So I’m sitting in the waiting room at the House Ear Clinic reading "Men’s Journal" and I come across a BlackBerry ad featuring Terry McBride.

A few months back, I saw one featuring John Mayer.

Why do we hate John Mayer? Is it the overemoting? Or the ridiculous tattoos? Or the Jessica Simpson fixation? Oh, I remember why, it’s the incredibly wimpy MUSIC! It’s the calculation that bugs me. If you’re a blues-rocker, why didn’t you START OFF as a blues-rocker? Seems to me you followed the market. Didn’t do anything new, didn’t open my eyes, just gave me more of what I already knew. Unlike my BlackBerry.

When did you know you needed mobile e-mail?

Maybe you still don’t know. Maybe you live in China, where e-mail has been supplanted by texting (should I say "txting"?) But, if you’re a businessman. Or a housewife. If your idea of communicating is more than a few cryptic semi-words, you need mobile e-mail. And the device of choice, the only one that truly works, is the BlackBerry.

Oh, I know you love your iPhone. But, you don’t get push e-mail of corporate accounts, not in any authorized fashion. And we need our e-mail INSTANTLY! As for those using the ridiculous Treo, hopefully this missive will convince you to trash it. Did you read that expose on the Treo in the "New York Times"? The Treo is the OPPOSITE of twenty first century tech. It just doesn’t work. It crashes. The OS is positively ancient. And the e-mail isn’t instantaneous. Oh, Verizon supposedly has a workaround, but who’d even bother to try.

Speaking of Verizon, can you hear me now? If you’re on T-Mobile, I know you’re cheap. Yup, you. You can’t resist a bargain. You want all those minutes for no money. It’s just that I can’t HEAR YOU! Because you’re in one of the many dead zones the company ADMITS it has.

Or maybe you’re on Sprint. Same technology as Verizon, CDMA, but with a lot fewer towers. You may not have gotten the memo, but others have. Sprint is hemorrhaging customers.

And if you’re on AT&T… AT&T hasn’t been reliable since the eighties.

You need Verizon because you’re a BUSINESSPERSON! You need a CONNECTION!

Of course, you can’t travel with Verizon, because the rest of the world is on GSM, but that’s why you’ve got the BlackBerry 8830, which works on BOTH networks (albeit at a ridiculously high price, since you can’t replace the SIM card).

And that brings us right back where we started. It’s about efficiency. It’s about making your life easier. It’s about being WOWED by technology.

When you set up your BlackBerry account and e-mail starts flowing to the device you can’t believe it. It’s too good to be true! How does it work!

You’re freed from your office. You feel grounded. And you’re suddenly pissed EVERYBODY ELSE DOESN’T HAVE A BLACKBERRY!

If you don’t have a BlackBerry you just don’t get it. But owners do.

Like Terry McBride.

I’m against endorsements. Even though idiots like Mr. Mayer think they’re a way of life, that you HAVE to take the money, like it’s a drug. I thought it was ridiculous when every star did a Gap ad. When was Gap cool? But I can understand endorsing the BlackBerry. Because the BlackBerry is everything the music used to be. Something you can’t foresee that makes your life so much RICHER!

Too much music is now entertainment. It doesn’t surprise, it doesn’t elate. I remember hearing "Sexual Healing" on the radio the first time. I had to push the buttons, in a desperate effort to hear it again. The last time I heard a track like this was Gnarls Barkley’s "Crazy". Since then?

The BlackBerry found an UNFORESEEN NEED and filled it. This is like showing up at the record company with a demo NOTHING LIKE what’s on the radio and saying THIS IS GONNA BE REALLY BIG! But the label doesn’t want stuff like that, it wants shit just like what’s already on the radio. And use a name while you’re at it, WILL YOU!

BlackBerry wasn’t part of Microsoft… RIM was north of the border, in Canada… They were doing this ALONE!

And, like a developing act, my 8830 is nothing like those original black clunkmeisters. And if I see anybody with one of these originals, or its blue plastic replacement, I laugh. It’s like seeing someone on an airplane with a CD booklet. What, you can’t afford the future?

The BlackBerry isn’t priced like a Ferrari. It’s not prohibitively expensive.

But interestingly, the money’s not in the device, but the service. The extra forty bucks a month for data. You’d think the labels would learn this, that the music is just the tip of the iceberg. Oh yeah, they want in on touring and merch, but they don’t want to readjust their DEAL! Give me 50 percent and I’ll sign that contract…otherwise I’ll go it alone.

I’d like to say the BlackBerry menus are as good as the iPhone’s. I’d like to say its usability rivals a Mac’s. But this isn’t so. Maybe, in the future, I’ll be using an Apple device, on Verizon. But for now, I’m part of the Berry team. Along with Terry, John Mayer and that housewife at the ball game.

Oh, I’m not thumbing constantly. But no matter where I am in the world, I’m in touch.

And I’m excited about this.

We need to be excited. We need to be thrilled. The money comes AFTER THIS!