So as I mentioned back in November, I stumbled upon a studio filming a commercial in NYC. My friend Judson and I had awoken early that day to go see the Statute of Liberty, the former site of World Trade Center, and other tourist destinations downtown. We got off the train near Wall Street, and as we passed the NYSE building we could hear bagpipe music. So we diverted from our original path and ended up on a side street, staring at this fake parade. We were told we could not cross the street, nor could we walk down the sidewalk in either direction. They obviously weren't filming yet but this guy liked enforcing his rule even when enforcement would not serve the principle the rule was created for in the first place. Or maybe the guy just didn't want us sneaking into the fake crowd shot. You probably need to be a SAG member to show up in the back of a commercial.

So having been rebuffed from physically passing through the commercial, the security dude also refused to tell us what company was making the commercial. Actually, he claimed he didn't know. He had been there all day, but he didn't know. Oh, he was willing to tell us he couldn't let us pass. But he wasn't willing to tell us that he couldn't tell us the name. Must be such a big secret, we thought. So we went back down the street we came down, took two rights and ended up back on the sidewalk of the commercial, minus one jerk. There was a nice woman in the same vest letting people cross the street at the time. We spoke with her briefly, and she revealed it was a Sierra Mist commercial. Obviously she hadn't been told that such information was classified. Or at least the other man assumed he could be a jerk to people because they would have no reference point with which to compare and contrast his behavior. He was wrong on that count. Also, I still hate him.

But for those of you who have kept reading this story, the fake parade was probably a very expensive proposition. Look below. There are hundreds of actors (a fake high school band, some fake cheerleaders and other stereotypes not shown here), Wall Street itself is closed down (so there must have been permits and city officials to bribe, even though it is a weekend in a business district), and then there are security people employed to crush my human spirit.



Beyond all those, they have three giant generic balloon characters. Who is that back there in the image? It ain't Captain America.



But it is close enough that I would say there was some fan of the Captain at Sierra Mist. Creating generic-stereotype balloon characters has to be a big expense. One time use. When is the next time someone is going to want to use that balloon? Do you guess never? I think you win. I would personally love to be the guy at Pepsi Co who took that baby home. Sort of like the way I got to take home display pieces while I worked at Books-a-Million. There is a mid-level engineer for Pepsi-Co who has a giant Captain Star fully inflated in his back yard hovering over his porch.

We took up a position on the sidewalk, stared at them, and they didn't film anything. After like fifteen minutes, we then walked off. So that's the end of the story. I'll check with Judson tomorrow to see if he took any pictures of the event and get his permission to post one here. So that's the best part of the Superbowl. Second would be the 85 yard pass. Third would be the iTunes commercial with the new Green Day cover of I Fought the Law (You Need iTunes for that link to work, I think). I would go out and buy a Pepsi, but I'm sure the local grocery store doesn't have the new ones yet. But if I do ever win a free download, that will be the first song I take. So from Papas Fritas to Green Day (I know Sonny Curtis has writing credits for that 1958 much-covered song). Commercials, the fabric of our lives. Or is that cotton?

Update: Shards O' Glass Pops needs to be mentioned. Take that Big Tobacco! Also the 85 yard catch may drop to number three since it didn't help Carolina do much other than beat the spread. Take that team that beat the Cowboys!