Ben Barren - Confessions of a Mad Man

Tag Archives: thewire

if u want to be an entrepreneur read this 20 times

Posted by Ben Barren on January 29, 2009 – 4:26 pm

Marlo: The game is the game.
Avon: Always.

Read, re-read, then take the advice of master of 500 hats, and if u still want to start a business, do. Or maybe don’t read the post at all. We are each allowed to take our swing goes the entrepreneurial siren song to 9-5′ers; Just read the post anyway, maybe u r the next Zuckerberg + Wired, Fast Company + Techcrunch are right. Here’s a McClure soundbite by the author : “Silicon Valley is WAAAY too infatuated with the ELEGANT IDEALISM of Entrepreneurship (or the GOLLUM GREED of making a shitload of CASH) , rather than the GRITTY REALITY of running a CRAPPY little startup business that will likely GO NOWHERE... which if you’ve ever been through it, is a tough, painful, low-probability, motherfuck of an adventure, aka tragedy. it ain’t no merry go round folks (well it is, but not the way you think… probably rollercoaster is a better way to describe it).”

Omar: All in the game yo, all in the game : The Beast new The Wire

Dave’s parallel of a entrepreneurship with a teenager driving an out of control car; With the consequent heightened reality public interest TVCs for safe driving are too true, and by inference, I’m grinning thinking about what an equivalent solution could be to warn entrepreneurs what happens in between the dream and honeymoon stage of running your own business; “Look ma, no hands!” + “I have no boss. I decide what I do. I’m not working for ‘The Man’!” -

Creative Concept 1 : “This is Your Life Meets Celebrity Rehab” for Web 1.0 Washups

Well the emperor may have no clothes so some pre + post roll interstitials could be bought on Hulu (although CPM might be cheaper on YouTube) find an ensemble of washedup pet/etail/freepc/homedelivery 1.0 e-preneurs. Highlight the dysfunctional relationships, lost marriages, addiction problems, gambler, bank defaults.. Kind of an inverted This is Your Life meets Z-List Celebrity Rehab for entrepreneurship. Make sure family members and exes are interviewed.

Creative Concept 2 - Entrepreneurship as Street Hustling : Bodie, D’Angelo, Mr_T or Mc_Hammer

If there was the budget (diverted from some government stop teen alcohol binging marketing budget) get The Wire/The Shield Director to shoot some straight to web 7 minute short films that show entrepreneurship as a Boyz in the Hood type gritty ending. Launch them on Facebook combined with a Burger King coupon tie-in. (note to self : spk2 digital agency about this) Start with a scene in The Wire where they knock down The Projects “Creative Destruction” (which is what entrepreneurship is about innit! beinging down old structures…), which leads to the creation of Hamsterdam (Dot Crash period 2002-4!), come to think of it cast Bodie who is typecast in The Wire as being a pawn in the greater “game” and there could be a guest appearance of chess playing D’angelo - who is great as Ray Beaumont in new Patrick Swayze show The Beast BTW - Chess is quite representative of the typical entrepreneur trying to cut it.. If budget doesnt allow get MrT and let him talk about finding god or at least McHammer could film something on his Flip and mention his startup as a quidpro‘quo.

Anyway I’m off topic now as u will have no idea what i’m talking bout unless u both understand Dave + also watch The Wire… Or u could listen to the excellent 5minute 5season the_wire rapup hehe lets face it the chance of being a successful entrepreneur is about the same percentage that a project kid will go from slanging rock to being Jay_Z. Most as the 12 Step mantra drills in, will end up dead or in jail. So maybe being an (unlikely not successful) entrepreneur will not be as dire.. but ‘the game’s out there, and it’s play or get played.. same as it ever was.. . All in the game yo, all in the game.’ - or some other such mashup of the Barksdale/Marlow/Omar line. OK maybe we just create a widget for it… an iphone app, facebook any1?

Entrepreneurs Play Same Percentages as Street Hustlers

Dennis ‘Cutty’ Wise: The game done changed…
Slim Charles: Game’s the same, just got more fierce.

renormalizing a denormalized new years eve day

Posted by Ben Barren on December 31, 2008 – 11:24 am

Filed under Australia

kfc1

So it’s New Years Eve, there is crew over in Portsea that I could visit. But with zero tolerance po-lice (been watching 2much The Wire) it could well be a vquite nite. I kinda miss the tear it up up life at these times, but in 24 hours I’ll be happy for the not tear it up ethos. Pity there is no Hulu Downunder Live New Years Eve streamz.

So I’m reading Mr Feld (aagh a Brightkite investor too, neat - along with gnip too : following his ‘Glue’ thesis) on “Normalised data“/RDD (’renormalizing denormalized data‘) or having teh smartz not to show duplicates when u post an item to brightkite/facebook/twitter etc- “Theoretically, Brightkite, Twitter, and Facebook should know enough about each other not to repost the same thing in cases 2.1, 2.3, and 3 (recursive). But I don’t think it’s going to do the right thing. Let’s try and see how many tweets we get! I’m guessing three. Nope – it only showed up once.”

Interesting read over on Jezebel around the Not Rape Epidemic (original essay here) by TatianaAnonymouseModel : “Most models start working in their early teens. The youngest girl I’ve ever lived with in a model’s apartment, a girl who went to the same grown-up job castings our agency gave me, was 12 years old. (We were working a fashion week in a secondary market, and her show list was easily twice as long as mine and our 16-year-old roommate’s. The clients just loved the 5′11″ middle schooler; she gave her age as 14.) My first real modeling job was a photo shoot for a major European magazine — and when I got to the studio that day, I was greeted by the sight of a 17-year-old Russian, posing topless, smoking a Marlboro. She told me in broken English that she’d been working full-time for three years. I think I’d gone a week in Paris before I met an Arkansan, also 17, who’d dumped her boyfriend of several years to sleep with with a man old enough to be her father who happened to be the director of her (major, well-regarded) agency.

ana beatriz

Extra Links :

Doc Martin Shoes by Raf Simons : Docs need reinvention but need a matte not patent version.

2010 Camaro : Prefer friend’s 68 Camaro but heck id take a Camaro, why cant we buy these cars for $20Kish like Yanks. I really want the 370z tho.

Polish Architecture : Arch Daily is a must read architecture blog.

$167M : $50m less than David Fincher needed to turn Brad Pitt into the 12 year old actor digitally rather than by casting different folks at different ages, for Benjamin Button.

byebye stringer S03E12

OK that would be cawfee time, watchin The wire till 530am (had to see end of Series 3 for 2nd time) Plan what to do on NYE and check the twittersphere.

byron mid-freds

“I ain’t no suit-wearin’ businessman like you..”

Posted by Ben Barren on December 30, 2008 – 11:23 pm

Filed under Entrepreneurship, TV

I’m watching Season 3 of The Wire (again, now i have .avi’s for every ep across 5 seasons) which u could rename The Decline of Avon Barksdale and the Ascent of Marlo Stanfield) A neat little post over at Signal:Noise, thats pretty true of many businesses (although i’d argue its not just the good stories u dont hear about, but the bad ones too:) David says that “many of the real stories are never told. The quiet successes by small teams who stand little if anything to gain by sharing their numbers and telling about their success. Lest they attract competitors or other unwanted interest. They’re just happy making millions quietly from happy customers. I’ve talked to so many of these entrepreneurs in private and have often been shocked by how well they’re doing. And I always think to myself: 1) why didn’t I know about this?, and 2) if only everyone else knew too.”

Avon Barksdale: I ain’t no suit-wearin’ businessman like you… you know I’m just a gangsta I suppose…

The Wire S01.

Posted by BB on December 16, 2008 – 3:40 pm

Filed under TV

So I spent 3 hours over the last week listening to the FilmCast podcast on The Wire. Taken 2.5 nights to watch Season 1 again. It really is the bomb, even the 2nd time.