From the great minds that brought you “Grand Theft Auto” and legendary hip hop producer Timbaland comes a wish fulfillment like no other: The power to produce hip hop tracks from your iPhone.

In and of itself, a revolutionary idea, but the announcement this morning that the game/software, “Beaterator”, will be made available to the thrones that have abandoned their PSPs makes this announcement all the more appetizing. Check out the trailer below and be sure to download when it’s made available this fall.

In 1984, Apple’s Steve Jobs, advertising giant TBWA/Chiat Day and Alien director Ridley Scott joined forces to release the most revolutionary commercial of its time: an adaptation of George Orwell’s 1949 sci-fi novel “1984″ about government totalitarianism in a TV spot during Super Bowl XVII.

In this case, Steve Job’s used creative as a nod to IBM’s domination over the industry, but hindsight being what it is, that’s irrelevant. Yes, he was calling IBM fascists, which in itself is quite a stroke, but its unfathomable that such commentary about government during the Reagan era could be used as a platform for advertising a computer, what we now perceive as ordinary, but at the time was extraordinary.

In their version, they have an Olympic style pole vaulter launching an iron hammer (wink, wink) which crashes into a video address being given by the dictator while a group of homogenized citizens sit glued to his words. Check it out below:

Doug Pray’s Art and Copy briefly touches up on this and much more that’s happened in advertising in the last few decades. His documentary, similar to his earlier Hype! and Scratch , takes a deep look at cultural innovators and how/why they broke the mold. The highlight of the doc was the legendary George Lois’s blowhard commentary on how he changed the game with his “I Want My MTV” commercials as well his Tommy Hilfiger campaign. Check out the trailer below and don’t miss it:

Acclaimed photographer/director and Mean contributor, Patrick Hoelck, (pictured below, top/center with Terry Richardson) settles down with Mean for a refresher on his new venture, Pilfered, a magazine “for the people, by the people”.

Tell me about the inception of Pilfered.

It is the first truly provocative, interactive, sign of the times magazine for artists and the visually inspired. You either get it or you don’t and are pissed by it. Our team believes Pilfered is web democracy at its best. I was late night web browsing and came across a blog that this English kid put together. It had amazing images but his tone was really cocky. He was saying things like “look no further” and “this is the best blog in existence.” As a joke, I screen grabbed a lot of the images and slapped “Pilfered Magazine-Coming Soon” on it and sent it back to him– just to get him going. I also ended up liking it so I put it on my blog. A few days later, I got invited to some bouzhy dinner, and a guy that had a big influence on web communities said he saw it on my blog and thought it was a genius idea. The next day I ended up driving to Venice to meet up with RUDJ. We went back and forth and had a creative discussion of how we would create a ballsier, visual Wikipedia of images that would contribute and add to what is going on in media. I asked him to join me and a few weeks later we had our first issue.

Was it made as a reaction to the restrictive, inhibitive nature of how most magazines publish photographers’ work?

I guess everything I do could fall under that description.It was as simple as sitting down with a friend of mine that I had done some really good ad jobs with, and we put our skills and network together and made it happen. You almost always know the people you can work with and the ones you can’t. The process of making Pilfered was really organic.

Will you continue to have guest editors (such as former Vibe editor George Pitts) ?

Tons. This model will make it so the magazine never gets boring and everyone stays inspired, including our team at Pilfered. They’re going to range from a journalist to an architect to a philanthropist to someone in finance, etc….

Which guest editors can we expect in the future? Will you delve outside of the art world and allow someone like a social worker to do it as well? A tweener? A homeless man from St. Julien?

The guest editors have to stay a surprise – the lineup is exciting – I am amazed by the people that were able to contribute thus far…they all just got the concept and wanted to be part of it. We’ve also created The Annex. Its aim is to expand our reach and explore a focused group whose work reflect and reveal our current times. This is where Veronica Rafael, our newest member and curator, can choose the social worker and the tweener and the homeless man from St. Julien to be guest editors. We also got a call in to Kashy Khaledi but we haven’t heard anything back yet.

Count him in! Where can I find Pilfered?
http://pilferedmagazine.com
By the people, for the people.

What do Grace Jones, Adam Ant, Jim McMahon, Devo, Sandra Bernhardt and Miles Davis have in common?

Back in 1984, this eclectic group of icons decided to endorse the Honda scooter through these TV spots. It’s one of those instances of how and why, but nevertheless, utterly entertaining, hilarious and groundbreaking for its time. Their fans (not Honda’s) went berserk, calling them sell-outs, but 25 years on, it’s got to be reevaluated.

Mean has never been a proponent of blatant advertising, and even in our partnership with Microsoft on Mean’s Cinemash, we didn’t follow a corporate criteria or any pandering thereof.

So, what makes these so special? The idea behind the campaign was “Express Your Individuality”. They didn’t get Tina Yothers and Howard Jones to do that. They got Adam Ant and Miles Davis, amongst these others. Yes, this was a marketing ploy, a gimmick, but it waaaaaaz representing something bigger. Couple that with Miles Davis rolling in, in his predisposition, with a fuck you attitude and you have magic. Each of these icons never went in being anything other than themselves.

25 years later, Mean salutes them. Well, maybe not Jim McMahon, but how else were they going to sell scooters to the jocks? ; )

- Mean

PS – Try being a fly on the wall when the 80s era “Mad Men” came sniffing in with this idea. AMC should consider doing an 80s version of the show.

GRACE JONES FOR HONDA SCOOTERS

DEVO FOR HONDA SCOOTERS

GRACE JONES AND ADAM ANT FOR HONDA SCOOTERS

FORMER CHICAGO BEAR QUARTERBACK, JIM MCMAHON, FOR HONDA SCOOTERS

SANDRA BERNHARDT FOR HONDA SCOOTERS

MILES DAVIS FOR HONDA SCOOTERS

There was some random chit chat yesterday online about a photo shoot we did back in ‘06 with Kristen Stewart for Mean Magazine. It was inspired by Mario Bava’s “horror meets fashion” world in Blood and Black Lace , a true Technicolor classic. Here’s the photo in question, along with the Blood and Black Lace movie poster. Since it’s been translated into so many different names, here’s the actual IMDB link.