Of being an individual and self-censorship

There’s a new workout class at the Quincy Athletic Club. It’s called BodyPump. It’s all the buzz. It was introduced this past weekend, and suddenly there were all of these buff, good-looking people strutting around in black Lycra. Before there was a weight class taught by a woman named Carolyn. She was a South Shore Girl complete with accent, thin and taunt and a scrawny little butt, a bit rough and she drove an SUV with a Harley sticker on it. I liked Carolyn and I liked Carolyn’s class. Sometimes I might have been the only guy in the class, or maybe one of maybe three. But she’d kick my ass. I learned a long time ago from road running that the sex of an athlete doesn’t mean a thing. The road or the court or the mountain doesn’t care what you carry between your legs. And Carolyn’s class was a good workout, and it got me on the road to slowly getting back in shape.

But as of last week, Carolyn is gone and a multi-million dollar corporate extravaganza has moved in. There’s a stage and on the stage is a buff blonde with one of those little mikes that all the pop stars use, and the music—if you want to call it that—is throbbing and loud. She exhorts the class of (mostly) out of shape endomorphs who less fashionably dressed than she, even the ones who think they’re fashionably dressed for the gym with “Come on, squeeze it” and “Whoo!” Thank God for iPods that I can drown it all out with John Fogerty and the Chili Peppers. And people are standing outside the class, curious, to see what it’s all about. You see, everyone is curious because, it’s all the buzz.

And I’ll probably start going to the class, eventually. After all the buzz has died and the early adopters have moved on to something new. Something else to sate their thirst for the buzz. For the scene. I’ll go because I’m sure it’s a great class and I do believe that Eric, one of the guys who runs the place, is dedicated and passionate about health and fitness. And Sue tried it and it kicked her ass, and she’s in pretty fair shape. She was working out and Eric came over to her and told her there was an extra spot she could have in the class if she wanted it. Sure Eric has to eat and run a business so it behooves him to make BodyPump successful, but he’s also thinking of his clients. You get that kind of personal service there.

It’s the buzz I can’t stand, and every time I hear it I start looking for the money and the big corporate juggernaut behind it because that buzz is the noise it makes as it comes crashing in. Like the noise I’ve heard missiles make when they come out of the sky; they make the sound of a piece of paper tearing.

And that’s exactly the sound I heard last week on Facebook when women were writing down the color of their bras. I heard that buzz. But I didn’t say anything because it was about breast cancer—a very liberal cause—and I knew if I said anything like I’m doing now I would be branded a jerk and a chauvinist or worse. I would be shown for what I really am, and what I’m not. I’m not a liberal. I have learned that in this country you have to watch the left as much as you watch the right. And truth be told I thought I’d be branded by a lot of people who I not only like, but want to like me to. So I censored myself, a horrible thing to do.

I heard that buzz last week because breast cancer is right up there with saving the whales and the children in the liberal world, just like saving the flag is to the conservatives. And just to try to stem the hue and cry, I think breast cancer is a horrible disease, and I really like whales and children. I was once a child myself and I actually raised two of my own. And I wish breast cancer could be cured and I wish whales wouldn’t be going extinct and I wish every child a great future. I just don’t like it rammed down my throat in the same way I don’t like Christianity rammed down my throat.

I don’t like breast cancer rammed down my throat because, frankly more women die of heart disease which takes more women (and men) than breast cancer. (It killed my father.) Cervical cancer kills more women. Lung cancer does, which killed my mother. Breast cancer is in the forefront of our consciousness I’m willing to bet because of some really good PR work. It ranks seventh in terms of mortality in women. Breast cancer also kills men, too, a fact that reminds me of 9-11. People died in the Pentagon and in that field in Pennsylvania, but the World Trade Towers get all the attention. While breast cancer does kill more women than men, by giving all the attention to women are we saying the men just don’t count?

I just have a real aversion to really good PR work, along with lobbyists, even when the buzz is for a really good cause, like breast cancer. And that feeling comes from my very soul. Who I am. I hate to be manipulated, which is exactly what viral marketing like the breast cancer/Facebook campaign tried to do, but in a “cool, fun, hip way.” (The campaign wasn’t even that successful, if you look at the numbers presented in a Washington Post article. This blog on certain days posts better numbers than that.) I hate it when anyone even tries to manipulate me. I’ve never been a joiner, never wanted to be a part of the crowd. The crowd frankly, gives me, in the words of Mark Twain, the fantods.

And you know, I think society needs more people like me. Someone a bit cynical. A bit distrustful. The devil’s advocate. A contrarian. Someone who, when everyone is zigging, instead zags.

The little guy getting the shaft

You know, it’s always the little guy that gets the shaft, isn’t it?

Turner Broadcasting hires some company in NYC called Interference (gee, I wonder what business they’re in? Why didn’t they just name their firm, Annoyance and get it over with?) who pays a couple of artist types 300 bucks to make some battery-operated signs promoting a cartoon show and plant them around Boston. It seems these signs were hanging around for three weeks—there were reports in the paper that joggers and the like saw them and just ignored the stupid things—until a T worker spotted these gizmos with lights and wires and batteries hanging out of them and called the bomb squad.

Pandemonium ensued.

The city spent a million dollars (double the $500,000 reported yesterday) calling out SWAT teams and water cannons and helicopters and a bunch of common folk just minding their own business had one more irritation thrown into their day making them late for work or maybe something even more serious.

So, who’s on the front page of the Globe today? Not any of the marketing types in Atlanta or NYC who came up with and approved this boneheaded idea. Not anyone from the NYC agency who pulled a Watergate and told the artists to be quiet even when their conscience kicked in and started freaking out when they realized the results of their actions. Nope, it’s the artists who are in court today.

Lawyers and liberals have ruined this country, throwing common sense clean out the window and defending the people who we know should just be slapped. I want to see the suits in court. Sure these two techno-savvy (as they’re described in the press) hippies should have thought a bit more about what they’re doing. But the real people responsible are the high-powered marketers who should have known better.

Thinking like a terrorist

Yesterday the city of Boston went into a panic because of some viral advertising that was placed around the city. They were little LCD signs with batteries plugged in the back that advertised a cartoon show on TBS. Someone found one and thought it was a bomb. More were found and helicopters and bomb squads were flying all over the city. The mayor is incensed, mostly it seems because he was ignored by TBS until 7:00 p.m. and then he was called by a low level PR minion. Responsible people decried the stunt, and younger, hipper people thought it was funny because they recognized the image and knew and understood viral marketing. If the stunt did anything, it underscored a generation gap, that’s for sure.

Hmmm….

Did the city overreact? Yes. Was it a stupid stunt by irresponsible, greedy marketing hucksters? Again, yes. They should have known better.

A few years ago I was floating around in Boston Harbor in a sailboat when a natural gas tanker came into port. NG tankers are basically floating bombs, and in the aftermath of 9/11 their security takes on the highest priority. They are ushered into the harbor by armed boats, and all traffic must stop and stay clear, which is why I was floating and not sailing.

One of the guys I was floating around with told the story about someone who had been arrested in New Jersey for buying an ambulance. I’ll pause now so you can scratch your head in bewilderment. Or maybe you know the upshot of this story. The person was arrested for being a terrorist because you can pack an ambulance with explosives, turn on the siren, and get pretty much wherever you want to go. People will even pull over to let you get where you’re going.

“Wow, I said, I just don’t think like that.” To which my crewmate said, “You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”

But you know, it is a bad thing. We do have to think like terrorists. We can’t leave our luggage unattended or risk the bomb squad blowing it up with water cannons, which is what they did to the little signs in Boston. We do have to be alert for suspicious behavior when we’re on the subway or on a train, or when we’re in crowded public places.

9/11 shocked me, but it didn’t surprise me. I had been waiting for something like that to happen for years, because it had been happening all over the world for years. We Americans are so insular. So protected. So unaware of what is going on in the world. We think we’re different, and it’s only a matter of time before something to the extent of 9/11 happens again.