A Commercial Break

I don’t know about you, but I kind of enjoyed watching my local NFL team play the other day without the pink shoes and stuff (and actually win for a change). And I couldn’t help but notice that the official awareness colors for November’s ‘cancers of the month’ were conspicuously absent from Sunday’s NFL games.

Don’t get me wrong, pink cancer is a nasty beast and I hate it as much as I do every other cancer. Like nearly everyone, I know women who are fighting this damn disease and my hat goes off (in the shade) to the millions of folks who participate in fundraising events like the “Race For The Cure”. (And I hope they all wore sunscreen during the events.) But I find the degree of commercialization of this cause just a little bit annoying, and perhaps counterproductive, and there are a lot of breast cancer survivors and breast cancer awareness organizations that agree. Does every product that carries a pink ribbon truly benefit this good cause to any significant degree, or is some of this just a rather cynical marketing ploy to boost sales?

But hey, I’ll be the first guy to be ‘tickled black’ in the unlikely event some professional sports organization adopts melanoma next May. (Women’s Pro Beach Volleyball would fall quite high on my list of preferred sponsors.) If that’s the game we need to play, count me all in.

That’s more than enough venting for today, so I’ll sign off with a new version of John Mellencamp’s “Pink Houses”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOfkpu6749w


He’s a pale man with the black C livin' like a black warrior should
He's got a bigscreen tube showin’ all those hits hard
You see he knows that he's got it so good
And there's a lineman wearin’ pink shoes missin' all his assigned slots
And he looks at him and says, "Hey darlin', I can remember when
you could make a block."

Oh but ain't that America where pink’s the creed
Ain't that America nothin’s for free baby
Ain't that America home of the greed
Little pink ribbons that ain’t for we

There's a boomer in a blue gown
Hooked up to a chemo pumpin' station
He's got queasy stare, queasy smile
He says, "Lord this can’t be my destination."
'Cause they told me when I was younger
"Boy you wanna be tanner yet."
But just like everything else those old crazy dreams
Just kinda came and went

Oh but ain't that America where pink’s the creed
Ain't that America nothin’s for free baby
Ain't that America home of the greed
Little pink ribbons that ain’t for we

Well there's people and more people
Where do they go, go, go
Go to hear all those pink cries
And go walkin’ down at the race for cancer blows
Ooh yeah
And there's winners and there's losers
But this ain't no small deal
'Cause the sponsor man baby pays for the thrills, the bills,
the pills that kill

Oh but ain't that America where pink’s the creed
Ain't that America nothin’s for free baby
Ain't that America home of the greed
Little pink ribbons that ain’t for we