Since Mekanism is a creative agency full of creative people, we put everyone to the test and initiated the One Thing. These are the things that are blowing our minds. The things that make us say Fuck Yeah!

This is the second installment of Mekanism’s One Thing:

Jessi Goldstein + Amy Palmiero-Winters

Jessi Goldstein (Finance):

This is Amy Palmiero-Winters, a 39-year-old below-knee amputee who currently holds eleven world records in various track events. In July 2011, she became the first female amputee ever to complete the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon. While her many physical accomplish­ments are incredible, what I find the most inspiring is her attitude.

“Yes, bad things can happen, but what counts is how you deal with it. The loss of my leg will never change, but feeling bad won’t change anything either. I have been given a gift, and I feel it’s important to get out there and show the world what can be done.”

Pretty badass for someone who was told she would never run again.

Daisy Cheng + Mark Rothko

Daisy Cheng (Digital Influence Coordinator):

Mark Rothko’s paintings are the One Thing that inspires me. When I first encountered his paintings at an art museum, I didn’t expect a painting with a couple of blended colors to emotionally affect me, but it did. Rothko was an abstract painter who was most famous for his large color block paintings. He wanted them to evoke the most basic human emotions and cre­ate an intimate and intense experience. It wasn’t until later in his career that he created such paintings and saw the power of strip­ping down his ideas.

He believed: Simplicity –> Clarity –> Being Understood

I try to live my life with the same concept in mind, producing work that is simple yet effective.

Elijah Bilotta + KPop

Elijah Bilotta (Social Media Supervisor):

I have been a fan of K-pop since 2008 when I first discovered the Wonder Girls on YouTube. Some of my favorite groups are T-ARA, Girl’s Generation, 2NE1, 4 Minute, Girl’s Day, Sistar, After School, and Su­per Junior.

During our Rise of the Apes promotion, there were only a handful of videos that stayed on the Top Viewed YouTube charts as long as “Ape with an AK-47.” One of those was Hyuna (an original member of the Wonder Girls) with her hit single Bubble Pop. It has 23 million views to date despite promotion being cut short by the Korea Broadcasting and Communications Review Committee for being too “sexually explicit.”

You can fol­low my adventures in K-pop on Pinterest.

Emmett + United Visual Artists

Emmett Feldman (Design Director):

UVA is an interactive art and design practice based in London.

They create work at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, live performance, moving image and digital installation. Key aspects of their projects include minimal light/sound sculptures installed in old world architectural environments.

The synthesis of hi-tech and historic creates a unique experience that is equally humanistic and divine.

Edward Schmidt IV + Snuff Box

Edward Schmidt:

Snuff Box was a short lived BBC Three sketch comedy show from 2006. It lasted one season, and had six episodes.

It stars Matt Berry who plays the ”High Executioner to the King of England” and Rich Fulcher, an American who plays the “Assistant to the Hangman”. Most episodes takes place in a Gentlemen’s Club for Hangmen, where they drink whiskey while moving the loose plot forward and working in reoccurring characters. The show is very dark and often deals with issues of looniness, betrayal and jealousy. The shows theme song is weaved into every episode, and is often featured in sketches.

Here is a picture of Matt Berry. He wrote all of the music from the show, and is the main creative voice through out the series. You can watch every episode on YouTube and Netflix. You can kill the entire series in less amount of time than it takes to watch Das Boot or Fantasia.

The reason this is my Thing is that even though this is TV show, I find myself putting on episodes like they are songs. There is something about the characters that I find hilarious no matter how many times I’ve seen each episode.

Matt Berry is pure gold throughout the show. I weirdly want to be him.

Episode 1: Snuff Box

Welcome to another installment of Meet a Mekanista.

This week we celebrate our esteemed colleague and well-loved HR Coordinator, Julie Boddorff (pronounced like “dog barf”).

Note: While the writer realizes those words may not help you to say her last name without vile imagery, readers should know that Julie introduces herself this way.

Officially labeled a “hipster” after a still from this short film by Brian Williams appeared in print:

Julie came to our San Francisco office from the pages of “Look At This F*cking Hipster” (a real book) by way of Maryland. She taught art to toddlers in a past life, which lead to her insane ability to wrangle and help the adult-children of Mekanism figure out their shit.

While her main role here involves boring stuff like payroll and benefits, Julie embodies the spirit of the agency. She has made appearances in a lot of Mekanism’s shoots: repeatedly jumping barefoot onto ripe bananas, belly flopping on a mattress face-first from the top of a ladder, and doing other things that would make another HR coordinator think twice.

photo: Jorge Ayala, La Pink One

Being tirelessly enthusiastic all day doesn’t stop Julie from studying woodworking and interior design on her own time. Julie recently built a coffee table of her own design.

Julie is also an incomparable party planner. With the help of our Social Committee, she has made the legendary Mekanism holiday parties what they are. She is without a doubt one of those behind-the-scenes people who makes everything run smoothly with little thanks and a big smile on her face.

Did I mention she has great hair?

photo: Jorge Ayala, La Pink One

When asked what it is that makes Mekanism such a special place to work, she replied, “I guess it’s not a secret that we party really hard.”

Since we are a creative agency full of creative people, we put everyone at Mekanism to the test and initiated the One Thing. During our company meetings, each person presents the one thing that has been blowing their minds. Without being limited by more criteria than that, the presentations are all unique and deeply personal. Most of us speak for longer than the prescribed 90 seconds, since these are things that inspire us. It’s easy to get carried away. We hear phrases like “Fuck yeah!” A lot.

For your enjoyment, Mekanism presents the first collection of One Things:

Tommy Means + Glenn O'Brien                        Photo: http://vimeo.com/19764284#

Tommy Means (Founding Partner / Director)

Glenn O’Brien. Obscure Yet Legendary Ad Man

Glenn O’Brien is a strange ad man responsible for the super perverted and awesome Calvin Klein porno ads with Kate Moss. In 1970 he started working for Andy Wharhol as the assistant editor of Interview Magazine and later as bureau chief of Roll­ing Stone. He then started an obscure cable TV show called “Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party” that featured artists, musicians and cultural freaks from the New York downtown scene in the late 70’s and early 80’s. He went on to become a creative director for Barney’s, Calvin Klein, Madonna and Harper’s Bazaar. He has influenced you and you don’t even know it and he is blowing my mind.

http://glennobrien.com/

Caroline Moncure + Sleep No More                        Photo: http://www.nytimes.com

Caroline Moncure (Senior Client Strategist)

Sleep No More. Hitchcock + Kubrick + Macbeth

An immersive, mind-bending, “moveable orgy” produced by Stagecraft in the space of three abandoned warehouses in Chelsea. Visitors wear Venetian carnival-style masks, are broken up from their party, forbidden to speak, and told to wander the dark, 1920′s “hotel” and experience a story roughly based on Macbeth through actors, dancers and insanely, insanely detailed sets.

http://sleepnomorenyc.com/

Mandi Ginsburg + Ray Kurzweil            Photo: www.thebolditalic.com + www.kurzweilai.net/

Mandi Ginsburg (Social Media Project Manager)

Ray Kurzweil

A child prodigy who has invented technologically advanced ma­chines since he was 13 (e.g., software for IBM and the first computer­ized reader for the blind), Ray Kurzweil has become one of the foremost theorists of technological advancement. Really a futurist, he’s known for his controversial idea of ‘Singularity’ – the point at which artificial intelligence and biological humans become one. After plotting accelerated and exponential growth, he claims that ‘Singularity’ will happen as early as 2045.

Mia Andersen + Pentametron

Mia Andersen (Producer)

http://pentametron.com/

Pentametron creates sonnets out of Tweets. Pentametron takes each of the 30-60 tweets it receives each second, and looks up each word in a dictionary that lists the stress patterns of every word. If the rhythm of all the words put together adds up to iambic pentameter, Pentametron considers the tweet a possible rhyme.

Stelio Kitrilakis + Eli

Stelio Kitrilakis (Executive Producer)

Eli. SF Office Dog

How could it be anything else? He’s reached a groove someplace between Mahatma Ghandi and Hugh Hefner. He never sweats the small stuff, never tries to be some­one he isn’t, enjoys every moment, girls love him and he’s always naked.