A (now) open letter to "The World Leader in River Cruising"

Here is a message I sent today to Viking River Cruises®. In the pull-down menu, I categorized the missive as "Other":


Dear Viking River Cruises® -- "Exploring the World in Comfort"®,

Over the past eleven months, you have sent me 24 postcards, 19 full-size, full-color brochures, and, yesterday, an informational DVD extolling the sine qua non virtues and (year-round) limited-time-only savings of "the world’s leading river cruise line... by far." I don’t know what I did to deserve such treatment -- perhaps I raped a poodle in a previous life -- but I can assure you it had nothing to do with ever signing up for your mailing list.

I am thus writing to say: Please stop. First of all, I’m a grad student with a household income of approximately negative $25,000 a year; I cannot afford a Russian hooker in Far Rockaway, Queens, much less a Russian river cruise. Secondly, the 19^th full-size-full-color brochure was no more convincing than the 18^th. Besides wasting your time and money, you have, with the junk mail you’ve sent to me alone, laid waste to enough trees to (ironically enough) build a riverboat. (That you are based in Woodland Hills, CA only makes such ecological irresponsibility more egregious.)

In summary, you are the most annoying company in the world... by far. (The Men’s Wearhouse is a distant second.) I have already told everyone I know to never take a Viking River Cruise®. If you do not want me to start also telling people I don’t know, cease with the junk-mail carpet-bombing operation at once.

Much appreciation in advance,

Homunculus J. Reilly
"Customer" #1145086482

P.S. River cruises suck.

Harry Potter and the Predicament that Revealed Him to be a Selfish Little Prick

For those of us who believe that chess, and not Harry Potter worship, is the only acceptable “geek pursuit” for people who still want to be regarded as essentially normal (I’m sorry, but standing in line for seventeen hours dressed as a Hogwart automatically disqualifies you, even if you’re nine), the first installment in the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, stuck a thorn in our collective side. In the book (which my girlfriend at the time forced me to read), and again in the movie (which my sister forced me to see), Harry and his dweeby friends match wits, in a climactic battle, with some sort of magical force that, if memory serves, can telekinetically transport enormous chess pieces with the skill of a Grandmaster but cannot think of a simpler way to vanquish three 11-year-olds. (The scene is reminiscent of the famous match between a knight and Death in the (recently)-late, great Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal, except that Harry et al.’s duel is not a metaphor representing life’s profoundest mysteries, and also it was directed by the guy who made Bicentennial Man.)

When the chess studs of the world saw that scene, they nearly punched holes through their computer monitors (and they would have, too, if those monitors did not serve as their sole conduits to the outside world). In merging what some still perceive as a pastime for “nerds,” “dweebs,” “geeks,” “losers,” “antisocial misanthropes,” “bald hairy fatties,” and “28-year-old virgins” with the youngest member of the Holy Triad of Obsessive Geekdom (Lord of the Rings, or “LOTR,” and Star Wars being the founding members), J.K. Rowling set us board-game heroes back two or three decades, maybe more. How many handsome, charismatic pawn-pushers will it now take to return the King’s Game to the badass status it enjoyed pre-Potter? No muggle knows.

What all those Harry Potter geeks who are not also chess geeks (and I pity the adolescent who is both) do not know is that a close examination of the climactic game in The Sorcerer’s Stone exposes their hero as a pusillanimous little wanker. In last Sunday’s New York Times’s chess column, Dylan Loeb McClain analyzes the game from the crucial point (the “Sorcerer’s Stone Position”) at which Harry and his fellow whelps have to nerdily strategize their way out of what appears to be certain defeat. Those who remember the film will recall that Harry comes up with the solution, ordering Ron (as a Black knight -- a subconscious homage to Bergman, perhaps?) to sacrifice himself for the good of all wizardkind. As McClain reveals, however, there was a faster way to win: Harry (as a Black bishop -- a subconscious nod to the kid-friendly Catholic Church, perhaps?) could have sacrificed himself instead! McClain seems blasé about the decision (“2…Bc5 wins faster, but Harry gets axed”), probably because he cannot use the phrase “self-serving bastard” in a family newspaper, but the rest of us know better. Harry had a choice: a) martyr himself in the name of Wizardly Honor and endgame expediency, not to mention the cutting of a decidedly mediocre movie by several seconds, b) or sacrifice his best friend. He chose (b), the poltroonish prick. If that cowardice had come to light earlier, you can bet I wouldn’t have been the only muggle rooting for Voldemort in the final installment.

You Can Call Him Al, Savior of the World

After several blogs about timeless but admittedly marginal topics like sadistic entomological bar tricks and magic stomach hairs -- nugatory feuilleton, I concede -- Homunculus would like to get serious. For one day, at least. This entry will therefore be devoted to a subject even more important than the imbalance of my nut sack: the fate of the earth. Specifically, I would like to pay tribute to former Vice-President and current Inconvenient-Truthteller Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., who, besides being the second-sexiest man alive, has seemingly single-handedly brought climate change (née “global warming”) to the front: the front pages of the newspapers, the forefront of the public’s conscience, the frontburner of policymakers’ policies that need making and remaking. You go, Gore! From beneath the stale glow of dim but environmentally-friendly fluorescent bulbs, Winter on the Equator salutes you.

{Inconvenient Digression: The name of this blog, Winter on the Equator, does not refer to one potential repercussion of global climate change, although Homunculus is well aware that the double-meaning of today’s topic adds yet another clever nuance to a blog whose hallmark is its nuanced cleverness. Most of my devoted readers -- i.e., my mom and dad -- still think this blog is called what it’s called because it was conceived in the wintertime while I was living in Thailand, near the equator. That was part of it -- more paronomasia for ya -- but there was another, more prominent reason. Check out the epigraph of WOTE’s much-ballyhooed debut column (5/13/06) for the answer.}

I don’t have any figures to back me up,

{Inconvenient Favor to Ask: I would love some figures to back me up, and I’m sure some figures of the sort are available to those who are more resourceful than ol’ Homunculus. So if you are that sort, maybe you can look up some study by some media-studying center (the Center for Media Studies, perhaps?) and post your findings as a comment, below.}

but it seems as though climate change has really {Inconvenient Pun (x2!) Alert} boiled into a hot-button issue within the past twelve months. Before Gore’s Inconvenient Truthfulness, the environmental crisis, handicapped by the unfortunate distinction that it was never actually news, rarely made headlines. When it did, those headlines could generally be found in only serious and liberally-bent magazines like The Atlantic or The New Yorker. If there was “news,” climate change merely served as the backdrop to the sexier or more immediately relevant topic: celebrity awareness (“Cameron Diaz buys a hybrid!”), say, or tourism implications (“It’s January, and there’s still no snow in Switzerland!”).

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth -- its subsequent box-office success, the media blitz that accompanied that success, and its important (if undeserved) victory at the Oscars -- global warming has finally gotten hot. It’s no longer “old news”; it’s now continually breaking news that, by virtue of its oldness, has suddenly reached its breaking point. One day there’s a story on NPR about a zero-emissions house being constructed in England; the next day ABC News is doing a feature on a summer camp in West Virginia devoted to environmentalism. Sales of SUVs finally go down; sales of hybrids finally take off. Live Earth makes its auspicious debut. Mayor Bloomberg takes a bold and controversial stand against urban traffic and pollution. (He loses, but “congestion pricing” breaks into the American vernacular with a single push. You just wait: By 2015, Weehawkenites will be paying $20 to drive through the Lincoln Tunnel at 9:00 a.m. -- and half of ‘em will be doing it in Priuses. {Inconvenient Curiosity: What is the plural of Prius -- Priuses or Prii? Or maybe Hippopotamuses? Meese?})

{Inconvenient Trivia: Speaking of recent environment-related media coverage, I recommend checking out The New Yorker’s recent profile about Virgin founder Richard Branson and his conversion to the cause. Here are two stats from the article that blew my mind:

• There are 45 light bulbs in the average American home; reducing that number by just one would be equivalent to removing nearly a million automobiles from the road.
• {Inconvenient Trivia-Within-Trivia: Lisa Simpson makes a similar reference in The Simpsons Movie, after her unsuccessful “An Irritating Truth” PowerPoint presentation in Springfield City Hall. The movie is worth checking out, both for its general funniness and its environmental crisis-driven plot (“eee-pa!”).}
• {Inconvenient Movie-Quote-Within-Trivia-Within-Trivia: “Welcome to Alaska! We pay every resident $1,000 to allow the oil companies to ravage our natural resources.”}
• For an average 747, the pre-takeoff journey from the docking station to the runway requires two tons -- two tons! -- of fuel.}

I credit the surge in awareness to two main factors. The first, paradoxically enough, is the Iraq War. In a twist that could be described as “Dubya”ously ironic, Bush’s war, the most sordid tale of this decade, could turn out to have one happy ending: providing fuel for the war on climate change. Operation We Love Oil, with its catastrophic impact on oil prices, has forced most Americans to rethink their priorities when it comes to their beloved cars. For the first time since the early 1990s, when Americans realized they needed four-wheel drive to commute to work, sales of SUVs and light-trucks decreased last year. Sales of cars that get more than 12 miles a gallon, meanwhile, have finally recovered.

Count on those trends continuing. Despite the record-breaking prices, most economists agree that the cost of gas is still too low here. But fear not, all ye pure free-marketers: every blunder our Idiot-in-Chief makes brings us one step closer to catching up with the rest of the world. Thus, today Winter on the Equator salutes you, too, Mr. President! And if your role in making Americans finally care about the environmental crisis somehow surmounts your impending legacy as Worst President Ever, WOTE will give you your due in a column entitled “Unintended Positive Side Effects of Otherwise Retarded and/or Disastrous Endeavors” (also to be featured: Christopher Columbus, Ross Perot, Romeo & Juliet).

The second and far more influential factor in bringing urgency to the movement has been Gore’s noble crusade to spread the truth about climate change, no matter how inconvenient it may be. His multi-part thesis -- the climate crisis, as he calls it, is real; the scientific evidence is incontrovertible; we caused it; now we must fix it, and soon -- is nothing revolutionary. But the previously deaf ears on which those truths had fallen have finally seemed to perk up. As critical as that core message has been the resonance of two of its corollaries: first, that climate change is literally earth-shattering, and second, that it is not a political issue but a moral one. Or, to use Gore’s catchy refrain, it’s not a matter of “red-versus-blue”; the problem is “green.” Gore’s traveling road show, and especially his film, have brought more attention to the cause than all the Earth Days and sporadic Time and Newsweek features from the past three decades combined. As for Live Earth, we may never know how many converts the event garnered -- one hopes it might become an annual thing -- but it seems safe to say it was a success, and that it would not have occurred without the inroads forged by Gore’s earlier proselytizing.

In the Branson feature, Daniel Kammen, a professor at Berkeley and the founding Director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL), refers to the movement’s crucial need for a leader, an apostle. “The Word” is out there; now Mother Earth needs a St. Paul -- a Gandhi, an MLK, Jr. -- of her own. “What is still lacking here is what I call the ‘third wave’ of environmentalism,” Kammen said. “The first wave was Rachel Carson: recognizing the problem, and understanding that we need to protect the environment. That led to Stage 2: the system of regulations and taxes that helped make it possible to implement the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and other vital legislation. ...[But] Kyoto is not going to save us. No global treaty is going to be sufficient. We also need a couple of big actors. What we need is a charismatic megaphone.” Kammen considers Branson to be one of those actors, and here’s hoping he’s right. But by far the loudest and most charismatic megaphone has been, and will continue to be, Al Gore. (And yes, I’m aware that I just used the words “Al Gore” and “charismatic” in the same sentence. That’s what saving the world can do for a dude’s rep.)

Once he no longer had to worry about campaigning for office or serving his constituents, Gore was finally able to take his pet cause and run with it. In the four or so years since he emerged from wherever it was he disappeared to -- clean-shaven and sartorially respectable again -- he has run a long way. The race still has miles to go, of course, but Gore is clearly the champion of this cause. He has a chance to do for environmentalism what Martin Luther King did for civil rights.

Which is why, unlike most members of the unofficial Al Gore Fan Club {Inconvenient Question That Begs: Is there is an official Al Gore Fan Club?}, I do not want our boy to run for President in ’08. I’ll admit it: I got the chills during the Oscars when it appeared, for a moment, as though Gore would announce his candidacy, Governator-style, to a billion people on live TV. (Of course, those chills could have been due to the fact that he was standing next to a goateed and tuxedoed Leonardo DiCaprio. Homunculus, secure in his heterosexuality, freely admits that Leo is positively dreamy.)

First of all, as much as I admire the guy, he’s still pretty much a big nerd. Yes, he’s been a “charismatic megaphone” for this one cause, but that doesn’t necessarily make him the type of charismatic personality that wins elections. Before seeing An Inconvenient Truth, I had heard the buzz about the “new and improved” Gore. “Surprisingly hip,” the media tabbed him. “Relaxed and unrestrained.” “No longer pedantic, wonky, or condescending.” Then I saw the film. Sorry, but I’m not buying. No doubt, Gore Version 2.006 was new and improved. But relaxed and unrestrained? Um, no. Hip? I don’t think so. The criticism pundits had of Gore in 2000 -- that he is a college professor at heart, not a politician -- was, for me, only confirmed by the film.

{Inconvenient Wishful Thinking: I would love to see Gore’s film remade as a blood-boiling courtroom drama -- Inconvenient Truth meets A Few Good Men. Cut to...

Tom Cruise: I want the truth!

Jack Nicholson: You can’t handle the truth! It’s just too inconvenient!}

Call me a pessimist, but if Gore were to join the race, I have little confidence that he would not, once again, find himself ill at ease in that all-too-familiar terrain. I can easily picture the new and improved version, under the intense scrutiny of a national campaign (not to mention the counsel of another batch of overpaid consultants), stiffening up and reverting back to Version 2.000 -- that is to say, pedantic, wonky, condescending, decidedly unhip. Gore would make an excellent President, to be sure, but we Dems are looking for someone to get excited about. In other words, someone exciting enough to get non-Dems excited. Professor Gore conjures up too many painful memories of Dukakis, Kerry, and, well, Gore himself. We want a Kennedy, a Clinton (Bill, that is). Who knows? -- Obama could be that guy. Even Edwards. (Hillary is a Clinton in name, not electability. But that’s a topic for another day.) But not Al.

{Inconvenient Musical Interlude:

Dear Al,

We know you’re soft in the middle now

Your post-2000 life was so hard

There were incidents and accidents

There were hints and allegations

But you had your photo-opportunity

If you take a shot at redemption

You’ll end up a cartoon

In a cartoon graveyard

What if you run now

Who'll be my role-model

Now that my role-model is

Gore, Gore!}

The second reason I don’t want Gore to run -- {Inconvenient Clarification: Yes, I’ve only named one reason so far -- all my Inconvenient Interruptions have just made it seem like more.} -- is that I think he can do more for the world as an environmental activist than as a perpetually-compromising politician with his hands tied by political adversaries and omnipotent corporate interests. Besides, how would he make headway with the environment if he were also dealing with terrorism, the economy, health-care reform, the Iraq War, and the myriad other high-priority problems presidents juggle on a daily basis? True, the President of the United States is the Most Powerful Man in the Free World. But consider this: Even if Gore were to win, would he really get that much more accomplished in office than any other similarly-minded Democrat? If Gore sticks to his role as Mr. Green, on the other hand, we could end up with the best of both worlds: a “Gore-y” Democrat manning (or “womanning,” as the case may be) the country and Gore himself manning the rest of the earth. Unfortunately, today’s bitterly partisan political climate -- to say nothing of our checks and balances, bureaucratic inefficiency, and ubiquitous corruption -- prevents our elected leaders from initiating ground-breaking, potentially unpopular legislation. Politicians fight the battles they can win; artists and advocates fight the battles worth fighting, whether they will be won or not.

Assuming, then, that Gore continues to serve his post as Inconvenient Truthteller, the question becomes, Is it too late to turn this thing around? Are we all, as the French say, totally fucked? In the film Gore claims that, scientifically speaking, it’s still not too late. Like a smoker and his lungs, the damage we’ve inflicted thus far is not irreparable. If we act now -- if the world works together to develop new technologies and enact sweeping lifestyle changes -- the present course of climate change can be stalled, perhaps even reversed. But those, as the French say, are big fuckin’ “IF”s. Enormous, earth-sized “IF”s.

My prevailing memory of An Inconvenient Truth is of Gore declaiming and PowerPointing his way through the first 90 minutes of the film to the pernicious and incontrovertible truth about the climate crisis, only to wrap up by stating that we still have a chance to win this thing. To me he sounded more like a coach urging on his team, down 10 with one minute to go, than a true believer. In the end, the one aspect of Gore’s message I couldn’t embrace was its optimism. Yes, we have Priuses/Prii, but what about alternative energy? What about the difficulties of imposing and enforcing regulations on the dozens of rapidly growing Third-World countries? What about the half-billion Chinese who will soon be first-time car owners? As another venerable American, Kermit the Frog, would point out to Mr. Gore, it won’t be easy going green.

Then again, that’s the difference between people like Al Gore and people like ol’ Homunculus. Positive thinking, baby. That’s why he’s an inspiring world-changing leader and I’m an embittered, out-of-work blogger. {Inconvenient Metaphor: I stand on the equator, feel a breeze, and think, It must be winter; Al Gore stands on the equator, feels a breeze, and thinks, It must be summer.}

So go to it, Al! Keep up the good work. Do us proud. Keep at it, don’t give up, et cetera and all those other platitudes. The world needs you now more than ever. And if you do succeed in the end, if you can save us all, think of the rewards! (In addition to the continuation of human life on earth, I mean.) The Nobel Prize... the adulation... the eternal gratitude of all mankind for the remainder of human history... the scores of insanely hot chicks hurling themselves upon you when they otherwise would have approached you only to ask if you had Bill’s number. Maybe even-- just when you thought it couldn’t get any better!... maybe even another tribute in Winter on the Equator. Hell, if you can make a believer out of the ultimate pessimist -- a man who can stand on the equator and claim it's winter -- you can accomplish anything.