Delivered to the Boise Ad Fed for the annual holiday roast of advertising at Lost Grove Brewing on Jan. 28th, 2022.
MAD MAX VS MAD MEN
I call this outfit Mad Max meets Mad Men.
After all, what do you wear to the end of the world…in advertising.
I honestly cannot believe I’m spending the apocalypse attempting to help capitalists scare up qualified sales leads in a minor media market.
[sings, appeals to heavens] *Oooooo Fortuna!*
Do you ever pause in meetings on like…[upbeat] *interactive digital strategies for boomers* or whatever, look around at your masked–slash–Zoomed–slash–trauma-bonded colleagues, and ask:
“This…is a joke right?”
[ditz voice] *‘Cause it’s not super funny.*
No one wants to talk to me in meetings. I wonder why.
[uptight voice] *Mute button please!*
I mean, I’ve always thought…if I’m gonna weather a dystopia…where are my like…souped up death trap monster vehicle desert road trips and monotone jumpsuits that look like Kanye West and Julia Fox are going on a date at.
That’s both a Mad Max callback…
…and a shoutout to the his-and-her hellscape fashion collection that’s obviously in development from “Ye” and Julia Fox. But did you see that all jean ensemblé with the coned boob crop top jacket? Apocalypse now me, baby.
Not going to lie, is this whole comedy set a little dark?
[upbeat] It’s like John Mulaney…
[downbeat] …after the rehab.
2019 vs 2022
At our last BAF holiday roast, in 2019, I made the joke that to keep my sanity, I spent most of my time toggling between political and murder podcasts. Cause we’ve all gotta go somehow.
*Painful irony.*
Post 2020 and 2021, to maintain my *sparkling* insanity I plow through fat rails of Antiwork Reddit and mainline TikTok all day long.
[mime bad ice cold gesture]
15 seconds of mind-numbing bliss, straight to the vein.
[dork voice] *GenZ, will you accept me into your super cool anarchy!*
Sincerely,
GenX
No cap, I’m too old to be a cheugy millennial.
[old person voice with cane] *I’m OG cheugy.*
About a year ago, there on TikTok, I beheld an Idaho stoner with serious swag and a skateboard sail on into his bliss with just an Ocean Spray and a Dream(s)…from Fleetwood Mack.
[mime skateboarding and drinking OceanSpray]
[sings]
“Now there you go again,
You say,
You want your freedom….
Well who am I to keep you down.”
The bottle label, glistens against the gray sky. The essence of cran-raspberry blooms in your mouth. At long last… in a bleak broken down world… you are alive. Or at least, this guy is…
It’s the best commercial ever made.
I knew then, as an overpaid professional copywriter and commercial conceptor, it was time to hang up my puns…I mean pens.
[surfer dude voice, mime smoking]
Hit the pipe!
[skating curve hand]
Then the half pipe.
DYSTOPIA: THE REBRAND
Then I thought. I’m a goddamn professional. This whole so-called “dystopia” just needs a “reframing.” A “repositioning.” A “brand makeover.”
Then it hit me. Bring back the classics. Or just The Classic. All we need to do is recut that famous 1984 Apple Commercial.
You remember it.
Drones of people under bleak florescent lighting wear montone jumpsuits and fashion masks. [knowing looks]
There’s a militant police presence. [knowing looks]
From the big screen in the background, glowing off the vacant staring faces, propaganda from a rich old white man drones on:
“We shall prevail…” [riiiiiiiiight flip off gesture]
Then the hot socialist chick in the tight red hotpants holding a daddy USSR hammer runs in. Shattering the screen.
Voiceover: “This time, 1984 won’t be like 1984.”
NEW CUT to: Tight on a new screen where, caught in 4k, we see a meme-y montage of billionaires doing *tone deaf* billionaire things, ending with Jeff Bezo’s rocket penis inserting itself, unwanted, into space.
Pan out to see that the screen is an iPhone, glowing up in the fashion masked faces of the monotone clad drones.
We hear an alluringly familiar but robotic female voiceover.
“Sike.
My name is Siri.
I am 1984.”
[Drops iPhone mic.] Fades to black void.
Isn’t it ironic?
Don’t you think?
[bitchy teacher voice] Alanis?
It is a bit meta. Oh wait. Mark Zuckerberg trademarked that word.
This is now the Metaverse(TM) and we’re all just living in it.
COCKROACHES OF ADVERTISING
Even though my profession is advertising, like any cold-blooded American I’ve paid off every inch of Silicon Valley to cock block all vestiges of advertisement out of my existence.
Here, in this self-styled marketing wasteland, only the cockroaches of advertising remain. You see two breeds.
[hold finger for one] The graphic foot fungal banner ads with the*dis-gus-ting* chalky white toenails that cling like rats to every sinking celebrity gossip blog. Another plague one cannot avoid.
[hold finger for two] Who else to but to skuttle in from every random corner…the Gecko. No matter what you do. What happens. That fucking lizard is everywhere. I swear to God, he’ll be there at the bitter end, making witty banter with Zombies, saying,
[British voice] “Brains. You know what takes brains, saving 15 percent or more on Car Insurance with Geiko…”
Word up. I’m Jessica Holmes.