Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun

If you’re like me, you watch a lot of repeats on those syndicated TV show channels. A hallmark of these types of channels, at least at the times I watch them, are ads for for-profit colleges. You know the type, if not the actual schools: become a medical assistant, go to culinary school, and c. Let’s not have a discussion about how . . . ethical . . . these for-profit operations are. Let’s talk about the commercials, though.

The script is always the same, with subtle variations. Some attractive and exuberant actor gets up and talks about jump starting your career, about exciting opportunities in X field, flexible hours, financial aid available. Yada yada yada. It’s a commercial making a pitch, like every other commercial making a pitch. Then it ends.

And then it starts up again. Except this time, it’s a beheadsetted actor in a call center, ostensibly representing the real person you’d be talking to if you called the number that the previous commercial told you to call. And then this person will say that they hope that commercial inspired you to take hold of your dreams or something, and they’ll repeat the number and tell you to call. And then the commercial will finally be over for real.

What’s up with this call center post-commercial? How come you don’t see it for like, car commercials? Where you see a Jeep Cherokee barreling through the mud, and the ad fades, and then another commercial with lower production values starts up, and a car salesman looks you in the face and tells you he hopes that commercial got you excited about Jeeps, and hopefully you’ll come on by and purchase one. I don’t know if it’s effective or not, although there’s got to be someone doing research about this, because almost every for-profit college ad is like that! I don’t get it.

The whole thing is cartoon babies pooping! In a contest! With judges! Can you believe this is on TV?

I think it’s hilarious that the commercial for Nick Varano’s Famous Deli features a kid that doesn’t have enough money for a sandwich. Hey Nick, maybe if you didn’t charge extortionary rates for your sandwiches, you wouldn’t have to accept toys as payment from street urchins!

Just watched the LeBron commercial. Almost makes ya wanna like him.
—the Official Roommate of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun. Cleveland native, Cavaliers fan, former Witness.

As we all probably could have expected, Nike has a LeBron James–centered commercial to kick off the NBA season and the start of the next era in King James’s career. It’s called “Rise.” Here it is.

Let’s get a few things out of the way. The Decision was a dick move. But it wasn’t a dick move because of the spectacle, or because it represents everything wrong about sports in the ESPN era, or because LeBron James is an egomaniac. It was a dick move because it prevented the Cleveland front office from pursuing alternate free agent strategies, and because it ripped the hearts out of Cavaliers fans’ chests. But it didn’t rip fans’ hearts out because LeBron James owed them his loyalty; he just just owed them the courtesy of not being an asshole. So yeah, I wasn’t a big fan of The Decision. I wasn’t a big fan of last week’s “Hater Day,” either, when LeBron re-posted some of the more vitriolic and nasty Twitter messages he’s gotten. LeBron may have some unpleasant stuff cross his path on a daily basis, but a multi-millionaire that plays a kids’ game for a living is going to have a hard time gaining sympathy from a nation of plebs already predisposed to dislike him. It’s just a losing strategy.

One of the more resonant critiques of LeBron has been that he just doesn’t get it. How could he not have known that The Decision would be poorly received? How could he possibly expect us to feel bad for him that he gets some nasty messages on Twitter? Why doesn’t he get it? This attitude is pervasive, especially among the sports commentariat, so it’s no surprise that some writers (like NESN’s Mike Cole) would think that the new Nike commercial is just part of a pattern. Writers like Cole would have you believe that everything you think about LeBron James is valid, and he’s coming after you again. Simple as that.

Problem is, that’s not what this commercial is doing. LeBron’s not settling any scores here. He’s not trying to portray how betrayed he feels. He’s saying “Look in the mirror.”

(A caveat: Cleveland fans need not look in the mirror. Their hatred is justified. If Cleveland wants to hate LeBron forever, they should. I would never begrudge a fan base a valid uh, grudge. I mean, Cliff Lee didn’t treat New York nearly as bad as LeBron treated Cleveland, but I still hate that guy’s guts!)

As Lisa Simpson said, you can’t create a monster and then whine when it stomps on a few buildings. We’re all complicit in the LeBron James hype machine. We can complain about The Decision, but I certainly watched. So did a lot of people. We can complain about ESPN’s non-stop coverage of LeBron James’s free agency over the past two years, but we all watched. And every time there was a Michael Jordan comparison, every time LeBron was referred to as the savior of a star-crossed city, more of our own expectations and projections were heaped onto him. LeBron James looked like a good guy, so he became a good guy. We wanted LeBron James to lift Cleveland out of sports purgatory, so he became the guy that would lift Cleveland out of sports purgatory. The franchise down the road from his hometown was awful enough to win the draft lottery the season before he entered the NBA, so LeBron became the hometown hero.

LeBron James isn’t a hero. LeBron James isn’t a villain. And, like he says in the ad, LeBron James isn’t a role model. I’ve gotten into this a tad before on the blog. I just don’t think we should be holding athletes up as role models. Of course, it’s nice when star athletes are also great people. And of course, we shouldn’t tolerate star athletes behaving like savages. But we also shouldn’t hold them to standards of morality and goodness that we would have a hard time living up to ourselves, simply because they’re on TV more. These are guys that are just like us, except better at sports.

The Decision was a mistake. We all make mistakes. LeBron has a large ego. It’s exceedingly difficult to get ahead in the world of professional sports without one. LeBron appears to have turned his back on his hometown team. I’m sorry that Cleveland’s teams haven’t won a title in half a century. I’m sorry that for seven seasons, the best the Cavaliers could do to play with LeBron were guys like Mo Williams and Anderson Varejao. I’m sorry that the Browns have had some heartbreaking seasons, and have seen teams like the Rams, the Buccaneers, and the Saints win Super Bowls. I’m sorry that Jose Mesa couldn’t close out Game 7. Had any of a number of things far outside of LeBron’s control occurred over the years, it wouldn’t be such a big deal that LeBron left Cleveland, let alone the manner that he left.

I guess all of this is to say, I’m over being mad at LeBron. The most effective image in that whole ad, and one that I think should be the main takeaway for all of us, is LeBron tearing up the gym with a front loader. I think we should clear the decks and start over. I don’t mean looking past The Decision; that’s part of LeBron’s legacy forever. I mean start over in terms of our expectations and perceptions. LeBron James isn’t a savior. He isn’t a hero, and he isn’t a villain. He’s neither a goat nor the GOAT. He’s just a basketball player.

Witness this recent offering from Domino’s.

This is part of the ad campaign where real Domino’s customers talk about how awful the pizza is, and then Domino’s make a big deal about changing their recipes and whatnot. I actually like these ads. I think it’s a bold strategy, and I think it’s a little refreshing to have some candor when it comes to the products that are advertised to us every day. And the new pizza is alright.

But this one is reeeeeeally stretching my suspension of disbelief. I mean, are we meant to believe that Domino’s was conducting a focus group in the middle of a field on a dairy farm in Wisconsin? If we’re to believe that, then the sense of surprise and incredulity we see conveyed on the faces of the focus group members has to be staged. Sure, nobody expects the walls of the room they’re sitting in to suddenly move aside, exposing those inside to whatever elements are outside said room. But when you walk up to a fake room trailer in the middle of a field at a dairy farm, I feel like you’re prepared for some type of shenanigan.

There’s another possibility, though. That these folks started off in a regular building, or a regular-looking building, where one would expect pizza focus groups to take place, and then were transported whatever distance to the field at the dairy farm. This is even more problematic than the first possibility. The type of person that can walk into a room, go through a focus group, get towed (or airlifted) to the middle of a field at a dairy farm, and not sense that something is amiss and walk out or at least demand some answers about why the whole damn room is moving, well, I don’t think I can trust pizza-eating feedback from that type of person.

In short, what the hell is going on in this commercial?

# Has anyone seen the trailer for this movie You Again? Does wanting to see it make me a stupid idiot? Kristen Bell in glasses! And I liked Sigourney Weaver in Holes. It’s a good concept! I’m seeing it, I don’t care what you people say.

# I could write a post a week about a song that I hear in a commercial that I wind up loving. The problem is, sometimes Youtube and Google do a good job of helping me figure out what a song in a given commercial is, and sometimes they don’t. (Serious question: shouldn’t there be a Youtube and and IMDB that like, specifically caters to commercials? So we can see who the actors are and what the songs are? And find them whenever we want without jumping through hoops? Do such sites already exist? If they do and you know about them, precious readers, don’t keep the information to yourself!) Anyway, this time, everything fell into place! I’m talking about the Virgin Mobile commercial that’s been on (they call it “The Crazy Life”).

Firstly, I’ll talk to my web advisers and figure out if there’s anything I can do about those HD Youtube embeds leaking out of the frame. Secondly, the guy at the lectern in the church? None other than Rob Halford, of Judas Priest. How cool! Thirdly, that’s the Hives covering “Early Morning Wake Up Call,” by an Australian New Wave outfit called Flash and the Pan. I can’t get it outta my head! Here’s the original.

# It’s 30–10 at the end of the first half, and the 18th-ranked UNC Tar Heels are playing like half of their starters haven’t even dressed. Oh wait.

# Incidentally, the music playing over some of the interstitial footage during the halftime show of this LSU–UNC game reminded me of something that I’ve wanted to talk about for quite some time. It’s been around for a while, and y’all are more hip than I am, but have you see the video for MGMT’s “Kids”? Isn’t it the most horrible thing you’ve ever seen? For real! I’m also very weirded out by that quote at the beginning. Not the quote itself; I’ve been saying it for years. (As has everyone that ever read The Watchmen.) It’s that the quote is so clearly and obviously from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, that it makes me wonder why the guys from MGMT would attribute it to Mark Twain. Because that has to have been something done on purpose, right?

# Hank Hill is a pretty alright dude.

# Also, before I forget, let me remind you that sharks have a week dedicated to Mark Herzlich. If Mark Herzlich were in the movie 300, it wouldn’t be called 300. It would be called 1. Who would win in a fight between Mark Herzlich and Galactus? That’s a trick question: Mark Herzlich IS the Devourer of Worlds.

# Here’s a real life bit of conversation:
nick: i hate superman as a hero, as a character, as anything
he’s simultaneously the strongest superhero and the most useless if someone has a pebble in their pocket
me: well, kryptonite is a deus ex machina that would make euripides blush
nick: lol
that’s a funny line
me: i was gonna say the same thing
i’m putting it in my blog

Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun know that I’m a cover fiend. So you can imagine my unrestrained joy upon coming across this video of Taking Back Sunday’s Adam Lazzara performing “Question,” by the Old 97’s, which I’m currently trying to learn on the ukulele.

And if you want to hear the original, it’s best listened to in this commercial for Fuse from a few years ago. Also, if this isn’t the most wicked precious thing you’ve ever seen, I would advise you to go to your doctor and ask her how you possibly could have survived so long without a fucking heart.

# This is obviously excellent news.

# Fire up Boston Blazers! This radio spot has been coming up a lot on Pandora recently, and it’s an effing delight. These days, you so rarely come across a hokey, old-school style jingle. Bravo, Boston Blazers. Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun salutes you.

# I usually resist things that are so overtly twee as this, but I have a hard time resisting a cute girl and a ukulele. I’m not as big a Neutral Milk Hotel guy as I should be, and I think it’s not unfair to admit that Jeff Mangum has a lousy voice. It’s true! Which is a shame, because once you put his lyrics in the hands of a mellifluous voice, you realize how beautiful they are. Listen to “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.” Gorgeous!

# Finally, give me a fucking break, Texas.

I love it! Maybe this will be another running feature, but if not, no matter. I watch a lot of TV, so I see a lot of commercials, and as a consequence, I accumulate a lot of favorites. Here’s a hilarious one from Gamefly.com. I promise I’m not a schill for them!

I love things getting smashed!