Bill Cammack

BillCammack.com

Ryan’s Birthday

NYC Skyline.

New York City from Brooklyn.

Christian Payne aka “Documentally” is a photographer and blogger who was commissioned by the UNHCR to photograph the plight of Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

I edited Christian’s work into a video that we’ve recently completed, and he posted this video, thanking me as well as others for what we’ve done:

Seesmic Member Link | Non-member Link
Initially, this post was going to be called “Thanks for the Thanks”, because I definitely appreciate Christian’s authenticity and heartfelt statements. :D “Cheers for that”, as they say over there in the U.K. :D

However, that’s really a private communication between Christian and myself that happened to be expressed on a public medium (both his video and my text, above). What I think would be more useful to my 40 readers, according to Technorati (minus however-many registered search engines :p) is to talk about the process of creation, in this case, dealing with video, and the difference that it makes when you’re actually emotionally invested in what you’re doing. Also, I wanted to give Christian some more background on how we ended up working together.

I’m a video blogger, which essentially means I film videos and put them on the internet. We have our own little “echo chamber” of friends and colleagues. I first became aware, sort of, of Phil Campbell on Dan McVicar’s social site “Late Nite Mash”.

Bill & Dan in NYCIn November, 2006, Dan collected music pieces from Phil and other members and made a “mash-up” with video footage I sent him of New York City nightlife:

I say “sort of” aware of Phil because at that time, social media wasn’t advanced enough for people to get to know more about each other than what they typed on a page or a picture or video they posted. At this point, we not only have the technology to do our own video shows, like Phil’s “The Gravity”, but there are more and more live services popping up… Ustream, BlogTV, Yahoo! Live, LiveVideo, new services all the time, where we get to see a lot more about people than we used to.

So anyway, I got to know Phil Campbell as a quality guy who STAYS on top of the game when it comes to social media and is simply a treasure trove of good ideas. :D

Next in order, Andrew Lipson gave me an invite to this (at the time, invite-only) video-messaging application called Seesmic while I was an audience member of the Jeff Pulver Show. I checked it out, but it really wasn’t my type of conversation going on between the beta-testers, so I just watched Seesmic like a television show instead of participating in the watercooleresque banter.

There were a couple of people there with strong personalities and methods to their madness. The most animated and volatile of them was this character named “Documentally”. :D Most people, once you’ve seen four videos of them, you know their range… or at least the range they’re willing to bring to the world-stage which is Seesmic or any other site where you post videos that people can watch from NYC to Zimbabwe. With Documentally, you never really know what was going to happen in one of his videos. He might say something intelligent and serious. He might say something batty and off the wall. He might say nothing at all. He might roll his truck and videotape the situation as if he’s the first reporter on the scene! :D It was clear from the “Documentally” character that Christian Payne had A LOT of range to his personality, and there was a lot of entertainment value in his videos.

So being a morning person, I tend to chat with the European folks (who are 5/6 hours ahead of us) before the Americans wake up. I’m chatting with Phil Campbell and he mentions that his friend Christian had a project he was working on. I let Phil know I was aware of Documentally and was willing to chat with him about the project. In skypeing with Christian, I got to meet the “hang out at the pub” version instead of the “Seesmic character” version. He’s a nice guy, and as he put it in the video, he’s “someone I’d like to call a friend”. :)

I really meant to talk about the actual project, but I’ll do that some other time. This ended up being a post about connections. One of the benefits of social media is that people get to learn about each other at their own pace and according to their own level of interest. Another benefit is that we have checks and balances inside our “echo chamber”. For example, Dina Kaplan and I have 102 “Facebook Friends” in common! :O … Even if you spit that into 50 friends and 50 acquaintances, that means there are *50* people that I can contact right this second and ask them a question about Dina. I’d probably get 15 responses back, and they’d all be approximately the same, because that’s how Dina carries herself. She’s consistent.

Liz Gannes, Bill Cammack & Dina Kaplan

Through social media, and also by meeting in person @ Adam Quirk’s event named Vloggercue in Brooklyn, I developed an impression of Phil Campbell as a stand-up guy and a good judge of character. For Phil to bring up Christian’s project to me, I’m automatically *infinitely* more inclined to hear more about it. Yes, it helped A LOT that Christian already had a strong social media presence. Yes, it helped A LOT that the photos he shot for the project are rich and full of emotion, intimacy and meaning. However, the *main* thing is connection… passing it on. Social media offers us the opportunity to get to know each other, asynchronously… and then follow up to find out how the real person matches up to his or her online persona.

Brooklyn Hilary & Charles Hope @ the blip showcase @ the Pioneer Theater in NYC.

Feb 2007

ok… So, DatingGenius stumbled onto this great new technique for kicking it to geek-chicks! :D (assuming you’d want to do that in the first place)….

This chick was talking about how happy she was that she was on a date, and the guy took her to A BOOK STORE!!! :/ … Now, of course, DatingGenius thought this was a ridiculous as well as RETARDED idea, so I needed to get to the bottom of this…. hmm… does anyone know proper form for referring to one’s self in third person? It seems strange to say “HE needed to get to the bottom of this”… hmm… anyway…

Now, obviously, taking a chick to a book store doesn’t help you to get on, ASAP… which is the entire reason you took her out in the first place. If you didn’t want to tap that, you wouldn’t be on a date with her. You’d be HANGING OUT. So, since she considered herself on a date, the job of the guy was to demonstrate to her WHY she should be his girlfriend/fiancee/wife, whatever he has in mind for her. All he was expressing to her by taking her to the book store was that he DIDN’T intend to hit it anytime soon, and he’d rather read a book then try to get her alone in a bar bathroom with a couch and a lock on the door.

So we got into this conversation, and I can just see the LIGHT in her eyes while she’s talking about being in this book store, and being happy about his choice of books, because if they weren’t into reading the same kinds of things, she wouldn’t have been as interested in him, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah….. So I’m like WTF is she talking about? His choice of books? Do you even know if this guy likes chicks? Do you know if he’s going to tap it proppah? WTF difference does it make WHAT BOOKS HE READS if you’re DATING this guy, trying to find a boyfriend? :/

See, that’s what’s wrong with relationships, and that’s why the cheating and divorce rates are through the roof. People hook up for the most RETARDED reasons! :D … HEY! We like the same books! Let’s go out with each other! OKAYYYY! :D … Next thing you know, they’re calling themselves boyfriend and girlfriend, and he’s trying to screw her five times a week, and she’s trying to screw him five times A MONTH! :O

See the problem there? They didn’t check the IMPORTANT stuff before giving each other meaningless titles. That’s why taking a chick to a book store is RETARDED before hitting it, because it’s a waste of your time. You’re checking to see if y’all can be *FRIENDS*, NOT boyfriend/girlfriend.

However… hehehe Like I said, this chick was going for the okey-doke, so it occurred to DatingGenius that this was a valuable concept that needed to be explored.

As we all know, Chicks give sex to get relationships and guys give relationships to get sex. In the case of GEEK-chicks, though… they’re not thinking about the sex AT.ALL! :D They’re not even planning to barter it to you to get you to call them your girlfriend. See, what you have to remember about the geek chicks is that most of them grew up…… geeks. :D They were NOT the fashion plates. They were NOT the popular girls. They were NOT the pretty girls or the cheerleaders. They were NOT in high demand whatsoever by the male population. Therefore, by the time they get to dating age, they’re not used to being physically touched.

The reason this is important is that when they think about themselves with their hypothetical “boyfriends”, all they’re thinking about is someone to do stuff with. They have no mental concept of actually getting laid, other than by some fluke. They have no intention on “giving it up” on a regular basis, because that’s not their physical experience of life. SO… If you go out on a date, and you suddenly come to the realization that this girl is a geek, switch gears! Go into “fun stuff we can do together when we’re boyfriend/girlfriend” mode.

Take her to the book store.
Go roller blading with her.
Buy her ice cream in Central Park.
Take her to the waterfront in Brooklyn so you can see the Manhattan lights at night…

All that waste-of-time stuff that you wouldn’t actually do with a regular chick… DO IT! :D This way, you endear yourself to her because you socialize in the same way she does. You come off as one of those geek-guys that had the same experience of life that she did. BADA-BING, BADA-BOOM, next thing you know, you’re tapping that, and all is right with the world! :D

DatingGenius

Click To Play

Click To Play

Fellaz!!!

Make sure you play your environments to your strengths. Use the effects of Light & Magic to your best advantage when you’re out kickin’ game to the chickadees! :D

I went to watch the Queens of Pain demolish the Brooklyn Bombshells in Roller Derby the other day. So after the game, there was an after-party. The first thing I noticed was that I could hear the music VERY CLEARLY from outside of the bar. :/ When I walked inside, the first thing I noticed…….. was NOTHING! It was so dark in there that my eyes needed to adjust, and it was ALREADY NIGHT-TIME before I walked in the bar! :/

Needless to say, every step I took, the music got LOUDER and the bar got DARKER! :D On top of that, they had invited a whole gymnasium’s worth of people to a little storefront bar with a bunch of tables in it, so we were packed in there like sardines! :/

Now… depending on who you are, each one of these elements is either a good thing or a bad thing. :D It’s up to YOU to figure out how to play the room to your personal strengths… and lacks thereof! hehehe.

Darkness – If you are a good-looking guy, avoid the darkness like the plague! Find as much light as you can, and park yourself under it! :D In the dark, you lose your natural advantage over the next guy, so he’s just as likely to get a rap as you are….. no good. :( You want to make sure the ladies can SEE YOU. Also… you want to make ABSOLUTELY SURE that *YOU* can see *THEM*!!! :O

Busted chicks are experts in remaining in the darkness and seated at tables or surrounded by girlfriends or wearing non-reflective clothing that cloaks their actual physique like a Romulan. By the time your eyes adjust to the darkness, you’ve already drank too many beers to care what she looks like…. and then you’ve fallen into her TRAP!!! :O This is another reason you want to stay in the light. When your boy falls for the okey-doke, he has to bring the girl into the light to tell you he’s breaking out. That’s your chance to see what she really looks like and hopefully talk your boy out of it! :D …… Because YOU KNOW he’s going to call you the next day asking “Yo… HOW did you let me go home with HER? :(” as if it’s YOUR fault that he didn’t stay in the light!

However……..

If you’re NOT a good-looking guy… Darkness Is Your Friend! :D

Find about the darkest section of the establishment, hopefully right near the bar where the chicks need to come to get their refills. Keep your eyes open for favorable signals, such as her stumbling towards the bar or having a very hard time counting how many singles she has in her hand. :) While she’s waiting to get the bartender’s attention… which she’ll have a tough time doing, since you pre-selected the darkest section of the bar… Strike up a friendly conversation. You’ll get extra points for talking to her because she knows full well that you can’t actually *SEE* her, so you *can’t* be after her for her looks.

Now… Hurry up and kick your game before someone yells “LAST CALL!!!” and turns on the lights!!! :O

DatingGenius