Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts (In Their Pants)

Some years ago, I whiled away four perfectly serviceable years of my life at a place called "High School." Remember high school? That dismal and boring place where most of what passed for "peers" were painfully dim-witted droolers who couldn't approximate a French pronunciation to save their lives (Ecoutez, et repetez: "moi, juh, sweez, un, imbecile"), and where even the teachers who knew their material had long since checked out? I certainly do, and to be honest, it wasn't all that bad. Sure, it's easy to harp on the dreary and tedious aspects of those years, but the truth is, if you weren't half asleep with your tongue lolling around in the carved grooves of your mutilated, graffiti-covered desktop, you occasionally could've learned some pretty wild stuff.

For instance, in ancient Greece, Olympic athletes were required to compete "in the nude." This was because, we were taught, females were not allowed to participate, and the nudeness would allow all present at the games to confirm that they were watching men. By looking at the ding-dongs.

Of course, sometimes you had to take what you were being taught with a grain of salt. We learned about all the ridiculous superstitions, misapprehensions and cruelties that were perpetuated by previous generations (the Earth is flat, cats suck the breath out of babies, slavery is cool), and yet somehow we were supposed to trust that everything our un-savvy teachers were parroting from our textbooks was the unquestionable truth?

Let's return to the example of the ancient Olympics. Even back in high school I didn't quite buy the explanation for the compulsory nudity at the games. The Greeks were pretty sharp cats; did they really think that in order to verify the gender of the participants it was necessary to ban clothing entirely from the games? Was there not some other more pervy motive at hand? I mean, it would have been sufficient to have the athletes step out of the stables or whatever, "drop toga" (as they used to say in ancient Greek frat-houses), turn once around and give a quick show for everybody present in the Acropolis or the Coliseum or the parking lot at the Greek diner or wherever they played the games, then put on a loincloth (or "crotch toga"), and grab a pole. For vaulting, of course.




The Acropolis or the Parthenon or whatever.

Ever wonder why the ancient Greeks didn't set any lasting world records? (I know for a fact that they didn't, because I went down to Brooklyn's Borough Hall and checked the records, including the microfiche.) There's a simple reason, and it's not just that the ancient Hellenics lacked the performance enhancements afforded by today's gel insoles: put simply, you just can't run that fast with your big, fat, Greek dangle slapping all around. And wrestling? Forget it—either your wang is going to get squashed into the dirt by a hairy knee, or it's going to wind up as erect as a Doric column, because after all, you're a naked, sweaty, ancient (in a youthful way) Greek trying to wrangle another naked ancient Greek down onto the floor.

Wait, am I saying that everyone in Greece back then was gay? Well, no, not exactly. It's just that the ancient Greeks believed in moderation in all things. Including having sex with young boys. But more of that in a minute. Let me first state for the record: based on the absurd clothing moratorium, I think it's clear that the ancient Greeks were less concerned with spurring athletes on to their best performances than they were with watching glistening, pantsless, perfectly proportioned boys tussling with each other in the sand.




Gratuitous column pic.

Now, concerning the topics of Hellenic homosexuality, pederasty, and moderation (moderation was the equation, or "Grecian Formula," if you will, by which all aspects of life were kept in balance), the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is very enlightening. First of all, the democratically-inclined Grecos were not nearly as uptight about sex as are those of us of Judeo-Christian-Catholo-Puritan heritage: "As has been frequently noted," notes the S.E.P., "the ancient Greeks did not have terms or concepts that correspond to the contemporary dichotomy of ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’."

Moreover, for the idealistic, aesthetically-minded Greeks,

Probably the most frequent assumption of sexual orientation is that persons can respond erotically to beauty in either sex. ... Even though the gender that one was erotically attracted to (at any specific time, given the assumption that persons will likely be attracted to persons of both sexes) was not important, other issues were salient, such as whether one exercised moderation.

The old-timey Grecians, you see, were not bothered with arbitrary judgments and Puritanical mores; rather, they were dedicated to the ideals of beauty, truth, and moderation. Which brings us to the young boys.

The cultural ideal of a same-sex relationship was between an older man, probably in his 20's or 30's, known as the erastes, and a boy whose beard had not yet begun to grow, the eromenos or paidika. In this relationship there was courtship ritual, involving gifts (such as a rooster), and other norms. The erastes had to show that he had nobler interests in the boy, rather than a purely sexual concern. The boy was not to submit too easily, and if pursued by more than one man, was to show discretion and pick the more noble one.

I always thought it had to do with a big wooden horse (that's what they done learned us in school!), but apparently "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" was really about older men plying you with farm animals in an attempt to get into your prepubescent crotch-toga.

We frown on such behavior today, especially in public, but if one were so inclined one could excuse the naughty, reprehensible acts of many of our clergy members, Scout leaders, and elected officials by viewing them in the context of this historical continuum. By way of example, one might suggest (though hopefully only for the purposes of comedy, of course), that the practice of Washington D.C. House members having inappropriate contact with Congressional pages is in fact the continuation of one of the earliest traditions of Democracy.



Mark Foley: disgraced perv-wad or champion of true democracy, ancient Greek-style? Tune in next time!

Car Bumpers: Don't Knock It 'Til You Have The Money To Pay For It

Mad Max: Beyond Union Street

I appreciate cars as much as the next doofus on the street, but I don't consider myself a "car person." Sure, I use them from time to time, and when I have the occasion to do so I find that I really enjoy the time to myself that driving affords me. I never listen to the radio anymore, except when I'm in a car by myself. And I love the exposure to the unknown that comes from listening to those weird channels down at the left end of the dial—there's nothing like the soul-tingling first strains of a 6 a.m. raga as the pre-dawn sky infiltrates the urban darkness with pale blue luminescence. Or if I'm lucky, the car that I'm borrowing has satellite radio, and I can catch up on some Howard Stern, now featuring the uncensored C-word.

(For the record I don't have a car of my own because I have nowhere to put it—my apartment is small enough as it is, and it's plenty tricky trying to justify to my "special lady" the need for space to house another bicycle, let alone a used Nissan.)

While I'm not anti-auto, I have little interest in thinking about what cars look like, or what they have under the hood, and I certainly can't be bothered with obsessing about the accumulation of either mud on the outside, or banana peels on the floor of the back seat. (I can't keep pulling over to look for a garbage can every time I have a snack, can I? I mean, let's be realistic here.)

Despite my inattentiveness to the non-utilitarian aspects of motor vehicles, I'm sensitive to the fact that my disinterest is not shared by everyone else. It doesn't take a long time living on this planet to realize that the frustrations and shortcomings of a great many of its residents are offset by the distractions of fawning over prized motor-vehicles. For example, there are absurdly colorful and over-horsepowered Asian motorcyles (favored in the NYC area by black dudes who for some reason adorn their heads with WWII German Army-style helmets, with I'm not sure what degree of historical/ironic awareness); boatloads of sport utility vehicles, which usually see only a small degree of utility, and even less sport; and of course, a myriad of Toyota Priuses (or is it Prii?), the favored car of self-important do-gooders—though with those miniscule rear windows, it's clear that greater awareness of the world around is not really that high of a priority for their drivers.


More of a sun-roof, isn't it?

While I like cars for their usefulness and convenience, unfortunatley what I see too much of is overblown attentivenes to the aesthetics of cars—a trend perpetuated by both the manufacturers and the end-users. (End-users are doofuses with driver's licences.) Car-makers build to appeal to consumers' egos and libidos, and when they successfully tap into these regions, Practicality quickly takes a back seat—where it finds a dvd player and enough Sponge Bob Square Pants to keep it occupied while the Ego—which is always at the wheel—and its copilot in the passenger seat, Libido, take a drive down Indulgence Avenue. And this is why we ended up with a ridiculous decade-long plague of SUVs.

It's also why car fenders have disappeared from the landscape.

You see, there once was a time when cars were endowed with fore- and aft-mounted protective attachments called “bumpers.” These served to protect your vehicle in the event of a slight physical encounter with another driver’s vehicle, a garbage can, or for those of us who hail from the upper, “countrified” parts of New York State, wayward farm animals.

Over the past decade or so, however, car bumpers have been enveloped by the glossy, eye-catching, and vaguely aerodynamic body-paneling that has left our roads overrun with two-ton jelly beans.



These days, unless you are in a profession that requires you to drive an outdated vehicle (farmer, old-school pimp, college professor), chances are your car is fully encased in fiberglass and plastic, making it more aesthetically pleasing than cars of yesteryear but much more susceptable to damage. Owing to this, you may find that you exist in a state of constant paranoia about the possibility of your car making even the slightest contact with any other object. And if another driver actually bumps your bumper-area with their bumper-area, you’ll both have to go (well, you'll have to wait for the fisticuffs to subside, and then go) to the body shop to have $400 or so worth of work done to restore your respective bumper-regions to their original contour and luster. (And possibly the hospital to restore the original contours of your now knuckled-up face regions.)

Any person I talk to, regardless of the income strata to which they belong, seems acutely concerned with money these days. Yet because of the irresistable appeal of a shinier, sleaker car, no one seems to mind the ridiculous automotive evolution toward bumperlessness and the accompanying increased risk of hefty and wholly unnecessary expenses. Instead, this ego-driven automotive frailty is itself cause to spend more money—on after-market protective products. In a deeply ironic twist that would leave Yakov Smirnov twitching like an overstimulated femme-bot, now you have to protect your bumper, whereas, presumably, in Soviet Russia, bumper protects you!



Civilian drivers have options like the “Bumper Badger,” which should be called the “Bumper Bumper,” because that’s what it is: a bumper you hang out of your trunk to protect your bumper. Professional drivers, also known as "hacks," drive around in yellow taxis which are outfitted with permanently-attached rubber protectors on the outer-edge of the car body. Put simply, these are miniature bumpers designed to protect the plastic body-paneling that covers the actual bumper.



Allow me to sum things up: your entire car has become a delicate and expensive trophy that you must protect with a rubber floor mat hung from out of the trunk. And this, of course, makes your pretty vehicle look like a sloppy piece of crap. It’s the equivalent of a nice sofa covered in protective plastic.


An object lesson in gaining a small benefit at the expense of a big heap of dignity. I suspect the driver wears a fanny-pack.

A brief stroll through Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood (home to Volvo-loads of college professors and their ilk) yielded an abundance of the Fenders of Yesteryear.



By the way, in the "tonier" parts of New York City, a car this old would be considered an eyesore, and traffic cops would find an excuse to ticket its owner in a New York minute. (A New York minute is like an ordinary minute, only it's preceeded by the words "New York.")

While the wheel wells of this car are slowly giving way to corrosion due to exposure to the New York elements dating back to before the Lindsay administration, the body appears to be, on the whole, remarkably intact. This impressive longevity surely has been made possible, in part, by the robust bumpers (and by the letter "H" and the number 6, since in Park Slope by law all things must be made relatable to children; "The Slope" caters to children like Times Square caters to tourists).

It may be old, but this is a bumper worthy of note. Not only does it protrude appreciably, it is held out from the car with what appear to be a couple of shock absorbers.



That thing's going to take quite a hit before the impact will do any damage to the rest of the vehicle. And anyone in Park Slope who is still driving an old car like that will have lost their patience with parallel parking long enough ago to put that fender through its paces more times than they've enjoyed a cold Kombucha.

Shortly after this find, I happened across a newer vehicle which illustrates just how fragile is the outer shell of a modern automobile.



And also how hollow.



Mind you, it's not entirely empty in there; note the layer of styrofoam under the exoskeleton. It's nice to know that in your 1500 lb. automobile you and you're family are afforded the same protection had by an 8 lb. toaster oven in it's original packaging, freshly purchased from P.C. Richard. And to be fair, maybe there wasn't always an empty compartment hidden within the faux-fender; judging from the amount of rust accumulated on the clearly non-stainless steel components in there, this accident took place some time ago, and it's entirely plausible that the foam packing peanuts all fell out after the accident.

The further I look into this (figuratively, that is—I didn't want to look any further into that car's bumper for fear of contracting tetanus), the more I'm convinced that a car's protective protuberance is basically akin to a bicycle helmet: it consists of hard foam padding encased in a plastic shell, and rather than reusing it you're supposed to throw it out after the occasion of any potentially damaging impact with the understanding that in serving its purpose its structural integrity has probably been compromised.

The Toyota owner has a choice: either pony up half a week's pay (or as it's known these days, a week's Unemployment) to take care of that gaping eyesore; or, just ignore it. Judging, again, by the block of rust peeking out from the bumper-mound, I think the owner has already made the choice.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the most aesthetically-concerned of human beings are not going to be the most sensible, even when it comes to making choices that in the long run would ensure the aesthetic endurance of their own prized possessions. The little red Volkswagon, which has suffered so many decades in service of its Park Slope-dwelling owner to have developed an angst-ridden existentialist world-view of its very own, is adorned with a dorky but admirably pristine Fender of Yesteryear. The fairly new Toyota, in spite of its shimmery contours and modern safety technology, was quickly transformed (probably by a sub-5 m.p.h. impact in which only one of the vehicles was moving) into an undignified, sloppy piece of crap.



The good news is, you could probably fit a lot of banana peels in there.

MTV: Cultural Calorie Counting

The other night I was talked into watching the beginning of the annual World’s Largest Televised Train-Wreck: the MTV Video Music Awards. I tuned in just in time to see a “Pre-Show” collaboration between recording artists Nicki Minaj and Will I. Am.



The performance began with Minaj in a big pink beehive wig (it worked for Lady Gaga, right?!) and a space age Barbie outfit. And yet somehow, she still looked like a man. (Which means if nothing else, she at least succeeded in emulating Lady Gaga.)



Will "Black Eyed Peas" I. Am’s rubberized, plasticized and high-top-sneaker-accessorized outfit wasn't quite a matching Ken-doll. Instead he was the human incarnation of an obscenely priced—sorry, "collectible"—toy you’d find at a Kid Robot store.



It looks like Will has picked up on the Kanye-favored trend of emulating modern-Japanese-pop-culture-emulating-80’s-NYC-graffiti-culture. Which, as trends go, is less unfortunate than, for instance, the Rihanna strain of hip-hop couture, which is to say, jumping on the goth bandwagon 15 years after its apex.



On the other hand, Will's outfit may have been just a sooty homage to one of his personal style icons:



Truth be told, before seeing this I was largely unfamiliar with Minaj. A little research reveals that her real name is Onika Maraj. The more provocative “Minaj” is her stage name, which surely is short for “Minaj ah Twah.” And while on the subject, I assume "Will. I. Am." chose his name as a nod to the actor William Shatner, a.k.a. "Captain. James. T. Kirk." I'm not sure how I missed it before, but it's clear to me now that Mr. Am's getup is an obvious tribute to Shatner.




He's referencing Star Trek episode No. 21, "Patterns of Force," duh!

The funny thing is, after the performance, Mr. Am ended up seated in the audience, still wearing his costume. Showing up to sing in a wild outfit is memorable. Sitting around in your costume afterwards just makes you look like a dork.

Getting back to the catastrophe at hand, whenever I see a few minutes of the VMA’s (or pretty much anything on the "MTV") I’m always startled to see that they’re attempting to appeal to an even younger audience than the year before. This performance had adults dressed as, and acting like, toys. It was supposed to be futuristic, but the whole thing seemed like a hip-hop version of the Teletubbies.


The infantilization of popular culture continues on schedule. Soon there will be just one program, enjoyed equally by people of every age!

Remember when sampling was used to cook up a wildly creative musical gumbo? (Take a look at a list of only some of the sources for M.A.R.R.S.'s "Pump Up The Volume.") But now there's a simple recipe used to pan-fry easily digested hits like the above Minaj/Am tune:


- Loop a couple bars from an easily recognized 10 to 20 year old radio hit by someone whose career has wound down and who is happy to have the exposure.

- Add a "boom-crack" beat and call it a "track."

- Apply a generous drizzle of monotone rapping. (Substitute "monotone" with "tone-deaf" as needed.)

- Auto-Tune to taste and top with a sprinkling of backup dancers doing a "pop 'n' lock" Pinocchio routine.


Compared to the calorically-deficient fare served by the likes of the VMAs, "Pump Up The Volume" suddenly is looking very rich in cultural nutrients. No wonder young people raised on MTV consume so much media—they're the cultural equivalent of koala bears.

Idiocy Assist

I’ve recently learned that high-end cars can do all kinds of things to protect you from your own stupidity. Take the Mercedes E class.



It was once commonly believed that people who drove cars like this possessed superhuman driving abilities, or were just, you know, somehow better than the rest of us. But a glimpse behind the scenes reveals that the cars are doing a lot of the work, and that their owners may in fact have the driving skills of, say, your run-of-the-mill crackhead (the difference between the two types of people being just a matter of how they spend their money).

Let's have a look at the car itself. One of its many exciting features is "Attention Assist," which helps you to drive when you’re not paying attention. How does it work? A light comes on the dashboard that tells you to pay attention.



If you're too tired to watch the road, you might as well be reading some text down near the odometer. Pretty ingenious, really.

Also there's the “Blind Spot Assist,” which not only does a great job of perpetuating the myth that you have a “blind spot”—because drivers should never be so inconvenienced as to turn their heads more than 15 degrees—but also prevents you from entering that spot and possibly damaging your vehicle or killing the driver of a nearby lesser vehicle.

This illustration from Car And Driver shows the Blind Spot Assist in action:



Incidentally, it also illustrates a pretty tight attack formation. If only Darth Vader's gussied-up "TIE Fighter" had features like the E Class he could have avoided the collision with his own wing-henchman that sent him spinning off into space while his brand new "Death Star" got all blowed up.



Tink!




BWOOOOSH!!!

If you're not already bowled over (by either the above car features or gratuitous pyrotechnics), then take note of this: the E Class even has “Speed Limit Assist,” which scans speed limit signs on the roadway for you. Then a light appears on the dashboard to alert you to the speed limit. As we already know, you should not be expected to pay attention to anything further away than your dashboard.


Note that with this feature speed limits are displayed in kilometers for maximum pretension.

I have to admit that add-ons like these represent some serious innovation—at long last there's a car perfectly tailored to the needs of the semi-functioning alcoholic. Really, it's amazing the lengths the enablers at Mercedes-Benz will go to keep the overworked and self-important behind the wheel.

Advertising is often about appealing to the inner child. Mercedes has taken this a step further, and is creating vehicles to fully empower the perpetually immature and/or inebriated. Even a full-grown certified imbecile (think Sloth from The Goonies) might have a shot at getting home from the local Dairy Queen in one of these. Safety features are a good thing when it comes to automobiles, but still, cars are like wills, in that you should be of sound mind and body if you're going to operate one. If this automotive trend continues, pretty soon the highways are going to look like this:



I just hope one of them has their eyes on the dashboard.

People Who Build Glass Houses Shouldn't Live In Them

or, "How I Wound Up Reading About This Vacant Building On The Internet"

I’m not sure when it happened, but the internet pulled a fast one on me. I used to log on to my web-based email and read my email. But now instead of my inbox I find a “homepage” thing, which presents me with all manner of fluffy and alluring ersatz news items. (I think in the business that’s what they call “content.”) It’s a cornucopia sampler for the idle net surfer: a daily Tiger Woods Marital Update, a video of Wild And Wooly Weather Conditions Out West Somewhere, and usually at least one account of a guy rescued by a cat after 3 days of being trapped in his car in a dumpster in a ditch at the bottom of a ravine behind the Dairy Queen.

You know, stuff like this:




I was going to check if the bank had sent an email about the fraudulent charges on my account, but who can resist a story about pancakes!

Hidden in the periphery there's a single link to my inbox, but you'd never find it without first glancing over a list of 10 items that are currently “trending.” I have no idea what that means, but I assume it has something to do with 12 year olds and cell phones.

Recently I found myself squinting through glazed eyes at my computer screen—I assume I had intended to check my email, because how else would I end up staring at an article about a guy I’d never heard of who’d built himself a $35 million glass-walled house?



For a moment I found myself pleasantly enticed by this fantastic abode, but irritation quickly set in; to start, even though no one was actually living in the building, the article repeatedly referred to the place as a “home.”

“The 13,875-square-foot home features five bedrooms, five-and-a-half bathrooms, a kitchen with a wine room and an art gallery that displays the architect’s vintage car collection.”



Niggling questions precluded any chance of enjoying this fantasy domicile. Who needs more bathrooms than bedrooms? If a bunch of cars parked on a floor constitutes an art gallery, then why isn’t my local Toyota dealership considered a museum of contemporary art? (Answer: because they don’t cost enough.) And finally, is this a news item or a sales pitch?

I think the expectation is that people like me—people with moderate incomes, at best—will be excited by the idea of a $35 million dollar house—sorry, home—and will read about it and drool over it and forward it to their friends, rather than seeing it and saying, “who is this asshole who can build himself this ridiculous vanity house and then decide he’s not even going to live in it?”



Ahh, but let me not stoop to unfair class-prejudice. According to the article, his plans changed. One such change in his life was the birth of his now 10 month old daughter. Apparently this baby was an impediment to living in the 5 bedroom house that he’d been building for the last half-decade. Fair enough; I mean, as anyone who’s ever had a child knows, once you bring a baby into this world, you can’t keep living in the same crap-ass house. Right? For one thing, an infant entirely screws up the whole Feng Shui of your crib. Furthermore, if the home of the expanding Hermann family is going to retain a consistent square feet to human resident ratio, Steve will need to build a pad of like 20,000 square feet, with at least a couple more bedrooms, and anywhere from two to three and a half additional baths.

Along with the baby, there could be other life changes that convinced Mr. Hermann not to take up residence in his “opus.” Maybe upon actually spending one night in the place, his wife had the “life change” of recalling the opening scene of the movie Scream.



Now, there’s putting the cart before the horse, and then there’s being so enamored with an awesome gimmick that you undertake a multi-million dollar design and construction project, only to realize, after its completion, that living in the middle of the woods in a glass house is terrifying. It’s hard to watch TV after 8 pm—let alone sleep through the night—in your new place when you’re pretty sure that if you look up where the wall should be you’re instead going to see a dude in a flannel shirt/Sponge Bob mask ensemble holding a bone saw.

It’s easy to forget the awesome power of darkness to stir your imagination. But in the black of night you understand with terrible certainty that inbred maniacs are drawn to a glowing glass house in the woods like moths are drawn to a bug-zapper outside the Dairy Queen on the road from Bolton Landing to Lake George, NY. (Yes, the one with the hero cat.)

Lastly, if you’ve ever wondered what the word “crestfallen” means, just imagine yourself to be Steve Hermann on that fateful night. (In light of the locale, I think it proper to present this in screenplay format.)

THE GLASS PAVILION HOUSE, MONTECITO, CA.

INTERIOR (SUCH AS IT IS). NIGHT.

STEVE HERMANN: Honey, what’s wrong?

MRS. HERMANN: I am not staying in this house.

STEVE: Don’t say that, baby. And don’t say house. It’s a home.

MRS.: I don’t care what it is, those woods are freaky as shit.

STEVE: But baby, I worked on this place for 6 years. The glass alone was like $14 million. This is my opus!

MRS.: This is me leaving.

STEVE: Shit!

iPad: The Revolution Will Be Declared By The People Who Are Trying To Sell It To You

Remember me? I work for Apple now!

Lately I've found that I can't leave my TV on for more than a few minutes without seeing the latest advertising fare from Apple Computers. The most recent ad is all about the world of the iPad, or the lifestyle of the iPad, or something. I can't really follow it, because, much like the levees on the industrial canal at the Ninth Ward, my tolerance for Apple's particular brand of advertising pretension was long ago breached—by a deluge of dancing silhouettes and endless waves of self-conscious music by the likes of that crap band Jet.

And so I can't really tell you anything about the iPad ad in particular, except that it includes a self-assured voice over (maybe Peter Coyote, or another similarly crafty-named actor), rapid fire edits of people with their heads cropped out holding the iPad close to their groin regions, and colorful, catalog-like tableaux of Vespa scooters, area rugs and cutesy sneakers.



That said, there is one element of Apple's marketing magic that I think I understand. After exhaustive research (which is to say "watching too much television"), I have come to believe that the explosive success of all the "i" gadgets is due to Apple's deft exploitation of the fact that people want to act like idiots. For some reason Apple has a lot of fans who are so, well, fanatical about new products with a cute vowel affixed to the front of their name that they will pay upwards of $400 for the privilege of road-testing anything that Steve Jobs holds up in front of a crowd in an auditorium.

There's a simple equation at work here: Excitement turns people into idiots; idiots buy stuff. But what is the cause of excitement? Put simply, it's the opportunity to incur the envy of strangers at the bus stop by manipulating a plastic-shelled device that will be obsolete inside of 6 months. Steve Jobs knows this. He also knows that these ostensibly enviable people are too dumb/excited to realize that in the lexicon of the Apple world, “1st Generation” means “the one that sucked.”

So why are so many people susceptable to the kind of bedazzlement that causes them to make rash purchases?

One theory (meaning something I just made up) suggests that a lot of people developed a bad habit that they can’t shake: they failed to learn their lesson after repeatedly waiting in line for 27 hours to see the opening of each of the final three Star Wars movies, telling themselves each time, “this one will be good!”—



The line for Star Wars: Episode XII - Attack of the Ennui
(photo from Life.com)

—and now, still vaguely unfulfilled, they carry with them an insatiable urge to sleep on a sidewalk and spend an obscene amount on an over-hyped but entirely unproven piece of technological wonderment. Ostensible wonderment, anyway.


Waiting for iPad.
(There's a Samuel Beckett joke hiding around here somewhere...)
(pic from nytimes.com)

Now, it’s conceivable that I’m a little bit cynical about all this, so I should consider the possibility that these wee devices are actually innovative and impressive. But even so I suspect that the unwashed, pavement-reposing, toy X-Wing Fighter-collecting nerds, among others, are willfully in thrall of the shameless self-aggrandizement produced by the Apple marketing juggernaut.



I visited the iPad page on Apple's website to discern more about this "magical and revolutionary" iThingy. There was some factual information, but mostly I found outlandish suggestions masquerading as unassailable truths—such as might easily persuade the eagerest among us.


"With a split-screen view and expansive onscreen keyboard, it lets you see and touch your email in ways you never could before."

Expansive! So, basically it’s… bigger than an iPhone. Mind you, I have been waiting for new ways to touch my email!

Anyway, now that you’ve piqued my interest, just how expansive is this thing?

"The 9.7-inch high-resolution screen makes iPad perfect for watching HD movies, TV shows, podcasts, music videos, and more."



10 inches, huh? Say, you know what else is perfect for watching HD movies? My 47-inch television.

And while we’re on the subject, you know what’s NOT perfect for watching HD movies? The subway, an airplane, the line at the Post Office, a canoe, and pretty much ANY crowded or moving location where I might find myself trying to kill time by watching a movie on a screen smaller than a box of Wheat Chex.


"A vivid LED-backlit IPS display makes viewing photos on iPad extraordinary."

More extraordinary than looking at photos on a monitor? I mean, I’ve seen a computer screen before. Who is this ad for? People fresh off a bus from 1940?


"iPad is the best way to experience the web."

Again, I’m going to differ on this one. I think the best way to experience the web is on a 90 inch wall mounted flat screen, viewed from the comfort of my jungle room’s new hot tub as I imbibe some kind of unpronounceable single malt Scotch while Tour de France podium girls attend to my every need, including a few that they’ve just made me aware of.

I'm not saying Apple's handheld devices are no good. The 'pod and the 'phone are obviously something of a big deal. And maybe this will be too, and that's fine. It's just that I can't stand the ads.

I don't think all ads are terrible. I understand that advertising pays for pretty much everything that our taxes don't. You have a brand, and you want me to know about it, and you'd like me to buy it? Well Humpty Dumpty, maybe I will. And if your ad makes me laugh, we could really be on to something! But when you start to tell me what to think about your crappy product, and you think I won't notice your trickery, then frankly you are an asshole treating me like an imbecile. Which maybe I am, but that's no excuse. Stupid is as stupid does, but so is asshole.

Remember the "1984" Apple Computer commercial? The one with the woman smashing the giant, projected face of Orwellian personal computer oppression?



A quarter century later Apple is still trying to convince consumers of the world that every gadget they produce is a revolution. Only now they're doing it without any imagination—they're not conjuring up an evocative image of revolution, like a woman with feathered blonde hair and a sledge hammer; they're just saying words like "revolution" and "magical" and banging them into your head Frank Luntz-style. Basically what the woman with the high-waisted orange shorts did to the status quo with her sledge hammer—that's what Apple is now doing to you with their advertising.

To that end, Apple is employing the clever tactic of deliberately confusing "revolution" and "novelty." But even so, the novelty of people flicking photos around on a touch screen is by now about as fresh as the waters of the Gulf Coast (which BP is currently revolutionizing with their innovative "sludge-hammer" technology).


The novelty of this crap did not last long either.
(from nydailynews.com)

By this point you've probably deduced that I'm a total imbecile for taking Apple's clearly superficial 'revolution' marketing trope so literally. As I've said before, I have a tendency to obsess about trivial things. Having just now stepped away from all of this long enough to make a rejuvenating snack (my favorite: toast with a thick spread of microwaved Circus Peanuts), I see the folly of my hypercritical ways. A little perspective reveals to me that the 'revolution' silliness is just one weapon from Apple's advertising arsenal. Their overall campaign is not all that complicated: ultimately the overarching stroke of marketing genius is that Apple's ads are a potent mix of visually striking and deliberately obnoxious—the dancing-douchebag iPod ads, the smarmy "I'm a Mac" spots. The fact that people mock the ads is, of course, proof of their effectiveness. So by letting them get my dander up, I'm just as much a tool as either the simps who fall under Apple's spell and pay full price for the latest prototype, or the snarks who post iPod ad parodies online, thereby contributing to the ubiquity of Apple's marketing presence.

The bottom line is that the little guy is no match for the likes of perhaps soon-to-be wordlwide market-share dominators Apple Computer. Unless I can find a way to produce a new kind of revolutionary metaphorical sledge hammer, I will be beaten down like the rest of the masses. Possibly by this guy.

Crummy Meets Filthy: "Time Out" & "The Village Voice"

A particularly well-inked Village Voice cover. Protective hand-wear recommended.

If you have spent any time in New York City over the last decade, you may have had the misfortune of opening the weekly periodical “Time Out New York.” I tend to be dismissive of it now, but some years ago I was actually very excited about the initial appearance of Time Out in our metropolis, in part because for a few months I had lived in London, whence Time Out hails, and thus the pond-hopping periodical's New York debut gave me an excuse to bore people with my worldliness.

But more importantly, the glossy pages of Time Out magazine provided a welcome alternative to The Village Voice for anyone wishing to peruse events listings without coming away with the blackened hands of a chimney sweep. This was particularly fortunate for me, given my penchant for reading while pensively stroking my chin and otherwise affecting sophisticated airs at sidewalk cafes. (On occasion this grubby-fingered habit inadvertently resulted in a surprisingly accurate facsimile of a goatee, which suited my pretensions nicely, but most times my ink-smudged visage gave me the appearance of a homeless loiterer, reading a free newspaper and lingering over somebody’s empty espresso. In fact once as I was figuring out my bill I was mistakenly chased off by my own waiter who thought I was stealing his tip.)

So what changed? Could it be Time Out New York was always crummy, but I've only recently recognized that crumminess because I've matured slightly over the years? That's pretty far-fetched—there's no plausible case to be made for me possessing any maturity, so I'd at least like to stand by my impeccable taste. More likely the magazine has inched its way down the slippery slope into the sea of crumminess over the past decade. Either way, these days “TONY” is pretty much unbearable. In order to get to any of the listings you have to possess an iron-clad intestinal tract, otherwise you may find it impossible to navigate past the cover stories without inciting a gastrointestinal uprising (potentially rendering the pages completely unreadable). You see, Time Out has become the “goings-on” equivalent of a fashion & beauty magazine: the sole creative objective of any article is to cook up an entirely meaningless trope on which to hang the addresses and prices of overpriced boutiques and the useless products found therein, much like you might procure a flimsy, silver-colored fake Christmas tree from a dollar store as a means to display the crappy holiday ornaments you’ve been collecting from Burger King Value Meals for the last 15years. (Honestly, what is your obsession with those things? Have some dignity.)

At this time, regrettably, I’m able to provide you with a summation of one such article: you see, I recently made the mistake of not just glancing at the cover of a current issue of Time Out, but additionally picking it up from the bathroom floor and flipping through it. (This was especially unfortunate as the bathroom wasn’t at my home, but at the Union Square Barnes & Noble.)



The current edition includes what they have puzzlingly called “walking tours,” a “tour” consisting of a write up of an arbitrary bunch of stores in some neighborhood that are tied together by a theme so thin that it wouldn’t even be allowed to work as a runway model.

One so-called tour suggests things to do in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, during the interminably long wait for your table at a trendy brunch place—like going to get coffee at a nearby café.



I think a better thing to do in that hour would be to buy a different magazine.

Also there’s a “30 Rock” themed “tour,” which, apart from telling you that the building known as “30 Rock” is located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, tells you to go to Penn Station and a Duane Reade store, along with a bunch of other mundane places that have absolutely nothing to do with the TV show, except that the article’s fabricators have surmised that certain “30 Rock” characters, due to their quirky predilections, maybe would “go to there”: a random jewelry store, a seedy strip club that’s sort of nearby, a comic book store that sort of isn't.



Now, if I had just arrived, hypothetically, by train in New York City for a few days’ vacation, and, being a big fan of Jack McBrayer (a.k.a. Kenneth the Page), who’s featured on the cover, paid the actual $4 for a copy of Time Out, with its promise of fun stuff to do and a huge banner sized proclamation of “GREAT WALKS,” and decided to embark upon the “30 Rock Walk,” and found myself led back to Penn Station—the notoriously bland rail terminal that I had just hypothetically crawled out of—and “Lace Gentlemen’s Club,” and a drug store that anyone who lives in NYC wishes to do their business in and get out of as quickly as humanly possible, well, first I would kick myself for not having read the article through ahead of time and booking a horse-drawn carriage to shuttle me around to all the stops (also TV themed, of course, with “Babbo” of Sex and the City fame as my personal chauffeur); and then, well, after that I would be really, really angry. Like so angry that I would want my four dollars back. So angry about my four dollars that I would write a letter to Time Out New York that was so concise and cleverly vitriolic that not only would it not require any editing for length and clarity, but it would be chosen as the Letter of the Week, resulting in me winning the Time Out guide of my choice, which I can only hope would include equally well thought out walking tours of some other city.



Ironically, as you can also see on the letters page, some reader was quite pleased with the quality of journalism that went into a previous article about companies that provide, of all things, walking tours, but unsurprisingly the rest of the missives go on to detail the typical failure of Time Out to present readers with anything new or insightful. Really, taking suggestions from Time Out about things to do in NYC is about as helpful as asking BMI-challenged runway models for advice on healthy eating.

If for some reason you want to know about the rest of the walking tours, you'll have to find your own copy of Time Out on a bathroom floor somewehere—I had to drop out halfway through the article. You see, the iron-clad lining in my small intestine was wearing through and needed re-cladding, and both my internal medicine specialist and my plumber were unavailable. In the meantime, I'll be back at my usual sidewalk table at Caffe Reggio (119 MacDougal St between Minetta Ln and W 3rd St), reading the Voice (free) and spending my weekly entertainment budget ($4) on espressos, which I'll sip leisurely, with my ink-stained pinky pointing contentedly skyward.