Forget about being Crazy for Rosa’s Nathan is just crazy. Welcome to Stupid Contests Week here on MagicTheGat… uh, on AccordingToWhim.com. For the last three days Nathan has dealt with our brush with the Dark Side, when we (I use the term “we” loosely) thought that entering video contests was a good idea. I’m not sure, but I think I’m here to set the record straight. That might also be read as “trash talk Miguel and Nathan,” but really that goes with out saying.
The first contest that Nathan discussed was his EB Contest entry, and aside from claiming that I was Asian that year, there’s really nothing I can add to it, so I won’t. I will say that knowing a little bit about the “talking points” in the video, and the “grinding halt” gag, I’ve always enjoyed that video. Fine work, Nathan. Ok, so let’s trash talk.
The second contest Nathan discussed was the Crazy for… wait, Mexican food… right? Loco for Rosa’s contest. Couldn’t even name the contest right. Sheesh. I’m just kidding, sort of. I’ll be truthful. I still have never had Rosa’s. Nathan bought out my gift card from me, and I spent the $35 on drugs. Tooth infection. I had to get pain medicine and an antibiotic. I still have most of the pain medicine, cos once the antibiotic kicks in, the pain just goes… This really has nothing to do with the contest.
The thing is that when Nathan suggested we enter the contest I was kind of cool with it, not because I like Rosa’s, but because I like doing creative work. I was working two jobs at the time, so it was sort of tough to set aside the time, and Nathan was doing something immensely important too. What? I don’t know. So one day when it was really slow at my pizza delivery job I said, “Hey if you get busy call, and I’ll be right back.” And since we had hardly any business and clocking me out would save on labour, it was a win/win situation. So I rushed out to Nathan’s quicker than sped up footage, and we shot the Rosa’s entry. And then I got called back into work, and had to hurry back.
Nathan spoke of the fact that I was wearing my True Crime t-shirt, but to me the real issue was that I was in my Papa John’s sanctioned beige slacks. Nathan also spoke of the weird method of choosing top contestants in each of 17 areas, but he didn’t mention the part where on the deadline night he was reviewing the rules to make sure he wasn’t doing anything to get him disqualified, when he realized that the rules said that each contestant could make one entry per area. We thought of all the videos we could have shot if we had only known. And if I didn’t have two jobs and Nathan didn’t have 30,000 seasons of MASH to watch.
The third contest Nathan discusses was the traffic contest. It may seem sort of bipolar for me to go from marginally excited about contest videos to vehemently opposed from one contest to the very next, but the truth is that Nathan and Miguel got stupid. From my point of view they were forsaking every bit of creative effort we could be making, and focusing all their efforts on keying in “no brainer video contest we can waste our lives on” into search engines. They wanted to do some stupid thing about what the government should do to fix traffic. Ha! They wanted to do some sort of Don’t Mess with Texas thing. They wanted to do 10 Non-sexual uses for KY-Jelly. Or that might have been Why I like Welch’s jelly. Either way, I wasn’t wasting all my off time on that crap. I wanted to finish the Halloween sketch we had started, which can be seen here. What? No link. Figure it out Einstein.
I’ll write my actual thoughts about “fixing” the traffic problem either in this blog, or in my weekly article, depending on how long it runs. But just to summarize my experience in this contest right quick. Somehow I still got dragged into it even though I was playing it off all Pontius Pilate. Miguel called me one night and asked me to rant about traffic, and after I told him how great a musician Steve Winwood is, I told him what I thought would ease the traffic situation. He had the foul mouthed character spout it off in his video, but didn’t really hit all the points. So I was present in Miguel’s entry in spirit, and Nathan asked me to submit one of his videos. Mine won. We laughed that it was all a sham, but the fact is that we are a creative collective, so some how I still had the blood of Contest Christ on my hands, so I think it’s valid.
For the record. I’m not opposed to the contests outright. Not any more than I was opposed to The Nathan Show (what I call Season Two). My issue was that we were going in a direction that was basically, “Hey Chris look what we have in store for you this week.” We’ve all done stuff on our own, and some of it has turned out very well. Thing is that’s not what being a creative team is about. It’s about throwing around ideas, and getting input, and using the strengths of everyone on the team to produce something better than its components. So who knows, maybe in the future if we have a steady stream of creative work to brag about, maybe we’ll bust out a contest here or there.
Ok, lemme just defend myself first off by stating that it was Miguel who went goo-goo for contests. I never once looked up contests to be in. It was he who did so (please refer to the group for proof).
Next let me say that the contests we did were not in vain. We won SOMETHING in every one of them. Just because we saw a way to actually benefit from our video skills doesn't mean we abandoned all creativity.
In the end you should be happy we:
1.) All 3 worked together (at least a little bit) in a way we don't hardly ever get to.
2.) We made content to show/talk about/be somewhat proud of.
3.) We benefited from it in some small way (monetarily).
4.) We got a little promotion by doing these contests.
I think they were fun and if that makes me crazy then…
I'm Crazy for Contests!!!
The contests literally took away maybe a half a day total of your lives during the last year and a half. I don't see how they were just cutting into and taking away so much time from your "worthwhile" creative endeavors.
As Nathan pointed out, you won something from the two contests you entered. One of them was a decent amount of money. Since all of this is supposed to be a business endeavor and business equals money coming in, I don't see the real issue.
Of course I get it. You're trying to promote yourself and your art. Doing contests doesn't help that and can't help that in any way. Just ask Kelly Clarkson, Chris Daughtry, Kellie Pickler, and Adam Lambert.