Category: Cup of Chaos

I’d never really thought of cello playing as a blood sport, but Sulic and Hauser bring a touch of gang warfare to this cello dual version of Smooth Criminal (via John Hagel). There’s even a guitar face moment – and we all know what that means, right?

UPDATED! By far, the largest proportion of suicides in Australia is men aged 18-44. The figure is close to 80 per cent. For some men, it’s depression, stress or peer pressure, for others it is sexuality, career pressure, body image, addiction or breaking up with a partner. It can be any number – or combination – of things.

But if you are facing these challenges, the best thing you can do – is Soften the Fck Up. This new campaign by Ehon Chan aims to challenge the traditional Australian notion of manhood – when you’re not feeling right, it’s not time to harden up – it’s time to soften up. And you can start by reading the experiences and stories of others. You can share your own.

In 2009, Mark Pollard and I collected 30 stories about reinventing manhood – called the Perfect Gift for a Man (which you can still download for free). It is great to see this important awareness raising continue.

Sean Carmody has delivered some more detailed statistics from the ABS (2009):

Suicides (all ages): 2,130
Male suicides (all ages): 1,631
Female suicides (all ages): 499
Suicides (18-44 y.o.): 1,114
Male suicides (18-44 y.o.): 866
Female suicides (18-44 y.o.): 248
All deaths (all ages): 140,760
Male deaths (all ages): 72,320
Female deaths (all ages): 68,440
All deaths (18-44): 6,660
Male deaths (18-44): 4,533
Female deaths (18-44): 2,127

So, a few ratios we can arrive at are:

• (male suicides all ages)/(all suicides all ages) = 77%
• (male suicides 18-44)/(all suicides all ages) = 40%
• (male suicides 18-44)/(all suicides 18-44) = 78%
• (male suicides 18-44)/(male deaths 18-44) = 19%

Which ever way you cut these numbers – it is clear that we are seeing way too many suicides in this country. It is also clear that there is help available, there are options – and futures to grasp. Start by Softening the Fck Up.

Sometimes there really are customer that you DON’T want. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas asked one theatre-goer to leave after texting too often during a film. Later she called and left a voicemail. The folks at the Alamo shared this on YouTube.

It’s a little #nsfw – so put your headphones on.

Awesome stuff. I’d hire Ronald in a hearbeat. Great find from Kris Hoet.

Now, this is my kind of fishing!

Have you ever had trouble being paid by a client? Mike Monteiro, co-founder of Mule Design talks a little about this exact problem at San Francisco, Creative Mornings. But it’s way more than that … I love this quote:

We wanted to pick and choose the clients that we worked with. And we wanted to be responsible ultimately for the stuff we were putting out in the world … We were naive enough to think that we could run a business better than the people that we were working for.

2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. from SanFrancisco/CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

Some great stuff here. Courtesy of @wadeis.

All I can say is, “you’re a giraffe”. In flight safety video for Air New Zealand. Makes you want to change your bookings!