Michael5000 v. Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock, first season
BBC, 2010

I’ve never had any problem with the proverbial man who goes into a room with three books and comes out with four, given that the book he writes while he's in the room is a good one. There’s nothing wrong with synthesis; it’s a way that many good things are brought into the world, including, come to think of it, individual human beings.

The BBC makes no attempt to hide the three books it took into the room to write Sherlock: they are the venerable TV serial Dr. Who, the 1990s TV serial The X Files, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s sprawling corpus of Sherlock Holmes tales. If it wasn’t for direct quotations – names and so on – of the last of these, the Dr. Who influence would be the most obvious. The “new sleuth for the 21st century,” per the DVD cover, is essentially the New New Doctor, an ascerbic, scruffy, vaguely foolish genius with an ego the size of all outdoors: “I’m not a psychopath,” he snaps in the first episode, “I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research!” He insults, bemuses, and casts an unlikely spell of personal charm on his Companions in their episodic adventures, bossing them relentlessly and failing to notice that they are regularly saving his bacon. The Beeb was not unwise to create a parallel product for Dr. Who; Sherlock was essentially launched for a ready-made fan base. The show's title music, a variation on the Dr. Who theme, is a tip of the hat; the marketing blurb on the back of the DVD case highlights the continuity of the creative team between the two shows with exclamation points, just in case anybody failed to make the connection.

The influence of the X-Files is less overt, but no less palpable. Indeed, it was perhaps unavoidable, since the very concept of Sherlock invokes the precedent, pairing a brilliant misfit lateral thinker with a rationalist doctor to investigate uncanny crimes and circumstances.  Having gone that far, Sherlock immediately signals its intention to bring on board a ponderous “mythology” of sinister controlling forces behind the scenes. Already by the end of the first episode, we’ve got both Holmes’ brother Mycroft (who “IS the British government”) and the mysterious Moriarty, each of whom clearly has vast resources and a deep interest in what Mr. Holmes is up to. Both of these characters are out of Conan Doyle, of course, but the notion of deep conspiracy that may, or may not, be manipulating the protagonist into using his energies and competence against himself, or something, maybe, is pure X-Files. The Smoking Man is lurking somewhere just off camera.

The Conan Doyle material is used and modified with considerable creativity, wit, and flair.

The writers and producers of Sherlock, happily, have attended to the most important element of making Sherlock Holmes viable in a modern setting and to a modern audience: they have made him fallible. This is important. The method of Sherlock Holmes (in any incarnation) is famously not “deduction,” but neither is it induction. It is, rather, close observation followed by audacious guessing. In real life, somebody couldn’t really employ this method past a certain point just by being sharper or less distractible than everyone else; he would just have to be luckier than everybody else. Sherlock lets its version of Holmes get it right most of the time, which is eminently reasonable: Sherlock Holmes was one of the first fictional sleuths, but he was also one of the first superheroes, and he is only a coherent character with his superpower intact. By letting him slip up here and there on the details, though, this adaptation maintains a tenable connection between its world and the world we live in.

Except, there is an enormous difference between the two worlds: In Sherlock, everything is the same as it is here, except that there was no Sherlock Holmes. 221B Baker Street is not a tourist destination, no one has ever been referred to as someone else's "Watson," and a man called “Sherlock Holmes” can go around freely with no one remarking on his name. You can enter his name in a search engine and find him, rather than the 122,000,000 hits about the literary figure that Google can find in .24 seconds in our world. This actually makes the world of Sherlock a fairly significant alternative reality, as Sherlock Holmes is a very, very deeply embedded point of reference in the English-speaking world and beyond. Try imagine living in a world in which you’d never heard of Sherlock Holmes.  Compare that with a world where no one had ever discovered, say, Neptune and Uranus. Or Antarctica. Or Denmark. I think you’ll find, unless you are a Dane, that life without Sherlock Holmes is harder to imagine. I was disappointed that, in these first-season episodes, the makers of Sherlock didn't see fit to exploit this disparity between their world and ours. Not that I see how they could, exactly, but they’re supposed to be the clever creative ones.

I expected to love Sherlock, but I liked it. There are two – but only two – specific things about the show that rub me the wrong way. The first is fairly minor – the appearance of words on the screen to show us what Holmes is thinking or what people are seeing on their cell phones. It’s a silly contrivance, and it's essentially a confession that a scene couldn’t be adequately planned, scripted, or acted in such a way that it could carry the story's weight. The second is a more significant thing: the episodes are too damn long. They are movie length, but they are not self-contained enough to function as movies. Serial television comes in half-hour and one-hour packets, and for Sherlock to ask us to sit still for a full British hour-and-a-half feels like a presumption. After an hour, I’m ready to get on with my life. But, like Watson with Sherlock in the early going, I am willing to put up with Sherlock on a trial basis despite the irritating idiosyncrasies, and for the same reason. I’m curious to see what happens next.

New Horizons in Cultural Exploration

Readers of this space will know of my tendency to take on projects of self-improvement, particularly in the area of cultural literacy. My stalled march through the Bible, my ongoing conquest of The Reading List, my abortive but soon to be resurrected (albeit in altered form) reading of the plays of Shakespeare -- I think I can safely say that I know how to take on a project.

Now, it so happens that I had reached the ripe age of 42 without ever having seen an episode of Dr. Who.  And yet I have long been aware that a great many people -- and more than that, a great many dorky people -- have taken pleasure and delight from this venerable British sci-fi serial. Add to this that I have been working my way through the popular "Spellman" detective books (verdict: not great, but amusing), the protagonist of which has an Dr. Who enthusiasm verging on the troubling. Finally, throw in that the college football season is winding down (and incidentally, may I say: How 'bout them Ducks?) and that I will need some sort of entertainment to quilt by. And the inevitable conclusion is this: I need to watch me some of that Dr. Who.

Me being me, of course, I intend to watch ALL of Dr. Who. In order.

Now, when I have informed friends and family of this decision, their question has invariably been "which one: new Dr. Who or old Dr. Who?" From this, I have concluded that my friends and family need their hearing checked. I said, "ALL Dr. Who," and "In Order." So I have begun at the very beginning, of course. So far, I have worked my way up to the Autumn of 1963. The Dr. Who whom ~I~ know so far is several iterations before what people are thinking of when they talk about the "old Dr. Who."

Now then: I have no intention of doing a running commentary on my Dr. Who watching on this here blog. I suspect there are many, many, many established sites within the internet community where you can get all the Dr. Who commentary you can handle. Indeed, you could probably spend the rest of your life seeking out other people's opinions on Dr. Who without running out of material. But I don't recommend it.

It has been fun, though, to work through the first year of the series. The "serials" -- a given story seems to last somewhere between two and eight half-hour episodes -- are of widely uneven quality. The special effects are somewhat less than spectacular to the 2010 eye, which gives some episodes something of a budget-of-shillings! quality to them. If you are into kitsch, there are plenty of giggles to be had, but I'm pretty willing to suspend disbelief and try to get the intended effect.

One last interesting thing. So far, I've watched the first, second, third, and fifth serials. Sloppy execution of a plan to watch them all in order? No. The fourth serial -- along, apparently, with quite a few others -- is not extant. Apparently the BBC had a policy into the 1970s of going through and throwing out the old stuff every year. Since VCR technology was in its infancy in the 1960s, and didn't really get rolling until the 1970s, all that remains of the fourth Dr. Who serial is some stills and a partial audio track. This is not exactly a loss on the level of the bombing of Coventry Cathedral, perhaps, but it is a little startling that something so relatively recent and of interest to so many could be irrecoverably lost.

Speaking of Salads...

--McCall's Magazine, September 1924.

[Update per Aviatrix's request]

Kraft Pineapple Salad

Cream together, one-fourth pound of Kraft American Cheese rubbed through a grater, and one generous tablespoon full of boiled salad dressing until very smooth. Roll into balls. Place balls in center of pineapple slices. Sprinkle slightly with paprika and serve on crisp lettuce. Mayonnaise may be added if desired.

Send for Free Illlustrated Recipe Book M9 to
410 Rush St., Chicago

Technically, She's NOT More Than a Doll

This document arrived at the Castle5000 mailbox a few months ago, addressed to Mrs.5000.

It is a small catalog of high-end Barbie Doll related merchandise. It is aimed, apparently, at those with a fixation on the iconic mass-marketed plaything, but with too much money to be able to effectively spend it in the pink aisle of their local big-box.

Along with odd Barbie-related merchandise...

...Barbie Doll themed experience is also available at a price. "Be a globetrotting goddess and star in your own luxury adventure," suggests the brochure; "Journey to the exciting world of Barbie Shanghai." This involves two days of travel, a day of spa treatment, a store tour, and a one-day tour of the great Chinese city, all for thirty large.


It's really quite something.

I guess the biggest question for me is: How on earth did Mrs.5000 get on this mailing list?

Well, everybody needs a hobby, and if people are excited about Barbie brand licensed merchandise, that's no worse than anything else I suppose. What seems particularly unwholesome in this document is not so much the lurid pink merchandise itself, but the more-than-usually blatant attempt to harvest a maximum of money for a minimum of product.

I enjoy a good consumer purchase as much as the next person, but any healthy adult realizes that there's only so much happiness you can buy, and that even then it's a short-term buzz. With apologies to John Greenleaf Whittier, for all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest might really be these:

The Reading List: Manufacturing Consent

Manufacturing Consent
By Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

I’m going to do something I don’t usually do with my projects: I am going to exercise some discretion. Specifically, I am going to NOT read a book on the Reading List. I’ve read the introduction, and I’ve skimmed through it, touching down here and there, and determined that to read it is not worth my time and effort – my time and effort that could otherwise be spent, I don’t know, griping about the flag of Cameroon or something.

So obviously, what follows is not a “book review.” But I think I can make a reasonable case for why I’m not reading Manufacturing Consent. So let’s start at the very beginning; it is, we are told, a very good place to start. Let’s look at the first paragraph.

This book centers in what we call a “propaganda model,” an analytical framework that attempts to explain the performance of the U.S. media in terms of the basic institutional structures and relationships within which they operate. It is our view that, among their other functions, the media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them. The representatives of these interests have important agendas and principles that they want to advance, and they are well positioned to shape and constrain media policy. This is normally not accomplished by crude intervention, but by the selection of right-thinking personnel and by the editors’ and working journalists’ internalization of priorities and definitions of newsworthiness that conform to the institution’s policy.

OK, there are several things to say here. Starting with the most important:

1. Um… No shit, Sherlock. All of the above has been patently obvious to anyone with the vaguest knowledge of the American media since long before William Randolph Hearst stoked up the Spanish-American war. This is not to say that it isn’t worth talking about, but talking about it like you’ve just stumbled on to a hitherto undiscovered, sinister secret makes you look a little foolish.

2. Calling the phenomenon a “propaganda model” – hmm, nothing inflammatory there! Nor do section headings within the book such as “2.4.3. The lack of zeal in the search for villainy at the top” inspire perfect confidence that Herman and Chomsky don’t have a bit of a propaganda model of their own going on.

3. The book has to be organized in terms of a “model,” and particularly a vaguely structuralist model, to justify the participation of second author Noam Chomsky, an enormously important figure in the field of structural linguistics. As far as I can tell from my skimming the text, however, the book does not address how the actual material and experiential structures of the news media – newsprint, magazines, radio and television news programming – affect what is and isn’t considered “news.” Which is a pity, because that’s a much more interesting and less obvious topic than “hey, the guys who own the presses influence what gets printed!”

(Hint: because television, the most powerful distributor of alleged “news,” is a primarily visual medium, it inherently privileges unimportant things that are interesting to look at (eg. car chases, fires, groups of people who have gathered together with colorful signs to yell about an issue) or easy to film (eg. a person making a scripted speech at a prearranged time and place, a random person on the street invited to extemporaneously shoot their mouth off about an issue they have no particular interest or expertise in) over really important things that don’t make good visuals (eg. policy making, economic and legal issues, public health.))

Furthermore:

4. As far as I could tell – again, I was just skimming – Herman and Chomsky seem oblivious to some of the more banal dynamics of how news is generated. For instance: when something happens, reporters call a bunch of people who they think might give them some content. What’s going to become news depends in large part on who happens to be sitting by the phone, or who calls back first.

Nor is this simple fact of life irrelevant to what Herman and Chomsky were trying to talk about, because the “powerful societal interests” are obviously in a position to have people stationed by phones, or ready to call back firstest with the mostest – or at least, the most pre-digested – easy-to-reprint thematic content.

5. The book is 22 years old. During the time since it was originally published, much of the pretense of media impartiality has fallen away. Herman and Chomsky’s complaints of insidious media bias seem almost quaint now, when “fair and balanced” FOX News winks at you with only the faintest cheerful pretense that it is not “propagandizing on behalf of the powerful societal interests that control and finance it.” Too, the case studies in the book are events of the 1970s and 1980s, stuff I studied and was concerned about in college and have no particular need to revisit from this late date.


So, with apologies to whoever nominated it for the Reading List, that’s why I didn’t read Manufacturing Consent. I’m not dismissing it entirely – I know that a lot of people found this an enlightening book at the time – but in 2010 I think you’d have to be pretty media-naïve to glean much of contemporary relevance from it.

The Reading List Marches On!

Since I read Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (pictured, left) and skimming the above, I've read Candide, which was a hoot.

Next up is Guns, Germs, and Steel, which is even as we speak waiting for me at the library.

Then it's on to Judy Blume before taking on the big three-part challenge: Iliad, Odyssey, Ulysses.

Whoa.

Apparently Not Disappeared After All

Despite having been a daily fixture of the blogosphere for damn near three years now, I receive strangely few communications from people wanting to take advantage of my unique ability to reach out to a highly educated, mildly affluent, and stunningly attractive demographic. In particular, I feel bad for all of the publishing companies that have not offered me book contracts, as they are really missing a bet. Dudes! The content is already written!! All you'd have to do is print it, market it, distribute it, and try to keep up with demand!

But I digress. What I was going to say was, it was kind of a special moment for me last week when I got an email from a person actually involved in marketing! Specifically, she is involved in the marketing of Disappear Fear, the band whose record I reviewed last week as part of my Library Book Sale CD Trove series. I referred to the band in the past tense, but it turns out they are still a going concern. According to the bio I was sent, in fact, they are actually a Pretty Big Deal in the folk scene. Nobody ever sent me a bio before!

So, here's what the email said, basically:

On March 9th SONiA & disappear fear released CD # 14, "Blood, Bones and Baltimore" (they are still around and still going strong). You can listen to samples of each song at www.disappearrecords.com and hear 3 full songs on www.myspace.com/soniaanddisappearfear . I am attaching a new bio for you. Thanks for blogging and keep in touch.

That actually seems pretty gracious, coming from the management of an act whose output I suggested could be boiled down to three greatest hits from sixteen or seventeen years ago. But then, I guess when you contact powerful blog tastemakers like myself, you need to be upbeat lest we ruin you with a cruel dismissive turn of phrase.

Blood, Bones, and Baltimore* is a pretty cool name for a record, and SONiA** is looking great, rocking some highly natty dreads. They/she are doing a roots-rock sort of dealio on this record, though, and since I am decidedly not into roots rock, I'm not going to be able to gush for you. If you're more rootsy than me, give it a shot. Regardless, it is kind of fun to see her/them doing well. It's like hearing that someone you liked in high school has an incredibly awesome job that makes them famous among people in a certain niche group.

* I know how to use commas in a list, even if whoever calls such shots at Disappear Records doesn't.

** Her name, her capitalization.

Comics Curmudgeon, Supplemental

The Endorsement

No blog is more consistently able to make me roar with helpless laughter, pounding my palm repeatedly on the desk in an excess of mirth, than The Comics Curmudgeon. The eponymous curmudgeon, one Josh Fruhlinger, surveys the grim wasteland that is the daily newspaper comics page and finds something remarkable there: humor. His witty critiques, caustic observations, and cruel abuse of comedy's lamest format never fail to amuse. (Strictly speaking, they never fail to amuse me. It's true that I'm pretty easy to amuse.)

[ATTN: DrSchnell: The first entry of this one almost made me pee my pants; I have to think you'd get at least a chuckle out of it. ]

But He Missed One!

Well, there's a lot to mock in any given day of the so-called "funnies," so it's understandable that the C.C. failed to notice this episode of the venerable "Hi And Lois" from sometime last week:

The singular thing about this strip is how heroically it strains to produce a joke -- Hi is embarassed because his male friends might associate him with the labors of child-rearing! -- that is almost paralyzingly unfunny.

Consider: to make this joke "work,"

1. Lois has to be transported into an eyes-closed state of sensual pleasure at the scent of... baby powder?
2. Hi, who has admittedly been trapped in a strangely frozen suburban milieu since 1954 and is likely suffering from extreme cultural disorientation, must forget that it's been decades since middle-class men started taking every possible opportunity to position themselves as Good Dads.
3. An American man must announce to his wife that he is going to apply cologne for the benefit of his visiting male pals. (It is not surprising that Lois looks blankly stunned at this sudden and all-too-revealing insight into the nature of her husband's relationship with "the guys.")

Now I'm no humor professional, so it's not for me to say. It seems, though, that a good rule of thumb might be: if there are three elements of your set-up so bizarre that they are funnier than the ostensible payoff, your joke has problems. Just a thought.

Meanwhile, In Prince Valiant:

Hmm, I don't know about that "Next: Bad Trip." Looks to me like the bad trip has maybe already started.

But Seriously:

Safe journeys to anyone travelling for Thanksgiving today. No bad trips!

New Extremes in Billboard Hate

Long-standing readers will perhaps remember my previous tirades against the loathsomeness of what I call Happy-Person Advertising, and of the odious billboards of one City of Roses credit union in particular. But you know what? Several of the subsequent billboards in their series weren't quite so bad. They were still basically Happy-Person Advertising, but with some sort of gesture toward financial services. I remember that there was one of a punkish young woman holding a piggy bank. There was one, I believe, of a woman who appeared to be holding some money. So, they weren't just randomly ecstatic. That, for me, kicked the ads a couple notches up toward mediocrity.

Which is why I was so disappointed to see this billboard this weekend on beautiful SE Powell Boulevard.



Yes, that's right. The folks at the Rivermark Credit Union -- for let us now name names -- have gone from merely insultingly stupid advertising to out-and-out child exploitation! Do you think their cute lil' spokesmodel there is old enough to have a well-developed perspective on the relative merit of consumer checking accounts? Is he even, technically, legally eligible to have his own checking account? Call me crazy, but I don't put much stock in his endorsement.

Now obviously, this child had no idea when he was being photographed that he was giving the thumbs-up to a modest rate of return on funds held in a checking account. In all likelihood the Rivermark people bought some stock photos from a vendor, and it would not surprise me if the same boy can be seen giving the same thumbs-up to a chain of for-profit hospitals in the Florida panhandle, or whatever. But this is exactly what makes the ad both insulting and creepy: they believe that they can show me a random picture of a cute child, free of all context, and I will thereby instinctively be moved to do their bidding. To the extent that this works -- no doubt their advertising firm has all sorts of impressive numbers for them -- it is sinister indeed.

Incidentally, let's think about 3% checking. Let's say you are prosperous enough that you keep around $2000 dollars in your checking account -- I'll assume that if you are strapped, you have a lower average, and if you are well-off, you've got better places for your dosh than your checking account. A 3% yield over the course of a year would land you $60, or $5.00 a month. That's not bad -- you could buy a pack of cigs every month, or take someone out to eat once or twice a year. But it's hardly an amount of money to get excited about.... unless you're a child! If you offered to give a child the $5/month return on your checking account, he'd probably be stoked! He'd probably give you a big thumbs-up! So maybe that's what this is all about.

UPDATE: Update: I am only just now noticing that there appears to be about a paragraph of text set just underneath the lad's outstretched fist. It doesn't exactly call attention to itself, does it. One wonders what sort of legally-required protective language is up there -- "3% annual reward must be claimed in person at home office in Khartoum, Sudan"? -- and how many drivers are able to parse it as they zip by the sign at 40 miles per hour.

And Now This Word From Our Sponsor

Paperback 269a: Three-Dollar Mile / Ian Banyon (Challenge Books 203)

Paperback 269a: Challenge Books 203 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Three-Dollar Mile
Author: Ian Banyon
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: oh, I don't know. $5?


Best Things About This Cover:

• "I appreciate the courtesy of this house call, Dr. Abrams. Now, as we discussed on the phone, the growth is right here on my left buttock."
• It's technically possible to extend one's right arm around a friend in that position, but it'll be agonizing if he holds the pose very long.
• There really ought to be some trace of the dame's lower half visible beside or under the cushy chair. Unless we're seeing her caught in mid-leap as she hikes up her leopardskin pants.
• Leopardskin pants.
• The painting is quite competant, with hasty but not terrible brushwork.
• Damn kids these days can't even be bothered to capitalize the title of their own books, what with all the texting.

Best Things About This Back Cover:

• Who can say "no" to a vast field of burnt orange?
• Dave "aspired"? He "sought"? Is this teaser copy, or the man's goddam resume?
• Hmm, she had "very different plans," eh? "SOYLENT BURNT ORANGE.... IS.... STARLETS!!!!"

Page 123~

For a half a second, McGann expected to smell or see booze in the room. Then he realized the pair were in the middle of a beef.

"Hey, where did you find that beef?" blustered McGann. "All I could find down at the store was Soylent Burnt Orange."

~un hommage a Rex Parker
Book found by chance at the Goodwill "Bins," Sellwood.

I Hate These Maps!!!

Here are two maps that have been raising my hackles recently. But since many among the L&TM5K are map dorks themselves, and have proved themselves game for a little analytical puzzle, I thought I'd let YOU tell me why I hate these maps.

This one is being seen on billboards and print media all over the City of Roses....

...and this one was from a recent lead story in the 'gonian.


Oooh! I HATES 'em!!!

----

Like mappy challenges? Frequent commenter Karmasartre sent me a link to this time-consuming online Quiz recently. I scored 158. If you can beat me on your first try, I'll come up with some kind of fabulous prize. I dare you. That's right -- I'm bringing the heat. Do your best, suckers.

What is Your Least Favorite Bumper Sticker?

Recently a member of the L&TM5K community -- I'll let them choose whether or not they want to jump in here -- wrote about their least favorite bumper sticker. It was this one:

"As a pacifist heritage-language activist anti-nationalist English teacher whose parents taught her to read," our correspondant wrote, "this slogan makes my blood boil."

---

"Personally," I responded, "I don’t get too upset by that one. I read it as saying 'One of my loved ones is in the military and I’ve read very little history.'”

The one that makes the blood boil in my brain is this one:

I read this as an aggressive fuck-you to any single parent. The presumed target of the message, the young woman who picked the wrong guy and got herself knocked up, shouldn’t have to read that shit. Nor should my sister, a single woman who adopted two beautiful, successful children. Nor should my neighbor, whose children only have one parent because the other one was murdered. I mean, what are people THINKING when they put something that hurtful on their car for all the world to see? Morons.

---

Now, perhaps you are agreeing with one of us, or both of us, or maybe you think the both of us are crackers. That's fine and good. What's certain, though, is that you have seen a bumper sticker that pushes your buttons!

So let's hear it, gentle readers! What do you consider the most obnoxious bumper sticker out there, and why?

High Fructose Corn Satire

Note to Sensitive Readers: This post contains descriptions of adult situations as well as crude language, including that word that starts with an "f" and ends with "uck."

In a recent post on her company's blog, MyDogIsChelsea wrote an analysis of some advertisements for, of all things, High Fructose Corn Syrup. Underwritten by a group representing the corn industry, they represent kind of a ham-fisted apologetics for the supersweet stuff. (Perhaps you are familiar with these ads. From inside the TV blackout of Castle5000, it can be hard to tell whether things like this are just another media blip or a full-fledged cultural phenomenon. One reads, for instance, that Americans have been all agog about a national singing talent show for the last several years. It sounds terribly unlikely, I know, but I'm assured it's true. But I digress.)

Anyway, these ads. They cast people concerned about the omnipresence of HFCS as ignorant busybodies who, fortunately, get led back to reality by the bland assurances of their more level-headed pals. Here's some examples:

Now, as far as I know (not far at all) the jury is still out on whether HFCS is actually any worse than conventional sugar. Still, there's more than a whiff of smug condescention from these ads, an adolescently swaggering attitude of "hey, our product is everywhere, and anybody who has reservations about that is STOOPID."

Now, I was not the first to bring a dog to this fight, but damn! -- how could I help wondering how Big Corn's line of reasoning might look when applied to some other goods and services? Here are some ideas:

I: A College-style apartment. Two guys hanging out.

First Guy (casually): I'm kind of bored. I think I'll shoot up.

Second Guy (shocked): Like, heroin? What the fuck?

First Guy (exasperated): What?

Second Guy: Well, don't you know what they say about heroin?

First Guy (dissmissive): Like what?

Second Guy: (speechless)

First Guy: Like, it's made from beautiful poppies? That its production supports hard-working Central Asian farmers? That it's very relaxing? And that it's only moderately toxic if used in moderation?

Second Guy (coming around): Gosh, did you bring TWO needles?

First Guy: Nah, but we can share.



II: Two guys walking through a fashionable nightclub district.

First Guy: (nonchalant) I think I'll hire that prostitute.

Second Guy (disturbed): What did you say?

First Guy: That hooker. I'm going to hire her.

Second Guy (horrified): Don't you know what they say about having sex with strangers?

First Guy: (mildly irritated) Like what?

Second Guy: (gathers himself to speak, but before he can open his mouth):

First Guy: That it is exciting and physically pleasurable, and 100% natural? That people have been doing it throughout recorded history? And that more than 3/4 of the time, you'll get away with it without incurring a sexually transmitted disease, HIV, or an unplanned pregnancy?

Second Guy (impressed): Well, gosh, I....

First Guy (indulgently): Come on, let's make it a three-way.

Second Guy (sheepish and grateful): You're awesome, dude.

III: Two guys in a college computer lab.

First Guy: Check out this satirical piece on the Life & Times of Michael5000!

Second Guy (appalled): You're reading a personal blog? In 2009? Really?

First Guy (confident): Why not?

Second Guy: Well, you know what they say about personal blogs....

[long pause. Second Guy gets embarassed.]

First Guy: That they're often written by hard-working people right here in the United States of America? That they express interesting ideas and unique material that you just won't find in the formal media? That they are a great internet tradition that has been around for literally several years?

Second Guy: Well... I mean... OK, I'll take a look.

First Guy: Thataboy.

[they look at the screen]

Second Guy (alarmed): Holy crap! That's... that's the conversation we just had!

First Guy (creeped out): What the....

[spooky music. fade out.]

The New and Improved Advertising Extravaganza!

I've got four terrific lo-fat segments on advertising today! But are you buying what I'm selling?

Part I: I Hate This Billboard... a Little Less!

Sure, it continues the obnoxious pattern of happy-face advertising that I have complained of before with these people. So why do I hate this one a little less? It's the piggy bank. They have, at last, established a visual connection between the happy-face person and the service (saving money) that they have on offer. I'll take progress where I can find it.

But, isn't it traditional to select a picture for the ad in which the model kept her eyes open?


Part II: Fred Meyer Thinks You Are Completely Amoral!

I actually find this Election Day ad, for the regional Krogers-owned supermarket chain Fred Meyer, kind of shocking.

Here's the text: You're going to hear a lot about red states and blue states today, but what really matters is who can let you keep the most green in your wallet. You can count on Fred Meyer to deliver without a presidential mandate.

Am I crazy? I mean, more than usual? It seems to me that this ad offhandedly discounts, or even mocks, any semblance of ideals, community mindedness, patriotism, concern for humanity, team spirit, or good vibes you might have brought to the voting process.

And at the very least, it telegraphs a spooky corporate mentality. Do I really want to do business with a merchant who thinks that all that matters is maximizing the green at all costs? (Answer: Probably not. Fred Meyer went to crap after it was bought out by Krogers. I avoid it when I can.)




Part III: michael5000 Misses Some Connections

Ever wondered if anybody ever reads those "Missed Connections" ads in your local alternative weekly or online classified ads service? Hey, me too! To find out more, I placed a series of Missed Connections ads on the Portland Craigslist over the last few weeks. In the spirit of science, I present here the text of my ads along with the responses they provoked, for your independant assessment and peer review.

Ad #1: Friday on the #15 Bus
Our eyes met, we both smiled, but then it was my stop. I should have stayed on. Let's talk!
Response: None.

Ad #2: Near Miss, 28th/Burnside
Blue jeans, gray sweatshirt, red hair. I almost hit you in the crosswalk at 28th and Burnside. You shot me the bird and yelled that I was a "fucking asshole." You are totally hot. Can I make it up to you by buying you dinner?
Response: None.

Ad#3: East Side Fred Meyer, Friday Afternoon
In the produce section on Friday afternoon. I smiled at you; you seemed a little nervous. I found your indifference fascinating. Write me!
Response: None.

Ad#4: Providence ER, 1:15 a.m. Wednesday
Blonde woman checking into Providence Emergency Room, 1:15 a.m. Wednesday. We talked in the waiting room; I wouldn't tell you what was the matter with me. You are so beautiful! I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. I hope you don't lose the use of your arm. Would love to see you again.
Response: None.

Conclusions: Eh, obviously nobody reads those things.


Part IIII: MadisonAvenue5000

Over the past few weeks, I've been purchasing advertising for this very online variety magazine. That's right. I've been flogging the blog.

In setting up my campaign, I rejected the idea of contracting with the famous local firm Weiden + Kennedy, afraid they would still be mad about my intemperate remarks on their "Oregon: We Love Dreamers" work. Instead, I opened an account with the Project Wonderful service, which has a fun auction-based model for advertisers on a budget. It's kind of like promotional Ebay.

"On a budget," in my case, means on the budget of $5.00 (U.S.) that I allocated for the campaign with Mrs.5000's eye-rolling assent. I started with this ad:


...but as the hours passed, I became more sophisticated about "branding" and "market positioning," and graduated to these:

I started out looking for like-minded sites on which to advertise, but it's actually pretty hard to find a site that is like-minded to the L&TM5K, a blog so scattershot that even ~I~ am not sure what it's supposed to be about. So I quickly evolved to looking for sites that were dirt cheap. And, I'm happy to report that after more than a week of saturating the internet with literally dozens of ads, I still have more than $3.00 of my advertising budget available. (My "big ticket" bid, incidently, has been on Cartophilia, a blog that actually is kinda like-minded, takes Project Wonderful ads, and has sent plenty of internet explorers this way already through its blogroll.)

So, has it all paid off? Eh, who knows. There have been several dozen clickovers, but I imagine a lot of them are just blog owners trying to figure out what their new advertiser is trying to sell (an excellent question). The important thing is, a good time is being had by all.

Michael5000 Sells Out

The next stage of my goofing off is, I'm going to offer Project Wonderful advertising space on the L&TM5K itself. That's right -- for at least the next month, starting this weekend, your pleasure in reading this blog will be enhanced by the presence of commercial messages! It'll be fun! And, of course, I encourage you to hurl baskets of money at my fine sponsors, whoever they will be. Or better yet, at me.

I Still Hate These Billboards!

Remember how I hated this billboard?

Well, that old post got a pointed comment last week that I thought was worth highlighting. Here's what the commenter had to say:

The irony is, of course, is that you actually had enough of an emotional reaction to the billboard to take a picture of it and write about it. Indifference is the worst possible outcome for any advertising campaign. All you've done is amplify the power of their ad buy.

The commenter's guiding idea here is the old maxim that "any publicity is good publicity." Like a lot of old maxims, however, there is not a lot of connection between this one and the real world. Short of people who make their living by positioning themselves as "extreme" -- punk rock musicians, say, or members of the Oklahoma Congressional delegation -- bad publicity is generally just bad publicity. Ask anyone at Arthur Anderson or Bear Stearns, for instance, how much all that free publicity helped.

The idea that I "amplified the power of the ad buy" implies that some of you gentle readers jumped ship to a new financial institution on account of how I pointed out that its marketing campaign stinks. Anyone? No?

Really, my guess is that the good folks down at the credit union would be horrified to realize how negative an impression their ad campaign is making. Actually, no. My guess is that most of the folks at the credit union are already embarrassed about the ad campaign, but that the clueless suits who are paying for it would be horrified. I thought about sending them a letter, but people always get mad at me when I try to be helpful like that.

The problem, Commenter -- thanks for reading and contributing, by the way -- is that your approach accidentally advocates passive acceptance of advertising messages. A logical extension of the just-ignore-it argument would be "don't talk about advertising with children; you'll just call their attention to it." That doesn't work. Advertising, perhaps more than anything else, is richly in need of conscious attention and active critique. If something stinks in the room, it's usually a good idea to talk about it.

That being said, let me tell you about how

I Still Hate These Billboards!

This one is next door to The Company. (Yes, that's a gang tag on a doughnut shop. I work in a classy neighborhood.)

Rewards Checking Woman was passively ecstatic and grateful; Rewards Savings Boy is active in his exhuberance. He is so happy with his bank account, he's all in your face about it. Happy Person Advertising doesn't even have a narrative, and it manages to cast people in gender roles. That's some trick.

---

And this one looms over Cinemagic, on Hawthorne.

She's hot. She's winking. She's giving you the thumbs up. She wants you. She has nothing to do with personal finance. Happy Person Advertising drags its trail of slime across a perfectly respectable old movie theater.

I Hate this Billboard

"Why are you taking a picture of that billboard?" asked my carpool passenger, after I had swerved into a 7-11 parking lot and broke out the old digital camera.

"Because I hate it so much! I'm going to write about it," I told her.

"You aren't afraid to have opinions about things, are you?" she observed.

Well, perhaps not. But I sure do hate that billboard. Maybe I can make you hate it, too!

Hate Factor #1: Rewards. It offers me a "reward," and yet I do not recall having done anything of merit. Long-suffering readers may recall an earlier rant on this point, but hey! Advertisers! There is no quicker way to piss me off than to offer me "rewards," short of "tousling my hair" and calling me a "good little boy." Or perhaps, offering me a "dog biscuit." You are in a position to humbly thank your customers, but not to reward them, and you forget this at your peril. Offer a good service at a fair price, and customers might reward you with their business.

Hate Factor #2: The Happy Person. In the last five years, I've noticed a pernicious increase in the number of ads that feature a picture of a happy person, and that's all. Just a happy person. True, these advertisements are usually aimed at selling intangibles, such as insurance, banking, or education, but the fact that it was a challenging assignment should not excuse a total failure of imagination at the ad agency. The person is sitting there looking happily at the camera because, what, health insurance makes one happy? What?

My credit union -- formerly operating under the cool historical name of "Portland Teachers' Credit Union" but now, in a salute to committee-think, under some bland, generic name that I have never been able to remember -- indulges in some happy-people advertising, but they also demonstrate how to avoid the Hate Factor. They'll show happy people... in a new car! painting their house! Enjoying a vacation! In other words, people enjoying the things they were presumably able to obtain through the credit union's services. This makes all the difference, because it means they are selling services, as opposed to just the mood of happiness.

Hate Factor #3: The Insanely Happy Person. Can you imagine responding like the woman in the billboard to the availability of a checking account with favorable terms? Can you imagine that there is a single person, anywhere on the planet, who would respond in such a way to any checking account, ever? This woman's reaction would be appropriate to a marriage proposal, perhaps, or news of a grandchild on the way, or maybe a big lottery win, or news of a major promotion. But a checking account? No. Not even close. And for the marketer to assume that the part of my brain that reads emotions is so poorly wired that I would find it plausible is kind of offensive.


But I Really Like This Flyer

...from the cult period-fixture merchants Rejuvenation here in the City of Roses.


Cracks me up.

Weekend Edition

I am so totally full of, um, content this week that there's extra content spilling over into the weekend. Here are a few bits and bobs that we never quite got to this week.

There's an Election On!

Voters in two small rural states have been making important decisions about where political donors will be sending their checks for literally the next few weeks. The race is generally
characterized as being between an highly competant and charismatic man with modest government experience, whom everybody seems to like, and an highly competant and charismatic woman with modest government experience, whom some people seem to like but whom other people seem to hate with a startling intensity, but for no particular reason. Also, there are apparently Republicans.

I will bring you further updates as events unfold.

Boring Postcards: The Dirty Little Secret

Karmasartre remarked in his Thursday Quiz response that he had never received a boring postcard from Boring, Oregon, and I immediately felt a sense of deep, gnawing, guilt and shame. Why? Well, longtime readers may recall that Mrs.5000 and I actually have a boring Boring postcard in our collection. I bragged about it in this post.

But if you just followed that link, you may now find yourself confused and disoriented. "That does not look like the rolling landscape of the Boring area," you might be saying, if you are a resident of the Beaver State. Or, you might notice that the card looks suspiciously like the second card from last Wednesday's post, which is clearly from Glacier National Park, in Montana. That's right, gentle readers. Back in August, I posted the wrong postcard. I've known it all this time, and could never admit it. It has haunted me. I'm so sorry.

Here, at last, is the REAL boring Boring postcard:

Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Boo and Her Monkey

As far as I have been able to reconstruct, the story goes something like this: Frequent L&TM5K commenter Boo received a monkey puppet in the mail as an unexpected gift. She scratched her head, wondered "what the hell do I do with this?" and came to the only really rational conclusion. She decided she would design, direct, film, and edit a online television-style show, with the monkey puppet as the star.

I am not sure if The Fillip Monkee Show will have universal appeal, but I am kind of mesmerized. I think it's a scream. Fillip is an impressively well-developed and consistent character, and it is amazingly easy to take on his point of view. He is perfectly candid about the fact that he is a puppet attached to "the lady's" arm, that he doesn't eat or wear clothes and spends most of his time in a bag, but somehow that doesn't make him any harder to identify with.

Fillip is kind of an Alexis de Tocqueville to human life, curious about almost everything that is going on in the strange place he finds himself and doing his best to report back to his public. He is very earnest, but wears his enthusiasm on his, um, sleave -- he can't help but tell us how excited he is about the topic of the day. Like another naive traveller of film, Borat, he goes out among the people, who vary greatly in their ability to conduct a graceful conversation with a monkey puppet. There is not a lick of mean-spiritedness in Fillip Monkee, though, and he is not trying to trick people into revealing themselves at their worst; this makes him for my money both a lot more interesting and a lot more funny than Borat.

The Fillip Monkee Show is a non-professional, homemade production; judged as such, it is startlingly well-produced. Kudos to Boo for undertaking such an elaborate project, apparently just for the hell of it. I think many L&TM5K readers will find the Fillip Monkee Show pretty damn amusing.

BeardQuest '08

Inspired by d's increasingly stunning mane, and more to the point provoked by his direct challenge, I am now officially starting my first winter beard in six years. I may even go goatee. As of this posting, I am about 10 hours in. Wish me luck; I'll report back.

And Finally,

By special reader request, it's The Beer Quiz! That's right! Identify these five beer brands, and win -- not a thing! Not so much as a virtual comma! But nevertheless, you can submit your answers in the comments if you are so inclined.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

OPB Sucks

Longtime readers may remember last summer's sparkling, insightful analysis of how public radio sucks. In that article, I shared this constructive criticism of my hometown affiliate, Oregon Public Broadcasting:

Many individual public radio stations produce solid local content, or curate unusual or interesting content. I happen to listen, for my sins, to Oregon Public Broadcasting, which does neither well and thus especially sucks.

Fellow residents of the Beaver State naturally rose up with one voice to defend their own. Except that they didn't. "OPB does suck absolute balls," observed MyDogIsChelsea. "It's truly inexcusable. I don't even know why they bother."

Now, perhaps some of you out there in Blogland, particularly those of you who don't endure OPB on a daily basis, are thinking "Gosh, M5K and MyDog are just smug little radio snobs. I'm sure that this Oregon Public Broadcasting is a fine institution. They should just chill."

Well, here's the OPB monthly newsletter that arrived here at Castle5000 yesterday:


Case closed.

Three Things That Should Not Have Been Surprises

We'll do the local-interest one first:

I: Wild Animals Are Not Pets

Recently, some folks here in the Beaver State were found to be keeping a couple of deer as pets. The Department of Fish and Wildlife, citing laws against keeping wild animals as pets, confiscated the deer and will try to re-release them back into the wild. Where they arguably belong. In that they are, you know, wild animals and everything.

Good! Except that, at this point the Oregonian, as part of its increasingly constant program of getting people all riled up about stupid shit, ran a fair and balanced top-of-the-front-page story on the affair. In the 'gonian's coverage, the State of Oregon, portrayed thus:

...wanted to take the deer:

...away from the nice people....

...in order to be mean. And to break their hearts. The word "heartbroken" has been flying around a lot. Public outcry ensued. People who, last week, would have quite sanely opposed the keeping of wild animals as pets, are now coming out as noisily anti-heartbroken. I know autumn is supposed to make people sentimental, but this is just getting ridiculous.

For the record, I would be entirely willing to have my state tax money spent on getting the nice people a new pet to speed their grieving process. Perhaps one of the established, name-brand domestic animals. A dog, say. Or a cat.

II. Britney Spears is Not a Genius of the Performing Arts

Even a recluse like myself, with no television, no commercial radio, and only the thin, thin thread of the aforementioned Oregonian to connect me with the outside world, knew about our nation's collective stunned disbelief last weekend. Britney Spears put in an amateurish performance at an MTV awards shindig. Everyone is reeling. Everyone is afraid this may hurt her comeback efforts.

In the interest of Truth, I journeyed to the MTV website to see video of the performance. And indeed, though it's not the fiasco that internet scuttlebutt had led me to expect, Ms. Spears comes as a modestly talented high school sophomore trying to keep up with the professional entertainers around her.

But People! Exactly when, in her bizarrely long career, did she ever come off as anything else?

III. There's Trouble in the Sub-Prime Lending Market!

Let's ignore for the moment that the credit system in the United States is a creepy Orwellian threat to personal liberty. Don't think so? Order a copy of your credit report; you are entitled to a free one once a year. You'll be dazzled at how much more they know about your finances than you do. But like I said, let's ignore that for the moment.

Our economy has recently been rocked as financial professionals have discovered, to their shock and horror, that if you lend lots and lots of money to people with poor credit, some of them are not going to be able to pay you back!

That's right, the guardians of our economy in both the public and private sectors, men and women in very nice suits, many of whom presumably have degrees in business and finance from expensive colleges, have been caught completely off guard by this development. Which is strange. I, myself, with no knowledge of the sophisticated wheels of finance, found it quite alarming a few years back when mortgage companies were agressively peddling low-interest, no-down-payment mortgages to any strung-out tweaker who could stay out of jail long enough to get to the closing. Didn't you, dear reader?

Doesn't it seem strange that noted financial megagenius Alan Greenspan didn't?

What part of "sub-prime" didn't they understand?

College Football Weekend Roundup

#19 Oregon 52, Fresno State 21. Oh my. Even without showing up for the third quarter, the Duckies still took a perfectly legit FSU team completely to the cleaners. We could be in for a hell of a season here. Although let us not forget, the road to Eugene is paved with broken dreams. (Michael5000's prediction was: UO 33, FSU 24)

Oregon State 61, Idaho State 10. After last week's debacle, it was OSU's game to lose. They didn't. (M5K prediction was: OSU45, ISU 13)

Portland State 35, Sacramento State 24. Two touchdowns in the last 2:04 to squeak out a win. College football, baby!

Other Games of Interest

#3 Oklahoma 54, Utah State 3. Boomer! (M5K's prediction was: OU 59, USU 10)

Michigan 38, Notre Dame 0. Maybe -- just speaking theoretically here -- Michigan doesn't suck. Maybe App State and Oregon are just really, really good.

Utah 44, #11 UCLA 6. What the hell happened here?

#1 USC 49, #14 Nebraska 31. I'm not sure why it always makes me smile when Nebraska loses.

Willamette 14, California Lutheran 7. First victory is sweet for the intrepid Bearcats!