So... what can you say about the spontaneous costume party that occured later back at the townhouse?
So cute.
So debaucherous.
So weird.
So adorable.
So Nickelback Roadie.
And a shout-out to K-Dizzle, the man on a mission to make the blog, and someone who clearly earned the title of Party MVP. So fun to have him in town!
What other photo could round out the evening?
So disurbingly hot and yet so very wrong.
Watch closely now. The leather pants are stowed away tidily in their pant-cave BUT a large disco phallus and a dozen drunk friends have arrived. Witness the mayhem:
Bride-to-be Jelena wears disco phallus with luminescent pride.
For real though, WTF is up with this photo?
During this night, I found a camera setting that looks way better for clubs and night shots. Score!
KT and D getting their shine on.
KT and The Beckstar, roommates, friends, sister-wives.
Miss Moore (as her students, whom we ran into later, call her) and I work weekends as professional bangs models.
Brandon and Ken! Ninjas of obscure pop cultural knowledge!
Party MVP K-Dizzle, faced with the complicated situation of having a best friend's wife's tongue in his ear.
Obviously any night where the following stars are in alignment is going to get pretty messy.
Check it:
- Jelena in town from New Zealand
- Mel in town from Norway
-Kyle in town from Sunshine Coast
-Steve with new job to celebrate...
and The Beckstar starting the evening off wearing a mindblowing pair of leather motorcycle pants. Hotness!
It is possible that in a parallel universe, this is a typical moment for Beckstar 10892.
Re-tooling and finetuning of the replicants is a full-time job.
My alter-ego: Beefstar the Disco Sleaze.
Photograph: Gjon Mili
So Picasso did it. Beautifully, as you'd expect.
Now this crew - Tochka - out of Japan does animation, graphics and comics. Their Pikapika project is a hypnotic little abstract animation piece, using the same technique Pablo did: flashlights on long exposures. They stitch the photos into this film, which was nominated in the Ottawa International Animation Festival. [Psssst, I know that's a pretty pathetic honour, but don't tell Tochka okay? They were led to believe it was the Canadian Cannes.]
Last Friday was all about good times as we celebrated Cody's birthday by getting hella drunk at the Bayside.
If you don't know Cody, you should probably get a clue, because anytime you want a dance floor, party or really any moment to be 40% more fun, who else you gonna call? Ghostbusters?
As an added bonus, we got to party with Monica, who left the next day for Europe indefinitely. Lucky for her; unlucky for Vancouver.
Our household gift to Cody - a product of our cumulative artistic efforts. Everybody needs a self-esteem collage.
Birthday Boy meets Travel Girl on the dance floor. Can the two belles of the ball share the spotlight? Of course they can!
Brief snapshot. I love the colour in this one.
K-Ro and the Beckstar.
Woo hoo! Scott's signature party face.
I know exactly what story I am telling Allison here. No, you so don't want to know.
My other gift to Cody - commemorating him in fog. Cody's very equestrian you see.
Sure, you could watch that guy doing the Evolution of Dance comedy performance. You know, the one where one guy performs the entire history of popular dance, from the twist to the robot and beyond. Yeah, it's pretty good I guess.
But, if you will, let me present an alternate, more compact, little history, focusing on funk styles which are obviously awesome and rule:
Let's start with an all-too-timely video from one of the first hugely popular masters of the style, Mister James Brown:
Grab your notebook, because the Godfather is taking you to school.
And after James of course came Michael:
This video compilation of MJ's best dance moments? Reason #4510 that I love YouTube.
And... do I even need to 'justify' including the current master of pop dance?
Haters can hate, but I'd like to see them dance like JT.
As an additional bonus, check out this video of one of the many, many unsung masters. This guy, Pop N Taco, taught Michael Jackson to dance. Word.
Breakin'. One of the best movies of the 80's by far. After Revenge of the Nerds, obviously.
Missy said it best I think:
Big Daddy Kane and Public Enemy, Salt'n'Pepa, Lyte,
EPMD, LL, Run DMC, KRS-ONE, Rakim.
Most of them artists used to dance
and still get respected in the street.
Don't be scared to bank-head or bowl-gowl [??]
Or moonwalk as far as I care - it sold Michael Jackson 43 million.
Shoot, everybody had a zipper jacket, and have of these thugs had the glove to match it, you feel me?
Yo it's okay though.
If you wanna be hard and ice-grill,
and Harlem-shake at the same time.
Whatever - let's just have fun.
This is hip hop, man. This is hip hop.
Okay now seriously.
A basement-recorded hip hop track about getting Mario laid, set to visuals from various Nintendo games?
It's like my subconscious has a YouTube account.
Note: This video is NSFW. Which means Not safe for work, BTW.
Which means by the way, FYI.
Which means For your information. I'm just saying!
< billy-madison-voice>
Puma is better! I came out first and made sneakers cool!
Nike is better! I make your feet cushy and styled!
Adidas is better! I rocked Run-DMC!
</billy-madison-voice>
Okay, so the point is that designer sneakers have been around for ages, continue to stay current, and have a cultural significance very separate from their constructed brand personalities.
The Puma video below, a short film produced by Imperial Leisure, articulates this beautifully, don't you think?
Puma: Foot Cred
Okay, now for some random shoes of goodness. These are from solepedia.com, a site that is all over the latest and greatest.
Clockwise from top left:
MadFoot!'s Mad Professor denim sneaker; the amazing Vaughn Bode-inspired Pumas; Clot Air Max 1’s - designed for Kanye West and Edison Chen, for one show only. What?!?; Japanese movie star Kubotsuka Yosuke's signature New Balance; glow-in-the-dark Nikes
Why stop the thrill ride there? Check these fun shoe-related links for more hot leather action:
- Puma has a crazy addictive shoe customizing tool called Mongolian Shoe BBQ.
- Flight Club took first slot in the Dime magazine best boutique sneaker shop in the U.S. rankings. Their site is easy to get lost in.
- nicekicks.com is a sneaker blog. It is way current, with lots of eye candy.
Two friends - Quentin and Clinton - both had their birthdays on Saturday. Oh the delightful hijinx!
As you browse through, consider the following:
- Why is everyone wearing white?
- Why wouldn't you expect polyester granny panties to be incredibly hot?
- Why don't I roll in a Lex all the time?
Mika with Birthday Man... kiiiiind of looking like he's making a poo.
Headless Mika. Way hot!
This girl's crazy meter was reading white hot.
Word. It's me and Clinton drunkenly busting rhymes on the roof. Our biggest lament? The dearth of rhymes for '7'. It'll be a hard year for MC's... no joke.
Edit: So Clinton allegedly thinks I have a 'lame/bad girl rapper' pose in this photo. To which I reply - speak for yourself Mr. Taking-A-Poo-Or-Looking-Like-A-Camel-In-All-Your-Photos.
This was one of the tamest of a disturbing yet insanely hot photo series I found on my camera the next day. Yes, I fully support secret camera-borrowing.
The next two photos are from Joni's amazing flickr set and are such great photos I had to share them.
Tripping the light fantastic.
Probably the best party photo I've ever seen.
Gangsta rap? Lexus? Joni pretty much bleeds Cristal at this point.
There's really no commentary required here...
Check the amazing look he gives the camera at the beginning. Loves it!
While shopping for food for the black dog, Scott saw some monkey jockey footage on a dvd for dogs.
This is Whiplash, a 16 year veteran monkey jockey. This photo is obviously amazing.
So cute! It's like a tiny Charleton Heston!
Now obviously monkeys riding dogs are always going to be funny. I mean, what am I - made of stone?
Of course, I do feel obliged to mention that it's proooooobably not the best thing for either animal. Although they do look like they're having fun, what with the terrified shrieking and the hysterical dashing around the pen.
Animal Rights Florida certainly condemns the practice, saying that training-by-abuse is common. They include a mildly sinister quote from another pioneer in the business:
“I know what I've been through to train a monkey to ride a dog and if I can train a monkey to ride a dog, I can train a rock to do tricks."
- Tim Lepard
So it was Deanna's birthday on Tuesday, and of course we sent her off into the next year of her life in fine form.
Lady D is hands-down one of the most inspiring people I know. She accomplishes more - hell, demolishes more - of her goals than Lance Armstrong, Tony Robbins and Steve Jobs put together. I'm only slightly exxaggerating here.
Anyway, I'm proud to call her a friend so... go D! Happy birthday!
For a forty-year-old, she's got a pretty nice rack!
Laugh while you can ladies. Soon it'll be.... still funny.
Beckstar and Steve. Good times!
So, if I wasn't so ignorant and self-taught in regards to design, I might have known how significant Polish poster art is. Instead, I just go to Internet University and slowly drag myself towards enlightenment. So check it:
The Society of Polish Applied Art, founded in 1902, opposed foreign influences and composed posters with traditional historic forms. These earliest posters revealed Polish folk art, and were characterized by decorative color patterns and a rhythmic flow of line. From the outset, critics in Paris , Vienna , and Munich recognized their distinctiveness. Their approach to design – lightness in conveying the subject, the free manner of associating theme and image – is shared by their successors a half-century later.
Between 1919 and 1939, Polish posters were enriched by a steady stream of progressive European art movements – Cubism, Constructivism, Futurism, and Surrealism. The artists included not only applied graphic designers, but also printmakers, painters, architects, sculptors, and cinematographers. Warsaw became the noted center of poster art in Poland .
After World War II Polish society gradually began to regard poster design as an art form equal in importance to painting. On the one hand there were political propaganda posters drawn from the Soviet influence, and on the other were posters on cultural topics, particularly films as people flocked to the movies. Movie posters that evolved were unlike most in that a scene was rarely shown. Instead the artists tried to capture the essence of the film or use a visual metaphor to sum up the impression of it. This trend caught on and spread to other fields. Posters became an outlet for individual artistic expression.
It's the new age of patronage.
Corporations are sponsoring amazing pieces of art, which have little/nothing to do with their product, in the hopes that they will be associated with the imagination/innovation that characterizes the piece.
We get more art. Artists get more money and artistic freedom. Television and advertising get more pretty.
I'm going to duct tape my cynical brain shut and call it a win-win.
So on that note, this is a completely amazing anime short, done for General Electric's Imagination at Work campaign. Enjoy!
It's a production of BBD and Green Dot Films, directed by Three Legged Legs, who include a great selection of production stills on their website.
Three Legged Legs have actually done many great little shorts - including the completely amazing one below, called Los Angeles Let's Be Friends
In the meantime: go samurai monster anime cuteness! Holla!
A huge happy birthday to one of my personal heroes. A man who is ghettofabulazy to the ultimate degree. R. Kelly, I love ya.
