on the shore of the ultimate sea

This would be me attempting to post a photo I Instagrammed from the iPad. Carry on. (It’s a cat!)

You must hold the reigns tighter than you have ever held them before but let the chariot head over the cliff top. The abyss is calling.

Clutch at straws. Build castles on clay. Let the quick sand tell you lies. Take the scenic route. Be there on time. Use two drummers if need be. Fill out forms. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days. Midweeks and predictions. Fall, spin, turn and dive. Sign cheques. Solicitor doing deals with “Hits” and “Now”. Sleep at night. Black to white. Highest new entry. Good to bad. Fast forward. Top of the Pops. Re-read this book, whatever it takes. No, don’t. You already know all there is to know. Faster. Faster. Faster. Give everything. Just give everything. This is the beautiful end.

I just finished The Manual and everything is clear.

A public service announcement from nickparish.net

“Nothing like the Apollo missions has been seen since, and some believe nothing ever will be.

Leading spacecraft expert Professor Andre Balogh, from Imperial College London, argues that the level of commitment and risk required to get astronauts to the Moon and back in 1969 would simply not be possible today.

He told the Press Association: ‘It was carried out in a technically brilliant way with risks taken … that would be inconceivable in the risk-averse world of today.

‘The Apollo programme is arguably the greatest technical achievement of mankind to date. And it was carried out successfully, against the backdrop of a difficult political situation in the USA, caused in large part by the worsening of the human and financial cost of the Vietnam war.’”

Hey, know what’d be great? Let’s put some company logos on some protective masks to cash in on this swine flu hysteria! Go SWINE! It’s VIRAL!

Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:10:52 -0400
Subject: The Hottest New Viral Marketing Idea: Go SWINE

The Hottest New Viral Marketing Idea: Go SWINE

GoGORILLA Media is excited to offer advertisers an opportunity to contribute to consumers’ health while at the same time getting their message across in a lively, fun and sure-to-be-talked-about way.

With local drugstores already running out of protective face masks, branded face masks with your 1-color logo on them will be a welcome giveaway, no matter which demographic you are trying to reach.

Brand ambassadors will be handing out your branded face masks to tens of thousands of commuters in major markets across the nation and spread the word about your brand at the same time.

Don’t miss out on the buzz and excitement created by this new form of ‘viral’ marketing!

For more information, please contact your GoGORILLA sales rep today at 212-925-2420.

GoGORILLA Media
116 W. Houston St., 2nd Fl.
New York, NY 10012
Phone: 212-925-2420
www.gogorillamedia.com

Yeah, no. (Four hours later!)

Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:50:34 -0400
Subject: Apology Letter

Dear Client,

I would like to apologize for the insensitive email that some of you might have received this morning. In hindsight, the concept was not as clever as I had originally thought. I did not intend for it to make light of the recent Swine Flu outbreak and regret any anguish we caused you.

I want to take personal responsibility for this ‘stunt’ and let you know that the fine staff of GoGORILLA Media had absolutely nothing to do with this email.

If you would like to discuss with me further, I can be reached at 646.861.9060.

Sincerely,

Alan Wolan
CEO
GoGORILLA Media

Sheesh.

About a month ago a forwarded email arrived.

It was so staggering, actions were forced.

The note, laden in artistic pronouncements and full-of-itselfness, begged for an extension; a dramatic reading was considered, but it turned out only a full video could to the thing justice. After all, a 1500-word yearly update email sent to dozens of people deserves the highest degree of satire you can muster.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m an earnest man. But even sincerity, in extreme, is funny as hell. (Viz. Kenneth on 30 Rock.)

Who was the sender? An unknown personage, but clearly a modern-day Benjamin Franklin, part writer, part political organizer, all full of Brooklyn potential and privilege and so indicative of our generation’s rampaging self-importance.

We christened him Eric Anton Schechter-Oblomov; this is his yearly update, verbatim, brought to life as best we could.

A Letter From Brooklyn from Eric Anton Schechter-Oblomov on Vimeo.

Read the original email

Don’t force or stare, just relax…you will succeed.

If emerging web video platforms are sports teams Brad Neely is Super Deluxe‘s franchise player. Neely’s been rolling with his twisted brand of hilarity for some time, but now that he’s at the Turner-sponsored spot thousands are braying for Babycakes and the Professor Brothers. Here are the interview bits I didn’t use when I talked to Neely recently for Creativity. Check out more of his work at his Creased Comics site and at his Super Deluxe site. Look for the rest of the interview and a few morsels of Neely’s funniest after the break.

Hey Brad, how’s it going with Super Deluxe?

BN: It’s been really fun so far. Iím turning in a great deal of work, both Babycakes and Professor Brothers and a lot of one shots as well, they’ll be just characters that you never see again, some holiday things. But the core will be Babycakes and the Professor Brothers.

At what point did you take the comics you were making and put voices and animation along? Had you always been doing that?

BN: No, I hadn’t. A few years ago I did “Wizard People, Dear Readers,” which was an unauthorized alternate audio that’s synched with the first Harry Potter movie. I toured around with that and got shut down by Warner Brothers and I had such a good time doing that, it was my first time to be really close to film in a weird way, but it got me to thinking about how to continue to make things on my own terms with my own brand of comedy. So making the pictures sort of cartoons was an easy thing that I could do all by myself.

Where did the character Babycakes come from? I saw one of your comics with a Babycakes-esque guy.

BN: I’m always drawn to the giant, hairless bald person, I don’t know why. Babycakes, whenever, I’d done the George Washington cartoon on YouTube and the Super Deluxe people came to me and asked me if I had anything else to work on, and I just kind of rummaged around a lot of notes and Babycakes and the Professor Brothers just kind of evolved out of that. There are certain types of jokes that I want to be able to tell and certain tones and songs and fantasies and nightmares and prophecies and dances and all that kind of stuff and you make characters that will bring those out.

Read the rest of this entry »