The Wesley Aldridge Mashup - We're the Nicest People in the History of Mankind

Perhaps you don't confuse Billy Idol and Billy Joel, and you may not wonder whether Pierre is in North Dakota or South Dakota, but can you keep Wesley Hoaglund and Barney Aldridge straight in your head?

If you listen to radio commercials, you hear lending commercials in which people talk about "the biggest no-brainer in the history of mankind" and declare (in a loud voice) "we're nice people too."

So which one is the drummer, and which one is the race car driver? This post will educate you.

First, which is which. From the Lenox Financial Mortgage Corporation website (Wesley Hoaglund's place):

It's the Biggest No Brainer in the History of Mankind

And from the Benchmark Lending website (Barney Aldridge's place):

And guess what, we´re nice people too!

Barney, by the way, is the drummer, as Ron Yocum of the Sea Hags notes:

Personally, I've always loved music and especially rock music....Then I became 20 years olds and John Lennon had just been shot and I decided from that point to form a band myself. Chris [Coyle] was one of the kids that hung out at Electric Toys' shows...they were a local New Wave hard rock band in Santa Rosa. I had a few songs that I had written and heard that Chris played bass. He was probably 16. We formed a band with a drummer named Barney Aldridge: The Tearaways. It was 1982. We had auditioned for a TV show. It was a local teen dance show. We got the gig because the scheduled band was in the process of breaking up. We gigged for about a year in the Sonoma County area. Then in 1983, Chris moved to San Francisco....

And if you go to the International Motor Sports Association website, you'll see a picture of race car driver Wesley Hoaglund.

But are Wesley's and Barney's commercials winning them fans? Robert Aitchison can't stand Wesley Hoaglund:

Yes I've heard your insulting, insipid commercials far too many times, yes you'd better believe I'm sick of them and NO I don't have to listen to them anymore.

As a matter of fact whenever I hear one of your commericals come on I IMMEDIATELY change the radio station.

Believe me, like I would sleep on the floor before I bought a mattress from sit n sleep I would live in a cardboard box before I financed my home through your company....

You're killing me, Robert!

(By the way, Robert wrote that one year ago today. Happy anniversary, Wesley haters.)

But would Robert switch to Barney instead? Not if (drum roll please, trumpet fanfare, etc.) ALAN GREENSPAN can help it:

Ben Ray III of Benchmark Lending Group Inc...is on pace to earn $200,000 this year in mortgage commissions. His friendly, efficient style helps win borrowers' trust. But his biggest edge comes from offering alluring and controversial mortgages that require unusually slim payments for a few years, before bigger sums fall due....

Skeptics worry that this easy-credit euphoria could end with a real-estate crash and waves of problem loans. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan warned in June that housing prices in some areas appeared "unsustainable," adding that he was concerned about "the dramatic increase in the prevalence of interest-only loans."

That article was written way back in 2005. Fast forward to 2007:

A member of Riverside County's governing panel wants the county to set up a resource center for homeowners facing foreclosures, which have increased dramatically in the last year.

It isn't yet clear what the county's role would be, but Supervisor Bob Buster is asking the Board of Supervisors to create a task force to make recommendations. Buster said the focus is on making prospective borrowers more fully aware of the terms of their mortgages and putting foreclosed homeowners in touch with potential aid....

The proposal comes as a newly released report shows a continued increase in the number of foreclosures across the nation, including an especially sharp increase in Riverside County. RealtyTrac Inc., of Irvine, reported 437,500 foreclosure-related filings nationally from January through March, an increase of 35 percent from the first three months of 2006.

Filings rose by 94 percent to 6,879 in Riverside County, giving the county one of the highest concentrations of foreclosures in the nation, according to RealtyTrac. The numbers include the initial default notices and recordings of actual auctions and seizures by lenders.

But despite the housing downturn, the phrases have permeated our consciousness. Witness this statement from a Santa Barbara lawyer during the Michael Jackson child abuse trial:

Not calling Michael Jackson as a witness is the biggest no- brainer in the history of mankind.

And Jerry and Lois have their own business going:

We're nice people too. We help people out when we can. We have many blessings, for which we are constantly grateful, wonderful children, good health. There's just one thing we have that we don't want: a $20,000 debt!

If 20,000 NICE people with $1 to spare could help us, we could be free of debt.

Perhaps Lois should take up the drums, and Jerry take up race car driving.

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