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I’ve been biking by this latest (click for nominal enlargification) in the curbside ad stand found on La Brea between 9th and Olympic now for a few days, and it induces a snicker in passing not only because of its perpetuation of such a lame and passé cult-of-celeb conceit, but also because I’m just enough of an Ed Hardy clothing hater to deduce an ulterior message from the image.

Certainly what the folks at EH so desperately want us  to do is rush out and buy their garments so that we can vicariously be like the alleged platinoid poptart pictured who is shown clad in the brand whilst fending off the paparazzi as she exits what looks to be the deathlessly trendy Ivy on Robertson, perhaps on her way to a breast augmentation consult, or maybe a reading for a juicy part on the next big pile of weekly stupid that’ll be coming out of the MTV series mill to a TV near you this summer.

My alternate snark on the staged scene is that her frustration isn’t with the encroaching parasitic tabloid photogs so much that they caught her wearing such ridiculous clothes. That, and she’s pissed because the Ivy carded her barely-legal ass and her assistant cousin is crosstown in Echo Park with her ID and her debit card. Shopping at American Apparel. You know, a classy place.

I’ve long had it with Audi. Like most cliché-loving car companies that can’t help but sell the sizzle for the steak they hypervaunt their cars to be magical life-changing devices full of sexy. In the past Audi’s claimed their product line can “reawaken one’s long-lost love of driving.” Really Audi? Is that the best you could do?

But then it gets even worse with this most recent ad above — slickly filmed here in Los Angeles to add insult to injury. My wife Susan can attest to how much I loath it. The several times we’ve seen it she’s had to endure me involuntarily contorting, usually followed with obscene gesticulations that underscore a monologue laced with foul language directing where Audi can uber-shove their stupid and stupidly expensive cars.

Do I take it too seriously? Absolutely. But why shouldn’t I what with the cheapshots Audi felt compelled to take at such easy targets as crowded buses (trundling along the 6th Street Bridge), bike commuting (in fake rain no less while going the wrong way up one-way Flower Street south of the Disney Hall), Segways (at 7th and Grand), and veggie-powered wagons (in Griffith Park). Bastards. Go pick on someone with your own overinflated sense of self-importance.

Particularly rankling is the spot’s elitist tag line: “Many people are trying to do their part,” the narrator intones over a scene of a Segway rider having trouble negotiating through pedestrians at the aforementioned downtown corner. Then it cuts to a winding section of what looks to be Mt. Hollywood Drive (ironically closed to vehicular traffic) wherein an Audi A3 TDI “Clean Diesel” five-door aggressively blows by an aged Volvo wagon sporting a “Powered by Vegetable Oil” bumper sticker (passing on a blind curve no less). After that comes the narrator with the kicker: “Some, just have more fun doing it.”

At 5,141 commuter miles biked this year Audi: some of us just have more fun calling bullshit.

I love Google ads.  Lovelovelove ‘em! It’s almost endearing how they can be so hamfistedly incorrect in their arrival, like the one above, showing up uninvited and unwanted on the YouTube page hosting my timelapse video of the LA Bike Tour –  not unlike (for want of a better metaphor) the way “Animal House’s” Bluto Blutarski might barge into an otherwise gentile social gathering hosted by the uptights at Omega House and grab a comfy chair with a belch and a smile near the finger sammiches. After spiking the punch. And then drinking all of it. From the bowl.

Because you know, given my sliiiiiiiiight predilection for pure pedal power, pretty much the last thing I’d promote in any way, shape, or form is some sort of goddam after-market internal combustion powerplant that can somehow be mounted to a perfectly good bicycle so that not only does it consume fossil fuels and emit noxious emissions, but it probably pollutes the air with something that sounds eerily like a lawn mower.

In short, I appreciate Google bringing BikeBerry.com to my attention as the LAST place on the world wide inturnip I’ll ever go shopping.

Agh. I waited too long. For the past however many days I’ve been snickering ever time I biked by a monster billboard north of Venice Boulevard at National, and of course I knew better to get a snap of it while I could, but I didn’t and this morning, it’s gone. Bah.

The billboard up until yesterday was part of a mega ad campaign promoting the DVD release of a 50th-anniversary edition of  Walt Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty,” and most prominently featured the above classic moment when Prince Charming is about to bestow the kiss that will awaken her from her comatose state.

I’d seen several variations on the promo featuring different scenes accompanied by the headline of “See More Than Ever Before,” but whoever created and approved the pairing of that headline with the above image of Charming positioned atop the pronated babe either is really really numbskulled or — more likely, gawd bless ‘em –  knew exactly what the hell they were double entendre-ing.

“Sleeping Booty,” anyone?

Pardon the craptacity of the above 12x-digital zoom snap from the window of my 10th floor office, but I couldn’t resist documenting this irony no matter how catastrophic the pixelation. Because as oxymoronic as it strikes me to use a vehicle as so outlandish a rolling billboard for booze, there is something oddly appropriate –  along the lines of “parking while intoxicated” — in the poor manner within which this Jose Cuervo-lovin’ SUV was left lodged on the roof level of the garage adjacent to my building.

Tequila!

I love that the venerable Palms Cycle advertises itself in such a unique way. But the cheap irony of a bike shop being located on Motor Avenue is readily surpassed by the seeming waste of this classic cruiser and its message, located on the no man’s land of a Venice Boulevard median where it’s seen pretty much by drivers who probably couldn’t care less. And me.

A couple posts ago I pointed a hellbent finger at a couple insurance companies with the word “Farm” in their titles who just so happened to put out near-simultaneous TV advertisements that take unnecessary pokes at bike commuters.

What I neglected to mention was that I wrote emails to State Farm and Farmers respetively taking them to task for the commercials and their underlying themes. To date I haven’t heard diddly from Farmers, but in my inbox this morning I found the following unsigned response from State Farm:

Thank you for your email regarding our advertisement that features a cyclist riding his bike to work. We have read your concerns and those of others with similar concerns. We take very seriously each letter, email and blog comment we receive.

I discussed the perception of this ad with others at State Farm, and we decided the right thing to do would be to discontinue it. We will remove this ad as quickly as possible from the current rotation schedule.

We are sorry the advertisement offended anyone. Our intention with this particular ad was to recognize and empathize with the everyday challenge of high gas prices, and suggest that State Farm could help by providing lower auto insurance rates than a person may be receiving from their current provider. But, clearly we have heard your concerns.

This change is being communicated directly to those who have corresponded with us, but I also ask that you pass this message along to others whom you know have a similar concern about this ad. Please know that State Farm is very concerned about doing what we can to improve the health, safety and environment in our communities. For example, in numerous states, employees can earn up to $1.50 a day by ridesharing, walking, or riding a bike to work. We also have more than 1,200 employees participating in van pooling throughout the country.

click to triplify

These campaign bills were pasted up along Manzanita between Sunset and Santa Monica and while on my way to the library (and Scoops) this afternoon I had to stop and juxtapose my own favorite form of transport among the kind Jeep would rather have you drive.

Being as I’ve mostly been watching football mostly on the broadcast box this past couple weeks, I’ve been abnormally subjected to the flow of repetitive crapaganda from truck makers who want me to buy their stuff. A meaningless sampling of the most offensive marketing schemes:

1) Chevy’s fauxtriotic “This is your truck” TV campaign backed by John Mellencamp squeezing his blandly genericana’d “This is our country” with all the energy of a tired old constipated man makes both the vehicle manufacturer and the musican more loathsome to me with each subsequent airing I see.

2) Ditto the loathing for Dodge’s idiotic Rock ‘em-Sock ‘em Robots spot. The match-winning blue robot leaving the ring can bash open a steel door, crash his head through a brick wall, scare a pair of hipsters into running off down the street, but can’t so much as pummel even a scratch onto the grill of the parked half-ton pickup he squares off on. “Ram Tough?” More like “Damn Enough!”

3) And then there’s the Nissan Titan spots that drag open with the first couple of dark and descending guitar notesfrom Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” While there’s no doubt it’s a classic headbangin’ song, the first thing it makes me do is remind myself I’ve gotta put Mercury on my list.

So I lost 50 pounds this year simply by monitoring my caloric intake, exercising and eating healthier. But how does one shed IQ points? Of course that’s operating perhaps under a rash and arrogant assumption that I have a high enough number of them that I can afford to lose some. But for the sake of argument let’s say I’m comfortably ensconced in the triple-digit range. Nothing top-floor genius for goodness sake. Just something about three-fifths to two-thirds up from the lobby, wherein a move a couple stories downward wouldn’t do anything but take the edge off whatever it is intellectually that makes me call bullshit over useless minutae.

What is all this prefacing? My reaction to a car commercial on TV last night — which actually may indicate less of how smart I might be and more of how stupid I am for getting worked up over something so trivial. But I do and I did and I submit it here for my venting pleasure.

The ad’s subject: Ford Focus

The ad’s theme: Bold Moves

The ad’s premise: A young man arrives for a job interview at a swank place only to be halted by a chilly receptionist who pseudo-laments the fact that the person (let’s call him Mr. Honcho) the young man was scheduled to meet is alas not in the office due to his return flight’s delayed arrival.

When the receptionist queries the applicant when he’d like to reschedule the interview with Mr. Honcho he responds by running out of the building at full throttle. What she doesn’t know is that he’d spied the incoming flight information displayed on her computer moniter and is not beating a curious retreat at all. Rather, he’s “making a bold move” by hopping into his spiff and nimble Ford Focus for a race to LAX (the Tom Bradley International Terminal to be uselessly exact because I know this shit) where he parks in the white zone, rushes inside, and with a piece of cardboard upon which is handwritten his prospective employer’s name, enthusiastically awaits his sure-to-be-impressed future boss.

Now here’s where those extra several IQ points of mine kick into overanalyze-this mode and deconstrapolate why the commercial fails miseraby, which is because there’s no way an idiot like this kid is going to get the job.

First and foremost, this is L.A. and Mr. Honcho does not need a ride since his BMW 760i has been washed and detailed and is readily awaiting his delayed arrival just a short shuttle shot away at the QuikPark long-term lot next to the Crown Plaza Hotel on Century Boulevard.

But never mind that irrefutable fact of Los Angeles living if you can and instead make like a Ford and Focus with me. See, everything’s going great and moving boldly right up until the kid parks and leaves his spiff and nimble sedan in the WHITE ZONE, which everybody knows is only for the immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. Maybe in our pre-9/11 world the worst our earnest but ignorant hero would suffer would be an exorbitant parking ticket that might be a small price to pay for landing this gig he craves, but nowadays it would take about five minutes (probably less) for that abandoned Ford to become the immediate focus of law enforcement personnel, and one of two things would happen:

1. The car would be ticketed and towed.
2. The airport would be shut down and evacuated in its entirety with incoming flights (including Mr. Honcho’s) diverted to other area airports while the bomb squad meticulously assessed the potential threat posed by the vehicle. Only once its risk was deemed negligible would it be ticketed and towed.

Either way the kid’s screwed.

If the first simple scenario happens, jump cut to the kid meeting and greeting Mr. Honcho coming off the plane. Let’s figure the pleasantly surprised Mr. H. is damn impressed with the youngster’s getupandgo and down at the baggage claim carousel picking up his garment bag he’s thinking there just might be a place for someone like him at the firm — right up to the point when the two of them walk outside and the kid says “Sir, my car is parked right… over… uh…?”

But instead of a spiff and nimble Ford Focus, there’s nothing but empty white zone with Mr. H. incredulously wondering what kind of unemployable numbskull the kid is for parking illegally at an airport instead of in the short-term lot.

Even worse, if the nightmarish second scenario transpires, Mr. H. is going to be landing at Ontario. Or for the sake of argument let’s say his plane was on the ground before the shutdown, the two of them aren’t going anywhere and more than likely the kid’s going to get arrested when he blurts out within earshot of a Homeland Security agent : “Hey! What’s the bombsquad doing to my car?”

Of course, had the commercial’s crafters sense enough to park the kid in a perfectly legal airport parking lot space the kid would live boldly ever after with his new job and I’d be complaining about left complaining about some other worthless item that got caught in the lint trap of my intellect.