Netflix, Take One

"5 cent whiskey and 50 cent whores? Those were getting to know ya prices."

I know it's been a long time since I rapped at 'cha, but I'm back. Some people thought I might not make it in this blog game. Dead wrong.

Many of you awoke yesterday to find an email from the illustrious Netflix founder, playboy Reed Hastings. I, however, woke up to two emails from the guy. The first was clearly a rough draft, lacking in certain diplomatic turns of phrase which gracefully populate the final draft.

Here, dear reader, is the unedited draft version of playboy Reed Hastings' "apology":

-------------------

Dear Rob,

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

People have been yapping at me about doubling Netflix's price back in July. They say things like "playboy Reed, why did you double the price?" The tempest grew so strong that it threatened to unseat "Why aren't there any adult films available?" as the biggest complaint I got in July/August 2011. To those people complaining about the latter, all I have to say is:

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.

To those complaining about the former, you should know that I totally don't like paying more for stuff either. Did you know that Wendy's is raising the price on all its hamburgers? They are.

Anyway, we've come to the real point of this message. What, you thought it was a mea culpa? Bullshit! Playboy Reed Hastings has nothing to apologize for. Of course, the real reason that I'm writing this is to let you know that I'm improving the Netflix experience by making you go to two different websites and rupturing the online integration you once enjoyed between streaming movies and DVDs-by-mail.

I'm terribly fond of the DVDs-by-mail "Netflix" -- after all, without that idea people would still call me "one-testicle" Reed Hastings -- but things be changing out there. So, from now on, you're DVDs-by-mail will be delivered by a company called… uh… netmail? Hopsqwik? Gimmie a sec to page my secretary...

OK, it's qwickster. I remember now. In the last Board meeting there was a good deal of discussion about three things surrounding the name:

1. We were at risk of losing our natural affiliation with the hipster set, and we wanted a name that sounded like their epithet.

2. Someone kept on saying they felt the need for speed. It got so annoying that we finally all agreed to use a "fast-themed" name to shut him up. Only later did we learn that Gary recently developed an addiction to amphetamines. Come to think of it, his mumbled ramblings about Elmo and tweets are making more sense now.

3. We didn't want to lose our core identity as the company that always needlessly changes one letter of every name.

So, Qwickster. Why the split?

Mostly, it's for my psychic health. My therapist is warning me that I need to do something to overcome this recurring nightmare that I'm crushed under a case of DVDs at a recently shuttered Borders location. Playboy Reed ain't going out like that. So, to avoid these nightmares, I'm trying to wash my hands of this whole "physical stock" part of the business. Did you know that behind shipping fees, our largest expense is replacing those white sleeves with the movie description? Little known fact.

Second, the post office is going bankrupt. As I recall from a Seinfeld episode I recently netflix'd (pardon me… QWIKSTER'd. It's catching on already), aside from being a postmaster, the postmaster general is also a general. You think I'm going to fuck with that (hint: yes.)? He probably thinks he can get the post office back in the black ink by raising our postage rates. I am outdueling this certain assault on our profit margins by withdrawing from the whole "USPS" scam.

So there you have it. Your rates are higher. Your service more confusing.

But I got my swagger back.

Respectfully yours,

-Playboy Reed Hastingz, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix & Qwikmoviez Qwikster

Vodkatoriums are KRRAAAA----ZY!

Review of Madison's resident west-side 'diner', Bluephies:

"You can tell it's supposed to be a fun place because the menu columns are laid out at crazy angles..."

I saw the future of progressive fun and it is glorious.

John McCain for President

I imagine that most, if not all, readers have made up their mind about this election. Still, I regret not making posts in the past, and I won't repeat that mistake here again. Call it a personal salve.

I don't have great expectations for this Tuesday. Obama has a solid lead, state polls aren't budging, and the economic difficulties are a boon to Democrats. My only hope is that the pollsters are wrong about who's going to vote.

I'll start with general observations about the election season. It was long. WAY TOO LONG. Seriously, this is year two of the 2008 presidential campaign. Second, it was the cleanest campaign I've ever seen. Each candidate's misrepresentations of the other were pedestrian and half-hearted. McCain's worst was the sex education ad. It was an ad I only saw on the news, despite living in Wisconsin and working in Ohio. Also, Obama did support sex ed for kindergarteners. Before you respond "but it was age appropriate", consider the large section of Americans, myself included, who don't think five year olds need any sex ed whatsoever. Can it wait until they learn to form the letter "s" properly?

On the other side, Obama's worst misrepresentation of McCain were the ubiquitous health care ads. Obama's campaign took their cue from the 1993 Harry and Louise ads, threatening people that McCain wanted to steal their health care. Standard misrepresentation. If you're offended by it, then politics isn't for you. The real shame about is McCain and Obama both have good health care ideas… if only they'd get together and discuss. Maybe in a series of ten town halls?

Why should I vote for McCain?

Since becoming a man, John McCain has been the Man in the Arena. Beyond fighting -- everyone knows his inspirational ability to survive -- he has never shied from controversy, never left uncomfortable issues to others. When immigration was the topic, he wrote a wise and humane bill with that lion of Senate, Ted Kennedy. The bill was humane because it refused to kick out the millions who made America their home for the same reason everyone's ancestors did - opportunity and hope. The bill was wise because it refused to tear out a massive chunk of our economy and community, while taking physical measures against future illegal immigration.

When torture was the topic, McCain led the senate against President Bush. Though McCain supports the war, he never assents to something he disagrees with in order to bolster the greater cause. He pushed the President to end torture. He was the first Senate Republican to call for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. He was one of the first to see the failure in the war strategy, and strongest critic of a war that he supported. John McCain has the courage of his convictions. More important, he has the intellectual curiosity to question his own assumptions, and to forge new paths as soon as he thinks they're necessary. McCain stuck with his positions when the overwhelming majority of Americans were against them and staked his campaign on his belief that America could still win in Iraq. That's the personification of great leadership.

There's more, of course. McCain co-wrote a campaign finance reform bill with Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold. I disagree with the bill, but it addressed a real problem - the dominance of special interests in politics. I disagree with the bill because it was never a realistic goal. Yet at the very least, McCain tried to solve a serious problem. Barack Obama, in stark contrast, rejected public financing for the general campaign, reneging on a concrete pledge. We all know the result of that… or at least, everyone who watched Obama's infomercial before the World Series or lives in a swing state knows the result of that. This is certain - public financing of campaigns is dead. Obama, and Obama alone, killed it.

That Obama is willing to ignore promises at his convenient is no surprise. He is a politician, and has never shown any exceptional virtue or action. Machiavelli observed that a Prince never lacks for reasons to break his promises. In this case, Obama claimed it was independent "527" groups. He never heard of these groups when he made his pledge in 2007? Of course he had. But he is a consummate Prince. For my part, I hope he shows the same flexibility with his promises to pull out of Iraq and to lower sea levels.

Instincts

I'll admit it. John McCain's been erratic at times this election. I'm still not sure what his position is on the bailout, and what's all this talk of regulation? In any case, Obama proposed unilaterally renegotiating trade deals, raising the top tax rate from 35 to 41%, raising the capital gains tax and eliminating the cap on payroll taxes. He opines that this is good economics during a crisis. I encourage him to ask economic historians the effects of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs and Herbert Hoover's tax increases in 1930. Suffice it to say that the American economy was not re-ignited.

If we go by what Senator McCain did when he was seriously involved in issues, not campaigning, McCain shows unparalleled instincts. He has a gut level objection to major spending increases, such as Medicare Part D. He supports tax cuts, no question, but he questions tax cuts. Keep in mind that he voted against Bush's tax cuts in 2001. Again, I disagree, but the point is that McCain considers the practical implications of each bill. He doesn't simply put a bill in a 'conservative' bucket and a 'liberal' bucket and vote accordingly. He still shows this kind of critical ability, opposing the most recent Energy Bill, full of unnecessary tax cuts and bizarre gifts to energy companies. Barack Obama supported the bill along with seventy-three other senators. Obama characteristically shirked a leadership role.

Many Obama supporters argue that Obama show good instincts. They have one (1) example. Senator Obama gave a speech in 2003 that opposed the war in Iraq. This, while he has running in a Democratic primary and appealing to the Chicago anti-war movement. Once elected, in 2004, he declared that there's wasn’t a difference between his position and President Bush's. He claimed that he wished the war hadn't happened, but now that we were there, we had to win. This, in good accordance with Illinois opinion.

Later, as the war faltered, he renewed opposition. He opposed the surge. Instead, he wanted our soldiers to come home once they faced serious adversity. He went as far as to vote against funding to bring them home. This, in good accordance with American public opinion.

Barack Obama has not shown good instincts. He has no legislative achievements. When he has opportunities to show himself a reasonable moderate - as with McCain's "Gang of Fourteen" senators that banded together to save traditional Senate rules on debate - he rejected the chance. If Obama does make a good president, nothing he's done in the U.S. or Illinois Senate will foreshadow it. I'm not surprised that so many of my friends ignore history and personal characteristics in favor of anger towards President Bush and joyous participation in the pop culture phenom that Obama made himself into, but I am disappointed by it.

I support John McCain because he made a lifetime commitment to America, he shows uncommon instincts, and he's been the man of action when action is demanded. He will make an exceptional president. On November fourth, please join me in voting for John McCain.

What's bred in my bones

A blast from the past (Pablo Picasso):

"In art the mass of people no longer seeks consolation and exultation, but those who are refined, rich, unoccupied, who are distillers of quintessences, seek what is new, strange, original, extravagant, scandalous. I myself, since Cubism and before, have satisfied these masters and critics with all the changing oddities which passed through my head, and the less they understood me, the more they admired me. By amusing myself with all these games, with all these absurdities, puzzles, rebuses, arabesques, I became famous and that very quickly. And fame for a painter means sales, gains, fortune, riches. And today, as you know, I am celebrated, I am rich. But when I am alone with myself, I have not the courage to think of myself as an artist in the great and ancient sense of the term. Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt were great painters. I am only a public entertainer who has understood his times and exploited them as best he could the imbecility, the vanity, the cupidity of his contemporaries. Mine is a bitter confession, more painful than it may appear, but it has the merit of being sincere."

I lifted this third-hand from Robertson Davies. Proof that I'm as authentic as Picasso.

Dodged that bullet

Wow.

It's been euphoria today. Life isn't like last year, when that grating fear that the Colts would never win the Super Bowl was put to rest. No, Eli felling Tom doesn't measure up to that. But it measures up to everything else.

You know what last night felt like? (note to reader: If you haven't seen the first Star Wars, stop reading.)

Remember at the very end of Star Wars, when the Death Star orbits that big planet to get in range of the Rebel base, which it can blow up with a single shot? The Patriots were circling that planet last night. The indestructible space station was going to end the world. The sporting world was going to have to hear about the '07 Patriots for the rest of their lives... Bill Belichick acting like Don Shula, Rodney Harrison acting like Mercury Morris. It would have been awful. The people who brought you home-field advantage field maintenance, cutting off opposing team communications, the Willie McGinest faked injury, illegal taping (does anyone believe that this just started this year? Does anyone think that the Rams were shut down by Belichick's "genius" alone? Does anyone think that the clairvoyant offensive calls against the Eagles were just a fluke?,) these people would have boasted they were the greatest team ever. Life would be markedly worse.

Luke Skywalker shot a couple of missiles right into the Death Star just as it was about to destroy the rebel planet. Eli Manning, akward kid unsure of his place in the world, played the heroic role (with David Tyree as Han Solo.) What was bound to be one of the worst nights in American sports turned into one of the greatest. The death star blew up in a flash, just like New England. This just in from Randy: Belichick and Moss don't conversate. Savour the explosion. Cue the John Williams music.

That Silver Hair Daddy

A right wing blog brought up this poll from Georgia. Notice the age category 18 - 29 votes for Mitt Romney. Zero. It's spectacular. It's not hard to figure out why - the guy's a terrible phony. It exudes him.

While some 'conservatives' like Ann Coulter are starting to show signs of rabies, youth in the party, who more than anyone else have the capacity to be inspired, are terribly uninspired by Romney. I'll expand later, after work.

Heroic Polish

Many of us don't have heroes. Of those who do, many of the heroes are fictional characters on television, under the control of writers who exist unknown to anyone. What motivates these writers (and their characters?) Who knows. Probably a mixture of artistic taste, profit, and smooth relations with other characters. For others, heroes might be sports stars, rarely demonstrating more than the power of testosterone. Musicians might be another example, a public persona cultivated to create reactions, dealing with no issues germane to humanship. I've got all sorts of these heroes (John Locke from Lost, Peyton Manning and Bob Weir.) They aren't real. These heroes don't deal with problems that bring forth virtue, the essence of the hero. If they go away, it's sad, but they didn't truely inspire us to be greater than ourselves - not much is lost.

True heroes can only be people facing the issues of life. Literary heroes, noble cousin of the TV hero, come close to true heroes. Unfortunately, they'll always be constrained by human imagination, a power insignificant next to the force of 6 billion humans interacting with each other and the environment.

It's hard to see a true hero suffering, displaying essential flaws that make them human. Such was the case last night when John McCain flailed bitterly in the Republican debate. A man who gave on the heroic quotes of the year, "I'd rather lose an election than a war," was clutched by the talons of his own flaws - the capability of blinding hatred. Did he really think taking shots as businessmen and capitalism would be a winner among Republicans, let alone the 85% of Americans who would be comfortable calling John Edwards a wackjob?

Underneath, McCain has a point that crystallizes with reflection. The profit motive is great and those motivated by it have a privileged place in American society - the private sector. People motivated by patriotism are suited to run the public sector, and we hope people who are motivated by love of country make the decisions in Washington. That's not to say that people motivated by profit are unpatriotic - far from it. But working for profit is no evidence of patriotism. So when Romney gives a consultant's answer to the timetable question, 'sure we'll have private timetables, everyone has timetables,' it doesn't inspire confidence that he has the political courage which marks heroes.

McCain has deep flaws. When on display, it's hurtful to watch them. I hope he doesn't go up against the Clintons in the general election - they'll know that they had to play the public against George H.W. Bush, but they have to play the man against McCain. McCain would have to check his dark side, which would likely mute his greatness at the same time.

Romney is not a hero. McCain is. In a time when the definition of hero is warped to encompass TV characters, sports stars and rockers, let's hope that in the corner of our collective eyes, we can catch of glimpse of John McCain, and appreciate how much we need true heroism to motivate us to greater ideals.