I mean come on. Who hasn’t secretly wished that you would one day see a cute scrunchy faced little put dressed up like Bizzy Bone and playing with a crystal ball. That’s exactly what you can get from the “bawwww” inducing new video from Bone Pugz, the all pooch BT&H cover band (visual cover band?). Apparently Bone Pugz aren’t too interested in the harmony aspect of the whole operation. But that’s okay because that pug is wearing a tiny little Yankees beanie.

And that pug is wearing a Raiders snapback. For whatever reason they chose to do “1st of Tha Month” and release it like 3 days after April 1st. Kind of missed the boat in a couple of ways there. Bone Pugz don’t care what you think though. To Bone Pugz you’re no better than a beggin’ strip. Bone Pugz are the hardest motherfuckers in the game.

What’s new, readers? This is Casper here with an update from the bowels of Ponyville. You thought that whole grown ass man-MLP:FIM (That’s My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic for those not in the know) thing was over, huh? Think again, dudes. Not that you remember or anything but once upon a time I wrote an exposé on the brony subculture of eccentrics and the imprint they’ve left on copyright laws/media restrictions. With that, you can be certain I have a good handle on this fascination, or so I thought before stumbling over this troubling piece of footage. YouTube and the ‘bronies’ meet yet again and it ain’t cute or cuddly this time around either.

If you’re even mildly into collecting anything you’ve likely seen one of the kajillions of “unboxing” video clips hanging in the dark corners of the global sharespace like cobwebs. But wait, here’s a little something for the newbies. An unboxing is the general term for the act of removing an item from it’s original packaging but is usually specifically reserved for a grab-bag kinda deal where a collectible has multiple variations yet those variations are undisclosed and/or invisible to the buyer. Take for instance the process of unwrapping a package of Topps cards and finding a Cal Ripken Jr. rookie card (I know I’m a little behind the times) mixed in there or in this case digging into a Happy Meal to find a Twilight Sparkle pony. Got it? Good.

There’s something noticeably different about this specific unboxing video though. Sure it has all the social awkwardness, palpable tenseness, and lisp-laden monologuing to be expected from something of this nature. Those features are taken to such an extreme that it’s hard to accept this dude isn’t emotionally handicapped. I know it’s a bold statement but after making it halfway through this most of y’all will have my back on it. For one, this guy talks as if he’s been hermetically sealed in plastic for the better part of his life much like the “Rainbow Dash” and “Pinkie Pie” figurines at his disposal. I can’t make out even half of what he says, mostly incoherent mumbling to himself, and the best/worst part is when he gets up to demand a different toy from the McDonalds employee. She’s not too bad looking either. Heck, he could’ve played this whole lonely horsey thing to his advantage. Maybe she is one of those equally as disturbing girls that take pride in “fixing” boys.

He blows his chances (as if there were any other possible outcomes). The moment he opens his mouth the girl makes a run for the door like a frightened rabbit as he continues to talk at her. Does this guy have a definable mental incapacity or is he just a laughably pathetic dreg? A product of the incessant breastfeeding and PC wimpification that plagues this country’s male population, perhaps? Whatever the case, I think it would serve him well to drop the dolls for a minute and start thinking about rejoining reality. Alwight?

Bjork really is one of the coolest people in the universe. How come? Because when she explains how TVs work, you listen. I like her accent. I always have. She just has this way of making everything sound wondrous, spiritual and cool. Like you just want to listen to her tell you about Quantum Physics all day long. I wish Bjork was my science teacher back in the day.

In this video, she is kind enough to dispel some of the rumors about Television. She talks about hypnotism, and the way TV can infiltrate your brain and fill you with subliminal messages. She carefully removes the back of the TV set and shows us the little city inside. An Icelandic poet scared Bjork of TV, but a Danish book is helping her understand and process the fear.

Man, remember when some woman in an all over print crewneck taught you to lie down while a bunch of silly imitation New Orleans jazz played in the background? Yeah, I mean, me neither, but that in no way detracts from the cuteness of this video. This video is cute as hell. The husky puppy apparently doesn’t know how to lie down, and someone’s gotta tech him, right? Right. Cool.

While Tak was shooting the D.A.R.T. Fall/Holiday 2011 Lookbook in Brooklyn, Nightbomb hung out and documented the action. The gang met up at Affinity Cycles and then rode over to Greenpoint and posted up to shoot photos. From there it was out for some good old fashioned burlesque fun!

This is old but man, is this really cute. Featured in this video are a bunch of owls and I think they’re all pretty cute. A lot of people think owls are scary but that mentality cannot possibly persist after viewing this clip. One of these owls, the particularly round one looks kind of like it’s CGI. If it’s actually real than I need to get an owl.

Also, might I make a suggestion? Listen to Drake’s “Marvin’s Room” while you watch this. I don’t know how I figured this out (Not true. I was listening to that and being really emotional and then started watching these owls) but the two go together stupendously. Between Drake’s puppy dog crooning and the owls’ big cute eyes, it’s like heaven.

I spend a lot of time in dog parks. I think people find it weird sometimes that I go to these parks sans pet of my own just to play with all the other dogs. A dog park made specifically for small dogs actually just opened up in Washington Square Park, and it’s very likely that, on a day I’m not here at Mishka, I’m in that small dog park, playing with small dogs. I also like to eat cookies.

Though I generally try to post on topics related to comedy, or concerning heavier subjects that I know much more about than most people, this doesn’t necessarily pertain to either of those. This is a video of Maggie the English Mastiff and Dude the Chihuahua playing and being cute. I don’t know, I guess this could be funny in a way, and I definitely know a ton about dogs, so it’s kind of in line with my usual posts. Alright, here’s  my resolve: From henceforth, I will post on subjects of comedy, weighty issues that I know a lot about, and cute things like dogs. Specifically small dogs. Cool.

Why hello there. You are well, I trust. I am the same old sameness…that dude who pops up here and there, hither and thither, and spouts a few words about whatever and then disappears for 60 days or so. You know. That guy. Teh Hateball.

Speaking of hateballs, Team Hateball just recently took a quick little jaunt out east to NYC, and while there, we were able to do all sorts of fun things like catch up with our good buddies over at MishkaNYC (as pictured in this rather darling shot of Romy and my little dude) and just sort of soak in the sights and sounds and, well, whatever.

Granted, having a kid and a stroller and a diaper bag and a backpack handy at all times doesn’t make for the quickest of quickstrikes ever imagined, but we were able to get out and hit the streets a bit, which, as you know, means that I had my camera and was annoying the bejesus out of my away party by stopping. And stopping. And stopping.

But why dog? Y U b stpng SO ruff #homeBoy #srsly?

To take photos of ‘graffiti’ and ‘street art’ of course.

I didn’t go balls out like I normally do in Tokyo, but I was impressed by a few ‘tags’ and/or little bits and pieces of stuff, and decided that I’d like to share them with you here. Please enjoy.

“Mole Man”, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn

“Flea Gang”, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn

“Crab Daddy”, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn

I was really intrigued by this trio of ‘tags’ in Clinton Hill…not really due to any artistic quality they possessed (actually, quite the opposite) but because they were so strange. So very strange. As I walked around and collected these shots, I started to imagine a running gang of dudes (maybe little kids…maybe little kids like those found in Fortress of Solitude) who went around ‘Getting Up’ for the sole purpose of confusing and intriguing middle-aged tourists like me. Hum.

“BAAL”, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn

Surprised to not have ever seen other ‘Baal’ tags. So biblical and foreboding. Seen on the back door to ‘Mike’s Diner’ in CH which happens to be the blow-up church spot on Sunday mornings. My dog was so down with my grits that he fell asleep.

“All You Dead Fucks”, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

“Phil Cony”, LES, Manhattan

“Creepy”, LES, Manhattan

These last two were either on the same wall or in the same alley…again: very outsider…is this the first time the world has heard the term ‘Graf Brut’? Either way, I want to know who this Phil Cony person is…but I have to assume that this is not him.

If you’re interested in seeing some of the other street art shots I nabbed, go ahead and hit it here. I had a fantastic time—a fanTASTIC time—and did a lot more than just take shots of street stuffs. If you’re at all interested, I made an SAST version of my photo tirade that you can hit here. I won’t embed it since it’s about a 70/30 ratio of photos of ‘stuff’ and photos of my ‘kid’.

Ding. Hope everybody’s summer was fantastic.

So let us start with the music. Because without music, there isn’t much going on, anywhere.

Dōjin music could be called “indie” if “indie” music here wasn’t released on major labels. Dōjin music could be called “independent” if “independent” music here wasn’t such a political endeavor. Though in actuality we are talking about an independent mode of production and distribution, dōjin works are also always the product of a pre-existing product being whole-heartedly appropriated by its fans. Instead of labels, the music comes from “circles” (サークル). An artist can belong to several circles as well as independent and commercial labels equally. The circle is here for the listener to partake in the artistic and mercantile experience outside of mainstream networks.

What results is a virtually infinite creative license: practically no expectations or accountability expected from your circle, besides that of making something worthwhile. Which in turn means that a lot of dōjin music will not be all that exciting, since it basically functions like an open-mic. It also means a bird the size of a mech-ostrich being flipped at copyright laws: sampling has become so super easy and rampant that it is basically expected in dōjin music, and tracking down artists to get royalties is tantamount to sending a message in a bottle – hoping that whoever gets it is not only the right person, but also willing to pay instead of just changing pseudonym to do it all over again with the next series.

Circles are quite literally peer-to-peer hubs, and since music does not have a long turnaround time it should be no surprise that it circulates through the magic of the internets. Sites such as Ocremix & Anime Remixh gather thousands of torrents, some of them weighing a hundred gig, of stuff you HAVE TO sort through. It’s part of the experience, and it’s also what makes these micro-productions successful. Some people will want to hear re-orchestrated versions of 16-bit tunes, while others will be content with a bit of timestretching / beat layering to an insert tune so they will listen to it over and over (and over) again. The method is called “arrange”, because sometimes “remix” sounds too presumptuous. So if you don’t know where to start? Plug in the name of your favorite Japanese cultural artifact into Youtube and add the word “arrange” to it. Go ahead, try it. Watch the hugeness of this thing I’m talking about.

Pretty quickly, you will see some names crop up a lot more than others. Vocaloid is one of them. Vocaloid is not a band, or a person, it’s a piece of software made by Yamaha with all the presets you need to make your own anime theme. Its most prized feature is a concatenative vocal synthesizer. You know how an electro-larynx sounds? Well the concatenative synthesizer works just the opposite by breaking down sonic units into lengths that are meaningful, not arbitrary. And it sounds damn good. The singing you are hearing on the video I posted above? It’s all synthesized. Although now they have added “Flex” which basically turns Vocaloid into a voice box. Vocal cosplay. AND IT GETS BETTER.

In 2007 a start-up named Crypton Future Media came up with Hatsune Miku. Hatsune Miku is not a band or a person, it’s a piece of software based on Vocaloid that is entirely anthropomorphized into the cartoon chick on the cover. The floodgates were open. Dōjin songs were written about Hatsune Miku using Hatsune Miku thus sung by Hatsune Miku. Dōjin animators gave life to the character and dōjin writers published books of her stories.

A label was founded by fans just to release and promote works relating to Hatsune Miku. There are nationwide competitions for people to sing and dance their favorite tunes in their favorite character’s costume. Once an idea is planted in these fertile minds, it takes on a life of its own to multimedia proportions that most of the world will not even hear about. So it goes. Head out to Know Your Meme if you want to know more, because we have to move on here.

Another dōjin success story that is worth mentioning here is Touhou Project. Touhou Project started out in the mid-nineties as a dōjin shoot’em up release first on NEC PCs and later (2000s) on to Windows. A dozen games were released in the franchise, generating official (yet still dōjin) merchandise such as manga novels and soundtrack CDs. And I’m sure you get my drift here: storylines blossomed across the land and the CDs sampled to a pulp, giving birth to new circles of Touhou Project arranges, with the benediction of the project originators. Then – because Japan has no fear of the meta – those dōjin extrapolations of dōjin products appear into commercial products.

The ramifications are extraordinary in length. One of the most prolific franchises in terms of generating dōjin content is of course Final Fantasy. With the countless games and carefully created universe surrounding ultra-rich characters, the series begged for dōjin artists to run away with content. There are hundreds of arrange CDs available with just FF material in rock or electronica flavors, even though Square Enix has and will send a C&D to anyone who even attempts to publish a new one. In a free market’s free market economy, you most definitely cannot stop the crooks.

I will end this with a word about IOSYS, the most famous – or at least the farthest-reaching – dōjin band there is. They epitomize the style by playing all kinds of music from what are essentially radio jingles to metal with the same serious silliness. The video above is one of their promotional tools as they tend to collaborate with dōjin animators and they also host an internet radio show dedicated to all things dōjin. This is how it starts, and this is how it spreads. In immediacy, by association.

I hope I got you interested. Next Blogling will wrap this up with some J-Trance and metal because it can’t be all kawaii everything.

I am not sure why, but I follow Soulja Boy on Twitter (guilty pleasure I guess) and he had tweeted something in the vein of “Who is this persons Twitter name” and link to the video.

I find the video pretty funny, not in the making fun of the kid kind of way, but just as in a whole other level of what a teenager has to deal with in this day and age. I am pretty sure if I was in middle school, and following the “Weird Al Fan Club” twitter, and they were following then un-followed me, I would be pretty upset as well.

Don’t cry much longer dear Candace looks like your hard work has paid off, and THE REAL Soulja Boy is actually following you!