“Like any well-executed satire, The Tender Morsels captures a niche genre of rock, one where The Wiggles might be seen as competition. But they’re not. As any newly minted parent of an infant knows (and is reminded of every single night on repeat), The Wiggles play for kids and are also WAY more famous.“

Jeff also produced “I Slammed My Dick in the Drawer”,  a viral video that was screened at SXSW this year.  the rest of the cast I do not know personally but apparently are hilarious .. enjoy The Wiggles:

Let’s not forget to give props to all the cat extras:

CATS
Gus
Dakota
Amira
Squeaks
Brownie
Icicle
Poe
Ruckus Rockstar
Nessa
Thom
Bananas
Zima
Sumomo

Following Shaq on twitter now for less than 24 hours has made me laugh very hard.  I realize after reading his tweets that he has always been a genuine person.  The guy on TV who is kind of goofy in nature, loves to eat, and balls hard on the court, is just that in real life.  This again is another testament to the transparent nature and power of the Twitter communication medium.  Here are some of my favorite Shaq tweets so far:

Thank you Shaq.. You made my day.. I look forward to your tweets… Maybe you will follow back.

@miguel23

Here are the responses. Most names are abbreviated:

CHB at 11:25am November 4- move to Norway

NA at 11:31am November 4- move to New Zealand and shave sheep

TB at 11:34am November 4 - moving to Norway w/Cecilie.

COZ at 11:40am November 4 - Any more room in Norway? Count me in!

BS at 11:41am November 4 - loot downtown Chicago

SDK at 11:45am November 4- will too go to Norway.

JDH at 11:50am November 4-cry, then move.

EZ at 11:54am November 4- move to Slovenia and talk S@%^ about the US!

AM at 12:02pm November 4- Going to be surrounded by at least 65,000 other very angry people at his rally tonight.

DS at 12:15pm November 4- Start taking chinese lessons

LB at 12:18pm November 4- Fly to Belgium and visit my Cairo friends Melissa and Liesbet !!!!

GS at 12:23pm November 4- Try to hook up with Meghan McCain.

NF at 12:26pm November 4 -stay in South Africa

@aperobot @miguel23 be saved by ze-RO! http://flickr.com/photos/ma… 6 minutes ago from web in reply to miguel23

@itzpapalotl     @miguel23 spend 4 years in a drunken stupor 16 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to miguel23

@dossy @miguel23 … “be disappointed, but not surprised in the least.” 10 minutes ago from Blackbird in reply to miguel23

@Spinelli666 @miguel23 If Obama does not win, I am going to riot with the brothers 13 minutes ago from Election 2008 in reply to miguel23

SHG at 12:33pm November 4- rock my zombie makeup every day in protest.

CH at 12:40pm November 4 - stop by the surplus store by my house, pick up a gas mask and a helmet and start preparing… or maybe i’ll just drink myself into a coma

DT at 12:55pm November 4- not even think about that right now since you can spend time actually working toward a win: Call Obama supporters in battleground states and make sure they’ve voted! www.my.barackobama.com/page/votercontact

magerleagues: Vote for him again in 2012

Jack- beats the hell out of me

Corey- fucking hang myself

CM: move out of the country

gordon- kick some ass

jerome - give up chocolate for one week

timmmii - obama will win, i refuse to think anything else

DH at 1:38pm November 4 - Move to Iraq.

hogpath @miguel23 sh*t myself 

Fausto  at 2:06pm November 4 -Me voy a la puta de su madre.

DH at 2:04pm November 4 -move to Mexico

ben dover Says:November 4th, 2008 at 10:02 pm- get ready for the “end of days”… find out how big a cubit is, get two of every animal, make an ark and prepare for forty days of rain!

MC at 2:23pm November 4 - Pinch myself because I’m obviously having a nightmare.

@melliefarrell @miguel23 If Obama does not win, I am going to go into a race rage for the next week 

JP at 2:40pm November 4- freak the F*&@)# out!

SB at 3:18pm November 4 - Prepare to be ashamed of my country for the duration.

Kristi Says: November 4th, 2008 at 10:47 pm  -throw myself on to the floor and pound my fists and feet into the ground…

BE at 2:11pm November 4 - gather two of every animal, make an ark, and prepare for forty days of rain.

Anyone who was there will remember their immaculate pre-race video and legendary race, but little did most know that this Death Star came with a Palin bumper sticker:

And I thought I was cool for having a “Chewbacca is my Co-pilot” sticker on my laptop.

Aside from writing blog entries and articles, he also posts videos, pictures, and does live radio broadcasts from his phone regularly.  He is currently hanging out with me in San Francisco after a month reporting from the East Coast and then San Diego.

When asked what its like to meet McCain supporters he replied that he is having a hard time finding them.  I thought this was strange but not out of the question due to the places he’s visited so far.  My friend Jessamay decided to help Axel in his search for a McCain supporter.  We searched for a San Francisco GOP group and found where they will be watching the 10/15 presidential debate from.  We decided to attend this event tonight which kicks off at 6pm.  We think it will be “an experience” nonetheless to go and share a moment with the political minority of this ultra liberal city.  Maybe I will meet my future wife.  Liberal ladies, you take me for granted

If you have any leads on any republicans  willing to be interviewed for the right winged perspective to the French nation, feel free to contact Axel at: alexardes[at]hotmail[dot]com

As the escalator lowered me down to two levels underneath the Marriot  where the fest was hosted, I was welcomed by the calm waft of fine malt whiskey and scotch scents - appropriate.  I received my tasting glass and my smile multiplied when I entered the largest whisky congregation in the entire planet, at that very moment at least.  After taking my first shot, the server prompted me to Tweet the following:

Let’s just make a long story short and say that “it was fun.”  All you need to know is that Glenrothes Special Reserve Single Malt Whisky won my vote as the best whisky of the night.  Here is a Flickr slideshow with some comments, or at least the ones I remember from the night.  Enjoy.

The night ended for me at Club Oasis in Oakland.  We were enjoying Dj Harvey as he was dropping serious beats for serious disco music lovers.  It was a lovely event filled with smiles and groovy music.  It was a great way to comedown from the madhouse which was Lovefest.  I met great Bay Area heads who all crew up and caravan for Sarcastic Disco parties in Los Angeles.   Love is the key, remember this.

I expect mostly hardcore disco lovers in the area who love Harvey for what he does will definitely represent that night.  I also think you haven’t seen Dj Harvey before, this would be the time to do it.  It brings together good people.  The crowd last time was diverse and flat out cool, everybody was smiling and dancing.  It is a nice relief from the bridge and tunnel weekend warrior crowds who flood San Francisco on any given Saturday night.

This event lands on the evening of the Lovefest weekend which will draw crowds from around the country. It gets ridiculous in front of City Hall.  No other city in America has an event like this in front of their public service offices.  Come nighttime, there will be plenty of cheesy afterhours parties in San Francisco but none will be as crucial as this Dj Harvey show at Club Oasis.  Good luck finding a groovier place to hang out that night.   Club Oasis is located at 135 12th Street, Oakland, CA 94607. 9pm to 4am, $10.

I look forward to meeting the crew who is throwing this party. They represented at my party last weekend.  I know this because they put their flyers up:)

See you there or beware.

All the djs had great sets. Kicked off my Chad Neiro, then Leonard, Jeno, Paul T, and capped off by Jesse.  We had some great guests show up.  David Harness and Lee Burridge from the UK just stopped by to hang out along with Gunita of Listed promotions who is putting on the Get Weird Lovefest kick off event at Mighty on Oct 3rd 2008.

The only bad thing that happened all night, and it was pretty bad I suppose, was that our sound-system broke and became 1/4th the volume.  This happened around 3am right before Paul T got on.  Unfortunately he played a quieter set than those who played before him.  People were forced to get closer to the front to catch the show.  It became very intimate.  He played tracks I have never heard before with a certain grace and groove.  His presence behind the decks is strong, he knows how to work a crowd.  He gets very involved in his sound which is infectious to a bystander.

Paul T and myself had a moment to hang out and even get a little philosophic.  The main thing I noticed was his humble approach to his djing talent.  He said more than once that, “he is not a real dj,” but I attest that he throws down like a pro.  In fact Paul is the owner of Sarcastic Clothing and also the co-head designer at Stussy.  He and Dj Harvey put on Dj Harvey Sarcastic Disco, hence his affiliation to those events and to the music.  Paul is NOT a fan of recorded mixes.  He believes that an online dj set does not lend enough justice to the actual performance and would rather not allow his sets to be recorded and distributed online.  The BeatsInSpace dj mix which has gotten so much attention was a one off experience for him. Paul has a very easygoing personality and I enjoyed speaking with him about many other topics.  If Paul T comes to your town, go see him.

I ended the night well.  I caught up with Jeno at the end and we shot the shit about old Detroit music.  He knows his business. I told him my favorite Theo Parrish story but that for another blog post.   Leonard as usual displayed his magic on decks and hung out all night which made me happy because I have known him the longest of any other local dj in San Francisco, he is a true connoisseur and has always looked out for me.  Thanks Leonard.  Albert our sound guy felt disappointed about the failure of his sound-system but I hope he knows that none of us are ‘pissed,’ S!!t happens.  He is ‘good peoples’ 

Again, thanks to all of you who represented with us on this very special night.  Look forward to more events from us in the future.

If you can sit through 9 minutes of jamming you wont be disappointed. I wish you could hear the bassist better. His name is Manolo, ex Manicato band member, and he was killing it that night. My homie Jaime was rocking out with some small bongos on the side. The drummer was on point, the bongo player was ridiculously good, and whoever the guy was who picked up the taborine was also good. The lights go off at one point and the music gets a little crazier.

Paul Takahashi, aka Paul T, is an underground culture trendsetter whose disco djing skills have earned him high degree accolades in the avant Nu Disco scenes.  Paul T sees  Disco through different lens.  He drops drippy filtered psychedelic ’spaceship-landing’ Nu Discospheric selections mixed in an expert fashion with keen attention to vibe and programming.   He was recently featured on Tim Sweeny’s highly acclaimed Bside radio broadcast, BeatsInSpace, out of New York.  A friend of mine described this radio recording as “crucial.” Listen to it here.

Years ago Paul teamed up with the voodoo disco prince, Dj Harvey, to produce LA’s highly acclaimed Dj Harvey Sarcastic Disco events.  Paul helped mature and foster a scene of serious disco music aficionados and veteran partiers who come out of the woodwork to celebrate the Disco warehouse spirit.

This will be Paul’s first show in San Francisco (he once played a wack fashion show here, so that does not count!).  Paul has a reputation for being very selective about where he performs.  This following clip from a gig in Mexico (Mexico has a rich history of loving disco music) displays Paul’s dj headnodding groove as he pounds a disco sample through the floor:

We made sure to secure a safe underground spot to make this event go off.  Here is a very short video clip of Paul building a crescendo at a party in Mexico, we never really hear the drop but the energy is building:

Paul will be accompanied by Leonard of Tocadisco, an underground music guru (Leonard is very sought out for his limitless knowledge of rare vinyl recordings), and Jeno, our local Wicked veteran and headliner for the BackToBack parties. 

In all, Paul T is the underground dj’s DJ.  I am very excited to work with VHS to help bring Paul T to San Francisco. I personally look forward to repeating the Disco magic I experienced at a Dj Harvey show back in May. I cannot wait to feel the power of the beat through the mind of Paul T.  19 Heron St, $10 at the door, 10pm to 6am.  See you there dance suckas!

My entire goal was to arrive by 2:00 pm for the unveiling of the applications built by teams of developers who in most cases met the day before for the first time. Many great applications were developed, each presentation was a few minutes long. You can read about it all from Andrew Mager who was there live blogging the event both days.

My personal highlight was performing 10 push ups during Jon Bardin’s demo of his Push-Up Counter app. I get an applause at the end which was actually for the application but it might have all helped because Jon’s app ended up winning a category. I’d like to think that my “interactive” demo influenced the judges decision.

Other highlights: I had a very pleasant time hanging out cross-legged on the floor of a side room with most of the Medialets team. They built an ad-network for native iPhone applications. Their blog is a sensational read I believe. They sponsored the huge amounts of beer for the event, this Marin Brewing Co. Peach Beer was amazing. It was also great to briefly hang with 15 year old blogger/entrepreneur Daniel Brusilovsky who launched Teens In Tech on the following Monday morning.Video is courtesy of Andrew Mager.

Julia Allison was the featured cover story on Wired Magazine’s Aug 08 issue - “Internet Famous” they called her. Mager had been Twittering about her earlier and it became more special when Allison revealed it was the first Wired cover shes ever signed. This prompted me to whip out the Canon TX1 and start shooting video. The party was extra exciting for me thanks to Kabbodle’s lovely Community Manager Kristi Herwarth who crowned me with a pink feather boa. Lots of fun specially when meeting Chamillionaire and McHammer and of course Julia Allison

Check out the video:

(more…)

I saw Harvey once before in 2000 but I didn’t like it. On this night however, the stars were aligned and he came down with the phenomenal disco force that only a well strapped dj veteran like him can. Let’s have a reality check here. Dj Harvey is old school - I don’t know his true age but you can read his Wikipedia entry and get an idea of how far his dj career goes - He is no spring chicken - he is more like the wise owl - check out his greying beard. As a dj for 14 years myself, I was impressed by every selection he made. I recognized 2 songs all night - 4 hours.

Description: Funk-Rock with a Disco kiss on it. A deep blend of washed out guitars, funky-tribally drums rhythms, wet high hats, psychedelic drone strings, far away sounds, dance friendly rock and just the right amount of Vocals. It is one of the most eclectic sounds I have ever heard yet, under the umbrella of Disco.

The show was small, it was one of those events that drew true disco music lovers - only those who knew were there, about 100 strong which Harvey kept dancing for 5 hours straight. I myself got lucky and met a great dancer on that dance floor. We danced till sweaty - two and a half hours straight before we finally took a water break What a lucky guy her boyfriend must be - he was not there. Too bad for him, on that night Harvey made her and I connect body moves to the underground Disco Beat Check out his site and learn more about Harvey: http://www.harveysarcasticdisco.com/

According the the NSIDA in an article released on March 25th 2008, a 5,282 square mile ice shelf has begun to collapse. The catalyst for this reaction was the initial collapse of a 41 x 2.5 mile smaller ice shelf named Wilkins that started disintegrating into the sea. Check out the animation here.

It is hard to tell what the impact of this ice shelf melting will be in the next coming months. The last huge ice shelf break happened in January 2002 when a region named “Larsen B”, the size of Rhode Island, started to break away and completely melt within 30 days. Wilkins is roughly the size of Northern Ireland.

In the same days as the press release mentioned, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivered a speech to the Environmental Committee.

“Now there’s enough evidence to show that there is accelerated melting of some of these large bodies of ice; west Antarctic ice-sheet, the Greenland ice-sheet…I think we need some coordinated actions that would put a price on carbon”

I do not mean to be a pessimist, but I still do not think anyone is listening even when the guy who is delivering the news looks at you like this:

With only 30 days left until the deadline of a contest that Current TV was running called, Seeds of Tolerance, I embarked on this project. The prize was 100,000 dollars - I was in for the ride of my life.

I picked this topic because I myself am an immigrant to the good ole U.S.A. and I felt it was my duty to explore this topic closely. I am so happy that I did.

I quit my job (I got it back when I returned), borrowed the equipment, secured the funding, and flew off to New Orleans with only two contacts upon arrival, a friends friend who lent me his floor to sleep on and Christian Roselund who ran Indymedia in the area and whom I met through email correspondence.

Blood, Sweat and Tears is the best way that I can explain these 30 days. Sourcing, shooting, directing, and editing. I was a one man show. I went up to scared immigrant strangers on the street, this is how I met all the subjects in my movie. My time in New Orleans was very short so every minute on the field was worth gold. I met heroes and downtrodden people. Then entire experience felt somewhat apocalyptic. Certain people will always stick out in my mind.

9 hours of footage later, I had to teach myself how to edit video. This took about 2 hours thanks to my audio editing skills. I’m not kidding. I am a natural at this. I boiled all the content down to 11 minutes to meet the contest requirements. I can easily make a 40 minute movie with the footage.

I did not win the $100,000 but out of approximately 380 entries, 8 movies were picked, 6 finalists, and 2 for television. This movie was picked for television - I got paid. Not much money, but the reward today is bigger than anything I could have possibly imagined back then.

Tomorrow, I will be giving a speech after the screening of my movie at Unity High School in Oakland, California. This website has all the details: http://www.unityhigh.org/gulfcoasttrip08

The aim of the fundraiser is to send a group of students to New Orleans and make 2 documentaries about this topic. You are all of course welcome to help out.

This is a much deeper story because it involves everything from the Detroit techno music label Underground Resistance and an old school Dj friend from back in the Ann Arbor days. However, you will have to ask me in person about this if you really want to find out more.

Here is a link to the edited TV version

Credits and thank you’s:
Eddie & Johnny & Larry for letting me crash in your places, and Kieran Walsh for hooking that up.
Alex Outhred for funding
Gregory Kellet and Ian Kellet for the Camera and the tips - good juju!
Elsa Wenzel for support and research help
“CESAR” for putting up with me in his editing suite.
Christian Roselund, Ed Holub, Eva San Martin, Luz Molina, Jorge Lopez, Damion, Claire Didier, Lamar LeBlanc, Albert at Common Ground, and the immigrants themselves who put themselves at risk to help me make this film.

Thanks to Cornelius Harris for passing it on and thanks to Daniel Zarazua for inspiring the youth to take further action.

Thank you ALL!!!

Mig

My least favorite holiday of all time is coming up. Valentines Day! Boo. I am one of those Valentine day haters, along with a few others. I was offered to dj an Anti-Valentines Drink the pain away party at the Argus Lounge, located at 3187 Mission St at Valencia in the lovely city of San Francisco of course. My Dj Buddies:Tau G and Saiman will be sharing the decks with me.  $4 Fernet Shots!!!

The music? Hateful love songs a la techno electro booty shake redemption. Yes. I should have started the promotion like three weeks ago, but like I said, bad women and hard work. To those girls out there who have been kicking my heart around like Diego Maradona kicks a soccer ball lately, I dedicate this to you. ha ha ha ha haaaaaa.

I will be back with more quirks, news, and ridiculous opinions soon. My day job has been squeezing every drop of my time. I woke up this morning dreaming about funnel pages, user experience and email subject lines. The first word I said this morning coming out of a deep dream was “conversion.” Yes folks, that is how crazy I am becoming. Marketing to your minds.
I will be attending one of my other favorite Anti Valentines day events in San Francisco earlier in the night however. The massive pillow fight. Here is a video from last years Valentines day pillow fight extraordinaire:

There is no escaping it, there really is no such thing as privacy. Just checkout sites like Zabasearch and Intellius - type in your name my friend. I recently showed these sites to a journalist friend from a very reputable bureau and she was stunned. Some new sites like Spokeo.com want to display all your online activity to anyone who has you in their address book. Others like Rapleaf.com track your social network behavior. Now you’re ex’s can spy on you from a creepy distance. Let’s not forget all this discussion about a national ID in 08. Some politicians have suggested that American’s rethink their definition of privacy. Damn, what are these people trying to do, look inside my pants or something?

Optimistically speaking however, 2008 will also be a time in which people will become more aware of things like privacy and personal liberties, which we all take for granted in the United States. This by itself will be a great accomplishment for our dummy masses. Good luck and good night.  Happy New Year

Tasteless joke, or marketing genius?

Redux Beverages LLC, from Las Vegas, is the same company that delivered us “Cocaine” energy drink, a product that was pulled off the shelves for FDA violations regarding its name. The brainchild behind these edgy-branded direct marketing schemes is a man with an impressive and respectable resume named Clegg Ivey. One day he just though it would be cool to name a soft drink “Cocaine.” Brawndo’s contents by the way: 200 milligrams of Caffeine, Taurine, Inositol, Guarana, and of course Electrolyes - no high fructose or corn sugar (huh?).

The hands that shook in order to make this deal happen include Omni Consumer Products Corporation, whose company slogan is: “We do what we must, because we can.” In other words, “we will b-slap you with our slogan if you front - and name our soft drink ‘Cocaine’, because we must.” Their website is suspiciously void of much information.

I lean towards marketing genius. Check out their shopping cart website which allows you to also join Brawndo on Facebook and MySpace. The underground buzz created by this movie, and now this drink are making people attempt Brawndo diets and blogging the experience. If Brawndo becomes the next Coke, we are headed one step closer to Mike Judge’s vision of the future.

Call it 8th grade humor, or just plain tipsy on cheap book-signing-wine, but upon looking at the signature table I couldn’t help to point out the admitted “dummies” all around, getting their Dummies book signed. Yes me included, but I ended up there by chance that night, I swear. It was held at my favorite club Temple.

It is typical that a green book signing would also take place in a club deemed to become the worlds first green nightclub. But they are not alone in this pursuit, a club in the Netherlands is making waves.

It is the green nightclub race of the decade. Temple’s club’s sustainability director, Mike Zuckerman also has plans install a power generating dance floor next year. He feels confident that they have found the person to do it. In the meantime, he is starting with something a little less ambitious which he calls a vertical garden shown here:

Elsa Wenzel at Cnet.com, whom I met outside of this book signing beat me to this story because it is her full time job to do so. She deemed this club the Chia nightclub in her Cnet Crave blog story. Look at the future vision of Temple nightclub in her entry and it will make sense.

This green night club business is great and all but it does nothing to offset the pollution created by those dj’s that fly millions of miles around the world year after year. Techno demi-god Richie Hawtin decided to do something about this problem and made an environmental pledge to his fans with this press release (PDF): Minimize Your Impact - by Richie Hawtin. I have not read any articles suggesting that others are following his footsteps, then again, Richie is always ahead of the curve on most things.

It is only a matter of time until we will all need to dance to keep the lights on.

“We have proved our world-class ability in cloning animals that have modified characteristics,” said Kong. “We found that the red fluorescent protein in all the organs of the dead kitten, which means we have established an efficient way of cloning gene-modified cats.’‘

The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
The second time, they don’t notice it.
The third time, they are aware that it is there.
The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.
The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.
The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
The eight time, they start to think, “Here’s that confounded ad again.”
The ninth time, they start to wonder if they’re missing out on something.
The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.
The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.
The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
The fifteenth time, they start to year for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering.

The twenty-first time you see an Ad, WAKE UP!!!

you must understand the 4th dimension requires a 4th coordinate and the structures around it are too complex for the human mind to comprehend because we don’t process information that way. However mathematicians can make models that represent something about th:

update - as I watch diggnation’s live taping. I am learning that this product now costs $399 - Now I will consider it..

This idea is not new howe