This one is dated, too, but because of the ads I mention. I'll
also mention that at least one blogger out there plagiarized my column,
lifting my lines about Iggy Pop word for word. It was pointed out to Planet Weekly
by half a dozen different readers, who found two sites that had done
it. One had written-and-displayed two weeks after me, and the other was
done five weeks later. We don't know if the second guy plagiarized me
or the other guy, which is why I said there was "at least" one blogger
who ripped me off. I don't care. It's nice to have written something
good enough to have been stolen.
There is a certain
segment of the population whose – how shall we say it? – stupidity
prevents them from being able to separate who a person is from what they
do, and who a person is from what they believe. They’re unable to see
someone as a whole, instead defining them by a particular belief, or by
something they do. What could be a good neighbor is instead dismissed as
a “dirty liberal.” What could be a good friend is shouldered aside
because he supports capital punishment.
(I am put in mind of a
particular mouthbreather who visited our Web site and insisted that he
would refuse roadside assistance from anyone with a Kerry/Edwards
sticker on his or her car, which made me wonder what he does to everyone
in the service industry. “Hey, you in the Che shirt! I’ll pump my own
gas, punk!” “Excuse me, miss, before you bring the menu, do you believe
in a faith-based nation or should I change tables?”)
Every year, I
go to a friend’s Oscar-night party, which frankly kicks. The party is
an odd combination of artsy folks and serious churchgoers. Two TVs are
turned on in two different rooms, and the party tends to separate into
camps: the libs and the thumpers. Every year, every time the camera pans
across Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, you will hear boos coming from
only one room. It doesn’t matter how skilled an actor or actress is. It
only matters if they agree.
This is not just a one-sided thing. Many liberals boo and hiss every time Patricia Heaton of Everybody Loves Raymond
comes on, since she is vehemently pro-life. I even had a conversation
with one lefty who spent a full hour bitching and moaning about
conservatives who slammed liberal celebrities. When I brought up Ms.
Heaton, she said, “I hate her. I hate everything she stands for.” All of
which goes to prove that sheer stupidity sees no political borders.
Oddly
enough, there does appear to be one blind spot that almost no one sees,
and that, quite surprisingly, is in pop music. Or rather, perhaps not
so surprisingly, it is in pop music advertising. There are times when my
jaw sags open at the music being used to sell cars, computers, and
vacations. Beatles’ music has been used a while and The Who has whored
out about forty ‘leven different songs to sell everything from Hummers
(“Happy Jack”) to headlights (“I Can See For Miles”). Time has neutered
the impact these bands have made, so they’re now thought of as Great Old
Ones instead of as the drug-chewing, instrument-smashing madmen they
used to be. It’s kind of sad, and they’re not the best examples.
Led
Zeppelin sells Cadillacs. The band that your mother told you would send
you to Hell just by listening to it is triggering Pavlovian responses
in her head to buy an Escalade. Aerosmith just started doing the same
for Buick. (And by the way, admen who say the car should be the sexiest
thing in the ad have just been proven wrong by that woman in the
LaCrosse commercial – damn.) Thin Lizzy, the original enigmatic Irish
band, and one that generated an indefinable, low-level terror among
parents, shills for Capitol One. And Elton John* is now giving it up for
one of those satellite radio groups.
It gets better. Hewlett
Packard is using The Cure in their ads. When I was but a wee lad, even
being caught with a Cure cassette was enough to trigger a frantic series
of questions by a horrified ‘rent: “What’s wrong with you?” “Do you
need a psychiatrist?” “Are you gay?” Now Mummy and Daddy say, “What a
lovely song,” and feel an urge to buy a printer.
The Boston metal
band Godsmack provides music for the U.S. Navy ads. This amuses the
hell out of me, because Godsmack’s front man is an actual
honest-to-Goddess Wiccan priest. That’s right, folks: Wicca is being
used to recruit swabbies. Let us share a chuckle at the adman who
slipped that one past the U.S. Government.
Queen has been used
twice in recent months. “I Want to Break Free” was used to shill one of
those new low-carb sodas. (The video showed the band cross-dressing;
just thought I’d share that.) And “I’m in Love with My Car” has been
used to sell another kind of car. That one fools people because it’s not
Freddie Mercury singing; it’s drummer Roger Taylor. Time has been kind
to these men, too, turning them into a band whose shelf life began with
Wayne’s World, instead of being remembered as the freaky foursome whose
over-the-top gay front man is reported to have visited a Thai boy
brothel and yelled to the management: “I think I’ve broken this one!
Fetch me another!”
My favorite is Iggy Pop. His “Lust for Life”
has been selling cruises for over a year now. Cruises! This is the
psycho punk pioneer who shot heroin into his eyeball, who slashed
himself with broken bottles for audience amusement and his own boredom,
who used to beat up his fans, and who may very well have played a game
of Hide the Grammy with David Bowie. This guy did enough drugs that some
of his veins actually exploded. I don’t think his Lust for Life is
quite the same as those on the cruise set.
I admit that I enjoy
shattering illusions**, but I don’t think that knowing these things will
affect what car you buy. If it does, then I suggest you get the
extended warranty on whichever one you do purchase, because you never
know who is going to have a Kerry/Edwards sticker on theirs.
-----------------------------------------------------
*Elton
is a very strange case. The man who defined homosexuality for years and
who has only become more flamboyant has suddenly become one of ‘them
gay folks’ that people think it’s okay to like, along with Ellen
Degeneres and Rosie O’Donnell.
**Next time: Santa Claus’ political affiliations.
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