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"FacebookPinterest\n\nI first met the Neistat Brothers, Casey and Van, some years ago when they were assisting the artist Tom Sachs on his mini-monumental projects. As the great Pop Artist of Generation Y, or something like that, Tom had a Factory like organization that empowered his assistants to be creative. The Neistats were all that, helping Tom make many fantastic short films (which can be seen on Tom's website.) With Tom's encouragement the Neistats moved on up into their own practice. You can see some of their collaborations (as well as the greatness of Tom Sachs) on the latter's website. This is a good one.\n\nThe Brothers Neistat were already artists and filmmakers, employing techniques that could be described as radical (as in \"by any means necessary.\")  The Neistat Brothers remind me of the Marx Brothers but there are only two of them. Van is the older one\u2014he's 35 and his leaner, quieter, more existential and Zen, and sometimes bearded.  Casey is 29, more burly, manic, impromptu and scary. I guess you could say that Casey is Chico and Harpo rolled into one, while Van is sort of Groucho, Zeppo and Gummo (with a twist of Woody Harrelson.) Together the Neistats recall the delightful send-up anarchy that made the Marx brothers as influentially revolutionary as Karl Marx in their own way.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nCasey, Van, Van, Casey\n\nThis is Van Neistat playing with fire:\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nThere aren't many artist teams out there, but most of the successful ones have been brothers (as in Chapman and Starn) so there must be something to it that is about DNA. There is certainly much creativity in the Neistat DNA as is evident in their first feature film about their grandmother's dancing school, but they have also managed to harness the primal energies of sibling rivalry into a sort of daring one-upmanship, egging one another on to more and more extraordinary feats of imagination, daring, and balls. Check out their shorts on their website. Which reminds me, last weekend in the country I saw my electrician driving around in his new van and he had the slogan painted on the back: \"Let us look into your shorts.\"\n\nThis is Casey with his scary martial arts face on:\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nOne of their early film actually changed the course of one of the world's most powerful corporations, Apple. \"The iPod's Dirty Little Secret\" starts out with Casey calling Apple to complain that his iPod battery was dead and learning that it would cost $255 to replace the battery and that Apple recommended that he buy a new one instead. Then to the tune of Ice Cube singing Express Yourself the Neistats go around Manhattan stenciling iPod posters with \"the iPod's unreplaceable battery lasts only eighteen months.\" This little film was downloaded over a million times in six weeks and several major news sources noted that Apple changed their battery policy within a few weeks.\n\nAlthough the Neistats have an almost proprietary lock on \"out of left field,\" lots of the Neistat Brothers subject matter relates to a kind of alternative \"common sense.\" They are sort of rebel logicians, cutting through mainstream rhetoric and/or prohibitions. Common sense? How about the one in which Van beats a half hour delay in the Holland Tunnel by biking through it between two lanes of traffic in four minutes and 51 seconds. Or they create sort of do it yourself amusements, like making a light show with a Brillo pad and a battery, or making mothballs jump with vinegar and baking soda. Often they do don't try this at home at home. Or they engage in important acts of guerilla clarification\u2014like when should you pull the Emergency Brake on the subway?\u2014an investigation that got Casey arrested for throwing a fake baby on the tracks.\n\nSome of my favorite Neistat Brother shorts have to do with bicycle theft, a traditional New York City folk art. In one of them Casey found Van's bike, which had been stolen the night before, on the street surrounded by thugs who had apparently stolen it. Casey casually approaches the bicycle, surrounded by a group of chatting desperados, picks up the stolen property and nonchalantly walks off with it, as the perpetrators stand idly by in apparent awe. In another, \"Bicycle Thief,\" a skinhead Van steals the Neistats' own bicycle blatantly and repeatedly in broad daylight, showing just how easy it is to do with, in turn, bolt cutters, a hacksaw (not that easy, it took six minutes,) an electric angle grinder plugged into a light pole, and a hammer and spike. While Van was stealing a bike, Casey who was filming it, was asked to move by the police who ignored the crime in progress. This film got enough attention that a local Fox news reporter asked the Neistats to repeat the theft, but she got more than she bargained for when Casey, narrating Van's use of the angle grinder, apparently got too close and began spurting apparent blood profusely from the vicinity of his jugular. The Neistats punked Fox news's perky Jodi Applegate and gee, did she get angry on the 11 o'clock news. The Neistats have removed this video from their site, thanks to a cease and desist, but you can sometimes catch it if you're a lucky Googler. Jodi Applegate, usually an organic amorphous solid (i.e. plastic) is almost sexy when's she's mad.\n\nHere is Jodi Applegate experiencing public disorientation, prior to exhibiting surprising anger:\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nThis is Van stealing a bike:\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nAnyway, this Friday night at midnight, the long awaited Neistat Brothers show premieres on HBO. I'm not really sure what to expect from the HBO series, but I don't expect it to push the envelope, I expect it to explode the envelope using everyday household products. The Neistats call it \"not a reality show\" but \"a hand made home made TV show shot on cameras you probably shoot your friends and family with.\"\n\nHigh concept, low production values. I can hardly wait. Let the kids stay up late. But don't attempt these maneuvers at home\u2014they were performed by amateur drivers."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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