Hope That Something Pure Can Last

This is what they will play for you on your deathbed, like the old man in Soylent Green watching the film of flowers before he's wheeled into the processor to become snack crackers. (Did I lose you, kids? Look it up.)

Indie band Arcade Fire, in cooperation with "some friends from Google," have showcased the capabilities of HTML5 with director Chris Milk through the website The Wilderness Downtown. Type in the address of a childhood home (or any address for that matter) and wait a bit. Provided you grew up in a suburb, the film will aptly reflect the title of the band's latest release, The Suburbs. (Is there something about Canadian bands and their obsession with subdivisions? "Any escape might help to smooth the unattractive truth," I suppose. Look it up.)

Having moved around quite a lot as a child, I watched it several times using different addresses. The birds cast shadows over your neighborhood and the running child can be seen from the birds' view on high, running down your old street. As he/she spins on the wet asphalt, the scene in front of your old house begins to spin. It's like a dream, honestly, up to the point where the film asks you to write a letter to your childhood self, which I found to be an overwrought stretch. I was enjoying a journey, not looking for a therapy session.

The video, as far as I can tell, is only viewable in Google's Chrome browser, and it's a little clunky. Even still, it's worth it. But believe the warning: "This film is processor intensive. Please shut down other programs and close unnecessary browser tabs. Doing this will enhance your viewing experience. Thanks."

Is it a clever promotion for Google's Chrome, still slow to be adopted after two years? Is it a smart publicity piece for Arcade Fire's new music? Is it a showcase for the capabilities of HTML5? Yes, yes and yes. What's more, it's a hauntingly beautiful piece of art, it's a good (and catchy, damnit) song, it's an unexpected trip into your childhood, and the lyrics recall an innocence that will make you nostalgic for the time before "the flashing lights settled deep in your brain."

Via

Guy Who Played Earl, Fiona Apple, Grateful to National Hurricane Center

Fictitious Punk Band's Fake Album Cover

The artwork of the indie album cover went through a phase that was as simple as the music. This took all of ten minutes. I'd listen to it based on the name of the band alone.

Tapewriter font and brown paper bag background mandatory.

Unhappy Hipsters of Yesteryear

Bobby tried to summon the demons of his nightmares from the fire, asking that they curse his family.

I love the blog Unhappy Hipsters for the great captions, but I will confess I am a huge fan of most of the architecture they mock daily. And Paleo Future is another great blog I've only recently come across, where I found this picture (click for large) from the Sunday comics section of an old Chicago Tribune. The copy describes a future in which we will record TV shows. And TVs that will produce images in three dimensions. Dad is watching just such a show. Mom is reclined on a chair with headphones on, lost in some crazy future-jazz. Little Sally is pulling a book off the Electronic Home Library shelf, the contents of which are being projected onto the family's ceiling. Not a bad set of predictions from 1959.

And the other thing this comic got right was the isolation such technology would bring about. Everyone walks around today with their earbuds in, not speaking, lost in their own entertainment. Texting at the dinner table, connected at all times.

Little Bobby is the unhappy hipster in the above scene, gazing into the fire, remembering how it used to be when they did stuff together as a family, nostalgic for the life he's never known, one not overrun with gadgets and noise.

I'm seeing a lot of articles lately about the dangers of being connected full-time. The authors suggest such remedies as "unplugging" for a weekend. Or they create a "day of fasting" from Facebook, as one pastor recommended recently in a transparent effort to create more press for his thriving Megachurch, the better to be seen by "the world" as a hip, relevant church. 

The problem gets talked about plenty, that of the over-connected society, but the solutions offered all seem gimmicky and temporary to me. What good is a day away from the technology if you're just jumping back in on Monday again fully connected, and likely more so than usual since you missed out on so much over the weekend? That's like taking a day off from binge-drinking. So I guess it's time for me to once again "unveil" a program I created about eight years ago. My program suggests you set aside a space where "connecting" is simply not tolerated. I call it the MediaFreeZone™.

It's a very simple program and will only require you to be a little disciplined to make it work. The details are here. Granted, the MediaFreeZone™ may end up being a room in your house no one wants to ever be in, but I think it's worth a shot.

Lemme Get All NPR On You

I took that little story about my neighbors and recorded it. I suppose my delivery isn't "hypnotic" enough by NPR standards, but here it is anyway. (Probably doesn't show up in RSS, so you have to go to the site.)

The Presidential Vacation Collection

They say he jets around too much, playing golf and looking unconcerned. I don't really have an opinion on that yet, but I do know the addition of a cricket jacket to any man's wardrobe is a sure ticket to what the English used to call "dashing," provided you actually play cricket and you're not just some fashion-y douche, in which case, wear it with your manpris.

I think I'll try to help J. Peterman move some late summer sale items. These and other bargains now available at the Fall Last Chance Sale.

Let Me Introduce You to My Neighbors

Being a home-bound unemployed guy with sporadic freelance opportunities, I have developed a routine that keeps me outdoors a lot, able to observe my neighbors as I ride a bike or take or walk or work in the yard in between searching for work online. Not that I really know too many of them, being the typical American neighbor that I am. I think this would make a good NPR monologue. I'll deliver it to the first station that requests it. 

We'll start at the top of the street with the couple I call the Washed-Up Porn-Stars because they're super-tan and manicured and super-fit but a little too much for their ages. Then we move on down to the white-haired guy who's always crouched down picking at weeds but his yard always looks like crap no matter how many hours he spends out there in his too-short shorts, cigarette dangling from his lip. He lives not very far from the English couple; she runs a house-cleaning service and he had a Quizno's for a little while and I recently got some really good computer peripherals at their garage sale. We'll bypass the gated community that recently shut their gates full-time because they were tired of people like me using their exclusive circle for a bike or jogging path. Over on your left you'll see the home of the NBC affiliate's lead anchor who can always be seen jogging nearly naked against traffic in nothing but some silky shorts. His wife works for Fed-Ex and she comes home at lunch to walk their Golden Retriever while talking on her phone. Coming up ahead is the home of the couple who I think were the models for the classic painting "American Gothic," and they are just as dour now as they were when they posed for Grant Wood back in 1930. Not much can make them smile, except I suppose the Greyhounds they enjoy rescuing, but their recent one doesn't like bikes and I have to be careful when riding by him because he thinks I'm something he should chase, years of Greyhound racing making him think that anything moving is a mechanical rabbit. Up ahead is Abe who walks this little one-mile loop at least nine times around every day. He told me so when we passed one day. He's a foreign currency trader and takes meetings on his phone during his walks. I once heard him cussing out an employee very loudly and expressing how deeply fucking disappointed he was in their performance and how the fuck could they have done what they did and what the fuck were they thinking. Here is the family that loves Mustangs. They have three mustangs from the mid-1980s, all the same year I'm pretty sure. Here's the cop's house. She is an Orlando cop. Up ahead and on the same side is the sheriff's deputy's house. It's nice to have cops and sheriffs on your street. There's the house that burned down a year ago. There's the home of the family who keeps lights on the palm trees in their front yard year-round. They don't turn them on, they just leave them up, wrapped around the trunks waiting for their special time come December. Oh, look! Speaking of December, it's Menorah Man! He erects in his yard every year at Hanukkah a gigantic menorah, tiki lamps serving as the candles. I think he was in a rock band because he used to have long hair that he dyed brown. It's easy to tell when a man dyes his hair because it always look lame. He was either in a rock band or maybe he played a knight at the Medieval Dinner Theatre thing down by Disney. Either way he must not be doing it anymore because now his hair is short and grey. Here's the home of the Realtor lady. (Did you know you have to capitalize Realtor?) Her slogan is "I Move Houses." She also loves her Boxer dog and has a flag on the front of the house with a picture of her dog on it. Her husband is her helper and he goes around putting the "for-sale" signs on the lawns of the homes she's listed. I know this because his truck is always packed with for-sale signs. There's the dude who builds pools. When things are bad, like right now, he cleans pools. He told me he cleans Dwight Howard's pool twice a week. On Halloween he takes his kids around the loop while he pulls a wagon-load of beer. I'm going to ask him if I can join him this Halloween. And now we're coming around to my house. I'm probably known by the people on my street who don't know me as "the guy who's been home a lot these past few months."

Breathe: It Will All Be Over Tomorrow

Tomorrow is primary day here in Florida, and perhaps some street corners and medians will be cleaned of campaign signs, the airwaves will be cleaned of lying, misleading ads, and Rick Scott will go back to doing what he does best, running the most successful Medicare fraud operation in history.

Here's Ricky's latest banner ad, labeling the Ground Zero Mosque, "Obama's." Nice.

I Was Wrong About This Guy

A long time ago I gave Dennis Miller a hard time. I still believe that the "Just For Men" thing in the beard was bad and made him look like a Saudi royal walking through a flowerbed holding hands with George W. Bush, but I have adjusted my views on his talents. I thought of Miller in the same way you think of a washed-up rock act that turns to country music because it's easy money; kind of like what Skynyrd is doing hanging around with Hannity. I thought, "Oh, failed comedian turns to the right wing for an audience that will lap up some easy jokes and give him a paycheck."

He didn't work out on Monday Night Football, where his obscure cultural references and intellectually-tinged asides were lost on his co-hosts and most of the audience. He didn't work out in his own late-night TV talk show. So it seemed like Dennis was grabbing for whatever he could when he showed up as a right-leaning talk-radio host.

But I've been listening to him every day during "exercise time" on the Blowflex out in the garage, and the guy - as he himself might say - "has some chops." He still has that funny habit of referring to men as "cats" and addressing women as "doll-face," but those idiosyncrasies are as endearing as they are goofy and they're part of the Miller shtick. What makes his show unique is that he (for the most part) refuses to tow the party line. He still comes from a conservative POV and is as critical as any pundit on the right of the administration and its allies in Congress, but he won't do the knee-jerk thing, and more importantly, he doesn't stoop to the demonizing rhetoric so popular among his right-side cohorts like Hannity, Crowley, Levin, Ingraham, Savage, Beck, Bortz or Limbaugh. I think that's because he's smarter than them and can actually think through an issue or the daily talking point issued by the spin firm of Gingrich, Rove & Associates. What's more, he hasn't lost the cutting-edge humor that made him popular years ago on SNL. He's almost like a Jon Stewart for the right, where politics and entertainment meet at that great intersection called comedy. 

There need to be more Dennis Millers. He can make you think, and he will engage someone with an opposing viewpoint without calling them names or labeling them insane. It's a shame his show isn't more popular. It sure should be.

Be The Biggest Dork in Town

With TV Hat.

Delusions of Courtroom and Senate Victories

In addition to running for Senate, Ronnie is fighting a bitter custody battle against Nikkii, the mother of his youngest children, the twins Dakota and Dillon. He is convinced that the creation embedded below, using some of his niece's toys, will win the day in court. In Ronnie's words:

"This dude from Hotlanta made some badass music that I put on my custody video for the judge that will majorly seal my case solid as a airtight rock. No judge will be able to resist this it is so powerful now. It is very moving and will bring you to tears so watch out. Damn this is badass. If you want him to make music to put on your stuff just send him a note his name is fred leo and his site is fredleo.com"

The character develops. How far I haven't a clue. I may drop him like a rock tomorrow, deeming him too similar to Kenny Powers. One friend on Twitter suggested Ronnie had come out of character by playing with Barbies. But Ronnie will do anything to beat Nikkii, as evidenced by his heroically distorted retelling of that horrible Sunday morning.





Ronnie will be releasing some Senate campaign commercials outlining his positions, "As soon as these losers decide whos out and whos in so I can whip some ass and not mess around with the third string punks who will lose in round one."

No Two Alike

I like to dabble. Today I will be a T-shirt designer. I can see a day when we will all just advertise ourselves 24/7. You'll have your Twitter handle on the back of your car as a bumper sticker. And this will be called the Twit Shirt. You can wear your own customized Twit Shirt to that social media conference, around the office, or if you're very daring and don't mind stalkers, out on the town late at night. Aren't we all becoming branded anyway?

(If there's an entrepreneurial sort out there who wants to jump on this with me and make a few bucks selling Twit Shirts, my Twitter name is right there on my Twit Shirt. I hope you have a giant T-shirt factory that can print single-order T-shirts at a profit.)

Engaged In a Conversation

UPDATE: Stuart was kind enough to send me an email and I have since removed his last name from this post. Seems he outsourced a link-building project on a freelance board and was surprised to find the guy who took the job was not playing by the rules.

I hate the guys that comment on blogs like this:

"Cold air is certainly a relative term, but a name brand cold air intake is engineered to retrieve the air from the coolest part of your engine compartment. Cooler air has more oxygen by volume and therefore ignites better which turns into to increased power." - Stuart [last name redacted]

So I sent them a note on their "Contact Us" form.

Hey, Intake Systems:

Not sure if you have a guy named Stuart working for you in the area of "online presence management," but he's spamming my blog in your name.

Please see here: http://wheresmyjetpack.blogspot.com/2010/08/well-stop-when-someone-sues-meantime-we.html

I will let slide his grammatical error at the end of the comment, but you'll note that his comment has absolutely NOTHING to do with my blog post and is of the haphazard copy/paste variety that annoys people to no end. This is not a good marketing technique and anyone who told you it was is feeding you a line. If they are an outside agency, you should fire them now.

We have come to expect these tactics from Third World operators of foreign currency exchange sites, Costa Rican real estate developers and (in the old days) Russian pornographers, but I'm sure that an upstanding auto supply specialist such as Intake Systems does not want to be associated with such practices. You're doing well in other areas: you've got the requisite articles stuffed full of keywords and opportunities for people to "like" those articles on Facebook or share them on Twitter, but you have to tell Stuart to knock off the blog spam.

I see your headquarters is in Ocala, not too far from where I live north of Orlando. Go Gators!

I have a good rule of thumb for you when questioning whether or not an online marketing practice is a good one or a questionable one: Ask yourselves, "What would Tebow do?"

Don't make Tebow sad.

Thanks,

Dave

PS: Since you chose to "engage in a conversation" (as your marketing genius likely told you to) I will continue that conversation now over at my blog. See here: http://wheresmyjetpack.blogspot.com/2010/08/engaged-in-conversation.html

Sunday Morning Coming Down

"It was raining." A Hemingway sentence if ever there was one. So I shot it and slowed it down and put some edited Aaron Sprinkle guitar piece on it. It was meant to be a moody, lazy, Sunday kind of thing, sort of a hypnotic, peaceful, contemplative piece. It has been reviewed by dwellers of Casa de Jetpacks thusly:

"Why don't you just shoot yourself in the head and get it over with!"

Man, some people just don't get art.


Blue Rain from Radio Free Babylon on Vimeo.

Leave A Little Mystery

The summer weather reminded me of this old post from about three years ago. I get this song stuck in my head a little every summer, which is kind of cool since no one knows the tune but me.

Riverbend Dead End - 7/17/07 - 2:15 PM

You Do The Math

From the album Telegraph Canyon

Every afternoon at about this time
for a month
it’s been raining
The afternoon scattered shower
the kind that lasts until the end of rush hour
It’s like something's saying
take it easy
It’s like someone saying
take it slow

The straight and narrow’s got a couple twists
The straight and narrow bends just a little
The cloud ceiling’s pretty high
Is that some water in your eye?
What chance we’re slippin' from the path?
The odds are slim – you do the math

Every evening at about this time
for a month
the sun shines
3-D clouds under a crystal blue dome
No matter where you are you’re home
It’s like something's saying
take it easy
It’s like someone saying
take it slow

The straight and narrow’s got a couple twists
The straight and narrow bends just a little
The cloud ceiling’s pretty high
You got some water in your eye
What chance we’re slippin’ off the path?
The odds are slim – you do the math

Ravioli on The Grill

Ronnie the landscaper reveals that's it not all party-time, firecrackers and chasing chicks in his latest video. The character is getting dark, but you'd be too if one of the exes you're in a custody battle with showed up at the last minute with two of your six kids so she could go out with her new man in his "gay-ass, punked-out Monte Carlo."

Ronnie doesn't care much about production values, making his videos pretty simple to produce, but I may have to break down and buy the poor bastard a wireless mic.



Ronnie would like you to be his friend on Facebook. You may also follow him on Twitter. He will only stalk you if you're hot. Ronnie's definition of "hot" is pretty much defined by what he would do to get to know you. For instance, if you heard him say, "I'd suck the dick of the dog that pissed on the tire of the car that took her dirty underwear to the laundromat," you probably qualify as Super-Hot. And of course Ronnie has a blog where he expounds on subjects such as polygamy, tattoos, church, and tries to get Will Ferrell to co-star in his movie.

Ronnie says he is available for brand/product endorsements or for speaking to groups of students about "the importance of education or some shit."

Ronnie owes his existence to Humongo.

A Picture. A Thousand Words.

Having just completed a freelance assignment wherein I had to edit and organize a 24-page brochure, (I overestimated my time at 12 hours and delivered in a mere four, once again failing to master the subtle art of milking a job) I am now in need of a writing exercise. So I will write exactly 1000 words about the image found within the text below.


Back in the old days, there was apparently some sort of union of beer makers that promoted the general consumption of beer - any American beer - so long as you drank beer. Their true and main purpose was lobbying. They kept pressure on Congress to limit the taxation of beer. Like any good lobbying organization, they kept their constituency riled up for the fight. “Beer is your right. It is your God-given inheritance as a freeman of these great United States. You should enjoy it in health, just as Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams did.” (Historical note: It is said that none other than George Washington would ply voters with “strong beer.”)

The Association would place full-page ads in popular periodicals showing how much better life is when you have plenty of beer on hand. The organization operated much like the American Dairy Association, which doesn’t care what brand of milk you drink, just please support the dairy industry. The brewers were a cooperative lot in those days. During World War I, “the income tax replaced liquor taxes as the primary source of federal revenue,” and after promoting their beverage for over a hundred years - with a brief intermission during Prohibition - the Association disbanded in 1986. So apparently we can thank the lobbying efforts of this organization for limiting taxes on beer, but giving the government nowhere else to turn but to your income for money. That thought saddens me, making me want to drink a lot of beer right now.

This ad from the Association, apparently from the 1950s, gives us a whole lot to look at, with plenty of suggestions as to what is transpiring during this magical afternoon in a suburban garden that has been interrupted by a sudden spring shower. Like many great illustrations of that period, it tells a story, making you look deeper, inviting you to draw your own conclusions and assign your own roles to the players.

1) “Let’s just sit awhile.” The copy suggests that the beer said that. I doubt it. One of these two middle-aged planters uttered that phrase as the rain came down.

2) The “blocks of primary colors” style of décor, popular in the day, suggests that whoever lives here, likely the woman, is a person of taste, up with the times, her off-the-patio gardening room a pre-Ikea shrine to fastidious organization.

3) The illustrator has added what appear to be some cryptic writing and a drawing above the hanging yard implements in the gardening room. This is probably a hidden message known only to him and the copywriter. (I say “him” only because men dominated the field in those days.)

4) This last block of copy is awesome, making no bones about its call to action: “Wouldn’t you like a refreshing glass of beer or ale – say, right now?” Stop what you’re doing and go get some beer!

5) It was no oversight on the part of the artist not to include a wedding band on the woman. This is meant to intrigue you, leaving you to wonder why a woman of her age is not married. Divorced? Widowed? A professional who hasn’t wanted to “settle down” yet, despite all her sorority sisters having done so a decade and a half ago? You make your own story.

6) It has been raining long enough that the wheelbarrow is overflowing with water. Either this little party has been going on for some time or this is a freak storm that the couple isn’t really freaking out about.

7) Jim, or Ted, or Mike or Jack - some generic Anglo name of the day – is making it clear that he’s had a tough day and this beer is really what he needed, and perhaps a shoulder rub, if the lady would be so kind as to please take the hint.

8) Again, we are promoting any beer – green bottle, brown bottle, labels facing away from us – doesn’t matter, just drink any American beer. The lady keeps plenty of varieties on hand for occasions such as this.

9) I am not positive, but a tight zoom-in on the man’s wristwatch seems to indicate that the little hand is on the 12, big hand about 10 past. As long as it’s after noon, it’s beer time. Quit thinking of 5:00 PM as the time to drink. That was meant for wine and spirits. We’re talking beer here. Besides, this is probably Saturday or Sunday and you can have beer for breakfast on those days.

10) Again, the couple has been out here for some time, the cheese starting to curl and brown in the heat. They are too involved in this beer-drinking respite to have even bothered eating the cheese and crackers.

11) Sanitation be damned. These folks are in a party mood. They will throw caution to the wind and lay their dirty implements and gloves on the table with the cheese and crackers. They will also likely forgo the use of birth control later.

12) In order to be able to read the copy, the illustrator was asked not to color in the feet and the area under the table. Today they would just dial back the opacity or desaturate this section of the photograph, but this style shows you the art behind the work and was a trendy technique used by many illustrators of the period.

13) The drinking couple are getting flirtatious, her foot under his chair. And while we can’t see his left foot, it would appear from here that it is under her right knee, likely touching. Beer helps subordinate the inhibitions, the social lubricant that can turn an afternoon of gardening into a rainy-day romp in the sheets.

14) “America’s Beverage of Moderation” was how they used to say “Drink Responsibly.” I like their version better because it’s far more subtle and undemanding.

15) A nice little panel shows the American beer drinker that the brewers would prefer that you enjoy a foamy head on your beer. “Tastes even better that way!” Don’t tilt the glass.

(Word count: 1000)

Oh Yeah - Spirit Went There

Alert reader and friend of the blog Lucy sent me this email campaign being run presently by Spirit Airlines, who are always quick with a timely jab.

Update Those Social Media Widgets

Found on a Twin Cities Fox affiliate's site, one, perhaps two of these things doesn't belong here. We're slowly weeding out the also-rans and has-beens from the social media landscape. In the end there'll be a just a few players, so all you people out there dreaming up the next big "Sort of like Facebook, sort of like Twitter, but DIFFERENT!" app, please just stop now.

Take My Card

I've posted this before, but I'm putting it out there again for those who may not have taken one the last time I passed them out. You don't need my address, my office phone number, my mobile phone number, my Linked-In profile, my resume, a cover letter, a fax number, my title or any of the other antiquated bits of information people are still putting on their business cards. Twitter about does it anymore. What's that? You want to see a portfolio? My blog or my Twitter stream are now my portfolio. There are over 1800 entries on this blog, some of them not bad. I am available for work anywhere on earth. And I recently got a passport if you still feel the need to do that whole "meet in person" thing. It's pretty and blue and sits safely in a strongbox, the combination of which I will struggle to remember should the time come.

Some services have not been listed. Offer subject to change without notice. Respondents must be at least 18 years of age as of 8/11/10. Not valid with any other offer. Void where prohibited by law.

What Does JetBlue Do With This?

AdFreak poses the question.

I say you don't miss out on a golden opportunity like this. Hire the guy back - in fact - post his bail, pay for his attorney and put him in charge of training flight attendants. 28 years on the job? Obviously he knows his way around a plane. Then you use him in a campaign.

He's enjoying worldwide support right now. JetBlue might as well ride his coattails down that evacuation slide.

The Tarts of New York

It is a common cry among New Yorkers, even those who haven't been there very long, "Our city has become an amusement park, a cultural wasteland, a squeaky clean tourist trap thanks to Giuliani, who got rid of our beloved hookers and gangs and addicts and cleaned our once unique streets that flowed deep with human urine. What does a guy have to do to get mugged in this town anymore? Where is the grit, the grime, the EDGE, the LIFE? The people dressed in plastic bags, directing traffic?"

Even if a guy like me is to avoid gaudy Times Square and opt for a pilgrimage to St. Mark's Place, I later read that even that is a "benign tourist stop." Guilty. I guess it's not the "real" New York, whatever that is anymore. Where is that fabled place where an Anthony Bourdain could get fake punk cred because he did cocaine with one of the Ramones?

To put the knife in the belly of the once glorious whore and finish her off, along comes Kellogg's, who will open Pop-Tarts World today in Times Square. Granted, Pop-Tarts are cool, but I don't think this is the kind of cool old-school New Yorkers long for.

I know, they gave up on Times Square years ago. It is the very symbol of what they lament. Glitz, kitsch and schmaltz with a bunch of putzes wandering about, looking at the sky and getting in the way of people who know how to walk in the city. New Yorkers long ago ceded Times Square to the merchants of overwrought specialty stores and the idiots from other places. "Disneyfication," they call it.  (People around here lay claim to that term and they're no different from longing-for-the-old-days New Yorkers. If you can find a "native" of Central Florida, they'll tell you how great this place was "Before the Mouse." They'll go on about the lost citrus groves and the blue skies free of planeloads of Midwestern tourists being ferried to The Kingdom. But I suspect they wouldn't want to turn the clock back too far, to the time before AC, when living in Florida was a severe adventure for only the rugged and daring, an uncomfortable place except a few months in winter. They dream of that short, Mad Men-era window between 1960 and 1970, post-AC and pre-Disney.) 

But beyond all that - let's look at this move on the part of Kellogg's. A store devoted entirely to Pop-Tarts? That is crazy. Crazy smart. I don't care who you are or where you come from, there is likely a 95% chance that you have a favorite type of Pop-Tart. I'm partial to strawberry. And I even prefer the ones without frosting. Heated in the toaster. With a monster glass of milk. But I've been known on a late night sleepwalk to tear into even the weirder ones like chocolate chip cookie dough or s'mores, the pantry be damned for not locking itself.

Pop-Tarts are so universally loved that this isn't even a gamble on the part of Kellogg's; it's a shrine to an icon, and the people will make pilgrimage. I'd be willing to bet you'll even find a few old-school New Yorkers wandering in the place, nostalgic for their childhood pastry as much as they are for the city they remember.

Hey, Will Ferrell - A Little Shout Out Next Time?

In a recent Wired spread called "The Future That Never Happened," Will Ferrell does everything except shout "Where's My Jetpack?" proving how much he loves and appreciates my blog.

Mr. Ferrell, I know a guy named Ronnie who has a movie proposal for you.




Thanks to MMMMMMMMcDermott for the heads-up.

Found in Don Draper's Wastebasket (#3)

If you enjoy Mad Men and haven't seen last night's episode, consider it spoiled it if you read this. (Click for large.)

The Art Teacher

Click for large.

Original image from this brilliant collector of old stuff.

Stars Falling Hard

I came across the personal blogs of some of the principals of a formerly hot shop here in Orlando. You know the type: landed one or two big clients long ago and then staked it all on those relationships, going balls-to-the-wall building a cool office with trendy art and furniture throughout; got write-ups in the paper and the local magazines mostly about how cool their space was. Now they're also-rans, big clients long gone and a website "under construction."

I went to their website looking for a job but I left in disgust. That website was your basic "look at our awards, look at our work, see how cool we still are." Then they placed links on the side to their main bigshots' personal blogs. One guy was a designer with lots of links to design stuff. Another was more personal with links to his Facebook, Flickr, etc. And one guy had turned his blog into a series of copy and paste articles on things like bridal showers and health care, sprinkling each with links to small-time clients that had ZERO to do with the articles. Just random out-of-place sentences like "For the best flower selection in Toronto, you need Flowers a Go-Go." Followed by, "And reducing your salt intake will help lower your blood pressure." (Flowers-a-Go-Go not the real name. I'd link you to it, but it's just too sad and I don't want to throw more dirt on this guy's half-buried head.)

The point, I guess, is that here's an agency telling clients they do it all - and well. They're interactive geniuses, they're social media savvy, they will bring you stellar conversions and excellent ROI - and one of their principals is practicing borderline Blackhat SEO linked right to the agency website.

If the strategy sounds shady or the magic pill sounds too good to be true... you know the rest. Sadly, most people in this business are completely full of shit - and few are the ones who will tell you straight out, "This is a wild frontier out here now. What's hot today might be dead tomorrow. We'll strike out in many directions and some of them, frankly, are going to yield dust. (MySpace) We might strike gold, but we're going to do a lot of panning before we do. We're going to play it above the board. Hang with us and be patient. You won't be an overnight viral sensation, because your business is not Ray-Ban or Nike. We're going to try it all, even the damned Yellow Pages, and we might all be surprised by what we learn."

Original image is here.

Idiocracy

Original image here.

L&M Cigarettes. A Play in One Act

OK, I'm getting lost at this great collection of old ads and if I don't walk away from the keyboard this blog will become nothing but old ads with new dialog added to them, por ejemplo: 

Andreas, do you believe the soul lives in the captured image?

I have always said as much, Claudia. You know this.

And yet you have not followed your parents into the Amish way of life?

Were it not for their ban on smoking, it would be the way for me.

Alas.

Alas.

To Photocopiers!

Last week's Mad Men ended with the office Christmas Party, but they forgot one thing. Original image found at a Flickr stream I will be frequenting. (Click for larger)

You and 3 Other People Like This

We don't have to be bothered anymore leaving a comment. We don't even need to look at it that closely. We just have to let the person know that it meets our approval.

Jenny ran out of gas in front of a crack house and is being stared at by scary people.

Jim's dog died.

Erin is no longer in a relationship with Matt.


We're now casual observers, but we're all friends. And whatever you just said on Twitter or Facebook has already been buried by other updates from other people. You thought your comment was witty or wise, but you only got three "Likes" from your 746 "Friends". Or you shared a link with the world and hoped that your passion for miniature horses or naked hang-gliding would catch on. A few friends "liked" what you posted, but it's no big sensation. They're on to liking other things now. Here's my local NBC affiliate, hoping I will like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. 

I actually do follow WESH on Twitter, but only because they tweet the dumbest things a local "news" organization has ever tweeted and I like to make fun of them. I'm not about to "like" them on Facebook.

"Like" is so easy. It means you came, you saw, you clicked. But comments mean a whole lot more and convey at least that you took a moment to investigate the post, link, comment or thought. But who has time for that anymore? We've all got a feed overflowing with updates to catch up on and clicking "Like" will get us to the end faster. Until it fills up again.

What am I saying? I don't know. Maybe, "Slow down some," but that's like the out-of-touch newspaper columnist who bemoans all this texting and gadgetry and pines for the old days of telegrams and handwritten letters and sipping lemonade on the porch as we gather in the evening to reflect, recollect and connect. But I think the superficiality of Facebook is getting near a tipping point and a lot of those 500 million people are going to have had enough of it before long.

Facebook Pulp No. 4

OK, I think this little series can be retired now. Shark jumped.

Facebook Pulp No. 3

Facebook Pulp No. 2

We'll Stop When Someone Sues. Meantime, We SELL!

I Don't Do Foursquare

Matt McDermott has a nice piece today about Foursquare. I suppose the tool has plenty of purposes, but I don't feel the need.

Mario was many years Sophia's senior, but if anything, that age difference was a mark of his virility that caused him nearly to strut, as well as his old knees were capable of strutting, anyhow. There was something else hanging over him, something clouding their relationship, and until that evening he'd yet to put his bony, old finger on it.

He would finish his meal and call her a cab, giving her the same curt instructions he had delivered, it seemed to him, to far too many of the city's beautiful young women, "Don't call me. Don't drive by my house." 

He had learned to tolerate the sending and receiving of texts at the table. He had forgiven many times the phone conversations that interrupted their moments together. But she was now the Mayor of Salvatore's Ristorante on Foursquare, and he knew it was time to end the affair.  

Back to School! With Jesus!

Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out