A TALL COLD RELATIONSHIP

IN THE CAR driving, so I can't take notes. Nevertheless, the gist. A radio
advertisement during a baseball game.

Two guys walk into a bar. Great bar. Drinks are half-price. Gorgeous women
playing pool. One of them says, ``You want to play the winners?'' in a
voice for which ``welcoming'' would be an understatement.

Guys approach bar. Bartender (described as ``looking like a swimsuit
model'') asks for their order. They order Choppy Beer (brand changed to
avoid free publicity). ``Oh, we just ran out,'' says the beautiful
bartender.

Guys leave bar. ``Too bad,'' one says, ``that bar had possibilities.''

Choppy Beer is not alone in promoting this concept. A recent television ad
for Chunky Beer features three lovely women in a bar talking to each other.
They notice men staring at them. They remark that men are all alike.
Reverse angle shot reveals that the men are staring at the beer, not the
babes.

Do you remember the Swedish Bikini Team? They promoted Chewy Beer. The idea
behind the promotion was: Drink Chewy, Get Babes. Indeed, the idea that
drinking the right kind of beer made you more attractive to babes was a
staple of advertising.

Now the idea has changed. The new notion is: With the right kind of beer,
who needs babes? Put it another way: Beer will get you through times of no
babes better than babes will get you through times of no beer. Put it
another way: Let's get drunk and not screw.

THIS IS INTERESTING. I wonder (I am still driving the car now, lost in a
fog of speculation but still motoring carefully as befits a responsible
Toyota owner) if this is part of the new trend of hatred between the sexes.

I am not actually aware of this trend personally, but the New York Times
says it's happening all over. Women have contempt for men; men have disdain
for women. They spar, the taunt, they deceive.

So this is the New Hatred. Products are forced to choose up sides in the
suddenly hot war between men and women. Is that the point? Or is there
something else?

THE BOOK ``INFINITE JEST'' is about an entertainment so addictive that
people will literally starve to death rather than stop watching it. The
entertainment is a metaphor for addiction, which is the core topic of
``Infinite Jest,'' which is a wonderful book that takes a long time to
read.

Quebecois separatists get a copy of this entertainment. They consider using
it for terrorist purposes. They test the entertainment on unwitting
volunteers. They devise the following experiment: After several viewings,
the subject will be told that price for another viewing will be the loss of
a finger.

If the subject accedes, the experiment will be repeated. Lose another
finger, get another show. The terrorists speculate that there will be
growing resistance to the plan, that a subject will be less willing to part
with (say) finger No. 8 than he was with finger No. 1.

But it doesn't happen that way. The entertainment is so completely
addictive that the number of digits remaining is irrelevant to the
decision. The answer is always, yes, another show, another missing digit.

Addiction works like that. Would you rather continue to use your substance
of choice, or would you rather keep your best friend Ed whose cash you are
about to steal? If you choose the substance, the question comes again:
Substance or job? Substance or spouse? Substance or health? Substance or
home? Substance or life?

Some people clean up somewhere along the line; some people don't. It seems
to me the new beer ads are very clear: Substance or sex life? And the smart
answer in today's world: Substance.

With a beer this good, who needs anything else? Choppy: The beer to have
when you've got nothing else going on.

Chunky makes me feel good about being pathetic.

What made Milwaukee famous has made a loser out of jrc@sfgate.com.

1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page E10

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson