Godawful Advertising

Adam Frucci and Halle Kiefer of Splitsider just posted a conversation about the upcoming sitcom "Whitney" and its advertising, which has been plastered all over New York.

Every time I see the "Whoever invented morning sex forgot about morning breath," ad at a bus stop (paraphrased, but does it really matter in this case?), I get angry at the unfunniness. I think it's because I'm clearly their target audience, and I've heard good things about Whitney Cummings' stand up, but this is such a lazy "amirite, ladies?" joke. I can imagine old men in the NBC offices thinking that this is a great pitch. Youth culture!

Lucky for me, I've seen fewer of the (still) unfunny "bitches won't shut up" ads. As Kiefer put it:

Halle: I think it's weird that a show with a female protagonist has an ad campaign which has numerous jokes about women being awful.



and this: "That's what you get for forming a relationship with me! I will use my brain and face to make sounds that you hate!" That's an actual joke from the show?

The article is worth the read, and I laughed out loud at this exchange:

Adam: Well, she has said that the show will be edgy and boundary-pushing and that's why we should be on board with the laugh track and multicam setup. But I get the impression that just saying "morning sex" on a billboard is edgy for NBC.
Halle: Well, we know she wears a sexy nurse outfit in the pilot.
Adam: CAN YOU DO THAT ON TELEVISION??
Halle: That's what a time traveler from 1952 would scream at the wall of TVs at Best Buy
Adam: WHO LET THESE WOMEN SPEAK WITHOUT FIRST BEING SPOKEN TO?

a bust of a night

So, I've attended a fair number of free concerts/parties/food trucks/alcohol promotions. From the great (i.e., Good Units parties), to the middling, I thought I played by the rules. I know not to expect to even get in to an event without a confirmation of my RSVP, and actually appreciate it when an event organizer will flat out tell you not to come, because the event was mistakenly made public (usually via one of our friendly neighborhood blogs, like Myfreeconcert.com, livingfreenyc.com). Those emails often go: seriously, tell us who you know, cause otherwise you ain't getting in. 

I know you get what you pay for, and that it's kind of ridiculous to complain about something that costs zero dollars, Thursday night was a total bust, and I was a bit put out.

The Aliomi event at the Hotel Chantelle was a situation as described above; I received an e-mail response the day of explaining that I should not come if I was not on the legitimate guest list (which I knew I was not). That's fine.

I arrived at the Jack Daniel's Taste of Summer event (to which I did have a legit RSVP) at 7p, and was told that the bar was at capacity and to try later (the bouncer misinformed me about how late the event was running, but I guess it's my own damn fault for believing anything contrary to the info on the printout). Again, I was disappointed, but accept that at things like this there is no "fashionably late", as they often reach capacity, and this one had started at 6pm.