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 sex, tiny shrimp, doinks, and more.
Before we get to today’s proceedings, let's all give a warm round of applesauce to Lauren Theisen for guest hosting this column last week so that I had more time to work on a big feature that I still have yet to finish. Cheers to Lo, jeers to yours truly.
Also, I've yet to plug our new NFL podcast in the Funbag, so let me correct that right now. Arif Hasan and I have a new podcast called All Ball! And it's all about NFL football, with no gambling or fantasy shit getting in the way! So email us all of your serious NFL questions right here and get in on that shit. Got it? Nice. Let's get down to business then.
Your letters:
Nick:
On Sunday Night Football, there was a Firefox commercial that brought back a bunch of old internet stuff: Bad Luck Brian, Chocolate Rain guy, Chuck Testa, and like a dozen other things, the general idea being "the internet sucks now.” I hate the Ernest Cline-ification of pop culture as much as anyone, and I will never root for a tech company for as long as I live, but it was kind of refreshing to see one of them address that, is it not? Because on the other side you have ads about ChatGPT becoming your grandma's best friend and doing financial transactions on her behalf, which feels remarkably tone-deaf given how everyone feels about AI right now. Is this predictive of a wider movement? Does it feel like a massive social backlash to not just AI, but the internet as a whole, is coming?
I hope so but I can't tell you that it's a certainty. You wouldn't even WANT me to tell you it's a lock, given my track record predicting such welcome developments. Because who's to say there hasn't been a massive social backlash to AI already, and who's to say that the people in charge haven't plugged their ears and yelled "LA LA LA WE CAN'T HEAR YOU" in response? Because that's certainly how it feels. The people in charge are dead set against everything that polling shows Americans are broadly in favor of. That goes for AI, a provably malevolent technology that has nevertheless colonized the modern internet and rendered its most powerful advocates mentally ill. Here's the lede from a New York Times profile of former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer:
Late last year, Marissa Mayer was struggling with what felt like an impossible task.
Her daughter Marielle was turning 10, and Marielle's teacher wanted three bullet points summarizing what made her special. Mayer—the former chief executive of Yahoo and a pioneer at Google, where she was the first female engineer—likes cracking a hard problem. But she felt overwhelmed by the range and complexity of potential answers.
So Mayer asked her personal A.I. assistant, Dazzle. Within a few seconds, Dazzle delivered an answer.
"It came back and was like, your daughter is empathetic, creative and an animal lover," Mayer said. She thought it was perfect.
How do you fight against someone whose mind has been this thoroughly poisoned? Marissa Mayer, if your daughter grows up to be a serial killer it will be entirely your fault. You fucking shitbox.
Back to Nick's question. This upcoming election has already gotten tagged with the "It's a referendum on (blank)" declaration. It's a referendum on Trump; it's a referendum on MAGA; it's a referendum on Elon. You could also declare it a referendum on Trump’s precious "super intelligence." If there's a blue wave—not predicting it! don't say I predicted it!—then we would have some measure of proof that a majority of the country has turned against AI and wants it gone. That would be nice.
But that doesn't mean it will be gone. The corruption still baked into the American system means that the AI fuckers are more likely to get bailed out than sued into oblivion. Also, I can't know how many Americans really do use this shit. I am staunchly anti-AI but, anecdotally speaking, I'm in the minority. I have friends who use it. I have family members who use it. One time, my kid asked his teacher a question and watched as that teacher asked ChatGPT for the answer right in front of him. That's how deep the rot goes.
Daniel:
I recently read your review of the Tadich Grill in SFGate. In that article, you complained about the small shrimp. "I dunno why you people care about these tiny ass shrimp." Here is the answer. Many people, including myself, consider smaller shrimp to be tastier than large shrimp. The large ones tend to be tough and tasteless, while the small ones are tender and sweet. Also, the small shrimp have a greater surface area to volume ratio, which means they can absorb more of whatever you are cooking them in. Possibly the restaurant knows this, which could be why they gave you smaller shrimp. Everyone should be so lucky.
I understand where you're coming from, amigo. Normally I'm fine with smaller shrimp. In fact, one of the tastiest shrimp dishes I've ever eaten was a rock shrimp tempura I had in New York many years ago. But I'm telling you, the tiny-ass shrimp I ate in San Francisco were flavorless. If you're gonna serve your shrimp unadorned, as both Tadich and Swan's do, the flavor better be able to stand on its own. In this case, these baby shrimp didn't. They may as well have come straight from a can, which left me baffled because those two restaurants know their seafood otherwise. You're way better off ordering the Dungeness crab from either of them. Now THAT will put you on a streetcar directly to Flavortown.
Dan:
I work for a certain company that was recently bought by a nepo baby billionaire. Let's call him David E. No that's too obvious. Uh, let's say D. Ellison. It makes me sick to my stomach that I'm now a part of something that is actively working on eliminating jobs, destroying journalistic integrity, and more than likely, catering to a wannabe despot. More than anything, I don't want to contribute to this, but having a family to think about makes it tough to just leave without having something to fall back on. Any advice for those in a similar position?
Well that's how they gitcha, isn’t it? You don't wanna work for a complete shitbag hellbent on destroying the world, but you also need money to support your family. There are millions of Americans who make that same compromise, because a nakedly capitalistic economy essentially forces them to. That's some supreme bullshit, but it is what it is for the time being.
With that in mind, I'm not gonna judge anyone who sticks around working for a company that operates counter to their personal values. Lord knows I've worked for shit CEOs. So if you, Dan, make that same choice, I won't blame you. All I ask is this: Please never buy in. You can continue working for the mysterious Avid Dellison all you like and be cool by me, so long as you never get so entrenched in the job that you come to believe in its supposed "mission."
Look at that Marissa Mayer quote up above. You only end up becoming the kind of person who has a nervous breakdown filling out a back-to-school–night form—and then running to a fucking AI bot because you believe that it can describe your own child better than you can—if you brainwash yourself into believing your company's bullshit. And you might say, "That'll never be me!" but a lot of people say that at first. I've worked at ad agencies. I've seen firsthand how people rise up in the ranks in that industry by going from, "No one will give a shit about this Fanta ad we're making," to, "The success of the Fanta is the single most important development in the history of modern soft drinks. I will not rest until every American says they wanta Fanta."
That's every industry now. If you're a willing accomplice to the big guns at your company, they'll give you more money and security. And if you're indifferent to the big picture, they'll smell it on you. Once they do, your days are numbered. So the lower-level Marissa Mayers of the world force themselves to care in order to prosper, letting the company's identity subsume their own. This is how you end up with a nation of Darren Rovells.
Please do not make a similar tradeoff. You can work for an evil company, so long as you refuse to let it ever become who you are. And if that means you get fired eventually, so be it. At least you won't hate yourself or, even worse, come to like the slavish automaton that you've become.
Tim:
If Chris Cornell was the lead singer of Dave Matthews Band, it would have sounded awesome. Along the same lines: If Ghost covered the entire album of Stadium Arcadium by the Red Hot Chili Peppers it would also sound awesome. I got nothing else to bring to the table.
I think I'd prefer that Dave Matthews remain the lead singer of Dave Matthews Band. In my imagination, I'm not hearing a significant upgrade in quality if you swap in the late Chris Cornell for "Tripping Billies." The reason that song, the only DMB song I really like, works is because of Matthews's voice. Matthews has the kind of friendly, dorky vocal stylings that work with the jam band aesthetic. The fact that Matthews is, in real life, a truly awesome guy only adds to the harmony at play (no pun intended).
Chris Cornell, who made Soundgarden into a monster by howling until his lungs were forcibly ejected out of his mouth, had way too intense of a voice to be compatible with those same songs. Even when Cornell slowed it down for acoustic numbers, he still sounded like the world's most serious man. That's a vital quality for any hard-rock vocalist. But when your band is all about jammin' on the fiddle and having a good time with your fellow Amherst buddies, you need a gentler vocalist on the mic. I've spent too long thinking about this, haven't I. I should probably move onto the next question. I definitely shouldn't talk about Ghost covering one of RHCP's lesser albums...
That Ghost cover of RHCP would probably be underwhelming, by the way. I don't want anyone playing a Chili Peppers song except for the Chili Peppers. Sometimes you get a cover that exceeds the original—"All Along the Watchtower" being the definitive example—but those are rare instances. Also, the covering artist has to arrange the song so that it fits their sound, and not the source band's. I'm sure Ghost would do that for "Dani California," but I doubt I'd be all that into it. I don’t really like Ghost, anyway.
Here is where I reiterate my demand for Carly Rae Jepsen to do a cover of "Waiting For A Star To Fall."
HALFTIME!
Ben:
I took my 16-year-old son to see the new Street Fighter movie last weekend. Perfectly cromulent flick, but what really struck me was how horny/thirsty it was. While there are a ton of erotic movies that come and go (Babygirl comes to mind), it seems like it's pretty rare to see new movies with a bevy of scantily clad babes. Don't you agree this is why Gen Z doesn’t like sex?
To a point, yes. I actually talked about this with David Roth on an old episode of The Distraction once. Wide release films are nowhere near as horny as they were in the '80s and '90s. That sucks for artistic reasons, but it also illustrates the strange necessity of softcore content to the greater culture.
Imagine you're some 2026 tween who's become mildly curious about the opposite sex. Well, you can't go paging through a copy of Playboy that your old man left in the bathroom. And you won't, as I did, get the unexpected joy of seeing Kelly Preston get naked for a few heavenly seconds when you pop a copy of Mischief into the VCR. Instead, you have to go check out internet porn, a great deal of which is fucking insane. You just wanted to see what a woman's bare breasts looked like, and you ended up seeing a thumbnail for a fisting video. What's that gonna teach you about sex? That it's fucking gross, that's what. Seeing that shit is more likely to put you off the idea of sex rather than wanting to explore it any further. That, in my extreme generalization, is why younger Americans are such goddamn prudes.
But it's perfectly in line for a country that is so aggressively binary in its mentality. Everything in America must be either the most X thing ever or the least X thing ever. This TV show is goated. That other TV show should have all of its negatives burned. This new restaurant I'm visiting better be the greatest restaurant of all time, or else I'm giving it one star on Yelp. There's no satisfaction to be had in making a movie that has the occasional flash of butt in it; let's only produce the most extreme, graphic pornography that we possibly can. So when you, the audience, are subjected to art that is averse to nuance, your brain gets damaged accordingly. This is how Sydney Sweeney can stir up controversy just by making a shitty gambling ad where you almost see her naked. No one knows what's hot anymore.
Pete:
Our daughter is eight and was playing the theme from Beverly Hills Cop on the piano. I asked my wife at what age could our girl watch the movie. "18," she said. I vehemently disagreed. Who's got a better case?
This is your first kid, isn't it. My wife and I dutifully obeyed movie ratings with our first kid. We wouldn't even let her watch PG-13 shit before she was 13. By the time we had our third kid, we stopped giving a shit. Movie ratings are completely arbitrary, anyway. Both Beverly Hills Cop and Basic Instinct are rated R, but are they equal in terms of adult content? Fuck no, they aren't. You're better off going to a place like Common Sense Media to make a ruling on any given movie/TV show than you are the MPAA.
In the case of Beverly Hills Cop, I'd be perfectly comfortable screening it to a kid over 10. It's got bad words and gunplay. Big fucking deal. Just be ready for your kid to tell you that they don't like it. Kids love to kill your pop culture darlings.
Adrian:
Which "doink" is the most fun: a field goal attempt that hits the upright, a hockey slap shot that hits the post/crossbar, or a home run that hits the foul pole?
Oh the doinked field goal. Not even close. A shot off the crossbar in hockey or soccer isn't fun at all. It's incredibly stressful, before during and after. And a home run that hits the foul pole is just a short home run. Comedically speaking, none of that compares to a doinked 47-yarder in the NFL. That's obvious.
The only challenger I'll entertain here is in basketball, because they've mic-ed up the rims now where you can hear the CLANK from any missed shot echo throughout your TV room as if you're right there in the gym. And if you're watching a certain team or player (James Harden) miss repeatedly, every CLANK grows that much more amusing. Please note that this does not apply to me missing consecutive shots while shooting around at the YMCA. That's not funny at all, mister.
Noe:
I became very ill a few months ago and can no longer have alcohol. Even a sip of beer will trigger horrible headaches. I was never a big drinker, but this has been problematic. I find myself wanting to enjoy a beer, but I can't and it fucking sucks. I never had a drinking problem! How do I get over feeling like this is an unfair punishment?
Get into near beer. After I quit booze in 2018, I avoided near beer for at least a year, because I feared that it would be a gateway pint back to the real stuff. Then my old man, who had also quit drinking alcohol, offered me an Athletic. I liked it and had no urge to hopscotch over to alcoholic beer. I missed the taste of beer more than the buzz, and a good near beer has that same flavor. I now have a near beer at the end of every work day, and it chills me out. Give it a whirl and see if it does you the same favor.
Ben:
I have a unique way of eating sandwiches. I eat all four sides of crust first before taking a big chomp of the heart of the sandwich. My dad said it was akin to eating all my vegetables before the meat on my plate. Is this weird?
It's not that weird. I'm sure I've done your ring-around-the-rosie routine with a sandwich or burger in my past. The heart of the sandwich can sometimes be the best part, so you save it for last. Makes sense. But I've never made a habit of it, because I need the crust for grip. That's especially true if I'm eating a messy sandwich. Where the fuck am I gonna hold this burger if I've eaten off all of the edges? I just played myself. Now I gotta go grab 500 napkins from the dispenser.
Chase:
There's a social media post making the rounds that posits, "You're given $100 but have to split it with a stranger however you see fit. But, if the stranger does not agree with the arrangement, both of you get nothing. How much do you offer the stranger?" The vast majority of comments are something along the lines of, "If I'm the stranger and I’m offered less than $50, then fuck that guy. We both get nothing!!!" And these people are proud of their selfishness and cynicism. I've never seen such a concise depiction of how willing the average person is to spite someone else at their own expense, but it's clearly this line of thinking that's led to all of ... this.
Probably, yeah. The kicker is that a lot of those supposed alphas probably would take whatever they're offered in real life. I know I would. Even if I only got offered a single dollar, I'd take the deal so that I could complain about what a miserly prick the other guy was. But none of those chodes ever want to show vulnerability online. The result is an entire culture of men who spend all day fronting, which makes the greater culture more inherently belligerent, and for no good reason. Yes that reminds me of Donald Trump. What fun.
Brian:
What time do you need to wake up or go to bed to be considered a morning or night person? I was listening to a podcast today and one guy called himself a "morning person," only to reveal that he gets up at 7 a.m. His co-hosts promptly called him out, arguing that wasn't early enough for credible Morning Person status. For the sake of this exercise, let's say the question is what hour you wake up or go to bed of your own volition, not because you have to get up early to go to work or get the kids ready or whatever. On a free weekend with nothing on the calendar and no obligations.
I get up between 6:40 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. every day, regardless of my schedule. I don't set an alarm; parenthood just so permanently altered my circadian rhythms that I naturally wake up at that hour, even if the sun hasn't risen yet. It's fucking weird.
I cherish my mornings for a great many reasons, but I don't think I definitively qualify as a morning person for it. To me, a true morning person is someone who gets up at like, 5:00 a.m. every day on principle. These are people who are like NFL coaches: They view life as a competition, which means they have to get up earlier than everyone else, do more work before 9:00 a.m. than everyone else, and also sneak in a 6:00 a.m. full-body workout. That's a real morning person. You know, a maniac.
Conor:
Mastodon is one of my all time favorite bands and I saw them two weeks ago for the first time after Brent Hinds's death. It was a great show, including an appearance from John Baizley of Baroness who filled in for Brent's vocal parts on the second half of the show. The weird thing was that they never acknowledged Brent overtly at all. I know there seems to be some bad blood and lawsuits coming between them, but it still seemed disrespectful to not even address the guy who was in your band and helped define its sound for 25 years. I'm not saying they needed to do a video tribute, but don't you think some recognition would've been appropriate?
Brent Hinds was actually kicked out of Mastodon prior to his death last year. He was drinking too much (that's saying a lot, given that we're talking about Mastodon here) and, more important, he just wasn't as interested in making the same kind of music as the rest of his bandmates. Those surviving members of the band said as much publicly after Hinds died in a motorcycle accident. They probably figured those statements addressed the matter enough, and that it was time to move forward. I'm just glad I got to see that band live with Hinds, twice, before he kicked the can. That guy could fucking shred.
(Also, the band did pay tribute to Hinds at their first performance without him.)
Email of the week!
Matthew:
In the Virginia Tech-Pitt game, Tech's game-winning-field-goal attempt went over the top of the upright and was ruled no good. I propose erecting a second crossbar that connects the top of the uprights, creating a box the ball must go into. No more doubt about whether the kick was good or not. This would also make what are now chip-shot field goals harder to make, since kickers would have to kick the ball lower. This may be the best idea I've ever come up with. Thank you for agreeing it's an excellent idea.
I don't hate it.
