Friday, May 30, 2003

Everything is going very smoothly

Everything is going very smoothly this week.  Work is getting completed, effectively and thoroughly and quickly.  I’ve done more in three days than most men do in seven.  Phone calls are getting returned and aren’t taking too long.  Meetings end on time - or early.  My desk is organized and active.  I’ve done all the laundry - and I look great in these jeans.  Measurable progress is being made on many critical fronts - travel, home decor, fitness.  Today my pictures from the weekend will be ready, and tonight is Happy Hour. 

I think I’ll spend the rest of the day sitting quietly under my desk.  When fate wakes up and realizes I’ve gotten away with this kind of a week, my ass will be grass.  I’ll need to keep a low profile.

MEDIA TOOL

Last week NPR had a story on in the morning about a family from somewhere in Africa, slaves and refugees, who had been resettled in Denver (having been rejected by Massachusetts); the only things in dad’s new world from his old world had to do with farming, which was once what he did.  I couldn’t stop thinking about this guy, how disruptive, how isolating it must be for him.  And I couldn’t really imagine it, but I wrote a poem about it anyway to quiet the voices.

Then this week NPR had another story on in the morning about a woman in Mali, or near there, who had to sweep all day to keep the desert sand out of the old family house which was far, far out into the isolation of the wastelands.  She too got under my skin and took up residence in my tender cranium.  Another poem resulted.  And here they both are.  And they say advertising doesn’t work.

Both my parents lived in bondage
I have always hunger known
the past three years I lived in camps
that no one ever called a home
They turned me back from Holyoke
Because their people have no work
I packed two bags, we rode a plane;
so this is what it’s like in Denver
Christian woman screaming for her
translator and someone laid
out napkins for us but no food
it’s so unreal
gave my boy a hideous
toy doll - a bear they say -
of cloth that’s like the U.S. flag;
he looked at it and screamed - no wonder -
Don’t put metal in the micro
I won’t even touch the micro
in Denver there is much I find
unprecedented, tiring, hard
to understand, to be well understood,
to look or even, sometimes, just to feel
like the rest of them, my neighbors
yes I’m grateful every second for
my life here now but this is all
so very strange
they take me to the seven leven
pull up in the parking lot and
there she sits - a filthy tractor,
nicest one I’ve ever seen
my farm back then was such a dump
but I grew crops
and drove a tractor
just like this one
this I know
I go inside
the multiplicity of choices
never ceases to amaze me
I have too much to understand
but there they are - a barrel of
fresh ears of corn
exactly like my own from home
I cradle one with thirsty fingers
this I understand.

This is the house
that I was born in
the sun comes up here
every morning
this little hut
and so much sand
the desert sea
a lonely land
I have a task
I work all day
it rides my dreams
cant get away
I sweep the desert
from my door
It’s never done
I sweep some more
My mother did this
so did hers
here in this hut
so many years
I love my children
live my life
It’s all I know
it will suffice
we have some water
goats and sheep
at night I go
inside to sleep
my sandy little
desert hut
I sweep you while
my eyes are shut

Thursday, May 29, 2003

Calling All Clowns: Go Somewhere

Calling All Clowns: Go Somewhere Else and Start Eating Healthy

You like clowns?  Me neither.  I guess it’s because one broke into my home and tied me and my folks up for a weekend of tequila abuse and pet shaving.  I’ve just never forgiven them.  That’s why this article creeps me out so profoundly.  Clowns and protein patties: satan’s smorgasboard.  Ronald McDonald is just disturbing.  Those fry things are weird too.

Choice selections:

“The 40-year-old character will start showing up more—and in unexpected places. Maybe he’ll even perform his new dance “Do the Ronald."” Please don’t do this where people are eating - even if it’s fast food.  Even if it only claims to be food.  It’s gross enough in there as it is.

“Kids would throw rocks from the parking lot. Sometimes you would get protesters,” explains Jeff McMullen, a former Ronald, of Appleton, Wis. “Ronald can’t handle that.” Ronald is going to have to learn to take care of himself.  We won’t be around to protect his pansy ass forever.

“Ronald McDonald was the brain-clown of two people: Washington advertising executive Barry Klein and renowned Ringling Bros. clown Michael “Coco” Polakovs. At the time, Mr. Klein’s clients included a McDonald’s franchisee and a local “Bozo the Clown” television show. Mr. Klein persuaded the franchisee to run commercials on the Bozo show to reach out to children. After the kiddie show was canceled in 1963, Mr. Klein regrouped with Bozo, then played by Willard Scott, who gave the McDonald’s clown his name: Ronald McDonald...Mr. Scott, the longtime weatherman for NBC’s “Today” show, donned the first Ronald get-up that year, using a paper cup as a nose and a cardboard tray as a hat....When McDonald’s decided to make Ronald a national figure in 1966, the company dumped Mr. Scott, fearing it would be hard to find people in each market with Mr. Scott’s big build, recalls Mr. Klein. “That was a heartbreaker,” says NBC’s Mr. Scott. “I was too fat."” Too fat to represent an organization dedicated to the injestion of saturated fats and disks of seasoned arterial plaque on a bun?  Consider yourself lucky to have been dropped.  Willard, you got out by the skin of your well-worn teeth.

“To mass-produce Ronald like its burgers and fries, McDonald’s created a guide in 1972 called “Ronald and How.” The book, by longtime McDonald’s hands Roy Bergold and Aye Jaye, details everything from how to apply makeup to how to behave around children. According to someone close to the company, the book advises Ronalds “never to initiate a hug” with a child. Instead, Ronalds are to turn slightly to the left and pat the child on the back.  That’s right clownie, never touch them - in public.  Offer them free apple pies if they visit Ronald’s Grotto with you.  Just ask “Aye Jaye.” If you can get him to come out of the ball pit.  As they say.

“Another former Ronald pleaded guilty in 1998 to a charge of carrying a concealed weapon in New Hanover County, N.C., and the next year was convicted in county court of making harassing phone calls posing as a Ronald. The judge ordered him to take anger-management classes. “I’m one of the bad-boy Ronalds,” says Mr. Maggard, an actor who portrayed Ronald in the mid-’90s. “Am I a bad guy? No, I’m not a bad guy. Did Ronald get in a little trouble down there? Yes."” I don’t even want to know down “where” Ronald got into trouble.  And what’s a harassing call “posing” as “a Ronald?” Was it a videophone?  Was he threatening to take a drive thru order incorrectly, or have Jabba the Shakeslurping Hutt sit on somebody?

I’m only going back to McDonalds when they’re selling patties made out of Ronald himself - the “Pound ‘o’ Flesh,” perhaps, or “Clownie McNuggets.” Meantime, I’m perfectly happy eating flash-frozen lard-on-a-stick.  At least the stick has some nutritional value.