The other day, I was compelled to pick up a couple tins of the Original Celebrated Altoids, the Curiously Strong peppermints that have been an almost constant fixture in my house since I was a lad. I can easily remember the first time I popped three of the little lozenges into my eagerly waiting gob, and thought my head would leave my neck, and rocket into orbit from the rsulting blast of curiously strong peppermint multiplied by three. Lesson learned. Even a single Altoid was intense enough to make the senses take serious notice. Peppermint isn’t a match for capsaicin for a pure incendiary wallop, but it freshens the mouth, settles an upset stomach, and can be pleasantly refreshing. Altoids did their job with aplomb, if not a bomb.

Why the past tense? Some time ago, it now seems, my beloved Altoids were emasculated, and for some reason, I never noticed it until tonight, when my not-quite-five year old brought the tin from the kitchen, and asked, “Daddy, may I have a mint?” I unwrapped the tin, now clad in the cellophane condom that has become almost ubiquitous on any item meant for human consumption, flipped open the lid, and offered them to him. He took one, popped it into his eagerly waiting gob, and delivered nary a wince.

At first, I was impressed with what I thought to be an already well developed poker-face. When he then proffered the tin to me, I, manly man that I am, at least in the little guy’s eyes, took one and prepared for the showdown; I’d beat the tot at his little game of gustatory poker. As the mint began its slow dissolution, I became aware of two things. First, I can sometimes be far to competitive. Sure, it’s not like a chili eating competition with that peculiar woman from India who has pursued a world’s record eating the bio-hazardous Bhut Jolokia, but he’s just a little guy, and engaging in even this harmless “contest” borders on the ludicrous. Okay. Another lesson learned.

But, second, it hit me that Altoids just don’t seem all that Curiously Strong any more. What happened? I read the inner liner, which described in some small detail, the history of Altoids, the original recipe having been developed at the turn of the 19th century by London’s Smith & Co., later becoming part of Callard & Bowser, “a prestigious English confectioner established in 1837.” Interesting to know. Certainly, this prestigious firm was the one that produced the mints that both delighted and tormented me as a child, and through most of my life. Reading on, I learn that Altoids are still made to the “same exacting standards as the original Altoids recipe developed more than 200 years ago.”

The construction of that sentence is informative. Something being made to the same standards is not the same as something being made to the same recipe. Standards establish the formulae, the protocols, the manufacturing methods used, and as long as they are adhered to, exactly, the product will be the same, exactly. And while this sentence clearly labors to lead the consumer to infer that the recipe is the same, it doesn’t quite say that, literally. To my palate, the recipe has, in fact, changed. I took two more mints, making a total of three, the same number that threatened to launch my noggin when I was little, and was repaid with something close to the experience I remember, not all that long ago, from a single lozenge. I can live with that. When I want the genuinely Curiously Strong blast of peppermint, I’ll take three, though I will continue to feel slightly deceived.

After examining the box carefully, I found the once familiar “Made in England” appellation had gone missing. So, these still pleasant mints are different from the old ones in more ways than one. Doing a little fingerwork, I discovered that the brand had been purchased by Wrigley in 2004, and towards the end of 2005, it was announced that they would close the factory in the UK, moving all production to Tennessee. These, then, aren’t my father’s Altoids. What’s next - Marmite made in Minnesota?

Brand identity is an interesting thing. I’ve consumed hundreds of tins of Altoids over the years, and, apparently, have simply missed the fact that, over time, the mints may have changed. The packaging looks pretty much as it always has, and I’ve simply wandered the dark hallways of assumption, not noticing that something may be different, until my attention was called to this fact by the reaction, or lack of reaction, of a not-quite-five year old.

This led me to begin thinking about other products that have endured change through the careful management of brand identity. I’m often asked if I produce any blends similar to the venerable Balkan Sobranie. Today, I ask in response, “What vintage?” It’s not meant to be glib, but is a question informed by something that I’ve become aware of after studying that particular blend for almost a decade.

When, in about 1980, I experienced my first tin of Balkan Sobranie, I began a love affair with it, and with similar Balkan and English mixtures, that was to last through the present, and hopefully, will linger for a few more decades. Everything about it appealed to me, from the timeless label art, to the little paper disk hiding behind the pleated paper insert, to the beautiful presentation of the tobaccos inside. I loved the smell of a freshly opened tin, and the wonderful aroma that wafted from my pipe as I puffed contentedly from first light to dottle. I always had a tin open, and a few more in the cellar for aging. And, that’s where it gets interesting.

When I began G. L. Pease, one of the things I set out to do was to understand the classic blends in a deeper way that I had before. I wanted to learn more about the effects of age, and how memories can influence taste experience. Revisiting some of those old tins of Balkan Sobranie seemed a great place to begin the study. I pulled tins from the cellar from different years, and acquired older ones to fill out the “research.” (Of course, this was just a thinly veiled ploy to smoke a bunch of wonderfully aged vintage tobacco, but humor me, please.) What I discovered was quite interesting; over the years, the blend had undergone quite a few changes - some subtle, others, not so much. And, if I noticed any of the changes, I didn’t take notice of them.

The most obvious difference was the cut of the leaf. I found everything from a fine ribbon in later tins, to a fairly chunky cut in earlier ones. But, there were other, qualitative difference through the years, as well. Of course, the pre- ca. 1960 blend relied on Syrian Latakia, while that which was made later was formulated with its Cyprian cousin. And, at some point, the Yenidje that was so distinctive in the earlier tins was replaced by some other, more generic oriental leaf. The virginias, too, seemed different when I examined and tasted the blends critically, doing my best to subtract the effects of time. Not big changes, but noticeable ones, especially when looking backwards.

How could I have not noticed these differences during all those years of enjoying this classic? The answer must lie in the management of the brand identity. The tins looked the same, so, as with Altoids, I assumed the contents were constant. Changes were made gradually, so as not to call attention to them, and this, coupled with a consistency of presentation and my subconscious, brand managed illusion that the status quo would always be preserved, led me toward the bliss of relative subjective ignorance.

Now that I’m much more objective in my exploration of tobacco blends, these things would probably not escape my attention, but, that’s what I do for a living. I wonder how many other products have changed over the years without my awareness - or permission.

The tired old adage is true; you really can’t judge a book by its cover.

-glp

It’s been quite a while since my last entry. It’s not that I’ve had nothing to say, though there have been many days when I felt that to be the case. It’s not that I’m really that lazy, or just couldn’t bring myself to overcome inertia long enough to tap out a few hundred words. It’s not that I’ve been so damn busy I haven’t had the time. It’s probably just that nothing has inspired me to write, at least here. Until today. There’s nothing like a good ire-in-the-making to get the juices flowing with enough force to move the mind and the fingers to tap-tap-tapping.

So, here I am, more than a bit nettled. Today, I received a letter from a service to which I have subscribed for a couple years, informing me that they’ve upgraded my service to their “Premier” level, and extolling the vast virtues of all of the great features and benefits (both of them) that I will soon be able to take advantage of. Wow, thanks. Premier! Ain’t I just? That sounds great, right? But, as I read along, since I actually do read these things through, I learn that this wonderful increased benefit will only cost me an extra $4 per month. Um. Thanks?

This company has provided me with good service, and I do appreciate the offer to upgrade. But, it’s not really an offer, is it? In order not to take advantage of this new benefit, I have to call a number and “opt out.” Wait a minute. I didn’t “opt in.” I subscribed to something in good faith, and now, they’re changing the terms of our explicit agreement without even the courtesy of asking me first. It’s like going to the grocery store, putting some things in my trolley, and having the checkout clerk put a few more things in while ringing them up, then explaining that if I don’t want them, even though I should, because they’re really good things, I can sort them out and they’ll be removed from my bill.

I despise guerrilla sales tactics of this sort. Send me a note, offer me something, and let me decide whether or not I want it. That’s fine. That’s sales. I can disregard the offer or accept, as I choose. But, this isn’t like that. Instead, they’re banking on the high probability that their subscribers will read the first paragraph, ignore the rest (the part about the additional charge), and notice nothing unusual until the increased charge appears on their credit card statement. Then, if these same subscribers ignore the details on the CC statement, as so many people do (there are some people who still don’t know how risky that can be), the seller of this subscription gains a substantial increase in their gross revenues, at least for a month or two.

Then, when the subscriber calls to return to the “non Premier” service they’d originally signed up for, a “customer service agent,” which in too many cases is just a fancy word for a magazine salesman, will waste minutes of their time, rattling on about just how valuable this new Premier service is, and that they really should keep it. It’s greater peace of mind, they’ll say. It’s only $4, after all. Isn’t $4 a small price to pay for added peace of mind?

That’s $4 per month. Every month. On top of the $4.99 per month for the non-Premier service. For those who don’t want to break out their calculators, this is about an 80% increase in the originally agreed upon subscription rate.

The letter goes on to explain the new benefits. One is something I find completely useless. The other is the promise that I will receive “Up to $20,000 identity theft insurance at no additional charge.” No additional charge? The way I reckon this, there’s a $4/month additional charge for this service. New York customers really get the shaft, since this insurance is not available to them. So, they get to pay an additional $4/month for a single, arguably useless, additional service…

I’m not complaining about the service this company provides me, or what they’ve provided me in the past. I’m tweaked, however, that they find it completely acceptable to simply put something in my shopping trolley, and make me responsible for doing the work to take it out.

What’s next? Will I go to the petrol pump, only to find that whilst filling my tank, someone has put new windscreen wipers on, and topped up the washer fluid, all for an 80% increased cost? “Oh, you can take them off, and put your old ones back, and we’ll credit you for the new ones. But, you know, it’s really a good idea to have new ones, since it might rain one day, and the old ones might be pretty beat up by then. And, the fluid, well, it’s better than the stuff we sold you last week, and it will be a little difficult to remove it now…” (If you live in New York, you get to pay for the wipers and the washing fluid, but you only get the wipers, since the fluid is not legal there.)

I’m not a lawyer, and have never played one on television, but this strikes me as walking perilously on the razor’s edge of fraud. I’m sure their counsel has ensured that they’re following the letter of the law, and to hell with the spirit of fair play. I’m equally sure that dozens of analysts have determined that the profits they’ll gain through this sort of sales tactic are far greater than if they’d simply asked me, and hundreds of thousands of other subscribers, if they’d choose to sign up for this enhanced service. “Well, it’s already there, and it’s only $4, after all.” Every month.

The only decision I have to make now is whether to simply “opt out” of the aristocratic “Premier” service, returning to the proletariat’s standard version I’d had in the past, or cancel the service completely. I really don’t want to support this sort of thing, and even though the service has been good, I’m sure there’s another that is just as good, and I won’t get my trolley augmented. At least for a while.

There’s a shiny new car parked in front of my house, and the keys have mysteriously appeared in my pocket. I wonder who put it there. I guess I’ll find it when the bill arrives…

It’s a bold claim, but I’ll stand by it. I’ve never been excited by bread knives, thinking them more of a necessary evil than something I’d ever really shout about. But the Shun Kershaw Pure Komachi 8″ Bread Knife is both a real mouthful and a real gem of a kitchen tool.

It’s a little loud, almost psychedelic, with its yellow coating and transparent yellow handle, but in use, it’s all business. The curve of the ultra-sharp, serrated blade makes cutting through a loaf an effortless task, and that gaudy handle is really quite comfortable. The knife is very well balanced, and nothing seems to stick to the fluorinated surface coating. I’ve had mine for a couple months, now, and it continues to emerge victorious from every Battle of the Baguette, while never even breaking a sweat. Additionally, for those who don’t keep their knives shaving sharp, it’ll serve double-duty, gliding easily through tomatoes and other sometimes tricky-to-cut stuff. This may well be the best $20 I’ve spent on a kitchen knife. If you want one, too, click here to get one from The Knife Center.

While I’m at it, also highly recommended is the 7-1/8″ Stainless Damascus Santoku from A. G. Russell. While I still prefer the balance and speed of a more traditional chef’s knife for most of my preparation work, there are things at which the Santoku excels. The granton grooves help to keep foods from sticking or slowing down the cut, and the stainless damascus holds a superb edge that had proved quite durable. This is an almost perfect all-purpose knife. I’ve been using mine for over a year, and it’s holding up beautifully.

Hello. My name is Greg, and I collect things. This is not, by any stretch of thought, a brag out of vanity, but rather, a simple confession, likely in vain. Collecting has become an addiction. If one is good, more than one is better, and many are better still. It’s more than a simple dysfunction. It’s like a retrovirus that has integrated itself permanently into my DNA, expressing itself at will by causing me to fill my world with stuff. So far, there seems to be no cure. Maybe I’ll try intervention. They say confession is good for the soul, but I can probably figure out a way to collect those, too, written on the backs of envelopes and scraps of paper that will be filed in one of the many shoe boxes I’ve collected for just such a purpose.

Anatole France wrote, “That which distinguishes man from animals is lying and literature.” I’d like to add collecting things to that short list. Sure, there are the odd birds or rodents that gather things, taking them back to their nests, perhaps even taking some pride in their shiny new possessions, but only man does this volitionally, seeking out fellow collectors, befriending them, then taunting them with their newest acquisitions. My friend George, bedeviled by something of the same disease, and with whom I’ve sometimes engaged in this endless duel of desire, likens this taunting to the behavior of “Two drunks in the parking lot, launching haymakers at each other,” the sort of fusillade where neither, “Comes within a foot of connecting, and they keep falling over from losing their balance.”

Thanks, George. It’s the losing balance part that caught my attention, and not just metaphorically. This morning, I fell over some of the not-yet-organized stuff, and bonked my head, briefly knocking some sense into myself; I have to do something about this stuff. I’ll confess.

“What’s the big deal?” echoes the cry from legions of the afflicted. “Lots of people collect things.” Right. Stamp collectors have shelves of neatly organized volumes, each containing their precious acquisitions, ordered by country, by year, or sometimes by subject. Coin collectors, I suspect, have some similar method of arranging the objects of their passion so that it makes some sense. I envy these people their specialties, and their meticulous, Swiss watch sense of order. Me? I’m more of a generalist. I collect collections. I bring new meaning to the colloquial expression, “collecting dust.”

Humorist George Carlin once discussed the natural impulse for people to collect “stuff.” We buy homes, fill them to overflowing with stuff, then move into larger containers. In a slightly paranoid Pacino moment, I think, “You talkin’ to me, George? I don’t see anyone else around here. You talkin’ to me?” We, collectors, attempt to balance our budgets so that the sum we spend on our containers still leaves sufficient “discretionary income” to fill them sufficiently. Then, we look for better jobs with higher incomes, in preparation for the next iteration, like the instructions on the shampoo bottle. Collect, move, repeat.

Ay, there’s the rub. When stuff reaches something of a critical mass, large enough to trip over, the organization of it requires more stuff. We need boxes for things, shelves for the boxes, rooms for the shelves, buildings for the rooms…

I’ve got books, for example, all over the place. Many of them have been read, but I continue to believe I need to keep them around. I might want to read them again. I might want to share them with someone else. I might want to, some day in the future, find some little tidbit that I thought meaningful when I read it. (That I would never actually be able to find that tidbit doesn’t seem to come into consideration, except for those brief moments of lucidity, like this one, and I’m sure I’ll forget it before reaching the end of this.)

Others, I’m in the process of reading. (Don’t even ask about the accumulated hours lost while trying to figure out which of the books in which of those stacks will be the one I pick up on the way to the reading chair, or the loo, beside which several others already sit, also waiting to be finished.)

I’ve got bookshelves filled to overflowing, and boxes of books, and stacks of books. There are books in every corner of every room. I pay money for a storage lockup, filled, largely, with boxes of books. And, that’s just the books.

I need to write things often, and I like writing with fountain pens. In fact, I don’t use anything else, unless forced to by necessity, like filling out multi-part forms, or when I can’t find a fountain pen because they’re all hidden under other stuff. Naturally, I have more than one. I’d count them, but that would require finding them all, and doing that so soon after bonking my head (I’m still a little fuzzy from that) would put my body in peril of falling over something else. This isn’t about pens, though, or books. They’re just two examples ouf of many of things that overwhelm the space around me. It could just as well be pocket knives, time pieces, pipes, electric guitars, sliderules, photographic equipment. Oh, wait. It is all those things. This is worse than I thought.

I like to think that my habit for acquiring derives from a deep appreciation of the things I gather. Each is unique. Each has its own character, it’s own beauty. How can I get rid of any one of them, without somehow deprecating the “collection.” Justification is sometimes its own crippling reward.

The real truth, though, is something quite different. I hoard things, like a squirrel stashing nuts for the winter. This probably stems more from a latent fear of scarcity than an overt desire for abundance, though these are arguably two faces of the same coin. If I get rid of the things that I’ve acquired, I might never be able to acquire them again, right?

There’s nothing really new or truly revelatory embedded within this self-seemingly brilliant ray of illumination. In fact, it’s pretty damned obvious, even to one so blinded by the burden as I am. But, in this light, I can resolve to free myself of the shackles of possessions, at least some of them, and know that I’d live a simpler, more peaceful life, closer to a state of samadhi without the big bag of rocks on my back. I’ve done it before - made that resolution. It works for a couple days, or a week or two, and then, some shiny little trinket sparks my interest, drawing me to it like a raven to a wristwatch, and the cycle begins anew, casting me back into the comfortable shadows of my Acquisition Disorder. I’m convinced it’s a form of OCD, and that medical science should work hard to develop psych-drugs to combat it - some sort of selective possession re-uptake inhibitor. (I want royalties on that one, or at least a seat in the experimental group.)

Barring this medical miracle, I may be doomed to live with the disease as best I can. Sometimes, I feel a bit like the eccentric Arthur Lidz in the film, Unstrung Heroes. One day, I will simply disappear, only to be discovered years later, after a protracted excavation of what was once my home, my desiccated corpse found under piles of the stuff of my prior existence. Cause of death? Complications of collecting.

Now, I must close. My eye just fell upon a nice little piece of aluminum foil that will be the perfect addition to that large ball of the stuff I’ve been building for a few years. You never know what it’ll come in handy, and I don’t know anyone else who has one.

Several years ago - could it be over a decade? - I was eating with some friends at one of the local Indian restaurants that I’d become quite fond of. I’d come to know the people there, and there were often tasty treats available to their friends that were not on the menu. Most of us were willing to put our culinary fates into the hands of our waiter. As there were about half a dozen of us that evening, an excellent feast was promised, and I had little doubt it would be delivered.

One of our party, I’ll call him The Fireclown (with apologies to Michael Moorcock), had to have his own way. He often took great and foolish pride in proclaiming that the chile had not been bred that could best him. (This was long before the development of the Dorset Naga, a fruit I’m sure would have sent even him scurrying to find the nearest tequila-charged fire extinguisher. ) He would brag to anyone who would listen about his superhuman tolerance for hot food. His asbestos lined tongue, it seems, was a living legend in his own mouth, immune to spice that would all but kill any mere mortal.

We’ve all known people like him. In fact, all but the most timid amongst us have probably even been people like him at one time or another, though certainly not to his extreme. It’s part of human nature to want to set ourselves apart from the crowd at times. Still, I’ve known few who could in their wildest explorations of arrogance come close to Fireclown’s relentless braggadocio. In any situation, he would boastfully proclaim superiority in word or deed to those around him.

His company was not completely without merit, though. Often, his antics were entertaining, even bordering on witty, and he did have an interesting perspective on many subjects about which he knew far less than he claimed. (This, of course, is the impetus for the “Clown” syllable of the sobriquet I’ve assigned him for the purpose of this little tale.) Once past his more annoying qualities, his entertainment value could actually be reasonably high.

When it was Fireclown’s turn to order his chosen dish, a lamb vindaloo, if I recall correctly, he took great pains to specify that he wanted it very, VERY hot.

“Yes, sir.” Our waiter’s polite acquiescence apparently was not sufficient to demonstrate that he fully understood; Fireclown had to drive home the point with his usual level of finesse - the subtlety of a pile-driver in top gear.

“You know how hot YOU like it? I want it that hot, and more. As hot as you can make it hot. Got me?”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Damn hot. Hell fire hot. So hot, it eats through the pan when it’s cooking.” He delivered this with an increasingly annoying, loud, accented speech that some affect when trying to ensure that the little foreign man will understand the English. I despise this habit, and shrunk a bit from embarrassment, but somehow sensed that his behavior just might be repaid in an edible form of incendiary instant karma. This could be good.

“Yes, sir. Very, very hot.” He imitated Fireclown’s affectation accurately.

As he turned, he winked a little wink, and wore the sort of smile Siva might while dancing and destroying universes. We were in for a show. When Fireclown excused himself to make a phone call, I warned the remaining cabal that it might be a smart to steer well clear of his dish when it arrived.

While we waited, delightful aromas emanated from the kitchen, perfuming the air with tempting spice, teasing our senses to great heights of anticipation, and stimulating our appetites well beyond ravenous. Finally, when food was brought to table, steaming and beautiful, a feast of rich and earthy colors for the eye met with clear and vocal appreciation, we were well ready to devour it. The last dish to be placed was Fireclown’s: lamb, simmered in napalm.

We ate, forgetting, for the moment, the potential show expected from Fireclown’s end of the table - he always sat at the end. Everything was exceptional; delicate flavors, enhanced, not overwhelmed, by the piquancy of skillfully and aptly added chiles, and we readily shared the dishes - all except for the one that sat untouched by all but one.

FIreclown served himself, took a bite, and broke an almost instant sweat, first on his nose, then his forehead. His pain was evident. Within what seamed to be seconds, his shirt was saturated in large rings under his arms, then along the button line. A humbler man, or perhaps just a sensible one, would have admitted defeat in that first bite, would have begged for mercy from the waiter, would have stopped eating, accepting that the game was up, that he’d lost the battle. Not Fireclown. He still clung desperately to hold his cards close, apparently unaware of the externally visible evidence of his internal inferno. And, he ate. Bite, by slow, pain-inducing bite. He was going to suffer through it, or die trying.

“Now THAT’S the way a curry should be made,” he gasped, almost unintelligibly, between deep gulps of water. Slowly, he continued, tiny taste after tiny taste, fueling the conflagration that was raging on his carpet bombed tongue. The performance might have inspired Dante to create one additional circle of Hell had he witnessed it. He offered tastes of his dish, politely declined.

Several times, Siva would dance over to check on us. “Everything okay?” He gave Fireclown plenty of opportunities to cry uncle. Pride, the one thing he would not swallow, prevailed.

“Wonderful,” the rest responded. “Excellent!” “Delicious!” “Beautiful flavors!”

Fireclown’s response was less convincing. “Yeah, this is the way it should be,” he wheezed. “This is what I’m talkin’ about.” By this point, he was simmering in a sauce of his own sweat.

Siva grinned. “More water, sir?”

The other day I attended a truly great party. Why the qualifying language? Too many parties lately seem to be little more than a mind-numbing gathering of narcissists with little better to do than try to impress each other with their most recent accomplishments, or rapacious pseudo-raconteurs obsessed with their recent acquisitions. I guess I don’t get invited to the right parties often. Maybe this says something about me, but never mind that. This one was actually fun. Good folks, good food, good wine, and some interesting conversation.

I managed to stumble my way into a passionate discussion about life paths, which, after an extended prologue, turned to that dismaying topic of what people do for a living. “What do you do?” I don’t like that question, and never have. I suppose they don’t want to know that I play guitar, pet my dogs, smoke pipes, make and exhibit black and white photographs, ride mountain bikes, fence, restore sport cars, listen to music, cook, eat, spend time with people I like. What do I do for a living? Ah. That’s always what they want to know. That’s often what defines a person in our society.

“I blend pipe tobacco.” Glazed looks. When I say this, especially here in California, I usually get the feeling that the word “Pariah” has been tattooed on my forehead in neon ink, or that I should turn around to show the “Merchant of Death - Please Kick Me” sign that has suddenly found itself stapled to my backside. Better to move on.

“I’m a student.” Puzzled expressions that someone in his 40s is a student. A student of what, I’m sure they instantly wondered. Good question. A student of everything, I suppose, but that wouldn’t satisfy anyone. A copout never does. I suppose their puzzlement is at least somewhat warranted. What IS a guy my age doing in school? Shouldn’t I be making a living, ice-picking my way up the corporate ladder, bringing up kids, driving an SUV? Acquiring things so I can impress people at parties? Shouldn’t I be done with the silliness of school? Gads, what if they ask what school I attend, what I’m studying, why anyone would want to study THAT? Recover. Fast. A quick parry and riposte.

“I’m a writer.” Touché. NOW they seemed interested. Why this would interest people, I’ll never understand. It seems that every third person you meet is a writer. Big deal.

“Do you write fiction or nonfiction?”

I don’t really understand the need for this distinction. I write. What else matters? I considered saying, “The alphabet, in various salubrious combinations, along with little dots of punctuation on occasion. But, mostly the alphabet.” That would surely bring more glassy eyes gazing my direction, but really staring at the wall behind me. I chose to sail a different tack.

“It’s all fiction, really. Isn’t it?” The eyes indicated that I had apparently spoken some great and profound truth, though I was really only being glib, buying a second or two, trying to cover up the fact that I really don’t make much money writing, that I feel a little self-conscious calling myself a writer, and that I’d have to go back to discussing blending pipe tobacco, and light up the neon “pariah” sign if this didn’t go the right way.

A friend of mine, whose father sculpts beautiful things in stone and bronze, once said, “Dad’s not really an artist. He doesn’t ever sell anything.” Those damnable words echo in my head every time I attempt to convince editors or the world - or, myself, really - that I’m a writer. Sure, I sell a little, but probably not nearly enough, under my friend’s rules, to call myself a writer. The words echo, and I have to find a way to silence them. But, isn’t a writer just someone who writes? I didn’t say, after all, that I was an author. That’s a very different bag of cats. Fortunately, I didn’t say I was a poet. Poets never make any money, but we write poetry because it’s what poets do. I’d probably have been requested to recite some “Owl and the Pussycat” rhyme to satisfy curious ears.

With the ball back in my court, though, I had to play it, or feign some sudden and dramatic illness; the back of a pallid hand pressed flaccidly against a sweaty brow, eyelids fluttering, and a good case of the vapors. Hardly my style. I hadn’t had nearly enough wine to pull off a convincing performance.

“Whatever we write, whatever stories we tell are colored by our own subjective perception and faulty memories of our illusions of reality, and are therefore fiction. Really, the recording of objective reality wouldn’t be all that interesting, would it? So, isn’t it all fiction in a way?” Apparently, I’d had enough wine, after all.

A fellow at the end of the table, an educator of some sort, piqued up. “How very true! I’d never really looked at it that way, but of course, you’re right. What is reality, after all, beyond our perception of it?” We’d all had enough wine, it seems.We’d paddled into the puddles of platitudes.

I had dodged the bullet, though. I’d turned the conversation toward something more philosophical, less personal, and could avert any further discussion about what I “do.” It was a pleasant direction to steer things, after all.

We ended up wandering down metaphysical pathways for quite some time, our thoughts and tongues being well oiled by the endless supply of some excellent Pinot Noir, and some delightful cigars, ingeniously lit with the still glowing coals from the BBQ.

Next time this question arises, and I know it will, I may be slightly bolder. Or, I’ll just say that I’m a bum. They’ll assume, or even know I’m a writer, and the topic will slide toward something more comfortable for all involved. Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?

Today is election day. I couldn’t happier. It’s not that I’m all that excited about the choices, but the daily postbox full of idiot spawned propaganda will finally cease.

I realize I could simply ignore the stuff, tossing it into the recycle bin before raising my blood pressure by actually reading it, but for some reason, I can’t help myself. I suppose it’s my fascination with human nature, coupled with my desire to attempt to comprehend the depths to which the propagandists will lower themselves in their efforts to pander to the public. They apparently think we’re quite stupid. They could be right. Their techniques just might work. In fact, sadly, they probably will.

I could be wrong, but I seem to recall that the propaganda was once reasonably well constructed. Rather than simply throwing scare tactics into the fan, causing the frightening imagery and bite-sized irrational syllogisms to be sprayed at the unsuspecting, the propagandists would actually craft something resembling a cogent argument that took more than 15 seconds to read. Not any more.

My favorite, so far, is the stuff that’s been coming about Proposition 87, which is basically a proposal to add a 1.3% severance tax on oil production in the state of California. Without getting into why this is a very badly thought out proposal, I will simply say that I’m against it for many reasons. However, there are a bunch of people, clearly, who think it’s the solution to the world’s ills, and are willing to go to any lengths to dragoon people into voting for it.

A full color, coated stock, glossy sheet shows, on the obverse, a typical photograph of G. W. looking smug, with a background of a war scene - soldiers with guns, burning Humvee, the works. A red block with white letters reads, “He Took Us To War In The Middle East.” At the bottom, “On November 7th, Your Vote Can Help Get Us Out.” On verso, we’re told that America is too dependent on foreign oil, that we’ll continue fighting wars in the Middle East for centuries unless we end our “addiction” (I’m not making this up) and switch to alternative fuels.

Okay, that’s fine. We are too dependent on oil, and particularly, on foreign oil. We do need to seek alternatives. And, we are. A lot of really smart people are working hard to find alternative methods of fueling our vehicles, and heating our homes. But, these spin-doctors seem to imply, no, do imply, that imposing this 1.3% tax on oil production, IN CALIFORNIA, will end the conflict in Iraq. Huh?

Another broadsheet simply states that voting YES on Proposition 87 will “Change Our Course In Iraq and In America.” I’d love to see how this works. If I pay more for toothpaste, will it end world famine?

Frankly, I find it a bit insulting. I could go on for hours as to why this sort of tax would be bad for California’s economy, how it would result in an unfair increase in the division between the classes, how it won’t solve a damn thing, other than to, ultimately, increase the cost of living in the state that already ranks in the top five. But, my analysis could be wrong, though I doubt it’s far off the mark, and this isn’t really about that anyway.

This is about the insidious, unethical advertising that has become part and parcel of the political process in America today. In interpersonal relationships, this sort of thing is called lying. In marketing, it’s called advertising. (It’s no less egregious there, but probably not as harmful to the fabric of the nation.) In politics, it’s called campaigning. And, it’s wrong. I’m not talking about morality, but about ethics, and a code of decency that we seem to have left behind, apparently with no bread trail back to where we came from. It makes me sick.

For Proposition 86, a proposed tobacco tax that imposes an additional $2.60 cent per pack excise tax on cigarettes, with commensurate taxes for other tobacco products, the glossy sheet tells us, “According to The Tobacco Industry: Nicotine Isn’t Addictive. Cigarettes Aren’t That Bad For You. And Proposition 86 Won’t Save Lives” Ah, the sweet fallacy of composition. They want us to see that since Big Tobacco made the first two fallacious claims, and they did at one time, that they are expected to make the third, and that it is, therefore, an equivalent untruth. In fact, it is unrelated to the first two, and as far as I know, Big Tobacco has never promoted the third idea. The reality is, this is just another example of some politico attempting to graft money out of a marginalized group in an effort to fund their own special interests, and those of some small part of their constituency. Bah. But, again, it’s not really about this one issue, though for obvious reasons, this is an important one to many of my readers. I could write similar things about almost everything on today’s ballot.

Yes, they believe that the public is stupid enough to fall for this sort of tactic, and I’m afraid they are partly right. It’s not that, as a whole, we’re stupid, but that we seem to lack the discipline or the time in our busy lives to sit down and really learn about the issues, forming intelligently considered opinions, and voting according to our minds, not our emotions. Instead, we too quickly rely on the predigested pablum put forth by these unscrupulous architects of tyranny. (Okay, that’s a bit hyperbolical, but I like the sound of it. Maybe I’m no better than they are.)

Until We The People start taking our voting responsibilities seriously, they’ll continue to get away with this, and an ever increasing panoply of wrong-minded legislation will continue to snag and snarl the threads of the very fabric of our body of law.

The politicos and their ad agencies are opportunists. They lurk in the trees like vultures waiting for an easy meal. It’s human nature, I suppose. In a way, WE are to blame for allowing this sort of thing to continue, and to escalate.

We need to, en masse, start voting with our heads, not with our hearts. We need to tell our representatives that we will no longer tolerate the sort of carnival side-show barking that has become the norm in our political system. When they lie, we need to write to them, to tell them we won’t accept it anymore, that we’re smart enough to know they’re doing it, and that we’ll remember, come ballot time, who tells it straight, and who tries to pull the wool over our collective eyes. Sadly, this won’t likely leave anyone or anything to vote for, at least for a while, but, it might be a start.

If we don’t begin to take seriously our constitutionally granted responsibilities in the polling booth, we will, as that tired old maxim states, continue to get the government we deserve.

If you’re in the US, I hope you voted today, but more, I hope you really thought about what you were voting for and against, and can sleep tonight with a clear conscience that you did the right thing according to your own sense of reason, not your emotional response. If not, I’ve been saving a stack of propaganda, and will be happy to mail it to you.

“When the results of the heat tests came back I was gobsmacked.” No pun intended, I’m sure. These words were spoken by Mrs. Joy Michaud of Dorset, England, as quoted from an article in the Times OnlIne. She and her husband Michael run a business called “Peppers by Post,” and have spent four years developing a chile called the Dorset Naga, apparently a cultivar of the Capsicum chinense, and at over 900,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), now the record holder for the world’s hottest chile, besting the previous record of a skimpy 577k SHU, previously held by the Red Savina, a variety of the Habañero.

When I first read the article, I saw the 1st April, 2006 date, and thought it might be just another ridiculous April Fool’s joke. A little additional searching turned up sufficient support to disprove that. This thing is real. And scary.

The Dorset Naga is a descendent of the Naga Morich, a variety originating in Bangladesh. Naga Morich means “Serpent Chile,” and some have described eating the fruit as being like “Drinking cobra venom,” not the most pleasant of images. It is apparently used in some Bangladeshi dishes, especially some fish curries, but very sparingly. Aktar Miha of the Indis Bangladeshi restaurant in Bournemouth, was quoted as saying: “Most people don’t cook with it; they just have it near to them when they eat. They just hold it by the stalk and touch their food with it. If you don’t know what you are doing it could blow your head off.” Ouch.

Everyone who knows me knows of my love for hot chiles. I grow several varieties myself, and love the wonderful and intriguing flavors the fiery fruit can add to spicy foods, in addition to their heat. Each pepper expresses its heat differently in food, and it’s fun to combine varieties to enhance the experience. But, even the mere idea of this ruthless and brutal, hell borne fruit is enough to send me running for cover. I’ll leave it for someone else to touch one to their food.

The Habañero, one of my faves, is devilishly hot, measuring 100-300,000 SHU. It’s got an engaging fragrance and a delightful, fruity, slightly floral flavor. If not treated with caution, however, it can be like a small, orange atomic hand grenade ready to explode in your mouth. When I first experimented with them, I used three in a small pot of vegetable curry, and the melange was inedible by anyone without an asbestos tongue. I was left with blisters on the backs of my fingers for days from cutting them before donning a hazmat suit. When I washed the cutting board, I choked on the pungent, toxic miasma released by the hot water; chopping the most odorous of onions is child’s play in comparison. I learned quickly, and painfully, to treat them with great care. I’ve developed a respectful relationship with the Habañero, and have learned to truly enjoy their unique qualities, as well as its cousin, the Caribbean Red, which is somewhat hotter, and has a more concentrated flavor. I’ve never ventured into the realm of the Red Savina, the previous record holder, and have little inclination in that direction any time soon.

But, something with three to nine times the explosive power of the Habañero is unthinkable, more like a portable hydrogen bomb, a culinary weapon of mass destruction than a delightful spice. The Michaud’s must be growing these things in plutonium-rich soil. I hope the Dorset Naga can be kept out of enemy hands.

Still, curiousity unsated, I looked further, and found this intriguing recipe for “Snake Bite Sauce.” Once the mental blistering from reading about this chile have healed, somewhat, I just may have to give it a try. If you don’t hear from me for a while, you’ll know why.

The inquisitive can read more information on the development of the Dorset Naga, and the truly intrepid can order the peppers directly from Peppers by Post. If you decide to try them, I wish you luck. Make sure someone is nearby to catch and reattach your head when it falls back to earth.

Addendum: After spending some time on Mark McMullan’s & Julian Livsey’s wonderful “The Chile Man’s” website, where I found the “Snake Bite Sauce” recipe, I strongly recommend anyone who has even a passing interest in the fiery fruit to visit. The information presented there is broad, with an exaustive searchable database, tips, growing guides and lovely photographs of some rarely seen pods. It is the resource for the hot-heads amongst us. I’ve only begun to plumb the depths of this site, and have found it not only very educational, but also immensely enjoyable. Nice work!

There’s a hill I’ve been trying to ride up all summer. It’s not a long hill - only a couple hundred meters or so. It starts out gently enough, and gradually becomes steeper, to the point where the grade is sufficient that the delicate balancing act of keeping the front wheel on the ground, while still maintaining enough weight back to drive the rear wheel takes all of my attention, and I just haven’t had enough leg-power to keep going, even if I could find that balance.

It’s taken weeks of attempts just to get to that certain point, marked by a pair of large oaks, standing like sentinels to the right of the path. It is at this point where I have continually come to a complete stop, having to concentrate on getting off the bike without both of us sliding back down the hill sideways; it’s steep enough to be just a little spooky dismounting. A few times, I’ve made the effort to walk the bike to the top, but more often, I’ve just turned around and enjoyed a speedy descent. I’ve never made it past those trees.

Until now.

The other day, feeling both strong and confident, I tried, once more, to attempt a ride up that hill. I approached as I always have, in low enough gears to make the final downshift into my granny gear possible, and built up as much speed as I could muster to carry me deeper into the ascent. I focused my attention, not on the trees, my previous drop-dead point, not on the top of the hill, but on a point just a few meters in front of me, and rode like nothing mattered, but the thought of getting a little farther, of breaking my own standing record. I really wanted to get past those damn trees.

The mental game is as important as strength in any sort of physical challenge like this. The focus, this time, was not on previous attempts, or on what I might have considered to be failures, but on simply realizing a new milestone. The goal was a realistic one. I didn’t set out to conquer the hill, but to get just a little farther up. I gave no thought to what would happen if I had to stop on a still steeper, spookier part of the grade, concentrating, instead, only on getting to the next step.

It wasn’t until the grade eased that I realized I’d made it. It had taken most of my muscle, leaving just enough to finish the ride up the more gentle, decreasing grade to the top. Heart pounding, legs burning like well-done roasts, I’d accomplished more than I expected. (That I could barely stand the next day is of little consequence. I’m young. I recover.)

Once again, we can learn lessons from observing the play of children, who will repeatedly and patiently try things without concern over success or failure. The two headed monster of a goal too far out of reach, and too much attention spent on previous failures to reach it, often sets us back farther than we realize, dooming our attempts before we start. We know this, intellectually, but often continue to operate in a mode which almost guarantees failure, rather than finding a piece that can be done, and reaching just a little past it. (Of course, there’s a thin line between the child’s tenacity and the adult’s insanity, which is marked by mindless repetition of precisely the same actions, whilst expecting entirely different results.)

I recall a little demonstration on of my Kung Fu teachers gave. it’s not new, nor particularly esoteric, but it taught a valuable lesson. He had us all line up, extend our right arm, and rotate anti-clockwise as far as we could, making a note of where we ended up pointing. Then, he had us close our eyes, and imagine ourselves easily and effortlessly rotating a full 180˚. When we repeated the experiment, every single person in the room was able to turn significantly farther than they did the first time. Try it. We can always reach a little farther than we think we can.

As an aside, the ride home was slightly blemished by having to dodge more glass on the roads than ever before. I truly do despise people who litter, in general, and specifically those who seem to feel that it’s completely acceptable to defenestrate trash, especially glass, from a moving vehicle. There’s a very special place deep within the brimstone perfumed bowels of the ninth circle of hell for those who throw bottles to crash into thousands of shards, like shrapnel by the side of the road. There, they will spend their eternity rolling naked in piles of their own broken glass, relieved of their perpetual suffering only long enough to repair the flats of poor bicyclists who have fallen victim to the malefactors’ thoughtlessness.

Fortunately, the Kevlar liners on my new tires do an adequate job of keeping the shards, mostly, at bay. Unfortunately, they still are not proof against the goat-headed bullrush thorns, and I managed to ride over a couple of those, yet again, on the way home. My front tube now has yet one more patch as a little trophy of my earlier triumph.

Today, find one of those things that seems overwhelming. Break it into a few smaller pieces, and take a stab at one of them, reaching just beyond what you think comfortable, or even possible. See you at the top.

The dash of my GTi is not unlike the dash of most of today’s cars. It is populated by a limited number of actual instruments, speedometer and tach, and a byzantine array of iconic indicator lights, most of which, you’d rather not see illuminated once under way. One of them looks like a little battery, complete with a + and - terminal. It is there, supposedly, to tell you when there’s something wrong with the electricity. I’ll get back to that one in a bit.

Years ago, cars had gauges to tell the driver things about the condition of the stuff under the bonnet. An oil pressure gauge reassured that lubricant was flowing where it should, and hadn’t dripped all out along the motorway. A water temperature needle swung to a specific point that you quickly memorized, and if it went beyond that point, or never got there, it was time to do some checking up. Sometimes, a voltage meter was fitted to show, in a real sense, the condition of the generator, voltage regulator and battery - the stuff that, coupled with starters, distributors and ignition coils, compels the motor’s heart to start, and continue beating.

Somewhere along the way, most of these instruments took a trip to Atlantis, and were replaced by the now ubiquitous indicator lamps, not so affectionately called “Idiot Lights.” No longer can we tell that something is going to go wrong. A glowing lamp simply informs us that something already is wrong, sometimes after we already know this, and that we’d probably better do something about it.

The little engine icon, with the cautionary word “CHECK” underneath, is the most uninformative of the lights. It tells you something’s wrong, but give no indication of what. It can be illuminated for something as trivial as leaving the cap sitting atop the pump at the last visit to the filling station, or it can indicate something amiss in the maze of sensors, hoses, and valves that form the emissions control system. The real information is stored as a code in the car’s central computer, and can only be read using a special scanner. There’s no code, as far as I can tell, for the engine having fallen out of the car, but even the most mechanically unaware amongst drivers would probably sus that one out rather quickly. How does one get to the code?

The enthusiast can purchase a hand-held scanner that reads the OBDII (On Board Diagnostics) code, and reports on various conditions that are recorded in the memory of the engine management computer, along with the fault code. These little scanners range from very simple devices that cost under $50, to elaborate multi-hundred dollar instruments that interface with a laptop computer, and can be used to monitor driving conditions, reset parameters in the ECU, and even reprogram alarm and window functions. Armed with one of these machines, a car owner can determine what went wrong, causing the light to come on. Once the repair is accomplished, the same device can be used to reset the code, extinguishing the light. If you don’t have one, it can be a trip to the shop, with a $100 bill in hand, just to get the information. Then, there’s the cost of the repair, if necessary. This can result in a pretty spendy gas cap.

Overall, these OBD codes can actually be quite useful, often providing some real information after the fact when an intermittent failure occurs, or when one piece in the complex puzzle that is the engine management system is slightly out of kilter. The lights, too, can give some clue as to what’s wrong, but usually only after it’s already wrong, not when it’s going to go wrong. (Remember the gauges?) This is all well and good, when the lights do their jobs.

Back to that little battery icon I mentioned. A couple weeks ago, my car was cranking a little sluggishly in the mornings. The day it almost refused to turn at all was the day I figured it was time to replace its 6 year old original battery. I ran up to the local parts store, and $84 later, returned home with a shiny new battery.

When things decay slowly, we don’t always notice, and that was certainly the case with the old battery. I didn’t realize its cranking power had decreased so dramatically, and had no useful instrument on the dash to inform me that things were going awry. Had that morning’s hard starting not clued me in, the battery would have just continued to decline until the car wouldn’t start at all. So much for the usefulness of the little battery icon; it never illuminated.

That’s only part of the story, though. Monday, I drove to the market. I’d just made it into the parking lot when my dash transformed into something akin to a discotheque light show, minus the mirrored ball. I was concurrently serenaded by a raucous cacophony of beeps and buzzes, and the engine un-cooperatively and unceremoniously ceased to run. Turning the key yielded nothing more than a click from the starter solenoid, and its rhythmic sputtering for a couple seconds, and then, nothing. Dead.

Okay, I’m a geek. I carry a voltmeter in the little tool kit that’s always in the back of the car. The battery read 9.2 volts, about a volt below what is necessary to keep the car’s electronics functioning at all. I watched as it started to climb, settling down at 10.4 volts. I got back into the car, turned the key on to what used to be called the “IGN” position, and looked at all the wondrous red and amber lights on the dash. The only one that was not shining like a beacon in the night was the battery icon. I guess since I already knew there to be something wrong with the charging system, I should have been happy not to be confused with redundant bits of information. But, a confirmation of my suspicions might have been nice.

Forty dollars later, the tow truck dropped the car in front of my garage. I connected my battery charger to the shiny new battery, and went in to cook dinner for company. The next morning, I could start the car. Measuring the voltage again, I found it hovering around 11.8 volts, rather than the 14+ volts that should be present with the engine running. Clearly, the generator was not doing its generating. Still, the battery icon was as dark as midnight. Strange.

Examining the schematics (I really am a geek), I note that the battery light in series with the electronic voltage regulator and the field coil of the generator. Brilliant. If the charging system fails, the thing that’s supposed to tell you it failed may not work - in fact, probably won’t work. If the voltage regulator is broken, or the brushes on the rotor are not making contact with their contacts, the light (really an LED) has no path to ground. Worse, if the light’s circuit itself is open, the regulator can not supply current to the field coil of the alternator, so the thing can not generate charging voltage.

I decided to test the light, just to be sure it really worked, so I wired the sense lead through a 470 ohm resistor to ground, and watched with some minor feelings of triumph and elation as the little battery icon lit up, a beacon in the afternoon. (There’s that geek thing again.) At this point, I could be fairly confident that it was, in fact, the alternator, unfortunately, a damn expensive part. I ordered one, picked it up, and a couple hours later, was back on the road.

I once thought that these indicators were called “Idiot Lights” because they were made for idiots. I now theorize that, at least in some cases, they are so-named for what they are, not what we may be. A simple voltmeter on the dash would have let me know in advance that something wasn’t right, and I would likely have saved myself the cost of a tow.

Maybe it’s not so idiotic, after all. Shops rely on people not being able to do simple things themselves anymore. Most modern cars are amazingly reliable, albeit difficult to work on, and it’s the maintenance routines and the small repairs, like alternators and batteries, that keep them in business. If I didn’t have that voltmeter in my tool kit, and a geek’s understanding of what to do with it, some shop would have been able to excise a fat wad of green from my wallet. Sorry guys. Maybe next time. In the meanwhile, I’m going to install a voltmeter on the dash, and while I’m at it, a real oil pressure gauge. I’d hate to see that little oil-can light up just after the motor had seized up and fallen out of the car.