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on mountain mike's

—let’s talk pizza marketing

—the local fast reliable place here is “mountain mike’s,” and i’m like… mountain… mike’s?

—i don’t even know where to start with this name: pizza i do not see as a high-elevation food in particular, and “mike” is…

—well, i just googled “is mike an italian name” and there is “michele” so fine, plausibly it’s italian, maybe, under some circumstances

—i think this is an interesting difference between canada and the US: canada is pro-europe enough that branding as “european-ish” is a positive thing

—it is too, here, in some areas, witness mario batali’s empire for example

—but there’s also a different cultural thread you can pick up in america, the anti-european one

—in this semantic zone, pizza can be another story of the glory of american innovation, we stole pizza from those decadent lazy fucks, took it up on a mountain, and made it thicker and more manly

—and indeed there are many regional american pizza styles, which, from a european perspective, are notable in that they are all different kinds of complete monstrosity

—mountain mike’s is not that different from the norm, it’s like a B+ new york slice, better than pizza pizza but worse than fresca, if we’re talking toronto talk

—nothing about it obviously signifies tough mountaineer guy, but whatever

—i aired my complaints about mountain mike’s and cate said, “he can’t help where he came from,” which i thought was funny