Andy Time

Some pictures taken from TIME Magazine, showing Andy Warhol at various social gatherings. I feel that I have been to almost all those parties, since he told his diary about where he had been, who had been there and how much he had paid for the taxi to get there. Sometimes, when he was hanging with someone really rich, they would have a private limousine and Andy would be very happy.

Bob Guccione, Pia Zadora, Andy Warhol, Meshulam Riklis

Andy Treat: Andy and the delicious Treat Williams

Shooting Pia Zadora

When I visited the USA for the first time in 1990 I pretty soon found out that renting a limousine wouldn´t cost us much more than taking a taxi. I thought that Andy was such a child...

Andy walks with Nicki De Saint Phalle

with Laurie Anderson and something ugly on the wall

Andy was right, of course. Today it has become the ultimate tourist attraction to ride around with your small-town friends in a rented stretch limo (preferably a ridiculous, 12 meter Hummer). You can feel as v.i.p as you like as long as you don´t leave the car. After that you still have to queue up for the club and you´ll never know if they let you in. Feeling special because you ride in a limousine is still very, very childish...but you´ll always look better on photos.

Bette, Balloons, Ashtray

Barbie & Andy

Ballard Beat Box

No, this is not the new Pet Shop Boys sleeve!

It´s taken from a funny and technically amazing viral ad-gimmick that turns you into a human beat-box. You can chose between four templates, upload your (or any) portrait and within a minute your avatar will perform some wicked things to your face.

Since we here at StellaVista Towers have no great entertainment value with a pot warmer on our heads, I tried to upload pictures of some iconic friends.
Both, Liberace and Warhol didn´t work that well. Once morphed by the progeam they looked like Thunderbird puppets. It´s amazing how exchangeable they look when their hair/wig is hidden by a hat.


Anyway, it was much more fun to use a J.G. Ballard picture and it worked surprisingly well. Click here to see and hear JG Ballard aka MC Crashbox putting a donk on it!

MC Crashbox

Well, it´s in b/w but the morphing program is very picky and it was impossible to find a usable colour portrait of the man.

Andy MC


Then I had the smashing idea to use a (fake) image of the Damien-Hirst-Diamond-Skull. But again, the program wouldn´t accept the picture. I tried to modify it several times, but it didn´t work. Too bad, it would have been such a great contribution to this great Hirst-bashing project. Thanks to Jocko for bringing this great Jimmy Cauty project to my attention.

Last try was a screenshot of Kraftwerk´s "Musique Non Stop", since I wanted to see how an early, literally beatboxing CGI would look make the transition.
Boing Boom Tshack

Below you can try your own thing. It´s mostly in German but I think that it is possible to navigate the site anyway. Enter your birthday and location and it will play the Kraftwerk-video. If you want to start your own creation, click on the bottom left "werde Beatologist".

Little Artists

Hirst’s Shark Tank (Renovated)

Warhol´s Money

Quinn’s Blood Head

There´s more Lego and other work by John Cake and David Neave (aka The Little Artists) here.

Japandering

Why watch old, Japanese movie trailers and commercials? Because -thanks to Youtube- we can!

One of these faces doesn´t belong here:

It´s Marilyn, of course.


This is Ex-Bond girl Mie Hama, who was a major star in Japanese cinema of the 60s and 70s. Internationally known for her role as Kissy Suzuki in "You only live twice", she was also seen in many Toho-monster movies and in the Crazy Cats-comedies. In this commercial she flips a pancake and twists many, many levers.

Legend has it, that Mie threatened to commit ritual suicide when the Bond-producers threatened to replace her, because of her bad english! Who knows what she did to get this job.

Speaking of Mie Hama and the Crazy Cats. For obvious reasons, this musical comedy act is totally unknown outside of Japan. Our loss!
These cats were at least as much fun as the Rat-Pack!
The trailer for their "Las Vegas, free for all" is totally amazing. It looks like a mix of "Oceans Eleven", "It´s a mad...world", "Viva Las Vegas" and 1000 beach-blanket flicks. Oh, The Peanuts (and a stylish Pan-Am bag) are also making an appearance:



Bathing culture is as Japanese as it gets, and this spot is probably only a little bit alien to us gaijin. In Japan, sumo-sized men in tiny bathtubs are as common as an Godzilla attack:


Yellow Magic Orchestra. Always selling out:



James Coburn, who went from manliest man alive to a man who looks like an old lesbian, is selling out too in one of the countless "japander"-commercials for Lark Cigarettes.

For more (much more) American celebrities "japandering" their faces for Japanese products and lots of yen, visit the amazing Japander.com. It´s a great A-Z library of first-class prostitution.

Which brings us to Andy Warhol! We all know the spot Andy did for TDK, but did you know that he also did one for Quicksilver? No? Well...see for yourself:
(genius and kirei!)

Is He?

I was pondering this idea several times during the last years. Was Warhol over when he was shot? When he died (or went to Bloomingdales)? When Victor Bockris published his biography that told me more about Andy that I ever wanted to know?

Of course Warhol is not over! He might smell stranger and the reception and appliance of his philosophy and work might have become more cynical these days. However, if you read "From A to B and Back Again - The Philosophy of Andy Warhol" you´ll see that Andy had a way to see right through to the core of things. Being an outsider, someone only watching the life of others, made him a prototype for the man of the future.

When Andy once read in the papers that he was going to attend some society-event, he decided to stay home. He said, that he felt he had already been there after reading about it and there was no need for him to show up for real.
Isn´t that exactly what social networking is all about? How can Warhol be over, when his ideas were already anticipating the technological possibilities of the future?

80

"I had a lot of dates but I decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows."

Just imagine what the party for Andy´s 80th birthday would be like!? It would have been today.


"Andy Warhol for Familiar Quotations"
by Peter Oresick

Andy Warhol said, Always leave them wanting less.
Being born, Warhol said, is like being kidnapped.
Everyone will be famous, Andy said, for 15 minutes.
I thought everyone was just kidding, said Andy.

Being born, Andy Warhol said, is like being kidnapped.
Think rich, said Warhol, look poor.
I thought everyone was just kidding, said Andy.
Dying, Andy said, is the most embarrassing thing.

Think rich, said Andy Warhol, look poor.
I am a deeply superficial man, said Warhol.
Dying, Andy said, is the most embarrassing thing.
Andy said, I'd like my tombstone to be blank.

I am a deeply superficial man, said Andy Warhol.
Fashions fade, Warhol said, but style is eternal.
Andy said, I'd like my tombstone to be blank.
Isn't life, said Andy, a series of images that repeat?

Fashions fade, Andy Warhol said, but style is eternal.
Everyone will be famous, Warhol said, for 15 minutes.
Isn't life, said Andy, a series of images that repeat?
Andy said, Always leave them wanting less.

Isn't life, said Andy, a series of images that repeat?
Isn't life, said Andy, a series of images that repeat?

Always leave them wanting less, Andy said.


— "Andy Warhol for Familiar Quotations" by Peter Oresick from "Warhol-O-Rama"