American Subculture

Girl with the Anime Ink (Helloooo Kitty!)

2008-05-08T19:06:00.000-07:00

Malina Huang
Occupation: Hair stylist
Preoccupations: Japanese style tattoos, Israeli style martial arts

When you say someone has Japanese style tattoos, you don't usually mean Hello Kitty -- unless you're talking about Venice, California's Malina Huang.

"Hello Kitty, Little Twin Stars, My Melody, Chococat, Keroppi, Monkichi and Sailor Moon," says Huang, pointing out brightly colored cartoon creatures -- pop cats, bunnies, frogs, monkeys and space girls -- tattooed up and down her left arm. "They're all characters I loved growing up."

Read on...

Photograph of Malina Huang © Mitzi Valenzuela (all rights reserved).

Buff Monster Uber Alleys

2008-04-11T08:31:00.000-07:00

VENICE, CA - Can't keep a good Buff Monster down.

Despite the best efforts and baser inclinations of passing taggers, Buff Monster again reigns supreme at the intersection of Hampton and Indiana.

As with so many neighborhood alley productions and back street murals, Buff Monster's are subject to local forces of entropy, also known as taggers. Buff Monster's last big production at the Oakwood site was largely defaced by the time, in recent days, he got around to getting up again.

This piece - which may include untouched parts of the previous production, don't quote me on that - features a throng of frowning faces with hooded eyes who may or may not be some sort of admonition to future taggers: We look unkindly on hater vandals they could be saying.

More likely they mean something else entirely. Or nothing at all.

MORE STREET ART @ DOGTOWN INK

PAN & INK

2008-04-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

STEVE CHRISTENSEN
Home: Venice, CA
For cash: Mac Whisperer.
For life: Surfer, Spiritualist, Dirt Bike Rider.

Steve Christensen — whose tattoo "sleeve" features a horned-and-hooved Pan, Japanese wood-block style waves and five-petaled cherry blossoms — is into some serious esoterica.

"I'm a medium," Christensen says, "A channel."

We talk over beers at Venice's venerable Hinano Cafe.

Twenty years ago, in channeling practice-sessions, Christensen connected with a most excellent spirit guide. According to Christensen, in almost every session, Greek goat-god Pan would turn up with advice for him.

"His presence was powerful," Christensen says, "With a lot of humor...and very connected to nature."

(I don't know about you, but if a randy, flute-playing goat-satyr-of-a-fertility-God ever shows up with advice for me, I'm all ears.)

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C's For Cybele With Her Gorey Tattoo

2008-04-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

VENICE, CA -- A tattoo of two children hitting each other over the head with croquet mallets graces Cybele O'Brien's left shoulder. It's an illustration by that master of morbid, Edward Gorey, from his book The Epiplectic Bicycle.

"It's a made-up word," O'Brien says, producing a copy of the macabre little paperback.

We sit together on the indoor porch of her grandfather's home, a sun-bleached beach cottage, the likes of which are becoming scarcer and scarcer in Venice, Calif. Out the windows, beyond poisonous calla lilies and thorny branches of heirloom rose bushes, beyond a narrow walk bisecting the tranquil block, lies a field of fetching wildflowers upon which Cybele was shot (for this Gorey story).

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Among the Swingers

2008-04-08T11:40:00.000-07:00

VENICE, CA -- Never have I witnessed the depravity I witnessed among the swingers...

That was going to be my opener. But then I didn't really witness any depravity among the swingers and thought to reconsider. (I did. I'm sticking with my gut.)

As it turns out, the swingers I met all seemed surprisingly normal for sex maniacs. I felt right at home among them.

Although, I gotta say, trying to suck up to my ex-wife with a line like, “I've probably been with six thousand women in my life, but every time I look at (you), I fall in love again,” would probably have ended badly. Like, searching-for-my-severed- johnson-by-the-side-of-the-road badly.

Actually, the swinger who floated that one—John Lynch of the San Fernando Valley's Velvet Swing club—has maybe as little to do with normal as anyone I’ve ever met. (And I mean that in a good way.)

But he was the exception. The rest of the swingers I met, scattered across SoCal, were downright ordinary by comparison. But damn were they neurotic.

Swingers: Will you please decide what to call what it is you do and then call it swinging? Because, I mean, Marriage with benefits? The lifestyle? This hard-on everyone has for reframing has gone far enough...

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School of Rock'er

2008-04-05T14:44:00.000-07:00

Though there have always been female surfers and there are more now than ever, surfing remains a dude-dominated bro-fest. Surf shops, too. An exception is Mar Vista, California's Rock'er Board Shop, owned and operated by forty-something California native, Alison Copeland. After a long and successful career in fashion, Copeland opened Rock'er only to learn that the gig, like surfing, came with its share of indignities...

School of Rock'er
Lesson 1: Beware the Surfalo

The term surfalo may conjure images of the smoke-breathing beasts at your local surf break. But the Colberty-ish word was in fact coined by Copeland to describe a new variation on an age-old occupation.

"They're gigolos who want to surf," says Copeland: "Surfalos."

"I have a stream of young men who come into the shop," she says.

Copeland proudly proclaims her penchant for dating younger guys.

"I'm a cougar," she laughs, laughing more at the idea she'd ever prey on anyone. On the contrary: At Rock'er, she learned the hard way that not all the young dudes had the purest motives for dating her.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE

Is This Man Flipping the Bird?

2008-03-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

VENICE, CA -- Attention anyone who has ever seen those colorful, cartoon-cut-out doves that dangle from power lines over busy intersections from here to San Francisco, NYC and even London: Could Browne, the enigmatic, young street artist behind the berds (his werd), be using them to basically flip the bird?

"They have a pretty obvious meaning," Browne says. "But I won't tell anyone what it is."

Fine. Mystery is fun...ish. Though insisting the meaning is obvious is an obvious attempt to tempt suckers with nothing better to do into wasting time playing guessing games.

So my guess is "flipping the bird" is the meaning.

For one thing, he sort of "flips" the "berds" up onto the power lines (see video). For another, flipping the bird is what street art, on some level, is generally about: It's generally illegal, generally vandalism and generally subversive social commentary aimed at the man.

Therefore, flipping the bird is my final answer for what Browne means.

Unless it's "bird on a wire"...

READ ON @ www.dogtownink.com

Amerikan Traditionalist

2008-03-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

KEVIN HINTON
Occupations: Tattoo Artist & Owner, Old Glory Tattoo, Venice, CA
Preoccupations: American Traditional tattoos and Iron Man triathlons

"I got my first tattoo when I was thirteen," says Kevin Hinton.

We sit at the bar in Hama Sushi, across the street from Venice's Old Glory Tattoo Parlor, the shop Hinton has owned and operated since 2005. I wonder who, in America, tattoos thirteen-year-olds.

"I saw African tribesmen tattooing themselves with a sharpened bone on a National Geographic show," Hinton says. "So I got a sewing needle and wrapped thread near the tip to control the depth and hold the ink." Ah-ha...

READ ON @ www.dogtownink.com

Love Me, Love My Dog

2008-02-18T15:03:00.000-08:00

DogtownInk.com that is...

Please come to Dogtown Ink to feel my heat.

DogtownInk.com

2008-02-17T00:31:00.000-08:00

Underground is toast.

Please come to Dogtown Ink to feel my heat.

Dogtown Ink is the New Black

2007-12-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

Brace yourself...take a wide stance: Dogtown Ink is coming soon.

Mmmm...mmmm! Lightsaber cured!

2007-07-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

And Bonnie helped!

Bonnie Burton, that is, angel of Underground angel and

Robbie Conal Unvarnished

2007-07-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

Robbie conal...What's Your Question?

Add to My Profile | More Videos

I found this clip of legendary art attacker Robbie Conal on MySpace TV. No candy-coating here. Mr. Conal serves up brief, unvarnished commentary on our founding fathers and asks WTF about our government.

Mr. Conal has been kind enough to invite us over for a studio visit of sorts next week (well, I sort of invited him to invite us). This being summer, a batch of bright young artists are interning with him, among them Vicious and Serious. Can't wait...

Worldwide Internet Crash affects Worlds of Warcraft

2007-07-18T11:19:00.000-07:00

We were thinking about immersing ourselves in the Worlds of Warcraft subculture, but we've decided this is the best excuse for bailing work in decades. Thanks Al.

PS: If you have any insane WOW stories, let us know on the forums. We may show up at your front door.

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Low and Slow

2007-07-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

VENICE, KALIFORNIA - Saturday was all about low riders and custom bikes here, which doesn't make it much different from any other day at this beachside bicycle proving grounds...except for the low and slow bike parade down the path from the Santa Monica Pier with a couple hundred bike freaks.

God bless Didrik Johnck who, true to form, behaved recklessly so that we might bring you lovely footage of the event on Underground...

Subversive Whimsy

2007-07-13T11:17:00.001-07:00

LOS BERDGELES - I'm fixin' to ask this young man (known only by the mystery-moniker "Browne") what it is that compels him to regularly risk his neck to provide citizens of this fair city with his rare brand of subversive whimsy (that would be hanging his berds on the telephone wires of this City of Bergels -- see the post below).

As with many Shepard Fairie aspirants, rare brand-building may be behind the Berdman of Angeles's antics. But who doesn't want to build an empire? And branding is everything in empire-building. Ask Hamburgler if you don't believe me.

Still, filthy lucre cannot be the sole motivating factor for this young art attacker. He's a long way from being able to cash in and there's a very good chance he never will. In the meantime, he's single-handedly reviving berd-watching in this glorious metroplex.

Attention miscreant lovers!

2007-06-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

LOS BERDGELES - Mischief art and artists are everywhere: telephone poles and wires, museums and record stores, switch boxes and sidewalks...

Not being nearly so ubiquitous myself, I have a special request of berd watchers, Banksy lovers and obeyers of Andre wherever you may roam.

Mischief Art is on the menu for an upcoming Underground epi. People, I'd love you to actually register those weird posters or stickers or street stencils or berds-on-a-wire that you drive or walk or bike or roller disco past every day. And then I'd like you to share, so I can disseminate your WOW over the Internets and increase my power rating (okay, I'll give you credit).

Is there mischief art happening in your hood? Yes? So why are you holding out on me, yo?

Tell me about the art or artists that tickle your tickler and that you think we should cover at Underground. Do it for you, do it for me, do it together, naturally.

Where to tell all? Join the American Subculture forums and go to the Mischief Art topic. Or email me at thebradmiskell@yahoo.com.

And BTW- It turns out that berd actually is the werd. Godspeed.

OMG, God's Spokesman improved by Underground!

2007-06-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

You may not have had this humbling experience yourself but I'm here to tell you that it's truly amazingly humbling when "God's Spokesman" himself learns a valuable life lesson from commenting on something you've posted on the Internets:

Robots in Disguise

2007-06-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

This is some next level CosPlay type shit. If only this much time and ingenuity were spent on solving homelessness and poverty.

The Vader Sessions

2007-06-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

Here are some Darth Vader scenes overdubbed with audio from James Earl Jones other movies. Awesome.

Friends, Romanians, Countrypunks: Forums 4 Quorums

2007-06-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

You no longer have an excuse to hold out on us. Come, be our Illuminati. Share your holotropic minds. Help us decide who and what to cover next at underground.

Go to: american subculture forums.

Join us. Leave your cheese to sour.

And BTW: Darth Abraham built this city on rock and roll.

What's YOUR damage?

2007-06-13T09:35:00.001-07:00

Face it. You're into weird shit. It's not like you're fooling anybody. We all know. So why don't you just get over yourself and share?

At underground, we want to cover you and your kind. It's our job.

So open the floodgates of strange, we can take it. Let us know what you're into or wanna know more about--from mutant subcultures to eldritch goings-on. We're all ears.

Come on people, help us to help you. Send your ideas for what underground should get up to to thebradmiskell@yahoo.com. Or better yet, get onboard at our boards and grow our collective mojo.

Oh, and does anyone have a frikkin' clue who these cross-bearing bigfeet are? Give us one (a frikkin' clue--whether reliable or completely bogus) and we'll express regular mail you one of our collector's item-grade underground bumper stickers.*

*Maybe. Our mail boy isn't the most dependable.

Everybody Loves Slave Leias

2007-06-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

The Abeinator doesn't much fancy himself a fanboy, but I never turn down the opportunity to lecherously ogle a slave Leia ... or 20.

Baby slave Leia makes me uncomfortable.

Whodini WAS right! Freaks really DO come out at night

2007-06-09T09:59:00.000-07:00

I'm usually snuggling up in a cozy bed with some post-ablutions warm milk by 6:30 or 7 pm at the latest, so not terribly familiar with who comes out at night. I have heard Whodini's rap song, The Freaks Come Out At Night. But I thought Whodini meant, like, the goblins come out at night...or Anne Coulter comes out at night.

I had no idea, until last night when Underground's coverage of krumping got promoted on Yahoo's home page (and I stayed up way past bedtime for bedlam management), who Whodini was really rapping about.

(And I'm not talking about those who thoughtfully informed us that krump isn't a new dance sensation. Who knew? Even if I didn't think I'd singlehandedly discovered krump several years after it got loads of press coverage -- and I kinda think I did -- those darn home page editors are always thinking in terms of their global user base. Go figure.)

Who Whodini was really rapping about turns out to be hate spewers. We obviously need to get our bot-detecting act together at Underground. We need those pop-up forms that make you type in jumbled letters to prove you're actually a human being before you get to write comments.

Anonymous haters aren't the only freaks who came out last night...

I have this MySpace page where I make new friends to leverage for personal gain. Last night, I got new friend requests from a whole new batch of people to leverage!!!!

The only catch is that new MySpace friends get to start acting just like your real life friends. Meaning they can immediately start laying all kinds of inappropriate shit on you.

Some of my new friends did their level best to lay all kinds of inappropriate shit on me: they started posting bulletins that all their MySpace friends get to see -- so I got to see them, too!!!

Those new friends appear to be giddy young 'uns getting all Blair Witch Project-y for spine-tingling boredom relief. But bringing YOU WILL BE DAMNED BY GOD AND DIE condemnation to latter day phone pranks does suggest a certain uber freak predilection:

That Whodini rapper fella is right. Tonight, I'm staying in bed...

Diane Sawyer Shakes Hand of Tuberculosis Maniac

2007-06-07T15:43:00.000-07:00

(She's Later Spotted Licking Fingers)

Video blogger Lori Panties' exclusive interview with a man claiming to be Andrew Speaker sheds important light on how this "tuberculosis maniac" is dealing personally with his heavy burden (Hint: he's a lawyer).