Erectile Tryptophania

(Originally posted 11/26/09)

Cialis commercials are getting ever more disturbing. At this point I think we're all sort of numb to the veiled metaphors around the benefits of a stiff dick, just as we were earlier indoctrinated into the "menstrual pad as field of fresh flowers" mindset. I can deal with the knowing smiles, close-ups of embracing hands, and even those ridiculous tubs. Never mind that the guys in these ads are precisely the kind that probably should remain forever afflicted with "E.D.", if only to reduce the likelihood of them spawning offspring and propagating their insipid personalities onto successive generations.



But the spot I saw this morning really creeped me out.

The thing that dug into my spine was the manner in which the ad kept swinging back to a portrait of the family dog on the wall. The mutt is smiling. Winking. Like he was in on the gag, wise to the source of his master's new swagger. Or perhaps just relieved that Mr. Limp Dick wouldn't be taking his failures in the bedroom out on the the ol family pooch anymore ("Stop taunting me, you beast! Tail in the air - you think I don't know what that means! Take this!!"). Perhaps. But the dog's shit eating grin really got to me in all the wrong ways, digging into my psyche like nothing this side of those Charles Schwab rotoscoped monstrosities. Its metaphorical fingernails dragging across the chalkboard of my sensibilities.



At the end, the newly empowered Peter starts rattling off all of the unfortunate side effects of Cialis (marathon hard-ons, massive boils on your testes, loss of bowel control, elephantiasis of the nostril, stink eye, etc.). And in the middle of this "happy fun ball"-like disclaimer speech, focus switches back to the stairway with the family portraits, centering again on that damn dog. Or am I just imagining all this? If so, why?

This was to be my Thanksgiving post before I got so rattled by that ad from our friends in the pharmaceutical industry. It was to be a typical "happy, happy" tome. You know - one of those heartfelt "I'm thankful for my friends, family, health, etc." bullshit pieces of sentiment that folks haul out of the basement a few times a year as a break from the hard work of shoveling shit on one another. But I decided to put the kibosh on that nonsense. Perhaps I should be thankful I'm not afflicted with "E.D." (but it's more than counterbalanced by the fact that I wouldn't know it if I was).

My memories of childhood Thanksgivings are, like many things of that era, hazy. They were mostly pleasant, I think. I don't recall any major meltdowns or other high drama (we saved that for the other 364 days on the calendar). There were likely many levels of tension going on during those gatherings that I was (thankfully, blissfully) oblivious to. Once the food was eaten, Thanksgiving was over in our house: I don't remember us doing much afterward. We weren't a "gather 'round the TV and watch football" kind of family. Nor were we a "head out to the yard to throw the ball" brood. Chow down and veg.



Occasionally we had extended family members over. Sometimes members of Dad's booze crew stopped by. I don't recall anyone overtly smashed, though - no vomiting into the stuffing or falling face first into the pumpkin pie.

I often think my unfocused memories of events in my childhood home were more a function of the thick haze of smoke drifting like a London fog throughout the confines of that place. My remembrances aren't faulty - they're just nicotine stained. Maybe that's why smells don't trigger any sense memories for me (not like sounds - music takes me back to moments past every day). The smell of turkey doesn't remind me of childhood Thanksgivings simply because it's no longer enhanced with Camel and Alpine tar-based herbs and carcinogen-laced spices.

Anyway, back to thankfulosity and gratefuliousness.

At the end of the day, I'm not terminally ill (that I'm aware of yet, anyway), I've got friends and family I don't hate (most of them, in fact). I'm gainfully employed in a profession that often doesn't suck (not relative to a lot of other ones out there). I mean, I could be working in a slaughter house or as a sideshow geek in a traveling carnival, if I had the aptitude for such endeavors. Thankfully, I don't. At the very least, I lack the requisite drive and desire to excel in such rarefied environs.



So there's that.

By the way, I'm not looking down on those fine individuals pursuing careers in slaughterhouse management and executive geekdom: remember, without slaughterhouse workers, very few of you'd be enjoying your turkey this day (and without sideshow geeks, you'd have one less thing to be thankful you're not).

Well, better hit the hay - Black Friday awaits ... Americans at their best and brightest. I figure if I get to Walmart early enough, I can take advantage of the 'doorbuster' sales I'm sure they'll be having on their line of Caskets (such as "Dad Remembered" or the "Lady de Guadalupe" - steel jobbies both, guaranteed to be worm resistant). Order online and have 'em shipped to your home or the home of the lucky recipient. Oh, and be sure to order soon so that it arrives before Xmas; you wouldn't want to disappoint! Truly gifts that keep on giving.

Shoeless Billy Mays

Originally posted August, 2009

Say it ain't so, Billy ... Coke? Meth, I could see (it's the people's drug, after all, and you were nothing if not a man of the people).  But elitist coke?

Could it be the rat-ah-tat-tat, slam-boom, loud and superfast patter was not nature's gift to you, Mr. Mays?

Man. Bummed.

This is for me like finding out Joe DiMaggio was corking his bat!

If Billy could be seduced by the dark side where does that leave the other pitchmen and women?

Are any of them clean?

ShamWow Vince?   The Snuggie Lady?   The Liberator Catheter 'Cath' Chick?  Billy's partner Anthony?

Do the television advertising executives need to institute mandatory drug testing?  (I mean apart from the ones already in place for legal drugs a particular shill might be hawking.  When the Viva Viagra men's glee club force down those blue pills like they were tic-tacs, that doesn't count.)

This Mays-as-cokehead revelation could be just the beginning.

Next thing ya know, pictures will start popping up in the scandal rags of all our favorite pitch people gallivanting at the annual Infomercial Players Convention in Vegas, caught-on-camera snorting lines off a dead hooker's ass using Liberator Catheters as straws.

And then of course cleaning it all up with the help of some OxiClean and a few ShamWows.

It would end up being like the old Chicago Black Sox Scandal, only now 'as seen on TV.'  'The scandal with sleeves!'

Grainy home movie footage will follow - Paris Hilton-style - going viral on the net:

[Scene: Some Vegas Hotel Suite, final night of the Infomercial Shill Shabang Convention. Vince, Billy, Anthony, Snuggie Lady, and 'Cath' are bent over the king size bed, all wearing multi-color Snuggies and snorting blow through long catheter tubes, the dead hooker sprawled out below them serving as receptacle for their illicit consumption.]

Zoom in.  Assume Les Stroud of Survivorman is operating the camera. What?  Hey, he's got lots of camera experience!  And he knows how to deal with snakes and jaguars and bears, which might come in handy here.

Shamwow Vince is rattling on at hypersonic speed straight into the camera, nude except for his red Snuggie and his headset mike, pacing around all crazy-armed wild-eyed energy and dilated pupils: "Look at that mess. That's blood running out of my nose, mixing with the grey matter oozing from that dead hooker's head there.  It's soaking right into the carpet - that's gonna leave a mess (and evidence). Ya gettin' that camera guy? But with some OxiClean - wanna spray some there Billy? .. and a ShamWow, it sucks it all out - no muss, no fuss, no cops."

Then Vince pulls out his SlapChop and an Eight-ball and proceeds to chop them up a few more lines of Bolivian Marching Powder.  But only after getting into it with Anthony, who wants to use a Smart Chopper for the job instead, claiming it wastes less 'product' and results in a 'finer' drift of snow, free from the 'rock' left behind by the SlapChop.  Toe to toe, fisticuffs at the ready.  Gotta give it to them, even ripped out of their gourd these boys are loyal to the brands they so proudly represent.

The Vince/Anthony tussle resolved (both Choppers would be employed), the gang hunkers down for a few more snorts of coke and - what the hey, it's a party after all - a line or two of the finest Afghani smack.

Vince stands up again suddenly and half struts/half weaves toward the camera - you awake, Les?  His TV rap tattooed to his psyche, ol' Vince can't help but let his buddies know that like all things, this party is time-boxed: "If ya hurry, ya can have a taste - for the next 20 minutes, or until this hooker starts to smell, cause we can't be doing this all day, people."

'Cath' is already agitated by the other pitchmen and their wasteful use of her catheters - why not use a rolled up $20 like normal people?  Vince's sharp tone and clock watching have put her over the edge. "All day?!? We can't be doing this all day?!?   It's only 5am, ya hooker beatin' Eddie Haskell-lookin' shithead! - Now, I gotta go 'Cath'"  Vince doesn't back down from her.  "Not in here ya don't - in the toilet with ya, Cath, ya urinary tract wacked bitch!'

Every once in a while the Snuggie Lady pops her head out of the blue velvet 'Snugcoon' that envelopes her as she lay 'cross the sofa in the corner.  Just as quickly, she grabs another handful of pills from the candy dish and washes them down with a tug from the half gallon bottle of cooking sherry she keeps clenched in her fist.  The others know not to disturb her (or even to glance in her general direction). Oh, no - that wouldn't be wise: she'd been huffing Billy's Orange Glo all afternoon and is in no mood for socializing.

Enough fun and games, time to feed the hooker into the Magikan trash disposal system that Anthony and Billy had brought along for just this purpose. That'll tidy things up just right. Maybe a little 'energy booster' before cleanup - "Hey Liberator Chick, pass over another 'cath'!"

[End Scene]



Of course, this is all just wild speculation about a future that nobody wants. The consequences of falling down that slippery slope from high atop the Infomercial Celebrity Ego Mountain. I can only hope this scene remains firmly in the realm of fiction.

Consider it a forewarning - a cautionary tale, if you will, of the ultimate price paid when putting too much pressure on our heroes and taking away their P.T. Barnum-fueled innocence. For in so doing, our innocence shall be taken as well.

Vince and Billy have been tarnished by scandal, let's hope they don't take the whole ship down with them.