June 18, 2010: After months of intense speculation, adoring fans across America are queued-up (some since the night before) to be among the first to own the latest release from Apple. It’s a scenario not uncommon to my generation’s once-upon-a-time frenzy to procure tickets to a Beatles concert. And in many ways, Apple today has become this generation’s Beatles. An analogy with its upside, and its downside.

On the upside, Apple represents much of what is great about America, particularly in its near-unrivaled history of innovation. From the original MacIntosh to the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Apple has literally created new product categories altogether—fulfilling needs that consumers didn’t even know they had, and in the process genuinely improving quality of life for millions.

But it’s not just product features that makes Apple so unique: It’s everything about, and around, those products. From his consistently impeccable sense of product-design aesthetics to his advertising, packaging and product-delivery system, Steve Jobs has created arguably the strongest single brand in the world today. A brand that inspires cult-like loyalty, and consistently rewards its fans with the best products of its kind.

And since that brand is so carefully controlled, we never have to worry about anyone at Apple claiming, for instance, to be bigger than Jesus. Or inspiring millions to experiment with mind-expanding controlled substances.

Then there’s Apple’s recent track record for blockbuster commercial successes—which has been almost as strong as the Beatles’ was. All of which is why Apple (despite lagging significantly behind Microsoft in total sales) now has a higher market valuation than its Seattle-based competitor.

That’s pretty much where the rosy side of the analogy ends. For starters, the Beatles created art. Music that touched the souls of millions, and still resonates with listeners more than 40 years later. Apple makes things. And that new Apple thing you want so much right now? It’s replacing that old Apple thing you wanted so badly just a year or two ago. Forget about that new thing you just bought touching your soul for forty years. The 4g Thrill you’re currently experiencing won’t even last four.

Then there’s the fact that people actually waited all night, sleeping on sidewalks, to buy that thing. When people waited all night for Beatles tickets, they actually got better Beatles tickets. Waiting all night for that new Apple thing didn’t get anyone a better thing. It only got you an extra day or two with that thing. And honestly: How could an extra day with that new thing possibly be worth the pain and inconvenience you endured to get it?

That’s where the analogy gets really sad: What does it say about us, when one of our single most unifying cultural icons is a publicly-traded corporation producing perpetually-replaceable objects—rather than anything of lasting value?

I’ll bet, if you asked Steve Jobs in complete confidence, and promised to cut off your 4g high-def camera before he spoke, he’d admit that, fifty years from now, Apple’s latest Coolest Thing Ever Made will inspire about as much loving hyperbole as the Altair 8800 or the Commodore PET does today.

And yes, I freely admit that the iPad and iPhone are very possibly the two coolest things ever made. But if you asked me, Steve Jobs’ enduring legacy, the accomplishment that we’ll still be talking about fifty years from now, will be his role as a co-founder of Pixar Studios. Where they know a thing or two about touching people’s souls.

This column also appears on the B-Metro website: http://bit.ly/appletoapple
(Special thanks to Kevin Boyd for the photo illustration)

With the series finales of Lost and 24 airing Sunday and last night, a huge chunk of my cultural life over the past decade has come to an end in just two days.

I was thoroughly pleased with the Lost finale—primarily because it offered genuine emotional closure for me. But also because I’ve never been particularly concerned with making “sense” of the show’s Byzantine plot twists or its alternate-universe reality—so I didn’t have any giant questions I needed answered. That said, if you were a fan, Time.com’s James Poniewozick wrote an excellent review of the show—and the finale: http://bit.ly/bzScaB

On the other hand, I was fairly disappointed with the last few weeks of 24—particularly in watching Jack Bauer transformed from a crusading superhero to a vindictive, cold-blooded killer. Still, the show (and Jack) already had more than enough credit in my goodwill bank to make the season worthwhile.

All that said, I figured this was as good an opportunity as any to publicly disclose something I’ve admitted, without shame, for years: On the whole, I like television better than the movies. Here’s why:

First, I rarely have the time, or the patience, to watch an entire movie on a Friday or Saturday—much less on a weeknight. With my DVR, an hour show on basic cable is 50 minutes, tops. AND there’s always the possibility that I’ll catch a really good commercial among all the lame ones I fast-forward past.

Second, TV is a writer’s medium. TV producers don’t have budgets for the special effects that dominate most Hollywood films these days, so they’re actually forced to focus on the stories. And there are plenty of shows that tell stories I like. (Although I do think the vast majority of TV comedy these days is so bad it’s not even funny).

Third, a month of cable TV—most of which is available in HD—is less than the cost to take the family to a single movie (particularly if you buy Coke and popcorn). Because of that, I’m a lot more easily satisfied by TV than movies.

Not that my overall standards have dropped, but I just don’t bring the same (often unreasonable) expectations to TV that I do to movies. At the same time, on a strictly objective level, I can list any number of TV shows which have genuinely impressed me over the past couple years—but very few movies. And yeah, I know that’s partly my fault—because I’m not willing to invest the necessary effort to find movies I’ll really like; but even if I was, I still don’t have the time to watch them.

Fourth, a lot more people watch TV—so there are a lot more opportunities to make reasonably meaningful small talk, day in and out.

And finally, TV is in my house—and at my age, that’s pretty much where I want to be. Which (to be perfectly honest) is one of the reasons it’s best to call me at the office, if there’s something important you need to discuss with me. Like, for instance, what you watched on TV last night.

I suppose this is going to make somebody mad, but here it is…

While watching the NCAA basketball tournament last night, an interesting thought crossed my mind: Why are there so many white coaches on the sidelines? Because that’s where they spent their careers as players.

Not only was it a common occurrence for all ten players on the court to be black. A large percentage of the black players in the games were dark skinned—which tells me that even a drop of Caucasian blood may well be a genetic impairment to basketball greatness.

Boy, March must be a disheartening month for White Supremacists.

(ANOTHER FABULOUS DAVID BROOKS EDITORIAL)

Every age produces its own sort of fables, and our age seems to have produced The White Messiah fable.This is the oft-repeated story about a manly young adventurer who goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit. But, once there, he meets the native people and finds that they are noble and spiritual and pure. And so he emerges as their Messiah, leading them on a righteous crusade against his own rotten civilization…

Of all the directors who have used versions of the White Messiah formula over the years, no one has done so with as much exuberance as James Cameron in “Avatar.”…The hero is a white former Marine who is adrift in his civilization….

The white guy notices that the peace-loving natives are much cooler than the greedy corporate tools and the bloodthirsty U.S. military types he came over with. He goes to live with the natives, and, in short order, he’s the most awesome member of their tribe. He has sex with their hottest babe. He learns to jump through the jungle and ride horses. It turns out that he’s even got more guts and athletic prowess than they do. He flies the big red bird that no one in generations has been able to master…

COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE: http://nyti.ms/white-messiah

NOTE: Sadly, The Birmingham News has dropped my favorite Editorial Page columnist, David Brooks. Below is a condensed version of a column of his I saved years ago.

We now have to work under the assumption that every American has a tattoo. Whether we are at a formal dinner, at a professional luncheon, at a sales conference or arguing before the Supreme Court, we have to assume that everyone in the room is fully tatted up — that under each suit, dress or blouse, there is at least a set of angel wings, a barbed wire armband, a Chinese character or maybe even a fully inked body suit. We have to assume that any casual antitattoo remark will cause offense, even to those we least suspect of self-marking.

Everybody who has been to the beach this summer has observed that tattoos are now everywhere. There are so many spider webs, dolphins, Celtic motifs and yin-yang images spread across the sands, it looks like a New Age symbology conference with love handles.

Today, fashion trends may originate on Death Row, but it takes about a week and a half for baggy jeans, slut styles and tattoos to migrate from Death Row to Wal-Mart.

And that’s the most delightful thing about the whole tattoo fad. A cadre of fashion-forward types thought they were doing something to separate themselves from the vanilla middle classes but are now discovering that the signs etched into their skins are absolutely mainstream. They are at the beach looking across the acres of similar markings and learning there is nothing more conformist than displays of individuality, nothing more risk-free than rebellion, nothing more conservative than youth culture.

Another generation of hipsters, laid low by the ironies of consumerism.

—DAVID BROOKS
August 27, 2006

(  The complete version of this article can be found at http://bit.ly/dvP49V )