얼마나 세계

A couple weeks ago, I was bored, and I ended up on North Korea's official website (http://www.korea-dpr.com/). It's kind of interesting, as far as propaganda goes. There's an in-depth biography of the "Great Leader," photo galleries of organized vacation groups - you can even register to go on one of these highly regulated 8 day trips, for just 2,350 euros (no cell phones or credit cards allowed).

But what intrigued me most was the Gift Shop section of the site. In it are any number of North Korean souvenirs. T-shirts, hats, laptop bags, beer steins, iPhone cases, greeting cards...you name it. It's all there, available for purchase. And the artwork is actually pretty cool. Propagandistic, colorful images invoking prosperity and strength. Like this one:

I actually purchased a baseball t-shirt, magnet and water bottle for myself. I'm sure I'm on some sort of government watchlist now, but whatever.

What struck me as most interesting, however, was that the gift shop is operated by CafePress. CafePress is an online retailer that sells all this junk - if you want t-shirts or ball caps with your company's logo on it, CafePress will print 'em up and sell 'em online, just like they've done for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. CafePress is an American company headquartered in San Mateo, CA.

And when I received my gift shop trinkets in the mail the other day, I looked at the bottom of the water bottle. Guess where it's made?

America.

I'm not really sure what to make of this strangely transparent commercial relationship that exists between the U.S. and the DPRK, considering all you hear in the media is that North Korea is our sworn enemy, ruled by a megalomaniacal madman. But I do know this: if I can buy a water bottle from North Korea, I should be able to buy a cigar from Cuba. I mean, come on already.

Guest Kvetch

As always, I'm honored to have people send me Guest Kvetches. This one comes from my good friend Jessie.


I love NY. Just as the t-shirt says. I love its long city blocks lined with pre-war deco-esque buildings. I love its ceaseless swelling sea of yellow cabs, mouthy citizens, killer shopping and the-best-meal-I-ever-ate eateries. I love that I saw a tranny Hasid once. New York is awesome.

But on a very recent trip to my favorite mecca of much, I found myself stupefied by a so-called “guest room” in a 4 star establishment. Now, when you’re traveling on business you can’t complain. Your airfare and stay are paid for. You get spending money for meals (or really cute fitted blazers with gold sailor buttons from really cute little hipster shops on Bleeker).

But there are limits.

Upon checking in, I was given the key to room 835. Eager to get inside after a long work and travel day, I slid my key into the slot, waited for the light to flash green and tried to push open the door. But something was obstructing its path. It wouldn’t open more than 7 inches. Strange. So I hoisted my luggage ONTO and OVER MY HEAD, pushed it through the door, sucked in and squeezed myself into the pitch darkness. It was the BED that hindered the door from opening. I therefore stepped ON the bed just to get to the other side of it, and therefore, into the room. I felt around for the “light”. A dim, Ikea desk lamp bolted to one of the four tiny walls. But never mind its low voltage. I had the brightest room in the hotel! Because every few seconds the 5-story, neon Billy Elliot sign would buzz and flash manically into my tiny window and light up the night. Wowee. 


I swallowed hard and opened the door to the airplane bathroom provided. The cold, stained, metal fixtures were ripped out of an old 747 for certain. When I flushed, it even popped loudly, startling me. I had to get the fuck out of there immediately.

With my coat still on, I headed back down to the front desk where I asked politely for another room. This coming from a girl who feels badly sending back an appetizer. When the concierge aloofly dismissed my articulate ask and informed me that the “hotel was full” and there are “no other available rooms,” I asked to speak to the manager. When she emerged from behind a black curtain (truth) it took her but a millisecond and the touch of a keyboard to half smile and give me a key to another room.

So wait. The concierge just lied to me? Again, weird.

The second room was definitely a step up. Still tiny, but not scary. And, I didn’t need to exercise contortion to get into it. I did however, continue to enjoy neon mood lighting…but this time from Mamma Mia. At least I know the words to that one.

God love ya, New York.

Eyesore

I went to dinner with a friend last night. While we waited at the bar for our table to be ready, she began telling me a story about something or someone, but I was having trouble paying attention, because I was distracted by the woman sitting behind her, a couple seats down the bar.

This woman, while otherwise attractive, had a hideously disfigured eye. She reminded me of one of the zombies on The Walking Dead. She wore glasses, which masked it a little bit, but it clearly appeared that her right eyeball was rotated about 75 degrees backwards, into her skull, and what was visible of her iris was clouded over with a milky blueish cataract. It was, in a word, disturbing.

I interrupted my friend in the middle of her story. "I'm sorry," I said. "I can't really focus on what you're saying, because the woman behind you has the creepiest eye I've ever seen."

"I have to see it," my friend said.

"No, it's not possible for you to just turn around and look. We have to somehow switch places so you can see it from where I'm standing."

She casually pretended to drop something, I shuffled over so she could pick up this imaginary object, and a few seconds later we had switched positions. I saw her face register mild horror. "I don't know how you were able to listen to even one word of my story," she said.

"I didn't," I said. "I couldn't."

The woman was with a man who, god bless him, did not betray anything out of the ordinary while he was conversing with her. I don't know if they were married or if it was their first date, but I felt bad for him. You can't avoid looking at something like that; it's not like a cauliflower ear or a hook-hand: you look someone right in the eyes when you speak to them.

This woman knows full-well how off-putting her zombie eye must be; the least she could do for her date, and the rest of society, is wear sunglasses, or an eye patch. That's what they make them for.

Mea Culpa

"I love the Niners. But we're going nowhere. There is simply no hope for this team."

-Me, July 30, 2011

With the 49ers sitting comfortably atop their division at 6-1, having won their fifth straight game yesterday, I think it's safe to say that I may have been a bit premature in writing them off this summer. It's possible I don't know quite as much about running a football team as Coach Harbaugh and the Niners' front office. Hey, I was wrong. And never been happier to be. GO NINERS!!!

You Can Judge a Book by its Chapters

Right now I'm reading Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen, one of the most highly acclaimed books published in recent memory. Oprah Winfrey loved it. So did Barack Obama, as well as pretty much every book reviewer in the world. So I was convinced I should go out and read it.

Well, I'm about a third of the way through. And although it is a pretty good story so far, I'll tell you one thing it definitely sucks at: having chapters. In 170 pages, there have been like three chapters. That, my friends, is simply unacceptable.

Chapters are necessary components of books. They represent story breaks, and thus, logical places to pause your reading experience. When I start a new chapter, I can refer back to the table of contents to see how many pages it is, and thus know how much time to budget for reading that day. This book doesn't even have a table of contents, leaving me to flip through page after page, growing anxious with despair as I realize there will be no natural story break for some 90-plus pages. That's a stressful feeling, which is the opposite of how I want to feel when I try to relax by reading.

When I find myself adrift in an ocean of pages, no island of a chapter in sight, I am left to have to try and determine to stop reading wherever it will be the least jarring. But when I pick the book back up again, I inevitably have to scan the two pages between which I put my bookmark, trying to find where I left off. This is confusing and irritating. It diminishes my reading enjoyment.

I also find this is a bit pretentious on the author's part. What, does he expect I have whole days and nights at my disposal to just do nothing else but sit and read his stupid highly acclaimed novel? He's an author; he's probably read books before. He knows they're supposed to have chapters. News flash, Franzen: even your brilliant prose can get a bit heady after awhile. It's not exactly light fare, with all your depressing relationship dynamics and whatnot. It's not Harry Potter. Which, by the way, kicks your book's ass in the chapters category.

Things You Should Not Hear at a Library

1. Loud talking
2. Babies screaming
3. Sawing through plywood
4. People yelling "Miss? Excuse me? MISS???"
5. Someone pounding a hammer against a counter
6. A man violently coughing incessantly
7. A doorbell
8. "When the Saints Go Marching In" cell phone ring

Contagion

I just went to see a movie. Per usual, I stopped at the refreshments counter beforehand and got a small popcorn and small diet Coke. After I paid, as I was gathering my movie snacks, the young lady behind the counter - I believe her name was Jaeshida, if I'm recalling that correctly (which is coincidentally my great-grandmother's name) - said to me, "The garbage is behind you."

"Okay, thanks," I said. "Where's the butter?"

She pointed. "The butter's right there. The garbage is behind you."

"Great," I said. I went and buttered my popcorn, then turned to walk into the theater.

"Are you leaving this?" she called after me. I turned around. She was pointing to the counter, where there was sitting the crumpled up straw wrapper I had unsheathed from my straw and left there while I had been ordering, without it even registering as a thought blip on my brain radar.

"Yes...?" I said, kind of confused as to why she thought I might be taking it with me. She looked back down at the wrapper and scowled. And when I mean "scowl," it was a full on, corners-of-the-mouth-turned-down-frowny-face. There was disgust on her face, as if a homeless guy had just ejaculated on her toes.

That's when it hit me: she had repeated telling me where the garbage was because she had anticipated me leaving my straw wrapper there on the counter, dozens of seconds earlier in the conversation. In that instant I felt horrible. I apologized, grabbed the wrapper, threw it away, then apologized again. She smiled, satisfied, and told me to enjoy the movie.

Only a minute later, when I sat down, did I start feeling angry. How many times had I left a straw wrapper on any counter, let alone a movie theater refreshment stand, and not given it a second thought, because it's a totally acceptable thing to do? I just gave this girl $10.75 for popcorn and soda; I'm totally within my rights to leave my crumpled up smidgen of paper on the counter. What, should I not leave my garbage on the theater floor when I'm done? You want me to pick up all the popcorn I've dropped and throw that away too? Blow me.

Jaeshida may not enjoy picking up my straw wrapper and throwing it away. It may not be a dignified responsibility. But you know what? That's part of her job. You don't like throwing away people's refuse? Great. Then don't be a garbage man, don't work at McDonald's, and don't work behind the counter of a popcorn stand at a fucking movie theater.