KAWASAKI DICK - JAPAN'S KANAMARA FESTIVAL

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When spring comes a youth's thoughts naturally turn to fertility, and at the Kanamara Matsuri in Kawasaki Japan those thoughts then turn to giant penis parades and genital candy. 

The annual fertility festival, held traditionally in the cherry blossom season since the Edo era (1603-1868), is said to encourage fertility and bring harmony to married couples. In recent times the festival has been used to raise awareness of AIDS prevention. 

But as reported at the Travel website, the festival also attracts some less than reverent fans of fertility. During the festival a few years back the apparently intoxicated spokesperson for some ladies of the US Navy stated, "We came here for the cock. My husband's in Iraq right now, defending our country, so it's the only cock I'm going to get." Go USA! Keepin' it real!

We here at NYD want to thank the farsighted Shinto priests that made this delightful display possible. For more info on these beautiful and bonerific festivals take a look at these terrific sites. Go for the spirituality, stay for the naughty schoolgirls.

In Japan for the Penis Festival 
Top 10 Japanese Penis Festival Souvenirs  
Kanamara Matsuri 
Hōnen Matsuri 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEFACEMENT - BANKSY, SECOND POINT

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A second insightful quote from one of the our most articulate and interesting street artists, Banksy. As the artist states in the book Wall and Piece:

The people who truly deface our neighborhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface but you're never allowed to answer back. Well, they started the fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back.

The smug ease that characterizes the presentation of advertising messages truly begs for defacement. Clever, smart-ass or plain idiotic, all commenters and doodlers should feel free to enter a public dialog with our friends in the advertising biz, they love their own talk — they just assume that anyone who talks back won't be heard. 

Using mockery to interact with public sales pitches is a reasonable form of speech and a proportionate response to the pushiness and power of the ad biz, but exercise caution free-speachers, sometimes a reasonable response can get you disproportionately arrested. 

SHEPARD FAIREY STATES THAT HE WILL OBEY

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Last week the world of graffiti (and plagiarism, contempt) was reintroduced to the cold slap of the law when street artist/entreprenuer Shepard Fairey chose to plead guilty to a charge of contempt of federal court instead of, oh, maybe going to the big house for an unpleasant stretch. This ain't no sticker crap, this ain't no plagiarism, this ain't no fuckin' around.

"Violating the court's trust was the worst thing I have ever done in my life," Fairey stated. "I was ashamed as I did all these things, and I remain ashamed." Ashamed as you did them, really? Are you sure you didn't just think you were too famous and slick to get nailed?

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara (by the way, this guy's no bullshit, most days his team is sending Al Qaeda terrorists and pirates up the river, seriously, pirates!) said in a statement Friday that Fairey "went to extreme lengths to obtain an unfair and illegal advantage in his civil litigation, creating fake documents and destroying others in an effort to subvert the civil discovery process." Subverter, you!

Assistant US Attorney Daniel Levy told Judge Maas that the US would ask for “some term of imprisonment.” Ouch, we're not even going to try to be clever about this one.

This case, and the circumstances that led to Fairy's guilty plea is truly convoluted and interesting. It clearly raises then totally blurs issues of creativity and "borrowing" of content in this modern world, subversion of authority, copyright, fraud, evidence and witness tampering, and document forgery by a respected graphic artist. If only someone would turn up dead we would have a Law and Order episode on our hands.

But before the subpoenas start flying we at NYD would like to mention a few things. First — for the benefit of Shepard and his supporters; Fairey's work really is beautiful and resonant, and all graphic-istas respect his innovation and accomplishment, and we here at NYD wish him good luck with this situation. Second — for the benefit of all graffitists and street artists; let's all be careful about this stuff, and if you plan on getting world famous be willing to share a bit of the wealth and don't try to scam the federal attorney's office. And third — for the benefit of NYD; we would like to mention a few things regarding why we should not be sued or brought into federal court for using a somewhat "appropriated graphic" to lend visual appeal to this article.

The above graphic is a parody intended to illustrate the content of this article and in no way is attempting to present itself as a wholly original artistic creation. We assume (but cannot prove) that the copyright for the general appearance of the above graphic resides with Shepard Fairey the creator of the original graphic publicly known as "Obey the Giant." We at NYD respectfully request that the legal team working on behalf of "Obey the Giant" be fair about our use of this moderately original creation and not sue us and fabricate documents to accomplish whatever weird thing they might be trying to accomplish.

We further assume (but cannot prove) that the true credit for the "sans serif bold italic on red band" portion of the graphic as a known element of popular culture is the creation of Barbara Kruger. Additionally we assume that the basic look "black and white cropped face photo with stark graphics consisting of red bands with white type" is also a cultural artifact originally popularized by Kruger. We at NYD respectfully request that the legal team working on behalf of Barbra Kruger not sue us on a charge of secondary theft, or something.

The "Fairey face graphic" contained in the above graphic is based on an illustration by Rob Dobi, which we assume (but cannot prove) is based on a photo by a "human photographer" unknown to us. The illustration was seen, copied, heavily modified and reconceptualized by the team at NYD. NYD offers to pay a royalty (not to exceed 5% of the net profits earned by NYD) made by the selling merchandise showing the above graphic (which almost without doubt will never happen) to the holder of the copyright to the Rob Dobi image and to the holder of the copyright of the original photo, if one exists. We at NYD respectfully request that the legal team working on behalf of Rob Dobi and the unknown "human photographer" not sue us on a charge of some sort of plagiarism, loss of income, or whatever.

For more information on this case please take a look at the Associated Press story (picked up by USA Today, full disclosure please!) Fairey, Simpsons, and Banksy-esque! Wow! Another take on recent Fairey developments is available at The Washington Post. Lastly, in case you are interested in the views of someone who is not too impressed with the artist in question, take a look at the website Art for a Change (gotta keep it fair-and-balanced, or at least interesting, and the lefty graphics are really nice!)

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEFACEMENT - BANKSY, FIRST POINT

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Some people are not interested in explanations or excuses regarding graffiti defacements. We here at NYD are fine with simply presenting the scribbles and scrawls of New Yorkers without making much of a case for why they happen and why we like them (although our book New York Dick does feature some ramblings along those lines.) But for the sake of those who are unconvinced that advertising posters deserve what they get, we here present the first in a series of comments making the case for defacements. 

The street-culture-interaction artist known as Banksy, who produces moving and beloved work around the world, also produces excellent explanations of why we should feel free to modify the cooperate world's verbal and visual statements aimed at us. In the book Wall and Piece Banksy describes "Brandalism" and accounts for legitimate graphic responses to it:

Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep the rock someone just threw at your head.

Though many of the poster defacers in NYC have not heard of Banksy they would probably agree with his comments. Their output is not always as clever as his, but their heart (or dick, or snarky remark) is in the right place, clearly in harmony with his philosophy of wholesome resistance to loathsome marketing.

NYD greatly appreciates the clear and compelling statements Banksy makes, whether stenciled on a wall or not, and we hope that creative confrontation with advertising continues to blanket subway posters. We also hope the defacers of NYC don't get too arty and abandon the graphic language of peckers, broken teeth and zombie eyes (probably no danger here.) Thanks for keepin' it real NYC, and thanks Banksy for keepin' it lucid.

CONCEPT; GRITTY DEFACEMENT - EFFECT; SHITTY ANNOYANCE

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The above example of advertising in a fake real/gritty style shows that the circle of life for cultural memes is part snowball effect and part turd polishing effect. 

We at NYD love rude ad defacements including all flavors of beard and mustache mockery, but when the ad itself tries to yuck it up with us with canned defacements it's just smug and annoying. Like your uncle Herman showing you his mad beatboxing skills, it's not really an honest homage, he just sort of thinks you're an idiot. 

Ad agencies are always on the look-out for ways to "relate" to the "real" and "gritty" if they think that their market might be turned on by that. For more cleverness take a look at this ad tarted-up by a faux penis defacement, ahh the brilliance! To see a few examples of real mustache defacements (and get some info on the end of the career of "mustache man") take a look at this NYD site entry.