FAIREY FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON

After a total of 11 Charges were dropped..
The prosecution and defense settle on a plea to keep Shepard Fairey's feet on free land.

In the plea deal, Fairey had to admit to the 2000 incident and two others this past January including placing a sticker on the back of a traffic sign and slapping a poster to a private condominium building. Fairey subsequently pleaded guilty to the three misdemeanors (one charge of defacing property and two charges of wanton destruction of property under $250 in Boston Municipal Court) as part of a plea deal. Fairey received two years of probation and pay fines $2,000 for graffiti removal

Fairey arrest in Boston came three days after a solo exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art when Fairey failed to appear in court on a charge of placing a poster on a Boston electrical box in September 2000.





Most people know the 39-year-old Los Angeles street artist for his stenciled image of an Associated Press photo of Barack O'Bama but Fairey is also a prominient street artist, alum of Rhode Island School of Design, and founder of OBEY.

GREETING!!

Since I have been away I have thought long and hard about continuing this site. With North America in such a economical bind is it right to glorify things with such minimal importance? I honestly felt wrong talking about certain thing especially with so many people in a position of despair, hardly able to maintain. Not that this site is some global influence on any scale but as citizens I feel it's my duty to be conscious of our state of government and news.
Around the time I was intially going to launch the site(December 2008) I really had to rearrange my mission and formulate a better one for 2009. I wanted to make sure that even though I was featuring a e-comerce site that "making a million" wasn't the main focus. That friends understand that this was just my version of giving back to a culture that has given me so much enjoyment and knowledge. Even when I was away I felt wrong not to share. This period of distance was needed to build a foundation but also recharge my influences a bit plus I love to travel!!

I'm currently in Chicago getting "the meat and potatoes" together.
I have been lucky to have met /kept a lot of contacts and EXTREMELY LUCKY to have been granted unprecedented entry into some of the best thrift & retail stores in the World(As you can see to left, review coming soon).
I will be posting stuff on the blog until the official drop plus a few goodies too. I will be the first to admit my blogging has been much sporadic but I promise you that WHEN the site drops it will be magical! (Also THANK YOU!! to those readers who responded with comments about the new look of the coming site and well wishes!) A few readers were able to see the new site via email and soft online drop..



Take care and stay tuned...
JDS/Contemporary Science/ALL Designs
"A celebration for the celebrated and uncelebrated.. ."

WOW!!

If you have been keeping up with the news you may have heard of a shocking story coming from Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.
Four former employees, three gravediggers and a manager at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, are accused of digging up bodies and reselling plots at a historic black cemetery near Chicago. The team was estimated to made about $300,000 in a scheme believed to have stretched back at least four years and pocketing. The perpetrators allegedly dumping some in a weeded, desolate area near the cemetery or double-stacking others in graves. The cemetery is the burial place of civil rights era lynching victim Emmett Till and blues singers Willie Dixon and Dinah Washington.


Early reports had stated that Emmett Till's casket had been undisturbed BUT today, authorities say Till's casket was reportedly found in a small shack on the grounds of the cemetery with a family of possums living inside it and old headstones and garbage surrounding it.



The 14-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till was killed in 1955 after reportedly whistling at a white woman during a visit to his uncle's house in Mississippi. Nearly 100,000 people visited the casket during a four-day public viewing in Chicago, and images of his battered body helped spark the civil rights movement.






When Till was exhumed in 2005 during an investigation of his death. Customary, he was re-buried in a new casket and the old casket(the one that was vandalized & seen in pictures after his murder) was supposed to be part of the new planned memorial.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Director's Corner: Sofia Coppola

I was in Sweden in April/May. I watched TV.
I'm not a big TV person person but I tend to cherish the little bit of western civilization while I'm away. The only thing is that "the little bit" is everything so you tend to get annoyed after an hour of seeing the same music videos(Rihanna & Lady Gaga) and commercials every twenty seconds.

Miss Dior Cherie Perfume Commercial

This is the long directors cut from Sofia Coppola featuring the song "Moi Je Joue" by Brigitte Bardot with model Maryna Linchuk.

At first glance, I really liked this Dior commercial but after seeing this commercial about five thousand times over a three week period, I wanted to burn any Dior in close range when this chipper tune played.
Funny thing, I assumed that most would share the same affliction when I returned but to my surprise, this commercial is not airing on any channels in the U.S.

Enjoy!!

Another attest that Dubai has Everything; even the Fashion Police

Raffi Nernekian, a Lebanese immigrant has finally been released from a Dubai prison after serving a month sentence for wearing a obscene shirt in public, according to reports from United Arab Emirates.



The official press release says

“Mr Nernekian was subsequently jailed for offending public decency for a month, a sentence upheld on appeal. He will be deported after serving his sentence, even though he has lived in the city for five years.”

According to U.A.E reports, Nernekian was confronted by a Dubai resident at a local bakery about his shirt. Tempers flared but Nernekian conceded and returned home to change his t-shirts. When Nernekian returned to the bakery, the police were waiting for him.
He was imprisoned for a month AND will be deported from Dubai shortly, even though he has been a class A immigrant for five years. Sounds crazy but the moral code under the U.A.E. is strict and if crossed the repercussions can be brutal with little room for appeal. Clothing cannot be obscene, transparent, have offensive slogans or pictures or indecently expose body parts. While the U.A.E. does have a very large influx of foreign travelers for both recreation and business, many tourist forget that this is a country with very stringent laws and they will not allow outsiders to escape their penalties.

I have compelled some of the more interesting arrest on tourist/immigrants under the U.A.E. rule:
- Cat Le-Huy was arrested in Dubai for carrying melatonin and imprisoned for 3 months without any formal trial or sentencing.

- A Swiss man is serving a four-year jail term after three poppy seeds from a bread roll he ate at Heathrow airport were found on his clothes.

- A American business woman and mother of three was arrested, strip searched, and jailed for sitting with a male colleague at a Starbucks near Riduyah.

- A Englishman, who came under suspicion after officials were alerted of a substance under his shoe(A cigarette stuck to his shoe) was sentenced to four years in prison for possession of 0.003g of cannabis, which I would imagine is a microscopic amount(or a dub in NYC).

Make sure to keep up with the rules while your traveling this summer.
(Still got a few airline codes valid for discounts; Delta and Continental Airlines.. .)

BACK IN TIME

VIA MAO MAIL..


Please join me this Saturday, March 21st, 2009 for a very special night at APT
as I'm joined on the wheels of steel by my esteemed colleague from Tokyo, the
legendary DJ MURO.

Producer/remixer Muro sealed his exalted selector status in the mid-90s when his
celebrated series of hip-hop sample-source mix-tapes earned him the title, "King
of Diggin'". In the years since he's more than lived up to the hype, mastering
seemingly every genre of funky groovology imaginable via superb mixes like "I
(Heart) 45s," "Super Reggae Breaks," "Nippon Breaks," his collab with Dmitri
From Paris "Super Disco Friends."

Well, now Muro and myself have joined forces for "Run For Cover II: Mind Blowing
Renditions Redux" – a brand spankin' new mix composed entirely of groovy cover
versions of classic soul, funk, rock, reggae, Latin, and disco tunes. And to
commemorate the US release of the CD that's what we'll be playing on Saturday:
ALL COVER VERSIONS, ALL NIGHT!

As a bonus my mellow, my man – and fellow covers enthusiast – DJ O-DUB of
soul-sides.com will also be in the mix to join in the re-work revelry. If you're
familiar with O-Dub's excellent covers mix series, "Deep Covers," then you
already know how special this night will be.

There it is, party people: Triple Cover-age.

Free CDs to the early doors entrants.