Gettin' Greenpeaced

Noted Portland advertising agency Weiden + Kennedy is getting a lot of attention for creating and distributing a handout for canvassers.

The card-sized handout, which targets activists soliciting everything from donations to signatures, reads:

I know you’re just doing your job,

but the methods you’ve been asked to use are manipulative and make me less trustful of friendliness in general

and that, not indifference towards your cause,
is why I’m not going to talk to you.

Though all Portlanders seem to agree that getting ‘Greenpeaced’ is annoying and unnecessarily intrusive, many are finding the handout rude and belittling.Personally, I think it’s harsh to hand out a card instead of dignifying someone with a polite verbal response. That being said, I don’t think the words on the card are all that mean or derisive.

The handout makes clear that it’s nothing personal, nothing against the canvasser or his cause. It just says that one doesn’t agree with how the canvasser chooses to conduct his business.

I’m reminded of peaceful protesters: those grannies against the war who sit quietly with their signs and hand out fliers; those kids in the 1960s who quietly put flowers in the barrels of soldiers’ guns; those other folks in the 1960s who simply marched and handed out fliers for civil rights. All those people acted the way they did because they didn’t like how the government was conducting its business. Why can’t someone quietly disagree with how Greenpeace conducts its business?

Any reasonably intelligent person, which all these canvassers are, should be able to understand that and the words on the card, and should not take offense. After all, they’ve got to have pretty tough hides to stand on a corner while bustling people try to avoid them and ignore their advances.

Christmas

Christmastime is here. Time for joy and time for cheer. But until yesterday, something was amiss.

Normally I’m in Christmas-mode as soon as we hit December; I’m ready to decorate, to sing carols and to give and receive gifts. Perhaps it’s a sign of my age, the fact that I’m leaving my youth behind and growing up, but something felt different this time around.

Even while trimming the tree, listening to the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s warm and comforting renditions of “O Tannenbaum” and “Greensleeves,” I didn’t feel like it was quite Christmastime. ‘Strange,’ I thought. His jazzy 1965 album, A Charlie Brown Christmas, could put me in the mood in June. The playful, tinkly tone of Guaraldi’s piano, sauntering along with the walking bass lines and ambling percussion, was the soundtrack to every single one of my twenty-eight Christmas’. I can still remember my dad telling me to settle down, lest my bouncing around make the record skip. Those songs have always been able to take me back. Instead I thought, ‘what am I doing with this tree? What Child Is This? This doesn’t feel right.’

Even while hanging multi-colored lights on my porch, even while wading through holiday crowds at the mall, even while being deluged with Santa-themed ads in the media -- I still wasn’t feeling that familiar Christmas spirit.

‘What’s wrong with me?’ I thought as the big day approached. ‘I love Christmas.’ The smell of the tree, the general air of peace and goodwill, the bell ringers, the friends, the family, the feast. None of it was on my mind.Maybe I haven’t had time to fully immerse myself in the joy of the season, maybe I haven’t let myself. One thing’s for sure: I put a lot of pressure on myself this year to get the perfect gifts for everyone on my list.

Gift-giving is one of my unique pleasures. A great gift is a reflection of my appreciation of the recipient. I get more excited when someone opens (and hopefully prizes) my gift than when I open theirs. I think about it all year, listening for clues and storing them away in the recesses of my mind. Once winter rolls around, I take stock of all the mental notes and set about tracking everything down -- that perfect toy, that elusive collectible, that item you’d never buy for yourself.

I ended up having a bit of trouble. I didn’t have a ton of loot to spend and I couldn’t make up my mind. The sweater or the mixing bowls? The Scotch or the weather station? The decisions were stressing me out as the deadline loomed.

Yesterday though, I made my final purchase and Hark, the herald angels sang. I was done shopping, I was done with the anguish. Christmastime was here! That joy-to-the-world feeling came over me. My stress gone, I'm now free to enjoy the holiday for what it is: an excuse to give gifts to the people I care about, to share good times with them, and give thanks for another year of life and love.

Merry Christmas to all.

Underage Drinking

Do you remember your first taste? That first sip of an alcoholic beverage? Whether you snuck a glass of champagne at a wedding or you stole one of your dad’s beers from the garage, whether you happened to sit down at a table setting with a wine glass or an older friend offered you a pull from his flask -- you had a curious thirst that had to be quenched. What possessed you to do it? Did you want to be like the grown-ups? Did you think it would make you cooler? Did you like it?

I asked a few people about their first experiences with alcohol. Most said their first taste was given them from a parent or trusted relative. Sheila was about nine years old and recalls thinking her dad’s beer was “so foul, I couldn’t believe anyone would want to drink it.” Matt was twelve. He told me: “My grandpa’s whiskey burned my throat and made me gag. He said it would put hair on my chest.” At ten, Bill tried some red wine after his “lush” aunt handed him a glass. “I thought it was okay, like weird juice.” Another guy, a country-boy I know, said his parents gave him blackberry brandy as a child when he was stuffed-up or had a sore throat.

It seemed to me that that first taste was no more than an innocent offering, a harmless introduction to something capable of ruining lives. Ask someone about their first time getting seriously intoxicated however, and you’re almost guaranteed a different response.

Most were about seventeen or eighteen years old. Most also said their first drunk was an unpleasant, forgettable one – one not permitted (or supervised) by their parents. You could blame it on the reckless gusto of teenagers, their ignorance of the ‘look-before-you-leap’ adage, or their eagerness to fit in with their peers. I think that most kids, having little to no experience drinking alcohol, simply don’t know their limits.While everybody I asked remembers exactly what they were drinking, their memories of what followed are often blurry. One common thread runs through everyone’s account: sickness. Emily spiked a Slurpee with rum and stained her shirt and pants with blue-colored vomit. James drank Southern Comfort with Dr. Pepper and barfed on a campfire. Andrew drank 40 ounces of Olde English and puked in a friend’s car. Sarah drank Lemon-flavored MD 20/20; she was hungover for two days. Alex broke his parents’ glass coffee table, threw up and peed his pants after drinking too many Coors Lights. Jessica drank a succession of vodka shots, didn’t get sick, but got disoriented. She ended up alone in the woods, missing a shoe, after the cops broke up the party she ditched her dad’s birthday to attend.

It seems that everyone has had a bad experience with alcohol, either in high school or college, while pursuing inebriation. Though all the people with whom I spoke told their stories with a fond smile and a chuckle, there are many who can’t look back and laugh, whose bad experiences didn’t just end with a hangover. Many people end up with court dates. Worse, some end up as parents, some end up hurt. Indeed, alcohol use can be fun – but alcohol abuse is no laughing matter.

I think the lessons learned from underage drinking, often hard ones, are necessary ones. They teach us about ourselves. They reinforce the fact that all of our actions have consequences, good and bad. They inform us of our limits and help us realize when enough is enough. That’s not to say that every young person should get wasted as part of their continuing education, no. But every young person, should they get wasted, ought to come away from it having gained some kind of knowledge about, and awareness of, themselves. And knowledge (wait for it...) is power.

Sailing Away on The Good Ship Zeppelin

That rock-and-roll music is a powerful intoxicant is no joke. I’ve been hooked. Immersed. I’ve been strung out and hungover. Most notably, I’ve drunk myself silly on the blooze of the Rolling Stones, nearly drowned in Beatle-mania, and taken some stimulating trips with Dylan. I’ve spent too much time with the Who, gotten lost with the Kinks, and followed Bowie down the rabbit-hole while breaking for quickies with everyone from ABBA to Zappa. As phases go, these were not harmful or destructive binges, though some relationships were affected. Still, I kept coming back for more. I keep coming back for more.

There was one bender that was different. I was eighteen. Getting schooled in several different rock-and-roll institutions couldn’t prepare me for the ultimate power of Led Zeppelin. The band’s sound crashed down on me with the force of a thousand tidal waves, simultaneously crushing and comforting me. Within months, I was washed away – in deep.

Led Zeppelin’s first album came out in 1969. The next seven years saw them release seven more major-selling albums and grow into a touring juggernaut and record-business powerhouse. Despite being despised by the press, hotel staffs worldwide, and the establishment at large, Led Zeppelin was the biggest band in the world.

The group’s balance of brilliance and brawn, mirth and malice, was something to behold. Here was a band that capably nodded to American blues and British folk while ushering in a new kind of hard rock. Inundating my consciousness with monster riffs and howls from on high bolstered by a thick bottom end and colossal thud, Led Zeppelin made music that appealed to burnouts, jocks and nerds alike. Guys wanted to be them – girls wanted to do them. I just wanted my fix.

Was it the dark magic of Jimmy Page’s guitar-playing? The banshee-wail of Robert Plant’s voice? Was it the steady dependability of John Paul Jones’ bass- and keyboard-playing or the bestial might of John Bonham’s drumming? Whatever it was, it was clear that the sum of those parts equaled something massive. Mammoth. Zeppelin-like.

Whether working out Zippo-raising anthems or complex rhythms with intricate melodies, the band layered much of its music with a crunch and punch that was all its own. The lighter moments were steeped in bucolic beauty, most having been written at either Page or Plant’s pastoral country estate. Indeed, the songwriting was topnotch and the group’s chemistry was unquestionable. I simply could not get enough.

Sailing on the good ship Zeppelin, lost at sea, was a great experience. But like any other oceangoing vessel, it had to make port at some point. I listened almost exclusively to that band for a solid three years. At home, in the car, through headphones, under the influence. I lost track of time, was away for too long, forgot that there were other bands out there. And I got burned out. Too many waves, too much rocking. I needed a break, shore leave or something. So I put away the records.

At first I thought I could go cold turkey. The withdrawals weren’t too bad but it still ended up being a gradual abandonment. The music had been such a monumental part of my life. I filled the void with punk, glam and indie rock, and eventually let the Zeppelin go by the wayside. I moved on; I was over the band.

The more time that passed, the more I forgot about Led Zeppelin. I went through more phases of musical infatuation. Some turned out to be passing fancies, some turned into full-on obsessions. Zeppelin was the last thing on my mind – I had kicked that habit. Every now and then, I’d hear the band on the radio or blasting out of some longhair’s van. The music didn’t affect me the way it used to, but that old feeling would still creep up on me. It was more a feeling of nostalgia than an itch that begged to be scratched. I had little desire to give in. Things were fine without Led Zeppelin, I didn’t need to revisit the past, to unmoor that ship for another lengthy voyage. Nearly ten years passed.

It wasn’t until I found a book, Hammer of The Gods, in a second-hand shop that the itch really started to nag. The book tells the story of the band, from the early days to the heydays to the end of days. It covers everything with a true fan’s respect and awe, going into depth and divulging the tales behind the music. It reminded me, loudly and blatantly, of Led Zeppelin’s undeniable appeal. My own respect and awe were reaffirmed. The itch became unbearable. Reading, I realized that I wasn’t doing myself any favors by putting the band on the back burner. So what if my addiction had clouded my judgment? So what if I got burned out? Led Zeppelin was just too good to ignore.

My passion reignited, I relapsed. I dug out the records, blew off the dust and lowered the needle. The music washed over me like a breath of fresh hair, sounding better than I remembered. Absence had certainly made this heart grow fonder and I consumed the material with the gusto of a starving man. Thanks to the book, the virtues of the band were all the more explicit. For weeks, I gorged on the music of Led Zeppelin.

This story though, doesn’t end here. I didn’t go back to my old, all-Zeppelin-all-the-time ways. For however rabid my frenzy was, I entered into it aware of what had happened to me before. And so I exercised restraint. I didn’t want to lose myself, to go AWOL, either to join Kurtz in the jungle or to sail away on another extended journey. I didn’t want to neglect my other musical vices. I didn’t want to be that guy, fixated on one band, chasing the same thrills from side one of Led Zeppelin I to side two of Led Zeppelin IV, from “The Rain Song” on Houses of The Holy to “The Rover” on Physical Graffiti. No, not me.

I now have a healthy relationship with the music of Led Zeppelin. Even if it keeps on raining, levee’s not going to break. I know when to say no, when enough is enough. I can control my intake; I can regulate my dosage. Sometimes I grow so tired, but I know I’ve got one thing I got to do: RAMBLE ON!

**FUN FACT: Bonham is a zoology term. It means piglet.

The Jukebox: That's My Song

Every self-respecting bar, tavern and pub should have a jukebox. If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t deserve your business. A person should be able to walk into a watering hole and have some sort of control, not necessarily over how much he drinks, but over what he listens to while he drinks.

Picture this: guy has a rough day at the office. Or mill or plant or jobsite or whatever. Guy pops into a place, bellies up to the bar and orders a stiff one. The last thing Guy deserves to hear is whatever shit the bartender is playing. It could be anything – it’s still shit so long as Guy didn’t pick it.

The issue here is choice. Without the freedom to choose, what are we left with? Without choice, you’re lost, flying blind. You don’t let the bartender serve you whatever he feels like – you choose what he serves you. Guy chooses what he wants to drink, he should be able to choose what he wants to listen to as well.

Maybe he lost an account – he chooses Tom Petty. Maybe he didn’t meet his quota – he chooses Bruce Springsteen. Maybe he got laid off – he chooses Johnny Cash. Whatever Guy chooses, he’ll tipple to his heart’s content, accompanied by the music that comforts him or otherwise adds to his drinking experience.

A good jukebox will have something for everybody. A good jukebox is not exclusionary, it’s not cooler-than-thou. It will contain songs that will satisfy everyone in the joint, not at once (that’s impossible), but at one point. It will have songs that function both as background music and as the drunkard-mobilizing fare of slurring sing-alongs. A good jukebox will feature artists old and new (mostly old) and songs that impart a range of emotions: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bon Jovi, Neil Diamond; Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places,” Bob Seger’s “Turn The Page,” CCR’s version of “Proud Mary.”

Some jukeboxes will appeal more to a certain establishment’s typical patron. Example: a working-class bar near my house has a jukebox stocked with working-class tunes – blue-collar anthems, classic rock and country, and shit-kickin’ blues. Another place, frequented by hip kids, has a jukebox filled with punk standbys, old soul, new wave, and a rotating selection of current indie rock.

Every jukebox will contain Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man,” Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again,” and invariably, some Journey. This is a fact.

The jukebox plays an important role in every drinking establishment – almost as important a role as the alcohol. The jukebox is your friend if you’re drinking alone. The jukebox is the life of the party if you’re drinking with friends. The jukebox puts the nail in the coffin of a bad day and shines ever-loving light on a good day. Every self-respecting bar, tavern and pub should have one. If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t deserve your business.

Full Leather Jacket

Few people can actually pull it off. I know I can’t. Regardless, the leather jacket, along with blue jeans and a white tee, is a piece of Americana – part of our national dress.

Ever since Brando put one on for his role as “The Wild One” in 1953, the leather jacket has come to symbolize genuine hardiness. True grit. It’s an indicator that the guy wearing it is as tough as the hide from which it’s made. Military pilots wore them, bomber jackets. The greasers wore them, the Hells Angels did too. The rockers wore them, then the punks did. Elvis wore one. Iggy Pop sang “Raw Power” and “Gimme Danger” in a leather jacket featuring a snarling cheetah on the back. The Fonz wore one. The Ramones wore them. Indeed, the leather jacket’s staying power has been assured by its place in pop culture. The image it projects however, has been grossly perverted.

What started as a functional piece of garb, known as much for its resilience as its broken-in comfort, the leather jacket has become little more than a costume. We can thank the Village People, in part, for that. While it remains a practical component of any legitimate biker’s wardrobe, it now covers the shoulders of sissy pretty-boys, cooler-than-thou scenesters, and faux tough-guys. It’s been appropriated by style-minded people who value fashion over function. Consequently, the leather jacket no longer stands for what it used to. Gone are the days when a leather-jacketed dude commanded attention and even aroused a little fear and unease.

As an observer, I have to ask myself: Should I even be concerned with what other people wear? The long-short is NO. People will wear what they want to wear for their own reasons. Just ask Lady GaGa. YES, only cool cats used to wear leather jackets. NO, you don’t necessarily have to be a cool cat to wear a leather jacket. MAYBE, I should just accept that it’s simply the nature of fashion: times change, trends change with them, looks are appropriated. Case in point: lots of people wear cowboy gear (another purposeful style of American dress) without ever having visited the range or ridden a horse. And who am I to judge? I’m no authority. YES, I used to wear motorcycle gloves to keep my hands warm. NO, I’ve never manned a motorcycle. So YEAH, wear what you want. Even if you aren’t a tough-guy or a bicycle racer or a homeless man or a pro ball player or a rock-and-roll star – you’ll at least be you, and that ought to be good enough.

NO on Measure 67

I’m submitting this statement as a registered Democrat.

The Oregon state legislature passed a permanent increase to the business tax in June. The increase, both unfair and unsound, has exposed some of our elected officials’ lack of forethought. Instead of adopting a reasonable tax policy that satisfies the state’s financial needs, the democrat-led legislature has effectively said ‘git-er-dun’ by rashly approving an increase with grim long-term implications.

Citizens upset with the short-sightedness of the legislature’s decision gathered enough signatures to refer it to voters. Ballots should arrive in your mailbox in January – please join me in voting NO on Measure 67.

Again, I’m a registered Democrat. I concede that Oregon’s corporate minimum tax (which is comparatively lower than many other states and hasn’t been raised since 1931) should be raised. Businesses and individuals should pay their fair share; I abide that. What I can’t abide is the amount of the increase and the effects that this sudden and substantial change would have on the businesses that employ Oregonians.

The increase would make Oregon’s corporate minimum 20 times higher than New York’s – the nation’s highest. While the resulting money would help to fill a budget gap and pay for some human services, it would unduly hobble many of the businesses, large and small, that operate in our state.

Up to $100,000 a year, the tax would be based on the gross receipts of businesses, regardless of their profits or lack thereof. This means that a business, whether or not it makes enough money to cover its expenses (operating costs, wages and benefits for employees, etc.) would be required to pay the increased minimum tax. If the business doesn’t turn enough of a profit to cover its costs, cuts (read: jobs or health care benefits) would have to be made.

What’s worse, the higher taxes would be retroactive to January 1, 2009. No money to cover the increase has been withheld from Oregonians’ paychecks in all of 2009; businesses didn’t include the unexpected expense in last year’s budget. If anything, they invested any extra money in growth (read: job creation). Should the Measure pass, businesses would be forced to pay out of pocket. The result? Cuts (read: jobs or health care benefits) would have to be made.

The state of Oregon has been profoundly affected by the recession. Unemployment is at 12% here and 9% nationwide. People are hurting, many are struggling. Everyone agrees that the state could really use the $733 million gained from the tax increases in Measure 67. But when it stands to cost many Oregonians their jobs (while state employees stand to get $258 million in salary increases), economic growth is inhibited. Even President Obama said “the last thing we want to do is raise taxes during the middle of a recession.”

For the sake of our state and the citizens that work to keep its economy afloat, please vote NO on Measure 67. Let’s send our elected lawmakers back to the table, to get it right, so the corporate minimum can be raised fairly and sensibly.

More info: http://www.stopjobkillingtaxes.com/

Birthdays Were The Worst Days

We’re all aging. Every passing day, nay, minute, is put behind us as we move forward. We’re all getting older with the passage of time. But are we growing old, too?

A guy I know, we’ll call him Jerry, just had a birthday. He’s now twenty-eight years old. I talked to him about it. He doesn’t feel older, but he knows that he is. He says the occasion is becoming bittersweet. He appreciates all the well-wishing; it’s nice to know that friends and family care. Still, his birthday seems to serve more as a reminder that he’s aging. It reminds him that his youth is ephemeral. It reminds him that, yes, he’s getting older but, no, he’s not really growing old.

Growth is a process of natural development. To grow is to become, not just old but wise. Advanced, experienced. More adult. More assured of your place as a person, your role as a gear in the machine of society.

Jerry’s in an interesting phase of that growth: a second coming-of-age period. Whereas the adolescent years forced him into young-adulthood, the late-twenties are now pushing him toward actual adulthood, toward the inescapable period in which he’ll be expected to ‘act his age.’

The adage ‘age is just a number’ is reassuring, he says, because after all, age really is nothing more than a number. Though society seems to thrust age-specific expectations on all of us, it doesn’t mean we’re necessarily required to meet them. If anything, they’re only suggested mileposts – points along the way of everybody’s path of life. At sixteen, you get a driver’s license. At eighteen, you graduate high school and reach voting age. At twenty-two-ish, you get a college degree. After that, you’re turned loose to stake your claim in the world. One’s success in life (which many link with work) is then often measured commensurate with their age. At thirty, you’re set in your career, in position to climb the ladder. At forty, you make partner or VP or whatever. At fifty, you’re running the joint.

Of course, this isn’t always the case, and of course, it doesn’t have to be. While Jerry’s fine with the hand he’s been dealt, he sometimes wonders if he’s failed at meeting society’s expectations for a fellow his age. He says he sees other 28-year-olds leading different lives than his. They’ve grown up, grown into their age and found or made their place in society. Some are more successful, some are happier, some are the person they wanted to be. Others are not.

Jerry pauses to think about what he’s said. I think about it, too – often, in fact. And when I really (REALLY) think about it, a man shouldn’t be measured, by himself or anyone else, by what he’s achieved in a specified amount of his years. He shouldn’t be considered a failure, by himself or anyone else, if he doesn’t have what others have, if he chooses a different path than the one society prescribes. A man should just do his best and be content with that, societal expectations be damned. When you boil it down, as Jerry and I did, we’re all getting older, growing old, and walking down the same obligatory path of life. Personally, I'll heed the words of Neil Young and “walk on, walk on.”

Stepehn Marche asks, "Why Are You Working So Hard?"

Stephen Marche is an essayist, columnist and novelist. Dude writes. He wrote the following piece on the nature of work in America. I like how he thinks.

Why Are You Working So Hard?

No, really: Why? Nobody works as hard as the average American man. When most of us hear about a country like Sweden, with its eighteen months' maternity leave and its five weeks' paid vacation guaranteed by law, we don't think, How do I get that? We think, What a bunch of pussies. Russians say, "Works like an American" when here we would say, "Works like a dog." The richest man in the world (Bill Gates) has claimed that he will leave each of his children $10 million and no more; otherwise they might become lazy and not work. The United States is, above all, a nation of workers, and though the economic downturn has caused unemployment to spike to its highest rates in a generation, it's also offering us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reevaluate our culture's insane relationship to work.

And "insane" is the operative word here. In American pop culture, as in American life, work has become the ultimate cipher, simultaneously giving meaning to our daily lives and stripping it away, filling our time and emptying it, making us who we are and crushing our souls in the same sweeping and terrible gesture. Our alienation from work has been hovering at the margins of culture (Dilbert) for a few decades (Office Space), and the theme resonates today in genres as diverse as the Broadway musical (9 to 5: The Musical), the Hollywood film (Extract), and, most of all, network television. The great character-driven shows that once celebrated the nobility of the workplace and the worker — a grand tradition stretching back to the dawn of the medium with the likes of Marcus Welby and Perry Mason — died this past spring with the final episode of ER, and their ranks have been slowly replaced by a factory-line spew of procedural work dramas (Law & Order). These stories work themselves out with the frictionless efficiency of an iPhone connecting to a wireless network, and the characters are nothing more than user-friendly interfaces through which audiences navigate plot points. And those are just the dramas. These seeds of discontent have also sprouted into a unique species of mass-consumption alienation comedy. "I would say that I lost my optimism about government in about two months," says Mark in the pilot of Parks and Recreation. The heroine of that show struggles to keep her illusions about the power and purpose of public service alive, and it's no better in the privately run wasteland of Dunder Mifflin. For all his enthusiasm, Michael Scott earns nothing but contempt from his limp employees. The rest of us, like Jim and Pam, alleviate the monstrous deadness of office life with the occasional wounded, brief look into the camera that says, "Absurdity is now so normal, I no longer find it absurd."

We are now reaching the point where some of us long for a return to manual labor. Newer shows (Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs) on basic cable have small but devoted followings for their blue-collar stars, and, trust me, the viewers aren't mechanics or fishermen or janitors. They are the same people who have been tuning in to The Office for the past five years, the worker-drones who live the comfortable nightmare that Das Kapital predicted, a profound alienation from jobs with no clear purpose. They were also the readers who recently picked up Matthew B. Crawford's magnificent short book, an apologia pro vita sua of a man who abandoned his job as the director of a think tank to open a motorcycle-repair shop. For the pleasure of feeling useful and seeing the tangible results of his efforts, he chose a life of American Chopper over one of The Office, and he's happy. But the educated masses, the clean and the bored, would rather explore their working-class fantasies through books and cable TV than change their lives. It's so much simpler — so much more normal — to work at a place you hate, don't you think?

America's love-hate relationship with work goes back to the double origins of the country: the pioneers who hacked paradise out of the wilderness by their own efforts and the slaves who actually built the country. Work in America has always been both the most vital expression of a person's humanity and a persistent state of inhuman blankness, a contradiction that survives in the peculiar idiom "human resource." You can either be a human or a resource; you can't be both. The tension appears even in one of the most famous pieces of folk culture.

The song (“John Henry”), in which the hero beats a steam drill at hammering stakes, has been heard, at one point or another, by nearly every twentieth-century American, rich or poor, black or white, young or old. The contest ends in what is supposedly a victory for humanity over the machine, with Henry proving that "a man ain't nothing but a man." But the story's tragic undertones obscure its optimism. Henry knows at the age of three days that "the hammer's gonna be the death of me." Instead of joy at the invention of a machine that saves him from a lifetime of brutal labor, he experiences technology as a kind of death. Either the machine will kill him or his work will, and he chooses work.

Americans are still making John Henry's fatal choice, yet once the work started to disappear, we were left with free time and uncomfortable questions. What is the point of all this work if the end result is more work for the purpose of yet more work? Are we all, like Michael Scott, humiliating ourselves for the glory of a flat-screen TV? And could it be that for a huge number of people, despite all their genuine suffering, the economic catastrophe has been a relief — a relief not to have to work so much and a relief not to have to spend so much? We needed a pause and we got one, and we've started to ask ourselves what the hell we're working for. Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe Gates, what do you have to look forward to? Ten million bucks and a lifetime as a human resource. Thank your dad. Then ask him why.

Civil Warfare

Today is the day. The Oregon State Beavers will meet the Oregon Ducks at Autzen Stadium in Eugene for the biggest Civil War in 112 years.
The stakes are high, higher than that second-year stoner who sold mushrooms to students at 15th and Ferry Alley back in aught-two. The winner goes to the Rose Bowl, the loser goes to Loserville. In Oregon’s case, that would be the Holiday Bowl. For Oregon State, it would likely be the Las Vegas Bowl.

The week and a half leading up to this game has been tiring. Commentators and fans alike have been sparring over details large and small. I’ve heard enough of the analysis, taunts and trash talk -- I’m ready to sit back and let the two teams settle it.

Of course, I’m rooting for my Ducks. But it’s anybody’s game -- winner take all. To the victor go the spoils: the Pac-10 championship, the glory, and the opportunity to drop the hammer on the Big Ten’s Ohio State Buckeyes.

Both teams are well-rested and have undoubtedly been going through exhaustive preparations. The game will be an offensive battle; Oregon’s defense will have to contain sure-footed Beavers back Jacquizz Rodgers while Oregon State’s defense will have to deal with versatile Ducks QB Jeremiah Masoli.

I hope this Civil War lives up to its hype. I hope it shows the rest of the country (and the BCS) that the Pac-10 is a reputable conference with teams that can compete with SEC, Big East and Big 12 powerhouses. Most of all, I hope the fans maintain a level of civility consistent with the relaxed attitude of many Oregonians. But with so much on the line, that actually might be asking too much.

Let’s grip it and rip it.

**UPDATE: Ducks win 37-33**

winter

Today is the first day of December. Winter is upon us and I, for one, am glad. Say what you will about the shorter days, the grayer skies and the cooler temperatures -- I welcome them and everything else the season brings each year.

There is something about the quiet crispness and still beauty of cold weather. A landscape buried in snow is a peaceful sight. The crushing white is almost inviting; all sound is muffled and the tranquility lends to the sense that nature is at rest. The outdoors seem calmer, as if everyone (and everything) has either left or holed up to wait it out.

I love the feeling of being bundled in warm layers, protected against the harsh and bitter but somehow comforting elements. That’s why I dig snowboarding so much.

The act of riding a board down a snowy slope is certainly part of the appeal. Being outside though, and enjoying what nature provides, is what I treasure most.

Some dudes listen to music through headphones while riding. I prefer the sound of the snow. The shush shush of the compliant snow being carved by my board. The dull clatter of chunky clumps falling back to earth after being sprayed into the air. The whump of my board’s flat base landing on a downy pillow of snow. Even the silence of fine powder, disturbed from its serene state and billowing around me before settling again, is music to my ears.

Unforgiving weather in general also makes me appreciate the indoors and the homey lifestyle that suits me. Sitting fireside with a drink while a storm rages outside; getting cozy with the lady as the mercury drops; stirring a pot of stew while Jack Frost ravages the remnants of my garden. These simple pleasures satisfy my soul.

Winter is also the holiday season. Thanksgiving and Christmas are times to gather, give thanks and celebrate with the ones you hold dear. Pardon the Hallmark cheese, but no amount of material gifts can give me more joy than getting the gang together for food, drink and merriment.

While I can find more pros than cons for all four seasons, I still find winter to be especially charming. Whether it’s a day of play in the snow, a night of gaiety with the family or the prospects of a new year, count on me to relish it all.

Bangers & Mash, A Love Story

I don’t really like to eat. The act of feeding myself can be tiresome. Shovel, chew, swallow, repeat. Eventually I’ll feel full, a few hours later I’ll be hungry again. It’s enough to drive one insane, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But here’s the rub: I love food.

A perfectly grilled New York strip steak is heaven; patiently braised carnitas is rapture; a Grandma-baked apple pie is ecstasy. Award-winning writer William Goldman once said that “true love is the greatest thing in the world -- except for a nice sandwich,” and I couldn’t agree more. Spaghetti with meatballs, Christmas ham with peas and potatoes, baby back ribs drenched in BBQ sauce -- hot damn, my mouth is watering.

My dilemma is clear: how do I reconcile these two disconnected feelings, the aversion to eating and the joy of foodstuffs, when they ought to be connected? It is from this awkward position that I offer a simple, standard dish that actually united my divergent views.

Bangers and Mash is simply sausages and mashed potatoes. The dish is rooted in the working-class pub culture of England and Ireland and I delight in eating it. Stuffing my face and filling my belly with those delicious meats and taters is anything but a dull chore.

Though I had eaten my fair share of sausages and mashed potatoes over the years, I had never appreciated the unique taste and pleasure of their combination until a recent trip to Australia. Now I can’t get enough.

The moment of enlightenment was at a pub called The Bellevue, a veritable institution opened in the 1880s, in the tony Sydney neighborhood of Paddington. The sausages, resting on a bed of silky mashed potatoes, were a blend of beef and pork. They were drizzled with a generous amount of rich onion gravy and served with a sweet beetroot relish and an assortment of dark, spicy mustards.

I looked at the meal with a mixture of awe, curiosity and excitement. Yeah, it looked good; but would the monotony of eating it be that same familiar bore? Cutting into one of the sausages, I released an intoxicating torrent of its aromatic juices. They mingled with the mash, dying it a warm brown. I used my fork to collect some relish, thick but not overly chunky, and swept it through the creamy mash and the gravy, taking care to gather a bit of mustard for good measure. Stabbing the slice of sausage, I now had a little of everything on my plate, on my fork -- a melting pot of protein and starch. I put it in my mouth. I chewed. I savored the flavor. I swallowed. I was unprepared for what came next.

I was so floored by the taste, a fusion of sweet and savory with a hint of old-world charm, that all I could think about was piling up the next bite. Again, I got some of everything. Again, I was not disappointed. Perhaps more importantly, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. I was enjoying eating. Heaping the different components of the dish together and consuming them with glee, I began to realize that the satisfaction I derived from eating had just as much to do with what I was eating as how I was eating it. Each element that made up each forkful played its own role on my Supper Stage and I was the director. I decided what went where, how much of this did that. I was in charge.

The awareness galvanized me and, excited by the explosive party in my mouth, I plowed through the meal. The gravy was diluted with mash, the mustard turned beet red, and the sausage abandoned its casing. Even though I took great pleasure in eating my meat and potatoes, I ate it with a shit-eating grin. It was great.

Esquire

Esquire is a men’s magazine. It was conceived at the darkest moment of the Depression and was born at the dawn of the New Deal in 1933. The magazine began as a racy publication for men before being transformed into a more refined periodical with an emphasis on the lifestyle of civilized men. Published today by the Hearst Corporation, it speaks to the successful, multi-faceted man who is culturally tuned in. Esquire’s unique blend of intelligent assistance, stories with substance, and ability to entertain and inspire make it a perfect resource for the discerning gentleman. You know that dude from the Dos Equis commercials? The “most interesting man in the world?” He reads Esquire. Hell, he’s probably a contributing editor.I find it to be a fantastic publication. Even though it’s aimed at the modern-day Don Draper, I like to think the magazine appeals to a wide variety of men. It’s classy but not uppity and speaks in a knowing, sensible voice that most men can understand and appreciate.

I’ve only been a casual reader for a year or so but as far as I can tell, the editors have little to no political agenda; everything seems pretty neutral. It was actually the November 2008 issue in which, after 75 years, Esquire publicly endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time (Obama). Still, editorials decrying the recent government bailouts and espousing the virtues of free markets paint a different, but nonetheless balanced, picture.

And since its inception, Esquire has always been a trendsetter in the way of art direction and graphic design. In fact, the third floor of the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan rests a tribute to Esquire’s glory years -- a collection of 92 covers from the 1960s and early 1970s that have become, in the museum’s words, “essential to the iconography of American culture." That tradition continues today not just in the ‘wall-of-words’ covers but on the pages behind them. Even with text, graphics and callouts in the sidebars, the layouts still maintain a clean and modern feel without wasting space or being overly busy.Esquire is a veritable wellspring of relevant information for the well-educated and urbane individual. Defined by its range, it sets itself apart from the knuckle-dragging chauvinism present in rags like Maxim and FHM with content edited for an affluent and sophisticated audience -- class not mass. The magazine’s editors state:

"Esquire is geared toward men who have arrived. They dress for themselves; have both the means and knowledge to invest; can order with confidence in a fine restaurant; have a healthy respect and admiration for women; take vacations that enrich their lives and recharge their energy; and have mastered many of life’s basics. What they want is a primer on how to lead a richer, better, fuller, and more meaningful life.”
Esquire’s tagline is “Man At His Best,” a fitting statement for a refined, rich magazine with a tonic splash of charm and attitude. I want to be an Esquire man. I’m not a particularly cultured or well-to-do man; I’m just some dude. I don’t plan on spending $2500 on the ‘essential’ Canali three-piece suit featured in the October 2009 issue, making a dinner reservation two months in advance, or sailing solo around the Cape of Good Hope. I am however, intellectually confident and curious. I appreciate the finer things even though I don’t necessarily seek them. I sometimes prefer the clip-clop of a fancy shoe on a hard floor to the squeak of a sneaker; I can value the cut and quality of a shirt as well as its function; I recognize that a $50 meal is, in most cases, better than a $10 one. And I want to be an Esquire man. Yet here I am, writing blog posts about which skateboard is better at getting me to the local Pabst-pouring dive. Time to grow up?

in the yellow no. 4

Albatross, Diomedeidae

See See Rider

Normally when I see someone rolling down the street on one of those long cruiser boards, I’m quick to judge. “Nice flip flops, brah. Learn to push with your back foot.” But the other day I saw something pretty cool that made me think differently.

I saw a group of skate-dudes ripping around the city on oblong boards with big, soft wheels. They were carrying their regular ‘freestyle’ skateboards under their arms, cruising from one spot to the next. What a novel idea, I thought.

Compared to a typical seven-and-three-quarterish, nose-and-tailed shred stick with hard 52s, cruiser setups are faster and more maneuverable. Too, their grippy wheels handle cracks and rough ground better. By carrying two boards, one for cruising and one for getting extreme, a person can cover more ground in less time and hit more spots.

Though it’s no coincidence that they’re often called ‘beer cruisers’ (most dudes tend to ride them to the Kwik-E-Mart or the bar), these kids were on to something. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before.

Why not make your ride to the next ledge, set or bank an easier, more pleasurable one? Feast your peeps on these cruisers and, if you haven’t already, consider adding one to your quiver.

Krooked (7.125” or 7.5”). The Zip Zingers, though first introduced in the early 2000s, are the gold-standard of cruiser boards. The shape likely existed in some form or another in the 1970s but it’s been refined and updated since then. It’s available in two different sizes (or the 8.6” Zip Zagger) with an aggressive concave and supple tail that allow it to be popped and flipped with relative ease.
Habitat (7.75”). This beauty’s got a cork top sheet for a little extra cushion when you’re really giving it a pushin.’ The shape is pretty plain, utilitarian and functional. I imagine cruising barefoot on this baby would be a breeze.
Creature (7.5" (4" at the tail)). Made of a heavy-duty plastic composite, the Rip Rider is as perfect for a jaunt to the corner store as a trip to a death-metal show. Even though it’s probably flexible, the coffin-shaped board is hella flat with hardly any tail to speak of so don’t count on doing much but rolling and rip-riding it.
Crailtap (7.875”). Since the Girl/Chocolate guys made this puppy, I’m sure it’s a hella sweet ride. Still, it was pretty limited so I don’t know if you can get your hands on it anymore.
Deathwish (8.5”). The Passion Cruiser is designed to quench your thirst for speed. Shaped (obviously) like a 40 bottle, it might be most effective as alternative transportation to and from the neighborhood bar.

FANTASY

Putting together fantasy bands, while fun, is an imaginative exercise in futility. As with fantasy sports teams, the grouping of players who wouldn’t normally play together only distances the organizer further from reality. And when you really get down to it, the myriad possibilities are enough to make your head spin. So when I decided to assemble a fantasy band, I did so with the utmost care and deliberation. While some might think that musical aptitude or rock-ability would be the deciding factors, they would be wrong. Instead, the only thing that qualifies one for this gig is their rock-and-roll face. Note: Nigel Tufnel was excluded because he’s already in a fantasy band.

Marc Bolan on guitar. Careful not to exhibit the consternation of a player lost in instrumental labor, the T. Rex frontman instead relies on a facial expression of constant sexual gratification. Letting his eyes roll back in his head, he’s making love to his guitar as much as he’s making love to his audience. Accordingly, he puffs his cheeks, exhales forcefully and sighs with visceral pleasure while throwing his head back and presumably jizzing in his pants.

k.d. lang on vocals. She works the pained squint and couples it with an outstretched hand (reaching for what? Help? A higher power?) or a clenched fist to show true, real emotion. Betraying nothing but genuine sentiment, lang gives the sense of a tangible connection to the song’s subject matter. Like Morrissey in a pant suit, she furrows her brow in a smugly affected manner while curling her thin lips around the words. Her composed emoting, when coupled with the longing ache in her voice and the concerned, attached expression on her face, only reinforces her sense of “Constant Craving.”

Mick Fleetwood on drums. Grimacing and wincing like he’s taking a hall-of-fame crap, the Fleetwood Mac drummer always looks uncomfortable when playing. He shifts in his seat and leans every which way in an apparent effort to loosen his bowels while making faces that are consistent with those of a constipated man. With his mouth gaping in either pain or relief, he appears to be awash with the endorphin-fueled feelings of someone who’s just barely survived a traumatic experience. Quick, somebody get this man a sweat rag and some toilet paper. Never mind the fact that he’s still in the middle of a song, alternately flailing madly and punishing the skins or shrugging rhythmically and tapping in time.

Happy-Tom on bass. A heavyset guy styled as a threatening homosexual in a sailor suit, Happy Tom has been going “whoa-oh-whoa” with Turbonegro for well over a decade. His aggressive sneer, clenched teeth and piercing eyes give the impression of a man fighting his way out from the depths of rock-and-roll purgatory. Also, depending on the night, he can be seen as weary, catatonic and generally jaded, which is still cool in an I-Don’t-Give-A-Shit kind of way. Still, by the end of a show, he’s so sweaty that all his makeup has run, creating that worn-out tragic clown image. And how awesome would it be to have one costumed and made-up goon sharing the stage with a fey glam god, a googly-eyed (blame the cocaine) English dandy and a beguiling lesbian?

MULCH no. 2

The second issue of MULCH has finally hit the shelves. It features a photo exhibition of party people as well as record reviews, tattoo testimonials and the return of Gary Blaster. Pick one up (for FREE) at Powell’s on Burnside while supplies last or get in touch with me for a copy.

Gun Violence

On the day after Virginia executed John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind behind the 2002 sniper attacks that terrorized the nation's capital and its suburbs, I’m reminded of all the senseless gun violence in the news.

Though Muhammad and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo killed 10 people and wounded three over the course of three weeks in October 2002 while taunting police with written messages and phoned-in threats and demands, a more recent spate of shootings has again called to attention the ease of acquiring firearms in America.

A man was shot by an intruder in his home in my neighborhood on Wednesday. A shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas on Thursday left 13 people dead and 42 wounded. A man killed one person and wounded five others on Friday at a Florida office where he once worked. A seven-year-old girl was killed on Sunday in Louisiana when a stray bullet pierced the walls of her apartment and struck her in the neck while she slept. Yesterday, a man opened fire at a medical lab near where I grew up and killed two people and wounded two more.

I’m not interested in turning this post into a second amendment condemnation. There are plenty of responsible gun owners who have the right to “keep and bear arms” and I think it’s unfair to label everyone unfit for gun possession just because some people choose to shoot other people. But it certainly makes me think...

...That there are no effective measures to control gun ownership. Crazy people keep getting their hands on guns. People that are unable to legally purchase a gun don’t seem to have a problem obtaining one illegally. And when seemingly ‘normal’ people go postal with their legally-acquired guns, I have to ask myself: is the gun-buying process flawed in some way? Should people even be allowed to own firearms? How many more school shootings, indiscriminate stranger-on-stranger shootings and accidental shootings must we endure before we realize that it’s not necessarily a case of “guns don’t kill people - people kill people,” but rather a case of 'people and guns kill people?'To be clear, I don't think guns should be banned outright. I also don't think it should be as easy as it is to get a gun. Can a balance be found? I wish I had the answer. If anything, the issue of gun control is serious food for serious thought. Eat up.

The Answering Machine Dance

Since the invention of the answering machine, callers have been explicitly instructed how to leave messages. This has to stop.

I understand that it must have been strange and somewhat difficult for people to get used to leaving a message on a machine (after the beep) rather than with a person or not at all. What I don’t understand is why, after 30-some years, people still need to be told to leave their ‘name, number and a brief message after the beep.’ I feel like everybody is familiar enough with the routine that the instructions can be left unsaid. Is it also absolutely necessary to let the caller know, after reaching the answering machine, that their intended recipient is ‘out, unavailable, or too busy to come to the phone right now?’ Getting the machine is an indication that someone can’t make it to the phone for whatever reason. Otherwise they would’ve picked up the damn thing. An excuse is unnecessary.

The more recent advent of voicemail, instead of improving the message-leaving process, has only opened the door to a number of new aggravations. Why, when reaching an unanswered mobile phone, are callers told how to leave a message (after the beep) by the service provider and the person they’re trying to reach? It’s totally redundant. Why do some people ask the message-leaver to provide a phone number when both the phone and the voicemail system store the number for them? It’s pointless.

If your answering machine or voicemail greeting goes like this:

“Hello. You’ve reached so and so at some number. I’m either out or unable to answer the phone right now so please leave your name, number and a brief message after the tone and I’ll return your call as soon as I can. Thank you and have a good day.”

Then try this instead,

“You’ve reached so and so. Please leave a message.”

Not only is it much more simple and direct, it will also compel more callers to leave a message instead of getting frustrated and hanging up.

The answering machine was supposed to make our lives easier, and it has to a degree, by taking messages when we can’t. But as its usage increased and it became an ubiquitous household item, people have been slow to adapt to its subtleties and understand how to most effectively use it. The way I see it, and surely I’m not alone, an answering machine is a two-way street. I don’t want to listen to a long, drawn-out message someone left on my machine. I also don’t want to wait through a lengthy, protracted greeting just to be able to leave a short message on someone else’s machine. Get to the point. Sure, it usually takes no more than thirty seconds to get to the beep in order to leave my message. But it’s not all about the time; it’s about the irritation of listening to someone tell me how to do something I’ve done a million times.

A Captive Audience

When is the unbridled enthusiasm of one too much for another to take? At what point does a person’s chirpy pep become overwhelming, annoying and ultimately mood-souring?

This morning I boarded the city bus to the office. I was greeted by the eager young driver.

“All aboard! Let’s rock and roll! Bus is in motion!” he exclaimed.

Though I’m more accustomed to a somber, sighing driver, I shrugged and paid this excitable man no mind. But once I sat down, it was clear that this bus driver was unlike any other I’d ridden with before. He loudly announced his every turn, gleefully shouting out the colors of passing cars to no one in particular. Stop by stop, the bus filled up as the driver continued with his shtick.

“Whoa! Left turn! Bicycle on the right! Hang on, folks!”

I put in my headphones and pushed play on my iPod, noticing the rolling eyes and irritated exhalations of other passengers. Clearly, this perky bus driver’s commentary was not what 45 commuters wanted to hear at 7:30 on a Monday morning. Over a quiet moment or during a break between songs, I could still hear the driver.

“All right! Ready or not, here we go! Anyone need off at the hospital? Okay!”

With my music turned up, I wondered what the driver’s motivation could be. Was he simply a happy guy with no filter? Was he trying to cheer up people with a case of the Mondays? Did he misguidedly think that part of his job description was to entertain the passengers? Either way, his captive audience was anything but amused. People shot him dirty looks (which he either didn’t see or chose to ignore), ruffled their newspapers conspicuously and shuffled uncomfortably in their seats.

“Rose Quarter! Blazers look good this year! Watch your step! And we’re off again!”

Not wanting to subject myself to any more of the bus driver’s grating remarks, I turned up my iPod even louder and let my mind wander. Would somebody eventually tell him to shut up? Had someone already done so to no avail? I imagined how the conversation might have gone, the annoyed rider speaking in harsh tones to the ever-chipper driver.

“Would you please keep it down. There’s no need to yell.”
“Just trying to enjoy myself, sir! Trying to keep things fun and exciting in the otherwise monotonous task of bus-driving! My life sucks!”

On one hand, it’s hard to fault a guy for trying to make his day at work more pleasant. On the other hand, this bus driver probably got more people’s mornings off to a bad start than a cold pot of decaf. I, for one, was relieved to get off the bus, relieved for the first time to go to work on a Monday morning.

Brian Unger

Brian Unger writes:

The health care debate is toxic, revealing a lot about us as a nation. And it feels embarrassing — like the whole world can see our underpants. Or hear us fighting in the kitchen.

First, most of us can't describe accurately the details of the health care reform now under debate. That makes us look stupid or too busy to care.

Second, most of us can't describe accurately the health care or insurance we currently have, so that makes us look kind of stupid, too, or lazy.

Some of us don't care about people who don't have health insurance, so that makes us seem unsympathetic or super lucky.

Most of us don't understand that we're already paying for people who don't have health care — which makes us too busy to care, in denial or merely rich.

Some of us — a lot of us — already receive health care under some form of government plan, but don't believe in health care under some form of government plan. That makes us hypocritical or selfish. In some camps, I hear that makes us patriotic.

A lot of us are a combination of these things: too busy, lazy, a bit stupid perhaps, lucky, unsympathetic, in-denial, really rich, hypocritical, selfish ... and patriotic.

We're having an identity crisis when it comes to caring about the nation's health, which makes me think what we really need is psychotherapy. But, sadly, that's not covered under most health plans, if you have one at all.

To many, health care reform is scary, like someone's building a halfway house for criminals right at their doorstep. It's a N.I.M.B.Y. ("Not In My Backyard") issue evolved into a N.O.M.B.O. ("Not On My Back, Obama") issue.

People never change. But policy can, so our health care reformers must get more creative and visionary.

How about a Cash for Clunkers Program? Not for cars, but for older, beat-up people whose bodies have wear and tear, and can't go long distances when they're filled with gas?

Our government is offering us $4,500 to buy a new car. Can it also offer humans incentives — say, a tax break — to join a gym? To quit smoking? Or to buy produce from local farmers? Reward schools that teach kids how to eat right and exercise? You know, kind of like that class we used to offer kids called "gym."

Let's pay people to stay healthy, instead of only paying for them when they get sick. Then maybe our nation will find its compassion, the one true antidote for its health care identity crisis.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111736487

Brian Unger is a writer, satirist and actor. He helped launch The Daily Show and he is a regular contributor to NPR. I heard him read the above on my way home from work yesterday. Like him, I’m embarrassed that so many people are up in arms about an issue and policies they know so little about. The people disrupting town halls across the country are just making things worse. If you’re upset, by all means be heard by your elected legislator--just don’t shout them down without listening. A town hall meeting is your chance to speak your mind or ask a question of your legislator and to get a direct response. Why bother showing up to the meeting if you’re unwilling to hear them out?

Josh Keyes

As a kid, I was always fascinated with atlases and geography books. It wasn’t just the maps and their inherent sense of possibility and mystery; it was the detailed diagrams exhibiting earth science and the natural landscape that excited me.

Looking at a monochromatic continent littered with dots, stars and foreign names that was edged by an equally dull blue mass certainly inspired a sense of wonder. But the visual image was still so bland--lifeless and insipid. Tracing lines with my finger, surveying borders and imagining physical features, never set my mind reeling quite like a cross-section of our incomprehensibly giant planet, split down the middle like a halved apple. Or a slice of the rainforest, cut cleanly from the wilds of Brazil and illustrated with detail and clarity. Here, I could see the layers of the earth, the mantle confining the molten core. I could examine the strata of a jungle, the canopy teeming with just as much drawn fauna as the floor. There were solid blocks of ocean (surface to bottom), the water, sediment and sea life contained by invisible walls, where I could consider the levels and depth of the Pacific and how the change in temperature and light affected its ecosystem. Diagrams like these weren’t just visually stimulating; they helped me contextualize a map. The scale and scope of the dioramic graphics, often given a quarter-turn to show more dimension, could be applied to the featureless surfaces of the maps, making them more lively.

And so it was with great pleasure that I stumbled upon Josh Keyes’ work in an art magazine. He is an Oakland-based artist who paints almost exclusively in acrylics. His pieces recall those same vintage-science-book diagrams, hyper-realistic but with a mysterious and sometimes unsettling juxtaposition between the natural world and the man-made landscape. Conclude what you will.

The Efficacy of Complaining About Things One Cannot Control...

...specifically the weather.

The people of Portland (and most of the great state of Oregon) are in the thick of a heat wave. This particular heat wave is not unlike the heat waves we experience every summer, yet something’s different this time. Yes, it is certainly hot outside. No, it is no hotter than the hottest days we had last summer or even the summer before. Still, what’s strange is the amount of complaints I’m seeing and hearing.

I have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m assuming you have some understanding of both of these social networking platforms. Both sites have a homepage that lets you see what all your ‘friends’ want you to see in the form of ‘status updates’ on Facebook and ‘tweets’ on Twitter. These can range from details as mundane and pointless as “my dog just farted” or “I have smelly feet” to earth-shattering news like “I cast my vote for Mousavi but Ahmadinejad’s goons didn’t count it” and “holy shit, I just saw Lindsey Lohan leaving a club.” In addition, users can share photos, videos and links that they think their ‘friends’ might find interesting (I’m using interesting in the loosest sense of the word).

This week, instead of the usual ‘updates’ and ‘tweets’ regarding current events and happenings, vacation photos and remarkable videos, I’ve been bombarded with a deluge of gripes. A solid 90% of my homepage is composed of folks whining about the heat. Granted, it’s pretty damn hot out, even at night. But complaining about the weather solves nothing. It doesn’t make one cooler. It just makes one a crybaby.

To clarify, updating or tweeting something along the lines of “I’m hella hot” or “it’s hella hot” cannot be considered a complaint as much as an observation, albeit an arguably trivial one, whereas posting something like “I’m melting in this heat; I hate it--kill me now” or “this is hell--someone should either nuke the sun or kill me now” is nothing more than an ineffective protest, a futile grouse with no hope of resolution. Humanity has been, is, and (to a certain degree) will always be at the mercy of the weather and mother nature at large. Grumbling does not beget relief.

Perhaps the intention of the malcontents is not just moaning about the heat. Maybe they are seeking sympathy. Maybe they are reaching out to their online network of ‘friends’ for some sense of communal misery, some indication that they aren’t alone in being hot. I suppose this is one of the many functions of social networking, to connect like-minded and temperature-affected individuals. Whatever my friends’ aim, they won’t find sympathy from me. I’m hot too. We’re all hot. But really, what good can come out of complaining about something we can’t hope to change? Let’s just deal with it. Together. On Facebook. With less bellyaching.

goodies

The goods are over at gimdang.tumblr.

An Argument Against The Fadeout

Songs are like stories. Not inasmuch as they necessarily tell a tale or contain a narrative but because they have a beginning and an end. This cannot be refuted; a song starts and, with the passage of time, it reaches an end. Also like stories, some are good and some are bad. This judgment can sometimes be made on the strength of the song’s (or story’s) ending. For me, an ending doesn’t necessarily make the song. By that token, neither does the beginning. I’ve always judged a song’s merit on the sum of its parts rather than the coolness (or uncoolness) of one particular part. A good song always seems to be more about the journey than the destination anyway—the means to the end and not the end in and of itself. Still, a discernible ending is absolutely necessary. It’s the final piece of the puzzle. It’s the curtains. Without it, listeners can be left wondering whether something is amiss or whether or not the song has in fact ended. The sense of finality provided by an actual ending completes the composition and effectively wraps up the entire package (sometimes with a pretty little bow, sometimes with a smoldering bag and shit on your shoe). That’s why the fadeout, a commonly heard ‘ending’ in recorded music, is a total copout.

Now when I say fadeout, I mean the gradual decrease in volume until sound can no longer be heard. To be clear, the fading out of a single note or chord is natural and thus acceptable (a perfect example: the singular ringing chord at the end of The Beatles’ “A Day in The Life”) but the fading out of instruments at play is not (example: the full band’s playing and singing of the chorus that closes “Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds”). I’m sure there exist exceptions to my rule, but I don’t feel like getting that specific.

I see the fadeout as the easy way out of a song, the lazy songwriter’s ending. Why go to all the trouble to write an ending when you can just slowly dial down the master volume? It’s as if a simple coordinated stop at a certain point in a song is too much for a band to handle.

I should clarify something: just because you let a song fade out doesn’t mean you suck or that your song sucks. Hell, all the greats have done it. Capable bands like The Band have used the fadeout. “When You Awake” from 1969 inexplicably fades out in the middle of a verse before Rick Danko even stops playing (let alone singing). The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” arguably the greatest rock song ever (I don’t think so), fades out before satisfactorily ending. Steely Dan even goes so far as to fade out “Kid Charlemagne” while Larry Carlton solos. That’s like turning the lights out on Picasso, making him finish painting in the dark and never letting anyone see the finished product. In odd instances like these, my guess is that the fadeout wasn’t the songwriter’s original intention. Maybe the tape was damaged beyond repair and the band decided to do a fadeout instead of re-recording the song for whatever legitimate reason. Perhaps too, the fadeout was part of the plan all along.

Some argue that the fadeout is as artistic a statement as a well-written ending, making the end of the song less abrupt and lending to a tacit sense of continuation that might be best summarized by country supergroup The Highwaymen when they sing “the road goes on forever and the party never ends.” I concede that some songs with fadeouts are so great that an actual ending would be too climactic or almost sad in a way. The journey’s so extraordinary that the destination can only be a letdown. It’s like when the Griswolds finally make it to Wally World just to find it closed for business. “Sweet Jane” by The Velvet Underground, David Bowie’s “Drive-In Saturday,” Neil Young’s “Cowgirl in The Sand” and “Mambo Sun” by T.Rex would all sound strangely interrupted with an actual ending in place of their slow, almost unnoticeable fadeouts. However, when these songs were performed live, they had to have some kind of explicit ending. Otherwise nobody would know when to clap and go “whooo.”

The way I see it, it’s better to burn out than to fade away (in music, not life).