Depeche from Absurdistan — Part I
In what, reportedly, was originally entitled “When Harry met a perky friend who felt compelled to pretend having an orgasm in a public restaurant, at an unusually sturdy table, that made increasingly envious onlookers order ‘what she’s having!’ …” — we all appreciate the awesome power of brevity when it was cleverly shortened to “Sally”. As such, with the average sperm count as low as it reportedly already is, let’s quickly focus on 2 topics you likely never once bothered to know more about:
1. Can you get ‘type-cast’ in pharma commercials? I’d argue, NO. True, some actors seem to be making a perfectly decent living out of playing the same type over and over. This is fundamentally different from a one-trick pony in that it makes hay as opposed to eating it — Think ‘Bond, James Bond!’ [as in “Skoddis(c)h, not stirred”]. That as it may be, if you’d play a fictitious patient across a variety of different drug commercials, you pretend actually having all these illnesses — asthma, eczema, IBS and ED, you got it all, a representative selection of the World’s most deadliest cancers garnished with a tad of early-onset Alzheimer’s, you have it, you dog — you don’t remember? naturally — doesn’t matter anyhow since you also can’t see your cue cards, courtesy of macular degeneration, or hear the director’s subtle jokes about your premature hair loss since, well, you’re deaf on one ear or at least have tinnitus on both; and, if all that makes you profoundly sad even before (your HbA1c-shattering) lunch it’s OK, since you apparently have also been diagnosed with depression during the last commercial which has been uncharacteristically cut short by the best heart attack your sky high cholesterol numbers can buy. Really? Truth be told, no pre-inebriated day-time TV audience would ever accept that the very same sorry sod has been diagnosed with all these illnesses at once (Hello — how unlucky can one guy be?) and, what’s conceivably an even bigger feat, who on Earth could possibly survive popping all these new drugs whose made-up names most can’t remember much less pronounce, and — “full disclosure” — which sport ‘side effects’ so serious that, even if read at warp speed, one wonders what’s worse, disease or cure — you already know what’s cheaper (so does your insurance). The bottom line — you can’t easily parlay pharma work into a recurring gig like ‘Flo’ from Progressive or ‘Jake’ from State Farm — else, simpler souls would legitimately start to wonder why you haven’t kicked the bucket by now or why that prescription-strength wonder drug hasn’t cured you, finally, to get you off the screen. Good points, both. I’m telling you all this so that you ask for maximum salary for your one and very likely only pharma commercial — unless of course these are union jobs in which case the most recent SAG-AFTRA strike was a Godsend for you. Sooner or later, I’ll read about it on LinkedIn, I’m sure, with all the other self-congratulatory sh*te.
2. Next, if we’re truly honest with ourselves, one can’t but wonder if getting a call from someone at “We Buy Ugly Houses” is a compliment, regardless of the time of the day? That’s a tough one, gents. Clearly, and without overthinking it, I’d say it depends on the intonation of the stated proposition: Is the caller’s emphasis on ‘buy’ it sends a completely different, more transactional message than if the focus rests unmistakably on the word ‘ugly’ (which, as a qualifier, is, no-doubt, problematic unless used in conjunction with ‘duckling’). The latter implies that your ‘cozy, all-original’ dwelling lacks basic amenities including running water and so, mercifully a bulldozer has been trained on this tear down piece of garbage as an overdue service to humanity, i.e., a necessity, really, rather than an opportunity. One must acknowledge in earnest though that even a cursory stroll through the neighborhood reconfirms that this company will surely run out of money long before it runs out of targets to buy, and that’s even without seeing the inside of most. I read that they are the number #1 home buyer in the US which is no vote of confidence for the architectural prowess sprinkled over the residential real estate market. Rest assured, when experienced broker agents chirp that as long as it’s painted yellow, it’s the bones of a house that matter, all things location being equal that is — they didn’t refer to Greek revival complete with ‘Mannequin Piss’-inspired granite angels on the chrome front gate, or say Mid-century ‘New Jersey’, complete with Koi pond, and of course ‘properly’ updated in the 80s with a brutalist concrete touch that would have made Ceausescu proud and Frank Lloyd Wright cry. Taking a long overdue sledgehammer to the rallying cry of every hoarder, we revise it ever so slightly to: ‘One person’s treasure, is another person’s — who happens to have much better taste — trash’.
So, stay vigilant as ‘ugly’ is out there. Drugs can leave, but won’t cure bad taste, while the opposite holds for money. And so, in closing, and admittedly entirely unrelated, always remember when you’re ripping off quotes for your superfluous, high-frequency social media postings — there is a huge difference between ‘Gand-hi’ and ‘Gand-alf’ — one was filmed in India the other in New Zealand.
