To many it was a shock last weekend when the film Dear John blew by ticket sales predictions by almost double to become the number one film at the box office. This week, experts like Entertainment Weekly are predicting Valentine’s Day is going open huge and that Dear John “is going to be crushed this frame by the Valentine’s Day juggernaut. If it drops 50% it should consider itself lucky.”
That’s not going to happen and not just because Valentine’s Day is more horrible than anyone expects.
The photo at the top of this post is from around my neighborhood. Those are just a few of the very humble homes displaying service stars that represent active duty personnel overseas. And that doesn’t mean in Germany.
Dear John is a sappy love story. But it also revolves entirely around a soldier serving in Afghanistan (and Iraq). But the story itself isn’t about the wars themselves (Hurt Locker). And it’s not about soldiers dealing with the toll of being soldiers (Stop Loss, Taking Chance). It’s simply a love story very specifically focused on the romance between a young soldier and a young girl… in South Carolina. Besides being a not-all-that-bad (if heavy handed) weepy romance tale, that specific situation very much appeals to a whole segment of the nation that writers of Entertainment Weekly do not come into contact with often (which is ironic as they are probably EW’s audience). It’s the same kind of thing that happens when a Tyler Perry film or a small Christian film like Fireproof open huge and all of the mainstream entertainment scrambles to ask “how the hell did that happen?”
Dear John will not be number one this weekend. But I predict the film is going to do way better than expected, again. And it’s going to remain wildly popular with soldiers, soldiers’ friends, soldiers’ wives, girlfriends and ex-girlfriends, a group that doesn’t see itself represented very often on the conventional popular entertainment landscape.
I know most New Yorkers don’t shovel a flake of snow, many in D.C. and other locales own are underwater on condos, houses and town-homes. Also, maybe some newly underemployed i-banker is now the super of your building and needs to know how to shovel fucking snow. Anyway, knowing how to shovel snow is a useful skill. I have shoveled literal shit-tons of snow in my life so here’s how.
First, chug a fucking glass of red wine.
Put on a hat and gloves. Next, throw on a light jacket. Not too heavy moron; you’re going to get sweaty. Also, it’s gotta be loose so nothing you bought at H&M. Armani? ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME? Next slam your feet into your boots. No, WITH PURPOSE. What, you don’t have boots?! (Rolls eyes). Okay, put on your Aldo dress shoes and put each foot into a few tall plastic bags, doubling or tripling up. Duct tape those fuckers on around your calves. You do have calves, don’t you? Yell to nobody in the house in particular, “I’m going out to shovel!”
Bodies like an oil drum stacked atop another oil drum with another oil drum atop that; no fashion looks good on them. Thighs thicker than waists; no pants fit properly. Calves like two-gallon milk jugs. A sport coat is an absurd waste of a cotton field. Offensive lineman—especially great offensive linemen—are freaks of nature towering the height of some NBA players but with muscle on top of muscle on top of bone the thickness of baseball bats, and then some fat padding atop that. Banana Republic, J. Crew, Express—their cuts are hopeless. When one can even find a stylish size 46 (or 56) jacket, the arms are too narrow. Shopping at H&M is an absurd farce for any proper guard, tackle or center. Skinny jeans and the hipster aesthetic are a conspiracy against people who can lift their own body weight straight up over their heads, and then do it again.
The recent PlayStation ads have been generally enjoyable, as commercials go. But a recent addition to the campaign (above) is at best ill advised and at worst horribly insulting.The gist is a kid readying for a job interview consults the PlayStation guy:
Kid: “Is it okay to list MAG platoon leader as management experience?”
PlayStation Guy: “Absolutely, you rose through the ranks to command real people in 256-player battles. Your decisions included a constantly evolving war.”
The problem is that reality makes this conversation a sick joke. Returning veterans currently face double the average (already high) unemployment rates. National Publicly Radio sums up the misery:
Another problem for veterans is that their skills aren’t easily understood by employers, Smith says. For instance, someone who managed a warehouse at a military base might be an ideal candidate for certain retail jobs, but it can be hard to convince recruiters he or she is qualified, the labor commissioner says.
Joseph McDonough, who left the Marines a few months ago and still has the closely cropped haircut to show for it, thinks military service doesn’t count for much with potential employers.
“It’s like, ‘Oh, they didn’t go away to college. I went to college. I know more than them.’ They kind of sneer at you,” he says. “The only people who actually see it as being anything glorious are people like senior citizens, who know that somebody sacrificed something.”
Malicious oversight? No. But it further frames the disconnect between Madison Avenue and main street.
Exactly one year ago today, Barack Hussein Obama stood in Washington, D.C and recited the oath of office. Ten minutes later, men and women across America immediately started ordering CD-ROM copies of Learn Adobe® Photoshop® with Video Professor. What follows is another installment of The Awl’s ongoing coverage of noteworthy Barack Obama Photoshop. This edition: the worst, most inexplicable Obama political art from the last 12 months. The gallery is quite Not Safe For Work, Reasonable Political Discourse.
The Way We Live Now™ is sponsored. Everything—from athletic events to the simple act of pissing in a urinal, to hunting, one of the few pastimes we share with our ancestors—are retailed to us by corporations. Many “Americans” object to what they perceive as a nation becoming a nanny state, a centralized government that hands down scraps to the less fortunate, with which we should fashion some kind of endurable existence—but what is the difference between Washington D.C. and Madison Avenue allowing us our welfare pittance? One price is a tax bump; the other is dignity. A nation whose road and fire safety is courtesy of finger-lickin’ good chicken.
In case the (comprehensive) coverage of the unfolding Haiti disaster over at Reuters is too antiseptic and lacks first-person desperation, below is an email from doctors who were already there working at a clinic just outside Port-au-Prince:
We are ok call family members tell them we are ok. Tell them to contact EVERYONE’s family and churches from their group and tell them we are ok.
Please reply to us ASAP tell us if the airport is open and when help from other countries are coming.
many tremors, many haitians hurt. we have triage here in our yard…pray for the docs and nurses here ALL NIGHT. most buildings are not ok at Christianville. Our house seems fine with one crack on NON-weight-bearing wall. we are staying outside until the tremors end. we were told the last AA flight didn’t leave Miami….can you please confirm for sure? I have 4 women that were suppost to be on that flight. Team Leaders name is Kelle M….. R. please call her family to find out. I need to get our visitors out ASAP….please let us know about the airport…. ALSO please EVERYONE…do not flood us with emails. Only info that we need to know.
please pray.
a.
I’m told the clinics will soon run out of supplies and that they will be treating people well into the future. The particular group above can be reached here: Haiti Health Ministries. They accept donations of everything from money to pharmaceuticals to gauze to baby formula.
UPDATE: Below is from another doctor with the same group:
i’m ok, and so is R. and N. [the author’s infant daughter]. our house sustained damage (cracks, flooding, everything off the shelves) but didn’t fall down. J. and S.’s house (where i used to live) fell down. so did part of the clinic, the eye clinic, and all of the schools. the guesthouse is still standing, as well as our house and A. and D.’s house. everyone else lost their house. we worked all night trying to help people, and are still working today. it’s like being in hell… people dying on your doorstep, limbs falling off, gashes and paralysis and everything you’d see in war. all the missionaries here are ok, only a few bumps and bruises as they scrambled to get out of their houses. R. and N. and i were outside when it happened, so we were ok. D. and L. are ok, too.that’s all the update i can give you for now, because i’ve got to go back to more chaos. thank the Lord E. is here to take care of N. while R. and i work.
love you guys,
As a weekend editor, Gawker’s Foster Kamer seems to churn out what the audience comes looking for. But when he turns on the indignation, I cannot think of anyone worse on such a large-scale platform. Case in point, his giant fuck-you to the Rage Against the Machine/X-Factor #1 pissing contest in the U.K. (”Rage Against the Machine Bests Simon Cowell’s Pop Music Robots In Sony Pissing Contest“)
Kamer’s ultimate point seems to be that Rage is without grounds to be self-righteous because they share a label (Sony) with X Factor:
“But the problem with so many well-intended efforts is that they’re half way to hell. Who gets the money from this? Sony! Sony gets RATM’s money and money from the records the kid Cowell’s repping. So what’s the point? Revolution, shmevolution. If Rage Against the Machine really cared, they’d just make a new record already and release it independently. Now they’re just old and stumbled into a pissing contest with an 18 year-old pop star that led to them checking to see if their globalization-protesting dicks still work.”
Rage’s Tom Morello has said the band will be donating the royalties to Shelter and Youth Music.
Is Foster’s memory so poor that he cannot remember his own charity project of just a few weeks ago? “The Gawker Sarah Palin Slam Book: Bid on This Literary Treasure for Charity.” That involved a bunch of authors and writers signing a copy of Sarah Palin’s memoir and then auctioning it for charity. One signatory was Colum McCann, of whom Foster wrote:
“2009 NBA Fiction Prize winner Collum McCann… wrote: “‘For we must love this poor earth, for we have not seen another…’ Go Obama!” Awesome.”
Foster might be interested to know then that both Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin and Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue share an imprint: HarperCollins Canada. “The problem with so many well-intended efforts is that they’re half way to hell.” Indeed.
So does something like this just not compute to Kamer? Or does he not care? Or is his outrage just pitifully manufactured? I don’t know.
To truly be a fan of Garrison is to be a fan of sadness, sweet sadness, and loss. But it is also to be a fan of humanity. Garrison’s youths are naïve; their perspectives are not seas but puddles, in which they are rudderless anyway. Adults are sinners but trying. Places are better in memory and imagination than in reality. And people are both more fragile and more robust than expected. To be familiar with Garrison is also to know of death. Death is an authentic Midwest small-town going-on. The weather is first. But death is second. To spend time with the kind of elderly that inhabit the Wobegon stories is to spend time hearing about death. Did you hear who died? He died too early. How did he die? Who drove from far away to the service? What did they serve? Hushed voices speak the details of the local dead as if not to offend them.
Exactly one year ago today, Barack Hussein Obama stood in Washington, D.C and recited the oath of office. Ten minutes later, men and women across America immediately started ordering CD-ROM copies of 
