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Born at 8:12am in the streets of suburban NY – the first and last thing he has accomplished before noon.
Quill is introduced to comic books, which is akin to Da Vinci running into Mona Lisa on the street – the springboard for his creative endeavors is discovered.
Quill watches Flash Gordon on HBO ad nauseam and is mesmerized how terrible it is and feels that he can make a better movie than it. This is the genesis of his “I can do better than this crap” mentality.
Voted Most Talented by his 5th grade class. [First individual award]
Voted Best Business Person [“everything is negotiable”] and Most Wittiest [copying Eddie Murphy jokes FTW!] in his 8th grade class.
Starting public high school after a years of private school, Quill taps into the desperate adolescent boys market eager for female like/lust/love by writing and selling love letters. He writes an award-winning essay on crack cocaine in 15mins and speed-reads the essay in his first public speaking experience forcing the audience to clap in pity and confusion.
More awards – a Most Charming win and 2nd place finishes for Best Dressed and Most Unique [a hanging chad situation]. Quill acquires his high school diploma and takes a semester off to “find himself” until hearing his father’s pay rent or go to school mantra that he was previously unaware of.
The College Years. Two public universities. Double major. One semester of 22 credits with a 3.87 GPA. Consistently asked by all his professors what was he doing at that respective school, which was an odd compliment taken in stride.
Quill eschews credits for straight cash homey and becomes the digital librarian for Lifetime Television. Apparently, Television for Women and a 21-year old don’t mix well. Only oh-so-many times you can watch The Burning Bed without acting out towards all the women in the office.
Digital librarian redux as Quill becomes digital librarian for the digital post department of R/GA Digital Studios. Embarrassed to be called a librarian, he grinds his ass off and is promoted to assistant editor where he spends hours locked in a small dark room in front of big black boxes working on a second and a half of a TV commercial for 70 hours a week. The amount of havoc such cruel and unusual punishment this does to one’s psyche is immeasurable.
The start of the professional writing career, as lil dark rooms and big black boxes be damned! The publishing game truly hasn’t been the same since Quill secured a monthly column for Vibe/Blaze/Spin Ventures that put his life in peril [true story – ask about it] and his creative career into full motion.
While working at RGA and writing for various magazines, Quill begins to freelance for the urban fashion line, Mecca USA, working on the company’s marketing. Working on an apparel line would begin a long history of twice-a-year trips to Las Vegas for the Magic Convention which includes stories that apparently must remain in Las Vegas [clearly that ad campaign is incredibly effective as hell].
Quill becomes the editorial director for the urban apparel line FUBU’s internet project Y2G.com, a lifestyle portal. As the company’s first hire, he was responsible for the site’s creation and maintenance. A multi-million dollar deal from IDT was a result of all his hard work, and in return, he received a couple of prepaid calling cards. This was the first of many hard times where Quill learned life can be shitty and a lot of people suck.
The country is still living in the internet bubble and Quill takes advantage by moving over to become VP, Icon (Celebrity) Platform, for Urban Box Office (UBO). In three months, Quill was able to launch Marion Jones [pre-scandal and public disgrace] and The Williams Sisters’ [pre-Serena being in perpetual Beast Mode] website in time for the U.S. Open (tennis) and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. During this span, the company’s most popular site, Luther Campbell’s site, was relaunched. Soon after, bubble, say hello to pin. Pop! Bye-bye, internet job.
Quill becomes a consultant, a hired gun who takes his talents to Portland, Ore. where he develops a love of Guinness and a hatred of the rain as he serves as Interactive Creative Director for Liquivision Ent. Constantly holding an umbrella, Quill designs an air-to-ground communication device, a 3D early flight collision detection system, and an in-flight entertainment console for headrests. He also works with Nike, co-creating promotional limited edition trading cards for the NBA All-Star Game 2000 only to not get invited to the launch event. Adding insult as if it wasn’t enough, Foot Locker jacked the idea for a back cover print ad without giving credit where credit was most assuredly due.
The Early Aughts included roaming the Earth like David Carradine in Kung Fu. Various projects lead into a freelance role with Berlin, Cameron/Red Cell. When not playing XBox (Halo) in the office or R&Ding at the newsstand buying $15 European magazines, Quill co-creates Boost Mobile’s “Twas…” holiday campaign and worked on the “Anthem” campaign starring Ludacris, The Game, and Kanye West [and yes, there is a funny Kanye West story involved]. Coincidentally, Berlin, Cameron/Red Cell wins AdAge and AdWeek’s Agency of the Year Award in 2004. Actually, it wasn’t a coincidence.
Agency life leads to client life, and Managing Editor for Virgin Mobile USA is the title at the new location. Hired as a thought leader [their words] and possibly a rainmaker [once again, their words], several note-worthy feats were accomplished you’re better served reading in the résumé, but one of them wasn’t riding in a space shuttle with Richard Branson.
For four months and two weeks, Associate Creative Director / Digital Content Editor for the Uniworld Group, part of WPP is the title. Apparently being Associate Creative Director / Digital Content Editor breaks an agency’s bank and forces the agency to let go seven people including the new Associate Creative Director / Digital Content Editor because they can’t afford them. The extra ink in printing my title pushed the company into the red. Who knew…
Head of his own solo ventureship, looking to strategically create content and develop brands and build integrated marketing plans for clients, Island Def Jam Music Group was the first brand smart enough to allow their hand be held as they step into the 21st century. A relaunched website, a new integrated marketing plan [that they oh so wisely ignored despite paying for it] were the results of nearly a year’s worth of work. The work on Don Julio Tequila lead to the acquisition of thousands of friends, as the social media strategy and content was being brainchild by a man who struggled to acquire 300 Facebook friends personally.
The who’s who of clients, projects, pitches, consultations from here on include: Budweiser’s Made In America festival, Gallo’s Carnivor Wine, T.I.’s AKOO clothing line, HBO’s True Blood, Diageo, Redd’s, Essence Communication (the time spent at Lifetime – Television for Women hasn’t taught women that writing for African-American women any easier), Sony Music, United States Marine Corps, Ty Hunter (Beyoncé’s stylist – and no, working with Beyoncé’s stylist does not mean you get to meet Beyoncé, but gives me one really strong degree of separation).
Thanks to Flash Gordon, Quill has worked on every form of media, written a screenplay, acted in a short film, done some voice-overs, was a talking head on NBC’s Today Show as well as radio, had a literary agent, received a shout-out in a book’s forward, and amassed a ginormous magazine collection that sits in his attic.
Quill is a Scorpio/Libra cusp, a Rat in the Chinese Zodiac, and an INFP (The Idealist) or an INFJ (The Protector) or an ENTP (The Visionary) Myers-Briggs Personality Type depending upon the day and according to StrengthFinders, his Top Five Strengths are: Ideation, Strategic, Activator, Futuristic, and Competition.
When Quill isn’t on the pursuit of paper, he is either walking his puggle Gatsby – Dog of Leisure (yes, that is his full name) – four times a day or yelling at the animal for being the most annoying dog on the Eastern seaboard. In between times, he dreams of a variety of nap he wishes he could take, but never has time for; making time to read only the first chapter of way too many books; making Dragon Ball references only geeks or nerds would understand, or drinking beer or brown liquor and posting about it on social media in hopes of getting a sponsorship that doesn’t necessarily bring him a check, but gives him a lot of free product.
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