Word Play: How I Stave-Off Depression

December 9, 2010 / Deanna / Leave a comment

I love words, and I don’t just mean when I use them to blither about blogging; I love saying words.

But not just any words… I relish the feeling of saying certain words, usually in pairs, forcing the proper pronunciation even if tweaking their meanings.

I think it began at some point in junior high… I’m not sure how or why, of any context for learning the term, but once I heard “spina bifida,” I couldn’t say it enough. It was a delight for my mouth and tongue to form and repeat over and over again in a rush. What a rush!

However, being that it’s a Bad Thing, I then turned it into a swear — only uttered when alone. I’d sputter an angry “spina bifida” when stubbed my toe or something.

After awhile, the Pavlovian response was to equate the spoken word with the pain and I stopped doing it. …Saying the medical condition’s name, not stubbing my toe or otherwise hurting myself, that is. I am still a klutz.

As an adult, my phrase-o-fun became “naked gnomes” — something I found as fun to visually imagine as to physically say.

Actually I can, and often do, cheer myself up still today (quite literally), saying “Naked gnomes!” It makes me giggle. Even when the kids wrinkle their noses at any utterance of any nudity. Or maybe that’s an added benefit. …That’s a tough one to call.

Go ahead, try it yourself. Say, “Naked gnomes!” a few times and see if you don’t find yourself smiling.

The latest spate of pharmaceutical ads has made “norepinephrine” my latest bit of word fun.

I know, I know; it’s only one word. But I did say that usually it was pairs of words — plus, my twist is that I pronounce it “Nora Pinephron.”

“Why?” I imagine you ask (because certainly you asked neither for nor about any of this).

Because the first time I recall hearing about norepinephrine it was in conjunction with a means of treating depression, and I instantly thought of Nora Ephron; she certainly lifts my depression.

It is at this point that the educated word lover in me is reminded of all my formal English and professional communication education; this post, along with breaking several grammar conventions, I am sure, is lacking the most very basic cornerstones of communication: A freaking point.

I have no real purpose for sharing any of this. But if you yourself enjoy speaking specific words, or give mine a try and are delighted in the experience, please let me know. Maybe then I have a point after all.

Dear Chad, Alltel Customer Service Sucks

February 18, 2010 / Deanna / 4 Comments

A few months ago we switched to Alltel. I love my LG Touch phone, but the other day I had a problem with text messages (a long story) and needed to call for help. You’d think this would be simple, but it wasn’t.

First I had to get another phone so that I could poke, prod, etc. my LG Touch per their directions; then I had to find the number to call. Going to Alltel.com was discovering the first FAIL:

They require you to enter your zip code to get the “offers” in your area before accessing anything on their site.

Since I’m already a customer — a customer with a problem, no less — this is an unwarranted frustration. To help you, here are Alltel’s numbers:

Personal: 1-800-alltel1 (1-800-255-8351)
Business: 1-888-4AT-BIZZ (1-888-428-2499)

Once I call, go through all the prompts — including entering the digits of my Alltel cell phone — eventually reaching the place where I get the prompt to speak to a person. “Hip-Hip-Hooray!” right?

Wrong.

Once you press (or say) that magic number, Alltel forces you to agree to one of those satisfaction surveys. “Press 1 if you’d like us to call you back in an hour or, if you’ve called after 9 PM, call you back after 9 AM tomorrow, on the number you are calling from; or press 2 if you’d like us to call you back in an hour or, if you’ve called after 9 PM, call you back after 9 AM tomorrow, on your Alltel phone.”

Wait a freakin’ minute.

I have to agree to a “How satisfied are you?” survey before I even get any help?!

WTF!

My already frustrated brain was certain that my transfer to a person had been lost and that the system had bumped me ahead to the post-call recording.

I mean, why would they hold a customer hostage like that?

But I angrily spit-out the vocal response and was finally patched-through to a human, a human who — yes, you guessed it! — made me give my Alltel number out again before she could/would help me.

I get that we live in an age where everything has to be as automated as possible because even outsourced jobs cost more than robotic voices and technologic routing. I get that data is at a premium in your competitive business. I get a lot of things about business — your business, and business in general.

But really, Alltel, do you have to hide your contact information?

Do you have to add more layers of insulting behavior to the process, holding human interaction (the very essence of the wireless business) hostage to the tune of promises a frustrated customer must keep?

All of this is like layer after layer of frustrated-icing on a bullshit cupcake.

Here’s a business tip you obviously don’t know, Alltel: It is cheaper to retain a customer than to go out and get a new one.

You don’t retain customers by keeping contact with you at bay, especially when they are already frustrated and calling customer service. So take that advice and stick it in your circle.

Remembering Retro Risque T-Shirt Iron-Ons

August 4, 2009 / Deanna / 11 Comments

Back in the day, you couldn’t go to a mall and avoid a visit to (or the smell of) the t-shirt shop.

There you could select your t-shirt style (ringers were de rigueur, but then the baseball shirts with contrasting sleeves came in — oooh!), get your size, choose a color, pick out the funkiest iron-on, and even have it all personalized with letters (including glittery & puffy versions) spelling out your name.

Ah, those were the days, my friend…

Sure, now you can use your computer to design your own graphic and print it out at home on some iron-on paper and iron it on yourself (if you even own or can find your iron), but it’s not the same.

Don’t argue with me; it’s not the same, I tell you!

The 70’s were the Golden Age of Iron-Ons.

There were rock iron-ons, iron-ons with drug references and slang (that you had to be cool to ‘get’) — all sorts of stuff.

But the best, the most memorable, were the risque & down-right lewd t-shirts which had designs running the polarized gambit of responses to women’s liberation. You had sexist men, trying to exert their dominance through sexual bravado, sometimes cloaked as jokes, one one end; and on the other end, women trying to make their point that they were equal & could be dirty too.

I’m not sure that Typists Do It Sitting Down was exactly liberating or showing support of the ERA (more likey to feed the naughty secretary mythology), but, hell, they were worn by the libbers at PTA meetings — I mean literally worn at PTA meetings.

Sometimes a chauvinist pig & a demonstrating libber had on the same shirts. Was “Sex is Like a Bank Account, as soon as you make a Withdrawl, you lose Interest” supposed to be sex positive? Or was it ironic? You didn’t always know…

I’m pretty sure a lot of the adults wearing them didn’t know either.

It was confusing.

I’m sure part of the reason so many of these iron-ons and finished tees were seared into my brain as if the press-iron had melted the plastic goo-graphics into my brain had a lot to with my age.

Being a teen-aged girl standing behind a guy who’d just made/bought a “mustache rides” tee — who smiled at you just a little too long — makes you understand the classless menace even if you don’t know what that sort of ride is… And then, when a friend’s older sibling tells you what it means, you die another special little death.

Ah, good times.

But what’s really surprising is to look at what’s left of these original retro iron-ons and realize just how many you don’t understand. It’s not just that I don’t recall seeing them before; I honestly don’t understand them.

Like “LAB Large American Breasts” — was that for men or for women? The nipples on the ‘B’ indicate, a large American no. And was “LAB” supposed to be a parody of another LAB? The League of American Bicyclists? The Liberation Army… Uh. I don’t know.

Maybe it’s just as simple as men boasting they wanted big breasted women & I’m over thinking it.

But what about this? If “The more I know MEN… The better I like my DOG” was an iron-on for woman to wear, does that mean “The More I Know Women… The Better I Like My PUSSY!” was for men? Um, that iron-on doesn’t really transfer — the concept, I mean (I’m sure the image went/goes on a shirt fine). …There aren’t any rainbows or triangles to signify any LGBT significance.

Maybe I’m just too obtuse. Or too cerebral… This was the 70’s. I probably shouldn’t expect a lot.

But I want to add these iron-ons to my collection. That way, as usual, I’ll have some time to ponder the individual messages and their part in the collective message — and maybe that will help me make more sense of it all. Maybe.

Insensitivity To Violence & Misogyny: Exhibit A

July 28, 2009 / Deanna / 2 Comments

With headlines and articles screaming clever puns, such as “fashion kills,” “I would not be caught dead in that,” “dressed to kill,” and “Bloody mess as Barneys kills display,” first Racked (from which the photographic evidence comes) and then Daily News (which didn’t even bother to link to Racked — though they did credit them), reported on the grotesque window displays at Barneys.

Two mannequins, each wearing a dress (from Helmut Lang and A.L.C., respectively), are caught in the acts of failing to protect themselves from some sort of attach — with their “blood” splattered & sprayed along the glass like, oh, I don’t know, festive holiday garland.

The reaction by Cynthia Drescher at Racked:

The flailing poses allow for drapey dresses to really strut their stuff, the shocking “blood” splatter immediately attracts your eye, and if you’re bored and morbid enough, the windows can launch you into thoughts of outfits in which you would like to be caught dead. It’s a shame it can’t be expanded upon; it would be a bit too much for the Madison Avenue pedestrians.

I suppose that’s supposed to be clever, witty & urbane; but it’s disgusting.

It’s a shame that Drescher can’t expand upon the issue past mocking Madison Avenue and realize why being “curiously in love with the idea” might prove that she is in fact a danger of herself & other women. If not actually bereft of a soul.

This was not an art exhibit, designed to make one think; this was advertising, merchandising made to move product & at the grossly figurative expense of their target consumer yet. (And no, Barneys, the word “target” does not mean you can take aim at us with weapons.)

According to Daily News, the displays have been removed:

Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys, said the displays were installed while he was away overseeing advertising shoots and that he had ordered them dismantled.

They were taken down shortly after the Daily News called to inquire about them yesterday afternoon.

“We encourage our display people to be creative. We give them a lot of latitude, but this clearly crossed the line,” he said. “It’s as if someone saw a bad Hitchcock movie.”

Glad you brought up Hitchcock, Doonan. First of all, I don’t think the man ever made a bad movie; second, I believe you were thinking of Psycho — and isn’t it ironic that you’d think of an insane man with which a propensity for violence towards women… Too bad the “display people” whose “creativity” you encourage never saw those parallels. Nor any other Barneys employee who saw or knew of the window & did nothing until media called.

Talk about bad taste, Barneys; you need a personality shopper — someone to tell you Right from Wrong. Using bloody attacks on faceless female mannequins to sell women designer clothes is abhorrent.

The Daily News article continues:

“I think it’s not offensive. It’s artistic,” said Mac Baicu, 16, a student from Queens.

No need to ask Mr. Baicu how many hours of first-person shooter video games he plays. And I don’t want to even think about how he treats his girlfriend.

“I don’t see it as that. I don’t see any weapon or anything,” said Joyce Sanders, 55, of Harlem. “And I would know; I watch a lot of ‘CSI.'”

Asked if the display would entice her to buy the dress, she answered, “If I had the money, I would.”

Um, if you really watched a lot of CSI, wouldn’t you know that sometimes the weapon isn’t left behind?

Hey, Sanders, wonder why Barneys doesn’t pay for product placement on CSI? ‘Cuz violence towards women is not supposed to be either in fashion nor the fashion.

But honestly, if you dig your fashions with blood spray & violence, have I got a tip for you: shop police auctions & battered women’s shelters. It’s really cheap. Unless you count the price of your soul — and the price of safety in general for women.

Fishy French Tampax

July 27, 2009 / Deanna / 9 Comments

I found this French ad for Tampax via Tom Murphy at The Ephemera Network. Tom doubts this ad campaign could be run here in America — for quite obvious reasons.

The French translates to “I am like a fish in water.” Not that that clears anything up.

Because no matter what language or the word for “fish,” any society with a female population is aware of that fishy smell — though less realize it’s likely due to Bacterial Vaginosis; they just mock it and women in general with tacky references to hyper-sexuality. So I’m really surprised that this ad could run anywhere.

Not just because of it’s potentially suggestive humor, but because why would a company, especially a feminine hygiene product, want to link itself to such an offensive thing? Especially as some experts believe that tampons can change the normal balance of vaginal bacteria; don’t think that’s how you want your target audience to think of you, Tampax.

David Carradine’s Death In My Husband’s Newsfeeds, It’s Not Just For Breakfast Anymore

June 5, 2009 / Deanna / Leave a comment

Hubby was reading to me from his newsfeeds about the latest news on David Carradine’s death, saying, “Rumours Carradine died attempting auto-erotic asphyxiation–”

I interrupt with a righteous, “Go old guy!”

Hubby, ignoring me (as most interrupted husbands are wont to do), continued to read, “– where victims achieve heightened sexual pleasure by restricting their air supply – are backed up by a quote a Bangkok police officer gave to British newspaper The Sun… urm.”

My response? “Well anyone who talks to The Sun can be trusted; it says so in the Bible.”

“Oh!” Pause. “Oh, no…”

“What?” I ask.

“Well, this one says, ‘Did David Carradine die as the result of a sex game? (with photo gallery)’ — but I don’t think it’s that sort of gallery.”

“That would be creepy-cool. Like, ‘Here’s Carradine getting blue…bluer… bluer yet…'”

This is when hubby has to make a choice: laugh at/with me, or leave the room. He laughs.

And I know it’s grim & rude to laugh at all of this; but remember, we aren’t laughing at Carradine’s death — we’re laughing at the coverage of it.

And it’s not like any of us didn’t already make the jokes about Carradine dying from Pai Mei’s Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.

Kitsch-Slapped

Tag: just tasteless