Little Ads - Art for horny prudes.

The ad does say "study art", not "understand basic anatomy", so I guess there's no lie here. What's going on with this woman's boobs? The "drapery" is clearly not covering her chest, and those are definitely her boobs, but something's missing. I can't quite put my finger on it (heh heh). Maybe the artist is conflicted about nude women? Horny enough to focus on drawing boobs, but too shy to finish the job?

"Black Vendetta" model, only $5.95. Also see our "Angry Drifter" model, "Error in Judgement" model, and our "Twitchy Loner" model.

 

 New for campers. Superior to other baby packs that place the child on your chest. Great for families with exceptionally ugly children. Also allows your child to warn you of snipers attacking from behind.

"...Also earn top pay conducting the All-Fostex chorus."

Surplus radiation counters. Never wonder again why you just died. Special three-for-one pricing! One for each arm. See our shop in Megaton. Disclaimer: Some surplus units may be mildly radioactive. Not to be used to detect or treat any environmental threats.

Philco refrigerator - Just a quickie.

Time is short again this morning, so instead of posting nothing at all, here's a nice ad for a Philco fridge. It features a nice re-rendered photograph. It doesn't really deserve any jokes, so if it weren't for quick posts like this morning, it may not have been used, otherwise. More jokes tomorrow.

Sanka - "Airbrush" rhymes with "awful".

I'm sure there are some examples of airbrushing that are quite good. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that those examples' goodness rises in direct proportion to their undetectability. What I mean is, good airbrushing is invisible. This ad from Sanka typifies what makes airbrush so awful.

In 1973, when this Sanks ad ran in Good Housekeping, airbrushing stood on the precipice of it's ascendency. Fancy words, huh? The airbrush would come to define the eighties. Most notably, it's presence would be felt on hundreds of shitty album covers like This lady who calls herself "Brooke" and Boston's entire discography. These album covers are recognizable, and the music's quality may be debatable, but I insist that these renderings are pretty bad. You look at them and instantly go "airbrush". The technique is very hard to disguise, and rarely is. In fact, in the eighties, you were nobody unless you used an airbrush. One more example of bad judgement, thanks to the eighties.

 An airbrush is basically a small hand held spray gun. Because of this, if you want a clean edge on something, you have to cut a "frisket", which is more or less a sticky-backed stencil that you cut with an X-acto knife. Airbrushing without a frisket gives smokey appearance, and the overspray tends to bring out the paper texture in blank areas of the paper as the paint floats across the surface and is caught on the imperfections in the paper. Because the paint is being blown onto the surface, you don't really ever MIX colors when airbrushing. The colors can be speckled into each other with a light spray, but that's not the same as actually mixing. An airbrushed artwork tends to look foggy, speckly, and lacks detail. The best results are always achieved on smooth surfaces, like the side of a van. I say "best" as in "no paper grain or cotton fibers to catch the overspray". We see the best examples of execution and technique on vehicles, due to the durability of the surface and the sophistication of the paints available for automotive use. But why, why, WHY is the subject matter in these examples almost always that of  a petulant adolescent fantasy? People who want things painted on their cars tend to like what they like, and it usually stems from a masculinity complex.

It can be quick, however. Millions of hack artists have made money airbrushing T-shirts while you wait. You get what you pay for. Airbrushed T-shirts are almost always freehanded, without the use of friskets. So, you get the smokey overspray in the fibers of blank areas, just like on paper. For some reason, airbrush artists are preoccupied with painting evil clowns. If you get "good" at painting evil clowns on T-shirts, you can make a mint in any tourist trap, painting shirts for thirteen year old boys trying to look tough... or any gang banger wannabe trying to look like a thirteen year old boy. It's surprising (or not) to see how many professional airbrushists still have mullets.

Airbrush guys just looove to paint chrome. It's one of the few things that lends itself to a sprayed medium. Quite often, it's priority number one when Billy gets his airbrush kit. Once he sort of figures it out, he then begins to paint pretend album covers for his horrible junior high garage band. If he's lucky, he grows out of it by the age of twenty, or not.

So, yeah. Sanka. Dehydrated decaffeinated coffee. Sanka gives you both reasons not to drink coffee in one product, as well as all the reasons to hate airbrush. Here's a slogan for General Foods' Sanka division. "Sanka: Everything by negative example." You're welcome, Sanka.

Death at Sea - Murder Most Moist!

Joke #1: "See? I came back to my room after dinner, and I found this dead man in my bed! He must have climbed in through that porthole, but how could he have done that if he was dead? His accomplice must have climbed in FOR him! Sssh! He must still be in here somewhere!"

Joke #2: "Gloria!!! So I've caught you cheating on me at last.....with a corpse!!!! Is this what you've wanted all along? Was I just not DEAD enough for you? And you, Corpsey Joe. How could you do this to me? I trusted you, my best dead friend! What's that? Nothing to say for yourself? Typical."

Joke #3: "Y...y... you mean that thing there is where men pee from? Oh god, I think I'm going to be sick!"

Joke #4: "Rufus!!! So, I've caught you cheating on me at last..... with a living woman!!!!...."

Joke #5: Julia knew she'd be caught eventually. Living with two men, she was bound to accidentally have an affair with one of them, and the other one would inevitably find out. Yep, that's what she got for living inside a dryer with two handsome men.

Joke #6: Diane!!! So I've caught you cheating on me at last.... with a mer-man, who swims up to the porthole on a nightly basis, climbs into our stateroom and makes love to you, and whose flippers turn into human legs when he's on dry land, and who has the power to conjure human clothes from thin air! Is that what I'm supposed to believe? Hm?"

Joke #7: "Honey, there's nothing to be afraid of. Everybody had a Bed Corpse nowadays. They're the height of fashion! We don't want to seem strange, do we, darling? Look, we'll try it out for a few days, and if you're still nervous about it, we'll eat him and go back to our normal lives, okay?"

Joke #8: "Darren, you simply must remember to close the porthole when you go to work. Those darn seagulls keep bringing in dead sailors if you leave it open. Hey, wow! This one's a sergeant!"

Joke #9: "Well I don't know who he is either. There's only one thing to do. Keep poking him in the wiener until he goes away."

Joke #10:  "Rhoda!!! So I've finally caught you cheating on me at last! Well, at least you also murdered him, possibly out of remorse. Otherwise it could have gotten ugly. What's for dinner?"

Joke #11: (Guest joke from Jeremy. Thanks!) "Good question, doctor. I don't remember looking at the clock, but given that he took the Cialis when we left port three days ago, his erection must have lasted well over four hours."

Phonograph Answering Machine - Saves phone messages forever.

Thomas Edison briefly mentioned the idea of using his phonograph to record telephone conversations in 1878 (according to this site, which doesn't cite any sources, but seems to be associated with Rutgers University, which isn't iron-clad proof of accuracy, but does lend some credibility). So, he nearly invented the answering machine. By 1953, magnetic tape technology was appearing in the consumer market. So, why were they still using phonographs to record phone messages?

Interestingly,  as early as 1926, AT&T had a problem with the idea of recording phone conversations on public phone lines for some reason. You could, however, record everything you wanted on a private line. Weird. In 1949, the FCC allowed the recording of audio on all AT&T lines and the telephone answering machine was born... sort of. Still being weird about things,  the FCC placed tight restrictions on what technology you could use to record audio from phone lines.

 That's great and all, but why a record and not tape, which could be erased? Maybe one of the FCC's rules about recording technology made tape a no-no? Maybe magnetic tape technology was still new and expensive? For whatever reason, this goofy thing was the only game in town in 1953.

The outgoing message was recorded on a small 4-inch record, while the incoming messages were recorded on a larger eight-inch blank disc. For those of you too young to understand, vinyl records cannot be erased and re-recorded without melting them down and pressing new blanks out of the recycled material. This is baffling to me. A tape machine has fewer moving parts (I'm pretty sure) and doesn't involve the delicate needle and tonearm. Most of all, you don't have to constantly buy new blank records.

The blank disc could store 140 messages, each limited to 23 seconds of record time. Just in case you forgot how records work, these messages were stored forever. Every wrong number, petty request and wise ass crank call were indelibly imprinted on vinyl for you to enjoy until the seas boil and the moon falls from the sky.

But it's not all baffling frustration here. There's amusement to be had. Look at the guy in the pictures. He's supposed to be a TV repair man, but he looks like a detective. I know he's supposed to be taking down the address of Mrs. Hopkins, but he could just as easily be getting an anonymous tip on a moider! "Hello. Dis is de-tec-a-tive Joe Bullet. If youse has a clue about da dioty moider what happened down at da gin joint the other night, leave a talking message on my phonograph and I'll come rough ya up, and find out what you  know, see?... ya no good bum."

It's also worth noting that in the article, they call the machine a "robot". technically, it's accurate, since the definition of a robot is any machine designed to do the work of a human. Still, this thing is as much of a robot as my garage door opener. I demand that, to be called a "robot", a thing must be able to move around under it's own power and possibly go berserk, with the option of the occasional killing spree, due to malfunction complicated by the incomprehensibility of human emotions.

For further reading on Thomas Edison, and why he was kind of a dick, we urge you to do a search on "Edison VS. Tesla" and their shared history. Among other things, Edison electrocuted an elephant, trying to win market dominance in the was of AC versus DC power. Spoiler: Tesla's AC power delivery system is now our standard and Edison's DC system is not.

Update: The Phil Are Go! research department has just found out that Edison did build a wax cylinder answering machine, but it could only be used to record "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

P.S. Attention future-dwellers. Our technology wing has discovered the secret of adding a Digg button, among other aggregators, to our sidebar. If you are a member of Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, or Dl.eli..ici.o.uo.s.is, please use these newfound buttons to promote P.A.G! and get us a few more hits. Thank you.

Taxidermy - A death greater than life.

The March 1946 issue of Popular Mechanics ran this story about taxidermy, the most mysterious of black magics that still befuddles our smartest fifth graders. The Phil Are Go team have reproduced the content of this article for your delight. Original text follows.

.  .  .  .  . 

"Taxidermy" comes from the Latin "taxi", meaning "yellow car for short term hire" and "dermy", meaning "having nothing to do with". Since the dawn of time, Man has been fascinated with killing animals, shoving lots of things into them, and then staring at them. Until the creation of the first museum, these men were just sick weirdos. Now, they are the archivists of the miracle of life, through the glory of death.

The journey of taxidermy begins with the animal being lightly killed. In this photograph, we see a Chimpanzee receiving his "contribution to history injection". The animal's last meal may consist of beer or Tang, depending on whether he was a jerk and bit somebody.

Next, the animal is encased in a form-fitting mold, to ensure that the "icky bits" don't fall all over the floor. Here, the chimpanzee is placed into a pig-shaped mold, because the museum already has enough chimps on display. One taxidermist carefully holds the animals wee-wee, if that's what he's into.

The animal is left in the mold for several months, and nature takes it's course. Sometimes, the various desiccating animal pieces smell bad, and the dead animal must be punished. Here, a worker hits the mold with a hammer to let the dead chimpanzee know he smells bad. To the left, we see some taxidermist humor. They used a hose to make it look like the animal is peeing. Taxidermists have no friends.

After four to six months, the mold is opened and the grody bits discarded. All that is left is the animal's skin. Special care is taken, to smooth over the animal's backside and other private parts. After all, it's only 1946, and Americans are insanely puritanical and uptight about ridiculous things. Also, that same guy from before is interested in the naughty bits. Now, the chimpanzee is ready for display!

Here, we see some work being done on a different project. A giant mola fish is being readied for presentation. The skin has been removed, revealing it's intricate wooden skeleton. This makes it very easy to work with, since glues and paint adhere readily to wood. The skeleton will need to be covered with skin before it can be put on display... probably the skin of a chimpanzee.

Some animals are too frikkin ugly for anybody to want to see. This vulture is having it's head covered in wax, to make it presentable. Another happy customer, thanks to the miracle of modern taxidermy!

The staff of Popular Mechanics would like to thank you for reading this comprehensive taxidermy article. If you are interested in learning taxidermy, we encourage you to visit your local library or just any ghoulish-looking guy with a knife. Don't forget to turn to page 280 for a fascinating how-to article showing you how-to make a footstool out of surplus postwar hams.

.  .  .  .  . 

RKO Pic-Tour - When Hollywood was small potatoes.

Movie promotions in magazines???? Have I blown your mind? It used to happen. Back in 1948-ish, magazines were huge business. In fact, they were one of the biggest types of media until the FaceTube came along and ate print's lunch, circa nineteen ninety something. Now newspapers are, let's face it, obsolete, and magazines are holding on by a thread. yeah yeah, big deal. This is news to no one. It's not a giant leap of insight on my part, reporting something that's been talked about for the better part of a decade. But it's still interesting to see a full page ad in Life magazine (which I remind you was The Shit in '48) taken out by RKO Radio Pictures, promoting four upcoming films. It's... What's the word? It's positively cute.

Looking at the types of films we see here, I get the feeling they're not expensive to make. A couple of actors or three. A few sets. Maybe a bunch of location shots in the Hollywood hills, or in the case of "The Window", the streets of New York.

Movies were cheaper to make, and not just in the "everything's expensive now" way. Turn on TCM, and movies were smaller in scope, generally. There were a handful of locations in the script, and a greater percentage of any given movie was shot in sound stages. More of the shooting was done on the back lot. In short, the natural progression of one-upsmanship and an increasingly competitive marketplace makes looking at movie ads this old nearly hilarious.

I mean, look at how little work RKO's promotional department had to do to advertise these films. Each movie gets a quick snapshot and a little blurb underneath. One may get the impression that RKO was a small company struggling to compete with it's larger brothers, but nope! RKO is described as one of the "Big Five" studios of Hollywood's "Goledn Age". They did, however, specialize in "B" movies more than the other studios. Of course there were elaborate blockbusters back in 1948. RKO made King Kong, after all. I wouldn't describe these films as "B" grade, though. They're just simple, I guess.

My point is this: "Wow! Advertising movies was much more straightforward in the past. Thanks for the insight, grandpa Phil. Time for your nap.

But look at that creepy kid! He needs some jokes!

Joke #1: I told them. I told them all I want a Red Ryder BB gun, with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time. They should have listened. They ALL should have listened. Now they'll all listen to me shoot their eyes out with my regular, non-Red Ryder BB gun with no compass or any things which tell time. Then they'll see how wrong they were.

Joke #2: Poor Zombie Joe was sooo bored. He had the chicken pox, so all he could do was watch the neighborhood brains frolicking and playing baseball down in the street all summer long...

Joke #3: Great. He'd done it again. Bobby had locked the keys in the house with the engine running. Having left the wipers going and the radio on just made him look even sillier.

Prell Shampoo - Super green.

This woman's hair reminds me of something. It took me a minute or two to figure it out, but I got it.

Ruby Rhod, from The Fifth Element, had a kind of similar thing on the front of his head. I'm not sure if I could talk to a woman with hair like this and not be constantly distracted by it. The curl on her forehead is so carefully formed, it looks like it was sculpted with epoxy. Nomatter how charming or fascinating she was, I'd always be wondering if I could hang my keys on it, or whether I could hide a fortune cookie inside the little cave. The roll of hair that extends around the back of her head reminds me of a stormtrooper's helmet. If these were science fiction tributes on her part, maybe I could live with it? Maybe it could be the foundation
of a strong relationship, with her continually remodeling her hair in the shape of Robot, from Lost In Space, or a colonial viper or something?

There are some wonderfully extraneous quotation marks in the copy. One of the shampoo's selling points is that it's "Easy to 'do' too". Why the quotes around "do"? Judging by the standard rule of squaresville, quotes are used to offset any strange slang that should be foreign to our mainstream whitebread tongues. Was the word "do" newly invented in 1948? The only explanation is that it had recently replaced the word "actuate". "Prell makes your hair easier to actuate too." Yep. That must be it.

Nice doctor picture. This calls for a joke list...

Joke #1: Nope. Nothing. Still nothing. Nothi... wait! I found the bullet! That ought to fix you right up, Ken. Sorry about that. I'm always a little jumpy when I'm cleaning one of my many guns and a patient shows up a few minutes early. So, let's have a look at that knee, shall we?

Joke #2: Yep. It's definitely a brain mole, Mr. Aaronson... and it looks like a republican one, too. You'll need this prescription John Carey shampoo, and try to make a donation to a science foundation. That should kill it easily enough.

Joke #3: Wow, performing brain surgery is so much better in 3D. I feel like I'm actually immersed in your brains. Pity the story is a derivative pile of shit, though.

Joke #4: Yep. There's your problem. You've got a very small logging company clear cutting your scalp. Shall I claim exclusive rights to the area and file a subpoena or just chain myself to a follicle?

Borden - Unholy cow!

Time's short today, so instead of skipping, I'll just post this Borden ad, with the terrifying anthropomorphized cow characters in it. As always, click the picture for a larger version, if you can muster the courage. You are too horrified to look, yet you cannot tear your gaze away from the wrinkly cow abominations with drooping skin and bizarre throat penises. You might also like to be creeped out by the fact that they all look like their very elderly... even the "child" cow. Enjoy your nightmares. You're welcome.

Los Amigos - Gone, but not digested.

Way back in "yore", most any restaurant, motel, or foot and ankle clinic sold postcards featuring pictures of the restaurant, motel, or foot and ankle clinic near the cash register. Presumably this was to help you remember that time you visited the establishment, whether because that's where your flat tire left you stranded for a few hours or you dropped in to get some corns frozen off while you did a load of whites at the laundromat next door.

Today's random blow on the ocarina of time brings us to 1970-something (the postcard had no date on it), when the Los Amigos restaurant was the undisputed king of the intersection of West Ballard road and Milwaukee Ave in Niles, Illinois!

In the early seventies, the Ladder Crisis had left thousands of restaurants unable to change their zip letter marquees for months. This led to some restaurants being forced to serve pepper steak long after reliable sources of beef had run out. Others had no choice but to feature the exotic rhythms of Lloyd and Debbie every night for the duration of the shortage.

The proprietors of Los Amigos had solved their signage problem by overcoming the force of gravity, enabling the implementation of their hoversign technology. Somehow, they had found the time to complete the unified field theory while still serving top quality Spanish and Mexican food at reasonable prices. Their unique hoversign allowed the manager to bring their sign within reach, to easily change the marquee as needed, sending the sign back to appropriate promotional altitude when the zip letter change was complete. This technology put the restaurant on top of the Niles Spanish/Mexican food scene during this difficult time.

In keeping with the seventies' obsession with velvet paintings, the Los Amigos commissioned this oil-on-velvet work depicting Santo Gordito, the patron saint of affordable Latin cuisine, performing "Danza de los Dos Estómagos" or the Dance of Two Stomachs. This brought the faithful to the Los Amigos from as far as Berwyn to pay tribute and take advantage of the Wednesday combo platter special.

Unlike their competitors, the Los Amigos provided house instruments for their entertainers. Luis Lopez and His Latin Band were a frequent feature of the Friday dinner experience at Los Amigos. They shared the Golden Curtain stage with the Giant Wooden Pillar, since they had no choice. It did keep the drum kit from scooting off the end of the stage, though.

Behind the bar was displayed a rare artifact of Pope Giant the First: a 24" diameter sunburst ornament from the top of his Holy Whapping Stick, which, according to legend, he used to drive his predecessor, Pope Medium, from St. Peter's Basilica in 1946.

The proprietors of Los Amigos never revealed how the ornament came into their possession, but the staff held prayer meetings before the ornament daily, chanting "bigger portions mean bigger tips".

Sadly, the Los Amigos era came to an end in 1979, when high winds blew the hoversign out over Lake Michigan. Patrons never again knew where to find their favorite entrees, The Three Burrito Feat and the Quesedilla Mi Dios.

Google maps shows that a strip mall now occupies the approximate location. If you use Street View to see the strip mall, you can see "Burrito House". Coincidence? Probably! Interesting? Possibly!


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Investigate Accidents - All kinds.

Joke #1: Investigate accidents. Makes a great date activity! Gawking at the blood-spattered misfortune of others brings you and your lover closer together. Free popcorn.

Joke #2: Investigate accidents. Car furnished. Expenses paid. Woman furnished. Hair color by availability only. Sickos only, please.

Joke #3: Train at home to investigate accidents, like this marriage. Help unfortunate couples understand how they became man and wife. Alleviate hopeless optimism! Terminate doomed relationships! Move in on divorced spouses! Only average education required. Average ethics optional.

Joke #4: "Two day ago I place ad in Pravda looking for husband. Now I live dream in big America with fancy American husband! We drive in car. We look at squishy people on highway. We... how you say... chase ambulance! Much action! Now life always exciting and sometimes make throw up. Much better than working in mop factory in Provisk!

Joke #5: Investigate accidents! Expenses paid! Car furnished with kitchenette, piano, fireplace, and ten-inch television!

PS: This ad was just above an ad for a radial arm saw. The career training costs money. The saw kit costs money. Irony is free.

Sealtest Triple Treat - Perfection.

I think this ad may be absolutely perfect. Gorgeous product shot. Bizarre and whimsical character. Great colors. Not too may words. I flipped the page and I wanted some ice cream. Also, I wanted it served to me by a mysterious paper bunny with eyes like pitiless chasms of malice.

Cut paper art always head-snaps me back to my early days in grammar school... like maybe first or second grade. Our text books often had illustrations done in colored paper, or better yet, crepe or tissue paper and backlit. The result was a slightly eerie stained glass effect, and since it had to be done with scissors, the shapes were simple and kind of abstract. Looking at the rabbit's arm, you can see that whatever they used isn't quite paper. It's got a thickness to it that makes me think of craft foam, but I don't think they had that in the fifties, did they?

This pink bunny pushes that button in my brain. His huge black eyes only contribute to the scary-compelling eerie-fun aspect. Since this ad is from 1955, you can be sure the rabbit was made with actual paper and not faked up in a computer. You can see the drop shadows under the paper, and they're real drop shadows, not a Photoshop layer style.

And look at the ice cream. Who wouldn't want some? Pink orange and white. Those are the best fruit flavors: some kind of berry, orange, and sugar!

 Incidentally, I did a search to see if this ice cream could be found anywhere. The results are depressing.

"In 1993, Unilever bought Breyers® and Sealtest® ice creams from Kraft and made them part of the Gold Bond-Good Humor Ice Cream Company in Green Bay, Wisconsin, renaming the company the Good Humor-Breyers Ice Cream Company."

Wow. Thanks Unilever, for acquiring everything and making me think of athlete's foot and bar graphs instead of summertime fun, you assholes. I found no evidence of the Triple Treat flavor of ice cream, but I did find other people complaining that it's gone. I also found someone trying to sell this full page ad (April 4, 1955) for $8.25. I think I bought the whole magazine for $4. Assholes abound.

It's supposed to be nice in Chicago today. Sunny and 80. have some ice cream. Just make sure it's not a Unilever brand.

P.S. I scanned this ad at extra high resolution because it's so great. 2217 x 3000. Right click and save. I was careful to leave the slightly yellowish paper grain in, but you can pretty easily P-Shop it out to pure white if you want it clean. As always, my watermark is unobtrusive and easily wiped away, too.

Texaco Sky Chief - Something funny going on.

There is was again. That funny feeling in the back of Ray Framp's mind that something funny was going on, right under his nose. He just couldn't put his finger on it.

Owning a gas station was a decent way to make a living. He couldn't spend every day at the station, but that was okay. He had Dan to manage it for him.

 Dan was young, but also a surprisingly good, enthusiastic guy that willingly took on responsibility. Ray felt good having Dan around, like he could breathe a little easier. Dan certainly knew the ins and outs of Texaco gasolines. He was always ready to explain how importance it is to keep your engine running clean and strong. Ray felt that, in time, when he was ready to retire, he could hand the station over to Dan, almost like a son.

Irene came to the station to fill up the Buick regularly. Ray was adamant about that. He wasn't having any second-tier gasoline put in his car. Nope. Only clean, pure Texaco, sold from his very own station. Irene was a good wife. She kept a neat house and was a safe driver. She could have married a lawyer or a factory owner, but she loved Ray for his dedication to quality gasolines. Ray's friends had made fun of him for marrying a woman so much younger than himself, but they didn't know Irene like he did. She was good as gold.

She came by the station every Saturday to top off the tank before going shopping. Ray liked to see her happy, chatting with Dan about the new formulations Texaco had on offer. What else was there to talk about? Nobody could hold a candle to Texaco's Petrox. Dan and Irene both knew that. Irene was gorgeous in her Lilac coat. God, he loved her.

But still. Something bothered Ray. Did Irene stare a little too long while Dan wished her a good morning? Dan was attentive and polite, as always, but was something different about his smile on Saturday mornings? Were his strong, reliable eyebrows a little too high? Cheeks a little flushed? He always straightened his tie when he saw Irene pulling up. Ray liked to see Dan keeping sharp in front of the customers. It's what kept them coming back.

But, boy, that nagging feeling. Probably just his imagination.

Motel Executive - Casual sexism! Here's how!

While enjoying a fossilized copy of Mechanix Illustrated, I came across these two ads, only a few pages from each other. Both can be filed under WTF for casual womanizing. Let's indulge...

"Be a high-paid hotel executive". That seems likely enough. Hotels are sometimes exciting, cosmopolitan places where romance and intrigue are always... wait. MO-tel executive? A motel is way different than a hotel. A hotel stands a chance of being a place of luxury and glamor. A motel is a place where tired vacationers lay their heads on their way to see the grand canyon, stopping briefly to see the world's largest shoehorn. That's if you're lucky. Become a motel "executive" and you're likely as not to be answering calls at two A.M.from an irritated senator to come fix the Magic Fingers bed.

Well, I suppose it could technically be true that they are "high-paid". "High" is a subjective term, or more probably a relative term. A motel executive's income could be described as "high" so long as you compare it to the right thing, like maybe a very talented fish, for example. Regardless of how gifted a fish may be, he or she is unlikely to be compensated for his or her time in the form of human money. It's much more likely that the fish would be rewarded with, umm, worms perhaps. Or that stinky flaky stuff that looks like cellophane confetti. What's it called? TetraFin? A motel "executive" would look like a pharaoh compared to some idiot fish who can spell "hello" in three languages. In that regard, the ad could be completely true.

They want to put me in that picture. Anywhere? Climbing the tree? That sounds pretty fun. Mowing the lawn? Less fun.I'm going to assume they mean to make me the happy guy ignoring the babe in the swimsuit. I don't want to be the swimsuit babe, but maybe that's part of the promise offered by the American Motel School. It's likely that the woman is a guest of the motel, but it's vaguely implied that the happy man has the option of having sex with the woman. This is kind of disturbing. Are we to assume that women who check in to motels by themselves are loose, or that swimsuit women have a thing for motel "executives" who kind of look like Kevin Spacey? Is sleeping with motel guests covered in the Motel Executive training? "Now, lots of dames that go to motels are what you call 'floozies', so you may want to try to get in bed with them in the middle of the night using your master key, also known as the 'sexy 'key', because of all the sex you can have." This seems unethical.

Much more probable is the idea that the motel executive is high while simultaneously being paid for working at the motel. Motels are a favorite location in TV dramas for scenes involving crack deals and stuff like that, so it's only natural that the executive runs a risk of becoming dependent on illegal substances. If I were a motel executive, I would either need to be paid very well, or to be psychologically impaired with the help of illicit drugs, what with all the de-crusting of bed sheets I would have to supervise as part of my daily duties.

Dap is good for sealing windows... maybe even better than putty. This is harmless enough. Then it gets weird. They just stuck in a pair of eyes at the bottom. They have nothing to do with the product or ad copy. They're just tacked onto the bottom of the ad in hopes of getting attention. Maybe we're supposed to believe that the woman is telling us about Dap glazing compound? Maybe we are to believe that we can have sex with those eyes if we fix our windows with the right glazing compound? Why do the eyes care so much about window maintenance? If the eyes are really into proper window care, I bet that, underneath the eyes you'll find a beard and a plaid shirt. No way am I going to make sex with those eyes, or their beard. Screw you, Dap. I'm fixing my windows with silly putty.