Quick Hits, Volume 3

Sonny Asks Dalton about … The treachery of Paul Marcarelli

Rank these four examples betrayal from Bad to Absolute Worst … Benedict Arnold for turning on the Continental Army, Scar for killing Mufasa, Paul Marcarelli for defecting from Verizon to Sprint, and Emily Weaver for cheating on her husband Cal with David Lindhagen.

4. Benedict Arnold

Ok, Benedict Arnold only being bad on the “bad to absolute worst” ranking of betrayal might seem like a take, but hear me out. Benedict, or Benny as I like to call him, gets a bad rap in the history books. He defected to the British because he felt like he had been passed up on some promotions by congress, and married into a family of British sympathizers with his wife being close friends with a British general. Who among us hasn’t felt spurned by our employer and dreamed of revenge? Plus, he was just trying to stay in his wife’s good graces, so he’s really just a romantic if anything.

We gained independence in 1776 and the United Kingdom gained it in 1922. In 2019 both are led by fascist dunces with a combined IQ of 7. Was the Revolutionary war really even that necessary? Keep Benny’s name out of your mouths.

3. Emily Weaver

David fuckin’ Lindhagen. He’s the real villain of this story. Obviously, no one should ever cheat on their spouse, but relationships are complicated and Cal and Emily find their way back to each other. Emily’s betrayal is ultimately forgiven by Cal, so it can’t come in too high on this list. Just remember to always take your rings off before punching the man who made your best friend a cuckold.

2. Scar

Scar is a real asshole. He murders his own brother and then convinces his nephew that it was actually his fault that his dad is dead and convinces him to go into exile. Scar then proceeds to let the hyenas hunt freely in the kingdom bringing starvation to the land. The only reason this isn’t the ultimate betrayal is because it is eventually unsuccessful. Scar was too much a runt of the litter to beat Mufasa fair and square, and he eventually loses his first fight to Simba. The only reason his reign lasted as long as it did was because Simba was off eating bugs and finding himself. A true betrayal needs to have real, lasting impact.

1. Paul Marcarelli

Paul Marcarelli’s is a betrayal with real, lasting impact. I bet nobody reading this even knows who Paul Marcarelli is! That’s because everyone knew him as the Verizon guy. The “Can you hear me now?” guy. He was the face of a giant corporation, and weirdly had actual cultural impact. Kids in school were just walking around shouting “Can you hear me now?!?!” at everyone they could. It was anarchy.

But then Paul did the unthinkable. The only thing more sacred to American’s than loyalty is capitalism. Paul broke with both of those sacred ideals when he defected from Verizon to Sprint. (Actually this is probably the most capitalist thing he could’ve done, leave me alone). How dare he? How dare he use his fame brought to him by Verizon and use it to sell phones for Sprint! His goofy face, once surrounded by Verizon red is now surrounded by Sprint yellow. It’s a bad look for Paul. He’s should be the real villain of our history. The next time you think about calling someone a Benedict Arnold, maybe think about calling them a Paul Marcarelli instead.

Dalton asks Sonny about … Catfishing

Catfishing seems to be a unique product of the early 2010’s. It’s something that couldn’t have happened very often before social media took off, and now that the internet is so ubiquitous to every facet of our lives, it’d be much harder to dupe someone as completely as it takes to fake a relationship. Catfishing really entered the culture after the movie Catfish came out, which also spawned a spinoff tv show. But the cultural moment of Catfishing peaked when it came out that Manti Te’o’s dead girlfriend actually wasn’t dead, but was in fact never alive at all.

As an early adopter of the internet yourself, I’d like to know what your relationship to Catfishing looks like. I’d also like to know, in retrospect, if you feel guilty about all of the Manti Te’o jokes you surely made and laughed at on the internet. Poor guy thought his fake girlfriend died, then thought she was alive, then found out that just kidding she was a figment of some guy’s imagination.

My relationship with Catfishing has nothing to do with being an early adopter of the internet and everything to do with the fact that I watched the “Catfish” documentary very shortly after it came out, largely because its trailer sucked me in from the moment I saw it.

I was the first person in my friend/family circle who saw “Catfish” and therefore I was the first one who knew what the term “catfishing” meant. I put this knowledge to use in the early part of the decade, when an acquaintance of mine who shall remain nameless and otherwise unidentified was being catfished, and I tried telling everyone “he’s being catfished” repeatedly, only they didn’t understand what they hell that phrase meant. When I explained what that phrase meant, they didn’t understand why one person would do that to another person, only I didn’t have that answer for that inquiry.

This personal example happened/was happening months before the Manti Te’o situation became public. It also happened/was happening months before Catfish: The TV Show premiered on MTV in November 2012, two months before the Manti Te’o story broke. You’re right though, the Te’o story was what really brought this phenomenon to life. If you search some of the reactions to the unbelieve Deadspin investigative story from mid-January 2013 that broke the scandal, the phrase “catfished” or “catfishing” is thrown around. This was when it really crept into our society’s vernacular and consciousness.

I want to make a larger point before I wrap this up … There was a time when I watched this trailer after I knew the big twist ending and I thought to myself, well that first quote from this Chris Bumbray fella is a little over the top.

Yet I sit here now and I think to myself, this Chris Bumbray fellas was right. Though there have been doubts about the authenticity of the original Catfish documentary, as well as Te’o’s involvement in and knowledge of his own catfishing incident, I saw firsthand that this is something that happens in real life. Catfishing was one of the first dangerous and deceitful practices that fell under the umbrella of toxic online behavior. And as technology continues to improve and the overall attitude of internet users seemingly continues to grow more hateful and adversarial, I worry what the evolution of “catfishing” will be.

Sonny Asks Dalton about … Star Trek

So this is admittedly an area within the TV/film realm that I am critically deficient in, so forgive me if there is an obvious answer that I’m missing here, but I need you to explain to me what the crucial differences between Star Trek and Star Wars are, because I’m inclined to believe that they are probably more different than I imagine since these two franchises both remain relevant many decades after they made their respective debuts.

I couldn’t be more disappointed in anything else than you not having watched the Star Wars films, or any of the iterations of Star Trek. The only bright side to this pop culture blind spot of yours is that I get to explain them to you!

The first thing you need to know is to not fall into the trap of pitting them against one another. It’s silly that there is any kind of Star Wars vs Star Trek debate. Not only because they are both fantastic and important and everyone should love both, but because other than being set in space, they are drastically different versions of a sci-fi universe.

Star Wars (in case you haven’t heard) is set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is a space opera that is almost as much fantasy as it is sci-fi. There is an evil empire, crime lords, swashbuckling pirates, incest, and rebellion. It is a war-torn galaxy on the precipice of disaster or salvation, with the fate of trillions in the hands of a few. There are clear cut heroes like Luke Skywalker, and evil, uncomplicated villains like Emperor Palpatine. You always know who to root for, and who you hope gets cut in half with a lightsaber (that’s a laser sword, Sonny).

On the complete opposite end of the science fiction spectrum is Star Trek. The vast majority of Trek iterations take place in a future based on our own. It is a utopian society where people want for nothing and greed, hunger, and crime have been almost completely eliminated. The United Federation of Planets is based out of Earth, and its main goal is exploration rather than war. Starships are sent on long missions to explore the galaxy and “boldly go where no one has gone before.” Star Trek explores morality and ethics, with their Prime Directive forbidding them from interfering in the goings on of other civilizations unless absolutely necessary. Though conflict can arise, there are always complicated issues to explore, it’s not usually about just blowing shit up and asking questions later.

Also, you didn’t ask, but the best Star Trek captain is Jean-Luc Picard. I just wanted that on the record.

Dalton asks Sonny about … Roger Federer
Who exactly is Roger Federer and why did you want me to ask a question about him?

Roger Federer is my third favorite athlete of all-time and the best Tennis player in the sport’s nearly 500-year history. As one of my closest friends, you should know these things Dalton. But truth be told, I don’t want to use this space to only talk about Roger Federer. I’d like to invite Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Serena Williams into the conversation as well.

In terms of nationwide popularity, it’s clear that Tennis does not approach that of the NFL or NBA or even MLB. Furthermore, you could argue that over the past two decades Tennis wasn’t as popular as it was in the 1970’s, 1980’s or 1990’s. Now to most people these are meaningless anecdotes that are probably not all that surprising. However, to someone like me — a Tennis fan and someone who really cares for sports history — I consider this one of the biggest sports media letdowns of the last two decades.

We have a grasp on human evolution and its relationship to sports, yes? There is a general understanding that for the most part, as time goes by athletes improve from one generation to the next. Well not only are Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Serena the most skilled Tennis players in the history of their respective gender classes, these four individuals are also the four most accomplished tennis players ever … by far.

Federer, Djokovic and Nadal have won 51 of the 60 Men’s Grand Slam Tournaments since 2005. That’s a higher percentage (85%) of total championships won in a fifteen-year window than Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan combined for (80%) between 1980 and 1994. Those three sit atop the list of most Grand Slam Championships in the history of Men’s Tennis, as does Serena Williams on the Women’s side.

And again, these four players peaked at the same time. They were in each other’s orbit for well over a decade, and sadly, nobody seemed to care. These are the four faces that should appear on the Tennis Mount Rushmore, and even if that’s an understood concept by the Tennis community, they’ll still end the 2010’s as four of the most underappreciated athletes of the decade. The media should’ve done more to build these four up and sports fans should’ve given them a little more focus and admiration because all four of them are deserving of it.