Bestway Disposal: Hey, you looking for a ride?

Our client Bestway Disposal has the best trucks and friendliest drivers. And we wanted to prove it. So a few weeks ago, we offered several very important people luxury transportation to an event in Colorado Springs. Then we showed up in a big, red garbage truck.

Congrats to the team that pulled this off. The never-say-die creatives at Vladimir Jones. Our talented production partners at Bionic Giant. And most of all the people at Bestway Disposal. It was their hilarious, genuine, hard-working drivers who made this project a success.

There are a couple examples below. But please go check out the supercut and more videos on Bestway Disposal's website.

What do you get when you cross painkillers, motorcycles and Flannery O'Connor

About a year ago, I got stuck on my couch for a week. I read the complete works of Flannery O'Connor and watched Ride with Norman Reedus. My head addled by Catholic allegory and open asphalt, I typed up a short story named "Get Along Fine."

It's an OK story, mostly valuable for the description of the highways between Denver and Albuquerque. But I hadn't the slightest idea who'd want to publish it. So I dared myself to turn it into a podcast. A year later, here it is.

The words and acting are obviously me, including Scratch's half-baked accent. All the music is me too, playing either a Fender Strat or an Akai MPK Mini. The photo is courtesy of ckirby on Unsplash.

The first episode is below. You can listen to the whole playlist on YouTube.

The Baby Monitor comes to YouTube

The entire first (and only) season of The Baby Monitor: A Podcast of Family Horrors is now streaming on YouTube. You can sit back and listen back to the whole thing in sequence right here:

 

The Come Across Artist Series: New work for the Royal Gorge Bridge & Park

Here are three videos from a new series we created for the Royal Gorge Bridge & Park with singer-songwriter Covenhoven, fashion designer Mona Lucero, and artist Will Lee-Ashley. The films were shot and edited by the team at Boyte Creative.

If you want the behind-the-scenes scoop, I did a full writeup on the VJ site. You can also check out the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park's Come Across page. Covenhoven's song is for sale now on his website. And Mona's dress and Will's art will be on display at the Bridge all summer long.

The Making of the Colorado Springs Utilities holiday light sign

So proud of the team at VJ, Carson Nyquist, Rebecca Stumpf, our clients at Colorado Springs Utilities and the artisans at Jodie Bliss Studios for pulling this together in time for the holidays. The sign itself is installed at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Check it out if you get a chance.

Giving Is All We Get: new work for Enstrom Candies

Serious.



Funny.



Serious.



Funny.



It goes on like this for the next three months, folks. Across nearly 100 videos. Because if Giving Is All We Get, well, there's a whole lot of stuff we don't get at all. Campaign hub is at Enstrom.com. You better like this stuff. I gave up my tendon for it.

Trailer for Sin Walks Into The Desert

This is a trailer for the neo-Western, noir thriller Sin Walks Into The Desert. The music features Jeff on EBow and acoustic and me playing the lead on my Fender Strat. The voiceover is me reading from the book. Check it out on Amazon.

For the obvious reason

 

John 5 has a new album on the way

Anytime I don't feel like practicing guitar, I go watch one of the 85 kabillion John 5 videos on YouTube. He's a virtuoso metal and country player. But what makes him stand out is his attitude. He just bleeds love and humility and passion for the instrument.

For all the inspiration he has given me, it seems like the least I could do is blog this video, via Guitar World, of John 5 recording a track for his new album. It'll be released August 12. Enjoy.

New work for Colorado

Just one of the pieces of film from our 2012 summer campaign for Colorado. See stories about the work in The Denver Post, Westword, 9 News, Channel 7, and The Denver Egotist. And for the full story of the production, check out the Karsh Hagan blog.

Eleven covers of Two Headed Boy Part 2

New work for Pinnacol Assurance

Two favorite AC Hair Recovery videos: Expert content edition

What are the psychological effects of hair loss?




Can mercury poisoning cause hair loss?

Two favorite AC Hair Recovery videos: Female content edition

Can hair loss affect confidence?



What do girls say about men with hair loss?

Two favorite AC Hair Recovery videos: Stylist content edition

Does alcohol cause hair loss?




Do balding men still frequent professional salons?

Karsh\Hagan launches American Crew Trichology Hair Recovery

Hairloss.americancrew.com and youtube.com/askamericancrew are up and running. Karsh\Hagan created the sites and the 103 videos on them for our client, American Crew. The videos were shot by Roshambo Films and the site was developed by The 1st Movement.

The print campaign that drives men to the site is currently running in GQ and other national magazines. And non-traditional out-of-home is under construction in New York and other big cities. In the meantime, I'm going to post six of my favorite videos. Two new ones will go up on this blog every morning. Enjoy.

I give up on disliking stuff out of spite

I so want to hate skinny indie rockers with unkempt hair wandering around Brooklyn playing guitars with cute girl backup singers in awesome blouses following them while harmonizing in the most absent-minded way possible and avoiding any sort of eye contact with the camera. But hate is convenient and boring. Also, I'm fairly sure those are the same chords Iggy Pop uses in The Passenger, so bonus points for making something new and wonderful out of something that's been overused in movie trailers. I bought this album awhile ago and just adore it.

Welcome to my homepage. Now get going.

I can't think of a single personal or brand website that I visit on a regular basis. (Maybe The New York Times.) Instead I grab feeds that interest me (Like ColoradoPols, Noah Brier, Reach for the Wall, Selectism, Pitchfork and Sometimes Daily). I integrate interesting people into my news stream (Such as Alan Wolk, Barack Obama, Andrew Hyde, Universal Sports and Redhead Writing.) I subscribe to video channels on YouTube and look through my friend's photos on Facebook.

Like Jaffe said:

Today, consumers' digital homes are their Facebook profiles, their blogs, their custom-created communities. That's where they "live" in the digital world and that's where we need to hope they invite us to come and hang out from time to time, not the other way around.

My favorite personal websites right now are single-page designs that encourage visitors to connect on social platforms. Sites that are portals into larger stories. Sites that encourage you to leave them. (Such as Adelle Charles, Bud Caddell and Zach Klein.) My home page, Ingwalson.com, works the same way.

Brands could think of their websites as hubs, with links to content, connections and on- or off-site storefronts. Help people get where they're going. And don't bog down the pace of their lives.

Be part of the really useful crew

I have created all sorts of funny and interesting stuff for the web. Some of it has been passed around a bit. And some of it has been discovered by exactly nobody, despite my sloppy but diligent efforts at ePR.

Not so long ago my aunt was complaining about Dequervain's Syndrome, which is sort of like tendinitis of the wrist. I had it a few years ago and after wearing a cast for two weeks, getting a shot, having acupuncture, and taking NSAIDs, I discovered a simple exercise that healed me in just a few days. I couldn't explain the exercise to my aunt over the phone, so I shot a video. The video was too big to email so I put it on YouTube and sent her the link.

Three months later, the thing has almost 800 views, several positive discussions and four five-star ratings.

In advertising, we often create content that is immensely strategic, wonderfully creative and flawlessly executed. But if you want to be successful on the social web, being helpful is just way more important.

[Ed. - The title of this post is borrowed from Thomas]

Death to the 50

Enter the Denver 50.