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Bottom Feeders and Sleazy Cheaters

By Rob Schultheis

Our economy may have hit an iceberg called Reality and be belly-up and bound for the depths of the Blake Sea Trough, but much if not most of the b.s. that scuttled it in the first place somehow survived the catastrophe and is still drifting around. One example: the Big Three auto CEOs who flew in their private jets to Washington to beg the Feds to bail them out, the same Feds who they had regularly anathematized and insulted in the past. And they weren't the only ones: earlier, the executives of a certain shady debt-ridden bank saw nothing wrong about celebrating their taxpayer-funded rescue by blowing a quarter of a million frogskins partying at a plush hotel, including thousands for room service, spa treatments and hooch.

I got to thinking about how often in times of disaster good things happen to bad people and bad things to good after I saw a particularly offensive insurance ad on t.v. the other night. Not all insurance ads are bad - the vicissitudes of the GEICO cavemen are far better than most network sitcoms - but this one took what is basically a corrupt, ex-tortionary industry* and attempted to pass it off as an engine of selfless altruism.

This yuck-worthy ad begins with a woman's voice crooning some fakey Joni Mitchell-type song about everyone gathering together for some unspecified righteous cause, and then goes on to celebrate a series of supposedly altruistic acts by "regular folks." The "altruistic acts" are so pathetic - stopping an old codger from stepping off the curb into the path of a bus, or seeing someone drop their wallet and calling to them, warning them that they did - that you know immediately what the advertisers are up to: making Joe Couchpotato/Pizza-Eater feel that he's really a "great guy," no matter how selfish and crummy he is in everyday life. Then the final bit of chicanery: we are told that the insurance company whose ad this is has the same kind of Good Samaritan-type saintliness as the "Average Americans" we have just seen.

If the global economy continues to plunge downward like Spiderman after a bottle of DDT and a Rotenone chaser, I expect to see more and more dishonest advertising that re-packages the same old coprolitic crud in sappy sentimental wrappers.

Maybe the Detroit Not-So-Big-Anymore Three can somehow make hybrid cars and energy-saving automotive technology seem Un-American. Check this out: Sam Suburbanite is driving his new 120 mpg Honda Sunlite past an auto junkyard when he spies Granddad's old gas-gobbling 1965 Chrysler or a car just like it, rusting away in an auto graveyard. Mystical music ripped off from Moody Blues out-takes and B sides; "Granddad's Chrysler!" Sam whispers under his breath, and suddenly he is a little boy, back in the Golden Age of the Mid-60s, running across the front lawn to greet his Granddad's Chrysler, now shiny and brand-new, pulling up to the curb with a bumper sticker bearing a peace sign and the words, "THE FOOTPRINT OF THE AMERICAN CHICKEN". Granddad piles out, his arms full of sacks of MacDonald's and KFC, a big smile on his face . . . which turns to a look of cosmic grief as Sam changes back into his 2009 self, standing next to his Japanese hybrid car - the burgers, fries, milkshakes, jumbo sodas and boxes of vitreous chicken fall from Granddad's arms as he stares in horror at his now grown-up grandson and his grandson's small foreign car -

He points accusingly at Sam and his Honda: "What - is - THIS?!?"

And all at once he is back in his Honda, in 2009, driving past the junkyard and the '65 Chrysler, moldering away . . . "I'm sorry, Granddad," he sobs.

Dissolve to one of the nation's last Chrysler dealership, where Sam is leaning on the hood of his new 2009 Chrysler Road Ruler, signing the papers, watched by a whitehaired kind-looking salesman. "And how much do you want in trade-in for the Honda?" the salesman asks.

"Nothing," Sam says. "Not a damned thing. I wish I'd never seen that rice-burning contraption - "And then he is squealing wheels out of the dealership parking lot. He already looks 10, 20 years younger; and when he turns the radio on, the Perfect Song is playing: "Bye Bye Miss American Pie" -

*You can't drive a car, buy a house or get health care in America unless you buy insurance from one of the big insurance companies. The problem is, insurance companies don't really produce or provide anything for what you pay: they take YOUR money, and if you need it back to cover some catastrophe they give as little of it back as possible, employing an army of attorneys and accountants to make sure you don't get too much; and another army of lobbyists makes sure the government doesn't interfere with the whole scam.