Tradition. TRA-DI-SHUN.

So traditions are things that people do from generation to generation. They're passed down because, well, that's what they are, even though they don't make sense anymore. But we do them because they can make otherwise dull rituals interesting. Like, without traditions, Christmas would be really fucking boring, instead of being stressful, depressing, frustrating and soul-crushing.

But some traditions are really stupid. And people do them anyway, because humans are kinda dumb and it's hard to make us stop doing something dumb. Let's take a look.

Throwing coins in fountains. So yeah, if you throw coins in a fountain while making a wish, the wish will come true. Unless it's a wish for more wishes, because that would be pointless as long as you have more change.

Believe it or not, people still do this, even though we know that the only way to get wishes granted is to locate genies. And they don't hang around bodies of water. It's bad for the lamps. But it seems harmless enough. You pass by a fountain and throw money in and wish for love, or more money, or something. It makes sense, since fountains are usually romantic, except for drinking fountains. Then those are just refreshing with a hint of lead.

This tradition probably got started with ancient fountain-owners, probably Italians or Gypsies. Those people are always looking to rip everyone off. It made sense back then, because if you owned a fountain in 1066 and people were throwing money in it, that'd be a lot of money. And don't think that's not what happens. After midnight, when everyone's asleeping, a guy walks in with waders and just collects the loot. If they didn't, then every fountain on earth would be overrun with pennies and that would probably not be sanitary or something.

Well owners probably tried to replicate this tradition, and they were successful too, until their antics led to people getting lead poison.

But now it's like really stupid to do this. Not so much costly, because inflation makes harvesting the coins more of a chore than a moneymaker, but yeah. The rules never made sense from the beginning, anyway. Like, why does throwing money into a fountain get a wish granted? Does the spirit of the fountain or whatever keep a tab? If you throw in quarters, does that raise the chances of a wish being granted than if you're a cheapass and just throw in pennies? Can they be tricked with slugs? What about poker chips? Nobody knows.

Scattering coins in a new car. Here's a tradition I never got, ever. So when you get a new car, you're supposed to throw coins all around it for good luck. This one baffles me and I suspect that once again the Italians invented it because it's just so senseless.

I can't even figure out how this got started. When ancient people got horses, did they feed their horses dubloons or something? Did they think that leadening down a horse with coins make it safer and cut down on traffic accidents? If anything that would poison it and make it crash. Or it would make their shit extra valuable. I guess they would do this with wagons, coaches, rickshaws, bicycles, anything with wheels.

So every time I'm in someone else's car, and I look down, there are coins on the floor. Well not everyone does it but yeah. This is annoying because as arcade rules say, if there's a quarter on the floor, it's up for grabs. Which doesn't make sense. It should be down for grabs or something. But I'm tempted to pick it up, and I can't. Why? Because someone dumb thought its presence would make the car not crash into that car. Jim? Jim look out, it's stopping. JiM! JI

Here's another reason why it's stupid. You know when your car does get into an accident, and stastistically speaking it will happen, it's not a good idea to have things in the car that aren't bolted down. Like if you've ever been in a garbage can rolling downhill, it's not comfortable because you're bouncing around and stuff. Well when your car is flipping over or getting accordioned, it's not good to have small pieces of metal flying around. So you're basically lining the inside of your car with shrapnel. That's pretty dangerous, especially if you have like a baby in the car.

Homecoming at colleges. Here's a really stupid tradition: homecoming. Homecoming is defined as alumni and former students going back to college to visit it and stuff, which doesn't make much sense, unless you're a money-grubbing asshole looking for a reason to rip people off.

So how come homecoming is so special, anyway? The vast majority of students don't care about alumni, unless they're like really cool, like Randy Savage or thay guy who was on "Family Ties." But famous people rarely come to homecoming because they're like busy with being cool and making money to go see their dumb alma mater.

Basically homecoming is an excuse for colleges to charge extra for tickets for their (now non-existant, ahahhaha suck it Hofstra students!) football games, where the home team gets destroyed by Oklahoma or something. And then everyone has a tailgate and stand around drinking beer and shit. Basically it's a giant college party that you have to pay for.

Now I know that college kids are really dumb and would be down for this, but paying money to do something you can do for free, or for $5 at [NAME REDACTED]orio's house, that's pretty stupid. And they're not that fun anyway. People make floats and have a parade, and put all that time and effort and money into it, and what do they get? Fourth prize for the class of 2015 and their Charlie Brown theme. Oh hey what was the point of all this? Check your wallet, and it becomes clear. Clear because there are no dollar bills blocking your view.

Groundhog Days. Not even Flag Day is as pointless as Groundhog Day, and I don't say this because I fucking love flags. It's because it's a retarded holiday based on a retarded tradition.

Groundhog Day was cool when I was like seven, because I was a really stupid kid and I actually thought that some jerkoff beaver or whatever in Pennsylvania could control the weather. But why anyone goes along with it nowadays is beyond me.

So I guess the official groundhog of the United States is some guy named Punxatawney Phil? I guess kinda like how Al Sharpton is the official black guy of the United States, and he speaks for everyone. Although the news today was like, "We're gonna watch Staten Island Chuck" or something. Staten Island Chuck? Why Chuck? Why not go for the onomatopeia?

So here's how it works: some asshole pulls a groundhog out of the ground and declares if it's seen its shadow. And then everyone disperses. But TV stations pay thousands of dollars to cover this earth-shattering event. Why? First of all, it's pretty clear that no groundhog has control or foresight over how the fucking seasons are going to go. We've got this seasons thing down pat, anyway. We have for thousands of years. It's how we have this thing called agriculture, because we know when the seasons change, and they don't change because some creature noticed its shadow.

Like, how serious are we supposed to take this tradition? And how are we supposed to put it over on kids and other stupid people? If the groundhog doesn't see its shadow, are we supposed to declare winter dead right then and there? Are we supposed to expect 60-degree weather from then on out? It's retarded. The groundhog might as well try to predict when the 4th of July will happen. Here let me help you out groundhog: if you see your shadow, spring begins on March 21. If you don't, it begins on March 21. There.

Also the mechanics of the tradition don't make sense either. So the groundhog sees its shadow, that means six more weeks of winter. But how does that work? Like, if I shine a floodlight on it, thus generating a shadow, does that count? What if there's a low amount of light, but enough for its shadow to sorta be visible, does that count? Can we ask the groundhog if that counts?

And how the fuck does it mean that if it sees its shadow, that means winter will continue? But if it sees its shadow, that implies that the sun is out, which means it's gonna be somewhat warm-ish. If it doesn't see its shadow, that means it's really dark out. Maybe it's even snowing. But don't worry, that means that spring is right around the corner? How does that work? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Whoever invented this stupid tradition evidently dropped the ball.

Sweet sixteen. This tradition has an obvious source: our medieval ancestors. Back then, when the average lifespan was like 45, you had to grow up real quick so you could have babies and not die. So when someone turned 16, they were eligible to be married. To someone their parents selected.

Anyway, that whole thing eventually morphed into the whole debutante culture, which is a really hoighty-toighty way of announcing that your son or daughter is now legally fuckable. It's really glamorous and stupid and pretentious but we tolerate it because Americans have and always will be secretly monarchists and we love this kind of shit.

Nowadays we have sweet sixteens. I'm pretty sure that every middle-class girl in the US has had one of these, and I've yet to run into anyone who hasn't. It's still a big deal. They even made a bad movie about it. And now they recently had an even worse show about it, but I think they cancelled it for now.

Just like homecoming, this practice exists just to wrench a few more dimes from stupid people. So your girl turns 16, and you have to throw a lavish party with all her friends and shit. That's what you're supposed to do, but not many people can really pull it off. It's still a huge deal, though. I'm actually surprised it hasn't spread to other years, like Swell Seventeen, or Furious Fifteen, or That's Really Cool Thirteen. I'm sure someone is working on that, though.

The really dumb thing about sweet sixteens is that they're not legally binding. Remember, in the old days that was the time when you were "of age," for fucking. But today that's not until you're 17, although I think it's younger in southern states. Big surprise, right. So all it does is parade girls around in a look-but-don't-touch fashion, which is very creepy and shit. But people pretend not to notice this aspect and get all caught up in the fashion and the pageantry and shit. And you have to buy cars and dresses and whatever crap 16-year-old girls want or whatever it is.

I think it's dumb because it gives kids the expectation that a) they're special little snowflakes and b) that this is what they have to expect out of life. And it's not. Nobody is special and everyone is an asshole. Excuse me for sounding like I just stepped out of "Fight Club." Also it's really bad to spoil kids at any stage of their development, because then they turn into hyper-sensitive babies and shit, and that's annoying. And I'd like it if people did less things that annoyed me. I don't know about you, though.

Well those are traditions, and they'll keep going for a long time. Those are some that annoy me a lot. How about you, what traditions annoy you? Don't bother answering.

Oh, him? He left hours ago

A gentleman I worked with, who shall go nameless, actually wait, scratch that, let's call him Greg Ostertag, recently left the company. On his own accord, mind you, to go work for a PR (no, not those PRs) firm in the city. Ostensibly he'll be doing the same thing he did when he worked for us (the good guys): writing press releases.

Only he wasn't a press agent for us. He was a reporter. As in a person who is supposed to relay facts in an unbiased manner. Well he was certainly unbiased and he certainly relayed "facts," but they were "facts" gleaned from press reports, a habit most reporters are into these days.

As someone who was classically trained in journalism, this is a worrying development that has been growing for some time now. I'm not sure how long it's been going on, but somewhere between newspapers dying and journalists making less jack and more shit, reporters figured out that public relations people can do their jobs for them!

It's especially easy when you're working for a trade publication like moi. PR people are eager to talk to reporters all the time because reporters very happily apply the role of message conduit. So you call up a reporter, feed him the company line, and voila! He has his story, you have your publicity, everyone walks home happy. Except maybe the consumer but who gives a shit?

As for copying press releases, he was good at it. Which I suppose is rather like being an effective nose picker.* It gets the job done, but at what cost????

Journalists outside trade publications do the same thing, more or less. Except this time they get their info from "authoritative sources," which is mainly just the government. Again, if you're a young, dumb reporter and you need to make a deadline, which sounds easier? Asking pointed questions at the appropriate people, figuring who knows what and who's supposed to know what and so on, or just asking the man in the uniform what's up? Is the man in the uniform on the level? Does he acutally know what's going on? Hell if you know, it's 4:30 p.m. and page 7 isn't filling itself!!

So basically, in a nutshell, take everything you hear in the press, in any form, with a grain of salt. A huge grain. Large enough to break the back of a large poodle. I hear they sell those at Costco (the salt, not the poodles).

For this and more information about this subject, consult Nick Davies, who wrote the intriguing "Flat Earth News." It's a book but it's non-fiction so you'll probably pass it up for more navel-gazing artsy shit books. Oh well.

* Greg actually would pick his nose at work, so this comparison is extremely apt.