PENULTIMATE POSTING OF 2005: (THE LAST ONE WILL BE MUCH MUCH SHORTER.)

HOLIDAY-RELATED MAXIM OF THE DAY

There is no element with a shorter half-life than the element known as the New Year’s Resolution.

A BRIEF REFLECTION ON SOCIETY AND ACCOUNTABILITY. OR: MOMENT OF ADMIRATION-TINGED OUTRAGE OF THE DAY

Jeff Reardon, the ex major league pitcher was arrested yesterday for robbery. His defense: It wasn’t me. It was the antidepressants.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1896&ncid=1896&e=1&u=/nm/20051227/us_nm/baseball_robbery_dc

Now, this kind of unaccountability is nothing new. We have had obese people blame the restaurant for their girth. We have had corporate leaders claim they were not guilty because they had no idea what was going on under their watch. We have had our national leaders tell us “It wasn’t our fault. It was the bad intelligence.” Indeed, unaccountability is nothing new. It’s arguably, a defining trait in our recent cultural DNA. But there is one instance of this bad faith buck passing, that takes the cake…or at least the pie. I speak of the Canadian (yes, they’re learning from us) gentleman who,accused of rape, claimed that he was sleep walking at the time and hence, not responsible for his actions. And he got off! (In court).

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/LegalCenter/story?id=1369010

Again, not admirable (indeed, despicable), but at least impressive. This is the innovative, resourceful, rugged individualistic can-do spirit at work in an era of shameless self-indulgence. Or at least it’s the final, logical extension of Canadian passive-aggressiveness. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I rape you? I had NO idea!”

TROUBLING DEVELOPMENT OF THE DAY.

As I ate my chicken cutlet on a roll with lettuce and light mayo, I found myself absolutely riveted by the Senior Golf Driving Championship on ESPN at 2 p.m. I saw some Calloway wielding geezers driving the ball upwards of 200 yards. I have to check the DSM-III, but I’m pretty sure watching this kind of thing in one of the warning signs of clinical depression. What’s next? Vegas, transfixed by the The Super Senior World’s Strongest Man contest—featuring the grueling 60 second bladder holding competition?

GLOBAL CRISIS IN A NUTSHELL OF THE DAY.

I’ve been reading “Snow”, by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. The novel, a political love story that takes place in the Turkish border town of Kars during a 3-day snow storm, explores the the conflict (and stunted, tone deaf dialogue) between Islamic fundamentalism and the West. Anyhow, I was in the middle of this novel, when I stumbled upon an article about Osama Bin Laden’s hot niece posing for a racy photo shoot for GQ--a development that seemed to put this global conflict in a nutshell:

(http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=1437862)

In the article, the aspiring sex object claims, “I have nothing to do with that man. (Uncle Osama). I just want to be accepted as an American.” In the eyes of fundamental Islam of course, this claim and the associated provocative pix are confirmation of everything they think. She seems to be saying that to be accepted as an American you have to act like a slut. This is precisely the kind of thing that locks us into the Manichean, binary view that either women are covered up in burkas or they’re showing us their tits. It’s also the sort of thing, of course, that sells magazines. Indeed, I wonder how many western readers are erotically charged by the idea of fucking the female Osama, of screwing him by association. Here she is, his bodacious blood-relation, captured by the camera in all her sudsiness and sultriness--defiantly choosing, as she suggestively fondles a flute of champagne in her bubble bath, to appeal to our gaze instead of his. Who’s your uncle? Yeah, baby. Who’s your uncle?? The semiotics of the whole gesture are rich and fascinating and deserve more time and thought than I can summon at the moment…having just depleting myself by jerking off over her. J Just kidding, Osama. Just kidding.

But I have to say, she is infidelicious.

Then, moments later, I read about all these non-Arab European women converting to Islam at the same time as Osama’s niece is baring her boobs to join the west.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20051227/ts_csm/oconverts_1

It’s a dazzlingly complex global story. A global battle between the skins and the shirts, the burka wearing and the boob baring, and it bears keeping an eye on. All joking aside, pretty amazing stuff, sure to inflame passions in all kinds of unproductive ways.

FROM THE “IT’S A RICH AND BOUNTIFUL WORLD” FILE

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/nyregion/27suitcase.html

MOVIE-RELATED OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

The other day, I saw “The New World,” Terrence Mallick’s filmic meditation on the relationship between Pocohantas and John Smith and, by implication, the displacement and destruction of the native Americans by the European settlers.

I was struck by the in-cinema ads leading into “The New World,” particularly a Coke ad in which polar bears make friends with penguins rather than eat them, suggesting just how dishonest our understanding of nature is relative to that of the the people we killed (I mean shared Coke with ) in order to settle this land. Actually it perfectly reflects the big white lie we tell ourselves about how we made friends with the nice people who lived here rather than murdered them. It’s the big white corporate creation myth: Genocide goes better with Coke.

I'm sorry. That was harsh. I meant: Manifest Destiny: It's the Real Thing.

REFLECTIONS ON SHOPPING AND MORTALITY

I go out in this blessed interval between X-mas and New Years to attend to some necessary year end errands. I revisit the Time Warner AOL Temple of Consumerism where, accompanied by my 48 pack of Toilet Paper (which, by the way is down to a svelte 46 rolls now), I had a happy consumer epiphany a few weeks back. This experience found me in less gratitude struck spirits. First, I go to J Crew--an institution I’ve never stepped inside of in my life but which I have to enter in order to redeem a gift certificate bought by someone who doesn’t know my shopping habits terribly well. Once there, I am shadowed--virtually stalked--by an overattentive sales assistant and feel pressured (both by his passive aggressive ministrations and by the need to rid myself of the gift credit) into buying an ill fitting P coat. (Thank you to my father’s wife for the gift certificate and apologies for my appearance of ingratitude.) Then I brave the sale-happy gift-returning hordes and buy a few things down at Whole Foods. Again, without the transformative mega-prop of my toilet paper (and the spirit enhancing preparatory tonic of a trip to a bookstore), I find the place somewhat less enchanting than I had the week before. In fact, having purchased 4 humble items for $46.34, I see it less as an institution exquisitely responsive to my human needs than as a rather transparent instrument of social Darwinism, making sure that only the rich shall eat non-contaminated, organic foods and pop out non-mutant progeny. I also understand why my friend refers to Whole Foods only half jokingly as Whole Paycheck. But, hey, to be fair and balanced, the tandoori chicken and chana masala were quite good. And, hey, if someone’s kids are going to be born deformed, I sure don’t want it to be mine.

But overall, I feel oppressed by the lifeless, generically moneyed physical surroundings. Cole Hahn. Coach. Hugo Boss. Etc. All the perfect objects of our society on display in their elegant showcases of marble and glass. The pure expression (and lifeless reduction) of our energies and ambitions. I felt like I was a non believer in a medieval chuch. But where the wealth of the culture had been devoted to lavish offerings to the divine, it was here invested in an opulent showcase for its coveted and collectible communion wafers. In another state of mind, I could see myself genuflecting before (and proffering the plastic for) a pair of Kenneth Cole shoes or a Joseph Abboud jacket or a Williams-Sonoma cappuccino maker but in this instance, I couldn’t wait to get out of there and experience something outside of the suffocating cult of the product world. It just felt like a dazzling, dizzying emptiness, divorced from any kind of reality or true life. Indeed, it was precisely the feeling of absolute insulation from anything real, that gave me intimations of something terribly real happening. Something—perish the thought—like a holiday season terrorist attack. As mentioned above, I had just seen “The New World:” by Terrence Mallick—a poetic reflection on the love between Pocohantas and John Smith and an implicit meditation on the birth and fate of our nation. I couldn’t help but think that temple of consumerism was the the inevitable natural extension of Pocahantas’s betrayal of her people and her alignment with the European settlers. I reflected –without simple nostalgia—on the fact that where little but maize and tobacco once grew from our soils, the magnificent mall is what now rises up from the land most proudly. In truth, I have no nostalgia for tending to the crops. I am better suited to shopping than farming. (Although I suspect I am better suited to reading and writing and watching than either of those alternatives). But it was interesting to think about all this as I exited the edifice in my slightly ill-fitting, insufficiently warm J Crew P Coat and inhaled –with gratitude—the exhaust-filled air of the cold December night.

A LITTLE ANGST ABOUT CONSUMERISM AND A MOMENTARY FEAR OF A TERRORIST ATTACK DOESN'T QUALIFY AS A REFLECTION ON MORTALITY. WHAT ELSE YOU GOT, YOU SHAMELESS MISTITLER?

Anyhow, I then went to the more friendly confines of Tower records. More friendly because books or cds are, for me, some of the few objects you can buy that explicitly address the mind and spirit. They are addressed to more than mere material need and are never –with the exception of the occasional coffee table book and the showcase editions of Joyce or Shakespeare that the purchaser intends to display rather than read--merely tokens of status or wealth. Anyhow, over the years of going to record stores, I have grown used to the idea of seeing my generation (David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Elton John, The Velvet Underground, The Talking Heads, the Jackson Five, etc.) marginalized and remaindered –set out in the bargain bins at $7.99. a disc. But it it still somewhat mortifying to see a second intervening generation so treated (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins etc.). Interestingly, while I consider myself a fairly savvy guy, I am perpetually bamboozled by the endless repackaging and rebundling of recording artists’ material. “Wow a new collection of Cat Steven’s greatest hits!” I know I probably have a lot of these songs on other cds or on my iPod through iTunes. But I don’t have them in this form. And I don’t have them at this price!” I invariably get the damn thing, then come home and discover that the new purchase is 99% redundant with my existing archive. I am a music idiot. A marketer’s daydream. I have, for example, about 7 different Velvet Underground discs containing “Pale Blue Eyes.” Six Jackson Five albums with “Stop the Love You Save.” And 6 copies of Elton John’s “Candle in The Wind” purchased at 6 different prices.

HOW ELSE DID VEGAS GET AN INTIMATION OF MORTALITY TODAY?

Well, upon returning from my consumerly rounds, I walked up the stairs of my building to my fifth floor apartment. This is my little exercise routine, particularly when we are in hiatus from my weekly basketball game. I usually walk up with my head down or looking straight ahead of me and sense what floor I am on by the degree of fatigue and breathlessness that I feel. Today, shamefully winded, I looked up in full expectation of seeing the number 5 and saw, to my chagrin, the number 4. And thus walking up the stairs of life, we slowly decline. Or maybe I should cut the fatalistic crap and get my sedentary ass into a gym.

CONFESSION OF THE DAY:

OK, I guess the foregoing doesn't really establish a satisfying connection between shopping and mortality. I guess I just liked the heading and sort of went with it.

APPEAL OF THE DAY

I have this problem. I’ve been writing 2 blogs simultaneously. Riding two textual horses with one behind. Aside from this blog, I ‘ve been writing one that’s primarily sports-related. My sports readers tend not to have much interest in the non sports stuff. And the readers of this blog tend to have little interest in the sports stuff. I am starting to feel like Tiresias caught between two blogs, two audiences, two sets of friends, two versions of myself. Anyhow the point being, that I’m going to have to find a way to merge the two blogs into the idiosyncratic (and arguably untenable) amalgam that is moi. So basically this is just an appeal to bear with me if you find a little more sports (conveniently sectioned off and skippable) than you’d like. I’ll make the reverse appeal to the readers of the sports blog. Vegas gots to be merging. Gots to be converging.

I guess I should redo the old Reese’s ad: Hey you got sports in my non-sports blog! Hey, you got non-sports in my sports blog! It’s two, two great tastes in YUCK!!!! This is terrible.

HOLIDAY REFLECTION OF THE DAY:

(With apologies for the redundancy with my aforementioned sports blog).

In this holiday season, I have been doing some thinking about our conventions of gift giving. Now, etiquette dictates that we conceal how much money we’ve spent on a gift. Even when we buy something like a CD whose price is universally known, we ask the cashier to put a sticker over the price tag and include a coded gift receipt that doesn’t say how much it cost. And yet, when we buy a gift certificate for someone, we come right out and tell them exactly how much we spent. In fact, that’s the main feature of the gift: It’s monetary worth. Doesn’t etiquette dictate that we should conceal the value of the gift certificate as we do with other gifts? Shouldn’t we say, “Hey here’s a gift certificate. I’ve crossed out the amount it’s for but, trust me, it’s a decent amount.” And what about when we give cash? Shouldn’t we cross out the denomination and the iconic American’s face? Shouldn’t we say “Here’s some money. I didn’t want you to know how much I spent on it, but why don’t you go out and try to buy yourself something nice. See if they'll take it.“

RANDOM CHARACTER DESCRIPTION OF THE DAY

The only problem he had with darts was the accuracy. He was good at the score keeping and the drinking.

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Posted on 12/30/2005 ( Permanent Link )
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