This banner ad caught my eye yesterday. It's designed to attract visitors to the bustling metropolis of Detroit. Some art director did an commendable job choosing the one photo that represents the best of what Detroit has to offer.
"See what's happening in the D!"
Well, a bleached-blonde woman with big bazoombas on full display is smiling and walking toward someone with some nice dreads. Behind her are some unattractive chairs and what look like super chintzy slot machines. The graphics in the ad are strongly visually reminiscent of a can of malt liquor they used to sell at the convenience store by my house.
So I guess that's what's happening in Detroit: Drinking, gambling, and flirting with cheap women. Is that really worth putting a few hundred extra miles on your car when you can get all those things here in Chicago? You bet your D it isn't.
9 comments:
Well, I used to spend quite a bit of time in "the D", and it's not quite as devoid of interesting things to do as one might think.
The casino thing is happening in Greektown, a really cool little area about 2 or 3 blocks acroos that's got more baklava per square foot than Athens.
Yes, not a great ad, but those chairs are standard issue casino slot machine chairs used even in Vegas. (Unfortunately, the woman is not standard issue Detroit.)
Detroit is worth a visit for things besides casinos though, like the food, (Coney Island and Middle Eastern especially), The Detroit Institute of Art, The Henry Ford Museum, the Rouge River auto plant which is like a city, some nice architecture with French influence, the riverfront which has really come along. Parking is dirt cheap, we have no annoying tolls everywhere, tourists don't get in the way too much, and Windsor, Ontario Canada is right across the river.
This weekend is the Woodward Dream Cruise which is a huge driving display of 40,000 classic cars for miles with one million people sitting on the sides of Woodward Ave. looking at all the cool vehicles and participating in other festivities.
http://www.woodwarddreamcruise.com/About.html
When I started blogging, my class group and I started a blog called...
http://www.detroitessentials.com
Nobody writes for it anymore, but it still gets quite a few hits.
I thought the D was indicating her, um, bra size.
Okay, I'm leaving for Detroit now....but I thought the gambling was in Windsor.
Post script: As I'm sure you all realize, I was not making fun of Detroit. (I moved to Chicago from a town of 500 where people would stand in their front yards for hours on end with the sole purpose of watching cards going up and down the road.) I was only mocking the poorly designed ad campaign, which I suspect sells Detroit short on its strengths.
And you mocked the ad very well. And what is more, that ad deserved it. I feel a strong desire to stay away from Detroit now.
"with the sole purpose of watching cards going up and down the road"
Reminiscent of "Alice In Wonderland":
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/metastuff/wonder/ch8.html
It must be that jimsonweed that they smoke in Z'ville, if they're seeing cards going up and down the road...
"Hey, Sam, isn't that the Knave of Hearts with an underage 10 of clubs in the passenger seat?"
L'Zard
Typos aside, are you an aspiring comic or an aspiring politician? ;)
Welcome to the world of celebrity, where anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion.
Maybe you should make it a standard practice that, for every entry with a sardonic-post-factor (SPF) > 15, or a bitchy-attitude-level (BAL) > 0.08 percent, you write the first comment yourself with appropriate disclaimers: "no cities were slighted while writing this blog", "any similarities to cities living or dead is purely coincidental", "the preceding was humorously intended and does not necessarily reflect the actual opinions or values of the website, its writer or the voices in her head."
L'Zard
Wow, I did say "cards," didn't I? High-larious.
Yes, I should work something into my post template that generates an automatic disclaimer.
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