And the Knicks Get Worse

If there is one prediction I got completely right from my 2014 predictions article, it was the one where the Knicks would continue to shock their fans.  I didn’t think the season could get any more surprising and disappointing following last night’s loss against the Mavericks.  The Knicks mounted a valiant comeback and tied the game (after being down 8 with a minute and a half to go) only to loss on a physically impossible shot by Dirk.  The ball seemed to hit the back of the rim and then float all the way up to the heavens before gently clanking the front of the rim and lightly falling backwards to its rightful home of a nice, warm net.  Carmelo Anthony stood there dumbfounded, wondering what he did to deserve such crappy luck.  The Knicks had messed up their last possession (yet again) and lost on another buzzer-beater.  This time it wasn’t their fault.  Nobody messed up on the defense; they were just had by a lucky shot.  Now we can count luck and good fortune on the opposite side of the tug-a-war against the 2013-2014 Knicks.  As I said earlier, last night was supposed to be the final nail in the coffin of New York Knicks surprises.  But boy was I wrong.

Today I woke up to see that Raymond Felton was arrested on felony gun charges.  Did anybody see that coming?  On a team featuring JR Smith and Metta fucking World Peace, who would have foreseen Raymond Felton being the first Knick in prominent legal trouble?  The Knicks are now criminally bad.  In basketball reality, the only people that will miss Raymond Felton will be the opposing squads.  Their point guards will have nobody to blow past for the easy layup.  Hell, they may even have to break a sweat to achieve a new career high.  Maybe Woodson will play a different lineup and give Tour’e Murry some more time (he was pretty good in his limited minutes).   Regardless of the basketball implications, the Raymond Felton arrest saga is just another mind boggling occurrence to happen this season.  The 76ers and the Bucks may have fewer wins than us and the Nets may still be a major disappointment, but the Knicks are truly the worst team in the National Basketball Association.  This is the squad other crappy teams tell stories about to cheer themselves up about their own woe and misfortune.  In the future coaches will tell their young players tales from this Knicks season to scare them straight.  They’ll recall the story of how a potentially good basketball team fell to its demons and became a world class laughingstock.  Oh how the students will gasp when they learn all about the constant last second boneheaded decision making that cost us many winnable games.  If tales from the 2013-2014 Knicks do not scare a player straight, then nothing will help that lost soul.  Forget about him.  He belongs to the ages now.

This Knicks team has now reached into the bad form of legendary.  They have become infamous.  I will fully understand if Carmelo Anthony leaves the team and joins another more competent squad.  After seeing this travesty of a season unfold, I will not hold anything against him.  Bad coaching, bad decision-making and bad play has turned this season into a trip of Kafkaesque horrors.  My only solace is that the Yankees are returning in a little over a month.  Otherwise, the Knicks are lost.  And not just for this season, but for as long as James, white man blues band, Dolan captains the ship of the USS Knickerbocker.  This man has proudly put out the most dysfunctional franchise in the NBA for over a decade and turned a once semi-proud organization into a sham of a mockery of a travesty (I paraphrase Fielding Mellish).  Right now all we can do is sit back and cringe at the remaining ride ahead while waiting for the next utterly disgusting development to emerge from the 2013-2014 New York Knicks season.

House of Cards Season 2 Review

Review of House of Cards Season 2 - SPOILERS

House of Cards is a show that requires to be binged upon, because the longer the distance away from the material, the flimsier the material becomes.  When I watched season 1, I ran through the episodes in around 3-4 odd days and I enjoyed it, but in the time away from the show I found myself liking it less.  I couldn’t remember half the minor plots and I found myself questioning some of the actions Frank Underwood took, like the whole murder of Peter Russo.  It was way too reckless a move and it didn’t fit with Frank’s pragmatic character.  He ventured into becoming a mustache twirling villain.   So imagine my surprise when Frank kills Zoe Barnes by hurling her in front of a moving train.  He went full on Great Train Robbery villain in one full swoop.  Overall, House of Cards season the second is a fine season of a television show, but the longer I move away from the material, the worse it looks in retrospect.

Let me start with the good.  Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright play delicious villains.  Kevin Spacey had the best moment in the season when he addresses the audience for the first time in the last scene of the first episode.  His welcome back speech was the perfect over the top way to end an over the top episode.  Kevin Spacey plays this role like a professional ham and frequently steals scene with a perfectly timed eye roll or glance at the audience.  Robin Wright was finally given a chance to flex her evil muscles (I will let your baby die) and hams up her role with great glaze.  I also can’t stop staring at her indented neck, but that’s not the point.  I’m not breaking any new ground here, but my favorite Claire moment was when she flipped the interview around and decided to lead the charge against military rape. She displayed great courage and tactical maneuvering that the show had only reserved for Frank.  For me, House of Cards works best when it is in high camp mode.  The threesome scene with Meechum was one of the funniest moments in the season just for the sheer ridiculous way it transpired (wine, blood, and bandages galore).  Little details about Frank and Claire’s marriage are always greatly appreciated.  One of my favorite scenes in the season was the little laugh they both have after Meechum walks in on Frank watching some porn.  Moments like that remind us of how great a couple Frank and Claire are and that there is a little tenderness left in this power hungry Washington elites. 

Now let’s move on to the not so good.  Frank needs a real adversary.  Every episode turns into “how is he gonna get out of this one” and by the end of the season it was just sheer luck.  Why the President would believe him after all his lies seems a bit far fetched.  Let’s talk about this President.  How did he get elected?  The man never makes a decision for himself and has no discernible political skill.  How does the most powerful man in the free world end up being the least politically savvy person on the show?  I would have loved for him to be as conniving and devious as Frank, rather than him turning out to be another mild obstacle in Frank’s inevitable push for the White House.  The series must also pick a tone.  Does it want to be a serious political thriller/dissection of the power hungry or does it want to be high camp.  I feel it works better as a campy soap opera set in Washington and centered on terrible people.  The serious scenes don’t do it for me.   An example of this would be the scenes regarding hacker, Gavin Orsay.  Gavin Orsay is presented as a serious character that has been placed in a real tough spot and must try and salvage whatever he can from the situation.  He also pets a guinea pig like he’s Dr. Evil which just looks silly and drains his scenes of any real gravitas.  The clash between the two tones can be jarring and out of place. 

The series is fun one to watch and not think about.  My biggest problem is in the way Zoe Barnes died.  Why didn’t the police check to see the tape footage before and after the accident to see somebody walking into or from the crime scene?  Didn’t the video footage of her walking into the area look like she was meeting an informant, I mean she is an investigative reporter and all?  Why is there one camera in the train station and why didn’t anybody on the platform turn around to see a man walking away from the scene of the crime in a suspicious looking coat and hat?  Too many reasonable questions emerge when you take a step back from this engrossing soap opera.  There are also too many subplots in this show.  Doug and Rachel didn’t really do much other than set up the good twist of her finally killing Doug.  All these subplots, whether it be Remy Danton or Lucas Goodwin and the hunt for truth seems inconsequential to watching Frank Underwood maneuver his way to the top of the food chain.  Frank’s last scene when he knocks on the Resolute Desk was a powerful way to end a season where he gained so much and lost barely anything (delicious ribs.  You was wronged Freddy!).  I cannot wait to see how (or if) it comes crumbling down next season.  The show is called House of Cards for Christ sake.  Something’s going to have to fall.    

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine’s Day is nice and whatever, but I always find it curious the way single people are talked to and treated on this most hallowed of Hallmark Holidays.  The lucky in love are trying to cheer up the unlucky in love as if today was national bawl your eyes out if you’re alone in this cold, dark universe day.  The amount of misguided attention single people get on Valentine’s Day brings to mind the town that puts up a menorah during the holidays despite their being only 2 Jewish families in the populous.  Yes, thank you for acknowledging me, but I’m fine.  Let me eat my latkes and wear my silly hat by my lonesome.  Same rule applies for St. Valentine’s Day.  Yes, thank you for giving me the number for the Suicide Hotline, but I’m telling you the reason I’m attempting suicide today is no different from why I dabbled in it on Tuesday (but don’t get me wrong, today’s date does play a role in the decision, but not as much as you’d think.  Plus, I already have the number. C’mon).  Live goes on as if it were any other blistery winter day with typical events like eating food when hungry, eating food when not hungry, and eating food to stave off the darkness.  Totally normal day.

Sure, the line at Duane Reade is more crowded than normal and the number of bodega flowers seems to dwindle rapidly by the hour, but other than that, no change.  Well, if you read my first paragraph you’d know that the previous sentence was a lie.  Sorry, but I was desperate to start a new paragraph and I got carried away.  The real change (aha, back on track) is that everyone keeps reminding you of your present relationship status and implores you to keep on keepin’ on.  Why are we assuming that single people are miserable on Valentine’s Day?  I for one am miserable on most days (I ascribe to the Alvy Singer theory of the horrible and the miserable) so the one day devoted to how I should be getting more than I am at the present moment doesn’t bother me any more than say Wednesday did.  Just because you’re presently in a relationship and I’m not doesn’t bring out any feelings of resentment and jealously (publicly).  I hate you for other reasons, the main one being that you keep telling me about your goddamn perfect relationship.  Number two is that you have a fulfilling career that pays actually money.  I don’t enjoy seeing people other than me succeed.  It sickens me to the core.  Yes, it’s cool that you’re in love at 23 and what not, good for you, live till 120, bring a horse to water, cliché, cliché, cliché.  But I don’t need to hear about how you and the betrothed are going to spend the night marathoning House of Cards in between fuck fests that would make Zeus himself blush.  That’s when Valentine’s Day starts to hit and I realize that marathoning House of Cards in between visits to websites featuring no less than twelve x’s will not do anymore.  Goddamn it I hate Valentine’s Day.

But not really, it’s a fine day.  Love should be celebrated at all times, especially when it is most convenient for both parties.  If I can impart any love advice it is that the strongest loves are based on a solid foundation of routine (watch “A Milhouse Divided”).  Valentine’s Day is for lovers so enjoy yourselves and stop trying to make me feel better cause it ain’t working.  Today is your day to go through the motions a little bit harder and to try and convince yourselves about how this relationship is totally gonna work out.  I don’t hate you because you have found your equal in another; I hate you because I hate you.  No outward celebration of your love towards the beloved will change that.  So enjoy your day and night and stop talking to me.  Today is for them.  Plus, you’re talking is impeding on valuable right swiping time and I’m bound to hit it off with a non-webcam on Tinder any minute.

Book Review: The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left by Stuart Hall

An old review I wrote:

Book Review: The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left by Stuart Hall

How did British culture fall in love with authoritarian policies and keep electing Margaret Thatcher to power?  Why didn’t the British left counter effectively?  Why is everyone over there so stuffy and why won’t Led Zeppelin reunite?  In 1988, cultural theorist Stuart Hall collected his essays into a book entitled, The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left, to help provide an answer to the first two questions.  The second two may never be answered.  His book discusses various battles against conservative forces and an explanation of how the conservatives under Thatcher came to power and how they sought to significantly change British society.  The book also divulges into how the left has not stood up effectively and remains content to wallow in their electoral defeat and their defeated ideology.  They have not modernized or provided an alternative view of life under Thatcher.  The main crux of the book is the battle between a modern, socialist revolution that Stuart Hall would fancy and the return to traditional moral and economic values that Thatcherism rudely invited in.  The culture clash is dissected in this volume and in Stuart Hall’s eyes; the social progressive movement is losing.  People are favoring a return to old values and morals simply because they have been presented with a combination of no viable alternative and the awful leadership of the so called left leaning parties.

The book itself is divided into three sections.  The first part deals with the rise of Thatcherism and how the right and traditionalism formed a stranglehold on British society.   The second part deals with Marxist and Socialist theory and takes a big detour into the work of Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci.  Gramsci’s work on social and political hegemony is discussed in detail and explored on how it relates to the present Thatcher regime in Britain.  The third part of the book entails the essays Dr. Hall wrote about the problems of the left in Britain.  Margaret Thatcher was a deeply controversial leader yet somehow she always kept getting re-elected.  Hall goes after the weakness of the left and their inability to modernize and create an alternative socialist solution to the authoritarian tendencies Thatcherism has been accused of.  It is also impressive to note that Dr. Hall coined the term “Thatcherism”.  Many politicians and writers seeking a buzzword to describe the 1980’s in Britain were forever grateful.

Other than coining the phrase to aptly describe the leadership of Britain under the Thatcher days, this work is important to the field of political cultural theory by giving a thorough account of the Thatcher regime and how it came to be.  It not only ascribes problems, but actually doles out socialist solutions that could be successful.  Hall is able to incorporate hegemonic theory into Thatcherism, which had not been done before.  This is a very detailed approach on how to survive as a socialist in a conservative Britain.  It is essential reading for anybody trying to learn about Thatcherism from a socialist and a hegemonic viewpoint.   The only weakness in this collection is the lack of essays dealing with Thatcher herself.  Thatcher comes off not as a politician or even an Iron Lady, but rather as the biggest bogeyman facing Britain.  She seems like an all-powerful menacing force in the background of every social issue. Otherwise this is a true classic of political, social, and cultural theory and also a classic in the field of examining how Thatcherism screwed everybody but Margaret Thatcher and a few rich white people.  He also coined the term Thatcherism.  That is a very important detail that must be mentioned twice.  Thatcherism.

Trivia Hound

Some people are pussy hounds and to those people I tip my hat and beg of them that I may accompany them on their next voyage.  We also have actual hound dogs that befriend young foxes and subsequently refuse to kill them out of a code of honor and deep friendship.  If I were to classify myself as a hound, I would call myself a trivia hound.  When I pick up the scent of random factoids and questions being asked in a game show like atmosphere, I lose all my bearings and run like mad to find a small eraser less pencil and a piece of paper.  Once the call of the trivia has been answered, I shed my mild mannered personality and become a creature of unbridled competition.  I must win.  Nay, I can’t “just win”; I must win in a fashion that proves I am far superior to all those who dared enter the trivia cage match.  It is my duty as a trivia hound to prove how much better I am at answering a collection of twenty odd facts based around a certain subject matter than the average participant.

My trivia hound was awakened recently when my team of four won a $150 bar tab by soundly defeating eight teams at Black History Month Trivia.  We were the Malcolm X-Men and the beast had been unleashed.  Trivia is a sport that changes me.  Sure I compete at my fullest at physical sports like Tennis and Monopoly, but it is the blood sport of trivia that brings out my warring side.  I know I can win at trivia.  I’ve proven my trivia skill countless times on Sporcle (my training gym).  Sometimes, I’ve defeated Sporcle quizzes without cheating.  Nothing can compare to true trivia with real stakes and oh did we have some.  It was my friend’s birthday and I didn’t want to spend money on drinks for him or me.  What better way to hide my inherent cheapness than to win that bar tab and cover his drinks under the guise of my share the victory attitude.  T’was a genius plot and yet it nearly fell askew.  We fell flat out of the gate, stumbling a trifle on the arts and literature section, until righting ourselves on the history train (all me baby), and staying close in the music area (all my teammates baby) until we pounced on the final question.  My teammates, well at least one of them, were able to impose a guise of chumminess and frivolity.  I sat there, stoned faced and unable to comprehend their lack of intensity.  I could see people talking and I saw their words floating on past me, but I could not for the life of me recognize their meaning.  Only the triviateer held any meaning to me.  Everything else was at best, frivolous.  Is this what the great athletes felt at their very own moments of reckoning?  I assume they did, because the alternative is being a try-hard.  And everyone hates a try-hard.  

The final question came, and it was an easy one (of course) as the answer was “Freedom Riders”.  We commenced waiting mode to see if the team that stood ahead of us would make a critical error and, in layman’s terms, fuck up.  Indeed they did fuck up, and we ended up winning the tab and all the glory that comes with winning a trivia game over eight teams of nice Brooklyn people.  My friend got his free drinks and I basked in the ecstasy of being a cheapskate once again with a celebratory drink of Jamesons.  Upon sipping the Irish whiskey, I immediately remembered I am quite the featherweight with alcohol and I promptly order a Cosmo, because let’s face it, that drink is delicious.  Trivia called and I had answered her siren call with a moderately well-deserved victory.  We had won and my personal hound retreated back into his home to curl up near the fireplace and lay dormant till the next event emerges.  He lays there waiting for the next challenge whether it be general trivia or women’s history month trivia.  Always waiting.  Always waiting. 

Rejection Letter

I have haters or people that don’t like the way I write!  Here I’ll prove it to you below.

I applied for a job for some young adult writer thing or whatever and sent them some of the blog posts and things I wrote that appeared on some websites.

Here is the rejection email I got back (this is a real email):

“I must simply reply to express the severe offense I took with regards to these writing samples. I assume, although this may be dangerous considering the content, these were supposed to be funny. As it were, I would perhaps study some comedy in your instance as this was -- and I mean this to be constructive -- the most bland collection of jokes I have ever encountered. Should you want to find work based on the "comedy" of your writing, you have an uphill battle. But please, take what I say with a grain of salt or less. Maybe you're the next Seinfeld and someday you'll be able to email me a wonderfully worded "fuck you" email. I do doubt it will be a funny email, but you will have earned it nonetheless.”

To loosely quote Billy Madison, a simple no would have done just fine.  That one hurt.  Well ya can’t win ‘em all I suppose.  But having haters or naysayers is awesome.  That means I can sit back and bask in the fact that I’ve made it or at least have people that despise my written word.  So it goes.

What’s the nastiest letter of rejection you’ve ever gotten?  Or humor me with your pity, I’ll gladly accept it.  Or you can use this opening to further expound on what the author of this email expressed to me and hit any points you feel he/she missed.  I suppose I should be happy I finally got a response back.

  

Sex with Her Glasses On

For me, the sexist thing about a woman who wears glasses is the thrill of eventually trying on her prescription and seeing who has worse eyesight.  I see her from across the room and I am immediately impressed and disappointed that she chosen to not put on contacts.  Maybe she has my problem with contacts and a fear of having anything touch her eyes.  If so, that’s cool with me.  I  finish my stretches and I approach her bifocals and eventually her actual person (nothing sexier than seeing a woman in “bifocals”).  Upon approaching her, my glasses fog which can mean one of two things:  she’s either that good looking or I’ve entered a room with a significant temperature change.  Once my glasses return to normal, I start the ancient ritual of attempting to woo a woman using a combination of Woody Allen lines, Bill Murray attitude, and porno posturing.  Typically, I’m in for a long night, but tonight, oh tonight, her glasses begin to fog ever so slightly.  I like to attribute this to myself, if only because i've been giving condensation too much of the credit lately.  So things go as they normally do.  She talks, I kind of listen and mock, then I talk, then I get insecure and talk again, then I listen but I can’t really hear what she says because it’s supremely loud, then I do an incredulous face to flatter her, and so on.  This happens until it becomes magic in the moonlight or something of the sort I suppose.  

When the mood has struck uncomfortable and I’ve run out of plagiarized lines to call my own, I quickly deploy one of my patented smooth lines like “let’s check out the bathroom” or “let’s make out” due to them working more frequently than my other go to line of “ughhh”.  So things progress to a PG-13 level and I’m pushing to at least get into soft R territory.  And then the thought hits me.  I want to try on her glasses and see her prescription.  I want to see how bad her eyes really are.  Oh that’s a sexy thought indeed.  I can’t wait to trade glasses with this woman and have us marvel at how poor/not that bad our respective visions are.  I bring up my rather naughty suggestion and she readily agrees.  When I gaze through the lenses of her glasses I get a massive, but sexy, headache due to their weak ass prescription.  I look up from the searing pain to see her struggling with depth and perception as she puts on my Harry Potter/John Lennon specs and I know we just reached a tender place that few could ever hope to attain.  Nothing is sexier than the sacred changing of prescriptions and then the even more sacred trying to fuck each other while not being able see.  Two of us with our hands outstretched, feeling each other up like we were the old blind men in the elephant story.  We attempt to look into each other’s eyes and when we finally succeed, we see a look that is a cross between a squint and having two lazy eyes.  If we could see our faces with our own prescriptions, we would never cease to vomit.  But because we are graced with each other’s sight enhancers it only looks mildly unattractive. 

Naturally, we take off each other’s glasses because we are both besieged with incredible nausea and resolve to take a “quick 5”.  Not fully recovered yet, we both dive in after 5 minutes and then the rest becomes a fairly amusing story for people to listen to.  What happens after the encounter, you may wonder?  For that I say, I have no idea she was weird or something and I’m an idiot or whatever.  It’s not important and I totally don’t care anymore.  Regardless, I am always looking for that next special somebody who wears a pair of real glasses, not ones for aesthetic purposes.  I’m talking about those who wear glasses because their vision is 20/200.  Then the old game of two people having disgusting and ugly, ugly sex commences once again.

                                                FIN     

Bob Dylan and the Super Bowl

Ah, Bob Dylan.  When was the last time he did something that lived up to everybody’s image of him?  You can please some people part of the time but there is just no pleasing all the people all the time.  Yes, he made a commercial for Chrysler during the Super Bowl.  In fact for me, the weirdest part of the two minute spot was the way Dylan looked.  They dolled him up to look like the Dylan of the late nineties rather than the Bob Dylan of his current tours.  Regardless, the sentiments he purveyed in this spot should not surprise anybody.  Bob Dylan is imploring people to buy American and more specifically, cars assembled in Detroit.  The man has always been a big proponent of the American way and I see this commercial as analogous to his 1983 song, “Union Sundown”, which criticized the way businesses “don’t build nothing here no more”.  I’d go as far to say that Bob Dylan is America’s greatest cultural export (the guy is more popular in Europe than he is in the land he shills for).  All he was asking was for people to help get a proud city rolling again.  He was doing the same Detroit salesman job as Eminem and Clint Eastwood did before him.  I didn’t hear anybody accusing those two of selling out when their spots ran.  Where was the outrage when another icon of the old counterculture scene and another true original, David Bowie, appeared in a Louis Vuitton ad?  The Rolling Stones, another counter-culture icon have had their music pop up in ads throughout the years and I’ve heard nary a peep or a squabble about Mick and the boys being sellouts.  All the indie bands put their music in commercials and people rarely bat an eye.  But, as Dylan once said, it’s always different with him.  Apparently to see a counterculture icon sell American pride (despite the company being own by Fiat or whatever) is selling out. 

But with Dylan it’s always different.  People have projected their own image of Dylan the myth onto Dylan the man and in doing so Dylan the actual living, breathing man will always fail to live up to the image of this great counterculture icon.  On Twitter, the voice of the gut reaction, he was decried as a sell out once again and people were furious to see their image of who they imagined Bob Dylan to be zig-zagged yet again.  Sometimes it seems as if Dylan likes to do this kind of thing just to throw people off and revel in their ire and outrage.  The man seems to feed on betraying his fans and followers as if every move is to shed his audience.  I’m still surprised that people are shocked at Bob Dylan doing something that surprises them.  He’s probably the only artist of his stature and class that does not get the benefit of the doubt.  Why can’t we just let him be and accept that he does whatever he wants and really doesn’t care about what you think?  Do people think that a self-righteous tweet about authenticity is going to convince the Minnesota Bard that he erred by participating in a Super Bowl ad?  Do people like me think that writing a wordy defense of the man will change people’s opinions on his sell out status (me, I’m just using this controversy to write another piece on my hero, so the joke’s on you, loyal reader)?   Bob Dylan once said, “just because you like my stuff doesn’t mean I owe you anything”.  Truer words have never been spoken.

And I can’t stand the argument used by the Dylan’s-a-sellout crowd of asking whether the 25 year old Bob Dylan would approve of what the 72 year old Bob Dylan would do.  The 25 year old Bob Dylan was a genius but he was not an infallible saint of a person.  Just watch Don’t Look Back if you don’t believe me.  Now I will always rush to defend Dylan in that film, but there are certain scenes where he is a quite the young, arrogant jerk and he’ll readily admit it now(any scene with Joan Baez).  Dylan the person and Dylan the musician are two different entities; it is true now as it was in 1965.  So I say stop putting your image of Bob Dylan on the real Bob Dylan.

Of course my view of Dylan is warped as I am a huge fan of the man’s work and I usually rush to defend him on most things (I’d like to present this rambling essay to the court as evidence).  What I love about Dylan is that he is an unpredictable character living in an increasingly predictable music and entertainment scene.  He still does things that (seemingly) make no sense and generally does what he wants, other people’s judgments be damned.  His determination, his vision, and his ability to always accrue controversy wherever he lands makes him a compelling figure.  He is someone who at best is unpredictable.  Being a Bob Dylan fan for me is about enjoying the ride.  There are many twists and turns in attempting to keep up with the chaos that follows this icon and just sitting back and watching in wonder and amazement at what he does next is a helluva fun ride.  The guy’s an icon and deserves our respect and our benefit of the doubt.  So let him keep on astounding, angering, and challenging us and let us all enjoy his next move out of left field: a concert tour where he talks to the audience!