June 12: I got another email today from Eric Trump, who again addressed me as “Barbara.” He explained that his father’s birthday is coming up, and he wants me to sign a greeting card. He said I can leave a personal note but should also send money. He mentioned that he’s trying to get two million signatures but that if I sign within an hour, I’ll be in the card’s #12 spot, so his father will be sure to see my name.
June 14: Eric’s wife, Lara, emailed me. She said that the president saw a list of “patriots” who had entered a contest for a chance to meet him and noticed that my name was missing from the list. It sounds as if he’s pretty upset about that.
June 14 (later): The president’s campaign emailed to say they’re conducting a big fundraising effort for his birthday, but because it’s a surprise, they asked me to be sure to not forward the email to anyone. They told me the president will be excited to see my name on the list of contributors.
June 15: The president just emailed me directly to invite me to the Republican Convention as his “special VIP guest.” Like Eric and Lara, he called me “Barbara,” and it turns out the invitation applies only if I send him $42 and also win a contest. But he did add that I’m his motivation “to never stop fighting.”
June 16: The Trump campaign wrote to say I’ve been “identified as one of his strongest supporters, and he wants to do something special” for me. According to the email, “he’s requested to have the Official Donor List printed and framed to hang in his office,” but “he wants to make sure my name is on it first.” This is my opportunity to be “cemented in history.”
June 21: I got a note from the president’s campaign saying he’s disappointed to learn that my name is missing from his donor list. They say they’re going to give him a final list in an hour, and they don’t want to do it without my name on it.
June 23: Donald Jr. just wrote, and he seemed distressed. He told me he noticed my name wasn’t on his father’s list of contributors. At first, he thought it was a mistake, he said, but he double-checked and I’m not there.
June 24: Today’s email from the campaign said they’re worried about me because “you’ve always been one of our BEST supporters,” and “it just isn’t like you” to not respond. They emphasized that the president was going to call soon for an update, and they wanted to know whether they could tell him “Barbara” responded.
June 30: Yet another email, this time from the president. He said he checks his list of contributors daily, and every day he notices my name is still missing. He wanted to know whom I trust more to stop criminals from sneaking into our country—him or “MS-13 Loving Joe Biden.” He sounded distraught.
July 8: Donald Trump Jr. took time away from tending to his COVID-19-positive girlfriend to email me again. He asked, “Why are you ignoring my father?” and “Have you stopped checking your email”? He said I was one of his father’s “most loyal supporters” and that the president would “be really disappointed” if I don’t “contribute $42 IMMEDIATELY.”
July 9: "Out of over 84 million registered Republicans," said today’s email from the campaign, President Trump has “specifically requested” that I, “Barbara,” be invited to join a focus group consisting of his “50 most trusted advisers."
July 10: Now the president says he’s “only selected 100 Patriots in the entire Nation” to join the “prestigious Trump 100 Club,” and I could be one of them. The club’s members will be “the ones I turn to when I need the advice of the American People.”
July 18: I got another email this morning from the president, this one saying he was “disappointed” to learn that “Barbara showed up in the BOTTOM 1% of all Trump Supporters.” But then a couple of hours later, the campaign emailed me that I’m one of his 100 top supporters. Clearly, they’re confused. Maybe it’s time to let them know I’m actually a Democrat named Jeff who thinks the president belongs in prison.
]]>The U.S. State Department has issued an unusually long and comprehensive alert for travelers to the Sochi Olympics. This update of threats and concerns should be of interest to anyone interested in the outcome of the 2014 Games, which start on February 7.
The Department of State alerts U.S. citizens planning to attend the 2014 Olympic Games in Russia that they should remain attentive regarding their personal security at all times. The Department of State alerts U.S. citizens planning to attend the 2014 Olympic Games in Russia that they should remain attentive regarding their personal security at all times. The Olympic and Paralympic Games will take place in Sochi, Russia, from February 7 to March 16, 2014. This travel alert replaces the alert issued on January 10, 2014, and provides updated information on reported threats against the Games. It expires on March 24, 2014. Full information about the Olympic and Paralympic games for U.S. citizen visitors is available on the Sochi Fact Sheet and the Country Specific Information for the Russian Federation on our website, travel.state.gov. The Department strongly recommends that all U.S. citizens residing or traveling abroad enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) in order to receive pertinent safety and security information.
What it does not include is the whole historical background of the region and the impact of current internal politics and corruption. This first started with the widespread massacres of the local Muslims by the Russian Czars when they took over the territories in the 1800s, including deporting whole populations in the greater Sochi areas by shipping them to Turkey and throwing many of them overboard on the way. This Russian domination continued under Stalin, of course, and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new personal interest in the area has been demonstrated by the current national supreme leader, Vladimir Putin, over the last ten years.
He personally discovered the potential of the winter sports area in the mountains above Sochi, which then consisted of one ski lift and no other winter sports activities, when he skied there. He was able to convince the International Olympic Committee to hold this year's Winter Olympics there, after personal guarantees of the completion by February 2014 of all Olympic venues including an historic rebuilding of the town of Sochi itself. Soon after, close allies of Putin flew the owner of the ski lift and some surrounding mountain areas up to Moscow and convinced him on the way that he should sell the area to them.
Putin has now had his government spend over $48 billion dollars on his project, more than China spent on the much larger and spectacular 2008 Summer Olympics. It is also more than the spending on all of the previous Winter Olympics combined, as well as including the costs of most of the prior Summer Games. Much of the money has gone to corrupt government officials and friends of the government, as well as such projects as a new permanent vast estate for Putin's private use, and resorts for officials in such agencies as the national Prosecutors Office and the Federal Security Service. Observers inside Russia and elsewhere see Putin's efforts as a way to firmly establish his legacy inside the country, and to expand his influence and demonstrate his total control on the international stage.
Underlying these events, of course, after the breakup of the Soviet Union 20 years ago, was the loss of most of its Southern provinces which became separate independent countries. This led to the revolt of large numbers of armed Muslims in its remaining southern provinces. The internal revolt was the most serious attempt to overthrow national control through a civil war since the new Russia was established, and it continues today.
Many of the factors in the State Department memo, as well as my own prior research, led me to the early decision not to attend Sochi, even though I had attended 11 prior Olympic Games. I sincerely hope that nothing will happen there to dash the hopes and experiences of the thousands of athletes who have sacrificed all of their time and efforts over many years just to be an Olympian, let alone win a medal; it also would be a shame for spectators (and especially relatives of athletes who go) in probably the most expensive Olympics ever for them to attend.
]]>I cannot understand why the poll gap between the candidates is so narrow. To me it is not a vote between left or right, as some see it, but between sense and no sense.
I have written before about Romney’s pathetic European trip. He is the true successor to George ‘Dubya’ Bush, the world’s biggest buffoon, who entered a curious but deadly symbiotic relationship with arch-egoist Tony Blair — the man who took my country into an illegal war, virtually bankrupted us, then made more money after leaving office than any Prime Minister in history.
While we have some strange politicians the UK, most of us regarded the 2012 lineup of Republican hopefuls with incredulity. What a baffling array of hockey moms, Tea Party people, and bible thumpers — an odd mixture of the religious right who seem at least a century out of date. There was Rick Santorum (or should it be Sanctimonious!) who wanted to stop access to birth control and someone called Newt who wanted to build a moon base. Well, if Rick had his way maybe there would be need for one.
I have no visceral hatred of the Republicans. I rather liked Ronald Reagan and I respected John McCain as a brave man but he made a catastrophic choice of running mate in 2008 by picking Sarah Palin. With Palin a heartbeat from the presidency, we would have spent four years shivering with terror under the bedclothes.
If you regard Romney as the best of a bad bunch this time round, it doesn’t say much for the rest of them. He is a gift to comedians and mimics everywhere. His introduction of his running mate, the creepy Paul Ryan, as ‘the next president of the United States’ was the funniest thing I’ve seen on my television since the Naked Gun films over 20 years ago.
I now look with horror at the prospect of President Romney and what that would mean for the world. I think it would become a more dangerous place. Could he really deal with some of the more troubled hotspots? I very much doubt it.
By contrast, Obama is a man who has gained international respect for both his domestic and foreign policy. I think his job was much harder than he anticipated but he has done well in difficult times. His ambition to drive through a basic health care scheme is wholly admirable. It will take time to see the benefits, but eventually the USA will have a healthier population and a stronger workforce. I have not met a single person in the UK who thinks otherwise.
Jerry Springer spoke movingly and effectively on Britain’s political show Question Time last week, enumerating Obama’s successes: “He said he'd get us out of Iraq. He stopped that. He got Osama Bin Laden. We have health insurance. You put that together, what else do you want from this man?"
Since Hurricane Sandy hit last week, Obama has played a blinder, winning praise from New Jersey’s Republican Governor, Chris Christie, and a ringing endorsement from New York’s independent Mayor, Michael Bloomberg.
There is one final reason why I want Obama to win. He has that rare quality of poise. It is hard to define but instantly recognisable and on a world stage its effect is inestimable.
Obama has been a good president. Given another term he would be a great one.
]]>However, there are no excuses for the latest idiot abroad — presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who disgraced himself in the UK with repeated gaffes and insults.
Not even Mr. Bean, in his holiday adventures, could quite match Romney’s record, which now has its own dedicated Twitter page. Former newspaper editor and political presenter Andrew Neil scathingly tweeted, ”Romney visit to London must be the worst of any presidential candidate in living memory.”
Firstly, Romney questioned the UK’s readiness to stage the Olympics and was promptly smashed down by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, who wittily told an audience of 64,000 in Hyde Park, “There's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know if we are ready. Are we ready? Yes we are!” He then led the crowd chanting, "Yes we can," reprising Obama's famous 2008 campaign slogan.
It didn’t help when a Romney campaign official then retorted that Boris is an "eccentric, odd fellow." This is the same Boris who recently won re-election to one of the most prestigious political posts in the UK — something Romney would do well to reflect on.
Prime Minister David Cameron was even more scathing: "We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world Of course it's easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere." Could that have been a sly dig at Romney, who hosted the Winter Olympics in Utah, in 2002?
The Republican presidential candidate also raised eyebrows on Thursday by referring to Labour leader Ed Miliband as “Mr. Leader,” which sounded alien here. Romney also appeared to breach protocol by disclosing that he had met Sir John Sawers, the Secret Intelligence Service chief. Romney then talked of “looking out of the backside of 10 Downing Street” (the Prime Minister’s residence) ,which led some to wonder if he was talking out of his own ass! Another day, another faux pas. Small womder he has been nicknamed Mitt the Twit.
But Americans, do not despair: Michelle Obama is also here, leading the US Olympic delegation. She is representing her country with all the charm, warmth, and impeccable courtesy we have come to expect of her.
Not even Mr Bean could match Romney's record gaffes:
]]>Let’s start with guns. Popular culture is to a considerable extent gun culture, from the early western movies to TV’s Gunsmoke to movies like Dirty Harry and beyond. Then, too, there are, or were, rock groups with names like Guns ‘n’ Roses and .38 Special. The NRA has no more ardent proponent than guitarist Ted Nugent. We can easily forget the simplistic idea that popular culture “reflects” society and proceed to the more sophisticated understanding, which says that popular culture engages with its society. Popular culture in its various forms engages with its society in ways that satisfy the needs of that society—which is why is it popular.
So what needs does gun culture satisfy in America? How is it that the man with a gun in his hand—from John Wayne to Clint Eastwood to Arnold Schwarzenegger—is such a powerful icon? Whatever America is, and America is many things, America is an individualistic society. When taken to an extreme—which is where the drama and excitement are—individualism says that only one person matters: me. The logical course of action, then, is to shoot all the people who don’t matter. Lots of stars, writers, and directors in Hollywood have gotten rich by creating situations that justify the actions of a man who does just this. My favorite western, High Noon, starring Gary Cooper, is a powerful allegory of American individualism that may serve as a case in point.
So it’s hardly surprising that from time to time a few nutcases will be so mesmerized by the image of a powerful man with a gun on the screen that they too will imitate that man. After all, people imitate the way movie stars look and talk. Why not imitate the way they shoot?
A thoughtful Russian blog I read reminded me that John Hinckley, the guy who shot President Reagan in 1981, and thus became the nutcase of the year, believed that he was Travis Bickle, from the great Martin Scorsese/Robert DeNiro movie Taxi Driver. Hinckley was only one of many copycat killers such as James Holmes who were inspired—if that’s the right word—by a powerful movie.
Foreigners often understand American gun culture better than we do, because we’re immersed in it. That is certainly true of those musical miracle workers that we know as the Beatles, whose “Rocky Raccoon” on the white album creates a mini-movie about our gun culture. And I can’t help but believe that John Lennon had an intimation of his own death when he wrote “Happiness Is a Warm Gun.”
The assassination of John Lennon in 1980 links guns in popular culture to guns in politics. The traumatic assassinations of the '60s and the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords last year show the continued viability of gun culture. Ultimately, though, shooters just want to annihilate the world. It’s essential to understand that the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999 and at Virginia Tech in 2007 are pure expressions of the ultimate conclusion of individualism, namely suicide and death.
If American gun culture satisfies the needs of individualism directly, American sports culture satisfies the needs of individualists as a mass. You can’t understand the meaning of football in America without understanding the needs that fans bring to the stadium, especially the needs that the fans themselves can’t articulate. In a world that is splintering into ever greater complexity, where ambiguities and contradictions abound, sports provide a brief, deeply appealing experience of a simpler world. In sports from football to lacrosse, you always know who the good guys are, and who the bad guys are. And—very important!—you always know who won. You very rarely know either of these things in the world outside the stadium.
That’s why in a larger sense the sanctions that the NCAA levied against Penn State were a Band-Aid. They are, and will be, very hurtful to Penn State people, of course. The sports columnists that I’ve read make a persuasive case when they say that the sanctions will probably cripple the school’s legendary football program for a decade. The sanctions will, however, do nothing at all to change sports culture in America. They will not produce any systemic change, and were not intended to do so. At the big football programs in the heartland, from Ohio State to Michigan State, from Michigan to Nebraska; and in the south, from Clemson to Georgia to Auburn to Alabama to Ole Miss; and in the southwest from Texas to Oklahoma, nothing is going to change. At these schools and others like them, the football coach will continue to be the highest-paid state employee and the most powerful person at his institution, just as Joe Paterno was.
Nothing in college football is going to change because football satisfies such deep needs. During the week people experience the world as a confusing place, so naturally on Saturday they need to balance that confusion with the simplicity provided by a 100-yard field and teams in different-colored uniforms.
It’s important to remember that movie theaters and football stadiums are places set apart from the rest of the world; you have to buy a ticket to enter them. Precisely because they are set apart from the world, they can create experiences that are simpler and therefore more satisfying than the experiences that the rest of the world provides for us. While we publicly deplore the criminal acts that gun culture and sports culture facilitate, and do so sincerely, in the long run we are willing to tolerate those acts as long as gun culture and sports culture satisfy some of our deepest societal needs.
]]>Years ago I had a guy who I had rejected stalk me to my local Trader Joe's. That was super creepy and took me out of the online dating world for a good long time. I recently had a man offer to come over and just suck my toes. That took me out for a few weeks. It happened, coincidentally, to be the same day I had three very heavy, much older, extremely conservative men email me. That day still makes my stomach turn.
But, what I love about OKCupid is that they ask you to answer questions to reveal things about your beliefs, personality, and lifestyle. There are hundreds of questions to choose. Never mind all the questions that are of a sexual nature. I obviously don't answer those. And, if you don't answer them, you can't see the men's answers to the same questions, which is an unbelievable blessing. I don't want to hear the answers to these extremely graphic questions. I actually judge the guys based on who answered them.
More of the questions, though, are cleverly revealing. Two that keep coming up that absolutely floor me are "Would you save your pet from a burning building?" and "Should creationism be taught in schools?"
The answers to these two questions that turn my stomach several times and are even hard to write here are "No, it's just a dog." and "Yes, it should be taught in schools!"
People who think "It's just a dog" should not have dogs. And, for the love of God — yes, for the love of God — how could a 50-year-old, highly educated, successful, professional man from the United Kingdom believe that creationism should be taught in schools?
I shouldn't be surprised. North Carolina shouldn't surprise me. West Virginia's primary where a Texas inmate took 41% of the vote against President Obama's 59% should not surprise me. But, it does.
All I can say is thank God Jon Stewart can make me laugh about it. I wish he was doing online dating so he could make me laugh about that too.
]]>No more so was the event’s preeminent status demonstrated than in Washington D.C., where liquor stores see a decent uptick in Tuesday sales and restaurants and pubs see the speech as a revenue opportunity that rivals NFL Sundays.
And nowhere was the phenomenon more evident than in the neighborhood of Capitol Hill, Congress’ residential backdrop, where brick and mortar social entrepreneurs seized upon the opportunity to present the appropriate setting for the local industry event.
Strollers up Pennsylvania Ave right past the Library of Congress saw slate sandwich boards outside pubs and restaurants beckoning customers inside with offers of “State of the Union in HD.” Flat screens on Barrack’s Row, the burgeoning restaurant scene of 8th Street S.E., usually tuned to multiple NFL football, college basketball, and even hockey games, made their annual flip to C-SPAN, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC to provide multiple perspectives.
Liquor stores were crowded between seven and eight as Hill residents stocked up on wine and spirits. “The bars do really well tonight, but we usually see at least a 10% boost in weeknight sales,” said “just Tom,” owner and proprietor of Hayden’s, the corner liquor store at 7th and Independence Avenue, S.E. “Election night is better for us. November will be another Super Bowl for us.”
Yet as riveted to the State of the Union as Capitol Hill was, there was little interest and, in many cases, absolute disdain for the pre and post coverage of the speech. As the cable news networks attempted to generate pre-speech political red meat, most screens were muted with a few offering closed captioning that was hard to track as the typo-ridden subtitles lagged the spoken word.
As the grip-and-grin portion of the event commenced, there were comments on wardrobes: Michelle Obama’s elegance and glamour versus Jill Biden’s Unitarian frock elicited quite the response at the newly-opened Boxcar Tavern across the street from Eastern Market. A parlor game of name-the-obscure cabinet secretary, senator, or for the truly astute, Congressional representative ensued.
But after the slam of the gavel, the volumes of the patrons went down, and the TV sets were turned up. It became so quiet in the bars and restaurants across the Hill, one could hear the multiple helicopters circling overhead and the differing sirens rebounding against the brick row houses. Folks actually listened.
Partisan trolls, looking to provoke a response, were shushed and given stern looks after burps of “job-killer” and “socialist;” and when boos rang out during shots of GOP figures, especially House Minority Leader Eric Cantor. “Rookies,” muttered one seasoned denizen.
When the speech was completed, the volume went back to mute and conversation picked back up again. There was nary an interest in the post-coverage positioning by partisan talking heads. Mature Democrats and Republicans alike appeared to be ruing the paralysis and demagoguery that has replaced good-faith efforts at governing.
Rationalizations to reflexively condemn either a Democratic or GOP position, while proliferating the TV screens, were either not to be heard, or presented in a satirical context for a mutual laugh.
That’s not to say that the Hill did not offer venues stuffed with those that believe their ability to recite talking point dogma is a mark of political sophistication. “Go down to Union Pub or 201 on Massachusetts Avenue if you want the political sheep scene,” offered one Hill regular.
It was an interesting irony. While President Obama and his detractors decried “this town,” how out of touch “Washington is with Main Street,” and the corruptible nature of the “city,” it became clear they were talking about their Jersey-barriered, fenced-in world that happens to be located within the confines of the District of Columbia.
Maybe Washington is a cesspool of political sludge, worthy of the criticism made by those most responsible for creating it. But sharing a fine lager at many a Capitol Hill bar demonstrated that D.C. is doing just fine, thank you very much. It’s all those people in Washington that are the problem.
]]>Zimmern’s decided to ditch his passport
this time and dedicate his time to taking viewers through the backyards of
America. In his new show, Bizarre Foods America, Zimmern explores the unique melting pot of the exotic and the familiar,
showcasing what the USA has to offer.
This domestic culinary tour begins on Monday, January 23 at 10 PM EST on The Travel Channel, and recently he shared some insight into how the US stacks up against the world in the way of bizarre foods.
Why did you decide to dedicate a full season of Bizarre Foods to the United States?
I’ve spent a lifetime on the road sort of telling stories and every time I would sit in interviews I would always talk about the opportunities here in America for telling some of those same kind of stories. And it always fascinated me in ethnic enclaves around this country especially how waves of immigration would keep food honest. And just because something is honest and authentic doesn’t necessarily make it good but it surely gives you the best opportunity for it to be good, especially if you’re a food and culture junkie like myself.
So as I was
examining sort of what makes our show tick, one of the things that I always put
up on the bulletin board when I’m trying to teach people about the culture of
our program is the idea that we make the unfamiliar familiar.
And at the same time we found that there was an insane level of curiosity about domestic locations. Whenever we would do them they would rate extraordinarily well. There was a fascination that Americans have with seeing pictures and stories about themselves. It dates back to (Alexus Detofield)’s time. I mean, we are - in America we are obsessed with ourselves. So I decided to merge all those things together and do a domestic season of Bizarre Foods.
The network thought it was a good idea, everyone got really excited about it. And I think what makes it even more charming is that, when I’m in tribal Africa and I’m eating grilled wild giant porcupine people are fascinated with it, but there’s a little bit of a disconnect I imagine because to them it’s good watching, but it’s not possible to be doing.
Here in this country when I go down to New Orleans for example and take people on a tour of the largest Vietnamese community in the world outside of Vietnam -- yes it’s in New Orleans -- and all you hear is Vietnamese spoken and in the backyard gardens you could swear you’re in Central Vietnam.
I think it creates an opportunity for folks not only to appreciate the beauty of our country but they can actually get out there and see and taste the things that we’re doing. So it’s a particularly thrilling and rewarding season in that sense, to discover and rediscover parts of America and present it to my fans and hopefully to new ones.
Can you talk a little bit about what is it
about bizarre foods - what makes someone want to eat a bizarre food?
I’m fascinated about what food is and as a professional chef I like to catalog libraries of flavors. I mean, that’s my stock and trade. It’s like a painter wanting to know about more colors and more types of canvas or other types of media. It’s like a musician with different instruments or notes or something that can make certain new sounds. The second thing that I found most interesting as a closet intellectual is, why is it that in our country when you say the word bat nobody thinks it’s possible to eat one. But in northern Vietnam or Cambodia or the Pacific Islands, you say the word bat and everybody gets excited and the children start running for the kitchen.
It’s a cultural thing. And that intersection of what makes food possible to me is the most central part of why we do what we do -- to examine that question and be able to tell stories about a culture through the food to me is what it’s all about. I am obsessed with food and with eating. I have been in the food business since I was 14 years old. So to have the opportunity to sit on a street corner in a suburb of Louisiana and have a Vietnamese grandpa make me duck blood pizza the same way his grandparents made it for him when he was a kid in Dien Bien Phu is to me what a food life is all about.
And I think it makes for great television and it makes for great teaching. I mean, I have a responsibility to tell stories. At a certain point in my career I developed a platform and once you have a platform I think you have a responsibility to tell certain types of stories and illuminate certain pathways.
In terms of highlights from the year I got to do some really cool stuff. I got to go gigging for frogs and crayfish and cook up a bunch of rabbits and the rest of the stuff that we trap with my friend (Don Link) in Rayne, Louisiana at the Zaunbrecher Farm, his traditional family farm, something that I have wanted to do for years. You know, great highlight.
I got to go to Austin, Texas and taste some of the world’s great barbeque and spend some time with farmers like (Sebastian Boneau) who raises his pigeons and his rabbits and his chickens and his ducks with an eye for how they’re going to be cooked and actually changes his feed seasonally so that his skin crisps up and is more golden than his competitors. I got to go into the water in Seattle in the far reaches of Puget Sound and actually plant geoduck clams and then harvest them, six years later, thanks to the miracle of TV. We went to the other end of the Sound and went to another plot that is farmed by the Taylor Shellfish Company and get six year old geoducks out of the ground that I - that we then took and cooked.
I got to go into famous kitchens with people like Nathan Myhrvold, the author of Modernist Cuisine. I got to do a lot of hunting in West Virginia, one of my favorite states in the country to visit. I got to go fishing with a bow and arrow in Minnesota Lake country with a bunch of guys who go out at 1:00 in the morning to shoot 50-pound monster carp with bows and arrows.
And then I actually got to eat one, a fish that most people consider inedible and liked it because there’s a guy who finally figured out how to smoke it skin side up to purge it of all of its fat. So we really had some amazing experiences in our show this season. We have - oh gosh, let’s see, I think it’s 16 episodes plus a special that we’re doing this year and it’s a really cool season.
How do you get over the fear of eating strange things and how do you know exactly what is edible and not edible?
Well when it’s edible and not edible I just ask the people that I’m with. I mean, I’m not just strolling down the highway and putting bark that I find on the ground into my mouth I mean there is a greater purpose to my visits. I’m with people who are experts and they are exposing me to things. Sometimes I’m exploring on my own. Certainly we do more of that in this season because it’s a little easier for me to navigate America than it is the jungle market in Laos. But in terms of how I get over the fear, I never had any. I mean, as a little kid growing up in New York I ate tongue at my grandmother’s on the weekends and, sauteed calves liver and did all the things that I think we sort of lost touch with in this generation with awful and with certain foods that aren’t as popular these days.
I would always tell my friends when I was in high school and they were ordering a roast beef sandwich at a deli and I ordered a tongue sandwich and they would look at me like I’m crazy. I’m like have you ever tried it? And they’re like oh no, it’s gross. I’m like it tastes like pot roast. The best cut of beef on the animal is the tongue. And, if they weren’t interested so be it.
But I was always fascinated by those types of foods. And you’ve got to remember, what’s weird to some people is wonderful to another. Famously I sat in Africa one day and had a (Lawaneka) tribes person insist that Americans were crazy because we let milk rot and then dried it into little squares and ate it.
If you told Americans that there were people who thought cheese was disgusting they would laugh at you but there are a lot of people who do think cheese is disgusting. And that’s fine. They don’t like it.
Has there ever been anything that
you refused to eat?
I have refused something. I’m just remembering twice there were - I was in a slum in Delhi and we were eating street food and there was a brown sludgy water coming out of a spigot in the wall on the street and someone served me something with a few tablespoons of that water. They served these traditional little chop, these crispy snacks, and then they drizzle water on it to loosen it. And I knew it was going to be a trip to the hospital so I passed on that.
And I passed once on some moldy chicken intestines that I just thought was another trip to the hospital. Those are the only two things I have ever refused to eat.
Since you have traveled so much I was wondering is there any type of ethnic food served in the U.S. that is really different in the way it’s served than in its native country?
Wow, well every ethnic food community here has had cuisine that has been altered to suit certain tastes. I’ll give you an interesting example and you’ll see what I mean. In the 1870s some of the best Italian food in the world was found in St. Paul, Minnesota because there were so many Italian immigrants coming straight from the eastern cities, getting on trains, coming out to America - to the heartland and staying there to work in the lumber industry, the wood making and furniture making, things like that.
About 15 years later they stopped immigrating out there and Scandinavians took over. So at that point you had these Italian immigrants who had opened restaurants and instead of cooking for waves of Italians they were cooking for Lutheran Swedes. So the food stopped being very - the Italian food stopped being very good. You see that everywhere, everywhere.
However, in America the opposite is also true. Because we have so many wonderful for example Mexican and Central American communities here, if you’re looking for a great (tacoria), great (mafungo), great (cosuelas) of braised pork, with chilies from Columbia, you go on and on. You can find the best examples of it here.
And in fact there are many people who argue and rightfully so that when it comes to certain dishes because of the quality of our ingredients here that in certain Chinese or Thai restaurants for example the average quality in great Chinese restaurants here in America may be tastier than great Chinese restaurants in China because of the provenance and quality of the ingredients.
It’s a fascinating argument to make and it’s something that people like me debate over dinner tables all the time. But it does really flip flop both ways in terms of quality and quantity and what’s dumbed down and what is a good example of ethnic cuisine. I mean, look, there’s bad food in Paris. I mean, there’s bad food in Rome. Less of it than there is, in Pittsburgh but it happens.
Of all the places you have been in the
United States what would be a couple of cities that you would really encourage
people to visit that you don’t think they are visiting so much?
Oh my gosh, the first thing I would do is, I mean, I’ve been on this rant about West Virginia because of the mountainous topography doesn’t even have big cities. Its two largest cities are still measured in the low single digit hundreds of thousands. Ninety nine percent of the population lives in small, teeny little towns hidden and tucked away in little hollers and notches and gulches.
So, if you want to still visit communities that live the way that we did in past generations, West Virginia is gorgeous. From a traveler’s standpoint every time you come around a curve and see a different river, a different mountainside, a different little town built into a hill. I just think that from, September through November there is no better place that I’d rather be than traveling through West Virginia.
There are places, it’s also become an outdoorsy sort of Mecca for people who are into rafting and mountain climbing and hiking and hunting. So there is now an infrastructure to support tourism there. And I’m just - every time I’m there I’m charmed. I mean, it’s one of the few places in America that whenever I visit I’m always looking at real estate ads. And I get to go everywhere.
I love, absolutely love Texas. Obviously a lot of people are going there and there’s a huge, huge amount of tourism for the music and the food scene in Austin. But I can’t get enough of it and I still bump into a lot of people that don’t go.
Central Florida, everyone goes down to the - to Southeastern coast of Florida, obviously people love the beaches. But Central Florida is I don’t know, I find it infinitely charming. And they are very proud of their cracker culture.
The Sea Islands obviously are very popular but I think, more people say oh yes, I love the islands in Coastal Carolinas without actually going there. South Carolina to me is one of those hidden gems as well.
I also have to give a plug for my home state. I think that the Minnesota/Wisconsin/Iowa tri-state area is today one of the most vibrant and exciting places to visit in our country. What used to be flyover country is now dictating I think a lot of what happens and is taste making.
We find it warmly ironic that the things that we’ve been doing for years there in Minnesota, canning, pickling, the home arts, making your own bacon, is stuff that everyone’s grandma does in Minnesota.
And I think Minneapolis/St. Paul, the Twin Cities, are now the 14th largest metro in the country if I’m correct with a food scene that is second and takes a back seat to no one regardless of what style of cooking you want. I think three of the last four regional James Beard winners in our category came from there.
And I just think that from a food and travel standpoint, Minnesota is a place that needs to be checked out. The Lakes Country, the boundary waters, I’m really - I love where I live.
When you go to a new place what do you look for to highlight it?
Well actually it works a different way. The thing that’s most important to me are stories that are relevant to the culture. That’s what we’re there to do. And I like to tell those stories through food so I have to be able to find places that are relevant to that and that achieve my goal, right?
So we tend to
develop stories first and when we get enough of them we can then go to that
place if that sort of makes sense. Nowadays with, research techniques
and the advent of the Internet and certainly it was easier to research this
season because you can hop on the phone and call a lot more people in today
than you can where you’re trying to network with people in Mongolia. It - we were
able to find some really, really vibrant stories. But that’s basically how it
works.
Do you recall the first bizarre food you ever tried?
Yes. I was about two years old. I had finally had my little teeth set and I ate what I think is probably the most disgusting bizarre food of them all, it’s called a commercial American hot dog. The government has laws that protect the companies who make them from telling us what’s in them. God I love answering that question.
With another of your shows. Can you tell us what the
crowd that’s going to gather downtown for the shooting can expect?
Well, I do - I have a whole bunch of projects that I work on. One of the things that I do is a series called Appetite for Life that this year airs on both msn.com, it’s there right now, and on travelchannel.com. It’s sponsored by my good friends at Toyota. And I make about 25 of these webisodes a year and it’s some of my favorite television that I make.
And for those that don’t know, we have a season that’s airing right now but we also have a new season that starts shooting in about two weeks and one of my stops is in Baton Rouge where I’m doing I think a cook-off fundraiser if I remember correctly.
Right now I’m consumed with our Los Angeles show so you probably know a little bit more about it than I do. We did the pre-production a couple of months ago and then it sits on my desk waiting for me to grab that file and get on an airplane.
But I’m excited to get going and cooking there and I’m doing a couple of public events down in Baton Rouge. So folks down there can pay attention to my Twitter feed which is @andrewzimmern. It’s always the best way to see what I’m doing and where I’m going.
Is there a classic American dish that you think is our
national bizarre food that just everywhere just doesn’t translate?
No. I get annoyed when food writers write about things like new America cuisine and stuff. We still haven’t really developed an American cuisine fully to even have a new American cuisine. Usually they’re talking about modernist European cuisine created with American farmhouse ingredients from the 19th century so it’s a little bit of a disingenuous subject.
The most popular foods in our country, hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, fried chicken, are all things that came from somewhere else. Traditional first people’s food of the Americas which is something that I have explored oh God, probably in six or seven states now with about nine different tribes of what are conventionally referred to as American Indians have cooked a whole variety of things.
And usually it’s very, very simple roasted and boiled meats that are seasoned with local herbs. And in some cases - I was just with the Pueblo in Santa Fe, outside of Santa Fe about two hours into the mountains and had prairie dogs that they stuffed with the wild cedar and grilled fur on over an open coal the same way they have been doing it for 1000 years.
And while that might seem somewhat shocking to some people, the flavor of if you were at (El Bulli) last year and you had, a wild Spanish rabbit that had been cured on a bed of juniper and then roasted on a fire, everyone would be jealous that I had an opportunity to eat that meal. Basically it was th home cooked version of that is what I had with the Pueblo Indians. And so I find those kind of things very, very exciting.
But as far as first people’s food being exported there’s just not a lot of opportunity for it. Most things come into this country, very little goes out. In fact one of the stories that we told a couple of times in our show is actually a sad one which is whether it’s in the Philippines, Vietnam, Russia, the Middle East, South Africa, South America, you name it.
I always come across a community with an incredibly rich food tradition where the kids don’t know how to cook the food anymore and don’t like the food anymore because American and European fast food chains have opened in the village 20 miles down the road and that’s where they go to eat.
I remember when I was - the last time I was in (Schion) in China, a big city, I mean, 9 million people or so. And the only restaurant you couldn’t get a reservation in was the Kentucky Fried Chicken and the McDonald’s.
What do you eat in the Zimmern house for dinner and how bizarre is it -- or is it just meat and potatoes at home?
We eat meat and potatoes at home. My wife is from a Minnesota farm community and obviously my son is as adventurous as I am because he doesn’t know any other way to eat.
I mean, the issue that I have in our house is that, I mean, my friends at (unintelligible) or some farm somewhere will send me a pig’s head and I’ll throw it on the barbeque and roast it. And we’ll sit there and pick all the meat off of it and my son rolls them into tortillas and makes little tacos. And I dip them in spicy mustard and my wife, wants me to cut out the cheeks and put it for her on her plate so that it looks like what she calls normal food.
I mean, we sautee calves liver in our house with onions and vinegar. Some people will think that’s strange. We eat sweet breads. We, I mean, eat game birds and stuff like that.
But, when I’m doing my - when I’m in tribal Africa I eat, (kudu). When I’m down in, West Virginia I’ll eat squirrel. When I’m at home in Minnesota in my own kitchen it’s not the Andrew Zimmern Show.
I come home from the office after picking up the dry cleaning and my wife has cooked dinner for my son and I is usually how it works. I don’t know if there’s any married folks with families on the line but, I mean, I live a pretty normal existence when I’m not, when daddy’s not at his day job.
What is your favorite not bizarre food to eat?
My favorite not bizarre food, oh my gosh. I was just talking to someone the other day if I had to have one last meal it would be, roast chicken with stuffing and gravy and I would have preceded it with as many cherry stone clams on the half shell as I could eat.
Every show, every show I come back and I do something. I cannot wait to start stuffing animals and roasting them on the grill -- right now it’s a little cold in Minnesota for outdoor cookery -- with cedar chips and with other green wood that I have in my backyard that I learned in Santa Fe.
I’m getting ready to cook a pop up dinner this Friday in Los Angeles and I’m using techniques that I learned in Santa Fe about braising tongue with red chilies that I learned at a ceremony where they cook an entire pig.
So, I mean, it’s
all around me. I’m using a technique for working with geoduck that I learned in
Seattle last summer. I mean, I’m constantly growing and evolving. And as a chef
I love cooking what I have just been most fascinated about.
Did you notice
any new food trends or items that will be food trends coming season?
I think something that’s going to keep growing and growing and growing is the meat tarts, I mean, whether it’s charcuterie, salami, things like that. I mean, artisanal butcher movement has not even begun to run its course yet.
I think southern food pathways are going to become more and more popular. I mean look at what guys like Sean Brock, Mike Lata, the Lee Brothers, Josh Besh, Don Link and I mean, I could keep going on and on and name chefs in the six or seven state region that are just going to keep making their food more and more popular.
But I think probably the biggest national food trend that you’re going to see over the next two years in our country is the influence of Korean cuisine. I just think in America we cyclically rotate through all the Asian cuisines and I think up next is Korea’s turn.
]]>This time out, the filmmaker and author shares his thoughts on the mainstream media’s core difficulties in coherently covering the movement, how the benefit book’s format embraces the diversity of opinion that epitomizes the Occupy protests, what he hopes that the artists, readers, and his son take away from the forthcoming anthology, and we what each one of us can do to help the cause.
One of the things that many working in the media have had difficulty grasping about the Occupy movement is that—as with similar movements in the Middle East that have arisen over the course of this past year—there seems to be a real reticence, and even outright refusal to appoint a single person, or even group of appointees, to represent and speak for everyone else in the movement.
This movement is really difficult for media to cover, and I don't necessarily blame them for that. How do you tell the story of a leaderless movement that's a chorus of unique perspectives which barely sync up with one another, but all coalesce under a banner of outrage at injustice perpetrated by people who might otherwise be considered our nation's best and brightest? And the "injustice" being targeted by the movement is muddy because it's been intentionally obfuscated within a web of government bureaucracy, corporate veils, and opaque public-private partnerships.
And it's further complicated by the talking points and rhetoric crammed into everyone's brains—for years media commentators and pundits had a knee-jerk response to criticism of the bailouts by saying they were profitable, but (a) that wasn't the point, and (b) it wasn't even accurate because of the secret Fed-direct bailouts that were the stuff of conspiracy theorists until Bloomberg (in the ultimate irony) forced daylight on the documents through the Freedom of Information Act.
So the voices of the movement aren't in perfect unison and they're necessarily vague, the media is stumbling in the dark as much as the rest of us, and the 24 hour news cycle keeps the reporters all so overwhelmed with information that everything gets instantly filtered through their existing left/right paradigms and it doesn't help that most of these people reporting the news to us are in the 1% or think they will be one day.
It's a lot easier for American media to report on a leaderless, populist movement in Egypt if there's a specific goal like removing Mubarak—that fits their "throw the bums out" narrative. Here it's not that simple. We can't throw the bums out because we're the bums, we're all complicit on some level because we're tied in to the cash-grab through credit cards or mortgages or 401ks or whatever prices of goods go up, wages go down, and we all fall into one trap or another to make ends meet or maintain our lifestyles that's what enabled the rot at the top to fester for so long.
Were there crimes committed? Sure, and it would be great to see some accountability we haven't gotten anywhere near the punishments that followed the S&L scandal and that was a fraction of this scale. But taking bankers out in handcuffs isn't enough because this is systemic rot.
When Occupy is at its best, it's pushing for a national paradigm shift. How do you cover that in a news package? How do you appoint a leader to demand that? You can't and you don't.
All very good points, all of which have led me to wonder if you might see that multiplicity of viewpoints and voices as one of the guiding principles, perhaps even the central strength, of the Occupy protests? And, if so, how might you be planning to use that embrace of extreme diversity in opinion to your advantage in the Occupy Comics anthology?
I think we're embracing that extreme diversity in Occupy Comics through the comics anthology format, the ensemble of creative voices, and the lack of any editorial agenda. The content will largely be sympathetic to the point of view of the protesters, I'm sure, but there's no litmus test; if Frank Miller wanted to contribute we wouldn't turn him away if he had something constructive to say. This book isn't intended to deify or vilify, it's just an attempt to express dozens of points of view.
When this idea first came up, there was reticence from many of the contributors because we all felt "Who are we to articulate this movement, who cares what we think?" And that's probably accurate on an individual level I'd be less enthusiastic about this if it were written by a single person attempting to define the movement. But instead we have dozens of voices, some bombastic and some cautious, some galvanized and some ambivalent and they're all valid. So by making this a leaderless ensemble, I hope the whole can be more transcendent than the sum of its parts.
Well, with that in mind, let’s say there’s an artist or writer out there who would like to contribute to the book; is there still room for them?
The book is all sorts of packed right now, but we're working on ways to open up more space and add more people. We encourage artists and writers to reach out, but they should keep in mind we're super overwhelmed and the book is currently way overloaded.
How about our readers? How can they help the cause? Does their contribution have to end with a donation and them getting their copy of the book, or are there other, even meaningful ways for them to do something to help this book—and the movement itself—succeed?
Well, helping the movement succeed is a whole other can of worms that I don't feel entitled to comment on other than [to say that] whatever small action you can take that's sustainable for you is far better than not engaging at all that's certainly the premise we're operating under.
With the book, we welcome all sorts of support beyond cash donations people have reached out offering to donate their iPad authoring toolkits and help us with pre-press and printing, etc. Spreading the word and blogging about it, all that helps tremendously.
There was an interesting moment toward the end of Occupy Comics' Kickstarter campaign that really demonstrated to me the power everyone has to make a difference with very little effort or resources beyond being clever and caring enough to try. A guy in Iowa named Jeremy stumbled on the Occupy Comics campaign while browsing Kickstarter and it resonated with him so he decided to spread the word on Twitter.
He had 13 Twitter followers at the time (I later became his 14th), so instead of just tweeting it, he tweeted to Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) and Warren Ellis (@warrenellis) urging them to tweet about it. Gaiman saw his name mentioned in the tweet, and he went ahead and tweeted about Occupy Comics to his 1.6 million followers. That sent so many people to the Occupy Comics Kickstarter page that it generated thousands of dollars in pledges within a couple of hours.
So you don't need a lot of Twitter followers to make a difference; sometimes all you have to do is reach out to a famous person you don't know and ask nicely.
We’ve talked about what you hope to accomplish with this book, but we’ve not touched on the question of what you get from doing all this work. So, why do you do it?
I have a two-year-old son and some day he's gonna ask me what I did when his country was disassembled and sold for parts. I don't know what all this effort will be worth at the end of the day, but at least I'll be able to say I tried to do my own small part.
How about the creators contributing to the book? What do you hope that they get from their participation in this project?
I think a lot of today's comics creators got into the medium because when they were younger there were powerful creative voices making bold statements that really affected their world views and I'm sure a lot of these creators, while feeling very blessed by the opportunity to work as storytellers and creatives, are also a little frustrated there aren't many venues in comics these days for expressing risky points of view. That frustration is probably magnified when they see something inspiring like Occupy and they're too swamped in work to be able to participate.
So I hope the creators find this to be a supportive venue where they can take some chances and participate creatively in this global conversation through their art, but unencumbered by editorial directives I hope it's a temporary autonomous zone for them that's built on the mutual respect of their fellow creators.
And what about your readers, both of the book and of this interview? What would you like them to take away from all of this?
I think a key takeaway is that Occupy can't win in the streets alone the arts are a theater of engagement in this as much as the occupied parks are theaters of engagement, and economic forums are theaters of engagement. The contributors here are not just reporting on protests, they are actually protesting through the creation of this art and, to a certain extent, they're putting themselves at risk by participating. I know a number of creators joined the team very cautiously but felt morally compelled to do something and I've been shocked by creators who've built careers and pulled in top-tier salaries positioning themselves as countercultural firebrands and then passed on participating in Occupy Comics because they were afraid it might limit future career opportunities.
This is a polarizing issue among both fans and job creators, both of whom these contributors rely on. I, personally, have a history of mixing radical politics with art and so it's less important someone like me is on the team, but there are a lot of people here who are not overtly political and are putting themselves at real risk by doing this it's pretty brave and I hope readers recognize and appreciate that.
Suppose that someone reading this still isn’t quite convinced that they can help change things for the better, not even one tiny bit, by simply buying a copy of this book. Or perhaps they’re not quite sure that this one’s for them, because usually they read more mainstream work. What might you say to convince them otherwise, and to seriously consider contributing to the cause?
This is a fairly humble project, so I don't know how to hard sell it and say, "If you buy one change agent this year, it must be this one." I'm not sure I believe that. I don't think this is for everyone we're certainly not out to please everyone. And to be honest, if anyone on the planet reads the whole book and agrees with every single story, then I haven't done my job as an organizer this should have so many provocative points of view that everyone finds something to challenge their mindset, no matter where they're coming from.
I can say this much it's my hope that this will compile one of the broadest sets of diverse perspectives on the movement, articulated by professional storytellers who are not members of the 1%. Most of the talent in news media, in film, in music, and on TV is in the 1%, so no matter how open-minded they are, and no matter how sympathetic they are, it can't be avoided that those stories of the 99% are being filtered through a 1% mindset and reported back to the 99%.
Comics are a particularly unique media format in that they don't really make that much money—and even when they get turned into movies, Hollywood is pretty good about preventing too much money from reaching the actual creators, so we don't really have that 1% problem here. Also, since each comic is created by just one or two people, the comic book anthology is one of the only formats where you can get so many different creative voices speaking very personally and directly to you from within a hugely diverse ensemble of voices and perspectives.
Anything else you’d like to add?
We just finished the Kickstarter campaign where we raised nearly $29K, but that's done now so it's too late to participate there.
We're planning to open up a pre-order store shortly on the Occupy Comics website where we'll be accepting pre-orders/pledges for a limited time. The current plan is to only print the book based on pledges and pre-orders so as to keep hard costs as low as possible, though the content will stay alive in digital formats since they have no marginal cost, and thus won't consume any of the money that could otherwise be donated.
We are seeking and accepting many types of support beyond just writer and artist contributions, especially anything that helps us mitigate our hard costs—deals on printing, shipping, etc. would be hugely helpful.
Outreach is also very helpful, as demonstrated by the guy who urged Neil Gaiman to tweet about Occupy Comics if you think your favorite publisher or retailer or digital platform or celebrity should support the project, let them know—they're always more responsive to their own fans and customers than to people who are organizing a project.
Also, none of the artists and writers working on this are walking away with a nickel, and none of them are rich, so if you feel so inclined, I'd urge you to support the books they get paid for if you like their work and respect what they're doing here.
And above all, if you think what we're doing here in our little corner of the world is cool, maybe you should take a look at what you can organize in your own little corner of the world. Doing something small and imperfect is magical and important.
Artwork credit: Images 1 through 7 above, Guy Denning; Image 8, Eric Drooker
]]>Taking its cue from both the decentralized nature of the Arab Spring protests and the nonviolent tactics pioneered by Gandhi and MLK, the Occupy movement has proven to be a perplexing problem for government as well as most news media. After all, how do you report on, much less negotiate with, a group that adamantly refuses to adopt a cohesive platform or appoint a specific figure as a spokesperson?
As with all such political events, this has proven to be a polarizing subject for all manner of people, including those who work in the comics industry. Some, like Frank Miller, have been dismissive or even outright hostile towards the protesters. Others, including Alan Moore and David Lloyd—who inadvertently created the central image of the movement in the pages of their V for Vendetta graphic novel several decades back—are adamant and vocal supporters.
Recently, a group of comics professionals decided to put their time and effort in service of those protesters by donating their time and work to a project designed to lend immediate aid and support to those on the front line. That effort, appropriately dubbed Occupy Comics: Art & Stories Inspired by Occupy Wall Street, has already proven itself wildly successful. Still, as author and filmmaker Matt Pizzolo, one of the driving forces behind the Occupy Comics project, explained via email, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t the need for further support of Occupy Comics, and the larger movement, as well.
Why don’t we start with the basics and move on from there? What is Occupy Comics, who is involved in this project behind the scenes, and perhaps most importantly, what do you all hope to accomplish?
Occupy Comics is a collection of comics and art inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement. It is intended to be a time capsule of the passions and emotions driving the movement, as well as a fundraising method to support the protesters. The content is created by a coalition of over 50 comics pros who are donating their efforts so all the money generated (beyond absolute hard costs) will be donated directly to the protesters. The Occupy movement was launched by art, and we believe art is the best way to articulate its themes and goals. We also think a model of arts-based grassroots fundraising could potentially help protect the movement from establishment money that seeks to co-opt it.
There's not really anybody behind the scenes—there's a list of contributors on the website and that's pretty much everybody involved. There's probably a half dozen writers and artists who've been involved since its inception and have helped navigate it. Everyone is super busy with work and families, so we all just do what we can to keep it growing and steered in the right direction.
Okay. Now, just so we’re clear on this vital point from the start, how will all this money that you folks are raising be dispensed and spent? And how much, exactly, of that money goes towards administrative costs, salaries, office rentals, etc.?
None of the money goes to administrative costs, salaries, or office rentals (sadly). We decided early on that we wanted to do it with absolute transparency, so it's not really a matter of "profits" going to the protesters as it is "all revenues beyond absolute hard costs" go to the protesters. Hard costs means printing books, shipping, manufacturing the various Kickstarter rewards (t-shirts, DVDs etc), etc. We're doing our best to keep those costs as low as possible, but it's a balancing act because we want to create high quality, collectible products that supporters will be proud to own. So the costs are balanced between the two goals of an art time capsule and a means of fundraising.
The way the money is allocated is actually through the individual contributors. The artists and writers are all paid a proportional share of the revenue based on the number of pages they provide versus the total number of pages in the book, but all of the artists and writers are agreeing to donate that money to the protesters. Most contributors want to donate as a group to get the most bang for their buck, but they don't have to—anyone can just take their share and hand it to the protesters at their local park if they want.
There are a couple of reasons for that structure. One reason is because Kickstarter doesn't allow you to raise money for charity, so raising money to produce a book wherein everyone is paid and in turn donates that money was a clever way to use Kickstarter to simultaneously create art and donate funds. But the other reason is that this is a coalition, not necessarily a collective. We don't all need to agree on the best use for the money it's totally reasonable for some contributors to want to make an impact locally and others to want to act on a broader level. The movement is so diverse that there are tons of ways to make great use of even fairly small portions of money.
Why do it through Kickstarter, and why not find a small, independent, or even mainstream publisher, who’ll underwrite and oversee everything? Is there an advantage to using Kickstarter and doing it all yourselves in this particular case, or was it just the easiest way of doing it?
The original goal was to fundraise for amenities to help the occupiers through winter (heaters, thermal underwear, honey wagons, etc), but making a comic book anthology takes a long time and in order to include so many popular and busy creators we couldn't possibly have a book until spring or summer at the earliest plus if we were donating revenue from book sales, that money wouldn't really be trickling back through the supply chain until 2013 (and comics aren't very profitable to begin with). So doing it that way made no sense, we really felt that we needed to get money to the protesters as soon as possible.
With Kickstarter, we can essentially pre-sell the book so the money comes in advance and payments/donations are allocated before we even produce the book. Making a book and donating the profits is slow and speculative. Raising money to make a book, paying all the contributors page rates, and then donating those page rates is a slam dunk.
I think marrying art and technology to inspire and organize in this way is reflective of the movement overall.
Well, put, Matt. I really can see that being the best way of doing it for all concerned. So, who are some of the creative contributors, and what can you tell us about what they’ll be doing for the book?
The coalition of contributors now numbers over 50 and it's a really eclectic bunch whose portfolios range from mainstream superheroes to indie/underground comix to fine arts and political cartoons; some have been working in comics since the '70s and some are just hitting the scene. Obviously the 800-pound gorillas are Alan Moore and David Lloyd, both of whom are amazing to have on the team not just because of their incredible talent and influence but specifically because of the impact V for Vendetta had on partly inspiring the movement. But the team didn't start with them; it started small and then just snowballed to the point where it snagged a couple of abominable snowmen.
The works being contributed range from slice-of-life documentary to the fantastical, some are specifically about the movement and others only echo the movement's themes. For example, Molly Crabapple is an artist who lives a few blocks from Zuccotti Park and visited the occupation each day drawing portraits of the protesters, so hers is a very specific point of view. Comic book veteran JM DeMatteis, on the other hand, is writing a piece on the need for compassion in any social protest movement and the importance of not vilifying either side. Horror writers Brea Grant and Zane Grant are mixing slice-of-life with charts and graphs to draw correlations between social science numbers and actual human lives. Comics are such a personal medium with so many different styles that we can bring together dozens of really unique points of view into an ensemble that, in its own way, mirrors the chorus of individual voices making up the Occupy movement itself.
How did you end up with your current position in the project, and why did you get involved?
I was inspired by Occupy Wall Street as soon as it started, and it was the most inspired I'd been since the globalization protests of the late '90s. The globalization protests were attempts at preventing many of the events Occupy and the Tea Party are now reacting to (at least, the early Tea Party before it became a bloc within the Republican Party). We Americans are much better at reacting to crises than averting them, so this is a unique historical moment. I honestly never thought I'd turn on a mainstream TV news channel and see a serious discussion of class division, so in that way Occupy has already won a significant battle in the American mindspace.
It's almost hard to remember now, but in the beginning there was zero serious news coverage of Occupy Wall Street, it was a total media blackout. At that time, I was prepping for the New York Comic Con and it seemed like that would be a good place to spread the word about Occupy after all, you have about 100,000 idealistic people who care about truth and justice right across town from the protests. So I reached out to a few of my comics friends about putting together a little comic to spread the word about Occupy at NYCC—but before we got very far the first pepper-spray incident went viral and the coverage went from media blackout to media circus. So exposure was no longer the issue.
We all still wanted to support the protests however we could, so we brainstormed on what would be a relevant way to contribute and that's how we settled on the dual goals of creating an arts-based time capsule that would also fundraise for the movement. So my taking on this position in the project was pretty organic. I don't know what my position is really I consider myself an organizer in this context and everybody refers to me as the spearhead, whatever that means. The only reason my name and face are on the Kickstarter is because Kickstarter requires someone take responsibility, I'd rather not be the face of the project.
I was curious if there’s something you’d like to see come about, personally, as a result of all of these efforts?
Personally, I'd love if the project managed to express the goals of the movement in a unique way that transcends rhetoric or over-intellectualization or lists of demands. I believe this is more a social change movement than a political movement, people are coalescing around an idea, not an ideology all that makes it poorly suited to discuss in a 24 hour news cycle I think it's better conveyed through art.
I also have longer term hopes that this could be an early model of using art and technology to build a sustainable, independent system of grassroots fundraising. Establishment money will always try to co-opt a social change movement, so if movements can grow sustainably with grassroots funding they'll be better protected against entrenched interests.
So, what does your position as the spearhead of Occupy Comics require of you? What is a typical day in the life of a charity comics project organizer like?
I try really, really hard not to be a full time charity comics organizer. I run a small business and work freelance as well and I'm raising a family I was working 20 hours a day before I took this on. I had to reconcile early on that if I did an imperfect job of organizing this then that's still better than not doing anything, so I'm not trying to launch the perfect fundraising comic book anthology because that's just not something I can sustain. Luckily other people join the team as it grows and tasks get delegated and I'm not doing it all myself, but that's my name and face on the Kickstarter accepting people's money, so I have a certain level of accountability that can't be delegated. It's scary, too, because when you do something like this you're putting yourself out there for a lot of scrutiny and criticism and in the end you're not getting anything out of it personally, at least nothing tangible.
Occupy Comics owes a lot to the Womanthology project that pioneered this model by raising over $100k on Kickstarter; that was a huge project about supporting women in comics and the organizer (Rena De Liz — Ed.) of that wound up taking a beating afterward over the logistics. And that was for a book about women making comics, far less polarizing than Occupy. So we're really going out of our way to make everything as simple and transparent as possible and building public checks and balances into the whole process.
I wound up distributing a film a few years back that drew the ire of a top Washington lobbyist and I learned the hard way that a lot of these firms have people on staff whose sole job it is to spread rumors and misinformation all day just to create drama and waste the time of people working on things they don't like. It's fairly brilliant in its own way and it's not a conspiracy—it’s just a simple, super effective way of shutting people up.
So I know I'm putting myself at risk of a lot of stress with no tangible benefit, and the only way I can manage that is by pushing the snowball down the hill and checking in on it regularly to make sure it’s headed in the right direction. We probably could've raised a lot more money if we'd been working on it full-time, but just like everybody else we're struggling to make ends meet, so we can only do so much. I think it's more important that we build a model that's sustainable in the long-term rather than diving head-first into something we potentially couldn't see through.
To be continued
]]>Those days are over.
The holiday parties are still occurring, yet they have become just as partisan as the city’s noxious climate, extending the political divide between the two factions to simple acts of holiday season socializing. “[The party scene] is no different than what’s happening up on the Hill,” observed Nancy Shaffer, president of Bravo! Events By Design. “There seems to be an unstated rule that you can’t be seen with your political rival.”
It’s gotten so bad, one prominent association has scheduled informal “shifts” in an effort to draw attendees to its soiree. Democrats are being encouraged to attend during the first half of the scheduled party, while Republicans will then close the place down. “There’s a real concern about appearing to be ‘cavorting with the enemy,’” said a staffer with the association with decidedly unpartisan issues. “We’d like to alleviate any concern members and their staff may have in attending our function.”
Event planners around the city can trace the demise of the bipartisan holiday party to 2007, when the economy tanked and Barack Obama’s election unleashed an unprecedented level of partisanship marked by a viciousness and a bunker mentality that punishes those that stray from the fold, even in a social setting.
“It’s required a huge strategic shift in my business planning,” Shaffer said. Rather than produce “wow, first impression” events, Shaffer is integrating marketing and perception strategies in the philanthropic and non-profit worlds. “We want our events to be thought-provoking and a call to action,” she explained.
Likewise, the Washington party industry has shifted from big ticket events intended to attract the city’s dealmakers from both sides of the aisle to more targeted get-togethers with team and morale building within the organizations as the primary objective.
“Ostentatious is out, austerity is in,” said Lynne Breaux, president of the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, whose members have seen an uptick in business as DC looks to more modest turn-key affairs in the city’s burgeoning restaurant scene, which has seen 142 new establishments open since the dark days of 2007. “But, people are always going to party.”
As good as it’s going for her members, though, Breaux laments the loss of political socialization she made available in her past life as owner/proprietor of Tunnicliff’s, a neighborhood tavern on Capitol Hill across the street from the venerable Eastern Market. “Louisiana Senators John Breaux (a Democrat) and Trent Lott (a Republican) were regular visitors together,” she recalled.
You might have seen Newt Gingrich and current Democrat Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta even share a beer and some conversation as well. “One of the main reasons we socialize is to share conversation, preferably with those that might have different viewpoints. Unfortunately, it seems we have lost those days,” Breaux said.
That doesn’t mean some DC insiders are not for a lack of trying. An energy conservation lobbyist who builds bridges on the issue — environmental benefits to the left, cost-savings and efficiency to the right — has opened her home to her firm’s holiday party to try and provide a comfortable setting for divergent audiences.
“If I can get folks from the Sierra Club and Chevron to have a glass of wine together, it shouldn’t be so hard for a Democrat and a Republican to do the same,” said the lobbyist loathe to be named because the last thing any lobbyist wants is to be named. “But it’s gotten harder and harder every year, just like it’s gotten harder and harder every year to get anything passed — even if there is consensus — because political scorecards are more important than actual issues.”
One unintended consequence of the public’s disfavor with cozy relationships in Washington, legitimately prompted by the Abramoff lobbying scandal, combined with hyper-partisanship is the lost opportunity to find common ground. One is less inclined to publicly screw another with whom they have shared a cocktail.
The late night card games are gone, the late night and mostly innocent carousing by “friends” of different parties are gone, and any efforts at bipartisan solutions to the nation’s real and very serious problems are long gone.
Pity that the pettiness has extended even to an innocuous celebration of the holiday season. Just maybe that sharing of a slice of ham and a glass of red wine could signal a thawing of the vitriol.
]]>Americans, Greeks, Italians, Germans, the French, and the British are all losing faith as they contemplate the failure of their financial, political, and cultural institutions. People are taking to the streets around the world not so much with a direct agenda of grievances, but to express their frustration and disappointment in systems that have not met their self-professed expectations.
One need not look further than last week’s spontaneous gathering in Happy Valley, PA prompted by Joe Paterno’s firing as head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions in the wake of a child molestation scandal to encapsulate the people’s malaise.
“The mood was not so much pro-JoePa or anti-JoePa,” observed a Penn State grad who has packed away his sweatshirt and does not want to be identified because he is exhausted by the scandal. “It was more, if you can’t believe in JoePa, what can you believe in? It just symbolizes to me what is going on in this country. Who can we trust? What can we truly believe in? As Marvin Gay sang, ‘What’s going on?’.”
In Athens, more than 30,000 people demonstrated their mistrust. You see the same in Milan and Palermo in Italy, university students in London protesting a tripling of tuition in the UK, and of course, the escalating confrontation with the Occupy movements in Oakland, New York, and Denver.
What you see is the anger of what they consider a violation of their social contract by their government and their financial institutions.
Simple-minded folks rationalize the protesters as lazy and disgruntled, unwilling to put in the effort and hard work required to succeed in a system that rewards those who take advantage of the opportunities provided. Problem is, those opportunities are declining and the premise of the U.S. as a meritocracy is becoming more and more dubious.
Last month, the Congressional Budget Office confirmed much of the Occupy movement’s primary gripe: income inequality. The non-partisan CBO found that the top 1% of households saw their income grow by 275% between 1979 and 2007. The next 19% saw a 65% increase, a 39% increase for the next 40% and only an 18% increase for the bottom 20%.
Education, supposedly the great equalizer, has become so expensive and debt-intensive, there are very legitimate questions as to whether the investment in a college education is worth the return. Student loan balances now rival mortgages.
Americans now collectively owe more than $600 billion in student loans, while wages for college graduates have actually fallen over the last ten years. The expectation was that a college education would fuel social and economic advancement, not put you in a financial hole to dig out of day one after graduation and then rely on a tilted society to fund your recovery.
The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik may have put his finger on the fundamental grievance of the Occupy movement: that the nation has transitioned back from the “New World’s ‘ascending honor,’ in which children strive to impress their parents by moving up in society on their own” to the “Old World’s ‘descending honor,’ in which people pass on their goods and status to their children.”
In other words, political and financial elites are perpetuating a caste system that protects and grows their gains within their clique — by intent or not — and restricts entrance into their prosperous world. The national mantra of equal opportunity is under serious review.
Unfortunately, Washington continues to remain completely unaware of this growing sensibility, seeking instead to lay sole responsibility for the current state of affairs on those suffering from them. The so-called “Supercommittee” commissioned by the debt-ceiling extension deal is supposed to have its deficit reduction plan in order just before Thanksgiving.
If unable to reach a deal, poison pills kick in that would demand across the board cuts in military spending and social programs such as Medicare and Social Security. The cuts were supposed to be so devastating to the agendas of both political parties that they would be forced to reach a compromise.
But they gave themselves on out. The cuts do not kick in until after the 2012 elections; then whatever party is in power could repeal the cuts that are an anathema to their core. Thus, you’ve got stalling over “revenue” — or tax increases for the wealthiest. No hurry, we’ll win the election and do what we want.
Rather than explore a far-reaching agreement that restores an “ascending honor” to American society, our national leaders are consumed by election year politics and partisanship gain. And the people see it; why else would Congress’s approval rating be under 20%? (On the other hand, why should Congress worry? They enjoy 85% incumbency rates.)
The coming days will illuminate whether our leaders are thinking macro- or micro-, whether they favor “ascending honor” or “descending honor,” and whether they seek a solution for shared prosperity or to prepare for class warfare.
The "system" is clearly broken. Will it be fixed? Or, at the risk of escalating social unrest, its failings rationalized by those whom receive its primary benefits?
]]>Why else would the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology consider the “Mobile Informational Call Act of 2011 (H.R. 3035),” legislation that would expose cell phone customers to a litany of unsolicited commercial messages and harassment from bill collectors? Certainly the people must be demanding action, its “bi-partisan” sponsors, Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) and Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY) must think.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 offered telephone customers protections from annoying unsolicited calls. Its signature hallmark was the creation of the national “Do Not Call” registry. But it also included specific protections for cell phones customers, predicated on the situation then that minutes were expensive and mobile users should not subsidize marketing efforts aimed at them.
Now a coalition of banking, debt collection, and higher education loan lobbyists, consolidated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are seeking to gut those protections by “enacting limited, common sense revisions to facilitate the delivery of time-sensitive consumer information to mobile devices,” read a September 23 coalition letter.
The legislation would exempt “informational calls from the restriction on auto-dialer and artificial/pre-recorded voice calls to wireless numbers,” according to letter. Perhaps just as troubling are their efforts to “clarify” the “prior express consent” requirement that “facilitates communications between consumers and the businesses in which they choose to interact.”
Essentially, a simple Caller ID’ed call to a “business” would imply consent for the wireless caller to receive unsolicited messages from that business thereafter, not to mention the potential for the warehousing of the number and likely distribution and sale to other businesses. Currently, wireless users must provide their number and explicitly approve its use as a means of any contact.
“You got to be kidding me,” reacted Capitol Hill resident and U-10 Blue Jays Girls Soccer coach Theresa Owens, who uses her wireless phone to organize her team and family communication. “That’s why I kept my landline; to funnel all that crap to my answering machine! I’m still getting ten calls a day. Now they want my cell too?”
Sound ludicrous? The
legislation made it all the way to the hearing stage last week. Republicans are leading the charge, carrying
the water for their big business sponsors.
“Supporters argue that current restrictions prevent schools from using
an automatic dialing system to deliver snow-day alerts to parents that have
wireless phones and banks from sending out fraud alerts or low-balance alerts
to customers with wireless phones,” the majority staff memorandum explained.
Problem, though, it ain’t true. Staffers need only to go five blocks from their offices to the Capitol Hill Cluster School to find the solution: a one-page consent form allowing the school and DCPS to call and/or text your wireless phone with a promise not to distribute the number. Or they can visit the National Capital Bank three blocks from Rayburn, where they offer their clients the option of wireless contact to their customers.
The justification for turning your cell phone into a roaming and constant receptacle of thinly-veiled marketing entreaties has gotten so outlandish, one testifier argued that it could be a valuable tool in resolving the foreclosure crisis. “The equation is rather simple: if you increase the number of borrowers we can reach, you increase the number of workouts, and decrease the number of foreclosures,” offered Faith Schwartz, executive director of Hope Now, a government-initiated alliance of banks and mortgage brokers that serve 60% of the nation’s housing market, created to ease the foreclosure crisis.
See, folks in foreclosure that get all the mailings from the mortgage provider are more likely to answer unfamiliar phone numbers, especially when that number becomes flooded with calls from other debt collectors. If only the foreclosers could get them on the line and modify their balloon and underwater loans. Oh yeah, they’re not modifying the toxic loans; only restructuring them by adding payments to the back end.
What’s pretty incredible about this latest Washington under-the-radar exercise in industry-driven legislation is that it is on behalf of two of your more abusive and maligned industries. Bankers are hardly in the position to demand intrusive tools to market further the bad loans they already made. And debt collectors? They’re the number one industry on the FTC’s complaint list with 144,159 of them, according to the Commission; complaints from folks already shamed by debt and those erroneously hunted for debts they do not owe. (Try living a year as a “Smith.”)
Just the week before the hearing on allowing debt collectors to invade cell phones, the FTC filed suit in a district court against seven debt collection agencies for making false threats against consumers. One company was accused of harassing a consumer with threats to “dig her daughter up” unless she immediately settled a funeral bill.
The House Commerce Committee may be getting the message now that its stealth effort is seeing a bit of sunlight. According to PopVox, a non-partisan online constituency service, 99% (8,623) people oppose H.R. 3035. The Committee even went so far as to voluntarily remove the archived footage of the hearing.
So, passage as a stand-alone bill before the end of the current Congressional session is highly unlikely, but that may not be the strategy. The table is set and a record has been established, making the legislation ripe for a quick fold into another piece of legislation.
The people, by an unprecedented margin, want no part of having their wireless phones inundated by robo-calls and veiled sales pitches. The “People’s House” on the other hand, seek to rationalize a blatant industry grab. Be vigilant with that iPhone...
]]>