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Daily Blah for... Friday, December 19, 2003
Hail to the King
Last night I surrendered unconditionally to the overwhelming force of Peter Jackson. It took three movies, but the Kiwi director has finally shocked and awed me into submission. Yes, I enjoyed Fellowship and adored Two Towers, but there was always some nagging reaction in my critical brain that prevented me from calling them masterpieces. A smidgen too much CGI, perhaps, or a preponderance of heavy metal hair, or Howard Shore's half-baked melange of musical cliches -- softly serious strings, cod-Celtic pipes, and way too many apocalyptic-sounding choirs. Choirs should be the nuclear button of sci-fi and fantasy films, to be used only as a last resort; this became clear after John Williams overused them in Phantom Menace. When a choir heralds the start of a drag race, for crying out loud, what are you going to do when the entire galaxy is under threat?
Anyway, with Return of the King, it all just clicks. The music, the CGI, everything. P and I watched the extended DVD version of Two Towers before heading to the theater, which is highly recommended -- it substantially enhances your appreciation of the characters, and of what is about to happen. Suffice it to say that what you may have read in other reviews is true; the battle for Minas Tirith is even more jaw-droppingly good than the defense of Helm's Deep in Two Towers. In fact, your jaw hits the ground near the start of the movie, and it's as well that Jackson adds a lengthy coda (as Tolkein did) so that you have time to retrieve it before the cleaners do. As one of my seatmates said, with only a touch of hyperbole, "they should cancel the Academy Awards this year, and just show that." Why not? At three hours twenty minutes, it would probably clock in a little shorter.
Liberties have, of course, been taken with the sacred text. A glance at the original upon our return confirmed that Jackson has conflated about a half-dozen other battles into one big Minas Tirith confrontation. The professor, who got irked even by radio adaptations of his work, would probably not approve. But why should we care about angering that old goat? According to the excellent Humphrey Carpenter biography of Tolkein, he was basically embarrassed about letting loose the fruits of a lifetime's imagination upon the world and never quite understood the world's madly positive reaction. The neatest detail in the Carpenter book, to my mind, is that Tolkein seems to have spent more time devising and playing games of Patience during the eighteen years or so it took him to write Rings than sitting down with the manuscript itself; there were whole months, even years, when he didn't add a single word. There's hope for all of us frustrated sci-fi/fantasy epic writers yet.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, December 17, 2003
More Milkshake
The longer that song plays on a tape-loop in my brain, the more I see a disturbing edge it. This could, in fact, be my first post-30 "the younger generation is going to hell" moment. Let's take a look at the main refrain:
My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
And they're like, it's better than yours
Damn right, it's better than yours
I could teach you, but I'd have to charge
Now, presumably the song is being addressed to some female rival for the milkshake-starved affections of the "boys." Leaving aside grammatical doubts (is that supposed to be a direct quote from the boys? Why not put it in the third person -- "it's better than hers"?), what we are left with is a rather hollow celebration of cattiness and capitalism. The singer -- let's call her Girl A -- is overjoyed at the validation she receives from the boys, and throws it in the face of Girl B. Does she not think for a moment that this might be exactly what the boys intended: to spark a competition between the girls, in which the boys can be the only winners? What happened to sisterhood? Is feminism dead? Is it all about pleasing the boys now? As much would certainly be suggested by the song's bridge:
La la la la la
Warm it up
La la la la la
The boys are waiting
So Girl A's only empowerment comes from running what is effectively a capitalist enterprise. She's got the milkshake; the boys are milkshake consumers; more consumers means better business. And if Girl B wants to muscle in on Girl A's business, she'll either run her out of town with aggressive advertizing or make a profit out of teaching her secrets. Change the wording a little, and the song could be a company's annual report:
Our nonfat emulsified dairy beverage product attracts an overwhelming plurality of the adolescent male market to our open-air operational headquarters
This market segment enthusiastically endorsed the product over a leading rival brand
We agree wholeheartedly
A recipe licensing agreement with said rival would significantly enhance our pretax gross margin earnings
Sexy? I don't think so. Annoying? Certainly. Clinging to the inside of my cranium? Yes, and if anyone has any tips on how to extract it, now would be the time.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Pina Coladas and Milkshakes
Another week, another tech column. This is one of the most lightly edited pieces I've done in a while, with only one exception: the song quote at the end of paragraph four. My original version was "faster than you can say 'pina coladas and getting caught in the rain,'" in homage to that cheesy 70's classic, "Escape (the Pina Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes, and as a private nod to P, who loves the song. When my editor substituted "my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard," I had, I'm afraid to admit, no idea what he was talking about. One Google search and an iTunes download later, I was listening to "Milkshake," by some songstress called Kelis. It is a maddeningly addictive track. Almost as addictive as the Pina Colada song, in fact. Anyway, here's the column.
Can You Hurry Love?
Here's what you get when you marry online dating and instant messaging
By CHRIS TAYLOR
Online romance may have shed its stigma over the past couple of years, but until now the electronic process has been only a little bit faster than its off-line counterpart. Finding out whether your latest suitor is a loser could take days, if not weeks, when you're merely bouncing e-mail back and forth. What if you want to sort the wheat from the chaff right this minute? Isn't the Internet supposed to be about instant gratification?
Enter Love.com, a new service launched last week by America Online (which, like this magazine, is owned by Time Warner). Not to be confused with love@aol.com, which is run by Match.com for AOL subscribers only, Love.com is the first dating site to use the free software known as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). More than 50 million people use AIM regularly to chat with friends and co-workers. Many have it open on their desktop the entire time they're online.
Like Salon.com, the New York Times and a lot of other popular websites, Love.com uses a personal-ad system created by a company called Spring Street Networks. Spring Street ads tend to be more cerebral than their equivalents on Match.com or Yahoo Personals because they ask questions like "What was the last book you read?" and "What was the worst lie you ever told?"
When you've located a personal ad you like, Love.com tells you whether its creator is online and using AIM at the moment. Click once, and the object of your attention will be sent a request for an instant message (which he or she can safely refuse, since Love.com masks your real AIM user name). The two of you could be virtual-speed-dating faster than you can say, "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard."
Love.com is free only through Valentine's Day. After that, AOL says, posting an ad will still be free, but if you want to IM someone, you'll be asked to pay a monthly subscription fee. The amount hasn't been determined yet, but it's likely to be comparable to Match.com's $25 a month or $100 a year. Regular Spring Street sites charge you just $1 anytime you want to initiate an e-mail correspondence. Since Love.com trusts users to verify that they are 18 or older and AIM is officially available to anyone 13 or older, parents of teenagers may want to be extra vigilant.
Whether the additional cost is worth it depends on your view of dating. If you prefer to go slowly with one potential paramour at a time, you're probably better off on another Spring Street Networks website. But if you like playing the numbers game — and if the idea of being instant-messaged by strangers at random moments in your workday doesn't put you off — then it might make sense to take advantage of Cupid's AIM.
From the Dec. 22, 2003 issue of TIME magazine
Daily Blah for... Monday, December 15, 2003
It's That Beard Again
It was the first morning in a long time that the front of every newspaper looked almost exactly the same. Since the big news broke slowly somewhere in the middle of the weekend, evidently too late for the traditionally lazy Sunday editions, it feels weird to be opening up a paper on Monday morning and staring at exactly the same strangely-bearded guy. Haven't we got over his capture already? Wasn't that yesterday's story? Time got the story on its cover, and we usually put the magazine to bed on Saturday night. You get the sense the world has moved on.
Here's my question: Saddam managed to arm himself, withdrew enough cash from his personal account to have a pretty good weekend in Vegas, and he couldn't find a pair of scissors anywhere? Didn't he think about what a visual cliche he'd make if he got caught? He looked exactly like the protagonist in about a billion New Yorker cartoons set on desert islands. And what happened to his beard once they shaved it off? Inevitably, I suppose, we'll see it cropping up on eBay.
Daily Blah for... Friday, December 12, 2003
The War Comes to Time
Michael Weisskopf, one of our reporters in Baghdad, lost a hand and sustained shrapnel injuries yesterday when a U.S. Army patrol he was traveling with came under attack. It appears a grenade was tossed into their Humvee, and Weisskopf tossed it out again. His quick thinking saved four lives, though obviously it came at a heavy price. Apparently he's in a stable condition. I am awed and humbled by his heroism. It wasn't that many months ago that Michael was safe at home in Washington. For his sake, let no one who reads this ever sneer at the journalistic profession again.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, December 11, 2003
The New Guy
What a difference a day makes. Now the San Francisco Chronicle's front page is touting Newsom as if he's the next Democratic President: "he's got a million dollars' worth of promise," says one strategist. And yet inside, the Chronicle also points out that Newsom would not have won if it had been a straight fight at the voting booth. He won because of absentee ballots; specifically, Republican absentee ballots. This is interesting, I think, to see Republicans hold their noses and vote for someone who favors gay marriage, abortion on demand, medical marijuana and subsidizing transgender operations for city workers -- simply because they dislike the Green guy more. Would that work on a national scale, I wonder? Come back Ralph Nader, all is forgiven.
Anyway, I know I promised the director's cut of that Time piece on the Newsom-Gonzalez race. That, however, has been lost to history. In its place, I present some choice morsels from my Newsom interview a couple of weeks ago. Here's some of what the rising star of the Democratic party had to say:
There's no question the appetite in California is for change. Schwarzenegger ran against the insiders, the establishment, Sacramento. This resonated with the 18-34 year-old demographic. Gonzalez is running in a very similar way. He's president of the board, already the most powerful Green in America, and sits there as if he's anti-incumbent. He's running on anti-establishment. He's anti-everything, which is great, and he's pro-everything which is pure. Heck, I didn't think I could get away with that. That's an easy campaign. Of course I'm against corruption. Who's pro-corruption? That's his grassroots effort. They're believing. That's great. Time to believe again. But it's also about governing. You can't govern a city from an ideological perch. You want immediate steps and long-term solutions; not one or the other.
I feel awkward; I'm 36, and I'm now the establishment. It's strange. In any other context, any other major urban center in America, I'd be the fresh face. I'm more progressive than anyone could imagine. In any other city I would be considered an extreme liberal, with the exception of homelessness, where I'm trying to do something about 160 deaths a year, rather than explaining it away. People said I backed 'Care Not Cash' to advance myself politically. But in this town, you do not touch the issue of homelessness without getting scarred. Permanantly scarred. You see it over and over again. If you're a smart politician, you make an election day promise and don't take the risk.
I was the only elected official who would meet with Gonzalez back when he talked about running for DA. I was very impressed; he's very bright, no question. When he ran for Supervisor, I watched this anti-establishment strategy. He said he didn't want the job, then he said okay. This year he said 'I don't want to run for mayor', then says 'okay, you can have me' five minutes before the filing deadline. It's not contrived, but if you can just be the guy who doesn't want it, you appear reticent, so people have to push you.
It's funny how the two of us have been characterized. Even down to the hair. His hair is 'anti-establishment', mine's 'slick'. I know the Getty family, therefore I'm 'rich.' I have to keep reminding people: It's the Gettys, not the Gottis. They've contributed $500 each, $2,000 from the family as a whole. That's it. Out of 13,000 contributions to my campaign. My relationship with the family is very strong; I've grown up with them; they're one of 99 investors in my businesses. I can assure you, I know not of a political machine in this city, even though I've been claimed to be a part of it.
I've had my body burned in effigy on several occasions. I was custard-pied five years ago; I thought that was cute. My home spray-painted, my volunteers threatened. We've received death threats. I had to change my home phone number. My home address was posted all over town. Win or loose, we're out of that house. I can't wait. In two weeks, we're putting it on the market. It's been nine months of battery. Not seeing my wife, not having any personal life, that's not a great life. You do it because you do want to contribute, you do it because you care about people. I couldn't go to bed at night if I was the person they claimed me to be. I would never do that to my opponent. There's a different standard for them, an anti-establishment standard.
I got spat on the other day. That's a first. But I will not allow them to make me hate them. They cannot win because I won't ever shut the door on them. You watch my transition -- the first people I'll meet with will be my biggest critics and opponents.
The demographics of this country suggest party at national level is really at risk. You loose the South, you're out of the game. You need more Clintonesque policies, more triangulation. You can localize this party at peril of national disintegration, or you can work on a national level and watch local politicians change with green politicians ascending. You loose at both ends. I don't know the quick and easy answer.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Blame it on the Rain
Gavin Newsom is the next mayor of San Francisco -- though not, at 36, anywhere near the youngest (we had a 29-year-old leader back in the gold rush era, apparently). Some suspect the rain had something to do with his win; the city has been soaked in storms for the last several days, and Gonzalez supporters, after all, were disproportionately car-less, poorer, and less likely to know where that polling place was. Any campaign veteran will tell you bad weather hurts the candidate on the left. Whether it made a difference to the tune of 20,000 people -- the amount that Newsom won by -- is a matter of conjecture.
What's not in doubt is this: San Francisco now has a kind of official opposition. Gonzalez retains his place at the head of the board of supervisors, still the most powerful Green in America, with the support of the majority of the board. There's no doubt he'll run again in 2007. As Newsom has to know, Gonzalez will be watching him like a hawk, always ready to dive in for the kill. Call him the eminence green.
Daily Blah for... Monday, December 08, 2003
Spending Spree
Iraq's political leaders are expected to vote this week to create a special court to try members of Saddam Hussein's government on charges [including] squandering the nation's wealth.
- New York Times, December 8 2003
WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 2004 -- More than 500 members of Congress and the Bush Administration have been indicted on charges of squandering America's wealth, a special Supreme Court tribunal announced yesterday.
The charges relate to the mysterious disappearance of a $269 billion budget surplus sometime after January 2001, and its replacement with a $500 billion deficit by the beginning of 2004.
Investigators would like to question the President about his whereabouts during the signing of bills that gave $24 billion in tax breaks to energy companies, $249 billion in subsidies to agriculture companies, and handed $400 billion to health insurance firms on a silver platter.
If found guilty, lawmakers and administrators will be strapped into chairs with their eyelids pulled open and forced to watch nonstop Ross Perot lectures.
Daily Blah for... Sunday, December 07, 2003
Recall Santa
This, from my neighbor, Kathryn, shows that San Franciscans still have a sense of humor about that political earthquake a few months ago. Either that or we just like spending a lot of time on making our Christmas decorations really freakish.
Someone in the Haight decorated their house with a giant sign that says, RECALL SANTA?
check one: yes/no
and... "Choose one instead":
Then there are four lit up 5 foot plastic figures, one alien, one frankenstein, a pumpkin, and a bunny.
Do Not Adjust Your Set
I'm back in action. But it also seems I rather stupidly left most of my homepage images on the old Daily Blah server, now long gone. Thanks to the good old Wayback Machine, I've retrived most of them. The others will be a harder hunt. And I've still got to figure out how to put them on the new server. Some people think of me as technologically savvy, but when it comes to website maintenance, I'm clueless. Please stand by.
Daily Blah for... Friday, December 05, 2003
Ch-ch-ch-changes
How embarrassing. As I write this, anyone pointing their browser at Dailyblah.com is getting a stark message that reads: "THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN SUSPENDED. Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible." And no doubt their bill-paying reflex would have sent them scurrying to their rolodexes, pausing only to pick up the phone, before common sense took over. I do apologize, dear readers, for this bit of nastiness. It's a mere bump on the road to transfering my domain name. Yes, my relationship with the aptly-named hosting service Nomonthlyfees.com (just a bloody big annual one) has been terminated after four years of horrible pain.
The final straw? They didn't send me any e-mails reminding me that my Daily Blah account was up for its annual renewal. So I've switched this site over to Verve Hosting, which was already taking care of my other blog, Future Days, for a mere $5 a month. Other blog, you say? Yep -- it's a work in progress I started last summer; a place to put all those briefly-glimpsed pieces of possible futures that haunt my imagination. A blog devoted to the only certainty in life: that everything changes.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, December 03, 2003
iPod's Dirty Little Secret
"The dirty little secret of all this," Steve Jobs told me the other month, "is that there's no money to be made on a music store. We're selling iPods." Now there are rumblings that iPod has a dirty little secret too. According to this amusing little Quick Time video, the iPod's battery usually dies at age 18 months -- after the warranty has run out. The battery being locked inside that mirror-coated casing, it's just as easy to get a brand new iPod.
So is this true? Is Apple indulging in planned obselesence? I'm not so sure. I've had four iPods since they were launched two years ago. And yes, the first one I had -- the one Apple gave me at the launch -- died after about a year. But the first version of any technology is always pretty buggy, and this original iPod was no exception. It crashed fairly frequently. The other three iPods have been fine. Of course, it's not unusual in this business for 10% of any particular computer to be dead by the time it leaves the delivery truck. And only one version of the iPod is older than 18 months, so far. We'll see in the coming months. If the allegation is true for more than 10% or 20% of users, Apple could have a revolt on their hands.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Gonzalez, Newsom and the Foie Gras Crawl
So where do I stand on the SF Mayor's race? Am I gaga for the Green Gonzalez or demagogic for the Democrat Newsom? Well, I liked them both on a personal level. Gonzalez was a little more prickly as an interview subject -- he seems to have the kind of inherent distrust of any mainstream media that is sadly prevalent among the far left (strange, really, since it's a form of prejudice). Newsom went out of his way to make himself likeable -- perhaps too far out of his way. He was all smiles and warm, honest chatter during the lengthy interview; it was only when I started transcribing that I saw how many times he'd sown the seeds of innuendo about his opponent. Smooth. (Not that Gonzalez was above innuendo, passing on the ridiculous rumor that the Newsom campaign was talking about the White House as its endgame.)
The Gonzalez campaign is far more vibrant, in a wonderful Beatnik kind of way. Last week its headquarters was packed with colorful neighborhood volunteers who just dropped in, it would seem, to see what condition their condition was in. The walls are filled with work from local artists. A violinist was practising for a nightly jam session when I arrived. Gonzalez himself greeted me at the door, grabbed me somewhat forcefully by the arm and deposited me in the office of his self-proclaimed "Propoganda Minister", whose first question was: beer or wine? Over at Newsom HQ, about the only interesting things to look at were the piles of ironing boards (used to get around election-day prohibitions on the use of tables, apparently) and the boxes of high-class chocolates from an Italian donor with "Newsom for Mayor" printed on them that were being given out at reception. So I was left with a soft spot for the Gonzalez campaign and its "hey kids, let's put on a show!" appeal. There were more dreamers there, and I hate to see dreams dashed.
That is, until I read about the foie gras. Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle featured a survey of the candidates' food preferences in which both were asked the question "which should be illegal -- marijuana or foie gras?" Newsom went for the witty "neither, as long as it is for medicinal purposes," but Gonzalez' response was blunt: he gave foie gras the thumbs-down.
I was shocked. In fact, I was shocked how shocked, shocked I was. Yes, I know what they do to geese to get foie gras out of them. Yes, I know you make a pact with the devil every time you eat it. But have you ever tasted the stuff? (For that matter, have you ever met a friendly goose?) Normally I'm no gourmet, but ever since I first went to Boulevard, I've been a foie gras fiend. Just the memory of the way it melts in the mouth--with a texture so tender and a taste so rich you have to close your eyes--makes me salivate. Mmmm. What's for lunch?
A couple of weeks ago, during a mix-up at our neighborhood French restaurant, P and I discovered that what I like is called pan-seared foie gras, rather than the pate-like stuff. Armed with this information, and desperate to get me out of the house so guests for my surprise party could sneak in and decorate the place, P took me on a foie gras crawl the night before my birthday. We hit two of the city's top restaurants and had four different samples of pan-seared foie gras, which is probably the limit for most human beings (the stuff is so fatty, you feel full after a few calories' worth; it makes an excellent Atkins food). I returned home in such a state of bliss, I didn't even find it suspicious that the lower door bolt, which we never lock, had been locked. Surprise!
All of which happy memories makes me irrationally fearful about a Gonzalez-run, foie gras-free San Francisco. Would wild geese roam free in the city streets, snapping at pedestrians, perhaps tying a few of them down in a misguided attempt at revenge by force-feeding them until they popped? Would my rumbling stomach and salivating mouth force me to move (to Sonoma, perhaps, where the city council recently declined to debate the foie gras issue)? Would I really throw my support to Newsom over the goose liver issue? Is this my own personal bread-and-circuses experience (not that I'd change allegiance over something as bland as bread)? All in all, it's probably for the best that I can't actually vote in this election.
Body For Life II: Return of the Body
The pounds piled on alarmingly, but not surprisingly, over my 30th birthday weekend. Then, after Thanksgiving, the numbers on the bathroom scales were getting somewhat stupid. And to top it all, I found a note I'd put in my Palm years ago in anticipation of my reading it at this very moment (I can be very good about planning ahead when it comes to things like leaving myself future notes; less so when it comes to leaving my future self banknotes). "After the age of 30," it read, quoting some medical journal or other, "we lose 1/2 a pound of lean muscle weight per year. It turns into fat." Great.
So yesterday I took to the Body For Life book with a vengence. It's still the most comprehensive, all-round exercise and nutrition program I've ever seen. One round of weights and six very pleasant meals later, I saw what I'd done wrong when starting it the first time round, earlier this year. I hadn't been writing my results down as recommended. Shame on me. A writer not wanting to write things down? Ah, but it was precisely because I was a writer that I felt such things -- recording every bleedin' meal I ate, every weight I lifted -- would dilute my total output. (This is also why I don't write so much in these pages about the minutae of my everyday life, though today I'm evidently making an exception). Plus I hate being told exactly what to write.
And I hate being told anything in a condescending, aphoristic style. Especially not anything about physical fitness (must be a hangover from my schooldays), so the book hadn't helped. When it said "if you're failing to plan, you're planning to fail," I wanted to wring the neck of the nearest P.E. teacher. Really, the fact that I picked it up at all is the best testimony to the program itself, which is exceedingly easy to remember, shows its benefits relatively fast, and quite simply smells right. You lift weights twice a week for 45 minutes, do aerobic exercise three times a week for 20 minutes, graze on six small, balanced meals (half protein, half carbs) and drink ten glasses a water per day. You're done. And you get Sunday off to eat what the hell you like (I should add a caveat from my earlier experience: as long as you exercised the other six days).
Why am I telling you all this? Extra impetus. If I declare it in public, there's more chance of me sticking to it -- for fear of what I'd have to tell my friends if I stopped. Fear not, you'll hear no more unless I quit, in which case you'll read the bloggy equivalent of me eating my virtual hat.
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