I need a little help getting a song out of my head. Well, not even a song but a mere jingle. It's at least 20 years since I heard it, but it's still with me - the mother of all earworms. And there's a story that goes with it.

We're all familiar with public opinion polls. There was a time in my memory, however, when the only people who knew of the existence of polling were "in the trade." I always thought they were interesting, even before USA Today turned them into forms of public entertainment. I'm interested in advertising, and I'm also interested in statistics. I'm an avid follower of politics. And politics is really just exactly like advertising. I may not come across this way when I'm writing in The White Lodge because it isn't usually relevant to what The White Lodge is supposed to be about, but in the "world" - or real life - I have these other interests.

Fear not! I've no intention of revealing too much of the ordinary. But there is a real person behind all the fanciful stories. The White Lodge is a place where the ordinary is transfigured into a more appetizing form. 

My earworm is a little song many of you will remember. I can't sing it. (Well, I can, but you can't hear it). If you know it, however - if you're old enough to remember when cigarette commercials were still on television - it will probably come back to you as soon as I give you the words.

"Winston tastes good like a cigarette should."

Ring any bells? It's a very simple one. When I hear that jingle (now in my memory) it strikes me as simplistic, unimaginative, and absolutely brilliant. It's a sterling example of audio retentive advertising.

In my real life I am acquainted with the creator of Mr. Wimple - the "Please don't squeeze the Charmin" man. He tells a story - (well, he tells many stories) - about how the original character concept for the pitchman who would become Mr. Wimple was actually quite different. Originally, they had conceived of a romance novel hero for the role - a Fabio type. The target was housewives. The appeal was to romantic fantasy fulfillment. It seemed a perfect fit.

So, my friend's agency did some tests. A few spots were storyboarded and an actor was chosen to be suitably hunky. They then brought in some housewives to participate in focus group testing, and in the process decided to scrap the whole "Fabio" idea in favor of the mild-mannered, non-sexually-threatening Mr. Wimple. Why?

Well, what they discovered is that while housewives do indeed enjoy reading Romance novels and fantasizing about hunky guys with Latin accents they preferred to do this in the privacy of their minds rather than in the public forum of broadcasting. What was OK in the bed side book was inappropriate for the television set.

When these focus group housewives were surveyed a majority of them were turned off by the romantic leading man hunk. The general opinion was that he posed a threat not only to their family lives but also exposed something they preferred to keep their own special little secret.

Now, we all know the romantic pitchman works well with other products. We've seen him pitching I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (which I can), and other... things. For whatever reason it works with some unlikely products, but my friend's agency decided it was not going to work with Charmin, based on their polling data.

Political organizations do exactly the same thing to determine how best to pitch their product. They use the same survey methods. They employ the same experts employed by advertisers. Television networks do this too when they want to float a new program idea by a cross-section of likely viewers. There's big money in it. Always was.

The jingle I can't get out of my head this morning also has a story connected to it, also told by my friend the Mr. Wimple guy.

One of the things survey-taking companies need to do, if they are going to be considered accurate, is to survey their surveys from time to time. Gee, that sounds funny. But in truth, a survey is only as accurate as the group being surveyed is genuinely representative of the vast majority of people who are not being surveyed, and probably never will be. The survey group has to be very carefully chosen. There's a science to it.

Look at it this way: Every time you hear the phrase "survey of 900 likely voters," or something like that, remember to add something onto it. Such a poll is really a survey of 900 people who say they will vote and are willing to participate in a survey. This begs the question: What kind of person participates in surveys? This is precisely the kind of question pollsters need to be able to answer in order to ensure their surveys show an accurate result once actual votes are counted or actual product flies off the shelves. (Or not, as the case may be).

Many genuine, or serious, survey agencies are connected to universities. Others maybe not. Generally speaking, TV network and newspaper polls are not to be taken very seriously because they are usually taking their poll with a predetermined outcome which will advance their editorial position - whatever that might be. News is an entertainment medium, like any other, that must compete in order to survive in the market.

So, in the service of surveying the accuracy of surveys, a sample group of Non Smokers were asked to participate in a survey one of the questions of which was "Which brand of cigarettes is the best tasting?"

Well, how would a group of non-smokers be able to answer this question from experience? They can't - at least not from the experience of having tasted it for themselves. But "experience" means everything we hear, see, read, are told, are taught, or everything that comes into our minds and stays there.

Overwhelmingly the non-smoking survey participants replied "Winston." Why?

Because "Winston Tastes Good Like A Cigarette Should." That's why.

Brilliant, yes? Evil. But brilliant.

I trust no source for information about what is happening in the world outside of my direct line of vision. I trust no source at all - none. Some seem to be proven more reliable than others, but that's not good enough. You see, the television, radio, and other entertainment media outlets have almost total control over what comes into the minds of people trying to make informed decisions about whether to buy Charmin or Scott Tissue, or vote this way or that, or think - what to think, how to think; what to think about, what not to think about. Truth.

Principle - that is, unchanging, impermeable values we know to be real - are to be the only viable basis or foundation upon which to make any decision of this kind.

In the meantime, any suggestions about songs I can use to drive out this bothersome earworm would be greatly appreciated. I give Green Stamps...   

 

  

 

 

I belong to one of these Yahoo groups in order to receive news of what my alter-ego in the pop music world is doing. I never post any messages to it because fandom is a menace and a bore. But I am sent links to various YouTube destinations, and I occasionally click on them to view Nick Cave with his new band.

What's up with the beards? Remember that English Squabbler I posted a while back saying "Thou Shalt Think for Yourselves" having a long beard? Is that the style? If so, I prefer it vastly over self-mutilation. I do not think I'll join in, though. Mine comes in rather scraggly, and 'joining in' anything where we are not all naked is anathema to me - like Groucho.

Anyhoooo, this is the kind of thing that I get in my E-mail; this, and comments from you.

Sometimes you send me things that require me to actually visit my own blog to see them. At such times I get to see your icons and emoticons and such. That's always fun.

I've got this picture up over on Heavenly Days, to accompany my Fibber McGee and Molly post. I like it so much I think I'll put it here too. Isn't it pretty? That's in Chicago, a place I have never been. I'll have to add that to my "100 Things," which I haven't added to since the last war. "I have never been to Chicago."



At least, I don't think I have. Perhaps I'll go there tonight...

Tomorrow night I'm going to post a 1938 episode of "Lights Out, Everybody" called "Spider" on Heavenly Days. I haven't listen to it yet. That's my plan for this evening. My retirement plan is to marry a rich widow.

New music arrived today. That's been taking up some attention. (I have a limit, you know - a guage runs up the side of my brain to show how much attention I have remaining.) I hear someone saying, "Brain?" I got Ravi Shankar "Morning Raga/Evening Raga," something I lost to my divorce and am only now getting around to restoring; some Russian Medieval chant, (Deisus, Sergey Krivobokov); A CD of Beethoven Cello Sonatas featuring Mischa Maisky; a new copy of Dave Brubeck's "Time Out," since my old one skips; Oscar Peterson "We Get Requests;" and a compilation of Fred Astaire singing various artists - Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, et. al.

That should keep me going for a while.

I once asked a monk I know how he managed to stay awake whilst singing psalms at midnight. He said it was the hedgehog undies. Very inspiring. Well, I enjoy chant. I also enjoy modern liturgical music - again, particularly the Russians. But chant makes me sleepy. I can't help that. It's peaceful. It makes me feel safe.

A neighbor came to the door today to apologize for coming to the door. At least that was the gist of what she said. Apparently, her mother was somehow locked out of her upstairs apartment the night before last, so she entered through my kitchen to reach the connecting door to the main staircase, (underneath which I send this message with love to you), after her knocking at my door had raised no response from me.

Well, I sleep in a specially-made tomb from Switzerland which has a genuine piece of the Ark in it - so they tell me - to fend off the ravens, but I did not wish to explain that to my neighbor. The room where one may find my earthly shell in its death-like repose each night is driving distance from my kitchen, so it's no wonder I did not hear her knocking.

"How fortunate it was," she said, "your door is unlocked."

Ah yes, well you see there is no key. Whenever I have a key I lose it and end up locking myself out, so I've found it's safer not to have one.

My neighbor went through my kitchen, (which one could walk without too much difficulty), and I suppose it was for that she was knocking on my door to offer her apology.

Anyhoo, we'll be married in a few weeks, and she has said she doesn't like me blogging around with other women, so I'm going to have to say goodbye...



As she was leaving, she turned to me again and said, "Oh, and by the way, you have myphets in your kitchen. Did you know that?"

Well, yes of course. I've sort of adopted the little buggers, given them names, set out little dishes of caviar for them. (They love caviar.)

She said, "Oh, you'll roe the day..."

Once they get established they're tough to get rid of. Women, I mean. The former Mrs, Squabbler (#2) called me not long ago - with some disaster flaming forth from her lips. Every now and then she assigns me tasks - the sort of Herculean tasks a husband might be expected to do. Well, that drove me crazy for the first few years. I hear someone saying, "Ha! You could walk there." It took me some time to realize the ritual assignment of tasks was her way of demanding attention. In her brain I gather there is also a guage that measures the amount, and I suppose when it runs low she needs a re-fill.

I fill mine with music, and drift off into death hearing "When, O Virgin Maid" whilst neighbors prowl about in my darkened kitchen - I must hope not tripping over the circular saw I left out next to the other door.

That was my day - in a nutcase.

I'm reading "Black Narcissus" I think for the first time. It's cool...

I dreamed I was vacuuming snow last night. Yesterday there was so much of it. I was a little concerned that the water would break the bag. I wasn't using a wet/dry vac but a regular Kenmore upright. But it did a pretty decent job without mishaps, to my surprise. Well well.

Words in the magic, glowing light box. I could tell you my dog has fleas. Immediately, you will summon into your mind an image of my dog, even though I haven't told you what my dog looks like. I don't have a dog, but that's neither here nor there. If I were to tell you my dog has fleas you would immediately 'see' with your mind's eye the image of my imaginary, flea-ridden dog that I have not described.

I think about this kind of stuff. And until there's a cure, there's blogging...

Anyhooo, that may seem like an obvious thing for humans to do - to imagine non-substantial dogs, but I think it's really quite extraordinary that we're able to do that. Likewise, if I were to say (write) the word "Man" you would imagine the image of a man. What does the man you have imagined look like? Perhaps I should have added that when I wrote the word "Man" I was referring to a tall man with a wooden leg, one eye, and a parrot on his shoulder.

Creative intellect - the ability to change matter with our thoughts - is what gives us the "Dominion" the Book of Genesis tells us we have. The ability to conceptualize the non-material is also part of that. It gives us the ability to communicate with one another, even when we can have no assurance of one another. I did not need to describe my dog or my man in order for you to automatically create pictures of them. All I did was to provide a word, a symbol, an abstraction which opens a doorway in perception to the image of a material thing. In the case of the dog, that material is non-existential. In the case of the man with the wooden leg, one eye, and the parrot on his shoulder, that's my Uncle Vinny.

Here on our computers, separated from each other by - in some cases - vast distances in space, we are really nothing more than words on the magic, glowing lightbox to each others. That's our reality here. We have come to a sort of tacit agreement in our various ways that these words we are writing will in some way accurately represent whatever it is about our actual selves that we would like others to "see" - even though none of us can see each other, and none of us has any guarantee of another's existence.

In other words, we take each other's "word for it" that our words on the magic, glowing lightbox - (words which would be indecipherable in any language but one out of thousands employed by humanity) - are truly doorways in perception to that aspect of our selves we intend to show to each other. That's taking a huge leap of faith right there. I wonder if you realize just how much faith is required to imagine actual relationships forming between people who are in reality nothing more than words? Or, how much faith is required to develop feelings for an illusion? Or, how much faith is required to allow ourselves to react to something we have absolutely no assurance is real?

It's difficult enough in the 3-D worlds we inhabit, and sometimes share with each other, in which we are substantial, to rely on the process of conceptualizing one another's reality in order to confirm it. Here we take it a step further, into a realm entirely imaginary. I could turn off my magic, glowing lightbox right now, and never return to it. Poof! Did John the Squabbler exist? Who's to say?

I keep coming back to this because it amazes and delights me in a million little ways. My dreams are more 'real' than these words are, but when you write - even though in most cases I have absolutely no idea what you look like, and I have absolutely no idea you are what you tell me you are - I immediately summon a picture into my mind of YOU. I "see" you. That's extraordinary. I wonder if you realize how much joy that kind of thing gives me. Do you know why that gives me joy? Because it's so bloody silly! I love it!

It's literally mind-blowing the things we just take for granted.

When I was a child - a wee squabbly - I had a "pen-pal" who lived in another country far away. There were no computers then - at least not like these. We had huge, frightening things horror movies told us were going to take over the world. (Hm. They may have been right. This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a wimper.) But, the thought came to me then: How do I know my pen pal is real? How do I know? How do I know? I lost sleep wondering about it. I had terrible nightmares about it.

So anyway, I was vacuuming the snow last night with a regular Kenmore upright. My Uncle Vinny was there with his parrot. You know, life's pretty good?

 

Today I hope to have help closing out the horror house. A gal from the North who has her own thing going on. She had plans for Mother's Day yesterday.

I'm reminded of my relatives from Cuba. They escaped the brutality of Castro. My Mom's little brother married a gal from Cuba, lived in Miami. Her Mom used to make me coffee with a sock. She would say "Coffee open the eye." Oh yes, that's true. It does.

They bought some land up here in the mountains. I remember helping to clear it with my cousin who looks like John Cale. We went mountain climbing together. He lives in Maine now.

So, my uncle was the son of immigrants and he married an immigrant. His sons - handsome fellows in uniform with Irish eyes - and daughters, married now, are grown up and my age. They used to be younger than me. Now they're my age. Funny how that works.

One thing I recall from last year's current events was the oft-repeated affirmation that immigrants would do the jobs Americans would not do. Considering I turned the jobs Americans would not do into my livelihood, I took that with several grains. I've never seen it, but I am told there is a reality TV program that features people doing jobs in unpleasant circumstances - cleaning sewers, I guess, that kinda thing. Occasionally it is like that.

I remember being told when I was a shift supervisor for one particular print shop that I would be ill-advised to assign toilet cleaning as a make-work project during down time. I had a crew of native-born fellas at one point, early on. So I cleaned the toilet while they sat on the press. That's why I made the big bucks.

Then a fellow named Andrew came to work there. He was from the Ivory Coast. He helped me remember some French I had forgotten. Very cheerful guy. This was his second job. During our half hour lunch break - (it was a ditch of a place to work in) - he would climb to the top of the paper rolls by the ceiling where it was warm, and sleep.

When I rang the press bell he would climb down and rejoin us. He cleaned the toilets. I never asked him to, but it turns out he had seen me heading in there mop in hand. He thought it wasn't an appropriate job for the lead pressman, so he started doing it. He'd beat me to it.

My workplaces were like my home. I lived on the job more than I lived at home. I wanted to work in an environment that was as pleasant as possible. Fresh flowers from the bodega dressed up a light table nicely. I remain a big fan of cut flowers today. I was never very good at gardening, so the indoor variety that one can pick up for five smackers brightens the house considerably. And the spirit.

And the spirit.

Coffee open the eye...

Oh Yes - I almost forgot. George and Gracie will have a "new" program over at Heavenly Days around 8 tonight. Gracie's running for president. It's 1940. I wonder how she would have performed as Commander-in-Chief during WWII?

Tomorrow night it's "Fibber McGee and Molly." I'll do a piece on the show's music, band leader Billy Mills and The Kings Men.

Wednesday night be ready for chills with "Lights Out, Everybody," the prototype for many a horror/thriller vignette series both on radio and television.

Thursday's still open - for now. But on Friday night I'll be featuring the Jack Benny radio program from the late 1930's. Last Friday's is still up there now, playing cheerfully along.