For the last week i’ve been in Montreal, Canada for the Kinetik Festival and general destroying of boredom. Kinetik, almost a perfect word to encompass the intense moving force behind every moment of my journey. Riots ensued across the city a few days after my arrival due to the winning Canadiens hockey team, I met with great minds like Tamy Emma Pepin that fueled my passion for the social media community, climbed a mountain, laid on the grass with a few long lost friends during Les-tam-tams and opened up my eyes to life beyond the frame I have created in my own world.
“Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte
Foursquare Day was last Friday, did you hear about it? Many people that did thought there was a powerhouse viral marketing hot shots or a high priced PR firm behind the scenes of this global social media celebration. I would hate to burst your bubble, but reality just checked in and there’s a new mayor in town. Imagine an eye doctor, a blue haired blogger gal in her early 20′s, and a motley crew of only about fifteen of Tampa, Florida’s social media community. We’ve been hard at work, sitting crowded around laptops and among eyewear in Nathan-Bonilla Warford’s tiny optometrist office for the last month. All of us on the Foursquare Day team have found ourselves immersed in an alternate reality of 5am bedtimes, empty coffee cups and filled email boxes.
Why? Because we all were in it for one thing, to not only celebrate our love of Foursquare but come together as a global community to create an awareness of the power of social media. Did we know what the hell we were doing? Did we make any money? Nope, but we all had passion and used our each unique talents and resources via social media to connect over 250 cities around the globe for one day.
What became of all of that? Something that we could have never imagined…
As most of you may already know my father Bo a.k.a Cpt. Spauldad has been through a lot lately as far as things medically go, he’s currently at Tampa General Hospital getting some of the best care in Tampa Bay. It’s been a crazy time at Destructo HQ as well, since he lives with us we’ve all been on high alert emotionally and trying to support and take care of ourselves as well. We’ve recently also had a few deaths in our close family so things have been a bit on panic mode. Please bear with us as deviations may be few and far between during these times, you all have been amazing in support.
Most of you don’t even know my dad, so i’d like to tell you a little bit about him. He’s pretty darn cool as far as Dad’s go, most of my friends choose to hang out with him instead of me at events like Spooky Empire where he dresses up like the character Cpt. Spaulding from the Rob Zombie movie The Devils Rejects (Hence, why people started calling him Cpt. Spauldad).He’s also decorated his room and the house like The Haunted Mansion, it’s seriously like an amusement park in his room. I certainly see where I get my creativity from…
I can’t say enough thanks to Dan Walderschmidt for seeing the beauty in being different. I just read an article he wrote after his TedX experience called “Success Starts With You Being Different“and I have never read something before that completely encapsulated my whole mission statement.
As most of you know I just traveled to Greenville, South Carolina…. Why was I there? Because of Bruce’s Yams of course… to return back to the place where all the yamsanity began for me. I made this very special video for all the Bruce’s Yams fans and to tell a little bit more about the story behind the blue haired gal who tweets and types for Bruce’s Yams.
The past week I learned that nothing is impossible, or yampossible it seems. About a year ago, I was in Greenville, SC… unemployed and pretty much starving when I discovered canned yams at the local discount foods store. I started eating yams (sweet potatoes) pretty much everyday, straight out of the can for breakfast, lunch and dinner. While my strange food habit became sort of associated with me through my tweets on twitter, I wondered if I could possibly take my love for yams into a career. So I started the “Will Work For Yams” campaign on my website and twitter.
I sent Bruce’s Foods an email, with no reply. Then my writer/actor friend Brian Spaeth got involved, a four page and very crazy yam manifestoto Bruce’s Foods on why they should hire me. Then I got a very cryptic email from Bruce’s “Why Bruce’s Yams?” is all it said. So I wrote this blog post…. “The Power of Yams.” to explain my love for yams. A few emails back and forth with Bruce’s and a month later, this HUGE box of Bruce’s Yams products showed up at my door. You can watch the video of that madness here… “May is the Month of The Yam”
Anyways, I thought that would be the end of hearing from Bruce’s Foods… until a few weeks ago that is. I then received an email from Bruce’s… “Hey, you want to do our social media?”….*record screech* WHAT!?!?!
Update 01/03/10: This story (and my little blue head) was featured on CNNHeadline News today!
Update: 12/31/09: JFK Library is now doing research into the photos. Will know more in a few weeks, also the media has picked up the story as well. Miss Destructo with JFK Photos on ABC News -Watch the video here! :)
Update 12/29/09: Thank you for all the great feedback on these photos. So far our greatest lead is the photographer is possibly Cecil Stoughton who was JFK’s personal photographer and lived/died in FL in his later years. I have also contacted the JFK library for further information.
Today Mr. D and I were at our favorite thrift store and we stumbled upon a collection of 8×10 original archival photos from CBS featuring design manager Lou Dorfsman (He branded CBS and designed the eye) many of the photos were labeled with “My boss Lou Dorfsman” and seemed to be of CBS staff. Then further on down the pile I stopped as my jaw dropped at the sight of President John F. Kennedy doing what seems to be an interview, many of these are candid shots printed on 8×10 with archival numbers scratched on the back in pencil.
Here at Destructo Deviations we are starting a new feature called “Destroying Your Boredom” where every week i’ll ask my twitter followers to answer one question. It will be a question to help you explore your inner self and motivate you to destroy your boredom.
Answer the question posted on my Twitter weekly (It’ll be a surprise!) and you could be featured here!
This week I was in a great conversation with Smashadv about silly life goals that we both have, my personal silly life goals are to give Sir Richard Branson a hug and to meet David Bowie.
It’s those small things in life that keep us motivated even if they may be a little out there. But remember folks our motto over here at Destructo Deviations is “Nothing is Impossible”.
This weeks Destroying Your Boredom question: What are your silly life goals?
Here are the hilarious answers from the twitterverse….
“Faces i’ve seen, places i’ve been, where will I be next time around… “
Everyone can remember one moment that they felt alive, that one spark that fueled a passion. For me, my personal catalyst was an oddly named band called Harry Dash.
Harry Dash is a local New Port Richey, FL band that means “flash” or “cool” in British cockney slang. I had heard of the band quite a bit growing up, since they’ve been on the local Tampa band scene since the mid 90′s. Their amazing covers of songs such as “Run Like Hell” from Pink Floyd and “Muscle Museum” from Muse and high energy sound from original songs such as “Spies“. Not to forget the soulful, powerhouse vocals behind lullaby ballads and inspirational “get off your butt and do something” anthems such as “Tank” (click to watch the music video). If Radiohead and the Beatles had a lovechild that grew up to kick your ass and take your girlfriend, it would be Harry Dash.
“I really enjoy the blogs, although I look at them more like a newsletter. Have you ever considered writing for a magazine or editorial? I think you would do great, and then you could make money for your awesome writing skills. Which would then allow you to buy all the gummy bears and Nivea cream you ever wanted. Anyways, great job, I’m only going to leave a comment on this one for now, but they are ALL amazing so far. Great job, and keep it up.”
Aw shucks… *blushes*… it’s comments like this one that keep me fueled.
Ah, but it is a lonesome dream of mine to work for a local ultra hip small creative company where brainstorming meetings are half about the philosophy of the Venture Brothers and caffeinated wonderlands of productivity and color.. A place where I can work from home in my underwear eating grits and tweeting all day. But that all it is in this economy now, is a caffeine fueled wonderland.
One of the most important things you can do as a creative or freelancer is to CREATE your identity and MAKE a press kit. When I became unemployed many months ago this is one of the first things I did.. Now, it isn’t a golden ticket to a job. I am currently still unemployed, but my press kit has allowed me to gain a few amazing supplemental freelancing gigs and helped me create more of a solid brand for myself. The color scheme for example, I use on my website and social media accounts… make all of these things scream YOU!
I can fondly remember back to my senior year of college at the University of Tampa, I was like any other upcoming graduate…SCARED of “THE BEYOND”. Very scared of what the future held because I knew I would soon be in debt with student loans and out in “the real world” looking for a job in a tough economic time.
I put this in the back of my mind until one day when I was making the daily route to the student mail room, I passed a job fair in progress. There was a very well dressed gentleman at the door who I passed on my way to the mailboxes, he stopped me on the way with the comment “Hey, I love those shoes…”
