I'd Rather Win Julian Lennon's Suitcase

Friends, my eye has been caught yet again by a bizarre and unfortunate internet ad.

Um, the what now?

I haven't eaten meat in 19 years, but even I have to admit that the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile may be one of the greatest promotional tools of the 20th century. How the hell did their ad department get from the Wienermobile to Jewel's purse? Then there's Jewel. I've never felt like she clearly defined her brand. First she was a rags-to-riches hobo folk singer from Alaska who could yodel. I felt like she had the market pretty well cornered there. But then she decided to be a poet, and then she decided that "casualty" was a synonym for "indifference", and then she wrote a song and sang it about a razor...there was a lot going on. I couldn't keep up, and the only time I've thought about Jewel since was about a year ago, when I got drunk and sang "Foolish Games" at karaoke night. So I'm surprised to see her popping up on my screen again. But then I also don't have cable or listen to the radio. Maybe in my time away from pop culture, the rest of the country has collectively arrived at the conclusion that when you think of wieners and bologna, you think of Jewel. She's finally found THE thing with which she'd like to be associated, and that thing is processed mystery meat bits. Good for her.

And then we come to the purse. If you want to win something involving Jewel, surely that something is a private concert, right? Or maybe a special one-on-one wiener-eating competition? Where the hell did the purse come from? In a stunning display of unhealthy behavior, I actually went to the sweepstakes site (enter today!) and checked out the prize, which is as follows:


**One (1) Grand Prize:  Jewel's purse and select items in it: Brynn Capella HandBag, Blackberry Bold or Blackberry Curve, Too Faced® GLAMOUR to GO II™ make-up and case, Koh Gen Do Cleansing Spa Water Cloths, Comptoir Sud Pacifique Vanilla Apricot Perfume, EO Lavender Hand Sanitizer, Face Place Collagen Elastin Treatment and Ultimate Eye repair products, two American Airlines Roundtrip Coach Class Travel Authorization Certificates. 

As you know by now, I like to envision how these things come about. This time, I think the ad people had a variety of pitches, but couldn't figure out which way to go for the prize - give people a cell phone? What does that have to do with meat products? A bunch of random makeup? Nah, that's just a Sephora sample bag. The airline tickets are nice, but you want to pep 'em up a little bit.... It was the promotional equivalent of a random assortment of meat-pieces. And what do you do with random assortments of meat-pieces? You cram them into a casing (like a purse) and slap a pretty wrapper (like Jewel) on it. Done and done.