Hello Lovers, Friends, Family, Lovers of Friends, and Lovers of Family (but Not Loving Family like Lovers)...

I received an email from our man, Justin Van Hoy, a great friend to all of us at OBEY as well as an important figure in the Los Angeles art community. Just to give you a bit of background on Justin, he's helped brand all of OBEY's divisions, from our Tee graphics to helping Shepard out with much of the fine art pieces you've seen over the past 5 years. Over a year ago, he was diagnosed with Lukemia and fought the motha fuckin cancer til it obviously tapped out (WWF not MMA) or remisshed, as we say it in the Medical industry. It was the most positive attitude I've ever seen anybody deal with something so serious, and we all came out of it motivated and inspired to just live and push with everything we do. Well, recently, he relapsed and needs help... Justin's the sweetest dude you'll ever meet, and a great muscle to have on your side (if you ever need back up from your local bullies). Here's an email he sent out to all the friends, but I felt it needed to be out there a lot more (with his permission of course). There are links below to easily sign up... Thanks again for reading this!

• Medical Record # 0017538881 ( Kaiser Permanente Hospitals Southern California )

I will be doing my transplant at City of Hope ( http://www.cityofhope.org ), which is just east of Pasadena. It is a really amazing cancer center and highly regarded, so its really great they are only about 10 miles from my house. If you are in the greater LA area, you can go directly to City of Hope to donate blood and get tested at the same time. There is a $50 fee for processing the marrow sample, but if you donate blood too, then the cost is waived. If anyone finds it hard to spend the $50 ( I know times are tough right now, so  let me know and I will reimburse you myself.) If you have any questions and are planning on going to City of Hope, you can call 626-301-8483. It works best to make an appointment if you are going up there.

You can also request to have a kit mailed to you. This way you can do the test yourself and mail it back. Have your results mailed back to you, and you can send them to me here at my home. Because of medical confidentiality blah blah blah, they cannot have the results sent directly to me. But this way I can give the results to my people and they can sort everything out. My mailing address is:

146 South Avenue 56

Los Angeles, CA 90042

If you aren't in the LA area,here are some links for registering with the National Bone Marrow Registry, the entire registry is a worldwide network and is also linked in with the Red Cross, so there are lots of places to go if you aren't in the LA area. Here are links to figure out where the closest is for you:

http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Donor_Registry/Join_Now/join_now.html

http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Donor_Registry/Join_in_Person/index.html

I hate asking anyone to have to do this, and I think you all know me well enough that I wouldn't unless it was really important. Let me know if you have ANY questions at all and I will get them answered for you. You can also email my new wife with questions.. holly603@gmail.com.

Hope everyone had a great holiday. Talk with you soon."

- JUSTIN VAN HOY

Good Luck, Mang... and Congrats with the Wedding!!!

- Roams

Went to my friend’s birthday party last night. I showed up late and missed out on shooting guns but made it in time for the best part- dinner at Wurstkuche. It’s a cute little hole in the wall in downtown LA.

First you pick a sausage. There's classic, gourmet or exotic.  They even have gator & rattlesnake.

Then you pick peppers, onions or sauerkraut. Then you pick your fries. Truffle oil, check. Buttermilk ranch, check. Then you pick a beer- dang that’s a lot of taps…

I generally stick to the champagne of beers but people that know about beers say they have a pretty righteous list.  Or you get yourself a fancy soda...

Duck 'n Bacon & Chicken 'n Chile before:

Duck & Chicken after:

They also have some veg options for your veg buds so they don't have to eat just fries and a bun.

This guy thinks he's funny.

-Stella

First Off, I'd like to wish you the Murray of the Murriest! I hope you got what you wanted!

Right before everybody closes for the holidays, of course the procrastinating goo-ball I call me, had to run about town to try to finish everything I had on my stenopad of "Goals for 2008." Well, my friends, we'll have to roll over a few of them goals in order for me to enjoy my vacation too. I did check off a few things this week and it was definitely worth the 6 hours in traffic, listening to Christmas on the KOST and hanging with the folks.

First Quick stop was at Subliminal PJs to pick up a few books and prints for mi familia. If y'all are around for the next couple weeks, please stop by and peep the retrospective work by Mr. Friedman entitled Idealist Propaganda. A great honor to have him around LA for a bit, and a great friend to all us rugrats. For more info, go here mang. Fugazi!

My next stop, Spaghetti and Meatballs with Scotty Coats and the Ubiquity heads...

their operation

A must have, (one of) my all time favorite albums...

A gift from Pubes and I...

I came out unscathed and ready to take on the rest of oh-ate. Scotty, thanks for the records and thank you for reading. Happy Holidays to you and yours!

To all, I bid you adieu!

- Roams

I decided today Mary in the design department is way cooler than I'll ever be. A few weeks back she told me about all the flyers she saved from shows back in the day and today she brought in a bunch from '79 and '80. I'll post some this week and some next week because there are just too many for one post. Enjoy, compliments of Mary!

Some Black Flag flyers by the master.

Circle Jerks, more Raymond Pettibone...

Jodie Foster's Army with Jay Adams on the flyer.

Stay tuned for more next week! Thanks Mary

-Pubes

Tis the season to be jolly, and although we're all going through some hard times we need to forget about our plummeting economy, and take some time to have some fun while we still can.  Here at OBEY we've done just that.

Times are hard for us just as with everyone else out there, but the hierarchies reached deep into their pockets to put together a party for all of us hard working employees.  Last Monday we held our Holiday party at Original Mike's here in Santa Ana.  When the host of the party Pubes cruised in on a segway wearing an American flag tank top with the pants to match you know it was time to party.

There are a ton of photos, so sit back, relax, and see how the posse gets down.

Happy Holidays from the OBEY Posse.

- SWITCHâ„¢

First up, word is out I guess. Shepard's image of Barack Obama will be gracing the cover of Time's Person of the Year issue. Holy crap! Check it out over at Time click here. Barry Obama never looked so good.

Click the video to check out Shep's interview

Next up, we had our company Christmas party the other night and most of the office is still feeling the effects. I had to host the party this year so I decided to do so in style and rented a Segway. Best money I ever spent. You see old people riding those things all the time but did you know they go 12mph? That's pretty quick especially when you're boozed up with someone on the back. Anyway, until I get my thoughts together here's a a little care package Andrew Jeffrey Wright from Space 1026 in Philadelphia sent our way. He originally made this in 1998 and just decided to reprint it. Andrew is from a different planet.

The cover

About the zine

They're under the couch!

How mature

...and I'm out

-Pubes

Stay tuned...

- SWITCHâ„¢

The heads over at 686 always have some tricks up their sleeves and this years Levi's/686 alliance definitely caught some snowbirds sleeping. The 3-PLY 514 pants are a personal favorite with their full taped seams looming on the inside. Thank you for the presents Mike and keep up the great work! Peep 686 here......

What's that......? You think you have too much forward lean in those new high backs? Oh would you like to borrow my gold "TOOL" belt to tidy that up?

-Chris

Romeo, Free The Robots, noMSG and myself DJed over at the 55DSL store on the early side last night for an event honoring my comrade in Dance Right Matt Goldman. (www.danceright.net) Matt used to work over at Studio Number One and has since caught the promotion bug. His design is impetuous, his style is impregnable. He will eat your children. Here's some views from the event last night.

The legendary Dirty Dave and man of the hour Matt Goldman.

Matt's selling these little ditties. Get 'em before they're gone! Limited to 80 prints per design.

Where can I get these you might ask? Booya!

I'm playing down in Santa Monica for this Vans event tomorrow. If you're in the area come on by.

- Pubes

I don't know if you kept up with the blog before the site revamp a few months ago, but if you did, remember that Low End Theory Japan tee we did for their tour back in September? I understand if it escaped your brain, I barely remember what I did before lunch today. Well, just to refresh your memory, we had the opportunity to design their official tour tee and after sorting thru a bunch of random marketing boxes here, we found a pile of these puppies, hangin out (smokin' a bean) waiting for me to release these back out in the wild. Below is the official tee in all it's glory, front and back... Click here!

Just to give you a bit of our history with Low End Theory LA, we here at the office are lovers of music, all types, all styles. Although we follow the somewhat "party" scene here in LA with Danceright and random warehouse parties. Chris (Free The Robots) and Willy (The GLK) kept me updated with the sprouting LA beat scene that I've seen progress over the years, a scene that I believe J Dilla and Madlib set the foundation for. Not to discredit all the other producers out there (everybody's great!), but I feel that the mood of their music opened peoples eyes to a lot of these new and up and coming bedroom wizzies out of Southern California. At one of the first Free The Robot Low End shows, I was able to meet world renowned producer and Alpha Pup Records owner, Daddy Kev. His direction differentiated himself from all other Hip Hop'ish nights, with each resident being a self sustaining headlining act at any other show. With the ambiance of the Airliner Bar each wednesday night is like a "sonic" punk show, with high energy and new experimental sounds and if you're not careful, you can do some serious damage to your eardrums... a warning to all those speaker boppers out there. His roster includes D-Styles, DJ Nobody, MC Nocando, Daddy Kev, and our very own Gaslamp Killer.

here are some vids to give you an idea of what it's like...

Speaking of the GLK, I also wanted to post up the new LA Record cover, featuring a half corn rowed jew.

Tonight at OBEY Radio!!!

So the GLK is back in town.. and I got a chance to talk to him before he left LA to come down to OBEY Radio tonite. Heres a little update on what's he's been up to. We're so proud of him!

(me) So you just got back from a long overseas tour, where'd you go?

(GLK)
IRELAND - GALWAY, DUBLIN, LIMERICK
ENGLAND - LONDON, MANCHESTER, LIVERPOOL, NOTTINGHAM, LEEDS
SCOTLAND - GLASGOW
ISRAEL - JERUSALEM AND TEL AVIV!

14 SHOWS IN 28 DAYS. INSANE TIMES!

(me) Back to the holy land, huh... what was going thru your mind, just seeing all that shit?

(GLK) SOON AS I GOT OFF THE FREEWAY INTO JERUSALEM I SAW A FUCKING CRAZY ASS PROTEST / DEMONSTRATION GOING ON IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET BLOCKING BOTH SIDES OF THE FREEWAY! ORTHODOX JEWISH KIDS FIGHTING ISRAELY SOLDIERS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES! I GOT IT ALL ON VIDEO TOO!

CHECK IT HERE : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnljzwxJ3nI&feature=channel_page

Where you at, whatchu doing now? plans for the holidays?

IM FINALLY HOME IN LOS ANGELES!
TRYING TO FINISH MY 12" FOR MONEY STUDIES RECORDS RIGHT NOW AND ITS SOOOOO CLOSE!
WORKIN ON THE H+R DEATH MIX TOO! 2009 IS GONNA BE CRAZY! SHOUTS OUT THE THE LOW END THEORY, H+R, ART DONT SLEEP, AND OBEY POSSE'S! MUCH LOVE TO ALL MY FOLKS I MET ON TOUR IN THE UK AND ISRAEL! PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!

time to get weird.. peace!

- roams -

Hey hey what's up guys!  SWITCH™ here with a friendly reminder of our HOLIDAY SAMPLE SALE PART DEUX tomorrow.  We've restocked the warehouse with additional pieces form the Holiday collection, as well as a couple new style releases.  Just as with the sale last week we're expected to have another huge turnout, so you may want to get here early.  If you couldn't make it last week here's your chance to get that last bit of Christmas shopping done before the next stampede.  So once again, tomorrow Friday, December 12th from 8am - 8pm come by part deux of our holiday sample sale located at 3500 W. Carriage Dr., Santa Ana, CA 92704.

photography by: JON FURLONG

- SWITCHâ„¢

Yo son! It's Pubes here posting for the main man Freeborn. He hasn't figured out how to use this blog yet so until then just think of me as the Whoopi Goldberg to his Patrick Swayze. Check out this video from the artist BLU. Like whoa!


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Also, SAMPLE SALE Round 2!

Plenty of great stuff still left. If you missed it last week, redemption is available this Friday.

Also, If you're if LA check out the Glen E. Friedman show at Subliminal Projects.

-Oda Mae Brown

Being from California, where the temperature is a consistent 75º (23 celsius), it sure is a kick in the balls here in Philadelphia when you're outside below freezing all day. But like a disgruntled post office clerk w/ 2 semi-automatics, the mail must go thru! And that we did, we delivered, and they responded, and the weekend here in Pennsylvania was a fun one. A big bear hug to those that came out to see us, and an even bigger yetti hug to Ron, UBIQ staff, Nick, and friends that made it happen. Here are some highlights of the UBIQ party last saturday.

Big Ron, holding it down. Thanks mang.

Our Sole Representative out in the East, Nick. You're lucky we didn't show the whole mug, it would've scared you off from coming back to this site. I'm not kidding about that, the guy's sort of facially challenged.

It being my first time in the City of Brotherly Rocky, I wanted to be that stereotypical asian tourist you see bouncing around historical landmarks. I also heard (not sure if it's a rumor) that this city is where all of USA began, with George Washington fending off Martians on the Ben Franklin bridge back in 94' and ol' Betsy Ross knitting up beanies for ?uestlove back when Rahzel and Malik B were still in The Roots. I just wished the weather was a bit more tropical than it really was... I was sorta itchin' to get to a double stack tour bus, but I didn't see any at all. So Pubes and I hoofed it for the most part...

Jail Pose for Liberty.

We headed downtown to the Gallery Mall...

Reality really set in, when we walked out our hotel on Market and 12th, and saw a Free Mumia Rally that filled the streets for a short while. There was so much energy, both positive and somewhat angry at what had happened years ago. If you're not in tune with what I'm talking about, do some research here. It's definitely good to know what's up, especially when you thought we've moved forward after this past election. Don't be naive, there's still wacky shit going on with One Time. Be Alert!

We got a chance to head over to our buddy John Halperin and friends gallery, T & P, in South Philly. Halpies! Halpies!

Was able to stay warm with their state of the art heater they picked up from some random Amish (is that the right term??) dude, Ishmael...

Don't you worry party people... we were able to Mutate!

Snacks... I haven't seen him in a few years, and well.. I guess he's a bit koo koo now, since Barry's out in Cali. Sorry to say B Flanders, but all your Philly homies moved on.

All other photos didn't turn out so good. Blame it on the rainy snow, i guess... A big finale at the much talked about WAWA wasn't so great either.

But whatevers... back in one piece, and enlightened about the amount of heavier clothes i should start stocking up. Shit was a cold one.

Oop... and i guess it's that time again kids... More shameless plugs from your girl, Roam Diggy...

Sample Sale PART DEUX is in full effect this friday!!! More More More... new stuff!

THIS THURSDAY: LOW BUDGET is back at Danceright!

THIS FRIDAY: FREE THE ROBOT'S B-DAY & THE GLK'S WELCOME HOME PARTY!

- ROAMS

Yo everybody,

Before i get on a plane back to LA, Here's Mike Kershnar's post about the opening of the billboard and the Limited tees last week! Shit was real gulley!!

Here's some questions i asked that next afternoon. Getting up at 3p is always good for the soul.

1) Mike, what time did you get up today?

I didn't get to bed until four, but I woke up euphoric at 9:00 when the sun hit me through my window. The excitement of the night before gave me that energetic birthday feeling, so I biked over to Todd's feeling irie, ready to enjoy the blessings of a Saturday.

2) There sure was a few babes indoors as well as outdoors on Friday night, who came thru?

There definitely was a plethora of women in The Crosby that night. Ma Dukes even came through! A lot of my really great friends and new people showed up to support and rock. A few standouts included the lovely Anna Williams who is a writer up in Berkeley; she is super stylish and sweet (and available fellas)! Allison Keefe is a wonderful artist from Laguna Beach and she rolled though flanked with some foxes. Yvette from Oz was the curly Tasmanian Devil in the house who has been helping Elemental Awareness rise to the next level. There was even a Captian Caroline sighting. Caroline is my mysterious neighbor who disappears on her sea-boat taking only a malamute and a compass. Sadly my gal, Miss Nicole Dickson was at home in Mammoth for Thanksgiving, but she was there representing in spirit.

3) Tell us more about the billboard art and the meaning behind the possums?

Well my favorite subject to paint is wildlife, so I kind made of made a pun out of the Obey slogan "Party with the Posse" and flipped it to, "Party with the Possums". It features a male and female opossum rolling through the treetops in a joyful manner. Opossums of course are nocturnal and they dwell pretty much everywhere. One night, walking alone I came across a mother opossum that had been hit by a car. Her head was smashed but her pouch contained five of her young who were still trying to nurse. I tried to bottle feed them, but they all died, and become food for other things. At the time I thought that was like a metaphor for the Earth, where humanity was suckling at a breast we had destroyed. But these days I have a little more hope, that's why these Opossums are rolling deep and loving it.

4) Give us a few of your favorite hidden quotes in the new artwork.

The trees contain words that reflect that the very bark was the artistry of the Creator. That has been a big theme of mine lately, that nature is actually the creative expression of the Divine Mind, so I included those types of phrases. Other hidden quotes in the bark included,

"How manifest is thy work? The heavens declare your glory."

"Help is always present so why not reach for greatness?

"Protection from thine enemies."

"Purpose and Perplex"

"Those who came before guide."

"Seek Truth and Wisdom"

"Abundance".

"Eat Poo" (Just kidding).

There is a lot more, but you'll have to go to The Crosby to check it out. Peace.

Party with the Possums

Josh and Blone Niki

Party with the Pizza

A new fan cops an art deck, while I am in the background like an asshole...

Fluent and Japson hanging in the interactive graf zone

Artist, Allison Keefe (in red) and crew

Writer Anna Williams is so clever and whimsical...

Irie kamozie.

Oh, and I almost forgot, you can peep the limited series tees Mike blessed us with at our shop here.

Like my man Aron says... "Jah Bless the Jobless!"

- ROAM