Matt Toder's Open Salon Blog

What We Talk About When We Talk About the Aughts

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:12:37 -0500

My first email address was the dot edu address that came with my admittance to college. That was in the Fall of 1998. I think my parents had some sort of AOL something or other rigged up before that but our family's computer wasn't in my room, so I didn't play around with it that much, didn't IM with friends sitting blocks away via dial up, didn't email completed homework assignments to lazy classmates. (Remember when a computer was a family thing and not a personal thing?) Which is to say, my first introduction to the internet came at the exact same point in time when I was no longer living in my parents' place, at the same moment that everything changed substantively. How perfectly fitting that coincidence was and how long ago it occurred. The world has been so utterly remade in the last ten years that it's hard to even relate to the 90's anymore; our only method of actively dealing with the past has become so largely steeped in nostalgia it's as if those years are much farther away than they truly are. And while it's most certainly true that the presidency of George W. Bush and events like 9/11 altered the reality of the Aughts, when we talk about how the world has changed during the last decade it boils down to one large change that altered all of our lives; indeed, what we talk about when we talk about the Aughts is the internet.

In many ways, the Aughts was a decade of transition. During them, we basically reinvented most of the aspects of our lives. We reinvented how we communicate and deal with logistics, we reinvented the notion of grassroots organizing and political fund-raising, we reinvented the flow (and meaning) of information. The growth and prevalence of the internet tweaked how we watch television and movies, how advertisers attempt to get us to buy their product and, of course, how we date. But, it didn't start out that way, and we didn't start out perfectly equipped to handle it all.

It's amazing how charmingly quaint the internet was back then. IMDB was a database you could enter information into, it wasn't the internet's most trusted source of Hollywood-related information, complete with a "pro" section. Dating on the web was weird and creepy and desperate, now it might be the normal way of meeting someone. Back in those heady days it seems the internet was mostly just for downloading mp3's - even pre-Napster, it was a singular occupation - and watching that video of the beached whale getting dynamited. Considering the way the internet has unearthed some of our darker impulses, it's kind of hilarious that the entire world was so mad at Sean Fanning for a while there. But that's also the genius of the internet. It couldn't thrive and begin to really change our lives until we were able to participate in it.

As it turns out, the participatory element of the internet was present nearly from the beginning. Blogs have always been a key element to the web, obviously, but it only took a few years for user-reliant website-companies to draw our culture's attention. Wikipedia was launched in 2001 and every person with intellectual concerns for what is a real truth vs. what is a perceived truth spent the next two years discussing it until there was no fighting it anymore. eBay was consolidated into its present form in 2002, and bought Paypal at the end of that year, thereby monopolizing the internet auction. I graduated from college that year and spent the Summer periodically checking the jobs section of Craigslist, which had recently expanded from its local San Francisco beginnings. It's kind of mind-blowing to realize that Web 2.0 is more of a baseline for the internet than an advancement; it seems to be the web's natural state. This was only beginning to be fully realized in the summer of 2003, when Friendster blew up.

What had previously been about what we could do for each other and localizing even the most distant of commercial interactions instantly changed to something else. Suddenly, the internet was not just a global marketplace or a virtual meat market, it was a gigantic mixer. People made profiles for themselves and staked their claim, a page on Friendster's server. (As an aside, the profile itself represents an interesting divergence from previous forms of semi-anonymous interactions, the blurb-like personal having lost relevance in the new medium.) I myself never had a Friendster page, so I can't speak to it specifically, but it seems the first time that everyone was compelled to have a legitimate internet presence without the sort of "I have something to say"-ness that would lead to creating a blog. All of a sudden, the only thing you needed to have to say was what you liked and disliked, those things, i.e. being alive basically, were enough to gain you entrée to a place on the web.

It was an essential step to what would push the web out of the basement and onto the main stage of our culture: user-generated websites. The biggest, of course, and most influential was (and maybe still is) YouTube. Launched in February of 2005, YouTube became so large so fast that it was absorbed by Google (an essay unto itself) for a cool $1.65 Billion barely a year and half later. As a repository for everything video-based that we could think of, and discriminating against virtually none of it, YouTube was (and is) both a representation of everything interesting and everything mundane about our society. But more important was that it gave everyone easy access to participation. It was so easy to be involved, either as creator or as a viewer (doling out the ever-important clicks) that to not be was more a choice of self-exclusion than anything else. In the years since, this has become only more true: not having a Facebook page means more than having one; user-generated feedback and reviews make up the entirety of popular sites like Yelp and Citysearch.

It makes perfect sense that the web has developed this way, that it so quickly has become the place where the whole world comes to think out loud. This is because it tracks nearly perfectly with the Millennial generation's understanding of the world and our readiness and ability to contribute to it.

Those of us who had limited interactions with the web before college but never had to retrofit post-collegiate lives to it are a special generation and we have a special relationship with the internet. Though more loosely defined than other generations, our identity is tied to the history and development of this thing, similar to our parents' generation being tied to World War II and the resulting baby boom. We didn't have adult lives without the presence of the internet, we didn't have to shift what we thought we knew about how to conduct ourselves in light of this all-encompassing change. And we didn't grow up with the internet as a staple of life, we weren't born with a Facebook page made for us in utero or expect a cell phone by age ten. No, we grew up along with the internet, found ourselves as it found itself, and that makes everything different.

The beginning was just more information. As we moved away from home, literally and intellectually, there was the internet to open us up to as many ideas as we could click on. Alternative news sites started to crop up and gain popularity and importance, Salon, Slate and the Drudge Report, even Ain't It Cool News, were all founded in the late 90's and became seminal publications. And we ate it up, because it differentiated us. A few years later, when we were ready to contribute, when we had accumulated just enough life experience to say something interesting (or fail miserably trying), the net was conveniently all about that; it was just teeming with places for people to spew their thoughts. And just when we were mostly ready to face again all those people from High School, there was Facebook, to ease us into thinking about the ten year reunion, the brightest beacon of web as personal exploration and representation. It's undeniable that the web's development mirrors our own, reflects the phases of the transition from college student to adult, through the hazy twenties to more solid ground.

What, then, might be the the net result (as it were, pun intended) of all this? For people older than us, the web divided people into two camps, those who could retrofit their lives and those who couldn't or didn't want to. For those who could and did, the web made them younger and more hip, they went from being standard issue media types (for example) to cutting edge writers exploring a new medium (Andrew Sullivan comes to mind). Those who didn't instantly aged, became technophobic curmudgeons who could only see the internet as collection of Cheetoh dust-covered nerds. (Regardless of whether the prevalence of the web forced these people to reconsider doesn't change the aging effect of having initially and virulently refused.) For people much younger than us, those with their pre-natal Facebook pages, the rise of technology has been unquestionably aging. Kids are much older than they used to be and it's clear that technology in general and the internet specifically have contributed greatly to a young generation about as experienced and equally jaded and nihilistic as the people ten years older than them, a lot smarter but also carrying a lot more childish resentment and anger. (In all fairness, this might also have to do with all the hormones in the chicken these days.) For us Millenials, the outcome is a little less obvious.

While the particular juvenalia of the internet is well documented, the FAIL videos, the LOLcats, etc, it's a little lazy to say that we've grown up into a generation of children, though it certainly seems plausible, especially if one happens to peruse the comments section of any well-trafficked website. And while the absolute truth of that sentiment remains to be seen, it's also true that the internet has increased our curiosity and our creativity. It takes so much less logistical effort to take a concept to some form of execution that we get to see a lot more actual work these days, and it's definitely true that the ideas that shaped this decade are the result of the imagination and ingenuity needed to expand the internet and keep it moving forward. No other institution can grow and evolve the way it can, and that growth is driven by ideas that only the internet itself could have spawned and require the imagination only people this generation could have brought to the table, the Sergey Brins and Biz Stones of the world. And while the web's continual evolution makes it somewhat cold and merciless (who can't feel a twinge of loneliness on behalf of poor Tom Anderson as he grins at no one?), it just makes sure that there will always be room for the next great idea. And that keeps us, as a generation, centered, both fully engaged at the present and ready to adopt the next development.

Ten years from now, the web will surely be a completely different thing. Facebook will have long ago given way to something else, kids won't believe how we got along without some amazing new advancement. But nothing will change the fact that we came of age when the internet did, that our years of early adulthood mirrored its infancy, that we knew how it was back then. To remember that internet will be to remember when it was, like us, still finding itself and it will be that internet that we talk about and reflect on and have nostalgia for when we talk about the Aughts.

**originally posted on stevesword.com

Glenn Greenwald, You Broke My Heart

Thu, 6 Aug 2009 09:08:13 -0400

I've been reading Salon's Glenn Greenwald about as long as I've been intently following news and politics commentary on the web, and over the last three plus years, I've become quite a fan of his writing. While not always entirely agreeing with his stance on certain issues, it's tough to argue against his credibility and journalistic ethics, a couple of traits sometimes in short supply these days. However, all of that changed Tuesday afternoon when Greenwald posted his third piece on the squashed feud between Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly that had been orchestrated by higher-ups from the parent company of each's network, GE and NewsCorp, respectively. (I guess this is also where I mention that, while I find his shtick to be sometimes tiresome, I watch Olbermann's show a lot.)

Because of the Olbermann-O'Reilly feud-getting-squashed story, I've lost all my respect for Glenn Greenwald. Instead of being a man of ethics and truth, he has shown himself to be a truly petty person, interested only in his own standing and his own stake. Whereas he was once someone I truly respected, especially in disagreement, some of his actions and responses over the last three days have made me question his journalistic integrity and his moral make up. Instead of sticking to the truth of the story, and the pursuit of that truth, Greenwald has chosen to put his personal interests at the forefront and make his reputation the most important thing, to the detriment of not just his integrity, but the truth as well.

If you haven't been following the story, here's a quick recap: on Saturday in the New York Times, reporter Brian Stetler wrote about a deal struck between Jeffrey Immelt and Rupert Murdoch to squash the very public skewering of each other that Olbermann and O'Reilly (had) regularly engaged in. Stelter quoted Olbermann as denying the existence of such a deal, ran the story, and Greenwald picked it up and used it for the basis of a post of his own later that day; he also used the same post to point out some possible conflicts of interest exhibited by Countdown regular Richard Wolffe. Greenwald posted a second column on the subject on Monday, this one specifically about GE protecting its business interests through manipulation of the news. (I guess NewsCorp's manipulations are so self-evident they don't require additional explanation.)

On Monday's edition of Countdown, Olbermann named Stetler the third worst person in the world, while taking the opportunity to deride him for running the story even though Olbermann had denied that there was a deal, although what Olbermann said was "I am party to no deal" which doesn't mean there isn't one at all, and making it awfully clear that he felt Stetler to be unethical. Olbermann noted his own denial (twice) and then said, "he printed it anyway," in that tone he uses for when things are totally flabbergasting, and stuck to his original rationale for "retiring" the "caricature" and "Ted Baxter voice" attributed to O'Reilly for the sake of "quarantining" him and Fox News after the murder of George Tiller. Olbermann then went on to call out O'Reilly and Murdoch and use as proof (this time) for the two of them being the worst and runner-up worst persons in the world evidence of news tampering taken from Stetler's article, calling it "shameful" and that "this is the essence of corporate interference in the marketplace of ideas" and noting Murdoch "could never get away with that here." Something seems a little off here already; Olbermann can't believe the article was published, but what's in it (if not about him) is worth quoting while at the same time he makes sure to note that he just proved the article wrong by reinserting both O'Reilly and Murdoch into his show.

Greenwald, in his post on Tuesday, noted that he had been "inundated by email, in comments, and elsewhere with suggestions that what I wrote was false." He obviously does not agree with that sentiment, and offers that Olbermann agrees with him. Greenwald quotes Olbermann from a statement seemingly sent directly to Greenwald, and also about him (note the third person usage) thusly:

I honor Mr. Greenwald's insight into the coverage of GE/NewsCorp talks, and have found nothing materially factually inaccurate about it. Fox and NewsCorp have continued a strategy of threat and blackmail by Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, and Bill O'Reilly since at least 2004. But no matter what might have been reported by others besides Mr. Greenwald, and no matter what might have been thought around this industry, there's no "deal." I would never consent, and, fortunately, MSNBC and NBC News would never ask me to.

The emphasis there was added by Greenwald, he likes to do that.

Here's where things start to get sticky. If what Greenwald wrote had nothing "factually innaccurate about it," then obviously Olbermann has contradicted himself, though you won't hear that from Greenwald. Also, one wonders why Stetler got such a raw deal. It should be noted that, in his Saturday post, Greenwald, while also writing generally about corporate tampering in news, totally backs up Stetler's claim that Olbermann's choice to stop harping on O'Reilly was mandated by his bosses:

Though Olbermann denies he was part of any deal, the NYT says that there has been virtually no criticism of Fox by Olbermman, or MSNBC by O'Reilly, since June 1 when the deal took effect. That's mostly but not entirely true...

But a review of all of Olbermann's post-June 1 shows does reveal that he has not ever criticized (or even mentioned) Bill O'Reilly since then and barely ever mentions Fox News any longer. And on June 1 -- the last time Olbermann mentioned O'Reilly -- Olbermann claimed at the end of his broadcast that he would cease referring to O'Reilly in the future because ignoring him (and "quarantining" Fox) would supposedly help get O'Reilly off the air ("So as of this show‘s end, I will retire the name, the photograph, and the caricature").
So here we have yet another example -- perhaps the most glaring yet -- of the corporations that own our largest media outlets controlling and censoring the content of their news organizations based on the unrelated interests of the parent corporation.

It seems pretty clear that Greenwald is echoing what Stetler wrote, while conveniently getting let off any potential hooks by Olbermann. Here's where I get stuck. If Greenwald is so interested in the truth of the matter, why didn't he ask Olbermann what made his columns so different from Stetler's such that Stetler was required to be derided on a national television news show and Greenwald gets liberal media's resident cool kid to back him up? Why does he not hold Olbermann's feet to the fire about the apparent hypocrisy in his claims on the issue? How can Stetler be the worst person in the world while Greenwald, who wrote the exact same thing, basks in the affirmation of Olbermann and "appreciate[s] that Olbermann is now confirming that nothing I wrote about this matter was inaccurate." There's something wrong here.

Is it possible that all Greenwald needed was the ability to say, essentially, "I told you so" to all the people who "inundated" him with calls for him to recant what he wrote? That's what it seems like to me. There's something incredibly prideful in all of this, especially the way Greenwald responded to some critics in the comments section of his piece, wherein he wrote, many self-defenses of a piece that he theoretically should have believed would be strong enough to stand on its own but obviously didn't. To one frequent critical commenter, Greenwald restated the "nothing factually inaccurate" quote and then wrote, "try closing your eyes and clicking your ruby slippers three times -- it will still be there," an incredibly condescending and arrogant remark, in my opinion. It seems obvious that Greenwald is particularly insecure about this issue, or maybe he's a rapid dog on the topic. That particular column on Tuesday required a myriad of similarly derisive responses in the comments section from Greenwald.

There's something deeply saddening here. Instead of sticking up for the reporter whose work he has based his material on (in large part) or keeping a close eye on what really is going on, Greenwald has diverted his attention to his own vindication. He's put his personal interests far out in front of the story and has clearly chosen to make sure he comes out of this situation looking like the winner. Once Olbermann backed him up, he let go of Olbermann's obviously contradictory statements. Once there was a line drawn between what Greenwald did and what Stetler did, Greenwald never stopped to wonder about the legitimacy of that line. Just as Olbermann lets Greenwald off the hook, Greenwald does the same for Olbermann. By referencing the "logical point" Olbermann makes between agreeing to the deal and having it mandated to him, Greenwald lets Olbermann get away with still substantially changing the content of his show, and never asks him to explain the lie that he maintains it was his own choice based on the Tiller murder.

As well, Greenwald then goes on to praise Olbermann for removing Wolffe from the show, as result of Greenwald's reporting, and doesn't bother to wonder how it is possible that Olbermann wouldn't have known about Wolffe's other jobs. Greenwald blithely accepts Olbermann's "caught flat-footed" (see below) explanation without a moment's pause, and maybe that's because Olbermann had been kind enough to complement Greenwald so now no one is gonna fire any shots at anyone. He also randomly doesn't question Olbermann's excuse of "dealing with other things" for the "last two months" even though Greenwald himself reported that Wolffe took his new job in mid-April, meaning Olbermann must have been busy for the last four months, and if there's ever been a more cliched bullshit politician-esque non-excuse I've never heard it. This is exactly the sort of thing Greenwald used to not tolerate. And, are we really supposed to believe that Olbermann didn't know about Wolffe's new job? How could Greenwald not even bring up the shadiness of Olbermann's response to that point?

On top of that, Greenwald doesn't blink at the inordinate weight that he is giving to Olbermann's statement to him, even though it seems a cut-and-paste job from what Olbermann wrote on the Daily Kos Monday afternoon:

As to Richard Wolffe I can offer far less insight. I honor Mr. Greenwald's insight into the coverage of GE/NewsCorp talks, and his reporting on Richard's other jobs. I must confess I was caught flat-footed. I do not know what the truth is; my executive producer and I have spent the last two months dealing with other things (see above) but what appears to be the truth here is certainly not what Richard told us about his non-news job.

The construction of that second sentence seems awfully familiar, doesn't it? No emphasis necessary.

**concurrently posted on stevesword.com

Positive Papi (Duh)

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:07:53 -0400

At 2 pm yesterday afternoon, the New York Times broke news that Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz tested positive for steroids in 2003, making them them the sixth and seventh names to come to light as being on that list. In case you don't know, this list is the result of a test that Major League Baseball conducted to see if it needed to implement league-wide testing for performance enhancers, enough players tested positive in that 2003 survey for the league to start cracking down on the problem and testing regularly. (I wrote a little more about it in this February article about Alex (A-Rod) Rodriguez's admission of guilt, if you need some more info.) Needless to say, this is devastating news to the people of Red Sox Nation (I'm not a member), as two beloved members of the 2004 team that broke the curse have now fallen, though Ramirez has recently lost some of his luster after serving a 50 game suspension this season for testing positive for a female fertility drug, the kind of drug that one would take if they needed their body to restart the production of testosterone. Either way, it doesn't seem like baseball's steroid problem is going to go away any time soon, and it's probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

There's no longer any question that tons of major league players were at some point using performance enhancers. All kinds of players have gotten caught, it doesn't make a difference if they're a big star or a guy doing whatever it takes to stay in the Majors. Baseball is mired in a major quagmire right now, this is no longer up for debate. Changes need to happen, and they need to happen right now. There are two things that Major League Baseball should do to change the course of the sport: 1) release the names of everyone on that list and 2) tell Bud Selig to take a hike.

Even though the test and its results were supposed to remain anonymous, that 2003 list of the first steroid offenders is haunting the game right now. I don't know how or why it wasn't destroyed, as the Commissioner's office had promised at the time, but it's too late to destroy it now, as it is in the hands of federal prosecutors. In order to avoid a situation where the game gets dragged back to 2003 every six months or so, the names on that list need to be made public. The league has already established the precedent of not suspending players for being on that list because A-Rod wasn't suspended, and no one listed in the Mitchell Report was suspended as a result of having his name in that document. But, these guys need to take their lumps, make their veiled apologies and we all need to move on. It's never gonna be over until it's over, and by being in a situation where "anonymous sources" leak a name or two every few months, or whenever the sports news cycle shows a sign of slowing down. I'm not a lawyer and I don't know what the legality of this might be, the Deadspin post on the subject remarked that the anonymous source might have broken some laws by leaking the names, but it's really the only way.

And Bud Selig has to go. I don't understand how he has held his job this long anyway, but it's really time for someone else to come in and change the culture. Bud is too entrenched in his product at this point, and he's not able to look rationally at what's happening. Maybe it's that he's more worried about profitability than integrity, and the league is quite profitable, and maybe he's just too much a member of some old boys network. Either way, his time has passed. How much more do we, as fans, have to take? From the World Series-canceling strike of 1994 to the Expos/Nationals wandering franchise to the consistent talk of contraction in the late 90's and early Aughts to the steroid issue that has plagued the league for the last twenty years, enough is enough. I'm not blaming it all on Selig, but it's time for him to step down for the sake of the league. The league needs someone totally transparent and new to make clear that the time when we all looked the other way as players bulked up to ridiculous degrees and blasted home runs is over. Baseball needs a new direction, and it starts at the top, with replacing Selig.

As for Ortiz testing positive, this one is gonna hurt a lot of people. The amazing irony of all the steroid admissions is that, while many high profile names have come out, there hasn't been a widely loved player on the list, until now. Sure, San Francisco Giants fans loved Barry Bonds, but most everyone else found him to be an asshole. The same is true for players like A-Rod and Roger Clemens, they had both built up enough ill will throughout the course of their careers that they were not iconic anymore. Ortiz is a little different, he's still loved by everyone who roots for the Red Sox, and he's always had an incredibly lovable aura surrounding him. What's worse, he is on record as wanting a really harsh penalty for steroid users, making him not just a de facto liar for using them, but a hypocrite as well. Oh yeah, and a cheater.

In a certain way, this news makes us have to face, once again, the disparity between who we think these athletes are and who they really are. We've seen before players who have ruined their good guy reps by engaging in sketchy off-field behavior (Kirby Puckett, anyone?), but this is a little different because now (as much as ever) we've got to accept that this is cheating and these guys are cheaters, no matter how many names come out. A very basic and schoolyard-esque rule has been broken, and for some reason, the more players who come out as having broken it, the more necessary that rule seems. Which is to say, an aberration is one thing, but an epidemic is something completely different. On the bright side, sometimes cheating only costs you your reputation; unfortunately and tragically for Steve McNair, cheating can sometimes cost you your life.

The steroid issue is never going to be truly behind everyone, not unless there is a major sea change within the game or we stop caring about it entirely. In all likelihood, it's the latter that will happen first, and if the Ortiz revelation proves anything it might be that, indeed, such a vast majority of players are on performance enhancers that it will take several generations of players to weed it all out. I don't really believe that this is a realistic expectation, and I think maybe it's time to accept that this is the state of the game. No star is above suspicion, no fan base will remain unaffected by future leaks, the Hall of Fame will eventually (and might already) include steroid users. We need to learn to get used to it because that's just the way it is, and it's probably the way it will always be. Whether or not it has to be that way is an entirely different discussion.

**concurrently posted today at stevesword.com

Running on Naked

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:07:33 -0400

If you don't know who the Naked Cowboy is then there's a chance you are a true New Yorker, or maybe you've never been on a double-decker bus tour through Manhattan. I don't remember when exactly it was that I became aware of who the jackass in his undies, boots and cowboy hat strumming a guitar in Times Square was, but I'm pretty sure that someone had to tell me who he was multiple times before I realized that he's a mainstay and, some might say, an attraction. Maybe it was in some sort of promotional photo of Times Square that I first saw him, maybe he was just starting his day when I was leaving the TKTS line. Either way, I've never really understood the appeal here, from both sides of his existence, so let's just say I'm admitting some bias right up front. Why would someone feel the need to include him as part of their memories of a trip to New York? It seems the only people who would feel that a cowboy-styled country singer from Cincinnati, Ohio who arrived here twelve years ago is somehow quintessentially symbolic of NYC are people who will never be coming back. And on the other side, why would someone want to do what he does? He stands around in his undies, which must get really cold most of the time. But worse, he stands around in Times Square, which means he has to deal with tourists every goddamn day. This, to me, sounds like a terrible way to spend your time, even if the most creative thing you've ever come up with is to sing country songs in your jockey shorts.

If you don't know that the Naked Cowboy is running for Mayor of New York City then you know now. Yes, it's true. This man, Robert Burck is his real name, with his long blond hair and big white boots, is throwing his cowboy hat into the ring. He announced his candidacy last Wednesday while standing in his usual place in the middle of Times Square. The Naked Cowboy has promised more transparency in government and tax free loans for small businesses. (He's yet to explain his plan to enact this things, however.) He's also got a website and a logo that is derivative of the Obama campaign logo, but in the shape of a pick instead of an O and, of course, featuring his silhouette in the center, lest you forget who the candidate is and what he's known for. His campaign even has a slogan: "because nobody has done more with less."

There are a couple of things that are extremely vexing about all of this, the least of which is that he's totally unqualified, although I guess I'm starting to get used to that. And, let's be fair, his Palin-esque lack of qualifications aren't really all that novel these days, and isn't it kind of fitting that as soon as she exits the stage (for now at least), here he is to take up that slack. Not that I mean to equate the two of them too much, honestly, I don't want to be too mean here. And hey, he's only barely in the top three of the beefiest public office candidates of the last ten years behind JesseVentura and the Governator. Maybe he is totally in sync with the politics of the Aughts, and considering how comically unprepared New York State Governor David Paterson is, maybe the Naked Cowboy fits in perfectly.

I'll tell you one thing, he is a natural. And I don't mean that because he has done so much with nothing, because he hasn't done a goddamn thing if you ask me. I wouldn't exactly call playing the guitar in your tighty-whiteys in Times Square and having passers-by get a kick out of you a tremendous accomplishment. No, he's a natural politician because fudging the truth is second nature to him. First, he's not the Naked Cowboy. If anything, he's the Nearly Naked Cowboy. Or maybe he's the Undies Cowboy. But that's beside the point; he's a natural politician because he doesn't even get a full paragraph into his candidacy without the patented political non-truths to come oozing out.

The one that is most odious to me, as someone who has spent their entire life living in this city, is the idea that he knows what's on the minds and in the hearts of New Yorkers and that he's somehow well-equipped because of his experiences as the Naked Cowboy to stand up for what we need. The Naked Cowboy can't be farther away from my mentality as a person and as New Yorker, because he has chosen to live out his existence in, and be known through association with, the one place in this whole fucking city that New Yorkers hate to go the most, and that's Times Square. Every person I know avoids it at all costs, and I haven't ended up there for any reason for a few years. I'm not doubting that the Naked Cowboy spends his days listening to the problems and concerns of regular folks, it's just that most of those folks will be back home when it comes time to cast a vote for him and that home aint somewhere in the five boroughs. I honestly can't conceive of anything closer to the antithesis of everything I've experienced here than a person who craves the attentions of and draws validation from tourists. (Just to be clear, I don't hate tourists per se, and I recognize that they are an absolute necessity for this, and any, city. I just want my interests to remain distinct from their passing judgments, thank you.)

Besides the "doing more" part of his campaign slogan, I also find the "with less" aspect troublesome. According to this NY Times article, the Naked Cowboy makes around a thousand dollars a day working from 11 am to 2 pm. That means that he works less than a third of the time that I work and makes almost three times as much in a day, and I'm pretty well-paid. How this could ever mean that he understands the plight of the average New Yorker is insane. His existence is a total anomaly, and while the same can be said for Mike Bloomberg , the Naked Cowboy is attempting to skate by on a platform of empathy. Yet, he doesn't have to find room in his budget for office appropriate clothing and he doesn't have to worry about the MTA raising fares all the fucking time, since he's made reference to his car quite a few times, both in his campaign announcement and his appearance on NY1's "Inside City Hall" that night. He's noted a few times, including that Times article, that he doesn't "have expenses," which makes him like approximately zero percent of New Yorkers, and that statement presumably includes wage taxes as well, since his income is exclusively cash. I watched the video that he had produced which headlines his website; is it just me or does it seem like he lives in a place far, far away from the urban decay that he seems to care so much about?

And then there's the details. My favorite line in his little speech is, "And you won’t see me buying a whole new wardrobe just because I’m running for Mayor – not on the city’s dime." I've been critical of Bloomberg before and I can't support the tweaking of the rules so he can run (and win) again, but for the Naked Cowboy to accuse the current Mayoral administration of using the City's dime for suits is ridiculous. Bloomberg doesn't even live in Gracie Mansion and has used all of his own money in his campaigns, it's exactly this fact that makes him unbeatable. For the Naked Cowboy to level such a claim is indicative of his own poor level of understanding of what he's doing while at the same time validating the nature of the Bloomberg behemoth. He's honestly the best the opposition can do.

There's probably nothing that will stop Bloomberg from being re-elected, and all potential opponents have balked at taking him on. No matter how ill-advised his third term might be, it's bad because of the fact of its existence, not because of what will happen during it. And the money is a large part of it, but not all of it. Either way, Bloomberg is an unstoppable force, so much so that it doesn't seem as if he will have anything slightly resembling an opponent this time around, not even popular Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz will jump in. Sad as it sounds, the Naked Cowboy might be the best competition anyone has to offer. But instead of a summer full of televised debates and attack ads, it's more likely that in a week no one will give a damn, and that the Naked Cowboy will go back to putting on press conferences for one to any passing tourist on their way between the Disney store and the Wintergarden Theater. His candidacy will be just as much a novelty as his job is, because he's a joke and because facing off against Bloomberg is farce.

It's sad and demoralizing to add this spectacle to a summer that has already included enough shenanigans in Albany that the State Senate argued about leadership for six weeks, right into their summer recess, instead of doing any work. Worse still is just how important a strong political infrastructure is for New York, especially with the news today that the City will miss out any federal funding to support the NYPD. (Of course, maybe this wouldn't be a problem for Mayor Naked Cowboy, since he would in theory be able to avoid layoffs or having this impact other parts of the City's budget, while getting less help, that's doing more with less after all.) And now, with the only opponent a man who wears bedazzled jockeys, the inanity has trickled down to the city level, and what we'll get is less actual work and more circus and spectacle, because this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets a chump in his briefs.

**concurrently posted today on stevesword.com

Erin Andrews, Privacy, and the Internet

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:07:08 -0400

It's Saturday, July 18th at 5 pm and I'm sitting at work right now because this is what happens when you're me, but that's another story for another time. We've got something very serious to cover right now and I won't have any distractions. I was innocently cruising the internet whilst eating my lunch a few hours ago, and I started with my Google Reader. I hadn't looked at the net at all yesterday or the day before, so my Reader was chock full of goodness. But let's just skip right past the death of Walter Cronkite and the arrest of the Fight Club-inspired jackass who torched a Starbucks a few months ago, and jump right to the good stuff. Several posts on the sports blog Deadspin charted the story of video clip of a naked Erin Andrews.

Here's the story with it: while on the road in a hotel and in, what her lawyer called, a "state of extreme undress," i.e. totally naked, she was videotaped through the peephole of her hotel room door. The video was shown on a site called nsfwpoa.com and was removed in a very short time after ESPN sent an army of lawyers into the ether to get it quashed from the net. For the people who live on the net and had been waiting for this day to come all their lives, this was clear confirmation that it was in fact Andrews in the video and a search for the Google cache was then on. The video was found, and somehow posted on a few more sites, as the lawyers chase the links.

If you don't know who Erin Andrews is then you are either a gay man or you don't follow sports, those two things being in no way related. On the off-chance you're neither of those things and still don't know who she is, let me explain: she is a sideline reporter for ESPN and also maybe the world's perfect woman. She's great looking, tall and blond and perfectly shaped. She has amazing breasts. She's also, obviously, totally into sports which puts her over the top. As well, she seems really normal and easy going and maybe even funny; at least Bill Simmons (who had her on his podcast twice) and Chris Connelly constantly sing her praises. I'm well aware that our height disparity (she's 5'10 and I'm not) means that she will never date me, even if all the other stars aligned, but the rest of the world doesn't share my firm grasp on reality. Which means she is, let us say, a favorite of the blogoshere. Or maybe the word is obsession; a Goggle Image search for her returns 306,000 results.

The aforementioned Deadspin has an "Erin Andrews" tag because they write about her so much, whether it's to cover what she's wearing to the ESPY's, anytime someone gets a picture of her, or even to break the news that she has a sister who is also good looking. Earlier this month, while covering a Mets-Dodgers game, Andrews got hit in the face with a foul ball and this apparently necessitated four, count 'em four, posts on the event, which is one more than they wrote about the incident of the naked video. Other sports sites get in on the act too, the Big Lead lead that day with "Balls. Face. Erin Andrews. (Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter, It Happened at a Mets Game)", even TMZ covered it. And Chick Ludwig, of the Dayton Daily News, wrote a blurb about it with the title "Sportscaster Erin Andrews Gets a Facial" which has since been revised, but was preserved for posterity also on the Big Lead because they care a lot about setting the record straight and not childish references to sex acts. And also because they love Erin Andrews and also kind of hate her, just like nearly everything the internet feels strongly about.

It pretty much goes without saying at this point in time that if people like something or someone than other people hate that thing or person with an intense passion that can only be expressed through the series of tubes that is the internet. Sometimes I think this is what the internet was invented for, so people can anonymously spew vitriol and sometimes even slander anyone they happen to hate at the moment. Erin Andrews has a special spot in this virtual world since she is lusted after like a starlet and also resented because of the way a lot of male sports fans feel about women being involved. She is adored for her looks and also derided for them, because she's only on camera (or employed) because of them, some feel, and she's been dogged by this for years. (Last year, a fellow female sideline reporter told Andrews to "suck it" out of bitterness and jealousy.) It was talked about for around twenty minutes in her most recent appearance on Simmons' podcast and is seemingly never far from her mind. I assume this incident with the video won't help that.

Deadspin, who had originally written about the suspicion that it was Andrews and then the litigation-fueled confirmation that it was her, also took the time to post a "don't blame the blogosphere" meditation by Editor AJ Daulerio. Among other things, Daulerio's point is that he doesn't feel good about this and takes "full responsibility" for the legs of the story and specifically for posting the name of the site that hosted the original video in his first post on the matter. Daulerio is also drawing a line between what this person did and what he does on a regular basis, check out these posts about her ass that also refer to her as "sideline princess." It's not unusual for people to grow remorseful when what they perceive as harmless fun turns into something much more foul, but I think we all need to accept that the internet's dark side cannot be denied any longer, that said dark side is powerful and alluring and everything that we pretend not to be most of the time but turn out to be when alone.

Because I'll admit that, yesterday, I really wanted to see Erin Andrews naked. I would have loved for that to have been in person and in the heat of passion, but let's not kid ourselves here. And yet today I'm not so sure (but, full disclosure requires that I did in fact find the video). It's just too seedy and immoral. A video shot through a peephole is just too dark for me. For some reason, it feels different than any of the million nipple slips or getting-out-of-a-car-snafu shots that float around constantly. The invasion of privacy is too great to make it fun or funny, it's simply awful, and another example of how privacy is an increasingly rare commodity these days. I recognize that some might feel this to be a kind of prudish and yet I really hope that I find myself in the majority on this one, a position I rarely find myself in. It would be nice if one time, the internet did a little moral policing of itself. I frequently wonder how an instrument that so often is used to point out the hypocrisy of others can subsist on the notion that there is no moral relativism at all. I don't often find myself thinking that the best of us might come through, but I'm really hoping for it this time. Maybe this is because I've seen Peeping Tom one too many times, maybe it's because I really do carry a ridiculous torch for her, maybe it's because the juvenile bullshit of the internet was fun for a few years and now it's so goddamn tiresome I can't take it anymore. Or maybe it's because it's soul crushing that we've come back to be a society where our best ideas are expressed with words just to have those words be full of anger and hate.

I just hope that this might cause the sports blogosphere to grow up a bit, but i doubt it. Or maybe this incident will get some people off Andrews' back, but that's a small price to pay for what she'll always remember as one of her worst days ever and an incredible invasion of her privacy. Certainly, there will be people who don't really care or are actually happy about it, in a philosophical sense I mean, not just to have glimpsed her flesh; if she got famous because of her body, then it's fitting it would catch up to her this way, live by the sword, die by the sword, they will write. I'm sure the comments section of any of the Deadspin posts will back me up.

**concurrently posted on stevesword.com