Zachary Crockett

You are currently browsing articles tagged Zachary Crockett.

“His Hoaxes Attempted To Make Some Kind Of Political Commentary”

March 16, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

32abel7

There’s something wrong with people who play pranks. It seems like fractured sexual energy fashioned into a whoopee cushion. But as any longtime reader of this site knows, I’m fascinated by the legendary hoaxster Alan Abel, a blend of Lenny Bruce and Allen Funt whose deadpan presentation bedeviled broadcasters when TV was the primary American media. Abel’s gift is being able to divine our desires and fears before we can name them, and then reflect them through ridiculous stunts that are obviously fake yet fool the masses because of the collective holes in our souls. More than anyone else, he’s the cultural antecedent to Sacha Baron Cohen.

In a smart Priceonomics post, Zachary Crockett profiles man who is–and isn’t–serious. The opening (followed by video of a few Abel hoaxes):

On May 27, 1959, a mysterious, bespectacled man in a suit appeared on The Today Show. After briskly introducing himself, he turned to the camera and told America of his mission: to “clothe naked animals for the sake of decency.”

The man went by the name of G. Clifford Prout, and he claimed to be the president of an organization called The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (S.I.N.A.). Naked animals, he harped, were “destroying the moral integrity of our great nation” — and the only solution was to cover them up with pants and dresses.

Prout’s impassioned speech did not fall on deaf ears: within days, S.I.N.A. attracted more than 50,000 members. For the next four years, the organization and its leader topped news headlines, made the rounds on talk shows, and spurred heated debates among pundits.

But S.I.N.A. was not real: it was the invention of Alan Abel, history’s greatest media hoaxster.

Over his 60-year “career” as a professional hoaxster, Abel orchestrated more than 30 high-profile stunts — from faking his own death to convincing the press he had the world’s smallest penis. He tricked top New York Times reporters, trolled Walter Cronkite, and weaseled his way into tens of thousands of print publications and talk shows.

His hoaxes attempted to make some kind of political commentary — on censorship, backwards moral standards, or the vapidity of daytime television. But often, they would be taken literally, riling up supporters and revealing ugly truths about America. He preyed on the media’s hunger for juicy stories, and ultimately revealed its gullibility.•

________________________

A funny and prescient piece of performance art in which Abel responded to an ad placed by a 1999 HBO show seeking men willing to discuss their genitalia. Abel presented himself as a 57-year-old musician with a micro-penis. The hoaxer was ridiculing the early days of Reality TV, in which soft-headed pseudo-documentaries were offered to the public by cynical producers who didn’t exactly worry about veracity. Things have gotten only dicier since, as much of our culture, including news, makes no attempt at objective truth, instead encouraging individuals to create the reality that comforts or flatters them. Language is NSFW, unless you work in a gloryhole.

________________________

In this ridiculous interview from basic cable decades ago, Abel satirized our wish for fame, youth and immortality, marrying the emerging celebrity culture to new scientific possibilities. He pretended that he’d created a sperm bank in which only stars like John Wayne and Johnny Carson were allowed to make deposits. And he was going to cryogenically freeze a young woman and tour her body across America. Everyone would be a star and live forever.

________________________

In a 1970s scam, the wiseacre posed as a tennis-loving sheik, playing off America’s fear and loathing of newly minted OPEC millionaires, at a time when our post-WWII lustre had faded. Abel created the character of Prince Emir Assad, who competed in a Pro-Am tourney.

________________________

Abel pulled a prank during the economic downturn of the early 1990s in which he pretended to be a financially desperate man willing to sell his kidneys and lungs. The ruse was eagerly devoured by news media because it toyed furiously with the fear of falling being experienced by a shrinking American middle class, which was under extreme pressure from a dwindling manufacturing base, anti-unionists and technology-driven downsizing. Things have clearly grown even worse.

Tags: ,

“From Soup To Roast, It Was All Horse”

January 22, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

No one is more moral for eating pigs and cows rather than dogs and cats, just more acceptable. 

Dining on horses, meanwhile, has traditionally fallen into a gray area in the U.S. Americans have historically had a complicated relationship with equine flesh, often publicly saying nay to munching on the mammal, though the meat has had its moments–lots of them, actually. From a Priceonomics post by Zachary Crockett, a passage about the reasons the animal became a menu staple in the fin de siècle U.S.: 

Suddenly, at the turn of the century, horse meat gained an underground cult following in the United States. Once only eaten in times of economic struggle, its taboo nature now gave it an aura of mystery; wealthy, educated “sirs” indulged in it with reckless abandon.

At Kansas City’s Veterinary College’s swanky graduation ceremony in 1898, “not a morsel of meat other than the flesh of horse” was served. “From soup to roast, it was all horse,” reported the Times. “The students and faculty of the college…made merry, and insisted that the repast was appetizing.”

Not to be left out, Chicagoans began to indulge in horse meat to the tune of 200,000 pounds per month — or about 500 horses. “A great many shops in the city are selling large quantities of horse meat every week,” then-Food Commissioner R.W. Patterson noted, “and the people who are buying it keep coming back for more, showing that they like it.”

In 1905, Harvard University’s Faculty Club integrated “horse steaks” into their menu. “Its very oddity — even repulsiveness to the outside world — reinforced their sense of being members of a unique and special tribe,” wrote the Times. (Indeed, the dish was so revered by the staff, that it continued to be served well into the 1970s, despite social stigmas.)

The mindset toward horse consumption began to shift — partly in thanks to a changing culinary landscape. Between 1900 and 1910, the number of food and dairy cattle in the US decreased by nearly 10%; in the same time period, the US population increased by 27%, creating a shortage of meat. Whereas animal rights groups once opposed horse slaughter, they now began to endorse it as more humane than forcing aging, crippled animals to work. 

With the introduction of the 1908 Model-T and the widespread use of the automobile, horses also began to lose their luster a bit as man’s faithful companions; this eased apprehension about putting them on the table with a side of potatoes (“It is becoming much too expensive a luxury to feed a horse,”argued one critic).

At the same time, the war in Europe was draining the U.S. of food supplies at an alarming rate. By 1915, New York City’s Board of Health, which had once rejected horse meat as “unsanitary,” now touted it is a sustainable wartime alternative for meatless U.S. citizens. “No longer will the worn out horse find his way to the bone-yard,” proclaimed the board’s Commissioner. “Instead, he will be fattened up in order to give the thrifty another source of food supply.”

Prominent voices began to sprout up championing the merits of the meat.•

Tags:

“There’s A Misconception That Were Champing At The Bit To Shoot Something”

January 14, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Lee Miracle, commander of the Southern Michigan Volunteer Militia, is a complicated man. A veteran, libertarian, atheist and poet who doesn’t believe that government should prohibit gay marriage, he owns more than 20 guns and each of his seven-year-old daughters have their own “cute” firearm. In an interview conducted by Zachary Crockett of Priceonomics, Miracle comes across as basically reasonable, but if so he must be habitually naive about the kind of fringy people he’s associating with. An excerpt:

Question:

Exactly what kind of situations are you preparing for with your weaponry training?

Lee Miracle:

Okay. If I’m standing next to someone and he’s opening fire on a school playground, its my job to shoot. The first one on the scene has to step up.

If there’s someone in a shopping mall or a movie theatre or wherever, and they’re doing something bad — whether you’re in a militia or not, every citizen should engage and destroy the threat!

Question:

Have you ever had to do anything like that?

Lee Miracle:

No…so far, no. And I’m very grateful for that. My hope is that we will never have to use them.

We don’t wake up and hope that we have to pull out our revolvers. There’s a misconception that were champing at the bit to shoot something. Listen: if I woke up tomorrow and there was no terrorism in the world — that’s what I want. But the reality is there is bad stuff going on, there are criminals in our society — and you don’t deter that by being disarmed.

Question:

How many guns do you currently keep in your household?

Lee Miracle:

I’d have to check. At least 20-something.

Question:

Can you tell me a bit about how you ensure gun safety with your children in the house?

Lee Miracle:

I’ve got five kids still living at home. Every one of my kids except one has his or her own firearm; only one of my daughters, who has since moved out, doesn’t have one — and that’s just because she isn’t really into guns.

The little girls, who are seven each, each got their little single shot .22 ‘crickets’ — they’re very cute guns. We go to the range, and they know the rules of gun safety, they understand the seriousness. I’ll give them random tests — like say, ‘Clear this chamber for me’ — and they know what to do. I also train them. I’ll say, ‘Look what this shotgun does to a pumpkin or a 2×4; now imagine what it would do to a person’s head!’ They understand the seriousness.

Another one of my sons, who’s 16 years old, doesn’t have a gun right now because of his grades. His grades were poor, and I told him, ‘When you get your grades up, we’ll talk about it. In this household, you’re not armed: you need to reflect on that.’•

Tags: ,

“The Fine Interiors (Including Curtains Once Owned By The Queen Of France) Were Soon Covered In ‘Unseemly Stains'”

January 9, 2015 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

From “The Strange Life of ‘Lord’ Timothy Dexter,” a very amusing Priceonomics post by Zachary Crockett about America’s first eccentric on note, an illiterate and foolhardy man who fell ass backwards into vast wealth, which, along with a bogus title, could gain him no respectability:

A Princely Estate

Newburyport, in the late 1700s, was a supposedly idyllic town — a place where “rich and poor mingled”, and where the “population was not so large as to hide any individual, however odd or humble.” Though possessing only one of these traits, Timothy Dexter wasted no time in taking advantage of his arrival.

With his new fortune, Dexter purchased a healthy fleet of shipping vessels, a stable of brilliant cream colored horses, and a lavish coach adorned with his initials. Then, in grand fashion, he erected a “princely chateau” overlooking the sea — a chateau, it should be noted, that included the most lavish furnishings on the market, right down to its “tasteful and commodious outhouses.”

As recounted by a 19th century historian, Dexter then hired the “most intelligent and tasteful” artists of European architecture to carve and mount a series of more than 40 giant, wooden statues on his property, each depicting a great character in American lore: 

“…The tasteless owner, in his rage for notoriety, created rows of columns, fifteen high feet at least, on which to place colossal [statues] carved in wood. Directly in front of the door of the house, on a Roman arch of great beauty and taste, stood general Washington in his military garb. On his left was Jefferson; on his right, Adams. On the columns in the garden there were figures of indian chiefs, military generals, philosophers politicians, statesmen…and the goddesses of Fame and Liberty.”
Not to be outshined, Dexter then erected a final statue — one of himself. Beneath it, he boastfully painted an inscription — “I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western world” — this, coming from a man who’d neither contributed anything to the field of Philosophy nor ever read a single book on the subject.

At $2,000 a piece, the 40 statues cost Dexter twice as much as he’d paid for his entire estate — but with them, the outcast achieved his ultimate aim: to garner the public’s attention. “It made the bumpkins stare,” writes Samuel L. Knapp, “and gave the owner the greatest pleasure.” 

In time, Dexter began to garner to wrong kind of attention. His estate became so much of an aesthetic embarrassment that his wife soon abandoned ship to live elsewhere in the neighborhood; in her absence, Dexter’s son — a morose lad who, like his father, took no joy in learning — moved in. In short order, the home was turned into a “bagnio” (brothel) of sorts: long nights of drunken buffoonery ensued, in which women came and went, and the fine interiors (including curtains once owned by the Queen of France) were soon covered in “unseemly stains, offensive to sight and smell.”•

Tags: ,

“Cocaine Use Was Rampant And Crafty Dealers Were Constantly On The Prowl For Inconspicuous Tools”

September 18, 2014 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

In a Priceonomics post, Zachary Crockett recalls the insidious repurposing of a seemingly innocuous tool, the McDonald’s plastic coffee spoon, which became, in the 1970s, a handheld device for coke dealers and users, as well as a pawn in the early years of the War on Drugs. The opening:

“In the 1970s, every McDonald’s coffee came with a special stirring spoon. It was a glorious, elegant utensil — long, thin handle, tiny scooper on the end, each pridefully topped with the golden arches. It was a spoon specially designed to stir steaming brews, a spoon with no bad intentions.

It was also a spoon that lived in a dangerous era for spoons. Cocaine use was rampant and crafty dealers were constantly on the prowl for inconspicuous tools with which to measure and ingest the white powder. In the thralls of an anti-drug initiative, the innocent spoon soon found itself at the center of controversy, prompting McDonald’s to  redesign it. In the years since, the irreproachable contraption has tirelessly haunted the fast food chain.

This is the story of how the ‘Mcspoon’ became the unlikely scapegoat of the War on Drugs.”

Tags:

“Like Most Scares, The Toilet Paper Fiasco All Started With An Unsubstantiated Rumor “

July 9, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

It’s since been wiped from our memories, but the 1973 American toilet-paper shortage–which never, ever occurred–was a series of rumors and miscommunications and monologue jokes that went viral in a time before interconnected gadgets. From Zachary Crockett at Priceonomics:

“Perhaps the most memorable shortage in a decade of shortages, it involved government officials, a famous television personality, a respected congressman, droves of reporters, and industrial executives — but it was the consumers themselves who were ultimately blamed.

Like most scares, the toilet paper fiasco all started with an unsubstantiated rumor. In November of 1973, several news agencies reported a tissue shortage in Japan. Initially, the release went unnoticed and nobody seemed to put much stock in it — save for one Harold V. Froelich. Froelich, a 41-year-old Republican congressman, presided over a heavily-forested district in Wisconsin and had recently been receiving complaints from constituents about a reduced stream of pulp paper. On November 16th, he released his own press statement — ‘The Government Printing Office is facing a serious shortage of paper’ — to little fanfare.

However, a few weeks later, Froelich uncovered a document that indicated the government’s National Buying Center had fallen far short of securing bids to provide toilet paper for its troops and bureaucrats. On December 11, he issued another, more serious press release:

‘The U.S. may face a serious shortage of toilet paper within a few months…we hope we don’t have to ration toilet tissue…a toilet paper shortage is no laughing matter. It is a problem that will potentially touch every American.’

In the climate of shortages, oil scares, and economic duress, Froelich’s claim was absorbed without an iota of doubt, and the media ran wild with it.”

Tags: ,

“For Want Of Hyphen, Venus Rocket Is Lost”

June 25, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Imagine any person’s DNA code as the Encyclopedia Britannica and realize that one small error in the long string of letters, just a typo, can cause a congenitally damaged heart or an illness that will ensure a brief life. Self-destruction all because of a wrong letter. Machine code isn’t much different, something that has to be somewhat concerning to us at the advent of things like driverless cars. despite their enormous promise. From “The Typo that Destroyed a NASA Rocket,” a Priceonomics post by Zachary Crockett:

“On July 22, 1962, at 9:21 AM, Mariner I was launched to great fanfare. Less than five minutes later, the mission was ‘forcefully aborted,’ $80 million went to waste, and the potentially historical flight came crashing to the ground — all because of a tiny typo in mathematical code. On its website, NASA delineates what went wrong in the moments following the launch:

‘The booster had performed satisfactorily until an unscheduled yaw-lift maneuver was detected by the range safety officer. Faulty application of the guidance commands made steering impossible and were directing the spacecraft towards a crash, possibly in the North Atlantic shipping lanes or in an inhabited area. [A range safety officer subsequently ordered its destructive abort.]’

Multiple theories emerged surrounding the reasons behind the craft’s failure, largely stemming from a bevy of reports produced in the aftermath (some official, and others merely speculation). But the most commonly cited explanation, directly from Mariner I’s Post-Flight Review Board, is that a lone ‘dropped hyphen or overbar’ in the computer code instructions incited the flight’s demise.

Five days after the ill-fated launch, a New York Times headline harped on the minuscule typo — ‘For Want of Hyphen, Venus Rocket is Lost’ — and the paper’s story reported that the error had been the result of ‘the omission of a hyphen in some mathematical data.’ Purportedly, a programmer at NASA had left out the symbol while entering a “mass of coded information” into the computer system.”

Tags:

“Taking Utter Delight In Others’ Physical Misfortune Was Finally Frowned Upon”

April 30, 2014 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

The freak show, that alluringly lurid exhibition and moral abomination, with its bearded ladies, conjoined twins and hunger artists, seemed to die a slow and necessary death in the 20th century. But did it, really? While disabilities rights closed the sideshow tent (except for a few remnants like Howard Stern’s radio show), reality TV has allowed for the commodification of the emotionally troubled and hopelessly addicted, their afflictions on the inside but just as real, their drama sold to titillate, distract and make observers feel superior. It’s the dime museum in the age of the bitcoin. From Zachary Crockett’s Priceonomics piece “The Rise and Fall of Circus Freakshows“:

“By the 1890s, freakshows began to wane in popularity; by 1950, they had nearly vanished.

For one, curiosity and mystery were quelled by advances in medicine: so-called ‘freaks’ were now diagnosed with real, scientifically-explained diagnoses. The shows lost their luster as physical and medical conditions were no longer touted as miraculous and the fanciful stories told by showmen were increasingly discredited by hard science. As spectators became more aware of the grave nature of the performers’ conditions, wonder was replaced by pity.

Movies and television, both of which rose to prominence in the early 20th century, offered other forms of entertainment and quenched society’s demand for oddities. People could see wild and astonishing things from the comfort of a theatre or home (by the 1920s), and were less inclined to spend money on live shows. Media also made realities more accessible, further discrediting the stories showmen told: for instance, in a film, audience members could see that the people of Borneo weren’t actually as savage as advertised by P.T. Barnum.

But the true death chime of the freakshow was the rise of disability rights. Simply put, taking utter delight in others’ physical misfortune was finally frowned upon.”

Tags:

“Pixels Really Weren’t That Far Removed From Other Forms Of Art — Some Of Which Dated Back Thousands Of Years”

April 3, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

From bombs to trash cans, the initial Apple icons were created by artist Susan Kare, who stumbled into the brand new career path. Zachary Crockett of Priceonomics has an interview with the computer graphics pioneer. An excerpt:

“Kare was subsequently offered a fixed-length, part-time job designing fonts and icons for the Apple Macintosh; her business card read ‘HI Macintosh artist.’ She’d never worked on computer graphics before Apple, but quickly made strides to adjust to her new medium. ‘I remember I didn’t really know anything about digital typography, but I got as many books on it as I could,’ she recalls.

Kare found that pixels really weren’t that far removed from other forms of art — some of which dated back thousands of years:

‘I still joke that there’s nothing new under the sun, and bitmap graphics are like mosaics and needlepoint and other pseudo-digital art forms, all of which I had practiced before going to Apple. I didn’t have any computer experience, but I had experience in graphic design.’

When she began, Macintosh had no icon editor — just a way to ‘turn pixels on and off.’ But Hertzfeld soon sat down and worked out an icon editor that automatically generated the hex under the icons so that Kare could focus on the less technical aspects of her design work.

Usually, says Kare, the team would tell her what concepts they needed, and she would try to come up with a selection of things that might work; she’d try them out, and the final design would evolve from there. Her early icons drew inspiration from a wide range of sources — art history, wacky gadgets, and forgotten hieroglyphics.”

Tags: ,

“In The ‘Golden Era’ Of The 1960s And 70s, They Made Twice As Much Money As NFL Stars”

March 21, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

I know it seems odd to not completely recall for sure, but I’m only fairly certain that in the aughts I interviewed the Professional Bowlers Association’s then-chairman Steve Miller, an erstwhile Nike executive who was charged with trying to rescue the formerly popular TV sport from the scrapheap. He encouraged his stars to scream for attention, to talk trash like pro wrestlers, to get into the gutter if need be. The games wouldn’t be fixed, but the sport would. But any gains have been marginal.

Anyone now a senior citizen can likely recall a time when top bowlers were envied for their earning prowess by NFL running backs, when Earl Anthony was as revered as Earl Campbell. Stunning, but true. The opening of “The Rise and Fall of Professional Bowling,” Zachary Crockett’s Priceonomics post:

“There was a time when professional bowlers reigned supreme.

In the ‘golden era’ of the 1960s and 70s, they made twice as much money as NFL stars, signed million dollar contracts, and were heralded as international celebrities. After each match, they’d be flanked by beautiful women who’d seen them bowl on television, or had read about them in Sports Illustrated.

Today, the glitz and glamour has faded. Pro bowlers supplement their careers with second jobs, like delivering sod, or working at a call center. They share Motel 6 rooms on tour to save on travel expenses, and thrive on the less-than-exciting dime of beef jerky sponsorships.

Once sexy, bowling is now synonymous with cheap beer and smelly feet. In an entertainment-saturated culture, has the once formidable sport been gutter-balled? What exactly is it like to be a professional bowler today?”

______________________________

In the 1970s, AMF, the sporting-goods manufacturer, sold a computer system and printer that would tabulate rankings of bowling leagues with the push of a button–the DataMagic Bowling Data Computer.

Tags: ,

“You’d Think Hotels Would Make A Killing Off Of Late Night Hunger Pains”

March 6, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Room service prices, high enough to make your brain explode, are a major money maker for hotels, right? Apparently that’s not the case. From Zachary Crockett’s Priceonomics post which explains why this amenity costs so much and creates so little revenue:

“With numbers like this, you’d think hotels would make a killing off of late night hunger pains. On the contrary, most hotels actually lose money on the service; for major chains, it’s neither practical nor lucrative.

Robert Mandelbaum, director of information services for PKF Hospitality Research, says room service only accounts for 1% of the typical hotel’s revenue. In addition, room service is on a rampant decline: in 2007, average yearly revenue per room was $1,150; today, it’s only $866 — about $2.37 in room service charges per room per day. While the number of hotel guests overall has risen in the last six years, room service use has fallen off 25 percent.

Mandelbaum likens room service to other hotel offerings, like a pool:

‘Ninety percent of people will say they want to stay at a hotel with a pool, even though only 10 percent will actually use it.’

But room service isn’t just an economic non-factor for hotels — it’s grossly inefficient.”

Tags: ,

“It Was As If He Were A Thing — A Thing That Pleased Me”

February 25, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

As difficult as it is to comprehend the horror that slavery ever existed at all, it really stuns that it still exists now. The opening of a Priceonomics blog post by Zachary Crockett about the Mauritanian slave trade:

“Abdel Nasser Ould Ethmane received his first slave when he was seven years old. It was the afternoon of his circumcision — his right of passage into early manhood — and he had the liberty to pick any gift imaginable. ‘It was as if I were picking out a toy,’ he recalls. ‘It was as if he were a thing — a thing that pleased me.’

With the point of a finger, Abdel selected a small boy with almond eyes and skin the color of coal to be his slave until death.

Abdel is a resident of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in western North Africa, where this is commonplace. In fact, Mauritania has the highest proportional population of slaves in the world: as many as 680,000 of the country’s 3.4 million people — 20% of the population — are considered ‘property.'”

Tags: