Through little fault of my own, I have received the last two issues of Playboy delivered directly to my door.
Let me explain: I get National Geographic, which comes every other month, often in a plastic wrap with the glossy back-cover advertisement showing through one side and some anonymous white-sheet subscriber quiz or other ad sheet obscuring the cover on the other.
So last month, I open a magazine wrapped in black plastic wrap, thinking it's another issue. To my surprise, a naked lady on the cover -- and we're not talking National Geographic native naked, either -- stares at me.
Playboy!
"Why did I get this?" I wonder. Of course I first think of prankster friends, but a subscription doesn't seem to fit their style. They're more apt to the one-time big-bang effect, like leaving an "enlargement pump" in your house for you to discover when your father-in-law is visiting.
Then I think of how a recent tactic among publishers, I've noticed, is to send me unsolicited issues of their magazine (Newsweek, World Traveler, etc.) for several months, then drop a "DON'T LET YOUR SUBSCRIPTION EXPIRE!!" notice in the mail, as if I'll be suddenly hooked and gullible enough to start paying for something I never asked nor paid for in the first place.
Or maybe it's marketing to the stages of life, so the marketers decide when I'm right for Newsweek, when I'm right for Playboy, and when I'm right for Old Farts, Cigars and Retirement.
'Look at the Address, Stupid -- Do You Think She's Pretty?'
But after I leave the issue on the kitchen table to goad a reaction out of the missus, she uses her women's intuition to investigate, pulls the plastic wrap out of the trash and notes that it was intended for a Middle Eastern name at the same address number -- but on the next street over. Oops!
Truthfully, I haven't sincerely examined a Playboy since childhood, when there was an unspoken "gentlemen's agreement" among a loose network of neighborhood kids to leave the God-given stash of issues buried in the gravel underneath a local park playground (hint: it was a Steamboat-shaped playground, in case you are a bored 10-year-old). In a remarkable example of an unwritten social contract, it was understood that you checked out the issues there, and you left them there, and everybody benefited.
(In retrospect, there was probably an authoritative hammer in play: more than cooperation, kids were probably motivated by the practical fear of what would happen if actually caught possessing the contraband in their house.)
But anyway, exploring the issue, I found the old cliche excuse is true! You really could get it "just for the articles." The articles are actually heavily researched, well written and thought-provoking -- bearing no resemblance to the air-brushed, fake-injected, napalm-shaven women-borgs who populate the rest of the magazine. Articles on conomics, film, environment -- and no Cosmo-ish "73 Tricks to Drive Her Wild in the Bedroom" or "Lose 15 lbs. on Big Macs Alone!"
(Admittedly, my impression of the utter unsexiness of these fake, creepy, vacant-looking models is why I've never bothered to, uh, "examine" Playboy when offered since childhood. Mind you, I like a pretty woman -- naked or clothed -- as much as the next guy, but my tastes tend toward that found in nature rather than that found in the laboratory. A quick perusal and the Missus and I were in agreement: These babes have a surreal, doll-ish look that sort of dissociates them from the human species. What a strange relic this publication is.)
Alas, before discovering the wrong address, I actually read the articles enough to ruffle the pages a bit while it circulated among my piles of other half-read magazines. And uh, Playboy isn't exactly the type of publication you'd remove from the plastic wrap and then be eager to deliver to its intended recipient's mailbox one block away. In the event of a face-to-face encounter, that's a bit awkward. Particularly if you've messed the corners enough to make it visibly used:
"Here's your issue ... uh ... I accidentally unwrapped it, but I'm done with it now ... uh, you should really check out the article on diamond mining in Sierra Leone ... huh? Oh Trixy? Yeah, she's a looker alright ..." *flees scene, taking detour home*
The Post Office Strikes Twice
And while I feel for the guy who's missing his Playboy -- and this one looked like a big issue, what with the year-end review of each "Playmate of the Month" -- he's just gonna have to call the subscription center. I have to do it all the time for the damn Hockey News as it gets mangled or lost in the mail. Now it's his turn.
But wait, there's more: The Post Office delivered another issue to me this month! Wise to the black-wrapped ruse, this time I didn't open it. But now I'm beginning to wonder if my address number on the next street even exists, and whether the mailman (or woman) has made the marketer's life-stage decision for me. ("Who gets this dead-address Playboy?" -- "Try the weirdo on Hermit Lane, he could use it.") Else how did they screw up two months in a row?
Well, on the drive home today I confirmed that the address in question (if not the subscriber name) does indeed exist. So tomorrow I'll make the awkward walk to deliver porn to the mailbox of its intended recipient. Who, I'm betting, isn't Middle Eastern at all.
And if the Post Office should misdeliver an issue to me again next month, I'm reading it cover to cover, then slipping it under a friend's coffee table.
This post is a good example of my favorite kinds of things you post.
It's a slice of life. Real life. A funny little anectdote of a minor problem, it's puzzle, and it's potential outcome.
As opposed to an undigestible helping of surreal bizarro Bush/Clinton/ObamaDrama politics of which we can really do nothing to solve.
In my opinion, reading about the issues of politics (about which we can do nothing but bitch and moan...and vote) seem to leave us feeling angry and helpless. As opposed to reading about slices of Real Everyday Life in which our manageable problems are encountered and solved creatively and humourously.
I suppose I could better digest an article about politics (without throwing up or getting the runs) if the issues were encountered, and possible to be solve creatively and humourously, in everyday Real Life. But our everyday Real Life does not include politics. It includes working to pay the bills, saving for retirement, spouses, children, hobbies, joys, solving problems, reaping benefits earned, and pleasant surprises to encounter (and much much more!).
I suspect that articles and public tirades on politics are created to make the writer/yeller feel better about it all - as if the article/tirade itself is the writer's/yeller's solution to feeling so angry and frustrated. And he/she hopes to get others in a tirade so that, um, they can make a change...
But no matter who has been in the oval office in all my 37 years in this country, my Real Everyday life has not noticed any changes as a result (I must be alone alone here...and white).
Oh wait, sometimes I get a rebate check at tax time and sometimes I don't. Sometimes my savings earn more interest and sometimes they don't. Big deal. Plan ahead as best you can.
I'd rather creatively solve what I can solve, vote, and enjoy the rest of my Life.
Peace.
By no one you know - 1/18/2008 8:39 AM
Actually, this is how I feel about humor, not politics: I love stories and anecdotes about everyday things with funny outcomes, not contrived, bizarre, formalized "jokes." (Turkey tails excepted.) Sittin' around bullshittin', not delivering stand-up monologues. I shared this post with co-workers because it's one of my favorites, too.
By KayO - 1/18/2008 10:57 AM
Thanks for those thoughts! I hear you, I do. I think you may be right about the motives of many public tirades and anonymous message-board fodder, although I think some circulated columnists are truly motivated to inform and shape opinion and action -- rather than just goad a reaction -- for those of us who can't stomach the tired old game and theatrics of the primaries, etc.
For me, I actually feel somewhat silly posting political excrement because I know: a) this isn't exactly a visible site that can enact change (and if it were, I'm not sure I'd want that role); b) it typically just upsets or gives us Exhibit #4928 of what we already know; and c) physiologically, I generally do not enjoy the feeling of being upset with The Man -- although the feeling is only worse if I don't process my thoughts.
That's why when I can, I try to wedge such posts among other "Real Everyday Life" tales, to allow for easy skipping and more personal fun.
On the other hand, for purely personal reasons, I also use this space as a storage bin and chronological journal for my thoughts and interesting articles/links that I want to revisit on occasion. Before this blog, I saved articles I wanted in a folder, which quickly became a mess with no context. This place allows me to put thoughts/articles in context for Future Me.
Part of my Everyday Life involves this nagging desire to read (too much) and try to understand things about this world and how we got here (e.g. they pretended the sub-prime mortgage party was just peachy in 2006, now the bill comes due in 2008), which inevitably provides some conclusions that distress me -- a cost of business which I accept because I seem to be able to compartmentalize that distress as if it's just another brain bit like the history of the tribes of Easter Island or who won the 1975 Stanley Cup.
And part of that search involves examining my current impressions and, when I can, checking back on earlier versions of Me to try to determine how I arrived at that impression (the neatest functional thing about this blog for me is the ability to check back just what that was in my head in the hot tub a few months ago, and where did I see it? A journal always just hurt my hand, and word documents just became disorganized)
But I'm not referring to just politics or government, rather the whole shebang: astronomy, technology, anthropology, history, the Grand Canyon -- it's all one question for me: "How does this work?" Sometimes my reaction to the answer or theory is "Wow!" and sometimes it's "Yuck! Get me a drink." But my brain is here on this planet at this moment, and that is what it seems driven to do with itself, so I let it.
(Interestingly, twice recently I had weird Everyday experiences that I wanted to blog about, only to check back and find that I already had, several months before.)
Whether the helplessness and inability to alter outcomes is on a galactic, millennial scale or a current-event scale, this fate of the life condition fascinates me all the same. (One of many reasons I LOVED "No Country for Old Men")
I guess, though, whereas I don't begrudge the Sun for eventually burning out and swallowing Earth, and I can't fault the glaciers for not carving the Grand Canyon at a more easily traveled distance from my house, I do feel real disgust with people who attain power under the pretense of helping fellow humans only to wield it with a clear preference for the interests of themselves and their country club friends. Or likewise, their wielding it with an arrogance that assumes they and Their God know all and do not require continued research or adaptation to changing times, much less dialog with the poor saps they represent. They wear the sheep's clothing to get in, then the wolf comes out and locks the door.
I realize such behavior is largely part of human nature (particularly the nature of those who seek power, whereas many regular folk just want to live and let live). But the ruse and their willingness to count on the appeasement of us "live and let lives" does grate me and, I think, have long-term consequences that history bears out.
Whether or not I could ever alter it or change its course, trying to get a handle on these things is still part of the grand curiosity I have for Existence -- whether in the present or the astronomical past. At times I've not posted things because they made me feel too sour, but then later I've regretted that because, like bad song lyrics, if I felt it at some time, I want to know it -- even if it sucks and sounds like Journey.
...So that's how it happens in my head, anyway. For each "Politics"-tagged post, I will now add a new tag: "Journey."
By Dominik - 1/18/2008 11:01 AM
I don't begrudge at all anything you post here. I realise it is a great tool for a writer.
And I too am as curious as you about how it all works: "I'm not referring to just politics or government, rather the whole shebang: astronomy, technology, anthropology, history, the Grand Canyon -- it's all one question for me: "How does this work?"
I get my answers from the Discovery channel and the History channel... ;-) and in my child-like brain-bit I pretend that when I die, God will play me the movie from beginning to end which will explain it ALL!
I guess my real motivation for my input was this: If you are going to write the Great American Novel(s) someday, it will be more digestable if it's about Real Life situations, than about what kind of inept idots we get stuck with in our government. The folks like to read stuff they relate to on a regular basis, and if you want to sell books, write about that stuff.
That's all.
KEEP ON BLOGGIN'
It's fun to read!
By no one you know - 1/18/2008 11:43 AM
Thanks! Heh, I have that God-movie fantasy, too, along with a prologue showing my wake, where they play really good music and use my casket as a beer keg cooler.
(By the way, regarding curiosity, I hope my first comment didn't come off like "nyah, I'm curious and like to LEARN me stuff, 'n stuff," because it was definitely just a self-examination of how/why that stuff pumps through my head before being pitched out the back door.)
Oh, yeah, I won't be touching government. I'm pretty sure if I ever get off my butt enough to put a long-form narrative together, it will have to be stories about ze father, who is a Walking Story. Just a few minutes ago I was asked to re-explain "Child of the Year" to someone. You can't make this shit up!
As you may have noticed, the site has changed. Sampa, the free-site host, did a version 2 of some sort.
Despite an FAQ that made it sound like allowing one's site to go through v.2 surgery would be okay, there were several flexibilities that surprisingly disappeared with the click of a button. (e.g. I cannot believe sidebars like this one are even narrower than before.)
And I'm told -- miraculously! -- that the conversion cannot be undone. Truth be told, I'm actually quite pissed. But free is free. Sampa has otherwise been good to me.
So I need to sort through site "features" to see how I can make do. Except that I don't have the time at the moment, in the middle of graduate classes and Lighthousehockey.com. (btw, I've removed that Lighthouse RSS feed so that you're not clogged with random Islanders hockey gibberish).
But I promise to touch up the accessories when I get a chance, and return to irregularly scheduled blogging.
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February, 2008