Ad Ramblings

November 28, 2007, 2:30 pm; posted by
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The other day on the radio I heard two ridiculous advertisements back to back. The first was from the irascible Billy Fuccillo. I enjoy his work, but this time he sounded like he’s finally slipped into complete insanity.

It started with perennial straight man Tom Park listing some of Thanksgiving’s glories. Tom explained how he can’t wait to “taste the turkey, taste the stuffing, the cranberry sauce,” when suddenly Billy burst in — “THE DALLAS COWBOYS!”

Before we could consider how exactly Fuccillo might be familiar with the “Taste of the Cowboys,” there was an obvious cut. In this ad, the audio was spliced together in a painfully desperate attempt to get something useful from the bumbling blather. These days, it seems Park just leaves the mic on for hours, trying to herd Billy into 10 or 15 seconds of usable pratter before the inevitable “UUUUUUGE!!” requires a donut-fueled reboot.

Billy’s voice grew low and respectful. “I know we all have a lot to thank the Lord fer,” he explained. After listing a few of his reasons for gratitude, he incongruously added, “…and I’m a leg guy! Yeah, I like the thigh!”

Park seemed stunned. It was all going so well! “You’re a leg guy?”

Earlier, Park was talking food and Billy changed the subject to giant, sweaty football players. But now Fuccillo suddenly shifted from thanking the Lord “fer” his family into a bizarre meat-based double entendre! Think quickly, Tom! Think quickly!

But before he could, Billy again returned to a somber tone. “But yeah, we have a lot of people to thank.” Then just as quickly, right back to Crazyland! “I like the legs, okay? Nice!!! That’s uuuuuuge!”

And it was over.

I had to wonder how long Tom sat in his production studio rubbing his eyes before finally muttering, “What the heck, let’s go with the spot where he tastes the Cowboys and screams about thighs! Who’s listening the day before Thanksgiving anyway?”

 

Directly thereafter, a woman with a soothing voice came on. I was immediately on my guard, because unless you’re incapacitated, a kitten, or an incapacitated kitten, women only use their soothing voice when they want something from you.

Sure enough — she had a very important message to share with me about an issue affecting New York farms. I thought, as a non-farmer, am I free to ignore this important message? But immediately, she answered me. “If you like to eat, it affects you too.”

That’s me! I enjoy eating! I do it every day — sometimes twice! How did she know?

Well, friends, it turns out the biggest crisis facing New York farms isn’t taxes, weather, disease or government — it’s the inability to make it legal for farms to employ illegal immigrants to milk cows, pick grapes and stack hay. “Without meaningful legislation, our farms could go out of business!,” the soothing woman entoned.

I headed over to their bucolic website, where they print out a helpful letter I can email to my representative. It includes startling assertions like, “Without a temporary guest worker program for agriculture, New York farmers will not be able to continue to provide safe, healthy, and locally grown foods for our New York consumers.”

Apparently the Farm Bureau believes that unless Congress makes it okay for them to break the law to get menial labor accomplished, their farms will shut down. Of course this just isn’t true. This country doesn’t exactly have a shortage of unskilled laborers (just go to the mall), and if Americans won’t pick grapes for minimum wage, maybe wages (and prices) should go up.

But the biggest problem I have, aside from the fact that the Bureau wants to ignore the law to make more money, is the way these workers are being treated by their so-called ‘defenders.’ What we have is a modern-day slave trade, where jobs thought to be beneath “real Americans” are filled by the poor from other nations, so desperate for a better life that they will work in terrible conditions for a pittance, living in constant fear of discovery and deportation.

And then their exploiters have the unmitigated gall to stand up and tell me — in a soothing voice, of course — that if Congress won’t make this slavery legal, they’ll to go out of business? Then what, we’ll import our milk from China and India? I don’t think so.

The idea doesn’t make economic sense — and beyond that, it’s morally wrong.

I’m still not sure which commercial was crazier.


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