Jumping on the Blogwagon

2009-01-22T02:40:00.000-08:00

OK, we're going to eeeease back into this blogging thing. Initially, by posting some greatest hits from the past year, most of which went out only to a select audience via email. (read: we were too embarrassed to post in public.) I'm hoping the effect is more "I'm glad Comedy Central re-plays The Daily Show for busy people who can't catch it every night" and less "Is this a new Price Is Right? I thought Bob Barker was dead?"

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From September 9, 2008, here's "We Bad":

Yo.

Think we're going to let a little thing like having a baby slow us down? No frakin' way! It hasn't phased us hardly at all.

Take today, for example. We got out of the house and went to the gym just 51 weeks after Noah's birth to start our grueling post-natal workout regimen: over 18 minutes

without stopping on a lo-impact exercise machine, set at Level '5' Resistance (with explosive 'gutbuster' interval

spikes up to '6') while watching football on a non-Tivo equipped television. Watching the NFL without pausing, rewinding or commercial-skipping takes Cheney-like mental toughness,

but that's the kind of true grit we're made of.

Then we flagrantly gave Noah a diaper change right in the back of the minivan. But wait,

you exclaim--doesn't the gym have politically correct family changing rooms with ferns and Purell dispensers and those wall-mounted plastic diaper-changing stations with five-

point child restraints? Yes, we growl, of course it does, for lesser families who let The Man rule their lives. Us, we're rebels, Masters of our own Destiny!

You got a problem with us whipping our kid's wet diaper off in the parking lot? I didn't think so.

Next we were off to REI -- a

store so tough it has ice axes for door handles--to buy Noah the latest in high-tech fitness gear which will equip him to partake in our active,

on-the-go, unhampered-by-baby lifestyle. (We're raising him to be an un-baby-hampered baby too: there was a choice between a bike helmet with little chickies on it, and one with

red flames. After checking that they were the same price, we unabashedly went with the flames.)

What's that you say? Why, you ask, if you're so tough, are you driving around in a minivan?

Well let me tell you, it's one bitchin' minivan. As you can see from this unretouched photo taken in the REI parking lot:

Yes, that's a used diaper wedged in the back gate of our van, which had been dangling there all the way from the gym.

Don't mess with us. We're badass.

2007-09-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

I Know, I Know...

Me no post long time. And that isn't because we had a baby or are anywhere near apparently having a baby. The kid cried wolf a couple of weeks ago, and after that, nothing doing.

I have been really busy getting crap taken care of at work, so I can be ready to take a paternity leave. That is, I could have just dumped all my workload on someone and it probably would have been fine, but I've now pushed the Sysiphean boulder to a leveled-off point where it won't totally flatten whoever picks up where I left off, and I won't need to feel totally guilty about it.

So, now, Sandy and I are both at home, watching too much bad cable TV. She's had a head start, having taken off of work a couple of weeks ago, and she's watched every house-flipping, secret-ingredient-cooking-off, secret-ninja-warrioring, myth-busting, dirty-jobbing and "A Dating/ Wedding/ Baby/ Mid-life Crisis Story" show there is. Dear God, I caught her watching "The View" on Friday.

It's time to induce, just so we can do something meaningful with our lives again.

Stay tuned.

2007-07-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

Happy 25th Anniversary, Lee's Comics!
At the risk of spoiling my image as a cool, suave, playa, I thought I'd share a little window on my past. Lee's Comics is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and Lee Hester, its owner, has written the history of his business in three parts. (Episode I, Episode II & Episode III)

I was there, handing Lee my money from the beginning. I haven't been able to verify it, but there's a good chance that my head, and Jack's and some of the rest of yours, is in this shot:

Lee's blog entries are lengthy, but interesting if you're interested in some perspectives on Palo Alto history, or in the insights of a longtime comics retailer. He tells an interesting story about the demise of Comix & Comics. Even if you weren't a Lee's customer back then, you should still check out the photos for the Early Years. Total early '80's time warp.

I still shop at Lee's new location in Mountain View and have had some interesting experiences there. Most notably when Michael Chabon did a reading of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay". Harrison was three, and if you've ever tried to take a three-year old to a reading at a comic book store, you'll understand why I was standing in the back of the audience with Harrison sitting on my shoulders, trying to keep him entertained and out of shelf-grabbing range. You'll also understand my horror when, first, Harrison farted, and then, announced in a not-so-soft whisper "Dad! I just farted on you!" Amazingly, the entire store did not turn around to look at us.

Later, while signing my book, Chabon complimented me on my old-school X-Men t-shirt. I'm never putting that signed copy of Kavalier & Clay on eBay.

Thanks for the memories, and Happy Anniversary, Lee!

2007-06-05T00:30:00.000-07:00

Nice Blog: Working Parents

Thought I'd highlight and recommend one of the blogs on my Links list (over there on the right): the Working Parents blog from Business Week.com. It's written by a rotating panel of six Business Week editors and pretty much every entry has been a worthwhile comment on the problems or symptoms of being a parent trying to juggle a job, a family and a marriage at the same time. I don't agree with all the writers' opinions, but just knowing that other parents struggle with the same issues is comforting and helps me keep things in perspective.

I found these two recent entries particularly interesting: The Elusive 50/50 Division of Labor, and The Elusive 50/50 Division of Labor, Part II

They look at both sides of a classic argument (tell me you've never had this one): Do most men do a worse job at taking care of things around the house because they expect their wives to take care of it? Or do most women not trust their husbands to take care of things because their standards are too high? The Part II entry has an interview with Marc Vachon. Marc and his wife Amy recently launched a web site called equallysharedparenting.com. They've both decided to work part-time and stay home part-time, and they created the site to share pros and cons and help other parents who are interested in doing this.

They've worked out a new approach to sharing tasks: if you want to split up the workload at home, you also have to split the difference on what standards the work needs to be done to. Whoever takes responsibility for a given chore gets to do it their way, and the other partner takes responsibility for butting out and accepting the shared standard. Ironically, this is a basic principle of being a good manager at work, and making compromises with your partner is what marriage is all about. But it's funny how rarely we (at least I) use this skill in an explicit way at home.

2007-05-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

We have had 2 more ultrasounds since the last post. The first was the level II – where they can see all the bits up close and personal. We saw lips, the heart chambers, even little toes. Of course I didn’t see as well as Baldwin (bad angle) and truth be told, I am not exactly sure what I’m looking at most of the time. But the doctor said everything is right on track, and that s/he is supposed to look just like that.

Speaking of “s/he” I am still standing firm that I don’t want to know the sex of the baby until after he or she arrives. Sadly, I am the only one who feels this way. Foster and Harrison are still split on their hopes for a girl or a boy (respectively) and are campaigning furiously for me to change my mind. And poor Baldwin really wants to find out too – he doesn’t care what the gender is, but he really wants to know. I told him he should find out, just because I don’t want to doesn’t mean he can’t find out. He has just as much right as I do… but our doctor said that rarely works out for the best. In the end he’s being sweet and “respecting my wishes.”

So Baldwin’s plan was to study the level II ultrasound very carefully. Which he did. And after it was over, he told me that at one point he thought to himself, “hey! I know what that is. I see two round organs… and an oblong thing in the center… hey …” and then the sonogram technician flatly stated, “…and these are the baby’s kidneys.” Nice.

Yesterday we had another ultrasound. Not scheduled, but we promised the kids we’d take them to one. Since all of our other doctor appointments have been first thing in the morning, when the kids are at school, we asked our doctor and he said, “Oh sure, I’ll slap an ultrasound on you if the kids come.” Which was really nice of him. Unfortunately the baby was sleeping, so there wasn’t much action, but Foster thought the beating heart was amazing, and Harrison giggled for about 15 minutes when the doctor said, “That’s the baby’s butt.” Ah, 8 year-old humor.

Elevated sense of humor aside, Harrison has been really, really interested in the baby, and all that comes along with it. The other night he asked me, “Sandy, what happens if the baby comes in the middle of the night?” I thought he was just concerned that we would leave him home alone, so I tried to comfort him by saying, “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll probably have Nai Nai and Yeh Yeh come watch you… we won’t leave you alone, buddy.” He just looked at me quizzically and said matter of factly, “Uh, no. I’m coming to the hospital. I just want to make sure you wake me in time.” I told him that sometimes babies take a long time to arrive… like hours and hours. His response? “That’s okay. I’ll just wait.” Me: “In the hospital waiting room?” Harrison, “Of course not. I’m coming in with you.” This just stopped me in my tracks. Much as Harrison has been a comfort to me, I wasn’t sure I wanted him IN THE DELIVERY ROOM. So I told him there wasn’t a lot of room, and they usually only let one person in with the mother. He hung his head, looked quite dejected and muttered, “Oh. The husband.”

When we asked Foster if she wanted to come to the hospital in the middle of the night as well, she looked at us just as incredulously as Harrison, but said, “Uh, no. And don’t wake me. I’ll find out when I get up.”

Now that’s a girl after my own heart.

2007-05-11T00:28:00.000-07:00

Mugsy

We recently had the privilidge of dog sitting our friends Mike & Leslie's adorable dog Mugsy. I know we're on the verge of getting a dog and I wanted to do a test run to see if everyone was ready to face up to all the downsides to having one: the accidents, the barking, the chewing on things not meant to be chewed on, the tracking mud all over the floor, couch, beds, and the pooping, always the pooping.

Just one problem... there was no downside. Mugsy is the perfect dog. She was well-trained, quiet, and never chewed or scratched on anything. She wasn't a prissy china doll--she'd get excited and run around like a wind-up toy if you wanted her to. But if you were sitting quietly, so would she. While we were reading or watching TV, she would hop up and put her head on your lap. And, as you can see, she was extremely friendly with the kids.

She's a Coton de Tulear... bred in Madagascar as ship's dogs, so they're used to living in confined spaces.

And of course now we're all SO into the idea of getting a dog, but I know that if we decide not to shell out the price of five Bugaboo strollers for a purebred Coton and adopt a nice, deserving dog from the pound instead, the poor cur is doomed to disappoint. At least we're waiting til after our other new family member arrives first; maybe by then we'll be happy with anything that already knows how to eat out of a bowl.

2007-04-12T00:34:00.000-07:00

How Not To Talk To Your Kids

A while back, my cousin emailed around this interesting article about how to praise your kids from New York magazine. It kicked off a lot of discussion via "reply all" (which is how much of our extended family's communication seems to happen these days), so I thought I'd post it here for anyone who wasn't on the original email.

I've seen several comments online that people think the recommendation is to stop praising your kids (interestingly, some people seem pleased by this conclusion, while others lament it). I don't think that's what the author or the researchers meant. The recommendation is to stop praising your kids for the wrong things. Don't praise them for having the right answer, or getting the top grade, or for being smart. raise them for putting in significant effort, or being persistent, or taking on and overcoming tough challenges.

Another common conclusion? Easier said than done...

2007-04-12T00:23:00.000-07:00

Fairfield Pics

If you're reading this blog, you might be interested in seeing some pics from our trip to Connecticut to visit Sandy's folks. JJA&M came down from Boston to visit us too (and Jack posted some good pics too.)

2007-03-27T04:43:00.000-07:00

Big News

So I thought I'd use the occasion of going public with this blog to announce some Big News (or is it the other way around?)

We're adding to the family. See?

Sandy's about 3 1/2 months along, and the baby is due September 18. Sandy is always early to things, and I'm always late, so we'll get a good indication of whose genes she or he got right off the bat. (And I'm claiming credit right now for that joke, which will be repeated 18,342 times over the rest of the poor kid's lifetime.)

Needless to say, we're super excited. I love having the chance to talk to Sandy's tummy. I look to it for sympathy to whenever I need someone on my side--kind of like when anyone on (the TV show) The Office looks to the camera whenever he or she can't believe what's happening.

And Foster and Harrison are also super excited. Harrison's been incredibly protective of Sandy ever since we told him. The very first thing he said was, "OK, I'm making a new rule: No kicking Sandy in the stomach." They (F&H) have been having some fierce debates over whether it will be better to have a little brother or a little sister. Each rightly points out that they already know what it's like to have an opposite-sex sibling. Let's hope they're excited enough about the new baby to compensate for the fact that one of them is gonna be disappointed.

The only negative is that poor Sandy's been having a hard time with morning sickness, but it's gotten a lot better than it was in the first trimester. She's tried everything--crackers in bed, sour candies, the wristbands, different foods and drinks. Some things help a little, but nothing seems to help a lot.

Check back in this space for more developments soon.

2007-03-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

GeekDad
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad

If your kiddies are into science-project type stuff, check out this new blog from Wired. (Forgive the title--perfectly appropriate for GeekMoms too.)

It’s full of fun/cool/educational geeky projects to do with your kids. The level of geekiness, and the sheer volume of ideas, are a little intimidating--the thing’s only been up for a couple of weeks and there are already 17 in-depth projects posted. Most are geared for older kids—"Proving the theory of relativity in your minivan”???—but there are a few fun ideas for younger kids too. Did you know there’s a working scale steam-engine railroad in Berkeley? Some of the projects are major undertakings, but some look like they could be pulled off on a weekend afternoon (he said overconfidently).

And some are definitely in the "fun for me but I need a kid there to justify doing it” category.

2006-11-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

Photo of the dhaba joy cafe in Austin

click on the photo to go to Zooomr

2006-11-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

2004-03-31T21:23:00.000-08:00

I got an email chain letter from a friend on the East Coast. Maybe you've seen it before:

Ann Hicks is a teacher at Palo Alto High School in California, and she is
doing this with her students for a science fair project, so help her out and
please play along. Thanks!

Copy and paste this letter into a new email (PLEASE do NOT hit "Forward"),
then read the list of names. If your name is on the list, put a star * next
to it. If not, then add your name (in alphabetical order, put no star.)

Send it to ten people and send it back to the person who sent it to you. Put
your name in the subject box! You'll see what happens - it's kind of cool!
Please keep this going. Don't MESS it up, please!

[Name list omitted]

After I'd forwarded it to some people, skeptical cousin Jack wrote:

>So,
>Um, what happens that's so cool?

Uh... I dunno? I got five emails back with my name in the subject line. I think we just provided a prime example of what hackers call "social engineering", aka "playing off people's basic trust in basic
social connections."

I'm a bit taken aback that I gave it so little thought before forwarding to ten close friends & relatives. What made me trust it?

First, I got the email from my friend Susannah. I also recognized another acquaintance's name as the person who sent it to her. There was nothing obviously viral about it and I think the mention of Palo Alto High School made me lower my anti-spam shields for a moment. I thought, "oh, what the hell, science students in Palo Alto*" and suspended my cynicism long enough to propogate the chain. The entire (lack of) thought process took maybe twenty seconds. Select all. Cut. Paste. Insert my name, as instructed. Click ten names from Contact List. Click "Send." Bada bing, bada boom. Move on to message #23 in the Inbox.

If I had spent about twenty more thoughtful seconds on this I would have noticed there's nothing about the mechanism of the chain that would lead to anything particularly cool happening. I don't see how Ann Hicks' students would be able to track the progress of the chain, except in the event that it clogs the internet and floods their inboxes with a google-plex permutations of name lists. Speaking of which, a quick Google-ing as well as a cursory search of the Palo Alto High School website reveals no Ann Hicks on staff. Maybe there used to be; maybe this is now a Flying Dutchman of an email, a ghost in search of its origins--but then wouldn't the name list be really, really long?

There's a serious implication here. Our social networks can be powerful and a wonderful celebration of community, as when you traverse the links across a web of Friendster or Orkut links to connect with new friends (if you want an invite to join Orkut, let me know--I'm in good w/the doorman.) And it can be pretty scary when the network opens doors for someone they're not supposed to.

Bill Gates says that computer users need to be more responsible students of technology and not do "naive" things like leave their home networks unprotected, open virus attachments in emails, click in the pursuit of a 10-inch penis, etc. I call this the Spiderman POV: With great power comes great responsibility.

There's another view, more like Ralph Nader's indictment of the 1960's auto industry: the Internet and most software just aren't designed safely enough yet.

I'm not equating this email chain letter to the Blaster virus, but the facility with which this chain letter slipped through my brains (and the brains of half the people I forwarded it to) gives me some pause, as does having a nine-year old daughter with an email address. With the shifts and permutations of recent viruses, worms and hacks, maybe the Spiderman approach isn't good enough. Maybe we do need shoulder belts and airbags on the info superhighway.

I'll see if I can get an audience with The Chief Software Architect to discuss.

BC

* Here's an interesting side question: does "Palo Alto" give it more credibility to people who don't live in the Bay Area? More so than "Cambridge" or "Redmond"? What if it had been "the Bronx" or "S. Central LA"? I remember wondering if it was a coincidence that Susannah had gotten something from Palo Alto, but not for very long.

2004-03-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

If you're easily distracted and amused by disturbingly long treatises on how to make your own cool CD packaging, the genius of Charles Schulz or hidden Morse code patterns in pop music, I don't recommend visiting Kempa Dot Com. After an hour of reading this, I decided to give up on the blog and just forward all traffic directly there. Thanks--I think--to Jak for the lead.

Also discovered today that Dave Eggers is starting a monthly music column in SPIN magazine. They haven't posted it online and there's nothing else in the magazine worth reading, so I recommend going to your favorite newsstand, reading it in the aisle while trying not to make a scene chortling or guffawing or whatever your particular reaction to Mr. Eggers' unique style is, then quickly stuffing the smudged issue into the back of the stack, glancing about for witnesses and buying something useful like a pack of gum or the Sunday Times so they don't toss you out the next time they see you coming.

2003-12-08T23:49:00.000-08:00

OK, I've been pretty lax about keeping this blog up, mainly because of a killer workload the last month, but this is pretty hard to ignore: Gore Will Endorse Dean (washingtonpost.com)

I actually haven't put much up here about my support for Gov. Dean, but I actually think that (a) he IS electable and (b) his organizational strategies are the kinds of new thinking that are needed to beat Bush and his money-heavy approach.

Not that it's going to be easy, and not that Dean doesn't have his flaws. I'm hoping that he learns from his recent stubborn reaction on the "Southern white guys w/Confederate flags on their pickups" debate incident -- not that his point was off, but would it have been any less meaningful to have made a graceful retraction and deny John Edwards the meaningless 15-seconds to posture in the spotlight?

But I digress. Having Al's support is obviously big news, but let's face up to the fact that Al got soundly out-strategized by Karl Rove in 2000. I guess I'm too much the pessimist to see this as entirely good news. Putting Dean that much farther into the perceived front-runner's position potentially sets him up for bigger stumbles -- he's going to have to be more guarded about his actions, which could make him sound and think more like a mainstream politician.

The more unequivocal good news, I think, is that the sooner the Democratic Party can consolidate and build the support structure behind a couple of strong candidates, the better off we'll be for the general election. And this is a major step in that direction, before a single primary vote has been cast. I hope this gives the race the shakeup it needs to get Sharpton, Mosley-Braun, Edwards and even Lieberman to hang it up. We just don't need the distraction, guys. (Yes, Kucinich too, but has anyone taken him seriously at any point along the way?)

Coming soon: I promise to write about why I think, from an ad guy's perspective, the Dean campaign is the antidote to celebrity / brand name politics.

2003-11-12T23:39:00.000-08:00

My favorite California Recall Election poster:

It was on a phone booth (yes, they still exist) on Folsom Street and I passed it whenever I drove to work. It takes me back to the Reagan era in so many ways... (cue the Ramones' "Bedtime for Bonzo").

It took me weeks to finally remember to bring my camera with me and, this being San Francisco, I had to park illegally in a bus zone to hop out and take a quick snap. I'm really glad I did - now that Arnie's been elected, the clampdown has begun and those phone booths on Folsom have been scraped sparkle-y clean.

2003-11-12T23:29:00.000-08:00

I know I've been deliquent, and I had a bunch of stuff ready to post. And then I read this... The Onion | Mom Finds Out About Blog
Hmm. Maybe I'll give my latest rant another once-over.

BC

2003-10-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

My friend Anne is working on the Ryan campaign, via North Woods Advertising. They do great, great work, but the thing that confuses me a bit is I thought they worked only on left-leaning or anti-establishment politicians.

They hit the scene helping Paul Wellstone get elected--the "Where's Rudy?" commercial, while mild by today's standards, was a complete jaw-dropper at a time when the "Willie Horton/Revolving Door" ads were the state of the art. Not only was it the best political advertising I'd ever seen, it was among the best advertising, period.

North Woods then went on to get Jesse Ventura elected and they were the agency behind Ariana Huffington's anti-SUV campaign. Oh, and they did Ralph Nader's "Priceless" spots. Maybe they do work for conservative causes.

And maybe that's why in polls we advertising folks get rated below lawyers for integrity. I think that's unfair. Upgrade to Windows XP, everybody.

2003-10-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

Get this. The very first response I got on the blog was from my friend Anne K to tell me she's working on the ads for a Republican candidate for US Senate. She hasn't told me who, yet (and after this post might refuse to speak to me ever again), but here's the contenders.

Wow. Quite a gaggle there. It's no California recall -- no porn actresses or ex-child stars -- but pretty entertaining for the ancestral home of old-school machine politics.

So based on my "celebrity branding matters, everything else doesn't" theory, I'll put money down that Jack Ryan wins the Republican primary, maybe by a thinnish margin. And then I'll put money down that he whups whomever the Democrats can put up against him. Any takers? Nah--it would be like taking candy from a baby. Except maybe that Nancy Skinner "the Winner". (SEE? I'm not making any of this up.) She sounds just wacky enough to do some damage.

But come on. Jack Ryan is:
- Ex-husband to Jeri Ryan, actress and every Borg's wet dream from Star Trek "Voyager" and now "Boston Public" (If you can't be a celeb politician, you can be a celeb's-ex politician. Expect the five of Liz Taylor's ex-hubbies who aren't already in politics to launch new careers.)
- He looks like he was rejected from the set of "The Bachelor" for being too handsome
- AND he's named after a Tom Clancy hero?

No wonder he doesn't need any actual policies other than to brown-nose the President.

Ryan's commercials (click on the links from his home page) are cleanly produced, mildly amusing and of the slicker, and more consumer-friendly than most political ads. But they end with him saying "...and I approve this Republican message?" What's up with that? Shouldn't it be "I approve OF this Republican message"? At first I thought he was just mumbling the "of" but it's written out clearly on the website. I guess he's saying he's accountable for the content of the ad--but then isn't it more correct to say "I approved this message"? Or did he pick up some lingo I'm not hip to while he was teaching in Chicago's Inner City schools? Proper.

Actually, I kinda hope Anne's working for Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria. Selling a towel-headed* intellectual in the Heartland. That would be a challenge. Seems like an interesting, highly qualified guy.

But he doesn't stand a chance.

All I can say is, as a Californian, it feels good to make fun of somebody else's politicians for a change.

* Don't write me to complain--I'm projecting how he's likely to be perceived

2003-10-19T10:51:00.000-07:00

In Time this week, Andrew Sullivan writes that Arnold could represent the future of politics because he's a "synthesis" and a "truce" between the socially accepting left and the fiscally conservative right. "That kind of complicated but real candidate has been my dream for most of my adult life."

Well Andrew might be able to snooze happily, but Arnold's just the beginning of our nightmares. Synthesis? What synthesis? He just told everybody what they wanted to hear. He far from the first candidate to combine socially liberal and fiscally conservative positions--whatever happened to Dick Riordan? Oh yeah--he got his clock cleaned by the right wingers during the primary. It took Arnie's celebrity value and brand recognition to blow past the party insider bullshit that keeps most regular politicians beholden to their ideological bases. When you have no ideology, that's not such a big problem. And that's the new formula.

The Democrats aren't so stupid as to not see this happening (well... they are pretty stupid...) On the Presidential level, their attempt at this type of candidate (and their attempt to head Howard Dean off) is... Wes Clark. Hmm. Good luck with that. On the state level, there's rumor that Rob Reiner is gearing up to run for Gov in 2006. The Terminator vs. Meathead. Great.

2003-10-17T13:58:00.000-07:00

Well, shit.

Arnold's our governor.

The thing that's really incomprehensible about this isn't that a celebrity with no real ideas or experience but massive brand recognition can win an election--politics has devolved into that game) long ago. The thing that's baffling and disconcerting is that so many people got off their asses and voted for Arnie. He didn't just win the apathetic joker-vote (which is how Jesse Ventura eked out a win in Minnesota--the 18-to-24 year old turnout was HUGE). Nearly 4 million California voters actually cast a vote for this clown, across all demographic, socio-economic and political segments you can slice and dice.

Man. Politics as usual are sincerely dead. The old model of building a record of service, dedication to causes, campaigning to the rank and file party members has been outclassed by two divergent and equally revolutionary societal movements (these movements have changed other aspects of life, too, but that's a rant for another day.) The first is the move towards sound-bite rich, single-main-idea driven, complexity-free, high-awareness-and-recall celebrity brand gloss, as exemplified above. Done well, it steam-rolls right over old school political campaigns.

To pull it off, the "brand" (also sometimes referred to as "the candidate") needs to have the critical mass to start a chain reaction of media attention, which then feeds on itself and sustains the awareness momentum. It's all about centralization and focus. And the only thing it needs to achieve is an unshakeable mental association with one positive "attribute". The campaign management has only two simple (I didn't say easy, but simple) tasks: (1) make sure that attribute is the single most important thing the majority cares about, and (2) make sure that every single thing the campaign does goes towards building as strong an association with that attribute as possible. Every dollar spent, every media appearance, every press release. (Side note: In the ad world, we often talk about the "Mrs. O'Grady test", aka the "Maytag test": if you wake up Mrs. O'Grady at 2 in the morning and yell "Maytag! What does it mean?" at her, she should correctly respond "Reliable!" rather than "Help! Police! What the hell are you doing in my house?") In the California recall election, the job was really a piece of cake: make Arnold = "Kick Davis' ass."

You might counter by arguing, why did Arnold's campaign spend so much time defending against the accusations about groping women; that was a proof that didn't have anything to do with getting rid of Davis, right? Well, I didn't think they were serious threats in the first place--in fact they were probably helpful to Arnold. Why? Because they furthered the image of Arnold as everything Gray Davis isn't--passionate, red-blooded, unafraid of appearing politically incorrect. A Man's Man. Fuckin'-A. Not to mention that it played up the Democratic hypocrisy of accusing the lech on the opposite side of the aisle after having defended the one on their side of the aisle.

What about his rowdy admiration for Hitler's ability to get the trains full of Jews to run on time? That was a much more serious threat, and my perception was that the Schwarzeneggar campaign was trying much harder to make this one go away quietly. Thankfully, the claims were not well-documented, so they could be relatively easily dismissed. And seriously, no one really was saying Arnold is or was a Nazi-sympathizer, just that he is and was a loud-mouthed jerk who doesn't necessarily put the brain in gear before speaking. At the end of the day, just another example of how different Arnie is from that cold, calculating weasel Davis or the career beaurocrat Bustamante. The Dems were doomed as soon as Dianne Feinstein declared she and no other Democrat of consequence were going to dignify the recall by putting their hats in the ring.

The other movement that's been happening is the only place I think people like us can go once they've realized that 21st century machine politics requires you to have a last name that matches a previous President's or a Q-score over 25, and caring, dedicated, thinking, articulate people don't count for a hill of beans in this world: They blog.

It's the opposite of centralized brand management. It's populist, it's grassroots, it's chaotic, complex and hard to pin down. But that's not to say it's any less empowering or effective than the other way. In fact, the perceived leading Democratic Presidential candidate, Howard Dean, seemingly came storming in from the fringes to stun the establishment after months of online grassroots activity. Figuratively, it's going back to the Minutemen spirit, hiding behind rock walls to plink away at the rigid formations of Redcoats while they seethe about how "unconventional and unfair" the tactics are. Oh yeah? Electing an empty suit based on the free media coverage his face, name and movie catchphrases can bring ain't politics as usual, either. Plink, plink, plink.

So here I am, setting up my 40 acres of vent-space. This thing isn't going to just be about politics--in fact, I hope to only get pissed off enough to re-visit the subject every couple of months or so. I've got a lot of other beefs to air out as well. But in this post-Arnold, corporate-controlled media synergy world, I'm feeling the urge to have my barbaric yawp* heard by at least a couple of kindred souls somewhere out there. Or at least convince myself of the illusion that it is.

* In true pseudo-intellectual form, here's the last stanza of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself. Seems to capture the spirit of the exercise:

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.