I was hanging out with a group of friends the other night and they were all referencing this over-the-top ridiculous television spot for some home gym I’d never heard of. A tidal wave of presumptively hostile Staten Island accents and aggressive muscle flexes crashed into the rocks that were my unprepared eyes and ears from every other body in the room. This unsettled me as I watch TV pretty much all day and have an inhuman degree of focus and retention for advertisements, especially the ridiculous ones. And then, last night, during a post-midnight airing of the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget, there it was… the Body By Jake Tower 200:
You’re Doing It Wrong: Body By Jake Tower 200
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010This Week in What the WHAT?: Disney Skanks
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
One of the leading trends of comics in the 1990s was rampant over-sexualization. It totally makes sense, considering the standard demographic of lonely nerds combined with the fun of drawing exaggerated curves, and was little more than the modernization of pin-up art popularized in the early 20th century. One of the stars of girly comic art from the ’90s to today is J. Scott Campbell.
For last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Campbell produced a twelve-month wall calendar with racy interpretations of fairie tale femmes. They were mostly innocuously cheesecake, but nearly a year later are gaining attention. Nobody seems to mind the cheeky renditions of Little Miss Muffet and Red Riding Hood, but the following eight are clearly inspired by Walt Disney animated films, and people get pretty hot under the collar when you sexualize icons from youth culture:
Trailer Review: LINKIN PARK 8-BIT REBELLION!
Thursday, April 1st, 2010
I wish this were a prank, I honestly do. It’s just so amazingly terrible. I still hope that news will break in a day or two that this is all a joke, but it’s been all over the ‘net since it was announced on Tuesday, March 30th.
Linkin Park (the band) (your younger brother probably loved their song “One Step Over” nearly a decade ago) have decided to make a massively multiplayer online iPhone video game. In the process, they are attempting to capitalize on the recent wave of retro-nostalgia (Mega Man 9 & 10, New Super Mario Bros Wii, the chiptune craze, MacGruber) by making the game… ahem… “8-bit.”
It’s so… I can’t… ugh, just watch the trailer:
We All Want To Be Tarantino’s Clapper Angel
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
Oh, Quentin Tarantino…
Lauded as one of America’s greatest filmmakers and praised as being one of the few with a visual style all his own (him and Wes Anderson. Really, who else is there? Can you tell a Ron Howard film from a Bryan Singer from a Spike Lee just by looking at them?), the man has made a very successful career out of being just the right degree of quirky, existential, and darkly humorous. But major Hollywood films are not made by one man alone, so it makes sense that Tarantino would surround himself with similarly twisted yet fantastic help, right?
Meet Geraldine Brezca, Tarantino’s clapper angel.
Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” – There Is No Explanation
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010It was at a crappy Long Island bar that heard Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s “Telephone” for the first time, mangled by a desperate sorority sister/bartender in fishnet stockings; a whining, monotonous drunk jam staged in the manner that makes most people my age loathe karaoke. It was not a positive first impression.
It was over this past weekend that one of my favorite lesbians showed me the music video (Why does it matter that she’s a lesbian? Shut up, that’s why). I’ll readily admit that I don’t “get” Lady Gaga. I certainly appreciate her presence in the otherwise painfully redundant pop atmosphere, but I just don’t find her interesting enough as an artist to be enthusiastic about her work. Rumor is MTV has banned this video (which is apparently not true) and it’s become a viral hit. I’m not ready to say whether it’s good or bad, but I can tell you it’s definitely captivating and entertaining.
This Week in What the WHAT?: Hipster Puppies and More Signage Follies
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
chuleta says no one is going to play joanna fucking newsom on her turntable and she will cancel the goddamn book club meeting if she has to
I was alerted earlier this week to the existence of Hipster Puppies. All are adorably dead-on in their portrayal of… well… my demographic, but the one at right seemed particularly lovable. It reminded me of one of my favorite lyrics during college, from Ninja High School’s “Shake It Off” (as heard in this terrible quality YouTube bootleg):
And who put on Devendra Banhart anyway? I thought someone here was interested in partying, we can’t do that now.
Aww, aren’t they adorable?
Things That Can’t Be Unseen: Dwarfed Punk
Friday, February 12th, 2010God, I love Doc.
In case you’ve forgotten Daft Punk’s greater theory of Harder/Better/Faster/Stronger, please refer to the following flowchart:
This Week In What The What?: Signage Follies
Thursday, February 11th, 2010Anyone who has spent way too much time with me knows that I am an absolute typophile and somewhat of a signage fetishist. What can I say, the cup of an ITC Garamond capital letter H’s serif just makes me feel alive. Seeing other people demonstrate wanton disregard for these letters and their purpose in existence, though, well, that’s just very often amusing. Here are just a few such signs I’ve found laughable as of late:
Forget The Super Bowl, This Season’s Best Commercial Belongs To California Conservatives
Monday, February 8th, 2010
I used to watch the Super Bowl for the commercials, but sometime around 2004 the ads just didn’t feel special anymore. Maybe commercials year-round got better, maybe ad studios got more conservative, maybe having YouTube made the whole thing feel like a wasted event. Whatever it was, a lot of people seem to agree with me, Super Bowl ads just aren’t as noteworthy as they used to be.
Political ads, though… now that’s the stuff. The 21st century has allowed local campaigns to turn viral, and punk kids with bootlegged copies of Final Cut into political consultants. I was watching the morning news this weekend when I saw maybe the greatest political ad I’ve seen in my life:
Today in What the WHAT?: Gaga Polaroids and 8-Bit Toyotas
Monday, January 11th, 2010
Singer and fashion tornado Lady Gaga has been named as a creative director for Polaroid. Her words from the Polaroid press release:
“I am so proud to announce my new partnership with Polaroid as the creative director and inventor of specialty projects”, said Lady Gaga. “The Haus of Gaga has been developing prototypes in the vein of fashion/technology/photography innovation–blending the iconic history of Polaroid and instant film with the digital era–and we are excited to collaborate on these ventures with the Polaroid brand. Lifestyle, music, art, fashion: I am so excited to extend myself behind the scenes as a designer, and to as my father puts it–finally, have a real job.”
This is the sort of crazy news that comes out of the Consumer Electronics Show. Oh yeah, that and Toyota’s new concept car marketed at… um… chip musicians?