Note: This list continues from our top five male athletes which can be found here.
A Note on Criteria
For this list, I’m not trying to identify the “best athletes” in a purely technical or statistical sense. I’m interested in athletes whose excellence escaped the boundaries of their sport—who reshaped society, culture, commerce, and the collective imagination. Sustained professional dominance matters more to me than amateur achievement, and peak matters insofar as it translated into lasting impact. Versatility is a bonus, not a requirement.
6. Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky didn’t just redefine hockey; he popularized it in places where it barely registered before. There have been other great players—Bobby Orr, Eric Lindros, Pavel Bure—but there has never been anyone like Gretzky. He combined statistical dominance with a kind of spatial intelligence that made the game newly legible, even to people who didn’t grow up with it.
With the Edmonton Oilers, Gretzky won four Stanley Cups (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988), anchoring one of the most dominant dynasties in modern professional sports. When he was traded to the Los Angeles Kings, he didn’t win a championship there—but that almost misses the point. In L.A., Gretzky proved his greatness wasn’t system-dependent. He led the Kings to the 1993 Stanley Cup Final and, more importantly, made hockey matter in a non-traditional market. Youth participation surged, media coverage followed, and the NHL’s westward expansion suddenly made sense.
After his playing career, Gretzky has remained an ambassador for the sport—visible, articulate, and largely free of scandal. He may hold some right-of-center views and he has a famously public daughter; neither of these rise to the level of controversy. His global impact doesn’t quite match the saturation of the top five, but in terms of transforming a sport’s reach, style, and imagination, Gretzky stands alone. A worthy number six.
7. Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods is second only to Mike Tyson when it comes to complicated athletic legacy. Jack Nicklaus has more major championships (18 to Tiger’s 15), but Woods is almost inarguably the most dominant golfer ever.
From his appearances on television as a very young child, to his years at Stanford, to his immediate impact after turning professional, Tiger redefined what greatness on the links looked like. His early wins on tour were not incremental; they were seismic. Courses changed. Training changed. Television audiences changed. Golf suddenly had an axis.
Tiger’s career has been defined as much by comebacks as by dominance. His victory at the 2019 Masters, after years of injury and personal collapse, secured his place in history all by itself. Off the course, his massive commercial success was temporarily undone by scandal: affairs, car crashes, substance abuse, and public reckoning. For a time, it looked like the collapse might eclipse the achievement.
It didn’t. Today, Tiger stands as an elder statesman of the game, invested in its future—including an unusually gifted son now competing at a high level. Even if he never wins again, his legacy is complete. Golf before Tiger and golf after Tiger are different sports. The number seven spot is not a compromise; it’s recognition of how fully he reshaped his world.
8. Tom Brady
Over time, Tom Brady has cemented his place as the greatest player at the most important position in America’s most popular sport. There have been other transcendent figures—Jerry Rice, Lawrence Taylor, Anthony Muñoz, Ray Lewis—but everyone understands that the value of a quarterback, in terms of win shares and institutional gravity, dwarfs every other position.
The Brady-versus-Belichick debate will rage on, but Brady settled it decisively by winning a Super Bowl in his forties with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, outside the system that first made him famous. That championship reframed his career from sustained excellence to unmistakable authorship. He wasn’t merely the beneficiary of structure; he was the structure.
Brady’s greatness was never about spectacle. It was about discipline, preparation, and a refusal to decline. His longevity recalibrated expectations for elite athletes. Off the field, his controversies have always felt almost quaint: a close relationship with his trainer, persistent rumors of personality-free excellence, a public divorce, and a criticized broadcasting stint. None of it ever threatened the core of his achievement.
Seven Super Bowl championships, unmatched longevity, and relevance across eras make it hard to imagine anyone eclipsing his résumé. Number eight is a natural fit.
9. Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson emerged from juvenile delinquency to become the brightest star in one of America’s most enduring sports in just a few short years. Still in his teens, he captured the public imagination like very few athletes before or since. His dominance was immediate and terrifying: the speed, the menace, the ninety-second knockouts. It felt less like competition than inevitability.
Although Tyson did not have the longest career and was not undefeated, he remains an icon of boxing greatness, mentioned in the same breath as Ali and Mayweather. At his peak, no fighter has ever been more frightening. Fear itself was part of his cultural impact.
Outside the ring, Tyson lived what Bill Simmons famously called “the Tyson Zone”—the idea that you could hear anything about Mike Tyson and believe it. A sexual assault conviction and prison time. Biting an opponent’s ear off. Face tattoos. Tigers. Pigeons. Weed. Cocaine. Toad venom. It has been a wildly strange life.
And yet, today Tyson is broadly beloved in the way only someone who has lived nearly forty years in public can be. He has been on top of the world, he has been a total mess, and he has inhabited every state in between. Like Sinatra, he’s done it his way. Number nine is exactly where he belongs.
10. Roger Bannister
Roger Bannister rounds out the list. In 1954, he became the first person to break the four-minute mile, running 3:59.4, a feat long considered impossible and one of the purest accomplishments in sport. Anyone who has run the mile competitively understands the pain and resolve required to take down that mark.
The achievement was later immortalized in the cultural imagination through works like Chariots of Fire, which captured the ethos of the era even if Bannister himself remained understated about the feat. After retiring from competitive running later in 1954, Bannister became a distinguished neurologist and academic, eventually serving as Master of Pembroke College, Oxford.
Bannister’s place here rests on a single act—but a singular one. He didn’t just win a race; he redefined what humans believed was possible. For that reason alone, number ten is a fitting landing place.
New Note: I’m republishing Keeganisms for colleagues and friends in the IB world. The piece grew out of my early years in international education, when I was trying to understand not just what we teach, but how adults actually grow, change, and make meaning inside institutions.
Readers interested in my time working at Ritsumeikan Uji and for the IB may also enjoy this piece on great and good talkers, and this one, a tougher piece, on being badly overworked in 2012.
This piece remains one of the clearest statements I’ve written about adult development, leadership, and the limits—and possibilities—of institutional life.
Finally, I am happy to report that the great Stephen Keegan is alive and well. Rock on, sir.
Note: This piece is a re-write of my very first piece of linguistic ethnography. For a fuller explanation of linguistic ethnography check out On “Dude” Usage. A “Keeganism” here is simply a notable phrase used by the former head of the IB Diploma Program for Asia-Pacific Stephen Keegan. Keegan was based out of the Singapore office, which was at the time one of three “hub” offices around the world.
Although fitting in with my other efforts at linguistic ethnography, in this piece I approach Keeganisms as if they are a rare species, like a certain kind of elusive salamander or something. If this little conceit if effective, as it hope it is, this is only because the Keeganisms under investigation are themselves so glorious.
Introduction:
When Stephen Keegan spoke, dozens listened.I was one of them. Darwin sailed around on the Beagle, ran across some turtles in the Galapagos, and his investigation of all that changed the world. While I don’t pretend that my little survey of Keeganisms will change the world, I would not be able to forgive myself if the species was simply lost to time.
Keeganisms were known to flourish between the years 2008-2013, in and around the greater Pacific Rim. Without being able to definitively establish the evolutionary arc of the species, naturalists suspect an increasingly florid progression over the years. For my own part, I was marginally aware of the species in 2008-2009, but did not realize the bounty that Keeganisms provided the scientific community until 2010. What follows is an analysis of some of the most common variants of the species as I was able to observe. All of these instances were found at IB events where Keegan was speaking in public.
Keeganism #1:
Here is Keegen in 2010 describing what the IB provides to its schools in the way of services: “We are not special. I mean, of course we are unique and special in many ways.”
Keegan is making the point that there is a consistency across high quality high school curricula and programs, and that the IB is not somehow in a wholly different category. The first sentence, “we are not special” is a bald statement to this effect. Keegan immediately realizes, however, that this is possibly an infelicitous soundbite, and qualifies with a politician’s cover “I mean, of course we are unique and special in many ways.”
Why is it a Keeganism? The classic form common to the first type of a true Keeganisms can be expressed as (A+D=A>D) where A (Affirmation)=a statement that shows an aspect of Keegan’s actual feelings or opinions about a given matter, and D (Denial)=a qualification which serves to qualify and reduce the sting of the truth-telling in A, but which does not fully counterbalance or neutralize the sentiment of A, thus A>D.
In this case, “I mean, of course we are unique and special in many ways,” gets Keegan off the hook for his heresy, however it is rather obviously a cliched cover (although one does appreciate the “in many ways.”) From a formal point of view, then, this is a classic Keeganism, perhaps the prototype; from a content point of view we can find better.
Keeganism #2:
And we did find better later that year or the next at a meeting of East Asian IB Diploma Coordinators. Here, Keegan is commenting on one of two commercially available software products which were competing for market share for IB schools at that time. “I am not promoting their product. I am promoting the concept of their product (….) They are the future. Of course the future will take many forms.”
In this case Keegan has an opinion about which product if preferable, however in his capacity as an IB employee he cannot state this outright. Instead, he gives an extended tribute to one of the competing companies before making clear that he is “not promoting their product.” Likewise, when he catches himself saying that their product “is the future,” he hastens to make sure we understand that multivalent nature of said future. Thus, he is again “covered.”
“I am not promoting their product. I am promoting the concept of their product” is actually a structural reversal of the classic Keeganism, which reappears in “they are the future. Of course the future will take many forms.” In the first, Keegan’s true opinion comes second, the denial first. Matters are further complicated by the introduction of the word “concept.” While it may be the case that a concept at times can be a free floating entity, in this case Keegan’s semantic distinction is taken, as it is probably intended, with a large measure of salt. Thus again a key feature of the species–the “denial” is consistently underweighted as compared to the affirmation: D+A=D<A.
With Keegan’s statement about the future, the classic structure is back, with a twist. The sentence “of course the future will take many forms” is so nebulous, so frankly metaphysical in its lineaments, that it verges on absurdity. It is also highly arguable, as while it may be true that the characteristics of the future will vary from place to place, it is at least possible to argue that the future will take precisely the form it takes: not a plurality of forms, but exactly one. Of more direct relevance is the point that if the future will take many forms, and in only one of those forms are “they” that future, then why are they “the future” at all? Of course, this is precisely the genius of this particular Keeganism; the “denial” is so slippery that is dissolves almost entirely, assuming instead a purely formal aspect (f). A+D=A(f).
Keeganism #3:
Not all Keeganisms have such an overt affirmation/ denial or denial/ affirmation structure, however. Others slip their denial/ qualification into the body of the affirmation itself. For example: “This alternative is being described as a valid reliable assessment.”
This Keeganism came at an IB conference for the Asian region, Keegan is describing highly contentious changes to the IB Visual Arts curriculum, which at the time the IB was defending against continued protests from art teachers (a fractious bunch when agitated it turns out). An advanced degree in communication theory is not required in order to parse this Keeganism; simply put the addition of “is being described as” shifts the locus of affirmation to some distant body doing the describing and away from Keegan, who is instead stating an unimpeachable fact–somebody somewhere is describing the assessment as reliable. Nonetheless, Keegan is not entirely distancing himself from the affirmation. In fact, there is no counter-affirmation present here, simply a qualification that insulates Keegan from a bald statement of validity and reliability.
Keeganism #4:
Here is Keegan at his final public appearance in Japan before his resignation: “We are delighted to be part of a global organization with global requirements.”
With this one, structurally we are in similar territory, but the valence differs. Keegan is describing some recent “rationalization” of IB services around the world, a change which would reduce some of the autonomy of the Asia Pacific regional office. In fact over the next few years the IB Asia Pacific office, and all of the “hub” offices, would be downgraded from essentially autonomous power centers with a Head of Office of their own to simply branches of the global organization with no clearly assigned leadership of their own. The acute listener will understand that Keegan’s loyalty is more to the region than the global organization; with some justice he feels that Asia-Pacific is the model region. This point has to be borne in mind when approaching this particular Keeganism.
On the face of it this is a fairly simple piece of sarcasm directed at the global infrastructure. However, there are a few complicating factors. First, Keegan uses the plural pronoun–thereby implicating his fellow presenter, and, perhaps, his entire regional office. Of course, the singular here would be far too “on the nose”; still, the “we” puts his colleagues in an interesting position. Second, the repetition of “global” here confers the style we have come to expect from a true Keeganism. Third, there is perhaps more ambiguity here than we might as first suspect. Keegan actually does understand the drive to standardize the regions and the need for global requirements, and he can explain this need in unironic terms. One suspects that an aspect of heart versus head is present here as well. In practice, however, on the communication front lines, Keegan has difficulty standing fully behind the ramifications of certain of these global requirements.
Here is where it gets tricky–the affection with which Keegan was held around the region was in large part a result of his ability to walk a very fine line between representing his employer and representing the region, its Diploma Coordinators, and its Heads of School. In order to sustain this somewhat ambiguous position, Keegan had to be able to ironize, even ridicule, the larger organization. However, were he to cross too far into irony or counter-statements he would risk losing credibility even as he gained affection. Keegan was aware of the bend of this curve, which is why his most overtly heretical affirmations were always immediately qualified. In essence, Keegan was excellent at “triangulating,” and in so doing, it could be argued, simply doing his job.
Keeganism(s) #5:
Then there are a set of statements that fit neither of the above types, but nonetheless qualify as Keeganisms on account of their peculiar word choice/ structure. As the following examples were all taken from a single presentation, one suspects that this category was in fact pretty capacious. Naturalists to this day do not entirely agree as to what counts as a true Keeganism, and there will always be a certain degree of controversy on this point. Here are a couple of examples of these disputed Keeganisms (IB Answers was a kind of help center which would answer stakeholders questions online or by phone):
“Will we be absolutely consistent in absolutely all areas? Absolutely not.”
“IB Answers has provided some answers. They specialize in answers, so it was easy to do.”
First, these enter the realm of possible Keeganisms on account of the repetition of a keyword across sentences. In the first instance, we can imagine the a more normal construction (e.g. a non-Keeganism): “Will we be absolutely consistent in all areas? Probably not.” The meaning here would be similar, however, the addition of the second “absolutely” moves us away from a mere admission of occasional inconsistency to something closer to a statement of purpose. Keegan is not simply stating that inconsistency will occur, he is celebrating it. I believe this to be a Keeganism.
As for the second, one has the suspicion that it may be a standard line, or at least to be making a repeat appearance. A minor area of controversy, of whispered side conversations among modern linguists, is to what extent all Keeganisms are original to their moment. While we have not in fact been able to prove the charge, a line like “they specialize in answers” does raise the antenna of the more conspiratorially minded among us.
Keeganism #6:
Here is Keegan again on IB Answers, which sometimes struggled to get their story straight: “You really have to have more effective answers. It’s a world that really has to be refined.”
The beauty of this Keeganism once again lies in the details. Were we to hear: “You really have to have more effective answers. It’s a process that really has to be refined,” this would account for nothing more than an honest admission of an area of the IB infrastructure that bears improvement. For anyone who knows Keegan, it would be completely unremarkable, as the steps by which an answer is generated through IB Answers are easily imagined as a process. But is IB Answers a “world”? One thinks of Tolkien, of the Wizard of Oz, of the books of Tintin–these are “worlds.” The construction is so odd, so specific, so suggestive of depths and complications unimagined and unimaginable to the listener, that we are swept up in the possibilities, and are once again in the presence of a genuine Keeganism.
Keeganism(s) #7:
“Global PD really has moved in a different way.”
“There is so much happening of a very intriguing nature around the world.”
In this final type of Keeganism we have the apparent qualifier which, under closer examination, turns out to be essentially contentless. After remaking on some recent changes to the IB’s professional development (PD) structure, Keegan’s “global PD really has moved in a different way” is possibly a compliment; however, the use of “different,” instead of any one of a large number of possible alternatives, “better,” “more effective,” “preferable,” etc., so obviously leaves the whole question open that we recognize a stealthy, if minor Keeganism. It is almost as if Keegan, so accustomed to hedging and jousting with language, finds himself here incapable of giving forth a bald, uninflected, statement of praise. From contextual clues we may be able to glean which way Keegan is leaning; on the face of it the sentence could mean absolutely anything.
As for, “there is so much happening of a very intriguing nature around the world,” but of course there is. There is so very much happening that we might almost be tempted to conclude that the future will take many forms.
Dedication: For Steve, thank you for your service.
Note: Today I am releasing the first of four pieces in a long-gestating project on the greatest athletes of all time. Like all lists, I am fully aware that this will engender disagreement, and that’s part of the point. My criteria include sporting accomplishments — championships, MVPs, world records — as well as off-the-field impact and historical significance. Some figures, like Michael Jordan, have a mixed legacy; others, like Pelé, have an almost unblemished one. I would love to hear your thoughts, so please do consider dropping a comment whether you agree or disagree. This piece will be followed by numbers six through ten for the men, and then a separate top ten for women.
1. Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth remains the number one choice. He completely changed the game of baseball with his power hitting and his two-way play. America’s game would never be the same. From humble beginnings in Baltimore, he became the highest-paid and most visible athlete in the world. His larger-than-life personality — the booze, the women, the cigars — all contribute to his myth.
The 1927 Yankees remain shorthand for the greatest team ever assembled, and Ruth’s pairing with Lou Gehrig gave baseball one of its most iconic duos. The relatively early deaths of both men add a certain pathos to the story. Ruth won seven World Series titles, hit 714 home runs in an era when power was rare, and essentially invented the modern slugger. He even has an iconic candy bar named after him. Unassailable.
2. Muhammad Ali
Next to Ruth, Ali is 1A. You could argue Jordan for pure dominance and brand success, but Ali was not only great in the ring — he intersects with 20th-century history in ways that put him over the top.
From his origins as Olympic gold medalist Cassius Clay to his name change, his foregrounding of Muslim identity, his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War, and his connections to the Black Power movement and Malcolm X, Ali became far more than a boxer. He later paid a tragic physical price for fighting too long, and his public battle with Parkinson’s disease only deepened his stature.
Ali talked better than anyone before or since, floated like a butterfly, stung like a bee, and was a three-time heavyweight champion of the world. He looms large not just in sport, but in global cultural memory. A clear number two.
3. Michael Jordan
Jordan comes in at number three — though among younger generations he is arguably better remembered than Ruth or Ali, which suggests that his status may continue to rise.
From his famous early cut from his high school varsity team, to the game-winning shot as a freshman at North Carolina in 1982, to his early playoff frustrations against Boston and Detroit, Jordan’s arc is mythically clean. Once he broke through, the dominance was total: six NBA championships, five MVPs, ten scoring titles, and an undefeated Finals record.
Off the court, Jordan became the most successful sports marketer in history. His shoe deals and advertising footprint dwarfed anything that came before. His legacy is not without complications — gambling rumors, the David Stern suspension theories, a rocky tenure as owner of the Charlotte Hornets, and an ongoing public feud with Scottie Pippen — but none of that erases what he was on the court. An undeniable number three.
4. Pelé
Pelé belongs at number four because he remains the single greatest icon in what is almost certainly the world’s most popular sport. I grew up on basketball, baseball, and football, yet even I knew who Pelé was by the age of six.
For people like my son — a soccer fan and influencer — Pelé is bigger than Ruth or Ali. Other players, Messi included, may rival or surpass him on pure technical grounds, and Maradona has a competing mythos, but Pelé’s status as a hero from the global south remains unmatched.
He won three World Cups with Brazil, scored over 1,000 career goals depending on how one counts, and became the first truly global sports celebrity. By all accounts, he was also a gracious and generous human being. There is little that detracts from his legacy. A natural number four.
5. Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson belongs on this list for his brave and immensely graceful breaking of baseball’s color barrier — and by extension, professional team sports in America.
Credit is due to Branch Rickey for taking the risk, but it was Robinson who carried the weight. Through his base stealing, his hitting, his defense, and above all his composure, Robinson became a model of quiet strength and dignity under pressure. He won the inaugural Rookie of the Year award, an MVP, a World Series title, and was a perennial All-Star.
One may admire Jordan without loving him, but Robinson is universally — and rightly — beloved. He helped reshape not just baseball, but American race relations more broadly. A fitting number five.
Dedication:
For Steve Treader, the greatest sportswriter I know.
Epigraph “If we have to go extra long we’ll do your chart for you.” —Alex Chilton, spoken intro, Live in Anvers
One of the strangest and most beautiful things about Live in Anvers is how Alex Chilton opens the show: with a joke about astrology. Not even a real joke — more like a sly provocation. “If we have to go extra long we’ll do your chart for you.” He says it like someone who halfway believes in fate and halfway believes it’s all a scam, but is charming enough to let you decide which half you prefer.
This is Chilton in his final form: loose, amused, sweet, slightly mocking, fully present but refusing to take presence too seriously. It’s astrology as banter, metaphysics as stagecraft, irony as prelude. And it sets the tone for what comes later in the set: a version of “Claim to Fame” so casually perfect, so gently killed, it becomes the quiet centerpiece of the whole night.
People forget that Anvers wasn’t Big Star, and it wasn’t the Box Tops. It was a pickup band — session pros from the Low Countries who got the call and showed up to do a gig with Chilton, no rehearsal, no long history, just charts and instincts. Professionals first, and then something else entirely: Chilton’s field, Chilton’s pocket, Chilton’s gravity.
When Claim to Fame hits — relatively late in the show — something happens you can hear instantly. The whole band breathes together. The horns fall into place with an ease that should be impossible. The drummer slides into Chilton’s behind-the-beat phrasing like he’s been waiting for it all night. The guitarist and keys stop “accompanying” and start listening. And Chilton? He’s singing like a man who doesn’t need to hit anything hard because he knows he can hit anything he wants.
It’s sweet. It’s gentle. It’s unforced. It’s a man killing it softly because softness is the point.
That’s the part people miss about Chilton — the late-career sweetness. Not the wounded sweetness of Thirteen, or the teenage ache of the Box Tops. This is middle-aged sweetness: warmth without sentimentality, looseness without sloppiness, charm without calculation.
Chilton’s magic in Anvers isn’t that he doesn’t care — it’s that he cares only in the ways that matter. He cares about feel, about timing, about tone, about leaving space for the horns to shine and the drummer to speak. He cares about the room. He cares about the night. He cares just enough to be dangerous.
That danger is key. Chilton sings “Claim to Fame” like he could tip the whole thing over if he felt like it — but he won’t. Because tonight isn’t about tearing anything down. Tonight is about letting everything be exactly what it is. A good band, a warm room, a late-set groove, a song breathing the way it was always meant to breathe.
When he swings into the chorus you can hear it: he’s not performing, he’s allowing.
And that’s the moment I recognize something of myself.
Because when I’m in the right performance space — a school speech, a good karaoke set, a future book night — the same thing happens. Self-consciousness drops out first. But awareness stays. I always know I’m being watched; that’s part of the voltage. When that happens, instead of tightening up, I loosen. Play rises. Warmth rises. The room becomes a call-and-response, not a test.
The performance isn’t something I put on —it’s something I stop resisting.
That, more than anything, is why Live in Anvers feels like a secret manual for a certain kind of adult performance. Chilton isn’t trying to impress anyone. He’s not chasing legacy. He’s not reenacting the myth of the young genius or repenting for the years he walked away from fame. He’s simply showing up as himself — and because he’s himself, the whole room recalibrates.
When my self-consciousness dissolves, the same three things come online for me:
Play. Warmth. Call-and-response.
Play is the improvisation — the micro-timing, the shifts in tone, the risk of letting the moment lead me.
Warmth is the generosity — the willingness to let the room in, to let people feel something real.
Call-and-response is the connection — the vibration between me and the crowd, whether that’s a gym full of students or nine people in a Kyoto karaoke bar.
This is what Chilton is doing in Anvers. This is what makes it so sweet. This is what “killing it gently” actually means.
The band may be all session pros, but by the time they hit Claim to Fame, they’ve crossed over from professional competence into something more mystical: fluency in Chilton’s wavelength. They’re not following charts anymore. They’re following him. And he’s following the room. And the room is following the looseness.
It’s adult music by an adult man, played by adults who know how to leave space. And space is everything in this performance.
Listening to the Anvers version now, I hear something I couldn’t have understood in my twenties: the sweetness of someone who’s already lived through the first fame, the second fame, the backlash, the retreat, the rediscovery, the ambivalence, the refusal, and the acceptance.
Claim to Fame becomes, in this version, neither a boast nor a lament. It’s a shrug, a smile, a wink, a truth. Not bitter. Not triumphant. Just real.
A man with a gift he can’t turn off, killing it gently, in Belgium, on a night the world wasn’t even watching, and doing someone’s star chart if they needed it.
Dedication: For the players who show up cold and make the room warm.
I’ve worn stranger versions of myself than I care to admit, and somehow they all felt natural at the time. Happyness, refracted
I juggle money, fear, and bad habits like they’re part of the same routine, and I run my mouth most when I’m scared. The Felice Brothers, refracted
Dateline The Jazz Club: November 5th, 23:11
Grey led the way to a backroom at the club he knew about. It was not the green room, but was rather a dingy room that barely fit the six members of the group. Grey led off, seemingly determined to do the talking.
“Look here boys,” he began, “we know Maya was sent to entrap McKnight and she has done so successfully. That ends tonight.”
The heavyset Italian looked Grey up and down, not for the first time. “And what is it that you intend to do about it?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” said Grey. We intend to grease the wheels just a little.” He paused for effect, then continued, “here are three envelopes. They contain $10,000 in cash each. We are not asking for your allegiance, or for any inside information. Instead, we want you to have these envelopes. And when your paymasters ask, and they will, what happened tonight at the club just tell them McKnight broke it off suddenly and is leaving town.”
“That’s all?” inquired the German.
“That’s all” said Grey.
Now during all these proceedings the Thin Man felt a little odd—it was Grey’s show now. He thought about Vivian; maybe she was still at the bar? He could go back to her, he thought, if the club remained open.
In the meantime, the three associates of Pelican Corp. looked at one another. Finally, the heavyset man shrugged. “It’s pretty much what happened anyway. We get paid for telling the truth, essentially.”
Maya chimed in. “We have a good thing going and I’m good at what I do. The Thin Man even said so. We can parlay our little gig to new opportunities, in or out of Pelican Corp.” It was clear to the Thin Man that this threesome were freelancers, contractors at best. They would look after their own, a fact Grey would have anticipated.
“OK, deal,” said the heavyset man, who was clearly calling the shots. Now what do we get in return?”
“Apart from the cash?” asked Grey. “You also get my word on behalf of the three of us that we will make no mention of you two gentlemen’s role here tonight. Our story is the same as yours. The true story.”
The exchange was over and Maya and the men left the room quickly. The Thin Man looked at Grey. “I’m going back to the bar. What is my end tonight?”
“Well, you did flush out the two misguided tough guys and charmed Maya, however you needed my help to finish the deal. How about this, another $20,000 and an apartment for a few weeks while things calm down?”
The Thin Man thought about it. On the one hand, it was not a raise. On the other hand, Grey was not wrong, he had carried the day but for the grace of god and played things a little close to the line. “OK, I’ll take it. Can I get a fully furnished apartment with in-house laundry?”
“I think we can sort that out” said Grey. “And now you are free to pursue the night. I’ll have the money wired within 24 hours.” He stuck out his hand, which the Thin Man accepted. He turned to Ali. “Next time, Red Krayola, yeah?”
Ali just smiled that thin smile, the only one he seemed to possess. “Sure thing boss,” he said. “I’ll upgrade.”
The Thin Man retuned to the bar where Vivian was, maybe, waiting. He sat down and ordered a Negroni. Vivian was having another Manhattan, she’d had four or five the Thin Man guessed. Within mere seconds there were touching, petting, stroking each other. It was electric, automatic. The Thin Man felt a little overt, however the jazz band was still playing, quietly as if wrapping up. The theremin was over and they were playing straight jazz. Peter Andreessen was indeed the lead; he had actually introduced himself at some point. The atmosphere allowed for a little action.
“Where are you staying tonight?” Vivian asked.
“I have a hotel. Will you come?”
“Yes” And that was that. Vivian and the Thin Man exited the club and the Thin Man ordered an Uber on his phone. They sat at a respectful distance in the car and walked through the hotel lobby to the elevator. No one batted an eye; they never do. They rose to the sixth floor and entered the Thin Man’s room. The Thin Man could barely get the Clientele dialed up on his phone before Vivian was all over him. He loved “The Violet Hour” the most of all.
They made out passionately and soon ended up in the shower, fully naked. Vivian washed the Thin Man with care and the Thin Man returned the gesture. Vivian had long hair and said she wouldn’t wash it, so the Thin Man washed every other area. They began to couple, but shower sex, well shower sex is an operation. After a bit the Thin Man led her out of the shower where they semi-dried off and to the bed where he climaxed, spilling on her belly. They spent the rest of the night kissing and listening to music. She liked Poison and The Rolling Stones; the Thin Man played Wild Pink and the Clientele. Vivian explained that she didn’t sleep much, and the Thin Man, though pretty beat, managed to stick with her for three or four hours before he dozed.
The Thin Man woke, fully nude, at 8 AM sharp. Vivian was sitting up in bed, also nude. The Thin Man did not make a habit of sleeping naked, so this was, at a minimum, interesting. The kissed for a moment and the Thin Man proposed breakfast at the restaurant. They dressed, without re-showering, and took the elevator down.
It was summer 2013 in Portland as I recall. Hugh was nine. We stayed with my parents, and my grandmother Barbara was there too—eighty-eight at the time, lucid, funny as hell. All the relatives were around. It was that kind of week: people coming and going, meals stretching, the house absorbing it.
On the day of the rehearsal we took Hugh to the Science Museum—Sachie, Hugh, Claudia, and me—and we ran late because of it. That was the trade. By the time we got to the rehearsal dinner the mojitos were gone. This had been the big promise. Everyone laughed when we found out Barbara had had three of them. It wasn’t scandalous. It was just Barbara.
The rehearsal dinner was in a tall pink building downtown, or near it—one of those Portland landmarks that stays more as color than address in memory. The night had that soft, anticipatory feeling rehearsals sometimes do: no one tense yet, no one released either.
Junko was there. She was Sachie’s aunt on her mother’s side, and we had paid for her to come. Sachie wanted to repay her for years of quiet kindness. Junko was a nurse, like Sachie. At the time there was nothing remarkable about her being there, except that she was there, which later would come to matter more than anyone knew.
II
After the rehearsal dinner there was movement in different directions. Kate was around, her husband too. Later—after drinking somewhere else—he got into an actual fight. Not an argument, not raised voices: a fight. I don’t remember the details and don’t need to. Kate and Matt are divorced now. At the time it registered only as background noise, the kind you note and then step away from.
At the party Junko danced. She danced and danced, and people noticed. They commented on it, openly, approvingly. She was light on her feet, joyful, fully there. Jeff was dancing with her—this was when he was still with his second wife, Lisa—and everyone seemed pleased by the sight of it. It was one of those moments that didn’t announce itself as anything special, except that later it would become impossible not to remember.
That night back at the hotel, Mike and I went down to the bar with Pat. We ordered a bottle of champagne. I’d had a few drinks already at dinner, but Mike wanted it and I was up for one bottle. We drank it and immediately ordered another. I was less up for that, but I went along. When it came time to pay, Mike said, “No money until October. Peace out.” He was in a career transition, trying to get back to Seattle, broke. I picked up the bill.
It didn’t feel dramatic. Just one of those small, late-night imbalances you carry quietly and don’t do anything with.
III
In the morning Mike wanted to go running. He was hungover. I wanted coffee. We walked together for a while along the river, then I peeled off to find caffeine. Mike puked, rallied, and went running anyway. Classic Mike.
I was hungover too. The ceremony started around one. We went back to the hotel and got dressed. I was glad I wasn’t in the ceremony. Sarah had insisted on tuxes, which meant fittings and mild resistance and then compliance. It was fine.
We drove to the church and met some of Sarah’s brothers—she has a few. Everyone was nice. The ceremony itself was intensely Catholic. Very Catholic. All the rituals, all the structure. It didn’t alienate me or convert me. It just was. I don’t remember much beyond the density of it, the sense of time being held in place by repetition.
There’s a photo from that day that I still have. Mike and Pat and me, all in tuxes. I look impossibly thin. I look young. I was thirty-nine.
IV
We stayed a few more days. At some point Glenn and Barbara were at my parents’ house together. My parents have a big place, the kind that can absorb people overnight without strain. Barbara was leaving. Glenn—her only son—was staying the night.
She was saying goodbye, already halfway turned toward the door, when she stopped and looked at him.
“Glenn,” she said, “I love you, but hit the gym.”
She said it without malice and without hesitation. Love first, then truth. Glenn loves his food and drink. Everyone laughed. Barbara was eighty-eight. She was lucid. She was still very much herself.
That’s what I remember.
Dedication: For Pat and Sarah, and their three lovely girls. You still owe me a mojito, though.
“All we need is just a little patience.” — Guns N’ Roses
I. Leaving Anyway
The wedding was in June, which was just a little inconvenient for me. School was still in session, and I had to miss work to go. I remember wishing that it had been in August. But once I decided I was going, the resistance fell away. I locked it in, and then I was genuinely excited—mostly to see my family.
I hadn’t seen my mom, Mike, or Pat since January 2018, before COVID. I hadn’t seen my dad since October of that year. That mattered more to me than the logistics or the calendar. So my wife Sachie and I flew from Japan to Seattle, and my son Hugh flew in separately from New Zealand, via Auckland and Los Angeles.
We landed at Sea-Tac and cleared international arrivals quickly. We had a few hours before my parents arrived to pick us up. They had rented a van, partly because it was a three-day event and partly because they were making breakfast on the last morning, which required supplies. While we waited, Sachie and I sat in the only open area we could find outside arrivals. We both needed a cigarette, so we took turns—one of us watching the bags while the other smoked. We bought two Starbuckscoffees, which cost sixteen dollars. I ordered an extra shot in each, not realizing the Americanos already contained doubles.
While we were there, a man nearby was clearly overdosing—probably fentanyl, maybe heroin. He was nodding, drooling. The police came first, then EMTs. They all knew him by name. Sylvester. After about an hour, they took him away on a stretcher. No one around reacted much. It felt routine. I was just sad, thinking about how much damage fentanyl has done in the U.S.
I texted my mom. They were running late. Hugh arrived through domestic customs and joined us. When my parents finally came, they looked good—just older, of course. We hugged and walked back through the airport to the van. My dad had forgotten where he’d parked it, so that took a while too.
Once we got moving, things settled. Sachie, Hugh, and I loaded into the van and drove north to Anacortes, about two and a half hours. It was mid-afternoon. Hugh slept most of the way. Conversation came easily. It felt natural, like time hadn’t broken anything, just stretched it.
We had an early dinner at a restaurant on the water in Anacortes. Pat and Sarah drove up from Portland with their three girls and joined us. John Innes and Kristi had been invited but were tired from the drive and didn’t come. I had raw oysters, another seafood dish, and a margarita. My dad ordered one beer and then told the server, “Please bring another one in exactly twelve minutes.” He always does this. He usually has two beers this way; that day he had a third later. I find the whole thing very funny.
I ordered a second drink—a Negroni, which wasn’t on the menu. The waitress said she thought the bartender could figure it out. It arrived with no ice. I considered sending it back but she was busy, so I let it go.
It was sunny. I sat in the sun so Sachie could have the shade. After dinner, Pat, Hugh, the two older girls, and I walked down over some stones to the water for a while. Then we went to a supermarket for beer, wine, and light provisions. I wasn’t sure how I’d sleep—I don’t always sleep well when traveling—so I bought a bottle of wine just in case.
We drove to the lodge where we were staying. It was really nice. Sachie, Hugh, and I had our own apartment. I took a walk behind the lodge to sneak a cigarette. Sachie probably found somewhere to smoke too, but I’m not sure.
Later that evening, we went down to Pat’s room for beers. The girls played on the lawn outside, and Pat chased them around until they were breathless and laughing. Watching him with them, I was struck again by what a great dad he is. I drank wine instead of beer—I was still dealing with a lingering COVIDhangover and a newer gluten intolerance—and eventually drifted off and fell asleep on the couch.
That was the first night.
II. Crossing Over
In the morning, I woke first. No one else was up yet. Eventually my mom got up too, and we drove back to the supermarket for coffee. She bought me a pair of sunglasses—nothing fancy, just functional—and it was good to have time with her, talking at length. The coffee place sold Turkish coffee and tried to upsell me on baklava, which I regretted again not being able to eat because of gluten.
We all had breakfast later. It was underwhelming. I had yogurt. Around eleven, we drove out to the ferry terminal and got into a long line of cars. Sarah handed me one of those popular sparkling drinks in the U.S.—sweet, artificial—and I couldn’t finish it. The wrong kind of sweet.
On the ferry, I fell asleep. People were working on puzzles at tables. My parents stood outside because my mom has vertigo and gets dizzy. When we arrived at Friday Harbor, we went straight to the supermarket. There was no food at the camp except the rehearsal dinner and the wedding dinner, so I stocked up: hummus, corn chips—my mom handed me a huge bag of them—cheese, olives. I also had some soup at the market, which was excellent. I tried to get as much as I could because I knew options would be limited. I also bought wine.
The drive to the camp was supposed to be ten minutes, but the sign was tiny and we missed it. We overshot the turn and had to double back using Google Maps. We arrived mid-afternoon.
The camp was down a dirt road off the highway and much larger than I expected. There was a main lodge, a big lawn, a collection of cabins in different shapes and sizes, a barn where the wedding would be held, and a garden set up for the rehearsal dinner. We used metal push carts to haul our things from the parking lot to the cabins.
My parents were staying in the main lodge. Our cabin was about 150 meters away, next to Pat’s family. It was clean but very small: a tiny kitchen, a bedroom, a cramped closet you could barely move around in, a loft for Hugh, and a bathroom awkwardly placed between the kitchen and the bedroom. Kelly, his wife Courtney, and their kids Jacob and Ang were in another cabin. John and Kristi were nearby as well. Mason was staying in some kind of shared space. Between our cabin and Pat’s was a fire pit, and Sarah had already hung laundry over the chairs.
Smoking was allowed, but only at a few designated ashtrays—those tall black plastic ones on poles. The signs said that if you littered, the fine was one thousand dollars per cigarette butt.
I was a little concerned about whether the food I’d bought would last. I ate chips and hummus. Sachie went into the woods to smoke and put her cigarette butts on top of our garbage can. I told her about the rule and asked her to use the ashtray instead. She did.
Later, we gathered at the lodge. I brought wine. One of the camp staff asked if we wanted to hear the house rules. Mike said, “Lay them on us.” The rule was one open drink at a time in the lodge. It closed at ten, but we could use the nearby fire pits and deck afterward. I put my bottle of wine out of sight. Mike responded to the rule with a polite “Uh-huh, sure,” and I got the impression he had no intention of following it.
My dad, Hugh, and I drove back into town to pick up pizza for dinner. I ordered a cauliflower-crust pizza because of my gluten intolerance. We ordered too much—one pizza each plus one for my mom and Sachie—but that was fine. We ate, talked, and I drank wine. Mike, Colleen, and Felix were there. Colleen took Felix to bed. Later, Sachie asked me to go back to the cabin to get a bottle of white wine. I did, and we drank it. The rule wasn’t enforced. It was a relaxed evening.
That was also when I saw Eric Hillyard for the first time.
III. The FIRST NIGHT AND NEXT MORNING
Eric Hillyard is a character and a half. He’s one of Mike’s good friends from high school at Saint George’s, and one of only two people from that era who were there. The other was Dan Clarke—known as Jerry—who was officiating the wedding. Eric didn’t have a formal role. He didn’t need one.
I gave Eric a big hug when I saw him. I hadn’t seen him since high school. He razzes Mike like nobody else, but he was polite and warm with me and bowed to Sachie. He was drinking quite a bit. After ten, my parents went to bed, and Eric, Mike, and I gathered around the fire pit between the cabins.
Eric smoked a cigarette. I smoked two. We tossed them into the fire pit. Later, back at the cabin, it occurred to me that the cigarettes probably wouldn’t burn up completely. I was pretty cooked, but I walked back in the dark with my phone light, dug around in the ashes, found all three cigarette butts, and put them in the ashtray. I figured I’d just saved Mike and Colleen three thousand dollars.
Eric had told a joke that landed too close to home with Mike. Mike said it went too far. I got the impression this wasn’t the first time. It didn’t blow up, but it didn’t land well either.
I went to bed. Sachie and Hugh were already asleep. I slept fine.
The next morning I woke up first again. I ate more hummus and corn chips and went down to the lodge for coffee to see who was around. Free coffee was available. It was rehearsal day.
I don’t remember much of the day before the rehearsal itself. Earlier, when Hugh and I had gone into town on the pizza run, we’d stopped at a hardware store and bought a frisbee. Hugh played with the little kids—Colleen’s brother’s kids and others—on the lawn. I mostly hung around. Food was running low, and I was looking forward to dinner, which was scheduled for around five.
Before dinner there were family pictures, but before that something happened that I didn’t witness directly. Mike told me about it afterward.
They had hired a photographer, a makeup artist, and a band. All freelancers. The food was provided by the camp staff. Colleen was getting her makeup done and had asked for it to be light. Apparently it wasn’t. Mike saw it and said, “Babe, she pancaked you.” Colleen initially wanted to let it go, but they talked and then fired the makeup artist on the spot. Mike told me about it calmly and said that decision was kind of on him.
I didn’t judge it. What I found myself wondering was how much of her fee she got paid. I didn’t ask. I assumed she was paid for the day. The photographer had traveled a long way. I didn’t know whether the makeup artist was local. I hoped she was.
That evening, people gathered in the garden. Both sides of my family were there, along with Eric, Jerry, Mason, Kelly, John Innes, and others, as well as Colleen’s friends and family. The mood was good. But John was in bad shape.
By his own admission, John was pretty depressed. Both his parents had died, and something unresolved involving his father had happened before his death. He hadn’t been able to say goodbye properly. He’d had to have a few just to get ready to come to dinner and face people.
John and Kristi left early and Mason and I walked to the parking lot for a cigarette. There were ashtrays there, and I didn’t want to risk a fine. Colleen’s friends were smoking weed cigarettes back in the garden. Mason told me about a recent breakup that had been serious. He said he’d been immature for a long time and that the relationship and life had forced him to grow up. From his demeanor, it was clear that was true.
That night I also saw my Uncle Jeff’s third wife for the first time—she is from Mexico. Hugh talked with Jeff about his soccer influencer work. Jeff was impressed and invited Hugh to stay at his place in California anytime, for any length of time. Hugh was flattered and grateful.
Things wrapped up early. There was no repeat of the fire pit scene from the night before. I talked a lot with Amy, but mostly I was with Mason. Then we went back to the cabin and went to bed.
IV. DAN CLARKE/ BILL CLARKE DREAM
Wedding day morning felt like more of the same. I was low on cigarettes. I ate more corn chips and hummus from the seemingly endless bag and got coffee in the lodge and waited. Jerry was around. We talked. He’s had an interesting life—some wildness there—and I could see why Mike likes him so much.
Dan Clarke’s father is Bill Clarke, brother of Janet Mann and brother-in-law of Paul Mann. All Saint George’s power brokers. My dad and Bill Clarke were friendly once, but it went sideways. After that, my dad would complain about him endlessly in the car to my mom. Typical Ross behavior at the time, although I never understood the core issue
At some point that morning I thought about a dream I had years earlier, one that has stuck with me. I’m including it here as I wrote it at the time.
2/27/18:
Two intersecting and yet separate dreams about Bill Clark. These will take some unpacking.
I. I am with my father and someone else in a car on a rainy day. We are parked and Bill Clark is there. He looks like the real Bill Clark as I remember him, overweight and not too smooth. Bill Clark was an intermittent arch-enemy and then sometimes ally of my father at Saint George’s in the 90s. The encounter in the car is the culmination of several encounters with Bill in the dream and some of these have been just he and I. Bill is telling me through these encounters how much he admires our IB program and what I am doing with it. He stresses how important it is that I keep going. At the car, he does this again and looks a little desperate. Because he is so clearly sincere even my father who was his enemy gives him the space to say his piece. For my part, I am grateful for his kind words however the car kind of needs to get moving. I thank him from the window. I think he is about to get wet from the rain.
II. I am meeting with Bill Clark again, however a very different looking Bill Clark. Here he is trim with a wire grey beard cut short and a nice suit. He looks very distinguished and a little intimidating. This Bill Clark is also supportive however is much more firm with me. He tells me that I need to get on my hands and knees and beg and plead for resources. Somehow I get the image of a turtle on its back, open to the sky. This is the posture I need to adopt according to Bill. Nothing can be taken for granted and I have to beg. He is quite clear and I understand the wisdom in what he says.
Comment: This is a super interesting dream that bears unpacking. The two Bill Clarks are polar opposites and the second one is more regal and correct in every way. Why the former enemy of my father? This dream is so packed with symbolism.
Not long after that, it was time to shift gears and get ready for the ceremony.
V. The Ceremony
Before the ceremony began, I practiced rope-tying with Colleen’s brother and Pat. I hadn’t mentioned it earlier, but I had been enlisted to help tie Mike and Colleen’s hands together at the end of the ceremony. I was nervous. I had to go first, and as with the e. e. cummings poem years earlier at Mike’s first weeding, I had limited information. Mike told me it would be fine. Colleen’s brother Kevin and I made a joke of it together. Don’t fuck the whole wedding, bro. We got on well.
The rope was thin. There were several strands, intertwined.
Around four, people gathered again at the lodge. Only certain people had drinks. The rehearsal had gone smoothly. We had a clear walk-out order. My family walked out right after Mike and Colleen so I could be in the front row and step forward when it was my turn.
Everyone took their places. Jerry gave a classic, funny speech about being unprepared. Mike’s vows were sincere. Colleen received a huge round of applause when she walked out.
The ceremony was short. The moment came quickly. I stepped forward and did the tying. The ropes were longer than I expected and hung down toward the ground. I stumbled and nearly tripped over them, but I didn’t fall. Thank God.
The ceremony ended, and we moved directly into the barn for dinner.
VI. The WEDDING DINNER
Dinner started with oysters and a watermelon margarita, which I passed on. I drank red wine and hit it pretty hard. Dinner proper was pasta with sauce made by Colleen’s dad. I couldn’t eat it. I was hungry and ate oysters until there were literally none left. I got the last ones.
I spent some time standing outside with Kelly and his kids, Jacob and Ang. We talked. Inside, I sat with family. Hugh had the pasta and then went over to Colleen’s father to thank him for the sauce, which was a classy move.
After dinner, Kelly, Mason, Sachie, and I went out back for a cigarette. I was out and bummed one from Sachie, and it was the first time I’d ever seen Kelly smoke. I got to know Jacob, who was almost done with high school, and Ang, who was a couple of years younger.
I was wiped and left early. Sachie and Hugh came back later. Colleen’s dad gave a speech. My dad didn’t. Katie—my cousin through Amy—gave a great speech. Katie has Down syndrome, and everyone applauded.
That was the night.
VII. Dispersal
The next morning my parents were making breakfast, and the relatives who had stayed in town came back for it. My mom was prepping food. Amy brought gluten-free bagels. I had half a bagel, some fruit, and coffee and talked with people as they moved in and out. Breakfast was a performance, and it justified the van rental entirely.
We packed up and said goodbye to Mike, Colleen, and Felix. They were heading to a nearby island for a short honeymoon. From there, we drove first to the rental house where Pam and Steve were staying. I did laundry while everyone else went whale watching. I was keyed up about it—laundry had accumulated, and I don’t like traveling with dirty clothes. The door was left open, so I walked to the market for more soup and found my way back.
That evening we went back to the same pizza place. I had another cauliflower-crust pizza, a gluten-free beer that was just okay, and a glass of wine. I sat with Amy, her husband David, Sachie, Hugh, and Katie. I paid attention to Katie—she’s been developing early-onset dementia and I wanted to see how she was doing. My mom paid for dinner, which I appreciated.
We stayed at a hotel five minutes away that my parents had pre-booked. It was a large suite. Sachie and I took one room, my parents took the other, and Hugh slept on a cot in the living room. Hugh, my dad, and I played shuffleboard downstairs. I won. It was very relaxed. I had what was left of a small bottle of vodka, drank some, and poured the rest out.
The next morning we went to the ferry terminal. We ran into Jeff’s family again. My parents talked with them while Sachie, Hugh, and I got coffee and bought chocolates as omiyage. On the ferry back, a young naturalist gave a talk about whales. I listened and didn’t fall asleep this time.
Once we reached Anacortes, we drove the wrong way for about half an hour before my dad realized it. We turned around and headed toward Sea-Tac, staying near the airport. I was starving. We said goodbye to my parents. I cried a little. My mom did too.
At three in the afternoon we went straight to a steakhouse. I had steak, fries, and a Negroni. Hugh and Sachie ate as well. We sat in the regular dining section, not the bar, because Hugh was still twenty. We slept early.
The next morning we took a bus to the airport. Hugh left earlier, and Sachie went with him while I tried to sleep. At the airport, Sachie wanted to buy a specific bottle of whisky as a gift. The plane was already boarding. She ran off and made it back just in time. I was anxious, but she made it.
We flew back to Japan. I went back to work the next day and thanked everyone for covering for me while I was gone.
Dedication
For my family, with love and gratitude.
Note: If you enjoyed this piece, you may also enjoy the pieces below which also take up the topic of weddings.
New Note: I am republishing this piece for two reasons: First it’s been three years since I wrote it and it is one of my all time favorites. Second, as the title shows the politician Rahm Emmanuel makes a cameo and there is at least a possibility that he will run for President in 2028. This is a funny piece and it totally speaks for itself. I hope you like it.
Note: This is a piece about a guy called Whit. Over the past little while I’ve run into this guy in a couple of craft beer pubs in North and Central Kyoto. In a sense, it’s faithful to the original intention of thekyotokibbitzer—to check stuff out around the local area. Naturally, “local” is a highly fungible term, which is what makes it so excellent, but it feels good to get back to basics.
Interested readers may also want to revisit my earlier piece about my North Kyoto run-in with musician Damon Krukowski—currently a prominent critic of Spotify’s business practices, but formerly a dick to my face.
I met this guy called Whit at a Kyoto pub we’ll call T’s. T’s is owned and operated, naturally enough, by T. It’s a pretty nice place, although not everyone thinks T is a nice guy. He and I, though, rub along fine. T likes to wear sandals. So do I.
T’s seats about twenty-odd and lets people stand around without a chair, so it can get crowded. On the night I met Whit, though, it wasn’t. There was just me at the L-shaped corner near the entrance, Whit and three male friends at a table, a lone woman mid-bar, and a few other strays.
Whit and his buddies were winding things down, and before they paid, Whit sidled up to the lone woman.
“Genki desu ka?” he asked.
To understand what’s happening here, you need a little context on the phrase. Literally it means “are you cheerful?” but in practice it’s “how are you?” — a totally standard, everyday greeting. It is also, however, a classic Japanese pick-up line. Both the pickup artist and the garden-variety sleazeball deliver their “genki desu ka” with a little extra—an undertone, a wink, a leer.
This guy called Whit, I could see immediately, was leaning heavily into the leer.
I have no idea of how this guy called Whit would have fared with his approach if it had been allowed to develop because T himself came flying around the bar and snapped at Whit (in Japanese) “don’t talk to her, get away from her.” As a mere observer to the developing situation this seemed excessive, especially because T’s is the kind of place where fairly easy conversational congress between the sexes is not only tolerated but actually encouraged. T and his crew will proactively introduce men to women and women to men on the regular. Later in the evening, all sorts of events may transpire at T’s. So this was out of character for sure.
This guy called Whit was taken aback, and soft-pleaded with T to let him join the woman, however T was firm. “If you don’t go back to your table you will have to leave. If she comes to talk to you you can talk to her. Not before.” Again, I cannot stress enough how out of character this is for T’s, so naturally I was curious. I am not normally nosy, however when curious I can be. Whit took the L and slunk back to his table. His friends didn’t seem to have noticed the action, but I did, so I said to him, “hey man, that was pretty crazy. What did you do?” “Nothing,” said Whit, “I just wanted to talk to the lady.” “Yeah,” I said, “I’ve never seen T react that way.” “He just doesn’t like me,” said Whit, “maybe I’ll never come back here.”
Whit and his crew left shortly after and I asked T what was going on. “Whit always hits on women,” he explained, “I don’t like it.” “What about Philip?” I asked (“Philip” here being someone T and I both know), “Philip is always hitting on women too.” “Case by case,” said T, “case by case.” Case by case arguments are very hard to rebut as they index in advance their non-adherence to norms of “fairness” or “consistency.” Also, I knew nothing about Whit and was in no way invested in manning his corner. T and Whit have a history, I supposed, and T would not kick a customer out just because. Such was my first meeting with this guy called Whit.
Not long after this first meeting I was with a friend at a pub we will call K’s, which is in Central Kyoto. K’s is smaller than T’s, seating only about 8-10 inside with some flexible outdoor space as well. Unlike T’s, at K’s there is not much flirting and the like as the space just doesn’t really allow for it. I was there with a buddy and who should come in but this guy called Whit. Now I didn’t mention that at T’s Whit had an American accent. (I later learned he is from Philadelphia by way of San Fransciso.) However he rolled into K’s rocking a full-on British accent, and not a bad one at that. He was standing right next to me, and I did a double take. “That’s that guy called Whit,” I thought, “but it can’t be, Whit’s American.” I looked again. Definitely Whit.
So I asked him, “hey guy called Whit, what’s with the British accent?” He slipped back to his American accent, “oh yeah mate, that’s just something I do sometimes.” OK. We chatted a bit and it was clear that he didn’t recognize me. I reminded him of our meeting at T’s, and he recalled the incident. But I could tell he wouldn’t remember my name next time. He left K‘s after one beer.
My buddy hadn’t met this guy called Whit before, however I had already told him the story of his getting shit-canned at T’s. “That was the guy,” I told him, “the guy called Whit.” “What was with the British accent?”my buddy asked. “I don’t know, some kind of affectation. Maybe he lays it on when he tries to pick up women.” Just a guess on my part, but a pretty good one considering later events.
A few weeks later I was at a pub we will call M’s, also in North Kyoto with another friend we shall call “Philippe” in order to easily differentiate him from “Philip.” It was just before seven in the evening, when who should walk in but the guy called Whit with none other than the newly appointed United States Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and his wife Ann. They just strolled on in and it was clear that Whit was somehow chaperoning them. I stared over at Rahm Emanuel for a bit and then said “hey there Mr. Rahm Emanuel.” Rahm Emanuel (or just Rahm, as I like to call him) acknowledged his identity and he and I started chatting. At the same time Ann was chatting with old Philippe there at the bar. Before I said hello to Rahm I wondered what on earth he was doing with Whit. And then I thought well, I know Whit doesn’t have a job, he seems to frequent pubs all the time, probably he has some money somewhere, tech money or something. Maybe he’s some kind of VC and the Rahmster has gone out of his way to meet him in Kyoto. Implausible as this scenario seemed, I didn’t know what another explanation for this threesome could be. However, I was off-base.
Had this guy called Whit in fact been a prominent VC it would have added layers to my understanding of him for certain. So I asked him, “hey there guy called Whit, how do you know Rahm Emanuel?” “I just met him,” he replied, “across the street at L’s. We got to talking and I brought him over here.” (L’s is a cocktail bar I have never been too, which is 15 feet from K’s.) It turned out that Rahm and Ann were in Kyoto en route to Hiroshima where they were to visit the Hiroshima Peace Museum with none other than the Prime Minister of Japan. In the meantime here they were, hanging with Whit. Rahm explained the situation thusly: “here in Kyoto my minders let us off the leash so we can walk around freely. This would never happen in Tokyo, because we have security around us all the time.” He seemed genuinely happy to be minderless, and was as relaxed as could be at the bar. In no time he was dropping f-bombs, dapping up the waitresses, and asking me how to say things in Japanese. Rock and roll Rahm baby.
(As promised in the title, Rahm is only supposed to have a cameo in this story, however I have to recount our brief conversation about politics. After I introduced myself, Rahm asked me “are you on the team?” I understood him to mean was I a Democrat. I replied that I was basically on the team, but that I was kind of a left libertarian. “No such thing,” said Rahm. “Well then you’re looking at a unicorn baby,” said I.)
In any case, once I had gotten a bit of a feel for my new buddy Rahm I had to fill him in on something. “Hey Rahm, you know this guy called Whit likes to go into bars and put on a fake British accent?” Rahm didn’t miss a beat as he turned to Whit and, I swear, elbowed him in the ribs, saying “did that help you score buddy? Did you get across the finish line?” Rahm Emanuel, former chief of staff to President Obama, former Mayor of Chicago, and presently the honorable ambassador to Japan, had already grasped the essential nature of this guy called Whit. And he, for one anyway, had no issues with it.
“Wake me up before California Darling boy I’ve never known ya”
— Annie Hardy
1. Periscope (2018): Ambient Human Contact
In the fall of 2018, before TikTok Live and before Instagram learned how to professionalize everything, there was Periscope.
It was a live-video app owned by Twitter, but it never really felt like social media. It felt more like radio—with pictures. You could open it and see who was live anywhere in the world, zoom in on a city, drop into a stream, leave, move on. The scale was small enough that you could more or less take in the entire active population at any given moment. There was no sense of infinite scroll. The world was navigable.
It was also completely unpoliced. People streamed whole songs, movie clips, televisions playing in the background, themselves half-asleep or wandering around or doing nothing at all. No one cared. There were no warnings, no copyright bots, no friction. It was a free-for-all in the literal sense: free time, free speech, free form.
What Periscope allowed—what it uniquely allowed—was time. Long stretches of it. Silence. Repetition. Boredom. People would just sit there and talk, or not talk, or smoke on their porch and complain about their day. That kind of stream simply does not exist on Instagram Live. Instagram demands a reason. Periscope didn’t.
I loved it because it matched my temperament. I wasn’t looking to build anything. I wasn’t trying to grow an audience or perform a version of myself. I liked cursing around on the app, listening, occasionally speaking back. It was ambient human contact: voices moving through time, present but not demanding anything in return.
Most people didn’t want that. Periscope never offered a ladder—no clear path to recognition, no reliable virality, no payoff for effort. It didn’t protect users from themselves, and it didn’t compress experience into highlights. For most people, that felt pointless. For a few of us, it felt like oxygen.
I didn’t think of it as important while it was happening. It was just there, like a short-lived commons where people killed time together. Looking back, I’m amazed it existed at all.
2. Time, Leave, and the Split Feed
From September 2018 through February 2019, I was on leave from my school. The reasons sit elsewhere and don’t need explaining here. What mattered was that, for once, I had time—real time, not time carved out between obligations. I was based in Kyoto, and in October and November I spent long stretches staying in a hotel in Akasaka, moving back and forth between the two cities.
At the same moment Periscope entered my life, I started a new blog, The Kyoto Kibbitzer. The original idea was simple: walk around, notice things, write about bars, art, neighborhoods. Periscope became a sister project—not an escape from writing, but a parallel way of paying attention. One was private and slow; the other was live and provisional. They fed each other.
I quickly settled into two distinct kinds of streams.
During the day, I walked. Downtown Kyoto, north Kyoto, sometimes Tokyo. I talked, observed, played music, responded to comments. I never put my face on camera—not once. The camera always faced outward, toward streets, storefronts, light, movement. I got a simple phone holder so I could film without fuss. The stream wasn’t about me; it was about what I was seeing.
At night, I streamed from my desk in the upstairs room of my house. I usually stood, like a DJ or a lecturer, sitting only when I was reading something. The night streams were almost entirely art: music, films, writing. I’d play songs and talk about them, read long passages from essays or movie reviews, sometimes even play sections of films on my laptop and film the screen. It was all technically a grey area, but Periscope didn’t care, and neither did anyone watching.
Once I read an entire Roger Ebert essay on air—an interview he’d done with Lee Marvin—and laughed out loud the whole way through. “If I want to be an icon I’ll do it my own way, baby,” Marvin said. Mostly, that was the night feed: attention without urgency, commentary without stakes. Occasionally I’d take it back outside to a bar, or, early on, stay up all night wandering and streaming, the phone dying fast enough that I had to carry two battery packs. But those were exceptions. The form settled quickly.
The split mattered. Day feeds faced the world. Night feeds faced ideas. Both were ways of being present without self-display. Together, they created a rhythm that made Periscope feel less like a platform and more like a place of its own.
3. A Small World with Names
The audience was small, but it existed.
A few people watched consistently. My friend Andrew, who lives in Japan but not Kyoto, would sometimes tune in live or catch the replay later. John Innes watched as much as he could, and sometimes his wife, Kristi, would drop in too. When John commented, I’d usually stop whatever I was doing and talk with him at length. Conversation mattered because it was rare.
There were others who hovered at the edges. A French guitarist would sometimes watch silently for long stretches. Later, Mela would too, though I watched her far more than she watched me—mostly because she streamed for even longer than I did. And then there were the Periscope regulars: people who drifted in and out, stayed for a few minutes, disappeared, reappeared weeks later. That was the rhythm.
Periscope allowed replays, which changed the feel of everything. Not all attention was synchronous. A stream could be watched hours later, like a letter someone opened when they had time. It softened the sense of performance. You weren’t always talking to people; sometimes you were just sending something out into the day.
What mattered wasn’t numbers. Most streams—mine included—had only a handful of viewers at any given time. Even the people who seemed central to the platform often streamed to three or four names. The world was small enough that you could recognize it. You learned who was usually awake when you were. You noticed when someone stopped streaming altogether.
Because of that scale, recognition carried weight. When someone you knew appeared in the comments, it felt like a real arrival. The back-and-forth could stretch without interruption. There was no pressure to keep things moving, no sense that you were losing an audience if you paused to respond.
It didn’t feel lonely in the usual way. It felt communal in miniature. A village square that never got crowded enough to become anonymous.
4. Killing Time Together
I was somewhat lonely during that period, and looking for human companionship. Not intensity, not rescue—just being awake with other people. Periscope worked because it was like radio, only you could talk back. You could toggle around the world and find whatever level of interaction you wanted, then move on without consequence.
Some streams were playful and I would play along. There was a beautiful Russian woman who spoke mostly in Russian and replied to my comments in halting English. She’d do things like eat honey off a spoon, theatrically, and I’d type something juvenile and she’d play along too. It sounds silly, and it was, but it was also light. Once we talked longer and she told me she wanted to go to medical school but couldn’t afford it. I’d guess she was in her mid-to-late twenties. After that, I drifted away. The language barrier was real; the connection couldn’t sustain itself. That was normal.
There was a French guitarist I watched early on. He was very good—technically accomplished, friendly—and he seemed to have infinite time. He’d sit in my stream silently for long stretches, just there. Periscope people had time; that was one of the defining traits. After a few weeks I stopped watching him. Not because anything was wrong, but because it was all one thing. Skill without movement. No arc. Attention drifted, and that was allowed.
Other streams were even more minimal. I remember a woman in Oklahoma who would sit on her porch, rip bongs, and talk about her day. That was it. No premise, no performance. Just presence. That kind of stream doesn’t exist on Instagram Live. Periscope tolerated people doing nothing in public.
There was also Max, a trans woman from eastern Canada. She complained about her mother, about being broke. She usually had no viewers. Every time I came into her stream she lit up. Once I sent her fifty dollars for an art commission, and she reacted like she’d won the lottery. It wasn’t about the money. It was about being seen. On Periscope, small gestures carried disproportionate weight because the economy of attention was so thin.
People weren’t looking for transformation. They were killing time. Talking. Waiting. Passing hours together across time zones. The platform allowed that without apology. It was so free-form that it’s hard to explain now without it sounding unreal.
But that was the baseline. That was what “normal” looked like.
5. Mela: Process Recognizes Process
I didn’t find Mela right away. It wasn’t until mid-October that her stream appeared on my map. By then I already knew how Periscope worked—what it rewarded, what it ignored, what kinds of attention lasted.
The first stream I remember, she was just walking around New York City. Not driving. Walking. Taking stairs. Cutting through neighborhoods. Letting the city decide the route. Almost immediately I felt a shock of recognition: she’s me. Not biographically, not emotionally—procedurally. We were using the same method.
She would ask, “left or right?” I’d type “left,” and she’d take a left. That was it. No drama. No explanation. A shared orientation, moment to moment. I’d stay with her for hours, wandering the city together at walking speed.
People who showed up looking for something else—someone conventionally attractive to perform, flirt, deliver a payoff—would drift off. The stream filtered itself. What remained was patient, non-demanding attention. Process over outcome.
She was in her mid-to-late thirties and had worked in film props on sets around New York. At the time she was on sick leave after a back injury, which explained the free time. She streamed from her apartment, sometimes from a friend’s place she was house-sitting, and often from the streets and trains. The life context was legible. Nothing felt invented for the stream.
Eventually we connected on Instagram, but that’s not the story here. What mattered was simpler: real, undemanding, non-sexual attention feels good. In a micro-attention economy, it feels enormous.
Mela mattered because she showed that Periscope could sustain healthy, lateral connection—companionship without escalation, presence without claim. That mattered later, because it proved the platform itself wasn’t the problem. It was capable of holding something gentle and durable.
That made what came next easier to recognize as different.
6. Giant Drag (Came Late, Stayed Forever)
I came to Giant Drag late.
I first heard them sometime around 2015, years after their debut. The song was “Kevin Is Gay,” and I heard it on All Things Considered on NPR. I remember stopping short. It sounded like shoegaze, but with attitude—guitars that rang and crunched at the same time, a voice that was sharp, funny, unsentimental. I thought: who on earth is this woman?
I bought the CD immediately. The record was Hearts and Unicorns. There was “This Isn’t It,” “Slayer,” and a sense that this wasn’t a novelty discovery. It didn’t feel like a phase. It felt like something I’d been missing and had finally caught up to. Ten years later, the music is still with me.
Learning afterward that the album came out in 2005 only clarified things. I hadn’t encountered Giant Drag as part of a moment or a scene. There was no social reinforcement, no sense of being early or late. The music arrived on its own terms and stayed because it deserved to. It became part of my listening life in a quiet, durable way.
That matters here, because when Annie Hardy later appeared on Periscope, she didn’t arrive as a stranger or as “a streamer.” Her voice was already familiar to me. Not biographically, not personally—but aesthetically. I knew the intelligence. I knew the precision. I knew the attitude. What I didn’t expect was where or how I’d encounter it again.
At the time, none of this felt connected. It only looks that way in retrospect. Back then, Giant Drag was just music I loved, and Periscope was just a place people killed time together. I had no reason to think those two tracks would ever overlap.
Then they did.
7. Band Car → Band House
Because the number of active streams was limited, as I have said, I spent a lot of time just cruising around the map. One night in September 2018, I landed on Annie Hardy without looking for her. The stream was called Band Car, which turned out to be exactly what it sounded like.
She was driving. Talking. Rapping. Singing into some kind of vocoder or effects chain. Swearing at other drivers. There was no Giant Drag material, no backstory, no explanation. She’d say, “Give me three words,” and then build a rap off whatever came in. I gave her words. Over and over. It never went stale. The language was filthy—relentlessly so—but also precise. The filth wasn’t sloppy; it landed because it was aimed.
I watched every day. She streamed every day. She had no job and very little money, and she drove for hours, talking, rapping, improvising, stopping occasionally to run into Home Depot or some other errand. I’d wait. Dead air didn’t bother me. This was how Periscope worked.
Sometimes she used gay slurs, and I balked internally. That wasn’t my thing at all. But the space itself was unfiltered by design, and she used every word under the sun. I didn’t intervene or moralize. I noted it and stayed. Admiration and discomfort existed side by side.
I talked about her on my own stream. I told people she was the best thing on Periscope. I couldn’t believe I had such unfettered, generous access to a high-level artist just living inside her process. There were others watching too, but not many. I was probably her biggest fan, or one of a few. In a micro-attention economy, that mattered.
One night, very late in Los Angeles, I’d been with her for hours. The audience thinned until it was just me. She parked the car, got out, and said, almost casually, “Do you want to do band house?” It was a first. I said of course.
She went into her garage, then into a music room. There was a piano. She asked, “What do you want to hear?” I said how about After the Gold Rush. She sat down without ceremony and played the entire song. No sheet music. No warm-up. She hit the high parts cleanly. Musicians have an astonishing memory for songs, and she had it in full.
It was the greatest musical moment of my life, bar none. The only thing that comes close is hearing Spencer Krug play “Julia with Blue Jeans On” at Urbanguild in Kyoto. This was different. This was private, unadvertised, unrepeatable. When she finished, she said, “Okay, that’s band house,” and wrapped it up.
No encore. No processing. Just the sound, then silence.
That was the miracle. And it was already complete.
8. Running Its Course
In December, I used Periscope again in New York and Boston, mostly with Mela. The rhythm was familiar by then—long stretches of time, nothing urgent, companionship without demands. One night in a Boston hotel room, where I was staying to see Phosphorescent and Jay Som, I streamed the entire film Michael Clayton from my laptop. It was a grey area, as everything on Periscope was. She watched the whole thing with me, commenting occasionally—“bad guy, ooh”—the way someone does when they’re present but not trying to perform being present. It was fun. That was enough.
After that, things ended. Not abruptly. Not painfully. Periscope had simply ran its course.
Mela moved to Oklahoma and stopped streaming. I stopped too. The app thinned out. People disappeared. The small world became smaller and then, effectively, gone. There was no sense of loss that needed narrating, no aftermath to dramatize. The conditions that made Periscope feel possible—time, openness, a tolerance for doing nothing in public—shifted. Life resumed its usual density.
Looking back, what remains isn’t a lesson or a warning. It’s a memory of a brief commons where attention wasn’t monetized and presence didn’t have to justify itself. A place where someone could play a song once, perfectly, for one person, and then stop. And that could be enough.
That was Periscope. And then it wasn’t.
Dedication
For the micro-attention economy. I had a total blast.
Note: This is the fifth position of the Trans-Pacific Political Partnership known as The Splinter Fraction. Our first position is about the Age of Consent in the U.S. Our second position is about privileged access for Medecins Sans Frontieres to all war zones and protection from the powers that be for their operations. Our third position is to spread karaoke as widely as possible. Our fourth position is about what we consider the inequitable banning of clove cigarettes by President Obama in 2009.
I. Starting Point — Dignity, Not Debate
Trans people exist. This is not a trend or a modern invention. Gender variance appears across cultures and across history, long before the vocabulary we use today existed. Whatever complexities emerge in policy, youth development, or medicine, one thing is foundational:
Trans people are owed human dignity. No conditions, no asterisks. Just dignity.
Everything else follows from that moral floor.
II. Adults — Full Citizenship and Recognition
For adults, the ethical picture is straightforward. Trans adults should be able to live, work, love, and move through the world without harassment or discrimination. This includes:
The ability to legally transition through a fair, transparent process
Access to transition-related healthcare under informed consent
Workplace and housing protections that include gender identity and expression
Access to military service and civil participation under the same standards as any other adult
At the adult level, the question is not whether trans people exist or deserve rights — they do. The challenge is implementation, not justification.
III. Youth — Compassion and Caution, Not Panic
Young people need something slightly different from adults. They need care, patience. Youth — Listening First, Care Without Panic
Young people do not need slogans or pressure; they need adults who are willing to listen carefully and stay present over time. Before policy, before pathways, before decisions, there is a more basic responsibility: to take a young person’s experience seriously, without rushing to explain it away or lock it in.
For some youth, feelings about gender are clear, persistent, and deeply rooted. For others, gender exploration may be tentative, fluid, or intertwined with anxiety, trauma, neurodivergence, social stress, or the ordinary turbulence of adolescence. These possibilities are not mutually exclusive, and none of them invalidate a young person’s distress or self-understanding.
A healthy response begins with attentive listening — not as a procedural step, but as an ethical practice in its own right. Children and adolescents deserve to be heard in their own words, at their own pace, without the expectation that every question must immediately produce an answer. Parents and caregivers are allowed to say, honestly and without shame, “I don’t know yet.” Uncertainty, when paired with care, is not neglect; it is often wisdom.
Exploration itself is not harm. Questioning gender assumptions, trying out names or pronouns, or experimenting with presentation can be a way for young people to understand themselves more clearly. When such exploration reduces distress and helps a young person feel safer or more coherent, it should not be treated as dangerous or pathological.
At the same time, adults have a responsibility to protect young people from both kinds of harm: the harm of being dismissed or unheard, and the harm of being rushed into irreversible decisions before they are ready. A balanced, compassionate approach includes:
Making space for reversible forms of social exploration when they ease distress
Offering non-judgmental counseling that supports understanding rather than steering toward predetermined outcomes
Thoughtful screening for co-occurring factors — such as anxiety, depression, trauma, or neurodivergence — without stigma or presumption
Treating medical interventions for minors as decisions that require time, persistence of dysphoria, multidisciplinary evaluation, and informed consent
The goal is harm reduction in both directions: reducing the risk of long-term, untreated dysphoria while also minimizing regret from irreversible interventions made too early. Compassion and caution are not opposites; they are partners.
Most importantly, young people should never feel that they must perform certainty in order to be taken seriously. Listening does not require immediate resolution. Care does not require panic. What children need most is the assurance that the adults around them are paying attention, taking them seriously, and willing to walk with them — even when the destination is not yet clear.
IV. Language and Pronouns — Respect Without Fear
Using someone’s chosen name and pronouns is simply respect — no different from honoring a nickname or a married name. It is not complicated on a human level.
Our stance:
Respect is the default
Mistakes are human and correctable without punishment
Deliberate misgendering is disrespect, but ordinary errors are not crimes
Institutions should model inclusive language, not create environments where people feel terrified to speak
Respect should enlarge conversation, not freeze it.
V. Sports — Inclusion and Fairness, Context by Context
Sports are not a single system — they exist on a spectrum with different purposes and stakes at each level. Because of that, one rule for everything doesn’t work.
At the youth or school level, sport is primarily about identity formation, belonging, and joy. Stakes are low, development is ongoing. In these settings, inclusion should be maximized and kids should generally be able to play on the teams aligned with their gender identity.
In adult amateur or recreational sport, flexibility should continue. Local leagues and organizations can experiment with mixed teams, open categories, or self-organizing solutions based on context and community. These spaces are more about health and community than lifetime opportunity.
However, college athletics, scholarship competition, and pathways into professional sport introduce real material consequences — scholarships, visibility, and career access. In these spaces, fairness and inclusion must be balanced, and physiological advantage has to be considered. Trans participation is possible within a framework that takes development, hormone levels, and evidence seriously.
At the professional, elite, and Olympic level, physiology cannot be ignored. These competitions involve prize money, legacy, and national representation. Rules here should be science-informed and sport-specific. In some cases that may mean time-based hormone requirements; in some cases, open categories or structural alternatives might emerge. The goal is not exclusion — the goal is competitive integrity that respects all athletes.
In summary: In everyday sport, inclusion is the natural priority. In elite sport, fairness and physiology matter more strongly. Different contexts call for different solutions.
VI. Women’s Spaces (Prisons, Shelters, Spas, Bathrooms) —
A Category We Are Listening To
Not every issue in the trans conversation is equally simple. Spaces involving privacy, trauma history, and safety — such as domestic-violence shelters, prisons, changing facilities, and spas — require deeper listening and care. Women’s vulnerability and trans women’s vulnerability both matter, and overlapping fears cannot be solved by declaration alone.
Rather than issue a premature stance, we hold this position:
We are listening. We are learning. We are not ready to speak in absolutes.
Refusing to claim certainty where uncertainty exists is not weakness — it is honesty.
VII. Our Tone Moving Forward
We choose nuance rather than slogan, discussion rather than trench warfare. We reject cruelty toward trans people and we also reject moral panic. We value evidence where policy is needed, care where identity is forming, and the courage to say “we’re not sure yet” where complexity remains.
In short:
Trans people deserve dignity. Where rights are clear, we affirm them. Where questions are hard, we move with care.
The Kyoto Kibbitzer 