1.11.02
Bouncing Baby Coleslaw
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Don't Know Nothin' 'bout Birthin' No Cabbages

Some can cry tears. Some can eat and drink. Some can crawl. Some can mess their diapers.

Over the years, toy makers have devised countless ways to make baby dolls seem more real and thus supposedly more marketable. The thing is, kids know their dolls aren't real. It's just too bad adult toy marketers can't figure that out.

One toy company has gone a tad too far in its efforts to convince folks that its baby dolls are the real deal. It's actually allowing shoppers to witness the birth of its dolls. No worries…there won't be any blood lost, just a little green goo. You see, mama is a cabbage, and the dolls…you guessed it…are Cabbage Patch Kids.

A 12/24 broadcast of NPR's All Things Considered unveiled the latest attempt to entice a new generation of girls to become adoptive mommies of those deformed-looking lumps of stuff known as Cabbage Patch Kids. In conjunction with Toys R Us, Cabbage Patch Kids has set up BabyLand General Hospital in the enormous Times Square Toys R Us location. There, kids and adults alike can marvel at the miracle that is green leafy labor.

Mother Cabbage may be just a bunch of plastic leaves with a hole in the center, but the process through which she gives birth is clinical enough to make the squeamish a bit queasy. Not only do Mother Cabbage's leaves dilate in preparation for the birth, she is given an epidural called "Imagicillan" to ease the pain. And assisting in a Cabbage Patch nativity requires the expertise of an "LCN" dressed in a sterile, white lab coat.

As Toys R Us shoppers look on, the LCN announces, "The cabbage is dilated ten leaves apart. That's normal. Cabbage gestation is nine months." She then instructs the onlookers to take deep, Lamaze-like breaths. The LCN pleads, "Push Mother Cabbage! Push!" Meanwhile, according to anonymous Lowbrow Lowdown Lackeys, during each birth, an anxious-looking male cabbage can be found pacing around near the Transformers with bubble gum cigars at the ready.

Once the Cabbage Patch Kid is born and spanked, the real reason for this charade is made perfectly clear by the LCN: wide-eyed kids and their parents in the audience can take home the doll they've just seen delivered for an adoption fee of $64.99. Interested buyers, a.k.a. adopters, proceed to the hospital waiting room to sign the adoption papers and take the all-important oath: "I promise to love my cabbage patch kid. I will always remember how special my cabbage patch kid is to me."

Well, you've got to hand it to the Cabbage Patch Kid marketers. They've certainly made buying a doll seem like some life-altering experience. And the elaborate branding procedure seems to be working. According to the All Things Considered story, 1,200 dolls, mainly of the blonde, Hispanic and Asian varieties, were sold during the month before broadcast. It's surprising the doll manufacturers didn't build this additional BabyLand General Hospital sooner (the original is in Cleveland, GA, as seen on the company site ).

Besides selling lots of dolls, the in-store births not only perpetuate the notion that babies are hatched in cabbage patches; they neglect to acknowledge the presence of a father in the lives of the Cabbage Patch Kids. I don't want to be presumptuous, but the frequency of her pregnancies and the lack of a supportive male counterpart can lead to only one conclusion: Mother Cabbage is a slut!

What's most curious is this adoption oath. Sure, it's a great way to establish loyalty among Cabbage Patch consumers, but what happens if adoptive parents don't uphold their end of the bargain? Will their Cabbage Patch Kids be sent to foster homes, or back to some patch orphanage? I mean, there must be thousands of Cabbage Patch Kid adopters who were kids in the '80s and since have relegated their Cabbage Patch Kids to the bottom of some box in the attic or left them to die in the backyard after being ravaged by the family dog. In fact, I'll bet there are even a few people out there who sold their Cabbage Patch Kids on eBay or at garage sales, knowingly exposing them to the evils of the world.

At the rate these doll marketers are going, I won't be surprised if they begin arresting the first generation of Cabbage Patch Kid adopters for child endangerment and neglect.

Arabian Slights
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The Meek Shall Inherit the Work

As most entrepreneurs, freelancers and business owners would agree, sometimes attracting clients or promoting a product can be a real hassle. Whether the advertising format of choice is schmoozing at networking parties or developing multi-million dollar TV campaigns, the marketing aspect of any business can often lead people to wonder if the actual work or product being promoted is really worth all the trouble. They should be thankful they have the ability to advertise at all. Most business women in Saudi Arabia don't.

According to a 1/2 Wall Street Journal piece about women who run businesses in Saudi Arabia (For Saudi Women, Running a Business Is a Veiled Initiative, by Hugh Pope), more and more women are "willing to navigate the tortuous paths of Saudi rules and regulations to indulge an entrepreneurial streak." Take Mayan Kurdi, owner of a website design firm called Netpeople, who stresses, "Discretion is the name of the game." She, like most Saudi Arabian businesswomen, doesn't advertise; it could attract unwanted attention from the ultra-strict authorities. "We get all our business by word of mouth," she adds in the story.

Man, knowing that can certainly ground one's perspective on things. As a freelance writer and editor, I often gripe about having to pitch myself and my services. Meanwhile, I'm lucky I have the freedom to do so in the first place.

And just think: most advertisers in this country think they're being discreet if they decide against the 50' billboard.

Full Metal Jumpsuit
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Bogus Boot Camp

Each day, they endure grueling tests of their physical stamina. They have no tolerance for weakness. Comfort is not an accepted state of being. Constant pain and torment is all they know. They are world renowned for their prowess and determination. They are the few, the proud: the race car drivers sponsored by the The U.S. Marine Corps.

In an ongoing effort to attract fresh, malleable meat to the toughest soldier-making machine in the world, The USMC has joined forces with auto racing organization, NASCAR and Team Rensi Motorsports for the past few years. The No. 25 NASCAR Busch Series Team Marines featuring driver Bobby Hamilton, Jr. are on a mission to dominate the sport of stock car racing. Until now, that goal has yet to be achieved. Hopefully a few hundred pull ups, some long marches and regular recitation of the Marine Rifle Creed can help prepare them for the racetrack trenches.

A 1/2 Yahoo! News press release reveals that the Team Marines experienced just that during a brief visit to boot camp. From January 9th-11th, it was off to Parris Island, SC for Hamilton and his road hogs. You may be wondering how the bucket seat-tushed team kept up with the authentic marine recruits. The truth is, it probably didn't pose much of a problem; the horsepowered lap racers weren't actually expected to run any laps themselves. They were just there to "observe".

Just imagine the raw, aggressive energy boost the marine recruits got knowing that a bunch of ogling, spineless scumbags had come to delight in their torturous training.

Ed Rensi, team owner and ex-McDonald's CEO believed the boot camp infiltration exercise would bolster team morale. Before leaving, he was quoted as saying, "This is going to be an incredible experience for our team and I think they will leave Parris Island with a renewed sense of what teamwork is really about."

Let's just hope they didn't also leave with a sense of what it's like to get the metal Marine Corps insignia pounded into their chests as other new USMC grads have.

This Team Marines thing is a great concept. However, I'm surprised the USMC hasn't branched out with it. Sure, there are already Marines sports teams playing football, basketball, etc. But surely stock car racing isn't the only team-oriented experience that appeals to young men and could be Marines-branded. These 18-24 year olds can't seem to get enough of that Battlebots show. Perhaps a Marines fleet of daisy-cutter-launching bomber-bots could inspire the young male geek demographic to get off their duffs and seek out some Marine Corps style physical action for a change. Then again, there's always pro wrestling. How cool would a cage match with the Marines Tag Team featuring Drill Instructor Lieutenant Laceration, Corporal Punishment and their lovely female counterpart, Semper Fine be? And hey, obviously the Marines have no qualms over their affiliation with a race series sponsored by mind-mushing, body-softening Busch beer. Certainly a fast food-related sponsorship has potential, too. I can hear the Marines Breakfast Team at Mickey D's or Burger King reciting the creed right now: "This is my mop. There are many like it, but this one is mine….Without me, my mop is useless. Without my mop I am useless."

Harried by Harry
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Casting Dispersions on the Spell Caster

I remember it vividly. It was 1982. I was ten years old. I sat in politically-incorrect Indian style on the cool tile floor of my basement, hunting and pecking on my mom's old manual typewriter. My muse: an oversized poster of Duran Duran's John Taylor. My goal: to prove to the world that Duran Duran was way cooler than that over-hyped Michael Jackson guy. My means: a self-published, single-issue, anti-Michael/pro-Duran Duran magazine. As this obsessive little endeavor demonstrated, sometimes resentment can lead to some ridiculously zealous behavior.

Alois Gmeiner may relate. You see, Gmeiner recoils at the thought of insipid terms like "muggle" and "hogwarts" gaining acceptance into everyday speech. And as for wee witches and warlocks: their mere mention could turn his stomach. Yes, Gmeiner detests Harry Potter.

The thing is, it's not necessarily the Potter character that's spurred all this negative sentiment. It's the monstrous marketing push behind the li'l cabalist that's got the Austrian riled up. And he gathers that he's not alone in his woeful state of Potter repulsion. Countless others are thoroughly repelled by the popularity of Harry Potter, too. So, Gmeiner has done what any normal Harry Potter Hater would: he's set up the Anti-Harry Potter Hotline. As featured in a 12/28 CNN.com story, the service offers callers a chance to record a Harry Potter rant over the phone.

A message directs callers to "Get it off your chest, tell us how much you hate Harry Potter."

But Gmeiner won't be satisfied that Potter has received a proper bashing until those messages are compiled and published in a book.

That's what I call a constructive use of negative energy. Gmeiner has turned his pent up frustration into a money making scheme. Plus, he doesn't even have to do the work; the callers are doing it all for him. It's brilliant. Now, if Gmeiner can only pull together a crack marketing team to really hype his anti-marketing book, all the time spent crafting it will have been worthwhile.