Getting Your Point Across

I was watching a show on The History Channel earlier this week. I mention that because I would like to give the impression that I am somehow more intellectually-inclined than I actually am and impress the 0.00001% of you who actually give a damn. That's right, the same percentage of people who actually work for The History Channel. Anyway, I was watching a special on drugs and their history in America. Fascinating stuff. We made it into the 1980s and there it was - THE commercial. It was the "This is your brain on drugs" advertisement. Next to Clara Peller's "Where's the Beef?" Wendy's commercial, this had to be the most hilarious thing on TV. Somewhere in the 1980s, a conference room filled with barrel-bellied, balding men and priggish women with tightly screwed-on hairdos trying to hammer home a message "that kids will understand." Right. Let me tell you something about kids in the 1980s that is pretty much true of kids today - you're not going to scare them away from drugs with ads like that. When I saw that commercial, I was in my early 20s and after the voiceover said "This is your brain," showed an egg, then fried the egg in a skillet and finished with "And this is your brain on drugs. Any questions?" I said, "Yeah, can I get a side of bacon, a large orange juice and a couple of slices of unseeded rye toast? Oh, and maybe throw a couple more eggs on there, too, since I'm stoned and have one hell of an appetite."

One of the more humorous aspects of that commercial is that, chances are, those very same upstanding citizens who created that campaign were probably the very same flower children we saw on grainy 16MM film at Woodstock, painting peace symbols on their asses, dancing like frogs in a blender and smoking joints made with banana-flavored rolling papers. Hell, some of them were probably doing lines of blow off their daily organizers in the bathroom stall. Remember, folks, this was before drug screening was commonplace in corporate America.

Look, if you're going to try to put fear into your intended targets, do it the right way, the old school way. Take LBJ, for instance. He was a bully par excellence. He would zero in on some other politician and buttonhole him into submission so badly that the other guy would leave a puddle on the floor. And speaking of which, Johnson would often hold meetings while he was on the toilet taking his morning "constitutional." Could you imagine suppressing the gag reflex with the presidential waft hanging in the air? He was big on eye contact, too. I don't know about you, but looking a person in the eye while they bear down and turn apple-red is the time to start working on that resume for something a bit more uplifting, like, say, inseminating a steer. Yet, he made sure he was able to get his points across. Who, in their right mind, is going to forget one of those meetings?

Speaking of presidents, let's not forget the wife of another one. Nancy Reagan, the undisputed Diva of the White House, made a guest appearance on one of the most popular shows of the early 1980s - "Diff'rent Strokes". Her message? "Just Say No." Well, hell, if that's all it takes, why am I bothering to have a good time when I could just say "no"? Think of all that could have been avoided. Don't get me wrong, it's a great message, but it's also incredibly naive. Maybe she should have said "Just say 'In Moderation' or "Just say 'I'd like to, but if my folks found out, they'd kill me' ". And what better show for the former First Lady to appear? After all, "Diff'rent Strokes" was the pinnacle of wholesomeness. Of course, Dana Plato went on to abuse drugs, get arrested multiple times, posed nude and died young. Todd Bridges also became an alleged substance abuser and arrested for weapons charges and vehicular assault - not to mention the worst crime of all: appearing on Celebrity Boxing with Vanilla Ice. Oh, and Gary Coleman? His crime was being Gary Coleman.

If you're going to have any kind of impact at all, either speak to the individual at his or her own level (and I'm not just talking about parents talking to kids here) or at least, swing the axe of advantage, be it by denying privileges, year-end bonuses, or using the Vulcan Mind-Meld, just as long as it's not for selfish or damaging reasons. Slogans and laugh-out-loud "messages," such as the fried egg commercial, are as productive as bong hits in the boardroom.

I hope I got my point across. Any questions?