Signs of the apocalypse #476

Johnny Rotten is now shilling butter.

Someone needs to vet their mailing list more carefully

Dear Colleague:

As a valued member of the Iraq Oil & Gas reconstruction
community, you are invited to attend the Iraq Oil &
Gas Summit, November 5-6, 2008, in Houston, Texas.

We invite you to join more than 100 Iraqi business and
government leaders, as well as 300 senior executives from
the US and around the world, currently registered to
attend this particularly timely 2-day event.

Your continued interest and involvement has helped make the
ReBuilding Iraq Conference series the longest-running and
most productive business-to-business initiative in the
history of this striving nation.

In addition to attending Iraq Oil and Gas Reconstruction
sessions, you will be able to meet with decision makers
and successful companies who can help structure benefits
for your own organization as you help build the New Iraq.

Discuss short-term and long-term opportunities in the
New Iraq with important industry and government speakers
who can give you an accurate security report.

* Learn about new multi-billion dollar opportunities in
petrochemicals, pipelines and refineries plants

* Meet and build relationships with executives from leading
energy and international business development firms.

* Find out what you need to know to successfully compete for
the billions of dollars still available in contracts and
sub-contracts to help rebuild Iraqi oil and gas industries.

* Participate in forums with high-level industry
participants and make your voice heard in an interactive
and dynamic environment.

To review the conference detailed agenda and speakers bios,
please visit www.new-fields.com/iogs2008/index.html

That Was Freakin' Transcendental Paul McCartney!

Last week we finally watched Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. It was an enjoyable comedy with the right mix of ridiculous rock star movie cliches and inane original touches. They picked the right way to approach the obligatory Elvis and Beatles meetings, play them as completely stupid "Hey look, I'm meeting someone famous" scenes. Typical dialogue:

Ringo Starr: And as Ringo Starr I'm not so interested in meditation, I just like to have fun. [holds up peace sign]
Dewey Cox: [laughs] I like the little one!

Given that this was a movie about a good comedic subject, with actors we usually like (John C. Reilly, Paul Rudd, Her Out of The Office) and written by Judd Apatow, why did it take us over a year to watch it?

I blame the marketing.

LimeyG and I often watch the 8PM rerun of the previous night's Daily Show and Colbert Report on Comedy Central. During that hour of television, we will be subject to seeing the trailer for whichever comedy comes out in the next couple of weeks about five or six times. (By the way, I estimate we have spent a full seven hours so far this year watching promos for Carlos Mencia's Cavalcade of Unfunny Stereotypes Show. ) After a few weeks of this, we get sick of the movie in question. Then the lukewarm reviews arrive, the attendance figures are deemed below expectations and the movie vanishes for six months. We forget it even existed.

Then it appears on cable or on Netflix. We go "why not?" and it turns out to be really enjoyable. It's happened with Let's Go to Prison, the Reno 911 Movie and Office Space. They all had terrible ads that made you think the movie was going to stink because they were aimed at the wrong audience. Why can't they start off with:

"In a world where jaded aging hipsters are sick of craptacular comedies, here comes a movie made by people from Arrested Development, The State, Beavis or Mr. Show. Seriously, this will not be ass."

That would work for me.