Fashion victims: Totally Mexico Global!

Vice Magazine, that esteemed read of the gutteratti, have published their Global Trend Report 2007, which is absolutely hilarious.

Apparently a guide to what the ultra-fashionable are wearing in the ‘cool’ cities of the world, the more I read it the less I can tell if they’re being serious or not. Judging from the comments at the bottom, they’ve clearly annoyed a lot of people, but then that’s kind of what Vice does, so perhaps it was all done just as a massive wind-up…

Either way, the London male fashion (pictured here) is not something I’ve seen rocking the streets of Stockwell recently. Real London ‘fashion’ (and by this, I mean the acutely-considered clothing of the East London self-facilitating media nodes) looks much more like the New York picture. Maybe they just got mixed up. And the Amsterdam fashion is waaay out (though the guy looks strangely like the bass player from Dee-Lite).

It’s also pretty interesting to see which cities they’ve covered. As well as the predictable transnational hubs of New York, London, Paris, etc, there’s Melbourne, Montreal and Helsinki. Good for Vice for trying something new, just a shame they’re all just holiday destinations of trendy Vice journalists. Wouldn’t it be cool to see what the fashionistas in Middlesbrough are wearing? Or Lyon? Or Reno?

Rapping Rove

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…

Here’s a video of Karl Rove, White House advisor, dancing and rapping at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner.



Ok, here’s the thing. It’s not just that another bloated white middle-aged (well, probably pushing 70) politician is desperately trying to appear ‘cool’ and co-opt urban American culture as his own. We’re used to that, and I’m sure that David Cameron will be releasing his own phat beatz album before the year is out.

It’s that this man is, at the best of times, a nasty, illiberal crook, who has been the driving force behind some of the Republican party’s nastiest activities in recent years. There are the stories of how the Republican elite were so impressed by his vote rigging in local elections (when he was still in his early 20’s, and paid homeless people to vote), that he was fast-tracked straight into the inner circle. He’s the man most people point the finger at for ensuring that hanging chads became such an issue. And he’s also been extremely influential in rewriting the President’s official history, in particular the chapters that took place during the Vietnam war, and the chapters that occurred whilst he was in the grips of his cocaine addiction.

So to see him up on stage laughing and joking about ‘shooting Quayle’ really isn’t that funny.

Fuck it, who am I kidding? This is hilarious…

(Red) spend 82% of money raised on advertising

We always knew there was something a little bit dodgy about the (Red) charity. Firstly, anything involving Bono has to be viewed with an innate scepticism. Secondly, any ‘charity’ that has pictures of Elle Macpherson posing with a Masai warrior does seem to be teetering on the edge of the fetishisation of the poor. And thirdly, any organisation with such a cavalier attitude to punctuation is clearly a danger to the very fabric of society. But, being a mild mannered chap, I had been giving them the benefit of the doubt.

I discovered today, however, that of the $100 million that the organisation has spent, 82% of it went on advertising (leaving a paltry $18 million for fighting HIV/AIDS). This is clearly not the impression that had been given to consumers and I’m sure that many of them are now feeling decidedly short-changed.

But hold on a minute. Surely (Red) will at this point throw up their hands, plead guilty, and promise to do better in future? Not a bit of it. Allow me to hand the mike over to Bobby Shriver, CEO of (Red):

“…because (RED) is explicitly NOT a charity, we encourage our partners to go about their business including their marketing. This sells the products; the products generate the $25 million. In addition, this marketing would have been spent anyway, on other product lines. It never would have been (nor will it ever be) given to the Global Fund.”

So basically, “we don’t make that much money for charitable causes, but at least we’re not spending quite as much money as before on corporate hospitality and cocaine”.

Well, thanks. All just goes to show, Bono is an evil and misleading bastard. Always has been. And I suspect I’m not alone in thinking this… http://www.myspace.com/bonomustdie

…

Incidentally, the American Express (Red) credit card is also pretty nifty, in that those nice folk at Amex make more money out of it than they do out of their normal credit card, whilst at the same time appearing to be concerned about the spread of HIV/AIDS. It’s a marketers wet dream, but in decidedly dodgy ethical waters.

Obama takes on the icons

Just found this video, which I think has probably been around for a while now (it aired during this year’s Superbowl). Barack Obama’s campaign against Hilary Clinton in the US Democratic primaries looks set to be a scorcher…

The ad is a reworking of the classic Apple ‘1984’ ad, which aired (in 1984) in the middle of the Superbowl, and is widely held to be one of the greatest ads ever made in terms of it’s effects on public perception of the brand. That we still consider Apple computers to be ‘creative’, ‘anti-establishment’ and ‘different’ is testament to how effective it was. In reality of course, they’re nothing of the sort, just a bundle of chips same as any other, except more expensively priced and used by geeks with pretensions to creativity (like me). But imagery like this really helped them to establish themselves as something different.

Incidentally, the latest Apple ad, featuring the chaps from Peep Show, actually seems to be having a negative effect on their brand perception (according to BrandIndex). Probably due to the fact everyone knows the ‘Mac’ character is overly smug and conceited in the TV show… they ran the same ad in the US, but with non-celebrities, and it went down very well, but I think they might not have fully considered the implications of using the Peep Show characters…

Anyway, back to the Obama ad. As well as ripping off Apple’s ad, and even bastardising their logo at the end of the reel, it’s amazing that the only significant change they chose to make to any of the actors (aside from the inclusion of Hilary Clinton) was to CGI an iPod onto the ‘freedom fighter’. Apparently, in the last 23 years that single item is most representative of our new found digital freedom, or something. Either that, or Obama was just trying to be down with ‘the kids’.

Either way, it’s a great ad.

I Swear I Was There

So I went for a quick drink in Filthy McNasty’s after work last night, just to catch up with some friends and because it’s a great bar. It’s only a short walk from my office, and as I strolled along I realised the only things I had in my bag were a copy of the NME and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot. Feeling pretty rock and roll at this discovery, I got to the pub and waited for my friends to arrive.

The evening rolled on and we got progressively more merry (partly due to the discovery that a ‘BlackJack’ contains equal parts Black Sambuca and Jack Daniel’s, and tastes like Jaegermeister), until a woman got on the stage and announced that David Nolan would be launching his new book here tonight, with a couple of readings. Random. Turns out he’s written a book about the notorious 1976 Manchester Sex Pistols gigs, which everyone in modern British music seems to have been at. The reading is pretty interesting (most significantly for stating quite clearly that Mick Hucknall was definitively not there, despite rumours to the contrary…), and at the end we all go and buy a copy and get it signed.

Chatting to Nolan is a lot of fun – he seems surprised that there’s anyone there at all, so is happy to chat about what he thinks of modern music and Manchester, and the influence of that Sex Pistols gig. He’s the only person I’ve ever met who has ‘Punk Rock Consultant’ on his CV (from his time working on the set of 24 Hour Party People). At one point, James asks some question about what the Sex Pistols think about the book, and Nolan simply points behind us and says “Why don’t you ask him?”.

Stood at the bar in Filthy McNasty’s is Glen Matlock. We all feel a bit guilty for not having recognised him sooner (it might be the camel coloured long coat and generally smart demeanour), look awkwardly at our shoes, and then carry on talking to Nolan. The beers have taken affect though, so before I know what I’m doing I’ve had my photo with him, and got him to sign my book, apologising profusely the entire time for being so cheesy.

Seemed like a nice guy though, and merrily waved goodbye when he left about an hour later. The book, ‘I Swear I Was There: The Gig that Changed the World’ consists mainly of interviews with various Manchester scenesters from the time. The best bit about my copy though, is the title page, across which is scrawled ‘I Know I Was, Glen Matlock’.

Red square, Moscow

Moscow continues to surprise, delight and confuse, but until I get decent internet access this picture will have to do as a summary of the trip so far. Suffice to say I am currently very drunk on a Tuesday night, having been to a trendy bar in the middle of a mall, and a Russian wedding party in some dodgy bar with no lights in the toilets. Mir to one and all...

Moscow Skylounge

I'm at the top of Moscow's academy of science, drinking a ten pound cocktail while looking down on the city's sky line. Life is good. Moscow is surreal.

The Fratellis @ Brixton Academy

'Thank Fuck for the Fratellis' screams the giant illuminated screen during the encore, and by that point I couldn't help thinking they had a point. It's a slightly guilty pleasure, rocking out to premium jock pub-rock, pint & fag in hand, but as they rattle off anthem after anthem with the crowd well and truly on their side, who cares that they're not going to win any silverware for insightful lyrics or experimental sounds? Four-to-the-floor crowd pleasers seems to be doing the trick just fine thanks.

Highlights would have to be a quick acoustic segue into Mr. Tambourine Man, and two minute banger Got Ma Nuts From A Hippy turning into a six minute, solo-filled epic. Not what you'd expect, but given they did everything else as you would expect that's probably not a bad thing. Who'd have thought the Goonies would ever have led to so much rocking..?

Network Burnout

Ok, so this whole Social Networking thing is great, but it’s starting to get a little complicated, and is it just me or is the whole world just turning into one giant friend request?

I just got onto Facebook this week, which is great, and takes random linking to whole new levels, but also confuses the hell out of me. Myspace’s interface might only work about 60% of the time, but somehow it feels more intuitive. And I know it’s a mess (and ugly), but at least there’s music on it, and you can customise it to the Nth degree. Which is handy for all you little Scriptz kiddies out there (though just plain irritating for the rest of us). More to the point, it’s easier to nose around other people’s profiles, which helps when you’re deciding whether getting back in touch with that girl you used to stare at in 3rd Year French lessons is really a good idea…

But it’s really the number of sites that’s the problem - I’m now on Facebook, Myspace, Blogger, Flickr… the list goes on. And you end up having to duplicate information on each site (although the clever people at Facebook manage to feed this RSS feed straight into their pages… nice.). And you end up duplicating friends, which seems to defeat the point…

Apologies for posting the third successive grumpy post on this blog, but I was finally starting to get my head around Facebook, and then got an email that said: “Sandra is now your friend on Bebo”.

I didn’t even know I had a Bebo account.

Bring back the bulging filofax please, I’m running out of login names…