Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Time For a Word From Our Sponsors
It’s a good thing I like to keep busy at work because I’m getting a goddamn crawful these days. I was mortified to find today that a series of questions I’d sent out to the ED of a very large and important legal services program had included an inquiry into his plans to address the growing problem of “homoe improvement fraud.” Taken out of context it really sounds like somebody got ripped off by a wanna-be Queer Eye guy. Mitch did me the gracious favor of not mentioning it, but it makes me think I’ve got to slow down a little.
But, while slowing down a little is overall a very good idea for me right now, it’s just a rule of thumb. There are some things that are better as fast as I can handle them. I refer, of course, to my television watching. TiVo has sped up my passive entertainment input tremendously, and this obvious boon has had an unanticipated benefit as well: the commercials are now much more entertaining. I thought, as a callow youth, that the new technology would let me evade (or “evoid") entirely the phenomenon of the paid promotional announcement. When I learned the terrible truth, I was sorely disapointed to have to sit there comme un pud manually fast-forwarding throught a stack of four or six commericals at ten or thirty times the standard speed, making sure I didn’t skip over into the show I was trying to watch. This means, in practice, that instead of watching a bunch of boring commercials I’ve seen before, I get to see one really weird commercial that moves at breakneck speed on mute so I get to make up my own plot and soundtrack in my own little overworked mind. This has become nearly as much fun and only slightly harder to follow than Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Let me elucidate (wow, my brain echos):
A commercial may now feature, at very high speed, William Shatner getting a new car that makes photocopies with amazingly realistic color, which resolves his nagging problem with erectile dysfunction.
Or: A woman cleaning her house discovers a whole bunch of extra children whom she sends on a cruise where they buy a powerful yet stylish computer that can run a whole airline full of people throwing luggage and hugging with joy.
Or: A fighter jet in an air battle fought through shaving cream in some guy’s bathroom morphs into a laser-guided minivan full of fresh hot pizza that leaves your teeth sparkling white.
Or: A man stranded on a beach is saved by twins riding a giant mechanical bucking beer through a large-screen television that is the subject of intense and serious debate which concludes with everybody dancing gleefully in their underware.
Well now it’s gotten to the point that I’ve watched enough TiVoMercials that I am actually sometimes able to pick the network based on the bastardized miscogenations that show up during the commercial breaks. Just to impress you, I’ll demonstrate my awesome powers:
An overgrown lawn rains a hail of pollen that struggles to invade a kitchen full of talking appliances that drive through a sunny neighborhood full of houses being sold on their way to a vacation in dramatic Alaska: DISCOVERY CHANNEL
Uniformed officers enjoy cold cans of beer until guard dogs chase them into a hardware store that hides a portal to the second dimension where they’re turned into cartoon monsters that live in bags of flavored potato chips, wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting garden party: COMEDY CENTRAL
A man with a paint sprayer taunts wildlife until a huge juicer turns them all into a powershake that forces the man who drinks it to work out spasmodically on a bowflex until he gets run over by an overactive pickup truck: ESPN
A spring breeze brings an adorable stuffed animal to life; its first act is to hypnotize a bunch of people into rolling in catatonic ecstacy around on fresh linen sheets until some clumsy oaf spills food on the carpets - he cleans it up and then runs outside to kill some pesky weeds that he then cooks up in custom saucepans with a bernaise sauce: HGTV.
I will take the position that I don’t watch any other channels, and leave it at that. Of course, tomorrow night I get to watch my two hours of TiVo’d Amazing Race finale (and I’m trying to keep myself in the dark till then, TYVM) with loads of hilarious commercials for vitamins that make you turn into a dog and automobiles that serve delicious juicy beef ribs. I can hardly wait. I do, however, have a request of my readers, to the extent that there may actually be any of you still out there: if you happen to have the lyrics to the song Funky Poodle by a Cleveland band from the 80’s called Wild Horses, drop me a line, will ya? It’s been on my mind for 20 years now and I’m thinking of figuring out what the damn thing was about after all this time. Since I have so much more time these days, and I’m taking it so slow and easy. Write back now. Operators are standing by.
