This past Sunday on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the main story they covered was on opioids.  It's the second time they've reported on the subject, though this time it was from the perspective of distribution companies but mostly the Sackler family that's behind the drug's growth.  

The story is pointed, angry and very funny -- but it reaches it's peak with one of those twists that the Oliver team does so well, especially when they want to be scathingly snarky.  And as clever and funny as that is, they ratchet it up a notch with a further twist that is laugh out-loud funny.  Much as I want to explain why, I just don't want to give it away.

In fact, they then even make an additional bonus twiist, and all I'll say is that after you watch the video you can more about it here.  It will be clear.

I don't want to say much about this before you watch it.  I'll just note that although at its core it's an ad, beyond that It's lovely, smart, heartbreaking and wonderful.

Having watched it now, I'll add that you can find what's addressed here.

The main story on last night's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver seems an unlikely one -- a look at mobile homes.  But it's very good, delving into to repellent practices in the industry -- done with solid insight, outrage and lots of humor.

On this past Sunday's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the topic of the main story was professional wrestling.  It is not a subject I have any interest in, although happily the show took the one perspective I could tolerate -- trashing the owner of the WWE, Vince McMahon, quite an odious man.  While I don't find professional wrestling the wonderful entertainment that Oliver does, I think they did a terrific, often very funny, but also blistering and at times even touching job at dealing with the problems McMahon has created for so many of his employees -- in large part because he's been able to get away with calling them independent contractors rather than employees, which they are.

My one quibble with the story was one aspect of McMahon's story which got totally ignored.  I don't know if it was an oversight (and if it was, it's a major one), or they didn't want to go in that direction, but I think they should have.  And it's that McMahon's wife Linda not only is a former Republican candidate for the Senate in Connecticut (which she lost), but she's been in the Trump cabinet for the past two years as head of the Small Business Administration.  Only the other day, she announced she was leaving the post -- but to lead the major Trump for 2020 Re-election PAC, America First Action.  Personally, I think that's important to at least have mentioned.
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As I've noted here, every once in a while I get burned out writing about Trump and am happy to let others jump in and carry the ball for a few days.  There are more than enough falling over themselves to chime in online, not to mention investigate (both in the judicial system and journalism) and report it all, so we're in good hands -- as the batteries recharge.

So, today instead I'll bring up something benign and of most worth locally, but which I've wanted to write about for a while, and this is as good a chance as any.

When I moved into my new home 2-1/2 months ago, a couple of things made me wary about the front door.  The first is that while it had a great lock with a wonderful "snap" (that I love), it didn't seem to lock smoothly, which struck me as pretty important.  Also, the door was set in a way that it swings closed and does so very fast, and then locks.  As sure as the sun rises, I was absolutely certain I would lock myself out at some point.  So, I made more spare keeps than usual and gave them to as many friends who live close by as possible.

The other day, the hinky front door got hinkier, and it became difficult to unlock.  Not a good thing.  Actually, it did unlock fine, just not smoothly, it became a two-handed job where you have to grab the handle and pull the door towards you, and turn the key at the same time.  (I'm mentioned the door issue before closing escrow, but the inspector didn't seem to thing it was worth noting.  Like a few other things I've had to repair.)

Though the door was passably okay, I thought it best to deal with it now, rather than later.  And checked out Angie's List, which I haven't used much, but have had very good luck the couple times I have.  And chalk up yet another.

If you live in Los Angeles, the fellow is David Leiderman at D Locks.  Though he's based in the Valley, he'll go all over -- and as it happens, when I called he was in Santa Monica about 10 minutes away, and had just finished up his prior job.  So, great timing.  

He showed up fast, was very personable, explained everything well and in detail, has a great and wry sense of humor, and got it all fixed quickly and properly, at a very reasonable price.  But the best thing is that I explained that I had another door issue -- that swinging shut fast thing.  And even though it wasn't really a locksmith matter, other than the door locks when it closes, I said I wanted to at least mention it.  And I'm glad I did, because it turned out he knew the issue and was able fixed it and in only about five minutes.  At no charge.

(I had an odd moment a couple weeks later, when the lock wouldn't turn without much difficulty.  David was very responsive, thought it was a minor, understandable issue that was explainable (short version, he thought it might be weather-related and described what why) but had an employee call me a few days later when he was in the area to come over.  I wasn't going to be in then, so we put it off -- and the matter hasn't cropped up again in the past month.  And all seems well.)

So, I now know of a very good locksmith if I need one.  My only quibble is that he doesn't take credit cards, but that's not a deal-breaker.  The wonderful service is what matters.  And I like too that he's a licensed locksmith.  So, if you're in L.A. and want to add a locksmith to your list of Home Service People to Call When In Need, you can find his website here, or call 818-209-0973.  Or write David@Dlocks.net.  Actually, it's worth checking out his website anyway, even if you don't need a locksmith right now or live in another city -- that's because he has a very information FAQ section with things to know about problematic locks and ways you might be able to fix some basic things on your own.

I've written about a few such business near me who provide great service at fair prices -- I write letters of complaint all the time, and I always figure that if I'm going to complain when things go wrong, I have a responsibility to praise those who do things right.  So, I'm very happy to add one more to the book...

A friend sent me an article on thrillist.com that rated all the Super Bowl ads, and he asked for my comments about them.
 
Though I’ve written TV ads, I’m hardly an expert.  But (and this doesn’t make me an expert either), I’m named after a relative who was an expert.  Really.  Isadore James Wagner, and I’m Robert James Elisberg.  That’s why I always write professionally as “Robert J. Elisberg,” as an homage to him.  He was one of the “pioneers” in using singing commercials on radio.  I have an excellent book on old-time radio, The Big Broadcast, sort of an encyclopedia, which has a section on commercials.  They give about a dozen examples of famous radio jingles, and two of them are his.  (One was used for many decades and even I got to hear it on TV, the “What’ll you have?  Pabst Blue Ribbon” jingle.)  He also gave Studs Terkel his first break on radio – and in Terkel’s two memoirs he always give Iz credit.  When I read an interview with him giving credit to “That adman I.J. Wagner,” I ran to tell my mom, and she said, “Oh, yes, I know.  When Iz died, Studs spoke at his funeral.”
 
A story about him and advertising which in a way relates to commenting on Super Bowl ads.  Years back I was talking with an elderly screenwriter, David P. Lewis, who used to write ads in Chicago.  I mentioned having a cousin who did that, I.J. Wagner.  He said he didn’t know him, but worked at the agency where he had worked.  The story is that when he got hired there, he was a know-it-all kid, and when he was told that one of their clients was Thomas J. Webb Coffee (very big in the Midwest at the time), and one of Iz’s big ads, David said he went on a know-it-all rant about how he hated the ad because it was so annoying.  The supervisor went and got a rate book and let him read it – it showed that the ad was WILDLY successful and incredibly well-remembered.  The point being, he realized, that you’re not writing art but trying to get the public to remember your product and then buy it.
 
(The ad – not one of his singing jingles -- was an annoying woman’s raspy voice calling out, “Morrrrrtimer!!  Don’t forget to get the Thomas J. Webb Cofffffffff-eeeeeeeee!!!!”)
 
Before I looked at what Thrillist wrote, I passed along my two favorites.  (I should add that I didn’t think most of the ads were all that wonderful, and there were the only two which, for me, leaped out.  I liked others, but in fairness I didn't see all the ads, and the ones I did see didn’t strike me as great ads, just sort of fun.)  My favorites were --
 
The NFL ad, promoting the upcoming documentary on the history of the NFL.  It wasn’t really a “product” and didn’t make the point of what it was promoting all that great, but I just loved the ad.
 
The Microsoft ad for its usability features for disabled kids.
 
As a special mention, I liked the ad for Bubly soft drink with Michael Buble.
 
As for the Thrillist article, you can check it out here -- which has the added advantage of embedding all the commercials so you can watch the ones you missed list or check out those you did like again.  My own comments aren't comprehensive, so I just skimmed the article, but these are my random thoughts, following the Thrillist order from worst to best.
 
And first of those is that their comments seem to be that if a commercial isn’t all that funny it should be downgraded.  While I understand that to a degree if a commercial is trying to be funny, they seem to miss that the point of a commercial isn’t to be funny but…to sell a product.  And sometimes being “too” funny is felt to detract from the product.

While they rated the Jason Bateman/Hyundai commercial as the worst, I thought it was wonderfully produced and great fun.  However, I think it was a lousy ad for selling their cars.  (In fact, I didn’t remember if it was for Hyundai or Honda.)  So, I don’t know if that should make it it high on the list or low -- but definitely higher than "worst."
 
Their comment about how one of the reasons they didn't like the WeatherTech ad was because they felt the cellphone holider should be higher so that you could actually see the phone was idiotic.  The whole point of the product is that so you keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.  NO, they don’t want you looking at the phone.
 
I like the Stella Artois ad, though because I've never seen Sex in the City, and don't think I've seen The Big Lebowski in 15-20 years, I didn't quite get all the references, but I thought it was well-done and fun.  And think that Thrillist missed the point of why it worked. And I liked, too, the quick but great use of "The Most Interesting Man in the World" -- not just because it was a nice addition and a tweak to another beer company, Dos Equis, but I suspect there was a bit of joyful comeuppance by the actor, Jonathan Goldsmith, who had been let go by the ad agency for being too old.

I didn't think the Pepsi ad with Steve Carell ad was all that effective in selling the product especially well, but I thought he was great fun in it.

Though I don’t watch Game of Thrones, I thought the Bud Light crossover ad with the TV show.  was AWFUL.  Not just because the two styles didn’t mesh, but Budweiser thought it was a great idea to have one of its iconic characters, the Bud Knight, get killed in a battle and then decapitated.  Seriously????
 
I thought the Alexa ad was well-produced and fun, but thought it lost its focus on what it was selling.  What I think they were trying to sell was how great and versatile Alexa is, and that it can do SO much, though some efforts were misguided because Alexa shouldn’t be used for that.  A good point in theory, but it doesn’t come through properly, instead it looks like they’re saying Alexa doesn’t work well.
 
How weird that they describe the Mr. Peanut ad as “it’s all pretty stupid,” but rate it as #15.
 
I dislike the Verizon ads that have been running for the last few weeks – with the First Responders, and the tag line about how “They save everyone, and we make sure they got the call.”  The ads themselves are good – but I hate the tag line.  If the ad was the same and they ended with “Verizon salutes those who put themselves out to save others,” then that would be just fine.  But to suggest that Verizon deserves to be part of the First Responder “team” and deserves part of the praise and thanks, simply because they connect the phone call is bothersome.  Furthers, as far as I know, there isn’t an issue with any other service not being able to connect to 911 and First Responders.  Besides which, how do we know that in these cases the call to the First Responders was made using Verizon service??  Maybe it was, but maybe not.  Either way, though, they are NOT part of the team.
 
I can’t say that that Bo Jackson commercial for Sprint was very good, and they even say so, too, yet make it #11 best simply because they like seeing Bo Jackson!
 
Thrillist saying that “Obviously, it’s hard to get too outraged over a clip of Andy Warhol eating a burger” misuses the word “outraged.”  I thought the ad was fairly effective in getting your attention, which is a critical aspect of any ad, though I can assure you there were people at our group who were indeed close to outraged by it, thinking it boring, a bit creepy and inexplicable.  But at least them making it #4 made my point to those “outraged” folks that the ad was effective in getting attention and being remembered.
 
Okay, two of my favorite three made their top three, so I can’t complain about that – the Microsoft ad and the one for Bubly.  Though I wouldn’t have put the Bubly ad #1.  But – but – they completely ignored and left out the NFL promotional spot.  Perhaps because it was just a “promotion” and not a tradition ad per se, but so what?  It was great.  And even if one didn’t like it, you at least include it!!!
 
And that they thought the avocado ad was the second best is bizarre.  Among other things, it didn’t do much to sell avocados (focusing mostly on the unrelated, goofy antics of the humans) …which is the point of an ad.
 
Well, it’s all personal taste.  And I admire that Thrillist took the leap to rate them all in order.
 
 
 
 
I think your recommended tag line for the Bob Dylan “Blowin’ in the Wind” ad is a perfectly good one for commenting on Dylan’s song, but not an especially good one for selling the product.

I'm not exactly sure what to make of this article.  It all may be completely above board -- or at least dicey, if legal.  But if the expression, "Where there's smoke there's fire," holds, then former Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Governor John Kasich (R-OH) are in a lot of trouble, because there appears to be smoke billowing out of every crevice of the house.

The article is from investigative journalists David Sirota and Andrew Perez for Capitol & Main in conjunction with MapLight.  The headline and sub-head give a good indication of the substance of the tale --

"Ohio, New Jersey Pension Funds Invested $625 Million in Hedge Fund That Controls National Enquirer Parent. Under Republican governors, two states pumped hundreds of millions of dollars of pension cash into a high-risk hedge fund that took control of the National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc."

The story centers on the over-half a billion dollars of state pension money for retirees invested in a high-risk hedge fund, Chatham Asset Management, which controls American Media Inc, the parent company of the National Enquirer.  You will no doubt recall that it was recently revealed how AMI's CEO David Pecker -- one of Trump's oldest friends and associates -- was granted immunity by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The Chatham hedge fund is run by Anthony Melchiorre, a large GOP donor who the article says "reportedly met with the president and AMI CEO David Pecker at the White House soon after Trump took office." 

According to SEC records, then-Gov. Christie's administration initially invested $300 million into the high-risk hedge fund in 2013.  Then, last year, a few months before Christie's term in office expired, New Jersey sent an additional $200 million to another Chatham fund.

As the article notes, "In 2013 and 2014, an Ohio pension system partially controlled by Gov. John Kasich’s appointees committed $125 million to Chatham."

The connections between Trump, Republican officials, the National Enquirer and hush money payments aside -- which is a great deal to put aside -- what's most troubling for the pension funds is how incredibly risky the investments were.  AMI has had major financial difficulties in recent years and been in desperate need of cash.  (In fact, there have been suggestions that that could be a major reason David Pecker agreed to flip, knowing that his company couldn't withstand a government lawsuit and could collapse.)  Indeed, the hedge fund is so profoundly high risk, that Chatham investment material warns entities thinking of getting involved that they “may lose its entire investment in a troubled company.”  Earlier this year, one of the country's biggest equity investors, Blackstone, dropped Chatham from one of its investment funds.

This is not the sort of venture that retiree pensions tend to invest in...   Which raises questions about why in the world the massive investments were made.  

“If asked to vote, I can assure you I will be voting for us to divest,” said said Tom Bruno, a state union representative who is the chairman of the New Jersey pension board of trustees and who serves on New Jersey’s State Investment Council, which oversees the pension system’s investments. “I cannot talk on behalf of the entire SIC, but I will be doing everything in my power to convince a majority to vote the same way.”

As I said, for all I know these investments were perfectly legal and financially sound.  Or if not, perhaps Chris Christie and John Kasich were completely isolated from all decisions to put so much pension money in such incredibly high-risk ventures.  I have no idea.  But it seems from the story that this is only the beginning of the tale.  You can read the whole article here.

​Longtime readers of these pages might recall an odd piece I wrote five years ago.  It was an out-of-the-blue rumination unlike any I think I'd written before or since, wondering why on earth Papa John's used its founder and CED John Schnatter was their spokesperson in TV ads, since he seemed to me one of the most unlikely people I've seen promoting a product.  You can read the piece here.  I end it by noting that what promoted me to write the commentary was that I'd felt that way for a very long time and just saw a TV ad that was too creepy that I couldn't take it any more.  I closed by writing, "He had his arm around some kid, trying to look like just a regular guy, and all I could think of was yelling at the screen, 'Run, kid!  Run!!  Run for your life before he snaps and strangles you!!!'"

I bring this up because, after having been forced to resign as CEO for racial comments last year, he was just forced to resign as Chairman of the Board for additionally racially crass words.

I wish I could say I was prescient -- five years ahead isn't too shabby -- but I have a strong feeling that I wasn't alone in thinking how creepy he seemed.  But I'm certainly glad I wrote it back then and that it's time-stamped...

Samsung released a new ad mocking the iPhone for its throttling issue. It's a very valid point - but a very risky one for Samsung, of all companies, to make. That's because it leaves them open for Apple releasing an ad, "At least our phones haven't burst into flame. Or gotten banned on planes"
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