Marketer Taps Bush’s Trademark Phrases
In most Democratic circles, President George W. Bush isn’t revered as a clever orator. But his speeches after the Sept. 11 attacks really moved Rebecca Kotch, 35, a registered Democrat with a marketing firm. When she heard Bush talk about how he wanted to “rid the world of the evildoers” and describe his mandate to “smoke ‘em out and get ‘em running and bring ‘em to justice,” Kotch saw dollar signs. To her, Bush’s language sounded bankable.
Kotch, whose marketing know-how has informed promotions for Nike, Microsoft and the House of Blues, sees her newest venture as “anti-propaganda propaganda.”
“It was like ‘Wow! I see something that can be turned into a product,’” she said during a phone call from her Los Angeles office.
Six months later, Kotch launched the product line BushWares, which features everything from coffee mugs to underwear emblazoned with the president’s fighting words: “Smoke ‘Em Out, Bring ‘Em to Justice” “Make No Mistake” and the word “evil-doers” with a slash through it. For now, the merchandise is available on www.bushwares.com. (When apprised of Kotch’s venture, the White House had no comment.) “It’s marketable in the sense that it uses the simple language that has become the fabric of our world today in a way that everyone can respond to,” Kotch said.
While Kotch awaits government approval to trademark several of Bush’s phrases, she’s working on more products. Recently, she took a liking to “pretty hot,” a phrase Bush used to describe his reaction to the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s granting a visa to a suspected terrorist. “We’re here to stay,” she said. “At least for three more years.”
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An Intertwiningof Film and Family
“Having a film open and having a baby go hand in hand,” said Bart Freundlich by phone from New York.
The director and actress Julianne Moore are expecting their second child in the next couple of weeks, and on April 19 Freundlich’s movie “World Traveler,” which stars Moore, is scheduled to premiere.
The movie charts the journey of Cal, a man torn between his desires for intimacy and freedom, who eventually chooses to be a father.
As the film opens, Cal leaves his family.
He has no planned route but drifts aimlessly until meeting his father, who had left Cal when he was a young boy.
“It’s almost a character study of a guy who is very unhappy and lost, and who does a really self-destructive thing that hurts other people in the process,” Freundlich said.
In one of the most touching scenes, Cal abandons a delusional woman (played by Moore), who believes he has her imagined child in his car.
“It always breaks my heart watching it,” he said, acknowledging that the film is not “rip-roaringly funny to watch.”
But, like life and relationships, the movie consists of “the terrible stuff and the good stuff.”
Although Freundlich and Moore’s 4-year-old son is also named Cal, the director warns about making too much of the connections between Cal and the director.
“This,” he said, “is not my journey.”
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Quote/Unquote
“I love living in L.A--the ocean, nature, weather, the limitlessness,” says Alanis Morissette in the April issue of Nylon magazine.
“No no-you-can’t-ness. There was a lot of that in my life before. I was in places where my ideas were seen as crazy. Here, people embrace it all.”
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