THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 11, 1995 TAG: 9508100048
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: JENNIFER DZIURA
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
YOU WOULD BE hard-pressed in this country to locate a person who would consider eating birdseed. Were we offered such a mix of grains and nuts, our neurons would talk among themselves and send back the message: ``Nope, sorry. Birdseed is for birds. Don't eat the stuff.''
Yet we have no problem consuming liquid that comes from the underside of a cow. To popularize this bizarre concept, a group of people involved in squeezing milk from the undersides of cows has launched a massive advertising campaign. This group calls itself the ``National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board.''
Among the progeny of this campaign are the ``milk mustache'' magazine ads in which such celebrities as supermodel Kate Moss, Miss America 1995 Heather Whitestone and ice skater Kristi Yamaguchi all sport milky-white upper lips.
The suspicious thing about the ads, however, is that the stuff on Yamaguchi's upper lip couldn't possibly be milk. If you're an experimental type of person with a well-stocked refrigerator, give yourself a milk mustache and then peer at it in the mirror. Compared to your glistening upper lip, Yamaguchi has had her face defaced by liquid latex.
This, of course, is understandable from the photographer's point of view; real milk would dry before the shoot was finished. Similar techniques are used when shooting TV commercials involving bowls of cereal. If the cereal were immersed in genuine milk, it would get soggy before the many takes required to capture a Kodak cereal moment (``No, wait, that purple horseshoe is colliding with the red balloon! We'll have to shoot this ALL OVER AGAIN!''). Unless, of course, it were an advertisement for Grape Nuts, which don't even biodegrade, much less get soggy in milk.
For both the cereal and the milk mustache models, a substitute was needed. If what's good enough for Kellogg's is good enough for Kristi, it's Elmer's Glue. But while the pink hearts, purple horseshoes, blue diamonds, orange stars and red balloons haven't unionized in protest, one might theorize that, aside from huge endorsement checks, the models in question also received a low-budget upper lip waxing after that glue dried.
The National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board wants to inscribe upon our brains many other useful facts about their bovine beverage. Thus, it has established the Milk Hotline, which you can call to learn about ``exciting new contests and promotions.''
It says: ``Now milk drinkers nationwide can join the ranks of other famous faces who are currently sporting milk mustaches by entering the Milk Mustache Photo Contest.''
To enter, send a photograph of yourself or someone else sporting a milk mustache, as well as an entry form and a receipt proving that you purchased one gallon of milk. The deadline for entering is Sept. 30, 1995, and the winner will be featured in a full-page ad in LIFE magazine.
The prerecorded message also noted that you may enter the Milk Mustache Contest as many times as you wish, just in case you were debating with yourself over whether to send the 1 percent, 2 percent or skim milk portrait.
To learn more about being photographically immortalized for sloppy drinking habits, or to assuage your doubts and fears about milk, call the milk hotline at 1-800-WHY-MILK. MEMO: Jennifer Dziura is a rising senior at Cox High School. Her column
appears bimonthly. If you'd like to comment on her column, call INFOLINE
at 640-5555 and enter category 6778 or write to her at 4565 Virginia
Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach, Va. 23462. by CNB