Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A visit to Pepsi.com

There’s probably no consumer product I’ve consumed more of in my life than Pepsi-Cola. For at least the last 40 years, it’s been my everyday drink of choice – preferred over water, over beer, over tea and over coffee. Especially preferred over ice, with a straw, in a tall frosty glass. A quick calculation shows that I’ve probably spent close to $10,000 on the corn-syrup-infused soft drink over the years. I’ve downed 438,000 ounces, which amounts to over 5 million calories, which adds up to about 5,000 pounds of added bulk, roughly the weight of a modern supertanker. It also means I’ve consumed more than a million milligrams of sodium – enough to build my own salt mine.

My love affair with Pepsi began as a youth in the 1960s. It was the ultimate treat my parents could get me at the end of the day. I occasionally strayed to other brands of cola, specifically RC Cola which at the time was the only drink to come in a 16-ounce bottle. Like many, I experimented during college, trying now-defunct brands such as Jamaica Cola, Chek Cola and the poorly-conceived Ebola Cola. Pepsi’s arch-enemy, whose name I shall not allow my fingers to type, is my choice only when there’s no other choice.

There’s nothing quite like that feeling you get after about the fourth or fifth gulp, when the carbonation in your gut reaches critical mass and that gentle eruption of flavor flows back into your sinuses and, if you’re lucky, stops there. It’s “the taste that beats the others cold” and “the choice of a new generation,” to quote slogans the company has used since its creation in the nineteenth century. I’ve got a lot to live, and Pepsi’s got a lot to give. Let’s see what some of that is by visiting the pepsi.com website.

The first inclination for any consumer visiting this site, after considering the home page request to make suggestions to our new president about how to Help Refresh America (I think I can guess at least one), is to find out what it is that makes Pepsi so tasty. I know there’s water and I suspect there’s sugar, but what else gives it that special bite? Well, there’s caramel color, phosphoric acid, caffeine, sodium benzoate, potassium, citric acid and “natural flavors.” I know what caffeine is, I imagine citric acid comes from fruit, and I read somewhere that phosphorous can make you glow, all of which are good things. And who can dispute the wholesomeness of natural flavors? I can practically taste the dirt in a freshly opened can of soda.

In the “yesterday and today” section, we learn that Pepsi was invented in 1898 by Caleb Bradham and was originally called “Brad’s Drink,” a clever name that survived for days. It was created, Bradham said, to aid digestion. He said it tasted good and was good for you, unlike certain other colas I could name who bred a generation of cocaine fiends. We see a whirlwind of Pepsi logos circling the computer screen and eating up display memory before being shown the new container design. This is introduced with inspired words we could just as easily have heard during President Obama’s inaugural address: “We’re looking forward without losing sight of our past. We celebrate tomorrow, but honor yesterday. Today, we introduce the new face of our future.” Be assured, however, that “the taste remains the same” and only the marketing campaign changes.

Wandering around the site a little more, I see a part that issues “false rumor alerts,” where the company gets a chance to address concerns that the drink is made from the liquefied remains of slaughtered Amazon natives (completely untrue). The only entry here is a rather benign story about a patriotic can Pepsi allegedly produced with an edited version of the Pledge of Allegiance. Creating a patriotic can hardly seems scandalous; I can only assume that the abridged Pledge was the point of concern, maybe something about the “Republic of Richard Stanz” preparing for an attack on the American homeland.

We also see the obligatory corporate interest in protecting the environment in the form of the Pepsi Eco Challenge. I thought this might be a specific effort to restore balance to the biosphere – maybe planting a new tree for every plastic bottle cap that’s properly disposed of. Instead, it’s some vague “New Pepsi Challenge,” designed to recreate the excitement of that time the company dared consumers to choose among competing cola brands. “Today we heed a different call and face a different challenge, one that cuts across brands, companies, industries, even continents – the challenge of environmental stewardship, protecting our planet’s resources for generations to come.” I expected perhaps a call to pursue renewable stores of potassium or an end to our nation’s reliance on unfriendly suppliers of benzoate, but couldn’t find it.

It was fun to view the company’s current TV ad campaign, the “Pepsi Pass,” in which every generation is shown refreshing the world. We see Pepsi first being served at an old-time soda fountain, then the drink is successively passed to a 1920s flapper, soldiers celebrating the end of World War II, teenage drag-racers, hippies, a streaker, disco dancers, break dancers, Germans tearing down the Berlin Wall, and finally modern concert-goers. Most historians credit the pressure of Ronald Reagan’s military build-up in combination with decades of economic stagnation for the collapse of the Eastern bloc. As a loyal Pepsi drinker, I’m glad to see the truth finally told: the gassy fullness caused by drinking too much requires you to vigorously move around to get relief, and the Germans chose to get their exercise by dismantling the symbol of communism.

Finally, I did a quick review of all the current Pepsi products on the market. I barely survived the emotional roller coaster that was the rise and fall of Crystal Pepsi in the 1990s, so I was glad to see that the diversification of my favorite soft drink is still robust. We now have regular Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Caffeine-Free Pepsi, Diet Caffeine-Free Pepsi, Pepsi Max (with extra caffiene), Diet Pepsi Max, Pepsi One (with one calorie, for those who can’t stand zero-calorie drinks) and an orchard of fruit-flavored Pepsi’s, including cherry, lime, vanilla, cherry and vanilla, and caramel cream. It’s only a matter of time until we see Pepsi with Chicken Broth and Green Pepsi, with broccoli, kale, cabbage and algae.

I’m sure they’ll be wonderful. I plan to drink many thousands and thousands of ounces.

More celebs to rewrite history

Film actor Tom Cruise revealed last week that he had a childhood dream of killing Adolph Hitler. While on a world tour promoting his new movie “Valkyrie,” Cruise told reporters he regretted that time travel was not available for him to show up in 1930’s Europe and personally take out the Nazi leader responsible for the deaths of millions.

“I always wanted to kill Hitler, I hated him,” Cruise, 46, said. “As a child studying history and looking at documents, I wondered, ‘why didn’t someone stand up and try to stop it?’”

News of the Hollywood star’s desire to transcend the laws of time and space in an effort to preemptively remove the brutal German tyrant represented a new high-water mark among celebrity do-gooders. No longer content to adopt Third World children and raise funds to fight disease, today’s idols won’t limit themselves to what’s physically possible as they aspire to help humankind and promote their vanity projects.

Here’s a look at what other kinds of murderous retro-vengeance are on the minds and lips of the stars:

Kirsten Dunst: “When I was a very young girl, probably not more than two or three years old, I harbored a desire to kill (Hall of Fame Detroit Tiger) Ty Cobb. He was a very racist, very mean man. He may have held the all-time base-stealing record for decades, but he did it with a cleats-up style that injured many a second baseman. I really, really hated him.”

Bruce Willis: “I’ve always had a very strong distaste for the Chinese Cultural Revolution that led to the deaths of uncounted thousands. I’m not saying I’d want to kill (then-Chinese leader) Mao Tse-Tung because he did some good things to fight the Japanese during World War II. I’d just like to have been on hand to advise him against some of the more heavy-handed aspects of his efforts to overhaul his society.”

Marg Helgenberger: “Given half the chance, I’d put fifteenth president James Buchanan on my hit list. He did virtually nothing to head off what everyone could tell was going to become all-out civil war, plus he was our only bachelor president. He was a real bungler, and we’d all be better off today if his sorry ass had been eliminated before his 1856 election.”

Carson Daly: “For me, it kind of depends on how far back in time I could go. If there was no limit, I’d want to kill Alexander the Great. His reputation, as the nickname implies, is that he was an enormous political and military talent. Though he did bring Western culture as far east as India, he was very pushy about it, killing many tens of thousands of innocent people. If, however, I’m limited to just the last century or so, I’d kill (Russian tyrant) Josef Stalin.”

Philip Seymour Hoffman: “Rather than bring physical harm to flawed-but-human creatures, I’d go back to 1935 to prevent so much devastation from the Labor Day hurricane that ravaged the Florida Keys. I’m not naïve enough to think I could’ve prevented formation of the storm, but I do think I could use my histrionic acting style to warn many hundreds of residents to move to higher ground.”

Meryl Streep: “I’d kill Vlad the Impaler and I’d do it with my bare hands. Even though he was the basis for the great dramatic character of Dracula, that whole impaling thing just rubs me the wrong way.”

Roger Moore: “I’d kill Ivan the Terrible. He was just terrible – what more can you say?”

Rene Russo: “I’m not sure I’d go so far as to kill him (Oliver Cromwell), but I’d definitely do something to seriously hamper his more vicious tendencies. While I sympathize with his anti-royalist tendencies, there were more constructive ways to achieve the ascent of the Parliamentarians without all the fighting and executions.”

Dennis Quaid: “I’d kill either (Roman emperors) Caligula or Nero, I’m not sure which. Caligula was mad, so I guess you could say he had something of a medical excuse for his virtual ruin of Rome. Nero, though, you know he fiddled while Rome burned. That’s very un-cool.”

Orlando Bloom: “There’s not one individual I could name, because I was never very good at history, but I’d definitely want to do something to prevent the Spanish Inquisition. I’m a big believer in freedom of religion, so you can imagine how I feel about the idea of Catholics burning alleged heretics alive. By the way, watch for the upcoming release of my film ‘Elizabethtown,’ coming to DVD on January 31.”

John Mayer: “I know Tom Cruise is already taking care of Hitler, so I’d say I’d want to kill (Italian fascist) Benito Mussolini. He would’ve been as bad as Hitler if he had the skills, but things just didn’t quite work out for him.”

Osama bin Laden: “I’d go back in time to kill the mother and father of Mike Meyers. That ‘Love Guru’ movie absolutely sucked.”

Thoughts on death and dying

I’ve been thinking lately about death and dying, and there are a few things I don’t like about it.

Obituaries, for one. I find myself being drawn to reading the obituaries in the local paper, since I’m more likely to find people I know hanging out on that page than in sections like sports, weddings or commodities futures. As my young son used to observe as we’d drive past a cemetery – “that’s where the dead people live” – I think it’s time for us to take a fresh look at the concept of death notices.

Currently we get to read all about how old people were, who some of their survivors were, and which email address condolences can be sent to. We’re told that they “passed,” “departed this life,” “were funeralized” or “went to be with [their] Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” but are given few other details. Sure, some notices may say that the departed passed “peacefully but unexpectedly” or “after a courageous fight.” That doesn’t really tell us enough. What we don’t get to hear, unless we’re good at reading between the lines, is what everyone really wants to know – the cause of death. If, in lieu of flowers, mourners are asked to make a donation to the National Skydiving Association, there’s a decent chance that the dead guy fell 10,000 feet out of an airplane. If they were employed by Johnson’s Crushing and Hacking, Inc., it’s a fairly safe bet they were killed in an industrial accident.

I think it’s a shame that the dead and their family members have to be ashamed of the way in which they left this earth for realms unknown. We have a much better understanding these days of what’s involved in the cessation of bodily functions, and it’s usually not anything to be particularly embarrassed about. My face might be red (before turning ashen) if it’s reported that I died trying to hold down a mattress in the back of a speeding pickup truck before the mattress became airborne. But at least everyone would know I was the kind of guy to help move a friend to his new apartment.

Then there’s the issue of what to do if your passing is going to take a while. No one wants to die of a lingering, painful illness, though I can’t say for sure I’d prefer the quick and easy death involved in a head-on train impact. You hear people saying they don’t want to spend their last days lying in a hospital bed hooked up to all manner of mechanical intervention to keep them alive. “I’d rather be home with my family,” they say, conveniently forgetting the smell of the cat box, the annoying telephone solicitations and how far ten steps to the bathroom seems when you’re no longer the most continent person in the home.

Before I’m discharged to my cluttered, dusty bedroom, I’d want to know more about which particular machines I’d be hooked up to if I stayed in the hospital. Might there be morphine involved? High-definition satellite television? The ability to pee without having to get out of bed? Talk about being treated and released. I’d be tempted to sign up for that now if I didn’t have to start paying for four years of college education this fall.

Speaking of early enrollment, I read a science fiction story once where members of the aging population were given the opportunity to end their lives sooner rather than later in return for a cash reward, a fabulous vacation and a pain-free passing. The short-term expense to society would be offset by the decades in which the fading individual was not eating their meals on wheels and using up other social services that might be better dedicated to those who could chase down their own food. I think this proposal should be given serious consideration. Put me down for spending a week in a hot tub on cruise ship eating prime rib with Anne Hathaway.

There’s one important consideration to reconcile before this can become a workable public policy: how you would create the least difficult death. Humanity has had a long history of failing to figure out the easiest way to go, if you can use execution methods as any example. The intentionally cruel attempts of ancient peoples – stoning, crucifixion, being fed to whatever wildlife was handy and hungry – gave way in recent centuries to progressively more user-friendly methods. The guillotine, gallows, electric chair and lethal injection were all thought at one time or another to be humane choices, though I don’t think any are quite my cup of poisoned tea. I think more research is needed to figure the fastest way out, and might I suggest the cast of the movie “Twilight” as possible volunteers in this study.

Finally, there’s the question of the afterlife. Most organized religions regard self-destruction as a sin, probably because it can make such a serious dent in their membership rolls. If you get to the other side legitimately and have lived a relatively good life, most creeds will give you a pass to a magnificent paradise featuring angels, harps, virgins, clouds, cows, gods with lots of extra arms, and all your dead relatives, though presumably the grumpy ones will have found other accommodations. If you’ve sinned or, in the Southern Baptist tradition, done a disco dance, you instead are consigned to a hell that will likely include at least one Bee Gee as well as a lot of other horrible stuff.

I honestly don’t know what waits for me in the Great Beyond. My best guess is that it’s eons and eons of nothingness, kind of like what the A&E channel has become. It’s only because we have such difficulty imagining what that void would feel like that we’ve come up with all these elaborate afterlife scenarios. Since they can’t all have it right, and because I hesitate to cast my lot with a randomly chosen sect (with my luck I’d get Zoroastrianism, which preaches a final purgation of evil from the Earth through a tidal wave of molten metal — ouch!), I prefer to think that you get whatever it is you believed in while you were alive.

And for me, that’s where Anne Hathaway comes in again.

In appreciation of the breakroom

When he grows weary of his heavy labor and seeks a few moments of rest and reflection, the American worker is able to turn to a quiet refuge of solitude where he charges his batteries before re-entering the global economy with renewed vigor. These are the hallowed halls of the corporate breakroom.

The origins of the breakroom may be lost in the mists of time, but we can imagine how ancient hunter-gatherers might take a few moments from their huntering-gathering to rest under a sprawling fruit tree. With the modern marvel known as the vending machine still eons in the future, they had no coin slots that would lead them to refreshment. Instead, they’d nudge the trunk of the tree with their brawny shoulders and hope that an apple or pear might fall at their feet. As is the case for us, their modern cousins, sometimes it did and sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes, instead of fruit they’d get a bird’s egg or a dead raccoon. What are you gonna do?

As societies moved to an agrarian and eventually an industrial economy, the breakroom evolved with the times. In the sweatshops of eighteenth-century England, the 14 hours of toil spent every day tending the steam-powered orphan press would be broken into manageable chunks by the occasional moments spent chained by your overseer in a quiet corner for trying to steal some steam. The apples of yesteryear and the SunChips of tomorrow may have been replaced by badger-sized rats, yet still it was good to catch your breath.

Today, we have advantages and comforts unimagined by our forefathers. As an example I’m familiar with, I’ll describe the breakroom at the office where I work.

The room is painted a shade of ecru/tan/beige/off-white that is the closest thing possible in the visible spectrum to no color at all. I’m not sure of the room’s dimensions, but if people were laid end-to-end on the floor (which only happens during third shift), I’d imagine it’s roughly twenty by forty feet. There are maybe eight or ten nondescript grey tables each surrounded by a random mix of plastic and cloth-covered chairs.

However, it’s what’s around the edges of this quiet corner of the corporate world that draws in the tired workers of both the office and the warehouse. Primarily, there are the vending machines: one that contains mostly snack foods such as candy, cookies and chips; one that was intended to hold actual meals of sandwiches and salads but now offers only instant oatmeal, cup-o-soup and plastic orange juice containers with some type of dark sludge in the bottom; and one each for Coke and Pepsi products, still sadly segregated in these otherwise diverse times. You can tell all the machines host a lot of traffic by the sticky notes affixed to their fronts, bearing messages like “you owe Jane in accounting 85 cents” and “I found a roach in my Snickers!!!”

Almost as important as the vending machines are the appliances used to make their products more palatable. We have two microwave ovens, one splattered with hardened sweet residues and the other with savories, so your cooking won’t be too badly mis-flavored if you choose the right one. There’s a toaster oven that neither toasts nor ovens, though it will provide a measure of warmth to your food. There’s an ice machine where you can immerse your hands when they get tired of typing (at least that’s what I think it’s for). There’s a refrigerator for those who choose to bring their meals from home, as long as they heed the warning sign on the door: “Absolutely no pizza boxes or two-liter bottles – they WILL be thrown away.” We used to have a coffeemaker but the warehouse people ruined it for everybody by using up all the artificial creamer and never replacing it, the jerks.

As for entertainment, besides watching people bang their fists on the vending machines, there’s a television perched in one corner with its endless loop of Headline News. We also have a bookshelf generously stocked with a surprising variety of paperbacks and magazines that makes it appear we’re a more literate crowd than we actually are. There’s a single window that looks out onto the parking lot, a clock with hands that make a 360-degree circuit every hour, and those intriguing walls I mentioned earlier. Those last three features draw as much attention as the more stimulating options the later it gets in the day; people working on overtime seem to have an especially keen interest in the walls.

Finally, I’ll mention the internal communications centers of the room, a couple of bulletin boards. One of these contains information being communicated by management about health, legal and other employment-related issues, as well as copies of recent emails sent out by headquarters, including the one explaining how we can afford to buy a company in Brazil but no employee hams for the holidays. The other board is a forum for people wanting to get messages out to their fellow workers. There are a few rules – nothing allowed that promotes commercial or for-profit enterprises, all postings must be approved by site management, they can be up for only ten days before being removed – but otherwise it’s the kind of wide-open space that our brave patriot ancestors earned for us when freedom of speech was first established in this country. When I checked the board yesterday, it showed a newspaper clipping of a record catfish catch, an article about how much trouble you can get in if you tell the health insurance people you don’t smoke but you really do, advice to wipe down all surfaces during cold and flu season and, inexplicably, a large map of the United States. (I think it fell out of one of the National Geographic magazines.)

It’s a warm and welcoming place where we while away our 15 minutes of paid break time twice a day. While it may not be for everyone – like the people who choose to sit in their cars or the coworker I discovered doing some bizarre exercise routine in the darkened training room next door – it can be a special “happy place” for those who need a break.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Impressions on an historic day

Observations on yesterday’s historic events:

--My suburb of Charlotte, NC, was slammed by two inches of snow Tuesday, grinding everyday life to a complete halt. Transportation was paralyzed, schools were closed and people stayed home from work to eat French toast, made with all the eggs, bread and milk they’d purchased the previous night. Life slowly returned to normal later in the day when all the car accidents that could possibly happen did happen. In other news, the U.S. inaugurated its first African-American president, beginning an era of hope and promise not seen in decades.

--When Chief Justice John Roberts bungled the first few lines of the presidential oath of office, I got the sneaking suspicion that he was laying the foundation for a constitutional challenge that Barack Obama was not in fact president because he didn’t say exactly the right words. What Roberts should have prompted was “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the president,” but instead he came out with “I do slovenly swear that I will facetiously execute the president of the office.” Fortunately, Obama saw what Robbie was up to and managed to recite the correct wording.

--In an attempt to capture every possible camera angle, the networks at one point were focusing their cameras through the bullet-proof glass and onto the front line of dignitaries right before the oath was delivered at noon. An astute reporter observed that the giant foreheads seen on the distinguished guests were a “funhouse mirror reflection” and not actual giant alien foreheads.

--I noticed that 10-year-old Malia Obama was fiddling with some kind of electronic device while waiting for her father’s big moment. TV commentators claimed it was a camera, but I got the distinct impression that she was texting her friends. I can only imagine the message that a pre-teen girl might send in the midst of so much attention being paid to her and her family: “OMG – my dad is becoming president – I’m so embarrassed!!!”

--I was not particularly impressed with the invocation delivered by controversial preacher Rick Warren. He managed to avoid the verb “smite” while talking about the diversity of America, but still snuck in a few ingratiating references to his own personal savior, while giving only passing acknowledgment to everybody else’s. Then, for the last quarter of the recitation, he had the nerve to sample from the Lord’s Prayer. What is he, some kind of DJ Saddleback? I just hope he’s made to pay royalties to whomever it is who owns the rights to that “Our Father, who art in heaven” lyric.

--I thought it was very sad when the Obamas had to get out of their GM-produced megamobile during the parade and begin walking because the vehicle couldn’t get above 2 mph. This was the Big Three’s opportunity for some impressive grill time before a huge national audience, and the giant Escalade broke down at least twice on the route. They were able to get it re-started both times and finally ended up at the reviewing stand in time to watch the rest of the parade.

--During some of the postgame analysis on CNN, Democratic strategist and Louisiana native Donna Brazille talked about how great it was to be so close to the historic event up on the main stage. She said she ran into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at one point and, in the spirit of bipartisanship, resisted what had to be an overwhelming temptation to punch him in the mouth. Instead, she reportedly told the Savannah-raised justice, “Georgia in da house, Louisiana in da house.” Responding with classic Thomasonian wit, the soft-spoken arch-conservative responded, “duh?”

--It was high noon, the historic moment was at hand, and inauguration coordinator Senator Dianne Feinstein takes the stage to introduce … an overhead backup band? Their set was mercifully short, just long enough for me to make a quick trip to the restroom before the presidential oath. They were just finishing when I got back, so I may not have the band lineup exactly right, but I think I know at least a few of them – cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Billy Joel and saxophonist Kenny G were immediately recognizable. It was only the tambourine player that I didn’t recognize.

--Dick Cheney made his final appearance as sitting vice president literally sitting, in a wheelchair. He couldn’t have been happy with how diabolical that made him look. Reportedly, he suffered a back sprain while helping move furniture out of his office the day before (that man-sized safe isn’t going to move itself, you know). I’ve been through similar back pain myself, and I can tell you that sitting down is not the position you want to assume. When I had my most recent spell of back spasms, I wanted to either stand up straight or lay flat the whole time; any bending at the waist was extremely painful. I guess they couldn’t wheel him into the proceedings on a stretcher, since that would make it too hard to see unless he had one of those iron-lung mirrors you see in old movies. I suppose they could’ve slanted the gurney to a 45-degree angle so he might get an actual view. That was probably vetoed, however, when they realized how much it would look like he was doing a shout-out to waterboarding.

--Since I had to watch the proceedings from the office, I had to rely on the magnificent architecture of the worldwide web to get my live feed, and things were not going well. I went to several sites I would’ve thought reliable – CNN, CBS, ABC, MSN, even, in desperation, Fox – and all of them said I could “click here for live video.” I’d click there and nothing would happen except for a circular graphic rotation. I could understand why CNN’s wasn’t working; they had to use up half their bandwidth to include inane but real-time comments from their Facebook connection (Allegra Bischoff is thinking Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann are total foxes; Reza Gulastani is thinking I love everybody, God loves everybody, I think I need to study now). I finally got a site up and running just as Obama was stepping up to the podium for the main event, then … screen freeze. I rushed into the breakroom and was able to see the historic moment along with a group of African-, Asian- and Latino-Americans from our warehouse. When they broke into applause as the oath finished, it was a great moment.

Best of luck to all of us and to our new president.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Lives of the Dead: Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1483-1546), widely regarded as the father of the Protestant Reformation and a number of unintended babies, was a German theologian and religious reformer who challenged the supremacy of the Catholic Church. He also had a vast influence on European concepts of politics, economics, education, language and hair styling, with his now-familiar bowl cut making him one of the most crucial figures in modern European history.

He was born in Eisleben (later Hitlerville, and then back to Eisleben) in what today is Germany. His father, originally known as Hans Luder, had wanted to name his son “Lex” but was convinced by his wife to go with “Abraham Martin and John,” later shortened to simply Martin. The family was descended from peasantry, but Hans made a nice living for himself and his family as a copper miner and part-time fletcher/cooper (roughly equivalent to today’s writer/director). Martin received his early education at Magdeburg and Eisenach, before enrolling at the University of Erfurt at age 17. Red-shirted during his freshman season, he became an outstanding left tackle for the Fightin’ Furter football team by the time he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1502. He passed on an opportunity for a pro career -- he was projected as high as the eighth round by some scouts -- and chose to stay in school to pursue his master’s, which he received in 1505.

He began to study law, as his father wished, but didn’t have enough credits to graduate so he fell back on his undergraduate major – monking -- and entered the Augustinian monastery. Within a year, he had so impressed his superiors that he was selected for the priesthood, ordained, and conducted his first celebration of mass. (“Celebration” might be overstating the case, as he kept stumbling over the unfamiliar phrasing, once mispronouncing “Madonna” as “My donut.”) He continued his studies in theology, including multiple re-takes of basic Latin, until he got his big chance to go to Rome and check out how Catholicism was done in the big city.

To put it mildly, he was not impressed. In fact, he was shocked by the worldliness of the Roman clergy, especially the way they had substituted vodka shots for wine in the communions they conducted. This led him to question other basic tenets of church, and he gradually came to believe that Christians were saved not through their own efforts but instead by God’s grace. The church leadership was making a tidy fortune off the sale of indulgences, which were peddled to the peasants in the form of mugs, posters and t-shirts (“Rome Rules” was a common slogan for this merchandising). This crass effort disgusted Luther to the point where he suffered from nearly constant vomiting, though scholars recently discovered a sixteenth-century Domino’s menu that led them to believe that salmonella-tainted pizza may have been a contributing factor.

Luther finally emerged into worldwide prominence when in 1517 he was named Holy Roman Empire Today’s “Most Pious Man Alive” and became known for some graffiti he had scrawled on the door of All Saints Church in Wittenburg. This posting of the so-called Ninety-five Theses has been greatly misunderstood by historians and only recently was clarified when the old door itself was located at a garage sale in East St. Louis, Missouri. It was long believed that Luther wrote the theses before-hand and then nailed them to the cathedral door as a sign of protest and to show his growing prowess as a construction worker. In reality, Luther wrote the seminal document on-site, meticulously painting it onto the oak with a fine single-haired brush. What bothered the church elders more than what the manuscript said was the fact that he was always in the way, blocking the main entrance almost constantly during the three weeks it took him to finish. Most of the demands were not that unreasonable – for example, he wrote of the need for sturdier pews to “accommodate the ample Germanic hind.” He also wanted Wednesday night services moved to Tuesday because most members couldn’t TiVo floggings in the public square like the wealthy clergy could, and he wanted the liturgy conducted in native languages because Latin “sounds too much like they’re just making it up as they go along.”

He made it all the way through the next-to-last thesis (“94. Enough with the incense already, it’s giving everybody a headache”) with church officials only mildly curious about the progress of the bowl-headed scribe. On the morning of his final day of work, he began writing the last entry as a crowd of onlookers grew around him. “The pope is not ni…” he began. The throng began buzzing with anticipation. The pope is not what? Nitrogen-based? Nihilistic? Luther slowly added a “c”. Nicene? Nickel-plated? Then he added an “e”. “Don’t get upset everybody – it could still be ‘Nicene,’” shouted one observer, trying to quell the growing distress of the crowd. Then Luther added the punctuation mark that would change European history forever, a period. “The pope is not nice.” The multitude gasped, but soon dispersed when they heard a beheading was being set up across the street.

The Roman Curia, which is kind of like a Senate subcommittee only crankier, began an investigation that eventually led to the condemnation of Luther’s teachings in 1520 and his excommunication a year later. He was summoned to appear before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms and asked to recant. His famous assertion of conscience in the face of certain punishment – “No Can Do!” – is most likely legendary, but still he was spirited away by Prince Frederick the Wise who kept him in virtual house arrest at his castle.

Luther was able to continue much of his other life work, though it paled in comparison to royally pissing off the entire Catholic Church. He made a little money doing some free-lance translations and sticking his nose into the Peasants’ War of 1524-1526, where he supported the peasants’ political demands while repudiating their theological arguments, a fine distinction that was lost on all the people who had swords. He married a former nun, a widely acknowledged hottie by the name of Katharina von Bora, and continued his writing as his influence spread across northern and eastern Europe.

By the late 1530’s, his health began to deteriorate and he took on an anti-Semitic bent by accusing the Jews of exploiting the confusion he had caused among Christians. This made him virtually unable to locate a decent doctor, and he died on Feb. 18, 1546. His obituary, printed several days later in the Eisleben Picayune-Examiner, included a long list of his works, an even longer list of his children, and the name of his new religion: Martinism, which was later changed to Luthermania, then Lutheranism.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

This...is...CNN.com

This … is … C … N … N.

So intoned the Lord our God, in his only commercial spokesperson role, some 40 years ago when the Cable News Network premiered. I was an early adopter of the cable news format when it was first made available in the 1970s, and have been a fan of its derivative networks since then. I enjoyed watching Braves baseball, Turner Classic Movies and the unchanging drumbeat of Headline News (now rechristened HLN) repeating the same stories over and over and over. I got a vicarious kick out of Ted Turner’s unsuccessful mergers, with both Jane Fonda and Time Warner. I’ve even taken the tour at the Atlanta headquarters, ascending the world’s tallest escalator to end up in a tiny room where they explain how the weather people can’t even see what they’re pointing at as they wave their arms in front of a green screen. Amazing!

Having seen the bricks and mortar of the operation, I was eager to take a look the digital and the virtual in the form of the network’s website, CNN.com. As you might imagine, the home page is heavy on the headlines of breaking news. Thursday’s highlights included must-reads such as: “Rabid fox attacks dad, son,” “Man complains about Buddhas at zoo,” “Cow gas tax not happening,” “18th Porta-Potty set on fire” and “Iowan: Cold hurts, makes ‘skin burn.’” There’s also promotion of a feature about what’s on schoolchildren’s minds (“Make Iraq war go away”) and an offer to update your Facebook status while you watch the inauguration on CNN.com.

CNN is working hard – some might say a little too hard – to make itself relevant in the new-media landscape that potentially threatens its very foundation. In its efforts to involve viewers and make them more a part of the news operation, it’s giving Average Joes nearly equal footing with its staff of veteran journalists. While participation from the grassroots can offer a broader perspective on the events of the day, it can be distracting to those of us used to a little more professionalism.

Take the concept of the “iReport,” a user-generated site containing stories that are “not edited, fact-checked or screened.” Just the kind of reliable information source you want. One recent example went beyond news into the realm of opinion and policy-making, allowing an iReporter to offer his views on how to fix the most severe economic crisis of our time. Zennie Abraham, also known as “Zennie62,” offered his taxpayer stimulus package to CNN chief business correspondent Ali Velshi. Zennie’s plan calls for a $3,500 stimulus check to those making less than $100,000 a year, presumably including Zennie. Velshi said such a plan wasn’t targeted enough to work but Zennie defended his idea: “$3,500, particularly for college students and their parents, can help pay for their housing.” (Sounds like someone trying to afford first and last month’s rent so he can move out of his parents’ basement.) CNN’s Velshi, after hearing the explanation – and mindful perhaps of the network’s changing demographics – started to agree. “That could work,” he said lamely.

Another new feature a little too close to the cutting edge for my comfort is the Rick Sanchez Show, wherein Rick attempts to moderate a Twittering free-for-all that’s taking place in a strip across the bottom of his screen. He tries his best to turn submissions like “great rap, agree … disagree no matter … all good. gots to go to bed. will do again morrow” and “hey, why’s ur girlfriend gaining weight again. u making her too happy?” into relevant commentary on the topic at hand. He squirms so hard at some points that you fear he’s going to pull a muscle.

The website also includes details and extras about certain on-air personalities and the efforts they go to in making themselves more interesting. The “Today”-equivalent morning show on HLN is called “Morning Express with Robin Meade,” featuring a former beauty queen with a chatty manner, a smile as wide as Heath Ledger’s Joker, and the kind of extreme makeup required in today’s high-definition production. Robin hosts the Morning Express Challenge, a news quiz where both the first correct answer and a randomly drawn player win the same prize – an autographed picture of Robin – but both are enrolled in a chance to win the grand prize, a trip to Atlanta to meet Robin in person. We also see Robin posed in what looks like the open bay door of a helicopter, the smile wisely wiped from her face as she offers her “Salute to the Troops.” And, you can sign up for her daily email news preview, sent out early each morning in her signature lower-case style: “morning glory! let’s shake the sleepy out of you. this isn’t our top story, but i love this one: too much caffeine can make you hallucinate and see ghosts. okay, how much are we talking? more on that.” I actually subscribed to this service for a while, until I cancelled after realizing there’d be no pictures of Robin still in her baby-doll pajamas.

Other highlights around the site include pictures of hunky Surgeon General-designate Sanjay Gupta, promotions for the “News to You” show (a kind of “Best Week Ever” rip-off without the snark), and the obligatory nod to Nancy Grace’s all-consuming obsession with the Caylee Anthony case. I looked for something on CNN’s resident right-winger Glenn Beck, but he’s apparently left the company for a new and more welcoming home on Fox News. Either way, I’m glad to see network news offering a big enough tent to employ those afflicted with uncontrollable facial tics such as Glenn’s.

You can also sign up for CNN Mobile alerts, in case you want to be notified immediately via your cell phone should there be a warning about Vicks Vaporub or how “doctor [is] interested in seeing kids not kidney, lawyer says.” I tried to find out more about similar high-tech extras but crashed my PC twice when I tried to go to the Tools and Widgets section of the site.

All in all, it’s a respectable representation on the Web, almost deserving of the thunderous tones I quoted at the beginning of this post. If God is no longer in the promo business, maybe they can get James Earl Jones to splice a “… dot … com…” onto the audio for their site.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Post not available in stores

With the poor economy continuing to affect TV advertising revenue, you see more and more direct marketing commercials selling items that are “not available in stores.” These ads typically feature extremely agitated pitchmen, a toll-free order number, a price that’s typically $19.95, and tiny-font shipping and handling charges that run you another $12. If you order now you can get two, and don’t forget that these items are not available in stores, probably because the idea behind stores is that they offer products people actually want and need to buy.

It used to be that you only saw these commercials late at night, when you were so worried about how you’d deal with sudden urges to fish that you couldn’t sleep. And mercifully, there would be an ad for the “pocket fisherman.” Now you’re likely to see these kinds of spots any time of the day or night. An NPR report recently explained the trend: as traditional advertisers reduce their budgets, local stations make leftover air time available to these low-end buyers at drastically reduced rates. One ad buyer interviewed admitted he was a “bottom feeder,” which I think would be an excellent name for a product: Try the BottomFeeder! You’ll never need to buy bathroom tissue again!

A lot of the trailblazers in this industry have unfortunately been made archaic by modern technology. The Ginsu Knives, famous for cutting through a can, were so sharp and awkward to use that most of their purchasers accidentally slashed their wrists. The Medic Alert bracelet, for when you’ve fallen and can’t (or simply don’t want to) get up, was antiquated by the cell phone. The Clapper, which allowed you to turn stuff on from across the room, was discontinued when seniors began using the Segway to travel effortlessly about their homes from light switch to light switch.

One of the promoters currently most in demand for these frenetic spiels is a bearded, raspy-voiced fellow named Billy Mays. Son of baseball’s Willie Mays, who roamed centerfield for the San Francisco Giants for over two decades on his way to 12 Golden Gloves and the Hall of Fame, Billy wanted to get out from the shadow of his famous father. His big break came in the ‘90s when he was selected to be spokesman for the Bedazzler, a tool that embedded plastic gems into jackets, jeans and that household pet desperately in need of a makeover. He later sold items like OxiClean, the Mantis Tiller and Miracle Whip (I can’t remember ever seeing him hawk the well-known dessert topping, so I can only guess this product was instead some kind of domination device).

Described by The Washington Post as having a “signature yelling approach” and being “known for screaming in lieu of talking during infomercials … a full-volume pitchman, amped up like a candidate for a tranquilizer-gun takedown,” Mays was last seen branching out into the service economy. He was recently named the new voice of iCan Benefit Group, “the first company offering health insurance Billy Mays has been excited to endorse.” (He’s endorsed many other insurance plans, but steadfastly refused to be excited by them until now.) I anticipate a not-too-distant future in which Billy sells everything from mutual funds to cremation services in his classic manic shriek.

Mays is not affiliated with the infomercial product that most recently has been all over the airwaves — I mentioned him mainly because I wanted to see how many readers would buy the Willie Mays connection. I’m talking here about the “Loud and Clear” sound-amplifying device that fits in your ear like a Blutooth cell phone apparatus. No longer will your difficulties interpreting sound be obvious to all who can see the electroacoustic device in your ear; now, they’ll think you’re just another self-absorbed tool enamored with pointless technology that hangs off the side of your head. I can hardly wait for the next-gen app that enhances your smelling abilities with the brushed-steel device that protrudes from your nose.

Rather than using a spokesperson, the Loud and Clear commercials feature actors pretending to go through their daily routines enjoying the life-enhancing properties of a monstrous hearing aid. There’s a guy in bed next to his annoyed wife, who’s giving him dirty looks because the TV is too loud for her to sleep, until he discovers the Loud and Clear and can turn that damn thing down. There’s a woman rocking out to the kitchen radio while her husband tries but fails to concentrate on his laptop work. Rather than asking him to get his stupid computer off the kitchen table, she’s seen moments later happily accessorized in her Loud and Clear. Others are involved in a number of activities designed to demonstrate that today’s seniors aren’t your father’s old people – they’re energetically playing bingo, strolling through the woods in tight jeans, and listening in on two neighbors having a private discussion across the street.

This last example hints at the more malicious uses of the Loud and Clear, which are also illustrated in the commercial with a surprising lack of guilt. One scene shows a guy, hopefully a private detective, sitting at the wheel of his parked car with the amplifier in his ear and a camera in his hands. He becomes suddenly attentive, clicks the camera at some off-screen scene, then nods in quiet satisfaction at how easily he was able to get naked pictures of his kid’s hot teacher. I’m not sure how the hearing device helped with this, unless maybe it keeps him on guard for the piercing sirens of approaching squad cars.

Generally, though, the Loud and Clear is shown engaging in harmless fun. There’s a party scene where a trio of attractive women are chatting, then the shot widens to show the eavesdropping stud who’s delighted to learn they’re talking about him. There’s a hunter in the woods — hopefully not the same woods with the tight-jeaned woman — using the hearing enhancer to listen for the rustle of live game. I only hope the L&C has a volume control handy, because when he lets loose with that shotgun, he’s going to get way more amplification than he bargained for. There’s a quiet conversation at home with the family, above a caption that reads “HEAR PEOPLE AROUND YOU!”

Probably the worst, most devious thing about this product is that I want one. I can tell that my hearing has declined in recent years, and I recognize that it would be nice to watch television and have some idea of why Howie Mandell is beating that guy over the head with a baseball bat. My world could be so much richer.

Actually, I think I’d like to have two, one protruding out of each ear. Maybe if I order now…

Monday, January 12, 2009

When I first learned to blog

The following is a piece I wrote as a submission to our local newspaper when they expressed interest in the subject of local blogging a few months ago. Though it “doesn’t meet their needs at this time,” I believe that by “this time” they mean “while humans walk the earth.” So rather than waste my efforts, I’m putting it in as today’s posting.

As a fifty-something middle-class European-American, I long ago gave up any aspirations to be on the cutting edge of modern culture. There was a brief period years ago when I might’ve considered myself marginally “cool” – I think it was for about a half-hour during my junior year of college – but once you find yourself with a family, a suburban home and a corporate career, you are so far past cool as to need only a light jacket.

I like to think, however, that I’m at least aware of all the latest happenings among the younger generation. Though I choose not to indulge, I know all about the discos, the hip-hop, the so-called “brake” dancing, where kids stop and reverse direction in mid-tumble. I’ve heard the music of Madonna, LL Coolio J-Z, and Fall-Down Boy. I have a cell phone and I’ve walked past the video game section in Best Buy. And I’ve learned enough about computers and the Internet to think I’ve found a niche where perhaps I can rekindle enough of my def self to put a toe in the kids’ pool.

I’ve started a blog.

The young people out there know what I’m talking about, but let me take a moment to explain this phenomenon to any of my contemporaries who aren’t familiar with the concept. The blog has nothing to do with Steve McQueen and meteors exuding a pink, gooey substance (that’s “The Blob,” as I was embarrassed to learn a little too late) and everything to do with chronicling your every thought, move and breath for a fascinated world to follow. It’s a little like being an exhibitionist from the comfort of your home, without the gross and illegal parts.

I went online and found WordPress and Blogger, two of the more popular sites that serve as portals to the time-space wormhole known as the “blogosphere.” This huge ball of Internet waves, sitting in geosynchronous orbit over south Asia, is where you choose your blog name, create your profile, even upload video, if you can find the VHS port on the side of your laptop. The setup is quick and remarkably painless (as long as you keep your power cord out of the water) and before you know it, you’re a blogger!

Now that you’ve got the infrastructure in place, you need to turn your attention to something known as “content.” This annoying but necessary part of keeping a blog requires you to think of something interesting to put in your postings so that when people open your webpage, there will be words instead of blank space, which tends to discourage return visits. From looking at some of the blogs already out there, it seems that your content doesn’t have to be especially pertinent – cats, lawyer jokes and death threats are a few common themes – it mostly just has to be there.

My favorite subject so far, as I hope you’ve been able to guess from the last 491 words that preceded these, is humor. Since standards aren’t especially high, what with the lack of editors, fact-checkers and other mainstream media flotsam, all you need to do is position your screen pointer on the “write” tab and click it to open a window that looks something like an email entry. Type until your hands get tired and then press the “publish” button.

At this point, you’re usually given the option to “view site” so you can see what you just wrote in a slightly different format, but one that is now being viewed by millions of people around the world. Or at least that’s how I thought it worked. Turns out that the hardest part of blogging once you’ve gotten this far is figuring out how to get people to actually visit your blog. I believed that once your posting went up, there’d be a flashing signal on every computer then online that would direct readers to stop whatever they were doing and read all about you. I kept watching for evidence of all this traffic to show up in the comments that record what visitors think of your hard work. It’s the positive reinforcement of these remarks – notes like “wow, you’re terrific” and “worst blog ever” – that provide the incentive for people to keep up their blogs for weeks at a time. It’s been slow to come in my case, though with networking, webcasting and poking people with sticks, I’m starting to build a respectable audience.

It’s certainly not money that provides the motivation for blogging. If you’re thinking about joining in this communications revolution as a way to add a little extra income during this time of tight cash, you’ll find out quickly that that’s not how it works. Though my laptop does have a slot on one side that looks about the right size to spit out fifty-dollar bills, they haven’t come yet, and I’m starting to think they never will. Still, I’ve achieved the satisfaction of joining a community of like-minded citizens to whom connectivity, even though it’s virtual, gives us all a sense that we’re involved in something very, very special.

Being cool.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

More of FiftySomethingMan

If you've been a reader of my work at this blog, please be aware that a more complete compilation now exists at davisw.wordpress.com. This site includes DAILY postings, including many amusing features you won't see on FiftySomethingMan.blogspot.com. I will continue to maintain this blogspot site, adding primarily essay-sized pieces about three times a week. But if you want to see smaller (and sometimes even funnier) postings, and you want to see them every day, please visit me at davisw.wordpress.com. Thanks.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Website Review: M&Ms.com

While I was at a theater recently waiting for the movie to start, I temporarily pulled my attention away from the trailer for Kevin James’ Oscar-bound vehicle “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” to read my M&M’s wrapper. I wasn’t too surprised to discover there’s an M&M’s website (mms.com, not the mandm.com I might’ve expected, which is being cyber-squatted on by men who like Depeche Mode) and I promised myself I’d check out this internet curiosity the next time I couldn’t find anything better online.

Several months later, I made my first visit and was delighted to learn there’s a world of enchantment behind that hard candy shell. The folks from Mars – the candy company that owns M&M’s, not the single-celled life forms on the nearby planet – have put a lot of work into dreaming up ways they can sell all things M-related. They offer not just the candy itself, with colors and imprints I could hardly believe, but an immense variety of merchandise, recipes, games and allergen warnings. Let’s review the site map as soon as I down a handful of America’s favorite sedative-shaped chocolate treat.

Mmmmmmmmm! I love the taste of ampersands.

The home page currently features three revolving promotions: exploring the five fabulous flavors of new M&M premiums; the somewhat-outdated “make holiday magic with M&M’s and Martha (Stewart, I’m guessing, not Washington)”; and the “bring ‘M’ to the party” Super Bowl campaign. I’m guessing “M” is the cool new identity designed to appeal the younger generation, who love the brevity of single-lettered terms, as in “let’s do some ‘X’” and “I have to ‘P’”. This is where I also learned that the iconic “melts in your mouth, not in your hands” slogan has been replaced with “Always Fun,” which works, I guess, unless one of them gets lodged in your trachea.

The recipe section was largely predictable, taking just about any cake, cookie or pie concoction and throwing a bunch of M&Ms into the mix. There were a few interesting ideas that wouldn’t have occurred to me (“put ‘em in your coffee!”) as well as a number of others that struck me as a bit of a stretch. These would include the Autumn Turkey Casserole, Citrus Basil Sangria and something called “Plantains with Mex,” which I hope includes a type of southwestern flavoring and not an actual Mexican. In addition to the recipes was a related section called crafts, which offered creative ways to assemble the M’s into works of art. Among the more inspired suggestions were the Eight Nights of Light cupcakes (for the Jewish holiday known as Hanukkah, which Mars has apparently moved to January), a party pizza cookie with M&M’s standing in for pepperoni and anchovies (two of the aforementioned “five fabulous flavors” I suppose) and a holiday wreath made of hundreds of green M&Ms crazy-glued together into a wheel.

Other ways to incorporate the M&M experience into your personal lifestyle included bedding, clocks and, not surprisingly, extra-large sweatpants; online games such as “Red vs. Green,” “Flip the Mix” and “Shmuffleboard” (that’s right, spellcheck, shuffleboard with an “m”); and the company’s venture into sports marketing with a sponsorship of NASCAR driver Kyle Busch. This last section is particularly interesting to those of us in the South. We get to read about the entire crew – cleverly dubbed the guys who “show grit in the pit” by some pathetic corporate copywriter – including jack man Jeff Fender, who during his downtime enjoys fishing, the music of Bad Company, and long walks on the beach without being hit by racecar. We also see Kyle himself, posing at the track alongside a cocky-looking M dressed in a fireproof suit, because though he won’t melt in your hand, he doesn’t do real well with 900-degree gasoline fires. We get to read extensively about Kyle’s 2008 season, lowlighted by a nineteenth-place finish in Miami, a solid eighth in Phoenix and “surviving crash-filled Talladega despite damage from a late-race accident” to celebrate his birthday May 2 with M&M candies and “finding his inner M.”

Another way that Mars is trying to engage the candy-buying public is with the opportunity to create your own virtual characters. To get you started, they show a group of anthropomorphic sweets sitting around a breakroom table with coffee (WATCH OUT!!) and “Hi my name is” tags identifying them as Stacy, Naomi, Larry, Tony and Mike. A few of these guys are what you might call slightly edgy-looking – no body piercings or purple hair but a tattooed “m” on their chins. We see another set of unnamed characters standing proudly in front of a picture of an actual 50-foot M&M-styled Statue of Liberty holding her beacon skyward near the Brooklyn Bridge in 2007. One of these characters does have a mohawk, perhaps in recognition that Lady Liberty welcomes the tired, the wretched and the haircut-impaired.

My favorite part of the mm.com website is where you can order personalized M&M’s with words, faces and colors of your choosing. The faces consist primarily of the characters noted above and the colors include just about any pastel you can imagine. The words, however, are subject to a list of do’s and don’ts. The do’s include the requirement to use nice words, be cheerful, have fun and be expressive, just as long as you don’t take your basic American freedoms too far. You can’t use obscenities, proper nouns like business, celebrity or product names and, “to avoid any confusion and keep everyone safe, we will not print any reference to prescription drugs, especially those that are in pill form.” To drive this last point home, they show a diagonal “no” slash through a candy that reads “Mary’s pills.”

Finally, there’s the boilerplate part you see on just about every commercial website, offering basic facts about the company. We learn that Mars also makes Uncle Ben’s rice, Combos snack crackers, Seeds of Change for the home gardener, and a disturbing quantity of cat food varieties, including Whiskas, Sheba and Pedigree. An ingredients section talks mostly about potential allergens in their products, with additional unnerving references to bass, cod, crab and shrimp (hopefully these are in the cat foods, not candies like Skittles and Snickers.)

Then there’s a store locator to help you find where to buy M&M’s. It’s hard to imagine that locating the ubiquitous dark brown bag we all know and love is really a problem, unless perhaps you’re on safari in Kenya. I keyed in the zip code where I’m writing this posting and found that there are bags for sale in the drugstore across the street, the gas station opposite that, the bookstore on the other corner, and the dollar store three doors down. In total, there are 29 outlets within ten miles of my house.

I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about this fine all-American product and what makes it so special. Watch for more website reviews in future Friday postings.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Three procedures and still alive

ATLANTA (Associated Press) — Griffin Bell, 90, the shrewd Southern lawyer who grew up with Jimmy Carter and later became U.S. attorney general after Carter was elected president, died Monday in Atlanta. He was being treated for complications from pancreatic cancer, kidney disease and being 90.

From the perspective of someone still in relatively good health, it often seems like medicine can go too far in treating the ravages of time. I think there comes a point when you feel like you’ve lived a rich, full life and now it’s time to go do something else, like maybe die. Throwing the incredible expenses of the modern healthcare establishment at the elderly and infirm just doesn’t always seem wise, especially if you hit one of them in the eye with an otoscope.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate with my health for over 55 years, and haven’t spent a night in the hospital since that whole birthing thing back in 1953. I’ve had my fair share of the usual modern maladies that almost everybody goes through – measles, mumps, mole removal, molar removal. I had what we politely called a “nervous stomach” in my teens, I’ve had a couple of lower back issues that kept me prone for days at a time, and I got chicken pox as a Christmas present from my son about ten years ago. Only three times have I gone through anything more serious.

My first such episode occurred in 1989. For years, I had noticed a brownish area just inside the top of my left ear. I chalked it up to poor hygiene until one day when it started bleeding. I knew that blood was only effective when it was coursing through your veins and that having it drip off the end of your earlobe wasn’t as good. I made a visit to the dermatologist who took one look at the wound and made his frightening pronouncement – ear cancer.

Well, not exactly ear cancer. It was a skin cancer that happened to be on my ear. All those hours I’d spent on college break in Miami laying out on my parents’ patio without benefit of sunscreen hadn’t been wasted after all. I was referred to a cosmetic surgeon despite my protests that I already looked damned good, but they explained he’d be the one carving off thin layers of my cartilage until all the cancer was removed, then would rebuild what was left into some semblance of an ear. The procedure I’d be undergoing was called “Moe’s surgery,” which sounded like it might involve a conk on the head rather than traditional anesthesia, but actually turned out to be Mohs surgery.

The operation was done in a Charlotte doctor’s office while I was fully awake but feeling no pain. Everything went as planned and the doctor assured me that all the malignancy was removed. I couldn’t look at the cosmetic results right away, since they wrapped my whole upper head in a bandage. I was able to return to work the same day, looking like that guy playing a fife in the middle of that iconic Revolutionary War painting, except that I had a $4,000 doctor’s bill sticking out of my pocket. But my coworkers we really impressed at the dedication I showed by coming in with such an apparently brutal head wound.

My next significant experience came in 2003 while I was planning my first business trip to India. I had noticed occasional discomfort in my groin for a few weeks before a particularly acute episode sent me home from work to wander restlessly around my house. When I went to the doctor later that morning, he immediately recognized the wandering as a symptom of kidney stones (go figure). X-rays confirmed the presence of a crystalline mass lodged firmly in my urethra. “It’s about six millimeters in diameter,” the technician told me, but failed to note whether that was considered small, medium or super-sized. Regardless, it was bad enough to require what they refer to in the business as a urologic intervention. Unless I passed the stone naturally or wanted to risk the male equivalent of childbirth while 35,000 feet in the air over the Middle East, I needed to get this taken care of.

Shortly before the outpatient procedure, called a “simple basket extraction,” I thought I might’ve avoided it entirely. After using the urinal at work, I looked down to see a corn-kernel-sized piece lying next to the scent cake. Had I painlessly expelled the stone and avoided costly surgery? Unfortunately, it turned out to be exactly what it looked like – a piece of corn – though I fail to understand even today how it got there.

Going ahead with the physician-assisted removal turned out to be fairly simple, at least for me. The trickiest part was counting backwards from 100, and then waking up to ask when we were going to start, only to discover the doctor had not only finished but left the building. The nurses kept watch on me until I was able to wiggle my toes and pee on my own, which took only a few hours. Recovery was quick and relatively pain-free, and I’ve survived to this day without another incident.

What you’ll doubtless be glad to hear is the last experience I’ll recount was the highly recommended (by doctors, not by patients) diagnostic colonoscopy. As veterans of this wonder of medical science will tell you, the worst part comes the day before when you have to drink huge amounts of a foul liquid designed to cleanse your system of everything you’ve ever consumed. Once this is accomplished, you’re ready for your outpatient visit at the hospital. There was no backward counting this time; instead, you get an injection that puts you into a “dream sleep” where your dream consists of someone putting the proctological equivalent of a Swiss army knife (including a light, camera, scalpel, eraser, fountain pen and comb, I seem to recall) several feet up your colon. I do remember lying on my side and watching a TV show where the plot consisted of a cute little pink character named “Polyp” being snipped by a “Mr. Scissors”. The next thing I remember after that, I was arguing with my doctor about the billing.

It seems there’s a loophole in the way most insurance companies view the colonoscopy. They urge you to get one, they tell you it’s fully covered because it’s purely diagnostic in nature, but if they find anything that needs to be removed (which they apparently always do), then the diagnostic designation disappears and you’re suddenly responsible for a percentage of the $5,000 cost. Or, you could choose to have them maintain the status quo by shouting “hey, leave that thing alone” during your dream sleep. I almost came to the point of demanding that my gastroenterologist reinstall the polyp before I finally knuckled under and paid the fee.

I seriously doubt that any of these conditions, left untreated, would’ve led to my untimely demise. I suppose I could’ve had colon cancer, renal failure or an ear fall off, though chances are excellent I would’ve survived at least two out of three. Had they occurred later in life, I think I might’ve considered that option more seriously. I hope Griffin Bell didn’t suffer too much from treatments for the kidney and pancreas problems when his larger issue was that he was 90 years old. I’m not sure living to a ripe old age just for the sake of hitting a really high number is a worthy goal. It seems like the oldest living person is dying every other day anyway.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The worst day of the year

The first Monday in January should receive some kind of official designation as the worst day of the year. State and federal offices should be closed, black bunting should drape store windows, and flags should be lowered to half-staff. Calendars should note this as a day of commemoration of how miserable our lives are going to be for the next four to five months.

If you haven’t done so already, pause now for a moment in recognition of just how bleak our immediate future is. We’ve been observing one holiday after another for several weeks now, so even happiness and celebration are no fun any more. We’ve gorged on foods we’d never otherwise eat (can you imagine a dinner of goose, champagne and chocolate-covered cherries in August?). The friends and family we only get to see once a year have reminded us all too clearly why we moved halfway across the continent to get so far away from them.

I don’t know about you, but the weather where I am today is cold and wet, the sky a low-hanging grey. I’ve returned to a job that seems unlikely to get any more exciting or any more secure in 2009. There are no significant holidays, no coming of spring, no summer vacation anywhere in the near future. The landscape of life is desolate, barren, foreboding, dreary and miserable. Happy god-damn new year.

I tried yesterday to head off this gathering funk by going to the Y for a nice vigorous run on the treadmill. Exercise has always elevated my mood, even when it has to take place elbow-to-elbow with my fellow fatties in front of a bank of TVs showing the Dolphins losing another playoff game. I’m not one of these exercisers clogging the floor who are motivated only by recent resolutions to get fit. I’m the guy who was complaining to the manager that they were closing the Y early on Christmas Eve. Now here I am, unable to find a vacant treadmill because of all these latter-day athletes.

Out of the ten machines available, two of them have runners while the rest have walkers. Walking is for the hallways of hospitals, not for expensive exercise machines. The guy who just barely beat me to the last available treadmill is wearing a sweater, pleated slacks and penny loafers. He jabs perplexedly at the control buttons until the belt begins the slowest possible movement, which seems to satisfy him until a few minutes later when he feels compelled to poke a few more buttons, bringing the machine to a stop. The same pattern of behavior is repeated several times before the pudgy woman to his right finishes her stroll and lowers her moist bulk to the floor. A machine is finally open.

As the endorphins kick in during my run, I start thinking of a few of the positives that do exist in the first half of the calendar year. There’s the new TV season, one that’s lacking the day-long “Password”-a-thons we’ve endured over the recent holidays. There’s the Obama inauguration in mid-January and the Super Bowl in early February. But all these are enjoyed vicariously at best and don’t even require us to leave our living room.

There are some legitimate holidays on the calendar falling between now and the unofficial start of summer on Memorial Day. There’s Martin Luther King’s birthday in just two weeks, so we’ll get a Monday off to remember the accomplishments of the great civil rights leader. But greeting card companies haven’t told us yet how we’re properly supposed to celebrate this day. Neither parties nor gift-giving nor dressing up in costume seem quite appropriate.

In February, we have Groundhog’s Day, which represents the point at which we might potentially see an end to winter in the distance. Recent efforts to turn February 2 into even more of an occasion have met with limited success. Watching Punxsutawney Phil being groped by that guy in tuxedo and top hat was amusing the first 40 times I saw it on the news, though the novelty has since worn off. I liked the idea of expanding the number of species honored to include other groundlings – moles, voles, badgers, hedgehogs, large rats, etc. – but this added biological diversity did little to spur retail sales and holiday cheer.

Later in the month is Valentine’s Day, when we honor our beloved ones with candy and flowers and the disappointment of knowing a spouse can’t be any more thoughtful than that. Then, just a week or so later is the government-concocted President’s Day, timed to honor the birth of perhaps our greatest commander-in-chief, Abraham Washington. Once every four years, we celebrate the rare Leap Day by trying to find the instructions for changing the date on our digital watches. On March 17, St. Patrick’s Day comes rolling in drunk and smelling of cheap beer. We all wear green so as to better disguise the vomit stains on our shirts. By the time it’s April, we’re starting to sense that warm weather is in the air and we all get a little silly celebrating April Fool’s Day, when radio shock jocks trick us all into thinking an asteroid is about to hit the earth. We laugh when we realize it’s not.

Finally, on some apparently random Sunday between March and May comes Easter, originally scheduled to honor the birth of Christ but now more about the bunnies and candy than the Lord and Savior. When I was a kid, Easter was second only to Christmas in significance. Hunting for eggs, rather than avoiding them like we do as adults, was a big deal, as was the story of Peter Cottontail rolling back the stone from Jesus’ grave. With its Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Sadder Saturday and Maundy Monday (which gave us one of the few Easter carols, performed by the Mamas and Papas), Easter had the potential to give us almost a week off from work, but now most offices barely notice it.

Well, there seems to be a few breaks in the clouds as I look outside, and at least I have a job, a wonderful family and a home that’s not on the auction block. There is something to be said for the satisfaction of getting back to a routine that gives you a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day instead of the incessant bloating I’ve endured since Thanksgiving. Once I get hungry again, and tired, and overworked, and stressed, and anxious about the economy, maybe then I’ll be happy.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Wrapping up the bowl games, sponsored by FiftySomethingMan

One of the great things about the global economic catastrophe has been the effect on certain corporate marketing decisions. High-powered multinationals have been forced to look at their priorities and re-evaluate how important it is to shareholders to have the company name plastered all over everything from sporting venues to golf tournaments to baby’s foreheads.

Two new baseball parks being built in New York City for the Yankees and Mets are struggling to find firms willing to spend multi-millions for naming rights, and may have to begin hosting games next season as Hank’s Place and Choker’s Field, respectively. NASCAR auto racing has seen a significant decline in its sponsorships, to the point where you can almost see a bare patch of material on drivers’ uniforms. Traditional suppliers like GM and Chevy are scaling back their involvement in motorsports and we may soon see a Daytona 500 featuring Mini Coopers and old VW minivans.

I’ll miss the occasional unintended consequences that resulted when corporate takeovers clashed with the best-laid marketing plans. For example, when First Union Bank acquired CoreStates, it also inherited the basketball arena that was home to the NBA’s 76ers. The “CoreStates Center” sign was coming down and the “First Union Center” sign was going up when it occurred to someone how headline writers were going to abbreviate the new name.

Before the college football bowl season finally began winding down, many of us (OK, a few of us) sat in front of our TVs wondering about this new crop of low-rent game sponsors. Slashed rates allowed local credit unions and regional trucking firms to have their images splashed across a national stage, prompting viewers to wonder how exactly they could patronize the San Diego Credit Union or R+L Carriers even if they wanted to.

To help these would-be customers, I’ve compiled a complete list of the games and their sponsors with a little something about each firm. I would’ve included the teams who played and the final score too, but nobody cares.

magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl – The magicJack is some kind of device you stick in your computer to make phone calls. Sounds like a good idea until you realize how awkward it is to hold the monitor up to your ear while you try to talk into the mouse.
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl – R+L is an Ohio-based trucking firm founded in 1965. Ralph L. “Larry” Roberts was a mere teenager with aspirations of owning his own business. His dream became a reality with the purchase of a single truck he used to haul furniture. The firm then grew into … That’s really all you need to know.
SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl – Everyone living in San Diego, Orange and Riverside counties is eligible to join this federally insured credit union. If you watched the game from your home in Louisville, their competitive CD rates make a move to California worthwhile. I hear R+L is available to help with your couch.
Motor City Bowl – Not too surprisingly, this Detroit game failed to attract a big-name sponsor. Reports are that next year’s game will be called the Bailout Bowl.
Meineke Car Care Bowl – Meineke is a car maintenance franchise clever enough to have worked not only their name but also what they do into their bowl name. This might be something for the SDCCU to consider when they begin negotiations for next year’s Poinsettia Bowl, which could instead become the SDCCU Foreclosure Poinsettia Bowl.
Champs Sports Bowl – Champs is a seller of sports equipment even though I thought they were a sports bar. I must be thinking of some other company I’ll never patronize.
Papajohns.com Bowl – Most people are aware of Papa John’s Pizza, but they also want you to know about their website, which uses a PDF (pizza delivery format) to bring you hot pies through your high-speed Internet connection.
Valero Energy Alamo Bowl – Valero is a retailer of gasoline that managed to work a slight rule change into the Alamo Bowl. Team scores not only can rapidly rise, but they can plummet just as quickly.
Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl – Roady’s Truck Stops are the nation's largest chain of truck stops, catering to the professional driver and traveling motorist in 45 states, meeting the humanitarian needs of people low on fuel for many years.
Brut Sun Bowl – As the final seconds ticked off the clock in this classic, the winning coach was drenched by a cooler full of Brut cologne. He’s currently recovering in the Augusta burn center.
Bell Helicopters Armed Forces Bowl – The rush to purchase helicopters from viewers who enjoyed this match-up drove Bell’s stock price to a three-year high.
Chick-Fil-A Bowl (formerly the Peach Bowl) – They dropped the “peach” out of a concern that fuzz is not something chicken consumers want to be reminded of.
Outback Bowl – This is much like the regular college game except the football is replaced with a Bloomin’ Onion.
Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl – This bowl game had more adjectives (4) than one of the participating teams had points (3).
Konica Minolta Gator Bowl – Makers of fine cameras until the next leap in digital technology sends them into bankruptcy.
AutoZone Liberty Bowl – Perhaps the winners of this game and the Meineke Car Care Bowl could meet in a playoff: the Sell ‘Em a Muffler When They Just Need a Spark Plug Bowl.
GMAC Bowl – A long, long time ago, people bought cars from a company named “General Motors” and frequently did something called “financing” with GMAC to pay for the car on credit. This bowl is a salute to those bygone days, and includes players using helmets made of leather that have no faceguards.
AT&T Cotton Bowl – AT&T is one of the few big names still in the bowl sponsorship business. Send me a 10-cent text message and I’ll tell you more.
FedX Orange Bowl – Another of the big names still in the bowl scene. Surviving despite the tremendous loss of business due to email attachments and zip files, FedX now has a business model that relies primarily on Amazon and eBay shipments, along with its recent diversification into mowing lawns.
Allstate Sugar Bowl – A curious combination considering New Orleans was wiped out by a hurricane and is still having trouble recovering because of tight-fisted insurance companies. You might be “in good hands” with Allstate, but watch out for their prehensile tail that may be picking your pocket.
Capital One Bowl – What’s in your wallet? Not much cash after you’ve finished paying the astronomical interest rates on their credit cards.
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl – The most delicious, crunchiest game on the postseason calendar.
Insight Bowl – I challenge you to follow this one: Starting in 2000, this game moved to Bank One Ballpark, now known as Chase Field. The game moved yet again effective with the 2006 game, but remained in the Phoenix metropolitan area, this time in Sun Devil Stadium, which was left without a postseason game when the Fiesta Bowl moved to the University of Phoenix Stadium. The game was formerly known as the Copper Bowl until 1996 when sponsorship was assumed by Insight Enterprises and it became the Insight.com Bowl from 1997 to 2001, and then the Insight Bowl. Insight, incidentally, is either a type of Honda, a broadband service, or a laptop maker.
Rose Bowl, sponsored by citi – Yes, the same “citi” as the Citibank that narrowly avoided financial collapse late last year. So their stockholders wouldn’t be pissed that they threw money at the little-known Rose Bowl, note how they put their sponsorship after the bowl name and lower-cased the first letter, hoping no one would notice.

Friday, January 2, 2009

A resolution on resolutions

This being the New Year, it seems we’re required to propose resolutions to improve our lives and the lives of those around us. What a drag.

I agree that it’s naturally appropriate to respond to the excesses of the holidays with a good stiff shot of moderation. It just makes sense that we can’t spend the entire year eating rum balls and eggnog for breakfast, and so it’s reasonable right now to assess the wisdom of year-round splurging, especially as you approach your late fifties. But to formalize this reasoning into a strict resolution is not something I’ve ever felt comfortable doing.

However, if I must, let me put it this way: everything I’ve been doing for the last month or so I’ll stop doing, and everything I’ve stopped doing I’ll resume. As an important exception, however, I will continue running my autonomic nervous system as I always have, and I’ll persist in being unable to take to self-powered flight.

I went online this morning to see what were some of the more common resolutions being considered. According to Wikipedia, these resolutions were “sorted by the horizontal pixel dimension in ascending numerical order. It is important to realize that the use of the word ‘resolution’ in this context is misleading and inaccurate. The sizes given are pixel dimensions, and do not imply anything about the resolution of the display, which would be expressed in pixels per inch or pixels per centimeter.” Typically helpful Wikipedia.

When I looked around a little longer, I found a more useful list that cited the following as popular choices among Americans: lose weight; manage debt; save money; get a better job; get fit; eat right; get a better education; drink less alcohol; quit smoking; reduce stress; take a trip; and volunteer to help others. I think just about everybody can agree these are worthy aspirations for self-improvement. All of us are imperfect in one way or another, except for a certain savior born over 2,000 years ago who probably never smoked in the first place and already had a pretty good job. If He wanted to make some kind of resolution to improve, about all He could do would be to work on His tan. (Should I capitalize the “t” in “tan”?)

The other thing about starting these new resolutions right on the advent of the New Year is that the timing of this particular holiday isn’t at all convenient. It’s virtually impossible to begin the New Improved You right at the stroke of midnight, when drinking less alcohol is probably the last thing on what’s left of your mind. You might be considerate enough to hold your girlfriend’s hair out of her face while she vomits over the balcony railing, but that’s hardly what you’d call volunteerism. You’re still wanting to celebrate throughout the day on Jan. 1, and then even though it’s back to work for most of us today, it is a Friday and then you’ve got all that free time to be tempted on Saturday and Sunday, and now you’re out to the fifth of the month before any proper behavior can reasonably be expected to begin.

Which reminds me: whoever is in charge of such things needs to resolve to reschedule our holidays so they’re more evenly spread throughout the year. After the King holiday in the third week of January, there’s nothing until Memorial Day, a full four-and-a-half months away. The summer holidays are pretty well spaced, but you hit another dry spot of almost three months until Thanksgiving, then there’s a holiday virtually every other week. I wouldn’t be opposed to getting rid of the January New Year’s Day altogether and putting it back to the beginning of spring, where the Druid gods intended.

But I digress, and that’s something I need to work on improving.

Anyway, while I was researching this subject yesterday, I did come across something I might be able to sign off with. Access Hollywood had talked with a variety of celebrities and other prominent individuals from around the world to see what a few of their resolutions might be. A number of them struck me as a tad bizarre, but most of these are folks who have risen to the top of their professions, so it’s probably worth taking a look at this insight into some of what made them so successful. The following list includes the individual quoted and what they wanted to accomplish in 2009:

George W. Bush: To discover and settle the West Pole, using only dogsleds and shopping carts for transportation
Laura Bush: To bank the seven ball into the side pocket
Barack Obama: To attend next year’s Chick-fil-A Bowl, especially if Vanderbilt is playing
Michelle Obama: To make a smoked bacon reduction sauce
Bill Gates: To learn to play the songbah drum using a stapler
Rod Blagojavich: To drink more brackish water
Oprah Winfrey: To breathe more frequently
Will Smith: To move furniture randomly throughout the day
Warren Buffett: To wear underclothing more often
Peyton Manning: To become chief technology officer of Dr Pepper
Usain Bolt: To play Scrabble with the evil twin of Mickey Rourke
Dakota Fanning: To close on a stunning three-bedroom, two-bath townhome condominium
Michael Phelps: To have his teeth yellowed from drinking coffee
Bernie Madoff: To be run over during the live telecast of a NASCAR race
Britney Spears: To have cholesterol so high it starts leaking out her nose
J.K. Rowling: To be sentenced to 35 years in a federal penitentiary by mistake
Tiger Woods: To review a major motion picture that doesn’t exist
Judge Judy: To develop gills and swim like a fish
Brad Pitt: To eat more cologne samples from men’s magazines
Vladimir Putin: To avoid saying the words “Queen Latifah”
Tina Fey: To climb more trees
Amy Winehouse: To cozy up to a warm winter soup
Tom Cruise: To have that 6-by-8-inch mole on my lower back checked out
T-Pain: To upgrade his 401(k) to a 407(m)
Robert Mugabe: To learn arthroscopic colo-rectal surgery by correspondence course