FOR THE TASTE OF IT
Welcome to the second issue of The Double Scoop, where artists use words and pictures to report on the world around them — art, life and all things fizzy!
This issue is dedicated to a summer classic, the oft-misunderstood and polarizing soft drink, Diet Coke.
In this issue, Anel Jean Baptiste, Jr. serves up an interview with Diet Coke fanatic Patrick Corrigan and Melanie Martin reminds us to have a little fun with our soft drinks. Manny Mattei shares early encounters with the soda and Priscilla Frank sits down to interview Rick Fleming and Sage Studio founders Lucy Gross and Katie Stahl.
During our research, and after watching a lot of 1980s Diet Coke commercials, we came up with a few new flavors should Diet Coke ever want to expand its reach — Crabcake Diet Coke, Iced Tea Diet Coke, Lollipop Diet Coke, Hot Dog Diet Coke, and Cheesecake Diet Coke.
To start us off, our favorite creative muse and fellow NYC food inspired artist Bernie Kaminski created a paper mâché Diet Coke can just for this issue and shares with us just why Diet Coke was for everyone.
Pop open a can and get comfy, 'cause here we go.
I MIGHT NEVER DRINK ONE AGAIN
Artist Bernie Kaminski shares his affinity for Diet Coke even if he, very likely, has tasted his last sip.
I’m old enough to remember when Diet Coke launched in 1982 and what a big deal it was. There was a commercial announcing its arrival shot at Radio City Music Hall. A giant can was onstage with the Rockettes. Celebrities like Bob Hope, Ben Vereen, Sally Kellerman and Carol Channing gave the can a standing ovation and Telly Savalas turned to the camera and delivered its slogan: “Just For The Taste Of It.”
The Coca-Cola Company already had a diet cola - TaB. But Diet Coke was for everyone. And for a while it was everywhere. If someone opens a refrigerator in a 90s movie, there's a decent chance you'll see a 2 liter bottle inside. Bill Clinton famously loved Diet Coke. He even had a can of it during his Grand Jury testimony in the Starr investigation.
I was never a big Diet Coke fan and I might never drink one again. But I can’t help but have an affinity for anything that peaked in the 90s.
THAT FIRST SIP
Anel Jean Baptiste, Jr. talks with Diet Coke fan Patrick Corrigan about 1980s logo design, TaB, and a Diet Coke addiction that begins everyday at 8am.
Anel: My name is Anel Jean Baptiste, Jr. I'm the artist from YAI Arts in New York.
Patrick: Pleasure to meet you, I’m Patrick Corrigan and I’m a person who drinks too much Diet Coke.
A: Wow, I can see that! Anna has told me also all about you.
P: Oh gosh, well, thank you for still talking to me then (laughs).
A: Patrick, did you know when Diet Coke was introduced?
P: I don’t know. I know that it became very popular with people in the ‘90s. It was a power drink for particular types of people.
A: Alright Patrick, like I said, first question — did you know that Diet Coke came out since 1982?
P: I did not know that. I didn't know it was older than me!
A: It was introduced in the 1980s. The diet soda that used to be with Coca-Cola was TaB.
P: Yeah. It had a problem with it’s sweetener or something. And that’s why everyone stopped drinking it?
A: Exactly, that’s why they turned or put Diet Coke as a change for diet sodas by the Coca-Cola company.
P: They still make Tab, hard to find but it’s still out there.
A: Right. Alright second question — have you ever seen the end credit from shows where it says “a unit of Coca-Cola Company” which buys Columbia Pictures and Embassy Television back in the 80s? The logo for Columbia Pictures and the Embassy back in 1985?
P: I remember what the Columbia Pictures logo was from the 80s, I think. Is it the one with the woman holding the torch?
A: Yes, exactly, a woman holding the torch and it says “a unit of Coca-Cola company.”
P: That part I did not know!
A: It was between ‘85 and ‘86.
P: So it was briefly owned by Coca-Cola?
A: It used to be. Yes, Patrick. It used to be bought by Coca-Cola. [They sold it because] they just wanted to make a lot of money, maybe make it into a big distribution.
P: So how did you find that out?
A: I used to watch those shows back in the ‘80s when I was a kid. I saw, for example, Columbia Picture shows and Embassy Film shows as well too. Embassy Production the one that produces The Jeffersons, Different Strokes, Facts of Life, Silver Spoons, Double Trouble. Old shows back in the 80s like Who’s The Boss, too.
P: Yes, those are all great shows! The Jeffersons probably have the greatest opening song out of any television show ever.
A: “Movin’ On Up,” of course! They used to be produced by Embassy back in ‘82 with the big E and star logo. They produced a lot of 80s and 90s shows.
P: So Coca-Cola owned both of them?
A: Exactly.
Anna: I love the Coca-Cola logo.
P: It’s one of the few scripts that have held on in this very blocky Helvetica world.
A: I created a Diet Coke Film Enterprises production company with the 80s Diet Coke logo. I was thinking, what if I make Diet Coke become a film enterprise and make an animation?
P: I think that would be really cool. Would it be in the spirit of the 80s and early 90s show you like so much? (opens a fresh Diet Coke) You should do it!
A: It would be some of my shows that I dream to make. This is this logo of the Double Scoop News but in the form of Diet Coke. Now you see it as the Diet Coke logo. Alright Patrick, just one last question, Patrick. What makes you love Diet Coke a lot?
P: Ugh, let me tell you. I drink it at a particular time every day. Embarrassingly, after I first wake up. The effervescence when you've just woken up and when your mouth is all dry, and you have that first sip and it’s way too sweet.
A: Not to mention you’re addicted.
P: (Laughs) You should never taste anything that sweet in the morning! Then you have the carbonation, it wakes you right up, every time. When I have it, I’m instantly there and I can start my morning.
A: I used to be addicted to drinking sodas a long time ago. Don’t drink soda very often right now. I buy an uncarbonated soft drink mix sometime.
P: What’s your secret?
A: I quit cold turkey drinking real sodas — ones that have real sugars and real caffeine. I exercise a lot, I drink a lot of water, I drink hot lemon water, they help.
P: Maybe I should start running in the morning, maybe that will help relieve my temptation.
A: When you have a craving for carbonation so much, it might make you gain weight. That’s why I exercise and drink healthy instead, water, milk, I make my own juice. I even stay away from sugar, too. I use sweeteners like Truvia.
P: I can tell you the rules of it. I tried to limit myself to one. If I’m having a hard time waking up, if I’m hung over, it’s two. If I'm having a really disgruntled morning, it's two. I'm on my second can today (holds up a can of Diet Coke). I’m about to have a baby so maybe all the rules will get thrown out and I’ll have multiple. We’ll see, I might be at a half a case in a month. Who knows?
A: Alright Patrick, it’s nice to having you with us. I thank god you were here on time, although I apologize for the hectic week I’ve been having.
😎 MANY FLAVORS OF THIS LEGENDARY DRINK 😎
Melanie Martin gives advice to artist and Summertime intern Olive Hayes over Zoom about what pairs best with Diet Coke and its many flavors.
From Olive to Melanie: (4:01 PM)
Melanie, I’m curious — What goes best with Diet Coke?
From Melanie to Olive: (4:02 PM)
well, almost anything!! ❤️💛💚💙💜
probably pasta, chicken and salad! 🍗🍝
From Olive to Melanie: (4:03 PM)
What’s the best time to drink a Diet Coke?
From Melanie to Olive: (4:05 PM)
the best time would be anytime, though soda would give us acne
🍪🍩🍿🍰😂💔
😭😭
🌹🌼🌸🌺
From Olive to Melanie: (4:07 PM)
Do you prefer Pepsi or Coke?
From Melanie to Olive: (4:08 PM)
I remember one slogan: “just for the taste of it!” 💗🌠🍁
I would like both! 🕉☯️♈️💟
probably in the summertime...along with other drinks!
😘🏝😍💕🌤🤗😱🏖🏝🎡🎢🏜🎠
Diet Coke would go well with: TV dinners, pizzas, hot summer days, road trips, trail mixes, fast food, in movie cinemas, with ice cream...and so much more!
😊💚⛱🍣🎂🌎🍿🌤🌧☃️💦💧⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💥⚗️💈
From Melanie to Olive: (4:16 PM)
there are so many flavors of this legendary drink! 🤓🤓😘😕
for me, a Diet Coke float would be super-great! 🍰🍭🐬😋💞🌁
🐬😋💞🌁
🦄🐞
you can create almost anything with Diet Coke, but new Coke was a long-ago disaster! 😱😱🔫🔫
From Olive to Melanie: (4:20 PM)
If you could describe Diet Coke only using emojis, what emojis would you use
From Melanie to Olive: (4:22 PM)
🌉🐝🐰🐺
that would be soda cans and fountain cups! 🎭😊🐞🏖🍟
🐻🐤🐍🕸🐅🐳
From Melanie Martin to Everyone: (4:25 PM)
my advice would be, “be careful with your diet cokes and have fun with them.🍫 with a little imagination...you can do almost anything!” 😚🏕💓🦄🍜🌮🌯🍝😁
also, in the Covid crisis, don’t forget to wear masks...whenever possible! 😃☪️🎀💘🌠🐋⚗️💈
I can’t wait to have fun with them! ❤️😎🦄🙏🏼🐹🕶
my final thought: “enjoy doing what you love...because you’re all god-gifted!”
🌖🌗🌘🌏🌈☀️
⛈🌩🌨⛅️☁️🍀🐾🎄
😂😇😍😏🌻🖼🌈
❤️❤️🌈🌈
🌏🌏🌏
💐🌸🌺🌼🌻🌹🍄🍁🍂
🌦❄️🌩🌥☁️🐉🌲🌲☘️⛺️🏜🎡🎠🏰
❤️💛💚💜💙💙💚💚💛
❤️💛💚💙💜
MORE OF A MOUNTAIN DEW GUY
Priscilla interviews artist Rick Fleming alongside Sage Studio founders Lucy Gross and Katie Stahl about how a Diet Coke can made from shipping tube ended up at The Outsider Art Fair.
Priscilla: Hello Sage Crew, I’m excited to talk to you about Diet Coke!
Rick: I love Coke and Mountain Dew.
Priscilla: What do you love about those sodas, Rick? Give me your pitch!
R Dew makes me really awake. It gets my body moving! *Does a dance.*
P: Have you ever tasted Diet Coke? What do you think it tastes like?
R: It has bubbles. It goes ttttttssssshhhh!
Lucy: Are you saying that Diet Coke explodes?
R: Don’t shake it!
P: Very true. A lesson that I have not yet totally learned in my years of being on this earth. And Lucy, how long have you loved Diet Coke?
L: Too long! I think I started drinking Diet Coke when I was 12.
P: What exactly do you love about Diet Coke?
L: Well, what is there not to love? Aside from its possible medical side effects. Unlike Rick, I do drink Diet Coke in the evenings sometimes. And I have been known to keep 12 packs of Diet Coke in my car. I live in Texas, so sometimes I’ll even drink a hot Diet Coke. I think Diet Coke tastes best out of a can or a fountain. I don’t love bottled Diet Coke, but in a pinch, I can make it work.
P: Katie, what is your opinion on Diet Coke?
Katie: I also went through a Diet Coke phase where I drank more Diet Cokes than I care to admit. I don’t know if they still have it but I was very into Cherry Vanilla Diet Coke. It was delicious. But I have not had a Diet Coke in probably 10 years.
L: Katie will once in a while get a Sprite as a treat. I have figured out Katie and Rick’s soda habits over the 8 years that we’ve worked together.
K: I think the interesting thing about Lucy is, she treats Diet Coke like coffee. Whenever we travel together, I am astonished by her desire to find a Diet Coke at like 8 in the morning.
P: Do you drink coffee too?
L: I don’t. Like Rick said, it gets my body moving! My day job is teaching special education for students who are 18-22 and I have a pretty strict no soda rule until lunch for them. So I have to pound my Diet Coke before they get there and hide the evidence so they don’t know my dirty secret.
K: When we were all in New York together at the Outsider Art Fair, it was a delicate dance trying to keep both Lucy and Rick on schedule with their soda consumption.
L: We spent quite a bit of our budget on soda at the Outsider Art Fair. Those sodas weren’t cheap! Don’t you think Rick?
P: Do you have an estimate of your fair soda budget?
L: Probably $20 a day for Rick and I.
P: Rick, I love this Diet Coke soda can that you’ve created. Tell me about how you got the idea.
R: I made it.
P: How did you first know you wanted to create a Diet Coke can of your own? Do you remember?
R: Coke and D-E-W.
L: I bet you saw this but Rick wrote little endorsements of each soda on the cans he made. Coke said “gets my body moving,” Mountain Dew says, “I love it.” His only endorsement of Diet Coke said “Lucy love.”
P: Did Lucy put you up to this piece, Rick?
L: I think Rick put me up to buying it. It then became very clear that this was a piece that was sort of targeted.
P: Rick, what materials did you use for the piece? What is it made out of? Is it a real can under there?
L: Katie’s husband cut a shipping tube and we used cardboard from the inside of a rug.
P: It looks very convincing! And what did you use to write on the can?
R: Paint marker.
P: Did you make this at home or in the studio? Where were you?
R: In the studio with Katie and Lucy.
P: Do you have any memories of making the piece? Did anything funny happen while you were making it? Was there any part that was difficult or hard?
R: It was normal.
P: Which of the soda cans that you made was your favorite?
R: Root beer.
P: Root beer is my favorite soda! So how did it feel when you found out the piece would be going to New York for the Outsider Art Fair? Was that exciting?
R: It was frozen, yuck!
P: It was cold. Way too cold.
R: Walking on the ice makes me fall. Wooooahhh! Oof.
K: Rick came to every day of the fair. He put in some serious fair hours which was impressive.
P: Had you been to New York before Rick?
R: Yeah.
P: What do you think of the city?
R: It’s a really big state. Woo!
P: How did it feel to show off your Diet Coke can at the fair? Do you like talking to new people about your work?
R: With these two ladies!
P: Were they good travel companions?
R: They make me laugh.
P: Do you have any special memories from the fair or that trip?
R: Lucy…
L: You think I stole your memories?
R: Yup.
L: Can I share a memory Rick and maybe it will make you think of it?
R: Uh huh.
L: Remember when you met the star of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit?
R: That’s right.
P: Mariska?! (Hargitay.)
L: My husband was very excited about David Byrne, but I was all about Mariska. She’s the Diet Coke of celebrities for me.
P: A very apt comparison.
K: Rick, I remember when you and Lucy were walking, probably to get a soda from the snack bar, and someone ran over to you and recognized you from Instagram and was a big fan of your work.
P: You’re a celeb!
R: Eh.
L: This is Rick’s general energy which I really admire and was good to have at the fair. Katie and I would get kind of nervous when there are so many people. Rick is cool as a cucumber all the time. Even when people are fawning over him or complimenting him, he’s like, yeah yeah, my stuff is great. You’re a very confident artist.
P: I know Lucy is now the owner of this Diet Coke masterpiece. Rick, how did the sale go down? How did it feel to sell the piece?
L: What are you going to do with all your money?
R: I’m gonna spend it.
P: What’s your favorite way to celebrate when you sell an artwork?
R: Dinner!
P: Where do you like to go?
R: Bush’s Chicken. Bak bak bak (chicken noises)
K: Every time Rick sells a piece he says he’s going to take us out to dinner.
P: Has it happened?
K: It hasn’t happened yet! Still waiting!
P: Rick, how has it been making art at home while we’re all stuck in quarantine?
R: The virus.
P: Have you been able to keep making work even though because of the virus we can’t be in the studio?
R: We moved.
P: I heard! Congratulations. I’m going to have to come visit.
R: Lucy, don’t make me come over there and hug you.
L: That’s Rick’s greatest threat. Don’t make me come over there and hug you.
P: Rick, if you could create the perfect drink or the perfect soda, what would it be like?
R: Beer.
Rick’s mom: You don’t drink beer!
L: Sometimes at an opening, Katie and I will have a beer or a glass of wine and Rick will always tell us about how bad we smell. He says we smell like whiskey.
R: Bad breath!
P: Rick, do you think you’ll ever make another Diet Coke artwork or are your Diet Coke days behind you?
R: Behind me.
P: What are you working on now?
R: *Pulls out a tote bag with a drawing of Nick Cave.*
P: I love how his skin is pink!
L: He’s been getting requests for a lot of morose male songwriters. Like Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Robert Smith, Bauhaus.
P: When you’re drawing one of these portraits do you look up a photo or draw from memory? How does it work?
L: When people commission a bag they will send a photo and we will screenshare it over Zoom.
K: Since we’ve been at home, Rick has been doing these tote bag commissions. At first he was only going to do 10 but people keep asking for them and he’s having fun doing them. So, he’s open for commissions.
P: Rick, Lucy, and Katie, do you have any final words to share with the readers of the Double Scoop?
L: The reason SAGE exists in a lot of ways is because Katie and I were such big fans of Rick. Even though we weren’t working at the studio where we met him, we really wanted an excuse to hang out with him again. Rick has always been one of our favorite artists of all time. When SAGE started, Rick was our only artist for a little while, and it was just a way to trick him into hanging out with us!
THE DARK SIDE OF DIET COKE
Manny Mattei boldly says what so many are afraid to, candidly sharing his experiences with "that nasty soda!"
I have so many experiences drinking Diet Coke! I was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and I wanted something to drink that didn’t have sugar!
One day, I went to the store and I was looking for something to drink with my sandwich! I notice that this bottle was staring at me! It was Diet Coke.
I was really excited to buy it! I bought the Diet Coke and went home to drink it with my sandwich that I bought!
I finally arrived at home and decided to have lunch! I opened my sandwich and the Ciet Coke!
The taste of the soda tasted nasty!
I was so sad that it tasted that way!
The sandwich was pretty good!
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THE DOUBLE SCOOP TEAM
Everette Ball, Anel Jean Baptiste, Jr., Mary T. Bevlock, Heydi De Los Santos, Priscilla Frank, Russell Janzen, Melanie Martin, Manny Mattei, Anna Schechter, Jimmy Tucker, Larry Willoughby, Maria Ylvisaker + Olive Hayes
DRAWING + SCULPTURE CREDITS
Diet Coke, Bernie Kaminski
The Double Scoop Logo, Everette Ball
The First Diet Coke Introduction, 1982, Anel Jean Baptiste, Jr.
Diet Coke Film Enterprises (no.1), Anel Jean Baptiste, Jr.
Diet Coke Film Enterprises (no. 2), Anel Jean Baptiste, Jr.
Diet Coke Film Enterprises (no. 3), Anel Jean Baptiste, Jr.
The Double Scoop News in Diet Coke Logo Form, Anel Jean Baptiste, Jr.
Pouring the Diet Coke, Melanie Martin
Trixie the Winged Diet Coke Can, Melanie Martin
Rick Fleming Soda Cans, Rick Fleming (courtesy of Sage Studio)
A Tale of 2 Cokes, Larry Willoughby
Diet Coke is Sugar and You Can't Have It and If You Want to Have It, Go Ahead and Take It, Mary T. Bevlock
Ice Cream Cone, Everette Ball