Chip Kidd

So yesterday was a big day at school. Chip Kidd was coming to give a lecture and needless to say I was pretty excited. I generally don't go to lectures or "talks" or gallery openings because I am not interested or just don't give a shit. This wasn't the case. Chip Kidd is my favorite designer EVER. His work was one of things that inspired me to go back to school for design.

So to make a long story short, he gave an amazing lecture that was really thoughtful and funny as hell. But at the end he was signing books. Now I knew prior to the lecture that several of my professors were going out to dinner with him, so I gave one of them a book to get signed. Well this become a huge point of stress because I was afraid he was going to forget the book and he told me he was going to have Chip right nasty things in the book, such as "To the world's biggest douche bag..."

So I harassed my professor as much as possible and when I saw him at the lecture, I was like "Where is my book?" He said he forgot and laughed. Totally not funny. Anyway, the lecture is winding down and Chip is signing books and the same professor, a one Mr. Ray Goto, says to me "Stand right here and don't move." So I stood for about 45 minutes. Ray finally comes over to me after pretty much everyone has left and goes "Ok, let's go to dinner." Excuse me? Say what? I am going to dinner? The lights go off in my head...I am going to dinner...with CHIP KIDD! Holy SHIT! So for the next several hours, I sat and talked and drank with one of my biggest design influences. It was hands down one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Chip is an amazing designer and a really cool guy. He is also really funny. Like off the walls, piss yourself laughing funny. I can't even express my thanks to Ray and Professor John Lowe for taking me along. I was the only student there! Furthermore I can't say enough what an honor it was to meet Chip and how thankful I am that he tolerated all my questions and total fanboy awe. I don't really have the words to express the experience but I am very thankful that I got to tell him what an inspiration and honor it was to meet him. I am sure he gets that a lot and I will no doubt be one more face in the sea of fans to him, but it really was an amazing time hanging out with him. I mean, I sat across from him and he even bought me a drink! How cool is that?!

Ok, enough with the hero worship. If you aren't familiar with Chip's work you should go to his website http://www.goodisdead.com. Chances are you are very familiar with his work, you just don't know it.

Ok that is all from me for tonight. I am still in shock.

Recent Works

I know, it has been a while. I have been super busy. But I wanted to post this story I wrote for my screenwriting class. I am not happy that I have to take the class but I am trying to write things I enjoy. This story didn't really meet the assignment criteria but I thought it was funny, especially cause I haven't written in a while. So enjoy!

As the clock read 1 am, Josh’s heavy eyelids were telling him it was time to sign off from the world of online gaming. In the milliseconds between the TV being on and off, the realization hit him like the waters of Niagara that he really had to pee. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence for him to forget about the needs and natural processes of the body while signed on and waging war with his thumbs.
Josh’s thumbs while being warmed up and limber in no way helped him move his body’s entire mass to the bathroom. Yet as he stood from his chair and tried to take a step he learned that the journey of a few feet was going to be an uphill battle. Those first wobbly steps lead Josh face first into the floor, the shock of which nearly made him lose his liquid cargo onto the carpet. Spitting out carpet fibers and attempting to push himself up confirmed his worst fears; his legs were asleep.
Completely unable to walk and harassed by the worst case of pins and needles ever recorded in human history, Josh’s eyes widened in panic at the thought of not being able to make it to the bathroom and soiling himself. The potential ridicule of his sleeping roommate was weighing him down as his internal pressure was expanding exponentially.
With a face full of determination echoing back to the days of childhood heroes like Captain Kirk, Josh began to crawl. Arm length after agonizing arm length dragging half his body weight in sleeping muscles and carrying a urinary payload that seemed to be expanding at a rate faster than nuclear fission, Josh crawled.
Those few feet to the bathroom were the longest distance ever traveled by man. Moses' exodus into the desert paled in comparison to those few agonizing feet of carpet. But Josh was an online warrior, a killer of virtual men and a slayer of pixilated polygonal beasts surely a trial like this was below his status as a virtual Hercules? As his face felt the change from rough warm carpet to cool smooth bathroom tile, his heart leapt at the victory that was to come.
As he rolled onto his back he was smacked in the face with the realization that to empty his swollen bladder, he would need to stand. Looking up at the toilet from the floor was like looking at Everest and realizing the enormity of the climb to the summit. Josh grabbed the edge of the toilet bowl with both hands and learned the harsh reality of having a filthy bathroom. Ignoring the muck that was now entwined on his fingers he heaved himself upward. Then grabbing the tank of the toilet pulled himself upright. The pain was excruciating, as bolts of synaptic energy fired into his legs again and again. But it didn’t matter, Josh was vertical and soon the ecstasy of purging his urinary track would be his.
Steadying himself with one arm against the wall his free arm attempts to undue his pants and let forth the great flood but as if to add insult to injury the complexities of button fly jeans were a gigantic fuck you. By now Josh was growing weak; he could not hold back the tide much longer. The labyrinthine closure of the button fly required him to steady his dead legs by leaning his forehead against the wall thereby freeing both his hands and attempt to free himself from his denim Bastille. Just as Josh’s neck was about to give out, his bladder burst and his legs enter the third stage of atrophy, he freed himself and himself. With the little muscle control he had left he attempted to aim and what followed was the most divine and horrifying release of fluid since Noah and the Great Flood.