Usugrow in SF

One of my favorite artists, Usugrow, is having a show in SF at Upper Playground 8/2-8/30!

Usugrow is quickly gaining popularity in the US but it is still difficult to find any of his art or his fly ass gear outside of Japan.
(He recently did a t-shirt design for Expensive Taste! Plus, he gots toys coming!)
Under a company called Black Leaf, Usugrow will soon have clothing bearing his images available internationally. Until then, can someone PLEASE get me those Usugrow sweatpants and "spider" hoodie!?

Mexican honeymoon

My friends/comrades, sergio and Jo, are in Mexico City for a long overdue honeymoon.
sergio's livejournal gives an amazing observation of what they are experiencing in Mexico City and some of how it relates to struggle (because it always does).

check it out!


(I hope sergio doesn't mind the link (I am assuming it is a public diary). I think his observations and analysis serve as an interesting read. Thanx Jo and sergio!)

Go It Alone breakup

After making what I would consider easily one of the best HC records of the year, Go It Alone have announced they are breaking up soon.
"Expect a final show in Vancouver in the late fall."

Sunshine review

Last night, I saw the newest Danny Boyle film; Sunshine.
It is a sci-fi / horror / psychological drama and well done.

The cast is comprised of various ethnicities/nationalities and doesn't bow to stereotypes. The brave ship's captain is Japanese and none of the largely Asian cast are forced to do martial arts. The women characters were also shown to be valuable assets to the crew.

The plot has to do with a last chance attempt to re-ignite a dying sun and save life on earth.
This film intends to project "the future of mankind from a physics-based, atheist perspective". Furthermore, the "villian" of the film depicts religious fundamentalism.
The film actually moved star Cillian Murphy from agnosticism to atheism.

As with all Boyle films, the score was top-fuckin-notch!

fanboy.4: Iron Man

Iron Man/Tony Stark has always been a racist imperialist.

fanboy.3:Spider-Man cartoon

One of my favorite illustrators, Sean “Cheeks” Galloway, is doing character design for The Spectacular Spider-Man Animated Series.

Looks good.

fanboy.2:Dark Knight

In another viral marketing move, this time for "The Dark Knight", American dollar bills have been strewn around Comic Con defaced by Joker makeup and with the words 'Why So Serious' instead of 'One Dollar' at the bottom.

If you hurry, you can catch the new teaser trailer HERE (bootleg style).

Aquafina = tapwater

PepsiCo Inc. will spell out that its Aquafina bottled water is made with tap water.

BTW- Regulations for tap water are more strict than regulations for bottled water.

fanboy.1: Star Trek

I had planned on being in San Diego this weekend revelling in geekdom with ComicCon. I didn't make it, so I will probably be posting fanboy shit that I find interesting. That is not to say that we should forget about important things such as fighting imperialism and destroying Michael Vick.
___

I don't know why Star Trek continually attempts to "re-invent" the franchise to gain support. It just makes loyalists upset and turns off people uninterested in any Trek.
Well, a new Star Trek film is on the way and Shatner is throwing a fuckin fit to be in it. It is going to be a "prequel" of sorts.
This dude is cast as Spock:

Bear = fraud

It is pretty naive of me to believe much of anything on television; especially "reality television."

One of my favorite shows is Man Vs. Wild and the star, Bear Grylls, is somewhat of a persevering inspiration of mine. However, it has come to light that Bear is not quite the survivalist that he claims to be on TV!


Apparently, he stays nights in hotels, eats real meals, and receives off camera help from others (such as building a raft for him). Then Bear goes on talk shows and tells the world that he does it all by himself.

What a bummer! Although, I must admit I have seen at least one incident on Man Vs. Wild that I knew was faked. I guess I wanted to buy into the myth of Bear Grylls.

So, what does it matter? Is it the veneer of truth that makes the show appealling?
Afterall, Bear still does what we see him do and does provide a wealth of survival info.


(thanx Mel)

The Watchmen cast

A lot of rumors have been flying about who will portray the costume heroes in The Watchmen film. The rumors included a lot of big names. Well, the cast has been announced! It is not big names but I support at least one of the castings.

Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhatton

Patrick Wilson as The Night Owl

(eh, that actor is too fit and too young)
Malin Ackerman as Silk Spectre

Matthew Goode as Ozymandias

Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach

(yes, that is the creepy ass kid from the 70's who was supposed to be so hot! awesome!)

Overall, the cast is too young.
(All those photos were difficult to find too!)

Robert <3s Ashlee

Robert Smith of The Cure has always been a bit odd with his giant high-tops, his hocket jerseys, and his insistence to maintain that hair and make up even as he got old and chubby.

Now Robert Smith may be collaborating with Ashlee Simpson!
Here is the quote:
"I would be hugely surprised if I end up working with Ashlee this year, but I haven't ruled it out. I went to see her in Chicago. We have people we both know, and I have some nephews and nieces who think she's really good. I was impressed. The fact is, when she got on stage and sang, she was really good."
_____

In other Cure news- Mel bought me a ticket to go see The Cure play with AFI. Yay!

What A Way To Go

"The American lifestyle is unsustainable."

All the Liberal capitalists like Al Gore would love to have us believe that changing our consumer habits while not ending them will lift the earth out of harm's way. All those with blind faith in our civilization and our science would love for us all to accept that civilization and sciene will inherently reverse our destruction.

What A Way To Go is a documentary about empire and earth.
It looks VERY VERY interesting and far more important than An Inconvenient Truth!

trailer 1:


trailer 2:




(thanx Dustin)

What We Have #3

What We Have Zine #3 is out!!!

There aren't enough paper zines and I really appreciate them when I see 'em. My man, Allan, puts out What We Have and he puts a lot of heart into it.
Included in issue 3 are interviews with Time For Change (New Age Records), Crystal Lake (Japan), Nueva Etica (Argentina), Casey Watson (Look Back And Laugh, Never Healed, Yaphet Kotto, etc.), and Schimelpfenig (an Animal Rights Activist). Original and never before seen band photos include To Kill, The First Step, Zann, Ad Arma, Verse, 108, Earth Crisis, Bold, and more! In addition, this issue features columns, reviews, and other commentary.
Only 200 copies of this 'zine are being printed and distributed.
(The Casey Watson interview is from this blog!!)

If you would like to order a copy of WWH3 please send $3.50ppd (stop your whining) to:
What We Have 1626 Villa Ave. Santa Barbara, CA 93101
For international orders and other inquiries please contact whatwehave@hotmail.com. Copies will also be available through the Catalyst Records Webstore and other online distros soon.

WWH MySpace page

plastic vegan

I couldn't be more sick of hearing about David Beckham (especially after non-stop Becks talk during the Celtic v. MLS friendly). So what do I do? I watch the bullshit TV show Victoria Beckham Comes To America.
At one point in the program, Posh tells her personal assistant that she doesn't consume any animal products. I was intrigued and went straight to the internet.
Apparently Posh is now a vegan and was a vegetarian for some time before. She even caused a bit of a stir by purchasing, carrying around, and thus offering publicity for the book 'Skinny Bitch' which advocates veganism.

David Beckham actually forced Adidas to stop using kangaroo skin on his signature boots after seeing a video of how kangaroos are butchered (I can't help but think of the scene from The Jerk when the rich Jerk is shown the film of cat juggling). The Beckham Predator boots are now all synthetic.
Becks also wanted to purchase a fox fur coat but didn't fearing reprisals from anti-fur groups. haha
(I am pretty certain he still eats animals.)

The Beckhams are still filthy rich idiots.

Kanye + Daft Punk

With the little bit of 'out-there' production I've heard from Kanye West's upcoming "Graduation", I am excited. Sounds like he is flippin the script.

I love his new single "Stronger" but couldn't help but think he must be biting some serious Daft Punk... Then I learned that Daft Punk actually produced that banger!

video:

Return of the Earthquakes

The San Jose Earthquakes will rejoin MLS for the 2008 season!

Hopefully, the new owners put together a decent squad... and please get a fuckin proper club name and crest!! (I think a fantastic name would be Bay Area United. haha)

Until a soccer specific stadium is built in San Jose, big draw matches might even be played in Oakland.



(thanx Neel!)

Headline News: Americans suck!

haha
This is a real headline news article found on Yahoo and attributed to LiveScience:

Study: Americans Don't Understand Others

Rugged American individualism could hinder our ability to understand other peoples' point of view, a new study suggests.

And in contrast, the researchers found that Chinese are more skilled at understanding other people's perspectives, possibly because they live in a more "collectivist" society.

"Even in America, you can find collectivist societies. For example, working class people tend to be much more collective."
_____

There it is! Proven by science.
Capitalist individualism is faulty and must be thrown out in favor of a more healthy and understanding society!

(This also goes out to lifestyle anarchists and/or anarchists bent on personal "autonomous" freedom rather than social liberation because those goals are nothing more than a reflection of one's individualist social environment!)

Euro-Vader

Remember Project Vader?
At Euro Star Wars Celebration 28 UK artists added to the fun.


(I found these and a lot of other cool ILM/Star Wars related stuff on Bonniegirl's Flickr account.)

Mao movie

Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal are set to make a film about the rise of Mao. It is being based on Roy Rowan's memoir "Chasing the Dragon: A Veteran Journalist's Firsthand Account of the 1949 Chinese Revolution." The plan is to weave the story into a love story meets epic drama.

This has got to suck.

Celebrity Becks

Beckham was officially presented today by his new club, LA Galaxy.
The Galaxy even updated their kits! (And I must admit that I like the new look.)

I am already sick of hearing about Beckham the saviour. I can't shake the distinct feeling that him and Posh made the calculated move not for football but for fame & celebrity.

James Hart: solo rockstar

OK, Eighteen Visions finally realized how sorry they were and broke up a couple months ago. They must be a bunch of egomaniacal lunatics because one of them released a calendar of himself and now James Hart is playing solo rock n roll.

This is basically a template of what not to do... Orange Co. produced HC kids who worshipped bad hard rock, let it all go to their heads and chased after fame, right in time for all this LA rockstar fad.

קרב מגע

Last night I participated in my first Krav Maga class.
How ironic, huh? A staunch anti-Zionist like myself learning the combat skills of the Israeli Defense Forces. It was quite a brutal yet enjoyable experience.

I entered the class with absolutely no experience in martial arts of any kind. My parents never enrolled me in karate classes. I never wrestled in school. I enjoy watching MMA on television but never thought of taking any training. Although I have been weight training for a few years now, I have no practical skills in regards to combat. Even my personally driven cardio routine didn’t serve to prepare me for the Krav Maga warm-up.

After the aforementioned brutal warm-up (to which I had to walk off cramps), our instructor, Steve, gave me some one-on-one attention. He showed me proper fighting form etc. Then we moved into learning some choke defense-into-offense moves. It is a lot like choreographed dancing. My partner was a dude A LOT larger than me (which is good for practice and exemplifies the ideology of Krav Maga). The class ended with us four students taking turns being “attacked” by eachother (practicing punches/jabs, kicks, and choke defense/offense). It was a lot of fun.

My bad back didn’t suffer too much from the class. My tendonitis got a little sore but it went away rather quickly. My dominant knee is bruised and sore from kneeing my partner as are my delts/lats from the choke moves. My traps are also bruised slightly from being choked. Haha Somehow during all of the class, I got my nose broke. It isn’t too painful and I have no idea how/when it happened.

I do hope to go back to Krav Maga Berkeley somewhat regularly.

(thanx Frank)


I chose Krav Maga over other martial arts because I feel that it is the most practical and best suited for my build.
Krav Maga is not a sport. It was developed by Imi Lichtenfeld to defend Jews from racists in Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the 1930’s. Lichtenfeld fled Europe to Palestine where he taught his techniques to Zionist Fascists. Eventually, the state of Israel adopted Krav Maga for IDF combat.
All the techniques focus on maximum efficiency in real-life conditions.
Krav Maga’s guiding principles are:
• neutralize the threat
• avoid injury
• go from defending to attacking as quickly as possible
• use the body's natural reflexes
• strike at any vulnerable point
• use any tool or object nearby

anomalous or seems questionable

A flight from Los Angeles to London was diverted to New York City after the crew reported a suspicious passenger who was only a legit passenger and employee of the airline.

"I think the good news here, of course, is an alert crew sees something that's anomalous or seems questionable and they take action," said US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

"anomalous or seems questionable "?!?!
I love how everytime some American panics and is then proven wrong, the authorities still applaud them as if what they did was correct.

This Is England

and this looks great!

(still) go vegan!

This past weekend, I found myself in a position that I don't often find myself in anymore. Some friends were taken aback at my veganism and my refusal to allow meat into my home.

In a discussion with another friend, Jenny Stench, we touched on this pervasive attitude towards veganism. It went something like this:

me:
"One thing I have noticed from being vegan is how on-the-defensive people get simply at the fact you are vegan.
As if it is offensive... As if it is a threat or condemnation on their way of life... Which, deep down, they know it is because any alternative to the norm cannot be tolerated. "

Jenny:
"wow, just by simply hearing that, it dawned on me, that in fact that's why they get so mad. Because somewhere deep inside they know how horrible it is. But to really change, change everything they've ever known would be so different, and such a task, that by hating it, it's easier to live with themselves.
Before I became vegan I had to avoid thinking about things. I had to avoid reading ingredients because it made me physically sick. But I got so fed up with feeling so horrible about it, not only mentally but physically, that i made myself watch all the horrible videos on peta.com. And after slowly becoming vegan I realized that I needed to buy new household products that were vegan also..."

I don't consider myself some vegan warrior and I don't often really champion veganism but this exchange made me remember how veganism can be part of something big. Something larger than a diet. It is a way of questioning and challenging the bullshit we are fed (literally) by this system.

The Trap

Genius documentarian, Adam Curtis', most recent work The Trap can be found here:


The Trap is about how models of humans as self-serving have made contemporary definitions of freedom.

_____

The site also has video of Louis Theroux who used to have a wonderful television program.

(I wish I could get these videos onto my television!)

Live Earth

This weekend is the 9 massive Live Earth pop concerts.

I am HIGHLY critical of this and its billionaire organizers and automobile sponsors. Yet I have not written on it because our environmental crisis is so large of a topic. To really discuss the issue, one cannot be limited to the bullshit soundbites and quick-fix solutions of Al Gore.

Bob Geldof, who organised the Live Aid and Live8 charity concerts, has described the event as lacking a "final goal" and claimed most people already knew about the hazards of global warming.

I watched the organizers of the concert event on television last night. Such pompous bullshit!
It really takes a rich American to think it is their calling to teach the rest of the world something most of them already know and accept. (Remember, it is very rare outside of the US for people to be dismissive of climate change.)

Live Aid might have been problematic but it had a goal of raising money. Now in our post-modern capitalist society where it is unacceptable to even think about affecting change outside of one's self, the Live Earth concerts seek to do nothing more than raise "awareness" of climate change... While wasting MASS amounts of energy and resources!

I'm sorry Liberal do-gooders but low-wattage light bulbs and Prius hybrids are not going to reverse (or stop) the decline our planet faces at our hands.
This system that worships death and production over life will not rest and must be overthrown. It isn't enough to accept change only at our luxurious comfort levels or to wait this out.
The necessary changes are NOT personal but systemic and have to be addressed on that level!
If humans truly want to save the earth, it is going to have to take a lot more than a fuckin pop concert.

The Who's Roger Daltrey said: "The last thing the planet needs is a rock concert."

(Now go read some Derek Jensen!)

Stiff Kittens?

Today the AFI side project, Blaqk Audio, officially release their first single; the track 'Stiff Kittens.'
It is a great track that sounds a lot like Depeche Mode. Judging from the lyrics, the song's title has no direct meaning or connection.

Stiff Kittens? Is that some pop culture reference or term I am just unfamiliar with?? I can think of several sexual innuendos it could be paired with. It is this term and song title that I am interested in.

In the early 90's, I had a group of friends from Half Moon Bay and Pacifica (just south of SF). This group of skate punx that would eventually become Portraits Of Past and still later fan out into other bands such as Funeral Diner and Vue often hitchhiked into The City. These hitchhiking trips produced many an interesting tale.
My memory is foggy but one such trip involved a trucker who claimed to be a member of a multi-guitar band called Keno & The Blind Pirates. He displayed his band's genius songwriting with one jam containing the refrain "Stiff Kitty!"
This was the first and only time I had heard this terminology... until Blaqk Audio.

So I pondered... Is there a connection??
It is possible. I know that at least one member of Blaqk Audio knows at least one keeper of the hilarious 'Stiff Kitty' tale.
Or perhaps it is just a coincidence.

I hate Liberals (and co-workers)

I have often thought that I should perhaps write accounts of my co-workers. It is surely more entertaining than police brutality or seitan.
The cast of characters at my place of employment really is unbelievable. Rather than even attempt to recap everything, let me start with this morning...

I was asked about my plans for the glorious 4th Of July. I uncomfortably mentioned a punk show and as-brief-as-possible explained 924 Gilman.
My chatty co-worker said he had a block party planned. I told him that much to my father's disappointment, I was not too into celebrating with fireworks. Perhaps this is due to my father's love of fireworks which he has been known to travel across multiple state lines to procure.

Another co-worker mentioned his joy as a kid in exploding anything and everything with cherrybombs.

Right after I finished saying how I do NOT like fireworks, this temp who is more of a perm turned to me and said, "Let me tell you! THAT is something girls are NOT into. And guys are! And THAT is why men start all wars!"

I am so sick of her superior attitude and her Liberal drivvle.
I bit my tongue as I wanted to tell her, "Yep, just like Thatcher."

Trying to stop police brutality

Radical civil rights lawyer Michael Tarif Warren and his wife Evelyn Warren were assaulted and arrested by police when they tried to intervene in the police beating of a handcuffed black man accused of drug possession.

A crowd of supporters from the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and black Muslim and anarchist organizations quickly gathered. Brooklyn City Councilman and former member of the BPP Charles Baron also came to demand that the Warrens be released without charges.
The crowd of protesters then took the streets to the chant "Who's Street, Our Street" and marched for a number of blocks.