Archive for the ‘General’ Category

The Spanish BLF Strike! Olè!

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008

I received a communique through diplomatic channels from our Spanish operatives. The improved the message of the official radio station of the Catholic Church. Well done, sir!

Photo and communique follows

somos-libres-corrected.jpg

Hi mates,
The COPE is the Catholic Church Official Radio Station. As we have a progressive government, they try to remark their freedom of speech with billboards which say ‘SOMOS LIBRES’ (english ‘WE ARE FREE’). These billboards are specially offensive for those that are being attacked publicly (thru radio waves) for deffending Muslims’ rights or methods of birth control such as condoms. So some members of the recently founded Iniciativa Illuminati decided to liberate this particular bill (Industry Street, Avilés, Asturias, Spain) by simply drawing, cutting out, sticking and varnish grey cards (letters) to it. We added ‘vosotros no’ (english ‘you aren’t’). So now you can read:

WE ARE FREE
you aren’t COPE

My name is M. DeRosi, Illuminati Initiative spokesman

Completely UNFOCUSed

Tuesday, August 14th, 2007

The bulk of our email communications are from media students doing a report on culture jamming. Occasionally the BLF get asked to speak at conferences or art shows, but I have to say this invitation caused us to soil our monitor with a hearty spray of coffee.

Emphasis ours, blinding gall theirs.

International Design Firm IDEO (www.ideo.com) is conducting an UNFOCUS group on COMMUNICATION in our Palo Alto location on Wednesday August 15th from 6:00-9:30pm. You will be compensated for your time with yummy dinner plus $100.

YOU ARE:
* You use new media for social change.
* You organize Smart Mobs
* You are a politically subversive or artistic grassroots organizer.
* You are an artist who does public space media events that are confusing or inspirational (street theater… Dada…)
* You are from the Bilboard Liberation Front
* You are a TV show super-fanatic! Your life revolves around a particular TV show. You have every episode AND you also watch it on your laptop, iPod, or TV depending.
* You are an extreme soap opera fan, Buffy maniac, or SciFi fanatic! You go to conventions in support of this lifestyle you also participate in on-line forums about them too!
* You are a Hyper-Wired person – You talk on phone while texting somebody else all the time.
* You are College Student who is a Hyper-Wired person!
* You run a LARGE online community ˆ mega blogger/myspace/freindster type. You have tons of friends online BUT you also have friends that you meet with in person as well
* You are an Ambulance driver or ER Doctor ˆ communication and technology are key
* You are a mom with the latest technology. Your family embraces technology to the extreme.

If interested please take a few minutes to fill out the below survey and send to {redacted}@ideo.com:
(all information will be confidential) {uh..sure -Ed}
Name:
Age:
Ethnicity:
Phone:
Cell Phone:
Address/Location:
Level of Education:
Married/Live-In/Single/Divorced:
Number of Children and Ages:
Do your children live with you?
Occupation:
Job Title:
Describe in DETAIL how you fit into the criteria above?
Can you make it to Palo Alto by 6pm on Wednesday the 15th?

Feel free to forward this to folks you know who might be a good fit for our unfocus group!
Thank you for your time,
[redacted to save you from yourself]

So of course I replied:

YOU ARE:
* Out of your fucking mind.

Most of us are in Marketing, you think I want to trek down to the Peninsula so I can sit in on the same meeting I was nodding off at around 3pm for $100 and pasta salad? If you need someone to tell your clients what the kids nowadays are calling ‘hip’, I suggest AdBusters Magazine. Its run by Media Studies hacks and design student interns who dream of running to a comfy agency job the minute the bill from Miami Ad School comes.

covertly yours,
Milton Rand Kalman
BLF Chief Scientist

Listen to the NPR Interview

Thursday, May 18th, 2006


photo credit: NPR

Billboard Liberation Front’s Chief Scientist Milton Rand Kalman spent a half-hour at Artist Television Access being interviewed on Neighborhood Public Radio. Listen to the Milton talk about culture jamming, history of the BLF, Pirate Cat Radio taunting Live105, and what it takes to improve a billboard here {mp3}.

Update: Neighborhood Public Radio needs donations to keep going. Click to make a donation and chip in $10

April 29th, BLF will be on NPR..sorta

Tuesday, April 25th, 2006

Well not the NPR, the Billboard Liberation Front will be interviewed by Neighborhood Public Radio in the storefront of Artist’s Television Access. Neighborhood Public Radio is “an independent, artist-run radio project committed to providing an alternative media platform for artists, activists, musicians, and community members.” and named “‘Best Super Local Radio Station’ by San Francisco Magazine“. The interview will happen 4:30 to 5pm before the screening of Popaganda, the documentary on Ron English featuring the BLF.

So come on down to ATA at 992 Valencia Street in SF, learn the secret BLF handshake and watch the interview. Q&A session with BLF Founder and Chair Emeritus, Jack Napier and Chief Scientist, Milton Rand Kalman to follow after movie.

BLF on 106.9 FM

Tuesday, February 7th, 2006

No One’s Listening has posted a recording from Friday’s radio interview on Free FM 106.9. Click to listen.

BLF to be interview on 106.9 FM

Thursday, February 2nd, 2006

Listen to FREE 106.9 FM at 11pm-12am Friday, February 3rd to hear Milton Rand Kalman, BLF Chief Scientist and BLF founder, Jack Napier get interviewed on NoOnesListening by host Irene McGee.

months later…….. Ronald McEnglish cont….

Saturday, December 17th, 2005

So, the four of us got to the van which was parked two and a half blocks from the board. Freeman quickly applied the magnetic “VIACOM” sign plates to the doors and off we sped. Hours earlier, while the clowns were applying make-up & the security team was talking into paper bags, we had a bit of a scare when a Viacom pickup stopped at the board, a guy got out, hung a swing ladder on the board and climbed up. Visions of a high-tech Viacom/SFPD/NSA/Interpol sting operation began percolating in my feverish brain. They had just forgotten to flip the switch on the sat-uplink surveillance system cleverly disguised as block of wood bracing the back side of the board and sent out a man to quickly arm the system. Maybe for the last several months, the MAN was bugging our phones, monitoring secret BLF emails on our protected comm-links…… lying in wait to spring their carefully seeded trap and finally, in a flash of dramatic and decisive action, the multi-agency task force swoops, cornering the criminal masterminds on the billboard!! Look at me Ma! TOP OF THE WORLD!!! as we go down in a hail of bullets, Cala-Food shoppers used as human shields! Yeah, right. I’ve come to the conclusion, over the years that THEY don’t seem to give much of a shit bout us forlorn billboard improvers.

The ad agencies swipe our ideas without paying us, the companies that “own” the boards see us a minor annoyance, akin perhaps to the cumulative negative impact of pigeons & seabirds pooping on their billboards, the cops are way too busy trying to avoid lawsuits and punitive administrative actions to actually pay attention to what’s happening on the streets – criminal-wise and the general public just assumes that no matter how outrageous our improvement might be – it’s just advertising as usual. For a bunch of attention seeking media-whores, maybe we should have chosen another field, perhaps something like farting out the 1812 Overture. At least we could get on Howard Stern. What’s a “Reality Hacker” to do when there is no more reality? As it turned out the worker guy was just applying the SF sign code numerals on the top of the board.

Well, there is always the adventure: the metallic taste of adrenaline in your parched mouth – blood pounding in your temples as though a turbine for some colossal dam had been shrunk down & implanted in the cavern of your skull, the insane slowing down of time to the point where your actions and all movements of others and the world around you seem to be encased in a solid block of acrylic and displayed in some SOMA gallery, the fluid way your actions seamlessly coincide with your team while carrying out the hit despite the improbability of it all. more later.

Webzine 2005

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005

I enjoyed talking at Webzine this year. I was expecting more a technical talk, which is my expertise but instead is was more of an academic discussion of culture jamming which Jack Napier is better at, I could care less about. We are not the spokescriminals for the culture of culture jamming or concepts of ‘taking back public space‘. The less ads, the less target; the fewer targets, the fewer opportunities to sneak around like a ninja and improve boards.

q: So where is the pleasure in that?
a: There isn’t any.

If you did attend, I hope you got something out of it. If there was a question you wanted to ask but didn’t have the time or because you completely missed the panel you can always contact us, but if you want to learn how to do improvements there is always our Manual {which I desperately need to update} or if you a media grad student with questions it’s best to consult our Manifesto and read our previous interviews.

Covertly Yours,
Milton Rand Kalman
BLF Chief Scientist

Welcome Boing Boing Users

Monday, September 19th, 2005

We have just added WordPress to our site and haven’t quite geared up writing much yet, but get on our RSS feed to keep up-to-date on our activities. If you would like us to discuss something on the site us our contact page and suggest a topic for us to discuss.

And don’t forget if you’re in the SF Bay Area stop by the Red Vic this Friday or Webzine and say hello and learn our secret handshake.

covertly yours,
Milton Rand Kalman

ps. we don’t really have a secret handshake.

Jack Speaks

Friday, September 16th, 2005

Well, the damn blog is up now (thanks Milton!) and so there is no excuse for not writing some drivel or other – got bully pulpit, should use. I painfully drag my aging ego up the tech stairway one step at a time; up, forcing myself to at least try and stay current with last years (or the years before) new communication tools. Typing was a tough one. I avoided it for years. Didn’t take it in high school; avoided needing it much for work.. back in the day a sign man didn’t need to type in order to communicate. Then there was the personal computer. I rationalized why I would never need one. I thought I had a pretty good argument. It crumbled (my luddite stance) slowly over time. First there were ever expanding email requirements for certain work related situations. Then I discovered that inbetween the 95% useless stuff on the internet you could actually use it as a research tool. Then I discovered you could look at naked women for free. Shit. Cell phones came along – no brainer- I got one pretty early, not much after getting the first computer. Communication became more unavoidable over time: tribe, friendster, fiendster… these non-essential communication avenues I’ve avoided. I can only communicate so much. This blog thing, I’ll give it a try, I suppose. I’ve been told that I can tell a story. I have a few. Billboard work has it’s moments of entertaining absurdities as well as the odd moment of terror or catharsis. More later. -Jack