Archive for April, 2002

‘Today, American men are demanding a better quality woman than they are typically finding’

Tuesday, April 30th, 2002

Excerpt from some great spam I received today from Mr. Fred Gansky, who tells me he is 57 years old, 5’11”, 168 lbs.

If we are still single and 2001 has not produced someone we thought we might want to spend the rest of our life with, prospects for the New Year might not appear very encouraging at this moment.

Have you found that women today are far more independent and self-serving than what you believe their counterparts were 20 years ago? Many women have taken the women’s liberation movement to extreme. They say they want a relationship. They say they want closeness, equality, sensitivity and intimacy. And then they do everything possible to show men that they don’t need them. Years ago compatibility meant checking out your birth sign. Now, they immediately want to know what you’re driving and where your home or condo is located. They qualify hard and fast, and they’re off and running if they don’t hear the right answer. Financial security and lifestyle outweigh character, loyalty and integrity. They are intent on trading up and becoming your best friend or soul mate is rarely an option they take seriously. What you can do for them now is the theme of the day.

For the most part, most men today still seek women who will be caring and supportive, who will look up to them and rely on their strength, judgement and leadership. They want a partner who will be there for them, in good times and bad, not skip out at the first sign of emotional or financial problems. Are there women out there like this? Of course! But, it seems that it’s becoming harder and harder to find them. Do you know many women who can cook nowadays, or take care of a house, or sew? Mention these traditional talents to most women and they’ll think that you are crazy. It used to be hard to find many men who could express their emotions and share true intimacy. No more. As men have grown older and more sophisticated they have, to a great extent, gotten in touch with their inner, more sensitive side. They are much more aware of their feelings and emotions. Their needs have changed. Many women, with the support of their girl friends, have changed places with men. They are the more emotionally detached. Protecting their feelings because of past hurts becomes a necessity. Caring and trusting a man again becomes a huge risk. Belittling men behind closed doors is more the norm (does the show, Sex And The City, come to mind?)

If any of this strikes perilously close to home, perhaps you might be open minded to considering another approach to finding a partner who might be more appropriate for you.

First of all, let me give you some personal background. I’m 57 years old, 5’11”, 168 lbs. I’m athletic, personable, quick witted, intelligent, caring and sensitive. I own my own business and am financially secure and successful. Most people think I look at least 10 years younger. I live in LA and about two years ago came out of a 17-year relationship. I’ve met many women since then, including one with which I had a very intense five-month relationship. I was astounded to find the differences in attitudes among women today than what I was accustomed to many years ago. I can tell you, I wasn’t prepared for it. I didn’t like it. And, I wasn’t going to accept it.

Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t going to become a hermit. I allowed myself to become open to all women I met. I wasn’t about to turn someone away before I had a chance to know her. But, I vowed to get out of my “box”, to stretch, to expand the possibilities of the women I would meet and where I would find them. I knew it would take some risk and discomfort. Trying something new always causes some anxiety, but I was determined to give myself more options.

I used my objectiveness to research many possibilities. And, when I was through, I came away with a source for meeting women that I would have never imagined, and it was not in the United States!

As a businessman I’m always dealing with issues of supply and demand. Today, American men are demanding a better quality woman than they are typically finding. So, where is the supply to meet this demand? The supply, my friend, is in RUSSIA! (And also the Ukraine).

Here’s some background:

Life under Communism was obviously not good for most Russians. There were shortages and inequities and democratization has been slow in improving the lifestyle of the average citizen. It is not unusual for a typical citizen to make $40 per month. Men, for the most part, have not been model husbands. They drink to excess, are rarely loyal, are extremely domineering and often ruthless to their women, and die early (average Russian male lives to be 55 years old). Divorce is high, and many women are widows before they are 40. Is it any wonder that there are millions of Russian women longing to leave their country for a better life somewhere else?

Over the last eight years, a number of companies have established themselves to match this unique combination of supply and demand. During my research I must have come across more than 100 companies dedicated to this purpose. Some of them provide tours to Russian cities where they sponsor socials during which American men can meet Russian Women. I found one company that I thought was above the rest. They were US based, had the most experience and had sponsored the most tours. They also had a reputation for attracting the most women to their socials (usually there are about 10 women for every man at each social). In June and October of 2000 I went, with a reasonable amount of skepticism and anxiety, on two of their trips, to St. Petersburg and to Kiev. The women that I met and the experiences I had were nothing short of incredible. I have never met so many quality women in one place or in such a short space of time. In fact, I am meeting one woman in Paris to spend New Years with.

I am so enthused by this process that I have decided to represent the Tour Company in my own private, personal way. I have started a web site, which will discuss these trips in more detail. I will tell you all about my experiences as well as those from other men who accompanied me on the trips. You’ll also learn about these intriguing cities with their wealth of culture, entertainment, restaurants, tours, etc. You’ll meet these women first hand and see why we found them so different from most American women. And, we’ll share with you many success stories where hundreds of American men have brought these women to the United States and made them their brides.

If you are looking to change your life, if you are willing to be adventurous, if you want and demand better quality women in your life fill out the form below and we’ll tell you how.

Fred Gansky

Dynasty

Tuesday, April 30th, 2002

Americans sometimes think that only mutt cultures lack a sense of family history. If anything, staying in one place for generations means there’s even less incentive to record history—sure, isn’t all around you? Rural modesty is uneasy with the self-mythologizing aspects of recording family history. I’m from Irish peasant stock, and I know vague details about great-grandparents only by pestering my parents for their memories.

I can count back four generations to the great-grandmother who went from Co. Roscommon to Butte, Montana at the turn of the century, didn’t like it, and went home. If you’re going to be stuck in the back-arse of nowhere, you might as well be among family and friends, I suppose. For the rest of her life she corresponded with ‘the Norwegian lady’ she met in Butte.

I don’t know how my family survived the famine. Their part of Roscommon was especially bad, thanks to a cruel local landlord. I don’t know what they did in the Irish War of Independence or in the Civil War that followed. Probably nothing, or we would’ve heard. At the other extreme of record-keeping, Tricia’s family is from aristocratic Korean stock. Besides their carefully American first names, she and her sister have generation middle names, along with each child in their 32nd generation of the Han family. 32 generations! Who decided to start counting? Who gets to pick the generation name—the first parents in a generation? Or is it laid out in advance like astrological signs?

I intend to adopt this excellent custom if I ever have children. The second generation of the matrilineal Hanley dynasty will be denoted with the middle name ‘Sammy-Jo’.

Beauty School Dropout

Tuesday, April 30th, 2002

At Cliff and Arlene’s wedding, I got to dance with Cliff’s Dad. He’s a dead ringer for Reagan, and managed to make this stiff-legged klutz do the lindy hop. I knew where he’d learned it, too. At 18, he’d landed on the beaches at Normandy. He never talked about it much at home. When he and his brother came back to New York, they tried to figure out how to put it behind them. Priority numero uno was to meet girls. So, 20 years old, wearing demob suits, the six foot four inch Mott brothers went to Beauty School on the GI Bill.

‘The bets are on that you’re going to Frankfurt because you have to…’ ">‘The bets are on that you’re going to Frankfurt because you have to…’

Friday, April 26th, 2002

My sister Claire has a degree in German literature, a German best friend, and a job at a German bank (based in New York). Naturally, she can’t stand the place. Now she’s been tricked into a three-month work project in Frankfurt. This morning, day two, she sent the following mail:

    ‘Trying to be positive

  1. They have fresh blood orange juice in the canteen
  2. They make veggie and rice wok stuff every day
  3. It’s really cheap
  4. My apartment is nice
  5. And has two beds (hint)
  6. And a gym/sauna, so I might get a headstart on the inevitable exercise addiction which will overtake me in my mid-20s. Not like I’ll have anything else to do. And then I can stop lying about being “bloated”
  7. Germans sound amusingly silly speaking English. And I’ve got over my paranoia about sounding stupid when I speak German by not speaking German at all.
  8. Deutschland Uber Alles has a great tune. Can’t get it out of my head. “Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles, uber alles in der Welt.” See also: the national anthem sung to the tune of the annoying song performed by Jennifer Grey’s onscreen sister in Dirty Dancing Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit“. Very catchy. My brain is on a loop
  9. I have learned a valuable lesson. It is ill-advised to travel business class on Aer Lingus. The bloody Irish air hostesses are the only ones who resent you for it. They are bad people. Maybe they’re just sulking because they have to wear crappy green instead of the gorgeous uniforms Air Japan stewardesses wear. Can’t wait for tonight’s flight
  10. I’m not in Limerick

    I promise that if they ever let me back to New York, I’ll fill all my days doing wild and crazy things.
    —C.’

For Dominatrix Only

Thursday, April 25th, 2002

Dungeon warehouse loft. $550 a month for 1500 sq. ft in New York. And you get to boss the landlord around, too.

Hmm. Does nagging count?

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2002

According to the Guardian, St George is the patron saint of not only England but also Germany and syphillis. Interesting career path.

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2002

According to the Guardian, St George is the patron saint of not only England but also Germany and syphillis. Interesting career path.

What are you wearing?

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2002

Last week (93 degrees): Sleeveless top, light skirt, sandals. And sweat.
This week (43 degrees): Long-sleeved shirt, cardigan, puffa vest, skirt, stockings, boots. And goosepimples.

Skydiving

Monday, April 22nd, 2002

‘Vertigo is not the fear of falling. It is the fear that you will be unable to overcome the urge to hurl yourself into the void.’—Milan Kundera
I jumped out of a plane because I’m afraid of heights. I’m afraid of many things, including dogs, poverty, bears, my future, jellyfish, commitment, baseballs, and rollercoasters. Vertigo seemed the easiest to confront.

Like childbirth, skydiving involves hours and hours of waiting around. It was July, and the hangar was unbearably hot. I was there with an uncongenial knot of my husband’s co-workers and their wives, who refused to jump. We five jumpers signed the lurid waiver forms and watched the video, then tried to amuse ourselves for four hours while obsessing over faulty parachutes. The 22-year-old instructors barely disguised their opinion that we were losers who were only dragged along to sponsor their adrenaline rushes. We kept on pressing them on ankle fractures and death rates during the perfunctory ‘training’.

    “Harness on…no, tighter, that’s right. Okay, you’ll be strapped to me. On the count of three, we jump, then you throw yourself face down and lift your arms and legs up like this. No feet first! No head first! Got it? Okay, cool. Yeah, nobody dies.”

That was it; they ran back to their dives. We sat around some more. Jason ate a burger and fries and a couple of brownies from the free buffet, and drank a few cans of Coke. I looked on doubtfully and ate an apple. Eventually, they called us up.

   “Oh shit, are we up again? Okay, grab more ‘chutes from the back!” yelled one instructor comfortingly, as he staggered in from his jump.

Inside the plane, thirteen victims sat on the floor, interleaved with instructors like slices of ham. Carlo, my instructor, was a huge, handsome Italian with a shaved head.
  “Okay, you sit on my lap, okay?” he said as he clipped us together.
Okay, Carlo.

We climbed endlessly. It takes a long time to get to thirteen thousand feet. Everyone was quiet except for a few nervous giggles. I stared at my belt buckle and silently recited my sacred skyjumping mantra.
  “Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit. Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuck.”

Eventually, the plane banked sharply to get us over the dropzone. The word ‘dropzone’ suddenly obsessed me as the door opened and the first pair jumped. I felt sick. Jason was next, and he turned around, whitefaced, and said a heartfelt goodbye. Then he and his instructor crawled to the front of the plane, paused, and jumped.

   “That’s your hussban’? But we must jump with ‘im!” said Carlo.
   “No, no, it’s fine, let him go, I’d rather wait, honestly…” I babbled, but it was too late. With me on his lap, the massive Carlo scuttled to the front of the queue, crabwise. I saw the lip of the plane, the tiny fields of New Jersey, and then he pushed me out.

All the emotional stages bubbled up. Denial, rage, grief, acceptance. This man had just pushed me out of a plane, and now he was yelling at me. I had no idea what he was saying, and the wind was squinching my face like some NASA experiment. Then I realized that I was supposed to kick my legs back in the prescribed posture, which hardly seemed to matter now that I was going to die. A minute is a long time when you use it to fall ten thousand feet. I had no real sense of falling or floating, though, rather, it felt like being in a very fast convertible with no windshield. I could barely open my eyes. I willed Carlo to open the parachute so that I could float gently and absorb this terrible thing that had happened to me. He yelled an offer to let me open the parachute, and I rolled my stinging eyes at the patronising gesture. Then a sharp tug, we jerked upwards violently, and everything was calm.

Floating was peaceful, until Jason’s surfer dude instructor wobbled over to us and bounced on our parachute.
    “Whoo-oo! Yeah!!! Whoo-oo!” he yelped, over and over.
   “Make him stop that,” I muttered. Jason waved, thrilled.
We steered by pulling left and right. I felt disembodied. The ground was distinct now, and I could see Ana taking photos. Carlo told me to relax, bend my knees, and just run a little as we landed.

We were all quiet again afterwards, except Jason, who was first exhilarated and then completely nauseous. We sat for an hour, Jason with his head on his lap, as he groaned. I wished I were with friends rather than surly quant jocks, so that we could embroider on our jaw-dropping feats of bravery. I felt like a fake because Carlo had pushed me. I’d never taken the deep breath and said ‘I’m ready.’ But slowly, as we absorbed the jump, we grew exhilarated, too. We’d jumped out of a plane! The whole way home, the surly quant jocks and I babbled like six year olds, while the wives humored us. Even Jason joined in, whenever he was able to raise his head from the roiling brownies.

Ever since that day, I look out the window in tall buildings and planes and think, I’ve been out there. It makes me feel light and free. But would I do it again? No way.

Entreaty

Thursday, April 18th, 2002

Entreaty
I’m looking for a job. (Don’t worry, Vindigo is fine. Your movie updates aren’t going anywhere.)

Specifically, I’m looking for another software product development or program management role. I’ve worked extensively on mobile devices—Palm OS, Pocket PC, WAP phones, those new-fangled BREW/J2ME smartphones—and also on desktop clients. I’ve designed applications and features, managed projects and people, cajoled, and stamped feet where necessary. I’m mostly fun to work with, and I like to talk to engineers.

If you know anyone who’s hiring, let me know. New York would be a plus, but I’m willing to move for the right opportunity, as they say.

To grill me in person, come along to tonight’s New York New Media Association 1=105798&object=nobanner[main.view.events_detail;;;;;null;null]”>event, Wireless Design Challenges, Opportunities, & Case Studies.

Muchas gracias.