ALMOST PORN

ALMOST PORN. THE LAST FRONTIER OF SEX.  –   by Brandpowder  ©  2013.

Let’s admit it. Porn has said it all. It’s repetitive, patterned, out-of-date, monotonous, trite, prosaic, insipid, self-quoting, in one word: Boring! The maximum variation you can expect from any given story ranges from “hmm, ah, hmm, ah, yes, yes!” to “hmm, ah, hmm, ah, da, da!”  or “ja, ja!” or “hongu, hongu!” depending on whether the film was shot in America, Russia, Germany or Zimbabwe. The rest is just a ‘clash of flesh’ that is just a grotesque parade, a sad mirror of our depleted of fantasy.

A study conducted by the University of Montreal found out that 100% of male population in their twenties watches porn, with an average ranging between 20 and 40 minutes a week (the difference being between the engaged and the single). The word “Sex” comes third after music and travel in search engines’ query, only because people look for sex under an endless list of synonyms, including ‘cuddling’. This is more a sign of a malady than a success. The paradox is that bored people turn to porn which, in its fake excitement, is even more boring. Porn is producing 4o% of the so-called “information overload”on the web – a wave of smut that is destroying the meaning of love and eros, and submerging our own dignity. In a visually inundated society, the satiated eye isn’t imaginative anymore. Everybody’s brain, today, is as full as a tick!

No way out, apparently.  But then, once again, the Brandpowder Team came up with a brilliant alternative.  Always ready to fight fake myths and to improve the overall quality of life on the planet, Brandpowder triggered a counter-culture to porn.  BIG COCK SMALL PUSSY is a film company specialized in “almost porn” movies. Films where, no matter all the favorable circumstances you’d usually expect as a prelude to a steamy hot conclusion, nothing hot ever happens. Every story remains clean, suspended and unconsumed and its lack of sex makes it suitable to all audiences.

The first film is called “Bad Girls Must Be Punished” (below). It stages two young schoolgirls who haven’t performed too well at College. Their teacher, a handsome man halfway between a lifeguard and a bodybuilder, is very disappointed. The girls play with their miniskirts and ask him if there’s anything they can do to recuperate their bad grades. The teacher tells the two spoiled brats they need to learn a good lesson in discipline. They smile at him with complicity but they are not getting the point, evidently. The teacher tells them they must repeat the year! End of the story.

“Devasted by the Plumber” (below) is another short where a lonely housewife wearing sexy lingerie as if it were the most natural outfit for everyday’s chores, calls the plumber to fix the washing machine. A black guy shows up and gives a quick glimpse at the lady. He knows how to fix the leak straight away. That’s a man’s job. The rest of the movie, quite interestingly,  concentrates on the nuts and bolts of hydraulic repairs, making it also a useful manual for household’s maintenance. At the end, the black guy presents the bill and that’s when the lady looks truly devastated. That’s not possible! Three hundred dollars to fix a leak?

“My Husband is a Lesbian” follows an intriguing plot: a married couple is spending their holidays at the beach. She’s a wannabe intellectual who, after reading Aristotle’s Theory of the Syllogism, tries to apply theory to practice. She speculates about her dull husband who, in the meantime, kills time watching younger babes on the beach. The wife’s lousy mumbling follows a crooked path: “Women who like women are lesbians. Women are human beings. Also men are human beings. Therefore, if my husby likes women, may be he’s a lesbian too…” This movie, of course, is aimed to people who like the Ingmar Bergman’s style.

(Three pictures below) : every BIG COCK SMALL PUSSY film comes in a luxury golden case, complete with authentication stamp and introductory booklet that makes it a collector’s must. Graphic design and illustration are by Carlo Muttoni and Monica Turlot, of the Brandpowder Team.

“The Overscrupulous Secretary” (below) stages a stunning girl whose humble job is mainly of the under-desk type. In fact she spends most of her working time picking up stuff her clumsy boss drops on the floor: pencils, pens, ipads… The boss is always on the phone, saying trivial things like: “You are doing a great job!” or “I want you to get it all!”. The secretary, in the end, re-surfaces with all the things she collected from the carpet, but we are not going to reveal the full story.

(Below): “So Innocent and So Dumb”, as you have already guessed, is an unnerving comedy about innocence and stupidity. A young country girl raised in a Midwest’s farm, receives a visit from her cousin, a young man from New York City (where else?). The city guy tries to take advantage of her purity but he won’t be able to get what he’s looking for. The farm girl raises his expectations when she asks him if he would like to see her little ass. He gets very excited. He doesn’t know, yet, he will go back to New York empty-handed.

 

Every BCSP movie is a disappointment to those who can’t wait to see the beef but, at the same time, a way to re-think ourselves, may be getting rid of our dependance on technology and the sluggish excitement of its visual drugs. The stories are very funny, anyways, and sometimes nothing is better than a good laugh. The Brandpowder Team is currently working – full steam – at new episodes and stories. BIG COCK SMALL PUSSY is opening soon a new, dedicated website where you’ll have access to all content and gadgets. Stay tuned!

PS: This article was going to end up with the line “A new star is porn” but, in the end, we thought the pun was not new, and we opted for something more sober.

KING OF TATTOO

Opening picture: “Ass Auto”, the last masterpieces by Jack Carb.  The Volkswagen Beetle‘s curvy shape perfectly fits with the sexy buttocks of Irene, a young model from Munich who now lives in New York. “I was homesick and wanted to carry a piece of my Country with me,” she told us.

JACK CARB: THE KING OF TATTOO.

Jack is a living myth. Each one of his tattooes is considered a unique painting on epidermis, a bravado in skindeep art that meets the most demanding customers in the world: Women! Jack Carb, curiously enough, doesn’t tattoo men. According to him, males’ skin texture is too thick, and the bigger pores impede to work on minuscule details. “Working on a young women’s body is like painting on silk,” Jack says. “But there’s another reason for my choice: tattooing is an art where you get very intimate with your customers and, honestly, I prefer not to have physical contact with same sex clients. My strategy cuts half of my business off but that’s not a problem, since I already can’t keep up with female clients’ requests and the waiting list is getting longer everyday.” Jack is exclusively specialized in cars and bikes’ tattooes and doesn’t accept to work on any other topic. “If you want a Maori symbol, a mermaid with big boobs or a flaming heart with the word MOM written on it, go somewhere else. I don’t do that kind of crap!” Jack says with a grin of self confidence. He lights a Partagas cigar with the dying embers of the previous one. The tropical smell of burning hand-rolled tobacco leaves fills the open space of his studio in Uptown New York, with wisps of blue smoke slowly dissolving in midair. Jack Carb is a chain smoker, drinks rhum as mineral water and doesn’r disdain five course meals in posh restaurants and yet, you easily picture him, fifty years from now, still alive and kicking asses.

The Brandpowder Team was called for a quick assignment. Jack was looking for a new name and logo. His shop opened in 1979 and never closed its doors ever since. Originally it was called “Tattoo On Wheels” but Jack  didn’t like it anymore: “too corporate,” he told us, and since he was looking for something stupid, he thought to give us a ring (we told him he couldn’t have done a better choice).

We discussed together the concept of “body shop”, a name that refers to the space where cars are repaired but also winks an eye at a sort of market for human spare parts, but it was still too vague. Then we came up with the name “Nice Body”. We suggested the name provided a tangible end benefit with an ironic, sexy twist, and Jack loved it. The next step was to create a simple, funny logo with a vintage flavor and, to add that extra touch, we proposed to have his business cards printed with tattoo inks. And that’s what we did, in the end.

Above: Beatrice is a BMW cafè racer and asked Jack to have her ’72 emerald green, custom made “brot-mit-wurstel”, tattooed on her back. Below: The King working on Helena, a web designer with a weakness for Cadillacs. Jack Carbs builds his own tattoo machines out of dentists’ high-tech props, ultrasound needles (no pain, no bleeding) and space age equipment. He produces his own colors, mixing high quality natural pigments with vegetal melatonin and minerals. It’s this secret recipe that gives his images their velvety, ultra-detailed finish.

Above: Nice Body’s headquarters in New York. The studio also includes a reading room, fumoir, Scandinavian sauna and a pool table. At the ground floor Jack Carb plans to open a private bar with a garage and repair shop where his beautiful customers can hang around.

Below: the Nice Body business card is printed with tattoo inks on hand made Kozo Washi Japanese paper. The girl’s pretty face was inspired by Shayna Texter, a girl who made history in flat track motorcycle races.

Above: one of the cahier where Jack Carbs carefully plans his tattooes, collecting information, stories and photos for inspiration. “They say a diamond is forever” Jack says,  “but most women get rid of them at the end of a love story.  A tattoo is forever. That’s a real fact. And it’s my responsibility to make sure my customers are happy with it.”

Below:  Mary Rose, from Madrid, wanted a 1968 Ford OSI (Officine Stampaggi Industriali). The Italian/German sport car is a collector’s item, and very hard to find all over Europe.  When Jack Carb told her how much she was going to pay for the tattoo, she replied: “You are telling me I can’t even afford this Ford?” Jack liked her sense of humour and decided to make it for free.

Above: This young woman who chose anonymity asked for “Big Red”, a 1960 Studebaker Champ light truck, featured in the Gold Catalogue of American Icons. It’s worth to mention no other tattoo artist in the world can obtain white overtones on skin; only Jack’s artwork bears the unique brilliance of polished metal.

Below: Another photo from Jack Carb’s portfolio. Sarah, a girl from Brooklyn, asked for a BMW logo with a different acronym. Alv was the name of her Norwegian boyfriend and also the three preceeding letters of BMW (as HAL computer stood for IBM in the movie “20o1. A Space Odyssey” by Kubrick).

Above: Jack Carb on a pause between two cigars. To get this picture we had to hide his box of Partagas. Jack didn’t like the joke and told us not to do this again.

Below: one of the most ambitious tattooes ever done by Jack Carb: the exploded view of a V-engine in full colors. Sandy, a 29 year-old from Alaska married to a truck driver, asked the drive shaft to coincide with her navel (the tattoo was awarded a third place at the World Skin-Inx Competition, last year).

Before leaving New York and the Nice Body Studio, we asked Jack Carb if there ever was a request by one of his female customers he refused to do. He thought about it for a sec. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Once a Hollywood star came to my studio asking to have a tiny Toyota Prius tattooed on her ankle. I told her: tattooes are not meant to be tiny, and there’s no way I’m gonna ruin my reputation with a goddam’ Prius.”

UFO PAINTING

If you don’t believe in UFO, read this. You might change idea about reality, science fiction and what’s in between. This is the true account of Karl Mutbesitz, a 49 year old German painter who lives in Saguaro Shadows, Arizona, abducted by aliens in 2009 and kept inside a space ship for two days. After being released, Karl was able to provide the local police with a detailed description of his days in captivity: ” I was hanging around a dimly lit room with rounded, icy walls and a metal floor that produced an artificial gravity through minuscule suction caps that kept puncturing my feet”. Karl also said the aliens were tall dudes that didn’t look like aliens but like “an advanced breed of human beings”, and that they were very kind with him. “They taught me many tricks and made me drink a sort of knowledge soup that gave me instant wisdom.” Brandpowder got in touch with Karl not so much for the close encounter’s story, but simply to look at the paintings Karl started to produce ever since.  The opening picture (above) was attached to the fridge in Karl’s house, a small cottage overlooking the Saguaro National Park. “You can keep it, if you want,” he said. Strangely, he didn’t show any interest for the photo and we asked him why. “It’s a fake,” he said. “I placed it there so that people stop asking me about the fucking ufo. Want to see it? – I tell ’em – Look there! On the fridge.” Karl chuckles, pouring Napa Valley wine into our glasses. We asked him about his paintings. The aliens, somehow, made him an instant celebrity and his oils are now contended by Art Galleries in America, Japan, China, Russia and Brasil. A painting with the “mut” signature can easily sell for 2,000,000 dollars.

Heart #41 (oil, 40×60 in) sold.

Heart #55 (oil, 40×60 in) sold.

Heart #07 (oil, 40×60 in) sold.

Karl Mutbesitz in his summer open-air studio.

“Each painting,” he explained, “is an individual representation of aliens’ hearts.” “They don’t have a bloody pumping mechanism like we do. They have a spinning crystal which vibrates in synchronicity with the Universe. It’s like a qasar, you know.” We nodded, mainly not to disappoint the artist. We are not saying we don’t believe him. It’s just we are not advanced enough to grasp the full meaning of the cosmic theory. Nevertheless the paintings are beautiful, smooth and sharp at the same time. Karl told us to get closer and place our hands a few inches from the canvas. “Can you feel the energy?” he asked. We concentrated for a while but we didn’t. May be because we have been drinking too much wine but Karl has another explanation for it. “You need to close your eyes and create a void inside your mind. Then you may start feeling the heartbeat of the Universe.”

Heart # 161 (oil, 40×60 in) sold.

Heart #18 (oil, 40×60 in) sold.

Heart #61 (oil, 40×60 in). Starting price: U$ 1,750,000

We went for a walk. Karl wanted to show us the place where everything took place. We reached a flat plain swept by hot winds, where saguaro cactuses posed like spiky surrenders to an imminent alien invasion. We asked Karl whether other people, beside him, witnessed the 2009 event. “No one, apart myself and Frederick. He’s never been the same ever since.”  Who’s Frederick? – we asked.  “My dog,” Karl said. Initially we thought he was trying to pull our leg, but he was damn’ serious, while talking about him. “Frederick doesn’t bark anymore. He is into a contemplative state of mind, now. He sleeps all day and, when night comes, he just looks at the starry sky. That thing freaks me out.”

Frederick has not been the same ever since.

A page from Karl’s sketchbook, detailing part of his extraordinary experience.

We left Karl and New Mexico with the promise to publish a story about him and his paintings. We are not here to express an opinion on Karl’s extraterrestrial adventure, first because we are not experts on such matter, secondly because a huge amount of LSD was circulating in Tucson in those years. The only thing we can say is that Karl’s artwork is something out of this world.

The Brandpowder Team, 2012

Lola’s Glue

Cleopatra

Take Liz Taylor, for instance, and cut her face into sharp triangles starting from the tip of her nose, and place the shreds to mimic a broken centrifugal kaleidoscope so she can look like a spirit staring at you from behind the bathroom’s glass door of a space ship, and still you are far from imagining Lola Duprè’s collage art. Her surreal, hypnotic images are a mix of  Saul Steinberg, Dadaism, Circus Freaks and baby drawings, seen after a few shots of good whisky. In two words: absolutely brilliant. The French Algerian artist and illustrator, who creates her figures entirely by hand with paper, scissors and glue, makes probably use of the sticky substance to paste your eyes to her pictures, too. Lola is now based near Avignon in the south of France. She just moved from Glasgow where she had been working for Chateau and Chalet studios. Her production has been featured on Flaunt, Naked Eye and Adbusters magazines, to mention a few, but her path has just begun. And we wish her good luck.

(Monica Turlot – Brandpowder Team)
Cat in the White House

Dodge Coronet

Prince Charles

Zimmerman

Portrait

DISCOVERING OLD LAND.

Our mobile unit: 215,000 mls and still going…

Just before Christmas our studio received a phone call from a guy who wanted to start up his own business. His idea was to present himself as a hired gun for clients in search of new ideas and strategic territory where “to make” business. He asked us for a name, a logo and stationery for his new firm (stationery: what a palatable, old fashioned word!) He invited us to meet him up in the mountains of Abruzzo, some 300 miles from any city deserving such name. So we packed our stuff into our rusty VW van and off we went to meet the guy who turned out to be a guru without devotees, living in a small hut surrounded by oak trees, with no electricity and running water, on the very fringes of civilization.

We talked about his activity and how he imagined it to be like. He told us he had no car and moved around mostly by bicycle and he couldn’t wait for the first snow to take out his pair of skis. In front of a few bottles of Montepulciano, we discussed with him about strategies, the wicked digitalization of space and the end of exploration and adventure as such. That’s when we came up with the name for his business: LANDSCAPE! A sort of old land where to re-discover a real strategic territory; a physical contact with the elements and the world of ideas. He liked the concept.

With his permission we are publishing a few steps and the final result of our work. Inspired by the simple lifestyle of our client, we decided to get rid of all technological devices and “make” a logo. We cut out the Compacta letters from a foam board, we placed them on a physical contour and took some pictures with an old Swiss camera.

The googly digital landscape is a surrogate, not a substitute of geography.

A reminder to all creative people: Explorer is not only a goddam’ browser.

The unbranded camera we used to shoot our logo. The problem was to find the proper film cartridges. Below: a physical, low-tech approach to graphic design is big fun. (Don’t tell Apple!)

Above: Shadow theory and Leonardo’s velature were applied to the logo to obtain more depth and a true sense of space. Below: the strange guy who lives up in the mountains, while smoking some homegrown tobacco. We nicknamed him the Zarathustra of Marketing and he shyly asked whether he could put that on his business card.

To add a last, personal touch, we picked a color whose separated values (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) corresponded to the age and birthdate of our client. He said the color reminded him of “the winter patches of sleeping grass under the snow”. The stationery, upon direct request from our client, was printed on thick, smelly goat-cheese paper. This is True Style!