This Labor Day marked the end of an era here in San
Francisco. The laser-light show, a fixture at the Morrison Planetarium in Golden Gate Park for 26 years, has shut down. No more scribbly arcs of criss-crossing light to the strains of Zeppelin or the Floyd, man. An era has ended.
Once lasers were the very epitome of modernity, today they're only used by eye surgeons, sales representatives at Power Point demonstrations, and
teen-aged boys in the multiplex making a red dot dance on Julia Roberts' forehead. Like holograms.
Remember holograms? They once were everywhere. Now they're only used to form scorpions in cubes sold at truck stops. Ah well, the modern comes, the modern goes. Thirty three and third lps. Gone with the wind. Reel to reel tapes, eight tracks, hula hoops, and the protest movement. We'll never see their like again. Remember Tab, Hai Karate, and yodelling cowboys?
Dust, my friends. As dead as your pet rock. Afros, bell bottoms, Farrah Fawcett Majors posters, Nehru jackets, D.A.'s, zoot suits, turtle necks, and love beads. Baby on board bumper stickers, I heard my doghead bumper stickers, mo-peds, smurfs, trolls, my little ponies and cabbage patch dolls-- all as gone as the scooters you see on the street today will be tomorrow.
Treadmills line the city street, waiting sadly for the recycler to come. By by FM radio, big band music, be bop doo wop rock and roll and soul. Whither 3-D, the drive in, bowling alleys, slot cars, water beds, and pyramid power. Get ready to say farewell to the boy groups, children. Soon they'll be dead as Fresca, Hai Karate, and miniature golf courses. Pogs, power rangers, He-Man and Etch-A-Sketch. By by. Today's Pokemon is yesterday's Furby. By by Beanie Babies, jelly bellies, and chalupas. By by BBS, Care Bears, olena,
olestra, and metrecal. Lawn darts, Rubik Cubes, and Trivial Pursuit-- might still find some at the Goodwill Store. By by bongs, Cosmopolitans, and Michelob. Remember earth shoes, poodle skirts, tie dye, and puka shells? How quickly it all fades. Buttons with funny slogans on them. Dust in the attaic. Slip and slide, Fizzies, tang, and pop rocks. That's all folks.
Now get ready to bury lattes, microwaves, post-its, and Power Point. All things must pass. All must fade. Except lava lamps, of course. They will always be with us. And inflatable plastic furniture. The miracle of retro. Yet, the miracle of retro too will fade. Until it makes a comeback. Singing cowboys, where are you? Gone, dust, dead as vaudeville. I gotta go.
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Not long ago, WIRED Magazine, in exchange for my being a loyal subscriber and only making fun of them every OTHER month, sent me a little gift. Opening the box, I found a mouselike thingumajig, only shaped like a cat.
It was called a Cue Cat, I was told, using CRQ software. What is CRQ? I have no idea. The helpful brochure and CD-ROM wrapper didn't tell me what CRQ stands for, except that it's trademarked.
I was told that CRQ links my TV and PC, so "you can go directly to the web page associated with the TV program or commercial you're watching." Of course that means I have to link my PC to my television. They're in two different rooms, But I could lug one of these two monsters to mate with the other, and so I could go to the web page of a show I'm watching while I'm watching the show. That sounds like it wouldn't be a hellish multimedia experience in any way.
Anyway, how does Cue Cat fit into this? Well, Cue Cat will scan bar codes from magazine ads and take you to that ad's web site. Yes, that's right. If you plug Cue Cat into your computer, and it works properly, you can jump from one commercial in one medium straight to another in a different medium. Wow. And if you close your eyes you can almost pretend you're a grocery store clerk dragging cat food across a scanner. And this experience costs you nothing!
So if you're the kind of person who not only likes to read magazines at your PC, but also point devices at bar codes while you're doing it, well the Cue Cat is the toy for you. Did I mention it's free? Keep your eyes open for it in your mailbox. If by chance you didn't get one, drop me a line. You can have mine. It's free! I gotta go.
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I had the occasion this September to do what we occasional actors call a "corporate gig," emceeing a sales conference for a smaller multinational corporation that specializes in high end retail items, very high end, trinkets and gewgaws and even functional tools that'll set you back about a grand per inch of item.
The demographic for this company's products seemed to be CEOs, maybe, movie stars looking for holiday gift ideas, or marketing vice presidents with a burning desire to impress others with their class, prestige, and disposable income. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But at some point over the two day conference, I realized that high end luxury items or not, retail is retail.
Distributors discussed shipping and warehouse problems, boutique franchisees talked about getting the customer into the shop, accountants talked about the new databases they were creating, and various presidents and vice presidents talked about the urgent need to expand their markets and product lines.
Anyway, the point is this company was not some flighty dotcom, but an established retailer with a history and reputation that sold actual objects in the real world in real brick and mortar shops. And yet, all of the presenters, without exception, accompanied themselves with Power Point slides and laser pointers. Now, I'm relatively new to the dizzying heights of international sales conferences, but I'll bet they've always been with us. I can only imagine what sales presentations were like before Power Point and lasers. Slide shows, I suppose. Video tapes, and before that, 16 millimeter movies. Chalkboards and posters. Overhead projectors.
Remember the overhead projector? Every mathematical equation I've forgotten in my life was first formulated on an overhead projector by a balding man in a ribbed nylon shirt. Just the sight of an overhead projector can put me to sleep. If sales conferences were ever conducted with overhead projectors it's a wonder we ever sold anything. Yep, I think it's pretty safe to say without Power Point the entire global economy would collapse like a house of cards. And the kids playing pranks with their laser pointers, pointing them at the heads of movie stars in the multiplexes? Don't worry. They're not punks. They're not on drugs. They're just training for a career in retail management. That's the face I'd put on it anyway, if they were my kids. I gotta go.
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Levi Strauss has partnered with Phillips the electronics people, to create a jacket that will come equipped with a cell phone, MP-3 player, remote, and headset. It's set to hit the European boutiques this September 2000, and then on to conquer the world.
Apparently, it is hoped that wearable electronics may be a new trend, kind of like putting goldfish in the heels of your platform shoes back in the disco era. I dunno. It seems a little desperate to me. Where is the phone anyway? Sewn into the sleeve? Will you walking down the street, barking commands to your broker into your cuff? Are you screaming at your lapel? Do you have to sort of slide your jacket over your head and talk to your inside pocket? And what's the gain here?
In a place like San Francisco, sure, where it's always a little chilly, it would be great to have a phone built into your jacket. But what if you're in Dallas in August? You'll have your jacket slung over your shoulder, won't you? If you get a call, do you hold your jacket up to your ear? Plus, what if the thing breaks down? Do you send it to the dry cleaners or your service provider? And didn't they already do something like this on that old teevee show, GET SMART, only with a shoe? Why a jacket? Why not your shirt, your pants, socks, or even your underwear. A cell phone in your briefs, man, you'd be a babe magnet.
Other than the babe magnet aspect of this whole concept, I don't see the advantage. Now, if your jacket can get HBO, you'd have something. Of course, you'd have to walk down the streets trailing several miles of cable, but it would be worth it. I gotta go.
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I'm one of the few people on god's green earth, with e-mail, who actually welcome Spam. Spam contributes to my ill feelings towards my fellow humans, capitalism, and technology. I try to nurture those ill feelings, otherwise they might degenerate into boosterism, wealth, and actual expertise. Can't have that happen, now can we?
So anyway, the other day, some poor overworked pr person, laboring under the delusion that I have some kind of power in this wretched world, addressing me as "Dear producer slash personality" in the header, informed me via the miracle of the Internet that a John Eagan was available for interviews. Who is John Eagan? Well, he's a "ratings grabber," I'm assured. He's been on Howard Stern, who said he was not only "fantastic," and "no bull," but "the real deal."
Mr. Eagan also has a column, a sex and dating column in MUSCLEMAG INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE. Most importantly, he is the author of the book, HOW TO PICK UP BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN NIGHTCLUBS OR ANY OTHER PLACE, SECRETS EVERY MAN SHOULD KNOW. Man. Just saying the full title would run your talk show out of time. Still, MEN'S HEALTH magazine put out a book, in which Mr. Eagan is apparently described as "one of the biggest authorities in the country today." On what, I am not told. His research into the fast growing field of picking up beautiful women in nightclubs and other places has been expanded into, so I'm assured, "university studies." Well, golly. I'm flattered to be included in the list of people who may consider having Mr. Eagan as a guest on their programs.
Unfortunately, I don't have a program. And I've never had the least desire to pick up beautiful women in nightclubs. Beautiful women in nightclubs are a problem, trust me. You don't really want to go out with them. They'll only break your heart, and leave you with nothing but their fragrant smelling flimsies on the futon. Call me a pervert, but that's how I feel. Still, if I ever do get a program, and if my producers and I feel that useful techniques for picking up beautiful women in nightclubs is something our audience needs to know, and that it would indeed be a "ratings grabber," rest assured, Mr. Eagan, or his people, will be the first guy we call. Until then, however, leave me alone. Thank you. I gotta go.
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Back in 1997, an accident at the Tosco Oil refinery in California's Contra Costa County killed one man and injured 46 others. Well,
I just read in the paper that this refinery has changed its name from Tosco to Golden Eagle. I'm sure this will make a huge difference to the friends and family of the injured and slain. Rather than having suffered at the hands of a
careless and heartless corporation, Tosco, you've suffered at the hands of Golden Eagle, a brave warrior and worthy opponent.
If you're a slug or snail, for instance, and you change your name to Speedo or The Flash, it may not change your true nature, but it makes you feel better about yourself, and makes others feel better about you. Same if you're a cobra, and change your name to fuzzy bunny. These kinds of decisions by the way are generally made under the auspices of a consulting firm, unless you're a rock star.
Gordon Sumner, for instance, probably decided to change his name to Sting on the spur of the moment, based on a personal whim. If he's gone to a consulting firm, they probably would have advised him to change his name to, say, CommuSys, TeleFac, or E-Sting.
Corporate name changes strike me as either remarkably clueless, or have no bearing on reality. Well, some make sense. Minnesota Mining and Manufacture, for example, calls itself 3M. Maybe they used to make coal buckets, bulldozers, and state-of-the-art shovels, but today they're best known for making little sticky pieces of paper. When I think sticky pieces of paper, I think 3M.
Interestingly, the granddaddy of all consulting firms, Andersen Consulting, recently changed its name to Accenture. Kind of a combination of Adventure and Accent, I guess. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure that this name change makes me want
to hire them as an independent contractor. I'm not sure I'm ready to be accenturized. Did they go to a different consulting firm to decide on this name change, I wonder? If a consulting firm consults a consulting firm, isn't that like an irresistible force meeting an immovable object? The world as we know it, could end.
In other news, speaking of corporate branding, I just read that
Novellus Systems has just purchased Gasonics International. I have no idea what either of these companies does, exactly. Something to do with computing, I'll wager. I suggest that they change their new name to either Novellics, Gasellus, or Andersen Consulting. That name's available now, or so I hear. I gotta go.
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Here in San Francisco, there was a bit of a controversy recently. Around the same time that Mayor Willy Brown began a stamp out graffiti program, the game company Sega of America sponsored a "Graffiti is Art" competition.
Most embarrassing for the Mayor, the competition was staged at Justin Hermann
Plaza, on city property, with permits obtained from the city. A spokesman for the
mayor declared, rather predictably, that this contest sends out the "wrong
message." A spokesman for Sega, however, countered that there are two kinds of graffiti-- graffiti art, and graffiti
vandalism.
Still, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city spends
more than ten million bucks a year removing graffiti from public and private
property. The police now have a graffiti crimes coordinator to help catch
graffiti vandals.
I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, I view graffiti
as the equivalent of a dog marking its territory. Occasionally, to my biased
eye, there are traces of artistry, but for the most part, graffiti seems to be
some kind of incoherent symbol in a private language scrawled on a wall by an
antisocial young man entirely lacking in social skills. Not that there's
anything wrong with that.
Not being a property owner, I can't say that
graffiti bothers me that much. As a matter of fact, graffiti even strikes me as
heartening evidence that today's young people are trying to communicate with
the world at large on a primitive pre-verbal level. Sure, they didn't ask me,
per se, for permission to put their incomprehensible scribbles on the garage
doors of my neighborhood. But did dotcoms ask permission from me to put their
incomprehensible billboards by the freeways, where I'm forced to view them
every day? No.
My ATM now features commercials. Did anybody ask me if I approved
of this practice? Not to my knowledge. The little rubber bars that separate my
groceries from anothers have ads for movies on them, city buses are now
rolling advertisements for whoever wants to pay to paint them, fliers from pizzerias
and Chinese restaurants are thrown on my doorstep everyday-- look, up in the
sky! It's an airplane hauling a banner for some damn thing or other. The point
is-- every public space is increasingly cluttered with an advertisement for
something. Why should I be more offended by graffiti than this other junk?
Oh, that's right. It's free. Nobody's getting a piece of it. In America, that's
a crime. I gotta go.
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If you have a job, you spend half to a third of your day
commuting. This was once considered a problem, but thanks to the modern
entrepreneurial spirit, it is no longer a problem, a challenge, or even an
inconvenience, it is now-- an opportunity.
A new Silicon Valley commuting service, called Buspool, will shuttle you from San Jose to Palo Alto and
back. The hook is that the service features movies. So not only do you get to whiz
past the gridlock in the diamond lane, you can watch a movie. What's the
downside? Well, the movie doesn't start until everybody's on the bus, and
the commute doesn't last long enough for a commuter to see the entire movie.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, it takes about three days, coming
and going, to see an entire movie. So far, according to the Chronicle, the
movies have included GHOST, STAR WARS, FIRST WIVES CLUB, TITANIC, GALAXY QUEST, and
FORREST GUMP.
You have to love capitalism. Only in America, could you cram a
bunch of people into a bus, have them watch lame movies they've seen a
zillion times before, thus somehow convincing them they're not wasting an hour and a
half going to and from a crappy job they either hate or offers no security
or both, and making them think this is a luxurious experience, and making them
pay for it!
Speaking personally, I don't want to watch a movie at 7:30 in the
morning, especially not FIRST WIVES CLUB or FORREST GUMP. I certainly don't
want to watch a third of a movie I've seen before. I'd rather take a nap, or read
the paper, or listen to right wing talk show hosts dream up new ways to hate
Clinton.
If you're going to watch a movie on your commute, why not a short
subject, or a movie you've never seen before? Expand your horizons! Watch
WEEKEND by Jean Luc Godard, for instance, which features not only the
world's longest tracking shot of a traffic jam in Paris, ending with a horrific
accident, it also features (if I recall correctly) a really boring monologue
on Marxism by a French garbage collector, in French, with subtitles. That'll
put you right out, and frankly, if you're going to spur the New Economy, you
need sleep more than movies anyway. Really long pretentious and dull French
movies with a Marxist bent, that's what I'd vote for, if I were commuting. If I had
a job. I gotta go.
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Well, Playstation 2 hit the stores, sort of, on October 26. Due
to a shortage of certain components-- which some critics say was just
trumped-up hype on Sony's part, to create more demand-- it's said that only one machine
will be available for every four who want to buy one. Whether the shortage
is artificial or natural, it led to consumers lining up at Sears, Toys R Us,
Babbages-- pretty much any place that sells electronic games at midnight the
night before the unit was scheduled to go onsale. Just in the hope that they
might be one of the lucky few to get the winning lottery number, affording
them the privilege of buying one.
Man, you'd think the latest movie featuring Jar
Jar and the gang had hit the theatres. I don't get it myself. Regarding the
awful Star Wars movie. Why the desire to be the first in the theatre to see it? I
waited a month for the lines to go down, and I'm pretty sure the experience
for me was just as dreadful as for those who camped out for two weeks before it
opened. And I'm willing to bet that if I wait until January, say, to buy my
Playstation 2, not only will it still be the same machine, there will be
plenty to go around, the prices may even have dropped, and there will be more games
available.
What's the hurry? Why did harried Moms pull out their knives to
see who was going to get the final Furby in stock? Don't they realize that
Furby's amusement value lasts thirty minutes, roughly, and that dozens of them would
be available for fifty cents apiece at Goodwill a mere six months later? Want a
Tickle Me Elmo? Now's the time to buy. Getcher Tamagotchies now. They're
dirt cheap, batteries not included. Cabbage patch dolls are also very reasonably
priced right now. The thing is, however, there's a short window of
opportunity between the scarcity of a product when it's first released, and when it
becomes a collector's item.
Davy Crocket hats leaped off the shelf when I was a kid.
Try to find one now. Just try. That's why I recommend PlayStation 1 when you're
shopping this Christmas. Don't open it though. Keep it in the original
packaging, and sell it on eBay for ten thousand dollars five years from now.
Come to think of it, forget products altogether. Just buy original
packaging. If you can corner the market on original packaging, you'll have it made. I
gotta go.
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