Geckos, Geese & Loons

I've got a few things to share tonight.


It's no secret that the Government Employees Insurance Company is a marketing machine with a relentless and often brilliant advertising campaign system. I believe they currently have no less than four separate television ad campaigns running. These include:


1) the GEICO Cavemen, still a well of creativity despite an ill-conceived attempt at expanding its schtick into a sitcom;


2) the ongoing shenanigans of The Gecko and the Goofy Old CEO (coming soon to ABC, no doubt);


3) the headache-inducingly awful "that's the money you could be saving" series with that googly-eyed banded stack of cash, the blandest non-character since NBC's casting department hired Justin Bruening as the hero of their terrible Knight Rider sequel series, which thankfully quickly went the way of the cavemen; and


4) the latest, in which an affectedly serious Robert Stack type asks "Can switching to GEICO really save you money on car insurance?" and answers with "Does Charlie Daniels play a mean fiddle?" (he does), or "Did the Waltons take way too long to say goodnight?" (they did), or my personal favorite, "Does a ten-pound bag of flour make a really big biscuit?" (which I love because just a five-second shot of a little boy frosting a giant biscuit and his mother's reaction of resignation relays a world of information about this family's home life).


But recently, GEICO overlooked an obvious opportunity to employ their little gecko mascot. There is a radio commercial in which a voice states that humans blink something like 17,000 times a day. How that relates to car insurance, I don't recall. (Is it really important for me to remember anything about the actual product?) However, the voice in the ad is not the Gecko's voice, and it totally should be! Because then he could have said something like this (and remember to imagine this with the proper accent):


"The average human blinks once every five seconds. Well that's, what, more than 17,000 times a day! It's an awful lot o' blinking, i'nt it? Now just imagine, in the space of less than 200 blinks, you could save 15% or more on your car insurance. I don't have much personal experience on the subject, o' course. I haven't got any eyelids. I have to clean my eyes with my tongue, which is a bit more painstaking of a process, let me tell you."


To make it worse, another commercial followed which did feature the Gecko. Oh GEICO, you are getting sloppy.


On a related note, I was watching The Office tonight. During one commercial break, I was organizing my iTunes, as I obsessively tend to do. One of The Gecko and the Goofy Old CEO commercials came on, and I turned in my chair to return my full attention to the TV because I thought the show had come back on. It literally took me that entire motion of turning and staring at the screen, watching an animated lizard standing on a desk, to discern that I was, in fact, not watching The Office but a GEICO commercial. The realization process took waaaay too long. Maybe that little gecko just fits into that world so well. Or maybe there's an exposed wire in my brain. 


Or maybe it's time for a little shake-up in Scranton. Maybe it's time for a CGI lizard to join the cast. He can be voiced by John Oliver. Why not? Steve Carell, Ed Helms, and Larry Wilmore are all a part of the show. Why not one more Daily Show correspondent?


Now that I've written way more about that subject than I'd intended, let me switch gears. I went for a walk in the woods today, and as I was sitting by the lake, a couple of geese flew overhead. It made me think how fascinating geese are, how they always use the buddy system. If one has to separate from the rest of flock (or the skein, as it is called when a group of geese are in flight), another will go with it. Geese have such an amazing social structure.


This just in: Pat Robertson has just scientifically proven, after much research and controlled testing, that playing hand-held video games while sitting in the backseat of a car is a gateway drug to becoming addicted to pornography! (Either that, or, in the space of two sentences, he made a mental leap of what has only the barest resemblance to real logic. This is what I get for channel surfing at five in the morning. On the plus side, I was introduced to Cousin Larry, who had me entertained and delighted as he demonstrated his cousin's amazing cutlery. Yes, he was introduced as Cousin Larry. Yes, he was actually fun to watch. Yes, those knives do look awesome. Yes, I was watching this through bloodshot eyes at five in the morning.)


I leave you with this:

A brief review of "Human Target"

"Human Target" is Fox Television's shiny new gift to action fans everywhere and a perfect companion piece for the often gloomy "24." It's the most thrilling thing I've seen on TV in a long time. The pilot episode is suspenseful and funny (in a good way), with a plot full of brilliant twists and turns and not a second of screen time wasted.

Director Simon West, who hasn't given the world anything so worth watching since 1997's Con Air, keeps the pace fast and the action tightly choreographed and gleefully executed. I constantly felt myself being physically drawn toward the screen, my face tightening with anticipation, and my breath shortening at every close call.

As for our new hero, if Jack Bauer had a square jaw, a heart of gold, and a sense of humor, he might look something like Christopher Chance, played with vigor by Mark Valley (probably best known for his role on David E. Kelley's "Boston Legal").  Writer/producer Jonathan E. Steinberg is like the action-junkie's Aaron Sorkin, and Valley reads Chance's dialogue like an adrenaline-pumped Bradley Whitford. (I realize that is something of a left-field comment to make, but listen to--and watch--the way Valley delivers his lines. It was bothering me during the denouement until I finally realized who he sounded like.)

The supporting cast is equally up to the task. Chi McBride (that's pronounced shy, I believe), fresh from "Pushing Daisies" (The Pie Hole will be dearly missed), improves anything he's in, though here he has essentially the same archetypical role he played so well in that late, great show. And, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but Jackie Earle Haley with mustache and beard! (Sorry.) I cannot express how excited I was to see that Haley--the absolute best thing cast-wise about both Little Children and Watchmen--would be appearing in a weekly action series, and furthermore, one that gives him such a tantalizing character to play.

I look forward with eager anticipation to the next episode of this highly entertaining new series. Watch it here: http://www.hulu.com/human-target.

Some thoughts on tonight's broadcast of the Season 9 premiere of American Idol

1. First of all, this is Simon Cowell's final season as a judge. He's a unique personality on the show and on television in general, and American Idol will be lacking without him. Fox will undoubtedly try to fill his shoes with another abrasive middle-aged man with a sharp tongue, but it will be a step down no matter what they do. He's irreplaceable.

2. Oh yeah, Paula Abdul's gone. I barely noticed. Now there's only one inarticulate babbler left behind the judges' table. Speaking of whom....

3. Randy Jackson manages to be rude even when complimenting someone. He usually sounds something like this: "Y'know, dawg, when you first came in, I looked at you and I was all like, I don't know if this is gonna be good, but you worked it out, dawg, you did a'ight." Also, someone needs to help Randy grasp onto the concept of numbers. This "one-hundred-and-ten-thousand-billion-kajillion-yes-you're-going-to-Hollywood" stuff is getting out of control.

4. The new judge, though she won't be joining the ranks until the Hollywood rounds, will be Ellen Degeneres. I love Ellen, and am excited to see what she brings to the table because she's witty and talented and often hilarious, but shouldn't they have gotten somebody from the music industry? Like, I don't know... Deborah Gibson, or one of the Bangles?

5. Kara DioGuardi is one foxy lady. And kinda scary.

6. Round 1 of the auditions took place in Boston. Do you think the show's music producer saw the irony of using California-band Augustana's 2006 single "Boston" as the episode's theme song? Or was he (or she) just like, "Hey, the song's called 'Boston'! Perfect!" Remember, these people are trying to get out of Boston and go to California. For my part, I think they should have gone with a certain native Boston band's 1976 classic "Foreplay/Long Time." Check out the lyrics:

It's been such a long time

I think I should be going

And time doesn't wait for me

It keeps on rolling

Sail on

On a distant highway

I've got to keep on chasing a dream

I've got to be on my way

Wish there was something I could say

(Or, you can listen to it in my playlist at the bottom of the page.)

It doesn't get any more theme-appropriate than that.

7. The guest judge for the Boston auditions was Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham. Again, why not secure a Bostonian? Donna Summer or James Taylor would have brought some clout to the proceedings. It would've been way cool to bring on Tommy DeCarlo, the current demo-and-a-dream singer for the band Boston. Or, get Boston native Conan O'Brien. I hear he may need the work.

Not that I'm complaining, really. I never noticed before tonight how strikingly, naturally beautiful Victoria Beckham is when she's not striking a pose and being all posh. She also brought a very welcome sense of decorum, which nicely complemented Scary Spice DioGuardi. And, boy, is she tiny!

8. Best performance of "Ring of Fire" ever! Johnny Cash has nothing on... whomever. (I'm being waggish, of course. It was awful.)

9. It's come to my attention that having those outstandingly awful contestants audition on television is tailor-made "reality TV" by the producers. Not that these are not actual, real eccentrics with big dreams and little talent. I'm sure they are very real and painfully actual. But every contestant has to go through a preliminary audition before ever reaching Simon and the others. Otherwise, those three or four "face" judges would have to sit through thousands of auditions, which would take much longer than the two days allotted. Which means that those prelim judges are obligated, maybe even contractually, to send through the worst of the worst so that prime-time TV can have its reality train-wrecks. This seems somewhat disingenuous to the contestants and manipulative of the audience... oh, right, Fox Reality. Of course, without such a process, the world would have gone on spinning in ignorance, forever deprived of William Hung and Bikini Girl.

10. I really am just a sucker for this show. But there is something about the shared experience of live television, and about event programming and even serialized drama in general, that appeals to me. It's the idea of being connected, however inconsequentially, with millions of other people around the country. It's one of the reasons I still prefer to watch Saturday Night Live when it's live, even though I know it will largely suck, to be in that moment with the rest of a vast audience. It's why I like to see a potential blockbuster film in a packed theater on opening night. Plus, as a bonus, when it comes to Idol--I just love having something so ripe for criticism before me. It's an outlet, and sometimes even a creative one. (And a much better outlet for my unbridled sarcasm than close friends and immediate family.)

Do these genes make me look gay?

Today I overheard a conversation between deli workers wherein someone postulated the possibility of homosexuality being hereditary. I believe the exact phrasing was, "It runs in his family."

Avatar

I feel like James Cameron saw FernGully in the early 90s and said, "I can do better."

What are Kapricious Thoughts?

I had a minor epiphany today, and I owe it to Bob Vila. My ambition is to blog more often, daily if possible, but it seems my ambition overreaches my ability to motivate myself. Then it hit me.

I had just ordered Chinese food at a little place called the Great Wall in a strip mall on Binghamton's Front Street. I stepped outside to call my friend. (Time waiting for Chinese is often my time to make a phone call.) As I was talking to my friend on my cell, I was pacing up and down the sidewalk. As I passed a store called Northgate Vacuum, which was closed but still had a few lights on inside, I turned to walk back in the other direction and was startled to see, through the glass, a man standing in the shadows with his arms crossed, watching me. Then I realized he wasn't moving. Then I realized he was two-dimensional. Then I realized he was made of cardboard. And then I realized he was Bob Vila. It is amazing how many realizations the human brain can make in less than a second.

Then I thought, this would be a funny thing to talk about on my blog, but how can I make a decent-sized article about being startled by a life-size cardboard Bob Vila? The answer was, I don't have to. I call this blog "Kapricious Thoughts." Capricious thoughts can be brief thoughts, random thoughts, non-sequitors. That is the nature of capriciousness.

So my new goal is to post at least one "Kapricious Thought" per day, provided I have the electronic capabilities. Most will be brief, simple, random. It would certainly take off the pressure to "craft" something when I have no direction. And then maybe my brief, simple, random thoughts will grow on their own. I love when writing takes on a life of its own. It reminds me why I like doing it, because sometimes I surprise myself.

Anyway, there's today's Kapricious Thought: While waiting for my Chinese food, I was startled by a life-size cardboard cutout of Bob Vila.

Pop Culture Archaeology

The latest from Rick Warren's purpose-driven marketing empire.