I hate the Littlefinger death arc

I’m not a big fan of fantasy literature.  I’ve never read/seen Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings… so in 2017 that would make me a bit of an outlier especially since I love books and movies.  Fantasy just isn’t my thing unless you make it naughty and then it’s right up my alley.  HEY NOW!  Just never been attracted to fantasy.  Like blondes… I understand the appeal… it’s just not my cup of tea. 

Anyway… friends over the last couple of years have begged me to binge Game of Thrones.  I’d say okay, and then never follow through.  It had started to become an annual ritual.  The premier date of the new season would get released and I’d start getting calls and texts.  This year the calls and texts stopped and of course that’s when I made up my mind to catch-up.  I was all stealthy like… never mentioned it to anyone… just started one day in April.  And OMG… I was hooked from episode 1.  SPOILER ALERT…at the end of episode 1 a grown man pushes a boy from a tower window because he witnessed said grown man having K-9 monkey-sex with his very own TWIN SISTER. 

Game of Thrones is not just fantasy.  The show is excellent, very well written, and a visual feast.  The characters are so rich.  If watching intently one can’t help but have favorites.  Of course being a sociopath (high functioning) I’m drawn to the more dark sinister characters.  I always feel they are more honest and interesting.  This character of Lord Petyr Baelish aka “Littlefinger” caught my eye on several occasions as a scene stealer and then as a personal avatar for how I’d play the game. The title Game of Thrones elicits thoughts of chess, and of all the characters he is by far the grandmaster.  Born of little renown he rose to prominence by sheer force of will and determination.  On the board I envision him as a Knight that was moving towards being a Rook. Littlefinger became my guy.  I rooted for him although I know him sitting on the Iron Throne is the longest of long shots. 

So I caught up one week before the season 7 premier.  I was so happy.  I started making calls and texting friends.  When I told them I was Team Littlefinger… let’s just say I found no teammates.  They were all Jon Snow or Dany Targaryen bots.  Not sure why people root so hard for the high-borns but I digress. 

As season 7 started to progress I got the feeling that my guy wasn’t long for this earth and that he’d be shedding his mortal coil sooner than later.  After episode 4 I had reconciled that Littlefinger probably wouldn’t make it to season 8 and that Arya would be the kill instrument.  I was okay with this.  Arya is a major character and in this world Littlefinger deserved a proper death.  Arya killing him would be quite proper.  Keep in mind it was Littlefingers opening salvo that started the Game of Thrones in the first place.

I needed Littlefinger’s death to be brilliant, and done masterfully.  When Bran parroted Littlefinger’s life motto “CHAO IS A LADDER” in episode 4 I said “OH SHIT game on.” I was so looking forward to how this would develop over the next 3 episodes, but what I got was an elaborate game of 3 Card Monte that made the eventual kill unsatisfying.  When I tell people this, they think I’m just hurt because my guy is gone, but that’s not the case.  I knew all along that this was a Jon/Dany story, but there is something to say for how a great story arrives at its denouement. 

Three weeks and one re-watch later and I still feel like we could have been given better. 

Imagine after the Littlefinger/Bran scene in episode 4, Littlefinger being freaked-out by Brans knowledge of a private conversation that happened between he and Varys 4 years prior goes to Sansa and says something like… “Hey your brother is weird…I’m taking my army back to the Vail.”  Sansa needing him to stay because A. she needs his army, and B. she needs him at Winterfell so she can have him killed, uses her feminine wiles to keep him thirsty.  She touches his arm, and says something like “Petyr we need your army here… I need you here.”  He’d stay and then we’d think A. Sansa is going down her 3^rd awful road or B. Sansa is spinning a web. We’d be invested in both equally. 

Then in episode 5 when Arya is following Littlefinger around we could have been shown those same conversation but with Sansa information hunting.  And still we’d be none the wiser but still very invested.  Instead we got fake drama between Arya and Sansa that is untrue to their natures.  For heaven sake they had just reconnected after being astranged for 6+ years, and we’re supposed to expect them to be on the verge of murder in 2 episodes.  Not plausible. 

We also could have been given a scene where Arya speaks to Bran and says something like… “I’m worried about Sansa being played by Littlefinger” and Bran could say” I’d be more worried for Littlefinger”… again giving us a little of the truth but not enough to convince us. 

My biggest gripe is that Littlefinger died on a very small part of the board.  I would have loved to see a scene like…

The morning of his execution Littlefinger is shaving... looking in the mirror…“Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves is playing in the background… and he’s seeing the entire board, he’s already removed Arya (so he thinks), and he’s thinking 2-3-4 moves ahead to Jon/Dany/Cersei.  What is his next move? He’s playing the game EVERYWHERE as he’s been apt to say.  Then how great would the Winterfell Hall scene had been when the tables were turned by Sansa and Arya? 

If these 4 scenes had been added and the Sansa finding Arya’s faces scene had been cut we still would have had a very satisfying result, and the lead-up would have been more attractive to the Littlefinger haters and lovers.  If played out this way Sansa would have been elevated as a real player.  As it turns out now we have no idea if Sansa was the catalyst or Arya or even Bran.

Lord Petyr Baelish you deserved so much better. Hopefully when George R.R. Martin completes “Winds of Winter” he will give you the KING OF THE ASHES death that you deserved.

I Hate RACE

I just turned 45 and this has been on my mind for some time.  One day I'll post the details of the most interesting conversation I had about race.  I'm still chewing on it.  What you'll read below are my real thoughts as a black man.  No hyperbole. My personal ethos is to always look for solutions, best practices, and solid strategy. So read with an open mind.

A couple summers ago I read “Between the world and me” a book written by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Great book that I wish with all my being was fiction. Unfortunately it was a crystallized snapshot of race relations in America. While reading I was introduced to this quote “Race is the child of racism not the father.” When I read this something moved me. Something I knew spiritually was unveiled through words.

 Racism created race. Think about it. Race is an unnecessary bundle. Race is basically color and color is only important aesthetically. If you're buying a car the color is important but not as important as the cost, make, model, reliability, durability. The color is a function of what one likes, not what one needs.

In our world the color of a person has been conflated to mean the make of a person. For example whites are the Mercedes Benz of the world while blacks are the Ford, when in all actually a Benz comes in white and black. The quality of the product is not in its color. ANYONE being proud of their color has fallen for the proverbial banana in the tailpipe.

There is no scientific research that links the color of any animal to divergent behavior patterns. So to form an opinion about a person... a human being...the top shelf of ALL animals... doesn't even rise to the level of conjecture. It is indefatigable heresy. It's a binary myth...people like me are good, people not like me are bad. Race is nothing more than a social construct, and the only reason it survives is because people on both sides buy-in to it, then pass it down through words, actions and most importantly inaction.

What humans in this world have done to fellow humans, in the name, of color is an atrocity. The first “hate crime” ever committed was when a person classified another person by color. Some classification/descriptions I get. Classifying people by gender, or nationality I get. There is a functional logic to it. The human race is predicated on the relationship between male and female, and if the world becomes divided into continents and then further divided into countries then citizenship and law become relative concepts.

Bundling people by color has no functional logic other than to create derision and strife. It is very useful in creating an easily formed caste system. The easiest way to code people and create barriers to their existence , ambition, dreams, and pursuit of happiness is to tell them that they were born a defect...inferior based on something they themselves can never change.

Then if you can reinforce this lie with real life restrictions on commerce, finance, and upward-mobility you've built an institution. The invisible chains graduate from nuisance to hindrance to full blown impediment. The building of a great society on the back of equals that you categorize as inferior was the greatest trick ever performed, and is only rivaled by then giving yourself a 400 year head start and blaming the runners pulling up the rear for their diminished station in life.

It's all a game. Once you agree to play it by the creators rules you lose. The creator of racism wants you to give up, wants you to feel inferior, and wants you to embrace their creation as a reason to be less, do less, contribute less. They want you to emotionally connect to their creation. They want you to eat it, breathe it, and live in it. That is how they win. Stop allowing ignorant constructs to rent space in your head. Protesting doesn't change ANYTHING. It only creates money for the media, and then makes the black person more emotional and less cerebral during the game. If you are thinking emotionally then the logic of it all gets missed. You cease to use optimum strategy.

Game theory dictates that you NOT do what your opponent wants. When you do what your opponent wants, you lose before you've lost. MLK understood this and used a non-violent approach in the 60's to achieve legal rights that should have been god-given. The 2017 version of non-violence is indifference. Do yourself a favor...stop commenting on race for a while. Stop identifying with racism for a spell. Concentrate on being your best self daily. This is how you win. Racism is another persons disease. Why would we want to stay in contact with it? Stop giving it oxygen and it will die.

Stop speaking out... Why? Because when you do...you only entertain racists. The people that aren't racist are tired of hearing about racism, but the people that are racists love when you play the victim. Victim talk is not attractive, because victims will always speak from a position of weakness. Think about it...when is the last time you changed a persons mind about something significant? Stop trying!!!

I love that a person of color was elected to America's highest office in 2008. My flesh rejoiced, and many were quick to espouse that very act as the ushering in of the post-race period in our history. Took about 100 days or so to dis-spell that theory, however I do see a different landmark in that act. That act proved that racism CAN be beat at every level. It's still a very worthy adversary but it can be usurped. Although I have said in private that a truer sign of real change would be  Chief Justice, Fed Chairman, or Speaker of the House.

Finally...

Thoughts are the last bastion of privacy, and as long as you can't be condemned for thought we're always going to have some degree of racism. Racism can't be defeated because it's not illegal. Only when a persons racist activity infringes on commerce has a law been broken, but racism in and of itself is not illegal. Racism can't be taken from an individual it must be surrendered. It will diminish only when it has lost its utility as a construct.

As soon as people of color realize that color is irrelevant and this entire trick is just an elaborate house of cards the sooner we all can concentrate on the things that really matters, Life is too important to be concentrating on slights of hand and illusion when there are pressing real issues that challenge our very existence. The make of a person...the guts...quality of parts... the craftsmanship are all that really matter. Everyone should keep their eyes on their own luggage and don't carry any baggage that doesn't belong to them.

 

I hate people that don't value TIME

 

So.... I'm dating someone new. We've been out 4 times now, and on each date she's been at least 30 minutes late. I'm heading to the meet and I get a text about two minutes before the meet time, and it usually reads like this. “Hey... Gonna be late, be there in 30”

So sending the text before the meet time establishes that she knows how time works. But, a text 30 minutes earlier would have probably kept me off the road and not waiting holding my wang for 30 minutes until she arrived. Letting me know you're going to be late is only valuable if it provides me the opportunity to make a correction on my end. So is this the markings of a selfish person or just an inconsiderate one?

Time is abstract and subjective in and of itself, but some brilliant person a very long time ago created a measure of time that is objective. 15 minutes may seem a blink of an eye to a child, but can feel like an eternity to someone in crisis. So in that sense time is relative, but the fact that 15 minutes is exactly 15 minutes is not in question.

Is the devaluing of time generational? Meaning as our society changes, and evolves does the integers of time have less meaning? There was a time, not too long ago, when if you wanted to see your favorite television show you had to be in front on the TV when it was being broadcast. The very definition of appointment television. Now very few consume television that way. Teleworking, and flex time have devalued the 8 hour work day, as we rapidly segue into a world where 9 to 5 is a relic, and only significant as the title of a bad 80's movie. Am I the relic for still valuing time as much as I do? Is time just a unit? Are the feelings I ascribe to time antiquated? Is an appointment negotiatble? Is it fungible? Is it optional?

I'm 44. I date younger women, not as a choice... it just happens that way. What I've been noticing recently is I make plans, and I get a text (from my time respecting friends) the day of... asking “are we still on for today?” This bothers me because if I had a change of plans I would have sent a notification immediately, and I hope I would get that consideration in kind. Is this the BAIL generation I'm dealing with? Do people bail on plans that easily? Is every outing a face-off of competing events? Is this an unintended consequence of trafficking in millennials?

So... I like this girl. She's very attractive, and no-doubt she's been given a ton of latitude in life due to her beauty. I can even say that her tardiness doesn't bother me as much as it should, and I'm disappointed in myself on that point. I'm not dwelling in it, but I am logging it for later recall.

Can I be in a meaningful relationship with a time gypsy?Am I a time Nazi? Is there a healthy middle?

The pursuit sometimes clouds the specifics. I'm sure once she's been captured a few times, the tardiness will become exibit A in the case to deconstruct. I'm just wondering aloud to myself...will this be the standard going forward? Is time rigid or flexible? Am I a dinosaur or a standard bearer? I guess only TIME will tell !!!

 

 

 

I hate the end of the McLaughlin Group

Growing up in Washington DC is a unique experience. DC is the very definition of urban life, and so,  I was introduced to gangs at a very young age. Not street gangs, as it were, but political gangs. I knew about Republican, and Democrat gangs long before I knew what a Crips or Bloods was.

As a lad I loved newspapers. DC was a mecca of news in the 70's and 80's. Back then newspapers were more neutral. They didn't lean, and they rarely interpreted. They were skeletal and as a reader you were forced to draw conclusion yourself. You were responsible for adding the muscles, blood, and nervous system to the story. My family and friends didn't care as much about news topics as I did, and so I didn't have much opportunity to spar, and wrestle with these ideas. I was without a mentor. I had all this material and no lab to experiment.

So one day I'm flipping through the channels (back then we had 10), and I see this group of people arguing about the news of the week. I immediately stopped, and watched intently as these men spoke. I fell in love that day. The panel was so biting, so informed, so opinionated. The cadence of smart people talking was music to my ears, and has remained so to this day. From that time, I never missed an episode. The McLaughlin Group was my family now. I had a safe place to test my logic, my intuition, and my resourcefulness.

My favorite panelist was Jack Germond. A grumpy cantankerous writer for the Baltimore Sun at the time. He was a democrat but he had the demeanor of a republican. Today's democrats could learn a few lessons from him. He was thoughtful, and unapologetic.

Pat Buchanan was an inspiration. He knew so much. McLaughlin would often try to trip him up with obscure references, and left field questions. Buchanan knew them all... answered them all. I was in awe at his breadth of knowledge. He inspired me to be intellectually curious. I still don't know how that guy never became president.

I got to see the essence of “the Hedgehog and the Fox” play out every Sunday Morning.

John McLaughlin had created an American Original. He blazed the trail for Crossfire, Politically Incorrect, Realtime, The Daily Show, The O'reilly Factor, Morning Joe, Fox News, MSNBC. The idea of rivals going after each other in an intelligent thoughtful way was unheard of in 1982. When you look at ESPN, and see First Take know that it has the DNA of the McLaughlin Group.

 
John McLaughlin died last month. His show died with him. I'm still grieving. I miss it, at this moment, with 100 % metaphysical certitude.  

I hate the Hater Culture

I know this may sound weird seeing as my blog is titled Hate Diary, but stay with me.  I’m getting to something big here.

Magic Johnson used to say he was driven to go to the gym and work in the off season because he knew 3000 miles away Larry Bird was in a gym working, and he couldn’t let Larry have that edge. When I heard this it made all the sense in the world.  Magic and Larry were chief rivals.  If it weren’t for Magic, Larry would have an NCAA championship and 5 NBA championships, and if it weren’t for Larry, Magic would have 6 NBA championships and the Jordan mystique would feel a lot different. It also made all the sense in the world because they were opponents in the same arena playing a zero sum game.  I win you lose.  You win I lose.  The math is easy and makes sense.

When a team won a championship they were happy for themselves and what they accomplished.  They would look in the camera and say “Hi Mom… we did it.”  There was personal pride because they knew they beat the best to accomplish their goal.  When Isiah Thomas reached the mountain top he said “Heaven must be like this.” He reached heaven by defeating the Los Angeles Lakers.

Fast Forward a decade or so later.  Now when teams win a championship… you hear this “We all we got” and my personal favorite “No one believed in us.”  So your arena is packed every night, your shoes, and clothes are sold all over the world, your commercials are on every TV network, and “NOBODY BELIEVES IN YOU.” I find that hard to reconcile. 

Stark difference.  What had changed is that people had started to put a supremely high value on the opinions of other people.  They started concentrating on the voice of the onlooker, the fan, the spectator.  This is not only a sports problem.  This is happening everywhere.  Check Facebook, twitter, IG.  All you see are people creating haters for themselves for motivation.  It’s a slippery slope to KNOW without reservation the thoughts of others and how they truly feel towards you.  But these simpletons do it every day because they feel fake opposition is better than looking inward.

Ballers lost the gumption to go hard against old AAU or college friends.  They want to win but not at the expense of their friend/colleague.  It is easier to go after the nameless, faceless critic.  They would save press clippings and tape them on the gym wall so they could do those extra reps.  Creating an opponent from scratch, the very definition of a straw-man.  The media became the enemy.  They DVR “First Take” to see what Stephen A, and Skip have to say.  Hoping they’d disrespect them so they could add more fuel. The goal is not to win but to prove others wrong.

This is so misguided because in the heat of the battle your opponent is in front of you.  Your opponent is not the fan, or the media, and you need to HATE your TRUE opponent to win. 

LeBron James got reminded of that again.  His two greatest performances in his payoff career occurred when his manhood was tested.  Down 3-2 to Boston in 2012, and this year in game 5 of the NBA Finals after Draymond Green called him out of his name.  He concentrated his HATE on his TRUE opponent and channeled his greatness. 

The problem is after he tapped into his dark side he went right back to being a sheep.  The Ultimate Warrior T-shirt, and the tea sipping Kermit were a reminder that he still thinks his opponent is not in the battle.  I keep hoping they learn, but alas they never do. It’s a sad life when your primary goal is to prove something to someone else rather than prove it to yourself. Because SELF is the ULTIMATE OPPONENT.

I hate the DREAM TEAM

I know this sounds a wee bit blasphemous but I HATE THE DREAM TEAM.  And before you recoil… yes… That Dream Team… the 1992 team… Yes.  The Justice League of Jordan, Bird, and Magic… Yes.  I don’t hate it in a vacuum, but I hate what it has spawned.  The result of its birth has disfigured the NBA (my first love) into a hideous beast, not fit for human consumption.

Back in 1988 my beloved John Thompson experimented with the US Olympic Men’s Basketball team.  The experiment failed miserably. Depressed and hazy USA Basketball decided to drown its sorrows in booze and copious amounts of meaningless sex.  So they called the town whore David Stern. They make a date, all the while Stern plots. As it happens, Stern is a gold-digger so the best way to maximize her situation is to get pregnant.  So she puts on the low cut mini, with the F-Me pumps.  You know the ones.  No man can resist.   She tells USA basketball she’s on the pill so we can go “skin-to-skin”.  USA Basketball says OK, and 4 years later the DREAM TEAM is born. 

The baby was beautiful…the baby was breathtaking. I was 20 years old at the time and all I wanted to do was babysit the Dream Team.  The summers of 1992 was magical. Seeing these guys play together was a cool treat served to us by the basketball gods on a hot August day. Little did we know that treat would turn trick and ruin the NBA.

Initially the Dream Team was a huge success.  Stern got what she wanted.  The NBA was a global brand which opened up new revenue streams.  The pie gets bigger so the slices get bigger. In a competitive arena there is great value in creating a zero-sum-game.  When you have a small pie the competition for that pie is immense.  A bigger pie means that some can get full after just having a slice. 

The 1992 Dream Team removed HATE from basketball.  And basketball is the lesser for it.  Isiah Thomas and Magic Johnson were best friends when Magic was doing all the winner, but Isiah noticed a change when he decided to go after what Magic had.  Isiah realized that on the court he needed to HATE his opponent in order to defeat him.  He needed to play with furious anger to WIN. 

People don’t understand how competitive basketball is.  They look at a game decided by 16 points and call it a blow-out. When all it means is that a team was better by 2 baskets in each quarter over the course of a 48 minute game.  Over 90% of NBA games are decided by 8 points or less, meaning the difference is 1 basket per quarter.  This in a league where both teams shoot between 45-55% on any given night.  The HATE is what gets you over the top. That HATE gets you to that loose ball, that extra rotation. HATE allows you to take that really hard foul.  Remove the HATE and you get mediocre outcomes.

Letting great players play together was a mistake.  They learned to like it.  And as the money got bigger, getting more help was the ultimate WIN/WIN.  No one wants the Barkley, Malone, Ewing Legacy, but why does no one want the Isiah Thomas Legacy either. He beat the 2 BEST ORGANIZATIONS OF ALL TIME.

So after the Dream Team you see things like. Clyde Drexler being okay with playing on Olajuwon’s team.  Glenn Rice and Horace Grant okay playing with Shaq and Kobe.  Gary Payton, and Karl Malone okay with chasing it.  This all culminating with the BIG 3 in Boston, Miami, and now the Four Horsemen in Golden State.  Kevin Durant just lost to Golden State four weeks ago in HISTORIC fashion, his teammate got kicked in the nuts not once but twice, and he has NO HATE in his heart for them.  He joins them 28 days later.  WOW. 

If you asked David Stern to go back to 1988 and posited him the question what would she have done different? I bet you she would say “I would have used protection, or tied my tubes in 1993.”  Don’t get me wrong we love the baby, but we don’t love what it grew up to become.

I Hate People Comparing Michael Jackson to PRINCE

Prince died on Thursday and almost immediately the comparisons to Michael Jackson were invoked. I started seeing Memes on social media illustrating music royalty that included;

Michael Jackson as the KING,
Whitney Houston as the QUEEN, and
Prince as (of course) the PRINCE

This was cute in a pun-ish sort of way, but factually inaccurate. In fact, Prince with his unisex, gender-bending persona could serve as both KING, and Queen of my generations music monarchy.

Prince and Michael Jackson both reached their zeniths in the 1980's and after that the comparison should end. Michael Jackson is a great performer. Prince is a great vocalist, musician, composer, and performer.

You couldn't tell by the visual but Prince was a man's man. He played ball, and by most accounts he had a wicked jumper. Ask Charlie Murphy, he documented it on the Chappelle Show in 2003. Prince loved the skit. He didn't get bent out of shape like many at his level are apt to do when getting made fun of.

And we must speak on the fact that Prince was a world class STICK MAN. He “loved”some of the hottest women of our time. Vanity (of Last Dragon fame), Apollonia, Sheila E., Carmen Electra, and Kim Basinger are just a few of Prince's muses. And you know you belong in the STICK MAN hall of fame when they call people you banged muses. You're first ballot HOF when none of your ex's have a bad word to say about you.

Side bar... first ballot HOF Stick Men are Hefner, Clooney, DiCaprio, Jeter, and Prince.

Prince was the Curt Flood of music. He fought the power and won back his music catalog. He decided to no longer be a slave to Warner Bro's. He was courageous, irrepressible, original; an artist in the truest sense of the word.

I went to a Roots concert last night. They bowed down and paid HOMAGE to his TALENT.

Look man!!!! Do you know how many babies have been made to Prince? How many people have got their freak on to “Do me baby” or “Darling Nikki?” How many people have knocked boots to “If I was your girlfriend” or “Adore?” How many people have grinded wet spots to “Sexy MF” or “Get Off?”

The man was prolific. Most of the songs I just mentioned were on his B-sides.

There is no comparison to a TALENT that stands along.

In March...OKC was playing Golden State. It was a big game. I stayed up late to watch it. Kevin Durant (2014 MVP), and Steph Curry (Reigning MVP) were in the building. Golden State was playing terrific basketball, and winning at a record pace. During the first time-out the TNT camera pans over to the aisle, as his Purple Badness emerges. This was 32 years after Purple Rain. He parts the sea with a bejeweled cane in one hand and a dime piece on his other arm (Damaris Lewis aka new muse). Prince walked in as the baddest man on the planet. The fans gave him a standing ovation. In the midst of all the stars...he was THE STAR.

The greatest concert I've ever witnessed happened in the Capital Centre. Prince put on a SHOW that night. Man played guitar...Man played drums...Man played bass....Man played keyboard....then he pulled out a trumpet, and tore the house down. I'm getting chills now just thinking about it. I wanted to run up to the microphone and yell “Earl playing by hisself man...Earl playing by hisself.”

Some were more iconic, some more popular, but NONE more TALENTED.

 

“...if he poured his heart into a glass and offered it like wine...she would drink and be back in time for the morning papers”