Isn't Kanye an A-Rab Name?

August 11, 2006 1:55 PM

Artist Dan Bergeron likes to muck around with billboard adverts. His recent doctoring of a billboard featuring Bush in Toronto has earned him some press in the Globe and Mail.
posted by chunking express (43 comments total)

Sorry: first link should be fauxreel.ca. (Admins?)
posted by chunking express at 1:58 PM on August 11, 2006

Sweet.
posted by alms at 2:03 PM on August 11, 2006

Artist? More like terrorist.
posted by Mr_Zero at 2:04 PM on August 11, 2006

Terrorist? More like Terrartist.
posted by chunking express at 2:06 PM on August 11, 2006

Terrartist? More like Telepathartist.
posted by Flashman at 2:09 PM on August 11, 2006

I love it.
posted by Mr_Zero at 2:11 PM on August 11, 2006

The remix is far less clever and amusing than the original ad.
posted by spacewaitress at 2:11 PM on August 11, 2006

"The remix is far less clever and amusing than the original ad."

My thoughts exactly.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:12 PM on August 11, 2006

Actually, the first board with the phrase Don't read enough? beside Bush's picture and then the adjoining board with, Hail Chicken Caesar, was pretty funny.

All he reallly had to do was paint out the picture of the sandwich.
posted by BlueMetal at 2:13 PM on August 11, 2006

That one, a slightly less central billboard in the same campaign, was altered with the same photo layout mocked up with the text, "Kanye, you's my nigga!"

Now that's comedy.
posted by spacewaitress at 2:14 PM on August 11, 2006

All he reallly had to do was paint out the picture of the sandwich.
brilliant
posted by Flashman at 2:15 PM on August 11, 2006

The remix is far less clever and amusing than the original ad.

I thought the original was the remix until I read the article.
posted by criticalbill at 2:19 PM on August 11, 2006

I love that Bush is openly mocked in a billboard ad campaign in Canada.
posted by longsleeves at 2:20 PM on August 11, 2006

I thought the original was the remix until I read the article.

Me too
posted by fire&wings at 2:26 PM on August 11, 2006

Yeah, my first thought was, he shoulda just switched the copy around.
posted by furiousthought at 2:37 PM on August 11, 2006

I thought the original was the remix until I read the article.

Yeah.
posted by birdie birdington at 2:40 PM on August 11, 2006

Longsleeves - totally. I wish some company or organization here had the testes to do that.

I'm all for billboard liberation, but I have to agree with some of the other commenters' positions that this one should've been left as it was in the first place.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 2:40 PM on August 11, 2006

Now I find myself wanting a McChicken sandwich and a Kanye West CD. I have used books to hold up my futon when the frame broke. Books and books alone kept me from becoming a floor dwelling hippie.

Bush, he sucks, don't he?

Mission Accomplished, I guess.
posted by eegphalanges at 2:51 PM on August 11, 2006

I love that Bush is openly mocked in a billboard ad campaign in Canada. - longsleeves

You'd love Cuba then. There are several different billboard campaigns running against Bush at the same time. IIRC, there's even a website. In fact, the only billboards that don't say bad things about Bush say "defend socialism" or "live/love the revolution" (all in Spanish of course).
posted by raedyn at 2:54 PM on August 11, 2006

Yeah, I thought the origional was funnier as well. The "remix" dosn't really even make much sense.
posted by delmoi at 3:07 PM on August 11, 2006

Why Kanye West? That's kind of random.
posted by mr_roboto at 3:10 PM on August 11, 2006

from Kanye's famous rant after New Orleans/Katrina: "George Bush doesn't care about black people"

i love it--send him down here, will ya?
posted by amberglow at 3:15 PM on August 11, 2006

amberglow writes "from Kanye's famous rant after New Orleans/Katrina: 'George Bush doesn't care about black people'"

Yeah, I know about that. But that was like a year ago, wasn't it? I dunno; still strikes me as kind of random.
posted by mr_roboto at 3:17 PM on August 11, 2006

he took something that was funny, and made it into something that wasn't so funny... Maybe I don't understand art, or satire, or whatever...
posted by HuronBob at 3:19 PM on August 11, 2006

that's it tho...it still has power, and is not at all forgotten.
posted by amberglow at 3:19 PM on August 11, 2006

I'd be happier with defacing the original billboard with a well-aimed bag of shit.
posted by Peter H at 3:20 PM on August 11, 2006

it's not random at all--Bush has made an art out of sliming and defaming and associating with terrorism all who disagree with him, or who even dare to speak truth--Cheney just did it on Wednesday too (and now even Lieberman's doing it)
posted by amberglow at 3:21 PM on August 11, 2006

i love it--send him down here, will ya?

I can see it now (screen gets wavy w/harp crescendo)....

Local news anchor on camera: "A community is outraged by a billboard which pokes fun at President Bush."
posted by wfc123 at 3:21 PM on August 11, 2006

Isn't Kanye and A-Rab name?

Well. ISNT IT?!
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 3:27 PM on August 11, 2006

After thinking the original was the doctored billboard as well I experienced a confusion quite unlike any other when confronted with the artist's true vision. To stabilize my psyche I integrated the adds into their logical whole:


posted by Chuckly at 3:36 PM on August 11, 2006

Mr. Bergeron said he is not "disrespecting" the billboard ads.

Well I don't really like him so much anymore.
posted by Citizen Premier at 4:05 PM on August 11, 2006

I can see it now (screen gets wavy w/harp crescendo)....

Local news anchor on camera: "A community is outraged by a billboard which pokes fun at President Bush."

yup! : >
posted by amberglow at 4:13 PM on August 11, 2006

Vandalizing billboards is a public service second only to finding a cure for Cancer and or AIDS.

Advertising is thought pollution.
posted by basicchannel at 4:58 PM on August 11, 2006

I thought the original was the remix until I read the article.

(Beating dead horse)
posted by Tube at 5:01 PM on August 11, 2006

I thought the original was the remix until ... oh, sorry.
posted by ddf at 6:55 PM on August 11, 2006

basicchannel writes "Vandalizing billboards is a public service second only to finding a cure for Cancer and or AIDS."

How about malaria?


I think basicchannel doesn't care about African people.
posted by mr_roboto at 7:11 PM on August 11, 2006

Agree with Spacewaitress -

"The remix is far less clever and amusing than the original ad"

- but it's not only the original ad, which already lampoons our illiterate Decider, that's better than the remix:

It's the combination of ads.

Bush as negative posterboy for audiobooks (listen, because look what you'll turn into if you don't) - right next to "Hail, Chicken Caesar!"

Couldn't be better already.

A piss-poor detournement, methinks.
posted by objet at 10:01 PM on August 11, 2006

. (guy debord)
posted by gorgor_balabala at 11:11 PM on August 11, 2006

Pretty fuckin stupid .

For all the things you CAN bitch about with Bush, he has ALWAYS made it a point to NOT judge all 'arabs' or all 'muslims'

THis crap just makes you Bush haters look EQUALLY as STUPID as you claim Bush is.
posted by HTuttle at 5:44 PM on August 12, 2006

HTuttle writes "THis crap just makes you Bush haters look EQUALLY as STUPID as you claim Bush is."

Luckily, our stupidity will not be recorded in history books for the shame and ridicule of future generations.

Seriously, this guy is like the worst president since Harding.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:07 PM on August 12, 2006

yeah, HTuttle, calling us "at war with Islamic fascists" was really brilliant-- Hundreds of millions of Muslims really appreciated it. Not.
posted by amberglow at 7:35 AM on August 13, 2006

For all the things you CAN bitch about with Bush, he has ALWAYS made it a point to NOT judge all 'arabs' or all 'muslims'

What a bunch of bullcrap. He has done nothing but.

If not for the continual conflation of greatly differing cultures and factions into the made-up boogeyman of "Islamofascism", he'd have never been able to convince the public that Hussein and bin Laden were in cahoots, or that Iraq wouldn't devolve into ethnic infighting, or, most egregiously, that Iraq and Iran were collaborating against us.

If Americans could tell two Arabs apart, the Bush program would have never gotten off the ground.
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:55 AM on August 13, 2006

posted by angrybeaver at 10:04 PM on August 28, 2006