Gleanings from the Adverts

As I have commented to you all before, ad copy sometimes makes some the best reading around. Let me share some of the more interesting ad copy that I have come across in the last few days.

Thoughtful Words on a Wall

As I was going downtown, I passed the exterior of an upscale home furnishings store. I saw the following bit of ad copy posted in the windows of the three story building:

Rethink

Refresh

Renew

A pretty sound sentiment whether you are talking about redecorating your home or putting your life back on track.

Priorities

In an AT&T magazine ad, very successfull-looking fifty-something fellow sits on a very expensive looking couch in a very well-appointed room. The graying fellow looks out from the page directly at the reader. On the right side of ad about half way up is a piece of paper ripped from a page of music composition paper. The ad copy reads:

The World According to Roger

Find your passion first, job second.

What a great thought.

The Real vs. The Ideal

In the 1990's, AtlanticRichfield Company ran a series of ads which considered major issues in our economy and in our society. In these ads, they contrasted the reality of situations versus the ideal that we are striving to achieve. This particular bit of ad copy dealt with the energy crisis this nation is facing.

The nation faces an energy crisis. Our
natural reservoirs of fossil fuels are more and more difficult to tap. New forms
of producing power are being developed, but will they be ready in time? And will
they solve the problem without creating new ones? But that is not the real
crisis. The real crisis is the human crisis.

The real

We are forgetting how to be human beings.
Power has become an end in itself. Instead of walking, we ride to the store.
Instead of thinking, we ask a computer for answers. Instead of doing, we tell
our machines to mix, brush, talk, write, even scratch for us. We have become a
plugged-in, motorized society.

The ideal

A world in which energy is used to create
power that amplifies our humanness rather than just replacing it.

This ad makes a very timely comment on our current situation. Great food for thought.

Small Victories

My wife and I weren't sure if our rent check was going to clear the bank. At the moment, we are living on a really tight budget, so this was a real concern to us. However, I remembered that I had done some work for which I had not yet been paid. So, long story short, I was able to pick up a check from the folks who owed me the money and get the check into the bank just in time for our rent check to clear. A small victory, to be sure. But at least I am going to get through this day in one piece.

After Marilyn confirmed that the rent check went through okay today, she called me to let me know. Then she said with a somewhat worried tone, " I just don't know how we are going to get thru the rest of the week till payday."

I responded, "Sweetie we avoided disaster today. Be happy that we did. Let's deal with tomorrow when it comes."

I figured out, a long time ago, that our lives are seldom about the big victories in our lives. We live from day to day and sometimes it is a struggle just to do that. Our lives are mostly about the small victories we win each day that enable us to keep going yet one more day. We won todays battle. For now, I am perfectly okay with that.

Some Personal Thoughts on July 4th

As our nation celebrates the 230th observance of our Independence Day, I am amazed that I am witnessing this day. The American Declaration of Independence revolutionized the way the world understood the very notion of government. What is so amazing is that the lofty principles and ideas that document embodies are still at the heart of our American system of government today. As fundamental ideas of how men should govern themselves, it would seem that these principles still work pretty well today and that you and I are lucky enough to be here as citizens in a free and still open society. We are very fortunate.

I can choose to affiliate myself with any religion and not fear persecution. I enjoy the freedom of speech and I can assemble with people of a like mind when I feel the need to make my voice heard. I can live as a free man in a society which offers me the possiblility to realize my potential, if I am willing to work hard and smart enough. I live in a nation in which I still feel very safe, despite the unseen but implied threat of terrorism on our home ground. Finally, as much as I want to be safe, I am not willing to forfeit my rights and privileges as a citizen, in order to simply be safe. What is the point of being safe if I am not a free man in an open society.

I am proud to be an American. I am thankful that I am enjoying the perks that go with being an American and I fully undestand that nothing in life is free of cost. I understand that I have a responsibility as a citizen to make sure that the values and institutions, that have made the United States such a good place to live, survive and prosper. That implies that I am expected to do whatever I have the power to do to make that happens. It is not a choice that I can simply opt out of making.

Finally, I am in awe of all the people over the last 230 years who have fought and struggled and sacrificed to guarantee that this nation will survive. I know that the United States is not a perfect society or political entity. But I know of few other places in the world where I would rather live.

I hope you all had a very pleasant and thoughtful Fourth of July holiday.

Kindest regards,

Howard Fireman
Houston, Texas

Question of the Day - July 4, 2006

Happy Fourth of July.
Hope you are having a very pleasant day with friends and family.

This is a day that we should all be thinking about the courage and the commitment that the founding fathers of this country showed during the American Revolution. They put their very lives on the line and as a result you and I are living as free citizens in one of the greatest nations in the world today.

Since this is such a very special day for all of us in the US, I am asking you all to post a response to today's question and share it with us.

The Question of the Day for July 4, 2006:

If you had to explain to someone who lived in another country what it means to be an American, what would you say to that person?

Kindest regards,
Howard Fireman
Houston, Texas USA

Deja Vu... Again

Let me tell you why very little that I read in the news surprises me. Nothing really ever changes. We change the names of the players. We change the location of where things are happening. We change the names of the wars about which we are reading. We change the names of the usually clueless politicians who are contributing to global warming by blasting out more hot air. We change names, but as a species, we keep making the same stupid, mindless mistakes over and over again.

One of the ABC reporters has his own blog. In one of his posts, he reported his reaction when he returned from five or six weeks in Iraq this year. He was reacting to the huge preoccupation in this country with the Jennifer Anniston/Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie brouhaha. He had just come from a country that currently exists in an evironment of complete chaos and a place where you never know if you are going to come home alive or not. It was the kind of culture shock that puts our American society in a rather poor light.

Hey, folks, there is nothing new about the dismay this reporter was expressing about our society's apparently skewed priorities. I was rummaging through some old Time magazines and I came across a particular issue from 1998. At the end of each issue, there is a feature called The Final Word. This particular op-ed piece was up in arms over the fact that the United States was still knee-deep the big "controversy" over then President Clinton's fling with Monica Lewinsky. At the same time, what was getting lost in the news was the continuing problems in Rwanda, where a few years earlier, one of the worst cases of genocide, in modern history, took place. The author asked: Why was Lewinski-gate on the front page of the paper daily, while the question of genocide in Rwanda was buried on page 10, if anything was written about Rwanda at all.

Like I said, not a lot surprises me. Mankind seems incapable of learning from its mistakes. So I don't intend to get too stressed out when the third and fourth American expeditions march into Iraq sometime in the future. There is little I can do as one individual to impact the course of this war in Iraq. Instead, I will just veg out and pour myself a very nice glass of chardonnay. If you can't beat the idiots who are supposed to be running our world, and you don't want to join them, do what I do. Watch a reality tv show. Much better.

The Cultural Literacy Challenge No. 2

Back on June 19th, I posed the first Cultural Literacy Challenge. If you missed that particular post, you might want to revisit that post and see if you can answer the question I posed there. If you have already come up with your own answer, you can check it against the answer to Challenge 1 at the end of this post.

Identify the following:

This aircraft was one of the largest passenger aircraft ever built, prior to the jumbo jets. It was built in Germany in the 1930's and was a lighter-than-air type of aircraft. This aircraft carried passengers from Europe to South America and to the United States, in unparalleled comfort. The swastika was painted on this aircraft. A spectacular disasterous fire destroyed this aircraft as it prepared to dock in Lakehurst, N. J. What is the name of the aircraft?

Answer to Cultural Literacy Challenge No. 1: Charlie Chaplin

Question of the Day - July 3, 2006

If you knew you were going to die soon, which five people would you want to spend time with before you died?

Picture Imperfect

A Short Story

Paul always felt sad when his friends got divorced. But he was especially affected when Norman and Sheila split up. They had always come off as one of those "perfect" couples. He thought to himself that sometimes appearances are deceiving. At any rate, he did his best to remain friends with both Norman and Sheila and neither seemed to mind very much that he wasn't taking sides. He was very much relieved that neither did mind, because he loved them as if they were part of his own family.

A few days later Norman called him on his cell. "Paul, I found place of my own."

"Great," I said without much enthusiasm. "How are you holding up, Norm? Are you doing okay?"

"Well... It hasn't quite sunk in that Sheila and I are actually splitting up. I didn't want things to turn out like this. But I am trying to keep myself busy right now so that I won't have a lot of time to think about what is happening. I guess I am holding my own, given the situation."

Paul wasn't sure what to say next. "Listen, Norman, if you ever need someone to talk to, you know where I am."

"Yeah, I know and I really appreciate that. And you can probably expect that I will be calling you when this thing actually hits me. Anyway, I wanted to know if you could help me move my stuff to my new place on Saturday. I'm renting a U-Haul truck and I'll be picking it up about 8:00 AM. So can you be there on Saturday to help me."

"Of course, you know I'll be there."

"Thanks a lot. I'll pick you up about 7:30 and we'll go and get the truck."

" Great, see you on Saturday," I said. I hung up the phone and sighed. You just never know what is going to happen in life.

Saturday rolled around all too quickly. Norman picked Paul up and they went over to the U-Haul place and got the truck. They went to Norman's house, packed the furniture and boxes that he was taking with him and went to his new apartment. They brought the contents of the truck into the apartment. Paul always marvelled that it always seemed to take less time to unpack a truck than it did to pack it. He wondered why that was.

"I am tired," said Norman. " Let's take a break. I got a six-pack of Bud in the car."

Gratefully, Paul sat down on the couch and rested his aching muscles. Norman came in, pulled off two beers from the six-pack and handed Paul a cold one.

Norman set his beer down on the coffee table. "Hey, Paul, I have to show you something." Norman pulled over one of the smaller boxes and ripped the tape off the top of the box. He rummaged around in the box looking for something in particular. He found it and pulled out a Playboy magazine.

Paul laughed. "Norm, you still buy Playboy. Amazing!"

Norman replied, "Sheila bought me the subscription. Would you believe it? Sheila?... So here is what I wanted to show you." Norman leafed through the magazine and found a photo spread with Jennifer Anniston. He handed the magazine to Paul.

Paul checked out all the photos. "She has a really nice body."

Norman looked a little surprised. "A nice body? Hell, she has a great body."

Paul looked back through the photos of the star and he stopped at one that was unlike most photos that one usually finds in a Playboy spread. It wasn't a full color shot. It was a shot done in sepia tones. The photographer had composed the photo of the nude Jennifer Anniston in a surprisingly subdued posture. She stood facing the camera but she was looking at something off to her left. Her right arm was reaching up to her right and touching a wall. Her left arm was almost at her side.

He looked at her body. He thought to himself that she had a really nice body... nice legs, nice breasts, everything generally nice. But a strange thought hit him. She didn't have one of those skinny Barbie Doll figures or spectacular breasts that so many of the Playboy centerfold models have. She had a normal body... a nicely proportioned body. In a way that made it more attractive, even if it was not as stimulating as those of the bodies of other Playboy models. Paul just saw her as a beautiful woman, a normal woman... who actually seemed to just be a person, who happened to be modelling in the nude.

And what actually grabbed his attention was her face, rather than the body parts that would have usually gotten his focus. He studied her face. He could not tell what she was looking at off to the left. But it was not a sexy look. There was no smile on her face. In fact, her face revealed very little about what was going on in her mind or even what nuance or mood the photographer was trying to capture in the photograph. The photo was almost an art piece that one might frame and put on the wall, had the photo been presented in a different venue other than Playboy magazine.

In this photo, Jennifer Anniston was not what she seemed to be at first glance. Paul was a little amazed at his response to the photo. After he had looked at the photo long enough, he thought to himself that her body was nice, but it wasn't that special. She no longer came off as having the perfect body or presenting an image out of which he could weave sexual fantasies. After awhile, he thought to himself, "I wish she would put some of her clothes back on. At least then there would be a little mystery to her, something unknown about her that I could fantasize about." He thought to himself, " I know just a little bit more than I want to know about you, Jennifer Anniston"

Norman broke into his thoughts, "Okay guy, bring your mind above your belt."

Paul looked up at Norman and laughed, but he did not share what he had been thinking. Sometimes things are not what they seem to be. Sometimes the things that we think are perfect or wonderful or something that we wish we could have... just isn't what it seems to be.

Paul looked at Norman. Norman and Sheila, the perfect couple... "I guess not," thought Paul.

"Are you okay, Paul," Norman asked, a little concerned. "You seem a little preoccupied."

"Nah! I'm okay. I was just thinking about you and Sheila. I am just a little sad that you two broke up."

Norman looked down, took a deep breath, and said, "Some things are not meant to work out, I guess. I just never thought it would happen to me."

"Well, Norm, shit happens. The only thing you can do now is to pick up the pieces and get on with your life, guy."

"Yeah I know," Norman said a bit glumly.

"Norm, you are going to get through this. You are. You are going to have some bumpy days ahead. So just take things one day at a time. And things are not always what seem to be. Yeah, your marriage to Sheila is over. But you have no idea what the future holds for you. Probably only good things. Like I said, you are going to get through this and I'll be there if you need me," Paul told Norman.

Paul momentarily got caught up in his thoughts again as it occurred him that his own life seemed really good. Paul loved his wife and loved his kids. All things seemed well and good in his life. He knew the realities of his own life. He didn't have all the things he would have liked to have, but he had what he needed to be a happy man. His only fear was that someday, things would no longer be what they seemed to be. Suddenly, he felt an urgent need to be back with his family and to hold his wife in his arms.. to give his kids a big hug. All he wanted now were people who were real... who were actually there when he reached out to hold them, rather than an illusion of empty promises in a photograph.

"Well, Norm, we are done here. Could you drop me back at my place. Sandy and I are going to take the kids to the park this afternoon."

"Yeah, sure. I am ready to get out of here for awhile. I need to grab a bite anyway."

They left the apartment and headed to Paul's place. "Thanks, buddy. I really appreciate your help," said Norman.

"Anytime, guy. Remember take things one day at a time, okay."

"Right, I will." With that Norman drove away.

Paul had never been so glad to come home again.