Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

My Quest for a Gold Bond Sponsorship, Part Two

By Bob Wire, 11-28-08

	"Trust me, boys, one day soon you're gonna discover that Gold Bond Powder is your best friend on the football field."

Chattanooga, Tennessee: home of the Mocs, Coca-Cola, and of course the FCS Football Championship game. There’s also Rock City, Ruby Falls, the Chattanooga Choo-Choo, and a killer aquarium with the finest collection of fish this side of Long John Silver’s.

And Chattanooga also happens to be the home of Chattem Chemical, the makers of Gold Bond™ Medicated Powder.

I friggin’ love Gold Bond Powder. I use it every day. There’s nothing else that works so aggressively to put the kibosh on prickly heat in your groinal area. I’ll lay out a tarp on the garage floor, dust it with a generous amount of Gold Bond, and just flop around on it until I’m fully coated, like a veal cutlet. The soothing, mentholated tingle makes my junk feel cool enough to testify in front of a grand jury.

I’ve been sharing the virtues of this magic powder with my audience for several years, sometimes even doing a short commercial between songs while the band plays behind me (“It’s like a thousand icy gnome fingers tickling your goodies”). I sometimes list Gold Bond on my posters as a “sponsor,” even though, to the best of my knowledge, they are unaware of my existence.

Two years ago I tried to change that with a letter to their marketing department. I mentioned my admiration and liberal use of their product, and asked if they would be interested in forging some kind of endorsement deal. Hell, a free case of Triple Medicated would have been fine, but I got no response.

So when I found myself in Chattanooga to visit Barb’s parents the week of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d seize the opportunity to get a little face time with the powers that be at Gold Bond Powder. Monday morning I took Speaker and Rusty out to see the model train museum, and then to the Children’s Discovery Museum. But first we made a stop at Krystal for a bag of tiny burgers. This particular Krystal Burger just happened to be right across from a gargantuan brick building with “Chattem” proudly displayed across top of the six-story face. I made a mental note of its location, and planned on making my run at Gold Bond on Tuesday.

The next morning we piled into the rental car and headed for the Hamilton Place Mall, a shopping edifice that makes Southgate Mall look like a lemonade stand. I dropped off Barb and the kids and announced my intention to go get the ear of some marketing rep at Gold. The wished me luck, and I said I’d return to the mall entrance in an hour. I got back on 75 South and headed for Atlanta, getting off just in time to get hopelessly lost in the Lookout Mountain area. Somehow I blundered into Broad Street, though, and managed to find the Chattem building. Clutching one of my CD’s to prove my credibility, I approached the nondescript entrance. No windows, just a pair of heavy doors. Locked.

Mounted on the wall to my left was a phone and instructions to speak with the head of security to gain entrance to the building. I told the man why I was there, and he said, “What you want is our corporate headquarters. This is the plant.” I looked around, and it suddenly hit me that those huge sand dunes behind the chain link fence must be talcum powder. In a garbled voice, he gave me directions to the corporate headquarters, (“Just start headin’ up the lauma-zauma-hauma Parkway, and when you go under the bridge, look for humma-zumma-zumma street, and turn right”) and I sprinted to the Grand Prix. There was no time to spare, although I resisted the urge to slide across the hood, Dukes of Hazzard style.

After two failed attempts at finding the headquarters and an errant trip halfway up Lookout Mountain and back, I dejectedly gave up and turned back toward downtown. I was almost out of time. Hell with it, I thought, I’ll just keep sending letters. I’ll include some Gold Bond-coated short ‘n curlies in the next one to prove my love. Then I spied a piece of notebook paper on the passenger’s seat. Rusty had written down the company’s address on Monday, and I realized that it was for the corporate office, not the plant.

“Rusty,” I said aloud, pulling a U-turn, “you just earned an extra hour killing rockjaw troggs in World of Warcraft.” Ten minutes later I was standing in front of a glassed-in receptionist in an unassuming building I’d been told was the office. I explained what I was there for, showed her the CD like it was my P.I.’s license, and asked for some contact info. I had no time left to meet with anyone, but I couldn’t leave without a name.

“Oh, I suppose you want to talk with Sue, who’s in consumer marketing for Gold Bond. She’s at our corporate headquarters. This is just the office.” While she was writing Sue’s name on a card, I told her how I sometimes did live Gold Bond commercials from the stage. I left out the part about the thousand icy gnome fingers tickling your boys. She smiled and said, “Oh, Gail would love to hear about that! You need to call Gail too. She’s the corporate VP in charge of all Gold Bond products.” She hastily added Gail’s name and number to the card. Great, I thought. I would tell Gail about my idea for a new accessory, the Gold Bond Taint Puff.

I thanked the receptionist and ran out to the car, stopping momentarily to get directions back to the mall from a passing FedEx driver. I fired up the Grand Prix and soon I was back on the freeway, jousting with the city traffic at 80 mph. I made it to the mall with two minutes to spare, but the tension and excitement had caused me to break out in a flop sweat.

Good thing I’d remembered to douse myself in Gold Bond before we left the house.

[Bookmark NewWest.net/BobWire to see if he ever gets an endorsement deal. We’re guessing if not Gold Bond, it’ll be with Mezzetta Spanish olives.]

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