13 Buick is touting its new line of SUVs with a television commercial scored to the 1975 hit Convoy, by C.W. McCall, a pseudonym for advertising executive Bill Fries, who performed the song and wrote it in collaboration with Chip Davis.
I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.
I am convinced that at this stage of the pandemic, misleading and irresponsible headlines from otherwise reputable news outlets are a major source of damaging misinformation.
“A country is considered the more civilized the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful one too powerful.”
Primo Levi, born on this day in 1919, on human nature: https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/04/24/primo-levi-survival-in-auschwitz/
One other point I'd highlight re: the current Delta Panic is that it's driven media innumeracy rather than by what the Actual Experts™ think. Here e.g. is the White House pushing back vs. an extremely misleading and harmful @nytimes tweet that NYT is too stubborn to correct. https://twitter.com/benwakana46/status/1421182153224818694
VACCINATED PEOPLE DO NOT TRANSMIT THE VIRUS AT THE SAME RATE AS UNVACCINATED PEOPLE AND IF YOU FAIL TO INCLUDE THAT CONTEXT YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1420972977005412354
A responsible headline would read: 99.93% of fully vaccinated Americans have not tested positive. The COVID vaccine works. https://twitter.com/cnbc/status/1421209879629422594
Breakthrough Covid cases: At least 125,000 fully vaccinated Americans have tested positive https://cnb.cx/2Wv0nJM
Good point by Kevin here. What people will hear is that "vaccinated people spread delta variant as effectively as unvaccinated" but that statement ignores low probability of infection if vaccinated https://twitter.com/KevinFPBennett/status/1421081517942624259
Careful about retweeting claims that vaccinated people spread Delta just as easily as unvaccinated people. Here's the slide that's based on. It's conditional on a breakthrough infection occurring, which is still rare.
c3fyn
Yes, and at a time when gas prices are around 2$ for regular. Hee.
holyoutlaw
In WA state here, most places have regular around $2.20 — with premium closer to $2.45. Yikes! Glad I almost never drive any more. Sheesh.
admin
Yes, the Seventies are returning: gas prices, mideast crises, inflation. Break out your bellbottoms and Styx albums.
couscous1021
Hiya Bob-
I heard the song, and now its stuck in my head. Thanks!! 😉
A friend mentioned that a movie was made based on this one tune , is that true? If so, was the movie any good?
admin
There was in fact a movie, a very silly movie, “Convoy,” directed by Sam Peckinpah, and starring Kris Kristofferson, Ali McGraw and Ernest Borgnine. One critic said: Late, atypical entry in the Sam Peckinpah cannon, wherein the drama and blood-letting are toned down in favour of a daft tale of rebel truck-drivers hauling their loads…
c3fyn
Gak! (choke)
I was filling (well, not exactly filling) my tank Saturday, looking around and watching the Suburbanites in their Suburbans, Expeditions, Gaseaters, and such, and thinking, I wonder if they’re even feeling this or even thinking about it…
You know, I’m having these flashbacks from the 1970’s…
c3fyn
Styx albums, check. (But I only acknowledge Styx to before the “Mr Roboto” album. Even parts of the “Paradise Theater” album were getting a bit on the “Dennis DeYoung Does Showtunes” side).
Bell bottoms…uh, can I substitute cutoffs? I don’t think I can afford to buy new bellbottoms. I’d go raid my mother’s weirdo cache of my childhood clothes, but I’m afraid they’d fit more like Capri pants-bellbottoms, which I’m afraid would be terribly unhip (and uncomfortable).
Now all we need is a Fundie President and an administration full of scofflaws and Constitution-subverters and it’ll be comp…oh. Never mind.
c3fyn
Yers, difficult to believe that was a Peckinpah flick. Definitely had lost his touch by that point (and “Straw Dogs” was only 6 years before!). And Ernest Borgnine…what an interesting actor to choose as his “signature” stable-actor.
couscous1021
I must be really tired, because that review you linked me to made the movie sound…well…not half bad!
Pretty mean that they took care to mention the director was drinking heavily 🙂
I can’t wait to see the commercial for this.
admin
I grew up watching “McHale’s Navy,” which did for the Navy what “Hogan’s Heroes” did for Allied prisoners of war. As you say, Borgnine was an interesting casting choice.
admin
Pretty mean that they took care to mention the director was drinking heavily
Yeah, that was a little cold-blooded, even if they did mention it by way of explaining why he directed the movie. At least they didn’t mention his wife-beating. (Kidding–I’m kidding!)
admin
Yeah, you kind of hit the nail on the head there, didn’t you. Amazing to think, given the current occupant of the White House, that we considered Carter a fundamentalist. Well, that’s the difference between an evangelical and a fundamentalist: all fundamentalists are evangelicals, but not all evangelicals are fundamentalists.
admin
My nephew and his wife both drive SUVs, and they live in Arizona, where one has to drive to everything (including the bathroom), and the average driving distance tends to be longer. I assume they will be selling their children for oil soon.