Types of Tour People, Ranked From Best to Worst

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Joe| Leave a comment

Being a tour guide is sometimes fantastic, and sometimes miserable. Whether it’s transcendentally awesome or utterly terrible depends on the kind of group you get. Below are people I encounter regularly, ranked from best to worst.

People who are totally into it and are geeking out as much as you

I like history and architecture and urban planning and anecdotes and all of that kind of thing. When my enthusiasm is shared by others, it’s spectacular. I’m into it, they’re into it, and it makes me feel like some kind of grandly talented imparter of truth, like I’m Carl Sagan or something. It’s a great feeling, and usually results in lots of tips.

Drunk people who are totally into it and are geeking out as much as you

Same as above, but more distractable.

College students

College students are actually pretty easy to talk to, because lots of them want to be adults. They want to seem smart and interested in things, so they act smart and interested in things.

High schoolers

Same as above, for the most part.

People who know more about history than me

I’ve had a few actual, real historians on my tours. They terrify me. I worry that I’ll get something horribly wrong. But, they usually like to chat afterward, and then I steal material from the knowledge they impart.

Bored people who are only there because their spouse or friend or someone else dragged them along

These people are fine. They usually stare into the middle distance, thinking thoughts of things. They bother me not, but add nothing to the experience.

People who want to tell the entire group this one story about this one time when they were growing up in Portland and, wow, that had nothing to do with the matter at hand.

I like it when people have interesting things to say or add. I don’t really like it when someone starts talking about how back when they grew up, things sure were different. Yep. Totally not the same as today.

Small children

Small children are easily impressed by things such as magnets. Also, they are very short so addressing large groups of them is easy. One is gigantic by comparison, so they can all see and hear you easily. They do, however, have the tendency to tire easily. Sometimes they spontaneously cry, and must be whisked away by a parent.

Disinterested guys in NASCAR hats and sunglasses who always seem to be thinking “What the hell is this shit?”

I imagine these guys as being the kind of dudes who actually get excited when the History Channel does yet another thing about WWII, and gritting their teeth whenever I extol the virtues of public transportation.

People who come up with weird rationalizations for Japanese internment

Portland used to have a big Japanese neighborhood. We don’t anymore. It got enthusiastically erased. Now, the only thing we have is a memorial by the waterfront where a big immigrant district used to be. Most people find this terrifying and horrible and sad. Once, though, a rather terrible woman tried to tell everyone why it was a great idea. It only happened once, but still.

Drunk people who are not at all into it

These people are asked to leave. They ususally stumble into a bar or something. An drunk old lady who had too much makeup grabbed my ass once. That was weird.

Middle schoolers

I kind of think that between the ages of eleven and fifteen children should be hooked up to some kind of energy-gathering cybernetic thing that would allow us to use the collective hyperactivity of the nation’s middle schoolers as a source of clean, renewable power. Middle schoolers do not stop. They do not tire. They do not focus. They are made of superballs and pop rocks. They are energy incarnate. Nothing can hold their attention. Nothing. Talking to them is like screaming at a jet engine. After the heat death of the universe, they will still be yelling at something.

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Posted in History, Jobs

On Running

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Joe| 1 Comment

At the behest of my father, I ran cross country in high school. He demanded that I do some kind of sport, and I chose distance running mainly (I think) because it meant that I didn’t have to really cooperate with a team or do anything complicated. I didn’t have to learn to hit or kick or pass or anything subtle. I just had to learn to run. I thought it would be simple. I was right. Running is very simple. That does not mean that it is easy.

Since high school, I have only rarely jogged. When I lived in Narita I regularly biked through the rice fields and bamboo groves near my apartment, but seldom jogged. Last year, I went to a gym on a regular basis (before said gym went under) and worked on a number of exercises and weights a few times a week. I did not run, though. Bicycling, jumping jacks, push-ups, weights- these were all well and good. Anything but running. Running was the only exercise that I actively did not want to do.

I’ve started running again. I hate it. It feels great.

Jogging is at once an act of punishing self-abnegation, and also a source of great satisfaction. It does hurt. When I run, I huff, puff, and feel various parts of my body buzz and twist in pain. Or, if not pain, then some other feeling that is certainly not pleasure. I’m steady, but I do not go particularly fast. Every moment is a moment in which I have to tell myself “I have the capacity to withstand an additional moment of pain.” Every pace invites the next, and every unit of distance screams “we will withstand more.” Running is an act of passing through pain in order to get to other, additional pain, and more pain after that. Lots of life is like that. Running makes it explicit.

It is satisfying, though. I’ve only started running again recently, but at the end of a jog (or during it) I pause and realize that I do not need to be passive. Also, I realize that even though I create difficulty for myself (such as jogging arbitrary distances) I can also overcome such difficulties. Running is a visceral reminder that a human can take action and self-create both challenges and solutions. We can act. We do not wait to act or simply get acted upon, we do not just observe or stew or bide time. Running (such a simple activity) is a reminder that we can dramatically do. Also, it’s good for you, so that’s a nice bonus.

I would not say I like like running. I do however, enjoy it. I would not describe myself as a masochist, but knowing that one can both create (and subsequently crush) a given challenge using only the power of one’s legs makes for a worthy satisfaction, and a good pain.

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Posted in Athletics, Self Improvement

Why I Loved, Loved, Loved, Loved Cabin in the Woods

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Joe| Leave a comment

If you haven’t seen Cabin in the Woods yet, go see it. Don’t read this blog post. Don’t read anything else about it. Don’t watch the trailer. Shun all articles, comments, advertisements, and even headlines that mention it. Just go get it all up in your sense organs and take it in. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time, and you (yes, YOU) need to watch it.

If you haven’t, go away. Now.

There are spoilers ahead.

Click away if you haven’t seen it. This is the Internet. I’m sure you can find something else to read.

Alright, is it just us? Have we all here seen the movie? Cool. Guys, I loved this film. Loved, loved, loved it. Here’s why:

I will now imagine every conventional horror movie being expertly manipulated by Josh from The West Wing.

Cabin in the Woods isn’t a spoof or a parody like the Scream movies. It doesn’t ask the audience to laugh at other horror movies, or love them less. It’s not biting the hand that feeds it. Instead, Cabin provides a backstory for just about every other horror movie ever made. It takes tired genre tropes and turns them into something we can actually appreciate by turning them into plot points. Instead of skewering cliches, it provides a reason for them. Why are horror movies the way they are? Because the Ancient Gods say so, that’s why. Why do people make stupid decisions? Because of pheromone gas. Why do the characters fall into such neat archetypes? Because of poison hair dye and spiked weed.

The next time I see horror characters who are badly drawn, who make stupid decisions, or who generally fall into easy stereotypes, I’m just going to assume it’s because Josh from The West Wing and his coterie of murderous poindexters are pulling all the strings, substituting common sense and depth of personality with the ritualistic motions of the horror genre.

It fire’s Checkhov’s gun gleefully into the air, again and again and again.

As soon as I saw the Hellraiser-esque ball puzzle in the basement scene, I couldn’t help grinning. I knew exactly what would happen if someone solved the puzzle, and (by implication) what all the other things in the basement did. My suspicions were confirmed moments later with the shot of the whiteboard that listed a plethora of horror monsters and baddies. I had to admit, I was a little tiny bit disappointed when the baddies turned out to be “just” some shambling corpses, and understood Bradley Whitford’s disappointment when he said that he wanted to see a merman.

The ending, though, completely reversed my earlier disappointment. If anything, it was only because of my disappointment earlier at not seeing a giant snake or werewolf that made me so ebullient when they appeared later. Cabin in the Woods is one of those few movies that satisfied all of my expectations and didn’t leave me exhausted. It knew when to overload the audience with horrors, and also when to stop, creating, and then masterfully satisfying, audience desire.

It’s a movie that gives us a good damn look at all of the awesome carnage.

I don’t hate shakycams or fast edits if they’re used well (I don’t hate anything if it’s used well, actually) but unstill cameras and rapid chopping have become all too common in movies. I loved the camerawork in Cabin. The frame actually stayed put from time to time, and instead of giving us brief and frenetic looks at the action or various monsters, director Drew Goddard let us have a good, long look at everything that was happening. When the menagerie of horrors sprung from the elevators toward the end, I was immensely happy that we got to actually see them. Goddard didn’t just give us a brief flash of monstrous action- he lingered on the beasts and the gore lovingly, serving up a beautiful, bloody feast for the audience.

Speaking of the audience…

The Ancient Gods are us.

At least, that’s what I think. The white-shirted manipulators ominously say “we’re not the only ones watching.” No, not at all. The Ancient Gods are. They demand a certain amount of satisfaction, titillation, conflict, gore, sacrifice, messiness, and all in a prescribed formula. They are us. They are the producers who want movies packaged in a particular way, and the audience who wants certain expectations met. If the manipulators (i.e., the film makers) fail, their world falls apart. Box office receipts plummet, audiences walk away unsatisfied, and a giant fist rises from the ground, rage-quitting the world in anger. The Ancient Gods for whom film makers create elaborate, cruel, blood-soaked illusions are those of us sitting in the theater seats who demand new sacrifices year after year. Those sacrifices must follow a certain pattern, they must be of a certain type, they must follow rules. Otherwise, the Ancient Gods, the audience, will not be assuaged.

I, though, walked away from Cabin in the Woods immensely pleased. Mr. Goddard, Mr. Whedon- your sacrifice is acceptable.

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Posted in Uncategorized

In Praise of Makoto

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Joe| 1 Comment

I love fighting games. I love Soul Calibur, Super Smash Brothers, Mortal Kombat, and Guilty Gear. I even kind of tolerate Tekken, if there’s nothing else available.

For and away the best by far, though, are the Capcom fighting games. Capcom has been making pretty much the same game again and again since Street Fighter II over two decades ago, but it’s a successful format which has successfully consumed a good portion of my fan energy, despite (or maybe because of) its sameness/consistency.

I will admit to being a fairly boring Street Fighter player, in that I usually choose Ryu or Ken, easy-to-use characters who spew fireballs. However, due to zoning out after work and playing way too much Street Fighter III at Ground Kontrol, I think I have a new favorite Street Fighter character: Makoto. We need more Makotos in video games. Badly.

We need more female characters in games.

This is kind of a “duh” point, but it’s important. We actually need more female characters in all media. A frightening amount of movies and TV continue to fail the Bechdel test, prove the Smurfette principle, and otherwise fail at portraying half the species in any meaningful way. So, there’s that. But…

We need more female characters whose gender is not the defining characteristic of their being.

I love Chun-Li as much as any fighting game nerd- she’s fast, she’s dodgy, and if you know how to play her she can be really, really cheap. However, Chun-Li is very much Street Fighter‘s Smurfette- the defining bit of her character (at least initially) was that she was the one lady amid a series of dudes. Her little bit of victory banter wasn’t anything about her fighting style or any kind of trash talk. She said to her vanquished opponents “I am the strongest woman in the world.” It was all about her XX chromosomes. Later additions like Cammy and Sakura hit the same note- their gender was pushed front-and-center, and their identities as martial artists were secondary.

Makoto’s different. She’s a fighter first. Wearing a gi, she’s doesn’t have any kind of costume that shows off her tits or ass, and there’s no obnoxious schoolgirl posturing or spurned-lover weirdness like there is with Sakura and Cammy, respectively. Makoto looks and acts like a martial artist, and in Street Fighter III it’s her martial arts skills and her fighting style that define her, rather than a costume that barely covers her butt. She is a martial artist who is female, rather than a female martial artist. We need more of that. Which brings me to my last point…

We need more female characters whose play style transcends their gender.

Let’s go back to Chun-Li again (and I want to emphasize that I like Chun-Li, I’m not trying to rail against her or anything- I just want a broader pallete here). Chun-Li is lighter, faster, and dance-ier than the other Street Fighter characters. Her play style, broadly speaking, is strongly influenced by the fact that she’s female. This is true in lots of games. The female characters are the quick, light ones speedy-dodgy ones.

Makoto, on the other hand, hits hard. Makoto is all about hard punches and high, close-range damage. She is not a character who flits about elegantly or whose movement or play style is at all feminized. One of her moves is a choke, and one of her super techniques involves her turning red, hulking out, and turning into a relentless damage juggernaut. The Street Fighter character whom she resembles more than anything else is Zangief, the immense Russian bear wrestler.

When Capcom designed Makoto they did something right. They’ve put out a lot of nonsense like Crimson Viper, but with Makoto they got something right. I’ll take Makoto over the Laura Crofts or Bayonettas of the world any day- more than anything else she’s a punching, choking, utterly punishing martial-arts damage machine. She just happens to be a woman. We need more ladies like her.

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Posted in Video Games

A Thing I Just Wrote: Why Meat Can be Ethical

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Joe| 2 Comments

I sat down to be productive today, and got distracted by this thing from the New York Times, a short essay contest asking readers to articulate why it’s ethical to eat meat. Being an omnivore, I decided to crack out some of the old debate team skills, and lay out a semi-convincing reason as to why I like putting the dead bodies of other vertebrates in my mouth. I don’t love this little essay, but stuff like this is why, for a brief time, I thought I was going to be a lawyer.

This was my submission:

It is ethical to eat animals. It can be ethical to kill animals. It is not ethical, however, to make animals suffer. An action is unethical only if it causes others to suffer. If eating meat can be done without suffering, then eating meat may be done ethically.

If you’re eating an animal, the act of eating it is not causing it to suffer. It is, in fact, dead, and as such cannot feel any pain or other negative feelings. The act of consumption imparts no sensation whatsoever to the animal involved.

There is nothing about eating animals that necessitates animals suffering during their lifetimes. It is true that domesticated animals can be raised in appalling conditions. However, it is also true that domesticated animals can be raised in agreeable conditions. Nothing about the act of meat consumption inherently and necessarily means that said animal had a lifetime of suffering. Therefore, eating meat cannot be inherently linked to a lifetime of suffering on the animal’s part.

So, the animal feels no suffering after death (one of the perks of being dead) and is not necessarily consigned to a lifetime of suffering. The vast period of time both before the animal’s death and after it can easily be (and often are) suffering-free. That leaves us only with the moment of death.

Death can obviously be painful and entail suffering on the part of the animal. However, suffering can be disassociated from the animal’s death. Animals cannot anticipate as humans do. They do not know they are going to die, and domesticated animals are not capable of experiencing stress or anticipating their own end. Therefore, they do not experience any suffering associated with dread, fear, stress, or emotions that humans do. Because mental suffering is a nonissue, that leaves only physical suffering.

If an animal is killed quickly and cleanly enough (and we have the means to do precisely that) then it will die instantly and not linger in any kind of physical pain. What’s more, a quick, painless death can relieve an animal from physical suffering later. An animal killed instantly will never suffer because of disease, a decaying body, or violence from wild predators. It will never hobble on arthritic limbs, know the ravages of aged lungs, or be ripped apart by wolves. Living within an ethical domestic environment can allow the animal to in fact experience less total suffering over the course of its existence than it otherwise would.

So, the act of eating does not cause suffering. The act of raising animals does not inherently entail suffering. The act of killing an animal can be performed without suffering. Therefore, humans may consume animals in an ethical fashion. If those prerequisites can be met, then eating meat may be done entirely ethically.

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Posted in Animals, Food, Writing

A Post Sort of About Mad Men, In Which I Probably Sound More Bitter Than I Should

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Joe| Leave a comment

Mad Men returns today, and it’s ostensibly a show all about how the lifestyle of white, middle-class America of the mid 20th century was a crumbling facade built upon an unsustainable groundwork of deception, consumerism, patriarchy, and racism. It’s about the sixties not from the perspective of the revolutionaries, but from the perspective of those inside the balsa-wood fortress that is slowly and inevitably collapsing in upon itself due to its own contradictions. It’s supposed to be about that.

But let’s not kid ourselves, Mad Men is also a fantasy show. As much as it’s about the moral corruption and hollowness of the part of America that voted for Nixon, it’s also about wearing great suits, drinking a lot, and having all of the sex with everyone, all of the time. The show gets to have it both ways- it’s an utter condemnation of the ruling order of the 1960s, but it also thinks that its subjects look sort of cool.

This is not a new observation by any means, but when I watch Mad Men the biggest fantasy aspect of the show doesn’t come from the cool clothes, booze, revelry, or sex. The most appealing and fantastical aspect of the show, for me, is that Don Draper and company are creative professionals who can actually pay for shit.

Don Draper is paid quite a good deal of money to think things up and be clever. For his services he is given enough of a salary to have a house, a car, several suits, go out all of the time, fly to L.A. with regularity, and generally not feel any real kind of financial pressure. Sure, Sterling Cooper have to hustle get and keep clients, but it doesn’t seem like any of them every have to crack out the Top Ramen or worry about student loans.

I do fine- I have a day job and freelance, but my lifestyle is by no means middle class. Even though Mad Men is all about how the characters live in an unsustainable system, the lifestyles of the creative professionals it portrays greatly appeals to me. I pay my bills by entertaining tourists and writing blog posts and articles- not a bad deal, certainly, but not enough to, say, buy a car or a house.  As someone who fancies himself a mildly talented creative person, I would love to do what Don Draper does. I’m sure there’s far more to advertising that what’s portrayed in the show, but the idea of being able to have a pretty okay life at a creative job is, for me, the show’s biggest and most frustrating fantasy. If I do attempt to actually live as a professional journalist or writer (which I suppose I am doing right now) I know that in all probability I’ll never do well. I’ll never be able to own a new car or buy an iPad the day it’s released. I’ll probably never own my own home or be able to fly about the country at will. I’ll most likely never be able to party in an expensive city in New York or own lots of nice suits. Actual, real creative professionals are not rich, or even middle class. They enjoy themselves, they live nice, fulfilled lives, but they are certainly not Don Draper.

Is it worth it? Maybe. Probably. American opulence is nothing to celebrate. Watching Mad Men, though, really makes me wish that decently-paying writing and creative jobs like the one Don Draper has were actually real.

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Posted in Jobs, Television, Writing

Why I Did Not Love The Hunger Games

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Joe| 1 Comment

The Hunger Games movie comes out tomorrow, and so far, it seems to have a pretty good critical reception. I feel kind of left out of the whole Hunger Games mania/excitement. I’m sure I’ll see the movie at some point, but I just can’t get myself worked up into a froth about it, as I was not hugely amazed by the book.

I liked the book. It was diverting and page turn-y. I thought that Katniss kicked way more ass than a certain boy wizard protagonist. I liked the world it was set in. But, I did not love it. It did not rock my world, change my life, or otherwise blow my mind. It was fine and I did not hate it, but I had a few fairly major problems with it. Such as:

It’s not nearly brutal or scary enough. The Hunger Games is ostensibly a book about kids killing other kids. However, the violence in the book was sanitized to a degree that I was never scared of or disgusted by it. There were no instances where I felt pity or horror or sickness at what I was reading, there was no time in which I felt any kind of terror about spurting blood or deadly fights. The vast majority of the action happens away from Katniss and therefore away from the reader, since the book is in first person. If you want the reader to find something horrible (and I’m assuming that that’s Suzanne Collins’ goal) then have to take a page from Upton Sinclair and show them something horrible.

The tributes from the wealthy districts are too clearly the bad guys. It was kind of a cop-out for Collins to make the tributes from the wealthy districts obvious villains. Whether or not they’re favored to win, or whether or not they have training and resources, they are still children who are being savagely manipulated by adults. Collins gives us characters whose deaths we actively hope for, and that undercuts the moral authority of her story.

Despite trying to tell a story about why deathmatches are bad, we still root for Katniss. Collins is trying to illustrate how the Games are a horrible display of power on behalf of the Capital. However, we as readers still hope that Katniss kills people and wins the whole thing, so even though we’re supposed to be deploring the whole system we’re still rooting for a specific outcome within it. That’s a highly uncomfortable position to be in.

Katniss is conveniently absolved of killing anyone other than a “bad” tribute. Throughout the book, Katniss manages to coast by and, despite being surrounded by death, very rarely has to actually get her hands dirty. She kills very few people in close quarters, and Collins lets the “bad” tributes do the dirty work of killing off the more innocent participants. I kept wondering if Rue was going to try to kill Katniss, or vice versa. That would have been interesting, but it never happened. Which reminds me…

Peeta is a loser. Seriously. Katniss should have arrow-ed him in the face. Kind of can’t stand that guy.

And finally…

It’s not as good as Battle Royale. But then, few things are.

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Posted in Books, Rants, Science Fiction

Shakespeare, the Remix

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Joe| Leave a comment

Cymbeline is a play that I’d never read, never seen, and generally knew nothing about until last Tuesday night. It’s one of Shakespeare’s kind of obscure C-list plays that’s seldom performed, and I had no idea what I was in for when the lights dimmed and the show started. The production was, strictly speaking, an adaptation of Cymbeline. While the original play was there, the director had added in a piano player/narrator type character who contextualized and commented on what was happening in the play (honestly, I did not find this to be a particularly interesting addition). I enjoyed the production quite a bit, but afterwards I completely understood why Cymbeline is so seldom performed: it’s an utter mess.

Make no mistake, it’s a really entertaining mess, but I’m pretty sure that Shakespeare just kind whipped up to amuse himself as it contains themes, riffs, and bits from just about every other Shakespeare play. A dottering old king like a la King Lear? Check. A conniving queen like the one from Macbeth? Check. A dude who is duped into thinking that his wife is cheating on him by a lying, manipulative douchebag and who subsequently wants to kill said wife a la Othello? Check. That drug from Romeo and Juliet that makes you seem dead even though you’re not? Check. Female-to-male cross dressing straight out of Twelfth Night? Check. Mistaken identity and misunderstandings in the spirit of Much Ado About Nothing? Check.

The various plots of Cymbeline ping-pong about ancient Britain, down to Rome, and back again, and Celts, Centurions, and hilarious Welsh hillbillies all show up, because why the hell not. Then, after a big battle that seems to happen just so the play can have a climax, all of the various plots are resolved in one big end scene that wraps it all up with a crowd-pleasing happy ending. Cymbeline is disjointed, messy, weird, thematically unstable, and I kind of loved it. It is like Shakespeare made a Girl Talk track out of all of his previous works, sat back, and then let the crowd eat it up.

It’s certainly not as affecting as King Lear, as magical as the Tempest, or as funny as Much Ado. Cymbeline is, though, of a glorious example of everything getting put in the Bard-blender and then being served up as a frothy drama-smoothie. It is,and I use this term wholly unironically, totally epic.

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Posted in Shakespeare, Theater

The Band Styx is Not Worthy of Its Name

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Joe| Leave a comment

The other day as I strode through a Fred Meyer, I was somewhat appalled by the musical choices of whoever was running the PA system. Of course, the music in Fred Meyer is always bad, but on this particular day, it was especially offensive because jumping from the speakers was the absolutely insufferable music of Styx, one of the most insufferable bands to come out of the 1970s.

If you’re not familiar with the music Styx, that’s good. Keep it that way. They are most known for Mr. Roboto, probably one of the worst songs ever inflicted upon airwaves. While I hate Styx for their music, that’s not thing thing that annoys me the most about them. No, the reason I really hate Styx is that they don’t deserve their name.

Styx, of course, is the river in Greek mythology that runs through the Underworld. It runs through the darkness of Erebus and Tartarus, where the dead wander and eat dust for eternity. It runs past the mighty guardian wolf Cerberus, the great three-headed monster that keeps the dead in and the living out. It runs through the mighty fields of Elysium, where heroes feast in eternal splendor. Daily and nightly Charon, the ferryman of the dead boats upon the Styx, shuttling the departed to their final fate. Such powerful, iconic, resonating imagery, should not be the province of a terrible seventies progressive band. The name “Styx,” in a just world, would belong to a far better musical entity.

Somewhere, there’s a metal band whose guitar chords scream like the fiery wails of demons and, whose basslines thunder like the rage of the gods. But, they cannot name themselves after the river of hell.

Somewhere, there’s a darkwave group whose sythesizers echo like lonely cries of the forever damned and, whose singer cries like liquid darkness. But, they cannot name themselves after the waterway of eternal regret.

Somewhere, there’s an industrial act whose beats echo into hopeless eternity and whose refrains screech out the hows of Cerberus. But, they cannot name themselves after the boundary that divides the living and the dead.

It is just and proper that Nirvana, a band named for Buddhist enlightenment, did actually change the world. It is good and laudable that Black Sabbath, a band whose name recalls dark covens and hideous rituals, delivers on what their title promies. It is entirely appropriate that AC/DC’s music is exactly as electric as their name suggests. Styx, though, abuses their name. Their insufferable and flaccid music recalls nothing of the mighty mythological imagery that they summon up. They wish to invoke Death itself, but instead deliver horrible music that is already its own parody.

So, you suck, Styx. You stole one of the most potentially awesome names in music and mythology. The most badass geographic feature in Greek myth really should belong to a better band, but you ruined it, and I hate you for it.

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Posted in Music, Mythology

Advice to People Who Own Cafes: Do Not Be Creepy

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Joe| 2 Comments

Earlier today I had a bad cafe experience. Bad to the point that I will almost certainly never walk into the given establishment again. I had an appointment in SE Portland this afternoon and was biking down SE 52nd, an area that I am unfamiliar with. I noticed that I had some time to kill, and thought that I would spend perhaps half an hour in a coffee shop, doing coffee shop things. Namely, sipping coffee and reading news. That was all I wanted. A nice place with coffee and wi-fi. This, I thought, was a simple and straightforward thing to ask for. I walked into the first place I saw, an establishment that shall remain unnamed but did advertise as a cafe on its exterior signage.

A man who was certainly past middle age but definitely not elderly greeted me. “Hello!” he said. I looked around for something like a point of sale, bar, counter, or other place where orders could be transacted. There was none. Various refrigerated display cases abounded, but most things weren’t labeled.

“Hungry?” said the man. I wasn’t really.

“Can I get a cup of coffee?”

“Sure! You want something else? We got lots of food.”

“Um…”

“We got meatloaf!”

At this point I really should have held my ground and just stuck with the coffee. However, perhaps because it was sort of close to lunch, my resolution broke and I asked if they had any sandwiches. “Sure,” said the guy, “I can make you a sandwich.” He went on to extol the virtues of their offerings, declaring it to be the “best food in Portland.” I know he did not mean it literally. He merely meant to say “our food is good.” However, I found the remark to be rather naive and kind of arrogant.

The man eventually gave me a ham sandwich the size of my head. I stared at it, and wondered how the hell I’d been so irresolute to order something I didn’t actually want. I began to eat the sandwich. I cursed my lack of steadfastness, and resigned myself to lunch consumption. (To be fair, it was a very good sandwich, though by no means among the best in Portland.)

Then, things got weird. The sandwich guy, instead of walking away and letting me eat the sandwich, sip coffee, and read news in peace, sat down at my table.

“So,” said the man, “what’s your name?”

I was kind of stunned. Suddenly, I was eating a lunch I didn’t really want and had a completely unsolicited dining partner. Over the course of my sandwich-consumption, the man asked me what my job was, what part of town I lived in, what it was like being a bicyclist, and sundry follow-up questions. He also asked me if I wanted to play chess. At the end of it he said “You come back now!” and I left. It was like he’d tried to adopt me as his new BFF, just because I’d walked into his place

I know that he was trying to be friendly. However, it was still very disconcerting. I don’t think that things like my name and profession are particularly private, (this website, after all, has my name on it) but the man earlier today violated a few unspoken rules about what happens in a place like a cafe, bar, or restaurant. To wit:

Don’t aggressively upsell customers. Upselling (“would you like fries with that?”) is fine.  Aggressively upselling, though, is alienating. While it did work in this instance (I bought a sandwich) can harm you overall with repeat business. For instance, I don’t want to go back- I didn’t like being strongarmed into sandwich-acquisition.

Respect the personal bubble. Given that I work as a tour guide, I’m pretty much extroverted and friendly on a professional basis. I enjoy it, but it means that I get socially drained on a fairly frequently, and often need to recharge with a bit of solitude and noninteraction. I was on my way to an activity that was going to be somewhat socially taxing, so I wanted to take some time to collect myself before having to activate the social subroutines. Coffee shops are usually a great place to do this- you can chill out in a nifty space while sipping a tasty beverage. The man in question, though, did not respect my social cues- I was hunched over my phone, reading news, and not interacting with my environment. Most people can detect when a person is in their own headspace, and respect it. This guy didn’t, and it felt highly weird and kind of inappropriately squicky.

Personal questions, out of the proper context, are weird. This is the big one. In the context of ordering food and drink small-talk, banter, and the like is all fine. While tour-guiding, I banter incessantly with people (“Where are you from” works as fantastic conversation fuel, as the vast majority of people I see are tourists) and if a barista, bartender or other service person is completely silent, then that comes across as cold. However, buying something does not mean that a given service person should suddenly quiz you about who you are, your occupation, your proclivities, or what your deal is. (This goes both ways, too. Never hit on your barista. It’s weird.)

If a customer is a regular, that’s probably another matter. I don’t mind having actual conversations with my local bartender because I actually know who he is, see him all the time, and have an established thing going. Chatting with regulars is a pretty organic and nice thing to do, because in that instance the relationship is something that has a fair amount of bedrock and social interaction is actually earned. What happened to me this afternoon, though, was just kind of creepy and space-violating.

So, yeah. Service people: don’t interrogate your customers. I’m not your new special friend. Sometimes, all I want is coffee. Go away and let me read the news.

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Posted in Crazy People, Food, Social Conventions