Ramble On
Every now and again I start feeling like Larry King and ramble. So, you’ve been warned…
As I said in the comments section of Spin Sucks, I think that Kraft went for the easy two-fer in hiring homeless “golden voiced” sensation Ted Williams to do their mac ‘n cheese ad. Great PR and a decent VO. Hard to say I wouldn’t have advised them to do the same thing. (From a VO perspective, yeah, his voice doesn’t ring “mac ‘n cheese” to me, but it works okay.) And if Mr. Williams goes haywire down the road (his personal demons are pretty nasty), Kraft still comes out smelling like a cheese, er, rose, for giving the guy a chance…I have a hard time giving a free pass to practitioners of extreme political speech in this Tucson nightmare. If you create an atmosphere of “anything goes” in your rhetoric, some people aren’t going to get that it’s rhetoric. Instead they’re going to get whatever approval their sick brains need to start shooting…I ran for state legislature in Oklahoma a few years ago and I’ll never forget a candidate debate where my opponent “accidentally” had a “slip of the tongue” and called me “Mr. Gaywood.” An unamusingly clumsy, juvenile, bizarre (and inaccurate, I might add) remark aimed at inciting prejudice, he was practically booed offstage. He won the election anyway…Shoveling snow is good exercise but boring as hell…circling back to Kraft for a moment I’ll just add that sometimes nothing will do except a grilled cheese…I have to believe that the press release as we know it is dead, though I keep trying to resurrect it…I think Jeff Bridges is terrific in True Grit but relieved the Coen Bros didn’t try to “top” John Wayne’s “Fill yer hands you sonofabitch!” scene…
instead they played it straight and let the Duke’s iconic moment stand as the definitive of the two…I cannot believe it will be summer before I will see new Breaking Bad–best show on TV–and wow, next Halloween before I get more Walking Dead is deadly awful…having a two-year-old daughter is like being in love with a totally unbalanced person: exhilarating but a bit worrisome…I could really use a boat drink and a few days on Cabbage Beach…reading T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Lawrence was a fantastic writer. His turns of phrase and elegant, self-deprecating prose fill me with envy and appreciation. It should be required reading for any aspiring writer. I also think it should have been required reading for any nation considering invasion/war in the area once known as Persia…Brussels sprouts are the steak of the vegetable world…sorry the Chiefs couldn’t hang on for more than one playoff game, but proud of ’em anyway…will not be watching basketball–lost all interest in it…and for now Greenwood out.
