Has it really been over a year since the last i.C. feature presentation?
Sure, I do all kinds of Ricky Retardo shit on my site – DallasPenn.com and my corresponding YouTube page, and Casimir still makes films that are LOL funny and Rafi still dissects the egregious commercialization of Hip-Hop at the revamped OhWord.com, but as far as Internets Celebrities goodness there hasn’t been a flick in a minute.
We all enjoy a modicum of success in our own separate endeavors, but when we form the three-headed social justice Cerberus not even an army of Michael Vicks can drown out our barking. The great news is that in a short while you will all see our latest project. The three of us take to the streets of NYC to get a portrait from the frontlines of the U.S. economy. I wanted to say street level view but using the word ’street’ in the sentence twice looked like bad form.
Anyhoo…
As the new movie is about to roll off the Final Cut Pro console we thought we could entertain you with a mini-clip from the virtual cutting room floor. Cas chopped up a nice little clip from one of the interviews we conducted while on the grind for this new project. The funny backstory for this clip is that the subject essentially volunteered to be interviewed since he saw us with our fancy camera out.
There are certainly eight million stories in the city when you consider the folks that are homeless as a lifestyle choice. This man has no overhead and free entertainment provided by the New York public library system. The bonus is that he gets high everyday. Homelessness for the win. Internets, meet Jean aka Scott, Homeless Celebrity.
Tron Guy was nice enough to answer some pressing questions regarding the new Tron movie, the fact that he owns a plane and what we have to do to save the economy.
The i.C.’s are the future party people, and the future is now.
Okay the future was then, but you missed it. Here comes the future again right now.
Damn, there it went.
You have to be on time if you want to be part of the future. In the following movie Rafi and I will travel to the future in order to de-segregate breakfast and lunch. Can’t we all sit together at the table of low nutritional value fastfood brotherhood? Hells Chea! But that requires that you get to McDonald’s by 10:55am. Right before the menu board is irrevocably switched from breakfast to lunch. Order your breakfast as you would like it. While you stand at the counter in the moments that will be required for your order to be completed, let’s call that the time-space continuum, place your lunch order.
You have just traveled to the future. It is a place where eggs come together with premium LUNCH chicken meat as well as Swiss cheese, Canadian bacon, French fries and a marvel of American engineering… Syrup-injected bread. This my friends is how you travel on an international spaceship. Don’t forget to add the premium honey mustard sauce to keep all the parts well lubricated and don’t you dare let anyone ever tell you how to eat your food.
I hope you are all balls deep in some summer fun. Your balls, of course. [ll] to me referencing your balls.
The i.C. collective has been ruminating on which outdoor music festival we would fucks with this summer. The Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival is on and popping again. I thought we did a pretty decent job covering this single day event by posting four (4) videos of our exploits there. My favorite joint was the final one titled ‘The Lost Tapes’. This is where I think you can really see how much love we have for this Hip-Hop shit. Plus, Rafi came off with the greatest line evar when he asked Killa Sha what he did for Traj Kadafi other than holding dude’s sacks [ll]. Classic.
With this event under our belt we trudged around Randall’s Island in a downpour to film the scene at the Rock The Bells concert. On that day the ‘i’ in i.C.’s should have stood for intrepid. The grounds were a fucking mess and the event organizers treated the press worse than the shit that was festering all summer in the gang of port-a-potties on the campsite. None of the difficulty in producing the video was evident and what you see are Rafi and I having the time of our lives enjoying the soundtrack to our lives while kids injured themselves mudwrestling and someone gets to smoke some good ass “white boy” weed.
You would have thought that we would be invited by either of these event organizers to return this summer and produce videos of these concerts that surpassed the quality of our previous work? You would be wrong in that thinking however. The iNternets Celebrities remain as the Rodney Dangerfields of this outdoor Hip-Hop concert shit. This lack of love from the event organizers had left one i.C. member a bit unmotivated to return to these events.
I can’t blame Rafi totally since I am the dude that said “Eff the Bklyn Hip-Hop Fest!” I found myself feeling a kind of way because of their previous swagger jack from i.C. material. I know who taught them dudes their language and I didn’t even get a Brooklyn Bodega New Era fitted cap as a thank you. Rafi feels that Guerilla Nation doesn’t represent or support that ethos by not recognizing our transcendant guerilla filmmaking.
At the end of the day we are both correct. Our love for the subject matter was never based on profit. We cover these events because we love this music. Sometimes though we have to use tough love even if it breaks our hearts so that we don’t contribute to the bottom lines of the vultures that are picking at the bones of the Hip-Hop carcass. I would love to cover the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival and the Rock The Bells concert in true iNternets Celebrities style with all access press passes that allowed us into the craft services area and the hooker bus. But alas my friends, not this year.
However, our outdoor concert season isn’t totally fucked the fuck up…
At the end of Checkmate, Dallas and Rafi make it rain:
I’d originally wanted to make a movie where people pay for everyday things by making it rain (a mother and child buying groceries, adding to the collection plate at church, the tooth fairy, etc) but in the end, I really just thought it’d be funny to make it rain on a sunday afternoon on a street corner. It wasn’t clear that this scene would make it into Checkmate when we did it. But when I saw video of Dallas chasing that one single down a storm drain, it seemed metaphorically appropriate. I still think a movie about people who make it rain with coins would be a hit.
I like to be prepared before we shoot. The night before we met up, I decided to test out the act of making it rain. Without a handy stripclub, I gathered my singles and attempted to rain dollar bills in my living room. I was trying to answer these hard questions: Do you throw the bills straight up in the air? Do you want to fan them out before you throw them? Should they go all at once or do you save some for a follow-up toss? Do you say the words “make it rain” in a sinister voice when you throw the dollar bills in the air? Or is it better to stay silent and let the cascade of 1s speak for your player status? The answer to these questions is unique to every rainmaker (I like to say “Make it Rain” in a sinister voice and keep my hands extended after throwing the dollar bills straight up in one blast).
But my primary observation about the act of making it rain is that it’s over very quickly. Sure, you might feel fresh for a few seconds. But then gravity asserts itself, leaving you with a hard choice: walk away or scramble on the ground for your flung currency.
The Internets Celebrities choose the latter – as you can see in the extended, uncut, unrated, Make it Rain scene.
We were interviewed a few nights ago on the Brian Lehrer show which airs to the five boroughs of NYC on CUNY TV. The staff – all the way up to Lehrer himself – made us feel really welcome and seemed to be genuine fans of our work which was probably the best part.
But the highlight of the evening for me may have been just before I left my house when my daughter ran over to me, grabbed the bottom of my shirt and begged me to take her with me so she could be on TV too.
When you’re a kid the idea of being on television is magical. I guess it still is something special even when you’re supposed to be a grown-up.
“Let’s make a movie about check cashing joints. They’re as ubiquitous as bodegas and they do as much harm.” – Casimir Nozkowski
“I can relate. Even though I knew it was senseless, when I needed fast cash I used them” – Rafi Kam
“Let’s go in, even though I hate check cashing joints because they remind me that I live in poverty” – Dallas Penn
This is essentially the thread that began the odyssey of our latest video. We wanted to document the economic lifestyle of the people that used check cashing joints. Why do these places even exist? Don’t the people that use them know about banks? Why would anyone pay someone for their OWN money?
I think we answer the questions above a little more clearer. Commercial banks don’t exist in the ‘hood. People with no money to save don’t need them. What they need is a facility that gives them the cash they need to buy their groceries, pay their bills and copp their drugs. Poor people need cash. It keeps them on the economic grid. What is more patriotic than going into debt? Our government has a zillion dollar deficit. If they can do it why shouldn’t the backbone of America also follow suit?
We vacillated on whether check cashing joints were really the devil in disguise. For many of us there are no other optiions. These establishments aren’t here to help poor people gain economic stability. They are here to provide a service and for that service they extract their blood, just like any other service that is contracted to the poverty class. Just be aware of that when you step inside of those doors.
If you enjoyed ‘Bodega’, you will love ‘Check Mate’. Speaking of ‘Bodega’… join the iNTERNETS CELEBRITIES in July for the Paul Robeson Awards of the Newark Black Film Festival. ‘Bodega’ was awarded the judges honorable mention for short form documentaries.
‘Check Mate’ was directed and edited by Casimir Nozkowski
Camera work and graphics from Ian Savage
Even more camera work from Josh Weisbrot
Music by El Keter
A special Chea goes out to Ben Popken(consumerist.com)
Since I make most of my money by writing and producing commercials, I thought it’d be fun to apply a cable channel’s logic to the Internets Celebrities video flow.
We’re about to drop our biggest documentary yet and in service of that, I thought I’d tease the premiere.
The good/bad thing about promos (on TV or otherwise) is that the science of ratings is inexact. Trailer-makers and promo-producers can never take the full credit or full blame for the size of an audience (or lack thereof). It’s basically viewed as a can’t hurt type of format. Promos get a lot of scrutiny (sometimes too much) because they’re often the first chance that the audience has to look at the actual show.
I just want promos or commercials I make to leave the viewer with the same feeling I get from watching a good trailer in the theater: Damn, I’d like to see that movie.
Failing that, I’d settle for a WTF.
In any event, the above promos are two jokes that I liked a lot from the footage we shot for our new doc that didn’t fit in the final cut. Or maybe they’re in the final cut. Or maybe I’ve said too much.
After the iNternets Celebrities returned from the Sundance Film Festival we were inspired to cover other events with our lens and our perspective. The first major summer event of 2007 was the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival. In a newly gentrified neighborhood underlooking the Brooklyn Bridge we gathered to watch a few artists from borough of Kings and some artists from other places spit their hot shit.
Unlike the film series that was created by our weeklong experience in the Utah mountains, the film set for the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival is the product of a single day of shooting. I give a lot of credit to Terrence Elenteny for finding the material in several hours of tape to create these films…
But I also need to shout out Cas and Rafi for being hardbody filmmakers who braved the oppressive 175 degree heat sunshine to remain at the festival until the very last minute.
My favorite video in the series was titled ‘The Lost Tapes’. Terrence and Cas describe the serious aspect of Hip-Hop in this video as they show the business people as well as the artists that encompass rap music. Inside of this video is a line from Rafi that has fully described my feelings for appreciating rap music – discerning. The other truly classic moment in this video is Rafi’s interchange with QB emcee Killer Shah.
What I always find to be sort of remarkable is the fact that I only see Rafi and Cas on days that we film, yet we never have too much of a problem finding our rhythm and speed after we give each other pounds [ll]. I’m still not sure what the future holds for the i.C. movement, but I will always enjoy watching the exploits of discerning Hip-Hop fans.
Thank GOD for Hip-Hop and the fact that it has created a Bizarro world for adjectives and sensibilities. Bad is now good. Church is now a place you want to go. The ‘N’ word is now a term of endearment. And pimping is now something we all should aspire to.
The night that we shot ‘Sidewalk Pimping’ we initially had no intention of making a video. I met with Terrence, our infamous editor, on Broadway in SoHo, New York. The mission was to go inside of the Puma sportswear flagship store for their debut promotion of the Puma x Yo! MTV Raps collaboration of items honoring Hip-Hop icons Doug E. Fresh, Big Daddy Kane and MC Shan. What the fuck was I thinking? I haven’t owned a pair of Puma in over three years ever since I sold my used mint green ‘Californias’ on eBay to some kid in San Francisco.
Let’s face it, Pumas are for fags, but this party had an open bar and a performance from Black Moon. The only problem for us was that we didn’t have the props. The tight track jacket dude at the front door had hate in his eyes behind his big ass shades. Lucky for us Terrence’s day job was nearby and he had a digital camera stashed up in the spot. What followed was the documetation of how to enjoy your ‘iNTERNETS CELEBRITY’ status outside of your parent’s basements. Going inside that party might have been fun, but standing on the sidewalk was way more entertaining.
Most people in New York that go out to nightclubs don’t drive their cars since 1) they don’t own cars, 2) they can’t afford the cost of attendant parking lots and 3) you can’t get truly twisted from the open bar when you have to be concerned with driving home. Access to the open bar party on a Friday night in NYC is like hitting the lottery. So just like the lottery there will be a lot of losers standing on the sidewalk. In my mind these folks are really the winners.
‘Sidewalk Pimping’ is just like parking lot pimping. People sell their homemade CD’s, beautiful young women stand on line like silent high-end fashion store mannequins while some fellas try to align themselves with a group of ladies to co-sign their entry into the club, and someone needs to describe all this madness for the masses. During our evening of sidewalk pimping we talked with rap music legend Ed Lover, the dude that deejayed for Kid ‘N Play, the Retro Kids (or a somewhat bootleg version) and we even scored some audio from a songstress inspired by Amy Winehouse.
‘Sidewalk Pimping’ runs the gamut of celebrity status. The Has-Beens can party with the Never-Will-Be’s while on the sidewalk if only for at least a moment. This is American democracy at its finest. That is why sidewalk pimping is so icy.
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