Subway And The Two Tone Brown Monkey

Experience, in all ages and in all countries, has demonstrated that it is impossible to control nature in her distribution of mental powers.
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, p. 203

The Oracle of Ottawa marvels at the power and the callous stupidity of of certain marketing campaigns. It is absolute proof by demonstration that there exists much more money than brains. At first the Oracle of Ottawa  thought that it would all go away quickly, that creepy two-tone animated brown monkey that seems to be spearheading all the media advertisements of the Subway mega fast food monster here in the Canadian market. The ads appear in English and French.

(i.e. somewhere else...)

This two tone brown monkey really creeps the Oracle of Ottawa! How bad is it? Why the insect hominid reminds the Oracle of Ottawa of the same feeling as getting into an Ottawa cab that is being driven by a Pakistani jihadist that is back in Canada on sabbatical from the the mountains of Afganistan! The beady predatory eyes and the evenly filed teeth, just makes the Oracle of Ottawa's epidermis crawl in utter grossness. (And you guessed it; the jihadists don't appreciate their cover being blown either.) And every movement in its body language states that you are the object of its utter and total contempt. Well excuse this old white man for living!

A Subway in its natural state  - Empty....

The subliminal messages in the ads state to the Oracle of Ottawa that he is not really welcome in a Subway. The subtle nuances say to the Oracle of Ottawa that all you old white honkey farts that expect total and perfect food every time and on every visit can just go somewhere else! The two tone brown monkey seems to be gunning for a less discriminating demographic. And the Oracle of Ottawa damn near fell of his sofa when, while watching a Major League Baseball game, the latest ads were running with characters that were of African American descent! The first thought that went through the Oracles mind was; What the hell would Jackie Robinson think? Doesn't MLB keep a very close eye on the marketing that could adversely affect the brand? They damn well should...

Now the Oracle of Ottawa knows very many former urban road warriors, that worked for various  levels of government here in Ottawa, whose jobs required them to be always on the road during their former work days. From several discussions the Oracle of Ottawa soon learned from these seasoned hands, people who really know of such things, that if you want to avoid "road rash", never, never, never eat anything, especially anything that contains "meat" from a Subway sandwich shop!

What is road rash you ask? Well that is the treat you get from eating in places you really shouldn't have. Several of the seasoned hands explained to the Oracle of Ottawa that they can readily understand how Jared the Subway guy, lost so much weight so fast! And, if you check into it yourself, he seems to be in no hurry to repeat the masterful feat of self marketing. Oy vey!

Now the best Subways in Ottawa are located in the brand new suburbs. And the young kid who works there really has no idea how to make a steak sub. His Mom still cuts his meat for him at home! And the Oracle of Ottawa must say that he always wears the gloves! Yes Sir! He wears them all the time. When primping his greasy hair and massaging his inflamed zits, just so ready to pop, anytime now! And especially when he squares off the rest room, he doesn't want to catch anything untoward, now does he? And of course he wears them when he makes your sub. Unfortunately for you it is the same gloves!

Yes, the Oracle of Ottawa remembers a number of "special" occasions the results of eating at a said certain sandwich shop. It was like a two toned brown monkey crawled up his colon and died. Only to be crapped out in wet sludgey, cramppy agony, with the cold pleasure that he had given birth to yet another new marketing concept!   

Is it just the Oracle of Ottawa, or is that that two tone brown monkey evil creepy?

William Shakespeare - His Vocabulary

In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time. 
Thucydides, The History of The Pelopennesian War,  Book I, 1.22-[4]

William Shakespeare could hardly sign his own name. Yet when modern scholarship counted, his "works", contain a vocabulary of some 25,000 words! To put this in true perspective, John Milton only had a vocabulary of around 12,000 words! And you don't need the Oracle of Ottawa to tell you that John Milton was no slouch. It was a pretty dangerous thing for the Oracle of Ottawa to finally come into possession of his own copy of the Norton Oxford Edition Shakespeare! The introductory essay on Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt  is quite simply one the best that the Oracle of Ottawa has yet seen.  

William Shakespeare - First media mogul?

 Many decades ago when the Oracle of Ottawa was a struggling high school student in a small town, somewhere in Eastern Ontario, and was introduced to Shakespeare's Macbeth  in English 450, the Oracle of Ottawa was awed by the greatness of the words. It is all still fresh in the memory to this very day. But when I investigated further on my own into other works, even as a teenager in the 1970's, the Oracle of Ottawa soon realized that there were many, very many, other hands in the work! And as the Oracle of Ottawa has grown into a grumpy old white man, his opinion has only became more sure and rigid. Of course that was in no way popular with my most excellent English teacher of the time, who was a totally frothing and raging Shakspearean! And damn the logic and your research!

The known Shakespeare signatures...

 To understand the multiple hands theory, one has to understand how the Elizabethan court functioned. Modern sources dictate that the Her Majesties Privy Council met once a week! Maybe they met formally once a week, but in the reality of the time Her Majesties Privy Council was together, at times, a lot! Waiting for news, and planning strategy had them in close proximity informally for great periods of time. Due to the communications technology of the early 16th century, waiting was an art form. What better way to pass the time, then to tear off your experiment of the sonnet form of poetry, or, the lads down at what today would be called the State Department of Foreign Affairs, who to pass the time, have written those damn fine history plays? And the lads down at Excise! Can they ever do up a fine comedy! Somebody should get these works to the printer and the stage. This is where William Shakespeare came in...

William Shakespeare was the first modern Media Mogul! He assembled the players. Dealt with the government red tape, The Master of the Revels, raised the financing, got a an endless source of new material of unimaginable high quality, and most importantly of all, got the (paying) bums into the empty seats! And we have the documents to prove all of this, don't we? William was no stranger to the forms and the possibilities of the Joint stock company. Think of him as an early adapting Ted Turner....  

Stuff you should know?