National Public Radio contributor April Fulton posted a blog for the network’s online health page Shots today about the findings of a study to be published in August’s American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showing that excess meat consumption leads to unwanted pounds (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128845262&sc=tw). The study shows that every 250 grams of meat added to a person’s diet over a five-year span leads to a gain of four pounds. Not so bad, unless you are adding that 250 gram portion at more than one meal or snack per day. Still…250 grams seems like a lot. Most people, especially when eating on the run, don’t convert grams to pounds. When I’m in McDonald’s I’m too worried about getting a box of Grimace Cookies to bother counting grams. 250 Grams of meat is 8.8 ounces, or well over half of a pound. Yeah, you’re pretty much guaranteed some weight gain if you eat a 1/2 pound of extra meat as part of your regular diet. Here are a few other ways to put the 250 gram number into perspective:

• The meat content of a Bic Mac, pre-cooking, is 90.8 grams, or 3.2. ounces (unless you managed to get one of the Monster Macs in Germany, which boasted 363 grams of beef, or over 3/4 of a pound).
• A 250 gram steak carries roughly 630 calories. While the consumer gets a full day’s supply of protein from the meal, nearly 40 grams is fat (in other words, 55% of the calories are from fat, and even though the protein number is 45%, the inequity is not enough to regularly eat blow-out portions of steak).
• Chicken isn’t the great hope, or a choice because it’s white meat. A half pound of any substance is still a half pound. 250 Grams comes out to (at least, depending on injected preservatives) 220 calories.
• Just for kicks: The equivalent amount of butter is over a cup (1.089 cups). This also comes out to 18 Tablespoons.

A decade ago when the low-carb diet revolution really began in earnest the emphasis was not on balance, but on high protein and low carbohydrate maintenance. It worked as long as you stuck to the diet.  Higher fat foods like sausage and Cheddar cheese were staples after decades of being considered dietary pariahs. The problem is not with the diet fad, but the fact that for many dieters it never led to a lifestyle. The timeliness of the meat consumption study comes in as more and more of us find ourselves still unable to banish belly fat forever. An extra 1/2 pound of meat daily is a seemingly obscene number, but we are meating ourselves to death, while not living in balance with our bodies and lifestyles. A portion of beef is between 1 ounce (the size of a matchbook) and 3 ounces (the size of a deck of cards). The portion size for a breast of chicken (skin removed) is also the deck of cards and 3 ounces. The NPR story notes that Americans consume 60 pound of chicken a piece each year, much in the form of nuggets and breaded, fried strips. 60 pounds is 960 ounces (or 27,216 grams) of chicken. In the end, lifestyle comes down to balance. Exercise and healthy, small meals throughout the day. Enough preaching from me. May your next meal be a great one! (Reprinted from sister site, The Smoking Spatula @ WordPress.com)

When I was a boy (Uh Oh. Here we go again with another in Mel’s series of meandering memories) my grandfather ran a junkyard just east of the town where I was born. You probably didn’t need to know this, but it does explain quite a bit about me. Each visit to his dump was a bit of adventure and I remember the distinct smells of the place (rusting metal and cattle from the pasture across the road) and the sound the merchandise made as I rummaged through and over piles of stuff. I once took a girl there for family meet and greet. I was, after all, a stupid young man. Having a relative “in the business” meant lots of  freebies. One thing I became a connoisseur of was second-hand comic books. My grandparents gave me crates of them, dating back to the 1950′s and ’60′s. There were a few super hero titles in the stacks, but many were classic Harvey books (Ritchie Rich, Casper, Wendy). My favorites were the piles of macabre books and I learned to read with classic science-gone-wrong titles like Killdozer, Swamp Thing, and Ghost Rider. As if to keep me on the path of righteousness, there were always Evangelical comics mixed in, usually published by the Spire company. Generally they were biographies, such as the Billy Graham Story and (inexplicably) The Tom Landry Story. Many were condensed comic serial versions of full length books from Spire’s heyday (The Cross and The Switchblade, Burn Baby Burn, God’s Smuggler and The Hiding Place). I’m not ashamed to admit that I spent hours reading the biographical comics and still find myself reading mostly about the lives of famous individuals. The comics didn’t end up hurting me too much. No, it was when grandpa started giving me boxes of ’70′s Redbook and Good Housekeeping that I slid into the abyss. I started down the path of baking William Conrad’s favorite meatloaf and getting fondue tips from Dyan Cannon, then I began the life of an adolescent hoodlum.

The New York Times, the paper that doesn’t resemble a comic book no matter which way you hold it, ran a story today by George Gene Gustines on the growing popularity of comic book publisher Blue Water Productions ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/fashion/29comics.html?partner=rss&emc=rss ) The company has found success in publishing multiple lines of biographical comic featuring influential individuals and positive role models for young people. Many of the subjects I understand and would enjoy reading about. The Sarah Palin book would be wonderfully interesting and a refreshing antidote to her self-penned biography. What an action packed comic that would be as we turn pages and see her shooting animals from a helicopter, or fighting a giant salmon. Lady GaGa’s book doesn’t carry a lot of weight since her videos and live appearances are better than anything a comic artist could conceive. Lindsey Lohan would make a great comic heroine, especially as a rags-to riches-to-rags/ fight-the-man story (better yet, just rehash Steve Martin’s The Jerk as a comic book). In October, Blue Water plans to publish an Olivia Newton-John comic book. Big hair and all. At least the proceeds, if any, go to charity.

Darren Davis, Bluewater’s president, insists at the conclusion of the Times article that there will be no Heidi Montag-Pratt comic book, or biographies of other reality TV stars. Aw, C’mon! Jersey Shore’s Snooki is a walking cartoon herself. Tell me that the publishing world isn’t waiting for Snooki and The Situation to join other mutants with weird tans and misshapen torsos to fight New Jersey’s evil Governor Jon Corzine. Now that’s a comic book. You can purchase these wonderful (and mercifully short) bio-comics at your local Jo-Ann Fabrics store. No comment on that one.

Abundant Spoilers Within. I skipped out on putting a Top Chef recap on the blog last week for various reasons. Well, okay, one reason. I find the cheftestants representing Season 7 of television’s most innovative culinary reality program detestable. On the last installment Tamesha went home after falling for the advice given by chef Angelo. His response was a shrug (“Gee, I really liked whatshername, but whadaya gonna do?”). This season’s chefs have a number of personal and kitchen habits that leave the viewer wondering how they’ve retained employment for this long. Kelly, the chef I really believe stands to win it all, has a penchant for crying. So, in fact does Andrea. I cry sometimes, too.  When I found Ford had stopped making the Crown Victoria I shed a tear. There is also the habit of saying “I haven’t shown the judges my food yet.” This is a line that is repeated every season and was again uttered by tonight’s ‘had to pack it’ chef. Really? Really Really? You had something like 16 challenges to show them your food. An annoying thing to say as you pack your knives, but nowhere near as reprehensible as stealing someone’s prep items. Theft is a habit that will come back to bite. So now, despite the draggy, obnoxious participants, Top Chef has got me watching thanks to theft drama. Here we go with the spoilertastic details on episode 8 from Washington D.C.

This week’s Quickfire Challenge was to make an appetizer that could be served on a toothpick.  Congressman Aaron Schock (R-Illinois) explained to the cast that because of undue influence by lobbyists, House and Senate members are only allowed to be offered as much free meal as one can fit on a toothpick. See? You can actually learn things from cooking shows. Now if only he’d explain how they have to suck free drinks out of a napkin. The cheftestants did their best to cram items onto tiny skewers and plastic swords. Angelo won the challenge with an old school appetizer that you can find in books from the 80′s and before. He hollowed thick cucumber slices into cups and filled them with spicy shrimp and chopped cashew. Things that work will always work. Congressman Schock was not fond of Ed’s tuna two ways on an umbrella or Kelly’s seared scallop and pickled watermelon rind. I appreciated the honorable Mr. Schock’s perma-grin and his resistance against the urge to shout at the chefs “Man! I hate this trash!”

For the Elimination Challenge the chefs drew knives for the right to cook salmon, swordfish, Porterhouse steaks, lamb or lobster at the Palm. Two chefs would cook each of the five choices. The setting was a power lunch at The Palm restaurant, a place with much history and no record of letting TV cooks into it’s kitchen. The judges were Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) a slate of NBC and MSNBC correspondents and hosts (Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinki, Daily Rundown’s Savannah Guthrie, Luke Russert and Kelly O’Donnell), chef Art Smith and John Depodesta. Now, for a man who is passionate about at least three things in life (liberal news shows, Top Chef and pictures of Audrina Patridge eating hamburgers) this should have been a dream episode. No. The whole show was dominated by Ed running back and forth looking for his English pea puree, which ended up under Alex’s salmon dish. Pilfering happens in kitchens, but out-and-out stealing someone’s prep and taking credit for it is just dirty. The fact that Alex won compounded the problem. He’s a professional and shouldn’t have let it get this far. Meanwhile, Andrea went home for doing a vanilla beurre blanc over swordfish and then letting it cook in the window. Butter sauces break down into gummy components when left out. She didn’t even get proper hug and tear time after being sent home, because judge Padma sent her away with a “That will be all.”

What’s next for Top Chef? Amanda’s general sloppiness and lack of experience may finally catch up soon. Hopefully Alex’s intellectual dishonesty is seen through by the judges as much as it is by the other chefs and the audience. Oh, and Kelly will cry some more. Good Times (sniff).

I do love living in the age of instantaneous self acknowledgment and gratification. There are myriad and mass perks to being alive right at this very moment. The last month and a half of my life, for instance, has been spent pointing my cell phone at random objects and having the device offer a glut of useless information regarding whatever I was looking at. At some point, I did get tired of pointing the phone at trees and having the braniac inform me “That’s a tree.” I got punched in the head after scanning some Chicago Cubs fan and telling him that the phone came up with Google search results for ‘fat suits’ and ‘beard diapers’.  The instant feedback age is full of good and entertaining (albeit useless) advances. Many that don’t result in my getting beat up, in fact. One example is I Write Like.

Leafing through a newspaper the other day I happened to see a general interest story about I Write Like (http://www.iwl.me/), a site that is purported to instantly analyze your particular writing style and compare it to a famous author’s work. Granted, I heard about this through the local paper, just moments before I made a hat from it and ran into the yard shouting “Arrrrr.” I honestly didn’t know what else to do with the thing. When I came back indoors, news hat ruined, I started to wonder about the whole I Write Like idea. What famous person’s written oeuvre does my work resemble? Martha Stewart, maybe. I do use the term ‘patina’ a lot. There’s Ernest Hemingway. Not the famous one (that’s too much self-flattery), but the guy who details cars down the street from me. He’s a prolific writer and a bathroom wall limerick legend. I made the mistake of clicking onto iwritelike.com, an ad site that tells every respondent their writing is a subconscious effort to mimic Chuck Norris. You can actually submit nothing at all and get the same result. Now, I sat and watched one of Chuck’s ’70′s (eh hem) classics recently and can honestly say that no one is trying on any level to write in the style of Chuck Norris. In the movie I watched, Chuckles journeys to a town run by a corpulent, drunken mayor in order to save his brother from the local muscle. Norris, in his unique way, manages to bed a waitress after she serves him coffee. If Norris had anything to do with the writing of that film then I know for sure that I’m not attempting his writing style.

After submitting two samples from this blog to the real I Write Like, the results were that my writing resembles that of Cory Doctrow and H.P. Lovecraft. Neither of the styles these two gentleman became famous for is reassuring in any way and I may as well quit writing this instant (Amen!). H.P. Lovecraft, was not a home computer designed for use by couples, but the author of necromantic science fiction until his death in 1937. Doctrow is a blogger and science fiction author from Canada. I decided to try a third, independent test and submitted someone else’s writing from an adult site. The poorly written, very misspelled piece of literature was analyzed and the result came back J.D. Salinger. So much for instant literary analysis. The I Write site is operated by Russian software programmer  Dmitry Chestnykh and is a lot of fun, but not exactly serious critique. For laugh’s, The Christian Science Monitor recommends submitting your work to I Actually Write Like. I submitted my first sample again and got the following: “You Actually Write Like A Moonstruck Lunatic Possibly Wearing A Straightjacket.” Oh, thank heavens for that. Next to that subtle hint was an illustrated pile of feces. There you have it. Technological gratification.

While enjoying crackers and milk this morning (they are the preferred nutritional supplement of confused middle-aged men the world over, after all) I first started hearing news stories about Walmart’s planned mass roll-out of RFID technology as a means of tracking intimate wear purchases. Now, I am guilty of trashing the super colossal good time store chain quite often on this blog. The reality is that I sometimes don’t mind making a trip to Walmart. Our local Super Center recently expanded its isles to accommodate the differing body shapes and bigger shopping carts prevalent in modern life. Walmart is especially helpful during miserly moments when I don’t really want to admit that I should buy a quality item from a retailer that specializes in the item. Why spend the money when Walmart has an alternative product for less money? The example from my life would be compression shorts for running. I had a choice between going to a sporting goods retailer for Under Armor and paying nearly $30 a pair for what is essentially a lower torso man bra or getting the cheap, $12 knock-offs from Wally World. I sucked it up and paid the price. Holding on to the cheapo compression shorts, I had one of those moments from a TV crime scene profiler show where some dour detective is always declaring “It was murder!” The vision came to me of running and getting to about mile seven on a particularly sweltering day only to have the off-brand compression shorts burst and leave me like a pile of gelatin by the side of the road. Now, thanks to the increasing use of RFID’s by Walmart in underwear and other clothing, I think I made the right choice.

An RFID is a radio frequency identification tag. You know that orange computer-chippy sticker when you buy a coat or a book? That’s the familiar version. I once had an RFID buried in a wallet I bought from Target and got stopped by security for a year before I figured out where it was (hence, I live on crackers and milk). Walmart is taking the technology to a new degree, one that will enable it to eventually radio tag every piece of merchandise so that customers can scan entire cart loads of merchandise as they walk past the check out stands. That is a nice idea. What isn’t is the concept that has been slowly unveiled over a decade of using RFID to track purchases beyond the stores themselves. Walmart maintains that when you purchase a pair of underwear with the new frequency tag attached the device can be removed. Removable or not, the tracking device stays live after you get home. Is it paranoid to believe that radio traceable tags probably shouldn’t be in homes, cars, sock drawers?

RFID is a cost and time-saving technology, and may speed up things like airport screenings (one issue we could all use a break on). It’s also one that originated for the purposes of tracking cattle. There is just something unsettling about radio i.d. tags becoming so ubiquitous that each of us has one attached to our ears. Despite writing this foaming-at-the-mouth blog, I don’t want everything about me revealed (especially what goes on in my underwear). Is an electronic 666 on each of us next? Okay, maybe I’m taking the issue too far. Instead, I’ll enjoy my new wide-isled Walmart and calm down. Besides, RFID may keep Mr. Rollback, Darnell, out of the ice-cream freezer. Always a plus.

The crowds in the marketplace made me uneasy and each time a stranger would push past me, I instinctively tried to elbow them away in order to protect my family. The air was thick and carried an odd jumble of scents, a mixture of perspiration, diesel fumes and dairy cows. My $2 novelty tee shirt featuring a cartoon elephant and plaid shorts clung to me in the heat and just seemed to scream ‘dummy’ amidst the sea of nondescript and purely mercenary shoppers. “Just keep moving forward…” I repeated over and over in my head, always followed by the refrain “…just get what you came here for.” As I stumbled within the crush of humanity, the crush of middle-aged women and their tiny, fidgeting, live wired daughters all vying for a chance to strike a bargain at one of the market stalls, I spun around and stopped cold. My own bubble of breathable air and shrinking little personal space were vanishing and my wife and daughter were no longer in sight. I began pressing on to find them when I saw what it was I’d ventured this far after: A discount priced American Girl historical doll. Holding my ground, I waited for my family to spot me. Call me Dad, pioneer of the girl’s empowerment movement. Heaven help us.

I sold out this past weekend and disavowed all knowledge of guy code. The Madison Wisconsin Children’s Museum hosts an American Girl benefit sale each July at the company’s Middleton, Wisconsin facility with the proceeds going to support the  museum. Reasoning that I would get some cheese curds and decent beer out of the trip, I hunkered down in the back seat of our station wagon and travelled with my wife and daughter to the rolling hills of Wisconsin for the sale. The only way I can describe is in this way: Every year on the Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday the women in my life venture out into the darkness at 3:00 in the morning with a bunch of over-sized shopping bags and Jason masks on. Where they go I never know. Until now. This American Girl doll sale in the middle of a sweltering July weekend in Wisconsin is exactly like Black Friday. I happened to go willingly into the trip with the promise of getting a really high quality burger afterwards and a night at a hotel built after 1937. I got both, and was able to support the museum at the same time.

American Girl, if you haven’t been indoctrinated into the culture by virtue of being related to small female children, is a direct marketer of dolls and doll accessories. It was started in 1986 with the introduction of a line of historical dolls and accompanying books depicting the fictional lives of 9-year old heroines across the timeline of American history. The dolls and their dopple-characters are distinctive in that they cross ethnic lines and feature not only the stories of white children, but Native-American and African-American girls. The company was purchased in 1998 by Mattel, and this a telling crossroads for both companies. One of Mattel’s original developers was Ruth Handler, wife of co-founder Elliot Handler. Mrs. Handler is more instrumental in the success of the company due to her creation of the Barbie doll in 1959. Handler’s Barbie is a toy that very much represents the thinking of her time. The Barbie doll is an educational toy in that it tells children they can do and see anything that the world has to offer, but real success comes while wearing 2 inch heels, owning a  bubble-butt and always being coiffed to the nines. American Girl more than subtly tells children that it’s okay to just be children. Kids have buck teeth and freckles and a variety of different skin colors. The message is that you can do things with help from your friends and family and through good old ingenuity.

There are no such toys for little boys. We’d just bury them in the yard or set fire to the toys, anyway. Our development as men is more assured. We are told that the mantle of leadership is ours for the taking, as we have been for thousands of years. American Girl fits into the great movement of the last century that has shown women the way to leadership on their own terms. While my daughter becomes angry when I don’t play right and continue to make the dolls vomit and curse like Donald Duck, I’m happy to watch what the product does for her. The heroines of the doll and book series’ push her to become one of millions of the best educated and best equipped generation of young women that the world has ever seen. So, yeah, I was happy to ride along to Middleton. Even if I didn’t get my cheese.

Love, exciting and new. Come aboard. We’ve been expecting you! Top Chef’s fifth Washington, D.C. episode centered around housemate hook-ups. Oh, sure. The cheftestants made food to present to the judges, but the reality show was really about getting together. Weird. Not to generalize, but cooks are often stained people, inside and out. There are bad smells that cling to them and sobriety tends to be limited and fleeting. The heat of the line sharpens cooks up, but more often than not, they go and get dull as soon as the work has ended. So, amidst the intensity of cooking on Top Chef, TV’s preeminent pseudo-reality culinary series, the chefs have begun to couple. Angelo, paired for challenges with Tamesha, has begun whispering sweet nothings to her on the side. Frankly, after a number of days filming Top Chef, Angelo might have started whispering sweet nothings to Madea. He’s just glad she’s not Tracey, whose hand print is still on his backside. Ah, but this is TV and what has started to be dull viewing at that. So, the good folks editing the show have cobbled together love at the stove. There are no atheists in foxholes, but there is a lot of “bow-chicka-wowwow” in cooking if you’re pointing the camera in the right direction. Ed, the poor man’s Angelo, for instance, is starting an affair with Tiffany. She’s not exactly rejecting him and old Chef Droopy is all smiles this week. Oh, and they cook, too!

Last week, my two dark horse chefs, Arnold and Lynne, went home for pairing on a poorly cooked squid ink pasta dish. Sigh. She wanted to be his Obi Wan Kenobi and he just wanted better moisturizer. This was too bad, because they missed the fun of a Quickfire Challenge involving the preparation of Maryland Blue Crabs. The animals had a sort of beauty to them and I felt there was a bit of dishonor seeing some of the chefs batter them (not tempura. I mean they were picking the beasts by their appendages and flinging them up and down. crab carnage). The guest judge for this session was Patrick O’Connell, owner of The Inn at Little Washington.   He resembled me the ghost child of Bing Crosby and Anthony Hopkins. Still, a very gracious judge. Ed dazzled with a Thai inspired crab dish, to the chagrin of Tim. You remember Tim. He’s “that one guy.” Each week we’ve watched Tim make a proclamation about his talent/skills/soul. Each week we’ve also watched the same guy get clobbered by chefs with inspired ideas. This week Tim figured on winning the short challenge with a fairly authentic beer steamed crab with avocado and passion fruit. It didn’t happen. You know where this is leading. Still confident about his skill and unable to fathom why he lost the Quickfire, Tim went blazing into the elimination challenge.

The Elimination Challenge dragged to its starting line after serious arguments and ego flaring by the chefs. The teams paired up in the previous twos as the last episode. The challenge was to create a full course meal at Ayrshire Farms in Virginia, using ingredients produced on the farm (with help from the T.C. rolling pantry). The chefs all had propane fired outdoor stoves and induction burners. There has been much griping this season about cooking outdoors in the elements, but this is what chefs do at catered events. Kevin got a jolt when his cauliflower couscous hit the deck and he was forced to quickly find other vegetables and start over. Amanda spent lots of time smack talking Progresso soup, as she made minestrone. Then there was Andrea. I understand that she’s a Florida chef, but did they have to keep showing her using her sleeve as a nose rag?  Snot and cooking are not an appealing combo. In the end, you can’t blame the chefs for being tight. The challenge was cold, cramped and unstable at times.

In what has become a season staple, Tim and Andrea faced the judges as potential losers along with Stephen. Andrea’s minestrone may have been more favorable than canned soup, but the vegetables weren’t uniformly sized, or cooked. Stephen’s giant composed salad of doom ended up a soggy mess and he nearly went home. Tim, in the end, was sent packing for his mushy roasted potato and vegetable dish. Be confident, be right, but don’t be bland. Kenny, super sexy alpha male of the group, won with his own roasted vegetable dish. Kelly also scored points and produced a successful dessert, as well. So, as mid-season shapes up, we can see Kenny and Kelly heading toward the final. Will Angelo be the third finalist? The future is cloudy. Only his crabs know.

In most respects, the sporting world has been focused on World Cup Futbol from South Africa for the last month. I found myself enjoying many of the matches I watched and learned to appreciate the way the game is presented. The clock runs forward, often the viewer has to squint at the pitch due to the tremendous distance covered by the cameras, and at least once every game one of the teams scores. Yes, I am an arrogant American. I know nothing. All that is required of me is that I nibble on my bourgeoise Triscuits, sip some Two-Buck-Chuck and shut up about soccer. Meanwhile, in a far away galaxy…Major League baseball is still being played. That I feel slightly more comfortable talking about. Baseball, America’s Pastime (once upon an eon ago, before NFL football, Ultimate Fighting, Superstars of Poker and Women’s Beach Volleyball), heads into it’s mid-season break with All-Star Festivities from Anaheim tonight. The Monday night feature is always the home run hitting derby, in which some of the league’s best sluggers take batting practice pitches from their friends, or old high-school coaches (this is always fun, because fans get to watch some 90-year old retiree get lathered up throwing 30 lobs to an amped up big leaguer). If this isn’t your style, fear not. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is going to be featured on a repeat of MTV’s Cribs at about the same time (“This is where I keep my beer. Oh, and over here is where I keep my other beer.”).

I started to wonder recently why regular shmoes don’t have an All-Star break*. Sure, we get vacations and conferences. I can’t recall any examples of the super-studs among us getting sent to a big-time competition to show off our particular skill, however. There isn’t really a home run derby for accountants. Fans of nurses don’t vote to send their favorites as starters in the All-Nurse games (I might have to start that). Maybe there could be specialized All-Star competitions for the best of the best in real life occupations. Here are some suggestions:

• Cable-Network Programmers: There is a reason that you rose to the head of the industry and became the taste maker for basic cable subscribers. That decision to show Forrest Gump twice a day, every day for the past five years has landed you in the All-Star Basic Cable Scheduling Competition. Now you’ll match wits with the best executives in the industry as you line up sassy detective dramas featuring washed-up Baywatch hotties against sassy talk shows featuring washed up late night network comedians. Winners keep their jobs.
• City Bus Drivers: In your locality you are the kings and queens of running over pedestrians and artfully flinging old ladies from the steps of your buses as you pull away curbs. Do you have what it takes to compete against the toughest drivers in the country? You can see if you’ve got the right stuff in head-to-head contests such as : What’s That Smell (oh, it’s me)? Can I Get Two Passengers To Stop Making Out If I Hit A Pothole Fast Enough? What Would Sandra Bullock Do?  You Can’t Have A Transfer! Winners receive a box of No-Doze.
• Lifetime Movie All-Stars. There are actors and then there are Lifetime Movie Channel actors. Competition categories include: Over-Emoting On Cue, Over-Emoting Impromptu, Over-Emoting When The Scene Clearly Doesn’t Call For It, Love Scenes That Aren’t Humanly Possible and, finally, Chuck Norris. Winners receive at least a decade of getting to put titles on their resume like “Mother, May I Speak With Danger?” and “All The Cancer, Infidelity, Personality Disorders and Bad Dialogue We Could Fit Into Two Hours.”     ‘Off to buy some Triscuits.    *Major League Baseball actually runs a nationwide program called All-Stars Among Us, in which citizens are spotlighted during the festivities for their humanitarian and social work in everyday life. You can vote for these individuals through MLB’s website.

My daughter came home on a recent evening with a new, very girl oriented (unless you’re Rupaul) toy that she was excited to share with me. This isn’t unusual, as we find ourselves setting up all kinds of plastic play-sets of wonderment in the living room. The new set was Hello Kitty’s Folding Cooking Show. In this particular toy, Kitty and her friend Fifi operate a food program, complete with cameras, monitors and a little demonstration stage. All of this folds into a plastic pail and can be carried via the provided handle. While I busied myself creating a scenario in which Kitty could demo cooking and Fifi could tape the show (Fifi snarkily comments from behind the camera about Kitty’s weight gain, while Kitty remarks on Fifi’s penchant for flannel shirts) my child was holding up the product package to make sure the Hello Kitty Cooking Show looked exactly as described. That’s when I noticed the list of disclaimers.

“Not Real Food. Do Not Eat.” adorned the bottom of the blister card the toy came on and I had to ask “Who is so hungry that they shell out $8.00 for a Hello Kitty play set and then eat it? The food is a little less than the size of Tic Tacs and nearly as nutritious. Nothing like a filling meal of tiny plastic cakes and turkeys. Despite the obvious problems with consuming Hello Kitty’s food, the manufacturer still feels the need to tell you not to eat it. Darn! There goes my weekend of chewing on plastic toys. I guess that since I can read it means that I have to heed the warning.

We live in the age of litigious living. Every time you go to pass by an outdoor trash receptacle the warning is on the dumpster in plain language: “Do not play on or around.” Hmmm. They never mention ‘under’. Nevertheless, that’s a good warning. I was playing on (or around) a dumpster once when a guy jumped out and chased me for  several blocks. The hot coffee lawsuit is partially to blame for over-warning the public to avoid every obvious pitfall that life may contain. While the 1992 case in which 79-year-old Stella Liebeck was burned by 185° farenheit coffee over 6% of her body is not frivolous, the fear of liability that has overtaken makers of consumer goods is to some degree (no pun intended). Sometimes the warnings are unnecessary and plain overkill. Unless I’m buying iced coffee, I’d expect it to be hot. Nobody buys tepid coffee. I am well aware that if I dance in a canoe it might tip over. On even the rainiest days I have no urge to light a bag of charcoal inside the house (or in the car). I know not to use spray deodorant on my face. There are things in life that actually do require warning labels, though. For instance:

• NBA Superstars: “Warning: Signing this freakishly talented free agent may lead to heartbreak for small-market teams and the loss of millions in revenue for burgeoning downtown arena-area businesses.”
• Oil Rigs: “Improper assembly, use and maintainance of this deep-water drilling apparatus may cause rig to explode and pollute coastal waters for generations. Your welcome. And Duh.”
• Ballots for Elected Officials: “Voting for this particular candidate may inadvertently lead to feelings of guilt, years of merciless goading by people you once considered friends and a general lack of enthusiasm for the political process. Also has been shown to cause hair loss and moderate drinking.”
• Blogs: “Reading this particular puffy drivel might cause you to feel smarter and better about your own writing talent. Hey, anything I can do to help you out. Onward and Upward.”

I took a few weeks and just let the summer wash over me with its giant, greasy wave of absurdity. No news programs, very few vuvuzelas (and, as I just learned, type that into Google carefully, or get an improved anatomical education) and blessed little to think about except for work and baseball (in other words, I worked and slept). A season of avoiding mental entanglement, whether in the form of over-thinking Lindsey Lohan’s sentencing, or trying not to think about Sarah Palin’s over-eager fans at this year’s Amusement Industry convention (the “excited” executive video is on youtube, and all I can say is…ewww. ‘Reminds me of Mr. Robinson’s line from The Graduate. “Shaking hands? Is that what you call it? Well, that’s not saying much for my wife!”). Over the long holiday weekend I found myself staring at a baseball game and staying out of the heat when an advertisement appeared that made me sit forward. Just a little. Remarkably, it was for a legitimate product and not the Shake Weight.

I talk about commercials a lot on this blog, mostly because they are often the best crafted work on television. This is the case here. The spot starts with the stark chords of Johnny Cash’s song of reeping and repentance, God’s Gonna Cut You Down. We see a railroad spike being hammered down and the visual is followed by a shot of a steam locomotive racing over a wooden trestle, reminders of the construction of the transcontinental railroad. The voice-over announcer tells the viewer that “The things that make us Americans are the things we make. We’ve always been a nation of builders.” Right on, brother. I’m with you so far. We see film footage of the first airplane flights, of machinery being assembled. “This has always been a nation of builders, of craftsman…” leads a shot of what looks like Ford’s mammoth Rouge River Plant in Detroit. “…Men and women for whom straight stitches and clean welds were matters of personal pride.” Amen. We’re 15 seconds into the sermon. A shot over the top of the Empire State Building follows. Men, women, kids, horses. Then comes the meat of the message, the words to live by. “These things are what make us who we are. As a people we do well when we make good things, not so well when we don’t.” Wait. Did he just mention Jeep 4 x 4′s? Oh, boy. Right message, wrong preacher. Uh huh. Go to color as you lose me. The spot finishes with footage of the all-new, all-American Jeep Grand Cherokee in action. A powder blue box of misfit for the new age. They still don’t get it.

The new Jeep commercials are, according to Ad Age, manufactured by Weiden and Kennedy. I have to say manufactured, because they are better American workmanship than any actual products produced by Chrysler. Weiden and Kennedy also make the really fun promos for the new Dodge Charger in which the cars take on horse mounted Red Coats during the Revolutionary War. There is the rumor afoot that the new campaigns are designed to appeal to Tea Party enthusiasts. True, or not, the Portland, Oregon based ad firm should get some serious awards for creative, thought-provoking work. Chrysler, on the other hand, should begin rolling out Fiats, because their own vehicles stink. Make them wherever you want, with the pride of whomever goes about building the things. We suck when we make bad products. I would show this ad every morning right above the time clock if I were these guys.

There was a so-so movie in the 1980′s featuring Paul Reiser (Crazy People) in which, as an ad exec, he runs an airline campaign with the tag line “We don’t Crash.” Note to Dodge-Chrysler: Start there. Our cars don’t fall apart. Our products last at least 3 years. Jeeps are as good as cars made overseas. Maybe that will remind the buying public of what made America great.

Jeep Manifesto

God\’s Gonna Cut You Down