I Don’t Have Time For Noncontroversial Art Exhibits
by Keith Dans
The Onion | Issue 44•29
July 16, 2008

I’m a busy man. If you know me, that’s old news. Chances are, if I’m not standing in line for one controversial art exhibition, I’m on my way across town to another. It’s no easy schedule, but if I’m going to keep on top of this year’s Piss-Christs, I can’t be dillydallying. It’s got to be bim, bam, human fetus in a Coke bottle. No time for second-guessing or slowly soaking in the dynamic, geometric tension of the upcoming Cézanne retrospective. Not while there’s a guy in the East Village who’s going to vomit Cheerios into a piggy bank and smash it open with his penis.

When it comes to appreciating the diverse world of highly objectionable art, you’ve got to prioritize.

My love affair with boundary-pushing art began more than 10 years ago. Back then I had a ton of energy and a lot less responsibility. I had time for each and every marginally disgusting effrontery to common decency within a 50-mile radius. These days, my schedule is pretty packed. Take this week, for example. Monday: Abu Ghraib flip books. Tuesday: a blackface reenactment of the Reagan assassination attempt. Wednesday: drive upstate to watch an amputee roast and eat his own golden retriever. You get the picture. I swear, if my wife didn’t spend her weekends making plaster sculptures of Catholic saints being fisted by famous serial killers, I’d never see her. (more…)

Election 2008 (the new jibjab)

thanks Erin

Roller Girls Give Chase In La. Version Of Bull Run
Runners Dress Like Those In Pamplona, Spain
WDSU.com
July 12, 2008

New Orleans — There were casualties during Saturday’s Second Annual Running of the Bulls in the French Quarter.

Of course, there were no real bulls to speak of — just Big Easy Roller Girls. But just like in Spain, the object is not to get hurt.

About 600 men, women and children gathered outside a French Quarter bar Saturday morning to be chased by members of New Orleans’ roller derby league.

The goal of Running of the Bulls in the French Quarter is not to get hit by the roller girls with wiffle bats. (more…)

Appreciation: Humor was Bruce Conner’s art
by Kenneth Baker, Chronicle Art Critic
San Francisco Chronicle
July 11, 2008

Having announced his death on two previous occasions, Bruce Conner actually did die on Monday at 74.

The false alarms were part of his continual toying with the nature of personal and artistic identity. Conner liked to have control - the neatness of his house attested to that - and the nearest he could come to controlling public information about himself was to inject it with ruses and contradictions.

The shaggy look of his early assemblages earned Conner a place in the Bay Area tendency briefly known as Funk art. But that shagginess is deceptive. The unflinching, albeit intuitive, control he brought to those works’ composition accounts for the inventive power that still burns through their period quality when encountered half a century later.

Long before the shaky ground of selfhood became a theme of postmodernism, Conner was working and playing with it. The work in his 2000 retrospective at the de Young Museum was so diverse that, as I wrote at the time, “it could almost be taken for the output of a movement rather than an individual.” (more…)

From zeroslotm

Breaking News: President Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Presidency

From The Onion, via Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish

San Francisco to vote on naming sewer after George Bush
by Guy Adams
The Independent
27 June 2008

Some presidents get carved into Mt Rushmore; others have airports, motorways, and even entire cities named in their honour. But when George Bush leaves office, his most visible memorial may be a mouldering patch of
human effluent.

In November, alongside casting their ballot for the next president, the people of San Francisco will also vote on a measure to rename one of the city’s largest sewage works the George W Bush Sewage Plant, to provide a “fitting monument” to the outgoing commander-in-chief’s achievements.

Activists from the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, a mischievously-named group behind the move, will ask supporters to participate in a “synchronised flush”.

It may sound like a student prank, but the proposal is almost certain to be passed. Democrats usually secure between 70 and 80 per cent of the vote in San Francisco - and in 2006 passed a proposition to impeach Mr Bush and his Vice-President Dick Cheney by a majority of almost two to one. (more…)

Art Buchwald Couldn’t Make This Man Laugh
by Daniel Carty
CBS.com
June 25, 2008

Famed Columnist’s FBI File Shows J. Edgar Hoover Was No Fan

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Art Buchwald poked fun at the powerful during his storied career - but one frequent target, longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, wasn’t laughing.

Hoover, who ran the federal law enforcement agency for nearly a half century, ordered agents to keep close tabs on the humorist - even having one G-man report on a Buchwald interview in Playboy, the columnist’s FBI file reveals.

Buchwald’s columns - including one in which he suggested Hoover didn’t exist and was a phantom named after the vacuum cleaner company - apparently rankled the FBI boss. Hoover repeatedly referred to Buchwald as a “sick comic,” according to the file, amassed over nearly two decades.

The 239-page file was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, which allows such documents to become public after the subject dies. Buchwald, whose Washington Post-based column was syndicated for decades, died in January 2007.

Editor’s Note: CBSNews.com producer Daniel Carty obtained the FBI file on Art Buchwald last year while a student at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. (more…)

from Jakepride, thanks Erin

A small tribute to George Carlin by DCLugi

thanks Stuart and Wanda

From Election ‘08, Public Service Administration:

Dedicated to those too squeamish to discuss an incident related to the temperament and character of a guy who’d like to be President.

McCain’s freaky-mean ‘92 outburst is a well-sourced story found in Cliff Schecter’s book The Real McCain. Due to the particularly profane nature of the offense it would probably be useless to wait for the press to give it the full-on, endlessly repeating, 24-7 Reverend Wright treatment. So we’d love to help. Here is:

He Said It First

The uncensored version. A “safe for work” version is here.

The Public Service Administration is a group of LA-based comics and actors on politics. (more…)

A behind the scenes tour of an award-winning creative farm, juicing process and distribution in South West England.

The South West produces some of the UK’s finest creative work (animation, web design, design, fashion, architecture…) Now you know why. Nice conditions, space to breathe and opportunities with some of the best firms around.

Part funded by the Southwest Creative Growers’ Association. Filmed on location on the Wedmore Creative and Artist Farm, Somerset, South West England.

via Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish

thanks Jon

Submitted by Mathew in response to our Venerable Ads from the 30’s posts.

Viz is a UK humor magazine. The format mimics the children’s comics of 1970s Britain (the most famous examples being Dandy, Beano, and so on). The content is quite wide-ranging; a letters page satirizes the idiocy of newspaper letters, feature articles spoof our celebrity-obsessed culture, and the comic strips range from foul-mouthed lavatorial humor, through the bizarre and surreal, to barbed political satire.

From time to time they run fake ads, often as space fillers. Here are a few examples from the 1990s.

Viz is available mostly in the UK. I’ve seen it on a few international newsstands in the US, but generally you’ll need to subscribe to read it. More info at http://www.viz.co.uk/

(more…)

thanks Abe