The Starbucker Identity Crisis

Walking through LAX airport is always an interesting experience. The airport security checkpoints are positively some of the worst in the world, but once you pass them, a whole new world awaits you that makes the harassment worthwhile. The “cultural overflow” in L.A. permeates the waiting areas - silicon implants and “alternative “ lifestyles coexisting amongst suited business travelers and in fashion hippie backpackers. Each character seems to fit into a well defined stereotype of society. It may not be necessarily politically correct to view LAX patrons this way, but it seems to be working.
In front of me an apparently lesbian couple sit who appear to be hard rockers by virtue of their appearances, tattoos, dark ripped clothing, jewelry with crosses, skulls, spikes and the accompanying piercings seem far left of mainstream. But then they surprise me for a moment. A couple of starbucks cups and a blackberry appear and suddenly these two just don’t seem to be in their respective stereotypical places. They seem quite out of place. The society challenging rebel yell of their appearances was clashing in a major way with the apparently mainstream “accessories” they sported. I know it is my own stereotype that is apparently wrong, yet it gets me thinking about a subject I have been dwelling on for some time.
As I walked down the hallway to get to my gate, I passed two starbucks in the last 100 meters before my gate. Two. It wasn’t one Starbucks and then another coffee company competitor. There were two Starbucks. It seems odd to me that we need two of these stores so close to each other. I can understand the reasoning behind one in each terminal. Or maybe one on either end of the terminal. But these were practically next to each other. The question arising from this observation was quite obvious. Do we need two? In cities from Washington D.C. to Hong Kong I have experienced that a starbucks can literally be found on almost every block. Down town in most cities you can see a sign for one from almost any vantage point. I used to severely go out of my way to avoid supporting such a “mega corporation” and search out the little guys shops, trying to support the local business. But after learning that Starbucks does indeed try and remain environmentally conscious, I feel better about purchasing from them. But that brings up another Question.
Are we really just slaves to advertising? I have to admit, walking by the first Starbucks I did not feel the need to buy a $4 designer coffee. After all I had just spent $12 on a salad and water. But, as I passed the second, the subconscious, lingering thought patterns evoking the coffee impulse buy, that I suppressed while passing the first Starbucks, came out in force. I actually had to think, “I really don’t need a coffee”. Indeed, it is not a well disguised fact that advertising often has as much or more to do with the purchase of a product, than does the quality of the product. This is what bothers me.
By and large we have become a society which is pushed and pulled by advertising. The product doesn’t really matter. It just needs to be average. The advertising on the other hand needs to be exceptional. It needs to include catch phrases like green, MPG, hybrid, digital, and high definition. These are phrases that are currently being stuck on everything. Not to mention maverick and change. The MPG and hybrid ones are driving me crazy. I looked up the Chevy Tahoe hybrid the other day to see what advantages it had for the environment. 21 and 22 MPG for highway and city travel. Thats the new more fuel efficient Tahoe. It really is a bad joke! Yet just because it carries the word hybrid along with it, the consumer can feel good about trading in their old SUV for an SUV hybrid, without really gaining anything other than a new vehicle. I see some serious issues here.
Our economy has crashed recently because of greed. The finger of blame has been pointed in many directions, but no one seems to look at the four fingers pointing at ourselves. Why do we need designer coffee on every corner? Why don’t Ford, Audi, and Volkswagen (to mention a few) bring the 50 plus MPG cars they sell overseas into America? They say we like power more than fuel efficiency. We like appearance over taste. It is sad, but true. In the mean time our wasteful and excessive spending has brought our economy to a halt. Thats ironic because it is actually what sustained it for a long time. It was part of the image of “the American Dream”, but it itself was not sustainable. Rather, it just isn’t reasonable. At this point it would be easy to talk about America as the great wasteful consumer of the world. But that is to deep and depressing for this article. Instead I think of my characters in LAX.
I see how hard it is to not fit inside a pre-packaged identity box. The stereo types of rocker, businessmen, hippie, or jock all describe the superficial details. But the core details are determined by our regional advertising campaigns. Want food? Eat this. Want to drive? You need this. Like music? Buy it here and listen like this. Actually, you need to like music and listen like this to this. Sure, we can change the colours of our clothes, hair, cars and ipods, but we aren’t really that different than the person sitting next to us even though appearances sometimes say we are. Advertising campaigns often target an individual by offering the feeling of an independent identity. How many H2 Hummer owners do you know who actually take them off the pavement, much less offroading? They probably would be just as well off with a Volkswagen TDI Golf which gets almost 70 MPG. You can even Get a Golf TDI Hybrid if you need the word hybrid to make you feel good, and bump the MPG up over 70. But you would have to buy it overseas, and we don’t sell them here because it would not sustain the oil industry. Thus we would not have to buy so much foreign oil, or possibly be in Iraq. Again, I am treading on a subject which resembles thin ice. I kind of like it though, so I will continue.
Lets go back to the two Starbuck terminal in LAX. A short while ago I decided to re-enter the patronage of Starbucks after a little education about their environmental policies. My decision was based on a system of fair trade and low waste policy worldwide in its simple form. I felt good about it. I didn’t mind becoming a Starbucker again. I felt like I wasn’t being green washed by advertising, but instead was making a conscious decision....... Something about the shear amount of these stores seems disproportionate to me though. I don’t mind waiting in line a few minutes for a coffee. I don’t need my own personal store simply to avoid that wait. After all, the time I save will probably just cause me to rack up a bill somewhere else. Is the low waste policy genuine, or does it simply reflect the global economies need to switch to a more green advertising scheme?
Full circle identity profiling. Thats what I have done in LAX. Or at least what I want to call what I have done. These many people who I attempted to stereo type, and who confused me, really are true individuals. We now live in a system that determines the majority of our decisions through subtle advertising. Yet, we still have to put all the pieces together individually. There are a million ways to do so. A skull necklace, tattoos and a blackberry. Ambercrombie and Fitch sweater, Dreadlocks and a well used backpack. The combination is surprising sometimes. I imagine that it goes against the advertising companies stereotypes too. Thats a beautiful thing.

14,000 ft Above Sea Level

Much of the time my efforts to document, film and photograph are restricted to the undersea environment. Recently due to unforeseen circumstances I have found myself well above sea level. And this past weekend put me up in the 14,000 ft above sea level range in Colorado. It was an extremely valuable experience, providing a few days of solitary freedom in the Rocky Mountains and a chance to explore some new territory in some of the more dramatic scenery the U.S.A has to offer.
The weather turned bad before I even set out, and turned worse as I started up the approach to Mount Wilson and its adjacent peak El Diente. About ten minutes into the hike I put on my parka to protect myself from the rain, and it stayed on throughout the day, only coming off to add extra layers as I got higher on the mountain. Rain, mist, fog, sleet, and finally snow were all encountered. As the trail dissipated, reappeared, and then finally ended in a cliff face at 13,000 ft, route finding became critical. Cairns were a Godsend. A map and compass became more than the usual excess baggage, and vital to a safe ascent. Wet rocks, a steepening couloir, and the sound of distant and not so distant rockslides brought some apprehension to the ascent. Every so often a break would appear in the clouds and the views would take away your breath, displaying the rewards of the task at hand, as well as its enormity.

Shortly before reaching the 14,000 ft mark the weather took another turn. For the worse that is. The wind started to whip instead of simply blow, and hiking became scrambling, then climbing. Then suddenly as is so often the case the top was in site. An attainable goal only a few hundred feet away, across a knife edge ridge that was wet, windy, and at that moment one of the most lonely places in the world. It was so close, close enough to almost claim the peak anyway, but not quite. The conditions had suddenly escalated to a point where the pain, time and effort spent to get this close, did not outweigh the benefits of coming back another day. It was a decision made and not questioned, never second guessed. The descent proved as challenging as the ascent. More often than not all fours were on the ground all at once, never less than two. A slip and fall would definitely be the fastest way down to the snowfield two thousand feet below. To avoid that outcome care was taken at each movement to ensure good contact with the rocks and boulders. Only one thing could change that safe, slow methodical descent down the mountain. Flying rocks. Rocks bouncing down the mountain at random intervals in random places speed up a descent with amazing efficiency. Never have I descended a mountain with such care and speed at the same time. It is like picking a safe route up an avalanche slope, except the opposite. You hide, run, jump and seek shelter. All the way to the bottom. Then you look back, and think, that wasn't so bad.........
The trip up Mount Wilson was truly memorable. Something that was unsurprising though was what else I found on the mountain. On the way up discarded water bottles. On the way down socks and pieces of energy bar wrappers. The most interesting was a object at the very top of the mountain that I noticed while the weather was at it's worst - a Victoria's Secret clothing tag. One can only imagine what the look on my face was as I contemplated such a simple object so out of place. In all, it was much like exploring deep areas below sea level. Plastic bottles, trash in general, and the occasional discarded piece of underwear.