Month: June 2002

Advertising is one of those annoying-yet-necessary things, but lately I’ve been finding it more annoying than necessary. A few examples, culled from my mundane existence:

:: Is anyone really more likely to do business with some company because that company happens to have bought naming rights to a particular stadium or sports venue? Maybe; but I certainly couldn’t tell you without looking it up just what Qualcomm, 3Com, or Cinergi do. The scramble by the Houston Astros to get the name “Enron” off their ballpark (and which may well be followed by a similar scramble by the Tennessee Titans, who play in Adelphia Stadium) strikes me as a kind of corporate karma in action.

:: I recall a few years back some company was perfecting a type of “rolling billboard” that would be superimposed on the image during baseball games on television. The ads would be positioned to appear like the ads that are frequently painted on the field’s walls, but as the effect would be like a “bluescreen”, different ads — tailored to fit the market in which the game is being aired — would be superimposed. Thus, a person watching a Yankees game in Buffalo would see a logo for, say, Ted’s Hot Dogs on the wall behind the left fielder, while a person watching that same game in New Jersey might see the IHOP logo.

:: Do we really need to imprint advertising slogans — for cigarettes, no less — on the plastic rod that one uses at the grocery store to separate one’s groceries from the next person’s at the checkout lane? Do people really pick up that rod and, in the process of plunking it down on the conveyor belt, realize that they are low on Marlboro’s?

:: Advertisers have apparently figured out the only real way to overcome the fact that most people use television commercials as an excuse to go the refridgerator or bathroom: they jack up the decibel level of the commercials themselves. It’s not at all uncommon for me to have to turn up whatever show I am watching, in order to hear the dialogue properly, only to have to quickly turn the thing back down once the commercials begin.

:: Pop-up ads on the Web were annoying when I first encountered them, but I got used to them. (They also tended to crash the AOL browser when they first came into use.) Pop-unders were more annoying; the browser window containing the page that I am trying to read would freeze while the pop-under ad loads. Then the pop-under advertisers started setting up their ads so the windows would open with the entire right half of the ad off the screen, so in order to close the thing one had to click-and-drag the ad back into full view just to get at the “close” button in the upper left, thus increasing the chance that one might read the ad, however inadvertently. (I get around this by right-clicking the title-bar and then clicking “Close”.) Well, some wonderful genius has figured out a new twist: the other day I received a pop-under ad that, when I closed my main browser window, actually started moving around my screen, in a circular motion, and fairly rapidly — rapidly enough that I couldn’t even right-click the thing to close it (much less click the “close” button), but still slow enough that the ad slogan could be made out. This detestable thing swirled around my screen — defying the Coriolis effect, mind you — for a full five seconds.

:: In Buffalo, the local NBC affiliate broadcasts each night’s New York State Lottery drawings. This, of course, means that while watching any NBC show in Buffalo one is subjected to one of those little “corner images” that every network does now — this one telling us what the current jackpot is.

I could go on, but that’s probably enough cantankerousness for one day.

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I’ve enjoyed the writing of Paul T. Riddell for almost two years now, since I first encountered him in this interview on SFSite. He is an essayist on science fiction, film, comics, and occasionally Texas politics and lifestyle (he lives in Dallas). He’s also a fine writer who presents penetrating commentary and scathing wit. Riddell’s essays have been archived at a website called The Healing Power of Obnoxiousness (see link at left), the tagline for which is the charming bon mot “Clubbing fanboys like baby seals since 1997”. That gives a good taste of Riddell’s sense of humor and his “No sacred cows” attitude.

Sadly, Riddell announced recently on his Delphi forum that due to hosting issues his site will vanish as of July 1, and he is seriously considering allowing the site to go away permanently rather than locate a new host at this time. Below are links to some of Riddell’s essays that I have especially enjoyed.

:: Turning Science Into a Sport

:: When ‘Bah, Humbug!’ Just Isn’t Enough (This one is especially hilarious — subtle ways to spread something other than joy during the Holidays.)

:: Applying Natural Selection to an Unnatural Problem (Riddell’s favorite targets of derision are MBA’s. Here is one of his attacks on them.)

:: The Steve Irwin of Science Fiction? (SF’s need for an evangelist.)

:: Advice for Writers: The True Story

:: It Ain’t Valuable If They Ain’t Buying (This is probably my favorite of Riddell’s essays, a kind of “tough love” article for beginning writers who must recover from the shock of pouring their soul into a story only to receive a soul-less rejection.)

I assume that all of these links will be broken as of 1 July, so read these soon. And this is just a smattering; Riddell is quite prolific. I could have listed another ten articles here without much effort. I hope he eventually returns HPoO to the Web.

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I’ve ranted a couple of times lately about ugly aspects of fandom, in both cases noting the rather unhealthy anger that some people have developed toward George Lucas because the last two Star Wars movies have not lived up to their personal expectations. (Those articles of mine are here and here.) I’ve been baffled by the phenomenon, which was lampooned in a wonderful episode of The Simpsons where Homer was cast as a new character for the “Itchy&Scratchy” cartoon. Comic Book Guy intones, “Worst episode EVER”, and goes on to spout how the creators of I&S owe their fans better, to which Bart replies, “They’ve given you hours and hours of fun and entertainment. Why do they owe you anything?” I wish fans would take that to heart, especially those who will claim that George Lucas or Steven Spielberg or anyone “raped their childhood”.

I did get a reminder this week about how positive an experience fandom can be, though, by reading William Shatner’s lovingly-crafted memoir of his experiences with Star Trek fans, appropriately titled Get a Life!. The title comes, of course, from that classic Saturday Night Live sketch Shatner did in which he, playing himself, appears before a Trek convention and proceeds to tell them all to, well, “Get a life”. That sketch has become one of the immortal SNL moments.

In this book, Shatner briefly details how the first Trek conventions came to be, and how the convention business grew over the years until they were massive affairs held throughout the country. He also describes how he did the conventions rather mechanically until he began to wonder about the whole phenomenon. Shatner’s central question is this, in his words:

“Why does Star Trek, as opposed to let’s say Three’s Company, deserve conventions and the kind of unconditional love that’s been tossed our way for more than three decades now?….How come you never find a convention hall filled with six-thousand people dressed like Mr. Roper?”

Shatner finds many answers to this question, which he poses to fans at the conventions, his fellow Trek actors, the show’s former creators, and more. Some people cite the show’s central message of acceptance and tolerance; others cite the show’s depiction of a positive outcome for the human race, a stark contrast to the dystopic visions that sometimes seem dominant in SF; others cite the show’s clear moral grounding in right and wrong. Along the way Shatner introduces us to a number of quirky, unforgettable people. There is the fan who is very short, and found particular inspiration in the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren”, which focused on an abused dwarf character. There is the shy veterinarian whose claim to fame in Trek fandom is that he takes his cats to the conventions, dressed in Trek regalia. And there is the psychiatric patient who suffers from multiple-personality disorder: several of her personalities are Trek characters.

Shatner also gives a number of anecdotes, most of which are very funny, about his own convention experiences. The funniest involve his early attempts at research for this very book, in which he actually donned some kind of rubber “alien head” mask to wander the convention floor unrecognized. And the brief transcript he gives of one Very Special Convention where he, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks and Kate Mulgrew all appeared onstage at once makes me wish I could have been there to see the shenanigans.

Most of all, Shatner captures the cameraderie and the warmth of these gatherings, providing a welcome reminder that fandom can — and should — be something positive. To be a “fan” of something should mean that that something has enriched one’s life. I’m not much of a Star Trek fan these days — I loved Deep Space Nine but never much got into Voyager, and I have yet to see a single episode of Enterprise — but Get a Life! makes me want to go out and track down all those wonderful old episodes that I haven’t seen in so long, some in nearly a decade.

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I love wine, but I am by no means an expert on the subject. While I will swirl it in my glass and occasionally do that “slurping” thing that wine-tasters do (it really does alter the flavor of the liquid when it’s in the mouth, believe it or not), I don’t indulge in the weird language that wine afficionadoes have developed. I won’t talk about how a particular wine has “a bouquet like a fresh carnation, with a body reminiscent of blackberries and a chocolate finish”. I’ll pretty much stick to, “Yep, I like this one”, or “Yeeccchhhhh!!!” When buying wine, I’ll stick to some brands that I have had luck with in the past (Ruby Port by Cockburn is a favorite, though not in the summer months — I find Port too heavy for warm-weather drinking), and experiment with others pretty much by whim. The idea of ruthlessly adhering to the lofty edicts of some wine critic strikes me as bizarre, because I’ve learned from books and movies that there is no guarantee that I’m going to like what a critic likes, so why should wine be any different?

Well, according to this article from Slate, many people do precisely that, rigidly observing one particular critic’s 100-point scale for wines. Setting aside the obvious problem of how on Earth wine can be qualified with the precision that a 100-point scale implies, don’t people have tastebuds of their own?

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Suggestions abound, from all sides, on how to improve Major League Baseball. The list of baseball’s problems is a familiar one: the games are too long, the game’s competitive balance is out-of-whack (and dangerously close to tipping over completely in favor of the large-market teams), interleague play cheapens the game, multiple-round playoffs cheapen the game, the talent pool is too diluted right now, et cetera. Here is the latest article I’ve seen on how to fix things. It’s not the best thing I’ve read on the subject — that would be a tie between Joe Morgan’s Long Balls, No Strikes (which I reviewed Fair Ball: A Fan’s Case for Baseball — but Wojciechowski has a couple of interesting points. I, too, have to admit that I favor keeping the Designated Hitter. The New York Yankees have, in recent years, proven that the DH need not be an impediment to “National League”-style of play, using hit-and-run tactics, basestealing, and manufacturing runs vs. waiting for what Earl Campbell called “the manager’s best friend” (the three-run homer). Yes, if the NL had the DH, mini-dramas like the Shawn Estes-Roger Clemens matchup from this past weekend would not have transpired, but such dramas are really quite rare. More common by far is the pitcher who walks up to the plate looking like he barely knows which end of the bat to hold.

I also agree that if baseball is going to shut down two teams, they should be the Expos and the Devil Rays. When Major League Baseball expanded into Florida, Miami made sense, what with the heavy Latino population in that part of the state coupled with baseball’s popularity with Latinos. (I also wonder if part of it had to do with the desire to have a MLB franchise within 100 miles of Cuba.) But Tampa Bay made absolutely no sense, and it still makes no sense. If they had to have two baseball franchises in Florida, surely the Orlando area would have been a wiser location, where a team could have capitalized on that city’s staggering tourism base.

I do disagree with this author’s notion of instant-replay as an aid to umpiring. I simply do not want to watch a baseball game and hear something like, “Upon further review, the runner’s right foot slid in under the fielder’s glove and made contact with the bag just prior to the tag being applied. The runner is awarded second base. Will the official scorekeeper please reset the scoreboard to reflect one out? Play ball!” And besides, what would happen to the team that challenges for the replay if they lose the challenge? Do you automatically start their next series of at-bats with one out?

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I’m always a bit surprised by the amount of detail which some people are willing to divulge about their personal lives on the Net. The Date Project is a case in point. It’s a blog about a guy who is looking for love. I haven’t delved too much into this particular site, but the guy seems interesting. Of course, if he proves to be a fascinating blogger, do we wish for his quest to go unfulfilled — that he never find love — so the blog keeps going? Hmmmm….

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POETICAL EXCURSION #4

“The Measures Taken”, by Erich Fried (1921-1988).

The lazy are slaughtered

the world grows industrious

The ugly are slaughtered

the world grows beautiful

The foolish are slaughtered

the world grows wise

The sick are slaughtered

the world grows healthy

The sad are slaughtered

the world grows merry

The old are slaughtered

the world grows young

The enemies are slaughtered

the world grows friendly

The wicked are slaughtered

the world grows good

(Michael Hamburger, trans. From World Poetry.)

German poet Erich Fried was an Austrian Jew who fled that country following the Anschluss in 1938 after his father’s beating death by the Gestapo. Fried eventually became a prominent Socialist, and he also became a prominent figure in Germany’s anti-war movement during the Viet Nam era. This particular poem strikes me as being fairly relevant today as War reasserts itself as a force in human affairs. Fried uses the word “slaughtered” over and over, allowing its connotations to give the lie to the central idea behind war — i.e., that by making war on that which we consider undesirable the world will necessarily be better as a result. A “slaughter” implies a very messy affair, a certain ugliness. Consider a battlefield drenched in blood, cities demolished by bombing, rampant disease and starvation that seem to follow such devastation — all these are suggested by the word “slaughter”. Fried is telling us that war, by itself, never makes the world “industrious”, “beautiful”, “wise”, or anything else. Agree or disagree with Fried’s anti-war position, this poem is still an elegant summation of that position.

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A few offerings today from Slate:

:: This article on the worst nightmare that can befall a cat person: the acquisition of a dog.

:: This interesting analysis of the term “homeland”, which found its way into the American lexicon almost instantly following 9-11-01.

:: An obituary for Lew Wasserman, once head of Universal Studios, that is refreshing in that it blames someone other than George Lucas for the rise of the Hollywood blockbuster.

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So that’s it, then: the Mets have exacted revenge on Roger Clemens for his beaning of Mike Piazza (and later throwing a chunk of broken bat at him) two years ago. Mets pitcher Shawn Estes threw behind Clemens on his first at-bat (“My pitch got away from me,” he deadpanned) and then he actually homered off Clemens, the first pitcher to ever homer off the Rocket. Piazza, too, got into the act by hitting his own home run. So, now the Mets have officially gotten even with Clemens; maybe they can focus on something more important. Like, possibly, getting back into the NL East race now that the hated Braves have surged into their customary first-place spot.

(And the Pirates? Their stats are terrible, and though they’re hovering just below the .500 mark, I keep waiting for the shoe to drop.)

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This site appears to be featuring interesting commentary on Star Wars. At the very least, it makes for a nice antidote to the TalkBacks going on at AICN, where even the TalkBack devoted to the new Scooby Doo movie degenerated almost immediately into a series of ventings by people who hated Attack of the Clones. (Incidentally, the most prolific anti-AOTC poster on AICN right now is an individual who openly admits that he hasn’t even seen the film. Why devote so much mental energy to expressing hatred for a movie you haven’t even seen?! Surely there is some landmark psychological research waiting to be done on the mind of the lunatic fanboy.)

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