Ad is/n't Art

"An ad that pretends to be art is -- at absolute best -- like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you."


--from the 1997 essay "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" by David Foster Wallace




I like this. It makes me feel queasy about my job whenever I read it. As a result, I delve more deeply into what makes me/my job different. This town of Bozeman, MT is my hometown. My advertising job at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle lets me see the people I grew up with, the business owners and citizens who showed me the thing we most want from each other is kindness. The connection I experience in community is much like the one I find in nature. I can enjoy Andy Warhol on Hebgen Mountain in much the same way that I can enjoy reading Edward Abbey on Bozeman's Main Street.


Advertising, from hieroglyphics to Google, certainly passes a message spawned from a core sociological response/reward archetype--a model of communication ego-driven and capitalistic to the core. However, it serves a need and a purpose in which cultures must work together in order to survive. Ain't that downright socialism?


With an overloaded regimen of some 5,000 ads every day, we react only when there is a commercial connection between the Consumer and its Control Machine. 


Surely, any MBA will tell you that such a connection must travel through at least one small instance of art!

I eat like Dom DeLuise

Proudly, I have much in common with the late comedy legend Dom DeLuise. For example, our fathers were both Italian immigrants and we were dear friends of Burt Reynolds. However, our passion has always been food. We've never missed a meal and will eat anything and everything, anytime, anywhere.

Sadly, I never met Dom before he left this world for that big ol' pizza pie in the sky last May. But I know that if we did meet, it would have been somewhere away from food and drink, perhaps inside an old outhouse. (Public restrooms  are not an option, since I eat garbage and drink toilet water. I imagine Dom was the same way.) End of digression.

The best time to eat is when I'm left unattended and the batteries die in my barrier collar. Or when Bob & Vanessa Drownforget to put the damn collar back on me. When it's "working" (not my word), I hear a high-pitched beeping for a few seconds. If I don't back away from the food, I get a little zap/taze--which I hate. Everyone was shocked (what pun?) when it was discovered that this actually worked on me.

By the way, don't you love when pets write in the first person?

Here is a list of recent food items I've retrieved. I'll try to post as often as I can infiltrate security and find things to eat (edible or otherwise).

When: Friday 10/23/09
Where: In car, parked at Pierce Flooring & Design
What: One bag of pita bread
Details: Just purchased at Costco. I was caught by Bob but not before I made nearly the entire bag disappear. Bob & Vanessa had to stop at Town & Country to buy more for their fancy falafel!

When: Thursday10/15/09

Where: At home in the living room & kitchen

What: Full jar of Nutella spread, bag of Hershey's semi-sweet chocolate chips, bag of brown rice, several dog pork chews, bag of panko bread crumbs

Details: Bob walked in the door and caught me with a pork chewy in my mouth. I left dozens of pieces of chewed up plastic from the Nutella jar. I later pooped plastic pieces and choco chip bag remnants.

Kissing Mr. Herman goodbye

Our hike into Sentinel Meadow was halted by a bison laying in our path.