The Weekly Meat

Facebook Status Update

I'm on The Facebook.

I'm updating my status, because that's part of the deal with The Facebook. It's the perverse cyber-window into which we allow ask friends and "friends" alike to peep.

But the status update is somehow more than that. Use it enough and it becomes the more real looking-glass through which we not only see ourselves, but through which we want the world to see us.

Too much gravitas? Maybe. After all, life is not about what we're doing at any given moment. But then again, grow your sample size of moments enough (particularly away from the witty or flattering ones), and suddenly it is. Because when we add up all our moments — especially the notable ones, both good and bad — that's all we have. And so, it's something.

What makes an update-worthy moment? Ultimately, it's up to each user, but as one of those ("We few, we happy few") without constant smartphone contact to The Internets, I just smile and nod thankfully when confronted with the more inane moments in my life. Without an uplink, I often find myself blessedly edited by circumstance. Because, in the moment, information that might seem necessary to share with one's extended circle of peers is, at second glance, generally not.

But arguably, it is precisely the small, inane moments that tend to paint a more clear picture of who I am: "BK is having irreconcilable differences with the hotel shower" maybe; or "made a slight error while cutting his hair and now fears Vanilla Ice comparisons"; or "is doing dangerous things involving a large pine tree, a saw and a ladder"; or "is trying not to stare at an Israeli waitress who looks like Angelina Jolie's more natural looking, younger sister." (All of those true at some point in the past several months, by the way.)

[BK is hoping that last one does not get him in trouble at home.]

We have always had some say in how we define our public selves, but our accessibility is so much broader these days — a phenomenon that gives us both more and less control over our own message (to use the language of marketing and politics). And in our present star-fucking culture, our default is to strive to be the focus of at least our own small pond.

After all, what is blogging, if not just that?

[BK pauses, self-referentially.]

But what and when to edit ourselves when life in front of so many new lenses has become the norm? I'm not sure, but thank god I'm already happily married, middle-aged, and mature enough for even momentary reflection, because if not, I'd surely have committed social suicide dozens of times by now.

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube alone might constitute half of all web use among many teenagers, but I imagine they also offer today's yutes the constant threat of painful infamy. [BK is perhaps projecting here.] Because the flipside of saying "Look at me, look at me!" has forever been that, well, folks might actually look.

And then what?

Hmm... "BK is pulling a substantial quantity of lint from his belly button" maybe; or "should be able to turn the channel during a Man v. Food marathon"; or "worries he has become That Guy Who Picks His Nose at Traffic Lights"; or "should not have trusted that last fart."

The Hot List: A Primer for 2010

Tis the season for stand-up philosophy, baldfaced prognostication, and linguistic prestidigitation. Herewith, the only hot list you'll ever need this year — in alphabetical order for easy reference.

Out	In
Afghanistan	Pakistan
the Aughts	the Tweens
Barack	Michelle
bleaching	1 simple trick, discovered by a mom, to turn yellow teeth white
body piercings	yoga
CNN's new direction	Newsweek's new direction
FAIL	WIN
fitted skull caps	fez
Fox News	getting hit on the head lessons
Freemasons	Shriners
gas	clean diesel
green building	not building
holiday cards	holiday blogs
hoodies	yoga
hybrids	plug-in hybrids
indoor hockey	outdoor hockey
iPhone	iTablet
Mad Men profile photos on Facebook	you
Old Navy	the Navy
Olympics	World Cup
outsourcing	hobos
pirates	yoga
prostitutes	cocktail waitresses
reality TV	fantasy TV
recession	recess
Rock Band	garage bands
Sarah Palin	lobotomies
Senate	House
"Socialism"	representative democracy
Swine Flu	the flu
t-shirts with tribal tattoo graphics	"I'm with stupid"
talking heads	Talking Heads
tattoo "sleeves"	tattoo "leg warmers"
Tiger Woods	Tiger Woods
three-letter acronyms	four-letter acronyms
Tip O'Neill	Ted Kennedy
Twittering	tittering
Ugg	ugh
ultimate fighting	hockey fighting
universal health care	universal Medicare
vampires	garlic

Hope this helps.

Hyperbolic Chamber

I've written before about how we in the U.S. are overly concerned with being number one. Well, our preoccupation has not gone away, and part and parcel with it — honestly, I don't know if it's the symptom or the result — is that we live in an increasingly narrow world of hyperbole, both of language and of thought. And the further we descend into it, the more difficult it becomes to find our way out.

Our current economic crisis, you have surely heard, is the worst "since the Great Depression" (a phrase that nets no fewer than 21.4 million hits on Google). The H1N1 "swine" flu concern is comparable to catastrophic global pandemic of 1918, as opposed to the more recent Kohoutek-like non-event that was SARS. In politics, those on the far right and left are "Nazis," and healthcare for the uninsured (but somehow, not for the elderly) is "Socialism." Possibly even "Marxism!"

All of this, because it's easier to use linguistic clichés, apply pat labels, and to create simple (blue state/red state, say) polarities than it is to actually contemplate the once-fertile middle ground in which thoughtful, earnest debate can result in successful compromise.

The heart of this problem lies not in politics though, but in culture — where our endless affair with TV gives us the Biggest Loser and the Deadliest Catch, as well as Dirty Jobs and Man vs. Food (two shows in which the "est" is simply implied). And even National Geographic weighs in with the World's Toughest Fixes and the Discovery Channel with the Toughest Race on Earth and Build It Bigger.

With everyone using the exaggerator's suffix so freely, superlatives have become as devalued as the ubiquitous giving of "110 percent." And, face it, that whole 110% rhetorical idiocy is just the un-satirical sports equivalent of a guitar amp that goes to 11.

It's not just about the words. Watch any SportsCenter and you can see why steroids are here to stay: we want hyperbolic athletic performance. We want massive performance-enhancing-drug–fueled home runs, concussion-inducing hockey and football hits, backboard-shattering dunks. We want to see epic bloody sock performances, and expect them once a week. And we want to believe that a skinny cancer survivor can win a grueling three-week-long bicycle race seven times in a row without doping.

Please. Spare me.

Have we really gotten to the point where we find the merely different or difficult so banal that we indeed require all of the extremity we are so willingly fed? From extreme sports to extreme food, architecture, makeovers — you name it — we have indeed. Because we like to think ourselves more exciting than we actually are. More capable of perfection. And what could be more perfectly exciting than the hyper-realism of TV. What, I ask you?

The weather?

Well, yes, occasionally. At least on TV. Once the awkward fall-back conversation piece of introverts and strangers, weather now commands a disturbingly large percentage of our newscasts, its own cable networks, and our post-Katrina attention. Sure, I can buy that global warming is causing more frequent weather "events," but to label and overstate them as "extreme" is to miss the point of weather itself, which we should know by now, humans cannot control. So we throw hyperbole at Mother Nature rather than admit our own smallness in the face of natural events such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

And, secretly, we love it. We have become addicted to life in high definition, to über-everything, where all is categorized and exaggerated as the best and the worst, the biggest and the greatest (yes, admittedly, this Weekly Meat post follows on the heels of my "Top Five Punk Albums of All Time"). We need to just get over ourselves and our fascination with perfection, the biggest, the best, and the end-all. For if we do not — those prone to hyperbole might say — we will all surely perish in a shit-storm of fire and brimstone.

I can see the redundantly-named TV show now: The World's Deadliest Hyperbolic Hell-Deaths!

My 10 Favorite Online Videos

[Forgive the lighter fare this week. I'm sick, so are my kids, and work is on me like media flies on what now amounts to The Jackson Four.]

In no particular order:

All-Blacks Haka — New Zealand's All-Blacks rugby team does their ritual pre-match Maori Haka. Intimidating as hell.

George Laraque v. Raitis Ivanans — Three words: "Good luck, man."

Bobby Clarke scores his 1,000th career point — I specifically remember the moment earlier in this game when Reggie Leach (who had arguably the hardest shot in hockey) struck Clarke above the eye with a deadly slapshot. Clarke did not even go down to the ice. He simply shrugged slightly, as if shaking wet hair off his forehead, and the blood began pouring down his face. He personified both the mental and physical toughness that I still aspire to, and this clip highlights his perseverance.

Harlan McCraney, Presidential Speechalist — The best thing Andy Dick will ever do in his life. Hilarious.

Secretariat runs away with the Preaknesss — (~3:20 of the video) Secretariat demands hyperbole, and I will not disappoint: He was the greatest athlete of the 20th century, and the move he made in the furlong around his first turn at Pimlico in 1973 was the most perfect and inspiring thing I have ever seen.

Lazy Sunday — The video that launched a million videos and made YouTube (and later Hulu) a household name. Still brilliant.

Rob Hisey lacrosse-style shootout goal — Mike Legg did it first, and in an actual game; Sidney Crosby's done that too; Robbie Schremp does it better; but I saw the Hisey video first, and was blown away. Amazing dangling chops.

Tiger Woods Nike commercial — Tiger's parlor trick was just stunning when I first saw it, and is no less so today. It has spawned many imitations, some of which (Ronaldinho, Freestyle) are equally Nike and equally impressive.

Battle at Kruger — Lions and water buffalo and crocs, oh my! If you're one of the three people who hasn't actually seen this, it's worth eight and a half minutes of your life to be reminded that human beings are only one of hordes of thinking creatures on this old planet.

All your base are belong to us — The single most perfect example of the power of the Internet. Simple yet brilliant, geeky yet hip, global yet communal. A spot-on, time-sucking, poorly-translated, painstakingly-executed phenomenon.

15 Minutes

A few weeks ago, my wife AKL and I went to our first nursery school open house — shopping for something that might captivate young RLK more than Legos, and because she's that age. Little did I know, we'd both be captivated as much as the wee lass. But not, mind you, by the child/teacher ratio, or the sun-filled classroom, or the safe play spaces.

Upon entering the school building and at precisely the same moment, AKL and I noticed independently the presence of local/national "celebrity" parents for whom we have each harbored brief crushes in our day. AKL turned to me and said, sotto voce, "[Name of new it-boy writer] is over there in the corner." I smiled and said, "I'll see your [name of new it-boy writer] and raise you. Hello... [name of Grammy-nominated indie-rock starlet]."

The fact that AKL (who can be prone to such things) had never heard of [name of Grammy-nominated indie-rock starlet] notwithstanding, we were clearly not in nursery school Kansas anymore.

So, as we nodded to and chatted with the local celebs (nothing allows for painless social introduction more than the communal parenting of kids on a playground), it was not difficult to imagine becoming fast friends with these two touched by fame. Exchanging phone numbers, setting up play dates, becoming Facebook pals — because, "behind the music," we're all just folks.

I've met celebrities throughout the course of my life, and — maybe I just haven't met the right celebrities of enormous proportions — I'm rarely impressed, other than by the fact that they all tend to be no different from me but for the size of our royalty checks. (OK, I've never actually received a royalty check.)

I've palled around with the Dead Milkmen, whose drummer, Dean Clean, is a friend; at writers' conferences, I've tossed back drinks with William Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and scores of others far too drunk to appreciate my literary genius; I've chauffeured Kenny G around town (I had a choice between him and Michael Bolton — whom would you choose?). While working (restaurants and retail) back in my salad days, I served legendary jockey Angel Cordero, Jr., boxer Gerry Cooney, and Phillies' Hall-of-Famer Richie Ashburn. Through happenstance, I've wound up in the ring at "Smokin" Joe Frazier's gym, where I shook hands with the man himself (in a non-boxing capacity, I should clarify); met old-school wrestling great Gorilla Monsoon; had old Babs Bush sign a cast on my leg (little did I know at the time that her son could set back a country so far); shared a basketball court with the Harlem Globetrotters; and quite literally walked smack into Matt Dillon (he was looking the other way as well; we simultaneously grabbed each other's shoulder to steady ourselves and apologize, and as we each continued on our way, I kid you not, we both did an over-the-shoulder double-take — as if he said to himself, "Hey, that was just BK").

Celebrity is a funny thing. People have only the status we give them. But my god, we do give it away without a second thought. (Remind me again what Paris Hilton is famous for.) Channel surf during dinner time, and — without even nearing the high numbers in the cable TV lineup — there are a half dozen shows on simultaneously, tracking the movements and machinations of people I could neither pick out of a lineup nor identify by name, occupation, or relationship status. I'll admit I'm not the barometer of hip I once was, but face it — we have come to worship at the altar of half-wits and half-talents, most of whom are no better at what they do than we are at what we do. C'mon, I've been blogging for just over a year, and have already compiled a body of work as impressive as that of, say, Clay Aiken, or Kathy Griffin, or Sarah Palin.

Indeed, I've had small morsels of the 15 minutes of fame promised to me by Andy Warhol, and yes, it's nice. Several years ago, after I made the nightly news by doing nothing more than intently watching a hockey game, a slacker-than-thou clerk at the video store was impressed enough to not only deign to speak to me, but to admit she recognized me from the three seconds I was onscreen during the clip of the game recap.

In college, I played guitar badly and sang badly in a band, but still got plenty of compliments, and the occasional booty call. After seemingly every stage performance of an ad-lib comedy group I was in, I was approached at lunch the next day by one coed classmate or another and told, "You were great last night." She meant on stage, of course, but my friends made great hay of it — and so did I.

Being almost famous is somewhat fun; while, I imagine, being actually famous is great fun — but only briefly; and being super famous is stifling and fun only to those with far greater self esteem issues than yours truly. Yet fame is such a draw that nearly every single dirtbag perp on policeploitation shows like Cops sign waivers to allow themselves to be shown on national TV getting busted for crack, spousal abuse, naked driving, etcetera, without a second thought.

We allow ourselves to be filmed and seen and published under all kinds of circumstances — from waiting in line at the ATM; to posting home videos on YouTube for the world to see; to, yes, writing online weblogs of our personal views, opinions, lives.

 

My god, what is wrong with me? Do I really swim in the shallow end with all the fanboys, starfuckers, and wannabes? Am I willing to sell my soul for that brief moment in which actual celebrity is fun? When some other jaded 40-year-old blogger in boxers and a t-shirt (whoops, too much information) cynically points to me as the Paris-Hilton–head of the 2010s? And what will I tell my daughter when she asks if that's really daddy on TV, being interviewed by the policeman while the incessant reggae song plays? Or, for that matter, in her classroom, when it's parents' day at her new school?

Underdogs

I was born with a chip on my shoulder and a nose for the disenfranchised. It wasn't enough that I was Jewish. I also wanted to be Italian and black.

I'm from Philly. And if, while I was growing up, Chicago or LA was the "Second City," Philly was the fourth or fifth. We — like my current home of Boston — were a city of also-rans and underdogs. (At least Boston was until the local sports teams stahted getting wicked-good.)

In any case, I had a love for hockey — a fairly minor sport in the U.S. at the time, compared to the majors of baseball and football and basketball — and my hero was an average-sized diabetic guy named Bobby Clarke from the hardscrabble mining town of Flin Flon, Manitoba.

Clarkie captained the Flyers for seven seasons, and was an incredibly effective leader and fan favorite during his tenure — because we (as did his teammates) relate to the underdog, we speak their language, know their pain, and respect their struggle. And because an underdog works their ass off, they generally have our empathy and our support.

But this week's focus is not hockey. It's this: It's not a bad thing that the U.S. has fallen from our geopolitical (somewhat self-proclaimed) designation of alpha dog.

We've been at or near the top for a long time, in terms of GDP, education, quality exports, military might, international standing, etc. But for a variety of reasons, not least to do with our so-called leadership, we have lost our footing and stumbled badly. Here's the good news: It's precisely what we need. Because it's not just our stock market that needs to recalibrate itself, it's our whole country. And it's not just our leadership that's lacking, it's us.

The solution is about more than simply choking down some humble pie. It's about regaining the hunger, the work ethic, and the original ideas that once fueled the American Dream — and yes, the humility borne of eating bread sandwiches and beans for a while.

We have all gotten so fat and lazy — soft, both physically and mentally. We feel a sense of entitlement disproportional to our drive and our abilities. We have forgotten how to produce quality goods, and how to manage nearly anything effectively — particularly ourselves. We are needy without being giving and charitable, vehement without being right, self-righteous without being ethical. And we seem to think this is all our birthright.

As a nation, we strive to export democracy as if a global manifest destiny. We start wars we cannot win, fight them from afar, and leave them unfinished. Arguably, the last time we got ourselves out of a military action cleanly and on top was World War II. (And to achieve that, we caused the greatest humanitarian crisis the world has ever seen.)

To be sure, the U.S. is still a force to be reckoned with. But all is not as easy as, say, strapping on a flight suit and claiming "Mission Accomplished" anymore. I use a military reference, but our troubles have spread to all aspects of the new world order in which we find ourselves.

At the office, I joke that I have no desire to be a top-level executive in our company; rather I want to be an ex–top-level executive. Because when they go (as they have just last week, in fact), they leave with outsized, golden parachutes. And the suits get these obscenely generous parting gifts whether they have done a good job or not. Because in the U.S., once you attain a certain level on the ziggurat, there is no longer any accountability. Film directors get final cut, because who needs editors? Banks that have recently been bailed out are not actually required to put that money back into our failing economy, because why would Congress ever deign to stipulate that banks not simply hoard our tax dollars? And the Executive branch of government attempts to expand its powers at every turn, because who needs to be checked and balanced by the pesky Legislature and the Judiciary?

On the world stage, we do much the same — presuming our place high up the ziggurat, and with it, presuming that we need not be accountable. We try war crimes in The Hague, but not at home; invoke the Geneva Conventions when it's convenient. We press for free and fair elections elsewhere, but can barely hold them here.

We have certainly been mismanaged at both the national and international level, but it's a mistake to fault only those at the top. Yes, for example, our big banks may have sold millions of bad mortgages, but we're the ones who have been foolishly signing those notes, stretching us beyond our means. We celebrate the ordinary and elect Joe and Judy Sixpacks to high office, then turn an apathetic cheek to their folksy incompetence. (I've written about just this national acceptance of mediocrity before, but the horse is not yet dead, and it needs beating.)

There is a perfect global economic shit-storm brewing, and our impending election of a new president will play a key role in how and when and if we find our way out of the muck. But there are 300 million of us in these United States, and the turnaround of our country depends as much on us as it does on Barack Obama or John McCain. Indeed, our next president must help to restore our standing and our credibility in the world. But we will be the key to the new economy, and how we respond to adversity will determine how we will live. And it can only help in the long run that we see ourselves not as big dogs, but as underdogs.

Road Rage

Why is it that being even mildly affected by someone driving assholishly can cause us (OK, me) to say things I would be embarrassed to say with others in the car? To clarify, when I say "others," I don't just mean my wife and kids. I mean anyone.

Mind you, I'm not some fly-off-the-handle whack-job looking to tailgate said offenders or start a fight. But damn, I've got a filthy mouth when I'm pissed off — especially in the car.

And you know I'm not alone.

Tricky business this road rage. It is a selfish, bourgeois luxury, yes. It's about entitlement and it's about (admit it) not letting anyone else get one over on us. We beep and yell and gesticulate in an attempt not to be dissed.

So much hate, so little time. Be it people who talk on their cellphones while driving; SUVs; mufflers that amplify, rather than muffle; people who pretend to not see the upcoming merge; people who fall in line behind a responding ambulance; the list goes on. Of course, we ourselves are not blameless. I know I am sometimes that guy.

I have — in my days of youthful indiscretion, and among other things — eaten a Big Mac while driving. Alone. Meaning, no one to grab the wheel if I had spilled two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheeese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun on myself and pulled a nutty into oncoming traffic. Eating a Big Mac is a sloppy, complicated business even under ideal, stationary circumstances. In a car it can be suicide. If not vehicular homicide.

In my defense, I have never eaten a Big Mac in heavy traffic. I have however, in my near quarter century of driving, cut my nails, read maps, written (notes for this post, in fact), nearly fallen asleep, and done things an attorney might advise me to neither confirm nor deny.

Currently, I drive to work four days a week over several of the northeast's worst commuting roads. I have seen horrible accidents and been in a bad one myself (while fully alert, engaged, and unencumbered; nonetheless...). And still, during the daily rush hour, I see drivers eating full-on two-handed meals, applying makeup, changing clothes, shaving, you name it.

And as long as those folks stay away, their actions shouldn't necessarily piss me off. Oh, but they do.

I don't give anyone the finger anymore — if I have half my wits about me. I give the peace sign (OK, sometimes the backwards peace sign), or squish their heads Kids in the Hall-style, between my thumb and forefinger. For those guys who especially deserve it, I reserve my new favorite hand gesture: I take my thumb and forefinger and place them a half inch apart, as if to say, "This right here, my assholic driving friend, this is the size of your penis."

And how is it that I allow myself to get so riled up? I think what happens is that when we're in a car, we (counterintuitively, I'd argue) see ourselves as being in a safe place. And this presumed haven — in which we have climate control, our favorite music, etc. — allows all our psychic junk to flood out when some discourteous, or just unlucky, stiff infringes on our buffer zone of personal space. Because those other jerks present to us a danger. They thumb their nose at the fact that we must all share the road, and within reason obey the laws of traffic and of common decency.

What often irritates me most about them are the same character traits that when I'm being honest irritate me about myself. Realizing this, of course, does not simply dispel my flashes of seething. The only thing which accomplishes that is the sight of a hothead driver being pulled over for speeding.

Now that is even more satisfying than receiving a certain type of hands-free sex while operating a motor vehicle.

Ahem. Or so I'm told.

See you out there on the roads. Just please, please, please — I beg of you — stay in your frickin' lane!

Conventions

As my Democrat friends gather this week in Denver to (one can only hope) glimpse our nation's future, it's important to look at the special art of Officious Gathering.

I once had the distinct pleasure to attend a technical conference for work that was sited, as it happened, adjacent to a conference for the owners and managers of workout gyms. The juxtaposition of the two groups could not have been any more clear or any more awkward; the effect was mesmerizing, as middle-aged cubicle-dwelling tech writer geeks were forced to rub elbows with no-less-geeky but far more buff fake-tanned fitness purveyors.

It highlighted the fact that conferences are a world unto themselves, and that they have become so pervasive it's difficult to imagine a time without them. There is much chatter about how the Internet has brought together disparate groups and allows us all to fly our particular brand of freak flag in a supportive environment — but in this case, it would seem we do that online backslapping only as a means to then convene in person.

Maybe 10 years ago, my friend Spider and I were rolling through the French Quarter when we spotted the first of many gaggles of Goths, hanging out in their pastiness, bruise-colored clothing, and black lipstick. When we stopped into a bar for a late afternoon beer, we encountered a table of about a dozen. I looked at Spider. "I have to go ask," I said. He nodded empathetically, and I pulled up a chair to their corner table.

They looked at me — the normal freak — suspiciously, but not unkindly. "I have to ask," I said. "It's just that there seem to be a lot of you folks around." The one who was clearly the leader nodded at me. "There's a convention," he said. "There are about 1200 of us in town for a convention."

It seemed odd to me that a conspicuously and so purposely outcast group would go to the trouble of orchestrating an Officious Gathering. It was somewhat off-putting, like hyper-organized anarchists setting up local bingo nights via their listserv.

These days, there are so many unconventional conventions that I wouldn't be surprised if there were conferences on organizing conferences. And the prospects of Comic-Con–style alliterative naming are endless, as there are surely all manner of Confidence Conferences (i.e., "self-help"), Condom-Makers, and Convent Conventions.

Consultants in certain industries find themselves serial convention goers, as they seek to drum up business. Every city worth its salt now has a shiny convention center of sorts. And whole industries have sprung up around the business of conventioneering itself, where big money is made supplying the millions of requisite (one-time use, mind you, so it's a killer product) plastic badges and badgeholders and lanyards and pins — not to mention the promotional SHWAG.

Oh, the SHWAG; let me count the ways. Ninety percent of it is crap. But it's free crap, and there's nothing we Americans like more than free crap. You've got your printed pins and pens, flashlight fobs and fleece, mugs and mouse pads. (In fact, if you've actually gone out and purchased a mouse pad in the past 10 years, you're a sucker with no business connections whatsoever.) At most conventions, you're given a SHWAG bag just so you can carry the rest of your SHWAG.

And whether Goths, consumer electronics, or Japanime — or the RNC and DNC — every convention has its requisite organizing committee and wanna-bes, full of frightening Kool-Aid drinking yahoos handing out registration materials.

Fanaticism in and of itself — whether religious or secular, Hollywood or hockey — can be a prickly thing, but when combined with the PTA-type do-gooder activism you see at these gatherings, it's downright scary.

Our two political conventions will be nothing short of revival meetings filled to bursting with Obamaites (and Hillary Holdouts) and McCainiacs seeking to anoint their own as the next Savior-in-Chief. You can recognize the laity as looking very similar to those who travel to Times Square on New Year's Eve, and to Boston's Esplanade for the July 4th fireworks. Not surprisingly, they even dress in much the same way, what with their über-Patriot hats and flags and flair and such.

Thank god very little political decision-making need be conducted at these pow-wows anymore, because it makes my skin crawl to think of my vote being cast or platform decided by an oligarch superdelegate wearing several yards of a couture designer's rendering of Old Glory — even if it turns out they're voting for the same guy I am. Maybe it's my Marxist (Groucho, not Karl) upbringing that "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member," or maybe I'm just disturbed when people instill in individuals the collective accrued reverence that I reserve for (admittedly) the Philadelphia Flyers.

Either way, it's convention time in Denver, and then in Minneapolis, where local night owls can sure be to find tables of garishly dressed conventionaires at hotel bars — still wearing their nametags, undoubtedly — slugging down boat drinks. By all means, beware of them. But beware too the men and women they cheer each night at the podiums. These political conventions have on occasion been sited directly adjacent to Con-Artist Conventions. And the two groups are often indistinguishable.

Otakon pics thanks to Dave D; DNC pic via the conference website.

The Long and Winding Tail

Internet Search, as we have been reminded recently, is a multi-billion dollar industry. It serves as our map for, and often our portal to, the Internet. And indeed, it is a brave new world that we Googlers inhabit.

Inherently, Search has a sharp “peak” and a long “tail” — meaning there are relatively few terms that people search for a lot (e.g., “Paris Hilton sex tape”), and loads of obscure things that are searched for far less often (e.g., “Brandon Wheat Kings 1978–79 roster”).

The world of the the sharp peak is filled with predictable pop culture and political nonsense. The world of the long tail on the other hand, can be a fascinating, if extremely dark, place.

Occasionally, thanks to this brilliant blogging software, I get to see a slice of what folks type into their laptops when they think no one is watching. Among other things, it allows one to see the links that folks click through to arrive on our pages. Some are indeed looking for The Weekly Meat, and then there are searches clearly related (tangentially at least) to some of my admittedly long-tail topics, such as "hockey player hand smells" and "coed hockey showers". But tossed in with the light fare and satisfied customers are bombshells like "how long would I have to stop eating to have a miscarriage?"

I don't imagine that person was in fact looking for this blog (in particular, this or this piece of information), but that's what they got. That search came via Google, at 3:05 pm on a Thursday afternoon, and I deflated when I later saw it, as I couldn't help but picture a supremely distressed and desperate high schooler, her natural language search in the form of a first-person question, with, perhaps, little idea that her predicament had been captured anywhere.

Despite a similar "vicodin abuse and miscarriage," most oddities are the result of a juxtaposition of words, often relating to the name of this blog. Like "meat art" (via Germany). Perhaps they were looking for something more along the lines of this or this but who's to say, really? Meat art is such a subjective thing. Me, I'm a sucker for those faux landscape. Meatscapes, if you will.

But I digress.

Search algorithms work best in tandem with the user's own skillful phrasing. But few of us know our Boolean logic or how to use quotation marks properly, so our "garbage in, garbage out" queries give us far more results than we need, with fewer substantive results. (But thankfully, more Weekly Meat.)

So, I'll continue to see and smile upon half-haikus like "the bone and meat of my index finger extremely painful" or "meat to me smells like hot death"or "wearing boxers in morning with female roommate". Salient concerns, all.

"Did Billy carter pee on a building ?" Despite this post, I didn't know, but it sure sounded like him. So I turned the tables and did some of my own searching. The answer I came up with seems to be no, not per se, though he had a purported predilection for such behavior.

And now, somewhere else on the Net, someone else is looking over their own website stats, and having a good laugh at my expense.

Spare Change

They're out there, in uniform, in the middle of busy intersections — ten- and twelve-year-old kids — scrambling between cars with their coffee tins, asking for donations. There's an adult or two around, and the tin cans say [SomeTown] Softball, or Cheerleading, or Track.

I'm sorry if these are your kids, or kids you know, but get real. Charity and good will is one thing, but when did we, as a society, have become such fat, lazy slobs as to think that we're each entitled to payment simply for being alive? And what the hell kind of adult oversees these "fund-raising" efforts? Why teach kids to spare for change, to beg — to be satisfied with living on the dole rather than working? If these adults don't have enough moxie to organize a simple car wash or bake sale, should they really be supervising kids at all?

Hey, here's a free idea. Maybe we could encourage those kids to become the writers and thinkers of the future by starting an empowerment project in which they write a newspaper, publish it, and sell it to us. Oh yeah, that's right . . . much smarter (and far more needy) people are already doing that successfully.

I grew up in a town a lot like the one in which I now live. Some folks were well-off, and some were not. But no one begged for money. They worked for it. Youth soccer teams made money the same way Smith Barney claimed to: they "EARNed it." There were car washes and bake sales and raffles. Donors got something for their trouble — and, more importantly, we kids learned the lessons of hard work. If we didn't sell enough raffle tickets or brownies, or wash enough cars, or find a sponsor, well then, we didn't get new uniforms.

A while back, AKL and I took a long bike ride on a hot, sunny day. On our way out of town, and again on our way back an hour or two later, we stopped and bought 25 cent cups of lemonade from a 7-year-old girl. She was new to the world of business, and had a little help from her mom, but that girl learned a few things that Saturday. She learned the necessity of simple math in the real world (two cups of lemonade times 25 cents, out of one dollar). Maybe her mom taught her what "overhead" is, maybe not. I know for certain she learned about the value of return customers, and what "tips" are. And she sold a lot of lemonade that day.

Seems simple enough. You want cash? You work for it.

We have become irresponsible with our money. We buy lottery tickets instead of groceries (because, surely we're all owed a big payday). And every day we open our mail boxes to more offers for another credit card we can't afford. Maybe we even get the new card to pay off the debt on an old one. And if we are fortunate enough to own a home, what do we do? We take out a home equity loan (because certainly, we deserve "free" money) to pay off our credit card debt.

But to what end? Credit is based on — often foolish — optimism: that life will be better tomorrow, belief in "the American dream," and the steadfast notion that we will one day soon have more money than we have now. Don't get me wrong, I have lived paycheck to paycheck, and I'm very fortunate to not live that way now. Yet too many of us live far beyond our means (and, of course, we're encouraged to at every turn).

It's time to rein it in. And our kids too. (There's simply no way I'm ever dressing up daughters RK and E-O in some goddamn uniform and asking them to go hassle shoppers heading into the grocery store.) Thank god our fearless leaders in Washington — like the supervisory team parents noted above — have our education and well-being in mind, and aren't leading us down a road paved in debt.

Yeah, thank god for that.