Los Angeles Interactive Media Spotlight: Praise the Lord, Tracy, Dean and Jesus (TDJ) Have Come To Save Los Angeles

Tuesday night at the Comedy Central stage, Tracy, Dean and Jesus rolled into town, praise the lord, blessed be he. "Hailing from the Waldorph Christian Parish in Goshen, Ohio, [these warriors] are currently on a mission trip to turn blue states red, starting in the belly of the beast, Los Angeles. Join us for an evening of revival, preaching, the Lord's music, the destruction of Power-couples, and the devil."

Any sane individual who's has studied the powerful ways of the Hollywood movie/myth-making machine will give thanks that Tracy has arrived on our far, Western shores. Composed of Andre Hyland playing the youth minister and rock savior with Mike Mayfield and Paul Erling Oyen as supporting church members, the show opened with an inspiring travel video. Tracy journeyed to Monroe, OH, home of the largest Jesus statue in this Great Land at Solid Rock Mission and gave thanks.

The show then proceeded with Tracy leading the revival, calling up a blasphemous, female sinner - a self-declared PERVERT. But he saved her, forcing the devil out of her belly. Tracy brought the word of the lord to Hollywood and is on a mission. Hollywood has spread its images of glamour, celebrity, sex, hip-hop and more sex and violence around the world. The Hollywood power is immense; the seductive flame of Hollywood dreams still holds great power and Tracy is ready to challenge Hollywood's corruption, head-on

Storming around the room, Tracy railed against the devil, the Hollywood corruption that permeated the Comedy Central space. For a back-drop, this mission -- this desire to bring the Lord to Hollywood -- faces many obstacles. Hollywood is stubborn, determined to protect its own foundation in the face of disruption, whether that be preachers from Ohio or technologies from the World Wide Web. There examples of Hollywood's determination, of the "biz's" awesome power are:

• One, the studio's lobby, the MPAA, wants to break into the home of God-fearing, American Christians and take control of your home movie/television theater.
• Second, they're are attempting to limit Christian-loving European's ability to harness technology in the Lord's full majesty
• Three, their ideological myopia prevents studios from unleashing the glory of technology in its greatest splendor, ultimately enriching themselves and us. Oh, how did our lord love Napster and the musical bounty it unleashed!).

The climax is always the destruction of the card-board devil. This time, Tracy destroyed the devil in its Hollyweird incarnation: the evil-seed of Hollywood power-couples Bradgelina and TomKat.

Andre Hyland is creating true interactive media, exploiting "social media" in all its glory. TDJ has their own website; Hyland has created another persona, "his alter ego Tim Hutchins, a ponytailed douche with yogic aspirations in perpetual confab with his cell-phone headset. Cameras hidden, Hyland yammers improvised quips to no one, shushing passersby or asking for their help with one of Hutchins' ridiculous quests (a blind date, for instance). He invariably loses his New Age cool, screams and dunks his phone into the concrete. (link). Hyland and friends have their GooTube channel, BlondChili (in honor of Cincinnati, OH's Skyline Chili). Hyland exhibits a true anarchic, trickster-tricky spirit, exploiting the web in its most creative, remix-able ways. He challenges our sense of decorum in public, and theatrical, spaces.

God bless him.

PS: Their next show is September 15th at El Cid

Richard Serra and Eli Broad: Why can't children play "freely" in your spirals and take pictures to share w/ friends?".

Click To Play

Memo to Hollywood: Stop Dividing Up the World and Enclosing the Commons.

Why Not Join a True Global Commons, Ecology Movement?

In a series of Hollywood pictures and videos, particularly the opening night of the HollyShorts Film Festival -- the surreal, celebrity flows of light, sounds and images were revealed to me. I saw the incredible hunger that exists for more and more celebrity images.

I've been exploring the sounds and spaces of LA in different locales, public and private, ranging from the downtown Disney Hall to the streets of Hollywood to our pubic parks, all seen and heard from a fresh angle, all contributed to this emerging digital commons. Thanks to Josh Kun and the larger sound studies school, I began this exploration.

The beautiful Egyptian Theatre's courtyard, its natural light, or darkness, was so overwhelmed and inundated by the streams of flashes that, if a photo was taken without a flash (as I did), then the actresses, actors and other human bodies, shapes, and figures appear fragmented and distorted. Check out my photo-stream for examples. Of course, the flashes eventually move on, but traces remain in the images that zoom around the world.

I actually love this effect and would totally check out TMZ or MTV with some behind-the-scene DIY photos. The Cubist, cool effect got me thinking about how innovation can and should exist in mainstream Hollywood.

It is human nature to want to share memories, to pass along images, to recommend sounds from one friend to another. Entrenched industries are always scared when technologies give consumers new, disruptive tools through which to use established products and services. As we saw when the Writer's Guild of America embraced social media, there is no reason that the studio media world cannot co-exist with the Access to Knowledge/Free Culture camps. I discovered the existence of these networks in my Set Top Cop seminar with Cory Doctorow. One label used is the "Access to Knowledge" (A2K) movement.

We are about to enter the next stage of technological, "social media" innovation and digital media convergence. The press may call this the "Web 3.0" phase or the "social web." We should all step back, listen and look at our digital and public spaces? Do we finally want to take back some control over our own tools?

Final message to Hollywood powers that be: we are not your enemy; we simply want cool, interactive tools, ones we have control over. We want to be able to share content with our friends.

That's not too much to ask, is it?

ANOTHER CITY IS POSSIBLE LOS ANGELES


On July 11, I attended the Farmlab's "Under Spring Optimist Breakfast...So-named because the first such program was held early in the morning in 2007 underneath the N. Spring Street Bridge on a Friday the 13th. 'That's a date and time only an optimist would love,' said one of that program's organizers. The upbeat moniker stuck" (link).

It was great catching up with old friends from USC, like my Professor Manuel Castells, who gave the keynote talk at lunch later in the day and at breakfast, whose talk proceeded, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. It was also sweet running into Janet Owen, who participated in a USC Free Culture panel I helped organize and moderated entitled, "“Free[ing] Culture in Los Angeles: Beyond the Ivory Tower" (link). See my photo-stream from the day.

Mayor V rolled in well after the morning's talks had begun. It was amusing watching the Mayor scan the "room", urrr, outdoor public space under the bridge, trying to find fellow V-supporters to make eye contact with. It was even more interesting to see the Mayor respond to Manuel Castells' talk on "Grassrooting the Global City," particularly how Los Angeles could create a system of "distributed, grassroot parks" and move away from the inclination for "grand" central parks. Take a listen of the talk, unfortunately, I ran out of memory when Castells get to the heart of how Los Angeles can embrace such a vision. Given that Castells is one of the most intelligent men on the earth, it's still a good listen. Enjoy.

Spirit Corrupted and Set Free - Los Angeles, Summer 2007

This last week, a series of articles reveals the ruptures and profound crises afflicting our society. Christine Buckley's LA Weekly cover story, "Aaron Cohen: Sex Slaves, Drug Trade and Rock n' Roll" reveals the dark, insidious underside of globalization (link). Buckley writes:

American school kids are taught that slavery was wiped out with the Confederacy in 1865. But today it is a mounting international menace — the dark side, many believe, of globalization and the Internet explosion. Not to be confused with smuggling (which is always transnational and includes those who consent to the process), human trafficking implies the use of force, fraud or coercion and often involves ongoing exploitation. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, it is tied with the illegal-arms industry as the second largest illegal business in the world, after drug dealing.

Aaron Cohen, an ex-Jewish water polo student, Air Force school drop-out, hob-knobs with Hollywood celebrities - the George Clooneys, Laura Bickfords, Brad Pitts - and looks into the valley of the beast, the dark, hidden alleyways that you and I drive by everyday in Los Angeles (or skip in the back of The LA Weekly).

The LA Times Sport section yesterday features a duo of disturbing stories related in distinct, yet subtle ways. Childs Walker of The Baltimore Sun wrote a insightful commentary on the tragic death of Chris Benoit, the wrestling star who murdered his wife and child, then hung himself (link). Sam Farmer wrote an intersting piece updating the poor-old, ex-Trojan, still pretty boy, Matt Leinart's saga in Phoenix (link):

Leinart found an even more frenzied interest in his private life once he arrived in Arizona. All eyes seemed to be on him — and not just those of traditional football fans hoping he could help turn around the perennially moribund Cardinals.

'Girls were talking about it left and right,' said Megan Finnerty, who covers the club scene for the Arizona Republic. 'It's not like there aren't good-looking men in Phoenix, but when you're picked as one of People magazine's 50 most beautiful people, that's a huge endorsement.'

When Leinart arrived on the scene last year, Finnerty wrote an article headlined, 'Diagraming a Play for Cards' Sexy QB,' a guide for local women on how best to land Leinart as a boyfriend.

Leinart has a foot in two worlds — the public he accepts as a highly paid performer for an NFL team and private moments for which he yearns.

He says he moved into a gated community here about a 20-minute drive from Cardinals headquarters in an effort to preserve some peace and quiet. He felt too exposed in his first house, where twice his truck was stripped of its wheels, and once he looked in from his backyard pool to find an uninvited woman rooting through his kitchen cabinets.

'I was in my pool swimming with my dog, and I could see her through the windows,' Leinart said. 'I got out and said, 'Do you normally go in the house of somebody you don't know?' She was about 50, and I was like, that's some nerve to walk in somebody's house. I just told her to leave.'

That he wants some privacy doesn't mean Leinart always shies from the spotlight.

He threw a birthday bash last month that included a pool party at the luxury Mondrian Scottsdale Hotel, which was attended by Dallas Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens and several members of the Phoenix Suns, who had been eliminated from the NBA playoffs the night before.

Blue Mandy grew up with punks like Leinart, just in the water, playing water polo, and always wanting to learn surfing. What a Trojan tool.

Someone should force all Trojan athletes to read Buckley's piece, watch all the documentaries she referenced and others on the human sex trade. Hollywood glamorizes and fetishizes young, nubile bodies; USC provides the city with a plantation full of great sporting events, gardened for by a immigration underclass and alums/the public eat this up.

A years worth of graduate school paints a picture of society rupturing under the global forces of celebrity, scandal, sex, immigration, terrorism and the international drug trade. After studying with Manuel Castells and Cory Doctorow, it's easy to see these connections, and even more obvious to see that most people don't.

“There’s something so powerful about trying to bring light into the dark places,” Buckley quotes Lisa Miller, who made a documentary focusing on Cambodia and human slavery. “But we’re all trying to heal ourselves at the same time. So when you take it on, it can take you down.” What are the costs of silences and action? Walker returns to the same question. American audiences satiate their thirst for blood right in front of our eyes, channeled through media lust:

As a culture, we've decided that consenting adults are allowed to push themselves past safe limits for our entertainment and their reward. Drug testing and better medical care and safety precautions can lessen many of these risks but cannot stamp them out.

I don't know about you, but when a boxer loses his life in the ring or a football player is crippled or a wrestler turns up dead in his hotel room, I feel complicit.

If I know these acts are so destructive, why do I watch? Do I simply lack the moral fortitude to look past my desire to be entertained? I fear the answer is yes.

In the last few days, scores of wrestling fans have said on message boards that Benoit's death will kill their love of the spectacle. Many more have said that one man's deranged acts shouldn't end an art loved by so many. I agree with the latter and yet, I wonder.

So when Blue Mandy stumbles across something like this, it's worth sharing, courtesy of The New York Times wedding section:

On June 23, Ms. Roter and Mr. Stodel married under a wedding canopy entwined with white orchids beneath a cinematically cloudy sky at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel in Dana Point, Calif. During the ceremony, Rabbi Melissa Buyer paused when a passing helicopter interrupted the traditional seven Jewish wedding blessings and said: 'Let’s wait. This is important.'

Moments later, a pair of brown pelicans flew by in the easy, unconscious tandem of a veteran couple on a stroll.

Wow. But how many of us take the time to look and listen to the tranquil sights and sounds of birds in flight?

Found Music Sunday on Skid Row, Los Angeles with Hillel

Something inspiring took place Sunday. I went with a group of USC Hillel students to a homeless shelter on Skid Row. The Rabbi had done this before: bring his guitar, a bunch of students, his two small kids, talk and play music.

Nothing could be more political or fun.

Something for USC FC and the Popular Music Project to get behind.