DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Kim Severson’s article on the obesity crisis, Perils of portion distortion, contains the answer to a question that’s bothered me for most of my life. This answer will tell you something unpleasant about capitalism — something you might have already figured out if you ever stopped to think about it.

Let’s ease into it with some surprising test results:

Brian Wansink, a professor who founded the Food and Brand Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign… took to a Chicago-area theater and handed 161 moviegoers coupons for free popcorn and a drink. One group was given fresh, hot popcorn in medium and large sizes. The other group received 14-day-old popcorn, also in medium and large buckets.

People who received the larger buckets, whether stale or fresh, ate up to 61 percent more popcorn than those who got the smaller buckets.

Quality makes no difference: if there’s more to eat, people will eat it, regardless of what it tastes like. Why am I repulsed by this? Because I do the same thing. I’ve gotten what appears to be 2-week-old popcorn at the local movie house. The staleness doesn’t stop me from eating the whole cubic yard of it. It’s as if I’m thinking “It’s going to get better, maybe farther toward the bottom.” Gad.

The popcorn study yielded another result: The fresh-popcorn subjects ate less than the stale-popcorn subjects. The researchers theorized that “given better-tasting food, people will still eat more if given more, but they’ll slow down sooner because they feel satisfied sooner.”

This theory is the key to the question I’ve been wondering about since I was old enough to eat packaged snacks (in America, this means age three). The question is: in any seasoned snack, why do 99% of the chips (or pretzels or whatever) taste so bland? You’ve probably had the experience of pawing through a bag of Doritos or whatever, looking for the chip with the extra-heavy coating of spices. Surely I can’t be the only one.

The insidious answer: if the food is lousy, people eat more! Eating more means buying more! Buying more means better profits! Ironically, in this diseased society, an inferior snack will outsell a good one. As my friend Terry used to say, “Chew on that while you eat your lunch.”

This is so loathsome I’ve had to italicize part of it:

Peter Meehan, head of Newman’s Own Organics… said food manufacturers walk a fine line when it comes to making snacks that satisfy, yet keep people coming back for more. He said it’s common practice for food manufacturers to pull back a little on flavorings in some foods so consumers will not be completely satisfied with a small amount.

“If you put too much coating or flavor on a chip, you say, ‘Hey — that’s good. I’m done. I’m satisfied.’ And so you don’t reach back into the bag for more.”

So, the concert was amazing. Three hours of Dream Theater is like six hours of any other band. The number of notes played is the same; Dream Theater is just a lot more efficient at performing them.

Three hours more than I ever attempt to hear in one sitting. I left feeling sated, but only if you have a sense of dramatic understatement. I wanted a second encore, but only because I wanted the band to feel that this audience, featuring me, deserved yet another 20 minutes of high-energy attack-rock. But I couldn’t actually take in any more music at that point.

We arrived at the Warfield about 15 minutes before showtime, to find 1000 people waiting to get in. The line snaked down to the corner, and halfway up the next block. I asked a member of the Warfield staff whether something had gone wrong — had the doors not opened on schedule an hour before, to allow these people inside? “It’s always like this,” he said, “every show.” I asked whether the crowd hadn’t arrived until later, causing a last-minute lineup. The guard corrected me: “People were here at 3pm.” As an explanation this only raised more questions, like “what sane person sits outside the club for five hours when all seats are reserved?” But we’d shuffled past the guard so I wasn’t able to ask.

The crowd was less homogenous than I expected. I thought there would be a lot of 20-something headbangers with tattoos, basically the raw ingredients for a mosh pit just waiting for amplified bass drums to kick them into flailing action. But the ages ranged from 14 to 60, and the mood from mellow to stoned. I didn’t expect to say this, but I fit right in. Everybody else was also a music geek.

The band was amazingly tight. Given the complexity of the music, this is a huge deal. I knew they could do this but still it was something to see it happen live.

My only complaint about the event is that the sound wasn’t great. I’ll admit that I’m relatively inexperienced with concert sound — maybe this was a world-class mix and I’m just too naive to appreciate it. Most of the nuances of the arrangements were lost in the sonic wash of guitar and keyboard. I knew the material well enough to hear in my head what I was supposed to be hearing in my ears, and the gap was large. The mix managed to reduce what I know to be utterly complex and musical and subtle to a beat-me-over-the-head redundant sameness, like “here’s a speed-metal thing again” and “oh, another guitar solo”, etc. Maybe live sound is never a match for the CD. I’m glad I have the CDs.

My favorite part of the show came in an improv section. The keyboard player and drummer played an extended call-and-response thing that I thought was incredibly cool. I have a long-time fondness for call-and-response; one of my favorite moments with my old band was trading fours with the guitarist during a Stevie Ray Vaughan tune, an improvised blues-rock duet for guitar and drums. We kicked ass, for those 16 bars anyway. Mike Portnoy and Jordan Rudess kicked a whole lot more ass, and for a lot longer than 16 bars. Their chops are undeniable.

23 years ago tonight I saw RUSH in concert. I was young… I had to get a ride to the arena from my parents. It was the first concert I’d ever seen. I have distinct memories of gaping at people smoking pot in the open! Oh, I was a sheltered youth, until the RUSH concert anyway.

(It was the Moving Pictures tour, BTW, with a set list that reads like a greatest-hits album.)

Tonight, as circumstance would have it, 23 years and 30 minutes since my first progressive-rock show, I’ll be seeing another one:

I can’t think of anything I might see tonight that would shock me… Pot smoking? De nada. Live tattooing? Kein Problem. Mosh-pit brawls? Ja, mon. 17 million notes being shredded to tiny bits onstage? OK, yes, that still blows my mind.

We’ve finally crossed over: on average, from noon to 6:00 PM on weekdays since our photovoltaic energy system was turned on, we’ve consumed zero watts of utilitily-company power. The 49998 figure below indicates that we’ve generated a surplus of 2 kWh. (The “zero point,” for obscure reasons, reads “50,000.”)

We still have a ways to go before we zero out the offpeak bank of kWh, currently at 581 kWh. But we have until next January to do so. And this effort will be greatly helped beginning in May, when PG&E’s summer rates take effect — after which we’ll be credited 3x for every kWh generated during peak hours as we’ll be charged for every offpeak kWh consumed. Yeah, it’s a math problem.

Based on performance to date, I believe we’re going to have a net surplus of energy by next January. PG&E won’t pay me for it, but I still get some benefit: every kWh I send into the grid means one less that has to be made from burning coal or natural gas. That means cleaner air for me. And you, too. (You’re welcome!)

I was in downtown Santa Rosa today at lunchtime. Returning home from a meeting, I decided on a whim to stop at a music store in the area. (I have all the music gear I could possibly need, but need is not a prerequisite for gear-shopping.)

As I crossed the parking lot, I heard a muffled thump followed by the sound of a slow-motion waterfall. I looked toward the source and listened closely because it sounded like a pipe had burst… or something. I couldn’t make sense of it. Then a woman shouted, “What are you doing there!”, not really a question so much as an accusation. And then I saw a tallish, somewhat skinny guy with a shaved head running across the parking lot, clutching a black duffel bag to his chest.

The sound then made sense: safety glass breaking. I’d just witnessed a smash-and-grab.

So I did something I can’t really explain: I chased the guy. I was wearing a bulky leather coat, and I had my laptop in a nylon briefcase in my right hand. I was not equipped for high-speed pursuit.

Fortunately, the “alleged” criminal wasn’t running very fast. I believe he didn’t realize I was following him. We crossed the parking lot and rounded a building. I was pacing him, thinking I’d follow as far as I could. I think I had the idea that I’d get a license number if he had a vehicle waiting. And I remember hoping we’d happen to cross the path of a cop. In any event I was along for the ride, even if I was unsure of the destination, following maybe 20 feet behind.

He turned at that point and saw me lumbering along behind with my briefcase in my hand. I guess I didn’t look very threatening, for he didn’t do what I thought I deserved, which would be to yell in fear and sprint ahead, certain he was seconds from being tackled and brought forcefully to justice. No, instead he dropped the stolen bag and jogged nonchalantly away. He looked back to make sure I stopped, which I did, figuring he was a cheap hoodlum not worth the risk of physical confrontation. I was disappointed the guy wasn’t more afraid of me, but on balance pleased by his tacit agreement with my judgement of his worth.

But then I didn’t know what to do. The bag lay on the ground, amid some bits of the passenger-side window from the owner’s truck. Also a bonus: the crook had dropped the screwdriver he’d used to bash in the window.

Every Hollywood detective story came to mind. Could I touch the evidence? What about fingerprints? As if the local cops had nothing better to do than trace prints for a simple break-in.

I awkwardly picked up the screwdriver without actually touching it. I felt dumb. I’d seen the crook wearing thick black gloves, so I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be any prints on the screwdriver, but I realized I sure didn’t want to put my prints on there. In the stress of the moment — believe me, just seeing a crime is stressful — maybe someone would think I was the guy who broke the window.

Waiting a minute to think and look around, I decided the sensible thing would be to return the bag to the truck, and maybe leave a note for the owner. I carried the bag back in that direction. A few people had gathered; one woman was across the street on the phone with the police. She waved me over and gave me the phone.

I reported my side of the story, embarrassed at the little detail about the thief’s appearance I could provide. Once I’d seen the shaved head, a little box of stereotypes in my brain opened up and said “skinhead.” I perceived nothing more. Sure, I saw tattoos and piercings, but I couldn’t be sure those details hadn’t been provided by my imagination. The only things I was sure of: Caucasian, trim build, buzzcut, short-sleeve shirt, black gloves. Not much to go on. Could I pick the guy out of a lineup of skinheads? Erm, no.

We stood around to wait for the police to arrive. Finally the woman invited me inside for a free lunch — we were standing in front of her husband’s restaurant. It’s fair to say I was feeling some civic pride at this point. The food was great.

The truck’s owner turned up after a while. He was grateful, but a bit shaken (understandably), and bitter that he’d be out a few hundred dollars to replace the broken window. Insurance isn’t what it used to be. We traded contact info because it seemed like the right thing to do. I consider it serendipitous that he is the local sales rep for the company that made my drum kit.

The cops finally arrived and confirmed that they wouldn’t be able to find fingerprints on a plastic-handled screwdriver. Keep that in mind if you decide for a career change and start breaking into parked cars. He was surprised to learn that I’d already recovered the stolen bag; apparently he’d been driving around for 25 minutes looking for a skinhead with a black duffle. Nice.