It's been real

I have finally fled the city and taken up residence elsewhere, so this painfully, maddenly tedious weblog is finally, mercifully coming to an end. It is nice to finally be free of the mixing bowl of humidity, hedonists, political activists, panhandlers, outrageous taxation, nonsensical laws, self-absorbed elitists, and other assorted weirdos that make up Washington DC. What an awful use of my money to have lived there. But I did learn something, so it was not a complete bust.

This weblog will now fade into the ether with other neglected weblogs and soon will meet the same fate of just being a place where comment sections fill up with spam and links to sites that will infect your computer with spyware.

If you have stumbled upon this weblog while doing some research in anticipation of a move to DC, here are the observations that I think best sum up my observations of Washington DC. Enjoy.

Ants Marching: The DC rat maze has a way of cutting down to size even the largest egos and deflating the emptiest suits.

Normal DC Behavior: The attitudes of most people in this city are reflected in the way that they behave when they get behind the wheels of their vehicles.

Opportunity costs: People really think that they are special and will waste your time and theirs to make sure that you understand that.

Obnoxious or not? The latter, in my opinion.

An Exceptionally Annoying Protester: Disenfranchised loons make an otherwise nice city unpleasant for normal people.

Far out and far off the mark: Misguided activists are surprisingly casual about their undesirable activity.

Words, like, um, mean things… sometimes: Limp-wristed DC neuters (that’s most of the men in this city) talk in a very odd way.

Waste of life: It is sad to behold what people consider to be a desirable social life.

MBA Ethics: Sometimes I wonder what people are pursuing.

Running from the heat: It is pretty hot here

Might as well be walking on the sun: Yet air conditioning remains as elusive as a gun permit.

HItting the road

I am going for a long drive today. Whatever I spend on gas will be worth it because it will get me farther away from drivers in this area.

Things to do today...

Be productive…
Do not watch the Democratic National Convention
Eat some bacon
Do laundry

Be environmentally friendly…
Unplug my toaster when I am not using it
Continue to produce less trash than most others (the garbage that I post on this weblog excluded)
Continue to drive in a more environmentally friendly fashion than 99% of the people in this area

Be healthy…
Go to the gym and get huge
Get my Baconator value meal with the baked potato in lieu of the fries
Continue to not be a smoker

Politics is a good drive spoiled

I was on the road yesterday, out of town. I saw lots of feats that can only regarded as suicidal or dangerously stupid. The most impressive thing that I saw on the interstate was a woman talking on her cellphone with one hand, brushing her hair with the other, driving with her elbow, and holding some paperwork on her right lap that she was reciting into the cellphone. I guess she was either on cruise control or using her left foot to control the pedals and using the third eye in her forearm to watch where she was going. Surprisingly, her car had lots of dents.

To pass the time and to try to distract my mind away from the unbridled ignorance and self-destructive behavior all around me, I listened to various radio stations as I traveled in and out of their ranges. The big deal on the AM airwaves was the breathless suspense among political junkies - and nobody else - about when the Messiah would choose his VP nominee and mindless speculation over whether it would be Biden, Clinton, or some yahoo in Texas whom I have never heard of. It was amusing to observe the tremendous disconnect between the pundits and the rest of the country. Pundits kept pointing out that this was such a huge story and everybody was on the edge of their seat, panting like dogs in the sun, breathless with anticipation. But whenever I switched to an FM station, there was not a single mention of the Messiah. It was just blah blah blah, random sound effect, latest contest, latest stunt by the station, latest gimmick, worn out 90s music, et cetera. There was nothing about politics, let alone any particular politician. It was somewhat refreshing.

It seems that the only suspense remaining is who Lindsay Lohan and 50-Cent will endorse. According to my poll (in the right column), their endorsements are the most influential. Can you believe that Angelina Jolie got zero votes? She spoke at CFR and still gets no respect. I guess everyone is still taking Jen's side and just sees Jolie as an evil home wrecker. Tough crowd.

My drive yielded one other interesting observation. I saw lots of Obama bumper stickers - usually affixed to the bumper of a car that was going about 20 mph over the speed limit. Perhaps the Messiah should have told his followers to drive within the legal speed limit, rather than inflating their tires. I suspect that the former would go much farther towards reducing emissions.

Taking a gander

Today I rode my bike down the Mount Vernon trail. I forgot how long that trail is. Or maybe I forgot how short my attention span is. Or maybe both. I could not stop thinking, “when does this trail end?” It seems to go on forever. I think it is only about 15 miles, but it seemed like 50.

Perhaps I should have peddled faster. I was not even tired; just peddling at a comfortable pace, coasting down hills, listening to my iPod. I am not one of those guys who wears bicycle shorts and those spandex shirts and contoured helmets that make you look like you’re in the Tour de France. What is the deal with those people, anyway? If I play a friendly game of football, I do not don an NFL jersey, throw on the helmet and shoulder pads, and lace up cleats. If I go for a long walk across the city, I do not break out the walking stick, GPS, and camping backpack. When I go to the gym, I don’t dress like I’m about to compete in the Olympics powerlifting competition. If I go swimming, I don’t wear those crazy suits that the Olympians wear. If I go to Whole Foods, I don’t dress like a metrosexual. Why dress for a bike ride like you’re on the final stage of the Tour? I don’t get it. But anyway.

On the way back I took a detour towards the Jefferson Monument. Near the monument, I encountered a huge flock of Canadian Geese. I don’t know about in DC, but where I come from Geese are notorious for attacking golfers. I was a bit leery of the flock, but there was no way to go around it. My only option was to gamble that they were accustomed to people. I had a bad feeling about it because two nights prior I had a dream that I was wrestling a giant rooster in a steel cage match (I’m not kidding) and it seemed like a foreshadowing of this encounter with the flock of geese. I sped as fast as I could through the flock. One goose seemed a bit perturbed, took to the air, and began to follow me. At first I thought, “oh crap, here we go, I’m going to get into a scrap with a giant goose.” But it just flew beside me, about five or six feet to my right. It must have flown beside me for about 100 yards or so. I wasn’t sure if he was just befriending me or jockeying for a good position from which to mount an attack. And then he did a U-turn and went back to the flock. Maybe he was just trying to get a glimpse of this strange character who was riding a bike, but not dressed like Lance Armstrong.

Admin note: I'll pass along a lesson learned regarding the rooster in the steel cage. If you find yourself having this bizarre dream, just remember that the key is controlling his neck and avoiding his claws. His wings are fairly harmless - just annoying. But if you do not keep control of his neck, then he will peck you like mad with his beak. You need to keep your head buried in his neck and keep at least one arm around it and just keep kneeing him, working his mid section, in hopes that he will make a mistake and allow you to maneuver into a rear choke. Hang in there and eventually he will flop onto his side to avoid your knees and you can slip the rear choke hold... or you will eventually just wake up.

No, seriously

I was at a small restaurant around lunch time when I had a brief conversation today with two girls who are starting graduate school here in DC. For whatever reason, they thought that I would be able to give them advice on where to go for a good taste of the DC nightlife. Boy, were they wrong. I did not have my tape recorder with me, but here is how some of the conversation went. For simplicity, I refer to the two of them as simply “her…”

HER: Do you live around here?
ME: Yeah.
HER: We just moved here. Where does everyone go at night? Where are the clubs at?
ME: I think U Street is the big attraction, but I’m probably not the best person to ask.
HER: What’s on U Street?
ME: Not sure. I’ve only been there once and I don’t remember the names of any of the places. I’ve just heard it come up when people talk about places that they’ve been.
HER: Where do you usually go?
ME: I don’t.
HER: You don’t go out at night?
ME: I do, but I don’t go to clubs.
HER: Why not? Where do you go?
ME: It doesn’t interest me.
HER: Why not? It’s fun.
ME: It just doesn’t appeal to me.
HER: Why? It’s fun.
ME: Have you been to the Smithsonian yet?
HER: laughter… no… why?
ME: There’s a lot to see there.
HER: laughter… pause… are you serious?
ME: Yeah. And there’s no hangover or regret in the morning.
HER: Oh my god… laughter
ME: You might want to check out the Kennedy Center or Warner Theater, too.
HER: laughter… no really, where should we go?

The mindless banter went on like this for a while, even though I thought that I was sending a fairly obvious message, via my body language, of “please leave me alone and let me eat and read my newspaper.” They really thought that I was kidding about everything that I said. The best advice that I was able to give them was to avoid 19th street because even I know that it is lame. But, then again, maybe they thought that I was “kidding” and now they’re planning to go there.

Hemlock or Kool-Aid?

I was reading one of the early Socratic dialogues today and this just jumped out at me. To anyone who questions the value of Socrates all these many years after he turned his hemlock glass bottoms up, I say: behold.

SOCRATES: And when you make a judgment about military matters, do you judge in virtue of your skill in generalship, or in virtue of the skill that makes you a good rhapsode?
ION: There’s no difference, so far as I can see.
SOCRATES: No difference? How on Earth can you say that? Are you saying that the skill of a rhapsode and the skill of a general are one skill, or two?
ION: One, I think.
SOCRATES: So, anyone who’s a good rhapsode is in fact a good general too?
ION: Certainly, Socrates.
SOCRATES: So too, then, anyone who is in fact a good general is also a good rhapsode?
ION: No, that’s not my view.
SOCRATES: Yet it is your view that anyone who’s a good rhapsode is also a good general?
ION: Oh, indeed.
SOCRATES: Now then, are you, as a rhapsode, the best among the Greeks?
ION: By a long chalk, Socrates.
SOCRATES: So, as a general too, are you the best among the Greeks?
ION: Have no doubt of it, Socrates, that too I learnt from the works of Homer. ¹

Could it be that Barack Obama’s skills as an orator translate into leadership skill? It does not seem too much of a stretch, if we are swayed by the reasoning of Ion, that if a rhapsode is a good general then an orator is also a good political leader. Socrates was a little suspicious of such a notion, but he was at least willing to concede, out of civility, that Ion was “not skilled, but divine.”² Perhaps, then, Obama, though he is a joke of a candidate, can still be a political messiah. The two need not be mutually exclusive – or at least we need not acknowledge any exclusivity – if Socrates is our guide. How is that for common ground?

1. Plato (circa 390 BC). “Ion”. In Saunders, Trevor (Ed.), Early Socratic Dialogues, pp. 63-64. London: Penguin Group. 978-0-140-45503-8
2. ibid, p.65.

Everybody dance now

Today I heard a car blasting its stereo system in a way that really stood out. It stood out because it was not the normal bass thumping that every other vehicle in this city exhibits. The windows were down and the driver was cranking C&C Music Factory's Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)*. On the scale of so-dumb-it's-funny, that is only one notch removed from blasting Vanilla Ice and two notches below blasting the Bee-Gees. Such a shameless display of one's inferior taste prompted me to reflect upon my own behavior.

An hour earlier I checked my mail and found the latest issue of The American Interest. On the front cover is none other than the political messiah Barack Obama. I really wanted to read a couple of the articles (the ones by Berkowitz and by Baker et al; not the one about Obama). However, there was just something about toting around a magazine with Obama on the cover that struck me as distasteful. I would view him much like I view most politicians - just another smooth talking sociopath who thinks he is special - but the fervor with which so many of his idolators worship him causes me to view him with a greater degree of revulsion. I suspect that 90% of people in this city are enthusiastic supporters of Obama, so I do not think that toting around a periodical with his mug on the cover would cause me to be viewed by passers-by as a troublemaker. On the contrary, it would probably earn me a few approving nods. I guess that is the problem. I really do not want others in this city to view me as one of them.

This self-reflection was a little surprising. My rejection of the culture in DC leads me to not care about what others think of me, good or ill, because I view their opinions as inherently tainted and thus irrelevant. However, the thought of blending in and being viewed as “one of them” really caused me to rethink how I present myself. Had the cover of the magazine been emblazoned with McCain’s mug, then I would not have had any issue with toting that around, though I would have carried it in such a way as to not make it obvious, since I have no interest in provoking anyone. But it would not cause my skin to crawl to think that someone would associate my carrying it for my also supporting the individual pictured. I do not think some weirdo is going to approach me with an outstretched hand at the sight of me holding a magazine with Obama on the cover, but I chafe at being endeared to them by such sentiment. I do not care if they think ill of me, but I cringe at the thought of earning their acceptance.

Such thoughts had never crossed my mind until recently. Perhaps it is that Obama seems to be such a universally accepted brand here in DC. There are lots of other quirks that I could display that would not alienate me from DC culture, but this one in particular really seems different. It is almost equivalent to sporting a Christian ichthys on your car in the Bible belt, wearing an Earnhardt t-shirt at a NASCAR event, or wearing a Cowboy hat in Texas. It symbolizes that you embrace certain values or beliefs that are enthusiastically embraced by the society around you and it earns positive reinforcement from that society. Well, I want none of that from DC society. You can have it.

Back to the guy blasting C&C Music Factory, I see that as equivalent to provocatively asserting one’s preference, rather than simply quietly rejecting the undesirable norms of those around him. It would have been analogous to me opting to provocatively display a mug shot of McCain (or perhaps a better example would be a mug shot of someone whom I actually support for President). That, in my opinion, is a bit much. Why provoke? After all, I do not care about their opinions, so why would I be interested in provoking them to defend those opinions or to attack mine? What would be the point?

But maybe I am reading too much into some guy who needed his fix of bad 90s dance music and/or has a sense of humor.

* - Here is a link to the video, for those who cannot resist.

Ha ha!

Yesterday I saw a kid run his skateboard right into a lamp post. He was not going real fast and he didn't wipe out, so he was not physically hurt. But it made him look stupid and basically forfeited any cool points that he might have amassed up until that point in his life. It seemed not just appropriate, but a responsibility on my part to point at him and do a Nelson Muntz laugh.

Cut out the jibber jabber

I found this commercial to be pretty funny, but apparently it has been deemed too offensive to homosexuals and their feigned outrage has coerced Mars into discontinuing it.

I think that I understand the gist of the criticism. The speedwalker is assumed by some people to be a homosexual, rather than just some hapless boob in a comedic commercial. Mister T pities the fool for his lack of manhood, as evidenced by his speedwalking, and thus the audience is to glean from this that men who speedwalk are homosexuals and perhaps vice versa and that speedwalkers/homosexuals are somehow lesser human beings than those of us who bat for the straight team. I am only able to piece together that line of thought because I have seen so many instances of political correctness paraded as mainstream thought. My line of thinking upon seeing the clip was simply, “that’s funny and it’s nice to see Mr. T’s career being revived.” I think that you need to have a very unhealthy worldview if you watch such a commercial and get offended. Were it not for this absurd feigned outrage on the part of activist weirdos, I would have thought it impossible to not laugh at the sight of Mr. T firing Snickers bars through a candy gatling gun. Humor is dead.

By the way, why is the speedwalker deemed to be a homosexual, but not the guy wearing jewelry? I think that some people need to cut out the jibber jabber and just have a sense of humor.

h/t: No Angst Zone