Tumblecizing is the new tae-bo...

One more quick clip to share while I wait for my ride. Destination: a karoake bar south of the border in Birch Bay. Sweet debauchery!

So Amy Sedaris, comedy ingenue and co-creator of the best character to hit television in years - Jerri Blank, was on Stephen Colbert, one of the other leads/creators of Strangers with Candy.

As any fan of the show/personalities involved would imagine, things get a little crazy.

The really good moments start at about the 4 minute mark.

Thee Goth Blog!

This may be bad timing, considering the recent attention 'goth blogs' have gotten after the Montreal shooting, but this is some good business.

My friend Russ (who is not a goth but plays one on youTube) makes movies. Lots and lots of movies, which totally rule. This new series is an all-time favourite - the life and times of an aging, unstable and lonely goth - the dark tragedy of spiced wines and silk brocades.

Approximately 99.99999% of all goths will never shoot their classmates. Their life of luxurious despair is not a threat. Although they do look more than a bit ridiculous on sunny days. Enjoy!

If this has whetted your appetite, check out more Thee Aging Goth on his site. Good times, good times.

More Banksy!

Okay, so our friend Banksy is making quite a little art darling out of himself.

Here are some shots from his latest "secret L.A. warehouse show", called Barely Legal, which he describes as follows:

"This show has been quite a big undertaking for me; it represents nearly a month of getting up early in the morning. Some of the paintings have taken literally days to make. Essentially, it’s about what a horrible place the world is, how unjust and cruel and pointless life is, and ways to avoid thinking about all that. One of the best ways turned out to be sitting in a warehouse making 50 paintings about cruelty, pain and pointlessness. You get immune. I painted one picture of a Western family eating a picnic in a village of starving African children called I HATE EATING MY DINNER IN FRONT OF THE NEWS, and got so obsessed with painting each and every fly on those kids' faces, I never once thought about a starving kid for a second.

I guess the show is about wanting to make the world a better place whilst not wanting to come across like a jerk. Imagine what would happen if we took all the money we spent on weapons and gave it to the poor. Then I'd have to grow my own cocaine; my manicurist would kill me."

While I appreciate the concept and the installation is beautiful, I'm ambivalent about the painting of live elephants for art. Let's hope he fed him lots of peanuts, I guess. Ah hell, I shouldn't be so uptight - it's a meaningful and clever show. I'm all for the Banksy.

Also, in other 'Banksy is everyone's hero' news, he snuck a life-sized version of a the ubiquitous hooded Guantanamo detainee into Disneyland. Ya gotta love it.

Ho. Lee. Shit.

Goddamn this guy deserves a beating so badly. This has nothing to do with him being in drag, which can be a delight when done by less of a douchebag [see below]. I f'ing hate John Travolta.

Code! You will obey me.

No, these are not my glasses. I just covet glasses and envy people with imperfect vision.

I've working waaaay too long building the shit out of this website. I do love to step into the code, especially on a cool mind-bending project like the volunteering form section, which is some bad-ass html/javascript/css form programming if I do say myself.

But... seriously. I just wrote the words "bad-ass html/javascript/css form programming". Even I know that's too nerdy to live.

Especially when I was up late last night partying and living the good life for Katie's birthday bash. I should really be on the couch with a spliff in one hand and the remote in the other. Ah, enough bellyaching. Let's bring on the funny.

Speaking of marijuana, I found a funny website - the Street Drug Slang Dictionary put out by the Indiana Prevention Resource Centre. It's not that I don't see the purpose of such a project, but it's pretty comedy nonetheless.

For example, they list the following hilarious marijuana-related terminology:

Alice B. Toklas = a marijuana brownie
Broccoli = marijuana
Dinkie dow = marijuana
Fly Mexican airlines = to smoke marijuana
Goof butt = marijuana cigarette
Boot the gong = to smoke marijuana

You've almost got to feel sorry for the creators of this site, not to mention the teens in Indiana currently having "I know you were using Dinkie dow! Don't lie to me!" yelled at them by their parents.

More Great Art...

Check out this collaboration by some artists from right nearby - in Victoria. Their installation was my favourite thing at 2005's Swarm, the annual fiesta of alternative art, that I only saw one show of last week, much to my chagrin, while I was on the way to have drinks at a new restaurant/lounge with unisex bathrooms in Gastown. But I digress.









Say whaaaat? If it's not great art to make a magical post-apocalyptic environment featuring a tiny revolving world, a one-man cave and countless other surprising, delightful and interactive treats, then we should all just give up and let some other species have a chance to run things. Like the dolphins did for us that day so long ago. Again, I digress.

This show was so rad. The space was totally transformed into a futuristic cartoon wasteland full of rotting technology responding to viewers in odd and incomprehensible ways.

See? It's a year later and I'm still gushing about it. Too awesome!

Plus, I have heard from people that live in Victoria that Emi Honda had an amazing grad show/piece - with a robotic bird that flapped its wings in inverse relation to the real-time traffic congestion data. Talented much?

I would love to know what she/they are working on now. Local artists to boot!

The artist are Scott Evans, Emi Honda and Jordan McKenzie. The piece is called The Great Scattered Remnants. None of above has a good web presence. The gallery's description is as follows. I'm James Lipton. Have a great night.

The Great Scattered Remnants is a collaborative, growing environment, constructed by Scott Evans, Emi Honda and Jordan McKenzie, long-term collaborators from Victoria. Using a wide variety of specifically chosen found objects and post-consumer detritus, as well as lo-tech electronics and sound, the artists create a fictive site that splices traditional notions of nature with the surrealist synthetics of our popular, often apocalyptic, imagination. Referencing science fiction, psychedelia and the pictorial tradition of landscape art and Natura Morta, The Great Scattered Remnants is a place where plastics repair themselves, the artificial acts naturally and where we sweat glycolic acid and grow our own acrylic nails. Half dream world, half sociological critique, this exhibition transplants the artists' subconscious into the physical space of the gallery through a complex network of stream-of-conscious installations.

My Favourite Illustrators

So how much do Kozy and Dan rule?

Well, you tell me - how many other absurdist, whimsical, satirical, futuristic illustrator couples do you know? I can only begin to describe how cool their work is. They're L.A. based, and do work for clients like Giant Robot, Postal Service, Tokion Mag, Weezer... and about a million others.

It's so nice to see true innovators, and they don't get much better than this. Hugely inspiring.


The Amorous Nudibranchs Paint the Town Red
(and Orange and Yellow and Green and Blue and Violet)...


Kin-san's Business Trip


The Yum-cha Militia
(My Mother thought she had SARS, but it turned out to be PMS)

Plus - those names are so great. Click any image above for a full-size of all three - the images above are small crops of panoramic goodness. They may take a while to load (they're huge) but it's well worth the wait.

Birthday Fun!

So it's time to give much love to one of the most ghettofabulous divas of all time - K-Ro, aka KT aka Mrs. Simpson aka First Wife. Honestly on the short list of most amazing people walking this fine earth, she embodies disco sparkle to the maximum.

I mean seriously - this photo was taken right before her wedding. Bad ass! And her husband is, among other things, the inventor of the much-coveted disco ball helmet. Bad ass!

They're also my current roommates, and they've been down for the Beckstar since back in the day. Much, much, much love for the birthday and beyond.

Angle Dance!

So did anyone else watch and love 80's classic Square One television as much as I did as a kid?

Seriously now. A kid's show about math? With music videos and guest spots by people like Weird Al and the Fat Boys? With songs like Fraction Rap? It's so clearly awesome I can't even deal.

More words of effusive praise will follow, but in the meantime, enjoy this delightful 80's Angle Dance.

Amnesty

So today is, as you all know, the anniversary of some sad things - the World Trade Center bombings in 2001, and the coup in Chile in 1973, both of which affected people I know and care about. Without getting too deep into complex subjects, I just want to quietly pass on some images from Amnesty International campaigns over the past year.






These last ones were done by the Swiss firm Walker Werbeagentur Zuerich. The tagline is 'It's not happening here. But it's happening now.'











I love the bus shelter ads - they are amazing. I would love to see them in weather different from the photos - a rainy day or some such. The other ones are smart too.

But more importantly, respecting and fighting for fundamental human rights - political, personal etc. - seems a courageous and beautiful response to the kind of violence remembered on days like today.

STOP. Kelly time.

Some random R. Kelly video screencaps to start your Monday.









The R. Kelly love is getting slightly unhealthy. I take pride only in knowing I'm in good company - there was a unanimous positive reaction to Trapped on the weekend, and a bit of googling about tells me that: the Comedy Panel screenings are happening/have been happening across the country; Aziz Ansari can't stop talking about R. Kelly in his stand-up shows, and the University of Boston is staging Trapped in the Closet sing-a-long nights. Sweet!