Circle
of Fifths
He got this silly idea in his
head that he would name a whiskey or spirit “Beethoven” and that people would
love to go to their liquor store and get a fifth
of Beethoven! Genius, he thought. When he told his wife she chuckled and
said it was a “cute idea.” Her rather lukewarm response to his idea was the
opposite of a deterrent; he dug his heels in and explained away all the ways in
which his idea could possibly fail: as if!
When he could not get approved
for a business loan for his Beethoven whiskey, or scotch, or vodka, or liquor,
or generic “spirit,” never minding the legal issues involved in naming any
product whatsoever Beethoven, he decided to borrow against his retirement. A
not unsubstantial amount it should be noted. He did not discuss this move with
his wife. When he told her what he did, it did not go over well. She diverged
from her “cute idea” descriptor to more of a “fucking idiotic-asinine-dumb as
shit- half assed-shit brained -moronic minded Quint” kind of description. He only
became more assured of the success of the idea.
He imagined the idea taking off,
he imagined everyone from college students to the AARP crowd waiting with
baited breath for their chance to tell their friends they are headed down to
the liquor store to get a fifth of Beethoven. What with that famous disco song
and all. The college crowd would be getting it for their dorm party, the
suburbanites for the new year’s eve drink in the punch bowl , or the newly
divorced man going to drink his troubles away in his double wide: everyone,
everyone would want a fifth of Beethoven!
He had the money now. He didn’t
have his wife now but he had the money. He quit his job to dedicate all of his
time to the “maestro idea,” as he coined it. And he had a plan; a plan that did
not account for how it is virtually impossible to get the rights to name
anything Beethoven. The only thing commercial was a movie about a Saint Bernard
dog that slobbered profusely. He failed…miserably. He lost so much so fast that
he wound up renting a double wide and drinking away his troubles while looking
forlornly at the chosen bottle of the night and whimpering “you could have been
a fifth of Beethoven!”
In his now lonesome comings and
goings, he befriended the trailer park manager Jack. She was checking in on him
one night while he was drunkenly blathering on about some genius ideas that
could make him rich. She came to learn that for some reason his ideas evolved
around liquor store product names tied to music in some way. One was tied to
the buy in bulk idea and he called it the Circle of Fifths. Instead of the
tradition rectangular case of this or that spirit, patrons could now take home
their beverage of choice in a circular cardboard closure and it would be called
a Circle of Fifths. He slurred his speech through the whole rant but she caught
the gist. She told him she liked that idea. He was able to say “Donschu dare
cull it cccuuute” right before he passed out.
Jack, the very antithesis of his
wife, invested her savings for a 50/50 cut of Circle of Fifths.
People loved it, adored it. The
college crowd got one for their dorm party, the suburbanites for their New
Year’s Eve party, and even the newly divorced man got one to drink his troubles
away in his double wide. The packaging made all the difference. People got over
the sticker shock just because it was in a round piece of cardboard. It was
easy to copyright the idea and production costs for the item was basically
nil. The logo was just based on the some
music notes made out of whiskey bottles with floating music staffs and clefs
strewn about. The tag line became: You already buy a case of beer, now buy a
circle of fifths. And they did. In droves.
Jack and Quint became rich. His ex-wife
came crawling back but Quint would have none of it. She was basically begging
when he said “well aren’t you cute.”
The
End
