High End Weed Economy Is Recession Proof

As GM braces for bankruptcy and the stock market continues to putter along, there’s at least one economy that is growing: hydroponic weed. The NY Post reports that “homegrown marijuana operations have soared by 60 percent” with the DEA destroying at least five perfectly good indoor farms in the NYC area. Unlike many of America’s other failed industries, cultivating premo bud is a “lucrative business” according to one DEA official with pounds selling upwards of $5,000 despite the budding financial crisis. Unlike other states that are moving towards taxing and regulating the ganja trade, NY is still way behind the times, just recently shedding its Rockefeller drug laws. |NYP|

Guerilla Banner Artist Struck Before And May Strike Again

As Hrag Vartanian reports, last week’s banner plea, “Please, New Museum, Show My Work” was the work of “the immaterial art emperor” Marc-Antoine Léval. The French artist dropped similar banners last year asking asking François Pinault to buy his work, but it’s not clear if the billionaire art collector did. |Hrag Vartanian|

Adolf Jitler! Osama Bin Loaden! Mao Tse-Cum!

Where’s Pol Potshot? Kim Dong-Spill? Mahmoud Ahmadinejizz? Fidel Castrate? Bukkake Mussollini? Josef Semen? Bush? Well, we certainly love relaying to you all the bad condom ads on ANIMAL. We also love covering despot-themed advertising—especially the ever-popular Hitler. Despotvertising is one of the most lazy and hackneyed borrowed interest concepting methods employed by lazy, hack ad creatives the world over. And here, in these print executions (don’t say “executions!”) for German mail-order pharmacy Doc Morris, we have the inevitable despot/condom ad mashup. Of course, you could turn this idea on its head and make anti-condom ads by illustrating little spermy Gandhis, Dalai Lamas and copyranters. Jump for the rest of this tyrants with tails campaign via Grey Worldwide in Düsseldorf.
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Woman Injured in Stairway Collapse at 5 Pointz

Jewelry designer Nicole Gagne was badly injured on Friday when an outside staircase collapsed at Five Pointz, an artist’s workspace and legal graffiti haven, where she works in Long Island City. Gagne fell 100 feet to the ground when a 20-foot section of stairway collapsed, which the DOB believes was the result of “neglect and failture to maintain the building” by owner G&M Realty, who were cited “five times last year for illegally converting the factory into artist studios.” |NY1|

Photo by Will Sherman

Easter From ‘ABOVE’

Street artivist ABOVE does a illustrious job depicting the greed and overall evilness of insurance giant AIG, recipient of the largest chunk of federal corporate welfare ever, in this new “Easter AIG Hunt” piece. As you can see, not only will they squeeze as much money from American tax payers as they can and then dole it out to under performing executives, but they’ll also hoard all the Easter eggs from the kids too. See the video with closeups and supporting commentary after the jump.
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Artist Illustrates Gentrification Nicely

Like cartoonists, graffiti writers are excellent at articulating insightful sentiments with simple images. Greg Lamarche aka SP ONE shows off his marker skills and the inevitable results of development with this brilliantly done blackbook piece. |12oz Prophet/Greg Lamarche|

A Down and Dirty Bike Race on Randall’s Island

With rain forecast through the night, tomorrow’s bike race on Randall’s Island will be an especially muddy affair. That’s partly the point of Tracklocross: First Mud Part II, an alley-cat style race that takes riders through the roughest and wettest terrain on the island. Competitors are required to race a bike with a fixed gear or narrow-slick tires, and guaranteeing some spectacular crashes, there’s a special category for anyone riding a track-legal bike.

Photo by jonnystiles

Hundreds of CCTV Cameras Watch Easter Procession In London

It wasn’t just the throngs of London-area Christians that watched today’s Procession from Westminster Abbey to Westminster Cathedral, but hundreds of surveillance cameras too. Five years ago there were none, but according to author Eamonn Butler, the route along Victoria Street is now lined with about 155 CCTV cameras. And he concedes there could be even more: “If I had better eyesight and a pair of binoculars, I could probably have spotted more. But with binoculars looking at CCTV cameras, I’d probably have been arrested.” Happy Easter England! |Telegraph|