What's the deal with batteries? I mean, they're always running out. And where does the power go? What's the deal with that??

Ahhh... pointless nostalgia. Well in case you are not privy to that glib little inside joke... it came from a perfectly executed Seinfeld impersonation performed by none other than Chris McLean in the now-famous Ehren Stemme-scripted Xtreme Batteries commercial. Which segues nicely to this week's topic: network TV commercials. The commercial we taped was a parody on all the network ad execs' green lights on all these 30-second spots where guys that have their pants halfway off their ass doing ollies in the moon's craters while Tiger Woods smacks his 3-wood into a can of Surge which then magically transports itself into the skater's hand, at which point he pops the top and proceeds to drink the entire damn thing while flying through the incredibly thin lunar air. What the bloody hell? Does this shit really sell? (Wow, that rhymed.) Well it does, because as the Xtreme Battery showed its muscle by blowing up a helicopter, diving through a brick wall and killing Seinfeld the entire audience was whooping and hollering and clamoring for their very own Xtreme Batteries to take home and let frolic with the kitties. Well, not really, but there was a tremendous response. At the end of the commercial was a hastily-thrown-together sex appeal scene, featuring my good friend Tom stating that if you bought the batteries he would have sex with you. After which i deadpanned: "Man these batteries certainly are sexy." Again it was a parody, this time of the idea that a single product could make you attractive. Not possible, unless it's Victoria's Secret. But I swear to the good Lord above that if you are a male, and you wear Victoria's Secret around me, the secret of my foot wil be firmly embedded in your testicles. An element we did not explore, however, was the element of comedy that is so poorly executed in 90% of TV and radio advertisements these days. ESPN and Taco Bell do it right, promoting their product with an innovative idea such as the recent Hell's steak burrito spot in which 4 business guy types are sitting around the booth, calling each other Western cowboy-type names, and one guy slips up and calls the guy across from him "Fluffy". True hilarity. Not like most other commercials that use boring, dated ideas that might make you crack a smile the first time but quickly become stale, tired and overly tedious. Summary? If you want to make a funny ad, MAKE IT FUNNY. No puns, no visual gags, no parlor tricks. Just some guys saying funny lines to each other and ocasionally beating each other up with shovels. Oh and also maybe one of them Dew-drinkin' skateboardin' dudes, just for camp value.

Labels: GOTW

• People who end plural words with a Z instead of an S, and people who WrItE lIkE tHiS. Will you cut that shit out, please?
• 93X
• Jeff Foxworthy. Why was he ever well-known? Oh yeah, that "redneck" thing. Yep, that was funny for about 6 seconds.
• The influx of 6'1", 210 pound, blonde-haired blue-eyed guys that seem to be on the internet an any given time. I mean really, there can't be that many of us.
• Christina Aguilera -- Yes we all know now that you're a slut, so close your legs and drop off the earth please.
• That one guy in *N Sync, the one who doesn't write his own music and has the intelligence of a thumbtack. Wait, that's all 4 of them. Anyhoo, shut up, all of you. Just because you can sell 47 gagillion records to google-eyed teenagers doesn't make you talented or respected.
• Carl Pohlad -- Die already!!!
• Pepsi
• Percodan
• My incessant knee pain

Labels: GOTW

Hi again. I see you haven't learned your lesson, as you are back for more griping. Today I will be talking about everybody's favorite carbonated, possibly toxic beverage..... yes that's right, SODA. The two main outlets of the fizzy concocctions, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, have been consistently jacking up the prices of their various flavors, ever so steadily so that you wouldn't really notice until it smacked you in the face with a lead-filled glove set on fire. Now back in my day of TV, motorcars and running water (i.e. 1986) you could walk into your locad food store and pick up a 24-can pack for just over 4 bucks. This changed during the recession years, to the point where a benchmark was etched in my mind that 24 packs of pop would not exceed 5 bucks, or at the very most $5.50. This held true till about 1997, thanks to seemingly endless grocery store specials. Then all of a sudden, Pepsi decided it would be a good idea to back up the new Star Wars movie, to the tune of $3 billion. Now even though they own Pizza Hut, KFC and the Taco Hell, that's still a chunk of dough. That's when the first really noticeable increase in sodey prices took place. The 99-cent price for single serving bottles held constant but 2 liter bottles went up to $1.39 and 24 packs skyrocketed to $6.29 a pack. Needless to say, my adolescent mind thought this was outrageous. [See the compact disc rant from last year, on the bottom of this page.] The final blow was struck two evenings ago when i went to pick up my weekly 24 pack of mello Yello, when to my horror I checked the price and it was a whopping $7.50!!!!!!!! What the bloody hell, as The Edge from U2 might say. What is in these shits that makes it so damn expensive? Are they putting ground-up CDs in there? I mean seriously. I have a hard time paying 20 bucks for my shampoo n' shit, and that usually lasts me 3 or 4 months. How, in good conscience, can I pay a third of that for something that will be gone in less than a week? Answer: I can't. My money will forevermore be spent on the less expensive (and much healtier) fruit juices. Thanks, Coke and Pepsi. You just made me a better man. Asses.

Labels: GOTW

Welcome again to the Gripe O' The Week!... where I take a subject that truly pisses me off and tear it to shreds. Today my gripe is about Twin Cities radio and how its steady decline in quality over the past 2 years. It actually started before that, when in 1996 the cold, heartless Disney corporation purchased the main outlet for independence in the FM, Rev105. (At the same time, Diz had just completed a deal to buy ABC, which owned KQRS, KEGE and a few frequencies on the AM dial.) For those of you who do not remember the Rev was one of the greatest outlets for the "true" alternative music fan, as well as a leader in broadcasting the work of local bands. This was more cutting-edge and enjoyable than the garden-variety, radio-friendly "Edge" residing at 93.7 on the dial. Well anyhoo, the rev was bought out and the format promptly changed to a hard rock/metal variety, to appease the local trailer parks. At which time AMFM, Inc., which owned Cities 97, KDWB, K102, Fox29 and a few AM stations, completed their acquisition of the 100.3 frequency being filled by WBOB and also changed their format from the long-tired country to a metal genre, anchored by the Howard Stern show in the mornings. Thus began the decline, as KQ's dominating morning show gradually moved to toilet humor. Things held steady for the next 2 years, save for when the Edge and X105 swapped formats, and when KMJZ, the only commercial jazz game in town, was changed to "The Point." KQ and Cities 97 were in a spirited battle for daytime and evening listeners, and both stations reached their modern high peak. Case in point: in December, the rock-minded KQ would always do an "A to Z" of their music library, and when the eclectic Cities joined in, the A to Z festivities lasted nearly 3 weeks on both stations. Then in 1998, the next big blow occured, when Rock100 announced they were dropping Stern and adopting a "classic hits" format. Essentially Top 40 radio for middle aged people, 100.3 WLOL cosisted of FM edits of hit songs from the 1960s-1980s, "tricked up" by a few rpm's to give the impression that KQ was slower. Cities 97, the battle with KQ all but over, began grappling for female listeners from KS95 by playing a lot more contemporary music and repeating songs three, four, even 5 times a day.

This brings us to our current glut of shit on the radio. My solution? MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MINDS. People liked the way radio was in 1995, back when the same conglomerate didn't own half the radio frequencies in town. So let's sell off all those chunks, and get some real competition on the airwaves again. Asses.

Labels: GOTW