Bill & Adria, originally uploaded by Bill Cammack.

Bill Cammack & Adria Richards
Manhattan, NYC
October 18, 2011
adriarichards.com

–
Connect with Bill on Google+ | Facebook | Twitter | Email Subscription | RSS Feed

Related Posts

• Happy New Year, 2011
• Snowpocalypse, 2010
• Dating is like Asians on Television
• Running Dogs
• Big City Dating (Meet The Parents)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :D

The year 2011 AD begins tomorrow.

I’ve been reading people’s comments on Facebook and Twitter, and it seems like a lot of people didn’t have a good time in 2010 and can’t wait for it to be over and for 2011 to start us all off fresh.

Personally, Me? Myself? (inside joke with my sister), I had a great time in 2010, but things need to change for 2011.

2010 was successful for me because it was all about interaction. Online interaction, community building, spending time with friends, IRL… However, I won’t be successful by the end of 2011 if I keep doing what I was doing in 2010 because I’ll just have more of what I’ve already received.

I’m not hungry anymore. I’ve been coasting. I figured out the formula and I rawked it but I’m not getting kicks from it anymore. I need new challenges for this season, not just stuff I already know I can do.

Music

The first thing I’m going to do is produce a lot of music.. I mean A LOT of music.

I’ve been playing music forever and recording it since before I started my career as a video editor. Technology has advanced to the point that I need to re-learn things I used to know and learn new things that only recently became available to people that don’t own actual recording studios with 96-channel mixing boards, movie theater screens and all the latest music toys.

I’ll be using a program called “Logic” primarily. I might end up using Pro Tools by the end of the year, depending on whom I decided to team up with to work on projects, but Logic actually does everything I want it to do:

I’ll be doing my own music for practice and fun, but I’m mainly interested in producing for other groups this year. We’ll see what happens with that. ;)

Gym

I’m also recommitting to being in as good physical shape as I can.

I’m never actually “out of shape”, especially compared to the average Joe, but working out is something else that I became completely complacent about. It just didn’t matter to me.

Since guys tend to look progressively worse as time goes on, they make me look better without doing anything at all. \o/ That’s all well & good, but I don’t want another year of that. I intend to put in work in the gym this year.

Business

I’m going to do more remote work in 2011. I already have clients that send me footage via internet that I edit for them, but mostly what I do is vacation relief. That means that I work when other people go on vacation or get sick. I also work when clients have too much work for their regular editing staff to handle (overflow) and when people have short projects that they want done by a professional without having to hire a full-time editor to sit around for several months getting paid for nothing between assignments.

Because of this (and because I just don’t feel like it), I don’t take full-time work or even jobs that last months in a row. I never know when one of my current clients is going to contact me and book a few days, so I mainly keep my schedule open. What I’m going to do now is book flexible hours of work that can be done remotely and during my downtime. It might be editing. It might be training people how to use Final Cut Pro. It might be social media consulting. Depending on how quickly I progress with Logic, it might be producing music for bands or teaming up with existing studios that can send me music over the net.

I already began this process in 2010 by teaming up with my friend & colleague, Phil Campbell to create media for businesses local to him in Jolly Old England! :D (Hockley, Nottingham, to be precise):

Thanks to the tools now available to us in the year 2011, namely, Skype and DropBox, I can work with Phil as if we were sitting across the same desk from each other, when we’re actually “across the pond” from each other. Also, because my European friends are 5-6 hours ahead of us, I don’t have to wait for the East Coast of the USA to wake up, get to work and drink the coffee they’re addicted to before I can do any business for the day. Lovely! :D

Socializing

Socially, 2010 was good for me because I exited the big party scene, except for a select few parties thrown by friends & clients.

It was fun during 2009, knowing 60-80 people attending the same party, but ultimately, you don’t get to have the intimate conversations that bring you closer together as friends. I needed that in 2010, so I stuck mainly to mostly 1-on-1 socialization or sometimes up to 4 people getting together in a #noblog location so we can spend time together without interruption.

That worked out great for me and I enjoyed myself very much this year, however, I understand now that I’ll need to be more socially aggressive in 2011. I need to increase the size of the hangouts to maybe 7-8 and have one every single week, at the very least. There are some people that I didn’t see all of last year because I never made time to see them and I never went to the places where we would normally run into each other. That’s not going to work for me, going forward, so plans are going into effect to create regularly-scheduled get-togethers so I can keep up with the people that make New York City fun & entertaining for me.

Technology

I’m also hoping my home-skillet and fellow Bronx High School Of Science alumnus, Dave Winer invents something new in 2011 so people can stop jocking Twitter! :D

I mean, seriously folks. We haven’t had any new & exciting frontiers in YEARS, already. There have been some valiant tries, but nothing revolutionary. We need another must-have app. We need a new reason for people to be excited about social media.

I understand that people are still excited over Twitter and that Facebook won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, but we all have our followers on those systems. Give us a new game to play!

Which reminds me, games need to get REALLY GOOD this year! :D They need to integrate the online games with IRL components, not just a bunch of virtual badges that nobody ever shows anybody else because they live on our smartphones. Not even ACTUAL BADGES that you can have physically delivered to you for being part of a Super-Swarm or whatever.

We need something fun, where those of us that stay in one town can make a mark by going to physical locations at particular times in order to do particular GPS-based missions. We need something where the world travelers can get props for being in Paris on one day and in Tokyo the next. People aren’t going to want to tend virtual crops forever. Give us something new! :D

Blogging

Anyway… 2010 was fun, but it’s over now. I got a lot of great stuff with it and got to spend time with fantastic people doing fantastic things, but it’s time to flip the script.

Thanks to everyone that’s been reading along this year, and last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that… haha It’s really a fun and unique experience for me when I get to interact with my readers & subscribers. Blogging, for me, is sending out messages in bottles. It’s always great to find out that someone received the message and got something out of it. Good or Bad, so long as something I wrote made you think or laugh or cry or smile or figure something out you had no clue about before or go “That. Dude. Is. BUGGIN!!! :O” or whatever you got out of it, that works for me. :D

Happy New Year to you & yours!.. Here’s to a fantastic 2011 for all of us! :D

Cheers!
Bill

–
Connect with Bill via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Email Subscription, RSS Feed

Related Posts

• Bill & Adria
• Snowpocalypse, 2010
• Running Dogs
• EMS Episode 99: Manhattan, NYC Fireworks
• Clubbin’

Snowpocalypse, 2010 hits Manhattan, NYC
Think it didn’t, when it DID? :D
http://billcammack.com/

Formats Available: SD Quicktime, blip.tv, vimeo, youtube
–
Connect with Bill via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Email Subscription, RSS Feed

Related Posts

• World In My Eyes (Happy New Year!!!)
• Running Dogs
• Clubbin’
• Happy New Year, 2011
• blip.tv NYC Holiday Party 2010

Bill surrounded by Marisa & Melinda from uncensoredinterview.com

Asians In Manhattan

Please don’t ask me what’s going on in this picture. Thank you very much. Moving right along….. :D

There are A LOT of Asians in Manhattan, NYC. However, if your “understanding” of Manhattan comes from watching television or films, you’d probably assume that there weren’t any at all.

I don’t know anything about the casting industry, but it pretty much seems that unless someone writes elements specifically attributed to Asians (and we all know what THOSE are) into a show, you’re not going to see any Asian brothaz headlining American films unless they blow up large, like Chow Yun-Fat.

I was actually expecting to see another one of my favorites, Tony Leung show up on the scene, but that’s not really the point I wanted to make.

The Map Is Not The Territory

There are lots of things about dating that you’re never told. Sometimes, this is because people are hiding information from you. Other times, it’s because they were never privy to the information themselves. There are people that want to hand out dating advice that they derived ENTIRELY from films, television and reading. There are people that want to give dating advice that have kicked it to a grand total of ONE CHICK IN THEIR ENTIRE LIVES, hooked up with her and are doing the family thing and think they have relevant information to share about doing things OTHER than that. There are people that want to tell you how to carry yourself in a bar when they don’t *GO* to bars! O_o People that want to tell you about juggling multiple chicks when they’ve NEVER DONE IT. People that want to talk about running simultaneous LTRS that have NEVER DONE IT. People that want to give you advice on pulling chicks that weren’t even interested in you when you walk in the door THAT HAVE NEVER ACHIEVED THAT!

This is why dating is like “Asians on television”. There’s so much information you DON’T HAVE, but you think you have the correct knowledge because most of the society’s agreed upon the brainwashing. You don’t see the Asians because they’re not being cast in the media. You don’t know the bar scene because you’re not in the trenches. Meanwhile, you’re trying to live into some Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales that people fed you when you were growing up and THOSE PEOPLE know damned well that THEIR LIVES DIDN’T GO THAT WAY! :D

When I was growing up, there was a card game called “OLD MAID”…… “Old Maid”? hahaha Seriously? :D They want to act like it’s an anomaly for women to remain single for their entire lives or become divorced at some point when the divorce statistics are, what? 40%-50% in America? That’s *HALF*, people.. Like Eddie Murphy’s money. HALF!.. Half of the people that even GOT married in the first place. Meanwhile, they’re steadily giving women complexes about “being alone” when they’re older, throwing them that “There’s someone for everyone” sap rap, when in reality, there’s a good chance that they won’t find anyone they’re willing to settle for and even if they do, there’s no guarantee that their relationship’s going to last until they croak.

I was sitting around with a homegirl of mine the other day, trading stories about how many kids our exes have had so far. She and I are STILL “together”, even though all of our exes are long gone. Meanwhile, someone will try to low-rate our relationship because she and I have never “dated” or been “an item”. I know who she is for me. She knows who I am for her. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I doubt that’s going to change.

Seeing & Believing

Derek, Holger, Pat & Bill

So.. Just because you don’t see the Asians doesn’t mean they’re not there. It means you don’t know where to look, they’re being omitted in the media you’re consuming or you’re deliberately being misguided.

Same thing goes for dating. To hear people tell it, it’s all sunshine & roses. Anything that deviates from that is…. well.. Deviant. :D

There’s no benefit to anyone to give you the advice that when your wife asks you why you came home late to tell her “Mind your own business” as well as potentially “I get here when I get here”.

There’s no benefit to telling you that the gal he introduced you to as his cousin ISN’T his cousin…

There’s no benefit to telling you that if you don’t keep your wife satisfied in the bedroom, someone else is going to hannle yo bidnezz FOR YOU. O_o

So what you need to do is take advantage of blogs, etc to OPEN your mind instead of CLOSING it. You can be wary without being suspicious. Recognizing that someone MIGHT do something doesn’t mean that they WILL do that or DID do that. What it does for you is puts you in a better mental position should the unthinkable occur. If you only focus on the potential POSITIVE of a relationship, you won’t be ready for the potential NEGATIVE and might not be able to respond to it until it’s too late. It’s too late to figure out on the fly what you’re going to do when you find out someone cheated on you. It’s too late to figure out what you’re going to say or do when a chick tells you she’s pregnant. It’s too late to figure it out when someone says it’s over.

Just because someone shows you a picture, don’t assume it’s the WHOLE picture, capisce? :) There’s lots of incentive to only tell you PART of the story.. as in “The part of the story that benefits the storyteller”. Don’t assume Asians can’t act because you don’t see any Asian actors. I’m not even going to get into how they elected to cast the movie “21″… People used to think blacks couldn’t QB because they only used to hire white quarterbacks for the NFL and you saw what happened to THAT.

So don’t get caught slippin’, listening to people that have never been in the trenches telling you about dating in particular or relating to people in general. Seek out alternate sources of information, much of which you might not even want to hear, if you want to have a proper grasp on The Game.

Ignorance Is Bliss……… Maybe

I stumbled onto some pictures the other day of a close homeboy of mine and this chick I had wanted to kick it to at the time. I had a conversation with him back in the day about her and he asked me specific questions that I remember chalking up to his uncanny natural wisdom about chicks from having so much experience with them. Looking at the pictures years later, I clearly recognize that she’s way too friendly with him in them for the level of interaction that I was privy to them having and thinking back to who he was and what our relationship was at the time, he most likely hit it and didn’t tell me he did.

I find that concept funny, interesting and tactically correct. I wouldn’t have appreciated it at the time if he had told me he had hooked up with her because he knew how interested in her I was and it was basically a violation of “the code”. It was better for all of us for him to do his thing and enjoy her and keep it under the hat. I’m not in contact with either of them at this point, so it’s all water under the bridge, but the point is that I related to them AS IF they didn’t mess with each other because that was my perception of the situation. I see now how my perception could have been 100% incorrect and I would have been better off if I could have opened my mind to the possibility of them hooking up instead of shutting that idea out because I didn’t want to think about it and would have felt betrayed. I would have preferred the bliss of ignorance to the potential belief that my rap was undermined by a close friend.

Unfortunately….. Sometimes, it’s good to feel betrayed……….. Because you actually WERE! :D

~ Bill Cammack | @BillCammack

Related Posts

• Why You Can’t Get A Boyfriend In NYC
• Rachel on Bravo’s “Millionaire Matchmaker”
• That’s OK… My Dog Doesn’t Speak EITHER!
• Running Dogs
• Big City Dating (Meet The Parents)

My homegirl Gaby, whom I’ve known for years, remarked one day about my photo sets that she was glad to finally have seen the same girl twice in my pictures, hahaha :D

Until she said that, I really hadn’t thought about it. My life is basically spur of the moment. I never have the same day twice in a row unless I’m working for the same client two days in a row, which STILL isn’t the same day, because the video is closer to completion and in a different state today than it was yesterday. To me, it counts as the same day, because I know where I’m going and what I’m going to do before I wake up that day. Yuck. :/

Similarly, I don’t know what chick(s) I want to spend time with until I feel like spending time with them. It’s a craving, like how pregnant chicks want pickles in their ice cream. :D (Is that actually true? I think I saw that on The Flintstones one time? haha). This causes scheduling conflicts because I can’t make plans a week in advance to spend time with a gal because I don’t know if I’m going to crave her when that particular day comes around. If I’m not feelin’ her that day and I spend time with her anyway, I can’t bring my A-game to the table and honestly don’t even really care about spending time with her.

Another issue is that the only women you’re going to see me in pictures with are the ones that are involved with Social Media. It’s one thing to spend time together and a completely different thing to broadcast to the world that you’re spending time with someone. There are business-based reasons to not broadcast one’s social life and personal and social reasons to not broadcast one’s social life. Time that I spend with someone isn’t just MY business, it’s HER business as well, so even if I’d personally like to broadcast “HEY! Check me out with this chick! :D”, I’m not authorized to or interested in putting her business in the streets, so I don’t.

Too Many Women

This is New York City. You basically never see the same chick twice, unless y’all have similar travel patterns or you happen to live on the same block or work in the same building. If you live here, try it out for yourself. All this week, when you get on the train at the same time to arrive at your job at the same time every single day, look around the subway car and make a mental note of the women in the car. You can even get in the exact same CAR if you like! :D Make the same notes for the next four days of the week and you’ll notice that it’s never the same gals. Never.

Live like this long enough, and you’ll develop a “There are always more chicks just like this one” mentality. I’m not saying that’s a good thing. I’m saying that it flavors your vision and perception. Lots of guys focus the hell out of pulling ONE chick or impressing ONE chick when it’s much easier here to meet a different chick with the exact same look as the one you’re trying to impress, except she likes you more than the original one did.

My friend Corinne hilariously labeled me as “not really that selective” (hahahaha Which I’m *STILL* getting laughs off of to this day, like a full month later!), but it’s not an issue of not being selective. It’s an issue of finding the EXACT. SAME. QUALITIES in myriad females so selecting between them is just as impossible as selecting which bottle of Evian water tastes better than another bottle of Evian water. You might be able to differentiate between Poland Spring and Evian and you might even have a preference, like you’ll always select Poland Spring if you have a choice, but, sorry. Water is Water. They didn’t put different water into the different Evian bottles. They put a percentage of the exact. same. water. into each bottle.

The only actual difference between equally attractive women is their personalities.

Sometimes you want to hang out with the down-to-earth asexual chick that you know you’re going to have a pleasant evening and excellent conversations with. Sometimes you want to hang out with the alcoholic sex-addict who couldn’t come up with an interesting topic of conversation to save her life. Sometimes, you want to hang out with the world-traveler with the fantastic accent so you can listen to stories about places you never intend to visit in your entire life. Sometimes, you want to hang out with the lesbian that’s going to chase chicks harder than you do while you’re out at the bar. Sometimes you want to hang out with the artsy chick whose views are diametrically opposed to yours, but you really enjoy fighting with her and only love and cherish her MORE after your battles.

Living in a city with literally millions of women, not counting tourists that visit here every single day (and you KNOW how chicks DO when they’re on VACATION!!! ;) hehe) reduces your tolerance for corny behavior to ZERO. Hold the door for a chick and she doesn’t say “Thank You”?.. Instant write-off. She’s a Cro-Mag. Can’t be bothered. Always flakes out on hangouts? Write-off. Never there for you when you have a bad day? Write-off. Likes to use you for Social Media contacts? Write-off.

You don’t have this luxury in the sticks, because there are only a few women to choose from, so you have to basically select the lesser of the evils. You have to select the most attractive chick with the least amount of traits that you absolutely, completely detest and then live with those traits and hope beyond hope that she doesn’t pass those off to your kids with her… HOPEFULLY *YOUR* kids! HAHAHA :D

Running Dogs

This is why I liken myself and the few like me to Running Dogs. If you happen to be there when we mosse through, you’ll probably get to enjoy the show.. We’re not stopping, though. You couldn’t stop us if you tried. Attempting to do so is dangerous.. for YOU.. emotionally… We’re on an entirely different level. We’re seeing what you’re not seeing and reacting to what you don’t even realize is reality. We’re always on our way through to somewhere else and something else to do, see and be a part of. If there’s something extraordinary about you, you’ll probably get an invite to roll with, or at least meet up with us somewhere in the future along our random travels.

It’s an addiction.. An addiction to desire fulfillment. It’s the same thing that drove Genghis Khan to keep conquering lands after he was already well accomplished, feared and respected. It’s the same thing that drives businesspeople to keep working and creating companies after they’ve already amassed more wealth than they’re ever going to spend in their entire lifetimes. It’s the rush. It’s the thrill of the hunt. It’s being in play, in the game. Striving for what you want right now is better than settling for what you were offered yesterday. Most of the time, you end up empty-handed. Some of the time, you come off with STELLAR days and evenings that make it all worthwhile and gear you up for the next quest/conquest.

This lifestyle isn’t for everyone. I hope I never forget a conversation I had with a friend of mine outside a local bar, where he told me (pardon my French, ladies) “I’m tired of hoes”. When he said it, I laughed my ass off until I realized that he was completely serious. The Game ceases to be fun if you lose the ability to appreciate women throwing sex at you because you look good and/or you have money and/or you’re popular. Sometimes, a guy wants to actually build something with a gal or start a family. You can’t do that with groupies. They’re just as much on the hunt as you are. They’re in it for the thrill of being with you like you’re in it for the thrill of being with them. No more, no less. They don’t care about you any more than you care about them. You can’t trust them any more than they can trust you.

It’s an environment conducive to producing alliances between rogue freelancers. You’re like a bunch of mercenaries that are all drinking and eating together because you’ve all been paid for by the king’s gold to work together towards a common goal. You don’t have to like each other or respect each other. You just have to do your part, have your fun and collect your payment at the end… Assuming you’re still alive. :D

Don’t Try This At Home

This is why you probably can’t actually use ANY of my dating advice haha, there isn’t much likelihood that you and I are playing the same game.

I can do and say anything I want, because there are always more chicks. You have to be afraid of losing the one chick you have that you worked so hard to get and that you feel would be incredibly difficult if not impossible to replace.

Also, maybe you already found that one chick that floats your boat entirely, in which case, I’m very happy for you and more power TO y’all! :D It’s an incredibly excellent feeling to be a part of a greatly cohesive unit. It’s a great feeling to want to hang out with the same chick every single day. I’m not knocking that lifestyle, just trying to explain mine.

I live daily on borrowed time.. Not borrowed from myself, but borrowed from other people. I’m that guy in between relationships. I’m that vacation from their daily lives. Nobody LIVES at Disney World, you’ll notice. They get their kicks and go away. Mickey Mouse doesn’t hang out with the same people every day and neither do I.

Like I said, it’s not for the faint of heart. Some people crave stability. Some people crave reliability and reliable redundancy. Some people just don’t have the energy to hit the streets and see what they can do tonight. Some people don’t have the insane amounts of turnover that we have here in Manhattan, NYC, USA where we can go to three different bars within 200 feet of each other, meet 20 people we’ve never seen before in our lives and then do the same thing again tomorrow night.

Is it emotionally healthy? Probably not. We get what we get when and where we get it. Better that than being bored to death or spending time with someone when we really aren’t feelin’ them. I can’t possibly count how many gals I should probably have married that I let slide so they could go do that stuff with someone who actually cares… or who’s willing to pretend that they care. Fortunately for me, I almost never feel lonely, yet I’m constantly battling boredom. I’d rather be in the game.. In the hunt.. Running…

~ Bill Cammack | @BillCammack

Related Posts

• World In My Eyes (Happy New Year!!!)
• Big City Dating (Meet The Parents)
• Why You Can’t Get A Boyfriend In NYC
• The Sense Monogamy Makes (Exclusive Relationships)
• Dating is like Asians on Television