An art director friend of mine proposed to me a job that at the end I had to give up because the economic offer wasn’t only paltry but also offensive.
My art director friend has now sent me an email, which I’ve extrapolated a paragraph:

“dear settimio, I wanted to apologize for the accumulated time waiting for news from my proposal to the company xxx.

If I told you what they spend for the production company you will never believe me.

The problem is, besides wasting the time I’ve invested and promoting of ideas and projects on behalf of these companies, I end up being in a worst position towards professionals and friends which waste the same amount to help me get together a professional and serious production.

Besides that it is obvious that there are many people out there offering cheap amateur work making it look honest and creative professional work, creating confusion on the market and garbage in communication.

Let’s admit there is a crisis.”

While the calendar damsels tell you their photograph hasn’t been retouched enough on photoshop, it turns out even war photos are retouched on photoshop…
Thanks to “Associate Press”
http://www.fotogiornalisti.eu/fpa/newsDett.asp?Id=95&mese=&anno=&search=

“you see my grandson, in those days, the 21st of January 2009, while a man called villari, of whom you have no idea who he was, was keeping the italian politics in a stall to stay leader of something, which you have no idea what it was and neither did I nevermind why, that is the Rai vigilant commission.. Anyways when in italy all this was happening, on that day they were electing Barack Obama for president in the United States. I kept for you, dear granddaughter, the front page of the newspaper, so that you can also remember this historic day”.

You must be fed up by now by all these pictures below, isn’t it?!

So let’s recap:
On October 2006, so more than two years ago, I wrote on this blog of a scandal that was busy growing in front of my eyes. To make it short: the city of milan contracted out the space along the spanish walls (porta romana here in milan) to put up advertising billboards, so called “six by three”.
Back then I didn’t have the possibility of having my posts commented on, but I received many emails and then a petition (not done by me) was launched online LINK
The whole operation was madness, the most macroscopic was perhaps that porta romana (also all patched up with advertising) was totally restored not too long ago: therefore not only it didn’t need any work done but it was also hidden from us of its new splendour.
Two more years have gone by, and my anger has gone up day by day.
I have to control my itchy trigger fingers or I might write something that I could regret…
Let’s stay calm.
Deep breath.

In all this time I have never, I say NEVER, seen anyone work at these damn spanish walls.
I could have been distracted and didn’t go past when they were actually working on it. Very difficult (I go past them every single day…) is this possible.
The fact is that till today, as the photograph shows above and after a little more than two years since they’ve put up the “six by three”, they still have to finish rigging up the scaffolding, don’t you think it’s a little strange?

I have measured the length of the walls, they are 160 meters. One hundred and sixty meters. You can verify it yourself from the picture above, taking in consideration the length of the cars.
And they give away advertising space (which are, like the row of trolleys, at least 60) for more than two years to restore a wall of 160 meters? Can’t you do a simple commercial calculation to see the value of those spaces to verify that they are surely unproportioned to the value of the job (eventually) done?!?

To see every single day this scandal of the infinite line up of these advertising manifestos in the middle of the flower-beds makes me fucking angry, you have no idea how much. Not only for the horrid aesthetics or for the sign that there is very bad administration but also for and especially for everyone’s evident anesthetization.
Everyone walks past and says absolutely nothing.
It makes me think that everyone walks past and says nothing.
It makes me think, I am always more cynic, that there are no good and evil, left and right.
There are only interests.
In this case no scandal nor case has come out, obviously, only because, I don’t know, there isn’t another advertising agent that had the interest to lift up any controversies.
How can I keep supporting those who are outraged/protest/accuse… for the children in the south of India/the disposal of garbage/the global warming… when no one says anything for something so unacceptable right in front of our eyes?!?
Aren’t you pissed off that someone has made money by stealing from our sight, went on holidays to the maldives, bought a few fur coats to the wife… don’t you feel you have been taken for a ride?

We are such poor dick heads we can’t do anything about it but, let me not be the headman and the jiminy cricket of all others, for a small think, shit! I wish you were.
You’d stand up.
Under here.
Writing your name and what the fuck you want under here.
Nothing more. I fear that all the other proposals that come to my mind are illegal and contrary to my laziness.

You must be fed up by now by all these pictures below, isn’t it?!

So let’s recap:
On October 2006, so more than two years ago, I wrote on this blog of a scandal that was busy growing in front of my eyes. http://www.benedusi.it/blog.php?post=398&Form_anno=2006&Form_mese=10
To make it short: the city of milan contracted out the space along the spanish walls (porta romana here in milan) to put up advertising billboards, so called “six by three”.
Back then I didn’t have the possibility of having my posts commented on, but I received many emails and then a petition (not done by me) was launched online http://www.PetitionOnline.com/milAno/petition.html
The whole operation was madness, the most macroscopic was perhaps that porta romana (also all patched up with advertising) was totally restored not too long ago: therefore not only it didn’t need any work done but it was also hidden from us of its new splendour.
Two more years have gone by, and my anger has gone up day by day.
I have to control my itchy trigger fingers or I might write something that I could regret…
Let’s stay calm.
Deep breath.

In all this time I have never, I say NEVER, seen anyone work at these damn spanish walls.
I could have been distracted and didn’t go past when they were actually working on it. Very difficult (I go past them every single day…) is this possible.
The fact is that till today, as the photograph shows above and after a little more than two years since they’ve put up the “six by three”, they still have to finish rigging up the scaffolding, don’t you think it’s a little strange?

I have measured the length of the walls, they are 160 meters. One hundred and sixty meters. You can verify it yourself from the picture above, taking in consideration the length of the cars.
And they give away advertising space (which are, like the row of trolleys, at least 60) for more than two years to restore a wall of 160 meters? Can’t you do a simple commercial calculation to see the value of those spaces to verify that they are surely unproportioned to the value of the job (eventually) done?!?

To see every single day this scandal of the infinite line up of these advertising manifestos in the middle of the flower-beds makes me fucking angry, you have no idea how much. Not only for the horrid aesthetics or for the sign that there is very bad administration but also for and especially for everyone’s evident anesthetization.
Everyone walks past and says absolutely nothing.
It makes me think that everyone walks past and says nothing.
It makes me think, I am always more cynic, that there are no good and evil, left and right.
There are only interests.
In this case no scandal nor case has come out, obviously, only because, I don’t know, there isn’t another advertising agent that had the interest to lift up any controversies.
How can I keep supporting those who are outraged/protest/accuse… for the children in the south of India/the disposal of garbage/the global warming… when no one says anything for something so unacceptable right in front of our eyes?!?
Aren’t you pissed off that someone has made money by stealing from our sight, went on holidays to the maldives, bought a few fur coats to the wife… don’t you feel you have been taken for a ride?

We are such poor dick heads we can’t do anything about it but, let me not be the headman and the jiminy cricket of all others, for a small think, shit! I wish you were.
You’d stand up.
Under here.
Writing your name and what the fuck you want under here.
Nothing more. I fear that all the other proposals that come to my mind are illegal and contrary to my laziness.