Observation at Random

Has Nixon’s Silent Majority become today’s Vocal Minority? Or put another way, how much longer before Rupert Murdoch, astute businessman that he is, realize he is broadcasting to a niche market?

Bloom County memes and stranger things

“Before there was The Daily Show or South Park, there was Bloom County, Berkeley Breathed’s satirical eighties comic strip that centered around a sensitive penguin named Opus, and ribbed such cultural cartoons as Donald Trump, Al Sharpton, and George H.W. Bush.”

—New York magazine Vulture blog, Oct. 12, 2009

Growing up in the Eighties, I didn’t read political news in the A-section. I assuredly devoured newspapers, but it was 80% sports pages and 5% movie reviews and entertainment news. The other 15% was the funnies, particularly Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County. I would clip comics and stick them in a manila folder. At one point, I had several folders stuffed with the musings of Opus, Steve Dallas and Bill the Cat. I had folders for For Better or For Worse, Garfield, Family Circle (why I don’t know), and, of course, Peanuts, too, but Bloom County was my favorite.

Having little use for political news at the time, I didn’t even get most of the jokes — or rather, I just assumed all politics were a running joke, but somehow cool at the same time (a worldview I still hold today).

I certainly caught on to the pop culture references though, and I even had that floppy, square 45ish record by “Billy and the Boingers” that came with one of the compilation books that were released every other year or so (which I used to buy, even though I had already clipped the comics that were collected in those editions).

Even more, at one point I wanted to be a cartoonist, and would imitate (read: steal) Breathed’s style in my own comics, which I cut-and-pasted into my own two-page neighborhood newspaper I produced in my teens. (I was thrilled to bike down to the local “Copy-A-Second” place and plunk down 5 bucks for like two dozen photocopies, thrilled that the place could print on both sides of a sheet of paper, giving my Commodore 128-produced 8½ × 11 tabloid a sheen of pure professional.)

Bloom County spoofed the Era of Reagan, but, like a lot of Eighties critique during the Eighties (and 20+ years later, my memory is hazy to be sure, so I’m probably mangling this), I don’t remember Reagan himself getting skewered much in the land of Opus. His policies and his clique, sure, but not Reagan himself so much. (Or maybe I’m just confounding my memory with the line from Raising Arizona: “They say he’s a decent man, so maybe his advisors are confused.”) Breathed himself recently said he felt he was trying to play it more down the middle, and that jives with what I can remember.

Local-washing food and sportswriting

McDonald’s recently launched a local TV commercial around these parts (h/t All Over Albany). Yep, multi-national Mickey D’s name-dropped a bunch of Albany-isms (some of which The Locals don’t actually or frequently use) into a spot in a bid to put a local face on the Golden Arches.

I suppose it should be a compliment that parochial Small-bany rated a commercial geared directly toward its decidedly Single-A market. But a comment about “local-washing” in the All Over Albany blog got me thinking about the phenomenon.

The “Buy Local” movement has had some positive impacts, even beyond the obvious growth of the excellent farmer’s markets we have in upstate New York. I like that regional chain supermarket Hannaford sells some local produce from farms in a few-county radius here, even if the offerings are limited to one cart in a several-thousand-square-foot store. But they position the offering as you come into the produce section and label it with the farm it came from. Bully for them. It’s a good idea, and a smart idea. It appeals to my 100-Mile Food sensibilities, even if I don’t come close to fully practicing that.

But what about Starbucks re-naming one of its Seattle stores as “15th Avenue Coffee and Tea” to whitewash some corporate stain? What about the execrable Gannett Corporation’s deceptively named ShopLocal™ Web site? (h/t Forbes). Frito-Lay ads in Florida? Local-washing efforts by Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, Citgo and Hellmann’s? Does at least some of what Wal-mart and other supermarkets do (in selling local produce) redeem themselves in the same way that Hannaford does in my mind (though Hannaford’s superior-for-a-chain organic section, including its own house-brand, gives it a bump in my book, and no, I’m no flack for them, I just like their store; but am I biased because I’m a fan?). And, as Elisabeth Eaves writes in Forbes, did the “Localvores” bring this onto themselves?

I have mixed feelings about this. Not about the McDonald’s commercial, but about the full ethos of buying local. I support that philosophy wholeheartedly, but I worry about the dogma of supporting that ethos to the exclusion of all other approaches.

It’s hard to ignore the fact that the chains do actually hire local people, which Eaves notes — yes, I agree that they do create jobs. On the flip side, those jobs often pay poorly, come with limited or no health insurance, send most (if not all) of the local franchise’s profits out of the area and back to the corporate headquarters, are situated in a building that often has no architectural relationship to long-standing neighboring structures (except to other chain places in a sea of urban sprawl, and this in the face of typically weak zoning laws), and quite possibly replaced jobs in locally owned businesses (not franchises) to begin with.

On the other hand, in these strained economic days, if I’m not eating PB&J for lunch (again) my lunch budget is $3 — enough for two items off McDonald’s Dollar Menu and a buck coffee, provided I can scrounge up enough change in between my car seats to cover the sales tax. Plus, we took Junior to the place once and he referred to it as “Old McDonald’s.” In fact, we tried Wendy’s a few weeks later, and eager to avoid him becoming brand-brainwashed, we called Dave Thomas’ place Old McDonald’s, too.

(Aside: At once point I had attempted the Neil Pollack approach in Alternadad and tried to flip branding on its ear by telling Junior that, whenever he saw the Golden Arches, it signaled a building that sold yucky food. That didn’t last long once we had a hungry 3-year-old suddenly awake on a road trip and the only thing open on a Thruway rest stop was Mickey D’s. But I digress.)

In the end, it’s a fine line. Hannaford’s approach seems to be the right one, though of course, I’d like to see even more local offerings there. But McDonald’s approach seems more sneaky, more insidious somehow.

It’s not entirely dissimilar from what ESPN is doing with ESPNChicago.com, ESPNBoston.com, ESPNDallas.com and (God help us) ESPNNewYork.com. (Though ESPNScranton.com still seems to be available.)

William Safire RIP

Wow, have I got some catching up to do. As I’ve previously mentioned, yep, I’m a hypocrite. But here are some items I threw up on my Facebook page in the last month that I wanted to include here. So, previously, on Facebook…

• William Safire, dead at 79: Great lexicographer, I carry a well-thumbed copy of his Political Dictionary in my work bag. May have disagreed politically, but the man was a damn smart writer. A man who knew the power of words and speeches, and despite our political differences (and some of his questionable journalism), a man I enjoyed reading for his love of language.
• ESPN.com: Selling out more than previously thought possible? To borrow from Sports Illustrated, that week’s sign that the apocalypse is upon us: Bill Simmons, Brought to You by Miller Lite
• Belatedly (on my part), Happy Labor Day from the execrable Gannett Corp.: The New York Times’ David Carr, writing about  The Journal News of Westchester: “…(R)eporters at The Journal News don’t work in a newsroom, they are part of an ‘Information Center’; they don’t cover beats, they cover ‘topics’; and in a new wrinkle to an old story, the staff was not being laid off, but becoming part of a ‘comprehensive restructuring plan.’”

R.M. Nixon’s Revenge, Part II

Ah, Baby Boomers, forever protesting something. When you were kids, it was hanging Richard Nixon in effigy. Now Nixon is surely smiling from beyond as you’ve gotten older (but surely no less self-centered) and are marching to protest Obama, carrying signs with him in Joker paint and wearing Nazi outfits. (Is anyone else put off by the sight of a progressive African-American politician lampooned in a Nazi outfit? It’s about as intelligent as marching around with a picture of William F. Buckley Jr. wearing a V.I. Lenin costume, but I digress.)

Thurman Munson: Image is nothing, and once we were cool with that

Thurman was a throwback; a lunch-bucket kind of guy who was all jock and no rock. He wasn’t going to win over New York by being Joe Namath or Clyde Frazier. He liked Wayne Newton music and, in what was arguably the worst-dressed decade of the twentieth century, the 1970s, he was the worst of the worst. His wardrobe featured clashing plaids and checks made of the finest polyester. Socks were optional. … Thurman Munson made it a virtue to be uncool, winning over the young and the hip with his decidedly unhip approach to his profession.

—Marty Appel, Munson: The Life and Death of
a Yankee Captain, Doubleday, 2009

Off the field, Thurman Munson was everything I would despise today, at least politically — a gun-collector with “antihippie” sensibilities in the shadow of the Vietnam War, a budding real-estate developer investing in sprawl malls, a jock with a bullying sense of humor (one of his favorite “jokes” was to punch his own team’s official photographer in the ribs) who had little sense of the importance of newspaper coverage to the fans of a baseball team (and thus, the team itself).

And you know what? I still love Thurman Munson. Hypocrite, me? Guilty. But perhaps Yankee fans (and embittered sort-of ex-Yankee fans like myself) loved him because he was all blue-collar dirt and grit, perhaps because he wasn’t one to be misled by others and instead charted his own course, perhaps, as Jeff Pearlman hints, he wasn’t one to be overly concerned about image.

Sad and devastating as it was, it may be somehow appropriate that Thurman Munson’s life ended at the end of the Seventies. It was almost as if he was the last in a line of athletes playing for Old New York. He certainly was the last of the polyester decade. Meanwhile, a new era was just getting underway where image-making and image-maintaining meant everything.

Marty Appel has written an insightful new book about his friend and one-time collaborator, Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain. While the book is certainly not an unauthorized tell-all, Munson’s widow and his children choose not to actively participate in its creation, and perhaps the book is better for it. Appel worked with Munson as the Yankees’ PR guy for much of the Seventies, and he seems fond enough of Munson that there is at least the hint of perception, whether accurate or not, that there might be even more to the great story the author tells, that perhaps there are a few warts he chose not to expose. The family cooperation might have made this seem more of a flaw in the finished book, as if the endorsement of the family would make it seem that all of the man’s rough edges had been scrubbed entirely away, and that all that remained standing was a proud saint cast in granite — towering, but unknowable.

But without the family’s active participation, the book somehow seems better balanced — respectful, at times perhaps a little too close to the subject, but also truthful and willing to look at the man’s life and circumstances of his plane-crash death on Aug. 2, 1979 more honestly. The 30 years of perspective surely helped with that, too.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Munson, the man, comes off as a bit of an asshole, but he’s our kind (and my kind) of asshole — you love and respect him as a player, competitor, and captain and for bringing the Yankees two World Series championships through pain, never once going on the disabled list in his career at the most physically demanding position. He played 152 games in his 1976 MVP season (catching 121 of them). Three decades later, guys go on the DL for having an itchy hamstring (though not if you’re on the Mets, apparently, until it’s too late). You love Munson more for his bluntness and his complete lack of pretension and artifice.

Appel makes that point better than I can with an enlightening anecdote — he tells the story (told before, but worth repeating) of how Munson once gave the New York fans the finger after they booed him. Far from enraging them further, the fans loved it, giving him a rousing ovation the next time he went to bat.

Richard Nixon’s Revenge

It’s surely a gross oversimplification, but does anyone else see the aging shouters and angry protesters at the health care town hall forums this month as the logical extension and growth of the Baby Boom generation?

In the late Sixties and early Seventies, these were the protesters fighting against the Vietnam War (and their younger siblings in awe of them), dismissed as hippies while chanting down LBJ and especially Richard Nixon, sacred protector of the so-called Silent Majority.

Four decades later, the tables have turned. The Boomers are still shouting at a President, but it’s in a Bizarro world. Fuck giving peace a chance (and health care for everyone). Now, don’t touch what’s mine, and fuck you if you can’t afford what I’ve got. And, oh yeah, now I’m a member of the not-so-Silent Majority, becoming what I’ve beheld.

The Ghost of Richard Nixon surely must be smirking somewhere, seeing how the kids that burned him in effigy on college campuses grew up, got old, lost some hair but are still shouting at a President as if they simply needed something to shout about, dammit.

And, true, while it’s probable that many of these aging Boomers were unlikely the left-leaning marchers of 1969 (though some of them may possibly have been, changing their stripes as they got older), it’s almost like their right-wing generational cohorts have been waiting 40 years for their own chance to shout. It’s as if noisily protesting — correct or dead-wrong — is in their generational genes.

Whiskey Fire and Latchkey Man, reliable as ever, have great posts on the age politics at work in the health care debate.