Chevron's partnership with the Church of Small Business

Wow, it's just great to see two disparate entities, with so little in common, come together for the benefit of us all, isn't it?

First we have something called "Small Businesses," which I guess includes carpenters, plumbers, and everyone else who provides a service in exchange for cash. Hmmm, I'm a teacher, and I provide education for a fee- am I a small business? On the other hand, I give away food to starving or slightly hungry kids for no return- does that make me a Communist?

Then we have one of the largest corporations on the planet, Chevron. Chevron makes it's money by raping as much of the globe as possible, in as many ways as possible, while greasing the wheels by bribing governments into handing over even more territory while turning a blind eye to it's non Chevron-related inhabitants. Tear down that forest? Go ahead, we weren't using it. Pollute that water? The natives will find some more somewhere (hey, it rains sometimes after all.) There's money to be made, and there's no such thing as "enough."

Like chocolate and peanut butter, small businesses and Chevron are natural allies. According to this commercial, small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy- no, strike that, of SOCIETY. Wait, I'll go even further- according to these ads, small businesses are the only things keeping us from returning to the Dark Ages. They stand bravely before the Gates of Hell, protecting us from the twin demons of Socialism and Communism. How sacred are Small Businesses? They are the altar at which both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama worship.

And what is the nature of this partnership? Chevron pumps billions of dollars into small, local businesses. Ok, now I have to admit that I'm lost. I have no idea what this means. Does Chevron loan money to "entrepreneurs" (sometimes called "risk-takers" but always to be referred to as "The Most Successful"- consider them the High Priests of the New Religion?) Or does the behemoth just hire so many worker drones that it's paychecks keep entire communities afloat?

Either way, the message in ads like this is very clear: Maybe you don't like Chevron's imperialistic shredding of the environment in pursuit of ever larger profits. Maybe you don't care for the fact that Chevron pays virtually nothing in taxes, and in fact receives subsidies from the US Government despite the fact that it's one of the most profitable corporations which has ever existed. Maybe you aren't thrilled that all of this damage is being done, and all this taxpayer money is being spent, to keep young Americans in dangerous parts of the world and to keep Chevron's CEOs in private jets and beach houses large enough to be seen from space. Maybe you are wondering why it's the year 2012 and we are still talking as if Oil is the fuel of the future. But the bottom line is this: Chevron and Small Businesses are the stars and stripes of the American flag, and if you don't spend every waking moment of your life thanking your boss for "giving" you a job and graciously allowing you to live another day, you are an ungrateful, selfish jerk who probably worships at the altar of the Unrepentant Terrorist Bill Ayers and Simply Doesn't Understand How The Economy Works.

Which makes you a heretic. Or a Progressive. Same thing.

Thanks, Nexus and Google "Hangouts." I can retire in peace now

I don't care if the Geico Gekko kicks a field goal for the Bears when he gets around to visiting Chicago.

I don't care if the Aflac Duck assembles an entire entourage of talking, singing and break-dancing animals to explain for the 4000th time why we all "need" supplemental health insurance.

I don't care if the next Bud Light campaign shows hot bartenders smashing bottles over the heads of guys who dare order something other than a Bud Light, or if Miller Lite ramps up it's "Man Card" series to include guys taunting their "unmanly" friends into suicidal behavior.

I don't care if Nissan uses CGI to show it's truck towing aircraft carriers into Pearl Harbor, or if the Golden Corral introduces a Carmel Canal or a Cheese Sea to go along with it's Chocolate Wonderfall. I don't care if all Cici's commercials from now on just cut to the chase and show big-bellied hicks shoving greasy junk down their gullets with no narration at all.

I don't care if cell phone companies come right out and say what they've been implying for years: that if you don't update your phone at least every three months, you are a backward loser who doesn't deserve to have any friends.

And I don't care if every other commercial on television features the same angry woman muttering vague threats against The Guv'mnt for daring to even consider raising taxes on soda, making it nearly impossible to feed her family in These Trying Times.

None of that really matters anymore, because it will never, ever get worse than this. There is simply no way that any commercial could be even one-tenth as annoying, as obnoxious, as downright STUPID that this one is. I mean, I see no socially redeeming value here at all- MAYBE if it had ended with everyone in it being so distracted by their phones that they all fell into the same trench filled with starving man-eating sharks, they might have salvaged SOMETHING. But no.

So I can quit now, knowing that ad agencies have finally reached the bottom. Right?

Samsung's Depressing two minutes of hate

I'm sorry, but watching a group of greasy twenty-somethings high-five each other as they "create cool things" with their phones and wax poetic about how "productive" they are - keeping a straight face the whole time- just left me feeling sad and more than a little sick.

These grunge-wannabees blather on and on- and ON- about how their amazing Samsung phones allow them to steal art (at no time is the suggestion made that the artist was sought out, asked permission to use his creation, and offered a cut of future profits) and then manipulate that art (which probably has some solemn, important message to the artist, we'll never know for sure) to become a trademarked character in yet another brain-sucking, time-wasting video game. There's a lot of talk about the "creative process," which apparently involves nothing more than selecting which virtual crayon to use to apply shading to the Now Belongs to Us artwork. Some of the talk is done around what looks to be a conference table- which makes it all very businesslike and serious, I guess. Doesn't work for me- because after all, these choads all look like they need clues and baths more than they need to be patronized as "creative geniuses."

Anyway, the punchline for this lukewarm bowl of swill is that the gang of college graduates with Nowhere Else to Go and thousands of dollars in student loans to pay off has managed to add Downloadable Game # 345,098 to the App Store, all because 1) they own these cool phones, and 2) legitimately creative people out there are providing free, easily poachable art. And that this deserves a round of ridiculous self-congratulation.

Hey, who says America doesn't produce anything of value anymore? Let the rest of the world build cars, bullet trains and solar panels- this country will ALWAYS be the world's leader in developing new phones (not building them, however- that's a job better suited for Chinese pre-teens.) And the next generation of smug, self-important, phone-addicted slackers with greasy hair and no visible reason for being? We've got that market cornered, too. USA! USA!

I think we all know who really made poo poo here, Clorox

Oh yeah, I want a whole house full of these things.

Actually, no; I don't want anything even resembling small children wandering around my house, ever. Certainly not if they are going to be running at me at the age of six to yell proudly, at the top of their lungs, about the wonderful thing they just did in the toilet.

And this kid, who apparently supplements his diet of Kraft Mac'n Cheese and Hamburger Helper with liberal doses of lead paint chips, could not even manage to do that Wonderful Thing where he was supposed to, confusing the sink (or the wastebasket, I don't know, and I'm not going to keep watching this thing until I figure it out) with the loo.

Mom being Mom, the woman in this ad doesn't do what I would do- scream, throw my hands up into the air, and run for the phone book to see if there are any orphanages or workhouses still operating in my vicinity- but instead reaches for the Clorox for probably the 40th time today. (Notice how women in these ads seem to spend 90 percent of their lives reaching for sponges, bleach or paper towels? Nice to see them putting that MRS degree to good use, isn't it?) It's all in a day's work- many days, especially if you are going to let all your kids reach first grade before they are potty-trained, lady.

She does this, by the way, after she checks the toilet- because I guess it would have been the highlight of her day to see her kid's "poo poo" in there. Yeah, your life is really a whirlwind of fulfillment, isn't it? I guess it will be a very sad day for you when your kid learns how to flush- but at this rate, that won't be till High School anyway.

Anyway, all this makes my Decision to Die Alone (made with the assistance of many, many other people) look rather good. And for that I am grateful, Clorox. The only kids I'll ever have are the kind that hand in essays, laugh appreciatively at my bad jokes, and have an insatiable appetite for the chocolate they think grows spontaneously in my classroom locker. Fine with me.

Verizon thinks that men are perpetually eight years old

So I guess the joke here is that the Desperately In Need of Friends loser, confronted with the choice of purchasing R2D2 or one of these SuperAwesome Make Your Life Worth Living Because You Can Watch Movies On It phones, picks the phone.

I guess the joke here is NOT supposed to be that this Dateless Doofus is so freaking sad, his whole life revolves around George Lucas's most successful cash cow. I mean, he can't even buy the damned phone and quietly download "The Phantom Menace" in the privacy of his own mom's basement- he has to be shown that he can do it first, right here and right now, in front of a salesman who must be simultaneously repulsed by this guy's lack of taste and attracted by his lack of economic common sense.

Seeing that yes, he CAN carry "The Phantom Menace" and all of it's amazingly bland, boring, manipulative, in-your-face "action" with him wherever he goes. To his couch. To his son's baseball games on his court-appointed weekends. To first and only dates set up by It's Just Lunch. Yay, he doesn't have to stop being a witless, mouth-breathing child when he leaves the house! Isn't technology wonderful?

Meanwhile, this commercial would actually be enjoyable if, when Fat Moron leaves cuddling his new Best Friend, the salesman gets a high-five from his coworkers in the store, followed by a well-deserved round of sniggering balanced by rather sad, resigned head shakes as they watch the soulless idiot walk back to his car.

Or, if the customer is dumb enough to show people how he can watch "The Phantom Menace" on his new phone, a few of his male acquaintances demand that he surrender his Man Card. Because no way this isn't the most Unmanly thing he's done recently. I mean- he interrupted the salesman to let him know that R2D2 is from Naboo. That ALONE justifies his immediate expulsion from the club.

"Undesirables," DirectTV? Really?

This is what happens when twelve sixty year-old Tea Partiers get together to write a commercial, I guess. They end up with an ad which basically tells you to make sure your cable system is reliable, because if it ever goes out or fails to hold the interest of family members, a tragic series of events will follow which which ends with you holding an "undesirable" grandson.

And why is the grandson "undesirable?" Because you don't approve of his wardrobe. Why is he wearing "undesirable" clothing? Because your daughter married "one of them"- you know, the kind of guy you only thought she would marry in your nightmares. You see, if the cable had been up to par, your daughter would have grown up to be a good little zombie, dated only parent-approved men, and married Billy from Sunday School. Today she'd be doing dishes in her own kitchen, right across the street, while this baby stared at the Baptist-approved video on the tv and husband Billy did the accounts for the Big, Respectable Corporation Downtown.

We all know that if the people who wrote this stupid, sad junk had just a LITTLE more gumption, they would have shown us what they REALLY mean by "Undesirable" and depicted this girl marrying a (gasp) black or Hispanic guy. I guess they figured that DirectTV, while willing to push the envelope, wasn't willing to set the damn thing on fire.

But really- "Undesirable?" Why Undesirable? Is the husband abusive or a drug addict? He married your daughter, buddy- he didn't knock her up and skip town. Do they love each other? Do they love their child? And the implication that the KID is also an "undesirable"- well, "contemptible" doesn't quite fit here, but this is a family blog.

Because when it comes to women, Progresso believes Less is More

Most of the ads I comment on don't actually make me angry. I point them out because I find them stupid, boring, cloying, dimwitted, or insulting.

This commercial makes me angry, because I don't find it to be any of those things. Instead, I think it's manipulative, disgusting, retrograde, and so blatantly sexist that it leaves me wondering if we've made any progress (no pun intended) at all in the past several decades.

It's been fifty years since we first started to use Barbie dolls to brainwash little girls into believing that to be attractive, they had to be six feet tall, with wasp-thin hips and enormous breasts. Disney Studios has been an active, eager contributor to the damage, bringing us Ariel, Belle, Pocahantas, Snow White, etc.- none of whom seem in possession of internal organs. And of course NutraSystem rakes in billions by explaining to perfectly healthy women that they aren't really "attractive" unless they are devoid of body fat of any kind.

And don't get me started on the stick figures wrapped in strings which regularly grace the Sports Illustrated "Swimsuit" Edition (like anyone would actually swim in those things. Come on.)

"THEY FIT"! yells the woman into her tin can phone. The guy on the other end doesn't get it- after all, guys don't worry about their weight, and why should they- I've seen enough sitcoms to know that beautiful women are just naturally attracted to fat guys. Guys NEVER think about stuff like the BMI index, let alone trying to conform to some artificial standard of beauty- because for men, there simply isn't one. That's girl stuff.

"Um, is there a woman I can talk to?" Because only another woman, who has been taught all of her life that only by becoming smaller can she be at all desirable, and therefore of Value, could understand her new-found joy.

This is really sick, Progresso. Beautiful women come in all shapes and sizes. This "there's less of me, so I'm better" crap has been jammed into American women long enough. How about promoting health, which has nothing to do with promoting thinness? How about NOT contributing to poor self-esteem, Bulimia, depression, and other damage caused by the relentless "Fat=Ugly" message? How about recognizing that there are more important things than your quarterly earnings report?

How about being part of the solution, instead of being just another part of the problem?