Sex Sells…But I Ain’t Buying
After voting this morning (more on that later) I decided to walk from the North End to the Charles/MGH red line subway station. It was lovely autumn morning so I thought “why not enjoy it?”
As I went behind the Boston Garden/Shawmut Center/Fleet Center/Bank of America Center/TD Banknorth Garden, I noticed a new billboard on the side of that lone tenement building that was never demolished during urban renewal in the 1960’s. On it was an advertisement for some sort of alochol. Was it called Mark Maker? Marky Mark? Marcia Brady? I don’t know – I’m alcohol illiterate and I’d never purchase the product anyway.
The point is that it showed nothing but the top 3/4 of the bottle and it had a wax coating (instead of a plastic seal or cork). The wax was not even and was dripping down the sides of the bottle. The tag line at the top of the ad said “Naughty or…”
Maybe it’s just me…but the image of the long narrow bottleneck with a liquid oozing down the sides clearly resembled something else for me. Perhaps that’s the point.
I still ain’t buying it.
And speaking of being bought and sold, I voted this morning. It got me thinking, too. I always read about how voter turn-out in this country is horribly low. Yet it seems that every person I know votes. Who are these people that aren’t voting? I don’t believe Massachusetts has any higher turn-out than any other state so either the people I know are lying, or there’s a select audience in our society that I somehow don’t mingle with that doesn’t vote.
Anyway, my voting place is some Knights of Columbus hall (or Masonic Lodge or something) in the North End. But I have to admit voting there can be intimidating. At both the primary and the regular elections, there are always these burly working-class Italian types loitering outside. They’re not holding signs for candidates…they’re just lingering and talking loudly in MAJOR Boston accents. I’m sure their goal isn’t to harm or intimidate….but I do find it intimidating. I’ve never noticed this in other polling areas where I’ve lived. Maybe that’s the reason for low voter turn-out? Narrow street surrounded by brick apartment houses and not much natural light with 20 or more rough men congregating in the middle of the road?
Either that or laziness.
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Better than the mothball and cane crowd. I’ll take a buncha burly Italian guys over the judgy and decrepit creeping-death voters I have to kick out of my way to cast a ballot.
Working Class burly ITALIANS. Jeeze. That’s half my family, Karl, you big snob.
It’s called the mob. You’re supposed to know how they want you to vote & they’re there to remind you. Did you not get the memo?
Mothball and cane crowd, too funny, that exactly what I had this morning.
Karl I think that was a Makers Mark billboard, mmm good stuff. You should try it sometime.
Maker’s Mark. Makes a kick-ass Manhattan!! Yum!
Maker’s Mark is one of the few bourbons I can drink, my first three days in college involved about three bottles each of old grandad and jim beam, vile stuff.
I got the black minister types outside (going for Deval Patrick, which I guess surprised me and Marie St. Fleur), and then the long wait behind the non-English speaking extreme elderly crowd. I don’t know why they have to vote before 9am and keep the rest of us waiting, but when I asked my boss she said that they come to work on time, implying I don’t, which is true, but really the Price is Right isn’t on until 11.
I don’t live in the North End, but I work there. The whole neighborhood is festooned with Healey/Hillman signs, and I do not understand why. Ethnic chauvinism is not the explanation, since none of the candidates are the least bit Italian.
Maker’s Mark … now I’m all nostalgic for the boy from Kentucky I loved who used to drink that.
Now if the alcohol was bursting forth out of the bottle neck … then perhaps I would buy it.
Ron, the landlords who own the buildings put up the signs, that’s why. They do it every time.
Karl, you’re assuming a little too much about big working class guys with accents.
Hey, Ralo – thanks for commenting.
OOPS – looking back I see that my posting does sound rather anti-Italian (it’s anything but…hell, my ex was Italian and 3/4 of my family is Italian).
Actually, my “intimiadation” was written more for dramatic effect. Though, truth be told, I am a rather shy guy and hate crowds generally. I think I’d have been equally intimidated by an elderly pack of nuns.