When I checked for updates to the Shameless blog this morning, I was treated to a disgusting bit of misogyny via Mir’s post on the new Bacardi Breezer ad campaign. This campaign, with the tagline “Get Yourself An Ugly Girlfriend” is one of the most offensive, sexist attempt at promoting alcohol that I have ever seen, which is saying a lot, considering the general grossness of alcohol advertising. I’m not sure how Bacardi thought it could convince women to drink Breezers by insulting their looks, but, well… that’s what they’re trying to do. Certainly the best way to sell a product is to remind women of all the things they hate about their bodies, right? That makes total sense.

I have been looking for an excuse to do some more feminist adbusting since Your Mom Had Groupies, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Thus, I present a new ad campaign that I like to call Take A Beach Stroll With Sally (Click the image to make it bigger):

Once again, I’m putting out the call for contributions, because adbusting is more fun in groups! Who would you like to join you at the beach or at the mall? Make your own ad or just leave a comment telling me how you would bust this gross ad campaign. If you have a contribution, please submit it here and I’ll make a big post with all the responses!

Or, if you don’t feel like spending your day messing around with Photoshop, you can just tell Bacardi exactly how you feel about their new campaign.

EDIT: Sources in Israel (oooh, I love saying that) have informed me that this is an old campaign, dating from 2007 or 2008. They are not sure if it was dropped by the company or even if it was ever officially used by Bacardi. McCann Digital is an Internet exclusive ad agency known for its disgustingly offensive campaigns. McCann recently listed the ad campaign on Best TV Now, dating it as being from this month and listing the client that commissioned it as Tempo.

Possibly, and this is entirely my speculation, it was going to be submitted to the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Does anyone else have any clues? I, for one, would love to hear from Bacardi on the matter. Adbusting remains very satisfying, whatever the response.

EDIT: McCann has pulled the promotional minisite down and removed it from their website! Heh, feminists either crashed their site or… they feared the bad press. I wonder…

EDIT: An apology (Corporations apologize? I have never heard of such a thing!) from Bacardi can be seen in the comments. Also, the lovely Mir submitted her own ad-busted version of this ad, which I think is hilarious (and suffering from far fewer rage issues than my own:

I have been trying to keep track of all the books I read, even try to review them occasionally Facebook. Unfortunately, my little bookshelf application on Facebook keeps annoying me with popups and glitches, so I thought I would just record my recent reads list here, starting with the end of last year. I think I will try to do this every year.

2008

1. Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin: B-
2. The Blue Place by Nicola Griffith: A-
3. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning by John Mahler: B
4. Persepolis I and II by Marjane Satrapi: A+
5. After Dark by Haruki Murakami: B-
6. Cover Me by Mariko Tamaki: B
7. The Devil’s Cup by Asshole McAsshole: F
8. Two Ends of Sleep by Lizard Jones: A
9. The Glass Cell by Patricia Highsmith: B
10. After Dolores by Sarah Schulman: A
11. Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil, Gillian McCain: A+++
12. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami: B
13. Slow River by Nicola Griffith: A
14. Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood: A+
15. Godspeed by Lynn Breedlove: B (But the first ten pages are, like, A. Too bad she couldn’t sustain the style.
16. The Corner by David Simon: A- (It had issues and some sketchy decision making, but it was too engaging to blow off.)
17. The Chelsea Whistle by Michelle Tea: B+
18. People in Trouble by Sarah Schulman: B
19. Beebo Brinker by Ann Bannon: B (Clearly this is the section of the year where I was raiding Stark’s lesbian fiction collection)
20. Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters: A-
21. Tea by Stacey D’Erasmo: B-
22. Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs: D- (This book was so profoundly disappointing. Ugh.)
23. The Code Book by Simon Singh: A
24. Every Contact Leaves A Trace by Connie Fletcher: A

2009

1. Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury: Unfinished.
2. From the Velvets to the Voidoids by Clinton Heylin: Unfinished, but let’s give it an F for pretension.
3. The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel: A+
4. Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino: B
5. Master & Commander by Patrick O’Brien: A-
6. World War Z by Max Brooks: A
7. Homicide by David Simon: B (Having read The Corner first, it’s impressive to see how much Simon’s writing has improved. It’s amazing how many stories appeared almost exactly in Homicide.)
8. 2666 by Robert Bolano: Oh dear…. where to begin with this?

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I was whining to Trancer recently about how TV sucks, and I thought, hmmm… maybe I should do an end season roundup of my year of TV.

Well, I have to admit, I broke up with a lot of shows this year.

First to go was Sarah Connor Chronicles, then Ugly Betty and Chuck, and now I’m pretty sure I’m divorcing Bones. Under the cut - my year in TV.

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The requisite squeeing fangirl post. Stark and I saw Star Trek (dammit, I keep typing “Stark Trek”) yesterday and had differing opinions on the film. Stark said “Meh,” I said “Wheeeeeeee! Saving the universe and getting in bar fights! Tribbles and booze and wild space adventure! Pyoo pyoo set phasers to stun!!”

Right before my trip to New York, Space Channel was showing a Star Trek movie marathon. We diligently powered through each of the movies up until I left. Sadly, I only got to watch up until the eighth movie before I had to leave the country, so I missed out on Insurrection and Nemesis. Oh well, I have heard I wasn’t missing much. Generally, I thought the entire series wasn’t all that great. Most of the movies amounted to just decent, extra-long episodes of the show. Which is not a bad thing, really. I mean, for the hilarious interactions of Bones/Kirk/Spock alone, they’re worth watching. The most movie-like of the movies was The Voyage Home, which had an engaging script, time travel with an amazing purpose, and great interactions between the cast. Chekhov getting captured as a Russian spy! Bones bitching about medieval medicine! Uhura being baffled by San Francisco! Kirk doing a terrible job of hitting on a woman and making her pay for his dinner! SPOCK MIND MELDING WITH WHALES!!! Awesome. Here are my ratings for the series:

I, Star Trek: Boring but inoffensive
II, The Wrath of Khan: Campy awesomeness. KHAAANNNNN!
III, The Search For Spock: Kinda rambling and slow, but generally decent.
IV, The Voyage Home: WHALES! BEST. MOVIE. EVER.
V, The Final Frontier: AWFUL. AWFUL. Never leave Shatner in charge of a story. Ugh.
VI, The Undiscovered Country: Definitely an improvement on V, but more like a long episode than anything else. Lots of boring galactic council meetings. Lucas should have learned from this. Space politics, like real politics, are BORING.
VII, Generations: I liked this movie. It was actually the first Star Trek movie that I ever saw in theaters, so I’ll always be fond of it.
VIII, First Contact: Borg queen! Borg queen! Data being smarter than everyone! Awww, Picard, you make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you say things like “Engage.” Purrr. And the day is saved by Picard’s hot biceps of power and righteousness!

In sum, STAR TREK RULES!
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After weeks (months?) of planning, cutting tiny holes, testing paint samples, running to Curry’s for some random supply I didn’t realize I needed, the tiny scale model of the Wonder Wheel is finally complete!

Sketching out a circle this size was a real bitch, let me tell you. But cutting out tiny lattice work with an exacto knife was even worse. Hello, early onset arthritis.

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Amazon, already the scourge of small publishers and independent booksellers, has finally gone too far. No, I am not talking about the Kindle. That thing is just pointless. I am talking about Amazon’s new policy of labeling any and all LGBT printed matter as “Adult.” This policy strips the material of its sales rank, excluding it from bestseller lists and certain search results, and basically destroys its sales. This policy has not just been applied to erotica, but to general fiction, young adult novels, academic theory, political treatises, history books, dictionaries, and self-help books. Books that have not suffered the same fate include heterosexual romance novels by authors like Jackie Collins or even pornographic books published by Playboy.

Here is a constantly expanding list of books that have been stripped of their rank, classified as “Adult” for daring to contain mentions of the horrible, deviant behavior that is same sex love. Examples include classics such as Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, and Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Also marginalized are Brokeback Mountain, Stone Butch Blues, books by respected fiction authors like Sarah Waters and Christopher Isherwood, as well as non-fiction (and completely non-erotic) works by Kate Bornstein and Randy Shilts, including The Mayor of Castro Street, which certainly must have received a boost in sales after the release of the Oscar winning film, “Milk.”

Thank you Amazon, for first putting all my favorite bookstores out of business, and now trying to make it so that no one will ever publish gay books ever again. Because with profit margins tight and a terrible economy, why bother sinking money into a book that will never sell, because the largest bookseller in the world will declare it to be shameful porn and hide it on a dusty shelf behind a beaded curtain at the back of the store?

Pissed off about this new policy?
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Stark and I had an adventure in the kitchen last night. She made fresh ravioli and I made stuffed artichokes. My family used to have Sunday dinners of ravioli, sausage, meatballs, fresh Italian bread, and stuffed artichokes, and it was enough to food to kill a horse. I remember these dinners very fondly, but I always doubted my ability to recreate the culinary delights of my Italian grandma.

Last night I finally took the plunge after a thirty minute phone consultation with my mother, and I have to admit, they were really good! Just like I remembered my grandma making them! So, in effort of spreading the yum, I will share the recipe (now with photo illustrations!):

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Since the last time I wrote a review for a book, I’ve had several reading disasters.

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Today I started planning out the background for the main credits sequence, which will be an animated view of the beach, boardwalk storefronts, and the Wonder Wheel. I decided to track the equipment I’ve been using as well as the process of making this movie. This will either succeed in recording my path to success or, well, help me learn what methods fail spectacularly.

Here is the electronic equipment that has been used so far in the making of this movie:

Pictured: Canon GL2 Digital Video Recorder, Zoom H2 Digital Sound Recorder, MacBook Pro, DV Tapes, Canon Powershot Camera
Not Pictured: Maxtor 1TB External Hard Drive, Canon Rebel XT

Here are the art supplies that we purchased for use in the animations:

Pictured: Coney Island: Lost and Found (reference images), sketch book, portfolio, some sheets of heavy poster board, a set of gouache paints, several synthetic brushes, a palette, a glue stick, an Exacto knife, thumbtacks, a cutting board, a protractor and compass set (from Dollarama! this is a low budget film after all), and a pencil case filled with pens, erasers, white-out, pencils, a bone folder, and a hole punch/awl.

Today, I did some color tests with the gouache paint. I wanted to make sure it could produce bright, circus-like, opaque colors with a minimum of effort. I haven’t worked with gouache before, so I was worried it would be too washed out. Luckily, it was perfect!

I also decided to plan out the background for the main credits sequence by making a scale drawing in my sketch book. I wanted to make sure there was enough room for the letters and puppets to move across the beach and be legible. It was important that the puppets also be of a size that is reasonably easy to cut-out and manipulate for the animations.

After struggling through incredibly simple math, I finally managed to hit upon proportions that I think will work rather well for the project:

I think it can finally be said that production is fully in motion for our movie about Coney Island, currently titled Shoot the Freak.

After a recent brilliant decision to get in way over my head and add animated transitions and credits to the movie, I have felt newly inspired to get things moving again.

So far we have:

1. Went to Curry’s and picked up some basic supplies for paper cut out animation. Purchased: Notebook, portfolio, some sheets of heavy paper, cutting board, a set of gouache paints, paintbrushes and palette.
2. Made some preliminary sketches for the credits sequence, some basic animations, and a parachute jump transition.
3. Perused Flickr commons for public domain images of Coney Island, went through Coney Island: Lost and Found, adding post-its to every image that might be of use for transitions or flashbacks.
4. Installed Joomla on this domain to test it out for possible use as movie website.
5. Downloaded Celtx for use organizing storyboards, footage, sounds, and production materials.
6. Took notes on three DV tapes worth of footage, spanning from Summer 2007 to Fall 2008, and audio recordings from Summer 2008. Now I just need to transfer that to a searchable database before my handwriting becomes unreadable.
7. Finally finished cutting up the interview tracks, labeling them, giving them basic descriptions, and loading them to the temporary website.