Thanks to all who shared their support and personal experiences on life with a new son and the game of football - I can't tell how your words have helped me out during the time-honored tradition of 3 a.m. feedings…
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW, OR SHOULD I JUST TEXT YOU TO PLEASE STOP? Anyone else out there fairly horrified when Verizon unveiled that new ad last weekend where the "Can you hear me now?" guy's wife is going into labor? Maybe it's the 4 a.m. diaper change mentality speaking - our new arrival has me so sleep deprived I swear I just hallucinated that Lou Saban was making me a grilled cheese sandwich - but I find more and more ad campaigns pushing me towards Billy Jack "I just go berserk" territory.
You can just smell it in the air as Madison Avenue starts to loosen up on the sidelines in anticipation of the assault on the Super Bowl. Suddenly we are awash in Budweiser's not-quite-comedic "Lager Lessons" slate. Trust me, we'll be bombarded with this joke-free zone come Super Sunday. But fine, at least they aren't asking me to get wrapped up in the personal life of a fictitious TV shill.
I don't know about you, but my toes curl when a character created for the sole purpose of pushing product sticks around long enough to demand a storyline. It's creepy. Let me put this out there right now: I don't want to know about the Verizon guy's personal life, I don't want him to procreate, I don't want to think about him as a person, and I certainly don't want to picture his wife giving birth to a Motorola Razr - or if she was unfaithful, squeezing out an iPhone… although on second thought, it would be pretty funny if that little bespectacled dweeb wore the horns of the cuckold.
TRUST ME, PART DEUX: Whatever this poor woman finally gives birth to, we'll see it all happen Super Sunday. The drum roll starts a month out and then we take it hard, right in the labanza.
Just keep it simple. Sell your little product and own what you are - a fabricated salesman -- then get off my screen. And yes, that means you, Jared from Subway. You started out as a nice "biggest loser" story, and lo and behold you have reached pop culture ubiquity (look it up, Thurman) and now we are forced to watch you venture forth from the friendly confines of a harmless fellow who is asked to hold up his old, ginormous "before" pants, and wander, sans charisma, into the weird pseudo-celebrity world of "being Jared," hanging out with Michael Strahan, cracking each other up in a forced, awkward free beat. If Strahan isn't getting paid, do you really think he's hanging out with you and laughing?
Do us all a favor and stay in the little box you were built for. We didn't like it when we discovered that Tom Bodett was more than just a monotonous motel pitchman, but also an ersatz Garrison Keillor (one was more than enough!) who authored collections of whimsical short stories. Where are my smelling salts?
We also turned an indifferent ear to the Geico Cavemen when they dared to stand upright and evolve from successful commercial characters to awkward sitcom regulars. Can't you just see the same thing happening with the Apple and PC guys? Mark my words, if the writers strike ever ends, it'll happen. Ditto Sven, the hulking Swedish major domo from the Palm commercials… actually, that one I'd actually like to see, even though it weakens my point, which is to demand a cease and desist on all these over-wrought, high concept campaigns.
I don't want to know if Mr. Clean is "Bi-curious." I don't want to know if the toilet paper bears actually drop loads in the woods, I don't want to be confronted with the Pillsbury Doughboy's recent DUI arrest, as documented on TMZ.
I have enough drama in my life, leave me alone when I don't have enough TiVo leader to fast forward through all that commerce. I've built a pretty good case for DVR-recording this week's playoff games for at least 40 minutes so you can blow through the ads. Later this week, I'll take a look under the hood of this weekend's games.
I love this dirty town
Just a little heads up for the 24/7 party people who know better than to split a pair of tens: Yours truly will be appearing live, large, and in person in Atlantic City this Friday night at the House of Blues at Harrah's for the Mike & Mike celebrity roast. Should be lots of fun, and the jokes should be nice and hurtful! It's all to raise money for a fantastic cause - The "V" Foundation. Hope to see you all there.
