Sidewinder

I watched Gran Torino yesterday… which I feel like I’ve already mentioned.  This is what happens when you post things on multiple websites. But yeah, if you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty good.  Basically, Clint Eastwood is an old man who hates everything but his car and his dog.  I don’t think he has a single line that doesn’t contain something racist, but the whole point of the movie is that he learns to like a Hmong family next door, so it’s okay.  Also, he’s the hardest of hard-asses to everybody in the whole world, so it’s really entertaining to watch him interact with unabashed bigotry. 

Here’s something else I feel like I already mentioned: A different woman watches me pee every month.  There’s always a copy of Redbook on the back of the toilet… this month Giada DeLaurentiis perpetually displays that ridiculously huge grin as I tinkle.  It can be a bit unnerving at times.  Couldn’t it be something innocuous and impersonal, like a Wal-Mart sales paper?  There’re usually just tv’s on the cover of those, and they don’t have eyes. 

I am no less disturbed by the commercial for the chocolate-scented Axe body spray now than I was when I first saw it months ago.  Why would anybody want to smell like chocolate?  The commercial makes it look like simply smelling like chocolate will earn a guy the attention of every attractive lady in the immediate area.  What’s next?  A bacon cheeseburger-scented perfume for ladies?  All guys love the smell of bacon.  Would the commercial for that one show a girl walking around town getting nipped at by every hair-gelled moron on the sidewalk?  Nay.  For one thing, lady’s perfumes don’t smell like food.  For another, commercials for them are more like softcore porn– albeit classy softcore porn– all satin sheets and violins.  I’m not saying they’re less stupid than a chocolate man striding around town being devoured by women…  hell, I don’t know what I’m saying. 

You know what else is stupid?  Burger King’s Whopper Jr. commercials.  A guy in a giant hamburger costume?  And he’s not even trying to sell the burgers, they’re just relying on the fact that he looks like a giant burger in non-burger situations, like being on some sort of lame morning talk show.  Then again, the King– the actual dude in the giant bearded mask– isn’t much better.  He has given up handing out fast food with that silent grin in favor of creeping around in people’s bedrooms while they sleep and clanging cymbals together to terrify them awake.  

No commercials actually advertise the actual product, except maybe the infomercial-type ones where Billy Mays tries to sell you some amazing thing you couldn’t possibly live without.  How is a thirty-second short-film about a girl with a pixie haircut jumping off of buildings and floating around in bubbles supposed to make me want to download music?  …Or whatever the hell that commercial was for.  And I really don’t understand the "Messin’ with Sasquatch" campaign from Jack Link’s jerky.  They’re funny, but what the hell does tricking poor old Sasquatch into opening a shaken beer have to do with goddamn beef jerky??  I’m too frustrated about this to talk about anything else at this point…