As alluded to previously, I decided to enter a contest.

One where I actually had to make something, and a not-unsubtantial something (because for better or for worse, I am no good at half-assing things).

Now, I'm no Orson Welles, hell, in my best ad ho daze, I was no Hal Riney or Mark Fenske, if you want to get technical, but after 20 years making a living in the business, I know how to write a reasonably on-target and entertaining commercial, and how to act in and edit one as well. This video I made? It may not be worthy of being voted up, but it's hard to see what about it makes it worthy of being voted down.

Only it's not. Because I know what the voting down is about; it's about winning by making someone else a loser. That's the nature of hating. And, as my pal, Pamela Slim said in a very nice email to me about the subject, "Haters really suck, there's no way around it."

The reason I know this is because (gulp) I used to be a hater. Or, if not a hater, one of those people who believed there was a finite amount of x to go around, where x = love, happiness, good fortune or anything else.

Honestly? I have no idea who or what to blame for this burned-in rationale. The drill in our house was that you had to earn everything, every compliment, every bit of praise, and yeah, you kind of started from zero each time. I'm sure there was a lot of sound, bootstrap/depend-on-no-one/Depression-era rationale behind this, but damn, it sucked to be me for a long time. Because when you really want to be happy winning second or third place? You really don't want to be reminded that it could have been first, if someone else hadn't won it. If you had just worked a little harder, like we know you can.

What's sad is that I will always have to override that green monster trigger with every instance of someone else's success. Or maybe it's not sad; maybe it's good to have a reminder that a lot of people are still grappling with it, and that the world is still fueled too much by fear and anger (and I'd argue that a lot of anger is just fear in a different Members Only jacket.)

Whatevs, as the kids after me but still long ago used to say. I hope you will go watch the video and vote me up (or at the very least, not vote me down).

Even more, I hope you enjoy my little video, and the effort and goodness of people it represents. All those people in the video who helped me. A whole lot more who either sent stuff I couldn't fit in (there was a :60 limit, which I went over a little anyway with that fade to black) or had freak A/V problems or just other stuff in their lives that needed tending to.

The good people will win, even if my video doesn't.

But vote it up anyway, okay?

xxx
c

9/22/08 - UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who supported me, but it just wasn't good enough. Well, not really; I made it to the final 10, thanks to you, and then nowhere, as the rest of it was on them. Which is neither particularly surprising nor disappointing. Although I still hate losing. Regardless, please do not hold my losing against what appears to be a perfectly good airline. You are now free to move about the cabin, or show them the LUV, or whatever it is that floats your boat. Er...pilots your craft.

Vote here. Thanks!

and now...

VIDEO CREDITS!! (or, "It Takes a Village" Dept.)

In my haste to get out the video, I screwed up URLs, misspelled names and generally screwed up all manner of pertinent info. And the first two people in the vid, Jack & Chris, don't have titles over their names b/c I am a goddamned artist, goddammit, and I felt like having titles too early would give away the joke. Forgive me; I fully recognize what a colossal pain in the ass I can be about stuff like that.

In order of appearance:

Jack Lyons (@sidereal_)
Chris Ereneta (@cjereneta)
Angie Tapia & Company
David Eckoff (@davideckoff)
Scot Duke (@MrBusinessGolf)
Jon Deal (@zuhl)
Pamela Slim (@pamslim) (and vote for her SXSW panel here)
Mignon Fogarty (@GrammarGirl )
Rachel (@EffingBoring)
Peter Shankman (@skydiver)
Havi Brooks (@havi)
Karen Putz (@deafmom)
Laura Moncur (@LauraMoncur)
Mary McCauley-Stiff's Coffee Mug

And of course, HUGE shout to The BF for purchasing and learning to play ukulele in 12 hours, as well as for sound massaging (mm...massaging...) and remaining on an even keel while I spun like a (bitchy) top.

There are other people who VERY KINDLY sent video, stills and offers of help, but for time and space reasons, could not be in it or, sadly, credited. (Drumroll, please!)

@SeoulBrother (OMG, you guys, I SO WISH I could've fit that one in)
Joe Hage (Ditto...so much good stuff that didn't, I know, I should shut up, already)
John Dickerson (@JohnDickerson)
Dawud Miracle (@DawudMiracle)
Mary Sheely
Elisa Camahort (@ElisaC)
Rebecca Morgan
Evelyn Rodriguez (@eve11)
Susan Bratton (@SusanBratton)
Stephen Hopson
Scott Simpson (@scottsimpson)
Jay Hathaway (@strutting)
Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan )
Postmodern Sass
Dorn Martell
Dani Nordin (@danigrrl)
@tj
Dave Hardwick

...and anyone else who, in my haste, I may have forgotten. But this is the Internet, TELL ME, and I'll add you.