WORKS ON DIGITAL PAPER

Courtesy of MLusk at Weather Records

The Juicyfruit Generation : Ok Oh Explodes Generation X

Today at the playground I said something like "righteous indignation is the fount of all our woes" to the sound of a thousand rolled eyes.  We were watching the kids play in the city-supplied cement sprinklers.  My son would fill up a used plastic water bottle, of the 12oz variety, and find some ingenious place to empty its contents only to return via pitter patter to fill it up again.  Emptying another bottle, he'd laugh and call to one of his friends for buttressing approval.  It was given, as far as I could tell, in spades every time.  At some point he managed to switch to a 16oz plastic pop bottle with an orange sticker.  Probably Sunkist or Crush or Fanta, I probingly observed through the steel mesh of my mind.  Later, just now in fact, I would research the entire affair online, finding that the Fanta brand was created by the Germans during World War II when they couldn't get Coca-cola.  Once, while traveling through the Middle East and Europe, I took great time to photograph a, what would become, beat up Fanta can in unique and historic places for, who would become, my son's godfather.  Orange Crush debuted in California in 1916, while Sunkist, the product of rigorous R&D as to flavor, color and carbonation levels, made a splash in 1978.  Crush, in the flavors Berry Blast, Birch Beer, Cream, Fruity Red, Grape, Lime, Orange, Peach, Peach Sour, Pineapple, Pink Grapefruit, Red Cream, Red Licorice and Strawberry, are certified kosher in the United States, as of this reading through July 2010.  

I can say, with some modest certainty, that the advertising campaigns for Sunkist orang pop, featuring a thousand summery good times set to the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations, and Juicyfruit vaguely-fruity flavored chewing gum, with commercials centered around the young, athletic and beautiful in cut-off jean shorts set to the catchy eponymous jingle, have been perhaps the two most effective advertising campaigns in shaping the expectations of my young life, while my purportedly provincial sense of humor was undoubtedly shaped by the ones for Alaska Airlines and Rainier Beer. If that sort of thing can be said.