Pepsi's latest uses spousal abuse to sell soda. Classy.

A lot of people are posting all over the internet comments about this commercial, accusing it of exhibiting a certain level of racism.  I can understand why- if you think that black women are routinely portrayed as possessive, aggressive, controlling jerks determined to frighten their spouses into absolute obedience, I totally get why you'd think this commercial just screams Racism.

Personally, I'm too busy being stunned at the Sexism to notice the Racism.  When I first saw this ad, I honestly didn't even notice the race of the couple with the horribly disfunctional "relationship."  What I did see is a woman being an absolute tyrant and a guy cowering like a beaten  dog in her presence, even to the point of hiding in the freaking bathtub in the hopes of enjoying a burger without wife/mom giving him a beating.

I also noticed that the abuse goes beyond the psychological.   The guy in this commercial is legitimately afraid of suffering actual physical harm from this woman- and in the "hilarious" conclusion, we see that his fear is completely justified.  We also see that the woman's repeated terrorizing of her boyfriend/husband/little boy is not out of concern for his health- when he has the temerity to politely smile at a cute girl, she attempts to damage his skull with a Pepsi can.  She throws the can so hard that she takes out the cute girl, knocking her to the pavement.  I can only imagine that the last few words uttered in this ad are lost to the hoots and applause of the glue-sniffers who think this kind of crap is even remotely funny.

Can we for a moment just try to imagine an advertisement in which the roles are reversed?  Imagine if you will a commercial in which a woman cowers in terror from her husband as she attempts to consume something that has slightly more calories than a plain rice cake- and when she's caught, he looks for all the world like he's going to slap her around (for her own good, of course.)  There's no WAY this version shows up on television.  Maybe in the 1950s and 60s, but not now.  Not a chance.  And that's a good thing.

Here's what's NOT a good thing- that this kind of noxious crud is not only acceptable, but on some level FUNNY, to ANYBODY.   Psychological abuse isn't funny.  Physical abuse isn't funny.  And people getting hurt- not funny at all.

Hey, Pepsi- Sleeping With The Enemy was not a comedy.  Glad I could help.

And what do we fill Corrals with? These hicks certainly fit the bill

"It makes me feel like a kid again."  Well, you've certainly retained the same IQ score, haven't you?

"This must be one of those Golden Corral things..." yeah, that's a good guess- showy, cheap non-food inbred troglodytes like you are encouraged to ruin your appetite on instead of consuming the meatloaf, mac n' cheese, fried chicken and grade-B "steak" (which is also showy, cheap non-food, so I'm not quite sure what my point is here.)  Sounds like Golden Corral to me, too.

Seriously- are Golden Corral commercials SUPPOSED to be funny?  Each and every one of them features easily entertained High School dropouts and their drooling, idiot spawn who like nothing better than to spend an evening filling their plates with warm junk that's already been picked over by hicks who got there first.   And last year, this All You Can Scarf feed pen introduced the "jaw dropping" chocolate "Wonderfall"- an endless river of Hershey syrup the fat yokels are encouraged to stick marshmallows, fruit and macaroons into instead of filling their plates with greasy junk for a fourth time.   Apparently the CEO of Golden Corral decided that this thing wasn't saving his company quite enough money, so now America's Favorite Slop Trough has added a cotton candy machine- something else for the (literally) unwashed masses to stick their hands in and consume instead of meat, potatoes and assorted white flour carbs.  Very appetizing.

Personally, if I were the guy picking up the bill for the herd enjoying (snigger) a night out at GC, I'd be pretty damned angry if my guests were spending all their time consuming chocolate-drenched cookies and cotton candy at $10 a plate.  Then again, what would I be doing bringing people I care about to this place to begin with? 

And so we leave these fat, ignorant, tasteless examples of America at it's Best to gaze in wonder at the chocolate syrup and the Just Stick Your Hand In There With Everyone Else cotton candy machine.  Go to it, loathsome knuckle-dragging bottom-feeders.   Sure, your eating habits are appalling and you are setting a horrible example for your children and you're putting a tremendous strain on the health care system.  But at least you are finding a way to keep amused as the world falls apart without f--ing around with your cell phones.  That's something, anyway.

I suspect that the wink is an "only kidding" disclaimer. Am I right, PC Matic?

There are about a dozen "different" ads for this BS PC "protection" program called "PCMatic."  I'm willing to bet good money that the product being sold is remarkably similar to CleanMyPC.com, FinallyFast.com, and all the other phony Anti Their Virus, Pro Our Virus downloads being offered on Cheap TV.

In this one, blithering moron daughter is clearly being paid a certain amount of money every time she manages to say "PCMatic.com."  Seriously, she jams it into pretty much every other sentence.  She knows everything there is to know about the product- how to get it, what it costs, and what it promises to do (except, she doesn't say it promises to do all this stuff, but that it DOES.)  Dad is equal parts clueless about his computer and unjustifiably angry at the "kid" at the "computer store" who loaded his actual, non-BS virus protection (more about this later.)

Dad's certainly a dunce here, and it's hard to get a handle on his level of computer efficacy.  He's dumb enough to be quickly talked into buying and installing a Fly by Night anti-virus program instead of just going back to "that kid" who probably sold him a warranty too.  But he's hip enough to have a Facebook page.  Then again, his Facebook name is "Gramps27."  So let's leave dad alone for now and get back to Idiot Daughter.

Slobbering, scary-eyed daughter chirps manically about this amazing "new" program that finds viruses which are not there and then installs new viruses sponsored by PCMatic.com.  Ok, she doesn't actually say any of that- that would be too honest.  Which makes us wonder what she's got against Dad.   Because while she's babbling away like a wind up toy she's also downloading a world of hurt on to poor Dad's laptop.  I'm sure he'll thank you later, honey- that is, if he decides to  blame all the PC issues you've just handed him on "that kid at the computer store."

The commercial ends with Dad rushing off to the "computer store," presumably to tear "that kid" a new one over his ridiculous insistence on installing Norton Anti-Virus protection instead of REAL security like PCMatic.com.   Which means that Dad is about to become the laughingstock of the "computer store"- that is, after "that kid" and his coworkers quietly explain that Daughter has just voided the warranty on Dad's PC.   And after they quietly offer to clean the mess PCMatic has just left all over Dad's computer- for a price.

And now I'll sit back and wait for some spokesperson from PCMatic.com to accuse me of exercising my First Amendment Rights.   They hate when that happens.

(BTW, Happy Father's Day to all the real dads out there.  Count the fact that this woman is not your daughter among your blessings.)

You used to try to imagine what kind of dope would buy something from the SkyMall magazine

First part of this commercial is distressingly familiar- upon announcement that the flight's departure will be delayed, everyone on the plane whips out their cell phones. 

Actually, let me take that back- this isn't familiar at all.  The plane is sitting on the ground.  The passengers have not been asked four times to turn off their phones.  Yet, not one of them were yakking or texting away when the announcement concerning the delay came over the intercom.  That's unfamiliar and weird- until we realize that all of the passengers on this particular flight are AARP members.

What the hell?  Why is everyone on the plane an old person?  Suddenly I'm deeply concerned- how many restrooms are on this plane?  Shouldn't they all be lining up now?  And shouldn't the stewardess immediately begin offering the free beverages?  Unless the flight is six hours long, she's not going to have time to get to all the seniors, who will each demand to hear the free drink menu four times before making a decision.

Anyway, they all open their quaint, No Bells or Whistles phones the moment they learn that the plane won't be taking off right away.  Which means they all learn at the same time that nobody has been trying to reach them.  The four of them who know how to text also learn that they have no unread messages.  The other thirty-three are trying to remember how to check, or don't know that "texting" is an option.

One of these little busybodies immediately reaches out to the person across the aisle and chirps "what did we do before cell phones?"  Hmm....maybe what my parents do now- read books and magazines, start up conversations (which have nothing to do with cell phones,) nap?  You know, stuff that's still not a bad idea even now that we HAVE cell phones.

"Two tin cans and a string" is the "comical" response from one curmudgeon.  Oh, really?  There was nothing between tin cans and a string and a cell phone for this guy?  So he was  in a coma from 1880 until the mid-1990s, huh?  But of course, he gets an appreciative chuckle.  I seriously can't wait to acquire my Old Person's Sense of Humor, so I can spend the day thinking every little bit of nonsense I hear that is not uttered by Dennis Miller is funny (Nobody lives to be THAT old.)

There's a few more seconds about how AARP helps dopey, blithering old people get access to cell phones so they can shout into them while sitting in planes, strolling through museums, blocking access to stuff I want at the grocery store, etc. etc. etc.  Making life so much better for everyone, don't you think?

Where IS this plane going, anyway? 

KFC invites us to pick our poison

As near as I can tell, this commercial features a grandfather and grandson who are perfectly willing to hurt each other in order to get the side dish they want to choke down alongside the Kentucky FRIED Chicken they expect to eat that night (I get the vibe that this is KFC Night for the family.  Which means eating fatty, life-shortening sludge is a regular event for these guys.)

Because it's TV, these idiots naturally live in a massive suburban palace, with 20-foot ceilings, which looks like it's regularly maintained by a six-person cleaning crew.  There's something Beverly Hillbilly-ish about seeing these tasteless jerks wrestle in the living room of a gleaming multi-million dollar castle, don't you think?  I get the feeling that if the commercial had continued another ten seconds, we would have seen this family using pool cues to pass pots of possum gravy around the billiard table.

All this "funny" angst is over whether the Free Side included with the overflowing bucket of chicken parts (which is Magic, in that the number of pieces in the bucket never goes down, no matter how many people we see eating this junk.)  Kid wants Mac' n Cheese.  Grampa wants mashed potatoes and gravy.  Billy Bob Thornton wants french fried potatoes with mustard-- oh, sorry, I'm thinking of something else.  Thornton doesn't actually make an appearance in this ad.  Good for him.

The "punchline" is that Stupid Kid and Fat Slob Grampa both get exactly what they want, because when you buy a bucket of KFC Dismembered Chicken, you get two free sides.  That's a good thing, because obviously the family living in this mansion can't possibly afford to spring for an extra side dish.  Whatever.

Here's what I really don't get- in the final scene, we see a bowl of green beans on the table.  Two quick questions-

1.  Since you get two free sides, and potatoes and mac 'n cheese are the two that were chosen, did the Mom and Dad who picked up the...err...."food" always include green beans with their order?  So they get a huge bucket of chicken, a side order of green beans- and then let either their male kid or Grampa pick the other side?  What kind of weird Control Issues do mom and dad have, anyway?

2.  Do people really order green beans with their bucket of oil-infused bird parts?  If so, isn't this kind of like ordering a Diet Pepsi to wash down your Buy One Get One Free Double-Down Sandwiches?   I mean, what's the point?  Who the hell do you think you are kidding, people?  Like the fat in the chicken isn't going to take one look at the limp nutritional value of the beans and laugh itself- and you- to death.

Three simple requests, Ms Lopez

1.  Leave your sound system, with it's wall-and-windows shattering "realistic" sound, in your luxurious penthouse apartment.  Don't let anyone install it in their SUVs or trucks so they can come by my house at 3 AM blasting bass-centered "music" at a volume loud enough to set off earthquakes along unstable fault lines.

2.  Enjoy your sound system.  Crank it up.  Let the sound engulf you and drown out everything else- especially your cell phone.  So you don't get that call from your agent asking you to fulfill your contract obligation for that sequel to Gigli.

3.  Give one of these sound systems to Ben Affleck.  Why?  See No. 2.*

*"Gigli" and "No. 2" in the same post.  Just makes sense somehow, doesn't it?

The Freedom to be Stupid, and then Dead

I was listening to Tom Sullivan the other day for some reason I can't quite explain, even to myself.  Tom Sullivan is one of those bags of rocks who have nationally syndicated talk radio shows.   There are about 1500 of them, by my own rough count.

Anyway Tom- who is not very bright, even when compared to his fellow right wing yakkers, decided to go on a little rant about how he always buckles his seat belts, and thinks it's stupid that some people don't buckle their seat belts.  Because Sullivan must interject a level of Libertarianism into every show, he went on to argue that there should not be any LAWS concerning the buckling of seat belts- "if people don't want to buckle up, they shouldn't have to- if they get hurt, they have only themselves to blame," blah blah blah.

Of course, if you buckle up and you hit a car carrying someone who ISN'T buckled up, maybe that other guy suffers massive injuries which could have been avoided but will now cost an insurance company millions- the bill for which will be passed on to that company's other customers.   And if wearing a seat belt is NOT the law, every insurance company in the country will jack up the rates in preparation for the inflated medical bills incurred by the morons who insist on refusing to wear them.  Same goes with driving a motorcycle with a helmet.   Which Tom Sullivan is also against requiring by law.

All the anti-seat belts, anti-helmet, anti-nutrition labels, anti-High Fructose Corn Syrup hyper-masculine wannabees always come back to something they call the "Nanny State."  They think that whenever the government requires us to do things wear helmets, buckle up, stop at red lights, drive less than 95 on the turnpike, etc.  it's treating us like an overprotective, tax-sucking parent, depriving us of our God-given right to die in our choice of many, many stupid ways.   Same goes for Evil Overbearing Regulations which prevent the Most Productive from creating jobs by requiring Union-Mandated Luxuries like fire escapes,  minimum wages, and machines NOT made entirely out of whirling razor blades.  Damn Unions.

All this being sad, I think the world would be better off- and quite a bit smarter- if we just let dopey gasbags like Tom Sullivan drive as fast as they want to with no seat belts, while holding a beer in one hand and texting with the other.  If we could just be assured that they would only smash into each other, I'd sign on to that deal in a heartbeat.