A graduate of master architect Paul Rudolph‘s Sarasota School Of Architecture, the Harvard Graduate School Of Design, World War II veteran, artist, and architect Victor Lundy, ladies and gentlemen.  Lundy first caught the architecture bug while commanding a squad in WWII during a meeting a captured Nazi SS officer who was aware of the works of Walter Gropius (who was also a groom to Alma Mahler for a time) and Mies van der Rohe.  His first commission was to design the Sarasota Chamber Of Commerce.  Finding inspiration from such dissolute sources as his wife’s form on a beach and a bunch of balloons Lundy hit his creative stride in the mid-sixties designing an impressive brace of buildings from 1964-1966.  The man is still active today!

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By now we’ve all heard about artist Shepard Fairey.  If you’re a Gen Xer, you probably knew his work 15-20 years ago when his “Andre The Giant Has A Posse” sticker meme swept the nation, one light post and dorm room at a time.  Soon after, giant pieces of artwork started appearing on buildings featuring a heavily stylized Andre face and the stark slogan “OBEY”.

Fairey  was a leader amongst a rising subculture in the art world – ‘Street Artists‘ we call them today.  Along with colorfully named personalities such as the politically charged Banksy and CARTЯAIN, the more whimsical Jef Aérosol and Neck Face, and the more traditionally graffiti influenced D*Face and Ces53, Shepard Fairey – usually under the cover of night – would give much needed character to dull urban spaces, horrible billboard advertisements and dirty sidewalks.

The vast majority of this activity is against the law as it counts as the vandalism of private property.  I mention this because I have a strong feeling that the cultural background that Shepard Fairey comes from; that of the guerrilla street artist – with one foot in the art world and another in crime – colored Fairey’s extremely poor judgment in his copyright battle with the Associated Press over his now historic, iconic and much imitated Barack Obama ‘HOPE’ campaign poster from 2008.

You see, in the intervening decade, Shepard Fairey had gone ‘legit’.  He was holding fine art shows and selling his work emblazoned on commercially available posters, t-shirts, stickers, mugs, numerous CD covers, ad infinitum and, not surprisingly, he did pretty good for himself.  His particular brand of cultural appropriation was in complete synergy with the modern society at large – an electric mix of collage, stencil, skateboard graphic, propaganda posters (particularly communist), children’s books, 70′s film cliche, as well as pop and celebrity culture.  Barring pornography, he’s the internet you can hang on your wall.

It was from this body of work and the general acclaim in the fine art circle that Fairey found himself doing what he does for then Illinois Senator, Barack Obama – the man who would become not only the 44th President of the United States, but it’s first African-American President.  A Big Deal, it turns out.

A large part of what Fairey and many other artists of ‘from the streets’ do is based on appropriation and collage.  Simply put – they borrow imagery from other sources as a base material for their own work.  To the practicing artist, these appropriations are no different than their choice of paint, canvas, ink, what have you – they are just more tools of the trade.  Typically, no one really makes much of a big fuss about it as the work either stands on it’s own or is so wholly derivative that it is beyond criticism.

But “HOPE” has risen far beyond it’s humble start (a piece of campaign art), and become a part of history that will likely be part of the American lexicon for as long as there is an America – much as ‘I Like Ike‘, The VJ Day Kiss, Superman and Uncle Sam’s ‘I Want You’.  And with it, all the acclaim, fame, immortality and… wait for it… MONEY!

So I doubt anyone was too shocked when the AP sued Fairey for copyright infringement in February of last year, claiming ownership and – duh – wanting financial compensation.  The photographer who took the original image of Obama that served as the template Fairey used to create “HOPE”, Mannie Garcia, believes that he is the copyright holder and, according to an article in the Feb 10/09 edition of the New York Times, “If you put all the legal stuff away, I’m so proud of the photograph and that Fairey did what he did artistically with it, and the effect it’s had.”

derivative by stevesimula

However, sans it’s cultural significance, I have a sneaking suspicion that Garcia’s earlier comment in the same article would be levied: “I don’t condone people taking things, just because they can, off the Internet…”

In this case, context and not the art itself, seems to be everything. For the record, Garcia has since dropped his own claim against the AP.

On Fairey’s side, the defense is arguing ‘Fair Use‘ and counter-sued the AP.  I’m not a lawyer, but I am an artist.   Looking at these works of Fairey’s I feel that, while it would be morally just for him to mention the originators of the major elements in his work, the finished pieces are so altered by the artistic process that any legal claim to the work by said originators is just as morally suspect.  But that’s not the law, that’s just one guys opinion.

Regardless, Fairey made a monumental blunder over the course of this legal process, one that I believe will cost him dearly.  Apparently the old adage of the boy and the ghetto can be para-applied here:  You Can Take The Artist Off The Streets, But You Can’t Take The Streets Off The Artist.

In October 2009, in a filing to the court, Fairey is quoted: “state for the record that the AP is correct about which photo I used…and that I was mistaken. While I initially believed that the photo I referenced was a different one, I discovered early on in the case that I was wrong. In an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images.“

Ouch.  For his trouble, he is, in addition to his battle with the Associated Press, now under criminal investigation.

The AP vs. Shepard Fairey trial date is set for late March 2011.

He is known as the Alpha of Modern Color Photographers.  Before William Eggleston, color photography was strictly for commercial or pastoral works: advertising, fashion, landscapes ala Ansel Adams etc..  When Eggleston turned his lens to the world around him capturing the “ugly stuff”, an entirely new photographic discipline was born.  Heavily influenced by the work of Henri Cartier Bresson, Eggleston began experimenting with color film in the mid sixties (which I find rather shocking – it wasn’t that long ago), soon after catching the eye of Walter Hopps and kick started his career.

His process has been described as the “Democratic Camera”, a knack for allowing moments to blossom out of the muck of the mundane and snatching them out of the air at just the right time.  I’m imagining patience is not only a virtue, but as important a tool in this approach as anything else.

In the mid seventies Eggleston also worked with early video – in much the manner as his photography.  Much of it has been compiled into the film ‘Stranded In Canton’.

To impress you further – he taught at Harvard and dated Warhol Factory denizen Viva Superstar for a spell.

And that’s all I have to say on the subject as – and this seems to be ofdten the case – the man’s work really speaks for itself.  As he is quoted as saying:

“it’s just about impossible to follow up with words.

They don’t have anything to do with each other.”

So true.

Sisters, from Olympia, Washington – the Mecca of 90′s alt/punk/whatever -  were a band I had read a lot about over the past few years and it was basically the same thing over and over:  Much as their name implies, Sisters were “Sonic Youth, but like, better than Sonic Youth has been in years”, which is that lazy ass, internet hive-mind way of writing without thinking.  One influential writer wrote it and everyone else followed suit.

Well, while they were not entirely wrong, they were still a good county or so down the road from being right.  A person who owns a Sonic Youth record (say, ‘Dirty’) and had listened to it enough times to be familiar with their conventions can give Sisters 2008 lp Everybody a cursory listen and make the connection.  Yes, the vocals do, in fact, sound like a gibbering Thurston Moore and, yes, the guitar sound is noisy – but that’s as far as the Sonic Youth comparison can go.  If you wanna go further, you could say that Sisters are a group that built themselves on the idea of the Sonic Youth that performed the trashy, bratty ‘Hotwire My Heart’ (originally by SF’s first punk band – CRIME) on their 1987 LP ‘Sister’.

That is to say, Sisters didn’t craft carefully (de)constructed art rock songs, but rather Id fueled, sloppy, noise punk.  Actually, this is closer to what would have been dominating the Amphetamine Reptile catalog of the late 80′s / early 90′s.  Although I have a feeling vocalist/guitarist Jon’s Thurston Moore-esque  stylings would probably have doomed them at time – Shit, NYC’s DUST devils only used alternate tunings and they were completely slagged by tin eared SY fans as clones (completely untrue – hear for yourself – guitarist and all around great guy Michael Duane has all the old DUST devil records for free download HERE).

Both Kanako and Jon have another band that trade in the ‘college rock’ sound of my youth called Broken Water.  Again, chiming guitars and noisy chords play a big part, but the songwriting is far more sophisticated and less dependent on slugging you in the gut over and over to make their point as with Sisters.  One huge difference is that the songs float along and are given time to grow and evolve and are led by female vocalist.  Yes, Sonic Youth still play a large role – larger than in Sisters, particularly when Jon sings, but there’s also the general feel of the ‘Alt’ era – I’m thinking Olympia’s own ‘Kill Rock Stars‘ label, the early lo-fi bedroom movement ala Sebadoh, the loud/soft/loud dynamic…

It all adds up to something many people in their forties know and love – Broken Water are very good at what they do, but I wonder if it all isn’t too retro for the ‘current’ listening audience.  There really isn’t much new about either of these groups, and certainly nothing modern (being a crusty, old curmudgeon, I say that’s a GOOD thing, but is it?).  I could go on about how rock has stopped moving in new directions and has largely become reflective – groups are often being judged on how well they assimilate a particular style rather than the content of what they do – but, holy shit, that’s boring.  As far as I can tell, Sisters have broken up and Broken Water is a full time concern and, in any case they’re still young, who knows what they may blossom into.  Also, they are touring like crazy on the west coast starting mid-September 2010 – so go see them if you can!

Sisters – Everybody is on Parts Unknown records

Broken Water – Whet is on Night People records

Hey Y’all…

I’m posting this because it’s hilarious and, frankly, I was tired of looking at Frances Bean Cobain at the top of of PBBI.  No real reason, just tired of the picture.  Coulda been a shot of me or you, I’d still be sick of it.

Anyway, this is the first episode of “The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret”, a newish British comedy starring Atlanta’s own David Cross in the titular role.  It’s great!  For one thing, David has become somewhat of a chameleon, in the role of Todd Margaret he’s gained a little weight, ditched his glasses and looks more like a guy you know who looks a lot like David Cross (and David, my sincerest apologies if the truth is that you just got fat).  A great decision as the character, while playing to David’s strengths also has a new element of… sympathetic loserdom? that I really haven’t seen him do prior.  Also, Will Arnett guests doing what he does best: Being a loudmouth douche-hole!

If you enjoy this episode – you’re in luck as “Todd Margaret”, as well as the Kid’s In The Hall‘s over the top new mini series “Death Comes To Town” are coming to IFC this month!  ENJOY!

at the end of the segment click on the top box to continue!

So, Frances Bean Cobain, the daughter of two of the most screwed up rock stars ever to sling a guitar in Kurt Cobain and celebrity car crash Courtney Love, turned 18 years old this week.  It seems like just yesterday she was being born, and I didn’t care because, like, I had moved on from Grunge and was totally entrenched in JAPANESE NOISE!!!!!

Happy Birthday, kid!

“But I smell good!”

I didn’t write about it here, probably because I had burned myself out on complaining about it on the comic book boards, but the man you see above you, Frank Miller, is responsible for one of the worst films of 2008 in ‘The Spirit’.  The movie was so bad, I walked out.

If you’ve been reading PBBI for any length of time, you know that I LOVE a bad movie.  The worse the better.  Tommy Wiseau’s ‘The Room’ is as important to film in my book as Orson Welles’ ‘Citizen Kane’.  To me, a poorly crafted movie can be just as entertaining as a cinematic masterpiece.  It really depends on the intent of the creators (although I break this rule for 80′s era Charles Band, whose cynical, assembly line approach actually created some crap classics).  What I don’t like is creative cowardice, and over any of the many, many pitfalls that plagued ‘The Spirit’, creative cowardice was the most egregious.

A quick rundown to understanding why anyone even gives two shits about the old guy:  Back in the 1980′s, Frank Miller, along with Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and a few others reinvented the superhero comic.  Miller had made a name for himself by taking Marvel Comic’s paper thin blind lawyer / superhero comic, Daredevil, and transforming it into a heady crime noir in tights.  Later in the decade he produced a miniseries that would alter the cape and cowl set for the next 20 years: The Dark Knight Returns.  DKR tells the tale of an elderly, wildly sociopathic Batman in a Reagan-era / Ayn Randian dystopia.  The work, though withered in the years that have followed, still reverberates – most notably in Christopher Nolan’s popular film series.

After leaving the long underwear cash cows of Marvel & DC, Miller produced a series of hardcore, highly stylized, noir thrillers under the banner ‘Sin City’.   As far as crime comics go they were, again, extremely important.  He followed this up with the popular (if not historically accurate) sword and sandal epic ’300′.

In recent years both of these titles have been made into very popular films, with Miller ‘co-directing’ ‘Sin City’ with Robert Rodriguez.  So until that point in Hollywood, the ‘Miller’ tag meant money.  So of course, were he were to direct his own film, well, that couldn’t possibly fail, right?

Wrong.  So wrong.  What Miller decides to do is adapt the classic 1940′s crime fighter ‘The Spirit’ created by comics pioneer and genius Will Eisner, to the screen.  Now, you likely have no clue who ‘The Spirit’ is, and this is no surprise as, outside of comic book geekery, the character hasn’t been popular since World War II.  However, Eisner’s material is exploding with wild imagery and ideas, led by a character who, regardless of his masked appearance, is very much a Regular Joe.  He regularly fell for dames, he regularly got his ass kicked, and he regularly got his ass kick for and by dames.

Instead of utilizing any of this, Miller decides to do a goofier version of ‘Sin City’ - a proven formula (likely demanded by the producers), but based around a superhero.  I won’t go on about how the film doesn’t even remotely resemble the comic because – who cares? – that’s the least of ‘The Spirit‘s’ problems.  The story makes no sense.  The editing approaches student film at times.  The dialog is the worst I’ve heard since ‘Star Wars: The Phantom Menace’ – the type where the actors seem to have no clue what they are saying and the words just spill out of their mouths in chunks of blather.  The violence aims for 3 Stooges but comes off like a ridiculous music video.  It has Samuel L. Jackson in blackface at one point (oh, it’s ‘mud’, but in the ‘Sin City’ style of desaturated duochrome – trust me, it’s blackface) and Nazi regalia at another – for no reason.  Eva Mendes puts in the best performance out of all of the actors.  I’m not kidding – it’s HORRIBLE.

I wasn’t alone in this assessment, in addition to the nearly unanimous negative reviews, hardly anyone saw the thing.  So now I see this appropriately silly thing and – beyond the bizarre pairing of fragrance and the wizened bird guy above – it’s apparent that Miller hasn’t learned a damn thing from his Spirit experience other than “I can’t believe someone hired me after that!”.

Really?

Well, don’t freak out too hard as it’s not a new Tommy Wiseau film, per se , but 10 minute short called The House That Dripped Blood On Alex, from the fine folks over at Atom.com.  Wiseau only ‘acts’ and isn’t ‘directoring’, unfortunately, but it’s still going to be great fun.  If you don’t know who Tommy Wiseau is, you’re new ‘roun’ hare, arncha?  Also, it has that guy Joey Greco from ‘Cheaters’ that got stabbed.  By a Cheater.  This should be worth a couple chux.

It’s that time again: a new season of AMC’s retro drama revolving, ostensibly at least, around the world of advertising – MAD MEN.  Since last season, the main players of  Sterling / Cooper have moved on from their compromised (fictional) agency to become a young upstart in Sterling/ Cooper/ Draper/ Pryce.

Not just that, but since we last saw them, a stress filled year of brand building and client acquisition has already passed and 1964 is giving way not only to 1965, but to an entirely new world.

For the uninitiated (spoilers to follow, folks), Mad Men primarily tells the tale of creative director / partner Don Draper (John Hamm), your prototypical 1950′s American male -  tall, good looking and possessing complete command upon his realm.  The twist – and of course there’s a twist – Don Draper is dead.  No, Mad Men doesn’t weave the tale of an undead ad man, but our Don Draper is, in fact, one Dick Whitman.  Dick, the son of a prostitute and an alcoholic, happens upon a far better future in a Korean foxhole when he trades dogtags  with his dying lieutenant – Don Draper.

Upon returning to the States a new man, ‘Don Draper’ uses his fertile imagination to build himself into the driving force behind advertising giant Sterling / Cooper, marry a former model in Betty Hofstadt (January Jones) and run rampant in a world of total male privilege.

The show does an excellent job in making it’s central characters perfectly grey; on another show, Don Draper’s seemingly bottomless appetite for infidelity would make him contemptible.  While Mad Men certainly doesn’t make it ‘okay’ that he’s a pig, it actually makes the viewer understand why he’s like this.  He needs control.  When your entire existence is built on a foundation of lies, a need for control becomes pretty understandable.

And also unlike nearly every other show ever produced, all of these character conceits blow up in Don’s face, altering not only his life, but the program itself.

So now we are beginning Season 4.  Don lives on his own; Betty having sussed out the truth regarding his identity has divorced him, taken the children (more on them later) and shacked up with Henry Francis, who works in the Governor’s office.  As the 1950′s and all it’s alpha males fade into the past, Don is finding the modern woman not so easy to bamboozle into bed, finally resorting to prostitutes to get his fix.  Finally, the widow of the real Don Draper, Anna, the only person who knows the truth and accepts Don / Dick for who he really is, is found to be suffering from terminal cancer.

It’s a fundamentally different show than the one that debuted in 2007, and that much stronger for it.  While the women of ‘Mad Men’ are still treated with a measure of derision by most of their male counterparts, they are less likely to put up with it.  The “60′s” and all of the cultural upheaval that it brought has begun and the principals of the show are lost among the wreckage, while prior wallflowers like the 20 something Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) are blossoming into the future.

One of the things I enjoy the most / find very surreal is the mixing of real world products / advertising and advertising agencies into Mad Men’s wholly fictional narrative.  Working in the industry, it’s very strange to have a show that references a company that we frequently do business with, not to mention recognizing some of the situations from our own experiences.  It’s also amusing in that the viewer is hipped to the fair amount of bologna that goes into making a commercial – yet watch any five minute block of television ads and you’ll hear the dulcet tones of ‘Don Draper’ himself, Jon Hamm, selling you any number of products.  So Meta!

And Joan Halloway (Christina Hendricks), you are amazing.

AND WE’RE BACK!

People…  The story went like this:

The blog was getting out of hand, having very little to do with Jason’s photography and more just our insanity.  To the point where Jason was thinking – what does a client think when they see this?  It’s the truth – your stuff needs to be a bit on the concise side or people just have no clue what you are doing.

So.

Jason, realizing that PBBI has some potential beyond what it was meant to be, decided that we should move it to it’s own domain / server blah blah blah and replace it with something like a business card – clean, minimal and to the point.  Check it out here to see what I mean. Ahhh, refreshing, no?

All I needed to do was build Jason’s new blog on the new PBBI server, make a backup of PBBI and switch the two.

It sounds far easier than it was.  First I screwed it up so royally that I had to do fresh installs of Wordpress 24 hours after a fresh install!  The second time, Jason’s blog worked fine, but PBBI… not so much.  All of the images were invisible.

Okay, so I’m no code wizard – not by a long shot.  After fumbling through what I thought might be the problem I hit Wordpress’s Forum where I was predictably ignored, by and large.  Have you ever been?  It’s like the DMV for blog tech advice – one techie for every 500 problems (at least it feels that way) – not a fun experience.

Finally, I was able to muscle through re-coding some PHP files (seriously, how I learned to do this – I have no clue), dug up a plug-in that did some heavy lifting and after repopulating the Media Galleries for any posts that used them and redirecting over 1000 image URL’s by hand, one at a time, we’re back.

So bookmark us and I’ll be posting some new stuff real soon – Forced To Watch, Mini Movies, more reviews of films, art and music essays – all kinds of fun junk!  Stay tuned!