Month: April 2008

Inauspicious start to the week

As mentioned before in these pages before, I have become a full blown commuter, taking a train and shuttle bus to get to and from work.

It’s one of those “when it works, it works great” type of deals. To be honest, the whole thing usually just works. Easy. Since my company subsidizes the cost of using commute alternatives, I can ease my pocketbook from the pinch of $4 gas.

However, this morning was one of those days where it didn’t work. Oh, all seemed fine. I walked to the station. The train arrived on time. I climbed on. Hey, I even got a good seat!

Then I overhead the conductor on his cell phone. “Hit, huh? At Menlo Park? Ok. Delays of up to an hour. Ok, I’ll make the announcement.”

Ruh rho.

Yup. The train in front of us hit a pedestrian. And since dancing with a train never goes well, the whole operation had to come to a halt.

My train stopped at a station that was just far enough from both home and work as to be troubling. The conductor told us to get off and figure out what bus to use or whatever. Ugh.

With a cell phone on the last vapors of battery charge, I called a cab and paid an inordinate amount of cash to make it in to work about an hour late.

*sigh* All’s well that ends well.

In other, better, news, I’m happy to see in the ABQjournal that it’s official as of today, the New Mexico quarter is OUT. If you are in Santa Fe, there’s even a little ceremony.

Yay! I can hardly wait to have one in my hand! W00t!

We’re going big time, Oh Fair New Mexico!

Developing…

Source.

Absolut-ly sorry about ad’s map of Mexico, firm says

Mark Stevenson, Associated Press
Sunday, April 6, 2008

(04-06) 04:00 PDT Mexico City —

The Absolut vodka company apologized Saturday for an ad campaign depicting the southwestern United States as part of Mexico amid angry calls for a boycott by U.S. consumers.

The campaign, which promotes ideal scenarios under the slogan “In an Absolut World,” showed a 1830s-era map when Mexico included California, Texas and other southwestern states. Mexico still resents losing that territory in the 1848 Mexican-American War and the fight for Texas independence.

But the ads, which ran only in Mexico and have since ended, were less than ideal for Americans undergoing a border buildup and embroiled in an emotional debate over illegal immigration from their southern neighbor.

More than a dozen calls to boycott Absolut were posted on michellemalkin.com, a Web site operated by conservative columnist Michelle Malkin. The ads sparked heated comment on a half-dozen other Internet sites and blogs.

“In no way was it meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues,” Absolut said in a statement left on its consumer inquiry phone line.

Some fringe U.S. groups also claim the land is rightfully part of Mexico, while extreme immigration foes argue parts of the United States already are being overtaken by Mexico.

“In an Absolut world, a company that produces vodka fires its entire marketing department in a desperate attempt to win back enraged North American customers after a disastrous ad campaign backfires,” a person using the moniker “SalsaNChips” wrote on Malkin’s Web site.

A plan for comprehensive immigration reform designed to deal with an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States – the vast majority from Mexico – collapsed last summer under the emotional weight of the debate.

Absolut said the ad was designed for a Mexican audience and intended to recall “a time which the population of Mexico might feel was more ideal.”

Shock Sells!…Or does it?

By the by, this topic was found over at the Bruce Daniels blog at the ABQjournal, though I’m going to take a different cut at it. His blog post is good, however, and worth the read.

Ok, so here’s the deal, the marketing folks behind the highly successful series of Absolut Vodka ads have been working on a new ad campaign, “Absolute World”. This has been rolling around for about a year.

Here are a few of the examples:
(sorry for the varying sizes, these were located in several places around the ‘net)

Ostensibly that we get “objective evidence” when a politician is lying.

The guy is preggers. The girl gets to look hot.

In case you can’t read the buttons, they say “looking”, “twisted”, “married” and “boring”

Times Square with famous art instead of advertising (ironic, no?).

Had to stare at this one a while…I believe it’s implying that every home in LA has a limo and a red carpet.

Ok. Fine. You get the idea. I believe what they are getting at is that “in a perfect world” there would be, uh, “justice”. That politicians are caught lying, that men have to suffer the indignities of pregnancy, that the games played in singles bars would be over, that art is more important than advertising (just SO ironic) and that everyone in Hollywood is a star.

Ok? Yeah, whatever. I mean, I’m not sure I’m totally onboard with this campaign, but I get what they are attempting to say.

Until I saw this one:

So what exactly are they getting at here?

No really, I’m asking, because I honestly don’t get this ad.

The object of any advertisement is to get people to do something. Usually to buy your product or service.

Bruce Daniels’ blog indicates this ad is running in magazines in Mexico.

So is the purpose here that we’re trying to stir up anti-American sentiment by invoking bad feelings following the Mexican-American War. For those, like me, who can’t stay awake in history class, that war took place from 1846-1848. Are we to understand that, hey, drink this vodka, feel a sense of national pride and let’s go get our land back?

Or is Absolut trying to inflame the anti-immigration people? Sure to be a hot topic in this year’s Presidential election. Do they think that people will drink their vodka and feel a sense of national pride and make sure that “they’ll never get my land”?

No really, I’m asking. WTF is Absolut trying to say here? And either way why does that make me want to drink their product?

The tone of the ad campaign seems to be about “justice”, righting a universal “wrong” (wrong being in quotes because I’m sure not everyone would agree on that judgment call made in these advertisements). So is there a “wrong” we’re trying to “right” with this new ad?

I really don’t know. I just don’t get it.

Probably for me, personally, the point is moot. I’d rather drink a jug of kerosene than Absolut. Then again, my very dear gang of Russian friends have helped me learn how to appreciate good vodka. Good meaning it doesn’t go down like, uh, kerosene and make my head feel like a punching bag.

But let’s not lose the point here…

What IS this ad trying to say? I can’t decide if I should be offended.

Oh hell, it’s Friday, why waste the energy. I’ll just go with a head tilted doggy “baroo” and move on.

And have a tequila drink instead.

Tastes Like Nuevo Mexico

I have been reading a book titled “Tastes like Cuba: An Exile’s Hunger for Home” by Eduardo Machado.

I picked up this little gem off the “new” rack at my local library. I liked the title. Plus I have a total fascination with Cuba. This passion in past years has been fueled by the movie “Buena Vista Socal Club” which I saw in the theater, and own and watch often. It’s an amazing movie.

What lay ahead of me in this book, Tastes Like Cuba, was not something I could expect. I was excited by the form the book took, discussing Cuba through the author’s memories of food. Each chapter ends with a couple recipes for the food just discussed (which is a really cool idea). It was like food porn, and since I’m a big fan of good eats myself, it immediately appealed to me.

As the book progressed, it went from mild interest to speaking directly to my heart. Eduardo goes through quite a transformation in his life. Born and raised in Cuba, at the age of 8, just as Castro took over Cuba, Eduardo was shipped out to Miami on the now infamous Operation Peter Pan flights. He went from a life of relative luxury and wealth, surrounded by his parents and grandparents, to being poor and parentless in a new country with the added responsibility of caring for his younger brother.

When his parents did finally arrive some months later, his father moved the family to Los Angeles, a wild and wacky place for a young, sensitive, creative Cuban kid in the 1960’s. He struggled to identify himself. He wasn’t a Chicano during the power and protest periods in LA. He was not a Caucasian American. He was something no one could identify, not even himself.

To add to this lost state of feelings, in America he couldn’t get the food from home, the tastes that made him feel whole. Through growing, becoming more of an American, and exploring his creativity, he found a dichotomy. A man without a country, without the touchstone of his family that turned out to be more dysfunctional than he’d ever imagined (his father boldly admits, to his face, that he never loved Eduardo. How’s that for a mind f*@k?), and without something to identify with, it sent him down a spiraling journey into low self-esteem and depression.

What finally rescued him was the theater. First as an actor, and then ever more successfully as a playwright.

He wrote plays about his life, his family, his darkest fears, the ugly parts, the pretty parts, all of it. And though it scared him senseless to put it all out there, he still did it.

I started thinking hard about why this book spoke to me so deeply. Now, certainly, I’m no exile from another country, but I, too, was raised in a very culturally deep place with food unlike anywhere else in the world. And yes, I miss the food from my home. Daily. Did you know you can’t find whole, fresh roasted Hatch green chiles in California? And forget it about Indian Fry Bread.

And I often feel misunderstood here in California. Culturally, artistically and all the rest. It was profound when I first moved and still is something of an issue, some ten years later.

But, much like Eduardo, it took me leaving my home to be able to plumb the depths of my own creativity. Living in California has become a means to help me learn who I am, why things matter to me, and to be able to write, paint, and photograph about them.

I am a woman of two places. Like Eduardo, I’ve learned to love them both, while being conflicted at the same time.

My transformation has been on a much smaller scale than Eduardo Machado. But I guess in reading his words, I wish I could just tell him, “I get it”.

Because I do.

Someone’s got the tidies

This is one of those thoughts, apropos of nothing. Or maybe not appropriate a’tall, but it’s one of those things that make me ponder, and so I thought I’d talk it over here.

This may be a uniquely female experience, so men, apologies if the content of this post just doesn’t compute.

This morning I had a, you know, “need”, and as such, made the trek down the long hallway to the ladies room.

When I entered the loo, one of my coworkers was in there at the sink. She was done washing her hands and was taking wads of paper towels and using them to dry up the water on the counter around all four sink basins in the bathroom. She had a quite determined look as she did so, too.

And I thought to myself…”why?” It’s the office bathroom. Why do you expend the calories to clean up at work?

We have a pretty good janitor who comes every afternoon and leaves the potty clean and sparkly. It’s not like they are falling down on the job.

I mean…cleaning up is a nice thing to do. Considerate of others and all that.

But why? I mean, I try to be tidy when I wash my hands and if I personally make a big mess, I’ll clean it up, but I don’t take on the role of cleaning up the whole place.

You’d be surprised to know I’ve seen a LOT of women do this both in the bathroom and in the kitchen/coffee area. I don’t know why.

I suspect, though there is no way for me personally to know, that men don’t do this.

The counter cleanup “feels” like a mom thing to do. The lady I ran across today is a mom to five kids and maybe it’s just intuitive to her, just happens without thinking. Maybe.

I mean…is this a good thing? Or weird?

I just don’t know. To be honest, I was a little afraid she was going to spit on a tissue and start wiping off my face.

I think this need to tidy is probably a harmless thing, but it seems to breed contempt, “Why are people SO messy! Harumph!”

I have enough to get the harumphs about at work. The water splashes on the sink are the least of my worries……