Editor's Note: The Snooze Button Generation blog would like to thank the outpouring of kind words and donations to the GoFundMe fundraiser for Fred Stevens. Last month's post detailing Fred's health situation garnered a lot of attention, and Fred is making some much-welcomed progress! ... Now, this month's blog:
Thank you, Tito.
Inspirational. Practical. Smart. Adaptable. A Role Model.
Those are the first words that come to mind when I think of Cleveland Guardians manager Terry "Tito" Francona, who will be retiring at the end of this season after 11 seasons with the Guardians/Indians.
As Terry Pluto in Cleveland.com pointed out, only the Dodgers (.613), Yankees (.565) and Cardinals (.559) have a higher winning percentage than the Guardians under Francona (.557). It's been a wonderful run of baseball for Cleveland fans, and it's bit disconcerting to see the 64-year-old retire.
Tito will be in the Hall of Fame as a manager. In his first year as manager for the Boston Red Sox in 2004, he helped break the Sox's 86-year-old championship as they won the World Series. They had come back from an 0-3 deficit in the ALCS to beat the Yankees, and then the Red Sox won the World Series again in 2007.
Our Cleveland Indians got the Worlds Series in 2016 under Tito, had a 3-1 lead over the Cubs, but couldn't seal the deal. I didn't fault Tito at the time because he was an absolute magician getting them that far. In fact, he probably was the main reason they were there in the first place.
In 2016, Tribe fans had the attitude that it was a surprise we were there and we were ecstatic for that. Plus, LeBron had just lifted our own curse with the Cavs' championship. Tito seems to often have his hand with lifting curses as the Cubbies won for the first time in 108 years.
A baseball season is like life or teaching. It's a long grind. There are constant decisions. We get up and down, and, at the end of the day, we're only in charge of so much.
Although I never met Tito and am just a fan, it appears that he connects with his players. He makes decisions to the best of his ability, and players and fans have total trust in him. It happens. But it's rare that he makes a blunder. He has been a major asset to the Tribe and Northeast Ohio. He even rides a scooter from his downtown apartment to the games:
As a kid who liked playing sports but wasn't on a high-school team, I quickly related to managers and coaches. While I feel I have a strong analytical sports mind, I never played at an elite level. After spending seven seasons covering the NBA, I concluded that a good, or bad, NBA coach only adds plus, or minus, five wins per season.
With all apologies to Phil Jackson, Gregg Popovich, Steve Kerr or whomever you think is an awesome coach, it's likely not going to make a major difference. In Major League Baseball, however, it's probably more like a plus, or minus, 10 games. Tito maxed out those 10 games many, many years with the Tribe.
Even in this current, difficult year with practically a minor-league roster, he's still getting the most out of his guys, and he's a wizard when it comes to in-game moves. Yeah, we all know how important analytics are in baseball nowadays, but there's a human factor, too. Tito is good at all of it.
I'm fearful that the next era of Cleveland baseball will not nearly be as enjoyable as the Tito years. How could it be?
The new balanced schedule prevents the Guardians from beating up on Central Division opponents, like they did for 10 of 11 of Tito's years. Plus, no one, absolutely no one, will be able to fill his shoes. The guy who takes over — I vote for Sandy Alomar — will have a lot of pressure on him.
Sandy, of course, was part of the Indians' powerhouse teams in the '90s, when they went to the World Series in '95 during the first time they were in the postseason since 1954. In all reality, those '90s powerhouse teams when Jacobs Field opened will go down as the golden age of Cleveland baseball.
Of course, those powerhouse '90s teams never won the World Series, blowing Game 7 in the late innings against the Florida Marlins in '97. In many ways, those '90s teams were the opposite of Tito's teams. While those '90s Indians overpowered opponents with offense, Tito's teams finesse their victories with pitching, defense, speed and superb attention to detail.
Perhaps baseball purists respond more to the Moneyball-style success of the Tito era. But the city of Cleveland responded more to the powerhouse '90s teams.
Heck, the Indians had.a streak of 455 consecutive sellouts from June 1995 to April 2001. The demand for tickets was so high that in five straight seasons, all home games were sold out before opening day.
By the way, that sellout streak was a record at the time, but it was surpassed by the Red Sox (794 ending in 2013) and Giants (530 ending in 2017). Boston's streak — it must be noted — comprised of Tito's entire stay in Boston with three additional years.
The Guardians owner recently said that Tito will stay on in some sort of capacity as a front-office consultant. That's great, and all, but it is far from the same as knowing when to let a pitcher come out for the seventh inning or when to have faith in Josh Naylor vs. lefties.
Tito made so many constant right moves and was such an admirable individual, he is — without a doubt — the best manager, or coach, in Cleveland sports history in my lifetime. I doubt there will ever be any coach more impressive.
Listen. I feel a bit uncomfortable asking you to donate to my brother's GoFundMe fundraiser, but I am.
Fred has acute CIDP. He cannot get in or out of bed without assistance. He needs help with bathing and toileting and has constant medical personnel coming in and out of his home. Insurance does not cover the home health-care workers that he needs.
My sister-in-law Judi and Cousin Steve, AKA the World's Most Dependable Man, created Fred's GoFundMe about two months ago, and it hasn't reached half of its goal — yet.
I recently returned to California after spending a week with Fred, and I was fortunate to be a part of his best week in the past three months. I played a role in that by insisting on getting him out of the house and doing my best imitation of Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums by "taking it out and chopping it up."
Fred showed movement in his hands and arms, and that was an excellent step forward. He did physical therapy with a walker and gingerly completed a loop around his living room while being spotted. There were signs of progress, but the problem is that every 11 days, he does necessary infusion treatments. Around that time, his movement gets much, much less.
Acute CIDP is a rare neurological disorder that Fred first showed signs of in Dec. 2018. It got exceptionally difficult in April 2020, when he was basically paralyzed and we didn't know what in the world was happening. But after a lot of rehab and treatment, he dealt with it and got to the point where he was functioning, working, driving and living life in 2021.
Back in April of this year, he fell paralyzed from the neck down, after slowly getting to that point. He had a feeding tube for more than a month, and there was talk of a ventilator, which he never went on, thank God. He spent 27 days in the hospital, 40 other days in an assisted living/rehab facility, and now he's been home for a month.
When I visited, we had major victories by getting out of the house five of the seven days I was there. Fred hardly saw the world outside of the hospital, assisted living and his home for the previous three months. We went to an outdoor mall, wheeled around the premises, hung around a park and even went to a happy hour. Winning!
We went to his office, visited Cousin Steve, drove around downtown Cleveland, went to Shooters in the Flats and had dinner at TownHall on West 25th. Fred also got out to Chippewa Lake, slept over in Brecksville and cooked out with Steve, Krista, Dina, our mom and me. Winning!
Fred and I had a blast. No major issues happened with him out, and at times, I felt like I was Jim Jefferies in the short-lived show Legit, which I enjoyed quite a bit, by the way.
It took me a while to accept this new reality because Fred has always been the picture of health and quite athletic. He was playing fast-pitch baseball until age 49, and when I surprised him by showing up at his 50th birthday party in Cleveland in 2018, his health was all good.
Fred's attitude and approach to his health remains matter of fact and optimistic. He often talks about God, and he has strengthened my spiritual life. I love this guy, my only sibling. Thanks for reading this and thank you for the support!
Think about it. Think about it. What is it for you? For me, it's real simple:
Cartoons! "Saturday morning cartoons."
That's the answer for this Gen Xer. Sadly, the only other thing that comes to mind for this former party animal is "Saturday morning hangovers."
Saturday morning cartoons were such a thing for us Gen Xers that I venture to say many of us remember that glorious time when we were allowed to watch TV as our parents slept in.
"Wonder Twin powers, activate!"
"Form of an octopus." "Shape of an iceberg." Or something like that. Say what?
Saturday morning cartoons were quite a thing for Generation X, and Super Friends was my favorite one. Through extensive Internet research, I have realized that Super Friends had many reincarnations and that I probably was watching something with a slightly different name.
Even though Super Friends featured Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and a who's who of DC action heroes, I strangely remember the Wonder Twins best. Who are they? What are they doing? Why am I interested in this duo?
I guess I'm pondering Super Friends and the Wonder Twins because as a Gen Xer, I believe there are too many entertainment options on our screens nowadays. It's not always easy finding people watching the same stuff.
I can find friends who've watched White Lotus, Succession, Ted Lasso and the Cleveland Guardians, but it's not like it's everybody — like Super Friends. In a sense, we were united when our kid demographic basically was forced to watch Super Friends and know who the heck the blue monkey Gleek is.
Hence, I maintain the theory that the phone and the nature of binge watching and streaming are divisive by nature. Too much junk out there!
Perhaps that's why it was accidentally genius that my daughters created their KPop Club at high school, which is where they got most of their friends. Basically, those kids' frame of reference is KPop trash, and they're united by that.
Back to the Super Friends and Wonder Twins, I think it was interesting how the twins, Zan and Jayna, were racially ambiguous. They don't appear white, and, of course, they were from another planet — Exxor. Actually, I believe they may have slightly inspired Saturday Night Live's Ambiguously Gay Duo, Ace and Gary.
Just like Pat from SNL, I don't believe Ace and Gary hold up. Truthfully, I never liked that skit because it seemed pretty darn homophobic even in the 1990s. I also couldn't stand the name "ambiguous." There was nothing ambiguous about Ace and Gary's sexual orientation, and why were heteros laughing at that?
Unlike Ace and Gary, I don't believe the Wonder Twins are on the wrong side of history or progress. They're pretty innocuous, pretty goofy. I might have to revisit them on YouTube, and search the Internet and pet stores for a blue monkey.
I can't really put into words the overwhelming emotions that hit me when one of my groomsmaids, Sophie, walked down the aisle, moments before Dina and I were married.
Oh, wow, it was just too much for me. Dad's remarrying with the daughters at ages 12 and 10. This isn't how I initially drew it up, but it was meant to be. Sophie and I had gone through a lot, and seeing her walk down the aisle — I just lost it.
A "blink of an eye." I've often heard that parenting feels like a blink of an eye. One day, the kids are babies. Then, boom, they're in college. A blink of an eye.
Yeah, that's accurate. I'm feeling how quickly life happened as Sophie just went to prom, accepted her dorm assignment and will graduate in a couple weeks. A blink of an eye.
Y'know, if life is a Texas hold 'em tournament, which it most likely is, you're going to have to push all your chips in the middle of the table at some point — or multiple points — and you only should do that when you know it's the right move. And even when it's a right move, the cards don't always hold up.
I went all-in with parenting, and the cards have held up. Even with the inevitable ups and downs of life, I've enjoyed this ride. All the days, years, stages — they've been a pleasure, and I deeply love the girls. Thank God, I went all-in. How could I not?
It's not like being a dad ends at age 18 or college, but I'm being forced to reinvent my identity a bit. This dad has to adapt to a newer version of life that isn't so dad-centric. I don't know if I'm transitioning into the Elder Statesman or Golf-aholic or Gardener or Whatever, but I'm forced to turn the dial down on my dad stuff.
Not too long ago, I reminisced about my Press-Telegram days, and part of my conclusion was that maybe I should've enjoyed my 10 years there more. I did enjoy it to a certain degree, but it was difficult to accept the constant downsizing and looking back to the past about what newspapers used to be.
The good news is that I don't feel that way about parenting. I've enjoyed it — big time. Of course, I made a zillion mistakes. I tried to make everything perfect in the beginning. I dabbled in helicoptering, then finally took some cues from How to Raise an Adult, and feel my approach has been successful. This has been life.
As we head into graduation season, it's totally different having a daughter graduating from high school than the 14 other graduations I've seen as a teacher. I get it now. I get the unified emotion we parents feel. Yeah, man, we've been through a lot. Let's move those tassels to the left and be proud.
I don't exactly know how I'll transition to the next step — a parent with a college kid — but that's fine. I'll enjoy this phase. And guess what? It's not really about me. It's about her, and I'm proud of the individual she is and will be.
Is TV as good as we think it is, or are we just being manipulated?
That's the question I'm pondering as I'm watching two fish-out-of-water coach shows — Ted Lasso and The White Shadow.
The title character in Lasso is an American football coach who takes over a soccer team in England. It's one of the most streamed shows nowadays, and, well, you've probably at least heard of it. Right?
The White Shadow (1978-81) features Ken Howard as Coach Ken Reeves, who leaves the Chicago Bulls to coach hoops at a predominantly black school in Los Angeles. I remember watching it as a kid, ages 5-8, and totally remember the players Coolidge and Salami. I mean, come on, who can ever forget a character named Salami?
I love Ted Lasso, so much so that I went as him for Halloween in 2021. The show has good vibes and is a feel-good one. One of the phrases that promotes it is "Kindness makes a comeback."
But after revisiting the first 10 episodes of The White Shadow, I may like the '70s show more. I'm pretty sure The White Shadow was far ahead of its time, and I can't say the same thing about Lasso.
The White Shadow usually tackles a big social issue in each episode. It's explored teen pregnancy, alcoholism, the school-to-prison pipeline, homophobia and even taking a difficult airplane ride from LAX to San Jose.
By the way, the title comes from the end of the pilot episode when Coach Reeves says, "I'm going to be leaning on you guys, and I'll be behind you every step of the way." Then player Morris Thorpe adds, "Yeah. Like a white shadow."
I find the show entertaining and comforting. Of course, there are some outdated, cringey moments, especially with how female characters are portrayed and filmed. However, the show, which was created by Bruce Paltrow (Gwyneth's dad), is pure on so many levels. It's got heart, a social conscience, and it's not just out to make a buck as Lasso and contemporary shows and movies are — to the umpteenth level.
The White Shadow predates product placement, so it doesn't fill the screen with constant Apple products as Lasso does. And it doesn't sneak in products like current shows, or movies, do. Heck, a popular movie just released is Air about Nike. On one level, that movie is a 112-minute ad.
For the longest time, TV shows have had various storylines, even in 23-minute sitcoms. I remember Seinfeld in the '90s definitely had multiple storylines, and The Sopranos did that, too. A typical Lasso episode has about five rotating storylines that are pretty fast-paced. In contrast, The White Shadow deals with just one storyline without any real subplots. That lone narrative thread is actually quite refreshing, and because of that, the show has more depth.
By revisiting The White Shadow, I also realized how overproduced and overstylized our current TV shows are. I remember hearing Jason Bateman once explain how on Ozark, they would film in bluish colors and greys to add an extra level of anxiety to a scene. With the lovey, calming music and pleasant hues in Lasso, I see that opposite tricks are being done to add warmth.
I'm not saying I don't like Lasso, but with advanced technology, the brain power of its writing staff and money of Apple behind it, it just may not have the pure heart that the character Ted Lasso has. But The White Shadow does.
Ted Lasso, like most shows today, pretends that everybody is equal in terms of social and economic class, and that's a gross lie. The White Shadow was created to expose those unfair differences in each episode.
I believe what we see on the Internet, and many of our TV shows, make a default assumption that 21st century capitalism is important. There's another default assumption that it's worth scrolling through advertisements to see Instagram posts that are really just more advertisements. Another default assumption is that watching a 5-second ad is worth seeing another vehicle of capitalism, some YouTube video.
Back in The White Shadow's time, we didn't have the hyper video and advertisement consumption that we have now. The average person did not have blind faith in the marketplace or the belief that as long as something sold, or got attention, then it's OK.
The time was more reflective. The show was more reflective than my beloved Lasso, and the show's creators did something innovative, and socially progressive. Long live The White Shadow!
One word that sticks in my mind while updating 100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend is ephemeral. With our ever-changing world, I wonder if books have become more timely yet more disposable.
Ninety-two of the 100 books I recommend come from the 21st century, and I believe nonfiction exploded as a genre around 2010. In just four years, I felt obliged to replace 25 book reviews with new ones. However, I must point out that 10 of the original reviews simply were books recommended by readers and the humor category wasn't that strong.
My odd main takeaway updating this list and writing 25 new reviews is that I'm developing more of an acceptance to nonreaders. It's not their fault. Our capitalistic culture is too much for many to overcome, and while publishing is a $30 billion industry, it doesn't compare to the $720 billion entertainment industry or $1.8 trillion technology industry.
Book reading is, and will remain, a counterculture action loved by only a few. It doesn't mean nonreaders are bad people, but they think (or don't think, wink) in ways I might not.
For those who actually read, or might give a book a try, I have vetted and give my seal of approval to all 100 books on this list. Many of these books aren't perfect, and some are slow in parts. But the vast majority are page-turners that I couldn't put down.
Also, some categories are perfect for some books, but not all. Many books could be in other categories, but, eh, let's not split hairs over that. Enjoy this list, and let me know if you love any of these as much as I do!
I fully understand, like most authors, that nobody truly reads everything I write. And that's OK. I forget the exact percentage, but something like 80 percent of books bought are never even opened. Not even opened!
We readers are a dying breed. I'm sure you're likely scrolling — and not actually reading — this list of 100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend, but if you're actually reading word for word, I thank you. I appreciate words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters and books.
Videos are great and all, but nonfiction books fill gaps in our educations. I feel so fortunate to be able to constantly fill those gaps and choose education (or at least an effort to educate) over ignorance.
After reviewing 25 books new to me for 100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend, I must conclude this: Reading is for suckers!
One of the Snooze Button Generation's monthly posts grabs at least a few hundred hits. For the book reviews, none of them got to 100 on the day they were posted. I'm interpreting those lack of hits as this: "Hey, dude, stop these reviews. We don't care!"
I guess that response coincides with our current climate, where reflection is low as is full-length book reading. So I'm stopping reading ASAP and will be devoting my life to TikTok.
The big question: What took me so long? Everybody knows that I'd be a superb TikTok personality. Heck, I might even do an ice-bucket challenge or mannequin challenge and even get a fidget spinner. This Gen Xer is hip to all our current trends!
Honestly, I just felt odd releasing my concluding post of 100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend with all of its links on April Fool's Day. So Happy April Fool's Day! Look for culminating post for 100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend on Monday.
Attending a youth soccer game can be an education in parenting gone wrong. You might see parents demeaning referees, caring too much about the outcome and searching for the next Pele. Then, when it's all over, everybody gets a trophy!
Poor parenting and helicopter parenting have negative ramifications, and Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt explore those in The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (2018).
The book explores some ideas in American pop culture that are new, compared to 20 years ago. It explores identity politics, cancel culture and "safetyism," which is how important one's physical and emotional safety is. A big point about safetyism is that overprotection of one's emotions can build weak individuals who hardly have resilience or grit.
What I respond to most in The Coddling of the American Mind is the authors' list of cognitive distortions and how they used to infect individuals, but now they have infected the masses. First off, I suggest everybody check out a list of cognitive distortions and see if they have a tendency toward any of them. Knowing what they are helps, and they will save anyone from any possible problem. (Hopefully, that's a joke and an example of magnification.)
It's true that black-and-white thinking affects the masses, especially when we're talking politics. There also is a bunch of catastrophizing and overgeneralizing that I see in media. Our divisive, combative political climate plays a role in this, and it's easy for the masses to be swept away in a cognitive distortion because that's what's happening to the person right next to them.
A lot of the book focuses on the culture of college campuses and how college students are showing up to campuses ill-equipped to function on a reasonable level of a human being. I remember being shocked, reading How to Raise an Adult (2015) about how many parents were inserting themselves in college campuses to help their children with basic things, like schedule changes and grade disputes.
Just like the child is the center of their cookies on the Internet and their iPhone, some kids assume that they are the center of the family and then the center of wherever they are. The phone and social media play a huge role with that skewed perspective.
With Coddling of the American Mind out in 2018, it examines more how overparenting hurt the generation in college. However, I realize that "overparenting" might be a misnomer. In fact, overparenting perhaps could be called "overprotecting" or "overscheduling."
To me, parenting has an important emotional component, and by shielding children from difficult situations, or difficult emotions, that is a disservice. Maybe overparenting shouldn't even be considered parenting. It's just whack.
Lukianoff and Haidt definitely are onto something, that the common "parenting" of a generation has set them up for failure. I understand that helicopter parents may have evolved to bulldozer parents. I want to be optimistic for the future, but it's just so difficult when I see so many kids being raised by their screens or by parents addicted to screens.
Many Americans seem pretty darn ethnocentric. They accept Cheese Whiz, football and Fudruckers as facts of life, when they are just part of our corporate culture.
I feel we take too much of our mainstream culture for granted, when there is a wealth of other meaningful cultures living here as well, including our Native American brothers and sisters.
I initially was curious why Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (2013) by Robin Wall Kimmerer had jumped onto the The New York Times Best Sellers list and has been there for 153 weeks. I reluctantly got the book and, perhaps surprisingly, fell in love with it.
Kimmerer is a botanist and Potawatomi professor who examines indigenous people's knowledge, wisdom and culture. I like to soak in that culture and think how it may complement, or improve, modern living.
The book consists of a bunch of essays, and their tender, caring mood makes them feel like much-needed hugs to the reader with love declarations for Mother Earth.
Braiding Sweetgrass starts with Sky Woman, the Native American story of creation. One day, a pregnant woman drops through a hole created by an uprooted tree, and that starts the human race. I would say Sky Woman is just a tiny bit nicer than Adam and Eve eating an apple, learning about satan and being shamed.
Speaking of apples, I also remember learning about apple orchards in Braiding Sweetgrass. In an apple orchard, all trees grow at the same, healthy rate, even if one is in the shade or in bad soil. The healthy trees send their nutrients to the ones who need it more, and that enables them all to grow together. I wonder if we human beings could learn anything from that.
With Sky Woman and apple orchards, I see that Native Peoples have much different core beliefs than their European conquerers. Even with land ownership, that is a concept accepted as a fact of life for many of us. But that's an obvious human construct. Humans created land ownership, and when settlers came to the Americas, Native Peoples did not comprehend that.
The Earth is a giving, loving entity that we human beings need to survive. Why would the land need to be "owned" by certain select people? Aren't we all just renting our space from Mother Earth?
A theme in Braiding Sweetgrass is sustainable land stewardship. That seems to be opposite philosophy of current Americans, including former presidential candidate John Kerry, the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. He recently explained how American corporations will usher in a new era of environmentalism led by energy companies, including ExxonMobil. ... Kerry actually said that. Lol!
To look and explore the wonder of plants, trees, algae and all things earth-relate has started with me, and I give Kimmerer credit for allowing me to look at the world through her loving eyes. I feel it's healthy to question our fundamental beliefs now and again — whether it be about creation, land ownership or trees.
That reminds me of that famous Mark Twain quote: "It ain't what you don't know that gets you trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."
Jenny Odell taught me that bird watching is actually bird noticing. We're probably not going to see them, but we can listen and notice.
When I actually listen, I hear birds all over the place, and I hear various other sounds as well. I notice a lot when I actually look, different trees and shrubs, grass growing through sidewalks.
I absolutely love How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (2019) by Odell because it's helped me re-engage with the physical and natural world, after giving away a lot of my life to social media, my phone and TV.
I've always resisted Google. Why just one Internet search engine? Where are Lycos and Excite?
I held out from writing with Google Docs until about seven years ago. I just thought it was silly that I'd have to be online to write. Why? Couldn't I just save my work on my hard drive? So I wrote — and often still do — in Pages on my Mac.
In my mind, I look at Google searches as the start of the attention economy we find ourselves. Seriously, is this how any consumer, or lay person, would draw it up? Our every move is tracked so the right business can sell to us. Say what? ... And don't get me started with Google Classroom, which tracks what our students are doing.
Part of How to Do Nothing explains what we all know by now, that our Internet searches and phone lives are commodities, sold to companies, who do their best to cyber-hunt us and advertise to us. I do not like this system one bit, and, like Odell, I know my life is at its best when I'm not a part of that madness, when the screens are off and I'm exploring the actual, physical world.
Although I think "the kids today" give too much of their lives away to Big Tech and are being digitally manipulated, I guess it's not my place to scold them. However, I do like to present arguments for engaging with the actual, physical world vs. screens. The problem I run across is that many kids do not know how to engage with the actual, physical world. It's like their curiosity and humanity have been digitized out of them.
I guess I'm only really in charge of my own life and how I'd like it to be, and in the end, I want minimal screen time. How to Do Nothing offers more than that plan. It's a critique of capitalism disguised as a self-help book. Sure, I love the self-help part about re-engaging with the world, but then, it becomes a much deeper look at 21st century capitalism.
I hate to think that I'm a marionette moving my way through Internet searches and social media because artificial intelligence knows how to keep my attention. I can see how people can fall into YouTube warps, where Google manipulates them by constantly suggesting videos that fit their profile, likes and demographic.
Odell, who also plays with context as an artist, rightfully points out that the Internet strips us of time and place. But as a human being, doesn't time and place — AKA context — matter? Are we even human if time and place cease to exist?
With all the scrolling on our devices and all the images we encounter, where is context? We likely just respond to guttural impulses or what the computer already knows we'll respond to, and then the computer — and tech companies — shape us. I fear that we no longer shape ourselves and that our physical environment no longer shapes us either.
Another fear I have is that our cyber-time has become so normalized that Odell and I look like the weird ones for talking about reconnecting to the physical world and resisting the tracking parade of our online lives. But try it. Go out without the phone. See how incredible our surroundings are when we simply notice them.
If you watch a movie from the '80s, like Splash or Big or Back to the Future, I bet you react how I do. You'll think, wow, that moved way slower than I remember. You'll notice more details than you did back in the day.
In the digital age, our brains have changed. We process video much more quickly than we used to. Our attention spans have diminished. Heck, we don't even have time to look at a 5-second ad on YouTube.
In the digital age, what has happened to our reading brains? Maryanne Wolf explores this in Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in the Digital Age (2018), and I find the book especially important for anyone who reads full-length books because it is truthful and enlightening.
I stumbled across this fact in Reader, Come Home: The average person encounters 100,000 words each day. That number is mighty high to me. That's a full-length book. Each day.
However, those 100,000 words typically accompany a photo or are scrolled past. Then, when we're actually reading, we are so accustomed to looking past words so fast that we don't read every word. We're scrolling, in sense, when we're reading nowadays. And if you happen to read this sentence, go ahead and tell me that at authorjoestevens@gmail.com.
Our lack of extended reading harms us. Not only do our brains end up craving video snippets, but we lose empathy. When we participate in actual human life, it can feel boring.
Personally, I had a stint in which I checked my phone at every possible free moment. At red lights — that is one place that comes to mind that made me realize I needed to change that. Thankfully, I did.
In Reader, Come Home, Wolf looks at the science of what happens to the brain with the bombardment of video snippets and digital experiences. That scientific part of the book was OK, to me. But I especially responded to the arguments Wolf made for reading, calling upon Aristotle, Derrida, Heidegger and a mini-army of renowned thinkers.
Heidegger argued that a human's special nature is to be a reflective being. I agree with Heidegger, and where is reflection nowadays? So much "content" is just consumed and forgotten. As I write this in an outdoor cafe, by the way, I notice that everyone here is on their phone, presumably working or consuming that content. Typical, I suppose.
With Wolf mentioning how Proust referred to reading as "that fertile miracle of communication in the midst of solitude" or explaining how the act of reading goes beyond the wisdom of the author to discover one's own, I loved the pro-reading passages.
In the digital age, however, reading may have morphed into a different animal. Nowadays, we experience "continuous partial attention," a phrase coined by writer/consultant Linda Stone. Are we even reading when we're reading? Is our attention being hijacked during reading as well? Are all those video snippets too much for our brain to overcome?
The phone, AKA the pocket supercomputer, allows us to consume so much content — videos, social media feeds, text, sports scores, stocks, emails, you name it — that it puts up a firewall between us and our reflective nature. Books, on the other hand, may get us to slow down and reflect.
Because of our omnipotent supercomputers, our brains need faster-paced books now, and we likely turn pages much more quickly than a decade ago. New fiction books almost make it a certainty that they will end each chapter with something surprising to get the reader to keep going, just like what TV shows do to keep the viewer binge-watching.
Our media has conditioned us to live in non-reflective, superficial ways. But I simply refuse to succumb to that.
Sure, I can watch some schlock TV, but something in me yearns to see things in a deeper way, to connect to wisdom of the past, to connect to our great thinkers and to understand that our minds, our perecptions, aren't meant to be wasted on supercomputer diversions.
At a certain point during The Biggest Bluff, I looked up and thought, "Am I the mark here? Am I being manipulated into liking this book?"
Y'know, if you can't spot a sucker at the table, then you're the sucker.
Eh, even if I were the mark, I enjoyed Maria Konnikova's 2016 psychological look at poker and how she burst on the poker scene. Parts of The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, And Win reminded me of the WSOP-winning escapade Positively Fifth Street (2003) by James McManus.
Let's just be honest: A lot of us have some sort of dream of making a splash in the poker world, and these two books play into that.
A few things separate Konnikova and The Biggest Bluff from other rush-driven poker books. She's a woman in the testosterone, douche driven poker world, and she's got a PhD in psychology. She also hooked up with poker legend Erik Seidel as her mentor, and their relationship and his insights were definite highlights of the book.
One of Siedel's mantra's throughout the book is "less certainty, more inquiry," and I love that. I believe that guiding phrase would work in life in general, and as a recovering "know-it-all," I wholeheartedly subscribe to it.
The pacing of The Biggest Bluff kept me on my toes. The way the book progresses, Konnikova puts us in her mind through her exhilarating ride with a lot of ups, but inevitable downs. However, I must point out that about 99 percent of gambling stories are about big wins. Only 1 percent are about losses. So while the book has many more killer wins than reality, her psychological approach makes it worthwhile.
I don't buy a few things in the book, including that she knew absolutely nothing about poker before she started playing. I guess that fact doesn't matter, but it just seems that she wouldn't go into poker if she "didn't even know how many cards were in a deck." Eh, that seems like a bit of an exaggeration. But so what?
When she is playing in Monte Carlo, then winning in the Caribbean, it sounds like a fantasy, and it's fun to read. Perhaps that's what poker is — representing something that isn't real. Especially in bluffs, that's what we're doing.
Could her ride be as glamorous as Monte Carlo and the Caribbean? I don't think so. I've seen poker rooms; they can be gross. And, mathematically, they're full of losers.
So I guess the big takeaway is: What is truth? I'm not suggesting that The Biggest Bluff is fiction, which it is not. But in storytelling, we reveal only what we want and what makes the best story. We don't include the sad, inevitable pain that poker ultimately is. Or is it?
I must admit I was envious of Konnikova's reality. Maybe I need to learn to master myself — and win.
During the World Series of Poker, an opportunistic capitalist created a "Bad Beat" counseling table. If you exited the WSOP, you could pay a small fee and explain your poker injustice to the bad-beat counselor.
I always thought the Bad Beat counseling table was for those who didn't quite understand poker, odds or reality, and Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts (2018) by poker pro Annie Duke helped confirm I was right.
Thinking in Bets is entertaining and thoughtful, and I loved reading it. It made me realize how so many people engage in resulting when it comes to decision making and then don't fully understand a good decision vs. a bad one. They focus too much on a good result vs. a bad result.
Too often, we look at the result, or hindsight, to rate our decisions, and we disregard the information we had at the time. We can use hold 'em poker as an example. Let's say you believe your opponent has a pair of pocket jacks pre-flop, and you hold pocket kings. If you get in all your chips before the flop, it is an excellent decision, no matter what happens.
If your opponent flops a set of jacks and knocks you out of your tournament, it remains a good decision. But, unfortunately, our emotions often cloud how we perceive the decision. Just because we just lost doesn't mean it was a wrong decision.
We do this in life all the time. When something bad happens, we often assume we made a bad decision. When something good happens, we often assume we made a good decision. We disregard all of the information we had at the time, and chances are, we live a life making constant good decisions, based on the information we had at the time. (At least I do, I think).
Thinking in Bets isn't really about poker, but Duke made me realize that poker is more about life than chess. In chess, we see absolutely everything happening right in front of us. There are no surprises.
In poker, we don't have all the information. We don't know the next card. We don't know what our opponent has, but rather, we know their pattern and tendencies and how we perceive that opponent. That is how life actually works. We rarely have all the information we'd like to have, but we still must make a decision and do our best with that lack of information.
Duke also pointed out the logic behind my lack of gambling. Yes, I love playing poker with friends (but not in casinos), and I also run a football pool and play fantasy football and fantasy golf. That's the extent of my gambling. I don't like to gamble because, statistically, loses hurts twice as much as winning feels good. Emotionally, it just doesn't add up.
I also remember how Duke explained how people often fall into a trap of confirmatory thinking instead of exploratory thinking. We might find ourselves looking at select facts that help us confirm an outcome we desire or something we want to be true, but we don't often just explore with a blank slate of a mind.
I've often thought maybe I should take poker more seriously and play in some tournaments, but, nah, I don't want to be seated at a table that long. I'd rather play golf. I believe there is something in me that wants me to compete, and I loved that Duke shared some of her expertise in Thinking in Bets.
"Can you Millennials do anything without your phone? Can you even make a phone call?"
"Do you even know what work is, Millennial?"
Well, OK, Boomer, I used to hear those type of Millennial-hating statements, and as a Gen Xer, I must admit that I found some truth in them. But I failed to look at Millennials from a wider view, and Malcolm Harris helped me do that in Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials (2017).
Harris' main point is that Millennials are working more and getting paid less than any previous generation. Their generation is by far the most educated in history, yet is projected to make less than their parents. Basically, capitalism maximizes labor and diminishes lives away from consumption. In the advent of technology with "smart" devices, Interweb cookies and data in their hands as children, Millennials have been commoditized like no previous generation.
Harris points out that economic success is stacked against young people, and he's right. He delves into the student-loan crisis, and I respond to what he writes about our schools. He writes that the schools get kids to work, work, work under the vague disguise of a "pedagogical mask." Again, I couldn't agree more. It's just so much work, and how much if it is actual education?
Honestly, the schools are pretty obvious about this. They explicitly have kids choose career paths as early as high school, and kids and parents either unwittingly, or wittingly, jump quickly into being human capital. High school can be a dystopia of excessive competition, stress and fear of the future.
What ever happened to actually being educated to become a well-rounded human being? Why do the kids have to be human capital so darn young? What happened to childhoods?
Another huge insight Harris provides is through the lens of human capital and what that means to Millennials. By being commoditized as children, they then can be constantly commoditized their entire lives. Not only will they have tech jobs, but they "unwind" and find their entertainment through tech and their sharing their data with corporations and conglomerates.
Yeah, they might work from home, but that often means they never can turn off work. Sure, they have benefits of technology, but in the work place, they face a mountain of tasks and emails that are neverending. Work stays in their mind and at their fingertips 24/7. There is no turning it off.
This hyper-capitalized, tech youth experienced by the masses just doesn't have an economic payoff. Maybe we Gen Xers have been confused at what comes off as entitlement from Millennials because they never really had in-person childhoods. They just consumed digitally and consumed more digitally, and they worked and worked in school. And where's their wealth? Crypto?
If you look at the numbers and look at wealth distribution, it's easy to conclude that the American Dream never worked for the masses. Sure, it may have worked for a few who busted their tails to achieve some crumbs from the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, but we have a glut of human capital that will continue to be exploited — as is the way of our capitalistic system.
It's hard not to like Scott Galloway, who eloquently rants on Real Time with Bill Maher, makes common-sense capitalistic points and seems to overflow with insight.
I listened to his podcast a few times and embraced The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google (2017). I like when "The Professor" is being "The Professor," when he is wry and direct. Yes, old man, tell us what the kids today need to know and do!
So there was a little of that in The Four, such as Galloway's assertions that to be successful an individual needs emotional maturity, curiosity and ownership of your task, project and business.
That sounds right to me. But I would add that you need drive. I'm not so sure I have it in me to be a full-fledged, battle-it-out entrepreneur because I don't have the drive to do it. But it might have been a much different story when I was in my 20s and 30s.
The power of FANMAG — Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Microsoft, Amazon and Google — is so utterly enormous that The Four is a read I consider necessary, and, of course, I learned a lot about Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.
Although it's so obvious, I didn't realize that Apple is a luxury brand. When Galloway spelled that out to me, I felt embarrassed that I used to think it was a mere tech company. No, no, Apple's all about the packaging and branding and ability to have me think it is on the cutting edge of technology and style.
The fact that Apple comprises 7.1 percent of the S&P 500, and Amazon, Facebook and Google have ginormous market shares force us to understand what these companies do and their economic and social power. As time progresses, they are becoming increasingly more powerful.
I believe all of us, Democrat and Republican alike, see that the Big Four's power as so vast that something needs to be done. But what? I guess small victories and a sense of justice is all we can ask for, but it's as if they're so powerful that nothing major can happen.
To me, the huge problem is how much commerce must go through The Four. Right now, I'm writing on a MacBook Pro (Apple) on the Blogger website (owned by Google), and I'll post this on Facebook. Maybe Amazon isn't as obvious, but I started my day with an Illy espresso, ordered from Amazon.
Monopolies always have been prevalent in the United States. In fact, one of the first games any of us learn is Monopoly. With Big Tech, monopolies build exponentially, and from their perspective, it's their virtual world, and we're just living it.
The Four sparked an interest in the inner workings of corporations for me, and I remain vastly under-informed with how they operate. But the book helped. I'm happy I got that education, but perhaps I wanted more of Galloway's dynamic personality in it.
When he focuses on the OODA loop, the four-step approach for decision making that is observe, orient, decide, act, I loved it. That came from a military strategist, and it makes total sense in decision making. So I loved Galloway's common-sense advice, which also included this gem: Stay loyal to people, not organizations.
