Chariots of Ire

Order Now! But Wait!

Didn't they say 'Hurry! Today only!' yesterday, too?

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Some people, I've discovered, like to complicate things. Not me. I'm not complicated. I'm just a simple guy, with simple dreams and simple desires: some food, some books, a ridiculously large music collection, and some more food. Just keep it simple, and don't confuse me.

Commercials confuse me. Though, to be fair, lots of things confuse me. Al Roker's appeal, for one thing. People who get excited about lawn care, for another. How vampires went from scary to sexy. Neckties. Okra.

Why is black-and-white Tarzan's hair slicked back, and with what? Who did Adam and Eve's sons marry? And why #2 pencils? What happened to all the #1 pencils? Did somebody use them all up stabbing vampires? It's confusing.

I remember when commercials were easy. Some polite human with sand-blasted teeth would point to a product, strongly suggest you buy it, and then shut up. Nice. Simple. And no drippy gore on any undead teeth.

But commercials these days are obtuse and obscure, like some conceptual foreign film. A nasal duck with a limited vocabulary attacks a kid delivering Chinese food: buy our insurance! An anthropomorphic frog mourns on its lily pad, surrounded by an amphibian 'misery management' support group: buy our beer! Sometimes you have to watch a commercial several times (and you'll get to) before you figure out what they're selling.

And then there are the commercials that don't even attempt to sell you anything. They're just on a PR binge: they just want you to like them. You know the type:

Here at Global Offshore Sweatshops, we don't make the skateboard: we make the skateboard faster. We don't make the bat: we make the bat harder, so we can sell the bat to thug kids in street gangs who've outgrown skateboards. We don't make the computers: we make the casings that coat the nails that fasten the shelves that line the walls that house the computers that are hacked by the thug kids who then steal your identity and, on weekends, hit people with bats. Here at Global Offshore Sweatshops, we don't make the stuff you buy: we make the stuff you buy hurt you.

So let's look at some examples. I'll describe actual ads that companies have produced and aired on TV, and you tell me what product these people are wanting you to buy.

...if you can...

Ready? Good luck!

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A driver with an expensive non-American car and chiseled facial features is barreling down the middle of a middle-of-nowhere straightaway. Suddenly, a military support plane screams into view, extends its mid-air refueling snake, and refills the driver's coffee cup.

Order now! But...what?

A new car

An after-market sunroof

An ego reduction kit

A bubbly woman in white works in a stark white, horizon-less store that houses stark white shelves packed with vague, colorful boxes. Her name is Flo, she's a part-time biker, she has a merry-go-round, and she's often visited by guardedly nervous men who wear light blue suits and have no spine.

Order now! But...what?

Car insurance

Wimp repellent

Dr. Seuss's new book,'Horton Hears an Emasculated Who!'

A young Asian-looking woman sees air bubbles in a store aquarium. A young Indian-looking man sees workers mixing up concrete in a wheelbarrow. A young soccer mom sees kids having a water balloon fight. They all rush home, fire up an online conference, and prototype a brilliant water delivery system that looks suspiciously like a cement-spackled party favor in a fish tank.

Order now! But...what?

Online conference software

A super-sized pallet of paper towels

A Toys-R-Us 'My First Aqueduct' kit

A cocky, evil man who goes by the unlikely name of 'Mayhem' and is indestructible (you just don't get cockier than that) gets hit by a train, bounces off your car, gets electrocuted, is sucked through a large, bladed farm implement, gets attacked by escaped mental patients wielding #1 pencils, and ends up crashing through your roof.

Order now! But...what?

Property insurance

An ethics-optional, results-oriented realtor

A machine-washable anti-Mayhem parka

A lady wants to quit smoking. We know how badly she wants to quit because she takes long walks with her boyfriend and her kids do their homework in the kitchen. A disembodied announcer's voice recommends she try a product that has absolutely nothing to do with smoking. On the plus side, however, the product can cause occasional, discomforting side-effects ranging from dry mouth to suicide, including medical conditions so vile that we won't discuss them here, but they rhyme with 'spectral breeding.' In rare cases, totally innocent dogs in entirely different neighborhoods may spontaneously explode.

Order now! But...what?

Anti-depression medicine

Pet-store-issueNow - in your time of losssympathy card value packs

Another parka

A grizzled man's aging muscle car overheats in the desert. Oddly enough, this happens near the only gas station within 450 miles. At the station, the man grabs a bottle of water, refills his radiator, and drives away. He never bothers to speak to the equally grizzled proprietor. We're pretty sure he didn't pay for the water, either.

Order now! But...what?

Sexual dysfunction medicine

Three online global activists who prototype water delivery systems

Eight weeks of etiquette classes

A father and daughter are shooting hoops in their driveway, accompanied by a giant imaginary tiger that's standing on its hind legs and grinning like Al Roker on assignment in Phoenix. They finish and go inside for breakfast. As they eat, the tiger stands in the background, grinning and yelling about something being great. Other than a red bandanna, the tiger is stark naked.

Order now! But...what?

Breakfast cereal

Tickets to the annual 'Fauna in the Sauna' safari at the Playboy Mansion

Anti-psychotic medication

The walls in your home are being attacked by a computer-generated monster that looks like something Stephen King might have dreamed up one night after eating too much pizza.

Order now! But...what?

Pest control

Martha Stewart's new book,'101 Affordable Ways To Entertain In A Condemned Building'

Stephen King's new book,'Stomach'

A wealthy lady takes a decorative plate from her curio cabinet, grabs a hammer, and smashes the plate, causing her maid to momentarily stop cleaning. So the lady fires the maid, then logs in to Monster.com and reactivates her ad: 'WANTED: Unappreciated menial to do condescending work for insulting wages. Preference given to illegals who hail from predominately Catholic countries.' The lady then grabs a shard from the shattered china, runs to the museum, and uses it to repair a painting.

Order now! But...what?

Investment funds

A robot floor sweeper

A robot floor sweeper with a Catholic accent

There's a battle for Earth. A pudgy, mute animated character is slinging tires at a giant marauding gas tank. The giant gas tank has monstrous tentacles, each terminating in a gas nozzle. It's hard to pinpoint the mute animated character: he could be the puffy white mascot from a tire company in France, or that giant grinning nautical marshmallow man from 'Ghostbusters,' or a mid-winter Barney Frank.

Order now! But...what?

Document-management services

Barack Obama's new book,'How I Liberated France'

A flex-fuel vehicle with the 'Marauding Giant Collision Alert, and Floor Mats' option package

A man in an unbelievably cheap suit and what is, hands-down, the world's worst hairpiece, looks directly into the camera and asks you several times if you've been injured.

Order now! But...what?

Legal services

A handgun and several rounds of ammunition

O.J. Simpson's new book,'I Didn't Injure You, But If I Had, Here's How I Would Have Done It'

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Well, I hope this little exercise helped better prepare you for America's unending, ongoing onslaught of TV commercials. After all, in the Battle for the Wallet Bulge, you need to gird your loins, although that could chafe your ... um ... girdage.

And when you get to the ' enough TV already!' stage, give me a shout. I can get you a sweet deal on a bat.

Louisville, that is...not vampire.

back to TOC

How To Run a Planet

America faces new challenges...and that's just our leadership

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Sometime during the summer of 2012, some guy in California released a movie clip on You-Tube.

And immediately, all over the planet, nothing happened.

True, this little-known film clip had promising potential to be a trouble-maker. The clip contained 'religious' references that might offend people in countries where they have sand sidewalks. Also, the director of the movie had spent the bulk of his cinematic career churning out smutty gems like The Sexpert and Young Lady Chatterley (I and II).

But the point is, nothing happened. For months, nobody, anywhere, cared. Life went on. In America, people rationed their TV time between watching football teams out-injury each other, watching presidential candidates out-insult each other, and watching a 6-year-old kid named Honey Boo Boo smoke fake cigarettes and drink real Red Bull.

And then, in September, an anti-America anger volcano erupted in practically every country where people wear open-toed shoes and eat chickpeas.

So, naturally, the White House issued a statement, lamenting the riots that had somehow manifested in over a dozen countries at the same time, and blaming the sudden violence on that film clip from last summer.

And then the President flew to Las Vegas to attend a re-election fundraiser.

Then we got word that rioters in Tripoli had destroyed a Hardee's, a move that threatened to set the Libyan economy back by several years. (An adjoining Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise was also attacked, but the rioters were foiled after the KFC's clever night manager deployed a canola oil slick.)

So, naturally, the White House issued a statement, lamenting the deaths of thousands of defenseless Thickburgers, and blaming the fast food massacre on Paul Ryan's budget.

And then the President flew to New York to attend a re-election fundraiser.

Now, to be fair, it's not easy being President of the USA, and Commander-in-Chief, and Leader of the Free World, and to still maintain a golf handicap of 18. Plus, when you finally do get a few minutes at home alone, there's all those armed men walking around on your roof.

Think you could do better?

Well, let's find out. We've put together a little quiz, to see how President You would stack up against the guy that's there now.

Let's see how you would handle the pressure of juggling all things Presidential: things like effecting hope; deflecting blame; projecting your chin while simultaneously biting your lip and displaying your profile; pinching your thumb and forefinger together and making little up-and-down pointy gestures; trying to keep a straight face while giving an acceptance speech in front of a bunch of fake Greek columns.

Ready? Let's begin.

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What do you call an eruption of self-destructive mob violence in an Arab nation?

** A predictable reaction to decades of desperation

** A culturally-fed alternative translation of religious texts

** Thursday

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Within 72 hours of the first incident, US embassies from Africa to Indonesia were under attack. As America's Fundraiser-in-Chief, what do you blame it on?

** A 3-month-old movie clip

** Mitt Romney noticing that US embassies from Africa to Indonesia were under attack

** Maybe not everybody has seen your Nobel Peace Prize yet

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Because you're too busy campaigning for re-election, you blow off all those pesky Daily Intelligence Briefings; instead, you just watch a short PowerPoint presentation and skim through a how-to primer (Religious Fascism for Dummies). Finally, you agree to return the Pentagon's phone call, and the Joint Chiefs present you with a full slate of Chief Executive options. Which option will you select?

** Direct military intervention

** Crippling economic sanctions

** A five iron

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A Cairo protestor is caught on camera, showing his displeasure with America in the usual way - by stomping up and down on a sign written in German. What will be the most likely reaction from world governments?

** France surrenders to the sign

** Qatar purchases Cairo

** Greece asks Qatar for a loan, offering to write a post-dated check

** Qatar purchases Honey Boo Boo

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When attempting to convince voters of your global qualifications to lead America, what will be the centerpiece in your display of competency?

** Your years of familiarity with the geopolitical disciplines

** Your decades of depth in the intricacies of international law

** Your Al Green impersonation

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Regardless of his crisis - or his historically consistent failure to manage them - the President can always blame somebody else. Any target in this list will do, but which is your favorite?

** The Bush recession

** The Bush tax cuts

** The Bush stock market

** The Bush job market

** The burning bush

** Bush's Baked Beans

** Bush Hog rotary cutters (single- or multi-spindle)

** Kate Bush

** Republicans

** Earthquakes

** Republican earthquakes

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Congress, meanwhile, rather than face any difficult decision-making in an election year, actually voted for an increase in spending. What tactic might make them wake up to some fiscal realities?

** The imposition of term