Left vs. Right

Information is Beautiful has created a beautiful infographic showing the political spectrum of the Left vs. Right. They made both a World version and US version.

Note: The graphic shown here is the “World” version where left = red & right = blue.

filed under Politics

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Art of Bleeding presents a remix of one of those classic Halloween Safety films.

At of the height of the razors-in-apples hysteria, films like these ruined Halloween in classrooms everywhere. (Or did the fear make the holiday more exciting?) Now it’s Art of Bleeding’s turn to slash and adulterate these questionable cinematic treats.

Gory Details

Art of Bleeding will be premiering their special Halloween show “The Spirits of Safety” on October 25th at the California Institute of Abnormal Arts (CIA) in Los Angeles.

The Art of Bleeding presents the LA PREMIERE of special Halloween show, “The Spirits of Safety,” the latest installment of Magic Ambulance Theater, in which Abram the Safety Ape and RT the Robot Teacher discover Halloween’s connection to True Safety Consciousness through the unnatural use of a CPR mannequin, ectoplasmic mishaps, and the siren charms of the Art of Bleeding nurses. The evening also features a squirmy Breast Cancer Awareness Tutorial and the burn ward comedy of Art of Bleeding’s resident “funmaker” Dr. Sunshine. Guest internCreekbird contributes his unique brand of musical quackery, and Polly Peabody stops in with a burlesque tribute to the good old days of mail-order morphine. The evening will begin with a sneak peek at “GORY DETAILS” our YouTube video series based upon first-person medical emergency stories recorded in the AoB ambulance. Each episode recreates a different true-life story with the help of costumed characters, puppets, and animation. (Doors 7pm, Videos 8pm, Live show 9pm).

At the show they will be giving a preview of the new Art of Bleeding YouTube series “Gory Details”, based on true medical emergency stories.

The “Gory Details” videos are based on true medical emergency stories solicited on public streets from random passersby and recorded in the group’s “magic ambulance” or via the Gory Details hotline. Each episode recreates a different account with the dysfunctional kid’s show characters and a cast of inappropriately clad cast of nurses. Art of Bleeding also performs lives shows featuring these same and similar characters.

Here’s the Art of Bleeding performance “Crawl Away Kids” from How to Destroy the Universe Festival 6 which took place in Oakland back in April.

filed under Events, Horror, Los Angeles, Video

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links for 2009-10-21

by Scott Beale on October 21, 2009 · 0 comments

filed under Links

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guest post by Doctor Popular

“Meanwhile”, the latest book by Oakland cartoonist Jason Shiga, is a series of tubes… wait, scratch that… his book uses a series of tubes to allow the reader to determine choices like “should the main character have vanilla or chocolate ice cream?” and “should the main character travel back in time or just detonate the doomsday device now?”. Although Shiga’s stories are all clever, Meanwhile’s “choose your own adventure” mechanic works particularly well with the story’s time travel element.

DSC_0042

photo by Jason Shiga

The above interview with Jason was filmed at this year’s Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco. Meanwhile, originally self published in 2001, will be coming out as a full color book by Amulet Publishing in spring of 2010. Shiga has also published most of his books on his site ShigaBooks.com for free. I recommend (in order of awesomeness):

Bookhunter (2007)

Meanwhile… (2001)

Fleep (002)

filed under Art, Books

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An Alien Squid makes an appearance in the trailer for the new Japanese film “It’s On Me” (Watashi Dasuwa) by Yoshimitsu Morita. The film was shot in Hakodate, Japan, a city known for its obsession with squid. The Alien Squid cameo is part of a promotion for Hakodate’s Giant Robot vs. Alien Squid tourism campaign.

via Pink Tentacle

filed under Film, Japan, Squid

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Fright Night

Fright Night, a fundraiser for our friends over at Rhythmix Cultural Works in Alameda, takes place this Saturday, October 24th.

filed under Events

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Grocery Store Musical, the latest mission by Improv Everywhere.

For our latest mission, six undercover actors burst into song in a grocery store in Queens. Three minutes and lots of silly choreography later, they returned to their roles as shoppers and stock boys. The mission was filmed with hidden robotic, lipstick, and wearable cameras.

Grocery Store Musical!

photo by Katie Sokoler

filed under Music, Pranks

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guest post by RICK!

talapz, a very industrious gentleman and LEGO wizard, has created a pop-up version of the Kinkaku-ji Zen Buddist temple in Kyoto, Japan.

via MetaFilter

filed under Religion, Toys

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links for 2009-10-20

by Scott Beale on October 20, 2009 · 0 comments

filed under Links

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CollegeHumor has created a parody of the intro that is shown before Pixar films.

via Streeter Seidell

filed under Animation, Film, Humor

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Hal Robins

flyer by Hal Robins

Our good friend and amazing artist Hal Robins, of the Ask Dr. Hal Show, is having a solo art show “The Productions of Time” at the Mercury Cafe in San Francisco. The opening party for the show is this Thursday, October 22nd from 7-10pm.

ART SHOW OPENS OCTOBER 22ND IN S.F. at Mercury

A party and performance will highlight the opening of a new art show by Harry S. Robins, a.k.a. “Dr. Hal,” Thursday, October 22nd at the Mercury Café, 201 Octavia Street at Page, evening from 7:00 to 10:00 PM.

The show comprises a number of illustrations, pages of comic book work and previously un-shown works, all for sale. In addition, the show intends to provide a limited number of “Dr. Hal’s” books for sale at the opening:

The Meaning of Lost and Mismatched Socks (which is becoming quite a rarity– Random House is out of them), Dinosaur Alphabet and Alien Apocalypse 2006, including autographed and dedicated copies.

This may, in the current state of publishing, be the last, best chance to get some of these.

Affordable Art Prints of many of the pictures can be ordered from Studio Reflex of San Francisco– forms will be available at the opening and for the duration of the show.

There will also be a live performance by “Dr. Hal” ably assisted by KrOB’s visual and auditory magic!

The Mercury, serving organic and fair trade coffees and locally produced foods, can be reached at (415) 252-7855.

Speaking of Hal, the Ask Dr. Hal Show has returned and now takes place Friday nights at the Chez Poulet Gallery-Cabaret in San Francisco.

filed under Art, Events, San Francisco

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w00tstock

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photos by Scott Beale

Here are a few photos I shot last night at w00tstock v1.0, a wonderful geekfest featuring Adam Savage, Wil Wheaton and Paul and Storm, Molly Lewis, Kid Beyond and Kasper Hauser. Tickets are still available for tonight’s October 20th show in San Francisco and tomorrow’s October 21st show in Los Angeles.

filed under Events, Geek, San Francisco

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We found Waldo

“We found Waldo” by Daniel Lecky

via The Daily What

filed under Art

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I Facedbooked Your Mom

by Scott Beale on October 19, 2009 · 2 comments

I Facebooked Your Mom

photo by Scott Beale

Dave McClure and Joyce Kim at The NewNet event that took place today at the GigaOm headquarters in San Francisco. Here are a few more photos from the event.

The “I Facedbooked Your Mom” t-shirt is available from The Jerkass Clothing Company.

filed under Facebook, Fashion

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links for 2009-10-19

by Scott Beale on October 19, 2009 · 0 comments

filed under Links

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West Fest

photo by Bob Masse

West Fest, a free concert celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock, takes place from 10am-6pm on October 25th at Speedway Meadow in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The event will be live streamed via TodoCast.

42 bands, 3 stages and 26 poster artists. Solar domes, Alternative vehicles, Electric bikes, Native American Tipi Village, Sustainable Living Road Show, Conscious Art Gallery, Light Temple, Holistic Healing Section, Hooper Heaven, Rock’n Green Kids Zone and Eco Village vendors. Narada Michael Walden featuring Vernon Ice Black leading 3,000 guitar players and closing the show with the Hendrix Experience reenactment and Superstar Jam.

filed under Events, Music, San Francisco

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Of The Dead

“Of The Dead”, a Threadless t-shirt by Justin White that is a great way to show off your love for killing Zombies.

filed under Fashion, Horror

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A security camera captures a man struggling with the Earth’s gravitational pull to purchase beer in a convenience store. Some blogs are calling him the “drunkest guy ever”, but I think there’s something else at play here. What do you guys think?

Know Your Meme, I’m counting on you guys to get to the bottom of this one.

UPDATE: Mustache and Monocle have created a silent movie remix of the video.

via Viral Video Chart & Boing Boing

filed under Video

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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.

Shadoe Stevens

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?

Powerchair

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…

filed under Humor, Los Angeles, Pop Culture, Television, Video, Weird

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links for 2009-10-18

by Scott Beale on October 18, 2009 · 0 comments

filed under Links

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