Places I Want To Interview

By then I will have a BA in English Theory and a certificate in Writing For Advertising. My experience is mostly in brand communications, web, and graphics with heavy emphasis both on both high-level thinking and detail-level production. My allegiences are to academic Marxism, punk rock, and internet culture.

Google Creative Labs (Duh)
Anomaly NYC
Virtue NYC/London (Vice)
Pereira & O'Dell NYC
Ogilvy NYC
Taxi NYC
W+K Portland
Quaker City Mercantile
Cutwater SF
4Chan (call me Chris: Stefan and Ryder both have my number)

Yeah internet, so if you know anybody who want to talk let me know.

erikstinson.com for brand stuff
erikstinson.biz for non-commercial writing and graphics

Divisidero

“Divisidero / The Mission / The Marina / The Pier”

I am not going to discuss how I produced these images beyond noting that it involved a camera and balls.

In the style of Dat Magazine’s recent article, I have a single overarching suggestion to photographers:

Avoid photographing that which is, or those who are, “designated” to be photographed. Do not photograph models, monuments, art, tourist attractions, or performers. In fact, do not photograph anything that is designated “for looking at,” even if it is not designated “for photographing” and even if photography is prohibited. Try to keep your lenscap on within 10 meters of any signs suggesting a photo opportunity (once known as a “Kodak Moment” but now renamed out of respect for Fuji).

Before you photograph anything or anyone, ask yourself “would a tourist photograph this?” If the answer is “yes,” then rethink your choice. Try to take the photographs that tourists would be too frightened or disinterested to take. Turn the tables; make the observer the observed.

These are unedited, not even cropped. I hope to improve some of them significantly in post-production; most of them I will toss aside.

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Click an image to view larger.

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"Hmph."

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"Red Highlights Are Me"

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"Yawns Are Contagious"

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"Power Climber"

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"I am not going to take off my glasses"

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"When You Smoke, You Always Have Something To Do"

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"Sign That Is Too Heavy To Steal If You Happen To Be Carrying A Tripod And Camera But Probably Not Otherwise"

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"Down To Purchase Some Organic Foods"

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"I'm Not Taking Off My Glasses, Either"

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"Just Chillin 'At The Marina, Takin' Pixxx Of Some Sea-Gulls, U Know How We Do"

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"Sure Is Squinty Out Today"

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"Oh Snap I Can See San Fran Disco From Here, P.S. I Look Like Carsten Sc. From Overlake"

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"Red Peacoat"

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"Man With Silver And Dark Hair"

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"Probably Three Bows"

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"Fire Hydrant"

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"I Coordinate My Sunglasses And Purse Lining"

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"Not Sure What Is Going On Here, But It Looks Pretty Complicated And Girl On The Right Looks Like Brittany De. From The University Of Washington"

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"Aspherical"

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"Shamen Reloaded"

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"Yes We Can / Wear Ray-Ban!" or "Hope: Take A Picture So It Will Last Longer"

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"Her Eyes Were Watching God"

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"Gold And Silver And Porcelain And Water"

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"Chillin' By The Giant Topiary Menorah"

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"Got To Take Some Pixxx Of These Traffic Conez"

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"Gere"

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"Aliens Told Me To Be Chill"

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"The Internal Revenue Service"

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"Gots To Get Some Pixx Wit My Sony (TM) CyberShot (TM)"

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"Thank Goodness There Are Chill Bros To Help Me Unzip My Wetsuit So I Can Go Snorkeling In San Francisco Bay In November At Age 70"

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"Used To Be Emo And Cut My Wrists But Now Feelin' Chill Because I Got This String In My Hands And Faith In My Heart That On The Other End There Is A Net Full Of Tasty Crabz"

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"Got A Crab And He Looks Tasty But Kind Of Pissed Off"

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Erik: Plz write poghems about these peeps.

Remember: Photography is a right, not a privilege. It is your civil right to photograph anything and anyone you can legally see.

V4L,
-A2

futuristic jobs

brand ethics activist
modular computer retail associate
urban renewal event marketer
career upgrade social media educator
food designer
chief offensive officer, 'brand commando'
social media director of a recycling center
recyclable-messaging social media researcher

these won't be published anywhere else untill 'and then i disappeared again' comes on in feb

sluts, get a grip

after three years of spending all his
free time on the internet erik97
decided it was time to take a break.
he locked his computer in a closet
and walked outside. he threw the
keys into a nearby stream. back
inside his house, he felt very alone.
his microwave had a luminous,
imaginative glow that seemed new.
then, his refrigerator text messaged
him that he had leftover chinese
food. he was so surprised that he
almost ran through his sliding
glass doors. he clutched the
sustainable chinese food package
very tightly.


glass door

orange november sun hovers
against a cabinet. i leave a bedroom
window open to feel the alien
winter breeze. in about an hour
the evening mediafeeds will
start and i will be paralyzed by
organic pasta. the sun goes
away and the air becomes icy.
i shut the window.


newsfeed

nobody is working because
a popular musician has just
release a free album online.
they think, 'i will be more
productive when this album
is done archiving and i have
a fresh cup of coffee.' there
is a stillness that reminds
us of that time when everyone
had to read a juicy gossip
blog story. the cubes were
like an ancient tomb for two
minutes. the office plants
looked likes pieces of an
alter to an internet god.

to live and die in the shadow of the twin towers

by erik stinson 2010 nyc

Folding Things

0. Whatevs: Remember CK’s “poke-farming”? Yeah.

1. The Economy: On Sunday I went to the Homes Depot in East Palo Alto to get a surveyor’s tripod (the kind one uses to support a level, theodolite, rangefinder, or other surveying equipment) and aerosol paint. Surprisingly, the orange-vest-clad employees were actually able to tell me where to find these items. I was shocked. Working at The Homes Depot sucks, as I know first-hand. In a healthy economy, employee turnover at hardware stores is high enough to completely preclude anyone on the store floor having any idea where the fuck anything is. The economy must be so bad that sales associates, who make minimum wage and suffer continuous occupational exposure to contractors (“occupational exbrosure”), actually stay around long enough to learn what products the store carries and where they are located. I remembered cashiering at the Homes Depot in Bellevue years ago; whenever cashiers sold aerosol paint, we were supposed to card the customers to make sure they were over 18 and not Banksky. However, it was much faster to just type in November 11th, 1111 as a customer birthdate, and all the cashiers at the Bellevue Homes Depot, including myself, did exactly that. When I bought the spraypaint, I saw the cashier key in the date November 11th, 1111 for me. Deja faire.

It was wonderfully cheap. Three dollars for a one-pound can of fluorescent yellow industrial-strength enamel spraypaint. The spraypaint even had a label describing all the different Chemicals Known to the State of California to Wreck Your Shit, which I enjoyed decoding.

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2. Freezer: There is more film than food in my freezer, which is chill, I guess. The Nikon FG is great. It’s small, heavy, fast, loud, subtle, indestructible, and black. These days, film is associated with hipsters and the unspeakably annoying medium of “lomography.” Getting messy results with film is easy; digital cameras are designed to be operated by the ignorant, and so people who want messy results prefer film because it’s so much easier to mess up. It’s cool to be lazy and not put any effort into anything, even into messing something up.

I like film because it’s so hard to get right (much harder than digital) and so much better when you do get it right (much better than digital). This allows me to do “hella neurotic” photography as an antithesis to “lomo”. Chill. I’ll rarely pull the shutter release on the FG unless there is a chance that everything is perfect. Film is fucking expensive.

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3. Rain: I was walking to one of Stanford’s libraries in the pouring rain. There were two twenty-something bros in front of me. I caught a bit of their conversation:

“I guess, I mean, I’m fine, but I’m not a gynecologist or anything,” one bro said, in a monotone. The other muttered “mmm” in a sober, sympathetic tone. They both looked sad and were staring down at the brick with water running off their gelled hair.

Perhaps I should carry a sound recorder rather than a camera.

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4. Route 280: There are three kinds of places in the world: places where I won’t get shot, places where I’ll get shot if I take pictures of tattooed bros, and places where I’ll get shot just for walking down the street. However, being A2, I have an ingenious plan to turn all places into Type 1. I think I may even be able to shoot on private property, which would be nice: Stanford’s campus doesn’t have a particularly high concentration of “interesting-looking” people, but it’s by far the most densely-populated area in Palo Alto, and so the sheer number of bros milling around boosts my odds. Mais, comme toutes-jours, on vera…

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5. Nectar Wine Bar, Divisidero, San Francisco, 1AM:

“I think she’s impulsive.”

“Well, I’m impulsive. I mean, if someone wanted to go skydiving, I’d be like ‘hell yeah!’. I want to go skydiving, bungee jumping…”

“Yeah, but say you went to the bar, you met some guy, he seemed really cool, like perfect, and he said, ‘hey, let’s drive to Vegas and get married, my car’s outside.’ Would you do it?”

“Uh, no.”

“See, that’s what I mean. There’s impulsive and then there’s that.”

“We’re not like that.”

“No.”

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6. Peas Corps: It has come to my attention that one of the members of the Prestigious Overlake Class of 2006, miss Hayley Dr., is doing Peas Corps service in Africa, AKA “the ghetto where teabaggers think Obama was born”. I get special enjoyment whenever I learn that someone who “belongs in the ghetto even less than me, if you can believe that” is “going to the ghetto”. Usually this happens through programs like the Peas Corps and Bleach America. Hopefully she will take kickass pictures, write good poghems, seems possible. The best part of her blog thus far, however, is a disclaimer which states: “The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peas Corps.” In fact I think we should add this to Menthol in order to keep people from confusing us with the official spokesmen of the White House. It happens a lot. I also think that Peas Corps may be a genre in need of expansion, alongside foamcore, mumblecore, and pizzacore.

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“i slept with this writer erik stinson and it was whatevs” social media promotion

babe alert!

i’m having a promotion next week.

anyone who tweets

“i slept with this writer erik stinson @erikhaspresence and it was whatevs but i got a book. you can too, just tweet this.”

will get my second book ‘i’m happy that you are grappling with my lifechoices’ for printing cost+shipping. i will send you the secret link.

also

you can update your facebook status to read

“i slept with this writer erik stinson and it was whatevs but i got a book. you can too just repost this and message him.”

fb message me and i will send you the link. yeah. my second book. it’s ok. i think it will end up being like 5 dollars total.

starts monday and 12am. i will post this on fb and twitter.

also, my next (4th) collection ‘and then i disappeared again’ will be released february 1st 2011, either by menthol u.p. or by someone else… also, ‘futureism’ is doing well. seems like maybe it got me another gallery show (tba) in nyc.

thanks guys

erik

bushwick ny november 2010

Things I am Currently Looking Forward To

1. Seeing Tron, probably alone, in an anonymous Manhattan theater.

2. Starting in January, I won't need to wake up early. So, not waking up as early.

3. Visiting my mother's family in Denver in December. Eating food with them and with my parents and sister.

4. Trying to keep my houseplant alive.

5. Getting a real job with a tax form.

6. Writing observational things in Tumblr.

7. Babes alerts.

8. Writing more TV commercials.

9. Reading the rest of Joan Didion's novels.

10. Hanging out with my sister on her birthday in Seattle.

11. The seeing the final cut of Martin Luther King Junior Way.