The great cracker debate

Today’s leditor to the editor comes to us from a Mr. Pseudonym. He writes:

Dear SFTAOT: I see both your political commentary and leditors are on a hiatus. I still have a question. Hillary said something to the effect that all of us uneducated under and unemployed white trash in the ruburbs would vote our skin color every time. What I would like to know is what about you un- and under-employed city slickers? Is bigotry formed not along financial and class lines, but by geography? Or did she really say, if yer white and stoopid you are gonna vote for me? And if you are white and stoopid, un- or under-employed and live in a great metropolis, which I believe Brooklyn is apart of, you are not part of the great unwashed white trash but merely a hipster who gonna vote for Obama? Just having trouble with this concept of geopolitics. Hope you get a job. John Scopes

Dear Sir: First, allow me to apologize for the lateness in my reply. Between the job hunt, some other writing I’ve been working on, and problems inherent in stealing internet signals from neighbors, updates to the blog have been intermittent. Hopefully, this won’t happen again, but you never know. However, I thank you for your patience, and hope you accept my apology.

Now, on to your 33-part question.

Frankly, I can’t remember most of it. Best I can recall, you wanted to know whether you can reduce a candidate’s constituency to such easy labels as “crackers fer hillary” and “niggaz fo’ obama.” Or whether all white people under 30 who own laptops are Obama supporters and whether Hillary’s base is waiting for some “Bobby Ewing in the shower” moment to miraculously save her campaign.

And in a word, “Yes,” you can reduce this nation to its constituent stereotypes. The group that walks alike and talks alike is apt to be the group that votes alike. Maybe not every single time, but enough to make a buck by it:

• Blacks won’t leave the Democratic Party for another, even black candidate (just ask Lenora Fulani)


• and rural whites just might buck the party, if there were a black candidate who made them itchy and nervous and felt like burlap against their soft, white Ivory-soaped skins.

Hillary’s problem here (other than tactlessness) is that she’s lacking the creativity to cleave a little here to gain even more over there and thus reshape and create a new, more powerful majority. She seems to think that the Democratic majority yer born with is the Democratic majority you’ll die with, and that with the way these groups tend to vote, in order to win the Presidency, you need the candidate who’s best equipped to be white.

Poppycock, I say.

What she forgets in her uni-brow assessment of the American electorate (other than that black voters can stay home and not vote) is that white rural people have a strange awesome power, one Hillary might have known about were she not fake-South (not to mention fake-Midwest and fake-Northeast). And that power is the phrase, “Yer one-uh the good ones.”

It’s the escape hatch for any rural white to distance himself from sounding like a bigot, and it goes something like this: “I hate this black person and that black person and all black people in general because they all do this one black thing that I don’t like -- well, not you Black Guy I Work With, Yer one-uh the good ones.” The white, rural set, you see, have the ability to hold in their heads two, contrasting ideas and allow both to operate simultaneously.

They’re like VMware, in some respects -- a server that can allow two different kinds of operating systems to function at the same time. One allows the body to think it has silverware to steal. The other reminds them that their grandbaby has a black daddy.

It’s the candidate who appreciates this fact about white, rural voters who can win the race, not the one who assumes that nothing can be done. Stereotypes aren’t set in stone, after all, more like jell-o, which means they can be molded.

Hopefully, this answers your question, but God help me if it does, because then everyone will be expecting legitimate answers.

Thanks and keep reading,
The Society

Oh, and PS: Why otherwise decent white folk are afraid of even the most polished black people, I can’t say; other than that maybe the fear that lurking beneath every Harvard degree is an Afro yearning to break free.

Hillary's latest strategy

Before we touch upon Hillary Clinton's latest "Whoops!" moment, let's do a "Previously, On Last Week's Episode" (as those always seem to work so well on "Battlestar Galactica"):

• A nation mourns as U.S. Senator, liberal lion, and holder of the keys to Camelot Ted Kennedy is felled by a seizure and diagnosed with a possible death sentence, a malignant brain tumor.


• A quiet but palpable fear grips America that the candidacy of nation's first black man with a serious shot at the presidency could be thwarted by racism and an assassin's bullet.


• Sue Ellen's sister Kristin shoots J.R. after an illicit, long-term affair in the waning seconds of season 2 of "Dallas" -- though her identity, nor the fact she may be carrying J.R.'s love child (which, we learn at the end of season 4, she is not) is not learned until the premiere of season 3.

"And now, the exciting conclusion ..."

Enter Hillary Clinton: up to her neck in "mathematic impossibility," reminding us that she still has a shot at this thing. For one, June isn't so late to clinch a presidency; that's when her husband did it. And second, candidates get shot sometimes -- kind of like how Teddy's brother, Bobby, was in '68. You know, how he just sort of took one to the brain all unexpected-like ("Oh, and best wishes, Sen. Kennedy.")?

Who knows, maybe another Sirhan Sirhan -- Palestinian Christian, but Arab where it counts -- gets it in his head to celebrate the anniversary of '68. And while "ruby" is traditionally what you get for a 40th anniversary, he figures it's the thought that counts.

What's most remarkable about this statement of Clinton's is her logic going forward. Because, for all intents and purposes, if Obama is Bobby Kennedy, then she is the first Democrat I can remember to claim the mantle of Hubert Humphrey -- and not just Humphrey but the mantle of '68.

Now, I wasn't alive in 1968, but I read. And from what I've read, 1968 wasn't such a hot year for Democrats. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, the convention was a nightmare, and Nixon ended up winning -- not to mention, that's the year Dem's started losing the South.

And yet, here is a Democrat, and one who could potentially win a full ride to Gallaudet, saying as her last-ditch effort: "Remember '68!"

Today's lesson: Then again, this could be Hillary's big plan to heal the schism in the Democratic Party, because in order to have a schism, you need to have supporters on both sides.

'Headwinds' and 'Forces'

Today's leditor to the editor comes from our good friend The Whiskey Lantern. He writes:

Dear SFTAOT: I have found a way to entertain myself here in Australia. I stand on the street outside a currency exchange booth (yes, there are tons in this part of town) with $100 US in my hand. The object of the game is to watch the dollar go up and down in comparison to the Australian dollar and try to exchange for as close to 100 AD as I can before a kid resembling Angus from AC/DC snatches the money out of my hand to show off for his friends. The best part is that even if the kid snatches the money, he usually turns around half way up the block and brings it back once he realizes it's US Dollars. - The Whiskey LanternDear Sir: Yes, the U.S. dollar, once the unstoppable force for world domination, looks more like an Arab army right about now, constantly in retreat. “Cough, cough, sputter, cough” goes its value, and with it, a little chunk of American hegemony.

The good thing about hegemony is that we’ve got a lot to go around. That’s not to say that we can afford to let this slide continue, but we have time. For what, is the question. A number of ideas have been proposed but, as always, I have the solution.

In short, we kick and scream and whine and change the rules of the game. Not so that we get what we want -- I don’t think we can upend the euro at this point -- but so the dollar is allowed to stage a mini-comback and look as if it earned a respectable, second-place finish to the euro; so that we can say, “The dollar did a pretty damn good job against the euro. We almost got back to the top.”

I got the idea from watching the Hillary Clinton campaign. As best I see it, the Clinton campaign strategy now is to quietly admit defeat among themselves, but rack up enough points (i.e., votes) in garbage time, and reframe the story of the 2008 Presidential Democratic nomination to tell how, against overwhelming odds -- odds more overwhelming for a simple, gun-toting white woman in a world dominated by men -- she nearly won.

This is bunk, of course. She’s been the loser for months now, but the tortoise has graciously been waiting several feet from the finish line, smoking a cigarette, conversing with people in the stands, and taking a few photo ops here and there, while he waits for the rabbit to get close enough so it can say, “Phew! Almost won! If only I had had the advantages of a stealthy tortoise.” It’s bunk, as I say, but brilliant bunk: The rabbit wasn’t caught asleep at the wheel, yawning its way to the finish line. NO! The rabbit was besieged by “headwinds” and “caustic forces” and lots of abstract things doing lots of abstract chicanery that could never ever be clearly delineated so don’t bother looking for hard facts or evidence.

This is how we need to fix our dollar policy now. Bend the rules of international finance, put weights on the euro, and evade quantitative reform at all costs. Talking points, Whiskey Lantern, not facts or figures or financial mumbo jumbo, are how we return the dollar, perhaps not to its rightful place -- at least not immediately -- but a respectable one. This way, when we gracefully admit our time has passed -- and, oh, and that admission will be graceful (graceful and long) -- we can look aghast at anyone who talks of our passive subversion of the euro -- all the while biding our time and waiting for the moment to reclaim what is rightfully ours.

Let us reframe the story into one of a unit of currency -- champion of the poor and alternately a tool of conservative or liberal ideology (depending upon which story we happen to be telling at the moment) -- that was to lead this country into a second great golden age -- but one whose thinly detailed plan for change was betrayed.

By whom or by what, you say? Well, a variety of factors. Though mainly it was that the dollar always has had more enemies than the euro or the pound or the loonie (or Australian dollar in your case). Yes, perhaps it started from a much greater advantage, with a much longer track record. But people always have been very jealous of the dollar and its ability. Its enemies are not the enemies of the euro. Rather the dollar has faced a much more concerted effort to derail its message of hope and love and peace in the valley. A small cabal, to be sure, but one that is alternately vast as well.

Frankly, it’s amazing that the dollar’s hegemony has lasted this long.

What’s troubling is that with the advent of the euro -- nice as it may be -- it is not going to have the broad appeal that a dollar has. Brown people, white people, black people, and those that fall into “other” all know the dollar as a force of change and growth, and it has the track record to prove it. The euro, younger and popular with some of the moneyed elites right now, is thin in the track record department. It also cannot canvas as large a support base as the dollar and is destined to never quite have the heft it takes to achieve the kind of dominance needed to bring real change.

It’s sad, really. Because the dollar was so close -- so very close -- to reclaiming the perch from which it was cast off by these forces. True, you may hear that it was our own policy of sitting still while the world changed around us or it was our ability to flush cash down the toilet then rely on massive debt to keep us going that was what caused the downfall of the dollar. But you would be wrong.

It was “headwinds” and “forces,” Whiskey Lantern. “Headwinds” and “forces.”

I, for one, however, wish the euro the best of luck. And I hope that, once the dollar declines to continue to compete for the top spot (at least for the time being), that the continued U.S. dollar policy will be not to compete with the euro, but to march in line with it. To help in those areas of domestic and international finance where the euro will be so clearly and fatally overwhelmed.

Hopefully, this answers your question, Whiskey Lantern. If not, what do you care? You were in friggin’ Australia for godsakes, lounging around.

Yours,
The Society for the Advancement of Thinking

Oh, and PS: Some people will tell you that the dollar only got to where it did thanks to some old white guys who, back in the day, scrapped and fought and came from nothing to build something great. And that the dollar is pretty much just riding the coattails of someone else who cleared a lot of the brush away for it and so made it the currency that it became. And that’s true -- but only if you tell it that way.

Thought of the day

I have a problem with the Roman Empire: which is that I don’t believe in it. I refuse to believe that at any time in human history the Italians ruled all of Europe, because I can’t believe that the Italian army was known as the most fearsome, strategically advanced force in the world. To me, that sounds like a comic book. Even the French army, maligned as it is, never lost a war to Ethiopia.

The writerly voice

Our leditor today comes from one Thomas "The T" Huff. Mr. Huff writes:

Dear Society for the Advancement of Thinking (formerly, "Hot Johnny"): I was browsing the web the other day and came across a catchy song, the writer of which, like you, lives in Brooklyn. The song is Jonathan Coulton's "First of May". Are the Brooklyn public parks in springtime as interesting as the third verse of this song would lead me to believe? Also do you now or have you ever owned a tan Shar-Pei? -T
Dear Mr. Huff: I am unfamiliar with Mr. Coulton's work, nor do I own a Shar-Pei. I know something of the parks in Brooklyn. They are mostly green.

Allow me to elucidate.

I have not listened to the song you have mentioned, nor do I plan to locate a copy of it online. If this effrontery surprises you, then you have learned nothing about this author in the nearly three years this blog has been existence.

He feels can say anything and do anything he wishes, without ever the research to back up his claims, and the reason he can do this is because he has assumed, as they say, a "writerly voice." This voice gives him the power to pronouce, pounce and denounce upon anything and anyone he wishes -- without repercussion.

Should he exclaim that Mr. Coulton's work reminds him of a dog eating its own feces -- and this, without having ever heard the song -- it is not me saying this, Mr. Huff, but my writerly voice. For he makes these accusations against ex-girlfriends, the gas company and anyone not attuned to his genius -- not me.

As for Brooklyn's public parks, again I have not heard the song, but in summers past, I have played cricket with Australians, drunk beer while playing right field, and engaged in other activities not to be mentioned on this blog. If Mr. Coulton, a pseudonym to be sure, is effervescent about Brooklyn's parks, then the answer to your question is "yes."

As for a tan or otherwise Shar-pei, no and I do not plan to own a Shar-Pei. First the name -- and, yes, I have assumed my "writerly voice" here -- is obnoxious and can only be the Anglo-sized form of the Chinese word for "Fat Face." Second, I take offense at making fat a fashion statement, particularly in the face department. It breeds self-reliance out of these dogs and what is a needy dog but a slow child with fur?

These answers likely will not help you. Then again, that is exactly, no doubt, what you were expecting. As such, you're welcome.

Yours,
The Society.

PS. At what point did breeding helpless creatures become "cute"?

My latest fake band

As many of you may know, I have never wanted to be in a band. But I've always loved to pretend like I was. There was "Scrotal Venom," which was followed by "Cows with Toupees." Then, of course, there was "Jew of the Month." And let's not forget "Furiously Masturbating."

Today, I am pleased to announce a new band, complete with new-band discography.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to introduce, for the first-time on any stage, screen or blog anywhere ...

Sneaky Little Bastards

Discography:

The Sneaky Little Bastards
I Can't Believe They Did It, The Sneaky Little Bastards
Whose Gonna Believe Some Sneaky Little Bastards Like You?
Those Is Some Sneaky Little Bastards
I Knew It Was You, You Sneaky Little Bastards
Sneaky Little Bastards Like You Are Why They Need A Couple of People Like Me
God Bless'em, Those Sneaky Little Bastards
That's Them Sneaky Little Bastards' Greatest Hits!
It's Those Sneaky Little Bastards Who Keep Messin' With My Dog

Today's lesson: For the greatest hits package, I want the same guy to do the cover art who did it for all the Kansas albums. For some reason, and on that one album, it just seems to work.

Shazzam in the streets of London

For lack of any real jokes, here are few for you music nerds out there to yuck up with a bib and spoon. Enjoy.

• “I understand that Mexicans will do sonic landscaping at a quarter of what Brian Eno charges.”


• The album I want to hear and I think must be made is “Jim Nabors Sings The Smiths.” If you think about, Nabors kind of sounds like Morrissey, if Morrissey had had a Gospel 'n' Grand Ol' Opry upbringing.

Today’s lesson: And while we‘re at it, I would also like to see the spin-off, “Morrissey: USMC.” Few things sound funnier on paper than hearing Morrissey say, “Goooool-lee, Sgt. Carter.”

RIP: The Hog Pit

Ribs’n’beer mecca The Hog Pit here in NYC is closing, and what I will miss is not the so-so food or country music-laden jukebox or beer-upon-beer of badly played pool that was in evidence there. No, what I will miss is sitting with a plate aplenty of fried foods and veggies, hearing “Shotgun Willie” piped over some dirty jokes between friends -- and spying, from the corner of my eye, the entire cast of "Cruising" file past the window in all its leather-glad gloryholeness.

The Hog Pit, you see, lay next door to equally defunct The Manhole -- a very special "club," you might call it, for men who like men who like to know what it is to feel pain. And if you had a window seat at The Hog Pit, in-between bites of chicken-fried steak and black-eyed peas, you could spy a mustachioed man in leather cap, chaps and vest pass your table window. These were not men who were into musicals (unless that musical was "Manhole Follies"); these were men who were into other men three, sometimes four, at a time.

I suppose you could say that the two establishments were natural neighbors, least of all because of the numerous puns on the term “meat” available (the first I came up, incidentally, was “it’s served at one table and bent over the other”). But bad puns aside, they were both divey, dark dens in a corner of Manhattan that wanted an oasis from the velvet ropes and shrieking fashionistas that ended up finding and consuming them anyway.

Both places are, effectively, gone now -- just another of the city’s dark creases cleaned, dried and pressed -- but certainly not forgotten. I, for one, salute that lost street corner in my life, every time I smell fried foods or hear the word “gimp,” and I know I'm not alone.

And so, to my Hog Pit brothers (and Manhole sisters), I say, “rest in peace, dear friends, rest in peace.”

Today’s lesson: I distinctly remember my first visit to The Hog Pit. Married friends Mitch and Catherine had “a surprise” in store for me for my birthday. Down 8th avenue we walked, until Mitch pointed and said, “There’s your surprise,” indicating The Hog Pit half a block away on our side of the street. Unfortunately, from my vantage point, several feet to his left and closer to the buildings, all I could see was “The Manhole.” I can remember thinking, “Why are my married friends taking me to The Manhole? And is a ‘manhole’ as innocuous as a ‘Manwich?’ God, I hope so.”

We shall ‘reverse the polarity’ of our economy!

It would be nice to think that the people we elect to office and to whom we pay a healthy salary (once retirement benefits like lobbying and speaking fees are included) would be smart enough to fashion a remedy, bitter like medicine, that slowed down, if not outright reversed the current decline in the economy.Unfortunately, this is not the case. The current economic package -- a few hundred dollars a person, or bah mitzvah money, basically -- is based on the same sound principles as the notion that making everyone in the world jump at the same time will shift the Earth’s orbit -- the idea being that if everyone does a small something at the same time, great things happen. In the case of all the world jumping as one, that is supposed to produce a shift in the earth’s orbit which should lead to longer daylight hours, reduction in pollution and that ol’ chestnut, “world peace.”

In the case of a refund from the government, everyone is supposed to spend the money all at once and thus jump-start the economy. However, we already know this can’t work because it fails the first test, not sounding stupid when you say it out loud: “You see, what we’re going to do is, have everyone spend a few hundred dollars -- at the same time -- and then, whizz-bang!, everything’s fixed!” It’s the sort of illogical solution that serious people reach -- and that only works -- on bad TV shows; in fact, you may be familiar with its sci-fi equivalent, "reversing the polarity" to effect some kind of grand escape. Hell, it’s such a bad idea and spoken of so highly by so many people despite God’s light shining down on the cold, unvarnished truth of the matter that I can’t say for certain that Scientology isn’t somehow involved.

What’s most peculiar is that economists came up with this plan: Ivy-leagued, easily tenured, starch-collared economists. They got together, with their various charts and grafts and wizards hats and young apprentices who don’t know any better other than to blow up the lab at this point, and after a number of potion-making sessions, presented to the king a way of changing lead bars to gold. Of course, to be fair, if someone walked up to Frank Gehry and said “Make me a house RIGHT NOW made entirely of bologna!”, well, Gehry couldn’t take all the blame for the results. Likewise, you couldn’t blame firemen if all they had were squirt guns.

That leaves the question of what SHOULD have been done or can still be done to right another fine mess the Stan Laurels of the world have gotten us into. More money isn’t the solution, as that’s tantamount to dousing more water on a base burn: you’re just increasing the size of the wrong solution. No, the correct answer begins with everyone coming clean and admitting that, for the most part, the people who are losing their houses brought this upon themselves.

When people are suffering, and when they bring their families into that suffering, we hate to point fingers. But any remedy that doesn't acknowledge this fact is bound to fail and so the first thing we need to do is face facts: When you become an adult, you’re expected to assume certain adult responsibilities, and one of those responsibilities is to realize that anyone pulling down a 50K salary can’t afford a quarter-million-dollar house at a 2.5% interest rate that kicks up to 9% in the second year, PARTICULARLY once you start taking equity out of it.

Investment banks, mortgage lenders, bond insurers, Mrs. Peacock, Col. Mustard: They’re all to blame for letting these people be stupid, and Alan Greenspan and legislators from both parties get hat tips for providing the rope by which they were allowed to hang themselves. But it doesn’t change the fact that these people -- most of whom aren’t bad people and merely wanted to take out equity to jumpstart a child‘s college fund, say -- made a six- or seven-figure decision without caring to read the fine print. And now, ironically, these are the people Washington wants to trust with more money.

An effective government plan would stick to helping small businesses, nix those oil and farm subsidies (the latter being the truly evil of the pair), beef up unemployment benefits and then, stay the eff out of the way. If someone wants financial help, then the government should have a crack team of financial planners ready 24-7 to help baby-step anyone who wants advice but doesn't know how or where to get it, without ever giving them any sort of direct cash payment. That's like what we did with welfare reform in '96; it was a bitter pill and hotly contested, but it's mostly worked.

Of course, that kind of help is going to include telling these people that it could take upwards of 10 years -- or more -- to reverse a few years of bad decisions. But that's a helluva lot more honest than rustling the couch for change when you tell someone "don't worry, I've got it covered."

Today's lesson: At least I assume that's what bah mitzvah money is going for nowadays. My goyness (a favorite pun of the Jews, incidentally, to indicate surprise) precludes me from any actual knowledge of the matter, other than the ritual sacrifice of a Christian child and shaving of the tail, of course.

Job hunt redux

Stop me if this sounds familiar, but I have been reorganized right out of a job.

Since November, I had been writing financial news stories, feverishly reporting facts and figures that could excite only the most boring of persons.

But no longer.

I learned two hours ago that my time there as an equities reporter had come to an end and thus I will be embarking upon far fewer 90-minute treks to Jersey City at 4 in the morning. The next few weeks instead will be spent pounding pavement at a far more decent hour, looking for work but with far greater insight than the average Joe as to why many of us no longer have jobs.

I leave on good terms, with two weeks' severance and recommendations from my supervisors going forward.

Thus, I issue a general call for any tips, rumors, innuendo or general snake charms -- any knowledge whatsoever of the whereabouts of an idle broom -- as I seek, yet again, to secure gainful employment. Tips on freelance work, as well as which way -- clockwise or counter-clockwise -- to swirl your change cup, would also be appreciated.

Well, that's it from here. Thanks and all the best, HJ

Oh, and PS: Also appreciated would be tips regarding the whereabouts of any open bars.

Hillary's First 100 Days

“Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined an aggressive 100-day presidential agenda on Tuesday …” - Associated Press, April 15, 2008

My First Hundred Days
by Hillary Clinton (as told to John Flowers)

********************
This post -- high-larious in its intricacies -- is now located here (save the "Today's lesson" portion, which remains).

********************

Today’s lesson: Actually, this hundred-day itinerary works for everyone who’s been president save for William Henry Harrison, whose list begins, “Day 1: Wish there was a sniffling, sneezing, stuffy-head, fever, so-I-can-go-to-sleep medicine. As such, stick to the leeches.”

At least I didn't mention The War

A weekend, or perhaps two, ago, my date leans over the table and whispers, over the din of the bar, that “The Germans have a really unsexy language.”

Completely oblivious as to why she would be saying this -- and why so low -- I could only assume it was a continuation of a conversation we had had perhaps 15 minutes prior, in front of a statue dedicated to those from the West Village who died in “The World War.” We had stood staring at said doughboy whereupon I broke the silence with, “They really came up with some good nasty names for Germans in that war, didn’t they?” And, flash forward, decided then and there in the bar to loudly catalogue those names again:

• Krauts


• The Hun


• Jerry


• The Boche

To which she immediately hissed, “Those are Germans sitting next to us!”

Today’s lesson: I mean, honestly, people: Blacks, Jews, Gypsies -- and yet it’s the friggin’ Germans I get caught for? How’s that for irony?

Vote 'Leditors to the Editor' in '08!

The 2008 presidential election (director’s cut) at some point must reach intermission. And when that happens, you, the patient voter and reader of this blog likely will have a lot of questions about what it is you just saw -- “Ohhhhh, so the guy who won was the same black guy from the beginning,” -- as well as a few going forward. That’s where I and the faithful servants who toil in the leditors to editor department come in. We have one more leditor of a non-political nature, but once posted and for the next seven months thereafter, I want to respond solely to your questions of a political or vaguely political nature.

• Curious about the economy?


• What’s up with this North Korea you’ve been hearing about?


• The prime minister of England is a Scot and yet he doesn’t sound at all like Sean Connery. What gives?

Anytime you have a question that relates to the candidates or the campaign in general, we want to hear it. All you need to do is drop a line, either in the comments section at the bottom of a post or by email to this address:

hotjohnnyandallofhispants@hotmail.com

and I will provide you a complete and unbiased answer based upon my many years of shouting down people at parties.

It’s just that simple.

You ask. I answer.

Well, that’s it from us here. Remember, one more leditor of a non-political nature, to be posted this week, and after that, we go political. But to do that, we need your support.

Well, that’s it from Ground Control.

Thanks and keep those editors coming.

Yours,
HJ

Oh, and PS: Just to get the ball rolling, allow me to answer what is likely going to be everyone‘s first question -- “No. In fact, she‘s in danger of losing ‘honorable mention,’ too.”

How privacy doesn't work in the East

Today’s leditor to the editor comes from a Pearson H. He writes:

Dear Hot Johnny: As you know, I have spent the last week and a half in Beijing, China, at the request of my employer. Shortly after touching down at the Beijing airport, I was informed the project I was sent to complete had been pushed back to June. So, I have been spending my time milling about Beijing, trying to act busy from 9-5 (much like any other day), and spending my evenings enjoying 2 for 1 beers at the hotel bar, and watching MTV Mandarin. But I digress.

I was sitting on the pot here at the office, perusing a magazine, trying to gain some insight on the local culture, it's people, art and businesses, and looking at the underwear ads, when what should I notice, but what appears to be pictures of an adult circumcision! I ask you, dear HJ, what kind of culture have I been missing out on here in China?

I have enclosed pictures for your edification.

Dear Pearson: First, and this is my fault for never having directly stated our policy on sending pictures of male circumcision, but we here at Consolidated Hot Johnny work on the honor system. And, as such, if you SAY you have pictures of a man undergoing circumcision, well, by golly, that’s good enough for us. No need to show us pictures of some guy’s ring around the collar. We all know what a circumcised penis looks like. And if you say you've got pictures, your word is good enough for us.

That being said, yes, the Chinese don’t really value privacy the way you and I and Lyndon LaRouche do. If you’re Chinese, you know that family members will ask, in public, highly personal questions. And you know that as a Chinese person, you are honor-bound to answer said questions. Likewise, if a magazine photographer asks, “may we click, click when you get snip, snip?” it would be rude to do anything other than pay full price for a year’s subscription.

Your business is everyone’s business, in other words. This is why I believe that when the reality TV juggernaut runs finally runs amok on mainland China it will be embraced as popular, if fairly unremarkable, programming. We westerners tend to think of these shows as voyeuristic thrills into the (highly scripted) lives of persons celebrated and not, whereas the Chinese will look at these shows and wonder what the big deal is about a person who's under surveillance at all times.


Hopefully, “Meandering Conjecture” was what you were looking for in an answer. Otherwise, yer just out of luck.

Thanks for writing and keep reading.

Yours,
HJ

Oh, and PS: It could also be that the kid in question had “Free Tibet” tattooed to his dick.

Humor probably only men will find funny

Nominee for most juvenile film of 2008 and possibly ever. I've watched it five times.

Today's lesson: The classics never go out of style.

Ball Buster

This is not an April Fools' Day gag. Rather an actual product from an actual decade known as "The '70s." I've watched it twice now and can't figure out how the hell the game actually work. Nevertheless, I laugh out loud every time at about the 35-second mark. Enjoy.

Today's lesson: Fun for the family. Really?

Making Pii Pii

ThinkGeek is known for its April Fools' Day gags -- and this is one -- but, God, I just wanted to believe that this product was real.
Today's lesson: Seriously, who out there with a Wii, wouldn't buy a Pii Pii?

How to judge a player's 'intangibles'

If you've ever watched a baseball game or heard analysis of one after the fact, you're familiar with reporters and the like commenting on a player's "Intangibles." Usually, this is a player with, at best, average power and speed and who has played on at least three different teams. But the people who follow the game for a living speak so often and so well of these players and their "intangibles," it begs the question: Just what the hell are they?

Thus, as a service to fans everywhere, I present possible answers to this query so the better to understand why certain guys kick around the league, year after year.

Thanks, and enjoy.

What Sports Reporters May Mean When They Laud a Player's 'Intangibles'



• He happened to be there when the team won its championships.


• The steps to this guy’s ceiling just stop.


• He comes cheap, and you could do worse.


• You put Mickey Mantle in there, they’re still losing.


• Or: They can‘t figure out why the team is on a win streak either, but it is.


• If he’s got a stripper problem, you‘d never know it.


• What other people mean when they say a person is 'well-spoken.'


• ‘Works Well With Others’ is not just quantitative, it's the new OBP.


• He plays on an East Coast team.


• He's incredibly short for a person playing his position.


• He’s got a weak arm but a big heart.


• He‘s the link between fans and the really good players.


• His agent is smarter than management.


• He's been too average and for too long to not have intangibles.


• He's approaching 40.


• He'll make an excellent broadcaster one day.


• He‘s good with a quote.

Today’s lesson: In corporate league softball, the term generally means he's the team's best drinker.

How much for that dead sheep in the window?

Today's leditor to the editor comes from Known Associate Cookie Monster. She writes:

Dear Hot Johnny: What do you make of the current state of the art market? Some people say it's up, some say it's in the toilet, about to get flushed. What's your take? And what's your advice to the investor looking to purchase a dozen tanks full of dead sheep in formaldehyde?
Dear C is for Cookie (is good enough for me): Allow me to spin a tale from my own life and hammer its square body through the round-hole of debate until, by Glory, it fits. It may have meaning for you or it may have absolutely nothing to do at all with the answer you seek (and you can trust me when I say, that I’m just as curious to see what happens as you). Either way, it’s a so-so story but reason enough not to go back to work.

On the Friday night after a particularly riotous New Year’s Eve, I found myself eating sushi with a young lady because I had deigned to wonder whose phone number had been magic-markered to my right hand. The date began as you might expect, with each of us trying to remember how we met, whom we knew, and whether we were in fact the people we were supposed to be meeting there.

She worked on the advertising side of a well-known local arts magazine, knew something of the local art scene and looked good in a black dress. This is what people mean by “opposites attract,” by the way.

We spent most of the meal piecing together the night we met, with her reminding me of some of the witty things I said and I just nodding along and not remembering those comments at all (but who was I to judge?). By saki bottle number two, our conversation was quite the perpetual motion machine not to mention the corner stone of a very successful din.

That was the point when I noticed a chance to impress our fair young artsmith with my Bazooka Joe knowledge of modern and contemporary art. Pointing out the three red, modular plates before us that contained the detritus of our entrees and appetizer, I noted that, stacked side-by-side against the equally modular, and otherwise spartan, dark tablecloth, they looked “like if Rothko had worked with fish.”

Silence.

“… Like If Rothko, Mark Rothko, Had Worked With Fish.”

(crickets, gently humping)

I pointed to the plates, explained the joke again -- always fun on a first date -- and how the three rectangular plates against a canvas of a larger rectangle were reminiscent of the colors and forms he used in some of his more famous works and “Ha, how funny would it be were famed abstract expressionist Mark Rothko to have used fish in his work!” Again, failure. Come to find out, the issue was not the tenuous association being made between deep reds and the deep blue (and to this date I have no confirmation whether the leads of this joke do indeed form a circuit). No, our hip artswain never had heard of our Mr. Rothko, a painter you‘ve seen if you‘ve set one foot in one modern or contemporary art museum in your life.

That misfire set the tenure for the rest of the night, because who doesn‘t like their date to make them feel stupid? Not that either of us made mention again of the “joke” nor let it abruptly end the mirth, gaiety and jubilation of the night (we even had one more bar in us). But it was a pea under the mattress, and no manner of squirming was going to find that level of comfort from earlier in the night.

It was an important lesson to learn, though -- and pay attention, Cookie, because here is where I answer your question -- because the incident helped me understand that no matter how brilliant a work of art you may think you‘ve created, it’s the market what has final word on whether the damn thing sells. In my case, the comparison wasn’t understood, the reference was unfamiliar, and thus the effect was considered opaque. Never mind that I still think the comment clever. It didn’t sell.

My value, I learned, had been inflated in headier days (or nights, rather) when everyone was looking to buy and my bon mots could draw ten figures from her. Now that those days were over, however, the market was a bit more conservative; still buying, of course, but much less, and taking a longer, more discerning look before it did. And no matter how good you -- the artist of paint, of video, of jokes -- may think you are (and you may be genuinely talented), sometimes you have to realize that just amusing yourself doesn’t cut it anymore, and that what it is you’ve got to give just isn’t the “Big Thing” she’s looking for. So to speak.

That isn’t to say that the artist need dumb down his work to be a success. Rather, he must lead as much as craft to realize his vision. That means hHe must listen as much as talk and learn to adapt and to adjust as well as to suggest and not to demand if anyone is to show sustained interest. And if you are single or remember how it felt to be single or taken a look at the divorce rates recently, you know that that is the true art.

Well, I’ve overstayed my welcome by a paragraph or two. Hopefully, this leditor to the editor helps (though that’s never been the case before with these things).

Thanks, and keep reading.

Yours,
HJ

Oh, and PS: As for the “dozen tanks full of dead sheep in formaldehyde,” quickly but quietly ease yourself out of bed, find your pants, your shoes, socks and shirt, and wait until you’re out the door before doing more than the minimum needed to shuffle away in public.

Recently overheard

Recently overheard at the Columbus Regional Airport Authority in Columbus, OH:

"Uncle Beaver, please meet your party at the baggage claims office. Uncle Beaver.

Today's lesson: There's some joke here about a "beaver patrol" but, i just don't have the 30 seconds it would take to think of it.

We are experiencing technical difficulties

This site is experiencing technical difficulties regarding giving a damn while it is on vacation. Symptoms include "gluttony", "oversleeping", "gluttony" and "oversleeping."

The other white trash

Today’s leditor to the editor comes from one Jonathan R. He writes:

Dear HJ: Being a pseudo-englishman, I am of course obsessed with the soap opera of the royal family. Prince Harry, in Afghanistan, several weeks ago told reporters that he enjoys being in a combat zone, and doesn't like England that much. Hot Johnny, can he really be as dumb as he sounds? I weep for the future of the monarchy.
Dear Sir: Allow me to answer your question by means of a short tale.

Once upon a time, I dated a merry young lass from your country and was forced to meet many of her merry ol’ countrymen, most of whom bugged the hell out of me. With one gay one I mentioned that “musicals as a whole” were irrelevant; with another, well, we were mutually stand-offish, and that certainly worked; but with the third, during one drunken bout I may have mentioned something to the effect -- and this is where your query comes in -- that “Yeah, well, we got in-breds down South, too. We just don’t put ‘em on thrones.”

It was loud; we were in a bar; and I got away with one.

But I believe my point was, on that night, that money and fine manners and the exploits of someone’s great, great, great grandpappy however many years ago may disguise a lot about a person’s upbringing. But much as you can have a desert in the Sahara or in the Antarctica, by the strictest definition of what a desert is, you can have very rich and very poor alike be white trash if all either ever does is put their foot in their mouths, depend on the government for assistance, and fuck their cousins.

Thus, you shouldn’t take much concern about what the Harry’s or the William’s or the Charles’ of the world might say, as they’re nothing you should be looking up to anyways.

Hopefully, this answers your question, but who are we kidding?

Yours,
HJ

Oh, and PS: Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a pack of RC Cola in the ‘fridge at Buckingham Palace.

Actually, I just played poker yesterday

Today’s leditors to the editor feature two from Known Associate Hieronymus Bosch. He writes:

Dear HJ: Why are you such a pussy? Specifically, why have you been pussing out of poker?
Dear Sir: First, let me say that when you or anyone else queries The Noted Author regarding a subject only said The Noted Author and yourself would have some knowledge, then please, by all means, show some concern for the sake of the reader and add some context to your leditor.

For instance, you might instead have written, “Dear Sir: Why is it that when it is my turn to deal cards, I am never paying attention and have to be less than gently reminded to do so?” Or “Dear Sir: Why is it that when it is my turn to bet, I must be reminded of what game we are playing to the consternation of those around me?” Or “Dear Sir: Why does my name always appear near the phrase ‘to the consternation of those around me?’”

That way, when facts for which no one reading this site would or should have any prior knowledge appear in print, they’re not left wondering what the hell is going on.

Now, to answer your letter … I don’t know really. Something in the air, I suppose.

Dear HJ: Please explain, in 100 words or less, precisely how the flux capacitor makes time travel possible. Sincerely, Hieronymus
Dear Sir: And you ask why I no longer attend poker.

Yours,
HJ

Oh, and PS: More curious is who the hell ever thought gull-wing doors were an attractive option on a car?

A Chinese prostitute is always there to lend a hand

Today’s Leditor to the Editor comes from a Pearson H. who writes:

Dear most honorable HJ: As you may be aware, my company, in it's infinite wisdom has decided to send me to our Beijing office later this month. Having visited China yourself, I was wondering if you had any advice or insight to share before I depart.
Dear Sir: I apologize for taking so long to reply to your leditor, though the public should know that I provided you much heap of advice prior to your visit, with the promise that I would then do so publicly and finicky at a later date.

Rather than write, which I find a dreadful enterprise, allow me to copy-and-paste a few excerpts from a book set to detail my four-week experience in China in 2005 that is sure to set land-speed records for rejections. (One caveat: These entries are all highly unedited and, as such, may not make sense at times.)

1. Our first selections comes from my search in Beijing to find a bus to take me to a place called Miyun, where I then was to connect to a bus that would take me to a section of The Great Wall of China called Simatai.

Here, our intrepid explorer has exited the subway station where the long-distance bus station should be. But, finding no large building with buses, he has attempted to gain directions from the natives with a few fruitless hand gestures and “vroom, vroom, vroom’s”. One such person has motioned our Captain John Smith to walk around a nearby street corner:

I walked a few steps but this didn’t seem right, because there should at least be a building around here, right? Or a large sign of the kind that usually announces such public buildings, with a statue of Mao in front of it like everything else in this country.

After asking the man again, just to be sure, that this was the way to go, I approached the corner and rounded it, only to see not so much a bus station but a tailgate. No signs. No directions. No indications of where a bus to Miyun (let alone Simatai) might be. Just an open-air market of rusty metal.

Undaunted, I decided that if I just walked this way and that, uttering a word whose pronunciation I was unfamiliar and in a language where syllabic emphasis is of the utmost importance -- among its four definitions “ma,” may mean “horse” or “mother” depending how you say it -- that I eventually would find the right bus.

“Miyun?” I would call out.

“Miyun?” … “Miyun?” I wasn’t even hitting the back half rows of bus drivers with my bird call.

“Miyun?” I’m not going to lie. It was a pathetic display. This city mouse lugging his backpack full of water along a once paved road calling out the name of a town that might just have easily been the word for “donut” as it was for a city.

“Donut?” I yelled.

And kept yelling until, just a few feet away from entering a residential neighborhood, doom on my brow, I heard,

“Donut?”

“Donut?” I responded.

This someone pointed to a bus, his I assumed, and we exchanged the only word we both knew we both knew. I paid the 10 Yuan fare and hopped aboard, and grabbed a seat on a “bus“ that in America we would call a VW wagon.

2. Unbeknownst to most of the HJ-knowing world, I left New York City for China, deeply, deeply in debt and spent the first 10 or so days there overdrawing accounts, delaying hotel bill payments and hoping for word from my roommate in the states that American Express had sent a PIN so that I could draw money off it.

Here, our intrepid explorer leaves Beijing then arrives in Chengdu, poorer than he has ever been.

And so begins stage II. Much like stage I, we are in the grips of a financial recession, which is the reason why at yonder bicycle-clogged avenue, the average Chengduan at, roughly noon on Wednesday, June 15, 2005, could spy a tall, mid-slender (to be kind) American hauling his bags from the nearest bus stop to his hotel, Sam’s Guesthouse, named after Sam the Chinaman I suppose.

But I get ahead of myself.

The day began in Beijing with another check of the email for something from glimmerofhope.com. Whether that domain is actually registered, who’s to say, much less care. At this point in time, I was clutching at straws, figuring they must have some street value; hoping that the letter with my new PIN had arrived at home in Brooklyn and my roommate the Pirate charged with forwarding -- blah, blah, blah, it hadn’t and neither had he.

Being short of money, however, didn’t mean I wouldn’t have a ride to the airport. Remember the first hotel, the one that didn’t accept credit cards once you were in China? [And note, dear reader, on my first day in China, I was forced to change hotels]. Well, that initial credit card charge deposit -- the only time they ever took a credit card -- entitled me to one airport pick-up, already accomplished, AND one drop-off.

Finally, I did something right.

After a short flight, I arrive in Chengdu, unharmed and unpursued by creditors and in need of bus service. And while I probably could have afforded a cab, I correctly gauged that Events -- those nasty, unforeseen “Events” -- would commander my cash. And who among us doesn’t love the municipalness of the bus. And so I say, Hail to the bus driver, bus driving man!

Not hale, but rain, though, was what met me upon disembarking at my stop. The real surprise being not the precipitation, as it was overcast when I left the airport in Beijing -- but that I could read a Chengdu bus map. Accurately.

Actually, reading a map in China is no problem, so long as you don’t mind spending a solid five to 10 minutes plotting your course. Just compare the Mandarin symbols listed next to the English name equivalent of the landmark you wish to see in the map key and then find its twin somewhere up on the map. Like I said, days might pass performing this task, but rarely will you make a mistake.

The stop was farther from my little slice of motel than I reckoned, and so I ended up waddling the last fifth of a mile or so, in the rain, clutching two bags -- one with a broken strap -- trying to navigate the currents of the choppy waters of bicycling Chinese.

Like the trip prior and later, I was to discover an innate sense of direction that would vanish the moment I did something responsible like consult a guidebook. Left to my own devices, blindfolded to the world of common sense, I could navigate quite perfectly, much as I did now to serendipitously find my hotel, Sam’s Guesthouse.

Sam’s, I later learned, was THE place to be for the backpacker of Chengdu. Reservations were required several days in advance, which is a long time in the world of backpacking. And had I not made mine weeks ago, lord knows where I would have stayed -- which is a fate I briefly, a few seconds perhaps, had time to consider when, guess what? Guess who doesn’t take AMEX or MasterCard but would have taken VISA or, sigh, cash -- all the cash for all the days of rice wine and roses I wanted -- as an up front deposit on my room?

Call it another financial impasse.

The funny -- well, not ha-ha funny -- thing about the dilemma is that before my flight, I accounted for what funds I had left, measured that by what would be owed, and determined I had plenty of funds to last me the two days until my paycheck was deposited. This computation error was due to a technical glitch of believing that the hotel cost 10Y a day, not $10, and by the way I now work in the financial services industry.

My current balance? Y29, or about $3.50. Again, I could work wonders with a third-world economy.

3. The final bit is a short memory from bar hopping in Shanghai. The night had ended and I wound my way to the end of the street to hale a cab (we were in the black by this point). This was an area of town that catered heavily to westerners, which meant that you couldn’t throw a stone and not hit 12 prostitutes.

I piled into a cab and did a silly thing while showing the cabbie in front the piece of paper on which I had the address of my hotel written: I left the door open. This was all the sign one such lady needed to race over -- clack, clack, clack, clack! -- in her high heels and not take “no” for an answer

I don’t mean she was trying to argue her way into the cab and convince me that what I needed was a questionable, communicable good night. No, she tried forcing her way into the cab -- going down low, then going high and just generally trying to find leverage like a wrestler would. And while I was trying to fight her off with one hand, I was motioning with the other to the cab driver -- who sloooowwwly paaaaauuussed over the instructions of how to get to my hotel -- to “just drive, damn it.”

Here is when I heard more “clack, clack, clack, clacking” heading my way. I looked up to see another prostitute heading over. In my naiveté, having absolutely no experience with prostitutes even in my own land, my honest first reaction was, “Thank God, the prostitute will help me!” because I assumed she was embarrassed over the actions of her friend and was coming over to help pull her off.

Au contraire.

She began pushing her into the cab from behind, and I have to tell you, from my seated position, with one arm trying to direct the cabbie, it was touch and go for a while. Finally the driver got his bearings, and with the Prussians arriving just in time to join forces with the Duke of Wellington, I gave the two prostitutes a good push with both hands and slammed the door shut.

I learned here that Chinese prostitutes put up a good fight. And I tip my hat to them.

Well, Pearson, while this email is long overdue, I hope you found it entertaining and also enjoyed your own trip to China.

Thanks for the leditor and keep reading.

Yours,
HJ

Oh, and PS: Chinese prostitutes have a strong grip, too. And I’m a man who applauds a good handshake.

Do as I say I would do had I not done

Today's leditor to the editor comes from Known Associate The Whiskey Lantern. He writes:

Dear HJ:

Recently, I've started on-line dating. I'm going to let you go with this one, and tell you what happened in a month.

-- The Whiskey Lantern

Dear Whiskey Tango Foxtrot:

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor and hope you do as I say and not as I say I do.

Except here where I hope you do as I say I should have done.

Myself, I have dabbled in online dating only once, having heard of this and that success from friends as to its medicinal benefits and how in no way it was a gateway drug to Dr. Who conventions. Alas, in my case, the encounter met neither extreme necessary to qualify for “anecdote” status but was altogether dull, boring and omnipresent, to quote Steve Martin.

However, neither one of us have anything better to do, so I’m going to tell the story anyway.

This episode occurred perhaps six or seven years ago, during a “lull,” if you will. Tempted by the idea o