February 8, 2007

Here in Upstate New York we have a car dealership that sort of exploded in the past ten years and has opened several mammoth dealerships all over the state. He carries every car brand imaginable this side of the AMC Pacer. I’m not going to name his dealership by name as I don’t want to lend a hand in free advertising on his behalf, but his trademark is that “it’s huge”, in the most gutteral, annoying, uneducated belch of words possible. He has pretty much become the Wal*mart of the auto dealer set.

He is as annoying as hell.

First of all, the public is constantly barraged with his image. Everywhere. There’s a huge billboard on Interstate 81 in Syracuse with the word “huge”, his ugly mug and his arms spread wide like some sort of manic bird. He has a clock up there and it’s never right. Since stationary images are never enough, Centro, the regional transportation agency, has sold advertising space to him. So naturally you would think that his picture is on the back and/or sides of the bus. Wrong. The buses are completely wrapped in his image, forcing riders that must ride the bus and care to look out the window to do so by gazing through his hairy nostril or around his hairy armpit. Those in the back look through his teeth.

It’s disgusting.

As I’ve mentioned countless times, I worked in radio for over a decade. I’ve always been a fan of radio. However, I will not listen to a station that runs his ads. I don’t care if they are playing a string of Kylie Minogue, Madonna and The Pet Shop Boys constantly, if you stop the music for one of his commercials, your station is promptly on the SL and it’s staying there until XM or Sirius falls out of orbit. Now he doesn’t buy one ad to run four or five times a day like most sane organizations. No. This guy purchases one or two 60 second slots per break (what we in the industry called stop sets) and then barks out his “huge” numerous times and talks to some announcer shill guy named Tom over the phone. Tom acts like he’s at the car lot and Billy is out finding new deals for his buyers. Cluephone boys, we know that Tom is in some cushy studio in Florida and Billy is actually at one of his many dealerships barking over a speakerphone, because we’ve also heard Tom on spots in New Orleans, Orlando and Atlanta and they weren’t with you Billy. How does that make you feel, knowing that Tom is chatting it up with other car dealers too? He’s a manwhore.

I have now come to the point where I will terrorize a driver with a car with the little license plate frame that tells the name of this dealership. It is beyond my comprehension why any self-respecting person would make the largest or second-largest purchase of their life with this idiot.

When Earl and I travel, I take a certain comfort in knowing that Auto Idiot #1 will be left behind and it’s safe to listen to the radio. But no, now he’s in Niagara Falls, he’s in Albany and god knows where else. I think the only way to escape him is to go to the other side of the Mississippi.

I wish someone would just tell this guy to shut up, pack up your money and get the hell away from us. We don’t find you cute. We don’t find you articulate. We don’t find you clever and we certainly don’t find you pretty.

Just go away. Please. Oh, the cluephone is ringing again. We know why you keep barking out “huge”. It’s to make up for the more important parts that aren’t so huge.