Dear Woman Ahead of Me at Starbucks

Please. Go ahead. Change your order again.

Sure, I noticed that you gave one whole order with three or four items, then changed the whole thing without thinking about it. No problem. Go right ahead.

And then after the cashier gave you a total, you made a few more changes. That’s fine. In fact, I’m impressed that you’re able to do so as if it’s completely normal, without so much as an “Oh, I’m sorry, can I change X to Z?” Really nice.

I don’t think anyone in the line that has gathered behind me minded at all when you finally finished your order but didn’t move, instead choosing to pick up random packages of cookies to examine them as if shopping for melons. That’s fine. We’re too rigid in society these days, thinking of the Starbucks cash register as a place for us to tell the staff what we’d like. Why shouldn’t it be a place for you to take a few minutes to peruse things you’re not going to order?

Or are you? After all, you’re perfectly within your rights to continue your improvisation after your order has been placed. Sure, you said “double-shot caramel macchiato,” but we know you really meant “bacon and egg sandwich on a garlic bagel.”

The staff here is wonderful — I’ve bonded with many of them while writing much of my book here and doing plenty of blog posts and the occasional newspaper story. Why not take the opportunity to get all four of them to help you? One can remake your latte — it was a latte, right? Another can get your kid’s milk — oh, and you want that in a glass, of course. We’ll send the manager over to heat half of your sandwich as you requested, and the other person can go out back and slaughter a goat to provide the meat for that rare Lebanese delicacy you’ve just added to your order.

By this time, whatever you’ve paid is a mere approximation of what you should’ve paid for your revised order. That’s OK. I tip the staff well, and I’m sure the people in the line — now reaching to the door — also will drop in some change.

So please do continue with no acknowledgement toward the other customers who are waiting. That way, you won’t notice that I just took the original latte you ordered out back for a second and quickly replaced it. Hope you enjoy the “extra shot” in your beverage.

 

When writers attack

See Alice write. See Alice get a negative though not appalling review, one that says her latest doesn’t live up to her previous work.

See Alice trash the reviewer on her Twitter feed.

See Alice post the reviewer’s phone number and e-mail address, though the latter is also available on the review itself. See Alice misspell “Verizon.”

See Alice get called out by a book critic. See Alice respond with elementary snark.

Here’s what I find funniest: “Now any idiot can be a critic. Writers used to review writers. My second novel was reviewed by Ann Tyler. So who is Roberta Silman?”

Hmmm … five-second Web search … Roberta Silman is a writer.

Not sure how to proceed from here. Do I lament the capacity of social networking to spread ignorance whenever someone’s a little angry, or do I check to make sure my phone number is unlisted?

 

Mindless cynicism du jour

Hate Disney World if you must. Fine. It’s a small world, but there’s still room for diverse opinions.

Just have a reason for doing so other than thinking you’re just too cool for the whole experience.

At Slate, Seth Stevenson takes a shot at the land of the Mouse:

After spending the past five days here, I’ve come to the conclusion that Disney World teaches kids three things: 1) a meaningless, bubble-headed utopianism, 2) a grasping, whining consumerism, and 3) a preference for soulless facsimiles of culture and architecture instead of for the real thing. I suppose it also teaches them that monorails are cool. So there’s that.

Except that he doesn’t develop any of those points.

He sees “bubble-headed utopianism” in the “It’s a Small World” ride but concedes that he finds it charming. “It’s an unassailable message, and there’s also something comforting in the ride’s retro simplicity.”

The rest of his complaints:

1. Disney World sells packages to people who go roughly once a year. Isn’t that excessive? People buy time shares near warm-weather golf courses all the time. Think of Disney World as some great golfing that happens to have a few amusement parks within a shuttle or monorail ride, and is it really so strange?

2. Had Disney lived longer, his utopian vision might have mutated into something like L. Ron Hubbard’s. OK. And if Jim Morrison had lived longer, the Doors might have become a Christian rock band. Lots of historical determinism there, and it has nothing to do with the park itself.

3. Disney World is like a church of Disneyism! Just look at all the weddings in the Magic Kingdom! Weddings, you say? That’s a sign of religion? If that were true, shouldn’t we all pray facing Vegas?

4. Between the Mickey/Minnie gender roles and the princess/pirate split among kids, Disney World reinforces gender stereotypes. OK, sure, the storytelling in Disney films can be a little old-fashioned. But plenty of kids have favorite characters who aren’t so easily pinned down. What the hell is Stitch, anyway?

5. Everything is so sanitized. The fireworks always start at exactly 9 p.m. The berms hide the Dumpsters. Concealed trash? Fireworks starting on time? Those freaking Nazi bastards!

Look, if I want to see Dumpsters, I’ll walk out behind my local grocery store. (It’s not in front? Those freaking Nazi bastards!) If I want to see a little utopian fantasy land, I’ll go to the Magic Kingdom.

And he doesn’t even scratch the surface of what you can actually see in Disney World. Animal Kingdom’s safari ride gives you the closest view of wild animals you could possibly want. If you’re tired of the “Small World” utopianism, take your pick from the rides at any of the parks.

He briefly mentions Epcot — “Mightn’t it be better to broaden your children’s horizons just a tad? Like, maybe visit Canada—instead of just the Canada pavilion in Epcot?”

Notice that he mentions Canada. Notice how different — and how elitist — this sentence would read if he had said, “Like, maybe visit Japan — instead of just the Japan pavilion in Epcot?”

Those of us who have neither tens of thousands of dollars nor eight weeks of annual vacation to travel the world with our kids appreciate the chance to go culture-browsing at Epcot. Even if we had all the time and money in the world, we might still take the Epcot highlight reel.

We don’t live far from the National Zoo, but we still check out the panda cam on occasion. If we use a shortcut like that instead of packing up and driving 30-40 minutes, would we really pack up and fly to Mexico every time we want to see something vaguely Aztec?

Essentially, this guy’s arguments boil down to some what-ifs and some complaints about consumer behavior. If people take Disney World as something more than an occasional escape, if they buy time-shares, if their girls dress as princesses, if they only see international culture at Epcot and if they get married at the Magic Kingdom … then they might have warped views on gender roles and garbage collection.

When he takes Disney World for what it is rather than what obsessed fans with no sense of reality make of it, he enjoys it.

But how unhip a story would that be?

 

"It reminds me a joke I once heard about upper-middle-class people …"

Poor Celia Wren. It seems that her writing career took a wrong turn somewhere, and she was forced to earn money doing a Washington Post theater review that forced her to be sequestered in a room with the sort of person who would find historical and literary farce amusing.

This blogger, also a professional journalist, should warn you that the review to which I’ve linked describes a situation so desperate that you may be unable to stop weeping. If you’re especially sensitive to the plight of reviewers stranded among uncouth men and women of the evening who watch comedy, do not click that link. Just limit yourself to a sampling of her words …

At the Lansburgh Theatre, you once stood a good chance of encountering a classic drama. Now, though, it’s playing host to the Reduced Shakespeare Company, a troupe that has built a cottage industry out of undergraduate-quality literary sendups. …

Judging by the gales of laughter that greeted performances Saturday, many theatergoers find this sort of thing hilarious. …

In an era when even HBO is taking the Founding Fathers seriously, “The Complete History of America” might seem nearly as sacrilegious (as “The Bible”). …

The horror … the horror …

It’s important for Ms. Wren to take a stand against such “entertainment.” Why, we could end up like the British, where students at Oxford and Cambridge traditionally perform “skits,” often in drag,” and the ones who are deemed good at it turn professional! One young man was doing research on Chaucer and ended up doing some sort of nonsense in which people bang coconuts together and search for the Holy Grail!

( /sarcasm )

This is the sort of condescending crap that makes the world hate journalists. I’m unabashedly elitist, with very little patience for stupidity, and yet the Post sometimes cranks out content that can’t possibly appeal to anyone other than D.C. residents (not those curious people over in Virginia) who are pretentious and have no sense of humor. Government workers generally aren’t pretentious, so they’re out of the target audience. And the popularity of Reduced Shakespeare — not to mention the big theaters’ tendency to book big-time comics — proves that someone here must have a sense of humor.

So perhaps we really should pity Ms. Wren and her editors. Their demographics aren’t good, and they’re too full of themselves to enjoy a good laugh. That’s sad.

 

An Office smackdown

Two traits of public discourse I’d like to stamp out in my lifetime:

1. Trying to get ahead of the cynicism curve. If possible, these guys would go back to Season 5 of Saturday Night Live and declare that it’s jumped the shark. They’d confuse a lot of people, since “jump the shark” had not yet entered everyday conversation in 1980, but that would only add to their feeling of superiority.

2. Dittoheads on blogs who just reinforce the blogger’s arrogant worldview.

That’s why I find the commenters’ mass revolt against the TVSquad guy who keeps dissing The Office so rewarding. It’s not just hostility — it’s a point-by-point dismantling of every point the guy even thought about making.

Between that and the first 15 minutes of Friday Night Lights, I feel better about the world at the moment.

 

Why journalists are intellectually superior to doctors

For most of the past 12 years, I’ve been on a mailing list called Online-News. It started as a nifty clearinghouse for practical and philosophical ideas for new media. Today, it’s often a semi-public square in which we don hairshirts and wail about our inability to grasp the possibilities of tools that have been around since 1995. Or 1999. Or 2002. Or … wait … here’s a dispatch from Silicon Valley …

I kid because I care, I care because I think I’m happy that we have such high standards for what we should be able to do. That’s great. We should be pushing the envelope. (And, given financial realities, we need to do so.)

Now consider the medical profession. Specifically, the common cold. Even those with scientifically and theologically dubious beliefs on the origins of life would concede that the common cold has been around for a few thousand years.

The cold, surely, has been cured. Right?

Not only has the cold not been cured, but this week, medical science actually took a step backward. Those over-the-counter medicines we’ve used to make our kids feel better? They don’t.

The kids may beg to differ, but what do they know? They’re kids.

So if your kids have colds? Ah, just run your hot water for 15 minutes at a time to get a bathroom all steamy, then sit in there with ‘em. That’ll provide slight relief.

I believe the journalism equivalent would be blogging with a typewriter and mail delivered by horse-drawn buggy.

We’re in the 21st century now, doc. Care to join us?

 

When I go to get my shoes shined, I gotta take their word

I miss my former work buddy Melissa in part because she so often would say what I was thinking.

Oops, she did it again, going against the grain on the Britney Spears performance at the Video Music Awards.

No, she wasn’t enraptured by the performance (video here). Whether it was a case of skipping rehearsal or “freezing” on live TV, it was quite clearly another step in her ongoing self-destruction. That, like a lot of things involving celebrities, would be funny if kids weren’t involved.

Melissa’s point, and I wholeheartedly agree: Call her indifferent, lazy, self-destructive, judgment-impaired, whatever. But “fat”?

No. Britney Spears has no visible six-pack, and you can’t play xylophone on her ribs. That’s not “fat.”

I just came back from a class reunion in which people told me I looked great. If I had been dancing in Britney’s outfit, the headlines would’ve read: “Is MMM pregnant?” (The top, like Mr. Costanza’s “manssiere” in Seinfeld, would’ve provided useful support.)

So as far as Britney goes — wouldn’t we have had more reason to worry if the mother-of-two had shown up looking like Calista Flockhart?

 

‘American Idol’: Taxonomy

Perhaps I should hate myself for it, but I do indeed watch the audition stages of American Idol. Last year, they were in my old hometown, so I had to see it as a matter of regional interest. But I’m addicted to it, I’ll admit.

I don’t watch it after that. I can’t suspend disbelief long enough to see Simon and company turn against the 12 people they plucked out of 100,000 hapless auditioners, the product placement is ridiculous, etc.

Sure, the auditions are ridiculous, too. They’ll show someone go through a horrible audition and stalk off, but he/she will show up in a montage a few minutes later. So they either recorded that bit ahead of time or somehow enticed back the person to quit cussing out Simon and bemoaning the gaping hole in American pop music that their failure will leave. I realize people really are that desperate for their 15 minutes of TV fame, but …

And yeah, they’re absolutely cruel at times. I was stunned that they opened last night with a sweet girl who does impressive makeovers, giving us her whole back story and making her seem likable, only to crush her like a bug after a mediocre audition. If this was your first time watching American Idol, you’d conclude that these people are assholes, and you’d flip over to Food Network.

Which would be a shame, because then you’d miss the real reason we watch: Delusional wackos with a perverse sense of entitlement getting a righteous smackdown from Simon and occasionally Randy.

(I’ll never find the link, but some writer once suggested a spinoff in which Simon visits corporate boardrooms, listens to about 10 minutes of a meeting, then proceeds to tell the executives that they should quit their jobs, get refunds on their MBAs and take up taxidermy.)

I wonder, though, how much longer they can keep this up. The people we see now usually fall into one of these classes:

1. The Enabled. The show is kind enough to show us this group along with their enablers — usually a vocal parent but sometimes a quiet boyfriend — who has convinced them they’re destined for stardom. The parents speak about their kids’ school recitals like they’re freaking Debbie Gibson concerts circa 1988. The boyfriends are often a little less emphatic, nodding and saying vague things that will ensure some consolation snuggling after the audition.

2. The Would-Be Clones. “Hey, I’m prematurely gray, just like Taylor Hicks!” “Hey, I’m geeky, just like Clay Aiken!” “Hey, I like Fuel, just like Chris Daughtry!” “Hey, I’m cute and perky, just like Kelly Clarkson!”

3. The Drama Geeks. I liked Gene Simmons’ stint as guest judge because he spelled out for people the difference between being a good singer and a good performer. He was the only judge capable of reaching the Goth-cabaret dude who auditioned last year. “You’re eccentric. That’s not a bad thing. I’m eccentric, and I’ve made a pretty good living at it.” Most kids don’t get it.

4. The Hollywood Underside. “Oh, you WILL see Deena Smith one day on TV!” Yeah. Today, when they show your crap-ass audition on American Idol. And maybe 10 years from now on Cops (suspect) or Behind the Music (groupie).

5. The Music Majors. I can shed some light here. I majored in music. (Philosophy, too, but that’s not relevant here.) I had to sight-read and sing various parts in four-part fugal harmony under the watchful ears of demanding faculty members. But if I auditioned for American Idol, Simon would tell me to get my tuition back. You can learn technique and become a competent chorus member, but you won’t necessarily get the right style and tone to be a pop singer. The tete-a-tete between Randy and the uppity vocal teacher this year was worth the wait.

6. The Excuse Makers. I’m nervous. I’m sick. I need water. The last contestant punched me in the throat on his way out. I’m normally Kelly Clarkson and Taylor Hicks put together.

7. The Jokesters. You know some of these people are kidding. Even Chris Wylde got into the act.

8. The Psychos. No explanation needed.

Just one more thing to point out from Opening Week: If I see two doors leading out and neither one is obstructed, I’m going to assume I can proceed through either one. That doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. If one door doesn’t open, it really means you’re an idiot. You, the one who locked one of the doors. Or it means you’re going out of your way to make other people look like idiots. And these people don’t need the help.

(Oh, and is Jewel a Stephen Colbert fan? “Pitchiness”? I don’t think that’s a word, but she looked fabulous.)

 

De-snarking Blender, Part 3

For the top 20 of the 50 Worst Artists, I may need to pile on in one or two cases. Snarky critics can’t be wrong all the time.

20. Howard Jones. Again, rock critics have a serious problem with positivity. Rock is supposed to be rebellion, we’re told. And hip-hop is supposed to be rebellion combined with re-claiming an image, or something like that. And pop is supposed to be … well, they haven’t decided. But apparently, it’s OK to be pop as long as it’s about sex. Jones gave people other reasons to feel good, and he wrote some decent hooks. Worst you can say about him is that the synth sounds are dated.

19. Dan Fogelberg. For one thing, this isn’t “earnestly strummed acoustic guitar.” A lot of Fogelberg stuff is damn fine finger-picking. Back in the days when I was competent at such things, I played the guitar part for Longer while the three girls who passed for my school’s “chorus” sang. Worst I can say here is that it didn’t improve my chances of dating any of them. Soft rock is what it is — and if it didn’t exist, Jason’s blog wouldn’t be so much fun.

(Coincidentally, I’m listening to some expert finger-picking as I type. It’s Lindsey Buckingham’s To Try for the Sun. Kind of a flimsy song, but he’s such a good guitarist that it hardly matters.)

18. Pat Boone. Yes and no. I’ve heard it said that black musicians never would have stood a chance in U.S. pop culture if guys like Boone hadn’t borrowed it first. So perhaps it’s a necessary evil, and perhaps it’s evil that such an evil would be a necessary evil. But Boone himself wasn’t evil, even if he ticked off his religious crowd with his metal album. I get the feeling he’s a little confused deep down, seeing good and evil in both Hollywood and the evangelical movement. That’ll lead him to some odd choices, but it’s not fundamentally bad. (Pardon the pun.)

17. Benzino. Who?

16. Oingo Boingo. Not a great band, but Dead Man’s Party alone should keep them off this list. And Danny Elfman wrote the Simpsons theme, for Pete’s sake.

15. Yanni. As a former viewer of VH1’s New Age/jazz fusion show … whose name I’ve now forgotten … I can see why he’s listed here. But is Blender right in thinking that “Midwestern matrons” buy his stuff? I can’t picture that.

14. Yngwie Malmsteen. Well, at least he can play. Just because he has bad taste in songs …

13. Mick Jagger. Has he really done enough solo work to qualify?

12. Tin Machine. Bowie’s side project was oddly interesting. Fun appearance on SNL.

11. Latoya Jackson. Easy target. Doesn’t count.

10. Air Supply. OK, fine. I can apologize for Fogelberg, but not these guys.

9. Lee Greenwood. Fair enough, and the line about patriotism being “the ultimate meal ticket for a Nashville hack,” is the best line in this whole list.

8. Vanilla Ice. Yeah, it’s hard to disagree with that one.

7. Asia. “Hey, Blender snark guy?” “Yeah, what is it, fellow Blender snark guy.” “We need some prog-rock bands for the top 10 here.” “Oh, yeah! Prog-rock SUCKS!” “I know! All those nerds actually practicing their instruments.” “Yeah, tell me about it. So which bands do we pick?” “Does it matter?”

Why yes, it does. Pick early Genesis. Pick Dream Theater. Don’t pick the guys who managed to pack their chops into some pop-rock classics. Sure, some of the lyrics were clunkers (“And when your looks have gone and you’re alone”), but this is riff rock at its best.

6. Kansas. Dust in the Wind and Carry On My Wayward Son are the two best Christian rock songs written by anyone not in U2. And the guys in Kansas hadn’t even become Christians yet.

5. Starship. To be fair, they did a few good songs before dropping the “Jefferson” part of the name.

4. Kenny G. I’ll pile on here. Even I can hear the technical flaws in this guy’s playing (hello, register break!). If you want to hear soprano sax at its best, listen to Branford Marsalis. Solo, with Sting, with The Samples — it doesn’t matter.

3. Michael Bolton. The other pile-on. But I’m not quite sure he was serious. The overwrought dynamics, the herniated strain on the high notes — are we sure his entire career isn’t a parody of bad soul singing?

2. Emerson, Lake & Palmer. So it’s OK for every crap band in the world to bash through Louie Louie, yet re-interpreting classical music on a bank of synthesizers, a bass and a drum kit is a nightmare? Again with the prog-rock bashing.

1. Insane Clown Posse. I don’t remember enough about these guys to end on an up note.

But they were kind enough to tack on a b.s. “Are you in the worst band in the world?” quiz that is clearly nonsense. They hint that multiple drummers qualifies as “sucking.” The only bands with multiple drummers that spring to mind are .38 Special and the Allman Brothers. Funny how they’re not on this list.

And it becomes clear from the quiz that Steely Dan qualifies as a “good” band. Not because they have a jazz influence, because that’s clearly a “bad” thing. Not the fact that they could play — also “bad.” So it must be because they’re named after a dildo. Which tells you more about the Blender staff than you ever needed to know.

 

De-snarking Blender, Part 2

Picking up from yesterday on Blender’s 50 Worst Artists, in which a few snarky writers are clearly upset that someone wrote 50 Worst Rock and Roll Records before they did.

40. Blind Melon. Conceded. Shannon Hoon was one of the first in a long line of alt-pop singers whose voice could drive me to violence.

39. Bob Geldof. Odd one to include here. No one has heard Geldof’s solo work. You could say that about thousands of artists, some of whom are quite bad. So why pick on the guy who did Live Aid and Live 8, along with some fine songs with The Boomtown Rats?

38. There is no 38. These guys can’t even bloody count.

37. The Doors. I understand the need to deflate the Doors mystique, but they did too many good songs to merit a complete dismissal here. You may think The End goes overboard, but it’s a piece of music you simply have to hear and ponder at least once or twice in your life if you take music or pop culture seriously. Or Vietnam-era movies.

36. 98 Degrees. Boy bands are easy targets. No points awarded.

35. Paul Oakenfold. Heard of him, but I’m having trouble placing his songs.

34. Live. They were on MTV in ‘91 and the radio in 2003. You can’t dismiss their career as “brief.” It’s easy to ridicule ambitious bands because they sometimes fail. 50 Worst Rock and Roll Records had a classic line on U2: “If U2 weren’t full of shit, they wouldn’t be as brilliant as they frequently are.” Live haven’t been brilliant as often as U2, but that’s a high bar to set. Every now and then, they get it right.

33. Japan. Who?

32. The Hooters. Harmless.

31. Arrested Development. Ridiculous to include them here. Tennessee has one of the best melodic hooks you’ll ever hear in hip-hop, and Mr. Wendel and People Everyday were fine for innocent pop songs with a message. The chatter in Blender says it all: “Too positive.” Heaven forbid.

30. Richard Marx. Conceded.

29. Skinny Puppy. Vague memory.

28. Crash Test Dummies. A solid one-hit wonder. I know some people can’t get past the voice, but that’s a simple matter of taste.

27. Color Me Badd. Blech.

26. Celine Dion. Easy targets continue.

25. Jamiroquai. Jay Kay is white? And what’s wrong with sounding like Stevie Wonder?

24. Bad English. OK, sure. Not a great supergroup.

23. Creed. Agreed.

22. Primus. If you can’t get past the voice or the quirky bass riffs, fine. But they threw everything at the wall, and some of it stuck.

21. The Alan Parsons Project. The use of their song in the coolest player introductions in sports history is an “appalling fact”? Something tells me these guys don’t “get” sports.

We’ll pick up tomorrow, though the top 10 or so are mostly deserving of their places.