Friday, October 29, 2010

Do You Know This Man?



Do you know this man? Funny story. I didn't. Not at all. A friend emailed me a picture of himself, standing next to a large, lfe-size cut-out of this guy. I thought to myself, "Who IS that man? He SEEMS familiar. I feel like I know him, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Is he a famous actor?"  Two different friends came in to my room at school while I was puzzling over it, and I asked them. Neither of them knew. One said, " Sean Connery?"  The other immediately said no to that, but couldn't come up with a name, either. I sent it on to my best friend who teaches at another school, and she immediately emailed back and said, "Oh, that's the Most Interesting Man in the World." 
Really? What makes him that, I had to ask. So she sent me a link to Wikipedia, and from there, after reading about him, and the Dos Equis beer ad campaign (VERY successful and smart advertising, I think), I came home and watched Youtube videos of the guy. I have never once seen ANY of these ads on TV, or heard of him, or seen anything about him. (Maybe because there is never anything on in our house except Fox News? And I'm thinking beer adverstising is probably not a big deal on that channel?) What a shame, because suddenly, this guy, and his created "persona" gave me all kinds of great, imaginative ideas for my life.
The premise is, this guy, who is no one famous at all in real life, just a bit-part actor in lots of past shows like Dallas, and old crime dramas, is, in each of these ads, "the world's most interesting man" !  He leads a life so full of adventures that he does things like have "an awkward moment once, just to see what it felt like," and is so interesting, "sharks have a week dedicated to him."  I think it's very funny.
And, it's made me decide that I'm free to, in my mind, create "the most interesting woman in the world" persona for myself. Imagine the adventures I "could" have, if all I had to do to have them is to create them!
I can become the first woman to dogsled across Siberia in deepest winter. I can be so talented I can build my own cabin in the Rockies by felling and stripping my own trees, or could brew the most award-winning  beer in the world by using the coldest, freshest springwater from the deepest, coldest lake in interior Alaska, which I hike to, in a short period of time, because I am so physically fit that, well, you know - I've won multiple triathalons and marathons and all...
The list in my imagination is endless. And who's to know?
He closes most of the ads with the catchphrase: "Stay thirsty, my friends," which I assume is meant to a be a double entendre - since he IS adverstising Dos Equis Beer, he would want you to be thirsty for this beer, but since he is ALSO the most interesting man in the world, with multiple adventures under his belt, I would think he is telling you to "stay thirsty" for the adventures life holds as well?
I have no problem endorsing the latter. I LOVE adventures, and would love nothing more than to live a life half as exciting as his.
However, I hate the taste of beer. I'm wondering if Maxwell House or Folgers would be interested in sponsoring MY ad campaign? I could run much farther and faster, leap much higher, with caffeine pulsing through my veins, than beer.
From now on, when I post my "interesting adventures" here ('cause yeah, there are oh- so-many of them), you'll never know if they are real, or just fodder for my own race to become "the most interesting woman in the world."

"Go for the bold, my friends - in coffee, in life."  I need to work on my slogan.

4 comments:

Coloradocasters said...

Oh how fantastic…I thought everyone knew who this person was. My brain comes up with “the rest of the story” versions of these commercials. Like the one where he is chasing the fox?…my version says he thought that this was a very expensive French dog of some sort, stole it and then tried to ransom it back to the Queen of England. The catch phrase at the end says, “…interesting is not always a good thing”.

Anonymous said...

hello there,
how are you doing???
long time no chat.

hugs

pixie

murphyfish said...

Had to look this guy up after your post- what a guy!
Favourite achievements for me?
"he once punched a magician"
" he speaks French.....in Russian"
Oh when I grow up I want to be like this guy

Jennifer Montero said...

As per usual, more book suggestions for you. Have you read 'Woodswoman'by Dr. Anne LaBastille? She ticks a lot of those boxes. It inspired me and it was a great adventure story for girls too.

There's another book I read at the same time (15 yrs ago!) which was a collection of chapers profiling outdoorswomen and how they came to be such. It was even better but I can't remember the title. Maybe one of your readers will remember it??