You might have noticed a Toilet Cobra shaped void in the Mishka Bloglin lately. Maybe you thought I went into hiding or that I was in the hospital. Perhaps you believed I’d got a dose of amnesia and couldn’t remember my password to the blog. Perhaps you thought I accidentally died from sexphyxiation. Maybe you thought I was arrested. More likely, you didn’t think of me at all. But that’s just fine, I try not to think about me either. I’m a bummer and a half lately.

I’ve been busy staying indoors and struggling to eke out a living doing the only things I’ve ever been even remotely good at. Sadly, working during every waking hour isn’t enough and with each day I grow increasingly broke and insane. The insanity creates more brokeness and the brokeness returns the favor by tossing a few more logs onto the fires of my increasing insanity, the flames of which will soon consume all of my reality, leaving only the smoldering foundation of what used to be a man.  So that’s what’s why you haven’t heard from me lately.

This is my friend Carleigh with some animals, a cat and a fish. I pulled out my camera and we played around with taking photos, as evidenced in the photos above, which involve a cat and a fish. Sitting around got old so Thomas and I put on our leather jackets and headed over to Monster Island/Secret Project Robot. It’s that venue/gallery space on Kent that  has more names than Jackie Joyner-Kersey.  Golden Triangle were playing a show with some bands they didn’t know to celebrate the release of their new record, Double Jointer, which I wrote the press release for. I showed up feeling groggy and the evening felt like  a weird dream. In the darkness there were familiar faces but I lacked the focus to say or do anything meaningful and all of my interactions felt shallow and pointless, even while I experienced them.

This is Seva and Alaina. They are everywhere you want to be, like credit card commercials. Seva runs MyOpenBar and Alaina works at Market Hotel as well as  all of the other unlicensed venue spaces in Brooklyn. Seva fell over drunk while loudly playing “Who would you do?” in a fashion where he was pointing to them and saying “yes” or “no” directly to them as they walked by.

The bands were playing in the basement but I was distracted by a show of fine art on the main floor  This life size sculpture of monster people reminded me of the cover art for Marilyn Manson’s Portrait of an American Family.

Raul was DJing upstairs while dressed as a big boobed goofus. Check out what that girl next to him is doing. She is twiddling around.

This is the cutest DJ setup I’ve ever seen. It sounded blown and awful in a way that was pleasant and helped the transitions between the dissimilar songs he put on after the previous ones. I was coveting this set up hard.

I met a woman with burgertits. I love this dress, it’s so beautiful. I like how I look un-fat here. Check out that big paper mache hand behind us. High five, Big Hand!

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Fat Joe – Eastern Motors

MC Hammer – British Knights

Kanye West – Absolut Vodka

Kurtis Blow – Sprite

Notorious B.I.G. – St. Ides

After leaving the public eye almost entirely four years ago, Roger Ebert, one of film’s most celebrated critics has been featured in an Esquire “Essential Man” article. The magazine sadly chronicles an aging man broken down by cancer living a lonely life who looks more like a melting wax figure than the chubby faced television personality synonymous with the Ebert name.

The read is melancholy as it touches on the difficulty of day to day life for Ebert but also the small things that keep him going. Mr. Ebert patiently waits on a company based out of Ireland that builds voice simulators to contact him with good news so that he might one day be able to tell his wife Chas he loves her again.

The article definitely made me appreciate Ebert a lot more than I did when he was sitting healthy and giving more undeserving thumbs up than the Fonz. The rest of the story is over at Esquire.

In the wacky world of Hollywood remakes and mash-up news comes word that Scorsese and Antichrist director Lars von Trier may be joining forces to remake 1976’s Taxi Driver. To further the head fuck, it’s rumored that Deniro is supposed to star in it a second time 34 years later. I honestly couldn’t have guessed a more unlikely combination than Scorsese and Trier but I can’t hide the fact that I’m seriously intrigued.

Lars might just be crazy enough to pull this off providing he leaves the black and white slow motion of Deniro’s grey balls out of the final cut. Fingers crossed this gets made for a thousand reasons.

*edit: Oh Mars just filled me in that this got squashed this morning. Bummer.

Via Slash Film

So to pick up where we left off: I collect stuff. My collection of collections is wide and far-reaching. Not surprisingly, one of the things I collect—very randomly, I might add—is magazines.

Long story short, I was sifting through a pile of old(er) Arkitips and Giant Robots and I found this little gem. The tenth issue of the long(ish)-gone Mass Appeal magazine, c. 2001.

I have never been as hip-hop as this magazine. To say it again: I have never been as hip as this magazine. I have never been as hop as this magazine. But I held onto this particular issue because of the fantastic photo essay towards the back by one Massimo Gammacuerta titled ‘BEEF: The Photo Essay’.

Bottom line, dude took a bunch of hood- and/or prison-weapons and used them on inanimate foodstuffs. It’s one of those so-simple-it’s-genius ideas that, at the time, really stuck with me. And? And so naturally I made sure (apparently) that the magazine itself stuck with me as well. Enjoy the (hastily produced, but with love) photos of the photos here, for your viewing pleasure. (Feel free to click-through on any of the images for a larger size).

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De La Soul – Stakes is High

Pete Rock / J. Dilla – Niggaz Know

A Tribe called quest – Find a Way

Jaylib – Starz

Keith Murray – The Rhyme (Jay Dee Remix)

Not sure how many of you (who aren’t named Twerps! Mike Jones, Lamour Supreme and Hateball) read the Secret Fun Blog, but you should! The blog is run by Kirk Demarais (who some of you may be familiar for his film based family portraits) and is an extension of the Secret Fun Spot. Both are just a huge repository for an endless stream retro kitsch that is pretty easy to get lost in.

A little while back The Secret Fun Blog posted a huge assortment of 80’s action figure blister card back graphics. These range from the classics we all know and love, those forgotten toys you haven’t thought about in over a decade, and of course those toys you never even realized existed.

This Nightmare Warriors one is a particular favorite of mine, and a prime example of a toy line I had no clue existed. It’s some no-name toy company who made a mix of skeletal warriors who range from actual historical figures like Pancho Villa, to made up undead commandos like Major Bones!

I bet Greg and Lamour Supreme are already actively hunting down some of these for their collections. I know I want Pancho Villa, personally. Also how dope is that painting on the top of the blister pack?

Kirk also offers some great insights on each of the packaging. One that particularity hit home for me was the “Kenner Conspiracy” of Beetlejuice. I was a H-U-G-E Beetlejuice fan (Movie and Cartoon) and it sucked that the only way you could get just a straight up classic Beetlejuice figure (in his striped suit) was by buying both the Spinhead Beetlejuice and the Showtime Beetlejuice and swapping the clip on head. Which is exactly what I did. Fucking Kenner!

I can’t believe it’s been a decade! R.I.P. my dude Big Pun.

What’s old is always new. I have been a little obsessed with the fashion of mountain gear from the seventies and eighties. I’m talking technical gear from winters past including early uses of Gore Tex, waxed canvas and other wind stopping materials. A few companies have tried to revisit the old classics including Supreme and Penfield but it’s not quite the same as a vintage piece that could have been worn by some super dad.

In some of my more recent blurfing (blog surfing? No, forget that) I stumbled upon a blog and Flickr account that makes me a little envious. It seems that Nicolas from One-Upmanship has a similar interest in outerwear and has documented his collection from the golden age on his Flickr account. Sierra Designs, Peter Storm, Berghaus and a grip of other mountain armor companies are in the mix with boots to match. I feel like a hypebeast again. Fuck.

Vibe recently posted a really great two-part editorial all about Atlanta’s Dungeon Family. The Dungeon Family was Rico Wade’s original recording studio and music collective that introduced and coined the ‘Dirty South’ sound. Goodie Mob, Outkast and Sleepy Brown were just a few of the heads that composed this family unit that wrote a huge chapter of rap history and redefined the genre.

The article chronicles Rico’s once lavish, ‘Southern Diddy’ lifestyle to his present state of bankruptcy and drug addiction. Contrasts are made between the Dungeon family members whom have gone on to sell millions of pop albums to those that have faded into obscurity and self destructive lifestyles. A really interesting read if you want to learn your rap history or you’re feeling a little nostalgic over the good old days.

The Untold Story of The Dungeon Family Part One

The Untold Story of The Dungeon Family Part Two