Defense: ‘Miss America’ Sting on L.I. was TV Stunt
1010WINS
March 1, 2008

Riverhead, N.Y — A man arrested in an online sex sting that used a former Miss America as bait had no intention of doing anything illegal and was railroaded for the sake of a television show, his lawyer said.

Lawrence Carulli is on trial on a charge stemming from the April 2007 operation, in which Miss America 2007 Lauren Nelson worked with police to pose as a lonely 14-year-old girl. She chatted with men online and on the phone, luring them to a Long Island home where a camera crew from the show America’s Most Wanted was waiting. The operation was featured in an episode that aired April 28, 2007.

Carulli, 49, acknowledges he solicited sex online from someone using the screen name “CindyLI14″ and drove to Bay Shore for a rendezvous from his home in Brown Mills, N.J.

Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney John Cortes said in an opening statement Friday that Carulli believed his correspondent was 14. But Carulli and his lawyer maintain he was convinced she was 24.

Carulli sensed something amiss when he got to the Bay Shore house and left. He was arrested at a highway exit, driven three miles back to the house and “paraded” before the America’s Most Wanted cameras, his lawyer, Robert Macedonio, said Friday.

“This was run by a TV production company for the purposes of the media,” he said. (more…)

‘Cash Tomato’ Stunt Gets Unruly, Cops Called In
1010WINS
March 1, 2008

New York — Oh the humanity.

A Web site’s promotional Leap Day cash giveaway turned into a free-for-all as restless recipients mobbed the organizers and trampled one another to get at the loot.

Shouting “Make it rain!” and “Give me my money!,” a restless crowd converged on the costumed CashTomato.com representatives as the clock ticked toward the event’s scheduled time, 2:29 p.m. Friday.

The publicity stunt was supposed to involve giving away prizes of up to $29, but the throng soon wrested bags of cash-stuffed envelopes and other items from the CashTomato workers stationed outside Manhattan’s Union Square Park, said Jason Buzi, who identified himself as the online video-sharing site’s senior vice president.

Then the giveaway degenerated into a melee.

YOU TUBE: See the Aftermath

(more…)

Candy For Cause
New York Post, Page Six
February 10, 2008

Those wide-eyed teens running around Greenwich Village sucking on lollipops in the shape of female sex organs are NYU students promoting a good cause. The suggestive candies are all part of the university’s “Vagina Week” - seven days of programs “promoting positive femininity and awareness of violence against women.”

Aside from the anatomical sweets, the week, now through Valentine’s Day, will feature racy student performance art and a night of “Sex Toy Bingo.”

Check here for more information.

Painting: Ice Cave, 1950, by Georgia O’Keefe, source Art for Art’s Sake

Weird Recruiting Saga Comes to Close
by Ryan Canner-O’Mealy
February 7, 2008

By now you’ve probably heard the strange-but-true story of Kevin Hart, a football player at Fernley (Fernley, Nev.).

In preparation for yesterday’s National Signing Day, Hart held a press conference at his school last Friday to announce he would be signing with California over Oregon. Local television and print reporters came to his announcement, as did the entire Fernley student body.

That’s when things got weird.

When contacted by media outlets trying to get some inside info on Hart, both the Cal and Oregon coaches said they had never heard of him. He hadn’t been offered a scholarship by either school, and it was clear he wouldn’t be going to Cal. (more…)

DKNY Guerilla Marketing Goes from Poor Taste to Trash, by John Del Signore at Gothamist:

Curious about the fate of all those orange bikes with the DKNY website that were locked up around town? The ones the police didn’t cart away (some were illegally chained to trees) are being picked clean for spare parts. The tone deaf Fashion Week publicity stunt was presented by DKNY as an effort to promote cycling in New York, and the company did help raise awareness by, uh, distributing bicycle maps in their stores. Oh, and their website for the campaign has a photo of models riding a bike, though they’re too cool for helmets, of course.

The neon orange DKNY bikes drew heat from cyclists because the aesthetic is all-too-similar to the nationwide “Ghost Bike” campaign, which memorializes killed cyclists by locking an all-white bicycle near the scene of the accident. In an email sent out earlier, a DKNY rep wrote “we are very sorry if our well-intentioned ‘Explore Your City’ program offended anyone.” That’s touching, but ’sorry’ doesn’t get these eyesores off the sidewalks.

DKNY has not responded to our questions about when the bikes will be removed, but it seems others are doing the job one piece at a time.

Update, January 31, 2008, submitted by Christi Eubanks: The Smithsonian Channel has just uploaded a video of reactions to Stephen Colbert’s portrait at the national Portrait Gallery which you can check out here.

At last, the Smithsonian gets Colbert
by Johanna Neuman
Los Angeles Times
January 22, 2008

People line up near the restrooms at the National Portrait Gallery to catch a glimpse of the comic’s ‘digital image on canvas.’

Washington — The line outside the bathroom at the National Portrait Gallery has been out the door ever since museum officials decided to hang a portrait of late-night host Stephen Colbert between the men’s and women’s restrooms.

“The lines have been extraordinary,” museum director Marc Pachter said Monday as he prepared to end his 33-year tenure with the Smithsonian Institution. “A friend e-mailed that it was good I was leaving with my dignity.”

Colbert, who plays an egotistical conservative talk show host on his Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report,” has made a running joke of his campaign to get his portrait into the Smithsonian.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History turned him down.

But the National Portrait Gallery, famous for its portraits of the presidents but also home to unique portrayals of athletes, hip-hop artists and Hollywood stars, welcomed the idea.

The comic offered “a digital image on canvas” that shows a portrait of Colbert within a portrait within another portrait of himself. (more…)

via Phils Phun

In Manhattan: Man Breaks Record for Standing in Ice
1010 WINS
January 26, 2008

New York — A man who calls himself a tantric master has broken his own world record by standing in ice for 72 minutes.

The 48-year-old Wim Hof outside Rubin Museum of Art in a clear container filled with ice for an hour and 12 minutes on Saturday.

He set the world record for full body ice contact endurance in 2004, when he immersed himself in ice for one hour and eight minutes.

Hof says he survives by controlling his body temperature with the tantric practice of tumo.

His feat kicks off Brainwave, a five-month series of events in New York exploring how art, music, and meditation affect the brain.

Submitted by Larry Croft, PhD:

I’m not sure whether to laugh (OK I am laughing), or run madly into the night to flee a wave of nerd McConsumerism…

The PCR Song by Scientists for a Better PCR (polymerase chain reaction) was done by Bio-Rad to promote their 1000 Series Thermal Cyclers (a pcr machine).

The PCR Song lyrics:

There was a time when to amplify DNA,
You had to grow tons and tons of tiny cells.
Then along came a guy named Dr. Kary Mullis,
Said you can amplify in vitro just as well.
Just mix your template with a buffer and some primers,
Nucleotides and polymerases, too.
Denaturing, annealing, and extending.
Well it’s amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do.
PCR, when you need to detect mutations.
PCR, when you need to recombine.
PCR, when you need to find out who the daddy is.
PCR, when you need to solve a crime.
(repeat chorus)

video from GeneGoddess

Here Honey, Merry Christmas!!!
1010 WINS
December 7, 2007

Yulee, Fla. (AP) — Stumped about what to give that special someone this Christmas? How about some rhino poop? The International Rhino Foundation is auctioning separately on eBay four pieces of dung from the endangered species and will use the proceeds to fund conservation efforts.

The pieces come from four of the five types of rhino: white, black, Indian and Sumatran. The Javan rhino is so rare, a sample could not be collected.

Each piece is dried, mounted in a clear trophy case and marked with the type of rhino that produced it.

The auction ends Sunday and as of Thursday afternoon bidding had been light, with the top bid for Sumatran rhino poop standing at $500. Black rhino poop was standing at $255, Indian was at $250 and white was at $122.50.

The foundation, which is based at the White Oak Conservation Center, says only about 17,500 rhinos remain in the wild with another 1,200 living in captivity.

The Height of Movie Hype, Starring bin Laden
by Mike Nizza
New York Times Blog
December 5, 2007

The internet rumor mill won’t turn for just anything, and one of its latest products has several qualifications to its credit:

Add that up and post to a few well-read movie blogs, and out comes a slew of headlines titled “Did Morgan Spurlock Find Osama bin Laden?”

On its face, it’s unbelievable. Why would an American filmmaker succeed where the United States government has failed? (more…)

Submitted by Charlie Todd: a video by No Filter Paul from the Opie & Anthony show

Opie and Anthony are shock jocks known for their “cringe” style of entertainment. According to Wikipedia:

The show has few limits, and covers a wide array of topics interactively, with a great deal of time devoted to callers, and sound bites sent in from listeners. With their reemergence on terrestrial radio, however, the trio have been more conscientious about what might be censored. This has led to the “dump report”, an XM segment in which the specific content of censored bits is lamented. Some of the more hardcore O&A fans, nicknamed “Pests”, have been known to go to extreme grassroots efforts to promote the show.

Related links: (more…)

Paint It Pink
November 28,2007
New York Post, Page Six

Calvin Klein is destroying his own ad in the name of art. To help promote the Dec. 1 opening of the New Museum on the Bowery, Klein allowed the institution’s advertisers to drip oozing pink paint over his Houston Street billboard of Lara Stone and Jamie Burke wearing his jeans. The label, along with Julianne Moore and Maggie Gyllenhaal, will host an intimate soiree tonight at the museum, and the hot pink ooze will drip down the billboard until Monday.

Related links:

Kanye: “Battle with 50 Cent Was a Publicity Stunt”
PR Inside
November 21, 2007

Kanye West has revealed his chart battle with rap rival 50 CENT was a publicity stunt he dreamed up to sell records.

The pair went head to head in September (07) when both their albums were released on the same day.

West won after a frenzied media battle he now claims he created.

The Stronger hitmaker comes clean to GQ, stating, “It was a complete publicity stunt. It was my idea. I knew it was going to take off as soon as we were going to come out on the same date.

“Think about it - you got the two biggest s**t-talkers in rap history.

There’s no-one in rap history for talking more s**t than me and 50. That’s something I will stand on.” He adds of 50 Cent’s vow to retire if he lost the battle: “Oh man, he sold so many more records by saying that. Man, 50 is really one of my favourite rappers, too. I almost feel bad (about beating him).” West hammered 50 with sales in the U.S. but 50 sold more albums worldwide than his rival.

via Berkeley Place, Photo: NewsMax

From Sawse: What do you think of when someone mentions the Red Cross? For some the name conjures images of the recent scandal over video games using their logo. Others might think of the various good works they do. Probably very few people think of the cool guerrilla advertising campaigns they have created to raise awareness of various key issues around the world. Here’s an example:

Not Happening Here, but Happening Now: Somewhere in the world, buildings are collapsing, bombs are going off, people are dying. In short: things are very, very wrong. Especially in the US this might seem a world away but it is happening on the same planet.

To see more of the Red Cross’ guerrilla ad campaigns, visit Sawse.

via WebUrbanist