How do you find something funny to talk about? Funny is unusual. So if you find something unusual, like a kangaroo without a tale, it sure is funny. To find a kangaroo, however, with or without a decent tale, you’d have to venture far enough into the bush, that would be an adventure, kind of, and who knows if it would be looked upon like. You don’t have to do it, in fact. Just take ‘venture’ out of ‘adventure’ and what is it you are left with? ‘Ad’, of course. That’s it. Ads are funny. Funny is all around us.
If you are riding along a highway, up there in the air on a shield there is always something funny. Take this one, for example. A vaguely Middle-Eastern woman on a shield above the road asks everybody: are you as healthy as you think? Funny, isn’t it? Just imagine she’s got something serious, what is it you’d like her to have? TB, or a heart attack, or maybe cancer… That would be funny in itself, but what if she doesn’t know? That is, what if she doesn’t know that if it so happens that she doesn’t feel that good anymore, it may be because she is not that healthy? Well, it’s not something to put up with. Let’s tell her, damn it. I reckon it’ll be fair. Let’s tell this irritatingly content cow what it could be, that is, what it is. If she doesn’t know, damn it, she should. Gosh, isn’t it just wildly funny?
Or take another one. The one I always try not to pass by, but somehow it never seems possible. It says: ‘Making love? Do it longer. Phone such and such’. Somehow it reminds me that funny is like phony. There is just a little bit of difference between them. So if you can’t, say, find something funny to talk about, find something phony, like longer love making. Because it’s phony, after all, isn’t it? Just to make sure it is, you may need a sneak peek through a hole of some kind. It’s illegal, strictly speaking, but who is there to catch you? And even if they do catch you by the tail, you can always say it’s not yours.
Or take ponies. The one with a pony in it says: ’it pays to be small’, or something like it, mate. I always feel that I may be a horse that’s overgrown the size that pays and what happens if it does happen? I guess that poor horse would receive a pat on the back and that pat would take care of its size. You just need to apply enough pressure, and if the spine bone won’t crack, what else would help? Perhaps that horse’s knees just above the hooves would go an inch or two into the ground. Her back would be saved by this.
Or take another one. This one is my favourite. It says: ‘see the person, not the disability’. So if you are that person with a disability, and maybe, just maybe, you are going somewhere as, say, just a person, as yourself, and damn it, not thinking of your disability at all, we’ll tell you. We want to tell you that we don’t see your disability. Feeling better already? Yeah.
Sometimes I ask myself: who writes this stuff? And sometimes: what would I put up there on a shield for them to see? I don’t know, mate. How about ‘Plastic surgery can help anybody. You deserve it’? But isn’t it just shallow? Besides it’s common knowledge that people who do plastic surgery can be trusted to choose who, when and how. Not that much the rest of us, poor mortals.
One thing I’ve learnt from looking at those ad shields is you’ve gotta try to reach deeper, right through to the core. What would be the core here? I don’t know. Maybe, something like ‘Civilization takes ages. You’ll be amazed in five hundred years. That is, your descendants would. Skip the pill now’. But damn it, I kinda feel I’ve a general grasp of the style, but it’s not as efficient.