City Paper Circle Jerk

National Blog Posting Month Day 8

I’m a real writer! I’ve been published in City Paper! Let me explain.

One of my many obsessions is free alternative weekly newspapers. I can’t pass one of those gimme newspaper racks without taking one. It makes me feel bohemian and hip without ever actually having to give up any of my sedated suburban lifestyle. The Baltimore version of these counter-culture leftovers is generically called City Paper, as opposed to the much more hallucinogenically named Atlanta rival Creative Loafing.

One of City Paper's columnists is the astoundingly unfunny Joe McLeod. But then somebody has to fill the space between the ads for strip bars and head shops. His rambling stream of consciousness blathering is amusing about one time of ten. A frequent column topic is how he deserves to be able to mindlessly babble weekly instead of every other issue.

Somehow Gawker got wind of his schtick and linked to a column where he channeled the prototypical trashy mall rat. Being a semi-Baltimoron familiar with his style, I found it to be hilarious once you got the joke. Not everybody did.

Part of the fun of the whole Web2.0 interactive model is getting to be an amateur commenter and provide big websites with quality snark for free. Being a blogger is passé. As this article describes, the real road to fame is to become a minor celebrity as a fixture at a bigger blog. Under my Pop Socket The Sock Puppet alias (I lost yellojkt in a disturbing lost password snafu, but that’s no big deal since nobody can spell it right), I am a frequent contributer the Gawker Media sites like Wonkette and Defamer.

With my homeboy McLeod being ridiculed by a big outfit like Gawker, I had to rush to his defense and show off my inside knowledge of who he was and how he rolled. Here is what I had to say:

BY POP SOCKET AT 10/25/07 11:24 AM
Mad props to my homeboy, Joe MacLeod. A link from Gawker may be the big break that lets his column finally go from bi-weekly to weekly.

Now Joe being the meta-comic genius that he is uses his newfound internet fame as a springboard for another column (which of course gets picked up in Gawker) where all he does is reprint the comments made about him. This was his ouroborosian response:

The last time my “column” ran in this weekly newspaper and/or World Wide Web thing, it got linked to by this other WWW thing called gawker, and then “commented” on, and then commented on the comments, and then commented, etc., and like that. A lotta people who look at my junk on newsprint might not have seen the commenting, so I’m gonna run as many, uh, salient comments from gawker.com as I can fit, plus this fucking gawker gets people to click on their shit and they make money on that, with ads, so that’s, like, stealing from me, so even more-plus, I don’t have to write anything this week, har!

Let’s recap the circular twist this episode has: My proudest moment of the past year is getting one sentence printed in a freebie newspaper because some poorly paid writer filled a whole column with comments that people left on a website that made fun of said writer. Which included me. That makes me published about five times removed.

And best of all, I got to milk a blog post about it to complete the circle.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: Have you ever been really published? Like paid and everything.

Dirty Birds Nest

National Blog Posting Month Day 7



As part of National Blog Posting Month I have even drug my China Sights blog kicking and screaming off of life support. The posts for that blog are easy to do since Flickr has a Post-To-Blogger button built right into it. I just lost interest in posting regularly because I was trying to be too clever and post the pictures in an order that made since whether you read the blog daily or in reverse chronological order in the archive. That got to be too much anguish and required too much advance planning. Now I’m just doing random pictures and cross-linking them from Flickr so I don’t repeat myself.

Also, China Sights never got much traffic. Ten or twenty hits a week was a lot and I just didn’t have the drive to pimp it too much at the expense of this blog. Part of the problem seems to be that travel blogs are too much like watching someone’s vacation slide show. What was cool and meaningful to the traveler is just boring and repetitive to an audience.

The photo at the top of this post is a bonus picture not on the China Sights blog. The new Olympic Stadium being built in Beijing is nicknamed The Birds Nest for its obvious resemblance to a real birds nest if birds were 200 feet tall. We drove around it to get a good view, but they wouldn’t let us on the construction site. The image you see is three 8 megapixel shots photoshopped together. The full size image is 8182 pixels x 2010 pixels and nearly 2 megabytes in size. If you want to see it in all its glory, click here or just look at this detail from it showing some workers near the top taking a break.

The grey sky in the background was typical of our entire stay in Beijing. Behind that haze is probably several high rise buildings that just can’t be seen through the pea soup pollution. While I had no trouble breathing while I was there, I’m not a world class athlete. The 2008 Olympics are going to be very interesting if China can’t get the air cleaned up in time. If nothing else, the haze will sure make for crummy blimpcam pictures.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: Have you been following the pre-Olympic pollution publicity?

Training Day

National Blog Posting Month Day 6

They just built a huge Big Box complex close to my house with a Costco, Lowes, Best Buy and a bunch of other mega-retailers. They also have several outparcels for restaurants. Since I moved to Howard County about twelve years ago, about every chain known to man has moved in. The competition in this “nobody eats at home” bedroom community is fierce. Our favorite Bennigans went out of business, which stunned us and put a real crimp in our band carwash fundraisers. With so many other places nearby, we were curious how they were going to find tenants that were unique.

My wife was getting copies made at the newly opened Office Depot making small talk with the person behind her in line. That person turned out to be the owner/manager of one of the restaurants. She was copying invites to the pre-opening test nights and gave my wife a coupon for four. My wife invited another couple and we showed up for a free meal.

The coupon was for free entrees for each person from a selected menu provided that each person had a different dish. We had to cover cocktails and tip. Over the next few weeks we managed to eat for free at three of these new places and get a good sampling. All three of the restaurants were waiter service casual dining places along the lines of the Applebees/Fridays template, but each one has a slightly different twist to make them as unique as a chain with a hundred stores can be.

Houlihans – Upscale Fridays
The one my wife got the personal invite to was Houlihans which is closest to the traditional bar and grill full of flair. I hadn’t seen a Houlihans since I moved out of Atlanta twenty years ago, but they seem to be expanding. Back in the day, Houlihans was the type of place you talked your folks into taking you for brunch when they were in town. They still try to look a little classier than the competition.

The food was very typical pub grub specializing in greasy stuff like buffalo wings, spicy shrimp, ribettes, and burgers. I had a salmon which was much better than average, but overall the food was lackluster. Where they specialized was in wine and martini flights. A martini flight is three different drinks each with a unique flavor like chocolate, key lime, guava, and lemonade. We got a total of six, but we weren’t sure which ones because the waitress got the names and the drinks all mismatched.

Verdict: A nice place to get fancy drinks but the food was run of the mill.

Mimi’s Café – French Fridays
The couple we took to Houlihans repaid the favor by giving us a try-out coupon to the next one to open, Mimi’s Café. They are trying to give off a French Bistro vibe with fireplaces and relaxed lighting. The menu aims for comfort food with a twist. The one I couldn’t resist was the lobster mac and cheese. While it the mac and cheese was nowhere in the league of Dumont Burger in Brooklyn, the lobster chunks were novel enough to be intriguing.

My wife had a jambalaya that was so huge, the leftovers made two more lunches for her. She also really loved the soup, which varies daily meaning you have to plan your schedule carefully if you have a favorite. My son judges restaurants by the quality of the cheeseburger and based on how fast he inhaled, it passed muster. All these entrees were under fifteen bucks each.

The banana bread ice cream desert they brought out for the whole table was bigger than anybody’s head. They also had a full bar with some nice strong specialty cocktails. If you have to drive they also several types of coffee.

Verdict: Better than average food without the loud frentic atmosphere of a typical bar and grille.

On The Border: Tex-Mex Fridays
The third restaurant was just good timing on our part. We were on our way to Costco for groceries when I noticed that On The Border had a big opening soon banner up, but plenty of cars in the lot. That screamed training day to me. Since it was mid-day on Sunday, the manager had some spaces to fit us in. The food is American-style Mexican heavy on the cheese and frying. Our meal choices included an appetizer sampler plate that could have filled us up by itself. The quesadillas were particularly good. I like chimichangas and theirs was huge if a little light on the spices. My wife got a four item combo plate since we weren’t paying for the food. We snuck enough stuff into our doggie bag to feed our teenage son later that night.

The margaritas were plenty strong, which is always an issue with chain bars that tend to be a little light on the pours. We only had one each or we weren’t going to get any grocery shopping done. I tried a berry flavored one that was awful compared to the traditional flavor. Froofy martinis are one thing, but margaritas need to stay close to their roots.

Verdict: Enormous portions but nothing special or inventive about the dishes.

Over about a two week period we ate out three times for free and after too many drinks and generous tips still ended spending less half of what we normally would. These open houses are a big deal. Every table stays full and the whole staff is on duty the whole day. It must cost them thousands in free food to undergo the shakedown period.

Of the three, we are probably most likely to get back to Mimi’s because of the cozy atmosphere and my wife loves big hearty bowls of soup. And the next chain that wants to open in Howard County is going to have some tough competition.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: What do you look for in a sit-down chain?

Blog Advice From WaPo

National Blog Posting Month Day 5

The Sunday Washington Post in its usually useless Sunday Source section has a very good article called Be More Than a Blip in the Blogosphere by Dan Zak aimed at the amateur blogger like me. Most articles about blogging are aimed at people trying to make a living of off AdSense revenue rather than people doing it as a hobby.

Be sure to read the whole article, but here are my reactions to each item.

1. TELL STORIES RATHER THAN STICKING SOLELY TO LINKS OR PHOTOS
The whole point of blogging is writing. Some people do the link dump well, but I learned a long time ago that nobody clicks. I put in links more for my reference and sense of obligation. If a few people click through I feel useful, but I hope most readers come to read me. That is the egotistical essence of blogging.

2. CREATE A VOICE FOR YOURSELF.
This tip says either stick to a topic or a style. My interests are rather eclectic, but not completely random. I do seem to have a few kindred souls out there, which says more for the vastness of the blogosphere than the universality of my interests.

3. MAKE EVERYTHING EASY TO READ AND ACCESS.
Keep It Simple, Stupid. I’ve gotten bored with all the sidebar gimmicks that have nothing to do with people navigating my site. I keep the most recent posts way down the sidebar, because most people don’t need them. The Best Of links and Labels don’t seem to get used enough, but they are they if you want them.

4. SIFT THROUGH BLOGROLLS AND CREATE YOUR OWN.
People on my blogroll are my most frequent commenters and that is a great part of the community part of blogging. Please check them out.

5. WIDGET YOUR PAGE.
He doesn't mean weather pisies and the like. Put in things that make your site easy to bookmark or subscribe to. I’ve got all the RSS feeds and aggregator links I think I need. If anybody uses something that I could use to make it easier to subscribe, let me know.

6. COMMENT EARLY AND OFTEN.
Here is where I need more hours in the day. I hit everybody on my blogroll at least three to four times a week, but I don’t always comment. Then again I don’t expect every reader to comment on every post. This is Golden Rule stuff. I should try to read a wider group of blogs every now and then, but it’s tough to find time. This daily blogging is definitely cutting into the random recreational surfing.

7. PRAY FOR A LINK FROM THE BIG BOYS.
I got hit by Gawker for the Studio 60 Drinking Game and it did wonders for my stats, but now that that's off the air, it's not driving a lot of traffic. Every now and then I hit a hot topic. I just hope that people that hit me for a specific post come back later and read more. I’m still waiting for a break through link for the Dowd Report. I have to think it will come sooner or later.

8. NOMINATE YOURSELF FOR AWARDS.
Blogger awards are so hokey and most seem to do more for the blogs of the people inventing the awards than the “nominees. I’m sure I could sock puppet and Astroturf my way onto some nominations, but I just can’t put myself through that level of effort.

9. POST WITH VERVE AND CONSISTENCY.
Zak says to post at least daily. In my circle of bloggers that is a little ambitious. I’m less than a week into NaBloPMo and it’s getting stressful. Three to four times a week is the pace that has traditionally worked for me. It's a hobby, not a job.

10. JOIN THE CROWD.
I’m on Blogtimore, Hon which is a great aggregator. Part of the advantage of blogging is not needing to have ftf contact. That said, I would like to be more social and go to things like the recently passed Baltimore Bloggers meet-up, but I don’t have the time for fixed time events.

Again, this is a good article full of common sense advice. Those dead trees are still good for something.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: Which tips make the most sense to you?

Roxanne's Alias

National Blog Posting Month Day 4

We see a lot of Broadway musicals. A lot. It takes a little more to get us into a straight play, and that usually involves stunt casting. We pulled out all the stops to see Julia Roberts in Three Days of Rain. We also saw Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in The Odd Couple twice. When my wife’s school planned a day trip to New York for the staff, all her coworkers were off for shopping. We decided to see a show instead and got tickets for Cyrano de Bergerac which is in a limited ten week run.

This production stars Kevin Kline as Cyrano and Jennifer Garner as the secret object of his love, Roxanne. Playing the conduit for his affection is Daniel Sunjata as hunky lunkhead Christian. Garner surpasses expectations as the beautiful woman that wants both beauty and brains. Her character is clever and cunning if just a bit clueless about who really writes those wonderful love letters. Garner became famous as the strong and smart Sydney Bristow on Alias, but in this show it’s the guys that get to do all the ass-kicking.

In a production of Cyrano, the nose matters and Kevin Kline makes for a very handsome swordsman with a rapier sharp wit and an equally pointed proboscis. As good as the rest of the cast is, Kline is clearly the centerpiece of the show. He duels and composes poetry simultaneously in the seventeenth century version of a street rap battle. And in the final scene (which I won’t spoil for those of you that have blocked out your high school lit classes), he breaks hearts and makes tears run.

For a production that will close before Christmas, a lot of work has been lavished on the staging and costumes which are just gorgeous. If you don’t have tickets by now, your shot at them as pretty slim. We got list price tickets in the balcony, but orchestra seats are going at highway robbery “premium” prices. We had several people around us leave at intermission. One was muttering about the bad view, but we didn’t miss any of the action. We actually like low numbered mezzanine tickets over the back of the orchestra. It lets you see more of the stage when the actors are rolling around on the stage. The downside for this show is that the musketeer hats occasionally hide the actor's faces.

We are now pros at stagedoor stalking and got Jennifer Garner to sign a Playbill. After spending time signing for the fans, she disappeared back inside. A few minutes later a nanny came out and got into a waiting SUV with Garner’s gorgeous daughter Violet. Jennifer then sprinted Elektra-style into the car and it rode off. The too-hot-to-be-straight Sunjata spent a lot of time autographing and posing for pictures, but never made it to our side of the barricades before wandering off down 46th Street. I guess third bananas don’t rate limos. Kevin Kline hunkered down backstage and never made an appearance.

Now that I have seen both Jennifer Garner and Bradley Cooper on Broadway, I have to wait for Michael Vartan to come to the Great White Way to fill out my Alias hat trick.

Taking Its Toll

National Blog Posting Month Day 3

Readers of this blog know that I visit New York City about twice a year. I always drive and the little nickel and dime charges add up. Here is an estimate of what a round trip to the Big Apple from New York costs:

Baltimore Harbor Tunnel (2-ways @ $2.00)	$4.00
Maryland Toll Plaza (northbound only)	$5.00
Delaware Turnpike (2-ways @ $4.00)	$8.00
New Jersey Turnpike (both ways @$5.85)	$11.70
Parking in Manhattan	$25.00
Delaware Memorial Bridge	$3.00
Gas (400 miles @ 20 mpg and $3.00 per gallon)	$60.00
Total	$116.70

You can trim a little off that if you get on the New Jersey Turnpike in Trenton and get off at the Holland Tunnel, but that only saves a couple of bucks. We usually take our kid so that comes to about forty bucks a person. Taking a coach class Amtrack train would be at least $200 a person round trip. I've done that for business once, and it's nice to be able to rest or nap, but not for that kind of money on my dime. And the super fast Acela trains cost even more.

My wife's school organized a group bus trip for $35 per person. That makes it cheaper than driving as long as only two people are going. Since my son has a band competition, we are on our own. It's a bunch of fellow teachers, so she should know people and we won't be stuck with a bunch of random strangers.

The bus leaves at 7 am, so this has to count as my entry for NaBloPoMo today. I will give full details on what we did in NYC tomorrow.

The Boss's Wife

National Blog Posting Month Day 2

I’ve worked for a lot small companies and it’s not uncommon for the wife of the boss to work as either the receptionist or the office manager. At my first job, the boss’s wife was a complete shrew and the boss was the mildest, nicest guy. One day about four of us ended up in the bathroom at the same time and we started ragging on the wife. As we were in mid-laugh, the boss walked out of the far stall, washed his hands, and went back to his office. We all stood around looking awkward.



I bring that up because as hard as it is to be the boss’s wife, it must be a real bitch to be the Wife of The Boss. Patti Scialfa is in one of the most awkward position’s in music, the spouse of a rock star with her own career. You can successfully argue that she wouldn’t have the modicum of success that she has if she weren’t waking up with sheets soaking wet beside Bruce. She had a record deal before joining Bruce’s band, but the actual album wasn’t released until long after the couple had a kid and tied the knot (in that order).

She also has been called the E Street Yoko Ono and the bare outline of the facts support that. She joined the band irregularly as early as 1984. Broooce married a Hollywood starlet in 1988. During the Tunnel of Love tour, the two shared a microphone so much that there probably should have been dental dam on it. The breakup of Bruce’s first marriage was followed shortly by the breakup of the E Street Band. He retreated to California to put out mediocre albums with talented but personality-less studio musicians. All signs of following the Lennon track into marginalization were there.

I prefer to look at her more favorably. The first marriage to Julianne Phillips was an obvious mistake. The two had nothing in common and she seemed eager to kickstart her acting career rather than tour the country. Patti was a Joisey Girl closer to Bruce's roots, even if she was from the mansion on the hill. As his spunky red-headed woman, she eventually lured him back to the East Coast to raise three slightly pampered teenagers. The E-Street Band is now reunited, even if they aren’t consulting my kid’s marching band schedule when they plan tours. I see Patti as a net positive force on Springsteen.

And none of this addresses her music. It’s bluesy in the Bonnie Raitt tradition, and it’s not just the red hair they have in common. Her new album got released a month before her husband’s latest media blitz, so I’m not sure whether that helps her ride his coattails or get lost in the flood. Her new album, Play It As It Lies, is not very different from her other two, but it shows a higher level of polish, to the point where some tracks are a little over produced. Her single is “Looking for Elvis” and I am a sucker for Memphis invoking tunes. Bruce fans on either side of the Patti divide look to her well-crafted lyrics for clues into the state of the relationship. Her song “Bad For You” is as close to a confession as you’ll get.

Hey there baby
There once was a time
You could’ve rolled me like a tobacco
You could’ve spilled me like wine
Across the lips
Across the fingers
Across the skin of your neighborhood
Oh I could have had it bad for you
And that’s not good.

You almost need a cold shower after that song.

Would I have ever stumbled upon this soulful singer-songwriter without the scandal? Probably not. And that wouldn’t have been good.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: Have any other married couples ever managed successful independent music careers?
BonusBlatantCommentWhoring™: Find all the clumsy Springsteen lyric allusions.

BooksFirst - October 2007

National Blog Posting Month Day 1

Books Bought
Are Men Necessary? by Maureen Dowd
I Am America (And So Can You) audiobook by Stephen Colbert

Books Read
The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin

Books Abandoned
Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron

Comments
I nearly made through the month without buying any books, but I had a 30% off coupon from BigBoxOfBooks that expired on Halloween. Since my wife was looking for the new Robert Plant/Alison Kraus album, we tried BBoB first. I figured that since I was writing the Dowd Report I ought to have a copy of MoDo’s latest book for reference. And then in the checkout line they had Stephen Colbert’s book on CD. Since he had cowritten a column with Dowd recently, I picked it up as an impulse purchase.

The one book I did manage to read all the way through this month was a book about the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin called The Nine: Inside The Secret World Of The Supreme Court. It covers the modern history of the court from the Reagan era on. In many ways it is about what could be called the O’Conner Court since during this period she was the swing vote on many issues. While the book is organized chronologically, individual chapters tend to focus on an individual justice or issue. And the biggest issue for the past twenty years has been abortion. Because of its unique position, the Supreme Court has final say on anything related to reproductive rights.

The book is lucid, clearly written and fairly objective. Nothing the Supreme Court does is uncontroversial and Toobin does an excellent job in not only describing the issues, but explaining why each justice votes the way they do. The most “inside” episode in the book details the tar baby the court got stuck with when they started meddling in the 2000 election. The book convincingly paints this episode as a turning point in the public view of the court.

It also covers all the major issues as well including the Clarence Thomas hearings, the Bush-Gore election, and school prayer controversies. It is very up to date since the Harriet Miers debacle was covered on this very blog. I still think Dubya should have nominated one of my choices, or even one of my alternates.

In the nearly two years I have been doing BooksFirst I have only ever noted one other book as Abandoned, meaning that not only have I set it aside, I have no intention of ever finishing it. I thought Secrets of The Silk Road would be a good companion piece to China Road which I read in August. Instead I found myself bogged down in an endless litany of obscure archeological sights as Colin Thubron tries to stay ahead of the avian flu inspectors. The book is poetically written, but the endless descriptions of bus rides with peasant women wore me down. I abandoned the book somewhere in a desert oasis in Khazakstan where it has been buried by pages of florid prose.