JUJITSU BRANDING, THE END OF PHILOSOPHY, THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH AND A NEW SKETCH COMEDY CHARACTER FOR OUR TIMES

IMAGE OF THE DAY

COMMENTARY OF THE DAY:

I read an article in the NYT about how Times Square ads are being spread via tourists' digital cameras. The branding message --be it central to the photo or peripheral--is being transmitted via picture messaging and video passalongs all around the world. It's a kind of consumer digital conductivity. We are all corporate carriers. Blindly complicit brand ambassadors. Or, if you will, digital typhoid Marys unwittingly infecting our friends and family with the embedded virus of the brand.

The big idea: Using the technology for purposes it is not intended to serve. Embedding the corporate into the personal -- in insidious and unsuspected ways. For some reason it also makes me think of the brilliant--if far more terrible way--that the terrorists of 9/11 used our technology (airplanes) against us--turning the vehicle itself into the bomb. Although this time it is corporate America hijacking our technology and turning it against us for its own more subtly nefarious purposes--its own brilliant attack on the heart and soul of our country.

Or maybe, it's just the truest expression of the heart and soul of our country. Maybe--and sadly-- it's the most American act of all.

NOTE TO SELF OF THE DAY:

Think more about this jujitsu relationship to technology. And maybe find a way to profit from it.

REMINDER OF THE IRRELEVANCE OF MY PHILOSOPHY DEGREE OF THE DAY:

I see on the channel guide that there is something called "Philosophy: Beauty" on at 12:30 a.m. I turn to the indicated channel (I believe it was 33), expecting to see something on Plato, Kant and theories of aesthetics and instead I find--to my initial complete mystification-- two middle aged women on the QVC shopping network hawking some skin cream. It turns out the cream is called "Beauty" and the line of beauty products it's a part of is called "Philosophy." I guess superficial is the new profound. And, hey, who can argue with it. Truth is an ad campaign. Philosophy is a brand name. Eternity is a perfume. History is an irrelevance. Etc. etc. Yada yada yada. Smiley smiley. LOL. Whatever.

TEDDY VEGAS INTERACTIVE FEATURE OF THE DAY:

Which is the premier salt and butter delivery vehicle: Mashed potatoes or Popcorn?

PHENOMENON IN NEED OF A NAME OF THE DAY:

Seeing a typo in that precious pause between having pressed "send" and the e-mail vanishing from the screen.

BEST SUGGESTION I'VE HEARD SO FAR:

Premature e-mailulation.

ANECDOTE OF THE DAY: QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Reading about the "Girls Gone Wild" Founder getting sentenced to community service for whatever it was he was charged with (I believe it was shooting pix of underaged girls), I was reminded of being introduced to him once at a party by a common acquaintance and being told by this common acquaintance in all seriousness, "Teddy. you'd love this guy. He's really really smart, like you. I mean, he could do anything he wanted to. He just happens to have a special feeling for the adult entertainment industry."

Ah, yes. That special feeling.

ARGUMENT FOR LEGALIZING IMMIGRATION OF THE DAY:

I read that the guy who confessed to killing the actress Adrienne Shelley (who starred in two films I really love: "Trust" and "The Unbelievable Truth"--both by Hal Hartley) and hanging her in the shower to make it look like a suicide did so because he was "in a bad mood." But more relevant to the title of this entry, he felt the need to kill her after the initial bad-mood motivated altercation, because he was an illegal immigrant working in her apartment building and feared that if she reported him to the authorities, he would be deported. With all due respect to Lou Dobbs, if there is no fear of deportation in this instance, there is no murder. Policies can't be made to eliminate bad moods. But policies can be made to eliminate their murderous consequences. At least in this very specific situation. Terrible, terrible thing.

Speaking of "The Unbelievable Truth"...

UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH OF THE DAY:

Evidently one of the luxury cruise lines was making stops on its trans-atlantic cruises at a mysterious carribean port called "Paradise Island"--where the passengers would enjoy all the expected trappings of sunny opulence. Anyhow, it was finally revealed that "Paradise Island" was a remote part of Haiti that had been cordoned off and Disney-fied to the cruise lines' specifications.

SKETCH CHARACTER OF THE DAY: (With indebtedness to my friend and colleague Dom for the inspiration)

Cliche Man. A man so deeply mired in catch phrases that he can't understand anything until he can translate it into a familiar cliche. Cliche is his mother tongue. His entire frame of reference. The cliche has entirely displaced the experience it refers to. So a woman says to him "I love you." and he looks blankly at her for a few moments. Then a light goes off "Oh, you mean, I "knock your socks off!," "I rock your world" and "I am the light of your life!" Oh, yeah, now I got ya, baby. Cool." Or a guy says "I'm gonna kill you." And he looks uncomprehendingly...until he can translate the obscure gnomic utterance through the filter of relevant cliche. Then the light of understanding shines on him. "Oh, you mean you want to "Put out the big light," "Send me to where the sun don't shine," "Deep six me", "Put me into real estate", "Make me join Barnum and Bailey." Oh, yeah, Now I'm trackin' with ya, buddy. Yeah. Great."

UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCE OF THE DAY:

An ex-girlfriend's wifely pride in her new husband's achievements is most unpleasant. As is her pretending not to remember the details of your break-up. Or worse, her actually not remembering the details of your break-up.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Which is more inexcusable: Bush staying the course with Iraq or James Dolan staying the course with Isaiah Thomas? At least with the latter, there are signs of progress. Or at least a time frame for re-assessment.

RANDOM (BUT NOT PARTICULARLY SPECIFIC) SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:

Self-hating carbon-based life form.

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Posted on 12/15/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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