Last Saturday over 1300 attendees showed up for the 4th annual Grassroots Media Conference, sponsored by the Grassroots Media Coalition and Paper Tiger Television. Panels, presentations, installations and films covered topics as wide-ranging as the genocide in Darfur, the NYC ghost bike project, police brutality, and hip hop activism (and plenty of it)… all with the common goal of using media as a tool for social justice.

As part of the all-day film festival, NYC-based Glass Bead Collective presented their short “50 Shots and a Mule – Part 1″, a documentary that covers the December 16th protests of the Sean Bell shooting. Part 2 - not shown on Sat. but also available at the site - was filmed at the following march on Wall St. on December 22nd and is shot in part with 360-degree cam that gives a full view of the police surveillance of protestors. GBC documents creative and political dissent, and includes members from backgrounds in video art, film, theater, architecture, photography, music, mathematics, fine arts and philosophy.

The word from a Gothamist tipster is that the Splasher has made his “most extreme hit yet.” Although the green paint is a bit tricky to read, it’s not the Splasher. It’s a tag by Katsu, and a giant one at that. Some graffiti writers are choosing to stick with good old fashioned letter tags over amorphous paint spills.

Photo from Gothamist.

The military is hard up for new recruits. It’s no secret, but we were still stunned by this billboard in the Bronx featuring a guy crowd surfing at a show under the message, “This moment brought to you by the U.S. Navy.” In small text, it reads, “It is not for ourselves alone that we serve.” While we don’t support using party photos to lure naive persons into battle, we will suggest one improvement for: Ditch the stock photo and get with Moshzilla, the internet’s most famous skanking party monster. We even made a mock-up for you all.

Yesterday, the sight of a mother leading her young kid by the hand on Lafayette Street while he stumbled along blindly in a zipped up Bape hoodie, reminded us how popular masked hooded sweatshirts are right now. So we pulled together 11 stylish designs to hide your identity and have you thrown out of public places across the UK. This is the perfect guide to find a gift for your favorite vandal/ugly friend, or to rip off a design for Urban Outfitters.

1. Probably tired of stretching out t-shirts over their face, Vexed created the Ninjahood and instantly rendered all ski mask, scarf and bandanna technology obsolete.

2. French design team, Anticon, has been dedicated to working on the same exact design since Fall 2005.

Continue reading: 11 Masked Hoodies to Hide Your Face

How many gallons of paint did they use? This German film from 2005 uses live stop motion paintings to illustrate the long history of breaking — from dancing under the el, to 80s cinema, to the twisted state of present day hip hop. Watch Über Die Geschichte Des Breakdance (History of Breakdance) now.

Also, check out Suckadelic’s vision of Storm Troopers getting fresh on the floor in Look Sir, Droids. It’s an alternate history if you will.

Welcome everybody’s favorite NYPD watch tower back to Crown Heights. Sky Watch is now posted up on the corner of Nostrand Ave and Prospect Place. A word of caution: If you decide to be neighborly and drop off a housewarming gift, don’t rack it from the Key Foods across the street. Sky Watch doesn’t take too kindly to anybody stealing fruit baskets on its watch.

Saturday is the 4th annual Grassroots Media Conference, a huge, day-long event organized by the NYC Grassroots Media Coalition. The New School University will host the event from 10am-7, and the conference will include speakers, workshops, film screenings and art exhibitions. This year’s theme is “Media Movements Beyond Borders”; the wide-ranging topics will have the common goal of creating social justice through better access to and representation in the media.

Look for workshops “The New York City Streets Renaissance: Reclaiming New York City’s streets from the automobile”; “DIY Animation Crash Course”; and “Grassroots Media and Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards Development.” Films include “50 Shots and a Mule,” a documentary on the protests that followed the Sean Bell shooting, and the state of protests in general, and “Land, Rain, and Fire: Report from Oaxaca.”

From the organization’s website:

Grassroots struggles for justice are usually rooted in their geographic locations. Yet—from police brutality on the streets of Queens to government repression in the plazas of Oaxaca; from homelessness and displacement in the Bronx to the rise of slums in Lagos; from hunger and poverty in East New York to famine in Kenya; from wiretapping and police surveillance in our communities and military occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan—there are apparent connections in the ways people all over the world negotiate and counter similar forms of oppression and injustice.

NYC Grassroots Media Conference
“Media and Movements Beyond Borders”
Saturday February 24th, 2007
New School University
65 Fifth Avenue (at 13th Street)

From Suckadelic, the producer of such seminal albums as Star Wars Breakbeats and Sauron Speaks: Fat Beats From The Dark Tower comes the Original Villains Network. Suckadelic’s bootleg action figures come to life in videos on “all the evil Sci-Fi porn action figure hip hop dirtbag shit we love.” Forget the pig – 2007 might well be the year of the Sucklord.

152 cyclists took to the streets this past Saturday for Monster Track 8, New York City’s premier track bike only alleycat race. Racers from as far as Tokyo started off in Sara D. Roosevelt Park with a 65 block sprint up 1st Avenue to the first checkpoint on 61st Street.

With three manifests in play, racers hit four checkpoints at a time before returning to the start for a new set. After covering Midtown and Downtown, racers stopped in at Trackstar’s party checkpoint to get their manifests stamped and asses tagged with the mark of the beast. Then it was a mad dash across the Williamsburg Bridge into Brooklyn.

When your legs are burning and vomit is creeping up your throat, riding across the Williamsburg Bridge with a big white van creeping on your tail might be the last place you want to be. Fortunately, the van was filming the race and graciously offered our crew a skitch over the bridge towards King Kog and the finish at East River Bar.

In the end, Alfred took first place for the third time, with Felipe and Austin finishing second and third. Heidi, Dagga, and Heather, the top 3 women, killed it with 26th, 30th, and 34th place finishes. And Shino from Tokyo, Luke and Eric from Boston were the top 3 out of towners with 5th, 10th and 15th place finishes. With every bike and body covered in dirty snow and salt, Monster Track 8 was quick and dirty but not easy — nearly a third of the racers didn’t finish. The full results have been posted online.

Thanks to the work of Victor and countless others, this was a really great race. A lot of people were filming and shooting photos throughout the day and we can’t wait to see the final products. Until that glorious day, enjoy some 1st Avenue mayhem from Nick James.

Click To Play

Check out more coverage over at BikeBlog.

Illustration by Greg Ugalde.

Monster Track weekend is here and you had better be ready. Whether or not temperatures peek above freezing, the streets will be a beautiful mess for the 8th annual race. This schedule may change, so go with the flow, keep your eyes open and your legs moving. And watch the highlight reel from Monster Track 7 while you have the chance.

Continue reading: Monster Track Weekend 2007