Some of my friends are throwing a benefit tonight for performance artist Antonio Garza. The guy — whose cojones are clearly bigger than my own — plans to ride his bike through the Arizona desert next month as part of a rolling one-man show that protests Arizona’s strict new immigration laws.

The benefit kicks off at 8pm with complimentary jambalaya tacos (yes, I think that’s “jambalaya tacos”) and beer, and the suggested donation is a wee $10. If you’re not already planning to come to our show — and of course, you’ve already seen it, right? — I highly recommend this one. Here’s the skinny.

In July, Antonio Garza will travel through the blazing Arizona heat on bicycle with his one-man show “Men in Uniform” to tell Arizonans what it is like to grow up hassled by authorities who did not think he looked American enough. His idea? Turn up the heat on Arizona’s new law, SB1070, which makes it legal for police to demand “documents” of anybody they think might be an illegal immigrant.

Antonio first performed “Men in Uniform” at the 2008 New Orleans Fringe Festival. The Fringe Alternative Theater Incubator (FATI) is now helping Antonio take it on the road by cosponsoring a fundraiser, 8 pm, June 25 at the Shadowbox Theater, 2400 St. Claude Ave, to show support for his ride from Phoenix into the Arizona hinterlands to perform wherever he can – at cafes, bars or churches. Doors open at 8 pm with free all-you-can-eat-and-drink jambalaya tacos and beer, and at 9 pm Garza will present a special performance of “Men in Uniform”. Suggested donation of $10 will help Garza cover the costs of bike tires and power bars to fuel his ride.

For more information, please visit http://www.nofringe.org/antoniogarza.html or contact Antonio Garza at antoniogarza@gmail.com 504-915-3539.

Can’t make the fundraiser? Send a friend in your place and support Antonio’s ride with an online donation (all donations will go directly to his project)!

And for those who came here hoping for a glimpse of cute servicemen, here’s one sans uniform:

One year ago, I was sitting quietly in my office when a Skype window popped up:

“HOLY SHIT. MICHAEL JACKSON IS DEAD.”

That came from my friend Marty, who probably should’ve been doing more business-y things than cruising TMZ, but I was enjoying a YouTube video of kittens at the time, so I wasn’t in a position to point fingers.

Naturally, I did some due diligence and scoped out other news sites to verify the MJ story, but TMZ was so far ahead of the game that CNN and NYTimes hadn’t even touched it. It took several more hours before everyone came onboard and reached the conclusion that Jackson had died, and possibly ODed.

Earlier this week, Awkward Boners opted to pay tribute to the erstwhile King of Pop on the first anniversary of his death. And since I’m not much of a Jackson fan (apart from maybe “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”, a title that would probably read “don stop til u git enuf” if it were written today), I figured it’s as fitting as any:

BP PLC and other big oil companies based their plans for responding to a big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on U.S. government projections that gave very low odds of oil hitting shore, even in the case of a spill much larger than the current one.

The government models, which oil companies are required to use but have not been updated since 2004, assumed that most of the oil would rapidly evaporate or get broken up by waves or weather. In the weeks since the Deepwater Horizon caught fire and sank, real life has proven these models, prepared by the Interior Department’s Mineral Management Service, wrong.

[full story at WSJ]

In other news, apparently neither the Wall Street Journal nor NOAA think Louisiana’s coastline has been affected by the oil leak:

I know it’s last minute, but for the Vodou fans I thought I should mention that tonight is the annual St. John’s Eve Headwashing Ceremony on Bayou St. John. If you’re a cutter, or an epileptic, or a tailor, or if you’re positively terrified of hail, you might want to head on over. Alternately, you can catch the repeat performance tomorrow at the International House Hotel. Details below.

St John’s Eve Headwashing Ceremony
Date: Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Time: 7:00pm – 10:30pm
Location: Footbridge over Bayou St John

Sallie Ann Glassman and La Source Ancienne Ounfo celebrate St. John’s Eve with their annual Headwashing Ceremony (form of Vodou baptism) dedicated to Marie Laveau. The ceremony will take place on the footbridge over Bayou St. John, near Cabrini High School. Attendees should:

• Wear all white, and bring a white scarf or rag for your head. (It will get dirty.)

• Bring an offering for Marie Laveau. She likes flowers, blue and white candles, Creole foods, hair ribbons and hair dressing supplies (she was a hairdresser), Vodou-esque items (dolls, potions, gris-gris bags, etc.), or images of Marie Laveau.

St. John’s Day 2010
The same ceremony will be held Thursday June 24th at 6:00 pm at the International House Hotel.

What would you do if you could travel back in time? Assassinate Marilyn Monroe? Go on a date with Hitler? Obviously. But here’s what I’d do after that: grab all the modern technology I could find, take it to the late 70’s, superficially redesign it all to blend in, start a consumer electronics company to unleash it upon the world, then sit back as I rake in billions, trillions, or even millions of dollars.

I’ve explored that idea in this series by re-imagining four common products from 2010 as if they were designed in 1977: an mp3 player, a laptop, a mobile phone and a handheld video game system. I then created a series of fictitious but stylistically accurate print ads to market them, as well as a handful of abstract posters (you know, just for funsies).

[more at AlexVaranese.com, via Tyler]

[via SocialiteLife]

Dear Crude Boys:

Thank you for your support of the Gulf Coast ecosystem during this trying time. I think it is very important that we Americans stick together right now, even though the cooking oil in which you’re wrestling kind of prevents that from happening.

Surely, the Florida Wild Mammal Association appreciates the money you’ve raised, and surely, the wild mammals of Sam Clam’s Disco appreciate the sight of grown, mostly naked men in lacy underthings wrestling on Visqueen on a Sunday afternoon, so, you know: carry on.

[SFWeekly via Towleroad]

On nearly every episode of Project Runway, Heidi Klum and The Gang ask designers to explain for whom their outfits were created: “Who’s wearing that? What does she do for a living? Where is she going?”

In marketing, we often ask ourselves the same questions, though ours are usually more concerned with identifying demographics than with building a lush backstory: “Who’s buying this? What’s her household income? What does she eat for breakfast?” That kind of thing.

Apparently, creative directors do it, too. In case you were wondering:

“The characters in the Capital One TV commercials actually represent Visigoths, not Vikings,” Pam Girardo, a spokeswoman for Capital One Financial, writes in an e-mail message.

“The Visigoths were a clan of barbarians with origins in the Baltic region,” Ms. Girardo says, and “over the course of several centuries they migrated southward such that their territories included most of Western Europe, extending all the way to the Mediterranean.”

“The lead Visigoth, named Garth, in the commercials speaks with what could be called a Continental accent,” she adds, “representing the full extent of their Western European roots before their emigration to the United States to take on their current role in the Capital One advertising.”

[NYTimes]

Well, someone deserves credit for thinking that through.

Me, I just thought he was a cute, fuzzy guy with a leather fetish.

A new media study says shamed oil giant BP has lost close to a billion dollars in online brand value since the late-April Deepwater Horizon explosion. The study, via media firm General Sentiment, says that just since June 1, BP has lost more than $32 million a day in brand value….

[Greg Artzt, CEO of media metrics company General Sentiment] says it will cost BP a fortune to dig itself out of the hole it is in just on the media side. “At the retail level, it will affect them,” he predicts, adding that the numbers show that BP would have to do a tremendous amount of advertising merely to counterbalance the negative commentary. “And they are clearly worried about their brand; they do a lot of advertising. But look at their market cap. They won’t recover.”

And, in case anyone is looking, the firm says the estimated media value cost per gallon of the 126.3 million gallons or so of oil that has gushed into the Gulf (based on government high-ball estimates) is $6.66 per gallon. The Exxon spill was 11 million gallons.

[full story at MediaPost]

Of course, the company’s total equity as of 2009 was listed at over $100 billion, so, you know, BP isn’t really hurting yet. Maybe in another 50 or 60 months.

Anyway for those who love a good chart, happy Tuesday:

Oh, wait.

Well, you know where this is going, right?

We may not be stupid enough to have wiped ourselves out as a species (yet), but we’re certainly capable of doing it to others. Take the Louisiana pancake batfish, a species so “new” that it was only recently discovered by Louisiana State University ichthyologist Prosanta Chakrabarty, who noted the fish’s freakish behavior and appearance…

[more at TheAwl]