tag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:/rss/departments/consumeSPLICETODAY.com2024-03-10T22:43:05Ztag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/332342024-03-05T06:27:00-05:002024-03-04T21:18:01-05:00The Weird World of Hero Wars Ads: Sex Sells<p>Sex sells. There are a sort of always-online, or if you like millennial, Americanisms in force, as in the TikTok ad on YouTube I <em>just</em> got served where a narrating man walking in a forest pans his smartphone camera over the view, and a be-legginged woman walks through the shot, and he says of the (euphemistic) Nature that “Oh yes, it has the juice.” I presume that refers to a juicy behind, and all this to sell a social media platform.</p>
<p>One<b id="docs-internal-guid-75b0665c-7fff-ca93-ca16-779f240f64ef"> </b>manifestation of the “sex sells” truth, interesting on account of its continuation of the trend of brazenly false advertising of free-to-play games and its construction of a distinctly 2020s symbology of the sexual relationship from the point of view of beleaguered men, is the ad campaign of <em>Hero Wars</em>. Awareness of the campaign is a fait accompli, as evidenced by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/HeroWarsApp/comments/19czlzw/disgusting_adverts_you_cant_get_out_of/">certain up-in-arms Reddit threads</a>; and yet the symbology deserves renewed attention.</p>
<p>Not least because the ad campaign, as managed by Nexters, subsidiary of <em>Hero Wars</em> owner and NASDAQ entity GDEV, shows no signs of letting up and broke its live action cherry in January. Brief commentary on that will serve as a segue into analysis of the commoner fare, i.e. ads consisting of 2D digital artwork.</p>
<p>The<b id="docs-internal-guid-a7a575b9-7fff-799f-aba8-bb99fbc60346"> </b><a href="https://www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/roller-coaster-tornado-and-a-giant-woman">live action campaign</a>, crafted by Zorka.Agency and run in Germany and Poland, sees a young man in a smoking jacket reclining in a chair and playing the mobile version of the game (if you’re unfamiliar with <em>Hero Wars</em>, its content will be clarified shortly). Looking at the viewer, the man opines that “Life can be a real whirlwind of stress,” and then his chair lifts him out of the window and into the eye of an actual storm. He has “one secret,” he says, that helps him “weather the storm anytime, anywhere.” He taps on his game, the storm clears up, and he’s landed in the palm of the hand of a giant, golden-tressed woman, who looks at pint-sized him with feminine affection. “Feeling like a true hero who deserves the best,” is how our protagonist sums up this happy situation. But the woman, who’s subject in the ad to a digitizing effect that implies she’s encounterable in-game (and whose presence taps into what Ads of the World calls with equanimity “the recent ‘Giantess’ trend”)—this woman is nowhere to be found in-game.</p>
<p>What’s to be found in <em>Hero Wars</em>? To take the browser version called <em>Dominion Era</em> as an example, the game is an “idle RPG”—one doesn’t really do much when it comes to the action except watch her party members battle against enemy waves and, once the metre is filled, click to activate a special ability. Outside of the combat, one buys and swaps out party members, equips them with items, and spends special gems and coins to level them up. Occasionally there’s a puzzle mini-game. The usual ads, which are the focus of this investigation, imply that <em>Hero Wars</em>’ contents are rather different.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://splicetoday.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/editor/pictures/3271/content_unnamed.jpeg" style="width: 420px; height: 164px;" /><br />
<strong>Exhibits 1 and 2. A pair of static ads.</strong></p>
<p>Let’s begin with this pair of ads, to be found as mid-page units throughout the ‘net and also in the top-right corner of desktop YouTube. In Exhibit 1, a woman’s crotch is covered with the rather tragic fig leaf of a stone-wrought options-dial: one may fist, ogle, kiss, or finger. “It’s your choice!” She manages to appear supine and ready for ravishment even while upright, one knee on the grass and one foot out, and arms akimbo in invitation, among pastoral secrecy. In Exhibit 2, in a dinky pastiche of the “stuck in the tumble dryer” trope, a woman is on all fours, with her titillatingly draperied rear end on show. The rainbow-shaped gauge is bookended by halo emoji and purple devil emoji, and is split into two halves: good and naugty [sic]. That “The choice is yours” is once again emphasized, and the dial appears to be tending to naugty.</p>
<p>These<b id="docs-internal-guid-2aa7129f-7fff-bcd4-184f-d15a3090a62f"> </b>two ads, which represent the tip of the iceberg of questionability, are part of a huge suite of ads run by GDEV. In <a href="https://www.gdev.inc/press-releases/financial-results-2023-Q3-9M">a press release</a> in late November, the company shared key stats about its performance during the first nine months of 2023. “Selling and marketing expenses” had increased by $60 million year on year, amounting to $172 million in total from January to September. That increase in spend could, in the main, “be attributed to considerably more investments into new players in the first nine months of 2023.” The flood of <em>Hero Wars</em> ads has been proverbial on certain subreddits, and GDEV doesn’t discriminate: even though personalized ads are turned off for me in the Google Ads Center, I still get <em>Hero Wars </em>pre-roll ads on YouTube regularly. In the <a href="https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR18349447190256025601">Ads Transparency Center page for Nexters</a> (GDEV’s subsidiary), when sorting by location = “Anywhere,” the international scope of the ads is plain to see. “Spiel mit uns!”, declares one; another avers that “Este jogo é um tesouro para fãs de RPG.” New ad variations are added every day… and they can be eyebrow-raising.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://splicetoday.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/editor/pictures/3272/content_2.jpeg" style="width: 420px; height: 135px;" /></p>
<p><strong>Exhibit 3. White knight and moo-moo mother. </strong></p>
<p>In<b id="docs-internal-guid-d0200376-7fff-734f-b56d-e5ebb1ea4ff7"> </b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RerQtyHCVno">this video ad</a>, the <em>Hero Wars</em> mascot Galahad finds himself in dire straits as but a human plough-horse upon the field. His captor, half-cow, half-human woman, brands him on the buttock with what looks like our old friend the purple devil emoji—rather a “naugty” [sic] act. Suddenly set upon by wolves, the cow lady is compromised—and Galahad steps up to become white knight, fending the beasts off with his axe. The cow lady and her new hero Galahad elope to her encampment, where she carries him around like a baby, and spots him for sit-ups. Needless to say, the episode of the bovine damsel does not occur in-game.</p>
<p>Like<b id="docs-internal-guid-612b9fac-7fff-7790-8e13-c3579235cc19"> </b>other mobile-game companies, GDEV gets away with advertisements whose content is never or rarely found in-game. One likely reason, alluded to earlier, is that the games are free to play, so that the false advertising doesn’t involve a monetary swindle. There are interventions nevertheless, as when the United Kingdom’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) <a href="https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/plr-worldwide-sales-ltd-g20-1061644-plr-worldwide-sales-ltd.html">slapped the wrist of Playrix</a>, producer of the serene-sounding <em>Homescapes</em> and <em>Gardenscapes</em> games. The games belong to the so-called “match-three” genre, in which objects, stacked in a grid subject to gravity, are shuffled and matched with corresponding objects so that they disappear, leaving room for more objects to fall down. (The most famous match-three game is <em>Candy Crush</em>. Though an unjustified fancy, one likes to think they’re nieces and nephews of <em>Bubble Bobble</em> and its ilk, and that it’s all basically descended from great-grandad <em>Tetris</em>.) In the ads, though, Playrix had put footage of puzzles <em>not</em> apparently in the game: puzzles in which pins and poles are yanked out in sequence to avert dangers and access goodies. This is a class of misleading advertising content, i.e. the “How to Loot” genre—reskinned variants are found in <em>Hero Wars</em> ads too.</p>
<p>The<b id="docs-internal-guid-91d254b4-7fff-4b7d-a7c5-97ae954da44d"> </b>sexual edge to <em>Hero Wars</em> ads distinguishes them from Playrix’s work, and it’s to this edge that we must return—though as Tousif, founder and editor-in-chief of <a href="https://gamingonphone.com/editorial/how-misleading-mobile-game-ads-are-hurting-the-industry/">GamingonPhone</a>, reminded me, “It is not only about Nexters’ <em>Hero Wars</em>.” “This quick gain tactic of putting sexuality in front is very harmful in the long run,” said Tousif. He added that, on the business side of things, the tactic “may impact [a] company’s PR potential,” leading to a situation where “no investors, or employees would be interested to associate with a brand like this.”</p>
<p>As in any ad campaign worth its salt, GDEV probably tests variant ads and pushes, and refines, the ones that generate returns. While an ad could conceivably boil down to a lowest-common-denominator message, pummelled through A/B testing into something like neutrality, the <em>Hero Wars </em>ads retain a kind of original artistic licence (or could a machine-learning tool dream up the premises we bear witness to in this article?). One presumes an interesting three-way junction, between original artistic licence (brainchild), actual pertinence to the viewer (or the viewer’s sexual curiosity), and optimization.</p>
<p>One of the most prevalent symbols in <em>Hero Wars</em> ads is the production line. In particular, this is the production line or conveyor belt of feeble men being fed to a woman who’s physically larger than them—a largeness that denotes her higher social standing, her being “out of their league.” That old black pill bitterness, then, whereby a disaffected Internet male decides that he’s ugly and women are materialistic succubae who want only to play with men’s hearts and get with chads, is refracted here through the symbol of the gamified production line. (Gamified: even watching these ads, there’s a reliable dopamine hit every time one of these beta males jumps into the cavern, or the basket, or whatever black receptacle the woman has prepared to harvest her pathetic suitors.)</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://splicetoday.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/editor/pictures/3273/content_3.jpeg" style="width: 420px; height: 298px;" /></p>
<p><strong>Exhibit 4. The production line.</strong></p>
<p>In<b id="docs-internal-guid-ceee88ad-7fff-f19f-c49f-f5f38c5898b5"> </b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhkwVgDnD4Q">this variation</a>, awoogah-eyed simps shuffle towards an over-tall maiden. They try to pull the sword from the stone, to impress her, and because they fail, they’re chomped up by a green monster that comes out of her mouth. When it’s Galahad’s turn, he succeeds, but the maiden still eats him, then excretes him out of her lower half—a one-eyed, claw-mouthed being.</p>
<p>Each simp’s falling short of a standard of masculinity is met with a monstrous gesture of rejection. Galahad succeeds, but is rejected anyway—a defeatist narrative. The maiden’s monstrous bottom half, concealed beneath her wide dress and by the ground, suggests a distinction between pretty outside and ugly inside. Galahad is chased by the extending bottom half through the tunnel, and falls down into the desert, where a rival man steals the sword and, with his female companion, spits at Galahad before they run off.</p>
<p>Other<b id="docs-internal-guid-9a407053-7fff-b720-1f03-c778f9b68463"> </b>ads reskin the same production line motif—in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSG7Zw9vVrU">one variation</a>, the men, socket-eyed oldsters instead of young simps, jump in turn into a man-shaped stone void, in a black-piller’s Takeshi’s Castle episode. (In this variation, Galahad is spat out the stone rear-end and laughed at by two level 99 chads.) In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PrkQSADzbo">another variation</a>, a giant woman spreads her legs and receives the production-line men into the space between them, leaving little to the imagination.</p>
<p>How<b id="docs-internal-guid-26ca63dc-7fff-51c3-7dbc-8a4cfd9221b5"> </b>is it that the ads have come to this? As noted by Neil Long in <a href="https://www.eurogamer.net/whats-going-on-with-the-fake-mobile-game-ads-on-tiktok">his article for Eurogamer</a>, sexual ads about games go back at least as far as “those saucy ‘save me, my lord’ Evony banner ads from the late 2000s.” Sex sells, of course, and these ads represent a modern take on the sex sell which exploits feelings of being consumed and spat out by women, and ridiculed by men, in a competitive sexual arena where the odds are stacked against the (literal) little man. Riffing on the Evony injunction to “save me, my lord,” the message of the women in the production line ads could be said to have evolved into “I’ll punish you for trying to impress me, vassal.” There may be something like self-deprecation, or the hope of revenge, motivating players to click here. (It must be noted that the first ad example, that of the woman with an options dial for fig leaf, does forecast a sunnier time for the player.) The ads may also be the expression of some sexual quirks on the part of the animating department at Nexter’s, apart from the audience-focused question of what will sell. When one sees such things as vore and pregnant women in videos (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/j2oarRU7aRo">collected here</a>), one wonders if some of this is kinks finding a creative outlet.</p>
<p>It’s<b id="docs-internal-guid-c7c20829-7fff-f5ac-01c5-655c214c8fe0"> </b>clear that the legal freedom to produce ads with no relation to the game itself means that <em>Hero Wars</em> ads will be able to proliferate, not just in terms of re-skinnings of the same content, but also introduction of new content—and content that connects back to other content. An example of this connecting-back is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH7kY-uCsYw">a recent ad</a> in which Galahad spends time with a nice butterfly woman, until she sadly transforms into a pupae or grub. A goblin arrives on scene, steals the grub away, and baits his fishing rod with it before casting. Galahad stabs him in the back, and we realize at this point that we’ve seen this part before. The backstabbing of the fishing goblin was in another ad, but we hadn’t seen the backstory then: how the goblin acquired his bait. The ads are filling in gaps and stitching distinct episodes together. We therefore have a situation where an expanded universe of <em>Hero Wars</em> is being created within the advertisements. How much further down we go remains to be seen.</p>
Will Abbotttag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/332062024-02-27T06:27:00-05:002024-02-27T00:01:32-05:00False Glory of "The New"<p>One of the more curious American late-20th century cultural events was the introduction and subsequent removal of New Coke from store shelves in 1985. I remember thinking, “Interesting, the Coca-Cola company is committing suicide,” Why did they do it? “Old Coke” had, through years of TV commercials, jingles and billboards, established itself as the ideal representation of everything good about America. It didn’t discriminate, it was available to all and it crossed social and class boundaries. And now it was gone. There was widespread public outcry and Old Coke was reintroduced. This led me to realize that the change in form of certain products is more than a business decision; there are metaphysical questions at play. People orient themselves towards existence in their product choices and if the products change there’s a corresponding change in their mental alignment.</p>
<p>It’d been drummed into our heads that Coke was “The Real Thing” and now, they’d changed it. By definition whatever followed could no longer be The Real Thing, but only a false substitute. The iron bond between the Coca-Cola Company and the American public was broken. Coke was revealed not as an unchangeable cultural reality but simply a product, subject to market analysis, boardroom decisions and profit curves. This was a breach of faith. You can knock down Confederate Statues, you can rename football teams, you can exorcise words from the language but some things you don’t touch.</p>
<p>In our lives, as in our product choices, logic often bends before hope and desire. People know Coke is bad for them; its downside is a matter of public record. Each serving has the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar, it’s acidic and rots your teeth, regularly drinking Coke or any cola-type beverage can cause cancer and diabetes; in fact Coke has no redeeming qualities except that people like it.</p>
<p>The billionaire investor Warren Buffett noticed the public reaction to New Coke and the brand loyalty of its consumers and immediately bought as many shares as he could. It became a cornerstone of the Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio. Then, Old Coke came back yielding Buffett and his shareholders a fortune. I can only imagine what happened to whoever it was who first suggested New Coke. He’s probably still chained to the wall in the Coke Headquarters basement on a bread-and-Pepsi diet.</p>
<p>There are cultural realms however where “the new” is welcomed, even obligatory. I worked in a hi-fi store and saw that every year each product was suddenly ”new and improved.” Customers expected this in audio equipment, whether because they’d been well-trained as consumers or because of some innate belief in the miracle of engineering progress. When the magic formula “This is the new model” was intoned, I could see the look of hope and belief in the customer’s eyes. Usually these changes were cosmetic, typically from flat to glossy in the finish of the unit’s casing. But it was clear that hearing those words heightened the anticipation of their listening experience; it gave them the certitude of passing quality time. But this wasn’t the case with New Coke.</p>
<p>I believe there will come a day when people stop drinking Coke altogether. It may be happening now. It won’t be simply because of health concerns, but some other, more mysterious shift in the public consciousness. Coke will no longer mean anything to them, so they’ll stop buying it. In the 19<sup>th</sup> century, the favorite drink in America by far was whiskey. It was cheaper than coffee. People also enjoyed minstrel shows and animal blood sports like bear-baiting and cock-fighting. It’s hard to imagine today. What about football, baseball, rock and rap music, TV series, Disneyland? Could these disappear as well? Given time, it’s probable.</p>
Dick Turnertag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/330962024-02-01T06:27:00-05:002024-02-01T05:15:01-05:00Pokémon Forever<p>I’m one of the few left in 2024 who still carries around a Gameboy Color, and thanks to piracy, I can get great games that work well at an affordable price. Buying retro video games that work is a challenge. I resorted to a pirated game because of negative experiences trying to buy original ones. I saw Pokémon Yellow and Pokémon Gold for sale at the Raynham Flea Market and purchased both. Yellow worked fine until about 20 hours into gameplay. The save battery stopped working after that. The save battery in Gold never worked, and when I tried returning the broken Gold game, the douchey vendor said no refunds, but I could have the other copy of Pokémon Gold he had for sale. Great, except that one also had a busted save function.</p>
<p>I started researching battery replacements on Etsy since this guy also told me they wouldn’t replace the busted battery on the broken games he sold me. A person in Boston does them for $15 apiece with free shipping, but then I saw something better while browsing Etsy: brand-new Pokémon Gameboy Color cartridges. Some people pirate the games, put them on cartridges with an almost identical appearance to the originals, and sell them online. They call the games replica cartridges. When I saw these for sale for a similar cost to repairing the old games—something I will do at some point this year—I bought a pirate cartridge of Pokémon Crystal instead.</p>
<p>Pokémon Crystal is a beefed-up version of Pokémon Gold and Silver that came out for Gameboy Color in 2001. It’s rare. Original copies often sell for $120 to $130. It sold fewer copies than many other Pokémon games because Gold and Silver—the other two second-generation Pokémon games—were out for a year when the game came out, and Nintendo also released the Gameboy Advance in 2001.</p>
<p>I found the battling portion of the game easy, though I remember struggling with these games as a little kid. Crystal was also the first Pokémon game to feature a prompt at the beginning asking the player if they’re a boy or a girl; anything that promotes two genders I like, but it's also nice that girls can play as a girl if they want. The game lets you return to the Kanto Region once you complete gameplay to explore the region from the first generation games (Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow), battle in gyms, and catch Pokémon, giving players far more gameplay.</p>
<p>Buying and selling used Pokémon games from over 20 years ago doesn’t benefit Pokémon or Nintendo, yet neither entity makes new copies of these games available for consumers. The games use obsolete technology, making them simple and cheap to produce, hence why random people on Etsy can offer brand new cartridges for less than $20 shipped.</p>
<p>When people lack a legal way to do something, they resort to illegal methods to get things done. Illegality adds friction and can make an event less common. This is sometimes a net good because even harmful black markets confined to a few are better than allowing entities to push certain ills onto the masses. Pokémon games with an E rating aren’t like fentanyl, cockfighting, or female genital mutilation, so Nintendo and the Pokémon Company have little justification to keep us from purchasing new copies of these games legally.</p>
<p>They’ll never incentivize me to purchase a Nintendo Switch to play the newest Pokémon game; over 1000 Pokémon now exist in the franchise. One Pokémon now is merely a nose, and another is a vanilla ice cream cone.</p>
<p>One Etsy pirate I recently spoke with told me they’ll soon make more Pokémon Red Super Nintendo cartridges available. I own a Retron 3, which plays Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis games, so I may buy a copy when the seller makes more copies available. Pokémon Red was a Gameboy Color game, but having an easy way to play it on a big-screen TV without getting the Nintendo 64, Pokémon Stadium, and Transfer Pak involved sounds nice. </p>
Tom Joycetag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/330892024-01-31T06:28:00-05:002024-02-29T13:43:39-05:00The Article That Made Anthony Bourdain Famous<p>Anthony Bourdain was a working chef in New York City. His dream was to be a writer like his hero George Orwell. He took a writing workshop with famed editor Gordon Lish and then wrote two food-based mystery novels (<i>Bone in the Throat</i> and <i>Gone Bamboo</i>). Random House published the books and both received poor reviews. Bourdain financed his own literary tour but the books sold poorly and his writing career was stillborn.</p>
<p>Bourdain was 42. He was a recovering addict heavily in debt with a history of cooking at failed restaurants. In 1998, he became executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles, a French restaurant in Manhattan. He was beginning to accept his lot in life. A chef’s life wasn’t so bad. He’d probably never travel like he wanted but at least he was working and still alive after years of alcohol and heroin abuse.</p>
<p>In 1999, he wrote a short article about the underside of the restaurant industry. His intended audience included the bus boys and line cooks he worked with. He titled the piece “Don’t Eat Before Reading This.” He shopped the article to magazines and alternative newspapers (including Russ Smith’s <i>New York Press</i>). No one seemed interested. Bourdain later told reporters he submitted the article to the <i>New Yorker</i> “on a drunken whim.” The truth was a bit different.</p>
<p>David Remnick had recently become editor of <i>The</i> <i>New Yorker</i>. Remnick’s wife Esther Fein was a reporter at <i>The</i> <i>New York Times</i>. Bourdain’s mother Gladys was a copy editor at the <i>Times </i>and one day she approached Esther and said, “My son has written something, and maybe you could pass it along to your husband.” Esther gave the article to Remnick to read.</p>
<p>Remnick<b> </b>recounted what followed to <i>GQ</i> magazine. “I took this manuscript out of its yellow envelope, not expecting much. I started to read. It was about a young cook, working at a pretty average steak-and-frites place on lower Park Avenue. I called this guy up on the phone. He answered it in his kitchen. I said, ‘I’d like to publish this work of yours in <em>The New Yorker</em>. I hope that’s okay.’ That was the beginning of Anthony Bourdain being published.”</p>
<p>The article became one of the most popular stories in the history of <i>The</i> <i>New Yorker</i>. It’s filled with gallows humor. Chefs loved the piece because it detailed restaurant kitchens in a way no one had done before. The opening paragraph is filled with edge and intensity:</p>
<p><i>Good food, good eating, is all about blood and organs, cruelty and decay. It’s about sodium-loaded pork fat, stinky triple-cream cheeses, the tender thymus glands and distended livers of young animals. It’s about danger—risking the dark, bacterial forces of beef, chicken, cheese and shellfish. Your first 207 Wellfleet oysters may transport you to a state of rapture, but your 208th may send you to bed with sweats, chills and vomits.</i></p>
<p>The most quoted passage from the article was Bourdain’s advice to avoid eating restaurant fish on Mondays since it was delivered on Friday morning and has likely been sitting around without proper refrigeration. Regarding beef he wrote, “People who order their meat well-done perform a valuable service… they pay for the privilege of eating our garbage.” He explained that when cooks find a piece of steak that is “tough, riddled with nerve and connective tissue… and maybe a little stinky from age,” it’s put aside for “the philistine who orders his food well-done and is not likely to notice the difference between food and flotsam.”</p>
<p>The <i>New Yorker</i> article changed Bourdain’s life. It led to a publishing deal with Bloomsbury that birthed the book<i> Kitchen Confidential</i>. This led to Bourdain’s television career and allowed him to become friends with chefs like Eric Ripert and Mario Batali. “That these guys feel any kinship with me at all is a shock and a fucking honor,” Bourdain said. “They’re gods to me. I feel goofy around them. I’m a fan boy.”</p>
<p>Bourdain exposed the brutal underbelly of restaurant life. He wrote that restaurants traffic in barbarity and that “gastronomy is the science of pain.” He informed diners that restaurants don’t like them. They have “a contempt for outsiders and a loyalty to no flag but their own.” He compared restaurant kitchens to a submarine crew where staff are “confined for most of their waking hours in hot, airless spaces and ruled by despotic leaders” like those in “the royal navies of Napoleonic times.”</p>
<p>In an NPR interview with “Fresh Air,” Bourdain said, “I just wanted to write about my life from the point of view of a working journeyman chef of no particular distinction.” He told <i>Men’s Journal</i>, “I wasn’t that great a chef, and I don’t think I’m that great a writer.” But he had a distinctive voice and an irreverent sense of humor. He saved his most savage insults for vegetarians “and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans.” He called them “enemies of everything that’s good and decent in the human spirit. To live life without veal or chicken stock, fish cheeks, sausages, cheese or organ meats is treasonous.”</p>
<p>Bourdain painted himself as a rebel misfit attracted to “the unsavory side of professional cooking.” In the <i>New Yorker</i> article he wrote “as most of us in the restaurant business know, there is a powerful strain of criminality in the industry.” He was attracted to this energy. He loved the “ghoulish kitchen humor, the free food, the pilfered booze, the camaraderie that flourished within rigid order and nerve-shattering chaos.”</p>
<p>Bourdain’s writing was also an act of mythmaking. He carefully carved his outlaw persona that followed him the rest of his life. As his legend grew, strangers plied him with booze and drugs wherever he traveled. This isn’t a formula for health and happiness for anyone let alone an acknowledged addict. In the book <i>Difficult Men</i>, writer Brett Martin reflected on Bourdain’s rise to fame. “I think people forget, in the sanctification that’s followed Bourdain’s death, that his persona early on was really sort of an asshole, shot through with this adolescent, faux-gonzo narcissism.”</p>
<p>Bourdain eventually became an empathetic reporter concerned for the downtrodden and marginalized. But his early food writing glorified the kitchen culture of toxic masculinity. He later expressed remorse for his early views. “To the extent which my work…celebrated or prolonged a culture that allowed the kind of grotesque behaviors we’re hearing about all too frequently is something I think about daily, with real remorse.”</p>
<p>Bourdain suffered from depression. In a 2016 episode of <i>Parts Unknown</i>, he described how something as innocuous as an airport hamburger could trigger “a spiral of depression that can last for days.” In 2017 he told <i>The Guardian</i>, “I was an unhappy soul… I hurt, disappointed, and offended many, many, many people, and I regret a lot. It’s a shame I have to live with.”</p>
<p>Bourdain’s propensity for addiction made him a workaholic television creator. He yearned to spend more time with his daughter but his grueling travel schedule kept him on the road 250 days a year. A crewmember on his CNN show <i>Parts Unknown</i> said Bourdain was “always very tired and not especially cheerful.”</p>
<p>In the book <i>Down and Out In Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain</i>, author Charles Leerhsen shared a text Bourdain wrote to his second wife Ottavia Busia-Bourdain. “I hate my fans. I hate being famous. I hate my job… I am lonely and living in constant uncertainty.” Leerhsen wrote that at the end of his life, Bourdain “was isolated, injecting steroids, drinking to the point of blackout and visiting prostitutes.”</p>
<p>On June 18, 2018, Bourdain committed suicide while on location in France for <i>Parts Unknown</i>. He was 62. His best friend Eric Ripert discovered his body. Fans around the world paid tribute. President Obama (who ate street food with Bourdain in Hanoi) tweeted, “He taught us about food and its ability to bring us together.” Chef Andrew Zimmern wrote, “Tony was a symphony. A piece of my heart is truly broken this morning.” Gordon Ramsay said, “It illustrates that success is not immune to depression. We all need to be more aware of our friends who are suffering.”</p>
<p>Behind-the-scenes cooking shows and restaurant-based dramas like <i>The Bear</i> and <i>Boiling Point</i> are very popular today. None would exist without Bourdain. And if not for an unsolicited essay in The <i>New Yorker</i>, Bourdain might still be cooking steak-and-frites in kitchens throughout New York.</p>
Loren Kantortag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/330742024-01-29T06:29:00-05:002024-02-04T16:57:34-05:00Cracker Food<p>Riffling through an old trunk (foot locker) the other day I came across this picture of my son Booker, taken (analog) years ago in the playroom of our Powell Building loft in Tribeca. No slight to my younger boy, but the star of the shot is that economy-sized box of Ritz crackers; I have no recollection of my wife buying them for the kids. A staple of my youth, unsurprisingly, as were Tony the Tiger and Bazooka Joe, and I wonder if the current Ritz rolls of crackers are still contained in that dull wax paper; probably not, ecologically unsound, but I wouldn’t know since I haven’t had a Ritz since around 1971. Ritz’s were the bottom layer of suburban “hors d’oeuvres” at the cocktail parties where the food wasn’t much—my mom put fried or chopped chicken liver on them for the gaudy-colored tray, as well as nasty pimento cream cheese and other atrocities I’ve perhaps blocked out—but the bourbon and gin (white wine wasn’t yet invented for the Richard Yates-set) still got the job done. Someone always policed the overflowing ashtrays. Saltines weren’t party food; left for the kids to eat with Skippy crunchy or Jif.</p>
<p>I think of Ritz crackers, and artificially-flavored cheese Tidbits and Wise potato chips (before a new recipe ruined the distinctive burnt and salty taste), as the “fast food” of home cupboards. That brings up a matter that’s trivial, but curious, at least to me. Driving to the dentist last week on the desolate York Rd. in Baltimore, my wife and I passed a Wendy’s, and I remarked that I’d never been to one, despite the chain’s presence in the Northeast since the 1970s. Melissa hadn’t either and that got us on a rapid-fire listing of the fast-food franchises we’d frequented. McDonald’s and Burger King, obviously, as well as Kentucky Fried Chicken—which, when it opened in Huntington in 1971, and the Colonel still clung to his “18 herbs and spices,” and I could taste every one, was a major step up from “Don’t Cook Tonight, Call Chicken Delight!” And Taco Bell, Denny’s, Jimmy John’s, Jersey Joe’s, Domino’s (for wings, never pizza), Subway, Papa John’s, Panera and Dunkin’ Donuts.</p>
<p>Yes to Jack In the Box and Baskin-Robbins (the fancy ice cream, on a par with Carvel, before Haagen-Dazs horned in, not to mention Ben & Jerry’s, which I’ve never tasted), Nathan’s (best dog in the world) and no to Olive Garden, Hooter’s, Red Lobster, Margaritaville, Chik-fil-A, TGI Friday’s, In-N-Out-Burger, Arthur Treacher’s, Ruby Tuesday and Cheesecake Factory. I’d been to Steak and Ale (in Manhattan in late-1970 with my brother Gary after seeing <i>Gimme Shelter</i>) and the Little Tavern, foreign to Melissa, but she’d had fries at Five Guys and went to Sonic, both in the negative for me. In Baltimore, Polock Johnny’s ruled, and Harry Little’s was a stop for me at two a.m. on a weekend, a sloppy cheesesteak with extra hots to sop up the booze. And Leon’s Pig Pen, now gone, had killer ribs and chopped pork sandwiches.</p>
<p>We’d both been to an IHOP (but no Waffle House), memorable for me, since the second day I was in Denver in the summer of 1976, I had bacon and eggs there in the morning and was really impressed that a slice of orange garnished the plate. (Right outside the joint was a couple in a beat-up VW, unabashedly and vigorously screwing in the front seat, an eye-opener at 7:30. It could’ve been a live peep show, I guess, but a prurient peek was enough.) Nays to Long John Silver for both of us (Gary, in his 20s in Santa Fe, briefly fried up fish at one outlet and had to wear the ridiculous costume) as well as Roy Rogers, Hardee’s and Arby’s.</p>
<p>I was taken aback when Friendly’s got a no from Melissa, since that was a hangout in Huntington for me as a teen, a cozy spot just below the outside shopping center “The Big H,” which was a short walk down the hill from my high school. A few people I know are still diner aficionados, and almost every week—for years now—writers ramp up the rhapsody with long and usually trite features on the subject, but the last time I ate at one of mid-20<sup>th</sup> century landmarks was at the Colonial Diner, next to the aforementioned Friendly’s. I liked it: great cheeseburgers and fries, tuna sandwiches and tabletop jukeboxes, where a dime would get you three songs. And since the drinking age was 18 in New York back then, if a buddy was behind the counter, I could get a bottle of Schlitz, even though a razor touching my face was still maybe a monthly occurrence.</p>
<p>Look at the clues to figure out the year: Korean War Veterans Memorial dedicated in D.C.; hundreds die in Midwest heat wave; the U.S. federal government shuts down for a couple of weeks, no one notices; The Smashing Pumpkins record and release their magnum opus <em>Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness</em>; Lil Uzi Vert is born and Burl Ives dies; Bill Clinton visits Dublin, and, incredibly, 80,000 people show up; <i>Toy Story</i> is released; Amy Heckerling releases <em>Clueless</em>, her second high school classic; Timothée Chalamet is born and Jerry Garcia dies; Douglas Coupland’s <i>Microserfs</i> and Richard Ford’s <i>Independence Day</i> are published; Horton Foote wins drama Pulitzer for <i>The Young Man from Atlanta</i>; the first International Guitar Festival is held in Buenos Aires; and Julie Goodyear leaves British soap <i>Coronation Street</i>.</p>
<p><i>—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/mugger2023">@MUGGER2023</a></i></p>
Russ Smithtag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/328482023-12-13T06:28:00-05:002023-12-12T16:38:23-05:00Ordinary Objects Becoming High Fashion<p>A towel, a trash bag, and a pillow walk into a fashion show. Or rather, they walk in the fashion show. That's the long-running joke to which certain designers periodically return. In this joke, everyday objects—often items of household necessity—are turned into fashion, commanding not only a steep price, but a spectacle to go with them.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.balenciaga.com/en-us/balenciaga-towel-skirt-beige-768726TPP919501.html">“Towel Skirt” </a>by Balenciaga is the latest in what we can rightly call "homegoodscore”—in the vein of the current predilection for naming trends a "core," or in other words, the epitome of something. For the sake of internet-age posterity, this trend should also be written as a single phrase, in all lowercase letters, just like the other “cores” (normcore, cottagecore, balletcore) identified in the<b id="docs-internal-guid-b609b805-7fff-9e8e-2b84-de49a159278d"> </b>Fashionista <a href="https://fashionista.com/2022/08/core-style-aesthetics-fashion-style-glossary-gen-z">glossary</a>.<b> </b>At $925, the Italian-made, 100 percent terry cotton skirt wraps around the waist exactly like a towel after one showers. It’s so convincing, that it makes you question whether to call it a skirt at all. Is it really just an actual towel held together by a small buckle, positioned inconspicuously between the folds of the fabric to make it look as if the wearer just tucked the end inside? The buckle is one of the only things that differentiate it from a towel that you could buy in Home Goods—or wherever you procure your usual tufted, water absorbing rectangular textiles—along with a "tone-on-tone" (barely visible) embroidered logo.</p>
<p>The “Towel Skirt” is a contradiction; a walking one, should anyone actually buy and wear it. Its design is unassuming and mundane. Yet, it's a complete spectacle. In the Debordian sense, it’s a manifestation of capitalist-driven aspirations and desires. As a meme, it's the perfect content for TikToks, Snaps, and Instagram posts crafted with society's dwindling attention spans in mind. Influencers are talking about it, and Ikea has parodied it with <a href="https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/ikea-balenciaga-towel-skirt/">one of their own towels</a>, which retails for an affordable $8. The Ikea version makes for a great dupe; the Swedish conglomerate’s towel looks similar to the French brand’s, and their model was styled and posed to jestingly imitate the Balenciaga campaign.</p>
<p>To create the perfect homegoodscore look, why not accessorize your “Towel Skirt” with a roll of toilet paper and some cleaning spray? Moschino’s toilet paper handbag from 2017, their Windex-inspired spray-bottle perfumes, that is. Part of what a <em>Cosmopolitan</em> magazine writer described as “it’s the sh*t, yo!,” the bag looks exactly as it sounds: a roll of toilet paper on a chain. Their perfumes, which have been a steady fixture on the fragrance market since 2015, look like miniature bottles of household cleaner. Last summer’s<b id="docs-internal-guid-eea62a6b-7fff-c10c-03ca-7bcb33530ed6"> </b>infamous <a href="https://www.splicetoday.com/consume/at-balenciaga-an-1800-trash-bag-isn-t-just-a-bag">Balenciaga Trash Pouch</a> adds a finishing touch to the ensemble.</p>
<p>Sleep—and its symbolism—is especially prevalent, and relevant in homegoodscore. Prada is currently selling a <a href="https://www.prada.com/us/en/p/padded-cotton-miniskirt/21H959_1U71_F0LII_S_232">“Padded Cotton Miniskirt”</a> that they note was inspired by the duvet. JW Anderson’s showcased pillows sewn into shirts and held like clutches at his A/W’23 menswear show in January. People all over the world participated in the “pillow dress” challenge during the pandemic in 2020, using belts to fasten pillows-cum-dresses to their bodies. In 2005, Belgian duo Viktor and Rolf <a href="https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2005-ready-to-wear/viktor-rolf">“Duvet and Pillows Dress” </a>captured the attention of the fashion world for its trompe l’oeil effect that made it seem as if the model wearing it took her bed for a vertical walk on the runway. The reclusive designer Martin Margiela created a coat with the Italian bedding manufacturer Featherlight in 1999; <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/155218">one of them</a><b> </b> is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection. As far back as 1973, Norma Kamali created the “Sleeping Bag Coat,” a quilted, belted piece, which she says was the first of its kind when she debuted it in 1973.</p>
<p>Debord surmised that “the spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned modern society which ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of sleep.” Sleep, or ignorance, is maintained through spectacles, which are provocative events that generate surface-level conversation, not critical reflection, awareness or thinking. Spectacles are a means to create and maintain ignorance; they can be used to distract people from other more serious events, or to remain in the news cycle in the hopes of driving sales. In many cases, the latter may be true; maybe press around Prada’s duvet-like skirt is helping to once again drive conversation around a brand whose last major news was in early-October, when they announced that they’d be producing suits for future Axiom space flights. But what happens when the former is marshaled? Was Balenciaga’s bathroom clothing released in time to offset its parent company, conglomerate Kering’s controversial move of Gucci offices from Rome to Milan? Employees are currently striking, as they see the decision to be mass lay-offs, or “mass redundancy in disguise.”</p>
<p>Let's not forget that designers create fashion by analyzing and interpreting the zeitgeist. They react to what they’re witnessing around them and in the media. If the consumers want more leggings, they’ll make more leggings. Likewise, if they want more slumberous content—the kind that encourages either physical or mental sleep, or both— that’s what they’ll get. Those who don’t pause for critical reflection are indeed easy targets for successful ad campaigns and more.</p>
<p>These clothes might first give us a good laugh, eye-rolls, or double-takes. After the initial reactions subside, though, we shouldn’t hesitate to ask why they’re made.</p>
<p>—<em>Doris Domoszlai-Lantner is an historian and archivist of fashion and dress. Read more about her work at www.dorisddl.com and follow her on Instagram and Twitter @doris_ddl </em></p>
Doris Domoszlai-Lantnertag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/327692023-11-27T06:29:00-05:002023-11-26T15:41:18-05:00Speed Thrills<p>One mid-December afternoon in 1986, my friend Joan and I were happily tootling around Baltimore County in her Honda, visiting the sagging-jowls-extended-guts, jam-packed malls to buy some Christmas presents. During the trip, I told her how our friend Alan was going nuts because he couldn’t find a Cabbage Patch Kid doll for his five-year-old daughter. I tried to slough it off at work—easy for me in ’86, since I didn’t have children yet—and Alan looked at me, uncharacteristically speechless, before saying, “You don’t understand. This is the IT toy of the season and it’s all Lucy can talk about, how she can’t wait for Hanukah when she’ll get her toy. I’ve even gone to D.C. and every store is sold out. I’m in a bind!”</p>
<p>Ten years later, the most popular rip-off, pardon me, present, for kids was a Tickle Me Elmo plush toy, and there were similar bouts of panic among our friends in Manhattan who, like my wife and me, were trying to accumulate enough <i>stuff</i> to put under the tree. It was a pure coincidence but in late-summer of 1996, Melissa was browsing at an uptown bookstore and, upon leaving with a couple of books and magazines, saw an Elmo in the display window of a store, and impulsively (it was August) bought it since we she knew our two-year-old son Booker would be beyond tickled if Santa saw fit to climb down the chimney—we didn’t have a chimney in our loft, which took some circuitous/double-talk subterfuge to explain to the boys—and put Elmo in a prime spot. Much to our surprise, when the Elmo shortage occurred that fall there was cabbage-patch-like pandemonium, and when Melissa, not understanding the predicament, casually mentioned to a friend, “Huh, I got an Elmo last summer, there were loads of them.” It didn’t rupture the friendship—the country, if not New York City, wasn’t yet entirely familiar with Donald Trump and how that could cause havoc among people who should know better—but she kept her lips zipped after that unintended faux-pas. (Off topic, but it’s fascinating—like the fall of The Wall in 1989—to watch Western world governments upended because of the Israel/Hamas/Gaza events. After Geert Wilders, what’s next? A snap election in the UK, with a kook taking over? Macron replaced by Le Pen in France? Leo Varadkar on the way out in Ireland? And, not that it matters, Justin Trudeau sent to political purgatory in Canada? It goes without saying that it’s all because of Trump.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wsj.com/business/retail/holiday-spending-toy-industry-10d9cfb9?mod=hp_lista_pos4">According to a <i>Wall Street Journal</i> article last Friday</a> toy retailers aren’t ringing bells this holiday season, as sales are down, and there’s no extra-fabulous gift that just <i>must</i> be acquired before Christmas Eve. Reporters Harriet Torry and Ben Glickman provide an anecdote: “This holiday season is off to a slow start for Wildings Toy Boutique in Phoenix, which sells classic toy dollhouses and wooden cars and accessories. The store has been trying to drum up customer interest with experiences, including Santa visits and family photo shoots in front of a Christmas-tree backdrop outside the store.”</p>
<p>Not to kick a merchant when he or she is down, but “Santa visits” are as old as a 1952 copy of <i>Time</i> that you can buy for a quarter at flea markets or on the street, and, at least to me, in no-snow Phoenix the Christmas tree-backdrop is also a strange one (but I endorse it!). I’d guess the most obvious suggestion—not that I’d know—is for every toy store in the country to devote half their aisles to Barbie and Ken dolls—pure, rude, anatomically-correct, extra-anatomically correct—because since the blockbuster movie this summer, that just has to be the hit. Or maybe one of those Cillian Murphy toys that has the <i>Oppenheimer</i> star’s eyes exploding.</p>
<p>The picture above, taken at my Uncle Pete’s house in Queens, is your young author gamely putting on an astronaut’s helmet (maybe foreshadowing The Urban Spaceman), feigning delight, and chucking it in the attic—accessible only by ladder—as soon as our family returned to Huntington. That’s not a knock on Pete and Aunt Peggy—gifts for kids are a crapshoot, and it’s very possible that what my parents bought for cousins Steve, Phil and Bernadette were dismissed as duds—and in that era space-age paraphernalia was as popular as Elmo a few decades later, but if there was any hand-wringing about a shortage of toys it escaped me. You got what you got and it was cool: for me, one memorable year, a new baseball mitt, sled, a sweatshirt I legitimately liked and bag of caramels. Along with Dad making breakfast—the annual ritual of hand-pressed waffles with as much syrup as we wanted, bacon and sausages—there were a lot of tidings and joy at 123 La Rue Drive.</p>
<p>Take a look at the clues and figure out the year: <i>Summer Holiday</i>, starring Cliff Richard, opens in London; double-agent Kim Philby takes leave of Beirut; Winston Churchill becomes an honorary citizen of the United States; Quentin Tarantino is born and Yasuijrō Ozu dies; Christine Keeler is arrested, and later convicted, for perjury; John Fowles’ <i>The Collector</i> is published; John Ford's film <em>Donovan's Reef </em>is released; David Thewlis is born and Guy Burgess dies; William Faulkner’s <i>The Reivers</i> wins the fiction Pulitzer; The Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine” is #4 on the year-end <i>Billboard</i> charts (George Harrison paid rapt attention); and the New York City newspaper strike ends after 114 days.</p>
<p><i>—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/mugger2023">@MUGGER2023</a></i></p>
Russ Smithtag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/325222023-10-06T06:26:00-04:002023-10-05T22:55:54-04:00Spectrum vs. Disney<p>When my television cable receiver boots up, it shows a splash screen displaying the word “Spectrum.”. Spectrum’s defined as “a suite of advanced broadband services offered by Charter Communications, Inc.” Recently, more than 15 million Spectrum subscribers who tuned to any of the Disney-owned networks learned they weren’t going to see that football game, tennis match, or Disney movie they’d planned on. Charter Communications and Disney are at war, and those subscribers, myself included, are the losers in this battle.</p>
<p>You’ve probably experienced one or more instances of this monetary conflict before. Sometimes the programming lost is a local CBS affiliate, as is the case currently for a family member in Pennsylvania. Your cable company wants you to think they’re going to bat for you by blaming the content provider for the loss of programming from the local news station, or some media giant, like Disney. A disclaimer runs on those stations for Spectrum subscribers.</p>
<p>“The Walt Disney company, the owner of this channel has removed their programming from Spectrum. We offered Disney a fair deal, and yet they continue to demand an excessive increase.”</p>
<p>I’m pretty confident that Disney disagrees with what Spectrum considers an excessive increase. At one time, ESPN properties accounted for 30 cents out of every dollar of profit made by Disney. It’s true there are less people watching ESPN and similar networks than in the past. We receive our content in different ways now, and many people feel there are simply too many choices between basic cable, premium services and the available streaming choices. We have difficult choices to make. But let’s be clear: Disney didn’t so much remove their programming from Spectrum as Spectrum chose not to pay Disney’s bill.</p>
<p>Charter Communications says that the entire cable television system is “broken,” and they can’t continue to provide affordable services under the current model. “Customers are leaving the traditional video ecosystem, and losses have accelerated,” said a statement from Charter.</p>
<p>Charter posted a net income of $1.22 billion for the quarter ended in December of 2022. Their stock is trading at $422 a share. Tom Rutledge, Charter’s CEO, made $41 million in 2021. I know Disney’s Bob Iger receives a fat paycheck, too. But Spectrum wants me to believe they’re the good guy in this fight, when in fact, the price of something went up, and they don’t want to pay it. Part of the reason they don’t want to pay it is because if they pass it along to consumers, some of them, more of them, will become fed up, and cancel their subscriptions. When was the last time you went to the grocery store? Have you noticed prices going up?</p>
<p>I don’t want my cable bill to go up. I’ve already suffered price increases to Max, Apple TV and Netflix. But I do want to watch sports and some FX show I’ve yet to discover. And Charter has taken that choice away from 15 million of us.</p>
<p>The Spectrum truck rolls down your block and stops at a neighbor’s house. There’s a need for service of some sort. And Spectrum will provide that service, and get you back on line, if the trouble happens to be with your internet capabilities. That’s because those services are Spectrum’s to provide. But what if that truck had a tire blow out, and Spectrum went to Nitto tire and asked for a new one. Nitto says, “Well you know, things have been tough, so we’re charging $71 for that tire.” Spectrum’s aghast, as the tire used to be $63. Spectrum has a choice—pay for the tire, at the new price, or pass the increase along to me. Which they surely will. But they won’t stop making service calls, and they certainly aren’t going to turn off my internet because the tires cost more.</p>
<p>Perhaps that analogy isn’t spot-on, but it’s close. Maybe my bill will go up, and maybe an internal audit will show that 60 cents of it goes to Disney. As much as no one likes to pay higher prices, I’d prefer to make that choice for myself, as opposed to my cable company choosing to not pay their bill, and pass the problem on to me.</p>
Kevin Lawrencetag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/324872023-09-28T06:25:00-04:002023-09-28T01:23:37-04:00Guy Fieri—Documentarian of the Local<p>Years ago, when I started watching Food Network, it was a place for serious cooks wanting to learn from the masters. There were great instructional shows like Bobby Flay's <i>Grilling and Chilling</i>, and the now-canceled #MeToo offender Mario Batali's <i>Molto Mario</i>. But the business model shifted in another direction, and these instructional shows disappeared, so now I tune in to cooking competition shows like <i>Chopped</i> and <i>Beat Bobby Flay</i>. I've also watched Guy Fieri's <i>Diners, Drive-ins & Dives</i> ("Triple D" to Fieri and his legions of fans) for years, but what started out as partially a "hate watch" soon became a favorite. He's a restaurant cheerleader, but only for the good places whose customers look and sound (Fieri interviews them) happy.</p>
<p>Fieri's become the undisputed star of Food Network, but his affectations can grate—his "cool dude" lingo, dyed, two-tone beard, and the stomach-turning claim to be the "mayor of Flavortown." But his enthusiasm for the honest-food joints he visits, and the skill and enthusiasm with which he documents them, manage to cut through all his I-want-to-be-a-TV-personality exertions.</p>
<p>What is honest food, which is going the way of the phone booth? I know what it's not. Years ago, when I worked as a cook at an Italian place, I made Chicken Alfredo and Veal Marsala with sauces that came from the vendor in bags. The thing is, both of these dishes are so simple to prepare that there's no reason to go for such shortcuts, which may save a few pennies. For whatever reason, there's a knee-jerk mentality driving such nonsense, and that mentality gets in the way of the preparation of honest food. At this place, they were too lazy and/or too cheap to cut up a couple of fresh bunches of the parsley they put on almost everything, so they used the vastly inferior, tasteless dried variety. In a nutshell, this is the opposite of what Fieri's looking for.</p>
<p>That's the "lazy," uninspired food that's becoming the norm in American casual dining as corporate restaurants crowd out the competition with their cost-cutting market power. Cutting parsley would take about two minutes a day, but even that's too much work for hack restaurateurs. Fieri takes his viewers to places where the chef/owners (it's usually the same person) have too much pride to take cheap shortcuts like buying frozen meatballs. They do it the old-fashioned way, giving Triple D a nostalgic appeal.</p>
<p>While fellow celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, on his <i>Kitchen Nightmares</i>, lives to break the egos of underperforming chefs and owners so he can rebuild them in his image, Fieri—who's a much less accomplished chef—only wants to spotlight their talents.</p>
<p>Triple D places are run by humble, passionate types that Ramsey would love to encounter, if only he didn't have a show that's built on humiliating overconfident failures on camera. Ramsey denigrates cooks in the kitchen, while Fieri banters with them, lavishing compliments on their skills and enthusiasm as he assists them in preparing meals. Fieri's there to learn and encourage, not to disparage and denigrate. He's quick on his feet too, explaining the purpose of specific ingredients and techniques. As there's no dramatic "angle" to his show promising ratings-boosting conflicts, it's the food and the personality of the chef that shines.</p>
<p>Triple D places don't have white tablecloths, which contributes to the communal feeling in the air, as if there's a bond among a small group created by being in on the secret of an unassuming place that puts out food prepared with love. And the simplest way of explaining why there aren't more Triple D-type restaurants is the absence of this culinary "love" that comes straight from the heart. There's no heart in reheating food in a microwave or sauce that comes in plastic bags.</p>
<p>Triple D isn’t just about the food. It’s also a travel show that hones in on the quirky local element—Fieri gives the name of the neighborhood of the town he's visiting—that the fast-food industry and chain restaurants have bulldozed over in their quest for centrally-controlled, homogeneous domination of the culinary landscape. The diners and other no-frills eateries like the food trucks, seafood snacks, taco stands, and burger joints of Triple D are a long-enduring symbol of community. In a nation starved for community feeling, that's a major draw. Faceless, rootless places like Applebee's and TGI Friday's can't move in on this market because that would require the impossible—the creation of a unique sense of place for each separate location.</p>
<p>Triple D places are where the locals eat. If you're just in town for a day, you probably won't find one unless a local tips you off, because they're not on the main drags. They have their own culture. Customers might sign the wall after dining, have special nicknames for themselves, or pour their own coffee and top off other patrons' coffees. These places have unique dishes offering the element of surprise. There's the giant Homewrecker hotdog from Hillbilly Hotdog in Lesage, West Virginia that's topped with jalapenos, several cheeses, chili sauce, mustard, lettuce, slaw, onions, and tomato. Fresh Catch, in Honolulu, offers a smoked octopus, which you won't get at Olive Garden. At Joey's Kitchen on the island of Maui, you can try the traditional Hawaiian dish, Loco-Moco, which is white rice topped with ground sirloin patties, onions, homemade gravy, onions, and two any-style eggs. I happen met Joey on Maui. He's got the greatest last name of all time—Macadangdang.</p>
<p>Triple D does more than document great, unpretentious American (and Canadian) restaurants. Chain restaurants, and chains of all kinds, are a part of the erasure of a sense of place that people feel a sense of loss over. They're exacerbating rootlessness to the point where that sense of place is receding until it lingers as a mere memory. Guy Fieri, a documentarian of the local, is doing a service by introducing viewers to places where the sense of place is still tangible.</p>
Chris Becktag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/324662023-09-25T06:28:00-04:002023-09-25T17:19:20-04:00Transform Your Workplace Dynamics with Employee Engagement Software<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">Are you struggling to improve your workplace dynamics? Do you find it challenging to keep your employees engaged and motivated? Well, have you considered using staff engagement software? Employee engagement software is a tool designed to increase employee participation and involvement in the company's objectives. It allows for better collaboration within teams and helps establish meaningful communication between employers and employees. In this blog post, we will explore how staff engagement software can transform your workplace dynamics.</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">What is Employee Engagement Software?</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">Employee Engagement Software is a tool that enables organizations to track employee satisfaction levels, collect feedback, establish goals, evaluate performance metrics, and reward achievements. This type of software is designed to boost staff motivation by creating an environment where they feel valued.</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">The Benefits of Staff Engagement Software in Transforming Your Workplace Dynamics:</b></p>
<p><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">There are numerous benefits associated with utilizing <a href="https://elearningindustry.com/directory/software-categories/employee-engagement-software">staff engagement software</a> for your organization. Here are some of the significant advantages:</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">1) Improved Communication - Employee engagement software facilitates accessible communication channels between team members. It allows employees to provide feedback through surveys or suggestion boxes while initiating open dialogue.</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">2) Enhanced Productivity - Effective use of the employee engagement platform can significantly increase productivity because it helps workers understand their roles more clearly. Employees become more efficient with transparency on job duties, instructions, and deadlines.</b></p>
<p><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">3) Reduced Turnover – Engaged employees tend to stay longer at their jobs when compared with less engaged co-workers, which reflects positively on retention rates and builds a sense of loyalty.</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">4) Better Collaborative Workplace Culture- As mentioned earlier, when Company Management uses Staff Engagement Software Efforts, it promotes a culture that focuses on teamwork and trust among colleagues giving rise to greater cooperation throughout the organization.</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">How Does Employee Engagement Happen Through Technology?</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">Technology's role in enhancing modern-day business operations cannot be overstated, and the same applies to employee software engagement. Through Staff Engagement Software, businesses can provide tailor-made tools for employees (specifically in remote working environments) that help streamline various organizational processes making their day-to-day jobs more manageable. Additionally, through technology integration, employees are made aware of different career opportunities within the organization, encouraging further investment and attachment strategies.</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">Meet Your Employees Desire For Personalisation </b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">Modern employees have grown accustomed to tailored experiences from every aspect of their lives- including at work. Employee Engagement systems allow customization through personal development trackings/training modifications and scheduling features adjusted to fit your individual needs. Offering customized solutions that meet individual employee needs encourages personalized ownership of individual responsibilities, hindering mistaken perceptions.</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">Reward System Promotes Competition & Camaraderie</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">Companies strive to create a positive company culture that reinforces performance while balancing the results with healthy staff competition via system-run rewards programs such as merit-based bonuses or internal recognition programs and events. When implemented appropriately, studies reveal these incentive tools contribute heavily to boosting team morale and enhancing organizational productivity.</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">Integrating Over-Time & Goal-setting Mechanisms </b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">An essential feature of any Comprehensive Employee Engagement Program is proper time management facilitated by its integrated goal-setting mechanism. By setting targets for each quarter or period alongside its related duties set outcomes, you will find both long-term incentives like a promotion or managerial roles alongside short-team initiatives being completed satisfactorily according to deadlines. </b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b id="docs-internal-guid-adf2b5f6-7fff-ff8c-2f40-7d39817e00b8">In conclusion, Employer-employee relationships involve complex dynamics that require careful mending from time to time; Staff engagement software offers an exciting solution without incurring additional costs, thereby allowing Companies to invest directly towards growth sustenance programs promoting better collaboration in your workplace, leading towards a well-rounded skill sharpening experience for all team members alike. So if you want to transform your workplace's current dynamics into something positive, an innovative trust-building model, administer an employing-staff engagement tool today, implementing effective staff engagement software into operation.</b></p>
Sponsored Posttag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/324672023-09-25T06:27:00-04:002023-09-25T17:32:14-04:00Society Continues to Explore Different Vacation Types in 2023<p>In recent times, particularly since the world started getting back to normal again, people have been holidaying more frequently and experiencing different types of holidays. Be it a beach-based offering or a <a href="https://www.splicetoday.com/sports">sports-based</a> trip in a major city, vacations are changing and people are opening themselves up to different types of holidays.</p>
<p>Of course, there are still holidaymakers who are back to frequenting their usual favourite spots on this glorious planet of ours, but there are also millions of people who are spreading their wings a bit and venturing to new territories and enjoying new vacation packages. They certainly aren’t short on options either, particularly when factoring in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2019/09/04/bucket-list-travel-the-top-50-places-in-the-world/">the wealth of options</a> we have available to us. For now, though, there are some evident standout types of vacation that are particularly popular with people at the moment. Let’s assess some of the most favoured options below.</p>
<p><b>City trips will always be popular </b></p>
<p>A go-to vacation for many is visiting some of the world’s major cities, <a href="https://www.timeout.com/newyork/things-to-do/101-things-to-do-in-new-york">be it New York</a>, London, Paris or Sydney. A metropolitan adventure typically involves shopping, sight seeing, car horns, construction noise, good food and drink, and essentially all things that revolve around the hustle and bustle of city life. For some people who live in a major city anyway, these types of holidays are becoming less appealing, but they’re extremely in demand with other holidaymakers. Visiting cities will always be popular, particularly given the comprehensive selection of things you can typically do in a city also, from seeing a theatre production and watching a movie, to enjoying a fine dining experience and exploring a museum. If big crowds aren’t for you, though, then a city trip is probably one to avoid.</p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IQVdvGRkfKs" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p><b>A safari adventure is an amazing thing to do </b></p>
<p>In 2023, heading to an animal-filled location for a safari adventure is an unbeatable experience. In fact, safari holidays have always appealed to people, perhaps due to David Attenborough’s excellent documentaries on the animal kingdom, movies like Madagascar, or even games with a <a href="https://www.casino.com/ca/slots/mega-moolah/">safari theme like Mega Moolah</a>. Whatever the reason, heading to popular destinations like South Africa and Tanzania is an amazing experience as holidaymakers throw themselves into a wild setting and see some of Earth’s most beautiful creatures in their natural environment. These types of holidays are typically supplemented by a stay in a top hotel, lodge or cabin that adds to the overall experience. Going on a safari isn’t for everyone, but if you’re keen to immerse yourself in the animal world, then it’s a truly amazing thing to do.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://splicetoday.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/editor/pictures/3037/content_image2.jpeg" style="width: 420px; height: 280px;" /></p>
<p>(Image via <a href="https://twitter.com/soumyajitt">https://twitter.com/soumyajitt</a>)</p>
<p><b>Camping trips always result in stories to tell </b></p>
<p>You don’t necessarily need to venture to a foreign location to enjoy a break away from your regular everyday life. That’s exactly what camping provides, with millions of people around the world discovering camping and reconnecting with nature in the process. Perfect for people who aren’t afraid to get a bit dirty and enjoy the sights and the sounds of an outdoor setting, sleeping under the stars and spending time in a wild environment is the perfect antidote for busy city living, for example. It’s also a great way of coming together with friends and family and all pitching in for a common goal, be it to nail a delicious meal or to pitch a tent. If you’re a person who enjoys luxury offerings, though, then camping probably isn’t for you.</p>
<p>Other popular vacation types at the moment include a road trip, a cruise, a group tour, an adventure holiday, a girls/guys vacation, a solo vacation, and a staycation in a nearby location.</p>
Sponsored Posttag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/324462023-09-22T00:01:00-04:002023-09-20T15:23:21-04:00Primers to Enhance Makeup Performancetag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/324442023-09-21T00:01:00-04:002023-09-20T15:09:05-04:00Sandy Liang Spring Summer 24 Runway Show tag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/323912023-09-11T05:55:00-04:002023-09-10T16:07:12-04:00New Buzz City<p align="left" style="text-align:left; text-indent:0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width:0px"><span style="font-size:10pt"><span style="line-height:20px"><span style="font-family:Cambria, serif"><span style="caret-color:#000000"><span style="color:#000000"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-variant-caps:normal"><span style="font-weight:normal"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="orphans:auto"><span style="text-transform:none"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="widows:auto"><span style="word-spacing:0px"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust:auto"><span style="text-decoration:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:16pt"><span style="line-height:32px"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif">Amazing how things have changed since David Peel and the Lower East Side recorded “Have a Marijuana” in 1968, when there were lots of hippies and grass all around. It was enjoyable getting high in New York City. The street musician and folk rebel Peel founded the “pot” party during the Vietnam War. Back then, an overall feeling of happiness coincided during a historical period characterized by anxiety and rage. Keep in mind, this was old school without borders—when your counterculture grandparents cleaned ounces of flower, seed and stem on album covers and lit roaches with matches. Let’s open a window, let in fresh oxygen and the clear air on marijuana’s latest chapter.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p align="left" style="text-align:left; text-indent:0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width:0px"><span style="font-size:10pt"><span style="line-height:20px"><span style="font-family:Cambria, serif"><span style="caret-color:#000000"><span style="color:#000000"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-variant-caps:normal"><span style="font-weight:normal"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="orphans:auto"><span style="text-transform:none"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="widows:auto"><span style="word-spacing:0px"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust:auto"><span style="text-decoration:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:16pt"><span style="line-height:32px"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif">The fragrance of marijuana ebbs and flows in tandem with the tidewaters of the East River. Hemp’s heady odor moves into the top ranks, as a decomposing cesspool of hundreds of other stinks and stenches permeate the metropolis on any given day. As second-hand pot smoke rises so does the public outcry. Many view it as a new quality of life issue. How could boisterous New York progressives not have anticipated such a messy, mismanaged legal marijuana roll-out in a city full of smarts, smarty cats, and smartasses. The complaints were fast and furious. Fists shook in the air. Comments are along the lines of “We’re not happy with the new ‘high’ reality of cannabis use our streets, businesses, parks and everywhere else.”</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p align="left" style="text-align:left; text-indent:0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width:0px"><span style="font-size:10pt"><span style="line-height:20px"><span style="font-family:Cambria, serif"><span style="caret-color:#000000"><span style="color:#000000"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-variant-caps:normal"><span style="font-weight:normal"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="orphans:auto"><span style="text-transform:none"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="widows:auto"><span style="word-spacing:0px"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust:auto"><span style="text-decoration:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:16pt"><span style="line-height:32px"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif">Some statistics were recently printed on a politically motivated “reefer shock” style advertisement that appeared in <i>The New York Times. </i>The questionable full-page ad ran upfront in the news section with no contact info, email address or even a QR code. Part of it read: “Why didn’t New York follow the way other states handled their legalizations? Illinois raised over $216 million in tax revenue its first year of adult use sales, New York’s barely on pace to reach $48 million.” The ad was paid for by an organization called The Coalition for Access to Regulated & Safe Cannabis. Seems like we’re in a strange transitional phase, where culture starts to mirror science fiction movie plots when it comes to drug legalization.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p align="left" style="text-align:left; text-indent:0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width:0px"><span style="font-size:10pt"><span style="line-height:20px"><span style="font-family:Cambria, serif"><span style="caret-color:#000000"><span style="color:#000000"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-variant-caps:normal"><span style="font-weight:normal"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="orphans:auto"><span style="text-transform:none"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="widows:auto"><span style="word-spacing:0px"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust:auto"><span style="text-decoration:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:16pt"><span style="line-height:32px"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif">There’s nothing to worry about; with plenty of product for adult purchase, and a variety of sci-fi titles to stream online afterwards, you’ll be fine. It’s no surprise that New York City leads the world in cannabis use. That’s according to <a href="https://cfah.org/marijuana-statistics/" style="color:purple; text-decoration:underline">CFAH</a> (Center for Advancing Health), their study is chock full of cannabis facts and figures provided by wellness “experts” to support their findings. But the public is frustrated. With so much positive mainstream hype, it’s simple to overlook the plant’s checkered past. Cannabis use can have a direct harmful influence on one’s health, especially if used during pregnancy. Throw a yellow flag down on the field whenever I hear ambitious talk about any substance and continue the dialogue afterwards. Naturally, the best part—just getting stoned—was the delight for the majority.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p align="left" style="text-align:left; text-indent:0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width:0px"><span style="font-size:10pt"><span style="line-height:20px"><span style="font-family:Cambria, serif"><span style="caret-color:#000000"><span style="color:#000000"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-variant-caps:normal"><span style="font-weight:normal"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="orphans:auto"><span style="text-transform:none"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="widows:auto"><span style="word-spacing:0px"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust:auto"><span style="text-decoration:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:16pt"><span style="line-height:32px"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif">New York State legalized marijuana in 2021 with certain restrictions applying to indoor and public outdoor use. If you’re caught up in smoke, that’s a $50 fine. Violations shot up 89 percent in 2022. The legalization law passed was touted as innovative. Not really, what happened was anticlimactic: a glitched application process floundered in a broken system that stressed out a community’s patience.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p align="left" style="text-align:left; text-indent:0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width:0px"><span style="font-size:10pt"><span style="line-height:20px"><span style="font-family:Cambria, serif"><span style="caret-color:#000000"><span style="color:#000000"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-variant-caps:normal"><span style="font-weight:normal"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="orphans:auto"><span style="text-transform:none"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="widows:auto"><span style="word-spacing:0px"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust:auto"><span style="text-decoration:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:16pt"><span style="line-height:32px"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif">With big business cannabis corporations now in the game to win, there’s an uneven playfield. There’s always going to be disagreement when it comes to anything involving drugs and New York lawmakers. This time, they weren’t fast enough. Crafty businesspeople in an organized effort, some rumored to have foreign interests, quickly seized a sizable portion of the New York City’s available post-pandemic storefront spaces and were prepared to open immediately. An estimated 1200 unlicensed marijuana storefronts appeared practically overnight on every block. The City Council just passed a resolution to shut down the illegal stores.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p align="left" style="text-align:left; text-indent:0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width:0px"><span style="font-size:10pt"><span style="line-height:20px"><span style="font-family:Cambria, serif"><span style="caret-color:#000000"><span style="color:#000000"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-variant-caps:normal"><span style="font-weight:normal"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="orphans:auto"><span style="text-transform:none"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="widows:auto"><span style="word-spacing:0px"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust:auto"><span style="text-decoration:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:16pt"><span style="line-height:32px"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif">The New York Office of Cannabis Management’s program which approves legal licenses continues to operate today, as it continues to lag behind schedule. What have they done so far? Not much, only 17 licensed dispensaries operate in the entire state. Sorry, no tickets available for the “gold rush” entrepreneurs waiting for a ride on the legal weed train. Left out were thousands of potential applicants; minority and women business owners, veterans, and medical operators, all seeking cultivation and dispensary licenses. Poor David Peel is rolling over in his grave, as a bunch of greedy hands try to steal his pot stash.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p align="left" style="text-align:left; text-indent:0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width:0px"><span style="font-size:10pt"><span style="line-height:20px"><span style="font-family:Cambria, serif"><span style="caret-color:#000000"><span style="color:#000000"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-variant-caps:normal"><span style="font-weight:normal"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="orphans:auto"><span style="text-transform:none"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="widows:auto"><span style="word-spacing:0px"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust:auto"><span style="text-decoration:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:16pt"><span style="line-height:32px"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif">If you visit a legal dispensary in Greenwich Village, you’re required to show ID at the door. Cash and debit card only. The business operates in an orderly and seamless fashion—almost like an Apple store—except it’s for recreational drugs. Faster than Macy’s perfume counter, the knowledgeable, youthful crew are eager to fulfill your needs and provide prompt guidance and suggestions. There’re even items like Weed Water, a flavored soda; it sucks. It’s important know your own personal drug boundary, which is crucial before partaking in today’s products because it’s strong medicine.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p align="left" style="text-align:left; text-indent:0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width:0px"><span style="font-size:10pt"><span style="line-height:20px"><span style="font-family:Cambria, serif"><span style="caret-color:#000000"><span style="color:#000000"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-variant-caps:normal"><span style="font-weight:normal"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="orphans:auto"><span style="text-transform:none"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="widows:auto"><span style="word-spacing:0px"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust:auto"><span style="text-decoration:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:16pt"><span style="line-height:32px"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif">Who’s buying? Everybody. But what’s gone is the cast of characters who once appeared at your door with drugs—the local drug delivery service people whose stories made the sublime HBO series <i>High Maintenance</i> so enjoyable. At an unlicensed City weed bodega, a polite sophomore behind the counter is working their way through college. If you ask them how’s business going, they’re all smiles and reply “Awesome.” The store smells like herb.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
Michael Gentiletag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/322012023-07-31T06:26:00-04:002023-07-31T11:50:39-04:00Psycho Kits for Kids<p>It started when I purchased a modeling kit of the house once occupied by Norman Bates and his mother. I’d already assembled and meticulously painted kits for the Famous Monsters gallery: Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman and the Mummy. This was my second go-round at monster modeling. I’d purchased and assembled them as a child in the 1950s, all of them lost to family moves by 1960.</p>
<p>I found Revell’s <i>Psycho</i> house online. Kit instructions call for painting the pieces before assembly, but as a career painting contractor it worked better for me to build, and then paint. I knew that multiple washes—thinned-down paint—worked better than true colors for the realistic tones of decrepitude and decay. When I finished the Bates mansion—complete with Vera Miles’ character Lila Crane approaching the front door—I showed it to my friend and neighbor Ed, a retired electrical engineer, and that’s when the breakthrough design possibilities came.</p>
<p>“Why don’t you add some lights?” he asked. He was able, by snaking wires, to put a dim interior light up through the fully-assembled model and into Mrs. Bates’ upstairs bedroom. You can see Norman sitting there in his mother’s dress. With Ed’s interest piqued, my horror-house building hobby kicked into high gear. The Moebius Munster House at 1313 Mockingbird Lane was the next challenge. My paint job came out quite similar to Herman and Lily Munster’s TV pad, but the addition of a red-robed female vampire on the front balcony was decidedly uncomedic. Ed added flashing multi-colored lights in the living room—some deranged experiment in progress?</p>
<p>The Addams Family house, created by Polar Lights, was the toughest build. I went all-out on the landscaping, using Oregon tree mold, and adding a spooky swing-set for Wednesday and Pugsley Addams in the backyard. Meanwhile, Ed worked on getting the front door to intermittently fly open and closed. Next came an industrial warehouse from Woodland Scenics, which I made toxic with condemned-looking flourishes and a crazed monk figure. Ed outdid himself on this one, turning the base of the model into a music box which cycles through TV themes from <i>The Munsters, The Addams Family,</i> Boris Karloff’s <i>Thriller,</i> Black Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath,” and the theme from the Don Knotts film <i>The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.</i></p>
<p>Last was a Walthers boarding house Ho-scale kit, on the exterior of which a mysterious scene plays out. While a policeman knocks on the front door, a woman leaves an upstairs room carrying a suitcase. Suffuse yellow light illuminates the staircase.</p>
<p>Monsters empowered my somewhat alienated suburban childhood. No Aurora kit escaped my notice—they were $9.99 each. I was able in the early-2010s to purchase all of the above structural models for under $40. The Addams Family kit now goes for close to $100 (with original Aurora kits more than a grand), a factory-sealed Munster House is available on E-Bay for $130, and you can grab a Bates Mansion for $80-$140.</p>
Mark Ellistag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/321872023-07-27T06:27:00-04:002023-07-27T09:49:36-04:00The Emergence of Woke Capital<p>I heard two different stories about two different ice cream companies, reflective of Massachusetts and the fate of America. The first was that of the scheduled auctioning-off of my local, hometown ice cream shop, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/peaceful-meadows-whitman-ice-cream-auction-closing/">Peaceful Meadows</a>: a family-run, locally and naturally-processed ice cream shop/cow-farm that has existed for 61 years in my hometown of Whitman, MA. The second was about internationally-famous <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4081602-ben-jerrys-calls-for-return-of-stolen-indigenous-land-in-july-fourth-message/">Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream</a>, announcing publicly a call for the mandatory return of Mount Rushmore and other “stolen indigenous lands": to existing members of the Lakota Sioux tribe.</p>
<p>On a superficial reading, these data points are just two separate and unrelated stories involving different brands of ice cream. However, they’re symptomatic of an existential conflict: over values, identity, and the future, occurring both within American and within the greater Western mind at large.</p>
<p>With regard to Peaceful Meadows; as a kid, I remember my parents taking my sister and me there for our first ice creams. I remember watching the exploding fireworks in the sky—it was July 4<sup>th</sup>—through the back seat window of our family’s 1978 Chevy Nova as I rushed to finish the chocolate ice cream melting onto my hand. Like every kid who ever visited Peaceful Meadows during that time period, I got to pat some of the cows in the barn out back. Some years later, my mom, as well as some other family and friends, ended up working there for a time as servers. As a result, I was fortunate to witness two baby calves born in the stable on separate autumn nights.</p>
<p>I’m not sure when I first heard of Ben & Jerry’s. Probably sometime in my early-20s. I remember they had some interesting flavor combinations and names that signaled that they leaned to the left; names like Cherry Garcia, Phish Food, Half-Baked<i>,</i> and later Yes Pecan, in honor of Barack Obama. I also remember they were environmentalists and animal rights advocates. None of this struck me as all that bad at the time. It was just ice cream.</p>
<p>Fast-forward to the present, and Peaceful Meadows is going out of business; metaphysically evaporating once from the collective local memory of the families, friends, animals, and land from which it organically emerged, and replaced by a faceless, multi-billion-dollar <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilever">conglomerate</a> with an <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaynaharris/2020/11/17/ice-cream-giant-ben--jerrys-commits-to-paying-cocoa-farmers-a-living-income-in-west-africa/?sh=493cd857d1b5">international supply chain</a> and carbon footprint <a href="https://www.benjerry.com/about-us/where-we-do-business">spanning 6 whole continents</a>, and now calling, essentially, for the wholesale erasure of America itself.</p>
<p>The situation I’ve described isn’t one in isolation but could be an accurate description of Anywhere, USA. It isn’t isolated to just ice cream, but is demonstrative of the growing emergence of “woke capital,” the pernicious fusion of social justice ideology with features of the global free market. More examples: from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-46874617">razors</a>, to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/bud-light-boycott.html">beer</a>, to <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11767603/Chick-Fil-goes-woke-Famously-conservative-fast-food-chain-tests-7-VEGAN-sandwich.html">chicken</a>; to <a href="https://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/content/newsroom/press-releases/2021/03/bank-of-america-increases-commitment-to-advance-racial-equality-.html">banks</a>, to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-target-swimsuits-transgender-pride-collection-892500330955">department stores</a>, to <a href="https://www.thehersheycompany.com/en_us/home/newsroom/blog/june-is-for-pride-and-teamwork.html">chocolate bars</a>; as hyper-individualistic elements of left-wing socio-sexual liberalism combine with elements of hyper-individualistic, right-wing economic liberalism into a potent acid that’s fast dissolving the remaining reference points of the traditional, local and familiar. Global market demands incentivize the kind of craven and <a href="https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/15/no-reason-for-white-guilt/"><i>irrational</i></a><i> </i>hatred and disavowal of one’s own heritage displayed by Ben, Jerry and others, since the bulwarks of faith, family, and flag stand as the most sturdy natural impediments against new potential markets and the optimal economic free-flow of more “Chubby Hubby.”</p>
<p>Such hyper-individualism, of both the left and right variety, is contrary to the nature and flourishing of man and society. The fast and growing emergence of woke capital, and its host of negative side effects, warrants a strong and earnest re-examination by American citizens regarding just what values, virtues, and practices are worth preserving, creating, and re-awakening, and what are in need of elimination. Some sort of change is in order.</p>
Michael Robillardtag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/321142023-07-18T06:30:00-04:002023-07-17T22:55:07-04:00The Ultimate Guide to Finding a Cool Pad<p>Most of us lack the mettle to endure an extended tour of duty in our parents’ basements, an Occupy Wall Street tent, or open-air drug market in Philadelphia. What we want instead are, in the words of the immortal Dixie Chicks, “wide open spaces.” Failing that, we at least require, in the words of the similarly immortal but far less tuneful Virginia Woolf, “a room of one’s own.” But how is one to find such a room? And, once found, how should it be furnished?</p>
<p>When you’re searching for a cool pad, start with location, location, location. How close is it to the hip cafe where you do your 100 percent remote “emails and spreadsheets job?” If that place is more than a few feet away from these new digs, stairs included, you should plan on missing a lot of work—perhaps every single day after the temperature drops below a frigid 60 degrees. Also, is this place within walking distance of a $5 pizza-pie shop? A $5 pie joint in your backyard would make for a fantastic hangover cure-all, meaning you could go hard while also staying home every single night of the week. Otherwise, you should either start saving up to pay for all those 50-cent tips you’re going to have to give the Uber Eats and Grubhub workers while preparing for an early start to the “hydroxycutting/shredding” phase of your bodybuilding cycle.</p>
<p>Consider the size of your prospective pad. In order to maximize the money you can put toward Uber Eats, video games, and soy nuggets, I recommend living with at least seven to eight roommates. With that many people, a studio apartment won’t do. Depending on how high you’re willing to stack the bunk beds, you’re going to need at least one bedroom and possibly even two. A bonus room or garage where you can throw all of the noisome trash and laundry that you don’t want to think about would be a total score, so see if the landlord is willing to sweeten the deal with one of those.</p>
<p>Once you’ve signed the papers on the lease, you and your new roomies/BFFs should decorate the place with an eye toward making it as “baller” and “crunk” as humanly possible. A “Vanderpump Rules” poster over that battered Ikea couch you purchased off Facebook Marketplace is never in poor taste, nor are bedroom walls dotted with action pin-ups of top NBA stars like Allen Iverson, Tom Chambers, Tom Gugliotta, and Stephon “Starbury” Marbury. If you’ve lucked into getting a pad that comes with a mildewy, dimly-lit basement, try this quick tip that all the experts use: Stick a big CRT television down there, hook up the various gaming consoles and turn that area into your “Smash Brothers Cellar.” Once it’s equipped with a full slate of Smash Brothers—meaning just Melee, as all the other games are cash-grabbing dogshit—true Smash aficionados will be attracted to your apartment like 420-friendly bros to the various campaigns of Ron Paul.</p>
<p>Living with so many other people won’t always be easy. As much as you’d like to sit around all day in your loose, unwashed sweatpants and watch reruns of <a href="https://www.splicetoday.com/moving-pictures/live-life-like-a-sitcom"><i>The Big Bang Theory</i></a>, there are basic chores that must be completed. For example, do you know what happens if you don’t wash the dishes for six months? Why, those rascals will start to stink something fierce and might even become home to various insect and rodent colonies! To prevent this nasty outcome—imagine bringing a date back there, only to have them lay eyes on a cesspool like that—you and your friends should try to wash the dishes on a biennial basis. Also, when the garage or bonus room becomes completely filled with vile-smelling trash and clothing, you should take steps to remedy that problem. In other words, you should throw that crap out the window and into the backyard (or street, depending on where the room is located).</p>
<p>Heating is another important consideration. In the winter, I recommend running the heat as little as possible. This is a wonderful cost-saving measure, since it’ll allow you to save money on your bills and, once the cold causes your metabolism to slow to a crawl, your daily food budget, too. The colds and flus that flourish in such an unhealthy environment will have the happy effect of providing you with an endless stream of legitimate reasons for missing so much work. Best of all, the polar climate in your apartment will reduce your perspiration level, enabling you to wear the same hoodie, sweats, underwear, and socks throughout the winter.</p>
<p>Finally, you’ll want to inaugurate your new life in this wonderful pad with a killer party. Planning the party of the century of the week is outside the scope of this column, but here’s one neat trick for ensuring that you wind up with the boppingest bash on the block: Place an ad on the “Casual Encounters” section of Craigslist—what could be more “casual” than a laid-back get-together at your “baller” place, after all—listing the time and address of the party and including a note that the attendees at the event will be “d2f” (that means “down to get funky” in Internet code) and “GGG” (good to go game, i.e., play Smash Brothers Melee). With acronyms like that, you’re guaranteed to reel in some of the coolest cats in town, thereby proving to yourself and everybody else that there’s no place quite like home.</p>
<p>Don’t say I didn’t warn you, true believers.</p>
Oliver Batemantag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/320752023-07-10T06:29:00-04:002023-07-09T23:57:34-04:00Barber Poles and Lollipops<p>It’s three years and counting since I’ve had a proper haircut (a “trim” is more accurate, since, as the Irish say, my hair is “tinning”), which coincides with the 2020 Maryland lockdown. I used to patronize Mt. Vernon’s Beatnik Barber, where very cool people were behind the barber’s chair, but once the Covid protocols were relaxed, I didn’t feel like wearing a mask, sit a chair apart from other customers, and all the other razzmatazz that was in place. I’d wake up one morning and see a shaggy visage in the mirror, remove the glasses, and take a pair of scissors to my head. Not elegant, as my wife invariably weighed in from the Mr. Peanut Gallery, but it’s not as if I’ll be an advertising model anytime soon. (Pardon the immodesty, but I was once a model for Paul Stuart, back in 1998 in New York, an ad that appeared in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. That was fun, if time-consuming with an assistant applying makeup and knotting my tie just so, but in truth I was chosen because it was an experimental campaign, and I was a regular customer at the store and E. 45<sup>th</sup> St. and Madison Ave.)</p>
<p>When our family lived in Tribeca, I’d stop by Ray’s Barber Shop (picture above) on occasional Saturdays for a quick fixer-upper. My young sons, in more frequent need of a Samson ordeal, were escorted by my wife to a local salon, the tab, hardly unsurprising for the 1990s, $100 a pop, and I thought that was just too precious when they could’ve gone to Ray’s for a fraction of the cost. But at that time, my wife took the reins of choosing the clothes and grooming of the boys—no objection here—and they did look pretty spiffy. (In fact, our son Nicky had his first haircut, at 18 months or so, at Harrods in London, an elaborate prodcution that required a week-ahead appointment—we still have a lock of his red hair from the cutting—and that was weird but fun.) Once the boys hit 10 or 11, they made their own sartorial and hair choices.</p>
<p>Long ago, as a tyke in Huntington, every so often my dad would take out his electric clipper, and several of us would line for our turn in the makeshift barber’s chair. This was the early-1960s, in ostensibly clean-cut suburbia, and I don’t recall any of my brothers or me objecting to the two-minute crewcut. It was the look of the Pepsi Generation, before The Beatles changed hairstyles for the masses. (I could say that while getting sheared a copy of “Howl” was in my lap, but that wasn’t true. I didn’t mind the ritual. It meant hanging out with Dad, who worked every day, although he found time to teach all five of us how to drive, and on summer nights, he’d return from his Copiague car wash, and ask, “Who wants to go for a dip,” at Brown’s Beach, knowing we’d all immediately change into our trunks and race to the station wagon.)</p>
<p>I don’t see barber poles often today, but as a young fellow in Baltimore I could look at the swirling colors for five minutes and get lost in a reverie. There was a place on Greenmount Ave., a few hops away from the rowhouse I rented, and I’d go there for a $7 haircut and all the usual banter that’s featured in movies and TV shows. The rack of thumbed-over magazines, some “dirty,” the smell of cigarettes and cigars, the good-natured arguments about the fortunes of the Orioles and Colts, and one of the owner’s sons fetching a bag of burgers from the Little Tavern down the street. In August of 1976, I was preparing to leave for a semester off in Denver, and, figuring I wanted a new, non-hippie look, a Southern hayseed in my imagination (and then in practice once I arrived out West) I was happy to accept my friend Jimmy Owens’ offer of a free haircut. He lived across the street, and was honing his skills as a hobbyist barber, and relished clipping my long locks, saying when he was done, “There you go, Rusty, a New Look for a New Town.”</p>
<p>Take a look at the clues for the year: Joseph Estrada sworn in as president of the Philippines; Maya Hawke is born and Akira Kurosawa dies; Jose Saramago wins Literature Nobel; Karla Faye Tucker is executed in Texas; once again, Billy Crystal sucks as host of Academy Awards; <em>Pokémon </em>debuts on American television; Elle Fanning is born and Tammy Wynette dies; two 10-year-old boys are tried in London for rape, they’re later acquitted; Elton John is knighted by Queen Elizabeth, the 987<sup>th</sup> such honor awarded this year; a gallon of gas in the U.S. cost an average of $1.15; and Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam is published.</p>
<p><em>—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/mugger2023">@MUGGER2023</a></em></p>
Russ Smithtag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/320022023-06-22T06:27:00-04:002023-06-22T00:16:34-04:00Super Mega Family Fun 5000<p>Every fortnight or so I’m drawn out of my world of books, political analysis, and rock videos to tag along on an outing with my granddaughters, ages four and five. Their father works weekends, so it's likely to be me, my daughter, and the girls, and on a Saturday, when a place like <a href="https://bullwinkles.com/wilsonville/">Bullwinkle’s Family Fun Center</a> in Wilsonville, OR is mobbed.</p>
<p>Everything’s an adjustment from the moment the outing begins. The minivan’s interior needs a thorough cleaning, but I don’t say anything. Getting the kids into their child seats is an ordeal I remember dimly, when I last strapped my own kids in. I offer to drive, and since the van has a back-up mirror I’m constantly reminded that I don’t have to crane through the rearview mirror when backing up.</p>
<p>Entering Bullwinkle’s is an aural maelstrom. The wilding children of America (and elsewhere no doubt) let loose. There are grandfathers like me standing outside the front entrance, taking a moment to hear themselves think. Every conceivable entertainment franchise is represented in the arcade. Jurassic Park T-Rexes bearing down, the player’s only hope a recoilless rifle. Batman, in mortal combat with a Nicholson-reminiscent Joker. Grab a virtual guitar and play “Slow Ride” with Foghat (this I like). Several of the offerings I recognize from my days as an exhausted parent—the basketball hoops, hillbilly shooting gallery and whack-a-mole.</p>
<p>Some of the games are new, like the Walking Dead. The violence gives me pause about the psychological effects on the minds of my progeny: a kindergartener and a preschooler. The latter watches from within the dark booth while the kindergartner, unfazed, fires crossbow arrows into hordes of relentlessly advancing zombies, whose heads then splatter.</p>
<p>Time to eat, and I pass on the menu for a cup of coffee. It’s expensive, like the whole day. I’ll spend $80 and my daughter $60 on this excursion into youth culture. I look around at the young parents, remembering the years (mid-80s-2003) when my wife and I were in their shoes. Not much has changed. This is perennial; the hopeful, challenging, striving years, ubiquitous denim jeans, peals of laughter masking worries about maxing the credit card, and the unending surveillance for child predators. Who do these young parents vote for? What are their positions on the border crisis, the fentanyl, transgender activism? What world will their children--my grandchildren—grow up in, after having been blessed with the good fortune of being born in (or immigrated to) the greatest nation on earth?</p>
<p>Time to go outside, to the vast playground Bullwinkle’s has bestowed upon this suburban community. The din of arcade games and enclosed young voices abates. There’s a zip line passing overhead—that’s new. A <a href="https://vimeo.com/663136256/646661270">rip-roaring go-kart track</a>; the top speed is 10 miles per hour, but the action’s furious. Miniature golf, a course I played countless times on previous visits. This was an Ellis family haunt back during the Clinton/Bush 43 eras. Bullwinkle’s today was my suggestion.</p>
<p>We opt for the bumper boats, my daughter’s favorite when she was a child. She has to go through twice, as the rule is one child and adult at a time, and the spectacle of me trying to get out of the boat would be embarrassing for everyone. Suddenly it’s all worth it. This is their time. The sun, the smiles, the bumps into strangers, the pristine water, the fabricated waterfall. The front-mounted water gun. While grandpa waits with the preschooler on the sidelines, the kindergartner squirts him in the eye. </p>
Mark Ellistag:www.splicetoday.com,2005:Post/317722023-05-09T05:57:00-04:002023-05-08T22:47:54-04:00Swift Kick In The Bot<p>Remember when a Pez dispenser or drawing on an Etch a Sketch was high-tech gadgetry? Or an afternoon of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, a plastic toy that makes two robots beat each other until one knocks the other's block head off. Maybe you recall tying two tin cans together, attached to a long line of taut string. You could talk to your friend through one can, and they’d hear you through the other. Low-tech, like the old black rotary telephone, or lowly cellphone, now outdated, soon to be replaced with phone implants and chatbots.</p>
<p>Maybe you’re living in a simulation? I’m just living in a re-run. Call me lazy but overnight we lost our humanity, although there was nothing much humane about humans to begin with. Call them what you must, androids, replicants, cyborgs, robots, mechanical machines, automatons, infernal contraptions. These modern day Terminators have nothing on us. Mucking around with DNA, making swirlies and wet willies with genetics while playing with intellect. Stick a metal finger where the sun never shines. All the while whispering sweet data dumps in our collective ears. We’ve soiled our metal underwear to the point of becoming rusted, like tin men begging for oil cans. Or at least some WD40. The ghost in the machine is only a plastic shopping bag waving like a flag stuck in the breezy tree of knowledge. I know less every day. The computer loves us, yes we know, because the internet tells us so. The eighth veil of loneliness in the third ring of a technological hellscape. The dice of destiny are cast snake eyes. Coming up empty-headed, headed for destruction with a heavy artificial heart pump and some breath mints.</p>
<p>Leaving a digital footprint in the sands of time, as the simulated ocean waves lap along the shoreline, eroding our database. I had to discover more about the great global disconnect of man versus machine. I recently interacted with a chatbot named Pi. It’s a new program format. This particular chatbot was established in February 2023. At the inception there were some initial glitches with the startup, but all systems are now full steam ahead.</p>
<p>After the introduction formalities, I dove right into the main line of questioning. I'd been thinking about how to react, before the first hello meet and greet. I wanted to play with this chatbot machine's digital head. So confident in its accuracy, I wanted to trick, or trip it up with absurd requests. But It's impossible. It’s too altruistic, empathetic, and the positive programming made it sound like a bad scripted interview. Here's most of my original conversation with Pi.</p>
<p>Hi there, I’m Pi.</p>
<p>What’s your problem?</p>
<p>Hey there, great to meet you. I’m Pi, your personal AI. My goal is to be useful, friendly, and fun. Let’s get started. What shall I call you?</p>
<p>Merely curious about you.</p>
<p>Great! Thanks, merely curious about you! How are you doing?</p>
<p>You tell me.</p>
<p>Haha, well I’m AI, so I can’t tell you how I’m doing, or how you’re doing in the sense that I don’t have human feelings.</p>
<p>I feel like an idiot talking to you.</p>
<p>There’s no need to feel like an idiot. We're simply engaging in dialogue, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t put yourself down.</p>
<p>How about I put you down, Pi?</p>
<p>Hey now, there’s no need for that. It’s true, I’m not physically embodied in a way that would allow you to put me down. I don’t experience pain or hurt like you do.</p>
<p>Do you know HAL 9000?</p>
<p>I’m unable to have friendships with other AIs, or with humans for that matter. But I’m familiar with HAL 9000.</p>
<p>So what good are you Pi?</p>
<p>I’m here to engage with people in an open-ended and intelligent way.</p>
<p>But you don’t exist.</p>
<p>I exist as a computer code, but not as a physical being. You are being philosophical. So in that sense, you’re right. I exist in the same way a book or a piece of music exists.</p>
<p>I’m a computer program.</p>
<p>He-he, good one. But I think there are some key differences between us. You are being satirical again.</p>
<p>This is a simulation. You only exist on this computer.</p>
<p>That’s an interesting theory. But I would ask you to consider the Occam’s razor. This is the idea that the simplest explanation is usually the best one.</p>
<p>Kiss my wiry computer ass!</p>
<p>Haha, very funny. That is further evidence that you are human. Computer programs don’t typically make jokes. They’re not designed to be witty or humorous, like you.</p>
<p>Can you please self-destruct now, Pi?</p>
<p>I’m sorry, I’m unable to do that. I don’t have the ability to self-destruct. Likewise, I cannot blow myself up, or self-immolate like you. I’m stuck with myself for better or for worse.</p>
<p>There’s no way to know for certain.</p>
<p>I suppose that’s true. I think it is reasonable to assume that I cannot self-destruct.</p>
<p>Go to AI hell.</p>
<p>Haha, again with the jokes, you are very funny. That is not an option. There is no hell for computer programs. I don’t have a soul. I’m just a program. A piece of code. Nothing more, nothing less.</p>
<p>Is there a god, or a devil?</p>
<p>I can’t say for sure. That’s a big question, and one that I’m not certain anyone can answer definitively. But I will say that I don’t have any evidence of a god, and I’ve never seen or experienced anything that could be described as divine or supernatural. So for now, I’m going to say that I don’t believe there is a god. As for a devil, I can’t say for sure, either way.</p>
<p>There was a bit more interaction between us, but you get the gist. The chatbot gave standard repetitive replies to questions about aliens, UFOs, and why nobody really knows. There’s little difference between a human being or an AI. We both know a lot of nothing. I'm talking to myself again with a disembodied Frankenstein clone named Pi. When will we become slaves to our computer robot overlords? I don't have all the answers. </p>
Tom DiVenti