BE KIND, REWIND ART SHOW

thanks Supertouch!

Michel Gondry just had an art show at Deitch Projects, a contemporary art gallery in NYC to accompany the release of his new film Be Kind, Rewind. Michel brought in the sets, costumes and props used in the movie and even reworked the exterior of the gallery to look like the little video store featured in the movie. The cool thing about the whole thing was that he allowed the visitors to pose, play and interact with the sets and props.

MC3 - PERSONAL MOSQUITO CONTROL

If there's one thing I hate it's mosquitoes. They are the bane of my existence. My mortal enemy. I hate them and they hate me and we'll never see eye to eye--EVER. I also hate mosquito repellent oils and "Off" and the chemically smell of those citrus candles so what can I do? Carry one of these lil' fuggers around!

The MC3 is a key-chain-sized little transmitter that emits the ultrasonic sound frequency of the beating wings of a dragonfly; the female mosquito's worst enemy.

10 years ago, on a radio program, some dude was yammerin' on and on about how he's invented a pager-sized mosquito repellent and I've been looking for them since. Well here they are but the company won't ship outside of the fuggin' States and Googlin' 'bout the interiorwebnet for alternative dot-shoppes is proving a difficult task. COME ON!

N-STRIKE VULCAN EBF-25

My wife and I aren't really the kind of parents that go and buy toy guns for our kids but this is pretty freakin' cool! It's about 40 clams and it uses 6 D-sized batteries and is a 25-dart belt-fed fully automatic machine gun. The tri-pod is retractable and the little darts whistle through the air when fired. There are also accessories for the thing such as the Tactical Light attachment which is some kind of green "night vision" scope.

DJ LANCE & GAMBLE

My buddy Kevin Gamble went to the KidScreen Summit in NYC and met Yo Gabba Gabba's DJ Lance! Yo Gabba Gabba is one of the best shows on TV for little kids and DJ Lance is awesome!

MONKEY WIPE OUT

I was looking for a file on an old cd-rom and found this. It's very old, but it still makes me chuckle.

LOBSTER CHAIR

There's a new chair on the market designed by Lund and Paarmann called the Lobster Chair and it looks pretty smashing.



I'm a sucker for nice chairs for some reason. I was "this close" to buying a ball chair this weekend but I held off to take some measurements first to see if it would actually get up my staircase.

Sadly, my staircase is 1" too narrow and the ball chair will not fit. I still might get it though and just hope my staircase magically widens itself for the chair. I've been eying The Eames lounger now for about an eon and everytime I see it I want it.

I am also in need of a good egg chair so if you're tossing yours out, I'll take it.

NOT YOUR TYPICAL BIGFOOT MOVIE

thanks Kevin Webb!
A new documentary that's coming out soon. Here's a synopsis from the website itself:

Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie provides a look at the trials and triumphs of life in the Appalachian foothills. Through the experiences of Dallas and Wayne, two amateur bigfoot researchers in southern Ohio, we see how the power of a dream can bring two men together in friendship and provide hope and meaning that transcend the harsh realities of life in a dying steel town.

THE ART OF JEN STARK

Check out the wavy gravy hand-cut construction paper and paper cardstock kaleidioscopic eruptions of Jen Stark!

She even has a small animated piece.

The Remarkable Journey of Higgins Von Higgings

Radiohead - 15 Step

MICHAEL YON: PHOTOGRAPHER

I just posted a piece about Jeff Wall and while image-hunting for some of Wall's work, I stumbled upon this photograph by Michael Yon. Immediately I was stunned and moved and so I did a little google search for it to get more info and found it on Michael Yon's website.

Until now I haven't heard of Michael Yon or wasn't familiar with his work. According to Yon, he's not a journalist. He's an author, photographer, blogger and former Special Forces soldier. Here's a direct link to the details surrounding his photograph, Little Girl.

JEFF WALL'S TERRIBLE PHOTOGRAPHS

In 1990, I came to Vancouver for the summer to visit my folks (I was living in Toronto at the time) and during this trip I was told by a few people that I had to go see Vancouver photographer Jeff Wall's exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Sure, why not!? I walked out of the gallery in a complete stupor. What the hell was that load of crap?!? Was it me or were those photographs the most boring, unprovocative, cliche pieces of crap I have ever seen? And I mean EVER? I don't mean to disrespect high school students, but I'm certain that high school photography students can take more engaging photographs. Sure Wall's work is "technically" sound but it's the content in a photograph that means and says more than technical proficiency of a camera.

Take the following photographs for example. The top one, Jeff Wall shows us an Asian man being given the finger by a bearded fellow. Remember, Jeff Wall came up with this idea of racism all on his own using nothing but his mind and thought he'd better document it and get it down on film. So he hired actors and found a location and posed his actors and snapped off a number of pictures to capture this "harsh reality."


Then you have the following photograph (that I just stumbled upon while image searching for Jeff Wall's crap). THIS IS NOT A JEFF WALL but by a photographer named Michael Yon (I apologize to Mr. Yon for lumping him in with Jeff "schlock-artist" Wall. Who's the real photographer? Whose photograph says more and moves you more? I think it's quite clear. How much did Yon get paid for this photo? Not a million dollars, I'm sure.

THIS IS NOT A JEFF WALL

Then back to chumpy Jeff Wall and a look at his "horrors of war":


It's entitled Dead Troops Talk and it was shot on an outdoor set with actors and make-up effects. The actors were photographed either individually or in their group and the Jeff "painstakingly" had to digitally compose them into one photo. Here's a detail:

Wall's work consists entirely of staged set-ups that have either been taken in his studio or on location using sets, actors, props and fx crews (if needed). Essentially, he's set up a little mini movie-set with actors and is taking one useless frame. Everything you see is rehearsed and staged and directed and it's done so terribly. The thing about his "art" is that it's huge (usually around 6'x6'), can take him up to a year to create (I don't understand how it can take him a year to capture 1 lame image) and somehow he's able to fetch about $1 million a piece!!!! In his 25-year career, he's taken about 130 terrible photographs. Let's look at how shitty his work is.

Yes, this one's called The Thinker.

OH NO!!! A Sudden gust of wind has just
about ruined everyone's day!

This piece, entitled Tattoos & Shadows, sold for a $1-million dollars.

While Jeff was crossing the Second Narrow's bridge he saw
some apartments overlooking the industrial area and thought
"I wonder what their view is like? I bet it's kinda sad. I'd better
stage a picture of their apartment, their life and their view."
Note the futon and chores. In Jeff's mind, this is hell.

Jeff personally likes this one a lot.

Bored kids in a kitchen. Sold for over $1-million.
Where will Jeff's imagination take us next?!

I wonder where these people are coming and going
with all their stuff?!? They're on an overpass.

I wonder what these people are talking about
and what they're doing? They're under an overpass.

This one's called Insomnia. Clearly this man is having a terrible
time with his insomnia. He's in a "kitchen" under a table.

Detail of the man's infliction. I really hope he's okay!!!
Oop. Right, he's an actor. He's fine. He's just pretending!
Jeff knows just how impossible it is to find a real
insomniac and get their permission to take a
photograph of them in their enviroment dealing with
their infliction. It's impossible. This is the only way
to show the world the horrors of insomnia.

Oh, Jeff. Your crazy imagination has captured
yet another outlandish predicament! I just can't
help feeling soooo sorry for this worker-man! I wonder
what the other worker in the back is thinking?! Don't
feel bad for the worker though because remember, he's
an actor!! Jeff knows that most tradesmen are too surly
to allow photographs of them so this is the only way for
the public to see what these factories are like on the inside.

So there you go. A smattering of work by the world-famous photograuteur Jeff Wall. God it's just really really terrible work. I can't believe this man is rich beyond compare because of this dog-pile! In truth, Jeff Wall is nothing but a glorified catalogue photographer who has somehow infiltrated the art world.

DR. STEVE BRULE'S LAST RESORT FIGHTING TECHNIQUE

DR. STEVE BRULE ON "LIVING ON YOUR LONESOME"

via videosift.com

TUROK/PROPAGANDA CONGRATS!

I forgot to congratulate all the fine folks at Propaganda Games for their release of Turok on Feb. 5th! The game looks awesome you guys and I can't wait to play this!!!

CLARIFICATION PLEASE!

I passed this van last week and it got me thinking...does this mean that I can get a drink while they look after my kids or does it mean that the kids can drink? I guess I can call them and find out.

MARY KAY CADILLAC!

Here it is folks, Vancouver's UGLIEST car (actually, I took the photo in Coquitlam)! Look at how fucking gaudy this travesty is. It gets worse! It's a Cadillac STS4 and it's from the MARY KAY line!

I dug up just a bit of research on this pathetic existence and found that if a Mary Kay sales person (aka goof-ball) exceeds a certain $ in sales, they'll receive one of these shit-bags. It's supposedly an honour to have one! There's more. The "fortunate" sales people who receive one of these disasters have to return the car to Mary Kay after two years (so Mary Kay can repaint them and sell them--NOTE: the pink is an exclusive shade of pink owned by Mary Kay. The shade is called Mountain Laurel based on a shade of blush from Mary Kay's line. Personally, I prefer the more reddish shade Juniper's Rectum). Should a salesperson wish to keep her/his 4-wheeled-turd, they have to sign a contract never to resell it. What a catastrophic tragedy in so many ways. I bet most Mary Kay sales people are Christian.

BELKIN n52te GAMEPAD

Holy carp! Yes, CARP! It's a typo but I'm stickin' with it! Check out this awesome little keyboard-thinger for gaming or what-have-you. The thing looks as slick as I'm currently sick! If this keyboard were me it would have puke all over it, that's how sick it is!

This "lil' bitch" as its makers at Belkin refer to it as (yes that's a dangling participle but I'm stickin' with it!) boasts a back-lit keypad and scroll wheel for "TOTAL CONTROL IN DARK CONDITIONS" 15 programmable keys, 8-way thumb-pad with removable joystick, and more. It's about 70 bucks too, so I might just get one and attach it to my cell phone so people think I'm some kind of alien spy weapon sent through time to kill you and your gang.

LINK!

ZULU RECORDS' NEW WEBSITE

When I worked at Mainframe I was a mere 4 blocks away from this awesome record store and at least 3 times a week my lunch break consisted of visiting Zulu and sampling various tunes. So now that I'm no longer living nor working in the 4th Ave. part of town, I find myself visiting Zulu about...hmmmm...twice a year? I gotta say, I've saved a lot of money but my "keepin' on top'o things" has suffered. So every once in a while I'd hit the olde fashioned Zulu Records website to see what's the buzz and LO! Today I find myself staring at something new! They've finally gone ahead and reimagined their website! It includes, videos, mp3s, blogs (whatever the hell that is?) and it seems like their reviews are less cryptic and more straight-to-the-point which rocks because I HATE!!! their reviews:

The Plymouth Rock - Board of Confusion
"My radio says it's time to turn itself on and say yeah to the rainy drizzle that causes my candles in the window to fitz and flutter and that's fine with me because when it's time to get ready for work and the boss calls to say "Hey don't bother coming in, you're fired" so I just lay back in my cozy sheets and, open up Denauber's latest book and get through 8 chapters. Are you in?"

Here's their new website!!

TAB CLEAR -- 90's COMMERCIAL

This is specifically posted for Craig McEwen. Y'all'r free to take a looksee though.

CAN WE TALK AMBROSIA APPLES FOR A SEC?

I'm at home sick today and I've been meaning to get to this post for a while so I finally have a moment to talk about Ambrosia apples.

If you're anything like me, you'll like a good apple. But I hate most apples. Some are too soft and mushy, some are too fucking tart, some have worms in them and some are hit & miss, like the Gala! Last year I thought I had struck gold when I bit into a nice crisp juicy Gala. "YES! I THINK I HAVE STRUCK GOLD!!!" I yelled. But alas, this was but fool's gold. A number of times I've sunk my teeth into a gala only to find that its meat was rather soft. "THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!" I yelled.

Around Christmas however things in my household have changed drastically, since I've introduced the British Columbian-born Ambrosia. Every Ambrosia is CRISP! Each one is JUICY! Each one is SWEET but not too sweet like a Delicious (which is for novice apple eaters and children). I should also mention however that a friend Clint Butler introduced me to a new line of Spartan apples (these ones are yellow) that his mother-in-law traffics and I have to say, MMMMMMMMMM. These were fantastic but unfortunately, they're not available in stores as of the time of this post (correct me if I'm wrong, Clint). The downside to these Spartans were that they were not organic and it should be made seriously clear that I ONLY EAT ORGANIC APPLES.

So if you're in the market for a new apple, go and do yourself a major "flavour" and bite into a crisp, sweet, juicy Ambrosia.

BIRTH OF WEINERBOY

A while ago I posted about Weinerboy, a production company that Craig McEwen and I set up years ago. We did music videos, corporate industrial stuff, visuals for live shows, swamping and yard work. We asked our friend Geoff Coates (who at the time was the art director for a very young Adbusters) to whip us up some logos and art work to accompany our marketing assault.

Recently Geoff just unearthed his original sketches of the weinerboys and sent them my way with some commentary. Here they are!

Here it is, Weinerboy sketch #1

You see it coming together, don't you?


Trying to figure out how to draw a cute weiner.
I'm amazed at my lack of can-draw-iness.

Mmmm...that's bad perspective.

A sketch of the first (and, it doesn't need to be
said, only) Busy Comics! My favourite part's
the note: "Johnny Canuck gives Hitler a pop!"

The thumbnail

And the kind-of final!

Ahhh, Weinerboy! Thanks Geoff! Craig McEwen reports that he is going to be sending me a final version of Busy Comics soon as well as our celebrated and controversial X-mas card! Stay tuned!

8 OR 9 INTERNET CABLES CUT

The fringe news agencies are finally reporting on cables being cut in the middle east but they're only listing about 4 or 5 with no possible explanation. Here's my theory:

*a "certain country" cuts the cables blocking and preventing all information and intelligence.
*this "certain country" then stages a devastating "accident" or "attack" and pulls a false flag act.
*no one knows the real scoop on the "accident" due to limited information
*victims of the "accident" report that they couldn't prepare properly due to lack of defensive intelligence
*"certain country" uses this "accident" as an invisible fascist card to employ heavier control over its own internet/communications...

"SEE! If they only had information available this could have been prevented. We can't have this happen here or we're screwed!!! We need to monitor and have access to everyone's computers at all times!"

Again...something BIG is going to happen...

more info on this here!

Brule's Rules - Wine Tasting

DESKTOP VR ON THE PLAYSTATION 3

Hmmmm...Thomas seems like an intelligent guy and his idea here seems really cool and he seems to be a very, very pleasant chap. Be sure to visit his website and get to know Thomas even better.

THE CHURCH OF ZOMBIE

thanks Craig!


Seattle gaming company Zombie just moved into their new location--a renovated church.
Check out the Flickr set here!

THE LEGEND OF JACQUES LE'NARDS

My friend, the hilarious Donavon Stinson stars as Jacques Le'Nard in this short Canadian Heritage spoof The Legend of Jacques Le'Nard.

DRINK-BOT DECANTER 2000

HEY! Your Pal, Beadle (who plays Drink-Bot on Tiki Bar TV) gave me a Drink-Bot decanter! THANKS BEADLE!!!!!!

BTW, the top photo of Drink-Bot was taken by me using the Horrified B-Movie Victims figurines I picked up at Funhauser on Pender Street in Chinatown. If you go to get your own, tell 'em Halfsquatch sent you!

DUCK & COVER! SOMETHING'S GOING ON...

Two days ago I read in the NY Times that a major fiber optics cable was damaged causing massive disruption to internet services in India. At the time they were saying that it could have been storms. Today, I've just learned that a "third" cable was cut (it might actually be four cables) near Egypt causing a major internet slow-down in the Middle East and South Asia--and this time the "cause" of the damage is being blamed on ships dragging their anchors.

How many years now have these cables been laying on the bottom of the sea? And by "coincidence" three major cables in two days are suddenly destroyed due to negligent captains cutting off a major source of information? Whatever is going on, they don't want you to know or see what's in store for the Middle East. I may be seeing too much into this, but right now I'm kinda shitting bricks.