Thursday, November 17, 2005

How low can you go?

Had to spend so much time to get logged in that I almost forgot the topic I wanted to post a blog about. I remember.... Since a couple of weeks there is a tv commercial featuring Jules Deelder, the self proclaimed 'Night mayor' of the city of Rotterdam. Deelder is well known as a popular poet, a very regular in the Rotterdam club scene, always dressed in black and always sporting a pair of black sun glasses, and probably dying his hair black and wearing it in a fiftieslike fashion. He's also a fanatic supporter of the Rotterdam soccer club Sparta, playing in the bottom part of the Dutch premier league. Deelder himself used to be in the same league as the late rock musician and painter Herman Brood, though he didn't really share his preferences for drugs abuse and booze. The only article Brood ever used to promote was himself, and - in his last spectacular act - the Amsterdam Hilton hotel, from which he made his suicidal jump.
In this tv commercial Jules Deelder, formerly known for his anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist attitudes, now promotes a detergent called 'Robijn', which has a little toy bear as its brand image. One can imagine how the 'creative designers' of this commercial conceived of the reputedly rough and rough Deelder as the antithesis of the sweet and dearing toy pet. But what about Deelder himself? Is he in such a desparate need for money? Has he taken a sniff of coke too many? How low can you go? Jules Robijn Deelder, the national pet poet, the darling of all house wives, the substitute hugging pet. It is like seeing Johny Rotten advertising health food, or Alice Cooper promoting cat food. Jules Deelder, figure head of a lost generation, indeed.

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