by Steve Lowe
Okay, at Kwik Trip you can buy a bread-based snack at a shop. Or was that Quick Trip? Or Quick Stop? Perhaps Zip Mart? Sprint Mart? Kwik-I-Mart? On-the-Go? Suck & Go? But definitely not a Wawa. All these awful names designed to evoke images of choking down chips and a giant soda while speeding into traffic leaves one wishing for a nice, simple 7-Eleven. Not that anybody knows what “7-Eleven” actually means. Maybe the franchise was started by a Borg named Seven of Eleven.
People actually have to squeeze around each other to avoid the massive piles of water guns, remote-control cars, travel mugs, monster trucks, Wiffle ball kits, watch stands, remote-control dinosaurs, ED-209s, vast selections of doughnuts and popcorn (to keep things calm and puke-free on the backseat). It’s like a shop-shit warehouse sale. With the added bonus of a slightly psychotic guy from the AA blocking your entry to the toilet until you make a purchase. Sure, you say you will after you pee, but he knows you’re lying. But for him, short of hurting you—which, believe me, he has considered—there’s not much he can do about it. His life is a long series of disappointments, adrift in a sea of shop shit.
I’m wiped already—that’s why I pulled up in the first place—so I’m not really going to feel utterly refreshed by a veritable shitstorm of shop shit. Honestly, these shitty shopped-up shitholes full of shit shop shit really should just shut up shop and shit off.
SHOPPING CENTERS, NAMES OF
Going to a shopping center is one of the single most painful things known to the sentient human. Calling the place Lakeside or Bluewater will not change that. It is not like being beside a lake. It is like being in hell. There is only one exception to this shopping center name rule and that is Crossroads Bellevue—it’s in Bellevue and it makes us feel so psychotically aggrieved that we storm out into the streets, so at least it’s factual.
“SIR”/“MADAM”
We supposedly inhabit an infinitely less deferential world, one where priests and judges are not gods to whom we must offer unquestioning obedience but are human, just like the rest of us, only with silly uniforms and more money. Rather than referring to politicians as “Mr. Giuliani” or “Mrs. Clinton,” people say things like “dickhead” or “you know, the smarmy bald one.” Given this, it’s surprising how often you can find yourself, a lowly commoner, being called “sir” or “madam” like you’re the ambassador to India ordering high tea at the Ritz. Even though you’re just in Blockbuster renting a video. And one of the Police Academy series at that.
If you were to purchase some pants, say, and were to approach the earnest clerk behind the register, you can surely pretty much consider each other equals; you could even exchange friendly pleasantries. But not when he calls you “sir” like a scurvy-suffering rat-catcher addressing a dark-clad knight who’s holding a broadsword to his skull.
But being a servile service-culture square-bear really doesn’t get you anywhere. Unfair though it may seem, when you call me “sir,” I am infinitely more inclined to call you “suckass.” In reality, the only reason to call someone “sir” is if he could cause permanent damage to your genitals if you didn’t. Otherwise, don’t bother.
SIX-PACK SECRETS
Six-packs sex you up. That’s a fact. According to Men’s Fitness, “Abdominals are the Top Trump trophy muscles and the ones that drive women wild . . . the abs may have come to symbolize masculinity.” Having phenomenal abdominals will “improve your sex appeal and help you achieve your goals” (although the “other goals” men might have besides having sex remain undisclosed). This is why, at some point or other, all men must uncover the secret of the six-pack.
So how does one go about acquiring these bristling sex muscles of sex? As previously explained, it’s a secret. You can “crunch” until you’re blue in the face, but if you skip the secret stuff, the stuff known only to the chosen few, you are but a modern-day Sisyphus, forever pushing that boulder toward the unattainable peak.
Luckily, some secrets are too much to bear alone, so certain masters of the field have elected to pass on their six-pack lore to the chosen few. There are books with titles like The Abs Diet: The Six-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life by David Zinczenko and Ted Spiker.* And fitness magazines offering “From Fat to Flat—In Six Weeks!,” “Get Hard Abs,” or “Abs: Don’t Think You Don’t Want Them ’Cos You Do Really, Deep Down, Even if You Say You Don’t, You Do Really . . .”
“SMART CASUAL”
Workplace clothing policy devised by the Devil, which decrees that suits are too smart and jeans are too casual. So what does that leave in the middle? Fucking chinos.
“SOLD” SIGNS
The property is no longer for sale. This is surely the point at which to take down all those big, fuck-off, multicolored signs outside it. Not put up a new one.
Want to buy this house? Tough shit, you can’t. It’s not for sale. You should have been here last week. Go and buy another house. ’Cos you ain’t buying this one. Want it? I bet you do. But you can’t have it.
SOUNDTRACK ALBUMS FROM SHIT FILMS WITH SHIT SOUNDTRACKS
Who—who?—emerges blinking into the foyer, dusting off a confetti of fumbled popcorn and Milk Duds, after sitting through, say, “Can Pierce Brosnan’s master thief resist one last big score with tough cop Woody Harrelson on his tail?” crappy adventure flick After the Sunset and thinks: Hey—great film, must get the soundtrack?
“Music from and inspired by . . .” That’s “inspired” in the financial sense rather than in the actually-having-seen-the-film sense.
When creating his twenty-something mope-fest Garden State, Zach Braff seems to have spent more time adding up potential soundtrack sales than writing the script. Mildly successful and mildly handsome actor Braff mopes through his hometown until a quirky meeting with a quirky girl makes him quirkily mope mildly less. Plot-wise, a few seconds would have done—but how then could one crowbar in all of The Shins’ first album? What’s the Story? We can’t remember—there’s just this schmuck moping all the time.
Even good films generally have no necessity for a soundtrack release. Who cheers themselves up by listening to the available-at-all-good-record-stores soundtrack to The Elephant Man?
Are there really roommates and couples, staring down the end of another evening’s TV brain death, saying to each other: “Let’s make a night of it. I’ll run out to Trader Joe’s and get some Two Buck Chuck—you slap on the soundtrack to Must Love Dogs.”
Or: “Which track from mentalist-insomniac-psycho-factory-worker thriller The Machinist do you like best? I really like ‘Miserable Life,’ but I love ‘Trevor in Jail.’ ” “They’re both great, but on balance I definitely prefer ‘Where Is My Waitress?’ ” “Yes! The posing of the question, the lack of resolution—it’s quite, quite beautiful. Do any of us know the whereabouts of our waitress, really? That’s what he’s saying. Where is your waitress? Where is my waitress?”
TV’s at it, too, with CD spin-offs from Grey’s Anatomy, CSI, 24, and CSI: Miami. “That quite good drama of Florida-based forensic work certainly enlivened our Monday-evening viewing—let’s get the background music from the bits when they were walking down corridors.” “Cool. We could walk down our hall.”
Even video games have soundtrack albums now—the various volumes of Grand Theft Auto have their own section in music stores. “Do you know, later, I think I might pimp some women for a bit and then crash my car.” “Awesome. You’ll be wanting to put this on then.” “Rock on. You motherfucker.”
As a general rule, if it’s not a musical, it probably doesn’t need a soundtrack album. Actually, that holds for most musicals, too. Particularly Chicago.
SPAM PORN
“TODAY IS JIZZ DAY!” . . . Is it? Is it really?
SPOTTED!
Someone. Somewhere. Out. Doing stuff. Thanks for that.
STORES THAT PLAY SHIT MUSIC AT EARSPLITTING VOLUME
That’s quite a nice shirt, I think I’ll pop in there and try—oh, fuc
k, no I won’t, they’re playing Nelly Furtado at 12 trillion decibels. Jesus, one of them’s even dancing.
STRESS BUSTING, THE PHRASE
It’s interesting that, in this day and age, you are even obliged to try to reduce your stress in an aggressive way.
Bust that stress! Get it down on the floor and really stick one on it! Faster! Really fuck it over! You’re not good enough! You’re not good enough! There isn’t time! There isn’t time!
STUPID ARGUMENTS FOR BEING PAID TOO MUCH FOR BEING ON TV
After signing John Madden in 2006 to an undisclosed many-millions-of-dollars-a-year contract to cover the NFL, NBC’s Dick Ebersol justified the deal by exclaiming, “John Madden is the best analyst in the history of the National Football League and, in my opinion, the best analyst of any kind in sports television history.” Okay, possibly. But what he’s doing still basically amounts to “watching football,” right? Your dad rambles about franchise histories and makes predictions every Sunday, too, only instead of getting filthy rich from it, he loses money by paying for his own beer and chips.
News anchors argue that wheelbarrows are required to pay them because reading the news is “very difficult.” Now, we seem to manage it fairly well when we read the paper. We’d go as far as to call it “easy.”
The worst lame excuses for minting it for doing nothing are from people on breakfast radio/TV, who always use the argument “We get up really early.” This is the reason that they are the third highest-paid occupational group, just behind coffee shop employees and paper boys.
SUMMER BODIES
“Beach panic! Beach panic! Beach panic!”
Summer used to be a time to relax. To feel mellow and laid-back, even. Enjoy a bit of sunshine. Beaches were often seen as the ideal places on which to enact such soothing operations. “Life’s a beach,” as the saying used to go. But now beaches are places of ungovernable paranoia, as young women are commanded to have “summer bodies for the beach.”
You’ve got to get your body ready for summer. Don’t, for fuck’s sake, leave it to its own devices. That way lies ruin and derision. Which means, according to the women’s magazines, getting into training in the middle of winter. Of course, tans tend to be at their best in autumn, when people start covering up. It’s a fundamental flaw in this whole “seasons” thing that we are now thankfully doing our level best to eradicate. By introducing artificial tans that make people look like they have covered themselves in caramel.
And it’s not just tans, but having a toned belly, non-nasty toenails, exfoliation, et cetera. This whole getting-ready-for-summer is a fucking nightmare. But it’s all-important if you are not going to end the summer sad and lonely, with nothing to look forward to but winter and maybe autumn.
SUPERMARKET FLOWERS
It’s a hopeless and forlorn sort of concept, even before you consider their pre-supermarket life cycle: farmed in Colombia by sweated labor, backs to the sun and faces to the earth, wages—topped up with all the free toxic chemicals you can inhale—as pitiful as the blooms; all those wasted, wasted air miles to get them here. That’s an oppressive enough litany for coal or iron ore, but for a flower?
Simply of itself, it’s quite melancholic: supermarket flowers. In fact, we’re surprised somebody hasn’t written a sad song incorporating the gift of supermarket flowers as the potent signifier of an empty, artificial relationship. It could be called “Supermarket Flowers.”
If anyone now writes one, there’ll be no legal comeback from us. It’s the sadness we can’t bear. That’s all.
SURPRISE VISITS TO IRAQ
You would think Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki might not be in need of any more surprises, what with trying to govern Iraq and all. But in June 2006, George Bush met al-Maliki during a trip to Baghdad that had been kept secret from everyone, including al-Maliki. Visiting the U.S. embassy for a video teleconference with Bush, he instead found himself being greeted by the leader of the free world in person. Surprise!
In photographs, al-Maliki was squirming like someone forced to shake hands with the man now sleeping with his wife. This ambush, after all, proved that Bush needed no permission to enter his country—why, it’s practically America! A thought bubble above al-Maliki’s head might have said: “I wonder how you would take it if I entered your country unannounced. Would you freak? Oh, I rather think you would. I’ve got popularity issues enough here, without this doofus turning up.”
The Iraqis have probably learned by now to keep the snack cupboard well stocked, given the regularity of surprise visits from Western politicians. If it’s not Bush, it’s Condoleezza Rice or Dick Cheney or John McCain or some other representative of the forces that aren’t trying all that hard not to look like an occupation. Maybe after one too many of these visits, they will blow a fuse and burst: “Look, why don’t you just do it? If you like it here so much. You try running it. No? Really? Why not? You want to go home? Oh, really . . .”
Following the Bush visit, the Americans would soon surprise al-Maliki again. After the massacre at Haditha, which allegedly saw U.S. Marines responding to a casualty by killing twenty-four innocent civilians in cold blood, al-Maliki called the incident a “horrible crime,” adding that the occupying forces often showed “no respect for citizens, smashing civilian cars and killing on a suspicion or a hunch.” The U.S. response? White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said al-Maliki had been “misquoted.” The hapless prime minister must have been awestruck. He thought he had said something, but he hadn’t! Those crazy guys . . .
But his own government also has a couple of surprises in its arsenal: tens of thousands arrested with only 1.5% convicted of any crime; Finance Minister Bayan Jabr’s alleged links to Shi’a death squads (taking the whole Iron Chancellor thing a shade too far). Other occupation shockers: rising deaths from malnutrition and preventable diseases. Electricity and water supplies worse than before the invasion. Half the workforce unemployed with many gaining their sole source of income from selling U.S. Army base junk on the streets (which is a metaphor but also real—inspired!) . . . All things considered, the last thing on the average Iraqi’s shopping list is “more surprises.”
Perhaps the ultimate punch line to all this: Amid the notable non-rebuilding of the vast majority of Iraq, work on the new U.S. embassy is go, go, go! Building at the 104-acre complex on the banks of the Tigris (prime real estate many believe the United States never paid for), known locally as “George W’s palace” (features: the biggest swimming pool in Iraq, a state-of-the-art gym, cinema, numerous U.S. food-chain outlets), is officially a secret, but cranes filling the skyline give the game away. It’s like, you know, the Iraq War was this massive folly, and here’s an actual massive folly! (It’s a metaphor but it’s also real—again.)
Or maybe it will be put to good use, as George W’s palace! Seriously, maybe as a last surprise for the Iraqi populace, on his retirement from the presidency he will go and live among the people he has liberated from tyranny. Maybe between eating at the massive Pizza Hut and swimming in the biggest swimming pool in Iraq, he could go and stand next to the struggling Iraqi government as they try to quell the civil war, winking at them.
T
TELEVISION ON MOBILE PHONES
Far too small.
TENNIS PARENTS
Human fetuses can’t play tennis (not even if it’s twins: where would they get the racquets from?). So parents who decide their unborn child is going to be a tennis star have to be some kind of freaky freaking freak-nutter freaking freaks.
Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena, consulted psychiatrists about the best way to bring up children destined for sporting stardom. Possibly quite sensible, given their early promise on the tennis court. Except he did it before they were born. Freaky freaking freak-nutter freaking freak.
Melanie Molitor, mother of Martina Hingis, was so determined her unborn child would be a tennis star that she named her after Martina Navratilova. Still, that’s better
than calling her Boris. Or Goran. Or Pat Cash (Pat Cash Hingis—that’s a shit name). Anyway, aged four, Martina was playing in tennis tournaments—as opposed to, say, with LEGOs.
So keen was Damir Dokic—father of Jelena—on dominating his daughter that he has found it very hard to let go. The right-wing nationalist Serbian ex-boxer made a name for himself by getting expelled from matches for hurling Serbian abuse at officials (which puts your own dad’s “embarrassing” sweater in perspective). Perhaps wisely, his daughter expressed her gratitude by dumping him as manager and moving to a different country. He responded: “She left us. We don’t need her . . . She did things that she was not supposed to.”
And why tennis, anyway, which is shit? Why not mold your children to do something useful—like perfecting nuclear fusion, or playing the drums like Animal out of the Muppets? And those freaks who “hothouse” their kids into genius mathematicians are no better. Hothouses are for growing tomatoes in. Is that what you want your child to be: a tomato? Freaky freaking freak-nutter freaking freaks.
We believe the children are the future. Teach them well and let them lead the way; show them all the beauty they possess inside. Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be. Actually, come to think of it, that’s not us—that’s Whitney Houston. Same difference.
TESTING CHILDREN TO MAKE THEM CLEVER
Tests used to be a way of seeing whether children were learning stuff rather than, say, just picking their noses and flicking it. Nowadays, children learn stuff so they can pass tests, so everyone can see that they are good at passing tests. If the first is the horse pulling the cart, the second is more like the cart pulling the horse and then making it take a test.
Children are now made to take tests on the morning they enter school. Then, in the afternoon, they are made to take a test on what they have learned from that morning’s test. Get that sandbox out of here! What do you think this is: fun? Or maybe we could test them on their sandbox abilities . . .
