Musings on Marketing

If I ever open a drinking and/or dining establishment I don't think think I'll name said establishment after the street it's located on. It will just lead to confusion and headaches among my clientele if I am successful and branch out.
The King Street Grille downtown on -- what else -- King Street is a nice little bar/restaurant. My daughter Leah and I have been there a couple times and I really like their burgers on those pretzel buns. Umm, carbolicious. But now the owners have opened a couple new locations on Kiawah Island and in Mount Pleasant. These new locations are both called King Street Grille too, even though they're on Freshfields Drive and Hungryneck Blvd. (And really don't you think the Hungryneck Grille is a better name anyway?)
The Market Street Saloon has scantily-clad women dancing on the bar. Not surprisingly this has become a popular nightspot, so popular they've opened up a new location on Northwoods Boulevard. No, it's not called the Northwoods Boulevard Saloon, but the Market Street Saloon.
And now there's an East Bay Deli now on Dorchester Road across from my church, despite the fact that it's a long way from East Bay Street. (And I realize it's not called the East Bay Street Deli, but it's in North Charleston; I don't know what bay it's supposed to be east of.)

More Books I've read in 2009

It's rare that I stay up late enough to watch Craig Ferguson's show, but when I do I'm always impressed not just by how funny he is -- lots of guys on television are funny -- but by how genuine and honest he seems. Honesty is a rare commodity in show business and especially on television, and it shines like a beacon. I do believe this is the second most amazing thing I've ever seen on a talk show. Watch how at first people are laughing nervously because they don't know how to take a guy speaking to them from his heart. Keep listening. You can hear the audience change.

Anyway, I didn't have to stay up late to read Craig's book, and like his TV show, it's funny and honest. Honesty is pretty rare in the world of autobiographies too. He doesn't gloss over or glamorize what a wastrel he was, and his love for America is genuine.

I also read Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked. I've read all of Hornby's fiction and it's interesting to watch him grow. Here he returns to the world of music-obsessives moving from the mix-tapes of High Fidelity to the Internet, which may as well have been custom-made for obsessive types. Hornby is often credited with inventing "lad-lit" the yang alternative to chick-lit, so it's interesting that his most fully-realized character in this book is Annie, the female lead.

More movies I've seen in 2009

I heard so much about Twilight I felt like I had to see it. (Well actually at first I felt like I had to read the book, but a brief sample of Stephanie Meyer's writing style convinced me that the movie was probably a better bet.) Everything I heard was either praising it for being a great romantic work or damning it for being ridiculous and corny. Nothing was lukewarm.
Well, I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. So I guess here is Twilight's first tepid review. I had no problem with the unusual habits of Twilight's vamps -- the lack of fangs, the ability to go out in sunlight and suffer nothing more than a mild case of sparklies. I figured this was just some weird northwestern mutation of the vampire virus. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure Edward ever called himself or anyone his family the V word, so maybe they were just sparkly, fangless, immortal monster weirdos. My problem was the chemistry -- or lack thereof -- between Bella and Edward. I just didn't feel it. How could any girl actually fall for a guy who looks like the Joker in the old Batman TV show?
Minus the painted-over moustache of course. I mean that was one fugly fella. And why the hell was a girl from Arizona as pale as a Washington state vampire? Was that explained in the book? It sure wasn't in the movie. The only "suspense" in the film when the bad vampire was after Bella was not very suspenseful.
But in the absence of romantic chemistry or cinematic suspense, I did enjoy seeing how vampires play baseball. Although even then the fact that they could only play during a thunderstorm because the crack of their bats sounded like thunder did not ring true. I mean you may be stronger than a roided-up A-Rod but your bat's not.

Baseball and brewski

Everybody who knows me knows at least two things about me: 1. I love baseball. 2. I hate the New York Yankees. (I think those two facts are related, by the way. In other words, because I love baseball I hate the New York Yankees, as there are so many ways the Bronx Bummers are bad for the game, but that's another post for another time.)
So it may surprise you to learn that I won a case of Guinness betting on the World Series. Of course I didn't bet on NY to win, nor did I bet on some side issue such as how many buckets of Brylcreem Chase Utley would go through or how many times Derek Jeter would make some easy routine play at short and the announcers (who've been bought off as surely as the officials) would just go nuts praising him. What happened was a Yankee lover at work bet me that the Yankees would sweep -- win the series in four straight games. I'm not a big gamber but even I can't pass up a sucker bet like that, especially when Guinness is at stake.
Now maybe I should feel bad taking advantage of someone suffering from a man-crush on Derek Jeter. Here's a quote from my betting partner: I'm not a Yankee fan! However I do believe that Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez are larger-than-life beings who transcend athletics. We are fortunate to be alive today to see them play. How about this: Jeter/Rodriguez 2016? (What that last sentence means BTW is he'd like to see those two run for president in 7 years.) But I don't feel bad cuz I don't like most Yankee fans either.
So stop by the house for a glass of Arthur Guinness's pride, we'll toast the great American pastime and count the days till Spring training.

There must be something like 9 million different kinds of calendars available at this time of year, including several for popular TV shows both past and current. But the calendar I want evidently doesn't exist. At least I've looked everywhere for a Bones calendar and been unable to find one. So I make my own each month. Here's November.

Rob keeps on rereading

(Continuing my revisitation of one of my favorite literary relics from my misspent youth -- Old Glory and the Real-Time Freaks by Ralph Blum.)


All right, well, QED is really starting to get on my nerves. It's not just the fact that he's rich, but that's certainly one strike against him. This dude is so rich he has somebody who types up his scribbled diary or letter to his unborn grandson or whatever it is. He's also a snob:

We ate Laura's bread with lots of margarine, and I thought how Mommy never even buys margarine. Probably divorced ladies have to compromise, even with alimony.

The only thing I can think as to why I identified so much with QED was because I figured I was going to be rich too and I was looking for some pointers as to how to behave. I have no such illusions today and it's just as well. If I had been rich and followed in QED's footsteps I'd have been just another rich, snobby arsehole and the world doesn't need any more of them, for sure.

I didn't like him having sex with the diary-typist either, a married woman. But his girlfriend thinks it's great. She's the real hippie, not this spoiled rich poser QED.

But it's impossible to completely dislike the guy. Even if he does say things that leave you scratching your head, things like "Worrying about the wrong problem is like jacking off with sandpaper." I mean, does that make any sense?

Well, I've finished the book now, and the main feeling it leaves me with is bewilderment. Why did this book mean so much to me when I was a lad? Nothing happens in it -- this spoiled, rich 17-year old smokes a ton of grass and that's about it. The action -- such as it is -- do not present the protagonist in a positive light. He steals his best friend's girlfriend, loses his virginity to a married pregnant woman -- who works for him, typing up his diary, because even though he has no job and no responsibilities he can't type up his own scribblings. It's not at all romantic or erotic, so I hope it was meant to be comedic. It fails at that too, but it's less creepy considered that way.

The one part that should have been comedic -- QED's GF's father railroads him into participating in a sailboat race -- fizzles out when our hero overturns the craft before he gets to the starting line. This event makes him sexually climax but only because the author wants to use the pun "Nautical emission."

Oh, and his grandfather dies, but this is not dramatic or poignant. The old man is ready to go. I can see how most people who had to spend their days with Quintus Ells might long for death's embrace.

So the book stands or falls on QED's personality. If you like him you'll like the book. I don't like him very much. He's selfish, ignorant, racist and, as previously noted, spoiled, rich, snobby and immoral.

I must have liked him when I was 15 though. Maybe because back then I believed that rich people could still be decent and down-to-earth. I labor under no such delusions nowadays.

But, I would still say that this reread was success. It was good getting in touch with my 15-year-old self (and good saying good-bye to that knucklehead too). Some books are only great at certain times in your life. I loved Thomas Wolfe as a young man. Now I found him pompous, flowery and verbose. When they made me read "The Great Gatsby" in high school I thought it was putrid. When I reread it in my 40's it blew me away. So let's just say that "Old Glory and the Real-Time Freaks" is not a bad book, but for me it's past its expiration date.

Rob Rereads, part 4

(in which I revisit one of my favorite literary relics from my misspent youth -- Old Glory and the Real-Time Freaks by Ralph Blum.)



Wow, QED is this weird combination of stoner and preppie. His family is mega-rich, old Connecticut money, there are these massive family croquet games going on the south lawn of the estate. He calls his parents "Mommy" and "Father". But he smokes dope constantly.



And he's kind of a racist too (discussing Vietnam and his older brother who recently returned from there):

"Well, I'd rather get burned buying dope in Seattle than be picked off by a dink in Nam."

Tunis goes, "You mean a gook?"

Ells shakes his head; the dust from marijuana makes him sneeze. (QED also sometimes refers to himself in the third person) "Naw, everyone's a gook, friend or foe. Dinks are a sub-set, being all gooks after your ass."