Owlspotting

I’ll stay away from blogging about hurricane relief and the storm aftermath politics, but I can’t ignore the tributes and cvasi-obituaries being written about New Orleans. A few days ago, CJR Daily took a swipe at those who’ve began mourning the loss of the town while evacuations were still taking place.

The Sunday papers carry an even heavier load of tributes; the NY Times even lays out 22 reasons to miss New Orleans (as Louis Armstrong sang).

I’ve visited New Orleans last year for a week — and joked () that it was the most Romanian of American cities. Whatever I saw last June, it was hardly more than a shallow glance at a city only the multi-generational Orlenians really understood.

I can’t help being sad at seeing a city — any city — fall. But it’s even sadder when the city falling is one whose streets I walked while thinking about John Kennedy Toole and The Confederacy of Dunces New Orleans pulled him into.

In the French Quarter

St. Louis Cemetary No. 1

At the foot of Bourbon Street

I’m not going to blog about the hurricane. I prefer to speak about it or as a friend told me earlier, “editorialize” in Romanian media. I actually wrote a piece called “New Orleans, the fall of a city,” which ran today on Romania’s best online news site.

Raluca, a friend from college in Bucharest, is in Baton Rouge. The hurricane and a new media class compelled her to start blogging about Katrina. Read it here.

Do you have the time
To listen to me whine
About nothing and everything
All at once…

I was safely sheltered by European pop, dance and techno (most of it coming from Germany and the Scandinavian countries) until I heard Green Day tear into “Basket Case.”

I was in eight grade, with little rock references other than Elvis and the “oldies but goldies” mix tapes of ’50s and 60s American classics. The definition of rock in my hometown of Targu-Mures, Romania was rather hairy. Metal-head hairy. Death metal, speed metal, trash metal — loud and vicious. To be honest, I chose the accessible Swedish mellowness of Sonic Dream Collective to the befuddling anger of Obituary. After all, the first records I paid money for were by Roxette and New Kids on the Block. Hey, it was 1991!

“Basket Case” though was neither poppy nor heavy. The dance connoisseur in me was ashamed to admit guitar-driven music was melting my heart. Then I bought “Dookie,” packaged as a counterfeit Polish cassette by Poker! Music. Soon the dance world would be behind me.

On Tuesday night, standing in the rain at Merriweather Post Pavillion in Columbia, Md., I watched Green Day perform (the link take you to a DCist review of the show) — just a day after MTV’s VMAs showered them in awards. The VMAs arguably makes Green Day the biggest band in the world at this moment, but all I could think about is that these guys and their masturbation-themed breakout album had changed my life.

I never abandoned Green Day. Yes, by the time “Warning” (2000) came out, they were already ridiculously mainstream. So what? They made great music. And “American Idiot” (2004) is that rare record you can listen to without skipping a track. So what if I have to share them with kids that weren’t even born when Green Day began? I can take it.

Thousands of kids were at Merriweather screaming their lungs out. For many, “American Idiot” is the first Green Day record they laid their hands on. Mom bought it. Mom was also at the show. I can only hope there’s a track on this record that will make them appreciate the beauty of electric guitars and deep bass lines.

Plus, there is hardly a concert moment like screaming along to “Holiday” while the rain pours…

Hear the sound of the falling rain
Coming down like and Armageddon flame
The shame; thee ones who died without a name
Hear the dogs howling out of key
To a hymn called “Faith and Misery”
And plead, the company lost the war today

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On holiday …

I’m not used to being referred to as “the young lady.” So I couldn’t help but blush a little and turn slightly toward the wall when the cop pointed to the used-but-not-gooey condom on the counter and said:

“There’s nothing in it, so I don’t think it was meant for the Young Lady.”

Turning to my two male roommates, he elaborated: “He’s basically saying you guys are that — trying to watch the language around the Young Lady — he’s saying you guys are scumbags,” and, nodding in my direction, “Sorry.”

It was 2 a.m. A few hours earlier, I had received a call from one of my roommates, Nick, who awkwardly asked whether I’d been home after work or not. I hadn’t.

“Are you sure?” I was. A long pause followed, and then he said,

“When Mike got home from work he found a used condom on the kitchen counter.”

I assured him I had not left behind any latex when I left for work.

“OK, well, that means someone’s been in our apartment. It’s a statement. I’m calling the cops.”

I could add nothing more than “Ew.” An hours passed before the police buzzed. They were a TV-cop cliche — bald, tattooed hardass older guy with quiet, buzzcut new guy. The hardass did most of the talking; Nick was worried, and he reassured him that it was an insult, not a threat, and that if we put a dowel in the window we’d be fine.

Around here, tons of people break in just to defecate on people’s floors, so in the grand scheme of things, we were lucky. I suppressed my giggles. Then the guys all bonded over classic guitars. I listened to them chat for a while, and then abruptly the cops moved toward the door, told Nick to just chuck the rubber in the trash, said “Goodnight, Young Lady” and stepped back into the night to resume protecting the good citizens of Brooklyn.

Last year, when Coca-Cola launched C2, I converted. Like any consumer afraid of too much sugar, but also appaled by Diet Coke, I welcomed the mid-road beverage. I was dissapointed with the marketing campaign and the 8-cans packages that cost as much as the regular 12-cans, but I stuck with it.

Soon enough, Coca-Cola C2 became a grocery store mainstay and was packaged and priced like the regular Coke brands. A little over a month ago, I noticed C2’s presence was sparse in the Brooklyn supermarket I shopped at. A new Coke, Coca Cola Zero started taking up more shelf space. The new no-calorie drink sucks; its name, Zero, is well deserved.

Now, C2 is nowhere to be found. All the Washington, D.C. supermarkets I checked don’t stock it. So I did the next best thing to switching to Pepsi (against whom I have a personal grudge): I called e-mailed Coca Cola. Excerpts from their first reply is below:

Thank you for contacting The Coca-Cola Company. We are glad to hear from a fan of Coca-Cola C2 and apologize that you have had difficulty finding it in your area. Regarding availability, local bottling companies choose which brands to sell and the size of the packaging that will be available in their territories. These decisions are based on consumer demand and other market factors. We believe they are in the best position to make those decisions.

Your loyalty to Coca-Cola C2 is certainly appreciated.

That was not enough information. On the Coca-Cola Web site, C2 is no longer listed among the brands available in the U.S., which leads me to believe they’re going to kill it. I called 1-800-GET-COKE and they told me it’s still manufactured, but it’s up to stores to order it from the local sales
center. Regarding C2’s dissapearance from the Web site, the representative said: “good question. I don’t know why it’s not there anymore.”

Naturally I called the local bottling company in Columbia, Md. They referred me to the Washington D.C. sales center, where I was told to go and complain at the grocery store, which would make them order it. But, she added, we do try to push new drinks when they come in.

“So Zero pushed C2 off the shelves?” I asked.
“Yes,” she told me.

I am yet to get a final answer from Coca-Cola regarding C2, but I suspect it’s dead. More evidence to suggest that is that the Coke C2 official Web site, www.cokec2.com now re-directs users to the company’s main site. The Way Back Machine has only captured this as a reminder of the C2 days.
While in Brooklyn, I thought of holding on to my last C2 bottle and its metal-gray cap. I decided against it, arguing C2 will live on. It looks like I was wrong.

Update (Aug. 25, 5:00 PM): I received an e-mail from a Coca-Cola media representative who gave me a couple links to their C2 brand page, along with a link to Coke’s Virtual Vender, which still shows the drink. My question was more targeted though; I had asked if C2 was off the market or not. Their non-response was similar to the earlier comment I heard on the phone that the beverage was still manufactured. Shouldn’t one be able to tell if a product is being made by coming across it in a store?

Technorati tag: Cola

Earlier this year, I worked on a story on the Muslim community of Columbia, Mo. Although the central focus were local Muslims, the effort was meant to integrate their stories in a larger world-wide debate on the future of Islam, and the struggle within the faith between violent elements and ordinary believers.

The story turned into a special section in the Sunday edition of the Columbia Missourian. It was a quiet time if you will in the story of post 9/11 Muslim media exposure. After the July attacks in London, coverage of Muslims returned to the forefront, albeit more thoughtful than in the days following 9/11.

Recent coverage and political decisions to crack down on radical preachers and hate groups convinced me to post the stories I wrote, for context if nothing else. The photographs and graphics are product of many wonderful budding journalists with whom I had the chance of working at the Missourian.

The Washington Post gave a nod to Romanian ingenuity — or lack of resources — in a short story today. Stefan Candea of the Romanian Centre for Investigative Reporting, the journalist in the story, looks to be gathering ammo from the the Foreign Agent Registration Act Unit, probably for use in a story on the Romanian lobby in Washington.

I would be curios to see who lobies for whom in this category, especially after finding out recently that Ceausescu himself had a lobbyist, Edward J. von Kloberg III, who also represented other dictators like Saddam Hussein and Mobutu Sese Seko.

Actually, one of Kloberg’s most famous accomplishments was winning “Most Favored Nation” status in the U.S. for Romania during the Ceausescu regime. That answers the questions of what Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were doing shaking the hands of a communist dictator. Kloberg killed himself in May, leaping from an Italian castle. Fancy.

What if Adidas’s purchase of Reebok would create the following “alternative market” merger:

Murat Gurlen, knock-off architect and owner of the Asidas brand, did not waste time when he heard the company he was ripping off planned to expand its market. Less than two days after the announcement, Gurlen contacted “next-street-over-neighbor,” Tarkan Osman, who makes his money by selling Ruibak, a popular Reebok fake.

– Tarkan, listen here brother, Gurlen is reported to have started the phone conversation with. I have good business idea for you.

Osman was stunned. Gurlen hadn’t spoken to him since Osman announced at the 1996 World Summit of Fakers held in Beijing, China, that he had first dibs on two other Reebok off-shoots, Rujbak and Ribook.

– Yes? Osman muttered.

Gurlen then launched into his carefully crafted pitch — how the German sneaker-maker bought an American rival and how this signals to the alternative market that they have to merge as well. It would be a first: Adidas and Reebok, Asidas and Ruibak.

– If you move in with me, Gurlen added, there will be more space to work in.

Osman knew that together they could take out Hasan Hash, who makes tons of money selling Niky, the cheapest alternative to Nike on the market. And, Gurlen was speaking the truth — Osman was selling less because he worked in a crammed basement studio, while Gurlen worked with two assistants in a three-room apartment.

– What are you offering? Osman asked to keep up negotiation appearances.

– A place for you to work at, two brand new rugs, a camel-ride coupon and a dresser packed with Turkish Delight.

– Deal, said Osman, who was sold on the deal just seconds after picking up the phone. He told himself how important it is to always follow the market. Asidas and Ruibak, Osman and Gurlen, together at last.

Note: If the characters of this fake scenario are Turkish is because Asidas and Ruibak were sold heavily by Turkish merchants in Romania in the late 1990 and early 2000. This posting is dedicated to them.

Someone in my building received this package recently. It was in the hallway and I couldn’t resist running back for my camera to snap a picture. We all love getting mail from our retarded families.

My dad turned 50 this week, just days after he sent me an e-mail that broke my heart. It was sent at 4 A.M. Romania time — he obviously hadn’t slept that night, busy musing about the life and the lessons he took away from always being too eager to help others. Reading his words, I wished as I have often in recent times, that our family was more open to discussing pain and the events that caused it.

“In a way, the period of major risk is coming to an end,” he wrote. “The hard years, during which I took extra care of everything scared of what would happen to those I cared about if I didn’t, are slowly left behind.”

In a bright light, this could mean he’s looking forward to taking it slower. But my dad never looked forward to taking it slow — he resented slowness and people that couldn’t sustain the same high work rhythm. He always pushed forward with the stubbornness of a bull. If these words did not mean he felt defeated, they certainly say he is starting to tire of fighting alone.

I read Philip Roth’s “Patrimony” today, a book I had avoided for no particular reason, despite my admiration for the author. I knew what the book was about (Roth taking care of his dying father) and had even read entire chapters about it in books that analyzed Roth and his work (such as Mark Shechner’s “Up Society’s Ass Copper“). The scene in which Roth cleans after Herman who “beshat” his pants, is known even to some who have not opened the book.

I realized as I put the book down and swallowed a knot along with a pocket of tears, that reading the book was long overdue. Roth as a writer has always struggled with the boundaries of fiction and reality — he stayed away from memoirs even when he was using snippets of his own life to craft his work. His attempt at a biography, The Facts, ends with a scathing rebuke by the fictitious Nathan Zuckerman who tells the author, that there is no such thing as a truthful biography — especially when there doesn’t seem to be a motive to write one.

If Zuckerman is right, “Patrimony” is as close as it gets to the truth. Herman Roth, Philip Roth’s father is slowly fading crushed under the weight of a brain tumor. At the time of the book, in the late 1980s, Herman is 86, and Philip is in his early fifties. The book is an account of Herman’s last year and Roth’s struggle to care for him and accept his father for who he was: a stubborn, overly critical, hard working Jewish man with an eight grade education. Over the course of the book, suffering alongside Herman, listening to him bitch and moan, reminiscing about old Newark and his father’s life as an insurance salesman for Metropolitan Life, Roth learns the most elusive of commandments (as writer Chris Hedges said in his most recent book): honor your parents.

Realizing his father’s flaws ultimately built an important part of him, Roth unloads on a friend, while simultaneously accepting the reality of an unchangeable Herman: “All my life I have been trying to tell him that people are different one from the other. (…) But he couldn’t grasp it. They all had to work the same way, want the same way, be dutiful the same way, and whoever did it different was meshugge – crazy.”

I sent my dad an e-mail on his birthday, urging him to follow a list of “ten commandments” I had for him. I had never scolded my dad before, and although this was far from the eviscerating letter Franz Kafka wrote to his own father, it was a first attempt to care for the man who up to now has been taking care of me. One reason I wrote the e-mail was because I want to preserve his thoughts and memories, and I cannot tap into them any other way but by trying to reverse the roles, becoming a parent if just for a page and a half.

“Patrimony” lives by a tragic but true motto given the feeble nature of life: You mustn’t forget anything. That’s what Herman Roth used to say. “That’s the inscription on his coat of arms,” Philip Roth writes. “To be alive, to him, is to be made of memory — to him if a man’s not made of memory, he’s made of nothing.”