#OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

[tyrannosaurus-maxy]

a "documentary" right...

[souvenir116]

Q: Tell us how you both met, when did the friendship start?

Virgil: We went on tinder and then we-

Max: Well, in this case, I guess grindr then! Oh my God... we cannot use that!

Virgil: New start, new start!!

Max on grindr:

[thissying]

Off The Beaten Track, episode 1, part 2/6

[once-and-future-loser]

It's about time people realize the duality of man. Max "Media and entertainment interests are overly invasive, please respect my privacy" Verstappen and Daniel "do I really have to talk to the media after my awful race" Ricciardo are the same people as Max "I will reference a gay dating app and literally take off my shirt and pull down my pants on camera as long as is on my terms" Verstappen and Daniel "I will make a RPF headphone and ugly T-shirt advertisement with a football player I'm obsessed with" Ricciardo. Honestly. Someone help them.

[ablogtocheck]

Anyone else feel like Max and that Heineken CEO were flirting a little...and they even got the "and now kiss" reaction basically from the photographer/camera person, haha.

Full video here. Thanks again, @thissying for sharing 😊.

[stowe]

what filter did they put on that series because max is BLOND

[gifmovie]

[nmnomad]

It's always a good day when I get the opportunity to explore New Mexico.

[hereandnowhere-onboards]

Off the Beaten Track ep 2

I had a great time with episode 1, which mainly dealt with Max's GT3 racing team. However, I found ep 2 kind of depressing and boring, for a range of reasons.

I think it's useful to understand the incredibly intense commercial demands on Max's time, because it's such a huge part of his life. It's also the reality of modern F1.

Max describes in the episode how he takes his brain down to 1% during marketing commitments so he doesn't need to use too much energy, which is a pragmatic way of dealing with it. But watching someone quasi-dissociate through an endless series of commitments while surrounded by huge numbers of people was vicariously stressful to me, more than I think was intended. (This may also be a Current State of My Brain thing.)

I'd really enjoyed how relaxed Max's talking heads seemed in ep 1. The talking heads in Vegas in ep 2 seemed far more like his boilerplate PR responses – however, given that they were filmed at night during the chaos of the Vegas race weekend, they were never going to have the chill vibe of ep 1, even if the topic hadn't been his beloathed marketing.

As Max says in the episode, the interviews he has to do are so repetitive that he's almost able to answer each question before it's asked. I feel that this episode fell into the same trap – the way Max's talking head interview was structured meant that Max was effectively giving PR boilerplate responses, which didn't manage to bring anything new to it for me, and (ironically) I found it boring.

Max has been very publicly doing this for a long time and for anyone who's taken an interest in him, his disdain for marketing has been thoroughly covered, so I'm not sure how you'd actually introduce a novel or more interesting angle here. (Is the doco just fundamentally aimed at a different audience to me?)

In the past Max has been more engaged when it's been a joint interview with a sympathetic foil (eg Alex, Daniel) and more checked out when it's just him alone in a room with an interviewer (DTS). A joint interview probably wouldn't have worked so well in this context (myth-building documentary series with an individual focus) but it might have given Max 'Yes-And' Verstappen some more yes-anding to do. Some more enrichment. Although if he's really needing to conserve his energy maybe he doesn't want that enrichment.

While watching, I also reflected on my own attitudes and practices towards F1 drivers in general and Max in particular. Because I am part of the problem – that insatiable demand for Content that drives the marketing machine. I don't have any good answers for this but it's always in the back of my mind.

The other thing that bothered me about this episode was that the content didn't quite feel enough to fill the running time – it felt a bit repetitive to me. I wonder if they really needed a full episode for what they covered, or if they could have instead broadened the scope. I felt that some of the episode's focus was perhaps over-dictated by access that the documentarians had been able to get, particularly at Heineken.

All of that said, there were a couple of instantly iconic moments:

Max stripping out of his pants ('trousers' for the Brits) on camera

Max's Grindr joke

Camera angle that I hadn't seen before on the Daniel stroopwaffel hand-feeding incident in Zandvoort.

Aside from that, people who are more interested in Max's other commercial deals and the business of F1 may get more out of this episode than I did.

NOTE: In the later stages of the episode Max is shown on camera using 'disabled' as a throwaway insult – it's unfortunately consistent with what I know of his previous conduct, so it's not really new information about him, but it still sucks.

[dafunzies]

diabolical amount of jos in the frame in ep1

i get that max is a fully grown man & it’s his choice (i fucking hope) to have his father so much around, BUT THE RAGE I FEEL EVERY TIME I SEE JOS IS UNMATCHED

[tyrannosaurus-maxy]

thank you, max

🎥 @scuderiafemboy

[souvenir116]

from by @thissying ❤️

[thissying]

Off The Beaten Track, episode 3, part 5/5

[whileiamdying]

Googoosh: the rise and fall of Iranian pop music

Ben Forrest Sat 10 February 2024 23:00, UK

Pop music and Iran are not things you would immediately link together, especially not if your frame of cultural reference is based in the Western world. In actuality, the country of Iran has an incredibly rich music history dating back thousands of years. The output of Iran was incredibly influential on surrounding areas across West Asia and the Middle-East. In more recent times, Iran witnessed a blossoming pop music scene, with the pioneering sounds of Googoosh blazing the way.

Born as Faegheh Atashin in 1950 Tehran, Googoosh began singing at a very young age. After starring in various Persian films during the 1960s, her twenties saw her devote herself almost entirely to pop music. Blending the traditional sounds of West Asia with a kind of 1960s pop sensibility, Googoosh quickly became a cultural icon in Iran; women across the country rushed to copy her hairstyle and fashion sense, characterised by mini-skirts and bright colours.

Constantly pushing the boundaries of pop music and wowing audiences with her incredible tones, Googoosh reached the peak of her popularity during the 1970s. In addition to her legions of fans inside Iran, she became notable worldwide, with tracks like ‘Talagh’ earning her acclaim throughout much of West Asia and parts of Europe. Her chanson-style of performing, evoking images of Edith Piaf, often centred around themes of love and loss, proving to have universal appeal even among non-Persian speakers.

Tragically, the success witnessed by Googoosh during the 1970s would not be long-lasting. In 1979, the Iranian revolution saw the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty, to be replaced by an Islamic theocracy, a ruling government which prevails to this day as the Islamic Republic of Iran. Under this authoritarian regime, female performers were outlawed. While music is not inherently haram, music which may cause temptation is seen as an evil – leading all female voices to be banned. A common phrase used to justify the performance ban was the Arabic “sawt al-mar’a `awra,” or, “the voice of a woman is a shameful thing”.

Rather than fleeing her native lands in favour of a country with more accepting cultural scenes, Googoosh remained in the Islamic Republic of Iran, “out of love for [her] homeland”. In many ways, Googoosh acted as the perfect encapsulation of everything the 1979 revolution sought to banish: she was a fearless woman performing Western-inspired pop songs while bedecked in mini-skirts and vibrant colours. Nevertheless, she remained in Iran following the events of 1979. Retiring from performance – though, not by choice – Googoosh remained under the authoritarian rule of Iran until the new millennium, when she left the country for Canada, permitted to tour by the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami.

Recording material and performing live for the first time in over 20 years, the comeback of Googoosh was glorious. Selling out venues across the world in testament to her universal appeal, her 2000 tour came to a close with a date in Dubai on the eve of Nowruz (Iranian New Year); much of the audience had traversed the Persian Gulf from Iran to see their country’s cultural hero perform in the flesh.

For many, Googoosh is the singer of countless ear-worm pop tunes from the 1970s, but the Iranian singing sensation represents so much more. Googoosh represents the vibrancy and empowerment of the pre-revolutionary period in Iran, a time of real excitement among the country’s youth, characterised by trailblazing artistic movements which were later destroyed by the revolutionary state. Remaining active to this day, with a date at Wembley Arena due next month, Googoosh remains a beloved figure around the world, and an important point in the rich timeline of Iranian music.

[jt1674]

[twisted-shaken-savage]