A majority of today’s hip-hop is either hypersaturated with faux images, super-watered down, or dumbed down so the dummy dumb-dumbs can relate. Not so with Los Angeles underground cat 2Mex, who’s involved with projects such as Songodsuns, Visionaries, and Of Mexican Descent. Tunes that this sonic heavyweight be constructing remind…
You’ve spent hours crawling through the Internet, laying your greasy eyeballs on porn galore. After a while, you feel disgusted with yourself and the world and realize that straight porn gets you down – too many hollow moans, skewed hierarchies, and asses in the air. You want something else, but…
It’s amazing how many freaking blogs are truly out there. Just the other day, we stumbled upon one featuring the surprisingly emotional musings of the cowboys on the Professional Bull Riders circuit. Take this example from an entry titled “The winner within . . .” by Reese Cates: “It’s crazy…
If you lived in India during the ’90s, you could hire a hit man for the price of a cup of truck-stop coffee. Pretty funny, right? Tim Budinger, co-writer of the locally produced short film Discount Assassin, thought so. Okay, maybe not laugh-out-loud-that’s-awesome” funny, but he did use the urban…
Why is the jazz/funk quartet The Bedbugs referred to as such? Is it because after listening to their Latin-music-soaked grooves, we’ll be wiggling our toes in a syncopated pattern even when we’re lying in bed? We’re not too sure, though we’ll be front and center when local cats Chris Benavidez…
Craving the beach? No problem. Hop in the car, drive west for five hours, and spend a couple hundred bucks on gas just to feel the waves on your feet. Screw that! Stay here for free and dip your toes in the beachside infinity pool at the new W Hotel…
Why are we so entranced by fire? Are we mere moths pulled to its heat and light? Is it the way lapping flames create themselves from the fiery consumption of all they touch, like sweet kisses from Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction? Or is seeing such a potentially dangerous…
The punk-rock ethos, if such a thing existed, hardly left room for calculated image creation. But an impressive punk iconography remains, thanks in part to the likes of Ruby Ray and Dawn Wirth. Armed with a camera and a scant supply of expensive film, Ray and Wirth honed their photog…
Not many authors warrant a highly publicized book-release party. J.K. Rowling, of course, for her Harry Potter series. Possibly some of those supermarket-aisle novelists like Dan Brown, John Grisham, and Dean Koontz. And if Hemingway were still alive and producing, perhaps him, though that shotgun-to-the-face incident kind of puts a…
Public Enemy No. 1 isn’t George Bush, Osama Bin Laden, or Exxon/Mobil. It’s Father Time, that bothersome creep who eventually turns your hairline into the Sahara or your perky boobs into rapidly sinking sandbags. Bastard. When artist Richard Lee realized that Rembrandt completed many of his famous sketches in seconds,…
He may look all innocent with his baby face, puppy-dog eyes, and angelic grin. Much more huggable than, say, Denis Leary. After all, just how threatening can a giggly guy who goes by the nickname “Picachu” and proclaims, “I’m not fat . . . I’m fluffy,” be? You’ll find out…
Artist Connie Imboden, whose work is featured in the “Classical Illusion” exhibit, says on her Web site, “There’s nothing more repulsive or seductive than flesh.” Yep. We agree, especially after checking out her underwater photographs that capture the human body in surrealistic contortions and reflections. The images – which Imboden…
When you found your boyfriend in bed with your roommate, why did you storm out of the house and head directly to the mall? Hmmm? Do you indulge in such “retail therapy” behaviors? Then you may be a consumerism addict. No worries. You’re not alone. Hordes of people stroll about…
Living in a professional sports town whose teams range from subpar to piss-ant poor, we tend to be attracted to other equally lousy teams, if only to make us feel better about breathing the same air as those Cardinals and Coyotes. Take the Pittsburgh Pirates, the bitches of the National…
Think “cowboy” and y’all will most likely imagine vast expanses of the old American West. But as long ago as the first nomads got footsore and became farmers, human, horse, and bull forged a triumvirate that emerged around the world. For example, the Camargue region of France is known for…
We were in our shrink’s waiting room when we read about the Guggenheim’s current retrospective of Louise Bourgeois’ career. The loony-bin setting was perfect, because this old broad is certifiable – and fucking great. More serendipitous still, we’d just seen The Mist, Frank Darabont’s third film based on a Stephen…
Some people — okay, us — would classify Gidget as a monster movie. No, Sandra Dee was not the Devil and Moondoggie wasn’t her slavering hellhound, but their 1959 flick ushered in the frightful genre known as the beach-party movie. Now, Gidget was foul, but it was at least digestible…
The scenery-chewing fiends in Robert Altman’s Prêt-à-Porter (1994) are beautiful creatures with perfectly manicured claws — i.e. the models, designers, and all-purpose rogues who frequent Paris’ Fashion Week. Shot on location at the Carrousel du Louvre and other City of Light locales, Prêt-à-Porter was Altman’s attempt to satirize the petty,…
By far the best thing to do in the PHX on a Sunday night, this social-activist hair salon’s monthly hoedown draws artists, scenesters, and, of course, people looking for a new look. This month’s bash features new metallic paperworks by Dawn Cramer (pictured) and entertainment by Djentrification. Sun., Aug. 3,…
Friday July 25: Bobby Fresh Fashion Show at Cherry Lounge and Pit “Fresh Kicks Fresh Tits.” That’s what it says on the back of this Bobby Fresh T. You’ve got to give it to the man; he’s got no problem shoving his urban-inspired designs all up in your face. Looking…
On a recent monsoon-ravaged July evening, people were showing the love on Marshall Way in Scottsdale. The Thursday night art-walk crowd was sporting white buttons with phrases like “your thumb print on my skin,” “I could jump into you . . . and land without consequences,” and “you could give…
I haven’t seen much at the movies in the past two years that has given me as much unbridled comic pleasure as the sight of Will Ferrell as the win-at-any-cost NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby, calling on Jesus, Tom Cruise, and Oprah Winfrey to put out the psychosomatic flames engulfing his…
