“Performance Art” is a rather unique commercial that Bosch put together to advertise the power of their spark plugs.
It features Vaughn Gittin Jr. tearing up the streets of Los Angeles in his highly customized Mustang drift-mobile, and is one kind of art that I can definitely appreciate:
As America heads towards a change it can believe in, real issues effecting real people become more important than ever. To see what’s on the minds of young Americans all across the ‘flyover states’, Current put Lauren Cerre on a bus from Los Angeles to New York, and created The Great American Detour.
The result is a collection of the actual issues that will determine the future of America, told in a voice that is very different from the pundits and the polls that dominate most on-air time screen time:
Cameron Hughes is a professional superfan; paid by team owners to get crowds on their feet and to create team spirit wherever he goes.
“I’m that guy,” says Hughes “the funny, happy, dancing, possibly very drunk guy you’ve seen at the ballpark at least once.”
But he’s not drunk (he says he never drinks before games, and prefers to down three Red Bulls instead), and he’s not just doing it for fun either. Teams pay him an average of $2,000 per game to work his magic in the stands, and when you consider the fact that he works an average of 80 to 90 games per year, you’ll see that he’s making a comfortable six-figure salary by whipping fans, and maybe even you, into a frenzy.
So how did Cameron get his start?
After college, he moved to Los Angeles and tried to make it as an actor. At a Dodgers game, he put his acting skills to work in the stands, and was approached by the team about hiring him to do his “superfan” gig full time. Soon word of Cameron’s skills spread from team to team, and he started receiving unsolicited offers from all across the country. Before he knew it, the acting career was out the window, and he was doing a new kind of acting at any game that needed a little more spirit.
So keep Cameron in mind the next time you’re at a game and wondering what the guy dancing through the stands is doing, because he just might be paying the bills from your fun.
In 1993, Tamien Bain, aka “BAiNG The Locksmith”, held up a McDonald’s at gunpoint.
Tamien was 14, and spent 12 years in prison for his crime.
Now 29, Tamien is one of five finalists for the McDonald’s Big Mac Chant competition, out of a field of over 1,000 submissions, and if he wins, he will fly out to Los Angeles where he will record his jingle for a national TV spot.
Bomb It “is the explosive new documentary from award-winning director Jon Reiss investigating the most subversive and controversial art form currently shaping international youth culture: graffiti”.
Through interviews and guerilla footage of graffiti writers in action on 5 continents, Bomb It tells the story of graffiti from its origins in prehistoric cave paintings thru its notorious explosion in New York City during the 70’s and 80’s, then follows the flames as they paint the globe. Featuring old school legends and current favorites such as Taki 183, Cornbread, Stay High 149, T-Kid, Cope 2, Zephyr, Revs, Os Gemeos, KET, Chino, Shepard Fairey, Revok, and Mear One. This cutting edge documentary tracks down today’s most innovative and pervasive street artists as they battle for control over the urban visual landscape. You’ll never look at public space the same way again.
Locations include Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Tijuana, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Hamburg, Berlin, Cape Town, São Paulo, and Tokyo, so all the hot spots are covers as well.
Conclusion: If you have even a passing interest in graffiti, its history, its effect, and its current status, then Bomb It looks like a can’t miss film.
In the LA area and looking for a place to play some coin-op classics?
Gridskipper has put together a guide to LA’s Best, Weirdest, Coolest, and Dodgiest Arcades, and it’s a great list of gaming getaways. It’s time to start saving those quarters and stretching those thumbs, because button mashing nirvana is just a map away.
If you’re going to visit Los Angeles, you’re going to want to party; and if you’re going to want to party, you’re going to want to eat, which is why Thrillist’s Late-Night Gorging guide should be an important part of your pre-inebriation ritual. The print at home card features 50 late-night eateries, as well as a few that will cater to you all night long while you attempt to eat off that hangover. Good luck, it’ll never work.
Today’s Movie Monday features the work of Three Legged Legs. What is Three Legged Legs, you ask? Well, it’s “a hillbilly with stinky hobbit feet, an angry brown guy freaking out all the time, and a guy who likes wearing collared shirts under regular cotton t-shirts”.
The first film is a shorty but a goodie. Humans!, a 60 second global awareness PSA “sensationalizing the excessive, all-consuming nature of the human being”, shows the Earth’s “utter demise in a fun and sickening kind of way”.
The next “animated fable”, Samurai, was a collaboration between TLL and GE for their Imagination Theater campaign. “It’s a tale of a pint-sized samurai faced with a seemingly impossible challenge as proposed by a behemoth Emperor and his wicked minions. Can you spot all the ninjas?”.
Their next short, Los Angeles Lets Be Friends, “depicts friendly monsters overrunning Los Angeles to spread joy and beauty throughout an otherwise drab and monochromatic society. Despite the creatures’ best efforts, the public isn’t swayed”.
Finally, Ricochet, a short “featured primarily as a visual effects showcase”, that “puts the viewer in the middle of an all out battle between two disparate armies set in an apocalyptic near-future environment”. Be warned though, this one gets violent.
Bonus: If that didn’t satisfy your movie appetite for the day, be sure to check out YouTube’s 2006 Video Awards Winners. You’ve probably seen most of them already, but maybe you missed one or two, so it’s always good to go back.
Cameron Hughes is a professional superfan; paid by team owners to get crowds on their feet and to create team spirit wherever he goes.
