Banal cavities

When I open up my Internet browser, eager to waste large chunks of my life watching YouTube videos of cats being surprised by things, the first site that fills my screen is the home page for Yahoo. I have no earthly idea why. Yahoo is a terrible site. It’s the kind of site I would direct people to if I wanted them to suffer from a violent epileptic seizure. Advertisements zip across the screen in the form of colorful animated graphics, and often when I click on what I think is the link to my mail, I click the ad instead and get directed to another terrible site; usually one that promises killer financing on a sport utility vehicle that looks like a melting plastic sculpture of Stonehenge.

It’s an obsessive-compulsive yearning for consistency that prevents me from choosing a better site for my start-up page. What adds to the torture is the news crawl in the middle of the screen that cycles through the latest trending articles. This news crawl is a depressing, dumbed-down version of what you’d see on a traditional newspaper’s front page. A front page organizes stories by what’s important; Yahoo organizes stories by what’s popular. And there’s rarely any overlap. Occasionally an item is both important and trendy, such as a piece about the president’s State of the Union address. But that’s usually because it provides anonymous browsers with a convenient forum for racist diatribes and rants about how Hitler was a brilliant painter. The comments section of these articles is like the Ku Klux Klan subdivision of hell.

Most of the popular stories, the ones that generate the highest traffic, fall into three categories: Celebrity news, hot dating tips, and viral videos of ferrets that dance to Van Halen’s “Jump.” The Internet, which promised the world a new means of global expression, has become a digital version of Cosmopolitan magazine.

It’s the celebrity news that bothers me the most, although to be fair, that’s not really a ‘Net thing – it’s just a thing. Has been for a while now, and I’ve never understood it. Have you ever seen Entertainment Tonight or Inside Edition? Hot tip: Don’t. Never before has there been such a dizzying parade of pointlessness. The idea behind celebrity journalism is that we should somehow care about a pop singer’s latest meltdown, or what fashions Best Actress nominees are sporting on the Oscars’ red carpet. As mild curiosities, these “news” items should occupy our attentions for no longer than it takes Charlie Sheen to flush a gram of coke down the toilet. Yet they now dominate headlines.

Sadly, public fixation on frivolity isn’t hard to understand. We’re all voyeurs, to an extent.

A few years ago, I was living in an apartment that towered over a shorter, squatter apartment building across a narrow driveway. As I was standing at my kitchen window, gazing out at the moon and being all writerly and deep, a flicker of movement below me caught my eye; I looked down at the apartment facing me and saw something so bizarre, I couldn’t register it at first: A man doing jumping jacks in his underwear. An extremely pale fellow (extremely pale), in tighty-whities, getting in some exercise at 10 o’clock at night. Immediately, I recognized this as a private moment that I shouldn’t linger on, and I did eventually pull my gaze away... but only eventually, because c’mon, it’s a dude doing jumping jacks in his underwear. It’s human nature to want to linger on such a weird spectacle.

That’s kind of what celebrity news is – a bizarre spectacle from which it’s hard to avert your eyes. And back when such news was limited to a half-hour of television per night, it was a simple thing to keep from getting too much of it in your diet. Just as it’s easy to not eat Snickers bars when you don’t keep any in the house, it’s easy to not give a second thought to Lindsay Lohan when she’s not constantly in your face.

And then the Internet happened. More specifically, sites like Yahoo, which figured out that candy generates more traffic than vegetables.

Like candy, a tiny bit of Hollywood gossip isn’t unforgivable. It’s easy entertainment, and has its place. That place, however, isn’t splattered across my computer screen. The fact that it’s cheap, and requires little effort on the part of the reader, has resulted in a populace that can more easily identify the Octomom than it can its own Secretary of State. This isn’t a skill I see coming in particularly handy, unless a terrorist cell captures you and tells you your release is dependent on whether you can provide her real name. (Hot tip #2: It’s Nadya  Suleman. I may have just saved your life.)

It’s not wrong to have heroes. I, for example, am a huge fan of Al Pacino – but because of his acting, not because he picked his nose at a Los Angeles Starbucks. The former is art, of a kind, and is worthy of attention when properly earned. The latter?

Well, the latter is just a guy doing jumping jacks in his underwear.

Twisting turning through the never

This is the moment I’ve been dreading.

Years ago, when I still bothered with the radio, I would occasionally tune into the oldies station to catch some pleasantly time-weathered tunes from a bygone era: The Temptations, Roy Orbison, even the Monkees when I was feeling particularly masochistic. Production techniques being what they were back then, most of the songs sounded like they were performed by ghosts in a tinfoil submarine, but that was part of the charm. That, and the odd knowledge that that the music was created before I was born, in a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and Lyndon Johnson hosted weekly card games with Napoleon and Jesus.

Gradually, as music previews became available online, I bypassed the radio altogether. Even though there was a part of me that missed hearing those strangely comforting jingles for car dealerships and auto parts stores, the radio – which I had always used as a means of deciding what music to buy – slowly lost its purpose.

When you leave something alone for long enough, it can come back to surprise you. Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago, when I logged into my Facebook account – so often a source of dismay and consternation – and saw the following message from a friend: “So I heard ‘Enter Sandman’ by Metallica in the car today ... on the Oldies station!”

Sandman. Metallica. Oldie.

Jeff sad.

To realize just how sad, you have to understand my relationship with this band.

Music has been a huge part of my life since I was old enough to fling boogers. It’s the best thing to happen to ears since the invention of ears. For years, I would hungrily absorb the albums that were scattered about the house: Hendrix and Joplin, Clapton and the Eagles. The kind of stuff that sends classic rock DJs into paroxysms of unbridled glee, usually right before commercials for laundry detergent with pleasant-smelling bears on the box. I loved what I was hearing, but I was always drawn to the heavier, guitar-oriented stuff; the squealing, hypnotic solos at the end of “Hotel California” would give me shivers so violent you’d think I was camping in northern Canada without the requisite sealskin underwear. But I yearned for something more forceful, more cutting.

In high school, I discovered Metallica’s self-titled album – nicknamed “The Black Album” for its ominous monochrome cover. “Enter Sandman” was the first song. I chose a remote, unoccupied corner of the house for my inaugural listen, because frankly, I was nervous. It had always been suggested to me (without justification) that heavy metal was an inherently evil music, the stuff of devils and ritual sacrifices and Tokyo-bashing lizard monsters. With a shaking finger, I hit “play,” and found that the intro to “Sandman” was surprisingly mellow. A simple guitar lick, and then the bass drums, building. And building. And then at just the right moment, bam – a full-bodied riff that could grow chest hair on a baby.

It was heavy. It was crunchy. It was glorious. And unlike many of the bands that had provided my life’s soundtrack to that point, here were musicians that were still writing, still touring, and still vital. Talk about a revelation. It was like a sledgehammer to the face, only enjoyable, since I imagine it would be unpleasant to take an actual sledgehammer to an actual face.

There are monks in Tibet still awaiting experiences so transformative. And now, the album that essentially changed my life is the stuff of oldies stations. Time to buy a pair of glaring white golf pants and start drinking Ensure.

It’s an odd feeling. You spend the majority of your youth thinking that time is a river so long, eons will pass before its waters rush you onward to maturity and beyond. You think the future will occur in roughly never. “And then never comes,” to quote Metallica’s James Hetfield, which I do frequently because I have no life.

Of all the various rites of passage, hearing your generation’s music on an oldies station is one that nobody really anticipates. Parents and educators spend a lot of time prepping you for a number of life’s “firsts,” but radio never enters into it, and so when I saw my friend’s comment, I had nothing to fall back on, no automatic response drilled into me by some colorful mascot with an oversized head.

But no big whoop, because I figured this one out myself: It’s okay.

It’s okay to get older. It’s okay to have your music relegated to antiquity, not least of all because it’s someone’s arbitrary decision anyway. Frankly, graduating from the “hip” youth demographic is a relief, because now I can enjoy what I like without questions of coolness being part of the equation. Maybe the secret to aging gracefully is not caring.

What matters is that music still gives me an electric thrill when it comes booming out of my speakers, a phenomenon no accumulation of decades can touch. It’s immune to a radio station’s labels. And that, in a very real sense, makes it timeless.

Pour some sugar on me. Then toss in some salt.

If I didn’t think he’d lecture me about sodium content, I’d love to take Michael Moss out for a congratulatory beer.

Moss is an investigative reporter for the New York Times, and author of the book “Salt Sugar Fat,” a manifesto about the evils of the processed food industry. Those three ingredients are among my favorite things in existence, next to heavy metal and puppies, but that’s precisely what the big food conglomerates are banking on: They pump up their products full of heart-clogging grime because that’s what hooks us. We’re like smokers addicted to nicotine, only tobacco kills us marginally faster than wafer cookies, and doesn’t taste as good. Until Phillip-Morris unleashes their new line of wafer cookie products, at which point I may start eating cigarettes.

There are skeptics, sure. They roll their eyes at what they interpret as a conspiracy theory. Then they eat a cheese-covered doughnut and wash it down with Yoohoo.

But Moss – who counts current and former food industry executives among his sources – bases his findings on first-person accounts and oodles of scientific research. What the research reveals is pretty clear: Junk food is addictive. And we already kinda know that, don’t we? We constantly use the language of addicts when we talk about food. “Oh my goodness, I can’t stop eating these!” “I was going to stop at three, but I have no self control!” “You can’t eat just one, can you?” Cake and chips are a metal pipe and a dank alley away from being crack.

If all that sounds a bit hyperbolic, it’s because most people aren’t privy to some of the shadier practices at the companies that make chocolate-covered pretzel sticks, syrup-filled marshmallow hot-dogs, or whatever else is stopping our hearts these days. It’s tempting to merely shrug one’s shoulders and assert that bad eating habits are a matter only of choice, that obesity is an epidemic simply because people lack good sense and self-control. That a good many folks lack self control is obvious – stop into any roadside diner south of the Mason-Dixon line, and the burgers there swell to the size of a healthy baby – but that’s not the whole story.

See, employed at these big food corporations are men and women in lab coats. When you’re wearing a lab coat, chances are you’re one of three things: A doctor, a scientist, or someone at a Halloween party dressed as a doctor or scientist. Working at companies like Kelloggs and General Mills are several of these lab-coat-bedecked individuals, and they’re not checking Count Chocula’s blood pressure.

They’re using the science of chemistry to determine what they call the “bliss point” of your favorite sugary treats. That’s the point where a food becomes so irresistibly tasty that you just have to have more of it. Which means you purchase more of it. Which means food executives get to buy silk pajamas for their Shi Tzus.

Years ago, I was young boy living just up the hill from a fast food restaurant. On clear days, when I was outside riding a bike or playing catch, a wind would occasionally blow in from the west and carry with it the glorious smells of French fries and beef patties. Now, when you’re a kid, you don’t have a lot of money. Lawn-mowing cash and allowance savings comprise the bulk of your portfolio. So when a friend was visiting, and we had a hankering for something quick and cheap, where do you think we went? At a five-minute walk, the burger joint seemed like the obvious choice.

They taught us nutrition in school, but a child of 8 or 9 doesn’t really internalize the importance of such a message – especially with the smells of greasy goodness filling his nostrils. A kid, a parent, anyone can fall into a cycle of bad choices given the right circumstances. Which was why, from 9 to about 13, I was hopelessly obese.

Yep. With two chafing thunderthighs and a pair of sweatpants that could shelter a Brazilian soccer team.

Growing awareness of a proper diet – and a growth spurt that shot me up about a foot in four years – helped. But for months, I delayed my impending lifestyle change with a mantra familiar to anyone who’s tried to quit smoking: “Tomorrow. I’ll enjoy myself for one last day, and then I’ll quit tomorrow.”

Only, at some point, tomorrow has to become today.

And how many people have faced that dilemma needlessly? Personal responsibility is important, but at some point we need to start asking businesses to be responsible as well. Which probably means a health warning similar to ones found on packs of cigarettes. And a ceasefire on all these new food “innovations,” like cheese-stuffed pizza crust, and icing-filled doughnuts topped with M&Ms and bacon. Actually, I just made that one up myself. You’re welcome, Tim Horton’s.

Look, if it’s someone’s birthday, I’ll eat cake. I’ll even toss back a couple of cookies on occasion. Every once in a while, that’s okay. But the big food players don’t inflate their margins on every once in a while. They’ve got this down, literally, to a science.

So hoist your beer, Mr. Moss. For pulling back the curtain, you’ve earned it – just keep in mind those empty calories.

Come to think if it, I’ll order you a light.

Mint me baby (one more time)

We get attached to the silliest objects.

In the comics, you always see Linus clutching his blanket protectively, shielding it from Snoopy’s prying muzzle. I can’t admit to being a huge fan of “Peanuts” – every time I read a strip with no dialogue that ends with Charlie Brown crying on a pitcher’s mound, I always feel like I’ve wasted some small part of my life. But there’s something truthful about Linus. He represents those of us who have trouble letting go of certain things. He also represents chronic thumb-suckers and looks like he has spaghetti on his head, but we’ll forgive him that for now.

In some sense, we’ve all got our Linus blankets – our feel-safe objects that comfort us, and without which we feel strangely empty. Usually this is something small and disposable, like a routine morning coffee, but don’t discount the eccentrics who have assumed more permanent affectations – the old man with the gleaming silver cane who doesn’t actually need it, the would-be pirate with a patch covering a fully functioning eye; people like that. There was a time, lamely, when I once considered carrying around a tennis ball, thinking that if I intermittently bounced it through hallways and off the sides of buildings, I would shed my identity as Weird Aloof Guy and become Edgy Tennis Ball Guy. This fantasy lasted about a week before I realized that the two identities would simply merge, and I’d be the weird aloof schmuck with the annoying tennis ball fixation. Add to that a complete lack of motor control, and you can see why the only Dunlops I touch are covered in dog slobber.

Gum. Wristwatch. Giant sunglasses that could provide cover from enemy gunfire. We are all the sum total of the choices we make, large and small, and the small ones are fascinating to me. Look hard enough, and you can see little character flourishes in just about everyone – including yourself, Mr. Double-Espresso with Cinnamon Shavings. Sometimes, though, these choices can morph into a semi-permanent routine that can become addicting.

I started mulling this vague and mystifying topic while roaming the supermarket last week in a hunt for mints. I’ve talked about mints before, but perhaps I failed to convey just how important they’ve become. Let me put it this way: If they announce tomorrow that they’re halting production of IceBreakers Frost, I’m taking one of my remaining mints to a scientist so he can determine its exact chemical composition. Then I’m starting a lab in my living room, where I’ll sequester myself for days at a time, replicating with a lover’s exactitude that cool, crisp, winterfrosty goodness that starts each and every workday. The police will receive confusing reports and suspect that I’ve started a crystal meth lab, and when they bust down the door and storm the living room, I’ll simply smile and offer them a mint. We’ll all share a laugh, and sit around sucking homemade IceBreakers and watching “Mad Men.”

I like mints.

Somehow, over the past year, they became my tennis ball, my Linus blanket. And that’s all well and good, except now I fall into a panic whenever I can’t find some – a feeling that would be all too familiar to smokers, heroin addicts, and anyone who’s had more than one Thin Mint. (Seriously, Girl Scouts, those are pretty rad.)

Last week’s grocery outing was a harrowing experience, the stuff of cold sweats and flashbacks. My basket filled with provisions for the week, I lumbered up to the impulse-item rack to grab a couple containers of my favorite mid-morning treat, only my mid-morning treat was gone – just the gaping maw of an empty cardboard box in its place. Nothing on the rack but Certs and a gum called Orbit. Certs are a pale substitute, and Orbit? Who chews Orbit? Astronauts on the International Space Station? Weak.

 Thus began the great IceBreakers hunt of 2013. It’s a testament to my sad and pathetic mint addiction that my real groceries, the milk and the rice and the boneless chicken breast, were temporarily forgotten, left behind with the Orbit and that other weird gum that looks somehow Scandinavian. It was only after a frantic and frenzied search that a solitary container – one lonely soldier tucked into his foxhole – appeared behind an overhanging price sticker. Relief washed over me, the kind only rivaled by that of re-elected presidents and shark attack survivors.

They say the first step to overcoming an addiction is admitting you have a problem, and I admit that fully. But as long as it doesn’t harm anyone, and gives me minty-fresh breath, I’ll shrug and pony up the mint money without qualm. As Linus well knows, sometimes it’s worth a little inconvenience to hold onto small creature comforts.

Plus, let’s face it. They’re way tastier than tennis balls. Trust me on that one.