House of Eratosthenes

I live within three miles of the Jedediah Smith Trail, and for the first time in my life, I own a bicycle that really does have to be locked up because it’s worth stealing. The Trek 7300 24-speed hybrid, oh great hairy wombat gonads in the morning, this thing kicks so much ass. It just goes. Zoom!

I’ve been waiting for this environment/equipment juxtaposition for seventeen years now, back when my Iron Man ambitions had more to do with the Burke-Gilman Trail that winds around Lake Washington in Seattle. If you define “waiting” as “forgetting about it indefinitely and going to work on building up that disgusting middle-age pudge.” But I digress. Yesterday morning, successfully gobbling up all the miles between my place and the zero-marker at Discovery Park (I did, I really did, see picture), I was faced with the task of making it back home again. Second half of the return leg, I was noticing the miles were ticking by MUCH more slowly. This signals the seasoned adventurer that a reliable ETA is a figment of history, and whenever the journey ends, the physical pain is bound to be just beginning. There is no point to these two paragraphs, except to explain exactly how it came to be that I was listening to AM radio for six hours in a row, my original intentions allowing for only three.

The six hours have thoroughly convinced me of something which, up to yesterday, was simply a shallow, smoldering suspicion: There is something abysmally wrong with the jewelry industry.

It’s not that I’m in favor of some new external oversight, such as regulation, watchdog agencies, or the like. But if someone isn’t in favor of these, I don’t want to hear another word about Enron, Exxon, Halliburton or bank ATM fees.

I have conflicted feelings about this. I was tuned in to KFBK, which I have respected for a long time as a meticulously scrupulous advertiser, and still do. I think they turn away less-than-ethical accounts, evidence of which I am bound to never see, therefore of course I can’t prove this. But I have faith, because I know the goods marketed on that station are high quality. A business advertises there, I go to that business, and I’m satisfied. So a friend of KFBK is a friend of mine.

But this unnamed jeweler has been flooding the airwaves with the same advertisement — for years. The script has remained virtually unchanged. As a favor to us guys, who are like fish out of water with this whole jewelry schtick, this grandfatherly type is going to take us aside. While we’re listening to the radio, so our ladies won’t catch us actually asking for directions about things. He’s going to tell us the ins-and-outs, or at least about as much of this as he can in thirty seconds. Just enough knowledge that later on we can pretend we know something! Every straight guy knows, this is invaluable. We tip waiters ten bucks or more for it: Make us look smart; make us look good. Being “all-knowing” is one of those things that actually works. Just a shot at the poontang, Mister Waiter, and here’s your ten-spot.

But when you listen critically to these spots, over and over again, as I normally would not have been doing, you start to notice something: There is no meaningful intention for this commercial to be heard by a guy. There can’t be. It is intended to be heard by the lady. The lady, then, duped into thinking she has intercepted a message intended for the “opposition,” can then drop hints. And as we all know, the hints will continue to be dropped until they produce the desired results, or… well, or nothing. The hints will be dropped until the goods are bought, period.

I won’t pick on any one particular jeweler because there would be little point to doing so. I heard spots from two, or more, and the pattern was clear from this plurality that this perpetual hint-dropping cycle was the goal. “Advice for guys” was never anything more than a Trojan Horse.

A guy wants pussy. A guy who is a jewelry customer, wants to spend a certain amount of money to get guaranteed pussy. This is true of all straight male jewelry customers. For this clientele, there is no — none, zero, zip, zilch, nada, butkus — reason to spend that finite amount of money on anything that detracts from that primary goal. Here is a great example: “Start[ing] a collection.” A collection? Collection? Are you out of your freakin’ gourd? As if the kid’s Bionicle collection isn’t busting your ass already, just as you’re recovering from Gotta-Catchem-All Pokemon?

Here, let me define, for purpose of all gift-giving, what a “collection” is. A collection is a way of guaranteeing there will be no pleasant surprise, in the purest sense of the word “surprise,” while practically guaranteeing there will indeed be a disappointment somewhere along the line before the collection is complete. Jewelry or not: If you “start a collection” for someone as a gift, then you are a fool. A fool.

And in the realm of exchanging material items for sex, every straight guy over twenty-five already knows this.

Jewelers: Your craft is old. My bones may be dust before you ever get yours, assuming you ever do. But if I live to see the day, Jesus Jumpin’ Christ on a Pogo Stick I’m going to enjoy it so freakin’ much. I have never completely trusted you, not since I first heard about that asinine two-month-salary rule.

I have nothing at all against wolves, until they dress up like sheep. I respect your right to earn a profit and to maximize that profit. But your shenanigans do not help guys get laid, they get in the way. Since your world of capitalism is compelled to continue spinning on its axis by the desire of guys to get laid, there is something terribly perverted about this.

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The Bicycle Diaries — or Are Jewelers Scum?Thursday, October 27th, 2005

The Bicycle Diaries — or Are Jewelers Scum?
Thursday, October 27th, 2005