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 washing dishes, smoothies, birds, the NBA TV kerfuffle and more.
Your letters:
J:
What is the most photogenic food? I vote that a good bowl of ramen from a nice Japanese restaurant makes for a savory picture.
Before I answer you, let’s take sweets out of this discussion. I’ve flipped through enough “Bake a novelty cake in the shape of the Eiffel Tower!” TV challenges to be tired of all glamour desserts. You’ve had your time in the spotlight, cake. Now fuck off! I’m going with savory dishes only for this exercise, and giving J credit for mentioning ramen up top because I love me a photo-enhanced ramen menu. You’re gonna get more than a few audible “ooh!”s out of me at the table when I’m poring over that gallery. “This one looks good and spicy!” I tell my children, because the broth in the photo is red. Strong detective work on my part.
Now for a few more of my personal favorites, presentation wise:
Burgers. There’s a reason they showcase the burger so prominently in any fast food ad, and that’s because burgers were made for the camera. So big, and thick, and juicy. I just ate a burger for lunch, but now I want another.
Pizza. Not only is pizza photogenic, but it’s also easy to tell from the visuals if a pizza is good or not. Is the cheese all bubbly and the crust dotted with proper char? Fuck yeah, I’m gonna house that. Does the cheese looks so undercooked as to be gelatinous? Take that shit back to Michigan, you hayseed. Learn what a good pizza looks like before you post one.
A big pile of hand-pulled noodles studded with lots of tasty cool shit mixed into it. Peanuts. Hunks of meat. Shredded veggies. Szechuan peppers. Grease. If Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown had just been a continuous shot of all the spicy shit that man ate while in Malaysia, I still would have watched every episode.
An ice cold Coca-Cola. If you think that movie theater ads don’t work, look at my face anytime they show a fountain Coke on the big screen, with its effervescence in full resolution. My crotch will be soaked in drool.
I’m sure I’ve left out hundreds of other contenders, but I only have so much listicle energy in me. So lemme cut right to my No. 1 most photogenic food, which is prime rib. I don’t even have to show you a photo of prime rib to get your motor runnin’. You can just picture it in your mind, can’t you? Taking up 85 percent of the plate’s surface, seared bark on the exterior and straight pink all the way across the interior, with all those heavenly juices pooling underneath. These visual elements alone would make prime rib one of the most beautiful foods ever devised by man, but it’s the fat cap that seals it. You watch the carving station guy cut you a slab of prime rib and your eyes go right to the glistening white mass. So much fat. So much flavor. Yes it’ll kill you, but not right now. That fat cap is a masterpiece of gluttony. A national treasure. As president, I would make every Tuesday night prime rib night.
By the way, if you wanna argue against this, please provide photographic evidence in the comment section below. Show me photos of sushi, and Peking duck, and cacio e pepe, and other foods that I totally wouldn’t be into.
Joe:
Been loosely following the NBA rights deal and it made me wonder about streaming. Since I live overseas I wanted to know: do sports fans in America really sign up for Netflix, Peacock, Apple TV, Amazon, Hulu, YouTubeTV, and who knows what else so they can watch every game, or do most just accept they don't need to watch every game and choose a few?
The breaking point for me, personally speaking, was the NFL putting a single playoff game on Peacock. That was really fucking annoying. I don’t like the added cost of these pop-up games, obviously, but I also hate the logistics of them. I don’t wanna have to toggle among half-a-dozen streaming apps, and bone up on half-a-dozen interfaces, just to watch a single sport. I need my shit clean. My Google TV makes this legwork about as easy as you can make it, but you ever try recording live TV on Prime? I had better luck with first-semester calculus. But I watch it all. It’s my job, and I’m also a little sports piggy who needs to eat all of the slop. I’ve also accepted, especially in light of the NBA deal, that the landscape is only going to get more fractured as the media industry attempts to sort its shit out. That is to say, I am powerless. Same as it ever was for fans.
Now, let’s talk specifically about the NBA deal. For those of you who haven’t been following, the league just inked an 11-year package with Amazon, Disney, and Comcast for $76 billion. Warner Bros Discovery is currently suing over the Amazon part of that deal (and to save the NBA on TNT in the process), but that lawsuit has real “Dan Snyder just wants to make a fuss” vibes to it. Once all of the litigation is settled, the NBA will be making more than double the value of their current rights deal. You will see the first $100-million-a-year salary come from this arrangement, and maybe the first billion-dollar player contract as well. ALL TO PLAY A CHILD’S GAME SMDH.
You’ll also see the NBA back on NBC (yay!), with “Roundball Rock” as the opening theme (double yay!) and Mike Tirico as the lead announcer (oh). But you’ll have to watch some of those NBC games on Peacock. You’ll have to watch the Disney games on ABC or ESPN, and you’ll have to watch the Prime games on Prime. Come football season 2025, you’ll need access to all of those same networks and services plus CBS and Netflix, the latter of which just got awarded a few games on Christmas Day. Imagine the national television audience is a jar of M&M’s that just fell to the floor. Every big company wants to grab as much of that candy as it can get its hands on, so that it can still eat (this is an awkward metaphor, but it’s too late for me to turn back now). The best way to salvage as much of that audience as they can? Live sports.
That’s been true ever since FOX snatched up the right to the NFC in 1994. If you get a live sports deal, you have a set foundation that you build your programming and promotion around. You can’t build around scripted shows anymore, because every place has those. You can’t build around your news division, because everyone gets their news from bullshit feeds online now. And you can’t build around movies, because Americans have awful taste in film. That’s why the NFL, the NBA, the NCAA, the IOC, and all the other big sports acronyms make insane amounts of money. They are the best vehicles of audience capture. The only ones, to a certain extent. That means that every media company that’s dying to get out of the red (all of them) will pay whatever they can bear to Adam Silver and the Ginger Hammer to get whatever piece of that audience they can.
I am a member of that audience. I just shelled out for the Olympics on Peacock after cancelling Peacock in January after that shitty Chiefs-Dolphins playoff game (which I didn’t even bother watching all of). Once Thursday Night Football is back, I’ll have to re-sub to Prime and stay subscribed because of the NBA. At some point CBS will start airing games on shit-ass Paramount Plus, and I’ll have to hold my nose and sub to that, too. Then all of these companies will buy one another and the number of platforms I have to pay for will shrink back down. But for now, the leagues are capitalizing on this mess with uncommon gusto. A lot of fans like me will accept it, because they have no choice. I did get to watch The Holdovers to go with that Peacock sub, so things aren’t all bad.
Kevin:
I hit 40 this year and have entered the stage of life where I’m really in to birds. We not have feeders in front of our window that my wife and daughter maintain religiously. I had this thought while watching them maneuver around them: are some birds bad flyers? People and other animals have varying levels of skill with physical activities. Are some birds like Top Gun flyers? Are some of them just bad at it? I assume the worst get got by predators, but even a substandard flyer can still fly.
Yes, some birds are better flyers than others. The peregrine falcon, for example, can fly at speeds in excess of 200 mph. That speed is wind-aided, but who gives a shit? Fast is fast, brother. I wish I were a falcon. I’d house so many squirrels it wouldn’t even be funny.
At 47, I have also entered the Birding Years, with friends like Matt Ufford making a strong case for me to become the 50 millionth freelance ornithologist living in the North American ecosystem. I’m tempted. Birds are cool and humans are dumb, so it’s easy to understand the appeal. But there’s one thing holding me back from a formal birding habit, and it’s the fact that birds never stay still. They don’t! If I see a cardinal outside my window, I have roughly 20 seconds to point it out to the wife and kids before it fucks off to a different tree a block away. That’s not enough time, man. These birds, they know you wanna look at them. They wanna get you all horny for some plumage so that they can fly out of sight just as you’re about to get off (by checking a box in your little bird book). It’s rude.
Yeah, I said it. Birds are fucking rude. I already have enough moving targets in my life, so I need birds that stay absolutely still, as if taxidermied, so that I can ooh and ahh and take photos that don’t look like butt shots.
I know you’re gonna object. You’re gonna be like, “Drew, that’s the sport of it! You have to have a keen eye! A bird’s elusiveness is what makes it special!” I get that, but also fuck that shit. I saw a hummingbird outside my mom’s kitchen window the other week. It was gorgeous. Beethoven’s Pastoral played in my head as I watched that little miracle flap and dart about. We had a moment, that hummingbird and I. It lasted eight seconds. Would you hang out with people who are only willing to chill for eight seconds? Of course not. The only birds who hang out longer than that are geese, and geese are pricks. Learn to stay still, cool birds of the world. Don’t make me and my shotgun teach you a lesson in basic courtesy.
Kyle:
You’re on Chopped and have to make a burger that is topped with a candy bar. What candy bar would you choose?
I’m certain that some minor-league team out there is still trying to become Instagram famous by offering a burger topped with a Snickers bar, or some other stunt condiment they ginned up to entice Darren Rovell’s Twitter feed. I’m not shelling out $18 for any of that shit, but if you’re forcing me to put a candy bar on top of my burger, I’m gonna use a Payday. I don’t want chocolate on top of my burger, and I know that peanuts kick ass with savory dishes. That makes the regular Payday bar—the one not enrobed in chocolate—a pretty easy choice.
I’d have to blunt the sweetness of the nougat here, but that wouldn’t be too big of a challenge. If Kyle permitted it, I could easily transform the ingredient by tossing the Payday bar into a Cuisinart with some Fresno chiles, tomato paste, salt, and neutral vinegar. If the bar has to be served intact atop the burger, then I’d just smother it in cheddar cheese, bacon, and pickled red onion. None of this would improve the hamburger, but at least I wouldn’t feel like human trash while eating it. I’d probably even brag about it to my bougie friends. “Somehow it all worked!” you text, as all they make a jerkoff motion in unison.
HALFTIME!
Matt:
Will you please agree with me that people who regularly poop at work are despicable human beings? The occasional battlefield emergency is one thing, but I am a high school teacher and I have colleagues who--every single day--absolutely destroy our limited faculty facilities, and then presumably walk around for the rest of the day with shitty bits of institutional toilet paper stuck up their sticky asses. Their behavior serves as an indictment of the American public school system, and it has to stop. I think if your daily shit takes place in a location without shower facilities, you're a monster. Help me out here, Drew, please.
I don’t agree. Not a chance. If I have to shit, I’m going to shit. That’s what bathrooms are for. That’s especially true if I’m teacher with a fresh pot of coffee in me who’s about to stare down a full day of trying to get a bunch of eighth graders to listen to me. What do you want me to do, hold my bowel movement in throughout an entire workday so that I can go home and have my underwear detonate? Fuck outta here, kid.
I dislike stinky bathrooms as much as the next worker bee, but again … that’s what bathrooms are for. I’m not entering a fucking tea garden. I know the deal. I don’t walk into a public bathroom, see a pair of feet under the door of a stall, and think to myself OMG HOW COULD THEY?!!!! And I’ve never seen a sign in a work bathroom that said TOILET NOT FOR SHITTING. Why even put a toilet in the bathroom if you don’t want people to use it? And do we not already have enough people out there in the political sphere who want to police the bodies of others? Keep your hands out of my rectum, Matt. You’re gonna get thrashed for this take, and I have to think you knew that going in. If you didn’t, well then you’re about to encounter things most unsavory to your delicate sensibilities.
Michael:
Here in Iowa they purposely dig huge holes into the gravel so people don't drive through it to get into a turn lane. I have seen at least three cars not realize this and just slam into them. Do most states do this? And is that pretty messed up by the city/state to do that? I admittedly don't travel much out of the Midwest.
Holy shit! I’ve never seen that before. That’ll learn shoulder cowboys real quick, it will! I live in a place where every driver is a complete asshole, even more so than motorists are elsewhere in the US. So I’m down with any medieval idea that punishes bad drivers for their entitlement. Let’s booby trap more highways, I say!
(I will dislike this idea just as soon as I use all of a turnoff lane to sneak past traffic and then hit a strategic pothole once no one lets me in and I’ve run out of bonus lane to exploit.)
Matthew:
Your mention of tzatziki in last week's column reminded me of how until I was roughly 30 years old I pronounced that as "ZAT-skee" until someone called me out, mercilessly. This may be a pattern with me, as I also long pronounced "queue" as "kwee-YOO" before hearing it spoken out loud and realizing my moronic mistake. Are there any words you only saw in print and made up how to say before someone explained the awful truth?
Like, most of them?
Brian:
I'm a Smoothie Guy now. My kid got her wisdom teeth pulled, so I broke out the Vitamix and now I can't stop. I've been indoctrinated by Big Kale and Big Banana. Smoothies have been around for decades, even leading to many chains/brands. Are smoothies the most successful health fad?
Yes because they’re not really all that good for you. If you want a smoothie that tastes good, and everyone does, it needs to have sugar in it. I don’t care if that sugar comes in the form of hand-pressed agave nectar, or honey sourced from Jason Statham on special assignment for the U.S. government. It’s still sugar, and it’s still bad for you. But I ain’t drinking an unsweetened spinach milkshake. Few of us are. We need enticements. Maybe a Payday bar. That’s why every Smoothie King out there has one menu of nutritious smoothies made with beet juice and cashew butter, and then a whole side menu of Super Mango Explosion drinks. The evil menu is what makes them money.
I know all of this, and yet that hasn’t stopped me from making smoothies of my own. I only drink smoothies for the taste, not the health benefits. My smoothie includes one banana, a handful of blueberries, two ice cubes, one cup of oat milk, half a cup of Greek yogurt, a big glop of almond butter, and a shitload of honey. I whizz that up for lunch and it always hit the spot. Then I want solid food 10 minutes later.
Quick aside: If you’re familiar with yuppie appliances, you know that a Vitamix is one of the most expensive things on the fucking planet. We’re talking like $800. For a blender. But it’s a REALLY good blender, so much so that my wife rhapsodizes about Vitamixes even though we don’t own one. “Did you know they pulverize strawberry seeds? You don’t even see them in your smoothie when it’s ready!” I know, dear. You dropped that fact on me a week ago.
Elijah:
I have a system where I wash the dishes from the previous day/night before I start cooking dinner so that after eating dinner, I can curl up on the couch and watch TV until I fall asleep. In my opinion you're a psychopath if after-dinner is prime time for doing dishes. That’s why all of my dirty dinner dishes get a rinse and sit in the sink for the night and next day, to be done the next evening before I start cooking dinner again. Am I a caveman? Or am I currently transcending into the next stage of human evolution?
We’re gonna have to re-establish parameters here for what constitutes “psychopathic” behavior, especially in light of the Democrats rolling out their brilliant “The GOP is weird” campaign strategy. Already today, I’ve had a reader call out “monsters” who dare to shit in available toilets. Now I’m supposed to round up everyone who washes their dishes right after dinner and send them to the funny farm? Let’s go into the Settings menu and make some changes in there.
I hate washing dishes after dinner, mind you. Elijah has that part of it right. I just ate a great meal and am ready to chill … oh but wait! First we have to do 25 minutes of manual labor before retiring to the study! That’s always a buzzkill. The scene in Boomerang where Eddie Murphy and Halle Berry are run down by an enormous post-party cleanup sticks in mind anytime I gotta tackle a mountain of dishes, especially at Thanksgiving. But I do them (or I force my kids to do them) because I like to wake up to a clean sink the next morning. Back when I was single, I left dishes out all night, and the night after, and the night after that, until my sink had cultivated new strains of penicillin. I can’t abide that shit anymore, mostly because I don’t want that cleanup hanging over me all night and into the morning. I want it done. That way, I can savor my chair time in full.
Mike:
If you could look through an album with every photo of you ever taken, would you do it?
Yup. Whenever I look at any photo of my family, guess who I always check out in the photo first? That’s right: Me. ME ME ME ME ME. I love me some me content. I don’t even care if the photos of me are bad, because I know I look good now. I’m DDG, which means that any old photo of me weighing in at 280 is a cute little novelty. Oh, that was back when I was heavy. Now I’m just old and deaf! It’s a good feeling.
Brian:
I wipe while sitting. My wife stands to wipe. Without your Pulitzer-worthy commentary on the subject we would have never realized anyone, let alone our most intimate partners, went about their business differently than we did ourselves. But now we have a child. He is four and a half. He is largely potty trained, though accidents still occur. If number 2 is involved, a parent or teacher wipes his butt. The obvious next step is to get the kid to do it himself, but do we teach him to stand or sit to wipe? Previously I thought this was a random thing. Either you're a sitter or a stander. But now I have the opportunity to influence someone I love dearly into a habit that will stick with him for the rest of his life, and I honestly don't know the best path to go down. Your expert guidance is requested.
I never thought about any of that when I was teaching my kids to use the bathroom. I had to wipe their asses, of course. They’d drop anchor and then scream I NEED A WIPE!!! so loud that it would ring out through the entire house. Then I’d come running and wipe them off while they were still on the seat. When it was time for the kids to try wiping themselves, my wife and I were just like, “I’m gonna close the door. You know how to do this now.” Then we’d pray the kid would come out of the bathroom without a glump of shit smeared all over their fingers. They got the hang of it quickly, and I never had to deal with the issue again.
If any of my kids stand to wipe now, I’m unaware of it. I’ve never asked them and don’t care to. That’s their business, and my potty-training days are thankfully over. It was fun to discover that standers exist out there, but I’m not gonna try to talk them out of that habit. Again, I have better things to do. So let your kid sort it.
Email of the week!
Timothy:
I was walking to the shower at my Y some years ago. The fig leaf towel quit on me, so I was making the rest of the walk in my altogether when a guy came out from around a blind corner and walked right into me. I’m tall and he was short. I swear this is true, his nose pressed right into the center of my chest. BAM. A full-on collision. He was wearing a suit and he was extremely composed about it. He backed up, looked me in the eye, said “Good morning!” and then walked away.
That man was Michael Bloomberg, billionaire former Mayor. On my children’s eyes this is true. I found out later he was there shooting a commercial.
Damn. He kept his cool there.
