We’re a little bit insane. Who isn’t, right?
Maybe we’re a little bit madder than most. Moving right along.
As we work on branding and defining ourselves, our company, and our beer, we think about lots of stuff and go through many different exercises. Write down 25 words that define you. Look at 6-pack carriers. “Market research”.
Last night we met with Josh again, and he had a great idea: write down a list of people from history who were crazy. What made them crazy? Why do we remember them? Were they just nuts, or clinically nuts? (Note: “nuts” is not a clinical term.)
While were exploring the history books, I thought I’d ask you, dear follower. Who are some of the craziest bastards from history? What made them so crazy? Why do you remember them?
John Brown for oh, so many reasons. Bleeding Kansas, raid on Harper’s Ferry, immortalization via 1974 Kansas album artwork, noted “crazy eyes.”
This seems relevant:
http://design-milk.com/historically-hardcore/
Well, let’s talk Royals:
1. Charles IX of France (mother issues, disfiguration, pressure)
2. Afonso VI of Portugal (paralyzed on left side, mental health issues, gluttony, confinement)
3. Carlos II of Spain (genetic and mental defects, birth disfigurement, made fun of as an “idiot”, mommy issues, no support system)
4. Charles VI of France aka Charles the Mad (Schizophrenia)
5. Juana of Castile aka Joan the Mad (marital obsession, necrophilia, love)
6. Otto of Bavaria (oh, Otto, stress, mental illness, eccentricity)
7. Ludwig II of Bavaria (insanity, shyness, childish behavior)
8. Princess Alexandra Amalie of Bavaria (OCD, thought she swallowed a glass piano)
9. Peter III of Russia (pressure of power, thoughts of insanity, found mysteriously dead, wife issues)
10. George III of UK [‘Merika(hn colonies), arsenic poisoning]
Let’s go to geniuses:
1. Pythagoras, Greek Mathematician: “Pythagoras’ religion had two primary tenets: souls are reincarnated, and beans are evil. Not metaphorical beans, or metaphysical beans, but just plain, edible beans.”
2. Lord Byron, English poet, he had a bear as a pet, because they wouldn’t let him keep a dog at university. Played zoo keeper then switched to playing war admiral. He built ships and blew them up. Now that I read it, I want to do this.
3. Tycho Brahe, Danish Astronomer, into dwarf fetishes.
4. Michelangelo, THE. He’s a genius, but also insane a bit. Never changed clothes, boots included. Skin melded to the boots, came off with the boots. Some forms of autism, probably aspergers. Feared funerals. Isolation.
5. Nikola Tesla, physicist and engineer, brilliant, we know. Also had OCD. Severe germophobe, never touched anything that touched the ground. Nor anything round (tough for an engineer). Had to have things in 3s, including walking around the block, room number divisible by 3….
6. Empedocles, Greek Scientist & Philosopher, he believed he was a god, thunderbolts and all. He said he could jump into a volcano and come out without injury.
7. Yukio Mishima, Japanese Author. Samurai sword/jockstrap combo. Founded a cult with him and only homo-erotically well-physiqued teenage boys. They lifted weights, practiced martial arts, and devotion to the Emperor of Japan. He then tried to do a coup, his force of: 4 homo-erotically well-physiqued teenage boys and a sword. This in 1970.
Thanks, Cracked.com. (http://www.cracked.com/article_16559_7-eccentric-geniuses-who-were-clearly-just-insane.html#ixzz1HSmR9RuY)
Or you could say Pliny and Van Gogh. Because, well, you know.
I’ll have to add Emperor Nero, who approached the Roman Senate to propose rebuilding Rome out of marble (which would include knocking all of Rome down), they said, “Are you crazy?” Soon thereafter Rome practically burned to the ground and Nero’s guards were reported to have been starting the fire instead of stopping it.
There’s also Emperor Tiberius, who had a pleasure palace on the island of Capri and was definitely a pedophile. I am well aware that notions of age and majority were much different during the Roman Empire, but babies are babies.
Oh, and how about Empress Catherine the Great? She supposedly died while trying to have sex with a horse who was suspended above her and the ropes didn’t hold.
I’ll keep thinking of more.
Definitely Tycho Brahe, pretty epic name and pretty epic crazy
Hmm.. My favorite crazies are serial killers. Gacy and Bundy aren’t really helpful to beer marketing.
What about musicians? Frank Zappa was definitely off, and Tiny Tim had OCD and was a germaphobe. He sure could play the ukelele though… They were interesting artists with their own nutty way of doing things.
Serial killers are definitely worthy of the list!
Hunter S. Thompson
He was the first guy I thought of too, Flying Dog has a monopoly on his and Ralph Steadman’s influence…
Check out asian emperors some got pretty cooky, the first emperor of china drank mercury, and his coffin floats on a river of the stuff. l
also famous cannibals, Alferd Packer, Albert Fish, Issei Sagawa, Andrei Chikatilo, Mauerova family, Armin Meiwes (maybe too soon), Stella Maris College Rugby Team
Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light. – Groucho Marx
Hard to follow Jess’s history lesson! Wow!
My first thoughts were:
1. Rasputin – The Russian “Mad Monk”
2. Salvador Dali – The “I am not mad…” surrealist painter
3. John Forbes Nash – mathmatician who the film “A Beautiful Mind” was based on
4. Sybil Dorsett – the famous dissociative identity disorder patient (real name Shirley Ardell Mason)
5. Fred & Rosemary West – “House of Horrors” serial killers in the UK
6. Richard Ramirez – “Night Stalker” serial killer in LA. I was a kid at the time living there and it was pretty scary.
7. Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono – the “Hillside Strangler”. Yeah, it was astually two guys.
Of course there are great fictional crazies, too…
Micky and Mallory Knox from “Natural Born Killers”
Norman Bates in “Psycho”
Captain Ahad in “Moby Dick”
Sweeny Todd
Minsc from the “Baldur’s Gate” video game series
pretty much every Batman villain
Cap’n Jack Sparrow
Ophilia from “Hamlet”
I could go on… 😛
Well you’d have to be crazy to be a genius…. and anyhow, you’re only considered crazy until everyone figures out that you were right. 😛
Don’t let the branding drive you crazy/frustrated… it’s when you spend too much time on it, over-analyze the core concept or try to be too ‘clever’ that the ending result usually tends to be a rebranding a few months later. As for how to define your brand and your beer – well, just start out by describing it as simple as possible…. the beer, brand and culture will ultimately rebrand it-self through time without any assistance of your own.
First example to come to mind – Sweetwater Brewing co outta Altlanta, GA (who ironically got it’s roots in boulder when both the founders were attending CU). After taking odd jobs in the brewing industry and eventually getting some assistance from friends + family financially they started the process of opening up their first brewery location near the west side of atlanta…being a kayaker and somewhat nervous about the new endeavor that was about to start one of the founders would bring his kayak down to the site while they were waiting for it to be ready for production….down the road a few minutes from the original location is a national park with a decent sized river that during storms will produce mild-white-water (though still fun as hell).. the name of the park/creek?Yeah, Sweetwater Creek National Park. I’ve heard probably 4 different stories behind their slogan “Dont Float the Mainstream” but all four involve Freddy and some devious attempt at ditching whatever he was supposed to be doing in order to get some river time in. Sweetwater became the obvious choice for the brand when they finally were ready to start brewing, and actually because of it i’ve heard a lot of distributers say it helped push the product into other southern areas due to the connotation it has with ‘all things southern.’ Btw, they’d later run charity events (which were wild, fun, and raised a whole lot of money) called don’t float the hooch.
What i’m trying to get at with that story is just let it happen, I know a bunch of micro-brews who are doing well that named themselves after stuff like the street the brewery was on or the off brand of hosing that was bought overseas because they were so broke they couldn’t afford something legit. Ya’ll will do fine.
And if you’re still worried, always remember this:
“crazy just might save your life.”
-brent
Hitler is the number one crazy of all time. You can borrow my name as well! 🙂
Good names for tests: Mental; MentalOffspring
Hitler, Saddam Hussein… think of all the tyrants in the world… enjoy a drink!
Dee and Bee… I think I’ll stick to more comical historical figures, but that’s the right idea.
Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) in One Flew Over The cuckoo’s Nest