We're Quitting This Gig To Become Pirates.

Sorry y'all. We've had a great run here at TIA, but it has become clear that the only life for us is a pirate's life, and the man responsible is Captain Henry Morgan.

Now, in the past we've ragged pretty heavily on ad campaigns for alcohol, because they're usually incredibly idiotic. Sometimes, however, it actually gets done right. Having said that, its only with their newest advertisements that the Cap'n has actually begun to shine. Commercials for Captain Morgan in the past have been your run-of-the-mill, frat humor laden, mediocre booze ads. So what changed?

To begin, drastically increased production value. The commercials look amazing. Also, there's a kind of ongoing story throughout the ads that, at the very least, is mildly interesting. Captain Henry Morgan is depicted as a handsome "man's man" type of dude, but at the same time is not an incredibly abstract "Chuck Norris" character. He seems like a guy you could swap stories with over a beer. Or, you know...some Captain Morgan. In every mini story, he's the one that keeps everything chill instead of kicking everyone's ass. Whether that's achieved by chucking glasses around or executing a perfect double front flip dive off the plank depends on the commercial.

The soundtrack on many of these ads is amazing. Songs featured include Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" and "Ball and Biscuit" by the White Stripes, and its easy to tell that some thought went into picking the right song for the right scene.

Now, all of that aside, its still apparent that this campaign shares something with its more mediocre counterparts: the commercials still have absolutely nothing to do with the alcohol itself. They serve to build and reinforce an image, just like those murder-inducing Jose Cuervo spots we discussed a few entries back. However, this one actually has some thought behind it, and does NOT try to act as if the things in the actually happen to real people. Also, no one says the word "cue." Not one time. It was great.

We invite you to watch the main ad below, and explore the others that the Cap'n has put out (spoiler alert: shameless Pirates reference). Maybe when you're finished you can help us figure out why all the rum is gone. Savvy?

1-800-DEBT-MART.

We know that's an eight-digit phone number, shut up.

Hey readers! We thought we'd finally come out of hiding to talk to y'all about something pretty important that's been at the back of our minds constantly of late. It also coincides quite nicely with the current economical state of affairs here in the U.S.of A.

That is to say, biggity brokeness.

Unless you're some kind of protozoa living on the bottom of the ocean, you've undoubtedly heard that our country's credit rating has been lowered from triple A awesome to double A Plus not-as-great. This precipitated 500-point drops in the DOW, mass riots, looting, and goat-sacrificing in the streets as people babbled frantic prayers to the Economy. Several decades worth of anecdotal evidence has already proven that Economy is a cold, aloof God however, so their prayers went unheard and unanswered, and the streets ran red with madness.

Oh, that didn't happen? Right, the media just made it seem as if that happened. As per usual. Despite the lack of goat sacrifices though, this is still the latest and most crippling symptom of the flawed political and economical system we live with. People are talking about a "double-dip" recession. We didn't know "recession" was a flavor of ice cream, but that's neither here nor there.

"Good lord, this is already as long as the last post we read, and we only read that because we felt sorry for you. Get to the point." We will, you don't have to be a dick about it. What this recent economic sh*tstorm has made us notice is all the "1-800-LOAN-MART" commercials and their ilk plaguing our television and radio.

Furniture stores and places like Rent-A-Center have commercials airing with lines like, "No credit? No problem!" Car dealerships continue to offer financing to people with horrible credit and things like DUIs on their records. Cash advance places have you put up your car as collateral, meaning they can take your means of transportation if you cannot pay the loan back which, let's be honest, you won't be able to if you're using a cash advance service. This type of irresponsible "you won't REALLY have to pay for it" marketing and services are helping absolutely no one. In fact, they make the problem worse.

It was people trying to live beyond their means in the housing market that were a large part of the 2008 market collapse, and people are still being foreclosed on by their banks three years later. Unemployment has skyrocketed. Congress are acting like a day care center full of petulant brats instead of civil servants. Something needs to change. As a country, we need to stop living beyond our means to achieve an American dream that doesn't really exist for a large group of the population and was nebulously defined to begin with. We can tell you how. All you have to do is buy our book and give us all your money.