Those who know me, know I´ve a thing with Marketing. Marketing has been my longtime boyfriend. It is my longest relationship and I wish it a Happy Valentine´s day!
Now back to Laurent Garnier. My tought on this, is that today more than ever:
- Music is an Attitude
- Marketing is king (look at Lana del Rey)
- and Life is a Bitch.
If you´ve a problem with whoring yourself out to serve both your interests and your passion, you´d better either be extremely talented and lucky to be able to sell your music, or you quit being a musician. Or else, you stay a musician, but stop complaining that others are achieving fame and financial success by using a different strategy than yours.
Everyone´s objective is different.
But most of all, Music is a game. It´s entertainment! It´s fun! It definitely should be marketed.
Ed Banger and Sound Pellegrino are the Coca Cola of the music industry: they know the power of branding. And I love that to them, music isn´t just music. It´s ´become a core product out of which you can create your own brand and use it in so many different ways to reach fans. Kudos for this guys!
I love Laurent Garnier´s music, but honestly, there is so much more to music than just music.
Today i´m in an agressive mood. I´m tired from my night at work yesterday. I´ve been drinking way too much these last days. And i´ve also been hanging out in front of my computer too much, blame it on Facebook and now also Turntable.fm.
Anyway, I´m angry today so i´m writing an angry post too. Word.
I live in Hannover, capital of Lower-Saxony, a city that has been destroyed to 90% during World War II. As one could be lead to think, Germans my generation (1979, plus-minus) must certainly have forgotten about the damage, both physical and psychological, of WW2, and now lead a nice, peaceful existence thinking that what Hitler has done was bad but that, Thanks God, it´s over, and this is now all HISTORY.
How wrong was i to think it could have been HISTORY, for Hitler is still alive in many a German´s mind. And by the looks of it, he´s still doing his job pretty well at terrifying people. Not a day passes by without receiving an invitation to a lousy Anti-Nazi march, Anti-Nazi party, Anti-Nazi anything. In Hannover there are even clubs labelled Anti-Nazi, which i think is completely out of the place. Party yes. Political party (whith no crappy wordplay), NO.
It looks to me as Germans somehow still felt guilty and ashamed about what happenned during WW2. But guys, this is fucking HISTORY now. It is OVER. It´s 70 years old!!! And no, it is not happening again (we hope). And above all, you are NOT responsible for what happened.
Maybe this is some kind of "After War Syndrom" though. I was born in a country destroyed by its neighbours, Lebanon, and every time i meet an Israeli, the first thing they usually tell me is how sorry they feel for what has been done to my country. And i´m usually like, it´s ok guys, it´s not really your fault now if your friends and fathers and cousins had to fight. It´s no one´s fault, but the government´s really. And most of all, it is bloody over. Is is HISTORY. Just like in Germany. Hitler has died. The war is over. And, there has been enough time for redemption. Now, subject closed.
Always bringing it back doesn´t make it die, it keeps it more alive than ever. I don´t want to live in the reminders of Hitler and WW2. It just brings me back to where I come from. To the 10 years i´ve spent with my family moving from one house to another by fear of being bombed. To the countless nights in underearth shelters, trying to sleep, terrified by the sounds of bombs outside.
I´m just so fed up with ant-facists, and anti-nazis and all that crap. Just shut the fuck up and let it die, bitch.
Yesterday I was hit by one of my usual late night marketing strokes, this time about iTunes´ price policy.
I´m still hesitating though to how I should name this post:
- The importance of price setting: powerful marketing victim of its own success
Or, paradoxally
- Why I think the price of an iTunes track is a value that should be quoted on the stock exchange.
Steve Jobs is a man of great talent. And yet, he deserves one further award for generating the only permanent psychological price the world of marketing has ever seen: 0.99€.
Indeed, of all things on earth, an iTunes´ track is definitely the only product whose price has remained strictly unchanged all through the years, no matter what crisis the music industry was going through. Almost more important than the brand iTunes itself, the price of 0,99€ has become so strongly associated to the brand that it has almost taken over it, so that in 2009, when iTunes decided to increase the price from 0,99€ to 1,29€, sales dropped. See Billboard´s article here (http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/news/e3i7917210cb575a9b91b4543e3d671922a)
So Steve, congrats on one side for achieving the one and only permanent and immutable price EVER. But on another hand, hasn’t iTunes´ admirable marketing and powerful price policy proved so influential you kinda shot yourself in the foot? Not setting a variable price from the beginning and now not being able to change it definitely attests for a loss of opportunity on the profit-making side.
Maybe I should have named this post: Powerful marketing or how a psychological price can take over a company’s profits.
Actually, it does. As a matter of fact, i sometimes check out my deceased cousin´s Facebook page. And somehow, reminiscing the past through his Facebook profile reanimates memories in a colorful and more "alive" way than plain brain retrospection.
What if a numerical profile subconsciously made one immortal to the eyes of others?
One more reason everyone should have a FB account?
You know, those old ladies in the supermarket who try to engage on a conversation with you and won´t let go until they´re ready with what they have to say and actually never are unless you put an end to the conversation yourself by leaving with your heart aching because you just abandoned someone who just needed to talk because they got no one to talk to? I pray everyday i never want to be that old lady.
After writing the last post, i started thinking about how many places i had lived in since i was born and came to a total of 19 places.
I have had 19 different homes in the last 31 years, in 5 different countries. This is HUGE compared to other people.
Funny how i´d never thought about this before... but maybe this is why i can never stay in one place for too long? I´m just too used to moving around all the time. I´ve been accustomed to seeing and living something new continuously since my youngest age. Maybe this is also the reason why i get bored very quickly by everything? The worse, is that i actually can´t decide if this is harming me more than it is benefiting my life.
Maybe that´s my pattern: to always have a lot of things that never last for a long time. Just like the people i love(d). They too never last(ed) for a long time.
Things... Who need things? I don´t. Things usually prevent you to go away when you want to. So basically, i just store "things" in my head. Funnily enough, i fail to memorize a lot of things, but there are things i can´t forget, like the toys our father gave us and that got stolen when my sister and i were kids. Those things i´d like to still have and carry around forever.
Oui bon, ce que je qualifie là d´attente s´appelle en fait la VIE. D´habitude, je la trouve trop courte mais parfois, je la trouve trop longue.
Longue est cette attente quand je pense qu´une fois au ciel seront réunis tous les gens que j´aime: ceux qui sont déjà partis et qui me manquent amèrement, et ceux qui sont encore là, dont la distance nous désunit et qui me manquent chèrement. Alors, je n´imagine meilleur enivrement que le jour où j´irai là où les notions de temps et de distance n´existeraient plus, au paradis, retrouver ceux que j´aime.
D´aucuns trouveront que je suis complètement dingo mais, la vie c´est la mort. Et si j´osais l´avouer, je dirais même que j´ai hâte qu´on meurt tous pour pouvoir tous vivre ensemble.
PS: Non je n´ai pas envie de me suicider! Ca serait grotesque de louper la fin du film dans lequel je tiens le rôle principal! En revanche j´ai une requête à formuler à Dieu: "Cher Dieu, faites que ça passe vite. Mais pas trop quand même. (Et si t´es pas content et que tu sais pas quoi faire parce que je me contredis, t´avais qu´à pas inventer la femme)".
How do you know you love someone? What makes a relationship last? How long is it supposed to last? Is it legitimate to run a relationship like you´d run a company? Why is it "man" of my life and not "men"?
Tout à l´heure j´ai croisé le patron du resto libanais en bas de chez moi qui m´a annoncé qu´il cherchait un emplacement plus central que l´actuel, et qu´il ne trouvait en centre ville que de petites surfaces qui le mettraient dans l´obligation de se séparer de son équipe et de travailler seul. Et voila qu´il me confie aussi qu´à bientôt 50 ans, il ne se sent plus la force ni le courage de travailler seul.
Si vous voulez, maintenant avant de lire la suite, cliquez sur "play".
Soudainement je réalise que premièrement je ne connais pas beaucoup de séniors, et que deuxièmement, le peu que je connaisse, je ne les vois pour ainsi dire jamais. Toutefois, parmi les séniors que je connais et qui sont chers à mon coeur, il y a d´abord ma mère. Oui, mais ma mère vit à Paris donc quand on se voit une heure par ci, une heure par là deux fois par an, on n´aborde ni le sujet de la pré-menopause, ni celui des pattes d´oie et encore moins celui de la retraite. Non. Ma mère est jeune, active, resplendissante et pleine de vie. Puis il y a mon oncle. Mon tonton chéri que j´aime le plus au monde et qui, s´il était amené à disparaitre (oui, au conditionnel, ne vous en deplaise), m´entrainerait malgré lui dans sa tombe. Je crains ce jour comme la mort mais là on s´éloigne du sujet. Quoique. Bref, mon tonton vit au Liban et quand on se parle au téléphone ou qu´on se voit une fois tous les deux-trois ans, on n´aborde pas non plus de sujets comme l´arthrite ou les pertes de mémoire. Quenenni, il y a bien d´autres sujets plus passionnants.
D´autres séniors, je ne connais réellement. Les rares séniors que j´ai eu l´occasion de fréquenter étaient des amis de mes parents, et sont morts les uns après les autres. C´est d´ailleurs triste à dire, mais grâce à eux j´ai pu vérifier les statistiques qui disent que la durée de vie des hommes est inférieure à celle des femmes. Papy, Tony, Robert, Maurice, si vous me lisez, je vous aime, vous embrasse et vous me manquez.
Dans mon entourage il n´y a pratiquement finalement que des jeunes. Des jeunes plein de vie et en bonne santé. Des jeunes de mon âge, des jeunes plus vieux, et des jeunes plus jeunes. Justement, ceux là, je les déteste. Ces petits conards imberbes au fessier en acier et aux abdos apparents, et ces petites salopes au décolleté lisse et aux seins qui pointent indécemment. Parce que moi aussi mes seins ont, jadis, tenu le haut de mon bikini, et non l´inverse. Parce que moi aussi, jadis, je pouvais boire jusqu´à plus soif, dormir une heure et me sentir en pleine forme le lendemain au boulot. Certains jours je pouvais même etre efficace! Et parce que moi aussi, jadis, je pouvais mourir d´aimer et tomber amoureuse innocemment d´un conard, pour toujours et pour la vie. Enfin, ces p´tits jeunes, je les déteste surtout parce qu´á leur âge, on pense Oh! combien naivement avoir toute la vie devant soi. Aujourd´hui je tuerais pour pouvoir avoir cette chance à nouveau de penser, ne serait-ce que le temps d´une journée que la vie m´appartient pour la vie. Que ce ne soit pas vrai, j´ai bien eu le temps de m´en rendre compte. Surtout ces dernières années. Mais que ca se concrétise un jour, ca, je n´y avais jamais pensé.
Mais voilà que récemment, ma mère s´est malencontreusement bloqué le dos suite à un faux mouvement. Et que mon oncle s´est mis á me parler de legers disfonctionnements de sa prostate. Puis là, ce libanais qui me dit qu´il se sent deja trop vieux à 50 ans.
Et moi de me poser la question: combien de temps me reste-t-il?
On a tous eu à l´école un professeur préféré. Moi, c´était Monsieur Ben.
Arrivées du Liban en France en 1989, mon oncle nous avait inscrites ma soeur et moi à l´Externat Privé Saint Honoré d´Eylau dans le 16ème arrondissement de Paris. Privé, parce que pour les libanais de l´époque, inscrire son enfant dans un établissement privé voudrait dire qu´un jour, il ferait partie de l´élite. L´élite française, celle dont tous les libanais rêvent de faire partie, celle qui renvoie l´image noble d´une parfaite éducation, ponctuée de concours, classes prépa, Sciences po ou HEC, et qui donne accès aux métiers les plus dignes. Manque de pot, j´ai fait mon vilain petit canard...
Au collège, je suivais certains cours moins assidûment que d´autres, comme par exemple les mathématiques, la biologie et les sciences physiques. En EPS (Education Physique et Sportive) j´étais aussi toujours dernière, sauf peut-être une fois où on nous avait emmené faire un jogging au Bois de Boulogne - bravo pour l´idée de génie - et qu´un exhibitionniste sorti subitement de son buisson m´avait fait tellement peur que, prenant mes jambes à mon cou, j´ai couru aussi vite que j´ai pu pour rattraper l´avant dernier, mon jadis gros mais toujours très bon ami Christopher. D´ailleurs, Chris arrête de rire je te vois d´ici.
Je me distinguais en revanche dans des matières comme le Français et l´Anglais. Que dis-je, j´excellais même! Notre professeur de Français dont le nom m´échappe, ressemble dans mes souvenirs à Sylvie Vartan jeune avant son accident. Elle portait des jupes longues très fendues et des chemisiers blancs transparents souvent déboutonnés plus que de raison, au grand bonheur de mes camarades prépubères qui se bousculaient pour une fois au premier rang. Comme je l´enviais cette femme blonde, jeune, élancée, belle et séduisante. Pourtant je ne me souviens d´aucun de ses cours!
Et il y avait Monsieur Ben. Monsieur Ben c´était notre prof d´anglais. Comme je l´aimais Monsieur Ben. Bien que les traits de son visage se soient aujourd´hui estompés de ma mémoire, je garde en moi le souvenir de ses yeux pétillants, son allure droite et sa démarche affirmée; mais aussi de son costume noir ou marron je ne sais plus, de son teint un peu rougeaud et de ses cheveux blond vénitien. L´anglais comme tout, ça se travaille. Bien sûr j´ai fait des séjours linguistiques, j´ai lu Seventeen et Cosmo Girl puis plus tard tous les romans de Marian Keyes. Mais mon amour de l´anglais je le dois en grande partie à Monsieur Ben. Monsieur Ben était certainement l´un des meilleurs professeurs qui soient. Il avait de l´humour, de la présence et de l´autorité et toujours une petite pointe d´ironie. Il était l´un de ces professeurs qui vous apprennent à aimer et respecter la matière enseignée. L´un de ceux qui vous expliquent vos erreurs clairement, éradiquent vos doutes et vous poussent à croire en vous. Monsieur Ben était un professeur dont j´admirais la justesse et la fermeté, que je respectais et que j´aimais, tout en le craignant aussi dans ses accès de colère modérés. Un peu comme un parent, celui que je ne pouvais pas craindre parce qu´il n´était plus là.
Un jour à l´école on nous a dit que Monsieur Ben était malade et qu´il serait absent quelques semaines. Mais Monsieur Ben n´est jamais revenu.
Monsieur Ben est mort. Je crois que c´était d´un cancer mais je ne m´en souviens plus et je pleure. Je pleure parce qu´il est parti avant que je ne puisse lui dire merci. Alors aujourd´hui si Monsieur Ben me lit, ce que vous êtes certainement en train de faire depuis là-haut, je voudrais vous dire Thank You, et je pense que je ne suis pas la seule.
Classe des 6ème Verte, Externat Privé Saint Honoré d´Eylau, 1989-1990
Since reaching its peak in the 1970s, America's best-selling men's magazine has seen a decline in circulation and cultural relevance because of competition. The company is said to have been looking for a buyer for months.
Playboy has held sale discussions with more than three companies over the past few months, including Richard Branson.
Whatever happens, Playboy CANNOT be Playboy without Hugh Hefner. Hef is the LIFE and SOUL of Playboy. Hef created sexiness and bimbo culture, but above all he promoted polygamy in such an open way no one ever has. Approve it or not, everywhere else is polygamy illegal. Only Hugh Hefner´s lifestyle isn´t. The day he dies, I´m gonna be in mourning for a long long time.
Some people believe in God, I believe in Hugh Hefner.
Launched back in 1953, the first issue was undated as Hefner was unsure there would be a second. He produced it in his Hyde Park kitchen and it sold out in weeks. Known circulation was 53,991 and the cover price 50¢. This above-pictured copy of the first issue autographed by Joe DiMaggio sold at a Sotheby's auction for over $40,000. Unsigned copies in mint to near mint conditions sell around $5000.
Sources & illustrations: NY Post, Daily Mail, Yahoo Finance, Wikipedia
Although guys can’t carry children, I wonder if they too mind-torture themselves as much as some of us girls do, about whether to live a child-free life or choose the path filled with diapers and Fisherprice toys, thus ending up most of the time living a senior’s life before age.
My friends and I are all in our late 20s/early 30s. I had never really thought about having children myself, taking life as it comes, until some of my closest friends got married and started to pop! I thought "But that only happens to grown-ups and we’re - I AM still going clubbing and getting hammered every week end!!".
The day my best friend J. gave birth, she called me from France (I live in Germany) to happily inform me she had become a MOM. And that her belly was hanging all over the place too but this, she didn’t mention. I actually knew she was pregnant. But for some reason, my mind hadn’t registered that being pregnant actually meant giving birth after 9 months. So J. had to near the phone close to her baby daughter for me to hear the giggles and attest of a new born baby. Then it hit me: if it had happened to J., it meant it was also going to happen to my other friends too? Oh yes it happened. And in less time than I needed to say BLOODY HELL, vanished are the good times!
“Something i´m not: Is there a mother in every woman?” This is the title of a book by Lucy Beresford I’ve recently read but wouldn’t exactly recommend, as the title is quite misleading and the book is more about mother-daughter relationships. Not a bad book on the whole, just not covering the subject you’d think it would. Nevertheless, I like the title of that book because it is definitely thought- provoking: Is there a mother in every woman? So what do you think?
Frankly, I think not. That will probably sound selfish but there is more to life than giving birth and I don’t see the point in sacrificing body and life for the sake of someone else’s. I am not ready either to have a permanent contract with anyone else but myself. And I am obviously not giving up on clubbing nor on getting regularly hammered. Even when i´m 50.
Pathetic you think? I think too. The thing is, I just can’t find any good reason or motivation for becoming a mother. And I have to admit that sometimes I shame myself for not being able to understand why a child is the most beautiful thing that could happen to you. That said, I hope I won’t discover why being a Mother is fantastic once it’s too late. But if I ever do as I secretly hope, and before it´s too late of course, I will let you know!
Un peu... parce que beaucoup m´ont dit que je devrais en avoir un.
Beaucoup... parce qu´ici j´aurai plus de place que sur Facebook et que comme ca, j´épargnerai aussi ceux qui n´ont pas envie d´avoir de mes nouvelles toutes les 5 minutes.
Passionnément... parce qu´il se passe toujours beaucoup de choses dans ma tête et que souvent, j´ai envie de partager ce qui s´y passe.
A la folie... parce que j´adore recevoir des gens à la maison.
"mind splash and mirrors" sera donc un peu comme ma chambre quand il s´y passe des choses, celle où les copains viennent et se sentent chez eux, celle où on écoute de la musique, on danse, on chante et on boit, celle où on fume, on discute, on s´engueule, on casse des trucs, on dort et où parfois même, on baise.
