Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we’re talking about sex, Tool, Jimmy Fallon, an abundance of Michaels, and more.
Your letters:
Jamie:
Is JD Vance a potentially worse president than Trump because he is who he is and because he’s NOT batshit crazy?
How do you know that JD Vance isn’t batshit crazy? Does a sane person willingly make themselves the pawn of people who are transparently trying to annihilate democratic society? Do they tell the world, I love my wife even though she’s not white!? Do they go out in public looking like THAT every day? Don’t go selling Vance short in the crazy department just because he’s not as loudly and obnoxiously crazy as his boss. Crazy people aren’t a monolith.
President Trump’s 978th reported brush with death prompted another round of folks reminding me that the cure could be worse than the disease. Mike Pence would be a more dangerous President than Trump. Ron DeSantis, currently turning the state of Florida into sultry North Korea, would also be more dangerous. Now here comes Vance as the presumed standard bearer for when Olympus has fallen, and I gotta freak out about his ability to become the mythical “Trump if Trump knew how to do stuff.”
But none of these assholes know what they’re doing, and all of them have benefitted, immeasurably, from Trump’s ability to suck the oxygen out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Once Trump dies—and holy shit, can we at least get some sort of written guarantee that he will eventually?—that cover is blown. These men are much more dangerous working FOR Trump than they would be if given the crown themselves.
This is the advantage of having a spam cannon as the leader of your party. Everything that Trump says is both distracting and a lie. Those lies pollinate the internet and, together with the digital world’s near infinite number of slop hoses, create a dense fog from which nothing can be gleaned. Trump’s own near-assassination was forgotten in an instant, as was any context surrounding it. The same thing is already happening with Charlie Kirk’s murder. The fog has quickly shrouded who Kirk was as both a person and a professional. Kirk himself was an enthusiastic contributor to this mass obfuscation, flooding the culture with a form of hateful, violent rhetoric that was increasingly accepted by the political media as mainstream opinions. Thus, the man’s legacy—if it can be called that—is destined to get lost in wash, no matter how many flags are lowered in his honor.
This is the legacy that Trump has established: a society that has no shared truths. JD Vance, like the other scum, has profited handsomely from this setup. But you’ll excuse me if I think he lacks the cunning, the charisma, the will, and the popularity to keep the fuck factory operational. The specter of his ascension doesn’t fill me with enough dread to stop yearning for Trump to fuck off eternally. I can worry about our new asshole president after that.
Chris:
I can’t really explain why, but I get the feeling that Jimmy Fallon is a gigantic dick in person. There has to be a chance that he’s slapped a coffee or clipboard out of a hapless production assistant’s hand at least once in his career as a late-night host. I made a gentleman’s bet with a friend of mine that Fallon will have an Ellen DeGeneres-esque exposé at some point in the future. I never really understood his ascendancy to late-night comedy. Even when he laughs and jokes, his eyes seem to suggest that he’s either bored, annoyed or seething about something underneath that pretend mirth. Am I reading something into nothing?
It’s not that Jimmy Fallon is necessarily a dick, but he is a known lush, and has been for decades now. I knew someone who worked on Fallon’s Tonight Show many years ago. Fallon was so checked at work out that the host’s EP, who was a raging dick to everyone beneath him, essentially ran the whole operation. Writers on Fallon were signed to 13-week contracts at a time. This gave them little to no job security, and management was more than happy to remind them of that fact. So if Jimmy Fallon wasn’t a huge dick in person, he enabled all of the dicks around him.
This is why Jimmy Fallon became famous: because he’s harmless. The most revered late night hosts (Letterman, Carson, Colbert Report Colbert) were part of the machine but never felt of it. They had the ability to connect with the audience in a way that implied, “We don’t like our bosses any more than you do.” Fallon, by contrast, is just a liquored-up Scottie that network execs can throw out on stage to blow cue card lines, sing Christmas songs with Ariana Grande, and generally act like everything in the world is A-OK. He has all the subversiveness of a Filet o’ Fish, which makes him a useful idiot for all of the shitbags currently steering this country into a ditch. Jimmy Fallon, like Jay Leno before him, is a media CEO’s dream stooge, boyish pranks and all.
Rolling Stone actually published an expose of Fallon’s show two years ago, but it was so light on specific offenses that there wasn’t much fallout. I doubt it would have mattered if it had. Thus, you and I will have to settle for hating Jimmy Fallon for more benign reasons, namely that he’s a thirsty, unfunny dipshit.
Jeff:
What is up with Jersey Mike’s? They willingly advertise that they douse their sandwiches with some type of Tommy/Danny DeVito oil fluid and pretend like that’s a good thing. Yeah, like the sign of a good sandwich is whether it’s soggy, like you just picked it up out of a storm drain.
I fucking love dressing on my Italian sub, so you’re “What’s the deal?”-ing the wrong man here. I remember when I was a kid and was like, “Who puts salad dressing on a sandwich?” before taking a bite and having my world rocked. So I get any initial skepticism toward having your giant sub swimming in vinegar, but you and I aren’t children anymore. We know that a good sandwich needs a moistening agent. If you’re like me and you don’t care for mayonnaise, you know that red wine vinegar does the job expertly.
We haven’t even talked about dip sandwiches yet, which are the peak of the form. At least once a week, I crave a dipped Italian beef from Portillo’s in Chicago. Whenever I see a French dip sandwich on a bar menu, I get more excited than is reasonable. And if you live in any major city, you know that BIG BIRRIA has infiltrated every chips-and-salsa emporium, to the point where I can get birria tacos at the fucking airport if I hit the right concourse. These tacos come with a side of beef consommé for dipping. If you pass on dipping your taco into this witchy brew, you are a FOOL. Maybe our dumbest living citizen. So do not slander wet sandwiches and tacos on my watch, or else you’ll face my wrath.
By the way, I’m fine with Jersey Mike’s. It ain’t the best sub in the world, and yet it’s miles better than the awful sandwiches that Subway and/or Jimmy John’s are peddling. If I see that a Jersey Mike’s is at the next rest stop, then I’m comfortable with that for my road lunch. Plus Danny DeVito is the rare celebrity who’s actually earned the “national treasure” compliment, so as far as I’m concerned Jersey Mike’s can keep on keepin’ on.
Matt:
I know you’re probably not the most unbiased person to ask, but I need your help settling a debate I’ve been having with my girlfriend. Is Arnold Schwarzenegger a good actor? Like most warm-blooded men of a certain age, I love me an Arnie flick, but every time my girlfriend sees him on the screen, she complains about how bad of an actor he is.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was good actor. He was a limited actor; no one would ever buy Arnold playing Count Almasy in The English Patient. But if you needed a big strong dude who could deliver corny one-liner with the exact right mix of seriousness and camp, there was no one better.
I bring proof. Veteran character actor Lance Henriksen was once the first choice to play the title role in The Terminator. But Henriksen was tapped for the gig before director James Cameron met with Arnold to discuss playing the character of Reese (a role that eventually went to 80s legend Michael Biehn). During that meeting, both Arnold and Cameron realized that Schwarzenegger was a much better fit to play the villain, and the rest is history. Imagine if Henriksen had gotten that role. No ding on him, but he wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good as Arnold ended up being.
In fact, two extremely good actors have already attempted to fill Arnold’s shoes and failed miserably. Colin Farrell headlined a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reboot of Total Recall, and Jason Momoa was the centerpiece of a Conan the Barbarian reboot that you also don’t remember. Those movies failed because they were tired rehashes, but also because neither lead actor possessed Arnold Schwarzenegger’s innate Arnold-ness. Outside of maybe Alan Ritchson, no one does. I have no interest in giving Matt ammo to go “nanny nanny booboo!” to his lady, so let’s say that Arnold was an acquired taste as an actor, but was an undeniably brilliant movie star. There you go.
(NOTE: I’m speaking of Arnold’s acting career in the past tense here because I have zero faith that his current, post-gubernatorial output is worth a shit.)
HALFTIME!
Michael:
Can you describe the moment you most felt like a football coach? Can be NCAA or NFL, none of that peewee crap.
It was two weeks ago. I got dressed a brand new suit for a wedding. When I came downstairs in my fly threads, my wife said, “Oh thank God. I was so sick of you being dressed like a coach every day.” She was right. I DO dress like a coach every day: athletic shorts, t-shirt, mesh hoodie. I felt so coach-y when my wife insulted me that I was like, “Hmm, maybe I really should start coaching youth football.” It’s not the first time I’ve considered it. I love football to death, and I still know a thing or two about how to play offensive line. I’ve long thought about coaching youth football once I’m done writing. I’ve also imagined myself as an NFL head coach that wins multiple Super Bowls. My daydreams have broad range like that.
The problem with attaining those dreams (at least the youth football one; the other one is jussssst a bit out of reach) is in the logistics. Coaching is hard, and I have zero experience doing it. It also requires me to leave my house, which I have no interest in doing. And it means that I have to deal with my fellow coaches, demanding parents, and kids who may have little to no interest in anything I tell them. Why would I subject myself to any of that nonsense when I can simply dress like a coach instead and then hang out in my chair all day? You see why I’m so hesitant.
Mark:
Most meals, I subconsciously work things out so I’m left with a single bit of each item left on the plate. This morning was one bite of scrambled eggs, one bite of toast, one bite of bacon and one bite of hash brown. Am I weird? Or is this fairly common?
My daughter does this! It drives me fucking NUTS! She eats 90 percent of her meal and then throws the rest in the garbage. Every time this happens, I’m like finish your fucking dinner. Then my wife chides me, because she doesn’t want our kid to get all self-conscious about her eating habits (and by extension her body image). Then I relent, but demand she give me that last bite of chicken so that nothing goes to waste. Then my wife is like, “You can’t eat that! She’s just getting over a cold!” Then I flee the house to buy myself some Popeye’s. This happens every night. I now weigh 500 pounds have a resting heart rate of 320 bpm.
Ben:
I’m curious about a band seemingly missing from our overlapping taste in music: Tool. I was somewhat of a latecomer to their (swallows salamander) oeuvre, and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed you write about them in the years I’ve been reading. I will absolutely air drum my way to the grocery store getting to the end of one of their nine minute-long songs.
I only know, and like, Tool’s hit singles. I vividly remember seeing the “Sober” video for the first time back in the 1990s and, like everyone else, being weirded out by it. “Why is there raw meat going through that pipeline?” I asked out loud. But the song itself was so tight that I didn’t bother investigating the mystery any further. I also really liked “Stinkfist,” although I’m still extremely unnerved by the song’s lyrics (they’re about fisting). And I still love rocking out to “Judith,” a song from lead singer Maynard James Keenan’s side project A Perfect Circle. But I never gave Tool’s proggier shit much of a chance. I took their opus “Lateralus” for a spin but peaced out when no discernible hooks were forthcoming, and haven’t been tempted to revisit it since.
This is a shame because Tool should be a band I’m crazy for. My Metallica fandom means that I’m not afraid of lengthy metal tracks, and my appreciation for weird acts should endear me to Tool, given that they’re one of the weirdest bands ever to sign to a major label, if not the most menacing. I also had to give both Slayer and Queens of the Stone Age a second chance before the light went on. For now, though, I’ll admire Tool mostly from a distance.
Greg:
Which movie do you think get referred to most by people who haven’t seen it? Kelsey’s article on Trump made me think of how frequently people who never saw all of Weekend at Bernie’s refer to it only because we all understand the core premise.
That might very well be the right answer. Me and my grade school buddies were fired the fuck up to see that movie when it came out. They pretend a dead guy is alive! That’s fucking crazy! Then we saw the movie and I didn’t remember a single line from it. That taught me to avoid Weekend at Bernie’s 2, especially after the sequel’s trailer showed the corpse Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser) walking, without assistance. You can only insult my intelligence so much. I was through with the Bernie extended universe after that, as were the bulk of Americans. The original film grossed $30 million at the box office, which means that I can probably count the number of people who’ve seen it in its entirety without getting tired. That story was always destined to work better as a reference than as a full-length feature film, and so it has.
Honorable mention goes to Pygmalion, which I’ve seen referenced in pretty much every review of every similar movie made since. I think the original movie was about a teenage girl getting a cool makeover, but I’m not certain.
David:
I’m a recently divorced 43-year old and I’ve begun dating again. I’ve met someone I like and genuinely get along with, but we have zero sexual chemistry. Like, ZERO. I genuinely enjoy her company. She’s funny and quick-witted. She’s considerate and generous. These are all qualities we should want in a long-term partner, especially as we get older and physical intimacy becomes less frequent. But I’m still relatively young, I really enjoy having sex, and she isn’t very enthusiastic in this department. What do I do? I have to end this relationship, don’t I? I don’t want to come off like some Maxim-brained, 2006 Entourage enthusiast in my views on the importance of sex in a relationship, but it feels like we’ve hit a sticking point that I can’t get past.
You’re not wrong to be worried. You met a woman you really like, and yet the two of you are sexually incompatible. You’re not a chauvinist dinosaur for wanting to get laid. Everyone wants to get laid! That’s the most normal thing to ever want! It’s how you express your disappointment where the difference lies. Sit down with your new girlfriend and explain to her that having a physical relationship means a lot to you, and that your future relationship will suffer greatly if you two don’t have one. You don’t have to be crass about it: “put out or get out!” etc. You can just say how you feel and then, in listening to her reply, see if you two can work toward fixing the problem together. You may not, but at least both of you will end that conversation knowing where the other stands. That’s the right way to go about things.
Many American men fail in this regard. The manosphere is the latest mechanism by which far too many young men are conditioned to believe that sex is some sort of power struggle to be won. This isn’t necessarily a new problem, but the speed and volume at which the internet allows these awful lessons to be passed around makes it harder for those young men to understand what constitutes a healthy outlook on sex, and how to have a productive conversation about it.
This is a byproduct of the fog I wrote at length about up above. The internet causes people to be more disconnected not just ideologically, but also physically. The result is a population not only unable to talk about sex like grownups, but unable to even conceive of the idea. None of this is healthy. We’re talking about sex here, something that’s a biological imperative across every mammalian species. Sex is good for the mind and body, and it feels AMAZING. The only way out of this, as with every other modern problem, is to have a conversation face-to-face with people, instead of using your phone to constantly avoid it. Everyone has that ability, so let’s start using it.
Emails of the week!
Michael:
A disproportionate amount of published Funbag entries are sent by Michaels. I know because every time I write in, I’m disappointed when I read “Michael:” followed by a question from some other Michael who is not me. From January 2025 to September 2nd, the Funbag features entries from a total of 38 Michaels or variants of thereof (32 Michaels, 5 Mikes, 1 Mikey, data set copied below). So please curtail entries from Michaels going forward, except for this one.
P.S. I am not a crackpot.
Funbag Michaels (January – September 2)
1/2: 1 Michael
1/7: 1 Michael
1/14: 0
1/21: 0
1/28: 0
2/4: 2 Michaels
2/11: 1 Michael, 1 Mike
2/18: 0
2/25: 0
3/4: 1 Michael
3/11: 3 Michaels
3/18: 1 Mike
3/25: 2 Michaels, 2 Mikes
4/1: 2 Michaels,
4/8: 2 Michaels
4/15 **NO FUNBAG**
4/22: 1 Michael
4/29: 3 Michaels
5/6: 0
5/13: 0
5/20: 1 Michael
5/27: 1 Michael, 1 Mike
6/3: 1 Michael
6/10: 0
6/17: 2 Michaels
6/24: 0
7/1: 1 Michael
7/8: 0
7/15: 1 Michael
7/22: 1 Michael
7/29: **Burneko Funbag** 0
8/5: 1 Michael
8/19: 1 Michael
8/26: 0
9/2: 3 Michaels, 1 Mikey
But wait! There’s another!
Adam:
Tasked with picking up a new programming language for a work project, I practiced by writing a script that determined the most common Funbag question contributor names. It scraped all 255 Funbag posts, counted up all occurrences of the names (accounting for variations in various name spellings such as Steve/Steven/Stephen), and broke everything down by the byline for that week’s Funbag.
The results were gob-smackingly startling: Magary has an incredibily stark bias towards questions from Michaels (13% for Drew vs 1.2% of U.S. population per Wikipedia) and Matthews (11% Drew versus 0.5% U.S. population). And yet James (2% for Drew), John (>1%), and Robert (1.7%) are much more popular names in the U.S. What gives? Does giving a child the name Matt or Mike predestine them to become lawyers? Or does Drew personally know a bunch of Matts and Mikes, and likes to preferentially answer their questions? How about more questions from Stinky Cheese Mal and his stinky balls?
The only thing this makes me realize is that I really need to answer more questions from women.