So crazy it might not work
IDEA: Power tools that tell you what a man you are.
EXPLANATION: Drills, belt sanders, and sundry tools with built-in speakers. Use them and they remind you, in so many words, “You are a useful man. You are powerful. This tool could drill through your son’s skull, and yet you use it to make this mighty bookcase.”
ROYALTIES REQUESTED: A full set of the Demotivator version.
IDEA: A movie about organized crime in an old folks home.
EXPLANATION: Not a farce, but a show that avoids the patronizing attitude toward the elderly and shows danger and intrigue among the elderly residents of an assisted living facility. Plenty of chances for horrific deaths, addictions to medication, residents’ attempts to control families from the confines of the facility.
ROYALTIES REQUESTED: A small speaking role as a facility staffer.
IDEA: An article or book guiding the reader to finding a philosophy for life.
EXPLANATION: Philosophical education usually forces the reader to read through primary texts that may or may not influence their personal philosophy. Few non-scholars can undertake a philosophical self-education as part of a normal life. Philosophy should be more intentional and relevant: a how-to.
“Find your Philosophy” guides the reader through major worldview decisions: What are the most trusted sources of truth (sensory evidence, authority, revelation, logic)? Is life without an afterlife worth living? Is it better to live for oneself or for the good of society? Should one try to correct the false beliefs of others? Is morality based on intention or results? In the words of Socrates, what is the best life?
The guide uses the distilled wisdom of historical philosophers from the ancient world to the present day.
IDEA: An invite-only annual-subscription social news site.
EXPLANATION: Digg and Reddit get worse as more people join. As a mob of users joins the original dedicated core, the average user value drops. The new users post and promote mediocre stories; they carry on worse discussions.
Make a voting site that stays small! Charge users $20 a year to submit, vote for, or comment on stories. Users can invite other users. Certain users are granted free one-year invitations at the moderator’s will.
ROYALTIES REQUESTED: Free membership for life.
IDEA: A blog full of tips on how to act like a normal person.
EXPLANATION: There are tip blogs for living (Lifehack.org), productivity (Lifehacker, 43 Folders), and fashion (I don’t read those). But the Internet needs an advice blog for the socially awkward: like “Hitch” but with a lower level of students, like James Bond giving tips in suaveness to serve his community service sentence. (Little known fact: James Bond has a license to kill, but it counts as a misdemeanor.)
Bad article ideas: “How to not creep a girl out.” “How to shake hands confidently.” “Etiquette around the workplace.” “How to kill road rage.” Maybe it’s more just a blog about dealing with people, ya know? Lifehacking a social life.
ROYALTIES REQUESTED: Actually I’d like to write this, being somewhere between the target audience and the ideal author. Actually I guess I’m more like the audience.
IDEA: Works like the vagina game (1. replace one word of a movie title with “vagina”; 2. repeat) but with the name of your dorkiest friend. Also works with song titles and lyrics.
EXPLANATION: My friends Kevin and Sean played this with me using Andy Toncic, our Dean of Men (who, because of a drunk incident, became what we called “Dean of Fuck-all”). If you’ve met the man, “The Lion Dean” is a very very funny thing to hear.
Now Kevin and I play the game using Sean and pop songs. “All you need is Sean!” “Sean just called to say he loves you.” “If Sean wants to be my lover…” Kevin wrote it up.
ROYALTIES REQUESTED: Find a way to make this funny with “Hoedown.”
IDEA: City-wide bocce game, like an 18-hole round of golf.
EXPLANATION: Bocce is best played in a variety of environments, with adapted equipment as necessary. For example, to play Bocce San Francisco, start on the Marina Green, then at Pier 39. Play in the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero with a set of soft, light balls that will not damage the floor. Play a round on Market St. before hopping on the MUNI or F trolley and playing a round in transit. Play through the Civic Center and in the Upper Haight. End up at Golden Gate Park for a good four rounds and finish at the beach.
If you have a bocce plan for your own town or city, write it below.
ROYALTIES REQUESTED: Action photos, so I can send the winner a Bocce Medal.
IDEA: A fund-raising calendar where, as usual, wacky locals pose half-naked — or more naked, depending on how much they raise.
EXPLANATION: The fund-raising calendar featuring twelve stripteasing amateur models — often not the traditional model type — is no longer a novelty. So raise the stakes with fund-raising goals that will get each model to post topless or bare some bum.
ROYALTIES REQUESTED: A 2008 to hang on my wall.
IDEA: A grid showing every mashup of memes (and the gaps to be filled).
ABSTRACT: The Meme Mashup Matrix lists memes or fads on the top and left rows to make a grid like the Mashup Matrix (shown below). When someone’s made a combination of two memes, the cell representing the combination has a link to the artifact.
For example, a row named “Family Guy” and a column named “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” would meet at this YouTube clip:
REQUESTED ROYALTIES: First dibs on filling all the gaps.
IDEA: The great works of philosophy abridged for kids.
EXPLANATION: A Time-Life series of philosophy books by such classical authors as Plato and Aristotle, medievalists like Augustine and Aquinas, Enlightenment thinkers like Locke and Descartes, and modern philosophers such as Sartre, Nietzsche, Derrida, and Foucault. Explains concepts like the ship of state, original sin, and the precession of existence before essence to the K-6 set.
ROYALTIES REQUESTED: An illustrated copy of “Beyond Good and Evil.”
