Tabulation

"Grace" in a can? I'd love to hear what St. Augustine would say about that.

I'm pissed off that as a member of the secret Tab lover's club, my drink has been reinvented as an "energy" beverage and is now being mass-marketed. And the way it's being mass-marketed makes my angry heart want to hold a neighborhood Tab burning. Except nobody in my neighborhood drinks Tab. And I'm not sure how hot I'd have to get the fire to burn aluminum. And can you imagine how long it would take to empty out each can before tossing it on the flames? I don't have that kind of time! And ultimately, I guess it would have overtones of Farenheit 451's social commentary on censorship, and sheesh, that would make me very uncomfortable. Right, Montag? What's a woman to do?



My name is Ms. Monongahela.
I'm a Tab-a-holic.


There are legions of us, having, until now, lived quiet lives as Tab mavericks -- some dating back to the origin of the drink in 1963 -- consuming the bittersweet caffeine-charged brown liquid in the Pepto-pink can.

Don't believe me? Read all about it in The New Yorker -- it's true. I've been a pioneer in more meaningful ways (or as Reese Witherspoon said in her tear-jerker acceptance speech at the Oscars, echoing the words of June Carter Cash, "I just want to matter"), but I thrived on cashiers barely older than my daughter asking me, when I plunked the obnoxious-looking, bright-pink case of cans with retro lettering, "Is this new?" Hell no, as my mother would say, I've been drinking it since Hector was a pup. (My mother had a colorful saying for everything; this talent having been acquired from my grandmother, who had a colorful saying for everything and nothing.)

If you click the previous link, you'll find fascinating information about the mythological Hector, including how his brother Paris stole Helen from Greece and started the Trojan War.

According to the New Yorker, what I've know all along has been true: “This is a lonely but inspired society,” David Bradley, the owner of The Atlantic Monthly and National Journal, said recently, before news of the brand’s reëngineering had spread.

And thus, the inspiration that has fueled me for years has been revealed. How could they?

"Tab Energy" has been created for women with "a sense of style and purpose," according to their website.

Which certainly precludes me as a consumer of this mutant spin-off. While I like to think I have a sense of purpose (don't we all?), I have absolutely no sense of style. Most writers don't.

What irks me is that I drank Tab because it promised me nothing -- unlike Coke, which has promised via it's marketing campaigns over the years everything from world peace and now, the ability to create an instant party complete with bubbles when you drink it, or Pepsi, which guaranteed your inclusion in a "generation," Tab was a forgotten relic of the '60s and '70s, something I could drink in the '80s, '90s and 2000s for the sheer pleasure of its piquant taste and caffeine buzz, without all the marketing baggage (which, thanks to events like Target selling Tab logo tees and the trend toward cashing in on what's retro has started to change that anyway.) Part of the fun of drinking Tab was knowing where to buy it, and knowing where to buy it when they were out of it at the place you usually bought it.

The commercial currently airing for "Tab Energy" features thin (they can't help it all the weight goes to their boobs!), sexually-charged women. And that kind of marketing is absolutely nothing new, of course. So they're promoting the idea that if you drink this pink, fizzy, over-priced beverage, you, too, can be thin and sexually charged. The website touts it as "Fuel to be Fabulous."

Remember women, YOU ALREADY ARE FABULOUS.

The site read that fabulous is, listed in this order: Style. Fashion. Grace. Ability. Success.

(Jesus, Mary and Joseph someone get me to the STEVE MADDEN store fast!)

Drink what you like, not what companies tell you you should like. It's a freakin' pink carbonated beverage with guarana -- also found in my son's shower gel, by the way. That's all it is.

Yeah, I'm still gonna drink regular Tab. And I will never measure my fabulousness against what's inside a can.

A Black Peacoat and a Pink Carnation

Friday, March 3, 2006

Does a high-priced cup 'a joe make you feel better than the average Joe?

The eerie connection between black wool peacoats and high-priced, chain-house coffee.



(Featured is the 100% virgin wool Prada peacoat, retailing at just over $1,100. Unpretentious yet pretentious, it says "take me out to the ballgame or just take me out, because I'm so broke after spending all this money on this Russian-issue -- but Italian made! -- coat that seductively whispers, 'I just love the choppy prose and penis fixations of E. Annie Proulx ,' so can you please pay?")

I still laugh maniacally (could it be the caffeine?) when I think about Bob O'Connor's appearance at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty last March during a PUMP-sponsored forum, and how he proffered the idea of Starbucks aplenty as his response to needs of the "progressives" in the audience and in our fair city. (In fact, Starbucks have now also become questionable purveyors of music. Anyone want to burn a Moby CD?)

I'll stop at nothing for a cup of coffee when in need, and yes, sometimes, that means I've stopped at a pricey coffee house. It was on one particular morning (and they are all particular to me) that I noticed that everyone -- everyone who came into the Caribou coffee shop on Carson wore a black wool peacoat, or some other type of very similar, black coat. What the hell's with that? Oh, yeah, I forgot -- I'm on the "trendy" side of the South Side now, where mediocre chain restaurants also seem to validate our need for a collective consumer conscience, concidentally, the same mediocre chain restaurants that won't validate our need for free parking.

After I drank my coffee, I wondered what all the buzz was about: did I feel better about myself since it cost more money, it came with a "sissy cozy" to protect my balmy palms, and was I somehow a better human being for it all because this was the coffee the people in the peacoats were drinking?


The simple answer is no. The more complex answer involves those furry footstools.


Talking of Michelangelo?

Actually, I think it's damn hilarious a corporate coffee pimp boasts itself as, "A mountain lodge comes to life in a one-of-a-kind coffeehouse setting." The caribou travel in herds, which may explain the black wool peacoats.

One of my favorite poems, by Thomas Stearns Eliot (you know him as T.S.), is a sad spin on a man who measures his life out in coffee spoons. It's called "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," but love hardly has anything to do with this melancholy tale of a lonely man who obsesses over should-haves, could-haves and would-haves, and reflects on his meaningless existence. And I can't think of anything more depressing than furry footstools than this.

He's Mr. Lonely

Mr. Lonely:

City Councilor Bill Peduto needs our company!

But before we 911 the whambulance, let's give him a chance and ask him to reflect on what it might be like to be a WOMAN politico in this town! The best slogan our brightest can come up with for females to run for office reminds me of an old cigarette ad (hack, hack!) : Run, Baby, Run. It's a great initiative, but if women are supposed to be inspired to run with these words, I think we should encourage men similarly: "Run, Tootsie, Run!" Futhermore, don't think that some male politicians aren't making fun of this program's moniker ... I'm sure they have a "pet name" for it.



Yesterday, an article in Pittsburgh City Paper took a look at the candidates for the vacant District 3 council seat left by Gene Ricciardi when he decided to become a district judge. And that fielding questions from reporters about why District 3 councilors and the city parking authority secretly condone the use of "parking chairs" was no longer his calling.

The feature was notable because it pointed out that there are many other areas besides the South Side that need representation in District 3.

So why the long face, Bill?

Chris Potter of CP writes:

To some extent, the race is also a battle between Mayor Bob O’Connor, who quietly backs Koch, and his rival in last year’s election, City Councilor Bill Peduto of Shadyside. “Right now on city council, I feel very alone,” Peduto says. “I want to see things change while I’m still in elected office.

On Feb. 12, Peduto’s constituents held an endorsement rally of their own. Based on the recommendationReformers hoping to challenge Koch “can’t allow our base to be split up,” Peduto says of self-avowed “progressives” and groups like Progress Pittsburgh -- which hopes to wrest the levers of power from the Democratic Party’s old guard -- Peduto is endorsing Kraus.

Reformers hoping to challenge Koch “can’t allow our base to be split up,” Peduto says."

It's not surprising Bill's feeling of isolation comes shortly after being criticized for selling out (Dennis Roddy had something to say about this) when he expressed outrage that details about a command system break-down that almost caused a catastrophe were leaked -- not outraged that the break-down had actually occurred.

Perhaps Peduto might want to take some time out to examine the poetry of Robert Frost. Frost's poetry always struck me as happy, but perplexingly ambivalent frolics in solitude: "Equally fraught with tension is Frost's awareness that the solitude often required for epiphanic experience must define itself in relation to one's need for social validation," according to lengthy 2002 literary critique by Martin Bidney.

Or maybe he just needs to surround himself with some tender-hearted progressives and feel the love, the togetherness that only the embracing of aloneness can bring, Bobby Vinton-style.

I'm lookin for a place to go
so I can be all alone
From thoughts and memories
So that when the music plays
I don't go back to the days
When love was you and me

Oh, oh moja droga jacie kocham
Means that I love you so
Moja droga jacie kocham
More than you'll ever know
Kocham ciebie calem serce
Love you with all my heart
Return to me and always be
My melody of love

Wish I had a place to hide
all my sorrow, all my pride
I just can't get along
'cause the love once so fine
keeps on hurtin all the time
where did I go wrong?

Feel better now, Bill?

Remember, pain and isolation do not necessarily have to go hand in hand. So don't be afraid to reach out. I'm not saying you should take up power yoga with Doug Shields. I'm saying let's polka our troubles away. You, me and an RX from Carl Sandburg could be the panacea we're all looking for -- to hell with cryptic Robert Frost for now:

Happiness

I ASKED the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

Carl Sandburg

I won't remind you this came from an anthology called "Chicago Poems." They may not be big on hockey there, but they've got two baseball teams! I love Chicago. But, fear not, I love Pittsburgh even more. Ain't Jay Pritzker Pavilion way cool?

Define the "progressive Pittsburgher."