Update from the Tiger Woods Ad Agency Crisis Management Department

I did a post a while back (Why Wolfgang Puck Should be Stoned to Death and Dismembered) about how celebrities should go about choosing what products to endorse. Obviously, you couldn't write about celebrity endorsements with about discussing Tiger Woods - up until Thanksgiving, one of the most successful product pushing human beings on the planet. When the news broke that Tiger had been screwing a different cocktail waitress just about every time he walked into a hotel room, everyone got misty eyed thinking about how that must feel for his wife and little kids. Not me. I immediately thought, oh my god! what is this going to mean for Deloitte & Touche?!

First off, let me say generally that I have not been weeping over Tiger's corporate sponsors and their potential public relations nightmares. Companies are stupid to make such huge investments in supposedly super-human individuals who are supposed to convince the hoi polloi that they too can become virtual gods if they buy whatever junk the celebrity is hawking. Shame on the companies for getting bent out of shape when their enlisted demi-gods turn out to be just as schmuck-like as the rest of us. And shame, even more, on the rest of mankind for being so retardedly biologically predisposed to thinking that buying whatever junk is being pushed will make us even one iota less schmuck-like.

A lot of people seem to assume that Tiger's screw up is going to mean the end of all of his corporate endorsements. I don't think so. And I think the determining factor will be the underlying message of each particular ad. For ads that are trying to say "we the company are like Tiger," well that's really no good. But for the ads, which are most of them, that are trying to say "you will be like Tiger if you buy our crap," Tiger's banging his way around the globe may not be a bad thing at all.

Accenture has reportedly pulled the plug on Tiger already. They fall into the first category. I have no idea what Accenture actually does (I don't think anyone knows; they're some kind of consulting offshoot of Arthur Anderson), but, judging from their ads, they're apparently supposed to have the laser beam focus, commitment to achieve and clarity under pressure that Tiger has. So then when you re-evaluate Accenture in light of these new developments – start thinking that your Accenture consultant is probably going to spend a few minutes in your office walking you through some business models and then work all afternoon and all night to try to get into your secretary's pants – you might have a bit less confidence that Accenture's services are really what you need. Same analysis for Deloitte & Touche. I haven't heard anything yet about what they're planning to do with their Tiger campaign, but I can't believe they're going conclude that Tiger Woods continues to be the picture perfect poster child for scrupulous accounting practices (in which case, at the very least, walking through airports may become one small notch less irritating).

A few products have unique considerations. Gatorade has discontinued its Tiger Woods sport drink, but claims to have made that decision before the brouhaha. I believe them, mainly because I've tried the Tiger Woods sport drink and it was the nastiest shit I have ever had the displeasure of putting in my mouth. Buick can probably keep Tiger on. Most of its target audience probably still have rabbit ears on their TVs and haven't figured out how to make the transition to digital TV. So they probably haven't even heard the news about Tiger yet.

But almost all of the rest of the products endorsed by Tiger are in the second category – the "buy this and you'll be like Tiger" group. Take Hanes and Gillette, for example. The target demographic for these ads are 100% male. Guys who are (almost by definition) trying to look stronger and younger and sexier. So how will the fact that its spokesman has been busted screwing dozens of young, sexy women affect its message? Uh, you connect the dots. A few minor tweaks to the scripts (i.e. photoshop Tiger into Axe body spray ad and have him say something like "awwwww yeeeeaaah boy, you know what I'm talking about...") and these ads will be ready for prime time. Why did all those cocktail waitresses want to nail tiger in the first place? Why, because of his sexy boxer briefs and incredibly close shave, of course.

Don't hold your breath for the corporate press releases acknowledging all this. But somewhere deep in the bowels of the Tiger Woods wing of the advertising industry corridors of power, someone is making the not-so-ridiculous point that, if your main spokesman turns out to be an irresponsible, adolescent pig, and if your whole advertising regime is based on hawking stuff to people who, deep down, basically dream of acting like irresponsible, adolescent pigs, you might not have such a big crisis after all.

Class Warfare on My Way to Work

The last thing I want to do every morning while riding the subway to work is to ignite a class warfare riot. But I realized one morning last week during my commute that, if everyone on my subway car suddenly banded together into an impromptu posse, dragged me out into the street and beat me to a bloody pulp, I’d have to admit, in between kicks to my broken ribs and lashes across the destroyed flesh of my former face, that they had point. What was I doing to deserve such treatment? Reading a magazine that had this ad on the back cover:

“You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.”

The Patek Philippe Annual Calendar 5146G and Calatrava cufflinks advertised here are, respectively, an $18,000 sport watch and a $4,000 pair of gold cufflinks. The story the ad is presumably supposed to convey is something along the lines of this: You are a powerful, powerful man who has arrived at the pinnacle of prestige and power. Your pectoral muscles are flawlessly chiseled, surpassed in beauty only by the impeccable cut of your custom tailored sport jacket. You are not balding even a tiny little bit. Your trophy wife is young and perky. Your dick enormous. Forget just being able to know what time it is. If you buy this watch, you will be transforming your capital into an object that will not only appreciate handsomely over time, but will demonstrate to the world your formidable level of success.

But wait! There’s more! Your personal success is so momentous that it can hardly be contained in a single human body. Thus the need to pass it along to your progeny - your flesh and blood, the fine young man who has been so fortunately endowed with your exquisite genes and an ample portion of your hard working capital. For a member of that next generation, so entitled yet so soft, it’s good to have at least one natural defense – a watch signaling to potential predators that the same $750 an hour lawyer who’s on retainer for dad (defended him during his insider trading suit? maybe brought an eminent domain case so dad could demolish the neighbor’s house on the vineyard to make room for a larger dock?) would have complaints served on said predators within thirty seconds of having laid a finger on junior. Just imagine how priceless the moment will be when you make that special trip to your son’s prep school to pass along your 5146G and Calatrava cufflinks so that he too can look after these items for yet another generation.

It’s enough to warm a man’s heart. Or, on the other hand, if he’s on the subway, possibly enough to make a man decide to get in on the action with the posse that’s kicking the shit out of me in the street.

Most of the people I ride to work with in the morning, myself included, are not merely looking after their watches for the next generation. They’re looking at their watches so that they will know what time it is. So they get to work on time. So they’ll get paid every other week. So they can afford car insurance and dog food. And while there’s nothing wrong with being rich and babysitting cufflinks for future generations, there is something very nauseating about aspiring to such pretention by parading around with an ad like this on the back of your magazine.

Ads are among the most truthful windows into peoples souls. Gazing deeply into a person’s eyes, watching him perform under pressure, talking intimately about his most deeply felt fears and convictions? All good ways of learning about his true inner being. But not nearly as market-tested as an ad. Advertisers understand us better than anyone out there. It’s their business. Ads don’t paint a picture of us as we are, but rather of us as we want to be.

And so, in a way, being moved by a tableau depicting such smug, unabashed douchebagedness is even worse than actually being a douchebag. There are a million reasons a person can be a douchebag – genetics, upbringing, bad day in the office, ring around the collar – and so, when you come across one, you can just write him off. Probably just came out of the box that way. But to want to be, affirmatively aspire to be, get turned on the by idea of being, a douchebag, then, well, good luck with that mob on the subway.

In my defense, the ad above was from the back cover of The Economist magazine. And while, granted, that publication can be a tad bit smug in its worldview, it’s interesting to read and has good commentary on the forces that make the modern world turn. And I read other stuff too. Good literature. Trashy fiction. Biographies. Rolling Stone. Seriously, I’m a well rounded guy. But until The Economist comes up with some other wares to hawk on its back cover, until I can feel confident that my neighbors won’t think that my idols include a douchebag-looking business tycoon and his equally revolting-looking son, I’m going to have to limit where I read it. No more taking the Economist out in public. The risk is just too great. I’ll just stare at the wall on the subway until The Economist comes up with a new idea. And hopefully put off the class warfare revolution to another day.

Disney’s Neighborhood of Drooling, Mutated Trolls – A Trip to Celebration

My wife was recently holed up at a nice resort in Orlando for a conference, so I decided to go join her there for a long weekend. I had been to Disneyworld once when I was a kid and to Disneyland about a thousand times when I was the activities coordinator at an international summer high school. I am also kidless and cynical to the core. So going to Disney on this short trip was not in the cards. I asked everyone I talked to what there was to do in Orlando if you didn’t want to go to Disney. The general consensus seemed to be, don’t go to Orlando.

But there was one sightseeing destination I couldn’t pass up out of a morbid sense of curiosity. The town of Celebration. Celebration is a planned community that was developed by Disney in the mid 1990s. The idea was something along the lines of, if so many people love to visit the magical manmade paradise that is Disney, there must surely be lots of people who would love to live in that kind of world all the time. The whole thing sounded pretty contrived and twisted to me. I always assumed that if human beings tried to engineer a too-perfect society, there would always be some fly in the ointment that would cause the whole experiment to collapse into a horrific cesspool of anarchy. If this ever happened to Celebration, the reasons for the failure would be something like these (and I could still be right that Celebration will end up there; just give it a bit more time):

Inbreeding: Whenever a population starts getting a bit too cozy and too unwilling to socialize with outsiders, it’s just a matter of time before people who shouldn’t be breeding with one another go ahead and breed. If the Celebrationites aren’t careful, the whole process of picking out the perfect mates for their perfect kids, so that they can beget an ever-expanding stable of perfect grandkids, could go awry. And instead of schools full of above average students of the month with straight teeth, excellent moral compasses and high earning potential, you’d end up with a whole society of people with mixed up chromosomes, low SAT scores and the wrong number of fingers. As any realtor will tell you, once any neighborhood hits a certain critical mass of drooling, mutated trolls, you can kiss your expected real estate appreciation rate goodbye. With declining property values comes a decreasing tax base, then underperforming schools. And over the course of two or three short generations, bang - your peaceful, affluent oasis has morphed into a ghetto full of deformed mutants trying to screw their sisters.

Disease: Despite what you might think based on the extreme proliferation of Purel and anti-bacterial everything, human beings actually need to be exposed to some level of germs and disease to survive. Like just about any natural process, immune systems need to be used to stay effective. By completely eliminating from its territory certain disease-producing sources, Celebration may inadvertently be setting up its own future demise. Take, for example, an almost, but not quite, empty beer can with a cigarette butt floating in it. In college (I have absolutely no idea why), we called these Wallies. Suppose the person who didn’t quite finish the beer had one kind of minor infection and the person who put out the cigarette had some other kind of minor infection. That’s one infested Wally. At some point, a person living in an environment where lots of Wallies are present is going to cut his finger on a Wally and get some portion of that complex infestation sucked up into his bloodstream. Over time, it’s no big deal. His body has learned to handle it. And while no single Wally may ever make it over the threshold into Celebration, at some point, some rebellious Celebration teenager is going to sneak out to a party, cut his finger on a Wally and stumble back to his lovely home. With all the back patting and hand shaking that must go on at Celebration (not to mention the inbreeding; see above) the Wally germs could be transmitted across the whole town in a matter of hours. Just as colonizers have been wiping out indigenous populations wholesale over the years with their new-to-you diseases, one careless Wally finger cut could spread a lethal plague across Celebration.

Anarchy and US Military Intervention: Finally, there is the unknown sociological question of what will happen when children who have been raised in Celebration, who have never seen a blade of crabgrass or a payday check cashing store, are confronted with the ugly human world that surrounds them. Some such kids might just come of age, declare to their parents, “dude, this is the lamest place on Earth,” and move out. But others could be so severely traumatized so as never to be able to leave Celebration again. A wall could be erected. All ties to the vile creatures outside severed. But then how would the hired help get in? Who would scrub the sinks? Deliver the water cooler replacement jugs? At some point, the military would have to be brought in to free the hostages from themselves. However it played out, it would almost certainly involve some kind of Branch Davidian / Waco showdown. And those never end up well.

The Real Celebration: As of yet, none of these scenarios has played itself out. The video above is from the real town of Celebration. The town is just an immaculate, very well painted, nicely mowed little village. Cars aren’t parked on the streets. Lawns are perfect. Stretch golf carts have car seats buckled into the back. The kids at the Starbucks order complicated drinks as if it’s second nature. There’s even some degree of economic diversity (there’s no planned ghetto / place-you-absolutely-do-not-want-to-wander-into-at-night section of the town, but there’s a range from solidly well-off to preposterously rich). Wandering around Celebration, it was hard for me to put my finger one what it was that felt so horribly wrong about the place. I guess it has something to do with thinking you can, or even wanting to, create some kind of paradise just by putting up a façade of unblemished perfection. If whitewashing over all of humanity’s inherent blemishes is a person’s idea of the most wonderful place to live, then Celebration is it. But if you find life in spontaneity and weirdness and all the quirks that make people people, then I’ve got to imagine that Celebration would feel like a tomb. It was a fun place to visit, but I’m glad to be back in my neighborhood of untrimmed shrubberies and the occasional Wally.

Narrow-Minded Reactions to the End of Time

My early morning runs usually start off very peacefully. I look at the trees, listen to the rhythmic thudding of my feet on the pavement and think about cheeseburgers or the smell of fresh laundry. But then I inevitably glance at my watch and then start trying to figure out how fast I'm running and what my time would be if I extrapolated it out over a longer distance. And I start to go crazy. My brain overheats and I have to sit down on the sidewalk and scratch numbers into the dirt with a stick, rocking back and forth with anxious frustration. And that's no way to start a day. I am just not mentally equipped to convert seconds into minutes into hours. No-one is.

The problem is not us; it's the system. The way we measure time is ridiculous. 60 seconds in a minute. 60 minutes in an hour. 24 hours in a day. 7 days in a week. 365 days in a year, except every fourth year when another day has to be tacked on to straighten things out. And even that doesn’t work, so every so often, on no schedule at all, another second has to be added (most recently at the very end of 2008). Then there are time zones and international date lines and daylight savings changes and some vigilante corner of Indiana that has rejected the daylight savings system adopted by the rest of the state. Insanity! I don't know how this system - the betamax of measurements - ever managed to survive throughout the years, but it's time for a change.

How hard could it be to declare that there shall be 10 seconds in a minute, 10 minutes in an hour, 10 hours in a day, 10 days in a week and 10 weeks in a year? A metric system of time.

When I try to make the case for this new system, I am invariably confronted with small-minded, bullshit, status quo-clinging resistance. Here is a sampling of the reactions I get and my responses to them.

Small-Minded Bullshit Reaction #1: The way we measure time is based on how long it takes for the earth to spin on its axis and revolve around the sun. It reflects the resultant shifts in seasons and tides and larger celestial forces to which human beings, like all animals, are subject.

Response: That all may have been true a while back, but since around the time of the light bulb, humans have been completely detached from nature. Months and seasons and whatever complicated stuff is going on out there in the universe have no bearing whatsoever on modern life. Only one in sixteen people in the first world can verify by first hand knowledge that there is even such thing as a sunrise. When moving between the florescent lights of home and the SUV and the florescent lights of the gym and the florescent lights of the office, what difference does it make what time or month or season it is outside? Getting in touch with the natural rhythms of the earth is like going on a diet. Possible in theory, but you are not going to do it. I know three people whose days are timed by the rising and setting of the sun and who are genuinely in touch with the cycles of the seasons. But they don't know what day of the week it is anyway and so shouldn’t be too worked up about revamping the global time keeping system.

Small-Minded Bullshit Reaction #2: My timeshare platinum elite membership wouldn't work out right anymore if the months got all jumbled up. I paid good money for the premium plus week in Bermuda.

Response: You never should have bought into a timeshare in the first place. When was the last time you actually used that? Have you ever really been able to trade your week for another vacation you truly wanted to take? Anyway, Marriott global could probably work out a new algorithm for converting 12 month time into metric time in about an hour. There will be a convenience charge and a few new blackout dates and transfer restrictions, but an upgrade will be available for a small monthly fee.

Small-Minded Bullshit Reaction #3: Length of days and months and seasons are important to farmers. They have to be in tune with the earth to create the food that sustains us all.

Response: Maybe, but there aren't really any farmers anymore. A few of them have lingered around, but that's just because of some random remnant government subsidies that make it worthwhile to produce food that people don't want to buy. And natural is overrated. Food made from natural things gets old and rotten. No match for the Twinkie and other such modern marvels that have 2000 year shelf lives. I'm sure you knew a guy in college whose basement-grown pot was a bajillion times more potent than anything mother nature ever created. Nothing natural about that, and I bet you weren't complaining too loudly. We should just stand aside and let ConAgra and Monsanto work their magic. Their robots and square, genetically engineered tomatoes don't care what time the sun comes up.

Small-Minded Bullshit Reaction #4: What about airplanes? Aren't they all coordinated by some kind of 24 hour time based clock?

Response: Probably, but how complicated could it be to recalibrate schedules for all of the flights in the world? Remember what a big deal everyone thought the Y2K revamp would be? Turned out to be nothing. If people are really that worried about having eight planes land on the same runway at the same time, we could just shut off all air travel for a few months while the airlines figured out how to adjust their radar screens and such. It might not be such a bad idea anyway to give all airline executives a time out. Maybe while they're working on the time issue they could also brainstorm about why all airlines have been more or less bankrupt since about 1980.

Small-Minded Bullshit Reaction #5: Would changing time mean I would have to replace all of my watches and clocks and my VCR and toaster oven and Mr. Coffee?

Response: That's right. But those things are all designed not to last more than a few years anyway. The new system would just be a little shot in the arm for planned obsolescence and, who knows, may be just what the economy needs right now.

In conclusion, there is no good reason why we should continue to use an antiquated system of measuring time based on planets and stars. The human race has progressed much too far. A bit of logistical planning will be needed, but that will all work itself out. In the end, all the running math I need to do will be easier, and my days will start off on a much more mellow note. And that will make it all worthwhile.

The Boston Fart Incident of 2009, and Why I May Move to Wyoming

If you're not into potty humor, you may want to skip this one. The point of this posting is not to tell adolescent fart jokes; it's just the honest to God true story of an incident that occurred last Tuesday on my way to work. And the incident happens to revolve around a fart. I didn't go out asking for this to happen to me. It just did.

Here's what happened. Tuesday, 8:05 AM. I was on the orange line on my way to work, sitting on the subway, reading a book, minding my own business like I've been doing every weekday for the past seven years. My seat was at the end of the row, right next to the door. The car was crowded. And then, out of nowhere, my whole world was shaken. I heard something that sounded like a fart. Didn't think anything of it. There are lots of noises on the train. But then the smell. Unmistakable. The guy standing next to me had farted in my face. Not just near me, in the general vicinity. In my face. My nose couldn't have been more than three inches from his ass.

My internal dialogue went something like this: "OK. Don't panic. Stay cool. Take a deep breath. No, wait. Don't breathe. You have to breathe. OK, breathe through your mouth. It's just a fart. Farts happen all the time. Can you catch something from breathing in someone else's fart? Does it matter how close you are to it? No, that's ridiculous. You only catch things from fluids and coughs. This is gross but not dangerous. Just wait for it to pass. Your stop is coming up soon. What kind of person blows a fart right directly into someone's face. I can't believe this is happening to me."

Obviously, I lived to tell the tale. Not a stellar way to start a day, but I'm mostly OK. Part of the reason I was OK is that I was about to go on vacation to a dude ranch in Wyoming. The Gros Ventre River Ranch. One of the most beautiful, peaceful, wonderful places I've ever been. When you know that you'll soon be transported to paradise, you can hang on, even in the face of disaster. Even when someone farts right in your face.

All of this got me thinking that in Wyoming, I bet it's pretty rare for someone to fart in another person's face. This is a city phenomenon. Wyoming has a population density of 5.4 people per square mile. In Boston, it's 12,561. When a fart is released in Wyoming, by the time it wafts over to the other 4.4 people in the square mile surrounding the emitter, it's been dispersed by the fresh mountain air breezing off of the Grand Teton mountains and, before another human being even detects it, its molecules have returned to the earth through whatever ecological life cycle it is that governs farts. Not so on the subway. Forget a square mile. The 100 or so people breathing the same stagnant, hermetically sealed air in the 200 square feet of a subway car are going to feel the effects of a fart.

The larger issue is that, if you're going to surround yourself with other human beings, you're going to have to live with all of the good, bad and ugly of human being-ness. Humans obviously have more to offer than just farts. Love, compassion, dialogue, intellect and art are a few things that come immediately to mind. So despite the ever-present risk that people around you might fart, there are still a number of powerful reasons why it's fun to seek them out. And to take advantage of all the good stuff humans have to offer, it's easier sometimes if you have lots of people near you to choose from. Let's say I want to go out for Indian food with someone and talk about bebop jazz. If I'm in Boston, at least a few of the 12,561 people in the square mile around me would probably be interested. If I were in Wyoming, I might have to walk 50 miles just to find one person who wanted to talk about bebop jazz and then who knows how many more miles to find an Indian restaurant. It could take all summer.

So there's the conundrum. Cities, packed with lots of people, each with lots to offer, certainly have their advantages. But, from a purely statistical standpoint, if you live your life in a city, chances are, at one point or another, someone is going to fart right in your face. I can't wait for my trip to Wyoming next week. I've always been aware of the natural beauty of the place, but when I step off the plane next Sunday and fill my lungs with the clean, wonderful Wyoming mountain air, I will be more appreciative than ever before.

Press Seven If You’re About To Seriously Lose Your Shit

A few days ago, in the middle of the workday, I thought my next door officemate was being beaten and tortured. I heard him saying, then yelling, No! NOOOOOO! I jumped up and was about to run to his rescue when I figured out what was happening. He was now screaming EXXISSTINNNG ACCCOUNNNNT! CUSSSTOMERRR SEERRRRRVICE REPRESSENTATIVVVVE! Aha. Trapped in automated telephonic customer service hell. Been there. Oh yes.

Like any technology, automated phone systems are continually evolving beasts. These systems have, depending on which end of the phone line you're on, either revolutionized the efficiencies of client solution delivery or been one more straw on the camel's back of the downfall of civilized society. Back in the prehistoric days of customer service, circa, let's say, 1975, one of the pre-recorded options was, if you had a rotary phone (remember those, from back when the term "dial" a number was not a misnomer?) and could not make a selection, to stay on the line and a customer service rep would be right with you. What an innocent time that was. Of course, abuse of this system by touch-tone telephone-owning scofflaws became rampant. Everyone waited for a customer service representative.

During telephonic customer service phase 2.0, you could almost always "press zero at any time to speak with a customer service representative." This, of course, didn't last long. However stupid the average consumer may be, people figured out pretty quickly how easy it was to bypass the whole automated system. During the next phase, if you chose a number that wasn't an option, like by just hitting zero fifty times right at the beginning of the recording, you were punished by being transferred back to the original menu or, on especially draconian networks, hung up on. This was a sort of passive aggressive way for a company to say "yeah, you wish asshole; try again." Next, consumers came to understand that they would have to just listen to all the choices and choose the one that sounded least irrelevant or, in trying to emerge victorious in this game theory warfare scenario, the one that sounded most likely to require intervention by an actual person. Websites started to sprout up (check out: www.gethuman.com) that would give callers the secret roadmap to a customer service rep. Just call the toll free number, then hit 3-3-5-2-7-0-0-0-0-1-1-6-4-7-7-7-8-2-2-2-2-2-2 and 6 and voila! You'll be in the queue for the next rep. About ten years ago, one of the options on National Discount Brokers' phone network was to "press four to hear a duck quack." If you pressed four, sure enough, there it was. Quack. That was awesome. One of the high points in the history of automated telephone systems. (Sadly, this seems to have been discontinued; the number with the duck option now takes to you a TD Bank directory).

And then finally came the current incarnation - voice recognition. Initially, you had to just speak the numbers you otherwise would type – “THREE… THREE… FIVE… TWO...” That didn't feel like a major breakthrough. Now you can say what you want - "customer service," "new account," "check my balance" – and, in theory at least, get some relevant, useful information. The voices that guide you through the process have become steadily more friendly-sounding and contemplative. A long way from the scary, tinny computerized War Games voices from years past ("wooulld you liiike to playy a gaaame?"). The pre-programmed voices now say things like "Hmmm" and "OK, I think I understand your question" like you're getting some truly individualized personal validation and support. We're probably not far off from "wow, that is really a terrific question; let me just meditate on that for a bit; any chance you're free for a drink later tonight, or you maybe wanna swing by my place..." My pharmacy recently started transmitting a strangely satisfying bubble-wrap-popping sound while the disembodied voice contemplated which particular rep might best be able to address my needs. It's maybe supposed to be an aural depiction of what it sounds like when a computer really racks its brain.

Of course, replacing typed numbers with screamed commands doesn't mean there are actually any more helpful options at the end of the customer service matrix. One time in twenty, a person's question can legitimately be answered by an automated response. The rest of the time coworkers around the world have to suffer through hearing their office mates broadcast the minutiae of their lives through the halls. "Hepatitis C… SEEEE… HEEPPATITIS SEEEEEE…" "Speak with Doctor… Yes… Discharge… No... Festering… FESTTTERRRING AND OOZY DISCHARRRRGE..." "Erection... ERECTION... No... Yes... YES... More than four hours... MOOORRE THAN FOURRRR HOURRRSS…"

The larger question is whether any of the this evolving technology has actually made life any more efficient. My sense is that it's a wash. For completely routine transactions where you really don't need to talk to a person, you probably do save a few minutes every time you use an automated system. But then, when you have an issue that is one tiny molecule shy of entirely standard, you give back all of those accrued efficiencies. I promise not to tell you the painfully long story of why I have bought my cable modem three times over and yet am still renting it from Comcast. It all relates to the fact that I just cannot stand the idea of trying to explain on the phone what happened. "Press seven if you moved, took a cable modem with you that you thought was yours but actually was not, paid to buy it, had a delivery guy check the box saying that he had given you a new modem when he actually didn't and now are being billed to rent the modem you've already bought multiple times" is not an option. And, as much as companies have tried to suck every cell of humanity out of their call center employees, they're still human beings in the end and don't generally react well when you say something like "look, I am one hundred percent positive that you are not going to understand the problem I'm having so can we just skip the part where I even try to explain it to you and you just transfer me to your supervisor?"

Is it better to have lots of small daily efficiencies but then have to take three days off of work to deal with changing your cell phone calling plan or to have a steady stream of inefficiencies spread out over a longer period of time? There's definitely something to be said for the latter. You don't hear about people going off the deep end after having to hold for an extra 30 seconds for an operator. On the other hand - and I'm not saying I'm going to do this, just that I understand the mindset - I can see how someone who has just spent all afternoon screaming at a computer-generated voice "I HAVE ALLREADDY BOUGHT MY CAAABBBLE MODEMM THREEEEE TIIIIIIMMMES!!!!!" might run out the door with an automatic weapon and spray a stream of bullets into a crowd of schoolchildren.

Maybe it would be better, societally, for consumers to be subject to continuous, low levels of mild inconvenience and frustration than concentrated, extreme levels. Maybe we should all call our senators to express our concern over this issue. Of course, maybe even senators have telephone routing systems. I hope they're able to process the request, "I AM CONCERRNNNED THAT AUTOMMMATTED PHOONE SYSTEMMS ARE GOOINGG TO MAKE ME LOOOSEE MY SHIIIIIIITTTT."

Celebrity Product Endorsements – Why Wolfgang Puck Deserves to be Dismembered and Stoned to Death

Becoming an overnight A-list celebrity, while cool, would probably be stressful. A little bit of advance planning would, I imagine, go a long way in making the transition less traumatic. One of the things all major celebrities have to grapple with is what products they will endorse. So, in case I wake up one morning to discover that I’ve become a megastar and the whole world wants to know what I eat for breakfast, I’ve given some thought to the best way to shape the parameters of my product endorsement portfolio.

It’s impossible to discuss anything relating to product endorsements without considering Tiger Woods. The Tiger Woods brand is an industry unto itself. Tiger Woods could very possibly be the single most marketable individual ever in the history of the universe. And that’s not an exaggeration. The things about Tiger that marketers seem to like are that: 1) he is one of the greatest athletes in history; 2) he is a perfect, racially ambiguous, super-humanly fit specimen of human beauty; 3) he either really does not do, or is incredibly adept at hiding doing, anything even remotely controversial or non-mainstream; and 4) he is appealing to every demographic between, and including, toddlers and vegetables. And for those reasons, Tiger is compensated with more endorsement money than God. The several million annual dollars Tiger earns from actually winning golf tournaments are Frappuccino money for his swimsuit model wife compared to his endorsement earnings, which are approaching the $100 million per year mark.

I’m not necessarily trying to compare myself to Tiger Woods (though, upon some reflection, we do actually have quite a bit in common, in my opinion). But you never know. Being a fit, beautiful sports megastar is in vogue today. But come next fall, will that still be the case? Or could it be that the new rage will be short Jewish guys with slightly hairy backs who weigh 135, of which 35 is beer gut? Who am I to say.

The perfect embodiment of what not to do when choosing products to endorse is Wolfgang Puck. Wolfgang Puck is a chef who, way back when, was a legit player in the culinary world. He became somewhat of a name brand and used his new cache to expand the reach of his restaurants. My hometown, Ithaca, NY is one of four remaining towns in the civilized world whose airport does not now have a Wolfgang Puck Express restaurant. No problem yet. Brand, expand, bring in the bucks. Good for Wolfgang. But then, Wolfgang decided he needed to expand into the sexy world of corporate office coffee supplies, including the coffee pods and coffee machine in my very own law firm office.

When I get into work at 8:25 every morning, I drop off my briefcase, boot up my computer and trudge down the hall to the employee break room. And at that moment, when I'm standing – tired, confused, listless, vulnerable – in front of the coffee machine, the one single thing I want from the universe is a simple paper cup full of hot coffee. And at 8:25 in the morning, pre-coffee, I don't have the emotional wherewithal to read the office manager’s illustrated 10,000 word treatise on how not to screw up the coffee brewing process. And so I put the pod in the slot and push the button and watch as coffee grinds and murky sludge leak out of the side of the coffee maker and listen to the horrible, unnatural sound of metal on metal and stuck, motorized whining and wheezing and think about whether it’s really even worth it to go on living. And when I look over at the machine and the stacks of coffee pod boxes, whose smug, happy, smiling face do I see plastered all over all of them? Wolfgang. Fucking. Puck. And while I’ve never met or talked to or even seen Wolfgang Puck in person, at that moment every morning, I want to hunt him down and drag him into an alley and beat him with a metal pipe, and dismember him and stone him to death and watch as buzzards rip the organs from his dead bloody corpse.

And when you’re thinking about what reaction you want people to have when they see your photo on a product you’ve endorsed, that is not the one.

Exhibit B to the “are you sure this is really the image you want” chapter of the celebrity endorsement textbook is the licensing by the Allman Brothers of their beautiful, enduring-throughout-the-years song “Blue Sky.” The Allman Brothers have a sort of complex image. They’re clearly good ol’ boy southern redneck bikers. But they also have very solid musical roots in jazz, a loyal hippy following and more than a few in-touch-with-their-feelings sensitive guy tunes. So they’ve got some pretty broad licensing options, and their tunes have been used to endorse all kinds of products over the years. But I really had to scratch my head when I flipped on the TV one day to hear one of the nice licks from “Blue Sky” being played in an ad for – and, sometimes I need to specify this: I am seriously, truly not making this up – the menopause awareness website knowmenopause.com. Of course, if you have a business that provides helpful information about menopause, that’s great, and there’s nothing wrong with spreading the word. And there’s nothing wrong with the Allmans making a buck. But, well, I’m really not sure what to even say here. You get the idea. To their credit, at least they were just playing part of a tune. I would have packed up my possessions and wandered off into the forest forever if the ad had included Gregg Allman talking to the camera about how, whenever he had any menopause informational needs, the first resource he always turned to was knowmenopause.com.

Getting back to Tiger Woods, he’s picked some winners and some duds. Here is a quick rundown of a few of them. Nike golf equipment and clothes: No brainer. This is the stuff he actually uses, and I think Nike has a whole factory devoted just to making Tiger the stuff he wants. Hanes: Sure. Even if you’re a multi-mega-gazillionaire, it’s probably nice to get free cotton briefs. Gillette: Why not. It’s hard to have a real emotional opinion one way or the other about what kind of disposable razor you use. If someone offered me eight figures to switch my brand, I believe I’d accept. Buick: Horrific. The average person who buys a Buick has already been dead for 6.5 years. It hurts me a little to watch Tiger smile as he hops into a some geriatric boat of a GM car in the ad. The amount of money they must have given him for that, even in public company dollar terms, must have been extraordinary. Hopefully enough for Tiger to buy his own television network, which would never play those ads, so he’d never have to see them.

So, in light of all this background, what products would I endorse? My first choices would be products I already use and like. If Calvin Klein, Sony and Sam Adams wanted to do a spread of me sitting around on the couch on a Sunday afternoon in my tighty whities drinking beer and watching golf on TV, that would be cool. Or even products I don’t use but like. Rolex? Ferrari? The Ritz on Maui? I’d be game for that. Second choice would be products that, even if don’t particularly like, I have nothing against. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes? Ryobi power sanders? HP high gloss, no jam laser printer paper? That would be fine. And, actually, who am I kidding? If Wolfgang Puck wanted to cut me in on a piece of the action, or if knowmenopause.com came knocking, and if the price was right? Yeah, I could probably be convinced.

My Four Word Solution to All That’s Wrong With Religion

Since shortly after the dawn of time through today, the major religions of the world have provided benefits to billions of members of humankind but have also caused some pretty serious problems. And, while it's maybe a little presumptuous for me to say so, I think I've figured out how to fix religion. You never know where inspiration will come from. My epiphany in this case came from a bumper sticker on the back window of a pickup truck (not the first time this has happened - see this previous post). Plain white font. Black background. Four words (a major plus in bumper stickers; while I like the sentiment behind "it will be a wonderful day when schools get all the funding they need and the military has to have a bake sale to buy a new bomber," I wonder how many people are killed every year when their cars veer off the road while trying to read the tiny font required for such a ridiculously long statement).

The bumper sticker I saw said - "Don't Be A Dick"

There is was. Shockingly brilliant in its simplicity, this teaching, if applied to all world religions, could revolutionize the conduct of adherents to organized religion and fundamentally reshape how individuals and whole populations treat one another.

I'm not religious myself, but I've read enough Newsweek articles to understand that organized religion has been somewhat important in shaping world history. The purposes of religion, it seems, can be broken down into three primary components: 1) helping people find meaning and purpose in a world that is confusing, scary and sometimes horrible; 2) providing a sense of identity, culture and community; and 3) setting forth guidelines about how people should treat one another. Components 1 and 2 are all well and good so long as they don't create negative externalities that harm other people. 1 and 2 are OK if there’s enough number 3 in the mix. The problem is, that's not always the case. Some moderately annoying things and some truly horrific things have been done in the name of religion. Colonialism, not letting a Jewish guy into your country club, genocide, being mean to your interfaith daughter-in-law, bombing your neighbors into a parking lot, rape-n-pillage, etc. can too often be justified as being ordained by whoever wrote the religious text in question. And in these cases, the sometimes extensive rules that comprise component 3 can be twisted around so as to somehow not be technically violated.

It may be that most of the horrible things done in the name of religion were the result of cynical individuals tricking their followers / subjects into believing that religion justified the bad things they wanted to do. I think most serious religious scholars would tell you that the "Don't Be A Dick" principal is nothing new, and that Jesus, Muhammad, the Buddha and whichever other icons I'm forgetting would all agree that this principal is exactly what they were trying to get at in their teachings. That the teachings were intended to be, in essence, a comprehensive set of rules demonstrating how not to be a dick. Maybe all that's needed is an overarching clarification that would make it harder for such aforementioned cynical individuals to follow what we lawyers like to call "the letter but not the spirit of the law." How hard could it be to chisel out a retroactive 11th commandment - "thou shalt not be a dick" - or to slap an appending sticker onto the last page of all of the holy texts saying something like "notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in pages 1-7892 hereof, the point of this text is to remind you, Don't Be A Dick" (bold / ital / underline)? If I'm right about the original intent of all the best selling religious writings, this clarification wouldn't have any effect on all of the people who use religion as an agent for positive change while at the same time putting the kabosh on people who have been engaging in assorted nastiness that surely would have been frowned upon by all the original prophets. Sheltering tsunami victims and disinfecting lepers? Not being a dick. Smiting first born children of another race and claiming that you have been ordained by God as a ruthless dictator? Being a dick.

What's more, the "Don't Be A Dick" concept applies just as readily to non-religious life. Even if you're a strident non-believer, you could measure each component of your personal conduct against this simple and easy to remember standard. It would be perfectly logical to incorporate the concept into civic life, i.e., a social contract based upon which it is understood that I will refrain from acting like a dick if, in turn, I can enjoy a reasonable degree of certitude that my fellow countrymen will not act like a dick back to me. "E Pluribus Unum and Donotus Beist Dickunium" (I never studied Latin, but this is probably close enough).

You might recognize the "Don't Be A Dick" concept as an offshoot of the "Golden Rule" - do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There's nothing wrong with that incarnation, but when advocating for massive social change, I find it's always best to try to avoid using the word "unto." Also, there has been some confusion in recent decades because of the newer Murphy's Law version of the Golden Rule - the one with the gold makes the rules. "Don't Be A Dick" is just sort of the Golden Rule for the new millennium.

For those who think a little dose of capitalism might be required to effectively spread the word, think of all the "Don't Be A Dick" crap you could merchandise. Just look at the whole line of "Life Is Good" junk that's managed to remain on the scene for all these years. Or chastity rings. Or No Fear / Fear This stuff. Maybe it would become as popular as WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) merchandise and we could start hawking DBAD jewelry and coffee mugs and henna tattoos. "Mean People Suck" paraphernalia was popular for a while, but that was more of an observation than a command. To turn that concept into an action item, you'd have to say something like "mean people suck, and you're being mean, so you suck, so stop being mean, then you won't suck." And that's too cumbersome.

The "Don't Be A Dick" credo would have to be somewhat custom tailored to make sense in different languages. As part of the extensive research conducted in connection with this posting (thank you Brenda, Mitra, Guy, Epaminontas and Ora), it came to my attention that calling someone a dick doesn't make sense in a lot of languages. In Hebrew, it would be more common to call someone a "bastard." An "asshole" in Mandarin. In Greek, there are even different words for "dick" depending on whether you really mean it or not. But no worries here. I would bet my life that there does not exist a single language in the world that does not recognize the concept of a person being something akin to what is referred to in the American English dialect as a "dick."

As you may have learned from a number of my earlier postings, the world is going to hell in a hand basket. But at least on the personal interface front, there could be hope. Diminishing worldwide dickishness would be self-reinforcing. The more times a person leaves the house and interacts with a stranger would who is not a dick, the more likely it is that that person will himself choose not to act like a dick. This will explode exponentially and, before we know it, a new wave of non-dickitude will wash across the globe. Society as we know it will be kindler and gentler.

What can you do to help crusade for this worthy cause? Get yourself a "Don't Be A Dick" sticker and slap it on your car, or, if you don't have one, on some other possession. Repeat the mantra to yourself throughout your day. Internalize the message. And, if you've been being a dick, knock it off.

The Running of the Pasty Accountants – JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge 2009

Last week, I participated for the third time in the Boston leg of the annual JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge - a 3.5 mile run / walk that now takes place in 12 cities around the globe. Here is my analysis:

The JPMorgan Corporate Challenge raises a little money for charities and, by my quick calculations, a pile of money for JPMorgan Chase (it's possible that, in the current banking environment, the race is JPMorgan's most profitable arm). 12,000 people took part in this year's Boston event. The idea behind the corporate challenge is that, for one hour a year, it's fun to coax a bunch of the city's pasty professionals from out of their cubicles, see their reaction to the sun, and watch them try to trudge up and down Back Bay. Watching this race is probably every bit as entertaining as watching the Boston Marathon, albeit for different reasons.

Finish times this year ranged from just over 17 minutes to a bit under a week. Some participants always walk the whole course, which is fine, but those taking up the extreme rear of the group have to keep an eye on the ambulance that follows the last person. It's hard to drive a motorized vehicle that slowly, and the slightest spasm of big toe on accelerator can cause an ambulance driver to run over the very people he's supposed to be looking out for.

There are always some hardcore runners that take part in the race, but there are a lot more people who, for the 364 days between the last race and the current one, have not burned more calories in any one day than it takes to flick on the power switch of a dictaphone. Going from that to self-locomoting their own bodies over 3.5 miles of asphalt has to be a shock, and I am positive that there are hundreds, possibly thousands of fatal heart attacks during the race each year. Yet I've never heard a report of a single person dying during the race. My guess is that JPMorgan uses some of the funds raised in connection with the race to "disappear" the victims like they used to do in South America. Maybe agents, dressed up as cheering fans, run out to the victims and, pretending to give them big supporting hugs, pull them off the course, Weekend-At-Bernie's-style, and dump the carcasses into some discretely circulating sanitation vehicle. If a lot of families are curious mid-June of every year as to whatever happened to that guy who used to be at the breakfast table every morning, maybe they just never got around to asking any questions and realizing that similar things were happening all over town.

As implied by the name of the race, only employees of companies can participate; no individual stragglers are allowed. There are detailed rules about who is considered an employee, and minimum sizes for the teams. The quest to come up with the best, funniest, most stylish and most pithy company tee shirt is a major component of the race. What better way could there be to build company team spirit and get people to sign up for an after-hours work event than to promise a free, colorful, all-cotton tee shirt! The main categories of tee shirt hilarity are: post-race beer drinking jokes ("if found, return me to 222 Berkeley St., and please settle my tab"); industry-specific references (Superman glyph that says "New England Properties - able to lease tall buildings in a single bound!"); and plain old boring ("Acme Accounting - running for a brighter tomorrow"). It's not a surprise that most of the shirts are so milquetoast. Whatever strengths big companies may have, coming up with edgy, amusing tag lines is not usually one of them. And so it is also not surprising that the best tee shirt I have ever seen at the Corporate Challenge, hands down, looked like it was homemade and was worn by what may have been a vigilante non-corporate-affiliated runner. It said: "pass me and our intern loses a finger." Now that is funny, but most definitely not something you're going to see make it through a law firm vetting process.

The Corporate Challenge does not differentiate between types of corporate participants, which is, of course, highly unfair. The winners are always people who work at Nike or City Sports or Healthworks. For those types, whose corporate culture encourages going out and doing an Ironman triathlon at lunch, running 3.5 miles is about the law firm equivalent of making a copy or sticking a label on a file folder. On the other hand, bragging to other runners about kicking ass in the corporate challenge is, I imagine, about like bragging to rival gang members in the prison exercise yard about beating up a kindergartner and stealing his lunch. Not something that wows crowds.

Overall, it's great to see - and the whole point of the corporate orientation of the race is to promote - people out there getting some exercise who otherwise wouldn't. That being said, there is a reason we dress our executives in full suits and ties - so that we only have to see about eight square inches of their flesh. It's good to bond with your coworkers, but there's something to be said for making it through your whole career without ever having to see a skimpy pair of running shorts riding up the top of your boss' pale, hairy, naked thigh. Never mind. Try to forget that thought.

A Plug for Environmental Living from an Environmental Fatalist

If, in the past, you had asked me when I became an environmentalist, I would have told you, never; I’m not one. It’s not that I’ve got anything against the environment. I love the Earth. Seriously. I love the outdoors. I love parks and hiking and walks in the woods. I love clean water and babbling brooks and swimming in a gorge. And I think it would be tragic if people didn’t have access to all the wonderful things that can be experienced out in the natural world. It’s just that I am, depending on your point of view, a fatalist or a realist. I think Al Gore is awesome, and more power to him for spreading the environmental message. But I also think that we are so far past the point of no return that the sum total of all worldwide environmental efforts are just rearranging the furniture on the deck of the Titanic. From all that I’ve read, it seems like some of the most informed environmental scientists out there basically agree that even if, overnight, we could zap every Denali into a Prius and squish every McMansion into a tiny energy-efficient, public transport-accessible LEED certified condo, the best case scenario would be that the environmental apocalypse would take place on a Thursday instead of a Tuesday.

All of the current residents of planet Earth can do their part to cut down on their own consumption, but the fundamental source of what we’re up against is exponential population growth and expanding industrialization. Unless we can institute a worldwide ban on procreation and a prohibition on any further industrialization (i.e. moving up from poverty and starvation to the first rung of first world living), we’re going to continue to move faster and faster down the path of destruction. An anti-naysayer might argue that fatalists throughout history have been proven wrong by new technologies. And that’s true. Even if we seem irrevocably screwed at the moment, it’s always possible that some fundamentally game-changing new development will emerge – like the ability to convert dirt into water or poop into food – but I’ll believe that when I see it. And the clock is ticking.

OK. That’s the end of my rant. But not the end of my story. There’s a twist. Despite my belief in the utter futility of the environmental movement, it turns out that I do almost all of the things a good environmentalist is supposed to do. To wit: I live in a small condo in a dense, urban neighborhood within walking distance to everything I need; I don’t have a car; I commute using public transportation; I recycle; and, for good measure, I even bring my own reusable shopping bag with me when I go (on foot) grocery shopping. (I’ll never be able to live up to the true pinnacle of environmental living – Cheryl Crow’s suggestion that people should use just one square of toilet paper per bathroom visit. I am a huge fan of Cheryl’s music, but, for the sake of digestive tract discretion, let’s just say that Cheryl and I must have very different diets.)

Ignore for the moment the fact that none of the reasons for my righteous environmental lifestyle is based on any conscious attempt at being environmental – that I live in a small condo in a dense, urban neighborhood because, in Boston, that’s what I can afford; that I don’t have a car because my wife lives in a different city for the time being and has exclusive custody of our one car; that my office just happens to be on a subway line that goes right to my front door; that the re-usable grocery bag was given to me by REI for free because I bought so much shit there over the course of a year. If you’re doing all the right stuff, the reason shouldn’t matter. And so, because being environmental is hip and stylish, because Cheryl Crow might be more likely to ask me to come jam with her band if she knew that I used reusable shopping bags, and because I think a neutral observer would judge my lifestyle to be pretty solidly environmental, I hereby declare myself an environmentalist.

And just because I don’t really believe in the environmental components of all the environmental things I’m doing these days doesn’t mean that I can’t start being all evangelical about it. No, I am ready to spread the word. But my angle is this: environmental living is fun. Not so much the recycling and re-using grocery bags part. Those aren’t bad, but they’re not fun per se. What’s fun is living in a small condo in a dense neighborhood, walking to the main strip to run errands and taking the subway to work. What all of these things have in common is the simple fact that they lead to interaction with other people. And even with other people I might not otherwise run into on a regular basis. When I walk down the street to run errands, I see neighbors. Sometimes, they are walking around too! Same thing if I sit out on the front stoop with a beer and a book. Because lots of other condos are packed into my dense street, there are usually living breathing human beings out on the sidewalk. And the subway is full of gangstas and geeks and hipsters and businessmen. I might not be best friends with them all, but I see them roving around and talking and reading their magazines and doing the things people do. And that, to me, makes life more fun. If most of my life were spent shuffling between my Denali, my McMansion and my office, I don’t think I’d have the same kinds of interactions as my environmental existence encourages.

But wait; there’s more! Walking is good for you. I haven’t seen the actual statistics yet, but I’m sure there’s research out there that shows that people who walk to the grocery store are 38% healthier, happier and more fulfilled than people who drive Denalis to the grocery store. Oh, and stores that service mostly smaller, pedestrian-accessible areas are more likely to be independently owned. And giving your money to people you know instead of to faceless shareholders is fun too! Who knew being environmental would be such a blast?

So here’s my plug: If for no other reason than demonstrating your keen sense of irony, become an environmentalist! When, in the next few decades, the world ecosystem collapses and the Earth is sucked back into the sun, why not increase the chance that it all goes down in the middle of a neighborhood block party? The apocalypse will be at least a little more fun if you have a few extra friends by your side.

For your further edification, take a look at this terrific 20 minute video by Annie Leonard called The Story of Stuff - a wonderful take on production, consumption, the environment and happiness in the modern world.

Pink Slips on Sesame Street

Just about everyone has been affected by these hard fiscal times. No business or organization has been spared. Like every other non-profit, PBS has been hit hard. It has instituted a recent hiring freeze and the future looks dire. And just because you happen to be a cute, fuzzy monster doesn't mean you're going to be immune from feeling the pain. With staffing cuts looming, it is inevitable that, in addition to their human colleagues, some of the Sesame Street muppets are going to have to be shown the door. Here is my analysis of who should stay and who should go.

The Count

The Count seems like he could serve an important accounting function. Being a bean counter is not stylish, but every nickel these days needs to be accounted for. Reporting requirements are going to proliferate. Someone's got to be in the trenches paying attention to what resources are going where. My concern is that, first of all, I've never seen The Count count to higher than ten. Second, just getting to ten seems to take him an awful long time ("ONE... one federal subsidy dollar, ah ahh ahhhhh. TWO... two federal subsidy dollars, ah ahh ahhhhh"). If PBS were to end up getting, say, a $100 million federal cash infusion, it would take The Count like a thousand years just to verify that the wire transfer had hit. So, while The Count may have some useful skills, they're not going to be of much help unless someone can light a bit of a fire under his ass.

Ernie and Bert

I don't know what kind of don't-ask-don't-tell policy Sesame Street has, but Ernie and Bert are obviously gay and have apparently been in a committed relationship since the late 60s. If PBS had to choose one of them to let go, it's a no-brainer that it would have to be Bert. Everyone likes Ernie better, and Burt's really just been Ernie's (no pun intended) straight man for the duration. If one but not the other got canned, it's not clear what kinds of benefits, as a life partner, he would be entitled to. Could Bert stay on Ernie's health insurance policy? What state is Sesame Street in (it’s hard to tell – probably by design, to keep the paparazzi at bay)? Maybe Vermont or New Hampshire. Wherever it is, someone would have to figure out the nuances of the rules on same-sex partner benefits in whatever the relevant jurisdiction is. I'm sure health insurance would be important to Ernie and Bert. Bert's always seemed right on the verge of getting an ulcer and Ernie's probably got no small amount of liver damage from his days of fast livin' and hard drinkin'.

Snuffleupagus

I have never understood just what exactly Snuffleupagus does, other than mope around and waste all of Big Bird's time. Does he contribute anything at all to Sesame Street's bottom line? He is an obvious candidate for a pink slip. My sole reservation is that he might be clinically depressed - a pre-existing medical condition - and PBS should probably get their employment lawyers involved to make sure there's no risk here of a discrimination claim.

Big Bird

What I’d like to know about Big Bird is how he ever got hired in the first place. “Bird brain” is not a complimentary expression (isn’t there some kind of bird that supposedly drowns itself staring up when it’s raining?). Big Bird’s got a pretty good attitude – seems to generally go with the flow – but, while I don’t think he’d bring the company down during the good times, I also can’t see him really stepping up to the plate during the hard times. He just doesn’t strike me as a go-getter with good initiative. If there were some specific need that would make sense for Big Bird to fill, I’d say keep him around. Otherwise, I think he gets a few months worth of bird seed and told to go find another nest.

Oscar

Oscar is indeed a grouch, but I get the feeling that, at the end of the day, he's the workhorse of the group. And I'd rather have someone on my team who's rough around the edges but who actually gets shit done than a lot of the other fuzzy little prima donnas who would probably fall over and die if they actually had to put in a full day's work. Is Oscar really even employed? Is the Sesame Street pay scale so twisted that he can have a full-time job and still have to live in a trash can? Or is there something we don't know about that is sucking up all of Oscar's cash? Is Oscar cooking up crystal meth or something on his days off? I would recommend some further investigation. If there are no skeletons in his closet, I'd lean towards keeping Oscar on. On the other hand, it would be sort of funny (ironic too?) to bang on the side of his can and tell him he was canned.

Cookie Monster

I like Cookie Monster. I really do. But the fact is, he is irresponsible and seems to have obsessive tendencies and zero self control. All of us would like to eat cookies all day long, but we learn not to let our base desires take over. I would worry about how Cookie Monster would fare if he lost the structure of having a steady job. He could be pushed to the limit and have nothing but his cookie crumbs to turn to. That's sad, but it's not the concern of PBS. They're trying to keep a business afloat and having a maniacal beast with a bizarre eating disorder in the ranks is not going to help. And cookies aren't cheap either.

Elmo

Elmo is the toughest call for me. He's obviously the rock star du jour, and he's clearly got the skills to pay the bills. Licensing revenues from the ten billion tickle-me-Elmos that were sold at Christmastime a few years ago are probably one of the main reasons PBS is still around at all today. But fans are fickle and fame is fleeting. I am not convinced that Elmo has any staying power. I think he's already past his prime and that pretty soon you're going to start seeing 3AM infomercials with Elmo hawking crappy exercise equipment or swamp land in Florida. OK, full disclosure here. I'm biased, and a part of me can't wait to see Elmo crash and burn. Why? Because Elmo is a total jive-ass, sell-out Grover rip off. How Elmo ever managed to so completely upstage Grover, who is the very embodiment of all that is awesome and cute, is beyond me. Shameless. Grover’s got too much class to go around bitching about it in public, but I can tell it's just eating away at him. My personal opinion is that the potential damage to PBS’ ongoing integrity if it keeps pandering to this red little poseur far outweighs whatever short term financial hit PBS would take if it shit-canned Elmo.

Grover

If Grover were to get the axe, the apocalypse would be near. Sesame Street without Grover? Game over. I have nothing further to say about this except, rock on, Grover. You've always got a place to stay with me.

Why Non-Profits Have Turned Me Into an Asshole

I worry that I’ve become more of an asshole recently. Some people might tell you that this is nothing new, that I’ve been an asshole for as long as they can remember. But I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s a recent development. And who is to blame? Non-profit organization fundraisers.

To clarify, when I say "asshole," I mean a "callous, unsympathetic, cold-hearted jerk who is generally less inclined to do unto others as he would have others do unto him." At my core, I think I’m as caring as the next guy. But when I consider how adept I’ve become at ignoring people with real problems, I have to wonder.

Coming across a lot of homeless people begging for spare change may have been the start of it all. And coming across a lot of homeless people is a city thing. If you live in a little town, you just don't encounter that many homeless people. There may be one, but he's most likely the cute, friendly drunk type who everyone likes. He probably gets taken in every night by the good townsfolk who give him a hot meal and a place to sleep until, one day, he mends his ways, sobers up, gets a steady job, becomes a generally productive member of society and maybe even marries the wholesome daughter of one of said townsfolk. In a city, you come across a lot more folks in need of some spare change. Maybe you drop a few quarters in some of their cups, but for every one person you help out, you have to pass by a whole lot more. If you tried to lend a hand to every homeless person you passed, you'd never make it to work. And then you'd probably end up homeless yourself. And to pass by one after another person who is experiencing such hardship and who needs your help, and to still live with yourself as a person, you have to develop some mechanism to cope. And that mechanism is tuning out. Ignoring another human being in need.

The more of a connection you have with a person, the harder it is to ignore him. It's easier to walk right past a person who's just jiggling a cup, a little harder to ignore someone who asks you for something directly. It really hurts to brush off a "hey champ, you got my dollar today?" or even a good old fashioned "God bless."

Non-profit street fundraisers have learned a lot from the business strategies of the homeless and have taken it to a whole new level. The fundraising strategy du jour - not a new one, but one that seems to have gotten a lot more prevalent recently – is to send out swarms of cute, young, perky college kids to follow you down the sidewalk and harass you in the most charming way possible. They walk beside you and start off by saying things like "sir, I have to tell you, that is the nicest tie I have seen all day" or "wow, you have got to tell me your secret for achieving such firmly toned pectoral muscles." And if you let slide any single response, make one millisecond of eye contact, they’ve got you. Then they’re off telling lurid tales of environmental degradation and tortured puppies and bald, cancer-infested toddlers and, next thing you know, you’re bawling your eyes out and hemorrhaging cash, begging them to stay put for a few more minutes while you run to an ATM machine to empty your savings account in support of their cause.

And so, if you’re going to have any chance at all of making it from the subway to your office with dry eyes and a dime in your bank account, your ability to stave off people in need has to evolve at pace with the guerilla tactics of the non-profit world. You can try the old classics: frothing at the mouth, talking to yourself, making them think you’re crazy; flashing a gun; vomiting next to them; screaming horrible, violent threats ("I swear to God if you take one more step towards me I will rip your f-ing head off and shit down your neck"). But that takes a lot of energy / profanity / bodily fluid and is generally not how you want to start your day (and, if you’re like me, you don’t have a gun).

So you develop the stone-faced shtick, the ability to walk right past someone who’s talking to you as if you can’t hear a word he is saying. It’s effective, but it’s hard. Especially when someone is saying such lovely, wonderful things to you. When someone compliments your tie or pectoral muscles, every molecule in your body wants to smile and say "thanks!" and tell them where you shop and what gym you work out at. Even if you know they utterly don’t mean what they’re saying, and have been saying the exact same thing to every schlubby, overweight accountant / lawyer that has crossed the street in the past month, it’s hard to ignore. And here’s the point: if you can ignore a cute, young, perky college kid who’s saying lovely things to you, you can ignore just about anyone in the world, no matter how dire their circumstances or how powerful their plea. And, per my previously articulated definition, that makes you an asshole.

So what now? How do I get back in touch with my sympathetic, human side? I could move to a small town where, as discussed, there would just be one homeless guy, who was fun and friendly, and take care of him. But I like taking the subway to work, and small towns don’t have subways. I could lock myself in the house and never leave. But that might create some problems of its own. Maybe some legislation outlawing compliments that are not genuine, or outlawing non-profit fundraising altogether. That might work. But that might lead to more homeless people, and they’d probably adopt the non-profit strategies pretty quickly.

Maybe, in the end, I’ll just have to live with being an asshole.