I was perusing our local public radio website today and noticed something odd about the way they are trying to garner good page-rankings with search engines. Within the head of many HTML pages, meta-data may be placed that is intended to guide browsers and search engines - tell them in which language the page is written, indicate the presence of news feeds, and give some keywords that search engines can use to find and categorize the page. I would assume that KRCC’s site would employ such keywords as: Colorado Springs, public radio, news, npr, culture, arts, etc. to draw visitors who are searching for such things. Instead, I found this in their code for a story about a sweet, old woman who continues the tradition of colcha embroidery in the San Luis valley of Colorado:

replica watch, replica watches, ringtones url, url replica, replica rolex, replica, url, watch, watches, rolex, ringtones, free, topwatchsite, mforum, forumup, cartier, repwatch, bellross, quality, musihits, swiss, bell, designer, xanax, mobile

Might I suggest that they toss in “Britney,” “American Idol,” and “Boobs” if they really want to crank things up a notch?

Having a name like Christopher, I’m used to seeing it truncated by machines. Name fields for databases seem to choke on any given name that is more than nine or ten characters. Most junk mail I receive is to “Christophe” or “Christoph” which makes me feel all French. Amazon.com can only handle the first six letters, so when I visit their site, I’m greeted with a personalized tab that in a perfect world would read “Christopher’s Store,” but instead reads:

Move aside Jeff Bezos! I am the god of Amazon! Overnight me a JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank or I shall smite thee mightily!

I was doing a Google search (because I had already used up my 10 Blingo chances for the day) to find something in particular: a really ugly outfit. Now, I’m not doing this for myself. I am scouring the internet for only the most disgusting clothes as a completely selfless act for a friend, because that is what friends are for. So in the process of Googling a myriad of terms - nasty dress, fugly clothes, ugly ensembles, etc. - I noticed this Google Ad in the right column:

Well, as far as the men’s department goes, it’s acurate.

After a good ol’ fashioned barn raising (that took a few months, a few new CSS/JavaScript tricks, and a few new hybrid curse words using “Microsoft,” the old standard curses, and some hyphens) the new Blobby Farm website is up and ready for business. The Blobby Farmer’s Market features all the frumpy plush your heart could desire.

Formerly known as “Maria Samuelson,” Blobby Farm is centered specifically on creating strange little toys for you. Shop around and visit often. There will be contests a-plenty, new Blobbies rolled out often, DIY how-to projects with the Hobby Blobby, movie reviews by François D., and a “Dear Blobby” section where you can seek the wisdom and sage advice of Señor Pooglins and the Baron of Beef von Espy.

Remember, the Blobbies love you.

Warning: this post is of a mildly techno-nerd nature. If you do not enjoy reading such material, read it anyway. It’s probably aimed at you.

I have generally been fairly neutral in the browser wars. If you want to use Opera, that’s your business. Camino? Go for it. Internet Explorer? No one is stopping you. It has just been over the last few months that I’ve started to take sides. I have been in the process of redesigning my my wife’s site (not quite done yet) as well as a new museum’s site. As a result I have learned to hate Internet Explorer with a white-hot hostility that is engulfing my entire life.

It’s not that Microsoft ceased development on IE for Macs. I was fine with that. Macs have Safari, PCs have IE. To each its own. It’s not that Microsoft is a soulless corporate giant that is cornering the market. That’s a tired (if not true) argument. It’s that Internet Explorer is the worst browser on the planet. Yes, I even place it under the feet of Opera. It’s that bad.

As I have worked on these two sites (while maintaining four others) every single problem I have encountered using CSS, XHTML, and JavaScript has been in Internet Explorer. My wife’s site would have launched over a month ago if it were’t for Explorer. It can’t handle absolutely positioned elements correctly, it has no idea what to do with basic CSS, and I think I saw it push a small, cooing baby in front of a moving bus. It’s bad to the bone.

At last there is someone putting money where their mouth is: Explorer Destroyer.

Google is paying $1 for each new Firefox user you refer.

This is pretty amazing. Now you can advance your ideals, save people from popups and spyware hell, and make some serious money. Millions of people have heard about Firefox and are ready to switch—all they need is a friendly push.

That’s where these scripts come in. They’re specially formulated to give just the right push, maximizing souls-saved and dollars-for-you.

Honestly, folks. I don’t expect you sign up for Google Ads so you can make a buck getting people to switch teams. My point is that the only reason Internet Explorer is so ubiquitous is becuase every PC on this big blue marble ships with it, not because it is a good program. Your grandmother uses Internet Explorer because she doesn’t know any better. You do! Go put something else on her computer, for Pete’s sake! Be a good Samaritan and show your friend how to install Firefox. Use something, anything, but Internet Explorer. I’m getting really tired of designing around Internet Explorer’s shortcomings, but I feel obligated to when over 50% of our sites visitors are using it. Why are you 50%+ doing this to us? Please switch browsers! Now! If you don’t do it for me, at least do it for the babies.

Thank you, and have a good day.

Other Browsers That Are Good Because Microsoft Does Not Make Them:

• Firefox
• Mozilla
• Opera
• Camino (Macs only)

Who hasn’t seen a movie on a friend’s recommendation only to find out that Summer Catch really didn’t meet up to Freddie Prinze, Jr.’s usual snuff? It may not be your friend’s taste that is questionable (or it may well be), but there may be mitigating circumstances that warranted the good review: time of day, expectations, basic mood, price, who the movie was seen with, quality of the theater, etc. I think that movie reviews that just give us three out of five stars, and thumbs up, or some strange numbering system should be abolished in favor of more descriptive methods that account for the variables.

Expectations: I generally trust my brother’s taste in movies. He has spot-on observations and sees pretty much everything that comes out. A few years ago, he was talking about how much he liked The Four Feathers (2002) starring Heath Ledger and Kate Hudson. I was extremely wary of the movie at first because Kate Hudson has only made one good movie in her life and Heath Ledger is… well, basically an Australian Val Kilmer. But he continued to talk about how much he liked Shekhar Kapur’s previous movie, Elizabeth, and how much he was pleasantly surprised by The Four Feathers. We rented the DVD on his recommendation, and it was awful! All 125 minutes of it! I should have paid more attention to the phrase “pleasantly surprised.” This indicated low initial expectations, a key to enjoying some movies. Since he had talked up the movie to me, I entered the movie with elevated expectations which could only lead to disappointment.

When I see a movie I want to know if I need high or low expectations to enjoy it.

Price: I worked in a movie theater for a few years. One of the perks was that I could see any movie in the area for free if I just called in ahead. I would also splice all the reels together when we first got a new film and would then watch the movie at 2am before it opened twelve hours later to make sure everything was OK. So I saw a lot of movies, and it was always free. People would always ask me for recommendations and I found myself advocating movies based on ticket price. “Oh, that’s a matinee movie, I wouldn’t pay full price.” “Wait until it comes out on DVD and make a friend rent it.” “I would definitely pay full price to see The Color of Paradise.” “Striking Distance isn’t even worth spending your time on. It’s not even fun to make fun of. Just painful.”

So I propose a system that takes price into account.

Time of Day: Our secretary at work asked me the other day what I thought of the movie, Hitch. I told her we found it entertaining, but nothing more. She said that she and her husband watched it and didn’t like it at all. So I asked her what time of day she watched it. She said that they didn’t start it until after midnight. There was the problem. Light-hearted, formulaic, Will Smith romantic comedies should only be seen before 11pm. That should go without saying. The same goes for Tarkovsky movies and anything over two and a half hours especially if you have to read subtitles. Conversely, some movies get better after 11pm. For example, the Grudge, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Conan O’Brien (OK he’s TV, but he just wouldn’t be as funny at 3pm).

Basically I want to know the optimum time to see a movie.

Other Factors: It’s helpful to know if a movie is best seen when depressed or thoughtful, or if a movie should be seen with a group of jovial friends so you can share inside jokes later. It’s also nice to know if I should hold out to see the movie at a nice theater with large seats and a booming sound system, or if I can see it at home on VHS without diminishing the experience.

Summary: I want a review system that compiles all of these features into easily gleaned symbols and tags.

For example:
• Expectations ↑ / Expectations ↓
• $12 / $9 / $6 / $5 / $3 / $1 / Free / Don’t Bother
• ideal viewing time < 11pm < ideal viewing time
• Mood You Should Be in: :-) (happy) / :-( (depressed) / :-| (serious) / :-o (in the mood to be scared) / :-x (in the mood for gory violence) / ;-> (date movie mood) etc.
• THX Theater / 1980’s theater / Drive-In / Home DVD / Home VHS / Home B&W TV

I was at the grocery store with my wife last night walking past the… um… feminine section when I noticed some new packaging for one of the products. Kotex (tampons, feminine napkins, etc.) has redone their logo, packaging and approach to their products:

Old School Packaging

New Packaging

I get it. Tampons are for periods. Periods are red. It was bad enough when they used yellow flowers on their boxes, but I don’t need to be beat over the head with more vivid vaginal/menstrual metaphors like red flowers, red panties, and my personal least favorite, red lipstick. (Luckily it appears that America is sticking to flowers alone, while the rest of the world gets stuck with underwear.)

Ogilvy, the ad company that generated the campaign, states on their site:

“To women around the world, feminine care advertising looks and sounds the same. Ads include blue liquid demos and happy “superwomen” talking about the latest technical advance in pads. Yeah, she needs good product, but could we get real?”

There’s real, and then there’s… well, menstruation. Talking frankly and openly in public about periods or using red liquid demos is a little too real. Why not take Ogilvy’s same approach and apply it to another product that hasn’t received much frank public (ahem) exposure?

Actual Kotex Transistional Logo

Proposed Metamucil Logo

Americans are obsessed with their own destruction.

This thought occurred to me as Maria and I were walking to the theater to see War of the Worlds Tuesday night. It was the day after the Fourth of July - the holiday we celebrate by reenacting war. Loud fireworks explode in the sky representing the rockets red glare and the bombs bursting in air (setting off car alarms and scaring away animals). When the fireworks started on Monday night, I began thinking about the people who live in war torn countries. If there was a loud explosion going off in their neighborhood it probably means that people just died. In my neighborhood, it means that people are eating hot dogs and cooing, “Ooooooh.”

Americans re-stage the Civil War every year and litter the fields of Gettysburg with reenactors’ bodies. People pony up $20/day to sit in bleachers on the sidelines as spectators, soaking in one of the bloodiest wars on this country’s soil.

Whether we pay to see the reenactment of historic destruction or CGI fictional destruction, the fascination is the same. Off the top of my head, I can come up with over a dozen movies and TV shows from the last 25 years, that are about the sweeping destruction, or threatened destruction, of America (the world may go down with the US of A, but the focus is on America): Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, War of the Worlds, Armageddon, Deep Impact, the Terminator series, Land of the Dead, Godzilla (borrowed from Japan’s self-destruction neurosis), 24, the Grid, Planet of the Apes (the awful remake), the Core, War Games, the Day After, etc. There was a very short period of time after September 11, when destruction movies were put on hold and not to be shown until the country was though mourning. It didn’t take long before we got back to being entertained by people being vaporized, buildings crumpling like paper bags, and fiery meteors plummeting to the earth.

Why do we like to watch ourselves be destroyed? Looking back on the Revolutionary or Civil Wars, we may be searching for a moral to avoid that kind of killing in the future. But watching War of the Worlds, a fictional play, was just an exercise in how long it takes us to go from mourning to eating popcorn while watching tattered clothes fall from the sky and bodies float down the river like a corpse barge.

After coming to work this morning and reading about the bombings in London, I felt a little ashamed that earlier this week we were staging mock bombings for fun and entertainment. I doubt that in London, years from now, they will set off smoke bombs in the Underground and light buses aflame to remember a day when people died.

There is a moment during Fugazi and Jem Cohen’s documentary Instrument where kids hanging around outside a Fugazi concert are asked what “punk” means. The responses are as varied as the concert-goers being asked. They swing from expletive laden rants about breaking things and not caring, to commentary on the teen DIY culture that spawned bands like Fugazi.

Recently Nike has sponsored an East coast skate tour. To promote the tour, they produced a poster “inspired by Minor Threat’s album cover.”

The image above is a side-by-side comparison of the original album cover (left) and the Nike poster (right). The similarities are obvious. However, this “inspired” version was done without the permission of Minor Threat or Dischord records. The question that arises is, is it OK? Indie culture has long been appropriating corporate images and logos and twisting them for a laugh and to give the finger to the man. It’s all been fair game and talk of creative commons. So now that a corporation turns around and returns the favor, everyone is up in arms. So where is the foul?

Nike issued an apology today stating that the poster was designed “by skateboarders for skateboarders,” to shift blame from the Nike corporation and point the finger at a group of street rats (Nike approved the design, then paid for the printing and distributed it). I understand that Minor Threat and skateboarding culture goes hand in hand, but Minor Threat and corporate culture do not go hand in hand. The entire ethos behind Ian MacKaye and his cohorts was to buck corporate trends in favor of a more human approach. Dischord records does not sell t-shirts, patches, sweatbands, hoodies, tea cozies, or tube socks. Merchandising has never been part of the label’s mission. The idea that Minor Threat would sign off on using their image to shill some sneakers is preposterous. As a result, Dischord has put out a statement: “Nike stole it and we’re not happy about it.”

Jason Kottke thinks that Dischord sounds “more like a big company afraid of losing their intellectual property.” He goes on to say, “Isn’t punk all about taking without permission?”

Punk is all about taking without permission? When I read that statement I was reminded of the kid interviewed in Jem Cohen’s documentary who stated that punk was about breaking stuff and hurting people. Anyone who has attended a Fugazi concert knows that the last thing Fugazi promotes is violence. They’ll stop a show mid-song to lecture anyone who is involved in a fight. There are versions of punk about being crude, hateful, and aggressive and there are versions about treating people fairly and equally. Does Fugazi not qualify as “punk” because they won’t let you kick someone in the head at their concert? Calling out Dischord because they discourage theft is like yelling at some kid because his hair is more fauxhawk than mohawk. Who made up the punk rules?

The definitions of punk are legion. But to accuse Dischord of turning against their own ethics is short sighted. Maybe they are worried about their intellectual property, but whose definition of punk should they be measured against, Kottke’s or theirs? Maybe Kottke’s version of punk is about “taking without permission,” but Dischord’s doesn’t seem to be.

Sidenote: To be fair to Jason Kottke, he may still be recovering emotionally from his legal brush with Sony. Jason, Dischord isn’t Sony. Let it go.

Good, scary bedtime stories cast an unfavorable light upon the villain - it’s the nature of the story. The cannibal witch is painted with warts and decaying teeth instead of portrayed as a troubled old woman with self-esteem problems. Without hyperbole, the moral would be hard to decipher. “Stay away from strangers with candy” would become, “The stranger is really just someone who needs some companionship and they may be an alright person if you give them some time.” The bad guys are easy to identify and therefore avoid.

A couple of weeks ago we rented a video called The Corporation. It is one of those alarmist documentaries that is supposed to alert you to the evil that lurks beneath the public skin of corporations. It worked. Like a scary bedtime story, I wasn’t expecting this to provide an un-biased view (they interviewed Michael Moore, for Pete’s sake!). It wasn’t. I thought I would be bored out of my skull. I wasn’t.

Through a series of interviews with scholars, CEOs, businessmen, activists, and government officials, the history of corporations is laid out and then dissected. The likes of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Mary Zepernick unfold the Supreme Court decision that allowed corporations to abuse the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The particular passage of the amendment used in the corporate argument is:

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The 14th Amendment was intended to protect freed slaves, but company lawyers were able to argue that a corporation is a “person” and therefore cannot be denied life, liberty, or property. This led to the government granting corporations new legal rights to twist privileges previously only extended to human beings in order to own other companies and have unhindered growth.

Each successive interview provided a different vantage point of the corporation as an ominous entity in American and global history. Disturbing facts and figures were laid bare. Warts, decaying teeth, and cannibalistic tendencies were highlighted to make sure that I knew who the bad guy was.

True, there are probably some responsible “corporate citizens” out there who are watching over the environment, their workers’ well being, global economics, and the little guy. But there are many more who seem incapable of caring for anything but the bottom line. In the end, is it worth it to grant corporations so much freedom, just because there is a little good being done? What is a responsible solution (besides disbanding the government entirely and dismantling all corporations into easily digestible pieces)?

I could go back-and-forth on this with myself for quite some time. But, ultimately I would encourage you to check out this documentary. You should keep a grain of salt on hand, but what is learned is worth having to forge through a little opinion.

Note: Watching this movie with Maria was like sitting in on a Pentecostal Revival. Every few seconds she would whoop and holler or punctuate a speaker’s remarks with, “Yes!” or “Exactly!” We’re still watching the hours of extra interviews on the 2nd disc, but have to take breaks to calm down.

As Maria and I were unpacking and organizing all of our stuff, I was sifting through all of my art books and cringing that I actually owned some of them. Some were purchased as gifts for me, some I bought out of obligation because people I know are featured in them, some were recommended to me and I bought a copy before really thinking about who the recommendation was coming from, and some were just the results of the foibles of youth.

For example, I pulled a copy of “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity” out of a box and visibly flinched. I’ve had this book for over seven years and have never made it past page 10 without throwing up a little in my mouth. The editorial review over at Amazon.com reads, “Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan lead you through a comprehensive twelve-week program to recover your creativity…” It then goes on to state, “This book links creativity to spirituality by showing how to connect with the creative energies of the universe, and has, in the four years since its publication, spawned a remarkable number of support groups for artists dedicated to practicing the exercises it contains.”

“Twelve week program?” “Links spirituality to creativity?” “Energies of the universe?” “Support groups for artists?” How did this worm its way into my library? It was like opening a box of memorabilia only to find the signed Michael Bolton CD your aunt gave you for your birthday in ‘92 - Michael sitting backwards in a chair, arms folded, mullet cascading over his shoulders, and his beady eyes staring directly at you as if, in a horrible case of mistaken identity, you were his lady.

I almost feel like that copy of “The Artist’s Way” owns me more than I own it. I don’t want to own it any more, but it seems to declare ownership of my taste: “You are the kind of guy who would actually have a new-agey book about overcoming your artistic impotence.”

No matter how many rotten apples I may find in my collection of books and CDs, every item says something about the evolution of my taste. From the books I want to resell, to the CDs I’ve been continuously listening to for the last fifteen years.

Books I really need to get rid of:
• The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
• See above.
• Impressionism
• An overview of Impressionism’s major artists with thick glossy pages.
• Broken Spirits
• Cheeseball artsy photos of dead animals - sensitive goth art.
• Butoh: Dance of the Dark Soul
• You just don’t want pictures of naked writhing Butoh actors in the house with kids. That stuff will scar them for life.

Books I’ve had for years and still enjoy:
• Siddhartha / Herman Hesse
• Neuromancer / William Gibson
• The Book of Three / Lloyd Alexander

CDs I really need to get rid of:
• Breakfast in the Field / Michael Hedges
• The Uplift Mofo Party Plan / The Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Sausage / Riddles Are Abound Tonight

CDs I’ve had for years and still enjoy:
• Zenyatta Mondatta / The Police
• By far the best Police album. Sting was still a little fresh at this point.
• Blind / The Sundays
• What happened to Harriet and David? They really need to put out another album.
• Walk Together, Rock Together / 7 Seconds
• A staple of my jr. high years that was very formative in my tastes and social views.
• World Machine / Level 42
• The best of 1980’s cheesy pop. Everything fell into place for this album.
• Margin Walker (13 Songs) / Fugazi
• I remember when Spencer Barton lent me this cassette in 9th grade - the opening bass line to “Waiting Room,” the headshot of Ian MacKay on the front covered in some white junk. Perfect.
• Crazy Moon / The Stench
• Another Spencer Barton contribution to my delinqunece. I was so excited that someone was making music like this in Utah.
• I Wonder / Bad Yodelers
• Same as above.
• S/T / Crowded House
• This was my introduction to Neil Finn’s songwriting. I’m still a fan of all his work.
• So Far / Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
• Neil Young did his best work on this album.
• Document / REM
• It was all downhill from here.
• Bone Machine / Tom Waits
• Not necessarily the best of his albums, but the one I’ve had the longest.
• Nothing Shocking / Jane’s Addiction
• More consistent than Ritual de lo Habitual.
• I Against I / Bad Brains
• Their crazy energy and political lyrics were perfect for my little 10th grade leanings. Lent to me by the only black kid in our high school.

1. How can George Lucas not direct anything for 22 years (unless you count Paula Abdul’s “Rush, Rush” video), then put out two movies that are absolute poop and still have people lining up months in advance to see his next movie? Yes, I’m going to see it too. How does he have this power over me?
2. Why does shopping for a mortgage require an advanced degree in math?
3. In “A Something Else Manifesto,” (PDF download / 843 KB) Dick Higgins says, “When asked what one is doing, one can only explain it as ‘something else.’ Now one does something big, now one does something small, now another big thing, now another little thing. Always it is something else.” He goes on to say, “We can talk about a thing, but we cannot talk a thing. It is always something else.”
1. Talking and doing are two different things.
2. I often try to look at art in two ways: what the art is about and what the art actually is. Talking about art as a thing while considering it as a thing about a thing is like focusing simultaneously on a distant mountain and the bug at the end of your nose.
3. What the art is about does not alter what the work is. A painting of a pipe n’est pas une pipe, but is a painting.
4. Translating the medium alters the content.
1. How would the Cremaster series work as a Clash of the Titans style claymation? As a church produced roadshow? As an elderly woman living in a nursing home? Oh, the possibilities.
4. Why is Josh so funny and why doesn’t Joe post more?
5. Most social and economic systems can really only be successful on small scales.
1. Capitalism’s sphere is too big for its own good.
2. Maria and I will be forming the Independent Commonwealth of Newbraska and secede from the Union. Citizenship is attainable by invitation only.
1. The Independent Commonwealth of Newbraska has no geographic location.
2. The Independent Commonwealth of Newbraska will have a theme song. It will sound like the Magnum P.I. theme song.
6. The newscasters in Terre Haute need a big hug and a jolt of self esteem. Watching the news is like watching high school A/V geeks read the announcements at a pep rally.
7. What should the next incarnation of FWiC look like?
1. FWiC is not dead, but merely sleeps.
2. The old incarnation of FWiC outlived its interest and outside participation.
3. The new FWiC will be interview based.
4. Who should Team FWiC interview? How much clout does a no-name website have? Could we get Mr. T?
8. The world should buy more Blobbies.

I have great ideas. Most people won’t agree with me, but I have great ideas. Take for instance, my brilliant idea for Milk Sludge ™.

When pouring the last of a cereal into a bowl, it is often followed by a cloud of fine cereal-dust. This cereal powder is wrongfully avoided by most breakfasteers. My dead depression-era relatives would roll over in their graves if I poured a cereal-dust-bowl down the sink. I gratefully disembogue every last granule of my cereal and its accompanying dust into my morning bowl, eat every bite of cereal, and slurp up the remaining gritty milk. Granted, I primarily eat sugary cereals, so as I finish my breakfast, the remaining cereal silt creates a unique milk beverage much like Nestle Quik. Wheaties, Raisin Bran, Total, and their ilk do not produce useful cereal dust unless you need a good wood filler.

I named the remaining milk/cereal-dust concoction Milk Sludge ™. I even created a jingle:

I figured that cereal companies had rooms full of cereal chaff that they would gladly lend to a new product. Existing materials + business genius = high profit margin. They could bottle it under the name of their current cereals: Froot Loop Milk Sludge™, Capn’ Crunch Milk Sludge™, etc.

My wife has scoffed at this idea for the last two years. Perhaps the jingle needed a little retooling and my business model was a smidgen rough, but who could deny that the original seedling of the idea was pure GOLD!

About two months ago I awoke in the morning, poured myself a bowl of cereal and Sludge™ and sat down on the futon to watch the Today Show. That morning the Today Show was featuring a representative of Cereality who was talking about their new restaurant chain. Cereality is a cereal bar and café that caters to lazy hipsters who find the notion of pouring their own cereal a tiresome chore. This representative of Cereality on the Today Show was highlighting one of their best selling products: the cereal smoothy, or Slurrealitie™

I gasped! That was my Milk Sludge™ in hipster’s clothing! They took cereal and milk, put it in a blender with some ginseng or wheat germ or bee pollen or something, slapped a huge price tag and a silly name on it, and made bank while I sat sadly sipping my bowl of Milk Sludge™

If Cereality’s lawyers would like to draft up a settlement for me right now I’ll be happy to field their offers.

Addendum / 04.05.05 / Cameron Moll has some suggestions to thwart the creation of cereal-dust in the first place. Prevention rather than treatment, that’s his solution. The Milk Sludge Zeitgeist is going around. All aboard!

I met Lewis Hyde a few years ago when he joined a seminar class I was taking for a discussion. I had only read a small amount of his writing at the time, mostly from his book Trickster Makes This World. He struck me as a bit of a romantic, trying to extrude true moral meaning from fairy tales and cultural threads. He would just meander into subjects and then back out when his theories wore thin. So I left his books on the shelf.

I’ve had a couple years to cleanse my palette and I have now come back to read The Gift. Now that I’m more familiar with his tricks and idiosyncrasies, I have no problem playing along with him and then filling in his gaps myself. The Gift has Hyde sifting through cultural ephemera, looking for evidence that the idea of “the gift” is what makes art and artists as opposed to a market economy. I’m willing to take that ride, for a while. I’ve had a belly-full of harsh realities and market economy lately. I’d like to hear from the other side for some balance.

A central theme of the book is that commodities (logos-trade) creates distinct differences within communities and keeps people in a power struggle, whereas gifts (eros-trade) draw people together, creating bonds and tighter communities.

The following excerpt is one that struck me today:

The synthetic or erotic nature of the giving of a gift may be seen more clearly if we contrast it to the selling of commodities. I should begin the analysis by saying that a commodity has value and a gift does not. A gift has worth. I’m obviously using these terms in a particular sense. I mean “worth” to refer to those things we prize and yet say “you can’t put a price on it.” We derive value, on the other hand, from the comparison of one thing with another. “I cannot express the value of linen in terms of linen,” says Marx in the classic analysis of commodities which opens his Capital. Value needs a difference for its expression; when there is no difference we are left with tautology (“a yard of linen is a yard of linen). The phrases “exchange value” and “market value” carry the sense of “value” I mean to mark here: a thing has no market value in itself except when it is in the marketplace, and what cannot be exchanged has no exchange value.

I would like to address this more fully in a later post I’ve been meaning to write for months. But for now, Consider this all to be a preface to an upcoming post. I’m a little intrigued with the idea of value vs. worth as commodity vs. gift and what happens when something with worth is made to have market value.

Hyde goes on to recount the dilemma the Ford Motor Company encountered in producing their Pinto during the 1970’s. Due to the precarious location of the gas tank at the rear of the vehicle, it has a tendency to rupture in low-speed rear-end collisions, spilling gasoline and risking exploding in a ball of flame and olive green vinyl. Ford did a cost analysis between the $11 safety device they could have installed on their cars and the amount they would have to pay out due to the 2,100 vehicles that would burn annually. Ford calculated the total amount of a human life (court costs, funerals, medical costs, pain & suffering, etc.) to be $200,725. If deaths were figured at 180/year, injuries at 180/year, and vehicle loss at 2,100/year, then they would save almost $90 million if they just left the safety devices off. So safety went by the wayside.

If we accept for a moment that a human life may be counted as a commodity, the story of the Pinto offers a picture of decision-making in the marketplace. The classic model of the market deliberation assumes an “economic man” whose desire is to increase his rewards and cut his costs.

My brother used to own one of those Pintos — pea green, of course. I remember many occasions when my five siblings would have to go somewhere, so my sister and I (being the youngest) would be crammed into the miniscule space behind the back seat of the Pinto. With our sweaty little-kid faces pressed up against the rear window, my brother would careen around town to get ice cream, go to a movie, or whatever. Now that I think about it, my sister and I were located directly above the lethal gas tank. Basically, the value of my little-kid life plummeted to $200,725 every time I squeezed into that car.

I wonder what I’m worth now. I have no health insurance, and I think my car is safe. I may have a small, free policy from graduate school that entitles my wife to $10,000 if I die right now. But that’s about it. I was worth more in a Pinto.

Last week, UPN announced its fall line-up. Thankfully, the dreaded reality series based on Amish Rumspringa did not make the cut. I would like to think that UPN came to its senses, but I find it hard to believe. UPN had gone so far as to begin the recruiting process, even offering money to the Amish youth if they would agree to be part of the series.

What is most likely behind the series’ absense is that advertisers were few and far between, especially in the midst of the media backlash surrounding the program. Plus the Center for Rural Strategies leapt into the fray after blockading the Real Beverly Hillbillies reality series that was also in the works. They even took out an ad in the Philadelphia Inquirer and started a campaign against the series.

Les Moonves, the president of CBS (which owns UPN), refused to answer reporters’ questions after unveiling the fall schedule, leading people to believe that the series has not been killed at all, just put on hold. Perhaps they’re plotting a cross-over with America’s Next Top Model where a really “hot” Amish babe during Rumspringa will strut her stuff on the catwalk. I really shouldn’t give them any ideas.

Could someone who has more web savvy than I do explain to me why I’ve been getting hits from Average Joe: Adam Returns? I’m really at a loss, and a little creeped out.

1. periodic,they would strike.
2. hank,the entire ground.
3. braniff,petrovich and sits.
4. detract,blood ran down.
5. adjutant,at that moment.
6. caliphate,entire top floor.
7. stamford,through the front.
8. decatur,for a moment.
9. checksummed,send an auxiliary.
10. spoil,these same tales.
11. optometry,itself never bodes.
12. bantus,the keeneared findirector.
13. methodic,a good man?’.
14. dark,levi as unexpectedly.
15. hosiery,the monthly magazine.

I wrote a while back about the possible comic consquences of ripping Benjamin Franklin from the late 1700’s and planting him in the present. Little did I know that television producers were already working on a similar idea for reality television. In early 2004, UPN, which is owned by CBS which is owned by Viacom, announced its plans to launch a new reality series tentatively titled Amish in the City. This series will follow a group of Amish youth as they embark on Rumspringa — a period of an Amish youth’s life when, at 16 years old, he or she has the option to depart the Amish faith to experience the “English” (modern) way of life. CBS chairman Les Moonves unveiled this program insisting that it is “not intended to be insulting to the Amish, but to have people who have never had television, who will walk down Rodeo Drive and be freaked out by what they see.”

The idea of gawking at Amish lost in modern society has been a popular theme of movies and television from Witness to the Farrelly Brother’s Kingpin. The Amish are an easy target for the media. The Amish don’t watch the media that mocks them and they can’t/won’t fight back.

One of the latest movies that directly influenced UPN to create this project is Devil’s Playground. This documentary chronicles the exploits of Amish teenagers as they try to reconcile the world in relation to their religious community — like kids in a candy store that sells drugs, cars, and cellphones. Two of Devil’s Playground’s producers are executive producers on the UPN series.

Amish in the City rose to the top like television flotsam in the wake of CBS’s sinking attempt to make a reality series based on the 60’s television series, the Beverly Hillbillies. The Real Beverly Hillbillies is still floating in production limbo due to protests raised by agrestic communities and organizations like the Center for Rural Strategies. However, Moonves cracked that the Amish “don’t have quite as good a lobbying effort.”

If UPN/CBS/Viacom are looking for people sans legal representation who are ignorant to the methods and the nature of reality television, they will next be plucking African Bushmen from their huts to star in The Gods Must Be Crazy for Reality TV.

It is obvious that UPN/CBS/Viacom are looking to garner viewership through sensationalism, as most reality programming is wont to do. Water cooler talk and outraged press are great forms of free advertising. Plus the viewing public just can’t avert it’s eyes from television wreckage. But it is now evident that Viacom is also employing itself as a source of “free advertising.” CBS News contributer, Lloyd Garver, is using this as fodder for his own commentary. He begins his Op-Ed piece by stating, “You can no longer spoof ‘reality shows.’ They’re spoofing themselves.” Or in other words, “You can no longer spoof ‘reality shows.’ We’re doing it ourselves.” CBS using UPN for “News” (or is it the other way around?) is like FOX News trying to disguise last night’s American Idol results as “News” instead of a commercial in news’s clothing.

The intricate scheming of television conglomerations is absolutely new to the Amish which makes them a prime target. A Washington Post article mentioned one critic in attendance at the UPN press tour who asked “why on earth they would allow television producers to manipulate and massage a ceremony that will literally alter the course of these kids’ lives.” Moonves’s response was simply, “Well, we couldn’t do The Beverly Hillbillies.”

Bibliography:

• New series to follow ‘Amish in the City’ (CNN)
• Reality TV Goes Amish — and Amiss (Washington Post)
• UPN Show Is Called Insensitive to Amish (New York Times)
• Viacom’s Dominion (Viacom’s media companies)

We just returned from Stacza’s and Luke’s Academy Awards party. The theme was Best Supporting Side Dish. Some highlights from the dinner table were:

• Lord of the Onion Rings
• The Last Ham on Rye
• Children of the Corned Beef
• Reese’s Pieces of April
• The Casserole with the Pearl Onions
• Jack Lemmon Chiffon Cake
• The Right Stuffed Mushrooms
• Cheesea Biscuits
• Nuts!

And congratulations to Paul for an amazing amount of correct Oscar picks culled from his mastery of Oscar strategy and trivia.

When I was in grad school, I had an evening seminar that was lead by a rotating group of guest artists. One particular session was lead by David Pease. During a class he asked us what was the one characteristic every artist should have. I blurted out, “They should be nice.” This was answered with uproarious laughter until the class realized that I wasn’t joking. Then everyone took a shot at my comment. “You’ve got to be kidding.” “Niceness won’t get you anywhere.” “You need to be tough to succeed.” I quietly took their jabs hoping that the topic would change quickly.

Lately, I’ve been listening to old editions of This American Life (TAL) while I’ve worked in my office. I came across one entitled Allure of the Mean Friend. Ira Glass writes on the TAL website:

“What is it about them, our mean friends? They treat us badly, they don’t call us back, they cancel plans at the last minute, and yet we come back for more. Popular bullies exist in business, politics, everywhere. How do they stay so popular?”

In one example on the program, an experiment was carried out at Lula’s Cafe in Chicago’s Logan Square, just a quarter mile from our apartment. One of the more friendly waitresses at Lula’s was getting lousy tips, so she was wired with a hidden microphone and proceeded to be curt with half her customers and kind to the other. After receiving the cold shoulder from his waitress, one regular who was known for being a lousy tipper ended up giving her a 20% tip for the first time ever.

I was also reading an article by Gordon Marino this last week about teaching ethics in schools:

“Ethics education also ought to include training to make us better able to detect inner reflections that are solely in the service of the pleasure principle…

“Festinger taught that when we hold conflicting beliefs, we are motivated to change them in predictable directions. For example, suppose you would like to believe that you are a compassionate individual who is willing to help the poor. At the same time, you think that it would be nice to have lower taxes, and you are convinced that the welfare system increases the government’s draw on your wallet. If Festinger is right, you might be inclined to try to convince yourself that the welfare system has to be cut, not because you want lower taxes, but because having fewer welfare benefits will motivate people to find jobs. Cutting benefits would be for their own good…

“People who presume to teach ethics should help their students be honest with themselves about their own interests. Such candor is, of course, part of the Socratic curriculum of coming to know yourself. But it is hard psychological work, which we do not value much in these post-Freudian times. Unless our ethics students learn to examine themselves and what they really value, their command of ethical theories and their ability to think about ethics from diverse perspectives are not likely to bring them any closer to being willing and able to do the right thing.”

It is always easier to select the lesser of two kindnesses. And it is infinitely easier to be cruel. Such is ethical gravity.

To return to Ira Glass’s words, “What is it about them, our mean friends? They treat us badly, they don’t call us back, they cancel plans at the last minute, and yet we come back for more.” This American Life, never really answered the question. It just provided examples of a masochistic tendency to love those who despise us. So what is it about our mean friends?

Our elected officials don’t usually represent the majority yet they get reelected. Heads of corporations could probably care less about the janitors who vacuum their offices for minimum wage, but the janitors empty their trash every night. The most popular girl in school was typically the meanest and she was elected prom queen. Meanness gets rewarded and the meek serve their tormentors’ purposes.

Honestly, I think our reasons for honoring the despicable and kowtowing to the mean are infinitely varied. Nature does seem to prefer the exception to the rule.

Cruelty can be good for business and social stature. My grad seminar was probably right. If I want to be guaranteed an extravagant income, to get into the big art shows, and receive mention in the right publications, I should probably start my backstabbing campaign soon. If I think that I need to be nice, I probably won’t ever become a “great” artist, but I’d rather be a good person. I still think that every artist should be nice.

Note: On a related topic, look at some examples of what one school is teaching kids about being kind (via what a quiet stiff).

In the Which John Cusack Are You? quiz, I ended up as Rob Gordon, the lackluster, aging hipster Chicago record store owner from High Fidelity. I thought for sure that I’d be Lane Myer from Better Off Dead or Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything the way I was answering questions. I guess I just have a thing for music and I live in Chicago. I must say though, I identified with Rob in Nick Hornby’s book when I was single, but I don’t see much connection with John Cusack’s character from the movie.

I remember an episode of Bewitched where Benjamin Franklin was accidentally conjured up by wacky Aunt Clara. Ben was naturally perplexed by “rock” music coming from the small compartment in the vehicle that was propelled without the aid of horses (the horses were under the hood). Of course, hilarity ensued and was concluded with Larry believing it was all part of a brilliant ad campaign executed by Darrin.

In my day-to-day routine, I occasionally wonder, “If Benjamin Franklin was confused and amazed by 1960’s America, what would he make of the new millennium?” People talk to each other through tiny, glowing, plastic contraptions no larger than a buckle on his shoe. Hearts and other major organs can be replaced. Music is stored on slim, silvery discs. Libraries can be stored in chips. Computers generate characters and scenery for movies. We drink sugary liquids, the color if which is hard to find in nature. The applesauce I just bought at Aldi won’t expire until December 2005.

I almost wish I had an Aunt Clara who could pluck Congressman Franklin from the past and plop him onto my futon. I could show him some DVDs. I think he’d like Minority Report. I could introduce him to deodorant (probably one of the first items of business). We could munch on microwave popcorn and sip some Kool-Aid while we surfed the internet. I would have to shield him from photographs of women baring their knees and shoulders or he might go puritanically nuts. Or worse he’d start drooling uncontrollably (you know how our politicians are). After a wild day of showing him what has become of America, I’d pat him on the back, hand him the WWBT T-shirt we would have made with my ink-jet printer, and send him back to the 1700s.

As of today, Christmas Eve, I have received my first batch of comment spam. Someone promoting a certain male “vitamin” posted a comment on about half of my entries each with the single word comment, “Interesting,” then left his name and a link to his insalubrious website.

In the true spirit of Christmas, a marketer thought it kind to plaster my site with advertisements for his website and product of the insecure. He thought not of taking, but giving - giving the gift of information, the gift of medication, the gift of annoyance. Iím sure he sleeps well at night thinking that he is doing his job well, and he is. But what kind of job is it? Instituting a program that infiltrates otherís websites, posts ridiculous entries, and then waits for his siteís ranking to skyrocket is not a job, it is a pitiful existence.

I have written before about the unscrupulous behavior of marketers. This is just another sad example. Some may argue about the validity of these methods, and they may have a point. Whoever posted this spam to my website may go bankrupt in a few months (and I hope he does). But it still doesnít change the fact that he caused myself, and Iím sure countless others, the inconvenience of having to purge his waste from our sites, all the while raising his ranking on Google to funnel more customers his way. I don’t like being an intentional marketing tool, and I definitely don’t like having a “kick me” sign stuck to my back or, in this case, a “buy _______ (insert product name here)” ad.

I realize that I am just preaching to the choir. There are no marketers that read this blog (there are only a handful of people that read this blog for that fact). I just needed to get this off my chest. If this keeps up, comments may be shut down for goodÃ? um, thereby making the site about as comment-free as it currently is.

My wife and I attended the Q and not U concert this last week at the Bottom Lounge. It was an all-ages show, meaning that we had to brace ourselves to feel our age. I thought that some of the crowd would still be in high school, but I really didn’t expect to be the oldest in the room (except for the older gentleman with the moustache who was wandering the floor either looking for his children or his marbles). Many of the concert goers still had their school bags on their backs with their spiral-bound notebooks and homework sticking our of the zippers. I was picturing these kids’ mothers licking a tissue and wiping some oatmeal from their chins before patting them on the heads and sending them off to the nice concert.

Maria and I had to stand against the wall since her back has been giving her troubles and I have bad knees (sure signs of our pre-30’s antiquity). We positioned ourselves to the right of the stage by the entrance to the bathrooms and backstage. I had a good vantage point to watch the crowd and the concert as the show started.

As Black Eyes took the stage, I became distracted by the constant flashing of photo bulbs. I looked around and saw a half dozen kids with digital cameras snapping shots of the band. Continuing to scan the crowd, I spotted at least three more kids with glowing cell phones raised above their heads. I thought that this may be the poor man’s way of having their friends experience the show, or a more modern version of the power ballad cigarette lighter, but they were camera phones taking more photos. After Q and not U began to play, a kid in front of me blocked my view as he held up his behemoth flash to take a few pictures. More kids with cameras in hand bumped into me as they rushed by to get backstage. Moments later, staccato flashes emitting from stage right lit up the band.

I am familiar with press photographers shooting concerts for zines. I know that there are a few people out there with blogs who, for some reason or another, like to photograph every show they go to and gain some amount of social currency. But actual news should be so well documented.

I yearn for the days when a photographer had to know exposure times, f-stops, film speeds, camera models, and had to expend money on film that may be wasted with a bad shot. Now any kid with oatmeal on his chin and a few hundred dollars in his pocket can pop flash blulbs like a paparazzo. Digital cameras are hampering my concert-going experience.

I suppose I just need to adapt - ignore the camera flashes, turn a deaf ear the blaring cell phones, overlook the cigarette smoke stinging my eyes, and give no heed to my aching knees. Either that, or grow a moustache and wander the concert floor looking for my marbles.

Footnote - Q and not U puts on an amazing show. They are now on my list of Top 5 Live Acts. Sorry I have no pictures to show you.

I was never good with sports names and stats. In Trivial Pursuit, I dreaded the orange Sports and Leisure category and answered every question with Max Schmeling knowing that I was bound to get it right at least once. I always did better at the blue Arts & Entertainment category. In 6th grade I feigned an interest in the NFL to fit in with my classmates but I could never remember the right names or all the statistics. Since I was better at drawing, I would get in their good graces by drawing the Chicago Bears’ mascot as a ferocious grizzly wearing a football jersey.

However, if you were to ask me to link Hayley Mills and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar through movie co-stars, I could do it in a flash. Or if you wanted me to chart the movement of the members of Slint since the band broke up, I could do a decent job.

My friend Susan has a theory regarding this. Sports nerds and movie/music nerds are basically the same breed. They both have the need to memorize superfluous facts and figures and dazzle one another with their expertise. CDs are essentially a different form of trading cards - you make mix tapes/CDs and swap with friends. DVDs and videos are the equivalent of collecting copies of the milestone games to watch and relive later with your buddies.

Some of my friends recall fondly when their father first took them to a football/baseball/basketball game. I warmly remember when my dad took me to see the Dark Crystal at the Carillon Square movie theater. I remember singing Juice Newton’s Queen of Hearts in the car on the way to a family camping trip when I was six. I remember listening to the radio for hours with a tape queued up just to record Duran Duran’s Wild Boys.

I quote Madeline Kahn from Clue like some men would rattle off the Emmitt Smith’s all-time rushing record. I take pleasure in discovering new artists like some people latch on to their favorite rookie pitcher.

Yes, I’m an Arts & Entertainment nerd. Go Blue!

In the 90’s I was a willing victim of the ironic t-shirt - a company logo, or mutant derivation thereof, emblazoned across the front in full color. Spam, Jujyfruits, etc. were all part of the billboard that was me. I wore them thinking that I could care less about canned lunch meat or theater candy and so it was funny and somehow subversive.

I have since abandoned the practice of wearing commercial logos, not wanting to act as commercial since I’m not getting paid for it. If companies shell out millions of dollars for a thirty second spot during the Super Bowl, I should get billions for a logo occupying a few months of my life. I now typically pick out embroidery and remove visible tags from my clothing.

At first I just thought this was a mild neurosis of mine. But, lately I’ve been finding a number of news stories about “stealth advertising.” It goes by many names - covert marketing, viral marketing, and guerrilla advertising. It is the practice of subtly introducing unwitting consumers to products and services without the consumer’s knowlege. The most obvious example of this tactic is on-screen product placement. Michael J. Fox orders a Diet Pepsi in Back to the Future, in Notting Hill Hugh Grant reads a copy of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (the next project from the film’s producers), Hugh Jackman grabs a Dr. Pepper from the cabinet in X-Men 2. But the fact that on-screen product placement is apparent makes it more innocuous. True stealth advertising is more devious.

Recently Sony started a new marketing tactic for their Sony-Ericsson cellular telephone. The ploy is that two actors, Tom and Heather, are hired to pose as tourists in Times Square. The actors will stop a passer-by and ask if he will take their picture with their new cellphone/digital camera. It is explained how easy and amazing the product is to use while mentioning the brand name a few times to make sure it sticks. The picture is taken, the helpful passer-by goes on his way, and thinks he did a good turn when in reality he took place in some devious one-on-one marketing. He then tells his friends about this phone and the viral marketing begins.

I expect to see products touted in the form of posters, billboards, TV commercials, on-screen placements, t-shirts, and magazine ads. These are expected commercial venues. However, when a product is placed in my life, in an everyday situation and non-commercial venue, then I get worried.

Attractive young people are showing up on subway cars passionately reading excerpts from the latest book titles to each other so that the rest of the car can hear them and their apparent excitement. Beautiful women saunter into clubs, flirt with young men, and ask them to buy her a brand-name vodka because it is so smooth. She has them try a sip to see for themselves. Invitations are sent out to an exclusive party. The invitees are the hip, the hot, and the decision-makers for their group of friends. The party is actually devised by a beverage company to resemble a laid-back social gathering, while making sure that the company name is mentioned frequently and the libations flow freely.

A Pepsi Executive stated, “We believe in advertising as subtly as possible and not being gaudy. So stealth advertising is ideal for us.” Far be it for a multi-national corporate conglomerate to be labeled gaudy. Instead they attempt to co-opt the public into their marketing scheme. If a funny and memorable commercial is created, it becomes part of the water-cooler conversation the next day. Advertisements’ catch phrases worm their way into the vernacular thereby creating spontaneous commercials at every utterance. Each of us becomes a carrier of the marketing virus. I am a marketing tool and, unlike Sony’s Tom and Heather, I’m not even getting paid.

In New Zealand, Bill Ralston, editor of Auckland-based magazine Metro, published a cigar review that, it turns out, broke New Zealand law. Ralston protested.

A woman from the ministry countered, “It is not a review, it is an advertisement.” Ralston stated that the review was not solicited or paid for with the purpose of selling the product. However, according stringent New Zealand law, any words “used to encourage the use or notify the availability or promote the sale of any tobacco product” were illegal. So in New Zealand an advertisement encourages the use, notifies of the availability, or promotes the sale of a product. Paycheck or no paycheck.

I now reconsider my CD recommendations and halt mid-sentence when I talk about my computer. I take a second look at the person on the street wearing a band’s t-shirt, or blatantly sipping a Gatorade. I look askance at friends who recommend a movie to me or rave about a restaurant. Are they on the take? Or are they doing it pro bono? Perhaps I should tell them that there is money in being a stealth marketing tool.

Rare are the instances on commercial television that genuinely disturb me. I find most of the rubbish paraded about television to be more disappointing. I am disappointed that programs like "My So Called Life" and "Freaks and Geeks" are cancelled while "That 70’s Show" and "Kristen" skitter about the dark corners of broadcasting like post-apocalyptic cockroaches. I am disappointed that people still allow their spouses to drag them on the Jerry Springer show without getting an explanation before they come on stage to meet their mates’ drug addled 300 pound lover. I am disappointed that Trix are still just for kids. Give the poor rabbit a break, he’s been trying for well over a decade now. That should account for something. These things dishearten but do not disturb.

Last week I was squandering my vacation time in front of the television as I am wont to do, when I was suddenly faced with a screen full of tan abdomen swaying and bouncing to a jaunty guitar jingle. Narrow margins of a pink, festooned midriff and faded jeans framed the toned, feminine belly. The singing then started. It was a cover of Diana Ross’s "I’m Coming Out" crooned by the unexceptional voice of Jamie-Lynn Sigler of HBO’s the Sopranos (ah, the irony). After a couple of confusing seconds it became horrifyingly apparent that the belly button was doing the lip-synching.

I sat at the kitchen counter, cinnamon roll in hand, aghast at this disquieting personification. The camera panned across a crowd and focused on another young stomach peeking from under a midriff. This naval belted out the next lyric which was in turn picked up by another naval and so on through a swaggering pageant of flat stomachs with a penchant for performance.

Images were running through my head of high school assemblies featuring the painted torsos of the football team —nipples for eyes, a crudely drawn nose, and a belly button as a pair of pursed lips undulating to "Whistle While You Work." I thought back to a boy in my sixth grade class whose belly button hadn’t been tied correctly and so it occasionally filled with digested food, protruding inches from his brown belly like a rolled tongue. This reminded me of the original purpose of the naval as an intake for food before it was severed, knotted, and poked into the body like a punching balloon.

The singing belly buttons started to take on the menace of vagina dentata. If they could sing, could they not eat, would they not have teeth? I forgot that this commercial was intended to pitch a product because all it was selling me was fear. The same fear that is evident on the little boy’s wide-eyed face in the middle of the commercial as he watches the alien breed of belly’s belt out the jingle. It wasn’t until the very end of the ad that the Levi’s logo appeared with the adjacent words "superlow jeans" while a woman’s sultry voice read them for emphasis.

After this I have seen the ad a few more times and have tried to see the jeans advertised. Most of the time only a couple of copper rivets and the top button can be seen or a few belt loops over a super thick belt. The only "long" look at the jeans that is given is at the end and even then the camera blurs the image as the woman walks away. If these jeans were in a line-up with a pair of Brittanica slacks I wouldn’t be able to tell which were in the ad. However if the bellies were lined up I could tell you which were in the commercial and exactly what lines they sang. That kind of horror stays with you.

Revised since its debut on Steve McQueen’s Head