ASUPREMENEWYORKTHING

Artsy people love these expensive design/culture/artsy magazines. I get a subscription to Theme Magazine, which is suppose to be some sorta Asian Quarterly magazine (4 issues a year), Giant Robot (I have no clue, I think a bimonthly), and Royal Magazine (I got for free at some event). I’m not recommending to go out and get copies of these things but they’re not bad so I’ll share some thoughts with you.

So… Have you ever heard about hoarders? You know, people who love to keep everything? I’m sure you’ve got a little of that in your system too. You probably like to collect or keep a lot of bullshit that’s limited edition or sentimental or you think is of value that you could sell one day. Anyway, I’ve got the opposite of that. I used to be a total hoarder but I’ve gotten rid of almost everything I own, other than some clothes, this laptop and a bunch of books (I guess I still hoard books, but I’ve thrown or given many of them away).

I do subscribe to a few magazines and I’m a little bothered by them (because I’m nuts, I just don’t like owning things). Whenever I get them in the mail, I’ll usually HAVE to toss them out in a few days. Before I toss these out though:

THEME: I used to be really annoyed of this magazine. When I got this magazine, I was annoyed cause it was so thin for a magazine that only came out 4 times a year. I was always thinking, what the fuck? What the hell are they doing with all that time? Why is this thing so flimsy? Yes, this thing has really nice paper, it’s a glossy with a brushed heavy stock outer cover and it’s 5 bucks a pop since the subscription is 20 bucks a year and you only get 4!

BUT! It has grown on me. I read a little about them, I visited the website, I read the blog and I got a better understanding that it was a magazine started by this married Korean couple who started out as designers and they had good intentions, whatever that means. Anyway, I see it as the Giant Robot magazine of New York. The articles are pretty interesting since they do cover a wide array of subjects. What’s interesting is that their headquarters (office) is near all those street wear boutiques (Alife, Staple, etc.) so I feel like they’re definitely influenced by them (it always has a fashion photography editorial section and a whole section for recommendations of things you should buy).

Oh, anyway, they cover a lot of stuff in various Asian countries, though they do lean towards design and art related matters. It’s not limited to topics outside of the US either, it has a bunch of interesting essays about Asian-Americana, all types of art stuff, fashion, interviews, and great photography, etc. Like Blackbook Magazine, they’ve got a theme for every issue. OH! I get it…. Their latest issue is titled “Inside the Private Journals of…” There’s an article about James Jean. He did the cover.

The wonderful thing about this magazine is the tone. The writers are very respectable and feels genuine. It doesn’t feel like that “in your face I’ll do whatever I want’ voice that seems to have gotten so popular the last 10 years. I think the magazine is going on that upmarket route and trying to be very limited edition or uppity cause if you look at their site, they’ll even say they’re very selective of their advertisers. Their clients include Adobe, PF Flyers, Scion and Natural American Spirit Native American cigarette (haha).

It’s a good magazine and I enjoy it enough. It feels somewhat trendy and is meant for leisure reading. See for yourself, they’ve got articles (though not all of them) on their site.

Giant Robot: It’s an Asian culture magazine that’s based in San Francisco. There’s a whole different style with this thing compared with Theme. They’re definitely more “I don’t give a shit’ than Theme though they’re not exactly in your face either.

Giant Robot was initially a small photocopied magazine but that was more than 10 years ago and since then they’ve become this fancy glossy and have opened up a bunch of stores all over California and one in New York City selling all types of novelty (cute, colorful, collectible, plastic, wood, etc). Most of the writing and interviews are still done by the original creators Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong. The writing is very casual and because it’s mainly these two guys, it feels VERY personal. I noticed within the last few years they’ve been doing some great interviews with some cultural giants so you know they’re definitely growing in notoriety.

Most of the advertising in GR are these little unknown companies trying to target a very specific “type” of people (hipsters/artists/people living in San Francisco/people in their 20s/White guys who love video games and Asian chicks). I like GR for all sorts of reasons but one reason is because they’ll sometimes have suggestions for films I’ve never heard of and after I learn about them, I can download them illegally off the internet.

I’ve met Eric Nakamura and he looks old with his white hairs but acts and sounds very young. Overall it’s quite an interesting magazine. I would recommend it.

THE ROYAL MAGAZINE: I don’t know much about this magazine. It looks very fancy. There are a bunch of pages inside this magazine that has a lot of fancy graphics and just one word on the page. It’s definitely trying to be cool and ala mode. It feels very hypebeast/slamxhype/highsnobiety if you know what I mean. It’s not too bad.

It’s SUPER trendy and it’s all about music, art, design, business, street wear, etc. I don’t know if you can subscribe to this thing or not. I tried to do some research on it and I noticed that it’s just given away at very trendy events. Maybe someone can shed some light on this. It’s a pretty thick magazine and it has a bunch of advertisers. It feels like a music video on paper.

It’s okay, it was free. For a free magazine, it’s really quite fantastic cause it looks and feels like something that would cost me 5-10 bucks. Do you know what I mean? When you go to Barnes and Noble, they’ve got this whole section in the magazines area for these type of magazines and they’re usually pretty expensive.

Okay, whatever, nobody knows what the fuck I’m talking about. great. I’m tired.

A large portion of the magazine is just interviews. Would I recommend it? Yeah, sure, why not, it’s free, try to get a copy. If you can’t get a copy, they’ve got the whole thing on the internet for you to browse. Go to their site.

GQ & Details: I get a subscription to those two too. The latest issues were not that interesting. I tossed them out. They both had a little thing about polishing your shoes, which was useful, cause that’s what I did during the weekend (shaking my head slowly) -sigh.

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Giant Robot New York had another gallery show but this time exclusively for Jesse LeDoux and Keith Shore. They’re from outta town. Connecticut? I don’t remember. I’m lucky I remember their names at all (but then of course, it’s also written clearly on that flier [above]).

The GRNY staff are all very nice. I’m going to get nice with them and then start borrowing money.

See that guy on the left? Yeah, the Asian guy. He bought something, so if you know him, hit him up for money. Got money for art, got money to part (with…) - see what I did there? I tried to do a little jingle by rhyming art and part, cause you know, that’s funny… and uhmmm…

whatever!, fucking if you know that guy, ask him for some fucking money, holy shit, you try to be funny for a sec…everyone thinks they’re some kinda expert on comedy…. I know what’s funny…. I know…

That’s Tim on the left. He had some paint on his hoodie. I asked him if he was an artist and he was all like, yeah, I’m an artist, then I asked if this was his show and he was like, no, I just know the artists [from the show]. Okay…well you should do your goddamned laundry…jeez… what a gross bastard.

Here you go, GRNY staff. I know all their names by heart. They’re my best friends now. Let’s see, uhmmm… starting from the left, moving towards the right you’ve got: Chandler Bing, Phoebe Buffay, Rachel Green, and Ross Geller. I can’t help it. My memory is like a steel cage.

Jesse LeDoux and Keith Shore. Jesse likes to kiss men.

“Be more serious, no kissing.”

My new best friend Rachel Green was getting beat up.

New best friend, Ross Geller. Here’s a little tidbit about him, he was once married to a lesbian and he likes dinosaurs.

Buzz… You can’t tell, but those are bees. buzz….

All these guys have no necks. They look like thumbs with arms. I don’t know.

I guess this mountain is smelly or something. The end, don’t bother me.

EDIT:

So on my way to Giant Robot or from, I saw this place where it was all vending machines and you could pay a dollar or two for a hamburger or something. It’s pretty cool. It’s been around but now here’s a picture for you.

On my way home, this is on the subway, I saw these three fat guys who work for the MTA. They all looked around the same size (big) and were sleeping. “Gotta pay the mortgage…”

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Bam! Here you go. Another Party Event shindig-type deal that I went to. A friend let me know of it but I didn’t even know what this was about. I knew it had something to do with Mike Giant’s work so I thought that going to this thing would be interesting. Essentially he did some art on the walls of the store so lets par-tay over here, par-tay over there (ala Cora Daniels).

(On a side note: Get this, so I’ve been posting my coverage of these events and the last few (ie Tiger Translate and the Reed Space one) were okay but I made the mistake of badmouthing some of the events that I went to, such as Showroom Showdown and I know they saw it so I don’t know if I’m still on the mailing list anymore!)

Anyway, this thing was interesting. I got to meet Mike Giant but it was weird to stand around with the music amidst the hangers (because it’s a retail store that usually sell their sweatshirts and coats). The hangers were attached to the ceiling and they couldn’t do anything about it. Some people just started using it for their own coats (you’ll see, scroll down).

See, see, see what I’m talking about!? Hangers! Whatever. Oh, by the way, here’s a secret, if you’ve got an ASIAN fetish, you should probably attend these things because a lot of Asian people (girls) like to attend downtown deals. That may sound inappropriate but let it sink in for a while and once you get what I’m saying, you’ll have a huge grin on your face (you know what I’m talking about, skinny white people guys, black guys…eh? eh? okay, good, you got it.)

This is artsy, right? I’ll call it “SHOES’

There you go, man of the hour, Mike Giant.

More hangers.

He works at the Bronx Zoo. No, I’m not guessing, he told me. Seriously!? no, I’m lying.

I do not like those stupid big old lady glasses that all these skinny broads are sporting. It is NOT hot.

This one is called “FREE SMART WATER’

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Above: “So, you watch the Cosby show?” 

Half Nelson with Ryan Gosling was a pretty good movie because it’s knitty-gritty and that’s what’s hot right now. Similar to how Syriana is kind of a knitty-gritty movie or how Traffic was kind of knitty-gritty, the natural look of the camera work – you know what I’m talking about – how it’s never still because it’s always being held by a guy and never on a stand seems to be all the hype. Other than the camera work, the story is worth a watch and the acting is good enough to make us believe. It’s a drama so there’s nothing sexy or action packed about it. If you’re planning on watching it then slow your pace down and want to be emotionally involved to reap its benefits.

What you’ve got here is this white guy who’s somewhat relate-able, the way he’s innocently idealistic about the world. He teaches at a public school with a bunch of black and hispanic kids, studied dialectic – or atleast that’s what he teaches his students about, concepts and ideas about change rather than just have them memorize facts and dates about the Civil Rights movement (he teaches history) – and, most importantly, because this is what get’s you, he’s fallen like an angel in darkness – ADDICTED TO CRACK, baby.

THIS CRACKA is a CRACKHEAD. He doesn’t see his problem as a problem and he teaches during the day. There are scenes in the movie film (Yashamesh!) where he’s rambling and I couldn’t distinguish whether he was actually teaching or on a cracka-head crack high.

Scenes of his life are contrasted/interwined with intermittent scenes of Drey’s life, played by Shareeka Epps – wonderful actress because she’s pretty gangsta, pretty street, or so she appears. She’s a student in his class and a player on the basketball team our crackhead teacher coaches and during these important years of her life she deals with a missing father, a brother in jail and a mother who’s trying to support them but never has any time because she’s always working (it’s heartbreaking). There are some real monumental scenes in the movie the different premises build up to. It’s not a movie you want to watch if you’re feeling down but it’s really good if you are. Ghostrider was a piece of shit.

Above: Somebody call the Ghostbusters.

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Above: Your typical rendtion of GOD (jah-odd) by Michaelangelo.

I’m not a religious person at all. With that established, I’d like to talk to you about god and how he’d look like if he was real. It’s interesting because he’s typically portrayed in American/Western media as this old white guy with a long beard. I’m not sure where that’s originated from but I suppose, maybe, it may have something to do with the Renaissance artists (which includes Michaelangelo, the Ninja Turtle) who frescoed the Sistine Chapel.

Above: Gasoline is God’s moisturizer.

Who cares – it’s really pointless to dicuss how he SHOULD look like when he doesn’t even exist, right? okay. It’s not supposed to be a serious topic. If god had a physical form, it’d be cool if he was a giant. I mean, MAYBE he can be just a giant hand. The point is, god, if he was almighty and powerful, then let us see it. I say, come and stomp on some people.

Above: Galactus, he knows what he’s doing, being so sexy and all like, “I’m going to destroy you.”

I’ve watched those Godzilla movies. Did those films ever say that he was a god or a titan or anything? I mean, despite those films never being too realistic, the concept is interesting, that there are beings so grand in size that humans run in fear of it. I can recall a few other portrayels: Morgan Freeman (Bruce Almighty), Alanis Morissette (Dogma), George Burns (Oh, God!). Let me just quickly go through the problems with each of those. If Morgan Freeman was god, white people would question whether he’s god cause he deserves it or cause of affirmative action. If Alanis was god – actually, I don’t really know. I just kinda wanted to make that black joke. And, George Burns? He’s dead, who cares.

Above: I have black friends, I can make black jokes.

Anywho, I just made this entry to post pictures of Godzilla. Hopefully my next entry will be something of more substance. Oh, I guess if you want to feel like you’ve learned something or got something out of this then go ahead and ponder how god, if he exists, does bad things to good people.

Above: “If there is one thing Godzilla despises, it is a rainbow.”

Above: Godzilla is getting beat up. He’s all cut up and shit.

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