The Tribune

THE striking man saddled up to the bar, cool, confident, and in a calm voice said to the bartender, “Gimme a girl.”

The bartender knew exactly what the man wanted, turned around and in a flash handed the thirsty customer just what he asked for, a beer, a St Pauli Girl.

It wasn’t that long ago that St Pauli Girl, or Girl as its fans called it, was a favourite beer of The Bahamas. Today it has all but vanished from the scene. Along came Kalik, and later Sands, and the Girl faded into the scrapbook of beverage memories. Were the new beers better? Maybe, maybe not. Beer, after all, is literally a matter of taste and taste is subjective. Or had production or marketing for the Girl ceased?

Why is it that some products seem to last forever and others just fade away, vacating their pedestal in a consumption-based economy for a seat in obscurity?

Remember when orange-flavoured Tang was so popular that astronauts chose it for their preferred easy-to-mix drink in space? And actress Florence Henderson, the ultimate homebody mom, served it to her Brady Bunch TV family? That was before researchers said the very stuff that gave Tang its tangy flavour and its consumer a boost was not good for your health. Then there are all those products that manufacturers dreamed would be huge game-changing successes before they actually became flops of historic proportion, like the Pacer car about as wide as it was long, or the Edsel, Ford Motor Company’s singular largest bomb. Ford lost an estimated $350m on the auto named after Henry Ford’s son. In today’s dollars, that’s more than $2 billion. It was a failure so difficult to swallow that Ford nearly choked on it and more than half a century later, college classes still study the textbook case of how not to design, manufacture and launch a product.

Other products stand the test of time with little change. You’d be hard-pressed to find brands that outshine classics like Quaker Oats and Cream of Wheat which, except for the quicker fixer varieties, haven’t changed in decades. What their plain cardboard boxes lack in sophistication they make up for in comforting familiarity. Hot dogs, buns, ketchup and mustard are about the same today as they were when someone first discovered they were an inexpensive way to satisfy hungry kids and their dads.

In some cases, products deserve the trouncing they get. Unfiltered Camel cigarettes that made RJ Reynolds a major player in a growing industry are about as hard to find today as someone who would argue for the health benefits of smoking. Other cigarette brands – Pall Mall among them, once the favourite of tough guy Lee Marvin – are as hard to find as a conch pearl and few have sympathy for a company that has been dealt fines ranging from a few million dollars to $23.6 billion. If some of tobacco’s once favourite brands go up in smoke, most of us don’t feel a sense of loss though we remain surprised at the value of the companies that produce them and the share price they command.

The mystery that maybe only marketing gurus can solve is why some products become so enmeshed in the culture that they remain popular despite every indicator that they should not and others, better for everything from your mood to the environment, are left on the trash heap of one-song wonders.

It’s especially confusing given that today’s consumer is product-hungry, eager to embrace just about anything it can pay for with a credit or debit card. Like St Pauli Girl.

So next time a striking man saddles up to the bar and asks for a Girl, the bartender will have to break the news, “Sorry, Sir, the Girl left town, though you can find her online in a few locations. How about a Kalik or a Sands Light? They’re made in The Bahamas.”

If you are THAT guy in search of THAT Girl, you can remind the bartender that the Girl was once made in The Bahamas, too. Maybe you’ll just skip that beer altogether and grab a flavoured water while it’s still in style, go for a run and try to figure out something simpler than why good products vanish and others that should do not. Or you could just plain enjoy the run and the scenery and let others worry about where in the world the good Girl went.

The new national conversation - should Majority Rule Day be the People’s Day?

An interesting conversation popped up on social media and other platforms, including whatsapp, on Majority Rule Day. Some of the sharpest minds in The Bahamas, including a former governor general and two former attorneys-general, contributed to the discourse. The gist of the conversation revolved around the most basic question, is it time to change January 10 from Majority Rule to The People’s Day?

One contributor to the debate claimed discrimination was very much alive, claiming that as someone who is white, they have often experienced it.

Others spoke of the need to honour history. As one said, shaking off the painful shackles of discrimination must be celebrated.

But it is not only black Bahamians who were discriminated against. What about the people of mixed parentage, or those who have one Bahamian and one Haitian parent or as someone said to me the other day, with an incredulous look on his face ‘So you are a Jew?’ staring at me as if I had just been dropped from outer space.

One of the most thought-provoking contributions came from Suzanne Black, an example of the Bahamian who would be celebrated on The People’s Day. Here, in the words of Black, who was recently honoured by the financial services industry, responding to a comment about what it must feel like to be left on the side when kids are choosing who to befriend. Who can imagine?

“I can,” said Black, recalling a childhood incident. “‘Why isn’t Sue invited to your party?’ The young man answered, ‘My Mother said she isn’t good enough to come to our house.’ We were all about 12 years old.”

Two years later, still at a delicate age, Black again felt the brunt.

“At about 14 years old, my friends became members of the Nassau Yacht Club. Despite my Mother’s warnings, I applied and was not accepted although, through my Mother’s direct appeal to Sir Roland later, I became a member.

“Yes, I can imagine. My point, however, is that one decides to move ahead with a positive mindset or one keeps looking backward.

“Everyone has suffered negative experiences. I have been called a red b## in George Street in broad daylight.

“And perhaps it would not be unfair to say injustices continue. Or am I alone in having experienced being discriminated against in these times? I doubt it.

“And what about the many Haitians who suffer what they perceive to be injustices and are afraid to step forward for fear of being sent back to Haiti, despite their having legal status?

“My point is, if we want to build the better Bahamas that we keep telling the world we are, we should focus on being inclusive. The Peoples Day being to me at least, an obvious step in the right direction.

“To put it another way, saying we are all Bahamian to me, and I believe to many others, should mean using terms that comply with the “all”. The People’s Day is an ‘all’ word. The majority, by its very definition, is not.”