Zeppelin Rules - 264
Hal Wastes His Wages
August 26, 2008

I remember back in my salad days, when the family had a small camp on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, there was a particular incident of monumental exhilaration. The townsfolk were abuzz as word spread that The Goodyear Blimp would be passing overhead en route from a Montreal Expos game and back into American airspace. I couldn't have been more excited if the President himself was flying by on Haley's Comet with Santa Claus as his wingman. This was THE Goodyear Blimp--the one from TV!!! I stood proudly on the shoreline that day and watched as she soared majestically past, hoping for a shout-out from her famous LED Eaglevision: "Hey, you on the riverbank… BUY GOODYEAR!!!" In fact I even had my picture taken with her in the background and bragged to all my friends back home. It was a good time, a happier time; a time when having a friggin' blimp meant something, damn it…

Sure, now I'm older and jaded. I suppose because I live in "the big city" I'm simply cynical and nothing impresses me anymore, but doesn’t it seem like the whole idea of the blimp has lost its sense of grandeur? I don't mean to be too rigid about my airships, but it seems everyone and their brother has a blimp nowadays and the concept has somewhat lost its moxie. What was once a potent cultural icon has now been watered down to become little more than a hackneyed gimmick.

As I do with a lot of things, I blame the Japanese. It was one thing when the good people at Goodyear took a good look at the press from the Hindenburg and realized there was no better use for dirigibles than advertising--hell, that thing made the front page everywhere. But years later when the folks at Fujifilm decided to launch their own Japanese air assault on American target consumers, it opened up the skies to all sorts of inflated ideas. MetLife, Budweiser, Citibank--the list goes on. Coke and Pepsi even took the Cola Wars to the skies with their own blimps, and now you look up over the city skyline to see the DirecTV blimp hovering over Yankee Stadium as the Outback Steakhouse Bloomin' Onion Airship floats in over Jersey on her way from NASCAR at Pocono Raceway. That's right, the Bloomin' Onion Airship… there's just no dignity in a craft like that.

Hey Ameriquest, maybe if you'd worried more about predatory sub-prime lending and less about floating your blimp around and trying to impress people, perhaps the worldwide economy wouldn't be going over like a lead balloon right now.
Is this the kind of world we want to live in, where any ol' jerk can get a blimp off the ground with his name on it? Well if you can't beat 'em, join 'em--keep an eye out for the ChrisHalleron.com blimp, affectionately dubbed "The Bloated Windbag," coming soon to cast a shadow over an Arts and Music Festival near you. Oh, the humanity…

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Christopher M. Halleron, freelance writer/bitter bartender, writes a biweekly humor column for The Hudson Current and websites in the New York Metro area. He spends a lot of his time either in front of or behind the bar in Hoboken, New Jersey where his tolerance for liquor grows stronger as his tolerance for society is eroded on a daily basis. Feel free to drop him a line at c_halleron@yahoo.com

Christopher M Halleron owns and retains all proprietary rights to the Site and the content provided by the Site. The Site contains material, including links and compilations of individual data, trademarks, and other proprietary information of chrishalleron.com.  Except for that information which is in the public domain or for which you have been given written permission to use, you may not copy, modify, publish, transmit, distribute, perform, display, or sell any such proprietary information.  Any questions or comments, please contact Chris Halleron at chris@chrishalleron.com.

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