All that's missing is the chariots

Let's face it- every single Olympics is a massive orgy of Product Placement, emotional manipulation and over-the-top Nationalism bordering on Jingoism which we are expected to swallow like good little sheep every two years.  I don't know if this version is worse- however, I'm pretty sure that 2012 will, in Advertising Land, be forever known as the Year of The Kiddie Olympics (the Kiddie Olympics and their "Bring It" Moms Who Never Get the Credit They Deserve and Don't You Forget It, that is.)

In this loathsome yet depressingly familiar chapter, we see girls and boys who probably still think that the opposite sex is icky entering arenas waving flags, coming off airplanes to the shouts and salutes of the drooling idiot mob, holding press conferences (no kidding, check it out) and signing autographs.  In between all this posing and smiling and desperate grasping at fifteen minutes of fame before the fairy tale ends and 70 years in the real non-applauding, non-saluting, non-autograph-requesting real world begins, I suppose these children engage in athletic competitions of some kind.  I mean, that's what the Olympics are all about, right?

I'm sure it's not an original observation, but MAN this garbage has a heavy, oppressive Hunger Games feel to it, don't you think?  Children from all over the world assemble in an arena, with the hopes and dreams of their nations resting on their narrow shoulders, to try to best each other in a series of sporting events.  The winners get pieces of precious metal to wear on their undeveloped chests, the losers go home in tears knowing that they Let Everyone Down Even Though Everyone Insists They Are Proud Anyway. 

Yeah, this is really healthy.

Only a few days left.  Thank God.  Unfortunately, right now there are a whole lot of 9- year olds preparing to grab for their moment in the sun, coming up just around the corner, in 2016.  And even before that, there's Kiddie Ice Skating coming to a tv near you, early in 2014.  And more kid-based commercials to help us Truly Appreciate the Sacrifice.  Can't Wait.

I see this differently too, Red Lobster

Hmmm...this Maine fisherman says "I love lobster..." I can see why she'd "love" lobster if she sells it to good seafood restaurants, or Red Lobster.   But you know- I find it hard to believe that someone who makes a living handling these Insects of the Sea really enjoys eating them.

Heck, I find it hard to believe she makes enough money to enjoy eating them.

Also, she says that people "can never get enough" lobster.  Personally, I can take or leave lobster.  Almost every good seafood restaurant I've been to also serves up high-quality steaks.  I'd rather have a steak than a lobster any day of the week and twice on Sundays.  Oh, sorry- I keep mentioning good seafood restaurants, and forgetting that the topic of this post is supposed to be Red Lobster.

And I'd like to know what kind of people "can't get enough lobster," since it's a damn expensive food item, not exactly something that those who are used to ordering off the Dollar Menu at McDonalds can afford to eat regularly.  "Can't get enough" of it?  Really?

"I see food differently."  I get the play on words, but taken at face value this is actually very accurate.  You see food as gigantic bugs which spend their entire, very short lives feeding along the muddy bottom of the ocean until, one day, they wander into one of your cages to be captured.  Then they have their claws taped shut, or disabled by wooden pegs. Then they are flown to good seafood restaurants (or Red Lobster) to be dropped into a tank and gawked at until they are finally plucked out and tossed into a vat of boiling water.  That's how you see this food.  I see an overpriced insect and, again, a poor substitute for a good piece of beef.

Farmers see food differently, too- they see the work that goes into the planting, harvesting, etc.  I get that this woman means "I see food differently" in exactly this way.  But my guess is that most farmers can afford the food they are producing, and I doubt that's really true of lobster fishermen.  Maybe I'm wrong.  It's happened before.

Colonial Penn Life Insurance- because Cash is the best Pain Reliever

I half expected to see a clip from "Life of Brian" at the end of this ad- specifically, the part where Brian and the two criminals crucified with him start nodding their heads, kicking their legs, and singing  "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life" as they hang from their crosses.

Seriously. Here's a woman who has just lost her mother.  Mine turned 80 the other day, and is in good health, Thank God- but I imagine that the death of a parent is a pretty damned traumatic event.  Yet she's apparently discovered a new phase of mourning- she's moved past denial and devastation, and moved on to Waiting For the Life Insurance Check.

She's interrupted by Standard Black Neighbor Character, who gives the Standard Sorry To Hear About Your Mom speech- but the main character sure doesn't look like she's suffering from anything, unless it's concern over the Financial Burden the rather Inconvenient death of her mother has caused her and her family, assuming she has one.

Yay, Colonial Penn has moved with lightning speed to get the insurance settlement into Trust Me She's Sad on the Inside Daughter.  "This will really help" Relative of the Recently Deceased but Already Almost Forgotten Mom assures Neighbor- and the topic of their bland half-conversation turns to how affordable Colonial Penn's Life Insurance is.  Anyone else think it's more than a little creepy how quickly Neighbor accepts the change of topic?  In five seconds, we've gone from "sorry your mom is dead" to "is that life insurance expensive?"*

I guess I could blame AARP for ads like this- that organization which, btw, will simply not accept the fact that I'm still young and spry (inside joke and shout out to one of my readers- she'll get it) and wants me to read their stupid magazine- because AARP stopped serving seniors and started becoming the main whore for insurance and the pharmaceutical industries years ago- but at this point, I really don't care who is to blame.  I just really hate this ad's trivialization of pain and loss.  You suck, Colonial Penn Life.  Not any more than other insurance company, but you suck.

"My mom's dead- but hey, here's a check."

Yuck.

*that really is some conversation these people carry on as the narrator explains the insurance further, isn't it?  I mean, where the heck are they going? Is the daughter's mailbox in a different county from her house, or what?

And what's with the smiles and laughter?  Why do I have the strong suspicion that Daughter is getting herself named chief beneficiary in Standard Black Neighbor's future Colonial Penn Insurance Policy?

SelectQuote? Ask me why I care!

John is 42, married, mortgage.  John has fulfilled America's very low, very unspectacular expectations of him.  John is a square peg which has slid effortlessly into a square hole.  Everything has worked out pretty much as planned for John, except maybe that his hair has gone away.

John has "three great kids."  I actually wanted to use another SelectQuote commercial featuring another suburban white shmo with "three great kids" who spend pretty much the entire ad being delighted at their ability to throw colorful plastic hoops on to a target almost two whole feet away. (This game is fun not just for Mom and Dad and the 2-year old, but also for the kids' two older sisters.  Great kids, it seems, don't require a whole lot of intellectual stimulation.)   But that ad and those Great Kids are not available on YouTube, so I'll just use this one featuring John and his equally bland wife, Cassie.

(By the way, what makes the kids in all these ads "great," anyway?  They look kind of clumsy and dull to me.  And the ones here aren't even throwing colorful plastic hoops on to a target.  Doesn't that mean they are less great than the kids in that other ad?)

John called SelectQuote, and found that he could set up a $500,000 windfall for his Great Kids and Depressingly Fertile Wife for only $24 a month.  So if John, who is in Excellent Health, dies anyway,  Cassie and the Great Kids will be secure in their suburban lifestyle, which apparently involves setting up colorful tents in the front yard (leading to dead grass eyesores and angry calls from the Neighborhood Association, but never mind) and smiling at delight at every uninteresting thing the Great Kids do (like throwing hoops on to a plastic target.  Sometimes.)  I can see why John would want to protect this.

Thing is, Fertile Cassie also called SelectQuote, and insured her own life.  So when Cassie isn't popping out little copies of herself and John, she's working outside the home and making a salary large enough that Cassie feels compelled to make sure it is replaced if she dies? 

The kicker is that John and Cassie Have Stuff- including a mortgage and Great Children, and they feel compelled to plan for their own deaths, but they don't want to go overboard on the whole cost thing, so they called some company which produces syrupy commercials about boring white people and their insurance issues in order to find another company willing to hand a chunk of dough over to the survivor if Something Happens to disrupt the whole suburban paradise deal.  I get it.  What I don't get is how SelectQuote has managed to make about thirty of these commercials featuring the most generic, non-ethnic looking, pasty, boring losers and their equally dull children and never once convince me that I should follow their lead and insure my life.  Even though I am in my forties, and in Excellent Health.

Maybe it's the lack of a mortgage, a fertile wife and Great Children?  Hey, I tried!

Classic American Express "We're just sayin', things happen" ad from the Good Old Days

Remember when Karl Malden was wrapping up his career by appearing as the Hovering Spectre of Vacations Gone Wrong?  When if someone was getting his pocket picked, you could count on Malden suddenly appearing to express his disgust that someone would fail to take the simplest of steps to assure that their dream vacation wasn't completely trashed Seriously What is Wrong With You People?

These ads were supposed to tickle our That Could Happen To Me bone, and back when money came in paper form, I guess they worked pretty well.  Now that money is mostly imaginary, experienced only as lines of digits on a screen or on plastic cards which can be replaced instantly with one phone call, the idea of carrying around American Express Traveller's Checks seems kind of silly, like buying Life Insurance or Smoking or serving your kid Pizza Rolls- you know, stuff you did when you didn't know any better.

Well, Karl Malden isn't what he used to be (he's dead, for one thing) and neither are Traveler's Checks.  If any of you have been on amazing, life-fulfilling vacations to other continents and would like to share your Traveler's Checks Saved Me stories, I invite you to call a friend but please, don't bug me with them.  For the next week I'll be at fabulous Hampton Beach New Hampshire for the annual family getaway- if I lose my wallet, I think I'll manage to have a great time and get back to Vermont alive without the help of American Express or anyone else, thank you very much.  I'll be spending most of my time taking long walks and playing in the surf.  Because I am who I am, I'll also be mentally cursing out all the "parents" who would rather sit and smoke than play with their offspring, and wishing that more of the clueless teenagers squinting at their cell phones would accidentally drop them into the water, because that would really be awesome.

And because I am who I am, I won't be bringing my laptop or checking my mail while at the beach.  So no new updates until next Saturday.  Have a great week everybody!

Chase Sapphire blows its chance to make my summer

You know, Chase, I put up with a lot of crap from you.

Women who inform their husbands that No, Sorry, we can't go on that dream vacation you've cooked up, because I just used our hoarded Rewards Points to buy myself a dress.  "Men" who blow through other rewards points by attending Rock and Roll camps.  Women who use theirs to mount giant phallic symbols with their boyfriends (I never got this one at all- why would she consider using HER points to help HIM buy her a ring?) so that they can stand on top of said phallic symbols and, well, look around for a while before climbing back down.

And now you give me some privileged twat wading in the surf, trying to contact your Pakistan-based phone bank, and you can't even end the ad by having this pampered dick drop his freaking phone?  Because that would have made up for so very much.

Of course, he would have picked up a brand new I Phone from the nearest Apple Store- probably on the boardwalk- using his Chase Sapphire Rewards points.  But still, I would have had that image of Mr. Entitled fumbling his precious phone into the surf to keep me warm when times are tough.  Thanks for nothing, Chase.

McDonalds- because LSD is still illegal, and Soma doesn't exist outside of "Brave New World"

Here's another McDonald's commercial that I could barely get through without groaning and hitting the mute button (hard.)  McDonalds seems pretty convinced that only the most cloyingly sweet, artificial junk ads are good enough to sell their artificially fattening, junk food.

In this particular commercial, the ubiquitous chain restaurant takes credit for basically everything that makes life worth living, and a few things that simply don't.  The moron with the surgically-implanted smile and apparently no place to go drives from place to place, marveling at all the Gosh-darned amazing, happy things he sees in his Gosh-darned amazing world.  All thanks to pancakes drenched in corn syrup, fried pig parts served between over-buttered biscuits, and milkshakes sold as "coffee drinks."  Along the way, the guy experiences any number of hallucinations- brought on by a grease, sugar or caffeine overdose, we are not told. 

A great parody of this ad would be this guy blissfully taking in muggings, fires, parents being abusive toward their kids, homeless people waving "will work for food signs," etc without ever, ever taking that stupid-ass grin off his loathsome face- because after all, he's loaded up at McDonalds, so all must be well in the world.  But McDonalds ads are pretty much parody-proof, because they are so damned stupid and insulting in their original form.

I'll just end by noting that if you are really enjoying life as much as this guy is, why would you take steps to cut it short by consuming this garbage?