Where's My Jetpack?

Lizard in a Watering Can

2009-11-21T08:58:00.002-05:00

11/21/09, 8:45 AM - Wekiva Springs, Florida

Vehicle Graphics

2009-11-20T13:41:00.003-05:00

Designed for an as-yet imaginary vehicle to be used in an as-yet imaginary endeavor. But we traffic in imagination.
The emblem on the corner of the trailer is from another imaginary endeavor.

Match the "Celebrity" with their Bio

2009-11-18T12:25:00.004-05:00

T-Mobile and their MyTouch, in association with Google, is reaching out to all you boomers who still think these people are funny. To me this only says T-Mobile is desperate.

a. I was an original SNL cast-member, but quit after I imagined the show was all about me. Cocaine will do that to a person. I did a few very forgettable movies and one good one, then disappeared, got fat and lost all my hair. Now my friends at NBC are trying to help me revive my career by putting me in a supporting role on a sit-com that is doomed to fail.

b. I did impersonations on SNL. I also did a thing with Mike Myers that became a couple of movies that made me some cash. When I blew up really big on the show, I ditched it in the hopes of becoming the next Bill Murray. It didn't work out. But I'm rich, so fuck you all.

c. My ticket into show-biz was my off-the-wall, ironic name. I did a few films that still pay enough royalties for me to keep an apartment in New York. I'm now on a daily panel of loud-mouthed opinionators who dictate the thoughts and buying habits of a bunch of sad and lonely people who watch us.

d. I had a few skits on SNL that were recurring, mostly that involved me showing my underwear in a sick and pathetic attempt at laughs. I also thought the movies were calling me, and left SNL for the bigtime, but I can't even name a single thing I was in that you would know.

e. I did a pretty good Bill Clinton on SNL. Sometimes they bring me back to do Cheney or Chris Matthews, but Lorne put me out to pasture after McCain lost. I now wear a sad face all the time.

It Usually Starts WIth a Title and an Image

2009-11-18T11:22:00.005-05:00

A new project*, coming soon** from Jetpack Productions.

* "Project" is the loose term we give to things that have not been developed in the least, and only exist as a URL and a few vague notions.

** "Soon" is the undefined timeframe we give to things that may be here next week or next decade.

Hug The Mountain - Brand Shatner

2009-11-18T08:30:00.007-05:00

Why am always late to the game on these things that have been seen 500,000 times already since May?

To put this clip in its proper setting: William Shatner is doing a promo here for some sort of schlock show like "Entertainment Tonight," shilling an upcoming Star Trek movie, probably in the '80s. And someone has set it to music. Brilliantly.

In this post-Ironic age, where you are your own brand, or an amalgamation of rotating logos, clothing trends, hairstyles, gadgets and apps that define you, look to the Canadian King of Self-Mockery for a little lesson in consistency.

Does he know he's mocking himself? We, his fans, hope so, but we still can't be quite sure, which makes it that much better.

Starry Eyed Dreamer

2009-11-17T10:42:00.002-05:00

The Mayans Were Romantics, Right?

2009-11-13T16:39:00.002-05:00

Bigtastic

When Today was a Hyphenated Word

2009-11-13T14:29:00.007-05:00

This depressing headline is what happens when you let government agencies create the motivational posters. Heads down, the men arrive to their dreary factory jobs in the cold dim of dawn. It's another day.

(Harp SFX as scene goes to black and white. Transition to factory boss rounding up the crew outside the gate for the morning pep talk.)

It's 1937, you jackleg bastards! And a whole lotta boys ain't got work. At least you have jobs, you ungrateful scoundrels, so why don't you buck up, take your measly daily wage and go buy some whiskey? Drown yourself in the only thing that might temporarily erase the shame of not being able to join the Army like the rest of the able-bodied men of this country. In five years, the Army will take the whole sorry lot of you, regardless of your pathetic conditions. And women...THAT'S RIGHT I SAID WOMEN! will take your shitty jobs. For half the pay! In the meantime, you sad excuses for humanity, get in there and start producing.

And make the day safe, you sunsuvbitches. One more severed limb during the day shift will mean mean smaller portions of horsemeat in your lunches!

Image via Vintagraph.

Hey, Don Draper: Who Mows Your Yard?

2009-11-09T13:35:00.006-05:00

Those Who Can't, Critique. "Mad Men" - a Newbie's Take.

So I jumped on the "Mad Men" bandwagon only this year, curious to see if it was, as so many say, "The greatest show ever created in the history of creating shows on Earth, or for that matter, the Universe! To include all the shows that will ever be created in the future."

I enjoy the attention to detail in every episode, but my expectations for this show were set falsely high by the unending praise it has received. What I have seen in the last 13 slow-paced episodes of this trying-not-to-be-a-soap-opera Soap Opera is summed up below.

He's eccentric, he loves the Far East, he's a fat old man of unknown orientation who doesn't do any work. His appearance in any scene signals that we're going to hear melancholic yearnings for the old days, when an agency founder could go to Singapore and buy a young boy for an entire week for mere pennies on the dollar. Always in the same suit, he is slightly cantankerous but is also an open-minded type, not quick to judge a man for stealing a dead man's identity. In today's world, he'd be the guy who spouts the phrase, "It's all good!" so often that you'd want to punch him in the Adam's apple.

Speaking of not doing any work, this silver-haired, silver-tongued devil is king of fucking off. He is a cheating, lying, back-stabbing bastard who thinks the world is a set designed for him to stroll onto. When he's not around, he imagines that those parts of the world he just visited cease to exist until he steps back into them. He drinks from dawn 'til dawn, and then gets on the phone and talks smooth to all of his women. He's an old-fashioned bastard, and he knows he's a bastard, and he's easily the most compelling character on the show.

Never has the term "mousy" been better applied than to this young lady. Trying to find her way in a big mean industry in a big mean city, the secretary turned copywriter summons more lip-biting, shoulders-back resolve per episode than Mary Tyler Moore fit into an entire career of playing similar "dames." Expect her to be at the forefront of the Womens' Movement in future seasons, only in an I'm-not-sure-about-this way.

Sniveling, blue-blood, baby-faced punkass bitch of an account man, the actor portraying this guy is playing it as if it were meant for the stage. Everything is over-acted. I think he's channeling Dave Foley from "News Radio" and "Kids in the Hall." His pathetic existence is enabled by his wife, who dotes on him like the Mommy he needs. He wore a black turtleneck in the wake of the Kennedy assassination and will likely be listening to the Beatles or trying to join the Black Panthers in future seasons. Personally, I would like to see him try marijuana, and then go all Reefer Madness and jump in front of a train.

The 1960s ideal of sexy, she's the voluptuous, big-hipped lady not afraid to shake it in that Ginger from "Gilligan's Island" way. Married to a dick who is about to die in Vietnam, (foreshadowing on this show is about as clumsy as a Will Ferrell movie) she has a smooth way with men and a cat-like instinct with the women, none of whom have the hips to challenge her dominance. She will have multiple men in her life, none of whom will satisfy her the way the extra-large, chrome "electric toy" she got in "the Village" does.

"Mad Men" wants to be on the edge of societal issues, so they threw in this dude so they could address bigotry or tolerance or whatever. (Nevermind the Black people in the elevator.) Played like some sort of sashaying stereotype, sympathy for this guy is not easy to find. He's the closeted gay, and the world of 1963 is full of aggressive guys who recognize his leanings and they're all ready to take his pants off and have their way with him. By next season, he will be considering a "pioneering surgery" that will "free him to be who he was born to be." All of the other characters will understand this decision and encourage him.

A fixture in every agency, he's the guy struggling to be the hippest dude who ever lived. He's into Black Jazz, weed, cool clothes, facial hair and progressive politics. He will be jamming at Open Mic nights soon, probably playing the bongos. Trouble is he has no talent, sucks as a writer and is always getting shown up by better people in lower positions. He's annoying, has no apparent love life and thinks he's better than everyone. I predict a major nervous breakdown followed by electro-shock therapy, returning to the agency as a janitor.

Every ensemble cast, from the war movie to the campus comedy, needs a chubby kid with glasses. Enter this guy, a character so undeveloped and nondescript that you wonder why he is even around. I'm not even sure what he does, other than make sure commercials get played on the TeeVee. He will be the guy that the neighbors talk about to the news reporters in phrases like, "He was a quiet man," and "I never expected he could do something this awful."

She never smiles, despises her own children, drinks, smokes and pops pills, and hates that her marriage to the flim-flam man robbed her of her rightful place as the debutante with a scepter and a crown. She's about to carry on an affair with a weasel politico that can only end in disaster; i.e. she gets pregnant as they break up and becomes that lady with lots of children with varying last names. Age will not be kind to her and a botched face-lift will doom her to a life in the country, where the local boys won't honor her with the title MILF, but instead refer to her as "the former Cougar with the stretched eyes."

His father, who appears to him in night visions to berate him, said, "Look at your hands! They're soft as a woman's! What do you make? You grow bullshit." That sums up the business quite nicely. Now that his sins are catching up to him, perhaps our lead character can finally grow a set, maybe go to the Keys and start Cap'n Dick's Fishing Charter, maybe settle down to a life of drinking and smoking that doesn't involve ruining every life he comes in contact with. I think we're supposed to be sympathetic toward this guy, the insecure man behind a mask of security, but his wandering and pondering are starting to grate.

Where's the Glass and Stainless Steel?

2009-11-09T11:07:00.008-05:00

Huge image (click for the large) of a graphic design business in Rosslyn, Virginia in 1926, from Shorpy.

Witness your roots, Creatives. Note that there are no fire poles, no canoes, no Eames chairs, no Macs, so Starbucks, no cupcakes, no social media strategists, no glass desks, no cubicles full of ironic juxtapositions, no emo glasses, no tattoos and no fauxhawks. All of the trappings of the modern design/advertising/marketing agency are missing. Probably because the concept of the "EVP of Global Creative" was still decades away.

It's just a bunch of people in smocks getting dirty doing manual labor. They had no delusions that they were making art, and they weren't making fake ads to submit to awards shows. If "Mad Men" was based in this era, it'd be a blue-collar dark comedy.

Let's Talk About the Weather

2009-11-06T14:36:00.003-05:00

Mine's better than yours.

Rock Lyrics as Spoken Word

2009-11-05T10:25:00.001-05:00

Another random, throwaway creation made possible by the fun diversion known as Xtranormal. I heard this on the way to work and decided it would sound good as a poem. It doesn't really. Rarely do rock lyrics translate well when spoken aloud, but this little Lego man puts in a nice effort in what Xtranormal calls the "Australian English Male" voice, one of a few accent options. We'll pretend he's standing in the middle of a street in Adelaide.

Final stanza of "Hump de Bump."

See the real video (directed by Chris Rock) associated with these lyrics here.

Note for the audiophiles: On the original song, after the drum break when the trumpets get going, (which is where this stanza occurs) adjust the balance fully to the left speaker and enjoy the very cool fills that get lost in the regular mix. Rick Rubin, you should've listened to me.

The Arrogance of His Heirness

2009-11-05T10:04:00.005-05:00

Michael Jordan's son, Marcus, plays basketball for local school the University of Central Florida. That alone tells you Marcus did not inherit his father's skills, as UCF is a perennial "hopeful" in most sports. Nonetheless, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, and Marcus, demonstrating that he did inherit his dad's ego, decided he would not wear Adidas shoes, even though UCF was in the last year of a contract with Adidas. The young Jordan said he will wear only his father's Nike Air Jordan shoes because "they hold special meaning to my family." The university relented, still giddy to have the drawing power of a Jordan on the team.

Adidas was fine with Jordan's and the school's decision on a regional level, but corporate nixed the deal, canceling the UCF contract, costing the school $3 million. Good on you, Adidas.

"We are disappointed to learn that Adidas has chosen to discontinue its relationship with UCF Athletics," the school said in a statement released by spokesman Joe Hornstein. Yeah, Joel, I'll bet you are.

Now, here's an opportunity for Nike to jump in and take that contract, or here's a chance for Marcus to dip into his huge trust fund and pay the school back.

Super Saturated Street Scenes - Volume II, No. 2

2009-11-04T13:58:00.003-05:00

Renda l'immagine più grande!

Still in Italy on the European leg of our Google Street Views Tour, we find ourselves on Via Valassina, just south of Bellagio, on the shores of Lago di Como, where a cyclist is about to be passed by a Porsche. The Porsche has been following the Google car for miles. I might have to string a bunch of stills of this together and create a Porsche spec spot.

Previously on the Tour.

Vacationing in a Connected Age

2009-11-04T12:03:00.003-05:00

Trust Your Future to a Man in a Feather Suit Who Rips Hearts Out

2009-11-03T10:27:00.006-05:00

What is it about the Mayans that has everyone so fascinated? I'll grant that the new movie "2012" looks like some fun Armageddon footage that must be seen on the big screen to be appreciated, but I don't know why we hold up this primitive bunch who practiced human sacrifice to appease the sky gods as some sort of wise society. I guess we always need some sort of doom hanging over us to make us feel alive in some twisted way. That's why everyone loves the hack poet and drug-addled dickbrain Nostradamus. (I got your Nostradamus right here.)

Just 'cause the Mayans didn't plan ahead and ran out of room on their stupid circular calendar doesn't mean they knew shit about shit. Didn't see the Spaniards coming, now did they? I for one am getting ready for 2013 with these t-shirts.

Echo and The Narcissists

2009-10-28T11:10:00.019-04:00

In my iGoogle Twitter window there's a lady in Perth live-blogging a stalker at her home while the police arrive. That's mildly interesting and slightly disturbing. Someone tweeted "Good morning, Tweet Peeps!" which made me click the "Unfollow" button. The usual runners and workout grunts are explaining how good they feel having completed a "great run." (I keep them around because they remind me I should do that too.) Others are linking everyone to what song they're listening to and hoping we'll join them in a global singalong. We are the World. Hands Across America.

I get a notice that someone is following me. I see he is also following another 10,000 and has 400 followers. I will not be one of them. He's a specialist in Customer Relationship Management and tweets nothing but. Someone else is following me. She has 25,324 followers and is following about the same number. I don't understand that and don't want to be a part of it. If you're following that many, you can't possibly be paying much attention to many of them. Just to be sure I'm not missing anything worthwhile, I check on what she might be tweeting. I look in at her feed to see nothing but a bunch of retweets, the Twitter way of saying, "I saw this somewhere and wanted you to know that I thought it was worth sharing with all of you."

I said something about real estate in a tweet and five real estate agents instantly started following me. I said something about hating when marathoners talk incessantly about their training and a bunch of marathon-types and runner's magazines started following me. Someone who tweets nothing but positive New Age tripe cloaked as "Inspiration" is about to get deleted from my "Following" list. I guess he thinks he's the world's "Life Coach." Not mine, buddy. Bye.

I say we all just get mini-camera implants in our eyes, and then we can all have our whole lives broadcast on a unique channel. The most interesting lives will have lots of viewers and people will do crazy-dumb stuff to get more viewers, which will mean they can start wooing sponsors to their lives. A guy's eyes will glance down in the morning to pick up a tube of toothpaste. In order to get compensated for the product placement shot, he will need to linger on the tube for about five seconds. The whores can charge a viewer fee so you can watch them do their thing. The self-professed gurus and knowledge-slingers can wax on and on as they drive their kids to soccer practice. ("Daddy, I got an A on my math test!" "Son, I'm talking to my followers right now.") You can keep your Facebook twisted-face pose on all the time, or that goofy trademark tongue-sticking-out thing you do. Think of the world as your bathroom mirror, admiring you as much as you do. Let's all be Balloon Boy's dad, or the desperate dolts who send staged clips to America's Funniest Home Videos.

Everyone's life on constant display. Everything you see, touch, experience, eat, drink and do, you can show the world. We see what you see. We see what you do. We're in your head, sharing your wisdom, your fears, your life. We're at your meals, your job, on your dates, in your dreams.

Sounds like a creepy, far-off Dystopian nightmare. But we're halfway there.

The 2011 Cars Will Be Here In January

2009-10-28T10:59:00.000-04:00

What the hell. Yes, I am aware that the new model year cars are often available toward the end of the previous calendar year, but this is jumping the gun. Why not just start announcing some 2012 cars while you're at it?

Super Saturated Street Scenes - European Tour

2009-10-27T15:57:00.011-04:00

In association with Google Street Views, Where's My Jetpack? presents the fourth in a series of one-of-a-kind, super-rare-find artistic compositions.

Suitable for framing, (and you'd be a fool not to) a guy fixes a traffic light on Via Francesco Martinengo in Milan, Italy. Remind me someday to tell you what happened in Milan.

This print is titled "Don't Walk" and is available for purchase through select brokers. By appointment only. Prices upon request.

Big Picture

Jack-O-Lantern^TM, Threatening Sky^TM and Major Mike Adams^TM sold separately.

Yeah, I'm kinda obsessed with Google Street Views.

You've Tried The Rest...

2009-10-27T10:51:00.005-04:00

I knew a guy in a Midwest market who owned that region's jingle scene. He made big bucks. Then he'd take his jingle truck on the road and set up shop in a smaller market's radio station for a week and recycle his tunes to a new bunch of businesses who hadn't heard them. I hated his jingles. I hate most jingles. And maybe it's because songs get stuck in my head. I can recall the jingles to commercials from my childhood, and I haven't seen those spots in years. I despise the jingle as a sinister and highly effective tool for making people remember your product.

Remember it better

Robert Lee Sells Mobile Homes

2009-10-27T09:34:00.006-04:00

This commercial tries very hard to be raw and real, and in it's trying, succeeds. It's the old "be more honest than you need to be" angle, with a fun and winking Chuck Norris B-movie vibe thrown into the production for fun.

And do you know how many guys in the South are named Robert Lee?

Watch the making of this commercial.

Super Saturated Street Scenes, Volume I, Number 3

2009-10-26T10:05:00.006-04:00

Google Street Views takes us today to the Pacific Beach area of San Diego. Moon, flasher and Major Mike Adams sold separately.

Supersize Me

Super Saturated Street Scenes - Volume I, Number 2

2009-10-23T11:34:00.005-04:00

A new (and if I know me, fleeting) hobby courtesy of Google Street Views. (Here's the first one.) Half the fun is in finding a nice scene with the right light. This one is South Beach, Miami. Major Mike Adams was brought in just for fun.

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The Google Street View B Team

2009-10-22T15:35:00.003-04:00

As in most workplaces, where the choice assignments get snapped up by the ass-kissers and those with seniority, I know there's a crew of Google Street View Roamers out there hoping that someday they get a decent task.

big

Original image from Shorpy.

Sweat Shop

2009-10-21T10:42:00.003-04:00

Mucho Massive

Original image from Shorpy.