by 
That’s what I call aggressive marketing:
Yesterday we walked across Times Square. The minute we stopped walking to take a good look at the insanely big commercial billboards (pics coming up), my friend Djavan and I were approached by a couple of ‘rappers’ who showed us their demo CDs.
Firts one, then two…
Their asked for our names and signed them on the CD cases (in retrospect: what a stupid thing to do?!) and handed us to them. They seemed nice and we told them we would take their demos to Germany and show’em around. You know, help out aspiring ‘musicians’.
Then they asked for a small donation.
We didn’t want to pay them anything, as we hardly listen to any Rap/HipHop/RnB/Whateveryoucallit-music, but they assured us the songs were experimental and would feature anygenre-younameit, one even assured me his record was Heavy Metal (I told them I’d only listen to that to get away). Yeah right, Heavy Metal my ass!
Then three, four, five… a whole bunch of them surrounding us…
As we still refused to give them money, they got annoyed, saying that they couldn’t sell this and that CD to anyone else, as they had already written our names on them. (there were like thwelveteen other things scribbeld on the cd cases…)
We started to realize what was going on (way too late), so first Djavan walked away from them and then stopped and turned around to see where I was. By that time I was walking out from them and since Djavan had stopped, they were closing in around him again.
I quickly took a picture, being afraid they might smash my camera if they saw it.
In the back of the picture you can see Djavan (the one with the cap) being harassed by the ‘rappers’.
After I put my camera away two more approached me, asking me for my name.
“Linus” I said.
“Spell that” they said.
“As in the Peanuts” I said.
“Spell that!” they insisted.
I hesitated, being very irritated.
“Spell that NIGGA!!!” one raised his voice. No kidding.
After I walked away from those two, someone approached me saying I shouldn’t listen to those aggressive guys. The first nice person in Times Square? We shook hands, he asked for my name. That’s when I noticed the bag of cds in his hand, him grabbing a pen to write my name on one of them.
This was getting ever more ridiculous.
But I got away pretty good compared to my friend. They started to threaten and push him until he gave them 10 or 15 bucks. When they wanted 20 instead he grabbed the opportunity to walk off (of course, without any cds in his hands…).
Why don’t you guys just say that your begging for money?
I guess “Spare some change?” Isn’t gangsta enough, huh?
(my appologies to anyone enjoying gangsta-rap 😛 )
So what do we learn from this?
DON’T STOP WALKING ON TIMES SQUARE!
(and best pretend not to speak English)
