Hornswaggler | The culture, the humor, a bit of the sports, not so much the politics, and the workplace distraction
Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of
hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my
pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" --
"I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers,
bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits,
vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers,
buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train
robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!"
That ad campaign by Miller Lite that was played endlessly during March Madness - it was a parody of ads about erectile dysfunction, etc. - was funny ("Is now a good time to talk about taste loss?"), but there was one major problem. Miller Lite is shitty, tasteless beer. Hence an unavoidable irony. I mean, everyone once in awhile, if I'm feeling really bloated or full, a Budweiser or a Miller sounds like a good idea. They're good beers for beer pong. But that's about it. They have no taste and trying to differentiate between Miller Lite, Bud Light and Coors Light is a pointless exercise. But that's precisely what these ads do, try to draw distinctions between bland and featureless products. E.g., you've no doubt been told that Coors Light is the "coldest-tasting beer in the world." What the fuck does that mean? And don't tell me about frost brewing, buddy, and how all beers end up cold but Coors starts cold. You've lost me. I don't care. Plus I never drink Coors because the Coors family is a bunch of family-values-promoting, anti-environment Nazis.
It's funny how divorced from reality the major brewers are, as they jockey to have the crappy beer that is the crispest, the coldest, the least filling, the lowest in calories and carbs, as if there aren't literally dozens of brands of beer that someone who knows and likes beer would rather quaff, as if these beers didn't represent the second-worst tasting group of beers in the world, just a step up from Schlitz, Natural Light, Milwaukee's Best, and their bottom-feeding cohorts. As a matter of fact, I've always thought Bud and the like consitute the worst deal that a beer consumer could possibly make, because if you're not going to go for taste and you just want cheap beer, why spend more on Bud and pay for their insane marketing expenses when you can just get a twelve-pack of Natty Light or the Beast for like $6?