Hustler of Culture

boob tube.

images courtesy of the associated press

watching the super bowl halftime (the only part of the super bowl i watched), i, along with a 100 million people saw justin timberlake tear off janet jackson's costume to reveal a silver pastie at the end of their song and dance routine. thanks to tivo, we were able to rewatch the scene in delightful horror several times over. believing it was a sad attempt at recreating a madonna/britney moment and wanting to discuss the event further, i learned from wayne that it was not a pastie as originally suspected but silver nipple jewelry!

what mtv is saying:

HOUSTON, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The tearing of Janet Jackson's costume was unrehearsed, unplanned, completely unintentional and was inconsistent with assurances we had about the content of the performance. MTV regrets this incident occurred and we apologize to anyone who was offended by it.

james jarvis vs. toy tokyo (2/13/04)

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william hung rocks!

photo property of fox

for the last few days, i haven't been able to get ricky martin's she bangs out of my head. it is all due to the coolest kid i've seen audition on american idol yet. if you guys missed uc berkeley engineer, william hung's crazy fun rendition of ricky martin's, she bangs, look no further. i totally fell in love with him on the show. he was sooo endearing, american idol rebroadcasted his san francisco/los angeles footage on american idol's hawaii auditions. william was sweet, sincere and most of all polite during his auditions. a true champ. this kid's better off continuing his higher education and contributing some other marvel to the world. forget about everyone else trying to claim the title. nobody rocks harder!

i declare william hung america's it kid!

additional note: due to william's soaring popularity, he is now doing radio interviews.

clever talk for self gain.

last night i cashed in on my third recent invite to attend a party at chelsea's new cavernous, warholesque party space, the marquee. slow from a little cold, i got myself together to put in a little face time at blag magazine’s us launch party.

entering the marquee for the first time i was kind of surprised at how magnificently decadent it was. with a non-descript exterior it’s easy to miss. this divine new discotheque, intentionally tucked away in deep west chelsea is most definitely just another playground for the insiders. the lucky few who make it through the polite but burly doormen are greeted by a long sexy bar. and a little booty shaking is encouraged by a large floor with comfortable seating while an old school chandelier sets the mood from above.

initially scanning the room for the usual suspects, i saw no one i recognized. suits represented in abundance which i found a bit odd considering this was a premiere launch party for the uk’s coolest hip hop magazine. half an hour later, the fine dj was working the crowd, the liquor sponsor’s vodka, ciroc was pouring freely and the beautiful people were piling in from the cold. the place was packing up and i knew i couldn’t hold a conversation for much longer. i was beginning to talk like stevie from malcolm in the middle and knew i had to make a quick exit. nearing my escape, i did run into a handful of friends. air kisses and updates were exchanged as i blamed my illness for having to depart such a fine party.

not so surprisingly, i was also able to meet someone i had just been exchanging emails with just a few hours earlier. that’s new york for you…an inbred creative mélange. there’s no escaping anyone. no doubt, i’ll see you next week and hopefully i'll be back to my usual chatty punk ass self.

i am sick. there i said it.

i am rarely sick. in the several years that i worked at tokion magazine, i never once called in sick. my ex-boss, adam didn't allot us any sick days. it was simple. if you were sick, stay home. otherwise, you’d risk infecting the rest of us. use a little psychology and rational thinking and if you've got good employees they'll never abuse the policy. how forward thinking! otherwise, people who are allotted sick days end up using them as additional personal days tacked onto their normal two weeks vacation. i have friends who, every year use up their five fake holidays to hang out at home and watch tv or run errands.

so anyway, however long you've known me, you've never known me to be sick. seriously, i'm like bruce willis' character in unbreakable. in the last 8 years that i've been with silvio, i've never been sick. i’m sure you’ve seen the low energy version of me, but i've never been, stuck in bed, serve me soup sick. and thankfully, right now, i’m not that sick. i am however, feeling lightheaded and really tired.

dope pope!

for the first time, i agree with the pope on something. wait a minute...let me check outside and see if hell's frozen over...ok i'm back, yeah, it's all ice outside.

"Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it," John Paul said.

word. video can be found here under offbeat or text and video here.

go away with your bad self.

last of the puerto ricans, cubans and other precious city dwellers. gentrification is part of a city’s evolution. in manhattan, sooner or later a less-than-desirable neighborhood is bound to find itself stripped of its character as the snake charming intruders come rolling in to claim it their own. witness to such change, arguments ensue as hours are spent discussing the merits and faults of the slow but drastic transformations of our beloved gems – homes to immigrants turned bona fide shopping and booming bar districts. the gentrification of the lower east side, a neighborhood i love and worked in for a couple of years is the hottest of all topics.

having decided to open our studio/shop on the less-than-loved but beautiful tree-lined clinton street in the early spring of 2001, friends who’d already settled in the vicinity on orchard and eldridge streets warned that we were too far east. we were blocks away from the hip zone and our chosen location was still considered unworkable, resting in a shady block loomed over by the williamsburg bridge while a bustling delancey street separated us from massive public housing projects. the outfit i worked for didn't care much for location, rent was cheaper than anywhere else and we were running a magazine. foot traffic wasn't really important and so our prerogatives were prioritized. we were already paying three times the rent we’d paid in los angeles so this would have to do.

Pete Fowler: The Monsterist (2/12/04)

Tristan Eaton 3D Works (2/5/04 - 3/30/04)

dave horvath: ugly art (1/31/04)

gamers night groove (1/31/04)

check out gamers night groove for more information.

Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

illustration by wook kim

59th minute (01/21/04)

In celebration of the third anniversary of The 59th Minute, Creative Time and Panasonic proudly present three videos by emerging artists: Janaina Tschäpe, Hiraki Sawa, and the Neistat brothers, January 21 – June 26, 2004 on the Times Square Astrovision.

Lost art, found friends.

image courtesy of Lost Art, photos by Louise Chin

This photo series was taken of me and seminal graf king, doze green in the summer of 2001. It was a sunny day and we were taking a break. Lucky for me, Louise captured the moment. We were hanging out on Clinton Street in the LES witnessing Brazilian wonder twins, Os Gemeos and Herbert work up Tokion's new storefront. When I see this montage, I am reminded of good times with good people...it feels like it was only just yesterday.

Balancing life with art, Ig and Louise do volunteer work shooting videos for the Sea Shepherds while picking up once-in-a-lifetime paying gigs with big corporations. They see things and share; traveling and documenting the world on someone else's dime. I often find myself lost on their website, following their travels through posted photo journals. I am envious of their adventures and captivated by their visual storytelling.

Having only had a short hot week to hang with Ig and Louise and the Brazilian painting posse, I intend on keeping my promise to visit them in Brazil. I'm looking forward to sharing new experiences with them in real time! I'll post my Os Gemeos and Herbert's paint day pictures soon. So please check back and in the meantime, take a little vacation through Ig and Louise's eyes. Oh yeah, and keep a look out for their Antarctica photo book due out in May!

an honest victory!

photo courtesy of hani

i woke up at 2:30 pm today and only after silvio stood at the bedroom door frame and said, "it's getting late." turning in bed, i felt my first sore muscle. oy. i shouldn't have done that front walk over last night. what was i thinking when i tried to do those aerials? and eww, is that sand i feel stuck between my two little toes? slowly, very slowly, i mustered enough energy to roll myself sideways out of bed.

last night i participated in honest magazine and nike's short film documentary, the shortest race. along with 30+ other contestants i was invited to try my best at crossing the finish line, 39.9" from the start.

skateboarder next door.

mike mills is part of the posse of peeps i crush on. music video director, graphics artist, commercial director and soon-to-be-breakthrough-filmmaker, mike mills is the guy i want to rake leaves and sip lemonade with. through x-girl and others, i've been rockin' his graphics across my chest for over a decade. i've been watching his videos and i've been absorbing everything he creates. if there ever was such a thing as the skateboarder next door, it would be mike mills.

thanks, lexi for pointing me to the readymade interview. i'm reading and i'm thinking, "fuck. i want to be like mike." i'm already living his past life. i'm betting the farm and i hope the outcome is the same.

kami's up.

japanese artist, kami, painted the tokion shop in october 2002. blending traditional japanese calligraphy with a modernist approach, it's a slice of heaven to see him paint. his work is clean and controlled as are his strokes. i finally got it together to post up a time-lapse series of kami at work. enjoy.

Kid Robot / Flavor Flav Event (1/17/04)

event photos here.

18th Annual Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1/19/04)

Monday, January 19 at 10:30AM

Hosted by:
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz
Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York

Presenting Sponsor: Target

Keynote Speaker: Wynton Marsalis

Featuring:
The Boys Choir of Harlem
The Persuasions
The Lafayette Inspirational Ensemble

BAM Rose Cinemas, 1PM
Free screening of Citizen King, a documentary presented in association with the National Black Programming Consortium.

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Avenue
Brooklyn,NY

First come, first seated.

FREE!

tokyo godfathers, a post holiday gift.

last night, thanks to friends at new york-tokyo and samuel goldwyn/destination films, we attended an advance screening of satoshi kon’s anime marvel, tokyo godfathers. desperate for a diversion, silvio and i happily snatched up the opportunity for a free screening. in this sub-zero weather, we weren’t the only ones. grabbing the last pair of seats in the packed theatre, i scanned the expected crowd of japanese and new york press managing to spot a few friends. hello, media.

honestly, i didn’t know what to expect from tokyo godfathers. i hadn’t seen kon-san’s perfect blue or millennium actress so i didn’t know how my next 90 minutes were going to be spent. i found myself mesmerized by the story and ended up walking out feeling fortunate i’d seen the film.

tokyo godfathers is about family, friendship and redemption. set in tokyo's harsh urban landscape, a dysfunctional homeless posse of three desperately search for the family of an abandoned baby girl. the make-shift family lead by an alcoholic, held together by a transvestite and completed by a temperamental teenager end up with more than they bargain for. forced to act responsibly, forgetting their own petty dramas the family eventually finds peace in their own lives. delicate haikus sprinkled between non-stop comedy and action move us to cheer on our unwilling heroes. tokyo godfathers is sweet redemption for an unwanted society and our beloved misfits are rewarded with karmatic generosity.

tokyo godfathers opens in new york and los angeles on january 16, 2004 with wide release shortly after. support this little film; you'll be happy you did.

real player trailer: high / low