The Allure of the Olde Game Ball - An Update

About two years ago, I blogged at my old site about the allure of snagging a baseball from a ballpark. Last night, I had a dream come true by catching a foul ball. What follows is an update of that post, plus a new chronicle of last night’s story.

I love going to baseball games. I live in Baltimore so I have ample opportunity to see the Orioles play at Camden Yards. One benefit to having the hometown team suck is that you can always get walkup tickets. I love when I can get up one Saturday or Sunday morning, see the bright sunshine and decide, “Gee, I’d like to go the game today.

There's just something about being there for the game, and I'm not talking about the beer. I mean, it's great be at any sporting event, but actually attending a baseball game makes up for how boring the game can be. A lot of that has to do with the ever-present danger that goes along with attending baseball games, and by that, I mean getting drilled with a ball.

It's been my childhood dream to get a ball... home run, foul ball, whatever... just to be the guy who thrusts it up to the sky and soaks in the smattering of applause from the crowd. I've been to more than 75 baseball games, including the major and minor leagues, and I've barely gotten a sniff before. Well, maybe there was one...

A couple years ago I was at a game with my sister and brother-in-law, in some very sweet seats in the first row, about 12 seats in from the foul pole. Jim Thome of the Phillies cracked a long fly ball right at us and as I tracked it's arc, I said, "nahhh, not gonna make it, not far enough," and remained sitting and I was exactly right, it didn't fly over the wall. However it did hit the rubberized warning track and boiiiiiing... bounced right up to us. The guy 2 seats down from me plucked it easily. Me? By the time it registered that this was the chance I'd been waiting for and stood up, the guy was already sitting back down with the ball. I was a solid 2 seconds behind in reacting, as the TV replays clearly showed. I looked like a guy going the wrong way on the Electric Slide.

See, that's exactly how I want my ball... on a nice soft bounce. I want a ball, don't get me wrong, but I think I'll pass on the broken hand. Let it bounce off the steps, or the upper deck facing, or someone else's head, I don't care. I have to be able to type in the morning.

I have a lot of respect for those dudes who actually pull off the barehanded catch. It should be a Man Rule that anyone who bare-hands a ball on the fly gets a warm round of applause from the other men. He earned it. Catching one with a glove does not impress me... I consider that cheating. The world is full of people who can catch a ball with a glove. But either way he should keep the ball. I'm not down with handing the ball to some kid, no-sirree. Let them earn it. They can go scramble for those balls that wind up under the seats. Believe you me; should I ever wind up with a game ball in my hand, it's going home with me. Maybe I'll bequeath it to a beloved niece or nephew, but not until it's been properly aged on one of my shelves. No good comes from handing the ball to the kid. At best, he'll be using it to play in the street until the seams burst. At worst, well, let me tell you what I saw at an Orioles game in 2006.

I was enjoying a game from some nice seats 10 rows behind home plate. The batter popped a foul ball that landed all the way at the back of the lower bowl. A guy came down with the ball... I don't remember if it was on the fly or bounce... anyway, he raises it over his head, then gallantly hands it to the boy standing beside him, who immediately hurls the ball back toward the field! Had that little ingrate been with me, the ball wouldn't have been the only thing hurled toward the field. I know sometimes people throw back home run balls hit by the visiting team, but it wasn't even a home run, just a simple foul ball. I don't know what's up with these kids anymore. I blame rap music and wearing pants with your underwear sticking out. Anyway, with the crowd chanting at him, the poor slob that grabbed the thrown ball had no choice but to toss it back. Once the guy had it back, I'm pretty sure he pocketed that baby for the rest of the game.

At least there was some honor shown by the second guy. There's something about getting these balls... maybe it's the allure of "something for nothing", that makes people go crazy. Once, out in the left field seats during batting practice, one little kid standing along the wall by himself asked an outfielder for a ball. The player tossed one up to the kid, but just then, some college-aged kid reaches over the first kid and snatches the throw. Everyone just kind of stood there aghast, including the player. He yelled up to give the ball back to the little kid. So the college kid promptly... turned and ran up the aisle and out. Unbelievable. I wish I'd have been sitting on the aisle, so I could have reached out and tripped him. Of course, by the time I would have reacted, two seconds would have gone by, the college kid would have passed, and I'd have tripped the little kid. File that under "I'll give you something to cry about..."

Eventually the player threw the kid another ball. But I'm surprised they throw them up at all. Have you ever heard the noise when a player ventures near a wall before the game... It's deafening... It's a high-pitched chorus of "Gimmeeeeeeeeeeeeeee", emanating from a permanent mob of 50 kids, and it never ends. I know they get paid a lot of money, but if I had to listen to that every day for 6 months, I'd spend a lot of time hiding in the clubhouse too.

Kids will screw with you just on principle. A couple years ago, I went to a Toledo Mud Hens minor league game with my friend Rik, his wife and three kids. The seats weren’t together; 4 were in the first row of the upper deck, and 2 were a couple of rows behind the dugout. Doing the only fair thing, Rik and I sat behind the dugout, and exiled the rest to the upper deck. (In all fairness, this was a small park, and their “upper deck” was only as high as most big league “club level” seats, and much closer to the field.)

So Rik and I are kickin’ it and enjoying the game when a batter hits a pop foul over to our side. As the ball nears the upper deck, we look up and see one gloved hand reach out and snag it. Then we notice that the glove is on a hand that belongs to Rik’s daughter Kia, who holds the ball up for us to see. There’s karma for you. I wonder if she lets her dad play with it…

Which brings me to last night…

I was at the game by myself, sitting about 8 rows from the field, half way between first base and the outfield wall. The Orioles were playing the Washington Nationals, which is a regional rivalry, so there was a pretty good crowd of 39,633, although the 3 rows in front of me were about empty. I’d been thinking about moving up 3 rows until a couple 4 rows up moved back one to give themselves more room.

Someone hit a screaming line drive that looked like it was coming right at us. Luckily it landed about 4 rows up and 6 seats to my right. I wanted to say to the row behind me, “If anything like that comes in here, don’t be looking for me to be in the way; I’m getting the hell out of Dodge.”

So about the 6th inning, I went for a pee and another beer. When I came back, I moved up one row, just for the hell of it. Up to bat comes Ronnie Belliard of the Nationals, their diminutive 2nd baseman. (Seriously, the dude’s 5’8”.) He promptly sent a pop foul our way.

I was sitting there watching it, thinking, “nope, not gonna make the seats,” and remained seated. Then it hit the rubberized perimeter track. “Boiiiiiiiing!” Déjà vu.

This time, I stood up immediately as the ball bounced right up to me. I snatched it as easily as picking an apple off a tree.

Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I held it up briefly then sat back down in a hurry. There’s no hamming it up when you catch one on the bounce. But nevertheless, I had my first game ball.
The people in the row behind me were like, “Man, you just moved there and it came right to you!”

I said it must have been good Karma and that I’d never been close to one before. (I decided this wasn’t the time or place for the Jim Thome story.) I then apologized to the 15-year old boy sitting two seats down. Ball would have been his if I wasn’t there. I hadn’t really even noticed him… I just reached up high when the ball came.

So I said, “Sorry about that, but hey, you’re young. You’ll get another chance.” He was gracious about it, which is rare. 15-year old boys are not often gracious about anything.

So that’s that. I get to check off one thing from my lifelong “To Do Before I Die” list. Game ball… caught.

Next up: My Academy Award! All pictures courtesy of ME!

Missing an Angel

I know I haven’t posted in a while… I’ve been working on my reaction to the Pittsburgh Penguins winning the Stanley Cup, (Whooooo!) but I felt compelled to comment on this development today.
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I can't say I was unprepared for this moment, but it still hit me like a punch in the gut.

Farrah Fawcett died today after a 3 year battle with cancer. The online world has been filling cyberspace with lavish tributes and remembrances. This is my small one.

I was 15 when Charlie's Angels came out and I already had The Poster. (My dad eagerly bought one each for my brother and me.) I watched the show, I clipped her pictures out of magazines, read books about her; I devoured everything Farrah. I remember watching her play tennis against Bill Cosby on Battle of the Network Stars and rooting desperately for her to win. (I’m sure Cos tanked that shot at match point to let her win.)

She was my Marilyn Monroe.

I didn't want to watch her last Special, but I just couldn't help it. I know it may have been considered an opportunistic grab for attention, but it was also heartbreaking.

I feel a bit like I did when Princess Diana died. It was the loss of someone I didn’t know and was a million miles away in every sense. But it was like losing someone I’ve known all my life. It doesn’t really make sense, does it? Except deep inside, it does.

Our world got a little bit dimmer today. That was one Angel I always believed in.

Bill Killed

The recent stories about the death of David Carradine (Kung Fu TV series, Kill Bill 1 & 2, etc.) have gone from upsetting, to puzzling, to the inevitable disgust. Doesn’t look so much like a suicide anymore… Can you say Michael Hutchence? Evidence points to the conclusion that David Carradine died the same way as the former INXS lead singer did back in 1997… of “auto-erotic asphyxiation”. Carradine’s family is asking for FBI investigation, saying that he must have been set up.

But regardless, what an embarrassing way to go; hanging buck naked in a Bangkok hotel from a curtain cord that’s also tied to your junk. At least they can name the room after you: The Carradine Swinger’s Suite.

Nice legacy there, Grasshopper! Now see if you can snatch some dignity from the hand of… um… never mind. I guess your hands were already occupied.

Because I’m, well… me, this story made me wonder about a couple things:

1.) Can someone sue the hotel for having a dangerous curtain cord there? I’m sure someone will try that, although in Bangkok, you’re probably more likely to be screwed directly, rather that through the courts, like here.

I don’t know what else they’d use to hold back their curtains… maybe twisty ties? And if they have to get rid of curtain cords, what’s next? Maybe they confiscate your belt when you check in. Maybe provide only battery-powered irons so you can’t misuse the cord. And what next, do they remove the sheets too? Maybe they can substitute those foil NASA blankets that reflect body heat or something.

2.) Wouldn’t this make a great Very Special Episode of Ghost Whisperer?

I could just see Melinda being visited by a ghost that says, “Say, I have a bit of an emergency here… I’m hanging in a closet over at the Marriott with no clothes on and a used Kleenex at my feet? Could you get down there and cover my ass up before housecleaning gets there? That is, if there’s room enough in the closet for my rigor mortised boner and your enormous eyelashes.

3.) And wouldn’t this be a great place for one of those celebrity Public Service Announcements?

“Hi, I’m Jennifer Love Hewitt. If you’re considering alternate forms of self-gratification, please keep your feet on the ground. Only a dope… uses the rope. Thank you.

Requiem for the Queen

I lost another one of my idols yesterday, with the death of Koko Taylor, Queen of the Blues. She was 80 years old. From picking cotton as a girl, to cleaning houses, to ruling the blues clubs, Koko was an American original. As she said, she came to Chicago with nothing in her pocket but “35 cents and a box of Ritz Crackers.”

I was working in a record store in 1984, when I discovered Koko on a live Montreux Blues compilation, singing her signature song, “Wang Dang Doodle”, for which she won her only Grammy. My thought was “this woman sings so hard it sounds like she’s going to hurt herself.”

Later I heard her sing “Come To Mama” on 1985’s “Queen of the Blues” for Alligator Records, a song more frequently heard being done as “Come To Papa” by Bob Seger. The more I heard, the more I liked her.

I bought my first Koko Taylor record when she released “Jump For Joy” in 1990. All it took was one listen to the opening track, “Can’t Let Go”, and I was sold. With it’s thumping beat, wicked guitar solos, horn flourishes and keyboard sting surrounding Koko’s powerful vocals, it instantly became a regular on my CD player.
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Normally, I’m partial to upbeat blues numbers… think Stevie Ray, Johnny Winter, Albert Collins… But later on that same disk, she has a song called “Only Time Will Tell”, which became my favorite slow blues tune ever. While straightening up after he's gone, she wonders if her man really loves her any more.

I’ll empty those ashtrays
His glass, put away
Straighten that sofa…
All those marks I’ll erase.

In the last verse she kicks it into high gear:

But will I ever,
Will I ever erase from my mind
Oh, the way he looked at me
Oh, the way he kissed me good night?
Ooooooonly time…
Ooooooonly time…
Only time will tell.

By the time she hits the first “Only time…” she’s singing with the wailing anguish of a woman whose heart is being torn apart. I still get goose bumps every time I play it. If that song does not move you, you don’t have a soul.

This isn’t to say that Koko’s blues are always blue. In “Ernestine” from 1993, she manages to be both blue and funny. In it she warns a romantic rival about what’s in store for her if she continues to mess with Koko’s man:

I warned you once,
Girl without a doubt.
Two strikes, you lose,
The third strike, you out.
Like a baseball game,
You messin’ with a slugga.
I’ll hit a grand slam,
Cuz I’m a bad mutha fugga!



I saw Koko play live twice. One time she played a free outdoor show out on the street in downtown Albany NY. Another time she headlined a 5-act blues show put on by Alligator Records. This was when I worked for my record store’s home office and had connections such that I could have my folks fly out for the show and not only get free tickets and backstage passes, we sat in a little roped off section in the 2nd row with some others from the company. So we went backstage after the show and meet all the acts. Luckily my parents had been to a concert before. Good thing, or else they might have thought that this was always what happens when you go to a show.

We really enjoyed meeting Koko. Her act was last up so you could see that she was still tired from her set. It showed in her demeanor as well as the little ball of sweat still on the end of her nose. But she was gracious and friendly to all of us, even though you could tell she just wanted to get out of those heels and that Supremes dress.

Now Koko is gone from this earth, but never from my heart, mind or stereo. They broke the mold when they made her. In this time of instant American Idols and disposable celebrity, we’ll never see another one like the Queen of the Blues.

Safe on, dear Koko. You will be sorely missed.

Goodbye Old Friend

I had to banish an old friend today… A friend that had been there for me through thick and thin, to whose bosom I rushed whenever I had to forget my daily troubles. Sadly, my friend had worn out his usefulness and I had him taken away.
No, it wasn’t just Darth. It was my old reliable 32” Toshiba. The times had just passed him by and a younger, sleeker model caught my eye.

Hello, new friend!

This is my new friend, the Samsung 46” LCD. I think I’ll call him Samson. (It would have been just “Sammy”, but I already have one of those.)

Oh how I love your smooth lines. So much more picture to love and a remote as long as my arm. I’ve already seen one hockey game with you and it was life changing. We are going to party, my friend.
No wussy chick flicks on you, Samson. It’s going to be nothing but sports and action flicks. I’ll have Independence Day running on a 24-hour loop, with Rambo in the Picture in Picture. Maybe once in a while, I’ll switch to a cooking show, while they celebrate Bacon Week. Yeah, life with Samson will be great.

Still, Toshiba and I have been through a lot together. We met back in 1993 or ’94, back when I lived in Albany NY and was married. (Cold chill runs down back.)

Man, we’ve seen a lot of history. We’ve seen three Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl runs, one of which still gives me nightmares but is more than made up for by the other two. We’ve seen countless Steelers Monday Nighters and playoff games. We’ve seen hundreds of Penguins hockey games, most of which came in the last three years when I’ve had the NHL Center Ice package. We’ve seen the Orioles suck for 11 straight years. Haven’t seen many Pirates games, but that’s probably a blessing.

We’ve seen 4 sets of Olympic games. So many sights there… Kerri Strug sticking a vault on one leg, Brandy Chastain nailing down a soccer gold and becoming the poster-girl for buff women, Michael Phelps winning every medal in sight, even with a little help from his friends. There was Tonya and Nancy going head to head or knee to knee for skating gold, as well as countless other twisting and spinning ballerinas with blades on their feet.

We’ve seen the entire run of ER and Friends and all of 24 and Lost so far. We’ve seen series finales of NYPD Blue, Seinfeld and countless other quality shows that came and went; torpedoed by the lowest common denominator demands of the American public.

And there’s been history!

We’ve seen four Presidential elections: half thrilling, half nauseating. We choked back tears watching Diana’s funeral. We wept openly the afternoon of 9/11. We’ve seen Jon Stewart make mincemeat of the powerful and pretentious, making us laugh till we cry the good kind of tears.

So it wasn’t at all an easy decision to upgrade. Toshiba probably would have lasted many more years. But progress is inevitable and 3-years free financing is a powerful argument. I woke up on Saturday knowing I would be greeting my new and promising friend Samson and any apprehensions I may have had flew right out the window when the Best Buy guys brought that giant box in the door. They set him up, hoisted the remote into my hand and wished me well.

Into the manual I flew, wanting to know everything I could about my new friend. After some stops and starts, I got the DVD, the Wii and the surround sound into working order.

Now, let’s see what she’s got!

OK, not so fast. Sadly, I failed to realize that regardless of Samson’s broadcasting prowess, it was still a Saturday afternoon, meaning there wasn’t shit on TV (unless you count golf, which isn’t as much TV as it is the best cure for insomnia, right next to NASCAR).

Sigh.

OK, let’s check out the “E” channel and their special on “The Best and Worst Beach Bodies.” We’ll start working on making new history later.

Bail To The Chief

My man James Harrison of the Pittsburgh Steelers is taking a lot of flack lately, because of his choosing not to go with his teammates to the White House and meet President Obama.

First of all he was quoted as saying, "This is how I feel -- if you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don't win the Super Bowl. As far as I'm concerned, he would've invited Arizona if they had won.”

I think he’s missing the point a bit, but OK, whatever you want to do, James. I saw the film of him saying that, and I just get the idea that it was the first thing that popped into his head. He does have a history of messing with the press. So maybe he has other reasons. Like his agent said, “It absolutely is not political. He just doesn't want to go.”

What really puzzles me is wondering why, exactly, this is a story that’s being reported in dozens of news sources? Is this really news? It wasn’t news when he didn’t go with the team to meet the President after Super Bowl XL. So what if he’s had a couple of outstanding seasons since then? It’s the exact same choice now as then.

I say, just let James be James. He has his reasons and he doesn’t have to explain them to any of us. The only thing he needs to do is justify his new gargantuan contract by continuing to play like a monster. This video shows you why James is a big deal. And I can tell you the exact moment I became a big Harrison fan… it’s at the 2:57 mark.


Then there’s this other shining moment…

(Ed Reed is still wishing someone would answer that damned phone.)

Maybe one day, he’ll look back on this as a missed opportunity and regret that he didn’t just go along. But either way, that’s his problem.

I’d really hate to see this entire hullabaloo turn him off from talking to the press. He had one of my all time favorite sports quotes back in January of 2008, after the Steelers lost to the Jaguars in the opening round of the playoffs.

The Jags’ QB ran 30 yards on a 4th and 3, blatantly aided by an uncalled holding penalty. They were holding the rushers all night but on this play one of their lineman was holding Larry Foote like a wedding usher as the runner went by. Hell, I could see it even from MY vantage-point:
The next day, when asked about the non-calls, Harrison said "I have nothing to say about that. I ain't got no fine money to give away for talking about them blind refs, so I got nothing to say."

That kind of eloquence should never be silenced.

Musical Memory Lane

Do you ever hear a group or a song and have it immediately take you back to another time and place in your life? That happens to me all the time. Music just has a way of zooming past right reason, directly into your subconscious. One minute I’m driving to work, the next I’m a little kid listening to the car radio and fighting with my brother and sister.

Here are a handful of my associations, right off the top of my head:

Simon & Garfunkel – Anything from “Bridge Over Troubled Water”: I was in probably 4th grade, living outside Chicago. Mom began playing this album all the time and it bugged me because it replaced the soundtrack to “Hair”, which she previously played all the time. “Hair” was much more fun, although I eventually grew to love S&G.

Carole King – Anything from “Tapestry”: I’m in 5th grade; we live in Bexley Ohio, driving to or from the grocery store in our brown 1960 Rambler (named “The Bomb”). Carole King was on the radio every 15 minutes back then… she was inescapable.

Anything by Bob Seger: We had just moved to Toledo from Columbus and were still getting used to everything being so far away, so we spent much more time in the car driving to the store and whatnot. Bob Seger is from Detroit, so we also had to get used to hearing him on the radio every 15 minutes, coming from the tinny AM radio in our yellow Jeep Wagoneer (named “Jaundice”). “Turn the Page”, however, always calls back the drunken sing-a-longs, standing arm in arm around the bar during our infamous Barn Parties.

Boston – “More Than a Feeling”: Driving to school in my buddy John’s beat up VW bug. You could see the road through the floorboards, but the speakers were good. I always remember the clarity of the high-hats ringing out as the song faded out. That album was brilliantly engineered in 1976, and still holds up today.

Rod Stewart – “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy”: Summer of 1979, driving down to Findlay Ohio with my buddy Rik, to see some girls. It was the disco era and Rockin’ Rod put out this steamy, thumping single that was definitely the soundtrack to our horndog activities. Rik’s girlfriend lived in Findlay and had a friend that wanted to meet me, so we hit the road in hot pursuit. I can still remember my Dad’s parting words of advice: “Be careful now… I don’t need any more mouths to feed.”

Molly Hatchet – “Flirting With Disaster”: Flying down Monclova Rd. heading for Dale’s Bar in Maumee. Wide open 2-lane highway, a great driving song on the radio and good times on my mind.
Anything by Pat Benatar: My college girlfriend was friends with a bunch of women’s softball jocks who worshipped at the altar of Pat. Benatar was played for pre-game psych-up and boyfriend break-up. When Pat came on, you best watch your ass, buddy.

The Cars first album: Pop perfection… I wore that cassette tape out on my daily commutes to and from Bowling Green. It got to be so predictable it was like, “hmm, if “Moving in Stereo” is on, I must be in Haskins.”

REO Speedwagon – Hi Infidelity: Totally belongs to said college girlfriend. “Keep On Lovin’ You” was totally ‘our song’, as I suppose it was for many, many others in 1980. We used to put that on the turntable in her basement (along with James Taylor’s “Greatest Hits” and Doobie Bros. “Minute by Minute”) and make out like crazed weasels.

Anything by AC/DC but especially the old stuff with Bon Scott: Barn Parties! Jamming in long, sweaty “performances” imitating Angus Young and invariably waking up with a stiff neck. (Click the vid below to see Angus play and you'll see what I mean.) Busting out the AC/DC at a Barn Party was the sign that the party was at its peak. No sense bringing out the heavy artillery too early… Best. Party. Band. Ever.

There are also a ton of concert memories, having seen them 5 times, but those are stories for another time.

Meat Loaf – Paradise by the Dashboard Lights: College parties and dances, grabbing a partner and acting out the whole thing. That whole album “Bat Out of Hell” was phenomenal and I was just getting into it about that time. In fact, when I wasn’t playing The Cars on the way to school, I was playing “Bat Out of Hell”, especially if the weather was bad. I used to think, “If I’m going to buy it on this stretch of road outside of Haskins, I might as well go out to some good music.” It sort of became my good luck charm that way… when the snow came down, I put on Bat Out of Hell, because I knew The Loaf would get me home. I wanted to tell him that story back when I met him in 1993, but chickened out.

George Thorogood: I remember coming home late on a Saturday night and my Dad was watching Saturday Night Live. He said, “You gotta see the musical act…” George was on and he’d already played “Bad to the Bone”, but I waited long enough to see him come back and play “Back to Wentzville”. I will never forget seeing him rocking that big white Gibson while I pretended not to be drunk.
The next week I was picking out the records for my shift on WBGU radio and the jock before me was playing “One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer.” I was like, damn, this guy’s good… I went out and started buying Thorogood albums immediately. You can always count on George. It occurred to me last year, as I was seeing him live for the umpteenth time, “if cavemen could rock, they’d play George Thorogood.

Joan Jett – “Bad Reputation” album: Doing one of my radio shifts and having our Program Director come in and whip this album on me and say “check this out!” The cover showed this tough looking leather chick… I scanned the song list… “Do Ya Wanna Touch Me?” I’m like, “that’s sounds interesting…” I put it on the turntable to cue it up and caught that opening riff and went, “Oh yeah… that’s the one.” Been a Joan fan ever since.

Joan memory Pt 2: Years later, I was at a listening party for “Up Your Alley” and I got to meet her as the sound system was blasting “I Hate Myself for Loving You”. I told her “I can’t wait to get this in the car!”

That song still crunches, and whenever I hear it, I have to think of getting to spend a couple minutes schmoozing with the Queen of Rock.

Swine Flu Prevention

This just in! The best tip for avoiding the Swine Flu? Don't do this:
Ba-dump bump.

A Word From Our Sponsor: "You're Stupid!"

One thing I’m sure we here in America have in common is the hatred of TV commercials.

Now I’ll stipulate that there are occasionally cool, interesting commercials that are worth the whole 30 seconds. Unfortunately these are usually clustered into Super Bowl Sunday, which is Network Television’s desperate plot to keep people from going to the bathroom. I think that whenever ad producers come up with a quality idea, they stockpile it for the Super Bowl. No sense wasting it on Biggest Loser. So that leaves the other 364 for commercials meant to creep into your subconscious and cling there until they become an answer on Jeopardy.

“I’ll take Lowest Common Denominator for $100, Alex.”
Let me try to briefly explain something I learned back in my Radio/TV/Film classes back in school. Networks don’t really care what they put on the air. Not in the specific sense. TV programs only exist to entice the public to watch the commercials. Networks may hype their “gripping dramas” and “hilarious comedies”, but the quality of the program is incidental. It’s merely a tool to get more people watching, therefore making them able to charge more for airing commercials. Networks do not endeavor to improve the public’s consciousness in any way; they endeavor to make money. Commercials = money. It’s as simple as that. Why do you think they fought tooth and nail over the VCR back in the ‘80s, and they fought to prevent Tivo in the late 90’s? They’re terrified that we’re finding ways to avoid their commercials. I’m surprised they let the remote control become part of the standard TV package.

So knowing this, there’s a lot of thought that goes into the commercials we see. And that’s why I hate them so much. I don’t like what they think of us. They think we’re morons.

To the Ad Agencies that make these things the American Public can be broken down into these nice little segments:

Men: Brain-dead dipshits trained to salivate uncontrollably at the prospect of more beef, hot chicks and “hemi” engines. And beer… lots and lots of beer. Men shown inside a house are incapable of accomplishing absolutely anything without close oversight by their all-knowing, ever-smiling, boundlessly patient wives.

Women: Shallow harpies who slobber shamelessly over the prospect of their brain-dead dipshit bringing them a shiny trinket from “Jared’s, The Galleria of Jewelry”. (And if I may, what the fuck is a “Galleria”, if not what some yutz though was a fancy way of saying “Gallery?”) If allowed, women will spend every dollar they can get their hands on buying jars of stuff to put on their faces, hair, hips, legs, feet, whatever, if only to coerce their faithful slob to get his ass over to Jared’s. This is in and around hovering over their slacker teens and adorable moppets, to make sure they’re eating reaching their RDA of glutens and preservatives.

Kids: Know-it-all teen slackers and precocious know-it-all tots… If, Heaven forbid Mom is not around to tell Dad what to do, you can count on the kids to bring wise beyond their years insight to the buffoon of the household. That’s only if they can park their skateboards for a second, put down the Mountain Dew, and get off the goddamned cell phone. (That dear old Dad pays for, of course.)

This is us, as seen by the companies from which you buy, well, everything.

I used to work in retail, so I admit that I already have a pretty low perception of John Q. Public. I’ve seen us up close and it’s not pretty. So I admit that there can be bits of truth in all these crass depictions. But I have to wonder, are the advertisers depicting us as we are, or are we acting like what we see on TV?

I hate when they just make shit up and act like it’s something special, like “Drinkability.” Have you ever seen some smug putz in an ugly hat lounging around waxing poetic about the “drinkability” of his beer? Not in any of the bars I’ve hung out at… It would be like, “You know what pal? If it’s beer, it’s drinkable. It ain’t special. Now let’s consider your ass. It’s got “bootability. Now get the hell out of my face before punt your ass into the bar across the street! And Judge Smails called, he wants his hat back”

I also believe that there is a special place in Hell for ad jingle writers. They have a talent for writing song snippets so banal, yet so self-sustaining that you just want to jam pencils in your ears.

If we want to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, forget sending more troops. Send loudspeakers, playing the “$5 Footlooooong” jingle. Gah! By the end of the first day, 10,000 terrorists will have blown themselves up. I just typed that and already I can’t get it out of my head. It makes me want to strap a bomb to my chest and run out to Subway right now. The same goes for that McDonalds fish sandwich song. As if that Billy Bass thing wasn’t irritating enough on it’s own…

The commercials that are driving me totally batshit right now are those new Comcast commercials. Those of you in areas not (poorly) serviced by Comcast have been fortunate enough to duck these but here’s an example below:

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It’s like a graphic artist dropped some acid and got a robot to write the jingle. Then they get these sideways-looking, smirking automatons to ramble this nonsense for an entire minute. It’s like they thought those Free Credit Report.com commercials were just too peppy… “Lets keep the smirking slackers, but just make it more monotone!”

And they think that this will make us want to sign up for Comcast? If I had any alternative here, I’d cancel my Comcast account just to smite them for subjecting me to that idiotic commercial 3 times a night.

I want to leave you with a takeaway. The next time you’re watching TV, pay attention to the commercials a bit. Ask yourself, “What are they telling me here? Why are these people doing the things they’re doing? Why are they acting the way they’re acting? What does the advertiser think of the people in his commercial?”

“And given all that, what does he think of me?”

The “Aha Moment”™

I saw in the news yesterday that there is a dispute now over the rights to the “Aha Moment”™. You may have seen these commercials by Liberty Mutual where people describe pivotal moments in their lives as their “Aha Moments”™.

I’m not terribly clear what the link is to Liberty Mutual, but in using this phrase, they have incurred the wrath of Oprah. It seems she is claiming she owns the term and wants Liberty Mutual to cease and desist its use.

If they are wise, they will give Oprah what she wants. It is important to remember that she commands an army of minions, willing to do what she wants, buy what she wants, and most importantly boycott whom she wants. Trust me guys, it’s easier this way. You got some commercials on; they got noticed, now run along. No one crosses the Big O and lives to tell the tale.

Except me, of course, because those spots got me thinking about the Aha Moments™ in my own life. And at great risk of personal peril, I dare to bring them to you now.

1) Learning to tell time
I had a devil of time with telling time as a boy. (Remember, this was long before digital clocks and watches became commonplace.) We covered it in class, my parents tried to teach me… nothing worked. I knew the even up o’clocks, but unless it was the top of the hour, I just didn’t get it. They would always asked me if I could count by fives… That was easy! I could rattle off 5-10-15-20… but I just didn’t see how it applied.

Then one day, in 1st grade, I was staring at the clock and bing, I got it. It just sort of clicked into place, making the connection between the numbers and the fives. Been on time ever since.

2) Not giving a shit
It’s always been popular among students to complain that what they’re learning won’t matter outside of school. I used to as well, until I learned one of my life’s basic tenets in junior year English Lit. We were studying Thoreau and Emerson and learning about self-reliance and non-conformism and it really hit home.

I used to be a kid that killed himself trying to please everyone… being everything to all people. It never worked, least of all for me. Suddenly I realized; it didn’t really matter what other people thought. I had a handful of solid friends: I didn’t need anything from anyone else… approval, status, lunch money… I had what I needed, so why give a shit what anyone else thought? Bing!

School (and life) was so much easier once you don’t give a shit. The yoke of conformity was thrown off and I began to really enjoy life, thanks to English Lit class and a brilliant teacher named Roy Williamson. He allowed me to use his blackboard to get into a limerick war with some Neanderthal in an earlier class. (Whom I destroyed, of course.) He let me post a daily pun on the board as well. He gave me encouragement and a sense of place when I had been floating on the periphery for my whole school life.

I went on to join the school newspaper, which gave me an outlet for my wise-ass writing and more importantly, an audience. While I might have joined the paper without Mr. Williamson’s class, I would have spent too much time wondering if anyone would like what I was writing. Instead, I just let it fly and moved on.

Mr. Williamson retired after that year so I didn’t get to take College Composition with him as a senior. Some friends and I visited his house once that year, just to say hi, but I always regret that I never got a chance to thank him for so positively affecting my life. Teachers like that don’t come along every day.

3) Understanding computers
I went through school just ahead of the PC revolution, so to me they were always some kind of inscrutable, mysterious Pandora’s Box, capable of blowing up at a moment’s notice.

I first used a desktop PC in 1992, at the home office of the music retailer I worked for. It was running Lotus and WordPerfect, and a jerry-rigged version of internal email. I learned how to do things bit by bit, usually from the admins in the office. Everything was keyboard oriented… there were no mice.

I never used Windows or even a mouse until I moved to Baltimore in 1997. I picked up some Excel and Word pretty easily, but I really didn’t know much more about how things operated. I still hadn’t even seen the Internet. But the ability to edit what I wrote in-screen was life changing.

Finally one day I was poking around some of the folders on my work PC and it dawned on me that all the information stored on a computer were basically just like a file drawer system… files, in folders, in bigger folders, in drawers. Bing!

I could find things, file things and do some minor troubleshooting. It was in that moment that I realized that I could actually own one of these things. In August of 1998, I bought my first PC… a training PC if you will. It had about 47 gigs of storage and a 15” monitor. Off I went, not looking back.
Now I can’t imagine life without one. I can keep in touch with friends and family all over the country. I’ve met people from all over the country. All my Christmas shopping is done online. Heck, pretty much everything I buy that isn’t groceries comes from an online store. Plane tickets, hotel reservations, photography, news, weather, sports, music, TV, movies, driving directions… everything comes from my computing life.

There was a time that I thought the idea of my owning a computer was preposterous. Now I’m on my 3rd website. Live and learn, baby. No looking back now.