Do rich people not have phones?

Remember a few months back when I was bemoaning The New York Times and the weird phenomenon of newspapers that sell ads that just completely envelope them? You don't? That's ok. To catch you up, sometimes The New York Times comes completely wrapped in an advertisement. That's it. That's the phenomenon. Oh, and it happened again today:

Well, I suppose there's not much going on in the world right now so...

"Extra! Extra! Interconnected computer
network renders newspapers obsolete!"

-Newsies, I'd imagine

I mean, what even is that? Look, I'm not a reader of newspapers and haven't been since the advent of this cool new thing called the internet, so take my issue (pun unintended) here with a grain of salt. But say I was an old (ok, older) and every morning I pop down to the local bookstore to pick up my only link to the world and the events contained therein, and find this? I'm not saying that The Times and really most newspapers aren't little more than delivery methods for advertisements day-old headlines but...well, ok, they are, but still, people find them comforting, and these wrap-around ads are getting out of hand.

This one is for Swiss Watchmaker Vacheron Constantin and I checked out their website because I believe in being thourough and their jewel encrusted watches range from $25,000 to "Price On Request." Which I think means if you have to ask, you're too poor. 

I'm sorry, is there a lot of overlap between people who buy
the morning paper and can also afford $32,000 watches?

A homophobic, racist, Christian
nationalist with numerous sexual assault
allegations? He certainly fits the profile.

As I get increasingly old and curmudgeonly, I find myself ever more enraged by advertising and I don't know whether it's because there's simply more of it (there is) or if I'm just getting crankier (I am) or both (probably). Again, I don't even read The New York Times, and yet I'm getting all indignant about the idea that there's not even the fig leaf of journalistic integrity. LA is on fire, the Senate is questioning a grossly unfit but almost certain to be Trump's Defense Secretary, and instead the cover is an ad for Swiss luxury watches. 

Did I miss something, or did the marketing team at Vacheron Constantin think that Mark Zuckerberg's "facts are woke" screed would make them trend again? Also, when were they ever--oh--and a quick internet search tells me that they are indeed popular and it's a $76 billion dollar industry. Which, I mean, the revolution can't come fast enough, can it?

Just add $900,000 wrist watches to the list of reasons alongside
mega yachts, Logan Paul's Pokémon Card and rocket trips for billionaires.

Betcha it's not waterproof...

Well, threats of jail-time will do that...

Speaking of Mark "Facts Are too Woke, and Also, I Suddenly Realized That I Like Trump Now That He Won" Zuckerberg and his preposterous $900,000 watch. Huh? What watch? Didn't you read my last--doesn't matter. The other day while explaining that his company, Meta, would be backing away from any kind of fact checking on their social media platforms, Zuckface was wearing a watch people have identified as a hand made, one-of-a-kind Greubel Forsey. But what even is a Grubel Forsey?

I'd never heard of them until today. That's how rich he is. There's like a whole separate world for the ludicrously wealthy (you might recall the $3 million Batmobile), and I went to the company's website to read their story:

Disappointingly, as far as I can tell, these two are business partners
and the sacred union the text refers to is about forming a corporation.

It seems like a real missed opportunity 
that they didn't get Cate Blanchett to
narrate their story in character as Galadriel

It's hard to read, I know, allow me to quote:

"It was the end of a century, even the end of a millennium. Two entrepreneurs who had trodden unconventional paths decided to combine their talents. They envisioned an extreme, uncompromising approach to fine watchmaking that would reimagine, one by one, each of the technical and aesthetic fundaments established over the previous 200 years."

-The Grubel Forsey website, 

no, really, it says all that

"Yeah, it's around the hundred billion mark."

-Elon Musk (actual quote)

Is there a level of wealth at which one is no longer able to hear the nonsense that tumbles out of them? They're making watches, a five-hundred year old technology that has long since been rendered obsolete by digital watches, then smart phones, then AI boxes that listen to your every word, thought and bodily function to better sell you socks with your pet's picture on them. I love a well-made piece of hand-crafted whatever as much as the next person, but have some perspective. 

I am seriously asking: what does 

Mark Zuckerberg do that justifies a wrist

watch worth what thirteen teachers do?

Which brings us back to the nine-hundred thousand dollar (yes, of money) watch they made for a kid who slithered his way into billionaire-dom by backstabbing his college roommates. For some much-needed perspective, $900,000 is roughly: 

The average salary of thirteen teachers

The average debt of ten American households

Two houses at the median home price of $420,000

And honestly, that last one was a little surprising to me. I kind of though he was walking around with five or six houses on his wrist, but then I remembered that in America, the housing market is an impossible hellscape laid waste by Airbnb and real-estate investors. 

"We'll take it! Honey, how much does one tip the
realtor on a forty dollar home? Four dollars? Five?"

-preceding generations

"Impossible! I don't detect a single fuck.
It's like there aren't any to give..."

-some scientist

Also, should Mark Zuckerberg for some insane reason decide to spend his entire net worth of two-hundred and eleven billion dollars on one-of-a-kind Greubel Forsey watches, he could buy 234,444 and a half of them. And yes, I know that he earned his money (if money making more money can be called earning) and that the net worth of these kajillionaires isn't like, sitting in a money bin somewhere waiting to be swum around in. But the degree to which I don't care is mathematically insignificant and undetectable by any instrument devised by human ingenuity, and we--scientists, that is--can detect water in the atmosphere of planets in other star systems.

Look, there's rich and then there's offensively, toxically wealthy and nine-hundred thousand dollar wrist watches fall firmly into the latter category. There has to be such a thing as a tipping point to our tolerance for this, and I've got to think we're getting close.

Look out McDuck, the center will not hold.

That the clock should shut up?

Pictured: Davidson giving the camera
his best "pay attention to me" look.

I guess what I'm saying is that Congressman Warren Davidson should probably shut his buckhole (it will make sense in a minute). Who and what? Exactly. Davidson, a wait for it, Republican representative from the Buckeye State (see?) evidently thought that the midst of devastating fires burning the city of Los Angeles as we speak, were a perfect opportunity to own the libs and demand that disaster relief funds for California be omitted a spending bill until the state reforms it's forestry management. 

You know what they say about
broken clocks, right?

So, couple of things. First, is the state's forestry management to blame here? I don't know. And neither does Ohio Congressman Davidson. I suspect that no one has answers yet, and won't until this is all over. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but loud-mouth, uninformed comments from someone rando trying to sound big on Fox Business isn't even hindsight. If it turns out there is blame to place and if it happens that CAL FIRE fell down on the job somewhere, I'm sure he'll crow about how right he was, but again, not because he knows something, but because he's a spiteful jackass and guessed.

You can see what right wingers don't want
us using Wikipedia or looking into things.

The congressman, for his part, doesn't appear to be an expert on this subject. He made his fortune by inheriting his dad's business, and then trading stocks based on knowledge gleaned from his position in Congress. In further Wikipedia research, he's also the guy who compared being asked to show ID and COVID vax status to the holocaust, and voting against the condemnation of Russia stealing children from Ukraine. 

Isn't he a felon who told everyone to
drink bleach? Why do people listen to him?

If this all feels similar to that time convicted felon and President-elect Trump insisted that a previous round of forest fires could have been prevented had California only raked its forests better, it's because it's exactly like that. That time, he was using the Shasta fires to score political points in Pennsylvania, because MAGA people base a large part of their personality on hating liberals and there is no greater bastion of woke vegans than the Golden State. 

Of course, we're also the largest bastion of Federal money so, again, maybe don't tell us how to rake our thirty three million acres of forest? Damnit, I'm letting them pull me in. That's their goal right? People like Davidson and Trump? Out crazy one another with increasingly ridiculous statements designed to simultaneously infuriate the left while thrill the right? To convince us that the other side is the enemy and not say, the offensively wealthy oligarchs who just bought a felon* a second term?

Pictured: Mark Zuckerberg explaining that he's ending fact-checking on Facebook
because the facts have a liberal bias, all while wearing a $900,000 watch.

*Yes, I mention the felony-status three times in this post. Let me have this, ok?

We are all of us in the goo.

Cheaper houses and no more transphobic
bathroom laws? C'moooon Rapture!

So sometimes I like to torture myself by--huh? Wait, where are you going? I just--oh, no, I don't mean that literally. Ok, so what I mean is that I, as member of a generation for whom the only paths to home ownership are the death of a wealthy relative or some kind of rapture situation freeing up some houses, like to pop onto Zillow from time to time to see how the non-renters live. And I was struck by--wait! Not literally! Come back! Ok, I was figuratively stuck by a particular listing.

Above: a regular-ass house.

It was in my home town of Rochester, New York and cost $4,725,000. As in four point seven two five million dollars. Of money. And no, I'll never in my life be able to afford something like that, but I was, you know, curious. The pictures were confusing, the first was a regular-ass house, which it self should only be a hundred and fifty grand in that area. And just to be clear, I also don't have enough money to say the word "grand" instead of "thousand." That's for riches, but I'm already pretend house-hunting, so why do you care? Grand, grand, grand. Anyway, like I was saying, the other pictures were of completely other houses, all of which were in the--and I'm guessing here--a hundred and fifty thousand dollar range? 

Reading further, it became clear that this listing was aimed at people who buy up houses as investments. Of course, by people I mean kajillionaires, because this was twenty-nine houses being sold as a "bundle." And not to flex my arm-chair real-estate acumen, $4,725,000 divided by twenty nine houses is about a hundred and sixty grand. 

"Look, I don't care how many grans it costs. A hundred, two
hundred grands. Doesn't matter, I'll take it. I am rich after all."

-how riches talk, one presumes

Pictured: the moment Ronald Reagan
ruined everything forever for us.

What'd I win? Revolution at the way the housing market works. Twenty-nine houses all owned by one person or organization whose aim is not to house people, but rather to extract rent. I'm beginning to think that maybe, just maybe what's wrong with America is not all the avocado toast-eating or the not wanting to work-ness of millennial (and xennials, thank you very much). Maybe it's this runaway, unfettered, and deranged version of capitalism that allows someone to own twenty-nine homes in the middle of a housing crisis.

But that's just business, right? If someone invests wisely and is successful, who are we to say there's anything wrong with that? I don't know, I'm not an economist. But it's just...wrong. Here, check out the text from another listing that both caught my eye and reinforced my rapidly deteriorating hope for the future:

"Rockin. The kids still say that, right?"

"Another Rockin' Rochester Investment Opportunity!  Single family colonial in the Beachwood neighborhood.  Three bedrooms and two FULL (sic) baths!  Hardwood throughout, some thermal windows.  Newer furnace and hot water tank, two car garage.  Currently tenant occupied generating an annual gross of $22,200."

-an actual listing, almost certainly

by someone who remembers typewriters

I dream of a future in which we all come
together in a common hatred of billionaires.

So, couple of things. Actually, several. Firstly, the writer's use of the word Rockin' in combination with the extra space at the end of each sentence (what? It's a thing you had to do on typewriters. See? I wasn't being rude before) is leading me to make certain assumptions about the generation into which the person who wrote this was born, which is not constructive. Squabbling between age groups is divisive and distracting us from the real enemy: the offensively wealthy. Secondly, it's a house, not an investment opportunity. 

And not for nothing, but for $22k/year the
landlord can damn well fix those cabinets.

And lastly, the current occupants (one of whom is likely a child based on the be-training wheeled bike in one of the shots) are described as generating an annual gross of $22,200. Like they're a feature of the place and not people who live there. The sentence alone is gross alright, but given that the median income in Rochester is twenty-eight thousand dollars per year, the ad is enticing potential buyers with the promise of squeezing seventy-eight percent of the average renters income out of them. And I know that's not exactly how math and percentages work, but I think my point stands.

What point? Great question. I think it's that this whole idea of housing as a way to exploit people's need for, you know housing, sounds an awful lot like that scene in The Matrix where Keanu wakes up and realizes that the robots are keeping people in goo so they can suck their energy out or whatever. Look, it's admittedly a preposterous and I believe a flawed plot for a sci-fi movie, but it's a decent allegory for the housing market.

I'm just suggesting that the electricity generated by humans doesn't seem like it'd be

enough to power the simulation much less those robot squid things. But it doesn't matter, 

because it ultimately ends very badly for the robots. So like, look out, landlords. 

Lessons in lessers

Look to what happened when he bought
Twitter to get a preview of things to come.

Once again we find ourselves falling inexorably towards the bleak reality of another year in the twenty-first century, and again into another four years of someone people didn't vote for (yes, I know who won the popular vote, I'm referring to Elon). The tradition is to look back at those we've lost, but while lots of worthwhile people died in 2024, I think I want to focus specifically on former President and peanut farmer Jimmy Carter. 

Kids used to learn math and civics.
I learned about the Cybertronian Wars.

Carter, who was President when I was born, isn't remember fondly for his time in the White House. I'm not an historian, but I can't help but think this is mostly just because Republicans can't shut up about how great they think Reagan was, which is weird because I'm pretty sure the precipitous decline we find ourselves in now is mostly his fault. Trickle down economics, the AIDS crisis, and a repealing of the ban on advertising at children had a direct and deleterious impact on American life that we to this day haven't shaken.

Pictured: one of America's terrible
decisions seen here, humping Old Glory.

But Carter? After some diligent research on wikipedia, I learned that while he was in office he pardoned people who dodged the draft, established the Department of Education, and helped broker the Camp David Accords. But then Reagan won in a landslide because, I don't know, people were taken in by his confidence-inspiring and luxurious hair. But it turns out he dyed it, so joke’s on us I guess. America can, as I think we've come to see, make some pretty terrible choices. Sometimes twice. 

Nancy Reagan, seen here winning the
war on drugs through the power of sit-com
walk-on roles and mass incarcerations.

Anyway, after America embarked on the cocaine-addled and greed-loving 1980's, Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter (who died just last year) spent next forty years building houses for habitat for humanity. Meanwhile, the president-elect was busy discriminating against black tenants, filing for bankruptcy, and harassing women. Whatever you may think of the achievements of the Carter administration, you've got to admit that he was, by any measure, a 100% better human being than the once and future commander in chief.

But why bring this up? Partly because I'm a little sick of listing dead famous people, but also because I think we need to remind ourselves that we don't have to settle for lesser humans. That is people who could use their power, wealth, and/or influence to make the world a better place, but instead whine on twitter or, I don't know, stage a coup.  Sure, they can win elections and become billionaires, but they're still, you know, lesser. 

Remember when people weren't terrible to each other all the time?
No, me neither, but look at the Carters here...all old, and holding hands,
doing charity work together...shut up, I've got something in my eye...

Unwarranted!

Huh, tastes kind of like lies, doesn't it?

So maybe lavishing so much importance and prestige on someone because of some outmoded system most countries have long since abandoned is a questionable practice? I mention this because last week King Charles III withheld the royal warrant from a couple of companies who've been enjoying the hoity toitsity that comes with it. The companies in question are the candy company Cadbury, and Unilever which makes a lot of things including Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Evidently the titular hippies from Vermont sold out back in 2000.

Oh Hyacinth, will they ever
pronounce your name correctly?

But what even does that mean? Welp, because I grew up watching British sit-coms on PBS--specifically Keeping Up Appearances--I happen to know that in the UK, the monarch grants certain companies the warrant which is a sort of coat-of-ams they can put on their products. I don't think we have anything similar in America outside of sweetheart deals for government contractors, but that's more like graft. Having The Royal Warrant means that the Royal family, or at least the Palace actually uses your goods or services, but it also seems to work something like a seal of approval.

A seal of approval granted to your company by someone able to trace their lineage all the way back to the conquest. 

Above: it was at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 that
the future of product endorsements would be decided.

Sorry, just kidding. He worked very
hard to get where he is today...

Monarchy is, and I don't think I'm alone on this, objectively ridiculous-although we're swearing in a felon in a couple of weeks, so who are we to talk? But what makes Charles III any more qualified than say you or I to decide which flavor of ice cream has the cleverest name or which cloyingly sweet chocolate egg is the most...easter-y? He's just some guy. A guy who was born into wealth, privilege, and power, but still. What gives him the right to withhold the warrant and potentially cost these companies millions of dollars in lost sales?

The unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom, the divine right of kings, and I don't know, Magna Carta? Look, I'm not an expert. But it's also true that while Buckingham Palace makes it a policy not to explain, well, anything, the consensus here is that both companies have been doing business in Russia whom you might recall in moving past the decade mark in its war with Ukraine? So, I'm kind of with Chuck on this one. 

International policy on this is clear: no ice cream for you
until you withdraw your forces from Ukrainian territory.

Ars gratia pecuniae!

Look, I don't want to tell Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra how to CEO, but I'm not sure the problem with studio's comic book movies is critics. 

Above: Vinciquerra seen here, doing what ever CEO's do.

Not all heroes wear capes. Some review
customer service experiances on Yelp.

In the interest of full disclosure here, I should mention that I'm not a film industry expert. Like, at all. In fact, I don't think I've seen any of the movies he's referring to. In anno domini 2024, this is absolutely no barrier to having an opinion. In fact, many see chiming in on any and all topics, regardless of one's qualifications, as a moral duty and far be it from me to shirk such a heavy responsibility. I should also mention that my goal isn't to defend the critics he's blaming. The old saying "everyone's a critic" has never been more true, and what it means to be a critic has never been more meaningless.

Pictured: hyperbole.

Any idiot with internet access can be a critic, but I suspect he's referring to those associated with  news outlets and respected websites when he says:

"Madame Web underperformed in the theatre because the press just crucified it."

-Vinciquerra comparing the film's

 reviews to being tied to a cross and 

left to die of exposure and starvation

Really? There're no other reasons you can
think of to explain Venom's disappointing
box office performance? None at all?

He goes on to say: 

"It's was not a bad film, and it did great on Netflix. For some reason, the press decided that they didn't want us making these films out of 'Kraven' and 'Madam Web,' and the critics just destroyed them...They were just destroyed by the critics in the press, for some reason."

-Vincinquerra spinning conspiracy theories

to explain the explainable

Although it's been my experience that 

movies are rarely so bad they actually 

wrap around to being good and are just bad.

Which, first of all, I did a quick scan of the critic reviews for Madame Web, and it's not for some reason that they're so negative. It's for specific reasons. Many of them site it's dull plot, thin characters, and a bloated story. In fact, I was surprised by how many times critics said they enjoyed some or all of the film despite its short comings. It sounds like it's an "it's so bad it's good situation," but whatever, the numerical reviews are indeed quite low and Vinciquerra nevertheless blames this for the movie's poor box office return.

Also, just because something does well on Netflix, doesn't preclude it being a bad film. People watch all kinds of terrible things in the comfort of their own homes, far from public scrutiny. In fact, I think Netflix is famous for just that.

This is a Christmas movie about a snow many who comes to life and is also hot.
Will it be good? Almost certainly not. Will people watch it? 100%

I mean, they have access to J. Jonah
Jameson. Where's that origin story?

And lastly, I think it's giving the press far too much credit to suggest that they collectively have some kind of anti-Spider-man spin-off agenda. I like Spider-man as much as the next nerd, but personally have no interest in Spider-man adjacent solo movies. I realize that Sony doesn't have the stable of popular characters that Disney has access to, but that doesn't change the fact that Kraven, Madam Web, and Venom (another Sony Spider-film) are C-tier. With rare exceptions, I think audiences just aren't into characters who know, but aren't Spider-man.

I mean this with all due respect and
admiration, but these guys got out just in time.

But I'm getting off track. His contention is that by reviewing the film poorly, the critics cost the studio money. And his evidence is the idea that streaming numbers suggest that people watched them anyway. Ok, cool, but nowhere is he defending the artistic merit of the movies beyond the idea that they're not terrible. Which, I mean, if the aim is mediocrity, it sounds like he nailed it. But he shouldn't expect people to line up for it. Not when it's competing with all the other mediocrity out there.

The idea that they're good enough and should have made more at the box office is a very CEO way of looking at them. It's ars gratia pecuniae. And I can't help but feel that that the answer here isn't to blame movie reviews, but instead to make better movies, you know?

"Make better movi-that's a good one. I mean, we're CEO's, not superheroes..."

-CEO's creating value for shareholders?

I think? I'm unclear on this point...