Europe Blogging

Just FYI, there will be no more new posts on this blog until my first post from Europe. I will write and publish posts to this blog as I am able to, but I have no idea when or how often that will be. In all likelihood it will be like the last trip where I was always several days to a week behind. Like last time, I am bringing along a notebook in which I’ll be journaling in each day of the trip, so whatever you read on this blog will largely reflect what I wrote down in the notebook. My first stop on this journey is Paris, and hopefully I’ll have a post on it within a few days of arrival.

Thoughts on Meat Is For Pussies

A week ago I mentioned on this blog that I was reading through a book titled Meat Is For Pussies by John Joseph. In my post I stated that although I agreed with much of the substance of the book in its advocacy for a plant-based diet and healthy living, I had some issues with the style of the writing. I also stated that I was considering doing some sort of response to the book to address my issues. If I went through with it, it would be my first commentary on this blog related to a book. With my departure for Europe less than a week out and having no experience since college in doing any sort of literary analysis, I had originally assumed that I would never get to doing this, however I came to realize that there’s actually not much to say here. The items I would be addressing do not require much elaboration, so a lengthy post would be unnecessary. A short post would also have the benefit of limiting the damage I inflict upon myself in proving that I don’t know anything about criticizing literature. With this line of reasoning, and my usual cautionary instincts strangely missing, I went ahead and started writing, and below are the results.

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“Look, I’m not going to preach to you about how you like to have a good time, because that’s not my thing. I judge no one. What you do for fun is your own business—well, that is, unless you bring your drunken asshole antics into my personal space. Then we got issues.” [emphasis mine]

I think it was here, in the opening paragraph of Chapter 2 of Meat Is For Pussies, that I snapped. The author, John Joseph, had irritated me with his apparent inability to go a single page without spewing profanity, but when I hit this blatant contradiction I knew I had in my hands a fundamentally flawed book. I cannot help but wonder who, if anyone, edited this book, and if they told John Joseph of the inconsistency between the above statement and the title of his book, as well as his commentary on the intelligence and worth of those who do not subscribe to his lifestyle. Although I’m not a vegan myself, I agree with most of the content about eating healthy and maintaining an active lifestyle, but John Joseph has shot himself in the foot with how he wrote this book. Meat Is For Pussies is sadly an example of an overall solid message dragged down by a poor choice of communication style as well as the contradiction noted above.

John Joseph writes in a very abrasive, expletive filled, in-your-face style. As a former violent criminal, convict, and drug abuser, (among other things) John Joseph’s writing style is understandable, up to a point. To his credit, in the introduction of his book John Joseph makes it clear that his intention is to deliver a “… no-holds-barred, New York—style beat-down on real health and real nutrition.” (Page xxi) This is meant to convey that he is giving you the hard, no BS truth and not what you’re being told by society/Corporate America/the government/insert malevolent force here. I’m guessing John Joseph chose this provocative style because he believes his audience is ignorant and/or apathetic and they need to be shocked into action. Certainly there is value this aggressive style of writing, however within it there is a thin line between being helpful and being insulting, and John Joseph has crossed that line.

It’s not an official rule, but from my limited writing experience I do believe that one of the biggest mistakes you can make as an author is to demean the intelligence of your audience. Even if you really do believe your audience is clueless or dim-witted, as John Joseph clearly does, you should still show them the level of respect due all individuals, even those you hold in low regard. On page 16 of John’s book, while discussing drug and alcohol addictions, we read “Now let’s take a look at that word for a second: in-TOXIC-ated. The root word being toxic, as in poisonous to your fucking body, numb nuts.” [emphasis his] There are a number of other points where John Joseph commits similar sins, but this one clearly demonstrates what I’m talking about. Even when a person is genuinely misinformed or foolish, this is not how you speak to them in professional writing.

There is a lot of profanity in Meat Is For Pussies, and the sheer amount of it puzzles me. Why all the swearing? Is this what people like to read these days? Is this a testament to what our society’s level of communication has been reduced to? I suspect if we were to ask John Joseph, he would say the reason for his language is that it is who he is, and that his writing voice reflects his talking voice. Given his rough history, there would be merit to that explanation, though it would also speak volumes to his communication skills. How John Joseph speaks and writes is of course his prerogative, but how a person speaks and writes has a substantial impact on the effectiveness in communicating a message. In the case of Meat Is For Pussies, the swearing makes John Joseph seem less like a serious writer and more like an irreverent teenager who thinks he knows everything but actually needs his mouth soaped.

To wrap up this failed attempt at literary critique, let me mention two more things I noted while reading the book. First, at the end of Chapter 2 John Joseph explains that he doesn’t use the word “vegan” because it has taken on too much negative connotation. Speaking of the vegans who have given a bad name to the movement, John Joseph states “I personally believe the negative connotations that have come to be associated with the V-word can be attributed to the judgmental, self righteous attitudes of a particular subgroup of individuals.” (Page 23) Living in Boulder, Colorado, I know exactly the type of people he is talking about, but at the same time does John Joseph not realize that he’s talking about himself? To be blunt, John Joseph makes the “preachy” vegans I know seem not so bad, and I’d sooner hang out with them than him. Second, John Joseph perpetuates the common myth in our society that people who play video games are obese, sickly losers. It is unfortunately true that there are gamers who are like this or worse, and these are the ones who get all the coverage in our mainstream media. But just as there are both agreeable and disagreeable vegans, there are both well-adjusted gamers and ones that are not living healthy lives. If John Joseph doesn’t want us to be making broad generalizations about vegans, he might take care to not be making the broad generalizations about groups he clearly has no meaningful knowledge of.

That’s all I have to say about Meat Is For Pussies. With my imminent departure for Europe, I can’t give this book any more time, and that’s probably for the best. There’s a lot more that could be said here, like a discussion on the book’s title and the association of female genitalia with weakness/lameness, or perhaps an analysis of the worldview undergirding the book’s message. It is highly unlikely I’ll come back to this discussion, but on the plus side the process of writing this post has proven somewhat cathartic. In closing I’ll leave you with the following image which I came across on Facebook and which states my main issue with the book far more concisely than I ever could.

 

An Enviable Problem

As the day of departure gets closer for my trip to Europe, I’ve been busy trying to tie up various loose ends and make sure everything is taken care of before I leave. On the whiteboard in my room there’s a list of things that I need to get done. I’ve been working away at the list since I created it a week ago and each day I remove a few items from the list. Granted, it seems each day I remember one or two more things that I need to get done, so the list hasn’t been shrinking as fast as I would like. There is one item, however, that’s been on the whiteboard since I created the list and it has proven to be a harder nut to crack than anticipated. It is the question of Spain; specifically what days I’m spending in what cities. Spain comes near the end of my trip and I know I’ll be flying into Madrid from Istanbul but I haven’t yet been able to come up with a schedule that gets me to the places I want to go to while also making sure that I don’t show up on bad days when lots of things are closed. As I’ve been studying this problem and seeking its resolution, I am well aware that this is a great problem to have; I’m trying to figure out how to spend three weeks in Spain. Many would love to have this problem. Many more will never have it because overseas travel is beyond their resources, and I’m trying not to lose sight of this fact while I ponder this issue. Thankfully this problem doesn’t actually need to be solved prior to departure, but I’m still going to keep working at it.
 

Return to Form

With my trip to Europe almost here, it occurred to me that this blog will be reverting back to its original purpose. I created this blog in 2012 as a way of chronicling parts of my Europe trip that year and allowing others to keep up with what I had seen and done. Although I knew that I would be doing some additional writing on the trip after my return, I didn’t think the blog would continue much beyond that. Well, here we are three years later and this train wreck of an author is still writing drivel for whoever is willing to read it. Maybe it’s tenacity or maybe it’s foolishness that’s kept this blog going, but whatever the case, this blog will soon be coming full circle.
 

An Unfamiliar Dilemma

I find myself in an unusual circumstance of late. Currently I am reading through a book titled Meat Is For Pussies by John Joseph. The book is a manifesto for a plant-based diet, combined with exercise, and as you can guess from the title, the book written in a rather abrasive and provocative style. Although I am not a vegan or vegetarian, I agree with many of the points the author is trying to make in arguing for people to have healthier lives. What is really irritating, however, is the way John Joseph has decided to deliver his message. With expletives pervading nearly every page and multiple instances of insulting the reader, I can’t deny that I’m a bit disgusted with how this book is written. This brings me to my unfamiliar dilemma; I am for the first time since I started blogging considering doing a post to comment on a book. As neither a literary critic nor one with extensive editing experience, (as is painfully obvious to anyone who has read this blog) I am unqualified for this task, but this book has riled me enough that I am seriously considering it.

I will withhold making a decision on this until I finish the book. There is a decent chance that I am just caught up in the moment of initial offense and I would be unreasonable to pass judgment before reading the book in its entirety. However, even if I do decide to go ahead and write out my thoughts on the book I am looking at a severe time constraint with my rapidly approaching overseas trip. This project would likely have to be put on hold until I got back, and by then I would have moved on to other things. Still, even if it is never finished, such a post might be a worthwhile writing exercise.

Fast Food

I am well aware of the health dangers of regularly consuming fast food and hence I limit my intake. That said, with my trip to Europe coming up in just over two weeks, I am planning on grabbing a few meals from places like McDonald's and Burger King before departure. The reason for this is that I want a point of reference for comparison between American fast food and European fast food. I am unashamed to state that on my last trip to Europe I ate fast food a few times and came home convinced that fast food (from American major chains) in Europe tasted better than the same fast food in America. However, upon further reflection I cannot hold to this claim too strongly because I didn’t eat any American fast food in the weeks before or after the trip, so I had no actual testing of that belief while the memories were still fresh. Granted, the only way to get close to settling the question of whether McDonald's is better here or in Europe would be to get two identical food orders from both places and eat them within a few hours of each other, and I don’t have the ability to make that happen. Nevertheless, I’m going to do the best I can and get a burger here in America within the next two weeks and then try to get the same burger in Europe within a few days of arrival. It won’t be a perfect test, but I think it will be good enough for me to make a more informed opinion on this matter.

Formatting Issues

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed that a few of my posts have formatting issues. Most of the issues are with font, line spacing, and spaces between paragraphs. I apologize for these problems, but please understand that these are issues that I can honestly blame on Blogger and not myself. For the life of me I can’t figure out why Blogger sometimes does what it does, and it seems like whenever I fix one problem, another one mysteriously appears when I publish or update a post (the immediately preceding post is a prime example). I will always attempt to fix these problems, but with a few posts I have reached the end of my rope and am letting them stand if the issues are not disastrous. Thanks in advance for your patience and understanding on this.

UPDATE: As of May 21, 2016, the Remembering Big O post has been largely fixed. Over the preceding months it seems that many of my formatting issues were the result of Blogger not liking it when I copied text from a Word document, so I've been copying from a basic text editing program instead.