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Pizza Adventures....by Bob Sanders

I'm not sure where or when I had my first pizza.  My best guess is that it was in Tulsa in the early '60s and definitely in a Pizza Hut.  This would figure since the chain was begun in 1958 by a couple of students at Wichita University--something like 130 miles north of Tulsa.

Pizza Hut was a reasonable beginning and it wasn't until 1968 that matters got serious when I moved from Los Angeles to Chicago to work for Playboy Enterprises.  L.A. was essentially pizza-deprived back then although Sam and Joe Martorano had established Casa Bianca at 1955 Colorado Blvd., a couple of field goals from the Rose Bowl.  The Martoranos had worked at Tony's Pizza in the Windy City but their approach bore little resemblance to the deep dish Chicago product; the crust, I'm told, was light and the toppings slight by comparison.  The California approach to cooking was underway and the pizza obsessive under-served.

I don't recall any L.A. pizza places largely because my dining was pretty much limited to West Hollywood and environs running to the ocean.  With an office at 9255 Sunset Blvd, my favorite places tended to be within walking distance and included: the Cock & Bull across the street; Hamburger Hamlet, eventually a chain created by the still with us Harry and Marilyn Lewis who started at the corner of Sunset & Hilldale; and Frascati, a casual yet classy place with outdoor dining at the rear.  Oh, yes, there was Musso & Frank Grill, still there since 1919.

My discovery of Chicago pizza was made possible by a convention at The Drake Hotel that forced me to stay at the St. Clair on Ohio Street.  The Drake, immediately across the street from the Playboy Building, was the logical place for me but timing, as always, was everything and I was told I could move to The Drake when the convention was over.  We know the importance of timing when we reflect upon Turner Classic Movie's decision to play next Tuesday's (May 29) Irving Thalberg tribute show at 6 a.m. EST.

I didn't need The Drake.  I had settled in at the St. Clair, a place complete with a large contingent of raffish folks from the entertainment industry.  On the top floor was the Chicago Press Club and down the street Ike Sewell's uncommnly popular restaurants, Pizzeria Uno and Due.  I soon found myself eating a fair amount of deep dish that contrasted enormously with prior culinary adventures of the Italian genre.

Sewell, having served in Italy during World War II, had become a regional vice president of Fleishmann's Distilling Corp. and wanted something more exciting.  He found it when he teamed up with pal Ricc Riccardo, an established restaurateur who in in 1935 had turned a former speakeasy into Riccardo Restaurant and Gallery.  A Texan, Sewell wanted to specialize in Mexican food but fate, in the form of a very bad enchilada in a test dinner played a significant role in cuisine history.  Riccardo became so sick that Mexican food was out of the question so he suggested pizza.  Like Sewell, Riccardo had encountered the food while serving in Italy; both were of a mind that the real thing was little more than an appetizer, and they set about inventing something more substantial.  What evolved was a meal-sized pizza with a thick crust and lots of cheese. 

Business did not flourish immediately at the corner of Ohio and Wabash and Sewell soon gave orders to his bartenders to provide free sample slices to customers.  Fortunately for Sewell (Riccardo by then was concentrating on his own restaurant up the street at Rush and Hubbard Streets), Pizzaria Uno's clientele were heavy drinkers and the pizza eventually caught on.  More about the remarkable Riccardo and son Ric, Jr. at a later date.

I lived at the St. Clair for a month, then moved into an apartment on Division Street between State St. and Lake Michigan.  As things turned out, Betty and the kids did not join me in Chicago until August of that year.  It wasn't all bad since Hugh Hefner's home was two blocks away and I had an open invitation to parties that, seemingly, had no end.

The true origins of pizza are difficult to pin down.  People inclined toward conspiracy theories tend to believe that Marco Polo brought back more than spaghetti when he returned from China although such claims are tenuous at best.  We are told the Greeks had a vegetable pizza in ancient times and the Italians improved the product with a variety of fillings before baking.  We do know that Virgil, who lived in the lst Century BC, had the good sense to write a pizza recipe for posterity.

It is generally conceded that the first pizzeria in this country was opened in New York City in 1905 thus planting the city's incestuous family tree.  Like Sewell's experience 50 years later, it was slow to catch on.  It took World War II and a taste acquired by GIs to create a fondness for the food.  Today there are more than 70,000 pizzerias in this country producing an average of 46 slices or 23 lbs. a year for every man, woman and child.  Deep dish pizza, still served at Uno and Due, has run afoul of criticism during recent years for a calorie count of 2,310.  Pizza Hut is out of contention in that league with a modest 9-inch Triple Meat Heliano of 1,280 calories.  And you wonder how this nation got to be one of big butts?

Not credited with a national sense of humor, South Korea spoofed itself when the country's artery-clogged Mr. Pizza unit produced a YouTube pizza story suggesting that Marco Polo stole the pizza recipe not from China but from Korea.  The send up was produced by Gumshoe Pictures and is worth viewing.

In 1990, wife Jan and I moved to the Pacific Northwest and San Juan Island's Friday Harbor where nary a pizza could be found until an expanded gas station started cranking out product geared for those of decidedly limited dining experience.  Even the availability of the mainland 60 minutes away by ferry was of pizza disappointment.  Alas, the exquisite pizza and the magnificent hamburger are rarities of the Pacific Northwest.  We eventually discovered, thanks to then banker Brian Brown, an approximation of hamburger heaven on Commercial Avenue in Anacortes.  The Brown Lantern is a burger discovery that resurrected fond memories of Charlie Beinlich's in Northbrook north of Chicago.  Mainland mainstay Bob's (nine locations--three in Bellingham) knows what to put in a bun; by all means, hit the bar in the Barkley Village location for a genuine pub feeling.

Each of us has had memorable dining experiences.  One of mine occurred in 1992 when Jan and I were guests in Barcelona of Antonio Susquellas Escala, whose employment as presidente of EniChem Iberica, S.A. put him in the midst of the Olympic Games.  Tony had been an exchange student in Thousand Oaks, California living with Jan and her family.  Our six weeks with Tony was his "thank you" and included a highly impressive number of event tickets including opening and closing ceremonies.

It was while strolling down Barcelona's impressive La Ramblas that Jan and I, accompanied by my brother John and his wife, Terry, decided to have lunch at the Hotel Royal's Cafeteria La Poma.  Curious about whatever Barcelona's approach to the pizza might be, I ordered a thin-crusted beauty whose intriguing ingredients included walnuts and blue cheese positioned in the pie's center--about a four-inch circle.  Outside of a delicate winner consumed at, of all places, a short-lived Two Illinois Center restaurant developed by Arnold Morton (he built steak house giant Morton's), my experience with the light version had been limited.

The Barcelona product was remarkably good and here I am, 20 years later, recalling its virtues.  I was so caught up in the pizza that I paid little attention to Magic Johnson, a member of the U.S.A. Dream Team, unquestionably the greatest basketball squad ever.  Magic was seated nearby dining while a circus-like scene developed outside in front of a huge hotel window where a human pyramid of kids had materialized.  Mesmerized, the kids were shouting "Ma-jeek, Ma-jeek."  Completing his meal, the basketball star vanished out a back door and the kids disassembled.  Pronounced evidence of the departed youngsters was left behind on the window; the glass was heavily befogged by human vapors.

Pizza satisfaction is a personal thing and my problem with the Fourth Corner version can be summed up in one word: pepperoni.  Enthusiasts of the pepperoni experience are inclined to believe that pepperoni pizza is to the Pacific Northwest what the Packers are to Green Bay.  A current television commercial extolling the glories of Pizza Hut is, I find, a stomach churner of prodigious success.  While an imaginatively constructed pizza heavy on vegetables can mirror the exultant beauty of a Joan Miro work, the Pizza Hut TV effort features a very large pie whose disgusting topping consists of nothing but a slathering of pepperoni that appears to have been sitting for a week under a scorching Arizona desert sun.  It is beyond ugly made even more so by bread sticks of almost equal repulsion.

Reaching pizza nirvana is not easy although there is a greater variety available today than, say, 30 years ago.  Now a $38 billion industry, pizza is available in chains dominated by Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Papa John who claim 21% of the pizzeria total.  With hard times upon us, pizzeria prices have come down--partly because of the frozen variety competition whose costs are appealing.  Papa Murphy's, whose come-on is take-and-bake, is a highly interesting game plan.  A warning: do not deviate fromn Papa's instructions.  Among other things, bake within a hour of pickup and make sure you don't get a product that's been sitting around.

Store-bought frozen product is challenging with Freschetta, Red Baron, DeGiorno, Paul Newman, California and the rest battling it out to see who has the least amount of cardboard taste.  The boredom of pepperoni pizza has dominated Fourth Corner freezers and I had all but given up until three weeks ago when I encountered what I immediately determined as homage to Chicago: sausage and mushroom pizza.  It was at Fred Meyer and, indeed, produced by Kroger, owner of FM.  Further, a rather stunning picture of the pizza was on the black oblong box and within an hour I had achieved a blessedness never imagined from a frozen product.  The crust was thin and flaky but not overly so and the toppings more substantial and decidedly tastier than all others experienced.  At present, there are four Private Selection pizzas (11-14 oz.) that sell for $4.50 each.  The mushrooms used are portobella and shitake and the sausage Italian.  There's some jive on the box about the baking having been done on a marble hearth.

This column, always inclined to recognize superior marketing, believes Private Selection deserves recognition for realizing all frozen pizza boxes are the same shape.  Simply by creating an oblong pizza has the firm given the product recognition in a highly competitive environment.

And, frankly, I don't care if Private Selection pizza is baked on Aunt Tilly's breakfast table.  Now, go get yourself some sausage and mushroom pizza and think Cubs; that is, if you can stand the thought.

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Florida....by Bob Sanders

 

Mike Royko was easily the most entertaining and evocative columnist I've yet to read and I'd rank Jimmy Breslin second probably because I lived in Chicago for 22 years.  The Chicago wonder has been gone two weeks more than 15 years and I continue to miss his incisiveness and wit.  The wonder of it all was that he wrote his column five times a week--a staggering output.  He knew Chicago better than the back of his hand and he could spot a phony by way of uncommon insight.

Royko had a lot of targets.  Writing for first the Daily News, then the Sun-Times and, finally, the Tribune, the columnist went after the Mayors Daley, aldermen on the take, cops with more than character flaws, the Cubs when they were playing badly (and that was most of the time), Hollywood's latest darlings, and adjacent states including Indiana.

Were he still among us, I think Royko would have been absolutely captivated by Florida, that skinny Texas of extraordinary confusion.

It's difficult to know where to begin with something as curious as Florida.  There are the people past including: railway magnet Henry Flagler; the fabulous Mizner brothers who became the rogues of the 1920s Florida Land Boom and whose raffish personalities gave further understanding of the affinity New Yorkers have for Florida; Meyer Lansky, otherwise known as the "Mob's Accountant," and Hank Meyer, a public relations whiz so persuasive that he talked Second Corner weathermen into never crediting Miami Beach with temperatures higher than 89.  They do today, but Meyer is no longer among us.

Let us leap immediately into the contemporary Florida now recognized as the fraud capital of the U.S., a reputation well-established long before Bernie  ripped off so many friends and relatives in Palm Beach, easily his favorite hunting ground.  Florida led the nation last year with 130,449 complaints while also grabbing the top spot in home foreclosures and identity theft.  The Bermuda Triangle of the latter is the Miami metropolitan area where 51 percent of the state's complaints originated last year.  Way to go, Miami, whose numbers were nearly double those of the next-highest U.S. metro area.

While best known for 114 hurricanes (37 major) since 1851, dead beat Florida also has impressive credit card debt records with four cities in the top 25.

In the dumper job-wise, Florida will have to wait at least another year to realize all the magnificence inherent in a mega-casino bill pulled from consideration the other day by House sponsor Erik Fresen when it became clear passage was not possible.  Not even a statewide TV advertising campaign, in addition to glitzy architectural renderings we've come to expect from the Sunshine State, could make possible three $2 billion mega casinos in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.  Las Vegas-style gambling in South Florida can yet be a reality.  After all, like corporations, casinos are people.

As if living in Florida isn't difficult enough, The National Transportation Safety Board tells us the state is on its list of those needing the most improvement in highway safety.  The problem involves an out-of-touch legislature unwilling to pass a single distracted driving law.  While more than 70 percent of Florida voters support a ban on text messaging while driving, the legislature has been turning down safety bills since 2006 when the problem was timidly referred to as "hands free."

The concerned have statistics to back up their contention tht keeping legal outrageous driving is not acceptable.  During the first 10 months of 2011, electronic distractions led to 2,218 vehicle accidents in the state with 145 linked to texting and drivingl.  The big year for messaging bills that never made it out of committee was 2008 when in e met such a fate.  Of little help is Gov. Rick Scott, a conservative Republican (thought I'd never get there, did you?) who vetoed a bill in 2011 that would have required education about the dangers of electronic distracted driving.  What a flippant thought.

Sometimes referred to as the Persistent Vegetative State, voters not long ago passed a law making the wearing of baggy pants a criminal offense that can cost the offender up to $150 and 60 days in jail.  Ah, priorities where in Florida baggy pants are more important than electronic distraction while driving.

Oh, yes.  Did you know that Orlando, where Mickey Mouse is king, is the kiddie porn capital of this here country?  That's according to a Men's Health Magazine study based upon such factors as hard core DVD purchases, rentals, and streams.  Florida is so salacious that Las Vegas finished second with New York coming in 77th out of 100.

It may have been the butterfly ballot of 2000 that first brought our attention to Florida in terms of how corrupt and screwed up it is.  The hanging chad became one of those infamous terms forever associated with America's only stolen election although Jack Kennedy's win in 1958 is a reasonable Republican response.  The brilliant punch card design was on its way out with but 37.3% of voters using the system in 1996.  Socioeconomics determined which counties would keep punch card voting and Palm Beach County was considered disadvantaged without funds to buy voting machines.

What set up confusion in Palm Beach County was the state's 1998 gubernatorial election in which Jeb Bush beat incumbent governor Lawton Chiles.  Had George W. Bush's brother lost in Florida, Gore would have won in 2000 because of a first position on the ballot.  The 1996 election found Republican Bob Dole second on the ballot because Chiles was in office so Dole got all the ruined ballots.  With Jeb Bush Governor, Gore got second place on the ballot and lost the election.  It was those error-prone folks in Palm Beach County who determined the election along with a lot of help from the U.S. Supreme Court.  Proof that Bush was unfairly awarded the Presidency is every one of Pat Buchanan's 3,407 Palm Beach County votes.  The total represented 19.6% of votes cast, a highly suspect number since the Reform Party candidate pulled but 5.4% of the total in 1996.  There were 336 registered Reform Party members in 2000.  Once Bush was in office, he made certain that the lede paragraph of his obituary will make mention of his war criminality rather than the flukiness of the 2000 election.

Speaking of criminals, there's a burgeoning number of Floridians who will steal anything not nailed down.  Among them is a guy who concentrates on ripping off large amounts of medical equipment.  His specialty: heart monitors unhooked from their owners.

Floridians are often challenged by a lack of awareness as evidenced by the flight trainer who didn't find it unusual shortly before 9/11 when he was told by a cash-paying aviation "student" to forget about landing instructions and "just teach me to fly it around."

Key West, where weirdness might peak, is worth mentioning if only because of the German doctor who fell in love with a young tuberculosis patient.  She eventually died and he tried to restore her to life after stealing her from her tomb.  In a plot twist Tim Burton probably wouldn't touch, the doctor had sexual relations with her corpse quite possibly proving, once again, that a good bedside manner can go a long way.

Let's make it encore, Key West, where in 1984 the entire police department was declared an illegal enterprise under the RICO laws--usually used to shut down mobsters.  One witness testified to delivering bags of coke to city hall on a regular basis.

Of much more recent vintage has been the Trayvon Martin shooting by George Zimmerman in which Florida's short-sighted stand your ground law is being questioned now by even the fools in government who came up with such an un-civilized law.  It's always interesting to learn what adjoining states are doing and, to little surprise, Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama have similar laws.  Yahoo states do as Yahoo states are.

A town with an innate ability to insult a celebrity is Lauderhill that once invited actor James Earl Jones to speak at a Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration and receive a plaque to commemorate the occasion.  Everything went according to plan until the presentation of the plaque.  It was inscribed to James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated King.

Enormously funny author Carl Hiassen has kicked the state around while living in South Florida.  It was during a Steve Kroft interview on "60 Minutes" that Hiassen revealed a lot of his plot developments are based upon actual people including the heroine of Skinny Dip who was flung off the stern of a cruise ship, only to be saved by a floating bale of marijuana.  Other characters include a professional wheelchair thief, a school board candidate whose legal residence was a tool shed, and a U.S. attorney who bit a stripper during a table dance.  Oh, and let's not forget a South Florida mayor who tried to employ city hall workers to kill her husband.

One of the verities of Florida, sometimes referred to as "America's Penis," is the vast number of retirees living in places like The Villages whose TV advertising budget is probably exceeded only by that of Super PAC Restore Our Future.  The Villages residents, as might be expected, resort to print advertising including the following under the heading: Long Term Commitment: Recent widow who has just burned fourth husband, and am looking for someone to round out a six-unit plot.  Dizziness, fainting, shortness of breath not a problem.  It would appear it's possible to have a sense of humor in the Alligator State despite living conditions on the challenging side.

Adding to Florida's uniqueness is the topography.  The lowest high point of any state is Britton Hill at 345 ft.  To no one's surprise, there are theorists fully convinced a great day is coming when a really significant tsunami will do what Floridians have been unable to do thus far: put the state out of its misery.

And, as the saying goes, there's much, much more not touched upon in this sally including the continuing role of Miami's Little Havana in our Cuban policy and the laugh-out-loud rewriting of Senator Marco Rubio's family history; the unusual death 10 years ago of a Joe Scarborough ("Morning Joe") employee in Walton Beach; the odd case of Terry Schiavo kept alive for six years in a vegetative state for political purposes; and Jeb Bush's request for an Orlando court-appointed guardian for the fetus of a mentally disabled rape victim.  He was refused.

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Fourth Corner Mayberry....by Bob Sanders

Readers of this space know of my intense perturbation regarding the media's "selling" of Bellingham, the Fourth Corner community I call home.  The remarkable amount of publicity suggesting people move here has become a very real problem.

My thinking is not original.  I first heard such observations from a San Juan Island neighbor, author Ernie Gann, who refused to tell the media where he lived.  The adventure novelist (The High and the Mighty among his triumphs) was convinced the less the rest of the world knew about the island, the better off islanders would be.

It was nearly three years ago that I began undertaking efforts to debunk Bellingham utilizing a campaign that would paint for public consumption a joyless picture of the city.  In my role as the Picasso of PR, that pursuance has included changing our current unofficial motto, "City of Subdued Excitement," to something a bit more pretentious like "City of Sublimely Subdued Subjective Excitement," or even "Tony Soprano's Kinda Town."

Just why 'hamsters are lethargic, indifferent and depressed was examined a couple of years ago by way of an interview with Dr. I.B. Spacey.  It was Spacey, Bellingham's world-renowned master of medical world stuff and all-around smart ass, who targeted vitamin D deficiency as the community's dirty little secret.  Spacey's pioneering efforts produced the intriguing information that more than 90 percent of blood tests here reveal deplorable vitamin D deficiencies.  Interestingly enough, the vitamin D story is now on the back burner because of superior opportunities to inform about the real Bellingham.

Chances are pretty good you don't know that whooping cough in Whatcom County has reached epidemic proportions and is on pace to soon number 3,000 cases.  The county ranks fifth in the state and is first among the 10 largest with populations of more than 150,000.  The reason for Whatcom/Bellingham's record is the increased rejection of the pertussis vaccine.  The past 12 years have seen the rejection figure double so spread the word that there are an awful lot of stupid 'hamsters you wouldn't want living next door to you should a move here be considered.

The challenges of life in Bellingham in addition to the major vitamin deficiency and whooping cough, have been reduced in priority by the Hammer the 'hamsters Committee devoted to reducing our population.  The HHC has chosen to inundate the world's media with information about the community's immature leadership during recent years.  In the committee's sights are: the firing of the city's parks & recreation director for failure to properly reconfigure a golf course pond; the sliding past an asleep-at-the-switch City Council of a hidden camera scheme that led to the mayor's re-election defeat; and the thoroughly bizarre story of two Port Commissioners (there are three) who forced the resignation of the Executive Director in what recalled the Machiavellian maneuvers intrinsic to many of the plot twists of television's "Mayberry RFD."

The firing late in 2010 of veteran and highly-regarded Parks & Recreation Director Paul Leuthold had unusual beginnings.  Upkeep of Padden Lake Golf Course is the city's responsibility and it was mayor Dan Pike who, while checking out the course, made a critical comment to Leuthold about a pond located between the 13th and 15th fairways.  It needed work alternately described as silt removal or drainage and Leuthold, aware of the importance of cost-saving, put friend/city engineer Mark Handzlik to work.  Handzlik, a golfer, was "paid" with free golf.  It was win win for the city.  According to Handzlik, both his boss and the city manager knew of the arrangement.

Suddenly, everything went Mayberry and got either Gooberized or Gomerized to death depending upon one's point of view.  Charges of conflict of interest, violating policies on moonlighting, using city computers, and being on the city's clock while working on the project were bruited about.  The mayor, normally placid (some say right out of "Murder She Wrote") turned nasty levying a sentence that hardly fit the "crime." Result: Leuthold and Handzlik were fired.  As things turned out, the firings were a factor leading to Pike's re-election failure last November.

Another factor was the hidden cameras fiasco, additional proof that you simply stay away from Bellingham unless you want to experience fools gladly as they attempt to myopically claim Subdued City as the Santa Barbara of the North.

It was mayor Pike who signed a contract with something called ATS that would have placed red-light cameras at four intersections in addition to speed snappers in two school zones.  The signing followed a Council closed-to-the-public 6-1 vote that approved the deal.  Earlier, the Council had voted unanimously to encourage public expression.  Subdued City rose up in a wrath most righteous, got an initiative on last November's ballot and there went the traffic cameras.  Pike was defeated, but wait a minute.  The state Supreme Court ruled the initiative against the cameras was invalid.

There was, of course, money involved and Bellingham's plan was to write at least two traffic tickets per location per day to equal a yearly cost of  $28,500 per camera.  Those tickets were to cost $124 at the intersections and $250 at the school zones.  This was in stark contrast to Mukilteo's approach to matters.  Mukilteo, for the geographically-deprived, is halfway to Seattle and set costs at $20 while enabling the public to vote.

The slumbering City Council in March of this year voted to pay ATS $100,000 by June 1 to end all the foolishness.  There is a chilling history of money spent here on surveys, advanced planning documents and architectural renderings plus the disheartening waste of time offered in the name of public good by committees and public commentary.

Another story to pass along to friends and relatives considering a move to Subdued City is a real classic involving the Port of Bellingham whose inability to get things done is legendary.  Turf warfare is what a lot of it is all about and savage infighting has characterized the Port Commission's inability to work with the City Council whose shortcomings are hardly breaking news.

For something like 18 months, Charlie Sheldon worked effectively as Port of Bellingham Executive Director having been hired by Commissioners who couldn't come up with a choice during a first round of interviews.  Sheldon, with an excellent record in a similar position in Seattle, eventually was chosen and did work that pleased everyone including Commissioner Scott Walker who eventually changed his mind.  Meanwhile, former Commissioners, ex-mayors and others of political bent came to believe Sheldon was the real deal.  That is everyone but Walker.

On March 30, the three port commissioners held an executive meeting.  It was closed to the public with only invited staff and counsel also in attendance to discuss "personnel."  The discussion was about Sheldon with Walker unable to convince fellow commissioner Jim Jorgensen to ask for Sheldon's resignation.  According to witnesses, Walker would not elaborate on his disappointment with Sheldon.

It was at this point that an illegal weekend meeting between Walker and Jorgensen was held.  Jorgensen eventually caved and Sheldon was forced to resign.  Walker and Jorgensen had engaged in a "serial meeting" in which two commissioners talked through an intermediary from the Port staff.  It was a violation of the Open Meetings Act of Washington State.

In one of those journalistic embarrassments underlining the Bellingham Herald's lack of responsibility to its readers, the reporter who normally covers the Port for the paper was out of town.  No one stepped in for him and the paper was beaten for two days by John Servais who publishes the on-line Northwest Citizen.  Originally from Green Bay, Wisconsin, Servais was the principal force behind The Independent, now defunct.  Servais, highly sensitive about such matters as inept leadership and lazy journalism, has called for a public response.  One option is to recall Walker and elect a replacement this fall.  The other is to expand the commission to five members, a move that would produce better Port decisions and lessen the possibility of further outrages.  An open to the public Port meeting, at which a problem-solving expansion can be accomplished, will be held Monday (May 14).  No one is holding their breath.

One month after Sheldon left office, Walker's indignation was finally explained by something called the Pacific Maritime Online.  Sheldon had taken a busines trip to the Caribbean and Walker was miffed for his not informing the board.  According to many, Walker's idea of travel exotica might involve a visit to nearby Marietta whose resemblance to Dismal Seepage of "Vic & Sade" is striking.

At this writing, 'hamsters can affix their names to a petition calling for an expansion of Port commissioners from three to five.  Needed are 6,915 valid signatures, a number that amounts to 10 percent of last November's voters.

No way do you want to move to Bellingham.  No way, that is, unless you yearn for a real life version of "Mayberry RFD."

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All Alone....by Bob Sanders

 

I've always loved a good mystery but studies suggesting we are becoming increasingly lonely flies in the face of all the instant communications available to us.  What is going on?

Actually, it's more than a mystery.  It's a paradox impossible to ignore in coffee shops, libraries, public transportation, baseball games, the beach, the car, you name it.  Choose your site and it's there.  Heads down, everyone.  Let's ignore each other while pretending to be friendly as we further tailor our personas by way of the often badly-written word and retouched photo.  We haven't had this much fun since the last phony resume.

Who would have thought that a song written nearly eighty years ago would best describe the solitude suggested by studies.  It was Irving Berlin who wrote "All Alone" whose point of view was that a lot of lonely people were waiting by the telephone.  In those days, the coin-operated version offered communications a wondrous mobility of sorts.  We've traded the phone booth for the cell phone--a more convenient means of communication yet lacking the romantic effort it often took to hoof it to the phone and set up a meet at the Oyster Bar, under the clock, or at Ricarrdo.  One wonders how many among us practice a self-con suggesting that a multiplicity of fast communications can replace the reality of a face-to-face relationship.  How many among us upon hearing an "alone" song (there must be at least two dozen) immediately think: "hey, they're playing my song."

The loneliness studies today are impressively scary.  One done in 2010 by AARP found that 35 percent of adults more than 45 were chronically lonely--up from 20 percent a decade earlier.  That suggests Facebook (launched by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004) isn't doing what it is supposed to be doing: making us giddy with the understanding we have so many friends.  Further, another study suggests 20 percent of Americans (60 milion) are unhappy with their lives because of loneliness.

I once tested loneliness' first cousin, isolation, at Wrigley Field, a pretty noisy place--particularly if you normally sat in the bleachers where, as Bill Veeck observed: "Here, the beer is colder, the fans much smarter and you can see better."  Retired from the Chicago Tribune, I was invited more than once to watch the Cubs from the firm's sky box high above third base.  I finally accepted the offer trading banter with the Bleacher Preacher and other habitues of the then cheap seats for the air conditioned comfort and free booze of the corporate digs.  It's pretty rare of me to pass up gratis sauce and I managed three innings, then left never to return.  It was awful; there was no noise other than that emanating from the TV while the occupants provided the kind of un-knowledgeable commentary also available at any World Series game.

One has to wonder about such things as touching each other to convey feelings.  While there are no statistics thus far, it does seem that our intense desire for digital connection is going too far when we spend much more time in isolation touching and feeling a tiny screen rather than each other.  Fingers that once walked through phone books now glide over i-pod touch as we don head phones to make certain we're not sharing the experience while our ears are assaulted by noise accompanied by lyrics either repetitive or boring.  Ah, but what control is ours.

A case can be made that limiting each Twitter to 140 characters is working a remarkable hardship on both our language and the people who use it.  With class warfare a reality as we gird ourselves for six more months of the White House Marathon, is it possible that further class warfare is developing between the Facebookers, the Tweeters and the Bloggers?  As a member of the Blogging class, I'm in what is probably a second tier aristocracy of computer communications bearing in mind the significance of Pulitzer-winning Huffington Post, Politico, the Daily Beast and others of the upper echelon.  On the other hand, the often misinformed and misguided production by Tweeters and Facebookers is staggering and we won't even discuss the tearing asunder of our language largely through laziness.

Since this is an era in which we place almost all screw-ups at the feet of the President, I think it quite likely that John F. Kennedy bears some responsibility for all that is going wrong with fast communications spelling although his sentence structure was, largely, exemplary with a good sense of rhythm.  Kennedy, as we have learned, was a terrible speller and purposely wrote illegibly when he couldn't come up with correct spelling.  Let us now refer to all lack of legibility as a Kennedystroke.

Online dating, of which Kennedy had no need had there been such a thing more than 50 years ago, is a strange term since the socializing is done offline.  It is, perhaps, best exemplified by eHarmony whose television commercials promise tomorrow's nirvana through "matching algorithms."  For a fee, eHarmony and other pimps of the communications skyways collect information about you, crunch the numbers, then pair you with someone "prescreened for deep compatibility across 29 dimensions."  As Ohio University professor of economics William Fenzel once told me: "garbage in, garbage out."

The dubious science of matchmaking is getting a lot of criticism these days.  Eli J. Finkel, an associate professor of social psychology at Northwestern University and Benjamin R. Karney, whose professorship is at the University of California, Los Angeles, have just published a critical article in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest.  The study they and three others in the field produced suggests that 80 years of what makes people romantically compatible runs counter to the claims made by the eHarmonies.

Predicting compatibility is at best shaky made even more so since the sites fail to collect, according to the authors, some highly crucial information including job loss, financial strain, infertility and illness.  Research indicates people tend to have difficult romantic relationships if they are emotionally volatile, were mistreated as children or abuse drugs or alcohol.  The romantic brokers say dating pool eliminations are made (four marriages and you're out) but, once gain, garbage in, garbage out if lies are told.

The matchmaking people may have an even larger problem.  With Twitter and Facebook achieving such enormous use, are people simply forgoing the sometimes awkward adventures made possible by the eHarmonies and doing end runs around the panderers?

Knowing there is nothing quite as absorbing as a boy meets girl story and curious about how quick communications might be utilized, I chanced upon what writers of film scripts would be inclined to regard as a likely Woody Allen plot.

Author, public speaker and CEO of something called Buyosphere, Tara (last name Hunt) began showing up all over the Internet a few years ago as Miss Rogue.  I learned this through due diligence that also produced Carlos (last name Pacheco), a character whose perfect realization could be achieved in a delicious Latin fashion by Woody Allen, now a bit long in the tooth for the part but, hey, Woody likes young women.

Carlos began noticing Tara and her triumphs in seemingly anything Montreal or, as he eventually learned, San Francisco, Silicone Valley, New York and, probably, Poughkeepsie.  Tara gets around having spoken at 126 worldwide conferences while traveling more than 476,000 miles.  One of her major Blogging efforts was the unforgettable HorsePigCow and her authorship includes The Wuffie Factor.   As late night TV host Jack Paar used to say: "I kid you not."

In all honesty, there is something voyeuristic about checking out someone like Tara, a very attractive 38-year-old Canadian recently profiled by Joanne Wilson, otherwise known as Gotham Gal.  Photos (found elsewhere) by Eva Blue added to her mystique and Carlos, who lives in Montreal, became intrigued--particularly since Tara had returned there from San Francisco.  One of the Blue photos is partcularly arresting.  It features whipped cream and an interestingly tattooed Tara.

While it's not clear who made the first move, it is certain Tara and Carlos are self-described "slight Tweeters," a term that certainly qualifies as a major oxymoron.  Upping the romantic ante, they first dabbled in Facebook, then consummated some solid back and forth Tweets during which he learned Tara's first major Internet identification was Miss Rogue, not to be confused with Sarah Palin.

Carlos (Woody Allen) was suddenly struck by disaster in the form of his Facebook account being hjacked by co-workers.  The timing, two days prior to Valentine's Day, would have been disastrous except for a fortuitous Twitter sent by Tara and detailed by Carlos in his  Blog of 2012/02/14.  Tara, a party-giver of considerable renown in addition to her other talents, was into the details of a VD party (not what you think) that turned out to be a screening of Casablanca which the cinematically deprived Carlos had never seen.  He did go, however, although he did not speak to the formidable Tara who, according to his highly confessional Blog was simply having pity on him.  True to form, he did not see all of Casablanca but he did like the '20s theater.

According to Carlos, once there I saw her from afar, she was breathtaking (a photo is offered) & surrounded by at least half a dozen friends.  At that point all that courage escaped and my shyness took over.  Also, the last thing I wanted to be was that geeky fanboy from the Internet that showed up alone.  Readers of a bygone era--particularly those who believe Casablanca the greatest movie of all, must be shocked, shocked in the realization that male readers of the Playboy Forum would have handled this one differently.

Aware of Carlos' social shortcomings, good sport Tara invited him to a neighborhood food-discrawl which took on heightened importance as I reminded myself that all this unrequited foolishness was taking place in Montreal, a city where food is as important as women to Hugh Hefner for whom I had toiled more than once in, of all places, Montreal.

Carlos is interesting and may be a split personality who on his Blog describes himself as "a social media voyeur, part-time jogger, reformed hard core gamer, sometimes Blogger and...."  Then, again, he may be putting us on.

We are indebted to Blogger Brad McCarty, managing editor of The Next Web who describes himself as a music and tech junkie living in Nashville and who picked up on what surely had to be the passive Carlos' last shot at Tara.  According to McCarty, Carlos engaged something called the Gowalla Message Service, then planted Gowalla's notes to Tara all over Montreal eventually taking her on a walking date of four hours about which there are no details.  Some of those notes may have been particularly interesting but I guess we'll never know.  Somehow, I can't see Woody Allen doing all that walking.  A series of cab rides makes more sense.

McCarty adds: "The two have stayed together ever since, presently celebrating six months of a relationship together."

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Some afterthoughts about my communications prowl: While "awesome" retains its position as the most over-used word by the lazy, "amazing" is moving up.  The computer and its various family members make it possible for us to be open books.  Frankly, I prefer at least a little mystery.