Easy to learn and safe to ride!

Back when I was a teenager and generally didn’t know shit about anything I did at least absorb a fair hunk of TV viewing and radio listening and I figured out fairly quickly the prime rules of advertising… which are: Brag about the best qualities of your product and try to ignore the nasty qualities… with one vital exception: Take the number one nastiest thing and brag about it most of all!

Just reverse it. Say the opposite about it.

I guess their thinking is… people are so stupid you can distract them from your biggest problem by making them assume it’s the biggest advantage; that people are so stupid they will assume the thing you brag about the most has got to be true or you wouldn’t be bragging about it.

I don’t absorb nearly as much advertising any more. It has waned and waned throughout my life (typical, I think?) but on the rare occasions I am subjected to it I still see the above phenomenon again and again.

Let’s take a quick peak at this little number: the hoverboard. Which is “easy to learn and safe to ride” apparently! Let’s be generous and overlook the matter of whether it hovers or not. Let’s see if we can glean any insight into how easy and safe it is:

Okay then.

No. No you didn't

The Toyota Motor Corporation should be given an award for being the most dedicated mockers of people’s intelligence.

Right on the heels of their recommendation that we buy a camera-studded Rav4 in order to turn parking into a video game where we must avoid carnivorous shopping carts on the loose – Oh,  and presumably more realistic parking hazards such as – well: dancing fire hydrants maybe? Evil lance-brandishing gremlins riding giant rats? Am I missing something?

So right on the heels of this indulgent farce; this gratuitous tech-nonsense which no one has ever needed unless they’re such an incompetent driver it is scandalous they have a license, they come out with this possibly-most-belligerent claim I’ve ever heard:

“Can you make joy?” They ask. “We did!” Then you see an image of their shiny car scooting down the road with the label Joy.

I can’t think of a more ignorant message.

A whole lot of people will go through life without ever experiencing a moment of legitimate joy but could any be so hopelessly removed from the possibility as automakers?

And by automakers I mean the masterminds who shape our culture: our car culture. I’m not talking about the people who are trapped within that culture with me and who happen to be employed in the car industry because they require employment.

Joy is a product of truth, beauty and love. Three things which automobiles fiercely oppose.

You know what? Come back in April! I have decided on my next April A-Z topic: Twenty six important perspectives on the automobile. And I promise I’ll try to be polite about it!

The origins of a TV commercial

Scene: Toytoyo Auto Corporation, head office executive boardroom, Tokyo Japan

Present:
Chairman: Dudley Warbucks
President: Akary Toydoyo
Executive Vice President: Macrame Nekktai
Executive Vice President: Screwge Makduk
Director of Innovation: Ernst Bloefeld
Director of Shizzle: Simian Scythe
Director of Plebe Manipulation: Hachiko Tigama

Toydoyo: Listen up, homies: I’m having some cash-flow concerns. I’ve only got sixteen swimming pools across 14 of my mansions. I need more and of course more staff to care for them. I’ve got mistresses in twenty eight different countries who all want a raise and higher credit card limits. All my private planes are more than five years old and need replaced and Satan has upped my monthly payments again. We need to invent some new consumer needs to fill and fast! What have you got for me?

Bloefeld: We ran out of believable ideas a long time ago!

Scythe: For the domestic market; yes, but not for the Western market. They’ll believe anything. They watch dum dum television all day and night.

Bloefeld: Ah, yes. For the western market; we have many ideas.

Toydoyo: Give me your best two!

Nekktai: We’ll choose the most believable.

Makduk: No. We’ll choose the most profitable!

Warbucks: We will make… the most profitable… the most believable.

All others: Ahhhh!

Warbucks: Won’t we, Tigama?

Tigama: Of course.

Bloefeld: (tapping his laptop keys) Okay. Here is the idea I like best: We appeal to their environmental sensibilities. We make a commercial telling them how driving from west to east is causing friction against the Earth’s spin, and how that friction causes heat which contributes to global warming!

Scythe: Are you crazy, Blofeld! Do you know how much money we’ve spent shutting people up about the global warming contribution from autos! You’ve come off your noodle, sir!

Bloefeld: But wait! We then introduce our new anti-earthspin friction condenser! It fights global warming!

Nekktai: Climate change. Not global warming. Climate change sounds less dire, and kind of fun.

Bloefeld: Of course. Of course. (taps a few more keys) We’ll option it on all models. Big money.

Makduk: It doesn’t sound believable at all.

Tigama: The Yankees will fall for it.

Scythe: Yes, and then the Canadians and Europeans will fall right in line. They copy the Yankees in everything now.

Toydoyo: What will this condenser equipment actually do?

Bloefeld: It will make the air conditioning work better. They’ll feel cooler which will ensure them they are fighting global warming!

Warbucks: I don’t know about this. The environmentalists are pretty smart. They might kick up a fuss about it; launch a campaign.

Nekktai: Our advertising budget is a hundred thousand times what theirs is.

Makduk: The greens are not so smart anyway. They think that recycling and windmills will save them.

Toydoyo: (looks confused) Well, won’t they?

All others: (stare at Toydoyo, aghast)

Toydoyo: (falls apart laughing)

All others: (fall apart laughing)

Scythe and Tigama: (fall off their chairs laughing and have to re-seat themselves)

Makduk: You had us going there!

Toydoyo: (wipes tears from his eyes) What else have you got, Bloefeld?

Bloefeld: Okay. I warn you: this one is even crazier. You ready?

Toydoyo: Go on.

Bloefeld: You know the camera we have on the back of some models? For backing up?

All present: (look around at each other and then start to giggle)

Warbucks: That’s one of my favorites!

Toydoya: Did we come up with that?”

Scythe: I wish.

Bloefeld: I think it was a Yankee. They put them behind their giant campers because they couldn’t see behind them and they’re too lazy to go look in person before getting into the driver seat.

Toydoyo: How did we convince them they needed a camera behind a Rav 4?

Tigama: Commercials that said the devil will steal your soul if you look in mirrors too much.

Warbucks: Excellent!

Bloefeld: Now we will tell them that one camera is not enough! We will put cameras all over! In every direction! And then turn the windshield into a solid widescreen TV instead!

Toydoyo: Genius! We can partner with Netflix.

Warbucks: Stop it! You people got that idea from the car in the Daybreakers movie!

Bloefeld: No! This is different!

Nekktai: Why would they want these cameras all over? How do we convince them?

Tigama: They’ll want them. Westerners are lazy. They hate the idea of having to turn their head to look at side mirrors or out windows. They find it unbearable!

Makduk: I don’t know. This may be too much, too soon.

Warbucks: Agreed. But what if we leave the windshield alone for now? And just add the 360 degrees camera system option?

Tigama: Make it 380 degrees. Sounds better.

Nekktai: Some of them will know there are only 360.

Scythe: A small minority.

Tigama: We tell them the Earthspin friction has caused a rift which accounts for twenty new degrees of direction.

Warbucks: No! We’re choosing one innovation here. Not integrating both.

Toydoyo: That’s right. So now we choose.

Makduk: The Earthspin story is far more sensible. The camera thing is strictly nuts.

Bloefeld: But the camera thing is more profitable.

Toydoyo: Then that is our answer. We need a commercial that will convince them they need the extra surveillance!

Scythe: Imagine this scenario: we have a married couple in a Rav 4. They’re backing up and almost hit a homeless person!

Warbucks: No homeless people! Don’t remind them of charity! We want them spending all their money on cars.

Scythe: An unwashed hippy, then?

Tigama: They call them hipsters now. And that won’t work. Our target market would just as soon run the hipster over. They don’t like hipsters.

Toydoyo: Why?

Tigama: They mistrust everyone who’s different. I guess they don’t understand why anyone should have different priorities. Plus they’re secretly resentful I think. They have a vague notion that the hipsters are kind of smart and more responsible; socially and environmentally, and they're afraid of looking selfish in comparison, I guess. I don't know.

Toydoyo: I don’t like it. Keep the hipsters out. No allusions to responsibility! I want them thinking about buying shit!

Scythe: How about a living shopping cart then? Or a robot shopping cart? One that will be their shopping agent and help them buy lots and lots of shit really efficiently! People would love that! But they wouldn’t want to back into one. It would scratch their paint. And every westerner knows that a pristine car finish means a pristine soul!

Toydoyo: I like it!

Warbucks: I love it!     

Tigama: Me too! And we’ll make it a nice red Rav 4. Red makes people hungry or angry! And angry hungry people want to buy more!

Who's flying this thing?

IF GOD IS YOUR CO-PILOT, MAYBE YOU SHOULD SWAP SEATS

This is what the sign says outside the Baptist church as I drive by. It concerns me that I have no clue what this means.

[Editor's note: Yeah, sure it does.]

Later, driving back to Multispirit House, home of the Thoughtful Educator and his excellent wife and daughter, I share with them my concerns. We have just been to dinner at Red Lobster where a steady parade of staff dropped by the table to see how some of their most regular of customers were doing.

"I'm not sure which seat the church expects that I'm in," I explain, "Nor which seat I'm supposed to be in. Am I the pilot? Am I supposed to be the pilot? I'm not sure if I should be changing seats or not."

The rest of the car's occupants sympathize. They don't get it either.  Also, we're worried whether it's safe to be playing musical chairs while the plane is in flight. Shouldn't we land first to be safe? And since this is all metaphorical, just what does landing the plane mean? Death and rebirth? What if I come back from the dead a zombie or vampire? This is now getting scary.

T.E. is taking a slightly longer route home. I've come to stay for two weeks to look after their two lovely dogs, Princess and Oliver. The three humans in the family are about to bugger off to Northern Ireland for shits and giggles - oh yeah, and a wedding.

I'm also lookiong after their fishes who remain sadly anonymous. I think I shall make it a goal this particular visit to get to know them better. I'll see if I have any innate fish-whisperer abilities.

"You're not going out of your way just to see this sign, are you?" I ask.

"Of course I am," says the Thoughtful Educator. Not only that, but he pulls into the church parking lot. "I have to ask them what the heck this means," he says, and sure enough he proceeds to the front door while the rest of us shake our heads and laugh.

He has been invited inside and does not quickly return.

"Okay," says I, debarking. "I'm going to go say I'm a doctor and my patient has escaped." I intend to describe T.E. and ask if they've seen anyone by that description wandering around.

But T.E. and the pastor (priest? Minister?) are just emerging as I approach. The holy man is a tad too friendly and sets off my creep-meter when he invites me to come around for a good ol' baptist celebration some time. Not likely, Thumper. You're sniffing up the very wrong tree.

Oh - I almost forgot. The explanation: Bumper stickers have been common, apparently, which read: Is God your co-pilot? Father Baptistman disagrees with this. God should not co-pilot your life. He should pilot your life. You are just a giant nobody who is along for the ride. So don't even bother getting out of bed in the morning.

IF GOD IS YOUR CO-PILOT, MAYBE YOU SHOULD SWAP SEATS

Now if some prankster came around and fiddled with the interchangible letters of this sign, what might Father McBaptistpreacher find on the lawn as he arrives at work one morning?

One possibility:

GO AHEAD MISS - SWAP YOUR SPIT, IF YOU BE COY OLD LOTUS

Hmm. Sounds more Hindu than Baptist, doesn't it? How about:

GOD SHOULD SWAT YOUR MOIST ASS, YOU LIPPY-FACE BOIE

Hmm. Overly rude and bad spelling. One more try:

YO BOY - FEED US SPAMSLAW, YOU STUPID COOTISH GORILA

I know. I know. I ran out of L's. Oh well. Fun with anagrams. Try it some time. Or not.

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