There’s not a lot I can say about this at 11pm on a Sunday night after a rough weekend of drinking and bike riding… In fact, all I can say is WTF? Parisian kids go off….
Reminds me of early 90’s hardcore moshing…
I love October, not only is the the weather amazing but it’s also the time of year we see certain horror movies finally make it onto DVD! And this year is no exception…
First up we have the 1981 Slasher classic, The Burning! Featuring Tom Savini’s gory special effects.
Next we have the kinda good in a bad way, Dr. Giggles! It’s silly, in on the joke and has LA Law’s Benny Stulwicz (Larry Drake) as Dr. Giggles himself.
And finally we have From Beyond! Stuart Gordan’s Follow-up to his classic Re-Animator
These are all out now and either available for the first time on DVD, or for the first time in a long time. Hit up a video store (that isn’t Blockbuster) or Netflix.
Reprehensible and just irresponsible? For the past few months, Visa has been running commercials where the whole storyline revolves about shaming some poor sap who dares to slow down the system by paying with cash. Cash!!?? Fuck cash, debt is where it’s at! Thanks for showing us the light Visa! As if our lives weren’t already totally dependent on credit cards, you have to make people feel bad for paying with cash because you can’t get a cut of it?
Yes you…
Italy has decided to give their policewomen’s uniform a younger and sexier look by making stiletto’s standard issue. Take that Doc Marten! Unfortunately in a cost cutting move they fucked up and gave the contract to a Romanian shoe maker instead of sticking with the good old “Made in Italy”, not realizing Romanian sizes don’t match up with Italian norms. You can read all the juicy details here and here.
Well I’m clearly burnt out on clever post titles, but I digress… Ray Pettibon’s name shouldn’t be a mystery to fans of 80s Punk, Hardcore, Post-Punk and Indie Rock. Over the course of the last decade Pettibon’s work has moved beyond album covers, ‘zines and flyers and become somewhat of an art world darling (Not a knock, just saying!). Thankfully he hasn’t lost any of his bite along the way.
The David Zwirner Gallery currently has an exhibition of new political based work by Pettibon up until October 20th. So if you’re all like “Punks Not Dead”, do everyone a favor and get over there.
Raymond Gurule, Death Row, California
The Afflicted Yard Blog has an interesting little piece regarding Death Row inmate art from a a collection organized by the CCADP. Not to make light of the death penalty, but I love this shit… I’ve long been a fan of “Bad Art” or lets be nice and call it “Outsider Art” because it’s sort of the hardest art to create and be earnest about. It’s totally stripped away of all the mechanics, ideologies & bullshit you pick up while in Art School. It is just bare ability (or lack there of), base emotion and personality; regardless of how trite or mundane they may be. There is something really natural, unencumbered and thoughtful about it all that I love. If this interests you, check out more of the death row inmates work at the Afflicted Yard site.
While we’re on the subject, I’d like to draw attention to my absolute favorite body of inmate art ever, the work of John Lee Malvo… remember him? Malvo was the 17 year old D.C. Sniper accomplice of John Allen Muhammad. When these guys were arrested and in the papers each day, the New York Post used to love running two page spreads of Malvo’s prison drawings. These things were so insanely awesome my jaw would drop in astonishment. Unfortunately it’s kinda hard to find some of the really good ones online these days. I’m talking about Muslim super soldiers striking down the infidels as drawn by a 17 year old kid who has seen way too many Van Damme movies. Awesome! Someone really needs to get them all published in a book; this kid is the next Henry Darger. Anyway, I did find this article from four years ago
Swindle Magazine has a great feature on the greatest skating crew of all time (In my opinion), The Bones Brigade. It’s kind of hard to explain what a force they (and Powell-Peralta) were growing up in the 80s unless you were actually a kid back then. They were more than just skaters, they were rock stars. The Bones Brigade’s cultural influence went well beyond their boards and in all honesty, they’re a huge inspiration to the cultural movement we’re all a part of now.
So I’m just minding my business, setting up our new pop-up store (more info to come!), when I notice the Burning Angel crew is outside setting up for a video shoot next door.
Well, apparently the crew thought that the Mishka Pop-Up store would be a perfect location for an impromptu photo set starring Joanna Angel. We couldn’t agree more!
Photo: The Lovely Brenda
Graphically (even way back in 1990) this game wasn’t much to behold, but holy fuck was it the most fun game ever. The storyline alone was strong enough to carry this game. Now if only there was a Sega Genesis emulator for Macs that isn’t buggy.
Keeping on the video game theme, Revenge of Shinobi is another one of my all time favorites! This game had the craziest shit ever: Suicide ninja magic, battling the Terminator, Spider-Man (who cocoons up and lets Batman crawl out of him once defeated) and then Godzilla. What was not to love?
…and finally, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. This is my all time favorite game and the graphics are surprisingly still awesome almost two decades after it was released.
Notice how these are all Sega Genesis games? Best system ever!
So one picture of a cute puppy doesn’t matter. My girl and I got a baby Boston Terrier two weeks ago and she’s the greatest little dog.
Growing up without cable or rather MTV for most of my life, I grew pretty fond and dependent on Friday Night Videos on NBC. Since I have absolutely nothing better to post right now, I’m just going to post… you guessed it, videos!! No rhyme, no reason, just straight-up Beavis & Butt-head style.
KMFDM - A Drug Against War
Pavement - Gold Soundz
Nine - Whutcha Want?
Beastie Boys - Hey Ladies
Helmet - Unsung
Some of you may have seen a glimpse of my Scrooge McDuck tattoo on our blog. Sure I’m a huge Ducktales fan, but in addition to my obsession with the penny-pinching geriatric duck, I’m also a huge Ninja Turtles fan. I’m talking MAJOR. Anyhow, I was killin’ time on craigslist the other day and came across what appears to be a totally bitchin’ TMNT Subterranean Sewer Hockey set. DON’T BE FOOLED!!! I happened to receive this wonderful piece of Turtles merchandise for Christmas when I was younger, and while I will never be able to thank my parents enough for their overall generosity, this was one of the worst toys I’ve ever received.
Do you remember the quote from Blade where he says “Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill?” Well, he must’ve just finished playing Whistler at a friendly round of Sewer Hockey. The manufacturers of this (Remco?!?) thought it was a good idea to form the rink out of a hollow plastic shell, which left the “ice” looking like a washboard. The mechanics were similar to foosball, but the uneven surface made basic player mobility a chore if you were lucky enough not to break or bend the control sticks. Unfortunately, what should’ve been a dope idea (ex. Casey Jones and Shredder as goalies) ended up stinking worse than a turtle head. If you owned this growing up, you probably know what I mean, and if not be thankful. Now get ready for hockey season!
(Despite this thing being over a decade old, it looked exactly like this out of the box.)
And just ’cause I can…
Sadly my Super Powers collection has dwindled down to just Martian Manhunter and Firestorm. Man, I used to love these toys! They were the perfect compromise between excellent molding and playability.
Look at this list, I forgot how obscure they got with the figures. Is that a John Stewart Green Lantern with an afro at #43? The Creeper!?
Thanks to Google Earth, the U.S. Navy has finally been pressured into altering the construction of one of their barracks in Coronado, California. The barracks have been like this since the late 60s, so many a fine officer has gotten warm and cozy inside the heart of a swastika! This was all cool with the US Navy for decades since you couldn’t tell the shape from ground view, but now thanks to all those pesky satellite-view websites, the Navy must now cover their shameful Nazi past. Ha!
Italian Disco superstar (?) Pino D’Angio laying back in the cut, smoking a cigarette while singing his 1982 hit song, “Ma Quale Idea” on some Italian television show. Notice the uber relaxed look on Senior D’Angio’s face that comes with that easy European lifestyle, while he croons. In other news, word has it that in his next blog posting, The Shark will be translating the captivating lyrics of this song for us all.
As a nerdy and angst-ridden young woman, the most influential artist to my preteen years was Tori Amos, so I’ll spare you my musical reminiscing, break the current theme for a sec, and post some science shit.
Like many at the time, Soviet scientists of the 50’s and 60’s were totally down with vivisection, even if it was just to mess around with stuff and see what stuffs they could do. Consequently, commie dogs were shot into space, dead dogs revived, and dogs’ heads were kept alive independently of their bodies. In experiments that were running concurrently, the scientist Vladimir Demikhov thought, “I am a big fan of Sir Didymus and his canine steed from Labyrinth, yet wouldn’t it be awesome if I could create a creature like this that was one singular beast?” So he chopped puppies in half at the torso and attached them on the backs of other dogs, and made sure to take these false Cerberuses out for walksies and drinks of milk (which promptly rolled out of the puppies’ open esophaguses and down the dogs’ backs). (Please note that the link is fine, but don’t watch the video on the page if you love dogs.)
I’m not naive enough to think that worse things have never been done in the name of science, but as soon as I realized that the big dog wasn’t just wearing a little doggie hat in this picture, I stopped giggling and started pondering the profound cruelty of human nature. Apparently these experiments were done to explore the viability of organ transplants, but one wonders why Demikhov couldn’t have just swapped hearts between the dogs and saved them some humiliation? Would humans really be in the market, ever, for surgically-implanted Kuatos? (You might think yes, but FYI, the longest lived dog-dog only lasted a month.) You can read about this experiment and more scientific weirdness on Museum of Hoaxes and in the new book Elephants on Acid.
In other (less grotesque) animal news, Mystery hamster in epic voyage is the best (non-NYPost) headline I’ve ever read. It’s also, maybe, a movie that I would like to see.
So after reading My Pal the Crook’s Saw IV post and the recent nostalgic posts regarding 90’s hip hop [big ups on the NINE cd!], I started thinking about influential artists of my time. One of which has to be Trent Reznor. Along with Maynard of TOOL, Trent’s band Nine Inch Nails has always been a favorite of mine.
I remember buying a shotty VHS copy of a video entitled “Broken” - thinking it was a live concert, I immediately put it in the VCR and watched it with my friends.
What we saw was the most disturbing piece of media I had ever witnessed.
You can thank me later…
