Super-Selling the Taste of Irritation
I don’t watch TV anymore, but I like to have it on retro MeTV in the other room, overnight. Mannix comes on at 2 AM (currently circa 1973; I’m where I can tell the year by Joe’s coif). Of course the specifics only make sense in America, but I have a feeling that similar channels exist all over the world. Regardless, this is not about old “CTE” Joe, it is about something very disturbing I heard during a commercial break as I was in the kitchen getting coffee.
Billy Mays was hyper selling something. I do not know how much of the globe got the Billy Mays’ super-sell treatment, but in America, I got plenty. He used to be on commercials selling stuff day in and out. I really wasn’t paying attention, so when I heard his familiar voice on the TV I thought no more than I would about seeing a Pigeon in the park–but after a few seconds a headvoice asked:
“Isn’t he dead?”
Indeed. Dead as a Dickens’ doornail. Since 2009. For a moment I thought “Oh, a retro commercial inside a retro TV show” (the mortality rate among Me TV performers is very very high). But, no, it was a recycled ad.
I tried to think about that objectively. Maybe the product (can’t for the life of me remember what for–a glue of some kind, I think) had paid for the ad and held onto it for sixteen years? Seemed unlikely.
Then a different headvoice spoke up. It was familiar, and a rarity because it only speaks when it has something to say. It asked: “What the hell is wrong with people?”
I thought about it. There’s nothing unusual about using dead people to sell stuff. American money is covered with the faces of ghosts–so maybe there is some kind of connection. Yet there was something wrong with seeing Billy Mays, sixteen years dead (cocaine), behaving as though we were all alive together today and that I needed to buy his product. Something not just wrong, but fundamentally wrong.
It wasn’t a lack of respect for the dead; Mays was all about the push, and probably would have loved the idea. It wasn’t about the product itself (yes, a glue of some kind, almost positive). And it wasn’t anything overly offensive in the ad. Yet it was still fundamentally wrong.
Then it came to me. Having Billy Mays (or anyone) sell long after his death was in BAD TASTE.
I returned to my desk and sat there. I stared into my computer screen. Yes, somewhere along the Irene Leila Allison Experience having a dead man sell glue was deemed to be in bad taste. Obviously this was not instilled in me specifically, but as a Fundamental (that word again) Principle, headed Dead People Acting Alive, something like that. Moreover, it should be clear to everyone that such a thing is in bad taste and that…well, is that.
I googled the miserable affair. Sure enough the company wanted to mark its fifteenth anniversary by using the Mays’ ad. Naturally, I do not believe that poppycock* one damn bit. It remains classified as bad taste.
(*Old word of the week.)
I do not think that having a standard of taste is a generational thing. The input should not be able to override the inside system. There should be a safeguard against merrily accepting a dead guy selling glue (almost positive it was glue) because the client was probably too FUCKING CHEAP to tape a new commercial. After all, they are still in business sixteen years later (not fifteen, which is impossible); I’m sure they can afford to make another.
The rare voice asked again: “What the hell is the matter with people?”
I chose to hear it as a rhetorical question that is begging for an answer, but it will not get one because the only people who care to reply think using the ghost of Billy Mays to hawk glue (damn it, glue it is) is a fine thing, respectful of his legacy as a coked-up super salesman. People for that sort of thing yell, the rest mutter helplessly.
Then another voice, slappable, punky, chipped in: “Alright Boomer.”
I reached into my mind and grabbed that voice by the throat and squeezed. “Say that again and you will have spoken your stupid last,” I told it, words seething out due to a vape pen clenched between my teeth. “C’mon, let’s hear it, you dreary little darling, let’s hear it!”
Yes, I have heard ‘Alright boomer’ everytime too many. Only idiots and politicians must use material written for them. But even those guys can wax original when you attempt to crush their voice boxes. Yes, so so so sweet a sound…
But now I have caught myself dreaming of doing such a thing, coming back to the now, empty hands clenching and twisting, instead of writing this wrap. So, with a sigh, I move away from the irritating world and head for the good part.
The Good Part
Here, I’ve gotten into the habit of mentioning the Sunday feature to lead off the week that was. Seems to me that poor Sunday was left out in the cold, so far be it from me to contribute to the desolation of that situation. This past Sunday Geraint Jonathan returned with A Most Unfortunate Accident. Geraint paints a winning portrait of Dostoevsky and the great Russian’s novel in his beautifully flowing essay. It worked on me, since I added the book to my Kindle.
For those of you who missed Arjun Shah’s debut last week, you get a second chance at reading him with his The Rules of Love that opened the regular week Monday. Atjun is able to get a great amount of humanity across in just a few words; he also shows a different culture known to us in the West.
Brandon McWeeney gave us Beetles on Tuesday. It is to Brandon’s great credit that he was able to get such a thing over so easily. A real squirmer, but well worth the read, layered and entertaining.
Sandra Arnold returned on Wednesday with Colour Clash. Sandra’s story is remarkable for both its incisiveness and restraint. There is a contrast of ideas put forward by a brother and sister; the ideas do not match yet neither is wrong.
The Castle’s Walk-in Cooler, the first by newcomer T.C. Barerra is a free trip to the bizarre land of California. T.C. weaves tremendous social examination with cynical humour and under-riding sadness, that is actually at the surface, for people who look at other people, and comes up a winner.
Friday brought What Matters by Shivani Sivagurunathan. Like Sandra there is beauty and restraint. And there’s tremendous courage and strength in the MC, Didi, whose reactions remind me of Nora’s in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Beholding your own reflection is the second hardest thing to do. Doing something about it is harder.
There we have them, six writers from four continents, two genders, various ages and diverse POV’s; all met in high quality and GOOD TASTE.
A List
We all have our bugaboos when we try to write. I do it every day, and yet I must overcome several obstacles that often make me want to quit and fade even further into nothingness.
Mine are:
- Izzy the Cat meowing about nothing. All night. Nothing wrong, she does it just to be annoying, knowing nothing bad will happen. She’s been at it for fifteen years and it still drives me insane. Yes, Izzy is a talker.
- Dudley the Cat wanting to be brushed. Her figures that he should annoy as well. Just sits there and stares at me. He rarely speaks, but he has staring down as an art.
- Downstairs neighbor spitting and making disgusting noises while outside smoking more weed. I want to dump boiling oil on him, but I guess that might still be illegal.
- Unsteady Jukebox playing something like “Stairway to Heaven” or an item best described as equally “kegger rock.” Nothing against those tunes, but I had already heard them too much by the time I was in high school.
- Squeaky office chair that mocks me. I swear it says “Please–just one at a time.” It is an ugsome bastard.
- Having to vape instead of smoke indoors. It does sate the addiction, but it feels so damn phoney.
- Bad Memory Machine. It often opens on its own and fills my mind with a bad scene from my life that was dealt with years ago. Hate it. No good Memory Machine. Must be a personality disorder of some kind.
- I get into something and all of a sudden the OS must update. Now! or the world will end!!! Never happens when my mind is blank. Google OS somehow related to my office chair.
- Summer Aphids on the screen. I count them and wonder how many will wind up as Bird chow come morning.
- Yours
Nothing relevant here, just something silly and cheerful…
Leila
literally stories 
Hi Leila
Old Billy resurrected… He was a force of nature. At first I thought it was an AI generated commercial, or that’s where my mind jumped. It would be weird seeing some dead guy selling glue in the present–selling his hyped up ass off–not just some kind of repeat.
I don’t put anything past these soulless marketeers. They seem to be akin to soulless lawyers, but no one is as soulless as a bought and paid for politician.
Christopher
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Thanks! Agreed they are a scrounge, lol. Some of these commercials are outright disgusting.
The wildlife yesterday was scarce, except for a Mama deer and her growing child who stopped, turned, and stared from a darkened woods. They are so inquisitive. I wish I had a pet deer.
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Afraid Billy Mays wasn’t on my radar. I did think he’d been mentioned in a Dylan song, but on reflection I’m pretty sure that was Willie Mays. Googled your Billy and discovered his super-salesman profile. When I was a kid there was a locally famous super-salesman called Mad ‘Arry used to operate at the open market. People (including my mother, me and my kid brother) used to turn up just to listen to his patter: ‘They call me Mad ‘Arry, cos I’m not sellin’ this crockery, I’m givin’ it away….’ etc, etc. When he died in his Jaguar it was a headline in the local paper.
Sadly, I have many, many anti-writing bugaloos. ‘Re-filling the bird feeder before the rain comes back’, ‘Itchy leg/scalp/foot’, ‘Search for misplaced chocolate bar,’ ‘Checking mail’, ‘Looking up word in thesaurus and then browsing several pages’, ‘Browsing youtube for old Derby County games’, to name but a few.
The last of those I find to be a sovereign remedy for The Bad Memory Machine.
mick
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Hello Mick
I do not think it possible to avoid roaming the thesarus once you have opened the thing. I have a battered Rogets paperback, at least thirty years old, the cover has gone as soft as cloth.
Looking for chocolate (or food in general) is also something I do every day.
Thank you!
Leila
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LA
An intensely coked-up dead loser shouting into one’s face about glue (or some other chemical agent) from the screen is disturbing no end, and probably a thing many Americans would consider to be the height of High Culture. Sometimes I think Donald’s greatest sin is his endless lack of good taste, his constantly foisting his own brand of the very worst BAD TASTE on the world. Just look at what he’s done to the Oval Office in honor of himself. I think when Billy reached the Pearly Gates Saint Peter asked him to descend back down into Purgatory to ponder his actions here on Earth before gaining admittance to the Really Big Show. Mannix is cool! Almost as cool as Columbo. I recently found out that Columbo was partially based on a Dostoevsky character.
Love how you contrasted the bad with The Good Part!
And know what you mean about the Bad Memory Machine. That thing can be a killer.
Anyone who can use “poppycock” and “bugaboo” in the same column with Hunter S. Thompson-like ease is more than a skilled writer. Also, your sentences always flow just right and they always stop just where it seems like they should, perfectly. Kind of like Beethoven playing his piano.
My biggest bugaboo about writing is simply what is known as the over-used term Writer’s Block. I almost always know WHAT I want to say, and the trouble is in HOW to say it. Starting something five times and deleting every attempt is not unusual for me. If I can’t hit it right by that many tries, I go do something else until the Writing Brain turns back on again. But it can still be an oppressive feeling all day long. I think I’ve progressed so far along this lonely road of the life of a writer that I can only be truly happy on days when I write well. That’s not true, kids and dogs can also bring the joy, or sometimes seeing old friends, which never happens often. It never happens often because I’m usually too busy writing to have much energy for anything else other than wandering around, which is part of writing, and reading, which is also part of writing. Sometimes I realize I’ve turned into NOTHING BUT A WRITER. That fact can be alternately terrifying and profoundly consoling by turns.
Your columns are better than the things HST used to come up with, but he can hang out in your same ballpark!
The D
PS Love the video, never paid much attention to that song before but it had me dancing with Boo….And we felt like we were in the Middle Ages with Robert Browning’s Pied Piper.
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Hello Dale
Thank you! I understand writer’s block. I can never just whip something up. Dorothy Parker said “I can’t write five words without erasing seven.” I understand that completely.
And I encorage all to read Dale’s work on my site, saragunsprings.com. It is just a site but we throw stuff out almost daily, and Dale and Doug Hawley have been guests.
Unlike loud Billy Mays, no sell there, just an invite!
Leila
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Good post and recap. With AI deep fakes, I fear there’ll be more dead than living hawking products. My main writerus interuptus is probably watching sports. Especially this year when my favorite team is doing well. Great video!
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Hi David
Thank you for your kind remarks as always. Hmmm, I will take a guess, the Tigers?
Leila
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Ha! Tigers is a good guess, but 🎼Go, Cubs, go!🎶
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Good morn’ Christopher
Your thoughts on AI possibility are brilliant! Ad people have no souls, conscience or any idea of taste. It is a match.
Thank you! (And I hope the wildlife are posing for you)
Leila
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Leila
Obstacles to writing?
Music: Good music — bad. It’s distracting. Bad music — bad. It’s distracting. I tried writing in a tree. Once.
Turning into my mother. I avoid poetry. If I can.
Having someone I love look over my shoulder.
Worse: having no one I love to look over my shoulder. — Gerry
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Good morning Gerry
Thank you! I play music when I write, but often it does distract–especially when the song is annoying.
The over the shoulder mention is quite moving.
Take care,
Leila
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Hello Leila ate all (sic or something): As the cliche goes, nothing is gone that is remembered. Sister and cousin I hadn’t talked to for a long time, so many friends (I’m not sure I have/had any), a long line of furry creatures including the deer in the neighborhood. They are circling me, and I’m going down.
Maysam is more or less OK despite the bombing of his neighborhood and the scaring of his dog. We’d be better off with the warmongers of Iran, the USA, and Israel.
MM
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Hello Doug
All we can do, really, is keep moving. We will all be called soon enough. In that regard, I see it as being on the house money.
Thank you for stopping by,
Leila
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It is known, I think that we are wired in many different ways but to imagine a marketing executive planning using film of a dead person to sell glue is peculiar and bad taste in many different ways. Then as my old granny used to say ‘There’s nowt as funny as folk’. Another interesting post. I think you already know my opinion of AI so no need to rehearse it again except to say I’m in favour of progress but we really should take more care. Thanks Leila. dd
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Hi Diane
I think a lot of using the dead in things traces back to Forrest Gump, a film I’ve never seen save for clips of Hanks with Kennedy and the chocolates thing. Out thirty years and if I live thirty more, I still will not have seen it!
Billy Mays was annoying enough while alive, and yet some will still use him!
Thank you!
Leila
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Hi Leila,
You got me thinking and fanging about advertising. I reckon I could glass some cunt if they told me that was what they did.
Not all of these are dead but the ones that aren’t should be!!
Jim Jones selling funny tasting orange juice.
Charles Manson promoting the ‘White Album’
Boris Johnston teaming up with Hallmark to sell invitations.
Mark (The wee wank) Hancock selling faulty PPE. (Oh- He already did that…Well his sister???)
The deid queen / current king selling private health care!!
The list could go on.
I give my American friends one of the most fucking disgusting things I have ever seen – See below!
Balance that up with the episode of ‘The Intern’ that deals with Covid.
My problem when I try to write or read a paper is my lovely wife who remembers all the things that she wanted to tell me when I asked!!!!
Brilliant as always.
Hugh
Please folks, if you haven’t seen this, take an hour or so and do so…This made me fucking sick!!!!!
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Hi Hugh
A brilliantly ugsome clip void of humanity! It’s the new way of the world.
Your pairings with product and pusher are perfect. Especially Crazy Charlie.
Thank you!
Leila
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