Lost

I was in Los Angeles for Thanksgiving and found a few flyers while I was there, all for lost and found pets and one human.

L.A. has a large urban coyote population. Maybe one them has a taste for Mexican food.

Diary of a Madman

I was walking down 11th street when I saw a black bag with its contents spread around it, piles of paper scraps with writing on them. This is the diary of a madman.

Here are some of the lyrics to Diary of a Madman by Ozzy Osbourne:

Screaming at the window
Watch me die another day
Hopeless situation, endless price I have to pay

Sanity now it's beyond me; there's no choice

Diary of a madman
Walk the line again today
Entries of confusion
Dear diary, I'm here to stay

By comparison, Ozzy seems pretty sane.

Iraq Out Now - Part 2

This micro protest is only 2.5" wide. That's not enough room to present a cogent argument or even specify where Iraq needs to get out of. Iraq, maybe? If I were Iraq, I'd want to get out of Iraq.

Found all over the Union Square area.

Actor Needed

What's odd about this flyer, besides that there are no casting specs other than gender, is the promise to "pay in food."

This filmmaker needs to find someone holding a sign like this...

No Hate

As someone who hates, I often feel that I am in the minority. What's worse, I often find myself confronted by those who work to oppress me and crush my right to hate, loathe, detest, abhor and begrudge.

Found on the Upper East Side.

Papermovie

Let's say you want to make a movie. The problem is you have no budget, no movie camera, no movie film and no craft services table. Even worse, you live in Bulgaria. But you can still get your project made with Papermovie.

Depending on how you look at it, Papermovie is either an evolved storyboard or a lo-fi movie - so lo-fi that the pictures don't move.

Printed in flyer form, these movies are distributed for free in clubs, cafes, sports centers, cinemas, shops, tattoo studios, universities, subway stations, beaches and prisons. To see the whole story you have to collect all the flyers. Or you can visit Papermovie.com and read the stories while listening to their original soundtracks.

Papermovie is an end in itself. It's not a guerrilla marketing concept for a studio release or the pitch for a Project Green Light type reality show.

It doesn't get any more indie than this.

Doo Wop Singers Wanted

If you're going to form a band in a genre that predates the Xerox machine and Craig's List, it makes sense to advertise for members using neither. I hope that's not a cell phone number.

Found on Broadway, near some NYU dorms.

Missing Cat

Found in the West Village near where all the dogs have gone missing. Maybe the dognappers are branching out into other species.

Leviticus - Part 12

Leviticus continues in his campaign to write his name and the Freestyle Family logo on every piece of paper he comes across. Found these near Union Square.

This is a page of Hello Goodbye from a Beatles song book. I'm not looking for any significance in the choice of artist or song. I think that if he had Twenty % Tippers: Greatest Hits that's what he would have used.

Black Veil

I received another mailing from the Twenty % Tippers, a story entitled Black Veil. If any of the tale is to be believed, they are about to record an album on Rhombus Records. The only hang up is that they're short a female vocalist for the project. If you've got the time, the pipes and the estrogen, call 646-335-3390 and leave a message, or email the band at band@tippersmusic.com. If you want to hear their music first, they're still giving out free CDs here.

LampPosts

LampPosts is an art magazine designed to be posted page-by-page in public places. Anyone can participate by printing out an issue, or a hundred, and posting them. Everything you need to know is at lampposts.org. including a map of where in the world LampPost has been posted so far.

I found page two of issue one at 2nd Avenue and 7th Street.

Comics Mecca

I read a piece of business advice saying that you shouldn't open a business doing or selling something that you're passionate about because your emotions will cloud your business decisions. If everybody listened to that advice there would be no recording studios or comic book shops.

Celso

Here, Celso combines the sex ads from the back of a tabloid weekly, the labels of sports drinks and drawings of naked women. Yes, cavorting with hookers can make a guy thirsty.

Workin Hard?

The insinuation is that the have-nots work hard, haves don't and it's the latter who are getting richer.

As my father-in-law says, to go from nothing to $8 million is impressive. To go from $8 million to $30 million is inevitable.

Found on Broadway near Union Square.

O, Pardon Me, Thou Bleeding Piece of Earth

The text is by William Shakespeare from Julius Caesar and is the source of the expression "the dogs of war."

Nothing classes up street art like a Shakespearean quote.

Here's Irony For You

There's a big difference between George W. Bush and Ehren Watada. Bush weaseled out of combat duty without defying any direct orders. Watada just said no and that's something that the military can't allow. If soldiers get to decide whether they want to go to war or not then they'll be deciding who will be storming the beach, what time the bombardment starts and who gets to drive the tank. Anyone going into the military has to know that it's not a democracy. You obey orders and if you don't like them you have to obey them anyway.

These were being handed out in Washington Square Park by Veterans for Peace.

What's Missing In Your Life That Her Life Is So Important In Yours?

I think I can answer that question. What scares us is the nagging feeling that our lives don't matter and that we will die without having made any mark on the world. Celebrities hold out the possibility that we can make a lasting impression and possibly live on after death. that's why we build them up and, because the goal is merely fame, we are willing to elevate someone like Paris Hilton who has no real accomplishments.

Eventually we realize that we won't become famous - not even for 15 minutes - and we become resentful of those in the limelight. We tear them down, getting pleasure every time we see a famous face getting arrested, divorced, caught on tape having sex or making a poor fashion choice.

But that doesn't solve our original problem - the pointlessness of our lives - so we hunger for more celebrities and the cycle continues.

Daydream

Looks like Elbowtoe is giving De La Vega a run for his money. Found near Union Square.

Beers For Barcelona Video

This was made at Animoto.com.

Tall & Handsome - I'm Sleepless In Seattle!!!

"Hi Mr. Tall & Handsome, remember me?? I'm Gina Newton from Seattle. I design furniture and haven't or couldn't forget your kindness and generosity. You saved me (and my wallet) at the Club Sway in 305 Spring Street. You found it and took it back to the bartender. Thanks honey-hon hon!! I know you live in the Astor Place area. If this is indeed you, please email me and say hello. I know you are VERY tall with dark hair (my fave..)

Found near Astor Place on a Sunday afternoon.

Leviticus - Part 11

After all these months of publicity, here's my chance to see Leviticus live! What can I expect? Music? Poetry? Self-immolation?
Meanwhile, the Freestyle Family was busy taping up these mini Bible pages around the East Village, challenging our ideas about biblical proportions.

Rebuild Us You Cowards

I don't think that it's lack of intestinal fortitude that's preventing anything from being built where the World Trade Center once stood. Even the site of a national tragedy is subject to the same real estate issues that effect any other plot of land in New York.

What I want to know is when those yellow-bellied weasels are going to do right by the victims of 1911 and rebuild the Triangle Waist Company Factory?

Lost Dog

The canine-snatching crime wave continues in the Washington Square Park/Lower 5th Avenue area.

When the New York Post and the Daily News put this on the front page they can use these headlines:
DOG GONE!
HOT DOGS!
POOCH POACHERS!
TERRIERISM!

Awesome Stoop Sale

At first I was skeptical as to how awesome this stoop sale was going to be, but then I saw, "YES THERE WILL BE FREE CANDY!" And a cat tent? Totally awesome!

Found in Long Island City.

Stoop Sale

It is almost impossible to resist the urge to make double Os into eyes. How do Bloomingdale's, Google and the Food Network resist?

East/West Village Border

The East Village is way more tolerant of stickers and flyers than the West Village. We'll see if this changes as the East Village becomes more gentrified.The dividing line is 4th Avenue where I took this photo.

Stolen

Found at 5th Avenue and 10th Street.

My instincts were right - there is dognapper loose in the neighborhood. "Peter" might also have stolen this dog and this one too.

When you read about this in the New York Times you can say that you saw it here first.

Parade Without A Permit

The Radical Homosexual Agenda has a problem with the city's parade permit rules. You can read all about their issues with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and New York's Finest on their website, but the gist of it is that they don't like it that The Man decides who gets to march and who doesn't.

With a name like The Radical Homosexual Agenda you're just begging to have your permit denied.

Leviticus - Part 10

Another mass promotion from Leviticus. These were taped up all over the Union Square area.

Union Square has become the Times Square for NYC residents. It's got everything that Times Square has, like theaters, big box retailers, street performers, crowds and a major subway hub, but without the tourists. Add a park and some political unrest and voila!

W is not healthy for children and other living things.

More from those who think that everything that President Bush says, thinks and does is evil, stupid and unhygienic. It's America's inability to separate personalities from policy that got W elected in the first place - voters preferred Bush over Gore and Kerry because Bush was the guy that they felt that they could sit down with and have a beer.

Homeboy Sandman

Homeboy Sandman, an enterprising rapper, took over the advertising space of a subway car, slipping his own series of flyers under the plastic that holds paid ads.

All of the ads speculate that famous rappers like Jay-Z and 50 Cent would be fans if they had heard his music and, in the case of Big Pun, were still alive.

Prosecute Karl Rove

This takes bumper sticker politics one step smaller. I found this four-and-a-quarter-inch demand on a subway exit in Long Island City.

Twenty % Tippers - Part 4

The Twenty%Tippers sent me another one of their stories in the mail. It's eight pages long, too long to tape up in a subway station or for me to transcribe here.

The title is "Man in a Diaper" and the premise is that the city of New York decides to provoke Islamic militants by seating a man in a diaper - one of the Twenty%Tippers is selected for the job - atop the Freedom Tower spire. The plan is based on a misinterpretation of an obscure passage in the Koran .

The Tipper's website has a collection of their previous stories and perhaps this one will be posted soon, or at least in time for the 7th anniversary of 9-11.

This is another leg in their campaign to give away their free CD. The Tippers are ahead of the major labels who still haven't gotten it through their heads that recorded music has become a free commodity. They might as well give songs away with six-packs of Coke, like when I was a kid and they would sometimes put a Bobby Sherman record on the back of a cereal box.

Lots of Money

Any offer that skips what the job is and goes straight to the piles and piles of cash you can earn is always suspect. Especially when the people who have figured out how to make these vast sums can't even afford a computer and printer. Still, all of the tear off tags were gone when I found this.

Found in front of the C-Town supermarket in Long Island City.

RAB1501

The mystery of who wheatpasted the illustration of the Dakota in Washington Square Park is solved. While on 5th Avenue on the Upper East Side, I found a few more images from the same artist. This one includes the artist's handle, RAB1501.

He has a Myspace page where you can read all about his work. In one of the pictures on his page I noticed that he had a show with our usual suspect Leviticus and I think I recognized the Freestyle family logo too.

To my eye his drawings look like spot illustrations, the kind you find in the Black Book.

9-11 Roundup

Tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of 9-11, an event that people still feel strongly about. Here's some of the messages that have been posted around NYC.
I remember the days of "united we stand." That was before the country was divided over the Iraq war. Even the World Trade Center is still a hole in the ground because no one can agree on what to build there.

By the time I found this on a sidewalk in Long Island City, the poster looked like it had taken more of a stamping than terrorism.
For some, 9-11 marks a new era a fascism in this country brought about by the Bush administration when the threat of terrorism is merely a tool to frighten the populace into submission. You can find more stickers and posters ready for printing at www.strike911.org.
And then there are the conspiracy theorists who I wrote about earlier. The activists at NY 9/11 Truth are trying to create an NYC 9/11 ballot initiative enabling residents of NYC to vote for a new, independent investigation of 9/11. I get the feeling that even if there were an independent investigation revealing the conspiracy behind 9-11 there would still be people claiming that the independent investigation was a cover up and that there is an even deeper conspiracy behind the attacks, involving the Vatican, the Trilateral Commission, the Federal Reserve and Home Depot.

Custom Pen & Ink Drawings of Pets

Found along 5th Avenue, near Union Square.

The thought of going into the pet portrait business occurs to so many artists. Does anyone make any money doing this?

Of all of the pet portraitists I've seen, Keith Romano is one of the better artists. He also does pen and ink portraits of houses.

Labor Day Consists Of One Day Of Work

Eventually most American holidays lose sight of their original intention. Labor Day was created to honor the working man but has been transformed into summer's last hurrah. Writing a poem to point this out is not much of a revelation.

Is it so bad that Labor Day is about "blowout sales" and "up to ten thousand barbeques per square foot"? It shows just how far the working stiff has come if he's taking a day off from the job to buy a flat-screen TV and throw a burger on the grill.

The line "it's abundantly clear that things have gone in the wrong direction: 'Hail to the Chief'" wants to hang some sort of blame on the President but nothing else in the poem makes it at all clear how President Bush has perverted or diminished Labor Day. Like a lot of left wing political expression, it's assumed that everything that goes wrong in the world - paper jams, burnt casseroles, crying babies - can be traced back to the President.

P.S.1 Courtyard

P.S.1 MoMA in Long Island City is one of my favorite places to see art, second only to the Whitney. Here's evidence that their interests and mine are in alignment.

The courtyard in front of the museum is covered with a canopy supported by wooden poles that look very much like the ones that carry telephone lines. Affixed to these poles are flyers that span a few decades.
This flyer, for the early 80s SoCal punk band the Plugz, was a bit of nostalgia for me. I remember seing those guys back in the day.
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The same can be said for this one for Black Flag.

The contemporary Oneida get the nod from the art world as well. They played P.S.1 on Saturday, September 1st.

Not all of the flyers were for bands and they all seem to have been picked for their hip factor and graphic design.

I should think about how to organize my flyers into an installation so when I get the phone call from a gallery or institution I'll be ready.