My pal Aaron Muszalski has just announced Burning Wish, a wonderful new nonprofit that grants Burning Man tickets to cancer patients or survivors. He writes:

Do you know a cancer patient or survivor who’s always wanted to go to Burning Man?

🔥 We’re especially looking for first-time burners who’ve already decided to attend this year, but still need tickets. 🔥

Refer a friend or apply yourself at https://goo.gl/forms/6Cri3CscOn82bZXg1

Burning Man isn’t for everyone — the event takes place in the Nevada desert, where temperatures can exceed 100° F — but there are ways to minimize many of those challenges. For patients who are physically well enough to make the trip, the experience can be incredibly transformative and empowering.

My name is Aaron Muszalski. I’m a longtime burner and recent cancer survivor. Attending Burning Man during my treatment gave me the strength I needed to successfully complete chemotherapy. I’m now NED (“No Evidence of Disease”) and want to share the magic of Black Rock City with others facing this disease.

Burning Wish’s mission is to help connect fellow cancer patients and their loved ones with the resources they need to experience the burn safely — medically AND emotionally.

We’re also looking for volunteers. If you’d like to support this project in any way please tell us more about yourself at https://goo.gl/forms/7Glz3WwqcSDLTUju2

Tired of ordinary, janky water guns?

Well, inventor Sebastian Walter of Munich, Germany has made something for you. He's shaking up the water gun industry with his high-tech Spyra One. He and his team's $133 water gun isn't exactly for child's play though.

The Verge:

The Spyra One doesn’t shoot a stream of water; it shoots precisely measured bursts of “water bullets” that the company claims can clearly and accurately hit targets up to 25 feet away.

There’s an integrated pump that lets you refill the tank just by dunking the front of the Spyra One into a pool, lake, or bucket of water. It takes about 14 seconds to refill. There’s no pumping, either. That same pump keeps the tank pressurized so you’re able to start spraying water. But things get truly ridiculous with my favorite feature: a display that features a digital ammo counter that feels more at home on a futuristic rifle from Halo than an actual water gun.

...the Spyra One also features a rechargeable battery, which the company says should last for around 45 fill cycles before you’ll need to recharge.

When you do need to juice up the Spyra One, you’ll do so by plugging in a — wait, that can’t be right — a standard USB-C cable...

The Spyra One isn't available in stores, only through Kickstarter. So far, over 2,000 backers are willing to wait until August 2019 (or longer) for their fancy high-tech water gun, well surpassing the original $58,050 goal. Read the rest

Ever wonder how the dusty blank slate of the Black Rock Desert becomes Burning Man's Black Rock City each year?

Well, my pal Shalaco has started vlogging and in his latest video he gives an interesting glimpse into this process by talking to the Survey crew as they create it. It's a really beautiful piece!

On the Burning Man Journal, he writes, "One impossible aspect about Black Rock City, and part of the nature of a city that is born every year, is that you can visit it at different times in its growth and development. Each and every year I visit, Black Rock City it is younger and younger. You can never visit New York when it was a colony or San Francisco before the gold rush, but you can do that with Black Rock City."

[Cue the music]

It all starts from here. The center of Black Rock City, the Man it all starts as and radiates from The Octagon. #BuildingBRC #BRCsurvey

A post shared by shalaco (@shalaco) on Aug 2, 2018 at 4:20pm PDT

This is 7:00 & E. @phoenixfirestarter, Ankhor & Athibat use Euclidian geometry to square off the intersections along 7:00. This year intersections are smaller to encourage interaction. #buildingBRC #BRCSurvey

A post shared by shalaco (@shalaco) on Aug 3, 2018 at 5:01pm PDT

“The Lines” extend from the center of Black Rock City over a mile to the outer streets flagging the intersections of the annular city streets #BRCSurvey #BuildingBRC

A post shared by shalaco (@shalaco) on Aug 4, 2018 at 9:38am PDT

At Weezer's show at The Forum in Los Angeles Wednesday, Weird Al got onstage mid-song to join the band in a cover of Toto's 1982 hit "Africa." You may remember that a 14-year-old recently convinced Weezer to cover "Africa."

So, this just happened. (Thanks, @Weezer.) pic.twitter.com/DIt5Sf25Vz

— Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) August 9, 2018

Billboard:

"We're gonna take you on a distant voyage," promised singer Rivers Cuomo, who was sporting a classic sleeveless Nirvana T-shirt and rocking a flying V guitar. "To the continent of your choosing... where do you kids want to go tonight?" The question was rhetorical, of course, as "Africa" has become the highlight of the band's sets on their current co-headlining tour with The Pixies. Just moments after the crowd shouted "AFRICA!!!," the band kicked into the song's familiar heat mirage intro and Cuomo awkwardly played some air drums and then, just after the third verse, it happened.

"Weird Al" wandered out on stage in his signature Hawaiian shirt, his accordion at the ready to rip off a wicked solo. Al joined in on the chorus and finished it off with an accordion/guitar riff-off with Cuomo. And then, officially, summer was over.

Bloomberg Businessweek asked eight designers to come up with logos for Trump's inane "Space Force." Milton Glaser nailed it.

The image represents the relentless intrusion of our president in every aspect of our lives and future. The image can be read as his next conquest or simply that there is very little inside that skull.

I <3 Milton Glaser.

Previously: A 'Space Force' recruitment video via Jimmy Kimmel

(Daring Fireball, One Foot Tsunami) Read the rest

In a recent Rolling Stone interview, DEVO's Mark Mothersbaugh talks about the second time he and the band met The Rolling Stones:

In the book, you had a great story about meeting Mick Jagger, and he listened to your “Satisfaction” and he said he loved it because his manager told him to say that. Did you ever run into him again?

Mothersbaugh: Oh, my God, yeah. About three years later, we were recording at the Power Station and they were remixing old songs downstairs. And this old guy with a big, fat sweater and gray hair came upstairs and said, “Would someone here play synthesizer on a song for my band?” And I look at him and it was Charlie Watts. So I went downstairs and there was more marijuana than I’d ever seen in my life. Everybody got super stoned. And there was a vocoder that we’d borrowed from Bob Moog to use on the album. I didn’t have a microphone with a quarter-inch jack for it, so I got Mick to put a set of headphones on sideway so one of the earpieces was over his mouth. He sang into it while I played notes on a keyboard into the vocoder.

Read the rest: Devo on How ‘Whip It’ Changed Their Lives, Meeting the Rolling Stones

Hey! DEVO's got a new two-in-one book, "Unmasked" and "The Brand." Read one, flip it over to read the other.

Previously: The real meaning behind DEVO's Energy Dome helmets Read the rest

On Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld drives famous comedians to various eateries to interview them over coffee.

Now he's leaving humorous reviews about the restaurants he's visited on his show, reports Uproxx.

Jerry and his guests give off a ‘coffee is coffee’ vibe as the show has always been more about comedians and cars than quality coffee. Until today. In a brilliant move of self-promotion, Jerry is now uploading his own reviews to Google Maps about some of the locations seen this season.

The reviews are delightfully weird, but undeniably Jerry...

Here's a taste of what he's shared so far:

(RED) Read the rest

"Can't take the insanity anymore?" asks the official trailer for Michael Moore's newest feature-length documentary Fahrenheit 11/9.

Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 11/9" is a provocative and comedic look at the times in which we live. It will explore the two most important questions of the Trump Era: How the f**k did we get here, and how the f**k do we get out? It's the film to see before it's too late.

Hollywood Reporter:

"People should not come expecting that it will 90 minutes of jokes about Donald Trump," TIFF Docs programmer Thom Powers told The Hollywood Reporter, while adding Fahrenheit 11/9 is also timely as it comes before the U.S. midterm elections. "There's a critique of Donald Trump, but there's a broader critique of the American political system that will surprise many people," he added.

The trailer to my new movie, “FAHRENHEIT 11/9”, was just made public a few minutes ago! “FAHRENHEIT 11/9” is in theaters EVERYWHERE in the US and Canada on SEPTEMBER 21st! Watch here: https://t.co/lrsZzIQP4U

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) August 9, 2018

Previously: Michael Moore shares details of his new anti-Trump documentary with Stephen Colbert Read the rest

Stepping into a wardrobe was the way to get into Narnia. Stepping into the blue portable toilet (in a row of green ones) was the way get into a hidden rave at UK's Eastern Electrics Festival. Are they implying the DJ's shitty?

#EasternElectrics pic.twitter.com/GgriaaDIak

— Persandwichman (@persandwichman) August 5, 2018

And, this isn't the first time this has been done. A music festival in Hungary did this last year:

Read the rest

In a small village in Michigan, you can catch a ride in the "Amish Uber."

This new-fangled horse-and-buggy ride service was started by Timothy Hochstedler, a resident of Colon, Michigan.

Local21new.com:

"Uber is a cool thing, every single year something new comes in and Uber is hot right now, so we have the Amish Uber. We can deliver people to their front door steps," Hochstedler said.

A ride in the "Amish Uber" costs just five bucks. But, you'll have to flag Hochstedler down to get one because he doesn't actually work for Uber. Read the rest

Marine biologist Greg Skomal got quite a scare while doing shark research off the coast of Cape Cod. While standing out at the end of a research vessel's pulpit, a shark breached out of the ocean directly under him. He yelled, "Did you see that?! Did you see that?! It came right up and opened its mouth right at my feet!" Skomal works for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and was out filming sharks, using a GoPro camera attached to a long pole, for the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy.

While out on research trips, we've seen white sharks breach and we've received multiple reports of breaching white sharks this year from fishermen and boaters. While encounters like this one are rare, this video shows that they’re certainly possible. White sharks are wild and unpredictable animals. This is a good reminder of the importance of not becoming complacent and always staying vigilant when in or on the water.

Thanks, Swainer! Read the rest

OMG, what did I just watch?!

Rolling Stone:

Neko Case’s anthropomorphic, animated genitals enjoy a corndog with Mark Lanegan’s top hat-adorned penis in the new video for “Curse of the I-5 Corridor.” The song appears on Case’s seventh solo LP Hell-On, which Rolling Stone named one of the 50 Best Albums of 2018 So Far.

Stay weird, you two. Read the rest

The Hollywood studio that crushed Lance Bass' dream of buying the Brady Bunch house has been revealed. It's HGTV. But the amount they paid has not yet been disclosed.

'N Sync singer Lance Bass ... was “heartbroken” when his deal fell through after the bidding deadline. In an Instagram post, he wrote that an undisclosed corporate buyer wanted the house "at any cost."

Bass doesn't seem to have any hard feelings, though. In a tweet published Tuesday, the singer explained, "How can you be mad at HGTV? My television is stuck on that channel." He added, "Kudos, HGTV. I know you will do the right thing with the house. That was always my biggest worry. I can smile again."

Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced the sale Tuesday morning:

“One of our projects for HGTV will speak to those Brady Bunch fans on the call... You may have heard that the house from the iconic series was recently on the market in California. I’m excited to share that HGTV is the winning bidder and will restore the Brady Bunch home to its 1970s glory as only HGTV can. More detail to come over the next few months but we’ll bring all the resources to bear to tell safe, fun stories about this beloved piece of American TV history.”

Buy, buy, buy.

Previously:

Here's the story of how 'N Sync's Lance Bass won and then lost the Brady Bunch house

For Sale: The real-life Brady Bunch house

(The Wrap) Read the rest

UK artist Lucy Sparrow is back with a new shopping opportunity for lovers of her fantastic felt products.

Until August 31, at The Standard hotel in downtown Los Angeles, Sparrow is showing her most ambitious exhibit yet: the Sparrow Mart Supermarket. This is her fifth and largest all-felt installation (it features 31,000 handmade products) and her first West Coast one.

She writes, "As a child, I was obsessed with the exotic, turbo-charged technicolour glow emanating from across the Atlantic. The source of this neon rainbow was Los Angeles – a seemingly mythical place to a child growing up in grey, post-recession Britain – and one that has hugely influenced my artistic practice. Thanks to the amazing team at The Standard, Downtown, the felt is finally coming home to the city of endless possibilities and colour.”

The store is quite spectacular. There's aisles of handmade awesomeness, including a felt ATM, as you can see here:

According to Sparrow (in this video), it took her and five assistants exactly one year to create all the items in the shop.

Special thanks to my friend Michael Fleming for the heads up on this! I hope I can get myself down to LA before the end of the month to check it out for myself. For those of you who don't know, I'm a Fluff superfan (long story). So, when Michael texted me from the store to see if I wanted one of Sparrow's felt Fluff jars, I was ecstatic. He delivered it today and it already as a special spot in the Fluff section of my trophy case. Read the rest

From light to dark, affordable high-heeled shoes are available in a variety of skin tones from British retail brand Marks and Spencer (M&S).

French shoe designer Christian Louboutin first brought "nude" shoes, in seven shades, to the market in 2017, but the collection was very pricey.

Pep rally! Christian Louboutin extends his groundbreaking Nudes collection with the introduction of two new summer-ready styles, each available in a full spectrum of seven shades of nude. Discover the new nudes via the link in our bio.

A post shared by Christian Louboutin (@louboutinworld) on Jun 28, 2017 at 10:02am PDT

Now, M&S is offering six "vegan friendly" (which is code for "not leather") shades of stilettos for approximately $33/pair.

Not everyone is impressed, however:

(TAXI) Read the rest

In Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You, there's a protest scene where there's a 12-foot-tall "Steve Lift Fucking a Horse" sculpture. It's hard to miss!

Well, come to find out, my badass friend Spy Emerson (whose Hook Up Truck made international news a few years back) is the artist who created it. And now I've learned, on Boots' request, she's made a mini version of the sculpture to sell.

If you want to get on your hands it, you can find her on Instagram or Patreon. Or you can reach her through her website.

Throwback to filming last summer. SO MUCH LOVE to @bootsriley #sorrytobotheryou

A post shared by Spy Emerson (@spy.emerson) on Jul 15, 2018 at 4:30pm PDT

Spy shared with me that she clocked in 130 hours during filming last summer, as both an artist and a performer, and appears in the movie as a member of the Left Eye girl gang (in the photo below, she's the one in the goggles). In one scene she said that she's wearing an old punk t-shirt of hers from high school that reads, "Stay Warm, Burn the Rich."

Left Eye is ready.#SorryToBotherYou

Go see it now. pic.twitter.com/7nsBZeTKGO

— Boots Riley (@BootsRiley) August 3, 2018

Read the rest

This is brilliant. Make sure your sound is on.

Twisted Sifter writes:

The Internet has a penchant for taking things, adding to them and making them funnier, quirkier or even more bizarre. In this instance, we’ll go with all three. Apparently this was found on a now defunct Tumblr page, so the creator looms large and anonymous.

For those unfamiliar, the audio is ‘Immigrant Song’ by Led Zeppelin...

Here's the original bird video, sans the Zeppelin upgrade:

Not sure of source but oh my god????? pic.twitter.com/7z87zRoUzO

— Kirsten Howard (@emotionalpedant) July 30, 2018

Read the rest