With the recent BP oil spill — quite frankly — freaking me the hell out, I am lending my support and donating my money to these activists by supporting their most recent crowdsourced fundraising campaign.

They are raising funds for The Yes Lab, which is a series of brainstorms and trainings to help activist groups carry out Yes-Men-style projects on their own. There are four Yes Lab projects already in production. With your help, there could be a lot more. The goal is to raise $30,000 by the end of the summer, and they’re already just shy of $12,000.

If you help out, they’ll thank you with some seriously weird things, anything from a thank you issued ‘in a form that may scare your mother’ to ephemera from around the office, to  ‘a thrift store suit worn by The Yes Men in one of their actions, or underwater.’

I feel like it’s a good time to take this mess the world is becoming into our hands. To do that we need to take action, and support those who already are. Donate today.

This was made in support of Reboot‘s National Day of Unplugging: 24 hours of turning off the old laptop, starting at sundown, Friday, March 19. That’s today.

This is called ‘daggering‘, in case you didn’t know.

And then – it inspired this discussion:

And then – to top it all, this dude made a video about it:

And then – if you want to see what originally inspired this post, look up Major Lazer’s  ‘Pon de Floor’.

Aaron Cohen reading at Book Soup

In any case, seeing Mr. Cohen speak reminded me to remind you to support, if you can, a non-profit in Cambodia called the Cambodian Children’s Painting Project. It’s run by a heroic young Spanish-American fellow (and a friend of mine) by the name of Felix Brooks-Church, and serves young Cambodian kids who spend their days selling trinkets on the beach.

Naturally, small children selling stuff to tourists in a rough and tumble beach town has its dangers- which I’ll leave to your imagination (or this website). CCPP takes the kids off the beaches and gives them a safe place every day, teaching them art and language classes. Then, CCPP sells the paintings the kids make in art class to the tourists and backpackers coming through for $4 a pop, giving the kids money to help support their poverty-stricken families while gaining an education. Pretty brilliant, and worth a donation, dontcha think?

So: The website for Cambodian Children’s Painting Project is here, and they can use your help.

And, if you wanna meet some of the kids, here’s a video I made when I was there…

Announcing a new, invite-only, monthly film series – initially in Los Angeles – which aims to:

• showcase newer independent films that are doing the DIY Distribution rounds
• support the filmmakers by aligning them with new audiences outside the industry
• give potential non-industry audiences exposure to this new wave of content in an accessible and hip context

We are targeting taste-makers outside of the film industry as our core audience, and we are fully committed to showcasing content that is doing the independent distribution route. We’re hoping that as a result, we can help further nudge the dialogue surrounding this distribution revolution outside of the usual circles, and help pave the road towards collaboration and conversation with other industries.

We – also – aim to donate half of the proceeds back to the filmmakers (after the inaugural screening).

So, in practice: The first Tuesday of every month, at the Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles, we will show a new indie film. We’ll also have a speaker, tasked with presenting an idea in ten minutes or less. Costs $5 to get in with passcode, and bring something to drink.

The first screening is Tuesday August 4th. The film is the b-side supported film VISIONEERS, the speaker is producer Georgi Goldman (MTV, Current…) who will be discussing her take on the medium vs message conundrum.

Check out cinemaspeakeasy.wordpress.com

Oh, and you have to know the password. It’s a speakeasy, after all.

Here’s more information, from the Cinema Speakeasy site.

Wokcano: 1413 5th St., Santa Monica

Do you think that if 1000 people send their love and support all at once from Los Angeles, that Laura and Euna will hear them? I think so….

Come join us for an evening of friends, family and community as we unite for the common goal of bringing Laura and Euna home safely. Laura Ling and Euna Lee are currently being detained in North Korea. Their trial is set to begin on June 4th.

Link to Facebook information about vigil in Los Angeles can be found here

Co-Host – Kelly Hu
Guest Speaker – Lisa Ling

Hilarious description of what Mexican mafia lords are MEANT to look like (peasants with money), as opposed to what some of them DO look like (eastern european nouveau rich cheese meets sensitive intellectual meets HOT, as above):

“They’re harder to identify because they don’t look like typical drug traffickers,” he said. “You can’t detect them by saying ‘Oh look, he has a big truck with wide tires and automatic weapons, gold chains, snakeskin boots and a big belt buckle and dark glasses.’”

From ‘Savvy young heirs give Mexico drug cartels new face’, as posted in Vancouver Sun

http://www.youtube.com/user/likes2shoot

http://www.davidsdollhouse.com/

(hint: Amy Johnson video clue is ‘lips’)

This is creepy cause it feels real. In the genre of horror, i’ll accept it, but here’s hoping the filmmaker has a little critical distance. Follow him on Twitter (@likes2shoot ) if you wanna find out more.