1. The public pool was usually jam packed (literally) and a trip to the ‘rec’ almost always meant you would run into some sort of trouble. More trouble than it was usually worth.

2. Pool hopping was an option but so few people had a pool on their property that the ones that did were on vigilant guard for neighborhood critters like us hopping fences and diving in.

3. The fire hydrant was almost always the best option. (This only applied if you could find the guy with the “plug tool”)

photo ©Frizztext

An open fire plug was so damn cool as a kid. This was before the days of  sprinkler or spray-caps that dampened the amount of water that would pump out of the friendly yet aggressive hydration beast. Getting one open was always a bit tricky but every neighborhood had a few guys that had a tool in their house that could wrench it open and let it fly. And fly it did. Were talking about 1,000 gallons a minute which is roughly the equivalent of the focused power of 400 showers gunning out of one small opening.

The idea of water conservation or lack of neighborhood water pressure never even entered into your mind when you had no place to go and heat was beating you down. Cars would get a free wash, kids would get soaked, parents would grab a handful and splash it over their faces, the old ladies would watch and smile while the sun kept heating up everyone else but us in those hot summers in the city.

I am in no way encouraging or condoning illegal activity but if you were ever curious about how to get those little plugs going, click here.

In honor of our blazing summers past and recognizing the brutal heat of this present summer I put together a collection of photos from a variety of photographers. Take note on the incredible work of Diego Cupolo and Charles Le Brigand. They were particularly successful in capturing how releasing the pressure can seriously and joyously release some pressure when things get hot in the city.

(I recommend hitting play on this video to act as a soundtrack while viewing the photos. It will be worth it)

Metro Blossom

Jason Arends

Dora Duvisac

Diego Cupolo

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Ilona Dharjha

Charles Le Brigand

Check em out

The Motown Sound organized and incorporated into the Motown Record Corporation 40 years ago exporting the work of incredible artists such as Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder (check the drum solo) and Michael Jackson. This sound shaped the audible aesthetic for an entire generation and gave the world an intimate look at life in the American City. It was also critical in the racial integration of our American musical culture. It was the first label owned by an African American (Barry Gordy, Jr.) to push African-American artists & music that topped the charts for over a decade with crossover success.

To this day I am amazed at the longevity of the music, its ability to continually relate to our developing culture and how a song with that Motown Sound can still get you off the wall. As a kid who grew up in Detroit, Motown also represents a source hometown pride and gives me hope that if a brand of music born in Detroit during such troubled times can prevail for so long, Detroit as a city can prevail as well.

As time passes I am perplexed why people haven’t attempted to borrow or duplicate that legendary formula for outputting soulful music that crosses through pop culture. If “Please Mr. Postman“, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” or “The Tears of a Clown” still moves me, why isn’t there a musician or label who is still hustling this vibe?

In the past few years I have taken note of a few artists who are without question on the mission of answering that question. The sound isn’t a complete duplication or rip-off but it is heavily and sometimes heavenly inspired by the Barry Gordy Motown machine.

If you like the sound, support the sound.

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Cee-Lo Green – Georgia
Georgia (purchase mp3)

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Reflection Eternal feat. Estelle – Midnight Hour
Revolutions Per Minute (purchase album mp3)

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Gnarls Barkley – Going On
The Odd Couple (purchase album mp3)
I really love this song and the video is incredible.

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Rafael Saadiq – 100 Yard Dash
The Way I See It (purchase album mp3)

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Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings – “100 Days, 100 Nights”
100 Days, 100 Nights (purchase album mp3) $9

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Janell Monae – Tightrope
The ArchAndroid (purchase album MP3) – $5

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And as a special treat, I give you Smokey Robinson & The Roots performing “Tears of a Clown”.
(Don’t say I never gave you anything)

The master of uncomfortably comfortable, dirty, raw sexuality, tomfoolery and drudgery turns 67 today. Besides being a master of the awkward, Crumb is also a supreme admirer of blues, country, bluegrass, jazz, big band and swing music from the 1920s and 30’s. In honor of his big day I want to share some of his portrait work from our American Jazz Royalty.  Keep on truckin’ my man.

Federico Mancosu

Hexagonall

(Tim Burton series)

Albert Exergian

MadFishes

Borrowed concepts set aside, there is something dreamlike and nightmarish about taking raw drawings and breathing life into them. The artistic Frankenstein maybe?

Dave DeVries project:

The Ogilvy Pictionary campaign

same concept with a stronger (and more authentic) execution…..

There is a lot of paint being splattered on a lot of walls in a whole lot of places. We will be hooking up a weekly wrap-up of our favorite walls, trains, tunnels & beer funnels, old and new. Seat belts fastened?

Nick Walker & his dwarf writers strike again

My man Rate & friends on fire in my old stomping ground in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
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Haze,Revok, Risky, Sace,  & Rime
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Durhams Finest. Hit em’ hard, Woem.
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Style Master Esq. BATES
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Any way you look at this, it’s fucking awesome. I am on the hunt for a place to get a high quality print run off. Worst case scenario, buy the album (link below), scan the art and hook it up.

This is an excellent example of how kick-ass artwork alone can still drive sales of cds in the digital age.

Purchase album here: Medicine Show No. 8: Advanced Jazz

Check out the bad boy b-boy stance on the top row, second from left.

How can I be down?

No clue what this is from but I love it.

If you are even the slightest bit familiar with jazz music you are probably already familiar with the work of Reid Miles with Blue Note Records. His soulfully iconic imagery painted the visual for what was to debatably be Americas only original artform. It seems impossible to capture the flow, feeling and freeform of jazz music in a single image and yet, Mr. Miles hooked it up hundreds of times.

A little while back I ran across this incredibly well done video that was made for a concert promotion at the Bellavista Social Pub (which also looks awesome). It completed in reverse what Reid Miles had once accomplished in design. Mr. Miles took an artform that runs over a timeline (jazz music) and interpreted it as a still image. Now Italian video artist, Bante, has taken the still image and interpreted it over a revised timeline (video below). It is a beautiful thing really.

Hi-Fi from bante on Vimeo.

In his words:

“It seems a bit strange to me that the media carefully warn about and label any content that involves sex, violence or strong language — but there’s no similar labelling system for, say, sloppy journalism and other questionable content.

I figured it was time to fix that, so I made some stickers. I’ve been putting them on copies of the free papers that I find on the London Underground. You might want to as well.”

Brilliant.

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Edward Mike Davis, a hero to none, a legend to some. Mr. Davis ran a now defunct oil company that went belly up in the early 80’s. En route, he dictated some of the most outrageous inter-office memorandum you will ever read, ever. Like a giant tiger prowling around a oil drilling rig, Mr. Davis ruled his office in the late 70’s with the kind of voracity that would make Montecore look like a pimple-faced, knee knocking pencil pusher.

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I don’t own an iPad. I’m sure it would just inflame my addiction to Angry Birds (iPhone crack rock) so yea,  I’m better off without.

Not owning an iPad doesn’t stop me from thinking the iCade is fucking awesome.

You know you want one. Matter of fact, you can have one! ……The hell are you waiting for?

My generation hasn’t had any significant progressive leaders that have served as role models in the public sphere. I’m pretty sure we can all point to people in our smaller circles that live their life in a manner that you try to live up to. But as far as progressive leadership with a substantial voice in mass media, nada. Michael Moore would be the closest thing to someone who consistently put himself out there to get people thinking, talking and inspiring organization. But at his core he is a movie maker. Not a leader.

My generation grew up in the era where Rambo, The Terminator and the World Wrestling Federation dominated our eyes and ears and in the process we became more intimately acquainted with guns, ammunition and violence than we did with any sort of progressive thinking or leadership on a large scale. The dominant leaders from our history who began to successfully organize the people with a broad, accelerated, positive structure were taken down by the same bullet that dominates our popular culture and threatens to completely pollute the next generation.

Enter The Assassinated Public Figure Playset!

What better way to teach the next generation about the progressive, peaceful leadership who gave their lives to senseless violence in their prime than by picking up the Playset at your local Wal-Mart, Target or K-Mart and break it out on family game night.

Too much? Maybe. You get what I’m trying to say here.

This piece will be shown in the “My Uzi Weighs a Ton“, guns & pop culture – art show at the Neon Forest Gallery in Orlando. I chose to depict Abraham Lincoln, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy and Malcolm X. Each person is hand painted on a .50 caliber (non-firing) round. This is the largest bullet a citizen of the USA can purchase. No permit necessary. I found it overwhelmingly troubling that it was easier to buy a bullet that could kill from over a mile away than it was to come up with a relevant, progressive thinking leader that is accessible to our next generation. (although I still have hope) Let’s do the damn thing.

I used to LOVE this spot. I would roll through regularly and I wasn’t even a DJ. I brought my newborn daughter in just to catch a whiff of the place. There was something so hip-hop about the place.  Navigating your way through the guys trying to hock their mixtapes outside, trekking up that rickety flight of stairs, catching a tag on the way in and then sweating your ass off in the store. And on the way out, Grey’s Papaya. It was a complete experience. For those who don’t know, Fat Beats was a storefront that sold vinyl. The walls were lined with new and classic records that aesthetically brought you back to a time when album artwork was paramount. Any wall space that wasn’t covered with albums was completely overrun with stickers, including the entirety of the ceiling. It was customary for a dj to be spinning and if you were lucky you would catch an album release or a DJ Premiere spinning en route to making a purchase.

It’s been a few years since I lived in Brooklyn but whenever I visited New York I felt like I had to make the pilgrimage. Unfortunately that won’t be happening anymore.

Fat Beats made a stomping footprint for hip-hop with such a small storefront and kept things real throughout. Now that is hip-hop.

Related Reading:

Game, DJ Clark Kent Mourn The Loss Of Fat Beats

Taken from MTV.com

By LowKey

The end of an era is near.

Legendary record store Fat Beats recently announced it’s shutting the doors of its two remaining locations in early fall. The establishment revealed it will close its New York location on September 4 and its L.A. location on September 18.

Since 1994, the famed record hut has served as a one-stop shop for the culture’s underground needs. Fat Beats was deemed the only place left for DJs to purchase vinyl records – old and new.

Though dates, venues, and participants have yet to be announced, the underground enterprise is currently planning a string of tribute celebrations to honor the store’s legacy.

The Fat Beats era was a pivotal period for DJs and the demise of the store hit home for one particular former employee.

“Fat Beats closing is definitely an end of an Era,” offered HOT 97 On-Air Personality Cipha Sounds. “At one point, vinyl was the reason why I woke up everyday. Working at Fat Beats was a great time in my life and meant so much to the hip-hop culture. People would come from all over to get vinyl from Fat Beats. All DJs felt a few years ago that vinyl was dying but at least Fat Beats stayed open as our beacon of hope. … When I got the news of it closing down, it felt like a family member had passed away.”

While mixtape crown-holder DJ Drama paid homage to the fallen establishment, he offered a likely cause for the retail store’s closing. “RIP! I used to always cop records from Fat Beats. But hip-hop has just gone digital. Fat beats didn’t stay relevant.

“Further proof that hip hop is entering the final phase of its transformation to “purely digital,” as Twitter user @JusAire commented this morning.

Hip-hop heavyweight Noreaga also chimed in on the matter. “Fat Beats closing is just another sign of how real hip-hop is slowly dying as well! Salute the legacy!!!”

But with this particular hip-hop landmark closing up shop, what does the move mean for the hip-hop culture?

Compton MC Game also expressed his gratitude for Fat Beats’ contributions to the hip-hop culture, describing it as the first establishment to breathe life into his career. That was the first store that really gave my demo and early mixtapes the opportunity to breathe and circulate around Los Angeles.

“I think Fat Beats is an amazing outlet for underground music as well as mid-level mainstream. There arent many stores here that can compete or match their level of love for our music.”

Iconic New York record-spinner Clark Kent shared Game’s sentiments.

“This is the death of one of hip-hop staples for hip-hop DJ’s in NYC,” the legendary DJ said. “This is truly one of the saddest days if you’re a true hip-hop DJ in NYC. It’s extremely sad because that was a staple in the NYC hip-hop DJ world. I know there was one in L.A., but people traveled all around the world to come to Fat Beats in NYC.”

My favorite.
Cannonball Adderley on alto sax
Miles Davis on trumpet
Hank Jones on piano
Sam Jones on bass
Art Blakey on drums

If you don’t know. Now you now.

One of my favorite albums of all time, hands down. The tracks where Miles Davis and Cannonball trade off, back and forth? Hell yes. It’s the kind of album made for a Monday morning.

I can’t recommend this album enough.

For a mere 5 bucks your Monday can feel as good as mine does right now.

Make sure you check it out. There aren’t many tracks on the album but the handful that live there are rich, comforting, textured, honest and worth every second.

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The incredibly talented video production group, Everynone regularly outputs quality. As we sit on the lip of the approaching weekend I thought it was fitting to share my favorite video they hooked up, “Stoop Sitting”. Watch closely and use it as a reminder when your ass is getting too busy this weekend.

Everyone Forever Now – “Stoop Sitting” from Everynone on Vimeo.

Phenomenal. Uncomfortable. Like visiting the surface if an alien planet. Really amazing work.

Check out more of his work and purchase some prints while your at it.

Nine out of ten times it seems that marketing campaigns that attempt to connect on a relevant plane fall flat on their face and roll clumsily back down the hill. Levi jeans partnered up with director John Hillcoat, the IFC and the Sundance Channel to present an incredibly intimate and authentic portrait of the town of Braddock, PA entitled “We Are All Workers”. The project is broken up into a handful of textured stories that leaves you feeling deeply for the broken town of Braddock. As many of you know, I have a very special and loyal place in me for old rustbelt cities and towns in America and I feel a strong kinship for the people and the places this project illustrates.

One of the things that makes this particular town so particularly special is Mayor John Fetterman. Wait until you get a feel for his passion, his vitriol, his optimism and his undying loyalty and dedication to Braddock and its people. This guy is something special and he embodies the American spirit that I would lay down for. He is a true leader in all of the ways I envy and should stand as a role model for us all.

Take the time to go through these. It is worth it.

Episode 1: The Seeds of Change

When the steel mills closed in Braddock, PA, they left behind a dwindling population living in near apocalyptic circumstances. Now, a new generation of urban pioneers has come with a mission- to create a new frontier from the ashes of the once vibrant town.

Episode 2: The Mayor

The Mayor of Braddock, PA is a 6′8″, tattooed Ivy League graduate who has taken the challenges in this former steel town and made it his mission to overcome them. His commitment and tough brand of optimism may be the town’s best hope for bringing a new generation of pioneers to Braddock.

Episode 3: The Old Timers

As a new wave of urban pioneers settle in Braddock, PA, the longtime residents lend perspective, character and enduring passion to the transforming landscape. While both generations share a desire for renewed prosperity and a commitment to their work, their outlooks on Braddock’s future differ dramatically

Episode 4: Unsmoke Artspace

Repurposed and reinvented, Braddock’s UnSmoke Artspace is now home to urban pioneers working towards remaking the local identity through art. Though they have differing visions for Braddock’s cultural renewal, the artists of UnSmoke share a common appreciation for the local spirit.

Episode 5: Bell’s Market

The workers of Bell’s Market have been proudly serving the local community for over 43 years through prosperous times and lean. Dedicated to the residents of Braddock, and committed to supporting the community that supports them back, Bell’s Market shows the power of local business to overcome urban decline.

Episode 6: Robert

With the support of Braddock’s community leaders, Robert was able to give up hustling on the streets and become a strong father to his two children. His story of transformation and hard work shows how a new generation of residents is working towards a better future for themselves and for Braddock.

Episode 7: Urban Farm

As an urban farmer, Marshall envisions Braddock’s empty lots as opportunities to create a stronger, healthier community. Amidst the closed steel mills and abandoned homes, the Urban Farm brings affordable, organic produce that’s “as local as you can get” to the dinner tables of Braddock’s homes.

Let’s remember my fine fellow Flinchers, art isn’t supposed to be warm and fuzzy all the time…..but a Barbie car full of bunnies sure is.

‘

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Water, coke, black currant, licorice, cherry, food coloring, counter top freezer

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I collected some photographs from Bruce Davidson, John F. Conn, Jamel Shabazz and Martha Cooper detailing life on and in the New York City subway in the 1980’s. Enjoy.

“I wanted to transform the subway from its dark, degrading, and impersonal reality into images that open up our experience again to the color, sensuality, and vitality of the individual souls that ride it each day.” In “Subway”, passengers of the city’s subterranean world are portrayed in detail, revealing the interplay of its inner landscape and outer vistas, set against a gritty, graffiti-strewn background and displayed in tones that Davidson describes as “an iridescence like that I had seen in photographs of deep-sea fish”. -

Bruce Davidson

John F. Conn

Jamel Shabazz

Martha Cooper

No words really. How is this dude not an internet phenom? Wow!

Check out the event page for more details and photos.

Here is my little, big guy.

Thirty local artists, will donate custom painted ceramic pieces to be sold during the night’s silent auction. This project combines… the talent of our local artists to raise money for The Surfrider Foundation.

Cover charge of $10 includes NC seafood hor d’ouevres, live music, and silent auction. Proceeds benefit The Surfrider Foundation of NC.

Check out the event page for more details and photos.

Participating Artists:
Alan Bowling
Bart Cusick
Briana Martinez
Chris Williams
…Clark Hipolito
Derek Tommes
Domingo Vega
Elke Brand
Emily jesserer Dean
Fabrizio Bianchi
Garrett Scales
Gavin Jones
Georges Le Chevallier
Greg Davis
Heather Goldstein
Kristin Matwiczyk
Lee Williamson
Liz Roetzel
Matt Curran
Matt Scofield
Pablo Dumlao
Paul Friedrich
Ron Cox
Sean Kernick
Victor Knight

Very few objects can inspire feelings of excitement, adoration,fear, fantasy and conflict like a gun. “MY UZI WEIGHS A TON” is a traveling multimedia art exhibition that takes an artistic twist on guns in pop culture. The exhibition will feature the works of some of the hottest artists form the new contemporary, urban, street and outsider art scences.This art event will be a showcase aimed to excite, entertain and engage the viewer.

SATURDAY AUGUST 28TH / 7PM – 11PM
@ NEON FOREST GALLERY / ORLANDO, FLA
1741 S Orange Avenue
Orlando, FL 32806
(321) 217-1675

Click here for the posting detailing my submision,”The Assassinated Public Figure Playset”

Click here for the posting detailing my submision,”The Assassinated Public Figure Playset”

Featuring:

Sean Hartman
Scott Donald
Bayo
Dres13
Mario Zucca
Alex Yanes
Horsebites
Tobar
J.Giroux
Decoy
Angel 179
Matthew Curran
John Tindel
Sean Kernick
David Chung
Eric Althin
WAK
Dubelyoo

Photographer Sergey Larenkov has done an amazing job of overlapping photographs from the The Siege of Leningrad with the modern day locations illustrating how vividly places hold the actions of the past. The Siege of Leningrad, also know as The Leningrad Blockade was a horrendous 900 day Nazi military operation to capture Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) during World War II. It was one of the longest, harshest and most destructive sieges of a major city in our modern history. All food and supply lines were cut off to the people of Leningrad which drove thousands to die from starvation and left the living do feed on anything that was even partially edible such as boiled leather boots, wallpaper glue and in some cases, cannibalism.

These photos remind us that the atrocities of our ancenstors occurred in the same world, on the same land and in some cases, in the same backyards. We may psychologically disconnect from the horrors of our past but the only thing separating us is a time-line.

I am not referencing an idealistic, super-liberal, ideological view of a peace-on-earth uniting of mankind kind of thing. I am purely talking about the mechanics of leveraging what makes us perform at our best.

Each division we have made has been based on fear and identifying threats to our health and/or happiness. Geographic boundaries ensure that you know who you belong to and where you don’t belong. It’s all nonsense really. We posses the land as much as a butterfly possesses the wind that passes between it’s wings. These are man-made divisions based primarily and maintained specifically to continue the never-ending cycle of division, fear and aggression.

These three elements are the true axis of evil. As soon as one enters into the party, the other two are blazing a path right behind the other. They work so seamlessly and effectively as a unit and form a cycle of behavior and activity that we have been unable to extinguish. Like a spark that is followed by the fire, fear will spark division and division will spark aggression and aggression will feed the fear and the fear will gorge gluttonously on division.

On the other hand, if connections are valued like the priceless resource that they truly are, growth, progress, hope and love will rule the path our lives will take. Have you ever come across people that operate without the presence of aggression, fear or division? These are empowered mutherfuckers. Free, fun, progressive and attractive, albeit not always physically attractive, but severely attractive to be around none-the-less. Evolved.

We have been blessed with the tools, talent and ability to form connections from our neighbors to strangers on the other side of the world. These connections are the nucleus for the complex universe of love, happiness and growth that we have at our very fingertips. Harness your connections and water them daily. When any element of fear, division or aggression enters into your system, destroy it with compassion, patience, empathy and positivity. Destroy it fast. These elements know the fastest route to our undoing and if you allow them in and allow them to colonize, they will undo you. And if they undo you, they will undo us all.

NOW GO ENJOY YOUR TUESDAY GODDAMNIT!

You know you want one.

COURTESY OF SEAN KERNICK
Sean Kernick depicted himself as a worker bee.

BY ADRIENNE JOHNSON MARTIN – Staff Writer

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I know the Dad hustle very intimately. At present I have a day gig, freelance at night, hustle an art career ripe with shows and events but I always block off time that is untouchable to anyone but my little critters. It is critical to secure this into your daily routine.

In a best case scenario, a working parent will be sewn up in a nine-to-five job from 8:30am to 5:30pm. By the time you get home and get settled in were looking at 6:00 (best case scenario). Once dinner is finished and cleaned up were looking at around 7pm (best case scenario). This allows for roughly two to three hours of time that can be spent at leisure to bond with your kids. BEST CASE SCENARIO! This is not enough. Your majority of your young kids life will be spent sans-Dad. This is why I feel it is so important for Dads (and working Moms) to pack their kids lunch everyday. The critical element of this process is inserting a note, drawing, photo or anything you can think of to let your kid know that Dad is thinking of them all the time….. even when they can’t be nearby. I have been blessed with the ability to come up with creative solutions to problems so I am able to create custom drawings on napkins. But creativity isn’t completely necessary. For all you Dads (and working Moms) who think you are completely creatively inept, a simple note on a napkin stating “I <3 U”, “You are amazing” or “Thinking about you” should do the trick just fine.

So, have at it my parental warriors! Get out to your grocery stores, think creatively and pack a lunch that is nutritious for the body and a note that will provide nutrition for the relationship you have with your little critters.

Your heart (and theirs) will thank you.

Said simply, Dalton painstakingly whittles and carves the thin graphite to create wonderfully quaint and dynamic sculptures. This guy! Gyad damnit man.

Our favorite hate-mongering, god fearing and searing Westboro Baptist Church has a rich and colorful tradition of picketing funerals, befouling the American flag and typesetting the laundry list of things that GOD HATES. It’s a tough job but, well, somebody has to do it.

Lucky for the rest of us, for every hate filled religeous zealot there are two or three witty hipsters ready to throw their weight around and ironically protest alongside and pose for awesome photos.

Check out the Westboro Baptist Church protest schedule here, get some neon posterboard and sharpies and have at thee my fine socially ironic soldiers!

Could there possibly be anything more American?

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