Dwight Howard Is At The Astros Game, Being Dwight Howard

To be on Twitter is to be performing, albeit performing at the virtual confluence of 21 million firehoses blasting scalding hot garbage slurry into your solar plexus 24/7. We are all more or less ourselves, there, but also both more and less than ourselves, projecting what we want to project and secure in the knowledge that the things we'd rather conceal—that there is a stain on our shirts; that we are not, and are in fact seldom ever, wearing pants, for instance—are safely concealed. I am not immune to this. But I am not pretending or performing or projecting when I tweet that I find Dwight Howard exceptionally tiresome and ridiculous. I tweet this sort of thing more often than I probably should, if also not more often than it occurs to me, authentically, that Dwight Howard is tiresome and ridiculous.

This… does not really have its privileges. But it does mean that, whenever Dwight is doing something tiresome and ridiculous out there in the world, people on Twitter will tell me about it. Henry Meier is one of these people, and when he happened to find Dwight onscreen at a Houston Astros home game, while checking on a Lance McCullers Jr. start, Henry thoughtfully let me know via a CC nudge on Twitter. Thanks, Henry Meier! Thanks for showing me this!

Peak Dwight. pic.twitter.com/FYquzmkWjU
— Henry Meier (@henry_meier) June 4, 2015

Yes, thanks so much. Look, it is not Henry Meier's fault that Dwight Howard showed up at an Astros game in a tank top, purchased a comically oversized foam hat, and generally acted like, you know, Dwight Howard. Also like this.

And like this.

But mostly just acting like Dwight.

That is not on Henry Meier. That is on nobody but Dwight Howard. It never is. I mean, society and The Culture and all that bear a certain amount of responsibility, but Dwight Howard is about Dwight Howard. Anyway, it could have been worse.

@david_j_roth I'm just really surprised he wasn't somehow wearing Cardinals gear or throwing M&M's at the umpires.
— Henry Meier (@henry_meier) June 4, 2015

It could always be worse. It will always be worse, and Dwight will always be Dwight. I'd love to tell you that I'm going to shut up about it. I would really love to tell you that.