Memo to the Boss

Memo: Nike Tiger Woods Commercial

When you asked me a while ago to create an ad for the world to see on why the Nike Golf product was so great, I had a vision in mind.  I thought to myself, “Who should we put in the ad, why not the greatest player in the world, Tiger Woods.”  If Nike wants to be the best golf company ever, then why not include the best the game has to offer.  When seeing this commercial for the first time before it aired, I thought that this commercial was going to take our company to the next level.  But as it shows right now, I was wrong.

This ad had everything in it to appeal to your average golfer.  It included the birthplace of golf, the best golfer in the world, and of course the Nike name.  But now that I know this is not what the public wants, I know exactly how to change this commercial around to make it that much better.  To begin with, I think we should change the song around.  Now I feel that Rod Stewart might be a little old, and we should try place something a little newer in the commercial.  We need something soft but it also needs to have a kick to it at the end.  This might pump the viewer up to go out and buy our equipment.  Secondly, I think that we should change the course that the commercial is set on.  Having a young Tiger Woods walking around such an ancient course might not appeal to our younger viewers.  We should definitely have him on many different courses today but make it real to so show the viewers that he actually went out and did this with our equipment in his hands. 

And finally, since we will be having him being shown in real life, we need to show all of his greatest moments since he has been with the Nike brand.  I feel that we should include a lot of fist pumps and huge celebrations in the commercial because then the viewer will know that our company is the biggest and the best.   I feel that all of these reasons I have shown here will make this commercial a huge hit because I know that I will not screw up a second time.  I have learned from my mistakes and I know that I have the tools to take this company to the next level.  I hope that you appreciate my proposal and please let me have the opportunity to keep my job.

The Rhetoric of the Market

Ad 1:Nike Golf Commerical with Tiger Woods
1. This ad is trying to persuade the watcher that the Nike golf product will help you become a better golfer because their equiptment is so good. If the equiptment works for Tiger Woods then it should work for you.
2. The implicit argument that is found in the ad is that Nike want you to feel confident with their equiptment because if the world's best is able to trust it then the average golfer should to.
3. The purchaser will get better performance from this product because Nike wants you to feel that more work has been put into the product than the average cheaper product. The cheaper product might not be able to do the same things that the Nike product can accomplish. My observations don't contradict what I would have expected because the reason why Nike is so special is because they have always been very great at their products performing at such a high level.
4. The ad is directed toward golfers who want to get better at the game and are looking to try new products.

Lexus Moments Ad
1.The Lexus ad wants the watcher to think about all types of moments in life and how you chose to treat them. They want you to think if you own a Lexus, you will be able to treat every moment to perfection.
2. The implicit argument in this ad is perfection and how you find it. It wants you to think that the Lexus car will help you in your quest to being perfect.
3. If the watcher purchases a Lexus, he/she will find happiness in his car and that person will be able to treat every moment in life so much better. The value of the car appeals to the watcher in such a strong way because everybody wants to treat all the moments in life in such a special way.
4. The audience is for people who can drive and make enough money to purchase a Lexus. Also it is for someone who wants to excel in life

Topic Proposal 3

For essay number three, I plan to write about Guantanamo Bay once again but I plan to write it like the modest proposal. Because I am writing it like the modest proposal, I am going to write it from the Terrorists perspective, like I am thanking the U.S. for letting them go.

Possible points for writing could be:
-we will be able to attack you with more men now
-we know your weakness and we are gonna attack it even harder now
-the men that were in there hate you (America) even more for what you did to our men and you are now giving them a chance for redemption

These possible points could be very funny because of the view they are coming from. I feel as if I a trying to tell the reader what could happen if the terrorist were released but in a more comedic way than if it actually happened

A Modest Proposal

-What does towardly parts mean?
-What is a fricasie and a ragoust?
-He seems to use annum quite frequently but I am not able to tell what it means
-Who is the famous Salmanazor?

March 3

For something comedic, I've always been interested in great funny movies and one of my all time favorites would have to be Dumb and Dumber. There are so many great lines from the movie that I always take in.

My favorite would have to be:
Lloyd "Thats a lovely accent you have, New Jersey?"
Lady "Austria"
Lloyd "Austria, well then. G'day mate. Lets put another shrimp on the barbie"
Lady "Lets not"

Topic Proposal #4

"How Does the Closing of Guantanamo Bay affect U.S. Security?"

I want to talk about how newly elect President Barack Obama's decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay will affect the security of the United States when many detainees are brought to prisons in the U.S. and other detainees are released from United State's custody becuase we do not have enough evidence to try them in a court of law.

"Closing Gitmo Doesn't Make America Safer" by Robert Maginnis, Academic Search Premier
-this article talks about how closing Guantanamo Bay will hurt the security of the U.S. becuase it won't change the terrorist perspective on the Americans

"Pentagon Studies Bases as Alternative to Guantanamo" by Solomon Moore, Academic Search Premier
- this article talks about what will happen to all of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay such as where they might end up or if they will be release to their home countries

"Get out of 'Gitmo': Obama orders prison closed within a year" Opposing Viewpoints
-this article tells the reader a little about Guantanamo Bay and also states some of the pros and cons on why the prison should be closed.

"Closing Down The Dark Side" by Mark Kukis, Academic Search Premier
-this article states why Guantanamo Bay should be closed by giving many good points of what goes on there and why the U.S. should not be doing these sort of activities.

3 ideas for essay 2

1. Drug enhancement in sports

2. Racial profiling in airports

3. Should we close Guantanamo Bay

Topic Proposal

1/29
Topic Proposal
For my topic, I am choosing the essay “Light Bulb Jokes: Charting an Era” by Daniel Harris. In the essay about light bulb jokes, Daniel Harris is trying to point out to the reader how important these jokes are to society. Since the light bulb has been invented, jokes have been created over time about it. But what makes these jokes so different is that they are not about the light bulb but about a certain group of people or a certain time period. The jokes normally portray what has been happening in a certain situation. This essay hopes to show the reader how important these jokes are to people today because they help show the humor that was happening at a certain time.
These light bulb jokes appeal to all types of people. A light bulb can be created at any time to show something about something whether it be people or a certain time period. These jokes rely on certain things to happen to certain people at certain times. If nothing were to happen, these jokes would not be possible.
This argument contains all the contexts. A light bulb joke can be about something social, political, historical, or cultural. The author gives many examples on the type of light bulb jokes that have been created over the years. Each joke shown has to do with at least one of these topics and the writer doesn’t even show very many of these types of jokes. What is so great about light bulb jokes is that they can be created about anything and that is why they are so funny.

1/27

Sam Braver
1/27/09
The idea that interests me the most is the section on why we laugh. It interests me because most people go through life trying to figure out why certain people laugh at certain things. You can make a very successful living if you have the ability to go up on stage and make a large group of people for a short period of time. Although this may sound easy if you know why people laugh, the point that the book doesn’t show is that you may have the jokes, but you still have to execute them in the proper way. That possible chance of failure is what causes us to become nervous when trying to perform in front of a group of people. We may know why they laugh but we can’t make them laugh. With all of the information that the book gives us, they make it sound so easy to do but the audience is always the unknown variable.
This topic is an important one to discuss because I think everyone should try and understand why people laugh. We may not be able to make them laugh but it’s very valuable information to know why they do laugh at certain times. When a person has the ability to make a group of people laugh, that person is generally like by his audience because they feel he is interesting to listen to. The writer of the book forgot to mention that we can not force people to laugh which is something I have mentioned earlier. This is so important because a comedian needs to go farther than his jokes. He needs to be able to interact with his audience and really know what they want to hear. If the audience gets what they want, then the performance will be a success.
The book gives many different reasons why people laugh, which is so true to today’s culture. There are a lot of different types of comedians around the world today telling so many different types of jokes. An example from modern culture would be the amount of comedians telling so many different types of jokes. Today, there are comedians who broadcast TV shows that venture out to anyone who wants to watch. There are comedians who strictly do shows at comedy clubs and then there are the ones who only write. All of these comedians do all different types of comedy to branch out to everyone. This way they can all make a certain number of people laugh at their jokes. With the knowledge they create from all of their shows, they are able to narrow down which jokes they should tell to certain people. With all of this information, they can try and become perfect in their profession.

Blog 1/20/09

Sam Braver
1/20/2009
In the Comedy Writing Secrets book, chapter one gave me a good introduction on what this book is all about. It was able to show me that this book was going to be very helpful in the near future with my comedic writing. I also appreciate all of the quotes that are included in the reading from famous comedians because the quotes can relate to the reading so well. The readings from this book will help our class in a huge way with our comedic writings because most of us have probably never been involved with this kind of writing. From the reading, I felt that the writers of Comedy Writing Secrets were disappointed that humorist writings are not as popular today because people want to tell the jokes, not write them. I can definitely understand where the writers are coming from because everyone wants to take credit for their own work. But what these writers don’t realize is that most great comedians today did this work early on in their careers and eventually they got enough credit for their writings to become big stars. By just reading this first chapter, I can start to tell that this book will be very important in helping us all become better comedic writers.
In the Laughing Matters Book, the essay by Henri Bergson was a very interesting one. Bergson uses this essay to mainly talk about why certain things to the average person are so funny. He gives certain scenarios throughout everyday life such as a man falling while walking and tells us why they are so appealing to us. Bergson is right though because most every human being would laugh at a scenario such as this. It is natural for us to laugh at things that seem funny to us whereas they aren’t so funny to the people that these things happen to. Personally, I did not like this reading though because it was tough to follow. The reading itself was not humor, because the writer was just talking about it as if it were something normal.
The essay Relaxing the Rules of Reading by Robin Hemley is about comedic stories Hemley has experienced in his years. I really like how every story he wrote about, he was able to break it down for us so that we could understand so easily. My favorite story is the one about the girl that told her professor she was a Vandal. It’s such a clever thing for someone to write about because I would never think about writing something like that. Hemley hits all of the different scenarios and types of stories that you can think of writing in his essay. It’s good for our class to see all of these different types of stories because it will help us figure out certain ideas for us to write about. I know that most of the time, my greatest trouble is not finding something to write about. If I have a certain scenario, I am generally pretty good at being able to write a great deal about it. Hemley shows me that it is easy to find scenarios because all you have to do is think of things that happen in your everyday life.