SLOW COOKED FOR THE SLOW-WITTED

If someone tells you he knows a great BBQ spot in New York, severe ties with that person. There is no such thing. In a city crawling with scams, the illusion of "quality BBQ" is one of the hardest to tolerate (you thought I was going to say "hardest to swallow" didn't you, you cynical skank).

Most NYC barbecue destinations are wickedly overpriced. Leave it to Manhattanites to pay a premium for blue-collar cuisine. To those not held captive by Zagatspeak, barbecue should be synonymous with bargain. You will see a humble backwoods church scraping together funds for a summer barbecue. You won't see that church holding a Palm Sunday Beluga Bake.

NYC barbecue isn't so much a parody of the South as it is New York self-parody. What could be more New York than overpaying for a third-rate version of po' folks' grub? Instead of blogging, I should open a rib shack called "3-Course Monte."

Before you know it, these conned-mopolitans will be paying top shekel for "gourmet military rations."

Speaking of "down home" food in NYC, I'm seeing sweet potatoes on more and more menus, and I'm not liking what I see. Most restaurants don't realize or don't care that sweet potatoes contain more water and therefore must be prepared differently. Now that SP fries are everywhere, a generation of suckers is being raised to believe that soggy, orangish salt sticks are a cherished delicacy. How will we know when we've lost sweet potatoes for good? When Ronald McDonald has toxic "McSweeties" falling out of his McFro.

You Lost Me at Hello

So I've been going on a lot of Internet dates lately (yeah, I'm judging me too). What's strange is that my profile has generated a lot more traffic and response than I expected.

I say it's strange because my profile is well, honest. The picture is a full-on face shot (not a pretty picture). My true and typically dealbreaking height is spelled out in plain view. Everything else is honest as well. No allusions to bulging Swiss bank accounts or reference lists of sexually sated ex-conquests.

Yet a goodly number of chicks have come out to meet me. Some from as far away as Brooklyn. Many with decent pedigrees and lots to offer. The fact that my looks, height, and absence of achievements didn't scare them off is almost enough to make me question why I need Internet dating in the first place.

But here's the rub...very few second dates. No urgency for return engagements. One dose of Mike Payne and all further investigation is off. Seems these women can look past the ghostly face, the Hobbitish height, the lack of accomplishment. What they can't look past is my losing personality. They're like: "Yeah, I was all set to give a 5' 5" failure a shot, but after meeting you in person...well, let's just say you give charity a bad name."

All Print is Fine Print

In Wall Street parlance, when someone is pumping a stock mainly because he owns it himself, he is said to be "talking his book." In other words, he isn't objectively analyzing the stock's merits; he is promoting it so its value (and his wealth) will rise. Naturally, all humans "talk their book" in some form, but today we’ll highlight how a certain form of book talking corrupts actual books (i.e., the press).

Those who complain about the press usually gripe that the outlets parrot the views of their sponsors. Not a crazy supposition. But something less talked about--and more insidious--is that in the media, there is no working balance between honesty and profitability. The closer you get to the truth, the farther you get from the black. And the audience is the problem.

Take Cosmo, or as I call it, Hymen Times. That rag is basically Weekly World News without the hard-hitting Elvis coverage. I'm sure Cosmo's staff has some true believers, but I suspect more than a few know they're just accomplices in a campaign of mi$information.

Each issue of Cosmo features cutting edge scholarship like, "Ten Ways to Please Him" or "What your man wants to say but can't." These at least sound informative, if you can escape the "Chocolate Chip Cookies: Are They Making Him Distant?" section. Unfortunately, once you reach "Ten Ways," you're treated to advice bearing no resemblance to any desire held by any hetero, non-institutionalized male since the fall of homo erectus. I can state with categorical certainty that doing Sudoku together using only your toes tickles no man's fancy.

Let me show you a Cosmo advice list for women reflecting men’s actual desires:

Page 1: Be a monogamous, round the clock nympho.
Page 2: See page 1.

What men want is rapt devotion in the bedroom and laissez-faire everywhere else. Basically, Hong Kong compressed into a cute, compact female. But you won't catch Cosmo admitting that, because if they did their readership would dry up faster than a reference at a figure of speech. So to keep readers from collapsing in despair, Cosmo instead caters to the most infantile dreams of its most infantile readers. And because average women have never heard such dreck, many end up mistaking Cosmo’s witchcraft for "inside scoops."

Unfortunately, what ails Cosmo also ails the "higher" forms of media. No media outlet can show us The Wizard and remain solvent.

CNBC, "America's business channel," can't tell its viewers that America's "dynamic" economy is built on borrowed money and reserve currency shenanigans, or that day traders (their core audience) rarely make money, or that literally almost every mutual fund underperforms the market. BORING! CNBC has to keep the witless watchers watching, and that means telling them this market is red, white, and blue hot! Take off your pom-poms and get in the game! BUY BUY BUY!!!

When it comes to cynical, full throttle book talking, Rolling Stone is practically a handbook. Rolling Stone has long postured as contrarian, even though it gives slobbery grandma kisses to every trend that comes along. When hair metal died in the early 90's, they began speaking of it in the kind of somber, unbelieving tones you'd expect from a medical journal discussing the days of leech treatments. Never mind that RS had spent the 80's hyping bands like Cinderella. They now wanted it understood that the days of hair metal were dark and unenlightened. Never forget.

But the second hair metal returned, what did this pillar of integrity have to say about it? "Dust off those mullets, kids! REAL ROCK is back!!!"

Naturally, Rolling Stone was just talking its book, and I don’t blame them. You can't turn a profit reporting that every band since Radiohead has been a disgrace. If they copped to that, no one would buy the issue featuring Taylor Swift’s strategy for exiting Iraq. And I'm sure any day now they'll have an article telling us Fergie Ferg is not a butta face, but rather an example of the new "Marmaduke chic."

The Trench Connection

Like the happy trail on a Greek belly dancer, the numbers can get a little fuzzy, but this year the US Federal government is fixing to discharge almost enough new debt to surpass all the new debt dropped by all other governments combined. Uncle Sam, official babysitter of Earth's reserve currency, is once again far and away its most profligate debtor.

Simultaneously, 2009 US military spending accounted for nearly half of Earth's total military spending. According to the SIPRI, even after combining the bomb budgets of the other power brokers; Russia, China, the UK, and France, with the next 10 "big spenders," the rest of Earth's military tab only totaled 38.8% of earthly defense spending (remind you of anything?), leaving America with a 7.7% edge.

OKAY...so the US is blowing w-a-y more on military expenses than everyone else. Got it. And we're also issuing w-a-y government debt than everyone else. Right, still listening...

Do ya think there might be a link?

It's not the Heat, It's the Commentary

Finding loopholes in anti-torture law is a full-time job. Most people don't have time for two full-time jobs, so in place of lawful genital-tasering, they resort to small talk about the weather. It scratches the torture itch while keeping them out of jail.

Summer is when the serious INQUISITORS come out. You won't read this in your New York City guidebook, but congregating around street vendors this time of year is the surest way to experience the weather-talk version of the rack. Here's the torment you'll encounter each time two strangers meet:

Meathead-eorologist #1: "Phew, another hot one!"

Meathead-eorologist #2: "Yeah, humid too."

Meathead-eorologist #1: "Phew, what's it supposed to be like tomorrow?"

Meathead-eorologist #2: "I hear it's going to be even hotter."

Meathead-eorologist #1: "Will it be humid too?"

Meathead-eorologist #2: (Eyes bulge) "Gee, I don't know! This looks like a job for Weatherman!"

[Meathead-eorologist #2 steadies his trembling hands just long enough to flick on the Weatherman-Signal; flooding the muggy sky with a W-shaped distress sign. Will our hero respond in time?]

Weatherman heroically answers the call.

Weatherman: "YES, IT WILL BE HUMID TOMORROW."

Repeat after me: It's summer. In New York City. It's going to be hot. What's that, you're feeling the heat? So is everyone else. No need to mention it. If it were 95 in January, we'd have something to talk about.

Do you spend every December 23rd telling strangers how Christmasy it is?

Meathead-eorologist #1: "Phew, it's really Christmasy out here!"

Meathead-eorologist #2: "Yeah, tomorrow's gonna be even merrier."



My Twitter feed is partly funny with a chance of haze: http://twitter.com/#!/greatMikePayne

Coming to a Half-Empty Stadium Near You

Like David Beckham before him, Thierry Henry becomes soccer’s latest star striker to be plucked from Europe in hopes of spurring Americans to care about MLS:

Thierry Henry's move to the New York Red Bulls will help Major League Soccer in its goal to become one of the "world's elite soccer leagues'', according to the organisation's vice-president of marketing and communications.

As it was with Beckham, the Henry experiment will fail.

Beckham had far more fame and visibility ahead of his coming to the LA Galaxy, and that still wasn’t enough to attract anything beyond a short term buzz for the team and league. Henry is much less known in America, so the idea of turning him into a “star” ambassador for the game is fantasy.

Beckham hailed from the UK, a country most Americans are still relatively well-disposed to. Thierry was born near Paris, and is bound to trigger the usual slap-dick antics Americans heap on anything French-related (brace yourself for hacky French accents and deafeningly unfunny surrender jokes).

And like Beckham by the time he reached MLS, Thierry is past his prime, so it is doubtful we are about to be treated to a one-man exhibition of soccer at its finest that will inspire a generation of Americans to ditch LeBron, cast off the Air Jordans of their forefathers, and demand a pair of soccer cleats.

A similar “ambassadorship” was tried with Pelé, who in 1975 was recruited to the New York Cosmos of the now defunct NASL. Pelé was a more accomplished and more US visible player than Henry. Pelé also had some political cache, and was playing in the era of Muhammad Ali; probably the golden age of politicized sport (Henry lacks these advantages). And despite all that, and despite playing in a media-saturated glamour town, Pelé’s presence failed to reap the lasting dividends US soccer believers were banking on.

Can New York soccer lightning fail to strike twice? Yes it can.

Henry will spark some sizzle early on, but that sizzle won’t even reach the levels ignited by Beckham’s arrival. Then we’ll be barraged with the familiar round of tired, soul-searching columns wondering why Americans don’t get soccer. The proposed solutions will be the usual calls for “better coaching” and “better promotion at the youth level.” Maybe the conversation should instead begin with the fact that the rest of Earth calls it football, and we already have a sport called football, thanks very much, whose popularity and stature towers over all other US athletics.

Hilarity aside, maybe it’s as simple as Americans just preferring high scoring sports. Hockey scores are similar to soccer’s, and in terms of visibility, hockey has long been a distant fourth among the four major US team sports. Coincidence?

Miami Vice?

The backlash against LeBron’s announcement-o-thon has gotten a little overdone. Well, lest anyone think this sports fixation is an American phenomenon, bear in mind that David Beckham’s 2003 physical exam aired on 39 channels across the globe, and included a pay-per-view broadcast. Yeah, we do have bread and circuses, but don’t let your reaction to them turn you into a sideshow.