Oxy Weekly: This Article Is Brought To You by Me.

I read a rather interesting book over the summer about advertising and branding called Obsessive Branding Disorder. The book’s author, Lucas Conley, discusses how advertising has taken over our lives and how much time is devoted to branding of products, places and even people. One of the more interesting revelations was that American companies are now spending more money on branding and marketing than on researching and developing new products. I also found out that in this century there have been products like Play-Doh cologne, Cheetos lip balm and NASCAR romance novels.

There was one section of Conley’s book that gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling of doom. It was in the section on new forms of advertising that I began to lose faith in our ability to escape total advertising culture. Conley detailed new advances in advertisement. As more and more communities like Los Angeles ban new billboards, marketers have tried to find new ways to pimp their products. We’re all familiar with product placement by now, but consider an audio ad that starts as soon as you walk by. How about going to a grocery store and finding that the checkout conveyor belt was covered in advertisements? Can you imagine machines designed to put advertisements in the sand at the beach?

Los Angeles’ Metropolitan Transportation Authority, MTA, has already installed televisions on buses which are running advertisements. They’ve even put flat screens displaying movie ads in select subway tunnels. Suffices to say, after reading that chapter, I was saddened and a bit offended. But there was a glimmer of hope. I was at least able to take solace in the fact that Oxy’s campus was almost entirely ad-free. “Huzzah!” I thought, “every day I spend on campus is one with very little ad interference. Take that, Madison Avenue.”

Well, I was wrong. The first time I visited the bookstore this semester I was surprised to see a new addition to the shop. If you’ve set foot in the bookstore you have undoubtedly seen the new screen on the floor displaying commercials and moving images mostly for movies and television shows.

“The marketing bastards have found me,” I said to myself when I saw the advertising pad. I’m told that the thing is pretty indestructible and a truck that weighs a few thousand pounds can run over it with no harm to the precious advertising video. Upon hearing this, my dream of giving the screen a well-deserved sledge-hammering was dashed.

It’s safe to assume that the screen is there so that the school can get some cash. But do we really want to sell our space just to make up for our small endowment? Imagine that the side of the Cooler was painted with a giant mural proclaiming “Drink RC Cola!” What if the Marketplace trays carried advertisements? I understand that the naming rights to Patterson Field haven’t been sold yet. Hey, Rangeview’s basically unnamed; why not sell that to the highest bidder? Who wouldn’t want to live in AT&T Hall?

If the online casino “Golden Palace” can get a species of monkey named after them or have boxers get temporary tattoos of their web address, why wouldn’t they be interested in having one of Oxy’s many buildings named for the website? I even know a few people who would be excited to take classes in the Burger King Asian Studies department.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that we need to stop ad creep on our local level. We must do what we can to halt the over-saturation of advertisements in our lives. The bookstore’s ad pad could be the beginning of ad invasion at Oxy. People often talk about the Oxy bubble that keeps us unaware of current events, news and culture. I propose we make a new bubble, one that resists the urge to brand everything with a logo. And if this means we’ll have to use a SledgeCo brand hammer to preserve the bubble, so be it.

Oxy Weekly: The Politics of Celebrity

Here’s this week’s piece that I wrote for the Oxy Weekly here at Occidental.

This summer, in one of his campaign ads, Senator John McCain compared Senator Barack Obama to a celebrity of the same ranks as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Aside from the irony that Hilton and Sarah Palin, McCain’s Vice Presidential nominee, have the same amount of foreign policy experience, this ad raised an interesting question: Why is it so verboten to mix politics and celebrity?

It seems that whenever a celebrity, usually a liberal, voices an opinion on politics, there’s typically at least one voice saying that the person should shut up because they’re a celebrity who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. By this logic, when you become famous you have to stick to the script of what you’re famous for because that is all you are allowed to be. Take the case of the Dixie Chicks for instance. When singer Natalie Maines told a London audience back in 2003 that the band was ashamed to be from the same state as George W. Bush, it was met with record bans from country music stations and death threats. During this controversy, country singer Charlie Daniels wrote on his blog that celebrities should not voice their opinions on politics because that’s not part of the job description. Daniels is steadfast in this opinion as can be seen in other blog posts where he defends the Bush administration and says that Guantanamo Bay prisoners are being treated humanely.

In the days of yore, politics and celebrity were close pals. The Kennedys were good friends with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack and really good friends with Marilyn Monroe. To be fair though, these were just friendships, it’s not like there are any celebrities who successfully go into politics. Well, except for Congressman Sonny Bono…and Senator Fred Thompson…and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger…and President Ronald Reagan. Interestingly enough, all of these entertainers turned politicians are or were Republicans. Wait a minute; aren’t they supposed to be the party that’s not supposed to be about celebrity?

I think the real issue here shouldn’t be whether one is a celebrity or not, but whether the messenger is reliable. When the term “celebrity” is thrown around in political circles, it usually means ill informed, out of touch and too popular. It’s all a question of credibility. By calling Obama a celebrity and actually comparing him to Britney Spears, who shortly after the events of September 11th said we should follow the President and support him no matter what, McCain seeks to paint Obama as one craving attention and the limelight while having nothing to say.

Any idiot without a high school degree can call Rush Limbaugh and say Obama’s a Muslim terrorist, but if someone like Bruce Springsteen writes a concise endorsement of Obama, he’s labeled as a celebrity who is out of touch with “real Americans” like Joe Long-Time-Listener-First-Time-Caller. This is not to say that all celebrity opinions are worth listening to. If 50 Cent were to announce tomorrow that he was supporting Obama, I would be skeptical unless he gave a long point-by-point memo on what Obama has done to make him qualified to be Commander in Chief.

So, what are we to do? We shouldn’t care about whether an opinion is voiced by a celebrity, a hardened politician or an anonymous Midwestern farmer. We should care only about the message being presented. This is America and everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Unfortunately, everyone includes those who were convinced in 1960 that John F. Kennedy was going to take orders directly from the Pope or those who believe now that Obama is harboring terrorists.

If we just stopped for a moment to think, we could be done with this celebrity silliness and focus not on who said what, but what was said. For, you see, every politician wants to be famous on some level and I think it’s safe to say that Martin Sheen was the best President the United States has had in the last decade.

Adventures in Mixology: The Mary Pickford

There were very few major stars in the early days of Hollywood. Mary Pickford was the first. Amongst her notable achievements, the Canadian actress won the 1929 Best Actress Oscar for her role in Coquette. She was married to Douglas Fairbanks and the two of them, along with Charlie Chaplin and D. W. Griffith formed United Artists Studios. This brilliantly colored drink is a tribute to one of Hollywood’s original First Ladies.

The Mary Pickford

• 1/2 Ounces Rum
• 1 Ounce Pineapple Juice
• 3 Splashes of Grenadine

Super Mario Junk

I came upon an interesting collection of Nintendo licensed things today. It’s a fun little look at some of the things that Mario and Link’s faces have been plastered on.

Episode Concept For the Sitcom I Never Plan On Writing

Here’s an idea:

The main character(s) fake(s) being poor so Jimmy Carter and Habitat For Humanity will come and build a new house. Hilarity ensues.