Obama cartoon (in Swedish)

Ch-ch-check out political soul brother no.1:

Axl Rose bubbling over with rage at Dr. Pepper

Hah, couldn't you just imagine this. The Dr. Pepper website, where you had to go in on the release date of Chinese Democracy, and print a voucher for a free Dr. Pepper, was closed due to "heavy traffic" that whole day.
One can just see the board meeting at Dr. Pepper: "Well, seems liek he really IS going t get the album out. How should we get away from this? 300 million sodas, that will tip us over the edge. Oh, I know, we'll let 'em print a voucher, and then just take the site down that day! Sweet!"
Personally, I think Dr. Pepper tastes disgusting. Just a bunch of chemical sweeteners and presevatives. To like it, you have to be four years old, or, like insane in the membrane.
Here's the news:

Axl Rose and the band are bubbling over with anger at Dr Pepper’s botched soda giveaway.

The Guns N’ Roses singer is accusing the beverage maker of profiting from the band’s name — and then bungling its promised giveaway of a free 20-ounce soda to every person in America.

The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in the country if the band’s “Chinese Democracy” album were released this year. Notorious for being delayed since recording began in 1994, the album went on sale Sunday.

While the band finally made good with “Chinese Democracy,” Dr Pepper did not, lawyer Alan Gutman, who represents Rose and the band, said in a letter to Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. dated Tuesday.

The soda-maker’s Web site malfunctioned during the 24 hours it offered the free pop to consumers on Sunday, causing many fans to get upset, said the Beverly Hills-based attorney.

“The redemption scheme your company clumsily implemented for this offer was an unmitigated disaster which defrauded consumers and, in the eyes of vocal fans, ‘ruined’ the day of ‘Chinese Democracy’s’ release,” Gutman wrote. “Now it is time to clean up the mess.”

The lawyer demanded a full-page apology in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal; an expanded time period to redeem the soda; and “an appropriate payment to our clients for the unauthorized use and abuse of their publicity and intellectual property rights.” He did not say how much was being sought.

“Had you wished to engage in a commercial tie-in with our clients, you should have negotiated a legitimate relationship,” he wrote.

A Dr Pepper spokesman did not address the demands, simply saying it was “a fun giveaway” that the company took great steps to fulfill.

The company extended the promotion by 18 hours through 6 p.m. EST Monday, and set up a toll-free line and an interactive voice recorder to accept coupon requests because of demand, he said.

“This was one of the largest responses we have ever received for a giveaway, and we’re happy we were able to satisfy the thirst of so many Dr Pepper fans,” he said.

The dispute comes after rapper 50 Cent sued Taco Bell Corp. this year, seeking $4 million in damages and claiming the fast-food restaurant chain used his name without permission in advertising asking him to change his name.

The rapper was upset by a print ad run by the Mexican-themed chain asking him to call himself 79 Cent, 89 Cent or 99 Cent to help publicize its value menu. His real name is Curtis Jackson.


Copyright Access Hollywood

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Barry Manilow is an official punishment

Oh gawd. He IS terrible. Now it's even declared so by the authorities:

A COLORADO judge has sentenced people busted for noise pollution to one hour of listening to unpopular or unusual music.
Mostly young adult offenders were kept in a room and made to listen to Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You, Karen Carpenter and Barry Manilow with the volume up loud, CBS4Denver.com reported.

Most offenders, who were not allowed to eat, drink, read or sleep, found the punishment funny at first. But then the boredom set in.

"At about 20 minutes into it, I was trying not to fall a sleep," offender Luis Cano said.

Judge Paul Sacco, who carries out the punishment about four times per year, said the sentenced fit the crime.

"When you have a person playing rap at extreme volumes all over the city, and they have to sit down and listen for an hour to Barry Manilow, its horrible punishment," he said.

Judge Sacco said his love for music and helping youth inspired the unusual sentence.

"It's a punishment but it doesn't h
urt as bad as jail or (paying) a lot of money," he said.

Zack and Miri make a P0rn0

Have to spell p0rn0 with zeroes, if spelled correctly, I will just get weird ads for a while on the blog. Anyhow, this is Seth Rogen's latest vehicle to stardom, and boy, this talented comedian's gotta get choosy. Zack and Miri is about a poor slacker pair of friends with Mcjobs, as they would have been called in the 90's. Facing eviction they decide to make a homemade p0rn-movie.
Now, this movie has a few laughs, the funniest part being the high school reuinon scenes, which seems written by someone else than the rest (Written by director Kevin Smith).
The movie is not really holding together, and goes for cheap laughs most of the time. The lovestory is extremely banal, and might seem believable for kids who shouldn't see this kind of movie.
Seth Rogen is quickly losing his status as the next Will Ferrell or Jim Carrey. First Pineapple Express, now this, man's gotta stop taking every movie offer thrown at him.

How many Dr. Peppers for Axl Rose?

No numbers out yet on how many Dr. Peppers that were given to G'N'R-fans. Here's how it worked:
Drinks company Dr. Pepper has confirmed that everyone in America will get a free soda, after the much-anticipated release of ‘Chinese Democracy’ was announced.

Guns N Roses have been working on the album since 1994, and it’s finally been scheduled to be released this Sunday

In March, the drinks company announced it would give a free Dr. Pepper soft drink to everyone in the United States if the band released the album in 2008.

"We never thought this day would come," said Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper's vice president of marketing, reports the Associated Press. "But now that it's here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper's on us."

A voucher for the free drink will be made available on drpepper.com for 24 hours this Sunday at 12.01am. Those who print the coupon will have until February 28, 2009 to redeem it.

As reported earlier today, Guns N Roses' new album 'Chinese Democracy' has broken all records after being streamed on MySpace.

Kanye stop it?

Kanye West used to be one of my favourite rappers, being smart, socially aware and producing supercool hiphop with an excellent sound. He could do nothing wrong around his first three albums. All the stuff he produced for other rappers were most of it top notch, like Jay-Z was at his best when Kanye produced, and John Legend, Common and so on. Now Kanye has gotten extremely rich, and famous off his music, and what has it done to him? It has turned him into a... hold on now: Fashionista! His main interest is fashion, and he hangs out at all the highend fashion shows. Well good for Kanye that he found a hobby, but sad for his music. It is now more vocoderfilled than Cher's, and the sound is something Annie Lennox would have gone for in 1989. Me no like. Kanye is probably over now. Sad.

How to alienate critics and lose most of the money

How to lose friends and alienate people is a fun book by Toby Young, now turned into major Britsih movie. The movie is watchable, quite clever, tongue-in-cheek and all that, but it is done in screwball style. You know those movies from the 50's with urban singles having a peppy dialogue going on. There is also a lot of falling, stumbling and wrecking things going on, you know, slapstick. Had it not been so much for the screwball and slapstick references, this would have been a great movie. Now it's just watchable. But if you work in media, it's worthwile watching because it's about your job.

Sarah Silverman! Funniest woman alive?

Okay, she is really funny. Here's the lowdown on season three:
1. High, It's Sarah. Sarah smokes pot for the first time, and leaves herself a voicemail that begs her to take her rambling stoned thoughts seriously.
Very funny pot humour...hey you Americans, what's up with all this pot recently?

2. Mongolian Beef. Sarah sues the entire nation of Mongolia.
Very funny, a bit stupid, but hey, it's Sarah!

3. Making New Friends. Briefly thinking that she might be psychic, Sarah soon realizes instead that her friends are just boring and predictable. Steve doesn't notice how big his pot-tits are getting until he slams a window on them.
A bit bizarre, but funny, made me laugh out loud on several occasions.

4. Patriot Tact. Sarah runs over a man with her car thinking that it's Osama bin Laden. When it turns out not to be bin Laden, she is publicly shamed, and starts a campaign to ensure that nobody forgets the tragedy of 9-11. Steve's misunderstanding creates a disaster at a local massage parlor.
Very, very funny!

5. Pee. Sarah starts wetting her bed.
Very funny, and silly!

All in all very funny, not as totally freaked out as season 1.

The new James Fjong movie

James Bond is often called James Fjong in Sweden, don't ask me why...
Anyhow, saw Quantum of Solace, and was stricken by the following:
There are mostly middle aged men and older guys in the movie, except for a few "babes".
The action photography is shot in Dogma-style with supershaky cameras and up to 3 or 4 edits per second, making it almost impossible to see what happens.
There are only like four major action scenes.
There's a lot of guys talking slow and looking grim.
There's a sinister looking older female, talking a lot of grim and sinister agent stuff.
There's a chese scene with a DC3 aeroplane that is really slow and lame.
Anyhow, the movie looks like someone is trying to spend as little as possible on action scenes, just cashing in on a franchise.
Don't bother seeing, it's quite boring.
This spoof by three American nerds is really funny though:

3D-Moose project

For advertising agency Aastroem, for a steel company client:

Even rich dudes in Sweden start giving

Swedish IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad is one of the richest people on earth (good for him, he came from a poor background, he is just an amazing businessperson). Now he is finally starting doing some donations to charity. For billionaires in USA it is a known fact that if they don't donate substantially, people just think they are scrooges. We don't have that here in Sweden, and not much in Europe either. But maybe finally it's becoming apparent to the Euro-billionaires that it is vulgar to just keep all your money in a vault.
Ingvar Kamprad is reputed to be super-cheap, maybe that's about to change? Go Ingvar, go!

Like a Type dude

Wow, Joshua M. Smith, is he the guy who do all them gnarly logos these days?
Heres more: http://www.typographyserved.com/Gallery/Typography/53552

Lars and the Supergreat movie

Saw Lars and the Real Girl this weekend. Great movie about total recluse, oddball and emotionally switched-off smalltown boy Lars Lindstrom. (A quite famous Swedish journalist goes by the same name, which is kind of a fun twist for us Swedes). Anyhow, this odd Lars character buys a "Real Doll" on the Internet, and introduces her as his girlfriend to the people of his small town. The first half of the movie is so embarrassing, it actually made me squirm. But as things move along, people play along with Lars, pretending "Bianca" is a real person, she gets a job as a warehouse mannequin, works with hospitalised children, and is soon busier than Lars. Very funny, touching, and well-played. Written by Nancy Oliver, who is one of the writers from Six Feet Under.
Thing is, there is no smalltown anywhere where peole are so nice and sensitive as in this movie, but anyhow, the movie is fun, smart wellplayed, and highly embarrassing!

Sehr Kool Sürf aus Münich

...Wow, check it out, some German surfers how found a great wave in a river in Munich, that they can practice surfing on...
don't miss the end of the video, where this guy is working in a lab to create a tubed wave, that he wants to build in the same spot...Gnarly, jawohl!

New 3D work

Here's a new illustration in Illustrator & Zbrush featuring Mr. Walker:

Axl grows out of Sunset Strip

As stated before, I find anything Guns'N'Roses very entertaining. Now finally, I found out what the use of the song- and albumtitle "Chinese Democracy" is all about:
"The movie Kundun was on [television] about the Dalai Lama. I was getting ready to leave...and it was the end of the movie. And the Dalai Lama is about to cross over the border, to you know, be in exile for the rest of his life from his own country. And he looks back at the men who helped him, and you know he's escaped the Chinese government. And he looks back at them and he waves and they wave at him. And then they show a scene where he looks back at them again and he sees every one of them dead. Because he knew they would be killed, and they knew that in helping him they would be killed. And you know the emotion in this next song, that's all that's [sic] about. It's not like an intelligent song. It doesn't have the answer to anything. And it's not necessarily pro or con about China. It's just that right now China symbolizes one of the strongest, yet most oppressive countries and governments in the world. And we [Americans] are fortunate to live in a free country. And so in thinking about that it just kinda upset me, and we wrote this little song called "Chinese Democracy."

The World Can Only Get Better

Hey,

President-Elect Obama is hard at work getting this country back on track, but he’s counting on all of us to get involved.

I just signed up to learn more about the presidential transition, and I thought you might want to do the same.

Just visit http://www.change.gov, and enter your e-mail address in the top right corner.

Thanks.

Al Green clip

Here's a clip I took from the concert, it's the first song, I can't stop. I filmed some more, but screwed up, one-armed as of now, in the dark, so I didn't get any sound on the rest...Duh!

Al Green in Stockholm

Starting out with Obama's victory speech before the concert, we were hoping to be in for a gospel-ceremony of happiness. But Al was more down to business, delivering a straight up soul performance. The reverend was in a great mood, and his voice flawless, as he started passing out roses to the audience. Al Green made a few records under the Hi label in the early 70's that are timeless classics, probably the best soul music ever done. He has kept his carreer going, making an album now and then. Unfortunately, nothing of the "new" material comes even close to his classics. Al is not aware of this regarding his career, so on stage he performs mostly newer songs, and only a few classics. Oddly, the man did not do any encores, even though the audience was ecstatic, hoping for a few more classics. The above pic is taken by me from the gig.

Junkie Movie 2

Just saw The Wackness. Teen lovestory set in NY circa 1994. Cool that hip hop from the early 90's gets a renaissance, with acts like De la Soul, A Tribe Calle Quest and Biggie being heavily featured on the soundtrack. So why is this movie any good? Because it's unusual backdrop, because of its loser hero, because Ben Kingsley plays this cool f'd up shrink/junkie father figure. Because the photography is great. Because the dialogue is smart, most of the time. Because the soundtrack is great. Because everyone is on some drug the whole time. God, are New Yorkers like that? And people smoke so many cigarettes one starts suspecting the whole thing is sponsored by the tobacco industry, to make smoking cool again. (I get the same Marlboro-vibe from watching Mad Men) The love story is kind of lame, but it should work for a hip teen audience, as well as the film crowd. The movie is quite artsy, not a big mainstream thang.

Shepard Fairey on making the Obama poster

Junkie movie

New comedy genious Seth Rogen stars in the pot-fuelled stoner-action-comedy Pineapple Express. It's a quite bizarre movie, while it is a silly comedy, it's simultaneously super-graphic in the violence scenes, with blood splattering everywhere. The movie is fun, but feels a bit improvised at times, kind of like the whole crew was stoned during the entire shoot. The concept might be that the target audience should just be stoned the whole movie. Anyhow, the movie is okay, with lots of fun cameos, supersilly hairstyles and a dead dodgy soundtrack, like Falco's "Der Kommissar" for instance. This movie reminds me why I dislike junkies, because they're paranoid and totally without any sense of honesty or morals at all. Like the characters in Pineapple Express. Seth Rogen is funny as always though. He shouldn't make too many movies like this one, he'll become Chevy Chase in no time!

sarah silverman!

just realized sarah silverman's back with her 3rd season. sarah is always pushing humour, acting like a 6 year old, saying totally obnoxious things. a must see, I will watch and let you know. here she is at leno, as always, she delivers: (writing with 1 hand, had my shoulder surgically enhanced today)

Soul Bro. No. 1 on Sat'day

Well, since JB is gone, there's a new soul brother number 1: Al Green. The reverend is playing in Stockholm this saturday night, and I'll be there, of course. Now, if, which seems most likely, Obama wins, this might turn into an incredible evening. I'm quite sure the legend will be in a good mood, anyhow, and my expectations for this concert are on the rise. Check out the man, from back in ´78:

Sarah Palins prank call from "The French president"

If you haven't heard this one yet...unbelievably embarrassing:

Will the Age of Stupidity End on Wednesday?

We've had 8 years of stupidity, egocentricism, fashion bloggers, looting the planet, the return of torture and the slow death of journalism. The list of lowdown, undeducated, Bible-totin' silliness is endless. Is it over now? Will this guy win? Is he the real deal, as good as he seems? I sure HOPE so.
The fact that The Obamster uses a portrait by Shepard Fairey gives a hint that this guy's down with his times. Go dude, Go!