'Tis the Season...for Luxury!

Seasons greetings, all you Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza/Festivus/Other celebrants! A very warm, vaguely non-secular holiday season to all of you! That's right, if there's one wonderful trend that's carried over from the 1990's to this yet-to-be-stereotyped decade (perhaps the zero-chance-at-maintaining-civil-liberties-zeroes?) is that of our tendency to not want to offend anyone. Merry Christmas? Offensive! Christmas tree? How dare you! Santa Claus? Hang him from the highest tree! Yes, we must be careful how we wish people peace and goodwill this time of year, because God/Yaweh/Allah forbid it comes from the heart!

OK, this is somewhat of an extremist viewpont - I personally have no problem saying "Happy Holidays" or, better yet, saying nothing at all. Yet the conservative AM talk station here in Chicago (560-WIND - their billboards boast "Liberals Hate Us!" - a fine selling point), which inexplicably hosts the Fighting Illini sports network, had no problem with shoving the "Merry Christmas" message down our throats, boasting "WE'RE not afraid to say it!" Way to stand up for what you believe in AND be smug about it!

As we all know all too well, this time of year has become less about the religious significance of past events and more about commercialism, weight gain, depression - you know, all the things that make America what it is. It's no secret that when October rolls around each year, we all begin to see the signs that we are going to have the fact that retailers rely on us during the fourth quarter to meet their lofty pro forma financial goals for the fiscal year crammed squarely down our throats. Sure, it's usually well packaged and sugar-coated just enough to keep us sane for the next two months. We've all seen the cutesy Target ads with the two sets of cute triplets opening their cute gifts and looking so happy that they've received goods that are available for sale at your local Target store. We know all too well that JC Penney, Marshall's, Best Buy, Overstock.com, Circuit City and the like all have exactly what you need for your holiday shopping needs - including the whopper credit card bill you're going to receive in January (of course, I can't wait for the January commercials that boast sales for those folks who have maxed themselves out, another proud American tradition, but I digress).

As loyal readers of my writings know, the two annual events that I am guaranteed to wax philisophical on are 1) St. Patrick's Day, where I juxtapose great moments in Irish-American history with the current tendency of hijacking the holiday as a vile booze-fest, and 2) the ever-so-popular Lexus December to Remember sales event. Yes, every year, Lexus reaches out to the general public to offer a gift idea everyone can agree on - a luxury automobile.

My favorite commercial (oh, how I hate to have to pick a favorite!) features the wife/mom (the attractive mature lady from the aforementioned Overstock.com ads....Rrrrowr!) surfing the net and feeling dismay, for she just cannot decide what to get her husband for Christmas. Does she get him golf clubs (est price - $500)? Does she go with the cashmiere sweater (est price $250)? She is torn! Are these gifts special enough for her darling husband, the provider of her family? NO!

Then, at her lowest moment of holiday shopping quandary, as if implored by the gods (or the folks at Lexus), she turns to look out the window, most likely to gaze longingly in hopes of thinking of the perfect gift for such a wonderful provider...and there it is. A Lexus, with a ribbon on top! Is this a dream, she seems to wonder? Then, in a moment of delicious coincidence, the Lexus pulls away, and it turns out the giant ribbon actually adorns the gated home across the way (of course it's a gated home - we're Lexus-shopping here!). Well, that's all the inspiration she needs, for in the next scene she has led her husband out to the garage. He is a handsome man - graying, yet dignified - and he is dressed for success - the Saturday garb of a high-powered corporate executive or orthopedic surgeon, perhaps. At that moment, his attractive, loving wife pulls her hands away from his eyes to reveal a beautiful, shiny, silver Lexus! "Merry Christmas" she seems to tell him without saying a word, and his face lights up with a joy that only a luxury automobile can provide, as he envisions a brighter future and a more luxurious ride as he drives his sons to lacrosse practice.

So, this is the image that Lexus has presented us with: Stuck with your shopping? Buy one of our cars on a whim, put a red ribbon on it, and be the best gift-giver this world has ever seen! Yet there is an untold part of this tale - how, from the moment of her epiphany to the revelation of this most-perfect of all holiday gifts, did things come to be? How much did it cost? Was tax, title and lisence included? Whose credit was checked? How much did this set the family back? For the benefit of all my readers who are considering buying a Lexus as a gift (better hurry, only 3 shopping days left!) I have done you the service of filling in these pesky gaps.

Let's pick the story up from the point where the attractive wife, in a flash of brilliance, says to herself, "by gum, I'm going to get that man I love a Lexus!" This being Amereica, let's assume this family is among the millions with an unhealthy obsession with the Sports Utility Vehicle, so Attractive Wife opts for the Lexus LX470 SUV - a fine automobile for the upwardly mobile, and with a sticker price of a mere $67,990, quite the affordable impulse buy. And let's also assume that, seeing as they obviously have more than they could every hope for (aside from golf clubs, a cashmiere sweater and a luxury SUV), Attractive Wife doesn't find it necessary to succumb to the temptation of the various frivolous upgrades, such as Lexus Night view ($2200), Lexus Link ($900) or the ever-popular rear-spoiler ($280). However, seeing as their children are likely avid movie viewers and likely don't have much to discuss with their parents seeing as Graying Handsome Husband likely works 70 hour weeks, let's say Attractive Wife opts for the Lexus DVD Rear Seat Entertainment System, a bargain at $2,469). So that brings the price up to the low, low price of $70,459!

OK, I'm going to assume (maybe not safely, but whatever) that Attractive Wife has not been able to sock away 70-large in some secret Christmas account, so some financing will be involved. However, let's say instead of spending her weekly allowance money on pearl earrings, pilates class and copper spatulas at Williams Sonoma, she did scrimp and save and was able to come up with $10,000 (that's a big allowance she gets). So she goes to her local Lexus dealer, slaps down the 10 G's and asks to finance the rest. Now, a credit check will likely need to be run at this point, and in our scenario we are assuming that Graying Handsome Husband brings home all of the bacon in his high profile job - so are they going to come back with a FICO score of 750 for a housewife? Or does she simply authorize them to run the check on her hubby since he'll be financing this gift? Well, instead of making my head explode thinking of how this woman could finance $60,000 without her husband's knowledge, I'll say she's a working mom - maybe she runs a lucrative home-cosmetics business, grosses 100k, and after expenses/overhead/taxes pulls home 35,000 of her own ($2900 per month). Let's further assume she's got a great credit score, thereby ensuring her the prime APR of 6.8%. Isn't impulse shopping fun?

OK, so we have a working mom netting 35,000 who goes and buys a luxury SUV on a whim, puts a whopping 10k down and finances the rest over 60 months. Hey honey, not only did I give you a brand new SUV for Christmas, I also got you an obligation to pay almost $1,200 per month for the next 60 months - don't you just love it? Sure, we'll be paying over $70,000 in cash on top of the $10,000 we already put down at the start of this whole fiasco, but I just love you so much and knew you'd love it! Who needs a new set of golf clubs, right? Honey? Who are you calling? Your divorce lawyer? And Oprah? For her "Couples in Stupid Debt" special? Honey?

So as you can clearly see, the Lexus December to Remember sales event presents your average family with an easy, affordable option for the holidays. Who needs iPods, sweaters and turkey roasters when you can ride in the lap of luxury, and only have to part with $80,000 in cash over the course of 5 years to have it? So hurry to your nearest dealer, because this fantastic offer, like your fiscal security, won't last long!

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

Until next time...

Continuing My Thoughts on The Apprentice

OK, that last post ended rather abruptly, and that does not sit well with me. I thought I had a good flow going, but averaging 5 hours of sleep per night where your wake up call is an infant who is quite vocal about letting you know that a) his ravenous appetite cannot be satiated, despite your most noble efforts, and b) he does not appreciate lying in his own filth, your brain tends to lock up at inopportune times, particularly when trying to entertain your nine preferred readers during your precious lunch hour. To me, this is unacceptable and frankly a tad rude - my time is no more precious than yours, and to have you begin reading a News and Notes posting without a full and complete effort on my part insults all of us. I am ashamed.

But redemption is here in the form of a continued posting - oh joy of joys! When I last left the nine of you hanging (and my guess is you were not left hanging as I never informed you of my last weak posting) I was discussing Season Whatever-Number-This-Is of NBC's The Apprentice, featuring everyone's favorite self-serving egomaniac Donald Trump. Personally, I like Trump - I think it's hilarious that he's not afraid to come off like a total asshole for the sake of boosting his own sense of self-worth - there's a lot to be said for that. I watch The Apprentice for many of the same reasons I tune into other reality shows - so I can watch people whose personalities and tendencies I despise make complete asses out of themselves. As I touched on in the last rant, my main beef with the Apprentice participants was their shameless ass-kissing, as well as their desire to say the exact right thing at the exact right time, regardless of how contradictory or foolish it makes them look.

As so many other things do, watching the Apprentice causes me to hearken back to my college days. I specifically remember my first auditing class (yes, college life was a thrill a minute for yours truly). The course was taught by a "respected" professor who, in his mind's eye as well as that of his favorite students, was the gift hand-crafted by God Himself when He made the decision to bestow upon His human race a University professor whose purpose it would be to teach auditing. OK, I'm being a bit dramatic, but it's my blog, so tough shit. Anyway, shortly into the semester, I was rather unfairly in my humble opinion tagged an underachiever in this professor's class - I can't say for certain, but I'm almost positive one of the students in my assigned group singled me out as dead weight. I hope his student visa was revoked and he was sent back to Communist China to toil in a state-run wheat field, but that's beside the point. I was reassigned to another group with a Japanese girl who barely spoke English and a Russian girl who spoke just enough English to articulate that she thought my work was for shit.

I toiled through the entire semester with these two, and we headed down the home stretch to the final exam, which you were not required to take if you were happy with your grade. Well, I was not afforded this luxury as I was teetering on the border of B and C - I really thought I was doing well, but I guess the information that was given to Professor Shit-Don't-Stink contradicted this feeling I had. As we neared the exam, which of course was graded on a curve, I spoke to the professor at his office about what critical topics would be covered, and we got to talking about my group. I mentioned something about the Russian girl, to which my professor said, "Oh, she won't need to take the exam - she's got an 'A' by a long way" - kind of his way of saying "Up your ass, you underachieving bastard." Whatever - after this class was over I never had to see him or the Czaress ever again, which was good enough for me.

So I show up for the final exam, having just completed the act of studying my balls off. Keep in mind: Optional final exam if you liked your grade - this is crucial information! As I settle in my seat to sweat out by GPA and therefore my career options, who comes walking in the door, down the aisle and right up to the front row? If you guessed the Russian girl with the fat 'A' average, give yourself a pat on the back. Not only did she have to remind me to my face that I sucked, apparently she felt the need to indirectly stick it up my ass by throwing off the curve in the hopes of increasing her average from a 98.3 to a 99.1. Needless to say, I ended up with one of my multitude of C's (setting myself a bit further back than my Lost Semester already had), Princess Alexandria got her fucking A while screwing me in the process, and our professor got to send another group of prized pupils off to the Big Six accounting firms, which most likely came with it a nice kickback to the Accounting Department that coincidentally paid his crusty, tenured ass.

Why do I bring this story up? Because every single person on the Apprentice is that Russian girl - the person that wants to boost their own image, even (or should I say especially) if it comes at someone else's expense. To these people, business/money/success is a zero-sum game - if they're not getting it at someone else's peril, it ain't worth getting. OK, fine, you want to screw me over? Have at it. But just to throw another multiple into the annoyance quotient, the way they come off in the whole process almost undermines their whole "Succeed at all costs" mentality. Simply put, none of these individuals is below groveling, kowtowing, begging, or whimpering at the feet of the Mighty Donald in order to accomplish the goal of getting a vague management job. Hell if I got paid $250k a year, I'd be tempted to let them make my job title as vague as they wanted it - it might even be worth it if the job description read, "Work". But there's that pesky voice inside my head that keeps harping on integrity, self-respect and sense of purpose starts rambling on, and those thoughts of pie-in-the-sky glory quickly go by the wayside.

However, no such voices exist for Trump's tyros of tractable tradesmanship. They choose their words very carefully when addressing the Shah of NBC's Thursday night lineup, usually leading to an exchange similar to the following:

Trump: OK, Apprentice-hopeful, tell me why I shouldn't fire you.

Apprentice-hopeful: Mr. Trump, as you can see by my words and actions, Mr. Trump, I, Mr. Trump, am dedicated to serving you, Mr. Trump, and the glorious Trump name. I am well-educated, Mr. Trump, and Mr. Trump, if you would only be so kind as to spread the ass cheeks that you, Mr. Trump, currently have on your body, Mr. Trump, I would be a humble servant to you, Mr. Trump, and leave you with a gleam the likes of which have not been seen by any normal Wharton School graduate, Mr. Trump.

Trump: Wow, that's something. Say, Other Apprentice-hopeful, what do you have to say about the person you're competing against whom you just told in a previous scene was a good, strong person.

Other Apprentice-hopeful: Mr. Trump, this person, while bearing the intelligence of a common member of the human race, Mr. Trump, does not truly understand, Mr. Trump, what it would take, Mr. Trump, to succeed Mr. Trump in your Mr. Trump organization Mr. Trump. I Mr. Trump Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump, hire me Mr. Trump, validate my abilities Mr. Trump Mr. Trump Mr. Trump Mr. Trump.

Every single fucking conversation goes on and on and on like this. Don't you think that a man of Donald Trump's ilk would be somewhat impressed by someone who had the balls to be like, "Well Donny, if you hire me, I'll kick ass for you, if not, I'll kick your ass" or something along those lines? Wouldn't it drive you absolutely insane to have 12 people constantly kissing your ass when you clearly know they're kissing your ass not out of true respect but out of fear of elimination? Isn't one's ego adequately inflated without needing to be called "Mr. _____" every 13 seconds?? Apparently, the answer is no.

Not that some of these people aren't talented - they pull off some shit in a tight timeframe on a shoestring budget that borders on the exceptional. In the last episode, both final contestants did put on pretty damn good events considering the varying circumstances beyond their control. However, right as The Donald hired the token black contestant, he gave his new MIT-educated charge an opportunity to create a position for the runner up as well, to which the new hire replied, "Mr. Trump (didn't see that coming), I feel that Mr. Trump since the show is called 'The Apprentice' and not 'The Apprenti' (sic) I believe, Mr. Trump, that there should only be one hire Mr. Trump." Granted, the look on the face of the runner up that screamed "you cocksuckingmutherfucker" was truly priceless - however, this just serves as final validation of the true despicable nature of these overachieving pricks. I'm not saying you shouldn't put your best effort into getting some dream job and that you should slack off to hold the curve back - all I'm saying is let's keep just a smidge of perspective, lest we all become boot-licking self-serving pricks looking for our 15-plus minutes.

This public service message brought to you by The Apprentice - airing on NBC, Thursdays this Spring! It's must see!

News and Notes - December 13, 2005

Hello all. I realize that it's been one month plus one day since my last posting - at this point, my population of readers has no doubt shrunken from nine to three, but as always I press on with the sole intent of entertaining what's left of my following. So away we go...

- Let's see, there has to be a good excuse as to why I haven't written anything in a while. What could it be? Oh, that's right - one month ago today, Michelle gave birth to our son Brooks (please, hold your applause until the end). When you're a surprisingly selfish, set-in-your-ways individual who's spent the last 32 years of your life focused primarily on doing things that are intended to give you pleasure, let's just say that parenthood can be somewhat of a shock to the system - a very heartwarming shock, no doubt, but a shock nonetheless. We are often told by more experienced parents, "don't worry, it'll get better" but that sentiment is often difficult to embrace when your boy urinates on the wall at 3:30 AM. On the upside, I never knew how well I could funciton on such little sleep, I never knew how proficient I could become at changing a diaper (I had done that exactly one time before he was born), I never knew formula smelled so funny, and I never knew one little person could warm your heart so much just by making noises while he eats. About a week after he was born, I heard Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" and nearly lost it. Let's just say I pray I never hear the words "But what I'd really like dad is for you to give me the car keys - see you later, can I have them please" because, well, that's just poor sentence structure, rhyme or no rhyme. He's one month old today and, as those more experienced parents keep telling me, it just keeps getting better. Now if he just learned to sleep for 8 hours at a time...

- After Brooks was born, I spent about 2 1/2 weeks at home helping him get assimilated to life outside of the womb. This gave me the chance to catch up with an old friend - daytime television. Oh how I missed you! Between Oprah giving people LCD TVs and catching sexual predators, TNT's Primetime in the Daytime, and the unbelievable quantity of courtroom dramas, I hardly knew what to do with myself. As many of you know, one of my favorite things is to catch up on what the dregs of society have been up to, and these aforementioned courtroom shows offer an insider's view into the life of America's loser class. One episode that particularly grabbed my attention was a disagreement on Divorce Court featuring a couple with the following problems:

1) The man, a 23-year-old, refused to get a job because he needed to work on pursuing his ambition of playing in the NBA. His intense regimen involved practicing with a Junior College team of which he is not a member.

2) The woman, a 26-year-old, apparently seduced this gentleman when he was 16 and playing high school basketball. Shockingly enough, she became pregnant with their first child shortly thereafter.

3) Despite her attempts to straighten her man's life out, the woman was unable to get him to fully embrace fatherhood, and she asked him to move out of the house. She became pregnant with their second child shortly thereafter.

4) After the birth of the second child and the man "playing house" for "a couple of months", he once again seemed to tire of the fatherhood game. In one instance where he was responsible for babysitting their oldest child, the woman went to find him at a friend's house, where she found her child sitting with "some FE-male". She then found her man in the basement, which was engulfed in some sort of smoke, and stormed out with their child.

5) She became pregnant with their third child shortly thereafter.

I didn't stay around to watch the end of this fine program, but something tells me that these two crazy kids were going to be just fine.

- I was fortunate enough to come across an unedited showing of Police Academy the other day. Not #2 (Their First Assignment), #3 (Back in Training), #4 (Citizens on Patrol), #5 (Assignment: Miami Beach) or even #6 (City Under Siege). We're talking O.G., the real one, the only one - the first great romp through the police academy. Mahoney in his prime. Larvell Jones and his wide array of hilarious sound effects. The evil Lt. Harris and his two goons, gun-crazy Eugene Tackleberry, hilariously inept Commandant Lassard, man-child Moses Hightower, and soft-spoken Laverne Hooks. Oh, and lots and lots of gratuitous boob shots. More than I ever remember, to be quite honest. The brilliantly-designed women's shower with an open window facing out on campus. The sexual romps of the faux-Latino cadet. The glorious bonfire scene featuring all of the female cadets dancing nude around the fire. The pot smoking prostitute that felates Cmdt Lassard under a podium. I still have no idea why this movie appealed to me so much when I was 12.

- I have recently gotten sucked into NBC's The Apprentice (thank you, Thanksgiving catch-up show), and I can honestly say that if I ever had to work with any of these smug, pompous asses, I'd be fired for physical assault. What gets me more than the gratuitous ass-kissing of Donald Trump is the measured, calculated speech patterns - I have yet to hear anyone say anything that would remotely resemble something from the heart. Every word is so carefully planned, every story so skewed in their favor, every problem not their own that...ah, I got nothing else to say.

Until next time...