Rockstar! Patrick Combs, Man 1, Bank 0

The true story of Patrick Combs, as told by the actor in his own hugely successful one-man show, Man 1, Bank 0, is so absurdly inspiring and personal in detail that after seeing this show one cannot help but feeling a whole lot better about the future of our kind.

Detailing the escapades of the artist as a young man, when as a lark he good-humorously deposits a junk mail solicitation designed to look like a check for $93,000 into his California bank account–and hilarity ensues–Man 1, Bank 0 is a case study of ingrained bureaucracy and corporate foible.

But it is writer, director, and performer Patrick Combs' engaging and playful portrayal of his own life that sends his audience on a outrageous joyride, one replete with wide-eyed wonder and slack-jawed glee.

Now playing off-broadway, soon to soon be a major motion picture (we say), if any performer has ever written their own ticket, Patrick Combs is that one.

Link.

Rockstar! World Giant

Here it is. The World Giant meme.

Link.

Rockstar! Jill Miller, Bigfoot-Advocating Artist

Obviously, it is not too often that the worlds of the New York school of art and the legend of Bigfoot cross paths. Which in and of itself gives San Francisco-based artist Jill Miller a notoriety for making the connection. But the marriage between a gallery show and a bigfoot stake-out is not only fine fun, it's resonately credible

Beginning in July, Miller will be the center of a piece titled, Waiting For Bigfoot. The piece is a round-the-clock live-feed camera surveillance of her campsite–located in the heart of Bigfoot country in Northern California–to monitors located at the Norwich Gallery, England.

Miller, speaking to H2RS, had this to say about the process of developing Waiting For Bigfoot:

"When I was researching cultural phenomena for my project I found reference to people disappearing from their villages (hundreds of years ago) in Ireland for days at a time and coming back and not having memory of their experiences... and some drawings of fairies looked like contemporary drawings of UFOs. Fascinating stuff..."

The artist's take on the phenomenon of Bigfoot is in a class all its own, full of insightful descriptions of human faith and invention, and lends this work of performance art an air of reality often overlooked in both contemporary expression art and the incredulous field of cryptozoology. (Miller is a graduate of UC Berkeley, with an MFA from UC Los Angeles, and Miller's piece's research integrity has been overseen by no less than than renowned author and cryptozoologist Loren Coleman.)

H2RS will keep an eye on this story–with reports–as it develops.

Link (via boingboing).

How To . . . Tune In The Selector

The Selector is one half poems, koans, and journal, and one half music listening station.

Part of the fun here is trusting a listen to any of the tracks listed are going to lead to a momentous experience. Quite unusual for most any Mp3-driven website. And part of the fun is discerning the meaning of the language and imagery to which the Mp3's are attached.

The Selector is essential in every regard. And no doubt, the recording will never get that.

Link.

How To . . . Help Vinnie Get A New G5/Blow-Up An Old G4

Found on Craigslist, an ad that looks like a fake. But follow it, and a story unfolds. Still, one that is not so uncommon on the internet: "If 20,000 people send me a quarter, I can get a new G5."

However, that's when it gets interesting. In exchange for your quarter, this infosuperhighwayman–a video editor named Vinnie in his real life–will blow up his old G4. Nothing so out of the ordinary there, either.

What is extraordinary is the clever and highly entertaining video, replete with guest antagonist, Vinnie's partner-in-crime, Jase The Boorish Best Friend. Plus, the soundtrack includes Young MC's "Bust A Move," one of the all-time uncoolest coolest songs that cool uncool people think are cool. The whole thing's done so well it's too legit to quit it.

See for yourself . . . and send your quarter in.


Link (via craigslist).

Rockstar! Contagious Media's Showdown Meme Contest "World Giant"

World Giant is dedicated to the Public Domain.

As part of Contagious Media's Showdown, the internet's first ever meme contest, our entry is a winner of a piece. Here's the legend:

In a savvy move to keep the world's most successful unbranded, nonadvertisement-driven anti-marke,ting campaign, Giant, from falling into unsuspecting exploitative corporate hands, the original discovers of Giant have exported a new Original Giant image–World Giant–onto the internet via a meme-theme video. The motivation behind the release of the updated Original Giant image has to do with putting to rest the confusion which has gradually developed in distinguishing Shepard Frank Fairey's popular OBEY™ product line and Giant-related fine art, with the un-ownable Giant phenomenon.

As the most well-known Giant artist in the world, and mouthpiece for the ensuing world-wide movement resulting from the popularity of the Giant phenomenon, Fairey has expanded his OBEY™ product line and its farcical subversive imagery and counter-culture statement to include widely distributed goods such as t-shirts, skirts, pants, hats, sweaters, jackets, other clothing, fashion accessories, toys, stickers, skateboards, skate shoes, zippos, and poster art. In other words, just about anything Fairey's stylized-Giant handiwork can be affixed to and brought to market has become a vehicle for the artist's Giant-inspired OBEY™ brand.

While successfully spreading awareness of Giant worldwide, because of the collaborative nature of the process in creating and disseminating the old Original Giant image, and it's wide-spread, freely visible presence in and on public use spaces, Fairey and Giant's co-disoverers–represented in a video meme–sponsored by H2RS in the Contagious Media Showdown–concerned that the image's arguably public domain status made it ripe for multi-national corporate assimilation and association, have re-invented the Giant Phenomenon.

"Anyone's group or company who thinks that Giant can be used as a corporate tool is in for a rude surprise," said one of Giant's spokespersons–an attractive woman in Cazelle-style sunglasses, going by the code-name "Patty Hearst." "Assimilating Giant is like introducing a wormhole into a computer's system folder. What result's is nullification. Giant is not a representation of nothing, Giant is nothing."

Unlike previous pataphysical movements, the Church of the Sub-Genius, SCHWA, and even the once-ubiquitous Kilroy Was Here, all of which have mostly self-obsoleted as a result of quick-settting commercialization, with the curious introduction of the new Original Giant, and the separating of OBEY™ and Giant into two separate entities, it appears that the other founders of Giant may have actually brought to light that more fun is to be found in the brilliance of the Giant phenomenon.

See for yourself. This is the video that tells it all like it was.

Obey™ is Shepard Fairey's brand. Giant is nothing, and belongs to no one. And anyone who tells you otherwise's Mejezfeld ain't deng deng, because as off today, wooo! . . .

. . . All Your Brand Are Belong To Us!

Link.