Comparison of Vices (Examining Eliot Spitzer)

3/29/08

Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York, resigned last week after being caught spending $4300 on a high-class brothel’s services, with some reports indicating that he spent as much as $80,000 on female escorts over an undisclosed period of time.

$80,000 spent paying for live Kama Sutra lessons might seem to indicate an unhealthy appetite, but before the good people of New York pass judgment on Client 9, consider this: The impact on his performance as a politician would have been immeasurably greater had Spitzer’s spending on O.P.P been directed toward other enjoyable-but-none-the-less-illegal activities.

For instance, how high would Eliot Spitzer be if he had channeled that extraneous $80,000 budget item into weed rather than women?

For the sake of easy math, let’s assume a street value of $50 for an eighth ounce of chronic, which means 1600 sacks of weed over the "undisclosed period of time." Let’s give this philandering adulterer the benefit of whatever doubt still remains and assume that he’s been putting his log onto other fires for 8 years---that’s 200 eighths of green bud per year for 8 years, which means cracking a new sack every 42 hours for 8 solid years, without relent: Stoned on Christmas, stoned on election day, stoned, stoned, stoned. (And this math doesn’t even calculate that when you’re spending $80,000, you get a better rate than the guy who arrives at his dealer’s door every week with 8 fives and ten singles.)

For those of you unfamiliar with an eighth, that would mean chain smoking grippers from dawn to bedtime every day, a pace that would have changed his life completely, not to mention his physical appearance. (The photo below demonstrates Spitzer as he appears now, and how scientists predict he would appear now had he spent the last 8 years french-kissing a water bong.)

To physically find time to smoke all that weed would surely have required the hiring of professional smoking consultants, experts to maximize smoking efficiency and thus accelerate intake: Tommy Chong called in to make recommendations on proper water-pipe performance; Snoop Dog would have been on the payroll as Joint Production Specialist ensuring that Spitzer’s Marley-esque doobies display canoe-free burning; Paul McCartney would have been on retainer for help with maintaining a cute and professional image despite having julienned your short-term memory into a shredded stack of non-sequitors.

Frankly, even with the help of these able professionals, it’s a pace that would have been nearly impossible to maintain, especially considering that a $200/week ganja habit would have quickly spawned a the Playstation investment, and considering we’re talking about Eliot Spitzer, his appetites would have meant countless hours spent looking for the secret "Hot Coffee" scenes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The self-proclaimed Sheriff of Wall Street would have been home in his cowboy pajamas watching Grandma’s Boy while CEOs were shoveling money directly into their personal accounts.

New Yorker’s should consider themselves lucky---there are worse things a governor can do. Though on the other hand, it might be cool to have a Governor who semi-finaled at the national Halo III tournament.

Mathematics and Mrs. Clinton

3/22/08

In the 2000 election, America was treated to the embarrassing spectacle of a politician doing anything he could to get elected. Al Gore changed his suits, changed his speaking style, changed anything that could be changed in order to kiss the ass of the American voter. I suppose you could say that all of the focus group feedback and campaign adviser urged adjustments paid off, as he did wind up with 48.4% of the popular vote. But perhaps you noticed, he wasn’t elected President.

In 2004, John Kerry trod the usual Democrat path against the Rove Machine and garnered 48.7% of the vote. (Perhaps you noticed, he wasn’t elected President, either.) A few days after that election, Bill Maher joked, "The Democrats have been ignited. They’ve already started work on losing the next election." That joke made me laugh, but I’m not laughing anymore.

Hillary Clinton is showing her true colors in this extended Democratic nomination process, a win-at-all-costs personality. After every major primary event she reinvents herself anew, like a brand that keeps modifying the packaging as it estimates how to gain maximum market share. She spends more time talking about what’s wrong with Barack than what’s right with her, she is willing to slay him in the press and sully his chances if he gets into the final showdown with McCain---in short, I am convinced she is more interested in getting herself elected than in either the success of her party or the defeat of the opposition.

While much is made about gender and race in this election, I reiterate my previous opinion that "woman" is synonymous with "Hillary Clinton" as accurately as "athlete" is synonymous with "Barry Bonds"---a vote against Hillary is not a vote against women, it’s a vote against self-serving, egomaniacal politician. (Though I will grant that any vote in a presidential election is likely for a self-serving egomaniacal politician.) To me, the Dems have a choice between a chameleon versus an orator. I think America needs to be inspired, needs to be reminded that it is not mere might that makes us great, that justice should be demonstrated by example rather than imposed by force, and that we earned our greatness through concerted effort and concerted effort will be required to maintain that greatness. I’m supporting the orator.

Yet while her gender is irrelevant to me, I don’t think it’s irrelevant in a national election, and I’m concerned that Clinton is fighting for her political life in a warm-up match while ignoring a dark reality that will arise in the final match-up: A certain percentage of Americans, for whatever personal biases they possess, are not going to vote for a woman for President. (Any woman, let alone this woman.)

And that dark reality causes me to imagine this equation:

Recent history shows us that the nation is basically divided in half, Democrats and Republicans. In 2004, Bush was the first President since 1988 (4 Presidential elections) to exceed 50% of the vote (50.7%) So let’s presume that 50% of the voters are willing to support the Democrats. What percentage of those voters will not vote to promote a woman to the oval office? For this argument, let’s estimate 10% will not vote for a woman. Roughly half of those will be Democrats (5%), so her 50% is now down to 45%.

That’s it, the math lesson is over. Election lost. Bill Maher’s joke is definitely not funny anymore.

Would the same thing be true of an African-American president? Perhaps, though I agree with Gloria Steinem (and a huge cast of others) that sexism is a stronger political prejudice than racism in this nation. (A sad commentary on America’s progress as an enlightened nation.) Should Hillary bow out because there is a chance that sexism will influence the election? Absolutely not---but she should at least focus her campaign on her own merits rather than discrediting her competitor. I heard a speech where she talked about "experience", and how Bush was inexperienced, and how Obama is inexperienced---I was stunned that she would sink low enough to compare Obama to Bush, the arch nemesis of the Democratic party. Plain and simple, that’s dirty pool, and it demonstrates that her personal scruples take a backseat to her ambition.

There’s nothing inspiring about that.

The worst song ever (runner up): Kokomo

3/16/08

Now and then, a song wriggles its way through the music industry process despite defying all tenons of good taste and artistic quality and gets its 15 minutes of fame with the general public. What these sporadic occurrences demonstrate is that while the means of getting discovered is constantly evolving (Mtv, MySpace, YouTube, et al), Robert Johnson’s ages-old road to success is still a well-trodden path, and the devil is still willing to load the scale with a hit on one side and a soul on the other. Kokomo is one of those songs, a repulsive paean to pina coladas, suntan oil, and creepy old men in speedo bathing suits.

"Kokomo" is credited to the Beach Boys, but it seems criminally unjust to attribute those four minutes of artless drivel to the same band that provided the world with the ethereal splendor of "Wouldn’t it be nice?" and "God Only Knows". (Never has the chasm of quality between a single artist/band’s work been so wide as it is between "Good Vibrations" and "Kokomo", outdistancing even the spacious gaps between Stevie Wonder’s "Superstition" and "I Just Called to say I love you" and Steve Windwood’s "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" and "Roll with it.") In fact, the assemblage of Beach Geriatrics who contributed to "Kokomo" have only one thin connection to the personal that produced the band’s master works, that of lead dork Mike Love, who co-wrote "Kokomo" with John Phillips (author of "California Dreamin’"), Scott McKenzie (who penned "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)") and Terry Melcher (who had no previous credits worthy of mention unless you’re a big fan of Charles Manson’s music, which he produced.)

English professors often urge, "write what you know", the theory being that knowing the details gives an authenticity to the writing (Mark Twain was a riverboat captain before writing about Life on the Mississippi; John Grisham was a lawyer before writing his best-selling legal dramas.) However, that advice is not applicable if "what you know" is lounging around a hotel pool bar living off the royalty checks of previous hits. (The title comes from the name of hotel poolside bar in the Florida keys, where they apparently mix drinks strong enough to make songwriters think "Bermuda, Bahamas, come on pretty mama" is a clever lyric.) This uninspired collision of steel drums and laziness is so lyrically vacuous that I refuse to print any more of it here, but suffice to say, even Peter Cetera would have given this drivel a rewrite before releasing it.

The song was written for the soundtrack to the Tom Cruise vehicle "Cocktail", and seems an appropriate accompaniment to that forgettable film. Yet despite being a languid-to-the-point-of-lithium snore that sounds like it was written by four rum-soaked old men in sandals who wanted to out-cornball Jimmy Buffet, the song went to 1 on the Billboard charts in America, and was nominated for both a Golden Globe (clearly indicating the value of music in the acting community) and a Grammy (clearly indicating the value of music in the musical community as well.)

When I hear people say, "I can’t believe America was dumb enough to elect George Bush...twice", I use the inexplicable success of "Kokomo" as evidence that the dumbing down started long before GW’s ascent to being the poster child for the dangers of getting C’s in school. That this staple of office party karaoke trainwrecks made it to The Beach Boys Greatest Hits (alongside all of the brilliant musical milestones previously mentioned) must be a thorn in Brian Wilson’s side that can never be removed.

It certainly is in mine.

Pie and Coffee

3/9/08

Pie and coffee appear regularly in literature as a singular event, a late morning indulgence or an afternoon hospitality that provides a delicious alibi for conversation and communion that wouldn't be appropriate across a bare table, a ritual that ensures time for a proper visit yet provides each participant some control over the duration of the meeting.

I have never had pie and coffee, yet I imagine it with an indefinable longing, inexplicably nostalgic despite having never experienced it. Sure, I have had pie for dessert, and at the same time sipped coffee, but that's just having dessert; likewise, I've had coffee with a cookie at coffee shops a few hundred times, but somehow that seems different, like when your mom insisted during your childhood, "But you have blue jeans", referring to a stiff pair of Wranglers when you were pleading for a pair of Levis.

What I crave isn't merely the particular foodstuffs: Pie and coffee isn't a menu item as much as a mindset, a culinary portal that allows simultaneous geographic and time travel; pie and coffee will not simply satisfy an empty belly, but will transport me to simpler times, to a culture that predates my birth, when neighbors visited with each other and our lives were not so neatly seamed at the edges. Modern life creates as a byproduct an insatiable itch, a psychic wanderlust with which we wrestle without a compass, a sense that there is something more out there, yet no amount of more makes us feel complete. As implausible as it may seem, I sometimes suspect that pie and coffee may be the antidote.

I'm fascinated that my brain has imbued a snack with such mythic powers, especially considering that I don't like a lot of pies. (I suffer from a mild case of texturephobia, and with all of the baked fruits, custardy coagulations and sometimes-soggy crusts, pies offer more potential for disappointment than deliciousness.) Though I admit, this is not the first culinary alchemy I have performed: The illusion of Souther Food came first.

I insist that I love southern food, yet there are few items on the southern food menu that genuinely interest me. (The comfort foods: Jambalaya, Gumbo, red beans and rice, etc.) The truth is, I don't love southern food as much as I love my impression of the south, an enthusiasm based on the swaggering groove of southern music, the languid beauty of southern writers, and the visual images planted by Hollywood when portraying the south as steeped in tradition and mythology. The South is a mosaic in my mind, assembled from only select bits of information that have survived my internal sorting process; the ugly tiles never made it into the final work.

I'm not sure which mosaic is deserving of the pie and coffee tile. The midwest, I suppose, since I'm sure I first learned about it through Garrison Keillor. But I don't have enough midwestern tiles to make a mosaic yet, so I fixate on this one little tile, imagining the beauty that could surround it.

You’re one of my kind (I recognize the uniform)

2/29/08

I visited New Season's Market today (hardly a mere market anymore---the name is akin to saying "Circuit City Record Store") and I happened upon a fetching dreadlocked lass in the granola aisle (truth is stranger than fiction.) I prefer to avoid judging people by the clothes they wear (knowing my own wardrobe's inability to fully define me) but this woman looked like she had been dressed by a Hollywood casting agent who had been tasked with outfitting a character who would be listed in the credits as "dreadlocked woman in granola aisle": Several layers of colorful earth-tone skirts, a cotton sweater cruelly clothesline-stretched to its fibrous limits, sandals with socks and a soundtrack of bangles accompanying each move of her slender arms. Soon enough, around the corner came the casting agent's "dreadlocked boyfriend of dreadlocked woman in granola aisle", dressed in equally appropriate regalia for driving the VW bus back to the house where they could check on the progress of the kale and soybeans growing in the fertilizer-free garden bed.

I'm not picking on hippies, I'm simply amused at how often I see couples festooned in matching identities in public, the concept of "opposites attract" common in Disney tales but rarely seen in the real world. One never goes to New Season's and sees the dingy, colorless man whose outfit was purchased at the Cuban Revolution Surplus Store debating Ben & Jerry's flavors with a bleach-blond woman in a lemon-yellow business suit; the crisp young man sporting the military crew-cut and the carefully knotted tie isn't discussing dinner options with the spiky-haired punk rocker whose ears and mouth will never again pass noiselessly through an airport checkpoint. Birds of a feather and so on.

When I was in college, this obvious manifestation of natural selection frustrated me to no end. There was a woman in several of my English classes name Pamela (whom my funny and/but jealous ex-girlfriend delighted in referring to dismissively as "Pammy") whose essence set my heart ablaze (okay, maybe the epicenter of the fire wasn't my heart), but she surrounded herself with boys who seemed to shop from the same thrift-store-chic catalog that she did, a catalog to which, my blue jeans and buttondowns assured, I had no subscription. Parental types might hear that and say, "why would you want to be with a woman who made her decisions based on such shallow information" (a logic I might have embraced had I not been exposed to the stunning friction of Pammy and her snug cotton trousers three days a week), but such reasoning never assuaged my ache: As far as I could see, everyone was that shallow, they simply waded in different pools.

As I watched the junior-varsity Rastafarians at the grocery store today, I thought again about how shallow we remain. Metalheads congregate with other metalheads, corporate climbers gravitate to other corporate climbers, and to one degree or another, we all inadvertently filter out a percentage of the population because we think that a person's appearance is an accurate advertisement for their soul. (Which, to be realistic, is a marketing method often pursued and frequently true.) Some will argue that our outward appearances are a projection of our inner selves, and thus a man in a three-piece suit is unlikely to succumb to the allure of a hemp-adorned hippie because they would not share a common point of view, but there is so much presumption in such assessments: Maybe the man works for the family bottled dressing distribution business, but his heart lies in developing an efficient method of hydroponic farming; maybe the woman's sister makes natural fiber clothing and she's doing her sibling duty of business promotion despite a daily craving for dyed cotton; there are so many maybes in these equations, yet we designate the majority of those maybes to be nos because our immediate appraisal rules out the possibility of them being yeses.

Will humans ever evolve to where we see everyone and anyone as possessing an equal chance of offering us something of value, or is this simplistic visual sorting simply hard-wired into the DNA? Or is such an evolution necessary, or even desirable? Heck, I can talk about being not prejudging people, but when I met my wife she wore a wardrobe that exhibited no outward clique affiliations, which meant, ironically, that she looked liked one of my kind: Were we independents in a world of declared-party citizens, or, to invert a phrase from Jimi Hendrix, were we waving our non-freak flags high and recognized each other by the very minimalism of those banners?

I prefer to think we were independents, but whatever the case, I'm glad that two decades ago I never found that catalog to which Pammy subscribed: Had I invested in those outfits, I might never have met my wife. And had I transformed for Pammy, I might have attempted similar transformations for the crushes who came after her---and let's face it, I'd look silly in either dreadlocks or a nose ring.

The Fate of White Male Agnostics in America

2/24/08

I watched a segment on CNN this afternoon regarding the glass ceiling for women, that invisible barrier that keeps women from attaining positions of power, and how Hillary Clinton's campaign may be an indicator of the nation's willingness to support a female President. According to some views, if she fails to capture the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, that indicates America's discomfort with a female commander-in-chief.

What this absurd concept obviously fails to take into consideration is that Hillary Clinton, like all women, is more than simply "a woman". The implication that a Clinton failure indicates that America is not ready for a woman in the Oval Office negates any of the particular attributes of this particular woman: A Senator who voted for and continued to fund a war she claims to be against; A party-faithful Democrat who is running a traditional left-wing campaign in an era that requires a unifying centerist; and most famously, the spouse of Bill Clinton, one of America's most beloved and hated (simultaneously, depending on who you ask) former presidents. In short, there are a variety of reasons Hillary could fail to get the nomination, and such an occurance would be a commentary on Hillary, not on women, just as Barack Obama's success or failure is a commentary on a moderately experienced Senator from Illinois, not a verdict on America's willingness to accept an African American president, and Mitt Romney's failure was the result of an inability to connect with America's voters, not America's discomfort with a Mormon president.

If you believe that opinions about Clinton are analogous to opinions about "women", and attitudes toward Obama reflect public feelings about "African Americans", or that Romney is a synonym for "Mormon", then one can make similar extrapolations about other individuals and demographics in America---for instance, I am white, and male, and agnostic, so therefore, anything I experience is the experience of white male agnostics. And let me tell you, there are some disturbing trends impacting white male agnostics in this country today:

White male agnostics cannot get jobs at adidas: White male agnostics have applied to several positions at the company, eager to find employment there because white male agnostics live in the neighborhood and have heard that adidas treats their employees well. That may be true of some employees, but not white male agnostics, because based on my research, adidas doesn't want to hire such people, hiding behind politically correct verbiage like "the job requires that you speak Korean, and what you just said isn't Korean---I don't think it's even an actual language" and "Yes, I'm sure you did read that on the Internet when researching the company, but I assure you that adidas is not an acronym for anything, let alone that."

White male agnostics cannot get published at McSweeneys.net: Granted, white male agnostics have not tried recently, but historical patterns clearly indicate McSweeney's disdain for white male agnostics, despite the fact that it seems to be a website written exclusively by white male agnostics. Apparently, there is such a thing as "not being white enough."

White male agnostics struggle to survive in the record industry: White male agnostics have produced a self-released 10-song CD, sales of which have been slow, indicating that America does not consider white male agnostics to be an essential voice in their modern iPodian view of diversity in America. This is disappointing for white male agnostics because they have, once again, employed foolish optimism with regards to getting CD copies printed. (Will white male agnostics ever learn?)

I'm not running for office, and good thing for you, because a vote for anyone other than me would expose the fear and loathing you secretly harbor for white male agnostics. Though frankly, as white male agnostic record sales indicate, it's really not much of a secret.

In the dream, I was Confused Spice

2/14/07

Indie rockers may recognize this splendid line from Doug Martsch: "No one wants to hear what you dreamt about unless you dreamt about them", a truism that has guided (and shortened) many of my "wow, what a dream I had" regalements. Yet the complete verse continues, "don't let that stop you, tell them anyway."

So sorry, but Doug said I could.

In Tuesday's dream, John Mellencamp sat on the set of some nondescript local news broadcast to promote his new book/CD American Tuba (which chronicled the history of the tuba in American music) interviewed by a hapless reporter who anxiously flipped through her index cards as if her probing questions about tubas had been replaced with instructions for baking lemon meringue pie. Mellencamp charmingly recounted the tuba's lineage from its classical roots to the dawn of big band jazz, into its heyday of Dixieland, and seeing the reporter's obvious panic, tried to to help by tactfully ending a comment on the tuba's role in Miles Davis' nonet with, "you're probably wondering if the tuba is appears in modern rock music?" But the reporter, lost in her frantic 3x5-card shuffling, failed to notice his assistance. Mellencamp glanced off camera, expecting to hear a frustrated "cut!" bellowed from the shadows, but the camera continued to capture the awkwardness, the bemused guest and the silent, frenzied host.

In Wednesday's dream, I didn't recall any dream, but awoke humming "Wannabe", the annoyingly catchy debut single from The Spice Girls. While I know this was once a ubiquitous sonic plague upon the world, I have only heard the song 3 or perhaps 4 times in my life. (At least in my waking life---I'm now left to wonder how many times I have sneaked away to dreamland to revel in its buoyancy.)

I've never bought into any broad concept of "dream interpretation"---sure, dreaming you're at the edge of a cliff likely indicates an anxiety in your everyday life, but the idea that, say, a dog has a particular meaning is absurd to me, since someone who grew up with loving and protective dogs is surely going to have a different impression of canines than the person whose father was mauled by Dobermans. Ditto on The Spice Girls, who have neither offered me any love and protection nor mauled my father.

I prefer to think of dreams as a sort of Community Theater for one, where each night a new play is performed (or a series of one-acts), and the audience member is provided no program, no hint at what story will appear on the stage. The material for these plays is taken from bits of information acquired during my waking day: The creep at the restaurant resembled my fourth grade teacher Mr. Murphy, so Mr. Murphy is cast as the villain; the hour spent combing the shelves at Powell's provides the library setting for one of the one-acts. An entire overnight of entertainment can be created by this method of data recycling.

But a book called American Tuba? Then me singing "Wannabe"? I'm left to ask, who hired the nutso avant garde director who has been handling this week's performances at my personal playhouse? I sit here with my coffee trying to wake from a stupor like the one I felt after watching Donnie Darko---what the heck did I just witness? Is there sense to be made of this, or have random bits of information been tossed in as red herrings? I'm curious to know why I dreamed of American Tuba, but I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want: I want to know why the hell I was singing that awful song.

You'll like this

2/9/08

We all have our pet peeves about particular words and phrases, biases and baggage that color our impressions of a situation. (It's not just me, is it? Maybe your dander rises when you hear "my bad" in place of an actual apology, or the inexplicable "I could care less" where "I couldn't care less" is appropriate?) One of the phrases that makes me uncomfortable is any recommendation (for a book, a movie, a restaurant, whatever) accompanied by the phrase, "You'll like this." There's tremendous presumption in those three little words.

The phrase isn't always offensive: Some folks have earned my trust in this regard. Several of my musical friends understand the music I appreciate and when they tell me about a band that they think I'll like, they're usually right; they've even intervened (bless their hearts) when they've heard someone else say to me, "I think you'd like them" about some sludgy, atonal outfit that would surely make me cringe. (While I like a wide array of music, my cringe muscles are regularly exercised.)

But other times, from other people, I've had recommendations that, when investigated, left me scratching my head, pondering what that person sees in me that makes them think I would like the item in question. Is it merely a matter of not knowing my likes and dislikes, or if they have made assumptions about me that indicate a fundamental misunderstanding between us? (Or do they add "You'll like this" to every recommendation they make as a means of piquing the listener's interest?)

Of course, sometimes such misunderstandings are understandable: If I attend a metal show to support a friend playing in one of the bands, and I see a someone I know in the audience, then it's logical for them to estimate that I like metal music. Based on this encounter, their recommending another metal band wouldn't seem like a stretch, especially a band that sounds like the acts on that evening's bill. However, with such recommendations I inevitably wish the phrasing was, "I recommend (x), I really like them" rather than, "I recommend (x), you'd really like them." It seems more respectful to not assume we can predict another's preferences.

My most convoluted experience with this phrase came at a dinner party with my wife's coworkers. I knew these folks with the familiarity that most people have with their partner's coworkers (read: very little), and when conversation eventually turned to a book of essays by Barbara Kingsolver, the hostess' eyes darted to me as she uttered, "YOU'D really like this book." I was quite put off by the statement, as she didn't know me well enough to accurately predict my tastes, especially considering her tastes were quite different than my own. I told her I'd investigate, though in truth, I mentally blacklisted the book. A foolish bias, but I vainly consider myself at least complex enough that I can't be pigeonholed before dinner is served. (By dessert, sure, you'll know all there is to know---but during appetizers I'm still mysterious.)

Years later, I encountered that recommended book---Kingsolver's essays were thoughtful, humorous, insightful, and I grudgingly admitted to myself that, yes, I did like this book. So was that original recommendation an astute assessment of my personality that lead to an accurate "you'll like this", or was it a presumptive guess that by sheer coincidence hit the mark?

I'll never know---though I wish she had said "I recommend it, I really liked this book": I'd have discovered Barbara Kingsolver ten years sooner.

Media bias: Have I been wrong?

2/6/08

I have never bought in to the so-called Liberal media bias. I'm sure my more-conservative brother would say that's a reflection on me, and not the facts, but I'll disagree, and that conversation will go on deep into the margaritas until we give up trying to convince each other and move on to discussing the finer qualities of Serena William's on-court fashions. (We have no disagreements there.)

But once upon a time, he offered a simple and interesting example: If a news program reports that the President's approval rating is falling, but then doesn't report when it rises, then that is a media bias: If the approval rating is worthy of reporting, fluctuations in both directions should be announced.

This morning (the day after Super Tuesday voting) I went to CNN.com for updates and saw this headline:

McCain claims he's front-runner; Dems split

Then I looked at the delegate count at the end of Super Tuesday:

Republicans (Needed to Win = 1,191)
Candidate Pledged Unpl.RNC Total
McCain 542 17 559
Romney 256 9 265
Huckabee 166 3 169

It's true, McCain did say in his victory speech, "Although I've never minded the role of the underdog, and have relished as much as anyone come from behind wins, tonight I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican Party front-runner for the nomination of President of the United States." But when one candidate has more than twice as many delegates as his closest opponent, and more delegates than all other candidates combined, they don't need to claim that they are the front-runner: They are the front-runner. Imagine if the Giants had been ahead of the Patriots 14 to 7 at halftime and Eli Manning had said, "I'm glad we're ahead": Reporters would not say, "Eli Manning claims to be ahead at half-time." McCain didn't claim to have secured the Republican nomination; he didn't claim to have demonstrated his superiority as a candidate; he simply noted that after a long time spent lagging in the polls (to quote NPR, "six months ago his campaign seemed to be headed for the glue factory") he was now the front-runner.

The inclusion of the unnecessary word "claims" in the headline devalues his success, and someone who read only the headline would wonder, "Is he the actual front-runner, or is he just claiming to be the front-runner?" I can think of only two reasons CNN would opt for that phrasing following McCain's victory at the polls: One, they are careless with their choice of words (unlikely, considering their business is words), or two, they consciously want to devalue his victory.

Rats, I guess the next round of margaritas is going to be my treat: By this example, my brother can claim to be right.

Baseball, Virginity, and the Afterlife

2/2/08

Unfortunately, I'm not a religious scholar. If I were to appear on "Holy Jeopardy", I'd do fine with the Roman Catholic column, and maybe the $100 and $200 question under Buddhism, but I'd go into the negative if I buzzed in on anything under Judaism, Islam, Hinduism or the "Creepy Fringe Sects" category. Thus, I'm occasionally baffled by a question of faith or a comment with an obscure religious reference. For instance, in the catholic church, what are those communion wafers made of? I know it's meant to simulate the body of Christ, but they seem to more accurately simulate the flavor of Styrofoam. Would it be a less-symbolic ritual if they baked them to taste like Wheat Thins?

But the question that's on my mind today involves suicide bombers in the Middle East (the global region, not the club in Boston by the same name) who are assured that they will be greeted in the afterlife by 72 virgins. I'm not making a comment on the religion itself (no, no no---I learned a thing or two from Salman Rushdie's A&E Biography special), but I don't get the whole "virgin" thing. I understand why a person might want to marry a virgin (it's easier to seem like the best roller coaster in the county if your fiancee has never been on any other rides), but 72 of them?

Think of it this way: Imagine that the afterlife featured the opportunity to play baseball all day, every day, and you got to have 72 players on your team. Would you want 72 people who had never thrown a ball before, 72 people who hold the bat hands-apart like it's a hockey stick? I certainly wouldn't. Maybe a handful of newbies would be nice so I'd get the pleasure of teaching them the game and watching them realize the joys of baseball, but with the other 67, I'd want some players. And not just 67 with the same skills---I'd want some fielders who can shag a ball, a bullpen of pitchers with an array of curves and sliders, some long-ball hitters along with a few who can lay down a bunt, and even a few folks who aren't all-stars but who are fun to have on the bench cracking jokes and cheering for the folks on the field. Granted, I don't want legends who have played so long that they're jaded about the game, but a six-dozen-rookies roster seems like it would take most of the fun out of baseball, constantly having to coach them through every play. Now and then I'd just want to sit back and watch the team play without having to be totally hands on, maybe shoot the shit with the bench warmers.

And what about the female suicide bombers---I assume it would be an eternity of awkwardness if a woman blew up a marketplace and awakened to find herself surrounded by 72 virgin woman who ruefully inform her, "Sorry, nobody brought a bat." So I'm guessing the women get treated to 72 virgin males, yes? Also awkward, since most women have barely enough patience to tolerate the fumbling overeagerness of even one virgin male, let alone a tour bus full of them.

And another thing---maybe this is more physics quandary than religious inquiry, but where is the afterlife getting all these virgins? On earth, the male/female ratio is pretty close to 1-to-1 no matter where you travel, but 72-to-1? How do they supply a full staff of virgins for a particularly busy week of the Jihad? I imagine some over-caffeinated afterlife receiving clerk with a clipboard full of dog-eared papers and a harried look on his face blustering to his staff, "Dammit, I hate this time of year. Look, just give each of the new guys 24 virgins each, but make sure they're hot---show the girls a baseball video before you deliver them---maybe the martyrs will be distracted enough by the 24 that they won't immediately do the arithmetic."

So many questions---I really should have paid closer attention at catechism. Of course, back then, I wasn't thinking about anything except baseball.

Patience and forgiveness

1/23/08

I live in Portland, home to the irrepressibly snarky Portland Mercury, a weekly arts/culture magazine that I infrequently read because I often get the impression that the reviewers are more interested in creating clever bon mots than they are in accurately assessing the music/movies/food they are reviewing. Please note that this is not a complaint---this is my impression, and I solve the problem not by writing to the Mercury to complain about their post-modern POV, but by not reading it very often. This is my method of living a peaceful life: Don't tilt at windmills, just avoid the windmills.

The Merc's snarkiness is magnified in a small feature (and associated blog) called "I Anonymous", where readers can write in anonymously and kvetch about trends in humanity, habits of fellow Portlanders, or whatever they want to bitch about, ranging from what I see as legitimate (Solicitors who knock on a door that says "no solicitors" because they don't understand the meaning of the verb "to solicit") to the completely irrelevant minutia of life (one person complained about people who don't remove the parking decal from the passenger side window of their own car after the car has left the parking spot.)

I use this as an introduction because when I read these postings, I am astonished at the level of bile arising from what seem to me to be minor irritations. There are half a million people in this city, and every one of them was raised with different standards of courtesy; every one of them suffers under the weight of different pressures, different expectations, different distractions. Yet we (yes, I'm one of them) make self-righteous judgments about strangers on a daily basis because we know how a person is supposed to act, and if everyone acted like we do, everything would be smoother, safer, and more fun for everyone.

Well I have news for you---that's not true. You do things every day that annoy your coworkers, that piss off your waitresses, that irritate strangers on the street. Even what you perceive as the good things that you do probably get under another person's skin: Kindly letting a slowpoke into traffic seems like a generous act, but it infuriates the leadfoot in the car behind you.

The key to success in this bizarre Discovery Channel experiment that confines half a million of the same species to a 20-square mile area is living with the other animals, accepting their imperfections and hoping they will accept yours. When we allow our fury to rise over minor events, that fury colors everything we see, leading to a limitless repetition of "and another thing..." addendums. (Of course, in some cases, the fury involves something far more offensive than someone taking too long to put sugar in their coffee at the coffee shop, but the real issue is repressed and the pressure grows to where it requires release, and thus we bore our friends and/or strangers by bitching about the neighbors playing Bob Dylan too much.)

Two things this city, and this world, could use a lot more of it patience and forgiveness. Forgiveness most of all---too many people seem to forget that a grudge does nothing to the person against whom we hold that grudge: They live their life as if it doesn't exist. Yet we cling to these grudges, nurture them, in some cases even cherish them. But don't fool yourself: They are a poison, and they taint the quality of your life. And who do you think is to blame for that---the person who refuses to take down the parking meter sticker?

Think again.

The worst song ever (runner up): Signs

1/1/08
"Signs", by the one-hit wonder Five Man Electrical Band (with a clever name like that, who could have imagined a future of obscurity?) is nothing short of dangerous when it comes on the car radio: I immediately stab at the dashboard in order to change the station, moments later finding myself with the defrost blowing at full storm, the hazard signals blinking inexplicably to the drivers behind me, and, on the bright side, something else (anything else) playing on the car stereo. It is a song that make me wish that Orwell's vision had partially come true and Big Brother could deem that the song doesn't exist, never existed, and will never exist. The original, and the even lamer version by 80's-top-40-and-90's-cut-out-bin stars Tesla.

To its credit, the plodding sing-along chorus can get stuck in my head, and by some people's measure, that's the sign of a good song. But what about advertising jingles for insurance companies? They get stuck in my head, too, yet that's hardly a commentary on their cultural value.

I mentioned my loathing of this song to a friend once, who looked at me quizzically---not that he wanted to come to its defense, but that it seemed like too innocuous of a tune to elicit a venomous reaction, like saying the worst actor of all time was one of the stars of the sit-com Wings. (You pick which one.) Granted, both are extreme long shots for an Oscar nomination, but they're more forgettable than contemptible. But "Signs" is completely deserving of my loathing.

Yes, yes, I know, the sentiment itself is admirable ("everywhere is sign/blocking out the scenery/breaking my mind.") Unfortunately, it is expressed with all of the nuance of a 10^th grade stoner in creative writing class who is beaming with delight because he's stumbled onto something pseudo-profound without having to cop lines from an early Blue Oyster Cult song. The song's characters are all paper cut-outs and straw men, exaggerated caricatures of establishment-types (and hippies) who bear more resemblance to cartoons than to fully-realized people.

It's quite simply an incredibly sophomoric and annoying song. The same year saw fellow Canadian Neil Young singing about the slaughter at Kent State University in "Ohio", and Joni Mitchell lamenting the collision of ecology versus economics with "Big Yellow taxi"---and these putzes are offering up a commentary on naturalism that makes John Denver seem profound. (Which he sometimes was, I respect him very much; but "Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy" could have been stolen from a 7-year-old's poetry journal.)

While I might be able to live with inane (I own a Matthew Sweet album, after all), the overt pseudo-christian theme---in one verse, "If god was here, he'd tell you to your face, man, you're some kind of sinner," followed by the whole creepy "kneel down and pray" verse. (The irony apparently lost that "the church" has more than it's fair share of infringements on your personal freedoms. What did Moses carry down from the mountaintop? Signs.)

My band once did a sound check while Dan Fogelberg sat at the bar. My friend Scott recognized him and chatted him up afterward, having a nice conversation. (He's a warm and charming man, then residing in our home state of Maine.) Dan reflected on the industry, and how hard it is for young bands to get noticed. To paraphrase him, "When I was coming up, if you had one pretty good song you could get a record deal."

As "Signs" confirms, apparently it didn't even have to be pretty good.

What do you mean by that?

11/18/07

A couple of months back, the news report indicated that Senator Larry Craig was arrested for "soliciting gay sex in the men's room of the Minneapolis airport", nabbed for using a "well known solicitation phrase."

Let's ignore the redundancies (what other bathroom is a man going to use at an airport? And since he's in the men's room, what other kind of sex would he be soliciting?) and focus on this supposedly "well known solicitation phrase." The media covered this story as if Larry Craig's desire for a hummer was the cause for global warming, yet that well-known phrase was never explained.

I don't know what that phrase is---and that's the trouble. As far as I'm concerned, that a closeted senator is desperate or stupid enough to find public toilets an aphrodisiac isn't really news, but that there is some combination of words that isn't as direct as, "Hey, anyone feel like fucking?" and yet IS clear enough that someone who feels like fucking will know to raise their hand like a kiss-ass student who has the right answer in Anatomy class makes me wonder what the hell that phrase is.

I only fly cross-country---we're here, family is way over there, and the only reason to stop in between is to use the john. (Wait, bad choice of toilet slang.) Now I can't use an airport restroom without worrying that either I am going to naively and accidentally utter this supposedly well-known phrase, or someone is going to say it to me and my answer is going to make me seem like that Anatomy class eager-beaver. (Wait, bad choice of slang---no sense bringing beaver into this discussion.) While I generally do not strike up conversations in the bathroom (nothing that is done in a bathrooms is, in my eyes, a social activity), I am a personable person and courtesy requires me to respond when addressed.

I imagine myself standing at the sink washing my hands and recognizing a fellow passenger from the Portland-to-Atlanta leg of the journey---and he says, "Damn, this is a long one."

Is that the phrase? A normal response might be, "I know. I was aching to stretch since Montana", but there's no way I'm replying to a comment about a "long one" with a comment about "stretching." Instead, I'll be forced into square mode (which, I should note, appears to an outsider to be astonishingly similar to my "normal mode") and reply, "Before I respond, by 'long', you mean in duration, correct? And by 'one', you are making reference to the flight?"

Don't get me wrong, I have no issues with mano-y-mano sex, and while I have never said yes to a restroom tryst, I have also never said no. Sadly, no stranger has ever broached the subject with me---at least not that I was aware of. But knowing now that there is some secret code to which I am not privy, I wonder if I have been propositioned and I was too naive to catch on. In the crowded bathroom in Cleveland when the guy said to me, "Are the all the stalls full?", was that opportunity knocking? Frankly, if a charming guy gets the notion that he wants to kneel at my particular altar, I'm likely to let the man pray. (Though I am too much of a germophobe to be a praying man myself.) But unless he's explicit about his spirituality, I'll likely mistake him for an athiest with peculiar vocabulary.

Because quite simply, I am comically dense when it comes to anyone coming on to me. When I worked in automotive, a beautiful woman from Texas had her car break down in Portland. My shop was going to fix it, and since it was the end of the day and she was now without a vehicle, I offered to give her a ride to her hotel. We got along well, and since she was curious about Portland, we drove around and looked at the lights, stopped to get a drink, chatted for an hour or so, and then I dropped her at the door of her hotel. The next day, my horn-dog coworker Dave asked what we talked about, and I told him---Portland, Dallas (her home), how Dallas is full of fake boob jobs but hers were real, how...

"What?! She talked about her tits? What did you do?"

"What do you mean, what did I do? I didn't do anything."

"WHAT?!?!" He looked at me like I had refused to pick up a sack full of twenty dollar bills because, as a rule, I prefer to pay with debit card. "What else did she say?"

"She talked about kissing, and if I thought it was shallow that she liked kissing."

At this point Dave was literally banging his head on the counter, raving at the injustice: Here's this gorgeous, buxom blonde in a strange city, willing to sit in a bar with a strange guy and ask him if he thinks kissing is "shallow" ("what the fuck would that even mean, Billy?") and she winds up with Richie fuckin' Cunnigham.

As I watched him stomping with frustration, I suddenly felt like Richie fuckin' Cunnigham. "You think that was an invitation?"

He stormed out of the room making a strange growling noise, a sound I interpretted as, "Yes, Opie. It was."

THAT is why I'm mad at the media for their incomplete coverage. Unless someone says to me, "Good afternoon, I wish to engage in some form of sexual activity, and with you, and now would be ideal timing", I'm probably not going to know what they're after. So knowing there is this body of slang that exists that I might inadvertently utter that will make me seem like I'm hip to it all is quite disconcerting. Thus, I'm going to be the guy in the restroom in Minneapolis who, if he says anything at all, nervously says, "Damn, this bathroom had no paper towels. And by paper towels, I mean the actual paper towels that go in the dispenser, and by dispenser, I mean...wait, 'dispenser' wouldn't be a double entendre, would it? Fuck, this whole...wait, NO, not fuck, not fuck at all, I just meant the paper towels" before scrambling out to the terminal with dripping hands as a family from North Dakota wonders why I look so panicked. I'll look at them, and down at my hands, and blurt, "No, it's water, I swear."

Thanks, Mr. Craig. You've ruined airport pissing forever.

A Nation of Broadcasters

11/4/07

A coworker lamented to me that "blogging" (said with a tone that made it sound like something located midway between fictional and disgusting) seems like the ultimate form of narcissim---hundreds of thousands of people announcing the irrelevencies of their life to a world of people who, for the most part, just don't care. I contemplated countering the argument, except there wasn't anything untrue about the comment. As a person with multiple web outlets for my irrelevent voice (most of which I created as platforms for those irrelevancies), I felt sheepish explaining that, but I did enjoy that moment of awkward silence before they not-quite-deftly changed to a new subject.

But the comment resonates with me---a good conversation involves people sharing ideas and moving the conversation forward. We all know how annoying it is to talk to someone who isn't so much "listening" as "waiting to talk", and I worry that blogs are simply that: So many of us are so busy broadcasting that we forget to listen, and spending so much time in front of the monitor that we forget the joys of interpersonal interaction. (No, the irony is not lost that I'm saying this in a blog.)

My daughter is five, and she doesn't blog. As near as I can tell, her life is not diminished by that absence. I'm trying to learn from that. Starting right....now...