step on the peel

the fake that launched a thousand blogs

2006-06-01T14:37:00.000-07:00

who among us has not suffered the multiple personality disorder that is the blogosphere? how many screen handles have you accumulated over the years? [if your lifespan as a user dates back to the Well, don't answer that question.]

next question: how many outrageous/audacious/unlikely business plans have you blogged about and never seen past the R & D phase? how many boxes of business cards for ficitious companies/brands are sitting on your shelf? did you actually get to the point of having a prospectus printed?

were you one of the chosen few who actually went IPO with nothing actually for sale but vapor? [if so, dear reader, please know: i do not scorn you. after all, even the mighty engine of the winds that drives the sails of every merchant ship upon the seas of commerce, is itself fueled by vapor. not to mention hyperextended metaphors.]

wouldn't it be nice if our lives weren't so fear-based and addictive to dishonesty that we could actually roll up our sleeves and make something? a chair, a birdhouse, lawn art, a coffee mug?

instead, what do we do? we have spent our lives designing brilliant PowerPoint treasure maps to nonexistent pirate treasure buried in the backyards of our minds.

i propose something different. i propose that we go back into our cobwebbed warehouses, turn on the lights, look at what's rusting there, and ask ourselves: would i buy this? and if not: bring on the gasoline.

this internet thing is useless only insofar as talk is cheap. in other words: if all you've ever done is spew meaningless drivel and bogus rah-rah business philosophy, you're not going to make a dime more in this place than you already have.

however, if your conversation is scintillating - if you can tell a story that makes a room crackle with excitement, or even with bitter irony - then behold: your audience just got a whole hell of a lot bigger.

the tricky part is, which of us will be smart enough, or perhaps brilliantly dumb enough to actually exploit that fact?

my official position on the jessa jeffries scandal

2006-05-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

god, how i hate women who are beautiful, brilliant AND love to get drunk and f?!k.

it's like putting a starving man in front of a sandwich sealed in a cube of perspex.

i'm going to go blow my brains out now.

meanwhile, no one cares about the blog of a silvered, pedantic 40+ white male with a paunch.

i HATE you, jessa jeffries!!!

hate yooou...with a hate...called "love"...

PS - this truly is a win-win marketing campaign both for her former employer AND her. i predict a measurable climb in ticket sales at the museum, and a career in the limelight for her; i'd give it an 85-86% liklihood. good gambling numbers.

jessa...if you're out there reading this...give us a buzz, luv. you need a good agent.

this is probably the most frightening statement ever made

2006-04-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

and by corrollary, the most truthful statement ever made:

[click on picture to witness the genius that is hugh mcleod]

this is the truthful statement that makes me wake up screaming.

except it's even worse than that. because i can't seem to wake up.

postscript

2006-04-17T22:32:00.000-07:00

the rest of you bush-leaguers [and i use that term advisedly] wouldn't have the stones to admit something like that on their blog.

that's what sets SFM apart from the rest of the fleabitten hyenas in this wasteland.

go back and read what i wrote about going down in flames a few posts below.

marshmallows anyone?

first quarter returns

2006-04-17T22:30:00.000-07:00

let's hear it for 8 straight months in the red!

that's right; SFM is hemorrhaging to death.

perhaps we should kill the monkey and eat its brain.

but then we'd be guilty of killing the proverbial monkey that throws the golden turds...

things i learned in 2005

2006-01-04T00:38:00.000-08:00

1. how can you possibly make anyone care if you don't?

2. even if you do, you'll probably only succeed in making someone else care one time out of hundred.

3. the good news is, this is a pretty decent way to weed out the idiots.

4. annoying people can still be useful. this includes customers as well as partners.

5. if you're going to go down in flames, make sure you do it as publicly as possible. and don't forget the marshmallows and hot dogs.

6. everybody's got a sob story. not all of them are well written.

7. sometimes it's the editing that kills a movie.

8. it's not the spinach in your teeth that sinks a pitch. it's the fact that the recipient might think you didn't put it there on purpose. a successful pitch leaves the recipient wanting their own piece of spinach.

9. if you watch the behavior of animals at the zoo, you'll learn a lot about why even the best job is still pretty much a stinking prison for the wild one inside you.

10. sometimes you have to do stuff, then talk about it, then write about it, and not the other way around.

job hunting sucks

2005-12-04T04:44:00.000-08:00

because i don't live alone in this bomb shelter, i have been forced to go outside in my yellow radiation suit and forage for scraps of garbage that might be useful. that is one of the many reasons that this blog has lain fallow for lo these six months. [another is that we've got better things to do than sitting around doing this, but that's another story.]

my colleague and i have been conducting an ongoing experiment, namely: on the road to making a living for oneself and one's family that involves doing whatever the hell one feels like at any particular moment, which is worse - employment or unemployment?

perhaps it's due to our white male privilege, but my associate [well, he's not really "white" and i'm not really "male", but that's another story] and i have found that somehow we have failed to die, or to cause or allow our families to die, during our period of unemployment. [this may be due to the fact that our spouses are more industrious than we are, but that's another story.] however, the constant stress of our situation might be construed as a fate worse than death.

for instance, i have a funny feeling right now that i've acquired walking pneumonia. and all because i've been job hunting for six months. i am beginning to believe that job hunting is bad for your health.

here is something of interest for you to consider. recently i sat through an 80 minute job interview, as well as performing a number of onerous research, writing and design tests for which i easily could have charged a client a month's salary for, all for a job that salary.com describes as starting at 40k a year [peanuts to some of you, i know, but to struggling family men, nothing to shake a stick at] at the bargain-basement-entry level.

i was then offered the job. at an hourly rate.

of $12.

half-time.

to quote a sign that was recently put up at the counter of seattle's famous allegro cafe:

"what in the world is wrong with you all?"

reprint of an earlier broadside

2005-06-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

Posted here apropos of the delivery of Part II in very soonage.
***************************************************************

MANIFESTO: THE HEAT DEATH OF THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY, PART I

A Superflatmonkey Communique

Here at the mid-point of the first decade of the new Millennium, it is no coincidence that at a time of information technology convergence equally as revolutionary as Gutenberg's printing press, when we are staring in the face not only of instantaneous real-time wireless video teleconferencing on a global scale, but the even greater watersheds of smart paper and thumbprint banking, the mightiest nation on Earth is controlled by factually challenged religious fanatics.

We are living on the knife edge of risk and opportunity, when possibly nothing might stand in the way of total human communication across all boundaries and distances; and yet, what good is that if what we are communicating is not even fertile enough to be called bullshit?

In the downloadable, peer-to-peer, open source culture, commodities as we used to know them have grown obsolete. We have seen short-sighted people try to create bottlenecks and charge a toll; this is the real piracy, not the digital black market, which is still the strongest market on Earth as it always has been. We've tried prohibition before and it just doesn't work as a business model. It's not that "information wants to be free", because information is a thing - it doesn't want anything. We are the ones who want to be free, and the truth of the matter from a Bakuninist [as much as a Buddhist] perspective is that we already are - we are merely struggling against the imposed illusion that we are not.

If we want to profit, we have to examine the rules of profit, not as we hope or imagine them to be, but as they really are. And the first rule of profit is not "Buy cheap and sell dear", nor is it "Never give a sucker an even break"; both maxims, in the end, contain their own hidden costs that only the suicidally stupid can afford to ignore, and only the retarded can pretend never to have learned from the most painful experience.

No, the first rule of profit is, simply, "It is always cheaper - and infinitely more profitable - to sell the customer something she or he already owns."

the laziest bloggers in the world

2005-06-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

we at superflatmonkey have lots of more important things to do with our time than blogging. we're not sure what. but it might have something to do with old vampirella comics and salad oil.

we're also trying to quit our jobs and make money the old fashioned way - by stealing it. don't worry about our moral compass, however - we are firmly committed to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. the poor just happen to be us, but if we're flush and your cardboard sign doesn't contain any egregious misspellings, we might buy you a sandwich.

if you are a rich person or financially solvent corporation, greetings! have we got a marketing plan for you. all that "new media", "viral marketing", "cluetrain/hughtrain" stuff you've been hearing about? yeah, that's us all over, jack. write us a check. for as much as possible. better yet, give us the cash in one of those shiny steel briefcases. what will we do for you in return?

we will notify you as to whether or not you're already dead, and in need of the george romero treatment.

we are willing to tell any and all lies necessary in order to acquire free iPods and titanium powerbooks with wifi broadband access.

we also plan to expense entire wardrobes from this guy. [and not just because hugh told us to. okay, well, maybe yes, because hugh told us to, but hugh is very smart.] a different one for every day of the week, for every season. that's...let's see...five times three...at least fifteen outfits.

campester prefers black of course; eject! prefers ivory, wasabi, orange cream and baby blue.

we also need ski equipment and a vacation home in tahoe.

i'll let you know if we're expensing anything else.

the art and science of being disgusting

2005-04-08T13:42:00.000-07:00

networking my ass. call it what it is: incest. second degree sexual assault.

in other words, groping people on the bus. fondling people against their will.

stalking.

that is what networking is. going to dinner parties and exchanging business cards. eeeeuuuuwwwhhhh!!! it gives us the fucking creeps.

however...it is absolutely necessary. to schmooze...to slither...to whore oneself. to sidle up to the groom at the wedding and tell him where he can get some on the side for a nominal fee...to sidle up to the bride and try to get some of her for free.

to sidle up to the bereaved friends and family at a wake, and offer them your services.

that is networking at its finest. and/or at its lowest.

and it's absolutely necessary and vital.

so how does one network without becoming so disgusted with oneself, that one is pushed to the point of swallowing all the aspirin next to one's computer and washing it down with a bottle of dayquil? followed by a liter bottle of mouthwash?

answer: if you cannot learn to enjoy the necessary evils of marketing yourself to human beings that you know and meet in the real world and not simply a nebulous cloud of philosophically abstract "clients", then you will never make a dime as your own boss.

when people say to you, "hey, like how's it goin'?" respond: "great. i'm working on a new project blah blah blah" until they shut you up or walk away. make sure they do not walk away without a business card in their pocket, even if you have to slip it in there yourself.

when people say to you, "man, this weather sucks," reply, "i know, it's had such an impact on my business..." turn the conversation so it's about you.

in other words: endeavor to become the most self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, disgustingly smarmy piece of shit you ever imagined being. see every relationship as a potential resource to be exploited.

oh, and don't ever sleep.

and look up your old ex girlfriends on google.

how do we know this works?
it probably doesn't, actually.

find out what lengths you are willing to go to in order to make yourself visible. find out what your comfort zone is, where your boundaries are. then, push beyond them. all kidding aside, and we're mostly kidding here - it's your comfort zone that helped you to cope with the stifling mediocrity you're condemned to right now. you have to go outside it, in order to get anywhere else.

so don't make yourself sick of yourself, or make others sick of you, just because we said so. try it for one week; see what happens. if you find that it has some positive effect, consider adopting it as a habit.

knots

2005-01-18T09:35:00.000-08:00

'">>'"branding is dead" is dead' is dead<< is coming back"' is coming back.

[search/replace:]'branding' || [with:] 'buzzword of your choice'

ideas or memes have the properties of both particles and waves. they exist outside of linear time. they are like the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

sometimes you get sick of apples and so you take a break from them for awhile. then suddenly months later you think, 'boy, an apple sounds real good right about now.'

fear and trembling

2004-12-06T14:43:00.000-08:00

"honey, could you please get the adult diapers down off the shelf? i just crapped my pants...oh, and i'm going to need some toilet paper, and a mop and a bucket and some pine-sol, and a new pair of pants."

if i stand on the shoulders of giants, it is only because i am vertically challenged.

a voice crying out in the wilderness

2004-12-06T13:28:00.000-08:00

this is my contribution to memetics for today:

would everyone PLEASE stop writing copy that goes:

"it's about _____. it's about _______. it's about ________." etc. etc. ad nauseam.

if i hear or read or see ONE MORE advertisement, article, review, political slogan, speech, prospectus, or even conversational mention containing the "it's about ______" gambit, I WILL PERSONALLY SEE TO IT THAT THE MULTI-TIPPED PERSHING MISSILES ARE LAUNCHED AND THE ENTIRE SURFACE OF THE EARTH TURNED INTO A GIANT PARKING LOT.

i mean it.

really.

What the hell are you guys doing?

2004-10-31T14:49:00.000-08:00

That is a damned fine question.

What we are doing is evident, though subtle, in every post and every design -- we are taking our lives back.

We are taking our lives back by doing what is natural for us to do. We are creators. We are builders. We have visions and (re)visions, we condense, we expand, we coalesce, we have never even been in the same room with the box.

We have been in the work force though. We have been pod people. I would rather die than do it again. I mean it.

Some like it. Some like the safety and security of the salaried, executive world. Others like the 9 to 5 at the docks. Still others prefer the coffee shops and bars. It is all respectable work. Ours is too.

We work hard. So hard that it only makes sense for us to work for ourselves.

We are fresh eyes.

We do our research.

So what do we do?

We bridge the disconnect between how you want to be seen and how you are seen. It is that simple.

If you are saying to yourself that many companies come up with ideas to do this, you are right. Trust us, we used to work for those companies. Usually those ideas -- those grand ideas, those huge, star-studded ideas -- are to get your business. How many of them have you seen move forward?

Their plan is simple. The ideas are great, but they are priced in addition to your retainer. Inevitably, the idea that sold you is too expensive, so you have to decline it in favor of another, less appealing, option.

We don't play that game. Our ideas work and we don't have hidden costs and fees.

When we present a plan -- whether for a word-of-mouth campaign, (re)branding, web identity, whathaveyou -- it is an actual plan. There are steps, timelines, accountability, and a line-by-line budget that calculates price to the last cent.

I suppose that is more the how we do what we do, heh?

What do we do? We bridge the disconnect.

We do this with every freaking tool in the toolbox.

We are experts in the so-called new media. We don't pretty it up for the sell. We are results.

We have run successful word-of-mouth campaigns all over the globe. Start to finish.

We do the internet branding. We do the corporate ID. We run creativity seminars. We develop corporate play plans. We do most everything.

We don't do boring.

We don't just take a client to have it. We interview each other. We will only work for a client who is ready to have us. We aren't what you've had before.

Our people are from every field that have come together to let creativity and vision shine. We are advertising. We are public relations and marketing communications. We are branding. We are the new media. Enjoy.

don't forget to vote nov. 2

2004-10-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

if a neighbor needs a ride, childcare, or just that little nudge, help them out.

hold voting block parties. strike up the band. i'll be bringing snacks to the polling place and serving coffee, and watching out for thugs.

that's right - we at superflatmonkey may appear evil, but in fact we only use evil means to serve the common good. that is why we are endorsing mr. john kerry for united states president, and if you don't like it we don't need your business.

happy halloween!

pearlescent skies, diving flocks of birds, and rippling distant rooftop flags

2004-09-10T16:21:00.000-07:00

what use is a superior business plan, marketing strategy, or even a visionary concept, if you don't have any money left in your checking account, a lien's been put on your house, your car has been repossessed, your wife is suing you and your girlfriend won't sleep with you, the prostitute stole your wallet and hit you on the head, you've discovered you have gonorrhea AND syphillis, you can't even get it up for porn, you've gained 100 pounds, you smell bad, and you can't stop crying even after doubling your dosage of welbutrin?

being a smartypants never made anybody rich. being a rich smartypants never made anybody successful. being a rich, successful smartypants never stopped the grim reaper.

you're going to die anyway, so you might as well get your message out and have fun.

are you one of those people who hide under the covers so the boogey-man doesn't get you? because if i'm under the covers, he can't see me! stupid little kid. he's just going to stab you through the blankets.

99.99% of your efforts are going to have different results than the ones you expected. that's no reason not to make them.

some vs. us

2004-08-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

some people work from home.

some people work from home in the nude.

some people who work from home in the nude answer the door in the nude when the UPS man rings the doorbell.

some people who work from home in the nude hug the UPS man when greeting him at the door.

some people who work from home in the nude play in the sprinkler on the front lawn.

some people who work from home in the nude while playing in the sprinkler on the front lawn and hugging the UPS man while nude and wet, also eat lots of popsicles.

some of us like to play with very sharp knives.

some of us actually get stuff done.

but only we do these things...all of these things...while clandestinely controlling the minds of millions.

disease

2004-08-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

i worked for three years in a rotting, car-exhaust-fumigated, seismically unsafe office. we never dusted. every time i reached down to pick something up from under the desk my fingers came up black.

we recently moved to a brand new office building. they had barely painted over the sheetrock tape. some of the ceiling panels were still pushed aside, bundles of fiberoptic hanging down like the guts of an eviscerated deer.

my hippie voodoo doctor made me clutch a small glass vial full of clear liquid to my heart and pushed down on my arm. "yep - that new office is poisoning you with formaldehyde fumes."

i guess what i'm trying to say is - just because it's new doesn't mean it's good for you. that new marketing plan. that new district manager. that new catchy corporate buzzphrase, like "total quality!" or "culture of service!"

ask what the oldest, bitterest, most hidebound old fucker in your organization thinks should happen. of course, you won't, because you think you know what's good for your organization. fine then. don't come running to me when by playing it safe, you continue to play with the little leagues.

as soon as you're ready to move out into deeper waters, where the scary sharkasauruses swim - ask that bitter old man in the boiler room. he will teach you how to land that motherfucker with a paperclip dangling from a thread.

fair warning

2004-08-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

the only thing certain is uncertainty. the only viable belief is doubt. even disillusionment is ephemeral. even our worst case scenarios are dwarfed by the actual; we cry when our dog is killed on a rainswept street, only to be crushed by a rolling log truck seconds later.

it's worse than you think it is, so don't fear and don't despair. pretend you are superman, because smart people gave up hope long ago. reason isn't going to get you where you need to go.

you think you're a "flipout" artist? you don't even know the meaning of flipping out. the flipping out you REALLY need to do you probably are too chicken, weak, stupid, ineffectual and lazy to accomplish.

so flip out. do it. be prepared to hold nothing back, go all the way, and completely abandon the very framework containing your self-limiting neuroses. because you love them. you really do. they're comforting, like the smell of your own effluvia.

"quit your job"? "commit suicide"? "kill your boss/parents/etc."?

small fucking potatoes, bitch. do you have the guts to actually kill the voice inside your head? all that other stuff is the easy way out.

how do you kill the voice in your head?

i give you the words of todd rundgren:

You know, wishing won't make it so
Hoping won't do it, praying won't do it,
Religion won't do it, philosophy won't do it
The Supreme Court won't do it,
The president and the congress won't do it
the U.N. won't do it, the H bomb won't do it
The sun and the moon won't do it
God won't do it, and I certainly won't do it
That leaves you, you'll have to do it.
-- "Fair Warning", by Todd Rundgren. Copyright 1975 by Earmark Music/Screen Gems

The Gun Was Heavy

2004-08-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

The other night I dreamed I was setting in a dimly lit living room with my father. I cannot say it was any living room I've ever known, but that's the way it is in dreams.

My father was sitting in a handsome leather recliner. The stitching was ornate – pinched with thick white stitching that crisscrossed and created a rise.

Dad had a gun to his head. A pistol. I didn’t know what kind, but I don’t know much about guns.

I was shocked but acted otherwise.

“Wow,” I said, “I was hoping to inherit that. I don’t want it all filled with blood. I’ve never seen that pistol before. Let me see that.”

I was thinking about the other kids. They were young and running around. I didn’t know these kids but they were my siblings. I was glad that they didn’t have to hear the shot. I was glad to know that they wouldn’t have to run in on the bloody corpse of their father.

He handed me the gun. It was ornate and heavy. Very heavy. I can still feel its weight in my hands. It had a snubbed barrel. It looked like some sort of pirate weapon.

Upon closer inspection, I realized that the gun wasn’t even loaded. I berated him for his cowardice. I hated him for trying to steal emotions from me. Though my love for my father never changed, my concern, then relief/anger, kept me from showing that I did care.

We don’t do stunts.

dealing with disillusionment

2004-08-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

eventually, if not perpetually, we will be met with an instance [if not many instances] in which our hard, productive labors are met at best with indifference and ignorance and at worst with outright scorn; and to rub salt in the wound, our greatest reward and recognition comes from our most florid lies, or simply from looking busy in just the right way. perhaps we have been shining along our business associates for so long that they'll never be able to tell the difference, since nobody in the entire world of western technological capitalism has anybody truly been interested in the bottom line or results - no one even knows how to accurately measure the bottom line or results. instead, they want their delusions stroked to the point of orgasm.

people in the business world, which some dubiously refer to as "the real world", thrive off of a culture in which the most commonplace activity is the circle-jerk.

this is obviously quite disillusioning to those of us who grew up thinking that grown-ups got things done. obviously there are things that need to get done. obviously something got done or we'd probably all be dead by now. or maybe things just kind of happen and we're all like nuts running around in a madhouse. the point is - our culture, our society, our civilization doesn't reward hard work, intelligence, or any measure of worthiness. so we have to start questioning the rewards themselves.

do you really want money? well, of course you do, but let's split hairs here for a second.

do you really want money, or the things that you believe money can buy? and do you really want those things, or do you want the things those things can buy?

to reiterate a rather pedestrian point already peddled by wiser minds, you probably already have those things in your possession.

the key to creativity is to stop thinking about results. you're not going to get anything out of it, so stop looking for that. instead, true creativity involves embracing a day-to-day, moment-to-moment process.

the hard thing for us westerners is that the idea of discipline is like poison to us. it's like garlic to vampires. so pull the wool over your own eyes: don't call it discipline, don't call it a "practice". instead, call it "melons", or "car seats", or "sunday mornings", or "french toast." call it whatever you want. but acclimate yourself to doing something over and over again you don't understand.

it's called magic; it's called ritual. make shit up. the stranger the better.

do something over and over again you don't understand. ask it questions. this is called an oracle. it is where the wisdom of the ages comes from.

i'm serious. it does. you can ask anybody.

it's called alchemy. do something over and over again you don't understand, and record the results. "day 57: 5 o'clock p.m. took shower while holding an empty bottle in my left hand. put the bottle on the table. stuck a flower from outside in the bottle. waited for an insect to land on the flower. killed insect and put it in the bottle. went to the mailbox and got the mail. tore the photo out of a 'have you seen this child?' circular and put it in the bottle. wrote down an insult i heard as a child on a scrap of paper, rolled it up and put it in the bottle. got depressed thinking about how stupid this crazy ritual is, and thinking about my ex-wife; cried; put the tissue with tears and snot on it into the bottle. 'did' myself, put tissue in bottle. dog threw up a little, put some of the dog barf in the bottle. found some of ex-wife's perfume in the cabinet; put some in the bottle. phone rang, collection agency. doodled on a scrap of paper while listening to collector's idle threats. hung up, rolled up the doodle and put it in the bottle. took a sip of beer #18 since getting up this morning; poured a little in the bottle. cut my finger on the can by accident, squeezed some blood into the bottle. another insect landed on the table, killed it and put it in the bottle. got sick and tired of this so went to neighbor's house to bum a cigarette. put the butt in the bottle.

"finally, so very tired of this bullshit, took an old T-shirt and soaked it in contents of bottle. wore the t-shirt to investor's meeting underneath dress shirt and tie. it was hot in the office, AC was down; people kept asking me if i was OK. got a lot of dirty looks. there is no hope, no hope at all. will see what happens after doing this exercise the third time. if by the end of the third time nothing happens, will definitely DRINK contents of bottle, thus committing suicide...hopefully."

DISCLAIMER: your results may vary. it is not recommended that you eat, drink, inject, snort, smoke, anally/vaginally/urethrally insert, or otherwise consume, imbibe, or take in any or all substances created during this process. this blog is not liable for any injury, illness or death resulting from any of activities herein described. always consult a physician and/or mental health specialist before conducting unusual experiments on yourself, including but not limited to actual suicide. don't hurt yourself. don't kid yourself. get some sleep. it'll all look better in the morning.

notes on process

2004-08-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

now is the time to begin, according to goethe's famous aphorism, invoking the powerful forces of initiation. it may be useful to catalog some of the tools you've acquired. do not be exclusive at this point; include everything. for instance, some idiot, possibly your mother, told you to "make lemonade out of lemons" or some such bullshit. include this on the list. [better make a list. yellow legal pad and a 25 cent bic ballpoint, the white shelled kind they sell in bags of 50 that have a medium point, should do the trick. the flow is easy and you can throw them away without feeling bad.] so go to the store and buy a sack of a dozen organic lemons, some natural spring water if you don't have filters at home, and some sucanat. cut up the lemons into flat slices and boil all of them in a large pot with 2 cups of sucanat [or one quarter cup of stevia or similar concentrated natural sweetener] and enough of the purified water to cover the lemons twice over. when the water comes to a boil lower it to a simmer. when you have noticed the level of the liquid having reduced below the top of the lemons, pour it off into a jar. this mixture is, i believe, about 1 cup per gallon of water to make lemonade, put you may adjust this to taste. drink this lemonade constantly. for added enjoyment add a few large sprigs of fresh rosemary to the pitcher.

your next assignment is to take the next bullshit aphorism someone told you about getting things done - "rome wasn't built in a day" for example - and go out and get one of those children's pop up books of roman architecture, or make one of your own if you have a coffee table book you don't mind mutilating with an exacto knife, and build rome. get it done in a day. keep it in plain sight of your work area.

next, take another annoying presupposition or bogus truism and execute it in a concretized literal fashion. let's pull another one out of our ass. "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" - that's a nice one. okay. get seven envelopes, seven small pieces of paper, seven stamps, and seven one dollar bills. oh, and one of your nice new white-shelled bic pens. send each dollar bill to a friend or acquaintance with a quick note - "i am sending you this dollar as a magic ritual. no response is necessary. please spend this dollar in any way you see fit." record any reactions or responses, including your own. do this process periodically - monthly, bi-monthly, etc. don't expect a damn thing to happen - simply record any and all reactions or responses, including your own.

finally, take something you've always heard said but never really believed - "good things come to those who wait". if you have a back yard, go out there with a chair and have a seat; otherwise conduct this exercise on a park bench. bring a bag of some kind, paper and pen. you may wish to bring water and snacks as well. sunglasses and a hat might also be required. so the first thing that falls out of the trees or is blown in front of you by the wind, pick up and put in the bag and catalog it on your note pad - a leaf. a twig. a feather. a dead mole. a bird turd. a piece of trash. anything that falls or blows or arrives physically in some way: collect it. catalog it. we will use these items in a later exercise. wait for as long as possible while collecting and cataloging these "good things". if you wish, also note your own personal reactions and responses to this exercise, including conversations with passers-by wondering what the fuck it is you're doing, police officers suggesting you "move along now", etc.

report back to me any results you may have, and watch this space for further instructions.

more on the subject of creativity

2004-08-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

you have probably guessed by now that this is a blog about how it might be possible to quit working forever, and instead manage to live off of one's creativity. a great deal has been written about this; in fact, one could be crushed to death, buried alive, or at the very least beaten black and blue with the weight of books about how to live creatively falling off the shelves of your local bookstore. every week it seems like there's a new one. have you noticed that they don't really help, and leave you feeling more depressed afterwards?

the trick is, you have to stop seeing the situation at hand as a problem to be solved, or an opportunity to be capitalized upon. what you must instead choose to see before you is a bottomless fucking pit, filled with the echoes of the moans and screams of the damned, and force yourself...in whatever way you normally would force yourself to do things...to jump in. headfirst, if possible.

instead of operating in survival mode - writing business plans, organizing focus groups, seeking investors, shopping for office space, scamming on 'interns', etc. - what is of utmost importance, right now, is to identify the single most terrifying aspect of the entire enterprise - the one element that causes you to shake with fear, break out in cold sweats, and fart boiling gas as if you had swallowed drano - and then rush headlong in the direction of that thing - now! or as they say in hospitals - STAT!!!

for some of you for instance, that most terrifying thing may be standing up in front of people and presenting your vision with the implicit goal of getting their money on the table.

do it; and do it without underwear, with your fly unzipped. touch yourself while speaking. if possible, leave a visible wet spot. then make sure and shake hands with everyone in the room before they can leave.

if your most terrifying thing is writing a business plan, drop everything you are doing, get a big stack of typing paper, and start at the top by writing in blue Bic medium-point: "I AM FUCKING INVINCIBLE!" fold the piece of paper and carry it around with you. every time you are blocked in your writing, do this exercise.

if your most terrifying thing is spending money - either securing real estate/office space, investing in new computer hardware, or hiring staff - go to your ATM machine right now, withdraw the maximum amount allowed, roll it and rubberband it and put it in your underwear. make sure people can see the bulge. after wearing the money for at least a day, pay your initial big expenditure out of that fund, even if it's simply for the taxi ride to your first investor meeting.

at this very moment, a madwoman is pealing bloodcurdling screams off of the canyoned walls of the campus wherein my current office is located. take opportunities like this as a chance to open yourself to the fact that everything you fear is possible, but nothing is worse than the fear itself, which is what madness is. sorry to get all serious on you for a second there.

stop bullshitting and start believing in what you actually want to accomplish, which you know in your heart you are fully capable of. it's only your beliefs that tell you that what you really want costs more than you ca afford. you're just using the wrong currency.

write yourself a check for the amount of money you want to make in a year, and date it next year. carry this around with you at all times.

always carry a pair of your beloved's undergarments with you. nothing could possibly ground you more, if you are given to useless flights of fancy.

get to work having fun, and stop frittering your life away working!

it's already august and i still haven't taken over the world

2004-08-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

why do our best creative impulses seem to visit us when we have completely lost our minds, meanwhile our ordinary state of mind causes us to over-think which type of salad dressing we should use?

the trick is to destroy the ordinary state of mind, and exchange it for the "lost" state of mind. when you are able to force yourself into that state in which everything is a surprise - even the next time the stick hits the snare drum - then you are in that place of optimum creativity.

unfortunately, that is when the pen melts.

for this reason it is important to carry around a dictaphone at all times.

There will be time

2004-07-17T17:44:00.000-07:00

There will be time to step on the peel (there is always time for that). However, writing about it will have to wait a small while as I simply must shower.

addendum

2004-07-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

the purpose of the previous rant was to make a point. one of the realities that we are in the business of massaging is the self-perception of organizations. now, the thing to ask yourself as honestly as possible is: how do i want to imagine my organization behaving? how does it actually behave?

everybody wants to think they're the good guy - everybody has a rationalization for everything they do. if we all looked at the naked truth about ourselves...well...we'd all be living naked in huts, probably. which sounds rather attractive to us, but that's a separate discussion.

this society, this culture, this economy/market runs on carefully tailored, well groomed, deeply researched, tested and proven, organized constellations of pure bullshit.

here's the thing: bullshit doesn't fall from the sky, nor does it lie around like rocks. bullshit has to be shat by a bull, eating something. grass, maybe. or, old bullshit.

do you catch where we're going here?

the most supportable business model, then, is one in which overhead is completely circumvented by successfully feeding the clients their own bullshit.

The Blind Leading The Naked

2004-07-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

Quickly - what are the correct completions for the following statements?

It is contingent upon businesses interested in taking money from people to:

1. Provide quality goods and/or services
2. Provide quality goods and/or services as advertised
3. Provide goods and/or services as advertised
4. Provide goods and/or services
5. Provide something
6. Not get caught
7. Know the judge personally

It is contingent upon businesses interested in continuing to take money from the same people to:

1. Answer all questions and requests positively
2. Answer all questions and requests punctually
3. Answer all questions and requests, eventually
4. Ask all callers to "Please hold for the next available representative"
5. Offer an email address, which doesn't work either
6. Declare bankruptcy at close of sale
7. Know the judge personally

It is contingent upon businesses interested in securing investors to:

1. Pitch an exemplary product/service that makes more money than it costs to produce
2. Pitch a product/service that might end up making back what it cost to produce
3. Deliver a really cool prototype
4. Deliver the design for a really cool prototype
5. Deliver a PowerPoint about nothing in particular
6. Stay awake all the way through investor meetings
7. "Thank you for your email. I am currently away from the office..."

doing business in a culture of damaged trust

2004-07-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

as professional snake oil salesman, the culture of mistrust in which we live in this first decade of the new millenium isn't a challenge - it's a goldmine to the adventurous, to the daring.

how could this be so?

let me put it to you straight. until now, business was done by pulling the wool over people's eyes. making silk purses out of sow's ears, and vice versa. holding one's customers - one's constituency, if you will - in contempt. the idea was to eat people, basically - or burn them like presto logs, make lampshades and soap out of them. k. w. jeter's prophetic novel, noir, described the concept of "TIAC™", or "Turd In A Can", which is really a hyper-realization of typical pre-millenial practices, being replaced with "TOAW™", or "Turd On A Wire" - no turd, not even any can - just robbing people. or as some people glibly call it, Dotcommunism.

naturally, most intelligent human beings, assuming there are any left, don't trust us, as well they shouldn't; and the rest will follow wherever they lead.

lying to people the old way isn't just bad for business - it's not what's for sale any more. instead, we are proposing a new format:

catering the lies to the self-deceptive whims our clients require.

people more than anything want to buy an idea of themselves. the question is, how durable is j. crew's idea of the self, or gap's idea of the self, or banana republic's idea of the self? let alone, target or wal-mart's idea of the self? well, we know some ideas of the self that are very durable:

1. white/black/etc.
2. jewish/catholic/muslim/etc.
3. democrat/republican/etc.
4. liberal/conservative/libertarian/etc.
5. american/french/etc.
6. marxist/capitalist/etc.
7. gay/straight/bi/trans/etc.

let's leave the list at lucky 7 for now.

our premise is that even these ideas of self are up for grabs, and soon discerning clients with capital to spend are going to want new ones.

some new fulcrums/pivot points where we may be able to aim our laser beams in the future:

1. "human/post-human"
2. "terrestrial/extra-terrestrial"
3. "biological/post-biological"
4. "mortal/immortal [or post-mortal]"

you get the picture. what's important to recognize is that these are about ideas of self, not so much actualities - so it's irrelevant whether people are, in fact, post-human, extraterrestrial, actual blood sucking vampires, etc. - just that they enjoy thinking of themselves that way and will pay us money to help them sustain that illusion.

so the fulcrums/pivot points for the consumer vs. marketer relationship here, then, are as follows:

1. sell me an image that looks like what i dream of being but no amount of excercise, diet, surgery, or costume change could ever make possible - and remember, that's the image, no thing itself - no clothes or accessories, that's for some other mook to dick around with
2. sell me a world where a creature like that moves - and again, not a real "world", not a ticket, not even a movie with great special effects, just the pitch
3. sell me exclusivity - in other words, keep others out.

now the important thing to note here is that in the 21st century and beyond, the new infotech/infoecon prevents real exclusivity, so a large part of what we sell is a sort of imagined, ideational exclusivity.

the way you accomplish this, of course, is imagining a package that is desireable yet shameful.

in other words -

we are going to sell people the Human Shadow.

even better, what this implies is we are going to sell them a part of themselves - in other words, we are going to sell them something they already own.

how fucking perfect is that???!

who doesn't like a little chocolate-dipped banana now and then?

2004-07-14T20:30:00.000-07:00

i was having one of those aimless fantasies today, this one inspired by a furtive hershey bar enjoyed in the heat of my airconditionless office with lots of windows.

i wondered what it would be like to be a hapless lower tier ad executive working the hershey's account. you have no knowledge of popular culture or slang. you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a tv spot that jingles, "take a sweet trip down the hershey highway!" of course the BOD, CEO etc. have absolutely no clue. they're a bunch of gray haired suits. the only person who knows what's going on is the homophobic IT guy, who is snickering behind his hand, waiting to see who gets fired in disgrace first.

but for those few fleeting moments of sweet ignorance, you even sing it to yourself on the subway..."mmm mmm, take a sweet trip...yeah...what a great marketing plan! i'm going to make junior partner by the end of the month!"

falling is easy. it's the landing that's hard.

2004-07-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

people don't want to take risks. they would prefer to be able to push a button on their remote control and get their lives on demand. or better yet, they'd like to have it beamed straight into their skulls via satellite-uplinked brain chip without having to lift a finger.

inspired by the theory of worst practices, we said, fuck that. innovation comes from taking dumb chances and stupid risks; creativity isn't sober, it's reckless as a drunk driver. you might die, sure...or you might step on the peel, and instead of cracking open your skull on the pavement like an over-ripe melon, you instead just might surrender to weightlessness.

superflatmonkey is throwing the banana peel. you're here, so your foot is already on its way down. the question is - are you afraid to float, human?

[ed. note: superflatmonkey™ was created many years ago in ignorance of the trendyness of the smart assed monkey concept that now seems trendy among certain blogeurs and fashion designers. who the fuck cares? our monkey isn't cute. it's the cannibalistic, chronic-masturbator monkey of your worst nightmares. deal with it. we are all monkeys, but only the few and the proud are both super and flat.]