I honestly don’t know what to make of this one.

This is an absurdist art piece from an ongoing project in which the artist David Livingston wears a 6’ long flaccid felt penis that he sewed and stuffed with sofa upholstery. All of his video art pieces thus far have taken place in various New York City neighborhoods.

From New York Press:

I find its childish humor appealing, and I am fascinated by my sudden transformation from anonymous pedestrian to attention-grabbing street performer. I don’t have to say a word, and it affects people in a whole host of ways. Most people either laugh or look away awkwardly. Some people are curious and want to start a conversation. Some people respond with anger. For me, the performance is about overcoming fear, but I like that it means something different to everyone who encounters me.

(via Nerdcore)

 
A UCLA study finds a jump in 2009 to 8.2 million adults and children from 6.4 million in 2007 stemming largely from job cuts and the loss of employer-sponsored coverage amid the recession. 1 in 4 people do not have health insurance in the richest and most populous state in the country? This is simply astonishing news and yet there are still people who doubt the need for universal health care? It pains me that people really exist who are so mean and so cheap they’d deny their fellow man a life free from worries that they’ll go bankrupt or become homeless as they go through chemo. It’s sick. It could be them next time! Do these idiots not realize this?

PUBLIC OPTION NOW!

From the front page of today’s Los Angeles TImes:

People who were uninsured for part or all of 2009 accounted for 24.3% of California’s population under age 65—a dramatic increase from 2007 driven largely by Californians who lost employer-sponsored health insurance, particularly over the last year.

Among those over age 18, nearly 1 in 3 had no insurance for all or part of 2009, the UCLA researchers found. The ranks of uninsured children also grew.

 
First there is Vernon Robinson for Congress. This is just fuckin’ terrible. He’s really trolling after the low IQ voters, isn’t he?
 

 
And then there is this one, for Diane Benson from Alaska. I think the message here is supposed to be “She’s got experience cleaning up messes” (and of course “She loves dogs!”) but they don’t really spell that out all that well and the ad goes from being merely ineffectual to actually being confusing for the viewer. Ultimately it gets no point across whatsoever.

The same cannot be said about the video below…
 

 
The problem I have with this one is simply that it doesn’t have the courage of its convictions. If he’d had the balls to portray the evil, grinning Wall Street magnate actually pissing on the little people, this man would be in office now (or at the very least have made a guest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live after a fleeting YouTube viral video success).
 
And then there is this one where the old guy forgot to take his meds, then throws a rock in the lake. What’s he supposed to be running for???
 

 
Here Mike Gravel tries gamely to explain the rock throwing video. Here he does a rap. I think he should do a duet with Ron Paul.

Via Huffington Post

 
I think it’s a safe bet to say that there are many porn aficionados who are also fans of Dungeons & Dragons. A subset thereof. But it’s also probably not going too far out on a limb to suggest that nearly ALL D&D aficionados are porn fans, too. I mean, well…that’s just not a very controversial statement, is it?

So this is why author, artist and male pornstar Zak Smith’s blog, Playing D&D with Pornstars is becoming so popular. The name obviously has a lot to do with it—tell me your eyes didn’t go right to the title—but so might the alt porn kittens who dungeon master Smith plays with: Sasha Grey. Kimberly Kane, Justine Joli, Mandy Morbid and Satine Phoenix.

Four Ways of Looking at a Vampire (Playing D&D with Pornstars)

Thank you Anthony Miller!

As somebody who works in the green sector, this made me laugh particularly hard: apparently those “good” consumers who buy green and environmentally-friendly products tend to balance out their “good behavior” by deciding it allows them to be total dicks in other parts of their lives. From the Guardian:

According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the “licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour”, otherwise known as “moral balancing” or “compensatory ethics”.

Do Green Products Make Us Better People is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the “halo of green consumerism” are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. “Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours,” they write.

The pair found that those in their study who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products. When the green consumers were given the chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it – in other words, steal – they did, while the conventional consumers did not. Later, in an honour system in which participants were asked to take money from an envelope to pay themselves their spoils, the greens were six times more likely to steal than the conventionals.

Now THAT is f*king funny.

(Guardian: How going green may make you mean)

And just when you think that you’ve seen everything the Solar System has to offer… well, you haven’t.

NASA is close to proving that a brown dwarf star code-named “Nemesis” is hiding somewhere in our Solar System, and, um, occupies itself by shooting comets at us. Apparently this is what killed the dinosaurs. What. The hell. Did our corner of space just turn into an 8-bit side scrolling shooter game? What is this, R-type? What the hell is going on?!?!

We’ve always assumed our sun was the only star in our solar system, but maybe not. We could be in a binary system, with a brown dwarf hiding in the Oort cloud. And it could be bombing us with comets.

The star, referred to as Nemesis, or “The Death Star,” has been theorized for a while. But now NASA’s new satellite, WISE, could be able to prove its existence for the first time. The theory was developed to explain the waves of mass extinctions on Earth, every 26 million years for the past 250 million years. Comets may be to blame for these die-offs — and the Death Star may be aiming them at us.

(I will note that this star has been known by Indian and Tibetan astrology for thousands of years—where it is called “Ketu”):

In Hindu mythology, Ketu is generally referred to as a “shadow” planet. It is believed to have a tremendous impact on human lives and also the whole creation. In some special circumstances it helps someone achieve the zenith of fame. Ketu is often depicted with a gem or star on his head signifying a mystery light.

(iso9: NASA Could Be Close To Proving The Existence Of A “Death Star” In Our Solar System)

(PS2: R-Type Final!)

Just when you think you’ve seen the far reaches of the Internet, well… you haven’t.

“Vore” art, which I discovered last night in one or another of the Internet’s putrescent stinkholes, is manga fetish art featuring animals eating people. Look, Internet otaku. FURRIES WERE BAD ENOUGH. Now this???

Good god, what’s the Internet going to look like after 20 more years of the fetish arms race?

From “Voreart”:

Vorarephilia is the fetish of being eaten, seeing someone else being eaten or eating someone. It’s all fantasy art. Nothing is or should be real.

You can find a lot of sexy art of this type on the web. This type of art will mix a variety of subjects together which makes it the most interesting type of sexy art out there. It’s sexy because you get a nice yin and yang mix of hot, sexy, gorgeous women all tangled up with slimy, very gooey, hungry monsters… a very delicious mix!

I have been a lurker for years and I finally needed an outlet. I am not much of an artist so I NEED these sites to keep producing wonderful vore art for my enjoyment. I support all websites that create excellent fantasy art. It’s a part of my life now and I really respect those who create this type of art. I needed a place to store my most favorite devouring pieces found over the internet because having it on my computer is just too risky. My family would just never understand this stuff unfortunately so must escape to my virtual world where I can be free! The goal of this site is to build more great art. I want to become the next hot vore extraordinaire! Keep in mind, this is only fantasy and imagination, I would get no satisfaction from any of this if it were real. That’s just really gross! I grabbed the above image from Voreville because I loved movie “The Beastmaster” the way it was originally. When they worked a sexy damsel into the scene I was so excited that I almost wet myself!

Girls snake feeding is my absolute favorite type of vore art. I love seeing that sexy silhouette wiggle inside the snake’s long body. Plant devourings is another favorite of mine. I enjoy it when venus flytraps capture sexy women and absorb them slowly. Spider wrappings is also very interesting. It’s more of an implied vore because spiders don’t really devour or swallow their prey whole. Sucking them dry is a nice way to imagine the act of eating. Mutant worm’s eating babes is great because it’s just like snake monsters eating girls, but it’s more slimy and sticky! There’s a few great sites that I go to ALL the time now and are a part of my daily routine. This is MY review of my most favorite erotic art sites.

(Voreart.com)

“David Brent” and “Gareth Keenan”
 

“Eddie Murphy”
 

“Pete Doherty”
 

“Peaches Geldof”
 

In today’s business you want quick results and quick service so welcome to the new Fake Faces Ltd. website designed with speed and efficiency in mind. This website will instantly give you a quotation for your lookalike request, whether it is just for one celebrity lookalike or for multiple looka-alikes it is instantly available here at the click of your mouse. We have a copyrighted formula to calculate all your entered details which will give you an instant quotation that includes all expenses so you are just left with knowing exactly what the final price is. There are no hidden costs with Fake Faces Ltd.

Fake Faces
 
(via Graham Linehan)

 

 
Here’s an inexplicable photo-blog dedicated to Bea Arthur, mountains and pizza?
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds: Selleck Waterfall Sandwich
 
(via Cakehead)

 
Just for the gorgeous stereo sound alone. So relaxing !
 
Thx Brian Morishita

 
The glamorous Amanda Lear in her first TV commercial, circa 1967! The music is by François de Roubaix.

via Lady Bunny Blog

Previously on Dangerous Minds:

Amanda Lear: Hot Tranny Mess

 
Following on from the below post, another sad song and a real Marc Almond gem. Here, a powerful live performance of Charles Azanavour’s deeply moving ballad about the life of a drag performer, What Makes A Man A Man? One of his finest performances, if you ask me and a unicorn chaser of sorts for that Louis Farrakhan post from earlier today. (Hear Azanavour sing his own song—in English—during a Carnegie Hall performance here. Liza Minnelli sings it here.)

 
For whatever reasons—my 45 RPM picture sleeve has a woman on it—I have long assumed that Irish singer David McWilliam’s sad song about a homeless person about to die, 1967’s The Days of Pearly Spencer, was about a woman or a drag queen. The lines “Pearly where’s your milk white skin? What’s that stubble on your chin?” I always took to mean a drag queen not being able to groom herself properly and I thought this image—the 5 o’clock shadow—added an extra poignancy to the song. Not true. Apparently the song is about a elderly homeless man McWilliams befriended in the 60s.

I think you’ll agree that the song is memorable. The arrangements and orchestration were done by the famous arranger Mike Leander, who had earlier worked with Phil Spector and the Rolling Stones. The chorus is either sung through a megaphone or a telephone, and the effect is striking.

McWilliams, who died young at the age of 56 never had a hit with the song, which nevertheless became well known via dozens of easy listening cover versions, a psychedelic version done by the French group Vietnam Veterans and of course, the famous Marc Almond hit of the 90s, which added a final, more uplifting verse. (In Almond’s version, Pearly is looking back at a life lived in the street after getting off the street).

McWilliams looks a lot like Matt Damon, doesn’t he?
 

Here’s an awesome find from artist John Coulthart (who I relink quite a bit because his blog is, in my opinion, one of the great sources of interesting original content on the web. He finds the kind of stuff that you would prolapse even if you saw in a bizarro, dusty boutique used book store, you know, those things we had before the Interwebs that don’t exist anymore. His blog is kind of like finding a first edition of the Necronomicon 3-4 times a week.)

Here he writes about Jim Leon, who drew bizarre psychosexual wonderlands for Oz magazine in the 60s:

This, dear friends, is what the art of the fantastic could give us but rarely does, something which combines the metaphysical intensity of the Symbolists with a post-Freudian sensibility to create what Philip José Farmer once called “the pornography of the weird”. Jim Leon was a British artist whose work gained prominence via the underground magazines of the 1960s, especially Oz, although he was never really a psychedelic artist as such. Many of his earliest paintings show the influence of the Pop artists, it was only later in the decade that a distinctly original and surreal imagination came to the fore. Oz was always pretty scurrilous and had no qualms about challenging the authorities with bizarre sexual imagery which other magazines would never dare to print. Leon and other artists were fortunate to have such a public forum for outré work, a few years earlier or later and they might not have found an outlet at all.

(Behold this utter glory here.)

(John Coulthart: The Haunter of the Dark: And Other Grotesque Visions)

 
Who knew Louis Farrakhan was a happening Calypso singer as a young man? Before there was “Lola” or “Take A Walk On The Wild Side”  there was The Charmer’s own composition “Is She Is Or Is She Ain’t” wherein the future Nation of Islam leader grapples with gender identity politics over a festive jam. Yay ?
 

 
Bonus B-Side: “Back to Back”. A song about a zombie jamboree, natch.
 

thx Suzy Beal !

 
Short documentary about the wonderfully anachronistic art duo of McDermott & McGough from the Revel in NY website. It says in the description below that they live as if in the 19th century, but I was under the impression that they are now allowing things prior to 1930 to infiltrate their lives. I love their work, it’s just incredible.
 

For over 30 years, the art duo of Peter McGough and David McDermott have been living as though it’s the end of the 19th century. From a townhouse in the East Village they created their art by candlelight, lived without modern appliances and traveled through Manhattan on horseback complete with top hats and the finest couture from nearly a century ago.

As painters, photographers, playwrights and filmmakers, the artists came of age during the same East Village art scene that made superstars of Keith Haring (their one-time roommate) and Julian Schnabel (who’s championed their work). Notorious in their own right and exhibited locally through Chelsea’s prestigious Chime & Reid Gallery, McDermott & McGough have been the subjects of countless stories told both in print and oral legend.

They also just directed a short film titled Mean to Me with model Agyness Deyn that’s getting a lot of buzz lately.
 

 
Blistering live version of Can’s Mother Sky on German television, 1970.  Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt, the human metronome Jaki Liebezeit, Michael Karoli and the most singular vocalist in all of rock history, Damo Suzuki. From the album, Soundtracks.
 

You know you want in on this.

(Related: Slayer Girls Gone Wild)

(Via Encyclopedia Dramatica)

(Previously on Dangerous Minds: Dark Carnival of the Soul)

 
I’ve been on a bit of a Marc Almond kick today and wanted to share this groovy lil’ number, called Sleaze. If I am not mistaken, this was originally a 1982 fan club only 12” (I have one, it looks like a bootleg) but that’s odd as it has a music video. Why would they have gone to the expense? It didn’t even get a proper release until 1997.

Nevertheless, here they are, Marc and the Mambas, in all of their druggyy sleazy, Warholian glory. Is he really singing what I think he’s singing? (“Someone blew a pony, someone threw a fit. Baby let me mambo with you a little bit”). Isn’t this a riff just begging to be sampled? Turn it up. You won’t get this song out of your head for a week.
 
Bonus: Marc and the Mambas preforming Throbbing Gristle’s Disciple
 

 
Here’s an awesome quote from the Christian-themed movie Second Glance.
 
(via Unique Daily)