If you know me, and after eleven years of posting on this blog and revealing my most telling secrets, you ought to, you know that when I'm in for a dime I'm in for a dollar.
To that end I've been digging into the HBO documentary series Agents of Chaos.
It's a fascinating look at the dark hands of the Russian Mafia and their masterful puppetry of American politicians.
Last week, they delved into Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin's Chef.
A man who looks very much like you'd expect a Russian overlord of crime and evil. I won't go into all the sordid tales of his Eastern Bloc mischief, because I'm not a journalist, I only play one on the inter webs.
And because it's way too complicated and admittedly, not very funny.
What did catch my eye was how Yevgeny, had my poor shtetl ancestors stayed put in Belarus, I could've been named Yevgeny, made a fortune for himself by ripping off American intellectual property. He saw the worldwide success of McDonalds and thought, "I'm going to recreate that here in Mother Russia only not with hamburgers and fries but with blintzes."
He created BlinDonalds. A fast food chain that reached to the upper tundra of Siberia and made Yevgeny a billionaire. You know, in addition to selling weapons, black market drug dealing and high end Russian prostitution...
"You vant I wear fishnets? 5000 rubles."
The astute among you know that I have a certain fascination for blintzes. In fact it wasn't long ago I wrote about my dream of leaving the lucrative, fabulous and glamorous world of advertising to hawk blintzes.
Turns out, when it comes to retail or escaping the clutches of advertising, I'm always one step behind.
Not to mention a few hundred thousand dollars shy of what I'd need to launch a proper venture. It appears I will be knocking out email blasts and instagram ideas for Harry's House of Catheters til the day my cold hands are petrified with rigor mortis around this dirty keyboard.
All of which makes me so happy for a colleague, though we've never met, who has managed to turn corporate downsizing in his favor -- Mr. Mark Tripp. If I ever get some free time I will hunt him down and try one of his delicious burgers. You should too. Maybe for reprinting this article he'll comp me one.
Congrats Mark. Really.
https://www.buzzla.com/interview/meet-mark-tripp-of-tripp-burgers/
2 comments:
Wow, what a story. And thank you for the kind words.
Come grab that comped burger soon, Rich
I've had them. They are delicious.
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