Tag Archives: commercials

Crypt

Crypt: (n) a subterranean vault used as a burial place or a location for secret meetings

“You are dead to me,” said the coroner to his rebellious son.

Or how about this?

“Let’s hang out and share some gallows humor.”

Or:

“She is not dead; she is asleep.” (That one’s from the Bible.)

Jokes about death are probably some of the more difficult ones to pull off.

I preface this essay with that thought because some of you may not think my little story is very funny.

I do not remember which one of my sons possessed this apprehension. (Actually, I probably do remember but just don’t want to humiliate him.)

HBO used to have a show called Crypt Keeper. It was hosted by this raspy-voiced creature resembling E. T., if E. T. had just survived an opiate overdose and was craving a fix.

I didn’t find the creature to be particularly scary, nor did my other older children. But this one son could neither see Crypt Keeper or even hear him, without going nearly berserk with anxiety—wanting to run out of the room, screaming.

Now, if I were a good Dad I would have been sensitive to the situation, making sure that my sons never had the show on or even kept the volume up during commercials.

But I was much younger and had not yet learned the parameters of good fatherhood.

So, God forgive me, and any angels who are interested, I found it completely hilarious when my young boy exploded like a firecracker and ran around the room trying to escape Crypt Keeper, breathing heavy, with his eyes bulging.

There may be much legend about this situation I’m about to share, so you must be careful who you listen to.

For instance, don’t believe any of my family members.

They will exaggerate the number of times I tormented my son with Crypt Keeper.

On this occasion, I had him seated next to me on the couch, with the volume turned down on the TV. We were eating popcorn, singing some songs. I had prearranged for my older son, sitting next to the television set, to turn up the volume as soon as a commercial about Crypt Keeper came on.

Faithful he was. Suddenly the volume came blaring through the room, with the Crypt Keeper’s voice, and my little son was so frightened that he threw a whole bowl of popcorn in the air—and wet his pants.

From that point on, I stopped pursuing my little practical joke.

Because when he wet his pants he was sitting on my lap.

 

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

https://jonathanrichardcring.substack.com/

Alphabet

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alphabet: (n) a set of letters or symbols in a fixed order, used to represent the basic sounds of a language

Sometimes I understand a concept and can even put into the works a plan of action, but become completely baffled during implementation.

Do you do that too?

Such was the case with a cereal called “Alphabets.”

As a kid, when I watched the commercial on television I saw children much like myself (except made more gaunt due to Hollywood’s requirements) sitting at a breakfast table, taking their little pieces of cereal and laying letters out on the table in front of them to make words.

It was perfect.

It was like going to school, feeling a sense of accomplishment upon completing an assignment–but then being able to eat it.

I was so impressed with what I saw during this advertisement that I begged my mother to buy me a box of Alphabets so that I, too, could sit in my nook and build my own personal dictionary made out of overly sweetened cereal product.

The only trouble was that every letter I pulled out seemed to be either an X or an O. Apparently the manufacturer found it easier to make those particular letters, so the box was not adequately stocked with all twenty-six representations used to form the English language.

They failed to share this in the commercial.

So by the end of breakfast I had dumped the entire box of cereal on the table in the quest of forming language, only to have my mother walk in and think that I was goofing around instead of pursuing the Rosetta Stone.

I can tell you of a certainty–there are absolutely no P’s, R’s or T’s in a box of Alphabets. I think I found two A’s, one E and four U’s.

I was vowelless.

So what I came up with were a bunch of Eastern-European-style words, a table covered with cereal and the dust that accompanies it, and an angry mother, who swore never to buy me another box of Alphabets.

The next week I found myself back to eating oatmeal, which, by the way, doesn’t evoke any other words than Y-U-C-K.

 

Acculturate

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acculturate: (v.) to assimilate or cause to assimilate to a different culture, typically the dominate one: e.g. an acculturated Cherokee.

What IS a dominate culture?

I guess in this day and age it would be the loudest one–or maybe it’s the one that can get the most votes.

Perhaps the dominate culture would be the one that has the most money to buy commercials on television to promote its cause.

Could the dominate culture be the local color of choice?

Is the dominate culture what we feel in the moment, because we are wracked with guilt, teeming with vengeance or overwhelmed with responsibility?

Perhaps the dominate culture is just the one we learned around the kitchen table with those folks who sprouted the seed which became our lives.

Maybe when we use terms like “dominate culture” we are setting a bit of nastiness in motion which can only be resisted by those who object to such foolish wording. I am not suggesting that “acculturate” should be removed from the dictionary, but truly, the only acculturating we all do is the knowledge that we have arrived on a planet called Earth instead of a three-square-foot  space dubbed “me.”

So I can’t acculturate without recognizing the preferences of my Chinese brothers and sisters. And merely calling some nations our “enemies” does not eliminate them from consideration when we’re trying to find ways to cohabit a planet which is shrinking with each and every new advancement in speed.

This is why I’ve discovered that the only viable principle of acculturation which transfers from one border to another, is the statement: “NoOne is better than anyone else.”

Of course, that particular premise may eliminate the need for a personally devised culture in the first place. Since my ideas and your ideas have equal footing, there is no need to act like your ways are slippery and mine are on solid rock.

Do we really want people from Mexico, Central America, Europe or China to come over here and learn how to speak our language with a mid-western accent so we’ll be comforted by their willingness to be “truly American?”

Would I be willing to go to China, learn the language and imitate the local dialect? Of course not–because I’m American and believe that everybody should acculturate to me. And even though the Chinese outnumber us about four to one, it becomes their duty to be more like us rather than we like them.

It’s not just conceit, it’s just unrealistic.

The more we can find things that are free of taste and preference and are brimming with commonality, the better the chance that we will be able to talk with one another–or at least not blow up each other’s lives

Acculturate–I guess it’s finding the dominate culture by first realizing that it won’t be just ours.

It’s going to be what is earth-friendly.