The best TV ad ever?

Though women supposedly make most of the product choices in the household, and therefore advertising would seem to be aimed at them, the majority of objectified bodies in TV ads are still women. I used to assign an advertising analysis paper in my college writing classes, so I know there are lots of interesting ways, not just through the physical beauty or sexiness of the models, advertisers try to make us want their products by playing on our fears and desires. And I know that the average woman is supposedly less likely to be "excited" by the objectification the male body then vice versa (men excited by female objectification). Still, as a gay man, I'm a little mystified and disappointed that sexy men are still outnumbered by sexy women in advertising.

So maybe that's why the current Old Spice ad with the centaur in the shower makes me stop fast-forwarding through our DVR'd shows every time I see it. Damn, that is one sexy ad. A centaur (half-man, half-horse) is in the shower telling us about the new Old Spice body wash, Live Wire, which is two things, a body wash and a moisturizer, just like he's two things (a man and a horse). Actually, I'm not sure what he's saying because he's standing there naked in the shower, slowly rubbing his torso with soapy lather, so excuse me for not paying much attention to what he's saying.

The guy is handsome and manly and nicely built, but I think the catch for me is the soaping. You just don't see naked guys touching themselves on TV. I know that Old Spice always has wholesomely sexy guys in their ads, but this guy is a little less wholesome than average, which is A-OK in my book. It's also amusing (the guy plunks the Old Spice bottle down on his [horse's] ass at the end), and he has a butch voice, and there's the general wetness, and did I mention the torso-touching? Anyway, I watch the ad whenever I can, and damned if I didn't go out and buy a bottle of the stuff.

P.S.: I don't like it. A little too runny, and the scent is too cucumber-y. But I still love the ad. And if they ever put it out in a bottle shaped like that centaur, I might it again.

Why I use Facebook

New York magazine ran an interesting cover story recently on Facebook, but it was the letter column response to it that made me want to make some kind of public statement about my experience with Facebook. The response ran 50/50 pro/con, with the con side, espressed thusly: "Facebook pimps friendship to lonely populations of captive screen-heads ... How are we supposed to form meaningful relationships with people when we only connect online?" The pro folks called that "such an old-person take on Facebook ... Facebook is whatever you make of it."

First, I must admit to being one of the much-discussed over-40 users (hell, who am I kidding, I'm an over-50 user) who have been adopting Facebook in exponentially increasing numbers lately. I have no doubt that if I was 18, my take on all this might be different. But I got sucked into Facebook for two reasons: 1) my current job, library cataloger, is one that has taken me away from contact with the public. It's my first office cubicle job, and after many years of working in retail and teaching, I thought I'd like the relative isolation, but oddly, I've discovered I miss some of the hustle and bustle of humanity; 2) my partner and I don't have a lot of "real-life" friends whom we see regularly. We have a "Games Night" group that we get together with once a month, and a couple who, for no particular reason that I know of, we see much less of than we used to, lives diverging and all, I guess.

So one might think I'm one of those lonely screen-heads using online social networking to pretend I have a life. I don't think that's quite accurate. First of all, just because Facebook contacts are called "friends" doesn't mean that I really think of most of them as friends. Some are friends, people I know and like. Some are folks I've met online in one way or another, in e-mail groups or Usenet groups of the past. The most interesting potential here is getting back in touch with people from my past, and I have done some of that. But after the initial flurry of catching-up communication, contact dies down. Out of a dozen such people who are current Facebook friends, only 3 or 4 are still actively in contact with me; most of them seem not to be posting much of anything on Facebook at all.

The other way I've used Facebook (and Twitter, which is a whole other blog post) is to attempt to make contact with people who have similar interests (libraries, cataloging, old movies, pop music). I've realized this is an attempt to make my Facebook page something very much like one of the old Usenet groups I got so wrapped up in back in the '90s. The problem is that, unless all my contacts actually "friend" each other, they don't see each other's posts, so it's not like an online social group at all. And, of course, few of these people have taken my bait and begun any kind of active exchange. This has been a disappointment to me, but I have to face the fact that, just as gay people have little in common with each other except being gay, librarians have little in common with each other except our occupation. I do have fun during the work day (during the very few moments when I actually allow myself to be distracted by Facebook--insert knowing emoticon here) reading others' posts and chatting occaisonally, mostly with people in the very building in which I work, some of whom I consider "real-life" friends, which I guess brings me back to the beginning...

While I'm sure there are people who have Facebook "friends" rather than real-life friends, I suspect most people in my age range use it for networking, or for having fun, or for instant messaging, or for sharing photos, or just expressing themselves. The one thing I do every workday on Facebook is post a list of the songs I hear on the way into work in the morning (and when I think of it, I do the same thing when I get home in the evening). I love pop music and I love my iPod, packed with thousands of songs, and I love having it set on "alphabetical" play by title, which is in essence like having it on random shuffle. I never know what I'm going to hear next, and I am usually surprised and delighted by the outcome. Most of my Facebook friends probably think my iPod lists are crazy or stupid or annoying, but at least a few have told me they enjoy seeing them, and at any rate, I'm gonna keep doing it because expressing myself even if no one is listening is my third reason for using Facebook (and blogging).

The New York article is interesting, and I may have a part 2 to this post coming soon.

Pre-Code movies

Since my other 2 blogs are devoted to mass media, I don't usually use this space to talk about that stuff, much less to advertise a product. But since apparently nothing's been going on in my life that's worth announcing, I thought I'd mention how excited I am about two new DVD sets of movies that belong to what is commonly called the "Pre-Code" days, from the late 20's to the summer of 1934 when Hollywood films were made and released without any real oversight by national censors. In 1934, the Production Code, which mandated what could and couldn't be said or done or shown in a movie, was officially enforced; before that, the Code existed as suggestions rather than a hard and fast set of laws, but local censorship boards across the country were cutting movies to ribbons, and when faced with the threat of federal censorship, the film industry decided to censor itself.

The pre-Code movies will disappoint viewers expecting cursing and nudity--though there are occasional bawdy references and scantily-clad ladies. What's really interesting about them is the morality; promiscuity, adultery, and single motherhood were not always punished by death or loneliness like they would be in Code movies. Even murderers weren't always brought to justice. Gay people, who were only presented as marginal characters and were treated with scornful humor in the early 30's, vanished from movies altogether under the Code. Female characters were much more interesting in pre-Code films, not always having to save themselves for marriage, not always having to wind up giving up all for their men.

Warners has recently released its third "Forbidden Hollywood" set, this one with the films of William Wellman, including the memorable juvenile delinquent film Wild Boys of the Road, and a gritty but breezy romantic melodrama called Other Men's Women about a romantic triangle between Mary Astor and two railroad workers. Most of the films in the Warners sets have been shown with some frequency on Turner Classic Movies, but the more interesting set is from Universal, the Pre-Code Hollywood Collection, mostly movies from the Paramount Pictures vaults most of which have not been presented anywhere outside of New York revival houses, in many years. Earlier in the week, I watched the notorious Murder at the Vanities, which has lots of nearly-naked chorus girls and one remarkable musical number in which a woman sings of the benefits of "Sweet Marijuana." I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the films in the set soon.

Chicago '09

We took our 5th Chicago trip last weekend, this time with our friends Rose & Tom. Unlike our other trips which usually had an agenda involving seeing a play, this was a more free-form vacation; the only planned excursion was attending a taping of the public radio show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, a news/current affairs quiz show hosted by Peter Sagal. Otherwise, it was a mellow time with each day full of lots of walking around, a little bit of hotel resting-up, and lots of eating (and at least one horse-and-buggy sighting, at right).

Thursday afternoon (3/19): We dropped our stuff at the Holiday Inn Express on the Magnificent Mile and had a late lunch at Portillo's Hot Dogs: nice atmosphere; I had the Maxwell Street Polish sausage with grilled onions. After Wait Wait, which was great fun as always, we had a late dinner at The Gage, an upscale tavern diner. I just had a burger, but it had "onion marmalade" and Camembert which was perhaps not the best combo; however, the drunken waiter made the experience interesting.

On Friday, sunny but chilly, we went on a wild goose chase hoping to have brunch at Orange, a place that a colleague at the library recommended highly, but soon discovered it was closed and empty, so we ate at the Corner Bakery. We spent the afternoon at the Art Institute (wonderful place with lots of Van Gogh, Hopper, and Frank Lloyd Wright--we didn't even get around to much before the 18th century). Pictured below is me in a Carlo Bugatti mirror at the Institute. Dinner was at Topolobampo, Rick Bayless's fancy Mexican restaurant (right next to the more hoi-polloish Frontera Grill). Honestly, it was one of those menus on which I could find very little I thought I'd like (I'm not a very adventurous eater), but I did have a nice taco-like dish with beef and onion straws, and, though I'm not a seafood eater, I enjoyed an appetizer of ceviche (sunfish marinated in citrus juice). A post-dinner walk to the nearest Borders store capped the evening.

Saturday morning (lovely sunshine and mild breezes in the 50's) was spent strolling up the shopping mile, though I didn't actually do much acquiring of possessions. The Crate and Barrel store was quite cool, and I was tempted to buy a couple of cutting boards, but they seemed too heavy to take back on the plane. I had a pre-lunch sundae at Ghirardelli's Ice Cream and Chocolate Shop: espresso chip ice cream w/hot fudge. I would have gone into a pleasure coma except I had to walk back to the hotel. Lunch was at Wow Bao at Water Tower Place (very doughy steamed potsticker-like buns filled with meat--not so much). Afterward, we headed a little south of the Loop and walked down Printer's Row, stopping at Sandmeyer's Bookstore and a Dunkin' Donuts, and sunned ourselves in Grant Park. Dinner was at Gino's East on Wells St. (pictured below). I'm not a big fan of deep dish pizza, and there was a 45-minute wait to even get into the building, but the place was wonderful inside: large and dark, with white Christmas lights strewn about and graffiti on every available wall space. Tried some Fat Tire beer, brewed in Colorado, on the recommendation of our friend Tom who lived there for a while, and enjoyed it.

Overall, a nice relatively impromptu trip--as impromptu as a predictable, in-the-rutter like me is likely to have. There was a Trader Joe's right across from the hotel, so wine and crackers were just moments away at any given time (same with Starbucks). All I could have asked for were slightly warmer temperatures.

Gettin' ready for Chicago

For one reason or another, I haven't taken a "leave-the-city-limits" vacation since November of 2006. That will change on Thursday when Don & I join our friends Rose & Tom on a three-night trip to Chicago. It's an Expedia-deal kind of trip; we're staying at a Holiday Inn Express on the "Magnificent Mile" and have no concrete plans except to attend a taping of the NPR show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, something we did last time we were in Chicago (yes, Nov. 2006) and at which we had great fun (that sentence sound a tad tortured, but I guess it's correct).

We've always had a good time in Chicago (that's me pictured in the Giant Reflecting Egg in Millennium Park a few years ago), usually staying near the theater district and seeing plays: the most fun were the pre-Broadway tryouts of The Producers and Monty Python's Spamalot (with the original casts, he boasted pretentiously), but we also enjoyed seeing Wicked and Putnam County Spelling Bee. This time, nothing theaterical sounds particularly compelling: there's Xanadu which could be campy fun, and there's a "drawing-room" comedy called something like Don't Dress for Dinner which features Jeffrey Donovan, the sexy star of Burn Notice. We'll hit the Art Institute, and other musuems are a possiblity, though I don't think I need to go to the Field Museum again, with its slighly seedy and creepy taxidermied tableaux. Of course, being so close to the Mile, shopping will certainly be on the agenda, though I wonder if some of the Magnificence of the Mile will be tarnished with the economy the way it is.

We've never really left the "comfort zone" of the Mile/Loop area, and I don't know if I'm up for that this time either, but I am doing some restaurant research, hoping to have a grand eating experience or two. My favorite Chicago dinner so far was at Berghoff's, before it closed and re-opened as something that is not quite Berghoff's anymore. I imagine my better half will want some genuine Chicago pizza, and I bet Tom will want something trailblazingly exotic (yes, I jest). A trip to the library will most likely be on the agenda, and of course no trip to any city in the country would be complete without some bookstore visits, and some toruisty trinket to bring home and put on the fridge. I'll try to take some pics.

Chicken paprikash pot pie

I like to cook, but I'm not a gourmet cook, nor am I an adventurous cook. I mostly stick with one-dish skillet meals, and one of the best is this recipe from the Pillsbury One-Dish Meals Cookbook, which is full of great-tasting and easy recipes. This is the recipe I've given out most often. It is easy and yummy.


2 refrigerated pie crusts
4 slices of bacon, crumbled
3/4 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts,
cut up in 1/2 inch pieces
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped bell pepper
1 cup sliced carrots
1 cup frozen sweet peas
1/2 cup sour cream
12 oz jar chicken gravy
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 teaspoons paprika

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Prepare pie crust as directed on package for two-crust pie using 9-inch pie pan.

2. In large skillet over medium heat, cook bacon until crisp. Reserve 1 tablespoon drippings with bacon on skillet. [I cook the bacon whole, drain it, then crumble it back into the skillet]

3. Add chicken to skillet; cook and stir until no longer pink. Add onions, bell pepper and carrots; cook and stir until vegetables are tender. Stir in peas. [I don't usually use peppers, but I do sprinkle in a little crushed pepper mix]

4. In small bowl, combine all remaining ingredients; mix well. Stir into chicken mixture in skillet. Spoon into crust-lined pan. Top with second crust and flute edges; cut slits or small designs in several places on top of crust.

5. Bake at 425 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Cover edge of crust with strips of foil after 10 to 15 minutes of baking to prevent excessive browning. [I have an aluminum ring I use for this] Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Commies! Fires! Librarian in trouble!!

Not me, as I'm just a faux-librarian (I'm like Anias Nin's Spy in the house of love, which makes things sound way sexier than they are), but Bette Davis! A few weeks ago, I saw a movie I'd wanted to see for some time, Storm Center (1956), one of the few Hollywood movies with a librarian at the center of the plot. I've posted a full summary and review here, but thought I'd post a briefer version below:

Maiden lady librarian Bette Davis (not nearly as kicky as Marion in The Music Man) is attacked by her small town's city council for not removing a book on communism from the shelves. She sticks to her guns, loses the friendship of the town children she loves so much, and is eventually forcibly removed as head librarian. One of the disillusioned kids starts a fire in the library, bringing things to a head. The idea of a movie about libraries and the First Amendment is an interesting one, but it's not really an inherently exciting topic, and this movie's script is muddled, the performances are all over the map (Davis underacts, the firebug kid is good, and his father overacts like he's practicing to play Stanley in a community theater production of Streetcar Named Desire), and the film looks like a TV-movie. Maybe I'll work on a screenplay that will tear off the lid on today's seething libraries: patrons who urinate where they please, naked pictures of Zac Efron or Lindsay Lohan that pop up uncalled-for on computer screens, dejected job seekers who want us to make their resume "pretty." Can we handle the truth?