Duralast, Emphasis on Last

"Nothing is worse than a dead battery"? Nothing? Really?

Scene 1: A frustrated mother tries to start her mini van to take her needy, bitch daughter to ballet practice. Of course, she'll give up the dream of becoming a ballerina when she realizes that professional dace isn't viable after watching Black Swan. Of course, her husband probably told her time and time again that she needed to change that battery in that death trap of transportation, but she knew she could really get under his skin if she just ignored him. Man,  that attempt at pre-divorce torture really blew up in her face. The look on the daughter's face gives us another perspective on this poor woman's life: "Mommy isn't fun when she's angry. She drinks that brown, smelly stuff and starts crying."

Scene 2: Isn't that the douche from Waiting...? If it isn't, then he could be the stunt double/stand in. The agitation in his eyes, grinding teeth, and shaking rage all imply that this guy wants his car to start so he can go rape somebody. "How can I rape that girl I met on Craigslist if I can't start my car? WHY IS THE WORLD AGAINST ME?" Thank goodness this rat bastard's car won't start, but who will cut his brakes so he plows into a brick wall?

Scene 3: A stylistic approach, we first see this poor woman from afar, distant from any source of life. She sits alone in her car as she does the world. An outlier, a rogue, a "table for one." Her isolation and distance have come to a head when her moderately priced sedan won't start after a long day at the children's library, and she begins to weep. I know I have really been frustrated when something went wrong with my car (a 1997 Land Cruiser, her name is Mobee), but it has never driven me to tears. Its a car, it can't feel sympathy. The engine will not turn and be your friend when you start to cry, though my Disney programmed mind wishes it would. The fact that they have this woman start to well up only reveals AutoZone's desperate attempt to reach out to the fairer sex by appealing to their emotions, making the human emotion most trivial.

Scene 4: Oh, man! This guy has JUST HAD ENOUGH! "Great," he says, the smirk of self hatred smeared across his face. "Great," as he remembers how his career as a rock keyboardist left him just as quickly as his boyish good looks did in his late 20's. "Great," just plumb fed up with the card life has dealt him, and the cherry on top is the rotting battery under his hood. One day, you'll be walking through a cemetery and you'll see a tombstone that reads "Jim Jameson, 1971-2011, 'Great'" and you'll think that that guy had a "great" 40 years, but you'll be wrong.

Scene 5: Short and sweet: a guy on a hot date looks stupid because he forgets to check his battery, but if you look closely you'll see: this girl, though (at best) a 6, is way out of this Tito Puente Look-A-Like's league. In reality, she works for this guy... as a ho. Fatty Rodriguez simply pimps out this cute girl he found on the street to upscale clients in downscale motels. Unfortunately, this business partnership will not make their power lunch with CEO John Doe this fine evening, unless they catch a bus. Then again, how can that guy sound dominant in front of a disrespectful John when he shouts, "Dammit, Trixy, go wait on the bench down the street!"

Scene 6: BY FAR MY FAVORITE!!! The desperation, the fear, the suspense. This guy has a pound of heroin in the glove box, a chopped up dead body in the trunk, and his bitch got the wise idea to call the 5-0 on his ass (He best be repectin' they marriage, else a bitch has to call the pigs). With Johnny Law in rout, Herschel (that's what I've named him) needs to hightail it to Ziggy's if he doesn't want to spend the next life-sentence-without-parole in a cell. "Ziggy knows what to do. Ziggy can fix this." But, OH!, what tragedy befalls the lives of the ghetto: the battery "be dead." Not to mention, its hotter than fuck, and the windows don't work. Its like a scene out of a lost Tarantino film.

Scene 7: Piece of advise: Do not go to the grocery store at 1 in the morning. That's harvesting time for plenty of human traffickers, and you look like one ripe prospect. Second off, and this goes for all of you, PUT THE FUCKING SHOPPING CART BACK! Even if its in one of the depositories 20 blocks away from the main holding pen, it keeps those fucking mechanical embodiments of tourettes in check so they (A) don't block parking spots and (B) don't ding my car door as I make a quick vodka run. Your car not starting = karma. I love that they cut to that wide, high shot. That cliche "passionate appeal to a Higher Power" angle that makes a person looks small and hopeless. Which she is, because she's a woman.

Scene 8: Oh, man. Those other people are pussies. They didn't have a thick layer of snow covering their cars, and this guy can easily start his car. He must be a man, white, and a Christian. A+ from AUTOZONE!

Scene 9: This is Herschel 15 years earlier. He's confident, attractive, and dating this nice girl he met at a party. He had some trouble in high school, but he managed to work his way through college and now he owns his own Domino's (Though that rat bastard J. Patrick Doyle has him by the balls, he makes good money). He plays pick-up basketball, but never on the weekends, those are the "key times" at the "Shop" (his pet name for his hard work). To his surprise, he would need to revert to a "little side business" to supplement his money clip when he learns that that girl has a baby, and he the daddy (Bitch said she had some die-fram o' some shi). When push came to shove, Herschel could sling heroin unlike anyone in the streets. He moved his products, pizzas and brown sugar (The title to this movie), throughout the hood and built a reputation as being a stern employer. Domino's standards were matched by the side business: if your smack doesn't arrived in 30 minutes or less, then your smack is free. Here, AutoZone brings us to a simple time, a better time. Its almost like they've captured the "happy boughs" Keats once wrote of in his odes.

Scene 10: Professor of English at Providence Community College. BA and MA from the University of Conneticut (Go, Huskies!). Ph.D. in Taggin' Sweet Pussay. Submitted several papers to Humanities Quarterly, The Early Colonial Lit. Review, and "Dear Penthouse,". Moderated conferences at The Washington Irving Summit and Boston Erotica Festival. Received grants from The Guggenheim Foundation, Scribner's, and Bang Bros. Productions.


Scene 11: AW, FUCK! That wasn't a white, male, Christian at all! She was a powerful, black woman, probably Muslim. Its a miracle that she would have remembered to check her battery so often. I am TAKEN ABACK! Leave it to AutoZone to shake my ethical foundations... or its their appeal to minorities. Its likely they want to reassure black people that they can "pass" in modern white society (Please read Nella Larsen). Bastards.


Wrap Up: "Proven tough"? If they are imposing that they sell a non-inferior product, cool. If they try to say that this occurrence could happen to "everyone," fine. But this ad goes back to the point... You know what? I'm super baked right now. Like, really high. And I have been while writing this entire article, so disregard any of this post's seriousness. Jeepers creepers, I am high! (#apologia)

Thank You For Reading,
Michael Kaye