Wednesday, June 09, 2004

 

Your Message Here ($500.00)

One of capitalism's sideshow amusements is advertising for advertising. There are always people out there who will let you plaster whatever message you wish across the surface of their property, for the right price. But apparently competition is fierce, and some are not getting as many messages plastered as they'd like. It is then that they must get the word out: I have blank space, sell your crap on it!

My coworker brought in some of this detritus. A great example of an advertising department publicly hawking to other advertising departments. Much of the copy is speckled with the jargon of the industry. When held up to the light of the flatbed scanner, it is a true source of merriment:



For the last thirty years, mankind has yearned for three things: a clean, reliable and renewable energy source; a political system that fosters justice and freedom; and paper bag advertising that works. Well, cross one off the list, sweetheart. This paper bag advertising succeeds where others have failed, because it...it...well, uh....

Perhaps there are meaningless bullet-points on the back of the bag that will tell us.



Solid!

Paper Bag Advertising That Works:


• Element of Surprise: People do not expect to see ads on their deli bags!

People don't expect to see ads written in blood across their kid's foreheads, either! Check out my new company, GoYOURKIDSFOREHEAD!


• Desktop Call To Action: GoBAGs are brought back to people's desks where they can easily act on the ad message; either by logging onto a website or by calling a phone number.

There is something oxymoronic about the phrase "Desktop Call to Action." A desktop just doesn't inspire heroics. "The city is being invaded by the Mole People! Issue the Desktop Call To Action!" And closewindow.


• Street Exposure: GoBAGs provide advertising exposure to passersby on the street, multiplying the reach of your ad campaign.

Yes, you too can find you message lying in a gutter, trodden on by the wet boots of commuters! You too can have your message used by dog owners to clean up the poo!

But it doesn't end there, friends. The people who brought you GoBAG have a variety of advertising opportunities for you.

Coffee Cup Advertising:


• Longevity: GoCUPS are taken & held for up to 30 minutes!

Remember, guys, you have to hold for up to thirty minutes before falling asleep HARDEEHARDEEHAR the wife loves that one...


• Visibility: GoCUPS are taken back to the office and are seen by colleagues.

"Hey Matt, did you see that coffee cup on the desk of Mike from Accounting? No, the other Mike. No, the blonde Mike, the one whose wife went dyke on him."


• Muliplyer [sic]:GoCUP ads enjoy a multiplying effect when many people are seen at one time carrying the same ad cup.

Is the "multiplying effect" a real phenomena, with a basis in psychology, or is it just made-up advertising bibbeldy-boo? Personally, if I saw everybody carrying the same ad cup, I'd think I was going insane and/or in a 70s futuristic dystopia.

And finally, witness an act of advertising desperation...

Sugar Packet Advertising:


• Targeting: A great way to reach people who like sweets.

We're looking at you, insulin industry.


• Complimentary: The perfect compliment to GoCUP advertising.

Remember, for her birthday, holiday, or anniversary, nothing says "I Love You" more than a matching GoAD set of cups, bags and sugar packets. Available in mulberry or aquamarine.


• Longevity: People hold onto unused packets for days, even weeks.

Man, you can just hear the poor copy writer straining his abdominals to squeeze that last one out.

"Three pros about sugar packets? How am I supposed to spin that? They're sugar packets, for God's sake. They line your desk drawer for a few years until you get promoted or fired. God, what am I doing wasting my time at this job? I've got a PhD in Russian Lit, for God's sake, I should be translating Bulgakov. Six o'clock can't come too soon. I'm going to go home and actually write tonight...oh wait, dammit, my roommate's stupid band is playing again..."

posted by Dan 12:56 PM
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Monday, June 07, 2004

 

Going Out, Dressed Like That

She was sitting across from me, and a little to my left, on the L train. Twenties, red highlights, slightly cleft chin, and (what caught me eye) a Cub Scout uniform shirt. Pack 18. Did she buy it in a Salvation Army, or did she borrow it from her brother? Did she buy it in the city, or on her last trip home? Did it belong to a pack leader, or a little boy? I can't see if there are any rank badges on the shirt pocket; she's got her arms tucked across her breasts, elbows meeting at the middle.

If the shirt did belong to a Cub Scout, would he be excited to know that his shirt is the garment of a beautiful lady? That's what I called young women when I was eight. I loved beautiful ladies. They were my favorite part of the Pasadena Grand Floral Parade, the beautiful ladies enthroned upon the floats, waving to the crowd. That, and the giant moving Snoopy made of white hydrangeas. I would've been thrilled to know a beautiful lady would someday wear my shirt. Could she come to my house? Perhaps she would like to view my collection of Colorforms.

Of course, it could have belonged to an adult volunteer, a parent, or even a den mother. Maybe this woman is a den mother, though somehow I doubt it. Not too many den mothers riding out of Williamsburg these days. Did the shirt belong to a dad who guided his son into Scouting, as mine did, hoping that it would teach him honor, courage, self-reliance? Boy, that project was a flop in my case. I cried easily as a kid. Not the gladiola-gripping poet's tears, but a pathetic mucusy snivel. It must've given my dad a few sleepless nights. "Scouts, that'll turn him around," he might've thought. The old man loves scouts, because it turned him around. Perhaps the shirt belonged to a father like that, or maybe the father of a strong, brave boy, who made his dad proud. There were boys like that in my Cub Scout pack,a nd later in my Boy Scout Troop. And they all hated me. And I hated Scouts. But my old man loved it, so I stayed.

The lady moved her elbows. No rank badges. Either it belonged to an adult, or to a large, underachieving boy, or the patches had fallen off. Four diamonds on the shirt pocket, forming a larger diamond.

       Bobcat,

Wolf,        Bear,

      Webelos.

WEBELOS stands for WE'll BE Loyal Scouts, by the way. Cub Scout Motto: Do Your Best. Did I do my best in Cub Scouts? Yes, when I was doing things that I liked. Archery. Painting my Pinewood Derby race car for the annual meet. I didn't do so well with swimming and sports. On the other hand, I achieved the required achievements. And as bad of a Cub Scout as I was, I was a terrible Boy Scout. Cub Scout Oath: I, Danny Trujillo, promise to do my best to do my duty to God and my country, to help other people, and to obey the Law of the Pack. What was the Law of the Pack? I didn't remember, so I googled it:

The Cub Scout follows Akela. The Cub Scout helps the pack go. The pack helps the Cub Scout grow. The Cub Scout gives goodwill.

"Hold on there," you may say. "Who's this Akela fellow that Cub Scouts are following? Does Akela have any relation to Ba'al or the Cthulu?" It's a reference to Kiplings's The Jungle Book, from which Cub Scouts derives a great deal of its pomp and circumstance. Akela was the leader of a pack of wolves that took care of the main character, a boy named Mowgli. In the Cub Scout Pack, the Pack leader is called Akela. The name transformed an adult volunteer who worked as an insurance underwriter into a semi-mystical ambassador of nature. Very effective on small boys.

I wonder if that woman sitting across from me had a clue about all of the symbolism and memory wrapped up in that shirt. Did she just think it was funny to wear it, you know, like irony and stuff? Did she put it on to share a smart laugh about it with her friends? "Oh Mandy, that is so hilarious, to wear the uniform of a homophobic right-wing organization, pass the Chomsky and the benwa balls." Or did she wear it because it belonged to her dad, who died last month? I knew a kid in college whose father died, and he went around wearing the old man's dilapidated wool suits for the next few months. When my friend Steve died, I wore his jacket a lot. And Steve and I weren't even that close. He was taller than me, and when I wore his jacket, I felt taller.

You don't see many people wearing second-hand uniforms these days, ironically or otherwise. Not like the eighties, when it seemed like every teen was shopping the Army/Navy surplus. Was she trying to jump-start a fashion trend? Or is it already a fashion trend, and I finally noticed? So many trends seem to be made of fetishized elements of other people's lives. Has it always been that way? Nehru jackets, retro, the Swing Revival? Is this what it feels like to have a piece of your own past ground into the vogue meal? I'm intrigued, even flattered, but also pissed, and I didn't even like the Scouts. Is this how the Hindu feels when he or she sees the Ganesh earrings dangling off an NYU student from Nebraska? Or why those Catholics freaked out at Madonna? No, that was religious zealotry. It's not like I want this woman burned at the stake for wearing the Blue and Gold. Hell, she gave me something to pass the train ride thinking about. What the shirt means.

Why must it mean anything? This shirt, which this woman probably bought because she liked it, which she probably put on this morning because the weather looked hot and the cotton breathes, is to me a twenty-volume set of encyclopedias. It's the curse of experience that meaning burdens everything. Trivial knick-knacks become Olympian deities. Watch out or I'll give them their Homeric Hymns. Memories, and the act of remembering, become more alluring and solemn, and thorny, because there are so many reasons to deceive myself about the past. I will turn into a sorry Proust, if I'm not careful.

posted by Dan 12:34 PM
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I Was Going To Write About Reagan

But Isaac said everything I felt like saying.

Damn him.

posted by Dan 9:59 AM
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