Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. And buy Drew’s book, The Night The Lights Went Out, while you’re at it. Today, we’re talking about fear of flying, robot body parts, fancy parties, and more.
Before we get into today’s proceedings, I am officially opening up submissions for the 2025 edition of Why Your Team Sucks. Most of you already know the drill, but new contributors are not only welcome into the fold here, but actively desired. So here’s what you need to do:
-Email us here, with the “WYTS” and your favorite NFL team’s name in the subject line
-Tell us why your team sucks. Your team only. If you’re some dipshit Chiefs fan writing in just to stunt on the Broncos, I’ll stop reading after the third word and get on with my life
That’s it. Your fate is your own after that, although I’ll tell you right now that if you root for one of the lesser teams (think AFC and NFC South), you’re probably gonna have a real good chance of having your submission included. I think I got like two Bucs emails last summer, probably from the same guy. We require more diversity of fan insecurity than that.
Understood? Good. Get after that shit. Now for your letters:
Scott:
Can we put a moratorium on albums that start out quiet? Like ultra quiet, with almost no noise for dozens of seconds? Especially when streaming, I never know if my dumb Bluetooth speakers have cut out, or if I lost wifi. Why isn’t this damn album starting??? Let’s get to it!
You can’t pin this on the artist. If you’re streaming music through a Bluetooth speaker, which is almost always how I roll, you’ve already compromised the sound quality to the degree that you’ll miss a lot of things. This is especially true if you’re listening to classical music. Beethoven didn’t compose his shit with Spotify in mind. It’s a symphony. It involves dozens of instruments being played simultaneously. All of those instruments have their own tone, texture, and volume range. A piano alone can go from a whisper to a roar within seconds. That’s far too much nuance for my piece of shit Wonderboom. Every digital gauntlet your music passes through degrades it, especially if the composition is ornate. So if I queue up Pastoral on my phone, I’m just asking to let myself down.
And yet, that’s exactly what I do. I’m one of hundreds of millions of Americans who listen to music all wrong. I work out to my little Wonderboom, or I hook my phone up to our TV’s sound bar when I’m enjoying some chair time. The amount of shit that gets lost in translation in both instances is so glaring that I often spend more time adjusting the volume than actively listening to the music I’m playing. That doesn’t just go for classical music. It goes for rock, pop, hip hop, EDM, whatever. Even through noise-cancelling headphones, you’re still only gonna hear roughly 80 percent of what you’re supposed to be hearing, and you’re still gonna hear ambient noise from the outside world. You’re hearing the song, but not really listening to it.
This is not an ad for collecting vinyl. I don’t own any physical records, but I know damn well that vinyl sounds better. I also know there’s a reason why true pros like Rick Rubin and the like are so particular about how they listen to music, and what they use to play it. They listen with intention, to hear the whole song and not just parts of it. They respect the artist, which is something I basically never do when it comes to sound. And I’m partially deaf! I should be vigilant about this sort of thing! But nope, I just keep using shit-ass Bluetooth, subconsciously training myself to be a poor listener—to music, to film*, to other people standing right in front of me—in the process.
To go back to Scott’s question, you should never demand that artists of any kind cater to your suboptimal listening habits. These people already have to compromise their work in various ways for the sake of commerce. Each of those compromises dilutes their intended vision, and flattens the entire culture in the process. So let artists lead you, instead of the other way around. We get better art that way.
My old man had a man cave back before that term was coined. All he had down in our basement was a fancy Hi-Fi system and some furniture. He’d go down there to drink some wine and then listen to Bruckner at full blast. That’s the way to go. When I retire, I’m gonna pony up for some top of the top line shit, smoke a fat bowl, and then listen to “Master of Puppets” as it was meant to be heard.
(*Christopher Nolan films excepted. Fix your sound mixing already, you stubborn limey bastard.)
Shane:
You are tasked in killing one movie franchise that can never come back under any circumstances. Which one will you choose? You need to take into account profitability, cultural impact, how much is tries, and audience rating (not your own personal feeling of it). In reading the reviews for the latest Jurassic Park movie, they often talk about how this average movie will probably still make a billion dollars (essentially being review proof).
This is a boring answer but I’ll just say the MCU, because that franchise has now exhausted every conceivable plotline and superhero/villain combination. They don’t even bother telling me what kind of superpowers each character has anymore. Everyone just has super strength and can survive falling off of a 20-story building. Even our best filmmakers can’t work with material this frayed.
But Marvel is actually a rare example. I usually don’t go by the franchise when I’m shopping for a movie or TV show to watch, but by the writer/director/cast. Take Dept. Q, for instance. On first glance, it looked just another Netflix show. Then I saw that Scott Frank was one of the people in charge and understood that I’d be in good hands. Frank wrote Out of Sight and Logan (the rare post-Disney MCU movie that works as a standalone film), and he created The Queen’s Gambit, so I knew that I was dealing with an artist who could elevate otherwise bland material.
That’s exactly what Frank and his creative team did with Dept. Q. In lesser hands, this is an ordinary cop show featuring the usual eccentric asshole of a main character (Matthew Goode), a fed-up police chief (Kate Dickie), and a super specialized police department division (cold cases!). This is the kind of shit you see on CBS every weeknight after 9:00 p.m. But Dept. Q works because it puts so much thought and care into its characters and production design. It also deftly transitions into a horror story featuring a psycho Scottish granny. I’ll never trust Mrs. Doubtfire again.
The point here is that if I kill off a franchise or formula, I miss out on the chance to see an artist reinvent it. Star Wars was tired until Disney hired Tony Gilroy to create Andor. James Bond grows tired every other decade before the studio decides to let real filmmakers (Denis Villeneuve for the next installment) do their thing with it. It’s not what the story is, but how it’s told.
Nina:
My best friend and I were slated to take our very first trip overseas (to London) in April of 2020, when we were 28. We’re now 33 and taking that trip this month (and seeing Oasis at Wembley too). In the last five years, I’ve developed a crippling fear of flying and a complex about being a mid-thirties weirdo American who’s never been anywhere. How do I get over both of these issues so I can properly enjoy my vacation?
Let’s deal with the flying thing first, because that’s the biggest obstacle here. Now, I can try to assuage your fears singlehandedly by citing the usual facts. Air travel, despite this country’s current political and infrastructural shortcomings, remains the safest mode of transport in the world. In fact, it’s the safest mode of transport in human history. You take a much greater risk getting into a car than you do stepping onto an airplane, even one commanded by AirTran.
But no one who suffers from aerophobia hears any of that data and is suddenly cured. The causes of aerophobia go far beyond logic; that’s why it’s a diagnosed phobia to begin with. That means that you, Nina, are gonna have to treat your phobia, at least so that you can manage it if you can’t cure it outright. That means talking to people you trust about your hangup: your family, your friends, a therapist, and all of the other usual suspects.
The problem here is that you’re working on an accelerated timeline if you want to catch that Oasis show at Wembley. That means you’ll need some quick pharmacological solutions. Here are a few:
–Alcohol. Get shitfaced at the airport bar, and then pass out before the plane has even taken off. Millions of Americans fly this way, many of them only pretending to be afraid of air travel.
–Anti-depressants. Borrow a Xanax from a friend and chase it down with some red wine. Worked for my wife when I was in a coma.
–Codeine. I grew up flying, so the only travel-related hangup I have is a redeye. Redeyes suck, especially when the seats are uncomfortable and you’re not a terribly skilled airplane sleeper. To help in the effort, I take two Advil PM right after boarding any overnight trip. Tylenol PM works, too. Or NyQuil. Just check for codeine on the active ingredients label and you’ll be good to go.
–Downloading Candy Crush. That game is as evil as it ever was, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Distractions help when it comes to fear.
–All of the above. Nina, I can’t let you miss Oasis. It’s too important. If you gotta throw the kitchen sink at this aerophobia to make the show, do it. No one will blame you, least of all me.
As for your second hangup, that one is easily cured merely by traveling. Visit other places and suddenly you won’t feel like a clueless hayseed, because you won’t be one anymore. You’ll walk around, see cool shit, eat cool food (there’s no shortage of it in London, despite every joke you’ve heard about British cuisine), interact with new people, and end your trip feeling X percent more comfortable in this new place than when you started. You’re worldly now. Tony Bourdain ain’t got shit on you.
That’s the beauty of travel, and it’s why my wife and I try to take our kids to as many far-flung places as we can when spring break rolls around. Travel is education, even if you have a lousy time. Travel makes you more interesting person, and it makes this country more interesting once you, the former naïf, return to it with all you’ve learned. If American voters were as interested in visiting other countries as they are burning books, we probably wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in right now.
So good luck, girl. Don’t be shocked when Liam blows the lyrics to “Acquiesce.” That’s kind of his thing when he’s singing live.
HALFTIME!
David:
Have you ever actually been to a party where the waiters/servers are just walking around carrying a tray of flutes of champagne and you just grab one as they go by?
David, you know what a fancy boy I am. I went to prep school. I graduated from a NESCAC college. My parents belonged to a country club. I have been to some galas, lemme tell you. Shit, I think my mom might have even hosted one at some point. We’re talking events (weddings, mainly) where helpers offered said champagne flutes to guests. I’ve also seen been around servers bringing out trayfuls of bellinis, glasses of wine, miniature crabcakes, caviar toasts, lamb chop lollipops, petit fours, and all kinds of other snooty goods.
And lemme tell you, it all ROCKS. I have zero shame when that tray of free shit goes by. I’ve even asked staffers to wait for me to down one miniature roast beef sandwich so that I can grab a second one before they run off. I’ve taken two champagnes flutes off the tray in order to double fist. I’ve parked myself right by the kitchen door so that I can get to the tuna tartare before every other guest ravages it. If I had a billion dollars—tell your friends to subscribe to Defector in order to make this a reality—I’d live this way every day. I’d buy the University Club in Manhattan and ask its staff to regale me with fresh appetizers all day long. Queens of the Stone Age would play on vinyl throughout the main room during this feast. Club Drew will be the most exclusive, awesomest club in the world. I will be its only member. And maybe my friend Howard.
Cory:
What was your favorite movie Michael Madsen was in?
Reservoir Dogs. Apologies for boring answer, but any other one would just be me trying to zig when everyone else has zagged. He’s perfect in that movie, and no one who watched his Mr. Blonde slice off a cop’s ear will ever forget it. I’m still trying to figure out when to introduce my sons to that movie. I figure the youngest one will be down with ear violence by high school.
Ben:
You get to choose to have a body part modified like the Six Million Dollar man. Which body part would you choose to have modified and why?
My peener! With a bionic dick, I could fuck all night, bro!
OK, now we’ve gotten that gag out of the way, I can answer this question more earnestly. I know I’m old because the second I read this question, I thought MY BACK! This is because my back has given me problems since I was 17 years old, so I’d take a robo-back just to eliminate the possibility of yet another disc surgery. But that’s a boring-as-shit answer, and it violates the spirit of the question. Ben wants me to supercharge a body part, not just fix it. So, with that in mind, here’s how I’d rank the best options:
1. Right arm. If I can only modify one body part, that means I can only pick one limb. That takes legs out of the running (no pun intended), because I’d need both of those to be able to run super fast, dunk a basketball, and squat more than Jalen Hurts. But I only need ONE robo-arm to throw a baseball 150 mph, or thoroughly knead bread dough in less than 60 seconds, or punch straight through Stephen Miller’s head. Pretty useful, that robot arm. In fact, the first spec script I ever wrote was a buddy cop movie featuring one cop with a robo-arm. I wrote it in middle school. It was a piece of shit.
2. Eyes. One of my friends recently got lens replacement surgery, which is like LASIK but like, even more advanced. She no longer needs corrective lenses of any sort. She might even be able to hunt deer without the need of a scope. That really appealed to me, especially given that I had just plunked down $800 for a new supply of daily contacts. And macular degeneration runs in my family!!!
Sorry. Sorry. I was thinking about this in old man terms again. I just want the Terminator vision…
Aw yeah, baby. That’s the shit.
3. Ears. I already have a robo-ear on the right side of my head, and it works quite beautifully. But what if that robo-ear could also eavesdrop on conversations happening a mile away? And what if I could seamlessly hook it up to my phone via Bluetooth (my cochlear implant is shockingly bad at this)? Now that’s real ultimate power.
4. Midsection. To get rid of the love handles, and so I can take a punch.
And I now you’re saying, But Drew! What about your brain? Wouldn’t you like a supercomputer for a mind? I wouldn’t. You’ve seen how AI operates, yeah? I’ll take my chances with the brain I already got. Hasn’t let me down so far (except that one time)!
Dusty:
I know you died for real, but do you wonder if you’re actually dead? About a year or two ago I gradually started feeling like I died somehow, and now I’m living some kind of alternate multiverse existence. There was no memorable incident like yours, but everything has gradually changed, like a gradient.
I may exaggerate a bit when I tell people that I died. I actually never flatlined, despite coming nice and close. I never left my body and stared at it from above. I just had a brain hemorrhage and then lay in a coma for two weeks. But I’m a melodramatic little fucker, which means that I enjoy telling people that I died so that they gasp in awe and wonder. I didn’t die, and I never wondered if I had died after my accident. Quite the contrary, I was more certain than ever than I was alive, and do you know why? Because my life, right then, sucked. If I really had died, I would’ve been floating on a cloud and having kickass orgies. Instead, I was stuck in a hospital bed with a dead ear, a dead nose, limited motor function, and a nasty temper. Heaven it wasn’t. I knew the difference, and still do.
As for you Dusty, your little Sixth Sense dilemma is a little bit of stoner thinking, a little bit of midlife existential angst, and a little bit of pop culture having its way with your inner thoughts. Chances are your mind is just fucking with you, but given that it’s been doing so for so long, maybe it’s a bit more than that. If you feel as if you’ve died, does that mean your real life has disappointed you in some way (what with Trump being POTUS again and all) and that you’re trying to deny that reality? It’s worth reframing your delusion in more earthbound terms so that you can get to the bottom of what’s eating at you. I’d rather have you thinking you’re alive than dead, because you are alive. We all are, so let’s make the best of it.
Bob:
Drew, I went to see The Weeknd, first time in decades since I’ve been to a stadium concert and he absolutely killed it. He sang the last song, thanked everyone, and then the lights come on and everyone walked out like they’re leaving a work convention. What the fuck? No encore? No screaming for more? Just turn on the lights and get the fuck out? When did encores stop becoming a thing?
Babymetal didn’t do an encore when I saw them play either. They finished up their set with “Gimme Chocolate” and then BOOM, there went the house lights. Ditto Electric Callboy. Ditto Metallica. I had no problem with it. In fact, I appreciated that these artists didn’t string the proceedings out any longer than they had to. I heard the songs I wanted to hear, and then made a beeline for the exit. Shit, I was home from all of those shows before 11:00 p.m. That’s the excellence of execution, right there.
There’s no right or wrong way to handle the encore thing. Some artists re-appear on stage five times at the end of the show and hold you hostage until 3:00 a.m. (coughSPRINGSTEENcough). Some make like the big boys (Weeknd, Metallica) and just play straight through because they don’t feel obligated to do the whole dog and pony show with encores. There’s no trend forming in either direction, and there doesn’t need to be. So long as you get what you came for, it doesn’t matter how an artist spaces out a setlist. You’re not getting bonus songs when a band does an encore; you’re just waiting an extra five minutes because the singer needed to take a piss and do a bump. It’s all just a matter of presentation. Either way, it’ll sound better than it does coming out of a pill speaker.
Greg:
Yesterday I woke up with shit in the inside of my boxers AND the outside of the shorts I wore the night previously. I have no idea how this could have happened, and have no recollection of the events. When I woke up, I saw the underwear and assumed that I had sharted in the middle of the night. However, upon further examination, when I looked at the shorts I wore the day prior, I also had shit on THE OUTSIDE of those shorts. The only possible conclusion is this event happened before I went to bed, but there is no version of myself that would shit all over myself and just say, “well, time to go to bed.”
Yes there is, Greg. It’s the drunk version of you. Take it from me. I have gotten blasted and then woken up to similar faecal mysteries. When you shit yourself, it gets everywhere. That’s the deal. Same deal with blood if you murder someone. The Coen Brothers’ first movie is all about how hard that mess is to clean up.
Chris:
Wow farmers markets are a scam. Is this a Mid-Atlantic problem? There is no fresh and local? At least on the West Coast farmers markets are generally populated by real farmers and their produce tends to be significantly better than their supermarket brethren and the variety is incredible. There were no kids’ rides at the one I went to today, and more pro chefs than kids. Your complete dismissal of them is weird and very corporate marketing sounding. Were you abused by a carny as a kid?
I’m gonna have to order you to stand down, officer. West Coast produce is an entirely different ballgame. I know this because people who live there are eternally smug about it, as evidenced by Chris here. I’m sure a farmer’s market outside Santa Barbara is perfectly legit. But in the rest of this godforsaken country, every farmer’s market is bullshit. Same goes for apple orchards, too. I wasn’t paid by Safeway to harbor that opinion. I came to it honestly.
Email of the week!
Jim:
I’m fortunate to have a best friend I’ve been close to since middle school, 30 years ago. We stayed close as we went to separate colleges, moved around the country to different jobs and when we both settled back down in our hometown with our partners we got to see each other all the time. It’s great!
But she now has a four year old. She’s a great mom and I’m very happy for her. She still wants to hang out with me all the time, but of course she has the toddler with her. I chose not to have my own kids, but it’s not like I hate being around them. I’m not a monster. Kids even like me. However, I find hanging out with a toddler and an adult to be so boring. I’m sorry. I don’t care about that random rock that he just picked up. I don’t want to read Thomas the Train AGAIN, or push toy cars off a table more than maybe 20 minutes a month. Charming in small doses, but just not the interaction I crave. This friend is someone I have been able to talk to about literally anything throughout my life, but I find myself hesitating before I tell her, “I’m sorry, I don’t want to hang out with you at this time because your kid is boring.”
As a parent, how would you have felt if one of your closest friends had told you this? Should I just suck it up, because I’m lucky she wants to spend time with me and someday this toddler will be an actual human I can relate to? Or is it okay and I don’t need to feel guilty about not being all that interest in toddlers and our friendship will be fine?
Wait till you have a friend who’s kid is an ASSHOLE. Because that happens too, and it’s way more awkward.