The current July/August 2005 issue of the amazing magazine Adbusters includes a reprint of my story “To Market, To Market, the Re-Branding of Billy Bailey,” which was originally published in the British sf magazine Interzone. It got a lot of favorable critical attention when it was first published — it’s a comedic story about junior-high students who create and market personal brands, accepting street-crew sponsorshipd from various companies. You can pick up the current Adbusters at most decent newsstands and bookstores.
Billy and Principal Andrew Alty went all the way back to kindergarten, when Billy had convinced Mitchell McCoy that the green fingerpaint was Shamrock Shake, and watched with glee as the little babyface had scarfed it all down. Billy knew that Andrew Alty knew his style: refined, controlled, and above all, _personal_. Billy never would’ve dropped a dozen M-80s down the girls’ toilet. His stuff was always one-on-one, and possessed of a degree of charm and subtlety.
But nevertheless, here was Billy, along with the sixth-grade bumper-crop of nasty-come-latelies, called on the carpet in front of Andrew Alty’s massive desk. Andrew Alty was an athletic forty, a babyface true-and-through, and a charismatic thought-leader in his demographic.
Hormones. They were the problem.
Billy Bailey was the finest heel the sixth grade had ever seen — a true artisan who kept his brand pure and unsullied, picking and managing his strategic alliances with the utmost care and acumen. He’d dumped BanginBumpin Fireworks (a division of The Shanghai Novelty Company, Ltd.) in the _fourth_ grade, fer chrissakes. Their ladyfingers were too small to bother with; their M-80s were so big that you’d have to be a lunatic to go near them.
But sixth grade was the Year of the Hormone at Pepsi Elementary. Boys who’d been babyfaces since kindergarten suddenly sprouted acne, pubic hair, and an uncontrollable urge to impress girls. Their weak brands were no match for the onslaught of -osterones and -ogens that flooded their brains, and in short order they found themselves switching over to heel.
As a result, the sixth grade was experiencing a heel glut. Last year’s Little Lord Fauntleroys were now busy snapping bras, dropping textbooks, cracking grading computers, and blowing up the girls’ toilets.
Hormones. They made Billy want to puke.
