HAZARDFACTORY

Thanks to all the hazards, spacevirgins, Hackbots and burners we raised 150$ to go to Doctors without Borders and thier ongoing relief efforts in Haiti. For those of you unfamiliar with Doctors without Borders

they are one of the most globally active relief organizations in the world. They maintain the wherewithal to operate in multiple theatres and are always among the very first organizations on-site helping to mitigate human suffering whether it is the result of natural disaster, drought, famine, or war.

They consistently deliver relief with the absolute minimum of contributions consumed in non-aid activity like administration costs.

We had a nice comparatively mellow evening. Patrick improvised a barbeque out of some scrap and we roasted a tasty variety of things to eat. Hank shot some awesome photos, as he has mad mad mad skillz, check out this panoramic

You’ll need Flash 9 and Javascript.
http://seb.perez-duarte.net/panoviewer/?photo=4297492588

Ah yes and then the Flaming Tetherball.  We played about twelve games. Thanks to the new scoring system we can actually answer the age old question, Who won?

Or, more to the point, we can offer Sarah proof that she did not in fact kick the ass to which I am attached.  Ha ha! BRING ITZ!

There are few players that will represent themselves as being

competitive Flaming tetherballers, I am one of those few. Fewer still are the flaming teterhballers that will admit to full blown addiction and neglect far more important things to get that fix. I am perhaps the very first to admit to that addiction, but I am not yet beyond help, I just want to get one more game in before I check into the clinic…………..

So, who’s playing?

GAME ON!

Kind of like it sounds actually,

This thursday at the Nine Pound Hammer we will be screening footage from Oly in 08 and maybe some other footage. Starting at seven, going till Scott kicks us out.

This Friday we are hosting Beerfriday at Hazardfactory (7800 seventh ave south, southpark). Email hazardfactor (at) gmail for directions.  Location is roughly a mile south of Michigan street in Georgetown. This will be a low-key affair,  bring your own beer, a

barbecue will be provided and a fridge. You might want to bring a chair if you like sitting and comfort and things like that. HF is not a safe environemt, for kids or anyone else really.

I would like to raise  money for relief efforts in Haiti so i will be raffling off items of value and non-value for money to give to Doctors without Borders. We are likely to provide several fundraising gimmicks intended simply to help us all do something that makes being human a good thing.

Rusty

We will be screening raw footage from the 08 Olympia Power Tool Drag races at the nine pound hammer in Georgetown at seven p.m.

This is an open screening and informal. If you are really motivated and want to bring a cd of footage or photos of a Hazardfactory event feel free. We will be screening from seven p.m. on.

This is a free event, mostly about hanging out, see you then!

Rusty

OH and lookit! Preliminary footage of a new prototype! the un-nerfgun or Zombie Proximity Response System.

We joke about Zombies a-lot here at hazardfactory, and although as the People for the Ethical treatment of Zombies (P.E.T.Z) insist “Zombies were People too!” we have to look at the upsurge of pro-zombie enthusiasm with a certain amount of trepidation, all the while checking the valves on our assortment of flamethrowers and nervously glancing over alternate shoulders…….

So I must admit, full disclosure, that Rusty and members of Hazardfactory (cough) Drago and (cough cough ) Ryan and (hack) Todd did pyro stunts for Zombies of Mass Destruction! hint, it’s a movie and it’s funny as hell with an overt humanist and egalitarian vibe that asserts that Arabs, and gays, are in fact just as American and alright as any other just plain alright citizen.

The movie is a bit ambiguous in it’s treatment of zombies. A good number of Port Gamble citizens were turned into Zombies for the purposes of this film. Many of these same Zombies were treated with a certain sort of cavalier ambivalence. They get shot, stabbed, maimed, and assaulted a little more frequently than the other characters in the film, but overall, blood, gore, gore, blood, and gore aside, the movie satirizes the American post 9-11 (god I hate to type that) pre-occupation with ethnicity and ongoing inability to normalize same-sex relationships successfully.

So, if you see the movie and it’s on fire, yeah that was us, and hooray for Arab Americans and gays you are as American as any of us, congrats and condolences are both in order and perhaps in that order.

Oh yeah, ZOMBIES. So the idea owes it’s origins to Haitian lore. You may remember Haiti, poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, one of the only colonies to organize a successful slave revolt against the neo-liberalists of the period. Haiti is generally speaking, the most damning indictment of the neo-liberals and the free trade policies of the west.

On top of everything else, they suffered an enormous earthquake, about which you may have heard. Please send them money. Please. You can do it from your phone. It’s useful. Please.

Haiti has suffered a major earthquake over 100,000 feared dead. You can donate. I know you’re broke, so am I, but you can always pay your phone company in a month. •Donate through Wyclef Jean’s foundation, Yele Haiti. Text “Yele” to 501501 and $5 will be charged to your phone bill and given to relief projects through the organization. 100% of your donation goes directly to relief immediately.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ahNUrOwjGI

In 2008 we threw the first ever NEXTYEAR party with our collegues at HBL. The following year we held the NEXTYEAR party at Hazardfactory. So, this new years 09-2010, we rang in the new year with 400 close personal friends, or at least people held close and personally, and made the Merry.

Historically this has involved demolishing and detonating automobiles, street theatre, the Titanium Sporkestra marching band, fire cannons, burning Christmas trees, The fire department, the popo, and always, always, always with the flaming tetherball.

This year HBL set up some fantastic and far far far over the top lighting, Djs, and boozes, and a photo boot that automatically uploaded. Radness and badness.

Hazardfactory set up a little show with a two person fire breathing Dragon puppet, a hapless victim in a fire resistant proximity suit, and a couple of hand held flamethrowers.

We also developed a fun little system that allows partygoers to play with fire by scooping up a handfull of flammable gas and igniting it. This proved to be great fun, as the photos attest.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/sets/72157622990131319/show/with/4234716930/

I’m sure someone will ask me whether this is safe. I am not sure why they would ask me that, but someone always does.

Congrats to Katja and Craig Ackerman for deciding to get engaged while saturated with white gas (external) and alcohol (internal). We wish you all the best and promise to excercise an almost modicum of restraint if we get invited to anything.

Happy New Years to one and all.

I hope to post a new youtube segment within a day or two. Yes it’s about working with fire, and it’s not pyromania, it’s a profession.

R

http://www.flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/sets/72157622990131319/

I tried to insert some media here, but you can click above if you want to peruse Hanks’ excellent photos.

For the last seven weeks, I have been producing  Smash Putt with my crew, Jeremy, Lara, Ben, Josh, and Mike.

The show has been a sucess. The show has been a tremendous success in terms of what we have been able to provide our audiences.

We got articles in every local paper and had an interview with King five and an interview with KUOW that went on national radio.

here is the coverage we have recieved. My e-mail is hazardfactor (at) gmail (dot) com.

Smash putt Promo

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Smash-Putt–71992027.html

audio
http://kuow.org/program.php?id=18852

seattle weekly
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2009-11-11/calendar/smash-putt

Seattle times
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/musicnightlife/2010312017_golf20.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/musicnightlife/2010275988_smashputtweb.html

http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2009/11/14/smash-putt-brings-mini-golf-apocalypse-to-12th-ave

the stranger
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/bar-exam/Content?oid=2762823

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/05/06/injurtainer-artsonist

Tommorow night, eight p.m. at an undisclosed location in southpark, we launch an improbable flotilla for a brief tour of the Duwamish waterway in the evening. This will be followed by a screening of ” the Host” at a waterfront park nearby.

Stay tuned!

At Artopia in Georgetown! Power Tool Drag Racing! Register at our front desk moments before the races begin at two p.m. o-clock sharp! We are generously accepting donations of any size and kind from any person at any time. We will be at 1204 S Vale street in Georgetown. We will also have merch you can buy. Any funds we gather will be used to ship hazardfactory crew to an Ice Festival at an undisclosed and unknown location to engage in artistically valid but otherwise dubious activity. Support your local Injurtainers!

Its that time of year again. June 27th at two p.m. corner 1205 south Vale st. at Artopia in Georgetown, we’ll bring the mayhem, you bring the glassy eyed lunatic fringe and a triple tall non-fat mocha with a splash of “Holy shit what the hell were these guys thinking?”. Or, just bring it! Metaphorically and literally. We will have corrupt Judges, bawdy sponsors, BEAutiful 200 pound trophies of which YOU ARE NOT WORTHY!

Literally, you could bring a power tool equipped to fit a foot wide track bordered with upright two by fours, and race for Glory, Fleeting fame, or our seriously unbelievable trophies of which we believe you to be FIRMLY UNWORTHY!

So prove me wrong. Show off your heretofore unacknowledged industrial art improvisationaI assemblage. I dare you to try.

See you on the track!

About a year ago, I helped a small local production with special effects for a day. i went out to Port Gamble and set Pyro effects for the film. It was very quick and dirty. I set up a volkwagon bug to detonate, rigged a friend of mine to catch on fire (without undue harm) and set another car and a few random objects with effects.

I went to the premier last night. I never would have guessed that Zombie film fans were so erudite, well spoken and generally showered. I caught up with the director Kevin Hamadani and his producer John, the same man that produced Iraq in fragments.

I recommend catching the film. It’s a comedy and completely over the top. It is an energentic send-up of living as an ethnic or gender minority, in the paranoid post 9_11 world. I would have liked to see a stronger intellectual effort, maybe an attempt to look at why Americans tend to isolate and persecute our minorities, but, it was a bit beyond the scope of a bloodspatter send-up.

I spent a little more time with the cast before the show and hopefully will pull some more independant f/x work in Seattle this year. Welll paid f/x work.

Rusty