The smarties over at biccontrol.com are building an online HQ for cyclists and well…non-cyclists too, in the spirit of making San Diego safer, cleaner, healthier, and ultimately more livable. As we enter the Post-Petrol age, organizing ourselves as cyclists instead of motorists is a positive response to declining energy and rising rates of obesity. Now, go rescue your old Peugeot from behind the garage or jump on your buddy’s pegs and cut up the streets. Bangarang!

MXD MSG full version 7min from BREADTRUCK TV on Vimeo.

Adbusters posted this short film on their blog as “An urgent call to designers worldwide: It’s time to break free.” As a designer myself, I clicked. To my excitement, it was a short film created by one of my home-town heroes, Jeffrey Durkin. The film takes place in San Diego, and follows a graphic designer with ADD – and for me, that hits pretty close to home. Excited for Jeffrey and his blossoming production company, BreadTruck Films, I felt spreading the word was the least I could do. Keep it up Durkin – great stuff.

As for you creatives, I’m not done with you. For the last 6 decades we have basically tricked everyone into a lifestyle of false desires and consumption as remedy for the very stresses of life as a wage-slave. We coerce consumers in exchange for a paycheck. But the truth is we do not live in the Advertising Age nor the Space Age nor the Age of Industry. We live a Post-Everything world in which every product/corporation/government that still exists RELIES on you, the Creative. So just stop it. Make it obsolete. Advertise collaboration, thought & reason. Advertise health and love. You are culturally immersed, educated, constantly thinking and rethinking everything; what are you afraid of? We own them, and they know it. It’s time to switch sides.

>> Note to self: quit job.

“What is art, and what’s not?” begins a local CBS article which examines (or instigates, rather) controversy surrounding a new downtown mural by Barry McGee, commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. (Watch the video if you have a few minutes; it’s really pretty embarrassing.) “Whether the display is beautiful is up for debate,” it continues, defining “real art” as some outdated notion of beauty, and anything outside this canon as an “eyesore”. Get with it, San Diego. While MCASD is trying to introduce public works by Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, Invader, and others to this arts-deprived city, the public calls the local news anytime they see anything outside convention.  Whether McGee’s mural is pretty or not is beside the point, censoring what’s new or different will never lead to progress in a community.  But who cares — after he’s finished it’ll probably just get painted over with a giant fresco of Shamu.

Come have breakfast with me at SDSU.

Beekeeping, Permaculture, the Farm Bill, NAFTA, you name it. The Ecological Intelligentsia is going to be dropping knowledge this weekend.

Volunteer if you have the motivation to do so. Otherwise, just come!

Found Food: Episode 1, Nopales from The Motivated Youth on Vimeo.

Max Hughes takes us just off the beaten path in search of young nopales pads.

While most of us sit around at home on unemployment, wishing the holidays weren’t about to end and wondering “what the hell am I going to do in 2010?” – Our friends Chris Clark and Derrik Kapalla are busy shaping the future (pun intended). I just read some awesome press they got in SURFER Magazine and I want to keep the momentum going. The issue, Board Buyers Guide 2010, hits news stands this week but you can read the whole profile online and show support by following them on twitter. Cheers to working hard and doing what you love!

I come from the highest avocado producing county in the United States. I know how to treat an avocado. The most preferred method of preparation is the Taco Bell style “Guack-a-mohl-EEE dip.”

Today you will learn how to properly construct guacamole.

• Red Onion (dice) as much or little as you want. I go big in this area.
• Cilantro (tear) this is non-negotiable. Anyone not including cilantro is very likely also a user of sour cream and tomato, an unconscionable offense.
• Garlic (mince) maybe go with a darker purple hardneck if available.
• Lime (juice) or Lemon :)
• Salt (sprinkle) go with a sea salt producer in your area.
• Avocado (crush) with a heavy handed drop of your knife, chop the seed and and twist for easy extraction.

Now if you’re concerned about the water issues in California (which you should be) then go ahead and try easy-to-grow fava beans. They require less water than avocados and can be produced in many parts of the world. To achieve a smooth consistency: soak, boil w/olive oil, and puree. Add more oil as needed.

keeganoneal@gmail.com

The rapid development of San Diego’s East Village has always been a turn off – for the past 4 years I have spent most of my time in East Village watching small business forced out by rising property cost and the warehouse district quickly becoming a sterile condo district.

SD Space 4 Art brings a little bit of light to the table. Their team of “progressive San Diego artists, architects, writers, filmmakers, musicians and dancers with background and experience in affordable housing and community built projects” is developing an ‘arts community center’ in the San Diego’s East Village. They claim the new(old) space “will have around 30 units of various sizes, 4-5 of them work/live, and significant common space, all at affordable rates.” Alright, I’m curious… They will be showing the space on Saturday. Dec 5 from 12-6pm. I wouldn’t mind stopping by, and it’s exciting to think what this could mean for my favorite part of town. Read more about this project at sdspace4art.org