William Burroughs NIKE CM

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Uploaded by on Dec 8, 2006

William Burroughs in NIKE Air Max CM, from around 1994.

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People & Blogs

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Standard YouTube License

  • likes, 15 dislikes

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Uploader Comments (hiyori13)

  • I worked on this spot. Joe Pytka directed it. We had to go to Oklahoma to shoot WSB.

  • @KAGE25X REALLY!!?? Wow, that's great. Do you know if this was the only version, or was there another one with Burroughs in it? I kinda sorta seem to remember seeing another version, but maybe I just made it up in my head.

  • Strange choice ... the bulk of NIKE's target audience likely never heard of WSB (then or now), and many would likely balk at his work. So, why use him for the ad? Irreverence? Record cash surplus?

  • WSB was a cult figure at that time. He was featured in Laurie Anderson's stuff, appeared in a Ministry video, which was featured in Beavis and Butthead, Drugstore Cowboys was in theaters, did an album with Curt Cobain... So, he was very famous among the alternative rock people, which Nike targeted.

Top Comments

  • Love Burroughs. Hate Nike.

  • Or perhaps Bill Hicks was just completely wrong.

    Few people, Hicks included, are quite as Cool as William Burroughs.

    I see no problem with Burroughs doing this.

    If any of my favorite Bands did it, if Palahnuik did it, if Hicks did it, if most people did it, it would be artistic betrayal and a cheapening of their artistic work.

    It doesn't apply to Burroughs, he is beyond such concepts as selling out.

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All Comments (144)

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  • The priest is on the boat and hell is on its way.

  • @hiyori13 he's been a cult figure since 1950.

  • Strangely enough, the movie adaptation of Naked Lunch had more machine fetishism than the book itself. So...should Cronenberg have done this commercial instead?

    I don't know guys, I kind of like the idea of the commercial and non-commercial coming together sometimes. This is funnier in retrospect moreso than it probably was to Burroughs' fans at the time. Just go with it.

  • What is the worst thing you have done for drugs?

  • why why why William Burroughs had more self respect than that.....what the hell

  • kind of interesting how he talks about technology around 1994 while showing his image appearing on a small screen device that look fairly close to what we use today as far as ipads, portable dvd players, phones and all these other portable media devices we use today.

  • this is like hiring Carl Lewis to sell literature!

  • o.....k...... that was a..... wierd advert. I wonder if they got Burroughs to write the voiceover himself, you would've thought so, but it sounds scripted...

  • didn't allen ginsberg do a commercial as well?

  • Yes it was Kansas

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