It's bleak, says the handyman
Art goes up, America falls down
Whenever the shit hits the fan in the old US of A, Christina says something along the lines of, “Oh my god, we’re Rome.” She means ancient Rome, and what she’s saying is that America is collapsing faster than an undercooked soufflé. My response: “We should be so lucky.” The Roman Republic went the distance, nearly 500 years; the Roman Empire went another five centuries; if you count the Byzantine Empire (aka the Eastern Roman Empire), add another thousand years or so. Point is, Rome lasted, and lasted, and lasted. It’s history’s Energizer Bunny. Meanwhile, the United States turns 249 this summer, if you’re one of those people who counts from the Declaration of Independence, which is silly, because our revolution took another seven years, and it took another 6 years after that to draft and ratify the Constitution. Compared to Rome, we’re in our early teens — and to look at our politics, we sure act like it.
Which brings me to Erik, our handyman. He came over the other day to help me hang a piece of art in our dining room. I love seeing Erik. He does great work, and we always have good conversations.
“Have you seen Adolescence?” Erik asked as soon as he walked in the door.
I had seen Adolescence. It’s a Netflix show that starts out as a typical crime story, but quickly morphs into a drama that explores bullying, social media, misogyny, male rage, masculine stereotypes, and incel culture.
“As the father of three boys, it’s my worst nightmare,” Erik said.
We talked about his boys. He’s not too worried about his oldest, a high school student athlete with a kickass GPA and a nasty curveball that’ll likely earn him a scholarship to play baseball in college. But the younger boys are a different story. They’re addicted to screens, hooked on video games and social media. It weirds Erik out because they’d rather look at their phones than play outside, or get ice cream, watch a movie, read a comic book, or — get this — go to Disneyland.
“That scene where the cop’s son explains social media to his dad freaked me out,” Erik said. “I realized that when I’m looking at my sons’ phones, I probably don’t even understand what they’re doing. You don’t know what you don’t know.”
It’s a disturbing scene because it upends reality. As Erik explained, “You think you know what your kids are up to, but then one day, you realize you are clueless. Not clueless in the way our parents were clueless. They knew we snuck out, drank, smoked pot, and had sex because they did that too. These kids are different.”
We can’t prove it, but Erik and I both believe we’re better off than kids today. Our teen years were traumatic / beautiful / strange / ridiculous / wondrous / formative, but above all, analog. Our phones didn’t ping us a thousand times a day to remind us that we were uncool, because we didn’t have fucking phones. Social media didn’t make us feel anxious, depressed, entitled, or enraged, because social media didn’t exist. Influencers didn’t bombard us with propaganda so we’d join their dead-end communities and buy their snake oil, because our generation had role models, not influencers. And OK yeah, some of those role models sucked, but their hold on our attention wasn’t that strong. In the end, guys like Erik and I looked up to men like Kirk Gibson. Gibby is certainly flawed because he’s a human being. He was also a good role model because he demonstrated virtues like hard work, resilience, and showing the fuck up.
As it turned out, the problems with kids today were a prelude to a wide-ranging conversation that ran two hours — long enough for Eric to hang the framed print, for me to text photos to Christina to make sure everything looked just right, for Erik to breakdown the box and shipping pallet the print came in, and for the two of us to drink two Coke Zeros apiece while we kibitzed. I’m summarizing the conversation because Situation Normal is a newsletter, not a novel. But the gist of our talk was American decline, and these are the highlights:
The 30-something young men we both know who have failed to launch and are living with their parents, smoking weed, collecting guns, and getting their information from 4Chan.
A recent audit revealing that the agency responsible for addressing homelessness in Los Angeles cannot account for billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Related: The problem of homelessness in Los Angeles seems to be getting worse, or at the very least, isn’t getting better.
Los Angeles neighborhoods we love & worry about: Hollywood, K-town, Downtown, MacArthur Park.
A national immigration policy that reminds Erik and me of our youth, when California embraced cruel, and ultimately ineffective, “self-deportation” policies that banned undocumented people from schools, healthcare, and other services.
Erik’s memories:
A little girl in his elementary school class crying because her parents were afraid to send her to school.
Asking his Guatemalan parents if he had to leave school too.
The new book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson about why it’s so hard to build in California. Hint: Rich liberals love progress, but not necessarily in their backyard.
The construction crew Erik manages and how guys aren’t showing up to work because they’re afraid of ICE raids.
The fact that tariffs will increase the cost of building materials, while immigration raids will reduce the labor supply, making it even harder to build.
Essential jobs Americans won’t do. Hint: Those jobs are dirty, dangerous, low-paying, back-breaking work that our society loves to shit on, assuming we even notice those jobs or the people doing them.
Erik’s sister, who was recently laid off from the Department of Agriculture. She worked in California’s Central Valley, which accounts for 1% of U.S. farmland, but produces 25% of America’s fruits and vegetables. According to Erik’s sister, the farmers there voted for Trump because they said he’d “fix the economy and throw out the illegals,” but now their workers aren’t showing up and they’re taking it on the chin because of tariffs, so they’re even angrier, but they blame everyone except Trump for their woes.
Santa Monica’s nativist son, Stephen “I’m Jewish, but white nationalism is the way” Miller, who grew up in California around the same time Erik and I did.
People who just can’t see the humanity in other people.
Erik’s desire for George R. R. Martin to finally finish his Game of Thrones series.
My contention that Martin won’t finish those books because television has more money, more cache, and reaches more people than books.
Erik’s friend who is still mad about the ending of Game of Thrones.
Erik’s insistence that his friend “get a life.”
How growing up in the era of linear television, reruns, and TV Guide trained us to be patient, which is why neither of us is freaking out that the next season of House of the Dragon doesn’t drop until 2026.
My buddy Gabe Hudson, RIP, who lived in Korea during the first few seasons of Game of Thrones, and his contention that the show’s popularity revealed something dark and sinister about American culture in the 21st century.
My fear that Robert Caro won’t finish the fifth and final volume of his LBJ series.
How LBJ stole the 1948 Senate race by stuffing ballot boxes and enlisting gunslingers to thwart attempts at a recount.
My belief that Nixon and LBJ despised each other because they were opposite sides of the same corrupt coin.
Christina’s tongue-in-cheek comment that if I love history so much, I should marry it.
Erik’s tongue-in-cheek assertion that Christina has a point.
The unAmerican threats to annex Canada.
Canadian fighter jets protecting New York City after September 11th.
Previous American attempts to invade Canada, and how those attempts ended in disaster because our neighbors to the north are no joke. See: The Invasion of Quebec during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. See also: The fact that Canadians are so tough they added an extra 10 yards to their football fields.
Funniest Canadians, in our opinions: John Candy, Seth Rogen, Martin Short, and Jim Carrey.
The team formerly known as the Montreal Expos.
Sour feelings about two guys who should’ve been Dodgers: Pedro Martínez and Vladimir Guerrero.
The fact that DEI doesn’t cause wild fires.
Mutual aid from red states, blue states, and other countries, including our neighbors, Canada and Mexico.
An all-against-all politics fueled by anger, lies, and hate.
Our recollection that politics in pre-internet America could be mean and dumb and phony, but never all-encompassing the way it is today, because most of the time you just didn’t know (or care) what someone’s politics were.
The pink slime in Ghostbusters 2 that made everyone who touched it angry as a metaphor for how social media warps our politics.
How social media incentivizes left-wingers and right-wingers to compete inside their bubbles to come up with the most extreme batshit crazy positions.
Pardons for insurrectionists.
This quote about authoritarianism: “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
The fear that thousands of violent, armed people now have get out of jail free cards, as long as they attack the right people.
The fact that neither one of us had to be told that you’re not supposed to take a dump on the House Speaker’s desk.
Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History and Common Sense podcasts.
The Signal app shit-show.
The fact that I’d make a better Defense Secretary than Pete Hegseth.
The fact that I am in no way qualified to be Defense Secretary.
My disappointment that none of my group chats contain war plans.
The war on the federal bureaucracy.
Two books by Michael Lewis: The Fifth Risk and Who Is Government.
Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell, especially the line: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.”
A schizophrenic society that’s defunding basic scientific research, while simultaneously barreling ahead to develop artificial intelligence, robotics, gene editing, 3D printing, nuclear fusion, and quantum computing.
The Dark Ages as a break in the continuum of human knowledge.
John Scalzi’s Interdependency series, which is about a seemingly advanced civilization that cut itself off from the rest of the galaxy and descended into its own Dark Age.
A brief digression about the Incas, who built a vertical empire in the Andes
The Foundation on Apple TV.
Our takeaway from The Foundation: A monarch who clones himself so he / his clones can rule for eternity is nightmare.
What we believe to be Elon Musk’s takeaway from The Foundation: Great idea, as long as I’m the monarch.
“Things are bleak,” Erik concluded. “I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
What could I say to that? Not much, sadly. Like I told Erik at some point in our rambling conversation, “we’re fools to believe that progress is inevitable; history tells us that we’re just as likely to put the car in Drive as we are to put it in Reverse.” Still, I wanted to end things on a positive note, not because I’m a Pollyanna, but because I know that cynicism is the road to ruin.
“The piece ties the room together, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s a cool photo,” Erik agreed. “I don’t know why, but it makes me happy. I think maybe because the couple on the motorcycle look like they don’t have any cares in the world.”
“Art, dude. It nourishes the soul, in good times and bad.”
Support Absurdist Acts of Journalism
Thanks to
, , and we’re a little more than halfway to unlocking my next act of absurdist journalism: Waymo!What’s Waymo? It’s a robot taxi, meaning there’s no human driver. Waymo is available in a few cities, including Los Angeles. The plan is to download the app, hail a ride, and live to write about it.
I’m budgeting $50 for the ride. I don’t know if that’s too much, or not enough, but if you’re a human being who’s curious about robot taxis, this is the story to fund. Send any amount via PayPal and let’s get this show on the road!
Stick around and chat!
You know how this works👇
Is it bleak? Explain.
Erik and I are both middle-aged American men, i.e. we’re highly susceptible to moral panic. Should we heed the wisdom of the poet-warrior Ice Cube and check ourselves before we wreck ourselves?
What are your war plans? Make them public!
Art? Think outside the box on this one.
Did anyone have to tell you, at any point in your life, that you’re not supposed to take a dump on the House Speaker’s desk?
A book for people who like this newsletter!
I want to thank the situation normies who have purchased and read my novel, Not Safe for Work. I love hearing from all of you, whether you leave a review, or drop me a line.
I know it may sound odd, but if you enjoy Situation Normal, dozens of situation normies recommend taking a chance on a slacker noir set in the porn industry at the dawn of Web 2.0.
Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.
*The ebook is .99, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.
Scheduling
I’m off next week, hoping to come back with a story or two.
There’s a part of me that feels absolutely hopeless. The other part seeks out ballgames, art exhibits, and day trips that help me forget that it’s all hopeless.
I can only keep quoting Lily Tomlin these days: "It's going to get a lot worse.....before it gets worse." I am hoping the resistance comes in the form of a fleet of taco trucks: Stop, Guac, and Roll!