Thursday, August 14, 2003

Drink More Fear

I usually take the underground MUNI cars from work to my favorite tavern.  I like to check the billboards as I wander through the stations, because it’s a creative and anarchistic city in many ways and lots of people like to deface the advertisements, sometimes in amusing or politically provocative ways. 

So there’s a big campaign where BART wants to make sure people are keeping an eye out for terrorists or bad people or whatever we call potential malefactors these days.  It’s a picture of a bunch of people, some who look like BART employees, some cops, some passengers - all with big sherlock holmes magnifying glasses, looking out of the frame at me.  The text reads, “We’ve Increased Our Alertness, Have You?”

Since I’m usually walking past this ad on my way to a night dedicated to the consumption of fermented malt beverages, I really appreciate that some clever vandal has blanked out the “rt” from “Alertness.” Now I’m being asked by these serious-looking protectors of the public weal to “Increase My Ale ness.”

I’m working on it, buddy.  Catch me in half an hour.  And bring ale.  You can’t be too careful about these things.

let me get this straight: a magnifying glass increases alertness?  are there ant-sized terrorists we need to be looking for?

someone ale the authorities.

"We’ve ceased our alertness” is also easily done.

Happy drunkeness.

Now that you mention it, I think I could make a minor adjustment and had it read “We’ve eased our tart ass”.  Now that’s marketing.

In-n-Out Burger in CA is a really decent chain with a long history (50 or so years) in Southern CA.  They had a campaign where thousands of bumper stickers were distributed that read “In-n-Out” on the top line and “Burger” on the bottom; people frequently cut off the first and last letters on the bottom line to update the message.  Now *that’s* what a hamburger’s all about, buddy.

Ah yes, the in ‘n out urge. I remember it well.
I’m just happy to increase my aleness these days.