"Oh My God, Oh My God" Just one of My Reactions to the Absolutely Incredible 'You Can See Everything'

I sat there in a crowded movie theater and, in the middle of the picture, against all my cinema experience, said aloud, “Oh my god, oh my god.”

I blame the film itself, You Can See Everything co-directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim.

It defies so much — all? — of the conventions surrounding a documentary. It is such a unique and extraordinary piece of filmmaking, it is so utterly compelling (not a yawn for me in two hours and fifty-four minutes), it is so goddamned much fun that…I am looking all over the place for words and ways to describe it and am struggling mightily.

This was the best movie I’ve seen in a theater in at least seven years. One of my best movie-going experiences of all time.

Here’s the pedestrian description: it was a documentary about Elizabeth Holmes who was found guilty of fraud through her health technology company, Theranos. Prior to that conviction she’d been a media darling. The attractive very young genius who’d become a billionaire.

Her downfall and the trial were one of those media sensations that lasted several months. Her fame (infamy) was redoubled by a TV mini-series about her starring Amanda Seyfried that was not only critically-acclaimed but popular. 

Prior to the start of her eleven years and three months (since reduced by a year) sentence, Holmes and her partner (social not business), Billy Evans, approached the production company and distributor A24 about making a documentary that would show the “real Elizabeth.” The comedian Nathan Fielder became fascinated by her after reading John Carreyrou’s 2018 book “Bad Blood” and asked for a chance to film, along with co-director Lance Oppenheim, with Holmes and her family, with the understanding that nothing might come of the project. Something very much did.

The first part of the film centers around her home life with Evans and their two small children in a rented San Diego beach house beginning thirty-four days before she is to surrender. That’s all fascinating. The last part of the movie is other-worldly.

I knew next to zero about Nathan Fielder before seeing the film though I was given to understand that his style of comedy made a lot of people uncomfortable ( I heard cringeworthy) and he seemed to be loved and hated in equal measure. I didn’t know as much as a lot of people about Ms. Holmes. I’d followed her story mostly through headlines and snippets without reading a full article. 

But the reviews for You Can See…. were rapturous and the trailer was one of the most enticing I’d ever seen. Yesterday was the soonest I could get to the theater. I had a feeling that this was going to be a terrific film. I had no idea that it would be mind-bending. 

My impression was that Holmes must be a sociopath. Early on in the film it becomes evident that she’s nothing of the sort. She’s probably neurodivergent  (I realize that word has become something of a catch all). But I’m in no position to offer a definitive diagnosis. And the film raises infinitely more questions than it gives answers and I love it for that. I will say that it’s evident that she has a different perception of reality than most of us. It’s hard to figure out exactly where her brain is coming from and how she interprets the world. Suffice to say it’s interesting and different and no bloody wonder she committed fraud and believes herself innocent. And I don’t doubt that she believes she did nothing wrong. That’s scary.

Fielder does a wonderful job throughout. Since seeing the film I’ve been given to understand that in his TV work he will allow an awkward silence to linger. This he does to great effect in the documentary. Letting certain assertions and opinions from Liz and Billy hang in there proves quite effective. Speaking of Billy….In a weird way he can be something of a scene stealer. It’s like we come for Holmes and stay for Evans (to stretch a point). He becomes a very large part of the story, provides the twist of the tale, and delivered my “Oh my God” moment.

There’s also a celebrity who shows up and sticks around and I’ll not say who in case you’ve not seen the movie yet. Her popping in initially seems an interesting touch but then she stays and plays a far more significant part than I could have imagined, even confronting Billy. She and Nathan become part of the story. I mean, that’s just weird. But it also turns out to be highly effective. Hell, everything about the film is highly effective.

How do we see the world? What are our motivations? What are our core beliefs? How do we relate to other people and how do we understand them and how do we get them to understand us? What is love? What is justice? What are good and evil and what happens when we confuse the two?

One fascinating idea I struck upon is that Elizabeth and Billy are living in different realities that somehow co-exist. They don't necessarily share an understanding of what they're doing, even though they're doing it together. Billy is cold and calculating. He has a genuine warmth for Elizabeth and their children but his other relationships are transactional. He strikes me as the epitome of the worst kind of tech bro. 

It’s fascinating to me that he can have such coldness in his heart and yet love Liz and his kids so much (at least I think he does). 

One last thought. I wonder if the film is a result of the genius of the filmmakers or if they -- while doing excellent work -- fell ass backwards into an incredible story. I think there's a lot of the latter to it but I wouldn't diminish the work of the director and producer, they deserve all the kudos they get. After all, you’ve got to have a little luck in making a documentary. In fiction you can script a “wow!” moment; in a documentary you can’t manufacture it and you’ve got to have cameras rolling when it appears.

I'll be chewing over You Can See…. for awhile. Someday — soon, I hope, I’ll watch it again. Who knows how differently I'll see it the second time? It's something that demands repeat viewings and perspectives will most certainly change with each viewing. There's so much to take in.

For decades Hearts & Minds has been my favorite documentary. It now has a challenger.

What't the Deal With People Who Send Anonymous Threats? I Don't Know Either But I Take a Look at the Problem

You can never get through the news anymore without reading about people getting death threats. Some of them are graphic and specific. Some of them mention killing or harming family members. Others say that the recipient or a spouse or daughter will or should be raped. There are people who receive dozens, hundreds even thousands of these.

Recipients include politicians, whistle-blowers (how dare you reveal the truth!), victims of alleged crimes (how dare you accuse the perpetrators of the crime!) some are activists health care workers and some are athletes or coaches or the kin of an athlete or coach. This is one of the stranger ones. Threatening someone because they miss-kicked a ball.

I’m staggered by the sheer number of people who issue such threats. It’s not a handful of kooks. It’s one helluva lot of kooks, spread out all over the country and the rest of the world.

I’m curious about the mindset of these people. Some are surely angry about what their target did or didn’t do and the best way to tell someone they upset you is by saying that they should be killed. I imagine others think they can intimidate the recipient into changing their behavior or beliefs. 

I would venture to guess that the main consequences of receiving a death threat can be anything from irritation to crippling fear. Is that what threateners want to do? Scare people? What’s the point? You’ve made someone nervous and frightened. Maybe caused serious anxiety. Are you proud of that? Is it mission accomplished? Really, is this the way to make the world a better place?

What kind of people send death threats? They come from all ideologies from all parts of the world. What do these people have in common? I would imagine one thing is cowardice. They are certainly not brave enough to confront someone in person, if they had the chance. 

These are doubtless powerless people — as many of us are or at least feel. It’s a way of “doing” something. You’re angry about someone has done. It may be a celebrity, it may be a woman alleging rape, it may be state senator. What can you do? You have no influence in a situation that strikes a nerve in you. So telling the person that they should be tortured and killed must feel like “doing something.” It also gets the anger out of your system — or it least is intended to.

Of course a lot of concentrated threats on one person can sometimes have an effect. Maybe the person will withdraw from the campaign, or drop their lawsuit or not print the rest of the story out of fear for their or their family’s lives. Is this the way to accomplish change? Win over opponents? Using the truth, logic, reasoning or  persuading must seem useless or too difficult.

Threatening an athlete for a mistake in a match is a really bizarre one. Don’t you think the person feels bad enough as it is? How does it help to tell them that they should be dead? 

I notice that people like the idea of punishing people for their mistakes. I recall my college football team losing a close game. A running back had fumbled the ball away in a key moment. A lot of people in an online forum were suggesting that in the next practices he should have to run extra wind sprints to teach him a lesson. I wondered if they thought that the player was unaware of the costliness of his miscue and that it was something he should avoid in future. Maybe they thought the coaches wouldn’t know how to instruct him in better ball security so that punishing him was the only answer.

I’d still like to know who these people are who send threatening emails, texts, social media posts and the like. There must be a helluva lot of them who walk among us as regular people. Our neighbors, co-workers, bus drivers, grocery clerks, lawyers maybe. Who knows?

Question: Do I think the prevalence of anonymous death threats tells us something disturbing about human nature generally, or something more specific about the culture we've created through social media? Answer: Death threats predate the internet age, they are a tale as old as time. What the internet has done is make it easy to send a lot of such messages and to send them anonymously. Indeed anonymity is key to the existence of those who threaten. If they had to sign their missives and include their contact information….well, there’d be an awfully significant drop in such threats.

I’m kind of stuck here. There seems little that can be done about the problem. Maybe if we could improve the public discourse — difficult to do in the age of Trumpy. I’m sometimes struck by how easy it is to send threatening messages online. Can something be done about that without inhibiting free speech? 

I got a threatening message once. It was generic and thus pretty easy to ignore. But getting lots of them with some specificity would be a different matter. I don’t know that it would scare me but it might depress me. Maybe just what the sender wants.

Honestly I don’t know how to end this. It’s not something you can put a smiley face on. It seems out of my ken to offer a solution. In many ways we live in a sad world filled with sad people who do awful things. Inexplicable things. 

Here's a thought. How about we counter death threats by sending people "life promises." A little note to someone we don't know telling them that they are valued and wishing them all the best. Might try that.

And Now Ladies and Gentleman, My Favorite Sit-Coms of All Time (in order!)

Seinfeld

Hey, does anybody remember when I posted a list of my favorite TV dramas? You don’t?! It was in late August. Quite popular, really. Surprised you missed it. Anyway there’s been a great demand for a similar post listing my favorite all-time sitcoms. I’m not one to disappoint my public (other than by continuing to write). This isn't a list of the twenty greatest sitcoms ever made. It's a list of the twenty that have given me the most yuks. I've watched most of these shows all the way through more than once. You may note that they span over seventy years. Three of them debuted in the 1950s, five in the 1970s and five more in the 2010s. Only one aired at all in the Sixties when I was growing up (Benny). It was a terrible decade for the medium. I didn't include The Simpsons for two reasons: one, it's animated and two it's gone on way, way, way too long. Some of these shows faded a bit toward the end of their runs but all had great staying power. Seinfeld, for example, got funnier after a mediocre start and stayed hilarious until that last disastrous episode. Mary Tyler Moore also got better after its first season and stayed hilarious to the end. Meanwhile 30 Rock, Schitt's Creek and Fawlty Towers never missed a beat. One thing I've noted about virtually every successful sitcom is that there is a strong central character (Jerry, Liz, Mary etc.) with a strong supporting cast around them, many of whom are scene stealers. There are also terrific ensembles such as with Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.  

1. Seinfeld

2. 30 Rock

3. The Mary Tyler Moore Show

4. Schitt’s Creek

5. Fawlty Towers

6. Extras

7. Frasier

8. Men Behaving Badly (British version)

9. Taxi

10. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

11. Brockmire

12. The Bob Newhart Show

13. Brooklyn Nine-Nine

14. The Odd Couple

15. The Phil Silvers Show

16. The Jack Benny Program

17. Hacks

18. Only Murders in the Building

19. Burns and Allen

20. Derry Girls

Executions are Discussed Along With a College Football Game and an Announcement is Snuck in, Yes its a Potpourri

View from my seat Saturday

I have a few things on my mind and that’s a dangerous place for them to be. The bad news is that I’m going to share those thoughts, so brace yourself.

If you’re with me here in the United States we live in a country that still executes people. I mean the government does. And it can’t even do that properly. See the notorious case of Christa Pike whose execution was botched last week. She’s still alive. So essentially instead of killing her the state tortured the woman. She spent a year counting down to the day when she would die and instead woke up in a hospital. 

Not only do we still kill people we are not going to livestream an execution. It sounds like something that I’m making up and truly I wish I was but I’m not. How do you even fathom the mindset of people who would conceive to do such a thing not to mention those who will watch?

I’m changing the subject from state-sanctioned murder….

To a repressive regime. In this here country. Federal Agents today searched the home of congresswoman Ilhan Omar. "The search is part of a yearslong criminal investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. attorney in Minneapolis and the Department of Justice. The probe, which involves whistleblowers, documents and witness testimony, deals partly with immigration and fraud, but goes beyond those things, the source said." Welcome to the tyranny. Here's her statement: "I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced."

Now to the lighter side.

You’ve heard this one on TV and in movies: if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. So I’m wondering if anyone has made that statement to, let’s say, a group planning a bank robbery. Imagine if you will one of the conspirators saying: “My schedule is clear for the next five-to-ten so I’m good to go”. Then another person says: “Hold on, I’ve got my nephew’s bar mitzvah next month and it’s getting to be the busy season at so I’ve got to back out.” I’m just thinking out loud here.

Let’s get back to governments killing people. Yesterday I watched Paths of Glory (1957) Kubrick. It’s a film based on a novel of the same name which itself is loosely based on real events during World War I. These events include the French army executing three soldiers after a failed attack. The generals believed that a regiment showed cowardice because they retreated under heavy fire. During the attack a general even ordered the artillery to fire on their own men to motivate/punish them. The order was not carried out. The three men were supposed to be selected by lots but two were hand chosen by their commanding officers — but not for any act of cowardice. Paths of Glory is one of the great anti-war films of all time. Director Stanley Kubrick had made a name for himself with his previous film, The Killing but this is the picture that — for many —cemented him as a great director. Kubrick is currently the subject of a podcast series by TCM that I’m  enjoying. I highly recommend it.

Saturday I went to beautiful Memorial Stadium on the University of California campus to see the Golden Bears take on Virginia Tech. The Bears were ten-point underdogs and hopes for the team were…well, not great. But it proved to be the kind of day and game that keeps me coming back. The plucky Bears came from behind twice in the fourth quarter going ahead for good with eighteen seconds remaining. The Bears then had to withstand a final pass into the end zone to claim victory. What great fun cheering the lads on with friends. It was lovely football weather too, a crisp autumn afternoon. The rooting section, the band the mascot (my hero, Oski) were all in fine form. Unexpected wins are often the best kinds.

The biggest news for me is that on Saturday I became a grandfather for the first time. Sadly I haven’t been able to visit the young man owing to having a sore throat (me, not him). Probably a viral infection as there are no other symptoms. Extremely frustrating but I should be okay tomorrow or the next day. A full post on our first meeting forthcoming.

Speaking of this sore throat…it hasn’t kept me from writing but fighting it off has been most tiring so I’m cutting this short. (Yes! There could have been more.) Actually, I don’t want to feel like I’ve short-changed you so here are two hilarious jokes: How can you tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? One you’ll see later and the other in awhile. Bad news, I forgot the other joke. (Maybe that's good news.)

The Might as Well Have Called it The Contestant's Game

You never know what’s going to turn up when you pay You Tube a visit. Last night it was a full episode of this game show. It was a forerunner to the wildly popular and long-running Hollywood Squares. I confess that I did not do all of my homework for this post, having watched just over half the episode (I’m a busy man) but I certainly saw enough.

Game shows were different back in the Fifties and early Sixties. For one thing celebrities dressed up. On some women wore evening gowns and men tuxes. They played it sophisticated and urbane. There were shows like What’s My Line and I’ve Got a Secret that were right there on prime time when prime time was a big deal. 

There were a lot of people who seemed to be professional game show celebs. They were regularly on a show or appeared on several of them. Watching these shows as a kid I had no idea that people like Bennet Cerf, Arlene Francis or Kitty Carlisle ever did anything in their lives but appear on game shows (although if I’d thought of it I’d have imagined that they went to fancy dinner parties and the theater). As for Ms. Carlisle, she had the distinction of having appeared with the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera. Cerf was a titan of publishing.

The banter on those game shows went with the suits. The celebs came off as airy and intelligent but not showy about it. They projected intelligence, sophistication and good manners. You knew they read novels and the Sunday Times but eschewed Winchell.

Games shows started to change along with seemingly everything else in the culture in the Sixties. Soon you had shows like Let’s Make a Deal and the Gong Show. The emphasis was more on the contestants and they could wear damn near anything and had carte blanche to act like goofballs. That’s what makes this clip so interesting, it was like a bridge. One of the keys to that transition is the appearance of Paul Lynde. He was the poster boy for the new era game shows with his flamboyance and jokes riddled with double entendres. He was ubiquitous on game shows for decades — though most notably on Hollywood Squares. 

But let’s get to the elephant in the room. The name of the show: The Celebrity Game. Talk about a lack of imagination! They could have just as well called it The Contestant’s Game. What network exec green lit the use of The Celebrity Game? Was he comatose? The change to Hollywood Squares must have earned some suit a huge bonus.

What also strikes me about The Celebrity Game is some of the panelists. Barry Sullivan, Howard Duff and Ida Lupino (the latter two were married). These were serious Hollywood actors, Lupino was also a director. They were hardly the glitterati of Tinsel Town. What the hell were they doing on a game show? Lynde, of course, Gypsy Rose Lee, Jackie Leonard and Gisèle MacKenzie make more since. Ms. MacKenzie was just the type of “personality” suited for game shows. She was a popular singer, did some acting, was pretty bot not gorgeous, and when all was said and done was a B level celebrity. She’s not remembered today, indeed I probably hadn’t thought of her in decades before watching The Celebrity Game. Anyway she was your classic game show celeb.

Fabian also seems a bit of an odd choice. He’d been a teen idol in the late fifties as a singer but his star was already fading by the time of the show. Actually, that makes him perfectly suited for a game show. It was often where performers went to keep their names alive before a hoped-for second act to their careers.

Carl Reiner remains one of our comic greats so I’m not sure what he was doing slumming hosting a game show. I imagine the money was good.

The episode itself is not worth recounting. It’s not terribly interesting. It’s an opportunity for banter — the blood, bone and sinew of games shows of that era — but the questions and answers were a massive yawn.

I love these glimpses into our culture’s past. Sometimes they make you long for the “good ole days” and other times they make you thankful for progress. I suppose this one did a little bit of both for me. Thanks, You Tube, I owe ya one.

The Ups the Downs and the Sideways of Having Co-Workers

Typical workplace gathering at one of my many workplaces

Retirement means no more workplace. I exchange good mornings with the missus but that’s it. In a workplace you can have over a dozen good mornings to get through before the workday starts in earnest. Some of those include how-are-yous. Monday’s there are how-was-your-weekends. Friday’s there’s always some idiot who says: “Hey, it’s Friday.” (Thanks for the calendar update!). On Wednesdays someone might refer to the fact that it’s hump day. I had one co-worker who referred to Thursday as “junior Friday.” Somehow that never bothered me like me it should have. No one, ever, never said anything about Tuesday other than a vice-principal who pointed out that “Tuesday is a day with no personality.” At her memorial service I mentioned that to someone who said, “I don’t know about that.” To which I thought: “oh do fuck off.” I hate when people try to argue with you when you share what someone else said. The messenger is not to be killed.

I got along perfectly well with most of my co-workers. Some became friends as tends to happen. I mentioned something to this effect in class once not terribly long ago and a few students were aghast. I believe it was a student from China an another from France who said that should never happen, friendships with workmates are strictly verboten. I meant to explore the topic at greater length. It might have been their lines of work, I don’t know that it was necessarily a French or Chinese thing. But they were adamant. 

My goodness, imagine how many co-workers I had over the years. We’re talking about fifty years worth. Some passed through and were literally gone in a day or two, there were two people I worked with for over twenty year (poor sods) others close to that long. You can really get to know a person, then again you can really not. Some people keep to themselves and are private about their home lives. Sometimes you find out things about a person that are stunning. Usually not. Most people aren’t all that interesting. Oh sure, they have unique thoughts on some topics and are expert in others and have many fine qualities but no one would write a biography about them.

I had one colleague for half a day. Turned out she was a bit of a nutter. Came in her first day and commenced complaining to her higher-ups about a variety of topics. It was the day of a large student intake which meant orientation — everyone was too busy to listen to her. So she called the company’s bigwigs. Evidently they were not amused. She was fired at lunch time. Who needs that kind of nonsense.

In my younger days I had romances with co-workers. When you’re in your early twenties (alternative newspaper in a college town) that’s not at all uncommon. Could it get awkward? I should say so. Regrets? Nah, I was basically a randy kid, what did you expect? I’ll tell what could be a bigger problem, asking out or hitting on a co-worker and getting rejected. Ouch.

There were a few co-workers over the year who I disliked. Not many. Even a few — again, not many — who I detested. Part of it was that I was a volatile personality with an out-sized ego. Part of it was that some people are — at least at particular places in particular times of their lives — awful. One might argue that I was.

I’m thinking of the last few co-workers who I had a strong distaste for and console myself in the fact that others disliked them too. One was a hot-headed, misogynist. People HATED him. He was fired. 

I recently worked with some chap who took over from someone who I quite liked. That’s tough. He was very different. That’s tougher. But he was also strange. Never ended class on time. Not even close. I was always careful about that to such a degree that I ended class at 11:44 (it went until 11:45). The other thing is that this guy was a flake. Taking personal days, vacations and constantly sick. He was also late a few times. Here’s the capper. After a few weeks on the job he called me by the wrong name. At this point the school had six employees. He had to learn six motherfucking names and couldn’t pull it off. Thankfully he left after a few months. In his last week this asshole called me by the wrong name again. To top if off he referred to another teacher by the wrong name. Talk about something that isn’t rocket science.

Some co-workers are aloof. Some are painfully shy. Some — and this is a far greater sin — are chatterboxes. I remember working with one woman who could’t shut up to save her life (ask her students). I learned early on never to ask how her weekend was or I’d have to brace myself for an endless detailing of every movement over the preceding forty-eight hours. The problem is that some co-workers vastly overrate how interested you are in the minutia of their daily lives. 

Some co-workers you feel like you know after a few days. Others you spend years with and they’re a total mystery.

What’s also weird is that for some people their entire circle of friends consists of co-workers. What, you can’t make friends outside of work?

I had male co-workers who were fans of rival teams, a few of them were jerks about it. That’s a male thing. Men can be jerks about all sorts of things and don’t hesitate to constantly tease one another, often cruelly. I hated that. Women co-workers are nicer. That nurturing instinct.

You’ve got to draw boundaries with people at work. You’ve got to let people know what topics are off limits, how much you’ll share about your family, your psychosis, your personal history, your religious beliefs or lack thereof, your politics. Early in sobriety I confided in the wrong person that I was in a twelve-step program. He broadcast to the rest of the school and worse weaponized it against me later. I was, he asserted, more fun when I was drinking. Just what a recovering alcoholic needs to hear.

Of course I haven’t even gotten into one particular form of co-worker — the boss. That’s a huge topic worthy of it’s own post. I’ve a lot to say on the topic and if you’re good boys and girls you’ll hear it one day.

Before I go I’ve got one vignette. I worked with a woman who was big in the union. A real leader among teachers who reveled in her successes. She once told a few of us how important it was to treat the staff, secretaries, custodians etc. as equals. My reaction: you really think you need to say that to us? And aren’t you suggesting that they AREN’T equals, just that they need to be treated “as if” they were.” Whatta….(I won’t use that word in this blog).

I’ll add another note to that. My best friend was a member of the staff (a student safety officer) and another friend was a custodian. I got along swimmingly with the secretaries and everyone else on the staff. You never had to tell them we were all equal. They were the type of people who knew. Bless ‘em. 

Recently there was a memorial service for someone I worked with for close to the twenty years I mentioned earlier. I mentioned earlier. He became a vice-principal and was a popular supervisor, even I liked him. It was a great occasion to honor his life but for a lot of us it was a chance to see people we'd been through the wars with. People we'd worked with, fought with, laughed with, argued with, shared stories with. Any animosity that had existed among us was gone. I hadn't seen some of the people in decades. We had a bond, the kind you develop with co-workers. 

Anyway I don’t have co-workers to share space with anymore (unless the wife lets me hire a secretary). I already miss them, for all the aggravation they can cause. After all they’re all people (that may start changing) and getting to know other people is one of life’s great joys.