For those of you aren't as hip as I am, the man in that photo is Mikhail Gorbachev. As a quick history refresher, MG was a major player in ending the Cold War in the late 80s and early 90s, and was the last president of the Soviet Union. For his work, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Now all that is well and good, but if you had asked me when I began this blog what the chances of Mikhail Gorbachev showing up in one of my entries would be, I'd probably say somewhere in the neighborhood of "none" and "absolutely none." But there he is, in all his glory.Okay, so you're wondering why he's here. Well, I came upon an old issue of Time (the Barack Obama inauguration issue) and on the back cover was this picture. That might not seem that odd, but I realized that it was actually an ad for Louis Vuitton. Yes, Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union, is an LV model.
I don't really know what to make of this. I guess it's sort of cool in that it's not your typical advertisement on really ANY level, but I think it's just more weird than anything else. I don't know much about MG, but from what I've read on Wikipedia, it sounds like he was a good guy for the most part. Still, I can't imagine someone is going to look at that ad and think to themselves, "OMG...I have to get that LV bag because Mikhail Gorbachev has it..."
I do have one theory: we all know that Kanye West and other heavyweights in the hip-hop industry love to rock (and rap about) LV. Maybe Louis Vuitton is scared of this image and afraid of becoming associated with the hip-hop culture. So instead, they're trying to reach out to a demographic that has been given little, if any, attention or privilege in this world: old, white men.
Upon further research, we shouldn't even be surprised by Gorbachev showing up in an advertisement. Turns out, a few years ago, he did a commercial for Pizza Hut, of all places. Watch out, Peyton Manning. MG's coming at you for your crown of most products pimped by one human being.
I'll close with two thoughts on the NBA Finals...
Thought #1: A Lakers fan was recently gloating to me about their championship, which I'm fine with. They won, they have the right. But he said a word to me which I found particularly troubling: dynasty. Uh... if there's one thing that this team is NOT, it's a dynasty. You don't go on a run of championships when your team consists of: players so clearly on the decline (Derek Fisher, Lamar Odom), role players that can't even fulfill the roles they were brought in to play (Sasha Vujacic, Shannon Brown), only one guy that is probably going to sustain his level of play for the next few years (Pau Gasol), a star player who is already in the home stretch of his career (Kobe Bryant), and Adam Morrison (Adam Morrison).
Also, I was reading a Bill Simmons column and I think he summed this team up best: the '09 Lakers felt like an arrangement. These guy far from love each other, but they sucked it up and did what they had to do to win. That's all well and good; a lot of teams are able to do that and win a championship in the end. But think about some of the most well-known sports dynasties: the early 2000 Pistons, the Patriots, the pre-A-Rod Yankees, the Red Sox... all these teams had this element in common: they actually liked playing with each other. Off the court, Kobe says all the right things, smiles a lot, and gives credit to his teammates and his coach. On the court, Kobe looks like he's about to go serial killer on all of them. I'm no Dr. Phil, but that can't be a healthy relationship.
Thought #2: The Lakers victory parade was the other day, and it reminded me of a moment in Lakers' history that will live on forever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgOQO5MilfI
Who let the dogs out?!?!?
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