These top three signs were hand made by friends who have an online business creating custom tiki bar signs (PariArts.com). But ohh look, a lazy designer for the JoAnn Fabrics stores decided to turn them in as his or her own, and now they’re selling them in stores. Bad. Legal action to follow…

Here’s a three-part micro-documentary by Vice about Northern Colombians and their unique relationship with donkeys. Audio is SO NOT WORK SAFE.

And, yes, the kid above is taking about what you think he is.

I know Vice magazine gets a lot of crap, maybe deserved, but I think they do a great job addressing real things real people deal with that are either too sexy, or not sexy enough, for mainstream media. Now Vice has an online TV channel, webchannel, whatever, called VBS.TV and I watch it almost every day during lunch. Their series on heavy metal in Baghdad is probably the most accurate representation of what life is now like in Iraq, which is to say I almost crapped myself just watching it. There’s way more, so I’ll post my favorites here over the next weeks.

Unrelated: I’m eating Parrano cheese, it’s between Gouda and parmesan, and having a glass of Coppola’s Rosso Shiraz, which may or may not be a good pairing, but I don’t know any better.

I found these affixed to the wall over the sinks on a recent trip to the park. In small print at the bottom it reads “Hand washing tips provided by Brawny.” But these aren’t “tips” at all, they’re instructions on how to wash your hands, which, if you’re old enough to read, you’d already know. I didn’t use a stall to see if Charmin offered tips on how to wipe.

Here’s video from a Hamas Television program where a blatant Mickey Mouse knock-off, Farfur, rallies Muslim children against America and Israel. Is no one at Hamas TV seeing the hypocrisy of using an American cultural icon to teach children to hate the country that created it?

My friend GJ has a one-hit-wonder step-dad, Frank, who he started filming a couple years ago because Frank uses coffee cans for a toilet and is generally a drunk. GJ’s Mother, Cindy, likes pills, functions as the thorn in Frank’s side, and wishes he’d record another hit. The resulting documentary, Frank and Cindy, is a hoot. (But I may be biased because I designed the poster.)

Watch This American Life on Showtime this Thursday and see GJ explain what happened after filming began. Visit FrankAndCindy.com for a preview and info about upcoming film festival screenings.

From: ricocoblog.seesaa.net. Related: Crazy Happy Lunch!

Weather it’s equine ejaculators, or salmon-flesh fan-decks, I’m fascinated by items created for incredibly specific jobs. Here in LA, the unique demands of the movie industry have given rise to products no average person would ever need.

For most consumers, getting clean is the goal, but Shmere’s collection of products lets you “get dirty the clean way.� Used mainly by the wardrobe dept., these wax based, deodorant-shaped sticks come in stain colors such as: “Grass Stain,� and “Sweat.� The entire set of aging crayons costs $135 but you can buy a single stick of Schmtzstik, another wardrobe distressing product, for about $8.

Aren’t grocery bags noisy? Many a sound editor seems to think so. Lucky for them, an inventive propmaker, Tim Schultz, has gone into business fabricating “silent bags.� Although they look just like your average grocery bag, they’re made from a secret material that feels like waxy fabric. These $26(!) bags quickly recover their cost by eliminating the work of needing to edit out the dialogue-obscuring crackling a real bag would make. I just like the idea of shopping with them and knowing I’m the only one whose bags are “silent bags,� as if everyone else is being terribly gauche with their “noisy bags.� Also, I love saying “silent bags.�

Expendable Props as Gifts

This past Christmas I gave friends and family the book Prisoner’s Inventions and wrapped it in police evidence bags from the ISS Prophouse. Filling out the “chain of custody� form is a fun alternative to the traditional “To: and From:� gift labels.

I also gave my brothers breakaway glass beer bottles with the idea they could stage a bar fight. It won’t be a cheap show though; a single bottle-smash-over-the-head costs $16. Often called “candy glass,� a reference to the previous fabrication method using sugar, modern breakaway glass is made from a fragile resin. But I’ll warn you – the broken edges cut like the real thing, so be careful when holding the jagged stem to someone’s neck.

Should you need to defend yourself in a fake bar fight, arm yourself with fake mace that sprays only water. (But if your attacker is an A-list celeb, they may request to be sprayed with aerosol Evian instead.)

Finally, if your fake barroom brawl leaves you with a fake bump on the head from the makeup department, the script may dictate you take two fake painkillers and apply a cold compress using fake ice.

Muslims aren’t supposed to eat pork, but apparently viewing pork in cartoon form is also forbidden in the Middle East. I assume this means Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham is out too. Charlotte’s Web? Babe? From QatarLiving.com.

Last night I was at the Hollywood Forever cemetery for the launch party of a ridiculously violent Xbox game, Gears of War. So I’m in the mausoleum sipping my “Green Emulsion,” a cocktail named after a substance found in the game, and people are lining the corridors on sheet-covered furniture frantically killing each other - “press the B button to use your chainsaw!” - and the whole time I’m thinking about the other dead people, the ones resting inches away from these gamers.

Louise Leith Wittier (1853-1917) has a great view of the action. She never lived to see a black and white TV, could she have comprehended her final resting place would host a party for a video game about killing heavily armed monsters named for a biblical plague? I take a picture, then notice it’s none other than Kevin Federline cozied up next to her. The DJ plays “Staying Alive” and the bass throbs and I’m thinking her dusty remains have got to be shifting around in there – almost like they were dancing I could say, or would “turning over in her graveâ€? be more accurate?

See it here.

What happens when the young alcoholic actor, Scott Plank, befriends an old crazy actor and it’s all on film? You get the haunting and unsettling documentary, The Last Days of Jonathan Perlo. Watch it, and other great films, online at WholphinDVD.com.

I published two of these before here, but they’re all at: LettersToRay.com