Long-Distance Relationships - the New, New Thing

A number of people have asked me why my wife Leslie and I have decided to live apart. I am living in Boston and, at least until the end of the year, she is in Washington, DC. Those of you who have read my scientific study demonstrating that Boston is a 200% better city to live in than DC might have assumed that our decision was based solely on my paradigm-busting findings, that moving back to Boston would increase my happiness and well-being correspondingly. But that's not the whole story. Aside from the fact that being involved in a long-distance relationship is, flat out, the hippest, coolest thing a couple can do these days, there were a number of quite complex factors that went into the decision. Primary among them were as follows:

Aesthetics

Honestly, living with your spouse and falling asleep every night in a comfy bed, snuggled up against the person you love most in the world is a pretty effete, bourgeois, hedonistic thing to do. In terms of artistic creativity and street creds, monkish bohemianism is going to trump effete, bourgeois hedonism one hundred percent of the time. Plus, if you believe in heaven and hell, my understanding (granted, I'm getting a bit out of my element here) is that just about all the governing literature has it that the former is more accessible to the monkish types and the latter more likely for the hedonists. Leslie and I have been called a lot of things in our lives, but never once has anyone ever called us (at least to our faces) effete, bourgeois hedonists. But, just to be sure, lest there be any doubt, we have opted in favor of a more monk-ish, bohemian-ish existence by splitting our one, warm, comfortable home into a stripped down convent and an equally inconvenient abbey. In my new solo kitchen, for example, you'll find only the barest of monkish essentials: beer, baking soda, a frozen burrito and some sliced provolone cheese. And in my uninviting living room, I can sit on a borrowed couch and stare into the corner where the TV used to be. And my living room will be even more monk-ish bohemian-ish when my friend who's lent me the couch takes it back. Then I'll be able to sit on the floor and stare at the corner where the TV used to be. All of this is terrific cosmic training. The next time anyone gives either one of us the what-do-you-know-what-kind-of-hardship-have-you-ever-had-to-endure eye roll, we can respond with a kind Dalai Lama-ish smile and a deep breath of tranquility, knowing that our astonishingly un-hedonistic lifestyle has led us to be at one with the universe.

Community service

The epicenter of federal government, Washington, DC is, of course, where you need to live if you want to have any meaningful impact on national and international policy. Boston, on the other hand, is the second largest hub of venture capital activity in the nation. So it's hard to shape the future of technology and innovation if you're too far from there. It seems like not a day goes by when one or another Congressional sub-committee or banking consortium isn’t trying to drag Leslie or me in for a debrief. You can see the conundrum. By living in only one place, we figured, we might be less readily available to swing by for impromptu Ways and Means Committee rap sessions, participate in nights out with the federal reserve boys, that sort of thing. We were concerned that we might be depriving Congress and the venture capital community of the benefit of our full attention. And in these tough economic times, when knowledgeable people with a cool head and clear vision are so desperately needed to keep the world economy on track, that just seemed almost unconscionably selfish.

Glamour

When we decided to live apart, we wondered if we would be able to afford any real vacations. That became a moot point when we realized that travel between Boston and DC on the USAir shuttle was itself better than any vacation we could ever hope for. I've often heard the USAir shuttle described as a sort of combination of the Orient Express, the QE2 and the Concorde. The luxury and service afforded the elite slice of the population lucky enough to hold a Boston / DC shuttle ticket is so unparalleled that people sometimes book shuttle flights even if they have no reason to travel between these two cities. There is an audible gasp of anticipation when the cabin door clicks shut, all of the passengers knowing that, for a brief hour and a half, all of life's worries and pressures will melt away as they decompress in a cocoon of luxurious tranquility. The only downside to a shuttle trip is that it always seems to go by too fast. By the time you've had a few appletinis and passed hors d'oeuvres and pulled the cucumbers off your eyes after your heated stone massage, there's almost no time left to mingle with the movie stars, business elites, senators and professional athletes socializing their way through the cabin.

Investment Strategy

In today's volatile economic climate, a good investment vehicle is one that performs predictably. I have two words for you: household appliances. When I moved back to Boston, I had to make serious capital expenditures on such big ticket items as a toast-r-oven, a hair dryer and an iron. Investments in household appliances, despite lingering outside the spotlight of the popular press, have, since the advent of electricity, been plodding along at a rock solid pace. With an average lifespan of seven years, a household appliance will generate an annual return of about -14%. In today's market, where chasing positive returns on investments seems downright childish, a negative 14% return is quite robust. If you invested all your money in a stock index fund, based on the current trajectory of around 35% annual loss, it would take just under three years to lose all your money. Had you invested in household appliances instead, it would take almost three times as long before you were broke. Having parked our liquid capital in the aforementioned toast-r-oven, hair dryer and iron, for the fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2009 we outperformed the market by approximately 21%. Any hedge fund manager who pulled off a feat like would be bronzed and hoisted up to the roof of the NASDAQ. Plus, with this type of tangible investment vehicle, I've been able to take advantage of such positive externalities as looking sharp and being able to broil food. Some might call me a financial genius. I just think of myself as a man who loves toast.

In Conclusion

People who complain that living apart from their spouses “sucks” or is the “worst period ever in the history of their relationship” are obviously sorely mistaken. Sure, living five hundred miles away from your sweetie may make you lonely and bored, and, yeah, you may have to cry yourself to sleep five or six nights a week, but the upside is immeasurable. Leslie and I will be back together sometime soon and we’ll be richer, sexier, bohemian-er and more politically influential than ever.

The Raging Coupon Cutting Debate: Why We Should Be More Like the French

My apartment building puts out a monthly newsletter – a glossy thing with some stock photos of smiling, racially ambiguous people and a few brain dead articles that could probably have been written by an algorithm. If the newsletter were an animal, it would have about the lifespan of a fruit fly. 12 – 24 hours maximum from the time the ink dries to the time it is returned to nature via the building recycling bin. Perusing the main newsletter headlines usually doesn’t take more than about ten seconds of my monthly time so, after spending another ten seconds muttering a few derogatory comments about the thing, I can get on with my life without too much anguish.

But then this month I discovered a disclaimer in the corner of the second page. Maybe it had been there every month and I just now noticed it for the first time. Or maybe it was new. Here’s what it said: “the views expressed herein are not necessarily those of [the management company] and neither [the management company] nor its affiliates… assumes responsibility for any materials submitted for publication or for any loss or injury arising out of the publication of such materials.” Additionally, “any action taken in reliance on the views contained herein is taken at the risk of the reader.” The disclaimer piqued my interest. Why would something like that be necessary unless there was going to be some good risqué stuff? Maybe management had found some new writers and finally decided to replace the usual drivel with some more interesting articles – something along the lines of “KABOOM! How to make a powerful bomb out of everyday bathroom supplies!” Or maybe a piece on how to buy a kidney or beat a drug test or operate a slim jim.

But, alas, the two most prominent features were a recipe for caprese pizzas and an article entitled “Can clipping coupons save you money?” The coupon article concluded with this Pulitzer prize-worthy insight: “Whether clipping coupons is worth it depends on your situation. If your life’s responsibilities are weighing on your wallet, then the time invested is probably worth it. If, however, your time is in shorter supply than your money, you’ll probably find the effort is too consuming to maintain.” I understand that a publication like this, distributed to a diffuse audience with varying tastes and interests, has to be fairly middle of the road. But, at some point, inoffensiveness can itself be so extreme as to actually become offensive. The combination of such milquetoast writing with such a paranoid disclaimer almost made my head explode.

I tried to imagine a situation in which the articles in the newsletter could actually result in the kind of damages contemplated by the disclaimer. Unwitting resident gives the caprese pizza recipe a shot only to have one of her guests be so disgusted with it that she gouges out the hostess’ eyes with her salad fork and then throws herself off the 12th floor balcony? Hostess sues, only to have judge rule that she had implicitly consented to the elegantly worded disclaimer and had thus assumed the risk of any such potential outcome, absolving management company of any liability it may otherwise have had (and that, further, management company was justified in retaining hostess’ security deposit to replace bloodstained / eyeball residue-covered carpet in dining alcove)? Old man who had been using coupons his entire life became so distraught over the thought that doing so may not actually have been the best use of his time that he has nervous breakdown and now requires full-time home care and monitoring?

How is it that we’ve gotten to the point where we have to disclaim all responsibility for offering opinions on coupons and caprese pizzas? Frivolous lawsuits made possible by sometimes quirky tort laws may be part of the explanation. And a general refusal to take any responsibility when things go wrong – a possible byproduct of out of control personal empowerment – must have something to do with it. But, on a more fundamental level, I think we’ve all just become a little too afraid of a good argument. This, I believe, is a uniquely American phenomenon. In moving beyond our oversensitivity to contradictory points of view, I would suggest that we could learn a little something from the French.

Some of the qualities – self-assuredness, confrontativeness and argumentativeness – that make the French so obnoxious are the same qualities that make their culture so vibrant and dynamic. If you’ve ever used the term “freedom fries” seriously, you’re probably more inclined to focus on the obnoxious side of the coin; if you’ve ever heard yourself refer to your college years as a “liberal arts” education (and if you were entirely unemployable when you graduated), you may have a slightly greater appreciation for the vibrant component. Every French citizen is a renowned expert on every subject ever to have been contemplated by mankind, loves to argue and will never hesitate to explain to another person why he is absolutely, unconditionally right. If a French apartment management company ever put out a newsletter, its disclaimer would most likely say something like “the views contained herein are unequivocally correct and anyone who disagrees with them is poorly educated and of ill repute and questionable moral character.” And that’s why it’s fun to be in France. The French thrive on engaging conversations, which can only exist when people are willing to confront and be confronted, and when confrontation is not viewed as a personal assault.

For most Americans, cultural diversity is a point of pride. And, for the most part (there are a lot of obvious exceptions, but that’s a conversation for another time), the acceptance of diversity in the US is real and commendable. But the US brand of multiculturalism is more often based on a live-and-let-live philosophy than on a proclivity to engage one another – to probe, learn, question and, ultimately, understand. The general expectation that others will let us live in whatever way we choose has conditioned us to interpret being questioned as being affronted, which, in turn, completes the loop of non-confrontation and lack of discussion.

I know this isn’t a sentiment that is voiced all that often in the US, but I’d like to suggest that we all try to be a bit more like the French. Discussion is fun! Arguing does not have to be a bad thing! If we were all just a bit more inclined to say frankly what we think, even while in the company of non-like-minded people, and to listen genuinely to what other people think, we might just end up having a jolly ol’ good time. And then, once robust debate became more fundamentally woven into the fabric of our society, maybe just maybe (and don’t get me wrong here; I enjoy a good caprese pizza and clipped coupon as much as the next guy) my apartment newsletter could lose the disclaimer and tackle some just slightly more engaging subjects.

My First Gun Show (What I Did Last Weekend)

For whatever reason – my New York City Jewish heritage? my upbringing in a liberal college town? – guns have just never been a part of my life. I shot a few BB guns at camp in Kentucky when I was a kid. I know a few people who hunt. But most of what I know about guns and gun culture comes from what could pretty objectively be called the liberal magazines I read and websites I frequent. So, when I saw an ad in the paper last week for a gun show in Manassas, Virginia, half an hour from where I live, I figured, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Virginia, go to a gun show.

I thought I’d broaden my horizons a bit, but what I really, secretly wanted was to whip out my little video camera go rock some good Michael Moore action on my unwitting subjects. (see video below) I thought maybe I’d meet some real frothing-at-the-mouth, militia peddling nut jobs talking about the government slipping brainwashing drugs in the water supply, capture it all on video and put together an exposé so outrageous that no one would believe my stories until they watched the footage.

So I paid my six dollar entrance fee and walked past the hot dog vendor and into a not very big, slightly run down fairground building, ready to be morbidly shocked and appalled. But, alas, it just wasn’t meant to be. My maiden gun show turned out not to be all that crazy. In fact, if you replaced the military fatigues with North Face jackets, the ammo boxes with sleeves of Titleist Pro V1s and the sniper rifles with pitching wedges, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between this and any one of the golf expos I used to frequent. In both places, most of what you hear is people talking obsessively about the mind-numbingly dull minutiae of some product. Whether it’s club head speed or recoil, if it’s not your bag, it’s just not that interesting.

Also, it turns out I’m a bit of a wuss when it comes to trapping people into exposing their lunatic, anti-social tendencies in front of my probing video camera. Whatever you think about Michael Moore, you have to admit the guy’s got some balls. I ended up just sneaking my camera out a few times and taking some quick shots of the room, hoping nobody would notice (nobody did). This place was full of guns, after all. Probably best not to cause a scene.

I saw a few things that were a little nutty. A sign at the entrance noted that no loaded or concealed weapons were allowed. But then, of course, guns and ammo were being sold at every table, and a booth in the back was selling “The Ultimate Conceal Carry Holster.” Was this meant to be ironic? Maybe just good business. Like, if you want to have a loaded, concealed weapon inside the pavilion, you at least have to spend some cash. Speaking of which, guns are not cheap. Most of the regular-looking handguns were in the $500 to $750 range, and one of those Rambo-ass fully automatic sniper-looking things would set you back over two grand. I still can’t quite fathom what an upstanding, law abiding citizen would do with one of those things. It would be hard to have one of those in your hands and pull off the “I’m just a good ol’ hunter boy who learned to shoot from my dead grand papi” story with a straight face. Anyway, the crowd at the show was not what you’d call particularly affluent looking. And so, at the very least, I think most of the folks there would probably have to save up for a while before taking one of those babies home.

There was some pretty rich literature for sale. A whole assortment of books on protecting yourself in the event of a school / office / chain-restaurant-where-you’re-just-trying-to-enjoy-your-unlimited-bread-sticks shooting. A few pretty paranoid kinds of titles like “The Policeman is Your Friend and Other Lies.” Some things that were just weird, like “Sneak It Through: Smuggling Made Easier” and “Drink as Much as You Want and Live Longer” (not sure what this one has to do with guns, but I’d be interested in learning about that in any case). And a lot of books focusing on various levels of off-the-grid living. I learned a few good tips from some of the selections in this last category. Like figuring out what kind of RV would be best for my needs. And that mainstream society frowns upon gaps in your resume, which I know personally to be one hundred percent correct from several HR-types who almost died of ecstasy when they “exposed” the missing one year in my work history (my brief career at the bagel store). I realized that some of the gun nuts’ conspiracy theories are not all that different than my own. Mostly just a difference of opinion as to who we think The Man is. They seem to think it’s the government; I think it’s big corporations. You say tomato; I say tomato (how do you write that?).

So, all things told, my first gun show was a bit disappointing. The folks I encountered were, sadly, pretty ho hum looking. Maybe if I had worked a little harder, dug a little deeper, I would have exposed some of the wingnuts I was sure would be lurking around there. Maybe I exude such profound yuppiedom that, like what Eddie Murphy suspected when he dressed up as Mr. White, people knew not to say anything juicy to me. Or maybe I’ve got a ways to go to become the muckraker I aspire to be.

Here's the video:

Democratic Discourse: Nuke Their Ass and Take Their Gas?

I was in northern Florida last week and saw a beat up old pickup truck go by with a bumper sticker that said “Nuke Their Ass; Take Their Gas” (don’t recall for sure whether there was actually a semicolon; my guess is no). Dang, I thought, that’s pretty harsh. In my native lands of Ithaca and Jamaica Plain, you’re more likely to come across bumper stickers of the “No-one is free when others are oppressed” or “If you love somebody, set them free. If they don’t come back, they were never yours” variety. Well, I guess each of us is entitled to our own opinion. And, in this democratic country we live in, we get one vote apiece. And that’s all good. Right? I think so. Still, Nuke Their Ass; Take Their Gas? Maybe I’m just thinking like one of those liberal elite types I keep hearing about, but man, is that really an opinion that should get as much consideration as my own?

First off, let me deconstruct the bumper sticker to be sure I’m correctly interpreting what this guy is advocating. Who exactly is it we should nuke and take their gas? Gas is what you find at a service station. Maybe this guy had some kind of beef with the night manager at the Pump-N-Go over on Elm and 22nd Street and just wants revenge? Maybe the night manager gave him the wrong change or looked at his girlfriend funny? If that’s the case, nuking the guy seems a little overkill. The whole town and all its residents would be obliterated. The earth in the surrounding hundred square miles would be radioactive for centuries. Seems like it would be easier to go shoot the gas station manager in the face with a shotgun or something. Or just give him an old-fashioned ass whooping. So that’s probably not it. I’ve got to assume then that “gas” is supposed to mean “oil” – the tasty-sounding “light, sweet, crude” whose trading price you always hear about – and that gas just rhymed better with ass (“Nuke Their Soil; Take Their Oil” comes across as a bit highbrow).

Assuming it’s oil we’re talking about, then who should be nuked? Alaska maybe? With its big pipeline and negative income tax? That sounds weird. You don’t usually hear even the most off the chart domestic whackjobs talking about dropping a nuclear bomb on their own country. Brazil? They have a lot of oil. I don’t know. That doesn’t sound right either. Everyone likes Brazilians. They’re just fun and musical and always dancing or laying around topless on the beach. I don’t think folks generally want to nuke them and take their oil. By process of elimination, that leaves the OPEC nations. I’m guessing that’s who bumper sticker guy is talking about. The Arab world does control a lot of oil, and they get a lot of press whenever oil is being discussed.

It is my hypothesis, therefore, that had I had the opportunity to engage in a dialog with the driver of the Nuke Their Ass; Take Their Gas truck, he would have articulated a proposed U.S. foreign policy paradigm whereby this country would drop nuclear warheads on the primary oil-producing nations in the middle east and, upon extermination of all inhabitants of the region, we would assert control over the land and expropriate any oil extracted thereafter.

I believe this strategy to be flawed. I am generally opposed to killing people and stealing. Just on principle alone, I don’t think we should take anyone’s oil, much less nuke them. I’ve even met people from middle eastern oil-producing countries. They were nice. I wouldn’t want them to be vaporized. Plus, there are some treaties out there that I learned about in a college international relations class – the names escape me at the moment – that I’m pretty sure would be violated by this kind of thing. There would probably be some ramifications, even with our allies, in the political realm. Distilled down its essence, you could summarize my opinion on this issue as: We Should Neither Nuke Their Ass Nor Take Their Gas.

So, the scene is set. There are two schools of thought. To nuke and take gas or not to nuke and take gas? How are we to resolve this difference of opinion, this interesting subject upon which reasonable people can disagree? In this country, we all get to vote. Our forefathers fought hard to give us the right to vote without a poll tax or a literacy test. And that’s the way it should be. You shouldn’t have to be rich or educated to have your opinion considered. But what about the unavoidable reality that money and education are powerful ingredients in having a broader understanding of the world? Should my opinion, based on a college education and on reading The Economist, that we should not bomb asses and take gas, carry more weight than a contrary opinion that is based solely on some kind of general feeling and maybe a little urging by Rush Limbaugh?

Maybe the answer is that, yes, everyone should get to weigh in equally, but that particularly extreme points of view will be mitigated by the relatively blunt instrument of electing a handful of individuals who are tasked with representing their constituents on a wide range of issues. Nuking a country is, I assume, one of those government actions that can’t be done without complying with a whole big set of protocols. So even if bumper sticker guy were able to organize all his friends and elect a guy running on the Nuke Their Ass; Take Their Gas platform into office, that rep would still have to do some maneuvering through the political channels.

Or maybe, even before the issue made it up into the ranks of elected officials, our difference of opinion could be hashed out in a dialogue. If there were something inherently better about my Neither Nuke Ass Nor Steal Gas platform, I should be able to state my argument and convince a rational individual in the competing camp of its superiority. Having emerged from the marketplace of ideas as the more worthy philosophy, such philosophy will be even stronger yet, tested and proven to all. And the newly enlightened convert will be able to proceed on his way and disseminate the idea to even more people.

OK, never mind all the intellectual angst. I guess it’s all good. I think I’m on the right side of this issue. And I’ll rest better knowing that my more worthy opinion on this subject will, in the end, prevail. And next time I see a big scummy mean-looking dude with an offensive bumper sticker, I’ll make sure to flag him down and engage him in a principled discussion of the merits of our respective points of view – a battle of the minds, a stimulating intellectual discourse.

Hmm. Or maybe I should just keep on driving.

Yes, I Am Ready For Full-Service Living

I was driving past a big not-quite-completed building in Boston’s très chic South End last year when a sign on the construction fence caught my attention. It said “Are You Ready For Full-Service Living?” If so, you were supposed to check out the developer’s web site or “call now for details.” I reflected for a moment and thought, well, hmm, yes actually, now that you mention it, I am in fact ready for Full-Service Living. The ad turned out to be for a very fancy residential development. Full-Service Living for yuppies, apparently, at what was a substantially higher price point than my current means (or future prospects, in all likelihood) could support. So Full-Service Living in the South End wasn’t going to work out. But the seed had been planted. I had to figure out a way. Then, an obvious solution: maybe I could move into an old age home. Geriatric facilities are all about Full-Service Living. I’d just need to figure out how, as a 35 year-old, I could make that work.

First, a few clarifications in my defense. Just because I want to move into an old folks home at the age of 35 doesn’t mean I am lazy or lacking in ambition. I just feel that the pace of things at a convalescent facility very closely mirrors the simpler, slower-paced kind of existence I’ve been striving for. Kind of a Zen thing. Life in a modern city is too fast and materialistic. Too often, we multi-task away the ability to appreciate life’s simple pleasures, like a slow walk in a park, or soup. Old people don’t generally have much of a choice but to slow down. Slow is the default pace when a broken hip is lurking around every corner. So, while you can always try to find moments of tranquility in the zip zap hubbub of the electronic world, it seems like it would be a lot easier when everyone surrounding you was shuffling around at a few thousand RPMs slower.

I envision a typical day of Full-Service Living as looking something like this: wake up with the sunrise, stand on balcony looking at birds, be served oatmeal, attend guided, in-chair stretching class, nap, be served soup, bus trip to a park, nap, read newspaper, be served more soup, crossword puzzle, go to sleep at sunset. All much more in tune with humankind’s natural rhythm. And I think most retirement homes offer maid services and on-site dry-cleaning too. Some may even have turn-down service, but I could do without that.

Also, mind you, I’m not talking about being a freeloader here. I know that the typical convalescent home resident doesn’t move in until after having toiled away in the working world for half a century or so, and probably has some sense of having earned the right to be pushed around in a wheelchair by a young nurse and to have another person cut his food. As consideration for what some may view as my “unconventional” status as a geriatric resident, I would be willing to take on more responsibilities than those of the typical resident. Perhaps I could lead the stretching class, or maybe drive the bus to the park. I suppose I could even import some of the skills from my prior life and spend a few hours per week offering pro bono estate planning services or, if anyone were interested, giving funk bass lessons.

I would hope that other residents would be accepting of me, but I would understand if there were some degree of resentment, some feeling that I was a “lazy degenerate” or some kind of “sociopath who couldn’t fit in with the rest of normal society.” Maybe the gents would resent my catching the attention of some of the choicest elderly ladies. I know that every group has its own particular pecking order and turf wars. If necessary, I could embellish my age a bit. Tell people that I was 89 years old. Have good skin because I always wore sunscreen and because people from my country (some made up place that sounded familiar enough that nobody would call me on it, maybe Tribecastan or something) tend to age exceptionally well. I could probably play the part well enough too. I do genuinely hate winter more every year and have started to notice that kids today are just not as respectful as they used to be. And, though I certainly hope it would never come to this, if some resident just had to be all up in my business and couldn’t step off, chances are I could probably take him.

I recognize that I may not have reached the age yet where falling asleep at the table or being a pervert are excused as cute, but I still feel that I could transition nicely into the geriatric realm, a more economical means of Full-Service Living. Being young is just a state of mind. I am old and crotchety beyond my years, and that’s what counts.

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:

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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!