I despise Joe Rogan for having spread bad information about Covid and the vaccines, and thereby encouraged all kinds of idiotic, irresponsible. anti-social behavior in the hinterland realms. But the people who are trying to blow up his career over India Arie’s YouTube n-word montage are much, much worse. HE agrees with Glenn Loury that “the superficial morality of spoken word etiquette versus the genuine morality of a thick, historically informed engagement with important questions of policy, of state, of ethics” are not equally important.

McWhorter: “We can talk about Joe Rogan and the Covid [content] but this other thing…this won’t do.”

If I had a four year-old daughter who was about to enter pre-school, I wouldn’t let her within 500 feet of this sociopath.

Elementary school counselor. This is who kids are supposed to trust. I would never let her near my kid pic.twitter.com/Re5SK1BwGx

— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) February 10, 2022

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I’ve been thinking about switching from the rumblehog to a decent pre-owned car. I’m no longer flush thanks to the wokesters, but I don’t want to get into a years-long payoff deal. So I’ve been looking for a nice little tool-around car. Something older, a dependable brand (Beemer, Volvo, Nissan), well-maintained. Yesterday afternoon I was attracted to a white 2002 BMW, 165K miles, for $2500. The only hitch is that it’s in Palm Springs. But it seemed appealing so I reached out to the owner, and then the weirdness began.

The owner is a dude — I could tell that much. Right off the top he said “no talking, just text me.” He knows autos and does his own maintenance, but he wouldn’t tell me his name or where he lives, and suggested that our initial meeting happen in front of an office building. It turns out the Beemer needs service — the usual tune-up stuff plus new brake discs and pads, which meant I’d be paying an extra $500 or more — figure $3K and change.

The idea was to travel to Palm Springs later today and test-drive the Beemer, and give it to a local mechanic for approval, and then finalize things on Friday. That meant I’d have to take a bus to Palm Springs and take a few Uber rides and pay the mechanic for his time and stay in a hotel plus meals — another $250 or $300, minimum. Now we’re in the $3400 to $3500 region.

I asked the Palm Springs Phantom if I should call him Mr. X. He laughed. I said I was a journalist and explained about Hollywood Elsewhere, and he said “what’s that?” I assured him that I don’t work for the CIA, the Russians, the Palm Springs vice squad, the FBI or the East German Stasi. “Are you really going to do this cloak-and-dagger thing until I arrive?,” I said. “No name, no gender, no nothing? No offense but this feels a tiny bit weird.”

Mr. X: “That’s because that [stuff] doesn’t matter.”
HE: “I don’t mind the spy-movie intrigue. But there’s something existential about this conversation.”
Mr. X: “Are you actually interested in buying this car?”
HE: “Definitely. But you know what I mean. Your identity is going to come out in the wash anyway, right? Bill of sale, pink slip, transfer of title.”
Mr. X: “Yeah.”
HE: “I am 110% serious.”
Mr. X: “Cool. Sounds good…see you tomorrow, man.”
HE: “So when I knock on the door tomorrow at 5 or so, will you be wearing a Yoda mask?”
Mr. X: “That’s not my home address — that’s a business center.”
HE: “Ahh, got it. Well, this is very shadowy but okay. I’ll find a way out there and line up mechanic, and find a decent motel or hotel. This will be, as noted, a two-day process.”

This morning I decided to blow the whole deal off. A guy who won’t reveal his name or address — what is he, a terrorist? A drug dealer? Plus the whole “take a bus to Palm Springs, take three or four Ubers, stay in a motel plus find and hire a mechanic” thing seemed a bit much. When I told him of my decision, Mr. X said, “You’re wasting my time, bruh.”

I wouldn’t say that a majority of people selling cars on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist are scammers, but a significant portion are. Plus the people who’ve written me about buying the rumblehog are scammers also. Favorite line: “I’m a sergeant in the military, I’m going overseas with my team”…really? Second favorite line: “I’m selling this for my invalid mother.” A guy with another car for sale (2013 white Impala) wanted to meet him in central Watts (just south of the 105) and bring cash…no PayPal or Venmo. Sure thing.

…is meaningless to me. It doesn’t mean squat to anyone. Entertainment Weekly has been a dead brand for a good 10 or 15 years, or since it began to primarily aim its coverage at young, none-too-bright women. (Which began back in the Bush years, right?) And now the print days are over. Things change. But boy oh boy I remember the buzz that came from reading semi-glossy magazines that were aimed at semi-educated urbans — i.e., pages and pages of stapled tree pulp with printed words and pictures. Printed newspapers also!

I was a steady (you could say dogged) EW contributor during the ‘90s heyday, but you don’t want to hear those dusty old stories again.

The entire quote is from The Hollywood Reporter‘s Sheri Linden, and it comes from a 12.9.21 “Critics Conversation” between herself, David Rooney and Liva Guyarkye….here it is:

Linden: “There’s a terrible loneliness at the heart of Ruth Negga’s remarkable performance [in Passing]. Clare’s vivacity is at once an expression of audacity and an act of hiding. In very different ways, Negga’s character and Kirsten Dunst’s tender turn in Power of the Dog reverberate with a nation’s calamitous history — Who is valued? Who decides? But it’s on an intimate, moment-to-moment level that these two performances tore my heart out.”

So Dunst’s Rose Gordon, a kind-hearted, hard-working mother of a teenage son (Kodi Smit-.McPhee) and recently married to Jesse Plemon‘s fleshy, ginger-haired George Burbank only to run afoul of his brother, the snarly, menacing Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and thereafter descends into alcoholism…how exactly does poor Rose’s plight mirror our shared “calamitious history“? I’m completely mystified as to what this means.

Rose’s story seems like a local matter to me…a family drama, a matter of Phil’s malignancy, a cattle-ranch issue. In what way does this reflect on anything national, then or now? Or state-wide even? Who apart from those who live and work on the Burbank ranch…who cares what poor Rose is going through?

Friendo: “Kim Kardashian looks good — you have to give her that. She allegedly lost 20 lbs. after getting Covid. This, either way, is how to be super-successful in 2022, by virtue-signalling while growing an empire. ‘I’ve chosen myself’ — no shit, sweetheart. As in ‘I’ve chosen my brand, my wealth, my obsessive self-attention,’ etc. She really did crack the code, didn’t she? She’s now the symbol of our modern Gilded Age. And, as ever, she does absolutely nothing in terms of innovation, ideas, creating, devotion, design…even adventure-seeking. Imagine all of her fans, most of them living in poverty, trying to be that. How could they ever?”

“The big winner, nomination-wise, was The Power of the Dog…12 nominations, one for every person who saw it. Lady Gaga was a surprise, not being nominated, but the biggest snub in my opinion…I’m actually even angry about this, I’m kind of embarassed to say…[the biggest snub was] the unforgivable omission of Spider-Man: No Way Home.

“How did that not get one of the ten nominations? There were only 11 [half-decent] movies made this year. Forget the fact that [Spider-Man] made $750 million [domestic] and it still going. This was a great movie, and there were three Spider-Men in it! One of them was Andrew Garfield, and he was a Best Actor nominee.

“You’re telling me Don’t Look Up was better than Spider-Man? It most certainly was not.

“When did we decide that a Best Picture [nominee] always has to be serious? This was not the point when they started making films. Ben-Hur…chariots of leprosy. Frankenstein…a monster powered by lightning. Fantasia…Mickey Mouse on an acid trip. The Wizard of Oz…flying monkeys and a witch. These are great, classic, Oscar-level movies. There’s northing wrong with serious movies, a lot of them are fantastic and deserving, but when did ‘serious’ become a prequisite for earning an Academy Award?”

From Richard Rushfield‘s latest Ankler post, “Behold, The Incredible Shrinking Oscars…Again“:

“So the Academy exists to ratify the esoteric choices of guilds and 400 critics groups; critics who themselves are largely now unread, except by each other. But of course, it was impossible to hold the theatrical category to any viewership standards once the floodgates opened to the streamers, which are a black hole of information from which only glimpses of light emerge. And instead of taking public reaction into account, it’s just thrown out the window, and Oscar can become…another critics’ film circle?

“Which, if you’re looking at it from a perspective of honoring craftsmanship in cinema, is wonderful.

“If you’re looking at it from a perspective of maintaining a mass medium’s connection with a mass audience, then well, what would you say is the level of public excitement for one’s local critics’ circle announcements? Have you sensed an unfulfilled public demand for more of those?

“As one friend put it, ‘For years the promotion of movies and moviegoing was the collaboration of studios and the press. That’s over. The press has taken up streamers and indies to ‘save’ indies [the Eric Kohn / David Ehrlich aesthetic] and studios have all but said fuck it.’

“So in the Best Pic category, we have a cluster of films that were…flops, disappointments, underperforms, at best given a Gentleman’s C for COVID. And then a bunch of films whose audiences are total mysteries.

“To put it another way, is there any evidence that there is a single person under 40 on the planet who has watched a single one of these movies?”

From Paul Krugman‘s “What to Do With Our Pandemic Anger,” posted in the N.Y. Times on 2.7.22:

“America has done a very poor job of dealing with Covid. We’ve had more deaths, as a percentage of the population, than any other large, wealthy nation, with the disparity even wider during the Omicron wave than it was before. Why? Because so many Americans haven’t behaved responsibly”…senior among them Joe Rogan.

“I know I’m not alone in feeling angry about this irresponsibility, which has been encouraged by politicians and other public figures. There are surely many Americans feeling a simmering rage against the minority that has placed the rest of us at risk and degraded the quality of our nation’s life”…and my simmering anger at Joe Rogan is a part of this.

“Oh, and don’t tell me that how you behave during a pandemic is just an individual choice”…like Joe Rogan has said from time to time. “I don’t claim any special expertise in the science, but there seems to be clear evidence that wearing masks in certain settings has helped limit the spread of the coronavirus. Vaccines also probably reduce spread, largely because the vaccinated are less likely to become infected, even though they can be.

“More crucially, failing to get vaccinated greatly increases your risk of becoming seriously ill, and hence placing stress on overburdened hospitals.

“Also, think about the burden of proof here. You don’t have to have 100 percent faith in the experts to accept that flying without a mask or dining indoors while unvaccinated might well endanger other people — and for what?

“What this means, in turn, is that those who refuse to take basic Covid precautions (i.e,, Joe Rogan) are, at best, being selfish — ignoring the welfare and comfort of their fellow citizens. At worst, they’re engaged in deliberate aggression — putting others at risk to make a point.”

There are a few good HE & Twitter comments, but the best chat thread about the Oscar noms and especially the Lady Gaga snub is at datalounge.com, the legendary gay gossip site.