On the Grid?/Off the Grid?

On November 1—36 hours after the electrical grid went dark for  90%+  of the Pioneer Valley—this blogger—ensconced in Amherst, Massachusetts—pledged to begin all conversations with the greeting: “Are you on the grid or off?” As the week progressed and the grid played hard-to-get for 50% of the Valley’s captives, the salutation grew terser with “On the gird or off?” and finally the skeletal “On or off?”

“On the gird or off?” almost always evoked private revelations from friends, strangers, and everyone in between.  “We’ve substituted one network for another--a face-to-face network grounded in community for the grid,” observed a friend.  “Losing it has been harrowing, but we’ve connected on a deeper, communal level.”

Above all, “On or Off? elicited stories—tales of tree branches penetrating bathroom walls and bedroom ceilings; sagas of  resentment and grid envy by homeowners who looked out their  windows to view well-lighted homes a street away.

During lunch at my university’s Campus Center, I met a retired professor and his wife who had moved into the center’s hotel when the grid went down. Still without juice five days later, they vented frustration toward the town manager, who lived a street away from their home. Known for his integrity, he had by all appearances exerted no leverage to move his neighborhood up Western Mass Electric’s grid restoration chain. “You should see the pot holes on his street,” they complained. “No special treatment if you live in his neighborhood.”

On Wig & Pen’s own street, two neighbors—both liberal and self-reliant—took different approaches to the challenge. The first (with a wood-burning stove) welcomed it as a camping opportunity. Not to be outdone, his next-door neighbor rigged up a gas generator to his furnace and outlets. Regrettably,  neighbor #1  had little patience with the generator’s incessant clatter.  Climate change from fossil fuels, he griped, had probably been the underlying cause of the storm. Now, he lamented, his neighbor was powering his generator by burning gas and causing noise pollution to boot.

Finally, the story of a friend, who after three days without heat, threw himself upon the mercy of his ex-wife, who had just regained the grid. “For two days, I slept okay on her couch, which had once been our couch,” he confessed. “But after day one, her superiority became insufferable.” Determined to make good without her help, he resolved to find a warm companion at the Moan & Dove, a local bar. After two swift rejections, he struck up a more promising conversation.  “Everything was clicking. We were both fans of Anne Rice and  Dave  Matthews. And we didn’t like camping. But then the bottom fell out--She wasn't on the grid."

Is Yankee Police Lineup a Feather in Red Sox Caps?

Yankee Police Lineup--1 through 5

Ben Cherington’s enlightened appointment as Red Sox GM on October 25 was the beginning of  onwards  and upwards for Red Sox Nation. Here’s another positive development. Last week, the New York Times revealed a winsome Yankee lineup.  It’s a police lineup—all beneath the shelter of Yankee caps. Like L.A. (nee Oakland) Raiders apparel, Yankee-branded threads have a perp-friendly cachet that announces, “I’m fashionably bad.” Why does the NYPD periodically assemble lineups in Yankee caps? Answer: The department’s overnight house  guests frequently get nabbed wearing them.  Would someone from Boston’s Finest weigh in on best haberdasherial practices in Beantown lineups?

Yankee Batting Order Lineup--1 through 5

Unmasked & Anonymous at the Woodstar Cafe

I must have passed by the above photo at the Woodstar Cafe in Northampton, Massachusetts  a dozen times without recognizing its famous subject(s). The photograph is on the wall opposite the café’s entrance; it’s the centerpiece in a mini exhibit (including arresting shots of  Woodstar baristas) by the New Hampshire/Berkshires photographer Edward Acker. Fortunately, on Sunday morning, I  found myself seated in a corner by the front door—the only seat in the house that directly faces the photograph. Having difficulty with the Times crossword, I raised my head  and found myself staring at the photograph and its inhabitants--James Taylor and his extraordinary partner  Kim Smedvig. It was a eureka moment for sure, which I shared with perhaps a dozen folks in the vicinity, including several Woodstar employees. And had any of them recognized JT and Kim before I spilled the beans? Not a one. How about you? To be sure, their secret is unsafe with this paparazzo of a blog.

Mohawk Trail Blues

The frisson of unforeseen consequences! Who’da thunk that the posturings of Hurricane Irene in August would lock down the annual Mohawk Trail (Route 2) hegira of  leaf peepers in October?  At the beginning of the month, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation announced that a six-mile mountainous stretch on the trail between western Charlemont and the evocatively named township of Florida would remain closed until mid-December. So much for Route 2 completists! To salvage a modicum of that tourist trade, Mass DOT offered the alternative below—a long, forbidding route with few amenities and its own Irenic souvenirs.

The Mohawk Trail Impasse in Red; The Serpentine Diversion in Green

On Columbus Day, Wig & Pen set out from Amherst to experience the end of the beginning (EOB) on the Mohawk Trail. The EOB is just east of a bridge after which Charlemont yields to the town of Savoy—the eastern gateway to the Mohawk Trail’s high country. In spite of electronic signage to the east announcing Route 2 Closed Westbound Savoy, an intermittent stream of motorists, observed by this blogger, drove up to the EOB, winced, and turned around.

Irene in Florida

The End of the Beginning 

East of Charlemont on Route 2 in Greenfield and Shelburne, tourist traffic had been moderate-to almost heavy. Roadside business—minus the motels—seemed brisk. But west of Charlemont center, traffic thinned. The shop at Indian Plaza—a destination for intertribal powwows—was shuttered for the season. (the powwows have continued on higher ground) During Irene, two feet of muck had washed onto the premises after the Deerfield River had overflowed its banks, noted the establishment’s owner. A week before, he and others had implored town officials to drain water via a nearby canal and dam. The town, he said, turned them down, because it would have damaged what was left of the summer rafting season. 

Did any of the local shopkeepers have weather insurance? “Way too small for that,” responded the proprietor, doing his best to mask his amusement over an outsider’s absurd notion.

Wig & Pen Powwow at the Plaza

Better Days at Indian Plaza

Was Ken Burns’ Prohibition Good for the Spirits?

Half a lifetime ago, an older woman in my graduate program cattily inquired, “Are you a serious drinker?”  My patented response: “Not at all.  .  . I’m a ridiculous drinker!” That’s because the Wig & Pen liquid-seeking machine (a.k.a. this blogger) comes with a  homeostatic metabolism that makes more than a couple of drinks more trouble than they’re worth.

That includes drinking while watching TV—even during the most malicious sporting events. But last week offered a notable exception. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s Prohibition—their latest and often brilliant social history—served up among many, many things a 5-hour hammering in generic product placement. For 5+ hours, the yang of  WCTU, Anti-Saloon League, and Carrie Nation alternated with the yin of toasting in bars,  partying in speakeasies, and--above all--the sensuous, aesthetically captivating flow of spirits from bottles into glasses. Given the unrelenting cadences and heavenly lengths of Burns and Novick’s production, who (besides the great granddaughters of the WCTU) would spite me for dispatching a beer with each episode?

The greater question, of course, is--was there a national spike in alcohol consumption during the airing?  And if you lack the will and resources to settle that matter, what transpired in front of your  own TV during the nights of October 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd?

Sample the preview:

Seasonality in Syria

Look for mass demonstrations in Syria to skyrocket with the beginning of Ramadan on sundown, July 31. In the Arab world, there’s no more sustained networking opportunity —Facebook and Twitter included—than Islam’s holiest month with its daily gatherings in houses of worship. In spite of the Assad regime’s brutality, 100,000+ Syrians have demonstrated every Friday—Islam’s Sabbath—over the past four months. Ramadan is an entire month of Fridays.

The current maelstrom in Syria, notes The Economist, is no peasant revolt, but a resilient, growing coalition of university graduates, day laborers, students, and seasoned dissidents. Unlike the Assad regime, which has behaved erratically—alternating brutal crackdowns with vacuous concessions—the protestors, says the magazine, have shown remarkable unity of purpose in their insistence on democratic elections, freedom of speech and assembly, and protection for minorities.

The movement has the support of large parts of the Sunni clergy and increasingly the business community (business is down 50% this year). Syria is 75% Sunni. Assad and his fellow Shia Alawite brethren are what investors might call highly leveraged—they’re 10% of Syria’s population. So is Syria nearing a tipping point?

Perhaps a second question—this one for bloodsugarologists—will shed some light. Will 28 days of sunup-to-sundown fasting during the year’s hottest month make the demonstrators and their minions meaningfully crankier toward Mr. Assad and his cronies?

This salaam's for you!

In the Gods We Trust: Bootsy Collins in Worcester

Photo by Ariel Wigdor

On June 29, funk deity Bootsy Collins, who will be 60 in October, brought his flamboyant musical retinue to the Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts. In a previous life, the Palladium, a block down Main Street from elegant Mechanics Hall, was the Plymouth Theatre, a deteriorating movie palace frequented by this blogger in the 1960s. Today, the once seedy Mechanics Hall is an acoustic marvel, venerated in the world of chamber music. And the once squalid Plymouth? Well, it’s morphed into the consummately ratty Palladium. For Bootsy and his spirited audience, though, that may have been just what the witch doctor ordered.

In spite of volume that could have opened an East Coast branch of the San Andreas Fault, Boostsy and his funkful amigos, which included the great Bernie Worrell and ten or so other singers and instrumentalists, played with nonstop mastery and fervor. Of course, with such inspired song stand-bys as Cosmic Slop, Flashlight, Roto-Rooter, and,  Dr. Funkenstein, inspiration was never far from center stage. Nor was Bootsy, whose propulsive yet sinuous bass relentlessly devoured all resistance like an anaconda on steroids.

“He’s Hendrix on the bass,” commented my son, looking the part in his Axis Bold as Love t-shirt. The vestment, which depicts Hendrix and his two Brit sidemen from the Experience at the head of a chevron of Hindu deities, had sparked kudos an hour before the concert at an Indian restaurant on Shrewsbury Street. Our teenage Indian waitress, no doubt new to these shores, took one look at the shirt and praised my son’s sartorial taste, unaware that Hendrix had no part in the original Hindu line-up. When I tried to set matters straight, she nodded politely, approvingly. Perhaps the customer is always right. Without question, a god is a god is a god.

Giving Credits where Credits Are Due? Massachusetts’ Film Tax Incentive Program Respun

Best Place. Best Crews. Best Films., exults the Massachusetts Film Office , the state-run marketing outfit charged with enticing film makers to make movies and TV shows in the Bay State. In recent years, Massachusetts has hosted The Social Network, The Fighter, Shutter Island, soon to-be-released Moneyball, and other big-time productions.  Since 2007, the agency has set down cat nip for filmmakers via a tax credit equal to 25% of a film’s production and employment costs. In this, Massachusetts has company. Since Louisiana rolled out the practice in 2002, 15 states have jumped into incentiveville.

In talking up the tax credit program, it’s only natural for the Film Office to follow film songster Harold Arlen’s lead:  Accentuate the Positive. That it does by emphasizing the broadest-brush yardsticks like benefit to the economy (e.g, gross revenues) and jobs created in Massachusetts (also with grossed-up spin).

Drilling Down.  For relief, Wig & Pen turned to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue’s annual state-required reckoning, A Report on the Massachusetts Film Industry Tax Incentives. Released in January 2011, it covers calendar year 2009.  Here’s how the study parsed calendar year 2009’s $329.7 million in gross revenues from the Bay State’s film industry.

First, the report deducts $10.7 million in revenues that it estimates would have occurred without the tax credit program. Then, from the new total of $319 million it pares a whopping $215.2 million, reducing revenues to $103.8 million. The $215.2 million covers payments to film industry employees and businesses outside the state--$82 million of which went to $1 million and greater salaries for Hollywood actors.   

Finally, in step with the state’s requirement to balance its budget, the Department of Revenue subtracted state budget cuts needed to offset its film tax incentive expenditures.  That brought the direct economic impact of the program to $32.6 million.

In fairness to accentuators of positivity, the Department as part of the same exercise also modeled multiplier effects on the broader economy. That kicked in an additional $165.5 million in gross domestic product and personal income of $25.2 million.

Better, Not Best. So judging from Department of Revenue results, the tax incentive program was a force for economic good, but way less compelling than some might have us believe. Our lesson: even agreed-upon on gross economic indicators can mask as well as illuminate. It’s always a good idea to drill down, especially when special interests—inside and outside of government—have motive and opportunity.

Read The Economist's take (i.e., rant) on the use and abuse of film tax credits.
 

The Young Adult Brain in Action! Tales from the Amherst, Massachusetts Police Blotter:*

A Bonnie & Clyde Bank Heist, Amherst Style. In April, a young middle class couple, William Oldershaw, 24, of Sunderland and Shayna Henckel-Miller, 19, of Amherst allegedly conspired to rob Amherst’s highest-profile bank, The Bank of America. Oldershaw walked into the bank weaponless with a note that Henkel-Miller allegedly had helped him write, and handed it to a teller, who presented him with $249. He then exited the bank, where his accomplice waited in the escape vehicle—a TAXI CAB, which the police intercepted several miles down the road. An official at the BOA told Wig & Pen that both suspects had accounts at the bank.

Oldershaw’s Hedge. According to Amherst Police detective David Foster, Oldershaw believed that his request for $249 would yield less legal trouble [should something possibly go wrong]. If you steal $250 or more in Massachusetts, you can go to state prison for five years; If you keep the tab below $250, your maximum sentence is a year in a county jail. Unfortunately for Oldershaw, the state distinguishes between stealing and robbery, the latter (the above caper included) defined as taking something held or controlled by another person (maximum sentence: life in prison).

The Case of the Missing Key. In late April, Amherst police arrested Jeremy Michael Gilbreath, 22, of Wayland shortly after giving him—an alleged assault victim—a courtesy ride. The arrest came after police determined he had allegedly stolen a pair of police handcuffs from the cruiser. To his misfortune, he had neglected to swipe the key that went with the cuffs [if ever there were complementary goods. . .]. After he cuffed a women later that night, she phoned the police, who liberated her and took Gilbreath into custody.

Craftsmanship by Smith & Wesson

Wig & Pen Pontificates: It’s no accident that auto insurers wait until a driver is 25 to begin lowering rates. Their m.o. is not just about driving experience but the way that the Young Adult Brain (YAB) handles risk. Indeed, the YAB is not the cat’s pajamas when it comes to risk assessment/due diligence. Compounding the fracture is that YABs are especially vulnerable in a culture that emphasizes dreams-come-true while coddling aspirations with selective rosy evidence over critical thinking and falsification.

Say what? You’re also wondering why this blog has failed to note that robbing a bank and handcuffing an unenthusiastic victim are WRONG? If this has not yet occurred to you, think twice when your own young adult offspring tells you that he or she plans to make a bank withdrawal.

*Consider all assertions about the alleged perps to be alleged by the Amherst Police Department except where otherwise noted.

Meditations on Annoying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Annoying is a well-crafted, valuable read. The authors give generous treatment both to the social psychology and physical science mechanisms of much that annoys. That includes public cell phone conversations, the blaring of sirens, the buzzing of flies, the cracking of knuckles, the machinations of Newman on Seinfeld. As a closet Lothario, I was intrigued that attractive traits in courtship like independence and caring can prove annoying in marriage when they morph into aloofness and cloyingness. As a Red Sox fan, I was grateful to the authors for their resurrection of Yankee reliever Joba Chamberlain’s ordeal in the 2009 playoffs against both the Cleveland Indians and swarms of annoying midges from Lake Erie.

Forgive the authors’ occasional digressions that treat descriptions of scientific processes as ends unto themselves. They are, after all, science hounds. (Joe Palca is an NPR science reporter; Flora Lichtman is an NPR multimedia science editor.) Most of the time though, their physical science is apropos, like their description of the genetic and cellular mechanisms that screw up oxytocin flow, which correlates with an individual’s capacity to empathize and absorb stress (i.e. to be less annoyed and abrasive.)

Rare in popular social science books is the authors’ admirable scientific restraint in refraining from generalizing beyond their data—Don’t expect a unified field theory of annoying. But they do offer the insight that much that annoys us may be attention-commandeering stimuli that once presaged dire outcomes (evolutionarily speaking). In evolutionary terms, schlumps who got annoyed were more likely to survive. That makes annoying in the  21st century truly affordable. Why not, in gratitude, elevate your next dinner party with tales that enchant and annoy. Here's an example from Wig and Pen:

A Horological Annoyance. In the mid 1970s my late father’s wife redecorated the family homestead with a pseudo-antique table clock that announced its presence on the half hour with a metallic stridency that might have been a soundtrack for a cartoon featuring animated cookie cutters. One afternoon, while the lady of the house was out and about, a friend who repaired clocks as a hobby and who could stand the sound no longer, marched over to the clock and gently adjusted its chime hammer. Presto! Hyde became Jekyll. Metallic annoyance became dulcet. But my friend had only massaged a symptom of the underlying problem. When the clock’s owner returned, she immediately detected its kinder, gentler timbre, and demanded immediate restoration of its previous persona. I heard the clock’s annoying ring for the final time in 1983 on the night of my father’s funeral.

Glass-Is-Half-Empty Weather Forecast Images

Consumer advisory: In its popular 7-day forecast web page, the National Weather Service assigns a weather image to each day and night ahead that often views the weather-glass as half empty. As a former U.S. president might have complained, Those stormy pictures are often big hat, no cattle. That is why this blog as a public service has grafted two Seasonal Affective Disorder lights like bookends around the sorry sequence of weather images above. Note that 40% and 50% chances of rain receive decidedly rainy images. We might, of course, just as well be looking at 60% and 50% chances of dry weather.

Even more inspirational for the umbrella trade is the torrential rainy image at left, where the chances of no rain are 70%. Perhaps the Weather Service in its image choice is emphasizing the intensity rather than the chance of ill weather. On the other hand, if there is a 100% chance of only a 15 minute downpour, will the NWS serve up a tsunami image?

To date, this blogger has failed to resolve these troubling questions. Perhaps his friend, Dr. Roberto—an often reluctant economic forecaster—is right when he says: “Although weather forecasting is more reliable than many of our other predictive arts, the Weather Service like the rest of us may have much to hedge about, especially in covering for themselves should bad news prove worse.”

Graduation Wishes from on High

For the second year running, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony featured a nationally prominent keynote speaker that mirrored the university’s increasing national stature. Last year, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair got the call. On Friday, May 13, national political pundit and former advisor to four presidents David Gergen was at the podium welcoming his own generation’s future passing of the leadership baton to the generation that includes the 2011 graduating class.

Exit, Stage North. While few among the Class of 2011 were unenthusiastic about that prospect, they and Mr. Gergen were absolutely wowed by the message from outer space from astronaut Catherine (Cady) Coleman that followed on several supersized screens. Seated in the International Space Station with her hair coursing upwards in zero gravity, Coleman, who holds a Ph.D. in polymer science from UMass Amherst, emphasized the importance of teamwork. After releasing a miniature bobblehead likeness of the university’s mascot—the Minuteman—into weightlessness—she bid adieu to the Class of 2011 with the Serling-inflected message—I look forward to your future! Then she released her own seat restraint and levitating northward, vanished from the frame. View Cady’s extraterrestrial remarks and choreography here:

CadyProRes

Turning away from the American Public, Obama Embraces Us

At the end of his 9-minute announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s demise, President Obama threw his audience an unexpected behind-the-Barak-pass. Speech over, he turned 180 degrees and ambled off down a hallway with his backside to his audience. A remarkable forensic sayonara from an American president.

To decode that nonverbal passage, this blog spoke with several marketing professors and practitioners. “It’s about closure,” one of them remarked. “By showing us his back, he’s closing the book on Bin Laden and much of the 9/11 trauma. Obama’s body says better than W’s words ever did:  Mission Accomplished!" “After walking away from us, Obama takes a sharp left and disappears into another room,” noted a second observer. “His gait is calm and business-like as if he’s about to take care of more business of state, even though the nation is about to party.”

Another marketing pundit was more prescient: “By walking ahead and away from us, especially when he’s just registered a political slam dunk, Obama is inviting us to follow him--for six more years.”

The final 30 seconds of the Obama speech:

This Is Not a Peccary?

This is not a pig!!--Such a comfort for the zoo-going  public at the peccary corral at the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem. To cover most bases, the signage is in Hebrew, Yiddish, English, and Arabic. And it terminates with two exclamation marks to underscore its urgency and transcendent import. (See the photo below; the sign, of course, reads right to left.)

Source: FRGDR blog

 After all, “the other white meat” and the animal that gives it up are anathema to Orthodox Jews and Muslims. According to Leviticus, the pig has the desirable “cloven” hoof but doesn’t ruminate (i.e., chew its cud). To be zoo- and dinner-worthy, you need both assets.

Leviticus explains:

the pig, for though it divides the hoof, it does not chew cud, it is unclean to you. You shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.

And the Qur’an's unambiguous position on pig consumption boils down to this: Just Say No! (or else!)

Enter the Peccary. But the peccary is a pigoid above the fray. So what if it they are known commonly as skunk pigs? So what if they are as hairy as Sean Connery’s back before Hollywood insisted that the original 007’s dorsal required a blade more persuasive than Odd Job’s? So what if they are members of the family Tayassuidae, a.k.a, New World Pigs, which belong to the artiodactyl suborder Suina, which also includes the bona fide pig family, Suidae.

Not to worry! In addition to cloven hooves, peccaries are blessed with the missing link to orthodox cred: a nonruminating stomach. (even though the organ has three chambers and an internal cuissinart that allows them to process roughage like prickly pear cacti.)

Peccaries for Peace. With that said, isn’t it time to elevate the peccary as a symbol of rapprochement in the Middle East? You’ve got a better idea? Let’s begin with our mutual tolerance for the little critters and erect a peace that lasts. Let's bring Arab and Jew to the peace table--a capacious table where all eat peccary together.




This Is Not a Peace Pipe?



Letting Their Freak Flags Fly

James Taylor;Paul Simon

There comes a time in many a follicle-challenged pop-star’s career when the decision to conceal hair loss looms large. After all, for many of those ageing baldies, the seductions of marketing still pander to their roots in a culture where youth’s magic horn plays on. Check out, then, the Maginot Line in the career of James Taylor—a boundary where the hatless vagaries of youth give way to concealment by haberdashery and other wiles. Note the career tipping point below between his Dad Love’s His Work (1981) and That’s Why I’m Here (1985) albums. For Paul Simon, concealment came much earlier in the 1970s. Paul opted for hairpieces, which he finally traded in for hats in the mid-1990s.

Across the Great Divide:
Dad Loves His Work (1981); That's Why I'm Here (1985)

On album covers, both artists have sported a frolic of hats. And both have embraced additional concealments like cropping their heads/faces right where hairlines might have launched in younger days.

Finally, they’ve also dispensed entirely with their own images on album covers (including Simon’s latest). Is Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints a subliminal longing for plumage lost? Is JT’s Never Die Young a lusting for hair beyond the pale of his and our species?

It troubles Wig & Pen that both ageing boomers--true American artists--continue to duck and cover.  Can they reconcile their roles as tragic artists with membership by default in what Larry David celebrates as "the bald community."  Here's hoping they reconcile and let their 21st Century freak flags fly.

Hitlers in America

In the clip below, Chris Hitler, an investment and real estate specialist in Mequon, Wisconsin, wants you to know that he is passionate about personal storage. Listen to the clip, and you’ll hear Chris, without pretentiousness or guile, deliver his pitch. For Wig & Pen, the experience was revelatory—everything about Mr. Hitler exudes middle American normalcy except, of course, the drop-dead weight of his surname. Comics pursuing straight-man roles should study this offering. It could raise the late Phil Hartmann from the other side.

This blog discovered Chris Hitler in the indispensible web article, A Brief History of Hitlers in America, by Howard Altman. Altman describes the town of Circleville, Ohio as Hitler Central. You can find five generations of Hitlers buried in its Hitler-Ludwig Cemetery. For marmoreal photos, click here.

At the Gates in Circleville

The End of the Line? Altman’s article is a great read but like many writers who embrace a subject, he is excessively bullish about it:

You might think there wouldn’t be any Hitlers in America. But they’re everywhere, Altman remarks. ". . . In fact, there are 50 or so Hitlers living in these 50 states and their history with our country goes back over 200 years.

Fifty Hitlers is what I call a one-way trip to extinctionville. Let’s be generous and say that 40 have child-bearing potential. Twenty of the 40 would likely be women, who I think would be itching to trade in their surname for a spouse’s. That would likely apply to the trend in hyphenated married names, including those of the implicated offspring. What self-respecting American bride would prefer the married name of Hitler-Messerschmidt to the less controversial, more efficient Messerschmitt?

That leaves us with 20 male Hitlers. Even given a reproductively fit cadre from this subset, how many women do you think would line up to be the first on their block to conspire in Hitler, The Next Generation?

Inspiration for this post came from the pathbreaking TV series Hill Street Blues. In several episodes of season three, a traffic scofflaw—profession: unemployed stand-up comedian—sported the name Vic Hitler. Valuing true talent, Hill Street Detective J.D. LaRue signed on as his short-lived agent. But the jokester was doubly cursed: his name proved a liability with club owners and his on-stage narcolepsy proved a show stopper. Sample this Hitler’s day in court in the clips below.

The Brand that Was You--2011

The brand that was Lou

For a second year running, this blog celebrates the enchanted craft of branding. What a growth industry it has become! Just like power tools, ping pong balls, universities, and New Age retreats, individuals have their own brands too. Such hopes had I for the improvement of my own personal brand 14 years ago after discovering Tom Peters’ heady article, The Brand Called You !

But even though I’ve repeatedly failed to realize my brand potential, it’s a comfort to know that future opportunities for revisionism await, if not in life, then afterwards via my local newspaper’s obituary column.

For several years, the Northampton, Massachusetts-based Daily Hampshire Gazette has turned to reader-penned necros.  Beside the honoree’s name and age, the author gets to distill a lifetime’s "footprint" in a word or two. Without purgatorial delay, here’s my Top Ten Roster from the past year. I’ve changed the names and ages of the innocent (and the experienced), but left their personal "brands" intact.:

10. Inez Gomulka, 87,~
       Lived All Her Life on the Family Farm
 
 9. Tobias Z’Beard, 58,~The Perfect Gentleman

 8. Chadwick Cook, 74,~ Protector of Special Places

 7. Abigail Sweeney, 88, ~World-Class Grandmother

 6. Dianne Boger, 82, ~Data Entry Pioneer

 5. Arthur Colovito, 71, ~A Quiet Man

         ~Tied for 4th place~

 4. Thaddeus Prosky, 62, ~3 Holes in One

 4. Ned Romanowski, 91, ~Golf Fueled His Life

 3. Ozgood Curtis,75, ~Career in Funeral Services

 2. Sidney Charles, 38, ~Saw Humor in Everything

 1. Grady Gerber, 58, ~Born to Ride

Ave, Pope Jeremy!

Still Wafer-thin after all theses years

The Borgias, which debuted last night on Showtime with the no-holds-barred episode, “The Poisoned Chalice/The Assassin,” stars Jeremy Irons as Rodrigo Borgia, a.k.a. Pope Alexander VI. Without question Alexander could really fill a vestment (See above.) Jeremy Irons, on the other hand (like the late George Harrison), has—to euphemize—gaunt good looks. Who would spite him for not bulking up like Robert De Niro in the final segments of Raging Bull?

Irons, of course, is so convincing a thespian that he should easily overcome the slings and arrows of horizontal challenge. Especially since Showtime has gone out of its way to omit likenesses of the real Rodrigo from its marketing (i.e., we are not anchored to his true image). To underscore Irons’ dramaturgical gifts, this blog dares to present the original Rodrigo and his Showtime scion side by side. The Borgias’ dramatic grist, of course, should also help Pope Jeremy to rise to the occasion. After all, combining Church corruption and “Family” business (a la the Sopranos) should prove an unbeatable, transcendent opportunity.