A.B., J.D., advertising, the timberlake/dicaprio corollary

so i graduated law school the other day... pretty insane. i am now a "man of letters", a juris doctor if you will. i feel like the world at large thinks and acts as if that's a major achievement, when i feel like all i really did was a little amount of work with a copious amount of fucking around. i mean, i completed a "top 100" movie list during my last two months if that tells you anything. now, it did require significantly more work and effort than undergrad, but honestly, my effort during undergrad was about a 2 on the "10" scale, and law school was about a 4. which is to say, double the effort of undergrad, but it wasn't as if school was devouring my life or anything of the sort. now, don't get me wrong, there were periods of time where a massive amount of effort/time was required and expended, but all in all? once you got the hang of things, it was pretty easy to coast into the last semester or so after you got the silly "top 10" expectations out of your head and realized that since you liked to do things like "watch tv", "sleep", "see/talk to your friends" you probably weren't going to be a supreme court justice or the youngest litigation partner at this or that firm, and so you could just enjoy yourself. but hey, that's neither here nor there. but the truly bizarre thing about it all is just how fast the whole thing went. my time at miami doesn't seem all that long ago and it literally seems as if christmas break was about last monday. but, as they say, c'est la vie.

what's next? ah yes, i've been watching the nba playoffs as of late [thoughts: after the 4 game dismantling of the hawks, i believe the comparisons of the 2008-09 cavs to the 1990-91 bulls seems pretty apt to me, and this may truly be the start of something ridiculous in cleveland], and some of the advertising truly blows my mind and makes me wonder if some of these companies have ANY idea who their customers are. i'm speaking, of course, about the mikes hard lemonade/smirnoff ice commercials starring men, seemingly aimed towards men, aired during programming whose audience is presumably dominated by men. what kind of "man" who is watching the nba playoffs is going to head to the grocery store or local tavern and pick up an overpriced alcoholic sprite which is more likely to make an adult male get a sugar high than a buzz? does ANYONE other than high school girls and women who are wasted after 3 drinks ever drink a mikes hard or smirnoff's ice, ever? an ideal mikes hard commercial would depict sluttily dressed 15 year olds fawning over pimple faced seniors in varsity jackets with shitty facial hair slurring their speech in someone's garage while their parents are out of town, or in someone's back seat. i feel like it's an utter waste of time and effort for mikes hard/smirnoff ice to advertise to men. you are what you are, just accept it and excel at it.

one final point, brought on by the brilliance that is "mother lover". this is the dicaprio/timberlake corollary, (perhaps also to be joined by shia lebouf) also known as the amazing charisma and talent of those two gents that enables them to overcome the myriad of reasons i should have to hate them, and in fact begin to like them, or in leo's case, to develop a legitimate mancrush. somehow, these two dudes, both of whom have been worshipped by teenaged girls (usually a fast track to my derision) have managed to overcome their "teen heartthrob" status by their talent and general awesomeness in order to appeal to me on their merits as performers. let's look at leo first. i was too young to see gilbert grape when that first came out, but i now recognize that although he went "full retard", he still was pretty damn awesome in that role. so i'm not talking about that. i'm talking about "romeo + juliet", "titanic", "the beach" leo. the "magazine pages taped up in middle/high school girls' lockers" leo. i hated that fucking guy. literally, he was top 5 on the "people i would hit in the mouth with a 6 iron" list. then? gangs of new york. hm, that got me thinking... he wasn't great, but he wasn't bad either. catch me if you can. hm. the aviator. very hm. the departed & blood diamond? holy shit. i think i love you. + banging supermodels? i like what you're all about leo. now JT. the kid with the douchey haircut from n'sync. you could have drizzled my hate for that shitbird over pancakes in '98 or so. his evolution is even more bizarre than leo's.. for he's not marty scorsese's favorite son. he's just a cool, talented dude. who bangs people i'd like to bang. there's something to be said for people overcoming prejudice by the power of their own achievement and talent. kudos, gents. i'd be "turtle" for either one of you.