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Daily Blah for... Monday, July 24, 2006
Art Kills
I was raised in a North-Eastern English town of roughly 50,000 souls with the decidedly odd name of Chester-le-Street. It doesn't make the national news much. Indeed, it rarely makes the local news. We have a storied history going back millennia in Chester-le-Street, but it involves a lot of use of the word "former" -- former Roman encampment, former burial place of Saint Cuthbert, former target of Viking raiders, former prosperous market town on the former Great North Road, former coal-mining hub, former location of one of the last remaining games of medieval-style street football, which was formally suppressed in 1920 out of concern for life and limb. Henceforth, the town council decreed, no officially-sanctioned display of fun would kill its participants. Not in Chester-le-Street.
 At least, not until yesterday, when a giant inflatable art project in the park broke loose from its moorings, reared up its colorful head like the Lambton Worm (a local dragon myth), and spat out the humans inside, throwing two women thirty feet to their deaths. I wish I were making this up, but it's all right here--captured, naturally, on mobile phone video.
Many questions remain about this bizarre incident. Did some idiot pranksters intentionally untie the sculpture? How could it possibly rear up thirty feet, with people inside acting as counterweights? How strong would the wind have to be? And perhaps most importantly, what on Earth was this installation, so redolent of Burning Man that its name was "Dreamscape", doing in bloody Riverside Park in bloody Chester-le-Street? Someone has been shuffling my life's locations like a deck of cards, and I would not be more surprised to see the Empire State Building suddenly sprout up in the middle of Oxford.
In any case, my hometown is once again on the map, as a place of artistic (if horrific) destruction, and I can't help but feel a surge of perverse pride. Clearly, the council needs to take this reputation and run with it. They could challenge extreme sportsmen and daredevils from around the world to come ride the infamous Lambton Worm Dreamscape. More urgently, they should reinstate the annual street football game. Think of the tourism! The licensing deals! The broadcast rights! I would happily offer my services as color commentator.
Daily Blah for... Sunday, July 23, 2006
How to Beat the Heat
A sweltering weekend for the Bay Area left most San Franciscans in a lethargic puddle, thin-blooded A/C-shunning pansies that we are. (We should, of course, be glad that the thermometer didn't get anywhere near the 115-degree temperatures recorded in the rest of California.) For me, it meant a weekend of lifting furniture and cleaning; if I'm going to sweat, I figured, I might as well sweat productively. Oh, and it meant two parties: a long-planned mac-and-cheese sampling soiree, just the kind of carb-loading affair you need in this heat (one guest coined the appetizing phrase "cheese sweats" as a resulting medical condition) and another one of those Karaoke Revolution parties, this one featuring impromptu impersonations of Betty Boop, Elmer Fudd and Elvis. Never let it be said that a real summer, as opposed to the Mark Twain kind, will tempt this city towards any kind of sanity.
Daily Blah for... Saturday, July 22, 2006
Future Boy on the Brain
Meanwhile, there's yet another column to tell you about -- this one prompted by the mind-bending news that a quadraplegic man, volunteering in a brain implant experiment, was able to control a computer and various other technology devices using nothing but thought. Such mind control-enabling neuro devices are already a $3.4 billion business, the need for actual implants will diminish, and I look forward to the day when I can write this damn blog by just thinking about it. The entries might be a little more timely then.
Daily Blah for... Friday, July 21, 2006
Future Boy Goes North of the Border
It seems I'm a hit in Canada. That Future Boy column on New Villages got quoted in Friday's edition of Toronto's Globe and Mail. Indeed, the writer has basically used me for a lede, a good ass-saving technique for lazy journalists. (Did I ever tell you about the manual I intend to write for lazy journalists called Fudge It, File It, Forget It? Ah, I'll get around to it someday.) I'm flattered, of course, but more jazzed that I'm doing my part to spread a Good Idea called New Urbanism, that my imaginary lede turned into a successful meme. And if the Canadians like it, I must be doing something right.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, July 20, 2006
Steve's Secret Diary
The formula is pretty tried and tested by now. Take famous person, create blog purporting to be the secret diary of said famous person, wait for the laughs to roll in. It worked with Bill Clinton, and it worked very well with the supposedly dead Andy Kaufmann. But The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs? Not working so well. The joke appears to be that Steve is really a stoner whose life is full of pranks and whose speech is replete with California-isms. But no one would ever believe that, and the success of the Clinton and Kaufmann blogs are that they fool you for an instant. If Clinton wrote a blog, he probably would make it that simplistic and touchy-feely; if Kaufmann were still alive, he would be blogging about what a great gag his fake death was. If Steve Jobs wrote a secret diary, it would read something like this:
July 20: Plans for world domination proceeding apace. Unwashed masses acquiring iPods at record clip. Minions completely under my thumb at Infinite Loop; scared to go to the bathroom without my authorization. Entire PC industry thwarted by clever "hello, I'm a Mac" ads featuring handsome, stubble-and-jeans character obviously meant to be younger version of me.
Met with Mac group, shouted at them for a while. Felt good. Told them iMac was still not minimalist enough. In next version, keyboard should be replaced by trackwheel.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, July 19, 2006
A Very David Brent Moment
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Please Enter Your Credit Card Number, and the Country You'd Like to be Evacuated From
You've probably heard the brouhaha about American citizens in the Lebanon being forced to pay for their own evacuation. It was a political storm on the verge of blowing up to Katrina-like proportions -- really, does Condelezza ever learn? First shopping for shoes while New Orleans drowns, now charging her citzens for evacuation from a warzone? -- until the administration, in a rising tide of panic, waived the fees.
If you're non-American, your first response was probably a sad, smug smirk that any nation could even think of charging its citizens in such circumstances -- that, at least, was the official French response quoted on NPR. And if you're American, your first response was probably a sad shake of the head that Congress could have made a law requiring the State Department to charge evacuees -- or that the State Department was so politically tone-deaf as to execute such bad law. Not only that, they printed up promissory notes -- IOUs, in other words -- for the harried, bomb-scared families to sign. I love this bit from the San Jose Merc's story:
Americans seeking U.S. Embassy for help in leaving the country had been asked to sign promissory notes, which [assistant secretary for consular affairs Maura] Harty portrayed as part of the registration process for evacuation. 'We are going to need to know that everybody who says they're an American citizen is an American citizen,' she said.
Of course. Because what could be more American than being forced to pay for vital services at the moment you most vitally need them? Only American citizens would expect to be charged in such circumstances. That's the way to root out Johnny Foreigner and prevent him from getting on the American steamer home: he's the only one not whipping out his wallet in order to copy his credit card number on the promissory note. In fact, he seems to be demanding that his elected government ought to provide such a thing by right. Imagine! A citizen with the right to get something for nothing? It's socialism gone mad!
Daily Blah for... Monday, July 17, 2006
Gnarls, I Hardly Knew Ye
Never underestimate the power of a quick google. Twenty minutes ago I knew nothing about Gnarls Barkley other than that he was the creator of the excellent St. Elsewhere album, which, along with about half the planet, I've been letting seep into my consciousness for the last couple of months. I'd been putting off the act of actually learning more about the creator of this fresh new sound, partly because it was a procrastination -- a promisingly rich, deep procrastination that I wanted to save for a day when no ordinary procrastination would do. But it was mostly because I enjoyed watching the imaginary Gnarls Barkley grow as a character in my head. The music conjured up images of a psychedelic, soul-soaked, deeply self-examining hip-hop hippie. The name, likewise, suggested a gnarly, blinged-out, overly-thoughtful dude from Berkeley. As the character grew, layer by layer, every time I heard the album -- which was a lot -- I feared the destruction of this myth by disappointing reality.
And indeed it was initially disappointing to discover that Gnarls didn't exist, that the album was a collaboration between Grey Album impressario Danger Mouse and Atlanta rapper Cee-lo. But I was also pleasantly surprised that Danger Mouse had outshone his early hype -- the Grey Album, despite its infamy, is actually pretty pedestrian as far as mashups go. I saw him DJ once at a Wired party a couple of years ago. No one was listening; they were far more interested in waiting for the Polyphonic Spree to perform. I wonder how many of those Wired scenesters will be lining up to see him and Cee-lo perform at the Filmore tonight and tomorrow (something else I discovered in my synchronistic Googling). If not for this damn leg, I'd be one of them.
Daily Blah for... Sunday, July 16, 2006
Down with the Sickness
I've had cellulitis in my left leg so many times, it's getting a little boring. This latest version kicked in right at the very second I arrived at a gorgeous day party at a friend's parents' gorgeous home in gorgeous Napa. As in: I stepped out of the car, into the vine-lined courtyard, and instantly had a fever. (The heatwave didn't help.) O Lord of cellulitis, I don't mind that you have to strike me again -- but would it have killed you to have waited an hour, whilst I sampled the booze?
I took a spell in the swimming pool, which gave me the chills, and crashed out in a bedroom to the echoing sounds of children playing. But my wonderful friends pulled together, fed me tylenol and fluids, and before sunset, drove me and my car home. Nothing like a sickness to make you appreciate true friendship.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, July 13, 2006
Future Boy's Biggest Adventure Yet
My latest Future Boy column on real estate -- specifically, how we're going to be moving to community-friendly New Villages over the next quarter century -- is going great guns, garnering half a million page views a day. That's what happens when you put the headline "The Next Real Estate Boom" on a story. Not so coincidentally, that headline was on the cover of one of Business 2.0's bestselling issues of the last year.
Daily Blah for... Monday, July 10, 2006
Zid Vicious
Daily Blah for... Sunday, July 02, 2006
A Nation of Nervous Nellies
Listening to Frank Skinner and David Baddiel's excellent World Cup podcast the other day, I heard a football statistician talking about penalty kicks.
Now English supporters have reason to go cold when we hear those two dreaded words (and how nice it is, therefore, to hear American commentators talk about PKs, which makes the whole terrifying ordeal seem quite innocent).
Penalty kicks mean the anguish of repeated World Cup and European Championship loss, layer upon layer of pain going back to 1990. That was the mythical year of Gazza and Pleat and Lineker, when we lost the World Cup semi final to West Germany on a single miskick.
Then came 1996, the year of Gareth Southgate's slow, trundling gutterball kick into the arms of the waiting German keeper. And I, working on a newspaper in Scotland, had to turn from the TV screen with moistened eyes and quickly write a lead to a story that scoffed at the sassenach ninnies for losing to Germany on penalties again. Once was bad luck, it said. Twice? Twice suggested the English had a problem.
I count that as the moment I became a professional journalist.
Then, a mere two years later, France in 1998, I shared the moist eyes with three Liverpool gents in a pub in Lyon. It was England v Argentina, I was doing color stories for Time.com, and the Scousers had been on typical joke-loving form. When I'd asked them if I could record their comments for the duration of the game, they'd agreed, but decided to put one over on the posh kid reporter from America by insisting repeatedly that their names were Quentin, Charles and Sebastian.
Two hours later, England had lost a World Cup on penalty kicks to Argentina, too, and the looks on the Liverpool trio's faces were the most mournful I've ever seen in my life, including funerals. (It was a Liverpool coach, after all, who said football was more important than life or death.)
Quentin, Charles and Sebastian probably would have given their real names for the story then, if I'd asked. But I couldn't say a word. I had a hard enough time meeting their eyes. No one knew what to say. Back in my hotel room I wrote another screed against England's performance on penalties, this time without disguising the writer's Englishness.
By 2004, when we lost on penalties to Portugal in the European Championships, it was getting ridiculous. Hadn't we seen this movie before? What on Earth was wrong with us? If penalty kicks were, as their reputation had it, a lottery, we should have won two of those four tournament-busting tie-breakers. But England player after England player was losing his bottle when put on the penalty spot. Why?
Which brings me back to Baddeil and Skinner's football statistician, because this was the first answer to that question I'd ever heard that made sense. The guy had studied hundreds of games that end in penalties, not just England's, and found one common thread: the losing side was almost always facing their fans. "If you're an England fan and it goes to penalties," he advised, "the best thing you can do for the team is to leave the stadium. You're spooking them."
Oh, how I wish the fans had heeded that advice yesterday. In fact, I wish the entire nation had said to the team: "what, you're playing Portugal again today? Oh, well, good luck. It's okay, we won't be watching. Especially not if it goes to penalties. Don't mind us. You go do that thing you're perfectly well-trained for. Let us know what happens. Oh, and Wayne: relax. Enjoy yourself. You're only young once."
We English are, it has to be said, a nation of nervous nellies. We're so overly dramatic about our football. We mythologize our "forty years of hurt" since we won the World Cup, as if our country were under constant occupation by a foreign power rather than simply suffering a disappointing result every two years. We produce dozens of songs about how we're going to win the tournament this time, and millions of us sing them in pubs around the world. We feel such anxiety about match day and can barely sleep the night before. And the British media reflects that nervousness back at us, amplifies it a thousand times, and transmutes it to the players in endless rounds of interviews.
Is it any wonder the players are spooked by that kind of pressure? Is it any wonder they play in such a stilted, uncreative manner, scared of making a mistake, terrified of next morning's headlines? Is it any wonder our game has become so boring and negative?
Gerrard, Lampard and Carragher, standing on the penalty spot yesterday, could not help but know that sixty million pairs of English eyes were watching. They could not help but be spooked by the fans in the stadium -- our fans are some of the loudest in the world. They'd seen this quarter-final-ends-on-penalties movie before, just like we all had. They could not visualize any other ending to the movie. And I don't blame them.
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