Theory of evolution takes hit from rubes, reality shows

I’ve believed in the theory of evolution ever since I was old enough to understand it. But lately I’ve begun to have serious doubts.

Human evolution appears to have come to a screeching halt. In fact, it seems to have gone into reverse.

Exhibit A: “Jackass: The Movie.”

To save time and money for those who might think this is a film biography of George W. Bush, let me explain that “Jackass” is a movie version of an MTV comedy series that featured a bunch of amateur idiots doing idiotic stunts.

In “Jackass: The Movie,” a cast of professional idiots has replaced the amateurs, but the script is essentially the same.

While the cameras roll, the “Jackasses” perform such stunts as stuffing their shorts with live shrimp, diving into a tank of sharks and playing Demolition Derby with a rental car.

This goes on for 90 minutes.

“Jackass” premiered last weekend at “theaters everywhere,” as they say in the movie biz, and promptly soared to the No. 1 box office spot, grossing (what a wickedly appropriate term!) $22.7 million.

Exhibit B: The African E-Mail Scam.

Almost everybody has gotten at least one of these e-mails; I’ve gotten three or four in the past several weeks. They come from some African country – most often Nigeria, Zimbabwe or South Africa.

There are many variations, but the basic pitch is the same: Somebody in Africa wants you to help him launder a large amount of money – often tens of millions of dollars – in return for which you’ll get a sizeable chunk for yourself.

Here’s a sample from one such e-mail I got:

“Dear one,

“Compliments of the season, dear you may be suprise how I manage to get your contact, I got it through the Côte d’Ivoire Chamber of Commerce. The email addresses I saw was too much but God told me after my prayer over them
I choosed you as a person that can help me out.

“My name is ANDERSON GUEI the last son of General ROBERT GUEI. The former millitary head of States who was killed on his attempted coup in Côte d’Ivoire. …

“My late father’s amount in the bank is Twelve million U.S.Dollars($12 million US Dollars)Now I want a trust worthy person who can help me for two things.

“1) Who can help me to transfer this money into his or her account once the country is not near from my country.

“2) The person will help me to meet him in his country, so that we can put heads together plan for the future. For your helping me I will give you 10% from the ($12 million USD) and more 5% for expenses then 2% for any other expenses that may occur.”

The catch, of course, is that there isn’t any $12 million, and once “Anderson Guei” gets hold of you you’ll end up losing your life savings – and maybe your life.

“That’s insane,” you must be thinking. “How could anybody fall for this stupid con?”

Oh, you’d be surprised.

According to news reports, thousands of people all over the world have fallen for it. Some of them have naively gone abroad to arrange the “transaction” and have been kidnapped or killed. The lucky ones have only had their bank accounts cleaned out.

You might assume the victims are all single-wide dwellers who have the IQ of a typical shiitake mushroom and spend their lives hooked up to a Coors Lite IV drip while watching the WWF, but you’d be wrong. They’ve included professionals, teachers, successful businessmen … the whole gamut.

So where is human devolution leading us, ultimately? I don’t even want to think about it.

In five or six years, though, I can envision the premiere of a new movie: “Jackasses II: Give Me the Million or Give Me Death!”

This would be a “reality” movie in which volunteer contestants are required to perform a series of challenging and fun “stunts” — bungee-jumping off the top of the Golden Gate Bridge without any bungee cords, skateboarding on the wing of a 747 during takeoff, swallowing a quart of Professional Strength Liquid Drano, that sort of thing.

Contestants who survived all the challenges would win a prize of $1 million, and then would have to travel to the Ivory Coast to collect it from Anderson Guei.

Without a doubt, this movie will smash all box-office records. I think I’ll wait for the DVD to come out.

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Today’s campaign trail one long, boring commercial

As Campaign Season 2002 nears its climax, excitement is building to a fever pitch. I can’t recall being as jazzed about anything since they opened the new Oil Can Henry’s near our place.

But seriously now: Can you remember a campaign season that was as dull and lackluster as the one that will wrap up this November?

The candidates for Oregon governor and senator seem to be locked in a four-way contest to see who can come up with the most bland and boring TV commercials. Democratic Senate candidate Bill Bradbury is leading the snooze sweepstakes so far, but the race is still tight, and Gordon Smith, Kevin Mannix or Ted Kulongoski could easily pull it off in the final weeks.

This stifling blandness is not a phenomenon that appeared just this year, though. Remember the presidential “race” of two years ago? Remember the Battle of the Blands, aka the Bush-Gore debates, in which the “opponents” spent most of their time gushing about how much they agreed with each other?

There’s a reason why blandness is devouring our political life like some sinister fungus infection, and I know what it is. It’s “marketing.”

Politicians don’t campaign for office anymore – they’re marketed. They hire a slew of high-priced “marketing experts” who do a bunch of polls and hold lots of focus groups and come up with a “product” that the voters will want to “buy.”

Naturally, the most important attribute of the product/candidate is that it/he/she must not OFFEND anybody. Or, as they say in the politics marketing game, it/he/she must not have any “negatives.”

If the candidate has an idea that didn’t play well in focus groups with women over 55 who own Yorkshire terriers … POOF! Out it goes.

The inevitable result is an array of candidates with all the satisfying flavor and crunchiness of store-brand hot dog buns.

And the real tragedy is that all this is totally unnecessary.

I’m going to let you and any politicians who may be reading this in on a dirty little secret: The so-called “marketing experts” DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING. They are completely bloody clueless.

How do I know? Because of the piece of spam that showed up in my e-mailbox the other day.

“Want to Make Your Love Life Sizzle?” the headline asked.

Well, sure, why not? I read on.

“Dear H. Bruce Miller,” it continued, “Are you too busy to have a relationship? Is your sex life more see-ya-later than sizzle? Do you wonder if you’ll ever meet Mr. Right … ”

Whoa. This was getting weird. I read on:

“Unless your entire life is absolutely perfect, you need Cosmopolitan. It’s the largest selling women’s magazine in the world, and you can try it now RISK-FREE.”

In Cosmo, the e-mail said, I would “discover new techniques to attract the man of (my) dreams – and keep him satisfied in bed and out.”

What’s more, if I acted NOW I could receive a FREE $100 Victoria’s Secret gift certificate.

“You could get a whole wardrobe of Miracle Bras or a couple of stretch lace micro-chemises (one in black, one in red, of course).”

Kind readers, let me assure you that as a general rule I do not parade around in Miracle Bras or stretch lace micro-chemises, regardless of color. (I admit that a few Halloweens ago I put on a blue dress and a wig to impersonate Linda Tripp, but, hey, that was show biz.)

This is truly pathetic, I thought after reading Cosmo’s e-mail pitch.

The magazine no doubt had paid a fortune to some fancy “marketing experts” who carefully studied the “demographics” and crafted an e-mail, which was then sent out to a carefully collated “database” of prospective subscribers, which database presumably was purchased at great expense from a purveyor of databases.

I bet the “marketing experts” knew everything about me – my name, my address, my zip code, my family income, the value of my house, the age of my dog …

Everything except the most important thing: namely, my sex.

So, candidates everywhere, take my advice: Ditch the marketing gurus. They’re a waste of time and money. You could get the same results a lot cheaper by hiring a gypsy to read tea leaves.

Just get out there, stand up on your hind legs and speak your mind loudly and clearly. Tell us what you really believe. Let us see you’re a person, not a “product.”

And if that doesn’t get our attention, try wearing a stretch lace micro-chemise.

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High-brow British TV soap brings grumbling about mumbling

PBS is broadcasting a TV adaptation of John Galsworthy’s trilogy “The Forsyte Saga” in 375 episodes this month.

Just kidding, kind readers. “The Forsyte Saga” doesn’t really have 375 episodes. It only seems like it does.

We are watching “The Forsyte Saga” because my wife loves this sort of thing. She will enthusiastically devour any movie or television series, no matter how interminable and tedious, as long as it has British actors dressed in beautiful period costumes walking around in beautiful palatial homes and mumbling. (More about the mumbling later.)

Years ago, PBS presented a series called “Upstairs Downstairs.” It had 5,569 episodes (give or take) and traced the lives of members of one upper class British family and their servants from the time of the First Crusade up to the end of World War II. Or so I recall.

My wife not only watched this endless epic — she actually understood it. She could tell you the whole plot, including who married whom and who carried on with whom and who got gassed in the trenches in France and who died in the flu epidemic of 1918 and the Great London Plague of 1665.

I was impressed. This was a feat that made memorizing Homer’s “Iliad” in the original Greek look like learning the ABCs.

Anyway, now we are watching “The Forsyte Saga,” and my wife is enraptured. I’m bored stiff.

If you go to the PBS Web site you will read that “The Forsyte Saga” is “the story of a love polygon that shifts like a kaleidoscope. Soames loves Irene, Irene loves Bosinney, and later, young Jolyon. Young Jolyon’s daughter June loves Bosinney, young Jolyon loves his daughter’s nanny Helene, and later, Irene. Old Jolyon, improbably, is infatuated with Irene.”

In other words, it’s a soap opera. And I have no objection to soap operas per se.

However, whereas today’s soap operas feature attractive, scantily clad young people gaily romping in and out of bed with each other, “The Forsyte Saga” features mostly wrinkled old coots and women in corsets walking around as stiff as sticks and trading gossip.

A kiss on the hand counts as a moment of wild erotic abandon in “The Forsyte Saga.” The leading male character, Soames, has all the charm of a rattlesnake in a top hat.

But I could put up with the lack of sex and the reptilian quality of Soames if it weren’t for the mumbling.

That’s the thing about British actors, especially in PBS productions: They all sound as if they’re talking through a mouthful of crumpet.

British actors in PBS shows seem to have been trained to “speak” without moving their lips. I have seen professional ventriloquists who move their lips more than these people do.

A typical bit of dialogue in “The Forsyte Saga” goes something like this:

“Smmmmfs? Mmmflmn bum affenflff grmmfluffle. Hmmmbuffr mmrf ufflmmuff smmffling mmiffundiff, eh what?”

“I say! Smmmmfs anfflummb drmmmel pffliggrmm smmmfigg. Good show!”

In the hope of being able to understand the actors, I tried turning up the volume on the TV. This did no good at all, of course; all it accomplished was to make the dialogue sound like this:

“SMMMMFS? MMMFLMN BUM AFFENFLFF GRMMFLUFFLE. HMMMBUFFR MMRF UFFLMMUFF SMMFFLING MMIFFUNDIFF, EH WHAT?”

“I SAY! SMMMMFS ANFFLUMMB DRMMMEL PFFLIGGRMM SMMMFIGG. GOOD SHOW!”

If PBS had put subtitles on this damn thing, I might have enjoyed it.

As it is, all I have been able to make of the story line so far is that the scaly Soames (or Smmmmfs) has managed to persuade the fair Irene (pronounced “I-REE-nee,” for some incomprehensible British reason) to marry him, she isn’t happy about it, and she has started making goo-goo eyes at the young architect Bosinney (or Bssnnnffle).

I anticipate many more dramatic plot twists and turns and many more hours of mumbling before “The Forsyte Saga” lurches to its conclusion and once again I can spend my Sunday evenings watching quality television, such as “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”

Meanwhile I’ll just have to suck it up and hang in there. Thank God there are only 373 episodes to go.

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It’s a gas: Men and women don’t see eye to eye at pump

Let me make clear at the start that this column isn’t a putdown of women. I believe that in all important areas of human understanding, women are fully the intellectual equals of men.

It’s just that they have trouble grasping a few concepts that, to men, seem rudimentary.

Gasoline, for instance.

Women know what gasoline is, and they have a sort of vague idea that it makes cars run. What they don’t seem to understand is that it is necessary, every once in a while, to put more gas into the car.

Either they assume every car comes from the factory equipped with a lifetime supply of gas, or they think cars produce their own gas somehow. Or maybe they just like to live on the edge. In any case, they have an almost phobic aversion to buying gas.

My wife has this problem. Our latest vacation experience proved it again.

She made this deal with the car rental company whereby we paid in advance for an extra full tank. That way we could return the car without having to wait in line to have its gas gauge checked and pay an outrageous price to the rental outfit for refilling the car.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. But things started to get ugly four days before the end of our stay.

Noticing that the needle on the gas gauge was wobbling around the one-eighth-of-a-tank level, I remarked: “You know, I think we’ll have to stick a couple more gallons of gas in this car.”

“That’s ridiculous,” my wife said. “We still have a quarter-tank.”

“Looks like an eighth to me,” I said.

“You’re looking at it from a funny angle,” she said.

“Funny angle?” I said. “It’s right in front of me. Hey, here’s a gas station. Let’s pull in and get five bucks’ worth.”

“Tell you what,” she said. “When we’re on the way back from this trip, if the needle’s any lower we’ll stop and get gas.”

On the way back, the needle definitely was lower than one-eighth. In fact, it was closer to one-sixteenth.

“Aren’t you going to pull in and get some gas?” I said to my wife, who was now driving, as we zoomed past one gas station after another.

“We don’t need gas,” she maintained. “We have plenty to get to the airport.”

“Plenty?!?” I screamed calmly. “You call one-sixteenth of a tank `plenty’? Besides, we’ll be making a couple more trips into town before we have to go to the airport. We’re not gonna make it.”

“Look,” she said, “we paid extra so we wouldn’t have to fill up before we return the car. I’m not going to give the rental company five bucks’ worth of gas for nothing.”

“Aha!” I said. “That’s what this is all about – cheapness! Parsimony! You’d rather run out of gas on the way to the airport and miss our flight than spend an extra dime. If you had your way we’d burn up every drop and ride into the car rental place on the fumes.”

“Damn right,” she said. “But that’s not going to happen. We have plenty of gas.”

“Have it your way,” I said. “But if we run out I’m going to make you push.”

Two days later, the gas needle was on “E” and the little yellow light indicating “Low Fuel” was flashing. Despite my wife’s insistence that there was still “plenty of gas,” I decided it was time to assert my manly authority and take control of the situation.

I begged.

“Please, puh-LEEZE let me put five bucks’ worth in,” I whimpered. “Just for my own peace of mind. To assuage my anxiety.”

She gave me a derisive look that clearly implied: “What a wuss!” But she relented.

So I bought the gas, and when we arrived at the airport for our flight home there was about a sixteenth of a tank left.

“There – we got here with no hassles, no worries,” I said. “Aren’t you glad we put that five bucks’ worth in?”

“Coulda made it with $1.25,” she grumbled.

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Here’s novel idea: If you’re owed vacation time, take off!

I’m going on vacation. For two whole weeks.

There – I’ve said it. It’s out in the open. No doubt it will make me a figure of scorn and ridicule, but I don’t care. I have no shame. I make no apologies.

Once upon a time not very long ago, Americans didn’t feel the need to apologize for taking vacations. It was something practically everyone did every year.

Rich people would spend whole summers in the Hamptons or Cape Cod. Middle-class people would spend two (or three or four) weeks at the seashore or in the mountains.

Even poor folks would take a few days or a week off to go to Atlantic City, or maybe visit relatives.

Nowadays, though, taking a vacation is something you don’t hear people talk about much. In the work-crazed world of early 21st Century America, folks are more likely to brag about NOT taking vacations.

You’re heard the conversations, maybe even been part of them:

“You taking a vacation this year, Phil?”

“No way, Bill. I haven’t had a vacation in two years.”

“Big deal. I haven’t had a vacation in five years.”

“Well, I haven’t had a REAL vacation in 16 years. The vacation I had two years ago was really just a three-day weekend.”

People who brag about not taking vacations also are likely to brag about how crowded their schedules are. I’m sure you’ve seen (even in Bend) a couple of high-powered (or wanna-be high-powered) businessmen or women whip out their Palm Pilots and have a dialogue like this:

“Okay, how about next Thursday at 9:30 a.m.?”

“Let’s see … Nope, next Thursday I’ve got a 9:45, a 10:45 and an 11:35. You got anything in the afternoon?”

“Nope, all booked up – got a 12 o’clock, a 1:30, a 2:30, a 3:40, a 4:30, a 5:45, a 6:33 and a 7:22. How about Friday?”

“No way. After Thursday I’m booked solid all the way through the end of next month.”

“Well, how about 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, November 3?”

“Works for me.”

How did we get in this pitiful condition? How did we let our lives get so screwed up?

To a great extent, I think, it has to do with meetings.

I’ve been in the working world for going on 40 years, and I can personally vouch for this: There are more meetings than ever, and they’re accomplishing less than ever.

Even here in the comparatively sluggish backwater of Bend, people are addicted to meetings.

They’ll have day meetings and night meetings, breakfast meetings and lunch meetings and dinner meetings, weekend meetings, informational meetings, strategy meetings, coordination meetings, and meetings to plan future meetings.

Almost everybody claims to hate meetings, but yet meetings keep multiplying faster than mosquitoes in a tropical rain forest.

Why? I can think of two reasons: 1) Sitting in a meeting is easier than working, and 2) Having a meeting allows you to enjoy the feeling of accomplishing something without the painful and laborious process of actually doing it.

Of course, when all the meetings are over, there’s still the actual work to be done, and at some point, all the poor saps who are exhausted from non-stop meetings have to go back to their offices, sit in front of their computers and actually produce something.

No wonder these unfortunates have no time for vacations. They barely have enough time to perform basic bodily functions.

Now, I don’t think President Bush has the right idea about many things, but on the subject of vacations, he’s right on. He takes the whole month of August off and thumbs his nose at anybody who complains about it.

This year, and henceforward, I’m going to follow our president’s courageous example. I can’t quite manage a month-long vacation – I’m still working on that – but at least I can achieve half as much.

So for the next two weeks, I’ll be sitting under palm trees and wriggling my toes in the sand. No meetings, no e-mail, no laptop, no cell phone, no Palm Pilot, and no decisions more urgent than whether to have a beer now or go for a swim first.

Au revoir, hasta la vista and arrividerci. If you urgently need to reach me, just leave a message on my voice mail. I might answer it when I get back.

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Dubya has Saddam in sight: A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do

Giving in to pressure from Congress, the American public and our allies, President George W. Bush is now saying he’ll ask for the approval of Congress before going to war with Iraq.

He also says he’ll give a speech before the UN on Sept. 12 explaining his justifications for the war.

Through an exclusive source hidden deep in an underground bunker close to Dick Cheney, I have obtained a sneak peek at Dubya’s upcoming speech, which I will share with you:

“Mah fellow human beins, it is a great honor ta be here today addressin th representatives of all th peoples of th world – th Russians, th Chinese, th Grecians, the Turkeyans, th Afghanistanians an all th rest of ya.

“Because after all, we are all human beins, even those of us who wear funny clothes an come from countries with funny names. An I am here to talk to ya about a menace to all human beins.

“Of course y’all know I’m talkin about Saddam Hussein, or `Th Butcher o’ Baghdad’ as Uncle Dick likes to call `im.

“Mah fellow humans, I don’t want anythin I’m gonna say to be misconstructed, because I’m a guy who means what he says an says what he means, an so when I say I mean what I say I mean ta say I mean what I say.

“An what I mean ta say is this: Saddam Hussein is a bad dude. He is a evildoer. When I say he is a evildoer, what I mean is he does evil. Doin evil is what evildoers do. An he will keep right on doin it until we stop `im.

“We believe Saddam is stockpilin weapons o’ misdirection. We believe he even has nukeler weapons. Or he will pretty soon. Or leastways we’re pretty sure he’s workin on it.

“You may be askin, `How th heck do they know he’s got weapons o’ misdirection or nukeler weapons?’ The answer is: We have intelligence. Intelligence is a good thing ta have. My dear Mama, Mrs. Barbara Bush, many a time would set me on her knee an say: `Georgie, if you had th intelligence of a eggplant you might make somethin o’ yerself.’ So I know all about intelligence.

“You may also be thinkin, `Lots o’ other countries, like France an Russia an’ England an’ China, got weapons o’ misdirection an nukeler weapons, so why don’t we go after `em?’

“The difference is those other countries are GOOD countries. They are not evildoers. They are friends of Amurrica an freedom. Although I ain’t real sure about th French. Buncha brie-eatin, wine-sippin socialists who don’t even have a word for `entrepreneur.’ We might haveta deal with `em later.

“Anyway, gettin back ta Saddam: Another question you might have is: `Even if he’s a evildoer an he’s got all them weapons o’ misdirection an maybe even nukeler weapons, is it right to attack `im now, instead o’ waitin `til he actually does somethin?’

“Mah fellow humans, such thinkin is th thinkin o’ over-educated, limp-wristed appeasers. This kind o’ thinkin let Hitler get away with invadin England an Italy an Japan an Germany an makin such a big mess that the U.S.A. finally had ta go in an straighten things out.

“Lemme put it this way: Suppose there’s this guy livin down th street an he doesn’t like you. Gives ya funny looks when he rides by in his pickup, that sorta thing. An you think this guy’s got a lotta guns, an maybe he’s even cookin up some anthrax in his bathtub.

“Do you wait for this guy ta start somethin’? Heck no! Ya take `im out. Ya strap on your six-shooters an go ta his house an kick down th door and go in there a-blazin. Shoot first, ask questions later. That’s th way we do things in Texas.

“As the leader o th free world an God’s own appointed defender o justice, goodness an civilization, I would be guilty o’ malfeeance if I didn’t go in there an take out this evildoer before he can do any more evil.

“An so, mah fellow humans, I ask your support for a U.S. invasion ta bring down this evildoer Saddam, and for your future support of any an all U.S. military actions against any evildoers, wherever they may lurk an whoever they may be. For evildoers are all around us an th war against evil must never cease until evil is wiped out or I get re-elected, whichever comes first. Thank you.”

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Coffee megastar has the bucks to settle name-blame lawsuit

Samantha Buck Lundberg has a small coffee shop in Astoria, Oregon. Nothing unusual about that.

What’s somewhat unusual about Samantha’s shop is its name: “Sambuck’s.” It was derived by splicing the first part of her given name, “Sam,” with her maiden name, “Buck.”

Harmless enough, you think? Not to the legal watchdogs of the coffee megalocorporation, Starbucks.

Last month, Starbucks sued Samantha, charging that the name of her shop violated Starbucks’ trademark. At this writing, she’s vowing to fight the Seattle-based coffee titan.

I don’t know a whole lot about trademark law, but it seems to me this case opens a couple of cans of very wriggly worms.

For one thing, which part of the name “Sambuck’s” is the problem? Is it “Sam” or is it “Buck”? Or is it the two parts together?

And where do you draw the line? What if a guy named Sam Buck opens a coffee shop and calls it “Sam Buck’s Espresso”?

What if a guy named Walt opens a discount retail store and calls it “Walt’s Mart”? Will Wal-Mart sic its legal bloodhounds on him?

Or how about “Kay’s Mart”?

Starbucks offered Samantha money to settle the suit; she countered with a demand for $60,000, which Starbucks turned down.

“We still hope that this can be resolved amicably, and only hope that their attorney is not encouraging them to look for a windfall,” Starbucks officially huffed.

Well, $60,000 doesn’t seem like that much of a windfall. But the legal tussle already has brought Samantha a windfall, in terms of publicity.

Business at her shop is booming as never before. People not only are flocking in to buy coffee and biscotti, they’re also chipping in to help Samantha in her court fight. In August, her supporters picketed the Starbucks in Portland’s Pioneer Square.

As I said earlier, I don’t know much about trademark law. But I do know a little bit about public relations, and I have some free advice for Starbucks:

Pay the $60,000.

Public relations-wise, this couldn’t come at a worse time for you guys.

You try hard to project a warm and fuzzy image; your Web site proudly declares: “Contributing positively to our communities and environment is so important to Starbucks it is listed as a guiding principle of the company’s mission.”

But let’s face it, guys: It’s not working.

Your company, which started out more than 30 years ago as a little coffee shop in Seattle, has grown into a detested icon of multinational capitalism and its evils.

Something called the Organic Consumers Association (see http://www.organicconsumers.org/starbucks/index.htm) has targeted you for a leafleting campaign, accusing you of feeding genetically modified products to your customers and buying coffee produced by exploited workers.

There’s even a Web site called “I Hate Starbucks” (http://www.ihatestarbucks.com) and another one called, simply, “Starbucked” (http://www.starbucked.com), filled with complaints about poor service, rude managers and so on.

And now, here you are, living up to your Big Bad Corporate Bully image by beating up on one poor struggling small-business owner in Astoria.

Gentlemen, this is public relations stupidity of astronomical proportions. Your company has more than 4,700 shops all over the world. The danger that Sambuck’s of Astoria will cut into your market share seems remote, to put it mildly.

And $60,000 is probably less than you spend on wooden coffee stirrers in a week.

On the other hand, your vendetta against Samantha Buck Lundberg is costing you the equivalent of millions in public relations damage.

So cut your losses. Pay the $60,000 and fuhgeddaboudit. Even if by now you have to kick in another $20K or so, it’s worth it.

Anyway, the whole issue seems kind of silly because the founders of Starbucks stole the name in the first place: “Starbuck” is the first mate on the Pequod in Moby Dick.

Maybe Herman Melville’s descendants should be suing YOU for copyright infringement.

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The coast is clear: Ticky-tacky tourism towns take root here, too

I’ve been to the Oregon Coast many times and at many places, from Astoria down to Bandon, but last week was the first time I’d made the trip to Cannon Beach.

Everybody told me I’d be missing the best of the Oregon Coast if I didn’t go to Cannon Beach. It was the most charming, the most beautiful, the most delightful, the quaintest of all Oregon Coast towns, they said.

Both by temperament and by training as a journalist I’m wary of superlatives, so for more than 15 years I resisted the highly touted allure of Cannon Beach. But last week I finally gave in and went there.

Cannon Beach was everything it was cracked up to be. It was quaint. It was beautiful. It was delightful. It was charming.

It was so charming that after about 20 minutes we got sick of it and left.

Every shop and restaurant, and almost every residence, in Cannon Beach is built in classic Coastal Faux Primitive style: weathered gray shingles, weathered gray shake roofs, spotless white-painted window frames and trim.

It’s a style that originated in the famous seacoast communities of New England – Nantucket, Chatham, Provincetown – that were around for more than 200 years before Cannon Beach sold its first molded epoxy replica of Haystack Rock.

Not that there were many molded epoxy replicas of Haystack Rock to be found in Cannon Beach, as far as that goes. There were lots of art galleries, not to mention “art” galleries. And there were lots of shops selling ticky-tacky souvenirs and stuff, but most of it was haute ticky-tacky, a more recherché product than one can typically scoop up in, say, Seaside or Lincoln City.

Despite that, the appeal of Cannon Beach soon wore thin. With a few minor architectural variations, it was just like a dozen other tourist-trap towns we’d been to – Carmel in California, New Hope in Pennsylvania, Lahaina in Maui, Sisters in Oregon.

Same kinds of cutesy-poo little shops with cutesy-poo names. Same crowds of T-shirt-clad, dazed-looking tourists shuffling along the sidewalks and sloshing in and out of the shops like waves lapping over tide pools.

What all of these tourist-trap places have in common is a certain air of non-reality. They’re artificial places. No-places. They are as remote from this world as Jupiter or Disneyland.

Some of them (e.g., Sisters) apparently set out to make themselves that way; others (Carmel, New Hope) evolved into a state of non-reality. Either way, the result’s the same.

Incredibly, Bend, in spite of enormous tourist (excuse me, “visitor”) numbers, has managed to remain a real place.

The downtown and the neighborhoods have great architectural variety. There are “visitors” walking around downtown, sure, but there’s still a sense that this is a real downtown where real people go to buy things, do business, get a cup of coffee or a meal.

Bend has maintained its grip on reality, it seems, mostly by luck. But there are disturbing signs – the flap over street vendors, for example – that we’re losing it.

There are people who would like nothing better, no doubt, than to see Bend become another Cannon Beach – everything spotless and perfect and harmonious and devastatingly boring.

At the other extreme from those who would like Bend to become No-place are those who would like to turn it into Anyplace – a sprawling amoeba of chain fast-food restaurants, outlet malls and big-box stores looking exactly like any of its 10,000 counterparts across the country.

At present, the solution the city seems to favor is the schizophrenic one: Let the No-place admirers have their way on the Westside, while letting everything east of the Bend Parkway turn into Anyplace. Indeed, the process already is far advanced.

Is this a practical, permanent solution? I don’t think so.

Contrary to common Westside belief, those of us on the Eastside are not knuckle-dragging Neanderthals who live in caves and eat raw jackrabbits. Many of us DO have aesthetic sensibilities, and many of us are sick and tired of seeing the area we live in turned into a dumping ground for every manner of schlock while the West Siders bite their knuckles about every tree that’s cut and every rock that’s moved.

Sooner or later, in fact, enough of us may grow significantly sick and tired to try to have the East Side incorporated as a separate city.

Instead of the schizo solution, Bend needs to chart a middle course that will set reasonable aesthetic standards throughout the city without imposing a suffocating uniformity. I don’t know what this magic middle course between No-place and Anyplace is, but it’s got to be out there Someplace.

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