Category: Big Business

Posted on

What recession?

On Saturday, Amy & I met her pal Claudia for dinner at Marea. We knew going in that it’d be a pricey meal; after all, the restaurant is in the shadow of Masa, the most expensive dinner in NYC (which has a $200 fee if you don’t cancel your reservation with more than 48 hours’ notice(!)).

The meal was phenomenal; I’ve learned to appreciate fine dining this past decade, and my Marea experience was easily a top 5. Both my dates were heavy-duty foodies, and they too were floored by the meal. You can go check out the dinner menu here. For the record, I ordered:

  1. Ricci (sea urchin, lardo, sea salt)
  2. Sgombro (pacific jack mackerel, eggplant caponata)
  3. Polipo (grilled octopus, insalata di riso, fava, yellow tomato)
  4. Cotechino (not on the online version of the menu, but it was a pork, cod belly, wine sauce and maybe some cinnamon, in a mind-blowingly perfect risotto)
  5. and a chocolate panna cotta for dessert.

But as I said, it was a pricey meal. I won’t be so gauche as to discuss the final tab, but I will share with you the exchange I had with the Thomas the bartender when I was looking to get a gin & tonic before the meal.

GIL: I’d like a G&T. I notice you have Old Raj back there.

[THOMAS reaches for bottle]

GIL: Hold on. I had a G&T with that at Tabla once, and it cost $17. So, would you mind just ringing one up first, so I can see what it runs?

THOMAS: Sure! I’ve never served on with that gin before. [touch-pads for a few moments, then turns to look at GIL with shocked expression on face] Uh . . .

GIL: Twenty-two dollars for a gin & tonic?!

THOMAS: That’s what it says . . .

GIL: I’ll have a Hendricks & tonic, thanks.

THOMAS: You want cucumber with that?

GIL: Slightly bruised, thanks.

I’ve never felt relieved to pay $12 for a G&T before. (But it was the first bar I’ve been where they have Q Tonic on hand.)

Posted on

What It Is: 10/12/09

What I’m reading: Moby Dick, George, Being George, Crumb’s Book of Genesis, and a whole ton of Planetary comics (while I was home sick) in anticipation of the final issue. Which turned out to be a non-event.

What I’m listening to: Not a lot. My head’s been so stuffed up, most music sounds kinda muffled.

What I’m watching: American Splendor, in honor of Harvey Pekar’s 70th birthday last week, the Yankees’ playoff games, and a pretty humorous Parks & Recreation.

What I’m drinking: NyQuil. I’ve been wiped out by a chest cold since Monday, and figured that booze would just zap my poor immune system even further. Reading the label, I discovered that one is not supposed to take more than four 30ml doses of NyQuil in one 24-hour period. If you’re the sort of person who would even consider four doses of this stuff in a day, you probably aren’t going to be deterred by that warning. Wowza.

What Rufus is up to: Packing his things for a 3-night stay with his pal Tut.

Where I’m going: To Cincinnati, to visit Amy’s pals Ken & Denise for a long weekend.

What I’m happy about: Seeing a lot of old pals at my 20-year high school reunion on Saturday.

What I’m sad about: Not getting to talk to everybody I wanted to talk to at the reunion. But at least some of those people are local(ish), so we can try to get together sometime this fall.

What I’m worried about: The fact that two old classmates independently asked me if I’d gone into politics, while two others asked if I was now a lawyer.

What I’m pondering: Writing a post about my annual movie-traditions.

Posted on

What It Is: 10/5/09

What I’m reading: Early issues of my magazine, as I wrapped up the 10th anniversary ish. Boy, was that depressing. I also read the first 20 pages of George, Being George, which I’ll give some more time into this fall.

What I’m listening to: The bad new Zero 7 record, and the much better new Bebel Gilberto record.

What I’m watching: Charade, American Gangster, a little of Silent Movie, and a bunch of football.

What I’m drinking: Plymouth & tonic

What Rufus is up to: Being an Ambassadog at Warwick’s Applefest town fair (with pix by my beloved wife). He got to meet a bunch of greys, but one of the owners kept trying to convince us to adopt Dollar, one of the hounds they were fostering. One of the other owners sympathized with my take on why we’ve held off on grey #2: what if he or she isn’t as awesome as Rufus (as in, can’t handle 9 hours without a bathroom break, or likes to chew on stuff, or gives Ru bad ideas and the two of them spend all day smoking weed and goofing around on Playstation)?

Where I’m going: The 20-year reunion for the high school I left after my junior year. In November, I’ll go to the 20-year reunion for the high school from which I actually graduated. Don’t tell.

What I’m happy about: My pal Ian stopped in for a visit on Friday, giving us an excuse to go to Cafe Matisse for another fantastic meal.

What I’m sad about: 10 years spent on this magazine, 20 years since I graduated high school, and, um, 30 years since I saw The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh. The calendar really does kick you in the nuts.

What I’m worried about: That I’m forgetting something.

What I’m pondering: What I’ve learned in the past decade about the pharma/biopharma industry and the contract services sector.

Posted on

Inglourious ROI

With their “media empire” on the verge of collapse, the Weinstein brothers were pulling out all the stops to promote the opening of Inglourious Basterds last week. They’ve even played the contrition card in explaining to the NYTimes that they lost their focus after leaving Disney and starting their own company, using investor money to buy a fashion line, invest in a TV channel and a social networking site, and other activities that don’t qualify as making movies people would pay to see. (Here’s a fun takedown of that article, at the AV Club.)

So it must be gratifying to them that the new Tarantino movie was #1 at the box office this weekend, with nearly $38 million in tickets sold. The marketing is a bit misleading, since the Basterds — a squad of Jewish-American soldiers who ambush and scalp Nazis in occupied France — don’t actually get much screen time. But that’s a minor quibble. I still enjoyed the heck out of the film; it just wasn’t the movie it was marketed as. (I’m assuming the 4-hour DVD version will have plenty more carnage.)

Which leads me to this WSJ article about the movie’s performance and its marketing. It highlights the problems the Weinstein Co. still faces, but the article also seems to have buried the lede:

Part of the success of “Inglourious Basterds,” which was directed by Quentin Tarantino, comes from its $35 million marketing campaign, which Weinstein Co. executives say Harvey Weinstein approached with a renewed focus after missing the mark of previous campaigns. Last year for example, the company used stick figure drawings to sell Kevin Smith’s “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” which underperformed at the box office.

Let me see if I have this correct: the film grossed $38 million domestically and the marketing cost $35 million? With another $27 million in overseas sales, the movie made $65 million last weekend.

If that $35 mil. covers worldwide marketing, then they spent 54 cents for every dollar in ticket sales. If it was only for the domestic campaign, then it was almost 1 dollar spent for 1 dollar in sales (which are shared with the movie theaters).

Between this marketing campaign and the movie’s production cost of $65-70 million, that means this big success is still $35-40 million behind the 8-ball. Sure, there a lot of other revenue streams to help them close the gap, but this is probably not a good model for running a business.