Hole in the Throat Guy: Not Just Scaring the Shit Out of Mets Fans
Hey everyone, we'll have something more substantial up for you about the game last night, but in the meantime I wanted to share some thoughts on an article I saw in the Daily News this morning.
The article is about Ronaldo Martinez, a name you probably don't know that belongs to a man you can instantly recognize. You see, Martinez is the subject of those depressing anti-smoking ads featuring the man with the hole in his throat thanks to years and years of smoking and the after-effects of cancer.
It's important to mention that I've never had a cigarette in my life, but like the rest of you out there, smokers and non-smokers alike, I have two competing responses to the ads featuring the hole-in-the-throat guy.
On the one hand I think it's brilliant advertising. If I were a smoker, I'd be scared shitless. Hell, even as a non-smoker I'm scared shitless.
But on the other hand, I'm also somewhat repulsed by the commercials. I mean, there's only so many times I can stomach seeing that hole displayed prominently on the 54-inch screen me and my roomies have in the common room.
It's gotten to the point where whenever I hear Martinez's robotic monotone coming through my speakers (audible before the picture comes up), I instantly change channels. I just can't handle it anymore.
The good news for those monitoring our city's public health is that a sizeable amount of poeple share the first response I had to the ads; that is, they're scared shitless.
"These ads began in early 2006. Within the next several months, [the city Health Department] received nearly 15,000 calls for quit-smoking services - more than triple the amount received in the same time period in 2005," said Sarah Perl, the Health Department's assistant commissioner for tobacco control.
And that's a good thing. I mean, it's a shame that somebody's personal tragedy has to be broadcast to millions of people, but if it's going to compel people to quit then I'm all for that. So Ronaldo Martinez, huzzah!
If you'd like to read the article in its entirety, click the headline above.
- A.F.O.M.G.
posted by A Friend of Mr. Glass' at 10:10 AM
3 Comments:
Incidentally, I don't know why this post appears twice on the site. Apologies.
ahahaha...dude said, " I used to love swimming".
It is funny because I have only seen a person with a similiar ailment to Ronaldo Martinez 2 times in my whole life....why is that? so does that mean our guy only 'bird bathes'?
As repulsive and scary as the ads starring hole-in-the-throat guy are, in my view they are actually surpassed by the one, which I only saw once a few weeks ago (maybe they've pulled it because this can't be what an 8-year-old watching the game is bargaining for, even if he oughta see it for his own good), where the doctor displays the dissected aorta of an (obviously) deceased smoker and proceeds to squeeze what seems like a couple of gallons of congealed fat out of it. If you haven't run to the bathroom to lose your dinner by this point, the doc goes on to explain that nicotine in the blood from smoking makes the aterial linings sticky, leading to the accumulation of these charming deposits which believe me, you don't even want to think about. That commercial has even put me off cigars. While I too have started fleeing the room when these ads come on (trying not to bump into AFOMG as we scatter), I think you have to applaud their efficacy as a much needed counterweight to decades of bullshit from cigarette companies, including their current "we really want you to stop and your kids never to start (but just in case you don't take this heartfelt advice we continue to manufacture billions of them)" campaigns. So I say let's hear it for hole in the throat guy; and let's have him throw out the first pitch when the World Series comes to Shea this October. Unfortunately, it may be too late to do anything nice for the guy who used to be attached to the aorta.
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