My eleven o’clock consultation appointment today was with Marco P. Capellini, who usually lobbies for the National Restaurant Association. Today, however, he was on family business and paying out of his own pocket – or at least offering to do so.
“No, no,” I insisted, “please – this one’s on me. Consider it pro bono.”
“Okay, Tom,” Capellini smiled, “your generosity won’t be forgotten.”
“Bread cast upon the waters, and so forth,” I philosophized.
“Make that wood fire grilled garlic muffuletta,” he suggested, “with Tuscan olive oil, garnished with rosemary and grated Pecorino Romano.”
“Please do,” I jovially responded. “Now, how can I help you today?”
“It’s a problem my cousin Barbina has,” he began. “She and her husband own a Breadeaux Pizza franchise in Iowa, and they’re very, very concerned about this Pizza Ranch thing.”
“What Pizza Ranch thing?” I inquired.
“You haven’t heard?” Capellini demanded. “It’s the Republican presidential candidates! They’re parking their campaign buses at Pizza Ranch, eating at Pizza Ranch, meeting Iowa voters at Pizza Ranch, holding press conferences at Pizza Ranch – the whole nine yards! And now, it’s all over the media, too. The Wall Street Journal gave Pizza Ranch a huge amount of free publicity last week with an article about how Michele Bachmann and her crew eat at Pizza Ranch every chance they get.”
“Oh yeah,” I acknowledged, “now that you mention it, I do remember reading that article. Rick Santorum is also quite fond of Pizza Ranch, as I recall.”
“That’s right,” Capellini confirmed. “And lately, Rick Perry and Ron Paul have been showing up at Pizza Ranch, too. And as of last week, even Newt Gingrich, who’s so clueless he couldn’t even get on the Republican primary ballot in his home state of Virginia – even he had visited a Pizza Ranch.”
“But not Jon Huntsman,” I observed.
“Him?” Capellini snorted, “He can park his campaign bus at the Ping Pong Palace Organic Vegan Chinese Dimsum-O-Rama for all I care! Forget about the Wall Street Journal – the Dubuque Telegraph Herald wouldn’t run an article about where Jon Huntsman eats, that liberal hypocrite RINO!”
“All right,” I continued, unabashed, “maybe Huntsman isn’t diddly-squat in the polls, but what about Mitt Romney? He’s inarguably a major Iowa contender, and as far as I know, he has yet to park his campaign bus outside a Pizza Ranch.”
“Which only goes to show,” Capellini sniffed, “how out of touch he is with the Iowa Republican voters – yeah, Romney hasn’t stopped to eat at anybody’s pizza parlor – yet! You just wait, though! As soon as he sees which way the wind’s blowing, he’ll be chowing down at a Pizza Ranch, just like Bachmann, Santorum and the rest of them!”
“And your cousin’s problem with all this is what?” I asked.
“Like I said, Tom,” Capellini responded with just a touch of frustration in his voice, “it’s the free publicity! Look, you got plenty of small to medium sized pizza franchise operations in Iowa, okay? In addition to Breadeaux, you’ve got Casey’s Pizza and Happy Joe’s Pizza; and all three of them are in competition with big national chains like Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Domino’s and Godfather’s Pizza.”
“So is Pizza Ranch,” I shrugged.
“Yeah,” Capellini pressed on, “and that’s just the point! Free publicity! Look, I don’t begrudge Pizza Ranch getting a boatload of national advertising for nothing…”
“Well,” I interjected, “not exactly for nothing. Pizza Ranch attracted public figures like Bachmann and Santorum, which, in turn, became a news item, and…”
“Okay, okay,” Capellini interrupted, waving his hands excitedly, “not for nothing, then, but free of charge anyway – without monetary outlay. Bottom line, though, Tom – bottom line, they get their name out there! ‘Pizza Ranch’ gets media exposure my cousin’s pizza franchise doesn’t get! And my cousin’s business is already struggling, Tom, what with the economy these days, and the big national chains buying regional television spots offering cheap deals on their pizzas! So what I want to know is, what’s the Pizza Ranch secret? How did they attract GOP presidential hopefuls, and how does Breadeaux Pizza manage to do it, too?”
“Do you suppose,” I offered, “it might be the menu? I’ve pulled a copy of it up here off http://www.pizzaranch.com, and frankly, it doesn’t seem very… authentic.”
“No,” Capellini huffed indignantly, “it’s not! I mean, really! Sure, Barbina’s restaurant serves chicken, but fried chicken? With mashed potatoes, no less? Bacon and chicken wraps, for Christ’s sake? And who in their right mind orders sauerkraut on a pizza? Plus, the whole thing has a country and western theme, too, you know – covered wagons, cowboy and cowgirl outfits, the works – and just look at the specialty pizza names, Tom: The Trailblazer, The Roundup, The Stampede, The Texan, The Bronco! Come on, Tom, tell me the truth – have you ever seen more ridiculous, inappropriate, half-witted country and western kitsch in your entire life?”
“Ah-hah!” I exclaimed. “Republicans in general, and Republicans like Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum in particular, are total suckers for ridiculous, inappropriate, half-witted country and western kitsch. That certainly explains the initial attraction – they’re driving down a road in Iowa between campaign speeches and they see a covered wagon, a fake cactus, or a fiberglass longhorn cow. They’d have to pull in.”
“Okay,” Capellini proclaimed, taking out his pen and notebook, “Step One: add tasteless, idiotic country and western kitsch.”
“Hold on,” I advised. “There are some salient issues involved.”
“Such as what?” Capellini wondered aloud, his pen poised in the air, hovering expectantly above his notebook.
“Such as,” I explained, “eventually, you’re going to need at least two sets of mindless kitsch.”
Capellini’s eyebrows shot up. “How come?”
“Because the Iowa caucuses are only eight days away, and after that, you won’t know until November 2012 whether the new set of presidential candidates traipsing around Iowa for the next four years will be Republicans or Democrats. If they’re still going to be Republicans, then yeah, you can stick with the whoopie-ti-yi-yo cowboy routine. But if the new set of White House hopefuls is going to be Democrats, and you want to pull them in, you’re going to need an entirely different type of kitsch.”
“Such as what?” Capellini implored, his face a contour map of sheer befuddlement.
“That’s just it,” I elaborated, “there are several possibilities. First of all, you could go with rural New England kitsch – covered bridges instead of covered wagons, murals of fall colors and quaint villages, that sort of thing. Or second, you could go with Pennsylvania Dutch kitsch – whirligig ducks, multicolored quilt wall hangings, geometric flower designs, Amish costumes and so forth. Your third choice would be Northern California eco-friendly kitsch – ferns, bonsai, native American artifacts, Tibetan Buddhist tsotchkes, tie-dyed T-shirt and batik uniforms for the servers, yadda, yadda, yadda. Fourth, you could go Forrest Gump / The Color Purple / Green Fried Tomatoes Southern with gingham tablecloths, Spanish moss, faux Cajun menu items and zydeco musical instruments for decorations. Fifth, you could go for Jersey Shore / Saturday Night Fever / Long Island Rocker kitsch with disco lights, black leather, Abercrombie and Fitch outfits…
“That last one,” Capellini broke in, “I like that – it fits with pizzas and Italian food in general.”
“True,” I concurred, “it does. The question, however, is which Democrat-attractant kitsch formula also fits best into… um…”
“Iowan culture?” Capellini ventured.
“I think the term I was looking for,” I replied, “was more along the lines of ‘Iowan society’ or something similar; but yes, I suppose we could say ‘Iowan culture,’ provided we use the word ‘culture’ in its, ah… shall we say… broadest and most anthropological sense?”
“Uh, yeah, okay, and, saying we do, what’s your take on that?” Capellini beseeched.
“In my opinion,” I recommended, “it’s generally more likely the locals would accept the Southern or Pennsylvania Dutch motifs. But in the more… um… cosmopolitan Iowa locales, such as Des Moines or Iowa City, where there are universities, the other themes might actually work better. I’d suggest some focus group studies to gauge potential reactions. Certainly, it wouldn’t hurt to have more than one mindless Democrat kitsch ensemble working at your various Iowa pizza restaurants in 2015, should you have people like Chuck Shumer, Steny Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich or Patrick Kennedy foisting themselves on the public.”
“Okay,” he nodded, scribbling frantically, “I get it. What else?”
“There’s that high-calorie, high-fat, meat-intensive, starch-heavy, deep-fry focused menu,” I commented, “and the all-you-can-eat buffet, loaded with more of the same, concentrating on comfort food – “the ‘Country’s Best Chicken,’ with ‘hot mashed taters and gravy…’ potato wedges… plenty of sweets, it says here… ‘dessert pizzas, including our famous Cactus Bread. And fer the little ones, we’ve got puddin!’ Those are definite Republican attracting items. Democrats, on the other hand, are going to want spring mix salads with baby spinach, mache and arugula, a cheese board and charcuterie instead of chicken; tofu burgers, and nothing fried – but they’ll still want assorted croissants, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and chocolate for dessert. And oh, yeah – for Democrats, you’ll definitely need an espresso machine.”
“At least that fits with Italian food,” Capellini sighed as he wrote.
“Little cups of straight espresso coffee,” I clarified, “are what one expects with Italian food. But Democrats will want you to make them big, frothy sweet macchiatos, mochas, and flavored lattes with that espresso – just like that liberal yuppie swill they get at Starbucks. And you might as well charge five ninety-nine, too, because if you don’t, they’ll only wonder what’s wrong with it.”
“No problem with that,” he chuckled, “and a good thing, too, because all that stupid kitsch is going to be pretty expensive.”
“Then,” I informed him, “there’s the mission statement. Here’s what Pizza Ranch says: ‘To glorify God by positively impacting the world we live in.’”
“’Positively impacting the world we live in?’” Capellini scoffed. “By taking a nice, healthy food like pizza and serving it alongside mounds of fried chicken, greasy potatoes and fifteen hundred calorie sandwich wraps? If that’s the way they glorify God, I’d sure hate to see how they shamelessly serve Satan!”
“Nevertheless,” I chided, “Republicans love to season their meals with religious sanctity. Your restaurant could serve dead kittens on a stick, as long as you say you are doing it out of devotion to Our Lord – and deep fry those dead kittens with an artificially-flavored and highly over-salted crispy dough coating, of course – Republicans will line up around the block to buy them.”
“So you’re saying we all need to adopt some version of a Bible-thumping, Evangelical, Holy-Roller mission statement?” Capellini muttered ruefully. “Do we really have to tell everybody we all conceive of our pizza parlors as vehicles for eternal salvation and the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth?”
“If the Republicans are coming back in 2012 to begin another four-year bout of internecine bickering, personal smears and mutual insults, then yes,” I confirmed. “You’ve got to figure that mission statement of theirs had something fairly important to do with getting Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum to stop by Pizza Ranch for lunch. On the other hand, if the Democrats…”
“What?” Capellini objected. “We should have two different mission statements?”
“You should have no mission statement,” I advised, “until you know who to expect between February 2012 and November 2015. So don’t even bother posting one until after you’ve filed your income taxes next year. But then, you should definitely write an appropriate mission statement and post it on your Web site.”
“If it’s Republicans?” Capellini murmured with a wince.
“What you just said,” I suggested, “should be fine: ‘It is our mission to make our pizza parlors holy vehicles for eternal salvation and the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.’”
”Oh, boy,” he groaned as he carefully transcribed each word. “I think cousin Barbina’s going to puke, putting that sanctimonious nonsense up on her Web site.”
“Well,” I allowed, “if the Democrats end up glad-handing their way around Iowa next time, you can go with something like: ‘It is our mission to use our pizza parlors as instruments of social change, economic justice and environmental protection’ instead.”
“Great,” Capellini bitterly complained, as he glanced at his watch, “now I think I’m going to puke. So – tell me why,” he requested as he rose to shake my hand, “people have to take something as good, wholesome and enjoyable as food and mix it up with something as dirty, repulsive and nasty as politics.”
“Well,” I responded, “why do dogs lie in the grass at the park on Saturday afternoon, licking themselves between their legs – right there in front of God and everybody?”
“I don’t know,” Capellini admitted as he turned and walked toward the door, “why?”
“Because they can.”