I don’t get out much. Let’s just get that out there first thing. However, I do watch TV, and I leave the house to go to school every day, so, while it would not be accurate to say that I’ve got my finger on popular culture’s pulse, neither do I live under a rock. That said, I’m having more trouble every day understanding what passes for popular culture these days.

Take advertisements, for example. Have the American people gotten even more gullible than we used to be (how is that even possible?), or have the advertising wonks just abandoned any pretext of respect for us? I keep seeing advertisements for some new Nordic Stairelyptictreadmaster exercise machine thing. It starts out something like, “What’s the number one factor that prevents people from working out?”

Now I, like most of you, am sitting there watching this during my second or third hour of nightly TV watching, with a Diet Coke at my side, a party-size bag of Doritos in my lap, wishing it wasn’t so cold so I could go outside and have a cigarette, and this guy says, “Time. People just don’t have enough time.” Yeah, I think, as I shovel another handful of Doritos into my mouth, that’s why I don’t work out (well, time and allergies, since if I was to try to use any of the exercise equipment in my basement, it would raise such a cloud of dust that I’d probably sneeze myself into a heart attack long before the stress and shock of physical exertion did).

I mean, seriously, is there anybody on earth stupid enough to believe an ad like that? Anyway, this machine is going to solve the time problem for us because it’s been specially engineered to give you the same results as a regular 30 minute stair master or elliptical or treadmill workout in only 15 minutes or so. AND it’s so much more FUN!!! Okay, so I’ll probably buy one. At least then I’ll only have to feel guilty half as long when I walk past it on my way to the garage.

Even more mystifying to me is the advertising gimmicks that cigarette companies get up to. I’m so tired of opening up a pack of smokes and there’s some kind of “Marlboro Dollar” or “Camel Buck” that I’ve got to get past to get to my preciousssssss. I guess the deal is that I can save these stupid things up and trade them in for merchandise. They’ve got all kind of cool(?) stuff. Marlboro hats, shirts, lighters, posters, insulated cooler bags (I guess those are for carrying my beer around), etc., all so that I can proudly show the world that I’m using their product to kill myself. I would have thought that the bad breath, stinky hair and clothes, smoker’s cough, perpetual wheezing, and gasping for air after climbing three steps would have been enough advertising for them. Maybe they just want to make sure that everyone knows that their cigarettes are responsible for my bad breath, stinky hair and clothes, etc. Honestly, it seems kind of counterproductive to me.

It does however, lead me to the next part of advertising that I don’t understand: Why we seem compelled to turn ourselves into walking advertisements. When I was in the Air Force, myself and another guy had to travel to Canada for an exercise. He turned up at the airport wearing this jacket covered with Home Depot logos, so I figured that he must moonlight there. I also though, man, they really give their people some nice jackets. He was also a rabid NASCAR fan, and I had to listen to him go on and on about Tony Stewart. Everything I never wanted to know about Tony Stewart. His stats, his best times, his enemies, his wife’s name, his personal and professional philosophies (which seemed to consist of; drive fast, turn left, drive very fast), and so on. For three days, in cars, on planes, in restaurants, hotel rooms, and airports, I had to listen to it. By the time we got to our destination, I knew more about Tony Stewart than I did about my companion, and I’d worked with him for three years. It wasn’t until some time later that I finally realized that it was not a Home Depot jacket, it was a Tony Stewart jacket. Of course, the fact that it had Tony Stewart’s autograph and number on it probably should have clued me in sooner, but still.

Everywhere I look, people are walking around advertising everything from bands to booze to snack foods, and everything in between, often wearing multiple brand’s merchandise at the same time. And what about sports apparel? Why would anybody wear that? Does a guy built like Homer Simpson think he’s fooling anybody just because he’s wearing a Lakers jersey? Or does he just think that LeBron James (and I’m pretty sure that LeBron James doesn’t actually play for the Lakers, I just don’t care enough to look up who he does play for) needs that little bit extra publicity? Is he afraid that the $63 billion dollars that LeBron gets paid won’t be enough to keep LeBron motivated? That’s a lot of responsibility for a middle-aged, working-class guy.

Okay, so some athletic clothing is kind of cool. I myself used to wear a football jersey as a shirt. Of course, it was my jersey, that I wore for four years playing high school football for Northeastern High School (which is a whole other blog post). Granted, for the first year or so, I looked ridiculous. As a freshman, I got last dibs on the jerseys, so I, an extra-small freshman (4’11”, 98 lbs. seriously) got stuck with an extra-large jersey. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it was #69. It was so big, that when I tucked it in, it looked like #r0, and that was wearing it over the shoulder pads. Untucked, it hung to my knees. I wore that thing for years. I was proud of that jersey. I took some of the worst ass-kickings of my life in that jersey, but I always got back up and back on the line. That jersey meant something to me.

What could a fake Peyton Manning or LeBron James jersey mean to anybody? I mean, other than, “Hi there, my life is so pointless and uninteresting that I’m going around with someone else’s name on my back, hoping that will inspire someone to talk to me.” I guess I can understand it from the point of view of kids, but what kind of grown man does that?

Sometimes the stuff people wear is just disturbing. I’ve seen a lot of young women running around with “Juicy” emblazoned across their posteriors. Now, I don’t know what that’s all about, and there are a lot of adjectives that can apply to the posteriors of young women, but to me, “juicy” doesn’t make the list. When I think of juicy, I think of flying fluid, and that’s just not a visual I personally would want associated with my backside. I sometimes wonder what people are thinking.

Advertising is everywhere. There’s no escaping it. I guess to me the scariest thing is how easy it is for it to seep into your subconscious and make you think, “You know, if I could do it in 15 minutes a day, I would work out.”