Hoo boy, it’s Christmas. This means 1) high-tech gifts from Didi’s family, and 2) some kind of trip for the wife and me. This has combined, this time around, in my listening to my shiny green iPod on a shiny airplane, headed mainly for Spain.

[I pause in my narrative to comment on this, the latest techno-curiosity to fall into our hands. I realize that I’m, at best, getting this iPod thing mid-stream, if not behind the curve, but it’s very new to me, so forgive my ignorance if you don’t share it. I had a number of questions with this contraption going in: 1) Why is it so heavy? 2) Why does it cost $300, when we all know that MP3 players go for $45? 3) Why does everyone act like it’s an innovation? 4) What about this ISN’T a Walkman? Here are my answers: 1) I can’t explain this, but it’s unnecessary heft (why metal, for that matter?) just flat-out makes it seem more luxurious, more permanent, more…(this is embarrassing to admit) prestigious. I have a feeling that some serious focus group research went into the weight issue. And I gotta say- it works for me. 2) Same reason a Mercedes costs twice what a Toyota does. Functionally, it accomplishes exactly the same thing, and does it no better. Aesthetically, it’s simply a different machine: there’s an alarm clock in there; I can see how long each song is, and see their names on-screen (why is THAT so satisfying? Why do I care that this piece of hardware knows the names of my playlists? There’s something extremely bizarre there); I get to name the thing (once again, Mac runs far ahead of the pack on the simple premise that people like controlling their contraptions far beyond the basic function of the thing); it will shuffle the songs for me; I can hold appointments and contacts in there; I can play games with it; and I have multiple ways of accessing my songs (by album, by artist, by playlist, by song). 3) For all those reasons, plus the just-ahead-of-the-curve positioning Apple has carved out for itself, they have made themselves the Mercedes of the burgeoning digital music scene. Having said alllllllll that, Didi is presently in bliss, enjoying Stevie Wonder right now on the aforementioned passé $45 MP3 player. It’s not an innovation; it’s an improvement. As I observe, the plaudits go not to the innovators, but to those who make innovations mainstream. 4) Nothing.]

I have an extremely strained relationship with technology. As a male, there’s something about development and innovation that’s fascinating to me (why is THAT, do you think? That’s another piece for another day), but I also find it all so tiring. I brought along a copy of Wired magazine for my ride across the ocean in a multi-ton flying tube (THAT kind of advancement is truly stunning to me), and the mind boggles at what’s promised, suggested, and even rolled out these days (ocular implants? TV over internet protocol? Ads on cabs specific to the part of town the cab’s in? Facial recognition in cell phones and credit card scanners? Bandages made out of our own skin? Games that evolve as you play them?). I enjoy the perks of technology, but working to stay atop that never-stopping hamster wheel is as pointless and chasing fashions in clothing.

Here’s a standard example of how it works for me: 3 years ago, Didi’s family gave us one of those new-fangled DVD players, where you can see videos on your home teevee screen, but it’s so much clearer! Lasts so much longer! This innovation, exciting as it was in theory, sat dormant in my basement for 9 months before we carted it out to watch The Making of the Matrix, or some such nonsense. That player worked sporadically and undependably, perhaps due to the moisture it acquired in the nether regions of our home. Not six months later, we were given a castoff player from friends. It stored 5 DVDs, had a whiz-bang remote, and they’d upgraded (to what? I don’t know). This is how it goes with us. Technology rolls, and we sort of dawdle along behind it.

My former roomie Bao and I didn’t have a teevee in Dallas, and that no-tech system worked great. We were oblivious to the shows that people and People ranted about and, six months later, it didn’t matter. But we gave ourselves to developing, and I really think we made some headway in those years. I think we were better for having been unplugged. We got our Thoreau on, in a tiny way. I liked it.

But there’s still that old draw in me, and yes I am a little thrilled at my Wired magazine and my iPod. In thinking through this, I’ve produced one of my patented over-dramatic poems. Enjoy. Then, feel free to criticize. It’s not like I go on-line and read blogs every day.


Clicking and clacking and sparking and snapping
Arachnid hobgoblins are filling the streets
Pulsating and teeming and line-undulating
They’re searching for victims; they’re hunting down meats
--------------

My best friend Yamomo will figure them out
He’s programmed himself to decode their campaigns
He says that the best way to know where they’re going
Is insect-like thinking, so, tireless, he trains

He’s built him a suit of black armor-like skins
He’s working with mandibles! Stunning, all that
But one thing he’s doing that’s got my head scratching:
He’s down on all fours, like some gangly wombat

In seeking to track them, he’s mimicked their habits
But how can he hope that he’ll out-spider them?
They’ve got four more legs, man! And they’ve got a hist’ry
Of being themselves- they’ll way outpace him.

---------------

I’m not like Yamomo- I’m not so astute
I work hard enough being honestly me!
I’ve sworn off all uniforms (none of them fit)
In hopes that you’ll, one day, just get what you see

I’m s’posing those creatures will march on, as always
They’ve got that pack-mind thing Crichton talks about
And I guess I could join in in tracking their progress
But my chronicling? It’d be useless, no doubt

I am just so inept at aping the leaders
And they’ll just advance and innovate ways
To confound researchers and stymie kibbutzers
So I’ll just unplug and come out of that haze

-------------
When studying trends, for prey or for profit
It gets hard to know who is most in control
That thing which you give all your heart and your mind to
Will end up, as always, possessing your soul.

Just a heads up, everybody- I was subjected, beyond my control or desire, to listen to the latest Duran Duran album recently. Conclusion: IT'S VERY DARN GOOD. Better song-for-song than the Hit and Miss Miss Miss quality of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, which JDav has renamed How to Resemble An Other Band. Just a tip, pop music fans.

As many of us are aware, bored boys do amazingly stupid things, one of which has been the advent of the soul patch. William Shakespeare made it artsy. Dizzy Gillespe made it jazzy. Maynard J. Krebs made it mainstream. Phil Jackson strung it out (actually, Frank Zappa did that, but Phil represented the drugged-upness of the NBA, which is far more mainstream than Frank Zappa). Apolo Ohno made it irrelevant (actually, Fred Durst did that, but I don't like him. Sting made it smug (actually, who are we kidding? It's always been, but this was an excuse to show the Stinger with this ridiculous look). It's the Jazz Dab, the Flavor Saver, the Cookie Duster. And, come on, it's stupid. It's a farcically small amount of hair a man lets grow (while he tends to it, shaping and encouraging it), to make some kind of statement like "I TOTALLY have enough masculinity to grow a beard. And I'll show you! I just... don't want to right now."

Why do I feel the freedom to poke at this goofiness? Because I, for the time being, own one myself.

Now, there are all sorts of things you need to know about my soulpatch (and you will... you will), so let's start with my heritage. I'm a mixed bag of cultures. I might not be a Mick Kraut like Tom the Consigliere, but I'm at least an American Indian/German/Spaniard/Irish/Scottish guy, and that's good enough for me. But here's the thing, the American Indian part makes the growing of facial hair difficult for me (you'd think the Spaniard part would even it out, but this is what my father's always said. He's also Folliclely Disabled). Not only is there not a lot of it, but about half of what's actually there is unseemly light in color, producing an immature/effeminate effect. Because of said problems, I've tried all sorts of things, from the JDav trim-and-go (which is supposed to add heft and density) to the dying of parts of my face (which was to have the same effect as that black paint they used to sell on teevee that you could spray over your bald spot and amaze people with your seemingly full, sexy, thick hair. They'd probably say things like "Hey, Bill- why is the bald spot that's been there for 10 years now covered with black paint?"). But I've sunk to new lows today, as I applied mascara to my soulpatch. Mascara is an embarrasing enough invention as it is- it's made to phonily darken and thicken women's eyelashes, which often aren't dark and thick. But the narrow strictures of modern beauty say that they should be, so women are sentenced to this stupid custom of coloring themselves to match the way people say that SHOULD be naturally colored. Do I kinda like it when Didi wears mascara? Well, yes, but that's not the issue here. Point is- I TOO feel the same pressure from our image-conscious society, and as of today, my facial hair is falsely colored. Oh sure, everyone who greets me stares with wonder at my soulpatch, and I've made a lot more friends today because of it, but deep inside I know it's not real.

Here's another thing: my face has never, ever been even slightly symmetrical. If you connected the dots between
1) the center of my forehead
2) the tip of my nose
3) that weird dimple right under your nose, just before your face turns into your lip
4) the middle of my teeth, and
5) the dimple of my chin,
you'd have a slightly curving line that veers rather dramatically left to right, as you look at me. Many people have been horrified as I've pointed this out to them in conversation, and this startling asymmetry is the reason I have the Amy Grant/Lyle Lovett "sideways mouth" when I sing. You get the idea. The point is, my soulpatch is perfectly placed, directly under the center of my bottom lip, but it's not even perfectly placed under my TOP lip, let alone my nose. Seriously- it's amazing. In any case, what I'm getting at is the fact that the presence of specific facial hair like the soulpatch only underlines something that I'd rather obscure. Couple this with the necessity for mascara, and you should be asking me rather stringently: WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO YOURSELF?

I don't know. It's blog fodder, if nothing else.

Now, let's get on to the real point of today's post. I'm Excited. And there's a very good, culinary reason for this. It's because the McRib IS BACK. I've received a good (and understandable) amount of flack for enjoying this sauce-slathered amalgam of pork lips and hooves, but don't rain on my deliciousness parade! We're marching to the Golden Arches, and we'll not be stopped! Anyhow, I wanted to announce this to both people who look at this page, becuase many of my loved ones are wise enough to avoid McDonalds like a Las Vegas call girl, but when the McRib comes out to play, all bets are off. Bring on the lard.

Oh, my- I've started to drool. And my mascara is running.