AiAA: Four Short Stories About the Apple iPhone 4

Homer: "There can only be one truly great festival a lifetime and it's the 'Us Festival'."

Clerk: "The WHAT festival?"

Homer: "The 'Us Festival'! Geez! It was sponsored by the guy from Apple Computers."

Clerk: "WHAT computers?"

-- The Simpsons, Homerpalooza (May 1996)


I graduated from San Diego State University with a marketing degree in 1997. As television and movies have taught us on countless occasions; the most unforgettable college professors are eccentric, unconventional loons whose enthusiasm is inversely proportional to their hygiene.

One of my favorite professors from SDSU was an excitable, unwashed woman who inexplicably -- albeit seamlessly -- blended oral case studies with outlandish conspiracy theories and urban legends.

She taught us, among other things, that: (1) The fast food industry was colluding to keep inner city residents economically repressed and in poor physical health. (2) Coca-Cola, undeterred from the infamous failure of "New Coke", was in the middle of a 20-year plan to gradually change its original formula to...New Coke. (3) Bill Gates would own Apple Computer, Inc. by the end of 1998.

That last one didn't seem entirely inconceivable at the time.

In the mid-90s, Apple was reeling from several failed product lines and turmoil within the upper echelons of management. Of course, the company completely recovered (introducing the iMac in...1998) and turned a profit of $3.3 billion in the first quarter of this year.

Apple has rolled out their latest television ad campaign for the iPhone 4. As these commercials indicate, a company can freely embrace clichés and unintentional comedy when it's put towards a product that essentially sells itself.




Did you have to cast Frederick Douglass as the grandfather, Apple? My grandfather is 84 years old, shaves every day and wears his hair as short as I do. Most black men don't want to look like Questlove's eventual corpse, y'know.




This couple is obviously not married. Mrs. Bootleg has mastered that marital mindf*ck in which she gets her hair done, doesn't mention it and expects me to notice. In baseball parlance, my .275 average would be perfectly respectable.




Pfft. Here's how I found out that Mrs. Bootleg was pregnant with Jalen: It was a Sunday morning and I was on the can, reading the sports section. Mrs. Bootleg broke down the door, shoved a plastic pee stick in my face and frantically translated the results. Our story's better, Apple.




Is there still a stigma attached to braces? I've heard more than a handful of older friends and co-workers tell me that their kids want braces to correct some imaginary crookedness or simply because one of their classmates has them. I'm eagerly waiting for the day when asthma ascends to the same level of acceptance.