I Love Rock & Roll
On the day that my course syllabus for Marketing 101 reads "Services Marketing" I wear my Levi's jacket to school. It has 28 Hard Rock Café guitar pins pinned onto it at the angle which the guitar would be held if, you know, they were real guitars and if, well, I was holding them the way you hold a guitar when you play it. Except for the one that looks like Paul McCartney's Hofner, right down to its being left handed, so it has to point the other way on my jacket.
"How many of you have been to a Hard Rock Café?" I begin.
[They all have.]
"Who's been to a really interesting one? Someplace exotic. Other than the one at The Falls, I mean?"
[They laugh. They tell me about their experiences at the Hard Rock.]
"Have you been to all of those?" a student asks me.
"Yes I have. I've been to the original Hard Rock Café in London, and to most of the ones in the States and Canada. I've even been to this one, and I have the guitar pin to prove it.
[And the photo of me and my teddy bear, Antoinette, out front.]
"My favourite pin is the one I got in St. Thomas. The island in the Carribean, that is, not the town here in Ontario, on the way to Windsor. I was on a cruise a few years ago,
[with the X, before he abandoned me]
"and the ship stopped at the port in Charlotte Amalie. This is the pin I got from there:
"My other favourites are the Boston guitar pin, with the lobster wrapped around the guitar, and my twin Route 66 guitar pins, one from Chicago, the other from Los Angeles.
"As you can probably tell, I like the Hard Rock Café. And, just like you, I go for the great food and the fine selection of draught beer."
[They laugh. If they're paying attention, that is.]
"What, you mean you don't go to the Hard Rock Café for the beer?
"I want to tell you about an experience I had at a Hard Rock Café in New Orleans a couple of years ago. It was a few days before Mardi Gras started in earnest, on a weekday, at about 3:00 in the afternoon. It doesn't get much deader at a bar in New Orleans than that time of day, and that suited me just fine because when I go to the Hard Rock Café I like to walk around and look at all the memorabilia on the walls, and that's hard to do when the place is full. I've found people get annoyed at you when you approach their table and say, Excuse me, do you mind if I have a closer look at that autographed B-52's album cover behind your head?
"The friend who was in New Orleans with me humoured me on this mission. He's what you might call blasé about music, but he's reasonably enthusiastic about beer, and I said I'd buy. We sat at the bar, and by doing so doubled the population of patrons in the restaurant.
"While I'm waiting for my beer I study the guitars hanging behind the bar, and just as the bartender, a woman named Chris, places the glass in front of me I squeal, Oh, it's Kurt Cobain!
"It's not, of course; it's only one of his three sonic blue Fender Mustangs, and it's autographed."
[His custom-modified Fender Jag-Stang is in the Hard Rock in Dallas. I haven't been there. Yet.]
"Would you like to hold it?" asks Chris, and before waiting for my answer, she reaches behind her with one arm like this
[I demonstrate Chris's movements for the class.]
"and the next thing I know I'm sitting at a bar holding Kurt Cobain's guitar.
"I was too speechless to say thank you. I mean, aren't those things, like, bolted to the walls? I'd always imagined alarms would sound if someone dared to touch one.
"So I'm sitting there, holding this guitar, trying to remember how to make an F chord, because I think that's the opening riff of Smells Like Teen Spirit,
[I demonstrate, again. To tell you the truth, I've been acting the whole scene out with an air guitar.]
"and I look over at my friend, and he's got this look on his face that suggests to me that he is not appreciating Chris's marketing efforts, nor would he care to hear my explanation of what services marketers mean by "the experience economy." In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know who Kurt Cobain is.
"Then I look over to the door, gauging the distance,
[I look over to the door of the classroom.]
"then back to Chris,
[then back to the students]
"then back to the door, and I'm thinking to myself, yeah, I could make it!
[They laugh.]
"Of course I don't, but I'll never forget that bartender who made me a rabidly loyal customer of the Hard Rock Café."
* * *
Next, Postmodern Sass promises to finally tell you the story of her friend Angela who spent the summer with a cult in San Francisco. And maybe she'll tell you more about the Boz situation — the hockey game is next Monday.
"How many of you have been to a Hard Rock Café?" I begin.
[They all have.]
"Who's been to a really interesting one? Someplace exotic. Other than the one at The Falls, I mean?"
[They laugh. They tell me about their experiences at the Hard Rock.]
"Have you been to all of those?" a student asks me.
"Yes I have. I've been to the original Hard Rock Café in London, and to most of the ones in the States and Canada. I've even been to this one, and I have the guitar pin to prove it.
[And the photo of me and my teddy bear, Antoinette, out front.]
"My favourite pin is the one I got in St. Thomas. The island in the Carribean, that is, not the town here in Ontario, on the way to Windsor. I was on a cruise a few years ago,
[with the X, before he abandoned me]
"and the ship stopped at the port in Charlotte Amalie. This is the pin I got from there:
"My other favourites are the Boston guitar pin, with the lobster wrapped around the guitar, and my twin Route 66 guitar pins, one from Chicago, the other from Los Angeles.
"As you can probably tell, I like the Hard Rock Café. And, just like you, I go for the great food and the fine selection of draught beer."
[They laugh. If they're paying attention, that is.]
"What, you mean you don't go to the Hard Rock Café for the beer?
"I want to tell you about an experience I had at a Hard Rock Café in New Orleans a couple of years ago. It was a few days before Mardi Gras started in earnest, on a weekday, at about 3:00 in the afternoon. It doesn't get much deader at a bar in New Orleans than that time of day, and that suited me just fine because when I go to the Hard Rock Café I like to walk around and look at all the memorabilia on the walls, and that's hard to do when the place is full. I've found people get annoyed at you when you approach their table and say, Excuse me, do you mind if I have a closer look at that autographed B-52's album cover behind your head?
"The friend who was in New Orleans with me humoured me on this mission. He's what you might call blasé about music, but he's reasonably enthusiastic about beer, and I said I'd buy. We sat at the bar, and by doing so doubled the population of patrons in the restaurant.
"While I'm waiting for my beer I study the guitars hanging behind the bar, and just as the bartender, a woman named Chris, places the glass in front of me I squeal, Oh, it's Kurt Cobain!
"It's not, of course; it's only one of his three sonic blue Fender Mustangs, and it's autographed."
[His custom-modified Fender Jag-Stang is in the Hard Rock in Dallas. I haven't been there. Yet.]
"Would you like to hold it?" asks Chris, and before waiting for my answer, she reaches behind her with one arm like this
[I demonstrate Chris's movements for the class.]
"and the next thing I know I'm sitting at a bar holding Kurt Cobain's guitar.
"I was too speechless to say thank you. I mean, aren't those things, like, bolted to the walls? I'd always imagined alarms would sound if someone dared to touch one.
"So I'm sitting there, holding this guitar, trying to remember how to make an F chord, because I think that's the opening riff of Smells Like Teen Spirit,
[I demonstrate, again. To tell you the truth, I've been acting the whole scene out with an air guitar.]
"and I look over at my friend, and he's got this look on his face that suggests to me that he is not appreciating Chris's marketing efforts, nor would he care to hear my explanation of what services marketers mean by "the experience economy." In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know who Kurt Cobain is.
"Then I look over to the door, gauging the distance,
[I look over to the door of the classroom.]
"then back to Chris,
[then back to the students]
"then back to the door, and I'm thinking to myself, yeah, I could make it!
[They laugh.]
"Of course I don't, but I'll never forget that bartender who made me a rabidly loyal customer of the Hard Rock Café."
Next, Postmodern Sass promises to finally tell you the story of her friend Angela who spent the summer with a cult in San Francisco. And maybe she'll tell you more about the Boz situation — the hockey game is next Monday.
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