Giorgio Armani Is Not To Blame!

I like to think that for the most part I'm sort of a happy, positive, good-natured guy. As such, I consider hate to be a generally destructive emotion. But a recent email conversation I had with a friend reminded me that there are a few things in life that I do, so truly and passionately, hate. Our dialogue reminded me of two things specifically: 1) Acqua di Gio cologne and 2) the song 'Take My Picture' by Filter. Curiously, the cologne smells really good and the song's actually pretty cool too. Perhaps I should explain.

Almost a decade ago, I held a job as the General Manger of an Einstein's bagel shop. At first, I thought it would be a very cool job. Kind of a 'hip' place, good bagels, decent coffee, laid back atmosphere, etc. But over a short period of time, I came to detest my job at Einstein's so much that my feelings escape accurate description.

Anyway, we used to listen to a lot of X96 (a fine alternative radio station in SLC) in the kitchen when we were baking. At the time, 'Take My Picture' had just been released, so they played it no less than eighty-seven times a day. Naturally, I came to detest it. (I'd like to note paranthetically that I also detest Blink 182. Not because of Einstein's necessarily, but because they're horrible and the fact that X96 overplayed 'All The Small Things' around that same time too didn't help. With that said, I should note sub-parenthetically that 'Blink's' singer, Tom LeLonge, now sings for Angels and Airwaves and they're pretty catchy actually.). But I'm already getting way off track and my hate for the Filter song goes much deeper, so back to my explanation . . .

We had this thing in the kitchen called a proofer. It looked like a big stainless steel refrigerator, and was basically sort of a low-temperature steam oven. All of our bagels were shipped to us frozen and pre-shaped. At night, we would take the frozen bagels, place them on baking sheets, and then place the sheets in 6' tall baking racks. Each rack held about 20 sheets, about 300 bagels in all. We'd roll the baking racks into the walk-in cooler to thaw slowly overnight-- a process known as 'slacking'.

Each day at around 3:30 am, when my baker would call me either from the county jail or a 'kegger' telling me he wouldn't be in that day, I'd show up for work by myself to bake fresh bagels for the morning rush. I would take the baking racks out of the cooler and begin applying toppings (e.g. cinnamon/sugar, garlic, minced onion, sesame seeds, etc) to the bagels as necessary. Once the bagels were topped, I would roll the rack into the proofer (big steamer fridge-looking thing) to bring the dough up to a consistent internal temperature and proper level of humidity. The pre-baking temperature and humidity of the dough are essential for ensuring the bagels will have that delightful, chewy texture. If the dough isn't wet enough, the bagels will have a dry and bread-like consistency and no one wants that. If you wanted to eat bagel-shaped bread, you'd buy your bagels from a supermarket. If the bagel dough is warmer on the surface than in the center, or if the center is still partially frozen when you put them into bake, the bagels just turn into crap.

Sorry, I got side-tracked again for a minute there. To the point: The smell of raw bagel dough is not in and of itself a bad thing; nor are garlic, caraway seeds, cinnamon, or asiago cheese in any way offensive by themselves. But when you open that proofer door to retrieve the rack of raw, multi-flavored, fully-topped bagels from their hot steam bath . . .man oh man . .. the aromatic assault of humid, toe jam-esque funk is nauseating beyond description. (Imagine combining the smells of sweaty gym socks, cinnamon, garlic, chocolate chips, and yeast, and you might kind of get the idea.) And since I'm not a morning person to start with, I already began each day with a stomach ache. To make matters worse, I would down something like 11 or 12 espressos throughout the morning to keep me awake.

I started my job at the bagel shop right after New Year's. Everyone who knows me knows that I love cologne and Karolee had given me a bottle of Armani's Acqua di Gio that year for Christmas. It's a light, clean, almost soapy smelling cologne and I LOVED it. So like anything I get excited about, I went totally overboard and wore WAY too much of it everyday for weeks on end. But after a month or two of waking for work in the middle of the night, getting kicked in the nostrils every morning with that warm cinnagarlic-footonion-dough smell, and drinking myself sick with espresso, the cologne started to make me gag. Every time I put it on, all I could think of was asiago cheese. It was like a $60 bottle of cologne and I had to give it away to Karolee's brother because I couldn't stand it anymore.

Hearing that Filter song has almost exactly the same effect. That song actually SMELLS bad to me. I still gag every time I'm near someone who's wearing Acqua di Gio. I lasted at Einstein's for all of about 8 months. I don't hate the company, though I do blame them for causing me to know what it is to really, really hate something. And I don't hate the guys from Filter for writing that song, and I don't hate Giorgio Armani. But I bet NONE of them ever has ever baked a single bagel.

So now you know. . .

Please. Don't hate,

Jake

Welcome to America! What would you like in your Super Bowl?

I make no secret of the fact that I am not a football fan. In fact, I'm not a 'sports' guy at all. For the most part, I don't play, watch, or really care one way or the other about them. There's just not much there to hold my interest. Given the choice, I fully admit that I'd rather curl up on the couch with my wife to watch Say Anything or Shakespeare in Love (for the 47th time) than hang with boys to 'watch the big game'. And most contemporary psychological theory would tell me that's okay. Back me up here, Oprah. But I digress . . . .

Despite my almost categorical disinterest in sports, as a kid I did devote that requisite three hours per year with my family downstairs on the couch. While we inhaled our hoagies, Doritos, and clam dip, I did my best to feign interest as we watched the big, sweaty, testosterone-and-steroid saturated men in helmets dance their ackward end-run cha cha's across our giant 20" Technicolor RCA.

The appeal for me was more the combination of clever commercials and junk food than the game. An hour afterward, I would have been hard pressed to tell you what the final score was. But did you check out that new Dr. Pepper commercial?! How'd they get those people to dance on the ceiling ? Probably super powers or something. Amazing. To this day, I love Lionel Richie and Dr. Pepper equally.

So speaking of Dr. Pepper, multi-million dollar airtime, and unbridled capitalism, I was reading the Tribune last Saturday. As expected, the news in Arizona is of course all a buzz this year with Superbowl hype. I normally skip right over the sports section, but as I was making breakfast Karolee was scanning the headlines. She started reading an article to me about what people are willing to pay these days for a good seat. Any guesses? $500? Nope, you can't even tailgate within city limits for that. $1000? Keep trying. (although your Grover Cleveland will will buy you a big new wall-mounted plasma and all the Keystone Light you can drink).

Okay, you really want to know? The average price for a ticket (in the nosebleeds, mind you) is around $4000. The most expensive ticket is upwards of $18,000!!

That's one-eight-comma-zero-zero-zero.

When she read that, I stopped my egg making mid-scramble and rushed to the table, sure that there must have been either a typo or a misplaced decimal. But sure enough, someone-- apparently lots of someones-- out there are willing spend $18,000 to get close enough smell the B.O. and Gatorade. That's around $6000 an hour to sit on a plastic seat, watch some football , and bear witness to a 'live' Britney lip sync (tube sock arm-cozies and all) or experience a celebrity wardrobe malfunction. Maybe you get free appetizers and cocktails.

But $18,000. . . I was speechless. I don't consider myself particularly thrifty and I'm not immune to materialism. But something about this struck a chord. As I stood there mystified, my mind was reeling. My vision blurred. My stomach began to turn. TV commericals from my 1980's adolescence started swirling and overlapping in my head. For an instant, I was Sally Struthers, standing outside a desolate plague-ridden Ethiopian village, pleading to 30 million white, middle-class suburbanites on the other side of the camera lens. "For just 79 cents a day, this poor emaciated little girl can receive three meals a day, clothing, and the medicine she so desperately needs . . . "

Then it all clicked.

Those charity case commericals used to get under my skin. There was actually a time long ago when I wondered why so many foreign cultures despise Americans. If you're still wondering, you don't have to look beyond my newspaper. I even saved a copy for you.

It's not you they hate. It's not me. It's not even wardrobe malfunctions. It's not who we are. It's what you, me, and Britney can and often do become. And it all has to do with perspective.

From the 'outside world's' perspective, Americans live in a big, fast, pretentious, overcommercialized, overweight, shallow, misguided world. Yes, we all know this. We are the Ugly Americans. Everything has become Walmart. People spend more on cars than I did on my house. My house could provide shelter for 17 families in Mogadishu.

Our counterparts in foregin countries see us bask in our ignorant, wasteful, overconsuming, and sheltered bliss. They see our shrines as football arenas packed with money-laden fanatic fans watching armored warriors battle for domination. They see . . . well . . .you get the picture. I don't think the Superbowl is inherintly evil. I don't think that capitalism, sports, or 'finally getting your piece of the pie' are bad things either. I like pie.

I was going to go into the this elaborate, scathing criticism on the shortcomings of Western society and how disconnected we've become from the things we claim to value-- like charity, compassion, identifying a freind in need, helping those who can't help themselves. I was going to talk about all that, but I won't. Karolee told me I need to drop it.

She's right. But . . .

What I will say is that if you feel even just a teeny little bit like I did when you found out that a ticket to the Superbowl costs $18,000, then there are things you SHOULD and SHOULDN'T do about it. You SHOULDN'T spend an entire week festering and obsessing over how warped and selfish this country has come.--like I did. Instead, you SHOULD sit down on the living room floor on a Saturday night and talk to your wife (or husband) . He or she might remind you that change starts with helping our own families, neighbors, friends, donating clothes you don't need, etc. And with that said, I hope I'm not a hypocrite.

I, like everyone else, could be doing a little bit more. I don't have an extra $18,000, but I probably have an extra $1.80. Buy a bum a Coke and sit down and talk to him. Listen to his story (I had a friend named George whom I should thank for that suggestion; without his example I would have never gained the insights that I did from Phil and Freddie 'The Dreamer' Wall). Go volunteer somewhere. Get to know the family next door to you. It doesn't matter. If you give a little more, someone else might not have to take so much.

I just hope someday Americans, with all that we have access to, will reach a point at which they care as much about that filling that emaciated little girl's rice bowl as they do packing the Superbowl. That's all.


Keep it in perspective,


Jake

A Letter From God (It is Sunday after all, right?)

This is a lyrical piece by a freestyle MC from the UK who goes by the handle 'Scroobius Pip'. I hadn't heard of him before this afternoon. Karolee stumbled upon him online and we were both impressed. If you know me at all, you already know I love this kind of 'street prophet' heady intellectual hip hop stuff. The first thing Karolee and I thought to compare him to was sort of a British (gentile?) counterpart to Matisyahu (of whom we're both huge fans).

However you care to label him or his style of expression, it's hard to argue with the understated salience of this piece. Personally, I was blown away-- both by his message and its delivery. I can't wait to dig into more of his work. Some of his material is available on YouTube and MySpace (you can link to that page from his name above). From the looks of it, he's pretty much keeping things street level, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him blow up the way his 'kosher counterpart' (forgive me) did. But enough of my words . . . Happy pondering. This one'll make you think.

Panic Division is the Coolest Band in the World.

You would be better off if you were to watch the video for 'Big Day' by the Panic Division. Thus, I have provided it for you below. If you have doubts, you should know that I recently received confirmation from a number of trusted sources that they are indeed the coolest band on the planet. This band is amazing. Seriously. Please enjoy.