10 CHICAGO READER | MARCH 10, 2006 | SECTION ONE

Chicago Antisocial

By Liz Armstrong

W hat makes a cell phonecool? It’s not that anexecutive from the

service provider showed youhis, the one that’s engravedwith his name and filled withFrank Sinatra songs he’s down-loaded—oh, and a coupletracks by Nelly Furtado andMatchbox Twenty, just to provehe’s hip to the times. Nor is itthat you went to a party thatrang in the new phone whiledeclaring its predecessor obso-lete, where you got to drinkcountless delicious shots oflemon vodka served over tinyscoops of lemon sorbet: you’dslam the vodka, then suckdown the leftover white globlike a whore. But both of thosethings were part of Motorola’sstrategy last Thursday night atthe launch party for its newphone, the SLVR.

Humongor searchlights pro-jected the company’s logo (whichlooks an awful lot like the BatSignal) onto the Prudential Plazaand Millennium Plaza buildings.

not sure that’s a good thing—my comparatively chubbyRAZR is constantly getting lostamong the detritus at the bot-tom of my handbag.) The SLVR“redraws perspective and takesyou to the point where 2D and3D meet,” according to thepress release. “Flatness anddepth no longer apply. . . . Youcan walk right into pictures,slip whole cities between itspages.” Unless it inserts a tab of acid into my earhole, I don’treally see how this is possible.

This was the kind of partywhere the only way to have funis by making a spectacle of your-self—if you don’t, someone elsewill, and you’ll be forced towatch. I bumped into my friendJoe, whom I hadn’t seen since anepisode a month ago that sawthe two of us humping a trashcan together at Nick’s after therest of the bars had closed. Thetent was our oyster.

I started chatting with Elginnative Brice Cooper, host andlead designer of HGTV’s interior-

decorating show “Design on aDime.” When we figured outthat the cute girl next to Cooperwas his significant other, Joeflipped out on him. “Well, con-gratulations!” he shouted.“You’re straight! What’re youdoing with a show on HGTV if you’re straight?”

Cooper laughed, and Joesnatched the rectangular whiteplastic glasses off his face andstarted vamping. They didn’tlook good on him either. “I betmy underwear is more hetero-sexual than yours,” Joeannounced, then stuck his handsdown Cooper’s trousers andfished out the waistband.

Joe then wandered to one ofthe Plexiglas bars for anotherglass of champagne that he didn’t need. As he tells it, someoverly pomaded dude with agold chain and a silk shirtunbuttoned provocatively lowbumped into him and Joe spilledthe bubbly all over both of them.“Oops,” the guy said.

“No, you mean, ‘I’m sorry,’”

Joe replied.The guy explained that he was

in white and Joe was in black,so the spill was actually moretragic for himself.

“No, you’re in bad and I’m ingood. Now say you’re sorry.”

Joe, a skinny wisp of a thing,tends to think he’s seven feet talland 400 pounds when he’s beendrinking. Lucky for him this guy,who probably realized he couldpound the snot out of Joe,thought better of it and walkedaway. Bless his heart, Joethought he’d won.

Time to dance. We probablyspilled as much champagne onthe Astroturf as we drank. Joesat on the stage where Z-Tripwas DJing, and I came andfreaked Joe in the face. Hetipped backward and bumpedthe table, making the recordskip. Z-Trip scowled, reachedforward over the turntables andyanked a fistful of Joe’s hair. “Get off the stage!” he screamed.

This was my favorite Gen Artparty ever, but I was torn. Onone hand, I like free booze anddancing and acting like a poop-flinging chimp, but I don’t likethat I’m helping brand a prod-uct in the process. I’m sick ofpartying with logos.

A couple weeks ago Beans andPrefuse 73 performed at a freeparty at the Puma store on Rush,which was promoting the mar-riage of Puma and Evisu jeans. Itwas so uncomfortably packed Iwas having perverse tramplingfantasies and almost had a panicattack. Puma has become so per-vasive as a brand it didn’t seemto cross anyone’s mind that theirpresence was feeding the culturalcurrency of the product, makingthe sneakers more valuable fortheir function as symbols of akind of arty hip-hop affluencethan for their functionality oreven the way they look.

Gen Art reverses the usualequation, using corporate spon-sors’ money to promote newartists, designers, and musicians.Which is a worthy cause, but it’sdepressing to go to their eventsand watch the well-meaninghosts talk about AmericanExpress or the PT Cruiser likethey really mean it.

I think Pumas are cute. I wearthem myself. But their advertisingand marketing practices, preyingon people’s desire to look cool, canhave the opposite of their intend-ed effect: I’m turned off by theproduct when I see how much thecompany wants me to want it. Ofcourse I want to see artists andmusicians make a decent livingdoing what they love, and I doenjoy going to fabulous partieswhere I get to dress up fancy anddrink on someone else’s dime.And, like I said, I own a RAZR.But now that I’ve seen its prettylittle sister, my phone is starting tolook old and fat. I’m like a middle-aged man who wants to trade inhis loyal wife for a younger, perki-er model. I’m not proud of this. Nomatter how wise I am to the game,I keep getting played. v

It gave the somewhat distastefulimpression that Motorola, whichis headquartered in Schaumburgand has been laying people off by the thousands since 2000(including 1,900 last year),intends to rescue the hardwork-ing people of Chicago. Our hero!

The local arm of the promo-tions company Gen Art, theevent’s producers, pitched a giantwhite tent in Millennium Parkand carpeted the floor withsparkly black Astroturf. Thetables were Plexiglas boxes filledwith plastic ice cubes and hugefaux black pearls. The center-pieces were obscene orchids submerged in square glass vases.The whole thing looked likesome decadent Hollywood ver-sion of Tokyo: sushi for miles,tiny tiramisu parfaits onJapanese miniature ladles, morestrawberry-garnished glasses ofchampagne than a crowd ofabout 450 could guzzle.

The SLVR, meaning “sliver,”is even thinner than Motorola’slast big wow, the RAZR. (I’m

Joe whooping it up with HGTV’s Brice Cooper and his publicist, who asked that we refer to her as Christi With an Eye; Cingular veep Terry Stenzel looking for that Matchbox Twenty tune; the lemon sorbet shots; Beans at the Puma store

AN

DRE

A B

AUER

The Cooler MousetrapTrend marketing is the predator and I’m the prey.

antisocial@chicagoreader.com

CHICAGO READER | MARCH 10, 2006 | SECTION ONE 11