Friday Funny: The End of the World

by Erik Olsen on

For doomsayers and REM fans alike, here is a superb little video about nothing less than the end of the world as we know it. Yes, you’ll feel fine as you sit and watch how we bring to a close this final chapter of humanity. Of course, those living in Hawaii, California and Alaska, well, I’ll leave that as a surprise. What I don’t understand is why the guy who narrates has a outrageous French accent.

Paddling Video

by Erik Olsen on

I’m currently getting myself psyched for a paddling trip with some buddies in Baja, California. To say I’m excited to get out of the city and have a week paddling is a vast and gaping understatement. I got so excited, in fact, that I decided to plunge into some old video material from the Alaska trip I took a few years ago with the same guys and cut together a little, well, call it a promo reel…

Whatever. It’s not highly finessed, as I didn’t have a ton of time to put it together, but it gives a nice taste of what it’s like to paddle in Alaska, something I highly recommend everyone ,paddler or no, do some day. Enjoy.

Warhol for Braniff

by Erik Olsen on


We’ve always known Andy Warhol had a rather rampant commercialism about him. I mean, what’s the deal with those cans!? And multi-hued Marilyn? The fact is, Warhol was all about drawing our attention to the commercialism around us, but also by removing things…like Campbell soup cans…from their usual context, he asked us to view them in a different light, and by doing so, they became art. He saw that an artist could transform the ugliness of commercialism into the beauty of art. He was oh so high concept.

But can you really get more LOW concept than this ad that Warhol did for Braniff Airways? Here is sitting next to Sonny Liston trying to explain the can thing and then an announcer’s voice comes over the video….it’s not even that funny, let alone ironic, let alone artistic. I saw it and I wondered what got into Warhol. Did he need the money? Too bad if he did and too bad he’s gone, because you might remember that one of his paintings…the multi-colored Mao… just sold for US$16.4 million. I’ll be he wouldn’t be doing Braniff commercials today.