Put this in the “seems so wrong, feels so right” category*. Tad Friend & some friends conquer Paris on some Segways. Sure, it’s a corporate boondoggle, but that just adds to the giddy, entertaining genius of American Empire.
I remember when a New York friend–who affected a bilingual answering machine message and pretended to forget words like “fork” (“Give me that, how you say, fourchette.”) after a measly three-week sejour, a three-week sejour–took the new, how you say, Roller Blades to Paris. She was not only an alien, she nearly killed herself ten times a day trying to skate over all the paving stones. Well, she should’ve waited. Segway sails over them and their crazy unpaved parks with American savoir faire, technologically superior, aloof, and head-and-shoulders above the shockin’ awed crowd.
* Nothing smacks the smugness right off your face like Googling for half-remembered “something so wrong/feels so right” lyrics. Let’s see, did I hear it from The Backstreet Boys, Bryan Adams, Taylor Daynes, Air Supply, or Tia Carrere in Wayne’s World? I’m now available for iTunes Music Store commercials.