Dispositional Forecast – Rising Levels of Global Humility

I’m generally an optimist and so have been trying to keep an eye out for some of the upsides to the giant toilet flush that is today’s global economy. Not a whole lot to work with, but here’s one: I predict, for the foreseeable future, rising levels of global humility.

Humility – that intangible inclination to suspect that one’s successes are caused less by individual actions than by larger forces out there in the universe – is a good thing. And just a tiny little bit (one part per million?) goes a long way. Wouldn’t the world be nicer if we could all unleash a bit of our inner Yoda / Dali Lama and be just one notch less sure that we Have It All Figured Out?

Fortunately, I have reason to believe that the aggregate global humility level moves in direct, inverse proportion to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. And so, as the markets continue to plummet, I predict that that humility will rise to levels not seen since the Great Depression. All populations will be affected, in particular those that have historically been in the very the lowest quadrant of humility – the masters of the universe, financial titan types. So we’ve got that going for us, which (speaking of the Dali Lama) is nice. There’s probably a scientific way to measure individual humility levels – some kind of blood test or airport security-like scanning booth – but a loose, Justice-Potter-Stewart-looking-at-pornography approach (“I know it when I see it”) is usually quite accurate. One quick look at a person’s gait / posture / cock of the eyebrow can tell you how on top of the word he thinks he is.

The scientific explanation for macro-level shifts in humility has to do with internal versus external attribution of, respectively, good times and bad times. When good things happen, we think we’re the cause – the captain of the ship in full command of the seas. What Mollie Ivins said about George W. Bush, that “he was born on third base and thought he hit a triple,” could apply to just about anyone when things are all working out swimmingly. And when bad things happen, it’s crystal clear that bad weather or bad timing or an asshole brother-in-law are somehow to blame. When things go south, we’re just a cork being tossed around in the ocean. And all of this is nothing but natural. It’s the product of our hard wiring, smartly engineered to keep us from crawling back into bed every time the sun comes up in this tumultuous world.

What’s nice about humility is that it opens the door to inquiry and exploration. If you think that larger external forces have led to you where you are, you’re more apt to want to learn about those forces – the plate tectonics that heaved your hemisphere into an area with predictable annual rainfall, which caused big populations to stay put and form farms and then cities, which led to industrialization and specialization, which paved the way for a stable government and higher education and strong currencies – and all the other bricks in the pyramid upon which you found yourself perched upon exiting the womb. Without an awareness of all of those forces, with you yourself being front and center, ground zero of personal accomplishment, there’s no reason to look any further than your own self for an explanation of how you got to where you are. And then, of course, you’ve got to educate the world about the exalted path you took. And really, who wants to hear about all that? I bet, at some point over the course of his long life, Yoda “swung through Chicago and picked up his MBA” (exact words, I swear, used by a lecturer I heard at a continuing legal education seminar, describing his bio), but just chooses to focus on the bigger picture when approached for advice by the Luke Skywalkers of the world. Notwithstanding the fat autobiography advances ladled upon the likes of Jack Welch, Steve Jobs or Donald Trump, it’s usually just a lot more interesting to learn about the world outside than one guy’s individual road to becoming king.


All of that being said, let me now tell you about what I am going to do, and what you should do too, to achieve fame and fortune in the very short term. If you see a trend that is about to snowball, you have to capitalize on it (says Louis Winthorpe III to Coleman in Trading Places, “Pork bellies… I have a hunch something exciting is going to happen in the pork belly market this morning”). Humility clearly being the next blockbuster about to arrive on the scene, I just need to figure out a way to securitize it, slice it and dice it, package it up nicely and sell it on the market. SMUG now trading on the NASDAQ. It’s no more abstract, and probably a lot more sustainable, than a lot of the mortgage-backed products that everyone was clamoring to fold into their 401(k)s until the end of the last year. Humility futures are going to be a good, solid, counter-cyclical product offering a robust return on investment! This is an opportunity you do not want to miss! Supplies are limited! Call now to get in on the ground floor (prospectus and schedule of broker fees provided upon request)!

Saab Story 2009 – General Motors and Dan Enter into Talks Regarding Fate of Automotive Icon

I thought I was pretty smart late last year when I very skillfully bullied a Saab salesman into a great deal on a shiny new black 9-3. I knew that Saab had sold something like twenty cars in 2008 and figured that, instead of continuing to lease a car like I had done for almost the past decade, I’d buy a new car outright for a scandalously low price. The salesman ultimately buckled, but he also must have somehow forgotten to mention that Saab was on its very last leg and that its owner, General Motors, was about to leave the company as roadkill along the side of the highway.

GM announced last week that its Saab division filed for bankruptcy in Sweden and that, if it can’t find a buyer for the division in the next few months, it is going to let the brand die. Now, I have this nice new car that’s going to be extinct before it hits 10,000 miles, which, of course, left me in a bit of a predicament. I figured my options were to either buy two or three more new Saabs to use for parts once the company is gone or try to sell the car for some small fraction of what I just paid a few months ago. But then I realized that this was all small-minded, inside-the-box thinking and that a much bigger and better solution was staring me right in the face: buy Saab myself. Not the car, the company.

I thought at first I could probably have Saab for free. The division has been losing money almost since GM bought it 20 years ago, and I assume it’s all saddled with debt. GM thinks otherwise. It’s trying to get $500 million for the division. They first approached the Swedish government, the original owner of the company, and, in effect, asked them to buy it back. Understand that GM has completely and utterly destroyed Saab. It ruined the brand so effectively that I have to assume that, for reasons beyond my comprehension, GM had some kind of mandate to kill Saab. GM’s approaching Sweden to see if they were interested in buying Saab back is the corporate equivalent of a teen-ager buying a used car, wrapping it around a telephone pole, and then asking the seller if he wants to buy the wrecked car back for more than he sold it for. Not surprisingly, Sweden told GM to go kneppa dej sjelv (loose translation – “goo fooken derself”).

So $500 million may be optimistic. I’m ready to sit down at the table and talk about some options. If I could talk GM down to, say, $100 million and get them to waive the dealer, courtesy, delivery, registration and transport fees, I think I could probably make that work. I could put the purchase price on my new American Express Gold Card, which supposedly has no spending limit and can be paid down over time. I get points on that card too, so, if nothing else, I should be good on free plane tickets for the next little while. So then what will I do with Saab once I own it? Well, I don’t know. But really, that’s beside the point. If I can make a few bucks for myself and a few selected friends and not leave the company and its employees any worse off than they are now, the whole endeavor will be a success.

Let’s address the second point first – the automotive equivalent of a doctor’s oath to “do no harm.” As mentioned, the Saab brand is about one single heartbeat away from dead. GM managed to very adeptly transform the cars produced by Saab from quirky and distinct to mundane and utterly interchangeable with almost any other mid-sized sedan on the road. Saab used to have a devoted following in the U.S. of over-educated northerners – hippy-types who, by the time they had driven their first Saab into the ground, had gotten a good job and were ready to buy another one. A few recent last ditch efforts at expanding Saab’s market were so desperate as to be downright embarrassing. Witness the “Saabaru” – a Subaru Impreza with no modifications whatsoever other than a Saab logo slapped onto the steering wheel and the front of the grill. Or the 9-7 truck – a Chevy Trailblazer whose brilliant Saab-style innovation consisted of moving the ignition down to the floor in-between the front seats, and that’s it. The new 9-3 (the dream car I so insightfully snatched up) is built on a Chevy Malibu platform and has a weird Frankensteinish hodgepodge of GM and Saab buttons mixed together in the interior. It’s an exercise in bland imagination and group-think design-by-committee. And sales have reflected this. Aside from me and one other guy I saw in a new 9-3 a few weeks ago, no-one is buying these cars. So, in terms of the integrity of the brand itself, there is just nowhere to go but up. The company is about to be put through the bankruptcy wringer, which means that all pensions owed and obligations payable to suppliers will likely be wiped clean. So, no harm there in me having a go at it.

As for having the wherewithal to run a major automotive corporation, well, I got an A- in driver’s ed in high school, I can name the make and model of a car just by looking at its headlights in the dark, and I can talk about core competencies and synergies and shareholder value with the best of them. Pretty impressive resume, I’d say. So I think I could pull off the whole CEO thing. Who knows what the new new thing will be? A more clever tag line? A slightly more exciting design? Some inkling of an effort to make a car that has some single distinguishing feature? Whatever that elusive thing that may sell a few cars is, I figure I have as good a shot as anyone at stumbling upon it. And in the meantime, by taking a very reasonable seven figure salary and continuing to live my modest lifestyle, I should be able to save up enough over the course of a few years to retire comfortably around the age of forty. I’ll need to grow the executive team, of course, and will be accepting applications soon. Positions will include CFO, COO, Chief Marketing Officer and a handful of executive VPs. I’ll be looking to fill these positions with the kind of people who are fun to spend time with in a corporate jet – funny, good story-tellers, know a lot of jokes, work-hard-play-hard types. And I suppose some sort of experience in the auto industry, or any industry, would be good. Send a resume and cover letter if interested. No photos please.

We’ll see how GM’s continued talks go with Sweden. If they don’t work out and no other big automotive player steps up to the plate, keep an eye out for me wearing a stylish Saab leather jacket and hawking my new and improved line of cars. I bet if I buy the company, I can even get them to throw in a free set of floor mats.

Dude..., Inc. Self-Delusion Mitigation Services

My friend Matt recently told me why he thinks so many CEOs have gotten so out of touch with reality. His theory: they're always surrounded by yes-men and never have a chance to hear anything contrary to what they think. His solution: hire someone to come in and tell them the cold, hard truth about what people are saying. And who would that someone be? Matt himself, an independent Self-Delusion Mitigation Consultant. Brilliant! I loved the idea and immediately signed on to be a member of the team. Then we got to thinking, wait, it's not just CEOs. Just about everyone in the world is self-delusional. Why not make our services available to everyone?

So, we are pleased to announce the creation of our new company - Dude..., Inc. Self-Delusion Mitigation Services. Please click on the following two links to view a detailed brochure about our company and our business card:

DUDE..., INC. BROCHURE

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Call now for an appointment! Available times are sure to fill up fast.

Noise Pollution in Four Parts: Death to the Car Alarm

My first order of business when I am anointed King will be to ban car alarms. Car alarms have evolved to create a kind of noise pollution unprecedented in the history of mankind while, at the same time, serving no purpose whatsoever. Here is my understanding of how we got here and my proposed solution.

When car alarms first showed up on the scene, circa 1980, they just honked the horn and flashed the headlights. There was no auto shut-off feature so, however annoying the noise was, at least, after a while, the car battery would drain and the horn would stop. There would even be a bit of cosmic justice when the car owner came back and couldn’t start his car. Since then, the car alarm sound has evolved into a virtual symphony of noise pollution. The current version, sometimes referred to as the “[Insert name of your school located in bad neighborhood here] fight song,” has four looping verses: European police car; air raid siren; high voltage buzz; and ambulance. This medley has become so well known that it’s even sung, with four groups, as part of a college drinking game. In case you’ve been hiking the Appalachian Trail for the past decade and are not familiar with it, here is a recording:

CarAlarm.wav

The Original Car Alarm Creation Story – Old Testament

The original theory of how car alarms would work was something like this: grand theft auto guy attempts to force open door of upstanding citizen’s car; alarm sounds; people within ear-shot stop what they are doing; burglar freezes in tracks; Upstanding Citizen A runs to scene of averted crime, pins stunned burglar to ground while Upstanding Citizen B notifies constable; constable arrives, apprehends subject; subject is incarcerated; all are given keys to city; crime rate plummets; more young families move to town; SAT scores rise; quality of life skyrockets. This scenario played out as planned approximately once in the 29 years that followed. And then, for whatever reason, people seemed to lose interest. I noticed this a few years ago when I was having dinner at an outdoor cafe in Cambridge. It was a nice summer evening and the street was packed with strolling pedestrians. I heard a buzzing, screeching car alarm, getting louder and louder. I looked up and saw that a car was driving slowly down the street with the alarm screaming. Everyone on the street pointed and laughed. “Ha! Check it out! The alarm on that car is going off. Bwah Hah Hah!” For all we knew, the guy driving the car actually was stealing it. Just driving right down a busy street, smiling, waiving at the friendly passers-by on his way to the chop shop. Felt like the end of an era.

Car Alarm Creation Story, Take 2 – New Testament

Why do car alarms still exist so long after it has become clear that people do not pay one single iota of attention to them? Perhaps because of the “better you than me” theory. Adherents to this school of thought believe that if having a car alarm makes stealing their car just a teensy weensy little bit more difficult or risky than stealing the next car over in the parking lot, then Car Thief, having conducted a quick cost / benefit analysis, will opt in favor of boosting the other car instead of their car. The problem with this theory is that it underestimates just how spectacularly easy it is to circumvent a car alarm. Notwithstanding all the revolutionary breakthroughs in car alarm technology, being able to get into a car that is not yours and drive off with it without a key is the car thief equivalent of having a second grade education. It has been years since criminal social Darwinism has eliminated all car thieves who were so grossly incompetent as to set off an alarm. They’ve all moved on to other realms, like getting masters degrees or becoming substitute teachers.

Alternatives

Car alarms as we know them serve no purpose whatsoever, other than to increase the level of global irritation. But isn’t there some technological advancement that can help prevent auto theft? South Africans have a pretty effective system. Their car alarms supplement obnoxious noises with near lethal electric shocks. Come too close to a car that’s not yours and you get laid out by a jolt that is one volt short of what it takes to kill a grown man. Effective in deterring thieves? Absolutely. Compliant with the United States Constitution and the Geneva Convention? Doubtful. Our whole American hang-up about things like “egregious human rights violations” and “capital punishment without a trial” will always stand in the way of a really effective theft deterrence system. Also, you have to be careful what you wish for, since 99.999999992% of car alarm triggerings are caused by the owner of the car. There are some GPS tracking systems like Lo-Jack and OnStar that, at the very least, let you find out where your already-stolen car is. For a monthly fee, a friendly operator from one of those companies can confirm the exact time that your car crossed over into Mexico or the precise spot at the bottom of the reservoir at the old quarry where your car can currently be found. Maybe not the most useful variety of peace-of-mind, but I suppose it helps if you’re the type who requires “closure” and such.

The Solution

I am positive that, with one simple adjustment to property law, car alarms will become, within about a week, a relic of the past. The statutory adjustment – an exception to the general rule that a person may not destroy another’s property – would read something like this: “During such time as a vehicle’s audible theft deterrence system is actively engaged, any individual may make physical contact with such vehicle, provided that any damage resulting from such contact shall not exceed $5,000 per individual.” Translation: anyone who walks by your car while the alarm is going off can do exactly what he naturally wants to do – key your door, slash your tire, crack your taillight. If, after a quick shopping excursion, you were to return to the parking lot to find that your car had been completely demolished, you’d think, “hmm, alarm must have gone off” and then, probably, “hmm, oughta maybe disable that thing.” And just like that, problem solved. Three decades of irritation-by-design irrevocably reversed.

Why the Talking E*Trade Babies Have Shaken My Faith in Free Market Economics

Everything was just about right while I was watching the Superbowl last Sunday. I had a cold beer and a juicy burger in front of me, unobstructed views of half a dozen huge flat screen TVs, and the game itself was unfolding as one of the most exciting ever. But something felt strange. Then I figured out what it was. It was those talking babies from the E*Trade ad. Somehow, they had managed to shake my whole faith in free market economics.

Economic theory has evolved slightly in the past few decades to recognize that human beings are human beings. Still, however, a fundamental underpinning of almost all economic thought is the assumption that people are logical, rational actors, defining their goals clearly and determining how most efficiently to achieve them by weighing each morsel of information without bias or emotion. Modern advertising in general, and hip-talking , day-trader-services-hawking babies in particular, are hard to reconcile with the rational actor view. The effectiveness of an ad makes sense relative to rational actors to the extent that the ad presents facts and demonstrates how some service or object is different from, or better than, others. Facts educate rational actors such that their cold calculations become more informed and, in effect, lead to decisions that more efficiently achieve the person's stated goals. But, of course, most modern ads don’t really present any information at all. Just images. And, while that makes sense if what is being sold is itself just an image-enhancer – radical shoes, extreme soda, sexy cologne – the reason for the effectiveness of the ad becomes a lot more murky when the value of the product stems from some other supposed utility. You would think that, when shopping for insurance – about as unsexy, non-image-based a product as you can imagine – a person wouldn’t pay any attention to an ad that wasn’t providing real information about the nature of the coverage. But, enter the talking Aflac duck. His steady march into the most expensive prime time ad spaces are proof positive that something else is going on.

Getting back to the talking E*Trade babies, it's true, they’re funny damn dudes. I’ve always liked the original baby (says into cell phone "yo I'm in the middle of something; can I hit you back later"). C'mon, that's funny. He's a baby. He has a cell phone. He talks. And he sounds a lot cooler than me. When the second baby showed up on the scene during this year’s Superbowl, it was even better. How could you not think an infant who's into Mr. Mister, singing "Broken Wings," is hilarious? How does an infant even come across such a cheesy '80s tune? Whatever happened to Mr. Mister anyway? So that's all fine. Good all-American entertainment.

But stop for a second and remember exactly what it is E*Trade is selling. Day trading services! What you use to buy and sell stock! Stock – the equity ownership interest in a company you have rationally determined will outperform the expectations of all other rational investors in the world! When everyone was so gung-ho about privatizing the country's pension plans, about individuals taking back control over their retirement, places like E*Trade were exactly where they were supposed to turn. Do it yourself. Make your own decisions. Stop subsidizing snobby brokers who like to think that they know more than you about stock just because they have MBAs and have been working in the finance industry for 30 years. Everyone has read at one point or another that Warren Buffet drives a pick-up truck and bases all of his investment decisions on his own self-taught, aw-shucks, common sense wisdom. If you just keep a watchful eye on what products your wife has been bringing home from the corner store, it's just a matter of time before you’ll have your very own un-assuming ten billion dollars.

I cannot think of a more black and white demonstration that human beings are not rational economic beings than the fact that people are switching day trading services because of a baby singing a Mr. Mister tune. The talking baby ads obviously work. And, as every rational actor worshiping economist must surely agree, those who base investment decisions on emotional factors such as, for example, babies singing Mr. Mister tunes, are not acting in their rational best interests and should be removed from the economic decision-making process. In the case of E*Trade, there is a simple way to ferret out these hysterical corrupters of the market. One of the required fields in the on-line subscription application would be "how did you hear about E*Trade?" If a person chose the "from the talking baby Superbowl ad" option, his computer would snap into market corrupter lock-down mode – BUZZ! BUZZ! ALERT! ALERT! FINANCIAL DECISION ABOUT TO BE MADE ON BASIS OF INFANT SINGING MR. MISTER TUNE! BUZZ! ALERT! – and notice would be sent to the SEC and all other appropriate regulatory agencies. Having exposed himself as a slave to emotion, the narrowly averted investor-to-be would obviously be banned from trading stock. But all of the his other economic decisions - whether to buy that additional bobblehead / ringtone / Ginsu knife that cuts through aluminum cans – would have to be questioned as well. All personal economic decision-making power would have to be transferred to some other more rational person whose judgment was not skewed by emotion.

I guess then we would have to figure out who that other person would be. It could be me, I suppose. I know for sure that advertising has no impact on me. I'm able to see 120,000 advertising images every hour (or whatever the current statistic is) without being at all affected; it's just all the other human beings in the world that are so easily manipulated. On the other hand, other people might say the same thing. Advertisers would beg to differ. They would probably do some kind of demonstration where they ask me three questions and then rattle off, within a 0.0000002% margin of error, the kind of breakfast cereal I ate this morning, what brand of shaving cream I use and how many no-whip Frappuccinos I've drunk in the past six weeks.

So then that would mean that we are all capable of being manipulated and that people out there are seizing on that fact to make us spend our dollars in ways they want, while at the same time, thinking we've made the decision ourselves? Well that doesn't seem right. That would mean that the whole market economy might not be democratic and that we’re not actually each in control of our own destiny and that.... Hmm. Just too much to handle. Better just let this one be. At least those babies were funny. There was the one that was singing a Mr. Mister song. Huh huh.

My Next Career - Young Professional with Active Lifestyle

I walked out the front door of my apartment building a few days ago, saw two mountain bikes hitched to the bike rack and, in a moment of intense clarity, knew instantly what my next career should be. I am going to be a career Young Professional with Active Lifestyle.

The management company that operates the building I live in, The Palatine, is doing everything humanly / legally possible to fill its remaining units. The building is brand-new and was originally supposed to be condos. Construction was unfortunately completed about two hours before the worst residential real estate crash since possibly the Great Depression. It became painfully obvious to the management company that, despite the stainless steel appliances and multi-zone recessed lighting, there were not three young professionals in the world that were going to buy these units, so it rejiggered its business plan and is now trying to rent the units. It's a tough gig. They have to present a hip, upbeat image to potential renters when the whole world knows that its business has utterly shit the bed. Like trying to convince a girl at a bar that you're a real cool operator when your large intestine has been ripped out of your abdomen and a hyena is gnawing off your leg.

The Palatine has tried all kinds of tricks. They have ads all over the Metro, hip off-duty skateboarders doing tricks with Palatine signs at intersections (see video above), and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies in the rental office. Some hired Google guru has worked out a good algorithm that makes the Palatine website come up anytime you search for anything having to do with human beings, shelter, or the eastern seaboard. It wasn't until I had lived in the building for a few weeks that I noticed the best detail yet - the two bikes parked out front. When you look closely, it becomes clear that the bikes are props. They are pristinely new - obviously never having come into contact with a single molecule of dirt or mud - one has a flat tire, and both still have the legal warning stickers ("use of a bike could result in serious injury or death") prominently displayed on the frame. They're also cheap Wal-Mart-looking things, bikes that no self respecting overpaid weekend warrior would be caught dead on. But if you're just passing by on your way to a free cookie welcome tour, your subconscious is supposed to make a note-to-self that the residents of this handsome building are obviously hip and athletic, the hot, young work-hard-play-hard Michelob Ultra ad couples who rollerblade together at lunch, go clubbing at night and then do who knows what after.

So then I thought, wait, I'm a young professional with an active lifestyle! Or at least sort of. Maybe my next career should be spreading the gospel, telling all of the young professionals in the metro DC area just how active a lifestyle the good residents of the Palatine live. I could move some real estate! Let me back up and clear up a few details. I'm not that young - 35. Not ancient, but getting up there in the world of young professionals. But I look younger, especially since having shaved my beard, so I could probably pull off the role for at least a few more years. And, of course, to sell anything at all, but especially to market the active lifestyle image, you have to be tall, beautiful and fit. If I had been born in 1700, I probably would have been considered tall. 5' 6" specifically. These days, that's more of an average height; some might say "short." Looks-wise, I'd consider myself middle of the road, somewhere in-between Brad Pitt and the Elephant Man, probably just slightly on the Elephant Man side. I don't stop traffic based on either extreme. Same general level with respect to personal fitness. I wouldn't make it far through the abs of steel audition, but people don't usually point at me and laugh. So that's what I've got to work with. I'm maybe not the dream embodiment of the active lifestyle salesman, but I think I could make it work.

The job description itself would be simple: find wannabe Young Professionals with an Active Lifestyle in their natural habitat and convince them to rent an apartment at the Palatine. Now I know where these people go. The epicenter, ground zero, perfect storm of yuppiedom is right down the street. There is one single point that is equidistant from a fake Irish pub, a Williams Sonoma, a Whole Foods, a Starbucks and a Cheesecake Factory. That's where I would set up camp. I'd walk around nonchalantly, sipping a smoothie or a sports drink and remark, "well hey there, I'm guessing by the nicely defined contours of your pectoral muscles that you're a guy who lives an active lifestyle." Or "wow, look at that nice arctic parka you're wearing. You must into some pretty extreme nordic ice climbing." And then when, inevitably, the conversation got around to "where do you live?" and "what do you do?" I could say that I lived at the Palatine where, in-between heleskiing trips and whitewater rafting, and after a good workout at the on-premises 24 hour spa-style fitness center, I like to uncork a nice bottle of white from my stainless steel restaurant grade fridge, chop some vegetables on my marble counter and serve up a nice little feast for my friends in the building. And then, shazam - "you've never been by the Palatine? Oh man, you've gotta swing by. Wouldn't believe the active lifestyles the young professionals in the building all live" - my poor mark wouldn't stand a chance.

"But wait," you may say "I've seen young professionals and they are just as soft and lazy and zit-ridden as the rest of us." And you'd be right. But, young professionals are also just as self-delusional as the rest of us. Just because a person hasn't ever "actually" completed an ironman or hiked the Appalachian trail doesn't mean he wasn't just about to do so, just as soon as he had a little extra free time. And if your next door neighbor tells you all about his extreme 200 mile weekend trail ride and you can then tell your coworkers, truthfully, that you were just talking to your neighbor about banging down a mountain, that's really just about as good as doing it yourself. Living a vicarious active lifestyle is just one small step away from living an actual active lifestyle, and is certainly enough to entice a person into moving into an active lifestyle-style building.

So, the job description sounds pretty good. And I think the economics would work too. I don't know exactly what the Palatine business model looks like, but I have to assume it doesn't include 60 percent of its units sitting empty. If I could bring in a few Young Professionals with Active Lifestyles per week, checkbook in hand, ready immediately to start enjoying some active luxury-style living, that must be worth something. Six figures? I think so. I would, of course, need to continue to be relaxed, fit and knowledgeable of all current subjects, so my daily work schedule would be something like, wake up late, read paper, surf Internet, work out, do something out of a Mountain Dew ad, regale young professionals with tales of adventure and multi-zone recessed lighting, bar hop, repeat. I need to get my application in fast. My biological clock is ticking, and dirty old men hanging around young professional hot spots have abysmal records of hawking apartments.

An Idiot Without A Box – 20 Days of TV-Free Living

I am going to attempt a feat that has never been accomplished in all of history: writing about getting rid of my TV without being condescending or self-righteous. I don’t know if I’ll succeed but, if I don’t, know that I at least tried.

Why Did You Do This? What Is Wrong With You?

First, just about every day, there is some study or another talking about how much TV Americans watch and how TV is to blame for just about every negative modern trend. Kids watch an average of 22 hours of TV a day. Watching TV makes you obese, brain dead, poor, causes acne. Stuff like that. But the study that really caught my attention was one that found that people’s state of mind after watching two hours of TV was comparable to mild depression. That sounded about right to me. Not major depression, like where you start thinking about the futility of all mankind and wonder why you should even bother waking up tomorrow morning. Just moderate, blah-like withdrawal. Second, TV can be an unbelievable time-suck, and I am highly susceptible. Once you get settled down onto the couch and start staring at the tube, it’s hard to extricate yourself. Half hours glide by, and all the things you know you should be doing – taxes, calling your mother, bathing – just sort of fade from your consciousness. Next thing you know, it’s 2AM and you’re watching a an Eric Estrada timeshare infomercial for the third time.

So, OK, mild depression, wasting of full days. Nothing so horrible about that. But, the final factor, the one that really pushed me over the edge, is the rampant abuse of the laugh track. When you start paying attention to the laugh track, it goes from noticeable to ridiculous to downright insulting. The jokes that get a computer-generated guffaw have gotten dumber, and the intensity of the fake laughs has risen. Schlubby overweight sitcom man says to impossibly disproportionately hot wife “oh, sure your mother is invited, as long as she eats down in the basement” and the laugh track people break down, gasping for air, popping blood vessels like that is absolutely the most hilarious joke that has ever been made. If a real person ever laughed so hard at a joke that stupid, you would have the right, maybe even almost an obligation, to kick his ass.

The TV-Free Setup

All of these thoughts came around the time I was preparing to move to DC. The cheap and lazy sides of me (which carry a lot of weight in my decision making process) liked the idea of not having a monthly cable bill and having one less bulky item to drag out to the moving van. So that was it; the TV would stay in Boston.

I still have a few TV sources though. My Netflix subscription is still running (I can watch DVDs on my computer), the gym in my building has TVs on the treadmills and I live within a few blocks of half a dozen bars that, of course, have TVs covering every inch of wall space. So I can still watch stuff by either ordering shows in advance, running or drinking. The Netflix / DVD setup has worked well for following series I actually like to follow – currently The Wire. When an episode is over, it’s over, so I can’t just space out indefinitely. If I want to watch another episode, I have to at least make the effort of dragging my finger across the touch pad on my laptop – quite a bit more energy than is required to keep watching shows on TV. The treadmill setup is good for some things. I can tell people “well, I guess I’ll hit the gym” without specifying that I’m really going to run a few 16 minute miles so that I can watch That 70’s Show. Even I have enough personal pride not to stand on a motionless treadmill watching TV. So, down in the gym, I can only watch TV for as long as I’m actually moving. If I wanted to watch a football game on the treadmill, I’d have to run for three and a half hours, which is almost a full marathon, and that’s just not what Sunday afternoon football is supposed to be about. So the bar setup is best for sports. There are, of course, a few issues to worry about if you do all your TV watching at a bar. First of all, the no-cable savings I was so excited about gets eviscerated pretty quickly at a bar. My general feeling is that you have to order about one drink every half hour to maintain your good standing with a bartender. That adds up quickly, both financially and blood alcohol level-ly. If the point of not having a TV in your house is to become saintly and wholesome, I’m not sure that turning yourself into a raging alcoholic in exchange is the way to go.

Report From The Trenches – Day Twenty

So far so good, I think. After nearly three weeks of mostly TV-free living, I am pleased to report that I am still functioning, socially and emotionally. My apartment is a little more subdued than before – soothing NPR voices taking the place of hysterical furniture ads – and I’ve been reading slightly more. I haven’t discovered a cure for cancer or written the great American novel yet. It turns out there are plenty of other ways to zone out and be lazy, even without a TV. There’s a Far Side cartoon titled “in the days before TV” that shows a family sitting on the couch staring at the wall. I’ve done a little bit of that.

Surprisingly, the thing I miss most so far is commercials. Who’s winning the canned soup war? What crazy things are the duck and the caveman doing to sell insurance? If I order a set of knives right now, what other amazing item will be thrown in for free? Somehow, being pandered to by the hucksters makes me feel in touch. Without anyone trying to separate me from a dollar, how can I be sure I’m still a relevant human being?

My human interactions haven’t changed much but, at some level, I think that is just because I still have a long TV backlog to draw on. After the weather, TV is probably the most important component of white noise conversation. After I’ve fallen a full season behind in Lost and American Idol, what am I going to talk to people about in the hall at work? There’s always The Simpsons. That’s timeless, and I’ve got enough of a foundation there to last me for years. But it seems inevitable that, at some point, I’m going to have to admit that I don’t have a TV. And who knows what will happen once that’s out in the open. Will people shy away from me? Will they talk to me at all? Whisper about me behind my back? I imagine it will be like being a leper – people will try to be polite but won’t be able to help recoiling in terror.

Three weeks without a TV has been alright. I sure don’t miss the laugh track, but we’ll have to see how long this idiot can remain separated from his box.

Beantown vs. The Capital – Smackdown 2009

Boston and Washington DC are both pretty first-world kinds of places. Boston has Harvard. DC has the President. So moving from one to the other shouldn’t be too shocking. Still, there are some differences. Here are my thoughts on the transition from Beantown to the nation’s capital. But first, a few caveats. I’ve lived in Boston for nine years, specifically, in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood. And I’ve lived in the DC area – the Clarendon neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, for twelve days. So, while my understanding of the Boston vibe runs pretty deep, my understanding of DC is just based on having met about nine of the DC area’s five million people (which includes my building’s night doorman, who, so far, has been unconscious every time I’ve seen him) and commuting between the Courthouse stop on the Metro and K Street.

These observations are just meant to be descriptive, not judgments about which city is better. Well, sort of. Actually, no, not at all. Might as well just make it a competition. The cities will compete in five categories. The winner will receive the official endorsement of the DanJanifesto, which can be noted in future Chamber of Commerce publications. We’ll start off with a blank slate. BOS: 0 points; DC: 0 points.

Category 1 – Light Rail Transportation

The T in Boston is filthy and loud. You can’t ever understand a single word that is spoken over the PA system. Some of the platforms have cracks with weeds growing out of them. The DC Metro is quiet and smooth. The stations have big, warmly lit arches evocative of a 1970’s space travel dream. Digital signs on the platform tell you how many minutes it will be until the next train arrives. Announcements are made my a sexy, soothing female voice – don’t know who she is, but she makes you feel like, if you had a fever, she’d show up next to your bed and feed you chicken soup. And, get this, the trains are carpeted. The overall effect is womb-like tranquility. So, one point DC, right? Wrong. All of the loveliness of the Metro is outweighed by the fact that food and drinks are prohibited on the train. You can get a ticket for getting on board with a morning snack, a bottle of water, a coffee. So, every morning, two million people are somehow supposed to get themselves to work without caffeine. This triumph of form over function is so outrageous, I don’t know what to say. Other than, one point BOS. BOS: 1; DC: 0.

Category 2 – Alcohol and Tobacco Acquisition

Until recently, you could only buy alcohol in Boston the third Friday of every month between 2:00 and 3:00 PM. Boston’s infamous blue laws have been scaled back, but they’re still around. Care for a libation at 11:00 AM on a Sunday? Better hop in the car and drive to New Hampshire. In DC (Virginia, actually - remember, I’m just talking about my own new neighborhood), you can buy alcohol 24/7. And, guess where you can buy beer and wine. Are you ready for this? CVS! That’s right. You pop into the drugstore to pick up a newspaper and maybe a greeting card and, on your way to the checkout line, you can also grab a 30-pack of Bud Light. Can you imagine? Wake up at 3 AM thinking a beer would be nice only to realize you’re out? Not an issue. Go across the street to CVS and in under five minutes, you’re back on the couch popping open a nice cold one. And you can still smoke in bars in Virginia. I don’t smoke, but I think that bans on smoking in bars reek of Fascism. People in The District, I think, dismiss this as just another ass-backward rural Virginia kind of thing (I’ve already come to understand that, living in Virginia, I am part of the DC equivalent of what Manhattanites refer to condescendingly as the “bridge and tunnel crowd”) , but I think it’s the way it should be. And sooo… one point DC. BOS: 1; DC: 1.

Category 3 – Pedestrian Street-Crossing Etiquette

Boston is famous for its horrible drivers (“Massholes”). But the dirty little secret is that Boston pedestrians are even worse. The basic rule is that a pedestrian has the inalienable right to just walk right out into any street – eight-lane highways with 85 mile an hour traffic included – and vehicles must screech to a halt and let them cross. Children in Boston are never even taught to look both ways. Pedestrian walk / do-not-walk lights are an outright waste of taxpayer dollars. Since the year 1400, when the first absent-minded professor landed on Beacon Street, pedestrians in Boston have ruled. Pedestrians in DC, do not, DO NOT, in any circumstance, cross the street unless the light so authorizes them, even if no vehicle is visible for as far as the eye can see. Crossing lights show the seconds remaining until the light will change, so pedestrians know exactly how much longer they will have to stand on the curb. I just do not get it. I have to assume that DC pedestrians know something I don’t. Maybe J-walking is viewed by the secret service as an attempt on the president’s life, and you can get shot dead by a sniper if you step out into the street against the light. I’m not sure how to allocate points in this category. Boston pedestrians are insane; DC pedestrians are pussies. Let’s give a point to each city. BOS: 2; DC: 2.

Category 4 – My Neighbors

My neighbors in Boston are great in every respect. They’re hip, fun, funny, sexy, smart, just all-around terrific. When a Boston neighbor and I pass one another on the street, we give each other a subtle nod that says “hey man, isn’t it groovy that we both live here on the same planet, on this very same street? we should get together sometime to hang out and just shoot the shit, or maybe start a band.” When I nod to my new neighbors in DC they look at me like I’m carrying a bloody chainsaw and have fresh chunks of baby meat hanging out of my mouth. They avert their eyes and pick up their pace, as if to say “there is no way in hell you are going to beat me out of this internship I so fundamentally deserve. I was editor of law review, you know.” The people in my Boston neighborhood on their way to the T look like they’re going out to hang posters about their new self-published music review rags. My neighbors in DC on their way to the Metro look like they’re going to a big group job interview, and are worried that it’s obvious how padded their resumes are. One point Boston. BOS: 3; DC: 2.

Category 5 - Coffee

And, finally, coffee. In Boston, there is a Dunkin’ Donuts on every corner. When giving directions, people say things like “so you wanna go down Centre St. past three Dunkin’ Donuts, and take a right; then go left at the fifth Dunkin’ Donuts; our place is just after the second Dunkin’ Donuts on the left.” In DC, Starbucks are everywhere. There are some Starbucks with another Starbucks in the back. The state bird is Starbucks. In the current economic environment more than ever, a $4.00 cup of coffee is just not where it’s at. And so the final point goes to Boston.

Results

Final score: BOS 4; DC 2. My impressions could certainly evolve over time, and I will update the score accordingly. But, for the moment, the cold hard numbers indicate that Boston is better than DC by a margin of 4 to 2, or 100%.

Automotive Review – U-Haul EZ-Loader 17 Foot Moving Van

Background

Those who doubt whether the big three American carmakers are going to make it through this tumultuous economic period may be overlooking one of the U.S. auto industry’s most important core competencies – the moving van. Foreign cars may have taken over the consumer market and are even becoming more prominent as taxis and delivery vehicles, but when was the last time you saw a Nissan moving van? With this in mind, I decided to experience firsthand what a 17 foot U-Haul EZ-Loader, built on a Ford F-350 platform, had to offer. And let me tell you, I was not disappointed.

Review

I picked up my EZ-L-17 in the worst area of Roxbury, one of the worst neighborhoods in Boston, next to a building that my wife recognized from jury duty as an active crack den. Used U-Hauls are often put up for sale and might run in the vicinity of three grand for a well worn but nicely repainted model. More common is to rent the truck. The approval process is minimal. I told the guy at the counter that I was legally blind, wasted and had been having visual hallucinations all morning. He asked if I had a credit card and a valid driver’s license. I said yes, and we were on our way. I opted for a three-day, one-way rental which, with a dolly, half a dozen packing blankets and extra liability insurance (ALWAYS get extra liability insurance; I’ll explain later) came to $465.50. The model I chose, a 1997 with 438,000 miles on it, came equipped with windshield wipers and heat. The i-X-SLC-Vanden Plas model also includes an AM radio, but that was a little upscale for my budget. In order to get the full experience, I filled the ample cargo space with all of my possessions and moved from Boston to Washington, DC.

The EZ-L-17 handled like most large trucks. The only real clue that I was moving at all was the almost unbearable noise coming from the engine and the leaky windows. The six gazillion horsepower engine moved the truck from zero to sixty in 237.3 seconds. The turning radius was just under a quarter mile and the truck could brake to a complete stop in around 180 yards. The oversteer was terrifying. I filled the tank with low, low, low grade Sunoco unleaded and got an average of 6 miles per gallon on the highway.

The interior styling of the cab was modeled on the “impenetrable” school of design, exuding a sort of masochistic “abuse me” kind of aura. I couldn’t tell whether the interior was made out of rubber or some kind of incredibly thick yet flexible plastic, but there is nothing – no bodily fluid, no carelessly flung power tool, no voluminous amount of tobacco juice – that could have harmed the interior of this truck. Putting aside the issue of whether I would get charged an additional $35 cleaning maintenance courtesy fee, I felt like I could have my way with this truck. The bench seat could comfortably accommodate three average-sized (i.e. grossly obese) Americans and the single beverage holder could hold one, six-hundred ounce Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. There was no glove compartment, but the trough attached to the middle of the dashboard seemed designed to handle about two cubic yards of I-have-no-idea what.

There’s not much to say about the exterior of the EZ-L-17. U-Haul trucks are huge, boxy and orange. Some of the newer models have decals covering the sides of the truck highlighting interesting tidbits about some state, but that’s ridiculously lame and, I’m sure, will be discontinued soon. The “Grandma’s Attic” compartment – a bit of additional storage space that creeps over the top of the cab – virtually begs to be ripped off by a low-hanging tree branch or tunnel. This feature may have been included in the design for the very purpose of instilling in the driver a sense of danger and excitement.

But to focus on the performance and styling of the EZ-L-17 is to overlook the most essential element of a U-Haul truck – the attitude it exudes. Those who try to convey a message of aggressiveness with “No Fear” bumper stickers, badass-looking wheel rims or Hummers are entirely misguided. Driving a U-Haul announces to the world, infinitely more powerfully than any other vehicle or accessory ever could, “YOU JUST ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT TO FUCK WITH ME.” It is universally known that a person driving a U-Haul 1) has probably never been behind the wheel of a truck before and has no idea where the end of his hood leaves off , where your freshly-polished bumper begins or what lane he is in, 2) does not give one molecular iota of a shit if the truck gets dinged, scratched, side-swiped, banged up or totaled and 3) got so hosed by the salesman with unnecessary insurance that there is a little part of him that actually affirmatively wants to destroy the truck, just to get his money’s worth.

Bottom Line

If you’re into comfort, acceleration and FM radios, you should probably keep shopping around. But if your idea of a dream drive is to careen recklessly down the road and have every car in your path zip fearfully out of your way, an EZ-L-17 is the vehicle for you. Plus, with all of your worldly possessions in the back, you’ll always feel at home.

Specs:

Model: 1997 Ford F-350 U-Haul 17 foot EZ-Loader with 438,000 miles.
Price: Buy for $3,006, plus tax, title, registration, delivery and dealer prep. Rent one-way, Boston to DC, for $465
Engine: V-12 all-American monstrosity. No turbo, no fuel injection, just huge.
Highlights: All the trunk you could ever want. Dual rear wheels. S&M upholstery.
Zero to 60: Yes.

Vanity - A License Plate Memoir

Please follow the link below to my debut documentary - Vanity, a memoir. It's a true story about the decade-long process of getting the perfect vanity plates.


http://home.comcast.net/~djanis/Vanity2.mov

The Thank You For Holding, Your Call Is Important To Us, Title 17 Anti-Muzak Amendment for Public Mental Health

It’s hard to predict all the small ways in which life is going to change as the economy continues to go down the toilet, but one thing for sure is that we are all going to spend a lot more time on hold. With each round of layoffs and corporate consolidations, human contact on the phone will be one notch more elusive. And what will follow each affirmation by an infuriatingly friendly-sounding woman that your call is important to her? More Muzak.

Muzak is among the worst of all human creations. In the list of things humanity can be proud of, Muzak ranks somewhere between the Tuskegee experiment and the dropping of the second H bomb. As more of this artistic abomination is forced upon us, what is now a moderate germ of annoyance is going to balloon into a pandemic.

Why do we have to listen to Muzak?

When the nice lady on the phone tells you that your call is important to her and that the estimated wait time for a customer service representative is 37 minutes, what she really means is this: “the company with which you are waiting to do business has conducted a cost / benefit analysis and determined that connecting you with a customer service representative in 36 minutes would cost just slightly more than the risk of losing you as a customer, and that making you wait 38 minutes to speak with a customer service representative might be just aggravating enough that you decide to screw it and just live without electricity / life insurance / gas / frequent flier miles. And when you are being pushed right up to, but not over, the brink of gouging out your own eyeballs, the theory goes, a little light music would be nice.

OK. Nothing wrong with that. Everyone likes music. Soothing is good. But why does it have to be bowel-loosening, soprano saxophone, duel-octave, no-reverb guitar lick drivel? Musical taste is subjective, but only up to a point. Muzak crosses the threshold: objectively speaking, it is a cold, hard scientific fact that Muzak is absolute shit. Calm, soothing music does not have to be absolute shit. Think of a Miles Davis ballad – wispy, muted trumpet phrases so hauntingly beautiful they could move a person to tears. Or some nice bluegrass - Jerry Douglas creating such entrancing sounds with his dobro. Yo-Yo Ma and his cello. Or even some Steely Dan. So how does laxitive-esque bowel-of-the-creative-universe trash beat out the crown jewels of human artistic achievement in the telephonic broadcast realm? The latter just can’t compete on cost. Muzak is cheap; good music is not.

A Few Legal Concepts to Frame the Issue

United States copyright law is built upon the premise that you should not be able to steal a person’s work. Just as, if a carpenter builds a house, you can’t have it unless you pay him for it, you can’t take a musician’s song without throwing a little cash compensation his way. An artistic product is the property of its creator (I don’t mean God; I mean the starving singer-songwriter). But there are exceptions to all property laws. Under the concept of eminent domain, for example, the government can confiscate private property if the greater public good requires it. Finally, while a person is generally free to do whatever he wants as long as he doesn’t harm others, there are even some legal limits to that concept. You are not allowed to sell yourself into slavery or hawk your organs on E-Bay, even if you decide it would be in your best interest to do so.

Let’s apply all of this to life-on-hold. At some point, the decision as to whether to keep holding for the next customer service representative, to whom your business is important, is really not a choice. You have to do it. If you hang up and your electricity account gets cancelled, and you can’t heat your house or watch Two And A Half Men, you are effectively surrendering an essential freedom. You are being held against your will and having Muzak forced upon you, and that is akin to slavery. There being no practical way to end this modern fact of life, at the very least, its harmful effects need to be mitigated. Muzak must be banned and good music provided in its place.

Proposed Revisions to United States Copyright Law

Title 17 of the United States Code outlines the parameters of copyright protections and exceptions. As explained by the revered Justice Potter Stewart, “the ultimate aim of [our copyright law] is to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good.” While copyright law generally requires that an artist be compensated for the use of his music, there are exceptions, such as fair use, when the benefit to the public of having access to the music outweighs the loss to the artist of not being compensated for it. Royalty-free broadcasting of an artist’s work over the phone lines for the segment of the population that is waiting for the next available customer service representative to whom its business is important would be of great benefit to the general public. Such permitted use should be the law.

No evaluation has ever been conducted of the loss to society due to insanity, suicide and worse, resulting from forced exposure to Muzak. But, unquestionably, such loss is staggering. The benefit of preventing these widespread atrocities would far outweigh any loss to the artistic community. The forced licensing of good, soothing music, could actually stimulate creativity. The billions of man-hours spent on hold could foster a whole new generation of creative minds.

What I Intend To Do About It

I am moving to Washington, DC soon and, when I get there, will immediately start lobbying congress to pass my first bill: the Thank You For Holding, Your Call Is Important To Us Title 17 Amendment for Public Mental Health. This legislation will be simple to draft – no royalties due for any music broadcast over the phone lines to any person who is on hold – and even simpler to pass since, for the past 32 years, the entirety of the U.S. copyright regime has become the unabashed whore of corporate interests, led by Sonny Bono and Mickey Mouse (I’m not making this up; these are the facts). Passing this legislation will be in the best interest of the corporate community since it will pacify, and increase the lifespan of, its customer base. I’ll get to DC on a Monday and, assuming I can set up a quick lunch date with Walt Disney’s lobbying firm, I’d expect this to be signed into law by a week from Tuesday. If that fails, I’ll look into gathering some funds to purchase a sovereign nation (one of the many abandoned oil rigs located just far enough off the coast to be in international waters, which used to house most of the world’s porn and gambling servers and which, following the Y2K dot-com crash, can be had for cheap). From there, I could set up some phone banks from which good music could be broadcast subject only to my country’s own copyright laws (drafted, of course, by yours truly with, maybe, a little help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation).

Muzak is a disease that must be eliminated! The future of humanity depends on it! Give it some thought the next time you’re on hold. Do not give in. The time for change is now!

The Running Kool-Aid: Why I Have Drunk It and Why You Should Too

My aunt and uncle had two things they swore they wouldn’t do when they had kids: make guests listen to their kids play musical instruments and have their kids leave the message on the answering machine. They put up a noble fight but, in the end, they succumbed. A few short years after the promise, there I was, on the couch, when the suggestion was floated out there: maybe cousin Ricky should drag his trombone up from the basement and serenade me with a few toots. And sure enough, when I called on the phone and nobody was home, whose adorable voice did I hear asking me to leave a message? Three year-old cousin Lyla’s. There are some forces you just can’t beat.

And, when I took up running a few years ago, I swore that I would not become THAT GUY who had to preach on and on about how absolutely wonderful running is and why you just absolutely had to give it a try yourself. I think we all know where this is going. What can I say? When you find God or Amway or crack cocaine or whatever it is that gets you out of bed in the morning, you want to yell it in the streets. Or at least e-mail it to your closest 200 friends. Or, better yet, post it on your blog. You can stop reading any time now. Unless you’re already a runner, this could get nauseating. If you care to read on, here are my top five reasons you should start running.

Reason Number One: Running is Easy

Professional runners will deny this, but running is easy. They will tell you that, like any sport, becoming a great runner takes a lifetime of practice and commitment, that there are a million subtleties to conquer. Not true. You’ve seen people run. All you have to remember is that after you put your left foot forward, you then have to put your right foot forward. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. That’s it. If you mess up and do, for example, two left foots in a row, you’ll be skipping. And it’s hard not to notice when you’re skipping. I’ve glossed over a few steps. You should drink a glass of water before you go out for a run, and you need to know how to tie shoes. If you have a hard time with either of those, you should probably stay away from sports generally.

Reason Number Two: Running is Cheap

This point can be made most powerfully if we compare running to another sport. Pick a sport, any sport. Let’s say, I don’t know, how about polo. If you want to give polo a shot, you need a stable of horses, boots, one of those black fuzzy helmets and a big mallet thing. Once you throw in all the peripherals – a Jaguar XJ8, a horse trainer, prep school tuition, some rope – you’re talking probably half a million bucks just to get started. To be a runner, on the other hand, all you need is a pair of shoes. Some of the most elite Kenyan marathoners started out, as kids, running with rubber flip-flops. You could pick up a second hand pair of those for under fifty cents. Even if you want to go seriously high end, you can get shoes custom-fitted, by a guy with a PhD, to match your exact pronation and arch for about $110. That is the absolute upper limit. You just cannot spend more than that on a pair of running shoes, even if you are specifically trying to get gouged. I guess you need socks too. So add another seven bucks for a real fancy pair. That’s it. You’ll hear runners talk about wicking shirts, anti-chafing shorts, Gu, GPSs, UV shades, and on and on, but that’s all just first-worldy running magazine-marketed stuff designed to keep cash flowing and make runners feel like they’re part of some real sport. Even clothes are optional. You hear from time to time, seriously, about naked 10Ks. Up to you. This may sound sexy, but I’m sure it’s really not. Also, do a quick read through your local indecency ordinances before setting out in the buff.

Reason Number Three: Running Lets You be Holier Than Thou

Be honest with yourself for a moment. What is your main motivation for doing anything? Mostly so that you can think you’re better than other people. Right? Come on, of course it is. Unless you live in Boulder, Colorado, there will be an article in your local newspaper every single day from tomorrow until the end of time about how obese and unhealthy everyone in your community is. Running doesn’t solve all health problems, but it’s generally good for you, so that’s close enough. That means that, if you’re a runner, you can turn your nose up at every article pointing out what a public health crash course we’re on, or how horrifically complacent and out of shape the general population is, knowing what a long, healthy, lovely life you are going to live. Applying this to your workaday life, you can paste on a smug little smile with the knowledge that every jerk that cuts you off on the highway or boss that only skims your emails probably has a higher body mass index than you.

Reason Number Four: Running Lets You Eat Anything in the World

If you run enough, you can eat ANYTHING you want. A good, long run burns around 2000 calories. That’s about as much as you need to eat in a day, which means that if you eat a healthy breakfast, a sensible lunch and a full dinner and then run 20 miles, when you get home, you can eat another entire healthy breakfast, sensible lunch and full dinner without gaining an ounce. Or you can stick to the regular number of meals and live off of a three-beer-and-a-bacon-cheeseburger-a-day diet with no net caloric change at all. One caveat here is that the beer does still tend to go to the gut and so, if you’re trying to avoid the ridiculous-looking beer-swilling runner’s physique (120 pounds, half of which protrude from between your waist and your nipples), you’ll want to think about adding on some kind of abdominal regiment as well. Otherwise, you’re free to pound the pavement and then settle down every evening on your regular stool at the Cheesecake Factory bar.

Reason Number Five: Running Makes You Feel Good

And finally, the clincher: running makes you feel good. It’s the endorphins. Endorphins are as much fun as any other drug, and they’re free, transportable across state borders and don’t have to be purchased from some sketchy high school dropout. Endorphins are designed to mitigate extreme pain. They’re supposed to be secreted right before something horrible happens so that your body doesn’t go into shock. Running manipulates your body into producing a dose of self-medication that lasts all day long. Some would say that there’s no manipulation involved, that running is exactly the kind of “something horrible” that endorphins are meant to counter. I won’t argue with that. Despite the whole poetic wax-job in the preceding paragraphs, I’ll be the first to admit that running itself sucks. The first five miles of any run are horrible. All the rest of the miles are slightly less horrible, but certainly not at all pleasurable. It’s when you get done that you start to feel good. Kind of a reverse hangover. Pain first, then pleasure, and only very rare instances of doing something stupid that you don’t remember, but later discover on YouTube. For the 18 hours following your run, you’ll feel relaxed and generally more equipped to deal with whatever shit the universe deals you over the course of the day.

So there you have it – my little unsolicited dose of self-righteous prosthelytizing. You can take it or leave it. But even if you don’t immediately start living the nirvana of a life I’ve offered up for you, at least you’ll understand why the guy in tights you see every morning checking his pulse by the sidewalk looks so appallingly serene.

P.S. Here is a video dispatch from my tri-state Thanksgiving run through South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEd4E6RJSnE

The IROC-Z Quotient. Standardized Testing for Jerks.

The modern world is a complicated place. Very often, we don't have the time, energy or resources to evaluate for ourselves the full nature of a person or a situation, and so have to rely on some kind of quantitative shorthand. And as surely as water runs downhill, the world teaches to the test.

One hundred out of one hundred university provosts will tell you that choosing a college is a complicated, intimate decision and that the U.S. News and World Report college rankings are meaningless drivel. But, of course, twenty-five out of twenty-five colleges that rank in the top twenty-five splash their statistic all over every prospective-bound brochure. A 17 point drop in the S&P 500 or a 53% percent chance of rain are utterly meaningless figures. They do absolutely nothing to describe the world or predict the future. Yet these numbers are, almost without exception, among the first things we hear on a newscast. They are scientific calculations after all, right?, and so, even if imperfect, they have to mean SOMETHING.

Over time, numeric proxies start to eclipse reality itself. The CEO spouts effusive corporate-speak to nudge up a share price. The parent enlists Kaplan to brainwash his kids for an average net, money-back guaranteed 50 point SAT score increase. The golfer gives himself a putt. Slowly, imperceptibly, we forget about the whole sausage factory that reduces the vast, crazy world to digits and start worshiping the shorthand itself.

It’s only natural, of course. We’re busy people. To figure out how smart a person is takes a lot of effort. It’s rude to probe too hard, so we just wait for a passing reference to a person’s having “spent some time in New Haven” to clarify that he graduated in the top 2% of his prep school class. Front and center – the Mac Daddy of all signifiers – is the almighty dollar. That’s a little easier to suss out than intelligence; we just have to wait to peek at a little slice of Patek Philippe hand-chiseled bezel poking out from the edge of a monogrammed cuff. We’re all taught that money isn’t everything and that money can’t buy happiness. And we all know, from about age seven, that that’s bullshit. Money buys freedom. Money buys influence. Money buys security. And no matter how much we swear that it’s noble to be a social worker or a school teacher, and no matter how much we deeply, truly believe that, not a single one of us can help but have some lingering sense that the dude with the Rolex has done a better job of doing whatever it is we’re all supposed to be doing.

The dollar shouldn’t be the end-all-be-all of human metrics. The meritocratic faithful will tell you that rich people are rich because of their skills and resourcefulness. I’d estimate that to be true about 4% of the time. From time to time, yes, a person works hard, focuses intently and walks himself down the path to one of the half dozen kinds of careers that pays big, or thinks outside the box and comes up with the next Post-It Note. The remaining 96%? Duh. C’mon, say it with me - Born with it. The sample size of the group of investment bankers I know personally is large enough for me to justify generalizing: having lots of dough means no more than that you have been graced with the subtle, acquired ability to pick out the right style suit and hint at the right summer vacation paradise to get your foot in whatever door leads to more dough. And that’s it.

Most people would agree that, when trying to figure out how worthwhile a person is, such characteristics as love, happiness, kindness and commitment are more important than money. But because human beings are so hard-wired to overestimate the importance of things that can be quantified, it’s futile to try to make people focus on these kinds of amorphous concepts. What we need, then, is a new and improved matrix, one that measures the things that are really important. If we can get that right, teaching to the test will better all of humanity.

I propose the Individualized Reconnaissance of Compassion – Zeitgeist 2009 (“IROC-Z”) Quotient. (As a side note, it is an amazing coincidence that the acronym for this matrix is the same as the name of a certain 1980’s Chevy. All of the great minds in the automotive and sociological communities are in agreement that, because of some inexplicable convergence of engineering and marketing, there is a perfect one-to-one correlation between owning this make and model car and being a dick.) Based on a few informational tidbits, the IROC-Z process would be able to quantify all of the factors that make a person good and likable. Have you ever kicked a dog? Made a child who’s not yours cry? Did you read a book last year? What’s your mother in-law’s birthday? Do you let people merge from on-ramps? How much do you tip? Between Google, the Department of Homeland Security, Amazon.com and Visa, all the necessary information has already been collected, so producing the results would just require a little number crunching. Some MIT work-study kid could do it in a week. The IROC-Z Quotient would be a 1-100 scale (so that it would work in metric system countries too), with 1 being the best – a person almost entirely devoid of dickish qualities, resembling a combination of Mother Theresa, Jim Hensen, Nelson Mandela, Bono, Oprah and Captain Steubing – and 100 being the worst – a person who is dickish to the core, resembling a combination of Hitler, Carrot Top, Jack Abramoff, Barney, Imelda Marcos and Jerry Springer.

Ratings would be documented with an ID card, renewable annually like your car registration. And the whole process could be administered by some pseudo-public agency, like the post-office, that would be revenue-neutral via customized add-ons, marketed at a sensible price point, for every taste and style. It wouldn’t have to be mandatory – so no complaints from the libertarians or the ACLU – just highly inconvenient if you didn’t do it, like not having a CVS card.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to hire a new employee based on this scale? Assuming you were among the chosen few, how wonderful to join a country club / fraternity / Oddfellows lodge where everyone was as wonderful as you. Nice people-only bars! “Sorry dude, can’t let you in” says the bouncer, “says right here you’re a dick.” Or, if you needed a little a little schadenfreude rush, you could more easily hang out with people who were a few notches less wonderful then you. And, just as, when you’re about to let your mortgage check bounce, you have at least a fleeting thought about the effect on your credit score, you might think twice before berating the fast food register guy about how long your Baconater is taking. Doing so could cause your toddler to be booted from his exclusive IROC-Z-rated preschool. A whole universe of paraphernalia would follow: the “My Son is a 9 IROC-Z Student at Sunnyville M.S.” bumper sticker (and of course, the inevitable “My 97 IROC-Z Student Beat Up Your 9 IROC-Z Student”). 90th percentile-only IROC-Z internet dating sites. IROC-Z ties and lapel pins. IROC-Z mixers and fundraisers. If you wanted to be a snob, you could at least be a snob for the right reasons. If you’re a smart, loving person with a great sense of humor who tells engrossing stories and remembers people's birthdays, why wouldn’t you want to try to steer clear of all the riffraff with bad attitudes and weak social connections? And, for the time being at least, there’s no constitutional prohibition on discriminating against people who are just jerks.

Numbers vastly over-simplify the world, but that’s just the way it is. So until we can figure out how to eradicate the wayward human tendency to rely on numeric drivel, we might as well start focusing on numbers that matter. Send a note to your senator; yell it from the rooftop; tell all your friends: Assholes are everywhere! We demand full disclosure! The universal IROC-Z quotient system must become the law of the land!

If You Can Always Be with the One You Love, No Need to Love the One You’re With

Be here now. Stop and smell the roses. Carpe diem. In some circles, enlightenment means achieving such intense focus on the present moment that the rest or the world fades completely away. Living well is as simple as being able to slow down enough to be aware of all of the mundane wonders that surround each of us. At some level, we all know this is true. It feels good just to relax and enjoy, even if just for a brief moment. And that's why, whatever your race, creed, color or religion, you want to do something horrible to that asshole on the cell phone who just cut in front of you in line at Starbucks.

The brilliance of, and the problem with, technology is its power to transport us, real-time, to another world and to connect us with the exact people we want to be connected with. A new kind of global provincialism seems to be in the works.

When, late at night, I get done drafting an agreement, with a few keystrokes, I can zap my work off from my lonely office in Boston to the lonely office of the one person in the universe (poor bastard) who needs to see it, even if the person in lonely office #2 is five thousand miles away. Geography be damned. With the touch of one auto-dial cell phone button, I can transport myself out of my physical surroundings and whisper sweet Bluetooth nothings in my honey’s ear, no matter where she is. If you know a person's digital coordinates, you can communicate from almost any spot on the face of the earth. But the same technology also makes it easier than ever before to be absolutely, 100% oblivious to the person who’s been sitting next to you on the bus every morning of your working life, or to some amazing moment unfolding right in front of your eyes. Precision in communication comes at the expense of randomness, and randomness is a critical ingredient in making human beings human.

The Internet often gets billed as a revolutionary medium for sharing thoughts. It has become vastly easier for any given person to upload his thoughts to the cyber-marketplace of ideas. So, in theory, the universe of human discourse should be broader and richer than ever. But, because you have to point your browser to one ultra-specific point in the virtual universe, it may be that the Internet has become, instead of the virtual commons where ideas are shared and debated, just a conduit for matching like-minded people up with one another. It’s easier to ignore different views, or to never even encounter them in the first place.

Self-segregation is a natural human tendency. We like to be around people who are like us. If you turn and look at the person sitting to your left in the board room, in the prison cafeteria, at your neighborhood Applebee’s, chances are he’s wearing the same brand of loafers (exception for prison cafeteria) and is appalled by the same political action group as you are. As rigid as our daily routines tend to be, there is still at least some chance on any given day that we’ll bump into a random person, or have to talk to somebody for some reason we hadn’t intended. That’s not the case on-line. What’s the cyber equivalent of, “you’re not gonna believe what happened to me this afternoon.”?

And what about living in the moment? Worrying too much about documenting the moment and sharing the moment can eliminate the moment altogether. Old Faithful is by far the most visited site in Yellowstone. It’s a crowded attraction, but still impressive. When I saw Old Faithful erupt for the first time, half of the crowd around me, it seemed, was witnessing this wonder of nature through a three inch LCD screen, and the other half was recounting it to their cousins in Cleveland. How was the experience stored in their minds? Did they really have the experience at all? And what about the group bond of witnessing something extraordinary together? Were we really together? Or were they, despite standing next to me, really more present in some nether world, having some kind of parallel experience with whoever was at the receiving end of the microwaves? I’ve heard similar stories about runners in marathons. Nice that aunt Betty can get the mile by mile update, but the rest of the runners – the proud, excited group that should all be in this together – aren’t part of the picture any more. You don’t have to say it out loud when talking on a cell phone, but everyone standing next to you understands the message anyway – “there is someone more important than you out there that I want to share this experience with.”

So what do we do about all this? There’s nothing wrong with being a Luddite, except that it’s futile approximately 100% of the time. Technological progression is almost a force of nature, like gravity, or the Coriolis effect. It just is. How can we rearrange the world so that people have to interact with people who are different than they are? Outside of a fraternity, forced kidnapping is generally not an option. Other than during jury duty (i.e. judge, bailiff with gun), there is almost no-place in the first world where you can ask a person to turn off his cell phone without being ridiculed or beaten. People of all walks of life are forced to comingle at the DMV. But everyone there is furious. So that may not be the best place to showcase the loveliness of humanity. War veterans seem to have nice stories about the different kinds of folks they met in foxholes, gunning down foreigners and eating worms together. Not sure we want to start another war just on that account, though. And that never included grad students, the rich, anyone with connections or, well, OK, forget it, bad example.

I think we may have to take a more voluntary approach. Maybe some public service announcements: “Does your girlfriend really, really need to know at this EXACT SECOND that you just ran into a guy you worked with three jobs ago?” Or “If you are about to call someone to tell them that you will be somewhere in ten minutes, they will find out on their own in ten minutes.” Or maybe some corporate incentives: 5% off your next latte if you can tell us the first name of one of your baristas after less than five hundred visits to this location. Maybe our appliances should be designed to mix it up a little. Internet browsers should have to have built in algorithms that direct you sites you don’t want. One time in ten, when you search for chihuahuas, you should be directed to a site for people who think chihuahuas are the most horrible breed of dog on earth. When you tune into Terry Gross, your radio should occasionally give you Rush Limbaugh. Cell phones should dial wrong numbers. GPSs should get you lost.

In the end, nobody can force us to hang up and focus on the world around us. We’ve each got to figure out how to get some kind of fly in our own uber-programmed ointment of technological efficiency. So, unless you’re the first one at the scene of a twelve school bus pile-up or you’ve fallen down a well, consider giving the cell phone a rest and join us back here on earth. Or at least be aware that the guy eyeballing you maliciously from across the room is thinking about dumping a hot cappuccino in your lap.

Getting a Lobotomy - Pros and Cons

I was watching the cat one night, after a stressful and aggravating day in the office, and thinking, what a life. No worries. No stress. What’s the worst thing that can happen to an indoor cat in a day? And then, another thought: I could live that life. Maybe I should get a lobotomy.

Getting a lobotomy is a major life change. And, as far as I am aware, it’s irreversible. So before running out and taking the plunge, you want to spend a few minutes thinking this through. I thought a list of pros and cons might help focus my reasoning. Here’s what I came up with:

Consideration #1 – Cost of the Procedure

First, there is the cost of the lobotomy itself. No idea what the going rate is these days. The main question would be, is this covered by my HMO plan? If so, it would probably just cost me a hundred bucks or so – whatever the co-pay is on brain surgery. I’d probably need some kind of referral. I guess I would start with my primary care physician, see if she has the authority to say, yes, you do need a lobotomy, here’s a prescription, call specialist so-and-so, etc. It’s probably negotiable like a lot of things with the doctor. C’mon doc, I’m telling you, I really need this procedure. Remember last year when you wrote me a prescription for a whole six months of Claritin? That wasn’t totally kosher either. Can’t you just work with me here? If doc says no, or if it turns out that a lobotomy is not something covered by my plan, I assume it would be financially out of reach for me in this country. I don’t know anyone who’s had to pay for his own brain surgery out-of-pocket, but I’m sure it would run you six figures. I could probably get it done in Mexico. When I lived in San Diego and took a day trip down to Tijuana, it didn’t look like there was much of anything you couldn’t have done there. The guy that sells horse tranquilizers might be able to do a lobotomy, or, if not, I’m sure he would know someone that could. So figure airfare to San Diego, rental car, few nights in a hotel after, incidentals. I bet I could work it so that the whole thing would come in at under two grand.

Consideration #2 – Longer-Term Financial Impact

Then there’s the longer-term calculation of life earnings. Sadly, I have no trust fund or annuity to draw on. So, my income for the rest of my life will be based on what I can earn the old-fashioned way – by working. I had great support from my parents growing up. They paid for college. I don’t have too much law school debt left. And, working at a large law firm, I’ve made it up to one of the pretty high echelons of earning potential. That would probably change if I got a lobotomy. I think people with lobotomies are still employable, but mostly for a different kind of work. Less mental / intellectual kind of stuff. More task oriented. Repetitive is probably good. I could probably get a job in the fast food industry. Not management, or register. Maybe fries? Restocking cups? Or maybe something sweatshop-like. Making sure each Nike shoe has a swoosh on it? I’m sure there would be opportunities out there. Pay would probably be less though. So I’d probably have to eat out less, maybe cancel my subscription to The Atlantic.

Consideration #3 – Social Interactions; Marriage

I’ve got a really nice circle of friends and a terrific wife. I’m at ease around them. They like me for who I am. I don’t think any of them would purposefully look down on a person who had a portion of his brain disconnected, but you just never know until it happens. It would probably be different hanging out with me before and after. Now, when I go out with friends, we talk about books and politics and all kinds of college-grad stuff. If I had a lobotomy, I’d probably just want to talk about what I had for lunch, or about restocking cups. I’d probably be OK with still hanging out with my same friends, even if I couldn’t quite understand all of what they were talking about. But I wonder if they would get bored of me. All the same considerations would apply equally to my wife. I don’t know for sure if, when she said “through sickness and health,” she meant for that to include elective surgery that turns you into sort of a zombie. And, in addition to having to live with a pretty different person than she first bargained for, she might be mad about having to sell the house and cancel all her magazine subscriptions. I’d probably be bad at remembering to feed the cats too.

Consideration #4 – Hobbies; Transportation

When I’m not working, there are lots of luxurious, first-world kinds of things I like to do to keep busy. Reading, running, biking, going out to see music, goofing around on-line. These indulgences keep me feeling human, interested in the world. I even like to just drive around in my car. I could probably find new hobbies if I got a lobotomy. I’d need to learn more about what kinds of things people with lobotomies are generally into. Would I forget everything I had read? Could I keep reading my favorite book over and over again? Would it still be my favorite book? Could I drive? Is there a limit in my On-Star contract to the number of times I can ask for directions?

Conclusion

I should probably sleep on this for another few nights. The whole thing sounds a little scary. On the other hand, if I got a lobotomy, I might not be able to experience fear anymore, or anything else. So if my wife and friends left me, the bank foreclosed on my house and I had to spend the rest of my days sitting alone, with no recollection of any of the things that used to be important to me, I dunno, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. No stress, at least.