One of my favorite artists has died. Guy Peellaert is a notable figure in both rock and roll and the art worlds, his albums covers for the Stones and Bowie, as well as his book with Nik Cohn, ROCK DREAMS, are nothing less than classic. One part Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, another part Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon, his over saturated colors and hyperrealist style added the perfect decadence to the the most seductive yet disturbing visualizations of the rock era. On his website, GuyPeellaert.com it just says “Bye bye bye baby bye bye….”(David Bowie - Diamond Dogs 1974)(Rolling Stones - It’s Only Rock and Roll)Scenes from Rock Dreams:  (Stones)(Dylan)(CSN&Y)(there used to be a memorabillia shop on Sunset where my friend Wendy Moore used to work and she sold me this framed poster.Now I give up a secret: If you see below, you may recognize that this picture is what I used for the background of this site. It’s really the back cover of an old beat up copy of Rock Dreams. I wanted this book really badly and I was searching all around. The Iliad book shop in North Hollywood did a search for me (this was before you could get everything so easy on Amazon, or before they reissued the book) and they found two copies for me. One was about ten bucks and the other was less than FIVE! That was way less then EBay prices at the time. Oh, but let’s not forget about his badass poster for Taxi DriverHere’s the Los Angeles Times obit

Don’t it feel good to be part of the American Dream? I mean, you exercise your right to vote and they give you COLA? It doesn’t get much more American than that! I know I was a part of history today, and so I rushed to the PITFIRE PIZZA COMPANYIn North Hollywood, where they were giving away FREE Jones Cola if you say you voted. Starbucks did the same thing, but I’m already addicted to sugar and I knew all the coffee addicts would make waiting for that coffee longer than waiting on the line to vote. Now when I made it to the pizza place and proudly told them, “I VOTED!” the young lady informed me that they only had the McCain cola left. The whole counter had nothing but McCain’s and I took it as an indication that this election was in the bag for Obama. “Pure McCain Cola” may be a clever for every day use, but how could you win an election with that? It’s nowhere as inspiring as “YES WE CAN COLA,” and so it’s easy to see why Obama is gonna wrap this up tonight.The Pitfire chick was super nice and she went to the back to look for some Obama juice, and to my delight, she found ONE! THE ONE!(note the “DON’T LOOK BACK ALWAYS LOOK AHEAD” Fortune cookie on my computer) As I write this, I can hear my neighbors celebrate. It’s not official, but it totally is…OBAMA FEVER IS ON FIAH, and it’s gonna burn up the White House…

Hollywood is experiencing an epidemic of OBAMA FEVER. Don’t confuse this with Jungle Fever - where white guys fantasize about the silky smooth skin like creamy coffee skin of an African American girl and white chicks longing to be satisfied by the taboo of a  strong black man - this is a fever that is accompanied with a feeling of inspiration and delusions of hope. This is a fever capable of infecting a town a town that is normally too self-obsessed and busy pursuing nothing but shallow, greedy, and hedonistic goals, this is…OBAMA FEVER!!!  Some family came to town and we decided to walk around Melrose and West Hollywood, and it occurred to me that this is definitely not McCain Country! There’s Obama art everywhere, Obama clothes everywhere, OBAMA is just EVERYWHERE! From t-shirts, to street art, his image has become a part of the “image” of the most image conscious place on earth. Obama is part of the underground resistance and he’s part of the pop fashion. A good t-shirt can usher you from underground resister to stadium speaker, and I find it quite ironic that Shepard Fairey, an artist who has gone from underground culture to mass culture himself, is now the “face” of Obama. Art and fashion have always been a tool of the underground resistance, and perhaps there’s no better example of it than with the art and apparel of Shepard Fairey. His OBEY GIANT campaign started off as guerilla messages all over NYC and LOS ANGELES (and where ever disgruntled hipster youth chose to take up the cause). Fairey is famous for introducing the backdrop of Russian Constructivism and propaganda-style posters to graffiti culture and later production-line mercantilism; this rebel artist now creates the look for what seems like most of corporate America (Virgin, Led Zeppelin, Nordstrom’s etc., not to mention all the mall clothes that bite him) …oh, and BARAK OBAMA. It’s ironic, when you come to think about it, how the candidate is being accused of being a Socialist and a Communist, and that he’s got too many ties to the radical underground, and who’s doing his propaganda now but the ultimate modern propaganda artist. In fact, no matter how much money Fairey makes, in some circles he’s still considered a vandal and radical artist. He’s famous for glorifying the image of raiders and rebels, people like Sid Vicious, Joseph Stalin, Che Guevara, and Johhny Cash, and now his radicalism is safe enough for the Great Black Hope, Barak Obama and his legion of followers. Fairey’s style, especially these portraits are very Warholian in nature, and when you think about it, the pop artist set the trend when he made pretty pictures or Chairman Mao, and was still invited to conservative dinner-parties. He established that a subversive character could be sold through the power of color and charm, and in a way, it makes sense for Obama to utilize a “radical” artist who conquered the corporate world, because in effect, let’s face it, that’s what America needs right now to get back on track, and that’s kinda what Obama provides.    There’s another way to look at it, however, and that is the use of the Propaganda art, or the Contstructivism in Fairey’s art serves more as a unifier than an agitator. The style is all about Utilitarianism, getting shit done with what’s around. Making something simple that serves the most good for the most people, and as much as it applies to future Commies, it equally applies to the Populist in Obama; the Black James Stewart, or Gary Cooper, if you will. So funny it is, then, that the same image can represent a person that appeals both to the least amount of people (the few radicals we have in the States) and the most amount of people (and common folk like those Reagan Democrats) at the same time. Whether kids are buying his apparel/posters because they’ve been successfully brainwashed or because they’re inspired, doesn’t really matter, Fairey’s images and style template are everywhere, especially among the youth, and if you’re going after the youth you may as well co-opt their visual identity. Which is why Obama’s people were totally genius to hook up with Shepard Fairey. Who cares if they get into Obama as if he’s just another part of their fashion identity, just as long as they vote, and like Shepard Fairey hopes, maybe they’ll social importance of the product will eventually be learned about, and maybe the buyer will soon be activist as well as consumer. In the meantime, you got a cool T-shirt!(a warhol meets jasper johns piece)SUPER OBAMA!“WELCOME!”(CAN OBAMA HANDLE BOB’S BIG BOY AKA FATSO AMERICA ABOUT TO EXPLODE FROM EVER OVEREXTENDING DEBT AND HUNGER FOR MORE)(this photo is from SUPERTOUCHART.COM)

 
 Check out how cool this DOTS bag is, If you’re anything like me, you like ROCKTOBER much more than Christmas, and you hate it when the stores have all that tinsel and stuff out like everybody’s just ready to kick the Halloween season to the curb. Not me. Don’t you love looking at the oversized candy bags at Target or WallyWorld (WalMart)? So I HAD to get this bag of DOTS. I wish I could show you a picture of the actual candy…I’d even put them up to a black light for you to show you how they glow, but I have to admit, we finished them rather quickly. Oh, and another admission; this bag is actually from last year, before I even started this blog. I knew then how much I loved how the plastic bag has a purple and silver mylar look, and the chost characters remind me of Gloop & Gleep from the Herculoids
 
While I’m on the subject of DOTS. I made this fun little canvas (obviously I called stuff like this “Candy Art,”) for my portfolio/zine/manifesto, TALES OF THE YOO HOO KID: Portrait of the FUN DIP GENERATION. I also shot a few seconds of Super 8 so the piece would be in THE PETITION FOR BOO BERRY. This photo was manipulated using a still from a Polaroid CAPTIVA, which I don’t like nearly as much as regular Polaroid’s.
    
 

THE HALLOWEEN MADNESS CONTINUES! Here’s a scan of my Monster Cereals Trio jam, MONSTER ADVENTURES IN OUTER SPACE

 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

How’s this for a cut-out? I wanted to put this on my door of our apartment, but my girlfriend wouldn’t let me. Party pooper! Anyway, this box is from 2006, and I think this style of Boo is much better than the mid-late-90s version. I’d say he’s a more Cartoon Network-looking Boo, but if you see him on the back, he’s not too boxy, and the stonyness suits him well while being a clever nod both the Dazed and Confuzed and the Dude Where’s My Car generations.the poster of this video is living proof. thanks.

Before now, if you wanted to see an Andy Warhol film, you either had to go to the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh (which I did when it opened in ‘94), or another museum (like LACMA some years ago), or you had to rent/buy a bootleg somewhere. OK, so you can check the stuff out on YouTube, but the Warhol Foundation run a tight ship, and they’ve been much more generous with the branding and selling of post cards, t-shirts, and tote bags than they’ve been with their artist’s notorious celluloid output. So it’s with excitement and promise for future releases that I pass along this announcement from PLEXIFILM: The first ever authorized DVD of Andy Warhol’s films. Released in conjunction with The Andy Warhol Museum, 13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests features 13 of Warhol’s classic silent film portraits. Subjects inlcude Nico, Lou Reed, Edie Sedgwick, Dennis Hopper, and more. Shot between 1964 and 1966 at Warhol’s Factory studio in New York City, the Screen Tests are presented with newly commissioned soundtracks by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips. The limited edition DVD is presented in a deluxe gatefold LP-style package with an exclusive poster and booklet. In addition, one frame from each of the 13 Screen Tests has been hand-printed as an archival gelatin-silver photograph in an edition of 100. Your choice of one of these individual prints is included. The retail DVD is presented in a slipcovered hard-bound book package. Get more info on the DVD and the limited edition version. Here’s a the first clip that they released…on YouTube, of course.

Reading PAGE SIX of the New York Post, I found this story that can very well be alternately called, “CAMPBELL’S VS. POP BURGER -ROUND 1″:Who is right in this case? That’s a tough one considering Warhol was all about confusing the line between the art and the brand, in fact, he was all about the art of the brand. In one way, the owner of a store has a right to display his/her favorite artwork in an attempt to establish decor and vibe, so the Soup Can painting isn’t any different than hanging a Van Gogh in a coffee shop. But is it OK to use the art of a specific BRAND to as a representation of your own BRAND? Well, isn’t that what Warhol did when he got famous for those Soup Can’s to begin with? Campbell’s were appreciative of Andy’s work, and as you see in the article, they even participated in his endeavors, but perhaps that was because he not only hyped their brand, but he sold canvas and not food. . . though they don’t sell soup.(I had this poster on my door at Northeastern, but some Masshole ripped it down)

I refuse to believe it’s just a coincidence. No way! I mean, forget the British, it’s the Aussie’s that are coming! First there is a new AC/DC album out called BLACK ICE. There’s only a few places you can get this release today, WalMart being one of them, or you can go down to the ROCK BAND STORE(the MTV Store in NYC) at Hollywood and Highland and find the “Black Ice Truck.”(got this photo from ACDCrocks I would swear that the artwork is by OBEY GIANT and OBAMA’S new man, Shepard Fairey, but I’m not sure)                

(The new single, “Rock ‘ Roll Train.” But more appropriate is the album cut below, “Skies On Fire.”) 

Another form of attack comes by the landing of Qantas’s new Airbus A380 at LAX. According to the Los Angeles Times, it’s the worlds largest jet and can seat about 450 people (though what does about mean, someone has to leave half their body behind?) Flying aboard Qantas Flight 93 from Melbourne, Australia was Two of a Kind co-stars John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. No one has reported prying fellow pilot Travolta out of the cockpit, but rumors of his sexual persuasion aren’t about to be squashed after he walked up and down the aisle dressed as a flight attendant. Then again, look who just made the Two of a Kind reference?                              

 (Here’s a Two of a Kind-era interview with Olivia and John on a plane, of course)

While at Cal Arts, I hooked up with some cool people to make the follow-up to the The PETITION for BOO BERRYAside from all the other babble that will follow, if (Boo Berry’s Casting Couch) BON BON BONDAGE say’s one thing, it’s that SUGAR IS A DRUG. You heard of the White Horse?  The White Pony? Well Fun Dip is the Purple Unicorn. Anyway. This video, mostly shot on classic 3/4-inch tape, is obviously my tribute to bubble gum rock and sexploitation movies, a quick response to some trends I was noticing in the packaging and selling of, well, just about everything, really; but Bon Bon also traces it all back and suggests these trend were always there. Subversiveness often comes in sweet packages, whether it be the sweetness of Robin Zander’s delicate yet disturbed voice (in part 2), or the mischief of a hot chick licking some rock candy. Aside from the silly Howard Stern tapes (getting chicks to pose with SNAPPLE) I watched, I was in awe of Chuck Barris, and I was reading his 1993 book, The Game Show King. Ever hear of the POPSICLE TWINS? Well watch that and you’ll see where it all comes from.It’s all related. There’s really two parts to this video, but YouTube rejected the more adult portion…I can understand why, but I’ll put it up somehow, somewhere.. In the meantime, check out the cool box that my friend Deborah made, and also, you can read more rambling about  the project in the “description” section of the YouTube post.AND LASTLY, If the PETITION for BOO BERRY was a result of too much Kim’s Video (East Village), then Bon Bon owes a thank you to Rob from MONDO VIDEO. The first person to offer to rent my videos.