Subvertising

The Advertising Beneath Us.

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If only the subway could say “I’m sorry!” If only it could apologize for the pitiful advertising it exposes us to daily. Why is it when we walk down 25 steps, we somehow descend to unimaginable new lows? This is my coping mechanism for the daily dose of mediocrity known as subway ads. Welcome to SUBVERTISING™.

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Art is many things. A cherub tongue-kissing a vase of tulips is just one example. SVA’s tuition clocks in at over $43,000 a year. Making the poster’s vague exclamation fuel for what is sure to be an argument with Mom & Dad later. “Art...just is...OKAY!!! UGH! Charlatans!!” Somewhere, a door slams.

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Add a disembodied hand to any intimate encounter and you’re asking for trouble. But throw in small plastic game pieces? That’s when a visit to urgent care becomes certain. “Well...Doctor...funny story...we were looking to spice things up in the bedroom when suddenly the dice went...well...uh, missing, I guess is the word...” The doctor displays no hint of emotion. He’ll be back shortly with the forceps.

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Well here’s a jolly fellow! And why not? He’s celebrating a victory over gravity and follicle weakness, all at once. Still that grin betrays a bit of hubris. The sense that, at any second, his smile will slowly fade. As the newly grown hair slides off like a hubcap of warm ice cream on a hot summer day. 

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Menopause has a number of challenging side effects. Not the least of which is your face falling off. As she was considering what to write on her posterboard, you’d think the dissappearance of eyes, nose and mouth would make the top three. Not so. Listen close and you can hear the judgemental thoughts of her friends—“Look Linda, we all have our little crosses to bear. But bringing a shoebox lid with your symptomatic state-of-the-union everywhere is just plain awkward.”

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“So here’s the plan. We shuffle in unison to the door. You open it with your free hand. I continue glaring towards camera. Then face-to-face we toddle off to the bedroom. And gameplan a one-armed solution to childproof caps.” Not to cast blame. (Any tango takes two, after all.) But that withering stare could turn the Washington Monument to gelatin.

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It’s hard to get people to focus on their crippling genital pain. Left to their own devices, they’ll hobble around like Marty Feldman in “Young Frankenstein” and call it a football injury. But evoke the stirring image of Bernie Sanders, and suddenly dropping by the STD clinic for a check-up—well it just feels like political destiny.

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“Well,  this is a bit awkward. But seeing as it’s just the two of us here. And our faces are the width of one electron apart, I was wondering if we could address the—well the, uh—it’s the word on the side of your head. Now before you get carried away, I feel obligated to point out that  I also have a word stenciled on the side of MY head. (A popular dating app actually.) Clearly we are both ‘word-on-head’ people. It’s just your choice of word that gives me, well—a hint of pause.

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Make a few poor choices, and you might contract syphilis. Make even more, and you’ll create this poster. Typography made of scabby, diseased skin? Why, yes! Rupturing sore of a volcano? But of course! Vaguely upward trending arrow that resembles biblical lightning? Pile it on! We’re fighting an explosion here people! We won’t stop until we’ve layered enough blotchy orange pigment to scorch the retina of God!  

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You know how it its. The kids hit their tweens. Suddenly they don’t want hugs from Mom anymore. Instead they greet your affection with atomic eyerolls and giggles from behind closed doors. “But not you Quaker Oats. You never recoil from my touch as I stroke your paper-soft skin. That’s why I love you the most. If anyone tries to cook and eat you, I’ll stab them with pinking shears. Yes. Yes, I will.” 

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The beaming smiles. The meticulous pleats. It all portends evil. And yet, like all bad guys before them, there is one tiny hole in their otherwise flawless plan. Somehow they skipped the chapter in the supervillain instruction manual where it reads: “When scheming, refrain from blanketing the city with posters that announce—in point of fact—that you’re scheming.” Amateurs.

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Not hugged nearly enough as a child, Allen yearned for the unsolicited touch of strangers. No need to turn around to investigate the owner of these magic fingers. Especially since, given the angle of the wrists, the masseuse must be a terrifying 13 feet tall.

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How long do you give this kid before he’s living in a vacuum chamber with Kleenex boxes for shoes a’ la Howard Hughes? It’s one thing to suggest the world is rife with predatory bacteria lying in wait like saucer-eyed spiders. Quite another to offer up how—unchecked by Clorox—they will feast on your head as your gaze grows fixed and you exhale your last.

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A heartening sentiment isn’t it? Red people. Blue people. We’re all the same. We fall in love. We tower over cities in monstrous disproportion. We exchange commercial jetliners with our mouths. Given the woman’s pigmentation, it might be time to adjust the tongue-to-air ratio. She doesn’t seem so much breathless as asphyxiating

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This poor fellow is so nearsighted an unscrupulous B. Dalton employee was able to sell him a book entitled “Book”. His improved vision will reveal a great many things. Most notably that a bespectacled bear seems to be the source of his crushing skull pain.

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This looks like an instruction manual for Martians on how to make Earth women happy. Step one. Take them to the nearest farmer’s market. Step two. Buy them grapefruit. Always grapefruit. When it comes to an Earth lady, you’ll never be able to trade those anemic tangerines for a smile.

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Gathered in a thought bubble over what appears to be Arnold Palmer’s head, are the graduates of Berk Trade School. Berk trains people to be plumbers. Which makes sense. Unclog a troublesome toilet for Arnold, and you will always be in his thoughts.