by cameron | Nov 13, 2006 | Culture Jamming
Kalle Lasn talks about using TV commercials to disrupt the propaganda of corporations who are propagating dangerous memes. This famous TV commercial featuring Yul Brynner helped change the attitudes people had towards smoking cigarettes.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNjunlWUJJI]
Accordng to Wikipedia:
Brynner died on October 10, 1985 (the same day as Orson Welles and my 15th birthday) in New York City at the age of 65. The cause of death was lung cancer brought on by smoking. Throughout his life, Brynner was always seen with a cigarette in his hand. In January 1985, nine months before his death, he gave an interview on Good Morning America, expressing his desire to make an anti-smoking commercial. A clip from that interview was made into just such a commercial by the American Cancer Society, and released after his death, which includes the warning “Now that I’m gone, I tell you, don’t smoke.”
by cameron | Nov 13, 2006 | Uncategorized
Last night was my final night in SF and what a night it was. The Aussies, including myself, the Atlassian boys, the Touchstone boys and the Tangler boys drove down to Palo Alto to have dinner at University Cafe with fellow Aussie Nik Cubrilovic from Omnidrive, honorary-Aussie Richard MacManus from Read/Write Web, Gabe Rivera from TechMeme, and Ouriel Ohayon from TechCrunch France.
After dinner we headed over to Michael Arrington‘s place to play poker and liar dice. Mike Cannon-Brookes cleaned us out in Texas Hold Em and Arrington and I won a round each of liar dice. It was a great night which finished about 5am.
My tip from the evening – if you ever get a chance to play poker with MCB or Arrington for big money – watch your wallet. These guys are sharks.
A shout-out to Nik Cubrilovic for setting up the night and to Arrington for letting us use his crib. I haven’t had a night like that since I was 17. I fly out late tonight and get back to Oz on Tuesday.
by cameron | Nov 11, 2006 | Podcast
Yesterday I caught up with Helene Juguet, Director of Marketing, Ubisoft. Among many other successes, Helene was responsible for marketing one of my favourite games EVER – Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. Sam Fisher was in foyer of the Ubisoft offices:
During the interview we talk about:
- The Frag Dolls
- The latest edition of the Splinter Cell franchise – Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Double Agent
- What a complete GOD Michael Ironside is.
- The idea of a Splinter Cell film – starring Clive Owen.
- The whole Tom Clancy connection and some history of Ubisoft
- What it’s like being a woman in the gaming industry
- Violence in gaming
- Developing games for girls, kids and mature adults
- The future of gaming, MMORPGS, and more.
Hope you enjoy it.
by cameron | Nov 11, 2006 | Uncategorized
Last night I went out on the town with Brian Walsh from Castfire and his business partner Trip. Brian took me to dinner at their restaurant SAUCE. Great food and we had a big night. I’ve been suffering the after-effects of it all day so have decided to avoid the parties tonight and stay home and watch the net. Here’s a random selection of interesting stuff I found.
Mac Spoof: Gaming – These guys from TrueNuff TV have some great stuff. Also check out their Undead Insurance commercial.
Sam Has 7 Friends – a short-form video drama. I’ve got something in the works along these lines and so I’ve been checking out what else is out there. This is a great show.
Well it looks like AllOfMP3 really has stopped accepting MasterCard and Visa. What other mp3 sites are you using?
A few people have uploaded videos of Lou Reed’s recent US tour up to YouTube. Check out this version of Femme Fatale. Brilliant. Apparently Lou was the surprise entertainment at the Web2.0 party and he was pissed off because everyone was talking and not paying attention so he turned up his amps so loud they hurt everyone’s ears. 🙂 Here’s the full story on JustInsomnia. Ben Metcalfe doesn’t think Lou is hip enough for a Web2.0 conference. Here is some footage of his opening number, What’s Good from the album MAGIC & LOSS, which is about losing your friends to cancer.
Following on from my recent post about Van Halen, here they are in their prime – Unchained.
Have you seen the slasher version of Office Space? Brilliant.
by cameron | Nov 11, 2006 | Uncategorized
This clip of Bush admitting to journalists that he lied to them a few days before the elections about his ongoing support for Rumsfeld is amazing. Have you ever seen him this squirmy?
A couple of nights ago I was strolling around Chinatown and stumbled across the City Lights bookstore which is apparently pretty famous. I picked up a copy of Kalle Lasn‘s 2000 book Culture Jam
and grabbed a seat in a cozy little bar called Tosca on Columbus near the bookstore to start reading it.
I’ve been admiring Lasn for sometime. I first heard of him a year or so ago when he launched the Blackspot Sneakers and then I learned about his magazine called Adbusters. He’s trying to get people to wake up to the way that corporate advertising is conditioning us to live lives which are killing us and destroying the planet. I invited him onto the show last year but was palmed off to one of the marketing folks at Blackspot and it was a pretty boring interview so I never aired it.
Anyway, Lasn’s book has really messed me up. It made me remember why I started TPN in the first place – to create a new kind of media that is small, intelligent, passionate, informed, global, viral and for the people. To fight the system. To change the system. To change the world. Now the problem is that these thoughts don’t sit nicely with thoughts about raising venture capital and doing the whole Silicon Valley thing. I’m having an existential crisis. I keep asking myself over and over – “what is my definition of success?”.
I hate questions like that.
