Viewed through that lens, three months suddenly felt like three minutes. I needed five months to find a new gig, and even that was lightning-fast compared to the usual stretch of unemployment. I've known people who've been unemployed for years. And the older you get, the quicker the money evaporates, no matter how much severance you got from your last employer. In a just world (ha!), you'd have a pension to fall back on, or a truly generous unemployment check every month. But the system has gradually rendered those aids all but extinct.
At the same time, you and I continually see bigwig CEOs get deranged severance packages, where they can just sit on a beach and earn 20 percent for the rest of their lives. Those highly publicized golden parachutes are enough to make a lot of people, including Andrew up above, believe that severance is a kind of windfall. But that's an illusion. For the majority of us, unemployment is a miserable slog from Day 1 onward. Severance is just a corporate invention to make it seem easier than it really is. God, I wish I was powerful enough to command a 10-figure buyout package. That would kick major ass. Alas.
Chris:
I'm not sure if I should be pissed off about asking this question or not, but when I have to watch five minutes of ads before a movie on some streaming service I fucking pay for, why don't I get to see trailers of movies or shows that are upcoming on said streaming service?
You must be talking about Peacock. Every other streamer I sub to, the pre-roll is composed exclusively of trailers and has a prominent SKIP button. Sometimes I watch those trailers, but most of the time I do not. By contrast, the Peacock Tier 1 sub to forces me to watch three minutes of regular ads for regular crap before the movie starts, and then it wedges in another lengthy ad-break somewhere in the middle. I wish those ad pods were just one long promo telling me that Season 2 of Day of the Jackal will drop any second now (it's not back until 2027 WTF), but NBC clearly makes more money from selling them as regular ad space. Given that I grew up with analog TV, and that I cherish the occasional phone break, I can deal with the interruption.
But seriously Peacock, get cracking on that new Jackal season. I only have so much patience.
Adam:
Assume with me for a moment that NIL deals and the transfer portal had been around since, say, the 50s. What college football player would have gotten the biggest payout (inflation-adjusted) in terms of an NIL deal upon entering the transfer portal? My initial gut reaction is that it would be Herschel Walker.
Ron Powlus. If you're old enough to remember the Ron Powlus hype, you know I'm right. Imagine Tebowmania, but with a high schooler. That was Ron Powlus. The late Beano Cook predicted that jackass would win two Heisman trophies before he'd even played a game for Notre Dame—that's how overhyped Powlus was back then. Had NIL existed in his time, he would've gotten enough money to make Quinn Ewers shit a brick. Then he would've been just as crummy a QB as he actually turned out to be.
Honorable mention here to the Manning brothers, and also to Derrick Henry. You and I have both watched Henry's high school highlights plenty. Barry Switzer would have gifted that guy an entire Cadillac dealership.
Andy:
I tweaked/sprained/pulled something in my lower back in the beginning of July. I also did this last July. And the year before that. I also had a slipped disc and got a cortisone shot for it in April. I'm still having issues. I'm doing my PT, working out with a trainer and focusing on getting my core stronger, but I'm not getting better. What did you ultimately do to fix your back issues? I just want this to end, cause it SUCKS.
In my case, I got surgery on my back three separate times. This did not "fix" my back issue, so to speak. Once a disc is busted, it stays busted. But surgery was a necessary last resort for me, for a couple of reasons. One is that nothing else was going to make the pain abate. Two is that I risked prolonged nerve damage, perhaps even withered appendages, if I had left my anatomy as is. The proof lay in the fact that I couldn't walk on just my heels. Whenever someone tells me they have a back issue, I ask them if they can walk on their heels. If they say no, then I tell them they're fucked.
But I'm no doctor, so don't take it from me. And don't take it from just any doctor. Find the best doctor and physical therapist you possibly can, even if they're out of network (which is almost always the case). Then be a good patient from now until your life is over. I haven't had any major back issues since my last surgery in 2010 (MASSIVE KNOCK ON WOOD). The reason why I've been relatively pain free since then is because I don't do anything to put my spine in danger (lifting free weights, playing golf, sitting for extended periods), I keep a healthy weight, and I continue to do the stretches that my PT gifted me during my 2010 rehab. And if I feel a twinge here or there, I've been through the wringer enough times to know what the problem is, and how best to manage it on my own.
I also know when I'm fucked. You'll know it one day, too.
HALFTIME!
Isaac:
How do you, as an adult, manage to fit in hobbies? I have a healthy list of things I either enjoy (recreational cooking/baking, softball, exercise) or aspire to try (art classes, new sports, museums) but I find that finding time for those things seem harder and harder as I get older. I'm in my late 30s and, despite finally finding a job with a healthier life-work balance and a 50-50 coparenting split, I still feel like whenever I have a lick of free time I'm just thrilled to be sitting down on the couch for a bit. Have you found any ways to better manage your time and energy as you get older so that you don't feel like you're shirking parental and professional responsibilities while still making time for yourself?
Nope. I suck at it. I suppose you could consider my fondness for cooking to be a hobby, but I cook either because I have to, or to gratify myself. That's how I spend almost all of my time off the clock. If I'm not tending to my homemaking duties, I'm indulging myself, and often myself only. I'm too lazy to even make new friends; that's how uninvolved I've become. I don't wanna be productive when I'm not being productive. I just wanna sit in my chair and do phone shit. Maybe that's due to the ongoing loneliness epidemic happening out there, but really it's a lack of initiative and imagination on my part. I can't imagine taking up X hobby as being worth the effort, so I don't. What am I depriving myself of when I think along those lines? Probably a whole lot.
My wife and I have talked about this at length, and quite recently in fact. We both agreed that I need to get a life, and that I can't use "But I'm so busy at work!" as an excuse anymore. She had suggestions for me, and they were good ones. I'm not gonna get into the specifics of them here, because I don't trust myself to follow through on it. I am gonna try something, though, because I know something has to change, and because my wife is here to give me the motivation that I clearly lack.
Our commenters will have better answers to Isaac's question than the one I've just given, but it strikes me as similar to fixing a lot of other problems in life. First, you have to want to try. Nothing else matters until you do.
Dave:
A recent Funbag had a clip for the band White Reaper. Before I hit play I had an expectation in my mind of some serious throat destroying metal, and instead was surprised by nasally punk-pop. What's the band with the largest difference in expected sound based on their name vs. the actual music they play (excluding bands that are trying to deliberately contrast the two)?
The Grateful Dead will forever be the answer to this question. Incredible name for a metal band, less so for a boring-ass jam band.
You know what's even more annoying than that, though? It's when a SONG doesn't live up to its title. For example, I bought OK Go's debut album a while back, entirely on the strength of lead single "Get Over It." One of the tracks on that album was titled, "1000 Miles per Hour," and it was a fucking BALLAD. Now this is on me for assuming that a replacement-level 2000s indie-pop band would give me the riffage, but I got to that track expecting to at least hear something uptempo. Instead, I got mewly dogshit. It's like if "Kickstart My Heart" had been a folk song. Title your songs like you mean it.
One last aside: Don't go smearing White Reaper to me, Davey Boy. I will fuck you up.
Sean:
I'm stuck at the airport bar and thus am forced to watch ESPN non live-sports programming for the first time in a while. They have devoted an hour block to recapping Fanatics Fest, which makes this an ad for a brand's event that itself is a showcase for countless other brands. Like a scumbag Harvard Business School hydra. I would be content to just ignore its existence, but it seems the forces of capitalism have conspired to make this A Thing, worth more attention than NFL training camp, the WNBA, the upcoming Premier League season, and the baseball trade deadline. I can only interpret this as a new low for Western Civilization. I'm wondering if we can already declare it the Worst Event in Sports. Much has been discussed about the best: Super Bowl, World Series, World Cup Final, etc, etc. I don't care. I wanna know what the WORST is.
I can't consider the Fanatics Fest a candidate for the honor, because it doesn't have any actual sports in it. It's like saying some shitty regional baseball memorabilia show is the worst event in sports. These are sports-themed events, but they feature no athletic competition to speak of. They're just pointless filler. No wonder the four-letter deigned to give it coverage.
Besides, the worst event in sports is the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. Always has been, always will be. Fuck Joey Chestnut with a tennis racket.
Joel:
I am convinced that the Dodgers are purposely going out of their way to do crazier and crazier contracts and trades to help the narrative of a salary cap, and that all other teams and MLB are onboard (with explicit signoff) with it. The math makes sense for the Dodgers as well; five years of elevated spending in exchange for a salary cap in perpetuity. Club valuations will skyrocket. Who better to lead this charge than a private equity/investment bank ownership consortium? Am I just batting a ball of yarn around in my apartment with the blinds shut or does this theory have legs?
I'm not discounting it, that's for certain. Just because the Dodgers are operating the way a serious baseball concern ought to behave doesn't make them heroes in this whole affair. It simply makes them a convenient jumping-off point for any "MLB needs a hard cap!" discourse. I suspect that Dodgers officials aren't necessarily against such a cap, but that they may as well spend to the hilt in the meantime. They'll come out profitable (and winning ballgames) either way.
Cliff:
My solid middle class lifestyle has afforded me the ability to have your recently mentioned old-school Frigidaire in my garage. I store a combination of beer, Surfsides, soda, water, sparkling water, hard ciders, lemonade, hard lemonade, juice boxes, and coconut water… along with large egg cartons (Costco sized), meal kits (hellofresh) and whatever overflows from our primary fridge. We also freeze bread and your typical stuff like ice cream. How does one manage a single fridge lifestyle in today's excessive consumer-driven economy?
Oy! I won't tolerate that sort of condescension round these parts! Some of are happy (enough) with our lone fridge, tough guy!
Seriously though, this is how they gitcha. My wife and I purchased a very good fridge in 2015 that felt large enough for our purposes. Then our three children grew into remorseless eatin' machines and suddenly, the new fridge felt very small. If you want more fridge space than what we have, you basically either have to buy a second one like Cliff, or you have to spring for a built-in, which usually costs tens of thousands of dollars. IT'S A DAMN RACKET, IS WHAT IT IS! And it thrives on people like you, Cliff, shaming the lesser fridge havers! You go to hell, where all the beer is warm!
Ahmed:
So I bought a sixer of Busch Light this past weekend. Guess the nostalgia combined with the limited-edition deer huntin' can were enough for me to pull the trigger. It still tastes like how I remembered it. Got me to thinking. If 2018 Drew could go back to college with an unlimited supply of boozy seltzers, would you drink them knowing that they’re "better for you" as a carb-conscious dad from the future, or would you simply continue to crush dirty thirties of Icehouse with your bros?
You're talking to a guy who has not only drank Zima, Bud Light Lime-A-Rita, Mike's Hard Lemonade, and Smirnoff Ice, but actively enjoyed all of them. So yes, I would have drank the hard seltzer had it been around in my boozing time. I strongly doubt I would have preferred it to regular beer, because I ended up preferring regular beer to all of the aforementioned entry-level drinks. But if it was there and it promised to get me drunk, I imbibed. Alcoholics are never too proud to be picky.
Corey:
What is the saddest/least-fun cheese to eat by itself? Writing this email while pulling hunks off a log of flavorless store brand part-skim mozzarella.
That's it. It's not about what kind of cheese is sad to eat, but whether or not it’s actual cheese. Any low-fat or part-skim cheese is bullshit. It tastes awful and it looks like a crime when melted. If you're minding your figure, it always behooves you to eat less of something good than more of something terrible.
Email of the week!
Alex:
Last year I held two butter-tasting parties, one for salted and one for unsalted, to figure out what the best butters I could get my hands on were. We tasted close to 100 butters overall and came up with some solid rankings. If you're wondering, Rodolphe Le Menieuer and Lewis Road Creamery took top honors for salted, and Animal Farm Creamery and Ploughgate Creamery took best for unsalted. Yes, the Orwellian butter is actually as good as they say it is.
The reason I bring all this up is that we were, as a group, shocked when Kerrygold's salted butter came in in the bottom half of the rankings. It made up for it at the unsalted party, though, where it came in sixth of 53. What's the difference? I have two theories, both of which are probably correct.
First of all, the shelf life of unsalted butter is 3 months vs 18 months for salted butter. This means that the unsalted butter you buy is most likely significantly fresher than the salted, because they probably ship it in smaller batches.
Second, Kerrygold has two different production lines for the different butters, and since salt covers off flavors, they're probably sending second quality milk to the salted line and saving the better milk for the unsalted.
Note that both parties were thrown in the same season, so it *probably* isn't a matter of what season the milk was harvested in ... though the 18-month shelf life means I can never know for sure.
Anyway, here's the spreadsheet of scores and notes for salted butters if you're interested, I still need to finish the unsalted sheet but I have a newborn and everything's hard so I'll get to it ... sometime.
I dare say you've done enough for us all, sir.
