November 08, 2004
P.J. McStrapplebungus!
11/8/04
I know this is the beginning of my Crusty Old FartŪ phase, but there are a few products that I used to love, and now are utterly useless to me. It used to be that you bought Crest toothpaste as a kid, and then you died with Crest toothpaste in the grave, but now, in the age of vicious "re-branding," certain American items have curiously begun to suck.
1. Chiclets - I mean, what the fuck happened to you, Chiclets? There used to be three kinds: the peppermint stuff, the package full of "Tiny Size" Chiclet pebbles, and my favorite, Chiclet Fruit Flavors.
Now they have yanked the fruit Chiclet flavors off the shelves and replaced it with "Citrus Samba" and "Strawberry Breeze" flavors, and what's worse, Wrigley has kicked the Chiclet idea in the nuts with "Strappleberry" and "Grapermelon" flavors, a relentlessly focus-grouped idea that Ann Humphreys and I would have invented in 1993 after a bottle of Jim Beam. Please, I'm all for the XXXTREME LIFESTYLE when it comes to my snowboarding out of helicopters, but leave my Chiclets alone, you bastards!
2. Magnetic Darts - Quick quiz: have ANY of you thrown a magnetic dart at the dart board and have it stick?
I didn't think so.
They already ruined parlor games like Foosball by putting three goalies at each end, and then they made the "bar size" pool table only 3 1/2 feet wide, and of course, they took my beloved JARTS off the market (too bad, I found some anyway), but now I see all these kids suffering through magnetic darts, and it's totally PATHETIC.
CNN - I remember the cee-razy mid-1990s when I actually used to turn to CNN for information, but that is one network in a serious case of the river in Egypt. I thought once Faux News trounced them in the ratings by a 3-1 margin, they'd regroup and go back to hard-hitting journalism in the name of the discerning Coastopian dollar, but they seem to be stuck between the vast blankness of Wolf Blitzer's cranium and the breathless exhortations of Paula Zahn's Laci Peterson fetish.
I know you all think Aaron Brown's an asshole, but he and Anderson Cooper are the only ones I can stomach on there. Can I make a request to bring back the 6'0" judo expert and gorgeous Amazonian Lynne Russell?
R.E.M. - When I saw R.E.M. play in Chapel Hill around 1990 or so, someone yelled "Superman!" at them, and then Stipe quipped, "We don't do requests, and I hate that song." THAT'S the band I want back.
The Democratic Party - Let's face it, there are a lot of people who just aren't going to vote for the Democratic Party anymore because, in the words of Tessa's mom's dentist, "I ain't gonna vote for all those losers."
Do you know what companies do when their business is tanking? You do what Datsun did: change your name to "Nissan." This is one case where some serious re-branding is in order. Drop the name "Democrat" and the donkey, and come up with a name that sounds like Trustworthy, Strong, Fun and Sexy.
The following are already taken:
Whigs
Beatrice
Volkswagen
...but I'm sure somebody can come up with something, right? Isn't that what we pay you Image Consultants for? Get your feet off my dining room table and come up with something, you bunch of liberal arts majors! AND STOP DRINKING ALL MY LOWERED-CARB COKE PRODUCTS!
Posted by irw at November 8, 2004 10:35 PMThanks for the laugh this morning! I have often stood in line at the local drug store, wondering what on earth has happened to Chiclets! Why are there a million different kinds of M&Ms?? Why is soda so Exxxtreme now?? I have to admit that I LOVE the new Vanilla craze, diet Pepsi Vanilla is all I drink, and the new Vanilla Mint flavored Crest rocks! Nonetheless, I am sure someone will decide that there are too many carbs in my vanilla favorites, and my brands will disappear as quickly as they came.
How about Xtreme Kick-Ass Values-Lovin' 'Mericans?
Kids didn't buy Crest! They begged for Aim because it "tastes great" (not), and their parents forced Crest on them.
There's a great magnetic dart set that the Discovery store sells, or at least was selling 3-4 years ago when I bought it. It was about $40, but well worth it. (Come to think of it, it looks like the one in your photo.)
It looks like they've changed the design on the dart board, and added a desktop version (gotta get that), but:
http://shopping.search.discovery.com/Discovery/?N=0&Ntk=all&Ntt=darts
Don't laugh, that line of advertising is likely next. I'm surprised Big Red chewing gum hasn't capitalized on the election results.
Counter-Coastopian, gotta-go products like that would have to be embarGOed.You may want to consult David Letterman on the 'intellectual property' issue for these like-minded ideas; I've seen Coastopia, BlUNITEd States of Am., and BLUEtopia so far. (BLUEtopia is actually a great name for a Triangle-Area head, -um, er novelty shop or somesuch.) Anyway.
Can Xtcian accommodate a cute-kid story? So, when my brother Greg was almost 3 (and I was being born, to his utter horror), my Grandmother was watching him. As a bribe, she bought him a box of the aformentioned (and much-missed) fruit-flavored Chiclets. As he was stuffing several into his mouth, she asked him for one. He eyed her and replied: "You're not a GIRL that a BOY has to give CHICLETS to!"
Whatever happened to Gleem? The "adult" toothpaste I coveted...
As for the sagging Dem party, we could do a little twee word-surgery and call ourselves "funmentalists." Because we are fun, and we use our minds!
Ah, where to begin? So much is gone.
At Halloween, I remember orange and yellow wax whistles, that you could eat after you got tired of playing them.
Rock candy.
Coca-Cola in 6 oz. glass bottles, sweetened with actual sugar.
As a kid, I could get all of those at the corner grocery, just a block's walk from my house.
While we're at it, I miss those corner grocers, and 100-year-old hardware stores.
Well, we should be glad for what remains improbably unchanged. Candy corn, Peeps....
You know what I miss the most? Remember the future when we were kids? "Someday *you* will fly to the moon," and all that?
Yogi Berra's right: The future really AIN'T what it used to be.
To Bud- Hey, my neighborhood has corner stores on almost every corner, and the *best* hardware store in the area is about a hundred years old. The guy who sells stuff sings along with pop songs on the radio in the only voice he knows, which is a sort of crooning Bing Crosby rip-off. It's awesome to hear him singing along, irony free, to "My Prerogative"...
I miss things from my childhood that no longer exist, and I've never found a contemporary reference to. One was a little ready-made, no-battery, crystal radio. It comprised an IN34 diode, a tuning capacitor and coil, inside a plastic case that looked like a fishing float. It had a cheap, ceramic earplug coming out one end and a short wire with an alligator clip that you clipped on anything metal, so as to use it as an antennae.
I must have run through a dozen of those before I was 10 years old.
OSHA and the litigious society have killed a lot of the serious fun from my childhood. I went canvassing with an 18-year old guy from LA and he had never seen a playground m e rry-g o-r o und! They're getting rid of slides! and swingsets! and jungle gyms!
Sure, kids can get hurt on them, but mostly they don't!
Lick 'M Stix. Now they're called Fun Dip. stupid.
Also, Anderson Cooper stole my heart back when we were forced to watch television in school, Channel 1. Gotta love the alumn from Channel 1.
These meddling kids these days. You can't get a decent candy bar in America. Every time they come out with a good one, after a year or two they just figure they have to add caramel to it. I hate caramel. It sticks to my teeth and makes them hurt. Give me something big, with chocolate and nuts and things that go crunch, like the old Whatchamacallit and Bar None bars before some bungee boss decided to add caramel to them.
Why are we bashing Democrats? Aren't the Republicans doing enough of that for us? We should be bashing Republicans instead--we lose elections because we keep attacking each other instead of the enemy.
Think 1992. That election, Democrats won the White House, more House seats than the GOP has now, and more Senate seats than the GOP has now (57, if I remember right). Did the Newtists wring their hands and call Bush the Elder a loser? No, they came back two years later and grabbed everything. We should do what they did.
Regarding your coastopia -- I understand your frustration but I think that shirt is childish, inaccurate, and divisive. You are letting the whims of the electoral college dictate which swaths of the country you like -- denigrating Democrats in the blue states and giving a free pass to Repubs in the blue states.
Check out the maps on this website. It will give you a more accurate, and less depressing, view of America and shine some light on the red state/blue state distortions.
Sean - That's it, I'm moving to Brooklyn.
Kent - I had a couple of those crystal radios, too. Coolest things in the world.
AJ McShane - The Coastopian map only seems "childish, inaccurate and divisive" until you've seen the map used by Bush and his supporters:
I just want you to know I LOVE YOU for American Coastopia.
I live in LA and work in a Museum....a blue state
mecca (for some of us)
All I can say is WE NEED a Bumber Sticker also!
I love all my Coastopian countrymen...because they allow me to.
you think the blue man group is on our side?
having nothing better to do I than mull over the rsults I actually put together some bumper stickers and other stuff
http://cafepress.com/coastopia
Profits to our local food pantry...
Anderson Cooper is the son of Gloria Vanderbilt. As in railroad money and designer jeans. I think that is the most amazing thing. I also think he's pretty damn good.
Bud - actually Peeps have kinda changed. This Halloween, Just Born introduced DelightFills, chocolate creme filled pumpkin Peeps. I'm here to tell you, as a Peep devotee*, that they're actually quite tasty. Really tasty, in fact.
*devotee, as in not only do I stock up on Peeps during the holidays so I have them the whole year 'round (still have my Easter stash tucked away), I also have my own Peep-making machine:
http://www.marshmallowpeeps.com/news/index.html
http://www.wham-o.com/content/marshpeeps.htmlSad, I know, but oh, that sweet, sweet sugar rush...
Ian-
Still waiting for your blog on your alma mater UNC's decision to offer a course on 'American Idol'. Yikes.
Ken
Ken - that's actually offered at UNC Charlotte, not Chapel Hill.
I will hear no dissing of my man Aaron Brown. He was here in Seattle for years and I loved him because he always seemed just barely able to hold in the snark.