Now lets smoke!

Fuck y’all, a’ll y’all!!!

Can’t believe the negativity draining this blog.  Last weekend T$F was at a private Heineken party cold-chilling with DJ Jazzy Jeff, D-Nice, MC Skills, Fabolous and Quest Love.  No shit!  It was ill as fuck! But instead we’re talking about this.  Not for fun- for PRINCIPLE.

REWIIIIIIIND!

BEFORE before T$F ever met STREETELA.com— or had a terrible taste in their mouth— was THIS CELEBRATION and ROBBERY.

LET US BEGIN BY POINTING OUT: The $tatus Faction has NO hard feelings with our kind friends at DASHBOARD CO-OP. T$F partnered with Dashboard Co-Op PREVIOUS to the conception of the Living Walls Conference, and it’s been a productive relationship ever since! Look at that! CHEERS DASHBOARD CO-OP!!  In our eyes, Dashboard merely hosted this event for the LWC.  They are not to blame for the misused proceeds.

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ART Auction and Celebration of Badasses

Saturday, June 26, 2010 at Mint Gallery, Dashboard hosted an art auction benefiting the Living Walls Conference.

NO members of T$F could be present in Atlanta for the actual event reception.
We assume Jayne Mcginn’s coverage is legitimate.  She wrote a preview of the auction on the official LWC blog found HERE and a re-cap of the reception found HERE.

Here are some key quotes from the piece:
“150 bad- ass pieces of art by 50 bad-ass artists were laid out, hung and getting ready to be hung. Dashboard Co-op is joining forces with Living Walls to curate this silent auction that will run on Saturday June 26th at 7pm to 11pm. It’s a great time to come and get art that would usually sell for a hundred dollars or more at an affordable price. All proceeds will go to Living Walls.“

“Courtney Hammond and Blacki Li Rudi Migliozzi had been working diligently along side Monica Campana to set up this art auction that is turning out to be a huge event, and as I said before a great time to get some art.”

“In addition to the silent auction there will be posters for sale from $tatus Faction, a raffle including art from Evereman and one piece by Jason Kofke who’s proceeds will go strictly towards his plane ticket to fly him to Atlanta for the Living Walls Conference. There is only 18 more days left to donate so Living Walls can reach their goal…”

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Our presence in donation participation was STRONG in this auction. Delusional to the impression our submissions might relatively benefit our conference participation and possibly subsidize some art supplies when we arrived to Georgia- The $tatus Faction pledged around TWENTY PIECES OF ARTWORK+ for this fundraiser. You can see some pics of what we shipped out for this event:

There were loads of signed screen-prints, posters, a couple siiiiiick stretched canvases, a rare T$F handmade book, multiple T$F medallions, and some things we donated that were GIFTS FROM OUR FRIENDS.  These were from OUR OWN COLLECTIONS.  Credit where credit is due to the artists 1N3PT and the homegirl ANNIE MADISON and BIAFRA INC. Their art was also displayed and sold at this event.

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NOW HOW THE FUCK???!!!

Kudos to Jason Kofke- but funny how his auction submissions went directly to fund his airfare to the conference.  REMEMBER HOW THE $TATUS FACTION PAID THEIR OWN AIRFARES?!?!

How the fuck can you purposefully sell our gratuitous merchandise and not show T$F any love in return? HOW DUMB YOU EXHAUSTED THE “LWC BUDGET” BEFORE THE CONFERENCE STARTED! We could have sold that art ourselves, kept the money, then used it to cover OUR expenses in LWC participation.  Instead we pooled money with the LWC bank account.  HOW STUPID OF US!!!

Is it making sense to our readers why The $tatus Faction felt robbed for their LWC sponsorships?!?!?

Think about it, T$F made several contributions to the conference piggy bank- but when LWC directors spent it ALL- T$F got flagrantly neglected!!!

WAY TO FUCK UP WITH T$F!

WHERE THE FUCK DID THE MONEY GO?
WHAT THE HELL DID YOU SPEND IT ALL ON?!?!?!

To see photos of the CELEBRATION reception and all the happy faces click HERE.

The $tatus Faction has been incredibly street productive during the last 10 days!

Regrettably— we’re adamant on continuing coverage of our Living Walls experience right now.  T$F executed a marvelous spectacle of work for the Eyedrum Gallery & beyond, which we will proudly blog next.

READ THIS FIRST!

We preface this horror-story as being A METAPHOR TO THE ACCOUNT OF SHAMEFUL & COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE DISREGARD WE RECEIVED FOR OUR CONFERENCE SPONSORSHIP, this is NOT a T$F sales pitch.  Admittedly not a (relatively) huge ordeal— it still serves as a concise example of our obvious frustration with a bumbling conference organizer— and another loss for EVERYONE involved with Living Walls. We’re NOT expecting anyone should actually purchase our current collaboration with Streetela.com.  T$F will confer under alternative terms for this platform in the near future. Here in print, The $tatus Faction has no hard feelings towards Streetela.com or it’s owner.

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STREETELA An Urban Art Platform

In short- STREETELA.com is a co-operative brand created to bring the independent urban artist together with those that appreciate the work. All of the artists receive a direct percentage from the sale of their original t-shirt/poster designs.  Please become better acquainted with the company’s “about us” page located HERE. It also explains the origin of the name Streetela.

Streetla intended to use the Living Walls Confernce (LWC) as the opportunity to logically launch their site, AND simultaneously sponsor support to the LWC Featured Artists. Weeks prior to the big weekend, Streetela made the initial contact to The $tatus Faction, as well as the other conference contributors. Ten of those artists returned the request for EVENT-RELATED GRAPHICS.

Streetela would trustingly use this art for t-shirt applications made publicly available online and during the conference. Production costs and retailing would be covered by Streetela and profits would be contractually shared. The proper paperwork was arranged directly with the artists who contributed to Streetela.  At this point, LWC respectably had no concerning business or responsibility with Streetela beyond the introduction of their artist network. Makes sense to us!  BUT WAIT!! IT DOESN’T END WITH ANYONE MAKING IT RAIN C-NOTES ALL UP IN THE CLUBZ. In fact, the exact opposite. ON WITH THE DIRT NOW….

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If you’ve read our previous blog entry “What’s the Point Again?” then you already know T$F was a LWC Sponsor, going beyond the scope of our own personal T$F interests, to better this unique summit.  We specifically vocalized the obvious idea to create an inexpensive LWC event poster. This would serve as an impulse-purchase and souvenir available to those attending the LWC reception.  Check out this photo of a PORTION of the heads there.

(Photo flickr-jacked from / copyright reserved by CTEcreative )

NO SHIT! Every music concert, sporting event, musical, and magician with an act sells posters and knows that’s easy money to make!!

T$F offered to DONATE complimentary graphic design service to produce a LWC poster. Anticipating this to be your typical 2 Color screen-printed / 18″x 24″ / open-edition / and UNSIGNED poster. The conference director signed-off on retailing this print and agreeably ALL profits would go directly to the conference funding and supporting the expenses of the LWC Featured Artists.

After an unsuccessful attempt to collaborate on the image remotely with a few respectable LWC participants, we took it upon ourselves to just make it happen.  We put sincere effort in making the poster image relevant, commercial, and selfless. We based the motif from the LWC tagline “The City Speaks.” We honestly spent several days working out the design and print-production preparation, but there was never intended representation of THE $TATUS FACTION, rather the just the conference. We can’t lie, this piece was light-weight genius at best.

After finalizing the design to include a border made of the FIFTY participating artists and speakers featured in the LWC, our part of the work was complete.  Originally imagining the organizers might hire the order from the PROFESSIONAL screenprinters at TWO RABBIT STUDIOS, but who knows if they even pondered to cover the material cost of supplies and labor?!?!

Nothing moves forward on production and the conference is approaching soon.  Conveniently we think of reaching out to STREETELA.  We throw the idea they might subsidize the costs of supplies.  We suggest making a TON of this open-edition print and selling them cheap.  Make 500 posters and sell them for $10 each.  Smaller profit margin but higher quantity moving. Fairly recouping the cost of only ink and paper from the profits of sale, their labor of printing would be part of their sponsorship.  STREETELA KINDLY AND ENTHUSIASTICALLY AGREED. T$F then ran the agreement with the LWC director and she COMMITTED to tabling the merchandise by any means.  This was an easy opportunity to raise around $3000 for the involved LWC here!!!!! GREAT!

When The $tatus Faction all got grounded in Georgia, and started to mentally prepare for exhausting work for their display, it was brought to our attention only 50 posters could be printed!  WE WERE PISSED ALREADY!  Having only 50 posters would only raise $300 for the conference!!  WHAT THE FUCK?  It wasn’t the fault of STREETELA, actually it was amazing they got it done.  They outsourced to someone NOT Two-Rabbits, and they got fucked. ALL of their shirt designs intended for some of their own fair profit also got fucked.  They got NONE.  Now these fellows want to launch this new website through LWC and basically have zero product placement.  WAMP WAMP!  Whatever with what could be done future re-printing and online sales. The real reason why STREETELA didn’t produce more than 50 prints is because when the time was due, the LWC organizers failed to a solid confirmation on WHO? and WHERE? these would be sold at the event.  A shame, but wise I guess.  STREETELA put up $200 in supplies to make 50, but if everything was on point some intern-duck could have tabled 300-500 easily.  The sales NEVER had a chance! BOO!

Worst part is the dude who runs STREETELA is a genuine guy.  He is NOT a phony or a poser.  He’s a professional photographer, a FATHER, a street art-enthusiast, and bonus points- an avid cyclist (minus 1/2 point for all that spandex T$F caught you sporting! ha!). He’s a nice guy with who had some hard-earned money & time, to donate as a sponsor to better the movement.  Now he’s sitting on some unsold paper waste and a loss of invested capital.  He was just another casualty of the poor organization. The conference itself was a victim to the loss of this potential funding.  This shit was so EASY! What a waste.

See the printed piece! Available for $10 on STREETELA.com right HERE.

AFTER WE LOST OUR MINDS…. and did not receive ANY reimbursement for the LWC artwork T$F built in Atlanta, shit got WORSE!  Concerned over insufficient supplies as a participating artist, T$F strongly vocalized the problem to the LWC director.  Instead of compassion- T$F was met with contempt!!

It was said to The $tatus Faction by the LWC director “If you had any belief of return for your hard work, we would have asked you NOT to do it.”

HAHAHA!  YOU ARE FUCKING WITH SOME CRAZY DUDES RIGHT NOW!!

T$F was informed that regardless of our resilient contributions to the funding, ALL THE LWC BUDGET WAS SPENT.

Foo- the reception wasn’t even til the weekend and days before the bank was tapped?!?!  That’s SKEEEETCHY! T$F will delve deeper blogging that s¢andal- but in the moment all we had the power to do was revoke what contribution we still could. We retracted our donated design service, and seized the sales of the print away from the conference budget. There was never a conference subordinate designated to retail the souvenir in the first place!!!

Pathetically beat, and late to the gallery opening— we asked some T$F family to generously sit and table the poster merchandise.  How sad and messed up that WE sit at OUR OWN ARTWORK INCLUDED RECEPTION to peddle off a cheap souvenir, only in effort to pay for the paint we needed on our conference-permission public mural! What the fuck ya’ll? The effort to table prints wasn’t worth missing our gallery reception and sharing time with T$F family, so we put the posters back in the trunk.

T$F went again to meet with STREETELA the day after the show.  Disappointed and saddened they paid $200 for nothing, and our coupled design effort went in vein- we agreed to reshape the non-existent product profit.  STREETELA.com is attempting to sell the prints online, and cut their $200 production costs off the top, then ALL remaining profits will go directly to The $tatus Faction— to reimburse their materials used in the LWC.  After all- the ORIGINAL plan was to “use the profits for the Featured Artists” anyway- that being US. We think FUCK YOU if that’s not fair for us by now.

There is such tiny profit margin here, it could NEVER cover what T$F paid to buy all that bucket paint. BULLSHIT.  STREETELA painstakingly had T$F pencil-sign and number the posters.  How lame!  We signed a poster that has the names of FIFTY DIFFERENT people on it.  HAHAHAHA!  That is BULLSHIT.  If anyone makes something that says OUR NAME “THE $TATUS FACTION” on it, and then sells it without us getting a piece of the pie- GET READY FOR US TO REACT IN OUR NASTY NATURE. That’s not smooth at all.  We look like clowns.  Our sponsorship paid for the air-mattress and cigarettes of other participating artists while we got dick back from the cookie jar. Now we ask you NOT to buy this poster.  Or how about the dude reading this whose NAME MIGHT BE ON THAT POSTER?!?!  He/she must be like “WTF IS THIS SHIT?!?!?  Why didn’t I get one of those posters and Why do I have to buy it and Why is it limited edition by The $tatus Faction?” That makes us look retarded. Please don’t buy that poster. NOW YOU ALL KNOW A GREAT EXAMPLE OF WHAT MAKES T$F SO FUCKING ANGRY!!!

THIS WAS JUST ONE EXAMPLE OF A FUCK-UP AT THE LIVING WALLS CONFERENCE!

~STAY TUNED!~

Let’s begin unraveling our adventure in Atlanta.  It’s difficult to sum up the events in one mood. Overall it felt like a disaster.  We approached the idea of the Living Walls Conference with emphatic optimism and direct activism.

The full title stands:  LIVING WALLS THE CITY SPEAKS: A CONFERENCE ON STREET ART AND URBANISM.  It focused on the role of STREET ART and it’s progression to engage with public space.  Sounds radical as all shit, right?

Previously recognized for accomplished street art, and connected to gallery exhibits in Atlanta, The $tatus Faction was a sensible candidate for this style of summit.  The number of excited activists was beyond us, MANY MANY people all over the country and globe got excited for this project to reach fruition.

We worked faithfully with the directors for SEVERAL MONTHS to help donate and RAISE MONEY for Living Walls and many of the other participating artists. We courageously did everything in our power to build this unknown together.

WHAT NOBODY KNOWS IS we also SPONSORED the Living Walls Conference to help perpetuate the intended growth of an entire subculture for the city of Atlanta. We were not formally listed as “Featured Artist“ AND “Conference Sponsor“ by our own request.  It was T$F’s sincere commitment of time/energy/money, never something to dangle over anyone’s head. We specifically asked NOT to be listed twice on the circulating promotions.

What’s our fucking point? What fucking difference does it make?

Ultimately- several of T$F’s contributions went to waste in vain and didn’t grow into respectable return results.  That’s not how we roll. We’re down to try something and fail, but we are not down to waste precious and productive time or burn money.

Respect to the director for acting WILDLY AMBITIOUS, but when you take credit for organizing something of that stature– along is your DUTY to follow through til the end. No matter what the situation becomes, you are still held responsible.

~STAY TUNED!~

Next we reveal an unfortunate conference casualty called Streetela.com!

GET OVER YOURSELF

We’ve had this blog running for exactly one year and one week.
We’ve since published 352 blogs, and this makes 353.

We’re happy to have this worldwide medium to express so frequently and appreciative to those who follow us here.
Our blog is not the portfolio of The $tatus Faction, it’s purpose is to reveal our unique slice of American life. It’s a mere portion of our online portal at www.TheStatusFaction.net, and that site in itself, is just a portion of T$F.  To document our steady process of experimentation is reason enough for us to blog this hard.

Read it or don’t!    Like or don’t!   Think you can do better?
Blogging is a shit-ton work and doesn’t often justify the means.
Our newfound RESPECT to those capable of committing to your profitless blog 300+ days in a given year!

TO THOSE IN QUESTION: since it’s conception T$F has never made a profit or even close.  We have consistently and consciously taken a financial dive in our personal creations. We rarely break-even at events we DJ AND Promote! We have even been refused reimbursements of cost materials for charity auction donations!! HA!

We have an online store that serves purpose as a time-efficient way to tell genuine fans and little jits that “SORRY we’re lazy stoners who promise we CANNOT make even the minimal effort to TRADE or GIVE stickers/posters/slaps to you, no matter what!!!!”

We’re aware this is productive to build a specific audience and new friends too, but we honestly recognized that and don’t care enough.  We’re sticker fiends, but we’re not collectors, or jockers…  they are disposable in their nature.

Hear this: Our “products” some may ponder hypocritical, are NOT yielding champagne diets – they are material possessions WE PERSONALLY WANTED TO OWN, and if you’re retail-experienced and know how commerce works, you must regularly fund to produce a MINIMUM QUANTITY or not at all.

FOR EXAMPLE DUMMY If you wanna silk screen ONE custom shirt, it’s gonna cost you an easy $70+ to set that up.  You want TWO shirts of that same design? it’s $72, you want 73 shirts?!? IT’S ONLY ANOTHER DOLLAR HOMIE.  So we have more than we intend to personally own, and if you wanna buy the rest- PLEASE DO.  It doesn’t pay off the cost of production in our SAMPLE numbers broski.

Don’t get it twisted or call us stupid, those old enough to deserve their own self-indulgent material possessions but unable to afford the minimum quantity, could be jealous of the funny money we do dispose on” T$F Products.” This  will not become The Hundreds over here fool. We don’t mind if nobody is buying what we’re “selling.”

To those left who value culture and still buy original works of art- we will happily sell you a painting, and LOVE that money (as much or more than YOU!), but that’s NOT the motive or even a concern now.  We put aside hard-earned money and hustle to afford these materials and assemblies.  It’s not our delusional financial opportunity, it’s our mature and selfish luxury.  This helps us get to sleep and avoid committing road-rage induced fatalities in gridlock traffic.  It’s our salvation and sanity though plotted “foolish actions.”

We originally intended to use this blog to talk the ugly truth we all think. We are so militantly enthusiastic, we barely share what we’ve accomplished before we target our next projects.  The blog is great to re-cap and toot our own horn, but we don’t want it to be that crutch .  We still intend to use this for original thoughts and opinions regardless of social politics and political correctness.  Let’s just be honest or bitter. We will NOT regurgitate the public opinions on this blog. The older you get, the less you care!

All that being said…  TAKE WARNING…  T$F IS JUST GETTING STARTED.
This blog is still green. We have such crazy unrealistic goals, and such low and pathetic expectations, it’s scary what the potential is.  We have been planning web expansions before we even built a site!  This is just the skeleton, which was far over due.

If you have been fortunate/unfortunate enough to work personally with T$F over the last three years- you know we’re mentally ill and don’t give a fuck about what people normally do. We are wise to the ways and stubborn to comply.  Doesn’t it feel so good to give the middle finger to that car who idiotically snaked you on the freeway?!?

We’re always moving forward- but this week we’re gonna take some time to post some past events with real insight and stories of the experience- not just random reception photos.  It should be hilarious. T$F is gonna start pulling cards to the overrated dipshits and pompous assholes who interrupt our sincere effort. JOIN US!!

“Jack of All Trades – Master of FUN.”

~STAY TUNED!~

You didn’t get the tweet?

2010 Sunset Junction is all about blue and white-striped tank tops.

Get with the program brah!

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The Whispers live…  “Rock Steady”

REAL G-FUNK right here!

Seems like a little late.  But nice to know the L.A. Times recognizes who the champs are on the court and in print. PEEP THE ARTICLE HERE!

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Audio Slideshow By: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

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Props to The Family and team captain Eric Wareheim (Tim & Eric Awesome Show).
However…  we all know that THE $TATUS FACTION REIGNS SUPREME.

Til next season!

HOLY WOW!  BANKRUPT SLUT IS GETTING MORE AND MORE CREATIVE.

SOON A FORCE TO RECKON WITH!  BE ADVISED NOW!

Peep the Bankrupt Slut flickr HERE

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from Bankrupt Slut: