fine whine

Another television commercial's music has caught my attention, and this time I'm sure I've identified it correctly. Electronica group Fluke's "Atom Bomb" was used to push Chevrolet's fine line of cars and trucks. Primarily big trucks, and the Impala. Which is interesting, since the reason most people would recognize the song is its inclusion in the Playstation game Wipeout XL (and also the top-selling soundtrack). The interesting aspect is the contrast between the superfast, superlight flying vehicles of the video game and the stodgy, heavy pickups shown in the ad. In that respect, the Impala's also not small or nimble, ironically considering the name. Admittedly the editing makes the cars and trucks look fast, but the difference remains.

Why would they even use such a song? Not to say that it's not a good track for background music, but it's certainly nothing recent or particularly popular. I'm happy that somebody's throwing Fluke some money, as they haven't had a hit in a while (some would argue 'ever') and their last album was just a retread of previous tracks. Anyway, somebody once said that the best music to advertise cars is the music the audience liked around car driving age. Hence people of my generation were serenaded with Breeder, the Smiths and so on. Now adverts are being backed by younger, hipper artists, and the 'driving age' is no longer the legal auto driving age, but the video game driving age. Soon we'll be hearing pokemon music selling Kias, I suspect.

Just a theory, but it might work. Then again, Chevy's been repeating that commercial for a number of years, just updating the vehicles, if I remember right. Go figure.

I must be mistaken, but I could've sworn that I heard the loop from "Amnesia" by Chumbawamba backing up a Furniture Outlet commercial?! What would an anarchist collective/band have to do with a capitalist outlet store? Although if there's money involved the Chumbawambans could claim some sort of irony or spite, I suppose. Then again, I'm likely imagining things.

Occasionally searching Google at random can cause happiness after all. I just discovered that Plan 9 has apparently picked up the rights to the brilliant comic strip "Robotman" by Jim Meddick, and intends to reprint all the old books starting this month! Seeing as the current editions go for fifty bucks and up right now (my copy of CyberPunkTrek, the middle one of the three, cost me a whole five dollars, after all) this news makes me very happy indeed.

I just finished reading Gary (K?) Wolf's 1981 book Who censored Roger Rabbit?, which, I have to admit was quite good, if not almost completely different from the film we all loved (1988's Who framed Roger Rabbit?), which recently was re-released on dvd. It's a competent detective novel with one foot firmly rooted in the first-person tradition, and the other foot waaaay outside the lines in a cartoon limbo.

So anyway, I'm trying to track down a URL for the guy, and discover two surprising facts. First, there is (or was) a WFRR sequel in pretty serious development... and now it's in development hell, likely to never even see the light of day as a straight-to-video. Admittedly the gee-whiz aspect of cartoons and people together on the screen has lost a lot of its punch in these days of Jar-Jar Binks and his CGI ilk, but the ideas in the film and book were original enough to have given me second thought renting a sequel. The other fact concerns Disney's dealings with Mr. Wolf, as apparently in February it was decided that The Mouse could get away with screwing Gary out of his share of money from the film and its abundant merchandising. First they edited out the racier footage from the movie, and they tried to screw the guy out of his money? He created the characters and had the idea after all. Something doesn't quite smell right with the whole thing.

Oh, and if anybody wants to see the unedited version (complete with Baby Herman 'fingering' a very surprised dame), drop by some time and watch it on my laserdisc player. Old technology *does* have its uses, apparently.

So what is it that keeps me awake at night? Is it my grand schemes? There's always another page, or chapter, or book that I can read. I have a movie backlog probably around a hundred, spread over my laserdiscs, DVDs and tapes off of TV.

There's always the Great American Novel I should start writing. I could be writing code for this website. I have links that I need to blog for ketchup so that I can stay caught up. Emails that have been typed in my head over and over won't get sent 'til I input and submit them. There are people I ought to write to, messages I should have sent months or years ago.

I've got conversations that I could rehearse in my head even more exhaustively. I could call people up, wake them and converse. My resume and the help wanted pages almost cry out loud to me. As to my dirty dishes, though they cry out in a non-verbal fashion detected more by the nose than the ears.

I wrote a poem somewhat about this once...

It's easier on TV

It's easier on TV
the hero smiles
no worries about taxes
or mortgage payments
or missed appointments
or airplanes crashing
or broccoli in his teeth
or feet in his mouth
or starving children

or dying relatives
or rush hour traffic
or noisy appliances
or paperwork due yesterday
or bumps in the night
or bumps in the road
or flat tires
or dirty laundry
or hour wages

or paper cuts
or alarms slept through
or obligations forgotten
or performance declines
or oil changes
or oil prices changing
or stubbed toes
or burnt toast
or stuffy nose

or worries in his head
when he goes to bed
the TV hero sleeps
soundly; I am no hero

(You can find this and more of my cheesy poetry here).

So, is it too much stuff on my mind? Or is it just too stuffy and I have to pee?

So let's hit the ground running. Let me tell you about myself: I work for a big clothes company, but without using my expensive degree; I drive a midsize sedan and really dislike SUVs and everything they represent; I'm married and I wash all the dishes but none of the clothes; I have a Dreamcast but want a PS2, and I watch a whole lot of movies and read even more books.

Speaking of SUVs, today one lumbered out in front of me at a good half the speed limit, drove half a block and then sloooowly turned left through a red light that had just changed from yellow. I use the word 'lumbered' as the vehicle in question was the massive Toyota Sequoia, which is very aptly named. As for its tortoise pace, I am baffled as it amply proclaims a V8 engine on the rear (and I'm sure elsewhere as well), which is easily twice my car's motor.

What's the point of all the extra text on cars, anyway? The driver/buyer presumably knows what features the vehicle has, and the rest of us shouldn't care. How many tons of plastic and metal plating are wasted every year just so everybody knows that Mr. Jones has not just any Camry, but a Camry LE, I wonder.