Did My Shampoo Just Change My Sex?

One of the advantages of being married to a Green Czar is, of course, being spared every kind of disaster by exposure to weird, body-and-soul-destroying chemicals. The best part is I don't have to raise a finger--most of the time. The Green Goddess just makes the bad stuff go away.

But then she started messing with my SHAMPOO.

Now, the male gene for emotional and domestic stability often finds first expression by attachment to our earliest cosmetic products. It's like a baby duck bonding with the first living creature it sees. Only with us Greenfellas, hanging out in the locker room at 13, parting our hair with a little dab o' do-ya, it tends to be Old Spice, Bryllcreem, Mitchum Anti-Perspirant. Despite the mixed messages the advertising sometimes delivered ("All my men wear English Leather or they wear nothing at all") we still are fiercely loyal to the old brands.With shampoo, that tended to be a brand that preyed on the fear of white specks showing up on our black tuxedos (a slight disconnect at age 13 fashion-wise), and, after we got to college and realized chicks were hep to the whole white specks anxiety, to that old standby with pictures of flowers on it. Who could be against, like, herbs? (Heh-heh.)

Of course it actually had been years since I bought any of those old standbys, but then the other day I got fed up with washing my hair with plain soap because the Green Witch hadn't been to the drugstore. So on my way home from work I broke the rules. And got the scariest lecture about a kind of F-word you'll never hear on television:Phthalates.

Yeah, that kind of Phth-word. SCARY.

Holding her trusty yew switch as a pointer, the Green Queen rapped my nethers and said: "Exposure to phthalates--chemicals widely used as synthetic fragrancing agents, as well as in plastics--correlates to abdominal obesity and insulin resistance in U.S. adult males, according to a March, 2007 study in Environmental Health Perspectives online. The CDC says that all Americans have phthalates in our bodies, and previous studies have linked the chemicals to subtle genital and reproductive hormone changes in male infants."

Naturally, I immediately checked myself out. And my pals, that gang of reluctant but trying Green Men called the Greenfellas. At the top of this entry is what we looked like--nothing subtle, right? [Editor's note: the photo was removed by divine intervention, but take our word for it... In fact, take several words: hideous, blubbery, gastropod-like.]

Scared yet? I was. And out to recycling went those nasty phth-phth-phth-alates.

[If you like horror movies about giant tadpoles mutating and eating small cities you'll love reading about Phthalates on GreenerPenny.com]

Hawaiian Hat Tree

Who needs to visit the milliner? In tropical Oahu, the environment supplies all our needs, including the craving for Carmen Miranda-influenced headgear such as this one, spotted on a proud local tree during its morning promenade.

The Thanksgiving Nightmare

The Big Bird is on the runway... the passengers, who strangely resemble cubed carrots and celery sticks, grumble as a fat ol' giblet waddles down the aisle and attempts to wedge an oversized crouton into the overhead rib rack... "travel on this day is such a hassle," they think, just before the attendant shuts the door and the temperature rises sharply, uncomfortably...

Other People's Gardens

One of the greatest gifts is permission to gather from another person's garden. It's something that has happened to me, one way or another, all my life. In college way long ago, I joined my rock n roll band in a ramshackle Victorian in Santa Cruz one dreary winter. Come spring: voila, vegetables and flowers sprang up out of gray withered sedge, including apples, blackberries and a persimmon tree, plus a pomegratate bush that must have been planted 50 years before. This year, on an island in France, a tough-hewn guy swung out of his truck cab as he drove out of our village and dropped a sack of vegetables on our stoop. "Use the garden!" he shouted (in French). I wandered around later that day and ducked under a stunted apple tree to find 40 square feet of intensive local agriculture. Gathered up the day's meal (see photo) and for two weeks after, too. So here's to gardeners, and to gardens that keep on giving. Bon Appetit!

A New Cookie for America - Obama

From Eleni's Bakery in Chelsea Market, a preview of what we hope will be a new hope for America and the world...

To a Neighbor, Obama’s Hawaiian Drive-In Choices Explain a Lot

During his week of vacation in Hawaii, Barak “5-0" Obama has kept a low profile and added to his reputation for being in the right place at the right time–in this case, given the John Edwards affair, out of the headlines.

Always a great place to vacation, Hawaii has an extra advantage for a politician, because of the six-hour time difference between Honolulu and New York City. Unless it’s a pack of Zeros coming in over the Wai’anae Mountains at 7:00 a.m. on December 7th, it’s hard to make media waves, something the candidate and his handlers probably counted on.

But that doesn’t mean Obama didn’t leave analysts something to chew on. You just had to know where to look–and be able to think “local.” This humble word, so popular now in organic food circles, is the key signifier in Hawaii, a land of many visitors, many migrants and immigrants, and many ethic groups--and thus in need of one way of denoting who is from “here” and who is from “there.”

In Hawaii this week Barak gave clear proof that he is indeed a local, despite the Chicago community activism, despite the sharp silhouette he cuts in a suit, despite looking, yes, different from all those other presidents.

Barak went local in a Friday statement, as reported by many sources, including Michael Falcone of the New York Times, in a time-honored way for a politician–by evoking food, the ur-indigenous reference point. “I might go to Zippy’s. I might go to Rainbow Drive-In. I might go get some shave ice,” the candidate said, adding, “I’m going to go body-surfing at an undisclosed location.”

Aside from the undisclosed beach, which every local bodysurfer could identify with a 90 percent degree of certainty–but will never tell Fox News--“5-0-Bama” was delivering a specific message. He was locating himself in a specific neighborhood, Kapahulu-Diamond Head, where my wife and her family grew up, and where the candidate’s half-sister lives. That he did it by his choice of drive-ins is most appropriate to Hawaii.

Hawaii has a glorious tradition of drive-ins, sadly diminished over time by development and mainland franchises, but Zippy’s and Rainbow, both located a few blocks apart on Kapahulu Avenue, are two of the great remnants. Up until the early Reagan years Honolulu seemed like a place where clocks had stopped in 1956, and you could get a teriyaki burger and a frosted mug of root beer delivered to your Chevy’s window by a carhop.

A local franchise, Zippy’s is the more upscale by far of the two Obama mentioned, offering indoor seating and a diabetic coma-inducing dessert menu to go with its saimin noodles, Portuguese sausage and egg-over-rice breakfasts, and the Island standby, chili rice.

Rainbow is the funky spot, with a tricky parking lot and a lunch crowd of construction and state workers who order massive cholesterol-laden plate lunches that typically include double scoops of macaroni salad and rice to go with the entree: teriyaki or katsu chicken or beef, hamburger patties in gravy--and, of course, more chili rice.

Thus the brief quote by “5-O-B” is, when you parse it further, a masterpiece of nuance and concision. By coupling Zippy’s and Rainbow, he went high-low, and earned the candidate points from all income, ethnic and cultural levels. Mentioning shave ice, the favored local dessert of flavored syrups poured over a mound of snowy shavings, connected to the kid in everyone.

Furthermore, by specifiying that he “might go for a Zip Min,” Zippy’s saimin noodle bowl loaded to the max, he dismissed an issue that has plagued his campaign: that he is someone who lacks a serious appetite. The steaming noodles in the Zip Min come topped with crispy shrimp, fish cake, egg and wun tun (or as they call them on the Mainland, won ton dumplings).

The Zip Min is a Hawaiian Whopper, the kind of meal that mandates an appetite such as might be raised by a morning bodysurfing run to Sandy Beach. Since this is exactly what Barak Obama says he’s going to do on his vacation, his street credibility here goes off the scale.

I just know the dude has been there, like me, standing in line at Rainbow’s, no shirt, wearing flip-flops, with sand in his ears, jellyfish stings in his baggys, and sea-snot running out his nose from going over the falls and getting thrashed in Sandy Beach shorebreak. After that, only chili rice and a root beer float will do.

While it’s just one quote, it’s a masterpiece of local cool, the equivalent of Abe Lincoln’s pose as the “rail-splitter from Illinois.” It’s an affirmation that, far from being an elitist carpetbagger who cares only for his waistline, Obama is a real guy.

Thanks to the above, I now feel, beyond a doubt, that I know who Barak Obama is–a bodysurfer in more ways than one, capable of riding this wave all the way to the biggest bowl of saimin of them all.

Who is that Green Man?

Who Is That Green Man?



"Don't do that," said my wife at 6:35 in the morning as I started to fill the tea kettle with water from the tap.

"Coffee," I gently reminded her. "It's good."

She shook her head. "Let the water run for a minute first thing every morning. Gets the lead out of the pipes," she added helpfully, as I continued to stare at her.

"Don't do this," I said. "It's too early to be green."

"It's never too early." She yawned. "Besides, I don't want you to get Alzheimer's from lead poisoning. Don't want to have to change your diapers for 20 years."

"Ah, there it is: the self-interest principle at work. Adam Smith would be proud of you."

"Who's Adam Smith?"

"The Scottish economist who called self-interest the invisible hand of the marketplace? The inventor of the idea of a consumer-regulated free market? You don't know who he is?"

"Oh, that Adam Smith." She yawned, a gape so grand I saw tonsil cleavage. "I haven't had my coffee yet."

"And why is that, Mrs. Green Goddess?"

"It's been over a minute now. Fill the kettle."

The teenager staggered silently past. There was a crash as he fell into the living room sofa. I broke an egg into the little Teflon frying pan.

"I wish you wouldn't use that pan," she said.

"Stop," I said, cutting the Grafton cheddar.

"Just for him. He's still growing. For us, it's okay, the Teflon won't make any difference."

"Stop."

"Teflon's fine, it's just that when a pan gets old and degrades it gets into your food. Chemicals from Teflon wind up in your blood stream. In studies this has been shown..."

I put a mug of coffee in her hand. "Go. Away."

When it was ready the teenager got up off the sofa to eat his home-made Egg McMuffin: organic whole wheat English muffin, natural additive feed-free egg, sharp cheddar cheese from Grafton, nitrite-free Canadian bacon. I paused to admire my handiwork, because this was as close as I would get to having any. (She wants me to lose ten pounds; an "experiment," she calls it, which almost always translates into nothing fun for breakfast, and no desserts.)

Back in the kitchen, I made myself a bowl of Special K, sliced a banana, poured skim milk. By the time I sat down at the table, the Green Goddess had finished her coffee and was back in the kitchen making a second pot, while the teenager was done eating and had gone off to shower, leaving me alone with the sports page and my first cup of the day. It was organic Mexican shade tree half-caf, and not half-bad.

The teenager left for school. The wife left for a meeting, but gave me a fanny pat before she went. "My green man," she said. "I'll pick up a pie for dessert at the farmer's market."

The system works, I thought. Maybe Adam Smith was on to something.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: The Green Man threw out the Teflon pan. The above photo contains nothing but good honest steel.
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