El Gaffney

M-E-T-H (no O-D), DAN

I’ve just about given up on putting a thoughtful or thought-provoking post up here. No time. (Oddly enough, the Old School line that went through my head — “I don’t know if we’ll have enough time” — would have been appropriate given I hit up Bed, Bath and Beyond on the regular lately.) So I’ve been reduced to what are essentially blown-out tweets. Slashies: Tweets-slash-Posts - and not the other way around! In case you’re not “following me,” this Bruno interview, Daily Show clip and a capella version of I’m On A Boat have been worthy of broadcasting to my 300 friends.

This guy, Dan Meth in case you didn’t click the link you lazy bassmaster, deserved a blog mention. (Mostly, I just wanted an excuse to write my witty title.) I saw this yesterday and immediately wanted to buy it and put it up on my wall.

So good. He also does “pop cultural charts” like one about the topics of early Early Beach Boys Hit Songs (cars, girls and surf) and illustrations like one of Ivan Drago and his four bad-ass lines of dialog (”if he dies he dies”).

My kind of art.

Tags: art, movies, popculture

That’s So College

Two videos that leave me in awe of college students. (Sorry no Asher Roth below.)

Mike Posner is a senior at Duke (via Shut Up We’re Blogging)

Bang-yao Lui is a senior at Savannah College of Art and Design (via Brand Flakes for Breakfast)

And of course, there are these recent Harvard grads who started Unithrive (a non-profit loan program at Harvard) featured in the Sunday Times.

Tags: art, college, entrepreneurs, genY, students, videos

What I’m Getting Into This Morning

A non-typical post but I’m waiting for movers - so why not?

TrueHoop

We Love You So
(Lauren Epstein passed this on a while back)

(Phil Chang posted on Facebook earlier this week but I can’t get enough)

And this
(Not just because of the mention in “Motherlover”)

Tags: moving

Non Ads By Ad People

I feel like I’ve witnessed some pretty great non-advertising ideas brought to life by people in this office over these past couple of weeks. From in our stairwell to on top of our building to outside 150 Varick, these people aren’t just indulging their interests, they’re doing things that create our agency’s culture.

- Keiji creating art and upping the inspiration and fun with his “GRRRanimals of WKNY” mural:

The truth of the matter is that there are somewhere around 160 people in our office, and there are somewhere around 100 creatures on the stairwell. What that means is that many of the animals are really amalgams of several different people, groups of people, and so forth. Yes, it’s true that some of the creatures are more direct reference to specific individuals, but for the most part the animals are mixes. Literally months of thought have gone into the careful analysis of the bestial representations of various people in the office, and I think in short its best to consider the value of an animal in a more eastern way—that is to say, its all good, even if you’re a pig or a rat. Also frankly, if you think about it, you’re probaby not a dragon, or a liger or like a griffon or something.

Stairwell V2 from Keiji Ando on Vimeo.

- Nick completing his “100 Bands in 100 Days” project and inviting us all to his final show:

The fact that I can find live music in downtown Hartford, CT on a random Monday night amazes me. How I can still see Les Paul, the 93-year old man who invented the solid body electric guitar, every Monday night, have him flick me off for a picture and meet him afterwards amazes me. The fact that I can be asked on stage to perform with a band that’s been together for over 20 years, to a sold out crowd in NYC amazes me. And the fact that I can see 100 consecutive days of live music and still love music amazes me.

- Phil taking pictures of WKNYers in a project (that didn’t start as a project at all) called Rooftop at Seven:

Well I shot Sara and then Heather and those went well so I was like fuck it. LET’S GO.

Three very different projects that transform employees to people (or co-workers to friends) and make me feel more connected to the place and people around here. Not human resource sanctioned or agency funded necessarily (except for Keiji’s paint I think) but permitted (if not encouraged) and extremely valuable.

Tags: agency, culture

What Disintermediation?

Sorry for the big, grown-up word in the subject of this post: I learned it in business school…when I read about business school…in a book. (reference DirecTV “Charge More”)

Yesterday afternoon I saw a tweet from ESPN RISE asked if anyone had questions for Donald Faison of Dr. Turk on Scrubs fame. I posed: Best hairstyle in sports? Look at Lawrence’s head. It’s da bomb! Cause I’m keepin’ it real. Cause I’m keepin’ it real. (reference Clueless script)

Well, today he responded to me (right after dirtydave998):

Tags: celebrities, espn