The Three Factors Behind Great Creative Work

It used to be easy to distinguish between professional and amateur work. I'm talking design, writing, art, photography, film – heck, anything that you sell that you create for clients. The advent of digital cameras, fairly intuitive design programs and online publishing sites means the line between pros and wannabees has become blurred, especially for clients. Technologies allow for many more smaller at-home businesses and entrepreneurs, some of whom are truly excellent. But where everyone appears to be a Creative Director or worse, a Creative Guru, it becomes très confusing. What is professional work these days? In fact, it's quite easy to tell by the work itself.

To my mind there are three factors at play for top creative work: Skill, Play and Passion. The levels of each are set by the demands of the work at hand. Here is a brief explanation of what I mean by the graphic above:

Skill. Knowledge of how to get things done in a professional, time-efficient manner that will work effortlessly in all media is essential. Should the work be predictable, the client ends up with a boring piece. Is the individual just concerned with churning out the words or the logos or web pages and sending out an invoice? Or do they come back with what you asked to see but with a few more suggestions that they think may work better? If the artist is working totally under a stringent direction such as bosses, productivity and billings, we call that a lost opportunity, or slave labor. Great Creative Directors look to their artists and writers to use their brains.

Play. Having the nimbleness to consider different creative avenues of attack, all of which are plausible ideas, is the mark of an artist or writer who loves to explore, experiment and find new and innovative approaches. Seasoned professionals may not enjoy brainstorming with others but they certainly go through this process in their own brains. Without the benefit of experience, play without sophistication becomes simple and childish and therefore dumb. Gone wild, an overly playful artist enters the world of mindless drivel. Think rude noises and blowing Silly String out of your nose.

Passion. Often misunderstood, a passionate practitioner is one who gets goose pimples when they see a concept that sings. They spend their spare moments gaining insight about as many different things as they can. They look at bad work not to mock, but to figure out how it went so wrong. And they live and breathe the world of competition, breakthrough strategy and searching that one novel solution that will work harder to build the client's brand equity over all others. Passion without context allows for a prima donna look and feel, which is off-base and creates irrelevant results. There is nothing wrong with being a purist, passionate creative. Live your dreams but without an understanding of the science behind strategy you might want to keep your interests as a hobby.

Those without all three factors in their work needn't go beating themselves up. It's rare and takes many years of devotion to arrive at a stage where they begin overlapping. Finding clients who "get it" is key. Working with others and learning every day, finding mentors, refining your expertise and soaking in what else is happening in the industry is essential. Together, Skill and Play come together to create work that is just plain fun, sticks out from the crowd and provides a friendly image. Play and Passion leads to very interesting work with a remarkable energy that acts as a motivator to target audiences and Passion and Skill combine to evoke dynamic concept work that is smooth, functional and well-executed.

Combine all three and you've got that magic moment of genius.

The Cyclops Factor

Cyclopes as a race have always had a bad name. In fact, they are probably the first race in history used to embody evil. Monsters. Cannibals. Freaks. Fiends. In ancient times there wasn't a more terrible figure to scare and delight children than the legendary Cyclops, Polyphemus (meaning "famous"). Polyphemus, or Poly to his friends, was son of Poseidon (god of the sea and brother of Zeus and Hades) and Thoosa (a Nereid, or sea nymph). Not sure how that worked with gods and nymphs exactly, but how cool is that? He has been painted by Poussin, sculpted by Rodin, battled Wonder Woman and Homer Simpson, was portrayed in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? and honored as the name of the planet which the moon Pandora orbits in James Cameron's Avatar.

But were these monsters really all that bad? Or were they branded as deranged brutes and misunderstood? Surely there was more to them than that. Let's give the story a shake.

We all know Cyclopes as giants with one large eye in the center of their foreheads. They lived on the mythological Island of Cyclops which made their address both easy to remember and, being mythological, difficult to find. And Polyphemus, the most famous of all, lead a tranquil life living in his cave condo on the coast, strutting about with his stylish, custom-made pine tree walking staff and flock of prize sheep. We know he lived alone (with his sheep; which was perfectly acceptable in those days) and harbored affections for a sea nymph named Galatea, who I suppose reminded him of his mother. I can't see him as a partier but the "famous" thing says to me that he was quite in demand at Cyclopes social events. In short: so suave and debonair that when he entered a room everyone's eye was on him.

It was a pretty cool life and their existence probably would have gone down as a curious, but harmless anecdote until, as recorded in Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus and 12 of his men, returning from the Trojan War with the spoils of war, inflated egos and pockets full of condoms (this becomes important later), stumble across the island and pull a home invasion on Polyphemus' place while he was at work.

When he returns home with his flock to find all these strangers poking through his stash, Polyphemus gets pissed. Feeling personally violated, he goes a bit Rambo and traps Odysseus and his men in his man cave with a big boulder. Several soldiers are caught by the boulder and crushed in the melee. Outrage dizzies the giant and he sits to straighten out his head, absentmindedly eating two of the crushed soldiers. Having never eaten a man before, he finds they taste a bit like chicken. Breakfast the next morning consists of two more leftover crushed Odysseus' men, one of which tasted a bit more Feta than the other, and he then locks up and goes out to work. When he returns that evening he eats two more soldiers. Finally, Odysseus, alarmed by the meal plan and finding his troop alarmingly reduced in number, tricks Polyphemus by acting all friendly and brings out the Ouzo cocktails. After a Greek Matter Scatter or two Polyphemus asks the soldier his name and, thinking himself very clever, Odysseus lies and tells the giant his name is "μή τις," which literally means "nobody." I've tried that pseudonym myself and it doesn't work but Polyphemus, half drunk, believes him.

One more cocktail and Polyphemus conks out. While the giant is passed out the floor, Odysseus pokes him in the eye with a sharpened pole and the giant wakes up screaming that "nobody" has hurt him. You can well imagine this cry doesn't exactly elicit an immediate call-to-arms from his fellow Cyclopes. In fact, they grunt and go "Yeah, right" and fall back asleep. While Polyphemus is down at the sea bathing his eye, Odysseus and his remaining men tie themselves to the underside of the sheep with prophylactics so when Polyphemus, blind and hung over the next morning, lets his flock out and checks their backs with his hands as they pass by, the giant doesn't realize they are escaping.

Too late, blind Polyphemus finally understands the soldiers are gone and runs down to the shore. Odysseus taunts him from the safety of his ship as he sails away, boasting that "I am not nobody; I am Odysseus, Son of Laertes, King of Ithaca," which was a pretty stupid thing to do because immediately Polyphemus texts his dad Poseidon for revenge, who curses Odysseus, sending enough bad winds and storms for a tumultuous and perilous return home.

Four things I get from this story: 1) The phrase, "Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick," is made even more poignant when one only has one eye, 2) If you're going to mess around with the son of a powerful god, don't be ruining a perfectly good alias by boasting, 3) The next time you see a blind Cyclops groping sheep, you'll know he's just looking for Greek soldiers, and 4) Maybe those subject to the Cyclops Factor, or judged automatically bad because of race, presentation and persona, (like kids in hoodies carrying bags of Skittles) shouldn't summarily be condemned.

Have a great week everyone!

(With apologies to Homer, Theocritus, Virgil and Ovid.)

Bologna, Baloney and the New iPad

My post is early today. My mission is too important to wait. It is a gray day in Paradise for I must pass along dire news of storm clouds on the horizon. As a preface, please understand I try to stay away from a number of situations for the sake of my general well being: 1) flea markets where ladies hum along to canned show tunes while they consider buying stuff that should be in a land fill, 2) gathering with people that eat the indigestible while making rude noises, and, 3) standing in line for more than a few minutes for anything. Any one of the above three can be detrimental to your health but I draw your attention today to number three.

Let me assure you that I'm neither expressing a sense of entitlement nor prima donna-ish-ness. I figure that all of us have to make up our minds about what constitutes acceptable (bologna) and where that turns into intolerable (baloney). But queuing (which is rich-speak for lining up) ranks up there with hopping on one foot on a diving board over a tank of sharks while singing God Save The Queen. It might be a hoot for a few minutes but after that it gets life-threatening. Standing upright in one place for prolonged periods of time can not only cause one's brain to slide dangerously closer to one's butt, but it can also be fatal. 

According to the OHS in Australia (where they are quite civilized about these things) research has linked prolonged standing to an increased risk of carotid atherosclerosis, which in turn can cause an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. No one expects us to avoid all situations where we find ourselves spontaneously exclaiming, "Why in the hell am I here?" In today's society we find ourselves in these places innocently enough. Therefore, I consider it a public service and my civic duty to issue the following advisories regarding potentially dangerous line-ups:

1) The Dastardly Deli Dally
While I love my fried bologna and eggs, as most down-easterners do, if I have to stand in line at the deli counter to get it, it just isn't worth it and you should do your best to avoid it as well. A person isn't meant to sacrifice so much for the humble sausage. Save yourself. Bologna will always be there but baloney can be avoided.

2) The Harmful Hardware Hangout
Did I find myself standing in line for 12 hours for the new iPad just to say I hung out with the cool Apple crowd and shared PC jokes? Did I consider putting my life at risk for the bragging rights of being the first to own the latest and greatest? No. While I love Apple and all its products, I firmly believe one is not supposed to put their life at risk in order to have one hot off the production line.

So be warned, fair reader. There are dangers out there for those who would be asked to wait in a line-up; whether it be for the fair sausage, or the latest in high tech hardware. As appealing as both are, subjecting yourself to the possibility of an early demise is pure baloney.

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About the above photo-illustration: 

I don't really do a lot of this and am certainly not an expert. This is the combination of two photos taken with an iPhone.

The deli counter photo was a spur-of-the-moment thing. On impulse I also kept the ticket I had and photographed it on a piece of paper on my kitchen counter when I got home. (Very unprofessional.) Once both were imported from the phone onto my computer, the ticket was brightened in levels, close-cropped, an extra number was added and it was copied and pasted onto the deli image which was cropped to size and levels were set. Placing the ticket on a layer above the background allowed playing with the combination of the two in order to get the effect of the ticket being tossed into the air. Fun and trial and error (thank God for "command z"). Airbrushing a glow to the serving number, adding some color and blurring the lower background separated the ticket from the background sufficiently. The result allows the viewer an idea of the concept behind the words and sets the tone for the article. It's playtime, really. Hope you enjoy. - R

The Secret About Creative Life

Above, we see the creative process as perceived by folks that aren't part of the trade. Admittedly, creatives have a great life, love their work and give the impression from their laid-back attitude that from the moment of getting a job to the moment of presentation, they spend very little time actually doing the work.

Because, after all, how hard can it be?

Well, if you think along those lines, I'm here to let you in on a little secret.

In reality, the creative process is quite different from the common perception. While there never seems to be enough time for anything, it works out there is just enough time for everything.

There are elements in the above process that I couldn't find a way to include in the graphic. Like all super heroes they constantly dodge bullets. They spend a lot of time selflessly answering cries of help from distressed creditors. And I can't tell you how many orphaned pizza slices have been saved from a life of loneliness.

The creative process allows for a lot of heroics: between fixing software crashes, finding lost puppies, jumping from one tall building to another, and finding bodily functions inordinately funny. You would think that these individuals would live for fame and glory but in reality they shy away from the public spotlight. Their only reward is the act of saving humanity from drudgery on a daily basis.

Creatives are great, hard-working people who you should love and cuddle. All creative people are enormously attractive, intelligent, and good with pets. In fact, I'd highly recommend creative people and you should immediately knit one a beret (complete with cool tassel) if you haven't already.

Ode To The Long-Suffering Chair

“I went to the park and saw this kid flying a kite. The kid was really excited. I don't know why, that's what they're supposed to do. Now if he had had a chair on the other end of that string, I would have been impressed.” Mitch Hedberg

All hail the chair. The art of subservience has never been demonstrated so eloquently, so simply nor so dramatically. Since its invention it has helped humanity take a load off weary feet and kept even the lowest cad out of dirt and muck; all the while making no preference between the most luscious and the most flatulent of posteriors.

They've been thrown through the saloon windows of Hollywood, balanced on by performers, smashed over heads of criminals, offered to enemies of state, sat in by animals and provided a convenient perch everywhere from royal palaces to the seediest of bawdy houses. Friend to everyone, save the hemorrhoid sufferer, the chair in all its formations and permutations has never asked for anything but to serve.

Oh what a sad state that no one will speak up for our friend the chair. One that functions properly is never remarked upon. If injured, though, it is not even shot to be put out of its misery, as one would with the most flea-bitten creature, but is thrown unceremoniously in the junk heap of society with nary a thought nor a moment of testimony as to its lifelong service.

Let us bow our heads in a moment of silent remembrance for those that have supported asses throughout time when many others would have not.

Let's get interactive

Why Some Things Float

Ice cubes float in fruit juice as evidence that cool things float to the surface. Being nothing but frozen water they coolify all things that surround them. The magnanimous nature of ice cubes keeps them light hearted and this buoyancy raises them to the surface.

Of course, that doesn't explain Fruit Loops.

Fruit Loops float in milk simply because they are shaped like lifesavers with a hole in the middle. The force of gravity pushes down in the hole thereby elevating the cereal surrounding it. It's a pressure thing.

Unless you're a bubble. Then things are different...

Bubbles float in water for a very good reason. They aren't water. They hate water. And while both are made up of oxygen, the two are more like distant cousins that don't like each other. Bubbles can hang out with water but they make sure they're on top.

So if you float it's for one of three reasons: 1) You're cool, 2) You have a hole in the middle, or 3) You like it on top.

Hope this helps.

The Importance of a Lopsided Noodle

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most." Mark Twain

Dear ___________;

Oh my! After dreaming of you last night I got up and thought to get dressed in something special so I changed in a Mercedes-Benz (and put my socks on backwards). I did this not for you but just to reflect that indescribable (not uncrampish) feeling that you left in my mind.

I believe I gave you a claim ticket so you can pick it up again where you left off. If you forget I'll leave it hanging on the tree I took the branch off of when I promised a logo but forgot the second 'o' so I had to find a log.

"Let's eat peppermint nuts," I suggested in my dream – wondering at the same time if the mints would actually miss them at all, "and sing bad baritone impersonations of a Leonard Cohen melody."

On the way home we put corn flakes into the beds of people who couldn't seem to dance when they'd forgotten they had legs but found horned gurus for hire to jitterbug on lumpy brains. And then we found ourselves on vacation and forgot about being punctual about punctuation                   (.)

In the light of day, I've come to a realization we don't need lamps in this room at all. And the fridge should really be moved over just a tad to allow the plug to reach the socket. By the way, I think that dress looked much better on you than on that woman who stood screaming in her underwear.

So let's invent a sugar that doesn't dissolve in water so when you ask me how many spoonfuls I've put in your Orange Pekoe I can just hold the glass up to the light and say, "One and a half, would you like a bit more?"

Except... you knew there was going to be an except, didn't you? My, my, you're wonderful.

Love you to bits,

Rand

Next week: back to something serious. And it won't be about how to get spaghetti to stand up straight in your fingers without it flopping over. (Hint: It's much easier if you do it before you boil it.)

..."Spaghetti... I can't eat spaghetti, there's too many of them. No matter how hungry I am, 1000 of something is too many." Mitch Hedberg

Character from Characters

Emoticons are in use all over the computer world. They're a fun use of type, used to indicate meaning and temper the sometimes stark written word. Everyone by now knows what a simple :), or the more traditional :-), or my clown version :o) says about the words that precede them. In effect, rather than making words from letters, we're making pictures from them – ready for interpretation. Here are a few I've done. They're sort of like a secret code from childhood days that everyone is not supposed to know but everyone does. What fun!

The use of type symbols in written communications is not new. This from Wikipedia:

"Typographical emoticons were published in 1881 by the U.S. satirical magazine Puck. In 1912 Ambrose Bierce proposed "an improvement in punctuation — the snigger point, or note of cachinnation: it is written thus \___/! and presents a smiling mouth."

Emoticons are the common man's art. They're friendly, unassuming and feeling-based. When used as a casual logosymbol, they lend meaning to company and event names. And as is often the case with wonderful design projects, if someone has fun coming up with something, the viewer might have fun looking at it.

That just doesn't seem right, really.

After all, we're supposed to be serious professionals with total commitment to the exclusive, artistic purity, integrity and complex meanings associated with the design rationale and graphic interpretation.

Oh my, the guilt! ;op

Asking For A Sign

The Sign In My Backyard. 

"This sign I give unto you: every people speaketh its language of good and evil: this its neighbour understandeth not." Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book For All And None by Nietzsche, Friedrich

Time for another blog post. It has been a weird last couple of months and I say that without remorse. But I had been asking for someone to send me a sign that I was on the right path. So, in the last few days I've found myself thinking about Nietzche's book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. This act itself seems to have lead to my sign. It's amazing that Nietzche predicted my becoming a Übermensch so long ago. It's a sign from the past. Something like the one in my backyard that I stole but not quite.

Let me explain. For those of you who haven't read the book, or tried but couldn't get through it, I'll give you a bit of a background (and I won't give away the ending). Suffice to say a it's a dense and esoteric treatise on philosophy and morality. The book stars a character coincidentally called Zarathustra, who in real life was an ancient Persian prophet who was the first to preach that the universe is engaged in a fundamental struggle between good and evil (which had a profound effect on the moral set up of both the Christian and Jewish faiths). This concept of good versus evil thing, of course, lead to all sorts of messes in today's modern world. So, Nietzsche names his character Zarathustra because as he puts it, “Zarathustra created this most calamitous error, morality; consequently, he must also be the first to recognize it.” In short, Nietzsche reinvents Zarathustra in order to correct the philosophical mistakes he felt the prophet made. It's like the first "what if" scenario in literary history.

He creates the concept of the Übermensch (roughly translated as "overman"– sometimes “superman” but should really be referred to without the male connotation) as his ideal of a creative, independent, spiritual genius. It's the final step in an evolution of humanity from the ape (I've met a few) through to man (meaning that not as a male thing) to overman. An overman is very sexy, highly intelligent (like readers of this blog) and he or she has his own morality, self directed and suited only to him or her.

In order for one to become a full overman one has to create their own values. You cannot subscribe to those thousands of peoples with their thousand different conceptions of good and evil: a conception of good that expresses the goals they hope to achieve. So, I looked, and voila, I have unknowingly been doing this for very many years. Alas, THE SIGN.

But I'm not totally 'there' yet. I must still remind myself to suffer. Suffering is evidently as essential to becoming an overman as ketchup is to french fries. And change is essential. The new Zarathustra asserts that life and wisdom are like dancing women: constantly changing, always seductive. Those who have a healthy attitude toward life and truth enjoy their constantly changing nature. People who see truth as fixed, which is what religion and politics would have us believe, have sadly grown tired of life. I'm okay with change, and have the laundry to prove it. And if I must I can put up with the dancing women thing.

The best part, and the one that convinced me I'm on the verge of overman status, is that Nietzsche states that only the most original in society can rise above the masses and shine. Therefore, an artist has a better chance to hit overman status than a political or religious leader.

So move over: I am about to arrive. I have seen the sign. Now leave me alone. I have a mountain cave to disappear to for quite a while and there is a dance floor to be installed.

With Friendship Comes Rewards

All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.  Marc Chagall

This started out as a story about the fickle aspects of friendship, about how it comes and goes, about sometimes we kick friendship around like a tin can for a while and sometimes once we have it, it gets lost in a snow pile and then you find it later on when the snow melts and it's as good as ever; but I got sidetracked into thinking about how there are people that figure they can buy friends, or rent them depending on what is on their calendar that day or about how about when one person falls in love with another person's significant other or that sale of the '07 lemon of a car wrecked the friendship and what a mess that made out of my mind. (Was that a run-on sentence?) 

We need to clean this up. Maybe we could all have a huddle and come to a clear cut agreement amongst ourselves that we should hand out points that can add up to true friendship, because I'm totally confused. It could be just like large business awards loyalty points for return customers. We're all our own brands these days, after all. Why shouldn't we build on that? We could all carry around little cards that would track our traits and build brand friendship loyalty. Handshakes would be worth so many points. Personal references more. Picking up the tab for pizza lunches – definitely more. Holding one's head over the toilet when you're barking at the ants? Bonus points. And then whenever we wanted to we'd all get together for a tally-up and figure out who our friends really are.

We could all have cards with our names on them and a cool graphic of a bridge like the one above (available at a cut rate for the next 30 days but I retain the rights to the image and trademark) depicting the linking of souls or some such and come up with brand strategies complete with, instead of a CRM (customer relationship management) program, a FRM (friendship relationship management) program using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize friendship processes. Based on metrics. We have the software. Yes Virginia, there is an app for that.

Until recently this approach would have gone against my grain because personally I'd rather entertain gaining loyalty from my prospective friends by offering quality of experience, the occasional payoff or giving a better price than my competition for my company right off the bat. But that's so old school. We can do things much more efficiently now. 

The overall goals would be to find, attract, and win new friends, nurture and retain those you already have, entice former friends back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and friend maintenance services. If you don't have to buy the guy a Ferrari, why do it?

Loyalty born out of need, habit, coercion, convenience, downright greed or silly faddishness is the new reality. True loyalty may have come from an ancient place called the land of Integrity but now friendship is based on what I have that you can use to further your means to an end. It's you relating to me because I carry a brand image that you would like other people to associate with your own personal brand. Think of it as ugly people who normally wouldn't be allowed to do so, hanging out with beautiful people singing songs about world love on a hilltop in Switzerland. For a price, you could wear my name and logo on your shirt because my brand identity gives you personal qualities I have that you might never attain on your own.

We're building bridges here. Eliminating personal silos. And if I can't track your friendly habits today, how am I seriously supposed to maximize your experience tomorrow?

I ask you.

So let us build some bridges; bridges born of the greatest marketing minds the world has ever know. Bridges that never rust, never waver and never, ever give way.

Sign up now and reap the benefits of membership! (Reward points expire after 30 days if not used.)

This has been a Tongue-In-Cheek production.

Life In The Fast Lane

Doing dishes in bathrobe, looking out window

In my spare time (when I can get away from waiting for the paparazzi, mocking up schedules for the hectic pace of public appearances that I'll need when I become rich and famous) I like to do the things that normal people do. I like to hang around the house in my bathrobe, do dishes and look out windows. For evidence, I offer this non-posed, candid pic entitled "Doing dishes in bathrobe, looking out window". When I'm not doing that sometimes I take out the garbage, write naughty limericks, make sure all the clocks in my house are set to the same time and do laundry (not at the same time, I like to pace myself). It's difficult to lead such an exciting life. Every second is a wonder.

Every second, indeed. As serene your life may seem on the surface, there's a lot going on. On average 100,000 different chemical reactions are occurring in your brain every second, and 400,000 radioactive atoms are disintegrating into other atoms in your body. In that same second your body will lose about 3 million red blood cells, and your bone marrow will produce the same number of new ones.

As you can tell, I've done some research. The interweb is a wonderful place. Taken at face value, according to various unnamed and unconfirmed sources, it's estimated that every second 750,000 gallons of water flow over Niagara Falls, 602 Lego pieces are produced, 115 cell phones are shipped for sale and lightning strikes the earth 60 times. Bet you couldn't have lived without knowing that. But wait, there's more!

The sun is flinging a million tons of matter out into space every second. Four babies are born, 200 celestial stars are born, more than 2.8 million emails, 200,000 text messages, 3,282 tweets and 7.9 new Facebook users are born, and 28,258 people are viewing pornography on the internet every second. And it's reported that David Beckam makes $1.05 while Stephen Spielberg makes $3.49. One hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second. Every summer Americans consume 818 hot dogs and 350 slices of pizza per second. It is indeed a busy world. 

I don't know if all the above statistics are real, timely or accurate. I assume they were posted because there is a possibility of accuracy. There were more but I decided to leave out the grizzly, downer ones about world poverty, infant mortality and stats that list dietary dangers for commercial gain. Still – as much as I tried, there were some stats that I couldn't find that I would have liked to. So I decided to make up a few to fill in...

Every second:
1) 12,056 people fall in love, (with each other, as opposed to inanimate objects, movie and rock stars)
2) 321 folks recognize chocolate as a food group
3) 3.2 political leaders shake their heads and begin to serve their constituents Baskin and Robbins. As a result "brain freeze" becomes popular again
4) 6 former do-gooders get civic awards by allowing other individuals the dignity to make their own decisions about their lives. As a result the sales of those sucky thank you cards goes through the roof
5) 1.5 substance abusers switch out recreational drugs for those tiny carrots and are allowed to grow their own
6) 3.75 households realize they don't need those new, improved plastic household gadgets sold on television, resulting in .003 percent reduction of China's GNP
7) 5.6 people choose to facilitate resolutions to issues rather than exasperate them for their own gain. Self-styled gurus/consultants find their future prospects bleak
8) 7 self-centered people take the "pass it on" pledge and as a result reality television dies
9) 3 people trade real guns for the nerf variety, causing future deaths during wartime to be punctuated by cries of "Got ya!" and "Did not!" and
10) 261 people recognize Barney Rubble as the greatest actor of all time.

I know, I know. Pie in the sky. All we can do is wait and hope, (although I'm not sure how long Barney is going to put up without that lifetime Academy Award) in the meantime I'll be doing dishes in my bathrobe, looking out the window. Until the rich and famous thing kicks in, of course.

The Ugly Demise of Television

Okay, now you've done it. You network executives have sunk so low in your money pinching, profit maximizing, lowest common denominator programming, bottom line wrangling and board of directors assuaging that you've wrecked the whole thing. And now, not only has over-the-air, free, quality programming gone the way of the dodo bird, television in general is headed toward extinction.

Paid programming fills valuable airtime with 1/2 hour commercials that preach the health benefits of electric blenders and takes up space that could have been used for innovation. Thanks to your profit-centered commercial motivation the general public is subjected to 1) hairy-armed, brawny men yelling at us to buy their cleaning products, 2) once overweight ladies trying to convince us that their nutritional supplements should be a part of a daily healthy lifestyle, 3) unbelievable demonstrations of little plastic cups that should be employed in place of nature's shells to hard boil eggs, 4) mean-faced, spitting owners of gold buying services shaking hundred dollar bills in our face, and 5) some guy named Vince jumping around with a clothes brush telling us to get rid of our pussy hairs (he actually uses that term, I'm not trying to be stupid). This is not advertising. These are acts of ugliness and a personification of the phrase attributed to P.T. Barnum – "there is a sucker born every minute".

You, television industry leaders, have taken what could have been a positive element in the lives of millions of viewers and done nothing but try to prove H.L. Mencken's “No one in this world, so far as I know has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people” with a preponderance of senseless reality shows, idiotic game shows where every contestant appears to have "a beautiful wife and three lovely children", mindless pseudo-celebrity-ridden talk shows and three hour so-called newscasts complete with opinionated news readers, self-professed pundits of every persuasion and weathermen who presume to tell me what I'm eating is wrong. Why? Simply because these shows cost little to produce. And the associated profits resonate with shareholders. And after all, bonuses are given for slick frugality, not quality.

Well your three hundred dollar haircuts have caught up with you – television's days are numbered. You have given new technology, with its interactive, personal experience, a reason to be.

Parents would much rather have their children using their free time playing video games or surfing the web for age-appropriate sites rather than watching an "arts" channel showing poor, disturbed people who pack their houses to the ceiling with crap or confrontations with hapless addicts in hotel rooms. Young people, instead of purchasing a cable television package and having their intelligence insulted with freaky bounty hunters, embarrassing talent shows judged by so-called stars (sipping their sponsored soft drinks), and "entertainment" programs that do nothing but follow the antics of celebrities of no particular redeeming social value, are now getting their news from the web and downloading the programming they want to see when they want to see it. Quality dramas, educational programs, sporting events, and movies. Older folks are flicking off the tube and discovering YouTube, watching a video, taking walks in nature, reading books on tablets, getting together with friends on Skype or rediscovering actual in-person visits and even playing (shudder) board games. Even 1080 HD, 3D, gazillion-inch flat screens and PBS can't save you now.

Now, people have options. And instead of spending the last 40 years building reasons why they don't need these options and need not switch to them, you have done nothing but give people every reason to do so.

As Gomer Pyle once said, "Shame, shame, shame!"

The Banishment Of Angst And Chicken Teeth

So if there is something I can definitely do without in the New Year, (next to reality television, half-hour advertorials on the splendors of blenders and hair removal product commercials) I'd have to say it would be angst.

To imagine what inward angst would sound like, I offer the Wilhelm scream, a sound effect that has been replicated in over 225 movies, television shows and video games since it's creation in 1951:
Angst (literally German, Dutch, Danish and Norwegian for "fear") has been around since before Christ was a cowboy but Danish philosopher Søren Kirkegaard (1813-1855) put a name to it and French writers, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus brought it to the mainstream consciousness in the early Twentieth Century. Then, James Dean demonstrated teen angst brilliantly in the fifties. Since then, with the emergence of individualism and the "me generation" it's been a right of passage for people to look inside themselves for something of worth in relation to the world around them. When they don't find it, it's their right to claim they suffer from angst.

Philosophically speaking, angst is an existential (ie: "why am I here?") condition which can be defined as "the crisis of human existence." It's the individual trying to reconcile their place in relation to society.

If you're an artist it has become quite expected that you suffer from this affliction, lest you and your work be seen as shallow. The idea that being an artist automatically means suffering for your art is so ingrained in our society's norms that if you are a happy, joyous artist it means you must be overcompensating for a deep gash in your psyche... or you're just faking being an artist.

So we do angst. Or most of us do. Some, who are true masters in the angst craft, don't just suffer proper philosophical angst in silence. They take it to the second level, to something called "wangst", which is either "whiny angst" or "wanky angst" (depending on what side of the pond you're from). In order to perform this advanced degree of angst properly it must be as evident as false teeth on a chicken.

Suffering from philosophical angst, need not only be self centered, but it must be a pain in society's collective butt. It must be something that those from my father's generation (who were pretty cut and dried about emotional stuff) would not think twice about a good swift kick in the nether regions and demands to get out and find a real job.

So, in 2012, angst is gone from my repertoire of suffering techniques. It shouldn't be that hard to do because a number of years ago while going through a "Keep It Simple" thing I put the angst thing aside. This year, after being through some sh*t that makes Bambi Meets Godzilla look tame in comparison and not taking angst down from the shelf once, I decided I simply don't need it around anymore. So this coming year it's toast. It just complicates things when I figure I should be concentrating on the things that cause angst in the first place.

To me angst is like fixating over the big hole in the ground after the bomb has gone off.

And I figure on being the bomb.

The Almighty Human Struggle

"The more I see the less I know for sure." John Lennon 
 
Anyone who knows me knows that my mind does not exactly work in a normal way. (It's okay, I planned it that way.) Recently, due to circumstances beyond my control, I've had a lot of time to think. So, you'll forgive me if this post is abnormally long (and rambles on a bit).

I never really sit down to think about things of any real import but sometimes my mind goes where it wants to go. So, today I'd like to leave you with some thoughts based on the heady topics of peace, mankind and the almighty human struggle. Brace yourself:

1) Peace is an empty space.
If you can, think of peace as a space void of discord, pain and unhappiness. Oh, and there's no harmony, relief or joy either. No yin and yang, good or evil, just or unjust. This is the natural state of all things. The baseline. We come from this space before we're born and after we die we return to it. The moment we take over this organic brain of ours, our space is not empty anymore. We belong to this world. And all that comes with it.

2) Life is a wonderful, messy thing. 
At the instant we're born we're all equal. In the next instant, we're not. As much as we may be sheltered, we are subjected to expectations, conditions and prejudices. Our birth, and the education process that instantly follows, begins a process of discord (because we all have our own independent thoughts... and nothing is perfect), pain (because we have these pesky things called emotions and nerves... and nothing is perfect), and unhappiness (because we all suffer indignities and have unfulfillable wants... and nothing is perfect). Our growing up years subject us to things like test scores, competing in sports, and meeting expectations. Things like that. It's all normal. Since human beings roamed this planet we've had to provide food for ourselves, fight the savage beast for survival and compete with others of our kind for creature comforts. It's in our collective nature.

3) We can't beat ourselves up about it.
Fellow Canadian John Ralston Saul once wrote, "Everyone has an equal right to inequality." The mere fact that we have to have a bill of human rights, (and by the way laws to protect the innocent and pleas from aid organizations to feel the hungry, cure illness and help the disadvantaged) underscore the fact that we live with inequality. It surrounds us. It is us.

No matter how tall, good looking and smart we are there is always someone taller, better looking, more intelligent. No matter how proficient we are we live with the possibility there is someone just a bit faster, more exact, better equipped. And mostly that's okay. It's part of this thing called life. You can attempt to lead, choose to follow a passion, fart away your life, be a cheerleader or hide under the guise of mediocrity all you want but sooner or later, if you're a person of conscience like I am, you're going to ask or be asked, "So, what have you done with your life?" This is the final scorecard of a worthwhile life as we take our last physical breath and let it out.

4) Fighting the good fight means sometimes getting angry along the way.
Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), known in English as Petrarch, an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists once said, "Five great enemies to peace inhabit with us: avarice, ambition, envy, anger and pride. If these enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace." It's a nice thought that sort of hit me like a platitude because where one thing is bad, it cannot exist without it's opposite. We'd also have to banish the other side of the human yin yang coin: charity, satisfaction, happiness and the contentment of achievement on some level. And that's not life.

Stuff like anger is going to exist. Especially with some of the idiots we have out there shooting their mouths off, doing really stupid things and who evidently only want to add to the discord. I don't have to name them. We all know who they are. Any righteous person would want to get angry.

There are those who would preach and those who would lecture. And that's okay if they have something intelligent to say or something positive to add. But if there's one thing I've learned it's that not every mouthpiece who figures they have the answers has answers of value.

Everyone develops their own agenda, system of beliefs and methods of practical morality over time. We're all individuals and our make up is generally composed of life's lessons. Trial and error. In fact, some think the period of our time on this earth is meant to be a time of trial bookended by times of solitude – the times before we're born and after we die. And while we're here, our attitude will help determine whether it is a wholesome, thoughtful, mostly positive experience or a life fraught with negativity, ignorance and discord.

Along the way we can take time to look out a window, notice small things of beauty like the sun rising, or drift away to a favorite piece of music and try to remember that empty space of peace that we all came from and will go back to. But in the meantime, it's my thought that we're all meant to fill up our lives here on earth with some kind of fight.

Hopefully, ours is the good fight.

All the best of the holiday season and a happy New Year to you all.

Peace.

Prompting Creativity - Update

Whoa, sorry for my long absence. Lots has been happening, but nothing worth mentioning except for a small book I've been working on in my spare time over the past few months. The cool thing about this project has been the involvement of people whom I've never met. Not in person anyway.

I was fortunate enough to receive the kindness, feedback, guidance and patience of professionals from places like England, the U.S., Scotland, Asia and France who I have met and gotten to both know and respect through online discussion groups. I am forever in their debt. The experience has proven there are good people all over this planet.

So, about the book. Sample inside spreads follow:

"There is no quantifiable thing called creativity in repose. There only exists evidence of things left behind after the act, testifying that creativity has actually taken place... ...there are things that predispose us toward being creative. Thoughts and actions that enable us to explore, to question, to open up that part of our mind that allows that jolt of inspiration and magic to happen." (from the introduction)

I believe it's a fun, fresh view of interest to everyone that searches for that creative spark in their lives, regardless of profession, interests, talents or abilities.

The book is listed at $20.00 plus shipping. It's 8.5" X 8.5", 76 pages (it grew!) on quality stock, perfect bound, and all art, design and writing you can blame on me. AND after like sixty thousand revisions, it's just gone to press (phew). If you're interested in pre-ordering, let me know.

I've never sold anything online before (antique dish towels on eBay don't count). Exciting, eh?

Trouble is Temporary...

Hey all. A few days off generally means several things. There is laundry to be done, I discover the butter on the counter has gone bad, I forget to shave, the weather turns bitter and it rains, and I get a cold. Or the flu. Not sure which this is yet, but it's early in the day.

October marks the third year of the routine torture of the sensibilities that Rand's Place provides, I become another year closer to overall decrepitude and there's also a new personal project in the works that I'll be sharing with you. Hang out. Just don't eat the butter.

Stay tuned!

Are You Fine? We Can Help.

A short post today. The world is going to hell in a handbasket. If you agree, you can go now...

But if you are happy, content in your lot in life, looking forward to tomorrow, sure that the universe is unfolding as it should: there is definitely something amiss.

If you aren't angst-ridden by continuing reports, haven't heard all the warnings and haven't woken up lately in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, there is something wrong. If you are fine, you may have a problem.

We have assembled a team of experts in environmental, philosophical, scientific, medical, psychological and global issues that should have you developing a facial tic and eating your fingernails in no time.

Research shows there are simply too many people that are content with their lot in life, paying their bills, doing their jobs, raising their families and hoping that things turn out for the best.

If you are one of these poor, "fine" people – pull the handle. Sound the alarm. We can help.

6 Ways Social Media Has It All Over Real Life

Social media is such a wonderful place. Real life could take some lessons. Here's how:

1) You get to talk with people from your past (who are alive, online and sociable), and from all over the world. Folks you might never have met, connected (or reconnected) with otherwise. If you're living with someone and you're not talking for some reason, you can message them from your chair and they can answer from theirs in the same room.

2) You get to delete any comments you may have made in the passion of the moment, or had second thoughts about and went "that was stupid". A deleted comment no longer exists and therefore has no recourse or guilt factor.

3) You can go "stealth" and peruse conversations, posts or tweets without anyone ever knowing you were there. This is tantamount to eavesdropping (note: not the same thing as "eavestroughing") even though you're doing so with the other parties understanding that this might happen. Still, pretty cool. You can learn, compare opinions, muse and laugh with full anonymity.

4) If you're in a chat room, a discussion thread or a forum and want to leave, you can. Instantly. If you don't like what people are saying, or a "noob" has invaded, or the direction of the conversation has taken a stupid turn or if it begins to bore you: you can hit "unsubscribe" and it disappears. No longer to be a part of your existence. Try doing that with the chatty neighbor, the nosy but well meaning colleague leaning over your office partition, or the telemarketers, religious, charitable or political well-meaning folks calling on you during dinner.

5) There is essentially no such thing as bad breath, and/or body odor drifting your way from people you are talking with. Unless the poster is inappropriately explicit, there is literally no way you can tell if they had raw garlic for dinner, haven't bathed in days, have stinky socks or are suffering from flatulence issues while you're sharing thoughts. This can be a benefit in oh so many ways when you'd like to concentrate on other people's words and not the toxic environment they may be coming from. And,

6) As long as you have picked a good photo for your profile, you cannot suffer from a bad hair day. No one need know about your rash, your facial tic or that zit in the middle of your forehead. You can be in your bath robe with curlers in your hair if you like, and no one will know. This allows you to be the wise person you want to be, unencumbered by mere physicality. Or the person you wish you were...

...or hope you will be sometime in the future.

The 1950's Mother Conspiracy: Revealed

Long before the JFK assassination theories, the Area 51 Aliens suspicions and the Paul is Dead thing, came the mother of all conspiracies.

Those of us born in the '50s came from a different, more terrifying world. Kids like me had like a thousand mothers. Yes, I'm talking about the Mother Conspiracy. There were neighbor mothers, mothers of friends, mothers of friends of friends, supermarket mothers, other people who weren't mothers but thought they should be, teacher mothers, babysitter mothers. They were everywhere. All out to wreck a kid's life every time you turned around.

Your own mother was the Real Boss of course, but you never knew who amongst The Conspiracy were able to report back to the Boss. So you had to mind your manners. All the bloody time.

Of all the mothers of the day, June Cleaver, the mother on the "Leave It To Beaver" show was the most nefarious. She appeared nice but to us kids that was a dead giveaway. She seemed just too good to be true. She always dressed like she was ready for a social gathering, said things like "Ward, I'm very worried about the Beaver" and "Wally, you know, I think you're a very nice young man." Oh man, when mothers said that you knew they wanted something.

I believe she was the Grand Poobah of the Mother Conspiracy. Mothers in the fifties took lessons from her. She demonstrated how to always be asking questions, like:
June: [cooking breakfast in the kitchen] What's in the paper, Ward?
Ward: Nothing.
June: Then why have you been reading it for the last twenty minutes?
Ward: Well, you have to read it, before you know there's nothing in it.

She instructed on the art of seemingly innocent but probing personal comments, like:
June: Ward Cleaver, you have no romantic instinct at all!
Ward: Dear, I'm a married man!

And she gave lessons on how to be as bossy as all get out:
June: [in the boys' bedroom] Good! You're just in time to help me turn the mattress.
Ward: Well, at least that's a change. I'm usually just in time to yell at the kids. 

Not to mention teaching how to dictate social morals to your children:
June: You know, both of you boys should watch your grammar.  
Beaver: Gee, Mom, this is Saturday - they make us watch it all week in school.

So you see what those of us born in the fifties had to deal with. You young pups have it good... Sorry for the long post today. I just had to get it out. It's been very therapeutic.

Happy birthday Mom. I hear your laughter still. Miss you...

Note: (Barbara Billingsley (December 22, 1915 – October 16, 2010) was a distinguished film, television, voice and stage actress who played June Cleaver on the television series Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963) and was a real life mother to two sons, Drew and Glenn, Jr.)

Guys: Hit The Bald Button.

Today I began to write about the benefits of social media when I was stopped in my tracks by a facebook post from one female colleague to a friend that featured a beefcake guy. Apparently one that was particularly alluring. Okay, the guy had a body that wouldn't quit complete with a six pack. And okay, maybe he was a major sports star with a seventeen-thousand figure income. But it all seemed to center on the fact that the guy didn't have a single hair on his head. Or anywhere on his body, from what I could tell, except for those adorable eyebrows. It hit me then. What I've been missing. Baldness.

Guys, those of us with hair are just a poor substitute for a bald guy. Think Telly Savalas, who not only made the quote "Who loves ya, baby?" famous but also wisely stated, "We're all born bald, baby," He rocked the world with the the lack of hair as a sign of virility. Look at guys like Vin Diesel, Yul Brynner, Billy Zane, Michael Stipe, Howie Mandel (really?) Bruce Willis, Sir Ben Kingsley, Patrick Stewart... Austin Powers... They're all heralded for their sex appeal.

I wish I were bald. Oh, to be follically challenged. My kingdom for a bald button...

Things We Keep

Yet another week and, in preparation, yesterday I went hunting for something that I knew I kept because although I thought I would probably never use it again I was certain I would need it if I threw it out. You know that stuff.

I knew exactly where it was. It was in the drawer where I put little things I think I might need again. Call it the junk drawer in my brain.

It was there amidst the things that tie things together, small tools that fix stuff and things to give power to other things. It was sitting on my late mother's hand-written recipe for her holiday turkey stuffing beside toothpicks, measuring cups, thingamajigs, whatchamacallits and do-hickies.

I'm always amazed at how much stuff fits in such a small space...

Might-come-in-handy-someday things.

I may be a little late for work today guys. I have to put all this stuff back...

Someone's Been Watering Down My Water

I can't prove it but I know. Someone's been diluting my reverse osmosis, remineralized, highly scientifically generated designer water with (shudder) tap water. I can tell.

And it's not the manufacturer. They have strict internal regulations and things like unions. No, it's got to be something that happens en route to the retailers. In some dingy warehouse off the highway by teams of unshaven men in sweaty undershirts, suspenders and big bellies. Fedoras covering balding heads, mouths chewing on cigar stubs. Turning whole crates of bottles upside down and inserting needles into the bottoms to switch the good stuff – not all of it, maybe half of it. Then a quick dab of crazy glue and back on the highway to unsuspecting customers.

Not only that, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the same group is putting dirt into my soil. Last spring I bought six bags of customized garden soil at the garden soil place and I swear they all held a good percentage of common backyard dirt...

...sprouting ordinary weeds. At first I thought I purchased a "bush in a bag" and didn't know it. Maybe it got mislabeled at the soil factory. Maybe I got a deal and should have paid more. But I don't think so. It was then that I first started suspecting.

It's probably a huge underworld thing. Unlike flagrant knock-off imitations it's practically undetectable.

It's like taking a box of specially formulated, premium, energy-saving, cold water clothes detergent and replacing half of it with budget hot water detergent from third world sweatshops. Who's going to know?

I was thinking of calling Interpol's organized crime unit but I'm sure they've already got an active file. After all, if I can figure it out...

Off On A Tangent

Sometimes it's nice to get back to some pure poop. Design can get so complex at times. Like life. The hardest thing to do is something clean and simple. Something that looks like it belongs on paper.

I don't know whether you'll get off on this or not, but an interesting logo development project for a friend's new venture (can't go into it – sworn to secrecy) led to an exploration of type, shape, format and color. We took our time. We explored different fonts, formations and mathematical relationships of circles (that I didn't quite understand but my friend did). What matters is when the design is completed all components work together to convey an appropriate and unique personality.

Design-wise, the process took me back to the basics. Make sure it works in black and white, reversed, on color and dropped out of a color. Let it breathe. Canada flag red seemed appropriate for a hot new enterprise and has stuck... for now. Keep it simple and give the graphic the ability to blossom in later collateral.

We're still tinkering. Hopefully it's nothing to do with more mathematics although I'm afraid it does. lol Thanks to Daniel for the nice collaboration.

Have a happy weekend everyone! (In spite of it all :o)

The Measurement Of Mirth

I came across this shareware meter on the web the other day. There is lots of neat stuff out there. This one allows for real time monitoring based on interpretations of readings from the moisture level of people's fingers on their keyboards. Cool, eh?

You are witnessing the reactions of people who are currently watching reruns of the Charlie Sheen Roast on the Comedy Central site...

Oh, wait. My mistake. I dialed the meter into a number of sites. This one is data from a certain unnamed politician's site.

My bad.