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Category Archives: Art/Style/Culture
Fists getting airplay on BBC
A few months ago I received an email from a young man in the UK, asking permission to use a photo he found on my flickr for the cover art for his band’s new single (Cockatoo). I said sure and please keep in touch. And he did.
“The vinyl version of the single’s out now and is doing really well. The photo has certainly done it’s job and intrigued people. We’ve had lots of national airplay from the BBC and lots of new opportunities have been popping up all the time which is obviously very exciting.
We did a single launch in this big DIY arts space called The Arts Organisation in Nottingham. There was talk of doing a Steve Mays photo reel featuring a whole raft of the photo’s to be projected on walls and stuff but we didn’t have enough time in the end and felt that we’d be taking the piss a bit in terms of permission to use them.
Here’s 23 seconds of that show that somebody took on a phone (I’m the short guy wearing the black jacket and white T-shirt btw):
We’d love to send you some copies of the single in the post if you’d like. Posterity and all that. Let me know where to send them and we will. That said we certainly wouldn’t be offended if you’d rather we didn’t. Once again thanks for everything.”
James and all of Fists
Ah, to have my life become the backdrop for an edgy British pub band…
I’ve added the Fists blog to the sidebar for wonderful passages like this:
“…if you want to go on a slightly wrong night out then you should go to Wildside which is this once monthly cock/sleaze/glam rock revivalist night at Junktion 7 in Nottingham. It’s mostly filled wall-to-wall with dysfunctional hard rockers who get crazy drunk whilst getting emotional about it not being 1986 before dropping to their knees for an Eddie Van Halen solo and then disappearing into the toilets to have sex and drink Jack Daniel’s and fall out with each other due to fringe scene claustrophobia. It’s like going to a special zoo that houses dying musical sub-cultures and is one of my favourite nights out.”
Okay, but I like to be home no later than ten p.m.
TED Talk: Seth talks Tribes
Concrete Man (Director’s Cut)
Clarence Lee Sherrill and Crista Meyer sell concrete lawn ornaments. Their business is called Concrete Castings and they’re located on I-55 just north of Cape Girardeau, MO. I have a strange fascination with “yard art” and decided to scratch the itch on a recent trip down south.
Clarence and Crista work in a small, cluttered room heated by a big wood stove and covered in cement dust. Gazing in a large window was a magnificent peacock. I didn’t see Miss C, the camel that’s usually in a pen out front, and Clarence explained she was “visiting her boyfriend” but would return in a few days. Gotta be tough to breed camels in this country.
On a technical note, I shot the video with the Casio Exilim FC100, but the battery went dead on me. So I recorded a few minutes of audio on the iPhone and dropped in some stills. You’ll notice the change in audio quality.
Do I have a card? Why, yes I do.
Hugh MacLeod is a blogger who draws cartoons on business cards. And/or you can have cards made that feature one of his cartoons. Mine came in today. I can’t tell you how much more fun these are to give out than the official Learfield card.
Fez of Hope
Barb and I bought some souvenirs from street vendors while attending the inauguration. I kept thinking, “What I really want is an Obama fez,” not that I expected to find one.
This weekend I reached out to the Fezmonger himself and asked if he had considered making a commemorative fez. He politely explained that he had, but decided it would be exploitative. Besides, every Fez-o-rama fez is an original design.
Before giving up, I suggested I could make a contribution to his favorite charity. As luck would have it, March is when the Fezmonger participates in the 24 Hour Cancer Dance-a-thon to raise money for the City of Hope.
So for a contribution of $250 to a very worthy cause, I am the proud recipient of the very first Fez of Hope. (see photo). I like that Jason’s (treatment of the) design is bigger than the man. His design is more about what our new president represents.
Website make-over
We relaunched our corporate website today. Same content, just a fresh coat of digital paint provided by Caffeinated Studio in Dallas. Much thanks to Trent, Brad and Rob for the design and to Joel, Phil and Andy for all the under the hood stuff.
We’ll be fixing broken links and such for days but it’s it good to have finally thrown the switch. We ripped off the previous design from GE back when a company website wasn’t all that big a deal (“Yeah, sure, go ahead. As long as it doesn’t cost much.”)
Today our company has lots of web pages “out there.” Internet, intranet, extranet, blogs, etc etc. Thousands of pages. This “Internet thing” has caught on and I no longer have to sell the idea of the web et al. Even blogs and podcasts have become part of our company culture.
I used to say I was an EMT frantically giving CPR to the Internet patient in the back of the ambulance as it meandered toward the hospital. Today, our online patient is feeling much better. Drinking apple juice and watching Oprah. I’m so glad to see him feeling better.
Seth on art, love and money
Seth Godin puts his digital digit on why I would never put advertising on this blog (assuming anyone ever wanted to do so):
“Do your art. But don’t wreck your art if it doesn’t lend itself to paying the bills. That would be a tragedy.
And the twist, because there is always a twist, is that as soon as you focus on your art and leave the money behind, you may just discover that this focus turns out to be the secret of actually breaking through and making money.
Loving what you do is almost as important as doing what you love, especially if you need to make a living at it.”
Aeron Chair
My Aeron chair was waiting for me when I got back from a client meeting today. I expected a chair this expensive to be comfortable but when I put my toochis down on that mesh seat… aaaahhh. I knew my bottom was home.
The first thing I noticed was how much cooler it was. The next thing I “felt” was the quality construction. It had a solid feel the same way an expensive European car feels solid and well engineered.
I’ll play with the adjustments tomorrow but I can already tell this was a good investment.
The Denim Factory
In June I wrote about moving up a waist size in my Levis and lovingly packing away jeans I’ve had for 20 years. I didn’t think of them as “distressed,” rather just getting good and broke in. I would never buy jeans that were made and sold to look like you’d been wearing them for a long time. That’s just… just… just such a neocon thing to do.
But that should not diminish our appreciation for the men (and women?) who work so hard to make your jeans look like they once belonged to a cowboy.
Boing Boing points us to this photo essay (The Denim Factory) by David Friedman featuring a denim factory in Kentucky that specializes in distressing high-end jeans for a few top designers.
“I used to scoff at paying a premium for jeans that come with holes in them already. Then I saw just how much work goes into distressing jeans, and I realized that these people are artists. You can’t just have any loose threads, you have to have the right loose threads. They can’t just be faded. They have to be the right color. A lot of work goes into making these jeans look just right.”
We’re running low on cow shit! Somebody bring in another tub!