Trying to Be Hip and Edgy, Ads Become Offensive
by Stuart Elliott and Tanzina Vega
New York Times
May 10, 2013

Some of the biggest names in marketing, including Ford Motor, General Motors, Hyundai Motor, Reebok and PepsiCo, have been forced recently to apologize to consumers who mounted loud public outcries against ads that hinged on subjects like race, rape and suicide.

PepsiCo found itself meeting this week with the Rev. Al Sharpton and the family of Emmet Till — the teenager whose death in Mississippi in 1955 helped energize the civil rights movement — to try to quell multiple controversies involving its Mountain Dew brand.

“It’s like the Wild West,” said Paul Malmstrom, a founding partner of the New York office of the Mother ad agency.

Advertising experts offer a long list of reasons for the increasing frequency of such incidents, but the primary reason they keep happening, they say, is the growing anxiety on Madison Avenue to create ads that will be noticed and break through the clutter. (more…)

A reminiscence by Joey Skaggs:

On April 2, 2013, I received an email from my friend Peter Maloney, director, writer, actor and a co-conspirator in my hoaxes, pointing me to a New York Times article about a fake kidnapping. He said,

“It reminds me of the night that you and your cohorts kidnapped Sam Shepard from the Astor Place Theatre on the opening night performance of his plays ‘The Unseen Hand’ and ‘Forensic and the Navigator’ (in which I played ‘Forensic’). I also remember that actor Beeson Carroll wore as his costume in ‘The Unseen Hand’, your Buffalo skin coat.”

I had caught the news story about the kidnapping on TV a day earlier. I immediately thought it was a prank. A video taken from a surveillance camera showed an abduction with people being thrown into a van on the street. But local police could not find evidence of anyone missing. As it turned out, it was a joke played by friends as a birthday prank.

Stories like this sometimes make it into the Art of the Prank blog, and I considered it. But, being under the weather I wasn’t highly motivated to do anything with it. Later, thinking about it, I realized how lucky these pranksters were. They could have been shot. They could have been arrested. Any number of bad things potentially could have happened because of this relatively harmless joke.

Peter’s email and this story inspired me to tell the story of my attempt to kidnap Sam Shepard, a version of which appears in a book by Ellen Ounamo called Sam Shepard: The Life and Work of an American Dreamer (1986, St. Martins Press). (more…)

From Emerson Dameron: An homage to a great prankster!

The Man Behind The Brilliant Media Hoax Of “I, Libertine”
by Matthew Callan
The Awl
February 14th, 2013

In the 1950s, a DJ named Jean Shepherd hosted a late-night radio show on New York’s WOR that was unlike any before or since. On these broadcasts, he delivered dense, cerebral monologues, sprinkled with pop-culture tidbits and vivid stretches of expert storytelling. “There is no question that we are a tiny, tiny, tiny embattled minority here,” he assured his audience in a typical diatribe. “Hardly anyone is listening to mankind in all of its silliness, all of its idiocy, all of its trivia, all of its wonder, all of its glory, all of its poor, sad, pitching us into the dark sea of oblivion.” Shepherd’s approach was summed up by his catchphrase: a mock-triumphant “Excelsior!”, followed by an immediate, muttered “you fathead…”

Shepherd inspired fierce loyalty in his listeners who would tune in to listen to him in the middle of the night. These listeners embraced his term for them, “night people,” and under his direction they would execute one of the biggest and most bizarre media hoaxes of the 20th century. The hoax was meant as a strike against their opposite: “day people,” that is, against phoniness and squareness—all those 50s words—as well as a joke on New York pretension.

In our time of memes, virality, and reality blurring, the hoax Shepherd dreamt up seems extremely modern and prescient in its contours—as does the fact that, eventually, it got out of his control. (more…)

Spoiler alert! According to author John Reed, Joey Skaggs’ Metamorphosis: Cockroach Vitamin Pill hoax headlines the Golden Age…

The Golden Age of the Cockroach
by John Reed
Vice.com
February 6, 2013

Illustration by Michele Witchipoo

Every era in art has a new favored subject. The Etruscans looked to Hercules; painters of the Renaissance reenvisioned the Bible; the American Ashcan School rendered sensitive tableaus of poor urban life; and the later half of the 20th century, dominated by the PoMo-ism of downtown NYC, crowned a new king, the cockroach, which was not only an available resource, but a stand-in for the artist—a heroic outcast, thriving in the ruins of civilization.

The oeuvre of the cockroach is best understood as a series of distinct ages that, in turn, comprise a whole. During the Reformation, the cockroach was reconsidered; the Enlightenment percieved the cockroach as potentially “divine”; the Golden Age saw the pinnacle of the discipline; the Silver Age was consumed by celebrity; the Bronze Age refigured the subject as metaphor and victim; the Age of Decline represented the subject in absentia and/or in parts. As far as I can tell, no one has completed, or even attempted, to survey the cockroach’s place in the art world, so consider this seven-part piece that examines an artistic era that scuttled by so quickly, hardly anyone even noticed it. (more…)

From Larry C.: Brings to mind Joey Skaggs’ Metamorphosis: Cockroach Cure hoax.

Communicating with the future: a cockroach DNA archive of the New York Times
by M. Scott Brauer
dvafoto.com
Oct 30, 2009

One of my favorite things to think about is the difficulty of communicating with humans generations from now, or even tens of thousands of years from now. An example: The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management overseeing Yucca Mountain, the proposed Nevada site for disposal of nuclear waste, has been working with artists to develop a warning system that would alert future visitors to the area of the dangers buried in the mountain. From the website, “The monumental challenge is to address how warnings can be coherently conveyed for thousands of years into the future when human society and languages could change radically.” The purpose of the warning sign is “to deter intentional or inadvertent human intrusion or interference at the site and to effectively communicate over the course of the next 10,000 years that the integrity of the site must not be compromised in any way in order to prevent the release of the radiation contained within.” It’s an interesting visual challenge that must not rely on our own cultural biases. Here’s one artist’s response to the challenge, though perhaps it’s too reliant on the 20th century “Radioactive Danger” symbol. (more…)

Update October 20, 2012: Huffington Post reports: Joey Skaggs Created The Celebrity Sperm Bank Hoax To Expose Journalists’ Incompetence

From Joey Skaggs:

In July of 1976, I (aka Giuseppe Scaggoli), as proprietor of the Celebrity Sperm Bank, planned to hold an auction of rock star sperm. The press release said, “We’ll have sperm from the likes of Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and vintage sperm from Jimmy Hendricks. All donations are certified and authenticated.” I asked about 50 actor friends to gather on Waverly Place between 6th Avenue and MacDougal Street in front of my attorney’s brownstone home. Read the rest of the story here and see some images below.

Yesterday, October, 17, 2012, (thanks Chris Cook, John Lundberg & Larry Croft for the heads-up), a new Celebrity Sperm Bank hoax called Fame Daddy was covered by ITV, the Telegraph, the Globe & Mail, to name a few.

Now they’ve all been caught with their pants down.

(more…)

Westboro Baptist loons run into protest wall—made of zombies?
by Howard Portnoy
Examiner.com
August 2, 2012

The Supreme Court may have greenlighted the hate-filled demonstrations by misguided adherents to the teachings of the Westboro Baptist Church, but the high court never said that counter-protests were not also covered by the First Amendment. Ever since the court handed down its controversial ruling, “human walls” have become commonplace at military funerals—gestures meant to neutralize the church group’s message of hate. In one widely reported example of the trend, the rock band Foo Fighters showed up in Kansas City in September of 2011 to “serenade” Westboro congregants.

Now one trend has meshed with another. KIRO-TV reports that last Friday, protesters assembling outside the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in DuPont, Wash., were met by—get ready for it—a wall of the living dead. (more…)

For Ai Weiwei, Politics And Arts Always Mix
by NPR Staff
July 25, 2012

Listen to this Story on All Things Considered [7 min 49 sec]

Last week, a Chinese court rejected artist Ai Weiwei’s lawsuit against the tax bureau that had imposed a massive fine on his company.

Ai was fined more than $2 million after being detained for three months last year.

This marks yet another political struggle for Ai, who is famous abroad for his art and has emerged as a leading Chinese dissident, a voice for individual freedom. A year after being released, Ai is still monitored heavily by officials, although he uses his Twitter feed to continue criticizing China’s government.

Filmmaker Alison Klayman was an intern on NPR’s All Things Considered before she left for China, where she wound up chronicling Ai on video. The result is a documentary — her first film — called Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, part of which chronicles Ai’s crusade to seek justice for an alleged police beating.

Movie trailer:

(more…)

The Man Who Won Normandy
by D. B. Grady
The Atlantic
July 6, 2012

Stephan Talty’s Agent Garbo sheds light on an amateur spy who saved the world.

Stephan Talty’s latest book is like a case study in how elegantly the Second World War scales down. Narrowing the focus seems only to reveal more about the war, and armored divisions and vainglorious generals soon appear incidental to the greater actions of common people in terrible times. There are some names uncertain to appear on a national census roster, much less in the footnotes of history. But in Agent Garbo, Talty pencils in one such name: Juan Pujol, a chicken farmer in Barcelona, who acted not for headlines or personal glory, but to make in some modest way a “contribution toward the good of humanity.”

His life has been reconstructed by Talty though interviews, declassified documents, and files from state archives. During the Spanish Civil War, Juan Pujol refused to take up arms, unwilling to spill the blood of fellow Spaniards. This refusal proved an early introduction to espionage, as he spent much of the war incognito or out of sight. He was a deserter, and was eventually caught and imprisoned. When he escaped, he hatched a plan to abscond to France. Ironically, it involved enlisting in the same Republican military he’d just been imprisoned for avoiding. This time, however, he lied about his age (claiming to be too old) and lied about his politics (claiming to be a radical). Once in uniform and on the front lines, he made a mad, successful dash for the Nationalist lines. He never fired a shot in the war. (more…)

Submitted by Emerson Dameron:

American filmmaker Vikram Gandhi examines gurus and gullibility. In the process, he goes undercover as Kumaré, an enlightened spiritual leader from the East who develops a following in the West. His documentary The True Story of a False Prophet premiers in the US this summer. Read more here.

Movie Trailer:

(more…)

From Mark Borkowski:

The man who posted himself: The suburban accountant who tested the Royal Mail to its limits, exasperated Hitler and became one of Britain’s greatest pranksters
by David Leafe
dailymail.co.uk
19 March 2012

He was a most unlikely prankster, an Edwardian husband and father whose neatly clipped moustache and smart suit gave his neighbours no reason to believe he was anything but a respectable accountant.

In his everyday life, he observed the many rules and regulations drawn up by bureaucrats of the time — keep off the grass in public parks, refrain from spitting in the street and avoid putting your feet on train seats.

In short, he seemed a model citizen, but as in so many of us, within W. Reginald Bray there lurked an impish spirit that longed to cock a snook at officialdom.

And a clue as to his target was the red post-box outside his home in Forest Hill, a leafy suburb of South London.

Its positioning could not have been more fortuitous for a man whose hobby was to test the postal system to its limit.

(more…)

Moderator’s note: This won’t be the first time a satirist co-opted official letterhead to make a statement (see Joey Skaggs’ Brookyln Bridge Lottery Hoax, done in 1992), but it may be the last!!

Dane County DA considers charges against cartoonist who sent fake news
by Sandy Cullen
Wisconsin State Journal
March 14, 2012

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said Wednesday his office is considering whether to file a felony charge against a political cartoonist who reproduced the letterhead of state Rep. Steve Nass on a phony press release sent to a Madison newspaper.

Ozanne said Capitol Police have asked his office to determine whether Mike Konopacki of Madison should be charged with violating a state law that makes it a felony for someone who is not a public officer or public employee to act in an official capacity or to exercise any function of a public office.

The Class I felony is punishable by up to 3½ years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Ozanne said his office has the discretion to file a different felony or misdemeanor charge, or to not prosecute.

Konopacki, 60, said Wednesday he believes his parody — which makes fun of Nass, a Republican from Whitewater, for his role in canceling an art exhibit related to last year’s protests at the state Capitol — is protected political speech.

He said he sent the fake news release to the editorial page editor at The Capital Times, which posted an erroneous story on the paper’s website and on Capital Newspapers’ website, madison.com, on Feb. 25. It was removed a short while later after the paper learned the source document was a fabrication.

Konopacki, who specializes in labor issues, has drawn editorial cartoons for The Capital Times for many years on a freelance basis, the paper said in an online statement.

(more…)

Submitted by Emerson Dameron:

Dormant and Tired

In 1974, after 3 years of planning, a man named Oliver Bickar pulled off one of the world’s biggest (in size) April Fools’ Day pranks. He and his co-conspirators flew dozens of tires over to an extinct volcanic crater called Mount Edgecumbe on uninhabited Kruzof Island in Alaska. When he lit the tires on fire, people in Sitka, a town on the closest island, took serious note, wondering if the volcano, extinct for 4,000 years, had suddenly erupted. You can read the whole story on NowIKnow and at The Museum of Hoaxes.

Shepard Fairey Pleads Guilty: Five Other Art-Related Crimes
by Dale W. Eisinger
International Business Times
February 27, 2012

When we reported Shepard Fairey pleaded guilty to charges of contempt in Manhattan federal court Friday, it closed the book on an admittedly strange battle that Fairey initiated, and then tried to cover up — the 42-year-old artist ended up forging documents in an attempt to steer clear of legal problems altogether. Now he faces jail time and fines.

A lively discussion is still bubbling around whether or not his use of an AP-licensed photo of President Barack Obama was “fair use”" or not, but the fact is: dude’s in deep do-do. However, I find it kind of admirable he’d go to such a great lengths to conceal and deceive and commit crime for his art. With that in mind, here are a few risk-laden art endeavors, some of which went off better than others.

(more…)

Is There a Right to Lie?
By William Bennett Turner, Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times
February 19, 2012

Berkeley, Calif. Xavier Alvarez is a liar. Even the brief filed on his behalf in the United States Supreme Court says as much: “Xavier Alvarez lied.” It informs us that he has told tall tales about playing hockey for the Detroit Red Wings, being married to a Mexican starlet and rescuing the American ambassador during the Iranian hostage crisis. But as the brief reminds us, “none of those lies were crimes.”

Another of his falsehoods, however, did violate the law. In 2007, while introducing himself at a meeting of a California water board, he said that he was a retired Marine who had been awarded the Medal of Honor (both lies). He was quickly exposed as a phony and pilloried in the community and press as an “idiot” and the “ultimate slime.”

But his censure did not end there. The federal government prosecuted him under the Stolen Valor Act, which prohibits falsely claiming to have been awarded a military medal, with an enhanced penalty (up to a year in prison) for claiming to have received the Medal of Honor. Mr. Alvarez was convicted but appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which held that the act violated the First Amendment.

(more…)