The Futile Podcast

A few weeks ago I saw a rather artistic looking commercial. It was “artistic” in the sense that there was clearly care taken to consider a film stock and to set up and film the commercial on whole. Essentially the setting is sort of a ghetto “war torn” like city area mostly in grays and blues. As the activity of the commercial begins we see children in small groups become engaged in what escalates to a massive water balloon fight. Ironically the music used in the commercial is Teddy Bear’s Picnic. Ironic because this song is usually associated with children in gleeful play out in nature and here we have children who in a juxtaposition are gleeful while the surroundings and composition of the commercial seem to elicit the dirty documentary style that was employed during scenes of rioting in such films as The Battle of Algiers. The subject matter of this film being that that the native residents of French occupied Algeria are using terrorist tactics to fight for their independence from a French occupation that subjugates the the native people.

Okay so this is all pretty involved. On one level, albeit the “deeper” level, the commercial plays as a political commentary about guerilla warfare. However, on the surface the commercial shows children not suffering but playing. In large numbers the young people are enjoying the warm sunny day while having a water balloon fight. No one is shown to be crying or having a bad time, the occasional adult walks by and is oblivious to the fun that the youths are having with their picnic in the ghetto.

So what the hell was this commercial all about? It wasn’t a commercial for water balloons, it wasn’t one of those government PSA’s about getting outside and playing with other children. This commercial which though it had underlying themes of collective warfare, was really just about children playing outside and having fun on a sunny day, was for the new Xbox 360.

I suppose it is a romantic notion that children can play and have fun outside in the numbers and in the environment shown in the commercial. Still I am quite concerned if we have become such a technophilic culture, so detached from our physical world with sunlight and wetness from water balloons, and the laughter that comes from playing with other people that a commercial that features all of this so prominently is used as an advertisement for a video game box where you sit inside and play with people who are somewhere else.

I will concede this point. One of the more popular games for this sort of video game system is Halo which is a war game where an individual or a team fight to save the world, etc. I just don’t think the sytlism of riotous warfare made parody of in the commercial (which I will admit people in this day and age would associate with movies, video games . . . the news) is more strong than the “sense of play” that is conveyed in the content of the commercial.

Okay this site might be cool.

http://www.channelfrederator.com/

The problem with success is that it can lead to mediocrity. As Cartoon Network begins to air live action movies like Tim Burton’s Batman there is a legitimate concern http://news.toonzone.net/article.php?ID=6885 that soon Cartoon Network will suffer the fate of Music Television.

I was just surfing the net minding my own business when the phone rang. Low and behold it was none other than Robert “Drug Dealer Guy” Davi [in the recording]. No shit! He was letting me know that he has 3 daughters and that as a California voter I should be aware of Proposition 73. I’m not sure how he wanted me to vote, since I hung up, (I’m a busy man). I suppose it’s a moot point since I already sent off my absentee ballot a week ago. Still … these last minute get out the support pre-recorded calls have been quite a hoot. I just hope that “Uzi Guy” Al Leong gives me a call about redistricting prop 77 before all is said and done.

Last night I was watching some episodes of the second season of Home Movies and during the commentary track creator and star Brendon Small (see cool things to your right) made a comment about how, to him, some of the most intimate moments in life are just when two people can talk about nothing of real importance and be on the same page. I think the key to this intimacy is a shared sense of humor. When I watch something that I think is funny, like very funny, I’m usually the only one in the room that gets that particular joke.

A big part of what makes these laugh out loud (Or high pitched yelp as I am want to do when I’m most amused) moments is that I see something in the joke that connects me to the writer; to the origin of that piece of humor. Sometimes it is not as simple as my love for the meta or hyper-ironic use of a pun, still there is usually something there in the complexity of the extrapolated background story that results in such a joke. To me it is funny if I can feel attached to the writers of that joke; if I can share (vicariously participate) in that intimate moment where that piece of funny was elucidated.

This is why I value humor so much in my personal life. I think it is the best way for people to connect as humans beyond the platitudes of political rhetoric and the false indentities of cultural and sociological stereotyping. As Bob Ross says everytime he finishes painting one of his “happy little trees” and starts to paint another one: “Let’s just give him a friend … it’s one of the most important things in life to have a friend.”