Today is a mix of Big Ideas, Iconic Taglines, Pro-Hope, and music from a trailblazer punk recently inducted into the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame.

The original Avatar the James Cameron mega-movie that debuted in December 2009 was a widely anticipated film with first-of-its-kind 3-D filmmaking. It met the expectation and has been on the top of the shortlist for highest-grossing films over the last decade. Originally Avatar beat out another James Cameron film about a big boat. Avatar then started to “duke it out” with Iron Man and all his Avenger friends in the same way The Ohio State University and The University of Texas add students to become the largest university in the US. The Avatar vs. Marvel slugfest became so big, both studios re-released movies to take the top-grossing movie of all time trophy back. No wonder Zuckerberg thinks we are all ready for the Metaverse!

Avatar Day was conceived by the marketing department and promoted by Cameron at San Diego Comic-Con. The equivalent of an extended trailer was released through IMAX and available for free to anyone who reserved a ticket. The idea was to give customers a glimpse of new movie-making technology, this was only possible in a movie theater environment, specifically an IMAX movie theater.

Avatar Day was a success, and now more than 10 years later 3 more Avatar movies are said to be in production. The next movie Avatar: The Way of Water is scheduled to be released this year, December 16th, 2022, 13 years after the first Avatar. No word yet on Avatar 2 Day.

The tagline for “doers”, is as recognizable as the theme song to the movie Rocky. Nike’s Just Do It. is an iconic tagline that motivates and lets the world know where you stand, or run as the case may be. Dan Wieden the Oregon native who came up with this tagline passed away at age 77. In a story in The Wall Street Journal, Dan Wieden with his partner David Kennedy formed Wieden+Kennedy based in Portland Oregon and they had one client: Nike Inc. The founder of Nike, Phil Knight was not a fan of conventional advertising and neither was Wieden+Kennedy.

The tagline may have come from something Wieden heard from a convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, just before his execution in 1977, Gary said something like “Let’s do it.” Wieden liked the “do it” part. The rest of us are more fond of…

From the Ivory Coast in West Africa to the Italian Parliament. Aboubakar Soumahoro is looking to change hearts and minds in Italy inside the establishment. As a child Aboubakar dreamed of going to Italy, as a teenager he made his way to Rome, but his dream came with the harsh reality of living on the streets. Italy like many Western Countries has a far-right wing of politics and people who want to reduce immigrants and make it more difficult to immigrate to Italy. Aboubakar was recently elected to the lower house of Parliament for the Green and Left party. He will be the only Black member in Parliament with 400 other deputies.

With resilience, Aboubakar hopes to bring awareness to immigration and general poverty in sections of Italy. He warns that many politicians in Italy haven’t seen “the coming hurricane of poverty.” He also knows he can help and by his own words:

60 years ago a cartoon called The Jetsons came out and told all of us that flying cars would be in our future. We are still waiting.

This week Reuters reported that a flying car made its first public flight in Dubai. Watch the video here. In what looks like the combination of a Tesla and a drone, the eVTOL flying car X2 has zero emissions, seats 2 people and the public test flight lasted for 90 minutes. No word yet on whether or not George will be able to fold it up into his briefcase yet.

Today we are going to dig into more music notes and recommendations and hold Covers for next week.

If the 80s used synthesizers and computers to make music and called it New Wave, the 90s took it to another level and added it to distorted guitars and progressive rock drums. Bands like Ministry and Skinny Puppy inspired recently inducted Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame members Nine Inch Nails. In the late 80s, Trent Reznor was already making music with the help of computers and synthesizers. Reznor had plenty of street cred learning how to play the piano when he was just a kid. He took his classically trained talents and added in just the right amount of angst to marry the melodic and the menace. The result was the 1989s Pretty Hate Machine.

So much of Pretty Hate Machine could be summed up in how it feels to be young and on the other side a long boozy weekend. A feeling of what you could be and how far from that you feel from than lying on the floor wondering where it all went wrong. A general feeling of anger, looking for someone to blame, knowing even at a young age, you are as much to blame as anyone else. That honesty in between haunting melodies, distorted power chords, and angry drum machines helped Nine Inch Nails go from start-up band to being in the lineup of the first Lalapollooza in 1991.

A decade of success and excess followed Pretty Hate Machine. Trent Reznor is an accomplished musician and a trailblazer, his first album holds up 30 years later and so do the punks that resonated with it.

Below is a link from a podcast with Trent talking with Lizzy Goodman from Difficult Artist.

All the anger with all the internal disappointment of falling down. It’s all in your head!

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen on Spotify.

Be Good,

Johnny