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Lamentable Enterprise
by
Giancarlo Buono-Pannini
For some reason I’ve always been involved in quite serious discussions over
innovative and potentially lucrative business ideas. I suspect its partly
cultural inheritance – a search for an easy alternative to the normal world of
work, which, according to the relatives, is basically a holding pen for
simpletons yet to engineer a dubious ‘pension’ from the old country or a
premature, WorkCover funded retirement (and preferably both). Perhaps the types
of values once championed by Baroness Margaret in her attempt to turn Britain
into a nation of grocers have in fact deeply permeated liberal democratic
societies. Or perhaps, like many people, I’ve just yearned for an easy dollar.
Whatever the reasons, the business ideas have come and without exception, been
consigned to the ashcan of perpetuity. For the most part it’s just as well.
The term, ‘Choc ‘N Bits’ refers to a supposed small business venture in the
Victorian Wimmera where an energetic and ambitious single parent with many kids
(and allegedly as many partners) and obviously far, far too much time on her
hands, decided to open her very own business. Perhaps she’d watched something on
Oprah (had a vision, transcribed it into a dream diary), or had been conned into
a set of Anthony Robbins videos while watching late night TV, eating micro-waved
Bi-Lo pizza. I don’t know. But, fuelled by zealous self belief and
entrepreneurial spirit, she proudly opened a gleaming new town store - launched
right in the middle of one of the very worst rural recessions on record.
Moreover, her brilliant idea was to supply the impoverished and increasingly
desperate farming community with all the raw materials and equipment they needed
to make their own chocolates. Now that’s what I call niche marketing. She called
the business ‘Choc ‘n Bits,’ probably thinking it was snappy and a bit cute at
the same time. Needless to say it was just plain naff, and died a quick and
pitiful death. Poor thing. The townsfolk probably started calling her ‘Choc n
Bits’ after that. Don’t look now Joyce, here comes Choc n Bits. A least she had
a go. Good on her I say. If I’d been a fourth generation wheat cocky with the
arse out of my trousers and needed to whip up some dark truffles, then she’d
have my business. But ever since every business idea that we’d thought which has
carried a fundamental, fatal flaw or was just screwy earned the title of a ‘Choc
‘N Bits’ idea. I’ve contemplated many. Here are just a few.
One involved selling sub-standard furniture. Nothing unique in that, except that
this plan was to market it as having been hand-made by Saint Joseph himself, and
just may have been used by the Virgin Mary and the young Jesus Christ. There
were some irrefutable facts. Clearly, Joseph had been a carpenter by profession
and surely would have knocked up quite a few items over his lifetime. Isn’t it
at least possible that some of this had survived, and if so, why couldn’t it be
offered to a god-fearing Christian plus GST? We were convinced that the average
blue blooded American bible-belt god botherer would part with some very serious
money indeed if they believed that the very chair straining to support their
fried chicken ass may have once cradled the arse of Christ. And it would be
cheap to make. In fact, you wouldn’t expect it to be much good. In fact you’d
expect it to be pretty crappy. First year apprentices would knock them up, even
really terrible first year apprentices that clearly had no future in furniture
making, or you could outsource it to a collective of partially blind furniture
makers. Whatever. Initially we’d planned to offer just the basics – perhaps just
a roughly hewn stool, and perhaps a rickety old table. To that we thought we’d
possibly add a couple of old chairs some boxy things that looked like beds, that
sort of thing. Made out of pellets and packing creates. Then it got a bit much.
Kitchen buffets, whole nests of occasional tables, entertainment units, cabana
style mini bars, modular lounge suites, porch swing-sets, and pool-side deck
chairs. It was ridiculous. It had degenerated into a whole catalogue of
supposedly genuine St. Joseph furniture.
Then there was a notable variation on this theme - a plan to sell genuine
Lourdes Water (actually from a tap in Airport West) in one-litre plastic bottles
in the shape of the Virgin Mary (you screwed off her head). We were going to
take out large, full colour ads in the back pages of The Australasian Post,
which boasted about being ‘in full colour,’ and we planned to lure customers by
having convincing real life testimonials. We were going to use a mug-shot we’d
found of some wrinkly old pensioner we’d lifted from an old trucking magazine.
She looked like a transvestite version of Prune Face from Dick Tracey, pulling
the sort of weird facial expression that a severe electric shock might produce.
Underneath we were going to add the following endorsement. Thank-you Aussie
Virgin Mary Lourdes Water. I’ve suffered from crippling arthritis for
seventy-two years, but now thanks to you, I’m now back at the sink, peeling
carrots for Shepard’s Pie. You Beauty! Regards, Joyce ‘Aussie Battler.’ You
could almost see the crates of mildly affordable Aussie Virgin Mary Holy Water
empties by the fly wire door. But, sadly the Post folded, and there were
problematic issues of ethics. One of us suffered a recurring nightmare, where,
on a nightly basis, Joyce would morph in a highly disturbing version Mr Magoo,
and severely scold him over the plan. That was the end of Aussie Virgin Mary’s
Lourdes Water.
Not all the ideas were as inherently stupid. Some just ended up that way. Chops
O’Hallahan, Dog Detective was a case in point. It was a cute idea. Chops was to
be a children’s book - basically a self styled Raymond Chandler rip off for 8-12
year olds which was to stand apart from the prevailing fluffy rabbit, cutsie-pie,
Hello-Kitty books current on the shelves. It was to stand apart because it was
to have a 1950s Beat era, film noir, James Ellroy feel in the storyline and
illustrations. All the characters were dogs. Chops was the witty Christopher
Marlow anti-hero, T-Bone was the numbskull offsider, Fifi LaRue, the chanteuse
in distress, Fleas Fernandez, the nightclub owner and so on. The idea was that
this would instantly appeal - not so much to kids - but to the parents, uncles
and aunts who were 100%, genuine, paid up, card carrying members of the vegan,
uni educated, multilingual, PBS listening, drugged up, poly-sexual, black skivvy
wearing, café latte, inner-city, Brecht set. And they had the cash.
But there were problems with the initial draft. The plot line and dialogue were
too sophisticated for a kid’s book - too adult. Unable to fix this, we decided
to make the book even more adult, figuring that it could feasibly be a kid’s
book which parents could use to educate them about adult relationships. When
even that failed, we made it even more adult, and decided that it could actually
be illustrated erotica - for an adult audience, that just happen to look like it
was a kid’s book. It was at this point that we were suddenly hit with the
realisation that what we were proposing to do was to produce illustrated soft
porn, in the style of a book designed for 8-12 year olds, where all the
characters were dogs. It was just wrong. And not only that. It was only a matter
of minutes that, having rejected the book idea, each of us confessed to having
mentally considered whether there were enough dog owning nutters to constitute a
viable market for dog porn. Actual videos, of dog sex, bought by lunatic dog
owners, for their own dogs. Capitalism takes you to some dark and terrible
places.
Finally, one of my particular favourites was Aussie Dickhead Cola. The stunning
thing about the Aussie Dickhead Cola plan was that it was pretty simple. Step 1.
Buy several second-hand vending machines, preferably cheap, you know, off the
back of that truck. Step 2. Get a graphics company to design some snazzy
Dickhead Cola graphics and a logo, and plaster it over the machines (a picture
of a cross eyed kangaroo, playing a banjo, something like that). Step 3. Place
said vending machines in various boarding gates and transit lounges across all
Australian airports (and/or anywhere in Queensland). Result? Sit back and watch
the cash roll in as daily waves of overseas travellers, captivated with this
wholly manufactured Australian idiosyncrasy, line up for a can of good old
Aussie Dickhead Cola. And you could charge an outrageous amount; say twenty
dollars each since this would only add to the mystique. A soft drink calling
itself Aussie Dickhead Cola and costing twenty dollars! I had to admit it was an
intriguing plan. The original concept was even more outlandish. This rejected
the need for actual cans of cola. Individuals would simply insert bills, trigger
a red LCD light, and an automated voice would deliver a long, slow Australian
accented drawl, “ya dickhead.” But as appealing as that was, it would do nothing
as the first impression of Australia. Imagine. Even before reaching passport
control, travellers would be ripped off twenty dollars and called dickheads. It
just wasn’t on.
So these have all been sad, dismal failures, and really, it’s just as well. The
world is probably a far better place without shoddy home-ware made by stoned
teenagers in Frankston masquerading as Holy Relics. Tap water isn’t likely to
fix arthritis. Kids books probably should be about fluffy rabbits, and dogs
probably aren’t interested in porn. Come to think of it, I’d rather have some
half balding, white socked taxi driver with sweat patches under his arms and bad
breath, greeting our international visitors with a friendly, g-day mate, then
have them summarily abused by a vending machine after having stolen from them.
Mostly. But, then again, sitting on my sideboard is a junk mail catalogue
proudly offering a set of unlikely looking salt and pepper shakers that farted
when you lifted them off the table, and I just have to think to myself that
perhaps it’s just a question of timing.
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