Just How Drugged Up Do You Think We Are

I was embarrassed by this commercial. It stripped Gates from everything he built up about himself, disposed of his nerd cachet, geek cachet, tech cachet, and turned him into a knock-off-L.L.Bean wearing AARP-discount-card postergramps dealing with a complete lunatic. It's 90 seconds of telling us something about Bill Gates -- he buys cheap shoes in a cheap mall and doesn't know his own shoe size -- that is a) not true, or shouldn't be, because it is so sad for one of the 3 richest men in the world, and b) utterly boring, with no punchline, because I refuse to consider a butt-wiggle from Gates as a response to an inane question from a schtick-regurgitating brand a punchline to a complete lack of joke. As a tech person I felt a wave condescension coming from the TV. As a person steeped in the narrative shorthands of television, I am surprised Gates didn't tell Seinfeld to get off his lawn, it felt so incomplete.

Gates let himself be McCained.