Hasta La Gadget!

In late January of last year, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would be seeking the Death Penalty in the case against Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Many were outraged. Carol Rose, a lawyer, journalist and executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, wrote a stirring piece titled “Vengeance is not justice,” where she eloquently expresses that “We should not let anyone shake us from our commitment to due process, fair trials, and respect for human life.”

Attorney General Eric Holder recently called for a national moratorium on the Death Penalty until the Supreme Court has the opportunity to weigh in on this matter.

While I, like you, would never hurt or wish harm upon anyone, I am having a hard time finding forgiveness for pathetic lives like Tsarnaev. Or maybe I have felt a moment of sadness as to what went wrong with a seemingly regular kid, but it’s only that — a moment of sadness. I certainly have no lasting mercy for him.

How can I, after analyzing the inhumanity of this pre-meditated, cold-blooded murder and mayhem, rightfully oppose the worst possible punishment for this ingrate?
The thought process that went into planning this horrendous blood bath was ingenious — target those that are physically almost superhuman and kill them, or better still, incapacitate them by blowing up their limbs; go after the innocent bystanders at a do-good event and wreak havoc. Sickening.

If someone came after my family and dearest friends with serious harm on their mind, I know I would do anything to save my loved ones — most likely even the unthinkable. Can the opponents of the death penalty, even though they find it reprehensible, emphatically claim that they would never take anyone’s life even if it were for self-defense or the defense of their loved ones?
Rose writes: “In a very real sense, this trial is about us, the people of Massachusetts, and whether we will sacrifice our values and our commitment to justice in the face of terror.”

This trial, to me, is about each person who was violated that day and for every other person who has to live — for the rest of their lives — with the guilt and helplessness of not being able to protect their loved ones.

I am no saint; I am sick and tired of people pretending to be martyrs and standing up for the rights of the sinner. Recently, there was a similar outrage over the Jan. 16 execution of Dennis McGuire. The defense attorney and other sympathizers decried his execution by lethal injection, apparently gone wrong for a few minutes, as “inhumane and agonizing.”

I too felt a pang of sadness until I found out that this butcher was responsible for the inhumane and agonizing kidnapping, rape and killing of a 22-year-old, newly married, almost 8 months pregnant woman in 1989. McGuire confessed that he raped Joy Stewart viciously and stabbed her twice in the neck, and that “the first time it hit a bone so he pulled the knife back out and stuck her again.” Do I feel sorry for Dennis Mcguire? Yes, I do, but only because he breathed and lived for 25 years after this nauseating act whereas Joy and her unborn baby did not live to see another day because of this heartless monster.

Look, I understand that the death penalty should never be taken lightly. I also understand that it is certainly not a deterrent, but that is not the purpose of the death penalty. The death penalty is simply to rid the earth of scumbags like Tsarnaev and McGuire who have gone out of their way to mutilate another.

A Feb. 2 Los Angeles Times editorial declared,

“Cases like this (the Boston Marathon bombing) test our strength as a mature democracy, and as a people who believe in justice. That’s not to say convicted murderers and other perpetrators of egregious crimes shouldn’t face severe punishment. Life without parole is the correct response in these extreme cases. It punishes the criminal while protecting society from future acts of violence. As a nation that believes in justice, we should drop our embrace of the death penalty as a relic of the barbaric past.”

But if life without parole is the ultimate punishment, why is it that almost every single death row inmate has repeatedly filed for a stay of execution, opting desperately for life behind bars instead of death. That’s because life is precious and even the most deplorable human being gets it when it comes to preserving his own. David R. Dow, a distinguished professor at the University of Houston Law Center and an acclaimed Death Row Lawyer, in an interview with The Nation, had this to say about his clients: “Let me be clear: most of my clients want to live. Most of them prefer a life of virtually no freedom to no life at all. Underlying this preference is a hope, however faint, they might one day get out.” Sadly, there is not the slightest glimmer of hope for the victims and their loved ones.

I do not seek vengeance ordinarily, but when extraordinary things are sometimes done to innocent people, vengeance unfortunately is as close as it gets to justice. What is truly more barbaric: deliberately raping and chopping a mother to be, staging a vicious attack to blow up life and limb in the name of (un)holy Jihad, or ensuring that the innocent victims get a fair shot at justice? When you strip away the fancy legal jargon, the drama of defending the monsters and the glamorization of the dignity of life toward all, the picture is grimly simple: an innocent victim(s) who did not stand a chance against a malicious perpetrator with the sole purpose of causing the ultimate harm. I am sorry, but I see no choice other than to side with those who were handed the death penalty by a savage animal. I strongly support the “right to life” — of the victim. Vengeance is sometimes fair.

FORT LAUDERDALE — Recent reorganisations within Publicis’ Vivaki unit see digital expertise built up over the latter group’s existence moved from its Audience On Demand division to other agencies within the sister SMG group.

The Drum reports on the changes here.

“The largest group within AOD – the client services group … those individuals are a 60-person group, being folded in to individual SMG agencies,” VivaKi programmatic SVP Mac Delaney tells Beet.TV in this video interview.

“When Audience On Demand was created, it follows the same story of digital – when there’s a new innovation, things happen at the center first until the dust settles.

“The same is happening now – we’re moving proactively to do so ahead of the marketplace, to push that know-how, skillset and ability out in to the hands of the individuals managing the client relationships.”

Delaney was interviewed at Beet.TV’s annual executive retreat.

The Beet Retreat ’15 was sponsored by AOL and Videology. Please find additional videos from the event here.

You can find this post on Beet.TV.

FORT LAUDERDALE –  Virool, the self-service video advertising company with some 30,000 customers, is increasing  its operations around the needs of large brand marketers and advertising agencies — meeting demand for views of branded video content, says Brian Danzis, Chief Revenue Officer of the San Francisco-based company.

He says that the length of videos now served by Virool exceed 30 seconds.   He calls this longer form of video advertising “Advertainment.”

Virool distributes video advertising across multiple platforms and publisher sites.

We spoke with him at the annual Beet.TV executive retreat where he was a participant.

The retreat was sponsored by AOL and Videology.

You can find this post on Beet.TV.

Looking at Brett Novak‘s work, the most astonishing thing is the beauty of his cinematic gaze. His videos act both as a reflection of and a medium between capturing the experience of skateboarding and different places and their spatial potential. Throughout his artwork one can find a refined interplay between utopia and disutopia of atmospheric landscapes, opening a passage for visual and physical crossing. In brief, his art is what we need these days.

Image by Kelton Woodburn

Joana Lazarova: You make skate videos, but yet they are enriched with an extraordinary imagination. Can you tell me about your approach as an artist?

Brett Novak: Personally I’d like to think that skateboarding has always been enriched with extraordinary imagination, an essential part of the new wave of street appreciation that grew out of the 1980’s. I think the disconnect with people outside of the skate culture grows from the desensitization to just that. In today’s mainstream I think we all, for the most part, are fairly accepting of the punk rock mentality that skateboarding was built upon. We grew up with it more so than any previous generations. People are so comfortable with it, though, that it only becomes repetitive and easy to become numb to. So the gritty nature of skating starts to lose any emotional reaction from a third party audience – even the distaste. My approach, for no initial reasoning, tends to tap into an emotional side previously (for the most part) unshown in skating.  The obsession, the struggle, the felt euphoria of landing a trick for the first time; these things have ALWAYS been a part of what it’s like to be a skateboarder, it’s just wasn’t often translated well on film.

JL: And you are a skater yourself.

BN: That is correct. For the most part, if the shot is a moving one (and they often are), it’s because I’ve got my board under my feet. I’ve been skating over half of my life, so as scary as carrying thousands of dollars worth of film equipment in your hands while blindly blasting backwards on a skateboard may sound – it only becomes second nature to any skate filmer.

Photo by Devende Photography

JL: How do you choose your filming locations? Can you talk us through a process of your work?

BN: Locations tend to grow out of a myriad of variables. Occasionally, dream places come about.  Places “I just want any excuse to film in”. India, was one of these. Kilian Martin and I had just wrapped up a two week long shoot throughout the UK, were out grabbing Sushi in LA and had a “well…..what next?” moment. For whatever reason we ended up spending the next few hours scouring images of India and becoming obsessed.  It wouldn’t be for another nearly two years before we were finally able to make that happen – but was well worth the wait.  Other times it’s a matter of the regions the skaters themselves already live. 
Throughout the history of skateboarding, videos have more often than not come out of Southern California. The weather is absolutely ideal, most major skate companies are based here and, not to mention, it’s where it all started.  With all of this it’s no surprise that most skate media has come out of here, but skateboarding as a whole is absolutely global. Every corner of the earth in the strangest places you would NEVER expect to find a board – SOMEONE has one. Given that the skaters I like to film tend to grow out of these more skate-culturally-secluded places, it only makes sense to document it just the same.  Skateboarding is shaped so heavily by your immediate environment, it only makes sense to me to make that environment a unique one.

JL: It is almost like a set design, the harmony between movement and surrounding is always comprehensive and elegantly chosen. What are the challenges in capturing on film something made for the instant?

BN: For me, it is that attention to the instantaneous that makes for compelling film.  The somehow related, yet nearly opposite approach as those who write, storyboard and plan everything out.  I have ideas, but the magic truly comes from being open to everything in the moment. The trick, the surrounding, the lighting, what kind of feeling do I get – strictly as a human – from this spot? Can I translate that? The challenges tend to be more technical, than anything.  Since you’re at the mercy of the moment, and especially the location (we basically never have an area “reserved”), you run into normal day life. People walking in the background, a poster on the wall, garbage on the street, a plane going overhead. All totally out of your control when you’re obsessed with capturing a particular thing. Maybe you want the “naturalness” of the interruption, but maybe you don’t. Luckily for me, my overwhelming experience before truly getting behind the camera was being behind the computer. Learning all the ins’ and outs’ of post-production has allowed me to fix things I otherwise would be at the mercy of. Before focusing on my work, the bulk of my career in Los Angeles was working in Visual Effects for movies, commercials and music videos. This experience allowed me to pretty much tackle any problem I’d run into on my own shoots.

JL: One of the fundamental objectives of art is to communicate things, to find the essence of the beauty. In Internal Departure you and Kilian Martin create a brilliant performance at the exhibition Minimal Vandalism by Kay Walkowiak. Can you tell me more about the mix of these different disciplines?

BN: Kay, a brilliant and accomplished artist in his own right, approached me a few years ago with the project in mind. He had been interested in just that; an approach to not only ‘performance art’ in regards to it’s relationship with architecture, but it’s ultimate effect on it.  While Kilian and I had our own focus with the video, Kay was much more fascinated with the residuals of us putting his work physically through it. The chips, the scrapes, the permanent remnants of a trick tried over 350 times in a row only to have been landed once. A representational performance piece, if you will. I think as a skateboarder we tend to look at the “before” of physical space with intense admiration. “What could be done here? How perfect is this spot, right?  No one else knows about it. Do you think we could fix the crack at the run-up?”. We tend to only be shunned by any evidence of our presence from any outsider.  Yelled at for grinding up a ledge, leaving marks on a bank, etc. Interestingly enough it took working with Kay, a non-skater, to make me appreciate the other side of it that much more.

Image by Kay Walkowiak

JL: Do you also have music influences?

BN: Music, quite honestly, probably has more influence on me than any other artistic medium. Most of my ideas tend to grow out of a headphoned skate through town, a lengthy plane ride with my phone or a night in at the house listening to records. My record collection varies from the Moody Blues to Tchaikovsky to Dead Kennedy’s to The Beatles. All tend to spark a different thought process that often, quite accidentally, plants some strange idea or imagery into my head. I’ve most recently been on a classical kick after seeing Fantasia for the first time since I was a kid.

JL: Can you tell me about Altered Route?

BN: Altered was a big piece for us. We have videos with more views, but Altered seemed to connect with people on a different level than previous clips. I still get more personal emails about that one than most. Altered Route was also kind of the beginning of the narrative approach we would take in our next films. We filmed for two or three days straight, in the middle of the desert in a place we had never even seen pictures of. I would see it off the highway every time I drove to and from Vegas, but it’s not a spot you can easily get to unless you’ve planned ahead of time. All I knew was that it was old, seemingly abandoned and once a water park. We didn’t even know if getting into it was going to be possible until we literally parked, ready to shoot. We’d be there from sunrise to sunset, half dead every night from the day’s blistering heat. After finally returning to LA and watching through the footage that week, I realized that we NEEDED to go back and get more. It would have been cool with what we had, but this spot was too incredible not to have the film fully represent that. We went back the following weekend and knocked out the rest of it with a new feeling of inspiration. By then I had also come up with the idea of incorporating the old commercials which became one of my favorite parts of the film.

JL: What’s on your to do list for 2015?

BN: At the moment I’m most excited about the upcoming release of the newest Kilian video sometime early this year. We filmed the bulk of it at the end of last year and it turned out incredible. The edit is essentially done but plenty of cleanup work and semantics to be figured out before we can release. Aside from that I’m looking forward to knocking out some of the stranger, more abstract skate ideas I’ve had for years. Excited to get a little better, and a little bit weirder. Overall I’m just happy to be lucky enough to spend my time doing what I love.

See more of Brett Novak’s work on his website.

I have two shameful family secrets. The first is that when I was growing up, almost all gatherings of my extended clan would include buckets and buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken, a staple of our diet. The second and more serious source of self-mortification is that some of my kin—almost all of whom hail from rural India—sometimes vent anti-black racism.