Category: Arts and Culture

Oops, Dave Barry’s finger slipped and he ended up accidentally publishing the phone number of the American Telemarketers Association. Hope that didn’t inconvenience anyone there who, I dunno, maybe didn’t want to be called?

Oops, looks like the ATA got a bunch of unwanted phone calls. Thanks Jeff C.

My new favorite anti-telemarketer tactic: Feign interest and get caller hooked, then ask them to please hold. Put phone down and walk away. Waste someone’s time? Never!

Feeling under the weather, channel surfing. Home Shopping Channel is selling electric guitars and amps, showing you how easy it is to play “just like those 70s rockers,” and they bring in a master guitarist to prove it. Dude jabs out a few licks from Hall and Oates, the guitar/amp combos fly off the shelves at $179.99. Then they bring out a classical guitar. They know they can’t convince the viewer how easy it would be to pluck Segovia, so try another tack:

“Ed, this is the kind of guitar that’s so beautiful you buy it for its looks alone. Even if you can’t play, it will look great sitting on a rack in a corner of your living room.”

Kid you not.

Less than a week ago, baald first introduced the term metrosexual on birdhouse (“guy who is into fashion, interior design, cooking, but is sexshully straight).” I thought it was funny, probably the result of some joke floating around his office.

Then today in Salon, Sheerly Avni declares death to all metrosexuals! (They cook better, dress better and decorate better than we do.”) As it turns out, Salon introduced the term in July 2002, Meet the Metrosexual.

The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis — because that’s where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are.

But as is eventually revealed, the term originated in 1994. So the interesting bit is not that the word has suddenly renewed currency as it is that I am completely and totally out of it, not having heard it blurbled until last week.

Not wanting to feel like a hodad, I scan my life for signs of metrosexuality. I’m a cargo shorts-wearing webmaster. I trudge from baby/wife to webmaster job and back again, day after day, squeeze in some email in the wee hours. Not much energy left for hair stylists or gymnasiums. But I did catch myself recently bemoaning the fact that Barney’s serves American mustard, Dijon mustard, and Grey Poupon, but no stone ground mustard. How can a gourmet hamburger joint not have stone ground mustard? It makes no sense. Poupon too tart, Dijon too sweet, American too plain. Then I find that we are running out of Stone Ground at home, freak out, ask Amy to pick some up at Trader Joe’s, she reports that TJ’s doesn’t stock stone ground!

Am I righteous here, or merely displaying metrosexual tendencies?

Describe the metrosexual in your life.

Ikea phone guy: The “RATIONELLE” replacement shelves you ordered have arrived. You have five days to pick them up.

[We were on vacation, missed the deadline.]

Me: I’m here to pick up my shelves. Here’s the receipt.

Ikea young buck: Your five days have passed. The shelves have been returned to stock. I can charge you a restocking fee, sell you a new set (the same set, but now taken from the freshly replenished stock), and you can go to Customer Service to request a refund for the “old” ones you paid for but never received.

Me: That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard of.

Ikea young buck: I’m sorry sir.

[I go downstairs, pay for the “new” shelves, wait 15 minutes for them to be retrieved from stock. Go to Customer Service, take a number, let the ceiling-mounted hanging TVs squirt toxic CNN juice all over me. Notice how the wall-mounted buckets meant to hold free replacement dowels, pins, and Ikea-original smart fasteners are all empty. Kill time with a corn dog and box of lingonberry juice. One hour passes, no lie. Now I’m officially late to meet a client, but don’t dare give up my place in line. I’ve worked too hard for this, and a whole $25 is at stake. My number comes up.]

Ikea helpful lady: He said what? Let me check. No, your shelves haven’t been returned to stock. They’re ready and waiting for you. We’re sorry for the inconvenience. Here’s your refund.

And that’s how a 10-minute Ikea visit melts into 90 minutes. This is how we wade through phone trees trying to find clueful employees, whittle away the time we don’t have to whittle at the hands of incompetent high-school students, pay out of pocket to return defective items, tear out hair because of insane policies, slip through cracks not accounted for by automated systems.

Our lives as a series of frustrating encounters, connected by a fabric of retardation.

Amy and Miles staying on in MN for another week, leaving me rare chance to see movies etc. Went with Chris to American Splendor — the movie interpretation of the underground comic of the same name. Paul Giametti as Harvey Pekar the perfect brilliant sadsack. Movie oscillates b/w dramatic recreation of the comic and conversation with Pekar himself. Layered, just like American Splendor itself was drawn by alternating artists.

As much as the movie deals with depression sans Hollywood, it’s also very funny, and in a peculiar way, delightful. A string of strange, simple poignancies. Pekar looks at self in mirror, mutters “Now there’s a reliable disappointment.” Also loved the scene of his neurotic wife in the bathroom mistaking WD-40 for air freshener (am I alone in thinking that WD-40 smells great?)

Spiels of Minuteman — Notes by Mike Watt on the early days of The Minutemen, lyrics, essays by Richard Meltzer (Blue Oyster Cult, rock critic), Joe Carducci (who ran SST from ’82 to ’86), Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth). Art by Raymond Pettibone. It’s hard to convey what Watt and the Minutemen mean to me. Some music from one’s formative years seems corny two decades later, other stuff just keeps sinking in deeper. Minutemen, and to a lesser extent, Firehose and other Watt side projects, are under my skin like benevolent chiggers.

fake contest

you lie there naked
i lie here naked
both on the pavement why
are we different?

Also: Feeling rusty on philosophy roots from college, brought along Richard Osborne’s Philosophy for Beginners. Very succinct, palatable but dense rerun of any college history of philosophy class. Got through the Greeks and Romans, heading into the Arabs. Brother-in-law Steve pointed out that this book casts contributions of Christianity to philosophy in a fairly negative light. True, it’s fairly harsh on Christianity’s harsh history, but I’m not so sure it’s not just being accurate (Steve getting a PhD at the Talbot School of Theology).

Saturday Morning — the compilation of Saturday morning cartoon music covered by contemp. bands, e.g. Sublime’s cover of “Hong Kong Phooey” and Liz Phair’s version of the banana split’s Tra La La song — is a total disappointing bore and I’m sorry I bought it. Should have known better. Not a single track on the disc is as good as the original.