#weekendnames

WN How did you end up on this couch today? JAKE I actually grew up with Aaron, one of the founders. I do client relations and long-term relationships and projects. JOEY And you play music. JAKE And music. I play the drums. That’s a common thread — we all have little things that we do. WN Where did you go to school? JAKE Wesleyan University. JOEY I’m Joey, I’m from Pittsburgh. I know all these people basically from Oberlin where I went to school. JAKE Where’d you guys go again? Kenyan? Kenyan college? JOEY Oberlin. ERIK Oberlin! JOEY You know Lena Dunham? You heard of her? JAKE The Ohio State University? JOEY The Oberlin College. I thought I was going to go to grad school right away for design and then I ended up in New York becoming a male model. JAKE A male model mind you. JOEY Always open to new things. When this got started, I started working events, then doing project management and that led to all of the sales stuff. So now I’m one of the sales people. JAKE Head of Sales. JOEY Head of Sales, Joey Pope. Bookings, events, meetings, client relations — everyone kind of wears like, seven hats here. JAKE Yeah we do a mix. WN That’s the fun thing about startups right? JOEY Exactly, exactly. Hashtag: startup life. ERIK I’m Erik, I went to school with Joey. I was doing carpentry and metal working with an artist… JOEY Living in a warehouse under the Long Island Expressway. ERIC In a warehouse under the Long Island Expressway. JOEY Didn’t pay any rent. ERIC Didn’t pay any rent. WN Wait what? JOEY Lived a mile from the nearest subway. ERIC It was a mile from the nearest subway. We threw great parties though. I got hit by a car. WN Hashtag: startup life. ERIC Hashtag: startup life. I got a fungal infection on my nuts. JOEY Come on. OK, stop it. ERIC What? It was startup life. JAKE No, no, no. I’ve never had that. I work here. I’ve never had that. ERIK After Sandy the shop got really fucked up. There was a period of time with no work and Aaron was nice enough to let me start working Bosco events. So that’s how I got here. I’ve been doing like, events as an event worker for a while, but um, I’m more recently full-time.

WN Tell me what Bosco means. JOEY I got this guys. So, Bosco, we do event photo booths on a rental basis. We do a lot of music festivals, fashion events, corporate parties, harping on this candid fun, goofy experience that’s trending now in terms of creating content at events. We’ve always been pulled to these high-end interactive media installations so it’s something we’re trying to capitalize on. But we’ll do everything from Cindy’s Bat Mitzvah to the Lady Gaga tour, that’s how we describe it. JAKE We figure out interesting ways to tie in technology and social media into photography. JOEY And we’re a bunch of party boys. And people love that. ERIK And all of that comes from Nick and Aaron, who founded the company. JOEY We kind of associate with people that are like, kind of post-collegiate bohemian creative types that are broke. JAKE I would never describe myself that way. WN I’m familiar with you as a gif booth. Is that the main draw? ERIC The company is know as the first gif booth. It’s also Joey’s model look book. WN I like the graphic design. Is that Joey too? ERIK No, Dennis. Dennis does all this cool shit. DENNIS What do I do? [Dennis rolls his chair over from across the room] JAKE Cool shit. ERIK Everything that’s cool.

WN Why did you want to make a photo booth company? DENNIS Um, it was something that Nick and I kind of did in college for beer money, basically. We saw a photo booth at a party one time and we’re like hey, like, we can probably make that. We’re both like, crafty and smart. When I moved here about a year and a half ago, Nick was talking to Aaron about doing a photo booth company and I was talking to another of my friends about doing a photo booth company, so we took the ground work, paved way, and it kind of turned into this. WN Did the persona of “the Bosco Boys,” this lively effervescent group of boys as a selling point, develop on its own? DENNIS No. ERIK It was organic. JAKE In Erik’s fantasy world. ERIK It happens to be the people we hire. Really charismatic, charming… JOEY Effervescent. ERIC Effervescent people. Not Jake. JAKE I bring a different personality. JOEY It’s a collective of people that had this trajectory that never once in their mind thought they were going to be working for a photo booth company. People on that cusp of design, fun, interesting, and cool. The lynchpin of it has been making money, but everyone wants it to be some sort of fun creative flow that people are pouring their intuition or their natural cool into. JAKE Yeah, it comes from people with good taste trying to make a photo booth company. ERIK You know, personally, I just wanted my mom to stop worrying about me. She sends care packages when she’s afraid.

WN You said personality is what’s driving the brand. Let’s talk like your personal inspiration: what keeps you creatively inspired? JOEY I don’t know. For me it was strange because I was uh, I was an art student very much into understanding the parameters of where my creatively was flowing. My senior thesis was a wilderness of animal sounds and video art and a ton of mulch in a gallery space, but I didn’t necessarily see the transition of, like, how does that translate to me being in New York? The Bosco’s been a really wonderful transition to like, what I was doing just to make ends meet and also the joining of a regimented adult life and some sort of creative output. WN Are you still doing experiential design? JOEY Yeah. The first big thing we did was Pitchfork Music Festival where people put on headphones and listened to songs and they put their hands down in these plastic boxes that would complete a circuit and take sensory data from them. And as they’re listening to these different songs they would snap photos of themselves and it would create some sort of colorful sheen or cloud over. JOEY It was called the aurora booth — it was kind of like a mood ring booth. WN Who came up with that idea? JOEY It was E Music and Mother. We do a lot with Mother. And I think the echelon we’ve like, been working within, we’ve been able to pitch some really fun ideas using the technical platforms that we have but in fun, quirky, interactive ways that allow users to experience or interact with things, whether it’s long light exposure, dance booths or whatever.

WN Where do you see Bosco five years from now? JAKE Five years? ERIK I don’t know if I’ll be alive in five years. WN I hope you’re going to be alive. Don’t go back to that warehouse, JAKE It’s not a company where you know the end point. JOEY Yeah. JAKE It’s not just like, oh in 5 years we’re gonna have a fucking office in every city in America and we’re going to be doing gif booths as much as we can you know? It’s like, such in the hands of the employees and it’s kind of, we kind of decide. “We decide” is like a little catch phrase around the office. It’s also our wifi password. And so that’s what it is, we decide we want to try something new and we do that.

WN What was the craziest call you’ve gotten? JAKE When I first started we had three booths and I got a call from AT&T where they wanted five locations in America, 10 concerts at each location over the course of 3 months which means we would basically have had to build six more photo booths and we just thought it was a joke, and then somehow we got the deal. We built six more photo booths and then doubled overnight basically. That was pretty crazy for me. WN You can’t have an event without a photo booth. DENNIS It’s like, most of the content that you consume throughout the day is your friends’ tweets, your friends’ Facebook posts, and how are you going to break into that? You have to brand your friends’ Facebook posts basically, so it’s like, you have a picture of yourself that’s got a Heineken logo on it or something like that and instantly, you know, they become an advertisement to you. So that’s why this is so valuable to people. JOEY And it’s attractive because we’re all so goddamn attractive. JAKE Speak for yourself goddamn it.

WN If you could describe Bosco in one word what would it be? ERIK Nice. JOEY Awkward. DENNIS Joey, you said awkward? JOEY No. ERIK What’s wrong with you? DENNIS I thought you were gonna say turnt or trill or.. ERIC Joey say turnt. Bosco … you have to act turnt. JOEY Turnt. ERIK Yeah I’d say trill. No wait wait no can I take it back? I want to say Pyrex. Hashtag it, hashtag it. I’m trying to blow up. I got this new Pyrex.

THE BOSCO BOYS | thebos.co

The Smile, a cafe with a reputation for good-looking clientele, and the NoHo block of Bond St between Bowery and Lafayette that it sits on, is entertaining a fashionable breakfast crowd. Inside, customers sip Plowshare espresso; outside, street-style photographers begin to linger.

It’s the second day of New York Fashion Week and the offices of modeling agency One Management, where I’ve come to meet its founder, Scott Lipps, are already buzzing a few doors down at 42 Bond.

Yesterday, the New York Times opined the question, “Is Fashion Week Near the End of The Runway?” Today though, they’re lauding the quirks of it-girl models, and featuring a photo – front and center – of One Management’s rainbow-haired Chloe Norgaard. Scott holds a copy of the paper, and as I shake his hand he beams like a proud parent.

For the last 12 years Scott’s been running One Management, the agency he founded after stints at Next and Karin, and a move from Los Angeles back to his home state of New York. “It’s sort of like dog years in fashion,” he explains, “so 12 times 7, that’s about a hundred or something like that, roughly. I’ve had it for maybe a hundred years.”

One launched with a supermodel reputation, repping the likes of Claudia Schiffer, Helena Christensen and Iman. Now there’s One, “the high fashion division,” ONE.1, “which is more about Victoria’s Secret, Sports Illustrated,” a music division to “manage bands and... do branding... a celebrity PR division... a men’s division.”

“[During Fashion Week] I sleep with a BlackBerry next to my head,” says Lipps. “So from about two in the morning to about seven in the morning, every half an hour or so I’m looking at it, waiting for some email to come in about an exclusive for a girl in Europe, or someone not getting the girl they wanted for a show. There’s a lot we do here, it’s a lot of hard work, hence why I don’t sleep at night.”

Like most serial entrepreneurs, Scott’s a busy man getting busier. The current iteration of his life, at an intersection of fashion, celebrity, and music is “a lot of drama,” but it isn’t new. “It’s what I know it to be after doing 20 years.”

At One’s 10 year anniversary party Scott was able to add Professional Musician back to his job title after joining Courtney Love on stage to play drums with her band Hole during the party’s performance. In the 1980s Scott was the drummer in Los Angeles hair metal band Black Cherry. “It went really well,” Scott recalls, “and I’ve kind of been in the band ever since.” A mutually beneficial performance, Courtney is now repped under One’s celebrity division.

His life, a sequence of varied events each in its own category of glamor, Scott seems the type of person to have been predisposed for social media fame. “Last night I had five events to go to,” Scott tells me. “Tonight I have six.”  In 2010 when Tumblr moved his photo blog, Pop Lipps, to its list of fashion blogs to follow alongside the likes of Terry Richardson’s Diary, Vogue, and W magazine he developed a following some several hundred thousand strong.

“[Nowadays] you are your brand. You become your brand, you help your brand. It’s all interchangeable, and ultimately... the more stuff that raises the visibility of myself, people know that it’s synonymous with the company.”

On October 1st “Pop Lipps,” with a portrait of quirky it-girl Chloe on the cover and a forward by Ms. Love, will hit the shelves in book form. A collection of Scott’s photographs with “only four pages of writing,” the book is “for anyone who likes pop culture — especially fashion and New York life and music and entertainment because,” says Lipps, “that’s essentially what I think my life is.”

SCOTT LIPPS | poplipps.com

When Airrion Copeland started surfing, he wasn’t a black surfer; he was a guy working in a tea shop when an instructor came in to leave flyers and offered him a free lesson. When he showed up for that lesson, he wasn’t a black surfer. He was a guy not knowing what to expect, who was uncomfortable with how tight the wetsuit was and with the weight of the borrowed longboard. And then he was a guy who fell in love with the freedom of being carried by a wave, and with the demand of the ocean to be totally present.

  It was Ted Woods, a friend of Air’s, who first asked him about being a “black surfer.” “The irony was that Ted is a white dude and he had more curiosity and more interest in the nature of race in the water,” Air recalls. “And I as a black surfer was sort of immune to that whole concept in general... until he made me aware of it.” The pair started discussing the fact that Woods, who was in the Peace and Justice Studies program at Fordham, had even asked the question. From those discussions, White Wash was born: a film “about black surfers” that had nothing to do with stunts, and everything to do with the disconnect between black communities and the ocean. Woods convinced Air to be his producer. Neither had any filmmaking experience; they found themselves reading equipment manuals in the car before shoots.

  White Wash opens with scenes of America discovering the ocean. As a narrator proclaims “fun for young and old” at the beaches of Los Angeles, showing black-and-white images of blonde young people frolicking in the waves, arrest footage cuts in showing young black people being corralled off of beaches by white police officers.

It’s part of the modern narrative that blonde, tan men--now some women--surf. It’s a practice that, in fact, was extinguished from black communities hundreds of years ago. White Wash traces the history of surfing in Hawaii and on the western coast of Africa. It establishes strong links between Jim Crow laws, still in effect as water safety was standardized and Americans flocked to the ocean, and the enduring absence of swimming in African American culture.

  Air’s attraction to the White Wash project came from growing up creative: doing theater, writing poetry. This mixed with the development of his awareness, through his conversations with Woods, of just how unusual his experience on the beach was. Looking back on the offer of a surf lesson, he doesn’t know why he said yes. But once he joined the project, he found it becoming a lot more personal.

Newport Beach, CA, boasts the deep, endless sandy beaches of California postcards. The city itself is affluent, and conservative. As of 2000, the population was 92.2% white. People wind down the streets on beach cruisers in bikinis and swim trunks, even in winter.

It is a popular place to surf, and during the making of White Wash Air was out there one day. “It was a good day, great surf,” he remembers. “And one of the dudes next to me, he was just like, ‘What are you doing here?’ And this was in a lineup, you know, which is how we’re all waiting for waves in order, and I was the only black person out there, of course. And it just made me think, ‘Well I’m just surfing, you know?’ and he said, ‘Well, you’re not supposed to surf here.’ And it just took me a minute, because this was my second year, I think--this was 6 or 7 years ago, and I was just like, ‘Wow, I thought I could just surf in the lineup,’ and he was like, ‘Sorry man, there’s no brothers here.’”

  Now, on the beach Air gets recognized for his involvement in the film. When White Wash was released, people expected a “surf film” but when it didn’t give that, they embraced it anyway. Kelly Slater is in it, but not surfing. He’s visibly uncomfortable, discussing the discouraging lack of diversity in his field. Historians weigh in, and prominent black surfers talk about their experiences in the water. Ben Harper narrates and the Roots contributed to the score, lending credibility to a passion project by a dedicated but small team. They managed a theatrical release without a distribution company, through the generosity of audiences who wanted the opportunity to see the film, and learn.

  Since White Wash, Air has continued producing--at the moment he’s focusing on Mr. SOUL!, a documentary about Elis Haizlip and his revolutionary “black Tonight Show” and a feature film, a psychological thriller about a schizophrenic artist who believes she is possessed.

Also in the works: a documentary about Mike Salisbury, the branding genius who coined the Levi’s “501” jean (he asserted that “Shrink-To-Fit Blue Jean” wouldn’t catch), who created the controversial Joe the Camel, and put the one glove on Michael Jackson. Air met him through White Wash--Salisbury designed their poster, which is now in the Margaret Herrick library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He began learning about Salisbury’s career during the process, and was amazed Salisbury wasn’t a household name. “He’s been creating all these magical things for the world and nobody really knows who he is, and I was like, ‘Dude, we’ve gotta tell your story.’”

Mr. Pop Culture, the story of Mike Salisbury, is currently in pre-production. It will be Air’s directorial debut.

    Manual or automatic?

Automatic.

First thing you ate or drank this morning?

Mate green tea.

Last thing you drank last night?

Red wine.

Favorite place to drive?

That’s an interesting one. I like Sunset.

What do you listen to in the car?

My favorite band to listen to is Belle and Sebastian in the car.

Malibu or Hollywood?

Hollywood.

Vegas or Tijuana?

Vegas.

Favorite place to shop?

Well I do AA a lot. I like American Apparel.

Where were you born?

I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Thing you love about California?

The weather.

Thing you hate about California?

The weather. [Laughs]

Favorite place on the Earth?

I would say Anza Borrego.

Place you last traveled to?

Just the dessert.

Where do you consider ‘home’?

Wherever my wife is.

A place that makes you feel calm?

Transcendental meditation.

A place where you always feel excited?

In bed with my wife.

Best quality in a friend?

Integrity.

How do you start your weekend?

Usually yoga.

AIRRION COPELAND | airrioncopeland.com