After weeks of teasing billboards (er... I mean, billboards teasing us, not us teasing them), it was revealed that the two words, "...so...good..." was actually a tease for the slogan, "El Paso. It's all good."
I hate to bring this up. but it sounds an awful lot like a slogan I came up with four years ago (See My El Paso [Parts One, Two, and Three], posted way back in 6-22-11 and 6-19-11.)
El Paso! (Insert Slogan Here!)
The only difference being, where they put a period at the end of the words "El Paso," I put an exclamation point, and, let me tell you, that little exclamation point makes all the difference in the world. It takes El Paso from being a ho-hum destination, to a place where the movers and shakers congregate to do whatever it is that movers and shakers do. I'm guessing what they do looks an awful lot like Pys's dancing in Gangnam Style.
I sent hard copies to then-editor Chris Lopez of the El Paso Times. We had a friendly correspondence going on that consisted of me sending him my humor columns, and him ignoring them... but I'm not one who holds grudges. I'll leave that to my angry gaggle of ex-wives I don't know why they're so mad. I was always a good husband. I was even good to my in-laws. I think the following lyric from a country song says it best:
Ain't I always good to your sister?
Don't I take her driving every night?
So put another log on the fire,
And come and tell me why you're leaving me.
But to get back to my main point, I can think of no other city I'd rather have my ideas stolen by. I'll leave it at that, because I don't want to be sued for Defecation of Character.
Along with the billboards and new slogan, there's also a game to find out who the city's most loyal ambassador is. Oh, goody... I like games.
McMann & Tate, the advertising agency in charge of this new advertising strategy for our fair city, held a news conference at the El Paso convention center to reveal their original work of genius.
"This is a positive phrase," Darrin Stevens--v.p., s.d., and l.m.n.o.p.--told the audience. "Unlike our last slogan: El Paso... Better Than A Poke In The Eye With A Sharp Stick. I don't know what we were thinking when we came up with that one. Our new slogan is like when your buddy asks, 'How's it going?' And you say, 'Hey, man... it's all good.' And he says, 'What the heck does that mean? That doesn't even make sense.' And you say, 'I heard it on a Bob Dylan CD. The one he released before he released Tempest. I thought it sounded like a pretty cool thing to say.' And he says, 'Bob Dylan's like a hundred years-old! You're taking lessons in being cool from some guy who served in the Civil War?' And you don't know what to say to that, so you start dancing like Psy from Gangnam Style. It's something like that."
All told, the four billboards emblazoned with the words, "...so...good..." emptied out El Paso taxpayer's wallets to the tune of about $14,000, maybe more. The maybe more I'm talking about is the additional fundage necessary for the movers and shakers to "fari vagnari a pizzu," if you get my drift.
Darrin Stevens also said that El Pasoans, like Jesus' apostles, are encouraged to "go out and spread the good news" about El Paso. In other words, they expect us to do their advertising for them.
"It's a way for other people to do the work, while we're the ones who get paid," Larry Tate, also from McMann & Tate, said as he twirled one end of his mustache between his thumb and forefinger. "Heh, heh, heh."
But what about the game that everybody can play? Well, as it turns out several people were already "entered" even before the news conference had even started. However, Mr. Tate personally assured me that it was "merely a coincidence that they're related to me." He then quickly changed the subject and told me that the campaign is about "building confidence in El Pasoans. If you don't believe in yourself, then you can't expect anyone else to believe in you. Because, as we all know, in addition to being fat, ugly, and sweaty, El Pasoans also suffer from low self-esteem, scabies, and the heartbreak of psoriasis."
At that time, Darrin Stevens cut in to point out that more than forty representatives from different El Paso organizations are working on the campaign.
"Why," he said, "we have seven people alone in charge of the word it's, and three of those people are there to keep an eye on the apostrophe. He's a tricky little bugger."
"Isn't that an awful lot of people for what seems like a simple bit of advertising?" I asked him.
"What do you mean?" he asked me back.
"I mean, jeez, forty people. Isn't that expensive?"
"What do you mean?"
"Where are you going to get the money?"
""We'll just raise taxes," he said.
And then he started dancing like Psy in Gangnam Style.
American Chimpanzee
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RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
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