Satoshi Kon was not just an incredible director, he was a man who understood the inner workings of our collective fantasies. Dreams, no matter how strange or wonderful, aren’t just magically conjured from the ether—they are built very carefully, sometimes deliberately from the people, objects, and ideas we encounter every day. Even our most intimate, personal desires which seem to stem from a deep-seated, primal urge can only reveal themselves to the mind’s eye in the guise of things we have found in the world around us: love appears as a celebrity’s face, truth sounds like an advertising slogan, happiness feels weirdly similar to your old Power Rangers pajamas. Whatever mundane symbolic vocabulary you might need to converse with your subconscious, Satoshi Kon knew it and he was fucking fluent.

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FACT: the year after Indiana University faculty member Alfred Kinsey published his famous Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, future cult leader and mass murderer, Jim Jones, began his undergraduate studies here. The way I figure, weird historical overlaps like that must be happening all the time, so why not explore a little and see what kinds of hidden treasure the Hoosier State has to offer?

So far I’ve discovered a combination haunted train/railway museum, two gas stations—one abandoned and one active—frequented by juggalos, and the secret lakeside retreat of none other than John “Cougar” Mellencamp. They will be presented here for your amusement… whenever I get around to it. Until then, enjoy this delicious pun brought to you by one of our many local churches.

I usually try to CC Satan, Shiva, and Osiris on those, just to cover my bases.

Spike Jonze designed some awesome air dancers for Opening Ceremony. Head over to We Love You So to see more photos of these glorious balloon beasts in action!

Dallas Clayton is a bottomless well of good vibes. I had the pleasure of tagging along to a handful of local readings to shoot the video below, and while each reading is totally different, they all seemed to lead to ubridled fun and infinite smiles at the end of the day.

Dallas will be giving away copies of An Awesome Book, spurring impromptu arm wrestling matches and encouraging wild, untamed dreaming all across the west coast late next month on a brand new Awesome World tour, and I’ll be documenting the trip. So if you know of any schools or libraries or youth groups or Chuck E. Cheese’s we should stop at between San Francisco and Seattle, and maybe even in Montana, Utah and Nevada, let us know!

Photo via Andrew Tonkery.

Through pure happenstance, I recently found myself in an obscure, tucked-away corner of Los Angeles at the mystifying abode of Albert Reyes. “Tucked away” is no exaggeration: the Google Maps directions are a fractal of increasingly bizarre lefts and rights through the quiet residential neighborhood of El Sereno, leading you to an inconspicuous looking home flanked by gleaming, spotless hot rods (Albert’s dad is a member of the Eagle Rock Trompers).

Michelle from Giant Robot had taken us there on an art drop-off detour after we’d chowed down on some delicious cheese steaks at Orean’s. Within moments of our arrival, I was drooling in excitement over the life-size, unbelievably complex maze. Reveling in its sheer complexity, the first questions I had were “how?” “what?” “how long did it take?” “what is it made of?” and then, pretty quickly, “How can we get this into Mastodon Mesa?” Luckily, Albert was just as stoked as I was about the prospect of showing the maze in a gallery context, and plans were quickly set into motion.

By the time I made this video, he had already taken half of it down. He’s been uprooting brackets from the maze’s hundreds of pallets (all repurposed from trash on the streets of L.A.) and carefully removing the many dazzling dark accouterments that will soon be refastened to this astonishing labyrinth. Stay tuned for more video throughout the installation process, and get the full experience by seeing it in person at the Pacific Design Center on May 20th!

The opening of Thirty Days NY was insane! Hordes of people showed up, eager to indulge in the rad art, stellar selection of books, great music and free vodka. Good vibes all around.

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Thirty Days NY is a massive project that I’ve been helping out on for months now, and it’s finally ready to send off into the world! Following the release of Spike Jonze’s robot love story, I’m Here, Absolut Vodka and TBWA teamed up with Spike and the rad dudes behind Family Bookstore, David Kramer and Sammy Harkham, to create a live gallery space for one month only in New York City. But more than just a gallery, it’s a performance space, bookstore and an artist studio— and all the events are free! Located at 70 Franklin Street, Tribeca, Thirty Days will feature weekly performances, symposiums, and showcases from contemporary artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers from all over the world.

Dallas Clayton and I were tasked with creating the online presence for Thirty Days, and it’s evolved into so much more than a blog. In addition to providing daily coverage of live events at the gallery, the site will host loads of original content including exclusive interviews with No Age, Little Joy, The Morning Benders, Humberto Leon of Opening Ceremony, Sumi Ink Club, and many more. There are so many awesome people contributing stellar content for the site, from We Love You So’s Molly Young to photographer Bryan Derbella to Matt Wolf, the filmmaker behind the stunning Arthur Russell documentary Wild Combination.

Among those participating at the physical space are some of my favorite artists, like Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, Ben Jones of Paper Rad (whose designs are all over the space— check out his bookshelves on the upper left of this post), Andrew Jeffrey Wright and SNL’s Fred Armisen, Albert Maysles, Shana Moulton, Matthew Thurber, and Lance Bangs. Take a peek at the full schedule and stop by if you’re in the area! I’m flying out tonight for the opening event on Thursday, which will include sets by the amazing Aska, Brian Degraw of Gang Gang Dance, and a psychedelic light show by Joshua White and cartoonist Gary Panter. Come say hi!

Impropriety Show at Mastodon Mesa last week was an exhilarating evening of frayed circuits and overwhelmed senses. Our gallery became a bubbling cauldron of shining glass and velvet carpet. We filled to the brim and spilled over with seven amazing performances of tonal distortion, unsettling projections, enchanting costumes, and intense displays of physical prowess. Watch the fantastic video below, shot by wunderkind director Steven Andrew Garcia, and mosey on over to the Mastodon Mesa blog to check out more photos and our coverage by the L.A. Times!

When I went to Giant Robot’s recent Biennale, I fell in love with the altogether rad above-pictured Yukinori Dehara piece. After careful consideration, I elected to do the responsible thing and decided it was out of my price range. I thought some lucky stranger would quickly snatch it up, but much to my surprise, Girl Ojisan showed up in a new show at GRNY just a month later for almost half the price! How could I resist that deal?

They shipped it back to Giant Robot’s office in L.A., where my friend Michelle works. To spare me the trek out to Santa Monica, she allowed me to meet her at her weekly bowling night to pick up the piece, where I ran into Albert Reyes. Albert had just gotten some works back from the gallery, and let the beautiful pencil-drawn piece below go for just enough to buy some beer and hot wings at the bowling alley. Madness! Watch out for more details soon on a top secret gallery project that I hope to embark upon with Albert next month.

So, I opened an art gallery recently. I opened an art gallery? Yep, that sounds as crazy to me as it sounds to you.

We call it Mastodon Mesa and I co-curate with the fabulous Mya Stark of Cinefamily (and formerly my editor at Mean magazine). Our first show, Mastodon Maze, was a huge, labyrinthine, multi-disciplinary smörgåsbord featuring more than 20 artists. There were ballroom dancers, prisms, a fabric party-artery, a wall of Michael C. Hsiung illustrations, a blood spattered Ashley Huizenga make-out closet, and a mini-Charles Irvin retrospective. And so much other rad art it’s not even funny. My set of photos from Mastodon Maze is up on the Mesa blog, and you can see even more images over at Fecal Face.

Our latest wild endeavor, Impropriety Show, goes down tonight at our space in the Pacific Design Center. It’s a carnal cacophony of simultaneous performances:

Impropriety Show is a spontaneous combustion of gleefully reckless performance art. Fetish mermaids will noodle on theremins. A neurobiology lecturer will face his performance anxiety through delay pedal-addled glossolalia. Crimes will be plotted, musical mindsex may occur, there will be a yardsale for Truth, and a Jedi will host a fabulous future techno variety show. Please: participate, people—all animals engage in performance rituals. It’s only natural.

Performers
Sage Keeler
Geoff Long & Maren McConnell of Pet Sex Rex
New Jedi Order
Suki Rose-Etter
Kate Stewart
Dorian Wood
Lola Loshkey

Thursday, March 25th 2010
5 – 8pm / B210 @ Pacific Design Center
8687 Melrose Ave

Watch Sage Keeler’s amazing video trailer for the Impropriety Show and don’t forget to stop by tonight between 5-8pm for mind-blowing performance art and free beer from our sponsor, PBR!

Ely Kim’s dazzling viral video, Boombox, features the graphic designer (and brother of the lovely Lana Kim) dancing to 100 songs in 100 locations over 100 days. Naturally, when Giant Robot asked me to shoot this dancing diety for their latest issue, we created a flipbook. How else could we provide readers with an fully accurate picture of Kim’s simmering shimmies and delectable dance moves? In the corner of each page, readers will find a tiny image of Ely in mid-motion rapture, and flipping through the magazine produces a truly exhilarating effect. Giant Robot issue 64 is on stands now!

And here’s Ely’s insanely awesome instant classic, Boombox:

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Quick update! I did an interview with Patrick Wolf for The Advocate that you can read here. He’s one of my favorite musicians, so that was pretty much awesome. Then also, I’ve got a couple of images in JOSH Magazine, a totally rad gay art magazine which is available online and at these fine vendors. I’ve been pretty busy lately with moving into a new place and working a bunch, but I shall update this blog as frequently as possible. In the meantime check out We Love You So, where I post every day of the week! Sweet!