The Enemy Of My Enemy Is Kind Of A Dick

This morning, I found out that Glenn Beck is simulcasting his Christmas show “The Christmas Sweater: A Return To Redemption” in theaters nationwide this Thursday, and that one of those theaters is not far from my new house. I think Glenn Beck is a jackass, so I immediately emailed three good friends and made plans to go. I mean, how can you miss a return to redemption? You sneak in a flask of bourbon, and you’ve got material for weeks. Comedy writer heaven. Better than “New Moon.”

I posted my intention to go on Twitter, figuring the more the merrier, and went to work. A couple of hours later, I logged back on and found reply after reply to the effect of: “your a looser!”/”boy, glenn beck gets all the brainiacs!”/”your so stupid!” Huh? Anyone who even sort of knows me knows I’m kidding, right?

Reading back, the mishegoss started with a message from the Twitter account of an anti-Glenn Beck website: “It’s not just Scott Baio, now Former MTV VJ @DaveHolmes has come out as a Glenn Beck fan!” And since this account doesn’t follow me, it would appear that he just does Twitter searches for “Glenn Beck” and rolls his sleeves up for a slapfight. Even with political kingmakers like Scott Baio. This is how we define “activism” in 2009. Fantastic.

I don’t mind being called names. (I do mind the misspellings, but what are you gonna do?) Here’s what galls me: this guy sent out incorrect information with my contact info on it, a clear incitement for his followers to send me vitriolic messages, and his bio reads: “I’ve had enough of Glenn Beck’s vitriol, misinformation, race baiting, & incitement of violence - and so should you.” Too bad I’m white, because we had a good shot at an irony grand slam.

Let’s assume Scott Baio wasn’t kidding, and is indeed a fan of Glenn Beck. Apparently this Anti-Beck guy has alerted his followers to this important fact, and if my experience is any indication, they let him have it. So…now what? Did they change Chachi’s mind? Or did they just take the negative feeling Glenn Beck gives them, and pass it along to someone else, like children do?

Here’s the deal, folks: even if you’re on what you perceive to be the right side, you still have to act like a grown-up. I think Glenn Beck is a boob with a simplistic and hysterical worldview, but disagreeing with him doesn’t magically disqualify you from being one of those yourself. If he gives you a bad feeling inside, it’s your responsibility to turn it into something positive. Go tutor a kid or take an old person to the doctor, and let’s let Glenn Beck huff and puff and blow his own house down.

It was an annoying but perfect segue into my next book, “The Unlikely Disciple,” in which Brown University student Kevin Roose spends a semester at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. I’m one chapter in, and Roose is already writing about these evangelical students like they’re three-dimensional human beings. It is the dictionary definition of “refreshing.”

Alternative

Spending a week with MI6’s ace in the hole Ammon Shea did get me thinking about words and definitions and how they change over time, about the fluidity of our language.

It got me thinking about “alternative,” specifically as it relates to music. I was lucky enough to start appreciating music at right around age 9, the summer my oldest brother came home from college with his brand-new copy of The Clash’s “London Calling.” It was love at first sight, and I pursued alternative music for years thereafter. I started listening to the local college station (KYMC, St. Louis), and as soon as I could pass for a college freshman, I lied my way into their Saturday-afternoon DJ slot. (I was 15. I could also sometimes buy beer, if the lighting was just so.)

The thing was, in those early years, “alternative” meant “whatever everyone else wasn’t listening to.” Just as top-40 radio in the ’80s meant Def Leppard and Michael Jackson and Kenny Rogers, alternative radio meant Marshall Crenshaw and the Cocteau Twins and…this.

Then along came Kurt Cobain with his dumb drugs and his loud wife, and now “alternative” means “Staind.”

Don’t misunderstand, there were some good years in between, some great bands that otherwise wouldn’t have gotten airplay. But I miss the time before us alterna-kids were a market to be targeted.

I also don’t get how Marshall Crenshaw never broke out.

I'm so! I'm SO!

DISSATISFIED: Only a person can be dissatisfied, while an abstract thing like a need can be said to be unsatisfied. (The implied reproach of Paul Westerberg hurts me more than it hurts him.)

Ultimately, that’s what I was with “Reading the OED,” and not because it was poorly written. Quite the opposite; international super-spy Ammon Shea is a joy to read. He pulls a bunch of obscure words and definitions out in “A,” and provides some essay-sketches about his life as a dictionary nerd that you can’t wait to see him fill in, and then…he does it twenty-five more times. Like “Not Buying It,” there’s no forward motion. There are, however, some great words, and they make it worth reading. Too bad I drank wine in Napa for three days and forgot what they were.