December 6, 2011, was a national day of action targeting homes facing foreclosure, organized by a coalition of community groups behind the movement Occupy Our Homes. Protests were held across the country, in cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Portland, OR, and more.
Actions included “reclaiming” houses that banks are leaving vacant, and “home defense” to stop banks from foreclosing and accept payments from the homeowners, which banks like Chase and Wells Fargo are refusing to do in some cases.
Some of the groups involved in the community resistance effort include ACCE (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment), The New Bottom Line, ReFund California, New York Communities for Change, Occupy Wall Street, Take Back the Land, SOUL (Chicago), SEIU, and The Coffee Party. [Read more]
I guess what set me off on a course of independent political media was a combination of Bush I & Bush II, 13 years apart.
In high school, while I was immersed in journalism and theater, the Gulf War crystallized an understanding in me that there is a larger war machine in this country that outlasts sitting presidents, and that reality needed to be shared through mainstream entertainment somehow. That time also got me into organizing anti-war demonstrations, public speaking at events, and networking with activists.
After the rampant election fraud that transpired in the Ohio 2004 presidential election, I felt I had no choice but to do my small part to become the media. The miraculous new era of digital video and social media didn’t make citizen journalism possible, but mandatory. [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.”
Thank You X intended his moniker to simply be “X,” the penultimate pseudonym of an anonymous artist. But as curious fans might not be able to Google “X” at their workplace without fear of reprisal, “Thank You X” has stuck as his nom de guerre. The image of Warhol used in X’s pieces is from a lesser-known photo taken by an assistant of Warhol’s to build his portfolio. The casual, unguarded spontaneity in this head shot of Warhol looking away suggests a genuine appreciation of a subject whose mind is often elsewhere. 
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The Supreme Court decision Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, decided in a 5-4 decision on January 21, 2010, is a case which will live in infamy. What started out as asking permission to put a partisan movie on pay per view somehow ended up deciding that companies are people with the same free speech rights as citizens, that money equals speech, and that any limit on money spent by a corporation was a violation of their First Amendment rights, so companies should be allowed to spend unlimited amounts without even having to identify themselves. Corporations got the rights of personhood, ergo, without the responsibilities we have like spending limits, or the requirement to be publicly listed for your donation. This is not to get into the obvious inequity that corporations are really made up of other people who already have those same rights, or that corporations will have far more resources to spend with obvious financial incentives that people won’t. Seriously–what were they thinking?
Such a brazen act of judicial activism by the Roberts court was an even more partisan power grab than the decade old Bush v. Gore, which backed a partisan Secretary of State’s order that ballots in her state stop being counted so she could hurry up and award the election to the guy whose campaign she was working on. Where that decision improperly decided the outcome of one election, Citizens United has opened the floodgates for blizzards of overwhelming corporate spending in races across the country on all levels of government, from now on, unless something is done. [Read more]
This holiday season, while the city sleeps, a mystery man is climbing L.A. rooftops and leaving gifts for urban aesthetes.
Following up his successful debut art show in New York, street artist Alec Monopoly took to the L.A. streets like a freshly stretched canvas. Besides a wave of his Monopoly Man series, Alec made effective use of his art by targeting a working oil rig in West Hollywood, as well as music monopolist Clear Channel. [Read more]
The first major exhibit of the street artist Alec Monopoly opened Thursday in New York, taking over a corner storefront in Chelsea, at 22nd Street and 8th Ave., and will be free and open to the public for the next week.
Alec’s show displays the colorful styles of pop art which he has implemented in his pieces adorning neighborhoods in Los Angeles and New York — iconic portraiture of Jack Nicholson, Bob Dylan, and Twiggi, interspersed with a large-scale series re-imagining the Monopoly Man series on canvases coated in archived newspapers, sealed with resin. New large celebrity portraits are unveiled in this show as well, such as Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver,” Christian Bale in “American Psycho,” and a dancing profile of Michael Jackson. Other paintings revealed a broader sense of style, as some canvases touched on impressionism, others evoking a feminine sensibility through color, subject, and minimal line art.
While such an impressive debut exhibit by a young artist would traditionally warrant an appearance by the creator himself, circumstances inhibit in-person accolades: The NYPD are looking for him.
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