It's All Toyota's Fault: Everybody's Ancient Nowadays

My parents are retired. Both of them. Both worked until working became a rather annoying, frustrating proposition and both freaked out a bit at the prospect of retirement. And although they've both adapted to it pretty well and are having a good time, they've decided that they no longer need their K5 Blazer and are thinking that they'd like either a Honda CR-V, a Subaru Forester or a Toyota RAV 4. Meanwhile, back in 1999, I interviewed Joe Strummer. I was 23. I had a 19-year-old girlfriend and was in the midst of my first postcollegiate job. And the Buzzcocks were on TV selling the RAV 4.

I mentioned this to Joe. He congratulated his compatriots for still being in the van in '99 and said that they deserved the money. And I don't begrudge Shelley and Diggle the cash at all. However, Bumbeck just informed me that they're now in an AARP ad, and that makes me feel old indeed. I remember walking into a comic book store in a strip mall that contained a Tower Books and Tower Records, and at various times, Tower Posters, a Tower Tape Annex and Tower Video. I was in junior high. The guy behind the counter was a transvestite who loved Flipper. One day I walked in and asked, "What is this music?" in response to the aural radness on the boombox.

"It's the Buzzcocks!"

And now "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" is being used to pitch an impending retirement to a young thirtysomething who has absolutely no goddamn idea how he'll ever be able to retire — largely due to the amount of time he spent on money-losing punk rock projects. And blogging. So be happy, Toyota; your cute, fun ute is appealing to oldsters and the revolution your agency launched by rocking the 'Cocks eight years ago has now made me feel really rather old. Anybody got a line on a 19-year-old girlfriend? I don't like food anymore.

Punk Songs? The Internet? It's Not Your Father's AARP [Brandweek]

Related:
The Toyota Scion's Got Personality; We're Relatively Anti-Social [Internal]