The Infomercial Minions Are After Your Children

With our world’s seemingly endless proliferation of problems, including global warming, civil wars and down-turned economies, it was no surprise that hitting close to home this morning was one of America’s most serious, yet under-reported, societal ills: the attempts by today’s protégés of Billy Mays, one of the late, great peddlers of over-hyped “available only on television yet in a couple of months will be available in a local mass merchandiser next to dozens of other only available on TV products”, to warp the minds of our impressionable young children. This morning, my son, T, became the latest of a long list of mind control victims that fell under the spell of one of these car salesmen on steroids. I was taking my shower this morning and preparing for the day when T came rushing into the bathroom from the living room, where he had been watching a television program, saying “Dad, dad!” with an urgent, yet excited tone in his voice. I asked what was going on, not quite sure whether to expect an emergency or a joyous declaration, and saw through the glass the jubilant face of a six year old child, telling me how I needed to call “1-800-6922”. I asked T why I needed to call that number. He then proceeded to give me the highlights of a commercial which he had just seen, “If you call right now, you can get a telescope, three sets of binoculars and a binocular case for only $19.99.” As I was wondering how this offer, which I had dubbed the Voyeur’s Dream Kit, could appeal to anything beyond a very small niche target audience, T immediately asked if I could call and order it. I told T that he was missing some numbers from the telephone number, and that there should have been a series of three numbers after the 1-800. T cordially responded “OK”, and I thought that was the end of the that, however a few minutes later I walked into the living room and observed T to be in a hypnotic unblinking state staring at the television with a paper and pen in his hand. T explained to me in a stoic tone that he was waiting for the commercial to come back on so that he could write down the rest of the telephone number. I tried not to make a big deal out of his little search, and scooted back to the bathroom to finish getting ready. A few minutes later, T bellowed out for me to hurry back to the living room so that I could see the commercial presently on the television. I walked into the front room to bear witness to some older, scruffy looking gentleman with half combed hair, and donning a cheap suit, telling me how I could call right now to get his free program on how to change my child’s terrible behavior. Can anyone say questionable credibility? As I was trying to block out the less than convincing mind control monologue from Charles Manson’s brother filling my ears, T was telling me how he thought the next commercial would be for the binoculars because this commercial was just like that one because it had a 1-800 number. I felt such pity for T because he was mistakenly convinced that “his” commercial would be the next one to be shown, and then felt my heart drop even further as he said, with a mixed look of angst and frustration on his face, several times over the next few minutes, “I just have to remember that number, but my mind doesn’t work anymore.” I retired to my bathroom for a few more minutes to finish shaving and getting dressed, and as soon as I returned to the living room, T told me to not wash his leg off. I had no idea what he was talking about, and asked why not. T slowly lifted up the leg of his pajamas, and I witnessed an indiscernible text scrawled on the length of his leg from his knee to his ankle in red ink. When I asked him to explain his cryptic message, he responded, “It says my name is T, and my mind does not work anymore.” Well, to you Ron Popeil, the Godfather of Infomercials, and the hundreds of snake oil salesmen spawned from your likeness, I send a sarcastic thank you for causing my child's low self-esteem over the ability of his mind, his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder surrounding the need to discover the remaining digits of that elusive phone number and his slow decent into madness as evidenced by his self-mutilation through the use of a writing instrument. And to all you wondering about the never-ending quest to find out the telephone number, we never did see that dumb commercial again throughout the remainder of our day of television viewing. Thank goodness…I never had any intent on buying that stuff anyway!

The Unbridled Anger Of A Dedicated Female Reader



While walking through the parking lot of a local hospital yesterday, a dedicated follower of my blog accosted me and began ranting about the subject of the last blog post (for those of you joining our show in progress, please make sure to read What's Going On Down There? before continuing). The avid reader, Ms. M, was incensed not necessarily with the blog itself, but with the commercial for testicular cancer which I had addressed. Ms. M was unrelenting in her display of pure loathing for the commercial, and at one point her expressed intolerance for this prime example of idiotic commercial making made me fear for my personal safety to the point of almost completely wetting myself, or at least releasing a small dribble. Ms. M’s hatred for the commercial was two pronged: 1) Ms. M stated that the actor’s first line, “Hey guys, want to give her something special for Valentine’s Day? Check yourself for testicular cancer” was a completely selfish statement, and was not any gift at all, and that the female was not getting anything out of this; and 2) The second line: “Why give her a diamond, when you can give her the family jewels?” was, according to Ms. M, as equally stupid. She argued that even if detection of this illness could be considered a gift to phrase it in the manner in which the producers of the commercial chose to do so was ridiculous. Ms. M then stated something akin to the following, “That is a crappy gift. I was going to get you a diamond, but instead I’m going to touch my balls.” Ms. M went on, with great fervor, to berate the commercial for the next several minutes before allowing me to have my day back. Based upon my interesting encounter with Ms. M, I went into creative thinking mode today. So for Ms. M, I offer up the following possible changes to the commercial, which I hope will extinguish the internal blazing inferno of ire that Ms. M now has in her heart for the CBS Cares program. I completely agree with Ms. M’s concern that the female in this lover’s interplay receives nothing, and I would suggest the following script change, “Hey guys, want to give her something special for Valentine’s Day? Let her check you for testicular cancer.” Now there is a win-win solution for everyone. I am sure Ms. M would agree. As for her second point that the partner’s present has been downgraded from a sparkling nugget of compressed carbon to a set of sperm-producing spheres, I concur as well. However, with a simple twist of words I was able to change the “good gift to a bad gift” to a “bad gift to good gift” example while preserving the cleverness of the original commercial that utilized two related words (diamonds and jewels). I therefore offer the following Shakespearesque (self-described of course) prose: ‘Why give her a trashy present, when you can let her handle your junk.” Well, Ms. M, I think it is definitely mission accomplished in addressing your ill will towards one of America’s broadcasting network giants, don’t you?

Tonight’s Double Feature: “What’s Going On Down There?” and “Must Be That New Math”

That’s right folks, today’s blog is a for 2-for-1 special. To be honest, it is simply in two parts because I saw two interesting commercials on the same day, and the blog would have been relatively short if I would have only included one. That being said, please continue to believe you are getting a real treat today with the two entries. Please enjoy your show!

What’s Going on Down There?

I was totally frittering away my Saturday by spending almost the entire time watching mindless television programs, with a little bit of laundry and cleaning sprinkled in so that my subconscious mind would quit not-so-subconsciously reminding me that I needed to be more productive. During one my shows, a commercial came on which is still boggling my mind as I author this blog. First of all, it should be said that this commercial was part of CBS Cares, a series of public service announcements on things like going to college, stopping bullying, ect. CBS is a fine company, and all of the commercials I have seen in this series have been very well done. The scene of this particular commercial was set beautifully: a ruggedly handsome man dressed in a Hugh Hefner style robe/smoking jacket, sitting on the ground leaning against a bed in the background, clad in what appeared to be red silk sheets. Lit candles abounded the room, and covered almost every inch of available furniture, save for the bed. I must admit, it was quite the love cave. The actor, who I was unfamiliar with but who I assumed was from one of the network’s television shows, opened up with this great line: “Hey guys, want to get her something special for Valentine’s Day? Check yourself for testicular cancer.” Talk about the very definition of incongruence between appearance and content. I chuckled to myself because the approach to this just seemed to be so ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very serious health issue, and I am in no way against self-examination to check for this condition (and no jokes out there from the peanut gallery about how my exams do not really need to be conducted on a nightly basis…mind your own business….I’m just really cautious). While I have concern over the health of my half-of-an-offspring producing hanging man orbs, the commercial still struck me as a bit odd. As if this was not enough, the commercial topped itself with the delivery of the actor’s next, and final, line of the commercial: “Why give her a diamond when you can give her the family jewels.” WTF was the only thing I could think to myself. Over and over again I thought it as the commercial faded to black, and went on to some new commercial my brain did not even register the content of. So you are telling me there was a production meeting about this? The producer comes in, and says the CEO of CBS wants to do a PSA on testicular cancer to get the word out to the public, and asks for ideas. Then some creative genius throws out this television turd of an idea, proffering the plan of taking a very serious issue and inserting a 4th grade nickname for testicles into the script to make a joke. And what’s worse is that evidently not one of the creative team members thought this was a bad idea. While I find their approach baffling, I guess the important point is that they got the message out about this issue to millions of male viewers, and if even one is saved by early detection, then they have done their job. (As a very quick side note, in addition to being a PSA for testicular cancer, it was my sneaking suspicion that this commercial was sponsored by See‘s Candy and the National Association of Florists to remind men that Valentine‘s Day is coming up, but that is nothing more than conjecture at this point until hard evidence can be obtained to confirm said sneaking suspicion).

Must Be That New Math

Later in the day while watching television (yes, I was still frittering away my precious time) I bore witness to another display of television magic. This time I got caught up staring at a hypnotic infomercial for the Chopomatic 30000 Super Blender To End All Blenders. As anyone knows who has watched an infomercial, they tend to have a flare for the dramatic. In one particular scene, in effort to show the sheer destructive power of the blender’s blades, the host put a few pieces of concrete into the blender’s pitcher. Sparks flew as the blender whirred to life and the pieces of concrete were pulverized into a fine powder. The host then poured out the concrete granules, and then blended some fruit as the studio audience stared in wonder that the blades continued to cut like new. Wow, how sanitary! I half expected the host to take a big gulp of his sediment-infused “power smoothie” all the while chanting that wonderful mantra from my childhood “A little dirt don’t hurt”*, however he simply poured the concrete concoction into a glass to a cascade of staged oohs and ahhs from the minimally financially compensated crowd. While this overly dramatic display was completely expected from the wizards behind infomercial making, what happened next irked the math nerd inside of me. The television screen started flashing advertisements from magazines showing various similar blenders, ranging in prices from $250 to $2100. The golden-larynxed voice-over guy crooned out: “You can pay as much as $1200 for a similar blender.” Wait, then why did you show a $2100 one? OK, so a small error. No big deal, I can live with that. Then the voice again: “But you won’t pay $1200! You won’t pay $600! You won’t even pay a fraction of that! You pay only 5 easy payments of $50.” Something did not seem right to me about this. I then checked the recesses of my brain file……processing request…….processing request…….and then I found it. 3^rd grade fraction lessons with Ms. Kincaid. As I recalled it, a fraction means a portion of something, however this asinine commercial said you won’t even pay a fraction of $600, however last time I had checked the total $250 you would spend in the five easy payments is a fraction of $600.…I believe it is 250/600 (sorry, ms. Kincaid, I forgot to reduce and show my work. 250/600 with a common denominator of 50= 5/12). Even if this souped up blender with a lawnmower-sized motor and whirling blades of death that can destroy anything edible, and apparently cement based products as well, were to cost even one penny, it would cost a fraction of the aforementioned price. The only way this product would not cost a fraction of the noted price is if it were free (super math nerds out there, please do not pipe up about how zero can be represented as a fraction such as 0/x where x is any darn number you want it to be. I am sure you are right, but I don’t need any dissention between myself and the rank and file of my mass of dedicated blog followers….yes, all three of them).

*Fun fact of the day: While many in today's society simply believe that "A little dirt don't hurt" is simply one of a laundry list of pithy sayings littering the annals of America's storied past, unbeknownst to most is the fact that this saying was the guiding theroretical principal behind the devlopment of the now world-renowned Five Second Rule.

This Ain’t Your Parent’s Kids Meal Toy

Although I fancy myself a man of distinguished culinary tastes, my financial means do not always permit my progeny and I to experience the greatest that the food world has to offer. As a result of our limited financial resources last evening (that always happens the few days leading up to payday), T and I went to a local fast food restaurant to obtain our evening vittles. T ordered his typical cheeseburger kids meal: French fries, root beer and cheeseburger plain with only the bread, meat and cheese. I know, how delectably juicy and flavorful.

Of course, as at almost every fast food restaurant, this particular meal came with the creme de la creme of children’s entertainment products: the kids meal toy. So maybe not. OK, let’s just admit it. While kids often find it entertaining, the kids meal toy is always the chinciest, lowest quality toy you can find outside of a Cracker Jack prize (as a side note, has anyone else noticed the Cracker Jack prizes have gotten really crappy nowadays? They at least used to be something cool like a spinning top or temporary tattoo, but now it is the ever-exciting pencil topper or fun fact card about one of the early presidents of the United States. OOOOOHHHHHH, I can barely contain myself.) This particular kids meal did not contain a little plastic action figure or miniature truck, but instead contained a paper tiger hand puppet. The instructions stated: Children, you may need help from an adult.

I was soon to find out that the instructions should have had a second line that stated: Parents, you may need help from a 32 year veteran of origami artisanship. I struggled a bit to free the tiger from it’s seemingly tear-resistant plastic bag cage, and began what was to become not only an exercise in futility, but perhaps the greatest battle the world had ever witnessed of man versus converted wood product feline. The puppet was apparently supposed to be fashioned together by any average parental unit by following a series of NASA-like schematic drawings while dealing with ill-designed folds and a series of slots and accompanying tabs that either did not line up, or were of such mismatched sizes that the tabs either would not fit through the slots or they were too small and would slip back out. The first couple of folds and tab insertions were a little confusing, but I was able to manage. It was on approximately step 4 of 73 that my frustration began to rear it’s ugly head. Every time I attempted to make a new fold or insert a new tab, the other tabs that I had dealt with during earlier steps pulled themselves free. I spent nearly ten minutes of complete frustration, cursing silently to myself the little ten-cent-an-hour-Chinese-sweat-shop-working-seven-year-old that made this torturous thing for the sole purpose of showing the whole world how the American adult population can‘t even figure out a child‘s toy, all the while fighting back the urge to throw the thing on the ground, stomp on it and then take it home for it to meet it’s demise in my industrial strength paper shredder.

I looked at the side of the kids meal bag at this point, and discovered that the series of toys they were handing out were associated with Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. The only thing that was in the bag with the puppet was a fun fact card. I did not read it, but assumed it had some crazy, unbelievable facts about tigers, but also figured it was equally likely that the only thing printed on the card were the words: The only human to ever successfully complete the enclosed puppet was a 32 year veteran of origami artisanship. I believe you, Mr. Ripley. After ten minutes had passed I had reached the point of utter exsperation. I finally succumbed to my paper enemy, and admitted to myself, and my disappointed child, that my goal of puppet construction was unquestionably unattainable. T actually had pity on me and said it was OK and that it didn’t seem very cool anyway, but then suggested we take it home and try to put it together there. So I did what any parent would do….I let him walk out the door first and while I exited behind I angrily dumped the little piece of #$%*! in the refuse container (the tiger, not my child).

Son of a Beach

This past weekend my son “T” (as a reminder he is six years old) and I took a little excursion to the beach for a few days. “T” has a cousin, “H” that is just a little over a year younger than him who he loves to play with, and so happens to live at the coastal town where we were visiting this weekend. H’s parents had once lived in our hometown of Bakersfield, where summer days often exceed 100 degrees, but were lucky enough to have the ability to move to the beach a few years ago. Allowing their child to have the experience of growing up at the beach places them at the pinnacle of parental awesomeness. Even if they were to chop off H’s hands and feet, sew them in each other’s place, resulting in him having to walk on his hands (obviously covered with little hand shaped shoes) and picking his nose with a toe jam crusted foot appendage, they would still be awesome parents based upon their chosen location to raise their child.

When T and I arrived at the beach, we decided to meet H and his parents next to a local state campground where, a couple of months a year, monarch butterflies migrate through en masse and provide for some really cool insect viewing. For a few minutes, we all listened to a quaint little presentation on the monarch butterflies: the migration, their eating habits, life cycle, ect. At the end of the presentation from an excessively happy twenty year old park employee, she threw out the casual warning to watch out for butterflies in pairs on the ground so that they are not stepped on. Apparently, the butterflies find a mate, engage in some coital activity on the ground, and then fly up together into the trees. That is really a horrific thing to happen to the poor butterfly. There you are, caressing the antennae of your chosen mate, engaging in a little bit of the old “bumpin’ thorax” and bam! The sole of someone’s Nike Air Jordan flattens you and your partner beyond recognition. Although the saying is used symbolically when referring to the amorous act of love making, this heartless human has just given a literal meaning to the saying “Two individuals becoming one.”

After the kids became bored with butterflies, which happened in about 12 seconds, we made our way down a path to the beach where the kids could play for a while. As soon as we began walking down the little dirt road, both boys picked up huge pointed sticks and began swinging them around dangerously, endangering the optical orbs of every single passerby. These kids would have had a Vietcong punji stick expert impressed with their tiny, yet volatile, wooden weapon equipped hands. We finally made it down to the beach after a five to ten minute walk, and the kids were relatively behaved while playing. After about twenty minutes of frolicking in the sand and surf, T said “I have to go poop.” Why do children’s bathroom needs have to be so inconvenient? Couldn’t he have needed to go while we were by the butterfly exhibit where a bathroom was available? I informed T that we would need to walk back the butterfly park. There happened to be some large bushes in our vicinity, and T suggested evacuating his bowels behind a bush. (Yeah, great idea I thought. And what would he wipe with, a leaf? And wouldn’t it just be our luck to use a poison oak leaf. And I can tell you I had absolutely no plans to spend my weekend at the beach applying some soothing sphincter salve to my son’s burning, itching buttocks.) So for my own previously mentioned selfish reasons, and for the obvious reason that going out in public is just plain discourteous to other beach goers, I told T we would be making the walk back to the butterfly park. He agreed to this, and we made the trip back to the bathroom, all the while me asking with a not-so-well-disguised worrisome voice “Are you gonna make it? Are you going to be OK?” When we arrived back at the bathroom, I deduced from the quizzical expression on my son’s face that he had never used an outhouse-type toilet. For the porta-potty virgin, and even for a veteran user, the outhouse can be one of the most disturbing and traumatic experiences a human can endure. T went inside by himself, and came back out after a nanosecond, telling me how bad the bathroom stunk. T then quickly, and adamantly, told me he did not need to go to the bathroom. I spent the next 1-2 minutes telling him how I knew he need to go, and that I knew it was not fun to use that type of bathroom, but that if he just hurried we could get back to playing with H. I am not proud to say it, but I even went so far as to tell T how I would be very upset with him if he had an involuntary fecal incident in his pants, given that he had the opportunity to use the restroom. No matter what I said, T maintained that the urge to use the facilities had magically disappeared. So we made our way back, and despite the fact that I know he had to be placing himself at risk of serious intestinal damage by way of his unrelenting rectum and his resulting impacted colon, he spent the next two hours not saying a word about needing to go to the bathroom.

Later in the day, the boys found a fifteen foot wide creek feeding into the ocean. Neither child was outfitted in “water clothing” or shoes, and were instructed repeatedly not to get in, or play to closely to the water. H found a large piece of bark and despite a vehement objection from T, who wanted to play with the bark, deftly tossed the piece of bark in the creek far out of the reach of either child. T, AKA Mini MacGyver, got the ingenious idea of pulling two long plant vines out of the ground and crafted a long “rescue rope” by knotting the two pieces of vegetation together. In an attempt to retrieve the piece of bark, T then proceeded to begin casting his line into the creek with the form of a finalist in the Bass Master’s Fishing Derby Championship. Unfortunately, it took only one overzealous torque of the shoulder and flick of the wrist, combined with some slippery footing, to send T tumbling face first into the murky, sandy water soaking every bit of his person. With no extra clothes to change into, that fateful fall into the water ended our day playing with H. As T showered that afternoon, attempting to rid himself of every remaining grainy particle that had nestled in his bodily crevasses, I realized that the old saying “Where the sun don’t shine” should have a parallel sister maxim, “Where the sand settles.”

High Tech Hookup

There appears to be a myriad of ways to meet a significant other these days. There are the old standbys such as bars, nightclubs, parties and blind dates set up by well-meaning friends (or ex-friends depending on how the date goes). However, it was a commercial I saw today for an online dating site, which have been around for several years now, that caught my attention. This was one of the sites that uses numerous “dimensions” to match one person with another. The concept of matching people based upon common interests and values seems to be a good approach, and it is understandable why so many people use these sites, however it was the “dimensions” that floated across the screen during the commercial such as “kindness” and “generosity” that made me wonder about this product. How many people out there participating in this site’s program are answering the profile questions honestly and rating themselves low in characteristics that are positive in nature. Is there a guy or gal using a Likert-type scale while filling out their profile that ranges from 1 to 10, saying to themselves “Kindness. Hmmm…let’s see. Well, I’m a complete jackass. I shall go ahead and mark a 1. At least later on I can mark a 10 for honesty.” And even if someone were to mark this, who in the heck would they possible be matched with? Do they stick them with the person who marked ten on the “I am a glutton for being verbally berated” scale? And how about the generosity scale? When someone scores highly on this section, is there a group of hapless hobos waiting to be matched with these wonderful philanthropists and now have someone that will treat them to a much needed meal, and if things go well on the date, the possibility of a warm shower and comfy bed to sleep in that their normal day to day existence has been lacking.

The other thing on the commercial that made me chuckle a bit was the look of joy and pure ecstasy on the faces of the enamored participants. I completely understand that they are trying to sell a product, and obviously they are not going to put on their commercial those individuals that had a horrendous experience with the service. I am not such a Negative Norm that I don't believe successful relationships have never blossomed and flourished as a result of this matchmaking miracle, however it was the likely “5 dates down the road” face of some of the partners which filled my imagination that made me smirk a bit because everyone full well knows that it is unlikely the service will be able to match all participants with someone on every single “dimension”, and it may be possible that the few components they were not able to completely match someone on may become a complete relationship buster. I can just imagine (in my obviously deranged mind) the following scenario: There the happy couple is, thinking that everything is wondrous after their first few dates, and then during date number five the heart-warming tale comes completely unraveled as one of the partners gasps in horror when they realize that they were not a complete match on all dimensions. Immediately the date ends, and the frantic call to customer service begins: “Thank you for calling (bleeeeeep) dating service. If we can’t find a match for you, you must be a lost cause. How may I help you?” Blah, blah, blah. “Yes, ma’am, I can understand your concern that you were not matched with an appropriate individual. However, in looking at the individual you were matched with, it is noted that you were a complete match on 26 out of 27 dimensions, which indicates a compatibility rate of over 96%. That is actually an extremely impressive compatibility rate.” Expletive laden blah, blah, blah. “Well, ma’am, there is really no reason to use such harsh language. And as a side note, if I were endowed enough to do what you just suggested I do to myself, I wouldn’t need to be using our dating service myself now would I? That aside, let me just take a look here in our system at your profile and the profile of your partner. Ok, very interesting. And so what I hear you saying is that the disparity between your scores on the “Proclivity Towards Bestiality” scale is causing you some sort of distress. Is that correct?” Click. Of course, I am sure these programs are more effective than the bar matchmaking system which is based upon the common interests of excessive alcohol consumption and lustful dance floor shenanigans, followed by the common morning after feelings of regret and, on occasion, the ultimate in unintentional commonalities, the child in common.