Yikes.

First, you gotta understand:
/>
1. We’re ready to support anyone who’s willing to donate their talents to raising money
for any natural disaster - be it Katrina, the earthquake in Pakistan, the Asian
Tsunami….you name it.

2. We fuckin’ love Lee Quinones.

But….

/>Publicists and copywriters suck!
/>
They can turn even the coolest guys and the best intentions into
absolute fucking bullshit. They can make an event that probably has good
intentions into something that sounds so inauthentic, so sacarine, so
ridiculous, that you want to vomit all the person next to you.

Case
in point….

“Tour
DeLee”

From the “Tour DeLee” website:

“World-
renowned contemporary artist Lee Quinones has created a historical benevolent
project to raise money to aid children and their families affected by Hurricane
Katrina. Lee will depart Brooklyn, NY on October 27, 2005 and ride a custom made
bicycle about thirty-five days and nearly 1,600 miles to Miami Beach, FL to
raise money for this cause. En route, in addition to raising proceeds and
awareness for the ongoing need for financial assistance to Katrina’s victims,
Lee will create original artwork to grace the frame work of his bicycle, which
Brooklyn Machine Works (B.M.W.) [www.brooklynmachineworks.com], an
internationally renowned custom bike fabrication firm, has committed to making
for Lee’s long journey to Florida.

Upon Lee’s arrival in Miami, the
illustrious South Miami Beach hot spot, Buck15 [www.buck15.com], will premier
Lee Quinones’ solo art exhibit during the acclaimed Miami Art Basel
[www.artbasel.com] on December 2nd, 2005. The show will feature newly created
sketches as well as the painted and autographed custom B.M.W. bike that Lee rode
to Florida. While Lee’s various sketches will be excluded from the auction, the
bike will be auctioned off to the highest bidder as part of Lee’s extensive
personal contribution to this cause.

At the conclusion of the Art
Basel, a press conference will be held to present our partnership charity, Boys
& Girls Clubs of America, with a check for 100% of the proceeds accrued from
corporate and private donations made for Lee’s physical journey to Florida, as
well the bike auction monies to ensure it’s direct distribution to Katrina’s
survivors. The Mayors of Miami, New Orleans and Biloxi will be invited to attend
this historical culmination.

In addition to Lee’s international
reputation, this charitable event will attract Art Basel attendees and notable
members of Miami’s elite community by embracing the festive vibes that only the
boutique venue Buck15 and an accompanying celebrity DJ could bring. Lee’s
exhibit will extend through the Miami Art Basel and into Art Miami, running
through mid-January, 2006

Of the funds collected for BGCA’s Hurricane
Relief fund, 100% will go to aid the young people whose lives have been
disrupted by Hurricane Katrina. Your support will make a crucial difference to
thousands of kids at a critical and frightening time in their
lives.”

Okay…

So we’ve made a point to try not to
be negative on the Wooster site. But this website made us want to fuckin’ retch
all over the place. Lee Quinones is a graffiti artist for fuck sake, not some
cheesy two bit actor who needs to get on Entertainment Tonight. As much as
people complain about ad agencies co-opting graf, here’s an example of a
publicist taking a cool guy like Lee Quinones and making him seem like Ashton
Kutcher or Scott Baio, or Willie Ames, or something like that. This website is
so theatrical, that - for us - it drove us nuts.

Here goes:

/>”... a historical
benevolent project”...

Who came up with this phrase?: style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">

“a historical
benevolent project?!”

Yikes.

”.... Lee will create original artwork to
grace the frame work of his bicycle”...

Grace the
frame?...Artwork gracing a bike frame?...  Huh?!

”... the illustrious South Miami Beach hot
spot, Buck15 [www.buck15.com], will premier Lee Quinones’ solo art exhibit
during the acclaimed Miami Art Basel [www.artbasel.com] on December 2nd,
2005”

“illustrious”.... “hot spot”...

Words
like these make it sound like the cheesiest place on earth.

”.... The Mayors of Miami, New Orleans and Biloxi will be invited to
attend this historical culmination”...

Gotta love lines like
this one… The mayors of Miami, New Orleans and Biloxi are “invited” to attend.
Don’t they have better things to do? “Invited” is a common bullshit term in
press releases that allow a publicist to connect someone to an event that they
would never attend in a million years.. You can “invite” fuckin’ anyone to
anything. It means nothing. I’ll bet anyone $100,000 that they won’t attend.
/>
”... this
charitable event will attract Art Basel attendees”...

We get
it.  We get it. It’s for charity, it’s not to promote the Brooklyn Machine Works bike. We get it,
already.

”... this charitable event
will attract Art Basel attendees and notable members of Miami’s elite community
by embracing the festive vibes that only the boutique venue Buck15 and an
accompanying celebrity DJ could bring”

Okay… This is the
line that induced bile to move up from our stomich to our throat. (Luckily, we
caught it before it came out out mouths.) What the fuck does Miami’s “elite”
community have to do with a graffiti artist? “Elite community”? Who the fuck
would use words like “elite community”?

So here’s our advice….
/>
If you’re a really cool graffiti artist, a legend…. Please style="font-weight: bold;">... please… don’t let this happen to you.
/>
Please don’t let a copywriter or publicist turn you into a joke. We’ll
still support the “Tour DeLee” because it’s for a good cause and we love Lee
Quinones.

But…

Graf and copywriting…. Keep ‘em
separate, okay?