Profile: Rock Star Smarty-Pants Damian Kulash
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- 4/15/2010 |
- 10:00 am
Here at The Big Brain Club, one of the most common topics we address is how being smart and being cool are not mutually exclusive: you can be both. In fact, lots and lots of people are both. Like this Olympic athlete. And this astronaut. And now, joining the growing list of people who prove that being smart is cool, is a bona fide rock star.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Damian Kulash of the band OK Go.
Many of you probably know OK Go from their wild series of music videos, which are all over YouTube these days. There's this one with the treadmills, and this one with the wacky dance routine. And now, there's this one, with the Rube Goldberg machine. (What's a Rube Goldberg machine, you ask? Watch the video and find out.) So far, this latest video has over 11 million hits on YouTube alone... and all of that since January.
But hold on -- there's more to the story. You see, Damian Kulash isn't just some flash-in-the-pan musician. He's an Ivy League college graduate, he writes the occasional contribution for the New York Times, he's spoken to Congress and to Stephen Colbert about issues like Net Neutrality... and oh yes, he was smart enough to assemble the crack squad of equally brainy engineers who put together the aforementioned Rube Goldberg machine. And he also happens to be a terrific musician. His band is really, really good.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again: The Big Brain Club is not about getting straight As on all your report cards (although that would be nice and would definitely make your mother happy). No, The Big Brain Club is about being the best version of yourself, and for someone like Damian Kulash, that means always being on the lookout to learn new things and get involved in things that he thinks are important.
So what inspires you? Do you want to be the next rock star, or the next astronaut, or the next person to build the world's greatest Rube Goldberg machine... or something else entirely? Whatever it is, don't be afraid to go ahead and get your nerd on right now. You'll be glad you did.
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