Last Sunday, in the middle of the song "Angeles" by Elliott Smith, a sad, ambiguously creepy feeling came over me. I was listening to my generation's lost Lennon. Yesterday, I brought this up to a friend of mine in a casual conversation over a few beers at Quimby's. The idea was dismissed as hyperbole and talk quickly shifted to golf. Or football—whichever.

If you're familiar with Elliott Smith's music, you might think a comparison to Nick Drake would be more fitting, and you might be right. They both wrote gorgeous, sadly sweet melodies and were true artists with the guitar. And of course, they both committed suicide.

But I'm thinking of something else. Lennon and McCartney both had extraordinary Pop instincts, and while Lennon seemed to willfully abandon his in the 70s, his songs always connected a bit more deeply than McCartney's—I think most Beatle fans would agree.

Elliott had what Lennon had, and if his songs had been written in the sixties, his name would be as Household as anyone in music. Elliott Smith's songs were poems fortunate enough to be paired with the right music. Upon first listen, they produce a feeling that you've heard them before. Elliott was plucking fruit off the tree of inevitability—and few people, living or dead, have the genius to reach those branches.

Labels: tunes

In today's Washington Post, you'll find this article, an interview with Tonya Harding that focuses on her celebrity boxing "career". I don't have to say anything to denigrate the celebrity boxing thing. It takes care of itself just fine in that regard. Likewise, making fun of Tonya Harding is pointless, because no one does it better than Tonya herself. To wit:

Does Tonya envy Nancy? "No, why would I?" she says coldly. What Harding wants is to make tons of money boxing and then retire to live alone with her Persian cat, Smalls. "It would be having enough money to go hunting and fishing and go to the big four-wheel-drive mud bogs," she says. "And every once in a while put on a really pretty dress and go to dinner at a place like Applebee's or something."

The recent explosion of interest in poker, in particular Texas Hold 'Em, has to be the most fascinating craze I've seen in years. If there's any doubt that TV is still the biggest trend machine, the poker phenomenon snuffs it. As far as I can tell, it started with the Travel Channel.

I caught a few episodes last year and thought it was strange programming for a channel ostensibly dedicated to exploring the world's many destinations. It wasn't a Vegas special. It was a poker show. I couldn't turn it off—I just had to see the river.

The channel was soon running ads for its program in practically every 12-minute rotation. Viewers increased exponentially. Then came coverage by ESPN and Bravo. Bravo—formerly the "old movie channel"...televising poker.

So how is it that a game once associated with toothpick-chewing, Lee jean-wearing, giant belt buckled, leatherfaced cattle rustler types like this guy has crept into the mainstream? Four reasons, in my view:

4. The addicting nature of the game.
3. The money and "anyone can play" aspect is alluring.
2. Excellent coverage by the aforementioned channels.
1. Celebrity involvement.

Specials like Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown have brought people to the game who otherwise wouldn't have given a damn. The power of celebrity. Sigh...

Your in-flight magazine is likely to have an interview with some guy from the midwest who won it all in the nineties, before anyone cared. There are online games popping up everywhere. It's the Thing To Do on college campuses. There are poker magazines, poker websites, dedicated Web logs, open tournaments popping up in bars across the country, and a long list of upcoming Big-TV events. ESPN is set to air 22 one-hour episodes of the World Series of Poker. And there is talk of...gulp...The Poker Channel. Coming soon to a cable box near you.

I'll start the shitfilter with an easy mark. The most recent A-1 steak sauce commercial is such a complete failure that I can't imagine the creative director is still directing anything. If he or she is, well...let's just say there are many talented people in the advertising field. This person can't be one of them. The commercial is yet another reminder that the ad world is full of "creatives" that belie their title.

If you haven't seen it, a man and a woman are sitting at a table eating steak and saying nothing, which is weird enough. They made the steak look like display-case wax, but that's nitpicking. The woman opens her gaping maw in an awkward "feed me that wax, you stud" pose. The man brings the fork-pierced wad ever-closer, and pauses. The camera pans to a blob of A-1 stuck to the woman's cheek. It's small and round enough to look more like a mole than a spot of "product".

So, of course, the man uses his last bite of "steak" to wipe off the woman's sauce mole, and chews it with a stupid grin. She gives him a look that I suppose was intended to suggest quasi-comical indignance. Instead, it's a look of "Hopefully this ad will only run for a month and it'll look pretty good on my acting resume once it's forgotten."

Kraft, who makes A-1, is a great company that has been around since the Bronze Age. I imagine the advertising agency who got this job is probably staffed with some bright, creative people. This is what makes this commercial so bewildering. This is a food product, yet this might be the most purely unappetizing commercial that I can ever remember seeing.

I like their "Mhm...it's that important" slogan just fine—even though it isn't. They should stick with it but use it to punctuate better ideas. Common sense: If you're selling a product that you want people to eat, don't make their stomachs turn. An ad that tries but fails to be funny doesn't whet the appetite, either.

Labels: advertising

First things first: This design is temporary until i have the time to actually build this thing. This could be next month, and it could be a date only significant in geologic time. The latter is more likely, but I promise (me) that the answer will fall somewhere in between. The Promise thing. Gotta keep 'em easy. Even when they're important only to oneself.

But this will get The Stone rolling. It's currently covered with the moss of chronic back-burnerage.