The Indigestible

Recently there was a progressive open house at the Medical Professional Center, a more or less satellite facility to the hospital here where physicians have private practices. The idea was that, in order to publicize a half dozen recently-arrived physicians, there would be a sort of food scavenger hunt from office to office.

Beginning with beverages, progressing to crudité, light mini-foods (BBQ meatballs, scallops, etc.), desserts and finally coffee, visitors were encouraged to go from office to office and meet the physicians. There was live music too and door prizes.

I mention all of this because I was asked to produce the promotional materials for the event, and developed something that was significantly at variance from what is normally found in advertising in a small town in Arizona. Along the way I happened across an unexpected bonus in the form of a kind of visual pun.

The main ad’s after the fold.

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Not because they’re just behind McFuckwit’s for nationally-artery-choking success.

Goddamn it, they did this commercial — and I just love the hell out of the music.

The creepy, capering guy in the fiberglass mask I can do without — but damn, that’s some good fingerwork on that banjo. No burger joint in the world has a right to own music that well-done.

The music credits are Beacon Street Studios, title “Banjo”, composers Andrew Feltenstein and John Nau. It’s not on iTunes yet (hint hint), but I hope it will be soon (hint hint).

Crispin Porter + Bogusky* hit it out of the fuckin’ park this time.

Oh, and while you’re at it, check this one out. Totally unrelated and very good.

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* That last name can’t be real.

Contrast these two images and ask yourself about the value of intellect and rationalism versus “gut” feeling.

The first is an editorial cartoon. The second is another, of a different kind. Both come from My [Confined] Space.

That’s Einstein, bottom center, in the latter image.

Which seems more believable?

“Discover Boating” has an ad that just plain set me off. It’s full of images of dogs being cute on boats, with syrupy strings accompanying.

The self-involvement and arrogance required to think this commercial is in any way appealing is simply stunning; the suggestion that dogs somehow deserve to go for boat rides is transcendentally obnoxious. There are thousands of starving people in this nation right now, thousands of houseless or unemployed people, but hey, your fucking bassett hound needs to spend a few hours on Lake Powell.

Meanwhile, the death count in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to rise, Il Duce’s empire of lies is crumbling, and Iran and North Korea are playing a game to be runner-up to Most Insane Nation status (I’m a citizen of the #1 titleholder for four years running).

Anyway, here’s a nice little remix I tossed off.

A thousand-word post.

Seriously, I mean it — what the hell is wrong with the entire damned city?

You shut down your expressways and subways because of electronic LED signs that have been in place for weeks — and then arrest and charge the two employees of Cartoon Network who put them there?

Here’s a particularly useful comment from a Bostonian official.

“It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme,” Mayor Thomas Menino said. “I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner Broadcasting and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred.”

Here’s what he’s responding to, in our “post 9/11 world”. The image is of the Mooninite Err from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. There’s a movie due out soon (yay!) and the signs are advertising gimmicks for it.

Sure as hell looks like a bomb to me, Bucky! Better call the cops just to be sure!

But wait … there’s more. These little gadgets aren’t new in any sense of the term; in fact, they’ve been in place for weeks.

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[The lack of fold on this is deliberate; it's more or less front page news.]

I never intended my initial comment on Nick’s show to garner the reaction it did, but I think what capped it all was this.

== begin ==

Name: A B | E-mail: c@d.com

1I love your Band so mutch I HVE MY OWN BAND IT’S CALLED DOOM CALL ME MABE MY BAND CAN HAVE YOU OVER AT MY HOUSE SOME TIME AND TEACH US SOME MOVES PPPPPPPPPPLLLLLLLLLLLLZZZZZZZZZZZ i’D LOVE THAT i’M THE BAND LEADER CALL ME AT [PHONE NUMBER DELETED] I’D LOVE FOR YOU TO CALL ME I’M 10 i LIVE IN CALIFORNIA IN [CITY DELETED] AT [ADDRESS DELETED]. PS. THIS IS MY MOTHERS EMAIL

== end ==

Per my moderation policy, I keep comments from first-time posters in a pool that locks them out until I approve them; in this case I’m glad I did, because the boy who wrote the above had, without guile and in all innocence, put absolutely discernible biometric information about himself into his message.

A ten-year-old put his home address and phone number into a message, intended to be read by the folks involved in NBB, online for everyone to see. He basically said, Hey, molesters, here’s where I live, come on by and take me away.

The phone number, I think, is genuine, and when I Googlemapped the address, it gave a legitimate location, satellite-mapped to an actual tree-shrouded house in suburban California.

Listen, kids who are fans of the show: I understand you like it, and want to get in touch with Nat and Alex; but this website is not the way to do it. I don’t know the boys, and am not in any way associated with them. What you post here is probably never going to be read by any of them.

But listen closer. When you try to get in touch with them by putting your name, address and phone number online, you’re not really reaching Nat & Alex at all. What you’re actually doing is telling the world: I’m a young kid, and I live here, and here is how to get in touch with me — and if anyone who happens to be a child molester sees this information, you can be totally guaranteed that he’ll use it to call you, find you and rape you.

The phone will ring and you’ll hear something like this: “Hi, [your name]? I saw you like the NBB a lot and have a band yourself. Well, we’d really like to get togethger with you on this. So when can we meet?” And he’ll pick a time when your folks aren’t home, or pick a place near your house, and then he’ll meet you — and what you meet won’t be a NBB representative. He’ll be a pervert.

If you want to talk to Nat and Alex, that’s fine. But you can’t do it here. You have to do it with the NBB fansite at Nick.

And even then, NEVER tell anyone where you live, or what your phone number is, on the internet.

If you love NBB, that’s OK. But here is not the place to meet or talk to them. Wait until they have a concert or something near you, and never tell anyone online where you live or what your phone number is.

Because the things that live under your bed or in your closet are make-believe; the nightmares you have of being lost and cold and alone, away from your mom and dad and forgotten in the dark, are terrible; but there are real monsters in the world, and they would love to know things like your home address and phone number, and they will do things to you that are far too horrible for you to imagine.

And those monsters don’t care about how scared you are, how bad it is, or how much you wish you could see home again.

If they can find you, they will hurt you, and they just don’t care about anything.

So NEVER put your home address or phone number on the internet.

UPDATE: I sent this to the Nick folks.

To: nickprivacy@nickonline.com

Back in December I blogged about NBB; since then my site has been getting about 100 hits per day on this page.

This weekend I got a followup from a kid who tried to post his name, address and phone number in an an attempt to get in touch with NBB.

You’re pretty goddamned fortunate I’m a scrupulous site admin who keeps his posts in moderation pools and doesn’t just let first-timers in or the kid’s phone number, age, address and name would all be posted for the world to see; and you’re just as lucky I’m not a molester, or I’d use that information to terrible ends.

In the midst of the hype surrounding NBB, can you possibly try to remind your young viewers that posting biometric data about themselves in an attempt to reach NBB is a bad idea — and that the best way to talk to NBB is via your site?

And while you’re at it, do consider jettisoning the show completely.

Comment threads have an interesting life of their own; for instance last month I posted on Nickelodeon’s forthcoming Naked Brothers Band, and in the comments was passed along a link to this YouTube video. It’s a promo piece for the show and includes an interesting turn of events. Below is a still image from that video.

The image is precisely what it looks like: An eight-year-old boy has his face virtually nestled in a woman’s cleavage. As depicted in the video, the act is meant to be (probably) innocently-amusing, but it strikes me as being a little off — to say the least — that a “babysitter” would be made such an obvious erotic focus.

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Ordinarily I delve into Nickelodeon because I’m surfing on a lazy Sunday, and lacking substance in the form of Grim Adventures or a nice block of Mythbusters I find myself tossing about in the world of SpongeBob. (Ben 10 is tolerable, but only just barely, and I wonder how long it’ll take for Ben/Gwen hentai to hit the net, assuming it hasn’t already.*)

So this last weekend I stumbled across an almost Beatlesish song called “Crazy Car”, which I admit has a good hook and is nicely rendered, and learned it’s a preliminary to a new show on Nick that is debuting in late January, something they call The Naked Brothers Band.

Which would be cute, but the brothers in question are aged eleven and eight. The first two names that came to my mind were Michael Jackson and Mark Foley. (As in “NBB was directed by … and produced by…” respectively.) Naked Brothers Band … Is it really possible that no one at Nickelodeon thought, Hey, maybe we could call the show anything else at all?

A once-over of the Web page tells me not much, but I can infer a great deal; this is basically a warmed-over Partridge Family for tweens. It seems inane and insipid, but geared toward doing what parents want least to have happen: Giving moisties to their ten-year-old daughters.**

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Take a look at this image and tell me if you think there’s anything grossly wrong with it:

Apart from the munging of the phone number (deliberate) and the — ahem — unfortunate resemblance to a recent superhero movie (tragic), is there anything that stands out to you as being troubling?

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