The Voice of Color

I am not the "Voice of Color," but it does now follow me on Twitter. They tagged me yesterday in this post, "@RealityTrucks Uses PPG Porter Paint & NO other! http://is.gd/aUzwO & has color goals in mind before painting. We're swooning! Thanks :)" 

I think they'll be disappointed (much like all the high-style design outfits that followed me after I wrote so frequently about Dwell Magazine -- clearly having no idea the shame I was capable of accidentally wreaking -- it being entirely true that I've based many of my palettes largely on Adrien Lyne movies. Or as one of my DesignGays put it, "I'm not sure 'Bravery' is the word we're going for here.")

"Voice of Color" was referring to a recent blog where I did, in fact say I am a Porter Girl (although I do use Ralph Lauren and other lines as color-whores. Everyone knows I don't feel like a house is a home until the first coat of Glyptek White Umber has been applied to the trim. And I don't want to be...untoward... but yeah, I admit I had a little spring in my step all day just knowing my "color goals" had made a Search Engine Optimizer swoon -- complete with an emoticon no less. (It is much better than all the Lenten entreaties/entweeties begging me not to bring certain industries crashing to their knees, so to speak, depending on what I decided to give up for Lent.)

I think it's pretty clear that this is a non-commercial blog, but I felt compelled to promptly post on the blog's facebook fan page (which never links correctly here, so consider that a non-endorsement) that Porter Paint did not pay me to say that (I am sure if they had paid me, they might have asked me to phrase things differently), while adding (in what could be construed as a disgruntled tone) that I didn't even get any free paint from them either. (Where's the love?) Just like none of us ever got any free boxed wine after the famous Bandit boxed wine blog which I wrote right after all the FTC disclosure notices made the news, even though I had never been a recipient of what the NYT characterized as "the days of an unimpeded flow of giveaways," which were evidently grinding to a close.

But no,  my Porter-commitment is based on years of hard-won experience and is one of those things in life I just expect everyone to treat as if it's now established empirical fact, and is neither a matter of opinion, nor up for debate, i.e., Coke is better than Pepsi. It's just true. I was raised in a Pepsi household. As soon as I grew up (and realized I was free to go), I moved out, and switched to Coke. I also grew up in a household that painted every few years, but only ever in May, after the Sears Annual Memorial Day Paint Sale. I grew up, and painted my first apartment one Memorial Day weekend, and that was my last trip to Sears.

My understanding is that "monetizing" frequently leads to "tacky," and while I never say never to selling out (if anybody ever asked dammit, and the price was right), I think I can safely avoid the temptation as long as I can resist 17 cents a month for the privilege of pop-ups like this one turning up in the margins.

So, to this day, I remain uncompensated by Ambien, Bacon, or Sam Shepard, which shocks (shocks) me, and to that I would add, Man, I can't even get arrested at Hermes (...except for the fact that, somehow...I feel sure I could. If they locked Oprah out, prison is probably the least they have in store for me.