Went down to N14th today - all manner of bikers had gathered, tattoos, choppers and large breasted girlfriends on display.
They had a main stage that lots of people seemed to be ignoring - looking up only for the scantily clad contortionist girl.
When this gy rammed a screwdriver up his hooter only he raised an eyebrow - and even that was involuntary.
Have dinner and some sort of friend of a friend performing tonight... god I hope it isn't music that makes me feel instantly ancient.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Everyone's expecting
Almost everyone I know is expecting a baby. I have no idea where that phrase comes from by the way. But everywhere I look and everyone I know seems to swelling at an alarming rate. This I find very weird. You see I thought that my friends, colleagues, neighbors etc. had all passed on babies. Most are in their 30s. They live in rented apartments, spend too much on electronics and have impractical white furniture. yet suddenly they are with child.Which kinda makes me wonder whether choosing the sofa over the sperm bank (they cost the same) was a good idea. It seemed like a good idea at the time - especially as the tumors had meant that extracting sperm was going to be a medical rather than pleasurable experience. But now I wonder (pauses for a pensive wonder)
People keep saying adoption but I worry that no child could live up to the bobble headed Asian piano protege fantasy I have about adoption. Think "Team America : World Police", Kim Jong Il puppet and a touch of the Bobby Crush (a low rent British Liberace prone to playing second on the bill to performing puppets in dire seaside towns) and you have it.
So no kids for us. But the sofa is nice. And the dog's a hand full at times - usually when Jude's mom is here and she (the dog) develops midnight 'stomach problems'
Time now to read a document on how to best turn positive intention into tangible action
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
What a way to earn a living
I don't think that I've ever done an ad' that had real sex appeal. Certainly not one that could have been held up as an example of hypersexualization or moral decay. I guess that the howlers I helped produce on FHM were a tad' sexy but they weren't sexual. They were about the fact that men needed all of the help that they could get with masculinity. We just happened to use very sexy women to offer up the advice.
In fact in the last couple of years I've not been responsible for very much other than some interesting shapes in powerpoint, some bright ideas that made it to the back of the deck but no further and the occasional brief that led to an unremarkable piece of communication.
Yet I'm still in employment that keeps the animals in holistic pellets and keeps my wife in footwear with fur linings, or fur outers, or fur trim... furry footwear. And I seem to be in demand within the industry. I have, it seems, conjured up a reputation based more on my ability to enthuse than to produce. Though that's a guilty secret.
Of course I'm currently in an agency, a country and a context that demands a staggering overthinking of the ads we produce. Fashion houses decide on a world in which they want to live, usually a beautiful world were normal rules don't apply and proceed to shoot beautiful but ultimately empty images set in that world. Most of these ads are done 'in-house' - by the companies themselves - yet it's the ad industry that takes the bullets for perpetuating the unrealistic images that drive young women to self hatred.
The truth is that most agencies in the US are churning out boring ads full of borning looking people all enthusing about a product that has helped fix their overactive bladder or their 'out of whack' cholesterol.
We'll I'm afraid that I'm really rather fed up seeing ads in which two women in a kitchen (I cleaned that one up from the ad' agency version) discuss the cleaning power of maxi-pads or the summertime smell of a cinch tag bin bag.
If pictures of beautiful people promote self hatred then surely the majority of work out there promotes a deep seated hatred of mothers, middle aged men and silly slags everywhere.
I'd rather watch Paris Hilton fellating a Carl's half pounder than I would see a fat but weirdly happy girl ordering a salad and "Lovin' It" (and why do fast food ingredients always tumble in slo-mo from above?)
Hell I'd see Barry Manilow fellating Famous Nathan than I would another Erectile Dysfuction ad.
So I've decided to do two things.
To make some interesting advertising that says something and enters pop culture. Cool stuff that changes the way that people think.
And to make some mindlessly sexy advertising that does nothing other than titilate and provoke a warm tingle or two. Something that we don't overthink. And that twists the macrame'd hemp panties of moustachio'd do gooders of every gender.
This blogosphericals is my vow.
In fact in the last couple of years I've not been responsible for very much other than some interesting shapes in powerpoint, some bright ideas that made it to the back of the deck but no further and the occasional brief that led to an unremarkable piece of communication.
Yet I'm still in employment that keeps the animals in holistic pellets and keeps my wife in footwear with fur linings, or fur outers, or fur trim... furry footwear. And I seem to be in demand within the industry. I have, it seems, conjured up a reputation based more on my ability to enthuse than to produce. Though that's a guilty secret.
Of course I'm currently in an agency, a country and a context that demands a staggering overthinking of the ads we produce. Fashion houses decide on a world in which they want to live, usually a beautiful world were normal rules don't apply and proceed to shoot beautiful but ultimately empty images set in that world. Most of these ads are done 'in-house' - by the companies themselves - yet it's the ad industry that takes the bullets for perpetuating the unrealistic images that drive young women to self hatred.
The truth is that most agencies in the US are churning out boring ads full of borning looking people all enthusing about a product that has helped fix their overactive bladder or their 'out of whack' cholesterol.
We'll I'm afraid that I'm really rather fed up seeing ads in which two women in a kitchen (I cleaned that one up from the ad' agency version) discuss the cleaning power of maxi-pads or the summertime smell of a cinch tag bin bag.
If pictures of beautiful people promote self hatred then surely the majority of work out there promotes a deep seated hatred of mothers, middle aged men and silly slags everywhere.
I'd rather watch Paris Hilton fellating a Carl's half pounder than I would see a fat but weirdly happy girl ordering a salad and "Lovin' It" (and why do fast food ingredients always tumble in slo-mo from above?)
Hell I'd see Barry Manilow fellating Famous Nathan than I would another Erectile Dysfuction ad.
So I've decided to do two things.
To make some interesting advertising that says something and enters pop culture. Cool stuff that changes the way that people think.
And to make some mindlessly sexy advertising that does nothing other than titilate and provoke a warm tingle or two. Something that we don't overthink. And that twists the macrame'd hemp panties of moustachio'd do gooders of every gender.
This blogosphericals is my vow.
Disaster!?!?!??
So yesterday was a litany of disasters - only good news was on the health front. I'm now good to fly once a month, to spend 2 weeks a month outside of the US and to head back for the gym and to the massage parlours of Williamsburg.
Lawyers told me that I will be at my current job as long as I'm in the US for all manner of complicated and ever changing reasons. Sulked for an afternoon and have now decided that if that's the case then lemonade we shall have. Let's face it it I'm well insured, doing interesting stuff and whilst not living the life of Bill O'Reilly I'm hardly starving to death whilst digging ditches.
Plus it's TiVo meltingly good TV season. House, Grey's Anatomy, Survivor (tribes split by race!), Project Runway, The Amazing Race, Dancing with the Stars (Jerry Springer!), Lost III, America's Next Top Model... and all in STUNNING HD (except for Runway which is in screechingly camp stereo)
About to buy a slingshot - so anyone wanting to view said goldmine of marvellousness can do so on their PCs (no macs, yet) - just let me know and I'll send you a password.
Okay - planning superstar on the line - must dasj
Lawyers told me that I will be at my current job as long as I'm in the US for all manner of complicated and ever changing reasons. Sulked for an afternoon and have now decided that if that's the case then lemonade we shall have. Let's face it it I'm well insured, doing interesting stuff and whilst not living the life of Bill O'Reilly I'm hardly starving to death whilst digging ditches.
Plus it's TiVo meltingly good TV season. House, Grey's Anatomy, Survivor (tribes split by race!), Project Runway, The Amazing Race, Dancing with the Stars (Jerry Springer!), Lost III, America's Next Top Model... and all in STUNNING HD (except for Runway which is in screechingly camp stereo)
About to buy a slingshot - so anyone wanting to view said goldmine of marvellousness can do so on their PCs (no macs, yet) - just let me know and I'll send you a password.
Okay - planning superstar on the line - must dasj
Monday, September 11, 2006
Missing the Baht
I woke up this morning to see that my UK account had been entirely cleaned out over the weekend. Somebody had managed to repeatedly withdraw 10,000 Baht at a time... and 20,000 Baht twice. Luckily the mortgage has been paid but now there are cards to cancel and replace, an investigation as to just what's going on, long waits on hold to the UK and a burning sense of resentment. It took me 3 years to build the savings that we had in the UK and to see it all gone in the space of 48 hours makes my stomach churn, it really does. The bank was sweet - but pointed out that there was a huge backlog of fraud cases involving them, new cards and Thailand. I have a new card. It's never been used. And though I'm wearing Thai pants I've not been in Thailand for a while. So I'm going to take it that I'm one of the many and try not to get too annoyed that the bank knew that there was fraud going on in Bangkok and could see money leaking from my account at a rate faster than silicon a Californian's breasts after a road smash and yet did less than a sloath on a go-slow
It'll be a week before they issue a form. And a month before they start an investigation. Thank God that the UK is my 'safety net' rather than an account I rely on. That said if it's not sorted by the 4th of October we'll run into all kinds of mortgage problems.
What a start to the week. Sept 11th too, so taking my gas mask on the subway and charging through Grand Central like a rhino at the Macy's basement sale.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Last night... he said
So went for a bit of a birthday celebration last night... a little pizza, a few drinks, a bunch of people, some 80s music in a 'too cool to be playing this shit' 80s bar.... a woman with collagen lips who was dating a drummer... a key perched at the end of a bar who looked like a Botox'd Norm from cheers and turned out to have had Botox only a week earlier
Walked the dog, read Billy (the Billy Connelly biography by his wife) and went to bed around 2. Still woke up at 7.30 though, which is both annoying and should allow me to be productive before my 'cleansing rain' massage.
It will be my first massage in over a year - the last thing someone with lymphoma wants is to have their lymphatic system drained into their bloodstream. But now, post scan and completely clear I can finally shift uncomfortably beneath a blanket in a just too cold room full of whale music and bleached pine.
Joy
Walked the dog, read Billy (the Billy Connelly biography by his wife) and went to bed around 2. Still woke up at 7.30 though, which is both annoying and should allow me to be productive before my 'cleansing rain' massage.
It will be my first massage in over a year - the last thing someone with lymphoma wants is to have their lymphatic system drained into their bloodstream. But now, post scan and completely clear I can finally shift uncomfortably beneath a blanket in a just too cold room full of whale music and bleached pine.
Joy
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