Editor’s Note: the nice folks at MPR asked me for some commentary on the social networking sites of the candidates for senator in Minnesota, you can hear their story here, The part that I am on is a web only feature you can see here or you could just read my bit below-since your here and all.

At one point running for election was a pretty simple concept: you made some speeches, kissed some babies, and that was pretty much it save for the occasional cutting of a ribbon or judging of a pie eating and/or making contest. Then Radio came along and you had to make short, more cohesive speeches and be sober whilst doing it. TV meant that you had to look nice at the same time; that technology also killed the chance of the truly ugly ever achieving public office. Of course in the “all the world is a reality television show, and all the candidates just players in it” world in which we live that means that they need to be in social networking sites too. The last presidential election made it quite clear that if you were a serious candidate you were going to have a page on at-the-time social networking giant Friendster. Of course in 2008 Friendster is as dead as John Kerry’s political clout. Nowadays you’re talking Myspace and Facebook.

For those of you who have just awoken from a coma, Myspace is the dream of the internet fulfilled- where you can place all your life’s details, embarrassing photos and secrets up and at the same time have strangers gawk at them, while getting “friend requests” from bands that you have never heard of nor would ever outside of their invitation to be friends, and of course spam from scantily clad women who think your profile “looks interesting and they’d like to hook up because they are new to your town”.
On the other hand, Facebook is the place where you put up all your life’s details, embarrassing photos and secrets up and at the same time have strangers gawk at them, while taking bad quizzes about 80’s trivia, and turning down invitations to be a zombie, pirate, vampire, slayer or monkey.

Or to put it more succinctly, Myspace is about your media habits: music you like, books, comedy, tv shows etc. Facebook is more about personal interactions, everyday stuff, and marketing towards consumer choices,(your Netflix queue, your Amazon wishlist, shoes that you like from Zappos.com).

They are sort of the salt and pepper of social networking sites; there are a variety of others but they are ore like the cumin and the dill networking sites: a little too fancy for politics. So we get Facebook and Myspace profiles, which let us see the candidate as a person and not just as the policy spouting bobblehead that they are everywhere else.
They have given us the chance to know them a little bit more personally, which, lets face it, is a bit of a frightening concept.

First up in our social networking rodeo: Norm Coleman.
Norm’s Facebook page shows a lovely picture of him in an un-tucked shirt and sunglasses holding a dead fish up by the gills, smiling the smile that one can only have while holding a dead fish up by the gills. If he had a beer in his other hand it would look more like he was running for president of the Babe Winkelman fan club rather than senator. We also find his interests listed as: spending quality time with my family(doesn’t his wife live in California?), history, Abraham Lincoln, his faith and spirituality (which he misspelled as spirtuality), Minnesota sports especially the Wild, Brooklyn Dodgers history(ah yes, what Minnesotan doesn’t love the Brooklyn Dodgers. Norm, little hint here- root for the home team, even if you don’t like them. Heck, I am a Twins fan and I don’t like ‘em lately either).

You also have to love that his quote is from Lubavitcher Rebbe who in turn is paraphrasing Maimonides, and that his favorite movie is The Rock, and he is a fan of Five for Fighting-truly a riddle wrapped in an enigma, with a side of Nicolas Cage. As of this writing he had 1,453 supporters on Facebook, while on Myspace just a mere 104 friends. Oh and in case you were curious he misspelled “spirituality” on his Myspace page as well.

Of course, lame profile aside the Coleman folks do know how to game the system in terms of advertising: on Norm’s Myspace site is what looks like a banner ad for Franken but in fact is a Coleman campaign ad with a medley of fragmented out-of-context quotes from Franken that disagree with each other, an oldie but a goody. The Coleman campaign goes a step further by running ads on Franken’s Myspace site as well; here we find an ad for a Republicans in senatorial races website, an ad directly for Coleman, and an additional two ads for companies that do email spam.

Mike Ciresi opted for just the Facebook profile; I guess he knows he’s the long shot so why have two profiles. His picture looks like a snapshot in somebody’s backyard, where we see the back of an anonymous person’s head and a wind turbine. Sure, it could be a clever statement about his support of alternative energy, or he just couldn’t find a better picture. Not a lot of information here other than his employer and position; with 188 friends, he’s a third in the Facebook race and his position as “future senator” is about as likely as Rudy Giuliani is to be President.

Jim Cohen, who I had never heard of till I wrote this, has by far the most professional looking Facebook site. It’s a professional photo that makes him look sensitive but sincere. Of course it also makes him look like someone from the IT department, but this is Facebook after all. His “about me” is lacking to say the least; we get a title “Jim Cohen On The Issues: The Vision of A Pragmatic Progressive” and a 56 word statement, the first five words of which are a reworking of the title. There was more but it just stated he was optimistic and progressive, oh and that he wanted to be senator. Oh, and he lists his activities as swimming: with Facebook supporters at 59, treading water might be his actual activities. Heck I have 150 friends on Facebook and I am not running for anything.

You have to love that we live in a state where we have more than one politician that you can play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with, which of course brings us to Al Franken. His Facebook photo is a tasteful picture of him and the wife and his interests listed as: Representing MN, biking, establishing universal healthcare, hanging out with friends, renewable energy, the Twins. He had the common sense to name check the home town team, and you know that whole think about representing MN: Yeah boy Represent…sorry, I was channeling Flavor Flav there for a second.

Franken states on the page that he has other people manning it, while all the other candidates have the illusion going that the candidate checks his own email. My only complaint with his Facebook profile is that he lists only one band in the music section: the Grateful Dead. Seriously, the Dead? You’re a politician; shouldn’t there at least be some pretense that you didn’t smoke pot in college? At least on Myspace he name checks Paul Simon and REM, but hey its Minnesota, where are Prince and the Replacements? Even Kid Johnny Lang would work. At 2,572 supporters in Facebook and 930 in the Myspace camp its safe to say he is leading the social networking vote.

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s Facebook site greets us with a picture of him and his whole family: 4 women.
Here we also find that his interests are running for US Senate and that he is a fan of the Dixie Chicks and that his favorite books are his own, and then he refers you to his Wikipedia page (which he doesn’t link to anywhere). Other than his own books he likes the Grapes of Wrath and mysteries. For a guy who has written 11 books he really doesn’t say a lot, and other than listing his political views as liberal you really find out nothing about him as a candidate. Clocking in at 160 supporters, he is not in the lowest numbers, but he is far from in the running.

Last up is Michael Cavlan, who comes in with a lone Myspace page, a solitary picture that says less “senatorial candidate” and more “drivers’ license”. The information here is very minimal, which is the polite way of saying it’s blank. Nothing, save for friends–of which he has 227 and of those a little less then half seem to be local bands that “friend” anything to boost their numbers–and two blog entries: one from June 14, 2006, and the other from September 24, 2006. so yeah… um… you might want to update that. Just a thought.

The thing about all these profiles is that they really don’t tell you anything about the candidates, at least not overtly; nothing declarative where they say what they believe in or why they believe in it. They give us little bits of fluff about their hobbies and what they listen to, so you can visualize Norm Coleman as a guy who liked Gladiator rather then a guy who wants to… well, wants to do what, I can’t rightly say since they don’t tell us, not here at least.

Every candidate’s profile urges the reader to get involved but never explains how or why, and that’s the real problem here. It’s less about issues and beliefs than about whom you can imagine yourself having a beer and a plate of nachos with. That might not be the best criteria on which to elect somebody. It seems that with social networking the candidates hope to get the youth vote out and get in touch with the kids, but if you’re not really saying anything can you really expect them to listen?

Dear Britney,

Hi, you don’t know me, I come from a different place, you might call it “fly over country” but the politically correct term is “Not Hollywood” . Anyways I couldn’t help but notice …hmm how to put this politely…that you have had some serious problems. If I were to be real honest here you have fallen into what professionals call the “Holy #$*% what the @#&* is she thinking” area. It seems like you have some people giving you some bad advice, maybe your mom needs to spend less time at Sky bar with Lindsay Lohan’s mom- just a thought. So anywho, as a resident of the rest of the world (ie; not Hollywood) I thought that I might write you a note and ask: Holy #$*% what the @#&* are you thinking?

Seriously, you have accomplished the impossible, and no I am not talking about clawing your way up the Mouseketeer ladder from nowheresville to international pop stardom- Annette Funicello beat you to that one. No, I am referring to making Kevin Federline a sympathetic figure. Seriously, K-fed is now the rational sane one. This is a grown man who refers to himself as K-fed. Something is seriously topsy turvy when this happens.

See today for a while the top story on the AP newswire … Think of it as the way Ramada Perez is sort of a feeder for People magazine, only about stuff that actually matters…. So as I was saying the top story was: you showed up for a scheduled appointment. That’s right, you made international news for showing up to a meeting you were scheduled for. That’s nature’s way of telling you that things have veered off into Michael Jackson territory. Especially given it was the celebraplotiaton smorgsboard of mysterious celebrity death what with Heath Ledger and all.

It seems like it was just yesterday you were dancing around in a school uniform, telling us that oops, you had done it again. Yeah about that, did you ever read that book Lolita, no? Well ok, maybe the movie, oh yeah it’s old black and white…maybe the new one with Jeremy Irons, no? Well, that s ok I didn’t see that one either. Anyway it’s about an adult man that becomes sexually obsessed with a very young teenage girl , eventually consummating that relationship and pretty much ruining the lives of all parties involved. Yeah about that, the way I figure it Lolita is…you know, you, and Humbert Humbert -that’s the adult- well, that’s sadly America. Sure it started out mildy pervy but in a slightly charming way, but pretty quickly it got into hardcore perversion, like buying-used-underwear-on-EBay territory. Then just like in the book , once you weren’t shiny and new, America loses interest and leaves you to falling apart. OK, you didn’t wind up with a coal miner, but lets face it, with K-Fed… well if not for your money it could be his next career move .

What about that kiss with Madonna? Remember when that was the big controversy- poor Christina Aguilera, she kissed Madonna too, its just that it didn’t surprise anyone. Now she is the good one. We should have noticed when you were telling everyone you were a “Slave 4 U” and cavorting around in rubber. Just a desperate call for help. We would have helped , but your antics created jobs: it kept all the LA paparazzi busy, built TMZ.com and Perez Hilton, after the Great Nicole Richie drought of 2007 there was a danger of drought killing off celeb obsessed culture. Frankly, you couldn’t have given a bigger bump to that industry if you dangled your kids out the window at Neverland .

Now I know they hound you at your every turn, you can’t go to get your beloved coffee without having an army of Nikon ninjas following you. But have you ever thought about not encouraging them, maybe not changing outfits every hour? They follow you because you are bound to do something stupid. Maybe the answer is to spend a night at home. You could have a party at your house; heck, go crazy, no paparazzi. In fact you could go around in a unmarked limo, a technique that worked for years for celebrities . The point is, try not to be an open book. Besides, mystery helps with persona. Just ask Liz Taylor, you’d like her, she made some bad choices too.

Thing is, I get that pop stardom makes you goofy, attention is this really awesome drug that once it permeates every fiber of your being you’re hooked. You need it like a junkie needs smack or Rosie O’Donnell needs Ring Dings. Problem is the audience gets hooked too, and America is hooked on you. Not in a good way, like because of a your music (hey did you know you have a new record out…no?, well don’t worry neither does most of the world) and your film career , well, that was sort of one time thing like the Sonny and Cher Movie- every rock star gets one. You were famous for being a musician, then you were famous for being famous, now you’re famous for being messed up. That didn’t do any good in the career department for Frances Farmer or Claudine Longet.

Sure you spent some time with Dr. Phil, and I saw Dr. Drew talk about you on TV. .Just a thought on that: Stay Away from doctors who use their first name only, its pretentious and friendly- plus it sounds weird like Officer Bob, or Reverend Skippy. Maybe you need to see a doctor who isn’t trying to make a deal for a reality show with Fox. A doctor who is treating you because they want to help, and get paid of course, but no book deal, no appearance on Access Hollywood.

Thing is there is nothing wrong with you that can’t be fixed, but it won’t get fixed dancing on a table at Ghostbar in Vegas. It’s that long dark tea time of the soul, where it s just you and you. Thing is, Brit, you have kids, and its not just about you anymore –its about them too. They need you not to be the glorious disaster that you are, and be their mom. The good news here is you don’t need to be a great mom, no one is expecting you to become one with your inner June Allyson , heck you don’t even need to be a good mom. You just need to be a mom. Think about the kids first and the rest will sort itself out.

Your pal,

Chris

PS: Sorry about exploiting you.

PPS: Oh and for God sake keep your panties on; nobody needs to see that.

Editor’s note: Hey guys sorry I have been a little absent as of late, it seems like I have just been perpetually busy. Lots of writing for lots of folks. And some other cool media stuff that I can’t announce yet. Well one thing I can mention is that I have a new TV show in the making, its amazingly time consuming but it is going to be really swell-now if i could just figure out what its called. I’ll write more about it when I know where it will live. Right now I just have to work on getting another 20 episodes done. In that spirit I bring you..

Like the man said , oh who am I kidding with this many small grammar errors is it any surprise that I am my own editor on this site. I like to think that it shows what I have in common with the great American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald- His learning disability.

I thought its the begging of the week, I am cold and under deadline. So I thought I’d just paste up some of my favorite you tube clips and do it with little to no explanation. Just think of it as little bits of culture that might make your world a little weirder.

First up: Whistling Jack Smith, 60’s pop sensation better known as thew whistler on the Ennio Morrcinoe soundtracks. This is a performance of him on beat club- however the performer is not the person whistling on the recording. Thats an actor hired to play him. Sure most whistlers don’t need a stand in, but he is a most excellent dancer.

Next Item on our hit parade of heck- Klaus Nomi, everyones favorite new Wave opera singer, seen here taking on Lou Christie’s
“Lightning Strikes” truly glorious.

ok I was trying to find Biz markee’s awesome Alone Again. but Gilbert O’ Sullivan stopped it from even being here, now if he could just stop Dokken

And to wind it up: A little bit of Love from Dance Party USA. The USA networks mid 80’s dance show. I was obsessed with this in college, I watched it every day- even though I was in my heavy goth phase it was just so great to watch new Jersey teenagers rock out. I have to admit that I completely crushed on one of the dancer called Princess, who was a rabid Prince fan. Unfortunately couldn’t find clips of her and her handmade prince inspired outfits, mostly based around the unitard. Still some gravity defying hair going on.

Ok I have been writing a ton of commercial stuff, in between working on two records, a DVD release a pilot, my day job stuff. Not to mention the basemen t got flooded today so here is a lit of extremely bad ideas that you shouldn’t do:

Completely Bad Ideas:
1. Tossing porcupines
2. Eating week old sushi
3. Getting in a staring contest with Charles Manson
4. Having dinner with Rosie O’Donnel and Donald Trump at the same time
5. Entering a demolition derby with a bike
6. Eating a bag of uncooked rice then drinking a gallon of water
7. Starting a heroin habit
8. Drinking an entire bottle of maple syrup
9. A Herve Vilachez movie marathon
10. Wrestling Boars
11. Being the guy in the Burger King costume
12. Taking any job working for Britney Spears
13. Being the Director of tourism in Norman Oklahoma
14. Starring in an ad for any of the following :adult diapers, toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, any sort of chat line
15. Getting into a slapping fight with.. well with anyone
16. Financing any movie where the stars were discovered on American Idol
17. Snorting Bees
18. Pickle based beverages
19. Carbonated Milk
20. Marshmallow based entrees
21. Blogging when you haven’t slept for a few days