MTV is taking away my Alexa Chung!

I'm devastated. It's On With Alexa Chung has been cancelled.

I dvr her show every day and then Kevin and I watch when I get home from work. It will be so sad to come home and have no Alexa!

The girl just sparkles on camera. How could they drop her? Wtf Mtv? (Yes, I realize I've been too old to watch MTV for a decade, but Alexa brought me back!)

I really hope she stays on this side of the Pond and doesn't move back to London town...

Anyhow, I'm too bummed to say anything else about it. Here are some lovely photos of the talented Miss Chung for you to enjoy.

Peace, girl! I miss your British wit and charm already.

Tie Tuesday

So at work, my friends Noah, Charlie, Andrew and some other dudes all wear ties on Tuesdays. I've always viewed it as kind of a mildly subversive spin on the concept of "Casual Fridays". Anyhow, those boys make me laugh and I want to be like them, so some Tuesdays, I'll rock the tie myself.

My absolute favorite tie that I own is the one pictured to the left. It's 2" wide and the madras pattern is mostly red, but also has blue, yellow and white stripes. It looks even sharper in real life. People always ask me where I got it from, so I'll hook ya'll up - Narrowties.com. That's the only place you can buy one.



I'm thinking about buying another tie from ShanaLogic.com.

This sage green tie designed by CyberOptix is silk-screened with actual text from the 1942 book: "War Department's 'Technical Manual, Military Chemistry and Chemical Agents.'"


Whatdya think? Should I buy it? Hit me up at beckstablog@gmail.com and let me know.

Bravo, André Balazs, bravo!

So I'm going home for Christmas next Monday and I'm super psyched about it. Yes, it will be great to see my family and spaaaaand some time (Vincent Gallo inflection from "Buffalo '66").

But to be honest, one of the things I'm really looking forward to is staying at the Standard Hotel again. I was so lucky to stay there last time I was in New York for work. The place is just fantastic and I wish I could live there all the time!

The High Line runs right through the Hotel. All the rooms have floor to ceiling windows with mesmerizing city views. The bath tubs are gigantic. The staff is cool and friendly. I frickin' love it there!

My happiest memory from my last visit was watching the surreal video installation that plays in the elevators. It's rather indescribable and really needs to be witnessed live, but I'll try to do it justice here.

I learned from Boardsmag.com that the installation, created by genius Marco Brambilla, is comprised of 300 looping film and CG-enhanced clips. It's absolutely hypnotic to watch on the high-def monitors in The Standard's elevators. As you go up, you ascend into Heaven. As you go down, you slide through Purgatory and fall into Hell - an intense way to start your morning on the way to work!

Here's a photo of the "Hell" part of the video:

The article on Boardsmag.com explains the story of how it all came together:

After seeing the director and video artist's work in a gallery last year, boutique hotelier Andre Balazs asked him to create a permanent installation to be displayed on high-definition monitors in the Standard's elevators.

Brambilla responded by creating Civilization, a video mural based on Dante's Divine Comedy that scrolls in synch with the movement of the 18-storey hotel's elevators. "The idea of doing a ‘video mural' had interested me for quite some time and the journey from hell to heaven depicted in this way seemed to be a good fit," he said in a statement about the work.

Produced by Toronto-based Crush, Civilization is comprised of 400 individual channels of looped clips: obscure film and stock footage, Hollywood movie moments and original CG imagery. Brambilla (who is repped for commercials by The Ebeling Group) spent three months researching and cataloguing footage before spending six weeks - working mostly at night - pasting together painterly collages in Flame and ordering them into a narrative journey: hell, lower purgatory, middle purgatory, upper purgatory, heaven, upper heaven and back to lower hell.

My absolute favorite detail of the entire installation: Michael Jackson dancing in heaven. Gets me every time.

You can watch the full video here!

There's been a lot written about André Balazs’ masterpiece hotel. Last Summer, The Standard gained some notorious sexy cred for the exhibitionist activity of a number of feisty hotel guests who had some fun with the giant windows.

The restaurant/club on the 18th Floor was dubbed the "The New Studio 54" by Jacob Bernstein in an article he wrote for the Daily Beast. I guess Madonna and Valentino party there. I definitely have to try to get up to the top this time around.

I'll say what up to Chloe Sevigny for you.

Support Artists in the Developing World

If you're looking for some rad gear for your friends and family this Holiday season, check out the new store at Kismot.com.

Kismot is an artist collective founded by my friend Raj Chowdhury that enables community development through art and music. The name is derived from the Turkish word meaning fate, fortune, or destiny.

100% of profits from the sale of Kismot items support development programs throughout the world. These programs demonstrate the ability of the arts to empower youth, alleviate suffering, and cultivate the creativity needed for progress.

In the photo above, my buddy Noah is modeling The Jug T-Shirt by Peruvian artist Percy Cannon.

To learn more check out Kismot.com.

Ugly Dolls make me so happy

So back in 2007, my homeboy Kevin got an Ugly Doll named Babo with his Citibank rewards points. Babo was totally adorable and we loved him.





Last Christmas I was in New York and saw a bunch of Ugly Dolls in a storefront in Chelsea and bought Kev the "Ugly Dog" doll (the lil' red guy on the bottom-right in the photo above).

Kevin was sooo happy.

I've since learned that these little creatures were thought up by independent toy designers David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim, who are based in New Jersey and seem to be very cool people.

I was checking out the Ugly Doll Blog today and found this photo of Sasha Obama rockin' the "Babo’s Bird" doll on her backpack on the first day of school.



How cute is that?

Anyhow, if Kevin plays his cards right, he might get another Ugly Doll for Christmas this year. (Spoiler Alert - I'm thinking OX!)

This bracelet rules!

Designed by LeeAnn Herreid (Individual Icons), this cuff is made from a high-grade stainless steel ruler (inches on the outside, metric on the inside) and then sold for $50.

Yet another idea I wish I had first.

You can get your own at one of my favorite online shops - Shana Logic.

Life Day!

So my lil' bro Bobby was in San Francisco last week and asked me if I'd ever seen the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Despite my utter geekery (legit nerd cred: I went to a Stars Trek convention when I was 12), I had never heard of this movie. We pulled it up on the Internet and watched. It's real and it's amazingly bizarre.

Made after the first movie (so it's Episode 4.5), it actually features all the original cast members (Harrison, Mark and Carrie!) and the first ever appearance of Boba Fett.

I was shocked that Chewbacca has a wife and kid since his private life is never mentioned in the other movies. I gotta be honest here - Chewie's wife Malla is not hot. Chewie could have done much better.

Say what you will, but Chewie is one attractive Wookiee. He's a leader of the Rebellion. His other car is the Millenium Falcon! Something tells me this was a shotgun wedding. I can understand why Chewie never seems to go home to Kashyyyk except for Life Day (which only happens every third year).



Anyhow, there's tons of outlandish stuff happening in this movie. As Malla prepares "Bantha Surprise" for Life Day dinner, she watches a weird Julia Child parody cooking show featuring a white man in black-face playing a space lady with eight arms. It's bizarro. Chewie's dad watches a musical porn movie. Bea Arthur runs the Cantina at Mos Eisley and sings a little number trying to get her patrons to evacuate after the Empire shuts down all the bars in the galaxy.

I kind of feel bad for the non-famous actors in this movie. They must have been so excited when they got the roles and all during filming ("I'm gonna be in the next Star Wars movie!!"). Then November 17, 1978 rolls around and they sit in front of the tv with their families to watch... only to find out that their breakout movie is completely and totally unwatchable, to be shown only once on television and then subjected to a three-decade campaign to suppress its very existence.

The fact that I could live from 1981 to 2009 without knowing this movie ever existed is a real testament to that "power of the Internet" we talk about all the time. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, you could actually bury a career-embarrassment bad movie.

The final product never had George Lucas' name on it.

Regardless, allow me to present, in full-length with original 1978 tv commericals, the Star Wars Holiday Special. Happy Life Day!

*Note, in the first commercial break, there's a painfully ironic GM ad about how great it is to work in their factories. The tagline: "General Motors - People Building Transportation to Serve People."
**Note 2, I want the "Trail Tracker" toy advertised after the GM commercial.