Response to Pete Prisco

Pete Prisco wrote a provocative, complicated column on the NFL's concussion settlement yesterday. Let me logically unpack his interesting column, because it seems like the crux of the extreme "the players didn't deserve it" opposition to the NFL concussion settlement.

1. "They know the risks. They know they can get killed at any time. NFL players know they can get hurt, and have long-term issues"
2. In Prisco's experience, all but one of the players he has spoken to would have done it all over again. "They love the game. They love the checks."
3. Therefore, the recent concussion settlement is a money grab. If all of them would do it over again even knowing the risks, then they essentially want to be paid for not being warned about a risk that they would still have taken. Only that one player that wouldn't do it all over again has any claim to damages. 
4. Placing full responsibility for the concussions on the NFL, in every case? That is specious and difficult to prove. These players have been playing since they were very young in many cases, and high school and college football could easily have been contributory towards their CTE. Prisco uses - by way of a reducto - a funny example about suing his own father for two-handed touch football, and uses suing Pop Warner and high school to make the point clearer.
5. Therefore, while Prisco says the settlement is nice, and it will help players, on a fundamental level, Prisco believes the players don't deserve the money.
6. (optional). The money from the NFL is not value-free. If this concussion lawsuit had dramatically and immediately altered the business of football, it's conceivable that society at large would lose out - "Without the NFL, I wouldn't have a job. Nor would a lot of people." Whether or not you think Prisco's job is worth it, whether or not you accept this argument (certainly it wouldn't be a total loss, because certainly alternative ways to spend that money and time and leisure and labor would arise), whatever you think, losing the NFL would make a lot of money change hands, and the net result might be negative. Crusading for justice for the players - Prisco implies - might feel important and righteous, but are you willing to bear the cost as a fan, as a fantasy owner, as a writer, as a worker? 

Setting aside the 6th argument, which is more an open speculation than a rigorous point, we see that Prisco, despite the overtures of hackery in his column, actually has a pretty defensible and interesting point. Still, Prisco's argument is unsatisfying, somehow, even when you strip away all the bluster to find something substantial.

Let me see if I can figure out what my objections amount to. Let's go after the premises and steps of reasoning one by one.

Songs Whose Parodies Have Successfully Poisoned The Well Of Their Object

First of all, let's just note right off the bat that this list mostly involves parody primarily intended for comic, ironic, or satirical effect. If we expand the definition to include all imitation of form, we'll quickly run into fundamental questions about the nature and origin of artistic creation that are really anathema to a good list.

Anyway, how to describe this list... Gee... I guess I'd describe it as: "Songs whose parodies have wormed their way into my skull to the point of statistical correlation between thinking of the song and thinking of its parody to the point where I start to feel like the song/artist and its pitch-perfect parody were conceived simultaneously, or may as well have been conceived simultaneously, such is the strength of the connection between them."

Yeah, that works. Without further ado:

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"Ignition"
"Remix To Ignition" by R. Kelly

I think of Dave Chappelle's memorable, scatological parodies whenever I think of these songs of R. Kelly.

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"Every Simon And Garfunkel Song" - Simon and Garfunkel

Look, I love vocal harmonies, and it's hard to find a truer, tighter, or more efficient blend in the last century than Simon and Garfunkel, and they're right up there with the Everly Brothers. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that a significant portion of my enjoyment comes from twisting every one of their lyrics into monstrously easy (and sometimes monstrously difficult) parodies.

I have mentally parodied every notable Simon and Garfunkel song (and several Paul Simon solo songs) and made it about at least one of the following: The Charlotte Bobcats, Richard Jefferson, Art Garfunkel (almost inevitably from the perspective of Paul Simon). Since I rarely write any of these parodies down (and some exist only within chats with friend Aaron, who also did some of these), they're a bit hard to track down. Why so many parodies? Well, as Aaron once put it, the music of Simon and Garfunkel is rather "like a bridge made for that purpose". Get it? But here's my parody of "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright".

So long, Gar Funk El
I can't believe your song is gone, so soon
I amply wrote our tunes, so soon
I remember Gar Funk El
All of the nights we harmonized til dawn/
Collaborated long/ So long/ So long
Garfunkel and Simon
Garfunkel sang my songs
Garfunkel, Art - that's you
I'm Paul Si-
Mon and mainly associated with you
Simon, Garfunkel
That is the group of harmonies
We formed
No longer is it here
It's gone
It's gone...

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The Man Made of Marshmallows Mailbag

As a recurring feature, we'll be taking reader questions and prompts sometimes. How often this feature will recur after this one: Probably never, honestly.

Anyway, James has a question he'd like me to answer! Haha. Let's get it started!

Alex, what was your most recent dream? -James

Thanks for the question, James! Well, because of the intricacies of the human mind and the cycles of sleep, I normally would have no answer for you, James! Most dreams - through some pre-Lovecraftian sense of mercy - are actually forgotten and never see the light of waking life! Normally, that is. Luckily for you, I've just experienced a terrible daydream.

So I wake up in a room lighted like a film noir. You know, it's gritty. Single coffee table in a kitchen somewhere in the Great Plains. Smoky, dank, everywhere. Loose playing cards provide evidence of recent solitaire games resigned in frustration. I'm sitting at the table and my head hurts really badly, as it does in the waking world. And sitting next to me is a man made of marshmallows.

The man made of marshmallows smiles like an icon with a seemingly painted-on face. The man made of marshmallows sports human clothes: jeans with a belt and a tank top, I can see the outline of a chiseled-looking-albeit-marshmallow-made upper body under the tank top. The man made of marshmallows maintains a toothless, mouthless smile. The man made of marshmallows hands me a business card from a human wallet in his human jeans.

The business card reads as follows:

MARSH MALLOW
"The Man Made of Marshmallows"

Adorable, I think. I smile at Mr. Marsh Mallow in happy acknowledgement of his card. And then I look deeper. Mr. Mallow opens his marshmallow mouth. Rows of human teeth line a very human palate and a very human tongue. His nose, which is made of marshmallows, has nostrils and I am dimly aware that a human respiratory system must then connect up to this marshmallow nose. I see Mr. Mallow breathe and real air comes in and real air goes out. And he doesn't seem happy. And if he is processing the air then he must have human lungs. I notice bite marks in his skin and tears around his eyes. I see the hints of blood stains all about his marshmallow skin. Mr. Mallow must thus have human nerves, and human eyes, and, of course, human nerves imply a human spine and a human brain. Scars assorted around the viscera and limbs lead me to believe that surgically, but not precisely, that his bones and muscles must have been largely replaced (preserved just enough to give him rudimentary motility and marrow)... replaced with not just mallow of marsh but with malice aforethought... Who had done this to him? His only source of food is, of course, himself. This was the dilemma of design by whatever entity had deigned to place him in this room. His many rows of teeth line a human mouth kept cosmetically in a forced smile. Mr. Mallow seems to be smiling but on closer inspection was leering out from human eyes, glass marbles in a soft doughy core. And then I begin to wonder: why am I here? Why have I been sent to the man made of marshmallows? I am still a human being and Mr. Mallow appropriately terrifies me. He pulls out another business card.

THERE IS ONE EXIT TO THIS ROOM
FIND IT
THE MAN THAT DID THIS TO ME
WANTS TO DO THE SAME TO YOU
CAMERAS EVERYWHERE
RUN AND NEVER LOOK BACK

I look at him and he was smiling and his human teeth were showing, shining with human saliva, and he nods slightly and I dash madly for every possible exit. I begin to feel trapped and Mr. Mallow tries to speak to direct or warn me but all that comes out of his hollowed-out vocal cords is a crying whistle - always the same pitch - crossed with a choked-to-inaudible whisper.

And the one exit to the room is to awake. And, since this is a daydream, I am immediately startled to full alertness and remember that James had sent me this question, perhaps years ago, and so I create this mailbag to provide some relief from inevitably searching the unexplored possibilities in the existence of Marsh Mallow.

Language and Writing

"How strange it is to be anything at all" -Neutral Milk Hotel, "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea"

One thing that marvels me about language is that there is any language at all. I mean, it's an top-down and a bottom-up phenomenon - requiring both a society of authority and a thousand peers with which we must learn to communicate - that has essentially existed continuously since the dawn of humankind. The human brain has evolved to be able to handle this form of communication, the initial mutation-driven leaps to which - however gradual they might be - must have been totally crazy. In our nigh-unfathomable leap from the proverbial swamps, this is perhaps the toughest change for me to explain, understand, or even begin to wrap my head around.

From where I'm currently positioned intellectually, I can't even begin to get into the scientific intricacies and prerequisites necessary to understand the origins of language at a state-of-the-art level. It would take years. So, unfortunately, I'm in this rut of vague wonderment, stuck on the ground.

Young Alex Enters An Essay Contest

Hello, my name is Alex, age 13, and this is my entry into the National Writing Contest. As this is the regional draw, you can sure bet that I'm happy to be here. Ha. I'm in seventh grade. My favorite writers are Frank Herbert and Shakespeare and short story writers.

Uh... how are you all doing, today? Glad to see you gathered? Now, without further hesitations I will commemorate my reading of the essay. I mean commence. Begin.

It's October, but I already have a New Year's Resolution for 2003, and I figure I'll start today. In life, as in art, what we do in life echoes through eternity, despite the fact that we really have no importance to the universe. I contemn this, because I would like it better if we could simply co-exist together, our deeds bouncing harmlessly off each other, but I can't change the fact that this is how it is. Those of you who are older know what I'm talking about. You've done things you can never take back, said things that you'll always regret. And you know that the things you've done matter, and that the things we younger people do matter, and you know that we don't know yet, that we have yet to see a truly unrelentable moment in our lives. I'm speaking abstractly because I haven't felt regret on that sort of level. I can take back almost everything. I can redeem almost everything. Because there's time.

5 Scenarios I'm Certain Would Drive Me Insane

Introduction

Let's cut to the chase: Humans are quite adaptable. If you made the world three times stranger, I do not think humans were thrice as hardy - I think we'd simply push a majority over the edge to the point where the insanity would be all-consuming. Last night I had some terrible dreams and realized that, in the right circumstances, I would be consumed as such. So I'd like to share them with you.

Violent Metaphors Masquerading As Lucid Prose

This is rather pretentious and irritating even to think about, but I can't deny it: I've always considered a) myself a funnyman and b) Pearls of Mystery to be a funny blog.

Oh, no, we're certainly not laugh out loud funny; in fact, there's only one of us. We're not even good; we just try real hard and string a few sentences together like beggars pleading with grocers for pennies. And we don't demand you listen and make you throw up until you die against your will because we're just that funny; rather, we gently caress your skin, at each caress obtaining new consent, needling and kneading new purchase at each pass, always by your will, until we've turned your doughy child's face into a man's wizened, chuckling brow, thence to fat chortling jolly middle age, and finally thence kneaded into a happy corpse. Congratulations, I will exclaim at your funeral, Congratulations. You have lived a full Pearls of Mystery humor-based life. 

Look, I know I'm stretching it pretty thin. I'm not Richard Pryor here; my wordplay is so bad it will make you wish you never had eyes to read it nor ears to hear it. I once tried to write a snappy punchline and it stretched for 1200 words and it still didn't really work. You might never laugh at anything I've written, I get that, but the first spark of inspiration is really always in the realm of jokes. And I mean, that's what my endgame is. I want to make you laugh and, if I can't make you laugh, it's an abject failure.

Alex Doffs a Fedora and Attempts to Explain to Himself Why People Don't Invite Him to Parties

Have you ever seen a spirited conversation of hand gestures and agreements in a crowded, noisy restaurant, and then suddenly had the realization that that conversation is not happening because it's actually impossible for either party to hear? You suddenly find that both parties are essentially talking to themselves, but loudly pantomiming agreement, while maybe capturing every third word in their partner's parallel monologue. And you find that they are both doing little other than grooming dances and pretending to have a conversation, and that instead of accepting that all the noise makes human connection virtually impossible, we as human beings feel compelled to pretend everything is alright, and that we're making real in-roads in another person's life, and that someone else is making in-roads into ours, even though such in-roads are impossible.

Similarly: Have you ever gone to a bar or a party and found that no one was actually talking to one another, that people were drinking purely to get drunk, that the whole "social" experience was just cascading shouts and laughs, was not a comfortable conversation at any point, was not even an uncomfortable conversation, but simply a place to go and exist with other people that are also existing?