Local Trivia: In which Gene puts his eye out.

Last Saturday, after having had Gene in for a PCV valve-area cleaning (because it turns out Gene doesn't have or need a PCV valve) and suturing a new door onto his crushed passenger side (from a previous owner's collision), I drove Gene to work.

On the way, he spit out his left front blinker light onto the highway and promptly ran over it.

We're not talking lightbulb here; we're talking the entire signal light assembly. Three little wires protrude from his gaping socket now, and my turn signal clicker clicks madly whenever I need to turn left, reminding me always of what he's done.

If before I felt like the Cranstonator was a crotchety old war veteran in need of some rehabilitative attention, now I'm beginning to wonder whether he's just plain crotchety. Putting out your own eye, for spite? That seems extreme and alarming. These bids for attention are not generally what Volvos are known for; they're supposed to be safe even in dangerous scenarios, like a shark cage you can drive around in. That implies dependability to me, and things like keeping all your parts in where they should be.

On the other hand, G.C.'s radio, an after-market add with a CD player, seems to get a better signal than Betty's or than my indoor CD player/radio, so if he insists on being a curmudgeon, well, at least I'll have an extremely safe place to stretch out and listen to NPR.

Local Trivia: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewww.

Billboard on the side of I-84 East, near Hartford, CT:

[Two white women, one older, standing and smiling, arms on each other's shoulders]
"Not Your Mother's Hysterectomy!"

The billboard advertises "minimally invasive robotic assisted surgery." Too bad no one told them how gross it is to think about, let alone compare your own to, your mom's hysterectomy. It would have saved them a lot of money, and traffic-jammers a lot of cringing.

PSA: Double-u standard?

Well, the Washington Post has fired a reporter/blogger/op-ed contributor guy, David Wiegel, for writing in a private listserve email, among other things, "a joke about how the world would be a better place if Matt Drudge 'set himself on fire'."

This seems a bit like exiling the little boy who pointed out the Emporer was naked. I'm kind of disappointed he didn't put it on the official blog.

Technically, Wiegel resigned, and technically, the Post accepted the resignation after it was also revealed he'd said something about Rush Limbaugh dying and conservatives trying to "violently, angrily divide America." And technically, the Post declared that they weren't against opinions, per se, just against "the perception that people are conflicted or bring a bias to their work."

So...only the completely unconflicted are allowed to offer their opinions to the Post...which explains why they rushed to defend Drudge, actually.

The fact that these amount to a firing based on offering opinions in a non-public forum by a guy they hired partly to express his opinions (on conservative issues, no less) doesn't seem to bother the people at the Post who fired him. And I understand: the Post competes with the Washington Times for conservative readers, and this is a savvy business decision to help the Post seem less like the demonic liberal media Times readers probably feel it is. But let's not pretend it's not a choice of business savvy over free speech, because that's definitely what it is. And let's not ignore that defending Matt Drudge's freedom to say whatever damn stupid thing he wants by firing a guy who only said extreme things in private email rather than ranting them in public, is definitely a sign of conflict in the Post's business plan.

Perhaps people shouldn't be allowed to say, in any context, what seems obviously to be the truth (that the world would probably be better off without firebrand conservatives yelling at people without any solutions to the problems they're pointing out or compassion for the people they would affect), if they're working in journalism.

But it seems obvious instead that Fox News is winning here, and making the Washington Post into Switzerland won't help the paper survive. Kowtowing to conservatives who reserve the right to be jerks in public only for themselves will help the paper fade into the background, bird-cage-liner it seems to want to be, instead.

And heck -- like Wiegel with the conservatives he denigrated in email -- I'm saying this as a fan of the Post.

Imagine what Matt Drudge would say.

PSA: SYD complain-o-rama

So those of you who may be So You Think You Can Dance fans (SYD for short) have already noticed the changes this season: instead of the top 20, we've got the top 10 (well, top 11, it turns out), dancing with "champions" from past seasons -- none of the winners, mind you, but some memorable dancers -- in weird combinations, starting this week.

I respect the need to shake it up a bit after six seasons, but this is too much, SYD. I love the old champion dancers, which makes it tough to love the newbies. Is this more like Dancing with the Stars, which I've never seen? Why these changes?

At least Mia Michaels appears to be a permajudge this season, replacing Mary Murphy. I'd complain that no one will know now whether they're on the "hot tamale train" or not, but with all the changes this season, it's probably best to leave the train behind, too.

PSA: EEEEli Stone

The first three Es in my version of the spelling of the ABC-truncated show Eli Stone (which joined other shows like Daybreak, Samantha Who?, Dirty Sexy Money and a dozen other shows cut short in mid-seasons) stand for "every engagement ends," since with one end-of-the-run exception (which we don't get to see play out), every single engagement in this series (and there are a lot for such a short-running show) gets broken off. There are three broken engagements, I think, between six different characters, and in another case, a divorce.

But other than that, it's a pretty good show. Similar to Wonderfalls and, I imagine (since I've still never seen it), Joan of Arcadia, Eli Stone was a cute show that surprises you with stabs at significance. I always love Victor Garber (who doesn't?), and in Eli Stone he eventually gets to be the dad you always wish he was in Alias. Loretta "the Chief's wife from Grey's Anatomy" Devine has the constant supporting role she deserves (and several very, very respectable singing cameos) as Eli's assistant, and the rest of the cast grows on you. The lead actor from the ill-fated, years-ago show Ed, about a guy who owns a bowling alley (also seen as JD's older brother on Scrubs ), plays Eli's (dead) dad.

The second season cancellation desperation shows, and throws the show for a series of loops that can't really be justified, even with the impending doom of its end. But every show can't be Arrested Development with its brilliant use of desperate measures, nor Daybreak, with its meticulously plotted series finale. And while most of Eli Stone's plot twists feel twisty, it's almost untwisted just by the detritus of broken engagements littering the set stages: when Katie Holmes does a guest appearance (weird weird weird to see post-Cruise Katie on TV), it's clear that they leave room for her reappearance and leave Eli longing for her to return from Kenya -- though she never does -- and when the second-fiddle female lead character Eli's obviously in love with says she's over him, it's never sure whether we can believe her...The effect of so many relationships being mostly but not quite over is that every possibility remains open, always open, and so every possibility remains viable. These characters have choices, not an implacable, descend-on-you fate.

Perhaps that's the real tragedy of this show getting cut short: it's ultimately a show about process, and becoming a better person step by weird step, and it's a pity and an irony that something like that has to end. I'd like to see it unfurl over the years, ignoring character consistency and back-story and staying true instead to people's tendency to change, and change their beliefs about themselves, over time. That's a show I think 20-somethings could use nowadays.

Then again, we all die eventually, so maybe the cancellation and the end to process it represents is also true to life.

I still blame ABC.

PSA: If not the dive, the long-shot works.

Drosselmeyer, a 13-1 longshot in the Belmont Stakes (the third leg of the Triple Crown), pulled out a beautiful first-place finish, making starry-eyed, long-shot-betting OTB'ers happy this week and ensuring they can afford the inevitable benders to follow.

I guess horse racing will survive another year.

Mix: Chill Outz 3

In honor of Bryan Gaynor's dancing, here's a third "Fireflies"-inspired Chill Outz mix. There are repeats from past mixes and, yes, incredibly sappy songs on this list. And yes, there should be more Postal Service and Snow Patrol on a mix like this, but I can't get iTunes to recognize my .wma formats. If you would like all of the Chill Outz mixes, send your address to my email.

"Fireflies" -- Owl City
"Moth's Wings" -- Passion Pit
"No More Running Away" -- Air Traffic
"Kyrie" -- Mr. Mister
"Days Are Numbers (The Traveler)" -- Alan Parsons Project
"Scientist Studies" -- Death Cab For Cutie
"Save Tonight" -- Eagle Eye Cherry
"The Lamentation of David" -- Antony Pitts from Naxos Early Music
"Weighed Down" -- Jars of Clay
"Snowbirds and Townies" -- Further Seems Forever
"The Blower's Daughter" -- Damien Rice
"The Space Between" -- Dave Matthews Band
"Tiny Dancer" -- Elton John
"God Only Knows" -- Beach Boys
"Entertaining Angels" -- Newsboys
"Death And All His Friends" -- Coldplay

Local Trivia: Overheard after intro in which friend Kevin, very drunk, was explaining a dream in which he and Ben tried to move to a haunted house.

Kevin: "Long story short, needless to say, Ben and I did not get the lease."

[Because, Kevin explained later, they had not stayed the entire night as required by the owner. Pure genius horror film reasoning, there.]

PSA: SYD begins with a ROBOT.

I love love love this dancer; Bryan Gaynor (aka "Chibi"/Chibotics) from the season 3 SYD auditions has come back for season 7 auditions, to show us all (and the SYD judges) what he's been doing since we saw him on the season 3 finale performing his unique and humorous version of Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man."

Where his previous SYD performance showed (as I repeatedly pointed out, semi-gushing, to an eternally patient Prince Certainpersonio) the self-aware humor of the (potential) humanness of robots, Bryan's performance in this week's auditions showed exactly what robot-filled sci fi movies based on hardcore golden age science fiction writers like Asimov and Bova (think Bicentennial Man and A.I.) strive to show but often fall short of (though I'm told Iron Giant is awesome, and I suspect in just this way): the necessary, often telling differences between the "robot" and the "human."

Whether the reference is purposeful or not, when Bryan lays down at the end of the routine, I can't help but recall the image of Haley Joel Osment laying down next to his mother at the end of A.I. The difference is that this is real life, Bryan is a real person much like many of the people I know, and his taking on the (dance) persona of a robot is strangely fitting, and poignant as a result. Even in the few actual clips we get of Bryan Gaynor dancing to Owl City's "Fireflies," a song I'm sure he's made a lot of money for by now, we can imagine a completely different world watching the isolation and terrible, innocent hope of his robot on display. His dance is a meditation on what makes us different, not (just) from robots, but from each other, and how we might cope with that.

And unlike the more recent robotic sci-fi, it doesn't leave us all screaming piles of wreckage in the wake of software gone bad. Chibotics follows the three laws.

It's possible that only a 7-season veteran of SYD would obsess this much over a really awesome version of the robot -- or that only a candidate for an upper-level degree in "cultural production" would. But see for yourself. Go watch it. The picture isn't perfect, and they show way too much of the SYD judges reacting to his dance (we know, it's awesome, and touching! Now SHOW US WHAT HE'S DOING SO WE CAN REACT, TOO), but what you see is, I think, enough to understand what I'm talking about.

Don't watch it on a bad or jerky connection, though, as you won't know when he's being an awesome robot vs. when your computer is being stupid.

Also, keep in mind that I feel really attached to this performance, in which I see vulnerability and strength, which are rarely so obviously displayed and which are usually crushed by cynical comments -- so if you hate it or want to say sarcastic things about it, go to some random person's blog and post a comment there. That other blogger will probably be pleased and benignly weirded out, and I will be saved from a small bit of soul-death. This is a just-in-case suggestion.

The hundred suitors and the axe head: Cranstonated.

Gene Cranston has finally been registered. I've discovered in this process that I never received Betty's official CT title in the mail three years ago when I got her, but they didn't need that to finally allow me to drive the Cranstonation for realz.

Huzzah. P.C. and I have driven to his parents' house in semi-celebration, and except for G.C.'s left headlight, which fell out of its socket on the highway and must have looked to other cars like a skeleton's dangling eyeball, it all went fine.

Still -- huzzah for my one-eyed car.

Local Trivia: Tree butchery

I just watched a perfectly good, cute, decorative tree get chainsawed down by a two-man crew with a wood chopper.

I thought they were just pruning it to begin with, though I thought "that's a stupid way to prune a tree," which I know thanks to my grandma's penchant for gardening and farm-work. Then they continued past the point of pruning, and I realized what they were really doing.

It felt a bit like what I imagine watching an amputation would feel like -- though with the addition that the amputation would continue, shockingly, to every limb, and then end with decapitation.

Gene Cranston came to that.

So in the continuing saga of Gene Cranston's road-worthiness, it turned out that the check-engine-light lighting that happened post-transmission-flush was what my Ron had feared it would be: the catalytic converter.

It also turns out that because Gene is a 1994 and not 1996 or later, there needed to be a special-order converter. The O2 sensor that would normally be somewhere on a catalytic converter is actually inside a Volvo 1994's catalytic converter. This meant that changing it cost over 150% what a normal cat would cost. I got it done at P.C.'s Ron's shop because they're exhaust experts and I was tired of my Ron rolling his eyes at Gene. (Though that had stopped when he'd had a chance to spend a little time with Gene, my Ron also simply buys dealer parts for Volvos, which are three times as expensive as they should be.)

So Gene got his converter converted last Thursday. They ran him through emissions right there at P.C.'s Ron's, and he passed in training. Then they ran him again and he failed worse than ever.

When I say "worse than ever," I mean that Gene had failed by about 200 ppm in the Nox category the first time, putting out 1700-something instead of the 1522 he should have. The second test, he got worse, putting out over 2000 ppm, and this second post-training-run run, he scored over 2500. This was after the catalytic converter was put in, and after the trips to Less-local City and Far-Away City.

Friday morning, I brought Gene in for a final retest, to have them test him cold, and he passed, with only 308 ppm. Go figure.

So Gene was roadworthy on Friday, the day I had to drive him to (and for) work.

I actually took my girl to the DMV on Friday afternoon, hoping to get a number for the line (CT DMV works like a deli counter), drop the girl off half an hour away and make it back before my number was called. Friday was the last day Gene Cranston could legally drive with the temporary registration; Friday was the day he had finally passed the emissions test to get a real registration; and Friday was the day the DMV shut early for the holiday weekend.

I don't mean early-early. I mean 20 minutes before I arrived with my girl, the DMV had shut its doors to further customers. It wasn't even closed yet at 12:53 p.m. But it was closed to me and the ten other cars that arrived and turned around in its lot while I was there.

So today, today, I'm going back, and I hope to finally end the saga (and the various payments) -- but at this point I hold out little hope that Gene, abused by previous owners and reluctant to change (gears -- the transmission is still a bit sticky), will ever be the happy-go-lucky little car-that-could that Betty has been. Or at least not legally.

But maybe I'm wrong -- maybe this is less fairy-tale and more epic, and all I have left to do is slay the hundred suitors and shoot my arrow through an axe head or something. After Circe and the cyclops, that should be a cinch.

Confessions XLIV

Last night I ate honey roasted peanuts for dinner. Later I regretted it.

I also spent most of the waking hours of my shift watching Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock and Better Off Ted on hulu -- though this is allowed at my job, and so doesn't constitute as big a confession as you might think.

This morning, possibly thanks to my dietary and moral weakness, I woke up with an entire leg asleep. An entire leg. The weakness didn't go away with pins and needles; instead, it seems to have spread to my entire body, giving me even worse posture than usual. Because of a Parks and Rec episode I watched ("why would anyone eat anything other than breakfast food?" "People are stupid, Leslie"), I believe that a Belgian waffle with berries and whipped cream would cure this.

Hello again, Gene Cranston

It's hard to believe I've only officially owned Gene for 11 days now, as I've had about two years worth of maintenance trouble with him so far -- but that's in Betty-years, which are unfair to apply to another car, and heck, I knew anything I got for $1000 was going to need about that much more done in maintenance.

P.C. and I picked him up from my Ron at the last minute Monday, and Ron told me to drive and drive and drive -- and put good gasoline in -- and drive and drive some more. Since the transmission was sticky and my Ron hadn't flushed it yet, we drove and drove to a Thai restaurant (where I had the second best panang curry I've had in the States) in Less-local City, CT, and then retired Gene once again to P.C.'s Ron for a transmission flush yesterday. P.C. agreed to drop me off at work last night and drive and drive to see his friend in Far Away City, CT, and then pick me up again this morning before the re-test.

The trouble is I'm pretty sure Gene doesn't get infinite chances on retesting, and in order to get a waiver, I have to spend $660 trying to fix the problem. I've got about $400 to go on the exhaust troubles, if it comes to that.

I'll let you know if it comes to that. Gene has two more days to get registered for realz before his temporary reg expires.

PSA: Un-satirizable events have again occurred.

So I thought the Apocalypse was nigh after our former V.P. shot his friend in the face (and didn't tell us about it for awhile, and the news outlets thought the cover-up was the problem) -- but when the world didn't end, or at least didn't end quickly, I let down my guard and thought "well, at least there aren't any other news stories that can't possibly be made sillier by Jon-Stewart-types."

Until recently, when, in a stroke of genius that sounds like it came straight out of Stargate (the movie, not the series), BP announced that it was going to lower a cement dome over the oil leak.

It turns out that this plan was less silly than it sounded, since the dome would have sucked up much of the oil through a pipe rather than just clamping it down, but it worked just about as well as you'd expect that plan to work, not knowing the highly technical details involved.

Can't they submit these plans to some kind of eight-year-old test? That is, to first ask an eight-year-old whether it sounds like a good plan or a silly one? In my experience, eight year olds are excellent judges of various shades of silliness, and at a minimum could help BP figure out how to spin this thing in the news properly.

Just off the top of my head, for instance, if the leak never stops, the company could present itself as philanthropic: most of the people in the South are poor, and here comes BP, providing them all with free oil. Now all they have to do is go pick it up and figure out how to refine it. In the meantime, the prices will go up for all the northern rich people.

Their new slogan could be "BP: Like Robin Hood for gasoline -- delivering crude oil to the Gulf Coast for free since 2010."

New word: Blehthargy

n. that combination of boredom and slow-moving laziness that comes from an immediately preceding feeling of boredom and laziness; complex, compounded boredom leading to unexplained tiredness; boredom that has folded in on itself, as a samurai sword is folded for greater strength.

Local Trivia: Roomie Reunion 2010

This weekend marks the earliest RR ever, after last year's latest ever. It was a good weekend, only made more epic by The Three Plagues, as Debbie called them -- of the neverending hike, the unkillable ticks and the overflowing toilet waters.

Long live the roomies.

PSA: Take a dive, dammit.

Well, Lookin' at Lucky won the Preakness, making it another year without a Triple Crown. A few years ago, a commentator commentated that if we don't have another Triple Crown winner soon, horse racing will lose all its fans and fail to gain new ones -- and I agree.

With War Admiral turned into dog food after an unfortunate leg-breaking incident, and no one outside the OTB able to remember any horse that's come after, I say it's time to go "Quiz Show" on this sport and get us a winner -- and if we can't get an attractive, come-from-behind horse to win legally, let's get one to win illegally.

Of course this would piss off the inveterate gamblers, who seem to be the base of fans this sport retains, but it would also shake up the numbers for awhile and get people back in Derby seats with their hats and juleps, regular (rich) fans who make this sport more like fox-hunting (socially acceptable because white British men do it) and less like dog-fighting (so socially unacceptable it can send a black man to jail -- not that that's any feat in itself).

Not that those hat-wearing, julep-sipping Derby fans aren't out there, but that I used to want to be one, and now I don't.

Give us a Triple Crown, guys, come on. Take one for the team.

PSA: Maaaad Men

If you haven't been watching Mad Men -- though if you're white, you may have already thrown a themed party in its honor -- you should start now.

The end of season 3 is more promising a beginning than I've seen for most shows out there (when they actually are beginning). I won't give anything away (so this will be a short post), but the energy and momentum in "Shut the Door, Have a Seat" is better than almost anything I've seen since the Aaron-Sorkin seasons of West Wing and more balanced than regular-cliffhanger series like Alias.

PSA: "You'll always learn something when we meet you at the school"

"Too cool for school" 21 Jump Street has been on my mind and in my DVD player a lot lately, thanks to my newfound freedom from writing 20-page final papers. Today I finished season one.

In addition to the theme song instantly getting stuck in my head, the first thing I noticed was how racist a show it is/was. The very first scene in the very first episode features a nice, suburban (white) family sitting around the dinner table beginning to discuss their days, the precocious teenage daughter acting up just a little for realism -- until the scene is shattered by two black men jumping through the window near the dinner table brandishing automatic weapons and Michael-Jackson-like hairdos and clothing.

Not racist enough, you say? Well, in a later episode, a local high school gets taken over by a gang full (I mean 100%) of "ethnic" kids -- black, hispanic, asian -- who hold a bunch of middle-class white people hostage. They're also kind of bumbling as criminals, clearly not having thought through the master plan (the way I'm sure a white villain would have), and the main (black) leader's weakness for beautiful women and inability to think rationally is highlighted several times. They also have the Asian cop, Ioki (whose real-life family name is Nguyen [Vietnamese], but who was cast as Japanese), run up the outside of the building like a ninja. Then he beats up the other Asian in the episode.

All this makes it less of a shock when they suddenly kill off the (white) hippie captain midway through the season and substitute a hard-working black captain in his place. Obviously some other people thought the show was racist, too.

Episodes feature the guy who plays that alien who idolizes Alan Rickman's character in Galaxy Quest, and dies; Jason Priestley as a squatter-punk kid; and later, Shannon Doherty and Brad Pitt. Also, Holly Robinson-Peete, who is currently best known for her advocacy of autism research on Celebrity Apprentice, but who you also probably saw at some point as Vanessa on Hangin' With Mr. Cooper on ABC's TGIF lineup.

One of the things that's great about the show -- besides Johnny Depp's debut and seeing him trying on 80's-punk outfits that would later be dwarfed by all his Tim Burton projects and even Captain-Jack garb -- is seeing 80's culture in action. In one episode, the (black) captain's son comes to visit and is a Rastafarian, something totally foreign to me now (though even I knew the captain shouldn't eat those brownies); the captain slowly learns tolerance of his son's new ways. The season closer also features an 80's punk-anarchy scene that seems thoroughly entrenched in its time -- basically good kids getting mixed up with punk-rock and getting a second chance, rather than getting detained as potential domestic terrorists and feared by all in the community.

It's definitely a pre-9/11, pre-Berlin-wall-fall, pre-Lost world. Even though I lived in it, it's fascinating to watch now.

You can get seasons 1-2 and 3-4 in bundle packs from Target right now for $15 apiece. Millstone Entertainment (which produced 21 Jump Street and also put out Daybreak and the old-tyme spy-show sampler "Spies and Lies," which includes 6 Dangerous Assignment episodes) is becoming one of my companies to watch.

Hello Gene Cranston.

I've purchased a new old car, the '94 Volvo wagon (teal) I blogged about lo these many days ago. P.C. suggested after our first viewing that it could be named "Gene," a suggestion I took under advisement and finally agreed to after adding "Cranston," a 30 Rock reference that I love.

("Cranston, why won't Kenneth call me back?...Cranston, why are you crying?")

This doesn't mean I've given up the ghost on Betty, who I'd keep in my grandmother's military-issue footlocker heirloom trunk if I could. I'm going to have her towed to my mom's driveway and consider my options from there. While a used transmission with installation might run me $800-900, the rental car I'm getting for this weekend and next just while Gene gets his wheels (and CT registration) under him -- and for traveling to RR '10 -- will cost about a third of that, and from what I hear, Gene may spend more time in the shop than Betty when he needs fixing, as my mechanic says Volvos are harder to diagnose.

Good old Betty. Always knew what was wrong, always got her fixed without trouble.

In an ideal world, Betty and Gene would last me into the next decade. We'll see what the fallen world will get me.

Also, P.C. says he's willing to paint Gene orange if I want. We'll see how he runs first, but that seems pretty promising.

Local Trivia: Friend Liz describes the sound P.C.'s car's back wheel is making

Liz: "It was like an acorn fell on the roof. But then there weren't any trees, and the acorn would have had to be made out of a brick."

Bye Bye Betty?

Well, last week, on the last trip down to CT from Waltham, Betty gave out.

She crossed the border into Connecticut, but didn't make it much farther before what mechanics tell me is her transmission began to make clanking and grinding sounds. She rolls, but it sounds like parts have come loose and are rattling around inside.

So now I've had a week to decide what to do -- get her a new trans or get a new car. Either one is a risk, and my mechanic isn't in favor of ANYthing I can do within my budget ("I wouldn't recommend putting that money into a car that old"; "I wouldn't get a European car, they cost twice as much to maintain"; "no, you're NOT going to find a car with low miles on it for that price").

Betty's blue book value is less than $700, though her value in my heart is much higher. (AWWWW.) A trans rebuild would run about $1800. But her engine is Toyota from her year (1990), which is a great engine in general, and she's only got 130K on her, 60K of which I put on her over the past three years.

I also went to look at a Volvo wagon this morning, which looked pretty spectacular as far as caralities* go. But it had two leaks, making it a risky deal. Buying it would be less than bringing Betty back, but the maintenance might add up to even.

Course, then I'd have two risky cars to choose from...and possibly two broken ones.

Also, this is finals week.

*car personalities

PSA: Another reason not to waste your time in Times Square

Wow. Car bomb, eh?

I take this as yet another sign that driving probably shouldn't be allowed in NYC.

Response to comment: Celebs cut their hair!!

I'm posting this here because I wrote a really long response in the comments, which I then lost. But I'd also like to hear what other people think about patriarchy. (I'm assuming this is okay with you, Ben, but let me know if not and I'll repost in comments.)

Here's Ben's comment:

"At the risk of being a dissenting voice, I think the notion of patriarchy making you read fashion magazines is a little...well, I mean, I barely know who those people were, so it's got to be something more specific to you.

And, to take the other side, no, I don't feel compelled to read politics magazines either. Whatever is going on with respect to women and fashion these days, I'm going to hazard that they are in some ways as responsible for it as men are for the travesty that is politics.

I was listening to two female critics talk about actresses, and whether or not they've had plastic surgery, and they said, "but we all have that moment that takes us out of the film, when we're like 'yeah, but what about her hair' or whatever. And I thought, "No, no that's just you." Because, honestly, I've just never, ever thought of it. Maybe that (some?) women have that moment is a patriarchal one, but I don't see the male gaze or what have you within that moment itself.

just not our thing, sorry"

***

Well, that's fair enough, I suppose, as an "I don't jive with that" response.

Except that the equation of you (an individual) with patriarchy (a hierarchical social system) doesn't jive. And I never accused men of knowing who female celebs are -- in fact, I'd expect them/you not to, if what I'm saying is at all accurate.

Men have the option of not knowing in a patriarchal culture; white men have the option of not knowing anything at all. (I don't believe you've taken this route, Ben, but some have.) Being a white man is being normal, invisible, individually powerful. White middle-class people (again, I'm not accusing anyone of being middle-class) are the ones who get to talk about individual responsibility, because a straight, white middle-class man is "normal," meaning his privilege is made invisible -- and talking about laziness or oversensitivity or individual responsibility of marginalized groups is a way to keep that privilege invisible.

It's not that we're racist -- it's that they're lazy! It's not that women are reacting to us or the society we've historically presided over, it's that they LIKE to dress up in pretty things and wear high heels and make up! They like paying attention to hair -- it's why they do it! People on welfare are taking advantage of us and need to be stopped! Black people are better at sports and talk funny!

It's only because we have "men's" bathrooms and "women's" bathrooms, not "transsexual" bathrooms! We're not prejudiced, it's just how the system IS.

And there's where I think the male gaze can be seen clearly, even for the ones doing the looking. By "male gaze," I don't mean individual men's eyes looking anymore than Freud meant individual penises when he wrote about the phallus. Women are complicit in the "male gaze," too, and certainly to the extent that we're explicitly policing each other's hairstyles in celeb magazines. But just because it's equal-opportunity-cisgendered heteronormativizing doesn't mean it isn't patriarchy.

If we were free of gender policing, of the kind of heternormative patriarchy that Marxists claimed was inevitable thanks to the capitalist system, we wouldn't make life a living hell for so many transgender people.

The only reason it's set up this way is the "normalness" and invisibility of the white middle class (in modern capitalism). Only in this kind of society could Freud propose such a bizarre system of family alliances that rely on a certain familial structure (two parents, for instance), a certain middle-class hierarchy (dad possesses the phallus, always), a certain middle-class neurosis (power over nurturing or any other covetable value), and find acceptance. When you remove any of those elements, psychoanalysis falls apart -- in fun ways, but completely.

It may be helpful to note here that anthropologists have linked the beginning of women's fashion to the beginning of capitalism: male capitalists, who had power, stopped peacocking around like they'd done during Henry VIII's time and instead showed their wealth through how their women dressed. Men adorned women, more or less, to indicate their wealth to other men -- women were actually dressed to be looked at by other men. The male gaze is absolutely present, and appropriative of women's bodies, in that moment. How could it not be present in all the moments based on that?

Are women not looking at themselves with the same evaluative gaze when they adorn themselves, now? Are women not in the process of evaluating themselves and each other through the imaginary, appropriative stare of those men? Doesn't it seem possible, even likely, that women have merely internalized the male gaze?

Perhaps we've moved beyond this history into something new. I mention consumer culture for no small reason in my original post -- I'm willing to blame capitalism rather than men. But if we have moved on, it's strange that we're doing the same things.

Women are socialized differently, to think about haircuts, to notice dirt and feel the need to clean it up, etc. It's true that women police each other in these things more than men do. But it's certainly not true when men claim "it doesn't matter to me -- it doesn't matter." A man who doesn't need to think about haircuts or the need to clean up after himself is a man with privilege. Such a man is living in a world where women think about their haircuts in relation to how beautiful they can be for their romantic partners, and who have a felt need to do the cleaning necessary for sanitary living. For some reason, these women are reduced by the same society to begging for haircut compliments and nagging about the laundry and the dishes, because that's the vocabulary and power offered to them. The only other option for these haircut-and-dirt-noticing women is to try to stop noticing -- in which case they may still be policed and punished as "not feminine enough" or told they will "never get a man."

But again, all this pales in comparison to the way the whole system comes crashing down on people who, for individual or spiritual or practical reasons choose to define themselves outside of the gender binary entirely. And that's IF we let them define themselves -- in which case, we still pathologize them and then make them (you know, for legal reasons) choose from between "male" or "female."

We've made some progress, such that not all transgender individuals are left jobless and homeless by a vitriolic prejudice, but we're certainly not beyond the "male gaze" yet. Not by a long shot.

PSA: Mentally Better Off Ted

For some reason, the copy of Better Off Ted, season 1 that I picked up for $10 at the Target yesterday included a coupon on the outside for $10 off a purchase of both Better Off Ted and the first season of Mental.

The only ad at the beginning of Better Off Ted is for Mental – a minute-long introduction to the show by the actors in it, who describe the premise in the kind of unremittingly positive language that indicates they’re selling their own show.

Other than the fact that these shows were on the same network, and debuted at the same time, they have nothing at all in common. One is a half-hour comedy-satire about the modern American multinational workplace and the funny/evil things they sometimes do and make; one is an hour-long drama about a mental healthcare worker who “shakes things up” by suggesting the patients participate in their own diagnostic session, and who has a kind of mind-meld thing going on when it comes to diagnosis.

What is the deal with this? Mental seems like a sure bet, the way any show based on every other successful show would be, so maybe hitching Ted’s wagon to Mental was to make Ted, Better Off, but if that were the case, Mental would have the coupon, and the jingly actor-promo in the front. I can’t speak for actor-promos, as I didn’t buy Mental, but when I saw the show at the Target, it didn’t seem to have any equivalent coupon.

Seems this promo could have used a bit of finessing from corporate overlord Veridian Dynamics.

PSA: Parks and Recreations

For the past week and a half, I’ve been watching Parks and Rec’s first season. Because it’s only six episodes, that means I’ve had to watch it three times.

It’s delightful, though, a fact which hits you somewhere around the middle of the season, and which sustains easily through three viewings. I woke up this morning with the theme song in my head.

Karen from The Office (Rashida Jones) is much more likeable as Ann, and Amy Poehler is more hilarious as an optimistic small-town bureaucrat than she was even as Tina Fey’s Baby Mama. Nick Offerman as Ron may be the most hilarious character on multiple viewings, as the libertarian head of Leslie Knope’s department who doesn’t believe in “big government,” but even deadbeat boyfriend-of-Ann Andy grows on you after awhile.

So go watch it, and laugh and then watch the commentaries. Then watch it again, and if you’re like normal TV-watching people, by then it will be about time for the second season to come out on DVD.

Tell your friends.

PSA: Dramas I’m planning to buy the next seasons, probably when they come out, in alphabetical order.

Chuck

Dexter

Gossip Girl*

Grey’s Anatomy*

Heroes*

House

Lost*

Mad Men*

Weeds

*Shows I will probably wait to buy until they’re on sale, unless the pre-order price is low enough

PSA: Half-hour comedies I’ll need to buy the next seasons of this summer, in alphabetical order.

30 Rock

Big Bang Theory

Flight of the Conchords*

How I Met Your Mother*

Parks and Recreation

The Office

*Shows I may wait until Black Friday to buy, because I’m less obsessed with them than other shows.

PSA: Celebrities cut their hair!!!

Oh -- well only the female ones, because those are the ones whose hair we should be obsessed with. And only two of them, really, though another few get mentions at the bottom of the "article."

Seriously, why do women get fashion and men get politics? Why do we get to read about Obama's soaring rhetoric and Hilary's "cankles" -- or men's fashion buffoonery alongside women's quiet (always quiet/understated/self-possessed) elegance?

Is this a holdover from the time when the whole point of women looking good was to charm their husbands' bosses? Or is it because now that the consumer-not-citizen bandwagon has turned into a semi that will mow you down if you get in its way, and because it spent so much time working out the in-roads to women's body insecurities that fashion has become a huge, sustainable market, that it is now actually too profitable to stop it? Is this how patriarchy is perpetuating itself -- by making us read about Hayden and Renee's new short haircuts?

If you do read the "article" (and critically), you should note how condescending it is toward Hayden Panetierre, a 20-year-old "girl next door" actress dating a 34-year-old. It theorizes that she's flighty (since she already changed her hairstyle a little while ago), and desperate to be seen as older and "grown-up" for her "grown-up relationship" with 34-year-old-guy, whose main attribute seems to be his 34-year-oldness.

Well, no offense to the guys who may read this blog, but I'd say being 34 doesn't guarantee that a man is a grown-up. Personally, and speaking from the "matures faster" gender, I'm pretty sure I was more grown-up at 20 than I am at 28.

The assumption that Hayden wants to move beyond the "girl next door" parts she's had recently -- cheerleader in both I Love You, Beth Cooper and Heroes -- also seems condescending in this context, as though she really IS the girl next door and trying to exceed her reach. Dating an older man? Haha, so cute! Look, she can't decide which haircut to get -- we assume, because we didn't ask her WHY she got it cut, we only want to speculate! Look at her pretending to be older! Look at her standing up on her hind legs like that!

She thinks she's people!

But probably, other than my intense, awesome queer studies class this term, what's got me all up-in-arms about this is my own reaction: the fact that I clicked on the link, and that when I did, one of my first thoughts was "wow, Renee Zellweger looks equally unhappy in these two pictures. I wish she would frakking smile. She'd be a lot prettier if she did."

"'No, not in my mouth!' he'd say..."

[P.C. pokes my stomach as we are each lounging on the futon.]

Me: Oh, I think I feel kind of sick. Not quite like I might throw up, but almost. It's weird.

P.C.: Uh oh. Don't get sick!

Me: Well, I wouldn't throw up on your face.

P.C.: I don't want you to throw up at all!

Me: You're so picky.

Stuff I've Been Forced to Learn About Early TV: The FCC screws up again

TV started for realz in 1946, though the technological legwork had been going on since the 1920s. When RCA pulled its "sell TVs and then blame it on the consumers when we corner the market in VHF" stunt with the FCC, the company got almost no blowback from its behavior.

In fact, the FCC decided to encourage more TV competition in 1948 by doing the obvious: giving out more rights to broadcast channels in popular city markets.

Unfortunately, they did this by altering the engineers' recommendations on how far apart broadcasting stations should be when they were on the same or adjacent channels. Where before stations on the same channel had to be a couple hundred miles apart, and 150 miles apart if they were adjacent channels (i.e., channel 2 and channel 3), the FCC decided to reduce those mileages, to 150 and 75, respectively.

According to reports, the Detroit stations experienced interference within two miles of their broadcasting center, thanks to Cleveland.

This caused the FCC to panic. Even though it was obvious -- at least to the engineers, who had apparently resigned themselves to never being listened to again -- what had caused the malfunctions in TV stationing, the FCC decided to halt the approval of all new TV stations until the matter was cleared up.

Because the FCC was a government agency, that took four years.

In April of 1952, the FCC finally lifted the "freeze" on new TV stations; the committee also decided to allow for UHF broadcasting, opening some markets as exclusively UHF while supplementing already-existing markets with established VHF stations, with a mix of UHF stations to complement them.

Unfortunately, the networks that had a toehold in the most desirable urban markets when the freeze had begun (NBC, CBS, occasionally ABC) had turned those into chokeholds on the markets most likely to sustain competition, like New York, Chicago and L.A. They held unmitigated dominance in those urban markets the entire four years, and with most markets only able to sustain two TV stations, NBC and CBS in particular had locked down most of the country in a duopoly that lasted through the 50s.

In addition, consumer demand for TVs -- in the postwar era that gave us the consumer culture we dwell in so fondly today, when disposable income demanded to be disposed of -- had increased exponentially, and in the absence of already-established UHF stations, those buyers were buying VHF receivers. UHF stations were doomed from the get-go in mixed markets, and they wouldn't recover as competitors until the All Channels Act of 1961.

All of this contributed to the downfall of early TV's ill-fated, fourth major network, DuMont, in 1956. Of the markets open at the beginning of the FCC freeze, only about 11 could sustain three major networks, ABC being the third, and only two or three markets could sustain four networks. DuMont had no choice but to expand into the financially ridiculous ultra-high frequencies after the freeze, and the network went down along with countless independent stations.

In other words, the FCC, spawned itself by a two-party system, inadvertently stamped out competition at just the right time in network TV history to practically guarantee we'd be limited to two or three major networks. (And ABC saved itself from certain doom only thanks to some fancy footwork poo-poo'ed by contemporary critics in the late 50's.)

It wasn't until cable began in the 1970s that all was right in the world once more.

It's not so bad, though; you should hear what the same FCC did to FM radio.

I'd tell you, but it would keep you up at night with the sheer stupidity.

Local Trivia: ...in a land of broken wings...

Observed on car license plate in Berlin, CT: "MRMR"

PSA: VHF, UHF and the FCC

Alright. Here's my first post in a series of lectures on stuff I've been forced to learn about early TV...in fact, I might call the series by that name, just so you're properly warned when one's coming.

Before it went into bankruptcy ten years after Robert "Bobby" Sarning left as president, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was the big pig in electronics. Bobby's father, David, known as "the General" in scholarship about his influence in RCA, had been at the helm of RCA when it more or less invented the concept of networks -- radio networks on AM channels, since this was 1926.

RCA had government contracts through the 1960s thanks to the General's focus on beating competitors in electronics -- including an ill-fated attempt to oust IBM in the early 60s -- and had started the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC...yes, that NBC) out of the desire to educate and, heck, to make profits while they were at it.

This is all background for the fact that RCA owned most of the patents that functioned in TV on VHF (very high frequency) when the FCC began to decide whether to set standards for television before it followed in the footsteps of radio as a broadcast medium and went public.

What patents RCA didn't own, it purchased the rights to from Philo Farnsworth after a legal battle in which RCA claimed to have already patented the technology Farnsworth had invented and patented (which it hadn't). RCA essentially had a monopoly on television equipment that received VHF signals at that point.

CBS, which had a "friendly rivalry" going with NBC on radio, also had plans for television. Because of RCA's monopoly on VHF, CBS worked on developing technologies for UHF (ultra high frequency), which would also allow for color, since the ultra high frequencies would be able to support the broadcast broader signals, and could potentially be higher quality than the VHF receivers RCA was already selling.

But the FCC had not ruled on specifications, instead opting for a wishy-washy statement saying they hoped that the fledgling television industry would be able to turn a profit while still doing the R&D necessary to make increasingly better TVs. RCA interpreted the wishi-washiness as weakness and began to sell TVs with force. By the time the FCC made a serious attempt to curb the sales, RCA claimed that so many TV sets had been sold that if the technology was changed, the obsolescence experienced by consumers would be prohibitive, even though only about half a million television sets were in use at that point, in only a few major city markets.

Thus, RCA had a monopoly on television set sales until the early to mid 1950s, and CBS's plans for UHF and color TV were stymied by RCA's corporate machinations.

More on corporate monopolies and the network system in future "Stuff I've Been Forced to Learn About Early TV."

Local Trivia: Hartford AM radio

In all my peregrinations through Variety microfilm, I found several references to a man named Paul Morency from Hartford, CT, who stood up for himself as an AM station-runner in 1951 -- for himself and many other stations around the country.

Morency apparently stood up for freedom of speech on radio when the government declared that "the first ammendment...does not apply to facilities which operate under a government license" (such as radio and television, which are assigned broadcast rights and channels, etc.) a few years before our fave Wisconsin junior senator started holding hearings on TV, on things like whether the Army was Communist or not. (It was.)

Morency was basically the Edward Murrow of the airwaves, but without all the "good night, and good luck"-ing. Also, apparently "editorializing" was already banned at his station, WTIC.

Ah, the good old days. Life is so much simpler now...(when everything on the radio is editorializing, and the FCC sticks to censoring bad words and body parts).

Read all about his claims in 1949: "Radio Edit Freedom Fake, Says Morency."

PSA: Obama tax credits

Apparently, a lot of people are having trouble with their taxes.

Lucky for me, two weekends ago, when I didn't realize that I had another Museum Ed paper due, or that my Queer Studies annotated bibliography and abstract were coming up so soon, and when -- good Lord -- I had no idea how much work "Dangerous Assignment" would be, I already did my taxes.

I took the education credit for Lifelong Learning, and I got away clean and free -- totally taxless.

Thanks, Obama. I knew all those "he'll tax us to death!"-ers were just h8rs.

PSA: On why I never write, never call.

Well, allz, I'm sorry I've been away from CU so long. The problem is that I haven't thought anything funny in two weeks.

In part, the funniness has been sucked from my brain because I've been working on my "Dangerous Assignment" project, and some other projects.

If I get a chance, I'll post an account of everything I know about "Dangerous Assignment" -- making you experts as well. (And allowing me to work out how to write a publishable article about it.)

You can look forward to it...or dread it.

Readers' choice.

PSA: Startling conversation in the marketplace -- though I guess we are a consumer-democratic nation.

Here's something I found while looking over the Amazon review of my pastor's most recent and only book (about which I have no opinion, having not [yet] read it): A conversation about what to do if your child declares herself an atheist.

Interesting, but exhausting stuff.

New word: Music-cool

adj. a person or media presentation (i.e. movie, TV show, powerpoint presentation) that displays a musical knowledge and comprehension of songs and artists that are just about to "break out," especially in the cutting-edge genre of its time (i.e. grunge rock in early 90s; indie pop/rock in the late 00s); music-cool people can lay claim to "discovering" at least one group in said genre before anyone they know, and evangelizing said group to others.

PSA: Grey's Anatomy will make you music-cool.

I've been rewatching Grey's Anatomy, which I used to view as "appointment television" with my roommates in DC three and four years ago, recently. I've had a significantly different reaction to the show the second time around.

For one thing, watching all the episodes in a row without commercials makes me feel less annoyed at Meredith Grey, who, unlike her predecessing whiny sisters (think Ally McBeal and Grace from Will and Grace), actually has a lot of trauma in her life, stuff that justifies the whining.

For another, since 2006, I've become infinitely more music-cool. And it turns out that Grey's Anatomy has been music-cool all along. Admittedly, some of the indie music they play is still middling -- Snow Patrol is addictive, but more like crack than wheat crackers and hummus; Bird and the Bee have that one awesome song, but the rest seem just okay -- but when in the middle of season 4 I said to myself "well, they haven't played The National yet," they did...and a song that I wouldn't really have expected -- a kind of obscure, appropriate song.

The show has its share of treacle, but then so does the indie music scene (see again: Snow Patrol).

Now I'm waiting for Animal Collective and Matt & Kim. They're probably in there somewhere in season 5, or about to go up in season 6.