guest post by Josh Ellingson

Artist Jeremy Mayer creates striking representations of human anatomy using only typewriter parts. Mayer doesn’t weld or glue any of the components, preferring rather that the pieces hold together naturally. The resulting biomechanical artwork transcends “steampunk” aesthetic and clicks neatly into place among surrealists like H.R. Giger and Zdzislaw Beksinski. You can follow Jeremy Mayer on Twitter (@jeremymayer) or view a live webcam feed from his Palo Alto studio here.

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guest post by Chuck Cirino

Before the quintessential quick-cutting and fast-paced techniques overused in television today Shadoe Steven’s Fred Rated television commercials broke this new stylistic ground back in the mid-1980s.  Smashing prices, and expensive audio and video gear was Shadoe’s trademark technique for driving media-crazy customers into the many Federated Group home entertainment stores scattered around Southern California at the time.

It was a race for pace by jam packing three minutes of mundane ad information into edgy, entertaining and explosive thirty second commercial spots.  My pleasure and honor was to have collaborated with Shadoe on these commercials as his director and editor.  Over a three-year period we made over 1000 television commercials together.

Cut to:  PRESENT DAY

A few weeks ago Shadoe approached me about a new advertising collaboration.  Shadoe’s task 25 years later was to sell a wheelchair.  What?  A wheelchair?

Oh, but this isn’t just a wheelchair, the Standing Powerchair is an affordable way to bring dignity to those of us who don’t have the full use of our bodies… and Shadoe’s good friend Mark Shedlin, a victim of MS is one such person.  Mark purchased this Powerchair only to discover it was not well-known by doctors and most insurance companies.  Marks mission soon became to get the word out so more people could benefit, and he enlisted Shadoe to help him.

This time for Shadoe the commercial was personal, and once he introduced me to Mark it became personal for me too.  So of course leave it to Shadoe to wildly entertain while getting his message across.  Once again he smashes the traditional and we created this ad…

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A captivating video of some extremely bizarre slow motion running in Japan.

The song in the video is “Luv (sic) pt.? 2″ by Nujabes.

via Urlesque

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guest post by Laszlo Thoth

There’s an unusual sign in the window of the former Nob Hill See’s Candies of 1519 Polk Street. Landlord, horse farmer, fountain parker, and “911 Bounty Hunter” John Jenkel explains that the San Francisco candy maker has been evicted due to their contribution to the “Enron-sponsored” 9/11 attacks. The eviction notice places the candy company in a plot involving Warren Buffet.

photo by Laszlo Thoth

Confused? I was too, but I think I’ve figured it out:

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photo of John Solomon by Rachel Swan

The East Bay Express is reporting that How Berkeley Can You Be?, a unique parade and event that celebrates the eccentricities of Berkeley, CA, had been canceled. The event was started in 1996 by John Solomon and in 1999 the ArtCar Fest joined in as part of the event. This year they had to pull the plug due to financial reasons and lack of support from the City of Berkeley, but they hope to return in 2010.

UPDATE: The San Francisco Chronicle has an update on the cancellation of How Berkeley Can You Be?

via Emily Duffy

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My Mom shot these photos of a mysterious billboard that asks “When? Gulf Breeze UFO?” located at the entrance to Navarre Beach in Florida, across from the intersection of Hwy 98 and Hwy 87 in front of the Navarre Beach Bridge.

Navarre Beach is not far from Gulf Breeze, which is the location of a famous series of UFO sightings in 1987, documented by Ed Walters and studied by MUFON (Mutual UFO Network).

Does anyone know who’s behind these billboards? Is it to promote tourism or scare people away?

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guest post by Al Ridenour

So the new Star Trek film made a good at drawing kids into their parent’s (or grandparent’s) sci-fi franchise, but it’s not like Roddenberry wasn’t trying to get with the kids back in 1969. What else would explain this exquisitely ham-fisted jam by the “Space Hippies” of episode #76, “The Way to Eden”, wherein Spock grudgingly breaks out his Vulcan harp for a bit of musical diplomacy.

Of course, the real-life Nimoy was anything but grudging in his pursuit of musical stardom, and these strivings — along with the occasional nod to the breathless rhapsodies of Shatner and other ST notables — are admirably documented at Maiden Wine, with troves of all-but-lost treasures including never-before-seen footage from Nimoy’s notorious “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” music video.

Naturally, all of this has inspired fans to join the musical chorus in a variety of ways, whether it’s hand-carving “an exact working replica” the aforementioned Vulcan harp. (It’s tuned to a diatonic, dontcha know!), dressing up as the “Mugato” and moshing with Sacramento’s Trekker punks, The No Kill I or recording novelty rockers like “Jim Beam Me Up” with Sacramento’s OTHER rival Trekkie band Warp 11.

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guest post by Burstein!

photo by Medeny

The United Nations Unconventional Culture Commission (UNUCC) bravely faced one of their most dangerous missions last Sunday as they attempted to safeguard the dignity of the participants of Bay to Breakers. In particular, they were vigilant against the scourge of “Pee Crimes,” a deadly affront to honor and dignity.

Doorsteps, alleyways, and parked vehicles have all been subjected to repeated Acts of Peeing in violation of the Vienna Convention on Public Excretion. UNUCC denounces these deplorable acts and once again calls for global solidarity against Pee Crimes.

The United Nations has been vigorously monitoring the Bay to Breakers ever since San Francisco’s UN Plaza was flooded by pee and Miller High Life in 1996. In 2007 a multinational force was dispatched to monitor and inspect the long-running Abnormal Public Event first hand. The observers were shocked by the blatant violations of international conventions on excretion, flabby nudity, flip-flops, and the alarming act known as keg standing-a simulated drowning by light beer which is illegal under UN Resolution 0117 on Dude Brahs.

photo by Jesse

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guest post by Al Ridenour

Time to rethink Bulgaria. Forget feta cheese, women’s choirs, and communist thuggery. Someone is rebooting  Bulgaria, and his name is Azis. At one level, you could simply describe him as a performer of chalga, a commercially streamlined fusion of traditional Romani (“gypsy,” ok?) folk-music and pop. But that would hardly do. In truth, Azis is Bulgaria’s answer to Madonna, Michael Jackson, Boy George, Liberace, and Marilyn Manson all rolled into one colossal glitter-dusted, KY-oozing jelly roll.

A Romani outsider by birth, this Balkan Bear’s star rose quickly with his first release in 2003, an unsuccessful bid for Parliament in 2005, an unofficial but highly publicized gay marriage in 2006, and the birth, in 2007, of a daughter via artificial insemination. But all this is nothing compared to the visual spectacle of his music videos. Whether playing Bollywood in an Erte-inspired Ice Queen get-up or playing nasty with Tom-of-Finland-inspired gangsters, the stylistic audacity of this hefty and uncompromising man-diva clearly demonstrates: it’s not your father’s Bulgaria anymore.

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guest post by Burstein!

As part of the her ongoing series Methods & Apparati for Social Facilitation and Mood Elevation, Keetra Dean Dixon has created “The Anonymous Hugging Wall”. It is yet unclear if they come in deluxe form or what their cost may be.

Other parts of the series include the “Full Spectrum Optical Invigoration Unit, Psuedo Simile Guides, and the Colling Inhalation Aid (aka Fridgi-Poofs)”.

Finally, the “Exercises to Stimulate the 42 Smiling Muscles”, which is effectively a wall mounted aid to exercise your smile muscles through the use of phonemes.

See Previously: Free Hugs Prank: Deluxe Hugs $2.00

via Urban Prankster

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guest post by Burstein!

Superheros are real and many of them happen to have MySpace pages. Fortunately, if you are in need, you can access the World Superhero Registry, which aggregates the bios and contact info for many real life costumed superheros. The Registry even goes so far as to identify if their heroics are confirmed or not.

For example the Shadow Hare of The Allegiance of Heroes in Cincinnati was recently injured when preventing a man from beating a woman.

photo by Bernardo Bolaños

Superbarrio Gómez does not use violence, but actually may be placing himself at more risk by being a labor organizer and forced evictions in Mexico. As I used to do similar work in Cambodia, sans spandex and cape, I can attest to the very real risk that local organizers like this take.

More locally, we have The Eye who uses “various self-created electronic devices and other means to prevent crime, and help others in need whenever and wherever possible.”

No matter how they do it, I have to respect the fact that these individuals have the courage to not just face crime, but also the flaws in society (as they perceive them). Just like all the pranksters we profile here at Laughing Squid, these folks aren’t taking reality sitting down. As Ghost, one of the co-founders of the Black Monday Society, says “Doesn’t matter how many people snicker at us. what matters is we are out there doing our duty for justice.” Good on them.

via reddit

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guest post by Burstein!

photo by unknown

Delving into the horrors merely skimmed by the Craftastrophe we did a while back, I present with scorched eyes Woolies (for lack of a better term). The good folks at Izismile have curated some interesting photos from a French wool fetishist site.

Ladies and gentlemen, Rule 34 strikes again!

via reddit

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guest post by Burstein!

K and K Mime are a pair of identical twins that spread the word of Jesus through mime. The flash intro to their website is something to behold as it is more or less the flash equivalent of a satirical monster truck rally commercial… but with more Jesus.

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guest post by RICK!

After 7 years of freelancing, Scott Iseri, got an office job. Instead of buckling down in the corporate world, he created a web series “Scotty Got an Office Job” featuring his office subversion.

Check out the earlier episodes on blip.tv and later episodes on Vimeo, or everything on iTunes. Yes it is real and no his co-workers are not in on it.

UPDATE 1: Whoops, it turns out that Scotty’s boss saw our blog post and fired him.

UPDATE 2: Liz Shannon Miller of NewTeeVee reports that Scotty was offered his job back, but instead decided to return to freelance work.

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guest post by mikl-em

Each year on the initial day of April The First Church of the Last Laugh stages a singular parade through the streets of San Francisco to celebrate their one holy day a year Saint Stupid’s Day.

This Wednesday, April 1st will be no exception…

Bring PINK SLIPS and EVICTION NOTICES for the HQs of the not so free market…print your own money for bail outs, pay offs and buy ins. Fun for all ages! Drums and other noise production devices encouraged. Attend at your own risk. Watch your step. Spread the word.

Free lunch. RAIN OR SHINE. War and peace. free!! Hotcha!

Wednesday, Noon, April 1th, foot of Market st. SF. Ca. USA

This will be the first year that Saint Stupid is on Twitter: @ststupid.

Led by church founder, Bishop Joey (aka Ed Holmes, actor, non-mute mime, fake Dick, and seaman of some repute), some hundred plus ordinary members of the human race and three abnormally large dog heads embrace their inner, outer and median stupid nature.

Here’s a little motion picture taste of it:

The parade makes its Stupid way through North Beach on years when April 1st falls on a weekend, and on weekday 4/1’s the Stupid massive meanders through The Financial District, chanting Back to work! Back to work! at those who peek out their office windows as the thumping Stupid horde goes by.

The parade features a number of rituals along the way, The Stations Of Stupid, that include throwing socks in the air at the old Pacific Stock Exchange and knocking on “The Tomb of Stupid” to see if he’s home–he never is.

It is a truly great and serentypical San Francisco happening each year as Frank Chu, multitudinous motley cacophonists, and the ghost of Emperor Norton all stroll the streets proudly in their finest buffoonery.

Much more visual evidence of past parades is available on Flickr, including Scott’s images and video from last year. But the earliest photos of the event shot by our primary tentacle are from 2003 and you can see them here.

There’s also a post-parade Stupid afterparty at The Elbo Room on Wednesday night, featuring numerous SubGenius luminaries including Dr. Hal and Michael Peppe, plus Los Banos, Fluff Grrl, Brian Kenny Fresno, David Apocalypse, and Karla LaVey.

photos by Scott Beale, Electricity Mule & Rigphoto

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guest post by RICK!

Michele ‘Danger Ranger‘ Michele is hosting the 11th Annual Brides of March, this Saturday, March 14th. Blushing brides will be meeting 2:30pm at the Tunnel Top in San Francisco.

“I saw a rack of used wedding dresses and realized how often the dreams of an ideal marriage had failed and how so much of this dream has been fabricated in order to fuel the ever-increasing consumption of new products. I thought it would be funny to take the primary symbol of this sacred institution and twist it around…”

The Brides will parade and frolic about Union Square, making an obligatory stop in Maiden Lane. Hopefully, the event won’t leave a string of broken hearts strewn about the streets, I’d hate to see it raise the ire of the City.

photo by John Curley

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guest post by John Law

Church of the Sub-Genius High Priest (REALLY high!) and KPFA radio personality Doug Wellman or “Puzzling Evidence” as he’s known of to cultists and the power elite, has been posting edited videos from his backlog of tens of thousands of hours of the weirdest and most ridiculous events to take place in the Bay Area and Beyond from the last 25 years.

Doug has been with Subgenius since the halcyon days of the early 80’s. Among his exploits in intensive voyeurism, surreal tourism and enigmatic conspiracies, Doug has, among other notable accomplishments, killed (allegedly) Subgenius Prophet Bob Dobbs, inspired David Byrne to write the song “Puzzling Evidence,” been accused of being a Oakland Police Intelligence officer by a crazed anarchist lawyer and survived a combat tour of Viet Nam as a naval officer.

Doug and his fellow Subgenius potentate Dr. Howlin Owl Robins have hosted the Puzzling Evidence Radio Show for twenty years. Joined by Subgenius co-founder Philo Drummond in recent years, this show is now (I believe) the longest running show on the venerable lefty station as well as being the most confusing and the least dogmatic.

Doug was at the 1st and 2nd How Berkeley Can You Be Parade “PETA (People Eatin’ Them Animals” float/performance and recorded the tense exchanges between the Meat People and protestors.

This event (staged three years in a row for the family friendly Berkeley parade) was comprised of various “meat providers” such as Steven King’s Carrie White, Texas Chainsaw Massacres Leatherface , Farmer Vincent from Motel Hell and others. Our very own anti-meat protestors the “Veget-Aryans” were there with bullhorns decrying the offense of edible flesh. Badly burned BBQ and fresh GPC cigarettes were tossed out to the throngs of aging Berkeley hippies and their tie-dye wearing progeny (“…here kid, first smokes free!”) My favorite part was when two 15 year old Berkeley High debutants poked at one of the massive pigheads and, in true bewilderment asked: “How did you make these things???”

Doug shot one of the last large group ascents of the Bay Bridge prior to Homeland Security making it almost impossible to climb bridges post 9-11.

Doug recorded some interesting moments at Burning Man during the apocalyptic 1996 event. Watch for the “official” radio call response to an unsanctioned “protest” of the burn!

Doug was there to record for posterity Dick Cheney’s final hurrah in San Francisco:

If you want to know what young officers recently graduated from their respective academies (Naval, West Point, set) were doing on the tax payers dime as the Viet Nam War wound down in the early 70’s look no further than here.

Some other winners are:

• Extra Action Marching Band at Pt. Arena’s 100th anniversary
• The band Abu Ghraib playing after the ’08 St. Stupid’s Parade
• Cyclecide at ace Auto

There’s tons of St. Stupid, Ask Dr. Hal, Extra Action and rare Subgenius edits from another time and another place…….

Check them all out on the Puzzling Evidence TV YouTube channel.

photo by Scott Beale

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guest post by Jason Schupp

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of alternate reality games—yet—as the almost inevitable product tie-in at the end makes me feel like everyone’s been working to arrive at a commercial, but if they continue making introductory videos like the one for This Is My Milwaukee, I might be swayed. (I might also be swayed if I happen upon a Go.D.S.E.E.D fragment and find myself without my flare gun and rebreather, you know?) The video above from the “Milwaukee Tourism Commission” starts relatively innocuous but keeps getting more and more off-kilter.

Looking into the game proceedings, I was a little amused to find out that last month, a dead drop had been hidden under a table in Café Gratitude in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset, and players were discussing how not to look weird in going about finding it. In a city frequently besieged by Santas, zombies, and other oddities, I wouldn’t think it would be a problem.

See Previously: Artists Toured 10? Headless Chicken Carcass Around Milwaukee

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guest post by mikl-em

It’s hard to tell from the front page of their website, but DIESEL is a high-end Italian clothing company with fancy stores and hundreds of flavors of denim jeans. They are actually the ones who started the whole thing of jeans that are pre-washed/worn/with-holes-in-them and let’s not forget high-priced.

I don’t actually care if Diesel is able to sell more jeans because of the weird videos they put up on their site. I am never, ever, going to buy any of their pants. But the videos are delightfully odd and entertaining and I don’t want them to stop.

Ostentatious marketing and promotion is definitely a hallmark of the company This year saw the company’s 30-year anniversary and they had a sale on new jeans for 30 quid. And in 2005 they published a 300-page 7.3-pound book called Fifty to celebrate the 50th birthday of the company’s founder Renzo Rosso.

But in the digital realm they are reaching new heights, their web video gallery is weird, wild and provocative. Some highlights below.

Hair Bath is exactly what it sounds like. A bath of hair, brought to you by Diesel. What? The young lady likes hair, would like you to send her yours, and in exchange will squirm around in it cooing like that chick from the old Pearl Drops toothpaste commercial. What!?!?

There have been 3 videos in the Hair Bath series so far, plus a short appeal which simply asks for you to cut and send more hair to keep bath-time going.

Then there’s Pete the Meat Puppet. No, he’s not a former member of that old SST band. Think of Pete as a Howdy Doody of ham, a Kermit the Frog of flesh, a Pinocchio of pork, a Madam of mutton, a Lambchop of lamb, and even a Charlie McCarthy charcuterie, if you will. In short, he’s a puppet of meat.

Makes more sense now? If not there are two more Pete-related videos to help inquiring and hungry minds digest the possibilities.

Another video called Flag Ceremony features an underage marching band in the that seems like a glimpse of the next generation of Extra Action Marching Band members, who will could be funded by residuals from an early age.

Rarely throughout does the Diesel brand name or any of their products appear noticeably in the frame. An exception is in their Dance Party series where contestants wear little more than Diesel undergarments. Overall it’s definitely a different take than the myriad dance competition shows that currently dominate the air waves.

Episodes 1 to 3 of Dance Party are up, but I guess we’ll have to wait til #4 to find out who won and what, if anything, they get. Diesel also deserves a tip of the hat for keeping Roman Numerals relevant in fashion. Also sacks over the head with Roman Numerals on them.

In addition to these video series the site also shows numerous shorts that tread a weird kitschy line between infomercials, late night evangelists and test patterns. For instance, if you need a little primer on Success, Diesel has that covered. And meet a woman whose life has changed for the better. Then there’s the wealth guru with very bad handwriting.

Sometimes a toll-free phone number pops up in these shorts: 888-559-5759. When I called it (why not it’s free!) I got a recording saying that eventually real people will answer this line. But in the meantime you can leave a message which they have the right to broadcast or use in any way they want. So if you want to shout into the Diesel phone hole….

Oh, and on the other end of the subtle & arty video creations above, here’s DIESEL’s 2008 Christmas ad, which is decidedly more commercial. In fact cynically and obsessively commercial. Also very very funny.

Lest you think their print campaigns are particularly less odd, note an example below starring model Jon Kortajarena for their 2009 men’s line, with a decidedly foot fetishist overtone…

Also, someone in that apartment can bowl, huh?

images via Diesel

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guest post by Jason Schupp

Warning: glimpses of nudity here and there, and it’s a bit brutal.

Although the Christmas season is over for this year, I think there’s room for one more Santa origin tale. From Finnish production company Woodpecker Films comes this short film on where Santas come from: “Rare Exports”, who have been delivering real Finnish Father Christmases since 1739. Warning: not for the easily squeamish. I’m never going to look at Santa the same way again.

Two years later, following a particularly bad incident, they had to shoot this reproachful safety film on the handling and care of the Father Christmas during shipping:

Hat tip to my friend Su, who pointed me towards these.

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