THIS IS THE Holiday Season in The United States of America! Whether you like it or not, whether you care about it or not, whether you buy anything or not, it’s like sleeping all day when the sun is out; the sun was out, you just did not concern yourself with it, and that’s OK. If you don’t Believe in the sun, I don’t know what to tell you.
So yeah, anyway, The Holidays, that’s good! Embrace the Holiday Season, or ignore it, or get mad about it! Anger is an Energy, right? Ho ho fucking ho-oooo!
I am all about the aspects of the Holiday Season which have eating and drinking and being of good cheer, and being generous to people, and not having to work or do anything besides the aforementioned. The rest of the hocus-pocus about Baby God and stuff is nice, I guess, in some ways, but it’s kinda (SPOILER ALERT) depressing if you buy into the whole Story, seriously, major-league downer, like they have now with all the commercials on my Streamings of Television, mostly for Drugs.
There’s always a “story” taking you through the sales pitch, showing some person getting ready with family and/or friends to go to the county fair, or receive an award, or walk/run a fucking 5K, always some bland, mildly positive thing, so you can see the normal person while the commercial talks about the Drug being advertised and all the contraindications and/or side effects or whatever, such as, like, do not operate Heavy Machinery while on Drugs, or be careful taking this because it’s associated with losing weight—a whole other evil inside sales pitch—or getting an infection in your Perineum.
My most annoying one is: “Don’t take SHMEGILO™ [HYDROBENZOPOOPEE] if you are allergic to SHMEGILO™.” I swear this is some Pharmacist’s version of the joke about the plane being made out of Black Box! The joke-snake eats itself! Nobody WANTS to take a pill that’s gonna destroy their Perineum unless they are fucking desperate, or if, via multiple repeated viewings of the same fucking commercial over and over they get convinced by the teevee that they need the pill!
Seriously, I watch some of these commercials with all these people who are going about their business while also being candidates for some sort of therapy involving the advertised Drug, and they are all doing stuff and interacting happily with the cast of characters in the bullshit-story commercial, and they look fine! In fact, they almost look like they are cured of something, you know?
So what happens is I start wondering if I maybe have the thing you need the Drug for? I’m already in an Altered State! I’m on the couch watching Television! I probably just had a snack! My brain is going into full blissful narcotized Beta-minus-minus! Non-interactive! Completely pliable and open to depressing suggestions involving my goddamn Perineum!
I apologize for all this Perineum talk, really. I typically do not want to even think about my Perineum! We have a deal, I do my thing, and Perineum does whatever it wants, as long as it doesn’t involve me beyond our standing agreement! It’s Peaceful Coexistence! Happy Perineum, happy life! Except now the teevee is turning me against my Perineum, and making me think about rolling the dice on some Drug that seems worth it during breaks in my streaming entertainment! This is Cognitive Dissonance or something, right? I took a Psychology course once, in Junior College, you can’t just fucking roll along with Cognitive Dissonance, it will split your brain’s mind or something, and you’ll need treatment or therapy or Drugs!
Look, I am pro Medical Science and pro all of the benefits of Drugs, be they Medicinal or Recreational, but these commercials, while I’m watching my Economy version of Hulu—the one that has all these stupid commercials— are making me mad at my television, mostly because I can’t skip ‘em, since it’s the cheap version of Hulu! No fast-forwarding through the Perineum Advisory!
To be honest, when they come out with the cheap version of Netflix I’m totally switching to it, and I hope maybe at least they have different commercials, like for cars or Sports Gambling, and not so many Big Pharmas. I wonder if there’s a drug that will make you not-mad at the teevee commercials?
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly wherever it can appear. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com
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