The Devil Inside?
Do you hear it? Listen close. It’s way down deep. That voice you hear but never want to listen to. It tells you that getting fit is not really that hard. Training for a fight or preparing to climb Mt. Everest. That’s hard. Waiting for a parking spot and making the decision to drive in […]
Somebody’s Watching You
How well does your friendly neighborhood advertiser know you? Rockwell may have been more than a cheesy eighties one-hit-wonder after all. Perhaps he was a true soothsayer instead of just a less-famous, Jackson family in-law. Think about it. Corporations and their advertisers process millions of pieces of data and sales information every day just to […]
Ap A-Go-Go
What is real? There is the basic “hit in the head with a brick” real. No arguments there. The reality is the concussion. You can also have the reality of a higher power that while not always easy to define is still realistic to a majority of humans on earth. I mean just look at […]
Boy Toy
Boys never grow up. Most women agree with this, of course. Most guys do too. It helps in maintaining the “totally selfish existence” illusion. This illusion comes in mighty handy when others casually suggest we act more responsibly or do something we’d rather not. If all we have to endure is a few eye rolls […]
We are People
The political ad generally comes in two forms. There’s the “smiling leader” ones where the candidate is happily slapping backs, hugging kids and relating to us “reg’lur folk” while the other is a basic “raw meat attack” ad. These attack ads almost always feature a photo of the target in question with mussed hair, an […]
Everybody Wins a Trophy Day
Saturn has always been an odd duck of a company. From the beginning they branded themselves as being a “different kind of car company.” Saturn had the ads showing their salespeople not applying pressure in their showrooms but instead giving out donuts and back rubs. They boasted of their “no-haggle-actual-real-price” formula to ensure buyers never again felt […]
Scared Straight: a PSA
I think it’s safe to say that drinking and driving has acquired a larger social stigma than it ever had before. Historically, it was not a biggie when tallying one’s significant lapses in judgment, (armed robbery, kidnapping, not recycling) but nowadays you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would even hint that hopping into […]
Spam, the Bad Kind
Hormel’s ingenious creation, pictured tantalizing to the side of this column, will always have a spot in my pantry, and my heart. Often labeled cruelly as Something Posing As Meat one must admit that if salty pork of dubious origin is your thing, then SPAM is for you. It is in my fondness for this tin-packaged treat that my […]
Jack Be Nimble
I can’t claim to know everything about corporate mascots but I do have some intimate knowledge of at least one of the most famous among them. You see, for five hours one day I was Grimace. He was a strange creature, and of indeterminate species to be sure, yet he was lovable and happy all […]
Zoological Cannibalism
The fable. That time-honored method of telling stories using animals or similar to assist in making the inherent moral lessons go down easier. A good one successfully removes the viewer just far enough from the story to appreciate and ingest the message without threatening deeply held beliefs or prejudices too personally. On that note, perhaps […]