Living In DC: You Have To
How many times a day, a week, or a month do I hear "you have to..." from store employees and other customer-service front line people as they're about to guide me to what I'm asking for? Much too frequently, I'm finding. Today's incident happened at Kaiser Permanente, where I went for my flu shot.

The guard at the front desk did start promisingly by asking "may I help you?"

"Which floor are the flu shots on?"

"Oh no, they're not doing that anymore. It stopped on the 20th. You have to call your doctor for an appointment."

I'll attempt to be somewhat positive about this, and consider some other responses he could have given me, responses not placing everything on my shoulders, which I feel "You Have To" does.

How about:
"I'm sorry to say the walk-in flu shot clinics are no longer given on the weekends. However, your primary care physician will be glad to make sure you get one. Just call for an appointment. I can give you the phone number if you'd like."

Or:
"Unfortunately, the last weekend clinic was on the 20th. But if you'd like to wait, I can call upstairs and see if there's anyone who can help you."

Or even:
"The last walk-in clinic was on the 20th. But if you go to after-hours care on the third floor, they may be able to help you schedule one for the near future."

Heck, I'd even settle for a "sorry you had to come all this way for nothing" after the original "you have to blah blah blah."

"You have to" says to me "Whatever it is you want, you can't get it here, and even if you can, I'm not going to give more than a bare minimum of help for it, because it's just not my job to help you more than that."

Last week, I got "you have to" at the post office, where I was told "you have to stand over there and put these stamps on the envelopes." I heard it in an office building lobby, when a security guard said "you can't sign in all those people under your name. They have to sign in themselves." And I get it when I'm swiping my debit card at the doctor's office, and the receptionist says "you have to wait until I pull up the program. Try it again."

I'd be glad to. Could you also try again?

The Official Krooz Holiday Wish List
In the spirit of angering a barrista, here is my Official Krooz Holiday Wish List...

This Christmas, I wish:

the earth would receive a message from outer space confirming there's intelligent life elsewhere in the universe...

DC stores, bars, and other services would extend me the same stratospheric level of customer service that I receive from the front desk guys in my office building...

gym memberships and personal training were tax deductible...

for no more Ben Stiller movies...

The HO-HO-HOliday didn't have the stranglehold on the media and the economy it enjoys right now...

classical music would return to WETA-FM...

Kickass Zombie Movie's fourth draft were finished...

Chris Meloni, John Cena, Jason Cameron, or their lookalikes, would chase me down, grab me by the shoulders, and ask me out to dinner (or Starbucks)...

for 27-inch biceps...

there were more cavemen in DC.

Not with a boom, but with a fizzle...
Lately I've had this feeling I'm aging out of the system, and today I read that I'm not the only one. As reported on Five Blogs Before Lunch, a Harris poll found:

...nearly two-thirds of Americans say they believe that most TV programming and advertising is targeted toward people under 40. The study, whose results have been summarized in an AP article, say that more than 80 percent of adults over 40 say they have a hard time finding TV shows that reflect their lives. Thirty-seven percent of baby boomers who responded to the study say they aren't happy with what's on television.

Which probably explains why I keep Turner Classic Movies on all the time.

But this has even deeper ramifications when it comes to the subject of the Aging Gay Man. We're all used to finding the universal (i.e., "somewhat gay") in most television and movies. And we flock approvingly to the few crumbs Hollywood throws our way. But try to find something that speaks to those of us balanced on the pinnacle between 40 and 50, and you come up way way short. Not even our own media helps us, as it's plastered with the young, smooth and nonfat. Where's the big budget movie or weekly TV show featuring GMEA (gay men eating alone), the difficulties with dating after 45, or the pursuit of bodily perfection in the middle age years? It's not that advertisers don't think there's a market for it... it's just that we don't fit into their long-range plans for selling soda.

(I'd even settle, at this point, for a gay character on Jericho, someone who would have to defend being gay in a town that's still doesn't know if there's any civilization left...)

What Story Am I Telling?
Back in 1997, Tom Peters wrote: To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You. Well, that's stuck in my head now for 9 years... and only today did I get a full understanding of what he meant (ok, so I'm kind of dumb.) I had an awakening after reading this post by Seth Godin on, of all things, JetBlue and the TSA. In a nutshell, I started asking myself "what story am I telling about myself through my words and actions?" It's the story that enters the room before I do (but doesn't order drinks for both of us.) And whatever story it is, well, that may very well be Brand Mike. Now, after a full day of work (following a full four days off), my brain isn't up to ferreting out all the meanings and examples contained in the statements above. But this combination of ideas is bringing an interesting focus to my thinking, especially about guys. And I'm considering "what kind of image am I projecting" instead of "how can I make myself more attractive?" The second question has lead me to an answer having to do with spending thousands on personal training and hundreds on clothes, protein, and cocktails (alcohol, as we all know, being very beneficial in any thinking process.) I'm not sure what this all means in the long run. I'll have to give it more thought.

The Best Was Yet Last Night

In reviewing Tuesday night's NBC special "Tony Bennett: An American Classic," The Hollywood Reporter quipped: "Bottom Line: The best thing of its sort that you will ever see." And I have to agree. The birthday salute to the 80-year-old "grand old man of pop" was an hour of breeze, on-the-spot and dead-right orchestrations, cool dancing... and an hour too short. My favorite parts: the sixties television studio variety show re-creation (for the song "The Best Is Yet To Come"), and the duet "Just In Time." It was all perfect - and totally devoid of pretension. Just how perfect it was became immensely clear during the Target commercials, which were exceedingly ugly - black and white plus glaring red, featuring all of the singers in the special as if they were photographed by bad pararazzi. Hopefully, NBC will show this again, soon.

Living in DC
I was in Cosi recently, around 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon. I don't frequent the place much, since I take my lunch to work, but I do know they get the customers in and out quickly...if you happen to get there at noon. I had just gotten my Turkey Light with Carrots instead of Chips and went to pay for it. I stood there, in front of the cash register, while four employees behind the counter not only ignored me, they looked at me a couple of times AND THEN went on to ignore me some more. It was like I was traveling at light speed, and the employees were standing still.

A woman walked up beside me, holding a salad, ready to pay. Now there were two of us in the holding pattern.
"This must mean our food is free," said the woman to me.
"I was just thinking the same thing," I said.

Since I had just come from the gym and was hungry and cranky, I took it upon myself to get some service.

I said, in my loudest, reach-to-the-back-of-the-theater voice (trained through singing, radio announcing, and being generally obnoxious):

"HEY, IS THE FOOD HERE FREE THIS AFTERNOON OR DO WE HAVE TO PAY FOR IT?"

My words echoed off the hard tile surfaces.
An employee looked at me.
"I'm sorry sir, but she's counting out the register and leaving and I'm just now coming on."
"So does that mean," I asked, "we have to pay for the food?"
"I said I'm sorry sir, but she's counting out and I'm coming on."
"But does that mean we have to pay?"
Finally, another employee advanced to the cash register.
"May I help you?" he asked.
The woman with the salad looked at me.
"Thank you for doing that," she said.

Whoville
About his high school days, a DC-based blogger wrote:

I remember sitting at a lunch table with the "cool" people one day. One of the "cool" guys leans over to me and says, "Why are you here? No one wants you here." I didn't say anything back. No one else said a word.

I think that concisely describes what many of us in DC still feel, although now we term it "attitude" and somewhat proudly proclaim that DC is filled with it. But how to combat this fear that continues on from our earliest days?

"The Nametag Guy" has an interesting method, and a whole web site on "how maximize personal and professional approachability." Now, I don't intend to start wearing a name tag everywhere. But after last Saturday night's experience at Blowoff, I feel I need to get back on the horse, and I've been online for ideas on bolstering confidence. I've started listing "101 Goals" for 2007, a strategy on The Nametag Guy's site. I've only got 26 so far, and they all seem to be about spending money and... spending money.

Another blogger wrote something about "often, the most interesting person in the room is not the one with the big name," in a post that summarized that we should treat a person as a "who" and not a "what." I wanted to include the actual quote here, but I can't find the page it's on.

More on all of this later, maybe after dinner...

Is It Too Early or Too Late To Be Talking About This?
Is it just me, or is there anyone else out there who has been less-than-satisfied with the DC Gay Pride Parade over the past few years? The June 2006 parade was, for me, a definite case-in-point. A number of gay/lesbian etc etc organizations, strolling down 17th street in loose bunches, some throwing candy, others handing out stickers. A couple of floats. Long stretches of dead street. Those floats, especially, were a big problem for me. How is it that gay men, famous the world over for style, created floats that were not only half-thought, but falling apart as they travelled down the street? And where were the symbols of what there is to be "prideful" about? Maybe we've gone past the time in which merely showing up in public made a powerful political statement. Some may say that the sheer pedestrian-ness of this year's parade shows how far we've come - that we're so mainstream we're boring. I think it's time to re-imagine this whole pride day thing, starting with the parade, and begin thinking about exactly what message we want to send with the event. There's certainly room for a whole spectrum of participant styles. One thing I do know: Dykes on Bykes is just not doing it for me anymore.

PBK Recap
After almost a year of personal training, I've concluded:
1. I have made gains, although they are modest.
2. I would like to continue, but unless I get a better paying job, I'll have to work out on my own starting in 2007.
3. I don't fall in love with every trainer assigned to me.
4. 50-rep squats (no, not all the way) are the most painful exercise ever.
5. Unless I reconfigure my dna, develop a taste for steroids, and work out a stupid number of hours, I'm probably never going to look like JC.

Content Is King
That's what I keep thinking, as I daily avoid writing anything for this blog. But then I consider it like getting up in the morning, and I plug on.

It's Saturday night. This work week has been rough. But I now know what the problem is, after speaking with my co-workers. The problem in noise. Everybody's let their own problems and prejudices grow to deafening decibels. While we each have honest and fair gripes, we all need to realize we are the ones who are going to make it work.

My own difficulties spring from the realization this week that I spend more time having to figure out ways of getting people to give me what I ask for, want and need, which leaves me with zero energy to actually do something concrete (that is, if I have the necessary ingredients to start with, which I don't.)

Enough of that "talking pretty" as Dr. Shrink says. I've told myself that I would go out tonite instead of sitting at home, watching "Little People Big World" and justifying my hermetic existence as genuinely relaxing. I have an event and a location picked out, but it takes a cab to reach and starts very late. Last week I had two, count them, two parties to attend, which were both very fun and filled with people I like. Tonite's location and event is a crapshoot.

I went to Halo last night, and after the second pinappletini did not tell myself that a third would be a good idea. I was alone for half of the first drink, and I thought to myself "DC is no longer working for me" as I waited for the alcohol to produce transcending numbness. Then someone took the enormous chance of talking to me, and I was engaged in conversation with him and a host of others for the rest of the evening.

Living in DC
I go to take my prescription medication two nights ago (hours after picking it up from my health plan's pharmacy) and I notice: the tablets that are normally LARGE and ORANGE are tiny and blue. Last night, after work, I go back to the pharmacy and show them what they gave me. The woman behind the counter shakes her head and gives me a sideways grin that says "boy do we have some winners working here." Probably the wrong image they want to portrary. She goes back into the stacks of drugs and two minutes later returns with the head pharmacist. He hands me a bottle of the correct medication, then asks "you have receipt?"
"No."
"I want to give you something for your trouble. Look. You take Tylenol?"
"Huh?"
"You take Tylenol?"
I look down at his hand, and he's holding out a bottle filled with some type of analgesic. He's showing it to me like a drug dealer shows a kilo*.
"No, I don't want Tylenol."
"Then how about lotion?"
He reaches behind and pulls a tube off the shelf.
"Maybe some hand cream?" he asks, with the same drug-dealer confidence.
"No. I don't want anything. I just want to go home."
"I want to give you something."
"Just tell your people back there to pay attention to what their doing!"
What I want to know is, can I sue them? And, if I can, and I collect, can I then retire?

*Not that I have practical knowledge regarding those sorts of transactions.

The Bland Health People

I hate the Bland Health People. You know who I'm talking about. The people frolicking in prescription drug commercials and bouncing around the pages of your medical plan's quarterly magazine. They're all ages and all races and all sexes (well maybe not ALL sexes) and all so very very... bland. They wear sweaters and ride bikes in their golden years through the perfect autumn woods, they cavort in perfectly turquoise pools, they throw daisies about and sit down to healthy and uncontroversial dinners. You never see any of them actually USING the medications they're representing - they're never standing in their boxers, in the kitchen, rinsing out a glass and measuring out the one or two horse pills they have to swallow. They never throw up, or sneeze, or bleed, or roll around in agony after being thrown from a horse. They never sit uncomfortably on the edge of the examination table, shifting their weight on the crinkly paper, trying to relieve the cramping in their knees as they wait for the physician's assistant or nurse practitioner. And they're never, EVER in the hospital. Not like the real people you see on House or E.R.

Sport, that wrinkled care derides...
So this HHS, employee knocks on my door - she's canvassing the neighborhood for a survey on drug and alcohol use the Feds are doing, which will decide how much muh-nay will be spent around these parts on abuse and prevention programs. She just had a couple of questions for me, and entered the answers into a Blackberry that would instantly let her know if I would be selected for the actual survey (which would also net me $30.)

When she got to the question “How old are you?” I answered “49.”
She stopped.
“No,” she said. “You’re lying.”
I laughed. “I’m really 49.”
“You so look like you’re 35.”
“Thanks.”
“And I hate you.”

I get that often. Not the “I hate you” (which I probably get, just not out loud.) The age thing. I’ll turn 50 halfway through 2007. Hopefully that passage will be easier than 49. There don’t seem to be a whole lot of resources out there for the Aging Gay Man – at least, resources that are easily identifiable. I did a quick Google search on the phrase “gay men aging” and came up with some articles, but a quick scan of their contents threw me into a panic and I stopped reading. Too much to deal with. Especially if you’re single.

“Looks like the survey program kicked you out,” said the HHS woman. "Probably because you're not Hispanic."
Or maybe I'm just too old.
No $30 for me.

Final DC Five
My last five ideas for DC:

16. Fire GSI as the downtown tourist food and souvenir vendor and hire Disney to make it over and provide better customer service.

17. Televise the 17th Street "Drag" Race on Bravo.

18. Take big chunks out of the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials to make them more like ruins.

19. Knock down any public monument or sculpture that A) does not commemorate and immediately recognizable event or person; B) is the same size or smaller than the temperance fountain; and C) is, or has in it, a horse.

20. Do not market the 3 minute and 17 second Cherry Blossom Festival to anyone but locals.

New York, Paris, Rome, and... Washington?
Some more ideas to kick DC's butt in gear:

11. Have architecture graduate students from across the country redesign every street vendor van in the city using recycled materials. Allow only three to sell Georgetown University sweatshirts. Then have the students go to work re-facing K Street.

12. Create (or appropriate) an indigenous, unhealthy, and therefore highly admired and much-in-demand food item. Allow only two establishments to serve it. Invent a long-standing conflict between the proprietors.

13. Plan a major world's fair for Anacostia waterfront, not for the crowds, but for the buildings that it will leave behind.

14. Turn DC’s current characteristics and icons (bureaucratic red tape, political sex scandals, hot and humid summers, The Exorcist) into marketing opportunities along the lines of Las Vegas's "What Happens Here Stays Here" campaign. Use humor if possible. If not, import it.

15. Re-imagine the Washington Coliseum as a semi open air farmer's market.

DC is Brand X
More ideas of improving DC's image to the world...

6. Hire a young, vibrant, charismatic conductor for the national symphony, and have him or her re-program the Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day concerts held on the Capital lawn – and ban Barry Bostwick, Charles Durning and the Solid Gold 1940’s dancers from ever showing up at these concerts again.

7. Stop mistaking the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Navy and Marine band concerts for home grown cultural entertainment.

8. Resurrect the trolley car system on the weekends as an alternative to the constantly single-tracking Metro.

9. Give city residents a tax break on owning and operating Smart Cars, and create low-cost underground and/or above ground parking for the vehicles.

10. Create a city-wide campaign to help the people of this city become either more A) friendly, well-mannered, beautiful, creative, and relaxed, or B) dynamically and colorfully rude.

...stay tuned for more tomorrow...

DC, DC, a ________ of a town...
You know, as a brand, DC rots. I just does. As a native who's lived here most of my life, I've seen attempts to get this city standing with the big boys, but most of them fell flat and disappeared. Once there was a song composed extolling the city's virtues – but it went nowhere. Union Station was refurbished for the bicentennial as the National Visitors Center, but attracted mainly the homeless. The city’s constantly making excuses for its lame image – "well, the monuments are pretty;" "no, there's not that much crime, if you stay in the right neighborhood…" "it's basically safe... in northwest... during the daytime;" and "what do you expect, when nobody's from here and everybody else just stays until the administration changes?"

It's time DC had an Xtreme Makeover. For the next few days, I'll be printing some of my ideas for what DC needs to do, after it does whatever it takes to eradicate poverty, crime and the homeless within its borders, and hires a kick-ass design and marketing firm and gives them free reign to imagine the city into the next twenty years. So, the first five (and they are all in no particular order):

1. Develop a significant and Macy’s-competitive parade for one of the following: Independence Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, or Inauguration Day.

2. Pump some money into the gay pride parade and make it bigger than New York's. Stop relying on the gays to gentrify neighborhoods.

3. Create a major outdoor festival around a significant artistic individual who lived and/or worked here in the past (John Philip Sousa, Duke Ellington, Helen Hayes, or…?) Create and finance: a National Sousa Band with a yearly national patriotic march competition (with high school, college, postgraduate, and adult composer categories), a Helen Hayes center for the dramatic arts (with a Washington-DC artists theatre festival), and a Duke Ellington conservatory (post-high school) for music and performing arts.

4. Move the presidential inauguration into another season. Hold the actual ceremony indoors if you must for security reasons, but televise it live throughout the mall. Wait until Bush is out of office to do this so he is not president for a second longer than he has to be. Augment the inaugural balls with the 3-day national mall barbecue.

5. Have the president give weekly audiences, like the Pope.

Tomorrow – 5 more…

Living in DC - A Snapshot
So there's this attractive guy who lives in my building, just a few doors down from me on the fourth floor. He's been there for about a year or so. His blond hair seems to be thinning and he speaks with traces of an English accent. He's also got two little barky dogs, which he's always taking for walks. But they're really not too noisy. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, we both get on the elevator. He pushes the button marked 4. The elevator door closes and he asks: "What floor?"

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things
I watched an episode of Jericho Wednesday night on CBS, after reading a number of reviews for Cormac Mccarthy’s recently published novel The Road, which led me to fondly remember my favorite (and not so favorite) stories of global apocalypse and societal breakdown…

La Jetee
It's short. Made in 1962. 99+44/100% of it is still pictures. All about time travel after a nuclear war. And it’s in French. It just shouldn’t work at all. I just saw it a couple of weeks ago for the first time in 30 years. And it’s much more shattering than "12 Monkeys" - the remake.

Night of the Living Dead
Simple, basic, frightening. When the eating starts, even the background music is destroyed.

On the Beach
In Australia, Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins wait out the last days of humanity after a nuclear war. That’s right, Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred… oh, never mind.

Testament
Sounds like rapture claptrap - NOT! Simple tale of a small California town dying off after a nuclear war. Do we see a pattern here? Jane Alexander’s presence makes it all too… artsy and political. But it’s got Kevin Costner, years before he’d try much the same thing in the uber-ridiculous “The Postman.” Guaranteed to kill any party.

The Day After
Supposedly, ABC cut this down to two hours in a panic when, as I remember it, the zeitgeist surrounding it got too hot. And that was before it aired. After the bombs drop, it’s a long slow slog with Steve Gutenberg to the end of the world. Not to be confused with the long slow slog with Steve Gutenberg that is “Cocoon.”

The World, the Flesh and the Devil
Mel Ferrer (aka Mr. Audrey Hepburn), Harry Belafonte, and Inger Stevens (who?) are the last three people in New York City. How they all got there and where the other bodies went is anyone’s guess. Not nearly as good as…

The Quiet Earth
A man, a woman, and a Maori tribesman (uh, ok) are the only three people left in New Zealand, probably the whole world. Works up to an interesting finish.

Kiss Me Deadly
“Blood Red Kisses! White Hot Thrills” goes its tagline. How does a Mickey Spillane adaptation fit with this list? Well, if you happen to see it sometime on Turner Classic Movies, just keep watching…

The Stand
Steven King’s phone-book sized tale of a superflu virus and the devastation it brings was an ABC miniseries with more gore than "The Day After." Still, the book was better.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Don Siegel’s model-of-economy black and white flick scared the heck out of us when we were kids (we were all ready to laugh at it, with that goofy title.) The plot, lean and mean with absolutely no fats or oils that add calories, still works its charms after all these years.

The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man
Two adaptations of Richard Matheson’s “I Am Legend,” the first with Vincent Price, the second with Charlton Heston. "Omega" is nutty. "The Last Man" approaches zombie gold.

The Day the World Ended
Roger Corman quickie about, uh, let’s see, what is it about… oh yeah, the end of the world! Black and white, cheesy sets, bad acting… DC’s Channel 20 used to show this all the time, after which you always felt... somehow… dirty…

Panic in the Year Zero
Ray Milland directed this, about… oh you know. A family escapes Los Angeles just as the Bright White Flash takes over. Depressing but a smidgen of hope at the end.

and

Chant Sous la Pluie
Another bomb drops in Los Angeles, and the fallout is, well, interesting. In “Jericho” everybody stayed out of the possibly-irradiated rain. In this movie, the main character demands: “Bring It On!”

From Bucks to Bodybuilding
I've been hemorrhaging money this year. But for the first time in my life, it’s not because of the outside world and society’s pressures siphoning bucks from my bank account. I’m spending the money on myself, mainly personal training and three vacation cruises in the space of a year. I’m in probably the best shape of my life, I’ve been to places I’ve heretofore only seen, and the only problem is, next year, the spigot will have to be turned off! So I’m trying to prepare myself now for when I can no longer afford expensive vacations six months apart and a monitored workout. However, a small creature at the back of my skull keeps chanting “get a better paying job… get a better paying job, and you can continue to do all these things” in a high, nasal, tweedy tone, kind of like a tension headache. The front part of my skull actually considers this communique and states: “He’s got a point.” So, since I’m not focusing any outward energy on beginning the fourth draft of Kickass Zombie Movie, I need to update my resume, start perusing the job web sites I’ve perused in the past, go for coffee with more people who have connections, and visit Ask the Headhunter every day. After I take my multivitamin and make my lunch.