Performance of solo game piece for the visual arts, utilizing dice, cue cards and a clock to create an environment of improvisation and inspiration.

More Infinity art here: http://www.infinityequations.com/

Continuing with the Pink Floyd theme, this hypnotic video is from Mark Sunshine’s Armoredbaby YouTube channel. Mark is an old friend, collaborator, creator of the classic Montezuma’s Revenge video game graphics, artist, musician, designer and contributor to the late, great Tuna Casserole books from the early Wow Cool era; and he has not gotten nearly as many shoutouts from here as he should. He’s got 60+ more videos on his channel and a stellar array of favorites. So, take a day. Sit back, relax, grab a beverage.

Armored Baby YouTube Channel
Armored Baby home page

I’ve known Jack Tu for a few years now and have watched in awe as he tore up the U.S. martial arts competition circuit and then went to China to even greater success. Recently he was named Jackie Chan’s first ever disciple. A few days ago he made an appearance in America to commemorate this achievement and thank those who helped him on the way. I was sad to miss it… being stuck on planes and in airport terminals all day. It would have been nice to see Jack again before he flew back to China to start shooting movies. I’ve been fortunate to capture several of his performances and competitions. The shot above is from last year’s Disney’s Martial Arts Festival. Jack is incredibly talented as a martial artist and musician. They’ll have to start shooting kung fu movies in hi-speed. He is so quick it is hard to believe (and hard to get a good shot of) Like Bruce Lee before him he will probably have to learn how to slow down for the cameras. One thing I noticed early on about Jack is that he was the first person I’ve seen that really did have that ‘Bruce’ quality. It will be worth the wait.

Read more:
Article in the Argus

Jackie Chan’s revealing blog post about the event

JackTu.com

Video of the Disney performance

My shots of Jack on flickr

Jiayo!

We’ll miss you George.

This is the most torturous, pretentious, incompetent mess of a movie I have ever seen. Don’t believe the reviews that suggest this film is visionary or a classic. The songs are ridiculous: the groans at the beginning of each one were deafening. The “Piccadilly Lily” song must have been done 15 times. There is nothing visionary (or even mildly interesting) here, only a long string of poorly-done Fellini ripoffs — actually, that’s the whole movie. It was like a train wreck. This was by far the longest hour and 45 minutes of my life. The movie made me long for death. My fellow audience members screamed and screamed as minute after endless minute and song after horrible song beat us into the ground. People were pleading for other audience members to kill them. Other kind-hearted viewers tried to distract the crowd by juggling and reading Moby Dick. Some, like myself, simply attacked the screen. Watching this self-obsessed piece of garbage was like having sharp nails scraped along the chalkboard of our souls.

It’s on the IMDB for Anthony Newley’s 1969 auto-onanistic auto-biopic Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? Wow.

Need more convincing? Here’s a clip on You Tube of Newley with then-wife Joan Collins from the film with the charming title Chalk and Cheese.

I became re-introduced to Newley because of his one collaboration with my major hero Delia Derbyshire and her comments about him. He now holds a special fascination for me similar to that with the ever erudite Prince Philip (who sadly lacks Newley’s gift for alliteration).

I think now that it’s been a little while since Rory passed I’m experiencing that stage of grief know as liberation that is supposedly so familiar to those who have already lost their parents. Sorry about the headline lift, Tom. I feel your pain brother.

George Tabb Benefit, Thursday March 13 at 10pm with Mike Watt + the Missingmen at Safari Sam’s, 5214 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, CA, (323) 666-7267. Visit MySpace.com/HelpGeorgeTabb.

I have to admit to being way clueless. My apartment in Brooklyn is a scant 4 3/4 miles away from the World Trade Center, in a neighborhood heavily populated by firefighters, and apart from some vague sense that, ‘yeah, the air after 911 was probably pretty bad and I’m sure some people are a little sick’, I haven’t given it a whole lot of thought (given that I only live there part time and moved in over a year and a half after 911, I’d probably miss a little, but c’mon!). Randomly today I see a bulletin from Mike Watt in my rarely visited MySpaceship about the benefit show, and first I’m thinkin’, ‘I didn’t know George was sick’, I read a little and it’s ‘I didn’t know George lived in New York’ (somewhere in there is, ‘we both worked at MaximumRockNRoll and even though we met once or twice I dodn’t really know George’), and then I’m sucked into a new scary world.

Simple version: George lived downtown during 911 and shortly after that he got sick… and then he got very sick, and found out that not only was there not much help available for anything beyond a runny nose, but the possibility that a causal link existed was denied in the interest of homeland security. Read his whole story at MySpace.com/HelpGeorgeTabb. As always George dishes things up in a clear, direct and honest human voice. For more on the human wreckage caused by the attacks in the years since, see these pieces in CBS News, The Village Voice, and Discover Magazine.

Back in the nonreal world, you should also give a visit to George’s YouTube channel, which contains many fine installments from his punk TV joint Destroy Television.

At long last I’ve managed to go through some more of my shots from the intense photo-overload in Florida last month. Some of my favorites are these from the Disney Martial Arts Festival night-time show performance by the Tiger Claw Elite Champions. Now I’m off to Raleigh-Durham in the morning for more martial arts action and to hopefully catch a Bryan Lee O’Malley’s book signing.

See the full set.

You can also watch the whole thing on YouTube.

More info at TigerClawElite.com.

OK… to us, it is like the holy grail of TV production company idents…. If you’ve experienced the Department of Experimental Services you’ll have a distinct “ah” moment. Somewhere in the back of our heads was this iconic computer video moment that opened so many warped episodes of Vegetable Soup in the 70s. I can watch this again and again.