Where'd What's-His-Name Go?
We just got back from a vacation weekend, and Wednesday I leave for the rest of the week on a ski trip to Colorado. I want to write about another unread book phenomenon, a short story vs. novel issue, and the depression that comes from people appreciating your unpublished work.
But it's late and I need to walk the dogs and finish a book I'm reading as research for my next book project. So I'm going to try to be cute, which means I'll probably be stupid. Silly, at the least.
Every day my little girl Sabrina, who's six, reads a chapter in book to me; then I read a chapter in a different book to her (we're on the Robert Arthur Three Investigator books--big inspiration to me when I was a boy). It got me thinking about the "Where's Waldo" fad some years back. Not much called for by way of reading skills, and it's no mystery that Waldo faded away.
Or is it?
Apparently good ol' Waldo has grown up and changed that red and white striped shirt. Now he's got a jacket he doesn't change, along with a job and a new celebrity. He actually speaks in this gig, asking people if 'they can hear him now' while traveling the country, much as he did in his books, educating those same children, now grown up to be cell phone consumers.
It's true, I guess, that we all grow up. In a recent commercial I saw where he's going to be a dad. Congratulations, dude. Since you have a phone, it'll be a lot easier for your friends to find you then it was before when you were camouflaged in various crowd scenes.
I don't know the man but I can't believe that he's trying to bury his past completely. He still has the trademark glasses, only slightly less noticeable than the old hat, and if he were truly moving on you know he'd have switched to contact lenses. It makes me wonder if the slogan itself isn't simply an attempt to recreate his earlier fame. In either case, he's plainly shouting for recognition, whether by sight or by sound. Can you see me, can you hear me: seems like he has some things he needs to work out.
I'll stop now. Someone else can pick this up and make it really funny. As long as no law suits are involved.
But it's late and I need to walk the dogs and finish a book I'm reading as research for my next book project. So I'm going to try to be cute, which means I'll probably be stupid. Silly, at the least.
Every day my little girl Sabrina, who's six, reads a chapter in book to me; then I read a chapter in a different book to her (we're on the Robert Arthur Three Investigator books--big inspiration to me when I was a boy). It got me thinking about the "Where's Waldo" fad some years back. Not much called for by way of reading skills, and it's no mystery that Waldo faded away.
Or is it?
Apparently good ol' Waldo has grown up and changed that red and white striped shirt. Now he's got a jacket he doesn't change, along with a job and a new celebrity. He actually speaks in this gig, asking people if 'they can hear him now' while traveling the country, much as he did in his books, educating those same children, now grown up to be cell phone consumers.
It's true, I guess, that we all grow up. In a recent commercial I saw where he's going to be a dad. Congratulations, dude. Since you have a phone, it'll be a lot easier for your friends to find you then it was before when you were camouflaged in various crowd scenes.
I don't know the man but I can't believe that he's trying to bury his past completely. He still has the trademark glasses, only slightly less noticeable than the old hat, and if he were truly moving on you know he'd have switched to contact lenses. It makes me wonder if the slogan itself isn't simply an attempt to recreate his earlier fame. In either case, he's plainly shouting for recognition, whether by sight or by sound. Can you see me, can you hear me: seems like he has some things he needs to work out.
I'll stop now. Someone else can pick this up and make it really funny. As long as no law suits are involved.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 10:49 PM
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