100 People In a Room, Commercial Break: gagablog #163

I saw the headline, something like "Madonna savagely disses Gaga" a few days ago, when the story was new, then I wrote my first edition of this in months. Then yesterday I had to write an update and remembered this headline and decided to look it up and see what the fuss was about. I was still not sure if I should bother, after I looked it up, but decided I might as well say a whole bunch of stuff about it  - it's a spell, ha ha. But I might have still put it off except that I was watching the local news entertainment show, for some reason  -oh, because the Partridge Family was on, and they played "Just Dance" while going to commercial break - and I had decided before I looked it up that the Madge "feud" was probably "a commercial" -which fits with the previous idea for this gagablog that I would write an edition about the commercials on Antenna TV and call it "Commercial Break" - I just turned back to it and Major Healy says something about psychic powers, Master says not to believe in crystal balls, Jeannie says they are real and puts him in one, for a second. Now they are talking about Michaelangelo and Rembrandt - this is confirmation, "triumph of matter over mind" the psychiatrist just said, that my transition, like the end of one episode to the beginning of the next, will cover the span between psychic phenomena and art, these two fun forms of magic.

But back to the commercials - Oasis is on, now, and one of my favorite lines is coming up "Oasis, they killed a man, they helped me out, they-they gave me my life back."  - He actually says "they killed it man" but it always sounds so much like "killed a man", like they killed someone who was coming after him. G4 by Golpa is on, now, and he has some funny lines, too: "We walk around with a computer in our pockets but still struggle to eat a sandwich" - I need to get into this stuff at the end and talk about Madonna and Gaga, first, I have too much to say about too many commercials on Old Folks TV, Antenna TV - its always shocking when I see one on regular TV. I didn't know they were trying to sell ya'll those "Milinneal" MVMT watches, too. Crazy. Crazy for thinking...

Anyway, the last Auction Jeannie went to was in Mesopotamia and they were selling slaves. Master says they aren't selling slaves, as matter-of factly as if he said they weren't taking a walk. Anyway, they are selling art.

Back to Gaga, the feud. This scathing diss - I really can't just talk about this as much as I can, just want to say other stuff, but then again, okay, here goes. Might as well not hold back at all.

I didn't know what to expect. I had my own intuition - maybe Madonna felt like she did more for Hillary than Gaga did  - wasn't she going to kiss or fuck anyone to reward them for voting for Hill? I forget. I guess she has a point, Gaga could have won it, for Jill (or Bernie) anyway, with that offer, maybe for Hillary, too -kidding, Gaga would have won it. Ok, stop getting sidetracked, that isn't what it was about. I didn't REALLY think it was -

I thought it would be kind of lame to be going back 2-3 years, to 2016, to "make beef" about something.

I asked my lover what she thought the beeftweet could be about, since she had seen the headline, too, but hadn't clicked it, either. She said maybe over eating meat or wearing fur, or something about the messages of Gaga's music versus Madonna's? I had to question that but I won't go through the questions, here, but save it for a more meaningful discussion, not just about commercials.

But it wasn't about something from 2 years ago. It was about something from 30 years ago.

I don't really have any "fault" for Madonna becuase, after reading 2 articles about the New Feud, I don't see what she said to "diss" Gaga, much less "savagely." I even took the advice of the Madonna fan, whose tweet happened to be quoted in both articles - maybe they consider "research" for articles just including the top tweet response or something. It didn't make sense to me - I'm not very cultured, like Groundskeeper Willie. "To all you 11-year old Gaga fans, if you don't know why Madonna is mad, Google SWF." So I did that - I knew it was a movie, but didn't get the pop culture reference, having never seen it or heard it referenced enough to know the plot. The first lines of the summary - without having to click any of them - weren't revealing. But the trailer was.

It has Bryan in it. Bryan, from Wings. As an actor in the movie, like the Main Actor.

I rest my case.

I mean, you told me to look up a movie that has Bryan in it. Anyway, maybe YOU need to Youtube /Antenna TV up some Wings - 1 AM Eastern Time, I believe.

The point it I eventually got her point. I asked my lover about it and after we determined that she hadn't said "Desperately Seeking Susan," the Madonna movie, but had indeed said SWF we both recalled that the famous plot-line from that movie was that one girl went psycho and stole the identity of another.

I pointed out that this theme is something that happens in plenty of TV shows - that it's not the most compelling theme but also there are plenty of other examples about it "As you Americans would say, Wild Horses couldn't drag me away" Jeannie just said, disguised as an Art Expert, an old man with a beard. I wonder if she should tweet a complaint about the Rolling Stones? I'm getting off track - as far as I can tell Madonna never actually "complained" - that's just Entertainment News "reporting"

On Bewitched, Samantha has an "evil cousin" who has dark hair and is slutty and wonderful - damn I can't remember her name, now - but she often impersonates or becomes Sam to woo Darren or some other hijinks. She really is the same actress in another Look. My lover mentioned that it happens on Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

I mentioned there are versions of it for male characters, too - The Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride was the first one that came to mind but it seems like there are dozens of examples on the tip of my tongue.

The Poshmark commercial is on, the newer one, with the girl who ends the last three seconds of the commercial with her eyes closed, laughing at herself for how much she likes Poshmark. And she has a beautiful friend who is there to laugh along with the Poshmarking and just loving it, just there to laugh and smile and have the best time ever while her friend is changing her closet inventory.

I guess guys really like seeing other guys get new trucks in commercials? Gotta be a corollary

But these are just comments about the well-reported RESPONSE tweet from some random fan about "SWF" - I still can't get over it, Bryan in a movie, I HAVE to watch this someday. But "A Star Is Born," first.

Was Madonna saying anything like this? Maybe she really dissed Gaga - maybe she SAID something in her tweet that was insulting to Gaga - but the articles didn't mention it.

They just said she tweeted a link to the clip from the interview where she says a comment "If there are 100 people in a room and one of them doesn't like me/it (what she did) I'm focused on (or "I'll remember"  - I can't remember) that one"

Ok, I guess one reason it is taking me so long to get into this is because I feel kind of bad for Madonna and her fans and don't want to rub it in too much.

There is this TERRIBLE Credit Karma commercial where the sister asks the other sister if she wants to live with Mom and Dad forever and she reflects on when she is reading and her mom runs the blender and announces "I'M MAKING SMOOTHIES" and its one of those lines that will stick with you for life, that I reference to my wife for whatever reason.

But magically I can see a comment on two sisters "arguing" about their life choices, advising each other on "how to get out"  - when they're both probably just trapped in different ways, one with her parents and the other in the world her parents made. But we always make fun of it because she is so ungrateful - all her mom does is vacuum under her yoga, make smoothies, and play the drums - basically taking care of her.

I don't feel bad for Madonna, really, unless she is actually upset - it's publicity for her, too. Gaga really benefits from the publicity since she is in a current movie and Oscar buzz for it and the soundtrack album - that show earlier mentioned her song "Shallow" from it which I haven't even heard yet, it made me jealous that the show's hosts had seen it but not feel too bad that one of them still wanted to see the movie and hadn't yet.

Surely Madonna knows it's all ultimately publicity for Gaga's projects, and hers too but Gaga is more in the spotlight. "If you can't remember the exact words then you can't break that spell and neither can I!" Samantha just told her aunt who turned Darren into a monkey. Which reminds me I should get to the words they said, eventually.

I just want to point out that most feuds between artists can be seen as manufactured by the industry to hype their work - if they are actual, naturally occurring feuds, over real issues or things people actually say to each other - principled disputes - they can be "better" because they actually address some sort of issue.

Will this "new flare-up of the feud" (supposedly, I don't believe it) between Madonna and Gaga - or more accurately their fans - actually address any Issue? I can kind of see one, negativity versus positivity, if I ever get to what they actually said - and I'm sure there will be other issues discussed because of it, if only because according to those articles people are making memes about the whole 100 and 1 concept. And there is a mystical "code" to it, a biblical parable from Jesus: he leaves the 99 sheep to seek the lost one but we can save that tangent for later, too, and talk about commercials.

So this "feud" is a free commercial for Gaga and brings up this whole long-running idea many have expressed that she is "copying" Gaga, I mean, Madonna. In one sense this is because of who and what they both represent, a form of the Goddess that includes sexuality, so long repressed in our culture, who "comes out" and breaks through some of those social barriers and structures. Other women have done this as well but there is a connection between Madonna and Gaga in the way they really gained the spotlight in popular music and being at The Top while being that Goddess energy we've lacked so long. The repressive, anti-sexual, anti-love, anti-woman forces are strong and Madonna deserves plenty of credit for helping liberate everyone from them but it's not like they went away or were fully overcome - they keep re-asserting their control and need new challengers.

Madonna's video, the clip of her saying that about 100 people in a room, is being viewed and gaining more and new kinds of exposure for her, out of all of this. The meaning of what she says isn't what Gaga used the phrase to say, it's kind of the opposite, but the difference is worth talking about.

First I have to point out that just tweeting the link is in no way a "diss" to Gaga, much less a "savage" one. I see how they want to make up headlines and stories, make up these "feuds" or stoke what naturally happens between fanbases online - but it just seems like a lie, that she is even "dissing" Gaga - how do we even know she is upset? One article included that Madonna also posted a pic with the caption of something like "don't fuck with me Monday" but I don't know how they say it is related.

I guess one way to know is if they reported all of this, and Madonna didn't correct them, then I guess there is a connection, she thinks Gaga is fucking with her, or whatever, is upset about the quote.

What she said was that she would focus on the one person out of a hundred who didn't like her or didn't like her work/performance, something like that. It's a perfectionist and negative attitude, also shows the perspective of someone who expects to or is used to pleasing everyone. A Madonna quote from the 80's is her greatest stardom, in my memory, and I assume she was used to being totally famous, wildly popular, and could easily expect 99 people in a room to love her, already - so she wants to focus on winning over that one. I say it is negative because it focuses on the negative, the one negative perspective, seeking that out instead of focusing on the positive, the 99 who love you. It's Jesusy - these are fine, lets get that lost one - and it shows she wants to grow and develop as an artist to have a larger appeal. But I really don't know exactly what she was talking about, haven't seen the interview or even the clip, just read the quote.

One article pointed out that Dita Von Teese has a quote that "you can be the juiciest, most delicious peach in the world but there will always be someone who doesn't like peaches," or something. They say it is the same principle as what Madonna said, you can be the best but there will be someone who still doesn't like you. The meaning is closer to what Madonna said than what Gaga said, but it's still very different. Dita is accepting that some people won't like you, or what you do, just due to their taste or whatever. Madonna is saying she focuses on that person - to win them over?

Maybe I am just assuming that. Maybe she just is saying it hurts her even if one person doesn't like her, that is what she feels.

To me it reminds me of perfectionism - which for ME, has been damaging, holding me back from doing the art stuff I really want to do because I want to feel or be "more perfect" - but for her, if it is perfectionism, she has got it to work for her

"Newsflash, nobody's perfect" the girl on the liberty Mutual Commercial just said.

"You know that expensive watch you always wanted? It only costs a fraction of that to make!"

"We thought that was crazy, so we started our own watch company" "...launched at fair prices.."

The MVMT commercial just came on again and I can't avoid it anymore - I even wanted to make a parody video of it, it's so classically terrible to me.

"I'm too young to be making my father's noise!" Kotter just said. Ok, here's my Larger Point: There used to be all these fancy watch commercials on TV, at least certain times of year. Now I never see them - at least not on Antenna TV. But every commercial break I see one, on Antenna TV. It seems like other watch companies just decided to hire these guys and rebrand, to try to sell to a younger market. But since I always see the commercial on Old People TV I can't believe they think they can actually fool actual millennials with these millennials, but of course they must be.

Maybe these two douchebags really did make a watch company, they aren't just a front for some old fuddy-duddy watch company - if so, good for them, that's really cool. But the way they look, that one guys line in his hair and both of their faces - well, anyway the point it "We thought that was crazy, capitalism" - then we decided to do it, just not as bad. I guess this is what the mean by "fair prices"

The other commercial that says "fair prices" - or used to "I was a pretty fair basketball player when I went to school here" Kotter just said. - is the brooklinen commercial. They say sheets are set at "fair prices" and the whole commercial just seems super millennial. I assume the connotation of the name is Brooklyn, where Kotter is, but now seems to have a hipster sound - to me, anyway. Maybe it's just the commercial. And why do I say it is millennial? It doesn;t have people kayaking and cliffjumping and scubadiving and cliffjumping more in the commercial, like the MVMT one does - but it's like the only commercial besides that one on Antenna TV that isn't all for super old people, Life Insurance, etc, so I pair them up.

What did Gaga say? She said out of a room of 100 people, if only one of them believes in you, that can make all the difference. It's a positive statement, focusing on the positive even if it is only one in a hundred or one percent. And it comes from an outside perspective, one used to being ignored or left out or denied or excluded, not given a chance. It speaks to people who feel that way even if there are far more than one percent of us, now. The 80's was a decade famous for excess and affluence and there was certainly plenty of poverty and struggle, then, too, but the image we had of ourselves as a country was Rich and Madonna was the most famous star, along with Michael Jackson, at that time. She was, and continues to be, extremely popular but at that time it is understandable that she would have to speak about "everyone" liking her and everyone did - maybe it was a statement of humility that she still focuses on that one. But it presumes almost everyone likes you and you can win over the rest. Gaga's statement presumes almost no one likes you, or likes you or expects something of you in a specific capacity - in this case, as an actress. She said Bradley Cooper was the "one person" who believed in her, that it made such a difference to her.

It's a point I'm really glad she is making because so many people are aspiring artists but only a few have "made it," relatively, and the reality remains that one of the best ways to recognition and fame is to have someone "inside" let you in, bring you in by "discovering" you - it's not like you were hidden but they always credit the established artist who introduces a new artist by saying they "discovered" them like they had to risk something on a bold dangerous adventure in listening to a song and tweeting it out, or whatever. And is it even risky enough to have that connotation, discovery, when it seems like anyone who gets "discovered" gets famous? Its not like anyone, ever, has been like "bad discovery, dude, never shoulda sailed there."

She's showing gratitude to Bradley Cooper for believing in her - and sure she is already recognized worldwide for her talent but not necessarily as an actress, and now she is, and it is thanks to him for believing in her. I can imagine how many people it takes to convince to make a movie and how many folks have a say in it, how hypothetically, or actually, dozens of those people, most all of them, 99, would not think Gaga was the natural choice for the role but one, Bradley Cooper, did.

I can see how it could be the best, most respectful way to give him credit for believing in her, to show that he was taking a chance on her, being the one to persuade the others.

When discussing this with my love she said "why not say seven people in a room? Wouldn't that be more the size of a group that makes movie decisions?" I said it might be that it is more like 100 people - it's a big movie, involving many people. And that it reflects how much of an outside chance she had, how she got the part against the odds.

I suppose it is true that even with her acting experience on AHS and other parts she would have a tough time winning the part over more established actors. I don't really know the details, I guess I imagined that he had decided to make the movie in order to cast her in the role, etc.

But I do respond to the perspective she is coming from, of being left out or underestimated, of not yet having "a break" and wanting to be "discovered" by someone. I think millions of people relate to that.

There are more of us who relate to that, of being someone who hopes one in a hundred people will appreciate and encourage, than can relate to feeling super-popular but wanting to win over that last person. And I wish we all had Madonna's problem instead of Gaga's, I think it is a sad commentary on society and how we don't appreciate art that more people do feel this way, left out and undiscovered and unappreciated.

And we truly can live in a society that values art and artists and leads to everyone feeling appreciated for their own creative sides, where anyone can imagine who there "room of 100 people" is and that those people like them. That is a world we can have, far more than we were pretending "everything was great" in the 80's and loved stars for whom everything could be great so we could live vicariously through them.

that's part of the way we got Trump, by the way.

One reason I love Gaga is that while I feel she appreciates the fact that her fame gives her riches she wants to be in touch with her fans who still struggle and seek recognition and enough to get by, themselves. She has always encouraged us to follow our dreams and become the artists we are - not by flaunting riches to tempt us but with direct encouragement in the messages she conveys, and just countering the social common knowledge that you can't make a living on art by saying yes, you can.

I imagine Madonna is also encouraging, in this way -but does she put out the message that "You, too, can be like me?" It's just more part of her brand that She is the Only One, that no one can be like her. Or, if Gaga in some ways is "being like her", she doesn't like it.

I hope I can be like Gaga, I hope she likes it.

So I think the difference between Gaga and Madonna's "100 and 1" comment is positivity versus negativity, outsider versus insider, and encouragement to others versus setting yourself above others. But that's one way to look at it.

Benson was abducted by aliens, now he's glowing.

Mike Ditka died, he used to sell us Car Shield in pretty impressive ways, on his commercial, now the generic one is on with various old people, including the lady I call the English teacher because she says she was elated with their service, more than happy - she just said it as I typed it. Nothing more to say about it except its bad magic when this guy says "something goes wrong with your car - because it will - " don't say that. I know your selling insurance. Which is mostly what they sell, healthcare insurance and life insurance. I've got some shit to talk about them, at the end. But finish with Madonna, first.

So I think there is a principled difference between these two quotes that is worth talking about, about what each one means, the mindset they lead to. But stepping back from that I think it's odd that THIS is what the "feud" is about, when if Madonna wanted to make the news you would think it could be about something that mattered, in the world, more.

Why can't all celebrities, of good conscience, all be doing all they can to stop the fascism of the Trump administration, since the politicians are putting up mostly token resistance.

Now the press has leaked the Governor's alien sighting, on Benson - which reminds me of a Johnny Carson bit from last night. He said that Ronald Reagan, upon leaving office, warned against the "Iron Triangle" of the Media, Congress, and something else for driving up the budget. Carson said if you want to blame a shape, the Pentagon seems more likely responsible for the deficit. Great joke, true as can be. But he also said that Reagan's "Iron Triangle" imagery "will probably long outlast Bush's 'Thousands Points of Light'"  - which is not true because I never heard of Reagan's Iron Triangle but the 1000 Points of Light was referenced for at least a decade and even in recent years Trump has, for some reason, probably KKK agenda like everything he does, been making fun of Bush's 1000 Points of Light, even up to the week he died, so the news media mentioned, which is how I know.

So it was just magical to see Carson say that, the week he is being buried, and know he was wrong. He also mentioned that presidents like to warn us of things when they leave - Eisenhower warned of the....what was it... (took him a while to recall  - not good to forget a warning like this) Oh right the Military Industrial complex.

The Governor just said, in times like those, the 80's, he would welcome aliens - we need all the outside help we can get. They ride a "fudgesicle" shaped ship and communicate with music "Maybe they don't know the lyrics" Benson said - the Stars and Stripes forever. The Gov is saying "We don't know anything about them" because they just came and went, but Benson says they at least know they are honest - they returned his watch. "Might as well go home, now" - then they sit back down in the field and look up for more. Reminds me how once we miss the aliens we still have nature.

Most of these commercials are about Life Insurance or Medicaid Choices and don't bear any mention. One does because it is super racist. They say that if you use a different company you could end up with a doctor who "you aren't so comfortable with" and shows the spokesman with a shaman doing a stereotyped Indian dance and smudging, and the white man, spokesman, racist, says "I'm not so comfortable." I couldn't believe they were trying to diss traditional medicine with this portrayal, in the first place, suggesting that any company would send you to a Medicine Man instead of just pumping you with pill medicine was a Lie, too - but suggesting it would be "bad" is an even worse lie. Others must have complained some of the things I felt, and more, I'm sure, if it was a direct insult to their culture and beliefs. They changed the commercial, just that segment, so now when they do the "not so comfortable" part it is a lady who says she isn't so comfortable in the room where the "doctor" is birthing a cow. So this is how they "fix it," by replacing the "shaman" with a veterinarian? It is like they are saying "Yes, we were calling you savages, animals. We won't say it directly any more - sorry about that - we will replace that part, the part that had a doctor for you, with a veternarian, a doctor for animals." I could go on about this -I guess my point is that racism makes people so fucking stupid they just don't understand things, even if you point it out to them they can't quite get it, they will continue to reveal that stupidity.

Like Trump tried to claim it wasn;t a Muslim ban when he was always calling it a Muslim Ban - and even if he renames it, it's still bullshit.

Speaking of renaming I forgot to say this, last time, talking about Rock Hudson: can we stop saying AIDS is, or ever was, a "Death Sentence"? Like, I know what they MEAN by that but the term, Death Sentence, implies that it is a punishment - presumably for sex, sharing needles, being born, or having a blood transfusion. But why say that? It's not a "sentence" - you didn't do anything wrong, you didn't go to court or get judged for it and get AIDs as a punishment.

Its not a punishment but the fact that we still casually say that, how it "used to be" a death sentence or still is in some parts of the world. Its just not, but the fact that we say that shows, basically, that we accept the idea that we should be punished for sex.

The last thing I want to say about the Madonna Gaga "feud" is that it only seems like a "feud" because the magazines want you to click the article so they make something out of nothing - but it's good advertising. Did they plan it, between them, like so many "feuds" in entertainment? If so, well, done - they did it without any real animosity and let the fan base and article writers take over. If not I kind of feel bad for Madonna. She played into it when Gaga used her phrase multiple times and "spoke up" (linked up) and then the fans had their flurry. But if she really is "steamed" about it, it just makes her look bad, it makes her look like she is jealous of Gaga's spotlight and can't get over it. And it reminds me of when Taylor Swift wanted to copyright "H8ers"  - it's just silly, you didn't even invent the phrase and can't ask for royalties or anything, it wasn't the source of Gaga's current fame or anything.

It's just the source of why anyone is talking about Madonna, now - she should be thankful! And I just don't see the evidence that she was "mad" about it - so if they both just decided to do this it was well done, a "feud" without any actual animosity. But if Madonna does feel animosity, or her fans do, it just makes them look silly.

The worst commercials I see every break on Antenna TV are the Life Insurance ones and the SoClean machine. Alex Trebek does the worst Life Insurance ones, for Colonial Penn, and doesn't have a mustache, which is weird enough. In one version he points out that $5,804 dollars is the average cost of a funeral - in other commercials they say gov benefits only pay $250. One of the worst things Trebek does is say that the money can help pay credit card bills - but these actually die with you, you don't have to pay them, and this just serves as a scam to enrich credit card companies for anyone who believes they have to pay those debts. Then he has another one where he says all these old folks need to know the "Three P's of Life Insurance" but the Three P's are Price, Price, and Price - all the same thing. It's like he's treating old people like they need to be talked to like toddlers. These people keep asking "What's my price?" and the answer is always $9.99 a month - it's just stupid advertising repetition but done to a ridiculous degree, making old folks look like idiots.

And he says "you won't be alone, 500,000 people called last year." Well, calling their number actually doesn't make you less alone or in touch with any of those people, but old people are often lonely so way to exploit that sadness. The MVMT watch duo want you to feel like part of a community, too, "join the movement" - like it's some revolution against the BigWig watch guys (even though I suspect they are just a rebranding) - its a common pitch in advertising. Because what we all truly crave more than anything else, community, belonging. But we don't really get it from a watch or life insurance policy or sheets.

The SoClean commercial, for cleaning a device you wear for breathing at night, a CPAP machine, is terrible because it reminds you that you are watching old people TV - but also good because you better stop smoking. But its bad because of the testimonial people, all of whom have southern accents. The first is a nurse who says she wondered why she was getting sick from this device that was dark and damp and reflects "as a nurse, I should have been concerned" with this expression like "what was I thinking?" but it makes you wonder, what about all those patients who you just weren't remembering basic biology to protect them from infection? The very worst is the strongest southern accent on the guy who says "If you get a CPAP machine don't even take it home until you've got your SoClean machine right with it because they're a marriage made in heaven." I can't express why that is so offensive to me but if you hear him I think you'd feel it, too. I guess part of it is the Southern, Southern Baptist super-resistance to gay marriage and saying marriage is sacred, so the idea that marriages are made in heaven, especially in that accent, conjures up those hateful feelings to me, but saying its fine to talk about these machines getting married makes a mockery of the whole "marriage is only a man and a woman, holy union concept." Mostly it's just how he says it.

I see a lot of car accident lawyer commercials, too - Jeff Gullinson is on now and the best thing he says, though it is all good because he talks funny, is "I like to think of myself as a real lawyer for real people" - as if he's admitting he's not legal he just thinks of himself that way, like Rand Paul thinks he is an eye doctor and Trump thinks he is the Emperor. "A good price is you're on a tight budget or fixed income," Alex Trebek says so convincingly, you can trust this smart guy who is so smart every day on his gameshow - except what would he know about a fixed income or what is a good price? The other great Gullinson line is "I was a victim of accidents myself so I know what it is like, and over the years, a few accidents turned into thousands of accidents" and it gives that impression that after having, being in a few accidents, he was then in thousands of more accidents, though of course he really means he represented thousands  - it just sounds like they were all his, like maybe he just runs around causing accidents like Jessica Fletcher.

The other main guy, now that Frank Azar doesn't run as many Strong Arm commercials, is a guy who has a Hall Of Fame Bronco player doing his ads with them, they say "its an All-Pro Move!" for a catchphrase, and often the camera keep zooming in on them, in stages, throughout the commercial so they get bigger and bigger on the screen, and seem to have magic powers in the way they point.

I kind of ignore them all because, sense my car accident a year ago, I have ptsd from it and I don't like to think about it, be reminded of it.

There are some other really bad commercials and I guess I've mentioned enough, none of the other ones come to mind at the moment and I don't really want to watch more to be reminded of them, I want to play some Smash Bros before work. But I love the funky version of the Gimme a Break Theme song so I'm watching that, now.

This is another "we will sign you up with medicare" commercial - there are lots of them and none of them really make sense, they just seem to reflect how mush waste is in our health system. They're claiming, for Medicare.com, that their service is free - the most trusted, informative, and easiest resource, according to their study - saving half the money - finding an average of $540/year in savings - and they aren't associated with any government agency. So they get these savings, and somehow have a business model - yet if you don't go through them, or some similar service, you could easily pay over $500 a year too much, there's that much just being "taken" because you don't know better how to sign up for the government plan, Medicare. Then there is another company that says they will save you $6,000 a year! So if you call one instead of the other I guess they can take that difference, the extra $5,500, even though it is "free" for you to call.

Just a basic, trying to understand what they are selling you in the commercial, understanding shows that this whole health care system is a big scam, with most of the money going to all these forms of "administration" and very little of it directly benefiting anyone's health. We should just nationalize it all, simple - and half of these commercials would go away. All that money just spent on trying to get you to save money, that your probably entitled to anyway, so they can skim some, too - and there is that much money to pay for half the commercials. How much better things could we be doing if they weren't spending this much on ads and everything to compete over who gets to scam our money from government programs and the healthcare racket?

In one sense the feud between Madonna and Gaga is a commercial for A Star is Born and Gaga's soundtrack album for it, and for her to win the Oscar. In another sense it is an "ad" for two ways of thinking, an old "I'm the best and will prove it to everyone until all agree" attitude, from the past, and a "Everyone can be more than they are if someone just believes in them, that can make all the difference" attitude, to focus on the positive, for the future. One focuses on being The Best, over everyone else, and the other focuses on how Everyone can Succeed, they just need one person, even against the odds, to believe in them to help out, to make it. It's hopeful, helpful, and inclusive instead of negative, critical, and inclusive. Its good if this is the "new version" of something said in the pasr, I appreciate Gaga saying this.

And if Gaga, who has let us know she studies fame, intentionally used those phrases and repeated them to get Madonna's attention, well it seems to have worked according to plan.

But I do wish both of them, and all of us, could be making effective plans to end repression, fascism, war and greed in this world  -and we can! But it takes anyone, even one person in a room of one hundred, to believe, and bring in those who have always believed and are trying to convince others, and we can really change, and save, the world.

Oh, the Jesus Parable context of Gaga's quote is that the 99 are fine with the way things are but if you can connect with that one - if one strays away, or as the Shepherd, leaves the flock, to find you, to take a chance on you, leaving those who are fine with the status quo to take care of themselves in their comfortable stable, but going for the one who was lost, who was left out. And Gaga is that Shepherd, for me - she always has been. But by recognizing how Bradley Cooper was a savior for her, in this way, and using Madonna to amplify the message, and all the media and animosity of envy in a culture starved for inspiration fighting over who is truly inspiring, Gaga got the message out even further, by giving the glory to someone else she also gives it to us, gives the ability to seek recognition, or give it to someone.

It reminds me of a story on the BBC radio that brought a tear to my eye   -about the Buddy Bench. Its a movement that has really taken off in Ireland, especially. They make a bench on school playgrounds called The Buddy Bench. If you are feeling sad, or lonely, or shy, or don't have anyone to play with you can sit on the Buddy Bench and other kids will come up to talk with you or invite you to play.

It shows a focus, a concern, in the whole society, the environment - the playground - for the outcast or lonely person, or person dealing with an issue. It revolutionizes the typical dynamic that tends towards bullying and boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. It made me cry to hear about it and more to hear the report, the way the kids responded to the idea and how many of them said they would go to talk with the kid on the bench, like 80%. It shows a new, positive direction for our culture, and it relates that everyone matters and we can each help out in helping everyone feel included and good.

In this way it kind of reveals the same meaning in Madonna and Gaga's quotes: if 99 kids are happy on the playground, but one isn't, on the Buddy Bench, Madonna would go and talk with her, play with her - that would be her focus, help whatever the problem is. And in the Buddy Bench context, from the perspective on the Bench, if Gaga is watching 99 kids play happily by themselves, but just one kid comes over and talks with her, it can make all the difference.

In the end, the feud doesn't matter - but the Buddy Bench does.

This reminds me of a Father Knows Best I saw the other night. Bud is talking about his friend's parents, how they fight all the time, how exciting it is there, how they throw furniture at each other, while his parents never fight. His sister quotes Shakespeare, that the road of true love is rocky, or something, and the parents are glad they don't argue - but of course in this episode they start arguing. At the very end they are both yelling at each other and the three kids are all watching from the stairs. They finally turn around and see the kids there and they are embarrassed, but the eldest daughter starts clapping "Bravo! Very well played! Can't you see, they were just pretending to fight - they did this for your benefit, Bud, to show you how silly you've been acting, so you appreciate that your parents don't fight - isn't that right, Father?"  - something like that. Of course they were really fighting - even the "best" couples fight - but when given that opportunity, seeing how shocked his children are, Father says yes, they were just pretending. And Mother agrees, and says it was a bad idea.

If only we could see all conflicts this way - as acts we end up in, even if we don't mean to. Its an act, and a lesson can be learned from it. But if we don't realize it's an act - and a bad act - we can take it personally and not be able to get out of it. If we DO see all conflict and argument as "just an act" - why would we EVER have the kinds of fights, wars and such, where people actually get hurt and killed? All over an act because we can't admit we are being silly?

I guess in this way I'm glad Madonna and Gaga aren't fighting over anything serious - and in another way I want us ALL to be fighting, peacefully, magically, artistically, and COLLECTIVELY, in Solidarity, against the evils that threaten us all and our very planet. Maybe it's just up to me and I'll stop talking about it and do my part -

thanks for reading and sharing whatever this does for you!