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All I really need to know I learned from music videos

Every week, I write for another site called Blommit.com. I will post links to my articles here.

Here is the first one:

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned from music videos. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in a hot tub placed in the back of a slow rolling Mercedes Benz limousine or in sterile white room with moving walls or in a metal-caged dome filled with fire-wielding gangsters set in some post-apocalyptic version of Los Angeles.

These are the things I learned:

Click here for full article

Things that aren't supposed to be funny, but actually are...

1. Good Friends Cereal













"Are you a racist? Are you trying to work through your prejudices? Do you like cereal?"



2. Baby Helmets











“Does your baby have soft spots on its head?
And want to go spelunking?”



3. The Movie Swimfan













My personal favorite Comedy of 2002.



4. The Children's Casino that is Chuck E. Cheese












"Come on Wack-a-Mole, Cindy needs a new paddle ball and three Toostie Rolls."



5. Bikers that use hand signals













Four words - Six syllables:

Use the fucking sidewalk.



6. MacGyver













You try disarming a nuclear reactor with piece of floss, a monocle and the Sports Illustrated shoe phone.



7. People fighting in the apartment next to you







“Damnit, Demarco! I fucking hate elbow pasta!”
"Well, Monica, I ran over our cat!"

Too good to be true

There is an old maxim that says “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” I heard this a lot when I was growing up. I heard it the most when I asked my parents if I could enter direct mail sweepstakes and when I asked a baby sitter one time, “can we go to free cone day at Ben and Jerry’s?”

I think the underlying insight to this maxim is that “nothing is free.” This goes well beyond the concept of free in terms of zero monetary exchange, as we all know you can pay for something without losing any money. The skeptics always like to highlight the back half - the submerged, painful part of the deal.

“Sure, it’s a free cruise, but did you know that you have to share a room with a whole bunch of people from Utah?”

“Yeah, they are giving away haircuts, but did you know that they are training recovering heroin addicts to be barbers?”

And my personal favorite I overheard a father telling his daughter when they were walking past an ASPCA giveaway.

“Okay sweetie, it’s a free puppy, but one day it is going to die. Let’s go.”

Tears.

The concept of “free” plays well into the analysis of “too good to be true”, but the critique lives in numerous other places.

“Too good to be true” firmly supports the statement, “she’s so hot, but I bet she’s a bitch.” And it is in these situations that we use “too good to be true” as a device for self-rationalization. “If she’s that hot, then there is no way she can be cool. The universe wouldn’t allow it. It’s too good to be true.”

It’s how we sleep at night. “Too good to be true” keeps the score even. Our mind wouldn’t allow someone to be beautiful AND interesting. That would be the splitting of an atom. The world would be destroyed.

There are many things out there that I believe are too good to be true. 5-hour energy is near the top of that list.

Five hours of energy? With no crash? What’s not to love? It seems to be a win-win. But why five hours? Where did that number come from? Did they max out the serum at five hours? Did 6-hour energy turn people into porn addicts? Was 4-hour energy not selling well in the test market of carpooling mothers picking up toddlers? What about fifteen minute energy? Maybe it was undermined by its more recreational competitor – cocaine. And three-day energy? Probably blown away by its cheaper foil – methamphetamine.

Maybe 5-hour energy is just what they needed. It’s the average time of work left after morning coffee wears off. It’s the average time it takes to drive home from somewhere that is five hours away from wherever you call home. Lastly, you can drink two of them and watch the entire HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. Too good to be true? Who cares. Microwaving our food will have given us cancer long before 5-hour energy causes renal failure.

Other things that are too good to be true (some tested, some speculated):

Robot vacuum cleaners
The Strategic Defense Initiative “Star Wars”
Any free cruise
Stuffed-crust pizza
Chaser pills
Santa Claus
Coke Zero
Singer-songwriters
and
The future real estate development plan of Dubai

Thanks, Scott

There are many ad campaigns that leave me baffled.  After being in advertising school for two years the list has done nothing but grown.  However, there is one that stands well above the rest.  

I am, of course, talking about the campaign for Enterprise Rent-A-Car.  

Most of their commercials involve a couple or a family in some kind of once-in-a-decade situation with Enterprise playing the hero.

One man walks outside his house with a large foam finger and a bag of cheetos and screams to his wife as he eyes the rental car in the driveway, "Honey! Enterprise! For the game!"

Oh believe it sir.  It is, indeed, Enterprise for the game.  

But I am confused.  

They live in a house.  They have a garage.  They have a car.  

"No, you don't understand.  It's Enterprise for the game!"

No, you don't understand.  You don't have to get a rental car to go to the game.  You own a car.  I see it, right there.  

If I walked outside of my house on the day my favorite team was playing and there was a jackass in a suit holding a key to a red mustang, I would be less than enthusiastic.  "Honey.  Enterprise?  For the game? Are we taking a hot air balloon to the concession stand? Have you lost your fucking mind?"

But it's not his fault.  He didn't come up with the idea.  Some ad agency for Enterprise did.  Someone was sitting in a room and was like, "I have an idea.  What if he got Enterprise for the game?"  

Now, he most likely had to tell someone else this idea way before they told it to Enterprise.  So he went in and said, "Hey, I had an idea.  What if we had a guy get Enterprise - for the game?"

Now, this person could have said, "Scott, that makes no sense.  You're a dumbass."  

But they didn't.  They said, "Wow, Scott.  That's pretty interesting.  I think we should call Enterprise." 

So they called Enterprise and said, "Enterprise, I hope your sitting down because we have an idea that is going to blow your mind... Enterprise for the game."

And Enterprise could have said, "Is this why we hired you?"

But they didn't.  They said, "Wow.  That's pretty interesting.  We'll take it.  Thanks, Scott."

The agency could have hung it up there.  They could have said, "You know Enterprise we gave you this gem known as 'Enterprise for the game' and we think that we would like to go out on top."

But the didn't.  They did what true artists always do.  They reinvented themselves.  This is why, if you watch any amount of television these days, you will see one of the most perplexing commercials to ever grace the airwaves of American television.  

The Enterprise Rent-A-Car Weekend Getaway.

If you haven't seen it, it has a woman holding up two pieces of lingerie and asking her husband, "red or black?" to which his reply is a creepy middle-school-science-teacher "both."

The voiceover of the commercial says something along the lines that, "Enterprise can make any weekend getaway that much better."

What?

Let me get this straight.  Before Enterprise, the weekend rendezvous wasn't going to be fun?  

Was this their conversation when they were taking their own car?

"Red or black?"

"Fuck Bethany, I don't care.  It's not like we are going to do it anyway."

"I knew you hated our car."

"Yeah, that's right.  I hate our car. I hate the way the AM radio station doesn't pick up my sports stations.  I hate the sun visor on the passenger side.  I hate the way you can't read the clock when it's really bright outside.  I hate our car.  I hate you.  I wish I had never booked our stay at that Sleep Inn that is an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes away.  I hate it."

But, don't worry, everything is alright.  They called Enterprise.  

If only the logic of this commercial could apply to the real world. 

"Yes, Doctor, we haven't slept together in months.  It's like she doesn't even noticed that I am there."

"Have you tried renting a car for the weekend?"

"What?"

or

"Rhonda, I'm leaving you and the kids."

"But Thomas, I just rented a car."

"Well, I guess I don't have to go right this minute."

I guess my main confusion is why they even advertise to begin with.  People rent cars for three reasons: they have flown somewhere and need a car, their car is in the shop or they don't own one and need one for some reason.  There will never be any other reason to rent a car.  Ever.  When someone does need a car, they want to know what is cheap.  Enterprise does offer a nice service in that they "pick you up", but why does every commercial need a contrived scenario that plagues the minds of consumers between football games?   The answer? 

Because Scott is a dumbass.  More importantly, everyone above him is a dumbass.  Including Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

"Red or Black?"

"Neither, I cancelled the reservation."

Numerous Atrocities and 1 Vodka-Fanta

Because I am a human and because I have ears, I have come into contact with a raucous malignancy that has plagued the airways of cable television in recent months.  I am, of course, talking about the show, "Paris Hilton's My New BFF".  

In the realm of public assault this show can only be compared to events such as the "Reign of Terror" during the French Revolution, Rosie O'Donnell's hosting of The View and Shawn Colvin's 1997 breakthrough single "Sunny Came Home" that was incessantly played on the radio airwaves during that hot summer of the mid-nineties.   

But Paris has done worse.  She has done worse than Shawn Colvin's middle aged weariness, worse than Rosie's blatant political agenda and, yes, even worse than Robespierre's  guillotine.  At least those examples were forced attacks.  They were arrows aimed at the heart of our own well-being - assaults so forward and profound that we could do nothing to hide from their reach.  

But Paris has done worse.  She (and her producers) have made a gross assumption that assaults, not only our well-being, but our humanity.

Paris was sitting at home, drinking vodka and Capri Sun and sitting by the stairs.  She was lamenting all of the bridges she had burned over the years.  The servant in Puerto Rico.  The lawn boy in Beverly Hills.  The chihuahua in her tub.  

She was thinking about these things when her bedazzled iPhone lit up.  It was her agent.

"What's wrong Paris?  You sound awful."

"It's the oil prices.  I'm just so confused as to the drops in the global market.  What does this mean for my 401K?"

"Are you serious?"

"No, I'm just repeating the internet.  I'm watching Kids and doing lines off a picture of Christopher Reeves, what's up with you?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking that it is pilot season, and well, we need to get a show.  Tell me what's going on in your life."

"Well, I don't really have any more friends."

"That's it.  I have to go."

And, thus, the show was born.

We could have demanded a boycott.  We could have formed a website that spoke to the merits of avoiding such mental atrophy.  But we didn't.  We stood by.  We stood by and watched it.  We watched and wrote a blog post about it.

Reality television represents everything that is wrong with our culture.  It is complacent, removed, vicarious, voyeuristic.  It requires no real emotional investment and it is self-fulfilling.  "Watch next week so that you can watch next week."  It is all a grand soap opera on which the ever-diminishing attention span of our society rests.

If television continues down this route, it will be interesting to see the kind of programming that comes about as as result of it.  

Antfarm: Murder on the Hill

Tuesday in Albuquerque

Omelet: A Dance Off

My Recycling Bin 

We are Dave and Tina (This is our dust ruffle)

Steven Tyler: Makeout with Strangers

How far is the closest body of water?

Owl Waiting

Chimneys with Thomas Kinkade 

I love you but I'm going to sleep

Where did I put my keys? 

Things you can do with a Tennis Ball

I'll have a number 7 

And lastly,

Scrapbooking with a mute named Herman

The possibilities are endless, but the question remains:  If we can do something does that mean we should?  

I feel bad for Paris Hilton.  When she is older she will realize exactly what has happened.  She will be drinking a Vodka-Fanta in a golf cart near a pool in Los Angeles.  She will look over at the fence near the electrical box.  Lying there will be dead bird.  She will stare at the bird's one opened eye, the last bits of moisture catching the dying sun.  And the last drops from her warm Vodka-Fanta hit the back of her throat it will dawn on her that, one day, she too will die.  She will look at her iPhone and it will be ringing.  It will be her agent calling to ask her about pilot season.  

She won't answer.  She will realize that she doesn't know what BFF, or her own personality, stands for.

Paris will have to go back to the beginning. 

Bored at work? Here you go.

Sometimes the only thing better than music is the picture that the artist thinks goes with it.

Here is the link:

Worst Album Covers Ever