Originally commissioned by eco-clothing brand NAU’s philanthropic arm, Partners for Change, the posters never saw the light of day until Erdenberger came up with a unique solution to a very modern problem: how do you justify the unavoidably copious carbon emissions of a cross-country move?

“I already pay about $400 a year to make my family a carbon neutral family,” says Erdenberger, who recently moved 950 miles from smoggy L.A. to the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest. “The move is an especially nasty polluter.” So the designer decided to dust off his eye-popping eco-loving posters and sell them to fund the offset of his recent carbon-emission shopping spree.

“The carbon offsetting I will do with the proceeds involves calculating how much carbon is generated while transporting all our stuff in a truck, flying our family of 3 in a jet, and transporting both of our cars on the back of a semi truck. Then, selecting a organization that funds the planting of trees, and promoting alternative energy.”

After attending an awkward industry-only midday peformance in Hollywood, I met Scott in the parking lot of the Roosevelt Hotel and we spoke for a blissful hour and a half of matters great and small. The meat of that interview will be published in the upcoming August issue of Mean (along with my interviews of Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball, Towelhead star Summer Bishil, and my first sneaker column). In preparation of Dr. Dog’s amazing new album, Fate, which hits shelves tomorrow, my editor has given me permission to post some excerpts from the remainder of my rambling conversation with Scott McMicken here. Enjoy!

Download: “The Old Days” from the new album, Fate

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Have you ever thought about creating a Dr. Dog musical?

That would be really awesome. We did this album, Psychedelic Swamp a long time ago, and we’ve always had dreams to make it a traveling piece of theater. There’s a real strong narrative throughout the album and it would be pretty easy and really fun to try and make it into a sort of low-budget theater production. But even a movie of that…

Is Psychedelic Swamp available anywhere? I’ve tried to find it before and haven’t had any luck.

No, it’s not. The problem is… we would have put it out already, but the concept on the album is that we didn’t make it, we got it in the mail. So the packaging is an envelope with our address on it. The idea is that we got it—this cassette tape—from this dude who used to live on earth, but escaped into this psychedelic parallel universe, as an effort to escape all the problems he was having on earth.

And when he got there, initially he was like, “Wow, this is awesome! Everything is so weird, and everything is upside down, with psychedelic aesthetics—nothing is predictable!” But over time, as he gained his frame of reference there, he realized that the same problems persist and there’s no real escape other than accepting and dealing with these issues that you have in your life. So he wants to make this album and send it back to earth to spread that message, like, “I’ve made this mistake, I thought I could escape but now I’m just trapped here. Everything’s the same.” And he appeals to us, saying, “Can you be the band that’s going to translate this music into modern American pop music, so that the message is understood?” He’s becoming so detached from reality the more he’s there, his ability to communicate and his way of going about representing information is becoming more and more garbled and detached and that’s why it sounds like a very psychedelic album.

The reason we haven’t put it out yet is because before we do that, I want to do what he’s asking us to do, which is to take all the music and re-record it as a live rock band with no psychedelic elements whatsoever. Very straightforward, immediate delivery, just like he wants it to be—a translation of his psychedelic mess. So when we do that, we’ll put ‘em both together and it’ll be like a double album.

Have you ever hopped a train?

No… I want to. My friends do that. I have a few friends who live that way, riding around on the rails, and there’s something about it that’s very romantic. The three people I know who do it, it’s not a big social thing—they’re not with a huge group of people. Most of the time they’re on their own, so it seems kinda cool. Dangerous—very dangerous. Probably very uncomfortable. In truth, I’ll probably never ever do that, but I certainly like the idea of that. All I can picture are horror stories of getting sucked under and your legs get chopped off.

A trio of Los Angeles-based artists comprised of former physics student/director-animator Miwa Matreyek, master projectionist/digital media artist Chi-wang Yang, and actress-musician Anna Oxygen (who also happened to curate Conversations That Never Happened), Cloud Eye Control explain themselves thusly:

Whether through a re-imagining of Charles Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight, the discovery of powerful crystals underground, or one woman’s interstellar search for a new home, a common theme in our stories is human adaptation in a technological world. To realize these stories, we project pre-rendered animation and live camera imagery onto various surfaces on the stage, and this imagery functions as scenery and virtual actor. Both high and low tech methods are used to allow the live actor to interact with the media. These methods range from custom-built interactive video software to the physical manipulation of video puppets.

Thanks to my friend Patrick, I happened to catch their performance at the REDCAT last night and was completely blown away. The manner in which they meld performance and video art is so complex, fascinating, and most of all entertaining, I’m pretty sure my mouth was locked in a permanent smile for the duration of their display.

I really hope they perform again soon, because I can’t wait watch it all again— but if you’re not busy tonight, I implore you to make a trip to the REDCAT at 8:30 for their final performance at the NOW Festival. Just make sure you’re prepared to lose your shit.

200 portraits of Tamala’s friends and close relations make up the show, and they’re each pictured in the act of eating various foods against the uniform backdrop of Tamala’s navy blue kitchen wall. Shot over a span of two years, the images were unveiled for the first time at the Telic Arts Exchange on June 28th, arranged in a giant grid, like the biggest “MySpace Top Friends” ever. After a series of amazing-sounding dinner theater events that took place over the past three weeks, tomorrow night (July 19th) will mark the closing reception of the show, in the form of a “secret picnic café.”

Modeled after cafes in the Pacific Northwest D.I.Y. communities and historically referencing prohibition speakeasies, the café will use word of mouth to draw participants to a donation based picnic café, set up in and outside of TELIC. Paloma Parfrey will be recreating traditional picnic foods while Katie Byron reinvents what a picnic means through an installation. Performances begin @ 6pm.

Make sure to check it out before it disappears! Take a peek at a few shots of the show after the jump.

But wait, that’s not all! It also doubles as a free youth tutoring center run by 826LA, the So-Cal branch of McSweeney’s editor/literary superstar Dave Eggers’ national network of non-profit programs dedicated to teaching students creative writing skills. I’ve been meaning to check out the Time Travel Mart since it opened this spring, so I finally got around to stopping by last night for the opening reception of a new installation in the storefront window. Los Angeles-based artist Amy Martin created a series of five posters that use a vintage travel agency aesthetic to advertise fabulous destinations throughout history and into the future.

The posters look fantastic up close— they remind me of something Scott Hansen would post on his highly refined design blog, ISO50. Currently on sale for just $20 at 826LA’s online store or at the center itself (1714 W. Sunset Blvd), all profits go towards “helping students 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write,” says Christina Galante, the store’s retail and events manager.

After the jump, check out the stuff on sale at the Time Travel Mart, and take a closer look at Amy Martin’s (time) travel posters.

I was initially lured in to the show by Chippendale, whose zines I’ve become familiar with at stores like Family, Ooga Booga, and Giant Robot— but after checking out all the work, I’ve totally fallen in love with Matthew Thurber’s adorable intensity (e.g. the endearingly terrified horse in the picture above, entitled A Degree in Time Travel). I ended up slapping down a crisp Lincoln on the first issue of his new comic book, 1-800-Mice, which reads kinda like a Sally Cruikshank cartoon watched in the midst of a Vietnam acid flashback.

Check out my photos from the show after the jump, and make sure to stop by the Hope Gallery at 1547 Echo Park Ave before August 5th to experience the odor intimately.