Sorry for the lack of posts recently but I’ve been on Christmas break and working on some new art projects, which I’ll tell you about later.
So I was bored the other night and downloaded Dave Chappelle’s movie- Half Baked. I remember seeing this in the early 1990’s as a teenager. Now that I’m more mature, I fiound it isn’t that funny anymore. In fact it was quite uncomfortable to watch, for two reasons; 1) It was obviously modified from the original script to make it more popular with the young, conservative white audience. This is made obvious due to the casting of 3 white main characters to Dave’s one black character. And these white characters were just way too corny. It was horrible watching these guys try and act like they think white guys act when stoned. Their acting was way OTT. 2) You could see in Dave Chappelle’s face during a number of scenes that he was upset that his original screenplay had been modified to please the older, conservative white studio execs. I’m sure Dave originally intended for the four main characters to be his ghetto brothers. Now that would have been more entertaining. But really, you could see it in Dave’s face a few times reacting to the over-acting of his co-stars.
During the movie there was a few appearances by Jerry Garcia, founder and lead guitarist of the 60’s hippie band The Greatful Dead. This got me thinking about whether or not this was the real Jerry Garcia. I knew he was dead, but I had to find out if it was before or after this movie was made. And sure enough imdb.com came to the rescue. Jerry Garcia died in 1995 and the movie was made in 1996, and it wasn’t Jerry Garcia but a look-like. I never got into The Greatful Dead, but I will journey deeper into their tunes because I saw some clips of them on YouTube and his lyrics and guitar rifts are quite psychedelic.
When I was searching on Jerry Garcia I couldn’t stop thinking about Cherry Garcia, one of the flavours of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. I thought one of them was dead. I thought I saw a documentary about them and one of them died from high cholesterol. But I did a search on them and they are both alive. It turns out that I had heard one of their competitors had said the reason for Ben’s quintuple bypass was due to his excessive intake of ice cream. The brand only started to become big in America during the 1980’s despite it’s hippie image. They’ve done well though, these two jewish hippies, who were one day going to close their business rather than become part of the capitalist fat pigs of industry, to finally sell up to Unilever a few years ago.
Ben cohen is co-author of a business book titled How to Change the World, Make Money and Have Fun. Seems like an interesting book if you’re into business and have an entrepreneurial brain. Although it may come down to common sense at the end of the day. Which I think most business is. Ben and Jerry’s mission statement has three parts: a Social Mission, a Product Mission, and an Economic Mission. Their Social Mission describes the company’s need to operate in a way that recognizes their influence on society, and the importance of improving the quality of life all over the world. Their Product Mission states that they will always strive to make the finest quality products, working to use natural, wholesome ingredients. It also states that they will advertise business mannerisms that respect the Earth. Their Economic mission describes their promise to operate their company on a “sustainable financial basis of profitable growth, increasing value for [their] stakeholders and expanding opportunities for development and career growth for [their] employees.”[3] “Underlying the mission of Ben & Jerry’s is the determination to seek new and creative ways of addressing all three parts, while holding a deep respect for individuals inside and outside the company and for the communities of which they are a part.”[4]
Is this the ultimate mission statement for hippies to get around the usual template of corporate America? Is it simply rationalization from two self confessed hippies who are disguising their true deep feelings for making loads of money, without being caught out by their contemporaries?With that being said both Ben and Jerry no longer have anything to do with the day-to-day running of the business and have no responsibilities since they “sold out” to Unilever. Doesn’t mean they’ve let corporate America take over and left them to continue living their hippie lives. They must have loads of money now to do what they want. Right?
Tangential Rummaging 