You gotta love that song. Came out in the late 70’s. During my disco phase. Mostly, in my mind, that song is associated with the Pittsburgh Pirates and their championship run in 79. Pops Stargell and the rest of the “Pirate Family”. What a team. What a run. And what a theme song for them. I can still remember sitting in the stands with my hot dog, coke, and glove hoping to catch a foul ball. That’s a nice image until you realize that I was a 24 year old divorced man by that time. Then, the image kinda goes from classic Americana to “just too sad for words”, doesn’t it?

Anyway, this post isn’t about the “Pirate Family”. It’s not even about my family, surprisingly. I’m writing today about a made-up, Madison Avenue mirage of a family called the “Papa John’s Pizza Family”. Now, normally whatever nonsense advertising comes across my tv or that I seen in print, I just ignore. We are the shallowest and most materialistic society ever seen on this planet, so, in a way, commercials are our art. I don’t know how they sell anything from them, really. Who buys a beard trimmer because  a retired Green Bay Packer says he uses it? No one that I know. Every once in a while, though, something shows up that just goes beyond what you can tolerate and you have to say something. That happened with the recent spate of commercials referring to the company “Papa John’s” as a “Pizza Family”.

Papa John’s is a national pizza franchise that is now the third largest in the country. These are very successful franchises. Much of the success is due to effective advertising associated with every imaginable sporting event. The man who founded the company is named John Schnatter and he is the spokesman and chief pizza seller for the company. You’ve probably seen him. He is ubiquitous during breaks from sporting shows frequently pretending to be best friends with Peyton Manning. John Schnatter is a very successful, very wealthy man.

Back when Obamacare was originally being proposed and debated, John Schnatter was in the public eye for a different reason than selling his pizzas. When assessing the cost to his company of assuring health insurance for his employees, Schnatter made the tone-deaf, infamous remark that Obamacare would add “14 cents to every pizza” and he couldn’t see doing that. He even said that he would have to move a “lot of his employees from full time to part time” to get around the cost, but really that’s just another way of saying getting around providing those employees with health care. His remarks set up a storm of outrage in all forms of public media. Soon afterwards, Schnatter hired the public relations firm Sitrick and Co. to enhance his image. Good move, Papa.

A NY Times article in 1998 said Schnatter used to pop into his restaurants without notice and “blow his stack if any aspect falls short”. Great family atmosphere. The article also noted that 5 executives, including the company president, had quit in a span of 18 months, all complaining about “Papa John” and his management style.

The man has 3 mansions and a private jet to whisk himself back and forth. His shares in the company are worth at least $350 million. That’s fine. That’s good. He built a company and he deserves his wealth, but this is the same man who concocted a plan to keep as many of his employees from health insurance as he legally could. Where do people like this come from? How do you have all these employees making crap wages to make you wealthy beyond reality and you still want to begrudge them access to health care when they are in need? So that you can, what . .  get another mansion? As Mother Theresa used to say, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

There’s no family and, John Schnatter, you’re no Papa.

 

BTW, I never had a “disco phase”.