probabilityfields

Here’s the news story about the leprechaun that’s been terrorizing this town and exciting opportunist with the prospect of a pot-o-gold. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nda_OSWeyn8&search=leprechaun%20mobile

When I first saw the video I was almost convinced, but I needed more evidence. I watched the newsclip for hours on end until I thought I found something. Sure enough it was something that looked like a leprechaun. Could it be? Could I be on the verge of a giant pot of gold? The picture is enhanced below for the untrained eye:

After much speculation, I decided to use some video enhancement techniques I picked up from CSI (Las Vegas of course, the others suck balls). The results disabused me of my delusions of grandeur. T’was not a leprechaun:

T’was only Biker Fox, just hangin’ out in a tree, god bless ‘im. So no pot-o-gold, but an all-around great guy!

If you watch TV at all (but don’t have TiVo) then you’ve probably seen the dude pictured at right in such great advertising campaigns as the Capital One spot with David Spade saying ‘No’, or the recent HEB ads (Texas residents only).

The dude’s name is Nate Torrence, and almost unbelievably, he’s become a kind of celebrity of TV commercials. It’s nothing new for someone in one commercial to be recognized for being in another commercial, or for someone to be famous for being in a commercial (Where’s the Beef? Lady, Maytag Repair Man, etc.), but Torrence’s comedic personality has allowed him fame independent of the commercial; a new phenomenon, to the best of my recollection. His talent has not gone unnoticed by Hollywood types either, landing him a role in the upcoming Adam Sandler movie Click.

So what possible cultural impact could a doofus in a bunch of commercials have? Well, for one, it’s pretty damn interesting, and kinda scary, that someone could actually do this. And the most compelling manifestation of the consequences of this kind of fame can be found in his latest commercial for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which you’ve probably seen if you’ve been watching March Madness. The spot follows the same formula as all their other corny-ass commercials with one difference, Torrence. His presence makes it impossible to tell if the commercial is supposed to be sincere or funny, so it becomes brilliantly ironic. The weirdest part is that the commercial appears alongside Capital One, HEB, and the more familiar Enterprise spots. The people that made this ad are either very stupid, or geniuses.

Aside from creating new postmodern aesthetic categories, Torrence should also be interesting to all you marketing people and television fans out there going nuts about the looming advertising crisis facing television with the advent of the TiVo/Video iPod [wHat'S thE dEAl w/raNdOm CAPitAl LettERS?!] generation. The suggested solutions for this crisis offered up by media commentators have been either stale or apocolyptic: “More product placement in popular television shows,” or “We’re all gonna die because no one will sponsor Lost!!!!!” I predict instead that a bold generation of ad execs will step forth to make commercials that we want to watch, that we want to TiVo, that we want to download [Not me though].

Basically, instead of having the castaways on Lost find a crate full of delicious Philadelphia Cream Cheese and talk about how delicious it is, the new intern at the office in the Philadephia Cream Cheese commercial will impress the boss by spreading some on a bagle just before losing his balance and inadvertantly making copies of his bare ass, seriously jeopardizing the Danielson Account. “Not the Danielson Account!” we would all exclaim [not me though], “Davey worked so hard to build that Philadelphia Cream Cheese sculpture to win the Danielson Account last week!”

[Advertising Tip: People hate work, so make a commercial that pokes fun at office culture and BAM, you got a hit!]

Okay I know this sounds a bit ridiculous to most of you. You’re swearing that you’d never be entertained by a commercial, but what if Volkswagen gave Tarantino a few million to make a series of spots that would premiere each week and run that full week for ten weeks? Tell me you wouldn’t want to watch that. Seriously, if it was really good; if it made you say, “Wow, I can’t believe they let them do that in a commercial.” And the real question is: wouldn’t you want to download your own free copy of each spot? Why the hell not?

So if you want to stop the advertising crisis you have to do two things:
1) Flip the product placement paradigm. Bring entertainment to the products, not the product to the entertainment.
2) Exactly what the advertising industry has done for decades: recuperate rebelliousness and use it to sell.

[New Advertising Tip: Make a commercial that pokes fun at commercials that poke fun at office culture, BAM, you got a hit!]

Now send me some money you fucking PoMo bastards!

With four different kinds of tomato, serrano and bell peppers, and some dill, oregano, and sage that I had previously grown.

I also seeded some cilantro, parsley, two kinds of chives, and some green beans in some pots along with some strawberries I planted a while back. Tomorrow I’m on a mission to find some French sorrel.

I hope we get another bumper crop like last year’s.

Those sushi hot dogs sure were delicious.

Well, my birthday is less than two months away so I figured I’d give you guys a heads up to start buying/building/feeding my presents. And, since I’m such a great guy, I figured I’d drop a hint or two to those of you who don’t know what to get me. Hmm…well, this has been a tough decision, but for many years now I’ve wanted a statue of myself. Something like these two dudes:

Boy! I bet they had some cool friends!

So to help my cool friends out, here’s a recent photo to serve as the model for the statue (I’d model in person, but I’m a busy man.):

…Although, now that I think about it, I would appreciate a more heroic pose, so how about this image:

No, no, wait, there’s still something missing…Here, this oughta work:

So get t’ chisellin’ folks. Submissions are due the night before my birthday. That means May 8th before midnight. It can be of any material, but none of that minimalist or abstract horseshit, I want full-on classical. I’ll pick the best one and keep it downstairs with the robot. The creators of the losing submissions can just get me something else for my birthday. Good luck!

…Robut approves!

I paid someone to pull these things out of my head today.

It was a little over a year ago when Hunter S. Thompson decided to end his life with a gun. He was 67 years old, and by all reports he had left a note saying goodbye to his friends and family who were all aware of his plans to avoid the indignities of old age. This sparked a few conversations in my circles. We all admired him for what he had done.

“That’s the way I wanna go, man. When I get old I want you to take me out to a field, tell me a story about the rabbits and shoot me in the back of the head.”

“No, problem, man.”

Two days ago I went home to see my grandfather. He’s well into his 80s, but long ago we all stopped counting at his behest. In the past few years we’ve had our scares, some health issues that came and went, but the current sickness has really brought him down. My mother warned me that he had withered away from his plump shape down to a small frail figure. “It may take him a while to remember who you are.”

As I entered my grandparents’ house through the kitchen and took a right at the hall though, I barely noticed the sound of the medical equipment over the sights of all those artifacts of my childhood. Sure, I’d seen them many times again since then, but each time I was more amazed at how big and magical these things used to be. Now they emmanated a different magic, like an old aquaintance that appears in a dream thirteen years later. Like the route you used to take to school everyday, surprised that you remember it so well.

My grandfather, we call him Chief (he used to be a fire chief), lay in a hospital bed in the space that used to contain a recliner (the most comfortable in existence) and a table that held the clicker (remote control). He was both tired and restless, and just as my mother had warned, very skinny.

“Who is that?” he said with some excitment, he knew who I was, “Beau!”

His hearing had always been sketchy, but we managed a conversation. Meanwhile, my mother, her mother, and the nurse discussed things at a low level. Things like moving his stuff around to accomodate the equipment. Occasionally he’d ask what they were saying. “We’re not talking about you.”

Other than that, the visit felt really good. He asked about school and work. It was just like any other time we talked. When I got up to leave I shook his hand. “Whatever I’ve got, don’t get it, it’s hell,” he joked and then rolled back over in his bed.

There’s no escaping it though, I will get it, or something like it someday. As I walked into the kitchen I heard the nurse ask him, “What’s that all over your face?” Apparently he had a little dried drool. “Good looks,” he quipped back.

Is this the insufferable indignity of old age? or is it forgetting how to laugh at yourself that we should really be afraid of?

Scene: Aaron and Beau flipping through the channels late at night with glossy eyes, arrive on VH1 to catch a few seconds of Best Week Ever.

Aaron: Wow, this really is where celebrities go to die.

Beau: Well, it’s more like a celebrity pet cemetery. They die, we bury them here, and they come back to murder all of culture as we know it.

Well, I just awoke from a good 15 hour nap and my kidneys are killing me. I had the longest day, it all started on Tuesday morning when I got up at 7:30am to study for a midterm I took at 9:30am. It was a lot harder than I thought it’d be but I got through it. Then I wrote a little 5 page paper just before my 2:30pm midterm, and I was off to work. I got off work at 9pm and immediately went to the computer lab to start writing my 8 page epic about Kant and modern physics. Of course I was interrupted by my 9am and 10am classes, but I managed to finish by 12:30pm, just in time for El Charrito (Suisas Day!). I tried to last until my 3:30-6pm class, but I accidentally saw the beginning of Cliffhanger and it turned out to be too disturbing so I rented Me and You and Everyone We Know again and went home to sleep.