(Okay, time to write a Tuesday night. Hmm, how to begin.) All - (Good, stock beginning, low commital.) (Need some standard idle banter to get things rolling. Um… let’s try this.) So I went tubing this weekend. There is something satisfying about buying beer at 9:30am and drinking one of them by 10am. I thought that car insurance was a racket, but this has got it beat. Basically, to run a tubing company you need: 1) Nearby water 2) Tubes 3) A beat-up bus 4) A few stoners to run the operation 5) A really good liability waiver With these things you can make a killing. One note about tubing, make sure there is sufficient water in the river. Or barring that, make sure you have double the amount of beer you thought you’d need. (Not too shabby. Little humor. Universal appeal. Now for the report from last week… oh, this’ll be good.) So I wasn’t in town last week. I was in Kentucky. Outside of Louisville to be exact, at Fort Knox. Things that I saw near Fort Knox: * The Armored Acres Mobile Home Park * Big Pink Jerry’s Liquour Beer * Thorobred (sic) 3 and 4 - I make it a practice never to go to a strip club where the women are compared to livestock * A sign that read “Your car won’t start, your wife is ugly, your dog has fleas, come here and buy beer” - you can’t make this stuff up * One simple white concrete building that had a sign that said “beer” * A similar building that had a sign that read “girls” * Oddly, there was no third building that with a sign that read “beer and girls” * The only traffic jam I saw was due to the first night of the Kentucky state fair (On to the main rant… oh, shit, I don’t have a rant. Damn. I mean, ranting about KY is as fair as kicking a blind cripple. Until Chandra is found there isn’t much to write about there. I’m a little tired of the whole social capital thing right now. I must be tired, I can’t think of a damned thing to rant about… well, here’s a desperation shot.) I hate the trend in websites to add javascript that causes their windows to popup in front of everyone elses. It just bad design and quite annoying. (Quickly, end the email and hope that no one has gotten this far.)

Greetings from Kentucky. It is not too bad here. It very much reminds me of Vermont or even the drive along 70 from Baltimore to Harper’s Ferry. I have not seen identifiable Kentucky Blue Grass… it all seems pretty green to me. I have seen the gold depository at Fort Knox… from a distance. It is near the highway with some big fuck-you fences around it, but it doesn’t look that heavily patrolled… hmm, that could be worth investigating. News from last week: The big news was that Lisa was in town. Good job Lisa! The other big news was that Lisa blew up Toledo Lounge. Good job Lisa! She was sitting just a few feet away from the manhole cover that blew on 18th St. This disturbing trend of exploding infrastructure is a bit concerning. It was all fine, well, and good when this was limited to Georgetown, because, really, who goes there anyway. But now it is striking 17th and 18th streets… not good. Joe’s theory is that it is some anarchist plot to undermine the government from the bottom, from below. What I really did want to write about: Bowling Alone. Go get this book: Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam. This book is (so far, as I haven’t finished it yet) a summation of a lot of the themes that I have been trying to address through Tuesday Night, that Joe has been trying to address through 365 and the wine bar. Putnam is a professor of public policy at Harvard. He has researched the loss of social capital. He has studied how all major organizations: religious, professional, political have all suffered a massive loss of participants and that these losses effect society as a whole. This is a fascinating book. He makes the interesting point, for instance, that traditional religions, like Catholicism, are more likely to do community outreach work, while newer, evangelical religions, are more centered around the self and self-help and salvation. The overall trend has been for the last fifty years that American’s focus has shifted from the betterment of community to the betterment of self. Putnam’s major point is that a well connected society, a society in which people of all kinds mix and mingle via organizations, is a stronger society. Sharing time with people different from you makes you better. Now, I am only 90 pages into the 500+ page work, but I am blown away on several fronts. 1) The book is amazingly approachable. Yes, Putnam cites source after source and weeds through some heady sociology, but he does it in a simple and straightforward manner. 2) The overall decline in the American society community is staggering. Groups have shifted from things you serve on and work for to things you write checks to. AARP is not about making connections within the senior community but getting their lobbying voice heard on the Hill. We have turned inward and have used our checkbooks to act outward. 3) How simple a case this can make for Sunday night dinners with friends… or beers on Tuesdays.

For those of you who missed last week’s Tuesday… which was most of you… it was, by far, one of the more bizarre evenings. Lemmie set the scene with Joe, myself, and a drunk and stone Rasta, who knew Joe via the taiji school. Joe and I were just settling into a nice birthday beer, when Rasta man, let’s call him, Bob (which is not his name), says, “Hey, you’re Joe.” And from then on, Bob did not shut up. First, it was stories and plans. He is planning on going to Prague, taking with him his sewing machine, his drill (he is a locksmith), and figuring it out there. Second, it is the discussion of intent versus intend. He intended to knock Joe’s lighter into his beer… this is where I started looking for an exist think that claret might ensue. Then, we moved on to religion. Faith is not belief according to Bob. He had faith that if he had one for Stella he would just up on the wall and rip off some of the knick-knacks thereon. It was in the religion discussion that the phrase, “You cannot escape the compassion of life,” was uttered. Finally, we closed out the evening with a discussion about butterflies, which Bob called flutterbyes, because in his word, “There’s no butter in those flies.” See? See what you miss if you don’t come to Toledo?

Well, for once, the travel gods have smiled my way. My trip to Jacksonville was cancelled. So I get to spend more time in Baltimore. My first meal as a 27 year old was cold meatloaf. I was on a con call and missed lunch. My coworkers had it wrapped and an hour later, I munched on cold meatloaf in a small huddle room at HCFA… there wasn’t even a candle in my mash potatoes. A note about vindication… I saw, I swear, an Urban Park Ranger van. Yes, Dianne is not insane (about this at the very least.) The Urban Park Rangers really exist. Fear them. Now on to the rant: Chain restaurants suck! I hate the general concept of them. The whole Morton’s, Ruth’s Chris, Legals Sea Food, Capital Grille, Cheesecake Factory thing, I am over. Why do I hate these places? Because people treat these places are fine dinning. They think that a good night out (not to mention a shit load of money spent) for a mediocre meal with passable service is a good time. Worse yet, people treat these places are cultural Meccas. My family went (against my vote) to Capital Grille in Boston. I was aghast at the prices for boring food. I have had far better for far less. I have had far better in my own kitchen… far better. And then. And then I saw the wine list and I saw the prices and I was just plain offended. Here’s an odd thing… I don’t usually get wine when I go out to dinner. Why? ‘Cuz I know what this stuff costs and see the prices jacked up two and three and four times is just galling. Its highway robbery. Now as a bidniss traveler, I am the first to admit than when you pull into a new town, it is nice to know what you are getting in terms of a meal. This is the only thing in favor of these chain jobs. There is another and far worse problem with chain restaurants. They screw the little guy. The local place, the mom and pop place, gets priced out of the market. If you are small shop, like Anne Cashion’s Cashions, you can buy at what the market dictates. But large chains, like Morton’s, can dictate the market because they buy in such huge volumes. The little guy has a harder time getting a better deal. And what happens next? The little guy has to pass on the higher cost of buy supplies to the customer and then you, the customer, get grumpy at the higher cost. (Very much like the Walmart effect.) What can you do? Number one, eat locally. Hunt out the local places run by local people to eat. Try Cashions. Try La Fourchette. Scour sidewalk.com to find something to eat that isn’t a chain. Number two, check out Slow Foods (http://www.slowfood.com/cgi-bin/SlowFood.dll/SlowFood_Com/scripts/Chisiamo/chisiamo.jsp?SlowFood=SF). These are people with the right mindset. So to the chain of foods, I say, “Fork you!”

So, tomorrow begins my 30 days of hard labor in Baltimore. I’d really rather spend 6 months in a salt mine, but that was not available. Yup, 30 days of driving back and forth from Baltimore. Joy! But at least the customer is cool… oh wait, that’s not really true. They’ve got the gold and thus they make the rules. Website: I have added the recipes from the Loire dinner, so if you are feeling adventurous and want to cook something awesome, check them out. In other news, I still haven’t figured out the JavaScript mystery yet and to be honest, I am not getting any closer to an answer… stay tuned. The Rant: So where do whores shop? Seriously? Do they make their clothes? Is there a hooker supply store somewhere in DC that I just don’t know about? I mean, where do you get a lime green pair of short shorts with a bright pink strip that just barely covers your nipples? The reason I ask is because Fitz and I were driving from the Dubliner to my house and saw some of the evenings finest near the new convention center. I suppose that it is easier to shop for pimps. First of, their clothes do not have to attract business. Second, its far easier to find a feathr boa and pork pie hat than it is to find an outfit completely made of fish netting. I guess we’ll never know. In other never knowing news, did you know that Bartles and James is not spelled that way? There is a “y” is Jaymes. Did anyone realize that? Not being a big wine cooler drinker, I should be expected to know that. (Guys with the name Winston and Reginald drink wine coolers.) But you just assume that there was not “y.” Or more accurately, there is no reason to expect a “y.” Why does this bother me so much? Dunno, maybe this is one of those Coppernican revolution in which nothing actually changes, the sun doesn’t actually move, but in the same regard, everything changes. Trust nothing. News: Never travel with Joe. His train to NYC caught on fire. This was one of the Acela trains. On fire. And no, it was not Mike Dukakis’ eyebrows bursting into flames. And then on the ride home, Joe’s train was quite packed. Why? Because another train caught on fire. Simple lesson here, never travel with Joe, or at least not by train. Special appearance at Toledo on Tuesday. So, I am not going to be alone in my time in Baltimore. Ken is going to be with me. With wife and daughter out of town, this leaves Ken with a kitchen pass that he is compelled to use. He is going to join us on Tuesday to, “See what all the hubub is about.” Join us, won’t you. Finally, Suzie revealed that July 3 was a record night at Toledo. She broke the weeknight receipt record by ringing up something like $8,000. The bar went through 10 cases of Lager. And guess what, at least two of those cases went to our table… good work!

Well this week kicks off the Access360 Garden Spot Tour 2001. The tour will be making stops at: * Fort Knox, KY * Sierra Vista, AZ * Jacksonville, FL * Montgomery, AL * Security, MD Needless to say, I am extremely excited to be a part of this wondrous affair. Good thing I have new games to play while I travel. Game #1 This game was created by Fitz in a moment of clarity. Think of your favorite band. Take the word in their name and change it to cock. 80s bands and country bands seem to do well in this game. For exaple: * A Flock of Cocks * New Rider’s of the Purple Cock * Big Head Todd and the Cocks You get the idea. For maximum enjoyment, play this game for at least three days straight, in public, around Dianne. Game #2 I’m not sure who created this game, but I believe I was close when it happened. Take a song title; change the last word in it to hole. Both Elton John and Peter Gabriel fair well at this game: * Goodbye Norma Hole * Bennie and the Holes * Shock the Hole * Digging in the Hole * In Your Hole * Big Hole Again, this game is easy to learn, but takes a lifetime of wasted moments to master. Website news: I need some help. I need all of you to go to http://www.tuesdaynight.org/menu/loire.html Go to the Pictures section and click on the pictures. I need to know if anyone gets JavaScript errors. There are reports of strange things going on. Please, please, please get me anything find.

The problem is that sometimes the advertising company convinces a customer that their campaign is properly focused, and it ends up having strange results. Consider the following: http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b02712253b6.htm (Please keep in mind that I found this article via Google. I do not, in any way, shape, or form read the Free Republic, nor do I condone rampant conservatism. Then I again, I very rarely condone rampant anything… except for, possibly, rampant, hot Swedish models in chocolate pudding.) White Rock Distilleries wanted to sell more rum to women. What they ended up with was a rum that marketed quite well to the gay population in Florida… which explains why I saw their billboard on Interstate 95 in Jacksonville. I think the interesting point here is that we can easily convince ourselves of one thing, and the perceived truth is something completely different. This is especially true of our own self-image. What we convince ourselves of what we think we are can be completely and totally off base when it comes to other people. Consider the follow gem of a lyric from Lou Reed and John Cale: The trouble with personalities they’re too wrapped up in style it’s too personal they’re in love with their own guile They’re like illegal aliens trying to make a buck they’re driving gypsy cabsbut they’re thinking like a truck We advertise our own self-image. We create an intricate facade. Much like The Matrix, we have any image of ourselves. This image is our interpretation of ourselves, which people then interpret. This game of Chinese Whispers goes on and on until it ends with a completely different self-image than when it started. Just be aware and careful what and how you advertise.

I want to give you all a decent amount of heads-up on this one. Josh is returning to DC for the 4th. I believe he gets to town in time for Tuesday Night next week. The Next Question Person 1: What do you do? Person 2: I wash windows. Person 1: Cool. … and that’s where it ends. People have become accustom to not asking the next question. (This rant brought to via a conversation with Ken. Also, there is a person on the list that actually asks the next question. I misinterpretted his ability once, and for that misinterpretation I am sorry. In order for this rant to work right, you need to shelve the traditional ideas of sellers and customers. Abstract your idea of what is selling and what is buying. You’ll read what I mean in a sec.) Consider a situation where you are purchasing something large like a car or a house. I know, personally, that you reach a certain point and you stop asking question because a) you don’t understand subject let alone the answer you are undoubtably going to get and b) you just don’t want to appear stupid or difficult. I watch my customers do this exact thing. Customer: Can this solve my problem? Ian: Yes. Customer: Cool. The obvious next question is… well, there are too many of them to list. The customer goes through this dance where they don’t ask the next question, which, by the way, would completely undermine everthing the seller has said, and the seller doesn’t say more than he needs to. Everyone understands the rules of this game. Almost everyone plays by these rules. So why do we all play this game? Why do we not ask the next question? Sure, you don’t want to look dumb. You don’t want to be a hard-ass. But. But, get real, more often than not, the next question is the question is crucial one; it is the question that has to be asked. Maybe I am approaching this wrong. Maybe we don’t ask the next question because we simulataneously know that the answer will destroy the other person’s agrument and we don’t want to hear them say it. Parishoner: Will every one go to Heaven when they die? Priest: Mostly. Except for people who take their own lives. And sinners. Sinner don’t go to Heaven. In fact, both of the later parties will roast in Hell. Parishoner: Cool. From the seller’s-side, we treat the customer who asks the next question as the hard-ass, the mean pariah sent to bust you up, the asshole. Seller’s know that the next question will blow them out of the water. It’s a dance; we all sell each other on everything, and in this exact way: You don’t ask, and I won’t tell. So, do we want to change this arrangement? I think we do. The informed customer certainly wants to ask the next question, and more importantly, they don’t give a crap about appearing stupid or assholent. We all need to get the information that we need, regardless of the social implications, and that is exactly what this dance is, a social one. What of the sellers? Is it in their best interest to change the dance? Tougher to say. I think they do. Last week I talked about the successfull salesperson who shares IPD. I believe willingness to answer the next question is another factor of a good salesperson. The really good ones answer the next question before it gets asked, and this way they can control the answer and its impact. Customers be strong; ask the next question. Sellers be ready for the next question, accomodate it.

So I jog from one gate to another in Denver on Saturday. I come screaming into gate B39 only to find a huge mass of people milling around. Obviously, something is very wrong as United hadn’t started boarding yet. Then I notice all the paramedics. And then I notice the guy on the ground. Some poor fella had a heart attack waiting in line to check in to my flight. There were two morbid comments made by people around me. One, “Imagine if he had checked in, boarded, we go in the air, and then he had a heart attack.” Good point. There is no where to land a 777 any place between Denver and Chicago, as far as I know. This guy would have been in really really bad shape by then. The second I made having seen the sign above the gate saying only center seats were available: “I guess he didn’t want a center seat.” Yeah, yeah, I know; I’m going to hell. So pertaining to the subject line of the email, I have a real estate transaction for one of you. My neighbors downstairs are moving. (They are pregnant and wanted a bigger place, so they bought a town house a few blocks away.) At any rate, their place to totally rocks. It is the inverse of mine, for those of you who have seen it. (You walk in to their living room and then go downstairs to the bedrooms.) They are about to sell this apartment this weekend and wanted me to put the word out that their place, and their parking space, are for sale. I believe they are going to list it at around 320. Let me know immediately if you are interested. Now onto what I really wanted to write about… This privacy thing is still bugging me. Consider the following quote from Senator Frank Church (Meet the Press, August 1977): “At the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology… I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency (the National Security Agency) and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” What is scary is not the fact that this quote is from 1977 and technology is immeasurably more advanced. What is scary is that this is a Senator talking. This is a man who is part of the elite, and he is deeply afraid. Afraid for himself. If there is no protection for a Senator, what do you and I have? The simple fact is that you and I aren’t that interesting to the government. Sorry, but it is true. (By the way, if you have ever left the country, the NSA is within its rights to use its technology on you. If you have never left our soil, you are supposedly immuned.) Shelving the government for a second, there are large corporations that have reams of data on each of us. But I am not concerned. Why? Because what they have is data, pure and simple. There are two kinds of information about people. The first kind, which I will deem Personal Privacy Data (PPD), is the kind of stuff that the government, corporations, and telemarketers collect. It is data. Hair color. Shopping habits. Credit info. Boring, boring, boring. Sure, in total, that information is vitally important, but it is lifeless. The second kind of information, which I will deem Intrapersonal Privacy Data (IPD), is the kind of information that you simply do not want anyone else to know unless you give it out. IPD is requisite for any sort of real relationship. It is our soft underbellies. It is deeply personal; information not about us, but information that actually comprises our identity. The reason why I am not extremely concerned about ECHELON and friends is because it consumes PPD. Which leads me to the real focus of this pieces: IPD. To be successful at anything, you must share IPD. Why do people fail at sales? Because they share PPD. “If you act now, I can get a special deal for you.” The bullshit salesman fails because all he or she relates in PPD. The really successful salespeople share IPD. They are honest. They truly share their customers pain. They share their own pain. Why do relationships fail? Because people do not trust one another enough to share their IPD. They don’t tell you why they really don’t like Los Angeles. They don’t let the other person see them when they are hurting. They aren’t willing to burden the other person in the relationship with their own problems, but in fact there is no burden at all. I posit that there are two kinds of people: those who deal in PPD and those who deal in IPD. PPD people work in volume across a shallow level. Their bounds are formed with other people on a PPD level. These are acquaintances-makers. They compare data: car, incoming, who did their eyes. See Queen’s “Is This the World We Created” for more details. IPD people work on a different level. They are slow to consider anyone a friend or partner because that status takes time to earn. They are more apt to make longer, but fewer bonds with other people. Both PPD and IPD people have their strengths and weaknesses, which I won’t discuss here. We live in a society that trades in PPD. I believe, and I could be totally off-base here, that Europe deals more in IPD. (Which quizzically explains the EU’s obsession with personal privacy, but I’m not sure how.) No real point to this rant, just wanted to make you aware of PPD and IPD.

I just completed the best O.J. Simpson imitation. You remember O.J.? No, not the knife-wielding, Bronco-passenger. O.J., the lovable scamp that did ads for Hertz. I sprinted from one terminal in Chicago to another. Only to find the doors to my flight closed. I conned my way onto the jetway and onto the plane. My seat, first class thanks to an upgrade, was waiting. I was pretty impressed with my sprinting abilities. Even better, they held the plane as it backed-up to put my bag on; I watch ’em do it. It was the least that United could do for me after leaving an hour late from Boston. I am reading The Puzzle Palace by James Bamford. It is an utterly captivating documentation of the National Security Agency. For the longest time I assumed that there was no way that the government could put together something like ECHELON, the system used to monitor all forms of communication all the time. In the midst of this book, not only am I confronted with proof that ECHELON, or some form of it, exists, but also that, yes, the government is that fucked up and the only reason that things work is because 10 times more money than is really required is thrown at every problem. So ECHELON exists. So Amazon abused information it gathered via Alexis. So every frequent buyer card you have discloses your every purchase. (A member of this list has an interesting defense to the Giant card. He went shopping with a female acquaintance you needed tampons. He suggested use his Giant card and thus screw up the nice orderly stream of data that Giant had pilfered from him to date. You know, a typical guy’s typical purchase: pasta, beer, water, ground beef, tampons… one of these things is not like the other.) People are so calm about this complete an utter lack of privacy. This has bothered me for a while. But, I think, I have unraveled the problem. The reason why, outside of a few squawkers and FTC lawyers (you know who you are), have been bitching about loss of privacy is because people actual don’t want their privacy. They have traded privacy for the three A’s: acceptance, approval, and acknowledgment. It used to be that people flocked to organized religion. Why? Acceptance, approval, and acknowledgment. They wanted to be accepted into something bigger than themselves. They wanted approval to raise a brood of kids, beat up on people different than them, and sell flowers at the airport. They wanted to be acknowledge for doing this good deed or that act of charity. Now, for the three A’s to really be meaningful they had to come from some large authoritarian source. I simply couldn’t turn to a friend and grant them the three A’s; I don’t have that kind of perceived authority. But organized religion does. You are now valued parishioner. The government does. You are now a valued citizen. Corporations do. You are now a valued customer. Why do you struggle so hard to get Premier status on United? Do you really get better service? Not really. I posit that you do that to get the three A’s from United. You are accepted into this “little” club. You receive approval and acknowledgment from them in the form of a little plastic card. Why do you join a country club? How does one live knowing full well that there is no such thing are personal privacy? Dunno exactly. I do know that if my privacy is going to be stolen / gifted away, I am going to get every perk I can from it. I think that this lack of personal privacy really shows how transient the outside world is. What I claim is mine is mostly an illusion of possession. I don’t own the work I do at work. I don’t own the right to personal privacy; I pay for it. And maybe that’s it. Maybe in the not to distant future, we will pay for privacy. We will pay for the right not to get reams of spam. We will pay for the right to skip through commercials on TV. We will pay for the ability to block banner ads. Maybe we can pay enough to watch all those extra copies of your credit report go up in smoke? I recently read a privacy note from Aetna; they do not purge themselves of your records if you charge your healthcare carrier. How much are you those records worth to you? And you know the real pisser about this model of privacy? The “interesting” people are the ones paying for privacy. Corporation are far more interested in the business traveler than the occasional family that flies home to Duluth for a reunion. Amazon is more interested in the CEO who buys ten books every month that the person who occasionally buys a book from Oprah’s booklist. (Face it Tai Chi for Dummies isn’t that interesting.) So what’s the Big Decision here? Start saving, consider faking your own death, and don’t act surprised when your various mailboxes (both electronic and real) are full of shit you just don’t care about.