Off to Louisville Again!

Yep, it's that time of year again.  Time to head off to Kentucky to spend a week grading Advanced Placement essays in the cool confines of Louisville (likely average temp for the week 90 degrees.)

I'll try to post from the computer lab, but just in case I get too busy or the service isn't available, here's a heads-up to explain spotty or non-existent updates for this blog between May 30 and June 8.  Hope you all take the opportunity to shift through the archives if I can't post new ads while I'm away.

Meanwhile, this ad is a lot of buildup without a whole lot of payoff, don't you think?

Yeah, I'll never get it, AMC

Twice every year- on Memorial Day and then again on Veteran's Day- AMC "salutes the veterans" by running a marathon of machine-gun fire, bombings, and actors in costumes being blown apart by grenades and torpedoes.  And twice a year, I just shake my head and wonder what any of this has to do with "saluting our veterans."

I don't mind the special ceremonies before baseball games- I'm as cynical as they come, but even I find them heartwarming as long as I can mute the vapid, jingoistic faux-patriotic prattle from the talking heads in the booth.  I've never cared for the fly-overs-- those jets are expensive, dammit, and I didn't pay my taxes so they could be used to impress slack-jawed yokels waiting to watch a game.  But the salutes are generally pretty innocent and worthwhile and certainly well-deserved.

But showing Saving Private Ryan two or three times in a row?  What the hell is that all about?  I suspect that there are no more than a few hundred survivors of Normandy still living on the planet.  Are all veterans of all wars supposed to "enjoy" the carnage?  Is this something that veterans really have an appetite for?  Does AMC and other networks really work under the assumption that what veterans really crave on holidays created to honor them is wall-to-wall war movies?

Or are these films for the consumption of non-vets; a kind of "look how Awesome America Is/Was" sloppy Valentine to military service?  Either way, how does depicting the sons of farmers, mill workers, shop keepers, teachers etc. being gunned down on a celluloid battlefield accomplish that?  I really don't get this at all.

Audi's "Be Yourself- A Showy Douchenozzle" Campaign

Personally, I'd rather see Lexus's with red ribbons being handed to teenagers in front of glowing surburban palaces than be subjected to this crap.

Because while all car commercials use bad music, most don't use atrocious faux-folk music crap to sell their LookAtMeMobiles.  This song is awful and the guy singing it sounds like he died several days before taping and what we are hearing is the last puffs of air being expelled from his throat as his chest is compressed.  I imagine that the song itself is a remix of a 60s salute to non-conformity, which makes its use in this ad only about ten thousand times worse.

I mean, it's bad enough that the theme of the song is "buy this car so everyone will know you can afford to buy this car."  That's expected from Audi.  Don't try to sell us the "noncomformity" crap on top of it, ok?

Be the Batman, and a legend in your own mind

Ugh, just when I thought that these commercials could not become more pathetic....

This stupid, disjointed, confusing drivel was, I believe, intentionally created for the sole purpose of making my head hurt.  Or maybe you just have to be a "gamer" to understand how these Unconnected-to-the-Sane scenes are supposed to come together to form a commercial that makes some level of "sense."  Since I'm NOT a gamer, here's what I get out of it-

Guys are naturally nervous and concerned when suddenly surrounded by a gang of toughs in a dark alley, especially when it's raining really hard and they've just spent god knows how long staring at an Old Timey picture of allegedly dead parents in an equally Old Timey locket.

Guys are also nervous and reluctant to react when a group of equally scary and equally Properly Diverse toughs decide to pick on an old man on a train for absolutely no reason.

On the other hand, when buildings explode into flames, firemen may hesitate, but then they'll go in, because that's what firemen do, and this

Inspires the guy being threatened in the dark alley to curl his fist, which

Inspires the guy on the train to move toward his own gang of toughs, causing them to consider backing off

Which leads Batman to stand on a roof and sneer, because apparently he's a lot better at doing that than actually stopping all these bad things that are happening below him, but he's not really needed because we are now being told that we can

Be the Batman.  Uh huh.  WTF-ever.  Actually, the only thing anyone watching this ad is supposed to be inspired to do is

Get into your not-Batmobile No Matter How Much You Like To Pretend It Is car and

Get to your nearest Secret Tactical Weapons Storehouse, which us sane people refer to as Walmart, and buy the latest version of what seems to be two or three hundred video games involving Batman and a hospital for the insane featured for about five minutes in Batman Begins, and

Get back to what your Batcave, which we non-man/boys call dens or basements, and spend the next eleven hours engaging in all your violent fantasies which involve fighting back against all the fellow sapien life forms inflicting imagined slights upon your weird, paranoid sad little self on a daily basis, and

Actually, "and" nothing.  Just stay there.  The fewer doughy juveniles with persecution complexes there are out here in the Real World, the better.  Just stay there.  Be the Batman.   Your avatar is much, much more fun and interesting than you'll ever even attempt to be.  Leave life for us idiots who don't have 60-inch screens and an insatiable desire to remain children forever.  It's just not for you.

And an 800 score on the Loathsomeness scale to go with it

Hey, lady- I know my credit score too, thanks to my ability to just ask my credit card company.  I didn't have to give any information to Experia or whatever the hell this Let Us Plant Cookies On Your Computer To Provide Information You Are Too Stupid And Lazy To Find Yourself company is.  I didn't need any "tools" to bring it up, either- just an ability to live within my means and regularly pay my bills on time.  Stuff I manage to do on a regular basis without giving myself a fist-bump or otherwise pretending that I accomplished something worth pomping over.

And "kaboom?"  If I were this salesman, I wouldn't sell you a car on principle.  In fact, I'd stop trying and start consoling your ex-porn star husband (what the hell is with that mustache? Is it 1979 in this commercial?) for being attached for such a disgusting weirdo.  This woman should be Exhibit A for the defense in the case of There Are Worse Things Than Being Alone v. Fear.

The only way this commercial ends on a high note is if this woman is so distracted by her own sense of awesomeness that she steps off the curb into a speeding car.  Failing that, this is pretty awful, Whatever Company The Ad Is For.

The Living Dead: Suburban Loser Edition

Because if you find yourself living in the suburbs and taking the care of your lawn so seriously that you are "concerned' because a neighbor is feeding his for a second time in the same year, you really need a hobby.

And if you get excited at the prospect of feeding your own lawn for a second time- never mind the hobby.  It's too late.  Your life ended quite some time ago, and you died.  In the immortal words of Tom Hanks in Joe v. The Volcano, "let's arrange the funeral."  All that's left is to pick a corner of your beautiful green lawn to bury your worthless corpse under.

Here's the good news for your family- this guy will be on hand with tips on how to get rid of the ugly brown spot you left in less time than they could have imagined possible.

Why didn't I choose advertising as a career?

I remember watching Bewitched when I was a kid and thinking that Darrin Stevens had it pretty good- nice big house in the suburbs, beautiful wife, etc., and a lifestyle financed by a job which required nothing more than his ability to come up with a stupid, obvious jingle or catch phrase every so often.  I remember thinking "hey, I could do that!"

(I also remember thinking "geesh, Darrin spends a lot of time lying on that couch."  I didn't know about Dick York's severe back issues at the time.  But anyway....)

The message was reinforced later with movies like Mr. Mom-- want a salary that can support an entire family in suburban luxury?  It's no trick- all you need is the imagination of a prairie dog.  Anyone can do this- why not me?

For some reason, however, I never followed through- which is why I can't claim credit for this really, really stupid waste of 30 seconds which I guess is supposed to convince us that 1) we should go to Subway and spend money there right now, and 2) "hey, isn't it fun to say Guacamole?  The only thing more fun than saying Guacamole is watching total strangers say Guacamole, don't ya think?"

Hey, Subway?  I apologize for ever making fun of your "Five Dollar Foot Longs" campaign.  Could you bring that back, please?  Because this ad just reminds me of what Might Have Been if I had decided to choose another path and become one of your Idiots in Gray Flannel Suits.  Like Dick York.  Or Dick Sargent.  Or Terri Garr.  Or whoever.