For the sixth year in a row- I'm off to Louisville!

Louisville also offers an Unbridled opportunity for 1200 Unbridled Advanced Placement history teachers to get together and engage in the Unbridled grading of roughly 1.2 million exceptionally Unbridled exams.

Maybe Louisville's motto should be "Louisville: Sans Bridles."

Anyway, it's that time of the year again, and for the first week of June I'll be busy grading exams, walking along the amazing waterfront, checking out the really cool fossils along the Ohio River on the Indiana side, and attending four Bats baseball games.  As usual, I don't know if I'll be able to post from the Computer Lab or not- the last four years it's worked ok, as long as I've stored a few commentaries in advance, but just in case I can't access the site while I'm there, this is just a head's up explaining why I'm suddenly not around.

Also, since I am going to be grading from 8 AM to 5:30 PM for six straight days, I might not like the idea of sitting down in front of a computer to post commercial insights- as I've said, there are a lot of things to do in Louisville which do not involve being in a dark basement computer lab.  

And if I CAN continue to post (and choose to do so)- well, I don't mind giving a salute to one of my favorite little cities in the world once a year.  If you've never been to Louisville, I really do recommend it.  It's just a fun, friendly place with a small-town atmosphere and big city amenities.  And I guess it's Unbridled, which is also a plus.  I suppose.

Maybe the Kentucky Board of Tourism should hire me to write these things.

Progressive's Punted Plot Point

Wow, Jessika sure hates talking about exercise and weight loss, doesn't she?

Wait, this commercial ISN'T about weight loss?  It's about Progressive and it's continuing Let Us Spy On You device?  What the hell was the first five seconds about then?

I mean, we see Jessica's friend eagerly telling her about how good she feels about exercise- she just hasn't lost any weight yet.  Well, that's fine.  Exercise is only part of the equation, after all.  But it's an important part, and while I can understand why Jessica might not find this a particularly interesting topic of conversation, her inability to grasp what her friend is saying comes off more like "shut up" than "I don't know what you mean."

The rude brush-off results in Jessica throwing herself on to her friend's car- seriously, the first time I saw this, I looked to see if Jessica had a huge butcher knife in her hand.  Wow, great lesson learned here- if your friend wants to talk about her weight loss, pretend that you aren't interested- and then try to kill her.

Then, we are in another commercial- this one for car insurance.  The narrator tells us that Jessica is a "rate sucker."  Why?  What did Jessica do to suggest that she's a bad driver?  Show a lack of interest in someone's self-centered babbling?  How does this make her a bad driver?  If failing to pretend to show interest in someone else's This Is All About Me rant makes one a bad driver, I'd have been cancelled by every insurance company in the country long before now.

Seriously, what the hell is going on here?  What does the first five second of this ad have to do with the last ten?  Anybody?

All is forgiven if Ally empties the company's bank account and vanishes after this phone call

It was around the 150th viewing of this obnoxious crud (which means, around the sixth inning of the Orioles-Jays game) when it suddenly hit me:  Verizon and Blackberry want us to empathize with the Realty Company boss who is being annoyed by a lackey while she is trying to recharge her batteries over a multi-week vacation.  Needless to say, they fail miserably.

First, Ms Bossperson is shown with some uber-pretentious, spa-approved cooling pad on her forehead.  No, I don't know what it is or what it's actually called and no, I don't really give a damn.  I probably don't know what it is because I've never spent weeks of vacation at an f---ing spa.

Second, she's communicating with her Still On The Job Making Money for Ms Bossperson lickpittle on some Stupid Pointless Nobody Asked For Or Really Wants This videophone.  Why?  All she had to do was not answer the phone.  If she absolutely felt the need to answer the phone, she could have just not activated the video option.  Instead, poor Totally Put Out Bosslady lets her Lucky If She Gets The Day After Giving Birth Off toady go through this idiot "update" on some property I suppose the Very Important Company is interested in buying or selling or WHAT THE FUCK-EVER I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT WATCHING THESE MONEY OBSESSED DICKWADS before telling her "yeah, that's awesome you are working, but my marathon vacation is still on, so stop caring about my company until I decide to come back, ok?"

Third- toady at the office is perky and bright and super-enthusiastic about this deal which, if successful, could make her vacationing boss a buttload of money....but boss is all whatever, that's nice, my stock options last month equaled your salary for the past five years desk jockey, I've got another week of vacation and I'm going to keep spending it acting like sleeping in and lounging around the hotel pool is really wearing me out, you know being on vacation is really in many ways more exhausting than going to work, tee hee not really don't call me again or I'll replace your ass with a secretary who understands that when the boss is away, the boss is away, and is not to be treated like- well, like I treat you every weekend.

Keep telling yourself that, lady. Anything to dull the pain, I guess.

Yes, playing chirpy maid to a house full of kids and pets is exactly like directing a movie- if the movie is about a woman trapped in a mobius strip in which every day is exactly the same.  Maybe we could call it Groundhog Day Without the Funny or Heartwarming Message at the End.

But hey, whatever keeps you sane, MommyWife.  Your daughter is now a Diva who must be catered to (keep the fridge full of Pediasure.)  The animals are Extras.  Here come the financial backers- the guy who walks in wearing a suit who instantly demands food and occasionally insists that you provide sexual favors (hey, maybe this IS like being a director!)

Your life is like a Movie- a really stale, cliche'd movie which involves a lot more cleaning and cooking and soul-sucking Same than action or romance scenes, but a movie.  Keep pretending that you are directing that movie, and that it's not directing you.  And that there's a point to all this, which you'll get if you just keep at it long enough.

Hey, guess what, Mrs Director?  One of those Dinner Scenes is coming up again.  Put the vacuum away and get back in the kitchen.  Um...."Action!"  For what it's worth.

What is this Passat Commercial good for? Absolutely Nothing.

In 1970, the United States was in it's fifth full year of combat in Vietnam- more than 35,000 young Americans were dead, thousands more permanently injured, having been torn away from the most prosperous nation on Earth to fight in a jungle on the other side of the planet against an ideology few understood and fewer still thought fit to explain to them.  They left behind Moms and Dads and Sweethearts and while many came back with their bodies intact, none returned without internal scars they would carry for the rest of their lives.

The evolution in American attitudes toward Vietnam can be traced through popular music, so often a useful window into the soul of a nation.   In 1965, Sergeant Barry Sadler's Ballad of the Green Berets made the Top Ten on the American Singles Chart.  It told the story of a dedicated military man who gladly gave his life "for those oppressed" and who left behind a final wish for his son- that he grow up to become a soldier, just like Dear Old Dad.  It fit the "lets go get 'em and beat 'em like we always have before" mentality that dominated in the first year of Boots on the Ground.  America to the rescue- the Vietcong could harass the South Vietnamese army, but once WE showed up, it was going to be Game Over.

Nine years later, the United States had withdrawn from Vietnam, which was only months away from ending a nearly thirty-year Civil War and becoming unified under Northern-Communist-rule.  After a final tally of 57,000 dead and more than a quarter-million wounded, not to mention an immense waste of money and energy which sucked the life out of Lyndon Johnnson's Great Society dreams- many Americans were beginning a re-assessment of our misguided adventure in Southeast Asia which continues to this day.  Reaching the Top Forty on the billboard charts was a song called Billy Don't Be a Hero by Paper Lace (much better known for the atrocious The Night Chicago Died.)  Billy, in stark contrast to Sadler's Green Berets, reveals a deep level of cynicism concerning the concept of "heroic sacrifice"- when the title character is killed, a letter to his fiance praises his actions on the field of battle and assures her that "she should be proud he died that way."  Her response is to throw the letter away.  My guess is that if she went on to have a child, she wouldn't be raising him to be a Green Beret.  Just a hunch.

In 1970, Richard Nixon had taken over from LBJ in the management of the Vietnam quagmire and was in the process of expanding military operations into Cambodia and Laos, not to mention intensifying the bombing of North Vietnam and Communist-held portions of the South.  He was also proceeding with the implementation of "Vietnamization," turning the responsibility for fighting the Vietnamese Communists over to the South Vietnamese Army and scaling down the use of the draft here in the US.  And it was in this year that Emerson, Lake and Palmer gave us Lucky Man, the somber tale of-- well, a Lucky Man who has it all- wealth, looks, health, and the respect and love of all who know him- but who goes off to war, takes a bullet, and bleeds to death on some unnamed battlefield.  At it's essence, it's a song about the unforgivable waste that is war.

Except that now, in 2013, the Suits have decided enough time has passed (and we kill with Drones instead of putting our own people on the front line now anyway, much cleaner that way) that they can get away with using a somber ballad about pointless loss in a commercial about a piece of Eurotrash with a beautiful wife and child who gets his Volkswagen crumpled in an accident he walks away from unharmed.

Which means that in this commercial, Lucky Man is played for laughs.

Which means that now, in 2013, Volkswagen has decided that there's simply no such thing as being too shallow, too callow, or too utterly lacking in taste or respect.  Or that they are still bitter we didn't care for "Punch Dub Days," and are going to make us pay.  Hard.

Hey, Everyone In America Over the Age of Forty- remember how angry you were when Revolution was used to sell sneakers?  This is a hundred thousand times worse.  This is Boycott-Inspiring bad.  All I'm left with is the hope that Emerson, Lake and Palmer lost control of this song years ago and Volkswagen snatched it out of the public domain or some vampire third-party which bought the rights and soullessly resold it to everyone's favorite German auto maker.  But either way...ugh, this is so. Damned. Sad.

CURRENT Tostitos Commercial. No kidding.

1.  The "owner" of the "restaurant" (apartment) is a white guy, the only waiter is a black guy.  Wearing an apron. Anytime you want to get into the 21st century with the rest of us, Tostitos....

2.  "What are all these people doing in your apartment?"  Best possible answer I can think of- "well, as you say, it is MY apartment.  If it's too crowded for you, you know where the exit is.  It's the same door you used to come in, without knocking."

3.  Instead, guy directs his girlfriend to start playing waitress.  See Comment #1.

And never mind that Tostitos seems to think that the only reason people ever go to "authentic Mexican restaurants" is for the cheap chips and salsa.  Of course, if this were true, there would be no authentic Mexican restaurants, because they all would have gone bankrupt years ago.  Then again, I'm expecting intelligence from a company that thinks "black guy=waiter" and "girlfriend=waitress."  Whatever.

Oh, and I understand that Burger King is the place to go for retirement advice

Why haven't the first pair of idiots in this ad started planning for their kid's college fund yet?  No, it's not because they don't have any money (that would make a lot more sense, and be more relatable.  Can't have that.)  It's because they "haven't had the time."

Sitting around drinking coffee with fellow breeders?  Always time for that.  Planning for your kid's ability to pay for college?  There are only so many hours in the day, after all.

Not that the people who think they've got this all covered are much better.  They "found out" about the "Gerber Life Plan."  Because if you want to set aside money for your kid to attend college, who could possibly give you better advice than a company which specializes in selling creamed peas and carrots?  And oh by the way, "it's a life insurance policy, too."  Well, that's good- in my experience, there's nothing more annoying than setting aside money for college and then having the ungrateful little brat go and die on you.

Here's a quick tip, not that either pair of stupid, clueless dopes are likely to pick up on it:  There are these really interesting people called bankers who know an awfully lot about setting up college funds.  There are also people who work at places like ING and Edward Jones who make a living taking small amounts of money invested over a long period of time into a decent little stack.  In short, there is plenty of expertise out there for you because saving for college isn't exactly a new idea.

Now, there is a caveat I must include here:  Your banker or local investor probably doesn't know a thing about baby food.  So if you have a question about that, you might not be able to take care of it in the same phone call you might make to check how your Gerber's fund is doing.  Might take two phone calls.  I kind of think it would be worth it, though.

Of course, it is your kid after all.  You want to put his college education in the hands of a company whose slogan should be Fourteen Months Since Last Formula Recall, be my guest.