Scott McClellan’s Awesome Book

I’m always thrilled when anyone takes on the cluster-f**k that has been the Bush administration, particularly when that person is an insider such as Scott McClellan.

But although I haven’t read it yet, I already have one quibble with Mr. McClellan’s book–the title.

What Happened.

Seriously. What Happened. Not What Happened? Or What In the Sam Hill Really Was Really Going on for the Last Seven Years. Just What Happened.

The title reminds me of when I used to get pissy students who refused to think up titles for their papers, so they’d hand in things titled My Research Paper or My Argument Paper or, if they were feeling really creative, My Paper. I feel as though we’ve just gotten My Book, by Scott McClellan.

Now, I realize that thinking up a particularly creative title for this book was probably unnecessary. Titles are supposed to attract people, to draw them into your narrative, and in this case, the mere fact that an insider is sticking it to the Bush regime is probably advertisement enough.

But just for fun, I encourage my readers–all four of them–to try and think up some alternate titles for What Happened. I’ll start:

What Happened to My Soul?

My Time in the Cluster-F**k That Is the Bush Administration

Scott McClellan’s Awesome Book

Stop Pointing at Me and Laughing, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby

Okay–your turn.

Chuck Todd!

Hooray for Chuck Todd.

In an election season filled with pundits yapping on our TeeVee screens like a bunch of ankle-biting poodles, Chuck Todd is the majestic Golden Retriever who enters the room, nudges your hand, then politely walks away.

When the talking heads are yelling and screaming at each other (memo to Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan–we can hear you, so dial it down a notch, okay?) and I’m about at the point of yelling and screaming at them, my head on the verge of exploding from trying to process all the useless back and forth and my jaw clenched tightly enough to wear down my fillings, someone suddenly says “Let’s turn it over to Chuck Todd for a check of the delegate count.”

And I exhale, the boiling blood draining from my face at the sight of Chuck Todd standing in front of what looks like the world’s most complicated overhead projector, dry erase marker in hand, ready to hurt you with the sweet, sweet pain of incontrovertible math. He circles a few key counties that have yet to report, he writes the projected delegate pick-up near the candidates’ names, and then he offers some analysis (which is occasionally hilarious, such as last night when he highlighed West Virginia on the map and then said something along the lines of “Hillary Clinton is projected to win in these key areas of West Virginia.” Then he circled the entire state. Brilliant.). Then he tosses back to Chris Matthews, who proceeds to spend the next twenty minutes foaming at the mouth about how he knows everything to know about Pennsylvania because he grew up there and how he’s a North Carolina insider because he went to college at Chapel Hill, all while Keith Olbermann looks slightly bemused.

Chuck Todd never yells (although he does occasionally look slightly bemused, which is probably unavoidable for the vast majority of MSNBC employees who have to share air space with Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough). Chuck Todd doesn’t have to yell. His dry-erase map of the U.S. and his big red marker speak the truth, and when you speak the truth, you don’t feel the need to scream about it.

Someone with better computer skills than I have needs to create for Chuck Todd a website like the one that generates “facts” about another rusty-hued Chuck–Chuck Norris. I can see it now:

1. If you and Chuck Todd both have big red dry erase markers, Chuck Todd’s will always be bigger than yours.
2. When Chuck Todd circles a state on the U.S. map, all of its superdelegates immediately declare for Obama.
3. Chuck Todd does not work for MSNBC. MSNBC exists to broadcast Chuck Todd.

I actually had to laugh a little at reading how befuddled Chuck Todd seems to be by his newfound celebrity given that he’s practically a rock star at my house. My spouse and I watch election coverage and find ourselves saying “Where’s Chuck Todd? How come Chuck Todd hasn’t been on yet?” if the broadcast seems to have gone on too long before an appearance from The Chuck. And when he finally emerges, we both yell “Chuck Todd!” as if we’re sitting in a bar and one of our old college drinking buddies has just walked in, the one who was mild-mannered and had good stories and always knew when he’d had enough, unlike Buchanan, who’s passed out cold at the end of the bar, and Matthews, who’s just puked vodka on your shoes and is screaming at the barkeep that he can handle one more drink, and Scarborough, who’s slurring and hitting on the ladies and is too much of a dick to spring for cab fare home even though it was his stupid idea that everyone go out in the first place.

So now, to that long, improbable “Things to Do Before I Die” list of mine (not long after “Sit front row at a Dave Matthews Band concert” but definitely way before “Pay off my stupid car”) I’d like to add “Have a beer with Chuck Todd.” I’d bet he could fascinate me for hours with a discussion of the significance of the demographic breakdown of California’s congressional districts. And I can only imagine the stories he could tell about his co-workers after a brewski or two.

Hope You Don’t Plan On Getting Any Work Done Today

This is my new favorite funny site:

Dickipedia

Go ahead and click on it. I dare you. See you in about three hours, if you’re lucky.

And if you’re at work, be warned. This site causes much lol’ing. Close your office door or put your fist in your mouth if you’re in a cubicle.

So Sorry, John Mayer…

Not that he cares, but I feel I need to publically apologize to John Mayer for all the years I wasted being angry at him rather than recognizing his musical genius. So here goes–John Mayer, I’m really, really sorry, and to make it up to you, I (or other members of my household) have purchased three of your albums and one book of guitar tabs in addition to adding your songs to constant iPod and car CD player rotation. While I realize that none of these actions elevates me to the level of Superfan, I hope that they have at least shown that I am making a good-faith effort to put whatever enmity there was on my part toward you behind us (“us” being defined in this case as “me”).

My John Mayer hate was, initially, justified. Really. In Spring 2002, I was at the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore on East 23rd in NYC when my attention shifted from browsing the shelves to listening to the album playing over the bookstore’s loudspeakers. And I was really confused, because the voice in the songs sounded like Dave Matthews. But it couldn’t have been Dave Matthews, see, because there’s no way that Dave Matthews in any of his permutations (solo, with Tim Reynolds, or with the Dave Matthews Band) is putting out a new album on me without my knowing about it in advance. It just doesn’t happen (and that restraining order should be arriving in three…two…one…).

So I left the bookstore hurt and confused that one of my musical heroes had snuck out some new tunes when I wasn’t paying attention. Fueled by my disappointment, I scoured the Internet and listened to the radio a little more carefully, eventually discovering that what I’d been hearing in the stacks at Shakespeare & Co. was actually Room for Squares by John Mayer.

And so I immediately began hating John Mayer. I hated him for making me think he was Dave Matthews. End of story.

Or sort of. Anyone who’s taken repeat rides on the roller coaster of human emotion knows that hate doesn’t equal indifference. Hate means you care, while the true opposite of caring is indifference. And I found indifference toward John Mayer damn near impossible, because he was everywhere. He was everywhere like fungus in the woods. A fungus in the woods who writes really catchy songs.

Just as an example, I worked with someone who would often play Heavier Things in our shared office, and when she’d ask if I minded, I’d lie and say “No.” Except that I can now admit that I wasn’t really lying. I’d find myself humming the songs to myself on the bus home, even though I still maintained the public front of being a John Mayer-hater (which should not be confused with being a player-hater, which is something entirely different). When Family Guy–in that episode in which Chris develops a giant zit named Doug who makes him do all sorts of nefarious things–took a swipe at John Mayer (Doug makes Chris spray paint “That’s Enough, John Mayer” on a wall), I laughed pretty hard because that John Mayer was just getting what he deserved, you know. And shortly after that episode aired, one of my students and I went to town on John Mayer for about five minutes at the start of class, telling everyone in the room that “Yeah, he sucks because he’s just a big fat Dave Matthews rip-off and what’s up with that anyway and you know he’s an asshole because he dates all those hot female celebrities”, never mind the fact that the ratio of the hotter the girlfriend, the bigger the asshole doesn’t necessarily hold up under all circumstances (and I should know, seeing as I am a) not really that hot, but b) have still managed to date some pretty spectacular assholes in my time). But mostly, this student and I were just riffing for the benefit of the rest of the class who were all sitting there looking at us like “Who the hell is John Mayer?” (and someone eventually transcended the look to actually ask) because in this particular class, most of the students weren’t aware that any musicians existed who weren’t signed to the Death Row label. A fabulous guitar player wasn’t going to register on their radar screens.

And in time, I started to admit that’s what John Mayer was–a fabulous guitar player. I heard songs from the John Mayer Trio album Try while listening to Pandora.com (having created a radio station that revolved around matches to the Dave Matthews Band, of course) and had to say, as someone who’s a fan of Eric Clapton and Robert Cray and, well, anyone who can play a good blues guitar, that this guy was pretty fucking spectacular. But even so, I wasn’t totally giving in. I kept holding out, despite the fact that my teenaged brother-in-law, a guitar player himself whom I look to as my arbiter of all things currently cool, had judged John Mayer as currently, and continuously, cool. But no–my memories of being tricked at the Shakespeare & Co. were just too strong, too bitter, too deeply ingrained in my psyche for me to admit to anything more than “Yeah. That John Mayer. He’s okay, I guess.”

So I wasn’t totally crumbling, but my resistance was weakening. I was meeting with a faculty member in my little cubicle at work, and he was admiring my Dave Matthews Band tour posters (stop laughing–yes, I really do have DMB tour posters hanging up at work) when he suddenly asked “Hey, have you heard of John Mayer? People keep telling me to check him out” (thus proving that academics are almost always several years behind the general public on the pop culture curve). And I found myself saying “Yeah–he’s the real deal.”

What the hell? Where did that come from? Where was my all-consuming hatred, my righteous indignance at being duped in 2002 by this young upstart (who is, I’ve recently discovered, only six years younger than I am–so either he’s not so young or I’m not so old. I vote for option #2)?

And then this happened (Listen at about the 00.48 mark. And then switch to this version with better audio/video and listen to the rest–it’s incredible, although even I’m willing to admit that The Dave’s voice is a little rough). And any remaining anger melted away and the sky cleared and I finally Learned to Stop Worrying and Just Admit that I Like John Mayer.

My big ol’ case of the likes has been aided and abetted by the fact that my husband has started playing guitar in earnest over the last few years and recently began trying his hand at the John Mayer catalog. And when he starts learning someone’s songs, not only does he start looking for guitar tabs online, but he also buys the albums so he can listen to the songs as they’re supposed to be played. So he bought The Village Sessions and Continuum and listened to them in his car over and over. And over. And since I’m frequently in his car, I also listened to them over and over. And over.

I bought him the tab book for Continuum as a Valentine’s Day present, just so he wouldn’t have to mess with sub-standard tabs online–because I want him to play the songs exactly as they were meant to be played. And two weeks ago, I put the copy of Continuum in my car CD player. And I’m not giving it back voluntarily. If hubby wants it, he can go get it when I’m not looking.

And I’ve also learned that in addition to being a musician, John Mayer has performed stand-up, has written for Esquire, and has maintained four blogs. Four. I can’t even maintain one, obviously. So I should be jealous, but jealousy is futile at this point–the anger is gone. All I can do now is stand back and grudgingly admire the man for having a better writing career than I do.

So, there it is–John Mayer, I’m waving my white flag. I can’t fight anymore. I give up, and I apologize for my behavior. My only hope is that you can forgive me.

And, you know, nothing says forgiveness like some free tickets or backstage passes. I’m just sayin’.