Shenanigan: Razor Wit
Posted by Luprand in Shenanigan on 26 July 2010
Note: While I usually veer away from crass humor and references to uncouth thoughts, sometimes an article like this happens. I hope you’ll forgive me, or at least skip reading this entry if you’re feeling especially puritanical.
It’s difficult to think of the last time I genuinely enjoyed a commercial on TV or the radio.* I’ve sat through plenty of commercials that bothered me for one reason or another, especially if they follow the “stupid man can’t do housework/balance the checkbook/do simple home repair/find his backside with both hands, but his clever wife knows to use our product” model of advertisement. In fact, any commercial that paints the average user as a grade-A submoron who doesn’t know how to interpret simple instructions will fail to appeal to me at all.
And then there are the feminine hygiene products. They’re already fighting a losing battle for my attention, considering my genetic condition,** so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt when they talk about wings, sensitive areas, “freshness”, or their holding capacity for any unnatural blue fluids that may gush out at inopportune moments.***
So when Schick put out a commercial for a lady razor-bikini trimmer combo, featuring swimsuit models walking past various shrubbery which then trimmed itself into well-kept shapes, I wasn’t sure whether to be put off or merely flabbergasted by the visual pun.**** Personally, I wouldn’t be all that drawn to a product that promised to treat my lower regions with all the delicate care of a hedge trimmer, but perhaps that’s just my inferior genetics getting in the way again. For all I know, spontaneous topiary may be the big in-thing among the ladies right now.
But the whole stack of potted plants still doesn’t compare in awkwardness to the birth control commercial I saw about six years ago, featuring some lithe young redhead dancing about gleefully in front of a green and white background to the suddenly hilarious strains of “There She Goes Again.” Right before my eyes and within my ears, this playful little song was thrust into a horrifying new context. But then, as my father deadpanned, at least it wasn’t “Oops! I Did It Again.”
One of these days I suppose advertisers will scrape past the current bottom of the barrel and find themselves sharing an uncomfortable silence in the mud with Enzyte Bob. For the time being, however, I have a sudden urge to go do some gardening work. But I think I’ll avoid the bushes, just in case.
* “But the point of commercials is to sell things,” you say, “not to be enjoyable.” To which I reply, “If I hate the commercial, I will go out of my way not to buy the product.” If I’m feeling particularly snotty, I might even add, “Q.E.D.”
** That is to say, I’m a guy. The Y chromosome doesn’t lend itself well to appreciating tampons, periodic cramping, or incessant yeast infections.
*** Always useful for when women need to change out their windshield wiper fluid.
**** I’ll explain it when you’re older.
Shenanigan: Interpreting King James
Posted by Luprand in Shenanigan on 12 July 2010
Cleveland is, at this point, used to being abused. When you’re mostly known for a humiliating fire, there’s not much you can do for PR.* Even The Drew Carey Show and Hot in Cleveland mostly capitalize on the stereotype of Clevelanders as a bunch of long-suffering rubes with the collective sex appeal and cultural erudition of Joey Trebbiani from Friends.
I’m sure most people in the city would rather be known for, say, the Cleveland Institute of Art, symphonies at Severance Hall, or Playhouse Square, but instead we wind up featured in works like Major League, a movie about a sports team owner who tries to shuffle the team away to a city with a better climate. To add insult to injury, it was less than a decade later that Art Modell said, “Hey, that’s a great idea!” and moved the Browns to Baltimore, renaming them the Ravens.
So really, the fact that LeBron James just played the city like the ugly girl at the end of the bar is nothing more than the slapdash icing on a burnt and bitter cake. And in some ways, I’m glad to see him go. Cleveland and the local media have been playing the Helena to James’s Demetrius for seven years now, fawning over his basketball skills, throwing anxious fits about whether he’d play for his hometown or “betray” us for a bigger city, duly nosing about when his mother bought him (gasp!) a Hummer. The city went so far in recent years as to drape a massive scroll of his likeness over the side of one of the taller buildings in town, captioned “We are all witnesses” in a bizarre aping of both Messianic culture and Chairman Mao.
But the thing about attention and adulation is that jaw-dropping excess is still never enough.** And when a city has already done everything but elect you their god-king, what can you do to get even more attention? Why, let your eye wander, of course. And with the end of his contract with the Cavaliers approaching, James milked the media for all they were worth. And at the end of it all was an hour-long ESPN sideshow, culminating in a very public break-up. There was some money donated to the local Boys and Girls Club, however, which I’m told makes it all okay.
For a brief moment in the city of Cleveland, LeBron James became more reviled than Goldman Sachs, BP, Miley Cyrus, the United States Congress, and Chad the Alltel guy combined. People burned his jerseys in the street, threw rocks at his enormous likeness, and generally bemoaned the fact that Cleveland’s economy no longer has a leg to stand on. The Cavs’ general manager sent out an angry little press release (in Comic Sans, no less), declaring that James was “taking the curse” with him and that the Cavs will win a championship before James can.
Personally, I’m less of a believer in storybook endings, no matter how tempting the fantasy. Most likely, Cleveland will continue to be the butt of the joke, the ugly girl at the end of the bar. And James, barring a change of heart or career-ending injury***, will probably go on winning games and making his new hometown proud.
Oh, well. At least we still have the Rock Hall.
* Chicago got loads of sympathy for their fire . . . but that was the 1870s rather than the 1970s. Not to mention that Chicago burned down the city instead of the river, but I digress.
** As an experienced fisher for compliments, I should know.
*** I’m not wishing such on him, but goodness gracious would it ever be poetic.
Shenanigan: Belated Patriotic Wishes
Posted by Luprand in Shenanigan on 5 July 2010
A day or so late, but I hope you’ll forgive.
COTM: Humane Societies
“I can has grammar lessons?”
This kitten’s name is Lorenzo. A couple of weeks ago, my dad and I found Lorenzo and his brother Max by the side of State Route 608 in Ohio. No shelter, no food—just two little kittens huddling next to each other and mewling in fear every time a car went zooming past. When we pulled over and tried to gather them up, they were understandably terrified, and it took Dad and me about five minutes of very careful pursuit in the ditch between a country highway and an electric fence to nab them both. Once we got them gathered up, we asked the local neighbors if the kittens belonged to any of them. No luck.
So Dad and I drove home with two frightened, hungry kittens wrapped up in a blanket from the back of my car. They were very light, as though they hadn’t eaten for some time. Lorenzo stayed huddled into the blanket, shivering, while Max kept trying to get out and explore the car’s interior. He mewed at me a lot.
We got the kittens home and almost immediately ran into more problems. Dad’s allergic to cats, you see, so we knew we couldn’t keep them. For the time being, we let the two of them settle on the back deck with a can of tuna and a little dish of cream. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw they way they fairly attacked their food. The kittens spent the night in a cardboard box on the deck, curled up in that same blanket.
The next day, I took them to the local Humane Society shelter, Rescue Village. The Village already had a lot of cats to take care of, but the workers were still willing to take care of Lorenzo and Max until someone could adopt them and give them a better life than the one they’d known.
So this month’s charity is your local Humane Society or other animal shelter (like the Puffy Paws Kitty Haven). You’ll probably have to do a quick online search to find the nearest one, but donations will help abused, neglected, or abandoned animals find new homes where they can have better lives.
And because I know you’re all curious, here’s Max:
“You pulled me away from the cream for this?”