Archive for March, 2006

Ad-ing to the war mess

Ad CouncilAd Council’s new support the troops ads are a thinly veiled pro-war campaign. Its tag line, “Don’t let their enemy’s presence be felt more than yours,” with a classic war movie silhouette at sunset, reaffirms all the noble stereotypes of war. When ever the war gets unpopular we always get hit over the head with this business of supporting the troops, which is a terrific diversion lobbed by those too chicken to fight their own battles. The government (Ad Council is a federal agency) would like to deflect criticism by victimizing the troops twice: first by sending them to an illegal war, and second by using them as a foil against critics. If the desire is to support the troops, send them to New Orleans to help rebuild a city rather than having them destroying ones on foreign soil.

AD COUNCIL LAUNCHES TROOP SUPPORT EFFORT:

“Ad Council President-CEO Peggy Conlon said the campaign is in line with the Ad Council’s traditional role. The Council was created early in World War II in part to support the war effort.
‘We don’t want a repeat of what happened when the soldiers came back from Vietnam,’ she said, ‘because of the politics of the war. We want to strip out the policy and politics and let them know that we appreciate that they are supporting the basic tenants that make this country.’”

(Via Ad Age.)

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Remixing Chevy - Check out before it’s too late!

**Update**

This whole Chevy thingy is going crazy viral.

**

Democracy can be dangerous… to car commercials. You can remix the Taho ad at Chevy’s Web site. But if you blink, it may be too late. Catch these unwitting culture jams before they get tossed down the memory hole:

Here

Here

Here

Slumming Ecology

Salgado-global-slum“Sci-fi happens,” Mike Davis

One of the most interesting, most cantankerous writers on the urban and demographic realities of the new century is Mike Davis, who made a name for himself in his subaltern history of LA, City of Quartz. His latest missive, Planet of Slums, can be viewed as the latest in his series of global catastrophes, including Monster at Our Door, Ecology of Fear, Late Victorian Holocausts, and Dead Cities. Though his reports can be somewhat depressing, they are necessary dispatches that enable us to make better informed decisions about the kind of world we want to live in.

OrionOrion Magazine, a fantastic literary magazine focusing on ecological issues, has excerpted Planet of Slums:

Orion > Orion Magazine > March | April 2006 > Mike Davis> Slum Ecology:

“Urban theorists have long recognized that the environmental efficiency and public affluence of cities require the preservation of ecosystems, open spaces, and natural services: cities need them to recycle urban waste products into usable inputs for farming, gardening, and energy production. And along with intact wetlands and agriculture, sustainable urbanism presupposes a basic level of safety%u2014of meteorological, hydrological, and geological stability, and protection against disasters like floods or fire. None of those conditions can hold in most Third World cities. Suffering under a series of crushing pressures, most recently a quarter-century-old regime of Draconian international economic policies, cities are systematically polluting, urbanizing, and destroying their crucial environmental support systems.”

(Via Orion Online.)

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Old Schooling Chicano Power

Walkout
Update:
Democracy Now! devotes its show to the student walkout in SoCal.

Talk about extracurricular activity! Apparently many of the high school students who walked out of class on Monday in Southern Califaztlan to protest the proposed draconian immigration bill (HR 4437) had been inspired by the film, Walkout, which taught the kids a lesson they probably wouldn’t learn in school about Chicano power. Glad to some new homies carry the torch!

Blog | Max Blumenthal: Walkout! | The Huffington Post:

“Many people I talked with around the city yesterday questioned whether Edward James Olmos’ newly released documentary about mass Chicano student protests against discriminatory educational policies in 1968 East L.A. high schools, ‘Walkout,’ influenced yesterday’s events. In an interview yesterday with Hoy, an L.A.-based Spanish language paper, Olmos refuted this idea by claiming the conditions that precipitated the protests against HR 4437 were drastically different than those that animated Chicano life in 1968. However, a student demonstrator from Manual Arts told Hoy, ‘Before I saw the movie, I didn’t think we could do something like that. I didn’t understand how you could affect change. But after I saw it, I felt in my heart that I could do something.’”

(Via Huffington Post.)

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Propa-car-anda

nature-itll grow backOne of the least discussed aspects of media is the extent to which the auto industry actually shores up programming and content. In our ad-based media system, car commercials represent the single largest group of ads. My non-scientific estimate is that car ads account for roughly 25% of primetime airtime on television. With a slumping car business (Gas prices? Decreased sex appeal?), magazines are now feeling the pinch of withering placements. As media-minded people, it is important to make the connection between the auto industry, oil companies, war, global warming and advertising. This systems view of media literacy is generally eschewed for the more content oriented-sensational topics of sex and violence.

AUTO AD SLUMP CRUSHES MAGAZINES:

“DETROIT (AdAge.com) — Auto advertising in magazines suffered a meltdown in 2005, with publishers losing almost $100 million in revenue. Worse news for publishers: The new year in print ads for cars has dawned a lot like last year ended — dead.”

(Via Ad Age.)

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Earth Swallows SUV!

earth-swallows‘Bout time!

NYC sinkhole swallows up SUV - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com:

“A city street collapsed under a sport utility vehicle early Monday, leaving the vehicle nose down into a deep sinkhole that officials said was caused by a water main break.”

(Via MSNBC)

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Short Attention Span Reviews- PKrunk

Punk:AttitudeRize.jpgThe Internet is all about tomorrow, but the way my schedule is, it’s all about yesterday. But like the pile of books growing in my flat like slime mold (if only they could pay rent!), it may take ten years to get through them, but when the time is right, they’ll get read. Which brings me to a few movies that without the assistance of Netflix, I would never have gotten to, even in ten years. As it stands, a week sitting in the pretty little unopened red envelopes seems like decades in Net time. Anyhow, this brings me to two documentaries that appropriately arrived within days of each other, and in a way are bookends to this all-important religion of mine, DIY (do-it-yourself).

Rize and Punk: Attitude are tributes to two great subcultural movements that emerge from those 5% living in the margins that somehow find each other in the primordial muck of civilization to flower into beautiful lilies of culture. Punk Attitude, a documentary that almost tries to do too much, covers all the bases, going back to early rock and roll, detouring with Warhol and the Velvet Underground, taking a piss with MC5, the Stooges, NY Dolls, Ramones, and so on, culminating with hardcore in ‘81, and jumping to Nirvana. Whew! I agree with Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth) who in the film called the ’80s a secret history. I concur, and I should know because I was there. But more on that at a different time, in a medium with more air than a blog can offer.

In general, Punk: Attitude is a good primer, made by now prolific punkumentarian, Don Letts, also maker of the great video, The Clash: Westway to the World. It’s prime focus, the ’70s, is the film’s strength. For this period I would recommend The Filth and the Fury for a more detailed look at the Sex Pistols, and 24 Hour Party People for a narrative version of British punk’s nascent movement. Of course the recent Ramones documentary, End of the Century, is required viewing.

I haven’t seen the Minutemen movie yet, We Jam Econo, but a friend from the old LA scene complained that it reflected how male dominated the punk music scene was. True, but it was vastly better than any other music movement of the time. I’m still waiting for the DVD of the Decline of Western Civilization (what the hell!), the movie on LA’s punk underground released in ‘81 that got me to shave my surfer boy hair. So it remains, the ’80s is yet to be adequately documented from the vantage of history, although Dogtown and Z Boys definitely does it for skate culture.

On to Rize. This is pop photographer David LaChapelle ’s ode to Krunk, the hip hop clown-inspired street dancing that is part theater, part kung fu, part subterranean Africa, the sum of which is most definitely LA. Krunk makes me happy. It’s the ghetto doppelganger of punk. It is DIY style, uplifting culture, an alternative to BS you see in what my rootsy MC friend Mike 360 calls “shit hop.” Krunk kids remind me so much of what punk felt like pre-Nirvana (not to dis on my boys). Of course the danger of turning the lens on any subculture is to immediately commodify it. To see it is to destroy it. I don’t know the state of Krunk in the wake of LaChapelle ’s film, but I hope it had the same impact on some alienated youth the same way that Decline had on me. Personally I found the documentary a sincere gesture, a moving tribute to a bunch of kids who remain, even today in 2006, an underclass in American because of their race.

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$200 sneakers I want bad!

BrancoThis is slightly old news, but it needs to be said again that Brinco shoes are slammin’, and it is one of the few occasions when conspicuous consumption is in order. Commissioned by inSite-05, artist Judi Werthein designed these for border crossers who face real dangers, but for me they appeal to my inner-alien (I like this better than “illegal”). What attracts me is not the little pocket for pain killers, but the awesome Aztec eagle inlay and border map sole.

Trainers for border crossers:

“The shoes are named Brincos for the Spanish verb ‘brincar,’ which means ‘to jump,’ as in, across the border. They includes a compass, a flashlight because people cross at night. The pocket in the tongue hides money or some Tylenol painkillers because many people get injured during crossing.

Illegal immigrants’ primary mode of transportation is their feet. ‘If they go through the sierra, they walk eight hours. Their feet get hurt. There’s a lot of stones and there are snakes, tarantulas. So that’s why it is a little boot,’ Werthein says. The Brinco is an ankle-high trainer which is green, red, and white - the colors of the Mexican flag. An Aztec eagle is embroidered on the heel. On the toe is the American eagle found on the US quarter, to represent the American dream the migrants are chasing. And on the back ankle, a drawing of Mexico’s patron saint of migrants. A map - printed on the shoe’s removable insole - shows the most popular illegal routes from Tijuana into San Diego.

The artist first passed out trainers for free to migrants, then sold limited edition of them at a hip store in San Diego for $215.”

(Via We Make Money Not Art.)

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Postironic punk superstarlet

tiataquilaOK, the phenomena of Tila Tequila caught my eye (literally), giving me pause about the nexus of celebrity culture and social networks. Her bio reads like a manifesto of post-irony, the sad, commodified afterlife of punk’s impact on capitalism.

As you can see in the comments below from her MySpace page, she bemoans the shallowness of American media and celebrity culture while at the same time celebrating her punk-rock DIY ability to became a starlet sex symbol, as if that somehow makes the cause noble. It doesn’t really matter to me, the point I wanted to make is that this is the first time I’ve ever heard of the punk ethic of DIY (do-it-yourself) being described as a tool for getting famous. This smacks a little of the self-importance of Suicide Girls, which if you haven’t heard, is an “alternative” lifestyle erotica site (again, no judgments, I’m just observing the strange, circuitous path that punk has taken from rebellion culture to commodified rebellion). She’s now one of these readymade multitask artists: cover girl, recording artists, and who knows, movies to follow. Curiously, in her bio she said she grew up in a Buddhist temple. May she have happiness, may she live in peace, may she be free from suffering! (And I mean it, this is not post-irony!) And yes, I got suckered into it too.

From www.myspace.com/TilaTequila:

“Never more than now has celebrity been celebrated so unbrokenly, no unabashedly, and so much without merit. Being famous now has become it’s own reward. Consider American Idol, and ridiculous and addictive shows that somehow instantly translate stardom into celebrity. Tila Tequila has used simple, and some might agree Punk DIY ethics to create her stardom, one fan at a time. Not only is she the hottest property in MySpace, which means she’s one of the hottest women in the world, but she’s almost finished her debut album, and on the crest of an ever rising wave.”

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Apocolypse Pooh! Goes Viral

PooGo to Apocalypse Pooh! - do it- don’t waste a moment- go now!

(Note: you may have to hit enter again on the URL if the movie doens’t load; also the intro is way too long- be patient- it’s worth the wait!)

“See Piglet suddenly transformed into Dennis Hopper’s mind-blown journalist! See Pooh pulled by a runaway kite, accompanied by the Stones’ ‘Satisfaction.’ It’s Apocalypse Now Redux Redux…Disney’s Winnie the Pooh with dialogue dubbed into Coppola’s war masterpiece.”

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Duh! It’s the Media’s Fault You’re Losing the War

MSNBCNBC reports the latest blame game: the war in Iraq is the media’s fault. Kinda funny since the mainstream media, thanks to the Pentagon, is generally only allowed the US military’s POV. I suppose you could blame the government’s PR handlers for losing the war. After all, bombs don’t kill people, cameras do. Right? See, it’s Vietnam all over again (for lame excuses, that is).

sfreporter-th.jpgAnyhow, there are actually valiant journalists going out and reporting as fairly as they can given the circumstances. My colleagues and friends at the Baghdad Project photographed and interviewed Iraqi civilians without censoring any views. Some even expressed gratitude for the invasion (this was in the early days of the war). Reporter Zelie Pollon and photojournalist Laurent Guerin (a French veteran of the Lebanese civil war) performed a valiant job under dangerous circumstances, which shows that if you let journalists actually do their jobs, perhaps you would have the proper intelligence necessary to make an honest decision before you start the next war. (Of course that also means you would have to read some history and learn about the country you are targeting, too, before killing 30,000 people in the name of peace).

Oh well. If you feed disinformation into the corporate media, and the corporate media reports that disinformation uncritically (i.e. Judith Miller at the NY Times), then you should also blame bad disinformation for the war. If you believe your own lies repeated in the media, and then claim that you were misled by your own lies, well then, we call that an echo chamber (and that is the most G-rated comment I can make given the true incompetence of the situation).

Debate rages over media’s role in Iraq war - Nightly News with Brian Williams - MSNBC.com:

“Are the images Americans are seeing from Iraq due to the level of violence or is it just the messenger? And, as President Bush suggested Tuesday at a White House news conference, are the media also being used by the insurgents?”

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Shop Drop - Drop In!

Some pals in New York City are doing this really cool art project. Read below for details. If you are in the city, do drop in. From their announcement:

Shop Drop

SHOPDROPPING.NET EXHIBITION 2006, opening party on April 1st, 7 to 9 pm.

(shop drop) v. To covertly place merchandise on display in a store. Primarily used in tactical media projects and art installations. A form of “culture jamming” s. reverse shoplift, droplift

Please joins us for the unveiling of a special project at Maiden, Brooklyn.

If opening up a boutique/independent designer showroom is today’s equivalent of joining a rock band, we at Maiden, Brooklyn, an artist-run storefront venue and workshop dedicated to the latest in DIY design and fashion, would like to take a step back and pay an homage to the neighborhood’s past. Beginning on April 1st, we are turning the front room of our space at 252 Grand Street into an old school bodega.

As part of his on going Shopdropping project, artist Ryan Watkins-Hughes curates an open call exhibition of art placed on store-bought cans of victuals. Coming out of a tradition that is part guerilla street art, part culture jam, Shopdropping places stimulating visuals in unexpected places. By covertly sneaking into grocery stores and supermarkets and replacing merchandise with altered soup cans, Ryan anonymously activates the visual space usually taken over by corporate branding.

For the show at Maiden, Ryan asked over 40 artists to contribute their art. After placing the submissions on standard 15.5oz cans, he will display them, NY Deli style, on narrow racks lining the walls of the store. Also, through the cooperation of some Grand Street storeowners (and to the surprise of others), the project will continue in several spaces along the street. The visitors to Maiden, Brooklyn will be provided with a detailed map of the neighborhood spots where the cans can be found, dispatching them on an appropriately timed Easter Egg hunt, but for cans. Hilarity will ensue.

MAIDEN, BROOKLYN 252 GRAND STREET BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 11211 (718) 384-1967

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V is for Vitriol - but it’s still fun!

VHere is an ambiguous short review of an ambiguous movie. Rather than spoil the plot, which is fairly nuanced, I’d say that first of all, V is for Vendetta is better than the Matrix Trilogy, the first follow-up by the Wachowski Brothers. The film is not dominated by action sequences, and is philosophically more complex. As a dystopia, the film has the usual tropes of jack-booted thugs, fascists donning couture black and heroic individuals who save the world. What is novel about the movie is that it provides a handy tool set for deconstructing the psychology of power, fascism and terrorism. Located in the very near future, there is plenty of commentary about current events– as we should all know by now, the future is always about the present. The popularity of this film will be a test of the gestalt of our times. Its gray morality surrounding terrorism is a lot muddier than the year following 9/11 when Bush could say you are either “against us or for us” and people would just nod in blind approval.

For the record I’m opposed to all forms of violence, including terrorism and war, so I don’t casually recommend this film, but its nuanced treatment of the matter lends complexity to politics and violence, which John Kerry failed to communicate effectively in the last election. For these reasons I think it will be a positive addition to the pop discourse of our era.

The film’s tag line, on the other hand- “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people”- is tricky. Like other catchy feel good slogans, such as “Fight the Power,” it sounds better for an ad campaign than as a unifying battle cry. (Hey, wait, it is a an ad slogan- for the film!) The trouble with the phrase is that it promotes fear- that somehow inducing fear is a desired political strategy. That is the ultimate failure of terrorism (beyond its violence): that it doesn’t build community but splatters it. There is no worm hole to community organizing. Typical of media, this film promotes a short-cut to real social change.

Likewise The Matrix also lacked a social strategy. That some Jesus-like character, “The One” (Neo), would save the world is a very disempowering message. When will we wake up to the realization that we are the ones we have been waiting for? No more heroes! No more rock stars! (See, punk is not entirely dead!)

One final thought. The credits roll with the Stone’s “Street Fighting Man,” but it should have been the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the UK.” Come on, get with it!

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Bordering Photography and Activism

migrant-minuteman.jpgWhat happens when you give to seemingly oppositional social forces disposable cameras? Hopefully a more humanized image of conflict, in this case the Minutemen vs. illegal border-crossers coming from Mexico. The Border Film Project supplied disposable cameras to immigrants in Mexican shelters and asked them to document their journeys. The vigilante Minutemen group who are patrolling the US-Mexico frontier were given a similar opportunity.

Although the process would seem neutral, one cannot help but see more clearly power relations between racial groups and nations. Sadly, the largely white Minutemen appear no better than emasculated males who are “playing army” in a situation of greater chaos in which they feel powerless. (View a chilling anti-immigrant ad by one of the Minutemen founders, Jim Gilchris- requires Windows Media Player.) Of course I am biased and feel inclined to empathize with the plight of the immigrants who face tremendous stress in their environments as well. The band Control Machete from Monterey remind us in their lyrics that it is the US, after all, that keeps beaming images of prosperity and magic through the media. Are we not Oz?

Border Film Project:

WHY WE DID IT:
To simplify the complexities of immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border, and to show the realities on the ground. To date, we have received more than 1,500 photographs and more continue to arrive everyday. The pictures speak for themselves. They capture the humanity present on both sides of the border. They tell stories that no news piece or policy debate or academic study could convey. They are non-partisan and inclusive”

(Via Huffington Post.)

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Iraq Three Years Later

Humpty DumptyTwo words: Humpty-Dumpty.

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Weekly Meme - As of today you are additionally $30,000 in debt

Death and TaxesThis morning you woke up buried in $30,000 more debt, thanks to the new Congressional budget, and what you will pay in taxes to cover it.

This image, created by the artist mibi, does a nice job of mapping out what taxes actually pay for. Guess what the big circles represent… The image speaks volumes that can leave one utterly dumbfounded and momentarily speechless.

Follow the link to see a bigger version:

deviantART: Death and Taxes: … by ~mibi

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Two Wolves

Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a debate that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between 2 “wolves” inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

More News Outlets, Fewer Stories: New Media ‘Paradox’

Implicit in the following LA Times story is a lament from the industry (yet more evidence that all media do is report on themselves) that the era of an informed citizenry is a thing of the past because there will be no infrastructure for information gathering. Corporate media love to think of themselves as the saviors of civilization, but I challenge the assumptions that a) information makes us better citizens, and b) information makes us more knowledgeable.

Media are in the business of self-defining their own reality and defining the “public.” They want us to buy into their self-importance. Of course they will be pissed that people stop reading the spun-out nonsense that fills space between ads. It takes me exactly five minutes to read a newspaper, and another five minutes to grieve for the loss of tree pulp that created it.

PS One of the fringe benefits of a declining print press:

Six Jobs That Won’t Exist In 2016, such as advertising creatives.

More News Outlets, Fewer Stories: New Media ‘Paradox’ - Los Angeles Times:

“A ‘new paradox of journalism’ has emerged in which the number of news outlets continues to grow, yet the number of stories covered and the depth of many reports is decreasing, according to an annual review of the news business being released today by a watchdog group.”

Some More Thoughts on the Whitney Biennial Part II

Read Part I here.

The-DoorDadadelica remixes the sublime: the awesome strangeness of the impermanent hybridreal that causes the human ego to flitter when facing the greater chaosmoses. Jim O’Roarke’s “Door 2005″ video installation does just that. On the peripheral walls are shuttering doors in stereo, presumably alluding to the doors of perception, and facing you is the slow-mo landing at dusk of an airliner, all accompanied by a minimalist, comforting dreamy drone of sound. (Unfortunately the Village Voice’s Jerry Saltz singled this out unfavorably).

Paul-ChenPaul Chen’s mesmerizing video installation projected an oblong canvas on the gallery floor depicts a silhouette of a telephone pole (a stand-in for a cross) stabilizing our reference point as various objects like cell phones and eyeglasses float to the sky, reminiscent of the rapture. Eventually bodies fall from outside the frame no-doubt invoking the twin towers, but also to another Biblical allusion. Here sentient machines hum along while things blow apart are sublime, ecstatic, and trippy. The reflection off the floor created a beautiful splat of diffused video color on the wall, like a reverse reflection pool. It was funny to see how people were nervous to cross the boundry of the projection as if it were a real object. I was tempted to walk across it just for the sake of transgressing, but I chickened out. The institutional frame of the museum held sway over me.

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Piecemeal Thought on the Whitney Biennial Part III: They Hate America

Read Part I here.

Read Part II here

down-by-law.jpgHere is a note on the Fifth Floor Mezzanine Biennial subshow, “Down by Law“: Yeah, yeah, America (oh yeah, Amerika with a ‘k’) is a terrible dark place of torture, etc. Tell me something new, enlighten me. One piece that really deserves attention, though, is Kerry Tribe’s video of transferred 16mm film, “Untitled (Potential Terrorists).” Riffing on Warhol’s screen tests, she has ordinary folk (actually actors who responded to a casting call) staring into her lens, revealing faces that are more typical of America than those who ran through the Factory. This was a particularly subtle and beautiful portrait of potential: that any one of these people could be a headline or a mug shot some day reminds us that no one is entirely immune from their shadow.

Another highlight is a cool little illustration by Fred Tomaselli, titled, “Self-Portrait,” which presents a constellation of all the bands he has seen (including the Minutemen!).

The show, curated by The Wrong Gallery, is very cluttered, which is fitting since it mimics the small, paranoid feeling one gets while absorbed by fear. I guess I’m tired of feeling crappy about the world.

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