Wait a minute…Is This a Cult?
“Have a Nice Day”
Original Commission by Andre Pinheiro
Are you the type of person that must have every new iteration of Apple’s iPhone…obsessed are we? Guess what…you my friend are part of a cult. Are you the kind of person that is a die-hard fanatic about, let us say the ‘Los Angles Lakers’? Well, you too ‘my guy’ are in a cult. In fact any gathering of minds of like values, goals or ideologies is basically & fundamentally a cult.
Mind you, that the root word of culture is the word ‘cult.’ Cult’s have a gotten a bad wrap…there have been more than a few bad seeds. Take anyone of the major religions and trace it backward…I bet you find…guess what…a cult.
So is the cult? Of course it is! Like minds, like goal, like values…yes sir indeed. That there is a bonafide cult. Am I the cult leader? I would have to say ‘No.’ I believe in de-centralized leadership supplanted by emphatically strong beliefs & pragmatic intelligence of its members. All of this centralized leadership is part of the problem.
The picture above, “Have A Nice Day,” was the first commission of art I had made by Andre Pinheiro. He designed for me about ten years ago. The inspiration was ‘customer service.’ Some customers, well they suck…and sometimes you say to them “Have a Nice Day,” when you really mean “Go Fuck Yourself.” As an ex-bartender, I had a lot of those experiences.
Earlier in my career as an aspiring, revolutionary, marketing entrepreneur I had a sit down with a fairly large local screen printing company. I had a co-worker who had just been hired by them and said they were “really cool.” From our brief meeting, I found them to be not cool…or phrased another way…”whack.” Allow me to elaborate for you.
First, in all sense of fairness, my dialogue was NOT WITH THE OWNER but with a sales associate. Overall their production facility was fantastic! They were very nice people. Everything was copasetic until we began to discuss content & my goals with it. I’m not retelling this story to trash anyone but to point out the differences in ideals between entities from an actual event; value differences between service providers (screen printers) & content creators (artist).
When the associate and I sat down to discuss content, I whipped it out…hahahaha. I showed her “Have A Nice Day.” I explained that I was interested in having it printed on the back of a shirt. I explained to her that I was looking for some guidance on how to prepare the art for production, maximum print dimensions and what not.
The first thing she said was, ‘Oooooohh, is there anyway you can edit this. There are nipples showing. The owner is really religious.”
It was like time slowed down for me, for about 30 seconds. A lot of scenarios played in my head in that brief time. I quietly gathered my materials, stood up, shook her hand, thanked her for everything and left. That was about eight years ago.
Now, I respect the owners rights to his beliefs, but this is business. Content creators (artist) pay service providers (screen printers) to provide a service. We do not pay them to censor us. I now have service partners who are in alignment with that understanding. That day caused me to invest my time and money in learning more about the trade. Here I am today, I owe them many thanks for catalyzing my desire to succeed.
So this cult, starts with the artist who are not going to be censored by anyone thinking they authority to do such. By the nature of this ideal, it extends outward to other individuals who may not be artist, but are consumers that feel the same way.
Providing artist with a way to produce their ideas on clothing became a definite chief aim for what I wanted this company to be. I remember looking at “Occupy Wall Street” on television and thinking to myself, “I want to make clothing for those people.” Here I am today.
The word “Zeitgeist,” means the ‘spirit of the age.’ It has become my goal to utilize what I have built to reflect and promote this new “Spirit of the Age.” The People are fed up with The System…because the system is broken.
One of my favorite men, Napoleon Hill, once wrote, “A problem discovered, is a problem half solved.”