Category: Our World

After the saturation we got from these guys, I was pretty sure we wouldn’t hear from them again until some misty ad review a generation later. Turns out I was only half a generation off:

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With even the industry press piping about what it calls creative marketers (and squeezing a Barack Obama cover out of it), it seems the intersection of culture, commerce, and politics is an irresistible potion these days. And for the next ten days or so, what’s current in current events will continue to be the fulcrum of everything else. Of course, Cheech tried to explain this long, long ago:

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In fact, Cheech pretty much nailed everything. Waas Sappening for President.

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BusinessWeek with the story behind the spot

My cousin Dozer just told me:

So there was this drunk old guy with long hair on the L train going home tonight, caterwauling to his girlfriend about how all men suck and are violent. Then he moved on to talking about how his dad and grandfather fought in WWII and WWI and “they killed his grandfather” and “they didn’t care, they didn’t care.” And just for a visual on him–this is one of those pony-tail-wearing ex-hippies who is full of bullshit, wears a black turtleneck under his black sports jacket, and generally reeks of phony liberalism.

Then he starts in on the current presidential campaign, and he says, “You think McCain cares about you? You think Obama cares about you? He won’t be paying your mortgage,” etc, and moves on to, “the youth these days, they just don’t care. They don’t care. Nobody cares.” All of this is loud enough for the whole, packed train to hear him.

Then he starts in on, “They’re gonna kill Obama. They’re gonna kill him.” At this point he’s been going on for about 10 minutes, and finally a young guy from the other side of the train says, “Man, if you say one more thing about killing Obama I’m going to come over there and smash you’re f*cking head in,” and his voice is so full of passion it sounds like he’s talking about his own father. The youth do care. The drunk man tries to protest that he’s only saying what THEY will do, to which the young guy repeats, “I will smash your head in.” Then another guy on the train says, “I will too,” and about 4 or 5 more strangers on the train chime in in unison that they will smash this man’s head in if he says another word about killing Obama. The drunk man mumbles on.

Then the first guy says, “Shut the f*ck up” to the drunk man and literally half the train says, “yeah, shut the f*ck up,” and people start laughing and the drunk man says, “Okay, they’re awake now.” He gets off at the next stop, and the whole train explodes in applause at his leaving.

Public Caring. This is why I love living in NYC.

Of course there is already a misspelled website and analysis of ad placement, but my fave bit from this debate is McCain’s “Zero?” moment. Old Jonny looks about to have a heart attack, which would lead to…

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