Rumors

Step one: read this

Step two: read this

All true. Except the part about the first draft of the book being due in three months. More like two and a half. I guess I should start writing it soon.

one red paperclip, the book, is due to hit bookshelves next summer. I will write the book in my favorite language: Canuck-Yank-Bloglish. Words like "toque" and "skidoo" are in, but those pesky bonus u's are out. Yep, color, not colour, and rumor, not rumour. (** Special message to all ultra-patriotic Canadians who now think I'm a sellout hellbent on eroding our "culture" ** - Don't worry, all pool water temperatures will be in Fahrenheit, and no, I don't have a clue how many kilograms I weigh either.)


So far it looks like one red paperclip, the book, will be translated into four languages: English, Italian, Dutch and Japanese. If you want to read one red paperclip in another language, like Québécois for instance, call up your favorite book publisher and let them know! If you are somebody's favorite book publisher and want to translate one red paperclip into another super-fun language, contact me at oneredpaperclip@gmail.com and I'll get you in touch with the people who can make it happen. The more the merrier! I can't really think of anything more awesome than having one red paperclip translated into tons of other great languages, like Castellano, Yobbo or British Columbian, eh.

As for everything to do with Dreamworks, I know about as much as you do. The rights were optioned for TV/Film. That's it. High hopes for a choice flick or genre-creating TV show, but there's no producion schedule in place, and to maybe deflate your possible-stokeage a bit further, there's actually no guarantee anything'll hit the screen(s). If you wanna start the rumor that I'll be played by Bratt Pitt and Angelina Jolie will play Dom, go right ahead. We're both unemployed, so maybe Brangelina (I can't believe I just wrote that) will trade their roles for a babysitting gig.

Sure, this is all glitzy-sounding Hollywood stuff, but don't expect me to flake out and get all weird on you. As I've said many-a-time in the past, my mom still cuts my hair. I don't plan to change that. It's not like Spielberg hangs out at our apartment or I'm going to buy a crocodile-skin Bentley.

Yet.

Needless to say, I'm pretty beyond-stoked about all of this - Kyle

Music to my beers

Okay, catch your breath now, this'll be a long one.

I've blogged about him many-a-time before, but never on a day like this. Fellow Port Moody product Colin Pearson, aka the cartoonist of this cartoon, writer of this blog, singer of these songs, just released his album Torches and Pitchforks today. You can purchase his fine Compact Disc here. As Colin puts it, "the first 100 come with a free button! wowza!" Yes Colin, wowza indeed. Great stuff dude. See you in Kipling for the housewarming party. Hmm, maybe I'll sport some of this gear...

Dom and I just got back from Toronto last night. It was a rad trip. Not much sleep. I'm exhausted. Half the exhaust system from our beautiful 1990 Corolla is somwhere on the 401 now. If you find it, it's yours.

First thing we did in Toronto was meet up with Brendan and Jody at Metalworks to chill while they recorded Jody's album. It's gonna be awesome. Dom and I got in on the action too. I shook things up with a plastic container/shaker full of red paperclips and Dom was somewhow convinced to say a bunch of stuff in french about a "trombone rouge". High hopes both "sounds" make the final cut.



Super choice to hang with Jody and Brendan again, and more than ultra neat to be in the studio with Jody's producer Richard Feldman. Like Colin Pearson, Jody and Brendan'll be in Kipling to perform for the housewarming party.
In addition to posessing the cube van, Brendan's a proud member of Club Treehouse. They're looking for gigs right now, so if you're interested, scope out their myspace, all the booking info's there. They even have CDs for sale.

That night we ate Chinese food in the studio. It was delicious. My fortune cookie said "The harder you work, the luckier you get." A great fortune, and quite true, but I've had better ones before. Even truer fortunes before. I went on to tell Jody about my favorite fortune I ever had. I looked Jody straight in the eyes and actually made the bold statement that the piece of paper with the mysterious fortune "was the only thing I've lost that I regret loosing, ever." The next day Dom's friend Audrey met up with us fresh from a Chinese buffet and said she'd just got the craziest fortune ever. We of course asked what it was, and she showed us. Wouldn't you believe it was the exact same fortune I told Jody about? It was. I dare you to come up with a better fortune than this. I triple dog dare you to come up with a truer fortune than that. It's pretty much theoretically impossible to beat. It's just so true. I love every bit of it. Thanks for letting me keep your fortune Audrey. I'm so not losing it again. I should probably buy a lottery ticket with those numbers I guess.

The next morning Brendan and I went down to City TV for Breakfast Television. When it broadcasts, City TV looks like this. Isn't that gnarly? I dare you to try and fit more stuff on a TV screen. If I receieved that channel, I guess I'd never have to leave the house. Anyhow, City TV's kinda like Toronto's renegade TV channel. They're everywhere. Brendan pulled the Cube Van up on the sidewalk and leant against it like a dude while I rambled on about the one red paperclip project. The best part of the entire experience is that they scored us some cups of newsroom coffee, or as I like to call it, 'the good stuff'. Nothing's as powerful as newsroom coffee.

Nothing.

Later that day we were on our way to do a live satellite feed for the Dutch TV show, Editie NL, when an ambulance driver on foot motioned our taxi to the side of the road. I was worried. I thought his ambulance was broken down with a patient inside that needed to be rushed to the hospital. I thought he was going to commandeer our taxi. He looked really concerned, came up the passenger side window, but then a huge smile broke out accross his face and he said, "hey, I'll trade you my wife for your house!". Like I said, City TV is everywhere. We all laughed pretty hard, but I declined the trade offer. His wife isn't nearly as big as 503 Main.

Then I saw this on the subway.

It's always fun to take a road trip. Montreal is great, but by far the worst thing about living in Quebec is that there are no 7-ELEVENs here. So no Slurpees. And I do love a good Slurpee now and then. But most of all, I like seeing Slurpee kids. Hey Sev, if you're interested in expanding into Quebec, gimme a call, we need to talk.

We packed a lot in, but we still had time for a Zanta sighting. If you have a blog, I'd highly recommend adding a link to www.torontozanta.ca - As Zanta told me himself, he wants to go worldwide. And I'm pretty sure we can all agree that the entire world needs more Zanta.

Hey Zanta, I can't say I share the same love of shirtless public grandstanding or all-conditions push ups as you do, but I definitely feel your flow.

Kyle

T Dot

That's what people in Canada call Toronto. It's Toronto Ontario, or T.O., so people shorten it even further and affectionally call Toronto the "T Dot." Other popular and each-more-ridiculous-than-the-last variations on the theme are for Guelph Ontario (G Dot), Nelson B.C. (N Dot). Yeah, it's a bit like the post-Watergate phenomenon of adding "gate" to anything scandalous. I fondly remember the scandalous 'Casinogate' happening somewhere around Vancouver as a youth. My younger brother Scott once told me how he'd heard a story somewhere about some scandal that somehow involved an actual gate. 'Gategate'. I thought that was pretty funny. I still do. Well, not as funny as this picture of Scott, but still a real knee slapper. Feel free to add a comment to this post about any 'dot' or 'gate' related stories you might want to share....to post links to embarasssing pictures of your siblings. Like this, for example.

Anyhow, what was I getting at? Yes, right, Toronto. Dom and I are rolling down to Toronto today to spend some time in the studio with Brendan and Jody. Jody's coming up from Phoenix to lay down some tracks at Metalworks. Yes, this week we'll be in the studio where all "the magic happens", as they say. It's going to be great to actually be there to see Jody's part of the trade come to fruition. Stay tuned for vids and pics.

Oh, and due to popular demand, one red paperclip merchandise is now availble thru cafepress.

I'll personally give a high five to anyone who shows up in Kipling wearing one red paperclip gear. A high ten if your dog wears some.

The design available has nothing to do with the t-shirt contest and will be available indefinitely thru CafePress. As for the five future winning t-shirt contest designs, well, we still haven't figured out how we're going to produce or distribute them long term, but I can assure you there will be a healthy assortment of each of the five available over the Labor Day long weekend in Kipling. We're still accepting design submissions right up to Aug 1st, and will announce the winners soon thereafter.

Kyle

Headlines

Quick summary of some newsworthy-ish stuff you might like to scope out:

Somehow pictures of the FAN-TOM and El Aguilla del Norte ended up in a South African in-flight magazine article about one red paperclip.

In Australia this Sunday night, I'll be appearing on 60 Minutes with waste water and Billy Joel.

Staples are dangerous.

¿Habla Español? Univision just put together a gnarly little online photo essay of one red paperclip called "De un Clip a Una Casa." The random choice of the cover pic doesn't compete with that of the mysterious FAN-TOM, but I've gotta say it comes pretty darn close.

We still don't know who these guys are.

I've now been dubbed in German. By a woman.

Apparently Hallmark now has their own TV channel. Apparently the one red paperclip project is right up Hallmark's alley. Apparently in a few weeks I'll be in New York to tape an episode of New Morning that will air on the Hallmark TV Channel.

Corbin Bernsen's company, Public Media Works, now has a website.

Now, I know a LOT of radio stations have done this before, and are currently doing their own charity one red paperclip style trading-up games, but Sun FM in Kelowna BC actually let me know about theirs! Awesome guys. SUBMIT YOUR LINK! If you're with a radio station, community group or other organization that's doing a charity trading-up game, please comment on this post with a link to your project!

Have a snazzy weekend! - Kyle

Go Dutch

UPDATE: I don't know who put this on ebay, but I can assure you it's for real!

I'm starting to realize I have absolutely no scope on just how far one red paperclip has spread. Dom and I met Diana from Holland when we were in Morocco in 2003 and she just mentioned via email that a news program on RTL TV in the Netherlands is doing a series of one red paperclip trades....or is following other people who are doing trades. I can't really tell actually, it's all in Dutch. To see the video(s), go here and click on the links called "De Editie NL-ruilactie" for july 12 or 14. The news program interviews a guy named Wouter - one half of the team behind this site, which kinda raises the up-trading bar as far as I'm concerned. These two guys are having races...or had races. Once again, I can't really tell. It's all in Dutch.

Link to Dutch videos: http://www.rtl.nl/actueel/editienl

UPDATE: My mom's friend Francien is from the Netherlands and she just sent this little tidbit about the Dutch guy featured on Dutch TV who traded up to the car:

"The video shows a dutch t.v. program, who after having heard from Kyle's trades, offered a puzzle to trade. They had offers of a tool, a piece of fruit, a piano etc. etc. They decided to call on this one guy who claim to be the expert in trading. After hearing of Kyle's trade a took an apple and an egg and traded it up to a car within one month, he now want to trade it up to a better car (a Porsche is preferable). He is setting out some tips on the trading i.e. lots of publicity, tell everybody, have a goal (even is people laugh at you!)..... It then goes back to the t.v. program and they mention that the young man does not even have a driver's licence!! - Francien"

Classic. Perfect. Serves him right! If anyone has an easy-to-watch link of this video on youtube or something, please let me know!

Back in 2001 I met a sound aussie bloke named Dave Ronchi on a sheep station in Western Australia. Dave just emailed to say "your mug has been all over the tv downunder in the last couple of weeks". This is pretty sweet, it's not often that my mug gets to go downunder. But to be honest, I'm a little embarrassed with the aussie situation. I publicly stated on the aussie TV program Beyond Tomorrow (which Alanis Morissette-ironically aired July 12th) that I was going to keep trading-up until I acquired the Kerrigan's holiday home in Bonnie Doon from my favorite movie, The Castle. Turns out the house was bought by an enterprising fellow before I could make it there, I've never met you, enterprising Bonnie Doon man, but I wish you the best of luck. Give me a shout - we should collaborate on things. I think 503 Main and the holiday home should be "sister houses" or something like that. Maybe Kipling and Bonnie Doon should have a contest to see who has the most serenity. A serenity-off. One thing's for certain, the dogs'll love it.

Or maybe we should form a giant worldwide network of all the houses that are somewhat famous in pop culture for having been part of something. Yes, that should be the criteria to join the network: the house must have been part of something. Much more fun to leave the door wide open, so to speak, than to create rules or anything like that. I think this future "somewhat famous" house network would need a real snappy and clever name to take off. Like for instance, The Official Somewhat Famous House Network. Yes, I can see it now, the OSFHN! Now that we've got a snappy, clever acronym, all we need is some somewhat famous houses. I'll leave that up to you.

Anyhow, if you see anything about one red paperclip in the news or on TV, be sure to share! I'm especially interested in video from around the world. The more un-understandable languages the better, as far as I'm concerned!

It'll be kinda like our little deal: you score me news from your part of the world, and I'll score you news from my part of the world - like for instance the fact that Ricky was in Yahk last week.

c-ya - kyle

new mailing list + best week ever

First up, I've got a new mailing list: join it.....if you dare.

(Don't worry, I'm not going to flood your inbox with messages like this or sell your email address to other people or anything creepy like that. I'll only send out a bulletin every month or two for "super" important things. Like for instance, maybe the mailing list subscribers will hear my first answer to the question I'm getting asked a lot these days, "What are you going to do next, Kyle?" Yeah, something like that. Nothing weird or lame from me. A no spam guarantee. Actually, I'll give you an iron-clad no spam gurantee. Can't argue with that. Besides, what good would it do me to send you loads of crap to your inbox? - you know where I live.)

Second up, my cousin Carmen (she's married to Ricky) just sent this message out to everyone in our family:

"Check this video out (in case you haven't seen it yet...) VH1's "Best Week Ever". Kyle is on the last segment of the show and it's a half hour show. So let the commercial run, then go through to the end of the first segment, and then go to the end of the second segment, then let the commercial run again, then click about 2/3 of the way through the third segment and Kyle is on. Or, watch the whole thing... up to you."

Confusing, yes, but with a name like "Best Week Ever", there's pretty good promise that it's worth the effort.

www.vh1.com/vspot/player.jhtml?type=524

Best week ever. I love the "ever" part of that. Makes me want to hang out in an ice cream van and listen to the Smashing Pumpkins.

Kyle

Copy Cats are Cool Cats

How to start your own trading story/blog:

Get a FREE blog here:
www.blogger.com

For pictures of your trade items, you can use the photo-add function on blogger, or use a seperate photo hosting service. For pictures, I use Flickr. For videos, I use YouTube. I highly-recommend both Flickr and YouYube.

The barter section of craigslist is also a great place to let others know what you'd like to trade. (Be sure to choose your city!)

Bonus tips:
-Make it easy for potential traders to contact you. Visible email address and if possible, phone number. The easier it is for potential traders to contact you, the better your chances of trading up! That's the biggest key to success for this kind of thing I think - be approachable and create a cool story about your adventure. More than anything else, this is about who you meet, not what you trade for.

-Be ready to work at it - don't think this'll be a cake walk where you can just sit around and things'll fall on your lap - it ain't gonna happen. Remember, if you want it, go get it!

-Choose a snappy, easy to remember domain name from a webhost provider like GoDaddy or Dreamhost to make it easy for people to remember where your site is located. (You can have the easy-to-remember URL auto-forward to the URL for your blog. For example, oneredpaperclip.com auto-rediretcs people to oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com).

-Improvise. Everyone's different. There's no magic formula. Try out new stuff and take smart chances. The harder/smarter you work at this, the better your chances for success.

-Don't be lazy! You're allowed to go outside and knock on doors!


But above all else,

start small
think big
and have fun.

Kyle

SaskatcheFUN

Yes, a great new word. 100% credit to Bert Roach from Kipling Sask for the word. You invented it, I'll promote it. Deal? So, Dom and I are back in Montreal now after a whirlwind tour of Kipling. It was so good. Huge thanks to everyone in Kipling, and by extension the province of Saskatchewan, for the welcome you put on. The house is unbelievable. We are more than blown away by it all. We're just back in Montreal to "tie up some loose ends", eat as much poutine as humany possible, and get ready for the move to Kipling at the end of August. Yes, we're moving to Kipling. Yes, you're invited to the housewaming party.

So Sakatchewan is definitely Saskatchefun. Despite perennially getting the short end of the stick within Canada, I can hereby vouch that it is a great place to be. Dom and I are happy to add ourselves to the province's population (they want more people), and nothing will make me prouder than next July 12th when the world's largest red paperclip is unveiled in Kipling, thereby adding to the rampant prairie phenomenon of putting big things beside the road. Yes, I know there are other big things out there, but I'm stating here that Prairie Canada is the heartland of big things on the side of the road. Not sure what the wise elders who erected the giant paperclips in Norway will think of the big red paperclip in Saskatchewan, but I feel a paperclip-off coming on. That's going to be so sweet, a paperclip-off.

Anyhow, enough rambling. Kipling is awesome. I added a whole bunch of new pictures to the one red paperclip flickr set (more than one page on the link) and set up a special set for every picture we took over the last week or so. Some absolute gems in there. (again, more than one page.)

I'll regroup a bit, and tell you all about it over the next few days, but I have a real good feeling about Kipling. An especially the Labor day long weekend. This is going to be one housewarming party to remember.

Kyle

one red paperclip T-SHIRT DESIGN CONTEST

The deadline for submissions is Aug 1st.

All designs must be submitted as an attachment to oneredpaperclip@gmail.com (JPEG,PNG,TIFF,GIF,BMP ONLY - please DO NOT submit DOC files or weird thing like PDFs. PDFs creep me out.)

I'll upload the submissions as they arrive. You can see/comment on them here:
www.flickr.com/photos/kylemacdonald/sets/72157594205061890/
Contest details:

Are you a great graphic designer? Or potentially better...are you a really bad graphic designer? I'm setting up a t-shirt contest. Best five designs get made into t-shirts that will be sold on the Labor Day long weekend in Kipling Saskatchewan and after that at 503 Main Street - all proceeds to Kipling Parks and Rec or a good local cause. Winning designs/designers get loads of recognition and a $20 USD cash prize. I'll put a link to your site here on the blog and your name will become synonymous with the t-shirt design. Forever. Feel free to use/alter any pictures found on my flickr page or create a brand new design from scratch. The deadline for entries is August 1st.
**PLEASE** send your designs as attachements to oneredpaperclip@gmail.com

Just a sampling of some of my ideas:

-A wolf with a red paperclip in its mouth
-George Stroumboulopoulos hypnotizing someone
-Corbin Bersen admiring a snow globe
-Alice Cooper causing evil destruction with a red paperclip
-A "Kipling Saskatchewan" shirt with something really awesome...like a ninja with red paperclip throwing stars.
-A happy horse with happy red paperclip horseshoes.
-A shirt with pictures of all the trade items but with a phantom, never-happened trade item like a stale muffin thrown in just for kicks so people get upset and go "hey, what's that doing there?"

I think we can all agree that every shirt should have a red paperclip on it somewhere, and I'm a bit superstitous to the positioning of the paperclip - preferring a 'going to the right' alignment like this:



...but feel free to come up with whatever you want or post your ideas as comments below. Let your imagination run wild. The sky is literally the limit. Actually, the sky isn't the limit - there's no reason we can't have outer space themed red paperclip shirts. I guess it'd be more acurate that outer space is the limit. Since they'll be unveiled for the first time in Kipling Saskatchewan over the Labour day long weekend, I'll give bonus points for any Kipling themed or Saskatchewan themed designs. That doesn't mean I'm only going to choose Kipling or Saskatchewan designs, just that they'll get bonus points, is all. Probably a 50/50 Kipling Sask vs. non-Kipling Sask final assembly of designs. Well, you can't exactly cut 5 in half, unless of course we think people will be stoked on half t-shirts, but you know what I mean. Not sure about what file types are the best for this kind of thing, but I'm guessing high-res JPEGs or TIFFs will be the best bet.

I'll post all "postworthy" submissions on the site and announce the winners right after the deadline - Aug 1st.

I so can't wait to see what you might come up with. The funtential for this is off the charts. Way off the charts - Kyle

UPDATE - For unexplainable reasons, I've really gotten into ascii art lately. (you know, those text/picture thingys....and no, I didn't know what it was called until today either.) In addition to the t-shirt contest, I'll post the top 5 one red paperclip or Kipling Saskatchewan themed ascii art designs to this site as well.

BlogospHERE

If you missed 20/20 last night, here ya go. By far the best report on the project so far. Well, actually, since there were no re-enactments, an overly-technicolor sound stage, free flights to Tokyo and no Japanese subtitles, by far the best report on the project out of Japan so far. They even got a slo-mo chariots of fire style running intro. Epic. Huge thanks to Jeff Diamond and everybody at ABC for being so suportive of this project. You guys rock.

Been a steady flow of visitors to 503 Main Street here in Kipling. Yesterday marked the first time somebody came to our house and blogged about it. Mary Jo Beirnes was on her way from Vancouver to Toronto to Austin TX and decided to pay us a visit. You can see a cool picture of the red paperclip house and read about her adventure on her blog. Pretty neat...feel free to swing by 503 Main Street and blog about the red paperclip house! If you post a picture of 503 Main Street on your blog i'll link to you from this site! I'm in the process of setting up free wifi service around the house. Hey, if anyone wants to send some wireless routers here to 503 Main Street, I'll plug you on this blog! Anything will do - old things like Linksys ones and stuff like that will be perfect... The more wireless routers the better I guess! The full mailing address, with confusing Canadian postal code, for 503 Main Street in Kipling Saskatchewan is here. Actually, I'd like to turn all of Main Street into a free wifi zone. Anyone know the best way to set that up? The meat of Main Street is about a quarter mile long - I'm guessing a freestyle array of wireless routers running off the local broadband provider might do the trick. Definiteley the kind of thing the town of Kipling and I will make very public and help recognize anyone who helps set it up!

I've uploaded lots of pics to my flickr account, but my mom had the camera on ultra-high megapixels, so it's a bit of a slow go. If you wanna see more about what went down on the 12th, check 'em out. I'll have more up there soon.

Anyhow, gotta run. Talk to you soon - Kyle

20/20 on ABC tonight

20/20 on ABC has a report on one red paperclip tonight. 10PM Eastern (no idea about other times - check your local listings!)(There's that TV Guide-sounding-me again.....actually, I did an interview with TV guide on Tuesday, so look for that soon too!)

Still a bit overwhelmed by everything that's happened over the last couple days. Kipling put on a welcome for Dom and I that was absolutely unbelievable. Definitely worthy of a double adjective. More than 400 people showed up, there were no fewer than seven TV cameras there, and of course, being in Canada, there was a Mountie. Yep, it's not everyday you sign a title deed to a house, but it's really not every day when that very same title deed is witnessed by a Mountie. So rad. So "The Simpsons-ish". And so noble. If Kipling was in the states, I'm pretty sure an eagle would've been there to witness the deed. With all due respect to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, I think we can all agree that the only thing that could come close, and perhaps surpass, having the noble, proud signature of a Mountie upon the deed would be the all-to-rare signature of an eagle. You just don't get more noble than an eagle.

Anyhoo, it's been great to finally meet and spend time with everyone from Kipling I've spoken to over the phone over the last week or two. Also been cool to spend some time with my family away from the media bonanza insanity I've been the center of as of late. I'm still very interested in doing every interview, but it's just that, well, since my cell phone doesn't have coverage here and we don't have a phone in the house (just got the power turned on yesterday), I'm slightly unreachable. If it's urgent, contact Bert Roach here in Kipling. He's got phones and stuff.

We've been busy getting things around the house ready for the move-in (taking out a wall today) but if you really need to get a hold of me today, Bert'll be a great point man. Gonna upload lots of pictures and videos over the weekend, so stay tuned for lots more good stuff coming up!

K, gotta go knock down a wall - Kyle

UPDATE 3: Best video showcasing massive mispronounciation of Saskatchewan yet, right here. Hopefully an indication of things to come!

UPDATE 2: I didn't post this, but I did link to it.

UPDATE: here's some more vids!

In a previous post, I incorrectly said that Canadian anchorman legend and Kent Brockman lookalike, Lloyd Robertson, had reported on the project. He didn't. He was off that night. But alas, tonight was THE night. Thanks Lloyd. The trifecta is complete.

,br>

July 12

Yep, today is one year to the day I placed a picture of one red paperclip on this site. Today is also the day Dom and I will be in Kipling Saskatchewan to shake hands with mayor Pat Jackson and officially trade one movie role for one house, located at 503 Main Street. This is going to be so much fun. Should be on the news and stuff today - stay tuned for pictures of the house tomorrow!

Kyle

PS - feel free to send in any video of the newscasts so we can share them with everyone here on the site!

UPDATE - I strongly encourgage this. (best part starts about two minutes in.)

Off the hook

Here's a great video from last Friday. (I was being "mysterious" because I hadn't broken the news on the website then, but you get to meet Pat Jackson, the Mayor of Kipling!)


As for today, well, the phone's literally been ringing off the hook. At least 25 radio interviews. Lost count long ago. It's real "run and gun" right now. I somehow ended up doing nineTV interviews today. Because of a pre-tape, apparently I was on CNN and MSNBC at the same time.



Thanks Kyra and everyone at CNN - you rule.

It got to the point where I was walking thru this media building downtown with the "Ricky" shirt on and random producers were just pulling me into studios - and into the street.

(in french)


(in english)


(in "entertainment")

ET Canada = BY FAR the best "swoosh" graphics and cheesy staged paperclip-into-the-camera shots. BY FAR. Probably the only time ever that I can honestly say that things are "off the hook" without sounding like a trendy faux so-cal wannabe. Kipling Sask is gonna to be insane on Wednesday. Rumor has it that even Japanese and German TV crews'll be there.

Rumor has it. - Kyle

PS - A lot of people have been asking how I've stirred up so much publicity around the project, and my simple answer is: I have no idea. These interviews are all from unsolicited, incoming media requests. I've never made a single call to any media outlet. I don't have some PR team working on this project or anything like that. My email and phone number are posted here on the site and people keep calling. That's it. It's nuts. The only PR help I've ever had, was back in April when a guy named Evan White, fresh out of College, called me up and pitched his PR services. My quote on the bottom half of his site sorta tells the story. Right before he started helping out, I was literally getting so inundated by media requests at one stage a few months ago that I almost "lost it". No sleep, stuff like that. Evan came on board and helped organize/schedule the interviews and made things much easier to handle. (Something Dom helped out with today. If you called 514-833-3980 today and spoke to a woman with a French-Canadian accent, that was Dom, not me.) But then Evan mentioned one red paperclip to a few contacts he has at places like KROQ the AP, they interviewed me, and things spiralled more out of control than before. I'm sure he knew what he was doing, but he seemingly inadvertedly stirred up a global media firestorm evan crazier than before. I guess in PR that's good news. But other than sit on the grass, wear sandals, smile, and wear foam-mesh hats with a giant PR on them, I'm not exactly sure what Evan does day to day. I guess he's kind of like the Doogie Howser of PR or something. He's not on my payroll, but if I needed to hire a PR guy and had things like, you know, a marketing budget, I'd definitely hire Evan faster than you can say Neil Patrick Harris. And I can say Neil Patrick Harris pretty fast.

Good Morning America and CNN today

I'll be on Good Morning America and CNN today. (Monday July 10th) - Good Morning America between 7:45-8:00AM, CNN at 3:40PM-ish. All times Eastern.

Man, I'm starting to sound like TV Guide. Oh well, at least I didn't head butt anyone and get a red card potentially causing a certain degree of national disgrace. Yet. The game was awesome today. We watched it in Little Italy here in Montreal. About as loud as you can ever imagine a crowd. Saw nine cops protect a bread truck from rowdy fans who wanted to get on top and do that whole back and forth sketchy rooftop jumpy celebration thingy we've grown accustomed to seeing in celebrations all over the world except North America. Nine cops for one bread truck. A new record for me. I predict to hear riled up Italian fans honk their horns for the next five, no, thirty seven days.
Good work boys - Kyle

503 Main Street

Kipling Saskatchewan Canada. --->map<---

We've got a house!



A few of the fine folks at the housewarming party:


Almost all the traders made it to the housewarming party!

More PICS FROM THE HOUSEWARMING PARTY:
Kyle MacD
Scotty MacD
lianneleblond1984
The 1 Second Film
Retired Movie Star Dave Leroux


It's "official." I traded one movie role for one house with the town of Kipling Saskatchewan on July 12, 2006.

one red paperclip.
one house.
one year.

Kipling's *revised* trade offer, went a little something like this:

**********

Kyle, the Town of Kipling, Saskatchewan wants you to complete your quest for a house. The Mayor and Town Council with the support of the employees and residents of the Town of Kipling have a revised offer for you. We know you will say Yes!

1. As a new resident to our community you will receive a Community Welcome Package containing local information and promotions from local businesses.
2. The Kipling Chamber of Commerce will give you $200 in Kipling Cash. This Cash can be spent at any local Chamber of Commerce business.
3. You will be given a Key to the Town of Kipling
4. You will become Honorary Mayor of Kipling for One Day.
5. You will be named an Honorary Lifelong Citizen of the Town of Kipling
6. The day we make the trade will be decreed One Red Paperclip Day by our Town Council and everyone will be encouraged to wear a red paperclip in honor of your achievements.
7. Will build the world’s largest red paperclip in dedication to you and your “one red paperclip project”
8. Most importantly to allow you to complete your quest…We will trade to you a house. The house was built in the 1920’s and has been recently renovated. It is locate at 503 Main Street Kipling, SK Canada. It is approximately 1100 square feet on two floors. There are three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, kitchen, living room and dinning room. It has white vinyl siding, a new roof and eaves troughs that have been put on in the last few years. We will be sending you pictures of the house as soon as we have had time to touch up the paint.

Kyle MacDonald, do you accept our offer of one house in Kipling for one role in Corbin Bernsen’s movie “Donna on Demand”?

**********

As you can imagine, I said yes. That's about the most unbelievable offer of all time. I'd have to say the "key to the city" was the clincher though. How often do you get offered a key to a city? Actually, I just re-read the offer. It's not a key to the "city", it's a key to the "town." That's even better! How often do you get offered a key to a town?

Now you're probably sitting there staring into the screen wondering "What the heck is the town of Kipling Saskatchewan going to do with a role in a movie?" And you should wonder, because the last time I checked, neither the Town of Kipling Saskatchewan nor the mayor of Kipling Saskatchewan wasn't exactly starring in a movie with Brad Pitt or Halle Berry. Actually, the last time I checked, you probably had no idea there was a town of Kipling Saskatchewan. But none of that is important now because here comes the best part of this trade - I get to infomercial-ize this blog. Yes, the moment we've all been waiting for. This is the part of the blog entry where I get to put on my cheesy infomercial voice and say, "But wait, there's MORE!"

And here's what the MORE is:

Kipling set up "American Idol style" auditions for the role in a film to be shot by Public Media Works. The Auditions were held over the Labor Day long weekend. Nolan Hubbard is the lucky guy who got the role.

Dom and I moved into the house over the Labour Day weekend, and the town of Kipling throw (feel free to quote me on this) "Saskatchewan's Biggest Housewarming Party, Ever."

This is going to be great. I've never lived on Main Street before. Any Main Street.

Kyle

Foreigner 2

Just did another live broadcast from TVA here in Montreal. Apparently they can't get enough of the "trombone rouge" guy. But I came back and rocked the interview a lot better this time. My favorite part is when Colin Pearson's written-in-english one red paperclip Akward Pause cartoon appears on the screen. So good. The sound is pretty bad - the anchor was in the same room so there's a great echo, and I was "LIVE" from a room about 10 feet from the TV, but things like this always look so much better with a massively-slanted TV frame in full view. Oh, and that's Dom taking the phone call halfway through. I'd recommend sticking around to the end, cause there's some people-getting-trampled-running-of-the-bulls footage from Pamplona - always a good thing.



Merci encore TVA! - Kyle

Foreigner

I think I can speak french, or more importantly I guess, the french-language media here in Montreal think I can speak french. Enough to slap me on their breakfast TV show an hour ago, at least. The fact is though, I'm pretty dang bad at french. I picked up a bit of french growing up in Vancouver, but the bulk of my "learning" took place several beers deep at bars and parties in Quebec over the last couple of years - and it shows. I'm a bit of a "foreigner" here, but I can hold my own around a campfire...or with 130db of "Juke Box Hero" backing me up. It's funny how everyone is bilingual, in any language, after a handful of beers...or with 130db of Juke Box Hero to back them up. (I still have no idea how a song can legally rock that hard.) But Live TV in french is whole 'nother ball game, especially live morning TV in french. After watching this video, I really think I should allocate Dom as my offical french representative, or at least I should abstain from morning television. If Quebecois french is Parisian french with a chainsaw, then my version of french is Quebecois french with a wood chipper. It's funny how you can go on live TV and think you're doing great, but then come home and watch the video and realize that 95% of the viewing audience likely had NO IDEA what I was talking about. At least I said "oui" a lot...or probably more accurately "way". Oh, and "paperclip" in french is "trombone". How rad is that?



Oh well, it was super nice of TVA to invite me to "Salut Bonjour" this morning. Thanks guys. I hope you don't mind me uploading the video to the internet. Maybe somebody out there will understand what I was talking about. And if you do haul this video down from youtube, at least we'll still have Juke Box Hero to back us up.

Salut et fait un bonne journee - Kyle

PS - just got this comment: "I feel like I am going to dinner with my girlfriend......WOULD YOU FREAKIN DECIDE ALLREADY!!!!"

Hold that thought.

Interesting

Just reading the news today. Came across something pretty interesting. Some press-stopping news about a cat being let out of a bag. Huh. Do you think their source is reliable?

Kyle

Mark and Alice

Mark Herrmann's big day is here! He's hanging out with Alice Cooper this saturday the 8th in Columbus Ohio. This is going to be great. I hope they have a rad time. You can read more about it on Mark's website.

kyle

The Million Dollar Fish Pen

I traded one fish pen for one doorknob with Annie Robbins in Seattle last year on July 14. Annie recently approached me with an idea: She wants to send the pen on a journey. The plan is to send the fish pen to people so they can sign a check(s) for charity with it. The idea is to get the pen, sign a check for charity with it, take your picture with the fish pen, write a story about the "experience" and then pass the pen on to somebody else. Who you send the pen to is up to you. Pictures and stories would be sent to someone who maintains a blog that tells the story of the fish pen as it travels around, signs checks, and meets new people.

So, I love the idea, but I don't nearly have enough time to setup/maintain another blog/website and do it well. I'm tapped out. I don't want to do a poor job with this. It's gotta be done well. So here's the question: Is there anyone out there who'd like to take on this project, and setup/maintain the fish pen's charity check-signing blog? This could be a great experience for someone to maintain an awesome blog that will likely have lots of traffic, a cool story, and above all else, help out good causes.

Who knows, maybe the fish pen could go around and raise a million dollars for charity. Or maybe even one hundred billion dollars. You never know.

If you're interested in helping out, please contact me. Thanks. Kyle

Writely Wrocks

Wow. Just when you thought it wasn't possible to live a more highly-itinerant yet highly-productive creative lifestyle with zero organization skills, Google ups the ante again. Writely is huge. I've only used it for the last three hours, but I think I will pretty much never use Microsoft word again. Ever. Writely stores all your documents on a hard drive. Somewhere. I have no idea where my stuff is, and don't really care - I just like the fact that I can access anything I've ever written from anywhere, anytime. I'll never have to keep a hard copy of anything ever again. Of course, Google can screw up exactly zero times or everybody will jump ship and it brings up all kinds of privacy issues (make no mistake - Google is big brother), but it sure beats my former system of scrap pieces of paper shoved in shoeboxes in about thirty different places.

It's kinda like Wiki, but without any rules. Or the word "wiki".

Oh yeah, they got spreadsheets too...

Kyle

Writely

Ok Google, I'll play right into your Gmail-ish word-of-mouth free advertising scheme: I'll trade somebody one red paperclip patch for a Writely invite. My email is oneredpaperclip@gmail.com - first person to score the hook up scores the patch. Also, I can't say I've ever said the word "networking" without a sarcastic tone in my voice, or even begun to try and understand what something like a "traditional business model" is, or go as far as call myself witty, but bingo. The book publishing industry is going to have a shake-up along the lines of Napster or Bittorrent, right about....well, soon. it's just that computer monitors suck for reading books right now. But that'll change. What do you guys think?, should I write a book and then freak out like Lars Ulrich when somebody puts it online and it gets downloaded for free by every single person on the planet? E-ink or whatever the electronic product ends up being called that will replace books is going to flip the publishing industry on it's head. Blogs are just the start. It's gonna get a whole lot more intense when book-replacing technology arrives and you can read any book ever written, right now. And for free. Who's kidding who? - "Booktorrent" ain't that far away. We just don't want to read books on our 17" CRT computer monitors. But the technology will change. Apparently, it's getting close. But how can such a forward-thinking and potentially revolutionary-for-the-publishing-industry product have such a backwards, bad-looking website? Hand-shaking pictures were off limits, like, 7 years ago. Or maybe that is the exact first instance of the no-longer ironically funny hand-shaking picture on a website. Maybe E-ink is so far ahead of the curve they need to go backwards to accurately describe the impact they'll have on the marketplace. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. Nothing spells "impact" more than an anonymous pair of hands shaking.

Okay, back to reality - or at least my blog-represented version of it. We had a such a rad day up in St. Alexis. Even though it's the Festivale de la Truite Mouchete, and probably as big as small town fishing derbys get around here, I can't say I've ever been stoked about fishing. I know other fishermen, and I'm reading Mike Iaconelli's book right now, and today I saw a guy wearing one of those "The Happy Fisherman" shirts, but I can't say I'm that much of a fisherman. Nope, I'm just not that much of an angler. Much more of a fish-eating man. Other than eating fresh trout I've gotta say the highlight of the last 24 hours was the speedway motorcycle races. I'm not sure how to accurately describe dirt-track speedway bike racing, except that it's kinda like the exact opposite of motocross. The tracks is flat, the same size as a hockey rink, and the bikes don't have any suspension. It's kind of like short track speed skating on dirt. With motorbikes. But with less fluorescent spandex tights. And more binge drinking.

Maybe it's just easier to show you a video:



Now that I think about it, I guess it doesn't quite come out the same on a video screen as in real life. And the video doesn't even begin to accurately show how amazingly drunk everyone in attendance was. Whatever, it was awesome. And not awesome as in like a Vice magazine hipster ironic awesome either - I'm talking, like, one rung below monster truck awesome. Rumor has it that here in Quebec every summer there's a snowmobile-on-water racing series. Probably the only thing that stands a chance to knock Monster Trucks from the top rung. Probably. In the video, that's my hand blocking the dirt spray from going straight into the camera lens. I still have dirt in my hair. I guess I should probably have a shower.

Yep, it's good to get out of the apartment. There's just so many good things that aren't in our apartment. For example:

As mentioned, speedway motorbike racing(2), Grown men wrestling on the speedway finish line while remote control monster trucks circled them and the crowd encouraged every ounce of it, Harley smoke shows, outhouses with fully functional plumbing, over-sized above-water lake-located spotted trout with plumbing and lighting, rock-and-roll-homage-12-songs-in-one-culminating-with-a-stirring-arms-raised-"And she's buying a stairway to heaven" finale/cheer, spotted trout, danger, 60 year old men wearing G-Unit hats, fireworks, camouflauge, used-car advertisements featuring Michel Barrette, smiling spectacled strawberries, one red bicycle, this thing, and last but never least, one red covered bridge.

Yes, it'd be more than unbelievably good to have one red covered bridge in our apartment, and I'm sure Dom would be as equally thrilled with that, but for now a life-sized former table cloth one red polka dot Dom is gonna hafta suffice.

Until soon - Kyle

DEAR SIR/MADAM

I just love getting emails with subject lines like that, don't you? I mean I guess they're accurate, since we're all either a sir or a madam. I'm not going to write much right now cause it's time to hit the hay and we're heading out early tomorrow. Dom and I are going to the village she grew up in, St. Alexis-des-Monts, to partake in "La Festivale de la Truite Mouchete". For all you out there who're too lazy to copy/paste that into google translate, it's "The Spotted Trout Festivale". Yes, that's festivale, not festival. The "e" on the end of festivale is not optional. I don't know why, it just isn't. Maybe it's due to the fact that St. Alexis-des-monts is "The Capitale of the Spotted Trout." Once again, there's the "e" again.

Anyhow, important "e" matters aside, if you want some good reading over the weekend, this will probably suffice.

Kindly yours - Kyle