Teamworking Day: Camel Healthy Nerves Part 2

Brendan: Dennard! Thank you so much for correcting my misconceptions about smoking with those Camels ads! [TKTKTK link link link] I now know that Camels are the cool smoke that won’t aggravate my T-Zone and ALSO that women smokers are the coolest!

Dennard: Fucking Christ, how’d you get in—wait, an ad changed your opinion and behavior? For real? I thought agencies just milked the Fortune 500. Also: it’s 3 AM. The perfect time to bill clients. I’m glad you’re learning.

Brendan: Camel just wanted to draw pretty dames but accidentally invented second-wave feminism by proving women can do anything men can do but more radical and in defiance of society telling them to poach eggs instead.

Dennard: Well, let’s not get too Hooked on Progress. Dynamic dames could ruin the whole game. Sad, desperate people buy more, and nothing anchors them like tradition. Keep dreams deferred. Our best customers know it’s poison, they just don’t care anymore.

Brendan: Exactly! And women have far less left to lose! So I’ve dug up more Camel ads to prove the only thing tougher than a lady in the depths of patriarchy is that same lady with a host of medical problems in her future!

Dennard: You stole my ad-stealing idea! I’m so proud. And terrified. Terriproud. I guess I can make a little money from girl cancer.

Brendan: Behold the warrieuses of yester-die. Women can perish just as grievously as men, thanks to Experience!

Dennard: And will! I need cash to get my unarmed ass to Switzerland. I’m not as brave as these Sky Sirens. Or most children.

Dennard: A test pilot! She might’ve been first to die in that model. Man, do you see these Swiss ticket prices? I might swipe a Hellcat, now that we know they don’t explode during takeoff.

Brendan: WHAT? A woman smoking a Camel cigarette? Yes, and Teddy Kenyon puts them through the paces. Her T-Zone stands for Test Pilot and Throat-Tough. Let’s see a man do that!

Dennard: Is that a sex thing? I don’t want sex clouding the full-body rush of tempting death. These are family climaxes. Survivors fly home to their spouses, where lymphoma finishes the job.

Brendan: Hellcat test pilot is such a compound cool job that overcoming sexism to get to your calling feels like the training level. Everything is a sex thing in the world’s eyes when you’re this exceptional.

Dennard: I can’t unhear it. Where’s the pass button? For the ads we don’t want? Metrics are the only restraint Camel respects.

Dennard: Oh no.

Brendan: Perhaps you need a moment to recover? There are no sports strips featuring women in 1957, because Camel did not want to be held labial for an outbreak of lesbianism. I don’t want to sound old-fashioned, but women are physiologically different, and cannot build the kind of barrel-gut, no-ass, hog-neck physique of yesteryear’s top chainsmoking alcoholic sluggers.

Dennard: I guess the fifties weren’t all the Kirk Memorial Parade cracked them up to be. While I still enjoyed the floats, that’s rough news. Were there other glass ceilings for athletes afflicted with girl?

Brendan: The only limit, and starting point, was the sky. Back then, if a “womb-an” wanted to make her athletic mark, she flew planes straight to the White House to seduce Eleanor Roosevelt. Let’s take a look at the lovely lady aviatrices of lung cancer.

Brendan: Any oaf can cheer for a girlfight. Only the experienced, suave Camel Man is aroused by a girl-pilot dogfight. It’s not even sexual! This is an erection of admiration. I like my women like I like their talent: raw. Skelton vs. Kenyon, air-duel of the century. Christ, I need a cigarette.

Dennard: Artless. The plug hits the middle of this ad like…what do you compare plane crashes to? Cars have less stakes, oomph, and casualties. Trains are their own simile tradition. The plug hits this like free speech hits American TV.

Brendan: Betty is taking that woman home, I guarantee it.

Dennard: You’re into these ads now! Really, really into them! Sweet I’m not scared, like a square. Want to invite some security guards to review ads with us?

Brendan: Ha! Nice try but I lack the sky-divess’s fortitude for such a leap of faith…or really any woman walking home after sunset. Let’s learn it in action!

Brendan: Okay, Dennard, I want you to imagine the easiest thing in the world to do, and yet, the hardest to initiate.

Dennard: Leaving this dead city. A cleaner life waits on an island, in a new home, with a new name. Where I don’t see failure and sin in every sidewalk crack. But I’m enslaved to a dream. Clutching nothing until it kills me, like MacBe—

Brendan: Close! It’s falling! Specifically, HALO jumper Marie McMillin, who sets X-chromosome records on Y-axis altitudes. Doesn’t she rule?

Dennard: Sure, we’ve focused on dying in planes. Why not ditch the plane altogether? This daredamsel’s leaving a Camel-scented pavement splotch. I’m glad you’ve found a new search-engine term, but I’m not hearing the detachment from love I expect from a brand-man. Are you okay?

Brendan: These women go so hard at life. The men in these ads just keep calm during a normal work hazard. The women professionally hurl themselves splatter distances despite top doctors of the time warning that any womb exceeding 135 mph will be sterilized by a surfeit of bravery.

Dennard: I know you’re checking her for a ring, but…they just asked her to jump? Walked up and asked her? Is this how the job market used to work? Now firms ask for eight years of base-jumping experience before letting you bunny-hop off a curb. What happened? Why is it like this? How did you get in here? How many street hires turned to paste before Marie nailed it?

Brendan: I’m starting to think the answer is zero! This might just be how strong all women are, in order to get through this world, and men invented cigarettes to put the original sex on fairer footing.

Okay, now picture a woman, but bound to this Earth. Yet somehow it is more dangerous than untested plane? The mind trembles.

Dennard: I’ll admit: my remaining heart loves this. “Am I ready to be stomped to Valhalla if I stumble? Yeah, I took a nap.” Is there any other way to live? Or stop living? Writing’s fun, but Aline’s achieved my dream: being paid to test God’s patience.

Brendan: Why did they not simply draw the take that worked? Nobody's fact-checking you, just cut to a director saying "Thanks for keeping cool under pressure, Aline. Sorry about your childhood horse."

Dennard: Craft. Believe it or not, Americans once had goals besides fame or escape. Savages. Still, this cowgirl got it right, and risked it all for scenes cut for violating the code. A heroine for all life-averse children.

Brendan: How many horses died, Aline?

Dennard: How many dogs died to teach us nothing about space? Sometimes, ends come before the means, and fresh horse burgers come before the ends. I’ll approve this one, and only this one, if you leave my home. Now.

Brendan: It will upset you only slightly more to learn I’m never leaving as it will to realize I’m not actually here. Like Camel’s cool, smooth smoke, I’ve been your constant companion since you were a child in need of an imaginary friend.

Dennard: You make it sound like we’re targeting kids. Never. I’ve said it under oath before, and I’ll say it again: we’re after emotionally stunted adults. I write what I know.

Brendan: It’s time. We’ve arrived where it all began. Nature’s richest font of cool women: the big top.

Dennard: We’ve hit a lot of poison ads today. My spirit-thing hurts. The one churches go on about.

Brendan: Shhhh, shh, sh sh shhhh…let beloved Toni Concello return behind your eyelids to remind you of all we stand for.

Brendan: Boy, before this week, I had no idea the acrobatic world was so Italian.

Dennard: Flips bring people together, especially around World Wars. Have you seen Red Bull’s breaking tournament? Virtuosic. Every upcoming combatant has a headspin machine. And they don’t pretend helmets can save them, unlike the Zacchinis. Pretty dishonest for an ad. I’m not feeling this one. We all know the safest way out of a cannon is prayer.

Brendan: Look, it’s a metaphor. You light a match, you briefly look cool as a tomb for strangers, and what happens next is calculated risk.

Dennard: You’ve lost the plot. Granted, Dororthy’s got an inventive spirit. Combing fire-flips and horse-flips into one suicide! Think of all the other Carnival tragedies we can merge. Dunk the Negro, trapeze edition! You only get to see flips if your aim is true and your racism pure. On second thought, these are all artless cowards. Want to go in on a startup with me?

Brendan: Remember, this is the mid-’50s, so Italians are still transitionally white. We’re zooming back to those days, so let’s you and me get rich performing as “The Good Ones.” I think you, me, and my racist Italian Aunt Nellie’s ghost should take this show on the road. What’s Toni Concello up to these days?

Dennard: I still admire “more expensive tobaccos” as a core feature. That’s like putting “wallet lightening” on the carton. Streamline your W-Zone with Camel.

Brendan: You know who needs streamlining almost as much as human cannonballs? Flying Graysons. Get ready for our next heroine…

Dennard: She mentions other brands like an old sin. We did anything to eat during the war. I smoked half a Lucky Strike for an apple, and I’ve finally learned to love myself again. Perfect spokeswoman work. I assume you’re entranced by courage and skill or whatever. Bit shallow, Brendan.

Brendan: This isn’t about my loins, Dennard, old salt, this is about the avatar of audacity. These are no-future times, and we seek the latest incarnation of pure bravado. In these pages, we’ll find a punk rock plutonic prophetess to lead our march into completely avoidable battle with one certain outcome. There are resonances in these things!

Dennard: I’ve made a fucking monster. Sweet. Now that Earth’s done making good things, or even fun things, I can pivot into terrors. Though maybe not our march. I wrote I’m Not Dying for America and 2 Not Dying 2 America. I believe in the Pianosan Dream.

Brendan: That said, it probably won’t be the woman who smoked every third-tier cigarette to settle on her brand. I mean, Rose Gould is not a real name. Rose Gould is the corporate persona Apple introduced after retiring Sir Bond I. Bleu. Rose Gould? Ridiculou—sonofanofuckingway DENNARD LOOK WHAT JUST LANDED IN MY INBOX.

This confirms it! We are divining the true religion! Strong women, iron lungs! Behold, our avatar emails among us! The gods reach out to me! I am the true prophet!

Dennard: Prophet? You filtered a marketing scheme through your fringe kink. You’re the prophet! The true prophet! Go spread the word, outside. I’ll change the locks to keep interlopers out.

Brendan: It’s not a kink,it’s a cult belief; they’re completely different. Now stand back as it overwrites the human psyche to become the new norm. Be proud, you did this.

Dennard: It’s been wonderful stealing ads and unearthing new fetishes with you. And my T-zone’s stronger than ever! That’s my Bank of China account’s nickname.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Devon the Rogue Supreme, who knows what the ladies like, and it is cigarettes, baby!

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