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Friday, January 8, 2010

Steak...It's What's for Dinner: A Knights Guide to Grilling Sacred Cow

This post has been brewing, or should I say, marinating in my brain since Boxing Day. That was the day I discovered yet another excellent application of "Grilling the Sacred Cow"! More on that story to come...

As a marketing and advertising professional, I have had the the honor...and misfortune...of encountering a plethora of "Sacred Cows". Sometimes the Sacred Cow deserves its rightful place on the podium of life; however, many times the Sacred Cow is there to block the passage to a better and more creative way to express yourself, run a business or to progress forward.




About ten years ago I developed a strategy to deal with Sacred Cows without losing my head or my business. It was a simple strategy in which after repeated questions on why something was done the way it was, or thought of the way it was, or expected the way it was...I would ask, "OK, so now that we have identified the Sacred Cow...the question is...are we going to have steak for dinner?"

In other words...are we: 1) Going to continue to let the Sacred Cow block our way....or 2) Are we going to do what should have been done long ago...and eat the damn thing to give us energy to progress forward.

Since employing this strategy, I have enjoyed many a fine Sacred Cow Steak! Which brings me back to the beginning of the post. In cruising iTunes on Boxing Day, I discovered the latest product produced by The Flaming Lips...a band who is not afraid to explore the creative boundaries that others put on us.



You see, The Flaming Lips took on one of music's Sacred Cows, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, with the gusto of a starving One-Eyed Troll inside a Meat Packing Factory!




I find it amusing that many people enjoy "covers" of others songs...and often times these covers can be more inspiring and creative than the originals, but there are some songs that even the most liberal individual becomes like Rush Limbaugh when talking about the idea of creating a cover.

I'm not saying that this album cover is necessarily the most creative project; however, The Flaming Lips dared to take it on...knowing full well the chaos that would soon be released!




Here is just one of the many customer reviews: "THIS IS AN ABOMINATION! Someone just go ahead and mark this as the death of music. This is offensive! Hey, I got an idea. Why don't you guys just go ahead and desecrate the Mona Lisa, or re-shoot the Godfather? How dare they? It's like they sprayed vulgar graffiti over the Pyramids of Giza!"

Perfect Sacred Cow reactions! Well, you know what...I only liked two songs myself...but I loved the audacity to try! And besides...the Mona Lisa has already been desecrated...



As for the Pyramids of Giza......




So, my question to my fellow Knights and Ladies of the Realm is...are you going to keep worshiping that Sacred Cow in your closet...or are you having Steak for dinner?



Sir Hook the Grill King of Warrick





1 comment:

  1. Let me be the first to steak the obvious, "Well done!"

    Now I'm off to digest all this.

    There, now that a few of the puns are out of the way, we can open this up for some serious thought -- let the grilling begin.

    Sir Bowie

    ReplyDelete