Many great artists are destroyed by the burden of their talents.  When fame and fortune take their toll, stars ranging from Kurt Cobain to Ray Charles to Marilyn Monroe turn to sex and drugs to fill the void. Their unfulfilled potential leave the public desperate for more, as we pray for them to pull it together, to record one more great album or shoot another movie.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, joining those stars of stage and screen, is Vince Offer Shlomi.  You may recognize Vince as "the guy from Shamwow commercials" or "the guy from Shamwow who also now does the Slap Chop commercials."

Why else should you care, except that the infomercials will burn a little less bright tonight (due to the momentary reduction in meth use)? Because, as with Amy Winehouse, this time, it's personal.  That's right. Vince? Is a Jew. In case "Shlomi" wasn't enough of a giveaway, we have confirmed reports that good old Vinny was born in Israel.

Vince's new claim to fame: getting arrested for beating up a hooker. Not just any hooker, though... one who apparently tried to BITE OFF HIS TONGUE.  His mug shot looks terrible, hers, sadly, looks even worse, and aside from the inherent tragedy, this story is absurdly hilarious, especially to those of us who have long admired Vince's body of work. Vince found at least one woman who, contrary to claims on TV, did not "love [his] nuts." Accordingly, Vince was not, as promised, in a "great mood all day from slapping [his] troubles away."

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Breastfeeding: now we know God's opinion A series of new public service billboards in California, which tout the importance of breastfeeding, are borrowing heavily from the notorious GodSpeaks campaign.

If you’ve done any long distance driving in America in the last decade, you’re probably familiar with the GodSpeaks billboards. You know, those big black billboards that say things like, What part of “Thou shalt not…” didn’t you understand? and Have you read my #1 best seller? (There will be a test.) The GodSpeaks advertising campaign is an amazing, if somewhat creepy, story:

In 1998, an anonymous donor contacted an advertising agency with an idea for a local billboard campaign that would create a spiritual climate and get people to think about a daily relationship with a loving and relevant God. The agency came up with the idea of creating a series of quotes from God to be placed on billboards.

The billboards would be simple and easy to read—black boards with white type, and all “signed” by God. No logo. No address or phone number. Not religious or condemning. Just straightforward messages that would rightly represent God.

Eighteen sayings were selected to run on billboards in south Florida, ranging from serious to moving to funny; all intended to make the reader smile and think about God—perhaps in a new way. The campaign was scheduled to run for three months.God Speaks: on Route 66?

As the original billboards were coming down, following their planned three-month run, the agency got a call from Eller Media, one of the largest billboard companies in the world. Eller wanted to run the campaign nationwide if the client would donate the sayings.

Then, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), the trade group made up of all the companies who own and rent billboards, offered to use the sayings as their national public service campaign for 1999. The result was that GodSpeaks sayings appeared on some 10,000 billboards in 200 cities across America—and all free-of-charge! The donated billboard space was valued at $15 million.

Now, the same anonymous, original donor is back with more billboards (As my apprentice, you’re never fired. The real Supreme Court meets up here.)

What Would God Say: to bottle-feeders? I don’t love the idea of advertising agencies marketing God and billing it as a public service. I mean, marketing God to me on billboards, like car insurance and adult bookstores, just seems kind of cheap. Plus, the ads are blatantly Christian, with some saying things like Let’s meet at My house Sunday, before the game and You think it’s hot here?

If something is going to be a public service, I’d like it if it served more than just people who believe in Jesus. You know--like infants who might benefit from breast milk. Which brings us back to the California campaign.

Adfreak offers this analysis:

...as a bottle-feeding parent (who heartily supports breastfeeding), I’d be less annoyed by those graphic ads about how I’m probably giving my kid diabetes or asthma. At least they're backed up by science. These white-on-black billboards, blatantly riffing on the “God Speaks” campaign, just come off as preachy—and scientifically debatable. Some humans were born to have dozens of offspring and die in their 40s. That doesn’t make me want to do that. Still, I admit the goal is a commendable one, and I suppose the space could be used for something far more obnoxious.

 

The advertising council seems to want us to think that God encourages breastfeeding, which is not exactly a leap of faith, considering breastfeeding is something women's bodies are designed for. But why does it matter if God wants us to breastfeed? It's healthier, easier, and cheaper than buying formula. That's the sell. God's take on what I do with my boobs? Kind of awkward.

With the release of the first issue of Jewish Living magazine came a phone call to me from a reporter at the Palm Beach Post. Jewish Living is a new Martha-esque lifestyle ‘zine for the Jewish homemaker, and the reporter thought that as editor of the website Modern Jewish Mom I could give him the dish on this new "trend" of marketing to hip, Jewish moms.

I told him it's not so new, the idea of making it hip to be Jewish. From Heeb and Jewcy to Rabbis Daughters and ChosenCouture, (I even threw some credit to Madonna and Demi), hip and Jewish is here to stay. As the young women who onceThe Lifecycle of Hip: From Challah Back t-shirts to Jewish Living magazine wore "Challah Back" boy beaters now become mothers, websites and magazines will follow.

But that wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"Wouldn't it be smart for Bloomingdale's to advertise in JewishLiving? After all, aren't Jewish women their primary customers?"

"Non-Jewish women shop at Bloomingdales, too. And Bloomie's and their ilk can reach a Jewish AND non-Jewish audience by advertising in mainstream magazines. JewishLiving readers probably won't be interested in ads for Maneschewitz, though."

He kept pushing. I knew what he wanted. For me to say we're a bunch of materialistic JAPs who love nothing more than to shop. That we're more likely to be found in Saks than in shul. That reaching a niche market of wealthy, young Jewish women is an advertisers dream. So why would advertisers need to bother with shiksas when they have JewishLiving?

The more he pushed for me to tell him the differences between Jewish and non-Jewish women, the more I realized how slight those differences are. Today, being Jewish is part of our identity, but not our entire identity. We want tradition to be relevant and valuable while fitting with our modern lifestyles. Gone are the days when we will stay home all Friday to make Shabbes.

Are we highly educated? Yes. More so than our mothers, but only because of the sacrifices our mothers made so we could go to college and grad school. Are we wealthy? Yes, Jewish households in America are wealthier on average than non-Jewish households, but overall there's a heck of a lot more disposable income and college degrees among non-Jewish women than Jewish ones. Do we look different? Not so much, anymore. Do we dress differently? I almost started talking about the whole "goyishka" way of dressing when I remembered some Lily Pulitzer pieces in my closet!

For magazines like Jewish Living, and websites like mine, talking to modern Jewish moms means taking into account who we are as a generation. We're more jaded than our mothers. We don't kowtow to the rabbi simply because he is the rabbi. We juggle insane schedules, and tradition better damn well make sense if we're going to give it our time. So speak to us intelligently and thoughtfully and don't patronize us.

So, would mainstream advertisers be smart to advertise in JewishLiving? Absolutely. Because it would show support for the Jewish community. Because it would prove that they understand that when Rachael Ray tells her audience that her Christmas buffet casserole made of leftover ham, turkey, cheese and creamed corn would work just as beautifully for Hanukkah, it's offensive. Because last year's December issue of Family Circle didn't even mention that there were other holidays besides Christmas being prepared for in homes. Because mainstream lifestyle resources are not adequately addressing the needs of the Jewish family and so we've stepped in and met the need ourselves.

But not because you think we're a generation of JAPs who can't stay out of Bloomingdales.

 

Arianna Huffington wants to help the Democrats. How best to do this? For a start, she enlisted "multiple-award-winning ad exec Rich Silverstein," the man who gave us 'Got Milk?' starring a bunch of celebrities with pseudo-pornographic splish-splashes on their mouths, to come up with this doozy of a "visual blog." The idea is to "help the Democrats, who continue to struggle with framing an election where they are holding all the cards." It isn't hard to guess what popped into Silverstein's head, but since the eminently self-loving Not In Our Name group already appropriated 'Got Democracy?,' he at least had to do a little bit of brain work. He came up with something that holds to the autopolitic theme: 3 hot money shots for masturbatory liberals.

 These posters illustrate nicely both the nuance commonly found in the dominating mindset of American Democrats almost as well as they illustrate how the internet paradigm is negatively impacting political thought. Never we mind that influential people are looking to advertisers, the most sleazily manipulative, dirty capitalist douchebags on the planet for their "grasp of what makes for effective communication in radio, movies, TV, and online." This in itself is, of course, an instant compromise of principle to anyone claiming even remotely left/liberal credentials. But what's worse, everything here is a shortcut--as if they were a slew of mentally hyperlinked keywords, each of which leads to the same page: 'EVIL' in big, bold-faced lettering. If I could respond to this visually, I might make a poster that says in the middle 'Bush & Co. Sux. DUH.'

I've written here, as have many of my colleagues, regarding the detestable and even impeachable offenses committed by several of the folks who appear on the 'NAMES' roster. But how is it that Paul Bremer and George Tenet got such small-time billing compared to Harriet Miers? If this is visual communication of such a high order, then are we really to understand that the President's failed cronyist appointment of Mrs. Miers was more sinister than the criminal errors of the CIA and the mismanagement of the occupation of Iraq? And why, if we agree that Bush's Texanochristianity is a problem, would one chide him for the way his administration has handled Intelligent Design while simultaneously mocking the rhetoric he deploys in waging a war against people who enforce a variation of that theory by means of indiscriminate murder?

The 'SLOGANS' poster is by far the most problematic. The red flags these black words are intended to throw up in the minds of their audience exist for one reason alone: they were uttered by one or another Bush Jr. era Republican. So what happens when those words happen to be 'A Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism?' How is it that Democrats, liberals and leftists find themselves scoffing? Or 'Stay the Course' for that matter...many rightly ask if there could have been a 9/11 had we 'stayed the course' in Afghanistan instead of abandoning Afghans to a decade of civil war and eventual Islamist totalitarianism. If we had stayed the course in 1991, and not 'Cut and Run' the list of likely outcomes would be hard to escape. Saddam Hussein wouldn't have had the ability to torture his people another twelve years, nor would the United States have had to face the wrath of a people who weren't impressed with it's "liberation" skills the first time around (you know, when Bush called for Iraqis to rise up and overthrow the regime, then stood by and did nothing while gunships mowed men down in the thousands).

The 'EVENTS' installment manages to avoid many of the trappings of the other two. It's a heinous laundry list that should make any decent person ashamed to be American. It is indeed time for a drastic change in the way our leaders manage our affairs. But if Blackwater, armorless soldiers, and ID crusades didn't bother you enough already, writing down words in scary block letters and stuffing them on a poster isn't going to do much. Or rather, if it does, we have an even larger problem. Such convictions, brought to you by the Got Milk? guy are hardly enough to sustain genuine, overarching social changes. Huffington and Silverstein aren't currently doing anything more than giving a complacent liberal majority the chance to jerk themselves off.

Isn't it weird how cigarette manufacturers now have to actively dissuade people from buying their product?

Can we smokers tell you militant anti-smoking nutjobs something? Most of us started smoking because it seemed cool. It seemed cool because it signified (in our youthful minds) a rebellion against the nanny culture of fear, and the conservative tendency to avoid sensual pleasures and all manner of vice. We knew better than to buy into that joyless way of life, so we started smoking to say 'Fuck you,' and then we eventually discovered that it can be quite pleasurable. Maybe even too pleasurable. Now you've gone and made it nearly criminal and in the process you've upped the wee fag's currency as a social signifier of revolt.

Quitting really would make a great deal of sense--especially for those of us who aren't enticed anymore by the rock and roll martyr ethos of living fast and dying young. Some of us have discovered how fun it is to live fast and noticed the 'die young,' part of the equation is a logical error. But you make it nearly impossible. For every year we grow both wiser and closer to cancer/emphysema/heart disease, you guys up the ante with your imposing, obnoxious, health bullying and it just makes us want to light up. With every new smoking ban in every new town, we hate you more.

Just because none of us wants to die any time soon doesn't mean that we care to spend every last ounce of energy avoiding it and forcing others to take the same measures. When you force people to make commercials like the one below for a legal product, it makes us wish there was a way to hotbox every last one of you so that you'd choke on your own rancorous paternalism.

 

 

• Michael Moore's team transported former Grand Zero workers to Cuba for free health care

• Trojan's condom-toting pigs

• An L.A. Times series on Jerusalem 40 years after the 1967 war

• China to show off Olympic torch at Everest via $20 million highway
  

• The Vatican's defensive driving course

(This post edited to preserve the integrity of China's highway dept., for not spending $20 billion)

Smut aside, the American Apparel ads are so much more alluring and of higher quality than the clothes they sell. Having said that, I'm not sure this billboard ad (on the corner of Allen & Houston) isn't towing the fine line or propriety just a bit too closely, even for the Lower East Side, that is. There are Orthodox Jews still left there right?

Gothamist had a valid point though: "Must be hard for the people across the street to stare at a 40 ft beaver shot day in and day out." I might add that the dudes loitering on the corner at all hours (and in the above pic) won't be put out too much either.

A series of churches have started advertising with billboards that have pictures of naked feet in a bed with the words mylamesexlife.com, or mycrappysexlife.com. When you log on to the sites you get info about programs the churches are running having to do with sex and relationships. The Next Level Church of Fort Myers, Florida, (they of the crappy sex lives) has sermons scheduled for the next few weeks with titles like, “The Best Sex You’ll Ever Have,” “The Truth about Men and Women,” and “Pornography.” Last year, Granger Community Church of Granger, Indiana (they of the lame sex lives), had a five week series they called PureSex, where they tackled topics like, “The Language of Lust” and “What Happens in Vegas WON’T stay in Vegas.” My Lame Sex Life: I don't know if the location of this billboard is genius or really bad planning...

I bet you’re not shocked to hear that these sermons didn’t contain step by step instructions for the hottest new positions and how to find porn. Instead, the discussion apparently centered around the revelation that, “Sex wasn’t invented in a dark alley behind a porn shop. It’s part of God’s design. In fact, this may shock you but God wants you to have great sex.”

So how does one have the great sex that God’s been hoping for? According to the pastor at the Granger church, great sex is “rightly ordered sex.” Apparently this means sex that you have once your soul is already in line.

So, okay, this is obviously pretty cheesy stuff. But guess how many people came to the first PureSex session? More than 7,000. This was a seventy percent jump from the same weekend the previous year. Not that this is news to anyone, but sex sells. The Granger Church even got a nice little shout out on a site called Church Marketing Sucks that’s dedicated to, well, helping church marketing suck less.

I’m sure much of what they preached at these churches would make me roll my eyes in disgust, but I have to say, I wish synagogues were more willing to take risks like this. I mean, it takes some balls to make racy ads for a shul program, but I do think it’d pay off. And especially if it didn’t end up being all, “Abstinence is the answer!” but instead gave some useful and relevant relationship advice…well, that’d be awesome.

Megachurch stuff usually terrifies me. I really don’t understand the appeal of it. It seems to me that it’s much nicer to pray with a small group of people who know you and are genuinely interested in you than with seven thousand strangers and a charismatic pastor. But it’s true that bigger congregations reach more people, and they can do the whole niche thing. And frankly, I think the world is in desperate need of all kinds of relationship help, and if megachurches are the first ones to go there, well, Godspeed.