Transatlantic Zeppelin

May 29, 2007

Another foolish liberal gets burped up, cast away

Cindy Sheehan has quit the radical left. Red State has a pithy commentary on why. It’s not surprising Sheehan failed as a leader, naïve as she was to the dangers of the radical left and to the nature of leadership.

That the radical left would chew-up Cindy, use her to say all the crazy things even the most hefty lefty is scared to say on his own, and now doesn’t miss her discredited presence, was predictable from the beginning.

Sheehan fell for the naïve view of a leader, that a leader is the big figurehead who galvanizes public attention through firebrand oratory. Martin Luther King is often seen as this sort of leader, and his leadership certainly was helped by his inspirational oratory. But King was successful not because of his oratory but because of things Sheehan missed. Most importantly, Sheehan never understaood that leadership is about building followership, not saying inflammatory things because they inflame and create media attention. MLK had followership through his influence on a network of black churches (the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that he founded) and a cadre of other leaders from throughout black society including Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, Whitney Young Jr of the Urban League, the head of the Porters union, and the head of the Congress of Racial Equality. Ultimately the people who “supported” Cindy were really just supporting themselves and their own ambitions before the overall goal. Cindy never had followership and she never realized it.

Equally important as building followership is keeping one’s distance from dangerous radicals. King distanced himself from the more radical members of the civil rights movement, including Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X in particular was highly critical of King’s famous march on Washington. I never saw Cindy Sheehan distance herself from anyone on the far left. The left’s motto that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” came back to bite Cindy.

The biggest difference, though, is that MLK was a great American patriot and Sheehan apparently hates America. Leadership isn't about inspiring oratory, but their oratory shows their differences. Consider how MLK invokes American patriotism and history in “I Have A Dream.”

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

Cindy shows her appreciation for America:

I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people... since we first stepped on this continent; we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that bullshit to my son, and my son enlisted. I'm going all over the country telling moms this country is not worth dying for

MLK on the American Dream:

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today my friends - so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

Then there’s Cindy’s dream:

If we stick together as an American people we can bring down the war criminals that are running our country right now.

And

We really need to stop the imperialist tendencies of countries like the United States and Great Britain. … I've always admired President Chavez for standing up to imperialism and the meddling of the American government in South America.

And King respected America’s religious traditions:

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Cindy’s thoughts on religion? She's not exactly positive on it:

Our country has been overtaken by murderous thugs... gangsters who lust after fortunes and power, never caring that their addictions are at the expense of our loved ones, and the blood of innocent people near and far. We've watched these thugs parade themselves before the whole world as if they are courageous advocates for Christian moral values. … In their secret hiding places, while celebrating newly won fortunes with their fellow brass, these men must surely congratulate themselves with orgies of carnal pleasure as they mock the dwindling multitudes who are yet so blind as to mistake them for God's devoted servants

.

King warned, “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” Cindy would have done well to take note, else the last several years of her life might not have been in vain.

Posted by adrianjo at 09:33 PM

May 14, 2007

May 27 is auto racing engorgement day

May 27, please don't plan to see me unless you want to watch cars (a) going around many times on a circular track or (b) going really fast around the streets of a city that's a giant adult playground. In the morning, we have the 65th Grand Prix de Monaco. And in the afternoon, it's the Indianapolis 500. The two best events in racing are both on the same day!

Posted by adrianjo at 06:03 PM

May 07, 2007

RIP, Herbert Kornfeld, Accounts Receivable Supervisor

Herbert Kornfeld, Accounts Receivable Supervisor at MidState Office Supply, has sadly passed. Kornfeld was noted for his commentary on office life and his skills and quickness in completing mundane office tasks:

I gots skillz, mutha----as. Shit be COLLATED. Copier out of toner? I be all over that shit, 'cuz only I can replace tha Hewlett-Packard toner cartridge without gettin' all that inky powder shit all over tha insides.

I so phat, sometimes I gets done with my whole day's worth of tasks by 2 or 3 o'clock. But after I do, do I go back to my crib and chill? Hell no. I just open up tha afternoon mail what I usually be going through tha next mornin', and I start enterin' tha account payments on my accounts ledga. Or I assists tha Posse in preparin' the monthly statements. You won't never catch tha H-Dog sleepin' on tha job, bruthas and sistas.

Mr. Kornfeld's dedication in getting the numbers right was particularly admirable. Consider this episode, as described by Mr. Kornfeld:

Yo, check it out, Gs: Last week, that freaky ho Judy from tha wack-ass Accountz Payabo krew steps to mah fly cubicle, all smilin' an' shit. I thought she wuz straight trippin'.

"Bitch, flag yo' ass back to tha A.P. before I go buckwild on yo' ass," I say. "I gots a variance here what needs reconcilin', an' I gots no time foe distractions from some A.P. ho."

No diggity, mah homeys. There wuz a negative $194.07 balance in tha subsidiary accountz-reecevable ledga, an' it needed to be balanced wit' a quickness, lest tha controlling account look all fucked up. Tha Code O' The H-Dog say, shit gots to be balanced before tha end o' tha bidness day. It a matter of HONOR.

For more writing from Kornfeld, visit here.

Posted by adrianjo at 06:09 PM

December 01, 2006

Are hecklers gentlemen?

I'm wondering how ridiculous the "Kramer" incident will get. I'm still not sure he owed the hecklers an apology--they were disrespectful of a performer and tried to get his goat. No complaining now that they got it, even if they got more than they deserved. And while his rant was a bit more than one usually expects in a comedy club, who's ever been to a comedy club where racist commentary wasn't part of the act? Kramer's just wasn't funny.

Then came a predictable long series of apologies. And a threat of a lawsuit by the hecklers, which is really just an extortion attempt because no judge would ever let it even get to trial. The new low was today when Kramer agreed to meet face-to-face with the hecklers, who certainly won't be apologizing for their disrespect. And this statement:

"Michael Richards would like to apologize in person to the gentleman with whom he had the exchange in the club," says the statement from PR agent Howard Rubenstein and lawyer Gloria Allred.

Maybe my rant is more about the declining state of language in America. The men were not gentle. They were rude boors, and while they probably got more than they deserved, they weren't gentlemen. So don't call them "gentlemen." Indeed, the term "gentlemen", like the word "Sir," used to be reserved only for the men who truly deserve respect, not any moron who can't show proper respect in public. Maybe it's time for a bit more respect of the word "gentleman."

Posted by adrianjo at 05:46 PM

November 26, 2006

A store fit for a Count?

OUTSIDE DALLAS, TX -- I find myself in Dallas this evening to have dinner with Gu, a high-school friend down here. Meanwhile, as I sit in a Hertz-rented Taurus outside a suburban restaurant, my mind turns to the Wal-Mart test store, some 18 miles north of here in Plano. I'm nearly giddy with excitement for this super high-end Wal-Mart that promises, among other things, some good wine. As the Washington Post relates:

And in the long, long aisle that is the wine department, there are four bottles of La Mondotte 1999 Comtes de Neipperg selling for $557.47 each. They are on a short, kiosk-type wooden shelf near an aisle-long cooler of beer. (The good beers, but also the bad.) On the other side there's a '98 Dom Perignon ($145.37), and several other wines in the $100 to $300 range.

You could just stand and watch the La Mondotte all day, as people discover it, and give it a brief gaw. Many of them are actually looking for it, having seen it on TV during a flurry of opening-day coverage. ( Y'all hear about that $500 bottle of wine they got at that new Wal-Mart in Plaaano?) Mothers forbid the picking up or fondling of it -- "Don't you put your hand on it," one scolds her kid. Friends giggle over it. A teenage girl reads the label intently and informs her mother that it's French.

But nobody is a hick about it. Nobody in the high-end Wal-Mart passes judgment on it, or haughtily proclaims that no wine is worth $557. They admire it and continue their shopping as if it had always been there.

I wonder if Count Stephan von Neipperg, the dapper nobleman of St Emilion, would be proud that his wine is in a Wal-Mart?

(Here is a picture of Count Stephan in his cellar, and scroll down here for notes from our visit to his main winery, Ch Canon La Gaffeliere.)

And what about all these people thinking a 1999 La Mondotte is actually worth $557.47? Wal-mart may have the lowest prices for Franco-American Spaghetti O's, but 1999 La Mondotte can be just as easily had for $270 at Sherry-Lehmann in New York City.

I'm still looking forward to the visit, even if the wine is insanely overpriced.

UPDATE (a few hours later): All the hype about this special Wal-Mart is really over-done. Basically Wal-Mart has sprinkled a few high-end items into their usual assortments, decluttered the store, added some wood floors, and changed the fixturing/signage. (The fixturing is now about 7' high and not as wide/deep.) It's like Wal-Mart's attempt to turn their usual 200,000-square-foot box into a Target. That's a ringing endorsement of Target's strategy, but I'm not sure that it'll work for Wal-Mart.

The biggest problem with the new Wal-Mart is actually the decluttering. The typical Wal-Mart is only slightly less cluttered than a flea market, with product stacked in the aisles, dropped on warehouse pallets in the middle of the racetrack, hanging on dozens of clip-strips hanging from the Lozier (shelving), and in just about every spare inch of usable real estate. That's how Wal-Mart drives both high margin impulse purchases as well as off-loads billions of dollars in excess inventory every year. Here's how it works: a manufacturer (let's say Franco-American) is falling short of their quarterly sales goal and needs to off-load a few million cans of Spaghetti-O's. Only Wal-Mart is big enough to take all this inventory, so they buy it at a fire-sale price, since Franco-American needs to unload the inventory this quarter and "make the numbers." (This irrational inventory management then puts the manufacturer into a sales hole at the start of the next quarter, but this is a topic for another day.) Each Wal-Mart then gets a pallet or two of Spaghetti-O's, far more than they could stock on the shelves or sell in a short time. Thus the pallet gets dropped wherever there's room on the racetrack with a big "$1 rollback" sign. Meanwhile, people who never go down the processed spaghetti aisle notice the great price and pick-up a few cans as impulse buys at a very good price.

In a way, everyone benefits from the cluttered store, most especially Wal-Mart. The consumer gets a great price and the manufacturer quickly gets rid of excess inventory. Wal-Mart drives average check higher, gets additional margin, and burnishes its image as the price leader. Meanwhile, store operating costs are low because it's cheap to drop a pallet in the middle of the store rather than stock shelves.

The grocery section of the new Wal-Mart has not a single pallet in the racetrack. (Other sections, notably electronics, resemble the old Wal-Mart more closely.) Aisles are wider, about 8' wide. The racetrack is over 16' wide. Merchandise is not inventoried above the Lozier, which means a larger back-room. Apparel racks are spaced wider and loaded with less merchandise. Big sections of the store, such as in electronics, are completely empty at a time when inventory should be at its peak. The net result is that the store's productivity (margin per square-foot) is probably well-below what other Wal-Marts run.

This new Wal-Mart makes sense if one believes a few things. First, one could believe that margin on selling higher-end products is enough to make-up for the less-intense use of floor space. That's hard to believe because the vast majority of the assortment is the same and because high-end items tend to have slower turnover. How many bottles of La Mondotte are really selling, and would the space be better utilized by a warehouse pallet of $1 Spaghetti O's?

Second, one could believe that new customers will be attracted with a decluttered store. But is going head-to-head with Target, and potentially abandoing the free-for-all bargain-basement experience really the way to draw in new customers? Can Wal-Mart out-Target Target?

Third, one could believe that current customers will shop more often or have higher checks if the store is less cluttered. But if existing customers have put-up with Wal-Mart's clutter for decades and continue to drive the chain to record sales, why change the formula?

It seems to me that Wal-Mart's best strategy is to stick to the core and continue to do what they've done all along: drive down operating costs and deliver a "good' assortment to the consumer at a better price than competitors. Selective decluttering might be beneficial, but if Wal-Mart is to be a mere copycat of Target, is Wal-Mart abandoning its lowest-price niche and leaving the hard-discount sector open to attack by the likes of Aldi, a resurgent K-Mart, or the ever-popular dollar stores?

Oh, by the way, the $557 bottles of La Mondotte are no longer carried.

Posted by adrianjo at 06:05 PM

October 28, 2006

Adrian saw a movie!

I'm not exactly a movie buff--the last time I was in a theater was in April to watch a movie made by a guy who lives down the street. But I do have a recommendation for this weekend: go see Driving Lessons. If that's not available, check-out The Bridge. Both movies premiered to sold-out audiences at the Tribeca Film Festival in April; Tiffany and I went to the opening premier of Driving Lessons, though the Bridge was a bit too much for her stomach and we passed on the tix. (The Bridge is a documentary of people who jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, which happens roughly every two weeks.)

Rupert Grint attended the premier of Driving Lessons, but as I noted at the time, "Walters’s performance steals the show, as she develops a character of extraordinary complexity, at once needy and boldly assertive, childish and old-fashioned, angry and warm. Tiffany even said it was the best screen acting she had ever seen. Grint certainly holds his own, playing a character much like he is in real life, quiet and awkward."

Reviews of Driving Lessons have been mixed, with the Boston Globe blathering, "Driving Lessons told me something I already knew -- that Julie Walters is a shameless comedian." The LA Times called it "obvious Oscar bait" at the premier but now bemoans it as "ragged mongrel of a coming-of-age story." LA Weekly is a bit more accurate in saying that "Walters [has] her best role since Educating Rita. Hamming it up with the precision of a master, she makes this somewhat plodding film a pleasure, as does young Grint, the red-haired charmer better known as Harry Potter’s pal Ron Weasley."

Posted by adrianjo at 01:34 AM

September 09, 2006

Watching balls go back and forth

Yesterday a guy sent out a message to the office that said something like the following: "I have two tix to the US Open tomorrow (women's final). Face value $98, sold for $40 to whoever writes back first." Needless to say, there was a huge reply. I missed the boat, but Maria and Justine's match is proving quite entertaining. Tennis is perhaps the only sport where the best female competitors are so often really attractive.

Another item from the Hot Women Department: as of today, Tiffany is halfway through the cruise. That leaves just 92 days to go.

Posted by adrianjo at 09:04 PM

September 01, 2006

Not ready to say goodbye

I was out last night for a birthday party at a restaurant-cum-club in Union Square (Happy 25th, Brandon), but the real focus was on Agassi's legendary, epic battle against some orange-shirt-clad unknown with a curly pony tail. I don't usually get into sports, but this match was one of the most memorable ever. I got so excited that at one point I knocked a drink out of the hand of a friend returning from the bar. Simon Barnes writes of Agassi in the Times:

He stands for a principle seldom accepted by anyone in any walk of life: that you can be one kind of person and then, if you have the ability, if you have the desire, you can be another kind of person entirely. A wild and adventurous woman can settle down to domestic bliss; an unreconstructed lad can find a taste for responsibility and order; a waster can become a person of substance; a loser can become a winner. [HT: daily fix]

Posted by adrianjo at 10:48 AM

August 08, 2006

Why Indians don't flirt with the Marketing chicks

The Rants & Raves section of Craigslist is not the best place to go for enlightend conversation, but this one is actually pretty good:

I work @ AIG offices in Jersey City, NJ and have noted this interesting observation: Indian guys RARELY go out for lunch.

Noon rolls around and everyone is headed for the local eateries but the Indian guys have their Tupperware and head right for the microwave.

So I asked one of the many IT Indian guys, don't you guys go out to lunch? They were like.. no.. our wives prepare our lunch for us every day. Every day! Damn. These are some lucky f---ers. The last person who made lunch for me was my MOM.

And you can see the love in that moment.. the sauces are in one tupperware, the rice is in another tupperware, the dipping breads are wrapped in alimimum foil.. the silverware.. it's very clear that these guys have it together. They look meek and lanky and wussy, but their women cook for them every day! And you know they're getting dinner and breakfast and consistent sex.

No wonder you never see an Indian guy flirting with the hot chicks in Martketing.

Now I find myself VERY attracted to Indian females and see a lot of beauty in them where I didn't really notice them before.

You Indian guys had me fooled.. you guys are cool..

Posted by adrianjo at 10:52 PM

July 16, 2006

Best. Vintage. Ever. ??

With most of the 2005 Bordeaux wine futures priced, it's time to take a look through the amazing reviews (and astonishing prices) of the 2005s. A "wine future" allows you to buy a bottle today, even though the wine will be in a barrel until 2008.

Here's what Uncle Bob (aka Robert Parker) says about Chateau Leoville-Barton:

A monumental beast possessing dramatic levels of concentration, tannin, and potential, Leoville-Barton’s opaque purple-hued 2005 reveals amazingly sweet notes of black currants, damp forest floor, and spice box. It is a deep, powerful, unctuously-textured effort with enough acidity to provide freshness as well as definition. Broader and more masculine than the 2000, and more classic than the 2003, the 2005 is a monster meant for long-term aging. Anticipated maturity: 2015-2055.

If you're not into beastly wines, maybe an "ethereal" Ch Ausone would be more your style:

"Amazingly deep and multilayered, but so ethereal it must be tasted to be believed, it is a rich, full-throttle offering that should outlive us all.

That's the way to do it... buy wine now so that it can outlive daddy in the cellar and be left in the will.

Uncle Bob also handed Chateau d'Issan a good review:

While some octogenarians may argue that 1900 is better, [2005] is the finest d’Issan I have ever tasted.

Then there's this slightly lamenting review of one of my favorite "super second" producers, Ch LaGrange:

Once again the provocative words “the best ever made” appear in my tasting notes. In twenty-eight years, I have never tasted a Lagrange as amazing as this 2005. Its dense ruby/purple color is accompanied by pure notes of creme de cassis, cedar, spice box, and a hint of cherries. Full-bodied, powerful, and opulent, with high tannin as well as extract in addition to great freshness, definition, and length, this long-lived beauty should be at its finest between 2012-2030

I'm still unable to distinguish "spicy notes" from "spice box," but hopefully by 2008 I'll be able to figure it out. The 1970 LaGrange was amazing, and in 35 years, we'll know if the 2005 will be as good.

Posted by adrianjo at 06:31 PM

May 04, 2006

Like the NASDAQ in 1998?

The art auctions started in New York on Tuesday, with Picasso's Dora Maar au Chat the biggest item to go on the block. It has been interesting to watch speculation that the art market is in bubble, with some arguing that it's crazy that a painting of Maar of moderate importance would get a pre-auction estimate of $50M.

Maar was a Paris-based photographer with whom Picasso had a stormy affair from 1936 to 1945. She often photographed him, and he painted her extensively. Much of the memorabilia from their romance was kept private by Maar until her death in 1997, and it is the subject of a fascinating exhibit at Paris's Picasso Museum.

With that pre-auction estimate of $50M, it was all the more surprising when Dora Maar au Chat sold for $95.2M yesterday. That makes it the second most expensive artwork ever sold, behind only Picaso's Garçon à la Pipe, an ugly painting of minor significance that fetched $104M last year.

Although there is widespread concern of an overheated art market, I am bullish on art, wine, and virtually any other luxury item of limited supply. Over the long term, the many new wealthy people in the world--in China, in India, in the Middle East--will push up demand for Picassos, fine Bordeaux wines, coastal real estate, etc. Meanwhile, the supply of these sort of things is fixed. There will never be more Picassos made, Bordeaux only has so many vines, and it's very expensive to make new tropical islands. If I had $100M, I'd consider art by big names to be a good long-term investment.

Posted by adrianjo at 07:00 PM

May 01, 2006

Feels like the Beetles' first American concert

Some folks waited in line for four hours at last night’s Tribeca Film Festival to see the North American premier of Driving Lessons. For fans of Rupert Grint (the redhead of Harry Potter fame), it was probably worth it.

The screening was a giant teeny-bopper convention, and when Rupert entered the screening hall, I though maybe I was in the wrong place—was this a Justin Trousersnake concert? Even my girlfriend had to restrain herself.

Rupert Grint arrives at the screening [more pics]

I’d never heard of this Grint fellow; I figured it was an interesting movie. Director Jerry Brock put together a semi-autobiographical plot that goes something like this: Grint’s character is a shy and awkward boy of 17 living in London with a needy, over-sheltering, over-religious mother (Laura Linney) and an aloof father. He goes to work as a personal assistant for a salty, washed-up, impulsive, alcoholic actress named Evie. She is played by Julie Walters, who played Molly Weasly in the Harry Potter series.

Walters exposes Grint to a brave new world when she tricks him into going to a literary festival in Edinburgh. She convinces Grint to drive—he had suffered three accidents under his mother’s tutelage—and they end up at a camp site, where Walters exclaims, “I understand now why the working classes have kept camping a secret so long.” Still within his mother’s close orbit, Grint insists on getting home. Walters promptly swallows the car key, leading Grint to call his parents to explain that “I can’t come home until Evie poos the key.” By the time he returns, Grint has lost his virginity, drank large volumes of alcohol, gone to nightclubs, and learned to dance. Most importantly, he has learned to be “my own man,” no longer existing to satisfy the desires his parents.

Walters’s performance steals the show, as she develops a character of extraordinary complexity, at once needy and boldly assertive, childish and old-fashioned, angry and warm. Tiffany even said it was the best screen acting she had ever seen. Grint certainly holds his own, playing a character much like he is in real life, quiet and awkward.

Q&A after the show. [enlarge]

The Q&A after the show, a hallmark of Tribeca shows, allowed the teenyboppers to ask Rupert for hugs, though he stayed after for autographs and pictures too.

It will be interesting to see if Driving Lessons gets distributed nationally. If yesterday’s premier was any indication, it will find a willing market and, according the LA Times, is "obvious Oscar bait."

Posted by adrianjo at 05:49 PM

April 30, 2006

Fat Girls

It's fun to thumb one's nose against certain industries, especially big music (by music piracy) and Hollywood. It's not quite as easy to pirate Hollywood's product, but until that happens, I still have little desire to pay a dime to see the overhyped, uncreative gas regularly emanated from so many of the studios. Just yesterday, Joe Morgenstern ranted in the Wall St Journal:

Shoddiness has been radically redefined by a surging stream of studio swill -- not just modern counterparts of those hapless old B pictures, but big-budget, big-deal productions that would have been judged, no more than a decade ago, as simply unprofessional.

I'm not surprised that the studios are skipping critics screenings when some of these atrocities hit the screen. (And then, it should be said, sometimes hit the top of the box office charts; today's movies and moviegoers often deserve each other.)

It's interesting to occasionally see a movie not made by a big studio with a billion-dollar budget. Yesterday we went to see Fat Girls at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The star (Rodney) and director is a 20-year-old boy growing up in the Texas Bible belt. His best friend is a 300-pound girl, though the film argues that there's a Fat Girl in each of us. Meanwhile, the girlfriend falls for a nerdy Cuban refugee while Rodney starts a relationship with a dashing British boy.

For a high-schoolers' film, it was absolutely amazing. The quality of the sets, the camerawork, and the editing was excellent. Perhaps 100 extras were involved, probably without pay. Rodney's mother, a woman so godly she names the food in the family dinner for bible verses, turned in the best performance. She invites friends over for a movie, presses play, and finds that one of Rodney's gay porns is in the VCR. The old Bible-thumper finally confronts her son and asks in a perfectly straight voice, "Why is there a video in the VCR containing men engaging in asshole rimming and mutual fellatio?"

Unfortunately much of the comedy was improved, and almost none of the plot elements tie together in the end. The movie became like a series of stream-of-conscious diary entries with some gratuitious masturbation and gay sex thrown in. The ending seems to come as if the Director realized his camcorder's memory stick was almost full and they had to quickly film an ending with the last two minutes of tape. I hope they remake the movie in 10 years when they've had a chance to reflect on their high school years and find out what it really means--which experiences really defined them as people vs. what was funny at the time or an opportunity to film juvenile toilet humor.

Nonetheless, it was fun to go see a film not made by a giant studio, even if it means one has to search a little harder to make sense of it. And it's enjoyable to have the Director and stars take questions after the film, even if it ended at 1.30AM.

Tonight we attend the North American premier of Driving Lessons.

Posted by adrianjo at 11:24 AM

April 02, 2006

Missing Cargo

Cargo, the magazine that has outfitted me for the last year, announced its closure recently. Here's the NYTimes's take:

THE lesson to be learned from the death of Cargo is not that guys don't like to shop, spend money or moisturize; or that Cargo was too gay or too straight; or that the cultural phenomenon of the metrosexual never really existed. The real culprit behind the decision last week to close Cargo, the men's shopping magazine, would have to be the stickers.

Men don't like stickers. In each issue for two years Cargo included a page of peel-off tabs marked Buy or Save, so readers could neatly note their potential purchases while thumbing through features on cellphones, flat-screen televisions and dark-wash jeans.

Across the publishing landscape, as pundits search for a deep meaning behind the abrupt end of a magazine that was held up as symbolic of shifts in consumerism, sexual identity and the deterioration of journalism, maybe they need look no further than the stickers.

"I love shopping," said Bart Ianantuoni, a Manhattan personnel executive who gave up on Cargo after reading a few issues because he was offended by the presentation. "Stickers? They're treating men like teenage girls. I'm a guy. If I want something in a magazine and think I can't remember it, I'm going to tear the page out."

At last count Cargo had 373,727 subscribers, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which does not break down numbers on how many are metrosexuals.

It was refreshing to have a men's magazine that wasn't cut from the Playboy mold. Don't get me wrong; Hugh Hefner is a god. However, I don't want to read articles of any length, and I can find pictures of naked women anywhere without paying for it.

Read the whole thing from the NYT.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:55 PM

March 29, 2006

Straight Rights update from Dan Savage

Dan Savage, the famous gay sex columnist, has a pretty accurate view of the way the GOP views sex:

Straight Rights Update: Earlier this month Republicans in South Dakota successfully banned abortion in that state. Last week the GOP-controlled state house of representatives in Missouri voted to ban state-funded family planning clinics from dispensing birth control. "If you hand out contraception to single women," one Republican state rep told the Kansas City Star, "we're saying promiscuity is okay." On the federal level, Republicans are blocking the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception and keeping a 100 percent effective HPV vaccine—-a vaccine that will save the lives of thousands of women every year—-from being made available.

The GOP's message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no life-saving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You're going to have those babies, ladies, and you're going to make those child-support payments, gentlemen. And if you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that's too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.

What's it going to take to get a straight-rights movement off the ground? The GOP in Kansas is seeking to criminalize hetero heavy petting, for God's sake! Wake up and smell the freaking Holy War, breeders! The religious right hates heterosexuality just as much as it hates homosexuality. Fight back!

Posted by adrianjo at 12:48 AM

February 19, 2006

I have ... doubt!

I found myself in Times Square yesterday at 3PM, when the TKTS discount theater ticket window opens. Ordinarily tourists queue for hours to get 50%-off tickets, but there is a little-known “sixth window” for plays that has no queue.

We ended-up at Doubt, the 2005 Tony winner for Best Play, along with three other Tonys. Columbia also gave Doubt a Pulitzer for Best Drama. Doubt is a four-person drama of an old-fashioned Bronx Catholic School principal/nun who suspects the Father who coaches basketball of indiscretions with an altar boy. I won’t even try to summarize the plot and the point of the show; Martin Denton has a fine review. Bottom line, though, is that Doubt is a hit for the right reasons: a witty script and excellent acting, not because of expensive special effects.

Theatre buffs will not like me for saying this, but it’s particularly enjoyable to see these big-name actors in person on the stage. Ron Eldard (Death of a Salesman, House of Sand and Fog) has a particularly memorable and captivating voice, much like seeing John Lithgow in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Tiffany immediately recognized Jena Malone, and I suppose I would have recognized Eileen Atkins if I had watched her star in Cold Mountain and Gosford Park. The most emotional performance, however, was the single scene involving Adriane Lenox, which won her a Tony. Lenox plays the mother of the African-American altar boy who confronts Eileen Atkins’s character, revealing a depth of the situation that went far beyond what we would have imagined.

In today's society, most everyone knows someone involved in sexual abuse of some sort. Eileen Atkins’s character almost reminded me of my own grandmother suspecting her parish priest, who was recently defrocked for improper sexual relationships. (Grandma didn’t have anything to do with the Father getting defrocked.) But Doubt is not about diddling priests. It is a question of the role of the emotion called doubt, of whether doubt can stop us from doing the right thing, or whether to listen to our doubts is to do the right thing.

By the way, Alex, for old times’ sake, we went and had a drink with the lounge lizards at the Living Room after the show. The regulars are wondering why you haven’t been there in such a long time.

N.B. The picture has Brían O'Byrne as “Father Flynn” and Cherry Jones as “Sister Aloysius”

Posted by adrianjo at 03:45 PM

February 03, 2006

Salman Rushdie, call your office

Below is the Danish cartoon that has so many radical Muslims' panties in a bunch:

That's Muhammad, whom Muslims consider a prophet, with his turban fashioned into a bomb. It "is not exactly complimentary, but hardly unfair, given the thousands of people who have been blown up by fervent Muslims purporting to act in Mohammed's name," says Powerline.

Wannabe murderers around the world have launched protests. The picture at left is from London. Is there any difference vs. the guy on the right?

  
Not a dime's worth of difference

I can't see much difference between the two. Both harbor intense hatred of certain groups and see nothing wrong with killing innocent civilians. But Muslim fanatics are far more dangerous than Klansmen. A group of Klansmen couldn't be able to kill more than a couple of people a night. A group of Muslim fanatics killed almost 3,000 people on a single day in 2001. Why do American liberals hate the KKK but want to appease radical Muslims?

By the way, I have changed the lanaguage of this site's dates to Danish.

Posted by adrianjo at 05:53 PM

January 28, 2006

How to save $2.10 through a special TV offer

The infomercial for PetVac claims that "PetVac normally sells for $49.95, but through this special TV offer, you can get your PetVac for just $29.95."

The small print is that shipping costs $17.90. Add it up and your PetVac costs $47.85. That's a really special offer if PetVac normally costs $49.95.

Posted by adrianjo at 11:30 AM

January 24, 2006

How not to get my business

A few years ago, I canceled my United Airlines credit card, issued by First USA. They refused to waive a late fee of $29, so I told them I would cancel my card. I did, and they've since lost at least $150 in annual fees, plus the interchange fees they would have gained.

They still solicit me to take their card again--this time as their successor, Chase Manhattan. After getting two solicitations in three days, I finally called to have my name be taken off their list. And guess what--they send me to an Indian call center. Whenever I get sent to an Indian call center--and it's obvious when it happens--I know that the company really doesn't care about me. Why would they send me to an Indian call center before I even sign-up for the card? At least they're being straightforward about what they think of me.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:56 PM

January 19, 2006

In my spambox

An outfit called "Online Educatoin Enrollment" has offered me a master's degree in two weeks. Thanks, but if you can't spell "education" correctly, I don't think I'm interested.

Posted by adrianjo at 01:52 PM

January 03, 2006

Who you callin' average?

Nelly says in the lyrics of "Drive" that he prefers "36-25-34" women. Why such a small bust, Nelly? A scan of 6300 women in September 2003 found that the average measurements are as follows:

Bust 40.7”
Waist 34.3”
Hips 43”
Weight 155.6 lb.
Height 5’ 3.9”

I don't know about Nelly's reaction, but my reaction to the survey is that I need to apologize to all the 5'4" and 5'5" women I've made fun of for being "short," including Tiffany. (That said, I still classify anyone under 5'10" as short, and Yao Ming probably thinks I'm short.)

[via]

Posted by adrianjo at 11:43 AM

December 29, 2005

A magazine for you, sir?

That "Publisher's Cleary-Dealy Thingie" is back, this time with a $10M prize. The fine print? The $10M is paid over 30 years at $333,333/yr. What's that worth today? $3,142,305 at a 10% rate. And if you figure this after tax, the prize is worth $2,042,498. This is still a lot to be sneezed at, but the $10M prize is really only worth $2M. A few years ago, dozens of states' Attorneys General cracked down on PCH, but it still seems like a crooked way to sell magazines.

Posted by adrianjo at 06:49 PM

December 23, 2005

I'm watching a Simpsons marathon

A Christmas thought from everyone's favorite boss, Charles Montgomery Burns:

Compadres, it is imperative that we crush the freedom fighters before the start of the rainy season. And remember, a shiny new donkey for whoever brings me the head of Colonel Montoya.

chop chop!

Posted by adrianjo at 04:50 PM

November 30, 2005

"Your skills with the ladies need some work," which is news to my girlfriend

How good is your game with the women? I clicked a banner ad to find out: I'm "below average," scoring a 58 of 100. "Your skills with the ladies need some work!" the website claims.

So I asked the girlfriend to take the test. I figured that since she's both female and attractive, she would know what "works" for men to pick-up attractive females. Were the test's scoring mechanism not broken when she took the test, I think she would have done even worse than I did. When we read through the answer key, her general reaction was, "I wouldn't do any of these" or "that's ridiculous."

The problem with the test's answers is that the advice seems to assume that all women--or at least all beautiful women--are the same. Sure, there are some things that men do that are universally ineffective, from the pathetic ("what's your sign?") to the abusive (stalking her). But why not tell men to listen to her, figure out how she wants to be courted, and do it? Maybe it's because there's no recipe for this and hence it's no way of selling cheesy, overpriced advice books.

(Try this link for the test, but don't blame me if it won't score, and beware that the test owner will spam you.)

Posted by adrianjo at 01:04 PM

October 27, 2005

Sexuality, race, and close quarters

The guy who wrote this letter to the editor in the Post-Tribune initially sounds like a crazy bigot, then you realize he has a point:

My wife and I were avid watchers of the just recently ended "Big Brother 6" TV show. I wonder if anyone else noted, that to be politically correct, the producers had a black in the house group. However, this black was a gay male.

I believe that a gay was selected because he would not have been a threat to the white female members of the group. This way, the producers were able to stay politically correct, while appeasing the bigoted viewers who surely would have objected to seeing a macho black male involved in such close quarters with the white females, who were at times very sexily attired.

Not only was a black gay male selected, but the "Big Brother" show last year also had a gay black male.

On various occasions when producers add a black male, they will also add a black female, or vice versa, who hopefully will attract the black male.

We in America still have a long, long way to go before true democracy without discrimination occurs, if ever.

Wendell W. Levister, Gary

Posted by adrianjo at 10:08 AM

October 16, 2005

Hola amigos, it's been a long time since I rapped at ya...

I could talk today about Maria Bartiromo's interview with Antonin Scalia or quote Jim Anchower's latest column, titled "I guess I got a girlfriend."

You may think that my life is pretty sweet, and who could blame you? Usually, Jim Anchower drives where he wants, drinks what he wants, tokes when he wants, and doesn't take much shit from anyone unless he absolutely has to.

Jim is, of course, a loser. The irony is that he probably has less freedom than one who does occasionally take shit. But that's neither here nor there.

In this week's column, Jim discovers that having a girlfriend sometimes means that one can't toke when he wants to toke. Read it all.

Posted by adrianjo at 07:12 PM

October 09, 2005

You've missed a few there...

Forgive me for sounding like a snotty New Yorker here, but this list of the "Most Expensive Restaurants" in the US is full of it. Some $55 place in Detroit made the list, while a bevy of New York places that break the bank aren't mentioned. For example, consider the prices of the dinner tasting menus--before tax, tip, and wine--at these places: Alain Ducasse ($150 per person), Atelier ($128), Daniel ($120), the Four Seasons ($120), Jean Georges ($118), or Picholine ($125). None of these fine eating establishments makes the list, but some $50 buck place in Wahoo does.

Forbes could easily make a list of the country's most expensive restaurants by flipping to page 283 of the 2005 New York Zagat guide (source of the above prices) and adding Le-Bec Fin in Philadelphia, French Laundry in Napa, Charlie Trotter in Chicago (and soon NYC), and maybe one or two others. At the rate they were missing places, if Forbes the list extended much further, we may well see Cosi show up.

Posted by adrianjo at 12:57 AM

October 08, 2005

Fording ahead

Tom Ford is entering the men's clothing market, with what might be a very exciting launch:

What Ford is most excited about is infiltrating the men’s style market. “An Armani suit has a certain look and Armani does a wonderful job with menswear. In other respects, you have Ralph Lauren, who also does a wonderful job. But there is not a strong men’s designer in between those two that gives you something that’s somewhat classic, yet very sexy and sophisticated,” he says, pointing out that men have no modern day equivalent to Chanel couture. “I think men are thinking and acting more like women in the way they choose things. You see straight guys checking out their butts in a pair of pants, which you would not have seen twenty years ago.”

Posted by adrianjo at 02:16 PM

October 07, 2005

Why I'm not a Christian

Everyone who tried to make me accept Jesus into my life, here is a good reason why I'm not a Christian. Reports the Washington Post:

Lifelike female mannequins dressed in rhinestone garters, fishnet stockings and feathery thongs had been posed in suggestive positions when the [Victoria's Secret] store opened last week. The displays of tiny underwear caused an uproar among some parents and shoppers, who have planned a protest for this morning.

"We will still be there," said Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, a Christian conservative group. "We don't know if they are going to do this again. People are very upset about it. And the fact that they would do it once shows they lack judgment and that there is a moral deficit at Victoria's Secret."

If these people had their way, women would be wearing cover-all black burqas and be beaten on the streets by religious police. Christianity is not appealing if it's merely Islam-lite.

Posted by adrianjo at 12:18 PM

October 06, 2005

Little shop of whores?

America's Puritans are up-in-arms over an underwear display at Victoria's Secret in Tyson's Corner, Va. Reports the Washington Post:

"Little Shop of Whores," huffed one woman standing outside the new Victoria's Secret in Tysons Corner Center. "Slut wear," declared the father of a teenage girl, looking at a feathery-thong-clad mannequin bent over as if she were adjusting her spike heels.

"I walk the mall. I've been walking the mall for nine years," said Jana Spencer, 53, of Vienna, who said she has three grown children. "This is shocking. This is semi-pornographic. This is insulting."

Lawd have mercy! Because I care about visitors to this blog, here is a big picture of the "offensive" display:

Insulting? To what? To a prude's fragile mores? And what sort of henpecked man could put up with a shrew like that old mall-walker? Maybe a guy who gets his fix from porn rather than his wife?

Thank goodness not all women are as prudish as the old mall-walker. One told the Post:

"I love it ... I like the dark side of Vicky's. Every woman has a little bit of the dark side in her. ... I have a husband, and I know he would love this. This is what keeps you happily married."

Hallelujah!

Posted by adrianjo at 10:49 AM

October 01, 2005

Square root of Paris

There is still hope. Reports US Weekly:

NEW YORK, September 30, 2005; 7:40ET — Paris Hilton tells Us Weekly exclusively that she has ended her five-month engagment to Greek shippping heir Paris Latsis.

In a statement to Us late Friday evening, Hilton said, “I'm sad to announce that I've called off my engagement. Over the last couple months I've realized that this is the right decision for me. We remain best of friends, and I'll always love him. I hope people will respect my privacy during this emotional time.”

The couple had met each other as teenagers at a nightclub in Monaco. Then Hilton, 24, and Latsis, 22, became romantic last December soon after reuniting at Latsis' birthday party in Los Angeles. Latsis proposed to Hilton in April at his Hollywood Hills mansion. “I'm so in love and grateful to have found such an honest and loyal person” Hilton told Us at the time.

Rumors of their breakup surfaced in the last several weeks after Hilton, who had received a 24 carat, $5 million diamond engagement ring from Latsis, was rarely seen in public with her camera-shy fiance. “They really broke up a month ago,” says a friend of the couple. “They are just very different people. But Paris hoped things would get better. They didn't so she decided it was best to move on.”

Read here why I like Paris.

Posted by adrianjo at 06:35 PM

September 29, 2005

I like my Slim Fast fresh

There are only two grocery stores anyone needs nearby, Wal-Mart for low priced Spaghetti-Os and Whole Foods for organic arugula. I don't understand why people like bodegas, the small independent grocery stores that charge $2 for a 2-litre of Coke that sells at Wal-Mart for 88 cents. I think the bodegas just provide a convenient place to smoke weed in public, which leaves Lenox Ave smelling like downtown Amsterdam. Can we at least have some women in windows surrounded by red lights?

In downtown Chicago, where I used to live, the bodegas were weed-free, but a new government investigation shows that 71% sell outdated merchandise or have related violations. The Sun-Times reports on a bodega next to my former residence:

The East Delaware Pantry, 200 E. Delaware, was socked with a $10,000 fine for allegedly selling 43 expired products, including 2-year-old weight-loss shake and mixed cereal for babies that expired on March 17.

I did a client study once where they flew me to Charlotte and I noted the expiration dates on dozens of products in a few dozen grocery stores. Wal-Mart had by far the freshest products anywhere. So little independent grocers charge more, have a more limited selection, and sell 2-year-old Slim-Fast. Wal-Mart and Whole Foods are all that are needed.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:43 AM

August 08, 2005

Fiddling away

Here is a musical that will have a very short run. At least it isn't about Boy George.

Posted by adrianjo at 09:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 05, 2005

I'd rather go naked

For once I agree with Anna Nicole Smith:

Elle Macpherson, shame on you! I got word from a friend at PETA that you're going to model a line of furs. Do you really want to promote the killing of these animals just so rich ladies can wear their fur as status symbols? Some of them are skinned alive. It's wrong and you know it! You're a beautiful and successful woman. You can't need the money that badly. Please reconsider your decision and stop wearing fur!

Anna Nicole can spell too.

Posted by adrianjo at 05:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 24, 2005

All that glitters

One is advised to hold tight to his wallet whenever he finds himself buying something that is bought mainly by men for the women of their affection. Examples: chocolate, flowers, romantic dinners, and diamonds. Also beware when purchasing services that appeal to horny men. Match.com, a unit of IAC/Interactive Corp, reportedly has sales per employee of over $1M. In other words, the site is a money machine.

Flowers are another easy way to part a person from his money. Having scoured nearly every flower delivery site on the web, I'm convinced that they're all rip-offs. (Women, this does not mean that I won't occasionally be ripped-off for your pleasure.) A nice potted vase shown at $30 will likely cost $60 before it is delivered, the other $30 being hidden costs that aren't revealed until the end. Add a $10 "transmission fee," plus $10 "delivery fee," plus $10 for the vase itself. Flower delivery suddenly becomes a very profitable business.

The biggest money-maker is the diamond industry. Diamonds have no inherent value except in some industrial cutting applications. The worth of a diamond derives from DeBeers' successfully restricting their supply on the world market and the willingness of some other sucker to pay an inflated price for the carbon. The latter is a bit like tech stocks in the '90s: Yahoo is worth $300/share to me because tomorrow someone else will pay $301.

Now Dateline runs a story discussing diamond appraisals, a wildly successful marketing ploy designed to further inflate the value of carbon.

“I think it’s probably one of the more shameful things in our industry — appraisals used as marketing tools,” says Don Palmieri, a senior member of the American Society of Appraisers. “You get a high appraisal, you walk out thinking you just got the last great deal. But you just got misinformed with that document.”

... [Palmieri] said in most cases the appraisals were grossly inflated. “Those prices came from the market imagination, I believe, of the retailer and the laboratory,” he says.

Dateline bought diamonds from various stores, took them out of their mount, and sent them back to the labs for appraisal. When they arrived back, almost none carried the same grading as the original appraisal.

Some of the grades varied significantly from lab to lab — and in fact, except in one case, none of the diamonds was graded the same by [Dateline's independent appraisers] and the labs.

Are rubies, emeralds, and sapphires this bad?

Posted by adrianjo at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 23, 2005

Anywhere is cleaner than regular Mexico (except maybe Harlem)

Activists have their panties in a bunch over another product at Urban Outfitters, this time a shirt that advertises New Mexico as "cleaner than regular Mexico."

The activists are again complaining about the wrong thing. First, the shirt's message is true. Just like when Mexican President Vicente Fox spoke out about what sort of jobs Mexicans take in the US. He took a lot of flack for it, but he was speaking the truth. Second, the shirt isn't nearly as racist as certain things sold by the Mexican government.

Perhaps the people who waste ink complaining about Urban's clothes should spend some time helping 'disadvantaged' people get jobs, understand the healthcare system, or succeed in the educational system. Here are two organizations that are worthy of their time: one, two.

Posted by adrianjo at 01:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 22, 2005

Speaking of pandas

Part of this MSNBC story on piracy in the Straits of Malacca makes you not want to get up in the morning:

Because of the kinds of weapons they're carrying, they're use of flack jackets, a high degree of competency and tactical prowess ... it seems apparent that they’ve had some relatively vigorous training.

They're = they are. It's "their use of flack jackets," not "they're use of flack jackets."

MSNBC should know better.

Posted by adrianjo at 08:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 20, 2005

A panda walks into a cafe

For the pedant in us all, I cannot more highly recommend last summer's surprise bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Killjoy old Brit Lynne Truss delights the world's sticklers when she lets loose on the "appaling ignorance" of people who never learned how to make a plural (it's CDs, not CD's) or use a comma. She reserves her harshest criticism for those who should know better, including retailer Lands' End. (She doesn't acknowledge that Lands' End admits the name is wrong, which was discovered after the first catalogue went to the printer.) To demonstrate the life-or-death implications of poor grammar, Truss writes:

A panda walked into a cafe. He ordered a sandwich, ate it, then pulled out a gun and shot the waiter.

"Why?" groaned the injured man.

The panda shrugged, tossed him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and walked out.

And sure enough, when the waiter consulted the book, he found an explanation.

Panda: large black and white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.

Woe be the stickler nowadays:

It’s tough being a stickler for punctuation these days. One almost dare not get up in the mornings. True, one occasionally hears a marvellous punctuation-fan joke about a panda who “eats, shoots and leaves”, but in general the stickler’s exquisite sensibilities are assaulted from all sides, causing feelings of panic and isolation. A sign at a health club will announce, “I’ts party time, on Saturday 24th May we are have a disco/party night for free, it will be a ticket only evening.” Advertisements offer decorative services to “wall’s – ceiling’s – door’s ect”. Meanwhile a newspaper placard announces “FAN’S FURY AT STADIUM INQUIRY”, which sounds quite interesting until you look inside the paper and discover that the story concerns a quite large mob of fans, actually – not just the lone hopping-mad fan so promisingly indicated by the punctuation.

All of which is why I was happy to find this website today. I'm procrastinating far too much on the "list of errors" page.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 19, 2005

A gay lion, a gay giraffe, and even a gaggle of gay geese

Scientists are working on a gene that, when modified, turns animals gay. The always-PC NY Times managed to tap dance around that issue.

The male mouse's rule for dealing with strangers is simple - if it's male, attack it; if female, mate with it. But male mice that are genetically engineered to block the scent-detecting vomeronasal cells try to mate rather than attack invading males.

Then there's the ever-popular fruit fly:

Last month Barry J. Dickson of the Austrian Academy of Sciences provided an elegant proof of this idea by genetically engineering male flies to make the female version of the fruitless protein, and female flies to generate the male version. The male flies barely courted at all. But the female flies with the male form of fruitless aggressively pursued other females, performing all steps of male courtship except the last.

Among the various studies reported, perhaps the one that made the most sense was this:

A remarkable instance of genome-environment interaction has been discovered in the maternal behavior of rats. Pups that receive lots of licking and grooming from their mothers during the first week of life are less fearful in adulthood and more phlegmatic [fearful or cowardly] in response to stress than are pups that get less personal care.

Last year, Michael J. Meaney and colleagues at McGill University in Montreal reported that a gene in the brain of the well-groomed pups is chemically modified during the grooming period and remains so throughout life. The modification makes the gene produce more of a product that damps down the brain's stress response.

The system would allow the laid-back rats to transmit their behavior to their pups through the same good-grooming procedure, just as the stressed-out rat mothers transmit their fearfulness to their offspring.

"Among mammals," Dr. Meaney and colleagues wrote in a report of their findings last year, "natural selection may have shaped offspring to respond to subtle variations in parental behavior as a forecast of the environmental conditions they will ultimately face once they become independent of the parent."

I'll think of this next time I watch the rats scurry about the 125th St. subway stop. My only remaining question is how to measure phlegmaticness among rats?

Posted by adrianjo at 12:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 16, 2005

Don't dis the Enquirer

The National Enquirer is not as bad a news source as some might believe. First, there is an update on Oprah's bizarre claim that she's a Zulu. It's not online, but here is a synopsis:

The July 4, 2005 National Enquirer has a two page article about Oprah that reports that “her claims to noble Zulu blood has been disputed by the leader of the seven million-strong tribe, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi.” Even if she is a Zulu she might not like the fact that as a single woman she is not allowed to cover her breasts at traditional events. The Prince says she has everything it takes to be a Zulu [i.e. she's black] but she is probably from a West African tribe.

Actually, she's probably of several West African tribes, just as most white Americans are of several European nationalities. If the height of the American slave trade was roughly 1750-1809 (I'm guessing), then a typical American black of Oprah's age is 6th generation or more. Unlike whites, black slaves had little choice of marrying within their tribes/nationalities. This means that Oprah may have 64+ ancestors who arrived as American slaves and therefore as many as 64 tribal affiliations. On one hand, this gives credence to her claim that she has Zulu blood, at least a few drops. On the other hand, it shows the fruitlessness of attempting to ascribe oneself to any particular tribe.

Then there is this, the first plausible explanation of how Natalee Halloway died. If the kid were smart, he would have shut-up and said nothing. It's very hard to prosecute a murder when prosecutors can't show a body or even prove that a murder happened. Remember, Joran, justice is only approximate.

Posted by adrianjo at 12:30 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 11, 2005

The multiplication of division

I don't know where the "unite not divide" language in politics derives, but it seems a bit ridiculous when applied to the Supreme Court, as in this one-sided AP article. It is particularly hypocritical of the Dems to demand a "uniter" on SCOTUS: their favorite judges are hardly uniters. The Democrats on the Massachusetts Supreme Court tore the nation apart when they usurped the legislature and discovered a right for gays to marry. The Democrats on the 9th Circuit (the most liberal and most overturned of all the circuits) divided the country when they struck down the Pledge of Allegiance. On SCOTUS, the most liberal members like Brennan and Ginsburg have hardly been "uniters".

Liberals' demand for a "uniter" shows how Democrats misunderstand the role of the courts. Unlike a President or Legislators, only the most activist judges can do anything to unite a country. Courts decide cases. Courts interpret law. Courts weigh facts. Courts do not unite.

Posted by adrianjo at 09:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 10, 2005

Beavis & Butthead meet Robin Leach

The latest in a string of shows that combine Beavis & Butthead with Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous is Princes of Malibu. David Foster plays a father who has decided that his kids are too spoiled, and his wife begrudgingly agrees. I loved The Simple Life because Paris actually makes her own money in real life. Foster's kids have all the annoyance of Paris with none of her endearing qualities like her motivation.

The show also features some annoying excesses that expose the actors as actors and not reality stars. Foster declares Nobu perhaps "the most expensive restaurant in California, if not the world." Hardly. A group of nine has dinner for $700, or $78/person. It's a good thing they haven't discovered Per Se (with the cheapest menu being $175/person) or perhaps Daniel's menu (which starts at $92/person for three courses). Then there's Masa, which doesn't have a menu. Rather, the chef prepares you whatever he wants and charges $300/person for the experience, before tax, tip, and sake. When the spoiled kids go to Masa every night, old man Foster can really complain.

(Astute viewers of The Simple Life will remember that Nicole Richie successfully got a last-minute reservation at Per Se as part of her job; normally the wait is up to 2 months.)

Posted by adrianjo at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 30, 2005

Abe Lincoln is no Obama

I don't like to speak ill of a Columbia alumnus, but I'm glad that others now see that Barack Obama is a pompous ass. From Peggy Noonan's column:

This week comes the previously careful Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better. "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles."

Oh. So that's what Lincoln's for. Actually Lincoln's life is a lot like Mr. Obama's. Lincoln came from a lean-to in the backwoods. His mother died when he was 9. The Lincolns had no money, no standing. Lincoln educated himself, reading law on his own, working as a field hand, a store clerk and a raft hand on the Mississippi. He also split some rails. He entered politics, knew more defeat than victory, and went on to lead the nation through its greatest trauma, the Civil War, and past its greatest sin, slavery.

Barack Obama, the son of two University of Hawaii students, went to Columbia and Harvard Law after attending a private academy that taught the children of the Hawaiian royal family. He made his name in politics as an aggressive Chicago vote hustler in Bill Clinton's first campaign for the presidency.

You see the similarities.

There is nothing wrong with Barack Obama's résumé, but it is a log-cabin-free zone. So far it also is a greatness-free zone. If he keeps talking about himself like this it always will be.

Mr. Obama said he keeps a photographic portrait of Lincoln on the wall of his office, and that "it asks me questions."

I'm sure it does. I'm sure it says, "Barack, why are you such an egomaniac?" Or perhaps, "Is it no longer possible in American politics to speak of another's greatness without suggesting your own?"

To the list of similarities with Lincoln, I would add that Obama breezed to his first Senate victory without a real opponent, whereas Lincoln lost almost every election in his life.

Posted by adrianjo at 09:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 27, 2005

Oprah cries, again

Oprah, who recently declared herself a descendent of the Zulus despite the near historic impossibility thereof, has now decided that it must have been race that kept her out of a closed Hermes store in Paris recently. As Mark Caro comments in the Chicago Tribune:

Thank you, Oprah, for striking another blow for the common man and woman—-and America, too.

Our hearts all go out to you. There you were, in Paris, wanting to buy a present for your friend Tina Turner, and Hermes wouldn’t let you into the store.

Sure, they say you showed up at 6:45 p.m., and the store closed at 6:30 p.m. Sure, the store was preparing “a private public relations event inside.”

But they just don’t get it over there in France, do they? You’re an American. You have a God-given right to shop whenever and wherever you want to.

And you’re Oprah, so you can do whatever you damn well please. Don’t those people over there understand that celebrities are royalty? Regular rules do not apply!

It would be one thing if Oprah were just upset at not being let into a store after-hours. (And the store's security tapes back their account of the incident.) But she has turned it into a racial issue:

Oprah’s spokespeople implied that the incident was racial in nature, calling it her “‘Crash’ moment,” a reference to the current hit movie about racism in Los Angeles. ...

The problem I have now is that she plans to air this complaint when her show kicks off its new season in September—at least that’s what a Harpo Productions spokeswoman told the Associated Press.

Oprah, if something happened to you that was serious enough for you to make it an international issue, something that you’re terming a “Crash” moment -— the African-American woman in “Crash,” after all, is the victim of sexual assault -— then talk about it now, for heaven’s sake.

Don’t wait almost three months just to give your show a lift.

Transforming this incident into TV programming just cheapens it.

... Milk it for your own commercial interests, and you’ll only further the impression that it’s Oprah’s world and we -— and those Hermes nincompoops -— should just consider ourselves lucky to be living in it.

The timing raises one question, but Zorn doesn't address the question of how Oprah can be so sure that this was a racial incident. Sure, there's a 'problem' with North Africans in Paris, but Oprah is a South African--a Zulu--after all! But more to the point, we all have incidents where we ask for something unreasonable and have the request rejected, even at luxury stores. (For example, Neiman wouldn't replace my stolen wallet, and Burberry put me through hell over my broken umbrella.) It's hard to call an incident racially-motivated when store employees--who shouldn't be expected to recognize an American celebrity--enforce standard store policy. Was Oprah just out searching for a slight to declare racist and use it to fuel her stale talkshow?

When people like Oprah assume that incidents are racially motivated despite having no reason to make such an assertion, they aren't helping the cause. Living as a white person in Harlem, where I reckon race relations are tenser than almost any other neighborhood, I find myself involved in plenty of incidents that might be racially-motivated. I usually pretend not to hear. What empowers the racists--black or white--is the reaction their taunts evoke. Oprah's hysterical overreaction and crass commercialization of a non-racially-motivated incident makes me wonder what she'll have left in her tank if she ever were a victim of real racism.

UPDATE: The Chicago Tribune's website has published a very long list of people complaining about Zulu Princess Winfrey. Here is a good one:

It was a few years back when my brother and I were at a restaurant in the City waiting for our table. It was a Saturday afternoon and we had been patiently waiting for 45 minutes.

The host had just announced that our table was ready, when all of a sudden the door blew open and in flies Oprah and parks herself at our table. My brother very graciously said: "Excuse me, but we were just given this table."

She whips her head around and says: "Do you know who I am?" and my bro said, "I really do not care who you are; you are sitting at our table."

Obviously, she did not like that response. "I am Oprah Winfrey." We both exactly knew who she was, just testing the water. "This is my table and I am not moving," said Oprah.

And people idolize this insane woman? At least Jerry Springer is friendly enough to say "hello" in the elevator.

Posted by adrianjo at 04:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 25, 2005

An open letter to the bigwigs in Cincinnati

Dear Procter & Gamble:

I recently purchased one of your newfangled "Swiffer mopping systems." As a bachelor, I am admittedly not a savvy consumer of mopping systems. Your bottle claims that it lasts 2-3 months "under normal usage." Mine had much shorter duration. I would have expected at least 2-3 months duration on account of two factors. One, I live in Manhattan, which means that my kitchen and bathroom are so small that the typical American would not fit in them. Two, I am a single male, which means that I wash the floor only when I expect a visit from an amateur health inspector (i.e. any attractive female visitor aged 21 to 27 years). Please consider revising your product claims to be more realistic.

Sincerely,

Adrian Jones

UPDATE: I received a generic letter from P&G saying that they were "reviewing" my comments. They included a coupon for another bottle of mopping fluid. It turns out that the bottle that comes with the system is a trial-size bottle, and the refill bottles are larger and therefore last longer. Seems like this causes needless confusion of customers.

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June 18, 2005

Who's this sports superstar?

Apparently Jeopardy has hired a clue-writer from the New York Times crossword. Today's Final Jeopardy clue:

This sports superstar of 1973 has the same name as one of the 6 principal organs of the UN.

The correct question?

Who is Secretariat?

Argh.

Posted by adrianjo at 07:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 15, 2005

Oprah's latest delusion

Oprah, fresh off the four-day celebration of her 20,000th pound lost, now claims that she's a Zulu. How swell that she picked what is perhaps the most well-known and politically influential African tribe. Nobody would say that they're from Togo or Burkina-Faso, which are among Oprah's more-likely origins.

Here's Oprah's claim:

"I always wondered what it would be like if it turned out I am a South African. I feel so at home here. Do you know that I actually am one?

"I went in search of my roots and had my DNA tested, and I am a Zulu," she said to loud cheers.

"I'm crazy about the South African accent. I wish I had been born here."

The only problem is that besides Oprah's wanting desperately to be South African, it's nearly a historical impossibility. South Africa, where Zulu are from, was run by Dutch Boers and was not significantly involved with the slave trade. Most American slaves came from the Slave Coast, the part of Africa closest to North America. Besides, what's wrong with being from Mississippi?

The Telegraph calls the claim "baffling":

Local historians, however, were disinclined to believe her claim, as there are few records of the Zulus having any connection to the African slave trade. "If there were Zulu people taken as slaves they would have been taken eastwards by Arab traders or Portuguese to their South American colonies," said one.

"Those who ended up in North America, say in Mississippi where Miss Winfrey comes from, were mostly of West African origin."

Do people pay attention to this crazy woman for any reason other than hoping to get a free car?

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June 14, 2005

Saying all of George Carlin's seven words

I just typed out a long blog entry and accidentally hit the "backspace" button which causes the page to go "back" and everything to be lost. Since it's almost 1AM, I will direct you to a very dull blog.

Posted by adrianjo at 12:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 10, 2005

Why don't I get the Victoria's Secret catalogue?

Bergdorf sent me their Fall 2005 women's apparel catalogue. Katlyn, please send my thanks to everyone at headquarters for doing that. It's one of those "magalogs" with an article that references The Preppy Handbook and a nice photo of Jacki O in a ski-mask. The photography is phenomenal, such as pages 49, 50, 59, 78, and 92.

In terms of the clothes, especially interesting is page 58, which advertises as follows: "...Jeans also available without holes... Jeans $425. Jeans without holes $375." My next get-rich-quick scheme will be to start a jeans-hole-tearing business on Fifth Avenue, where I'll only charge $40 per mutilation.

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June 09, 2005

CNN keeps a vigil for Natalee

CNN doesn't want this girl to be found, since if she's found, they won't be able to have the cute 18-year-old blonde on their front page. It's now four days of the girl's picture on their front page. Maybe it's time for a front-page shot of one of the 800,000 other kids who are abducted each year?

Posted by adrianjo at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 08, 2005

Another lazy day at CNN

It's three days later at CNN, and guess who's on the front page of their website? The banner ad has changed, but the blonde is still there.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 05, 2005

She's one in almost-a-million (actually, 800,000)

CNN just loves this pretty-blonde-missing-in-Aruba story. These sort of stories are irrelevant for 99% of Americans; as many as 800,000 kids go missing every year, according to missingkids.org. This story gets coverage because CNN can put a picture of an attractive 18-year-old on their website. At first I was annoyed with all the coverage that this blonde is getting, but then I realized that CNN covers her for the same reason I write about Paris Hilton.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 30, 2005

Paris to marry Paris

Nobody believed me when I said that Paris Hilton wants to become a housewife, but today there is a bit of confirmation from People Magazine, which says that Paris's publicist confirms that the hotel heirhead will marry Greek shipping heir Paris Latsis. We'll see if the marriage lasts any longer than Nikki's marriage to a NYC money manager.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2005

Oh no! Paris porn is on TV!

One has to be continually amazed by Paris Hilton's ability to generate publicity from the most ridiculous stunts. The Carls Jr ads that I bemoaned recently are now running, and there is a set of videos available on a website called SpicyParis.com. I've never associated spice with Paris--the actress or the city--which only adds to the weirdness of the campaign. Perhaps the strangest part of the website is Paris describing the burger and why it's hot: "there's like these fried jalepenos on it, and it's really like juicy and tasty." My guess is that except her brief stint at Sonic, Paris has never touched a burger of this sort before being paid to do this commercial. I doubt she's even done the $120 foie-gras and truffles burger at Chef Daniel's db Bistro Moderne, even though she lives a few blocks away.

In the realm of the more predictable, one of the loser-nanny pressure groups, this one called the "Parents Television Council," has decided that the add is just too "titillating":

"This commercial is basically soft-core pr0n," said Melissa Caldwell, research director for the PTC. "The way she moves, the way she puts her finger in her mouth -- it's very suggestive and very titillating."

If this group of self-appointed TV cops objects to pretty girls on TV, perhaps they should choose words other than "titillating." Fortunately Carls Jr's CEO put the smackdown on PTC:

Carl's Jr.'s message to the PTC: The group needs to "get a life," said Andy Puzder, CEO of Carl's Jr.

Puzder added that Paris "was very business-like." So are most people when doing something ridiculous just for the money.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2005

Paris pulls a fast one

Paris Hilton just wrapped up latest season of The Simple Life and soon will have a big Carls Jr ad premiering, presumably in the West Coast. At right is a screencapture from the ad, which gives me the same disappointment as when I see a cigarette ad with a beautiful woman who has an ugly cancer stick hanging from her fingers. Fast food hamburgers are like communism, cigarettes, being a hippy, bad wine, and pot: fun to joke about but not something one wants to experience in person.

UPDATE: Egad! Tinkerbell has her own book. I'm speechless.

UPDATE: Tinkerbell's book is actually pretty funny. Examples:

"For an animal that's been so forcefully bred behind the genetic eight ball that taking a shit requires me to stand on my tippy toes, this is shaping up to be quite a life."

Tinkerbell has been put into a pink angora sweater and comments:

"I'm one of those dogs now, the kind that people cheer when a falcon swoops down and disappears into the sky with one in its talons."

If Amazon had allowed a bit longer except, I'd have more to say. No, I'm not buying the book, even though it looks funny.

Posted by adrianjo at 03:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 02, 2005

Serveur, moins d'obésité, SVP!

When my friend was in town last week, we went to a little French restaurant in SoHo, and I was quite suprised by the portion size. We skipped appetizers and found ourselves full after the main course! We could barely get the Provencal custard dessert down the hatch. It was a bit disappointing; usually one can go to a French restaurant expect portion sizes small enough that one actually wants (needs?) to order dessert. And who makes better dessert than the French?

Against this backdrop comes news that obesity among the middle and upper classes is soaring, from the WSJ:

WASHINGTON -- Obesity has long been a problem mostly of the poor, but new research shows that the more affluent are catching up fast.

In the early 1970s, 22.5% of people with incomes below $25,000 were obese. By 2002, 32.5% of the poor were. By comparison, just 9.7% of people with incomes above $60,000 were obese in the 1970s -- a figure that jumped to 26.8% in 2002.

Money for quality food aside, higher-income people are thought to be better educated and have better access to health care, so why such a jump among them? Dr. Robinson speculates that longer commutes, growing popularity of restaurants and possibly longer work hours since the 1970s are playing a role.

French restaurants have played a role--if one can't go to a French restaurant, have a four course meal, and leave with a bit of hunger still, then obesity is going to hit the middle and upper classes pretty fast.

Posted by adrianjo at 05:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 18, 2005

Pope John Paul II, Longtime Owner Of Popemobile, Dead At 84

The Onion has an interesting obit of John Paul II:

Pope John Paul II, Longtime Owner Of Popemobile, Dead At 84

VATICAN CITY—Pope John Paul II, who owned the Popemobile for more than a quarter of a century, passed away last Saturday. "The Popemobile was known the world over," said Peter Egan, a writer for Road & Track. "A fine example of European craftsmanship, the hand-built, 4.3 litre, V-8 powered, pearl-gray vehicle was exceptionally well-loved, even more so after the bulletproof bubble was added in 1981 to safeguard its passengers against assassination attempts. During the time he owned the Popemobile, John Paul II visited more than 120 countries. He loved the open road." The specially altered Mercedes-Benz ML-series off-road vehicle has been maintained by papal staff since the pope fell ill in August 2004. The pope's will is expected to grant its use to either the next pope or John Paul II's young cousin Zbigniew.

Posted by adrianjo at 11:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 24, 2005

Commies aren't cool

With every popular club in Manhattan putting up Che Guevera posters, I'm torn between turning up wearing this shirt and this shirt. Argh, to hell with it. Let's just wear shi