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How old am I really?

Me last night, talking to my friend Reggie about a new album:

Me: I think I had enough of this record
Me: ha, record
Me: how old am I? 55?
Reggie: hahahha
Reggie: you’re either 55 or a hipper than thou hipster

And today, in regards to different music:

Me: ha — my cousin had a funny statement
Me: “I like the first half of the new coldplay more”
Reggie: i think i agree
Me: I actually like the second side more
Reggie: side?
Reggie: do you flip your MP3s?
Reggie: does your iTunes have auto-reverse?

I guess this is what happens when you’re raised on The Beatles and the classics. But it’s not like we had a working record player or anything when I was growing up (I still don’t).

So what gives?

I wanted to take a moment to wish my (not-so) little brother Gary a very happy 22nd birthday.  I couldn’t be prouder of how my little brother turned out and how much he’s accomplished.  He just finished his junior year of college (marketing major!), and I look forward to the future days of our media and marketing empire, “Levinson and Levinson Worldwide, LLC.”  I’ve yet to get sign-off from him on this specific proposal, but trust me, it’ll happen.

Gary and I last year at my dad’s birthday dinner.

My very first memory, in fact, is his birth.  I’ll tell the story, and then my mom will likely comment and tell me that I’m remembering something else — but it’s the sentiment that counts, right?  I was around two-and-a-half, and I remember being at our old townhouse with my grandma and grandpa.  We got a call from my parents (on an 80’s-tastic brown corded phone with a built-in chalkboard), and I remember being handed the phone and being told that I have a new little brother.

Gary and I, in cuter times.

I was pretty jealous of the new arrival. Being the firstborn of the new generation of both sides, I was fairly used to attention, and he was so fat and cute it was hard for a kid to compete.  Just look:

Here’s another first memory: when I was four, I cut my hair with scissors, and then tried to pin it on Gary, who was actually too little to even hold — let alone work — a pair of scissors.  Gary, I apologize.  I don’t know what I was thinking, but I suppose you were an easy scapegoat.  You still are, in fact.

Gary, happy happy birthday to you, I love you and I’m proud of you, always.

Some pictures from this past weekend! Jess and I went to Warm Springs, VA for the Virginia Blues and Jazz Festival, where we had a great time.

We’re city slickers, we’ve realized!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Big surprise here: I am not a fan of Fox News. But like my mom says, sometimes it’s just weirdly fun to watch the channel, just to hear how that channel frames the debate and to see what propaganda techniques they use.

Today? Not so fun. Fox was reporting on something that’s becoming fairly apparent: Michelle Obama is going to be a big target of the GOP during this election.

Here’s what they put up on the screen during the segment (it’s pretty unbelievable):

That’s right. “Baby Mama.” This is a woman who went to Princeton for her undergrad degree and to Harvard for her law degree — and is currently on leave as the Vice President for Community and External Affairs for the University of Chicago Hospitals. That’s a position that Michelle Malkin, who was on air during the segment, will likely never hold.

But let’s deny her all of those accomplishments and call her a “baby mama,” because that’s all she’s done, right?

Was “baby mama” just too irresistible because it rhymes with “Obama”? I like puns and rhymes, too, but this one’s not amusing. It’s inappropriate and completely racist. I won’t even say it has racist connotations. It’s just plain racist. Has the phrase “baby mama” ever been used against a prospective First Lady before? Nancy Reagan, perhaps? Not likely.

It’s not like this even works strategically for Fox News or for the GOP. From CNN:

“Considering there are so many issues — legitimate issues — that you can use on Barack Obama, to attack his wife to me is sheer utter stupidy of the highest level,” Stephen Marks, a Republican strategist, said. “Mr. Obama is going to come to his wife’s defense and it’s going to humanize both of them.”

I’ll expand on this: if McCain wants to attract the Hillary voting bloc, this certainly isn’t the way to do it.

This past weekend, the New York Times published a series called “What Went Wrong?”, which is trying to do a bit of a post-mortem on the Clinton campaign and explain, as the title suggests, what went wrong (note how the focus isn’t on what went “right” with the Obama campaign, which is actually a better question).

Mark Penn, the chief strategist of the Clinton campaign — and for those in the PR field, he’s also the CEO of Burson-Marsteller — wrote his take on why his own strategy failed.  From his ed-op piece, entitled “The Problem Wasn’t the Message — It Was the Money“:

“From more aggressively courting young people earlier to mobilizing the full power of women, there are things that could have been done differently.

While everyone loves to talk about the message, campaigns are equally about money and organization. Having raised more than $100 million in 2007, the Clinton campaign found itself without adequate money at the beginning of 2008, and without organizations in a lot of states as a result. Given her successes in high-turnout primary elections and defeats in low-turnout caucuses, that simple fact may just have had a lot more to do with who won than anyone imagines.”

I read this, and I wondered, “but wasn’t it the message that drove people to donate to Obama?”

It was the entire Obama narrative — the concept of unity and creating a movement — that drove people to action, and to donate.

Think of key phrases from the campaign, from the “Yes We Can” slogan to lines like “we are the change that we’ve been waiting for.”  The phrasing of words are specifically designed to target activation.  Look at, for example, the words above the e-mail signup, and compare the phrase against the competition.  What’s more likely to induce action?  ”Get Involved,” or “Get E-mail from Hillary”?

Language that urges inclusion and the concept of literally “buying into” the campaign — almost like an investment — is what activated donations from contributors.  Flipping a slogan from “Yes We Can” to “Yes She Will” doesn’t give people the same kind of buy-in that a “we” message can.

A truly action-inducing campaign’s message needs to be more than just a collection of dial-tested phrases and slogans.  Sure, polling helps to refine your messages, but there’s the notion that all of these dial-tested phrases need to end up coming together as a solid, inter-woven narrative that is designed to use the concept of “inclusion” to motivate supporters towards action.

That’s not to say that the Clinton campaign didn’t have emotionally-invested supporters (and we know that she did, and we’re clearly seeing it now).  However, when Penn talks about message and Obama’s “money” as separate, non-complementary concepts, I scratch my head a bit and wonder, because it was the message that allowed for supporter-based small donations to flow in.

There are many plusses with living in D.C..  There are also many minuses.

One of these minuses is generally in the form of what I’ve termed “the sidewalk clipboard people,” who like to bother you to give money.  It’s never time or volunteerism.  It’s always money.  And I’ve tried asking if I can do the volunteering — they’re just not interested.

Lately, the main culprits have been Greenpeace.  They stand there in their blue Greenpeace shirts (why are they blue, by the way?  That doesn’t seem to make sense at all…), and like to ask me for money.

As I pass them, I generally start to try avoiding eye contact.  I like to pretend that the most amazing thing ever has just happened on my iPhone, which is why I need to keep intensely staring at it for the 20 seconds needed until I pass them.  But occasionally, they’ll get me anyway.

So, today, I came up with the winning “I’ve got to go, I don’t have time for the environment” excuse.

“Oh, sorry, I have to go.  My girlfriend’s waiting for me.”

I tried it a few more times after, and it definitely works.  Apparently people seem to sympathize with any possible causing of domestic strife, even if it means the degradation of the environment.

Jess is pretty amused by this, especially considering that she’s the most harmless person, well, pretty much ever, and would never get mad at me for anything like that.

So thank you, Jess, for both your kindness and your willingness to let me to use you as an excuse to strangers.

Want to know bad luck?

How about getting sick the day before you’re going to go see, in concert, one of your favorite musicians (Tom Petty)?

I was still sick today and had to make the unfortunate “opt-out” call.  I figured that since it was about 100 degrees outside today and I’m already dehydrated, toughing it out was likely not the best decision.

Not coincidentally, this is why you now see this blog.  So perhaps some good did come out of it after all, no?

This is likely the most substantive blog post ever, just so you know.