What is surprisingly unique about the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, and supporting actions across the country, is the broad immediate support without an immediately stated objective. With so little coverage and a yet unspecified goal, major unions lent their support, supportive occupations cropped up nationwide, and the numbers in Liberty Park are growing despite NYPD crackdowns.

Unlike anti-war marches, Tea Party gatherings, or other well-worn modes of protest, the notion of an in-person response to Wall Street’s unchecked looting of the economy apparently did not need much explaining. That is because many Americans have been living with painful awareness that their hardships in recent years are related in a myriad of ways to reckless trading, predatory loans, and manifold illegal banking practices, all perpetrated by the same executives still receiving multi-million dollar bonuses whose guilt is trumped by the notion that their companies are Too Big To Fail.  Read More »

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus will be appearing at the United Nations in New York on September 22nd during the Clinton Global Initiative to present the new documentary Bonsai People: The Vision of Muhammad Yunus by award-winning filmmaker Holly Mosher. The screening is being held the day after the International Day of Peace to highlight how issues of economic disparity remain one of the biggest threats to peace.

Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Grameen Bank, which started out by offering small loans to Bangladesh’s poor women to help encourage self-enterprise and foster community development. As the practice of micro-lending has spread worldwide, Yunus and the Grameen Bank have deflected criticism as other predatory lenders have moved in to the small loan business. In Bangladesh, Yunus and Grameen’s work in upending societal norms have not gone unchallenged, as Grameen Board members face harassment, and Yunus is being threatened for removal from the bank he founded for working beyond the government retirement age.

It is a timely opportunity, then, for Holly Mosher’s new film to help the international community observe the breadth of Muhammad Yunus’s work and recognize that Microcredit is just the tip of the iceberg. Read More »

To kick off the Sunset Strip Music Festival, a sizable piece of art was emblazoned atop the Comedy Store by Los Angeles street artist Bankrupt Slut. Perhaps the most omnipresent name stickered throughout the city, Bankrupt Slut embodies its mantra of “Get up, Stay up.” The Sunset Strip Music Festival runs September 18-20.

The identity of Bankrupt Slut is a lifestyle of Rock & Roll excess — semi-nude models in masks spray painting, punk rock lettering, using straightforward designs for maximum impact. The new 12-foot piece by Bankrupt Slut is a guitar with the top of the guitar neck turning into a woman’s hand holding a can of spray paint.

Where many bands use the streets for promoting their music, Bankrupt Slut has been inspired by their street art work to do music. Read More »

Image via Wikipedia

No. It couldn’t be. Hopper?

The generic congressman headshot grinned back indifferently, like they all do. Only looking at the Facebook profile pic of Wisconsin State Senator Randy Hopper, a Republican facing a looming recall election and public divorce, did I recognize that impenetrable grin. Had it been 25 years?

As the Wisconsin GOP unleashed attacks on public employees and unions this year, I was sickened by the shameless pandering of Governor Scott Walker, who had given away hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to corporations before using that same deficit amount as an emergency pretense to slash state workers’ benefits. I was even more disgusted by the lengths to which the Wisconsin GOP went to pass a vote against political foes, breaching their own state assembly procedures to enact a drastically unjust law that takes away citizens’ rights–from a party purporting to be against big government intruding on your life and limiting what you can earn. Read More »

Morley is the antithesis of street artists in Los Angeles. Where traditional taggers obscure their name in scrawled script only readable to their own, Morley prints big messages with his large bold lettering. Where most find it cool to be cryptic, Morley shares his wit in complete sentences. Where many street artists prefer anonymity or an empowered alter-ego, Morley includes a plain drawing of his unglamorous self writing each ironic aphorism. His humor veers from self-deprecating to sly, his insight ranges from soul searching to silly.

Morley is so un-street art, he walks around in broad daylight plastering his posters up in the busiest intersections. It was a privilege to document the artist at work, if only to be able to capture the meta moments of the artist putting up art of himself putting up his art. Read More »

International street artist Lush opened his show in downtown Los Angeles with as much fanfare and contempt imaginable. Making bold, often savage commentaries on the commodity of street art culture, Lush uses text and stark images on barren canvas for maximum disaffected impact. The exhibit Lush Sells Out in LA was an assault on the mythology surrounding Banksy, as well as those who would feign his work. Through painted pieces and installation sets, Lush set the stage for his world of ‘real street’ as opposed to ‘celebrated street-ified art.’ On the real street, as we know, people get harmed, anger can be in your face. This context, combined with brutal humor and knowing self-satire, was the vision assembled for the crowd who waited over an hour for a personalized Lush T-shirt as the exhibit’s first guests.

The shirts they got were flippant, funny, and at times vulgar. Indeed, even without the spread-eagle stripper, this was an NSFW show that was checking IDs at the door. (Further coverage of certain unprintable details can be found at venerable street art blog Melrose & Fairfax.) Lush had one canvas of Mr. Brainwash’s original cameraman self-portrait with his head being blown away. Lush went so far as to kill Banksy, metaphorically of course, through a hood-ied corpse face down with a knife in him. Upstaging this was Lush himself, featuring his own murdered likeliness in the storefront window of the Hold Up Art Gallery in Little Tokyo. Read More »

In their testimony before the House of Commons yesterday, Rupert and James Murdoch insisted on their ignorance about the phone hacking and bribery scandal that engulfed their publication News of the World and led to the resignation of top editors and police officials.

In their shaky recriminations against the people who worked for their people, it’s a wonder the Murdochs would know much of anything that goes on in their newspapers. For NOTW editor and Murdoch confidante Rebekah Brooks to not know the genesis of thousands of stories she was in meetings deciding upon defies plausibility. For NOTW staff members to organize a conspiracy to pay off cops for leads and hack into over 4,000 voicemails — without their supervising editor knowing where so much money was coming from and to — those are some very proactive, amazingly clandestine tabloid journalists breaking a myriad of laws at great personal risk.

If Rupert Murdoch is to be believed, as he would desperately like to be, then his loyal staff let him down by not doing the right thing, and coming to tell him about the massive hacking and bribery thingy that they happened to find out about and also knew was wrong. If he is not to be believed, the conclusion to be drawn is the same nonetheless: real government oversight is needed because so many laws are being broken, the idea of “corporate responsibility” is an oxymoron. Read More »

Trek Life’s album title Everything Changed Nothing refers to the awakening he experienced through the birth of his daughter. While he grasped the miraculous role we play in life, he recognized how much of the world goes on oblivious to everyday wonders like a beautiful baby girl.

A remix album makes sense then, as the entire world of music is replaced, but the core message and distinct vocals remain.

Trek Life stands out as a diverse rapper who is a teacher of history, an adoring father, and an adamantly independent artist who has still seen his music used on “The Hills,” “Breaking Bad,” and the NBA Finals. Eschewing major labels, Trek Like is not afraid to define himself as an artist first and foremost, building his rep as a smart writer. Read More »

Much of today’s street art is reflective of Andy Warhol’s signature style of celebrity iconography, stenciled composites, and above all, repetition of imagery. It is no wonder Warhol’s ideas, Sixties images, and commercial success have inspired young artists to take to the streets. So it is both intuitively astute and perfectly logical to see Andy Warhol’s stenciled visage appear across Los Angeles over the past year signed simply “Thank You, X.” Read More »

While the Supreme Court started its summer recess last week, watchdog group Common Cause is keeping the heat on Justice Clarence Thomas. In two separate actions on Thursday, July 7, Common Cause has drawn further scrutiny to an already embattled judge. Sitting in a lifetime appointment on the highest court of the land, the controversial behavior of Clarence Thomas is drawing increased calls for the Supreme Court to be held to the same code of conduct as all federal judges.

In the wake of a New York Times article chronicling Justice Thomas’s relationship with billionaire Harlan Crow, Common Cause filed a Freedom Of Information Act request to the U.S. Marshals Service for details of jet and yacht travel that Harlan Crow has provided Justice Thomas, as well as other gifts. Read More »