Marshmallowvision

All day yesterday, and half the day today, Channel Four broadcast a video loop of a fireplace. I'd be cycling through the program guide, and there it'd be: TV Listings, Morning News, Burning Log, A Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street, and so forth.

"What's with that, anyway?" my sister wanted to know. "What's it for?"

"Well," I explained, feeling mildly silly even knowing about something of that sort, "it's for folks without fireplaces. I saw an ad for it last night. You're supposed to hang your stocking on it."

"On the television?"

"Yeah. You know--"Our stockings were hung by the TV with care," and so forth."

"Does a little hand come on every once in a while, stoking it up?"

"How should I know? It's probably a loop. Let's watch it, and see if any flames repeat."

(Several minutes passed. We watched the burning log, comparing notes on which flames we were memorizing. The log sputtered and crackled--well, presumably, anyhow. There wasn't any audio.)

"We're probably the only ones watching this," she sighed, struggling to separate a pair of horrible Christmas mittens, which some complete twat had sewn together.

"I wouldn't be surprised."

What a miserable thing, any road. Hanging a sock on the telly--can you imagine? Oh, I can see the joyous scene now: everyone clustered round the box, opening presents in front of a fire that whines where it ought to snap--oh, that high electronic whine!--and static coming off instead of heat! Everyone'd get an electric shock when they reached for their stocking, and then the cathode ray tube would go. They'd all have to bunch round the radiator instead. At length, someone old (someone in a dressing-gown and carpet slippers, I think) would mention something about fires of yore, fires where the logs burned down to ashes, and Grandpa came by with a poker to stir life into the cinders. But the presents would all be opened by then, and the kids would want their cartoons. The fire would be banished, and that would be that. No cozy pine smell in the hallways, no warm flush on the cheeks. Better no fire at all than a pale television facsimile. Whose brilliant idea was that? I'd like to wring his neck!

Another neck that ought to be wrung is that of the genius who made what I like to call the WWJT?* commercial. It goes like this: a fellow on a bridge takes a swig of milk--you know, like in those "Got Milk" commercials you get. Then, he bungees off the side. The cord unwhirls itself, slipping over the railing. Seems milkman over there hasn't affixed it to anything. The screen goes black, and a legend pops up: Got Jesus? A soppy, faceless voice asks the viewer if he has considered accepting Jesus as his personal saviour, or some such rot.

"No," I told the voice, "but I used his name in vain when I saw your ad. Jesus Aitch. Oops. I did it again. Boom, boom. Oops, I did it again. I played with your heart, hum, hum, hum, your name. Oh, baby, baby, oops! Might seem like a crush, but I...hum, hum...it was us.... Wooooo-oooo!**"

Am I going mad, or are the ads getting progressively worse? There was a time, not so very long ago--or am I remembering wrong? No, I'd swear there was a time when I liked commercials. There was a time before the crying babies and the slicky boobgirls, before Got Jesus and Got Milk and...and Gotta Getta Gund. (Oh, man. When was that? The eighties?) It was there, though, on my grandma's old black-and-white set, and the neighbours' big colour one. It was there in the electrics shop downtown, and on long plane rides. It was a time of Morton's got one and the others have not, and Hard knocks! Old crocs! Kellogg's Cocoa Pops! It was a time when newspapers covered everything (especially erections), and the Worthies from Carpets of Worth could sell you a shag. (Did they really say that, or was it only my imagination?)

It wasn't that the ads were funnier in those days--although I think they might have been. It wasn't even that there were less of them, or that they weren't as long. Morton's wanted to sell you kidney pies. Kellogg's wanted to sell cocoa pops. Carpets of Worth wanted to sell you either thick-piled rugs or sex with ruddy middle-agers. Ads nowadays, they're like ghosts converging on Zuul, all bunching up together to make Marshmallow Man.
Marshmallow Man--you know the one. He looks like a big house, a big clean house, with Colour-Your-World walls, and bleachy-white countertops. He has laundry on a line in his backyard, and a head full of Jesus. He's got a fridge in his kitchen, and an industrial-sized freezer with a TV on the door. If you swing that TV aside, you can pick from a thousand kinds of frozen pastries, any of which can be prepared in the microwave, the toaster oven, or a conventional oven. Marshmallow Man has great plump lips, laquered with Crystal-Shine Balming Creme. His eyelashes stretch to his chin. His hair is enriched with vitamins A through zinc. His shoes have bubble soles and inflatable cuffs, and his kids wear diapers that suck the shit straight from their arses into the Moisture-Loc cores. There's Velcro and aspirin and infinite Tupperware. There are AOL computers and magic Roto-Rooters. There are teeth so white you can see right through them, and eyes that flash ClearVue Sea Green #12. Marshmallow Man is so good you can't take just one bite: you've got to eat him all.

Yeh. The ads are all the damn same nowadays--and then there are the utterly ludicrous ones, which are still the same, because they borrow slogans from the steaming samepool. You have to buy everything, or you can't be a Marshmallow. You can't just get the shampoo or the cheese slices or the Jesus. It's all about and, nowadays. Spaghetti and rice. Dishwashing powder and liquid soap. Beer and cola. Got Jesus, indeed! Got the remote?

Anyhow, as I mentioned, it's late and I'm tired. I've got to go search for Jesus among my cleaning products watch some TV.

* What Would Jesus Think?

** I'm trying to sing a Britney Spears song, here. I may have most or all of the lyrics wrong.