Monday, June 29, 2009

WTF Ad Agency?

Summer is upon us. All the signs of it are around; the air is warm, the days are long, and the multiplexes are playing movies that are even more retarded than usual. The Transformers sequel is the flavor of the moment, and that flavor is apparently something called "strawberried peanut butter". I like strawberries, and sometimes I like peanut butter too. I have, however, never thought to put those flavors together in a candy. To be perfectly honest, I think the two together would be a cloying, ghastly sweet experience, and so I am not in any kind of rush to try it. Many people, however, seem to be in a rush to see this Transformers movie, and someone in an ad agency somewhere figured that would be their in to get people talking about strawberried peanut butter M&Ms.

Why should we be talking about these zany new strawberry infused peanut-butter candies? Well, Michael Bay seems to know, and he isn't telling us. Look at him there, all glazed in purplish-pink candy coating, and grinning at us smugly. He knows why he tastes so great, but you are not famous, rich, or important enough to be let in on the secret. You are, after all, the kind of gibbering moron who is willing to pay fourteen dollars to watch an eighty minute, one hundred million dollar fiasco about giant robots from another planet who can, for some reason, turn into Earth cars, and following that, pay another fourteen dollars to watch basically the same thing again. This makes you the perfect candidate to try out these massively sweetened treats. Shoveling them into your mouth will distract you from the fact that the movie you are watching is pretty much exactly the same one you saw last summer. Mmmmmmmm. Good, aren't they?

So, if you aren't just drooling while you look at the shiny robots above, and are actually still reading, then you may have the bandwidth upstairs to have already started wondering why Michael Bay is a strawberried peanut butter M&M. Where did this idea come from? I imagine any flies on the wall during that marketing meeting came away fully entertained.

So, first, let's check and see if Michael Bay bears any resemblance to a small, ovoid candy.

Hmmm. His head is oblong; not exactly an ovoid. His jaw is much more squared than that of the candy. He is also a bit pink like the candy version, but he does not appear to be glossed with colored sugar. He appears to be a ruggedly handsome jock-nerd hybrid of some sort, definitely cock-sure, probably an alpha. He seems to have more hair than an M&M, unless they have changed a lot since I last had one. I am sure though that he spends much more time on his hair than any kind of candy on the market does, M&Ms included.

I suppose if I really stretched my imagination, he could look something like an M&M, but I can think of loads of other random objects that he looks more akin to. For instance, his strong jaw-line gives his head a cylindrical appearance, not unlike this circa 1800 vaginal douche, made of bone.

I was as struck by the resemblance as you are. You may also be thinking that the resemblance is not just superficial. Like an antique douche, Mr. Bay runs all over town, spraying acid into women's vaginas. Now of course these are metaphorical vaginas, metaphorical acid, and even a metaphorical town, but the metaphor is so apt that I shall leave it up to you to decide what it means.

Also like a two century old vag plunger, Michael is quite valuable. Admittedly, Bay is probably worth quite a bit more than the pictured artefact, but I think you would agree that the douche is more expensive than an M&M. In every way Michael Bay is more like the feminine hygiene product than the candy.

Forget the douching for a minute now. If you are still with me you are either some kind of antique dildo fetishist, or you can see I am really onto something here, so bear with me. Perverts can stay too, but no touching the douche!

So why is Michael Bay an M&M? Well, I think we ought to be as scientific about this as Mr. Bay is with slow-motion explosions. We must consider all of the alternatives. It is possible that this advertisement is actually making a very deep and culturally relevant comment, even if said comment might be completely inadvertent.

Of course there is the point that Michael Bay has come to symbolize the supposed nutritionless nature of our culture. M&Ms lack any real nutritional value beyond raw caloric intake, and Bay's movies are likewise lacking in any substantive content. They are all decoration. That analogy seems a little weak to me, as Bay's films have, on average, zero calories in them. Besides which, it certainly doesn't seem like the kind of thing advertising agents get paid to think about.

Forrest Mars Sr., founder of the Mars Company, came up with the idea for the M&M during his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War, when he saw Spaniards eating them. Exactly where the Spaniards got the idea is not important. What is important is that Mars received a patent on M&Ms in 1941, and production began that year in New Jersey. Michael Bay did not, to my knowledge, fight in the Spanish Civil War, and it is well documented that he hates New Jersey. There is a connection though; Pearl Harbor happened in 1941.

Michael Bay directed Pearl Harbor, Pearl Harbor happened in 1941, and M&Ms were invented in 1941, even though the Spanish had already been eating them since no later than 1939. Now these kinds of coincidences do not just happen, not in this reporter's experience, so what does it mean? It could possibly be evidence that Michael Bay is a member of some ultra-secret society, initially financially backed by the Fascistic Falange, and possibly later by Generalissimo Francisco Franco. This group, the name of which has never been made public, but whom some say are called "The M", are said to have given the M&M concept to Forrest Mars so that they would have a puppet inside the American candy bar industry. Later that year, their new-found leverage on America's economy allowed The M to coerce Roosevelt into ignoring the warnings of the Pearl Harbor attack.

I know this is shocking to hear, and you may not be ready for the truth, but ask yourself this one question: Do you think Michael Bay will ever make a movie telling that story? Of course he won't. He cannot let The M be exposed, or they will cut his dick off in an arcane ritual that you and I are lucky to never have to see. We only have to see the Transformers. We do not have to walk the dangerous, tortured path that a person like Michael Bay walks every day.

I say he is a person, and I suppose he is, but he is more than just a person. I do not mean to say he is an M&M, I mean to say that he is a hero.

He is a hero because in spite of the stresses he endures every day fighting to keep the ideals of The M unsullied, he manages to take a few minutes to entertain you with bright colors and loud noises. You might argue that he gets paid rather well for that, and you never asked him to be in any secret society that protects you from socialism while you mindlessly shove sugar-coated lumps of peanut butter imbued with synthetic strawberry flavoring into your dripping gob, but that would not be paying the man the respect, nay, the reverence that you owe him for his selfless sacrifice. You ought to thank Michael Bay every damn day of your life, plebe, and be glad he only charges you money to watch his color-show.


I am obliged by my editor to mention that there is a popular theory that the advertisement that is the subject of this article is actually inferring that Michael Bay prefers blow-jobs to the ol' rub and tug, as he "melts in your mouth, but not in your hand". I believe this hypothesis to be infantile, and worse it serves only to divert attention from the important issue at hand, which is raising awareness about
The M and other frighteningly powerful and dangerous secret societies, such as The Skull and Bones, The Free Masons, The Illuminati, NAMBLA, and the ACLU.

"All it takes to see the truth is to open your eyes."
-Michael Bay, paraphrasing Francisco Franco

Friday, June 12, 2009

Job Interview

[A man has applied for a job as a writer. He has been led into an office and asked to pitch some ideas.]

"Yes, well I have a few ideas. Lemme see. Okay, the story goes like this" -

"The proverb?"

"It's not really a proverb. It's more of a story."

"Oh. Okay."

"Well, there's this man, and he's a glutton. He loves to eat. He eats everything he can afford to eat. Savory foods, sweets, the whole shabang."

"So he's a fat guy."

"Yeah, probably. But that's not the point. He wants to be eating all the time. This man is just addicted to food."

"So the fat guy likes to eat. What's the point in that?"

"The point - The point is something happens to him. He ends up being able to taste whatever he wants just by thinking about it and chewing. You see, his deepest desire is realized. If he wants crabcake - POOF - he feels and tastes crabcake in his mouth. If the thought of a chilled martini to wash down the crabcake crosses his mind he instantly gets the flavor and feeling of it. Every whim of the gourmet variety is instantly realized for him. He luxuriates in his new gift, and soon he begins to lose all of his will to feed himself any food of substance. Whenever he starts to think that perhaps his body may require some food he tastes whatever delicacy is bouncing around in his subconscious mind. Eventually he becomes a useless wreck, wallowing constantly in imagined culinary bliss until ultimately he dies of dehydration."

"No kidding."

"Sorry?"

"I'd have expected him to starve if he weren't eating. I guess that's the irony of your proverb."

"It's not a proverb" -

"Of course. So why doesn't he drink something?"

[a pause]

"Well, for the same reason he doesn't eat anything. His desires are instantly satisfied. If he wants a glass of water he feels himself drink one, and then he no longer wants one."

"Hmmm." ----- "And what makes that happen?"

"Well, we don"t know. I think the story is more compelling if that's left up to the reader."

----- "Kind of asking a lot of your reader to leave finishing the story up to him, isn't it?"

----- "Well, I" -

"We're looking for a clearer message for this thing here. We're shooting for something that'll hit people and stick to 'em. Why don't you try trimming it down a little?"

"If I may sir, how long would you like the story?"

"Well, I myself like proverbs, you know? They're quick and to the point - like 'don't piss in the wind' and 'does the pope shit in the woods'. Try writing it as a proverb."

"But I can't write a proverb."

"Bullshit! 'If you're thirsty, get to pourin' the water'. There's your story."

"But in order for that to be a proverb, everyone would have to have been saying it for so long that no one can remember where it came from. That's what a proverb is!"

"Don't tell me what a proverb is. Show me what a proverb is."

----- "Do you mean, like, with a diagram?"

"Look son, if you want this job you've got it."

"Really?"

"Yep - you just have to give me a proverb. Spit one out right now."

"Right now?"

"No time like the present."

"Okay." ----- "A bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush."

"No, no - you didn't write that. Let's hear something new."

"I'm sorry sir, I thought you meant" -

"Go ahead when you're ready"

[a long pause]

"Okay - here goes." ----- "To stop wanting is to stop living." ----- "Sir?"

"I'm not sure what it means."

"Alright. I'm sorry to waste your time" -

"But what does it matter if I 'understand' it? It's short and I like it. It's decisive." ----- "Welcome aboard."

"What?"

"You've got the job. You start" [checks his watch] "twenty-six seconds ago. Right when you came up with that fabulous proverb. I really admire your work. Heady stuff."

[handshake]

"Thank you sir."

"No. Thank you."

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

What IS it with genitals and the internet?

Porn is everywhere on the internet as I am sure you have noticed.

I was recently browsing the interwebs, when I came across one of the most insanely offensive porn ads I had ever seen. The ad was for "Pussy Finder" - a dating site that promises a way to "find and date a pussy near you!"

I accepted the internet's clear challenge to me, and set about making the image even more offensive. I believe I succeeded...

This one's for you, Sean.


Sunday, June 7, 2009

Welcome To Me, Blogosphere!

Right Down to business.

What makes a good blog?

Is it layout? Is it content? Is it multi-pronged advertising? Is is a delicate melange of these, and other elements?

No.

It is none of these things. You see, the correct answer to the question is: There are no good blogs.

There are, however, good ideas. Ideas are worth sharing sometimes, and the internet can be a great place to exchange them. So this place is not a blog, because it clearly is not a useless place for some obviously untalented douchemonger to practice self-aggrandizement, and live out his masturbatory fantasies that he is somehow important or intelligent or special enough for masses of people to want to read what he has to say about things. This place is more of an idea-hole.

It is a place where ideas go to die.

I have ideas. It feels good to let them out. No one cares, what with this being the world, and the world being full of individuals that are all too busy writing their own blogs to ever read this. But here I can put ideas, and here they will sit. Some of them, if properly preserved (by salting and pulling out the brains with hooks) will perhaps last for some time. Others will spoil, and rot.

Then the terminators and/or cylons are invented, and we're all fucked.

When that happens everyone's blog will be an idea-hole, and not just mine :)

*hugs*