
So I was out with a buddy of mine last night.
You know, I can just hear you all snickering. No, it wasn’t a DATE. Just because I say I was out getting a couple of beers with a guy doesn’t make it a gay thing.
This is exactly what my wife said this show would deteriorate to. Everything sounds gay. Even me just going to a bar to grab a couple of beers with a friend.
So anyway, I was out at this place called the Manhole with a buddy of mine and he starts coughing and I was like, “Hey, you okay?”
And he hocks up a big wad of snot. He’s all congested and he tells me that he go the Evian Bird Flu.
And I’m like, dude… it’s not the “Evian” bird flu.
And he’s like, “Oh yeah, didn’t you hear? The Evian Spring Water Bottling Company of France bought the naming rights for the bird flu. Everyone was talking about it so much, they saw an opportunity and paid like twenty million to put their name and logo on it.
Like the FedEx Orange Bowl or the Staples Center.
He rolled up his sleeve and sure enough, the Evian logo had begun to form below his skin. “It’s temporary,” he said. “Like one of those tattoos you get out of a vending machine. But this one’s genetically encoded into the DNA of the virus.”
And I was like, “Whoa!”
And my friend, who works for some big marketing firm, started telling me this is the hottest trend in bio-medicine. He said that just last week Pepsi bought the naming rights for Spina Bifida.
So now, any time you talk about the disease, you can’t just say, “Jimmy has Spina Bifida.” You have to say, “Jimmy has Pepsi’s Spina Bifida.”
And I turned to my friend and I’m like, “Isn’t that bad, to have your name associated with something so terrible like Spina Bifida?”
And my friend in marketing was like, “The age of shame is over, pal. There’s no such thing as bad publicity. As long as people are saying your name, that’s all that matters.”
So now it’s Pepsi’s Spina Bifida and General Motors presents Scoliosis.
It’s Impetigo by Sprint, Viacom’s Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Seagrams Special Cool Mint Lyme Disease.
The biggest deal dropped last week. A hundred million dollars.
Cancer by Microsoft.
Apparently some Chinese telecommunications company wanted it but you know that wily old Bill Gates pulled it out somehow.
So now everywhere I go, I’m reading about the Evian Bird flu. They’re even going to hold a press conference to announce they’re “re-branding” it.
Starting Monday, instead of the “bird flu” it’ll be known as “Chirpies.”
I hear it’s a canarial disease.