Tetherd Cow Ahead

Now that I live some distance south of the place where I spent most of my life, I find myself travelling a lot to visit friends & family and keep up with colleagues and contacts in the north. I sometimes fly, but if I have the time I like to take the drive. Driving is very relaxing for me – I get to chill out a bit, ruminate on the world and listen to all those podcasts for which I never seem to be able to find the time in my regular life.

Plus, I get to stop at truckstops for a bacon & egg roll and a chance to view the appalling, yet somehow grimly fascinating phenomenon which I call ‘Condom Art’

I don’t know if you ever see them anywhere other than truckstops (I never have) but the bathrooms always come equipped with a dispensing machine for condoms, and those machines are decorated with the most hideous advertising artwork known to humankind (and truly, that’s saying something).

Ah, the sexual vistas promised by those images: the Evening Magic of a desert island tryst or wild Rugged ‘n Ready adventures with a windblown gun-totin’ bikini clad cowgirl. I can’t help but envy the dashing lives of the truckers that buy these colourful super-studded latex wonders.

But brace yourselves! I’ve started off tame, dear friends, because the night is young.

Maybe a dusky native seductress peering from the pandanus is more your style? Or perhaps a rough ridin’ tousled biker chick with thigh boots? Whatever the choice, make sure you throw some ‘texture’ in there!

One thing I hadn’t known until I started paying attention to these artworks, is just how considerate truckers and travellers evidently are to their lady friends! It’s not just the ribbed condoms that your $2 will tempt from the machine: ‘Arouse her inner fire’ with ‘a ring of stimulating fingers’ promises Passion Plus! And prepare to be arrested for disturbing the peace if you use the Screamer (earplugs not included!). My goodness. I might have to sit down for a minute.

But my favourite by far has to be this:

No aspirational promises there – just a formidable medieval-looking device on a strident bilious yellow field. In yer face truckers! Ah, I am joyful with glee at all the wonderful things in this ad. First of all it’s called The Tingler, which immediately conjures up all kinds of confronting images. ((Good advice from William Castle there: “Don’t be alarmed – you can protect yourself!”)) Then it has the advantage of being able to glow in the dark because… well then you won’t lose your way, right? And I don’t need to tell you that ‘Boldy glow where no man has glowed before’ is the very pinnacle of advertising slogan achievement, second only to ‘In space EVERYONE can hear a Screamer!’ (I seriously don’t know how they missed that one).

I am humbled in the face of genius.

OMG Acowlytes! German liquor company G-Spirits have announced their new line of alcoholic beverages: spirits poured over the breasts of naked models, and then rebottled for your drinking pleasure. Could there be a better example of sheer unadulterated opportunism genius?

To create the perfect taste, we let every single drop of our spirits run over the breasts of a special type of woman, a type we recognize in this liquor.

Lest you think this is some kind of marketing gag, let me assure you it’s not. How do I know? Because G-Spirits says so in their FAQ:

Is it true that the whole content of the bottle run over the breasts of the model?

G-Spirits: Yes, indeed! It´s not just a marketing gag.

And in case you are concerned about the hygienic aspects of the new G-Spirits line, rest assured – the entire process of splashing the booze across the eager models’ mammaries is ‘checked’ by ‘medical’ personnel. Oh, sorry, did I accidentally put some of those words in sarcasm quotes?

Yes, dear friends, I know your Cow Senses are tingling. What does all this add up to? A Cow Competition. With a prize. Who can possibly resist?

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Thanks to Atlas (who else) for digging this one up.

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Over the weekend, Violet Towne and I visited the Monash Gallery of Art to see an exhibition of photographs by Anton Bruehl. Bruehl was born in Australia, but made his career in New York where he became a favourite of the advertising world, creating photographs for Vanity Fair, Vogue and other high profile magazines. I always thought Bruehl was quite famous, but am dismayed to find that he doesn’t even rate a Wikipedia entry. You will almost certainly have seen his iconic photograph of Marlene Dietrich:

I really like Bruehl’s highly contrived and art-directed style and I think it has gone on to inform artists as diverse as David Lynch and Pierre et Gilles. The highlight of this exhibition for me, though, was some work Bruehl did for Vanity Fair, photographing the ‘Fashions of the Future’: clothing visions from designer Gilbert Rhodes. This is Rhodes’ speculation for the Man of the Future:

And here is that very man in the flesh, as realised by Rhodes and capture on film by Bruehl:

Is that awesome or what? The best thing here is, of course, that Rhodes got hardly any of it right. Well, I guess there is still a good part of the century to go, but you know what I’m saying… I suppose there are disposable socks (those ones they give you on planes) and the ‘antenna snatching radio out of the ether’ could charitably be interpreted to be the one in your iPhone, but the curly beard and the baggy onesie tucked into those disposable socks have yet to materialize. As for the utility belt, well, even Batman had trouble making that seem like a good idea.

I quite took to the Man of the Future’s jaunty disregard for anyone’s opinion of his haute couture, but I was rather more enamored of Rhodes’ vision for the Woman of the Future:

Alright! Now we’re talking!

I’m afraid, however, that I was so overcome by the prospect of what we bearded, antenna-sporting, disposable sock-wearing blokes have to look forward to in the next few years that my hand was shaking rather a lot when I tried to snap a shot of Rhodes’ and Bruehl’s vision of said woman.

It seems that, for a year or two at least, chaps, we’ll just have to live in anticipation.

My New Pink Button ™ is a temporary dye to restore the youthful pink color back to your labia. There is no other product like it. ((I was surprised to find there was ANY product like it.)) This patent pending ((Now there’s a patent I want to see…)) formula was designed by a female certified Paramedical Esthetician ((Yes, apparently there really IS such a thing.)) after she discovered her own genital color loss. ((How does one just ‘discover’ that kind of thing, I ask myself?))

You know, sometimes people think of such totally bizarre shit that I swear I couldn’t have concocted something like it if you’d given me an open brief and told me to totally weird out as many people as possible. I mean, tell me ladies, is this a thing? Do you ever lie awake at night worrying that your bits might not be the ‘right’ colour? Evidently Paramedical Esthetician and genital colorant innovator Karan Mari did. Either that or she had a particularly oafish and tactless boyfriend. ((“Honey, you know what? You just don’t look enough like a porn star. Isn’t there something you can do about that?”))

Anyways, if you’re in the market to polish up yer pink, you can hop right along to Amazon and put your $29.95 on the table. It looks like the Bettie and the Marilyn are selling fast, but there seem to be plenty of jars of the Audrey and the Ginger left.

Read the reviews while you’re there. They’re the best thing about the product, and very funny. Also very educational – I learned a new word.

Squack. (It has nothing to do with ducks).

Let the poetry commence.

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Via Regretsy (Where DIY Meets WTF?).

A life-size robotic girlfriend complete with artificial intelligence and flesh-like synthetic skin was introduced to adoring fans at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas on Saturday. Roxxxy the sex robot had a coming-out party in Sin City at the weekend.

And doesn’t she look like the kind of gal you’d be proud to take home to mum? I have this horrific feeling she speaks with the insipid sing-song voice of the Telstra robot:

In just a few words, tell me what it is that you would like to do. Was that ‘clean the wainscoting? I’m sorry, I’m having trouble understanding you. Would you like to speak to a customer service representative?’

Roxxxy’s creator, Douglas Hines, of the company TrueCompanion, pictured above in what must be one of the creepiest images ever to grace The Melbourne Age, says of the “anatomically correct robot” ((Why do they always emphasise that these monstrosities are ‘anatomically correct’ when what they mean is that it has tits and orifices? As far as I can tell by the picture above, it’s anatomically a mutant – look at the hands! Look at the weird mouth! Anatomically correct? Sure if your template is the Bride of Wildenstein)):

“She can’t vacuum, she can’t cook, but she can do almost anything else if you know what I mean ((Is anyone else getting a sort of porno Monty Python vibe here?)).”

Yes, I think we do know what you mean, Doug. You mean that of the three priorities one must have in a female friend – cooking, cleaning and screwing – she is good for one of them. If only you can perfect the other two, you’ll be raking in money faster than Roxxxy can gyrate her servo-mechanisms.

”She knows exactly what you like,” says Hines. ”If you like Porsches, she likes Porsches. If you like soccer, she likes soccer.” Roxxxy can chat with her flesh-and-blood mate, and touching her elicits a variety of comments.

I so want to be there to watch the reaction when the first customer takes one of these out of the box on Christmas morning.

He said what?

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Thanks to Atlas (who else?) for bringing this to the attention of The Cow.

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