No I haven’t been yet. But I think I have honestly settled on the fact that I WILL be visiting during the cold season. I’d certainly heard of this island in the BVI – but never really researched. Actually – it was just on the cover of my favorite magazine ‘Islands’. The crazy huge cave/rock formation thing with the typical turquoise water…so crazy. That area is called ‘The Baths’ and its just amazing…looks like the Seychelles, and I believe it is granite as well. Just huge (size of houses) boulders along the edge of the island where water meets sand and makes these amazing little caves and hidden coves. Classic pirate paradise setup – the whole island is tropical with lush forests and beautiful beaches unlike some other Caribbean islands that usually just have either or. Anyway – this island seems to be a bit pricey. Little Dix Ba is the famous spot to stay and it starts at about $775 a night but there are some other cheaper spots. Check the link below to a TripAdvisor page with all the lodging setups. Seriously…I need to visit this spot.
So last week in Chicago there was a lot of press hoopla surrounding the Gap store because Bono & Oprah were ‘shopping’. More importantly there were launching this new RED campaign which I think is genius….for real. Its time to make charity work cool and not corny. We love to shop why not eliminate AIDs at the same time. What a step in the right direction. I love the interconnectedness of products spanning across corporations that are typically strict with their image. Check out the RED site for the products. Graphically that RED American Express card is fresh. The whole coloring everything red could get played out but I hope other people latch on to this concept and create global charity brands…hmm…maybe we should start a niche brand version of this concept. This is a trend we need to bite. Since we all love urban culture lets start branding shoes, hoodies, artwork, New Eras etc. in iconic school supply patterns like college ruled paper…ha…and donate the profits for inner city school for supplies. I am only half way kidding…email us if your interested in making this happen. I can see it now…Honeyee Bloggers X THE BRILLIANCE schools the world…
What do you say when you’re about to sell a $139 million dollar timeless Picasso painting and then go on to accidentally ram your elbow through it, leaving a silver dollar sized hole? You say, “Oh shit, look what I’ve done.” Ha… So, this dude Steve Wynn…he’s got himself this damaged Picasso now…and he plans to get it restored and keep it. Good idea man…but maybe you should have been a little more careful around your PIECE OF TIMELESS, $139 MILLION DOLLAR MASTERPIECE. Ha?! I’m sorry, but the second someone told me they wanted to finalize a $139M deal for a piece of art, I would have that thing put behind a thick glass case. Or frozen. Or something…whatever it takes to keep it in absolute pristine condition. There’s accidents, and then there’s accidents. And this falls under the ACCIDENTS category. Nice goin!
You know this must be good…we rarely post about streetwear and street culture stuff anymore. We kind of realized that’s best left to the other blogs, and one in particular to make fun of it all…but I digress. This goes beyond streetwear or opinions on the whole scene. Jamie O’Shea’s Supertouch Blog has a nice writeup and photo review of this Stussy X Nike event at the Blu House in LA. The Blu House was the beachfront home of The Doors in ‘67, according to Supertouch. So they went into this event in a venue that was already filled with a rich creative history and did a truly amazing job. I’m a big fan of KAWS first and foremost, and I have to say, the huge mouths on the wall are spot on…I love them. Just so cool, what else can you say? The REAS piece is nice as well… So anyways - this was to celebrate Stussy’s “Worldwide Tour” campaign…and so it drew some incredible artists to the event. Check the picture with KAWS, Mark Parker, and Pushead. Like Supertouch says, talk about a dream collaboration. But seriously - I bet the level of creative energy in this room was unreal. Very inspiring just looking at the pictures… My favorite picture has to be the shot of Weezer’s Brian Bell…check the dude in the background with his mouth open. Ha…way to be ‘that guy’...Anyways, just check out the pictures from the event and while you’re at it, have a read through the rest of Jamie’s blog. Consistently good coverage of consistently inspiring people.
I gotta stop with these technology posts! You’d think I have something brewing myself… Honestly though, I don’t just hang out on the internet – I go out and socialize, I swear. I just bring my Treo. Anyway, finally someone wrote it, who better than the NY Times. This is the ‘VH1 Behind The Music’ tell-all story about Friendster and why they didn’t get cash like Myspace. I’m not going to spoil it, or write a lot here…but one thing: Take $30M dollar offers – have these kids ever heard of compounding interest? It’s a long article, I won’t be mad if you don’t read the whole thing.
Unbeknownst to me, Bottega Veneta has been doing some amazing home furnishing pieces. Who knows how long…I just took notice recently. Real luxury type stuff. What is impressive about Bottega from a branding standpoint is how they bypassed a logo-logo like all the other lux-brands, opting for a weave pattern as their signature and using that on all their leather goods, shoes, bags etc. The weave pattern is especially nice on their desks and tables. If your BAAALLLLINNN’ and not into that, do it in Ostrich and be a real boss. Check out the bedroom set up…it is so me. Listening to all this Jim Jones has got me thinking I have this kind of money to spend. “We stay fly….”
Ugh, another technology post?! You’re such a nerd Ben. So yeah, I put Diddy in my ‘Top 8’ as a joke type thing a while back…but then I started getting all of ‘his’ bulletins, then I started watching his webisode/youtube things, then I started checking his tracks, then I started watching his little contents things…etc. Needless to say his ploy to grab the internet kids is working quite well – he’s gotten my attention more than a few times. Thing is, he hasn’t been doing the myspace thing for that long – but he already has 4.1 million page views. All that bandwidth, all the streaming videos, all the streaming music, all the promotion, all the exposure, etc. – FOR FREE. Seriously. He has done little to nothing different than your average high school garage band, he just happened to be famous before the fact. Without all this, I honestly wouldn’t have checked for this album – but now I’m actually waiting for its release…have I been brainwashed?! Who knew?!!? A great illustration of why Diddy continues to be successful – adapt to your market!!! Honestly, hats-off to our generation’s Frank Sinatra – Mr. Diddy. Virgil here, co-signing on this album, just listened to it 2x in a row…for real…Diddy pushed the artistic envelope and I am riding the ‘New Wave’ vibe, reminds me of Kelis - Wanderland, take that…take that
I kind of feel like I am supposed to write about this…I mean, I watched the deal/rumors like kawsone.com right before it updates…I cant lie, I love this stuff. Love the deals, love hearing about the insane numbers, and wondering what it must be like. $1.65 billion in stock…not too bad for a company that is ultra young and really has only ‘mattered’ for 12-14 months. Isn’t that just mind numbing?! I mean, it was not a widely used service a while back – then it simply exploded. Some interesting notes: (1) The ‘nerds’ seem to share the same thoughts that Google Video is a better product…the soundtracks are perfectly synced, faster, etc – but the majority rules as was illustrated here. (2) The cost of the deal, $1.65B in stock, is roughly equivalent to a mildly rough week of trading for Google – basically nothing to them. (3) Sequoia, the venture cap firm they used stands to make $500+ million on their original $30 million dollar investment – the majority of which went to server/hosting fees – very easy to manage compared to people/staff. (4) The three founders of YouTube are going to bring in an estimated $100-$200 million each – don’t you wonder the first thing they thought this morning when they woke up? …so yeah, as we’ve said before – the internet is back. ***Take a look at the link below, its TechCrunch’s first write-up of YouTube back in the day.
The three of us are going nuts over on our new Flickr account. Uploading photos from all three of our lives and everything else in between. Simply cool…simply fun. Add us to your friends/contact lists and get down with THE BRILLIANCE on Flickr! We’re very late! We know! But better late than never… Take note: Ben said “It was a SPAIN in the neck!”
Last week or so a really cool site popped up outta Chicago called businesspov.com . Its premise is to highlight local businesses of all sorts and tell their unique story. All the content is made up of properly cut and pasted short videos that are refreshingly not youtube’d and all grained out. There’s a handful of intriguing videos on there, one of which is the Wesley Kimler piece. Any of us that are into art and have no understanding for how pieces get priced this interview is a nice inside view. Obviously this is just one persons method, but it reminds you that art is not just fun, it’s a business that is made and marketed like any other product. Watch and learn how a 9 x 27 foot painting is a financial loss.
