Hang On To Your Egotism

Recently the Apple Computer folks have rolled out the next "gen" of TV ads. Here's one for the iPad, which you, the consumer, will find really helpful because it tells you not just once, but over and over again, that the product is really really good.



“When a screen becomes this good, colors are more vibrant . . . everything is more brilliant.”



You know, that is vibrant! Though I have no idea how it'd look on the actual iPad—what I'm seeing is filtered through my TV, which lacks the "stunning Retina display." Which makes me wonder—when a screen becomes "this good," is it sharper and clearer than an HD television? Because I’m really not sure how much further into the local newscasters’ pores I want to see.

Meanwhile, Apple is simultaneously pushing the new “Siri” iPhone 4S:



This commercial features Zooey Sevigny, or Coco Deschanel or whoever. Sorry if I'm a bit out of touch—I just can't keep up with these damn hippies and their screwy names. Anyway, in the ad what's-her-name basically talks to herself while holding a phone. I guess it's aimed at lonely single women who want some company but who are allergic to cats.

Another iPhone ad depicts a teenager who is so inept that he can’t do any of the typical things that teenagers do without a pricey device guiding him every step of the way.



How do you play "London Calling"?
Step 1: PUT DOWN THE PHONE.

He can't figure out where to buy a guitar, how to play a guitar, or even how to talk to girls without the aid of his digital mommy. And yet he insists that his talking phone address him as "Rock God"? If this wide-mouthed little narcissist spent half as much time practicing as he does talking to his iPhone then eventually his band might learn to play a song. Not that it matters—even if his band impressed those girls enough that he found himself with a chance to have sex with one of them he'd just blow it by asking Siri how to use the condom.

I can't help but wonder, how does a teenager end up like this? Must be his parents' fault—it's a pretty sure bet he's a product of the affluent-absentee method of child-rearing: parents working endless hours at high-caliber jobs and atoning for their neglect by buying the kids everything they want. I mean, it’s obvious that Terence Trent Dumby here isn’t paying for his new guitar or his Siri-enabled phone himself; before he got the talking phone he never could’ve figured out how to even look for a job.

Between his parents and his iPhone, this kid is so spoiled he'll never have to do anything for himself.



Well, this has all been fun, but I still can’t say I understand the appeal of these ads. I’m supposed to want the talking phone because, what, I’m too entitled or stupid to operate the internet for myself? Or because I’m lonely? They're certainly not convincing me that it’s worth shelling out something like $600 for a faux-sentient device to keep me company. Besides, there are already much cheaper and cuddlier options for that:



He really enjoys talking to people.

Anyway, as with most things that confuse me, just because I don’t get it doesn’t mean nobody else does. Apple must know what they're doing, since their devices sell like hotcakes (whatever those were). I guess the American Dream isn’t about just making a decent life for yourself anymore. It’s about the fantasy of living like a rock star—only without having to really work for it. Sorry, I meant rock god—like I said, I'm out of touch.

Damn hippies.

Baby Formula: The Dilemma of Science-Food

When it comes to the wild and woolly world of nourishing a baby, there are two main options. Breast milk is a popular way to go, but it's not for everyone. As with anything that's unadulterated and natural, breast feeding is, to many people, frightening and repulsive. A lot of folks feel more comfortable choosing an alternative that’s synthetic and mass-produced.

That brings us to the other choice: commercially available products used by many parents and/or guardians to either supplement or replace breast-milk.


I am of course talking about "formula"—baby formula, that is (not to be confused with Grecian Formula, algebraic formulas, or Formula One Racing)—the only drink-mix on the market targeted at infants. While its main component is milk, formula has an ingredient list that's literally as long as your arm. And when I say "literally" I don't mean "figuratively":


The contents enumerated on this tub of Enfamil brand formula sitting on my kitchen counter form a block of text 11 lines long and 2 inches wide. Stretched end to end that's 22 inches of "who knows what."


As you can see, this formula stuff is filled with compounds containing words like phosphate, citrate, chloride and palmitate. Some of the ingredients even have footnotes, like "A source of docosahexaenoic acid."

What this means is that I have no idea what the fuck I am putting into my baby. These could all be things that are designed to turn her into some kind of mutant automaton fulfilling the orders of our future alien overlords—an unwitting cyborg sleeper-cell that will join up with other formula-fed child-bots when coded radio-signals are sent out to activate them.

It's strange that almost from birth a hell of a lot of our babies are being pumped full of so many weird food additives. Maybe I should take it as a small consolation that most of these ingredients—9 out of the 11 lines, or 18 inches—are listed after the "And less than 1%" qualifier. Are these mostly preservatives and thickeners and junk like that? What would happen if they were left out? Would the formula turn into some kind of lumpy goo, or burst into flames upon making contact with the air? Seriously, any of those ingredients could be a flame retardant, as far as I can tell. And baby-products are big on flame-retardant these days.


Anyway, apart from all those little one-percent items, what's really the difference between formula and cow's milk?


Well, the price, for one thing.

Actually, as I understand it, human babies can't get all of their "nutrition" (that's science-talk for "vitamins and junk") from cows' milk. Hence scientists or food-wizards or whoever have "formulated" a beverage that will provide all of the nutrition of human milk. And it took almost 2 feet of fine-print ingredients to do so.

Though the more I think about all the ways modern medicine and science have extended life (i.e., protecting us from diseases, infection, sea-monsters, etc.) I have to wonder: Can plain-old human milk really provide the same level of nutrition-laden benefits as the laboratory-enhanced ingredients found in formula? Maybe scientists have created something better than what Mother Nature provided—it wouldn't be the first time. While this could well be the case, if you consider how processed most of our foods are these days it's safe to assume that mothers who breast feed are already ingesting so many weird chemicals that they are likely synthesizing all the additives that their babies could ever possibly need (you know—preservatives, caking agents, heavy metals), and passing them along to them through their breast milk.

Which means whether our babies are fed breast milk or formula, we can rest assured that they will grow up healthy and strong. And possibly cyborg.

Hard Rock Or Hardly Rocking—Who Can Tell?

On a recent morning at my place of business, which is to say, the location where my job is at, I happened upon the lunchroom television, tuned to VH1 and broadcasting a concert/festival/happening entitled “Hard Rock Calling 2011.” You might expect that I'd have been bombarded by heavy guitar riffs and guttural, perhaps even ape-like, vocalizations as I poured my coffee, but in short order I instead found myself confused, because there on the stage of this ostensibly raucous extravaganza was the band Train. In case you’re not familiar, here’s what the band called Train sounds like (and also looks like, since it's a video):



I was more than a little unsure why Train—whose current signature song features an upbeat and ukulele-flavored arrangement (not to mention an ever so sweetly lilting melody)—would be on the bill at a hard rock festival. Generally I’m inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt, but in this case it doesn’t help that the guy in the band Train constantly name-checks the band “Mr. Mister" (in a lilting and melodious way, of course).

Just in case you’re not familiar, here’s the band Mr. Mister:



So Train's cited influences are also pretty squarely not so much on the "hard" side of things. (Unless you mean "hard to listen to.") Considering all that, I think even The Band Train may have felt uneasy about its ("their"?) inclusion in The Hard Rock Calling festival, which is likely why they ("it"?) felt compelled to insert a Led Zeppelin cover into its set. Their set. Whatever. Leave me alone, grammar.


YouTube footage from not the exact concert, but as the kids say, "same diff."

At first it seemed like a silly ploy to confer legitimacy, but I have to admit, it kinda worked; I may have thought Train was too, for lack of a better word, "girlie" to feature in the testosterone-rich lineup of a hard rock show, but when singing that song the Train guy reminded me that back in Led Zeppelin's heavily rocking heyday, despite the bulge in Robert Plant's vacuum-shrunk trousers, nothing was more girlie than Robert Plant's voice.


Robert Plant, in squeal-inducing pants and a delightful housecoat.

Still, while Train Man's uncanny channeling of Robert Plant might have a profound and mesmerizing effect on the kind of long haired dude in a Dio t-shirt that you'd expect to find at a hard rock show, it's hard to imagine the spell lasting more than a couple minutes after the band reverted to the emasculated love songs that made them VH1 favorites to begin with. ("Duuude, that was ahhhsummm! ... Hey, what the shit is this?!")

In a desperate attempt to quell my confusion about the inclusion of The Not Really Hard And Not Really Even Rock For That Matter Band Called Train, I went and found the website for Hard Rock Calling.



There I discovered that this wasn’t so much a festival of “hard rock” music as it was a music festival put on by The Hard Rock Café And/Or Corporation. Which maybe sort of explains it, considering the level of credibility attributable to chain restaurants. No surprise, then, that the corporate overlords of this event might freely interpret "Hard Rock" as "Whatever Music Is Popular This Week." Not that it really matters; these days you can't expect a youthful concert audience to notice any such discrepancy anyway, considering what the average 13 year-old girl wearing an Urban Outfitters Iron Maiden t-shirt knows about Iron Maiden.



This one's actually an Urban Outfitters Guns N' Roses t-shirt, but same diff.

December? Remember To Be Financially Well Endowed

For three years now, the people of these-here United States have been struggling through a terrible recession. The worst, we are told, since the Great Depression! But that doesn't mean we should give in to despair, or give up the comforts we're accustomed to. No matter how bad it seems, there are some things we can still rely on—like the annual holiday ads in which happy rich people surprise their significant others by buying them luxury cars.



What could be more uplifting than this couple of smiling, post-hipster yuppies, so breezily fluent with hand-held devices and so deep of pockets? You can already tell how sweet she is, buying him that car, but notice the short "do" she's sporting?—most likely she sold her beautiful long hair to pay for the $200 smart-phone she gave him, solely for the purpose of playfully alerting him to the fact that his real gift is a car with a price tag in excess of the U.S. median income.

Oh yes, it's a beautiful scene of domestic bliss. (It also gives new meaning to the words "White Christmas.") And yet it seems something is missing. Well, their abode is conspicuously lacking a fixed gear bike, but that's probably just because West Elm doesn't sell them yet. Anyway, it's not that. It's something less tangible.

But let's not lose the holiday spirit; here's another tableau of cheerful generosity.



This version of the Lexus Christmas Fable is in many ways the opposite of the last one. We are spirited away from the young Caucasian couple in their urban penthouse loft apartment to a suburban house, inhabited by an African American family. And while the young urbanites bought a white car, this family went with a black one. Lexus has something for everyone!

As a side note, I'm troubled by the way the woman in this ad is audibly gasping for air every 3 seconds.



She might want to see a cardiologist about that. Or at the very least, an acting coach.

Potentially imminent cardiac events aside, both ads offer visions of caring and gracious people filled with the spirit of giving. So why is it that watching these feel-good domestic vignettes, instead of filling me with holiday cheer, makes me want to stab my TV with a turkey fork?

Yikes—hostility! I need to clear my head—let me take a deep breath and meditate on this.

Hmm.

(I like to intone the syllable "hmm" when I meditate—it's like a less embarrassing form of "Om.")

Aha—I think I have it. What seems to be lacking from these ads is something called "shame."

It's not that I believe well-off, gleeful people shouldn't buy $60K stocking stuffers for their loved ones. It's just that it's hard to believe, given the economic climate, that a company like Lexus could be so tone deaf in their TV ads.

Hmm.

Then again, it's not hard to believe at all, since being shamelessly tone deaf is a cornerstone of luxury car marketing.

To wit: while the common rabble are risking hefty doses of pepper spray at the hands of law enforcement to protest economic inequality (or just pepper spraying each other in order to get their hands on a reduced-price X-Box), Lexus persists with portrayals of the "better-offs" saying to their domestic partners—by way of wedding-proposal-worthy gimmicks—We have so much disposable income that I didn't feel it necessary to consult with you before I bought you what most people would consider a very major purchase, complete with leather interior, moon roof and multiple climate zones. Probably heated seats, too, but to be honest I wasn't paying that close attention.

I was going to complain that these ads are obnoxious because they rub rich people's riches in the faces of the dirty-and-poor-rest-of-us; however, having watched upwards of 4,000 Republican presidential debates in the last 8 weeks, I have become sensitive to the sensitivities of the mega-rich, and so I do not wish to perpetuate "class warfare." (Mostly because I hate being guilty of something when I don’t understand what it means.) With that in mind, like an erstwhile Republican-hopeful I am repackaging my irritation with an unassailable pro-family spin.

Lexus seems unaware that television is not the exclusive domain of potential Lexus customers. In fact—and I'm just pulling this number out of the air—something like, I don't know, 99% of TV viewers in this country are in no position to buy a Lexus. And a lot of them are hard working people with children who require food and/or electronics and a spouse whose affection is entirely reliant on the reassurance provided by expensive gifts. So the main effect of these Lexus ads (in which purchasing a Lexus appears effortless for those with love in their hearts) is to make gift-giving spouses feel ashamed and inadequate. And, that, you see, is an attack on the American Family. (See how I twisted that around? I guess all that debate watching is finally paying off.)

But do not despair, for there are still good tidings which may yet bring comfort and joy. If you are just such a sad but family-oriented gift-giver (a.k.a. a TV viewer of limited means), there is one remedy, which is to purchase jewelry from Kay Jewelers.



While not nearly as extravagant, this too will allow you to curry favor with your spouse, because as you have heard, “Every kiss begins with Kay.” So maybe you can't afford a fancy car, but things can still work out for you; Kay's slogan is, of course, the most subtle way of reminding consumers of the age-old social contract: Giving jewelry will get you what's colloquially known as "ass."

I can't help but wonder, if a relatively affordable diamond necklace will allow you to "surround her with the strength of your love," what's the result when you buy your mate a luxury car? I don’t travel in the right circles to speak the secret language, but I suspect that for those in the upper financial echelons of our society these car ads include coded intimations of copious amounts of freaky, perhaps cocaine-fueled, spousal, uh, "heated seats" in the roomy leather interior of the gift-wrapped Lexus ES, in reciprocation for the gifting of such vehicle.

Hmm.

At least that part is pro-family, more or less.

An Open (And Shut) Letter To Local Road Cyclists

Dear Prospect Park Roadies,

When you're done riding fast laps of the park in a pace line, and there are 4 or 5 of you winding down with a slow and congenial lap of the park, why must you always ride not just next to each other, but evenly spaced across the entire two lane roadway? Now all the other riders who are still riding at greater than "recovery pace" have to slow down and find a spot to get through your laterally-expansive line, as if picking out a toll-booth lane on the highway. For a bunch of guys who have just spent the last hour barking at every man, woman or Big Wheel that errantly wanders across the pavement it seems you'd be a little less ignorant of your own misuse of the public asphalt.

Please do something to correct this ridiculous irony.

Thank You.

Now, I don't know if it's intentional or not, but the message these fellows are sending is, "We have just dominated this roadway and now it is ours." Maybe the feelings of accomplishment and supremacy after completing a rigorous Wednesday morning training ride are so satisfying that they can't help but collectively gloat their way through a victory lap—and proper gloating creates an impenetrable aura around you of about 3 feet. Someday, if I can manage not to be dropped after 3 loops, I too will know that feeling, and it will swell within and around me and I will become oblivious to all else.

But in the meantime I'll have to keep paying the tolls.

Acura: The Elegance of Ugliness

Luxury car ads have made me a little bit crazy for years. Mainly this is because, as I see it, they have an ugly tendency of pandering to the moneyed egos of a certain class of people who are entirely devoid of empathy. In recent weeks I’ve started to think that in addition to courting those particular consumers, they’re also deliberately pissing off people like me (whose egos lack the financial resources necessary to smother their basic humanity). What else could explain this shamelessly irritating ad campaign?



“Aggression in its most elegant form.”
At first it doesn't seem so bad. There's an Acura juxtaposed with a boxing glove. And it's not just any old mitt, but rather a finely pedigreed—probably vintage—glove of brown leather: an object evoking the era of proper gentlemen, refined but physically adept, who—when not on safari or exploring the Amazon—would likely be found sipping cognac while surrounded by leather-bound books, old maps and astrolabes. And that glove's not made of just any old leather; it's some sort of exotic, textured hide, that maybe once had feathers or scales on it. It could have come from an ostrich, or even a gryphon or a basilisk!


For the truly refined individual, only the integument of an endangered/fictional animal will do.

Regardless of whatever fanciful creature gave its skin to allow proper gents to pummel the daylights out of one another without bruising their own well-moisturized knuckles, there's an analogy at work here: like the boxing glove, the car is, aesthetically speaking, all "fancy-pants," but metaphorically it's meant for pounding people into the dirt. Mind you, the Acura people, or their lawyers anyway, would say it's not intended to intimate any kind of violence, but merely the power and precision of a skilled athlete (in this case a particular sort of pugilist, who happens to appreciate a well-crafted clobbering-gauntlet).

Personally I find it hard to believe that this ad was not intended to exude at least a subtext of violent domination; however, Acura's campaign features other ads which might lend credence to the athletic artistry interpretation. These other ads can be seen on TV—I just started with the magazine ad because it was easier to fit onto my scanner. Anyway, having since mastered the art of cutting and pasting a line of HTML, here's one of those TV spots:



That's the athlete Calvin Johnson. His refined aggression is directed into the bone-crushing sport of football. Well, maybe that's not helping the case. Let's try another one:



Now, that is World Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist skier Ashleigh McIvor. And that's a commercial with a different angle—you'll notice that when a luxury car ad omits masculine power, it creates a vacuum that can be filled only with female sexuality. But no matter: the point is Ashleigh is a skilled athlete in the non-contact solo sport of ski-cross, where being aggressive means "attacking" the corners and making skilled calculations at speeds rivaling that of, say, a luxury car.

So there you have it. If the solo cello music wasn't enough to convince you, the association of an attractive, female practitioner of an aggressive yet non-violent sport should surely be persuasion enough that Acura intends only benevolent connotations in these commercials, right? There's only one problem. No matter how positive and benign a person taking part in one of these ads may be, once you put the word "aggression" in the context of cars, you are talking about road rage. You are talking about the behavior of people who are, as the kids say, "A-holes."

Ultimately Acura is peddling "aggression," not "being aggressive in an artful way." They can dress the concept up nicely and call it "elegant," but really it comes down to the appeal of revving a big engine—a display of the kind of power that is the result of having an expensive car and having a foot, which is not the same as the power or aggressive instinct that comes from spending years of your life developing a skill.

The advertising goal here is to appeal to base desires while convincing the target market that they are superior to everyone else who is motivated by those same desires. All the common rabble are power hungry and arrogant. But this—this is poised arrogance—so you can feel good about being a solipsistic asshole. Sorry, I meant "A-hole"—I'm trying to keep things elegant.

Beware Of Greeks Bearing Too Many Promotional Claims

About four years ago there was a small window of time, maybe six months, during which I felt special. I feel a little bit "special" pretty often—when I'm trying to balance my check book, for example—but for that brief stretch of time it was more of a sophisticated and superior kind of special. At the beginning of that period I had discovered Greek yogurt, a pleasingly thick and creamy version of the jellied glop that's usually consumed here in the New World, where most of the things we have are overprocessed, ersatz approximations of better things that we don't even know about. At least that's how I felt, having become an overnight connoisseur of Mediterranean dairy products.

The truth is, while gloating about this mythical, non-gelatinized yogurt, I was more like a Conquistador discovering the "new" world, or a 21st century 8th grader boasting of his favorite band, the Violent Femmes, as if it was a never before seen precious metal that he himself had dug up from the earth.

Nonetheless, for those several months I drizzled farmers' market honey over my yogurt and reveled in my refined taste. And then, as always happens, everybody else started catching on to the thing whose very existence I was taking credit for by dint of having known about it slightly first. It started off as a few flurries, but soon turned into a Greek-style milk product avalanche. What was once the provenance of imports from over-sees, and small progressive-minded (not to mention overpriced) brands became just another feather in the cap of the major food behemoths.



Yoplait, for example, has thrown their hat in the ring. And they have left every metaphorical marketing feather on that cap: it's Greek-style, it's fat free, and it's even got twice the protein of other yogurts. Companies like this are so jazzed about harnessing trends that they trot every one of them out every chance they get. I'm sure there was at least one guy in the boardroom asking if they could slap a Caffeine Free sign on there somewhere. (He's probably the same guy who's responsible for putting "New Look!" on every product on the shelf. I hate that guy.)

Yes, they've crammed every gimmick possible into that little cup. And they're not the only ones to debase their new knock-off in the name of marketing: Dannon's Greekish yogurt is fat free as well:


Introducing Dannon Greek, the most delicious yogurt imaginable! Rich, and creamy-thick, it’s an indulgent eating experience that you’ll want to savor and enjoy. Plus, with 0% Fat, you’ll feel good knowing this heavenly taste is good for you.

It seems to me that "fat free" is entirely missing the point of Greek yogurt. There's a reason Greek yogurt is creamy, thick and awesome, and that reason is not supposed to be gelatin, corn starch, or guar gum.



There we have the ingredients of a container of Dannon's Greekified yogurt in the honey varietal (found on Snack Girl's website), and for good measure, here's one from Yoplait:


(Also from a Snack Girl review.)

When I see products like these, with labels awash in marketing fads, I don't feel I'm being particularly cynical by saying that advertisers are wild-eyed, auto-piloted buzz-word generators who mindlessly market all grocery store items to hypothetical soccer moms. Fat free. Healthy for your kids. But also indulgent, so you can be taken away, Calgon-style, to a chocolate covered cloud where you might have an orgasm.


(Don't miss the video on the Dannon page—delicious!)

Well then. Now that I've gotten all that griping out of my system, I'm starting to think it might be unfair of me to denigrate Dannon and Yoplait like that without even giving their entries into the market a try. To be honest, I'm mostly just bitter that they had to ruin my moment of specialness. It'd take me what, like 4 seconds to eat a cup of yogurt? I mean, they're probably not all that bad—as long as they don't have any feathers in them.