Angry Dance

I have an angry dance. It happens when my heart fills so full of bilious hate that it overflows into the rest of my body and I begin to convulse rhythmically like some gyrating rage puppet.

My arms flail about and my feet kick in all directions. My eyes roll into the back of my head as it jerks back and forth, side to side like some sort of monstrous bobble-head doll during a violent earthquake.

To a man of science, it would likely appear that I was having some epileptic episode and that my tremors were caused by some misfire of neurons deep within my skull full of spongy gray matter.

To a benighted pagan savage, it would likely seem that my body had been invaded by a horrible, malevolent spirit and that it was using the hijacked fleshy vessel for some daemonic joyride through the land of corporeal beings.

Both are partially correct.

It isn't often that I am taken by my angry dance as there are few things that bring me to that level of rage. Even when my bike got stolen, I wasn't moved to my angry dance.

However, there are things out there that, without question drive my feet to stomp and my arms to fly in an uncontrollable expression of white-hot temper.

Like, Occupy Wall Street hippies banging on drums and shouting about the evils of private property or Fox News pundits pretending that the Occupy people matter in some way other than making the fringe left look ridiculous.

Or, when someone honks at me when I'm riding my bike just because I'm riding in the street. Or when someone who is nary a year older than I condescendingly tells me that I'll understand more about life once I'm their age.

Or when someone adheres to a political, religious or ideological doctrine without having taken the time to fully understand their own position and then they decide they are not going to bother with you because obviously, if you don't agree with them, there's something wrong with you.

That goes for you, too, atheists.

Or, when my coffee is too cold. Or, if it's too hot! Or if I spend too much time in the sun...

Alright, so maybe my getting angry isn't that rare of an occurrence and I should probably see someone about it, but man, psychologists make me so angry!

One thing that really does work my blood into a figurative boil is a bad commercial and man, 'tis the motherfucking season for bad commercials.

My biggest problem with commercials this time of year is that you have a spike in genre of "feel-good" commercials. Those are the ones that have the contrived scene of a family that looks way too perfect and everyone is just a little too happy to open up their gifts and get whatever product the commercial is selling to you.

Lexus is one of the worst perpetrators of this style of advertising. Every one of their commercials features someone being surprised in some absurd way by getting a present -- a music box, a cell phone, even a game of Guitar Hero -- that plays the annoying Lexus theme song. And each time, the person immediately recognizes it, probably because they've had it drilled into their heads by the incessant stream of Lexus commercials that have been running since mid-November.

Jewelry commercials should also be considered crimes against humanity by the United Nations. Not that that would change anything, but I'd like to be able to say, each time one came on, "This is literally a crime against humanity."

The problem is the commercials are just so goddamned sappy and serious about something so stupid as a rock that was probably dug out of the earth by some starving African child at gunpoint. Don't let it go to waste as a prop to some overgrown little girl's overwrought fairy-princess-knight-in-shinning-armor fantasy.

Use those diamonds for something useful, like industrial saw blades or something.

Anyhow, I'm not here to gripe about overly sentimental commercials, although I could probably do it until the cows come home, which in Los Angeles hasn't happened in over 60 years. I want to rant about T-Mobile's new holiday advert.

T-Mobile started getting on my nerves when they went after the iPhone using the Mac v. PC format. It's not that I love the iPhone so much that I felt some sort of loyalty to Mac or something. It's because the Mac v. PC commercials are some of the most blatantly obnoxious examples of lifestyle marketing I've ever seen.

"Hey guys. We're not going to tell you a single detail about our product. But if you buy it, you'll be cool like me and not a nerd like this guy over here."

Except T-Mobile's version of the cool guy is a snarky brunette in a polka-dot dress.

In their holiday campaign, T-Mobile managed to combine the worst of all possible worlds.

The T-Mobile girl takes us into her insidious lair.

The commercial opens with a our gracious hostess leading us through an all-white door into what looks like a clean-room in some sort of high-tech factory. But what she reveals is much more horrifying than any of Steve Jobs' cheap Chinese labor sweatshops.

The high-tech clean room is actually a slave-labor camp for little people where they are forced to wear humiliating uniforms and dye their hair pink, no doubt as some sick homage to their overlord's obsessions with the garish color.

At first you think they are having fun, but when you look into their eyes, you can see a deep sadness. There is a silent plea in his eyes, "Please, kill us."

Or at least their eyes are saying, "Don't judge me. I needed the money."

One of the imprisoned little people. There is such torment in his eyes
as he's forced by his cruel overlord to talk into a phone for the
amusement of others.

Actually, what bothers me about this commercial is that it's set to an incredibly annoying song (Winter Wonderland with lyrics changed to sing the praises of T-Mobile's 4G network) and that there is nothing funny about it, despite an attempt to at least set a tone of whimsical delight. In fact, there is something deeply upsetting the sterile setting and creepy uniformity of the elves.

There is also something pretty hacky in dressing up little people as elves. I'm not making a point about political correctness, I'm making saying that it's a tired premise. It's not funny or cute. It's just... meh.

The brunette in the pink dress just solidifies her persona as an overbearing jerk as she goes from elf to elf forcing them to do something that shows off the amazing-ness of the phones.

It also seems that all the little people are desperately trying to pretend they're happy as they jump around and sing a shitty song?

Anyway, I'll still probably switch to T-Mobile when my AT&T contract runs out, but it won't be because of their shitty commercials.

I'll balance out the ire with some examples of what I think has been one of the better holiday commercial campaigns this year, starring one of my favorite comedians, Maria Bamford: