Need a holiday gift to give? Look around your house

This time the "lost Lenore" is writing a column for the New York Sun about a potential trend: declutter your house for the holidays. Instead of doing Amazon.com to buy gifts for the oompteenhundred people on your Christmas list, chances are you've got a house full of stuff collecting dust that somebody might like. Is this a good, bad, ugly or just REALLY tacky idea? Well, you'll have to wait til the NY SUN runs Lenore's column (after Christmas) to find out, but in the interim, here's my two cents...

Hey, there are people who do this without even being invited. They're called burglars or, to be more 21st century, "home invaders." They'll do the job, take stuff you don't even WANT them to take and kick the crap out of you for good measure. Who says you can't have it all? Seriously, my brother is a trailblazer in this trend, if it is indeed such a trend. Of course, he's always been a trendsetter, for years presenting me with Christmas gifts wrapped in Reynolds wrap, which is actually more expensive I think than most wrapping paper you'd pick up the dollar store, which is where you go to buy gifts for people on your holiday Z list. The de-clutter concept is the natural progression toward society's tendency to REGIFT which might not exactly be Emily Post, but I think is just fine. I mean, maybe you can live without a Dr. Huxtable sweater--you know, one of those garments that looks like someone crossed a sheep with an aurora borealis--but then again, maybe your second cousin would love it. Is this an insult to the person who gave you the woolen rainbow coalition in the first place? Of course not. What's our most treasured commodity these days? No, not Al Gore. And besides gasoline. Yup, you guessed it: TIME. Anything that saves us time fighting the Viking hordes that descend from Capitol One commercials into the malls these days, pillaging the Macy's and raping the Gap, is monumentally appreciated. A dear friend recently sent me a tin of Peppermint bark as a holiday gift. Well, peppermint is my least favorite candy. I mean, the stuff's just 5 grams of sugar removed from medicine. And believe me, my a** doesn't need it. But it's nice, from Crate and Barrel...and I have a party coming up and now I don't have to worry about hitting the liquor store first to buy a bottle of wine for the host. This Peppermint Bark in pleasant red-and-silver container will do nicely. So my friend gave me a gift far more valuable than a tin box of chocolate covered pseudomedicine. TIME (as in ticktock, not the magazine...though a subscription to TIME would be a nice gift...educational dontcha know). And saved me $20 and gas to the liquor store to boot. Happy Holidays!

Thoughts on Starbucks

Lenore is at it again, this time developing a column about Starbucks for the New York Sun. She writes, "My favorite coffee chain has been reduced to doing what mortal businesses do -- advertising on TV -- now that it has had one nanosecond without phenomenal growth. Anyway, the ads -- which show people and animals giving each other coffees -- made me wonder why real life people don't do that. I mean, in a bar, a friend will say, "Lemme buy you a beer," or, "Drinks for everyone!" But you never hear that in a Starbucks. My questions for you, out there: 1. Why not? 2. Could Starbucks possibly try to become more like a bar, thereby encouraging folks to buy each other a round, at least in the slow late-afternoon hours (a la Happy Hour)? 3. Any other culture-changing ideas you think Starbucks should try?"

So naturally, I had some thoughts...

Question 1: Why not? Answer: You must be hanging out with unfriendly people! I go to Starbucks about one time every 1-2 months, usually to meet what I call "The French Connection," my co-columnist Joan Allen and our mutual friend, Mary Jo, as together this winsome threesome jetted to France for a vacation in late 2002 to Provence and Paris. We had a BALL! Anyway, Joan in particular is always up for buying someone a latte and I have certainly done the same myself. Must be a nasty xenophobic NEW YORK thing with people not offering free lattes.

As for Starbucks being more like a bar, that might run afoul with what Starbucks actually is. A place for homeless people. Nobody wants to go HOME anymore because when you go HOME you've got to talk to your spouse ABOUT YOUR DAY and deal with mail and screaming kids and the cable that doesn't work and lawn that has to mowed and laundry that has to be done and RESPONSIBILITY RESPONSIBILITY RESPONSIBILITY. Calgon, take me away, and if you can't, deposit my cellulite ridden ass at Starbucks. Because at Starbucks, they have all the BEST things about being at home. Wireless internet. Coffee (and in WAY more many types, forms, temperatures, textures, etc than you're going to find in your kitchen), muffins the size of your head, even salads and sammies if its lunchtime and music. It's a place to go that isn't home and isn't work and therefore, isn't stressful (unless it's Saturday morning when it seems every yutz with ears is in the $*%*@#! place, I need a table, C'MON!!!). Starbucks isn't a bar, it's the everyman version of the gentleman's club circa 1910 old world England just minus the butler, the giant fireplace and the huge leather wingback chairs (love those).

Sidebar: Sharp observation about Starbucks and their lack of advertising. If you are so inclined, read Al and Laura Ries' THE FALL OF ADVERTISING AND THE RISE OF PR. They trumpet Starbucks as a prime of example of a major corporate success that achieved its greatness without any real advertising. Starbucks became successful because they created a niche that didn't really exist before. Be the first of ANYTHING and the world will beat a path to your door!

Sidebar #2: Bars have been done to DEATH. They have a bar for everything. Salad bar, chocolate bar, OXYGEN bar. What is a bar but a place to indulge in some kind of borderline vice and to check out the opposite sex? I have a problem with bars. Neer liked them. Never could understand the appeal. They're generally WAY crowded, there's hardly anyplace to STAND, much less sit, the music is too loud (and I'e ALWAYS felt that way lest you conjure images of some ancient doddering dang-whippersnappering Establishment dude yelling turn that dang music down old Walter Matthau-Mr. Wilson-geezertype) you have to scream in the ear of the person next to you to be heard and this is FUN??????? The ONLY way it is tolerable is if you're a drinker. DRUGS make it bearable, because ALCOHOL is a drug. Isn't your typical bar just nothing more than a legalized crack house? Only instead of getting high on cocaine derivatives, you're getting high on alcohol. I mean, if cocaine were legal, don't you think the corner crack house would overnight be transformed from an abandoned building into a state of the art den of inequity with high definition flat screens and secure booths where folks can snort their lines unencumbered by onlookers and without worry about getting white powder on the guy's camelhair sweater next to you?

Happy Holidays!

about those holiday cards

Dear friend Lenore is at it again, writing a column for THE NEW YORK SUN about holiday greeting cards and holiday "here's what the SMITH family did this year" letters, what they mean, what they say about you, you get the idea. So, here's what I think about this:

If you're like me...which would be VERY odd...you generally send cards that you get free from the Church of Latter Day Saints or charity for Native Americans that show up in your mailbox along with free address labels (does ANYONE bother actually BUYING address labels anymore?). This is because I think anything that can be done to stop the tyranny of conglomerates Hallmark and Shoebox from plastering the world with their rhyming and Gidget-sweet sentiments by NOT purchasing their cards is the best way to make it to the top of Santa's NICE list. Okay, I made all that up. I usually buy my Christmas cards at the Dollar store. This is because, like Scrooge, I'm thrifty. And that Scrooge guy turned out pretty well in the end, didn't he? Of course, he did wind up spending a lot of money, quite unnecessary, as the prisons and workhouses were, in fact, still in operation. Okay, I'm kidding again. Let's move on. I think people like to send you pictures of their kids because (1) the holidays are an uberfamily oriented time of year (2) to tell the world, "Hey, look what I accomplished! I PROCREATED! And I've managed to raise these kids and not kill them by feeding them too much whole milk and look, I've actually CLOTHED them as well!" and (3) to make their single friends (a) feel the complete and utter emptiness of their solitary existence or (b) remind them of all the money they are saving so they can take trips to the Swiss Alps because they don't have to feed and clothes these dang kids. As for what I do with friends' holiday letters, I find if I fold them up in tight little squares, they're just the thing for balancing out unbalanced table legs. So it's a gift that keeps on giving. And why do people send out these letters? Because we're supposed to be selfless during the holidays and therefore enraptured by what other people are doing in their lives...which thus allows people to indulge their self-centered-self-obsessed-selves by writing letters about how wonderful they, their spouses, kids and anyone and anything THEY care about...are. It's not about whether anyone READS these letters...the joy for folks is in the WRITING of them.
You go and have yourself a happy holiday!

Single in the Cities

Those who know me know that I co-write a weekly relationship/dating column for a local Baltimore newspaper. The column is called SINGLE IN THE CITY and I crank this puppy out each week in "he said, she said" style with my friend, Joan Allen, also known as L. Joan Allen, M.A. when we are referring to her authorship of the book, CELEBRATING SINGLE AND GETTING LOVE RIGHT: FROM STALEMATE TO SOULMATE (Capital Books, Virginia, buy a copy, buy two, buy them TODAY!). I've been single in Baltimore and in assorted towns in Colorado's Front Range as I once lived at the foot of the famed Rocky Mountains. I have no degree in social psychology, haven't written a singles book like my pal, Joanie, I just have many decades of suffering at the hands of women that I gave WAY too much power and too much credit...to. Never put a woman up on a pedastel, two reasons why not. One, they've typically already put themselves on a pedastel, so the action is redundant. Secondly, you can never win the respect of anyone who is constantly looking DOWN on you. I make many points in my assorted columns, but the one I keep coming back to is this: men and women are exactly alike, it's just that women get a lot better press than men do. Women can cheat, lie, manipulate, use, and do all those things that men do to women adnauseum on the LIFETIME channel, with equal skill and passion. What rankles me about women sometimes is this sense of ENTITLEMENT, that merely by virtue of their sex and their appearance, they can get away with treating men rather horribly. Of course, you could fill the Atlantic with all the things men have done horribly to women, and I've never denied that. What upsets me, as I say, is the fact that women are rarely called to accounts the way men are. What's the one movie that turns the tables? FATAL ATTRACTION. That's the only one people remember...and you have to admit, Michael Douglas sort of deserved his bad treatment because he was, afterall, cheating on a really lovely and devoted wife...and he had a kid too! But what else? Then again, there are TONS of movies, books, stories, Enquirer articles about men, famed and not so famed, doing women wrong. Men, we have GOT To start getting some better PR! Well, that's it on this rant. Sometimes people say I'm bitter, and I smile knowingly, and acceptingly, because YES, god****t, I AM bitter and I've EARNED my RIGHT to be bitter given all the crap I've been put through. And when the girl's MOTHER comes out on my side and says I never did a damn thing wrong except to care about a woman who didn't give a crap, ultimately, about me, well, that says it all. I've made my mistakes, but my mistakes were always because I didn't know any better. For that, I apologize. Well, that's life in the big city...where I am still single...and coming to appreciate that all the more. Well, it's my birthday and I really need to get back to the party, but decided I'd give out just a little rant to all my male friends out there who feel they're getting the short end of the stick...or no stick at all. There's a very bad joke in there somewhere...

Ode to a Plastic Bag

My friend, Lenore, is working on a New York Sun column about the war between paper and plastic. What's the deal with plastic bags? I feel a Seinfeld riff coming on...Anyway, here's what I had to tell her...

"When they're not strangling sea otters or ending up in the digestive tracts of unsuspecting dolphins, plastic bags are indeed proof that the Establishment Dad figure in the movie THE GRADUATE got it right when he whispered into Dustin Hoffman's ear, "Plastics!" My initial preference of plastic over paper at my local grocery finds its roots in a single word: Handles. Unless you're shopping at Whole Foods or some other fancyschmancy make-their-own-granola type store, most paper bags don't come with handles so I'm left hugging this thing to my chest like it's a life preserver or Ann Hathaway (for you ladies, Brad Pitt, or whomever it is you find attractive these days).

But as you so astutely note, dear Lenore, plastic bags have proven they have many uses. For me, bathroom litter basket liner for one. An eon or two ago when I had a girlfriend who owned a wonderful 80 pound German shepherd-Lab mix, I learned the Zen of DoggieDoo pickup. "You put the plastic bag over your hand, pick up the doo, and then pull the plastic around and you're ready to toss it in the trash, Donald Rumsfeld or the Bush Administration lackey of your choice."

I find when I visit my 83-year-old poet Dad, plastic bags are great for holding ice so they can preserve his famous spaghetti sauce he typically presents me upon my arrival so it can make the 42 minute drive back to my condo without turning green from spoilage. And is there not something poetic about watching a plastic bag whip across an asphalt parking lot, the urban equivalent of watching a tumbleweed bounce across the prairie? Show me a paper sack that can do that!

quick word of explanation

Oh, and why OUT OF UNIFORM? Way back in the Pleistocene era when Ronald Reagan roamed the earth, I wrote this monthly-or-whenever-we-dropped-an-ad-so-we-had-space-to-fill column called OUT OF UNIFORM for a chain of suburban newspapers once known as the Times Publishing Group. I wrote about everything from a UFO convention (long before X-FILES came along) to creating a new baseball statistic and even tossed in a short story. Basically, it was my personal 800-word playground to write about whatever I felt like. My Dad suggested "OUT OF MY MIND" as the column title, but I thought that was a little too cutesy. I went with OUT OF UNIFORM, as this plays on two levels--one, that what you'll find here won't be typical, something that's mass produced like our GIs, and also will be relaxed, outside the establishment, like a soldier out of uniform. Uniform in both adjective and noun form as it were. OUT OF UNIFORM lasted about six or seven columns as I recall before it was consigned to oblivion, either by my editor or by me, leaving the paper to join the wilds of PR. But anyway, that's why this blog is called what it's called. A bit of fun for you, a pinch of nostalgia for me.

Ah, the Lost Lenore

This blog has been inspired by my friend, Lenore, former columnist for the New York Daily News and now columnist for the New York Sun. She writes in New York. That means she's BIG TIME cuz if you can get it published there, you can get it published anywhere. Anyway, she's always been a fan of my ravings as I sometimes respond to her PROFNET queries (PROFNET is this wonderful system where reporters, freelancers, and other assorted journalists post their requests for experts, interviews, and whatever assistance we stalwarts in PR can muster) on subjects ranging from paper vs. plastic to America's fascination with just about anything performed "on ice." So the thought was I could perhaps blog about her columns and get us both some recognition so that maybe David Letterman will want us to appear on his show and someone will discover us and we'll present the award for BEST SUPPORTING TECHNICIAN IN AN ANIMATED FOREIGN FILM at next year's Oscars and we'll do an infomercial for a combination all-purpose-steak-knife-and-mop, make tons of money and retire to some beautiful beach-island-resort with white sands, cerulean blue waters, and natives that actually like Americans, but we'd have separate mansion/villas because she's married, i.e. this relationship is strictly about winning fame and making dollars...oh, and about good writing that hopefully entertains and informs, of course. So there it is. So, let's get started. Lenore published a column not long ago about ice shows on verizonsurround.com (click on newsroom). Here's what I had to say about that...

Personally, I think the answer to your question, "Why did the ice capades become so dorky," comes down to three words:

SMURFS ON ICE.

Originally--and maybe I'm wrong on this, but it's my sense of it--the "ice capades" was a way for the Olympic/world level skaters to make some dollars after they had gotten what they could out of amateur status, the Olympics being over, and so toured the world showing off all their various moves and people thought that was dandy.

Me too. I saw Katarina Witt years ago performing in Portland, Maine. I was also a big fan of Linda Frattiani, not sure I'm spelling her last name right, believe she took the silver for the U.S. in 1980. But I digress...

Anyway, as years passed, big business figured here's a way to make some money, let's put the skaters in costumes and take every beloved Disney movie ever made and toss it on the ice. So you got Dumbo and Pluto and Cinderella skating which, let's face it, is pretty ridiculous. Everyone knows flying elephants, dogs and women in glass slippers can't tread ice.

Hence the kitsch factor. It's the mixing of the beauty of ice skating with mass marketing/big business that ruined it. Not that I'm a socialist or anything, just a purist.

I do miss Linda Frattiani or however she spelled her name, though. What a beauty...