The Age of Bull

               To really appreciate the absolute bullshit world we live in, one need only watch a football game.  That the activity unfolding before one is both contrived and violent is one thing but to be bombarded with one inane commercial after another is testament to a system designed to cajole and to entice one into buying useless shit.  The great American pastime is a testament to violence and excess.  That underlying our world is subtle reminders how far we have digressed overtime, or how we haven’t progressed at all. 

               Let us take the Bud Light commercial that ends with the tag, “it’s only weird if it doesn't work. “ Isn't that a great argument for superstition?  So in the 21^st Century we have some brain trust informing us that if you act like a total asshole and your team happens to score that it is best if you continue that behavior because that may just be deciding factor in the game.  It is amazing that this asinine proposition actually made it through commonsense editing, and making the absurd ridiculous is to witness how many times it is actually repeated.  It is hard to believe that any moron would actually believe it would work, so why air it at all.  That some advertising ass can present some logical if not cute explanation and defense of this spot does not diminish the fact that it is only an ignoramus who would judge it to be effective, not withstanding the focus group of Neanderthals who judge it effective.

               That there should be some law to make these gnomes of public persuasion conform to some standards is far from becoming a reality given the idiots who are in the majority in Congress who feel any curtailment of stupidity in society smacks of socialism.  Yet, there should be some common sense approach to advertising to at least limit the promotion of illegal behavior.  At the top of the list of advertisers that should be reined in are car companies and their devious promoters.  There is hardly a car company that doesn't promote reckless and irresponsible driving.  While one might see these spots as some goofy representation of a particular car, we must not discount the absolute idiocy of the viewership.  Take the beer commercial and superstition or the erection commercials and the subtle messages that stupid works and age has nothing to do with physical attraction.  In the former case, anyone believing that throwing cheese doodles in the air helps a team or if he thinks it cute might be susceptible to trying to race his small car to a stop and execute an one-eighty degree turn especially if he has consumed a half bottle of vodka so that he might attract a bevy of fashionable models.  The medium is the message and the message is that a great majority either enjoys or tolerates countless minutes of bullshit.

               That these mind numbing messages are repeated with such frequency as to permanently scar our brain tissue demonstrates that those who produce and buy this crap understand the human psyche.  That they would use this knowledge for no other purpose than to promote that which is, in the short and long run, detrimental to the human condition signals the direction the 21^st century has taken.  Two of the major conditions facing this nation are diet related diseases and alcoholism, add to that violence and you have a society in a precipitous decline.  Our national pastime glorifies all of that.  I am no saint nor am I immune from the national pastime.  I am but one among the millions, yet I refuse to endorse this never ending stream of bullshit.  I refuse to think that a pill and an erection, a can of beer and some stupid ritual, produces anything positive in my life.  I think all this tells me that progress and evolution have not eliminated the more deleterious characteristics of a species.  That advertising agencies continue to apply their knowledge of our behavior to our base instincts, that a sixty minutes game is expanded to three hours so the mind shapers can bombard us with their subtle and devious messages tells us that the forces that govern our world are designed for purposes that are as base and raw as the televised event.  The unreal world of bullshit engulfs our humanity and renders us as little more than fools.  One need only to look at the crowds in the stadiums to confirm that observation.