The Gloved One and a couple more

What a crazy week it was.

Only hours after Farrah Fawcett had gone, the bomb that is the death of Michael Jackson exploded on the world. I don't care who you are or where you live, if you've been alive since 1969, when the Jackson 5 really hit, Michael Jackson was a part of your life. He was a extraordinarily talented entertainer and his contributions to pop music and music video inarguably changed those two art forms forever.

He was also one strange dude.

My wife has always asserted that his strangeness was completely natural. Her point being that this was a kid who from the age of 8 was a prisoner of his own fame. Imagine if you couldn't open your front door and step outside because you'd be set upon by a screaming mob. Can't go down to the corner for a Coke. Can't go to the movies. Can't do anything that is not documented and photographed and scrutinized. I mean, here's a guy who had an Elvis level of fame at 8 years old. How do you deal with that?

And the work. The relentless, ongoing work, the practicing and performing, the traveling, the packing and unpacking. Michael Jackson spent his childhood in a studio or on a stage. Not in a playground. Not in a park. This guy's childhood was taken from him, and I think he spent the rest of his life trying to get it back.

Granted, he acted strangely, and for me the jury is still out on his relationships with little boys. But there is no doubt he was a genius. He brought joy to millions of people who loved his music. He inspired people, made them laugh and dance, consoled them when they were hurting and sad.

So that begs the question... if his father, Joe Jackson, hadn't driven Michael and his brothers so hard, hadn't kept them in the studio rehearsing till the wee hours of the morning, if he hadn't stolen all that time from them, would we ever even have known who Michael Jackson was at all? If the Jacksons went to school, played in the yard, did their homework, and rehearsed only a few hours a week, would they have attained that skill level, the incredibly tight singing, dancing and musicianship that rocketed them to the top of the charts?

Or would their career have consisted of a few gigs at the local fairgrounds each summer and a couple of high school dances?

I think if Joe Jackson hadn't pushed those kids so hard, they never would have achieved that level of fame. And we never would have heard of Michael Jackson or the Jackson 5. We would have lived without "ABC" and "Dancing Machine" and "I'll Be There" and "I Want You Back" and "Ben" and "Thriller" and "Billie Jean" and "Rock You" and "She's Out of My Life" and a hundred others.

So is that right, what Joe Jackson did? At the end of the day he stole his kid's life and gave it to us. Thank you Joe... I think.

I didn't have a poster of Ed McMahon hanging in my room (did anyone?), but there is no doubt he was a part of my life, at least as far as TV and entertainment went. From "Heeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny" to the Publisher's Clearing House, Ed was always there. Kind of like that friendly neighbor who lives down the block. You're sad he's passed, and you remember him fondly. And then your life goes on.

I miss Billy Mays already. Billy Mays did a Rula Lenska on America, just walked right up to the camera and "Hi, Billy Mays here for Oxi Clean" as if he'd been there all along. As if we had any idea who he was or what the hell he was talking about. He just pulled up a chair sat right down at our dinner tables as if we'd been watching him for years, and you know what... we bought it. And then we went out and bought a crapload of Oxi Clean and Mighty Putty and Kaboom and whatever the fuck else he was selling. He created an instant authority for himself and it worked. At first people were, "well I don't know who Billy Mays is, but he seems to know what he's talking about." And then 5 minutes later it was, "well, if Billy Mays says it's good, it must be. I gotta buy me some of that."

The first time I saw this clip I didn't think it was that funny. The second time I watched it I laughed out loud. Now I start laughing immediately. Is it the most fitting homage to Billy Mays? I don't know, but fuck it, it's funny.

Goodbye Farrah

Today, after a 3 year battle with cancer, Farrah Fawcett left us forever. In the words of her co-star Jaclyn Smith, "...now she has peace as she rests with the real angels."

Oh Farrah. In 1976 you were every 13 year old boy's dream. I had your iconic poster and am proud to admit that it hung prominently in my room forever. I can't begin to imagine the number of hours I spent simply gazing at you. By today's standards it was an extremely tame image... innocent, even. Just a casual snap of a beautiful blond woman with a 10,000 watt smile. The swimsuit wasn't very revealing. It didn't have to be. It was filled with you and that was simply...enough. You weren't bursting out of it, not enhanced or implanted or botoxed, just a sweet slice of Texas with an incredible blond mane. Often imitated, never duplicated.

I had never seen a creature quite like you. I was awed by your beauty and to those who said you couldn't act, well the hell with them. You acted wonderfully as far as I was concerned. It was a bit of a bummer that you were married, but you were married to the Six Million Dollar Man! I mean come on, if you were going to be unavailable, who better to be unavailable with? It's like if Santa Claus was married to the Tooth Fairy.

Maybe you were a little typecast, maybe no one took you too seriously, maybe being Jill Munroe was a cross you had to bear for your entire career. But for a brief moment in time you were the ultimate fantasy for millions of young men, and that's got to be worth something, right? You were mine for a time, and now you are gone, so today I am a little sad.

Goodbye Farrah. I hope you do rest with the real angels for all eternity.

Never charge your phone again... ever.

Most of us spend a good deal of time with a cell phone glued to our ear, producers especially. And all of us have been stuck at one time or another with a desperate need to make a call, and a dead or near dead battery. Even if you happen to have a charger on you, an electrical outlet is usually not available in a cab or on the sidewalk. The clever engineers at Nokia may have solved this problem forever, with a self charging cell phone. Yes, you read that correctly, a phone that charges itself with no need to plug it in anywhere.



I used to work on Nokia, and I always found their product line to be extremely innovative, incorporating gadgets and features just not found on other phones (a heart rate monitor, a flashlight, a phone the size of a lipstick tube). We don't see these phones in the US, because our selection of phones is limited to what Verizon or T-Mobile or AT&T decide they want to offer us. But in other countries where you shop for the phone, and not the service, you can get some pretty sweet handsets.

Anyway, this phone charges itself by harvesting ambient radio waves that are bouncing around in the air, invisible to us, and turning those waves into electricity. I've often wondered what life would be like if we could see all the different kind of energy waves we are surrounded by on a daily basis. Radio waves, TV signals, cell phone signals, microwaves, WiFi... there's enough of these waves just hanging out around us to create usable power. If each one of these had a color and was visible, we probably wouldn't be able to see an inch in front of our faces! It makes me wonder what effects this daily wave bath will have on us in the long term.

This technology won't be rolled out for 3 to 5 years, but when it is, the "I forgot to charge my phone" excuse will be as relevant as a 1 hour photo booth.

i don't know what to say...

"Being a big guy certainly has its advantages... and disadvantages"

What is the one advantage about being a "big guy" that trumps the ability to wipe one's own ass?

Guess I did know what to say after all.

Kind of Geeky but Crazy Cool

Look at this web video.



Looks good, right? I bet it looks even better when you find out that it was shot with this camera:


That's right. You can shoot HD video with this Canon EOS 5D digital SLR. The VW piece was directed by Neil Tardio at Chelsea and the Bandito Brothers. And a lot of people are doing it. Granted this camera costs around $3000, so maybe we're not all going to run out and buy one today, but you can shoot 10 minutes of HD video on the memory card, even more if it's SD. And it will take any Canon lenses, it's really small, light and unobtrusive... are you feeling it? Here's a music video that was shot by Hydra at Humble using this camera.



I don't know, I just thought this was crazy cool.

This Is Beautiful

I don't have a lot to say about this spot except for the fact that it is beautiful and brilliantly, flawlessly executed. This tiny little posting doesn't come close to doing it justice, there is just so much detail and nuance in there. Do yourself a favor and download the Cinematic version at the Passion Pictures website. I've watched this thing 4 times now, it just keeps getting better.

No rain, no rainbow.

I like Sprint's "What if --- ran the world?" campaign. There's one for delivery people, and this one for film crews.


Like most things on TV, this is a dumbed down version of a film set created for the general public. I've been on a lot of sets, and it's not quite like this. But there's one thing they got totally and completely right. Did you ever notice that on any shoot you've ever been on, no matter where the location, and no matter how cold the temperature, there's always one guy on the crew, usually a grip, wearing shorts? Once I was shooting in Canada, in January, by the side of a country road..at night. It had to be about 28 degrees, and the agency was issued these incredible production service down parkas. Those coats were like Admiral Peary at the North Pole parkas... they were thick and stuffed so chock full of down, each one weighed about 30 pounds. And still we were freezing. Yet there was that one grip skipping around in a fleece and cargo shorts.

Granted, the Sprint spot looks like it was shot in Malibu in the summer, but even so there's our boy in shorts. Looks like he's art department but still, thank you Sprint (actually Jim Jenkins and O Positive) for the nod to reality.



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God Bless the USA
Recently I've been working at an agency in New Jersey, which means about 2 hours a day commuting back and forth on Rte 80. It's not a bad drive, and occasionally I'm rewarded with something like this:



I don't know who this guy is, or what line of business he's in, but obviously he's getting things done, whether I like it or not. You can just make out the pair of golden cojones dangling rakishly from the trailer hitch. I love how this guy has decided to forgo matching the chrome on the balls to the chrome on the truck, and has instead opted for the more Jersey-ish mix of gold and silver. I think that really puts an exclamation point on the whole thing, don't you? Having said that, I would be quick to point out that I am hardly one to judge, since this photo was taken as I was piloting the vehicle pictured here...

Brewhaha

A terrible pun, I know, but aren't terrible puns the best? No? Ok, nobody here thinks so either. But there does seem to be an awful lot of fuss about this web spot for Bud Light:



It's pretty obvious how this innocent shlub is going to spend his Friday night... and of course things go terribly, horribly wrong. They have to, otherwise there's no commercial. Bud Light is no stranger when it comes to pairing that bland golden lager with adult reading materials... see 2001's "Centerfold" directed by Mike Wang (yes, a director named Wang shot a spot titled "Centerfold").



But for the all time best example of things going terribly, horribly wrong in the most outlandish way imaginable, I think Brian Buckley's "Emergency" for Dr. Pepper (aka "Butt Naked Boy") takes the cake. I mean, if I had any cake. You could take it. Or I would share it with you.

I'm having a hard time getting behind this one

I don't deny any guy the desire or opportunity to take his wife out on a date. But when that date includes Air Force One, 600 police officers, and untold layers of visible and invisible security, that's a pretty expensive date. It's not the cost that bothers me, honestly that date won't make one bit of difference in the trillions of dollars of national debt, or my taxes, even. It's the idea that this date couldn't wait until the President was in NY on official business, so that all this trouble and expense wouldn't be incurred unnecessarily. It's a little bit like rubbing this privilege in the face of people who can't afford to go out to dinner or a Broadway show, and using my tax dollars to do so. And that's not cool.

This ad from General Motors makes me feel the same way. GM didn't go bankrupt by selling intelligently designed, fuel efficient cars that people wanted to buy. Apparently they've finally figured that out and produced this spot to tell us what other car companies have known for years. The production and media costs for this ad are certainly in the millions of dollars. Is that the best way to start spending that shiny new government money? GM should wait until they've got something to show us, like new models that define their message of "leaner, meaner, faster, smarter". That would be their official business. Then they can spend millions of dollars on advertising, which would be their date night. You and I now own an infinitesimal bit of GM, and this feels like my face getting rubbed by GM spending my money irresponsibly.

Also, GM might want to check with Ford before touting themselves as the re-birther of the American car, since Ford is not bankrupt, has not filed for bankruptcy, and has been quietly building hybrids and fuel efficient models, getting the whole car building thing a lot better than GM or Chrysler recently.

I love kids...not really...well sometimes...maybe?

I'm watching the 3rd night of Conan on the Tonight Show, and it's a pisser.

But I digress.

Here's a writeup on screaming in advertising, courtesy of AdFreak. It notes a new VW ad from France which features a screaming kid, along with Career Builder, Bridgestone and Heineken ads. All great examples of screaming. But if you want to see the best screaming kid ad ever, this is it.



And for the spot that defined the genre, look no further...



...true.

What a twitchy git

Here's a UK spot for Oven Pride. It's the typical dumb dad scenario... the man appears to be a helpless tool who's not much good at anything, and his wife is glaring at him like, well like he's a helpless tool who's not much good at anything. Sometimes I get annoyed by this stereotypical portrayal of the dad, but in this case I've gotta side with the wife. Look at this guy. He is twitching and jerking and grinning like a monkey with Tourettes. No wonder his wife wants to smack him in his head. I want to smack him in his head. Is this is selling a lot of oven cleaner, do you think? Thanks AdFreak for this one!



In blessed and marked contrast, here's another UK ad that really gets it right. Completely different product, different budget, different target audience. I'm not comparing the two ads, I just think this one is really well written and produced. Although I'm not a gas fitter or a dish fitter, it does makes me want to storm the local saloon for a beer. AdRants, you rock.