There was an article yesterday in the Chicago Tribune about an influx of black youth from the South and West sides heading into Boys Town to party. Problem is they tend to get mistaken for the thugs who go there to cause problems. Naturally this brings up the thought 'if you don't want to be mistaken for a thug, don't dress like a thug.'
It's an old cliche and a problem often thrown around, why do we as a culture idolize criminals at the worst and athletes at the best? Obviously they're not roll models. But who is a roll model? I don't think anyone has been bragging about being a banker or working for a Wall St. firm the last couple years. (Not that we're anywhere close to a revolution, but if we were, the bankers tend to be the first to be killed off, unless of course there's royalty to be killed).
So, who should young people see as roll models and how should they dress? Keep in mind that most good roll models dress tragically lame. And youth will never go for that. At least not en masse.
3 Tennessee freshmen football players were arrested yesterday for armed robbery. To be that stupid is one thing. To be that stupid in season is entirely different.
Maybe if a booster had them in the back pocket this never would have happened.
But they're downfall might be what makes them successful. This is the only place where decent creatives might be willing to work for free because of their connection to Crispin Porter.
Their first project (creating their logo) had 1,118 entries. And after browsing them, quite a few were awesome. 5 people got paid. So 1,113 entries went unpaid (most designers entered more than once I imagine). One person got a measly $100. And the winner got $1,000 still probably less than they would have been paid in a regular gig.
So the question is, how long will people be willing to work like this? If you work on five projects and never see a dime, or very little money, will you work on a sixth? Especially against such stiff competition. Eventually, and I think soon, the numbers and quality will diminish.
I imagine there will always be ad school and design students who figure they're not getting paid anyways, but how long can you survive on student labor?
Good luck guys, but I have a hard time seeing how this can survive for the long - haul.
I'm looking for a new cult leader to work with to hone my marketing skills.
I'd be happy to give references but the last group set their ocean side mansion on fire during the Perseids. There were no survivors. They're all on a spaceship to galaxy NGC 6494. I hear it's nice there. Mission was a total success.
I can build you a small but very loyal following. I'm willing to do this work on a pro-bono basis. I only ask that if you are planning a doomsday cult please find a more creative way to indicate the end of times. These mansions are not easy to come by. They are beautiful and deserve a little more respect than to be burnt to the ground.
The past month I have witnessed the same incredibly dumb act no less than 5 times: jaywalking with a stroller. But we should thank these people. Killing off your young is the ultimate in natural selection. And if you're dumb enough to do this, you're really strengthening the herd. So from me to you, thank you.
If only there was a way to kill off the guy who asked me for the time in front of a Starbucks in New York. He asks me for the time, I say '3 O'clock.' He yells at me saying I need to do better than that. So I say,'I dunno, a little after 3.' He grunts disapprovingly. I enter the Starbucks, the same one HE WAS EXITING, and there's a giant clock that says 3:04. Some people weren't lucky enough to have parents that jaywalked when they were little.
Okay, maybe not everything. But I did learn one lesson.
If you're anything like me, you've lived in a large city and passed by panhandlers and semi-con artists on a daily bases without giving it a second thought. Or at least tried not to give it a thought. But chances are you rarely ever gave out money.
There was this one panhandler who used to sit on the Clark St. bridge in Chicago. The first day I passed him he had a cardboard sign that read something like: "Help. Severe case of writers block." I chuckled and gave him money. I turned around and more people behind me were giving him money. Then another day I saw a group of teens around him on the bridge, all laughing and giving him money. He was telling jokes, I don't remember what the were but they were funny, and probably self depreciating.
The lesson here, if you're asking for money, make people feel good about giving you money. He probably made 100x's what other panhandlers in similar locations were making. Those who try to con, or beg just make you either angry or make you feel bad, but chances are you'd just drop your head and walk away.
So this takes us to the worse ads on TV today. Save the children: To which I can't find the link.
Save the animals
So thanks Sarah. I might have been in the mood to save a puppy today. But now, thanks to you, I'm paralyzed with grief. At least one less puppy was saved today. The blood is on your hands.
If love is a far more powerful emotion, it's only because you have no choice. You have to love your parents. You have to love your children. Hell, even romantic love is dictated by an overgrown baby with wings. Even when you don't like these people you still love them. When you hate them you still love them. And that time you were filled with murderous rage and threatened them with the nearest kitchen utensil, it was with a heart filled with love.
This is why 'like' is far more telling. Do you like your kids? What if they were some other person's kids? What about yesterday? You don't like your parents when they ground you, but when they give you ice cream they're awesome. I'm almost 30 and I still really like anyone who gives me food. Assuming they're not trying to make me east brussel sprouts. Then I really don't like them.
But, if after 40 years together you still 'like' your spouse, you've got it made. If your best friend approached you on the geriatric playground and asked, "but do you like, like Mikey" and you blush, you've had a blessed life.
Late night advertising saves the day again. Did you know HIV is no longer all that big a deal? As a matter of fact it plays second fiddle to things you need to tell your partner about. You might spread herpes, but that HIV is no prob. Unless of course you have herpes and want Valtrex.
Let's start with a simple fact: somewhere between 250,000-300,000 people die each day world wide.
Now let's make an assumption: 20% of those deaths are due to unknown causes. This could be because of populations from poorer 3rd world countries that don't have money for autopsies, people from remote regions we are just assuming have died today, and legitimately mysterious deaths. We don't know if this 20% figure is correct, but we'll emphatically state it as fact.
Now let's give this 20% a name: We'll call them phantom deaths.
Every day a minimum of 50,000 people die from the Phantom Death. There is no cure.
Invite me on you're show, I'll make graphs. AND I'll even shout louder than your other expert guests so everyone knows I must be right.
The Phantom Death. It's scary, there's no cure, and it's coming for you.
Strange things are happening, people all around me are having babies. And I've noticed an odd phenomenon that happens when people are around babies: everyone starts claiming the child's body parts. This happens with adults too, but only when they visit grandparents. I for instance have my grandmother's eyes - on both sides of the family. Two women who are entirely unrelated and never met. I have both their eyes. Which I'm sure explains why I was cross eyed as a child.
There were so many people around the day my niece was born, someone actually claimed the eyelashes. (this is not a picture of my niece)
Obama's a smart man. See in school we always had fire drills. The administration knew about it, and sometimes they told the teachers, and sometimes they didn't. The students never knew. It was all perfectly orchestrated to see if we knew how to react in case there was a real fire.
So that flyover by Air Force One or Two or whatever it was on Monday? Just a drill. And New York - you passed. So to all you who thought we were safer with G.W, he didn't have us practicing for emergencies did he? No. Next up L.A. Don't worry, that's not a real earthquake waking you up in the morning.
This is a current map of swine flue outbreaks from the New York Times. As you can see Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin are untouched. There can only be one explanation, the Midwest is immune. After a lifetime of constant exposure to pork we have surely built up a tolerance. For all those who say eating all that pork would kill us, it turns out you were wrong. The only way to die from pig is to not eat enough of it.
