Today is the King's birthday, man. Don't forget to pay your homage to the King at the EricHatheway.com Online Elvis Shrine. Thanks for visiting and please come back often! Thank you very much! Elvis Lives!

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Dirque du Soleil

He's from the past, so he knows the future...

dirque@erichatheway.com

Will it stand the test of time? That is the ultimate question posed when judging the qualities of something in the art world, the music world or pop culture in general. About 30 years after punk rock hit us up side the head and stomped on our toes, a nostalgic craze in involving punk memorabilia is happening in music circles. And recently, Christie's auction house held a sale on everything punk for what seems to be an untapped market for the famous auctioneers. The younger crowd can better afford the prices for these items that mean something to them rather than some pop culture souvenir that has no meaning in their lives.  Oi Oi Oi

Punk Observation ©1991 Eric Hatheway  All Rights Reserved

But, the prices for what was being offered for sale at auction were anything but punk. For instance, a handwritten show flyer for a famous punk concert staged by The Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks in 1976 had an expected value of $3,000 to $4,000. A poster for a Sex Pistols concert was believed to be capable of pulling in a price ranging from $2,000 to $3,000. Future prices for punk memorabilia is expected to rise as the punk stuff available for sale becomes more scarce. And, according to Christie's, it is not the investment potential that is driving the sales of punk memorabilia but rather the nostalgia surrounding the items.  Oi Oi Oi

A hug is a form of physical intimacy that usually involves closing or holding the arms around another person or group of persons. The hug is one of the most common human signs of love and affection. Unlike some other forms of physical intimacy, it is practiced publicly and privately without stigma in many countries, religions and cultures, within families, and also across age and gender lines. Hugs may also be exchanged as a sign of support and comfort. A hug can be a demonstration of affection and emotional warmth, sometimes arising out of joy or happiness at meeting someone. Hugs – everyone likes a good hug, especially when it is a surprise. Thanks for visiting and please come back often!

Surprise Hug No. 1 ©2009 Eric Hatheway  All Rights Reserved

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Models: Elizabeth Howard (L) & Loren Lee (R)

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Red Dirt Country, as well as Red Dirt music, takes its name from the color of the soil found in North Central Oklahoma. The soil has a high clay content and stains clothing, shoes and even the tires on a truck. This land is the original land which was opened for the Oklahoma Land Run in 1889 and was the first land run into the Unassigned Lands and included all or part of the modern day Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties in the state of Oklahoma. These images were taken in Logan County, Oklahoma on a recent bright December day. Don't worry, the red dirt is there. This old garage and a very large tree seem to have developed an interesting dependency upon each other over the years. Thanks for visiting and please come back often!

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c>log

Scientists have discovered beer in space!

Well, not beer exactly. But they did find alcohol: ethyl alcohol, to be precise, the active ingredient in all major alcoholic drinks and beer, America's favorite adult beverage. Three British scientists, discovered this interstellar Everclear floating in a gaseous stellar cloud in the constellation of Aquila (sign of the Eagle, the mascot of Anheuser-Busch! Hmmmmm).

The scientists have estimated the size of this gas cloud at approximately 1,000 times the diameter of our own solar system; there's enough alcohol out there, they say, to make 400 trillion trillion pints of beer. These scientific types are British, mind you; and, if you were to translate this in terms of American beer (which the British regard as fermented club soda), the amount of potential brewski just about doubles.

In frat boy terms: remember that double-keg party you threw at the end of your Junior year in college (the second Junior year)? Imagine throwing that same party, every eight hours, for the next 30 billion years. You'd STILL have beer left over. And boy, would your bathroom be a mess! Simply put, no one could ever drink 400 trillion trillion pints of beer, except maybe Chicago Cubs fans.

The sheer volume of all this alcohol begs the question of how it managed to get out there in the first place. Despite the simplifying effect it has on the human brain, ethyl alcohol is a reasonably complex molecule: two carbon atoms, five hydrogen atoms, and a hydroxyl radical, all cavorting together in beery camaraderie.

What Is This Cloud?
Theory 1: It's God's beer. After all, He worked for six days creating the universe, and on the seventh day, He rested. And after you've had a hard week at the office, don't YOU grab a beer? Since man is made in God's image, it could be that this cloud is the remaining evidence of the first ever "Happy Hour".

Theory 2: It's Purgatory ("400 trillion trillion bottles of beer on the wall, 400 trillion trillion bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, three hundred ninety-nine septillion, nine hundred ninety-nine sextillion, nine hundred ninety-nine quintillion, nine hundred ninety-nine quadrillion, nine hundred ninety-nine trillion, nine hundred ninety-nine billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine, bottles of beer on the wall!")

Theory 3: Proof of an undeniably highly advanced but chronically dipsomaniac alien society. This particular theory is shaky, however: it's reasonable to assume that if the aliens were going to construct a nebula of alcohol, they'd also have large clouds of beer nuts and pretzels nearby for snacking. Advanced spectral analysis has yet to locate them, but we'll find those rascals!

The truth of the matter, however, is far more prosaic. In the middle of this gas cloud is a young and no doubt quite inebriated star (a celebrity maybe?). As the star heats up and contracts, sucking the dust and gas of the cloud into a smaller area, complex molecules form as a result of greater interaction between the elements. Ethyl alcohol forms on small particles of dust in the cloud, and then, as the particles angle in closer towards the star and heat up, the alcohol is released from these particles in a very gaseous form. And there you have it: an alcohol cloud!

Enough with the science lesson, you say. Just tell me how to get there! Sorry, dude. You can't get there from here. The gas cloud is 10,000 light years away: 58 quadrillion miles. Even if you hijacked the shuttle and headed out with thrusters on full, by the time you got there, the guy in Purgatory would be done with his tune. You'd have had time to work up a powerful thirst, but you'd also be, in a word, dead.

No, the Space Beer Cloud will have to wait for the far future, when men can leap through the universe at warp speed. One can only imagine what they will do when they get there:

Captain Kirk: Oh,my....God! Sulu! What....is....that? What could....it be?

Sulu: Sensors indicate it's a free floating cloud of ice cold beer, captain.

Captain Kirk: Very cool Sulu! I just drank our last Romulan Ale! Could it be a trap, Bones?

Bones: Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a distiller of fine spirits!

Captain Kirk: We need that beer! But....if we fly through that cloud, we'll be....too drunk....to drive!

Spock: May I remind you, captain, that I am Vulcan. We are an advanced race of designated drivers.

Captain Kirk: Well, all righty, then. Spock, drive us....on through! Scotty, deploy the beer bongs!

Scotty: Aye, cap'n. Way ahead of you on that one bro.....uh, sir.

We recently caught up with advertising icon and genius Larry Tate in the men's grill at the ultra-posh country club where some of the biggest advertising deals of the last half of the 20th century were made. Mr. Tate rarely grants interviews but today he was "more relaxed" than usual. This is a rare interview indeed — his first in over 35 years.

Dirque du Soleil: As a principal at McMann & Tate Advertising, you are one of the most famous icons the advertising industry has ever known. What was the proudest achievement in your brilliant and creative advertising career?

"I'll put my number one man on your account."

Larry Tate: When we landed the Wang Chung Noodle Company account, I came up with an absolutely splendid slogan: "Wang Chung Noodles--The Noodles That Taste Good."

Dirque du Soleil: Gee, that's a super kick ass slogan Larry! Any other achievements top your career list?

Larry Tate: Well, there was the Gilbert's Gin Company account. After sampling the client's product over an extended period of research at groovy Lake Tahoe, I came up with the wonderfully fanciful slogan: "Gilbert's Gin—The Gin That Tastes Good."

Dirque du Soleil: Again, another super kick ass slogan Larry! But didn't your number one adman Darrin Stephens actually write the slogans for Wang Chung Noodles and Gilbert's Gin? (We weren't about to touch the persistent industry rumor that he actually had two Darrin Stephens working for him around the clock at McMann & Tate).

Larry Tate: Maybe. Well, darn it, yes. But I was the one who made Darrin stay up late for weeks at a time to finish all the work while I took the clients to swanky country clubs for golf and lots of double martinis. You know...drinking heavily was a heck of a lot more acceptable during the '60s and '70s. And, if you got sloshed or asked for a double martini during a particularly stressful moment, it was perceived as pretty darn funny ... none of this "politically incorrect" hoo-ha. Yep, pretty darn funny.

Dirque du Soleil: So, you drank a lot of double martinis as a part of your job at McMann & Tate?

Larry Tate: I'm afraid you are confused, my good man. I'm an advertising executive with McMann & Tate and an advertising professional. But like anybody in this business I work hard and I play harder. The lines between business and pleasure gets a little blurry sometimes, know what I mean? All that matters really is the quality of the work. Don't you agree?

Dirque du Soleil: Of course, Larry. Would you like something maybe a little alcoholic to drink right now?

"A double, or a triple?....hmmm."

Larry Tate: Yeah, a double martini — no, better make it a triple. Now see? That is funny. And in my day, it was particularly funny to get really smashed and then slurringly ask for "jush one more li'l (hic) drinkie-winkie."

Dirque du Soleil: As I said earlier, you are one of the most recognized ad industry icons ever. Do you think it's ironic that you have been more recognized in the advertising industry than, say, David Ogilvy, Leo Burnett or Donny Deutsch?

Larry Tate: (Hic) Who in the heck are those guys anyways? Can I get another triple martini here? Extra olives please (hic) and a little drier this time if you don't mind. By the way, you are picking up the tab here, right?

Dirque du Soleil: It would be my pleasure Mr. Tate, we're on an expense account today.

Larry Tate: Good man, good man. Now, where is that super dry triple martini? (hic)

Dirque du Soleil: Here comes your drink now I believe.

Larry Tate: (Sips his new martini several times)  Mmm mmm good! Oh, I, ahhhh, came up with that slogan too .... (hic)

"Two triples, good choice!"

Dirque du Soleil

He's from the past, so he knows the future...

dirque@erichatheway.com

c>log

We would like to introduce you to a veteran pop culture correspondent at EricHatheway.com. His name, which is his real name, is Dirque du Soleil. Dirque's heyday was in the decade that Tom Wolfe called the "Me Decade" – the Seventies. Dirque however, chose to tag this decade as the "Decade of Dirque", which was among some of the rather ego-centric niceties that adorned his party-boy personality back in the day. He has called every decade since 1979 the "Decade of Dirque" due to the fact that his looks have not changed over the years. His meticulously feathered hair, airplane collars, platform disco shoes and gold-chained medallions may give him away in certain circles but nobody seems to notice or care.  "Fly, robin, fly." (Silver Convention Nov-1975)

"I'm from the past, so I know the future."

Meet Dirque du Soleil Nickname: King of Dirque Birthplace: Crazy Town* Residence: Funky Town* (*somewhere between Encino and Van Nuys) Hair: Finely feathered, hair-sprayed Clothes: Very funky "No-Iron" fabrics Jewelry: Medallions, big gold chains Shoes: Platform disco shoes, Earth shoes Cologne: Hai Karate, Brut Car: AMC Gremlin, 1977, metallic green Home: Late mid-century pre-modern Bed: Round (of course) Music: Magnavox Hi-Fi Quadrophonic Hobbies: Kung Fu, Karate, disco dancing, happy hour and "encounter groups."

Dirque du Soleil hails from the San Fernando Valley in Southern California where he was raised by hippie acrobats who eventually left him to join a French circus. After his parents left, Dirque survived by appearing in several "off-the-lot" film productions and by giving Hustle lessons at the local discotheque. He has also served as a consultant for many 70s revival television shows in recent years. Dirque still lives in the Valley in a house that surprisingly looks like Mike and Carol Brady's house complete with deep-pile shag carpet, a very colorful kitchen and a housekeeper named Monique. We are sure glad that we hired Dirque for a ridiculous salary! He has turned out to be a very groovy addition to EricHatheway.com. Welcome to the King of Dirque! You're a big bright shining star!

eMail Dirque du Soleil at dirque@erichatheway.com

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