Buy the sky ☁️
"Reality is a cloud of possibility, not a point."
—Psychologist Amos Tversky
> the persuaders | skytoucher
The human mind makes 35,000 decisions each day.
We can't be consciously aware of them all.
Mammoth corporate advertisers like Nike capitalize on this fact to sell a brand before selling a product.
- With remarkable candor, Nike refers to its marketing and advertising as “demand creation.”
The company spent a jaw-dropping $4.3 billion on demand creation in 2024 alone. Nike's brand has been publicly valued at some $30 billion.
That's just the brand.
From an earnings statement Nike sent to shareholders:
>> "Our demand-creation expense consists of advertising and promotion costs, including costs of endorsement contracts, complimentary products, television, digital and print advertising, as well as media costs, brand events, and retail brand presentation."
So if you want to touch the sky, kid, you’ll have to buy the special uniform.
All the big-boy skytouchers are wearing it.
- next time "Still think you're immune?"
- listening Pissed Jeans "It's Your Knees"
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Terrible fun 🛒
> a fifth of vodka | pissing in the park
My years of drinking were at times terribly fun – until they were decidedly not.
- I once convinced a bar full of people in San Francisco that the woman I was with had just said yes to marrying me. It was our second date.
People bought us drinks for the rest of the night. She said I was a genius. We went on more dates.
I got drunk at the house in Lawrence, Kansas, of famed beat writer William S. Burroughs.
Any time I did cocaine, I was drunk first.
I raced grocery carts in San Francisco. I became an expert at riding bicycles while drunk. I fought a donut war out of a dumpster in Oakland. 🍩
- I once broke into the old Drillers baseball stadium on Tulsa's Yale Avenue.
- Struggling to stand straight, I pissed on the pitcher's mound before vandalizing the concession stand.
While in jail for a DUI, I asked a sheriff’s deputy what made his unit so special.
I did karaoke innumerable times at Austin bars while I was drunk and alone.
I’ve lost many phones. When I returned to the bar to find them, I'd stay and get drunk again.
I chose Austin's many bars over a woman I almost married.
I’ve been to more punk and metal and hardcore shows over my lifetime than anything else I've done outside of journalism. At virtually every one of those shows, I drank.
Just as often, I drank alone at home while working late.
On at least two occasions, colleagues smelled alcohol on me at work. Those were not the only occasions I was under the influence of alcohol at work.
I never married or had kids. There was nothing to stop me from sinking into oblivion.
Eventually, my illustrious drinking career wasn’t so illustrious anymore.
I began to wake up drunk in the parking lots of parks.
I began to wake up drunk in the parks themselves with the sun tearing at my skin.
I always had something to drink tucked away in my jeans or coat.
For years, the thought of living without whiskey filled me with dread.
- next time "Our minds are not engineered to make us happy."
- listening Nick Cave, Warren Ellis "Carnage"
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