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Sunday, 4 August 2019

From "Win The Moment" To "He Said She Said" To "Tuff Perception World": How Urban Meyer And Ohio State Reacted To The Zach Smith News

Photo: Jeff Gross (Getty)

Ohio State released more than 2,000 pages of records on Friday related to its investigation of former head football coach Urban Meyer and what he and others on his staff knew about the repeated reports to authorities over the years by Courtney Smith that she had been abused by her then-husband and then-OSU assistant coach, Zach Smith. Brett McMurphy first reported on July 23 of last year that Courtney Smith had gotten a protection order against Zach Smith, who was fired later that day. Meyer was suspended for three games, all at the start of the season, then returned and retired afterward.

The document dump was emails and text messages going back several years and included everything from extended chats about recruiting athletes, to emails from Ohio State fans insisting Meyer not be fired, to updates on Zach Smith’s fantasy football team. Tucked in there were message sent between Meyer, athletic director Gene Smith, then-defensive coordinator Greg Schiano, and others around the time that McMurphy first broke the story and the days following. Here is what they show.

(The documents were released with heavy redactions. While overall exemptions were cited in the email announcing the dump—such as medical history and student privacy—individual redactions were not labeled, meaning there is no way know for certain why each redaction was made.)

First are these messages from May and June. They show concerns being expressed about Zach Smith, but why isn’t said. That month, Zach Smith was cited by Powell, Ohio, police for criminal trespassing after fighting with Courtney Smith.

These are dated July 20. One of the people in the conversation is labeled as “Zach/courtney smith” but it’s doubtful that it was Zach Smith or Courtney Smith on the other end given the conversation the topics are “Zach and the legal issue” as well as athletic recruits. This is three days before the McMurphy report:

The day the Facebook post goes up, Meyer gets a text from Jerry Emig, the associate athletic director for athletics communications.

Illustration for article titled From "Win The Moment" To "He Said She Said" To "Tuff Perception World": How Urban Meyer And Ohio State Reacted To The Zach Smith News

It’s followed by another message with a link to the Facebook post.

From there, work on a statement begins.

And this is what Meyer texts, with a reminder to “Win the Moment.”

Around that time Meyer also gets this text message with a suggestion for a new hire.

Meanwhile, someone wants to talk about this fiasco and a reporter is reaching out for comment.

Another person reaches out to offer Meyer comfort. Meyer responds the next day saying the “stuff vs Zach will get legally dropped ... tuff perception world we live in.”

That day, July 24, Meyer sends this message saying the “legal issues with Zach will b dropped.”

Smith’s legal issues were not dropped. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, and Courtney Smith received a domestic violence protection order that lasts three years.

Hours later, Meyer has this text chat. It contains a reference to Earle, which likely means Zach Smith’s grandfather, Earle Bruce, a legendary Ohio State football coach and mentor of Meyer. Meyer calls what happened a “he said she said.”

Meyer also texts someone asking for guidance on what to do.

At some point, Meyer has this discussion. He again says “win the moment” and there’s talk about how to message this.

There’s a gap in the messages, and they pick up again here.

Athletic director Gene Smith tells Meyer to “stay the course.”

Assistant coach Greg Schiano reminds Meyer to “WIN THE MOMENT!!!!”

And by July 25, two days after the story broke, Meyer gets a text message that tells him “this too shall pass.”

A month later, Meyer gave a press conference after an earlier wave of documents were released. During the entire press conference, Meyer only addressed Courtney Smith once when an ESPN producer asked him directly about her. In December it was reported that Meyer would teach a class at Ohio State. The topic of the class? Character and leadership.

Correction (9:53 p.m.): This post has been updated to reflect a text message was received, not sent, by Meyer saying “this too shall pass.”

Deadspin staff writers Patrick Redford and Lauren Theisen contributed to this report.

Donald Trump Wants This More Than Anything

Photo: Victoria Jones- WPA Pool (Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s taste is difficult to describe. You know it when you see it, but that’s not quite the same thing as knowing what it is. If you’re looking at a tufted velvet settee that looks like one of Michael Jackson’s bedazzled military-style blazers from the Dangerous tour, you are looking at Some Trump Stuff. If you see a big stone sculpture of a lion that is both indoors and near a golf club’s pro shop, you are seeing it. Something that looks like a heraldic coat of arms but then when you look closer it turns out there are golf clubs in there? That’s some Trump shit you’ve got there, buddy.

But also: What? Why does that couch have fringe-adorned epaulets? Why is there carpeting in the bathroom? Why is there a carving station with a heat lamp and a damp roast and a man in a toque set up next to what appears to be a marble replica of Rome’s Trevi Fountain, and also why is there an oil painting of Donald Trump himself peering rakishly over a croquet mallet hanging nearby? Obviously that is all just Some Trump Shit, and the stuff that the man himself likes and thinks is cool. But no one else would do any of this, so where did all this come from?

Photo: Jeff Gilbert (WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Trump’s current state visit to the United Kingdom does only a little bit to answer these questions, which to be fair may be unanswerable. One of the most inexplicably stubborn fallacies about Trump, both among his political opponents and the broader community that’s just interested in rubbernecking at his blowzy public feuds, is the idea that Trump does things for a reason. There is no evidence of this.

It’s unquestionably true that Trump wants things. He wants to be noticed, on television if possible, and he wants to appear impressive when he is noticed. He does not want anyone to seem to have more money than he does. He wants a big beautiful piece of the most amazing chocolate cake you ever saw. All of these things he wants very much. But he is accustomed to demanding these things and then either receiving them (the biggest slice of cake, the television appearances) or believing that he has (the respect of other people). All of this goonish entitlement would be kind of darkly funny if Trump were not also president, but that is not the world we live in. It is not clear even today how much Trump wanted to be president, although he also clearly did not want to lose the election he somehow wound up in. It’s always seemed more accurate to say that he’d prefer to be a king, or some other less readily beheadable royal.

Photo: Toby Melville (AP)

The decorative colonnades and gratuitous reflecting pools and endless gaudy sconces, the all-upholstered-everything interiors that somehow still offer no comfortable place to sit, all those overstuffed corridors connecting gilded banquet chambers to other grand and uninhabitable spaces, the sheer stuffy tackiness of his various pretenses—if there’s any sort of precedent for the grandiose style that Trump prefers, it’s royalty. It would be inaccurate to say that Trump seemed at home during his various ceremonial visits to Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey, because he only really ever seems comfortable when he is making what he imagines is a stern face behind a large desk or driving a little golf cart around. This visit involved a lot of walking around observing ceremonial things and standing still while being photographed, and neither walking nor standing are particular strong suits of the president’s.

Photo: Chris Jackson (Getty Images)

But to the extent that Trump has ever seemed happy or even content during his time as president, it has been in ceremonial moments like this that match his florid self-conception—arriving at fancy engagements by limousine, shaking various rich people’s hands and saying “terrific, good luck, enjoy it,” getting up and Making A Few Remarks before staff in formalwear bring him two big scoops of vanilla ice cream in a bowl of the finest bone china. Trump brought not just some of the usual aides and his wife along on this trip, but all of his adult children as well. There’s a photo of them standing at the entrance to a long corridor in Buckingham Palace, all in their avant-garde Trump stances—Donald Jr. appears to be astride a very small horse, Eric wobbling atop some kind of malfunctioning hoverboard—and fancy clothes before going into a state dinner with Britain’s royal family. The words “No Photography” appear on a sign that is otherwise obscured by Tiffany Trump’s head.

Given that he’s not paying for it, it’s no real surprise that Trump would bring a bunch of people with him on a trip like this; both Trump policy aide and aspiring genocidaire Stephen Miller and Christopher Ruddy, CEO of the elderly-skewing Trump juche website Newsmax, were also at that state dinner for some reason. The stuff with the kids feels different, though, because Trump’s weird pretensions of royalty go beyond his inexcusable and otherwise inexplicable tastes. “He wants Ivanka, Tiffany, Eric and Donald Junior to hold a ‘next generation’ meeting with Princes William and Harry,” the Murdoch-owned tabloid The Sun reported after an interview with Trump. “The President said: ‘I think my children will be meeting them. It would be nice.’”

Photo: Victoria Jones (WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Although it’s been honored more in theory than in practice, the United States does not technically do hereditary “next generations” in our politics. Or, more accurately, this is the sort of thing that everyone makes a big deal out of saying immediately before electing or not-electing people to office who have the same last names as people who have been elected to similar offices before. But these goofy and unconcealed ambitions of royalty fit Trump better than he knows, if not in the ways he likely imagines they do.

It’s true that he seems at home in these cavernous rooms dripping in dreary oil paintings and lit by chandeliers, because he has lived his life amid just that sort of claustrophobic grandiosity. He’s cultivated it not so much because he likes it—what does Trump really like?—but because it’s what he believes he deserves. He has never really seemed to have any idea what the rest of the world was like, or much interest in knowing it. He has never really seemed to care about other people beyond what he can extract from them, and at this stage in his broader occlusion and hardening that will not change. But in these gaudy rooms, surrounded by other rich people with nothing much to say and no real inclination to listen, Trump is at least at home.

Photo: Tolga Akmen (WPA Pool/Getty Images)

This is true when he’s in the United States, too; he is happy, if he’s ever happy, when there are other rich people around to give him compliments and tell him how rich he looks and how well he’s doing. This is his class, but they are not really his people. Even with the servile dermatologists and thrice-divorced yacht ghouls and buttery finance lordlings that crowd his social orbit and pay to belong to Trump’s clubs, there are still some latent traces of dirt under their fingernails—these people have to work to make the money to pay those dues, even if that work amounts to a few moments of strained patter during a Botox injection or taking long lunch meetings while underlings hide other rich people’s money from taxation. They’re rich, in many cases entirely richer than any ethical society would permit, but they’re not where Trump imagines himself to be. They’re not where he sees the Next Generation of his legacy.

In the narrow and technical sense, America does not have royalty. The country is still too young, and still kind of passively invested in opposition to the idea. But look at Trump squinting and scowling and plodding around in his cummerbund; look at his kids leering and jutting in their fancy clothes. And then look at the royals, made feeble and translucent and uncanny after generations of fixation on the same sort of bullshit—The Best Genes and Good Stock and The Right Families—that Trump has always offered as explanation for his amazing and unprecedented success. No one in those rooms does anything, really. None of them have to do anything. Their whole lives are about having what they have, and being admired for it.

There is no place in the world where Donald Trump would really feel at home but this. He believes that he belongs with all these rich people in some cold and crowded room with the whole boiling world shut away outside, each shaking the other’s hands, everyone saying what a pleasure it is, what an unbelievable pleasure and honor it is, to be in such wonderful company.

Saturday, 3 August 2019

Theme Park Bits: Epic Universe Announcement, Disneyland Holiday Plans, and More –

universal epic universe

In this edition of Theme Park Bits:

Disneyland and Walt Disney World are announcing their holiday plans.
Universal Studios Orlando announced the arrival of a third theme park.
And more!

Are you ready to get epic? Even if that word has arguably lost most, if not all, meaning over the last decade? Well, I hope so because Universal Studios Orlando made a big announcement to kick off August: they’re going to build and open a new theme park in the resort, titled Epic Universe. If you’re curious about things like its opening date, you’ll have to wait. For now, we know there’s going to be a new hotel, restaurants, likely connections to the world of Harry Potter and Nintendo, among others. And there’s concept art like the image above. But that’s kind of it. For now.

Ignore the fact that we’re in the dog days of summer. If you close your eyes and pretend, it’s really about to be the holiday season. At least, that’s the case at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. In the past few days, the Disney Parks Blog has been on the case in revealing some new details of the holiday season at Disneyland, and some attraction updates for the end of the year at the Magic Kingdom. For Disneyland, the season goes from November 8 to January 6, with special versions of World of Color, It’s a Small World, and more. At the Magic Kingdom, attractions like Space Mountain and Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor are getting a holiday theme with special lighting, music, and more. (What will a holiday-themed Space Mountain look like? I’m fascinated.)

Recently, we highlighted how Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run welcomed its millionth guest in just under a couple months. That may seem impressive, but when you look at the statistics of how many people, on average, visit certain Disneyland attractions per day, it’s definitely unremarkable. Roughly 27,000 people per day ride Smuggler’s Run, which seems like a lot…until you see that over 55,000 people per day ride Pirates of the Caribbean. Another boat ride, It’s A Small World, sees the most people per average each day at 57,000 people. No one can resist that tune! (And also, the design of the ride and its queue is such that lots of people can load continuously. But…that tune.)

Rock 'N' Roller Coaster

Earlier this week, another attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios celebrated a banner anniversary. Recently, it was the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror that turned 25; now, it’s the attraction just across the way, the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Featuring Aerosmith. The upside-down, in-the-dark roller-coaster is now 20 years old. To commemorate the anniversary, Disney’s offering some special merchandise that, right now, is only available in the park itself. Everything from T-shirts to tank tops to guitar picks are available for the die-hard Aerosmith fan in your family. (If your family includes such a person.)

Over in Disney California Adventure, construction continues on the section that used to be A Bug’s Land, and will now be themed to the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A key part of any themed area is, of course, the food, and there will be at least one option for guests. It’s a microbrewery themed to the character of Ant-Man; the concept art for this new restaurant suggests Disney focusing on a theme that’s very popular in dining these days, but the Imagineering possibilities of the building or its interior expanding or shrinking are pretty wild. You can only hope the real thing is like the concept art.

Cool Posts From Around the Web:

Sunday, 29 July 2018

Is the Summer of Sequels Bad for Movies?

The man with the most consistent track record to conquer the 2018 box office doesn’t work for Marvel, and he doesn’t make Star Wars movies. He isn’t shepherding the DC universe, and he’s never animated for Pixar. He doesn’t scare with dinosaurs, and he’s not toting precious IP. He has, however, created three critically acclaimed TV shows, won three Emmys, and helmed three consecutive installments of one of the most dependable franchises in movies today. His name is Genndy Tartakovsky. Heard of him?

Tartakovsky is the mastermind behind Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Hotel Transylvania 2, and the original recipe, 2012’s Hotel Transylvania. Every three years, Tartakovsky makes a Hotel Transylvania movie, and every three years it makes north of $300 million around the world. Tartakovsky is no hack: he’s the creator of the beloved animated series Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars. But he is a successful opportunist. The Hotel Transylvania series is a triumph of old-word studio movie success blended with new-school strategy. It’s the last remnant of Adam Sandler’s once unbreakable bond with Sony, his full-time home for decades before he decamped to make live-action movies for Netflix. But it’s also an expertly and cynically engineered animated kids’ series with only the minimum amount of creativity needed to elevate it beyond straight-to–Cartoon Network fare.

Hotel Transylvania 3 topped the Rock’s Skyscraper in a head-to-head week of release showdown at the beginning of the month, and is still reeling in viewers. This weekend, it came in fourth, with more than $12 million in receipts. Within weeks, it will be among the 10 biggest releases in the U.S. this year. And when that happens, it will be the ninth of the 10 that is a sequel. This weekend, eight of the 10 highest-grossing releases were sequels, too. The other two—Teen Titans Go! To the Movies and Skyscraper—essentially act in the same capacity, as updates on the ongoing DC Comics team’s adventures and Dwayne Johnson’s continuing efforts to defeat inanimate objects. (Many of the eight are comprised of delirious word salads dressed in colons and em dashes, among them Mamma Mia 2: Here We Go Again!, Mission: Impossible — Fallout, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.) This is unprecedented territory in the history of the box office. During this time period last year, just four of the top 10 were sequels, and two of those—Spider-Man: Homecoming and Wonder Woman—were not directly preceded by a connecting installment to their story. In fact, sequels have never been this necessary to the stability and growth of theatrical movies, which are experiencing an extraordinary 8.3 percent bump in gross. These are heady times for the business. But it’s a perilous game being played.

The evident collapse of MoviePass paired with the sustained success of lesser-light franchises signals a bizarre trend. Let’s look at three: Hotel Transylvania (the third edition has made nearly $120 million in the U.S. in just shy of three weeks), The Equalizer (the sequel crawling to match the $100 million gross of the original), and Sicario (the unexpected follow-up Day of the Soldado has made a respectable $49 million, more than the first). All three of those franchises (I guess that’s what we call them?) were developed and released by Sony. All three originals were surprise hits. All of their follow-ups operate in the same style as their predecessors, but they’re fundamentally linked via the continuity drug that houses like Marvel have laced through their movies. Return business is everything. In Hotel Transylvania 3, Sandler’s Count Dracula gets into some horror high jinks. The Equalizer 2 is just another movie that features Denzel Washington killing bad guys. In Day of the Soldado, drug lords are viciously murdered. There are no Easter eggs or post-credits sequences. There’s no fan community shitposting theories about the creators’ betrayal of the mythology. There’s no high-level critical engagement of these movies. There’s not even all that much external communication in the wider world. But people are seeing them. They are the fabric of the box office. How long can this last?

It’s too early to tell. One of the more discrete and clever lessons of the booming era of comic book movies is to simply make more movies like the ones that people just went to go see. Kevin Feige’s gambit of a long-running, unbreakable chain of moviegoing content strikes fear in the heart of every other movie executive. But it’s aspirational, too. Some of this summer’s sequel oddity is a decade-long master plan finally being aped around town. Some of it is smash-and-grab easy money. Some of it is studios like Paramount, which has been running behind Disney, Sony, and Warner Bros. in recent years, focusing distinctly on what works. After Fallout—a well-received, well-liked six-quel—its biggest release this year will be Bumblebee, a spinoff from the Transformers universe. Disney’s two big hitters are Ralph Breaks the Internet and Mary Poppins Returns. Aquaman and those Fantastic Beasts and Creed II and The Nun and Venom and Goosebumps 2 and The Girl in the Spider’s Web are still to come, too.

We’ve seen all this before, but we’re seeing it again because we keep telling studios it’s what we want. And maybe we do. I saw Fallout for a second time this weekend. For my birthday. Is this a sickness or the cure? More likely, it’s the comfort of distraction. It’s unknowable if this dam will break. In the meantime, we’re getting awfully well-acquainted with the rising water.