Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Super-extreme extremities

In case you missed the Times piece about Mt. Merapi's former resident crackpot (I had), here it is: http://tinyurl.com/3alzcch

The story mentions Marijan's role as a spokesman of an Indonesian energy drink. When I wrote about him a couple weeks ago, I didn't know his celebrity was such that he was also a commercial pitchman. But as soon as I got out of Magelang and into Jakarta, Marijan's wrinkly visage greeted me from the side of about every third public bus, grinning idiotically.

According to the Times, the bottler of Red Bullish Kuku Bima Ener-G has stepped up its Marijan-themed ads since he was killed last month after stubbornly refusing to leave Merapi, a decision that led to as many as a dozen other deaths.

Banking on Mr. Maridjan’s continued popularity, the maker of the energy drink quickly cut a new version of its ad in the days after his death, praising him as a “daredevil.”

Over images of an erupting Merapi and Mr. Maridjan in prayer, it intones: “Life and death are the secrets of God.”

Oh, I get it. Like super-extreme extremities in edgy marketing. What's radder than death, Marijan's and the others? Kuku Bima Ener-G!

Fuck yeah!

2 comments:

  1. No opium that I've found but I keep reading about police busting amphetamine smugglers headed for Bali. Drug trafficking carries the death penalty here and Indonesia still does capital punishment the old-fashioned way: Firing squad.

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