 | ||||||
| ||||||
Welcome to my utmost random thoughts on random shit that really doesn't matter much.
This is where my mind takes a dump.
~ Sticks, Stones and Funnybones ~
Part 10 - The Beach
The Beach
I know. I am supposed to write these Scissors thing every weekend, but sometimes the weekend itself gets in the way, so this one will be short (and late – shut up).
This particular weekend was the last one of spring break, so it was off to the beach for an all day affair in the sun with the kid, the wife and the dogs. I don’t really do beaches that well. I spent most of the time pacing back and forth, on the look out for sharks – and also scrambling like a bitch to constantly move our chairs, blankets, baskets and radios out of the way of the approaching High Tide of Death. I finally found a high enough point, safe from the shark infested waters. I leashed the dogs and tied them to my chair. Then I leashed the kid’s float tube and tied that to my chair. Then I tied my chair to my wife’s chair, and lastly I tied hers to the car. It worked. We are still alive, despite nature’s increasingly braver attempts to get me eaten by the Floridian fauna.
- - - - - - - - - -
The Call
A vicious rumor is spreading like wildfire in India, creating mass hysteria. Apparently the Devil himself is calling people up on their cell phones, and when they pick up they supposedly die a most gruesome death. Usually a 7 digit number shows up as a caller ID number on Indian cell phones, but whenever ten digits come up, instead, it’s supposedly Satan on the other end, calling collect. People who see the ten digits on their displays throw their cell phones away in sheer terror, jumping out of trains and buses to certain death to avoid a much worse fate. (I added that for effect – sue me.) Turns out that it might be a certain Asian anti-virus software company who launched the ten digit automatic “prank calls” to sell the antidote to freaked out potential customers.
It could also be a marketing stunt for the new King book, “The Cell”, in which people turn to zombies after a viral phone call. (Then again, he’s not on the ball anymore, so I doubt it. Most of his regular readers ARE brainwashed zombies these days. They haven’t caught on to the fact that the guy stopped writing anything worth releasing decades ago. I have a feeling he’s pulling a Milli Vanilli on us; Ghostwriters Galore.)
Or it could just be that fucking Verizon “can you hear me now” guy, finally reaching India’s longitudes. That fucking guy is the Devil in the Dial.
I thought the Devil was a Catholic invention anyway? Don’t the Indian Hindus worship eight-armed elephants, flute-playing vampires and short stout men with bull heads? That shit is scarier than the Devil. If those motherfuckers call here, I ain’t picking up. Then again... I never pick up the phone anyway... Plus... I don't even have a cell phone. (It broke after my brother cleverly put it in a glass of beer five years ago, as an experiment that made sense at the time, and I never replaced it. I have never been freer.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Commercials
Commercials get stupider and stupider for every year. That is no secret. But I wonder if they haven’t hit an all-time low this year?
There is no shortage of medication commercials, which list pretty much all the things that will fuck you up as side effects, but fail to make the point of what the fucking drug is for. If the side-effect for an acid-reducing pill is “heartburn” and “belly ache”, then why the fuck should I take it at all? Never mind “death” and “facial disfiguration”. They try to read it so fast that these disclaimers have become the White Man’s Rap.
How many financial investment ads do we need per day? If you guys can afford to spam the ether with commercials like that, you are obviously making too much on the cash I give you – so fuck that.
Lawyers, on the other hand, should have big and bold commercials. The more money they make, the more money you supposedly make too, right? Why is it then that they all consist of the same guy (“not a real lawyer”) stuttering off a prompter in some gray studio, wearing a tweed jacket with holes, adding a smile as an afterthought? The “golden” graphics are all made on a Commodore 64 and the music is from some mullet porno in the 80’s (featuring Jeanna Fine).
Have you noticed how black people are whiter than Warren Beatty in commercials, too? They all have blue eyes, white hair, and speak clearer than the black weather report apprentice on Fox News. If it’s a prescription plan commercial the old black lady looks like Mother Theresa, nodding with wisdom and soft patience, and if it’s a furniture commercial the black dad is playing chess with his black wife on the cherry wood table, wearing a red cardigan with leather patches on the elbows, while Kenny G is on the stereo in their crisp clean cut IKEA living room. “White people can’t relate to Black people” has been the Modus Operandi of the advertising bureaus for decades now. Unless the product is specifically targeting black people, the actors will be white people, or black people pretending to be way whiter than thou. Cosby fucked up whole generations of black people, fooling them into thinking that they should strive to be like that. For some reason white people still think Cosby is cool. He's not.
I studied marketing and advertising for years, both in school and in real life, and everyday I see the same mistakes:
* Crash tests in car commercials. Never show an image of your product in a crash situation - sends out bad vibes.
* Mentioning other brand names in your own ads. The only name in the hat should be that of your product.
* “Funny” ads with no relevance to product or product name. People will remember the “funny”, but not the product. Look at the Vodafone commercial. Some guy in the background dancing, or grilling, with all sorts of things happening. Meanwhile the wife in the foreground is talking about how great Vodafone is. Never mind that you don’t hear what she’s saying, since you’re watching the funny, you didn’t even know it’s for Vodafone until I just told you. (Or was it Vonage?)
Also... Movie trailers that give away all of the action, the whole story line, the end scene and include all the funniest lines and craziest scenes must be the most redundant fucking things on the screen. And that is all of them.
And then some specifics:
McDonald’s “I didn’t know I was married until I had a fucking McBreakfast” What the fuck? What the fuck do McDonald’s watered down piss colored excuse for coffee and monkey ass croissants have to do with your marital problems? It’s like they know their shit is so nutritionally chellenged and tastes like ass, so let’s just throw the public off course totally.
The Pepto Bismol Dance Commercial. Motherfucker. If I never have to see those gay office assholes do the Fart Burp Macarena again, it will still be way too fucking soon.
Arby’s are now using “all natural chicken” in their sandwiches. What the FUCK have I been eating thus far then?
WinnDixie “listened to the customer survey” and has now strived to make their stores "cleaner and fresher than ever before". In short: “Our stores used to smell like rotten meat and anal rape, but after the millionth visit from the Health Department we mopped the aisles and got most of the shit out of the cracks. Please come back. Please… we beg you.”
And then, of course… The American Idol Ford Commercials. But that goes without saying, right? Just checkin’…
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
