Caught on tv this morning, one version of a Titanium Edge tv spot ad “Any Hair Anywhere”, released 7/31/25 (details on the iSpot site here); from this ad:
Titanium Edge, the “2-in-one nose and ear groomer that goes wherever razors can’t … to finish my groom” — with a noun groom, a nouning of the verb groom, to denote a regular routine of grooming, here specifically for men and in fact specifically for shaving; this nouning would appear to be a commercial invention by Titanium Edge’s ad agency
Today’s Zippy strip:
(#1) I choose to understand hot dog in this context as a sexual metaphor, so I’m both enchanted and appalled by the idea of a world of talking hot dogs, all in conversations with one another (I am famously fond of penises, but still); meanwhile, Yocco’s was a feature of the sociocultural landscape of my childhood (in an area of Pennsylvania Dutch country much influenced by Philadelphia both linguistically and culinarily), though I early on cleaved to Nathan’s hot dogs (Coney Island wasn’t all that far away), as I still do
My own metaphorical hot dog (mhd for short) is highly expressive, but (blessedly) not at all chatty. Though if my mhd could speak, it would have something of a (now old-fashioned) Philadelphia accent — with back notes of Pennsylvania Dutch English and a significant overlay of NYC Yinglish.
My mhd, like Yocco’s hot dog, has a crown (technically, a glans penis), but it has no discernible facial features, and certainly no mustache, that would be kinky.
Now, about Yocco’s.
It went past me briefly before I deleted it from my Facebook feed, but of course I caught the name; I’m primed for Z, and really primed for ZW:
ZIWI pet food
I posted this query on Facebook yesterday:
— AZ: I’ve been regularly getting a tv spot ad for the Boost Max nutritional drink , ‘Here’s to Now: Boost Max’ (published 8/13/24), in which a young Black man says what I hear as “Here’s to bean meat soup every Thursday” (which puzzles me). Can anyone correct — or confirm — my impression?
You can view the ad, from ispot.tv, here.
Crucially, I failed to take into account the context the speaker is in; I really should know better.
(This will, somewhat surprisingly, eventually veer into men’s bodies and some man-on-man sex, recounted in street language, so it’s not for kids or the sexually modest; I’m sorry, but not even the best of Verdi opera and Italian tennis can quite counterbalance naked guys going at it with one another)
Today’s morning names were Rigoletto and Sinner, and for a change I knew exactly why they were in my head: Rigoletto is the name of an opera by Verdi (from which the magnificent quartet Bella figli dell’amore was playing on my music feed during my 2 am whizz break); and Sinner is the surname of someone who turns out to be an astoundingly famous Italian tennis player but was known to me only from a Sergio Scalise Facebook posting yesterday in which this Sinner was identified as a great champion who does commercials for De Cecco, Lavazza, and La Roche — I am, famously, deeply ignorant of sports; and also, despite Sergio’s occasional attempts at educating me, neglectfully ignorant of matters social, cultural, and political in today’s Italy (I’m not merely not au courant, but actually inert). This is Jannik Sinner; I had never laid eyes on him until this morning (I’ve been entertained by a recent Lavazza commercial, but it’s one for the American audience and doesn’t have Jannik Sinner in it). I go on at such length about JS because my readers from or connected to Italy will find it impossible to believe that I had no idea who Sinner — that athletic and cultural phenom — is.
Now, the coming program: about Rigoletto, briefly; about Jannik Sinner, at greater length, with a note about Lavazza coffee commercials; a side note about Google searches; and then a raunchy digression on the Italian jobs of the title.
I start with a photo quiz. Four pictures of men working as models under several professional names, taken over a roughly ten-year period — during which, being models, they might have changed various alterable aspects of their appearance, like hairstyle and hair color, as well as clothing or lack of it; and since they were models, their photographers might have altered some shots for the intended audience. Your task is to say how many men are shown here, and if there are fewer than four, which photos match up.
Grant Barrett (of the Barnette-Barrett radio show A Way with Words — and a real lexicographer, one of the lexicographers I sometimes hang out with, even though I’m not of that tribe) tried to post this as a comment on my posting yesterday, “Now we’re cooking with carrots”, but it appears to have been indigestible to WordPress, so I’m publishing it here as a guest posting. Remember: what follows below the line is Grant, all Grant, not me (except for some formatting).
In a recent Pinterest mailing, another homoerotic ad from American illustrator J.C. Leyendecker (famous for his depictions of American masculinity in ads for Arrow shirts and collars; and then for Kuppenheimer’s men’s clothes, as here; and in his many covers for the Saturday Evening Post magazine, which considerably influenced the illustrator Norman Rockwell):
(#1)
Elegant masculinity on the left (perhaps the owner of a racehourse), athletic masculinity on the right (a jockey). As in many of JCL’s illustrations, this one strikingly features male buttocks — in this case, the jockey’s.
Two themes here: manly brand icons; and JCL’s homoeroticism.
The Daily Jocks ad from yesterday, for a swimwear sale, with a caption of my own devising (below the fold). Not for kids or the sexually modest:
(#1)
(About two gay porn flicks from TitanMen, with over-the-top ad copy in street language mixed with arch double entendres. Plus hairy beefy musclehunks just short of the X-line. Not for kids or the sexually modest.)
It starts with an ad today for an upcoming mansexfest (to be released on April 16th):
(#1)
