Respect Authority

Check it out, another self indulgent photography post!

The first two are actually pretty old, taken back in an evil time several months ago, a time that has now led me to believe that 28 degrees Fahrenheit is warm. Plus, as I work at home (baby daddy is a full time job, okay) one could say I wasn’t getting out a whole lot. One could say, “that Howard Hughes mother fucker on the sixth floor’s beard is starting to smell.”

But just like Josh Hartnett’s seminal role (What? He’s proof that vampires can have mustaches) in 30 Days of Night, my tale is one of redemption, and my long winter is showing its first signs of relenting. Only I don’t have to turn into ashes now that we have daylight past 4:30 pm again, which is, obviously, a plus. Read More ›

Just when you were starting to think that maybe graffiti would be a fun endeavor to try, notorious L.A.-based crew, the Metro Transit Assassins, goes and gets themselves arrested. Conveniently, the contraband confiscated in the process only proves once and for all that graffiti really is a fun endeavor to try… until you get thrown in jail. And isn’t that just the case with everything fun these days? And by everything, I mean pretty much just drugs.

The MTA is responsible for L.A.’s single largest tag, a monstrous three-story-high, half-mile long signature on the concrete banks of the Los Angeles River. You know, that festering trickle of runoff and slime, a brook at best, babbling only because of the ferocious bacterial life within, that skateboarders sometimes do really cool tricks over? Regardless, the MTA so kindly graced L.A. with a veritable landmark and how does the city repay them? By putting them in cuffs and confiscating all their guns and weed. Pretty fucking ungrateful if you ask me.

Their work is not your typical crudely drawn ejaculating penis or alien giving the finger scrawled in alleyways and along the subway tracks. One has to be pretty fucking good, and organized, to deface something as huge as the L.A. river bank. And it shows — one of the suspects arrested drives a $60,000 BMW, and another member of the crew, well-known graffiti artist Smear, has recently sold pieces to wealthy collectors. Their operation is, or was anyway, on a scale equivalent to that of their massive acts of public beautification. Indeed, the term “high rollers” works on so many levels here that I think I just popped some of the pun receptors in my brain.

Meanwhile, the cost to clean up the tag is also proportional — the city estimates it will run about $3.7 million to remove the three lumbering block letters, as extra measures must be taken to keep the 400 gallons of paint used to create the tag from running into the river. After all, one wouldn’t want to contaminate all the blood-encrusted syringes and filthy condoms that live there.

Nonetheless, these guys are in some shit now, and it’s considerably deeper than the Los Angeles River.

Are American capitalism and consumer culture rubbing off on Banksy?

The latest stop on the infamous British stencil artist’s impromptu American tour is none other than New York City, a veritable mecca of street art in its own right — the only odd thing is that it seems Banksy might not even be there. In the past week, New York has seen two huge wall murals reeking of the pseudo-anonymous artist’s drawing style go up seemingly overnight, however, he didn’t paint them!

Both pieces, “I Love NY” located at Wooster and Grand Street, and “Let Them Eat Crack” on Broadway and Howard, were commissioned by Banksy and are, in fact, entirely legal. Personally, while I find both pieces amusing, attractive, and thought-provoking, methinks the message gets a little diluted when they’re paid for, painted by somebody else, and maybe most importantly, covering illegal street art in the case of “Let Them Eat Crack,” which happily rolled over a large tag by graffiti artist Katsu. Read More ›