Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Out of the Mouths of 'Babes'
A treasured memory from my days working in the radio business involved the owner of a mini-golf complex insisting on - as did many clients - writing his own advertising copy. Pacing around my studio like a caged...er...mini-golfer, he fretted that the copy we'd written - while good - just didn't have the oomph, the sizzle, the jazz, the pizzaz, the etc. As he left, he promised to think about it and let me know what he came up with. About two hours later, he called: 'I've got it! It's great-great-great! You're gonna love it! Here it is, and drumroll please: "Bud's Mini Golf: An Alternative to Something to Do"
I tried not to sound underwhelmed, and said something like 'Um, but - heh - er, don't you mean to say...?' But he wasn't having any of it. It was pure tag-line genius. Cut and Print! And it went right into the spot. And I preceded to laugh about it for the next few days. The guy had unwittingly summed up the true nature of mini golf in an epigram! It really is an alternative to something to do! Not that that description is limited to mini-golf, but still, it does catch the essence.
Reading Eric's - over at Total Information Awareness - understandable-but-hopeless attempt today to ascribe rationality to the Bush Administration's seeming disinterest in fighting al-Qaeda here in the US, brought to mind these words of wisdom from Britney Spears:
Cheap shot quoting Britney from 2002? Not really. This is the essence of B/C '04's message. Cheney, with his 'vote for us or else' statement in Des Moines, and 'ol Zell, with his 'it's unpatriotic to run against Bush' assertion at the RNC convention are saying the same thing, basically. Did Britney actually mean to say 'Be faithful that everything will turn out alright'? Probably. But what she actually said is perfectly descriptive of the message from the president's re-elect campaign: be faithful in what happens.
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I tried not to sound underwhelmed, and said something like 'Um, but - heh - er, don't you mean to say...?' But he wasn't having any of it. It was pure tag-line genius. Cut and Print! And it went right into the spot. And I preceded to laugh about it for the next few days. The guy had unwittingly summed up the true nature of mini golf in an epigram! It really is an alternative to something to do! Not that that description is limited to mini-golf, but still, it does catch the essence.
Reading Eric's - over at Total Information Awareness - understandable-but-hopeless attempt today to ascribe rationality to the Bush Administration's seeming disinterest in fighting al-Qaeda here in the US, brought to mind these words of wisdom from Britney Spears:
"I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens."
Cheap shot quoting Britney from 2002? Not really. This is the essence of B/C '04's message. Cheney, with his 'vote for us or else' statement in Des Moines, and 'ol Zell, with his 'it's unpatriotic to run against Bush' assertion at the RNC convention are saying the same thing, basically. Did Britney actually mean to say 'Be faithful that everything will turn out alright'? Probably. But what she actually said is perfectly descriptive of the message from the president's re-elect campaign: be faithful in what happens.
