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 recliners, wallets, frozen buttplugs, and more.
Your letters:
Leo:
I don't have kids, so I haven't legit trick-or-treated since middle school and only have occasionally given out candy. I was wondering: what's the weirdest thing(s) people have legit handed out to you, your kids, or anyone you know? I'm not talking about shitty candy, stickers, or homemade treats; truly head scratching shit.
When I was a kid, we got McDonald’s coupons from a house once. Every single one of us was like, “The fuck?” Another time, we knocked on the apartment door of some drunk yuppies having a cocktail party, who invited us in for cheese and crackers. I’m not even sure they knew it was Halloween. They were very nice, but my brother and sister and I were weirded out anyway. Also, we didn’t have time to socialize. We just wanted to get some fucking candy.
That’s all I got, and it’s from long ago. The advent of variety packs has, ironically, robbed Halloween candy of true diversity. With the exception of the precious 100 Grand bar, my kids never get weird candy anymore: vanilla Tootsie rolls, Milky Way Midnights (underestimated), small bags of yogurt pretzels. Kids now get a set rotation of Reese’s, Kit Kats, Snickers, M&M’s, and Dum Dums. It’s all good candy, but it makes foraging through the pile for a FastBreak tough sledding.
Carleigh:
Given that much of our social media has been consolidated by the pro-Trump billionaires who are using it to surveil and divide us, should Democratic political candidates still be using it? Can you win a Congressional race without social media?
Democrats are going to have to. Twitter now exists strictly as a gathering place for right-wing zealots, both human and automated. Facebook is a zombie hellscape populated exclusively by 70-somethings who believe everything they see in their news feed. Instagram Reels is where my wife goes to listen to explainer videos from Heather Cox Richardson. And Bluesky’s user base is so small as to render it a non-factor. I use Bluesky to blast out links and to socialize, but I know it has all the political heft of a dead mosquito at this point. Also, there are a few liberals over there who are either clueless, annoying, or both. That part isn’t worth writing a thinkpiece about; it’s just how Bluesky is.
In the aggregate, politicians use social media to get coverage, rather than to win over actual human beings. Trumpian ragebait tends to flourish under such conditions. So where does that leave an unknown Democratic candidate? Kinda fucked.
But not all the way fucked. Zohran Mamdani made great use of social media to win the NYC mayoral primary earlier this year. Did Mamdani reach the doorstep of City Hall by tweeting out insane bullshit in random all caps? No. His social media usage was part of a larger, more coordinated effort that included an incredible canvassing operation, plus clever videos that got picked up quickly across all forms of social media. Those elements, working in concert, put Zohran's face, and his ideas, in front of nearly every damn eligible voter.
We published a big feature about the team of filmmakers behind Mamdani's video strategy, and what stands out is how much these people actually cared about filmmaking. Any asshole can film a 45-second "man on the street" video and throw it on TikTok, but Mamdani's campaign was proof that craftsmanship really does go a long way. You can see that same level of care in all of his visual branding:
This is a fucking GREAT campaign poster. How many red, white, and blue campaign signs have you seen in your lifetime? A billion? More? Every campaign uses the same all-American color scheme, which results in all of them blending together. So Mamdani’s team was like fuck that shit, let’s use colors that people will actually notice. Does it also help that Mamdani is an attractive guy whose headshot can serve as the main visual here without it being cringe? Sure does. Take all those elements together—type treatment, messaging, color scheme, hot young guy—and you’ve got poster that catches the eye.
And what’s the slogan? “For a New York you can afford.” It’s just a simple slogan that even an idiot can understand and remember. Ditto Zohran’s platform slogans: “Freeze the rent,” “Fast free buses,” “No cost childcare.” Like Trump’s “Build that wall,” these talking points are direct and easy to remember. Democrats love to use 500 more words than is necessary while campaigning. This poster avoids that perennial mistake.
Branding can only take you so far, though. Social media can still bring attention to politicians, but what they are saying ultimately matters more than how they are saying it.
Tom:
I live in the burbs of Western Pennsylvania, and this is the first year my children aged out of trick-or-treating. I kind of low-key got extremely emotional about this. I don't have a question.
I’m on my last year! And that’s being generous. Our youngest (13) is still going trick or treating with his buds on Friday night, but in a separate neighborhood from ours. So my wife and I will be home alone for Halloween, pending the 16-year-old’s plans. I’m still gonna carve a jack o’ lantern, and we’ll still hand out candy to all the little fuckers who ring the doorbell. But we’re just an old people’s house on the trick or treating route now.
That’s a far cry from a decade ago, when we’d help all three of our kids dress up and then head out into the dusk with them and our neighbors’ families. Those were good nights. Our gang would always bring a travel cooler full of booze along with us, then we’d meet and greet other parent gangs who brought their own booze. I remember those times fondly, even the nights when I was freezing my nuts off. I loved standing around, drunk in the dark, watching all the kids dart from this house to that one, seeing other neighbors approach and trying to divine who they were from a distance. Parenting young kids is such intensive labor that Halloween felt like a reward. The kids got candy, the parents got drunk, and everyone got to yell at passing cars for driving three mph too fast. Then we’d go home and sift through the booty while putting on 15 minutes of whatever scary movie was playing on TCM in the background. I loved all of that shit, and I’ll love doing it again whenever grandkids enter the picture down the road.
For now though, my wife and I are in a kind of lull. I haven’t gotten terribly weepy about it, because having three kids, all three years apart, has made the phase-out so gradual. Plus, we still have the 70 million photos we took every Halloween prior, which pop up on the Google TV screensaver all the time. Apologies for quoting my own work, but life has taught me that you can never really lose what you once had. You always get to keep the memory. The feeling. So I look at all the old pictures of my kid dressed up as a backhoe, and I steal a Reese’s cup (or three) when my wife isn’t looking, and I queue up The Great Pumpkin on the TV, and I get a little bit of that feeling back. Then I leave the candy dish out on the stoop so that I can stop answering the door. Then I pop a gummy and watch some football. Halloween is different now, but it’s still good by me.
Also, my sons are SUPER into 100 Grand bars this time of year. It’s kinda thrilling.
HALFTIME!
Michael:
You're a psycho if you keep your wallet in one of the front pockets. It's keys and phone in the front and wallet in back, right?
Not if you have a bad back, as I do. I carry an old man wallet on me, replete with credit cards, bank cards, insurance cards, IDs, and paper receipts if I’m on a business trip. I’ve already gotten shit for my Costanza wallet, so don’t bother repeating the effort. I gotta carry what I gotta carry, and I can’t sit on a wallet that thick. So it’s phone and wallet in front for me, keys in the jacket pocket. If I’m not wearing a jacket, I just carry my keys in my hand like a complete pud. Again, I am not a psycho. I’m just in my late 40s. This is shit you do when you’re that old. Leave me alone.
Related: teaching my kids to own and use a wallet has been a futile effort. The 16-year-old used to carry his driver’s permit around loose in his backpack. Drove me fucking insane. So, at my pleading, he got one of those little card holders you stick onto the back of your iPhone case. I reckon that’s about as much wallet as he’ll ever have, for the rest of his life. We don’t talk about the death of wallets enough, if you ask me. They’re vital to our shared humanity!!!
[two attendants come to drag me into a police van]
Jorma:
I woke up this morning to find an email from my health insurer imploring that I check in for a doctor's appointment, tomorrow. This is where I draw the line. Checking in should be a thing you do when you arrive at the thing you're going to. That's what checking in fucking is! If I check in for a flight, for an appointment, a day before I actually need to be there, literally anything could happen to me in the interim. Instead, we're letting people just say they're ready to go early when there's no telling what could happen. Check-ins should only happen when people are actually in, right?
I always do the early check-in, especially for flights. I want my seat assignment (this is how I recently discovered the sinister innovation that is Basic Economy), I want my boarding pass ready to go on my phone, and I want to avoid any lines at the airport that I can avoid. If I gotta check bags, I do that in advance, too. Because you know what happens if I don’t do any of that shit? I go to the airport, I ask for help, and then I’m immediately told to go check in at a fucking automated kiosk. Then I end up doing all of the same shit I could’ve done 20 hours earlier.
Doctor’s offices now operate the same way, and THAT is a much more irritating development. My doctor will send me multiple alerts—via email, via text, and via carrier pigeon—to check in early. And not for, like heart surgery. They’ll do this even if I’m just going in to have them check out an infected hangnail, all because they want my copay and they want it NOW. I don’t mind doing all of this shit from home (especially the intake forms), so that I don’t have to show up 15 minutes early for an appointment to which the doctor will be 40 minutes late anyway. It’s the insistence that bothers me.
It’s also yet another example of people being needlessly phased out of what was once a routine human interaction: the connective tissue of society destroyed by a thousand little cuts. Because if I ever forget to check in early and show up to the doctor’s office cold, you know what they do? That’s right, they point me to an iPad. Even when people can talk to each other, they’re dissuaded not to. And then the iPad bricks. And then they ask me to pay my copay a second time. Then the doctor’s scale tells me I’m 10 pounds heavier than my home scale says. Where is the justice, I ask you.
Ricky:
What do you put on first when getting dressed: socks or pants?
Pants! PANTS PANTS PANTS. You know what happens when I try to put my pants on with my feet already covered? The sock catches on the inside of the pant leg, and then I lose my balance, and then I nearly fall down and impale myself on the bedpost.
But Drew, just sit down to put your pants on!
No. Fuck you. I’m not that old yet. I am a vigorous adult male who can still put on his pants while standing, and I will rage against that dying of the light until tragedy strikes.
Chuck:
I bought a set of butt plug shaped ice cube molds because I am immature, and because it would cause my wife to roll her eyes. I made some ice cubes and put them in a drink, then enjoyed that drink. Do you think more butt plug shaped ice winds up in drinks or butts? I'm betting butts.
Oh yeah, definitely butts. An ice buttplug is like the fake tattoo of buttplugs. If you stick one up your ass and don’t like it, don’t worry. It won’t stay for there very long. It’s not a buttplug you have to commit to, which makes it appealing to anyone making their initial foray into the world of kink. And I know the cold factor might put off some of our more cautious perverts, but I personally wouldn’t be deterred. I’ve had a cool breeze hit my asscrack and felt terrific. I bet an ice dildo would be even more refreshing! Gotta take it out after 20 minutes though, to avoid rectal frostbite.
As for using the ice buttplugs in your drink; that’s fun for, like, a bachelorette party. After that, the novelty wears off and you realize that normal ice works just as well.
Now let’s take a moment to remember the artisanal ice trend of the 2010s. Did I like having one big ice cube in my old fashioned? Oh reader, I fucking ADORED it. Did I secretly crave one of those pricey machines that cranks out said ice cubes with no clouding, bubbles, or cracks in them? I did. Sometimes I even got a perfect sphere cube in my restaurant cocktail, which made me far more aroused than it should have. There was a run of Christmases where I got big cube molds from pretty much every member of my family. I have no idea where those molds are right now. But, to this day, if I order a mocktail in some restaurant and they treat me to the big cube, I smile wide and go, “I love the big cubes!” Those were (barely) more innocent times.
Michael:
Went down a rabbit hole on YouTube and ended up watching Obama's eulogy of John McCain. Is there ever a chance we see something like this again?
Of course we will. You’ve met Democrats, right? I’m shocked Chuck Schumer didn’t deliver the eulogy for fucking Charlie Kirk.
By the way, there’s still a small subset of registered Democrats who get pissy whenever liberals like me attack the party. It’s like if there were Broncos fans out there willing to defend Nathaniel Hackett. And I don’t mean right after Hackett was fired, but like right now. That’s you if you’re still riding with this party’s leadership. The only way for Dems to get their shit together is if there’s a mass revolt against that leadership. Any Dem that isn’t plotting behind the scenes to get rid of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jefferies is spinning their wheels.
David:
I feel like I am not nearly annoyed enough at how good the Patriots seem to be. Should I be more annoyed and a little angry about it?
I too am not annoyed enough at witnessing this Pats resurgence. I’ve already copped to liking Drake Maye, and I long ago learned to tune out (i.e. mute) the few Pats fans who kept up their shtick after Tom Brady left. Life has been more pleasant this way.
However, I’m guessing that this little honeymoon period won’t last. The Pats have an Angel Soft schedule coming up, and they’ll welcome more Tommys from Quinzee back into the fold as they continue padding their record. And if Maye wins them a Super Bowl down the road, thereby making New England the only franchise with seven titles, then Hatin’ Season will be back in full force. Only Mike Vrabel stands between us and this bleak future, and you know what? I’m reassured by that. I’ve watched that rockhead coach a playoff game.
Anthony:
Reading Michael's Funbag entry from September 16th about Michaels made me think about how many Michaels there really are. I had four groomsmen at my wedding. Three of them were named Michael. There are too many Michaels, is what I'm saying. We need someone to look into this. Oh God, now I'm thinking about how weird the spelling of "Michael" is.
I am calling for a ban on all Michaels coming into this country until we figure out what the hell is going on.
Veronica:
I just turned 40 and we just moved into a new house after living in a house for 10 years that our family outgrew. One perk of the new house is more space in the family room. Enough space for a recliner for my aging back, in fact. I don't know where to begin. You seem like a recliner connoisseur: someone with both knowledge and opinions. My partner is on board and accepts that our recliner will be ugly no matter what I pick. I don't think I want bells and whistles: electronics like massage and powered reclining seem like they will just break! Seems like all the affordable ones are ugly and comfy looking, but are likely cheaply made and won't last (and have those powered features). The expensive ones don't look comfy and inviting the way I picture. I don't need my recliner to be fancy. I just want something classic, comfy, and built to last. So a weary parent turns her tired eyes to you.
I’m your man, Veronica. In fact, I just counseled my mother-in-law on recliner shopping when her back went rogue on her. So let me offer you a few tips. First of all, don’t go to a Lay-Z-Boy store. All of the recliners on sale there are hideous, take up way too much room, and don’t even give your back proper support. Plus they have a lot of electronic features that will inevitably break. Same deal if you looking at any other discount furniture emporium. You’ll find decent prices, but this is your back we’re talking about. You’re gonna spend a shitload of time in this chair, so it’s better to invest a bit more money up front.
That’s what I did 20 years ago, when I bought this chair from Macy’s. That chair is now “the chair” in our TV room; the place where I do my best napping, my best TV watching, and my best dog cuddling. They still sell this chair at Macy’s, although I’m not certain they use the same recipe they used when I bought mine. Also, this chair doesn’t have a manual lever to recline, which my mother-in-law will need because it’s too hard for her to push back on her own. Every unhappy back is unhappy in its own way.
The point is that there are, indeed, recliners that are classic, comfy, and built to last. Plus it’s fun to test those recliners out while you’re shopping around. So avoid Bob’s and check out places that are one or two price levels above it. I promise you’ll find something that both you and your back will be pleased with.
Email of the week!
Thomas:
Sometimes, on a medium length drive, when we are getting nearer to our destination but there has been no traffic, I will notice that the GPS time estimate is MUCH longer than would be expected from where we are. For example, on a two-hour drive home recently, I noticed when we were 20 miles from home that the time estimate was 50 minutes. This is not good! I knew immediately there was traffic up ahead. As we got closer, the traffic had not hit. But the time estimate continued getting even more uneven, my anxiety only grew. Sure enough, when we got about 10 miles from home, we ran into significant traffic. I live in San Francisco, and so the traffic was on the Bay Bridge, where traffic is common but not a foregone conclusion. But this traffic was particularly bad. The traffic is bad enough. But those 10 minutes or so when I realized we'd be running into that traffic, it feels like walking to your own execution. Brutal.
I know this exact feeling so well that I had a hard time reading about it.
