Montel Williams, Payday Loans, and the rigged economic system that keeps the poor poor

So you wake up one morning, walk into your kitchen, and step in a puddle of water.

Guess what?  Your refrigerator is dead.  Gone.  It's full of perishables and you need a new fridge. Today.

So, what do you do?  That depends entirely on your financial situation.

If you're rich, you call Sears or Best Buy or whoever and you order a new fridge for $1000.  You pay cash, which means the fridge costs you $1000.

If you're middle class (the definition of "middle class" in this country is "a poor person who thinks he's doing well because he can pay the bills and has credit) you pull out your VISA card and order a new fridge.  You pay $150 a month because that's what you can afford.  In seven months you've paid for it, and it cost you $1050.

If you're poor, you don't have cash and you don't have credit, so you go to Rent A Center or Aaron's and you sign a contract which requires you to make monthly payments of $69.99 for two years for your new fridge.  If you miss a payment, you'll get hit with a $40 charge.  If you miss a couple of payments, the fridge will be repossessed and the money you paid into it will be lost.  If you make all your payments, in two years you'll be out $1680 you paid for the same $1000 refrigerator the rich guy and the middle class guy got.  See how much fun it is to be poor?  See how easy it is to get yourself out of the situation of being poor?

Which brings us to scumbag Montel Williams and this revolting pimping for this company which doesn't call itself a Payday Lender though that's EXACTLY what it is.  "Would an extra thousand dollars be handy?"  Hmm-- if my refrigerator is broken, a thousand dollars is definitely what I need, but I wouldn't use the word "handy" where "essential" is much more accurate.  And "standing in line" behind other poor people in dire straits certainly would be annoying- but you know what, that's not a problem compared to paying 300% interest on a short-term loan.

In case some people out there aren't aware, here's how Payday Loans work- you go to one of these loan sharks and prove that you have a job, usually by providing a cancelled paycheck or pay stub.  Then you write a check for the amount you need to borrow, plus the usury-level interest rates required by the scumbucket leech Payday Loan company.  You get the money you need for the emergency (more about this in a moment) and now you are in even worse shape economically, because if you can't cover that check in a few weeks, guess what?  Time for another Payday Loan.  Economic death spirals are fun, aren't they?

These commercials rarely talk about people facing actual emergencies (like my broken refrigerator example.)  Instead, they show grinning idiots moaning that "there's a concert in town and I'm out of money" or "I need extra cash for Christmas," I think because they don't want to anger the audience by showing people being taken advantage of by Payday lenders - it's easier to shrug at these money-changers when their customers are presented as people who are stupid and frivilous with money anyway (hey, if you are really willing to risk your car title or next paycheck because you simply must see Katy Perry on Saturday night, why do I care about you?  Fools and their money, after all...)  So we won't see "John will be evicted if he doesn't have rent money tomorrow" or "Sue really needs to get the heat turned back on so her kids don't freeze to death" stories.  Because then we'd turn our anger on Mr. Williams and his We Are In Business Because You Are Poor sales pitch.  ("Designed with you in mind?"  Probably the most honest part of this ad.)

One more thing about Payday Lenders* before I end this (completely justifiable) rant- they rely on people with bad credit to stay in business.  So they don't report to credit bureaus when customers make their payments on time (because that would improve credit scores, and why would Payday lenders want to do that?)  They aren't required to, so they don't.  How does that gell with the "we care about you" message Montel Seriously Go Die Already Williams is shoveling at us here?

*I've never used Payday Loans, Rent A Center, Aaron's, Liberty Tax, or any other organization that preys on the poor.  In fact, my credit score is extremely high.  But I do enjoy researching stuff like this, and am well aware that "there but for the grace of g-d go I" is a good thing to keep in mind for everyone.

Because G-d F--ing forbid you ever, EVER put that stupid electronic toy down

Well, thank goodness you never, ever have to be "disconnected" from your fellow techno-addled jackass friends, because otherwise

1.  You might actually find yourself forced to have a conversation with the person sitting on the couch with you (the look on that guy's face says nothing other than "good lord, there has got to be something going on somewhere I can get in on and at least mentally escape this loser.")

2.  Someone somewhere else would not be treated to your Way Too Important To Wait "hey, whassup?" call.  (This must really make that other guy on the couch feel good about himself- his friend is hanging out at the house, they seem to be watching a football game- but he feels compelled to make an utterly pointless "hey, whassup?" call to someone else.*)

3.  Grandma might actually have to wait to see pictures from the family trip she wasn't invited on - "hey grandma, here's a selfy from the gondola during our ski trip, did we tell you we were going on a ski trip?  Well anyway here's a photo, so don't expect a call this week because this covers it."

*I was on Amtrak for all of fifteen seconds before the guy across the aisle from me made a "hey, whassup?"call on his cell phone.  Within another thirty seconds I had my earplugs, earphones, and portable DVD player going.  I used to read on the train.  That's pretty much an impossibility now, since the jackasses with rocks in their heads simply can't bear to be alone with their thoughts for more than a few minutes at a time.

'tis the season to be an immoble, socially isolated zombie. Wait a minute, isn't that every season?

You an almost hear their muscles becoming atrophied through the tv.

What you can't hear is me pretending to care that these morons equate "winning" with succeeding in mastering some stupid, pointless, brain-cell and life-sucking video game.  Because I can't manage that.  I guess I'm going to have to leave the "dominating" to these worthless, vapid pools of skin.

Just one thing, jackanapes:  When you finally do get up from the couch?  The time you spent doing absolutely nothing is gone forever.  It's not coming back.  Sorry, but I just thought you needed reminding.

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.