Kige pulls the curtain back on the magic!

If Kige doesn't put a smile on your face, you seriously need to take a look inward. This may be the best thing on the net. Kige Ramsey, who apparently is employed by Youtube, does a newscast every day from his house covering current events. Here are some of his greatest hits -
Kige's take on sports:

Kige's take on consumerism:

Kige's take on social networking (live from the automotive section of Wal-Mart!):

Ron Mueck @ the Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth

This past weekend I went to the Ft. Worth Museum of Modern Art and checked out the featured exhibit - Scupltures by Ron Mueck. Ron Mueck is an Australian born artist who lives in England and creates incredibly realistic sculptures of people complete with silicon skin and human hair. If you have an opportunity to get to Ft. Worth and check it out, I highly recommend it. The sculptures look so fragile and realistic that you think they are gonna come to life, which I am convinced they do in the middle on the night, while the museum is closed. He uses scale to express emotion in his sculptures, some are 2 ft. tall, others are 10 ft. Ron Mueck was creature creator for Jim Henson productions, his more notable works include the awesome film, The Dark Crystal and also The Labrynth.
You can see some of that likeness in his sculptures, here are some of the works you'll find at the exhibit:
This is his self-portrait:

Wow... She is hot.

In case you haven't been blessed with genius of Miss South Carolina... "South Africa, The Iraq, everywhere like, such as."

Dark Side of Whooville.

This is Rich Aucoin's debut album, Personal Publication which he made to sync up with the 1966 How The Grinch Stole Christmas. It's really pretty cool, the album sounds pretty solid on it's own as well.

What do Larry the Cable Guy and Bear Grylls have in common?

Have a look at this... this is Dan Whitney, otherwise known as Larry the Cable Guy before he found his bit.
And look at this:
Bear Grylls from the very popular Man Vs. Wild, apparently his dangerous brushes with death in the wild were probably in a drainage ditch behind a Home Depot somewhere. So who's the bigger asshole? This is Matt Fraser for YouTube News.

Going to see Rush!

This is a big weekend for me - going to see Rush at Smirnoff. I have been into Rush every since I was 12 and my fascination in this awesome power trio has only grown over time. I have not been this excited about a concert since I was 18 and about to see my first Dave concert. I imagine it's going to be an awesome scene as well... plenty good people watching to do.

First and only show of the summer! Come early, be loud, stay late. No cover.

Okkervil River :: The Stage Names

One of my favorite bands is Austin's own Okkervil River. Their new album just came out on Monday, and it has officially bumped the new Wilco album out of the first slot of the CD changer in the Stay Classy wagon. Will Sheff, the uber-talented front man of Okkervil River has a very interesting narrative style of writing lyrics. The songs are all about specific situations, they are not really the kind of songs that are left to your interpretation. They are kind of similar to The Decemberists in that aspect, but Okkervil's music is darker and the stories are more intimate - plus Will's voice is soaked in emotion and has a kind of haunting quality to it.
I am really surpised they haven't yet been shuttled into the spotlight amongst the ranks of The Shins, Wilco, etc. Some of my personal favorite moments on this album are "Unless It Kicks" - which kind of has a jivy Strokes-esque quality to it, and also "John Allyn Smith Sails", which my buddy Shaner pointed out to me earlier today - which starts off a soft finger-picking acoustic kind of pop song and eventually morphs into a pretty awesome cover of a Beach Boys standard, really interesting.
As well as being an incredibly talented musician, Will Sheff is also an amazing artist. A while ago I came across his flickr account and his work is really interesting and disturbingly beautiful. You can check out his work here: Will Sheff's art.
Here are some of my favorites, he does a lot of work on scratchboards which is a very difficult medium to work in. His work inspired my to start painting on scratchboards myself, although I am still trying to ge the hang of it.
This one is mixed media and it was used as the cover to their most recent EP.Here are a couple of his scratchboards -
Will also did the cross-stitch cover of the album above, super talented person. I don't know where the finds the time to do so much art.
Here is a sample off the new album. You'll love it, available on itunes.
Okkervil River :: Unless It Kicks

Superbad has serious potential.

This is pretty great. Like seeing George Michael finding other avenues to showcase his comic genius.

Oh my God.

This happened last night, this guy shouldn't be walking.

Get Ready.

Thanks to Cody for sending the link.