Criticult.Com

I don't watch a lot of television, but when I do I am always glad I live in the time and place that I do. The DVR is undoubtedly one of the greatest inventions in all of human history. Imagine - we have machines that do everything for us! My air conditioner runs when it needs to, my PC updates itself if I tell it to, my car tells me when the air in the tires is low, and now my television can watch itself without me!

Unfortunately they haven't invented anything to make commercials suck any less. I have 500 channels now and routinely find like that old Springsteen song, there's only ever anything I want to watch on three of them. And to make matters worse, all the cable channels apparently joined forces to make sure they all show commercials at the exact same time so it seems like when you surf from one channel to avoid a commercial it's just on another channel at the same time.

It's pure evil.

Which brings me to the subject of this post. As I recall cable television was supposed to be commercial free. That didn't last long, and now I have no recollection of those days or if they ever really did exist or were merely legend. I guess I shouldn't complain - there were no commercials because there were only two channels, A and B.

Great. Like I said, now I have 250 times that many channels and there's commercials on them about 60 percent of the time. And there are three commercials I hate more than all the others. They piss me off and while I can't remember ever buying something specifically because a commercial told me to, these products I will be sure not to buy no matter how bad off I get because I hate their commercials so much.

• Those Vonage commercials, with that smug, not very attractive girl in the orange shirt. You know, some dork representing 'the phone company' is talking about all their stupid pricing plans and then this chick in a Day-Glo orange shirt comes out with this stupid smirk on her face like she's the one who invented pizza. And then she starts ripping into his shit. I have nothing against Vonage, in fact some of their old commercials are pretty funny, like the one with the blonde at the beach with the sharks. I just hate this one. I think it's because I hate smug, condescending people like the chick in this commercial. I already don't use Vonage's internet phone service because I can theoretically already use my PC and talk to anyone else on the planet free of charge as it is. I can also use it to tell the world how much I hate that stupid commercial. Mission accomplished.
  
• The Aleve commercials where the people break into spontaneous dance because Aleve has changed their lives. I am not talking about the Super Bowl commercial or the Leonard Nimoy one. No, there's one with a redhead dancing with her kid, and then some wiry looking blonde guy who looks like one of Madonna's backup dancers, a black guy and then an Hispanic man. He asks: "How does a man who survived Woodstock deal with back pain?" My question is what the hell does one have to do with the other? Are you saying that just like in 1968 you feel that drugs are the answer to everything, you dried up old hippie? Then this totally gay sounding song (Yes- it's gay. Very gay.) plays and he starts jumping around like he's got ants in his pants. Warning! Side effects may include acting like a complete homo! Apparently Aleve is for back pain. Well, you'd have to break mine in three places to get me to take that shit since their commercials are so dumb.
  
• And then there's the commercial I hate more than any other in existence. Every time it comes on it makes me question what I am watching because demographics play a large part in what commercials get shown when. Well apparently I occasionally watch the same thing as pot bellied, middle aged men who are incontinent, have bladder control issues, high blood pressure, color their hair, and have limp dicks. This is because I see that mother fucking Viagra commercial a little too often for my liking. You know the one, where a bunch of codgers are sitting around with musical instruments and one of them just starts belting out 'Viva Las Vegas', and they all start playing along. Except they're not singing about Las Vegas, they're singing about taking Viagra and getting some stank on the hang-lo. Usually when people sing about taking drugs and getting laid it has an entirely different connotation, so I guess the irony is a little funny when you think about it that way. But I am way, way too young to be thinking about it that way. I suppose if I hadn't had an erection in 20 years Viagra might make me sing out loud too. Then again, if your biggest problem in life is that then you either aren't trying very hard to get laid or you are just too damn old to be having sex. Your heart couldn't take it old man, just turn on Fox News, pour yourself a Maalox and enjoy your golden years. Plus, imagine a bunch of guys sitting around hanging out and suddenly one of them says "Hey everyone, let's all sing a song about our dicks!"

You're kidding, right? If I ever wrote a song about my dick that didn't sound like Whitesnake I would fully expect my friends to deliver me such an epic beat down I'd end up in one of those Aleve commercials.


In fact if you're writing songs about your dick at all and your name isn't Howard Stern you need to show me the wormhole that opened up and delivered you here from 1981 because somewhere there's a hair metal band missing a lead singer.