Issue 12

Puma Bike Challenge

Brendt Barbur, a Bay Area native and one of the founders of Critical Mass, a grassroots bicycle and self-propelled vehicle activist event, was hit by a bus while cycling in New York City seven years ago. He took this traumatizing accident and turned it into a positive

Afghanistan’s Drug Problem

Some smoke it with dried scorpions and snakeheads. Others use it in place of medicine. Afghanistan has a burgeoning local opium and heroin problem—and the war torn country is working to arrest this surge in drug use.

The Detroit hardcore scene

In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, some people say Detroit had the most revolutionary rock ‘n’ roll scene in the country. Bands like the MC5, The Stooges, The Amboy Dukes, Alice Cooper, The Up and Frut stood apart from the hippie counterculture that dominated the scene and blasted out an ass-kicking din

Big Stones Candy Shop

You can learn a lot about a country by its strip clubs. Big Stone’s Candy Shop in Kingston, Jamaica, is no exception. In the heart of this crimeinfested island, this establishment has become a respite for locals—a place where they can feel safe and have fun.

Sons of POP: Ron English

People sometimes comment on the fact that I don’t carry pictures of my kids in my wallet. I don’t have to. Everywhere I go, there they are. On gallery walls in London or Japan, on billboards in Spain or New York, on movie screens in Indiana, Ohio or wherever I happen to be traveling.

Faile

This past June, the Brooklyn-based street art collective Faile rented a warehouse in New York City for a four-day art show. The exhibition, called “Nothing Lasts Forever,” was completely bought-out. Total sales exceeded $1 million. This is not unprecedented for street artists— paintings at Banksy’s Los Angeles warehouse show in 2006 reportedly sold at up [...]

REBIRTH OF THE COOL

The Ferus Gallery made Los Angeles safe for modern art
In the spring of 2006, the Centre Pompidou in Paris launched the splashiest exhibition of L.A. modern art the world has seen to date, “Los Angeles 1955-1985: Birth of an Artistic Capital,” featuring 350 works by 85 artists. L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa flew in for [...]

Wasted Youth

Ghanas 50th Birthday

The Rise & Fall & Rise of Pan-Africanism
One day in 1961, a 93-year-old man from Western Massachusetts named W.E.B. Du Bois picked up and relocated to Ghana, a newly independent state in West Africa. Cold War hysteria had stripped him of his freedom and turned him into a pariah in his own country. Suspecting his [...]

Hungry Ghosting for More

Heisuke Kitazawa has lived in a world without words. Born in Yokohama, Japan, he moved to California at the age of 10, where he sat silent in his classroom as English flew around him. It took him almost two years to fully grasp the language.

The Battle for Monster Park

The community of San Gabriel just put up a big fight, and won. These are the days when protests are largely ignored, and landmarks are often torn down. But the people from this Los Angeles suburb managed to save local sculptures from demolition by getting their voices heard.

Modified Toy Orchestra

Six men in suits stand on stage and play songs such as “Where is My Sock?” and a cover of Kraftwerk’s “Pocket Calculator,” using instruments like a toy mobile phone, Mattel’s Bee Gees Rhythm Machine and Speak & Spell.

Granny Rebels

What’s wrong with the kids in America? We’re engaged in a war that every poll says the majority of our citizens disagree with and yet our college campuses are mostly silent. No serious protests to be found— nary a lousy sit-in.

Onyx & Opaline

Typography

The Art of Kime Buzzelli

Kime Buzzelli, an artist, fashion designer and owner of the Echo Park clothing boutique Show Pony, grew up in Ohio. Her mid-western homeland was a place, she says, where creativity thrived. Artists would gather together and put on art and music performances in old abandoned houses.

Radio Utopia: GTFU

For every one song played on Get the Fuck Up (GTFU) Radio, there are approximately six references to genitalia. “First I want to grow a wiener and then I want a chick to blow me. Are my goals unattainable?” asks cherubic-faced Annie Hardy of the band Giant Drag. “No, I think those goals are good,”

Tamar Geller

Tamar Geller was born and raised in Israel, where she worked with the Special Forces in the Israeli Army. She saw how the army trained dogs, and was “heart broken” by the horrific spirit-breaking methods utilized. When her service ended, she retreated to the Israeli desert to help research bird behavior.

Holla Luja

Rap videos are populated with gun-toting misogynists who stud their necks with ill-gotten diamonds and see violence as sport. But NYC minister Darren Ferguson saw past this. He uses the art of hip-hop to bring troubled kids to the Christian faith. After starting a youth ministry called F.L.A.Y.V.A., (Freedom, Love and Abundant Youth Victory Alliance)