Recycling classic hip-hop skits with a whole new twist...

One thing i used to love about the latest hip-hop tape was hearing all those little skits between the songs. they were always great the first time, but then as you got used to the album they became the repeated conversations that you were always fast forwarding through. on a tape player or record that could be annoying.

finally some guys in an office figured out how to breath new life into two of Wu-Tang's "spicier" skits. by mouthing the ultra hardcore conversations as if it was taking place in a white-washed office environment. it's kind of genius because it says a lot more then i think these jokers meant it to say. you know, about opposing cultures and how they try to isolate each other and...whatever, Zen2. just play them damn shiznits.

Top 10 3D Street Artists

Taking the techniques of forced perspective to whole new levels...click the pic

There's plenty of parking on the dancefloor

Major gripe. NYC. Dancing. Wha' happen? Guiliani happen. He shut dancing down in the dancingest place possible.

need i remind people that this is the birth place of break-dancing and hip hop?!?!

I never thought that institutionalized dancing could be a possibility. that the man could say that dancing is not allowed. that moving to a rhythm is something punishable by a fine or violation. this was something that couldn't happen in a free country except in the movie Footloose. and that happened in a little podunk town and we all laughed it off like, that could never happen in MY town.

well it did. and we aren't even organizing a prom dance at the edge of town, or anything. there's no outrage. people just stand around all the time, and don't even realize that they CAN'T dance. go ahead. try it. at a restaurant or bar, someplace that isn't a big club with a Cabaret License. you will experience the most awkward NYC experience you have ever had. a waiter, or bartender, or bouncer will walk over and ask you to stop dancing. it's the law. they can get a big fine for having people dance when they aren't licensed for it. think about that New Yawk.

When two great things come together and make a third, even greater thing

Peanuts do the movie Clerks

Reminds me of the old Reese's peanut butter commercials about the accidental combo of peanut butter and chocolate...who eats peanut butter out of a jar at the movies?!

And here are some mashups. a phenomenon in music these days where somebody mixes two songs together. some are incredible.

Jay-Z vs. the Verve

Blondie vs. the Doors

Eminem vs. Eurythmics

Kanye West vs. Beethoven

Justin Timberlake vs Corey Hart

KARL ROVE - lifetime gas-face recipient

would you feast your eyes on the ARROGANCE of this MOFO?!

Rove's latest attack on all that's decent and good in this world has come in a very familiar form...

He's actually trying the "Elitist" or "Arrogant" route with Obama. Well this time, it ain't gonna work. Karl, who is usually much smarter then this, or has had easier targets in the past (KERRY, GORE), doesn't realize how things are different. Everybody, from shore to shore, is already aware of Obama's less then elite background as compared to the current motley crew of Ivy League excrement. Well, to be exact, people are still out of the loop on Bush being from Yale, but they KNOW about Cheney and Rove. Those guys are done in the public eye. No red stater still thinks they are beer drinkin' good ol' boys anymore.

the old advantage of appealing to the lowest common denominator of America is backfiring this time. The people who want a beer drinking good ol' boy to be the most powerful man on the planet, rather then an educated above average person (you would think that the advantages of an education and certain superiority in a US president would be self evident to a true patriot), those people are also SO dumb that they can't except the idea that a black man COULD EVER BE ELITE. It's the red states own racism, and guilt there of, that tilts the game against you, Karl. get with the program, how have you lost touch with those bible gripping cowboys so quickly?

Karl's main attack: "(OBAMA'S) the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone."

Ha ha. FAIL. first of all, adding in the beautiful date remark was unnecessary and makes Karl seem like he's got the hots for Michelle. It also makes Obama seem more cool, just for being studly. Republicans want a "cool" man leading, duh, Karl. Obama gets even cooler by Karl saying he's got a cigarette. He should have said pipe, or cigar. But there are too many pics of Karl and his buds with cigars sticking out of their fat mouths for him to consider trying that.

Then you have the "making snide remarks". well that would be exactly what you are doing Karl. Obama has been very obvious about not making snide remarks during his campaign. he has impressed even the Republicans with how little mud he slings. Everybody knows that his weak moments have come in the face of bad attacks from both sides. and THAT has been very well publicized.

Lastly, and the part that shows just how much Karl and crew have lost touch with their good ol' boy base, is that he claimes Obama is in a country club. I would put down money that most of the good ol boy voters out there still think Country Clubs don't even let black men in. I bet they can't even picture that statement being even in the realm of reality from the first phrase uttered. Karl, your done. but by all means, keep on flapping that flabby jowl of yours.

and that's CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN. woot?

Republicans...did you really think it was a good idea to attack a place called KARMA?!

New York City and the right to Pee.

In the distant past, I have done it right in front of cops 30 feet from a precinct, looked at them, said that i was sorry but i had an emergency, then shrugged and then walked away. but i have heard that this has changed. not that i would ever find out. i am a lifetime "professional" outdoor pee'er. not that i do it all the time, but if i find myself in a situation with a long line and little options, i go the old school route.

I have always assumed that as long as you didn't expose yourself to anybody else, and as long as your pee went into the street or somewhere out of the way from people and feet, then peeing publicly is kosher. i mean, dogs can do it. nobody blinks at the fact that dogs pee right in the middle of crowded sidewalks where you end up stepping right in it. are we gonna create a system where a four legged creature we keep as pets have more rights then we do?! and don't think that this is a small freedom to give up, its not. have you SEEN some of the bathrooms in places in the city?! have you waited on long lines to relieve what feels like a physically dangerous and painful situation brewing in your bladder? these lines are for the birds, not for the top of the food chain.

This is a fundamental right as far as i see it. A bladder is not meant to be trifled with in such a way. and normally, peeing in rural situations is assumed. you can always disappear behind a tree or a bush. it's "natural". why would living in a city become disadvantageous for such an important organ?! to pee outside is no less "natural" in a city, but like in the woods, you have to avoid contact with other people during the act, or avoid getting it on some body's property or in a place where it affects other people. the only trick is to do it behind something or when nobody is around, and get it rolling in the direction of a gutter. that used to be a lot easier then it is now. there are definitely more people on the sidewalks in areas that used to be dangerous enough to get less populated when the sun went down. but two tightly parked minivans or SUVs still provide great cover as long as you have at least 70-80 yards on the nearest incoming pedestrian, you should be fine for a normal length release. just don't get caught. then its indecent exposure, gross, embarrassing, ghetto, and illegal. again, not that i would know.

Where is Matt, THE SEQUEL

this time he had some friends...

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

at first its mostly moving in a sense of the beauty of the planet and oneness of mankind, but then it just makes me feel like i need to get out a bit more.

Images of the minute...

You can click on the pics to get them a bit larger. These are snagged from various spots, mostly from people i know at work who shared.


Re-enactment of the Spider Man scene where he stops the train by shooting webs at buildings on each side and using his body in the middle. but with an "Island" theme. mad points for creative usage of ducklings and chicks. Another genius detail: the mask on the ground. that is indeed the sequence where he loses his mask.
I have no idea where this is from. apparently, neither does she.

Worst Tat Ever. Patrick Swayyyyyze, as a centaur...in front of interweaving rainbows.


Oak-town Anteaters
partially offensive. partially parachute pants. Stop, It's Hammertime.

Perfect for the office.

Truth in advertising.

It's really the Headset that gets me.

Sci-Fi Sacrilege

This should be on the wall in a dog pound.

It's fun to stay at the...

I heart LOLCATS!
Cuteness overload. could fry your video card.

I remember actually reacting like that when i first came across a real Lego Deathstar Set.

IN-n-OUT fart ass-plosion. Points for ultra distorted facial expression.

this is the face of FEAR

Really, the best part? Imitation Crabmeat. I heart Craigslist.
your cat is infected with Ninja

Episode VI: Return of the Dachshund

Too much Guitar Hero has its consequences

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

the Dark side of A&P

I imagine that the "Alien" reference isn't really comprehended by this tot. But at least the baby seems to understand the emotional motivation of the role, judging by the expression.

Summer in the city used to be HOT

and I mean, like Africa hot. not that I am saying that the summer temperatures these days are actually cooler based on temperature. It's most likely the opposite, with Global warming it's got to be hotter on average. But NYC has changed since I was a youngster. We never had A/C until I was well into puberty. I would open my window to get some air, but air didn't move for the whole months of July and August, unless you stood right next to moving traffic or a train as it pulled into the sauna-like station. I used to call it "Swamp Ass" season because as soon as you got out of the shower, your ass got swampy from sweat before you could even dry off.

Now, when you go outside, you are suddenly hit by the constant hum of thousands of A/C's working overtime. it's like a steady all around low toned sound that never goes away until the temps get below 75 degrees. all those mysterious drops of water that ding you in the dome-piece are most likely from their condensation water. At least that's what I always hope :)

Subway cars were no break either, hot as shit, and even less oxygen, the fact that the windows were always broken in the "open" position only meant that the stinky sewage smell of the hot tunnels got to assault your sinus' in full force.

You could be walking down the block and see a garbage truck cross the intersection a block away. 4 minutes later, when you finally crossed the street, walking through the still dank wake of the long gone truck of rotten garbage, the nose ambush in the air was SO strong that your eyes would tear and your gag reflex would make you lurch forward. It was like an invisible wall o' funk. something the army should actually look into for possible non-lethal weaponry, the NYC garbage truck in mid August could take out whole platoons.


another thing i remember about those days in the summer, besides RUNNING to playgrounds with working sprinklers or broken fire-hydrants, was that you could always tell non new yorkers at a corner when a bus would pull out from a bus stop. New Yorkers were the people who quickly backed up far away from the bus. the tourists were the ones who got blasted, face first, by the huge, hot, exhaust clouds that used to fart out of the back of these gargantuan diesel engines. nowadays they are hybrids with exhaust pipes that stick out the top and aim the hot blasts up into the ether where they belong. but back in the day, one good blast from a bus exhaust could turn your white Le Tigra windbreaker outfit black and sooty, and fill your lungs with ultra heated smoggy exhaust. enough to kill an old French person in a single blast.

I swear the race riots, the murders, the crime, the craziness was only instigated by the awful, inescapable heat...

Honk if you like tomatoes.

this salmonella scare won't deter my love for the juicy fruity vegetable. i actually just ate one from my garden and it was GOOD. but thinking about what life would be like without them has me remembering one of my more creative tomato utilizations.

I used to live in the front apartment of a brownstone about a block from the west side highway. it was an ideal location because escaping the city was made easy by the highway's proximity. but the major drawback was that everybody and their moms used my side street to get to the highway and they were mostly Connecticut and jersey folks (my fav kind of people, obviously) who were so close to being out of manhattan's sluggish trafficky grasp that they figured leaning on their horns was acceptable behavior. you have to understand the mindset was not that they were knee deep in a residential zone, which they were, but that they were almost going 60 miles an hour and that they could stop being human.

since i was in the front, one floor up, i got to hear everything. including the homeless guy who sifted through the recycled bottles loudly every morning at 5:30 am. i was tolerant of him for obvious reasons, but i wasn't tolerant of the honkers...at all. as a matter of fact, i got into the awesome habit of throwing tomatoes at egregious offenders of the noise ordinances. it was my own form of vigilantism and i got pretty good at it. i always make tomato sauce from scratch so i usually buy a lot of tomatoes. mostly on the vine juicy ones from Fairway, and one day i realized that they make great little juicy bombs for windshields. the riper, the better the splat.

the best instance of tomato bombing i ever did was when i got one of those extra guido jersey shore assholes driving a Range Rover. Range Rovers are a great indication of assholitude and this greased hair boob was no exception. apparently a taxi stopped to let somebody out, because people LIVED THERE, and this kung pao chicken head decides that he's going to speed up the process by leaning on his english horn. now, in most instances, i usually gave people lenience if it was a short blasty honk. but this guy really just sat on that shit. if i can go to the kitchen at a normal pace, get out a tomato and walk to the window, and someone is STILL honking, then it's bombs away mofo.

so i got the juicy yumminess and lobbed it at his windshield. it was a perfectly centered hit. tomato guts splat in several streaked out directions and the main mass slides ever so slowly down the glass and rests on the wipers and slightly under the hood. he jumps out of his car and starts yelling some guido shit at me. i smiled, just loving the dumb animal's heated passion, and knowing that i just got the best of his NJ turnpike driving ass. but now he wanted more. i considered grabbing another tomato or something bigger but thought that i'd instead go for the quick scare and force him to flee like a little new kids on the block bitcho. i knew that would bother him more when he had to think about what had happened to him on the way home. so i opted for the bluff threat. i raised my finger to let him know i'd be right back, i grabbed my aluminum bat from my softball days and came back to the window holding it so he could see it. i leaned out and said, "hold it right there, i'll be right down."

i then walked away from the window. the next thing i heard was the sound of tires screeching.

NWA

When good remixes happen too good music. Mighty Mi remixs NWA

White guys can rap too, you know

this is a really stupid post. but the raps iz gooud.
A.D.O.R (sorry Dear, i had to do it)

The High & Mighty.. whatup Milo?


click the pic

East Coast vs West Coast

Personally, i can't decide which side is fresher. but i can tell you which side is harder...

Old NYC TV

thanks again, Dear.

Wow, nostalgia. I reminisce. Looks like NYC took this message to heart and cleaned itself up a bit too much...


Remember when commercial tunes got stuck in your head all day? here are a few of my favs.

Hotel Seville...

Milford Plaza!!

Mount Airy Lodge..

I <3 NY

CARVEL Cookie Puss

Take the Train to the Plane..

PSA Graffiti

Coronet

Crazy Eddie's prices were INSANE...

BLUR STUDIO - Venice California

I used to work here. Its a fantastic place, right on Abbot Kinney and Venice Boulevard. It's like a small family place where you can expect hugs and hilarity. At 2pm there's an hour break so everybody can play a studio wide game of Quake. you get to shoot the people you work with and blow them up with lasers and cannons. it's pointless not to play because the yelling is so loud you won't be able to concentrate anyways, plus you won't be able to have a beer and taunt the people you blasted afterwards.

Tim Miller, the owner is a funny and nice guy despite a very tough looking shaved head appearance. he also sets a high standard for the artists while sticking to his guns about how the client's product turns out. Blur shirts are usually black with "Fuck" somewhere on it. like FUCK YEAH, FUCK EVERYONE, FUCK THAT, FUCK YOU, you get the idea.

Lunch breaks out back on the picnic tables were ALWAYS hilarious. the conversation would flail wildly all over the place, from the mildly vulgar to the extremely offensive in an instant. since everybody liked each other and there was a real sense of team, the tone could get risky without ruffling feathers. except there was this one time, when 2 Mormon animators had flown in from Utah to interview. they sat with us at lunch, in their full on Mormon suits with the white collar shirts and ties (something no self respecting animator would ever wear to an interview). well, the conversation went into the lovely world of fetish-porn and "fisting", we were all laughing wildly, but i could see these two guys were completely terrified. like we had just shown them a back door into hell and they were invited...needless to say, they disappeared after that lunch never to be seen again in the West Coast.

this is what it looks like :)


and this is a HD interview with Tim and some of the dudes working on the Transformers Game Cinematic.

there was once a random email conversation between Tim and some guy who criticized one of Blur's MySimon commercials. Tim let him have it in typical Tim fashion. don't fuck with Blur :)

I'm sorry i couldn't find the whole convo, but here is the beginning and then the end:

Wrote Mr DiMauro: "Some feedback re: my simon character created by your studios. I find him annoying, obtrusive and the last person on earth I would invite to a party. I would hate my host forever if someone like that ever showed up at a party I was attending. What were you guys thinking?"

Six hours later he received a reply from Tim Miller, CEO of Blur. It was frank and to the point.

"Thanks for your email Frank, a few points I'd like to make:
1. Fuck You.
2. Don't you have anything better to do with your life instead of writing emails like this? Did you just get completely bored with masturbation?
3. He was designed by an ad agency- not us, which you would have guessed if you knew fuck-all about this business. Is that the clue phone ringing? I think it must be for you.....
4. We do appreciate your assessment of how annoying the My Simon character is, since it appears that you're an expert in that area.
5. I'll bet your dick is very small.

Tim Miller
Blur

Over the next 24-hours the two men exchanged increasingly abusive emails. It ended with Mr Miller who said: "This has been really fun Frank and I and myself and the animators have had a really good laugh so far but we've got some work to do, so I'm going to have to sign off now--for good. I suggest you send your next email to www.enlarge_my_penis_please.com."

So, as you can tell, he's a really smart and funny boss. Plus he's a real person, not some sniveling ass licker, like so many people who have made something out of themselves in the industry.

I found out about Blur when i went to LA for an animation convention called SIGGRAPH and i went to their party. it was RIDICULOUS. a whole mansion with go-go dancers and all the bells and whistles. their parties are always outer limits. part of the reason it rocks to work there. the other reason is the work itself. check out these nuggets of goodness.

Blur makes incredible shorts. here are some...
A Gentleman's Duel

ROCKFISH.

GOPHER BROKE.

IN THE ROUGH.

The REEL.


As you can tell, i've got a soft spot in my heart for this place. I miss those fuckers.

Happy Friday!!- Scooter Bob the Happy Friday Guy

when a day is so cool that it creates it's own hero...

now, why didn't i ever think of that?!?!

My Work

This post is primarily for MTV's ENGINE ROOM. apparently, they are interested in me for the show and i need to give them something to look at. well, MTV, this be me. I am from NYC, born and raised, but from the looks of this pic, I have lived in California too.
To be clear, I am an Animator, and that's what i would like to represent if i am on the show. But I have always painted and I used to write graffiti. So here's a bunch of my stuff to look at...

first, my lighting film reel...

Gabriel Portnof Lead Lighter Reel 2007 from gabriel portnof on Vimeo.

then my director of animation reel (stuff i did all of)...

Gabriel Portnof's VFX Director Reel from gabriel portnof on Vimeo.

now, my artsy Thesis from 1999...

Now starts the picture scroll, from 20 year old graffiti all the way to stills from my animation work, to oil paintings...














































Thats all I have digital right now...I hope you like it!