This could very well be a paid post, but it's not (unless you consider a free concert and a couple of Pepsi bottles as 'payment'). I was just passing by their tent and the music caught my ear; I enjoyed it while watching a cover of Talking Heads (Psycho Killer). All in all, a great opportunity to reminisce on what Pepsi meant in my childhood.

Opened just in time for TIFF at the corner of Richmond and John St, smack in the middle of the downtown core, the blue tent is really what each and every promotion should be about: music, nice & happy people, relaxed atmosphere, and some free stuff to make you feel special.

The tent is opened daily 11-5, then closes for 2h, then reopens at 7 for the nightly concerts. It is rumoured to give away t-shirts and burger coupons but in the evening I checked it out, there was only Pepsi – I only had one, with reduced sugar (Max?), since it was late. The rest of the stuff is most likely available during the day. To watch my video, just click the image. As for the bands lineup, we had Dwayne Gretzky with The Meligrove Band yesterday, (see the quick video clip I made), Born Ruffians [new video clip] with Hollerado this evening coming up, USS with The Elwins on the 5th, Nick Cannon, 4 Count and Kreesha Turner on the 6th and finally Virginia to Vegas with Crystalyne on the 7th.

It’s hard for me to tell what was responsible for my great experience that evening (so great, that I felt indebted to write this article here). Part of it was caffeine and music. But an even bigger part was memories of my childhood. Before going into my own history, let us check out Wikipedia together for quick history in Pepsi branding.

Pepsi started out as a “health beverage.”

Pepsi was first introduced as "Brad's Drink" in New Bern, North Carolina, United States, in 1893 by Caleb Bradham, who made it at his drugstore where the drink was sold. It was later labeled Pepsi Cola, named after the digestive enzyme pepsin and kola nuts used in the recipe. The original recipe also included sugar and vanilla. Bradham sought to create a fountain drink that was appealing and would aid in digestion and boost energy.

The new millennium is just as odd as the previous.

• In January 1984, when it seemed that with Michael Jackson’s sponsorship Pepsi was almost winning the young minds, Michael’s hair caught fire while filming a commercial. He was put on the powerful opiate narcotic Darvocet which has since been pulled from the US market after the FDA cited health risks. (Prior to that time, the pop star had only been prescribed lupus and rheumatoid arthritis drugs Plaquenil and Atabrine, the records claimed, as Jackson had recently been diagnosed with discoid lupus erythematosus.) After taking the Darvocet, he was “less anxious and fearful from the incident,” Hoefflin revealed (radar-mj). Instead of suing Pepsi, Karen Faye said, Jackson asked Pepsi to build a burn center at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City where the singer was treated. "Everybody thought he'd sue Pepsi because it was a mistake," the makeup artist said. The heavy medication he was placed on after the accident may have started him on the downward spiral that ended in his death and may have also caused him to be more forgiving toward Pepsi.
• In July 2009, Pepsi started marketing itself as Pecsi in Argentina in response to its name being mispronounced by 25% of the population and as a way to connect more with all of the population.

Now that the foreign history lesson is over, back to our original programming (our sheep).

The photo above shows pretty much the most popular “carbonated drinks” in Romania. Though the tap water in Bucharest wasn’t terrible, drinking carbonated water (or “club soda” via a cartridge or “syphon” from a neighbourhood plant) was more fun. All this was sold in glass bottles which were all recycled and collected by gypsies, who would walk the streets with little carts, yelling in an overly dramatic voice “I buuuUUUUUuuuuUUUUuuuy empty bottleeeeEEEeeeEEEeees.” Borsec and Biborteni would often come in brown, 0.5L bottles (and sometimes “Vatra Dornei” as well), Cico was a yellow, crappy soft drink that wasn’t really carbonated, Quik Cola was annoying – didn’t do much for me, while Brifcor was the favorite of many, with the advantage of having been invented in Romania (much like Fanta in Germany):

Brifcor (Băutură Răcoritoare Indigenă Fabricată cu Concentrat Original Românesc) a fost conceput la ICPVILF (Institutul de Cercetări Pentru Valorificarea Legumelor și Fructelor) în anii 80 de către un chimist, Ion Jurubițǎ, din departamentul de cercetare. El a reușit să substituie concentratul de portocale ce trebuia importat cu un concentrat produs din macerarea a 14 plante, unele din ele banale buruieni. Culoarea era obținută din vrej de tomate. În afară de concentrat și apă, în componența băuturii se mai adăuga acid tartric.

Even though Old Romania was supposedly quasi-independent from Moscow, Pepsi enjoyed the same kind of monopolistic benevolence as in Russia. It was the only Western drink you could get, and I suspect that some ugly arrangement was in place.

Indeed, a recently discovered interview with Aviad Meitar (wsr-AM), who developed the Pepsi brand in Romania, confirms my fears.

• Donald M. Kendall, co-founder of PepsiCo., made a deal in 1967 with Romania, giving the concentrate in exchange for Romanian wine, executing a strategy set in 1965 to monopolize non-competitive markets in Eastern Europe.
• The Romanian agreement preceded the Russian agreement (1972), which was Pepsi concentrate for Stolichnaya and naval ships. The Pepsi Challenge was to be launched one year after 1974.
• Pepsi was dethroned everywhere within a year of market openings (1989), due to the higher level of investments and resources of Coca Cola.

Though we were far from rich, growing up, my father had somehow always managed to keep our cold room filled with Pepsi, and “mineral water.” I would never drink it all at once, but slowly, never more than one bottle per day. Pepsi had become for me synonymous with guilty pleasures, and I would reward myself with it on minor achievements. Which is perhaps why I enjoyed that Psycho Killer cover (link to original live above) so much..

Let me know if you think this may have been a paid article.

LE: If you're wondering what else I've been doing and would like to see some of my other quick Toronto video clips, here they are: Begging Ghost, Parking Enforcement Idling Car, Injured Bird, Drums1, Drums2, Subway Alcohol Party, Insect moves like Jagger,  Birdie, Beaver, Queen St Music, Kensington Park, Raccoons, Electric Island 1, 2, 3.

Sources / More info: js-ppu, mic-spppu, Wiki-Pepsi, wsr-AM, radar-mj