• by Jack Feuer , June 18, 2008

I know it's Cannes, and you're dying to discuss the latest Brazilian rush-hour traffic gimmick to win a media Lion, or whatever. But I refuse to write about that crapfest on the Croissette. Let's chat about maiming people instead.

See, I rode the 101 south into the San Fernando Valley last Saturday to watch Feuer the Younger do Krav Maga in a nondescript gym across the street from the Sherman Oaks Galleria. Krav Maga, which means "close combat" in Hebrew, is the Israeli martial art form. It's a brilliant fighting technique that can turn the most vulnerable woman or New York metrosexual into a lethal weapon that can't be surprised or brought down -- even by an attacker armed with a knife or gun.

From what I saw this weekend, Krav Maga is based -- inevitably, considering its creators -- on the idea that defense is for suckers. The best way to neutralize an assailant is to elbow, punch and kick the living crap out of him until nothing moves but his quivering bowels.

You don't screw with the Jews.

Anyway, not surprisingly, chicks dig Krav Maga. One of them waiting for her class to begin last Saturday was a pretty 20something who left her native Nebraska four years ago to look for work out West. She found it at Starcom, where she's a buyer on the Walt Disney account. No wonder she needs to kill something.

But I think our corn-fed chica's pursuit of a merciless hand-to-hand fighting skill is emblematic of something bigger crawling beneath the skin of our society. The stirrings of a new national sentiment based on the unarguable proposition that our culture is hopelessly broken.

Really, is there any area of consumer life that digital hasn't mucked up? How often do you call 411 and the operator screws up the number? Notice how many more blackouts we have these days? When was the last time you had a consumer experience that delivered customer satisfaction and product quality? Even one of those?

Why, with digital scanners, does it take longer to buy groceries than it ever did in the analog world? Do you know anybody who has figured out how to use those damn self-service checkout machines?

After Krav Maga, the kid and I went to see The Incredible Hulk and a spot for the new iPhone showed before the movie. My son snorted at the screen, muttering, "Yeah, and your girlfriend's father will give her his phone in disgust because he can't figure out how it works, and she won't either, and anyway, the damn thing will freeze after a week."

And Apple is the one that's supposed to do it right, isn't it?

We don't need to be socially networked. We don't want control. We're not looking to engage. We need advertising that teaches us self-defense from a technological society in which nothing works right, and it's always our fault. Forget free gas promotions. Give us a little marketing Krav Maga.

If you don't, I'm sending a pretty young Starcom buyer over to your office to say shalom and drop you where you stand.