At this writing, there's the Naked Cowboy, the Naked Chef, the Naked Archaeologist, the Naked Economist, etc., et al., ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad hoc, semper fidelis, caveat emptor. The first one is a guy who walks around Times Square in a diaper strumming a guitar; the rest are all real shows, no fooling.
The chief problem with all of these people is that they're all men! Who needs that? Naked women are what this country hungers for -- naked men are a dime a dozen. There was a comedienne who said she never understood the concept of Playgirl because if you want a naked man, all you have to do is ask one. Boom, naked man. Same strategy doesn't work on women; I know, I've tried.
But how come you don't see a rash of men on the street disrobing at the drop of a hat? Because no one wants to see that. Granted, most women, and some men, seem to be physically attracted to men on some level. But it's more of a emotional / spiritual / deep-seated whatever-the-fuck than the brand of clinical, dumbfounded simplicity that characterizes attraction for women. That is, when you're attracted to men, you want to see a particular brand of confident swagger that matches a certain effortless overall look, all of which is defined differently by different people at different times ... meanwhile, when you're attracted to women, you want to see boobs. Lots of 'em.
And the reasons are obvious. The female body, as Elaine from Seinfeld once said, is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. The female body is all sensual smooth curves comprising an aesthetically balanced whole, with each individual body displaying its own unique cohesive beauty. The male body is a machine straight off an assembly line, all straight, dull lines, except, of course, for the knobby, gnarled protrusion in the middle. That's why women always laugh when they see a naked man for the first time: because it's funny. Totally absurd -- you get nothing but a lot of predictable blandness and then, out of nowhere, this messy blob of freak parts that looks less like an implement of love and more like a deformed snail clinging to a walnut.
Anyway, I've said all this before. Point is, I'm sure a show in which a hot naked woman discusses fiscal policy or explores Mayan ruins would be wonderful. But it would still a bit incongruous.
Why exactly you would want your archaeologist or economist to be naked is beyond my comprehension. With the archaeologist, it seems like you'd have to spend a lot of time getting dust that breathes the lives of the ancients out of embarrassing orifices. And that dust might be valuable. Maybe there should be a second archaeologist who takes a little chisel and broom and excavates the naked archaeologist after he rolls around in some ruins.
The Naked Economist is perhaps even stranger. Now I'm sure there are plenty of sexy economists in the world. But as far as I've gleaned in my years of observation, the sexy professions for men are typically the ones that involve being outdoors and using your muscles: cowboy, construction worker, policeman, biker, Indian chief, that kind of thing. Not so much some pasty guy who sits naked in an office chair hunched over government data.
And I'd rather not even think about the hygienic issues associated with the naked chef. I would hope he at least wears a hairnet. Several.
Anyway, all of this is besides the point. None of these naked professionals actually does anything remotely naked. The naked cowboy is at least wearing nothing but a diaper and cowboy hat -- for the rest it's all bait-and-switch. Not that anyone has ever complained; I'm sure people were actually relieved when the Naked Archaeologist turned out to be fully clothed.
Again, the difference between the sexes is illuminating: Can you imagine the uproar if you advertised a show called "The Naked Aviatrix," got the whole heterosexual male world to watch, and then just showed a fully clothed female pilot talking about rudders and altitude gauges? There would be a worldwide riot, cities would burn to the ground, Satan would rise forth and claim his new empire, and everyone would be forced to watch "The Naked Soil & Water Conservation District Commissioner" 24/7.
Perhaps I'm being too literal. Perhaps the titles of these shows are just meant to make their particular brands of archaeology and economics and chef-ing seem fun and exciting. But there are better ways to do that. How about "Xtreme Archaeology"? How about "Russell Simmons' Def Economic Theory Jam"? How about "The Chef that Kicks Fuckin' ASS, MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!"
So clearly, guys, there's no reason to resort to the cheap (and disgusting) (and ineffective) strategy of jazzing up your show by calling it naked. Take it from me; I know all about naked. In fact, I'm naked right now! Eh, ladies, heh heh heh? Eh? No? Oh. Sorry. Never mind.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Another Myth That Even Smart People Believe
In a previous post, I mentioned one of my favorite myths that even smart people believe. These are not true urban myths, which usually involve someone stealing your organs or a deadly spider in your hairdo or a murderer who is CALLING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE! I don't think anyone with half a brain really believes those kind of urban myths any more, especially since it's become so popular to debunk them.
I'm talking about the little factoids that people repeat to justify some prosaic little life lesson. In the last exciting episode, we (meaning I) talked about the myth that you only use a small percentage of your brain. Which is supposed to prove that you are a genius / ESP master waiting to explode. Too bad it isn't true, and that you're already using all you got.
This time, I'd like to shoot for one of my favorites, that "human beings are the only animals that kill their own species." Aww man, ain't that the truth. We're so evil compared to the animal kingdom, who live in peaceful harmony all the time, holding hands and sucking rainbow-colored lollipops as they belt out John Denver tunes.
Except that it isn't true at all. Animals are selfish little beasties, just like us. They protect the animals whose genetic material they share, such as immediate relatives, particularly children. The rest they don't give a crap about.
It depends on the animal, of course. Some are adorable, like ducks, who mate for life. Others less so, like lions, who often kill other lions' babies. Say a male lion (let's call him Leo) gets a new mate. Say that the lioness already has a bunch of cubs by some other poor sucker (let's call him Lucky). Leo will not hesitate to kill off Lucky's and the lioness' little lads and lassies. Why? Because he has to clear the way for him and his kids, of course. Make Room for Daddy!
In fact, infanticide is a pretty normal part of life for a lot of animals. Dolphins, who typically win awards for cutest animals EVAH, will sometimes take young ones and drown them. No one knows why. Seriously -- I wouldn't make that up. (Well, OK, I might, but this time I'm not, I swear.)
So where does this myth come from? It's clearly an attempt to to take humans down a peg. I'm usually in favor of that kind of thing. But you gotta use some better facts. Like destoying the planet for the sake of driving preposterously large cars -- that kind of thing.
And on the face of it, it sounds reasonable, doesn't it. It seems like animals have to do whatever they can to survive as a species, while we have the luxury of killing each other off and not really batting an eye, species-survival-wise. But evolution doesn't work that way, unfortunately. Each animals seeks to ensure its survival and that of immediate relatives. There's an inborn need to see your genetic material survive, but not necessarily those of mere species-mates.
Not that the example of these animals should be a justification for our behavior. That would be falling into what psychologists call the "naturalistic fallacy," which is the assumption that anything "natural" is inherently good. You see this on products everywhere -- look , these have natural ingredients! So you know they're good! Of course, cyanide is a natural ingredient. Not necessarily good, at least for humans.
So I'm not saying we should feel OK about killing each other because animals do. And I'm not saying that we should feel bad for killing each other because animals don't (in part because they do). I'm thinking that maybe we shouldn't compare ourselves to animals at all. It's kind of a different thing. A different ANIMAL, even! HA HA HA HA! HA ha ha ... ha ha ... ha ... (sigh).
I'm talking about the little factoids that people repeat to justify some prosaic little life lesson. In the last exciting episode, we (meaning I) talked about the myth that you only use a small percentage of your brain. Which is supposed to prove that you are a genius / ESP master waiting to explode. Too bad it isn't true, and that you're already using all you got.
This time, I'd like to shoot for one of my favorites, that "human beings are the only animals that kill their own species." Aww man, ain't that the truth. We're so evil compared to the animal kingdom, who live in peaceful harmony all the time, holding hands and sucking rainbow-colored lollipops as they belt out John Denver tunes.
Except that it isn't true at all. Animals are selfish little beasties, just like us. They protect the animals whose genetic material they share, such as immediate relatives, particularly children. The rest they don't give a crap about.
It depends on the animal, of course. Some are adorable, like ducks, who mate for life. Others less so, like lions, who often kill other lions' babies. Say a male lion (let's call him Leo) gets a new mate. Say that the lioness already has a bunch of cubs by some other poor sucker (let's call him Lucky). Leo will not hesitate to kill off Lucky's and the lioness' little lads and lassies. Why? Because he has to clear the way for him and his kids, of course. Make Room for Daddy!
In fact, infanticide is a pretty normal part of life for a lot of animals. Dolphins, who typically win awards for cutest animals EVAH, will sometimes take young ones and drown them. No one knows why. Seriously -- I wouldn't make that up. (Well, OK, I might, but this time I'm not, I swear.)
So where does this myth come from? It's clearly an attempt to to take humans down a peg. I'm usually in favor of that kind of thing. But you gotta use some better facts. Like destoying the planet for the sake of driving preposterously large cars -- that kind of thing.
And on the face of it, it sounds reasonable, doesn't it. It seems like animals have to do whatever they can to survive as a species, while we have the luxury of killing each other off and not really batting an eye, species-survival-wise. But evolution doesn't work that way, unfortunately. Each animals seeks to ensure its survival and that of immediate relatives. There's an inborn need to see your genetic material survive, but not necessarily those of mere species-mates.
Not that the example of these animals should be a justification for our behavior. That would be falling into what psychologists call the "naturalistic fallacy," which is the assumption that anything "natural" is inherently good. You see this on products everywhere -- look , these have natural ingredients! So you know they're good! Of course, cyanide is a natural ingredient. Not necessarily good, at least for humans.
So I'm not saying we should feel OK about killing each other because animals do. And I'm not saying that we should feel bad for killing each other because animals don't (in part because they do). I'm thinking that maybe we shouldn't compare ourselves to animals at all. It's kind of a different thing. A different ANIMAL, even! HA HA HA HA! HA ha ha ... ha ha ... ha ... (sigh).
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Things I Hate: Needlessly Misspelled Names
Names are always a good conversation topic. Doesn't matter who you're talking to -- you can always eat up about half an hour talking about names. But lately, I've noticed that the typical conversation pattern of "I like this name, I don't like this name" has given way to "I know this one woman who has the stupidest name ..."
It's an epidemic, America. It's an epidemic wrapped in crisis and smothered with panic sauce. You are getting worse and worse at naming your children.
There are many ways you can go with stupid names. You can choose a trendy name like Madison or Jordan or Colby or Chase or Dakota. That's annoying, but you can hardly get too upset about that -- partially because it's not exactly considered acceptable to scream at poorly named 3-year-olds in the mall, but mostly because you have to save your precious anger energy for the true affront to all that is good and holy: the needlessly misspelled name.
According to my exhaustive studies, the problem with needlessly misspelled names began about 30 years ago or so. I've now met two 30-ish people where I work (let's call it FLaw), both with needlessly misspelled names.
Actually, I've seen many others since then, but these two were especially outstanding. See, most of the time, the needlessly mispelled names take the form of a "Jordin" instead of "Jordan," a "Chrystyne" instead of "Christine," a "DjawsufffffFFFF" instead of "Joseph." They're annoying, lame attempts to be different, to be sure, but at least you can sort of tell what name they were trying to go for.
Not so for my FLaw co-worker Jacque. Looks normal enough, right? Except that it's pronounced "Jackie," and it's a woman. Sigh. What the hell's the point of that? Presumably, her full name is Jacqueline. Why would you abbreviate that into a different name entirely, but pronounce it like the conventional nickname for Jacqueline? If that's the way it works, fine, then I'm going to call my kid "Andrew" and then "And" for short. It's pronounced "Andy," but spelled "And." Meet my kid And.
This kind of thing accomplishes nothing, besides a lifetime off frustration for the name-holder. Jacque seems like a very nice person, and I'm sure she's sick to death of having the same conversation about her name every time she meets someone now. "Yes, I know it looks like I'm a French guy. But it's pronounced 'Jackie.' Yes, I know my parents were idiots."
That one's baffling, but I'm not sure it's extremely pretentious. I usually have a pretty finely tuned pretenti-o-meter, and Jacque's name scores a little bit of pretension just because it sounds French (anything French is a little bit pretentious by definition), but it's mostly just confusing.
The next one, though, blows Jacque out of the water as far as pretentio-goodness. When I heard this one, my pretent-o-meter started spinning around and smoking. It's pretentious with a capital P, plus a capital R, capital E, capital T, and so forth.
There was this woman at FLaw who spelled her name "Kristen." So people, perhaps foolishly, figured her name was "Kristen." But she was always very quick to correct us -- "It's actually pronounced 'Shisteen.'" Say what?
"Shisteen" out of "Kristen"? You're shisting me. No, it's true. And when I heard that she adopted that pronunciation in college (the time when most insufferably pretentious things occur), because she felt it was more accurate as far as how they pronounce it in Norway or Denmark or Tajikistan or Ohio or wherever her family comes from originally -- wow. That takes big brass balls of glistening pretension.
Now, I'm all for being proud of your heritage. But not if it means punishing everyone you meet in the process with a needlessly difficult name. You see, Shisteen, in America we have this system by which certain words and letters correspond with certain sounds. It's efficient, it's well-accepted, and it generally keeps the wheels of commerce turning. We don't really have a good reason to change it. The fact that your ancestors had a different system doesn't exactly cut it.
I guess I feel especially strong about this because my last name is so difficult. But I didn't choose it; I just have to live with it. I have to take ten minutes spelling it out very carefully to every customer-service rep I meet. If I could just be a nice, anonymous "Smith" I probably could've saved hundreds of hours per year. I then could have used those hours to write a book called "The Secret to Happiness: Simple Names" and already become fabulously wealthy. But no -- instead I'm doomed to spend my days yelling to people over the phone "No, 'E' as in egg! Egg!"
And then to see someone who had a normal name and then gave it up for a difficult one -- it's like living your life with only one eye and then meeting someone who intentionally gouged their eye out. "What the hell are you doing?" I would say. "You were living the dream and you chose the nightmare!"
Maybe she actually enjoys those long conversations where you have to correct people about the pronunciation of your name. Maybe she savors the words "No, it's actually pronounced ..." as they come tripping off her tongue.
Whether she did it for fun or not, when she changed the pronunciation of her name, she made a strong, binding, lifelong commitment to being a pretentious smart-ass. Some people adopt a pretentious accent, or wear a pretentious wardrobe, or work hard to cultivate an attitude of intellectual superiority. Those people look like amateurs compared to our friend Kristen/Shisteen. Putting pretension is your very name -- you don't get any more committed than that.
Who knows, maybe I doth protest too much. Perhaps I'm just jealous of people like Shisteen who are able to commit themselves to a lifelong mission. Maybe I should change my name to "Bob" and then tell people "it's actually pronounced 'OO-arr-WACK-Zeeble-boo!'" It's the traditional Latvian pronunciation, idiot. Geez.
It's an epidemic, America. It's an epidemic wrapped in crisis and smothered with panic sauce. You are getting worse and worse at naming your children.
There are many ways you can go with stupid names. You can choose a trendy name like Madison or Jordan or Colby or Chase or Dakota. That's annoying, but you can hardly get too upset about that -- partially because it's not exactly considered acceptable to scream at poorly named 3-year-olds in the mall, but mostly because you have to save your precious anger energy for the true affront to all that is good and holy: the needlessly misspelled name.
According to my exhaustive studies, the problem with needlessly misspelled names began about 30 years ago or so. I've now met two 30-ish people where I work (let's call it FLaw), both with needlessly misspelled names.
Actually, I've seen many others since then, but these two were especially outstanding. See, most of the time, the needlessly mispelled names take the form of a "Jordin" instead of "Jordan," a "Chrystyne" instead of "Christine," a "DjawsufffffFFFF" instead of "Joseph." They're annoying, lame attempts to be different, to be sure, but at least you can sort of tell what name they were trying to go for.
Not so for my FLaw co-worker Jacque. Looks normal enough, right? Except that it's pronounced "Jackie," and it's a woman. Sigh. What the hell's the point of that? Presumably, her full name is Jacqueline. Why would you abbreviate that into a different name entirely, but pronounce it like the conventional nickname for Jacqueline? If that's the way it works, fine, then I'm going to call my kid "Andrew" and then "And" for short. It's pronounced "Andy," but spelled "And." Meet my kid And.
This kind of thing accomplishes nothing, besides a lifetime off frustration for the name-holder. Jacque seems like a very nice person, and I'm sure she's sick to death of having the same conversation about her name every time she meets someone now. "Yes, I know it looks like I'm a French guy. But it's pronounced 'Jackie.' Yes, I know my parents were idiots."
That one's baffling, but I'm not sure it's extremely pretentious. I usually have a pretty finely tuned pretenti-o-meter, and Jacque's name scores a little bit of pretension just because it sounds French (anything French is a little bit pretentious by definition), but it's mostly just confusing.
The next one, though, blows Jacque out of the water as far as pretentio-goodness. When I heard this one, my pretent-o-meter started spinning around and smoking. It's pretentious with a capital P, plus a capital R, capital E, capital T, and so forth.
There was this woman at FLaw who spelled her name "Kristen." So people, perhaps foolishly, figured her name was "Kristen." But she was always very quick to correct us -- "It's actually pronounced 'Shisteen.'" Say what?
"Shisteen" out of "Kristen"? You're shisting me. No, it's true. And when I heard that she adopted that pronunciation in college (the time when most insufferably pretentious things occur), because she felt it was more accurate as far as how they pronounce it in Norway or Denmark or Tajikistan or Ohio or wherever her family comes from originally -- wow. That takes big brass balls of glistening pretension.
Now, I'm all for being proud of your heritage. But not if it means punishing everyone you meet in the process with a needlessly difficult name. You see, Shisteen, in America we have this system by which certain words and letters correspond with certain sounds. It's efficient, it's well-accepted, and it generally keeps the wheels of commerce turning. We don't really have a good reason to change it. The fact that your ancestors had a different system doesn't exactly cut it.
I guess I feel especially strong about this because my last name is so difficult. But I didn't choose it; I just have to live with it. I have to take ten minutes spelling it out very carefully to every customer-service rep I meet. If I could just be a nice, anonymous "Smith" I probably could've saved hundreds of hours per year. I then could have used those hours to write a book called "The Secret to Happiness: Simple Names" and already become fabulously wealthy. But no -- instead I'm doomed to spend my days yelling to people over the phone "No, 'E' as in egg! Egg!"
And then to see someone who had a normal name and then gave it up for a difficult one -- it's like living your life with only one eye and then meeting someone who intentionally gouged their eye out. "What the hell are you doing?" I would say. "You were living the dream and you chose the nightmare!"
Maybe she actually enjoys those long conversations where you have to correct people about the pronunciation of your name. Maybe she savors the words "No, it's actually pronounced ..." as they come tripping off her tongue.
Whether she did it for fun or not, when she changed the pronunciation of her name, she made a strong, binding, lifelong commitment to being a pretentious smart-ass. Some people adopt a pretentious accent, or wear a pretentious wardrobe, or work hard to cultivate an attitude of intellectual superiority. Those people look like amateurs compared to our friend Kristen/Shisteen. Putting pretension is your very name -- you don't get any more committed than that.
Who knows, maybe I doth protest too much. Perhaps I'm just jealous of people like Shisteen who are able to commit themselves to a lifelong mission. Maybe I should change my name to "Bob" and then tell people "it's actually pronounced 'OO-arr-WACK-Zeeble-boo!'" It's the traditional Latvian pronunciation, idiot. Geez.
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