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Daily Blah for... Friday, February 27, 2004
Smoke Ring
The phone rang, as it is in the habit of doing.
“Hi, this is Jane Blow from Governor Schwarzenegger’s office.” [not her real name, although I’m pretty sure that’s his].
“Hi.”
“I just wanted to let you know the type of cigar the governor smokes is David Smithsky [not the real brand name]. That’s D, A, V …”
“Well, that’s very interesting, but also kind of surreal.”
“Really?”
“Yes. My query was about gay marriage.”
“Oh.”
“Are you sure you have the right reporter?”
“I don’t know. I just got handed this piece of paper and told to ‘call him back.’ And you were the last guy I spoke to, so …” she trailed off.
“You know what’s funny?” I said.
“What?”
“I didn’t want a cigar at the beginning of this phone call. Nothing could have been further from my mind. And now …”
“You know, there’s a website for the cigars and everything. That’s where I got the spelling from.”
As I put the receiver down, the conspiracy theorist in me had to wonder: is this some kind of subliminal Schwarzenegger payback for his donors in the tobacco industry? To seed cigar brand names in the minds of the media?
The rest of me just wanted to puff on a big ol’ Cohiba.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, February 26, 2004
End of the World x 2
Speaking of space, it seems we nearly had a close encounter of the nasty kind with a little rock called 2004 AS1. Sky-watchers spotted it last month, mere days before -- they thought -- it was headed for a date with the northern hemisphere. They were about to pick up the phone and call Bush. Astronomers really ought to have special red rotary phones in glass boxes for such purposes; what fun is the end of the world if you can't employ all the cliches?
Anyway, they re-checked the numbers -- someone must have used imperial instead of metric again -- and the rock missed us by a couple of moon orbits. However, it also turned out to be 70 meters wider than they thought, which would have made the difference of a billion deaths or so. Is it not terrifying how little we know about these natural missiles? Isn't it time to start taking the space rock threat seriously and devote some serious dollars to it? Couple this with a leaked report from the Pentagon, of all places, that says global warming could cause more and bloodier wars than international terrorism, and even the most strident defender of Bush's record on national security -- his only strong suit in recent polls -- has got to admit the possibility that our priorities may well have been skewed all along. If the end does come, at least, Bush is going to damn well make sure that only the straight corpses are wearing wedding rings.
Spaced Out
The crew of the International Space Station caused a bit of a tizzy today by going on a spacewalk and leaving the station empty for the first time.
Why? Did they forget to lock it? Anyone could just walk right in. Or worse, did they leave the keys inside? Heaven knows what the locksmith is going to charge. Did they not turn the gas off? Goodness, the gags just write themselves.
Making Amends
It’s amazing what some people in this country will believe if you repeat it enough times. They’ll believe that gun sellers deserve way more protection from litigation than the makers of booze and cigarettes, or that Iraq was responsible 9/11, or that Mel Gibson is a serious religious scholar. They’ll even believe that same-sex couples declaring their love for one another in a City Hall 3,000 miles away is such a serious threat to their basic freedoms that it requires rallying the awesome force necessary to change a 220-year-old secular government document.
Yes, folks, that sound you just heard from the White House was the desperate yelp of a wounded president. Far more embarrassing and painful to watch than the Dean scream speech, in its own way. Roughly speaking, it translated to something very similar: “And then we’re gonna go to Massachusetts! And San Francisco! And New Mexico! And tell them who to marry! And then we’re gonna pass constitutional amendments against flag burning! And affirmative action! And we’re not gonna stop until we’ve made bigotry the official state religion! Yeaaagghhhh!!!”
Seriously, I’m surprised that Uncle Karl Rove – upon whose desk this surely must have landed – is not a better student of history. America has only ever passed one attempt at constitutional moral legislation – prohibition – and it was an unmitigated disaster. Whatever they tell pollsters, when they get to the ballot booth most Americans know you don’t mess with that document unless you’ve got a really good reason. Or is Rove expecting the amendment to fail? Is it the martyr’s crown he seeks for the boy king? Nah. Think of the time frame on this one. Even if you got it through Congress before summer, you’d barely get any state constitutional conventions going until, oh, let’s say November. Put it on the presidential ballot and hope people forget what they walked into the booth for. This could well count as another GOP electoral sleight-of-hand in the spirit of the California recall and Texas gerrymandering. Put the amendment on the same ballot as the election, and the whole campaign revolves around gay marriage. Which may mean it’s time for national Democrats – listen up, JForbesK – to stop wincing every time they hear those two wedge words. Repeat after me: you can win over hearts and minds on any issue, even this one. Simply open mouth. Insert spine. Offer vision. Inspire belief.
Daily Blah for... Monday, February 23, 2004
Same-Sex Showdown
Here it is, then: my official contribution to the national conversation on gay marriage, from the pages of today's Time. It's an emotive situation, which left me with something of a tightrope to walk as a professionally dispassionate journalist. In the end, I did my best to represent the truth of the situation in SF by letting the marriages -- and Newsom -- speak for themselves.
N A T I O N
I Do ... No, You Don't!
Why San Francisco's brash mayor is taking on Schwarzenegger and Bush over gay marriage
By CHRIS TAYLOR / SAN FRANCISCO
If you wanted to get to Mayor Gavin Newsom's office at San Francisco's city hall last week, you had to navigate your way through a happy sea of gay newlyweds. Dozens of small groups were strewn randomly on the mayor's balcony, on the grand staircase, under the echoing rotunda modeled on the U.S. Capitol. Each group offered a similar emotional tableau: the couple beaming with pride, the earnest volunteer officiator in casual dress, the distracted children, the supportive friends wielding cameras or holding up cell phones so parents could hear "I do." Which is exactly the kind of scene Mayor Newsom imagined when he put the gay wedding train in motion just before Valentine's Day. "Put a human face on it. Let's not talk about it in theory," he explains. "Give me a story. Give me lives." The only thing Newsom was surprised by was the sheer number of lives involved—he hadn't expected so many out-of-state couples. By Friday, nearly 6,000 same-sex newlyweds had streamed out of city hall.
Newsom's decision has set off a nation-wide chain reaction that is putting public officials on the spot. President Bush declared himself "troubled," hinting that San Francisco's actions make him more likely to support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued stern warnings to heed California law, which bars same-sex marriage. "It's time for the city to stop traveling down this dangerous path of ignoring the rule of law," he said. Meanwhile, other civic leaders embraced Newsom's actions. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said he would have "no problem" with Cook County issuing same-sex marriage licenses. Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson welcomed San Francisco's new policy. Victoria Dunlap, a Republican county clerk in New Mexico, issued licenses to 26 same-sex couples last Friday until the state attorney general shut her down.
Like the lives of the couples his decisions have changed, Newsom's political career has been irrevocably altered. He began it as the millionaire owner of the PlumpJack Cafe and Winery, the son of a local judge, and the husband of former lingerie model turned cnn and Court TV commentator Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom. At 36 he is the youngest Bay Area mayor since the Gold Rush era. Now, less than 50 days into his tenure, the slick-haired, smooth-talking politician has become both poster boy and punching bag on the hot-button issue of gay marriage. Many Democrats are fretting that a presidential election year is a bad time for Newsom to take a principled and potentially unpopular stand on an issue that might hurt the party in the general election. But throughout all the controversy, the mayor remains almost preternaturally calm. "He's like Dean without the anger," says a Newsom staff member.
Before they elected him by a narrow margin over his Green Party opponent last December, San Franciscans thought they had Newsom figured out. He was a Clintonian New Democrat, the party establishment's choice to replace outgoing Mayor Willie Brown. The issue Newsom was best known for was a favorite with conservatives: he wanted to slash welfare payments to the homeless in return for more city housing. During a contentious campaign, Newsom voiced enthusiasm for same-sex marriage—but that is hardly an unusual platform in America's capital of gay culture. "Every San Francisco politician supports it, and then they run and hide when they get in office," he says. "That's why politicians are unpopular. We're always looking for a leader who speaks his conscience, and then when he does, we say, 'Boy, that was brave, but a little risky. Let's find someone more safe.'"
Newsom did not arrive at city hall spoiling for a fight on gay marriage. He started out by making some symbolic appointments—the city's first female fire chief, the first female police chief, the first openly gay chief of staff. He cut his own pay in the face of an estimated $330 million budget deficit. He had a 63% favorability rating (which has risen barely 3% since the gay marriages began). "He had already ingratiated himself a little with liberals," says San Francisco pollster David Binder. "Politically, he didn't need to do any more."
So why did he? To hear Newsom tell it, he was incensed by Bush's vow during the State of the Union to preserve the sanctity of traditional marriage. He studied the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision that said gay couples could marry, the Supreme Court's decision in the Texas sodomy case and the California constitution. The latter's equal-protection clause gave him the rationale he needed. He decided that Proposition 22—the successful 2000 ballot measure in California that defined marriage as between a man and a woman—was discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional. At the same time, he began calling Democrats in Washington, telling them what he had in mind. California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer both advised the mayor against attacking the law by flouting it. Openly gay Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank said Newsom was jeopardizing gay marriage elsewhere and making a constitutional amendment more likely. If Newsom allowed gay marriages, the party said, it would be a liability for his political future.
But the mayor's mind was made up. Gay activists came to city hall every year as part of a protest movement called Freedom to Marry. Newsom timed his directive so that this year they would not be turned away. During the long Presidents' Day weekend, Newsom even officiated at some weddings, including those of his chief of staff and his policy director. Meanwhile, impromptu parties convened on the city hall steps. Each couple that emerged waving a certificate was saluted by a mariachi band and a tap-dance troupe. Cookies, cake and roses were passed around. "This is our generation's Selma," said a straight white male attendee.
Conservatives begged to differ. A religious group called Repent America staged a sit-in at city hall last Friday. "Gavin Newsom is a renegade, and the word equality is being misused to rob all the sacred things of their uniqueness," said Randy Thomasson, founder of the Campaign for California Families. "What's next? Legalized heroin? Prostitution? Polygamy? Incest?" Thomasson's was one of two groups that asked for a temporary restraining order to halt the marriage spree. On Friday a local judge refused the request.
Newsom's daring actions may end up being merely symbolic. Sacramento officials say they won't accept the licenses on bureaucratic grounds. But that doesn't put a dent in the happiness of those newlyweds under the rotunda. And Newsom? "My reward at the end of the day is that I can live with myself," he says. "I did my job and had a conscience. That's more powerful than being mayor."
From the Mar. 01, 2004 issue of TIME magazine
Arnold: "I See Dead People"
What is Schwarzenegger smoking?
"All of a sudden, we see riots, we see protests, we see people clashing. The next thing we know, there is injured or there is dead people. We don't want it to get to that extent,'' the Republican said in his first appearance as governor on a Sunday talk show.
Could he possibly be talking about the same exuberant, peaceful haven of love and respect that San Francisco City Hall has become over this past week? True, there have been one or two protests by right-wing Christian zealots -- one group locked arms and tried to prevent same-sex couples from accessing the room where they recorded their licenses -- but peaceful, always peaceful. There is an ideological clash going on here, but it appears to be one in which both sides have learned the value of civil disobedience from the Gandhi and King eras.
For all Arnold's big-budget action hero status, I don't think he can dream up a bloody violent clash with armies of extras. Or can he?
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, February 18, 2004
The Ted-ly skies
Below is a piece I wrote on Ted, the new low-cost airline from United. That's where I was on assignment on Thursday -- flying to Las Vegas on the inaugural Ted flight out of San Francisco, then taking another test Ted flight from Vegas to Denver. I then spent a splendid three hours in the beautiful town of Boulder before turning around for my prebooked United flight back. But I didn't quite make it on to that flight; the security line was the longest I'd ever seen, snaking round corner after corner in quite a nightmarish, Kafkaesque manner. Indeed, it was the longest anyone in the line had ever seen, at least according to what we were all immediately calling home on our cellphones to say. We had good reason. It was Denver on a Thursday afternoon in perfect weather; what well-prepared, shoeless, laptop-lugging road warrior wouldn't expect to breeze through the metal detectors in a matter of minutes? Finally, I found a security guy who told me what was up. It's that damn United, he said. They launched a new airline today and didn't tell us.
Running as fast as anyone dares to run in an airport these days, I made it to the gate minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave. Which was the most painful part, of course, because it meant I got to see the plane sitting there as the doors closed and the connecting corridor withdrew. I got to beg and plead in vain with the stone-faced United representative. "You know," I told her later, getting my standby ticket for the next San Francisco flight -- three hours away -- "I'm writing a story about you guys."
"Oh, is it good?" was her reply.
Here's the version I wrote on that later flight, trying hard not to let my fury creep in:
Your airline has just gone bankrupt. How do you try to claw your way back to solvency? If you're United, apparently, the answer is: paint some of your planes orange and call it a new airline. The troubled carrier launched its Ted service last week, replacing some regular United services between Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco, New Orleans and Los Angeles (Dulles, Va. connections will follow in April). United promised that no one-way Ted fare would ever go above $299 in the hopes that it would win back customers from friendly, no-frills rivals like Southwest Airlines.
But like the paint, most of Ted's upgrades were superficial. The staff were United attendants wearing orange baseball caps and "Ted's Friend" buttons and trying to smile more. Sure, you could buy a $5 bottled margarita, and choose from a menu for carb-conscious dieters (at least on flights lasting more than two-and-a-half hours). The promised "Tedvision", however, turned out to be a single channel of recycled cable programming -- hardly a patch on JetBlue's multichannel DirecTV, and far less entertaining than the rap performed by at least one attendant: "Ted, Ted, that's the name/You're going to find out it's not the same/First came Southwest, then JetBlue/Now it's Ted that's going to serve you."
Taking Ted from San Francisco to Las Vegas last week cost $219, far cheaper than a regular United flight on the same route ($710) or than an America West flight ($347). Early flights were sold out. But it's hard to see how a bankrupt airline can keep cost-cutting. After all, painting a 747 orange isn't cheap.
In the end, the story had to be severely sliced for space. Here's the version that made it into the magazine:
United launched its discount Ted carrier last week, which replaced some regular United service to such cities as Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco, New Orleans and Los Angeles. The airline promised that no one-way Ted fare would ever go above $299. Taking Ted from San Francisco to Las Vegas costs $219, far cheaper than a regular United flight on the same route ($710) or than an America West flight ($347). But like the new paint job, most of Ted's other changes seem superficial. The staff were United attendants wearing orange baseball caps and TED'S FRIEND buttons. Passengers on flights of more than 2 1/2 hours were offered a menu of low-carb meals. The promised Tedvision, however, turned out to be a single channel of recycled cable programming. More entertaining was the rap performed by at least one attendant: "Ted, Ted, that's the name/You're going to find out it's not the same."
Daily Blah for... Friday, February 13, 2004
What Did I Tell You? (Part 2)
I remember how it felt to be alive in those last few glorious months of 1989, when walls real and imagined were tumbling like dominoes. It all happened so fast, we were all caught off-guard in the most gleeful way. You'd open the paper every morning and say something like "what, Bulgaria too?" I'm getting the same feeling now with the onward rush of the gay marriage express; events are moving faster than I can blog about them. A week ago I was going to suggest a cross-country convoy from Castro Street to Massachusetts. Then earlier this week Gavin Newsom said he wanted the city to look into issuing marriage licenses to any couple who asked for one -- because he read the state Constitution he just swore to uphold, and it says all citizens have to be treated equally. And I wanted to say, see? Didn't I tell you he seemed to me a good guy; not at all the kind of fascist he'd been portrayed as in some quarters? Didn't I post my interview with him in which he talked about his support for gay marriage? Then I came back from assignment last night -- more on that later -- and discovered over dinner that the city had married 118 gay couples earlier that day.
Reading about it in the Chronicle this morning was delightful, a moment of sheer 1989-ness. The couples and well-wishers looked as dazed, surprised, happy and tearful as east Berliners crossing through the wall for the first time -- which was, in effect, what they were doing. I found this passage especially moving:
[Andrew] Nance's hands shook as he showed a small crowd the rings [he and his partner] exchanged during the ceremony. The bands bore images from their lives together: a cup of coffee to honor their meeting place, the American Sign Language symbol for "I love you," and another symbol for "growth and forever."
Who would want to take those rings away from their shaking hands? Who can be so hard of heart to scowl at such a tender and genuine emotion? If the Christian God is love, then there can be little doubt the Christian God is moving in these couples. Some idiot from the Family Research Council trotted out the tired old line about "their agenda of normalizing homosexuality." Normalizing? For crying out loud, isn't it normal yet? They're still here, they're still queer, and you still haven't got used to it? What are you afraid of? It's not like anyone is going to force Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia to march down the aisle at shotgun-point. This is about the right of everyone to pursue their own happiness -- in San Francisco, in Massachusetts, and anywhere they damn well please. There will be legal battles ahead, but for now homophobic conservatives seem like gray-faced East German apparatchiks in November 1989 -- suddenly powerless, and about to fall victim to the spread of infectious liberty.
Alien Arrival
Update: I just officially became an extraordinary alien!
Therefore, puny humans, since you have shown me the proper respect, I have decided to postpone the annihilation of your pitiful planet.
[Insert evil cackle here]
What Did I Tell You?
Last November I wrote this blog about a story of mine in which an editor had made a subtle change to my use of the word "Google". I had it in the proper noun sense: The Google of Books. He changed it to the generic sense: Google your books. Google, I pointed out, has been known to send out lawyer's letters about this kind of thing. Some of my friends thought I was being paranoid. And now look what dropped into my inbox this morning:
Dear Mr. Taylor:
Your article in the November 10, 2003 issue of Time, entitled "'Google' Your Books" has come to our attention. In that article, you use "google" to mean search generally. Our brand is very important to us, and as I'm sure you'll understand, we want to make sure that when people use "Google," they are referring to the services our company provides and not to Internet searching in general. I attach a copy of a short, informative piece regarding the proper use of "Google" for your reference. We hope that this is helpful.
Sincerely,
Rose Hagan
Senior Trademark Counsel
Google Inc.
The attachment includes, among other things, this patronizingly helpful table:
Inappropriate
I googled that hottie.
We were googling MP3s.
He googles himself.
They google lemurs.
Appropriate
I used Google to check out that guy I met at the party.
We were looking for new MP3s with Google.
He ego-surfs on Google to see if he's listed in the results.
They use Google to research the latest on lemurs.
How the mighty have fallen. Or rather, how full of themselves the once-humble are. I remember sitting around with Larry and Sergey in 2000, when they were on the cusp of fame and Google was a company of less than 150 people (the magic company size, according to The Tipping Point). I remember thinking:This place is so cool. It'll never turn into a faceless, corporate mass like Yahoo. It'll never be run by MBAs and lawyers. But even as I was thinking it, I knew in my heart I was wrong. That's just the kind of dreck that tends to attend corporate growth. Yahoo itself was a small, cool company once. All I can do is await the day when Google sees the error of its ways, splits itself up into lots of 150-person sized divisions -- and fires the trademark lawyers.
Who, in the meantime, can go google themselves.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, February 10, 2004
The Bangalore Syndrome
So there we were, in our safe little media world, writing stories about how everyone and his aunt was getting their jobs outsourced to India, how practically all call centers on the planet are now being run on the cheap in Bangalore, how Indian workers are being taught baseball scores and midwestern accents so you'll never know the difference, and we never thought for a moment it's going to happen to us. How could you outsource journalism? Aren't you always going to need troops on the ground, footsoldiers, shoe-leather correspondents?
Not according to Reuters. The wire service just announced it is outsourcing -- I can't believe I'm writing this -- outsourcing its financial reporting on 3,000 small to mid-sized American companies. Guess where? To Bangalore, India. Specifically, to six -- all of six! -- Bangalore reporters. Now apparently this set-up is pretty low-level stuff. The six reporters will be trawling financial records for the most basic of details; any actual interviewing will still be done in the U.S. But you know how these things go. Meet your thin end, Mr. Wedge.
Indeed, why stop there? Copy editors will be the next to go. Ship out a couple of dozen dictionaries to Bangalore, where they speak better English than most Americans, and you're done. Editors? Hell, they can mess up my prose for thirty cents an hour just as easily as they can for thirty dollars (just kidding, dear editors). Once most of the chain of command has moved over -- well, I'm sure any Administration and its plutocratic paymasters would be overjoyed to remove most reporters, writers and other assorted nattering nabobs as far away from the action as possible. They'll happily accomodate a few embedded journos, of course. As long as you keep them from talking to each other. Assign one pool reporter to each company and wait for Stockholm Syndrome to set in. That is, if anyone still calls it Stockholm Syndrome by then. I hear Swedish syndromes charge astronomical wages. Why not outsource?
Daily Blah for... Monday, February 09, 2004
Geek Eye for the Straight Guy
Y O U R T I M E / T E C H N O L O G Y
Dial G for Geek
The tech support the stars use is now available to mere mortals — for a price
By CHRIS TAYLOR
Monday, Feb. 16, 2004
Fixing computers is not normally considered the most glamorous of jobs. But try telling that to employees of two top-tier tech-support firms — Geek Squad, a house-call service based in Minneapolis, Minn., and DriveSavers, a Novato, Calif., company that fixes fried hard drives around the country. Geek Squad boasts that its clients include U2, Ice Cube, Ozzy Osbourne and the Rolling Stones. DriveSavers touts its techno-healing work for Sean Connery, Sting, Adam Sandler and the Stones again (someone should tell Keith Richards to stop trashing his laptops).
As just about every computer maker cuts back on its tech-support staff, the stars — like the rest of us — are not inclined, when their machines malfunction, to spend hours on hold waiting for someone to answer. And neither should you, if you can afford the solution. Here's the skinny on those two companies, plus a cut-rate option for the frugal:
GEEKSQUAD.COM Bought by Best Buy in 2002, Geek Squad patrols Minneapolis, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Ariz., Columbus, Ohio, and Washington, and is scheduled to hit 34 other cities by the end of the year. Its agents are the epitome of geek chic in clip-on ties and badly fitting pants. I made an anonymous call, claiming a PC emergency, and was told it would take half an hour to get someone to my door. He arrived in seven minutes. Such service costs: crisis support starts at a $298 flat rate. It's $149 for house calls within 48 hours and $49 for a Best Buy — based assessment.
DRIVESAVERS.COM When your hard disc dies, what do you do? Well, there's a 90% chance that DriveSavers can retrieve your precious files within 48 hours, the fastest turnaround time in the data-recovery business. (When one of my Macs decided to delete all my old diaries, DriveSavers sent me a CD containing every lost file the next day.) The average price: $900. No wonder the company grossed $10 million last year, and is still growing.
SPEAKWITHAGEEK.COM Want something cheaper? How about free? Speak With A Geek is one of a burgeoning number of phone-based support firms (like Askdrtech.com and 888Geek.com), but its ace in the hole is a five-day trial period, during which you get one free phone call. You have to sign up for the $34.95 monthly service, but canceling before you have to start paying is pretty easy. If your malfunction might be minor enough to be solved over the phone, it's worth trying this site before moving on to pricier options. The best thing about all these services? Absolutely no hold time. Now that's star treatment.
Damn Statistics
Some eye-opening numbers from a forthcoming book called Priceless, from a couple of economists seeking to debunk the cost-benefit analysis industry. Hard as it is to credit, these are the kinds of prices tossed around the table by government regulators and lobbyists. Anyone feel like grabbing a pitchfork and marching on Washington?
Value of one human life: $6.1 million under Clinton, $3.7 million under Bush
Value of a non-fatal case of chronic bronchitis: $260,000
Value of the preservation of humpback whales: $18 billion
Value of an I.Q. point: $8,346
Daily Blah for... Saturday, February 07, 2004
Who Let the Doggerel Out?
Spent the morning polishing off Deadline Poet by the old Time columnist, gadfly and Renaissance man Calvin Trillin. It’s a collection of news-based doggerel he wrote every week or so in the 80’s and 90’s, inspired initially by the wonderfully euphonious name of the first President Bush’s chief of staff, John Sununu (which gave rise to Trillin’s maiden poem, “If you knew what Sununu”). It struck me throughout how relatively civil, free-thinking and even whimsical the national discourse seemed back then. Far better breeding ground for poetry than the hyper-serious nonsense we have these days, in other words. One can’t imagine the war on terror or weapons of mass destruction as the subject for light-hearted verse. Then it struck me: there is one news item perfect for this subject. The following lines, very much in Trillin’s style, showed up at the door of my consciousness and declared their intention to stay:
Janet Jackson bared her breast
Now we won’t let the matter rest
Once I’d given these lines admittance, there was no stopping their brethren. I offer them here with full apologies to Trillin and, indeed, every poet and poetry lover in the entire world. Remember, you’re free to browse the rest of the web at any moment.
Suspense at this year’s Super Bowl
Had naught to do with one field goal.
Under Houston’s halftime weather
An 80’s starlet, clad in leather
Bid us forget about her brother
By dancing with a rumored lover
(Who, to make himself seem hipper
acquired a nickname: Just the Ripper).
With careless choreography
They dared reveal one mammary
Whose owner did seem quite surprised
At what had just been televised –
Though if what we had so briefly seen
Was not intended for the screen
Why cover with metallic sheen?
Response came quickly. “Keep it clean!”
Joe Public bellowed. “Have a heart!"
(While chuckling at an equine fart).
"Our kids were watching, as a treat!
How shall we explain this tete?”
Now one brief moment of undress
Could cost the folks at CBS.
An FCC investigation
will soothe the wah-wahs of a nation
Who claim: "she caused this moral quake
(We’ve quite forgotten Timberlake)".
Though wardrobe loss is nothing new
For this one-time ingénue --
We heard no more than a rel'tive groan
When she bared all for Rolling Stone –
Yet now, we fear, she’s gone too far.
Should Bush appoint a Nipple Czar?
Yes, Janet Jackson bared her breast
and we won’t let the matter rest.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, February 05, 2004
Dated Dean ...
“Dated Dean, Married Kerry.”
—sign used by Kerry supporters in New Hampshire, January 2004
Married Kerry. Wedding in Boston. Honeymoon across country. Everyone talking about how everyone else likes him.
Got disillusioned. Kerry looking much older, talking about kids, future. Needed space. Divorced Kerry. Brief fling with Edwards. Wouldn’t have worked out. Too young.
Felt lonely. Started going to bars with Bush. Said he’d treat me right this time, even though he’d lost me my job and took my money and punched out this guy with a moustache he said was going to attack me any minute if he didn’t take action. Said he’d keep me safe in a dangerous world. Felt safe with him, strangely. So cute the way he mangles his words.
Bush proposed. Felt it was my duty. Almost bolted at altar. Didn’t like best man Dick or creepy Uncle Karl. Bush convinced me with enormous wallet.
Bush drilling for oil in backyard. House sold to wealthy neighbors. Me on street, begging for change. Kids left behind.
Breast in the Dock
The wheels of justice grind slowly, and that's why it took a whole three days for the first lawsuit to be filed against Janet Jackson's right breast. The Smoking Gun has it. Now, children, can you say "opportunistic"?
(Thanks, Emily!)
Making Names
Fascinating piece in the NYT’s Circuits section, which seems to be getting a little better every week, on spammers using random name generators. This would explain why they send out their pernicious little marketing mails from characters with such intriguing monikers as Purposes J. Xylophonist. (Spam seems to be generating all sorts of weird literary phenomena in its neverending war to get round software filters; witness the spammer who inserts portions of an obscure 19th century Russian novel into his messages).
Anyway, I was glad of the story for another reason: I didn’t realize until now that what I needed was a good random name generator. Writing science fiction in your spare time means having to come up with exotic-sounding names; as the world becomes increasingly diverse, it gets harder and harder to imagine a future in which the world’s movers and shakers, heroes and villains, have ethnically pure English names like “Jeff” or “Dan.” Names that once sounded sci-fi – like “Lex” or “Luke” or “Zack” – are now relatively commonplace; no doubt in the future they too will seem very white-bread. (Apropos of which, here is a website dedicated to the notion that white bread eaters will one day take over the world and exterminate “inferior peoples” who eat wheat and rye. You can find all sorts of ironic junk out there.)
I’d bought a book called “Baby Names: A New Generation” for this very purpose. It’s full of very ethnically rich 21st-Century sounding names. It also never fails to raise the eyebrows of anyone perusing my bookshelves. “Baby names, eh?” they smirk. “Something you want to tell us?” No, I’d blush, it’s for fiction-writing. “Yeah, sure.”
As with other reference books, however, it’s getting to be too much trouble. I barely open the dictionary or the thesaurus these days; in most cases, it’s simply easier, faster and more beneficial to go to Dictionary.com. Ditto with the Yellow and White pages. Will such hulking beasts, once the mainstay of a writer’s life, be gone from our libraries within a generation?
Anyway, I’m very excited that I no longer have to peruse the Baby Names book and pick at random. Now some distant server can do it for me all day long. Migdalia Pera! Suzan Longtin! Sheba Grambling! Ngan Cushingberry! What do they all mean? Who cares? All are somewhat obscure names culled from the most recent U.S. census, according to the Random Name Generator, slapped together in much the same way that the world’s ever-more heated ethnic melting pot will create our distant descendents. Want a character with an Albanian father and a Chinese mother? No problem; let me just head over to Behind the Name. Introducing: Jin Li Gjerg. I can’t wait to meet him. Isn’t the future a wonderful thing?
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Attack of the Malfunctioning Wardrobes
The week after 9/11, the Onion ran one of its most compellingly truthful stories ever. Above a Photoshopped collage of the collapsed towers and Britney Spears with a python around her neck ran the headline: “A heartbroken nation longs to care about stupid sh*t again.” Well, it’s been a long, hard two-and-a-half years, but the nation finally got its wish on Sunday thanks to a hardworking temporary Superbowl employee named Janet (Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty). I didn’t see it myself, but apparently football fans who sat and guffawed through beer ads featuring flatulent horses and crotch-biting dogs were shocked to their bones by a one-second shot of a partially-obscured breast. And an administration that dithered for weeks over whether to investigate its own Weapons of Mass Destruction hype has pounced like a rabid Las Vegas tiger to probe another kind of WMD: Woeful Mammary Display.
And now it seems the breast in question has officially become the most replayed moment in TiVo history. I don’t know whether to cheer all this free exposure -- if you’ll pardon the term -- for my beloved TiVo, or bemoan the fact that there are so many TiVo owners with so much desire to see random acts of slight nudity. We’re having a hard enough time getting the masses to accept and understand TiVo as it is without painting its owners as geeky hard-up soft porn-seekers.
Oh, and has everyone forgotten the real Superbowl outrage: that CBS refused to air MoveOn.org’s innocuous “issue” ad featuring children working hard to pay off the President’s deficit? How very convenient. Karl Rove must be drinking a silent toast to Janet (Miss Jackson to him).
I know not the slightest thing about Justin Timberlake, meanwhile, but I do admire his chutzpah in describing the incident as a “wardrobe malfunction.” As brazen spin about something that millions of people saw you do on live television (red-handed, so to speak), it ranks up there with Diego Maradona’s famous comment on his game-winning handball for Argentina in the 1986 World Cup: “it was the head of Maradona and the hand of God.” Perhaps Timberlake should have followed suit and claimed those were the deity’s digits doing the ripping, just to really infuriate middle America. They’d be burning his effigy in Birmingham right about now.
In any case, the phrase is now seeping into the American lexicon, and I fully expect it to see it being used in legal defense circles to beat indecent exposure raps. “Your honor, it may seem like my client spends his days in public parks wearing nothing but a raincoat and tennis shoes. But in actual fact he is the unfortunate victim of a malfunctioning wardrobe. We plan to file a countersuit against Ralph Lauren.”
Daily Blah for... Monday, February 02, 2004
Get Smart, Bill
Who wants a smart watch? Not me, not you, and certainly not any reviewer I’ve read so far. (Here’s a particularly scathing piece from Sunday’s Washington Post and another from today's Boston Globe). I can’t decide if the anonymous Microsoftie who came up with it deserves to be shot or sent into therapy for thinking it’s still 1998. Whenever a gadget or website promises to bring you the disastrous dotcom portal litany of “weather, headlines, sports scores, stock prices and messages”, that either translates to “we’re looking for VC funding” or “this is what we think the unwashed masses want from a wired world, and they’ll happily pay $60 a year for the privilege.” In Microsoft’s case, of course, it’s clearly not the former. Even if the wireless coverage wasn't more anemic than the weakest cellphone and the messages weren't slower than carrier pigeon and the headlines weren't more hard news-free than the National Enquirer, it would still be a dumb idea. I have but one question: is Bill Gates actually wearing one of these clunky devices? Probably not; he’s smarter than that. How perpetually disappointing that he continues to underestimate the rest of us.
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