Super Bowl LI: Le Pen and Anarchism Beckon

Many times during the bizarre first-ever overtime Super Bowl I found my eyes looking past the television to the snow beginning to fall outside the window, particularly during Lady Gaga's "Cirque du Soleil" halftime extravaganza. Featuring drones, a truncated opening salute to the Fatherland, twists and turns in an acrobat's harness, the usual horde of "Rhythm Nation" dancers gesticulating to supermarket pop, and a faceless throng wiggling glow sticks beneath the parapet, I preferred to watch the trees turning white.

The game itself was bizarre because the Falcons so completely manhandled New England in the first half plus parts of the third quarter that I thought we might be in store for a delicious blow-out of the celebrated, super-historic Belichik-Brady Patriots. Then the Falcons returned to earth. The young, fast defense lost its legs and MVP quarterback Matty Ice reverted to his playoff form of prior seasons and melted. New England won the toss to begin overtime and promptly drove down the field and scored the game winning touchdown. Atlanta's defense was so cooked at this point it looked like a walk-through drill at practice. Depressing.

Never before has a team come from so far behind, the score was 28-3 in the third quarter, in the Super Bowl. Superficially, since Trump has a tight bond with Belichik, Brady, Gronkowski and owner Bob Kraft, one would have to conclude that the outcome is a hardy reaffirmation of Trumpism.

My assessment that a Trump administration cannot be sustained might have to be amended. It appears that Trump is already making adjustments, trimming his sails, currying favor with the deep state. He is settling in for the long haul. And it is likely he will get a boost from France this spring.

Predictions for the second round are now of a Le Pen-Macron contest, which is basically a recapitulation of the U.S. general election. Macron is the stand-in for Hillary and the enervated neoliberal center; Le Pen, Trump, and waving the flag of a nostalgic nationalism. Macron, the former Rothschild banker, in fact is campaigning against Trump ("Marine Le Pen Echoes Trump’s Bleak Populism in French Campaign Kickoff," by Adam Nossiter):

The populist Ms. Le Pen, 48, offered up a forbidding dystopia in urgent need of radical upheaval, much like Mr. Trump did. The boyish Mr. Macron — he is 39 and has created a nonparty political movement that has suddenly caught fire — spoke of “reconciling” France and of “working together,” and repeatedly addressed more than 10,000 supporters in a giant stadium as “my friends.” France would certainly stay in the European Union, in his view, and there would be none of Ms. Le Pen’s war on globalization.

The crowd spilled onto the grounds outside the stadium, forcing many to watch Mr. Macron on huge screens. He took a backhanded slap at Mr. Trump, promising refuge in enlightened France to American scientists, academics and companies “fighting obscurantism” at home. They would have, “as of next May,” the date of the presidential runoff, “a homeland, and that will be France,” Mr. Macron promised.

The candidates both present themselves as outsiders — Mr. Macron served in the Socialist government but is not a Socialist, while Ms. Le Pen’s party has never held power — but the crowds at the two rallies were a study in contrast. Judging by a dozen-odd interviews, Mr. Macron’s group was peppered with teachers, doctors, academics, civil servants and men who described themselves as “heads of companies.”

In contrast, Ms. Le Pen’s crowd was full of factory workers and former soldiers, and it adored her thundering opening line: “I’m against the Right of money, and the Left of money. I’m the candidate of the people!”

We know how this game ends.

That's why there has been a steady moan in the media about the fate of Germany in this new Trump world of ours. This morning's installment is Max Fisher's "Germany Prepares for Turbulence in the Trump Era." Some Christian Democrats are calling for a massive militarization of Germany to counteract a perceived U.S. retreat from confrontation with Russian.

What gets left out in all this "whither Deutschland?" hand wringing is an acknowledgement that prior to the 2014 coup in Kiev Germany's development was moving eastward. Obama's New Cold War ended that.

What we have to keep in mind is that the refulgent nationalism presently cloaking the West is brittle and thin. It was on display in pregame to the Super Bowl. It is a brazen celebration of militarism -- a live video feed of soldiers watching the game in Kuwait; a flyover of Air Force fighter-bomber jets; Tom Brady mouthing the words to the national anthem for the Fox TV cameras; a superannuated G.W. Bush wheeled out to midfield for the the coin toss -- that is razor thin in its superficiality; it is all held together by a consumerism that is rapidly growing dim, captured beautifully by a Nina Simone recording played to a Ford commercial.

Make no mistake about it. It is a doomed society.

A glimmer of this was captured in a surprisingly balanced report on the blossoming of anarchist support in the United States. Found on the front page of The New York Times last Friday, Farah Stockman's "Anarchists Respond to Trump’s Inauguration, by Any Means Necessary" notes that

Anarchists also say their recent efforts have been wildly successful, both by focusing attention on their most urgent argument — that Mr. Trump poses a fascist threat — and by enticing others to join their movement.

“The number of people who have been showing up to meetings, the number of meetings, and the number of already-evolving plans for future actions is through the roof,” Legba Carrefour, who helped organize the so-called Disrupt J20 protests on Inauguration Day in Washington, said in an interview.

“Gained 1,000 followers in the last week,” trumpeted @NYCAntifa, an anti-fascist Twitter account in New York, on Jan. 24. “Pretty crazy for us as we’ve been active for many years with minimal attention. SMASH FASCISM!”

The movement even claims to be finding adherents far afield of major population centers. A participant in CrimethInc, a decades-old anarchist network, pointed to rising attendance at its meetings and activity cropping up in new places like Omaha.

“The Left ignores us. The Right demonizes us,” the anarchist website It’s Going Down boasted on Twitter. “Everyday we grow stronger.”

Little known to practitioners of mainstream American politics, militant anti-fascists make up a secretive culture closely associated with anarchists. Both reject social hierarchies as undemocratic and eschew the political parties as hopelessly corrupt, according to interviews with a dozen anarchists around the country. While some anarchists espouse nonviolence, others view property damage and even physical attacks on the far right as important tactics.

While extreme right-wing groups have been enthusiastic supporters of Mr. Trump, anti-fascists express deep disdain for the Democratic Party. And it is mutual, by and large: They amount to the left’s unwanted revolutionary stepchild, disowned for their tactics and ideology by all but the most radical politicians.

The neoliberal center is kaput.

Midnight Dragon Musings #1

I typed a bunch when I separated from my wife. I found a used Brother manual typewriter in a pawn shop, and I would spend evenings after work drinking Midnight Dragon malt liquor and tapping out my suffering and loss, as well as my hopes and bombast.

Four years ago the loss of the Seahawks to the Falcons in the divisional round sent me spinning. So wedded I was to that team, to Marshawn Lynch and Russell Wilson and the read option, I went searching for a collection of old writings to figure out who I was.

I was looking for a spontaneous prose document called Shit Stinks. I had written it the spring and summer of 1991. I ended up finding, in addition to Shit Stinks and other notes, a collection of letters I had written my first two years living in New York City at the end of the 1980s, which were also the last two years of my marriage. As an experiment in remembrance I entered them on this page with the title of "The Colt 45 Chronicle." It took me longer to do that than it took to write them in the first place.

The manual typewriter typing directly follows "The Colt 45 Chronicle." I had moved to Seattle to work for a drywall contractor who had previously employed me for a couple of summers in the Bay Area. His company was headquartered in the Emerald City.

With the Seahawks manhandled today, and once again bounced out at the divisional round by the Falcons in Atlanta, I thought it would be appropriate to return to these old writings of a young man looking for a way out. I don't feel the emotional connection to the Seahawks I once did. Marshawn Lynch retired at the end of last season. But today's loss is the occasion for some sadness. It is the end of an era. The era of Seahawks dominance.

So here goes. Glued to the folder that contained the Midnight Dragon Musings was a typewritten page:

SEATTLE -- spaceship earth/man made the planets/green grass earth blue round sky.

NEW YORK CITY -- further back in history/brown light bulb of childhood spent with grandparents/the spaceship is gonna land and I gotta find the heart of the planet/diamond black earth electronic sky halo.

As Nietzsche says of suicide, I think of tomorrow as an idea, and it is a great consolation.

Fuses blowing in my hand. My life and the real world. The young witch in training by my side. Quiet. Waiting for the big jolt to send me to the next weigh station.

EXCREMENT OF JOY. Hard Lake. Black pit. Recalcitrant halo. Hope against hindrance. Dreams of the future. Imagination of significant events. Why all this tense rage in the here and now?

Bruised knuckles; skinned, too. Back. Tooth. Hand. Finger split. Hemorrhoids. Hamstring stripped. I'm overwrought and beleaguered. By the whole setup.

NFL Week 1: Some Fleeting Thoughts

The Super Bowl Champs looked appropriately primetime last Thursday night. A healthy Harvin spread the Packers defense, providing running lanes for the powerful and agile Marshawn Lynch. The Seahawks defense looked stout. Kevin Williams, formerly of the Minnesota Vikings, should approximate the presence of the dearly-departed (to Jacksonville) Red Bryant.

We'll see. It's early, of course. But there is great optimism in the Emerald City. If the marquee players remain in good health, another trip to the playoffs seems in the cards.

Sam Bradford's injury is good news for the other teams in the NFC West. Without a stable QB, the Rams will struggle. Arizona and San Francisco appear to be as formidable as last season. The Cardinals edged the Chargers, while the 49ers trounced the self-immolating Cowboys. (Why is Tony Romo still starting?)

I was able to see the Saints-Falcons game. Atlanta appears to be rejuvenated. Matt Ryan, once again assuming his marquee receivers and running backs can stay healthy, should have his team in contention this year.

Lastly, I watched the Colts-Broncos game on Sunday night. Denver is a formidable team who added impact players on defense. The Broncos manhandled Indianapolis who could not get a rush on Manning with Robert Mathis absent.

So every Sunday I will be back in the true bachelor's position: reclining on a mattress on the floor, the day speeding by as the action unfolds on my small color television set. Sometime at the beginning of February the ritual will draw to a close and the naked bear will crawl reborn from his cave.

The Colt 45 Chronicle #42

Tomorrow the Seattle Seahawks are back at the place where last season ended, the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. It was January 13. The Falcons dominated the first half. The Seahawks came roaring back in the second half. But Matt Ryan was able to engineer a drive in the final seconds that put Matt Bryant in range for the game-winning field goal.

I was so agitated at halftime of that playoff game -- so infused with a feeling of powerlessness and anxiety -- that for some reason, probably because in the back of mind I had been meaning to do it for a long time, I fished a collection of old letters out of storage.

The letters date to the first two years I spent in New York City. I was a newlywed then. My live-in girlfriend and I decided to tie the knot and have our bond officially acknowledged by the state because we wanted to have access to Columbia University's married student housing. We had lived together on and off -- mostly on -- while we attended the University of California. These letters were a celebration of breaking free of the academy while at the same time a way of coming to terms with the horror of the rat race. The daily ironing of pants, riding a train, wearing a tie, coping with the pettiness of menopausal coworkers -- all of this was new to me. Drinking malt liquor and typing letters on a word processor helped me deal with living in a megalopolis and working a series of dead-end jobs.

Nothing at the university prepares one for the repetition of the rat race. Watching professional football with its detailed schedule and clear record of winners and losers is not what worklife is like. Work is a dreary game of survival divided not into 15-minute quarters but five decades of regret and stress. Marriages founder; livers are damaged. Charles Manson said it most succinctly in his jailhouse poem, "Paycheck Whore":

Paycheck whore
Wears a dollar bill gown
To the funeral of hope.

(I always try to recite that to my young coworkers at each new job I end up at. )

When I was young I didn't realize that the rat race is marked by an "Eternal Return" of five decades. If I had, I would have been more canny about how I paced myself. I would have been more methodical and less prone to the cataclysmic -- the alcohol, the fights, the Romantic version of creativity. I would have been less trusting of women and buddies and more disciplined about solitude.

The Seahawks if they win tomorrow could clear a big psychological hurdle on their path to the Super Bowl. For me, this is the 42nd letter I've posted since the home team lost in Atlanta. And I must say it has helped me come to terms with my own personal historical impediments, some of which are on display in the letter below to my best friend Mark. The sense of self and its accompanying sententiousness are inflated and infantile.

Autumn 1989 

Hate loves life and a dog dies. I'm writing this is as a lesson. I don't want to forget some of the times we spent together beck in '86 and '87, and I know the only way to do this is to write 'em down, write it down. But why waste the time? Well, I'll tell ya. The older I get, and the more I waste my life working lousy jobs, the more I'm convinced that what we did at that time was truly historical, in terms of the american grain, which is the grain of James Dean and Jim Morrison and Brett Easton Ellis, the grain of selfish youth living life fully, happily, unconsciously. Also, writing is about thinking and thinking is about living and living is about doing and doing is about remembering. So I might as well remember back to the time when we lived on the horizon, when we were out there in the face of the sun, without a shit of concern for 1990 or subways or Madrid. Let's go!

A Little Love for Jim Harbaugh

Never a big Jim Harbaugh fan, I've got to say I really appreciated his infantile sideline histrionics today in the second half. On the official replay confirmation of the questionable Harry Douglas catch Harbaugh went native. I'm an old 49ers fan going back to the days of Steve DeBerg and Paul Hofer. So I sympathized completely.

The Seahawks deserve a nod though. What they did by hanging tough and working their back into the game in the second half last week against the Falcons provided the blueprint for San Francisco today. The 49ers never showed signs of panic; they were wise to stick with the read option throughout the game. Kaepernick and Frank Gore played well.

Need to Get to Ryan

San Francisco needs to get a pass rush. Ryan has too much time. Maybe the 49ers need to blitz in the second half. At least Turner and Rodgers aren't picking up anything on the ground. Kaepernick looks fine. At halftime, it's anyone's game still.

Coffee Grinder

Why is that certain memories recur? What is it that makes a memory so memorable? Last night when I was grinding coffee for this morning I thought once again of the Saturday night in January of 2005 when Michael Vick demolished the St. Louis Rams in the divisional playoff round and my Braun coffee grinder stopped working.

I've had the same coffee grinder since I was an undergraduate living with my girlfriend in a Berkeley railroad apartment. It has followed me throughout my adult life from West Coast to East Coast to the Lone Star and then back to the West. But that winter's night in January eight years ago it was on the fritz. I had the game on. Michael Vick and Warrick Dunn (a favorite of mine from when he carried the ball in the same Tampa Bay backfield with Mike Alstott) were running wild on the Georgia Dome turf (both ended up with more than a hundred yards). The game was a blow out. So I retired to the kitchen to repair the Braun.

I took the old coffee grinder apart beneath the bright light of a 100-watt incandescent bulb. I saw that a metal contact point had snapped and that's why nothing happened when I plugged it in. I probably broke it by repeatedly for the last twenty years slapping the side of the grinder with my palm to release the oily coffee grounds inside. I folded one contact under the other so they were constantly touching. This meant that the grinder blades would spin as long as the grinder was plugged in; the on-off button on the grinder lid no longer worked. I've used the grinder this way ever since. When I want to grind beans I fill the grinder, close the lid, plug it into the wall, and then unplug it when the beans are ground.

Now whenever I'm in the kitchen at night grinding coffee I always think of Michael Vick and that Atlanta playoff game against the Rams; Marc Bulger, too -- the quarterback who reached 1,000 completions faster than any other in NFL history -- filling consciousness from coast to coast for a moment in time and then forever after a memory recurring.

Conference Championship Game Picks

I’m going with the 49ers this Sunday. I don’t think the Falcons will run the ball on San Francisco the way they did against Seattle. Michael Turner and Jacquizz Rodgers will not rush for a combined 162 yards. This will put the game in the hands of Matt Ryan who threw two interceptions last week despite zero pass rush from the Seahawks. The 49ers will pressure Ryan and there will be turnovers. On defense last week the Falcons looked good in the first half but completely gassed in the second. San Francisco with Kaepernick, Vernon Davis, Michael Crabtree and Frank Gore are just too much for Atlanta even with its big advantage of playing in a noisy home dome. If Kaepernick starts jittery Harbaugh will sooth him on the sidelines and remind him that in due course the Falcons defense will collapse.

The AFC Championship Game has the potential to be a repeat of the disappointment experienced last year by all Ravens fans when Lee Evans failed to secure the winning grab in the end zone.

The soulless Belichik Patriots machine rumbles on year after year. Gronkowski’s absence will hurt. But Belichik’s football philosophy is that players have no spiritual dimension; they’re just replaceable parts. Running backs are a dime a dozen; so you have a new starter every year. On defense you trade away a Mike Vrabel, a Tedy Bruschi retires. No worries. You fish a Rob Ninkovich out of the free agent market. Even when your matinee idol quarterback goes down with a season-ending knee injury Week 1 you just slot in a Matt Cassel, who never really played in college, and he throws for nearly 3,700 yards, over 20 touchdowns and wins 10 games. Football is a product extruded from an industrial press. This is what the baleful Belichik represents. That’s why I'm going with the Ravens and Ray Lewis. Because beneath the suffocating weight of the corporate Leviathan we live day to day not for the bright lights and bags of Doritos but for a little taste of the heroic.

Shut Off the Idiot Box

I've done something I haven't done all season. Shut off a football game -- a divisional playoff game no less, Texans-Patriots -- before the game is over. Ninkovich's interception of Schaub was all I could take and I couldn't take anymore. I didn't think I'd make it out the apartment today but after I shut off the TV I washed the dishes in the sink and actually took the recycling downstairs. I opened a fortune cookie that had been sitting on my cutting board for the last four days. It read, "A quiet evening with friends is the best tonic for a long day." So now I'm listening to some Iron & Wine albums I checked out from the library, drinking a cup of green tea and soon I'll pick up a book. (I'm still checking the Texans-Patriots game online.)

Here's a doomsday scenario for this bachelor. An Atlanta-New England Super Bowl. I'm confident that the 49ers can rush Matt Ryan in a way that the Seahawks were unable to.  But domes on the road are tough.  And, sure, the Ravens might be a team of destiny, but they're beat up from double OT. So it's a distinct possibility that we'll be watching the most unappetizing spectacle of Brady vs. Ryan in the Superdome.

I haven't felt as low after a playoff loss since Roger Craig fumbled in the 1990 NFC Championship Game (against a Belichik coached defense). It spelled the end of the Montana-era hegemony of the San Francsico 49ers. I had just moved from Morningside Heights back to Washington Heights. I was low, so low after that game that I was staring down at myself from outside my body. I referred to this period -- the break-up of my marriage and then the failure of San Francisco to three-peat -- as "Valerie disappears the 49ers umbrella." Valerie was a young lady I met on the streets of Upper Manhattan and with whom I spent a few sad nights. The 49ers umbrella was the shield from emotional harm provided by being a San Francisco football fan.

During the Seahawks comeback in the second half of today's game I fished out of storage my attempt at a spontaneous prose document -- I wouldn't want to call it a novel, more like a proto-blog written to myself on a manual typewriter -- from the period when "Valerie disappears the 49ers umbrella." It was my first official run at being a bachelor, a time of no little drama and a great deal of suffering. Hopefully in the days going forward I'll have the time to post it here. You'll read of street fights, bar fights, whores, malt liquor, subways -- the whole pitiful yarn of a young man trying to be sincere in the big city.

In the End, the End

A word about personal psychology and attachment.  To be significantly attached to anything is to be, to a certain extent, not mentally well. I suffered keenly the entire Seahawks-Falcons game. In the end, the end. The pattern held true. Russell Wilson kept the team in the game, put them ahead with 30 seconds to go, but the defense could not prevent Matt Ryan from making two completions to put Matt Bryan in range to kick the game-winning field goal. Seattle had a great season. And I am wiped out.

RG3's Knee

I read the frontpage of the newspaper this morning and then skipped to the op-ed page and read that and then did the dishes and got ready to get into the shower.  As I was doing that I did like I always do and folded the paper back into the blue plastic bag that it's delivered in and put it in my shoulder bag to read at lunch and in the process of doing that I saw the sports section which I had missed because it was nested in the business page.  It was an entire half-page color photo of RG3 buckling his knee as he reaches down to try to collect that lousy snap.  I don't know why it hit me the way it did but it hit me right in the solar plexus. I don't know if it's just a case of projection on my part but RG3 seems like such a decent, chivalrous guy -- a real Percival in our fallen age -- I had a moment of, "Why go on? Why keep trying? What's the point?"  Job in the whirlwind.  At work I saw on Google News that the MRI was inconclusive, that he might not have torn the ACL.  I hope it's not a tear and he doesn't have to have surgery. He's not built like Adrian Peterson who came back from major knee surgery in less than a year and who looks like a comic book superhero.  RG3 is more catlike.

My thoughts on the Falcons are don't bet against Seattle.  Even though Atlanta is overdue for some playoff success the Seahawks are ascendent.  My only worry is dealing with a dome.  We're 1-2 this season in domes -- both loses we should've won; we were ahead in the fourth quarter only for the defense to let down.  Matt Ryan the Falcons QB can put it up there and he has a couple really good receivers -- Julio Jones and Roddy White. The Falcons can run the ball too with Michael Turner and Jacquizz Rodgers.  It's going to be tough.

Seahawks Win Wild Card Game

A word of praise for Pete Carroll, Russell Wilson, Marshawn Lynch and the rest of the Seattle Seahawks.  To go on the road and win a playoff game after being blown out in the first quarter by the Redskins says a lot about this team's mental toughness.  Zach Miller had a big game too at tight end.  RG3 was badly hurt and played at half-capacity and Alfred Morris who was able to single-handedly batter Dallas was held in check after an initial burst of productivity.

The Falcons will be tough in their home dome.  But who can bet against Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch?