Honda's Crazy Lame Commercial

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I know this shouldn’t bother me as much as it does, but the new Honda commercial really pisses me off. The spot portrays a happy family outing with a carful of kids singing an acapella version of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” with mom and dad singing along in the front seat.





I promise I’m not gonna get over-the-top bent out of shape over this. Taking the time to blog about it may already be a disproportionate response. But when I was 14 years old I was a huge Ozzy fan and at that time - in my hometown anyway - he was not “cool” at all. Early in the 80s before heavy metal became big business corporate hair metal bullshit, Ozzy was considered dangerous. Kids like me had to sneak his records into the house. Many parents equated Ozzy with Satan. Now of course we all know that back then he was just off his rocker, drunk and fucked up all the time. (His deranged exploits included the now-infamous gross-out contest with Motley Crue that culminated with Ozzy snorting a line of ants off the sidewalk.)

But in 21st Century Bizarro World, celebrities seem to clamor to be the next to fuck up royally in public because everything this side of child-molestation guarantees a cash-grab comeback. America loves its fallen heros. You watch: Charlie Sheen will be back on top in no time. And Lindsay Lohan will be looking over his shoulder, jockeying for position to be next in line. Mark my words.

But I digress. That’s not really the point I set out to make here.

Honda’s latest ad campaign is so aggressive that I get sucker punched by this damn commercial about ten times on any given Sunday. And each time it just seems to rattle my cage. Now I’m not saying I was ahead of my time. Even in 1982 Ozzy already had millions of followers. But the thing is: I recall being looked upon with shock, horror and disgust by the other kids in my school and many adults as well because I liked Ozzy’s music. Now Honda has a cutesy little family chirping his song in a car commercial like it was “Frere Jacques” and it kinda makes me sick.

Stranger still, Ozzy’s lyrics stripped to the bone in this acapella version makes it clearer than ever that most people never stop to think about their true message. Ozzy actually makes some astute sociological observations in the song, but most people’s unshakeable mental image of the man is a mad beast biting the heads off of bats and/or doves, or perhaps more commonly as the drug casualty daddy from the TV show The Osbournes. I can recall being absolutely dumbfounded the first time I realized that the lyrics to “After Forever” from Sabbath’s Master Of Reality LP were damn near a commercial for Christ, and I’d been listening to it for years already by that point. If I’m a fan and I never noticed it, what are the chances of non-fans ever having the slightest clue?

Corporate America is a soulless shark. It will exploit anything for a buck, destroying the pure essence of whatever it chooses to feed on. Ozzy’s music was never “sacred” to me. His music, indeed most heavy metal of the time, resonated with a certain contingent of the teenage audience of the early 80s because it fairly screamed rebellion in the face of all authority figures. But now it is a commodity to be shredded and “re-purposed” to make us all feel warm and fuzzy inside when we think of the 2012 Honda Pilot and that’s just weird.

This is a resentment that I do not wish to feel. It makes me think that maybe the parent-scaring music of my youth was sacred in a way. It was an ever-reliable place of refuge where I could always go to be alone and to get away from the adult world and all its ridiculous rules and false judgments. I still run to the music I loved as a kid as a means to escape the harsh realities of life. I take it so serious that some have even accused me of having a Peter Pan complex. I’m still wearing the same uniform of faded jeans and black t-shirt and Converse tennis shoes and I’m still listening to Black Sabbath at an unconscionably loud volume. As ever, this remains and shall forever be my secret hiding place. Honda’s stupid-ass commercial might get under my skin, but in the long run, in the grand scheme of things, it’ll barely register a blip on my radar. You know where to find me.