Thank
You Jagermeister
I
have been to Jagermeister heaven.
It
exists on the second floor
of a non-descript office building
in New Rochelle, NY, right
outside of New York City.
There I found Jagermeister
bottles, Jagermeister people,
Jagermeister posters and,
most importantly, endless
mountains of Jagermeister
swag*. Think of a product
and chances are the folks
at Jagermeister have put their
name on it.
For
those of you who don't know,
Jagermeister is a potent German
liquor with a dark reddish
color, an ominous looking
stag on the label and a smell
like cough syrup. You drink
it because you can, not necessarily
because you savor the taste.
For
the further uninformed, my
(um, only) claim to fame as
a musician is a little ditty
that I recorded for a friend
of mine at a radio station
as a joke. The song, cleverly
titled "The Jagermeister Song,"
proceeded to get played every
Friday afternoon on this particular
station for four years. That's
when they fired the deejay.
But he persevered, took the
CD with him and started playing
it all over again when he
got a new job at a competing
station.
The
end result is that I've appeared
on stage with acts like Third
Eye Blind and Everclear in
front of crowds as large as
30,000 people. Strangers have
to share with me the stories
of their first Jager shots,
or the nights they barely
remember. Everybody in Connecticut
knows my name.
Of
course, they all think it's
Jager Guy, which I guess is
close to Lee Totten, just
spelled a little differently.
But still....
Now
for the record, I have nothing
against Weird Al Yankovich
- I'm sure he makes a much
better living than I do. But
I also never wanted to pattern
my musical career after him.
And while one humorous tune
about Jagermeister doesn't
indicate a lifetime of parody
songs, it is a slippery slope.
One
of the benefits of the Jagermeister
song is involvement with the
Jagermeister folks in New
York. They have an amazing
band sponsorship program that
basically gives me tons of
free Jagermeister stuff to
give away at shows. My shows
become Jagermeister parties,
people all have a good time,
and the bar sells lots of
Jagermeister. Everyone wins.
So
a few weeks ago Rick Zeiler
at Jagermeister invited me
to come down to the corporate
office in New York. They were
shooting a video to appear
on their JagerMusic
website which will feature
interviews with artists involved
with the Jagermeister band
program. As a backdrop to
the filming they set up a
display of many of the items
that Jagermeister has made
with their logo on it.
I
kid you not, there were probably
a thousand items on this table.
Pure Jagermeister heaven for
those of us who grew up revering
this particular liquor. There
were pictures of the Jagermeister
bus, Jagermeister guitar picks,
Jagermeister hats, and Jagermeister
jackets. I personally left
with 144 Jagermeister tee
shirts, a Jagermeister denim
jacket, the embroidered tee
shirt and the embroidered
sweater, the JagerMusic hat,
a six foot Jagermeister flag,
six Jagermeister shot glasses,
the Jagermeister toy football
(for my two year old daughter
- just to prove what a good
daddy I am), a Jagermeister
watch and, yes, one bottle
of genuine Jagermeister.
Now
I know there will be some
skeptics who doubt the reality
of Jagermeister heaven. They'll
think perhaps it's a delusion
- the result of doing twelve
Jagermeister shots in one
marathon four hour show last
week thanks, in part, to the
Windsor, Connecticut fire
department.
So
to prove them wrong I'm giving
the stuff away in a contest
on the website.
Now you can win the jeans
jacket, the shot glasses,
the flag and more. Pretty
much everything except the
bottle of Jager.
Hey
- I may have been to Jagermeister
heaven, but that doesn't mean
I'm a saint. Geesh.
*SWAG (n): Stolen goods
or money. In musician terms,
this means "free stuff".
This
column © 2000 Lee Totten
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