Coffee, Records, and Racing

I am one of those people who drink coffee at night. I used to think people who did this were strange. Now I think it is erudite.

I ran out of coffee yesterday, when I got home from the store I noticed that the can was different. I had gone through a whole can of decaffeinated unwittingly. I never had a clue, a victim of the placebo effect. After visiting with friends late last night and having several cups of the real stuff, I was up ’til sunrise. Makes me wonder if we should all be taking placebo (placebos?).

It’s a beautiful, sunny, seventy three degrees in the Ozarks this morning. The temperature dipped into the sixties last night and was a welcome break from the heat of summer.

I am listening to Wayne Glenn on radio station KTXR this morning. Wayne has had a local Saturday morning show for a long time. He calls himself the old record collector. He plays stuff you just don’t hear anywhere else. This morning he has spun “Ebb Tide” by The Righteous Brothers, “Love Letters In The Sand” by Andy Williams, and “Riot In Cell Block #9″ by The Robins. He has also written a couple of books that pertain to local history, one of them about Ozarks music. I enjoy his show. I cringe at the overuse and misuse of the word diversity but radio could use some.

Racing With L. Ron Hubbard:
I think that advertising is a barometer. How and what is being advertised serves as a mirror of our collective experience.

NASCAR sponsor money is big money. The fans are of a highly desirable demographic and are very loyal. I believe that the sponsors are approaching the audience as a whole, rather than targeting a particular driver’s fan base. By that I mean that they are concerned with garnering numerous audience impressions.

I have been a bit puzzled because I have heard repeatedly The Church of Scientology is sponsoring a car. Would a church be willing to spend millions of dollars in order to convert people through the repeated impression model? The answer is no. Technically the sponsor is Bridge Publications. They are the publisher of L. Ron Hubbard’s non-fiction works. These works are all that are in their catalog. They are trying to sell books.

I do not know if the Church owns Bridge. If not, the Church stands to gain if the campaign is successful. In many cases, religion is big business. I am not condemning that. Currently, public relations and damage control are a factor in any business. I have to question the logic of this move. Scientology has been on the butt end of a lot of well-publicized backlash recently, and this campaign seems to be adding fuel to the fire. In recent years, Morgan Sheppard drove a car sponsored by the Victory In Jesus Racing Ministries with the slogan “Racing With Jesus”, in 2004 Bobby Labonte drove a car promoting the Mel Gibson movie “The Passion Of The Christ”. I don’t recall any press coverage off the top of my brain.

Beyond all that I question the taste. The name of the campaign is “Ignite Your Potential”. The car will be sporting the fiery volcano from the cover of “Dianetics”. NASCAR’s safety policies have pretty well eliminated driver deaths by fire in recent years but any tragic incident would be especially eerie.

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Tags: coffee, L. Ron Hubbard, racing, Scientology