Episode 8: Campfire Stories

“I’m just amazed you all get cell phone reception out here,” says Ewan, despite the fact that what he should actually be amazed about is that a stuffed giraffe can send text messages.

“We have our own cell tower,” says The Deer.

“Really?” says Ewan.

“Well actually it’s more of a satellite uplink to all the major providers, and then some sort of wireless broadcasting thingy to push the signal out to all of us here in the area,” chimes in Tall.

“How did you guys get that?” asks Ewan.

“Tall got it for us,” says The Deer.

“What, did he just buy one on Amazon or something?  I mean, he’d probably get free shipping on it as it probably costs more than twenty-five dollars, but aren’t those things kind of expensive?  And it’s not like you can just put one together yourself,” says Ewan.

“Actually, you can,” replies Tall.  “We bought it from Sweden and so you could assemble the whole thing right from the box with just a single Alan wrench, which is provided in the box.”

“Those Swedes are pretty clever,” nods The Deer.

“Well yeah, the Swedes are clever.  Everyone knows that,” says Ewan as he opens his eyes wide to pretend that, like everyone, he also knew that.  “But still, where did you get the money for all this?  Did all the squirrels pitch in money from their internet businesses or something?” Ewan asks Tall.

“Nah, it was not a squirrel-subsidized project.  I used to own a geek-oriented beverage company and I made a small fortunate when I sold it to a larger beverage company,” replies Tall.

“So you started your own soft drink company, it started getting popular, and then someone like Coke or Pepsi came along and bought it from you?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Cool.  What was it called?”

“There was a soft drink product line, beer product line, and a bottled water product line.  The flavors of our soft drinks were ‘UNIX’, ‘Sprint Review’, ‘Gridbag’, ‘grep’, which contained chunks of Jell-o, and ‘Google Cola’,  which for some reason people in Italy insisted on calling it ‘Google-la Gola’.”

“What was the slogan for Google Cola?” asks Ewan.

“It was ‘F*** Pepsi and Coke; what have they done for you _lately_?  We brought you Gmail, Google Maps, and Droiiiiiiid,’" replies Tall as he lets out an appropriately timed, long beer burp.

“What about the beer?”

“It was called ‘pwd’ beer--tastes like UNIX!” says Tall, telling them the name of the beer and slogan.  “The geek water was called ‘/dev/null’.”

“Slash-dev-slash-null?  What the heck is that?” asks Ewan.

“It’s nothing,” replies Tall.

“What?”

“Exactly.”

Ewan shrugs his shoulders and continues, “So who was the bigger company that bought your geek beverage company?”

“I’ll give you one guess.”

“Apple,” guesses Ewan.

“Apple?  As in the computer company? ” asks Tall.

“Yeah.”

“That’s your guess?”

“Yep.”

“You’re not going to guess another beverage company like Coke or Pepsi, or even a food company like General Mills?  You’re going to guess Apple?” says Tall in half disbelief of Ewan’s answer.

“Yep.”

“No, it wasn’t Apple!” exclaims Tall.

“Well it should have been Apple,” mumbles Ewan, loudly and in a disappointed tone of voice.

“Yeah, now that you mention it, you’re probably right,” concedes Tall, pausing for a moment while answering.

“Why should it have been Apple?  Why would a technology company want to start a line of beverages?” asks The Deer.

“Because if Apple could make a soft drink that looked as cool as an iPhone or as one of their laptops people would drink the heck out of that.  And you know they could.  Apple may not offer as many products or services as other technology companies, but everything they make has that cool, clean, sleek look to it.  And that matters a heck of a lot more to most people these days than what the product actually does, or in this case what it tastes like.  They could rebrand Pepsi or Coke and people would still buy it just because the can or bottle would be so darn cool looking,” says Tall in defense of his argument.

“Very true,” agrees Ewan, taking another swig from his beer.

“And taste is kind of an unexplored area of technology,” continues Tall.

“What do you mean?” The Deer asks.

“Most of the emphasis on technology is focused on your sense of sight, i.e. they make the product as neat-o looking as possible so that you’ll look cool using it, which makes you want to buy it.  The secondary sense focused on is probably touch.  Everything has a touch screen now, and so when you touch stuff you feel like you’re actually doing something.  It won’t be long before touch screens are able to provide some sort of physical feedback, just like reading brail or something,” says Tall.

The Deer looks at Tall a bit puzzled, “So when you use your touch screen the screen will send a unique, physical sensation back to your hoof?  Like an electrical impulse or something?”

“Yeah, something like that, I bet,” answers Tall.

“Well that would be pretty cool.  But what does that have to do with soda?” asks Ewan.

“Oh yeah, that’s right.  So the one thing technology companies haven’t figured out how to do is how to get you to drink and smell their technology.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ever wondered what an iPhone tastes like?”

“Not really, it’s just a phone,” says Ewan.

“It’s not just a phone!  It can do anything!!” defensively interjects The Deer.

“You’re right, it is the world’s coolest phone.  I retract my previous statement and apologize,” says Ewan, humoring The Deer to avoid an argument.  “But it’s made of metal and plastic and whatever and so I never really wondered what it tastes like.  It probably tastes like plastic,” says Ewan.

“True, but the fact that you never thought you needed something has never stopped the spirit of capitalism from trying to convince you otherwise.  As far as all the sales departments in the world are concerned you never thought you needed blank only because you didn’t know you needed blank.  And so if a company like Apple or Google were to come out with a beverage line, then all their loyal customers could feel like they are drinking their favorite products,” says Tall.

“I’m still not quite following you,” says Ewan, peering with one eye into an empty beer bottle, then into a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels, from which he takes a swig in hopes of improving his mental clarity.

“Okay, let’s take a step back then,”  says Tall.  “Look at rap music in the early 80s and 90s.  A new rap group would emerge on the scene, put out an album or two, one member might go solo and put out another album, but then the band would disappear into the pages of music history.  But what do rappers do nowadays?  They put out one album.  Then they start their own clothing line.  Then they put out a fragrance.  Then they do a couple TV shows, movies, and write a book.  Then maybe they think about putting out another album.  Today’s rappers are much more business oriented then they were twenty or thirty years ago, and it’s not really about the music anymore.  The music is just the vessel to create the initial image to pave the way for the other product lines.  And if you’re a new rapper who manages to hook up with an already successful record label, sometimes you don’t even need the album.  You just put out a single, or do a couple guest appearances on a label mate’s album, and bam, you’re ready for your own line of denim and edgy, graphic T’s.”

“Yeah, he’s right," agrees The Deer.  "All the old school rappers who made the transition to the new school stayed alive by doing that.  And now they’re helping all these young cats get from point A to point B to point C without having to spend a lot of time at point B since that’s not really where the money is.”

“Okay, I get that.  What does that have to do with soda and computers?” asks Ewan.

“Think about how wildly popular the iPhone is.  If Apple were to branch out and come out with their own clothing line, fragrance, soft drink, etcetera, they could expand their logo to new frontiers.  You could surf the web on your iMac while talking on your iPhone while drinking iCola while wearing iSmell Good/Hot Version 2.0 in your new iDenim jeans; iTights for the ladies and iTypes for the fellas.  They have a well defined look and marketing image.  They could expand on that into what that tastes and smells like,” explains Tall.

Ewan pauses for a moment to let everything he just heard sink in.  He then changes gears, “Well, do you have any of that PWD beer left over?”

“Yeah, I saved a few cases before I sold off the brewery.”  Tall gets up and walks over to the fridge, opens the fridge door, removes a bottle, and closes the door.  “Here,” he says, tossing Ewan a cold one.

Ewan pops the top and takes a swig, “It’s good!  What’s in it?”  He starts reading the list of ingredients on the label on the beer bottle, “Water, barley, yeast, hops, and megahertz.  …What are ‘megahertz’?”

“Magical elves,” jests Tall.

“Oh, I knew that,” says Ewan smiling contently.

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