Our 360 thursday artist this week is ItsJustSomeRandomGuy, the man who has brought you both the “MARVEL/DC season 1 After Hours” and the “MARVEL/DC season 2 Happy Hour”. If only we could give this writer a budget to make his movies get to the big screen. The humor is spot on and the stories are inspiring and gravitating. I bet the superhero movies made today have directors that don’t have half the knowledge this man has about the subjects. On top of the writing the voices are also mimicked, and some are near perfect. Just watch this, the first video for season 2, Happy Hour, to see exactly what I mean.

Not only can this guy play some absolutely amazing flute, he’s tried his hand at vocal percussion… at the same time! Beat-boxer, flute man, what other combination will they come up with? A true artist indeed.

A very big and beautiful sing along. It’s just great to see events like this take place. The T-Mobile crew does it again with a massive sing along taking place near what looks like a parliament building. It’s a perfect harmony of less than perfect voices, but that is exactly the point.

Everyone that had a part in this was an artist in some way. The marketing people had to team up with the advertising people and think of this. Next they had to create a dance routine. Then finally they had to get hundreds of dancers to take part in the activity. Lots of teamwork, lots of creativity, lots of fun.

There are all kinds of rumors of memorials, buildings, statues, etc, planned for what happened on september 11th 2001. They thought of rebuilding replica’s of the twin towers, just one building that served as a memorial, and many others I’m sure We’ve never heard because the projects have never seen the light of day. What we (or at least I) didn’t know is that one statue was built, and given to the United States as a “monument to the struggle against world terrorism” and “september 11th” memorial.

This statue/building was unveiled september 11 2006 and is in direct line with the statue of liberty. It is a gift from the people of Russia and president Vladimir Putin and it is called the “tear drop”. It stands over 100 feet tall and weighs 175 tons, it’s weight meant that it had to be transported separately and build on site, and so they did just that, transporting all 6 pieces or sections then installing it. The names of the victims are inscribed at the bottom just like the vietnam war memorial.

I just wonder why this hasn’t had more publicity…

The great artist behind this masterpiece is Zurab Tsereteli.

In case you didn’t know, the blues can be found at the base of almost every music genre there exists today. That is why our featured artist this week is a musician and a pure blues master.

JW-Jones is a blues musician, he started on the drums before seeing B.B. King in concert and starting to play the bass. From there he switched to the electric guitar so he could play exactly like his blues idols who mostly played guitar. JW is a pure blues player, which means even though similar musicians learn all the theories and scales, pure blues players will always base their playing on feel, no matter how much they might know musically. This is very evident in JW’s playing, if you’ve heard him, you can simply hear the difference. Everything is improvised but the natural melody he and his band the “JW-Jones blues band” have created. The band has just celebrated their tenth year together and they have toured in 4 continents, 13 countries and 200 cities. They have also played 800 shows in those ten years, a remarkable feat considering it averages out to more than 100 shows per year or almost 1 show every 3 days!

JW is still a young player too (28 years old) so expect him to be around with the greats for a while. He currently resides in Ottawa where you can find him playing at the Rainbow Bistro at least a few times during the year.

JW-Jones is signed to the “Northern Blues Music” label and has recorded 5 albums :

Year, Album Title, Label, Guests

-2000, Defibrillatin, (Blues), NorthernBlues Music (no guests)

-2002, Bogart’s Bounce, (Blues), NorthernBlues Music, Kim Wilson (harp, vocals), Gene Taylor (piano), Roxanne Potvin (vocals)

-2004, My Kind of Evil, (Blues), NorthernBlues Music, Colin James (vocals), Kim Wilson (harp, vocals, producer)

-2006, Kissing in 29 Days, (Blues), NorthernBlues Music, David “Fathead” Newman (saxophone)

-2008, Bluelisted, (Blues), NorthernBlues Music, Little Charlie Baty (guitar, harp), Junior Watson (guitar), Richard Innes (drums), Larry Taylor (bass), Liner notes by Dan Aykroyd

JW has also been nominated for many notable awards, such as : Album of the year (2), Guitarist of the year (2), Electric act of the year (2), and actually won the 2005 – Maple Blues Awards Elictrica act of the year award (national) !

If you want to know more about the band or JW-Jones himself, check out his web site linked here
Or check out one of his shows, he’s always ready to answer a few questions between sets. 360 blog was lucky enough to snag an interview with Jones which you can see here.

JW-Jones also offers lessons for players at any level so if you’re in town when he is it’s surely one of the best lesson session’s you’ll have.

Thanks for the interview JW!

Info: Personal, Wiki

The title basically says it… these artists are computer designers, who are apparently bored, and quite creative.

Unfortunately there will be no bio for our 360 Thursday artist, but the new strategy for us will be “titles”. So no more blatant 360 thursday artists but they will still be put into that category on Thursday’s. Also the last few days have been and will continue to be a heavy work period for the 360 blog team, so we might not be posting quite as often in the coming week or so…

This is a video of someone drawing some male and female genitalia and being creative with it, very artistic and very original which is why I have chosen him for this week’s featured artist.

This week our artist is not a painter, not a musician, but a comedian. I know what you might be thinking : “comedian’s aren’t artists”, but in this case, believe me, he is, and one of the greatest one’s at that.

A boy named George Denis Patrick Carlin was born May 12 1937, he was of Irish decent and was Roman Catholic. His religion and decent would become a subject of his comedy routines, but we’ll get to that a little later. Carlin had somewhat of a troublesome childhood : his father left at a very young age and he ran away from home when he would have disagreements with his mother, that and he was also removed from at least 1 high school. Soon thereafter, Carlin went into the air force becoming a radar specialist, he never finished though, being discharged because he seemed to be slacking off or was deemed “unproductive”. This is where Carlin started his career though as he was a disc jockey for KJOE in Louisiana during his stay in the air force.

In the late 50’s early 60’s George Carlin and Jack Burns formed a radio/comedy tandem known as the “Wright Brothers”. They practiced their material at KDAY a California radio station where they had gone to hoping to make it big (after leaving New York). They would be together only a few years before going their separate ways.

Carlin started doing stand-up, earning spots on “The Tonight Show” and “The Ed Sullivan Show”. As time went on, Carlin became very popular on the tonight show in particular, turning into a regular performer and also a guest-host on Jack Paar and Johnny Carson’s show. One night, a man named Lenny Bruce was arrested for obscenity. As they asked the audience questions Carlin was also questioned and asked his ID. When he told them he didn’t believe in government Identification they arrested him and brought him to prison in the same car as Bruce.1  This must have had an effect on Carlin because his career soon took a whole other direction.

The George Carlin that had the short hair, the clean cut look and the proper cloth was gone.  This new George Carlin took some heat for it though loosing some gigs by changing to this awkward style, but slowly regained that popularity for the same reason, he was different.  His routine “seven words you can never say on television” was maybe his most popular and definitely one of the most controversial ever.

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that’ll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war.
—George Carlin, Class Clown, “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television

In July of 1972 Carlin was arrested for obscenity.  The judge however ruled that Carlin language was indecent but that it did not upset or disturb anyone.  Another case came to be in 1973 with a similar routine causing the FCC (federal communications commission) to send a citation to the “Pacifica Foundation”.  It went to the supreme court where in a 5 to 4 vote in favor of the FCC, the ruling read “indecent but not obscene”, which meant the FCC could take off the broadcasts when they felt children could be watching.

Carlin was the first-ever host of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975.[40] (He also hosted SNL on November 10, 1984, where he actually appeared in sketches. The first time he hosted, he only appeared to perform stand-up and introduce the guest acts.) The following season, 1976-77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television’s Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series.
Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely appeared to perform stand-up, although it was at this time he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. It was later revealed that Carlin had suffered the first of his three non-fatal heart attacks during this layoff period.[5]2

 

The 80’s saw the return of a performing Carlin. With the release of “A Place For My Stuff” and “Carlin at Carnegie” (a t.v. special). Carlin also got into some acting, appearing in a serious supporting role in the Bette Midler and Shelley Long comedy hit “Outrageous Fortune”. Two other films Carlin appeared in was “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and the sequel “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey”. Carlin was later involved in a few kids show’s such as “Thomas the Tank Engine” and “Shining Time Station”.

In the 90’s George Carlin then went into writing books, his first, “Brain Droppings” sold over 750,000 copies. He had kept doing HBO specials every year or every other year since the late 70’s but slowed down a little during the latter part of the 90’s.

In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards.3 As Carlin continued to perform regularly (MGM Grand) his routines started to have more dark subjects and more speeches about death, beheadings and other similar materials. Soon after, Carlin was fired because of an altercation with the audience. George Carlin went to rehab after his firing for drug and alcohol addictions. He then went on tour in 2006 supporting his 2005 HBO special called “Life is Worth Losing”. Much of the same darkish themes appear but in what is a tamer version than in some of the pre-rehab routines. In 2006 he was casted for the movie “Cars”, playing a hippie VW bus named Fillmore. Carlin’s last HBO special “It’s Bad For Ya” was aired in 2008 after playing many concert hall’s practicing his material. Another award was on the horizon for Carlin, the “Mark Twain Prize for American Humor”, but it had to be presented posthumously because on June 22 2008, George Carlin passed away du to heart failure, after surviving 3 heart attacks throughout his life. Carlin was true to his words in his routines though: as he often talked about religion and stating that he did not believe in God, Carlin was cremated and there was no religious ceremony of any kind.

The award was awarded november 10th 2008 and many comedians (Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lewis Black among others) payed their respects to a man that opened so many doors for them, who pushed and broke the boundaries of what could be said and then pushed some more.  Jerry Seinfeld wrote a great article two days after Carlin’s death which you can read here.

Here were some of George Carlin’s most popular themes:

-religion

-dirty words (seven words you can never say)

-airlines

-culture

-disasters

-death

-life

-reasons and reasoning

-taboo subjects in general

I’ll leave you this clip of Carlin talking about religion…

May you rest in peace George Carlin, because your work is over, but your insight and influence will live forever…

Info : 1, 2, 3
Photo : 1

In this, the second of many 360 thursday artist weeks, we will be going into something different than music but still in the entertainment biz none the less.

In 1970 Kevin Patrick Smith was brought into this world. This little New Jersey boy was to become a multi-talented person in the show biz world having a hand in acting, screenwriting, directing, comic book writing, co-founder of a production company and many other things which we’ll get to in a bit.

Early life and directing

Smith was born in a catholic household along with his older sister Virginia and older brother Donald Jr. Shortly after attending high school in Highlands Smith met Jason Mewes, he would not only become a close friend but a reoccurring actor in many of Kevin’s flicks. Kevin Smith would then attend The New School for social research in New York before going to film school in Vancouver, Canada. This is where he met Scott Mosier. Smith dropped out of film school and returned to Jersey, but not before making a pact with Mosier, whoever finished writing a film first the other would drive down to be the producer on it. True to their words “Clerks” was written and directed by Kevin Smith and produced by Scott Mosier. The movie cost a total of 27,575$ and was shot at the same convenience store Smith worked in. When the movie was shown at the Sundance Film Festival it won the filmmaker’s trophy and the flick was picked up by Miramax. Then the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival and won 2 awards : the “Prix de la jeunesse” and the “International critics’ week prize. With a very limited release the movie still made 3.1 million dollars and with such a minuscule cost it was a huge financial gain.

Smith’s next work was a movie called “Mallrats”, which feature Jason Lee’s first leading role. Despite having a larger release (500 screens instead of 50 like Clerks) it didn’t fare as well at the box office grossing 2.2 million.

“Widely hailed as one of Smith’s best films, Chasing Amy marked what Quentin Tarantino called “a quantum leap forward” for Smith. Starring Mallrats alumni Jason Lee, Joey Lauren Adams and Ben Affleck, the $250,000 film earned $12 million at the box office and wound up on a number of critics’ year-end best lists, and won two Independent Spirit Awards (screenplay and supporting actor for Lee).1″

Then Smith got into trouble shooting his next film, Dogma. It featured a great cast with Ben affleck, matt damon to name a few mixed with some of the regulars in Jason Mewes and Jason Lee. The trouble was with the Catholic league because the film raised some issues with religion and religious beliefs. Kevin’s humor might have been a bit of an odd mix with religion but an entertaining one none the less and many agreed as the 10 million dollar cost was overshadowed by the 30 million in sales.

“Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” featured exactly that, Jay and Silent Bob, two of the famed characters from the “Askewniverse”. The Askewniverse is basically the world in which all of Smith’s characters are in. It is Kevin Smith’s created world, and “Jay and Bob strike back” was supposed to be the final chapter in this universe as Smith had other plans for the future. It is also a part of Kevin’s production company “View Askew Productions”. This film had cost more than the rest of his previous flicks combined at 20 million but still made a good profit at 30 million dollars.

The film “Jersey Girl” was made to step out of Smith’s “askewniverse” but unfortunately it was released after the main character Ben Affleck had made what was considered a bad film (Gigli) which may have caused the stumble at the box office. For its 35 million in cost it only brought in 25 million.

Clerks II marked one more trip into the Askewniverse, Smith resurrected the Dante and Randal characters from his first film and looked in on them ten years later. Roundly criticized before its release, the film went on to win favorable reviews as well as two awards (the Audience Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Orbit Dirtiest Mouth Award at the MTV Movie Awards).[7] It marked Smith’s third trip to the Cannes International Film Festival, where Clerks II received an eight minute standing ovation.[8] The $5 million film, starring Jeff Anderson, Brian O’Halloran, Rosario Dawson, Jason Mewes, Jennifer Schwalbach and Smith himself—reprising his role as Silent Bob—earned $25 million.2″

After Clerks 2 Smith went for another attempt at making a non askewniverse based film. “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” ran into some problems as the rating was brought to R instead of 17+ which may have discouraged some moviegoers. This flick featured Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, Rogen being one of the most popular actor for comedies in the last year or so.

Acting roles

“Silent Bob

As an actor, Smith is known for his role as Silent Bob in Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, and Clerks II. He made a cameo appearance in the horror film Scream 3, and was featured along with Jason Mewes in several Degrassi episodes, including a special, “Jay and Silent Bob Do Degrassi” (also as a fictional version of himself).

Other roles

From 1995 to 1997, Smith played small roles in the View Askew movies Drawing Flies, Vulgar, and Big Helium Dog. In 2001, he appeared in friend Jeff Anderson’s Now You Know. In 2003, Smith appeared in a cameo role as coroner Jack Kirby in the film Daredevil. In 2006, he voiced the Moose in the CGI cartoon Doogal. In 2007, Smith appeared in three films as an actor. He had his first starring role in a film he didn’t write or direct, co-starring as Sam in the film Catch and Release, starring Jennifer Garner. The performance earned him many favorable critical notices.[28] Later that year, he had a small but significant part as a hacker called The Warlock in the fourth installment of the Die Hard franchise, Live Free or Die Hard for which he again received strong critical notices.[29] At year’s end, he appeared briefly in friend and fellow writer-director Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, in which he played the legless conspiracy theorist General Simon Theory. That same year, Smith also did voicework for the CGI film TMNT as a diner chef. He was also seen as Rusty (a friend of lead Jason Mewes) in Bottoms Up with co-star Paris Hilton.

Smith has also done small roles on television in shows such as Law & Order, Veronica Mars, Joey, Degrassi: The Next Generation, and Yes, Dear (in Yes, Dear, he also reprised his role as Silent Bob, which was simply him standing in one spot smoking a cigarette and saying nothing as the end credits rolled).3″

The Internet

Smith uses the internet to his advantage by running his stores online, by writing regularly on some of his blogs and running his SModcast (poscast) episodes. He also actively updates his facebook and myspace pages.

Other work

Smith also has 2 books out : “Silent Bob Speaks” and My Boring-Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith. Both books show an inside look on Kevin Smith’s life along with the movie industry and so much more. It’s one of the most unbelievable things to see someone write the way he speaks and he seems to enjoy sharing it with us so much.

One of the greatest things Kevin Smith does that most others don’t though is speak publicly. He does so many Q and A’s and is an incredible speaker and story teller. He’s even made DVD’s called “An Evening With Kevin Smith” and “An Evening With Kevin Smith : evening harder” which is some of the best work and is basically video from some of the Q & A’s he’s done. So I’ll leave you with this video of Kevin Smith talking about “Superman” and a script he wrote for it…

Info : 1 , 2 , 3
Photo : Flickr 1