I’ve been toying with my new cell phone (one of these) and Postie, a Wordpress plugin that makes it easier to post via a cell phone. Actually since Opera Mini works nicely on my phone, I don’t really need to send text messages or emails to post to tdq via my phone; however Postie does make sending pictures a whole lot easier. (I also learned a thing or two about setting up cron jobs, as I tried getting Postie to run properly).
My new phone is quite nice in some respects, but despite having 2 megapixels, the images it produces usually require some computer adjustment before they’d look very passable. And I can’t send at maximum resolution.
All the same, I now do have the ability to swing suddenly into action and snap the world around me into the Dark Qualm. Lucky you!
The proper office of the law (as the law without a mediator) is to maketh us guilty, to humble, kill, bring to Hell, take all from us; but for this end (as it is the hand of the mediator) that we may be justified, and then it killeth not simply, but killeth to salvation.
Well, with the sale of Chrysler to an American private equity firm, the strange adventures of Dieter Zetsche through the American cultural landscape have drawn to a close. In the above photo he’s looking even more serious that he does in most of the charming “Ask Dr. Z.” commercials that Chrysler began running a few years after Daimler-Benz purchased the struggling US automaker. As this first commercial of the series shows, these ads represented an interesting line of thinking about American customers: that US consumers were tired of buying cars for merely sentimental reason (remember those ads for “the heartbeat of America…”), and would appreciate cars, and ads, that emphasized the quality engineering and technical features for which German automakers are well-known. Thus, the new series of ads featuring the real-life Chairman of Daimler-Chrysler.
But, it seems, something was amiss with this lovely new vision. Yes there were the problems with pension obligations and debt loads, but one can’t help thinking that the problem with Daimler-Chrysler merger can’t quite be summed up on the profit-loss worksheets that the New York Times has been discussing today. Maybe the deeper problem was that Americans simply hated Dr. Z. Or hated being lectured about efficiency and safety by some “expert: with a foreign-sounding name. Hated the idea of buying a truck, of all things, with a set of well engineered safety standards, but which failed to make the sounds of the heartbeat of America. Americans, it turned out, didn’t much like the new doctor.
As the Dr. Z. commercials came out one by one a couple years ago, it was interesting to observe them change subtly, as they were focus-groped, and as it seemed to dawn on Daimler-Chrysler that their approach the American auto market was possibly misconceived beyond the possibility of repair. And because these commercial involved the Chairman of Daimler-Chrysler himself as a kind of colorful character, they were particularly painful to watch.
The commercial that I believe was the last of the “Ask Dr. Z” series must surely be among the culturally awkward ads ever to have run on American network television. I invite you to have a look, below, at the ad wherein Dr. Z is tasked to apply his German engineering know-how to the trucks and SUV’s at the sentimental center of the American Heartbeat. An awkward project, to say the least:
So, wait, what? At the end of this clip Daimler-Chrysler’s ad agency has summoned up someone dressed as an American hillbilly to pose as the director of the commercial, and to assert that Dr. Z is an actor, who has to be reminded by a good ‘ole American yahoo to mention that the engine cylinders in Chrysler trucks are “HEMI’s,” obtaining some extra power because they have hemispherical, rather than flat tops: “You forgot HEMI!”
After being described as an actor who’s technical knowledge is surpassed by the fake yahoo commercial director, the real Dr. Z (as far I as noticed) disappeared unceremoniously from the American cultural scene, withdrawing into a silence from which he re-emerged only this month by selling Chrysler (which Daimler acquired for $37 billion) for $7 billion to an American equity company, ending the strange short saga of Dr. Z. as an American cultural figure.
