Hot town, summer in the city!
Yeah? It’s a while since The Lovin’ Spoonful cranked out those searing riffs and mind-sticking lyrics about heat, grit, love and rock `n’ roll on urban summer days and summer nights.
Gotta be more than 30 years ago, and my young kids know the lyrics by heart from exposure to rock radio! We boomers have got this society’s pop culture sewn up!
City summer nights alone in Toronto are no better than I remember them as a socially challenged teenager. I merely have more money, and am known at a better class of restaurant.
Still, or rather again, I trudge around as an observer more than as a participant in the revels of the warm, fragrant evening.
These days, summer weekday nights are now work-like-mad-’til-nine, then slide the Scarlet Racer down Avenue Road to Marketta or somewhere for a solo dinner at the bar (The Loves Ones being escamped in the Muskoka enclave), order a Montepulciano and read the bar copy of Esquire, first one I’ve picked up in a dog’s age.
The current issue is themed Women We’ve Loved in 1996. But what struck me was not the choice of ladies, whose physical qualities have not deviated noticeably from the ideals of my generation. (In fact, Cher is still there!) Rather, the absolute goofiness of the male models in the Dolce & Gabbana fashion ads passeth all understanding.
Hair chopped and lacquered into stiffly jutting tufts, thick-lipped and sleepy-eyed, wearing clothing that looks like it was hand-sewn in some Gulag prison, these guys look like druggy rejects from a casting session for Dostoyevski’s The Idiot.
There’s got to be a subculture influence here, but damned if I can put my finger on it. Do guys want to look this weird, or does a certain type of weirdo want guys to look this weird? Hmmm.
Home again, just in time to tune in Letterman, watch the man’s personality unravel another few yards, and catch up on some summertime late-night ad action.
Maybe, between Letterman’s self-flagellations, Now, more than ever, America’s Best Friend! and Gabbana’s Idiots, everything is gonna look kind of weird tonight, but bear with me.
The first station break has a Labatt Select spot set in a courtroom where a fast-talking lawyer is gabbling away at a jury, and you’re going what the hell is this when suddenly it’s over and the vo is saying the beer the law won’t let us call light!
Okay kids, let’s pretend we’re a target audience who likes light beer. Is this beer for us? Nooooo!
Now let’s pretend we’re a target audience who hates light beer! Is this beer for us? Nooooo! Go figure!
The Seager Hair Transplant Centre shows a dentist sort of guy drawing a circle on a bald guy’s head with a marker. the follicles go here, igor! Ugly scene.
A guy in a tweedy suit and winter scarf asks us have you been injured and then shouts don’t sign anything! David & David may or may not be smart lawyers, or even smart thinkers, but one of them has more leather-bound books in this office than you could shake a stick at.
Pella Windows has a spot, nicely timed for the mid-summer rush, where a drafty old window blows the toupee off some clown sitting too close. (Undoubtedly the same jerk who had his toupee blown off in last summer’s Sunoco billboards). The power line is new windows without a hair-raising price! They’re such comedians, those Pella people!
Not to be outdone on the late-night ad comedy circuit, Cleanol has a spot where their customer is such an animal that he wipes his messy mouth on his own white living room drapes, thus requiring Cleanol services. Nice.
The folks at Nestea have a spooky, Zen-inspired campaign for iced tea.
Meditative types stare fixedly at a glass of product while a voice intones The more you look at it, the more you want to taste it. The more you taste it, the less there is to look at.
And the meditative person sort of freaks out at this disquieting news. Are you thirsty yet? So help me, I’m not making this up! it’s on tv!!!
I won’t even mention Cash Converters who show these poor slobs mooching in with their sad old stereo tuners to pawn. Hey, I got enough for a two-four!
A Coors spot (You can’t fake smooth) seems to have been shot so damn far north the gloomy, treeless landscape is a real downer.
Hit of the hour were two nice spots for a new casino opening in Ontario at some place luckily called Rama, near Barrie, so we get Casino Rama, ho ho!
In one, an American Gothic look-alike couple cross days off a calendar counting down to the opening. A whistling kettle sound effect builds. Finally, the woman says, I can’t wait.
In the other, a guy on a ladder waits for the right second to drop a steel ball through spinning ceiling fan blades. He lets it go, and all hell breaks loose on the audio track as we fade to black.
Strange, but kinda funny. At last!
Barry Base is president and creative director of Barry Base & Partners, Toronto.
