Kickstarter turned down my proposal for raising a billion dollars to buy the Buffalo Bills. On Kickstarter’s site, where they ask to describe the goal of the project I answered “The purchase of the Buffalo Bills to keep them in Buffalo, NY and to be owned by the fans. Once successfully negotiated, the ownership would be handed over to city municipality. Profit from the investment would be directed to underfunded schools in New York State.”
And for their donation:
“Every contributor gets a paragraph in an epic letter appealing to Ralph Wilson Jr.; this letter ending with a promise to keep the name of the stadium the same as long as the city of Buffalo exists. Also there is security that the team will never move.”
Though next time I will propose it with a system of buying shares, or some more serious venture capitalist language, which I know they love.
Here’s the rejection:
Kickstarter Staff commented on your Kickstarter submission:
“Hey there,
Thank you for taking the time to share your idea. Unfortunately, this isn’t the right fit for Kickstarter. We receive many project proposals daily and review them all with great care and appreciation. We see a wide variety of inspiring ideas, and while we value each one’s uniqueness and creativity, Kickstarter is not the right platform for all of them. We wish you the best of luck as you continue to pursue your endeavor.
I wrote a letter to the owner of the Buffalo Bills. I have always admired the Green Bay Packers and how they will always be where they are, and it troubled me to hear rumors again about the Bills moving, this time to LA. Something more radical could be on the horizon. Dare to dream.
reaching out, a link to the letter I mailed today.
This week has been rough, working a lot of overtime and getting a bunch of ads together for a commemorative booklet. The center I work at is having a fortieth anniversary Gala, which I will be DJing. It’s actually being held in the same place Fox News is celebrating its Quinceañera, Pier 60 at Chelsea Piers. When my boss offered a few free spots, if I could fill a page up, I thought of promoting Dorothy Albertini, Bard prison initiative, Build It Green NYC, but only got in touch with my friends at The Swell Season Movie (comrades, Elkcreek Cinema folk) and was going to run this ad below.
They grow up so quick, age-wise; still dumb as a racist infant.
Elk Creek Cinema colleagues, Carlo, Chris and Nick recently released a documentary that they started collaborating on 3 years ago called The Swell Season, taken from the name of the music tour that Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová embarked on after winning an Oscar for best original song. Shot in black and white, the film is garnishing praise for its aesthetic, editing and treatment of it’s subjects.
In many way this movie will be compared to other music movies as well as films on romance. Eventually, someone will see Cameron Crowe’s Before Sunset to apply an in depth analysis and comparison to The Swell Season and explain why Swellaccomplishes so much more. What excites me about the this film having legs and getting off the ground is not how it compares to other films with dramatized romantic subjects like the Cashs’, or music docs likeCrazy HorseorDon’t Look Back, but that with all the conventions and traditions of both genres, it has arrived at a product undeniably unique, possibly progressing the ontology of film genres, and I hope translates into what the audience will regard as fresh. At times I was surprised that a movie like this could be made, which is part of what made it cool to watch. This may be because though there were three directors, there weren’t too many other cooks in the kitchen, and they were left to do much of the work by themselves.
Really what I mean is, my friends have been making films since childhood. They are excited by a different film vernacular than the dumbed-down industry standard. A movie like this could sound a little bland for those unfamiliar with Once, or the music. However, because of Hansard’s and Irglová’s openness; their relationship with each other, their families, and the directors; and the director’s enthusiasm for film and the document, the film breaks from the near ubiquitous condescension of contemporary cinema. Here is a film that finds a true and moving story using qualities many are cynical about finding in Hollywood in concert: respect for the subjects and the audience.
More places to read and hear about this film:
Awards Daily (May 2nd, 20011) Though The Swell Season was overlooked for any awards, here is one that considers it their favorite doc of the festival.
The Directors [Tribeca Film Festival Interview] (March 24th, 2011) – Chris was kind enough to make an endorsement of my mother’s poetry near the end, and in the article her name, Shreela Ray, links to a website my father put up 15 or so years ago.
I recently upgraded to a smart phone. It’s on verizon. It’s fast when on the 4g network, or hangs up, unable to connect to the server. It’s really annoying. The scrabble game knock off by Zynga is the buggiest piece of software I have ever used. The battery lasts 2 hours before needing a charge. When on a train the GPS and navigation gets really confused. Foursquare often tells me I am too far from where I actually am to believably “check in” to that location. All in all it’s a waste of money that costs an extra $30 a month for service that often is out of service.
There has yet to be a a glitch free music managing app made for my phone. A large portion of my mp3s have missassigned album art. If the song didn’t have a [...]
Hendrik, my father, in the early days of cyberspace posted a useful tool for all our friends and family, a complete directory of the addresses and phone numbers of all our friends and family. It wasn’t until a decade later that it occurred to me that it was a daring thing to do, and most people would not want that in the public sphere as attitudes toward identity theft and sensitivity to internet creepiness has matured the way the wild west went from land of freedom and opportunity, to staggering lawlessness, the state in which it pretty much exists today. So on that note I present to you my calendar, only because I can. That’s not completely true. Here is what it looks like:
Joe has been calling for the blacklisting of WikiLeaks
Four years ago I accompanied a couple friends to see The Live of Others in a Manhattan theater, where I usually hate paying the double digit ticket prices, but Chris Dapkins was very enthusiastic. The story takes place in East Germany of 1984 (ahem). A government agent is assigned to bug and monitor a playwright who, though is a communist with no legal cause for the intrusion, is in a relationship with a woman coveted by a powerful political figure. The playwright has friends who have been blacklisted and with whom he sympathizes and sometimes plots. Typewriters during this time are registered with the government, so our playwright smuggles one in from the west which he hides in his floor boards so he can write an article about the governments involvement in covering [...]
I have been arguing for the government cut back of economists for what seems to be ages now. There are just too many of them on the federal budget, and in this economy we just cannot afford any more economists. They will just have to be unemployed so we can start stimulating this economy.
This also ties in with my argument that there are too many firefighters dangerously close to forest, brush and house fires these days. If you are in a house or forest with several firemen (firepeople), get the heck out of there, you are in trouble. That goes for economists too.
I accompanied a friend to an open house a Baruch’s Zicklin School, a school for business. The presentation covered quite a bit including programs and the application process, but I took note of the stress put on the [...]
Pioneer One shot a couple scenes a few weeks ago in the building I work, and my brother is a model for the logo. Neil my roommate and art director is working on several episodes as we speak. If you go the their website you may not see it, but if you check them out on youtube you will find the drawing of a man looking up. That’s Gawain.
A few shots in the trailer include scenes shot upstairs from my computer.
PIONEER ONE: New Episodes Teaser from Pioneer One on Vimeo.
