Up On The Roof
Yeah yeah, I was up in Maine, driving down the road from Goose Rocks Beach to Saco, when my son Jake spotted a sign promoting Kevin On The Roof. Who the hell is Kevin, I thought, and what’s he doing up on the roof?
Turns out for the past nine years, a guy named Kevin Fitzpatrick has been parking himself on the roof of Patriot Subaru in Saco as a fundraising stunt for Strive, a Portland nonprofit that serves teens and young adults with developmental disabilities. This year he was up there for seven days and exceeded his $80,000 goal.
Kevin is the program director for Strive and this is a great way to raise awareness and donations. You don’t see this kind of oddball approach much anymore. Maybe that’s why Jake’s twenty-something generation responds to things like this and the Dick’s blimp. They’re so used to being targeted by bland email and digital campaigns that it’s refreshing to see something real and fun.
A similar thing is happening in the media. Vinyl, cassettes, CDs, and DVDs continue to gain in popularity. After years of dull digital, photographers and filmmakers are missing the rich beauty of real film. In the new J. Crew catalog, all the photos were shot on film. Spin Magazine and The Onion are both back in print, not just online. And the great paper County Highway is not online at all. This print-only broadsheet proudly announces that it’s “produced by actual human beings” and has some of the best writers in America doing longform features on everything from Wisconsin supper clubs to the world’s largest yard sale. AI may be coming for us, but we’re not going down without a fight.
Keep your dukes up.
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