My brand of democrat is not your brand of democrat.

Last Tuesday’s Democratic Primaries held across the United States have turned out to be quite controversial, since they proved that my brand of democrat is not your brand of democrat. Yes, you heard me… us tree-loving-corporation-hating fags are not the same. Yes, our candidates’ platforms are the same, but we are not. What I hate about Obama’s platform is similar to what I hate about Hillary Clinton’s.

Strangely enough, everyone is talking about these Primaries as if they were choosing the President of the United States already, and as if Obama and Clinton were offering different things to the American public. This is something that will harm Democrats in the end, because with so much passion now, will the “losing team” really be able to accept our next “democratic” leader? Or will it turn out to be like the Al Gore/Bush fiasco, in which some of us are still fantasizing about Al Gore being at the White House.

But regardless of platform, Clinton and Obama are different, because they are walking symbols to different identities. Same perfume, different package smells different, doesn’t it?

Identity: Am I black first, and then a woman?

This election is all about identity. Which Presidential “character” I identify with. 82% of blacks voted for Obama, while 17% of blacks voted for Clinton. This percentage includes both men and women. Which turned out to be a surprise, since I honestly thought females would see themselves more as female, than black; similar to how men consider themselves men, before they think of themselves as white men. Confused yet? Well, I am too.

What are Obama’s and Clinton’s flaws?

They both talk about Israel as if it would be one of the best countries in the planet. This alliance with Israel, regardless of what they do, turns out to be quite dangerous in the long run, because it continues justifying Israel’s bad politics in the Middle East. Don’t get me wrong, I disagree with most Arab countries profoundly, but same thing goes with Israel. I find it to be more healthy if the United States would encourage peace between Israelis and Palestinians, instead of approaching the war with this “all-palestinians-are-terrorists” attitude.

Talking about bad moves, both Obama and Clinton voted at some point in favor of a driver’s license to immigrants. What’s next? Illegal aliens driving airplanes? Well, they’ve done it… and we all disagree with this practice.

Feeling up for an afternoon of flag burning? Well, thanks to Obama’s and Clinton’s right-wing attitudes, it cannot be. Flag burning is a classic form of protest, such as bra burning, CD burning, and other important forms of burning. This is one of the most dangerous restrictions for freedom of speech. Again, I do not have any intentions of burning the American flag, nor aborting… but I do not think neither of them should be illegal. Right, in this country it is legal to kill fetuses, but illegal to burn flags. Someone needs a reality check. Again, I’m not asking for abortion to criminalized, but if something as big as abortion is legal, then how can something that’s just symbolic be illegal?

Times a’changing

Throughout Hillary’s political career, health care has been a large priority. Anyone remembers “Hillarycare”? Her plans for a universal health care were quite controversial in the 1990s, and what many thought would cost the Democrats the 1994 midterm elections. After the health care fiasco, Republicans won the majority in all of the House and Senate seats, even while Bill Clinton was president. Strangely enough, it is with the health issue at hand, that Hillary today is able to make it so far in these elections.

I must say, movies like Michael Moore’s SICKO must be main contributors to the public’s minds changing. Also, the large amount of people in the US that has gone bankrupt because of medical expenses is catching up, so in less than 10 years we see such a shift towards the “socialist democratic” trend. Scary how, what seems logical today, might not be seen as logical tomorrow.

What counts?

With such similar platforms, in what should we base who we root for? It is a very personal decision. For me, there are three things that have always appealed to me about Hillary. One is the fact that Hillary is a woman, and that I understand her political path as a very rough one because she is a woman, and I respect that. Two, is the fact that she’s an old candidate who has gone through enough to deserve to be crowned queen of the Americas. I mean, sorry… President of the US. Presidency should be the ultimate end for someone who is old and grey. Kinda like being Pope. This world is so youth oriented, and it overlooks how important age is in matters of law and politics. Obama is someone who’s career path has been laid for him… a little bit too early in my opinion (Who is giving him all the millions needed overnight?). If we start by having young presidents, how are we going to end up? With Austrian governors?? Now wait a second…

The third thing I love about Hillary, is that she is an ex-hippy. And by ex-hippy… I mean a true-communist, molotov-bursting, black-panther, Martin-Luther-King-Jr. follower, free-love type of gal. This lets me know, that at some point, she truly cared. She was so radical back in the day, that some of her writings are considered “dark materials” by the White House today, and are prohibited to be published or read by anyone. I understand her mentality, and I understand this passion. Oh, yes… and she was the young prodigy who exposed Nixon in the WaterGate scandal. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

And me being a minority, I feel I can totally get away with what I’m saying. Hillary is the most “American” candidate. Yes, we are the melting pot, and yada yada yada. But everyone that has grown up in Hawaii or Puerto Rico knows islanders main identity does NOT lay with the main land. Also, Obama spent most of his childhood in Indonesia. I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how someone grows up outside of the United States, with non-American fathers and stepfathers, and no one makes an issue about this. Want me to hit this issue with another low blow? Everyone thinks Obama is black, but sadly, he is not. He is raised by his white Mother… and again, the same way that I’ve met many adopted people who assume the identity of their adoptive parents, Obama is a white man that looks mulato. Wait, he used to play basketball, I guess he gets a couple of brownie points for blackness levels. Let him play the black card.

The Democrats who count vs. The ones who don’t

Obama is winning all over the Red states. This means that, if the Red states make the Blue states end up with their choice of candidate, we are going to be very upset. These democrats cannot gather 51% of the voters in their own states, and they expect us Blue-state democrats to carry on with their candidate through the general elections! Which brings me to the next point… why should Obama step down when he only makes 47% of the necessary votes.

Why Obama should withdraw if numbers are too close?

If Hillary doesn’t reach 60% of the votes, we are going to have the typical TYRANNICAL behavior justified by the United States government of having delegates meet, and battle it out in a pool filled with chocolate and mud. Al Gore vs. Bush anyone? This is so disgusting, because it is normal for elections to be won by a 3% margin. Here, however, even though this is a “so-called” democratic country, people’s decisions only count when the margin is wide enough to fit TPTB’s totalitarian standards?

If they do end up deciding who the candidate will be through a discussion, rather than by what’s in the ballots, people are going to get upset, and the Democrat machinery will lose steam when the real election takes place. Romney, from the Republicans, did the right thing by retiring from the race. Now, will Obama’s machinery allow him to leave? If he walks away, he’ll be back in 4 or 8 years with more knowledge and better prepared for Presidency… but if Hillary walks away, this is it. She is that age, her career cannot go anywhere else. Well, I lied… she can turn into an award-winning documentary director.

What do I hate about all of this? Including writing this article?

Look at us! We are supposed to be together… yet we are all steamed up because of this issue. There is something wrong here. I love all my Democrats… but we are villainizing our candidates as if they were George W. Bush. To fight about Obama and Hillary is like saying “which one is sweeter? A cupcake or a muffin?” They are all good in the end. Actually, aren’t cupcakes and muffins pretty much the same?

-Alex

When advertising agencies start liking art, a little bit too much.

Everyday it happens, advertising agencies hire fresh talents who dress like hobos to work on their campaigns. Many award winning commercials, are “inspired” by a very hot exhibition/party/performance/installations that has taken place in the “art world.” Ya know, that world that’s too hot to be understood by “regular” people. That world that, once it is finally understood, it decides to move on to the next thing, because they realize that you just cannot be cool if you are understood.

So, today I’m presenting two case studies. One is Sony, the second one is Sprint. Both companies hottest campaigns are inspired by very hot art groups, yet don’t really credit them with their creation. In other words, instead of letting these artists be actively involved in the campaigns, they just ran along with the ideas, as if they were theirs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of appropriation… but more as an stylistic approach of an individual, to pursue a style. But when a company is actually looking to hire a “creative,” and they choose someone who has nothing to do with the style, instead of hiring the “celebrity” artist who is the leader in moving said style forward… well, I find that to be kinda shady.

First case is Sony’s Bravia bunny commercial. It is in fact, a beautiful commercial animated by Passion Pictures. The commercial consists of beautiful bouncing stop motion playdoh bunnies, invading New York… but in a cute, and inspiring way. It is interesting to see, however how identical these bunnies are to Kozyndan’s bunny illustrations. Nothing is proven regarding any actual “copyrighting infringement” happening… but knowing the popularity of these pieces in the art world, the possibilities of copying Kozyndan seem quite large. Add that to the fact that Fallon (the advertising agency that orchestrated the promo) at some point had asked Kozyndan for illustration samples… among them, the bunny pieces.

Fallon says the employee who asked for the pieces is no longer working for them, and that the agency had simply forgotten about the pieces after the employee left. All of these are valid arguments, and no idea is new… but how were so many “creatives” involved, yet they all claim no one had no previous knowledge of Kozyndan’s work before. Very convenient. Add that to the fact, that Sony doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to clean advertising, after they hoaxed their way into YouTube paying actors to pretend to be PSP fans. Yes, Sony… losing credibility one campaign at a time, are we?

Second case study is Sprint’s PikaPika advertising campaign. Pika Pika means “flashing light” in Japanese. A term coined by Tochka, an art group that travels the world sharing with others their animating with light techniques. This PikaPika campaign is Sprint’s best so far, and I honestly like it so much, that it is a shame I’m planning on leaving them very soon (even the coolest promos cannot make up for bad service). Still, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the agency who developed the commercials didn’t allow Tochka to be more actively involved with them, other than to invite them to audition for the part of the “light artist.” So, what is this trend, that although legal, companies that have a lot of money to spend on real artists, aren’t going for the real deal. Instead, they just get inspired by them, and dump them in the corner like last month’s pinup girl in the garbage bin of an adolescent boy.

There’s a fine line to be walked between appropriation and copyright infringement. And previously I had written something through the perspective of artists copying artists. And I believe, the tone was rather positive. But definitely, things take another darker tone when it comes to advertising. Because in advertising, it is not one person working using a popular style, it is a company looking for someone who can do the job. So, why not actually contact the people who inspired the idea? This doesn’t have to be legal or illegal… just the ethical thing of allowing people like Stan Lee to be an extra in movies like Spider-Man, recognizing the artist’s influence in today’s version of the original product. See it as bowing to your grandparents. It is an issue of respect from the big guys to the little guys… and being nice, not because you have to, but because you can.

Something interesting to mention, regarding a big company doing the right thing, FOX SearchLight Pictures did the right thing when they contacted Kozyndan to do the artwork for Jason Reitman’s latest movie, Juno. In the movie, Juno has her walls filled with Kozyndan art pieces. Not only that, when Juno is considering giving up her baby for adoption, she says she would like to give it to a hip graphic designer who has an asian girlfriend. I couldn’t help but laugh at the reference, because this clearly she was talking about Kozyndan, who are basically the people Juno describes as the perfect parents. Kudos to the writers for making such a humane movie that can appeal to the general public, but with enough hidden wit that can be enjoyed by stuck-up pseudo-intellectuals like myself. Thank you Jason Reitman, and thank you everyone for smoking.

-Alex

Heartless invasion – SKULKS

Close your doors, shut your windows… the skulks are here. These creatures are invisible to the naked eye, but through the magic of a Canon Powershot camera, they come alive. Only Cannon is in touch enough with the paranormal to come up with such brilliant imagery, that could possibly solve the mystery of many unsolved “suicides.” Such technology is preferred 10 to 7 by all ghost hunters and shamans out there.

The technique? 100% Photoshop. Generally speaking, vectors I tend to work on using Flash, but in this case in particular, the images were simple enough to be done in Photoshop effectively. Also, the choice of black & white comes from the simplicity of the creatures themselves. Their shapes and colors (or lack of colors) are pretty basic, and it only helps to the cause that, conceptually, they benefit from the added mystery.

-Alex

The Golden Compass Film Review

After watching recently the The Golden Compass, and expecting the worse because of Joel’s bad review, I had the pleasant surprise of finding it to be one of the best fantasy films I’ve seen.

Regardless of the movie’s mysterious nature, it is still obvious enough to understand what the story is about (a little girl in search of a family), what “dust” is (a key player in the political climate that stands between the girl and her wishes), and who the characters are… even though it doesn’t need to be obvious, due to cinema’s tradition of keeping the audience “below the line” when it comes to fantasy stories. What I mean is, with movies like Harry Potter, you (as the audience) don’t know what’s happening, yet they can still be enjoyable.

The film The Golden Compass is indeed a first act, with the introduction of many characters… but are they really that many? They are archetypical enough to make sense. And most of them have one-on-one screen time with Lyra, which facilitates the bonding process between character and audience. The most creative choice for the characters is the elimination of the usual suspects. Instead of amazons/elves, we have witches; instead of dwarves, we have gypsies; instead of rings, we have a golden alethiometer. Instead of… well, you get the picture.

The “Darth Vader/I-am-your-father” theme is present in TGC. To me, this is the most exciting part of the film, because it places a grey mantle of ambiguity over an already ambiguous story. Everyone loves a villain who is capable of feeling absolute love, a love more noble than that of the good guys. I can’t go into details because it is too much of a wonderful spoiler to give away.

The Golden Compass imitates the episodic structure of other fantasy/science fiction tales that are out there by cutting off the book’s ending in which little Lyra rescues Lord Asriel. The film suffers by this, because the audience doesn’t find enough satisfaction in having to wait a year to see the resolution. Anyone remembers LOTR’s second act is just the fellowship walking and fighting? It is too late to have the excitement of acquiring the ring, yet it is too early to conclude in the ring’s destruction. The Golden Compass’ episodic structure is not as extreme as this, but I think they could have easily added an extra half an hour of film to give the story a better resolution. We are already used to seeing this type of movie last 3 hours or more.

The visuals are simply astonishing, and the tension is held very well throughout the film, regardless of the absence of monsters. People get their fix of magical creatures with all the humanized animals present in the film. The choice of using pure CGI to convey the daemons (animal spirits) was very smart. It gave them that extra sense of ethereality needed to make them work. The concept of an animal spirit is a beautiful Native American belief, and seeing it connect with Plato’s Symposium (Zeus bolting joined souls) was a real treat. TGC cannot help but to inspire in me a longing for life with an animal spirit of my own. The biggest accomplishment? Achieving a level of maturity in the story-line, regardless of the talking animals. They could have easily made The Golden Compass infantile, yet the film didn’t lose its maturity throughout this risky situation.

I think the reason why maybe some LOTR fans or HP fans might find TGC disappointing is because *gasp* we have grown up! Omg, we are finally old. The genre is coming to a saturation. It has been 10 years of us watching these long-ass fantasy films, and maybe we are tired. We are no longer 18, and watching people with long ears and green tights is not as fun as it used to be. Other than that, I really wouldn’t see a reason why The Golden Compass is less than excellent. It will not get me as involved as I was when I was a kid, but I can still love it, and find it to be a more refined product of the fantasy boom.

The Golden Compass is a brilliant movie, and in a way it hits closer home than the Narnia tales or the Ring tales. Why is that? Because the LOTR is more of a political/anti-technology story, and Narnia is all about rewriting the Bible, while The Golden Compass focuses on the spiritual battle of the mind, and the enemy is the Church. Now, how sweet can this be? The allegories were so obvious… the actor who plays the “Pope” is simply identical to the Pope. He’s also wearing Clergy clothes. Where would someone miss the theological implications? I don’t know. But I think even with the censorship, it was obvious enough to win the hate of Christians out there.

Need any extra incentives to watch? The current Pope is boycotting the movie. So, it is our responsibility to make The Golden Compass a success. Not only because of its entertaining value, but because the message it conveys is much more noble than that of other fantasy films out there. There’s a prophecy in the film of an impending war in which the Magisterium and the revolutionaries will battle for people’s Free Will, so it simply seems ironic that actually seeing the movie is an exercise of said power. By watching, you are ensuring a future of riskier films made in Hollywood, with deeper and more controversial themes.

Diggin’ and Ron Paul

Lets give a warm welcome to the latest trend online: live data visualization! This is the part of our dialog that can get non-techies into throwing a fist, and techies into rolling their eyes at how “old” the technology I speak of really is. I do feel it is important to write about this as an important scientific breakthrough and social trend, since things don’t become truly relevant until they become saturated subjects. Most people I talk to are still asking me what “digg” means. Heck, people are still wondering what do you mean when you “delicious.” Notice how all of these Internet things become verbs. Will we end up saying uncool things like, “I monster. Do YOU?”

To digg is to share a story with others in a network of users who also feel that story is relevant (another form of social bookmarking); as the story becomes more relevant, the story get “bigger.” The bigger a story gets, the easier it is to be read by more people. Think about it as a system of filters that allow you to see what’s hot online as we speak. The interesting thing from a New Media perspective is what they are doing at the digg.labs, which is to represent those stories through a visual hierarchy of data visualization.

How Do You Digg?

Arc

You can view your stories as an arc. This option is one of the most visually trippy. Along with the swarm option. This is the future of art and info graphics. There’s a lot of cool stuff in the works that uses “random” mathematical algorithms to make it happen. Truly the perfect marriage of engineering and art.

BigSpy

Or maybe you prefer blocks of text? Using the BigSpy option. Notice how the white text represent the titles for articles, videos, or pictures that digg users “digg.” On the left side, you’ll find the number of diggs in yellow. The more a story is plugged, the bigger it literally is. People recognize colors and sizes more easily and faster than plain old text. So, to have a people filtered system brings the power back to the user. You determine what you want to see, and what you think it is important.

Pictures

And here’s the latest. Picture visualization. The nice thing about this is the fact that you can actually divide stories by category, without leaving any category behind. It reminds me of MTV’s True Life opening sequence. Which is pretty neat, because it just shows how any rendered artwork has the potential of becoming a live template to data. Once you click on any of these squares, you are taken to the digg page that offers a brief description of what you want to see. After that, you can either go back to your trippy visualizations, or you can actually visit the link to the original article.

Political Implications

The downside to all of this is that a filtering system such as this is only as good as its users. And luckily, Digg fans are a bunch of Silicon Valley tech geeks. But what if stupid people or bots begin to use it. I’m sure the number of sane users will always outnumber the bots or the crazies, but it is a big fear to find people misusing such wonderful technology. A good example of Digg being misused is seeing how Republican candidate Ron Paul uses digg as a political platform. There’s no direct evidence to this, but every time you log on to Digg, the most digged stories are the ones relating to him. How is this unusual? Well, this is a social bookmarking website filled with users who love technology, computers, odd news, and funny things… and amidst all this “geekery,” Ron Paul’s name suddenly pops up with hundreds of diggs. If Digg would be a place where The 700 Club would be making headlines, then Ron Paul’s presence would seem perfectly believable. Ron Paul’s stories are another example of the tragedy of commons applied to the Internet. Absolute democracy opens up to absolute abuse. Don’t get me wrong, many “Ron Paul-ers” surely are not getting paid, but the fact that someone pushes an article in a community in which people want to see relevant stories, and not everything ever written on a republican, is disrespectful.

Now, talking about hidden agendas, I’m going to place Ron Paul’s name as part of the title of this article, and we’ll wait and see if what I said is true, that most “Ron Paul-ers” don’t read an article on him before actually digging it. This is both going to prove me right, and have me be digged. So, thank you Ron Paul… for having your minions catapult me to fame. See ya in hell, buddy… See ya in hell.

-Alex

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the Diggnation podcast with Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht. They do a fun commentary about the most popular stories being dugg. I should mention that Kevin Rose is Digg’s founder, so it should be fun to see the news right from the horse’s mouth. Be sure to check it out!