California Love Redux

Something led us to that old Dr. Dre/Tupac "California Love" video the other day -- you know, the apocalyptic one where they're running around in rags and ramshackle Hummers, all early Gibson-like? We couldn't help but admire the stylistic shout-outs (ha! get it? hip-hop reference) they squeeze in there: Aside from the obvious overriding Mad Max trilogy theme, the video opens with vintage Chris Tucker doing his 5th Element thing (you know, the outerspace-crackhead schtick he used to land more lucrative gigs playing comic relief to Jackie Chan's unintentional straight man) and is followed with a scene lifted from The Warriors before descending into full Road Warrior mode; this later tiptoes quietly into Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome territory when they move to sweeping aerial shots of the stars rapping inside a, yes, Thunderdome. The whole video's simply fantastic, but why waste it on "California Love?" I know Australian apocalypse-themed jams don't usually chart, but still: "California Love" is one of the few songs that actually warrants your classic mid-90s rap video -- you know, 64s, Cristal, ladies in thongs, egregious materialism, guest spots by other definitively regional rappers. 

What's that you say? Oh. 

Fuck you world

I just watched a Southwest Airlines ad whose selling point was "Your Bags Fly Free!" This strikes me as analogous to Craigslist apartment ads highlighting "Free Use of Toilet!" and hookers throwing in handjobs with Eliot Spitzer specials. 

That is all.

Two months late and 94 short

Detroit photographer Kevin Bauman has 100 Abandoned Houses (via Volts, Amps and Ohms). We have six. But we swear we shot these before his site blew up earlier this fine spring. Check the trees if you don't believe us. Ha. Moted. 

Nobody's out but the ruffians

One of the first warm weekends of this nascent summer in New York, and the streets on Saturday night were quiet where they should've been cracking and chaotic where they should've been silent. Los Trinitarios seemed to be staying in playing Mob Wars, leaving Los Sures to the older crowd: In the five minutes after I left my house, I exchanged pleasantries with a trio of homeless folks on the shelter steps, passed a heaving circle of Dominicanos going verse-for-verse in front of the mechanic's garage, came upon an impromptu taco stand--complete with two-man mariachi band--in front of an apartment building, and ducked and weaved through fifteen twentysomething men streaming out of a row house to watch a brawl in the making. 

Later, walking to the train through an eerily silent LES, a beater Camry packed with Latino teenagers screeched up alongside me, veering onto the sidewalk across the street and almost hitting a hydrant. On the phone, I glanced over long enough to gather that the driver was fighting with a girl in the passenger side, with another girl riding bitch most certainly not real thrilled about the whole scenario. Before I turned the corner, I looked back in time to see homegirl square up and punch the dude in the jaw, hard, before he drove away. An hour later, after an empty train ride back over the river, I stumbled down from the platform to see a white guy in a Warriors-inspired getup talking to three cops--one uniformed, two plainclothes--with blood caking the left half of his face and big welts rising on his forehead and right cheek. Jumped by kids on the train: "And the worst part was--listen to this--the worst part was, they were videotaping the whole thing! Check Youtube, I think they were doing it to put up there..."

And so on.

Kentridge proves poignant

South African artist William Kentridge's solo exhibition at SFMOMA explores the myriad themes and mediums of his body of work. Known primarily for his stop-motion films and commentary on apartheid, this presentation provides a more well rounded sampling of his oeuvre from the 1980s to present.
From the charcoal drawings to the film, collage, and sculpture, Five Themes reveals Kentridge's criticisms of political inequalities. Many of the drawings, particularly those done in charcoal, contrast a soft lyrical stroke with somber subject matter, even incorporating comedic self deprecation at times. The artist manages to delicately balance sobriety and humor. With a background in theater, Kentridge maintains an interest in combining performance and static art. In conjunction with the SFMOMA show, he teamed with Seattle's Pacific Operaworks to design and direct a run of Monteverdi's The Return of Ulysses.

Who's up for a taste?

Mindblowing Hip-Hop Guest Spot of the Year:

Little late on this, but eh. Reckunize? Another brother whose inebriated persona made him a star. And no, Eminem is not the guest. If you're still at a loss, consider that mystery doc's pals are trying to get their crossover on too, with mixed results.

Dude's back with Relapse, by the way, if ya ain't heard it (even though the resurgence of the psycho homophobe comes off as stale on a couple tracks). It doesn't hurt that he channels the cadence of DCQ OG faves The Pharcyde and Brotha Lynch Hung on "3 a.m." and "Stay Wide Awake," respectively.

From the Welsh woods a hobbit house springs

Byrne and Mogwai Catherine Zeta-Jones and corgi dogs are no longer the only worthwhile things to come out of Scotland Wales: Today, SFGate introduced to the non-paying American mainstream Simon Dale, a woodsman of sorts who built an earthen yurt/hobbit barn/mudhut for him and his clan as a big "fick oof" to conventional residential building norms and Western consumerism. Dale and another Scot Welshman or two slapped it together in three months for less than $5,000. No mortgage, no neighbors, no meter maids and no Trainspotting bathroom scenes (AGAIN!? Really, is there a difference? Is there?!?) more lamenting Christian Bale's abandonment of his native accent every time a Terminator ad comes on.     

And on a minor yet essential side note, it's come to our attention that a significant portion of our fanboys and girls, as well as members of the more general public, are under the impression that the aforementioned Welsh dog breed is pronounced "cor-ghee," and thus flaunts one of the English language's few relative consistencies (see: bunGEE/GEE whiz/GIZZmaster). Also, according to the omniscient canine authority The Westminster Kennel Club, 'corgi' means 'dwarf dog' in Welsh. I had begun to construct an impassioned criticism of the corgi creator's choice of nomenclature, because everyone knows abnormally tiny creatures with disproportionate limbs and heads are technically considered 'midgets,' when I learned through the endless miracle of Wikipedia that I had the dwarf/midget distinction backwards. Of substantially more use was my discovery that the term "midget," a leftover from the glory days of the circus freak, is now considered taboo. Instead, one should refer to the small-statured by using "dwarf, "little person," "LP," or, as the Little People of America suggest, "their name."

One Month and Counting, Papi

The responsibility inherent to this blogging business has had us all flustered recently, so we decided to just sit around and eat corned beef hash out of the can and wait for someone to finally invent the remedial device that will read our Cleverest/Poignantest Thought of the Day and transcribe it onto this limp-wristed blog. Seems basic enough, right? But Jackass Scientist Man is evidently preoccupied with more trivial matters, so we regretfully return to pounding the keyboard with our middle fingers and opposable thumbs while eating more corned beef hash out of the can, because that shit is delicious. 

In keeping with tradition, then, we once again eschew literary substance in favor of photos and throwaway captions while celebrating the now-rapid approach of the Day the Puerto Ricans Retake Manhattan. It's a mere month away now, so maybe it's time I overcome my newly perfected machete phobia and saunter over to Sazon Perez for a mound of greasy, crackily pernil, since it's allllmost as delectable as corned beef hash and it doesn't typically come with aluminum splinters and other tasty surprises that sometimes make non-crunchy canned foods crunchy. Oy...hurry up, Jackass Scientist Man. For now, shutup, you, and marvel upon the shiny soul-drawrings:

Shouldn't wear a wife-beater for the same reason I don't wear an afro: Because it just looks stupid 

Shake it, mami

"Frommer, you've failed us again"  

"Not...ideal..." 

No links for you! Jimmy Kimmel sleeps with Jones Day

A few months ago, somewhere along the daily descent from online work research to tangentially work-related online reading to Youtube animal porn, Emily Gould became a known name to us me (disclaimer: much of DCQ experienced a near-total internet blackout from 2002-2005, which partially overlaps with the time period in which subject Gould rose to infamy). She's a competent and compelling enough writer, but Jimmy Kimmel got drunk and punched his grandma and then disappeared Larry King before verbally eviscerating Gould on national TV over the dire threat her employer's Gawker Stalker app poses to celebrities like him free societies everywhere. Other bloggers ragged on Gould's performance, she meekly defended herself, others came to her aid, still others doubled up on the attack, and the celebrities themselves were able to leave their Cloaks of Invisibility at home that week when they picked up their frappuccinos.

Then, in February, a Cleveland startup that tracks high-end real estate deals and IDs the players involved found itself the target of some strikingly Kimmelesque criticism: Farcically malevolent legal giant Jones Day sued Blockshopper for daring to evoke the firm's name and link to its website in articles describing condo purchases by two Jones Day attorneys. The site's founders chose to settle with Jones Day rather than blow their wad on legal fees fighting an army of 2,000-plus smarmy Ivy League grads.

For the curious, the firm claimed the site's usage of links constituted copyright violation. If that's the case, Jones Day, you've got your work cut out for you. The real motivation for the suit was most assuredly the fact that Chesters One and Two didn't appreciate their addresses being sprayed all over the virtual world of realty. (If you're still struggling with good guy/bad guy, let this guide you: Jones Day is the firm that helped Chevron first defeat a lawsuit by relatives of dirt-poor Nigerians killed while protesting the company's environmental and human rights violations, then turn around and countersue the villagers for $500K in an attempt to discourage other third-world exploitees who might sue in the future--just as the Blockshopper suit was used as a suppression tactic aimed at other would-be freeloading hippies channelers of free traffic to the firm's site.

Tudo bom!

Kehinde Wiley has dropped in LA.... again. His third show at Roberts & Tilton, The World Stage: Brazil, opened April 4th and runs through the end of May. It incorporates approximately 10 of Wiley's notoriously oversized oils on canvas, all of which depict male Brazilian models emulating poses of historic and nationalistic Brazilian artworks. The bright backgrounds are modeled after found Brazilian fabrics, and each canvas is finished with an ornate black frame. The World Stage series, begun in 2007 with The World Stage: China, has enabled Mr. Wiley to place young contemporary black males into the contexts of nationalistic and identifying artworks of China, Africa, India, and now Brazil. Each portrait provokes the viewer to reinvision the traditionally white European male iconic images that are so familiar. The authority and importance associated with the traditional subjects is therefore transferred to the contemporary models selected by Wiley. All of the men depicted in these new works were hand chosen by Wiley and his team from the favela streets in Brazil, and were asked to come to the studio, usually the day of their meeting, in clothing of their choosing to pose and be photographed for the paintings.

The exhibition travels to the Modern Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro from June 27th to August 22nd, 2009.