Commercial time

I suppose Super Bowls will get you thinking about television commercials. That and a very active flu season that has people masked up more than any time since COVID. Regardless, we are watching a ton of television.

The most positive thing that has come of it is that Billie and I have rediscovered All in the Family. I’m not surprised it is funny. I am surprised at how timely it remains. The first episode we watched addressed gun control, then we watched an episode on women’s rights and last evening on Archie and a Transsexual. And the Jefferson’s are next door. For 9 years in the 1970’s this program was America’s social conscience. I didn’t remember it that way. It was then and is now, very, very funny.

I have a long-acknowledged love-hate relationship with television commercials. Now I enjoy watching the two old salts standing on a deck, sipping coffee and watching a rank amateur sail out of harbor toward an approaching storm.

One finally says, “I’ll go tell the Coast Guard.” The other responds, “Yep.” Their voices and mannerisms reflect a matter of fact attitude that comes with a calm acceptance that you can’t save people from themselves. An attitude supportive of the modern insurance industry. Just think about it.

Fat removal has invaded our airways. “My body, my belly.”

An old axiom keeps assaulting my thoughts. “Women will only be equal to men when they can stroll down the street with a beer belly and consider themselves to be sexy.” Tacky I know but what can I say.

The pharmaceutical industry continues to line the pockets of the television industry. My pet peeve remains the fashion in which a potential benefit to our health is promoted, then followed by a presentation of 10,000 ways it might injure or kill you is coated in beautiful visual images and pleasing words.

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback, Patrick Mahomes has a couple of dandy commercials out. One with “Tiny Troy” and another with Snoop Dog. Diverse, both interesting, effective and pleasant.

Sam Elliott and Gronk have made a creditable father and son for yet another insurance company. Insurance companies are either making a ton of money or really overspending on their advertising budget.

There is a commercial about a young girl with a lemonade stand in the deep woods that I like.

Amid making notes about various commercials, I heard our president was proposing that we take over Gaza, while relocating almost 2 million people, leveling the place, inhabiting it with “world people” and then turning it into a world class resort. I derisively thought, “What can possibly go wrong with that?”

I hate that it is too cold to go out and sit on the porch. It is at times like this I find wisdom in squirrel’s play and soda fizz.

Man is the most intelligent of the animals and the most silly. — Diogenes

Hal McBride writes a column, Just Thinkin’, published each week.