aqua prince (my favorite things)

proudly displayed in my media department is the aqua prince tape. a gift from the creator: russian tsarcasm (a.k.a.: russian tsarlag / carlos gonzales)....from about 5-6 years ago.

i so love the package as is, that i've never "opened" and played the cassette. i'm waiting until i turn 34, becuz that's what "aqua prince" translates to on my phone. 


carlos is the shadow wizard from such rad projects as: bread fangs, rat's cocoon, byron house, crotch council, slime freak, and much much more...

...with his unhindered ability to turn slime to solid chrome and water into liquid, i know whatever is on the magnetic is going to wipe out my future mind. 

doraemon: the restroom...

doraemon fan? 
me too? (intentional question mark)...
i don't know that i REALLY enjoy doraemon that much, but like the feeling i get when the cartoon is on, and this isn't the first time i've brought up the blue cat with no ears here (doraemon solar powered car model: http://taserfactory.blogspot.com/2010/08/doraemon-lives.html). 

anyway, the color theme of the men's room at el chavito in silver lake / los feliz always reminds of him...turns out they're huge fans.

AM rad-io...

one of my favorite instruments...the Zenith Royal 50 transistor radio. along with producing some killer, taser factory noises (whirls and pops and zaps), it also allows me to listen to dodgers games.

i'm not sure if it hates my laptop, or if my laptop hates it, but it's leading to some great fun.


thank you Zenith Royal 50.

prvtdncr / bodega vendetta

i have been walking past these two pieces on an almost daily basis (as they are right down the block from where i live), for a...while, and finally took a few photos. 

this is some of the best street art i have found, or that has found me, in LA. my mind caught fire immediately, but i had to do some online digging to allow the flames to spread. 


from what i can tell, this is collaborative work by prvtdncr (--private dancer) and bodega vendetta... mapping thru several of their related blogs at the speed i was going made it a bit difficult to find the decisive breaks between the artists' work...

but who gives a fuck! this is totally taser and that blog quest i mentioned is totally worthwhile, as it is simply image after image of powerful good. it's easy and fun and goes waaayyyy beyond these two photos here.
do it:
http://bodegavendetta.blogspot.com/
http://www.prvtdncr.org/
http://sweaterqueens-roidz.blogspot.com/
http://www.sweaterqueens.org/


i grabbed some info from catch fire...http://www.catch-fire.com/tag/bodega-vendetta/
where in described as: "tweeker hooker folk art posters”. enough said, now look.

Bimbo on Sunset Blvd...

hmmm...if it weren't for the fact that i came across this truck so early in the morning, i probably wouldn't have taken the photo.


but i did. not the most taser factory shot, especially considering this is the first post in a while...but at least i resisted the urge to post the photo to facebook and tag a bunch of "friends" in it (carmageddon has brought out my benevolent side).

as i was downloading the photo from my camera, i realized that i didn't have a clue as to the origin of the word bimbo. 
naturally i went straight to wikipedia and found that the history of bimbo holds a few more fucked up facets than i had imagined...
see for yrself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimbo


of course, this post could just be an excuse to tag carmageddon.

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absolutely

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brilliant

jeff moerchen's zephyr project (Xerox)....

jeff moerchen is an exciting documentarian, a lover of life, and a great friend and collaborator. jeff's photos are also totally taser factory, and are step-ladder of motivation for my own recent interest in trying to click good and print.

he recently did a xerox installation of his Zephyr collection on this corner in greenwich village. 

to view very good work, go here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffmoerchen

the (blank) is the massage...

this is by far one of the better wheatpastes i've seen around the area. this is in glendale, ca, near los feliz + san fernando. 

i bet there are others, on other medians. 

i have my suspicions, but to whoever, good work...

The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects is a book co-created by media analyst Marshall McLuhan and graphic designer Quentin Fiore, and coordinated by Jerome Agel. It was published by Bantam books in 1967 and became a bestseller and a cult classic.

The book itself is 160 pages in length and composed in an experimental, collage style with text superimposed on visual elements and vice versa. Some pages are printed backwards and are meant to be read in a mirror (see mirror writing). Some are intentionally left blank. Most contain photographs and images both modern and historic, juxtaposed in startling ways.

The book was intended to make McLuhan's philosophy of media and communication, considered by some^[who?] incomprehensible and esoteric, more accessible to a wider readership through the use of visual metaphor and sparse text.[citat

Preakness Stakes 2011...

Preakness Stakes 2011! Is tomorrow...

 …marred in recent years by drunken hijinx in the infield, and party-centric, hinging on indecent (at least for a Triple Crown event) promotional campaigns, see last year’s: ”Get Your Preak On!”

Preakness doesn’t really hold up to the stately and time tested, though drunken, precedent set by The Kentucky Derby (the hats help a lot).

 

This year’s Preakness raises it’s own fucked up bar with a brilliant new campaign creature…”Kegasus”.

You’ll have to see for yourself: http://www.theinfieldfest.com/

I guess the most awesome aspects of this year’s race are:

1. Animal Kingdom (who won the derby) is at 2:1

2. I won’t be there! (I'll be attending the Rapture.)

everything in it's place...thank you michael johansson!

there are several works of art out there that i wish i had had the thought to create. in michael johansson's case, i actually wish that i had the artist's life...or vision rather ...or his phone number, to talk him into to helping out with an upcoming, uncomfortable move...

the talent here is vision. johansson's ability to put into action these incredible thought strings on coincidental items, actions and occurrences is simply unbelievable. he's one of those artists who i struggle not to tar with a more grandiose, eccentric epithet...

i don't know why i even wrote that. anything i have the ability to write can be derived directly from this swedish artist's work.

he puts things in their place. (i would give anything to see how he packs his suitcase)...

from michaeljohansson.com...

I am intrigued by irregularities in daily life. Not those that appear when something extraordinary occurs, but those that are created by an exaggerated form of regularity. Colours or patterns from two separate objects or environments concur, like when two people pass each other dressed in the exact same outfit. Or when you are switching channels on your TV and realize that the same actor is playing two different roles on two different channels at the same time. Or that one day the parking lot contained only red cars.

These irregularities, these coincidences, are another focus of my artwork.

view his site for the love of fucking god!

http://www.michaeljohansson.com 

 

calling all band-aid enthusiasts...

i am on the brink of considering myself a band-aid enthusiast...

my favorite band-aids include images of snoopy! this is somewhat carried over from childhood, more specifically a childhood full of blood tests and allergy shots. 
however, my love of snoopy has only grown, and i can't really imagine a more suitable mascot for band-aids. something about what mr. schultz did that resonates with the whole child+ouch=band aid, etc. 

shawn egg gave me some ninja band-aids a few years back...i tried to call them "bad-ainds", but it didn't catch on in spite of being very, very stupid. 

lately, thanks to a small piece of glass hidden below my skin, i've been sporting a band-aid regularly (any clues to where the glass came to be in my body are welcome...i mean, i did black out a few times several years ago, but...)
this trend brought back memories of michelle trachtenberg's character nona on the adventures of pete & pete. nona always had a cast on her arm. 

iggy pop also played her father on the show.

i can't really touch that part.

The Story of the Band-Aid:
Back in 1920, this newlywed was living in New Brunswick, New Jersey, with her husband Earle, and though married life agreed with her, housekeeping did not. Not that she didn't try. When Earle came home from his job as a cotton buyer at Johnson & Johnson, Josephine would always have dinner on the table. Unfortunately, she'd also have several cuts or burns on her fingers. Without an adhesive bandage, Josephine had no easy way of bandaging her own cuts. Earle had to cut pieces of adhesive tape and cotton gauze and make a bandage for each wound. This happened day after day-and, day after day Josephine needed more bandages. They were in a real bind.
Finally, after several weeks of kitchen accidents, Earle hit upon an idea. (Luckily for Johnson & Johnson, his idea was not to go out and hire a cook.) No, Earle sat down and prepared some ready-made bandages by placing squares of cotton gauze at intervals along an adhesive strip and covering them with crinoline. Now all Josephine had to do was cut off a length of the strip and wrap it over her cut. In a way, it was a mother who was responsible for the invention of the BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandage.
Earle soon told his boss at work about his new invention and soon the first adhesive bandages were being produced and sold under the world famous BAND-AID® trademark. Earle was eventually rewarded with a position as Vice President in the company, where he stayed until his retirement. As for Josephine, history does not record whether she ever mastered the art of accident-free cooking. But we do know she had plenty of BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages available just in case. Earle Dickson may not have realized what a cutting edge product he was inventing, but it certainly stuck around.