Old new journalist encounters new new journalism; is bewildered.

I did a class presentation on Tom Wolfe last week and I stumbled upon this interview with Tom Wolfe. I still can't get over it. In case you're too lazy to click the link, here's how it goes:

"New York: Hi. I'm Tim from New York magazine.
Tom Wolfe: Hello, Tim. You don't do podcasts, do you?

[Brief pause for understandable disorientation.]

New York: No, but I do video stories. Why do you ask?
Tom Wolfe: Because I still don't know what they are. And I've never known anyone that ever watched one.

New York: You don't know what podcasts are?
Tom Wolfe: I have a vague idea. As far as I can tell, nobody ever watches them.
New York: They're just audio though.
Tom Wolfe: They check out, but they don't check in.
New York: [Mental double take.] Are you pulling my leg? You really don't know what a podcast is?
Tom Wolfe: To be honest, I don't know what it is. I know that you sit in front of a microphone and have a conversation, and some way or another, it comes out on a screen or…

[Pause for a brief explanation of the nature of podcasts and how, for example, one could download an interview with him and listen to it on an iPod or in while driving.]

Tom Wolfe: Oh, see, that part I didn't know.
New York: Do you think now that you know you'll try it out?
Tom Wolfe: No. I never wear earphones in the car."

That's right: The man went from a career built on uncovering trends and subcultures before they even existed and totally reinventing journalism in the process to being totally bewildered by new media.

How does that happen? Is it inevitable that at some point, you get stuck in your ways and miss huge cultural and technological changes? When it happens to me, will I know, and will there be anything I can do about it?

Dear New York Magazine: Please don't sue me for copying and pasting that interview.

Take your nomination form and...

It's the time of year when a young Carleton student's student council ambitions turn to nominations.

All over campus, these fresh faced and nerdy young go getters are pounding the pavement. They have to get a certain number of nominations to get their name on the ballot. I think. I haven't actually researched this, because I don't care about CUSA bureaucracy, not even enough to spend five seconds googling it.

But these kids care enough to want to involve themselves in it. And they either don't have enough friends to get the required number of nominations out of people they know, or the threshold is set pretty high. So they stand in the hallways and cafeteria lines, harassing strangers to sign their nomination form.

I have a great ready made excuse for not signing petitions or political forms of any kind. I'm a journalism student. Sorry, random student. What if I were called to report on some future CUSA scandal and needed to use you as a source? I can't affiliate myself with you, or anyone else, politically.

Usually this throws people off enough to give up. But not these people. "It's not an endorsement!" they persist. "It's just a nomination. All you're doing is giving me a chance to run."

See, here's the thing though. Let's imagine that the KKK decides it's going to run a slate in the CUSA elections. One of their representatives taps you on the shoulder while you're waiting in line for a bagel. He asks you to sign his nomination form - after all, it's not an endorsement, and why would you stand in anyone's way who wants to participate in the democratic process?

For all I know, these people could be members of the KKK. They could be planning to run on a platform of requiring all students to pledge allegiance to Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il every morning. They could be planning to ban student groups whose views and activities they don't like - which actually happened at York, with some pro-life groups.

Do I support these fictional people's right to run in a student election? Of course. Do I want to put my signature down nominating them? Hell no.

You can tell me it's not an endorsement until you're blue in the face. Even if I wasn't on a strict non-political journalist's diet, I still wouldn't help anyone out with my signature who isn't prepared to give me some vague idea of what they're going to use it for.

Yawn-a-palooza

A young woman chewed gum and stared into space as a burly man in leather tied her up with white nylon rope.

About ten people watched listlessly as he tied a series of increasingly elaborate knots. Eventually he pulled the rope attached to a wooden frame and hoisted her off the ground. Her long, dark brown hair swung downwards. A half-hearted smile briefly interrupted her gum chewing.

The crowd dispersed. There was no applause.

“You can be next!” announced another, older burly man in leather. In response, he got more blank stares. The crowd shuffled over to inspect a table of whips and riding crops.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Sexapalooza Ottawa, a trade show for people who make a living convincing people to spend money on one of the only things in life that’s free. The spectacle you just witnessed took place in “the dungeon,” a red polyester tent so kinky and incriminating that two sandwich boards and an inflatable devil warn you in both official languages that there are to be Absolutely No Pictures. Who knows whose delicate sensibilities might be offended had images of that fully clothed brunette ended up on Facebook.

To be fair, it was 4 p.m. in Ottawa’s decaying Lansdowne Park, which isn’t normally the time and place for getting loose and crazy. Still, these people shelled out 20 bucks for the privilege of perusing the highest concentration of dildos per square foot in the city. You’d think someone could have mustered a “Take your top off!”

Alas, the only person who seemed interested in anyone taking his or her top off was the event’s M.C. A blonde woman dressed in a military uniform, she took to the microphone throughout the night to assure the crowd the only reason we weren’t all having a wild orgy right now was city regulations.

“It’s getting hot in here,” she whooped. “Maybe everybody should just take off all their clothes! Nope, sorry, regulations won’t let us do that.”

She was similarly reassuring as the crowd watched a half-asleep stripper called Misha Manx reveal nipples covered with black electrical tape. “Regulations don’t permit it here,” she apologized, “but come on down to the Playmate club!”

But no one looked like they were in the mood to stick dollar bills in ol’ Misha’s g-string. The yuppie-looking couples tended to keep their arms wrapped tightly around each other, as if to dispel any suspicion they might be there for reasons other than improving their healthy, heterosexual, monogamous sex lives. Women in their 20s stuck together in groups, making sure to giggle frequently so no one would think they were actually interested in pubic shavers or strap-on harnesses. And lone middle aged men kept their ball caps firmly over their eyes as they inspected porn DVDs with titles like Big Black Titties.

In fact, one of the few people who seemed to be enjoying himself was a man on stilts who kept flashing a pair of rubber boobs at anyone who looked his way. “Woo!” he yelled as he opened his vest for the hundredth time.

Woo.

The 2000s: They weren't all bad.

Every end of decade list I've seen has concluded the previous decade sucked pretty bad. Time Magazine even called it the worst decade ever. This seems a bit much (Great Depression? WWII?), but there were some undeniably crappy things that happened over the last ten years.

However, I refuse to let the decade of my young adulthood go down in history as one long, violent, bad weather suckfest. There were at least a few things that were OK about the 2000s, right?

This is my short but sweet best of the 2000s better-late-than-never New Year's list.

5) Flat shoes. I can't remember exactly when flats came in style, but they've definitely been around for most of the decade. I feel as though the fact that it's stylish and socially acceptable for women to wear flats to all but the most formal occasions has made the lives of half the human race a lot more bearable over the last ten years. Throw yoga pants in there too. Basically, every time you feel like whining about the last decade, just think to yourself, "at least I don't have to wear foundation garments."

4) Cats on the internet. This item was brought to you by Kate Harper. For some reason, cats and the internet go together like, well, cats in sinks. And cats in things they're not supposed to be in. And pictures of cats and hilarious text captions.

3) Social media in general. C'mon... #iranelection? Social media is often dumb and over-hyped, but occasionally incredible.

2) TV. It may not have been an epic decade for music or other mass pop culture. But I am going to go out on a limb and call this a truly great decade for TV. The Wire, Mad Men, most of Buffy, Battlestar... smart, engaging, intellectual stuff. TV on DVD really freed up the medium to do long form story telling.

1) Barack Obama getting elected. Whatever you think of the man, I definitely felt like I was part of one of those generation defining moments when I watched that election.

Flimsy? Maybe. Does this list make up for all the bad stuff that happened? Nope. But I was lucky, and I had a pretty good decade. I'm not quite ready to throw it into Ms. Dion's "trash can of history."

A series of questions

I got a collection of articles by Lester Bangs for Christmas. He was a rock music critic in the '70s for Rolling Stone. His writing is in the same "new journalism" category as Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe - first person, stream of consciousness, lots of parties and drugs and weirdos, etc.

This has inspired a series of questions.

1) Whatever happened to this "new journalism?" Why do I get the distinct feeling I would not be nearly as successful if I tried to launch my career with a first-person dope-fueled 3,000 word article written on a cocktail napkin at a Hell's Angels party?

2) Speaking of which, I shout this question into the cyber-void for the millionth time: What's with the hysteria over kids these days posting pictures of themselves drinking on Facebook? These guys wrote about dropping acid as casually as a Gen Y might write a status update about going to gym on the way to work. And everyone thought they were cool and gave them sweet jobs with major magazines.

3) If these guys were writing today, who would they write about? Do we even have youth subcultures any more? Are hipsters the Gen Y answer to beats and punks? Wow, is that ever depressing.

4) Why is Gen Y so boring? At least Gen X was ironic and postmodern about selling out. I'm not sensing the irony.

5) Is there a fake Hunter S. Thompson Twitter account? If not, I might have to create it.

Who's trying to kill the babies?

Last week I joked to Sonya that I was going to pitch a story investigating a conspiracy to kill babies through faulty consumer products. It seems like every day I hear about another baby product recall.

Am I crazy? Consider this:

- Nov. 9: Strollers that amputate fingers recalled
- Nov. 23: Drop side cribs that trap babies in the side recalled
- Dec. 8: Baby hammocks that can wedge babies into the fabric recalled
- And today's coup de grace: ALL roll up style blinds recalled because of the potential for baby strangulation. This message is brought to you by a creepy and obnoxious cartoon superbaby, a spokesperson for the Window Covering Safety Council (I'll save that for a future blog post: I Can't Believe it's an Organization).

SuperBaby #4 -- Roman Shades, Roll Up Blinds Product Recall from Window Covering Safety Council on Vimeo.

Seriously, someone call Nancy Drew or the Scooby Gang before any more babies get hurt.

Riots, not diets part II

I have been going to a new gym for the last two weeks. It's a franchise of a certain popular chain. While I was walking downtown one day, I noticed it was right next door to where I was going to be doing an internship, and thought to myself that it would be really convenient to go there after work. I looked online and discovered it had a deal - 14 days for $14. Perfect. I signed up.

I was informed that there was a free orientation for new members. Great, I thought. I figured this would be where they do a fitness assessment and give you a training session with a bunch of exercises to do.

I showed up and looked around. It was shiny and new looking. The change room had hair driers and bamboo plants. I had never seen so much Lulu Lemon in my life.

I met the woman who was assigned to give me the orientation. I filled out some forms. She walked me around the gym - "These are the cardio machines." "This is where they have the group classes." "This is our fitness machine circuit."

She asked me where I usually work out. I said the Carleton gym. "Oh, we get a lot of people here from Carleton. They say they just can't handle that gym. I hear it's horrible and crowded."

Actually, this here gym was more crowded than I had ever seen Carleton's, which is saying a lot. The Carleton gym has a brand new cardio room with big screen TVs. It has a lot less scary looking men on steroids. Also, it's free.

She kept asking me what my goals are. I wasn't sure what to answer. Keep fit and have fun? "No, but what are your GOALS?" Be fit enough to survive the zombie apocalypse? Jeez, I dunno.

Then she sat me down at the same table I filled out the forms and extolled the benefits of a one year membership. I figured this was coming. It was kind of fun, actually, trying to see her figure out a way to convince me. "I'll knock off a bunch of money for you." "I have no idea if I'll be in Ottawa past April." "You can transfer your membership to any other location." "No, you don't understand. I might be in New York. I might be in Singapore. I might be in Iqaluit." "Ummm.... so you're really not interested in a membership." "Nope. Sure aren't."

At this point, she looked significantly less interested in me. She asked if I had any questions. I said: "Well, I thought this was an orientation to, you know, the gym. Like, how to use things, not just where they are."

"Oh, we have that too." "How much is it?" "Free."

Well, sign me up, lady. I'm going to milk these $14 for everything they're worth.

I showed up the next day to discover that two other people had been slotted in to receive the same "orientation." A beefy guy showed up ten minutes late. The orientation consisted of him having each of us try an exercise on the weight machine circuit. Real helpful.

One girl who was also doing the orientation kept asking the same types of questions. How many calories does this exercise burn? Is it true that you shouldn't do ab exercises if you're trying to lose stomach fat?

Then I started looking around me and realized something. I was working out in Eating Disorders "R" Us.

The walls are covered in posters that have pictures of pudgy ginger bread men that inform me I should keep going to the gym because the average person gains seven to 11 pounds over the holiday season. My membership card has a little chart on the back where I'm encouraged to track my weight loss. Other posters inform me that I can lose 80 per cent more weight three times faster if I work out with a personal trainer (I have NO idea what that can possibly be based on, unless they mean I can lose 80% more weight in my wallet).

I also figured out why that lady kept prodding me about my "goals." She wanted me to say I want to lose 10 pounds and two inches in my waist before going on my New Year's cruise in the Caribbean, or something, so she could suggest more things that cost money to help me "reach my goals."

If I told her that, the ethical thing to do would probably be to suggest I see a doctor about my body image issues. I have a feeling she wouldn't, though.

Do you see why I have such a weird relationship with working out? I'd be lying if I said weight maintenance wasn't part of my motivation for staying in shape. But this part of gym culture sickens me, and this is the worst manifestation of it I've ever seen: Keep people paranoid about their weight so they'll keep shelling out dollars for your stupid swanky gym membership.

I recently discovered Stumptuous from Bitch magazine. It has a post about lies they tell you at the gym. You should look at it. I was told a lot of those lies over the past two weeks.

But the woman behind that website also made a great point in the interview I read that helped me set aside a lot of my feminist guilt about going to the gym. It's a good thing for women to be strong. You can be invested in being in shape without being fat-phobic. There's a big, beautiful, happy medium between being a couch potato and being an anorexic, fat-hating aerobics addict.

Anyway. I miss the Carleton gym.