Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. And buy Drew’s book, The Night The Lights Went Out, while you’re at it. Today, we're talking about peach beer, football, hot dogs, football, air dryers, football, and more.
Before we go any further, let’s give a round of applesauce to the great Brandy Jensen for holding down the bag last week with her usual excellence. Thrillist got themselves a good one.
Meanwhile I’m back at the helm, and we got a big fucking week ahead of us. So let’s get right to your letters:
JJ:
No matter the cost, I'll be getting a ticket to an Oasis show at Wembley next year. Should I try to go the first night, when they may still be working out the kinks, but are likeliest to have not yet fought? Or should I go the last night, when they may pull out all the stops but also may have broken up? Also, how great is "Hello" going to sound as the opener!
I’ll answer your question just as soon as my editors here approve my trip to England for the show in Defector’s travel budget. Because this is one of those fortunate instances where my personal interests and my journalistic interests are in perfect alignment. Millions of people are gonna flock to those shows, and I wanna be one of them.
There’s a very good chance that you, the American, simply don’t get Oasis. I was once like you. When Oasis broke here in the States in the mid-'90s, I had them all wrong. I found them obnoxious (aren’t rock stars supposed to be?), I hated that they shamelessly cribbed from The Beatles (didn’t every band?), and I lumped their music in with Hootie and all of the other golf rock bands who were stripping the genre of all its personality. I thought the Gallagher boys were posers.
Then I was ogling my college roommate’s CD tower and saw every Oasis album occupying a solid couple inches of it. This was the guy who turned me onto Bob Mould, post-“Creep” Radiohead, and a shitload of other quality bands. He had the entire indie record store inventory in that CD tower, so if he was down with Oasis, there must have been something there. I gave the band another shot, and haven’t looked back since.
Oasis is perhaps the last of the great dumb rock bands. They didn’t give a shit about anything other than making the loudest, most anthemic songs they possibly could … mostly so that they could score cocaine. Also, they were British. That was my kind of band. That’s always been my kind of band. I hated “Champagne Supernova” when I first heard it. When I went back and listened, especially when the guitars freaked out around the 4:20 mark, I got what I’d been missing all along. Oasis does not fuck around. Oasis rocks.
And out of necessity. The Gallagher brothers grew up dirt poor. Their father abused Noel with frightening regularity, while generally leaving younger brother Liam alone. You can see how that might have sowed discord between the two brothers that would last well beyond their old man’s death. You can also see how it would drive Noel to start a band, force that band to rehearse on a set schedule that allowed for zero unexcused absences, and frantically write songs around the clock (yes, some of them replete with stolen hooks) so that his band could top the charts and get him the fuck out of Manchester. You can hear that desperation throughout all of Definitely Maybe. You can hear it blossom into confidence on What’s The Story (Morning Glory)? And you can hear it inevitably go off the rails on Be Here Now, one of the most cocaine albums ever produced and an album that still has more than a few great songs on it.
Oasis never got BIG big here in the States, which is why their reunion shows have been shrugged off by some of the internet’s most obnoxious taste signifiers, perhaps in the hope that they’ll land a freelance job with 2004 Pitchfork one day. But English people love nothing more than feeling important. That’s why the royal family endures, and it’s why the whole of Britain will flock to those reunion shows next summer. Oasis are that rare band that isn’t shy about making themselves into an event, and they have the songs to back it up. They also deliberately leave key songs off of their albums so that they’ll have great B-sides to issue. And both brothers have solo catalogs that, while inconsistent, have more good songs in them than bad.
All of that is cool. I don’t care if rock died at the turn of the century, and I don’t care if England is a fucking disaster of a country right now. I just want big guitars and hummable tunes. If I gotta fly across the pond for that in 2024, so be it. There won’t be a wrong time to see the boys reunited. Liam will fuck up the lyrics on stage. Noel will look like he has a plane to catch. It’ll all still work, especially if they play “Acquiesce.”
Matt:
Do people in states where weed is legal look at states where weed is not legal like they are third world countries? (I live in one of the backwards ass midwestern states).
No, we look at states where abortion is illegal as third-world countries. Because they are. I don’t know how else to think of states that ban books, force women to deliver stillborn children, and want to arrest trans kids for taking a piss in what the governor deems to be the wrong bathroom. Forget legal weed; these states need to figure out how to have running water before they can even think about marijuana reform.
I won’t do an umpteenth analysis of why Tim Walz’s “weird” jab made for such lethally effective politics, but it opened up a vein of simple language that exposes conservative ideals for the backward, idiotic policies they are, if they can be called policies at all. States like Texas and Florida are FUCKED UP, and for no good reason. They don’t make anyone’s life better, and they certainly don’t make anyone’s life easier. It’s all bullshit for bullshit’s sake, and I think Kamala’s polling numbers are serving as proof that everyone’s gotten sick of it.
Also, weed will be legal in every state soon enough. The money will demand it.
Noe:
Are you a hot dog eater? If so, have you noticed hot dog meat quality going down? I'm not talking about brats or specialty sausages. Just plain beef hot dogs.
I don’t eat enough hot dogs to help Big Hot Dog game its numbers, but I still eat a few every year. I haven’t noticed if the quality of my frankfurters has decreased since I was a child, likely because I’ve never thought of hot dogs as quality meat products. They’re made from lips and assholes, and are designed to create a heavy meat buildup on the inner walls of your colon. Also, I put an alarming amount of ketchup on my hot dogs, which tends to obscure the flavor of whatever pig ovary happens to be lurking in there. Please don’t tell any Chicagoans this. I’m sure that both Schaller and Weber have, like other modern industrialists, shaved some quality off of their product in order to improve profit margins. But again, it’s a hot dog. My expectations are only so high.
While I’m here, let me tell you a hot dog story. I was on the beach two months ago. The snack shack on the beach was selling hot dogs. SCORE. I walked across the hot sand to get me a dog, and the snack shack girl told me that she had to boil a new pack of them. They’d be ready in 10 minutes. So I walked back to my family’s spot on the sand and fucked around there for a bit. When I got back to the shack, the girl told me that she had finished boiling the dogs, but that all of them had already been sold. Just then, I saw another dude walking away with the last two dogs. I go YOU FIEND!!!, raising my fist in false outrage. The dude turned back to me and, knowing my plight, let out a perfect stage cackle. I couldn’t hate him. I’d have done the same to him, and he knew it. I had to take the L.
Fifteen minutes later, the girl finally had a fresh dog ready for me. I was in ecstasy. Even a bad hot dog is a thing of beauty.
Mark:
Unbeknownst to my wife and I, our nineteen-year-old daughter returned from her job at summer camp with a case of Busch Light Peach (Limited edition!) in the trunk of the car, covered with a blanket. Two hot days in the driveway later, my wife discovered the beer while getting groceries. Apparently, our daughter is planning to take the beer to her sorority when she drives the car to college next week. We considered confronting her and pointing out the ill effects of heat on beer, but then decided that some lessons are best learned firsthand.
The real news for me here is that Busch Light makes a peach varietal. There’s very little chance that three cans of BLP wouldn’t give you a historic migraine the following morning. A perfect college beer. I bet they sell quarter barrels of it.
Anyway, you made the right move leaving it be. She’s a college kid. You’re not gonna stop her from doing college-kid shit, same as my wife and I can’t stop our 18-year-old from doing likewise this fall. A month ago, I was emptying a suitcase and found a vape pen in it. Now, my wife and I had confronted our kid about vaping numerous times over her high school career. You don’t know what’s in that stuff, etc. But we’d been on her ass all summer long about a bunch of other shit, and I was sick of being a cop. So I knocked on her door, held up the pen, and said, “This yours?” She said yeah, and then I handed it back to her. No questions asked. No lectures. There was no point, because allowing your kids to suffer natural consequences from bad choices is as sound a policy for an 18-year-old as it is a 4-year-old.
I didn’t tell my wife that I did this until last night. When I delivered the news, I got the stink-eye for the rest of dinner. Perhaps I should have consulted with her first. At least it wasn’t a crack pipe. The Gallagher brothers would have nicked it from her!
HALFTIME!
Ben:
I was talking to some people about the recent NFL draft, and a couple of them were bitching how certain QBs still haven't learned/adjusted to the NFL. Apparently this is code for not being in shotgun all the time rather lining up under center. No explanation is given for why this must be learned, other than, “that's how it's always been done” type of stuff. Really? In the current NFL where 60% of the plays are passes? You can still do play action from the shotgun, and the Patriots had Brady in the shotgun seemingly every play when they went 18-1 and rampaged thru the league. This is just a case of the NFL and fans being stodgy and old, right?
Wrong. First of all, I don’t think that’s code language for anything. It’s straightforward. Even if your scheme is exactly the same as it was in college, the NFL defense you’ll be facing will NOT be the same as Florida State’s. It’ll be bigger, stronger, more deceptive, and light years faster. It’s like going from high school directly to law school, and only the most gifted passers (C.J. Stroud) can adjust to that difference quickly. Every other QB needs more time, and a lot of QBs aren’t able to adjust at all.
That’s why the NFL Draft offers no sure things. You can’t know if a guy is able to handle NFL-level football until he’s forced to play it. You can reduce any subsequent failure down to stupid, football guy clichés like “They didn’t want it enough,” or “They hung out with the wrong people,” but there’s no need to. The basic fact is that this shit is HARD. So hard. We’re talking about a job that only a dozen guys on Earth can do capably. You have better odds of becoming a senator. So not everyone is gonna hack it, be it physically or mentally. It’s not a personal failing to come up short. The NFL is designed to weed you everyone but the ELITE, and that’s why it kicks major ass. I don’t watch this shit because it’s easy.
To that end, let’s roll with Ben for a second and consider his opinion that shotgun vs. under center isn’t a huge difference for college QBs. That’s also wrong, despite the fact that NFL teams are deploying shotgun formations more than they ever have. Taking a snap from under center is its own skill set. You have to read the defense from closer in. Post-snap, you have to turn your back to the rush to fake the run convincingly, blinding yourself to the defense for that split second. Then you have to recover your progressions once you’ve turned back around. All of this requires atomically precise footwork, which must be drilled into you 500,000 times over. These are the details that used to bore the shit out of me back in my playing days. Now I find them fascinating. I am the tape eater.
D:
With Oasis getting the band back together, it got me thinking, whatever happened to the long pop song? “Champagne Supernova” clocks in at 7:31. Songs used to be limited by the amount of time that could be put on a 45, but that's clearly not the case anymore. Now it seems as though songs are actually getting shorter. My favorite song this summer, "Sinner" by The Last Dinner Party, is only 2:56 and it doesn't seem to be an outlier.
Whoa hey, another Oasis-related question? How’d that get in there? That’s crazy! Today is the day that they’ve thrown it back to ME!
Anyway, singles used to be short in order to accommodate for 45s, but also because terrestrial radio stations had no interest in going eight minutes without an ad break or traffic update. That’s why a lot of classic rock songs ended up butchered in the editing suite to please the Clear Channels of the world. Long cuts were reserved exclusively for albums, with only big-name artists (Queen, Taylor Swift) able to force their unabridged works onto the airwaves.
But as D noted, no one has to tailor their song length for vinyl or for FM radio anymore. So why isn’t every band going nuts and dropping epic singles as a matter of routine? Well, because they have new overlords to please:
On platforms like Spotify, artists earn royalties only if a listener stays engaged for at least 30 seconds, making songs with shorter intros and instantly engaging hooks dominantas it ensures that listeners don’t skip on to the next.
Digital audio has made it easier to skip tracks than cassettes ever did. If a song doesn’t grab me, there’s a big ol’ SKIP button ready to move the playlist along. I take advantage. Everyone does, which means that the Spotifys of the world are eager to indulge our fickleness. That creates a never-ending feedback loop, with small name artists fucked if they dare to craft an extended intro to any single they intend to put out.
I can’t stop the streaming world from forcing this trend on everyone. The only thing I can do is be mindful of my own consumption habits. I have to give every song a fair shake, even if it’s a long one. This pays off more often than it doesn’t. The Smile’s “Bending Hectic” needs until the 5:30 mark to bust out the distortion. But the slow buildup is well worth it. That song kicked my face off. Give more long tracks a chance and maybe we’ll give the algorithm a decent idea for once.
Matt:
What is the worst type of themed party? For me, it's the white party theme, considering it's associated with Donald Sterling, Michael Rubin, and Diddy.
I’d agree with you, except that if a cool famous person (none of the three you just listed) invited me to a white party at the Delano, I would SPRINT to the airport to get to Miami post-haste. I love a free spread, and I like any party that takes place within the vicinity of an infinity pool.
Worst themed party is a costume party. I love costume parties in movies. But actually dressing up as an 18th-century viscount just so I can eat cold roast beef at some guy’s house? I’d rather just sit in my chair. You’re free to destroy me for this take.
Amanda:
I was getting ready to wash my lunch dishes in the kitchenette at the office today. Though I’d already placed my dirty dishes in the sink, someone butted in to rinse his retainer. His spitwater got all over my stuff, and then he had the audacity to look at me and ask if there was a problem when I blanched. How weird can I find this interaction?
Super weird. If you’re gonna be the kind of dude who does oral hygiene practices at work, use the fucking bathroom. Everyone will think you’re a little bit anal, but they’ll afford you your space. If you use the communal kitchen sink, they won’t be so accepting. I wear a night guard whenever I go to sleep. If I ever rinsed that thing in our kitchen sink, my wife would make me sleep at a hotel for the rest of the week.
Dennis:
Have you ever managed to successfully dry your hands with a bathroom air blower? I feel like the instructions should read, “1) hold hands under dryer for two seconds, 2) wipe hands on pants.”
I have indeed pulled off 100 percent dry hands from an air dryer. You have to rub your hands together while they’re drying, and keep them under the air blast for no less than 17 minutes. Given the Spotify news I just dished up above, it’s not a shock that most people are unwilling to stand there for that long. I know I’m not. I just wipe my hands on my pants like Dennis. Or, if I need a quick styling, I wipe my hands on my hair to give it a bit of shape. Fellow airplane passengers tell me that my piss hair looks fantastic.
By the way, I remember when I thought that the Dyson AirBlade was the height of human ingenuity. I’d get excited whenever I saw one, like a child who spots a revolving door. That magic faded. Paper towels remain undefeated. If I use an air dryer only to discover a paper towel dispenser closer to the bathroom exit, I stew about it for a good minute or two.
Dave:
Lazy day off for Labor Day and I dialed up Netflix and started watching Lou. Allison Janney is an action hero?! That's badass! I want to say this trend started with Liam Nesson in Taken, and since then actors like Brad Pitt, Charlize Theron, Halle Berry, and Bob Odenkirk have made movies where they star as unstoppable action heroes who have mastered every single form of deadly force. Who would you like to see next? Anthony Hopkins is high on my list, but I don't see it happening. Neil Patrick Harris? Olivia Wilde? Zach Braff? Natalie Portman?
Okay, NO Zach Braff. T-Mobile just busted out another round of ads featuring Braff and Donald Faison singing at me. Both men should be imprisoned for this. And if I couldn’t tolerate Zach Braff as a mopey Shins fan, I’m sure as shit not buying him as an unstoppable killing machine.
Otherwise, I definitely enjoy it when classically trained actors take their talents to the B-movie genre. To that end, I’ll watch any well-made 90-minute revenge opus if it stars one of these people:
- Cate Blanchett
- Leonardo DiCaprio
- Daniel Day-Lewis
- Meryl Streep
- Jodie Foster
- Viola Davis
- Ralph Fiennes (the last Kingsman movie doesn’t count)
- Jeff Goldblum
- Frances McDormand
- Bill Murray
- Willem Dafoe
Let’s go ahead and mark Dafoe as my No. 1 choice there. Willem Dafoe is game for anything, and Spider-Man proved that he can make a popcorn flick better than it deserves to be. Gimme Dafoe fucking up some terrorists and I'm down.
Ron:
Why the hell can’t people park anymore? I’m talking huge, dick-compensating trucks “parked” no closer than three feet from the curb, cars sitting half-assedly between the lines, etc. I blame the tech. Thoughts?
My car has a rear camera and a top view camera to help me park, but I do (sometimes) check my handiwork once I’ve shifted into P. Most people don’t, and most parking lot spaces are tight in order to accommodate as many cars as possible. So you’ve got spots are that tricky to maneuver into, and drivers who fancy themselves too important to spend 30 extra seconds making sure they’ve parked correctly. They’re also all driving Denalis, which only makes the problem worse. This is why I’m still pissed that flying cars don’t exist.
Email of the week!
Greg:
Not long ago I went to the farmers market and they had okra for sale. I was in luck, because my wife was out of town. She hates okra and I love it, so I bought a whole quart of it.
I originally planned on eating it over several meals, but the okra I fried for dinner was so good that I ended up frying all of it and eating nothing else. Healthy dinner, I thought.
At four in the morning I woke with a start and felt the beginnings of leakage. So I waddled over to the bathroom and let loose a big stream of pure goo. When it stopped, I got up to wash and glanced in the toilet. There were thousands of little white orbs. Okra seeds. If you've ever seen frog eggs in a pond, this was kind of similar. Little, eye-like orbs staring at you from a filmy matrix.
I was not done. For the next hour, I had bouts of expelling every bit of okra from my system. With nothing else to do, at one point I grabbed a tablet and started reading about okra. As it turns out, okra is high in an undigestible sugar compound called Fructan, and many people (like me, it turns out) have a Fructan intolerance similar to lactose intolerance. Consume too much, and your intestines just give up and start sending everything down the chute.
I've never had a problem with okra in relatively small amounts, like in Cajun or Indian food. But I will now testify that you had better moderate your consumption unless you want to turn your toilet into something resembling a frog breeding ground.
That reminds me: First Jamboroo of the season posts Thursday. See you then.
