2009, The Year In Preview

My latest column for the Times; the first one of 2009.

For days now, I've tortured metaphors like some keyboard Dahmer, struggling to find the perfect comparison to explain how thoroughly the year 2008 sucked. None of my usual "complete suckage" standbys – various ex-girlfriends, Shaq's free-throw shooting, the Arizona Cardinals – seemed to do 2008 justice.

In the end, I came to a prudent decision: I'm going to forget the entire year ever happened. So if you flipped to this page expecting to read one of those annual newspaper column staples – the funny haha year-in-review piece – you're going to be halfway disappointed.

While I refuse to say one more word about the Hellish Year That Was, I fully intend to review a year in the pursuit of some yuks. The annum in question? 2009, for which I have nothing but high hopes. Here's how I see it breaking down:

Jan. 4th: After a drought of some 60 years, the Arizona Cardinals show up on a sunny Sunday afternoon to host their first home playoff game in most every Arizonan's lifetime. Sadly, the NFL neglects to tell the team that the game was actually scheduled for Saturday, the 3rd. The bad news? Without the Cards' present on Saturday, they lose to the Atlanta Falcons 47-0. The good news? The drubbing might have been worse had the team actually been in attendance.

Jan. 20th: In separate swearing-in ceremonies some 2,000 miles apart, Barack Obama becomes the 44th President of the United States while Jan Brewer takes office as the 22nd governor of Arizona. Obama's speech is marked by references to his campaign slogan, "Yes, we can." Brewer, meanwhile, coins what becomes the signature line of her time in office – "Really, I am?"

Feb. 17th: The East Valley Tribune, in yet another cost-cutting move, lays off all its reporters and editors and announces that it will publish a daily newspaper composed solely of "user-generated content." Publisher Julie Moreno explains, "You can come on down and write stuff or submit a picture and we'll find some space for it somewhere. It doesn't even have to be a story. Just make a list or something." Shortly after the press conference, Moreno lays herself off.

March 11th: Almost three months after the Valley's light rail system begins accepting passengers, 72-year-old Marvin Lipschitz of Mesa becomes Metro's first-ever rider. Lipschitz, a retired construction worker from Waukesha, Wisc., explains to the assembled media that he actually boarded the light rail car by mistake. "Whaddya mean, it's a train?" he asks. "I thought it was one of those 5 & Diner deals. I just want some onion rings."

May 3rd: After more than a year of disappointing Suns' fans, Shaquille O'Neal finally wins over the crowd when he dives for a loose ball and inadvertently crushes team owner Robert Sarver. Sarver suffers two dislocated shoulders and a sprained face in the collision, leaving him unable to cross his arms and stare smugly up at the Jumbotron – his preferred pose at every Suns' home game.

June 30th: As the fiscal year comes to a close, the City of Phoenix makes a last-ditch attempt to ward off bankruptcy – by attaching speed cameras to those poor hand-held sign guys who dance in place at intersections all around the city. "They're standing there anyway," explains Mayor Phil Gordon. "Besides, if we don't do this, we'll only have to hire them to hold 'Liquidation Sale' signs in a few weeks. It's that bleak."

July 4th: Undeterred by his second losing campaign for the White House, Arizona Republican John McCain announces plans to run for a fifth term in the U.S. Senate. McCain, just a few weeks shy of his 73rd birthday, livens up his own press conference by telling reporters, "Hey, get the hell off my &^%$# lawn, you *^$@^&!" He then drives 32 mph in the left lane all the way to Hometown Buffet for a 4:30 pm dinner fundraiser with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Sept. 14th: Angered by yet another editorial calling for his resignation, Sheriff Joe Arpaio raids the Van Buren Street offices of the Arizona Republic, proclaiming his intention to "arrest the Republic." Told that in America it's customary only to arrest people, not corporate entities, Arpaio explodes, shouting at the top of his lungs, "I'm the sheriff, elected by the people, and I'll do what the people elected me to do, because that's why they elected me. To do that. What they elected me to do! Be sheriff." Arpaio calls the raid a success after his men take 11 Republic boxes and Ed Montini's computer into custody.

Nov. 4th: With the 2010 election a year away, two Republicans announces their surprise candidacies for governor. Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley is the first to throw his hat in the ring, despite facing 118 criminal counts over questionable land deals. Within minutes, Congressman Rick Renzi – himself facing 35 criminal counts over a questionable land swap – also places his name into contention. The two hold a joint news conference where Renzi explains, "Usually Arizona governors get indicted while in office. We're already there, so why not us?"

Dec. 31st: With the Dow Jones hovering near 21,000, the Arizona Diamondbacks still basking in the glow of a world championship and the undefeated Suns and Cardinals also contending for titles, Times columnist David Leibowitz announces his retirement. "There's nothing left to complain about," says Leibowitz, a chronic whiner. "I mean, what am I supposed to do, be positive for a change?"

Right. Not likely to happen. Not this year. Not this lifetime.

My Opinion? Have An Opinion Already, Would Ya ...

You know who I would love to invite out to dinner? One of those undecided voters mentioned in the Gallup Poll pictured below. Check this out:


I get the folks who are registered and likely to vote for neither candidate. That 3 percent of the population just likes someone else -- Nader, Ron Paul, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Neutron, whoever. Can't blame them at all because neither guy in this race has much going for him in terms of inspiration. But the two presidential candidates are one thing if nothing else: Different from one another in tangible ways. McCain and Obama are different on the war in Iraq, different on Roe v. Wade, different on the role of government in our lives, different, different, different.

My question for the 5 percent of America who remains of "no opinion" (and I believe this would make for fun dinner chatter): If you haven't made up your mind yet, what exactly are you waiting for to reach the tipping point? Maybe tomorrow night during the second debate McCain will snap and karate chop Obama in the throat? Or perhaps Obama mutters something about "hating whitey" and flashes some gang signs?

That's a dinner I'd be up for attending. I just don't want to be there at the Cheesecake Factory while our undecided guests try to make up their minds.

Server: "So, are you folks ready to order? Why don't we start with you, ma'am?"

Sarah from Peoria: "Yeah. Uh, hmm. No. Yeah. I don't know. I'm stuck trying to choose between the chicken caesar salad or maybe the Oreo cheesecake. Which is better, do you think? Or maybe a Reuben sandwich. Jeez. Wow. Okay ... huh, maybe you can just come back to me?"

Love those people. We'll come back to them on first Tuesday in November, I guess. Comforting thought ...

An Election That's Anything But Black and White ...

Maybe it's all the time I've spent talking politics over the past few weeks, or maybe it's that I'm fully dialed into the election now. Whichever it is, Obama, McCain and the politics of race is the subject of my October Times column. Here's a preview:

Finally, the 4th of November looms and this endless season of sanctimony draws close to its conclusion. The polling and the crowning of a victor come not one hour too soon. For all the talk of history being made in this election cycle, first black this, first female that, the landmark that stands tallest to me is a new pinnacle of false piety from both sides.

Let me be abundantly clear here: For months I have examined both candidates, the combustible chameleon from Arizona and the cardboard cutout from Illinois, and for all that analysis I have come to feel that little more than a coin flip separates the two senators in terms of qualification to lead this country. Whoever wins, if there comes a 4 a.m. soon when the White House phone rings, I'm rooting for it to go straight through to voice mail.

You want a prediction? I feel confident I can pick a loser between Obama and McCain.

America. We are the poorer for having lived through Election 2008.

The funny thing is, the candidates haven't been the worst part of this billion-dollar beauty pageant. The two senators remind me of the renegade zoo lion who mauls his trainer suddenly one morning: They're just predators being predators. It's the gawkers at this zoo who I've found all the more insufferable. Republicans, Democrats, Obama lovers, passengers and conductors on the McCain Straight Talk Express, the media elite, the talk show blatherers – it's hard to imagine any of these folk know how shrill they sound, how much like bleating sheep, baa-baa-baaing their self-professed intellectual and moral superiority.

Anymore in 21st century America, people no longer seem able to simply disagree on politics. Now to hold an ideological opinion is akin to holding down a perch on Mount Olympus. You love the view where you are. Everyone else is beneath you, the masses not fit to breathe the same air.

A holier-than-thou tone has been everywhere this campaign season, most especially when the subject turns to race. I write this screed with a new poll from the Associated Press ringing in my ears, and with these opening paragraphs fresh in my head:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about 2.5 percentage points.

The net impact of prejudice in this race, according to the poll?

Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.

Excuse me while I go take a shower to wash off the self-righteousness that underlies that assumption.

What do I find so objectionable about this study, besides its potential divisiveness, flimsy math and lack of anything resembling courage? Only this: Its inherent racism.

Nowhere did the pollsters seek to measure the impact of skin color on this campaign in a 360-degree way. Nowhere did they ask the sorts of questions truly color-blind scientists would have asked: Like what percentage of blacks are voting for Obama based on race alone? Or what percentage of blacks have sworn off McCain as too melanin-deprived for their taste? And, even more interestingly, what percentage of whites find themselves leaning toward Obama not for his stands on Iraq or on abortion rights, but because they want to feel good about their open-mindedness, positive about their race-neutral ways, by virtue of their having cast a vote for a man whose skin tone bears so little resemblance to their own?

Of course race has played a role in this election. I'd be a fool to deny it, just as you would be a fool to assume that race can do nothing more than harm Obama. But foolishness is what you get when those who can at best only assume confuse their capacity to take a flying guess with the ability to peer deep into the electorate's soul.

Not to beat the metaphor of color into the ground here, but if there's one hue that defines the election of 2008 it isn't skin color or red states versus blue states, it's all the various shades of gray. Just as it's impossible to fully predict what's in a candidate's heart, it's similarly impossible to predict why any one voter makes any one choice once the curtain closes and it's time to punch chads.

Is it possible that the bigotry of a handful of American whites will keep Obama from the presidency? Without a doubt, just as it's possible that his race is – for a different handful of voters on the first Tuesday in November – the very best reason to vote for the man.

To me, the question was never black and white, never black nor white, never really about skin tone at all. For whom to vote is simply one more query with no good answer in a country where everyone seems to hold their own version of the truth as the word of God.

Somewhere down the line, maybe we'll all stop asking which side we're on and instead wonder aloud about why we were so sure in the first place.

Well, at least no one will be left wondering how I really feel, huh?

Better Dead Than Well Read ...

I've always been a freak for lists. When I was a kid, you couldn't pry the Book of Lists out of my hand. Now I'm always up to compare my endless opinions against someone else's. So the English geek in me was sort of entranced by this story from the London Times:

10 Books Not To Read Before You Die

The producer of at least three television shows that you may quite like shares with us his definitive list of books that just aren't worth the bother

Richard Wilson

Recommended lists of ‘essential’ reading are the most pernicious ‘to do’ lists of all. Lists of physical achievements or magical holiday destinations or wonderful restaurants or fabulous hotels make you feel like your life has been wasted; a list of great books you should have read makes you feel like your brain has been wasted.

Most people embarking on a journey into a new book will feel they have to hack through a hundred pages of dense undergrowth before their conscience will allow them to give it up as a lost cause. But how many people feel secure enough in their own judgment even to do that? How many times have we all ploughed on to the end to find there’s actually no treasure after all? A book, even a useless one, can take several days out of your life so it’s a big investment.

The best way to fight the massed ranks of recommended books is with an offensively glib and, if possible, ill-informed reason for not bothering with them.

10: Ulysses – James Joyce

There’s a brilliant scene in the much-underrated sitcom It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, when Sergeant Major Williams (Windsor Davies) snatches a book from Mr La-di-dah Gunner Graham and says:

‘What’s this you’re reading? Useless?’

‘Ulysses, Sergeant Major.’

At school I remember my English teacher saying that he knew no one who had managed to get to the end of it. It does sound rubbish, doesn’t it? I’d have thought it was the duty of a great book to drag you along to the last page. But in a way, that’s good to know: if it’s famously hard going you have the perfect excuse not to bother with it.

9: Lord of the Rings – J R R Tolkien

The best I can say about this book is that it was a very useful tool at school for helping to choose your friends. Carrying a copy of Tolkien’s monstrous tome was the equivalent of a leper’s bell: ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ I knew I would have nothing in common with anyone who had read it. Their taste in music, clothes, television, everything was predetermined by their devotion to Gandalf. Without a shadow of a doubt, in a few years, these people would be going to Peter Gabriel gigs and reading Dune.

8: For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway

The Hemingway style is impressive at first. Simple sentences with few descriptions. They avoid adverbs and adjectives and, as a change from the over-elaborate works of Dickens and Austen, it’s OK for a while. Then you realise it’s a bit dry and boring and the more you find out about Hemingway, the more you realise he was a bore too: a terrible macho bore obsessed with bullfighting, guns, boxing and trying to catch big fish; really quite a tiresome bloke you wouldn’t want to spend time with.

7: À la Recherche du Temps Perdu – Marcel Proust

Yes, yes, he tasted a biscuit that made him think of childhood, we’ve all done that. If I want to remember my childhood I look at some photographs.

6: The Dice Man – Luke Reinhart

Basically, this fairly unpleasant bloke does whatever his dice tell him to do, which is often quite terrible. But there’s a flaw in the structure of this book. He writes down an option for each number of the dice and then lets the dice decide what he should do. ‘Throw a six and rape the woman upstairs’?! How did that get on his list of things to do? If he’d written down, ‘Throw a six and have three crispy pancakes for tea’ he wouldn’t have got into so much trouble.

5: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S Thompson

Dreary ramblings of an unreliable and workshy tosspot. Its sole distinction consists in the creation of ‘Gonzo journalism’, which made it OK for journalists, particularly rock journalists, to get shit-faced with whoever they happened to be writing about.

4: The Beauty Myth – Naomi Wolff

I don’t know if Naomi is a genuine academic – I couldn’t be arsed to Google her – if she is, she is probably Emeritus Professor of the bleeding obvious. The Beauty Myth is about how women feel under pressure to look good and lose weight. There you go. That’s it. I could get a similarly sophisticated level of socio-political analysis from the fishwives on Loose Women.

3: War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

Way, way too long.

2: The Iliad -- Homer

The very idea that you are somehow culturally incomplete without knowledge of Homer is ridiculous. The Iliad is one of the most boring books ever written and it’s not just a boring book, it’s a boring epic poem; all repetitive battle scenes with a lot of reproaching and challenging and utterances escaping the barrier of one’s teeth and nostrils filling with dirt and helmet plumes nodding menacingly. There’s a big fight between Achilles and Hector and that’s about it.

1: Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

From what I can gather it’s Mills and Boon from the olden days, and really boring Mills and Boon at that. I did try reading a Jane Austen novel once, but it hadn’t got going by fifty pages so I guiltily gave up; the characters spoke in a very oblique way and it seemed to be all about hypocrisy and manners and convention; worse than that, it was really difficult to find the doing word in a sentence.

True confession time: Out of the 10, I'll admit to having read four: Lord of the Rings (I was like 10), For Whom The Bell Tolls (can't avoid Hemingway if you get a Master's in lit), Fear and Loathing ... (a journalism school requirement) and Pride and Prejudice (I was getting in touch with my inner chick lit self). Truth be told, they all kind of sucked, at least in the sense that I wouldn't read them again even if I was on a five-hour flight to New York without a book and I found one of them in the seat-back pocket. But, jeez, how do you make a list like this and leave off so many prime candidates. My Top Five additions?

1. Anything at all by Joyce Carol Oates. In the time it took me to write this blog entry, she wrote another 700 pages of dreck.

2. Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon. Makes a great doorstop.

3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon. Great writer. Not a great work, no matter what the critics say.

4. Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison. Call me a racist if you must, but it just doesn't illuminate much of anything for me.

5. This blog. If you're here now, you should really reconsider your taste in e-literature.

Which Side of the Ball I'm On

The other night at dinner, my new friend Brian was telling me about how he views his approach to life. I'm paraphrasing, but you'll get the idea:

Him: "I guess I've always been more about playing defense than playing offense. That's something I'd like to work on more. I should play more offense."

Me: "I'm not sure what you mean?"

Him: "Defense is more reacting to things. Offense is more about making things happens. Defensive people, I guess, they just capitalize on whatever happens to find it's way to them. Offensive people search out opportunities. They find things."

His explanation was a good one, though I didn't realize how good it was until last night when I was walking through downtown Portland back to my hotel. It was a perfect night, cool and breezy, the streets teeming with people determined to savor every last hour of this gifted stretch, and it gave voice to what I've been thinking the past few days:

God, I could so live here. Really, I should just up and move.

That was when I fully understood what Brian meant by offense versus defense. An offensive-
minded person would have commenced finding ways to make such a move happen. Instead I began to find reasons why I could never do it:

What it would do to your career? How could you earn a living? You don't know but a handful of folks – could you make all new friends? What about the friends you'd leave behind? You could never sell your house in this market. That would suck. Could you really build a whole new life here, ground up, at 43 years old?

The more I went over it in my head, the more I felt the split between offense and defense. There was a time, all through my 20s and into my 30s, where I was far more on offense, when I'd gamble with my life in a moment to make some half-assed dream happen. That wasn't a bad thing: It led me to writing as a life, to journalism, to move out West, to enough self-discoveries to make happiness a possibility. Somewhere along the way, though, my tolerance for risk began to diminish and I became more about protecting what I have as opposed to trying to amass more. I'm not saying this version of me is bad or good – it simply is. I still take risks, and I'm glad I do. Playing offense has led me to advertising and to friends like Louie and Kat and Jos, who have taught me so much about the kind of man I long to be. Now, though, there's less I'm willing to risk, less I'm willing to throw down as a bet. I'm on defense more, looking to ward off disaster, looking less to create opportunities and more to avoid the sorts of bad choices that you might label "the opposite of opportunity."

Maybe I'm content this way and maybe that means I'll never live in Portland. Or maybe, like Brian, I should encourage myself to play more offense, to risk more in an effort to get more. We shall see …

A True Believer Among Us ....

It never ceases to amaze me, in this Age of Apathy, how some folks have managed to retain their passion for politics. Me, I think of election cycles as a game, a farce cast full of clowns on both sides. I know that sounds cynical, but I've spent too much time around politicians and I've heard too much bullshit rhetoric and pandering to be swept away by anyone's sound bites. The folks who have stayed full of fire, the ones who still get excited by the speeches and the possibility of hope ... I really admire them.

Like my pal Juliana.

Just this morning, we were sitting around her table in Portland when talk turned to the presidential election. She's an avid Dem (me, I'm avidly contemptuous of both parties) and she couldn't be more appalled by John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as VP. I think her quote went something like, "To have that woman a heartbeart away from the presidency, I can't even imagine it. And McCain, he's 72 years old."

That's when I made my near-fatal mistake. I compared Obama to Palin.

Me: "What qualifies him to be president? What's on his resume?"

Juliana: "Grrrrr. Grumble. Grrrrr."

Me: "Seriously. The guy was a community organizer, then in the Illinois State Senate, then a U.S. Senator. Now he's ready to run the country."

Juliana (with blood in her eyes): "At least he's inspirational."

Me: "So now we're electing a president based on ability to inspire? How is that a qualification?"

You can imagine how badly the talk went after that -- especially when I admitted that I'd likely vote for McCain based on how well I've come to know him over the years (and the fact that he called me an "asshole" a few years ago, which is kind of cool). The moral to the story? That America was a simpler place back when we didn't talk politics in polite company. And that, for every guy like me, who thinks of the political process as a lame joke, there are still some true believers out there.

By the way, here's the coda to the tale. Juliana had a quote that deserves being memorialized for the next few years, at least:

"Mark my words, if McCain is elected president, we'll go to war with Iran within two years. Right after that, they'll appoint as many conservatives as they can to the United States Supreme Court, so I as a woman will no longer have any reproductive rights."

-- Juliana Lukasik
September 9, 2008

There you have it, folks. A vote for McCain could be a vote against uteruses everywhere.

A Daddy Yankee Folo Tale ...

Could it be that Daddy Yankee got dissed by Obama before he endorsed John McCain? Can't believe someone hasn't already popped a cap in someone's ass, yo. As Politico.com blogger Ben Smith reports this morning:

Dem: Obama rebuffed Daddy Yankee

There's some amusement today about John McCain's endorsement by the Puerto Rican performer Daddy Yankee, who has an assault charge and some some seriously racy lyrics.

There's a bit more backstory, though. A Democratic Party source tells me a representative for Daddy Yankee approached Obama's Latino outreach staffers earlier this year about possibly endorsing Obama.

But he didn't pass the vetting, and Obama's aides said they weren't interested in his support. So, apparently, he moved over to McCain.

A spokeswoman for the performer didn't return a call seeking comment on the claim.

UPDATE: Still no word from Daddy Yankee, but McCain spokesman Michael Golfarb emails: "That’s a 'Ludacris' suggestion, and given the number of shady characters and organizations that have endorsed Barack Obama, we find it hard to believe the Obama campaign has turned down any endorsements at all. After all, you can’t vet the vetters.

Another non-campaign source, however, tells me there are a few other prominent entertainers Obama's turned down for somewhat similar reasons.

It's Post Time, kids!

Here's a tip for you: There's only one truly great weekly radio show detailing everything you've ever wanted to know about greyhound racing. How can I be so sure of that?

Because there's only one weekly radio show about greyhound racing total.

It's called Post Time and it's on XTRA 910AM here in the Valley. You can listen to perhaps the most motley crew in broadcasting (me, track handicapper Ansel Styles Jr., track announcer Rick Gomez and trainer/barbershop quartet genius Clifton Gray) every Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Arizona time. All you have to do is click here.

Come on -- you know you want to.

Such Pleasure, So Guilty ...

My column for next month's Times involves "true confession time" at Chez Leibowitz. The subject: Guilty pleasures. More specifically, my sudden affinity for a certain group of falsetto-singing Australian brothers.

Yep. The Bee Gees.

I know. How horrible is that to admit?

If you feel like this bizarre love requires an explanation, let me just go ahead and let you read the column:

We begin this month with a confession. Trusted friends have advised me to keep this information to myself, to guard it with the sort of vigilance usually reserved for grand jury testimony, the final episode of "The Sopranos," and the Arizona Cardinals' five-year rebuilding plan. I just can't do that.

Why not, you ask? Mainly it's the shame, is what it is. I've been carrying an enormous burden around for weeks, and lately the weight has been stone-heavy, a gravity so thick it's immobilizing. Confession seems like the only the option. Just tell all and pray that Pascal, the 17th century French mathematical genius, was correct.

"The only shame," he wrote, "is to have none."

Of course, Pascal died in 1662 at age 39 and spent most of his life studying geometry and physics, so he might not be the best guide on the subject of guilt.

Deep breaths, deep breaths. Okay, here goes.

I love the Bee Gees.

Wow, that's gonna leave a mark. Seriously, did I just type that out loud? Ah … you know what I mean.

Having now emasculated myself both in terms of gender and intellect, let me clarify. One, I didn't know I loved the Bee Gees until a few weeks ago. And, two, I only love really, really old Bee Gees, before the whole unfortunate "Saturday Night Fever" thing happened.

Trust me, I'm as shocked as you are by this revelation. It started when I caught a snippet of a song on the radio, a tune full of high harmonies and Australian accents that immediately took me back 40 years to growing up in Queens, to my parents' old Kenwood turntable and to the click of an LP dropping into the play position. The lyrics bored their way through me:

In the event of something happening to me,
there is something I would like you all to see.
It's just a photograph of someone that I knew.

That song from 1967 – "New York Mining Disaster 1941," by the way – stayed in my head for a week, until I tracked it down using a combination of Google and iTunes. Thirty-odd bucks later, me and the Brothers Gibb have reunited. "Massachusetts," "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart," "Lonely Days" – suddenly my iPod looks like the soundtrack to a bad acid trip circa 1972.

If it makes you feel any better about me, I swear I also love Radiohead, the White Stripes, improvisational jazz, and Beethoven's "Pathetique" sonata. Think of the Bee Gees as a guilty pleasure. That's what I've started to do and it's made me realize something (besides the fact that I don't have a heckuva lot of taste):

Guilty pleasures just might be the best pleasures of all.

I mean, how else do you explain the fact that a truly crappy TV show like "America's Got Talent" hauls in 13 million viewers on an average night, or about nine times what the average PBS prime-time show draws? Or check out the hourly sales rankings on Amazon.com. Four of the first nine spots belong to the vampire novels of Arizona's own Stephenie Meyer. That whirring sound you hear? That's Bram Stoker, the guy who wrote "Dracula," spinning in his grave. Meanwhile, how are sales going for 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Doris Lessing?

She's in spot 5,725 for her most recent work, "Alfred & Emily."

If it's in good taste or it's good for you, it seems we in America pretty much want no part of it. This explains why there's a "Hotel Erotica Cabo 34: Skin Deep" on Cinemax tonight, but no Francis Ford Coppola-directed sequel called "Apocalypse Now 2: Apocalypse After." A great chef like Chris Bianco, he's got two restaurants. Olive Garden has 643 locations and nearly $3 billion in sales around the world.

Who would have imagined mankind had that much love for an $8.95 "Never Ending Pasta Bowl™," huh?

As for me, Big Chief Little Taste here is working hard to get more comfortable and purge all that guilt I've been toting around. Clearly I'm not the only one who's ever invested $16.99 in "The Essential Neil Diamond." And I'm going to stop apologizing right now for the night a few weeks ago when I clicked past "Citizen Kane" on AMC to watch "Sunset Tan" on E!

For a long time, I've lived in mortal fear that some provost from back East would show up and rescind my Master's degree in English upon discovering that I religiously read the detective novels of Michael Connelly. No more fear; no more apologizing; no more living in the cultural closet.

Laugh if you want, but I like US Weekly more than U.S. News and World Report. I fall asleep whenever I read anything that involves the words "thou" or "methinks" – sorry Shakespeare – and given the choice, I'd choose a Quarter Pounder with cheese over some French epicurean's blanquette de veau.

And yes, lately I've become more than a little obsessed with the falsetto-voiced soundtrack from my childhood. I'm not beating myself up any more for this stuff. Laugh if you want; give me hell if we meet on the street. There will be no weeping here. Instead, I choose to believe in the genius and wisdom of the Brothers Gibb, who famously wrote in their 1968 Top 10 smash, "I Started A Joke."

I started to cry, which started the whole world laughing, Oh, if I'd only seen that the joke was on me.

Truer words, people. Truer words have never, ever been written.

"New York Mining Disaster 1941" really is a pretty good song, I swear. Listen for yourself here.

Pouring La Gasolina on the McCain Campaign

Figuring out which guy to vote for for President has been bugging me for the past few weeks. The more I pay attention to the race, the more confused I get. Fortunately, now that Daddy Yankee has weighed in, I feel like my mind is made up:

Daddy Yankee endorses McCain at Central High

Aug. 25, 2008 10:14 AM
Associated Press

PHOENIX - Reggaeton artist Daddy Yankee endorsed Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Monday, citing the senator's support of Hispanics and his immigration efforts.

The endorsement was announced at a 10-minute event at an ethnically diverse high school in Phoenix where McCain's wife, Cindy, graduated in 1972.

Some of the 120 students in the room gasped loudly and yelled when McCain introduced the Puerto Rican singer, who became a world celebrity with his song "La Gasolina."

Daddy Yankee, who hugged girls and shook hands with boys, says he believes McCain is the best person to lead the nation.

The singer is considered an innovator in reggaeton, the catchy form of music from the Caribbean that combines different genres including hip-hop.

I'm really hoping to see Daddy Yankee recut the "Gangsta Zone" video, with Senator McCain rapping the Snoop Dogg part. The lyrics:

1 for the money, and
2 for the gangstas,
3 hot shots that pop for the wankstas,
Top Dogg, S and douple O, P
The gangsta mac, a G
From the L.B.C
I'm on the go,
I get the doe,
I let em know I bust a hoe,
I'm shakin' up a shivero,
That every where a n*gga go,
This will be,
The day we will always "G"
Turn around get em' up,
Put em down (I Fall back)
Take my hand,
We could have a little fun in the van,
I'm the man with gun in his hand,
I don't plan,
On stayin' around,
I'm just playin' around,
I'm all about layin' you down,
Now g-get up, (get up)
Before i'm a have you hit up, (hit up)
And if you say the wrong set i'm get you you f**ked up, (f**ked up)
The deal?
You know the drill,
Kick rocks muthaf**ka,
And tell ya b*tch to come here, foreal.

They must be very worried over at Obama headquarters this morning. Forreal, dawg.

My Tongue Turns To Dust

Music means a lot to me: It shifts my mood as much as any antidepressant could; it helps me understand myself and the world around me; it makes me feel less lonely. And music has an uncanny way of pinning itself to a moment, of being in exactly the right place at the right time.

What do I mean? Only that I believe in a sort of musical karma. Songs find us at the moment we need them, like this Wilco song did for me this morning while I was riding my bicycle:

"Please Be Patient With Me"

I should warn you
When I'm not well
I can't tell
Oh, there's nothing I can do
To make this easier for you

You're gonna need to be patient with me

I'm this apple, this happening stone
When I'm alone
Oh, but my blessings get so blurred
At the sound of your words

I'm gonna need you to be patient with me

How can I warn you when my tongue turns to dust
Like we've discussed
It doesn't mean that I don't care
It means I'm partially there

You're gonna need to be patient with me

Well said, Jeff Tweedy. Well said. And in case you're wondering what the song sounds like, here's an acoustic version that looks like it was shot at Tweedy's house. Haunting. And so very true.

A Day In The Life ...

All the time people ask me, "So what's it like working for an advertising agency? Moses Anshell must be a ton of fun." I figured no one would believe my answer without proof, so here's a short video.

Early Morning of the Soul

Often lately I find myself preoccupied by what feels like an odd question: Who am I?

You'd think that wouldn't be one of life's true toughies to answer, not when you're 43 years old and a reasonably sentient human being. The thing is, it's one of those questions you can answer from about 62 different directions, from the most basic level to the seriously, geez-you-overthought-that, super-complex.

I could answer the question in marketing terms, for example, situating myself just past the middle of the 25-54 male demographic. Toss in a few other data points (Arizona resident, white-collar worker, post-graduate degrees, registered Independent, divorced, no children, dog owner, subscriber to Sports Illustrated, the New Yorker, Wired, owner of an iPhone) and you might have enough top-line information to begin roughing out my identity. Of course, if there's one thing making ads for a living has taught me, it's that all the demographic data in the world won't tell you much about any one person – with the exception of the person interpreting the data.

There's plenty of other answers I could throw out there. My name is David Leibowitz. That's an answer. I also could give you my Social Security number and my birthday. Then you could run my credit, delve into my financial past and get a sense of what I'm about. That would no doubt appeal to private detectives, journalists, ad agency strategists and political operatives, anyone whose guiding principle is the idea that we are the things we seek to keep hidden.

Another possible answer might come in the form of a narrative. That's a favorite of mine, because I love stories, love telling them and teasing them apart. Stories take a while to unfurl, though, especially something as ambitious as an autobiography. Beyond the investment of time, my story could end up boring the hell out of you, particularly because I'm by nature a private person likely to leave out the really juicy parts (since they're none of your business, dammit).

So what's the answer du jour then, the official August 21, 2008 version of who I am?

In his essay "The Evolution of the Shadow," Jungian analyst Edward C. Whitmont writes:

Ask someone to give a description of the personality type which he finds most despicable, most unbearable and hateful, and most impossible to get along with, and he will produce a description of his own repressed characteristics – a self-description which is utterly unconscious and which therefore always and everywhere tortures him as he receives its effect from the other person. These very qualities are so unacceptable to him precisely because they represent his own repressed side; only that which we cannot accept within ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others.

Lately I've been gripped by the implications of that statement, what it says about our dislikes and aversions and how our projections of those negative attitudes function as a window into one's identity. Who am I, you ask? Whitmont answers, "At least in part, at least unconsciously, you are what you most dislike in others."

If that sounds like a pretty nutty hypothesis, I guess I could hold up as proof some very public examples from the worlds of politics and religion, moral crusaders like Elliot Spitzer, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. Whitmont (if he hadn't been dead for 10 years) might tell us that each of these men fought so hard to be perceived as "good" and to point out the "evil" in others precisely because they couldn't face their own shadow self. The harder they struggled, the more aggressively they projected onto their fellow man, the more they pressurized these internal dark forces, until their shells could no longer contain their inner roilings. Then, crash.

So what does that mean for me, or for any of us?

Only that one profitable starting way to answer the question "Who am I?" involves asking the question, "What is it that I can't stand in others?"

My answers:

I hate liars. Whether it's my insecurities, my deep skepticism or my inquisitive nature, I tend to tear into the statements made by those around me, looking for falsehoods, spin and signs of manipulation. When I ferret out bullshit statements, I'm generally quick to anger, quick to attack, quick to write the liar out of the story of my life.

I hate laziness. The sight of others' wasted potential pains me. Someone who makes a mistake out of lack of knowledge or out of well-meaning intent I'm usually quick to forgive; someone who fails out of negligence or for lack of motivation I'm usually fast to damn. Often, I find myself trying to judge the nature of someone's wrongs, attempting to decide whether they "deserve" forgiveness. The lazy rarely fare well.

I hate unjustifiable pride. What do I mean, what sort of pride goads me into a triple-digit pulse rate? Not the folks who feel good about hard work, a job done well or even an unsuccessful but valiant effort. More, I mean those whose sense of accomplishment reeks of being out of proportion to the task accomplished. You know who I mean: The guy who gets a client to approve something that was obviously good, yet brags like he's brought together the Arabs and the Jews, or the YMCA hoops player who hits a 12-foot jump shot but talks trash like he's Lebron knocking down a deep corner three with :02 left in overtime. Maybe that's just using tortured metaphors (the kind I like best!) to say that I dislike arrogance. Probably so, but in the same way that I often find myself looking to shine the light to a lie, I can typically be counted on to try to "take the piss" out of the overly prideful.

Wow. You see where this is going, don't you? Not a pretty picture.

If "the projection principle" is correct and we are what we most dislike, then I'm a lazy, arrogant liar.

Hmmm.

As much as my inclination is to say, "Nah, not me, nuh uh," I'm going to instead opt for broader disclosure.

Guilty as charged.

I'll take the easiest one to admit first: Arrogance. I've been told that enough times to know that so many different people can't all be wrong. What is it they're sensing? I imagine it's my tendency to try too hard – to appear smart, to keep my defenses up, to hide my emotions. That overbearing effort creates a distance others can find cold and unpleasant.

Lying is harder to cop to aloud. Still, it's true (and yes, I realize the irony of asking you to believe an admitted liar who is admitting to lying). Why do I lie? Sometimes it's to avoid conflict or to stay defended (see Leibowitz, David arrogance above). Other times I lie out of shame, or because I fear the truth will render me a pathetic, weak, hateful figure. Everyone, myself included (myself most of all, perhaps) has a shadow self, that mass of dark, churning urges and baseness. Lies are the cloak the shadow hides behind.

Am I lazy? I believe yes, I am. Not "couch potato" lazy – I tend to always be in motion – but a different sort of lazy, the kind that is satisfied with only living up to a fraction of its potential, the kind that fails to translate insight into action. I'm not saying I believe I should be perfect, or that there aren't other reasons for my failures beyond laziness, but it's there, sitting on my inner couch, eating cool ranch Doritos and watching the Olympics. Whitmont has a nice turn of phrase – "a lack of moral stamina" – that I believe applies here.

So yes, I'm a lazy, arrogant liar. It's not an admission I toss out there lightly. Putting it out there makes me supremely uncomfortable, so much so that it's taken me three days to write the above three paragraphs. But yes, those words do answer the question "Who am I?" and they're an answer as valid as my name or Social Security number.

Fortunately, that answer is not complete. While I am that person, that person isn't all I am. There's an asterisk beside my name (beside all our names), an "also" followed by other characteristics – generosity, protectiveness, playfulness – which I hope offsets the lesser self I've described.

"Who am I?" I guess you could say I am many things, some admirable, some not, some I'm happy to be and some that I would rather not face, things light and things dark. I'm like you and I am not.

And today I am long-winded. Take care.

There's A Cop When You Don't Need One

A few Saturdays ago, I ran into Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Love the guy, even though I think he may be certifiable. The following ran in the Scottsdale Times as my August 2008 column:

Every so often, I bump into the old lawman with the big voice. He seems older each time we meet again, his face lined more deeply with crags, his hand smaller in mine. Maybe it's age, or maybe Sheriff Joe Arpaio's legend has grown so large in the press, the physical Joe inevitably feels small by comparison.

Either way, it's a Sunday morning in the Coffee Plantation on Shea Boulevard and here comes America's self-proclaimed toughest cop, 76 years old, bearing a jowly grin and a cup of java, dressed casual, his wife Ava at his side. It's not quite 9:30 on a weekend morning. Regardless, our sheriff has plans aplenty.

That Joe Arpaio has an agenda should come as no surprise – our sheriff is nothing if not busy. It's his plan that stuns me.

No, he's not headed to a press conference. No, he's not planning another round-up of illegal immigrants in Mesa. No, it's not a dust-up with Shaquille O'Neal or a book signing or a chain gang appearance.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is taking his wife to the movies. To see Hancock starring Will Smith.

"It looks pretty good," Arpaio confides. "And we like going early in the morning. Then no one comes up to me to talk."

His wife picks up where the sheriff leaves off, which feels natural – they've been married for 51 years now. "Sunday's the one day a week where I get to have him," Ava explains. "We just got done with church."

And then after a few minutes of kibitzing, they're off. Except the old man sort of stays in my mind for days afterward. Maybe it's that I'm both fascinated by Arpaio and conflicted by him – by his policies and by his bluster, by the personable side of him I've glimpsed and the public side of him that seems like so much hot air. Or maybe it's just his choice of flick.

Hancock.

I don't think I'm spoiling much by saying that Smith's latest summer blockbuster concerns a superhero whose crime-fighting deeds make him the object of media heat and light and an abundance of public scorn. There's a few hundred lawsuits, huge tabs to pay for the damage left in our hero's wake, and razzing whenever Hancock shows up at a crime scene.

In short, the flick plays like Arpaio's autobiography written large, with the addition of the ability to fly and a few other superpowers our sheriff hasn't yet gotten around to claiming.
Hancock, like Arpaio, looms larger than life. And both men have a flair for the dramatic: Hancock after he saves the life of a do-gooder public relations man who decides to repay him with an image makeover and Arpaio with, well, you know. You've seen the headlines.

The more I think about it – Arpaio's khaki uniform and collar stars vs. Hancock's snug leather costume; Arpaio's past undercover life with the DEA versus Hancock's unknown back story, obscured by amnesia – the more the parallels arise. In the end, the comparison amounts to a question raised by the movie's plot:

What will we think about Arpaio once he's gone?

That's how Hancock makes himself over, you see – the PR flack, Embrey, advises him to go to jail, to create a void where bad guys flourish, to let Los Angeles feel his absence. What happens to the valley when Arpaio does the same, when he finally retires or, as is far less likely, loses an election and fades away?

Will we miss Sheriff Joe?

Me, I think the answer can be had in two words: Yes. Desperately.

We'll miss the man because, for every Arpaio grandstand play that disappoints, there's a basic cop philosophy that's impossible to deny. I agreed with it the first time he said it aloud, and the next hundred after that. It's what accounts for his stratospheric approval ratings, the re-election landslides, all of it.

"You should never live better in jail than you live on the street."

Then there's the other quality Arpaio shares with Hancock, their action hero side. I could explain it to you, but better to let Teddy Roosevelt do the talking. He nailed it:

"It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger."

That, too, is what I respect mightily about Arpaio: That he and his officers do it while their critics, myself included, merely talk about it. Agree, disagree, protest, sue, threaten; no matter what, Arpaio still does what he does.

Hancock, too, even if Sheriff Joe didn't think much of the film.

"It was all right," he tells me on the phone a few days later. "Just all right. I give it two and a half stars. It wasn't even R rated. Not like Rambo."

Our sheriff prefers blood with his popcorn. Or the occasional romance.

"I like some good love stories," Arpaio claims between laughs. "You know, where you cry and all that. What was that one? The Letter They Found In The Bottle?"

Somehow, I didn't see that one. Just like Sheriff Joe doesn't see any comparison between him and Hancock, incidentally. Arpaio laughs at the premise, laughs at the idea that public wrath bothers him, laughs at the thought of a legacy.

A legacy is for people who leave, you see. "Like Hancock, I'll live forever," says the old lawman and you hope he's right.