Once upon a time there was a “way” that guys talked. It was non-PC, no BS and with a certain verifiable truth (at least, as the speaker saw it) as a defining intention for even speaking in the first place. That’s why men grunt from time to time. Why talk at all if there’s no actual need? Sadly, this classic method of communication has largely given way to a sort of ineffectually soft and pleasantly neutral melange of claptrap more dedicated to protecting everyone’s “feelings” than passing on any legitimate attempt at “truth”. Personally, I think we as a gender are the worse off for it but hey, what do I know? (BTW, that was my chosen PC-closer to an ever-so slight attempt at guy-talk – I am sick). Sure, “guy talk” can be harsh and sometimes brutally judgmental but it sure made a dude think about things before opening his mouth.

Now, I believe a slight nostalgia for that kind of straight-forward verbal honesty is why I find the now-reappearing (and heavily rotating) Ford F-150 “Way of life’ spots so dead-on suited for their intended audience. Denis Leary, far and away one of the most note-perfect pitchman for guy-oriented products in the world, returns to the style of verbal barrage that made him famous so long ago. And that image he crafted (or lifted, if you buy the Bill Hicks conspiracy theory out there) is so indelible that just hearing the timber of his voice and the inherent snark it manages to mainline is more than enough to make anyone possessing a y-chromosome immediately stop from changing the channel. Without a doubt, Leary was the best choice Ford could have made.

The spot features shots of Ford’s muscular F-150 truck being put through its paces while gynormous, multi-colored cut-outs of the script (as delivered by Leary) pop up, frame events, spin and then smoothly yet with a staccato-like jump here and there move the commercial through to its conclusion. When Denis’ line read begins it’s perfectly clear that whatever brand of sissy you may be it’s best to keep it to yourself for the next sixty-odd seconds or so ‘cause the Ford F-150 is for gen-yoo-ine hard-working men and not a bunch of yarn hauling whiners (see yet another incarnation of the ad).

"Okay, odds are if you're one of those people in the country with a pick-up truck, it's not a luxury, it's a way of life. And chances are you aren't making your money pushing a pencil or hand modeling. You're probably working for every dollar and need your truck. So at a time when gas is more expensive than bourbon, and you gotta get more done in less time, it would be nice if there were a truck that had more to offer than just payload, towing and mileage numbers, well, the Eagle has landed.” Leary goes on from there, detailing just what makes his truck so darn cool versus the limp and obviously uninspired competition.

Now, as I am definitely one of “those” guys making a living as a pencil pusher (or key puncher, which is somehow even worse) I can attest to the fairly strong blow back effetes like me suffer when faced with someone who can actually build or fix something with their hands. Bottom-line: a guy that gets real things done is a man and men are what all boys want to be. So if buying a Ford can be seen to “man you up something good” that’s not exactly a bad way to sell a truck.

So can we expect a speedy return to the days of yore when such inconveniently masculine methods of speech prospered? Sadly, outside a viewing of big daddy Clint’s masterwork “Gran Torino” I suspect similar speech trends will remain locked down thanks to an alarmingly litigious grievance culture and the continued existence of seemingly well-intentioned but moronically ill-advised human rights commissions that continue to scar the face of any nation’s commitment to “free speech.”

I wonder if the Denis of old that Ford has managed to dig up could be prompted to volunteer his services as our new non-PC leader? Probably not, but maybe he might be willing to sign on as the voice you hear when you forget to put your seatbelt on. “Go ahead sunshine, don’t put the stupid belt on but don’t say I didn’t warn you about ripping your face open when you fly through the $%&!@ windshield into that daisy-stepping banker and his new Maserati.” Ahh truth, what a novel concept.

Everybody likes a good story. Whether it’s being told on your favourite soap or happening between the covers of some page-turning thriller a good story will always draw you in. Advertisers know this and do their level best to make their own products’ stories as interesting and compelling as possible. The problem comes in that most of us know full well how inherently self-serving the story being told actually is. Cynicism creeps in pretty fast and we tune them out tout suite. That’s why commercials are so short – they know they only have a few seconds before most folks get ticked off.

Still, when a story is good enough it can calm even the most impatient cynic among us and quietly burrow its way into that special spot deep inside our psyche where something basically useless magically transforms into an I-must-have-this-as-soon-as-possible thing. It also helps when the product in question happens to be shiny. I really love shiny things…….

Now, I’ve written on celebrity booze projects in the past. It does seem to be a badge of honor to have a spirit, wine or liquor of some kind in your name if you’re famous and of a certain vintage. I guess they’ve spent so much time drinking and hanging out in bars and nightclubs that the only thing cooler than owing the bar itself is having a few self-designed bottles on the shelf you can show off with. Usually, the whole enterprise is a gimmick at best as the celeb does little more than lend their name or image to someone else’s idea. They pose for pictures and license their name but do precious little by way of actual heavy lifting. Once in a while though their part in the for-profit enterprise is so bizarrely hilarious it merits at least a look.

Crystal Head Vodka is exactly what it sounds like. An all-new, quadruple distilled and triple filtered through Herkimer diamond crystals vodka cooked up in Newfoundland of all places and contained within a bottle that is a glass replica of a genuine crystal skull. Dan Aykroyd is the name pushing this item and in one fell swoop he manages to cover the entire range of spooky to creepy to bat-shit crazy within the measured course of one small web video. Truly, it is something to behold.

The premise of the entire project is the so-called magical mysteries that surround the metaphysical properties of the thirteen crystal skulls that apparently exist in various corners of our world. Of unknown origin, the ancient skulls gained recent fame thanks to Indiana Jones and Co. lame attempt at adventure (yes, I hated it and no, I did not want to). In Aykroyd’s online promo he goes on at great length about everything from spiritual dimensions to ghosts and the extraterrestrials that surround us. He even manages to mention ectoplasm if you can believe it, spouting off a gooey load of hokey mumbo jumbo so far-fetched and ludicrous that you cannot help but laugh your gluteus maximus off when he finally comes to the “logical” conclusion that vodka was the only thing they could have put inside their intensely spiritual “package.” While the spot confirms for me that having drinks of any kind at the Aykroyd house would be strange days indeed the absolute kicker to the whole business is the bottle. I mean, it’s a fricken crystal skull! How insane cool is that?

I’m not the toughest guy in the world. Heck, I had to go and lie down after I smacked myself in the eye with a broom handle as I swept the floor the other day (don’t ask) but what man wouldn’t want to pour shots for his buddies from a solid crystal skull? A bottle like this man’s up any bar (or dandy) it touches, instantly.

Go to www.crystalheadvodka.com and watch Danny boy’s video for yourself. Whether you buy what he’s selling or not it’s a hell of a great story. And if it’s true, well then all the better I guess. But at the end of the day the bottle is what rules the most and like so much about advertising it’s not so much what’s in the package but the hoopla surrounding it that really matters. That said, I wonder if I would offend the alien-ghost-spirits of the crystal skull by filling it up with root beer? Just asking…..

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When even Time Magazine sets aside space for ad reviews you have to figure they’re finally running out of things to talk about. Not to knock my own little column here but they ought to have more important stuff to focus on like, say North Korea’s nuclear ambitions or whether Obama likes cable-knit sweaters better than fleece ones. Instead, the big brains over there ran an article chatting up an internet viral by Budweiser that mixes porn with comedy. Time’s crack reporter concludes that the very existence of the ad proves just how porn-friendly our society has become. This should come as good news for porn dealers nation-wide currently tasked with blacking out their store windows and disguising their products with plain brown wrappers. Rejoice! Porn is finally out in the open. Ding, dong the taboo’s dead!

Now the folks over at Bud Light are pretty much Jedi Masters when it comes to using humor to sell booze and this spot is no different. And while it’s pretty hilarious I’m pretty sure that the bright lights at Time and I are not exactly on the same page about society’s overall acceptance of porn.

In the spot, a nerdy guy goes into a grimy little corner store to buy a six-pack of Bud Light. He approaches the counter with his beverage of choice as the aged, and heavily accented, counter woman asks if that’s all he wants? He replies no, and proceeds to add in some lip balm, batteries and then request a copy of “Tongue in Cheeks” – clearly a hardcore porn mag. The woman responds by leafing through the adult mags she has beside the counter and calling out each of their names – each more horrifying than the last - and then yelling out to her husband asking where they keep the “Tongue in Cheeks.” He answers that the “weird” (bleeped out s-word) is kept under the counter. As the counter woman tries to find it, a cute girl enters the store and recognizes our hapless porn buyer – she went to prom with him way back when. As you can guess, the horrible counter woman keeps on harping about the porn mag, naming it again and again, humiliating the guy further even as he lamely tries to explain that it’s for a “friend.” A tall, creepy guy then joins the line and proceeds to really raunch up the proceedings by vouching for the periodical’s freaky bona fides by describing his own personal use of it.

It gets worse as the counter woman produces a selection of free gifts (you can guess, I’m certain) that come with the porn magazine’s purchase. Finally, nerdy dude tries to leave but can’t as he gets stopped at the door by a hold-up guy who takes the entire store hostage. To cap off the humiliation he is seen, porn and all, on the nightly news. Most. Embarrassing. Moment. Ever.

How the spot sells beer I don’t know. Maybe it’s supposed to make me think Bud Light is cool ‘cause they can joke about skin mags or something. Who really knows? The weird thing to me is that the message they appear to be pushing is so seemingly out of step with a world where Hugh Hefner publicly hires whores to pose as his girlfriends and Donald Trump seems willing to pimp out his Miss California for nude photos. In this case we have a porn-soaked, sex-toy waving beer commercial that plays almost, dare I say it, conservative? It’s hard to see, amongst all the dirty talk, sex goodies and raw humiliation but doesn’t the message Bud Light is pushing seem almost puritan in nature? They appear to suggest that having weird sex fetishes is bad enough but getting caught with them out in the open is so potentially life-ending that nerdy dude should have stuck with the beer alone (is beer a fetish?). Kind of an odd conclusion in a world where shame of any kind is supposed to be the enemy.

Time magazine ought to spend a bit more time looking into the real story here. Perhaps Bud Light is actually part of some “vast right wing conspiracy” to demonize the purchase of porn. They could interview Hilary or even Newt. I bet they each keep files on this kind of stuff. Time could even commission an intensive, hard-hitting expose on porn – with tons of pictures. I bet that’d sell some copies. They better put a brown wrapper on it first though.

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So, what are you willing to put inside your mouth?

Stay with me here. It’s an honest question. Generally we’ll put the damnedest things in there so long as we figure it’s what we want at the time. Take...pickles for instance. Now, some folks claim that pickles (or at least the vinegar anyway) will melt your body’s bones in no time flat. Still, I happily stuff them on in because I just cannot deny myself their dilly goodness. Hot dogs too. Everyone knows what’s supposedly inside those demonic little tube steaks. I guess we’re all willing to look the other way if we want something bad enough.

The problem comes when you’re absolutely forced to confront the reality of what you’re opening your trap to. And when that reality takes the form of something insanely gross it’s impossible to look at things the same ever again. Pure disgust makes an indelible impression, no? For example, thirty-some years ago I tasted the most foul, pint-sized Oh Henry bar late one Halloween night. Without a doubt it had spent the previous twelve months swaddled in moth balls because to this day even the sight of an Oh Henry bar causes my throat to spasm and my gag reflex to seize up. Memories are powerful things but gross ones are psychically inescapable.

So I have to give full credit to a new UK ad promoting the purchase of real, pharmacist-dispensed drugs versus their illegal cousin knock-offs.

The ad starts off with a middle-aged guy, greying just enough to make him look serious, padding into the kitchen of his home and pausing to sort the mail. He opens one large envelope, clearly an expected mail-order delivery of prescription drugs. Now, we all know that mail-order drugs are cheaper – that’s the main pitch after all – so we’re even sympathetic to the situation. What’s wrong with saving a few bucks?

Thrifty dude tears open the pack and downs a tiny pill. He then turns on the water and heads to the cabinet to grab a glass to wash it all down. Are you freaking yet? Here it comes, get ready for the grossness.

Penny Pincher begins to choke ever so slightly and flexes his neck a bit. Something is not right. Camera goes in really, really close as he appears to be pushing something back up and out his mouth. Worried, he pokes a couple fingers into his mouth and starts fishing around. It is here that the sick sound effects officially begin as we hear a squishing sound that I imagine comes from entrails being stirred. Thrifty man then pulls out what appears to be a long, snake-y kind of thing. Looking mucho worried he pulls harder and we watch – eyes wide and, by now totally incapable of ever looking away, as he drags a full-sized, dead-as-a-doornail rat from his mouth. Ewwwwwwwwww!

Poor guy stands in horror, staring at this horrific sight as the British announcer intones “Rat poison – just one of the many dangerous ingredients that may be found in fake medicines purchased from illegal websites.” The caption along with it says “Get real, get a prescription” while we see cheap dude retching into his sink off-camera. Now I do enjoy the whole rat business in the sense that he pulls actual vermin out of his mouth when the ingredient in question is “only” rat poison. I mean, illegal drugs okay but no one said they’re putting actual rats in there. Still though, I mean holy crap is this spot ever effective. I get squirrelly about what’s in a samosa. I may never eat a pill again.

It does bring an interesting question to mind though. I’ve known more than a few folks that have their own, shall we say, street corner pharmacist, who provide them with “meds” and while they are fully aware of the illicit nature of the business realities their dealer faces they are ridiculously calm regarding the risk they take on what they’re actually putting in their mouth. How the same folks who can get all snotty about whether their apples are organic or not can take Fast Eddie’s say so regarding his stash’s ingredients is beyond me. No, the image of a rat coming out that guy’s mouth will haunt me forever meaning no more knock-off drugs ever for this one-time cheap bastard.

And by the way. If at any time during this column you were smirking or giggling about the naughty connotations of “putting things inside your mouth” then shame on perverted old you. Not everything has to be about that, now does it? Get your mind out of the gutter creepo.

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