Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
When I take time off from work, I give back to the community, which is to say, the community of homeless dogs. There is a great no-kill shelter called Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition (BARC) and they always need people to walk their dogs (and curb them). This fine guy right here is Hunter, a puggle. This dude is low to the ground and has a pull-force like you wouldn’t believe for a guy his size. Whew, after having a run-around with Hunter, it was off for quality time with other dogs. The kind with chili! Hey, wait, what is this under the table top? It’s Moon Patrol! You know, from 29 years ago! I gotta play this! Fifty cents (!) later and I’m off! The controller and buttons are all greasy and shit from those hot-dog-eating moon patrollers afore me but I don’t care. Now I get to leave my double-dog scum, too.
Continue reading
Kobe Bryant does a commercial for Smart Car China. This is a new one, but I realize that Kobe’s made tons of commercials. So many that I can’t find some of them and so many that I can’t really keep up. If I can’t, then most of your can’t either. Most of you might not care, but for those of you who do, here’s 11 commercials that I like. I’m sure there’s plenty of others from other countries that I haven’t ever seen. I added some comments to each one.
Art thief in downtown LA. Kobe throws ball, guy falls, and doesn’t ruin the art. This is one of those fun action packed running around CMs.
Jokey reality based CM that got Kobe into some hot water with Turkish folks. It’s for a Turkish Airlines. It’s placing a dude into weird situations and him failing genre.
Reality based, viral style. It worked for a second.
Do you know Adrian Leung? If you are involved with writing or making film in the Asian community you’ve probably met him. Adrian is one of these glue-type of people who knows nearly everybody in some way. I knew him back when he was working at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in the early 2000s. He drove me, and two other writers, Bushra Rehman and Helen Yum, to a college in Ohio from New York City. We almost all died. Although it was April, it was snowing in Ohio and our car spun on the road like a teacup ride. We came to a rest in a ditch and had to pay a tow truck to get us out. I can’t help but feel that in an alternate universe, my ghost is haunting a certain stretch of the road in the midwest on snowy nights. Adrian has been living in Tokyo for more than a year now (I think) but when he comes to visit the U.S., he has to make that triangular run (L.A., S.F. and New York City) to see everyone he knows. I’ve taken the liberty of taking photos of his iPhone photos with my iPhone. Shit knocked all over the place, all the way in Tokyo, right after the earthquake. Prepackaged goods gone in a flash, so if you want Twinkies 24 hours after the quake, you are S.O.L. It’s rush hour, but Jackie Chan and everybody else is skipping the train. These are not dunce caps. They are soft like thick quilted blankets but they supposedly protect your head as well as hardhats from shit falling.
Continue reading
Ten new cities are built every year? Out of control. I was just having a conversation about the economic bubble in China, as experience in Japan in the late 80s. It’s happening now. They build cities, malls, and the entire place is near empty. How’s this supposed to work?! Where’s the money coming from and where’s it going? Is it from a super imbalance of wealth? A billion dirt poor folks working for a handful of a rich? This video touches upon the economic future. What’ll happen when it bursts?
Continue reading
$10.1 million that’s the new record for a contemporary Chinese work and done by one of the more familiar artists Zhang Xiaogang. His works look different these days, since this piece is an older work from 1988. Look familiar? His works are often portraits from his “Blood line” series and the only way I can afford one is to buy a bootleg on the street in China. Yes, they can be had at a low prices. The cool thing of the rising prices of Chinese art is that these days with the Chinese bubble economy, Chinese people are buying the highest end of art made by their fellow country persons.
Continue reading