The North Face steals a classic folk song. Why am I not surprised in the least?

This Land Is Your Land was written by legendary American folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1940, the year in which America was transitioning from the Great Depression and the New Deal to preparation for World War II, which was already raging in Europe.  It was written in response to Irving Berlin's extremely popular- but oppressively cloying and jingoistic- God Bless America.  Early versions of the song were criticized by bigoted, ignorant morons as endorsements of Communism (and therefore, of course, Un-American and Wrong.)  This Land Is Your Land was not released until 1945, at the end of the conflict with Germany and Japan and the beginning of the conflict with the Communist World.

The song originally included the phrase "God blessed this land for you and me," but Guthrie didn't want to mock Berlin's song and he didn't want to exclude non-believers, so he changed it to "This land was made for you and me,"  It also includes verses mocking the idea of private property and walls designed to keep people away, and actually questioned the direction of a country which claimed to be an island of freedom in a world of slavery in a pompous, clueless, Disney-ish "America Love It Or Leave It" kind of way.*  These were scary concepts in the 1940s and are scary concepts now, because when it comes to shallow and paranoid, nobody beats Americans.

And when it comes to using classic songs to sell stuff, again, nobody beats Americans.  Which is why we now have the song which really ought to be the National Anthem (wouldn't this or "America" be far better choices than a song about an assault on a fort during a war nobody remembers?) being used to sell jackets and backpacks.  Ugh.

*In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I'd seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

Let's sum up this sad KFC Commercial

Watch this ugly doofus slob miss the entire point of the Office Holiday Party.  Yes, his coworkers are weird, and have weird ideas of what "having fun" means (karaoke?  Really?)  And they have really odd notions of what decent party food is- it looks like they've got fruitcake, jello, maybe some pate?  So- not much fun, and no good food.

But that's not what the party is about, is it?  I mean, isn't this supposed to be a time for colleagues to just spent some time getting to know eachother a little better in a comfortable, no-stress setting?

I guess not- to this guy, it's all about the food.  So he ditches his coworkers and instead of being at a party, he's sitting all by himself at the local KFC getting ready to consume a bowl of shepard's pie.

And I think we are supposed to think he made a wise choice.  Hmmm....

New Years' Resolutions for people who desperately need them, courtesy of the Commercial Curmudgeon

The NFL:  Stop focusing on the celebrations, please.  Watching a multimillionaire pose and flex his muscles every time he does what he was paid to do isn't entertaining.  I swear that fifty percent of the replays are of pomping and posing rather than actually playing.

NBC:  Your intro to "Football Night in America" (WTF-ever) redefines the term "overblown."  First of all, all the fireworks and crowd reactions and laser shows and appearences by Carrie Underwood in the world will never be enough to convince anyone that whatever game you were handed this week is the freaking Superbowl.  Second, nobody in the history of the universe has ever uttered the phrase "I just can't wait till Sunday Night."  Never.  Ever.  Ever.

MLB.com;  Two things.  First, stop it with the horrible-pun headlines.  Seriously, they suck and aren't even forehead-slapping entertainment.  They are usually so painfully bad that I can imagine the writer groaning but being forced to go with it because MLB.com demands that every headline have a pun.  We aren't children.  We don't need puns.  Yours are just rank.  Stop.  Please.

Second- Derek Jeter is retired.  That means you really need to stop inserting him into stories which have no logical connection to Derek Jeter.  That six month sloppy Valentine you gave him in 2014 was a painful experience that you insisted we share, but we got through it, and now it's time to move on.  So the next time someone bumps into Derek Jeter in a restaurant and wins $2 on a scratch-off ticket a week later, don't try to sell us another Magic of Jeter story, ok?  It's over.  Done.  MOVE ON.

Wendy's:  Time to retire Red.  Seriously, enough already.  Let's move on to the next marketing idea.  In real life, Red would be fifty pounds overweight and be on meds for severe high blood pressure and Type 2 Diabetes, not a cute, slim, energetic little hottie.

Progressive: Time to retire Flo.  She was never interesting as the ghostly-pale (she makes vampires look like they just got back from Bermuda) spokeschoad inhabiting a windowless, glowing-white virtual world insurance store.  Now that you've got her out and about- fishing, riding motorcycles, and (good lord whose idea was this) singing I can say you've jumped the shark with her, turned the boat around, and jumped it again.  Put her on the unemployment line behind Red, please.

Verizon:  Wow, where to start?  First, I know I complain about cellphone ads which show people obsessed with texting and talking and streaming.  But I'd rather have those than your stupid still shots of people jumping around with face-absorbing smiles because you offer them a way out of their contracts if they SWITCH FOR NO GOOD REASON RIGHT NOW.  It's bad enough that every phone ad suggests that Our Phones Are Our Lives.  Showing people throwing confetti around because they switched data plans- come on.   We aren't that sad.

Lexus, Audi, and BMW:  I know the economy is getting better, but 99 percent of us will never be in the market for one of your cars, and the one percent who are don't need these commercials to convince them to purchase a LookAtMeMobile.  Which means that the only reason you even make these commercials is to piss us off.  Why?  What did we ever do to you?

McDonalds:  If you are going to show people hoisting enormous hamburgers on tv, you should start actually selling enormous hamburgers in your restaurants.  The food in your ads bear no resemblence to anything one can buy at a McDonalds. Not that I would buy food at a McDonalds anyway.  McDonalds is good for one thing- coffee.

Geico:  A whole lot, and I'm not even going to snark on the lizard because he's actually the least offensive thing you've got going.  I don't see the moron tag team with their "happier than a camel on hump day" bit anymore, but that ad with seriously brain-damaged "adults" yelling "what day is it" at camels in the zoo?  That's a thousand times more horrible because I can totally see people doing that (because most people are rock-stupid hicks.)  Please stop making ads which suggest that people who are already vapid morons act like even bigger vapid morons for our viewing pleasure in the real world.  Because I swear I am going to hurt someone in 2015, and it's going to be your fault.

Every Company on the Planet:  For the love of G-d please please please make 2015 the year you stop trying to convince us that everyone in the United States lives in a palace.  This year, show us families living in modest homes rather vast, cavernous mansions.  Show us single people living in apartments instead of million-dollar suburban spreads.  Stop showing us people with bathrooms and rec rooms twice the size of my apartment.  And most of all, get over the idea that the interior of every house is supposed to glow white as if it's scrubbed every few hours by a cleaning crew larger than the average college football bench.  My irises can't take another year of that, seriously.

Salt-N-Pepa's response to learning "Where Are They Now?' MTV docs don't come with an honorarium

Actually, if you're Salt-N-Pepa, you recognize that you haven't had a hit since the mid-90s, you just got one of those dreaded "Icon" awards (which, like an "Achievement" award on Oscar night, is basically an acknowledgement that your time has come and gone and we don't really expect to ever hear from you again,) and royalties don't pay the mortgage like you thought they would.

So if you're Salt-N-Pepa, you pick up a few extra dollars making total asses of yourself, making fun of your stupid theme song (whose popularity is a great symbol of the bloated crapfest that was Music in the 1990s) for the insurance company that simply can not stop bombarding us with rock-stupid advertising.

The wrong people have money burning holes in their pockets

The guy in this ad has a fricking MacBook, but it takes him all of 20 seconds to get sold on a crummy SurfaceProWTF-Ever-- "I think I like the SurfacePro3....no really, where can I get one?"

Tell you what, buddy- I'll hop on over to BestBuy, pick up a SurfacePro3, and trade it to you for your Suddenly Not Good Enough For You MacBook.  Jagoff.

Another Jared "Buy Her With This" Ad

Dan needs a diamond that will convince Julie to have sex with him and only him for the rest of her life- or until Dan finds someone younger, prettier and even more insecure and vulnerable than Julie, at which time Dan will dump Julie for that younger, prettier and even more insecure and vulnerable girl- and Jared is the place to go for that kind of flypaper.  I mean, just check out the larger than life diamond!

Once Jared has helped Dan pick out just the right ancient rock with which to guilt/bribe Julie into giving up her personality and last name to become Dan's dishwasher, handmaiden and babymaker, Dan takes Julie out to a nice restaurant and lets her know that if she wants the dinners out and dancing and weekend trips to the beach and jewelry to keep coming, she's going to have to ditch everything that makes her Julie and become Mrs. Dan.   Because this is a jewelry commercial, of course Julie says Yes, because hey she's almost 25 and being your own person is Really Hard and Dan isn't all that repulsive and gotta marry someone after all.

Dan gave her the ring with all his heart but with a little less money in the bank than before he went to Jared, but that's ok because Julie has accepted the Token That Says She's Taken.  This is supposed to be sweet or something.  I'm way too bitter to get it.

You've been warned

If I see just one more commercial featuring a guy who lives in a house featuring a living room twice the size of my apartment, I'm going to have to hurt someone.

Seriously, you'd think that just once television would take a break from convincing me that the average American makes $300,000 a year and lives in a palace with a seperate garage for the family Lexus.  I get it, television.  I'M POOR!  Now stop reminding me, please!