It's All One Big Ad


So here I am, raking my yard. The sun is shining and a gentle breeze blows from the southwest. All of a sudden my house is flattened and my family is scorched to death by a bunch of spirited, carousing teens goofing off in this monolithic space vehicle and having a great time. Then suddenly a monstrous hatch opens at the bottom of said intergalactic vehicle and these fun loving rowdies are literally dropped out along with a big Mountain Dew machine from roughly 218 feet. Miraculously, not one of them is injured. Big laughs and guffaws all around the world, except from me. Whose gonna pay for this mess...the aliens?...the young adults?...the Coca Cola Corporation. I think not. I'm screwed and Mountain Dew gets richer for making me the brunt of their humor. Dew the dew. Hardy har.

I'm doing the dishes the old fashioned way, by hand. One eye is cast half consciously to the tube and the evening news. During a commercial a man comes on and tells me that I should come down to his car dealership with absolutely no money in my pocket and he'll make it possible for me to drive away in a brand new vehicle. If I have no money in the first place, and am conscious of the fact that I have no money, who's going to make the payments (beau coup) (plus interest) (insurance) (gas) (repairs) on this machine? Hmmm, I'll have to ask him when I go down there.

Example the third...A woman with a downcast face is obviously sad...a voice from somewhere on the side comments that he knows she is down on her luck because her phone has been disconnected for lack of payment. He tells her he has a way to get her back yakking for some paltry pittance. I don't think his intention is to pay her bill for her, but to help her circumvent her honor and her obligation to pay her current phone bill and keep on talking. The two of them sound like they are conniving in secret right there on the TV screen where no one will ever hear them.

What about the ganja-eyed sultress who will give you a Tarot reading for free over the phone...now that's real benevolence with a shot of good ole free mysticism thrown in. It 's people like ganja-eye that give tarot readings a bad name.

...the disposable motorized electric toothbrush! This is a device that you buy which you use till the head wears out (the head is not replaceable). Then you chuck this beauty into a landfill. I can't even talk about this anymore without becoming nauseous and self-righteous. ... life is like living in one big advertisement, isn't it? Start following commercial scenarios to their realistic logical conclusions instead of believing them. If you drink Mountain Dew, dew you really think you're gonna be able to test drive a alien space ship and go around destroying other peoples lives all over the planet by fancy sci-fi skateboard maneuvering with this megaton asteroid smasher...all in the name of fun and good cheer. I think my kids think so.

The phone here has been delivering unto me lately about three calls a day that are "telemarketing hang-ups." A computer dials five numbers and responds only to the first party that answers...the other four get disconnected. The telephone business office rep tells me that this practice is legal as long as it is not done after eight at night or on Sunday or Holidays or some such nonsense. She says I can change my number, but there is no guarantee that my new number won't have the same thing happen to it as the old one did. I could also invest in a call waiting device so that I could call the party back and have my number removed from the calling lists, The only problem being that I would probably be calling back to a computer. Now if I did to perfect strangers what telemarketers are doing to me, following the logical conclusion, I would get into some serious legal trouble. Then, why is this practice legal for telemarketers? What kinda way is this to run a business? Where's the honor in this?

I was told in an economics class once that stuff like all this happens because we (collectively) allow it to happen. If we were to stop buying, the practice would stop. We could demand, via the marketplace, to change the practices of lies, deception, and exaggeration.

I digress...this is an article about art and entrepreneurship. My message being to either the buyers or the sellers of the foregoing drivel is that some thought should be given to the "Bill of Goods" aspects of their life endeavors. Keep your eyes open to what is being told to you and what you tell to others. Don't be sap. As you wander on through life my friend, whatever be your goal, keep you eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole. (Yet now, an unnamed doughnut manufacturer has ruined that ditty by selling the holes...sheesh...all the old tried and true platitudes are going the way).



Uploaded to The Zephyr Online January 12, 2002

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