[Photo via NY Mag]
Most of us avoid Times Square like the final bill at a 20 person birthday dinner. But occasionally we all have to subject ourselves to the stew of tourists while dodging fanny packs full of Olive Garden doggie bags. The one constant in the tumult is the Naked Cowboy. Yes, there are plenty of mentally deranged, tighty-whitey-clad men wandering our fair city. But this one’s got a guitar so he’s got some artistic integrity. His name is Robert Burck and he’s been adding to New York’s shame mystique for over a decade. But recently, there’s been a wrinkle. Burck is now suing M&M Mars for copyright infringement over their commercial featuring an M&M in a remarkably similar getup frolicking around Times Square. Even more remarkably, Burck had actually registered his schtick as an officially trademarked piece of performance art. The amount up for grabs is about $6 million, which will buy him a Victoria’s Secret set for his naked cowgirl and enough change left over for bus fare back to Jersey.

Call me dense, but I don't really understand why there are journalists that cover advertisements. Perhaps it's because with the advent of TiVo and DVR, we can fast-forward through commercials. Perhaps it's because now that we text while walking or watch our iPod Videos on the way to work, we're too inundated with visuals to absorb gigantic billboards anymore, so we need reporters to tell us what they say as we pretend to read the newspaper to look important while we're really just skimming the fluff articles. Or perhaps it's because the general public doesn't get to read press releases by ad reps, and we need reporters mediate for us and explain what is behind an ad campaign in case we missed the point.I'm pretty sure this is what The New York Times decided in their business section today, with  this story on the new Gillette Venus Embrace razor.... More»