If you've known me for any length of time you know that there are two things that I hate down to the very fiber of my being. Now that I think about it there is maybe one single solitary person alive on this planet now who knew me before I began hating these things: my aunt on my mom's side. My brother, Dan, was alive back then, but he wasn't even a toddler yet, so he doesn't count.
Oddly enough I think I can trace my hatred back to my stepfather. It's one of the very few good things he instilled in me.
(Let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is the guy who beat the mortal shit out of me when I was a kid like I was an adult who owed him money. He was a bad guy. But he did a few good things. Not many. Just a few.)
Children are greedy creatures, and I was no exception. As I watched The Mysterious Cities of Gold I saw no problem with Mendoza's greedy ways. I thought perhaps I would be just as greedy in his shoes. My stepfather hated that I watched this show. It disgusted him, and he made it very clear to everyone around him how he felt. One day he asked me why I watched it. Perhaps he was having a lucid day. Usually he chain smoked and drank heavily as he wore only a robe and ratty underwear while sitting in his lounger. I don't recall him drinking that day, though.
I said I liked the show. He asked me what I would do if I'd found the cities of gold, and I said all the thing a child would say. I talked about shopping sprees at Toys R Us, eating whatever food I wanted whenever I wanted it. No more bedtimes. No more school. The things you would expect.
And then he introduced me to the concept of greed. I'd been a smart kid, and I grasped the idea pretty quickly. Soon I, too, was disgusted. Not by the show because greed didn't drive it, but by Mendoza. I realized early in life that pursuit of excessive amounts of money was not something to be proud of. You may have noticed that I speak out constantly about corporate greed. I hate all greed, but corporate greed is the worst of it all. It started with my stepfather. And in a related note . . .
I remember another day, which I'm pretty sure he'd been sober for, when I was playing with my toys, trying to get them to do what they did in commercials. I was frustrated because they wouldn't do what they were advertised as doing. I don't remember specifically the toy. It might have been GI Joe, but I think I had my Joes at Grandma's place, so I'm probably wrong.
He asked me why I was getting so angry, and once I explained myself he sat me down to show me this special (on Betamax, because that was a hill he was willing to die on) about how commercials were bullshit. It explained why my toys didn't do what I wanted them to. It also explained why my cheeseburger from McDonald's never looked as appetizing as it did in the commercials.
He told me that advertising exists to fool people into wanting things they don't need. It's a vile bait and switch scam that for some reason isn't illegal. And I have despised any and all advertising since. Yes, I have advertised my books, and it has always left a foul taste in my mouth. To this day I am horrified that anyone would willingly sit through Super Bowl commercials. Sometimes they don't even care about the Super Bowl. They just want the commercials.
I get it. I don't care about the Super Bowl, either, but enjoying COMMERCIALS?!
No wonder we don't stand in the path of corporate greed. We like what they're doing to us.
I'm tempted to go on another rant, but I've done enough of those, and I'd only be repeating myself. But seriously, a lot of people actually enjoy commercials. They're not the minority. There are people who won't skip the YouTube ads. They won't look away from the TV on a commercial break. Some people get off on it.
And you wonder why my estimation of the human race is low.
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