Now I can't be positive about this, because I'm too lazy to check, but I'm guessing that as long as man has been around, so has advertising. Darwinian evolution is, after a fashion, advertising in many ways: a peacock's plumage, a warbler's song, a balding old guy's Maserati. As long as barter and trade have been around, so has advertising, in some form or another. So we've been doing this a very long time. These days, the large media companies feed us our steadiest diet of advertising: TV ads, radio ads, billboards, pop-ups, whatever. So you know there's a towering amount of money that goes into not only making these ads, but also in tirelessly researching them, ostensibly to maximize their effect. So knowing all of this, realizing that for millenia, mankind has studied, refined, and flogged the holy fuck out of all things ad-related, the stupefying question remains: how come they all still fucking suck so bad? I mean, Christ almighty, what's it going to take?

Take, for example, the baffling existence of a band like Smash Mouth. They were clearly grown in a vat somewhere, molded out of protoplasm and programmed with the DNA of bong-huffing frat boys, and then unleashed upon an unsuspecting world with a mission to concoct terrible, derivative, limp cock-rock suitable only for: advertising. And of course their appalling music gets used in every fucking car ad, every soda pop ad, what have you. Never anything good, of course, nothing funny, like, say, Fleet enemas, maybe just what-the? nonsensical, like Heinz tomato paste. Wouldn't that be fucking great? You could show a whole bunch of fresh-faced teens gamboling merrily on the beach or something, while "All Star" plays boisterously, and they all ecstatically wave their cans of tomato paste around.

(Incidentally, the only way I can survive that particular song any more is to mentally change the lyrics to "Hey now, you're a crack whore, get your game on, go play/ Hey now, you're a crack whore, get the show on, get paid." I recognize that this is crass, and hope I don't hurt any crack-whorish feelings out there.)

There is an ad that plays here in Seattle pumping a local "oldies" radio station (I hate the term "oldies" for stations that play things like the Beatles--play me some fucking Gregorian chants or something) that features "everyday people"--just like you and me!--singing along to the radio, only they mess the words up! It's so cute! Except it's not; it's a horrendous soul-fuck, because the"oopsies" are just mind-bogglingly stupid. One guys starts it out, singing along to "Pretty Woman:" Pretty woman, walking down the street/Pretty woman, a candle on her feet . . . " Oh ho ho! Those aren't the lyrics, sir! Why, that makes no sense at all! But oops, here's another one, and this time it's a cute widdle moppet in the back seat of a car, singing along with her mom to "Ticket To Ride:" She's got a chicken to ride, and it's in her hair!" Ma'am? Your child eats lead. The ad concludes with some asshole in the shower mangling the lyrics to "Sugar Pie Honey Bunch": Sugar fried honey butts! His bulldog looks on while the viewer mentally pleads with the it: Please destroy him. Tear out his jugular. Needless to say, this ad fills me a bracing terror and firm loathing: I assume not what KBSG was going for. "How are our rage-inducement numbers?" "Stellar!"

Speaking of needless affliction of rage on a populace, what in the holy hailing fuck is up with our nation's phone companies? Just off the top of my head, here's some of the ghastly visages they've wrangled to hawk various phone-related products or services: Carrot Top. David Arquette. Mr. T. Alf. Mike Piazza. Terry Bradshaw. Alyssa Milano. Howie Long. Jesus Christ! It's like Lucifer's own fucking talent show! What sensible person would arrange for this dismal assemblage of z-talents to shill for their products? A sociopath couldn't come up with a more awful set of names. It's saying something incredibly ominous when you survey the whole lineup of phone company spokesthings and discover that the most charming presences are Ving Rhames and Vanessa Williams.

Jesus, the phone companies even bone the dog when they don't use ghastly, wraithlike uncelebrated uncelebrities. Five* illustrative words: "Can you hear me now? Good." If you aren't gnashing your teeth at that, you're either a hermit, and congratulations on that; or you've already succumbed to death, and are just a gritty husk. I won't congratulate you on that, but at least you won't have to hear "All Star" any more.

*Where "five," of course, means "six." I've been drinking all day.