James: colin
James: can you tell me why i feel objectified by advertsing
James: lol
James: thats why im depressed
Colin: because you’re supposed to
James: its making me depressed
James: its made me depressed
Colin: haha
Colin: why
Colin: what ads
James: anywhere man like
James: i just feel like i’m a target audience
James: and i don’t want to be a target audience
James: i don’t want to be a target
Colin: lol then don’t buy things
Colin: as long as you’re buying things and 18-24, you’re gonna be a target
James: well thats what makes me depressed ma
James: n
James: and when i buy things i feel better
James: its so vicious
Colin: retail therapy
James: yep
Colin: well it’s just america
James: lol
Colin: people want to fit in and the basis of capitalism is association through consumerism
Colin: so people feel more human when they buy things in america
James: guh
James: that makes me want to kill myself
Colin: hahaha
James: it also makes me want to move out of the country
Colin: yeah, that

I was talking with a friend about OKCupid and/or if they should set up a profile there. All I could do was think of a conversation I had in the park a few weeks back about relatively the same topic.

I don’t get these dating-based social networking sites that try and link people up by their interests. Sure, it’s nice to know what someone’s favorite band is, because if they are head over heels for Limp Bizkit, a red flag can appear.

But I just don’t see that idea as being a recipe for success in any sort of relationship. “Hey, here’s this girl who is way in to all the sad bastard music, soul crushing movies, commentary filled television and books about the modern fractured society that you are.” Considering how much of a nightmare I am most of the times, in that case it just sounds like one plus one just equals double the misery.

So I guess you’ll never find me on OKCupid. And I don’t really get the whole concept anyway, I mean I understand the internet as a concept for maintaining communication but for meeting the love of your life? I don’t know. My fundamental beliefs revolve around the idea that honesty at the core has no association with the internet, so how could a relationship ever be founded off such things? Whatever. I now feel old.

Finding yourself on YouTube is such a weird thing.

My friend was working for the big Boston alt rock radio station FNX at the time they did this exclusive first come first serve Gaslight Anthem show at a bar next to where the Celitcs play and so I got to cut in line and basically, well, that’s me up against the barrier. Except then I drank far too much whiskey by about 5 in the afternoon (this was St Patty’s in Boston, so whatever), and the entire show I just felt completely awful. It was a good show, but I got yelled at (!) and almost kicked out (!!) because there was the three song rule.

For those who don’t know, band photography goes as such: at any small show, you take pictures. The second you need to go to a decent sized venue, where there is security and/or press credentials required, you get three songs. The first three songs are the only songs you’ll ever see photos of a band playing. After three, security kicks you out.

Now, this show was literally on the stairs in a fucking bar. There was no reason to have a three song rule. But on the fourth song I got fucking lambasted by security threatening to toss my ass to the curb. I told them to fuck off, and they said there was a three song rule going on. I asked if this was the House of Blues, and they said it was by request of the band.

I don’t know. I saw Gaslight on their first west coast tour in front of ten people. They didn’t seem to mind having their photo taken then. I’ve taken photos of them on multiple occasions since. Bands never care. It’s always staff, it’s always security, it’s always people trying to ride coattails and make a dollar.

Fuck them all. Some of us can’t carry a tune but god do we love the music, and we’re trying to do what we can to document cultural movements we find valid. Then again the photos from this show weren’t that great due to all the Jameson. You win some, you lose some, but the principle remains.

I’ve been a fan of my job since I got it, but last night Thea (new copywriter) and I went to Dada on Second to discuss various aspects of the job and develop ideas for pushing social media, creating ad campaigns and insights in to possible brand direction and it was so rad that it was 10:00 before I realized that I needed to get the fuck home to work.

I guess I’m just kind of stoked on work; I’ve always hated the idea of having a real job, especially one in the creative field, but it almost reminds me of being back at school. She and I have the same goals: advertising sucks, we work for a company with no brand recognition, and we have free reign to help build a brand and increase the visual literacy of the world.

I’ve been wanting nothing more than to be around people who want to work on creative projects with me. Every time I make an effort, things fizzle out and it bums me out. So I figure, what the fuck, might as well do it where I get paid to do it. And she’s got some rad ideas and I can’t wait to take a crack at them and bust out some experimentation with typography and color and photography, and actually have it funded.

Is this everything I never wanted to be? Yeah. But being the person I wanted to be kept getting beat down and broken by life. If nothing else, I can actually have eight or nine or ten hours a day to look forward to, where maybe I can make a difference, or be a positive impact. If I get paid for it, I guess that makes it even better.

(Above is a most delicious pint of pomegranate mojito, of which I had two after the vodka tonics just weren’t cutting it. Seriously though such a stellar $6 drink.)

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Listen to this song because a) Mogwai rules and b) it is the sound of how crushed my soul is feeling right now.

So at work a few of us in the creative department are re-branding the social media strategy of the company. Developing a new blog (launched today with many, many changes to come), a new Facebook and soon a re-branded Twitter account. I am in charge of making sure that, across the board, the aesthetic is progressive but on brand, coherent but responsive to the dynamic nature of the internet. (Also, take into account this is why I stay late at nights, and so everything is still rough right now.)

So the blog just takes an e-mail address to run, and soon enough we’ll be hosting it locally and it’ll be that much easier. Facebook, however, needs to be administrated by user profiles, just because of the way that site is set up, I guess. So I had to re-join Facebook today, and my heart died a little bit more than it usually does on a Wednesday night. (No, I won’t be your friend.)

What bothered me about this was that, upon re-signing up, my account, left abandoned for a year now, was perfectly intact. I really loathe that stuff, with all the privacy concerns and also that there’s really very few ways to delete your information permanently.

I remember a conversation I had with Andrew once, I made a reference to some television show he’d never seen. He asked why I even bothered with TV, and I said in order to critique matters of society and culture, especially in art, one has to be aware of them. I suppose, if nothing else, my return to “The Social Network” (as Aaron Sorkin seems to write it) will provide me with that much more ammunition.

I don’t know, I still like the idea of people doing things themselves. Build a website, even just a simple blog. But do something on your own, make a shitty image in MS Paint if you need to. But make it yours, own it. The internet can be a fascinating digital extension of our lives, and yet so many people choose to have theirs grouped en masse with the general populace. Maybe that’s why I never really understood people, why they’d all want to be grouped together like this.

But I better figure it out, because if I’m going to be involved in a social media branding development I should probably figure out why the fuck people actually use this shit. My ten year high school reunion is next May, and I can’t think of a damn person I’d want to remember from then. Everything about this site seems like such an absent way to keep up with people. I want to know my friends, I want to have honest conversations. I want to write them letters in pen and ink and I want to take random trips to see them all so we can drink wine and talk about how awful life can be, and how we fight, how we fight, how we fight.

Doing that over the internet just seems so wasted, so lacking in honesty, I can’t imagine how people really think there’s anything that could fuel a heart available on this bullshit.

But this isn’t personal, this is business, and I guess it’s time I learned how to separate those two things. Which just makes a little more of my heart die on a Wednesday night.

Monica: link to keds.com
Monica: do not like
Colin: ugh no
Monica: i am like almost crying
Colin: why would she sign the rights for that
Colin: wtf
Monica: idfk
Monica: i am legitimately upste
Colin: yeah that sucks ass
Colin: it’ll really suck for your ratio of “formerly legitimate artists” tattoos if something of hers is ever put on a nike commercial
Monica: lol 4 REAL
Monica: WHY AM I SO MAD
Colin Smith: because when artists sell out the beliefs that made you believe in them it feels like getting cheated on
Monica Anderson: yep
Colin: because to people like you and me, against me demo tapes and jenny holzer proclamations are just as important as getting laid to everyone else in the world.
Colin: it’s our way of not feeling alone, since we have no shot at being those other people, the types that are, you know. not consistently broken hearted.
Monica: augh godddd
Monica: i feel so terrible

Really though, that fucking blows. I mean if you’re going to sell out at least don’t half ass it? Also, when your work gets projected on the sides of buildings, isn’t it a step down to have it on a pair of shoes?

Photo by the now ex-intern James

I really do like my job, for a multitude of reasons. Relative autonomy and creative freedom, and a creative department where everyone sort of has their own niche but we all work well together. And everyone is funny. And this photo wasn’t even staged. We can hang out going to get lunch and genuinely enjoy one another’s company. All of this is key.

However this week we’ve been getting slammed and while I like a good challenge (like developing the new introduction to the iPad application in an afternoon, then refining it for two days) … it’s such bad timing on a personal level because of the 826/FX project. Three days at work until close to 7:00, then coming home and by the time I have my creative energy back it’s 10 and I’m up ’til 1. I think once this freelance is over I am going to sleep for a week. Or at least get 8 hours of sleep every night for a week.

Dear Apple: While you’re off trying to fix the fact you sold 600,000 phones that can’t make phone calls, please also realize mine can no longer, apparently, alphabetize bands properly. Good job at screwing up a rad little device. And the iPad still sucks.

Also I forgot to post the result of taking my first day off since getting my new job, so I could spend an extra day in Portland:

In cleaning it off I actually stopped to read some of the shit that gets printed with all the photos. God save us all.