Can This Civilization Be Saved?

I admit my mind works in mysterious ways. I like to think that it tracks a fairly straight line. It’s just that the straight lines oftentimes collide with obstacles. When a pin ball ricochets off of immovable objects it is redirected on an entirely new course. Ultimately, my thought process, like the pin ball, winds up at its ultimate destination.

My pet peeve, this time is a commercial for Otezla. Otezla promises to give the user the clearest skin in the funeral home. At my age, between freckles, age spots, sun spots, moles, wrinkles, warts and various unnamed skin lesions I am resigned to my fate.

The commercial seems strangely familiar, then again not, as if the focus knob needs one or two more turns. It is a TV ad, so a single photo needs some set up. The President for the GEEK Society of America is playing Frisbee when he makes a not particularly inspired catch in close proximity to four sweet young things. They notice one another, sexual tension  and second glances ensue. So close, yet so far.


Then it strikes me, I have seen this ad before. It was on the back of every Comic book that I ever read. I gave up comics over forty years ago, so I can be forgiven for not having it foremost in mind. Anybody who has ever read a comic book knows what I am talking about:

That’s right the Charles Atlas ads of the fifties and sixties.  In the original Charles Atlas ad “Joe” shows of wash board abs, wedge shaped upper body and muscular arms every girl on the beach is making goo-go eyes because he is a “real he-man.”

In the Otezla ad the dude is playing Frisbee (and not very well). He is scrawny and not particularly well coordinated. He makes a mediocre catch that any macho man could have turned into a diving roll. Yet the smiles of the women leave no doubt what they are thinking, ” Gotta  get me some of that Geek dick!” In Charles Atlas world, Geeks don’t get pussy.

As so often happens, on these journeys I take, additional possibilities present themselves, as I write. It now occurs to me that the Otezla commercial reflects the 2018 reality. Going back to the advertising photo, the seated women are members of the local transgender caucus. The unstated but internal dialog goes like this. “Come a little closer big boy and I’ll break you open like a shotgun. Honey, I’m gonna slip you some of this tranny salami and make you forget that stupid Frisbee.”

I don’t know if I have won you over to my point of view, but I’m fairly certain you will never view that commercial in the same light.