Who You Calling a Fry Baby?

Steve Stajich
Mirror contributing writer

   I was absent-mindedly working out on my pedaling machine last week when the house shook from what at first felt like two small explosions, one right after the other. However, I knew that sound. It was something from my youth. 
   On summer afternoons long ago, kids would hear that double boom and immediately crane their heads skyward to see the white jet trail of a supersonic aircraft. Miles above us, a man was traveling so fast that the skin of his aircraft pushing against the atmosphere produced a "sonic boom."
   It didn't dawn on me until later, watching the news, that the "boom" had been produced by the space shuttle returning to earth at Edwards Air Force Base. As I dwelled on that, I thought, "I'm living in the future. A rocket ship was routinely returning to earth from space as I casually exercised in my home. That's futuristic, baby!" The sublime buzz I got from all this was something you could only get from having grown up when I did. Or maybe you'd actually have to be me; a price I'm sure most of you won't pay.
   The future is now and we're in it and yet I don't think we often feel like we're in it. We sometimes pause to marvel at some new technological breakthrough, but the "Hey, that's sumpthin', huh?" quality of those moments is short-lived. We're now so quick to integrate change into our lives that the adjustment period holds no magic for us. There's no moment of enchantment with our wireless phone because we've just seen someone across the plaza with a smaller one. And the one next to that is even smaller and the guy in the Jeep has the new headset/auto-flossing unit and next week I'm getting a phone imbedded in my nasal cavity. "That's not static, I have allergies."
   We're blessed in Southern California because we have an entire chain of stores that sells us the future. The chances are good that you are already addicted to them. I mean Fry's Electronics and you, sir, are a Fry Baby. Don't deny it. Where did you get that Palm Pilot? What's that in your ear, some kind of MP3 player? And you're going back there on Saturday, aren't you?
   Sure you are. Because you saw something in that succulent Friday newspaper supplement Fry's puts out. Something that you didn't even know existed until a month ago, but ever since then, you've decided that your life is an empty joke until you get one. Then you saw it was on sale in that lip-smacking, brightly-inked exploding M-80 of "values" that is the Friday Fry's supplement. 
   And now you can't sleep. What if they run out of them before you get there? What if you have to wait for more to ship? What if another two weeks of your miserable low-tech existence goes by before you own an 8x4x32x EIDE CD-RW drive at 99 bucks after rebate?!?
   The Fry's supplement is so jammed with little boxes of technological wonderfulness that you simply can't be held accountable for your actions. Look, it's a spindle filled with 50 rewritable CDs. That's 39 cents a CD! Just one of those would store a typed transcript of every moment of your life since birth. Talk about having your butt covered. If there were a chance to download every file in the FBI, you know, because the Russians are paying this week...you'd be ready.
   I'm going to reel off a list of must-have items from the Fry's supplement and you can shout "Gimme one!" as long as you can correctly tell me what it is and what it does. Here we go: ADS 2 port USB PCI upgrade card, 4-port USB hub, Umax Astranet e3420 Scan-To-Web, a 32 MB AGP Graphics Accelerator (I think it makes those 'dancing kitty" emails move faster), a 64 MB Compact Flash Card, a 10/100 Network Adapter, a "Major Name Brand Super Capacity Washer." 
   OK, that last one was a washing machine. For $299! Yes, here in the future we've made wonderful advances but we're still fighting grass stains. And no matter how much of your techno-life is spent near nothing dirtier than a computer, at some point you've got to log-off and wash your shorts. Or you don't. Which might explain "chat rooms." 
   In the earliest days of consciousness about consumer culture the term "planned obsolescence" was coined. Basically, it meant that to keep Americans in the mood to buy new things you needed to convince them that what they had must be thrown away. Back then, it was about simpler things like sofas and "hi-fi" sets. Now we dump our old things at a speed measured in megahertz. Because whatever we have is "too slow" or "doesn't have enough memory" or it won't "support"...something. Like, maybe, our egos. In one way or another, we're all becoming Fry Babies. 
   Take photography for a moment. If you're thinking of a new camera for taking pictures of your kids and your dog, you're probably apoplectic by now from wrestling with whether you should get an "old school" film camera or a digital camera. Super 8 home movies fell to home video. Video is falling to digital video. Digital video on tape is about to fall to digital video stored on discs. Audio? Don't get me started! DVD player? Like I have a choice in the matter. 
   And of course, you do. You can hang on to your old technology and endure the verbal strafing you'll get from friends who are big Fry Babies and proud of it. You can fight back by pointing out that all those old computers and audio devices and video devices that we chuck, just so we can feel the keen sting of the cutting edge, have to end up somewhere in our shared environment. Where are they? Don't you feel horribly guilty about all the perfectly useful things you've thrown out in the last twenty years?
   Don't. They're all waiting for you, at my new "Funky Chic Retro Electro Center." I've bought up all the stuff you threw out and I've hung on to it for twenty years. Now you'll pay sweet and heavy coin to have all your old stuff back so your life can take on a little texture and style credibility. Hurry on down. The faster you buy this perfectly good "mellowed merchandise," the sooner I can get over to Fry's. 

This Week's "Know Your News" Quiz

(1) LA mayoral candidate Steve Soboroff has already
   (a) spent $2.2 million on his 
   campaign.
   (b) taken millions from Marc Rich's 
   ex-wife.
   (c) inexplicably bombed Iraq.
(2) The Deja Vu topless dance club in Beverly  Hills has
   (a) added double-strength sneeze 
   guards to the taco bar.
   (b) sued Beverly Hills over 
   restrictive codes.
   (c) proved to be a mecca for 
   intellectuals and literati. 
 (3) Winter storms brought Santa Monica
   (a) enough ice to keep emergency 
   tofu chilled.
   (b) rains that pounded expensive 
   casual wear.
   (c) a Target snow job that we dug 
   ourselves out of. 

Answer Key

(1) (a) Just slightly less than Julia Roberts.
(2) (b) What about the OSHA regulations?
(3) (c) Now let's make "Hooters" an "Office Depot."