When word leaked out that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was going
to make a public appearance at Barnes and Noble to promote the new paperback edition of his book The
Road Ahead, I immediately called my friend and fellow new media hound Hank.
"He's coming," I stammered, "here."
Hank paused. "Really?"
"Free, open to the proletariat. Bring stink bombs."
The thought of pulling some kind of adolescent prank on the most
powerful geek in the universe was undeniably compelling. It would be like
an homage, a way to reach out to the awkward, pencil-necked teenager in
Bill and say, "we hear you, dude. We've been there." After all, for the
millions of young Netters and techies across the world, Bill embodies the
haunting paradox of the new media boom: Everything that guaranteed
humiliation and abuse in junior high -- intellectualism, science, computers
-- was suddenly coveted, profitable, and, yes, hip. It was like that scene
from the film "Sleeper," where Woody Allen, playing a former health food
store owner, gets resurrected in the 21st century only to find out that red
meat and hot fudge have been proven more nourishing than wheat germ.
By the day of Bill's appearance, I had decided to come armed only with
a copy of his paperback and a Fuji 2HD floppy for him to sign (the disc
was Mac formatted, but I figured it was worth a shot). The biospherian
B&N Superstore was teeming with Billheads: clean-cut young men with
laminated office tags hanging around their necks, unshaven Alt programmers
in fatigues, coiffed women with cell phones, denim and khaki B&N employees
anxiously checking their watches. A B&N'er named Todd told me Bill was
going to be on the fourth floor, but there would be monitors set up in the
cafe for fans who couldn't finagle a seat. Bill wasn't going to be doing
any signings (not even PC floppies), he was just going to speak and take
some questions from the crowd. I asked Todd if he'd ever seen such a
large audience at the store. "Hillary Clinton had a larger crowd, but
Bill is more powerful," he mused. "He could have her killed."
Upstairs, I hustled a couple seats "within gunshot range" (as Hank
observed). I told Hank I didn't think there would be shots fired, citing
the carefully positioned Microbouncers -- Tom Cruise-ian guys in navy sport
coats and open collars with walkie talkies and ear pieces. I asked some
of the people around me why they came to see Bill. A turtle-necked actor
said he was hoping to get some inspiration from a "genius" who had fought
the odds and won. A Wall Street systems integrator was "hoping to hear
some of the vision thing." David Peel, a rambling goofball musician who's
always on the Howard Stern show, said that if he got a chance to talk to
Gates, he'd say the following: "Where do I want to go today, Bill? I want
to go to the future and the future is now." But it was a middle-aged
woman reading Elle magazine who put the voyeurism most succinctly, "I'm
here to see the richest guy in the country."
By 6:30 pm, all eyes were on the lone podium at the end of the room.
On a nearby screen, the understated words "Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft
Corporation, Inc." were projected over an ephemeral collage of tech jargon
like "e-mail" and "access." While we waited, we stared at the permanent
B&N murals painted on the walls behind where Bill would be standing: a
terrifying picture of Moby Dick leaping out of the sea and a nightmarish
rendering of a giant Gulliver ripping free from the cords of the
Lilliputians.
In a storm of flash bulbs and applause, Bill emerged like a rock
star. I was struck by how closely he resembled a cross between Father
Mulcahy from M*A*S*H and a short-haired Joey Ramone. He had really bad
posture, as though all those nights hunched over the computer had finally
taken their toll. After an obsequious intro from the B&N manager, Bill
left the Microbouncer huddle and took the stage, swiftly launching some
long-cached RealAudio file in his head -- a listless overview of the Net
boom, the media frenzy, and a near-future where we will all be avatars
wandering around a virtual shopping mall and discussing the products we
wanted to buy.
With a slight wave of Bill's hand, the lights dimmed on cue and the
video screen came to life. A mock After School Special started playing
about a girl who thinks she's uncool because she still uses a 14.4 modem,
while the rest of her gang has 28.8s. The whole thing was kind of campy
in a Microsoft way, culminating with a rather disturbingly bizarre cyber sex
scene between Gates, Dennis Rodman, Danny Devito, and someone's
grandmother. As the lights came back on, Bill grinned obligingly, then
segued into the cozier terrain of speech recognition software and Net
advertising. After a few tame questions from the crowd, he did another
quick wave of the hand and in a blur of blue blazers was gone.
It took us about ten minutes to muscle our way through the departing crowd
to the escalator. I imagined Bill had already somehow magically e-mailed
himself back to Seattle. Heading out under the non-virtual stars, Hank and
I said good-bye and started the long walk home.
