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Wild portraits of Dali, Bowie, Jimi, Jagger, Bruce Lee, Basquiat & more made from junk
03.29.2017
11:22 am
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A portrait of David Bowie made out of junk by Bernard Pas.
 
French painter, photographer, and sculptor Bernard Pras has been creating pictures out of everyday objects such as toys, wood, clothing and whatever else he happened to come across for over two decades. Many of the finished products are remarkable portraits of some of the world’s most famous faces such as David Bowie, Andy Warhol, Bruce Lee and Jack Nicholson as “Jack Torrance” from The Shining.

Pras is very discerning when it comes to the selection process for his individual pieces—and it is that thought process that helps the the dexterous artist create a sense of life in his elaborate portraits and other works comprised of objects that he perhaps collected from Goodwill bargain bins filled with doll parts, bits of clothing and even food. I’ve included a nice selection of Pras’ portraits, one of which is quite NSFW which you can see at the very end of this post.
 

Jack Nicholson as his character “Jack Torrance” from ‘The Shining.’
 

Jimi Hendrix, 2000.
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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03.29.2017
11:22 am
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‘Enter the Dragon’: Incredible comic advertisement for Bruce Lee’s swan song
02.28.2017
09:53 am
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Enter the Dragon was released in Hong Kong six days after the death of its unforgettable star, Bruce Lee. A month later it debuted in the United States, and rapidly became the most iconic martial arts movie ever to reach a wide western audience.

Enter the Dragon has plenty of terrific kung fu battles but the mayhem is almost the least of it, the final scenes offer undiluted cinematic pleasure of a rare sort. Interspersing his combat with noticeable cognitive and emotional content, Lee’s vivid acting style was rife with quizzical head shakes and fleeting WTF expressions. Lee’s tragic early demise allowed his soon-to-be-enormous fan base (and unscrupulous exploitation filmmakers) to inscribe whatever future they desired onto his screen persona.

This full-page cartoon advertisement originally appeared in a September 1973 issue of Rolling Stone, but it gains in interest for probably having been conceived and executed before Lee’s death, which isn’t referenced whatsoever. The title of the strip, “Enter the Dragon and his allies,” vaguely recalls Homer Simpson’s fan letter to his favorite Hollywood star, which commenced, “Dear Die Hard: You rock.”

Steven Thompson points out that the cartoon was executed using a lightbox and was probably the product of a commercial artist rather than one of the familiar comics professionals of the era.

Can the Dragon and his allies survive the tortures of the evil Han? Will Interpol’s forces arrive in time to rescue them from a fate worse than death?

More after the jump…

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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02.28.2017
09:53 am
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Punk rock knitting: These cult figure sweaters are easily the most amazing sweaters money can buy


Kraftwerk sweater by by Amimono Horinouchi
 
I’m not the sort of person to really care all that much about, or even notice, expert knitting or “crafting” or embroidery or anything remotely like that. This very sentence will probably mark my first time using the word “felted” and it might very well be the last. I’ve got no business being in a Hobby Lobby. I’m not putting it down, but it’s not my area of interest.

That was until I saw the jaw-dropping sweaters made by Amimono Horinouchi, a 49-year-old knitwear artiste based in Tokyo. THIS is where my own esoteric interests hit the Venn diagram with wool sweaters hard. When I saw the Kraftwerk sweater, my eyes practically bugged out—they’re all so amazing: Debbie Harry, Ramones, Bowie, YMO—but what could possibly top that insane Kraftwerk sweater???

And then I saw the one on his website of Throbbing Gristle-era Genesis P-Orridge and was completely and utterly floored.

Amimono Horinouchi‘s knitwear might be “fashion,” but it is also art.

According to his Etsy page, which has prices in dollars, the bags sell for less than $200, and the sweaters go for about $600 which I think is a great bargain. He also takes commissions and will even do a sweater of your beloved dog or cat. I’d love to see him working in large tapestries. Incredible!

Follow Amimono Horinouchi on Twitter.
 

Genesis P-Orridge
 

Debbie Harry
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.27.2016
12:27 pm
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Bruce Lee and Freddie Mercury are best friends forever on this bizarre Japanese Twitter account
09.12.2016
08:55 am
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As Boing Boing accurately points out, Bruce Lee and Freddie Mercury probably never have met. I think they might be right. I can’t find anywhere on the Internet where the two were actually friends. That’s why this bizzaro Japanese Twitter account is so inexplicably hilarious. It’s simply images of Bruce Lee and Freddie Mercury action figures having the ultimate bromance. Each tweet tells a different story involving the two. I don’t necessarily know why this exists, but it does, and it’s funny as hell.

Follow Atto Suekichiii on Twitter to fully comprehend what I’m talking about. It’s worth it.


 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Tara McGinley
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09.12.2016
08:55 am
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‘The Legend of Bruce Lee’: The little-known syndicated comic strip
01.25.2016
11:46 am
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The world premiere of Enter the Dragon, the kung fu crossover hit, happened in Hong Kong on July 26, 1973, six days after Bruce Lee’s shocking death at the age of 32. Less than a month later the movie hit America, sparking a global sensation into that most charming of martial arts heroes.

The absence of Lee from his own worldwide phenomenon made it an inviting prospect for others to cash in. This led to the advent of “Bruceploitation,” analogous to the dozens of Beatles imitation LPs that were released in 1964 and 1965, in which “Lee-alikes” were cast in obvious imitations of signature Bruce Lee classics like Fists of Fury or Game of Death.

The kinetic skill of Bruce Lee doesn’t seem like the greatest starting point for a syndicated comic strip, but then again, that bizarre Amazing Spider-Man daily strip has been around for decades and is still going strong. At any rate, there were several attempts to do a Bruce Lee strip in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Actually, one of the widely acknowledged legends of cartooning, Milton Caniff, known for his work on Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon, almost got involved with a daily Bruce Lee strip. In 1977 he and Noel Sickles (of Scorchy Smith renown) produced at least one strip for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate before Caniff lost interest, which you can see below (click for a larger view):
 

 
According to Allan Holtz, author of American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide, “Caniff grew disgusted with what he considered nitpicky suggestions from the syndicate and dropped the project.”

However, five years later, in 1982, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate did run a Bruce Lee strip for approximately a year in “a vanishingly small number of newspapers,” as Holtz puts it. So don’t be too surprised if you missed it in your halcyon youth, it didn’t last very long and it wasn’t in too many papers.

The strip was called “The Legend of Bruce Lee.” It was written by Sharman DiVono, who was also penning the Star Trek strip at the time, and drawn by Fran Matera, who just a couple years later would commence on a 20-year run putting out Steve Roper and Mike Nomad. Later on the strip was taken over by Dick Kulpa.

Holtz is insightful on the reasons the Bruce Lee strip didn’t get wider distribution:
 

The small client list might seem odd given the devoted fandom for Bruce Lee. However, we must consider a few factors. First of all, newspaper editors were pretty much convinced that continuity strips were dead, so the strip had a lot of resistance to overcome. Secondly, the market was awash in media tie-in strips at that time—Spider-Man, Hulk, Dallas, Star Trek, Star Wars and others were all jockeying for newspaper space. Bruce Lee may have just seemed like the low man on that totem pole—popular with teens, certainly, but did he have the mass appeal to sell newspapers? Strips featuring much higher-profile media stars were just limping along as it was—why take a chance on a cult figure that many older readers had never heard of?

 
There aren’t too many images of “The Legend of Bruce Lee” out there, but I was able to score a few. First up is this gorgeous, full-color Sunday edition (in all cases, click for a larger view):
 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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01.25.2016
11:46 am
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Bruce Lee: Intimate photos of the martial arts legend and his young family
01.15.2016
10:44 am
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Maybe it’s because I’ve become so used to seeing images of Bruce Lee from his movies—ripped, sweating and flashing his martial arts skills at some no good bad guy—that I find these photographs of Mr. Lee with his wife Linda and children Brandon and Shannon utterly charming.

Having grown-up with a wall covered in Bruce Lee posters and spent far too much time trying out nifty martial arts moves on anyone fool enough to let me, these pictures show Mr. Lee as just an ordinary Dad—doing what every doting parent does: playing with his kids, posing for that holiday portrait, showing off the newborn, or celebrating birthdays.

Of course, he would never dance like anyone else’s old man—as the mighty master of Jeet Kune Do was also an exquisitely graceful dancer who—in between waiting tables during his youth—gave dance classes. Which makes me think someone out there’s got a damn fine story to tell the grandkids about how Bruce Lee once taught them to dance the Cha-Cha-Cha.
 
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More of Bruce Lee and family, after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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01.15.2016
10:44 am
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‘Dragon Power,’ the disco tribute to Bruce Lee
01.08.2016
09:11 am
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Given that people like to make money, I suppose it was inevitable that Bruce Lee mania and disco fever would intersect—but when, and where? In 1978, history chose as its instrument England’s JKD (as in Jeet Kune Do) Band. On the Dragon Power (A Tribute to Bruce Lee) 12-inch, JKD Band provided an inoffensive party-record backing to screeches and bits of dialogue lifted from Enter the Dragon, and the result is delightful. Disco would sound a lot better if all the songs were ginned up with war cries, bones cracking, and other combat sounds, don’t you think? Enterprising young people: let’s make 2016 the year of war disco.
 

 
According to Discogs, the arranger of this disc, John Altman, played sax on Van Morrison and Graham Parker records, and he’s collaborated with Neil Innes of Rutles, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Monty Python fame on several occasions.

If this rings your bell, Amazon has the JKD Band’s full Dragon Power album, though I should warn you that I didn’t hear any shrieking, pulverizing or Eastern philosophizing on “Hooked on the Boogie” or “Let Your Body Do the Talking.”

Posted by Oliver Hall
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01.08.2016
09:11 am
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Meet Afghanistan’s answer to Bruce Lee
12.10.2014
02:37 pm
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I love this guy. He realized he looks a lot like Bruce Lee, who died in 1973, and decided to make the most of it. Power to him. As he says himself, “The only news that comes from Afghanistan is about war. . . . I am happy that my story is a positive one.” Yes. I hear you on that.

On Facebook he is listed as “Bruce Hazara.” The NY Daily News says his name is Abulfazl Abbas Shakoory, but The Japan Times says his name is Abbas Alizada. Based on my extensive understanding of the Arabic world, I say it’s the latter, also because the words ‘abas.alizada’ are part of his Facebook URL.

“I want to be a champion in my country and a Hollywood star,” says Alizada at Kabul’s Darul Aman Palace, which has seen better days. There he trains two times a week, whipping his nunchakus around and sporting a bowl haircut based on Lee’s. Of course, nobody knows if he’s any good or can act, but I’m rooting for him anyway.

Interestingly, he does not like the name Bruce Hazara, which his friends have dubbed him in recognition of his ethnic heritage. In a country that has been torn apart by tribal disagreements, he prefers to be considered “the Afghan Bruce Lee.”
 

 
See him in action, after the jump…

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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12.10.2014
02:37 pm
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Insane Salvador Dalí haircut & other follicle follies


Salvador Dalí
 
San Antonio-based artist and hair stylist Roberto Perez AKA Rob The Original creates these pretty nutty haircuts with the scalp as a blank canvas and a photo of the subject to work off of for reference.

A lot of Rob’s subjects crafted on heads are of pop stars, sports stars and reality TV dum-dums (none of which I care about). I did, however, find of few of his works I really dig like Salvador Dalí, Bruce Lee, Cesar Chavez and a few others. I’d imagine the two dudes who got the Cheech & Chong hairdos would always have to stand together though, because it would be rather confusing to onlookers if they were separated with just a Tommy Chong on the one head. Where’s Cheech, dammit?!

I would also like to see these haircuts after two weeks of hair regrowth. Do they all turn into the Wolfman? I mean Tupac as the Wolfman would be kinda of hilarious and inexplicable to sport on yer head, no? You’d still have a lot of explaining to do. 


Bruce Lee
 

Cesar Chavez
 
More after the jump…
 

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Posted by Tara McGinley
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10.20.2014
12:16 pm
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Bruce Lee talks martial arts during his 1964 audition for ‘The Green Hornet’
04.14.2014
10:36 am
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In this 1964 tape, a confident Bruce Lee gives a kung fu primer while auditioning for the role of Kato in The Green Hornet. Lee, of course, got the part, and though the show only ran for a year, Kato, the ass-kicking man-servant was a ground-breaking, if complicated, moment in television history. By this time Lee had already built a successful film career in Hong Kong—though he was born Chinatown, San Francisco, his parents moved to Hong Kong when he was three. Lee’s Cantonese birth name was actually Lee Jun-fan, meaning “return again,” named for his (half-white) mother’s prediction that he would one day come back to the US.

The martial arts demos are cool, but for me, one of the more interesting moments is when Lee show some of the gaits of Chinese Opera—his own father was a Chinese opera and film star. In addition to the fighting skills that earned him the (unofficial) title of America’s first male Asian sex symbol, Lee was a man of many graceful talents—he was even the 1958 Honk Kong Cha Cha Champion!
 

 
Via Open Culture, H/T Brain Pickings

Posted by Amber Frost
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04.14.2014
10:36 am
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Bruce Lee’s kick-ass co-star in ‘Enter The Dragon’ Jim Kelly R.I.P.
07.01.2013
04:49 am
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Karate champ and film star Jim “The Dragon” Kelly has died of cancer at the age of 67.

Six foot two with an explosive Afro, Kelly made an indelible impression in 1973’s Enter The Dragon by holding his own against the film’s massively charismatic star Bruce Lee. Kelly’s character, Williams, was somewhat of a symbol of the Black Power movement in America at the time and Kelly’s look, defiant demeanor and no bullshit attitude fit the role perfectly.

Kelly went on to make a string of films in the 70s, the most popular of which were Black Belt Jones and Three The Hard Way. He also appeared briefly in the wildly twisted The Amazing Mr. No Legs.

Kelly exuded a cool intensity and had a screen presence that should have made him a bigger star than he was. But the scripts he was offered he turned down because they were generally exploitation flicks that he felt didn’t give him an opportunity to project a positive image. His martial arts training had made him very aware of directing his energies toward a higher goal. Playing Black stereotypes in low-rent B-movies wasn’t the kind of karma he wanted to accrue.

In this video shot during the 2012 Albuquerque Comic Expo, Kelly is interviewed by martial arts film historian Ric Meyers. The result is a wonderfully insightful take on one of cinema’s shooting stars and one of martial arts true legends. Kelly’s feelings for Bruce Lee are profound.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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07.01.2013
04:49 am
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‘Bruce Lee vs Gay Power’
03.01.2013
02:59 pm
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The world of exploitation cinema is seemingly inexhaustible. Just when you think you’ve seen—or at least heard of—every grindhouse flick that the 60s, the 70s and the 80s had to offer, something so far out of leftfield, like Brazil’s Bruce Lee vs Gay Power comes onto your radar. Here’s a description of this near mythic gem from Super Strange Video:

Bruce (Adriano Stuart) discovers his parents have been murdered by a roving gang of homosexuals. Then, with his Karate kicking girlfriend along to assist him, he vows revenge on these hooligans and sets out to systematically murder them all, until street justice has been served.

It’s actually a Kung Fu comedy more than a straight-faced attempt at “Bruceploitation.” The “gays” here tend to look more like, um, vain pirates to me (and they only seem interested in girls, so maybe there was something lost in translation?)
 
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Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.01.2013
02:59 pm
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Bruce Lee dress
05.17.2012
02:05 pm
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Bruce Lee’s teeny-tiny body featuring your head. Very interesting.

The silk dress by Ground Zero comes equipped with leather sleeves and gold-tone studs. It can be yours for a mere $620.00.

Very “Teletubbies” isn’t it?

Via Dressed Like Machines

Posted by Tara McGinley
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05.17.2012
02:05 pm
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Video: Cat fight nearly turns into a Bruce Lee movie
11.08.2011
12:00 pm
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Here’s 15 seconds of a cat displaying his badass self.
 

 
(via KMFW )

Posted by Tara McGinley
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11.08.2011
12:00 pm
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Bruce Lee’s ‘Green Hornet’ screen test, 1965
11.01.2011
06:00 pm
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B&W footage of Bruce Lee’s complete screen test for the role of “Kato” in The Green Hornet TV series from 1965. Lee was a new father by just three days when this was shot and then only 24-years-old. You get a good sense of what he was like then. He was such a charismatic young guy.

In the demonstration part, it’s unreal how fast he moves! How many other guys auditioned after him, I wonder? None?
 

 

 
Below, a great kung fu action sequence from The Green Hornet. I love how the Green Hornet goads this guy into fighting the great Bruce Lee. Hilarious.
 

 
Thank you @SKYENICOLAS

Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.01.2011
06:00 pm
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