Gadling infiltrates Southwest HQ for Halloween

by Grant Martin on

As I’m sitting on WN1540 headed towards Saint Louis, I’m starting to realize just how serious they take Halloween at Southwest Airlines. Sure, I know they’ve always been a little wacky – their blog is called “Nuts about Southwest” after all – but I guess at the core of that fun, outer shell I just expected to see the same old straight-laced corporate abomination.

It took me until about page 12 of “Spirit,” their in-flight magazine, to start to change my mind. On it is the normal letter that Gary Kelly, Southwest’s CEO always writes to the reader and passenger — only the topic of this note is how passionate he and his airline are about Halloween. And at the bottom is a cutout picture of Mr. Kelly dressed up as Gene Simmons from Kiss.

Alright. So maybe when I was invited out to Southwest’s headquarters to help judge the annual Halloween contest I underestimated how strange this could get. Yes, they did ask me to dress up and yes, I do have an orange pilot’s suit in my carry-on. But Gene Simmons? Are you serious?

Well, I guess we’ll see what happens. Throughout the day today I’ll be wandering around Southwest headquarters with Gary, some friends from Jaunted and The Cranky Flier, inspecting some of the decorations and skits that the various departments have prepared and declaring the most outrageous getup as winners.

You can follow along at our Twitter feed with live picture updates, or for those more patient among you, you can probably wait until I return home for the closing post. I have a feeling I’ll be sleeping on the return flights.

“Let’s build a city… there!” The world’s 4 least impressive planned capitals

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Cities tend to develop the way living organisms do– they begin their lives as small and simple creatures, they eventually flower into maturity, and some occasionally decay and die out. Cities are located where they are– Paris is on the Seine, Sydney is on the Pacific coast– not because central planners decided that’s where they should be, but because of the choices of individuals. The decision was made from the bottom-up, not from the top-down.

But it doesn’t always happen like this. Sometimes well-meaning bureaucrats, or even megalomaniacal dictators, decide that a city should develop the way they want it to– in exactly the place they want it to. The results are almost universally disappointing.

This problem is especially acute with capital cities, which are often thought to represent countries in important ways. Because of their symbolic nature, government oficials like to locate capitals in just the right place. Their intentions are often pure, but (to paraphrase an old saying) the road to a bad city is paved with good intentions.

Here are the top four worst planned capital cities in the world:

4. Brasilia, Brazil

Brazil’s capital is one of the best examples of a planned city gone awry. In the late 1950s, Brazil’s president ordered the construction of a new city, Brasilia, which would be the new, more centrally-located capital. At first, the city grew wildly, and its rate of growth (over 2%) is still above that of most large cities. But Brasilia is not thought of very highly by its residents, other Brazilians, or tourists.

The city was built more for the automobile than the pedestrian, so getting around can be difficult, confusing, and expensive. On the plus side, Brasilia is known for its impressive modernist architecture– it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site. Still, the city is too cold and impersonal to be thought of as anything but a massive disappointment.

3. Astana, Kazakhstan

If there’s one fact about Astana that shows how characterless it really is, it’s this: “Astana” literally means “capital city.” Charming!

Though Astana has existed under different names for almost two centuries, it was only a small mining town until the mid-1950s, when Nikita Khruschev decided it would become an important grain-producer. After replacing Almaty as Kazakhstan’s capital in 1997, Astana has experienced a dramatic transformation, with a population that has doubled to 600,000 residents.

Like Brasilia, Astana boasts some impressive architecture, but is still rather bleak and humorless. Dozens of ambitious construction projects are underway, however, so the city’s future is not without some hope.

2. Belmopan, Belize

What if the government moved the capital city and no one came? That was more or less the situation when Belmopan became Belize’s capital in 1991 after a hurricane destroyed the previous capital, Belize City. Home to only 8,100 residents, mostly government officials, Belmopan is the quintessential government town, lacking virtually any flavor or charm.

My Lonely Planet guidebook describes the city’s tourist appeal thusly: “Travelers arriving in Belize’s capital are faced with that most basic of all existential questions: What am I doing here? Thankfully, the town provides a ready answer: changing buses.”

1. Naypyidaw, Myanmar (Burma)

Naypyidaw became Myanmar’s capital only three years ago, after the ruling military junta apparently decided that Yangon had become too crowded and congested. However, some suspect that the real reason the capital was moved to such a remote locale was to make invasions and rebellion more difficult. One Indian journalist wrote that Naypyidaw was “the ultimate insurance against regime change, a masterpiece of urban planning designed to defeat any putative ‘color revolution’ – not by tanks and water cannons, but by geometry and cartography.”

Last year, the New York Times euphemistically called the new capital a “work in progress,” and noted that the city may be the world’s only capital without cell phone service or international flight connections.

Through the Gadling Lens: What kind of camera should I buy?

by Karen Walrond on

Maybe you’re about to take the trip of a lifetime: your passport’s ready, you’ve bought all the latest guidebooks, you now have an entirely new wardrobe/set of luggage to take on your trip, and you want to make sure you capture every perfect moment for posterity — but your camera skills are a bit lacking. Or perhaps you’re tired of going on fabulous vacations, only to return disappointed that the hundreds of photographs you took don’t really capture the brilliant blue of the ocean, the way the sun turned everything golden, the teeming humanity or the grandeur of the mountain ranges.

Well, today’s your lucky day: welcome to Through the Gadling Lens, Gadling’s newest weekly guide to ensuring you enjoy your travel shots for many years to come. I’ll give you practical tips on how to frame your shots, how to use Photoshop or other photo editing software, how to archive your shots, where to find great online photography resources and other tools to help you capture your very best images. In fact, if you have any burning questions about travel photography that you’d love to have answered, be sure to shoot me an e-mail at karen.walrond@weblogsinc.com, and I’ll be happy to answer them right here on the site.

In the meantime, let’s get started with the basics: choosing a digital camera. Ask any photographer, and she’ll likely confirm that the number one question she’s asked is “what kind of camera should I buy?” This question, obviously, isn’t easy — besides the fact that there are literally hundreds of brands and types of cameras to choose from, the truth is that the answer depends strongly on how you plan on using the camera in the first place.
Given this, these days the decision ultimately comes down to a choice between buying a single lens reflex or SLR camera (read: the kind of camera where you can switch out lenses), or a point-and-shoot (read: the kind of camera where you can’t). When making your decision, here are some things to consider:

You should buy a point-and-shoot if:

  • You like to travel unencumbered. Let’s face it: SLRs are bulky. They’re heavy. And worst of all, they take up precious carry-on baggage space. If you’re the type of person who likes to pack light for trips, go sightseeing without so much as a backpack, and your rule for daytrips is that all necessary gear must completely fit in your jeans pockets, then clearly, an SLR would be exactly the wrong kind of camera to take with you. With the designs and profiles of compact cameras getting smaller and smaller by the day (without, by the way, losing any snap-taking-power), a good point-and-shoot would definitely be the way to go.
  • When visiting a new place, you don’t like to have anything on you that screams “TOURIST!” Nothing says “foreigner” like a large camera hanging around your neck — and I say this as a person who has a large camera perpetually around her neck, even when I’m at home. If you’d rather not stand out, and prefer to take your images and keep your tourist status on the down-low, a compact camera will likely be more your speed. Bonus: its easier to sneak the point-and-shoot into places where photography is discouraged — just make sure that your flash is turned off!
  • You just want a camera that will take quick shots of scenery and snapshots of you and your friends on holiday. If you couldn’t care less about apertures and f-stops and your eyes glaze over when people start talking shutter speeds and ISOs, then a SLR would likely be more camera that you require. Do yourself a favour and simply buy a good compact camera. And the good news: with a few tricks of the trade, you’ll find that a point-and-shoot is capable of images as high a quality as an SLR, even if it might not have the range.
  • You don’t have unlimited funds to purchase a camera. Brand new single lens reflex cameras are expensive; conversely, you can get a fairly decent new point-and-shoot for hundreds, rather than thousands of dollars. Then, once you’ve purchased the SLR body, you’re going to have start buying lenses and other accessories to really make it sing. If you really want a new camera, but don’t have the time to save up for a good SLR, a good point-and-shoot is your only alternative.

You should buy a SLR camera if:

  • You’re interested in learning about photography, independent of your upcoming trip. Again, single lens reflex cameras are pretty expensive — I wouldn’t recommend purchasing one unless you consider it an investment. And once you discover the power of a single lens camera — the variety of images and technical depth you can achieve with one — you’ll want to spend some time learning how to harness that power.
  • You want to take specific types of pictures. Perhaps you’re interested in taking huge, wide-angle, panoramic views of stunning scenery, like the Grand Canyon. Or maybe you’re interested in getting nice tight, magazine-cover-quality shots of beautiful local faces, or even really up-close macro shots of the stamens and petals of an exotic flower. Or all three. The truth is that a standard point-and-shoot rarely has the range to do every type of photography out there. And if you’re interested in a specific type of photography, and really sticking to it, then investing in a good SLR might be a sensible option.
  • You’ve got some money to spend. In addition to buying an SLR camera body, you’ll have to buy the proper lens … or two … or five, depending on what kinds of images you want to take, and how serious you want to get. There are things like macro lenses, fisheye lenses, portrait lenses, zoom lenses … and the list keeps going and going. Then there are flashes. Tripods. Reflectors. Clearly, you don’t need to get all of these things at once, but once you have a SLR, there’s always some new gadget that promises to increase your ability to take that stellar shot. Never let it be said that photography is a cheap hobby.

Now that you’ve decided what kind of photographer you’re going to be, here are some additional tips for going out and actually picking a camera:

1. Do some research. Ask friends what kinds of cameras they use, and how they like them. E-mail professional photographers, and ask for advice on specific products. Go to review sites, like Digital Photography Review for example, to see how the various brands stack up against each other. As with any expensive purchase, arm yourself with knowledge before plopping down the cash.

2. Once you’ve narrowed down your choices, actually go to a camera store and try them out. Review sites and blogs can only tell you so much — the truth is that using a camera is a very personal experience, and what might feel good in the hands of one person may not feel so great in yours. Go to a camera store and actually look through the viewfinder. Play with the dials and meters. Click the shutters. Decide which feels right for you. Then make your decision.

3. When it comes to online purchases, buyer beware. Recently, I was in the market for a new SLR camera body. I knew how much the suggested retail price was for the specific camera I wanted, so when I found a site that purported to sell the camera body for almost half the amount, I was thrilled, and placed an order. Two days later, I received a call, and the person online wanted to “clarify” if I wanted a battery with my camera. And a battery charger. And a manufacturer’s warranty. By the time the “extras” were added, the price was more than I would’ve paid going to my local camera store — and that was all before shipping! Needless to say, I canceled the order, and purchased the camera from my local store. It was a lesson that I should’ve known before placing the order: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

4. Don’t be afraid of second-hand. Photographers are a fickle bunch, often trading in their relatively-new cameras for the latest and greatest. My first camera was purchased second-hand 15 years ago, and it still works beautifully (when I’m in the mood to shoot film, that is!). Buying second-hand is a great way to get a powerful camera for a fraction of the cost. But if you choose to do so, be sure to actually try it out before buying it (see #2, above).

5. And finally, when it comes to purchasing an SLR camera, remember that what you buy today is likely what you’ll keep buying 10 years from now. For example, I’m a Nikon user — and the Nikon D300 I just bought takes the lenses that I bought for my original Nikon FE Series camera fifteen years ago. As such, be sure to buy an SLR from a manufacturer that has a long history of service and support, that you can be sure will be around for a while, because you don’t want to spend $1000 on a lens that you won’t be able to use twenty years from now. In my experience Canon and Nikon are the most popular brands among professional photographers, so I would certainly consider them when looking for an SLR — but if you’d prefer another brand, be sure to look into history and longevity before making a purchase.

Good luck with your camera purchase! Stay tuned for more Through the Gadling Lens features: next week we’ll talk about what various lenses can help you do. And again, feel free to send me questions directly at karen.walrond@weblogsinc.com — I’m happy to tackle them here on Gadling!

Karen is a writer and photographer in Houston, Texas. You can see more of her work at her site, Chookooloonks.

Catching the travel bug: Midair malaise

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Catching the Travel Bug, Gadling’s mini-series on getting sick on the road, prevailing and loving travel throughout. Five of our bloggers will be telling their stories from around the globe for the next five weeks. Submit your best story about catching the travel bug in the comments and we’ll publish our favorite few at the end of the series.

It was 1989. In an effort to build flight time after earning my private pilot’s license in college, I managed to convince my boss at the hobby shop where I worked that it might be a good investment for him to loan me the $5500 I needed to buy a two-seat 1946 airplane called a Luscombe.

After tiring of touring around the local airport, shooting ‘touch-and-goes’ well into the night and giving rides to share the fuel costs with everyone I knew or even the strangers I sat next to in my classes at W.S.U., I decided to venture out on a cross-country flight.

What better excuse than the annual Luscombe fly-in which was held at a beautiful airport near the mountains in Columbia, California. The event attracted over 100 of the durable little airplanes and their owners, allowing the pilots and spouses a chance to socialize about two things they were sure to have in common: a love of flight and an interest in a small part of aviation history.

I flew out to Seattle the day before so I could join up early in the morning with another Luscombe that was attending the event. Since my airplane didn’t have a baggage compartment, I stuffed the full size suitcase, tent, portable VHF radio, Sony Walkman and a bag of groceries into the right seat of the airplane, strapped down so nothing interfered with the second control stick on the right.

We were to meet up at 6 a.m. on an early May morning before heading south toward San Francisco. Seattle isn’t known for it’s good weather in May, and this morning was no exception. A low layer of clouds hovered over Puget Sound, and if I weren’t following an experienced Northwest captain out of the area, I’m not sure I would have been comfortable flying an airplane with virtually no navigational equipment that day.

I stuck close to the other airplane as we worked our way around the Tacoma area, listening on the pilot-to-pilot frequency while a half dozen Cessnas were reporting their locations to each other and patrolling up and down I-5 to report on the local Seattle traffic conditions.

As we crossed into the state of Oregon, the clouds lifted and we made our first fuel stop. The formation flying made the trip go by in no time, and I was really enjoying the experience. I would follow the captain for another few hours before he had to make a detour towards San Francisco to visit his sister before arriving at the fly-in.

We parted ways as we flew past Mount Shasta and I broke off to land at another airport for refueling. The airplane held 14 gallons of gas, enough for at least two hours of flying. I dug into some yogurt and a breakfast bar before leaving again.

The final stop before Columbia was a little residential airpark in Cameron, CA that sold fuel. I visited with one of the residents who told me that Columbia was just another two hours south.

Up to this point I had been either following another airplane or navigating from town to town using my map, since I had no navigational instruments and my compass had a rather persistent tendency to only point east regardless of my true heading.

But this leg would be over the western portion of the Sierra Nevada mountains, over Yosemite park. I soon discovered how difficult it was to match up the lakes and mountains depicted on my map with what was on the ground below me.

I’d pass over a lake and then try to find it on the map with little luck. There were so many lakes and mountains, it was hard to be sure just where I was. I elected to stay a bit further east, so I would know the airport would likely be off to my right side after two hours of flying.

I began to doubt the wisdom in my routing as time went on. To make matters worse, something was happening to my stomach. A sharp pain hit me above my seatbelt, as if I had just swallowed an ice-pick. It’s funny how quickly the blame came together in my mind to identify the breakfast bar as the culprit. It might make more sense to blame the yogurt, but I knew that breakfast bar was bad news.

As the pain became debilitating and I was feeling nauseous, I discovered that not only was I completely lost, but the batteries in my handheld radio had died.

Fortunately I had come prepared, with an extra set of eight AA cells to pop into the radio. But doing that wasn’t exactly easy. As I flew along, heading south, indicating east, I had to take apart 4 philips screws in my lap, looking down while bouncing over the afternoon bumps that naturally occur over the mountains. I had the Terra radio apart in my lap as I opened the new AA batteries that were packed in their theft-proof plastic.

And then it hit me. I was going to eject one breakfast bar and a cup of yogurt in the next ten seconds. The only question was, where?

I frantically looked around the cockpit. There was no plastic bag, only a duffel bag and my suitcase. I had no choice. I threw open the side window of the airplane and leaned my head out the tiny window, knowing that I would have to explain the mess that ran down the left side of my airplane when/if I made it to my destination. Perhaps it would blend in with the green strip running below the window on the otherwise white airplane.

After this traumatic event and still trying to fly an airplane that had an annoying habit of pulling to the right while I snapped the batteries in place and slipped a few screws into their holes, I began to assess my chances of finding the airport. I checked the time. Two hours exactly. I needed to turn west and hope for the best.

At this point, I was ready to land in whatever flat spot I could find. The “E” was visible on the fuel tank that was mounted above and behind my head and I knew I needed to be on the ground as soon as possible.

I tried to call out on my weak hand-held radio.

“Columbia traffic, Luscombe 71808, anyone in the pattern at Columbia?”

I’m not sure what I would have said if someone responded.

There was no reply.

As populated as the state of California is, the Sierra Nevada mountains looked like the Alaska range. There were no airports, roads or gravel bars below. And it was getting dark.

Maybe it was lucky that darkness had fallen. I scanned the horizon and then it hit. The brightest airport beacon I’ve ever seen. It was an old fashioned airway beacon that was used to navigate from point to point in the 1930’s, back when airplanes were equipped about as well as mine. But was it located on an airport?

I grabbed the full sized pillow next to me and put it in front of my stomach while I leaned forward, trying anything to relieve the pain. I focused on that beacon, descending at 1000 feet per minute and traveling at an excruciatingly slow 95 miles an hour.

I wondered how the landing would be. I crossed over the airport at 1000 feet, looking for the windsock below. I was relieved to see the giant letters written down the runway.

C-O-L-U-M-B-I-A

Whew.

I made an exceptionally abbreviated pattern. I can’t remember how the landing was, but I do remember turning off the runway, and heading straight for the parking area. I spun the tail around, shut the engine off and plopped out onto the grass beside the fueling pit.

I laid flat
on the ground, holding my stomach. This must be food poisoning I thought. Fortunately I was early enough to arrive – the first airplane, in fact – that there were no witnesses to the mess I made beside the fuselage.

I got up and placed a call on the nearby pay phone to my relatives who were my backup search and rescue team if I failed to check in. And then I set up my tent and collapsed inside for the night.

I felt fine the next morning, and as I cleaned off the side of the airplane, I vowed to keep this little incident to myself.

110 Luscombes showed up that year and I made a lot of friends, learned so much about my airplane and joined in some large formations of planes on missions to find the best pancakes in the area or to pass above the clearest lakes in the country.

I swapped planes with the guy parked next to me, a J-3 cub, and we chased each other around for the day while exploring the area. His compass worked fine, interestingly.

For four days, my secret was safe.

Then the Continental Luscombe Association would close up the event with an awards ceremony. I certainly wasn’t expecting to win anything, unless they had the “rattiest Luscombe” trophy perhaps.

But they handed out awards for the oldest pilot and even the youngest pilot at the event. Since I was 19, I accepted that plaque with a big smile.

Finally, they announced something called the “hard luck trophy.” An award given to the pilot who had the most difficulty getting to the fly-in.

Oh, boy. I knew I had to keep my mouth shut.

A pilot stood up and told about his experience flying through a bit of snow on the way there. Then he sat down.

“Anyone else?”

There was silence.

I couldn’t help myself. I had to confess.

I hadn’t realized how amusing the experience was until I was describing the vomit-hiding characteristics of a wide green strip down my airplane.

The only thing I had to worry about for the flight home was how I would get the three foot tall “hard-luck” trophy into my already stuffed airplane.

Then it dawned on me. I could make a little more room by leaving the box of breakfast bars behind.

Photos by Russell Croman

Epilogue: read about the fate of that little Luscombe and where it is now.

Check out Kent’s other flying stories in Gadling’s Cockpit Chronicles feature.

TV, staycations, and “selling out”: A short list of Rolf’s missed mass-media opportunities

by Rolf Potts on

Hours after completing the Kansas leg of my book tour I flew across the Atlantic for a whirlwind two-day visit to London, England. This had nothing to do with Marco Polo Didn’t Go There; I was there to dub voice-over for a Travel Channel special I’m hosting this fall.

I’ll talk more about this Travel Channel show in my next post, but for now I wanted to note that this TV hosting opportunity is the result of a long process of near-misses that goes back a couple of years.

In truth, I never set out to host a TV show, but I started to get attention from production studios in late 2006, when — apparently — the Travel Channel sent out a memo expressing a desire to have “qualified insiders” as show hosts instead of air-headed actors. This was the result, no doubt, of the fact that Anthony Bourdain — himself a qualified insider — had become a big star for the Travel Channel, and the network wanted to recruit more people who knew what they were talking about when it came to travel. Hence, thanks to my decade of experience as a full-time travel writer (and my pouty, cheek-boney author photo — an anomaly I’ll discuss in a future post) I got a lot of attention from TV production companies last year.
The problem was that, despite all this interest, I didn’t have much TV experience, nor did I have a “reel” of on-camera clips to show. One company flew me out to Los Angeles to shoot an audition tape (they didn’t cast me); another company wanted to put me under an exclusive “development contract” to create shows for me (the terms of which would have cut into my other pursuits as a writer, so I declined); another studio flew me to New York to shoot some “talking head” interviews (which can still be seen on Travel Channel shows like “21 Sexiest Beaches”).

Unfortunately, after tons of emails and flying around, nothing ever worked — until this spring, when Pioneer Productions of London (the company that flew me to LA to make the audition tape) decided I would make a good host for a travel-history show called “American Pilgrim.” The rest is, well, history — and I’ll talk more about that in my dispatch from London.

For now, however — having talked a few of my “near misses” from the TV world — I wanted to share some other media opportunities that never quite worked out for me in recent years. These are the kind of interesting opportunities that I never end up talking about because, well, they didn’t work out.

Here goes with a quick top-five:

1) Writing a TV segment of This American Life

Like many public-radio-loving Americans, I’ve been a fan of This American Life for years, and in fact I used to listen to shows on my dial-up internet connection when I was living in Thailand writing Vagabonding. I started pitching show ideas to TAL producers sometime around 2002, and I finally got a spark of interest in 2007, when they expressed a desire to use one of my stories on air. As it turned out, they didn’t want my idea for radio, but for their Emmy-winning TV series on Showtime. Last November I traveled to Ontario with a couple of TAL producers on a “scouting trip” for my story; unfortunately, the Showtime folks didn’t think it was “visual” enough for the show, and my idea got killed.

2) Talking about “staycations” on The Daily Show

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the “staycation” concept.

Earlier this year, one of my bloggers wrote a post about the “staycation” phenomenon, and how this stay-near-home approach to travel might be implemented from a vagabonding perspective. For some reason, this post attracted the attention of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show producers, who queried both me and my blogger about a possible guest appearance on the show. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the “staycation” concept — but, in keeping with the principles of Vagabonding, I am an advocate of using the attitude of travel to explore your home area. The Daily Show folks, who perhaps wanted a more earnest staycation-pundit to poke fun at, never called back.

3) Appearing as a travel commentator on Fox News

Two summers ago, while I was writing a weekly travel column for Yahoo! News, I penned a quick top-10 list of my favorite USA travel destinations for a July 4th column slot. This list was unambiguously and unapologetically subjective, but for some reason it caused a huge stir when Yahoo posted it on their main page. New Jersey residents sent me hate mail (because they thought I’d insulted their state), New York Yankees fans sent me hate mail (because I’d stated, quite flatteringly, how I hated the Yankees for always beating the Royals), and a number of publications in Kansas reported that the “Yahoo search engine” (as opposed to me, a subjective writer) had declared the Flint Hills to be the “fifth best destination in America”. Amidst this madness, Fox News contacted me about appearing as a “USA travel expert” on their “Fox & Friends” morning show. As it happened, I was off teaching my Paris writing classes at the time, so it didn’t work out.

4) Selling film rights to Vagabonding

Earlier this summer a representative from one of the “Big Five” talent agencies in Hollywood contacted me about the possibility of selling film rights to my first book, Vagabonding. Of course, Vagabonding is not a narrative book, but I could see how its themes might be worked into a TV series or motion picture. I told the talent agency to send me more information, but to date nothing has come of it.

5) Becoming a spokesperson for Rockport shoes

Way back in 2004 a marketing representative contacted me out of nowhere and offered me an eye-popping sum of money to serve as a “spokesperson” for a new line of Rockport travel shoes. I’d always thought Rockport shoes were great — and the price was definitely right — but perhaps out of principle or foolishness I told the marketing rep that, while certainly interested, I didn’t want to put myself in a position that would contradict the anti-consumerist slant of Vagabonding. This gave the rep cold feet, and I never heard from Rockport again.

In retrospect, I should have simply accepted the offer and just quietly towed my anti-consumerist line (which I’m sure is possible to do, even as a spokesperson, since it’s certainly possible to sing the praises of a product without insinuating that it’s the only option in the universe). As it turned out, this gave me my punk rock moment — I didn’t sell out! — though under the right circumstances I reserve the right to do some kind of spokesperson gig in the future.