Banned in the UK

Okay, I love advertisements. I suppose that is a field I should have taken up. I would watch television shows just for the ads, and this is doubly true of the Superbowl, given that I have almost never in my life watched a sports game on television.

Advertising is the ultimate short story. Think about it, these people have 30 seconds to make you connect with a character, then make you connect with the product, then make you feel that you need it.

And we all know that controversy sells.

So Scarlett Johansson was hawking Soda Stream and the commercial was banned by FOX television. That is controversy. In fact, it probably managed to get the company so much more engagement than could possibly be gotten during a football game bathroom break.

Every man and most women on the planet would want to see something with Scarlett in it that is banned! She is the sexiest woman alive, and censorship reeks of sexuality! So why was it banned? Because at the very end, looking very sultry in her black evening dress, Scarlett looks at the camera and says, "Sorry Coke and Pepsi..."

The commercial was banned because she mentioned the competitors... and lets face it, Coke and Pepsi might just rule the world if you could manage to follow the paper trail. No one wants to make them angry...

But then... but then... Coca Cola puts the most heartfelt, most ingenious, most full of American Pride commercial out there into the televisosphere and gets slammed for it.

Their add features the song America the Beautiful sung in many different languages by many different Americans of various ethnic backgrounds. It makes a stunningly huge point about the whole "melting pot of nations" idea that the United States was founded upon.

And what happens? Millions of racist comments are made. Supposedly sane people start saying the wierdest stuff about how Coca Cola is racist...

If there is one thing growing up in the 70's 80's and 90's taught me it is that Coca Cola knows advertising and knows emotions. Hell, they invented Santa Clause.

But people, like Rush Limbaugh if you want to put him in that category, have been saying Coke is intentionally trying to make the states multicultural and that people should just learn English when they get here... After all, God spoke English...

I wonder what the racists would think if they were educated enough to realize that America the Beautiful was written by a lesbian... Katherine Lee Bates.

Well - it certainly worked. The ads make everyone talk. Unfortunately most of them are talking for the wrong reasons. Still, you know what they say any press is good press.

It is just disheartening. I mean, go ahead and google the Coke ad and forget about the advertisement, read the comments under the video, or under the news story... the majority of people are... well... terrible it would seem.

It makes you lose faith in this whole human endeavour.

I for one am settling my nerves with a nice bottle of Coke Zero before going out to buy my new Soda Stream.

Oh... and if you want to see most of the commercials, check them out here... SUPER BOWL ADS 2014

Pain

I have hurt myself a lot.

I am clumsy.

I deal all right with the pain of an instantaneous fracture, or cutting myself on a broken bottle. But last week something happened that drove me insane.

I got a headache. Again, this is not new. But this was the worst headache I think I have ever had. It accompanied some sort of flu and made me so sick to my stomach, so intensely uncomfortable that I could not sleep, eat, or even think.

I have never felt something like this before. It took the hospital, some IV's, and both narcotic and non narcotic pain killers to make it possible for me to relax enough to sleep.

That being said, on the other side of it all there are some realizations. And that is that torture works.

I would have literally done anything to make the pain stop. If someone had of told me that cutting off my hand would ease the pain, I probably would. I did not think about anything. Seriously I thought about nothing but ending the pain.

Right before the hospital I had decided that I should shoot myself and end the pain.

Kurt Cobain reportedly did just that.

I think we underestimate what true pain is. I am never going to think about torture, or about people who suffer from chronic pain in the same way ever again. Because we may think we are tough, resolute, and in control. But I know it does not take very much to tip the balance.

I guess it is a sort of "there but for the grace of God" realization for me. Since I have had pain before, from sore muscles through broken bones, even migraines and surgeries, I thought I understood what pain was. And I totally felt that people are wimps.

No more.

Holiday Spirit

So... I come out of the grocery store...

I am, as is my way, singing. I often sing to myself. Sometimes I sing that the weather outside is weather, and sometimes I sing various obscure verses of If You're Happy and You Know It. (Kill a llama).

Today in keeping with the season I was singing Walking in a Winter Wonderland.

When what should my wondering eyes behold, but a tiny small woman all wrinkled and old. She looked up at me and said, "Sing it baby, sing it!" So I did. And she joined in.

The Christmas spirit is something I wish we could capture and bottle. There is a sort of zest for life, an enjoyment of all things large and small, that I love. I wish we all decorated our houses each week for some reason or another. I wish there were more feasts. I think every day needs a mascot of some sort. Perhaps not a jolly old elf or nappy bunny, these things seem taken.... but you get the idea.

Why don't we all try to live a little larger all the time? Why don't we try to celebrate the normal things. Heck, you can even sing when you are grocery shopping at the top of your lungs. People look at you funny. But some smile. It is worth it.