Hugh Grant as a proto-Nick Clegg in "Love Actually"

Life imitates art once again. Richard Curtis wrote this guy five years ago.

So I Went to the Gym....

I was on the elliptical machine. Pedaling (or whatever you call it on that contraption) and getting nowhere. Slowly. Allen, the trainer, had given me a sheet of paper which outlined the "Cardio" workout. 25 minutes on the treadmill at various speeds and inclines, followed by the dread elliptical. 25 minutes, Resistance 7. I had been at it 2 minutes when I was ready to quit. I'd already done 30 minutes on the treadmill (speed 3.2, incline 3.0). I was watching Dr. Oz on one of the several big screens in front of the various machines. You have to have a radio tuned to FM 97.5 to hear it, though, so I was reading along with the closed captioning. The people around me seemed pretty tuned in to their workouts and unaware of the woman who had gained 100 pounds since losing her job. Armbands with mp3 players. Sleeveless T-shirts. Speed 7.0, running, getting nowhere. Where am I?

Before I got on the treadmill I walked into the locker room looking for the trainer who told me to meet him at 3. It was 3 and he didn't seem to be around, same as last Friday. He was there in the locker room and looked surprised to see me. Looking more surprised, however, was the man of, oh, I'd guess 58 years, standing at a nearby locker, naked as a newborn. It's strange. We have this cultural juvenility when it comes to nudity on our various glowing screens, but in person it's no big deal. Can't square that one. Anyway, the naked man cowered and the trainer told me he'd go get the cardio workout sheet for me.

Maybe I misunderstood. I thought he meant he'd get it promptly. This is when I jumped on the treadmill. Figured I'd pass the time and look ambitious. 18:45/mile the machine blinked at me. My heart rate was 168. 174. 179. 164. I walked and walked and walked. Or at least I thought I had. After 20 minutes the machine tells me I'd walked 1.3 miles. Prove it, StarTrac. I'm exactly where I started. Nevertheless, I felt like a vague sense of accomplishment. (Please note: A sense of accomplishment does not always accompany actual accomplishment.). But now what? And where is Allen? Not seeing him anywhere, I jumped on the treadmill again, this time at the other end of the row, to watch Brett Baier on Fox News. According the closed-captions he thinks President Obama wants to "jam health care down our throats". Is this the only applicable metaphor? I began to sense futility seeing the timer back at 3:15, 3:16, 3:17. A faint whisper crept across my mind, "What are you doing?" Over by the door, there's Allen! No time to be caught slacking. I turn the speed up from 3.0 to 3.2 just in case he finally comes over. He doesn't. He's at his desk, chatting up one of the other trainers. 6:21, 6:22, 6:23. What is he doing? Did he forget I was over here? 7:55, 7:56. Here he comes! 8:10. Nope, there he goes! 9:25, 9:26. Here he comes again! 9:58, 9:59. "Here's your cardio workout".

It's been 4 minutes on the elliptical now and I don't know where to look any more. I can't see outside nor can I see the TVs and I don't know that I'd want to anyway. I close my eyes and try to see if that helps. It doesn't. I can't concentrate with this Rihanna song blaring out of the hidden, but ubiquitous speakers. "The wait is over, the wait is over." No it's not, I'm still waiting for this song to be over so I can think! It ends and Green Day starts whining about something or other. I open my eyes. 10:11, 10:12. How am I supposed to do this for 25 minutes? Then, there it was again, "What are you doing?" I try the eyes closed thing again. Sweat. Now my eyes burn. 12:10, 12:11. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?" I get off this ridiculous roller-coaster of an exercise machine, go down the stairs and leave. How long have I been here? I get in my car and drive home. What was I doing in that place? What were any of those people doing there? Really, what? How are you supposed to think in that place, all that noise, all those people? And no windows, the view never changes for mile after mile (or in my case, mile after .6 mile). If you can't put these things outside, at least give me a window. Where was I?
Exerting all of that energy, getting nowhere in particular, TV after TV after TV, incessant pop music, wasting whole swaths of time because "experts" tell us this is what we need to do. Fits with the rest of life. You haven't truly known existential dread until you've spent an afternoon on an elliptical machine while trying to figure out why.


I'm meeting Allen at 3 again tomorrow. Shoulders.

On Monotony

From Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, translated by Richard Zenith:

In its essence life is monotonous. Happiness therefore depends on a reasonably thorough adaptation to life’s monotony. By making ourselves monotonous, we make ourselves equal to life. Thus we live to the full. And living to the full is to be happy.

Unhealthy, illogical souls laugh—uneasily, deep down—at bourgeois happiness, at the monotonous life of the bourgeois man who obeys a daily routine . . . . . . , and at his wife who spends her time keeping the house tidy, is consumed by the minutiae of caring for the children, and talks about neighbors and acquaintances. That’s what happiness is, however. It seems, at first glance, that new things are what give pleasure to the mind; but there aren’t many new things, and each one is new only once. Our sensibility, furthermore, is limited, and it doesn’t vibrate indefinitely. Too many new things will eventually get tiresome, since our sensibility can’t keep up with all the stimulations it receives.

To resign oneself to monotony is to experience everything as forever new. The bourgeois’s vision of life is the scientific vision, since everything is indeed always new, and before this day this day never existed.

He, of course, would say none of this. Were he capable of saying it, he wouldn’t be capable of being happy. My observations only make him smile; and it’s his smile that brings me, in all their detail, the considerations I’m writing down, for future generations to ponder.

As long as we're on the subject, behold the double-genius of Irving Berlin and Judy Garland in Easter Parade:

Gag reel from the latest movie

Enjoy:

A Message for the Christmas Shopper

Excerpted from Leonard Pitts at the Miami Herald:

Last week, a 34-year-old man was trampled to death by a mob rushing into a Wal-Mart to buy stuff. Jdimytai Damour was a seasonal worker manning the door of a store in Valley Stream, N.Y., as shoppers eager for so-called ''Black Friday'' bargains massed outside. The store was scheduled to open at 5 a.m., but that was not early enough for the 2,000 would-be shoppers. At five minutes before the hour, they were banging their fists and pressing their weight against the glass doors, which bowed and then broke in a shower of glass. The mob stormed in.

Four people, including a pregnant woman, were injured. And Damour was killed as people stomped over him, looking for good prices on DVDs, winter coats and PlayStations. Nor was the mob sobered by his death. As authorities sought to clear the store, some defiantly kept shopping; others complained that they had been on line since the night before.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine a starker illustration of our true priorities. Oh, we pay lip service to other things. We say children are a priority, but when did people ever press against the door for Parents' Night at school? We say education is a priority, but when did people ever bang against the windows of the library? We say faith is a priority, but when did people ever surge into a temple of worship as eagerly as they do a temple of commerce?

No, sale prices on iPods, that's our true priority. Jdimytai Damour died because too many of us have bought, heart and soul, into the great lie of American consumerism: acquiring stuff will make you whole. ''You, Happier,'' is how a sign at my local Best Buy puts it. As if owning a Jonas Brothers CD, an Iron Man DVD, a Sony HDTV, will elevate you to a level of joy otherwise impossible to attain. Hey, you may be a total loser, may not have a friend, may not have an education, may not have a job, may not have a clue, but it will all be OK as soon as you get that new Canon digital camera, especially if you get it for 50 percent off.

It would be nice to think -- I will not hold my breath -- that Damour's death would lead at least some of us to finally see that for the obscene lie it is, to realize that seeking wholeness in consumer goods is an act of emptiness, not joy.

You, Happier? No.

Just you, with more stuff.

The End of Genre?

Excerpted from Bob Proehl for Popmatters in response to the Country Music Association Awards (acronymically known as the CMAs, not to be confused with the Academy of Country Music's ACMs):

You might not have caught it in Carrie Underwood’s quick introduction, but that sure enough was the remains of the Wailers backing up Kenny Chesney on a medley of “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven” and Bob Marley’s hit “Three Little Birds”. Which would have won the best mash-up of the evening hands-down if it hadn’t been for Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long”, a surprisingly poignant hybrid of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” and Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” (although the live version leaned heavily toward the former) which has become Rock’s first hit on the country charts, performed with rapper Lil Wayne possibly playing guitar alongside a gentleman who looked oddly like AC/DC’s Brian Johnson in a “Joe the Strummer” T-shirt.

Kid Rock’s performance was a wild clash of symbols, with Detroit-born Rock’s unabashedly white trash appropriation of urban style grafting onto Skynyrd’s oft-misunderstood call not just for Southern pride but a reevaluation of the stereotypes of Southern culture. With his oversized Titans jersey, Lil Wayne at his side, and huge American flags projected behind him, Rock seemed ecstatic to be part of country music, and the audience seemed thrilled to have him there.

In an age where every possible type of music is instantly available to new audiences, where American Idol prioritizes vocal prowess while tossing soul, R&B, pop, and country into the massive blender of Celebrity, and the number of listeners who staunchly self-identify as fans of one particular genre dwindle without new devotees to replace them, the country-music industry seems to have made an astute decision. When more kids are following MySpace phenom Taylor Swift to Country Music Television than are looking to CMT for their next Taylor Swift, it might simply be that the first genre to unify in order to protect and encourage its own financial interests back in 1958 is, 50 years later, the first to embrace the death of genre as a concept.

Kid Rock and Lil Wayne


Kenny & the Wailers

History Lessons

(for the college football fan)
The preseason USA Today/Coaches Poll, coupled with their current records:

1. Georgia (9-3)
2. USC (10-1)
3. Ohio State (10-2)
4. Oklahoma (11-1)
5. Florida (11-1)
6. LSU (7-5)
7. Missouri (9-3)
8. West Virginia (7-4)
9. Clemson (7-5)
10. Texas (11-1)
11. Auburn (5-7)
12. Wisconsin (7-5)
13. Kansas (7-5)
14. Texas Tech (11-1)
15. Virginia Tech (8-4)
16. Arizona St. (5-6)
17. BYU (10-2)
18. Tennessee (5-7)
19. Illinois (5-7)
20. Oregon (9-3)
21. USF (7-4)
22. Penn St. (11-1)
23. Wake Forest (7-5)
24. Michigan (3-9)
25. Fresno St. (7-5)

Not only are 5 of these teams not even bowl eligible this year, nearly half of them have at least 5 losses and more than half are unranked today. Make of it what you will

Free Dr. Pepper! and related musings.

From AP:

Dr Pepper is making good on its promise of free soda now that the release of Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy" is a reality.
The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. "Chinese Democracy," infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.
"We never thought this day would come," Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper's vice president of marketing, said in a statement. "But now that it's here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper's on us."
Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper's Web site. They'll be honored until Feb. 28.

This is just great news for Dr. Pepper on the heels of a terrible 3rd quarter earnings report:

On Thursday, the company said net earnings in the third quarter dropped 31.2%, to $106.0 million, or 41 cents a share, from $154.0 million, or 61 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Sales fell 2.0%, to $1.51 billion, from $1.54 billion a year ago and were just below the $1.52 billion expected by analysts.
The company now expects sales growth of 1.0% and adjusted earnings between $1.83 and $1.86 a share. Analysts have been projecting annual earnings of $1.95 a share.

Way to go, Dr. Pepper. That Texas-sized ego of yours just made a bad situation worse. Not only are you in fiscal freefall, but now you've got to give away millions of gallons of product FOR FREE because you decided to shoot off your mouth about something that has nothing to do with the beverage business. That's just the kind of stuff that's gotten Texas booted out of Washington leadership for the first time in...forever:

When President Bush turns the Oval Office over to Barack Obama, he might as well dump the Lone Star of Texas into the bed of his pickup and haul it off with him. The 28th state has loomed large over Washington for much of the past century — think the president, his father, Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, John Tower, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay.
But at noon on Jan. 20, Texas becomes — please don't throw things — just another state. Currently, only two Texas Democrats chair committees in the House — Silvestre Reyes (Intelligence) and Gene Green (Ethics) — and neither of them is standing.
Without a Texan in the White House or in a top-level leadership spot, members from the state may have to work across the aisle if they hope to bring home the bacon like they did in days of yore.

Seems we're on our way to saying, "So long, Texas!" Say hi to Alaska out there in the land of Obscurity. Coincidentally, the Texas-Alaska connection was established last week, in another Dr. Pepper related story. Quoth one Sarah Palin:

I never asked for anything more than a Diet Dr. Pepper once in a while.

Now, we can blame guilt by association with those pesky Alaskans, or chalk it up to a general Texan malaise, but I know the truth. The real reason for the demise of Dr. Pepper? Unleashing this unpardonable monstrosity on an inexplicably trusting public:

How do you expect the American people to respect you after you do something like that to them?