Audrey and my show Illadates just got honored by the Public Relations Society of America. They awarded us (and the forward-thinking folks at GPTMC & uwishunu.com who financed it, promoted it and hosted it) with a Bronze Anvil for “superior performance in the design and execution of individual tactics within broader public relations campaigns.” Pretty rad, eh?
“The Bronze Anvil Award annually celebrates the growing scope, creativity and strategic importance of public relations tactics, and represents the highest level of tactical achievement in the public relations industry,” said Arthur Yann, 2008 Bronze Anvil Award committee chair. “The outstanding work done by this year’s recipients is truly deserving of such noteworthy recognition from their industry peers.”
And please pardon me, but I can’t help use this opportunity to share one of my banner ads I made last year (when we were still called “Cheap Dates”). It makes me laugh:
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As many of you know, Audrey’s in film school at Temple. She’s been doing lots of fun projects for class, and this is one of her first big final projects. I’ve been meaning to post it here for sometime, and I just remembered this morning. The film stars our friend Patrick Gouveia and features the music of our friends Make a Rising (they’ve got a great new album, btw - buy it at their label High Two). Enjoy!
We were lucky to spend the weekend up near Wellsboro, PA to celebrate our friends Andy and Darshana’s wedding. Andy’s folks have this amazing farm right on the edge of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, which I have never seen before. We camped out there, falling asleep to the sounds of wild nature - toads and owls and all sorts of cool sounding beasties.
We took a hike out to the rim of the canyon, swam in one of their small lakes, played mad bocce ball, ate awesome vegan goodies until stuffed to the gills, and built huge campfires. An A+ event, for an A+ couple. Happy day!
markschoneveld posted a photo:
markschoneveld posted a photo:
markschoneveld posted a photo:
markschoneveld posted a photo:
markschoneveld posted a photo:
My good buddy Marc Brodzik just launched a new online video channel called Scrapple.tv. It’s a site bringing fresh, interesting and off-the-wall videos from the Philly underground art & music & political scenes.
Marc’s been churning out some amazing shows all year, and his new project is sure to entertain. He is quite a character. I think the Philly Weekly put it best when they said, “Interviewing Marc Brodzik of Scrapple.TV is like wrestling a Tasmanian devil covered in baby oil.”
Here’s the first episode of one their new series called Back2Basics:
I just came across this amazing photo:
It was taken by Sloan Shang for this excellent new project called Everywhere Magazine, a travel mag made by people’s contributions online. I dig the project, do check it out.
What’s most interesting to me, though, and why the photo caught my eye is that it was taken in Balmorhea State Park - the very place that Audrey agreed to marry me on the day of my 30th birthday while we were on a cross-country road trip. Also, completely randomly, my best friend Norm has that exact same bus. And it’s for sale (in case anyone’s looking for one).
My brother Dave works at Dreamworks and has spent the better portion of this past year working hard on Kung-Fu Panda. He’s got a pretty awesome job as an animator there, and I’m real proud of his work! Audrey and I are heading to the theater to see it tonight to check it out (what better way to spent a near-100′F evening than spend in the darkly cool confines of a movie house?). I don’t think I’ve gone to an animated kids film in…. um… since I was a kid! It’s going to be great. Guilty pleasures.
[UPDATE: The film was awesome! We totally enjoyed it and it made us laugh out loud. Super summertime blockbuster. Also, I grabbed a quick shot of Dave in the credits!]
This is an interesting diptych:
The good people of P’unk Ave and The Hacktory are putting together a free event called Ignite Philly on Wednesday June 11th at Johnny Brenda’s at 6:00pm. I’ll be there!
The basic premise of the thing is to ask some local innovators to get up on stage and give a talk about what they do. The catch? They can’t speak for more than 5 minutes and their powerpoint slides will only stay up 15 seconds max. Should be an excellent time for all us nerdz and non-nerdz alike.
You won’t want to miss the awesomeness of featured speakers like:
Hope to see you there!
Sadly, the time has come for me to part ways with another trusty steed. My dear Lil’ Red hasn’t been driven enough and he needs a good home. He’s been a fantastic car since I drove him across country from Los Angeles on a solo road trip from my brother Dave’s who gave me the car on the sole condition that I tend it well. He totally babied this thing. Lil’ Red spent the majority of his life garaged in California. He’s got no rust, original henna red paint and only a few bumps and bruises (I’ll gladly specify if you’re interested).
Since we live in Philly, and don’t have a garage, I feel like I’m not holding up my end of the bargain. It just ain’t right to leave this hottie on the street. He’s a classic (which reminds me, you can get PA Classic tags if you want him as a collectable - that’ll save you hundreds in insurance, inspection and registration costs). Lil Red runs great, is still well shy of 200k miles. The only things that don’t work well right now are the air conditioning (needs a charge) and heater blower (needs a fan). The manual transmission is sturdy, but probably won’t last forever. I’ve recently had the clutch hydraulics redone this spring. This puppy gets 30 m.p.g.
If you’re in the market for an inexpensive, sexy, fuel-efficient, classic, hand-built automobile, by all means, get in touch. I’d even deliver it to you if you’re not too far away from Philadelphia.
Asking price: $1500.
My favorite film of the 2008 MountainFilm Festival was one that I had the honor of projecting its World Premiere: Red Gold. It also happened to be directed and edited by my good buddy in Telluride, Ben Knight. He’s an amazingly talented photographer and this is his first feature film. It took home the well-deserved Audience Award as well as the Festival Director’s Prize.
Ben and his filmmaking partner Travis Rummel created a beautiful portrait of Bristol Bay, Alaska, one of the most precious natural areas in the world, as it’s residents battle the encroaching interests of a massive copper mine that will heavily impact the region.
Here’s the trailer. I will definitely update this when I learn of their distribution plans (good luck, guys!).
I had the great pleasure of heading to the mountains again this holiday weekend for a heaping serving of films that celebrate the ‘indomitable spirit‘ in adventure, culture, sports and environment. MountainFilm was celebrating it’s 30th year and it was my seventh. As always, it was excellent to spend time in Telluride, my old stomping grounds. Audrey got her first taste of the high and mighty San Juan Mountains, and I’m sure it won’t be her last. We had a great time.
I took a plethora of photos on the trip. You can see the whole set on Flickr here. Here are a few choice picks:
(my gorgeous wife)
(my sister-in-law Becca, her husband Brian and Audrey on top of the Jud Weibe Trail, ~10,000ft elevation)
(me, Justyn and Greg - my co-projectionists at The Palm Theater)
Also, I should mention that the good people at National Geographic Adventure were major sponsors of the event and I would be bereft if I didn’t send my buddies at their sister blog Intelligent Travel a proper shout-out! They’re frequent commenters on The Poverty Jet Set, and I love ‘em for it. You guys rule, keep up the awesome work! And thanks for supporting such a fantastic festival.
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