the unbearable crassness of marketing

...or the bastard takes the machine and looks under the hood

you know, one of the trade off the bastard made here was whether to get broadband or to get cable tv. i chose broadband. sure, i'll miss the january season of the retooled (and self appointed best show on television by the show itself) "naked people reenacting battlestar galactica" on sci fi channel but, i figure i don't really watch that much television. that is to say, i don't follow that many shows. i was displeased to miss "the holiday cake off" on the food channel but if the bastard feels that compelled to watch the food channel's food porn contests, i'll go and download it. or i'll just go down to jacques torres' shop in dumbo and buy something decadent.

anyway, my mother, "gimpy", watches alot of network tv. i mean ALOT OF NETWORK TV. the bastard finds it fascinating how watching that much television turns into a job. one lunchtime, chicago jerkface and left hand rob were hashing it out with me trying to talk me into/out of netflix and how you have to make sure you blow throw your monthly minimum quickly so that you can in a sense "get over" on netflix. lefty, remarked on how it was a job to do that too. but i digress...

...one of gimpy's favorite shows comes from the csi franchise in which impossible scientific things help beautiful and handsome looking crime scene investigators solve crimes. the thing i find fascinating is that so many csi departments have such good looking people in each crew to cater to their core audience. that's marketing. i also find it interesting that the actual coroner is always some likable old curmudgeon who says many glib things to make us like him. that's marketing. so you got, every demographic is covered. are you middle aged? well gary sinise is easy on the eyes. so is that cat from manhunter who plays grissam in the vegas version. and don't get me started on that david caruso, he's a real lady killer.

either way, the bastard didn't start out here to comment on the obvious marketing behind the franchise and how they cater to all comers who browse past some version of the show (i can't wait for CSI tuscaloosa or perhaps CSI walla walla, who knows). what struck me funny is the crass product placement. it used to be, you'd find the occasional coke can lying around in a scene but i noticed a number of weeks ago, one of our protagonists gets called by his "girlfriend" to the tune of some new coldplay song. he actually says the name of the song. at the end of the episode they give you a number that you text message so that you can download that ringtone for 50 bucks. they did it again in this weeks episode. our guy from the last episode is locked in a panic room so he obviously can't pimp out his verizon phone so a hot looking locksmith's "girlfriend" called up as he was walking out of the scene and our female lead who looks like a poor womans sarah jessica parker, asks him if that's his phone going off. he stops....turns...smiles...and says, "yeah, me an mah gurlfren downloaded the same ringtone". he smiles again and i believe i saw his teeth sparkle right before i threw up on the living room floor. i had to leave before i passed out in a pool of my own sick. it was awful. at the end of the day (and this IS pretty much) the bastard feels bad not just for the mess i left on the floor to come down here and type about it but, i feel bad for society because the beast that is marketing isn't even trying to get slick about it. it's so in your face that you can't even watch it on tivo. i better get some lysol.

—the bastard