The Juggle
No matter what 'social norms' say, Internet dating landscape inevitably leads to it

There once was a boy named Jack who really pissed the hell out of Jill.

It seems Jack liked to dip his pail in the well. The only problem was it was Jill’s … and Jane’s … and Jessica’s … and …

You get the picture.

This bastardized allegory could easily see the roles reversed as men and women for eons have waged a battle we more commonly know as dating multiple people at the same time.

It’s a national pastime. But as any lad or lass familiar with affairs of the heart can certainly agree, it can be quite a slippery, uh, slope to adroitly perform “the juggle,” that act of balancing several women, or men, at once, all in the hopes that one never finds out about the others.

Our culture and its widely promulgated principle of monogamy historically frowns upon such improper dating etiquette. Don’t you love how the Internet has literally changed turned our boring lives upside down?

With sites like Match.com, eHarmony, American Singles, Chemistry.com and Singles.Net, just to name a few, dating has become akin to shooting ducks in a barrel, really how we (as in us guys) always hoped it would be. In fact, the good people at Pew Internet Research say some 10 million Americans are online daters. I’m obviously merely preaching to the choir when I say there are a lot of options out there.

A LOT!

So, with some 5 million choices, or if you interested in specifics about 100,000 more than that being women, if you adhere to the findings of census takers that there exists about 0.1% to 0.2% more of that gender than men in our core Internet dating age group of 20-45, how do we limit ourselves? It’s a virtual Garden of Eden out there, where for every rotten apple ripe with worm holes there are five or six shiny, sexy, red apples for the picking? It’s like spending $20 at a really tasty all-you-can-eat buffet … you just HAVE to get your money’s worth no matter how swollen your belly. And the bastards keeping replacing the desert line with some new treat you can’t resist tasting.

How do we settle for that one person when at every mouse click your dream girl (or guy) seemingly awaits? It’s what we in the biz call a conundrum. You’re damned if you do. Damned if you don’t. What was once a dating no-no has morphed into the status quo.

More often than not I’m feeling the fire of Hell lap at my nether regions. And let me tell you THAT can really the squeeze on one’s dating life. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never been particularly good at the juggle, except that one summer when I was 20, back in the days when people met the opposite sex the good old-fashioned Southern California way: making a fool of yourself at the beach. It is true that girls love a guy who can make them laugh. Please don’t judge me by this column alone.

But it is true that the whole point of these Internet dating sites is to put up some photos of yourself (most of which are doctored in some way) and a bio that reads like you have discovered the cure for cancer all in the hopes of attracting your perfect mate, or at least lots of chicks to possibly bed.

It’s a numbers game we play. How many people can we get to wink at us? How many emails can we elicit from our perfect portrait of ourselves? And, invariably, how many people can we get away with “dating?”

As we Americans have grown adept at doing, we never know when to say when. We binge and purge. We over-consume. Cram down as many profiles as we can to win ourselves that ultimate date. And if that date doesn’t cut it, well, try, try again.

What it’s become is acceptable to date, and date, and date. And the sites themselves wouldn’t have it any other way. If you dare cancel your subscription, your inbox invariably will continue to receive emails from would-be suitors. Some even include photos to really goad you. So it’s no use resisting.

Grab your pail and gather.

Mailing List Madness

Knock on wood, the national "Do Not Call List" has done the job as far as my cell phone is concerned. If I only for the "I Never Signed Up for Your Damned Mailing List so Why Do I Constantly Receive Junk Mail from You?" list.

Recently, much to my chagrin and that of a neighbor in my townhouse complex, I've received regular marketing correspondence from a prominent cruise ship line. Problem #1: I never signed up to receive them. Somehow, my mailbox began filling up with the myriad-sized mailers about 8 months ago. Problem #2: the company doesn't even have my correct address.

For about five minutes those months back, the U.S. Post Office did have on record wrong whereabouts for Mr. Gray, and I take full responsibility. Before moving in, I asked my roommate to verify the street address and I was given an incorrect unit number. So, there you have it. I quickly changed it, but all the junk mail I received at my previous apartment was now destined for my new abode. Yet I never received anything before from the aforementioned company, where they've got fun.

The also apparently paid to blaze the path to my front door, or have my mailman do it for them. Repeated attempts to get them to take me off their list have proved fruitless. Their web site is about as useful as the skin on my elbow, which simply dries and cracks. I've resorted to becoming a metrosexual to some extent in my old age by using buffing cream to sooth it. But that's an entirely different blog altogether.

I've tried to navigate the site, and I'm somewhat an expert having previously served as an Internet project manager besides being a Web copywriter. On two separate occassions I've spoken with customer service reps, whose real jobs are to book me on a 3-, 5-, 7, or 14-day excursion to the exotic location of my choice. Each time I could almost see them grin and bear my request to be taken off the list. With a friendly tone, they both told me they didn't have access to that database, but they'd certainly make a note on my account. My account? I've never taken a cruise with your company, so how can I have an account, that is besides the one that your damned collateral is mailed to?

Now, I used to work in marketing, and in fact I was responsible for identifying candidates to receive the company's direct mailers, and then I'd purchase the lists and manage the whole process. It's a billion-dollar a year industry, if not more. Sure the Internet has changed it ... don't think for one second it's dying. Not even the Internet spam protocols seem to be working all that great. I even receive emails from the bastards, though I was able to opt-out of that one.

If only I could opt out of the U.S. Postal Service. Then I might be able to give my waste paper basket a break and do my part in saving the rain forest.

Jumping Through Hoops
Singer/songwriter Jesca Hoop soars into a rare orbit with eclectic debut

By Ryan Gray

A spoonful of spice, in this case a dash of this and a pinch of that from the four corners of musical madness, can sometimes make the medicine more tolerable. And sometimes it can make things downright succulent.

Mad is precisely the word to describe Los Angeles’ Jesca Hoop, musically of course, as she finds a way to mesh country, jazz, folk, blues, pop, chamber music, and even Chinese folklore into her songs. That in itself should give you a clue of the magical journey you’re in for with her debut album, Kismet, to be released Sept. 18 by 3Entertainment/Columbia Records/Red Ink.

Mad is so fine an adjective Hoop even uses it on her own MySpace page to describe the free-form aural gymnastics she adroitly performs. And it was to MySpace I turned when seeking more information on Hoop, as I enjoyed every twist and turn during her 50-minute joyride over ethereal landscapes. There online amid the requisite bombshell beauties, freaks and other dateless wonders my initial reaction to her music was validated. There among the froth of Top 40 hit makers and Indie wannabees was the back story on something truly evolutionary, absurdly good even, that it is prone to instantly exile those born with discerning ears absent from their boring little baby heads.

“Money” does make the world go ‘round, so she sings, but more so her music spins the licorice with free-wheeling, pull-no-punches vibe that is quite endearing.

Whether it’s her destiny or a bit of old fashioned luck, Hoop’s music is as diverse as her moods on Kismet: you’re never quite sure what to expect. The story goes that this jack-Mormon, who made her first splash in professional waters at age 7 by singing a jingle espousing the benefits of potty-training, caught her big break as the family nanny for Tom Waits. He got a hold of her demo and the rest as they say is history. Give her Kismet a try and you’ll apt to discover it’s even better to be lucky and really damn good.

Fringe music lovers certainly thought so earlier this year, making Hoop the most requested artist on radio station KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic. DJ Nick Harcourt thought so much of her that secured a spot for her on NPR Music's All Songs Considered as an opening act for The Polyphonic Spree.

Edith Piaf, the late 20th-Century French chanteuse, heavily influences Hoop’s works, and Hoop admits as much. Yet her musical meanderings, which border on the peculiarly brilliant, cannot be so easily explained, sounding on one hand definitively country, such as during the opening track “Summertime” before oozing pop-angst in the very song’s chorus. Then she meshes stoccatoed Hip Hop vocals and Eastern European gypsy-sounding music with the idiosyncratic stylings of Kate Bush in “Seed of Wonder.” As if that’s not enough, you’d be sure she is auditioning for Bjork on possibly the album’s best piece, the awkwardly worded yet apropos title of “Intellegentactile101.” But aside from her more eclectic moments, Hoops hits strides for the average pop fan with “Love and Love Again” backed by dreamy piano and strings as well as with “Love is All We Have” and “Out the Back Door.”

And it’s the various artists with which Hoop collaborates that speaks literal volumes to the respect for her measured madness. Besides co-producers Damian Anthony and Tony Berg, she credits drummer Stuart Copeland, whom she said she “adored” with The Police. Copeland adds intriguing syncopated layers throughout Kismet.

Hoops, who also plays guitar on much of the album, also wrote every song herself but one, the aforementioned and show-tune influenced “Love and Love Again,” on which she collaborated with storied folkster David Baerwald. The same man of 1980s David & David fame and for his Golden Globe nomination for writing the song "Come What May" on the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. He also knows a thing or two about what new artists to collaborate with as he co-wrote the single “All I Wanna Do” with Sheryl Crow on her 1993 breakthrough Tuesday Night Music Club.

Whether Hoop also is named Best New Artist of the Year remains to be seen, but she more than makes her case. Her only drawback may be that she pushes the sonic envelope too far, if so another indication the devil wears a corporate suit.

Those of you in Southern California can decide for yourself during the Kismet album release party on Sept. 19 at Hollywood’s Ivar Theater. It’s bound to be one mad evening.