Category Archives: Uncategorizable

I was taken to task by some people on Facebook because my blog post mentioned the sometimes violent rhetoric of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, but not the violent rhetoric of the left, such as Obama talking about not wanting to “bring a gun to a knife fight.” (Although, to be fair, I did use Rahm Emmanuel as a possible example.)

I don’t think the two scenarios are AT ALL comparable (Obama’s was a one-off figure of speech, the other is a consistently used method of audience engagement and incitement), but one very important thing does need to be taken away from this by the right: Literally my FIRST thought when I heard that a democratic congresswoman had been shot was “some crazy teapartier shot a congresswoman!”

I’m absolutely against politicizing this tragedy, but that first reaction of mine didn’t come from nowhere, and I wasn’t alone in it–there was a widespread knee-jerk assumption that a crazed Palin devotee had shot a congresswoman. The sheriff assumed it, the news anchors assumed it, all my Twitter friends assumed it, I assumed it.

Whether that assumption was fair or accurate is mostly beside the point: From a  marketing standpoint, it’s evidence of an extremely negative perception that the right is going to have to admit exists, and then work hard to reverse it.

What I don’t get about Las Vegas is the utter lack of irony. You’ve been there–you’ve seen the gaudiness and the lights and the carpet and the ridiculous outfits everyone wears (especially the tourists). The whole thing is set up to be a hilarious joke, only nobody’s sober enough to appreciate it.

And if Las Vegas is a joke, the punchline HAS to be Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. He’s Jimmy Buffett! The restaurant is all neon parrots and tacky music! It’s named after a tourist trap in Cancun, which itself is named after a totally mediocre easy-listening tune from 30 years ago. The only way Margaritaville the song could be worse is if it were sung by Elvis, as originally planned. The only way Margaritaville the restaurant could be worse is if they changed the name to “Jimmy Buffet” and it was all-you-can-eat shrimp tacos.

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Watched a full evening a Fox’s new lineup tonight. Glee was, as usual, adept at mixing music with racial/sexual/religious stereotypes–which for some reason is acceptable because the show is blatant about it…? I’m not sure how that works, but every episode has a couple moments in which I think “Wait a second, that’s actually kind of racist/sexist…” Maybe it’s ok because they do it with a wink, but it still strikes me as one of those shows that feels progressive while dishing out the same tired stereotypes we see everywhere else on TV.

Raising Hope was actually a lot funnier than its previews made it out to be. There were several moments where Corinne and I were laughing out loud, which doesn’t happen much outside of 30 Rock and Community. Season Pass = Added!

The other new show, Running Wilde, proves once again that TV guys are still trying to recreate Arrested Development without learning its lesson. In Running Wilde, Will Arnett plays the kooky trust-fund 30-year-old, while Keri Russell plays the kooky environmentalist he used to love.

But it’s too much kooky. Every line’s a joke, nothing is played straight. Tell me if you disagree, but for me, The Lesson of Arrested Development is this: You can have all the kooky characters you want, as long as Michael Bluth plays it straight. In fact, EVERY OTHER CHARACTER on that whole series was a zany concoction, but it worked because the guy with the most screen time was real.

The lesson here is to stop casting G.O.B. as the lead. It doesn’t work.

Michael Bluth, the key to all comedy

My coworker Jim has gotten me addicted to Big Brother this season. I know, I know…I made fun of him for watching it until I started, and now I can’t stop. The only TV viewers I can still look down on are those who are watching Jersey Shore and Real Housewives of Whatever.

Anyway, it occurred to me today that if we’re ever going to colonize space, it won’t be because of NASA or Richard Branson–the only real reason we’d colonize Mars is so we can send 12 people there to live in a house together and vote one another out the airlock.

CBS, if you blast people into space now, they’ll be in place for the 2011 season of Big Brother.

News you can use from Esquire: Your waist size is probably a bit bigger than your jean size would indicate. Old Navy’s 36″ jeans are actual 41″, while Gap’s are 39″. Crazy, right? 5 extra inches of space to “grow into” before moving up a waist size!

This also somewhat confirms my Levi’s suspicion: Levi’s has been “fattening up” its jeans for a while now. For a couple years I wore (and loved) Levis 514s (Slim Straight). About a year ago I had to move to the 511 (Skinny) to get jeans with the same fit. 514s were no longer slim. And now, at this very moment, right this second, there’s a pair of 511s in a bag in my room that need to go back because, guess what? The “Skinny” jeans are neither skinny nor slim. I compared the leg opening to another pair of 511s and they aren’t even close. I guess now I need to move on to the 510 (Super Skinny).

I think I get Levi’s motivation. Guys want to think they’re wearing skinny jeans but they don’t actually want to wear them. So Levi’s labels them whatever, and everyone feels good about themselves. Like the kid with the 41-inch waist who thinks he’s a size 36.

I’ll tell you who isn’t lying to you: European stores like H&M and Topshop. You have a size 36 waist? Topshop will tell you so, and then send you elsewhere because they don’t even carry pants in that size. There’s an Old Navy across the street…try on the size 34 and wonder why it fits so much better than Topshop’s 34.

Lies!

Here’s the look I’m going for

Great week for BYU football–and I say that without even knowing the results of our Saturday game against Jake Locker and the Wash. Huskies. We’re free of the Mountain West conference, its garbage TV “network,” and the sulfuric stench of commissioner Craig Thompson.

And I just might be done having to Slingbox games from California so I can watch them in NYC.

The best part of the deal is that it cements ESPN as BYU’s best friend for the next 8 years. That is absolutely huge. They’re going to broadcast BYU home games and help with scheduling, and if you know anything about college football, you know that ESPN holds ALL the cards. Really, all of them. ESPN is The House, and BYU gets to play with The House’s money for the next eight years.

USA Today has the details

Granted, it’s the journalist’s job to find the craziest-but-still-believable quote and run it in the story, but this quote from a NYTimes article represents a line of thinking that seems to pop up frequently of late:

Becky Benson, 56, traveled from Orlando, Florida, because, she said, “we believe in Jesus Christ,” and Jesus, she said, would not have agreed with the economic stimulus package, bank bailouts and welfare.

Which religion is it that teaches people that the all-powerful God of the universe has a strong opinion about U.S. fiscal policy? To the extent that Jesus spoke of money, it was to disabuse his followers of the notion that money is at all important.

Render unto Obama what is Obama’s, and if you don’t like it, try to get more votes together next time around. But how about we let Jesus worry about more important things than the tax rate, shall we?

[Thanks to Jim for the link, and for the line "What ever happened to 'Blessed be the poor'…. I guess I was too busy to notice that there was a rewrite."]

P.S. — One more thought on that article: It seems Glenn Beck is now a victim of The Al Sharpton Paradox. His stature is tied to the preservation of the problems that he is purportedly trying to solve.

Have you heard about the trial of Chevron vs. Independent Documentary Filmmaker? Crazy case…I wish I owned the movie rights.

Joe Berlinger makes a movie called “Crude” that shines a light on a legal struggle between Ecuadorians and Texaco (since acquired by Chevron). Seems the oil company’s drilling techniques may have contaminated the local water supply, so the Ecuadorians sued.

All good so far, right? The little guy standing up to Big Oil, and we get to live vicariously through the Ecuadorians and vent our own anger a little bit.

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Are TV people stupid?

I’m sorry, let me rephrase that question to be more open-ended:

Why are TV people stupid?

I can’t answer the “why,” so I’ll try to address the “how.” Add your own gripes in the comments.

Exhibit A: Loud Commercials are Bad for Everybody

I get why commercials are so much louder than the show I’m watching. Advertisers think a loud commercial will grab my attention–but they’re idiots. For the past six years, if I watched a TV commercial it was because I WASN’T paying enough attention to remember to hit Fast Forward. And maybe some of the messaging in the commercials actually sank in, who knows? DVRs may not have been common six years ago, but they are now. Every viewer in my demographic is equipped with Fast Forward. If a commercial’s best hook for attention-getting is to blare, it’ll not only get skipped, it’ll get skipped by an annoyed viewer. That’s not good for the advertiser or the network (or the viewer). Continue reading →

I should say up front that I enjoy reading Malcolm Gladwell. I usually can’t make it all the way through his books (they get kind of repetitive after the first 150 pages or so), but his New Yorker articles are great, and I’m currently reading (and enjoying) What the Dog Saw, a collection of his best essays.

Two of the smartest people I know can’t stand him, and hate how popular he is among advertising-type people. Ad people are always trying to have a finger on the pulse of culture and new ideas, and to my friends’ chagrin, when Gladwell wrote The Tipping Point he became a marketer’s darling.

Gladwell’s weaknesses are that his writing tends to be formulaic, he’ll stretch to make facts fit hypotheses, and he puts too much emphasis on creating new buzzwords from old ideas. (All of those things are what endear him to hack marketing strategists–he’s just like them!). John Graham-Cumming posted a funny takedown of Gladwell’s quirks earlier today (“How to Write Like Malcolm Gladwell“).

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