SEPTEMBER 9,1994 — THE DECREE — PAGE 5
Ice beer is sign of decaying civilization
By BEN HAMRICK
Just when you think things
can’t get worse, they invent ice
beer.
Do we need any further signs
that the end is near?
I’m not really an apocalyptic
kind of guy. Yeah, I am pretty
woebegone about this whole in
tractable ethnic strife thing. The
hole in the ozone layer gives me
the periodic jitters. Not to men
tion those ongoing earthquakes;
they can get a guy to asking a
cosmic question or two.
But, hey, you know what
Forrest Gump’s bumper sticker
says. Stuff happens. (Yeah, I
know, but it is a widely read
school newspaper.)
Ice beer, though, is not stuff
happens. Environmental devasta
tion, war, disease, social mayhem,
natural disasters, tuition increases,
those are stuff happens, they be
ing part of the natural order of
things. But the development of
ice beer is the product of deliber
ate human effort.
Whatever happened to the
health-risk free cigarette? Was
that just too tough a nut to crack?
Why another stupid beer?
We used to build great cities,
devise complex political systems,
create languages, explore the sci
ences, and produce inspirational
art. Now, we make ice beer.
They say it’s what beer was
meant to be. Right. And Barry
Manilow is what rock-and-roll
was meant to be. What ice beer
really is, is pseudo-beer. The ad
campaign ought to be “get un
real. Get ice.” or “Living in a
virtual reality? Try a virtual beer.
Ice.”
(Now I’ve crossed the line.
Some marketing professor will
not recognize those sentences as
a condemnation of artificiality or
simply won’t care because he will
see it as a way to show a student
how to make a fortune. I can hear
him now: “David, it’s the perfect
postmodern in-joke. Nobody be
lieves there is a reality anymore.
What is reality? It’s your perspec
tive, right? Ice beer. The new real
ity; no reality. Get it? The point
is, it’s young, it’s fly, it’s can’t
miss.”
And the student makes an ad.
And it becomes a great success.
And I, instead of having sounded
a warning, will have actually has
tened the extinction of the human
race. To the prof and the would
be ad guy: You’re welcome. To
the rest of us: Sorry.)
It’s not that the people who
develop ice beer are bad or evil.
I’m sure they are very good
people. Intelligent. Make great
small talk at parties. No, the prob
lem is not with any one individual
or even with some selection of
individuals. The problem is that
such shows little regard for the
fruit of its labors, so out of tune
with what matters that it must
have run its course.
How can a rational person
sleep through the night knowing
things like this are going on?
I have two theories about the
genesis of ice beer.
Theory one: A joke some one
did not get. According to this the
ory, the whole thing started
around the coffee urn. Their con
versation turned to what most
people talk about in the work
place: their jobs. They started tell
ing jokes. The jokes ran the gamut
from the boss to the co-workers
to the company’s product itself.
At one point, everybody was
laughing about all the new types
of beer on the market, even
though everyone knew, even as
they laughed, that because the
performance of those beers deter
mined whether they’d get profit
sharing next year, it wasn’t really
funny. Truth and reality work that
way. Anyway, while people were
joking somebody threw out some
thing new. “Hey, what about
freeze dried beer; it would be like
instant coffee.” Everybody
roared.
Everybody, that is, but those
in management. “This is the best
idea since dry,” thundered the
president.
Even though the last great
experiment — clear beer — didn’t
work, all were sure that ice beer
would soon overwhelm and take
over market share.
Before you could say “lame
brained,” a division of the com
pany had itself a new special little
project.
Theory two: Conspiracy. This
theory holds that the heads of all
the major beer companies held a
summit meeting, perhaps at one
of those great ideas — retreat —
and they decided to spread the
risk around by embarking on this
enterprise together.
I mean, have you noticed how,
all of a sudden, every major beer
company on the plan seems to
have come out with an ice beer?
What is that — chance? Coinci
dence?
Did the world really need an
other silly beer? What was wrong
with all the other stupid beers:
light, dry, non-alcoholic, and
clear? It wasn’t as if light, dry,
and non-alcoholic, and clear
weren’t already goofy enough.
Maybe the niche market for stu
pid, silly, and goofy is greater
that I thought.
Opinion
The triumph of marketing.
That’s what it is. And that’s why
the world is headed to hell in a
handbasket.
Don’t get me wrong. There is
nothing inherently wrong with
marketing. The name P.T.
Bamum is hallowed in some quar
ters, and the mention of the pet
rock causes some to become
misty eyed as they remember their
long departed companions.
In fact, is it possible to love
America and not appreciate
marketing? Through garish board
walk amusement parks, market
ing built the New Jersey coast.
By way of sanctimonious New
Age faddism, it props up the Cali
fornia economy. Unsuspecting
college-aged people are con
vinced that certain lifestyles are a
positive by a group of musicians
who have so altered their own
By ALAN P. FELTON
(The following is excerpted
from a longer article entitled
"Greedis God")
Every year thousands of
people go to Las Vegas in the
hopes of winning big. Some do
pull off the impossible, like the
swine who won $2.7 million
while I was in Vegas. But for
every winner there are thousartds
of losers, most of whom are run
out of town and driven into the
Nevada desert wearing only their
underwear and a T-shirt embla
zoned with the logo “Vulture
Meat.”
Las Vegas is the most danger
ous town in America. Its streets
are neon canyons filled with sex,
violence, and greed. Only raving
lunatics and seriously depraved
masochists go there, but when I
wanted a vacation my travel agent
assured me I would fit in per
fectly.
Greed is God in Las Vegas.
Nothing else matters to a gam
bler but the chance to make the
big score. I saw a man who had
been sitting at the same slot ma
chine for five days, refusing to
eat and surviving only with
Bloody Marys in his system. An
other gentlemen had a heart at-
chemistries that they no longer
remember where they have been
or where they are going, not to
mention being able to even ap
proach directing anyone which
way to turn their head as they
vomit.
The way they smile at us while
selling us a parasite that’s feed
ing on our lungs which has sup
ported this state for over a hun
dred years as it killed many of its
finest citizens.
And Nevada would still just
be an unspoiled expanse of desert
if not for the shining artifice on
the dirt, Las Vegas.
So, in that sense, ice beer is
just another manifestation of the
spirit that built this great country.
Indeed, I would raise my glass
and make a toast to it if not for
the sad fact that I would be hoist
ing somethfng totally inappropri
ate, a beer with body and texture
and richness. Which is to say,
something not gimmicky.
But when marketing becomes
the end-all, you are left with all
sorts of horrors. The five-day
Opinion
tack while standing at the craps
table. As he waited for the para
medics, the man asked me to prop
him up on a stool so he could
continue to play until help arrived.
Demented behavior is the norm
in Vegas.
Las Vegas is also home to
packs of sadistic senior citizens
who roam the town in search of
fresh meat and a place to gamble
away their Social Security checks.
This is a violent crowd with tun
nel vision when it comes to win
ning big. One old woman vi
ciously attacked me with a pair
of brass knuckles just because I
sat down at what was supposedly
“her” slot machine. Soon an en
tire gang of AARP members
pounced upon me, each intent on
introducing me to the true lifestyle
of Las Vegas.
It is no wonder that celebrities
don’t flock to Las Vegas like they
used to in the old days. The town
has just gotten too ugly for most
of them. Wayne Newton is still
performing at the Sands, but his
only audience is a group of con-
stubble as fashion statement, for
instance; how did the look of a
hobo become synonymous with
some panache of ruggedness?
Marketing. And glamour shot —
for kids no less. Dopey? Market
ing.
I should make it clear that the
problem is not marketing per se.
It is the degree to which it has
come to permeate our lives and,
in so doing, further erodes the
line between artificial and real.
People will buy ice beer. They
will drink it. They will think it is
good. They will think it’s beer.
And the species will have
taken one more step toward the
abyss.
Take heart, though. As fear
some a sign as it is, the advent of
ice beer does not signal the im
mediate end of the world. That
won’t happen for a few years yet.
You’ll know when it happens.
When you see an advertisement
for a light nonalcoholic clear dry
ice beer, duck. Someone will pop
one ojjen. Pfffst. That will be the
sound of the world ending.
fused, blind souls who mistake
him for Elvis Presley.
Only Caesar’s Palace, the gam
bling Mecca, can produce the big
show anymore. But the scene at
the Palace can turn ugly and of
ten does. I witnessed George Bush
losing heavily at the roulette
wheel, drinking martinis by the
dozens, and grumbling about
lousy perks for ex-Presidents,
while Barbara made her way into
a loud procession of retired
women going to terrorize the Cir-
cus-Circus. I wasn’t about to get
involved with that crowd, so I
got drunk with Tony Curtis in
one of the Palace’s bars. As they
say, when in Rome...
The only way to survive in
Las Vegas is to give into the greed
and violence. People who are per
fectly respectable doctors, law
yers, and college professors in
their own communities transform
into venom-spitting drag queens
while they are in Vegas.
The only alternative is to go
out into North Vegas to shoot up
with the heroin junkies and eat
snake meat hot dogs, but only pro
fessional freaks are allowed there.
The rest of us must settle for the
dangers of the Strip, where no
one ever sleeps. No one can; they
are too afraid.
Greed is God in Las Vegas
as folks flock to hit it big