Enter The Invisible Monkey

Who would have ever thought that those car commercials that we are bombarded with when they're having a "special event" would turn out to be rather amusing? Enter Dodge and enter PETA and you've got yourself a recipe for a wee bit o'hilarity ensuing. The hilarity ensues immediately after the annoyance over the emergence of PETA subsides, by the way.

See, Dodge made an ad that promoted their Dodge tent event. I don't know when the practice of erecting a tent became equated with a good deal on a shiny new vehicle, but it has been that way for quite some time now. They mention what a great deal you can get yourself on a brand new Dodge Charger, Dodge Journey or Dodge Grand Caravan. (What's a Journey? Is it named after the band? Shouldn't they have had Steve Perry in this commercial? I'm pretty sure he's not doing anything these days.) Not only that, they'll give you sixty days to see if you want to keep the vehicle. (There is, of course, no mention of the eight gazillion strings that are inevitably tied to such an offer. Things that I would imagine might include not having driven the car over 30 miles in those 2 months and never having turned on the air conditioning.)

That's when voice-over guy (the lovely and cancer-free Michael C. Hall) says that this whole thing could not get more amazing. He soon realizes that he is wrong when a little monkey wearing an Evil Knievel jumpsuit comes out and presses down on one of those ACME detonator things that Wile E. Coyote was always using to try and do in that sneaky roadrunner. The monkey pushes it down and a bunch of confetti blows out of somewhere. Voice-over guy deadpans, "I stand corrected." Not bad. Funny. I liked it. Maybe you will, too. Behold!

But who did not like it was PETA. PETA doesn't like anything having to do with cute animals being mistreated. I know. I know. All the monkey did was push the lever. But that is bad, according to PETA, because that little monkey had to be taught how to do that. (It's also bad because the little monkey is really a chimpanzee and there is, apparently, a difference. I don't know if it offended the chimp, but it really seemed to rile up PETA.) According to the website "Where's the Monkey?" in which Dodge tries to explain why they altered their commercial, they informed them "...about the poor conditions of working animal "actors." They told us how these animals are usually separated from their mothers at a young age and are usually discarded at seedy roadside attractions after they get too old to act." What sort of "seedy roadside attractions"? The only seedy roadside attractions around here are taco trucks and fruit vendors. None of them have monkeys. I'm not saying that what PETA is saying is false, I'm just saying I want more information of these primate abusing attractions that allegedly congregate roadside.

Dodge said that this made them sad and they took the spot off of the air. They also said that "Dodge is firmly committed to never using great apes in our advertisements again." While I suppose that is good, they don't mention anything about never using mediocre apes in their advertisements, so...fingers crossed!

But, wait! There's more! They took the ad off of the air and tweaked it just a little bit. They removed the chimp from the footage. Oh, don't get me wrong. They left the jumpsuit and the walking over to the blowy-uppy thing and the confetti that booms out from somewhere. That's still there. There just is no monkey. The monkey is invisible. Wait. Invisi....? Behold!

Most awesome! Very amusing! I'm glad that Dodge didn't completely ditch the ad. I'd like to see Dodge keep the invisible monkey in upcoming future ads. I'd also like to see PETA burn off of the face of the earth. I'm all for animals not being mistreated. And with everything that you can do digitally these days, there's probably no reason why Dodge can't just make a cyber-monkey instead of using a real one. But I'm never for PETA making an appearance. From what I can tell, they do one thing really well, and it's not caring for animals. It's their own attention whoring that they're so successful at.

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Advertising With Octomom

I've never been a fan of PETA. (Not the bread. That's pita.) They're the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They're not the People for Ethical behavior That is not Abhorrent. No, that's not them. They feel the need to always have some sort of 'shocking' method for getting people to pay attention to them and their 'cause'. If I had to guess whether they've done more to further their cause or whether they've done more to garner attention for themselves, I'd have to go with the latter. And their latest stunt pretty much demonstrates just that.

I'm sure that you're well aware of the insufferable Nadya Suleman, aka the Octomom. As you may or may not care to remember (but which your tax dollars are none the less being used to support) Suleman was the single mother with six children born from petri dishes who then went ahead and had herself impregnated once again, only to find herself carrying a litter of eight children for a grand total of fourteen. That's right. No husband. No job. No money. Fourteen children. And no freaking sense.

Since she is not currently working due to the taking care of the population of her small village (and the fact that she seems to be mentally unstable in more ways than I care to count at the moment), she is in need of cash. It seems that she garners her income by selling pictures of her lips and her brood to various tabloid media publications. (I cannot imagine how that is profitable for those magazines. Do that many people really have that much interest in her? If I think about it too much, it totally zaps my WTL. Will To Live.) But for some reason, that income isn't enough to support fourteen children (go figure) and so she is currently in danger of losing her house in La Habra, CA, so sayeth Popeater.com.

But what does that have to do with PETA, you ask (provided you read 'Octomom' and continued reading)? Apparently, PETA has "...negotiated a deal with (her) that allows them to post a PETA sign in her front yard trumping the value of spaying or neutering pets." Um, wait. What now?

Correct. PETA is paying the awful individual that is Nadya Suleman (I can barely stomach the 'Octomom' moniker) cash money to put a sign in her front yard that says "Don't let your dog or cat become an 'octomom'." Of course, those words are accompanied by a picture of a splayed out feline which is feeding a pile of hungry offspring. What. The. Hell.

According to the folks over there at OC Weekly, PETA sent a letter to Suleman and her attorney (because everyone with fourteen children needs an attorney to sort through these matters) which read, in part, "In light of recent reports that you may be facing foreclosure on your home, we'd like to offer to bolster your finances by paying to place an ad (enclosed) on your front lawn." Uh, OK. But, seriously, a placard on her lawn? How much is that even worth? A few hundred bucks? (I, of course, am speaking completely hypothetically and in a world where something like this even makes sense. It's not worth a freaking dime and we all know it.) Well, if you were thinking along those same lines as me, you're going to be rather surprised.

The letter closes out with, "Taking us up on our offer is a win-win situation: It would help you and your children to keep your home and also reduce the number of homeless dogs and cats." It what? It will help her keep her home? Let's just do some hypothetical math on this, shall we? A home in La Habra isn't cheap. Let's say a monthly mortgage payment is $2,000. In order to be in foreclosure, let's just say that she's missed six months worth of payments. That's a total of $12,000. You're telling me that her allowing the PETA folks to stick a sign in her front yard is going to net her thousands of dollars?! Hey! All of you nutjobs that actually donate money to PETA! Is that how you want your money being spent? In an advertising partnership with a mentally ill breeding sow?

By the way, the least ridiculous part of this is that there are only six kittens (from what I could count) in that picture that they're using. Clearly, math isn't their strong point and neither is accounting if they're paying this whack-a-do broad enough money to save her house from foreclosure! If they're giving out thousands of dollars to place advertising signs in individual's front yards, I am officially making it known that I am available! You want to pay me thousands of dollars to stick some sign in front of the moat at my walled off compound (to protect me from morons like PETA and Suleman), have at it. You can even make it say anything you want! I don't care! Just give me the twelve grand.

You want the sign to say "The owner of this compound participated in daily S&M sessions with Bob Barker. Have your pets spayed or neutered."? Go for it. That'll be twelve grand, please. That's absolutely ridiculous. But what might be more ridiculous is the amount of money that PETA must have if they can pull a stunt like this. Why can't I come up with an ingenious way for stupid people to give me all of their money? Why??

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Not-So-Happy Meals

What in the hell is wrong with people? Not just people in general (though I have questions about them as well), but certain people. You know who they are. You know the ones. The ones that do things that are just so not smart and so incredibly inexplicable that it makes you wonder how they've managed to keep themselves alive for this long. The folks over there at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) would be some of those people. (Alicia Silverstone over there on the left? She is so not one of those people. If she keeps looking like that, she can be an axe murderer for all I care. But she's definitely not one of those.)

Again, I ask what is wrong with them? This time, their outrageous, inflammatory and "in your face" method of bringing attention to how animals (otherwise known as "food") are allegedly mistreated during the process of growing the animals in captivity until they are to the point where they become known as "delicious". I'm not denying that some of the conditions (in which animals that are raised for food live) are less than ideal, but how ideal is it in reality? I mean, overall. The animals? Yeah, they're gonna die. And we're gonna eat 'em. That alone is "bad" enough. Again, I'm not in favor of horrific conditions for these creatures, but it is kind of like making sure that executions by lethal injection are done in a completely sterile environment so that some sort of infection doesn't develop within the condemned. I'm just sayin'.

So PETA, not satisfied with the response (or lack thereof) that they receive from adults, have apparently decided to target small children with their horrific and in-your-face tactics and they've seemingly decided to use McDonald's as the outlet from which to spread their scary ass message of slaughterhouse horrors to those who enjoy McDonald's the most. The small.

Not only are their tactics abhorrent, they've targeted my favorite McDonald's crap! The McNuggets! And that's just a futile effort in and of itself, going after either McDonald's and/or the McNuggets. They're both not going anywhere. You could tell us that torturing our loved ones in a back alley is part of the McDonald's food making process and we'd probably just ask (likely with our mouths full), "What kind of torture and for how long?" We don't care. We will continue to eat McDonald's until the day that it is ultimately responsible for our own early demise due to a sedentary lifestyle and arteries clogged with trans-fat. The only regret we'll have is that we weren't able to manage one last taste of Mickey D's before the taste of sweet, sweet death.

There was an ad campaign by....I don't even remember which other fast food chain, which took aim at McNuggets with the slogan "Parts is Parts". Funny, to the point, and possibly true. I don't know and neither do you. Nor do we or anyone else even CARE. McDonald's sold a gazillion McNuggets before that commercial came out and it has continued to sell a gazillion McNuggets since that commercial came out. And it's a little ironic that I can remember "Parts is Parts" and that I LOVE me a McNugget, but I cannot for the life of me remember which other fast food chain launched that campaign. I didn't care where they found these "boneless chickens" then and I don't care where they find them now. All I care about is that I find the correct number of McNuggets in that little box when I order.

But PETA has decided to take their campaign against McNuggets WAY farther than "Parts is Parts". According to Fox News, people showing up at a McDonald's in Albany, New York found "Unhappy Meals" which were clearly supposed to represent the opposite of McDonald's iconic Happy Meal. "Inside the box they found a bloody rubber chicken, packet of ketchup blood, knife-wielding Ronald McDonald, and a tee-shirt." Yes, I would be extremely unhappy if I found that as opposed to my McNuggets. That would be a "Really Pissed Off at PETA Meal" if there ever was one.

Now, since the reporting was horrendous from both Fox News sites that I referenced (the one linked above and this one) it's unclear to me exactly HOW the patrons of McDonald's came across the Unhappy Meals by PETA. Were they substituted for their regular meals and if so, how did that happen? Were they handed out to people and some folks just thought, "Free is free. Gimme!"? I don't know, but it does support the statement "Fair and balanced" because it's fair to say that both sites had equal amounts of crap reporting on them, balancing out that crap scale just fine. Fortunately, I found everything I needed to know over there at New Jersey Newsroom. And from their website it would look to me like they had these Unhappy Meals available for one to pick up at their leisure if one so chose to do so. It also appears as if the table of Unhappy Meals was being monitored by a giant Pac Man character, though it is unclear as to why that was.

Now, all PETA claims it was doing was "...asking McDonald's to switch to controlled atmosphere killing which their own research has shown would be far less cruel for the birds," so said a one Kristina Addington, PETA Peddler (and sharp dresser!). In reply "A representative for McDonald's defended the franchise, saying it supports the use of a stunning technique that numbs its chickens before they are slaughtered." Oh good! NumbNuggets!

While I'm not FOR cruelty to animals, I'm not so thrilled about the method that PETA wants McDonald's to implement (though I AM glad that they aren't just tauting their very tired "NO MEAT" mantra). PETA's preference is "...called Controlled Atmosphere Killing (CAK), and involves slowly replacing chickens' oxygen with inert gases, slowing putting the chickens to sleep." (Wow. It sounds like Chicken Euthanasia, Michael Jackson Style!) Um, the chickens that I eat, see, their oxygen is distributed throughout their bodies which I then, as previously alluded to, eat. I don't want to be eating the equivalent of a chicken that has just been put to death in a gas chamber. I know that none of the methods are desirable (especially for the damn chicken!), but unfortunately it is what it is.

The thing is, I have the feeling that PETA could be very effective in getting something other than just free freaking publicity if they toned down their scary shock and awe methods and instead acted like reasonable human beings to get their message out there. Because I'll tell you, if there is one thing that most people will shun and dismiss it is the rantings of a crazy person. And having a life-sized, fuzzy Pac-Man creature handing out Unhappy Meals with bloody rubber chickens inside? Yeah, that will be shunned and dismissed.

Immediately.


Side note: Turns out it was Wendy's that told us "Parts is parts." I still don't care. I heart the parts.

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I Can't Believe It's Not All Butter

Wingnut animal rights activist group PETA is the MASTER of PR. If there is ANYTHING at all in the news having to do even just a little bit with animals, whether they're being abused or mistreated or not, PETA is ALWAYS all over a story like that with their own quirky little outcry of denouncement. This time, their target is a trifecta of "offenders; the Iowa State Fair, a one sculptor Sarah Pratt, and a whole lot of butter. The astronaut and the surface of the moon are simply extras.

According to the New York Daily News, the IowaState Fair is "known for its butter cow". In case you're wondering (and who wouldn't be) what in the heck a"butter cow" is, it is just what it sounds like it is. It's a cow. Made of butter. It's a cow made out of butter. A butter cow. Behold!

That's a lot of butter. But it's not quite as much as you might think. I needed to know more about the history of the butter cow, mainly how it would come about that someone would conceive of the idea of sculpting a life-sized cow out of the delicious dairy spread. I mean, I know there wasn't always a lot to do before the Internet rolled into our lives to suck up any amount of free time that we once had, but how bored do you have to be to occupy yourself by carving bovine creatures out of one of the many, many culinary delights that we receive from the magical cow? Pretty bored, I'm guessing. But the point here is that when I went to the Iowa State Fair website to glean more knowledge about this practice, I was disappointed to learn that it wasn't a solid cow o'cholesterol, but rather "...a wood, metal, wire and steel mesh frame and about 600 lbs. of low moisture, pure cream Iowa butter. Once inside the 40-degree cooler, layers of butter are applied until a life-size butter cow emerges - measuring about 5-1/2-ft high and 8-ft long."

So it's going to be pretty thick, but it's not going to be solid. I don't see why they can't just start from a big blob of the stuff and then carve away. Slathering the stuff on the mesh frame sounds like tedious work,but it doesn't sound like it would take as much "talent" or "skill" as it would to carve out the creature from buttery scratch. But mind you, they've done this since 1911 and not a peep out of PETA before now. But now? Oh, NOW they're peeping all right. And it's all because Michael Jackson is dead. Wait. It is?

It IS! See, for some reason, it was decided "...days after Jackson's death that they also would display a sculpture of the King of Pop." Why? I'm not quite sure about that, but it might have something to do with the butter scultpure in tribute to the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon and someone deciding that what would really kick that tribute up a notch (and confuse the bejeezus out of fair goers) is to throw a butter sculpture of Michael Jackson in the mix as well. You know, so it will be JUST like the REAL moon landing. Or not. (Apparently, the Michael Jackson connection is that it's the 40th anniversary of man walking on the moon and Michael Jackson did the moon WALK. Granted, man walked on the moon in 1969 and Jackson didn't debut the moonwalk until 1984-ish, but it's still practically the same!)

Enter PETA! Over on their blog they write "Believe it or not, the organizers of this year's Iowa State Fair are considering erecting a statue of M.J. made out of butter." I don't know that the "believe it or not"part is all that necessary. I mean, I've heard of worse. They go on to write that the problem with the butter sculpture of Jacko is that "... the notion of promoting artery-clogging butter to young passersby is quite the opposite of "healing the world"." I don't know that they're promoting EATING the sculpture! There are also OLD passerbys I would imagine as well. What about THEIR artery-clogging impressions that they will undoubtedly walk away with after catching a glimpse of Buttery Michael?

And in a move that is supposed to appear as if PETA is not a media attention whore, they suggest that the fair"...make the statue out of Earth Balance, a dairy-free natural "buttery" spread" because that will be be honoring his memory in a (cholesterol-free) way that's fit for a king." Clearly, the folks at PETA have not seen pictures of kings. Kings looked like they were FAR from concerned about cholesterol. Turkey leg in one hand, a stein of grog or ale in the other. (Yeah, yeah, I know the ale and the grog are pirate fare, but I was drawing a blank on what kings got plastered on.)

First of all, a State Fair is HARDLY The place to start trying to advocate ANYTHING that is cholesterol free. State Fairs have given us such delights as the deep-fried Twinkie,

the giant cream puff,
the deep-fried Oreo
and Fernie's Fried Chili Frito Burrito. (That's a flour tortilla stuffed with chili and Chili Cheese Fritos and then deep-fried. Good Lord. And I say that in the best possible way as it looks delicious.)

Hardly the place to be on the no-cholesterol kick. Besides, it isn't like anyone is going to be EATING the Butter Cow. I highly doubt that you're allowed to get close enough to it that you could just lap out with your tongue and take a long hearty lick of it. And I'm going to assume that it will be that way with the Buttery Jacko sculpture as well. No one is going to be able to lick him either. Wait. Um...yeah. Too soon? Onward.
But of course, because Michael Jackson is and seemingly forever will be in the news, PETA had to latch onto this story and now PETA is in the news. They're in the news being mocked and laughed at by most, but again,when you're a media attention whore like PETA, you don't care. You're just happy you have followers who believe your drivel. And speaking of drivel, in the PETA blog post, there were some folks who left comments. Allow me to share with you some of the wisdom of those who read the PETA blog. Behold!

"Sounds like a good alternative to me. A statue made of butter probably sends the wrong message for MJ." And what message would that be? HOW is a statue of butter sending the WRONG message for Michael Jackson? What would be a better medium for the sculpture that would send the RIGHT message? Make it out of silicone like the majority of his body parts? Construct something out of used syringes? I don't get it.

"WHY NOT SOME THING WITH FLOWERS? I BELIEVE HE WOULD LIKE IT MORE IF HE WAS A LIVE" Um, if he were a live what?

"Build a statue out of metal thats a replica of the one in the promo video for his canceled This is It tour, put it in Gary Indiana, and let it be the end of all this madness. If it worked for Freddie Mercury it will work for Michael Jackson." Wait. If WHAT worked for Freddie Mercury? Queen? Death? And while I have NO idea what this person is talking about in regard to the promo video, I don't know that a hulking metal statue of Michael Jackson in Gary, Indiana is going to signal the END of madness!

"They should have built it out of recycled tins (: You get more colour and its good for the enviroment. :D " Recycled tin what? And how exactly are tin sculptures of recently deceased pop stars "good for the environment"? I don't get it.

Yeah, they're geniuses. Or is it geniuii? Whatever it is, those are the sort of folks who listen to the PETA folks.Those comments alone should tell you plenty about the PETA organization and its followers as a whole. PETA. It should stand for Please End The Asshattery. It'd be more accurate.

I don't know that anyone should care about whether or not there is a sculpture of Michael Jackson made out of butter or anything else for that matter at the Iowa State Fair. You want to have a big butter cow next to a big butter Neil Armstrong next to a big butter Michael Jackson, have at it. I'm not going to go home and slather myself in butter because I saw those things at the State Fair. (No, I'm going to go home and slather myself in butter because that's just Friday night in my household.) I'm SO not disturbed by the fact that butter comes from cows and they're going to make a sculpture out of the cow production product. However, I AM quite disturbed by this fact: "Much of the butter is recycled and reused for up to 10 years." Wait. What?

TEN years?! REUSED?!?! Why is THAT not news?! Why am I hearing about a Buttery Jacko when the butter that is going to be used could be the same butter that was used at the fair in 1999?!? Shouldn't we be hearing about THAT?! Where do they store it over the years? One would think that 600 pounds of used fair sculpture makin' butter takes up a lot of room. That you can keep the used butter and keep on using it for up to TEN years is more of a reason for me to not want to consume butter than telling me that butter isn't a good way to honor Michael Jackson because he deserves better than butter or some crap like that. Tell me that butter is kept and used for up to ten years for this little oddity of Americana and then you'll be gettin' somewhere with me. THAT sort of logic I will listen to.

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