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The Best a Man can Get

posted Oct 30, 2003, 03:23 PM | 15 Comments

Hey. So, I've historically made a number of sarcastic comments about all of the time and energy and money poured into what is essentially superfluous luxury technology, especially when it comes to the toothbrush. There are shapes and sizes and colors; rubber points, bristle indicators, bristle arrangements, flip-top heads, sonic waves and vibrating handles and so on and so on. Apparently all of this crap is necessary because a) we're all to lazy to take the time to brush our teeth thoroughly with a standard toothbrush, and b) we've all been suckered into eating all sorts of unnatural sugary acidic junkfood, thanks to comparable campaigns surrounding food tech breakthroughs - X-treme whipped portable sweetened yogurt, SuperCoke, McGriddleFat sammiches, Olestra snacks, beef sticks, cheesteaks and funny shaped noveltie lunchable candy. Because,certainly, fruits and vegetables aren't interesting or tasty enough. All of this product R+D energy could be put into cancer research or something, but there's no money in cancer. Besides, it seems pretty clear that soda is causing all of the cancer in the first place, if you ask me.

I'm, er, digressing. Anyway, so I'm growing up to be the sort of fellow who likes to talk trash about product placement and marketing, who actively resists and sometimes openly defies (like my father) the implication made by every television in the room and billboard on the horizon that my life is MISSING something. I know how the advertising tricks work. This certain something can be regained in the form of some new and satisfying shiny product, waiting for me with open arms at some local store, complete with the latest innovation developed to get an edge over the competing brand. I know this, but of course I still find myself eating processed cheese, and I'm impressed with new sorts of food products, and I really like watching flashy well-produced car ads, and I crave candy and electronics, and I recently ate a McGriddle even though I'd already read Fast-Food Nation, and sometimes I like soda, and I find toothbrush innovations to be remarkably clever. The usual crap.

And surely the best example of my hypocritical life as a sporadically defiant, post-post-modern consumer is my complete love of the new Gillette MACH3Turbo razor. I hate Gilette for their stupid XTREME product names, those obnoxious flying laser blade graphics campaigns, and their downright outlandish prices. Last night I dropped $17 on their latest "best shave ever", plus 4 extra blades. The impossible-to-open razor package actually came with a 6-bit brushed stainless screwdriver, which looks pretty sturdy and cool, and I'll certainly get some use out of it.

But here's the rub: the Mach3Turbo shave is fucking fantastic. It actually makes other razors seem retarded. I can't believe that ten years ago I using my father's double sided Shick razor - more or less the equivalent of shaving with the rusty bow of a freight barge. Recently I bought a generic three blade razor, and it was a joke. Gillette has me. I can tell they're hooking me like crack, and I don't care. My face feels that good. My life is perfect now.

Obligatory Olfactory Observations

posted Oct 13, 2003, 10:08 PM | 1 Comments

Smells detected yesterday by my discerning nose during an hour long bike-ride around the streets of the San Fernando Valley: gasoline, stagnant muck puddle water, autumn leaves, cheap Mexican fast-food, delicious Mexican entreпїЅs, organic manure-based fertilizer, roses, diesel fuel, dumpster garbage water, non-Annie's macaroni and cheese, grilled steak, exhaust, freshly-mowed lawn, gas, BBQ chicken, burnt-rubber, marijuana, sweat, smoldering charcoal, pine trees, hot asphalt, citrus-scented cleaning products, hot vinyl, wood chips, home.

Check Out

posted Oct 5, 2003, 02:35 PM | 6 Comments

During the evening on September 11th of this year I stopped by Ralph's to pick up some quick groceries: yogurt, carots, fruit. I hadn't been in a particularly memorial mood, to be honest; I had spent the day keeping busy with daily grind routine and some freelance work; the year 2001, New York City, and all the events of that Tuesday morning felt pretty far away.

At the supermarket I found myself standing in front of a large pile nectarines, alongside a pleasant looking middle aged man wearing a Yarmulke. There was nobody else in the produce section. Silently, we squeezed and inspected the red-orange fruit (only $0.99 per lb!) acting generally oblivious to one another's presence. How absurd and pathetic is it that two people standing side by side doing the same thing don't take the time to exchange even a "hello"? Aren't we both human beings? Male human beings, even, who appreciate reasonably-priced juicy citrus? I though hard about it, for a minute or two. Hard enough that I didn't remember to take the time to actually say "hello" to the guy. And as if to turn the moment into some sort of post-modern zen koan, the grocery store sound-system started pumping out "Will you Marry Me Boy?" by Paula Abdul. With vocals. Just awful.

I stepped into the shorter of the two checkout lines, thinking, "Jesus, I haven't thought about this song in about 10 years." Suddenly the 22 year old chubby bearded guy in front of me turned about halfway around, and spoke aloud to no one in particular. "Is this Paula Abdul?" I muttered something about 12 years, and he started make observations about the nearby rack of Snow White DVDs. "About time Disney started putting out this stuff," he said. He rambled on annoyingly, and I suddenly remembered why people keep quiet at the supermarket. Then I felt guilty.

Later, sleepy, I visited a Netscape news site to find a rather harrowing combination of news items structured into one screen. I found a sad synchronicity in there, somewhere between the nectarines and the cheating wives.