Code Name: GINGER

It was introduced as something that would quote: change the world. Simply known as "IT", or by its super-top-secret code name: GINGER. I seem to remember hearing talk about it, that it would be something that everyone would own and use in a few years, and that the mad inventor Dean Kamen would soon be richer than Bill Gates…After all America, we were just in the early dawns of the new millennium, and gadgets like this were a part of the proverbial bridge to the 21st century that the previous politicians had been touting. ABC’s Good Morning America had the exclusive interview -- they were going to be the first to unveil it…and we all watched, mouths gaping wondering: Were we seeing the gleaming brightness of our future? Would this gadget really change the way we live our lives? Or was it just all this talk, this hype, just simply a sales gimmick -- the proverbial “lipstick on a pig”?

Almost a decade after the Segway’s publicity machine went to work for it, after all the excitement, the build-up, the announcement and the eventual let-down, I finally got the chance to ride one. We had our neighborhood block party yesterday…another tiny facet of our megalo-monster American marketing machine. Sure, the name neighborhood block party sounds like fun… You imagine neighbors getting together, maybe having a few drinks, some music, maybe some playing some horseshoes. Nah, not so much anymore; that ideal has gone away with Tina Louise’s hotness. The simple, fun block party doesn’t seem to existent anymore, not with homeowners associations trying to score a few bucks. I might as well have gone through the yellow pages, it was nothing more than, simply, a sales event. To describe the available fun is nearly impossible, and possibly illegal without mentioning the sponsors. It was simply just a carney fair. You had the Gold’s Gym booth providing free vitamin water with every application, the free smoothys provided by VitaMix or VitaMaster blenders (honestly the fruit smoothys were shit and I forget the name of the product). Step right up folks, toss this little ring over the bottle top and win a free coupon to buy some more crap you don’t want or need.

Of all this silliness, the one sell that I really enjoyed was the Segway Scooter rides provided by the local citizens for Barack Obama. Yes my scooter ride was tainted by the political posters hanging from all sides of the buggy…but who the F cares? It was an amazingly fun, sensational ride…and if I had several thousand dollars laying around, not earmarked for some bridge or something, I’d love to have one of my own.

Now, I’ve decided that I really want one of my own -- but I need to find a valid use for it. I guess I could ride it around the huge expanses of the supersaver warehouse mart; I just hope it would stay balanced with gallon jugs of mayonnaise and ketchup hanging from the sides. Nah, I don‘t want to slip and fall and maybe have to sue the store. Maybe I could use it to be all green and what-not, and add an hour to my commute for work. Again this doesn’t seem like that great of an idea, what with rain and semi-trucks and all. Well I guess I have no real use for it, much like the rest of the nation. But for some reason, I still kind of want one.

And finally, after all these words, I think I finally have a point to get to: Hasn’t America learned anything about our phenomenal mass-media -- our super turbo, low-fat, low-cal, new and improved, buy now and pay later marketing machine? It’s all a work, a ruse, a scam…everything. The bridge to the 21st century was simply a bridge to getting more and more marketing into our homes and in our collective faces faster, cheaper and easier than ever before. And all the while all of us, asleep at the wheel, let these notions creep into our brains. Honestly, I have absolutely no real explanation nor excuse for myself as to why, only moments ago, I was pricing Segways on eBay. The machine is strong, really strong.

But only a few years later Charlie Gibson is introducing something else (in an exclusive, see it only here interview), a candidate for Vice President of the United States of America. I didn’t want to use any abbreviations in the last sentence because of the sheer gravity of the position. Yet, we seem to be treating John McCain’s own codename: Ginger with the same aloofness as a scooter. Is it because they’ve brought out the full blown dog and pony show with all the marketing gravy dripping off the sides? Let me ask: If Sarah Palin had some crazy honking wart hanging off her nose and a peg-leg would she receive a single vote because of her positions? (On the issues, you perverts) Of course, obviously not. But the machine rolls on with today’s IT girl…the hockey mom who made it big. Overblown seems like too weak of a word to describe it. And yes much like Sarah Palin, this Segway road machine was just phenomenally over-hyped as something that would “change the world”… Change the world? No. Change my life? Not even close, but damn, it was really fun to ride.