RICK OWENS~ GET THAT DICK OUTTA MY ASS

What Rick Owens' full-frontal runway show says about us

Basically: we're all afraid of a little dick

Fashion Blogs

Yesterday

• Text Zing Tsjeng 
• Photography Lea Colombo

Backstage at Rick Owens AW15Photography Lea Colombo

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Rick Owens AW15

It takes a lot to shock the fashion world. Buttcrack-revealing trousers? Alexander McQueen did that in the 90s. A model wearing a niqab cut off above her waist to show her crotch? Hussein Chalayan did it in '96. But yesterday, Rick Owens made the front row sit up and pay attention by sending out male models sans underwear in crotch cut-outs and peephole tunics. Alert, alert: penis on the catwalk! Unleash the Dick Owens puns!   

This isn't the first penis sighted on the runway in recent times. Meadham Kirchhoff's SS15 show last year featured a model in semi-sheer black trousers, wang proudly on show. But judging from the column inches alone, you'd be forgiven for thinking Rick Owens was literally shoving nudity in people's faces.

This was male exposure of a very different sort, though. Some audience members failed to notice the junk entirely. As always, it's only in the retelling that the offending members took on larger-than-life proportions.  "I liked that you hardly noticed it," Susie Bubble said. "It wasn't nudity for the sake of nudity. I honestly didn't see until somebody pointed out the dick flaps and the undie holes."

Discreet, tucked away, quiet – these aren't the thrusting phalluses from Tom of Finland. Nor are they the cheery, candy-coloured penis shoes of Walter Van Beirendonck. And they're most definitely not the questionable bulge of Justin Bieber's Calvin Klein campaign. Independent fashion critic Alexander Fury compared one to a "turkey dinosaur".

As cocks go, they're pretty underwhelming. This sentiment was best summed up by one model from the show, who breezily told the Guardian: "It was not a thing at all. Everyone knew what they would be wearing at early fittings... I just noticed it when I looked at the photo board and saw that there were cocks hanging about. Ha!"

So why the fuss, seeing as we live in a world where millions of cocks are only a click away? For that, just look to the immediate online reaction to Rick Owens. Many people took one look and immediately referenced this scene from the Inbetweeners, in which Simon suffers from a wardrobe malfunction during his school's fashion show. He ends up proudly strutting down the runway with one bollock hanging out. Or the scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where Jason Segal drops his towel in shock when his beloved girlfriend dumps him.

In short, male nudity – when it doesn't involve wink-nudge clothed bulges or hard-ons – is always a punchline. It's a joke. We don't have the vocabulary to even talk about cocks without turning into giggly schoolkids (hence the Dick Owens puns). A flaccid penis is something to be ashamed of, laughed at and humiliated. 

The catwalk has always been a social space where debates over sexuality, beauty and expression play out. Owens' show strikes a chord in the current climate. This week, the Sun dumped Page 3, only to triumphantly announce that its topless models were staying for good. Aussie magazine Sticks & Stones has found itself banned from Instagram for uploading a picture of models with pubic hair. Nudity is always political. In 1989, artist Barbara Kruger splashed the words "Your Body Is A Battleground" across a photograph of a woman staring directly at the viewer. That applies to men, too.  

"Nudity is the most simple and primal gesture," Owens said backstage. "It packs a punch. It’s powerful. It’s a straight world now. It says something about being independent. Who else can really get away with this stuff? It’s a corporate world! This was our private moment."

Emphasis on "straight". Owens may have been talking about corporatism in the fashion world, but he's always been interested in enlarging the definitions of sexuality beyond the straight and narrow – you just need to look at his lookbook collaboration with the fetish photographer Rick Castro to see that. And what definition is more straighter and more narrow than the heterosexual man? 

ZOOPHILES VS NEO~NAZIS!?

here is an account of one of the more bizarre conflicts happening in the 21st century~.....

The E.F.A. (EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL)  has initiated the first 'International Zoophile-Rights / Bestiality-Rights Day' this year on February 1st, 2014, and they are reporting a huge international triumph, especially in Berlin where a large successful demonstration took place under heavy police protection due to extensive threats - and a counter-demonstration across the street - by the local Neo-Nazi community. Several similar events are already being planned around the world.

A screening and debate was also planned for that evening in one of Berlin's leading art-house cinemas, and the Neo-Nazis also tried to shut that down with extensive intimidation, but 4 police trucks were there to ensure the safety of the participants and apparently everything went as planned.

The Berlin chief of the Neo-Nazi party was at the demonstration and, based on his Facebook page, seems to have taken up this cause as a top priority.

The local animal-rights community, and mainstream community at large, are now conflicted as to which side to take - that of the zoophiles, whom they believe are abusing their animals, or that of the Neo-Nazis, who they know are abusing humans (who, at the very least, are also animals...).

One leading local animal-rights activist who promised to take part in the post-screening debate to explain his opposition to zoophile-rights, backed out at the very last minute, apparently due to Neo-Nazi intimidation. 

Journalists seem conflicted as to which side to take and have, thus far, refrained from reporting on the Neo-Nazi attempt to intimidate one of the local cinemas and suppress free speech.

READ MORE~

WTF??! who would you side with?

apparently this movement was all inspired by the art film- COMING SOON.

I was given a screener of this film awhile ago and found it not so interesting. 

hardly revolutionary!

'COMING SOON' director-  Sir Tijn Po- 2006

ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE DIED 24 YRS AGO~ TODAY

ON THIS DATE, MARCH 9, 1989 ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE DIED.

 Remembering Robert. In their own voices, friends and peers of Mapplethorpe sit in interview with the author: George Dureau, Edward Lucie-Smith, Holly Solomon, Joel-Peter Witkin, with Camille O'Grady, Miles Everett, and others, covering sex, race, and gender; androgyny; drugs; straight women as muse to gay artists; black men photographed by white photographers; and the popular culture of Robert's wild gay and leather life in the 1960s and 1970s. 312 pages. Hardcover: signed by author~ jack fritscher~ available @ antebellum hollywood

antebellum@earthlink.net

Robert Mapplethorpe (November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men. The frank homoeroticism of some of the work of his middle period triggered a more general controversy about the public funding of artworks, and ended the NEA history of  public funding art in America.

Mapplethorpe was born and grew up as a Roman Catholic of English and Irish heritage in Our Lady of the Snows Parish in Floral Park, Queens, New York. His parents were Harry and Joan Mapplethorpe and he grew up with five brothers and sisters. He studied for a B.F.A. from the Pratt Institute inBrooklyn, where he majored in graphic arts, though he dropped out in 1969 before finishing his degree. Mapplethorpe lived with his partner Patti Smith from 1967 to 1974, and she supported him by working in bookstores. They created art together, and even after he realized he was homosexual, they maintained a close relationship.

Mapplethorpe took his first photographs soon thereafter using a Polaroid camera. In the mid-1970s, he acquired a Hasselblad medium-format camera and began taking photographs of a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, including artists, composers, and socialites. By the 1980s his subject matter focused on statuesque male and female nudes, delicate flower still lifes, and highly formal portraits of artists and celebrities. Mapplethorpe's first studio was at 24 Bond Street in Manhattan. In the 1980s, his mentor and lifetime companion art curator Sam Wagstaff gave him $500,000 to buy the top-floor loft at 35 West 23rd Street, where he lived and had his shooting space. He kept the Bond Street loft as his darkroom.

In the summer of 1989, Mapplethorpe's traveling solo exhibit brought national attention to the issues of public funding for the arts, who defines what is obscene, and what censorship should be acceptable. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., had agreed to be one of the host museums for the tour. Mapplethorpe decided to show his latest series that he explored shortly before his death. Titled Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, it was curated by Janet Kardon of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). The hierarchy of the Corcoran and several members of the U.S. Congress were upset when the works were revealed to them, due to some of the content being homoerotic and sadomasochistically themed. The museum refused the exhibit's stop during the national tour.

In June 1989, pop artist Lowell Blair Nesbitt became involved in the censorship issue. Nesbitt, a long-time friend of Mapplethorpe, revealed that he had a $1.5-million bequest to the museum in his will, but publicly promised that if the museum refused to host the exhibition, he would revoke the bequest. The Corcoran refused and Nesbitt bequeathed the money to the Phillips Collection instead. After the Corcoran refused the Mapplethorpe exhibition, the underwriters of the exhibition went to the nonprofit Washington Project for the Arts, which showed all the images in its space from July 21 to August 13, 1989, to large crowds. In 1990, the Contemporary Arts Center, and Dennis Barrie, were charged with obscenity. They were found not guilty by a jury.

According to the ICA, "The Corcoran's decision sparked a controversial national debate: Should tax dollars support the arts? Who decides what is "obscene" or "offensive" in public exhibitions? And if art can be considered a form of free speech, is it a violation of the First Amendment to revoke federal funding on grounds of obscenity? To this day, these questions remain very much at issue.

POPE BENEDICT XVI TO RESIGN

I don't know about you, but this story smells like a wet monkey... there is much more than meets the eye....

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday that he would resign on Feb. 28 because he was simply too infirm to carry on — the first pontiff to do so in nearly 600 years. The decision sets the stage for a conclave to elect a new pope before the end of March.

The 85-year-old pope announced his decision in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals on Monday morning.

He emphasized that carrying out the duties of being pope — the leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide — requires "both strength of mind and body."

"After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths due to an advanced age are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry," he told the cardinals. "I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only by words and deeds but no less with prayer and suffering.

"However, in today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of St. Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary — strengths which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me."

READ MORE~

BTW~ the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI fits the prophecy of St. Malachi (though controversial, his vision and prediction in 1139 of all the Popes to rule the Catholic church until the end of the world). This resignation of the Pope sets the stage for ~
"Peter the Roman," the architect of the final days of the church on Earth.

Papal EmblemThe Prophecy of the Popes, attributed to Saint Malachy , is a list of 112 short phrases in Latin . They purport to describe each of the Roman Catholic popes (along with a few anti-popes ), beginning with Pope Celestine II (elected in 1143) and concluding with the successor of current pope Benedict XVI , a pope described in the prophecy as "Peter the Roman", whose pontificate will end in the destruction of the city of Rome .
READ MORE~

MARINA ABRAMOVIC IS TOO GOOD FOR LA

ART EDUCATION is badly needed in these troubled american times. just the mere hint of nudity sends these so called "art patrons" scurrying like scared rats... after an incredible tour thru europe and recently new york, renowned artist- MARINA ABRAMOVIC is already receiving flack from art dullards here in LA..
how pathetic... listen people... if nudity scares you... read a fucking art book and take a course in art history.
here's the article~

Yvonne Rainer Denounces Marina Abramovic's Planned MOCA Gala Performance as "Grotesque"

by Julia Halperin

Published: November 11, 2011

The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s annual gala is one of the most highly anticipated events of the fall art season — previous editions have included such headliners as Lady Gaga and guests like Brangelina — and this year it may also be among the most controversial. The November 12 party, which boasts performance artist Marina Abromavic as creative director and musician Debbie Harry as an honoree, is already ruffling some feathers in the local art community. Renowned dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer has written a letter to MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch indicting Abramovic’s planned performance for the event, which she calls “grotesque” and “verg[ing] on economic exploitation.” Sent to the museum director yesterday evening, the complaint was also signed by a number of art figures including Douglas Crimp, Tom Knechtel, and Monica Majoli.

READ MORE-

MICHAEL

people, (americans in particular) go ballistic when it comes to the taboo  subject matter of children and sexuality. of course this is with good reason. sex and children simply don't mix. we as a society have a moral responsibility to protect the innocent, but to ignore/condemn the subject matter does not make it go away. with that said, i highly recommend the new film by director markus schlenzer- MICHAEL   it is the most realistic/honest portrayal of a pedophile/predator i have ever seen. From the outside, 35-year-old Michael leads a seemingly normal life. He's vying for a promotion at the insurance company where he works and goes on vacations to the mountains with friends. But inside Michael's ordinary suburban home, he is hiding a dark and troubling secret. That secret is 10-year-old Wolfgang, who Michael is holding captive in a locked, soundproof room in the basement. In his debut film, director Markus Schleinzer gives us a clinical and unbiased glimpse into five months in Michael and Wolfgang's life together.  Schleinzer strips away moral judgments from the film so all that remains is a portrait of a man, a boy and their interactions. What results is a superbly crafted and suspenseful thriller. this film nor i are condoning the subject matter. "michael"  is a very hard film to watch. you hate michael and feel desperate for the boy. it takes a well-crafted storyteller/ filmmaker to present this highly controversial  topic that truly does explore the human condition. a thoroughly contemporary film... excellent.

Director: Markus Schleinzer Screenwriter: Markus Schleinzer Producer: Nikolaus, Geyrhalter, Markus Glaser, Michael Kitzberger, Wolfgang Widerhofer Director of Photography: Gerald Kerkletz Editor: Wolfgang Widerhofer Production Designer: Katrin Huber, Gerhard Dohr Cast: Michael Fuith, David Rauchenberger

CLARENCE THOMAS- ANOTHER WILL BITE THE DUST!

well this couldn't have happened to a better person....... WASHINGTON -- Democratic lawmakers on Thursday called for a federal investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' failure to report hundreds of thousands of dollars on annual financial disclosure forms. Led by House Rules Committee ranking member Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), 20 House Democrats sent a letter to the Judicial Conference of the United States -- the entity that frames guidelines for the administration of federal courts -- requesting that the conference refer the matter of Thomas' non-compliance with the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 to the Department of Justice. The letter outlines how, throughout his 20-year tenure on the Supreme Court, Thomas routinely checked a box titled "none" on his annual financial disclosure forms, indicating that his wife had received no income. But in reality, the letter states, she earned nearly $700,000 from the Heritage Foundation from 2003 to 2007 alone. Slaughter called it "absurd" to suggest that Thomas may not have known how to fill out the forms. READ MORE- FYI- Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court.

During Thomas's 1991 confirmation hearings to the suprem court, an FBI interview with Anita Hill was leaked. Hill, an attorney, had worked for Thomas at the Department of Education and had subsequently moved with Thomas to the EEOC. After the leak, Hill was called to testify at Thomas's confirmation hearings. She testified that Thomas had subjected her to comments of a sexual nature, which she felt constituted sexual harassment or at least "behavior that is unbefitting an individual who will be a member of the Court."

Hill's testimony included lurid details, and some Senators aggressively questioned her. Thomas denied the allegations, saying: "This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree."

Clarence Thomas is married Virginia Lamp, a lobbyist and aide to Republican Congressman Dick Armey. she is very active in conservative politics, serving as a consultant to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and as founder and president of Liberty Central, an advocacy group associated with the Tea Party movement.

JUST SAY NO, HAS BECOME YES, YES, YES

An unprecedented 1 in 66 Americans is a diagnosed psychotic

By Robert Johnson

Outselling even common drugs to treat high blood pressure and acid reflux, antipsychotic medications are the single top-selling prescription drug in the United States.



Once reserved for hard-core, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest type of mental illnesses to treat hallucinations, delusions or major thought disorders; today, the drugs are handed out to unruly kids and absent minded elderly.

A recent story in Al Jazeera by James Ridgeway of Mother Jones illuminates the efforts by major pharmaceutical companies to get doctors prescribing medicines like Zyprexa, Seroquel, and Abilify to patients for whom the drugs were never intended.

Focusing on psychiatrists because they rely on subjective diagnoses, the drug reps have been so successful that they've changed the criteria for mental illness and disability payments. Ridgeway quotes former New England Journal of Medicine editor Marcia Angell.
"[T]he tally of those who are so disabled by mental disorders that they qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) increased nearly two and a half times between 1987 and 2007 - from one in 184 Americans to one in seventy-six. For children, the rise is even more startling - a thirty-five-fold increase in the same two decades. Mental illness is now the leading cause of disability in children." Under the tutelage of Big Pharma, we are "simply expanding the criteria for mental illness so that nearly everyone has one." Fugh-Berman agrees: In the age of aggressive drug marketing, she says, "Psychiatric diagnoses have expanded to include many perfectly normal people."
Particularly vulnerable because medication decisions are often out of their hands the old and the young suffer most.
For kids: the number diagnosed with bi-polar disorder rose 40-fold between 1994 and 2003 and one in five comes away from a psychiatrist with a prescription for an antipsychotic.

Dosing the elderly at nursing homes has become so common that sales reps have coined the term "five at five" -- meaning 5 milligrams of Zyprexa at 5 pm to sedate difficult residents.

For all their nefarious wrangling, in 2009, Lily agreed to pay $1.4 billion, including a $515 million criminal fine. The largest ever in a health care case and the largest criminal fine on any corporation in the U.S.


That year, Lilly sold $1.8 billion of Zyprexa alone.
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The 15 highest grossing prescription drugs in the U.S.
($9 billion of the total for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, plus $3.2 billion for depression and anxiety.)

15. Oxycontin.
Made by Purdue Pharma. Used as a painkiller for moderate to severe pain .
Gross: $3.0 billion
One-year growth: 6.9%
Five-year growth: 287.5%

14. Avastin
Made by Genentech. Used by cancer patients as part of "tumor-starving" therapy.
Gross: $3.1 billion
One-year growth: 3.3%
Five-year growth: 82.4%

13. Cymbalta
Made by Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY). Used to treat depression and anxiety disorders.
Gross: $3.2 billion
One-year growth: 14.2%
Five-year growth: 166.7%

12. Enbrel
Made by Amgen (AMGN) and Pfizer (PFE). Used to treat inflammatory diseases including arthritis.
Gross: $3.3 billion
One-year growth: 0%
Five-year growth: 6.5%

11. Remicade
Made by Centocor. Used to treat Crohn's Disease and rheumatoid arthritis.
Gross: $3.3 billion
One-year growth: 3.1%
Five-year growth: 32%

10. Epogen
Made by Amgen (AMGN). Used by patients with chronic kidney failure to treat anemia.
Gross: $3.3 billion
One-year growth: 3.1%
Five-year growth: 3.1%

9. Actos
Made by Takeda. Used to treat Type 2 diabetes.
Gross: $3.5 billion
One-year growth: 2.9%
Five-year growth: 34.6%

8. Crestor
Made by AstraZeneca (AZN). Used to reduce cholesterol.
Gross: $3.8 billion
One-year growth: 26.7%
Five-year growth: 192.3%

7. Singulair
Made by Merck. Used to treat asthma.
Gross: $4.1 billion
One-year growth: 10.8%
Five-year growth: 36.7%

6. Seroquel
Made by AstraZeneca (AZN). Used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder .
Gross: $4.4 billion
One-year growth: 4.8%
Five-year growth: 46.7%

5. Abilify
Made by Otsuka and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY). Used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Gross: $4.6 billion
One-year growth: 15%
Five-year growth: 142.1%

4. Advair Diskus
Made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Used to treat asthma symptoms.
Gross: $4.7 billion
One-year growth: 0%
Five-year growth: 20.5%

3. Plavix
Made by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) and Sanofi Pharmaceuticals. Used to prevent blood clots by patients at risk for strokes and heart attacks.
Gross: $6.1 billion
One-year growth: 8.9%
Five-year growth: 110.3%

2. Nexium
Made by AstraZeneca (AZN). Used by patients with acid reflux to treat heart burn.
Gross: $6.3 billion
One-year growth: 0%
Five-year growth: 23.5%

1. Lipitor
Made by Pfizer (PFE). Used to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Gross: $7.2 billion
One-year growth: -5.3%
Five-year growth: -16%

READ MORE-

resposted by kate mcconn- lnglewood/antebellum corespondent

AIDS HITS 30

unfortunately TODAY IS AIDS 30TH BIRTHDAY.
i remember the first time i heard the term AIDS.
origanally called GRID, (gay-related immune disease) a glaring example of homophobia as a matter of fact.

the early years of AIDS were very dark for someone like myself;
a gay young man in my early twenties.
AIDS cast a shadow over my entire life and altered world course forever.

here is some info from APLA-

On Sunday, June 5, we will mark an important milestone in the history of the AIDS epidemic:

It marks 30 years to the day since the first reported case of what would eventually become known as HIV was documented in a briefing issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The briefing explained that five men, all of whom were "active homosexuals," had presented at doctor's offices in Los Angeles with a range of symptoms that seemed very different from any disease that was known at the time.

One of those physicians, Dr. Michael Gottlieb, predicted that this new disease would be "bigger than Legionnaires' disease," which had killed 20,000 at the time.

In fact, Dr. Gottlieb was right: To date, more than 30 million have died of AIDS-related causes worldwide, and over 32,000 have died right here in Los Angeles.

In remembrance of those we've lost over the past 30 years, I ask you to consider taking two action steps right now.

Please visit our Online Memorial Wall and send us an e-mail with the names of friends and loved ones that you have lost to the disease. We will add them to our wall, and then we will display those names at this year's AIDS Walk Los Angeles event on Sunday, October 16.

With deepest appreciation,

Craig E. Thompson
Executive Director
APLA


************************************************
on a more conspiratorial note... here is an opinion by filmmaker
BRENT W. LEUNG & KNOWLDGE MATTERS
about current AIDS testing.