Damian's "sophomoric" Honda ad!!

On pages 32-33 of the latest issue of that gay movie magazine, Rolling Stone, is a two page ad for Honda Civic, the right page of which features a photo of Damian Marley shooting a stink-eye at the camera. Below a picture of the New Honda Civic Hybrid on the left hand page is a paragraph about Damian that begins:
"The songs of his sophomoric album, Welcome to Jamrock, convey a consciousness..." that neither the grammatically challenged, highly paid Madison Avenue copywriters, editors and layout artists, nor the Japanese or American clients obviously possess.
What is really sophomoric here? Or is this just another of Babylon's subtle conspiracies to denigrate de work of de Rastamon?

sophomoric....as in what they view as his "second" album....even though if you count "mr. marley" it's his 3rd...I think....a bit of paranoia floating around here....sophmore is a very common term for second....such as you "sophmore" year of high school

Rana ridibunda



Post Edited (12-17-05 23:55)

de rastamon selling hondas.....at least they're hybrids

just as denigrating, roger, is your use of the word gay. i'm just sayin'...

m.

Hey Mosquito Killer - tell that to the GAY and Lesbian Centers all around this land of ours. I didn't mean it in any derogatory way, just observing what the founder of the mag, which I've read and collected since I purchased volume one number one en route to Vietnam in November of '67, has turned it into.

It's hard to convey an ironic twist in print, but I tried...

"sophomoric" is a pejorative.

Oh who cares.

why would damien allow his image to be used to denigrate himself?....come on now...and why would a company choose to denigrate their spokesperson?...think this through a bit....maybe they're just trying to appeal to white racist car shoppers by denigrating the rasta man...that sounds about right...those ad folks are brilliant...honda is gonna cash in on this ad...they probally figured they had the market cornered on the liberal guilt ridden white folks buying hybrids...they had to appeal to the racist ones with that ad...

@#$%^^ %^&&&&* *(*&*&&^^%>??? ":{____000000(87777700-) --------

Whoa HIGHPRAISE - sekkle down, lol. It has become common practice of late to refer to an artist's second major label release as being sophomoric. I think what Roger is trying to say is they should probably take a closer look at what the word really means...

from my Webster's new world dictionary -

'sophomoric' --- adjective -
like or charcteristic of sophomores, who are often regarded as
self assured, opinionated, etc aqlthough immature

'sophomore' --- noun -
a student in the second year of college or the tenth grade of high school
and the second definition is a person in his or her second year in some enterprise.
( adjective - of or fro sophomores )

From dictionary.com:

soph·o·mor·ic - adj.
1. Of or characteristic of a sophomore.
2. Exhibiting great immaturity and lack of judgment: sophomoric behavior.

So saying that an artist's sophomoric release sounds honed, or displays a more mature sound... you see the irony?

OK, to be blunt: I am appalled by the low-level ignorance of the so-called professional copy writers being churned out by our underfunded school system, who end up creating illiterate ad spewings for multi-million dollar clients. The clueless people who run the Honda account are equally guilty.

Unless, and I doubt this seriously, they were deliberately denigrating Damian's sure-to-win-the-Grammy album. And even if hordes of ignorant people are misusing the word "sophomoric" on their blogs, or elsewhere, it doesn't make it right

Word-sound 'ave power, as de bredren-dem seh. Overstanding the meaning of the words you speak or write, and their eventual effects, is an ideal worth working toward. From time to time in my writings for The Beat some real embarrassing clinkers have appeared in print. But there is only one person at the mag between me and the printing press. My ire was provoked by the fact that, as anyone who's ever been around the big time advertising business knows, there are multiple layers of people who have to approve an ad like Honda's (two page full color in a major national magazine) and not ONE of them caught the obvious misuse. To me, that's staggering. And by insulting Damian in this way, it does seem racist in its effect.

And also, to those who might think I'm making a derogatory remark about gay people, please refer to my past ten years of columns castigating the anti-gay ranters who have degraded Jamaican music, and helped to kill off much of the touring potential for the rest of the island's more conscious artists

As far as the Honda part of the ad, many many RAS ride bikes. My friend owned a bed and breakfast on the west end of Negril in the 70's and into the eighties. She said Jimmy Cliff and many of Bob's friends would arrive from Kingston late at night on the bikes. You could hear them coming from long away. Even the Bobo dreads are riding motorcycles with great pride. AfFlicted took some awesome photos of Bobos on Bikes just last year. I don't know why the image of Damian on a Honda would be such a bad thing. | would rather see more bikes in Jamaica and other places than the abundance of cars.

As far as sophmoric, that's another story and I believe it smacks of racism as well. I see quite a few national ads that make me wonder how they got through the many levels of corporate undersite.

yes, rog..undersite...my own word probably not in dictionary ;-)



Post Edited (12-18-05 14:16)

"love shines brighter than the morning sun"

ha... roger i think it's more likely a careless (if not stupid) error. and i also think the conspiracy you suggest would be giving "them" too much credit, in a couple ways: one, that anyone doing something like that can't be too smart. and two, that i don't see how the mainstream music industry would really feel threatened by jr gong or his lyrics. as you well know roger it's a different time from when bob launched, a much different world to penetrate, and i hate to say it but i do believe the corporate music industry has reggae well in check. sure, they'll use it when it slips some hot shots past their deejays (goalies), but generally their relentless and gargantuan presence is, in my opinion, more likely to remain than crash anytime soon.

i would be curious as to one aspect of the genesis of the ad... if it was originally done in Japan i could see the problem. i've seen much worse asian-to-english mistranslations and syntax errors.

regarding the racist mention in this thread, i don't sense that for a second. see how many RS articles have been on black artists from Robert Johnson on.

regarding the gay mention roger i'm assuming you meant that the magazine has changed from the radical, political, hardcore music and culture rag to it's current glossy state (meant in more than one way) which is meant to appeal more to gay men than young politicos. but that's just my guess, and is also all i'll say about that.

hope all is cool on the southern front.


from chico,
n.

--

but then why would damian endorse it???...it doesn't make sense...I agree it was a poor choice of words...but why would damian lend his image to a company trying to belittle him...and an ad that as sista irie says "smacks of racism"...if it truely was and it got out without damian ever seeing it...don't you think he would say something publicly?.....

"I am appalled by the low-level ignorance of the so-called professional copy writers being churned out by our underfunded school system, who end up creating illiterate ad spewings for multi-million dollar clients. The clueless people who run the Honda account are equally guilty."

...if you're going to lay all that blame around...damian should accept it as well as the spokesperson/endorser or is it just ok for him to bank on the ignorant spewings of his employers?

Oops I need to clarify..the way the words in the ad are written (I haven't seen it, only basing my reaction on what Roger wrote), it could be deemed a careless remark that has racist tendencies. I guess that is not quite the same as 'smacks of racism.' I wrote that while I was running my show at the radio station and did not pick my own words well..but at least I didn't have a bunch of editors, etc., approving what I wrote.

mea culpa.



"love shines brighter than the morning sun"

I hear ya, i do the same thing all the time and that's why I'm inclined to assume positive intent with the ad....it's more likely carelessness, within the context of the ad I think it's clear they meant 2nd album, most companies choose people with integrity to support their products, not to pay them to somehow make denigrating racist comments about them and their work....but I'm an optimist...

peace

uh sista irie, its an automobile not a motorcycle that damian is shilling for here.

but its a "hybrid" car: uses both gasoline and electricity, so its got some political currency if based only on that.

one love
jah bill

i posit that the most positiveness says...as quoted above...

""The songs of his sophomoric album, Welcome to Jamrock, convey a consciousness..."

now there is a very strong word/statement ...consciousness...

jah bill, tenky. lol..you see where my mind goes when I hear the word Honda.



"love shines brighter than the morning sun"

>"hybrid" car: uses both gasoline and electricity

Doesn't every car use both?

I hope Honda at least gave the Gong a free one. I know having many expensive cars are what most reggae artists care about these days.

-s

I think the Rolling Stone copywriter was being neither derogatory nor pejorative in describing this album as "sophomore". The writer was just using it as a posh word for "second"; in the same way he would use "debut" for first.

Roger, are you saying that Jan Wenner is gay? Those early copies of Rolling Stone from the late 1960s, like the Groupie issue, the Lennon interview, Jim Morrison exposing himself onstage, all the Hunter S Thompson gonzo stuff, have never been equalled in US journalism.

Penny Reel

and what is the point of labelling ROLING STONE as a gay magazine anyway?

whether true or not, that is very irrelvant to this reasoning about
damian's JAMROCk, isn't it?

er...perhaps it loses somewhat in translation, but in the USA "sophomore" does NOT equal "sophomoric". The former simply denotes a second-year student or a second artistic effort. The latter is a pejorative term for puerile or unnecessarily juvenile thought or behavior ("playing smart and not being clever", and acc. to Roger is what appeared in the RS ad copy. It does indeed appear symptomatic of the 'dumbing down' of the language curricula in our schools here, rather than any effort to discredit Damian. That a number of people who get paid very well to write, compose, edit, etc. allowed this error to be published in a major magazine is execrable, but since they hired Damian as a spokesperson for the product they were shilling, I have no doubt that it's due to grammatical ignorance and not racism.

thank you herb...sophmore does not equate to sophmoric at all, the latter is an insult if you ask me.

spleece you are so observant. and always somehow the point goes right over your head.

one love
jah bill

>spleece you are so observant. and always somehow the point goes right over your head.

No Jah Bill, I always get your point: I just often don't care, and for some reason I like to push your buttons. You're too easy..

-s

He is working for a living. wake up and stop thinking that everyone with dreads and a faith lives like the Taliban.

I am sure the money he's pulled from his Jamrock tour is enough to make car endorsements unnecesarry. But that doesn't seem to be what's in question in this thread...

But where does anyone see racism here?

yeah acacia i had the same question but i guess im not thinking hard enough on this one.

one love
jah bill

Penny Reed, my new friend, asks:
"Roger, are you saying that Jan Wenner is gay? Those early copies of Rolling Stone from the late 1960s, like the Groupie issue, the Lennon interview, Jim Morrison exposing himself onstage, all the Hunter S Thompson gonzo stuff, have never been equalled in US journalism."

Everything you say about the early copies of Stone is absolutely accurate. To my tastes, the best magazine of popular culture ever in the history of the U.S., and all the more reason to lament now the total destruction of what the magazine once was.

Besides, Wenner outed himself many, many years ago. In fact, in 1973, I was living in Berkeley with Tim Page, the noted Vietnam Life magazine photographer (portrayed by Dennis Hopper in "Apocalypse Now". He was working on a freelance basis for Stone in its glory days, accompanying Hunter Thompson on several pieces, until Thompson, the King of Gonzo himself, told Wenner he couldn't work with Tim anymore because Page was "too crazy." Perhaps it was the pin on his cap that he wore constantly, proudly declaiming that he was "drain bamaged." He was, in fact, blown up five times, and still has hundreds of pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body. The airport alarms freak out every time he passes through.

Anyway, (not "anyways," as the boob-oisie have also corrupted that useful word), I speak of Tim because many of Stone's early writers and editors hung out at our pad, Tim Cahill, David Felton (who carried a briefcase everywhere, which contained nothing but half a tuna-fish sandwich and a canister of laughing gas), Bill Cardoso (who coined the term "gonzo," as the precociously young editor of the Boston Globe Sunday magazine), Ben Fong-Torres and others brought inside stories of the carryings-on behind the scenes.

Another frequent visitor, Perry Dean Young, had written a book about Sean Flynn, Errol's son, who was Page's room-mate in Saigon, and later lost in the Cambodian Invasion. One gloomy afternoon, Perry stormed into our apartment. "Ever since I blew Wenner in the baths, he's never bought another piece from me, the little prick." So, yes, Wenner was/is gay, Penny.

But so what? I have not a whit of prejudice against gay people, Buddhists, Jacobites, trilobites, or others - although, the be perfectly honest, I must admit that I'm not favorably disposed to Mormons, Scientologists, Republicans or the institutional Catholic Church.

I made an increasingly accurate description of the contemporary Rolling Stone - not out of disrespect for its androgynous tilt - but solely, ONLY, specifically! because I want my old profane, anti-establishment, committed, radical, psychedelic-sponsoring rag back - the one that gave lengthy voice to Thompson and all the others that Penny Reel and I waiting anxiously every two weeks to read. During 1971, the year I buried myself deep in the medina of Marrakech, in disgust with Nixon's war and America's greed-headed evilous ways, the packages of Stones that arrived with an anxiety-inducing infrequency were devoured feverishly cover to cover, even the ads. It was in Stone in '73 that I discovered reggae, in that great Australian gonzo writer Michael Thomas' piece that became "Babylon on a Thin Wire." Nowadays, he probably couldn't get published in the Drop City Shopper.

I have placed a virtually complete collection of the magazine in the Reggae Archives, because in the future one will need to know the complete context in which Marley and the thousands of other reggae artists represented within, created their works. Nobody covered the emerging world power of rebel rock better than the writers at Rolling Stone, under the inspired encouragement and clever editorial hand of Jann Wenner. But Rolling Stone - R.I.P.

maybe the f***ed up ad copy is why Damian looks so pissed off in the picture...

Jah Bill, it seems I'm not either. Apparently it goes without saying, literally...

I assume if someone with different musical tastes had written a bad review on his album, that would be labeled racist as well. It's just so shallow to play that game.

I am just confused as to why people would be upset if he was hired by toyota to promote their business. Seems strange to me. People always talk about how "the man" is holding a brother down. The more money conscious brothers like Marley make the more poor people they will be able to help get out. JA needs investment the same way the whole of Africa does. The money he makes of Jamrock is beans compared to the money he will make elsewhere.

PS they meant that it was his second record. That is what they meant, just use reason to come to that conclusion. Why would they have this guy selling their rides and then call his lyrics stupid and childish? C'mon you gotta come better than that. I think there is a conspiracy to stir up shizzle the ain't thizzle, you dizzle?

ninja, it is honda not toyota, :-)
i like you am of the opinion that confusion is occuring here.

why is the fact/fiction of Rolling Stone being a gay magazine have anything to do with damian's JAMROCK his second/sophomoric cd
( sophonoric is the adjective for sophomore or 'second' )
damian's JAMROCK is a cd of consciousness music. that's positive for reggae.

the common useage of the work "sophomoric" is exactly as stamina tell it: "the latter (sophomoric) is a pejorative term for puerile or unnecessarily juvenile thought or behavior ("playing smart and not being clever". the main point of the original post was the mis-use of the word sophomoric. i think you missed the sarcasm (in mr steffens post) if you are hung on asking if this was a slam on the music.

Ninja, have you read this thread? You are the only one who has referred in any way to the righteousness of him advertising for Honda. I don't think anybody needs to wake up here..

no no ACA, that was a direct response to your statemetn that you would have thought he made enough money from Jamrock. I thought you were implying soemthing that you were not. My bad.

Well, I probably was implying that, but only as an aside to the conversation. No problem though.

Greetings
Don't check for Carmeggedon.

Peace
JJ

Yes Rog, though I'm not Penny Reed but Penny Reel.

Basically, I stopped reading Stone in the early 1970s because it had already run out of steam by then. Besides, Creem was better by then and so was the UK rock press, specifically International Times, NME, Zigzag, Let It Rock etc.

Oh and Rog, are you still living on Valentine Street, in the same apartment as the one in my address book from 20 odd years ago?

I didn't realise that Wenner had joined the pink posse.

Love
Reel

What's slightly galling about this thread is that people who seem to be otherwise quite intelligent are positing some sort of direct relation between homosexuality and streamlined big-money yuppiedom (and by association, wimpiness or weakness) - as if you can't be a radical politico or an underground acid freak or this or that and be gay at the same time. Like you come out of the closet and someone just hands you the keys to a new Beamer or something.

Do mainstream media and corporate culture turn gay identity into a slick high-ticket commodity? Sure they do - but no more or less than they do with everything and everyone else that they wrap their greasy tentacles around, including reggae.

Rolling Stone is best ignored - it's long since become a narrowly focused anachronism, albeit one that makes a good deal of money for certain people. Wenner has decided to appeal to wealthy, ageing baby boomers - a demographic that advertisers adore. The magazine's relevance as cultural bellwether or indicator of pop-culture "success" is pretty much illusory at this point - witness their general lack of hip hop/dance music/indie rock coverage.

I'm surprised I haven't seen any post stating:

"Fyah bun pon dem R^^$(!@t Honda business"

Uh oh - lookout Penny and Roger, dogwarbossanova has a flair with words as well. I detect the makings of a rather fine staff of journalists, culled from our obsessive board here, creating their own cultural bellwether... hmm?

I'll supply some political cartoons....

P.S. = Penny - used to love Creem when I was a wee bit younger, and then later Kerrang. Both rags had a real flair with words - I often found myself reading extra carefully just to be sure what they were talking about, although in Kerrang's case it was a bit of the Queen's good english verses the Hollywood dialect I am more familiar with.

Boy Howdy! =)

I'd be more worried about Babylon tapping my phone at will folks!
Beware the Bush telegraph....
Pilot

To Penny,

No mon, left Valentine St. eleven years ago. Drop me a private note and I'll send you my current particulars.

And happy holidaze to all of you on the B&F chat site. I've always resisted these rooms, but since hanging around here for the past several weeks, find it very informative and provocative and fun.

One Heart,
Ras RoJah RAW H1

this is the snwmf site not b&f rojah, but happy holidaze to you too...i guess that "daze" part got to you eh?

one love
jah bill

yes rojah, now you got the 'bug' so to speak,

now you cyaan refuse it, u hear?

some nice folks hanging out here with various personalities so all a wi haffi
read and post and digest and so on, with care and overstanding, everytime,

seen?

oh yes rojah,
this is the snwmf site, not b & f...
:-)
mr selector, come back again,,,rewind...........

funny how the sponsorship of this hybrid comes under the guise of an album that "hit the charts," with the aid of the video/television media at least, behind the wheels of a 700 series benzo

blessing

sorry, my friends, of course this is warren's snwmf site, and apologies where necessasry. Sometimes I spend so many hours each day staring at screens, it all begins to blur, a feeling I suspect I share with many of you these daze.
Happy Holidays, Roger

I think he meant a 7 series BMW- not Benz
much like the car his father drove

[tinyurl.com]

More tasteful by the minute. Thanks for not posting those on the board Zoki.

To tell you the truth, I intended so but it wasn't in mpg format.

Acacia, you've just been Serbed.

mpg = miles per gallon?

Once again.

That's right. I think he has a crush...

Maybe...do you look anything like the young ladies in the pictures...
zoki obviously prefers women with well-rounded backgrounds...

He doesn't know what I look like. And no, I don't look like them, but I am a "young lady" and maybe that's just enough.

Actually, I prefer thiny one... These with well-round backgrounds I'd leave to Chimino.

Sumting like this...