Seafood, punk rock and the activist mashup

June 14 2008 | Jim's Blog,
by Jim

Ok, so I've posted a few of these trash-infused seafood items (a la the fine chefs at Saatchi & Saatchi)... I've even shown the video of the activation. Little did I know that a few people in our chapter network would want to take this and run with it. They contacted me and asked me for something between permission and guidance. My words of wisdom back to them...

Go.

Tweak.

Mutate.

Act.

I'm a firm believer in the mashup... taking ideas from... anywhere and tweaking them together... making them something new, making them it your own.

That was one of the characteristics that brought me, and many of us, into punk rock. We heard some ballad band and they seemed like they were from another world (perhaps they were) and then we saw a punk band and we felt different. The entire genre felt approachable. This music could be... ours.

Of course the tweak-others-work mentality wasn't invented by Joe Strummer. Picasso said "good artists borrow, great artists steal". In other words, this has been going on since time began.

So just as Joey Ramone made us believe we could pick up an instrument and play... let Felipe and the S&S; crew do the same thing.

Take the seafood idea, print up your own stickers and offer your goods at the next farmers market.