Dear J-
The TiVo is on the fritz again, which means watching commercials; no, really, it means going back to the terrestrial signals. Digital transmission means that the picture isn’t wavy, snowy, or ghosted — glorious high-definition ads flogging cars people aren’t buying crawl across the screen. Yet it’s the local ads that are the most interesting. Rather than the slickly-produced perfection of national ads, there’s a certain earnestness in company owners pressed into service as spokespeople; evergreen regional icons like Cal Worthington take the stage against the latest blockbuster, each hoping for name recognition the next time your wallet gets unshipped.
Warhol predicted everyone would have their fifteen minutes of fame; whether local outlets, vanity publishing, internet, or unknown future means, we have all kinds of egalitarian outlets for expression. My age betrays itself in still secretly pining for some sort of exposure on a PM Magazine, as if to believe that only the holy trinity of visual, print, or aural media are the only true measures of notoriety. Growing up, birthday wishes inevitably revolved around being recognized for some amazing awesomeness, whether theory (I was convinced that discovering the square of any integer n was equal to the sum of the first n odd numbers starting from 1 was going to win something) or invention.
And yet … and yet lately the ambition turns to things smaller but no less important. It’s amazing, having a little fan who can’t wait to hug you as soon as you get home; one who begs and cajoles (“Daddy I want TV. TV?”) and lays her head on your shoulder and whispers “I love you” as reward for bearing her around parks, theme or otherwise.
Mike
Tags: cal worthington, commercials, hi-def, terrestrial, TiVo
