Sunday, June 17, 2012

Corporate Sponsorship

Carol and I were watching a special on the beauty and majesty of Fenway Park. The history, the quirkiness, the fact that it has survived one hundred years while other ballparks have been destroyed and replaced with soul-less stadiums. The fact that it is a part of the neighborhood. The fact that just being in Fenway is just as cool as catching a Sox game.
Inevitably other parks were referenced during the show and here comes the parade of corporate sponsorships and cold, business like names.
Coors Field, Safeco Field, Busch Stadium, Citizens Bank Park, Citi Field, AT&T Park, Minute Maid Park. I hate these names as I hate corporations. The names are self serving, unoriginal, and impossible to make an emotional connection with. I particularly hate the parks named after major banks. These seem especially cruel and cold.
Here's the irony. Here's the inspiration.
I want a major corporation to sponsor my home. I am paying for my home for the second goddamn time and I will be 103 years old before I actually own it. It's a $100,000 house that is costing me upwards of $15 million dollars.
I am tired of mortgage payments resulting in ragged underwear.
If a major corporation will pay off my mortgage, they can do anything they want with my house. Paint their name in impossibly huge letters right on the side or on the roof or both. Put a sign up at the end of the driveway with one of those phony pictures that makes the corp. look like your best friend. Rig the doors so that every time anyone walks into and out of  the house a computerized voice repeats the name of the corp.
Slap the corporate logo on every cabinet in the kitchen, provide me with special shower curtains, put see through stickers on every window. Emboss my toilet seats with corporate identity.
I don't give a good goddamn. Just pay off the loan.
You can take pictures of me standing with my arms around evil corporate execs extolling their virtues to the heavens. "Yes sir, Blood Suckers Bank cares about the little man, our survival is foremost in every decision they make, and they even opened up starter bank accounts for our Little Leaguers after an appropriate credit check."
I live in the woods, in a quiet, beautiful area that is private, peaceful, comfortable and inspiring.
This is exactly the kind of image a thieving corporation needs to make themselves look neighborly.
If I could get Crown Royal to sponsor the house, it would be nirvana. I always wanted to live in a purple house. Of course I don't see Seagram's as an evil entity so our mutually beneficial relationship would be sweet synchronicity.
People get paid to drive around with Budweiser on the side of their cars. I am taking the concept to a whole new level.
I will be entertaining offers over the next four weeks, negotiating the maximum amount of perks a corporation will allow (given the current corporate climate I imagine I will be driving a Ferrari, piloting a cigarette boat and wearing $5,000 custom made Italian silk suits).
Once I sign on the dotted line you will all be invited over for a barbecue and maximum  commercial exposure.
Enjoy a beer from my specially fitted Blue Moon cooler that rocket ejects ice cold bottles at the touch of a button. Chow down a buttery Delmonico steak fresh from my TallGrass Beef Company grill. Wipe the grease of your face with beautifully decorated Kimberly-Clark re-usable napkins.
Step out on the lawn with the Scotts Turf Builder Logo mowed into it and admire the exquisite Crown Royal bottle sculpted into the side of my house, 150 times scale.
A little slice of heaven, a personal dream come true.

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