The Plot Thickens

You surely recognize my car, with which I am inextricably linked. Well, today that car was the subject of an office-wide email, which no less than fifty people received. The subject line was "Green Cadillac," and the email itself said this, and this alone:

"Does anyone know who the owner is of the older green Cadillac that has been parking in our lot on a regular basis?"

I am that owner! Apparently my car is so awesome that people assume I am parking illegally in private lots to escape the high costs of parking meters--something like $0.25 for a half-hour in most of Traverse City. I mean, how else would a person afford the monthly payments on such an automobile, other than cutting corners when it comes to parking meters? Really, I understand why people would ask these sorts of questions.

Blog Monday: That's So You

It's been 43 days since I've last updated this blog. In that time, I've taken the bar exam, moved to Traverse City, and failed to eat a giant pizza, among other, less noteworthy accomplishments. In the meantime, Emily Moiseeff said I could join Blog Mondays, wherein a weekly topic is chosen in advance in an effort to avoid writer's block and maintain blogsistency. This week's topic:

Name three or four objects or things that, when seen by others, make them immediately think of you.

Food Challenges. I have become something of an amateur competitive eater in the last few years, a span that has included successful runs at the Fifth Third Burger and The Corner Bar's twelve chili-dog challenge. More recently, though, I've ran into some difficulties, including the giant pizza pictured to the right: a 24" behemoth with at least eight toppings created by the Sazerac Lounge. Rules allow two-person teams an hour to complete it. My brother did the math and concluded that each person is responsible for the equivalent of one round, 17" pizza. My friend Moose tried this a couple weeks ago and came really close, to the point that they gave us the pizza for half-price; a successful attempt gets the pizza for free, while anything less ordinarily costs something in the neighborhood of $30. Nevertheless, multiple friends and family members cheered us on, and were disappointed only in the way that a concert-going U2 fan would be disappointed that she didn't hear anything off of the 'Pop' album. And, therefore, I'd like to think that I am associated in others' minds with food challenges, irrespective of my infrequent success.

Late-90s Cadillacs. Way back in October of 2007, one month into the beginning of my three-year stint of daily drives from Grand Rapids to East Lansing and back--i.e., law school--my Toyota Corolla broke down, never to be driven again. I did what anyone in that situation would do: I bought a 1997 Cadillac Seville. Now, 100,000 miles and nearly three calendar years later, people tell me when they see such a Cadillac on the road, and it's usually with some degree of surprise that it wasn't me behind the wheel. I'd therefore like to think that I am associated in others' minds with this over-sized, difficult-to-park, unnecessarily fast, domestically produced status symbol whose body style has not aged particularly well.

Student ID. I'm 27. Besides brief post-college forays into the world of bartending and teaching K-12 music and K-1 physical education (note: I didn't do these things simultaneously), I have been a student since kindergarten. The days of purchasing textbooks, free soda at Qdoba, and dividing the calendar into fifteen-week segments are now over. And, they've been replaced--in a somewhat dramatic and relatively abrupt fashion--with a new city, new (rented) house, and a new career [pictured left-to-right, respectively, sort of]. I'm happy to say that my days of student identification are now complete.

The Debut of Ollie

My roommate Erin got a new puppy yesterday. His name is Ollie. He is supposed to be a maltese, though I'm not entirely convinced he isn't actually some kind of adorable hamster-muppet hybrid. Chani's basically okay with this arrangement:

He's super-tiny, though--he'll probably end up being like three or four pounds.

Hobbies include biting string, napping.

The Carter Six Degrees of Separation

Lil Wayne is the Kevin Bacon of Facebook, basically.

I'm Assuming the Rent is Payable in Erectile Dysfunction Medication

Here's some unusual email correspondence I had over the weekend. Up first, me:

Hello, I am writing in response to your Craigslist ad ("3 Bed, 2 Bath | 2,100 Sq Ft on 0.95 Acres"). Could you please tell me the address of the house, and the date that it will be available? Also, are you interested in selling it as well, or just renting?

Reasonable! But here's where things took an unusual turn--the reply:

I did take your response concerning the advert, I posted on Craigslist. The house is still available, but presently I'm not around.. I did bid for a portion of petroleum land sometimes ago in West Africa, and fortunately I won the bidding, so I have to move quickly down to Africa to have my company set up because I will still have to bid again for it in the next 10 years. I came over here with my wife, we both bought the house when we got married. As soon as we settle down here I had a thought of selling the house, so I have to look for an agent, after getting one, we got a deal but later my wife advised against that. She said we may not be able to win the bidding next time, in other to keep our head when we return that we have to keep the house. I reasoned with her and accepted her advice. So I contacted the agent back and requested for my keys and documents. Later we decided to have the house rent out, we would have given the same agent this job also but the truth of the matter is that the agent would want to handle it professionally and the occupant may not be able to reason along with him later. If you notice, you will discover that the price we are offering is far below standard price, this is enough for you to know that we are not after the rental fee but the absolute care for the property. I know there is no way I can be sure that you are the right person to live in the house because we won't be able to see physical before sending you the keys and the documents to occupy the space. However, I just had a feeling that anyone who knows what it takes to put the kind of structure down should know that maintaining a building is mandatory, so if you believe you can take good care of the house and handle it like yours, then I will be more than happy to let you rent the house.

Wow. To break it down, here's my assessment of the statements that had the least statistical likelihood of appearing in a reply to my original email, in descending order:

3. "I did bid for a portion of petroleum land sometimes ago in West Africa, and fortunately I won the bidding."

2. "I just had a feeling that anyone who knows what it takes to put the kind of structure down should know that maintaining a building is mandatory."
1. "I reasoned with her, and accepted her advice."

The most surprising thing, though, is that the guy never revealed himself to have access to cheap Enzyte or replica watches, or actually be a Nigerian prince looking to liquidate his princely fortune by way of an American citizen who'll wire him $5000 USD to get the ball rolling.

Game Time

Here's a new game I made up. Of the following blocks of text, two are recent Missed Connection postings from Grand Rapids' Craigslist page, of which I've altered only the line breaks, capitalization, and punctuation (to maximize poetic value), and the other is an actual poem by John Berryman. You decide which is which. Go!

Number One

I saw you recently

at Meijer in your Saturn. There was a little girl

in the back seat.

Anyway.

I'd like to be your baby daddy.

I think I love you.

No--

actually I know I do.

If you think this is you, please respond to me.

I'll buy you food and we can go see Eclipse together.

You look like the Twilight type.

Number Two

They pointed me out on the highway, and they said
'That man has a curious way of holding his head.'

They pointed me out on the beach; they said 'That man
Will never become as we are, try as he can.'

They pointed me out at the station, and the guard
Looked at me twice, thrice, thoughtfully & hard.

I took the same train that the others took,
To the same place. Were it not for that look
And those words, we were all of us the same.
I studied merely maps. I tried to name
The effects of motion on the travellers,
I watched the couple I could see, the curse
And blessings of that couple, their destination,
The deception practised on them at the station,
Their courage. When the train stopped and they knew
The end of their journey, I descended too.

Number Three

We were in line together.

The guy ahead was soooo slooooow.

You sneezed. We talked.

We smiled together.

Would be nice to see you again.

Best. Most Important. My Favorite.

The Blue Album. Pinkerton. Make Believe.

Biggie. Jay-Z. Lil Wayne.

Hopslam. Oberon. Two-Hearted Ale.

Bratwurst. Hamburgers. Hot dogs.

Shawn Michaels. Hulk Hogan. The Ultimate Warrior.

Burger King. McDonald's. Wendy's.

Japan. America. Germany.*

Late Registration. 808s and Heartbreak. College Dropout.

Baseball. Basketball. Football.

Executive. Legislative. Judicial.

Jughead. Archie. Reggie.

*Cars, not people.

I Saw the Sign

Basically:

Constructive Summer, Part II

So, I've been doing a lot of construction projects around the house lately. And by that, I mean I've called a lot of people to come do things that they do professionally. In so doing, I've learned a few things:

Be quick to point out what an idiot you are. I once read that mechanics, plumbers, etc., hate when people enlist their services and say things like, "I would do it myself, but I've just been so busy." Such a statement is probably equal parts male ego and a roundabout way of trying to assure that the work will be high-quality and affordable--as if your purported and unused skills as a handyman will allow you to see through being overcharged, or something. But, it's potentially insulting, probably annoying, and most likely a lie. So, I make it a point to say the opposite, like, "Thanks for coming; I would have no idea where to begin with this project! I've done [similar job, on a much smaller scale], but this is way over my head, and I've heard you do really good work." It helps to establish that you're not going to be looking over their shoulder the whole time, you're not defensive about requiring the services of a specialist, and that you respect what they do. All of these things are helpful.

Ask questions. Once it has been established that you are an idiot,

you can ask questions that won't be taken offensively. Like, "I think I've seen at Lowe's that they have quick-pour concrete with bonder in 10-pound buckets for $25. Is that kind of stuff similar to the [read: more expensive] materials you were proposing to use in this estimate?" In conjunction with the implicit statement of "Hey, we're moving anyway, let's keep this affordable," questions like this can help keep costs down.

Get referrals. We had a concrete guy come do some work based on a referral from our realtor. He therefore charged us an amount that included a discount because of that referral. Also, when concrete guy was over, I asked him if he knew any gutter guys. The relevant gutter guy then gave us a discount that turned out to be $5 greater than the total charged by concrete guy. So, in effect, we made $5 by having some new concrete poured.

So, with these tips--declaring yourself an idiot, asking questions that stem from your idiocy, and getting referrals--you, too, can become a home-improvement expert by hiring people to complete your home improvements.

Constructive Summer

The bar exam is exactly five weeks away. The move is about eight weeks away. The start date for the new job is exactly eleven weeks away.

I would probably be thinking more about the latter two items if the bar-exam preparation weren't so all-consuming (last week, for example, I left the house twice between Sunday and Thursday, with both escapes taking me to Founders). Also, I pictured this summer as a time to tie up loose ends in Grand Rapids: spending a lot of time with people I enjoy, eating at places I enjoy, etc., with twin goals of being refreshed and having closure before the pre-Labor Day move. That is all still happening, of course, but it's amazing the degree to which this bar-exam thing is getting in the way. It's almost like they're purposely making it difficult for people to become lawyers, or something.

Music: Mix the Bourgeoisie and the Rebel?

Via Robin Hanson:

Consider three kinds of celebrities: politicians, athletes, and musicians. We clearly hold politicians to higher moral and social standards than we do musicians. This makes sense because we feel more vulnerable to bad behavior by politicians than by musicians. An out of control politician could kill us all, while an out of control musician would at worst just fail to make music we like.

What about athletes? While we may not hold athletes to the high of standards we hold politicians, we clearly hold them to higher standards than musicians. Tiger Woods was vilified for moral violations that wouldn’t be worth reporting about a musician. Yet the above explanation for politicians vs. musicians doesn’t work here. While we are no more vulnerable to athletes than to musicians, we still hold athletes to a higher standard.

For our distant ancestors, athletic skill was much closer to political power. Small forager bands feared that the few most physically powerful members would attempt to dominate the band by force. Foragers had much less reason to fear domination by the few most musical folks in the band. So it made sense for foragers to hold athletes to higher moral standards than musicians.

So I suspect our tendency to hold athletes to higher standards than musicians is a holdover from our forager days. . . .

I like the idea of tracing the anthropological roots of current social trends and assumptions, and it's probably alluring because any such conclusions can't really be proven false. Like, are we upset about Tiger Woods cheating on his wife because he would have been the one to decide how much food we got to eat 5000 years ago? Probably! Who knows! But, I think there are other things at play, here.

First, I think the athlete-musician distinction is partially one of widespread relevance: 106 million people watched Peyton Manning et al. in the most recent Super Bowl; by comparison, Taylor Swift's 'Fearless'--the best-selling album of last year--has moved just over five-million copies. Indeed, our interests in music are far more diverse than those in sports, which means that widespread relevance is enjoyed with far greater regularity by our most prolific athletes than our most prolific musicians. This, in turn, often leads to more attention regarding those athletes' personal lives, which then triggers greater vilification after some kind of moral failing. We can only care about private failings to the extent that we feel invested in public successes. If, that is, we care about private failings at all.

Beyond that, sports are more often associated with regional unification and collective enjoyment than music. We go to Super Bowl parties, plan road trips to baseball games, and unite around a local team's triumphs and failures. So, a well-regarded athlete is a modern 'leader' in a way that rings true with our foraging past (Probably! Who knows!). But this is distinct from a leadership based on moral standing.

Now, a popular song can certainly create a collective experience or unify a region--think about hearing Kanye's 'Gold Digger' at a club in its prime, or Jay-Z's 'Empire State of Mind' today. But the shelf-life of such a hit tends to be short (at least in comparison with, e.g., Tim Duncan's tenure with the Spurs), and songs aren't inextricably tied to the respective artist within such an experience. That is, such songs can trigger a certain mood or bring about nostalgia, but typically do so as the accompaniment to a shared event. Watching a local team's playoff run, on the other hand, is the shared event. So, the athlete is more central to our collective experience than the musician, which is another way of increasing their widespread relevance. And that relevance, as I said before, is a necessary condition for public concern over personal failings.

Everyday I Wake Up and it's BarBri

My summer morning routine:

-Get up around 7.

-Try to convince the dog that he should sleep in.

-Try to convince Kate that she should sleep in.

-Make coffee.

-Watch a 3.5-hour online lecture about a topic that may or may not appear on the July 2010 bar exam.

The lectures include ten-minute breaks that feature a running clock, which counts down until the day's instructor will resume speaking about things like whether an unsigned will is valid. It's the exact opposite of New Year's Eve, basically. Also, the instructors apparently travel from state to state throughout the summer and give slightly different lectures based on relevant differences in those states' laws. My hope is that they all take a custom-built train, like some kind of awful, awful circus.

And just like that, my ten-minute break is over. On with the show.

I Like The Way You Move

This is a map of intra-country migration involving Kent County during 2008 using data from the IRS. Black lines show inward migration and red lines show outward migration, with net moves of less than ten people entering a given county excluded. (Via Forbes.com.)

It's alarming that these moves tend to be almost exclusively cross-country. Beyond what appears to be significant hopping around in Michigan, people who move away basically skip over the remainder of the Midwest as well. Now, the heightened regional effects of the recession and unavailability of jobs, locally, certainly plays some role in this trend, but I'm more interested in effects than causes, here.

Don Peck had an unsettling article in March's Atlantic about the long-term societal effects of unemployment:

The worst effects of pervasive joblessness—on family, politics, society—take time to incubate, and they show themselves only slowly. But ultimately, they leave deep marks that endure long after boom times have returned. Some of these marks are just now becoming visible, and even if the economy magically and fully recovers tomorrow, new ones will continue to appear. The longer our economic slump lasts, the deeper they’ll be.

If it persists much longer, this era of high joblessness will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults—and quite possibly those of the children behind them as well. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-collar white men—and on white culture. It could change the nature of modern marriage, and also cripple marriage as an institution in many communities. It may already be plunging many inner cities into a kind of despair and dysfunction not seen for decades. Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years.

The article goes on to discuss the long-term effects of unemployment on mental health, correlations with spousal- and child-abuse rates, etc.--essentially, the really, really bleak picture of what recession looks like at the individual level. Related to that, I think, is the current availability, normalcy, and regularity of the cross-country move. When I think about relocating, I think about staying within a proximity of 'home' that would allow for a do-able day trip to see the people and things that define 'home.' But, this is not the case for the vast majority of recession-triggered movers. A broad trend toward uprooting oneself from 'home'--that is, removing oneself from the possibility of an impromptu Saturday voyage to see family and old friends--could certainly also have implications for our culture and ability to form and sustain meaningful communities.

:( What a depressing ribbon-cutting ceremony for this blog.