Picking at More Apples

I wait way too long between posts, but after watching TV a few days ago I have to continue wondering why Hollyweird is just so in love with Apple.

Fortunately, Steve Wozniak has been voted off Dancing with the Stars, where he never belonged in the first place. I pleaded for this in my previous post, and it took about two weeks too long to oust him.

I watched two of my usual NBC shows today on NBC's Web site, part of what could be the present time's "Must See TV," and both of them had Apple references. Arrrrgh! I drank half a bottle of wine afterwards just to purge the memories from my head, but alas, I couldn't completely stop them, so what I do recall is below.

30 Rock has made Tina Fey, former Saturday Night Live head writer, ready for prime time, as she again plays a head writer at a late night show at NBC.  In the most recent episode (from 9 April), "Cutbacks," Liz Lemon, her character, must submit a smaller budget for her show to George the Pharmacist from Desperate Housewives (well, Roger Bart as an outside consultant).

To try and win him over, she goes up on stage in her studio, clad in black turtleneck, dark jeans and white sneakers -- the exact same thing Steve Jobs always wore at his keynotes.  Liz stands before a huge stage, saying TGS, the fictional show in 30 Rock, offers comedy, variety, etc., using slick, shining graphics like you'd see on a Mac or an iPhony. Soft electronic music plays in the background, and a montage follows of sketch highlights -- it's like horrid Saturday Night Live outtakes, they're so hokey.  George the Pharmacist is not impressed at all and tells Liz make sure she submits her reduced budget ASAP.

30 Rock is guilty time and time again of Apple butt kissing. All the major characters in the show use Macs and have iPhonies as their mobile phones. I mean, every single character, from Alec Baldwin's high muckety muck Jack Donaghy with his iMac on his desk, to Liz's brief boyfriend, Don Draper (I mean, Jon Hamm), who must have ridden in on a time machine from Mad Men in 1962 to 2009 New York City. They're all Apple Heads. No one doesn't have an Apple product in 30 Rock, except maybe the kind, naive NBC page Kevin (an always good Jack McBrayer).

One show that officially has Hewlett-Packard computers in product placement is The Office, a sister show to 30 Rock. When you're in Dunder-Mifflin' s offices, everyone has HP desktops, and many employees can be seen playing Solitaire instead of working! Outside the office of The Office, though, several are Mac nerds, including salesman Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), and Mike Scott (Steve Carell), former branch manager.

Steve recently quit in a conflict with Stringer Bell from The Wire, who somehow survived getting shot by two hitmen, to become Mike's boss. (Idris Alba is actually a very good actor from England, who like Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House, or Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, does an American accent flawlessly.)

Mike Scott is trying to start up his own "Mike Scott Paper Co.," with Jim Halpert's fiancee, Pam (Jenna Fischer),  and former Dunder-Mifflin temp, then vice president, Ryan (B.J. Novak).  In the episode "Dream Team," Mike's first office is in his condo, which leads Pam to remark as she passes Mike's garage, that Apple also started in a place like that. Only you can see that the Mike Scott company will fail, while Apple was in the right place at the right time -- Silicon Valley, just as people were becoming interested in small, portable computers. And you know what? Ford Motor Co. also started in a garage, so take that, Californy and Hollyweird Mac nerds!

Mike also had a MacBook Pro sitting on his dining room table as part of his company's equipment, and in one episode a long time ago said he made a little movie for his employees "on my Mac." So they do love their Fruit Co. nonsense, and we have to suffer through these references endlessly in shows, though still only about 5 percent of t

he world, and 12 percent of the USA, is in the domain of Mac.

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Then things go from the ridiculous to the dangerously cult here in the real world. PodBrix is a company that has sold hundreds of little figurines based on Fruit Co. culture for the past few years, all constructed of LEGO blocks. Tomi, the designer responsible for this nonsense, now has a Steve Jobs doll -- or plush, if you want -- for sale.

A doll. Of a CEO. Of a for-profit, multinational corporation. 

I have never seen dollies that looke like Jack Welch of GE, say, or Lee Iacocca or even the legendary Henry Ford, and hopefully never of Steve Ballmer, the bald freak from Microslop who reminds me a lot of simple Kevin on The Office, a guy who can't even transfer phone calls. I mean, come on now? Has anyone before this ever decided the world needed a doll looking like a business executive, even one with as much undeniable yet nauseating charisma as Steven Paul Jobs? 

My niece Lissa always said dolls creeped her out due to their resemblance of people, and this is one that definitely makes my flesh crawl.  In the images on this page, where the crabby-eyed bastard is hanging out with other plushes, I'd scream, "Skedaddle, Yoda! Run away, run away, Mario! Book it, Hello Kitty! Leg it out of there, Link!" RUN!!! You know, like Talking Heads sang: "Psycho killer ... fa fa fa fa fa fa better ... run away!" Or Monty Python's warning to "run away, run away" from that vicious rabbit.

Tomi has put Jobs with a circa 1984 Mac, just to ram the point home about who the plush is. Tomi also claims that "Plush Jobs loves you"; but I need to correct you, Tomi: Jobs doesn't love you, he loves only yer money.

Jobs is 28 bucks, which I'd rather go spend on a dinner and movie on a cool late spring Michigan night.

On the other hand, in something that has nothing to do with Apple, I found this page of disclaimers, at the site of a Washington state man who wrote synopses of Shakespeare plays, to be quite funny and original.