Yes, our empire has grown faster than crabgrass and it's time for us to move into a new undisclosed office.
Once we're settled into our new flat, we promise to bring you the same hard hitting journalism and searing sensational stories which you've grown to know, love and trust from Gotham City I.
For now, I leave you with a puzzle to swirl around your palette in my absence:
The Rolling Stones are/were basically the evil Beatles.
Second Car Bomb Found in London
POLICE CONFIRM SECOND LONDON CAR BOMB; 'CLEARLY LINKED TO FIRST'
British police have confirmed that not one, but two massive car bombs were set to explode in the heart of London's West End. The first car, in Haymarket, was a metallic green Mercedes packed with petrol, gas cannisters and nails, and was defused after police were alerted by an ambulance crew called to an incident at a nearby nightclub in the early hours of Friday morning. The second bomb was in a car that was illegally parked nearby and towed to the Park Lane car pound. Staff there alerted police because "it smelled of gas."
Scientific American has an fascinating feature An Earth Without People, not to mention these renderings of what the city might look like sans humans. The drawing above is what Fifth Avenue/St. Patrick's Cathedral would look like and the drawing below is what the subways would look like after just two days.
SA interviewed Alan Weisman, whose book The World Without Us discusses would happen if people just vanished completely from the face of the Earth. Given that subway system pumps about 13 million gallons of water out of its underground infrastructure each day, humans do a lot to keep our necessities going. But without them:
"There are places in Manhattan where they’re constantly fighting rising underground rivers that are corroding the tracks. You stand in these pump rooms,and you see an enormous amount of water gushing in. And down there in a little box are these pumps, pumping it away. So, say human beings disappeared tomorrow. One of the first things that would happen is that the power would go off. A lot of our power comes out of nuclear or coal-fired plants that have automatic fail-safe switches to make sure that they don’t go out of control if no humans are monitoring their systems. Once the power goes off, the pumps stop working. Once the pumps stop working, the subways start filling with water. Within 48 hours you’re going to have a lot of flooding in New York City. Some of this would be visible on the surface. You might have some sewers overflowing. Those sewers would very quickly become clogged with debris—in the beginning the innumerable plastic bags that are blowing around the city and later, if nobody is trimming the hedges in the parks, you’re going to have leaf litter clogging up the sewers."Scientific American also has a timeline of what could happen - streets cave in after two years, buildings start to crumble in four, fires in five years, bridges collapse in 300 years. This really calls for some stop-action animation. Update: It turns out there is some animation - check out this video from Scientific American (and how vegetation starts to grow over Rockefeller Center!).
from Gothamist
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All lots and sizes of Veggie Booty Snack Food are being recalled, the company said, following a report of 51 cases of salmonella poisoning that may be associated with the product.
The FDA says theres been reports of illnesses in 17 states.
The company said consumers who purchased Veggie Booty and still have the product in their homes should discard the contents and contact the company at 1-800-626-7557 for reimbursement.
Guy Swipes Reporter’s Mic During iPhone Live Shot... During a live shot with Newsweek columnist Steven Levy outside an Apple Store in NYC, Fox News reporter Laura Ingle said, "We're going to need some security around here," just then a dude runs up and grabs the mic out of her hand. Ha! He's almost immediately tackled by a FOX cameraman / aspiring NY Giants lineman.
Read MoreA former Arkansas state trooper was sentenced to 90 days in jail yesterday for shooting to death an unarmed, mentally disabled man he mistook for a Michigan fugitive. 90 days? Not bad, huh?
Video from AP here
In fact, the only person I loathe more than Coulter is WABC's Laura Ingraham, who is basically a poor man's Ann Coulter. GRRrrrrrrr.
The War Rages On
Anguished Blockbuster has reported they will close 280+ retail locations within the year just as rival Netflix announces they will lower the rates on a few of their monthly plans. Ouch!
The ATF descended on a Graniteville, Staten Island home last night after learning of the presence of large amounts of potassium nitrate which is often used in pyrotechnics.
However, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said there was no evidence that the man was involved in making bombs or selling bomb-making materials. The man was apparently selling the chemicals in smaller quantities on the Internet. Police say there is no link to any terrorist activity.
A senior special agent with the ATF said a vendor who deals with chemicals notified the agency Thursday that a resident of Staten Island had ordered a large quantity of chemicals. Well, thats good to know at least!
The London Fog thwarted an apparent terror attack Friday near the famed Piccadilly Circus in the heart of London, defusing a bomb made of a lethal mix of gasoline, propane gas, and nails after an ambulance crew spotted smoke coming from a silver Mercedes outside a nightclub.
The bomb in the city's theater district was powerful enough to have caused "significant injury or loss of life" - possibly killing hundreds, British police chief Peter Clarke said.
Police planned to examine footage from closed-circuit TV cameras in the area, Clarke said, hoping the surveillance network that covers much of central London will help them track down the driver of the rigged Mercedes.
Officers were called to The Haymarket, just south of Piccadilly Circus, after an ambulance crew - responding to a call just before 1:30 a.m. about an injury at a nearby nightclub - noticed smoke coming from a car parked in front of the club.
A bomb squad manually disabled the bomb.
Early photographs of the silver Mercedes showed a canister bearing the words "patio gas," indicating it was propane gas, next to the car. The back door was open with blankets spilling out. The car was removed from the scene midmorning.
The busy Haymarket thoroughfare linking Piccadilly Circus to the Pall Mall is packed with restaurants, bars, a cinema complex and West End theaters, and was buzzing at that hour.
More:
Explosives-Packed Car Defused in London
Terror Car Packed With Petrol And Nails
BBC: Police avert car bomb 'carnage
Our lil' baby Lily turned herself in to the Scotland Yard yesterday. The delicious British pop sensation was charged with assault for an incident with a photographer outside the Wardour Club in London's SOHO (HOLLA!) back in March.
Lilyface filled out some paperwork and was set free on bail yet again. She's due back for a court appearance in July.
Allen, who earlier this year canceled a number of US tour dates citing "tiredness", is due to tour Australia in August.
But hey, with gams like that, who are we to complain?
(pic courtesy of Celebrity Babylon)
God, she was SO annoying then. I HATED her.
Now, she's banging - except for those hurt shoes and bag - I'd holla at her.
This mysterious tale of the double homicide-suicide of Chris Benoit, his wife and son gets even more strange.
On Wednesday County's district attorney Scott Ballard explained that Benoit may have killed his son with a chokehold. He said the boy had internal injuries to the throat area, but showed no bruises, indicating he may have been locked in the crook of his father's arm.
Nancy Benoit had bruises on her back and stomach consistent with someone pressing a knee into the small of the back while pulling on a cord around the neck. Benoit killed himself by wrapping a cord around his neck that was attached to a weight machine, and when Benoit released the weights about 240 pounds caused his strangulation. Ballard said the pull-down bar had been removed and Benoit was found seated against the machine.
Saturday, 23 June at 3:30 PM a co-worker received a voice message from Benoit stating he missed his flight and overslept and would be late for that night's Beaumont, Texas, house show.
According to the WWE Web site, the co-worker called Benoit back and Benoit sounded tired and groggy as he confirmed everything he had said in his voice message. A 3:42 PM, the same co-worker, "concerned about Benoit's tone and demeanor," called him back again. Benoit did not answer the call and the co-worker left a message stating, "just call me back."
Two minutes later, Benoit called the co-worker back, stating he didn't answer the call because he was on the phone with Delta Air Lines changing his flight. "Benoit stated he had a real stressful day due to Nancy and Daniel being sick with food poisoning."
Was Benoit planning on pulling an OJ? Was he setting up an alibi with the food poisoning story?
At 4:30 PM, according to the Web site, a co-worker who often travels with Benoit called him from outside the Houston airport and Benoit answered. "Benoit told the co-worker that Nancy was throwing up blood and that Daniel was also throwing up."
At 5:35 PM, Benoit called WWE's "Talent Relations" office, stating that his son was throwing up and that he and Nancy were in the hospital with their son, and that he would be taking a later flight into Houston, but would make the live event in Beaumont which we now know he never did.
Nearly 12 hours later, during the wee hours of June 24, Benoit sent those cryptic text messages to some his friends telling them his address over and over and the location of his attack dogs.
Yesterday the DEA raided the office of Dr. Phil Astin, Benoit's doctor and the dude who's name was on most of the pill bottles found in Benoit's medicine cabinet and now the authorities are trying to figure out who logged on and edited Benoit's wikipedia page with news of Nancy Benoit's death 14 hours before the police discovered the bodies.
The Wiki page has since been locked but the original posting read:
“Chris Benoit was replaced by Johnny Nitro for the ECW Championship match as Benoit was not there due to personal issues, stemming from the death of his wife Nancy.”The line "stemming from the death of his wife Nancy" was added to the Wikipedia's Chris Benoit page at 12 AM on June 25, whereas the Fayette County police reportedly discovered the bodies of the Benoit family at 2:30 PM some 14 and a half hours later.
"Hey everyone. I am here to talk about the wikipedia comment that was left by myself. I just want to say that it was an incredible coincidence. Last weekend, I had heard about Chris Benoit no showing Vengeance because of a family emergency, and I had heard rumors about why that was. I was reading rumors and speculation about this matter online, and one of them included that his wife may have passed away, and I did the wrong thing by posting it on wikipedia to spite there being no evidence. I posted my speculation on the situation at the time and I am deeply sorry about this, and I was just as shocked as everyone when I heard that this actually would happen in real life. It is one of those things that just turned into a huge coincidence. That night I found out that what I posted, ended up actually happening, a 1 in 10,000 chance of happening, or so I thought."
Have you ever wondered why we yawn? Yes, we yawn when we’re bored, sleepy or tired, but what purpose does a yawn serve? How are yawns triggered? And were you aware of the fact that in humans, there is a relationship between yawning and orgasm? Hey now!
Most of the higher vertebrate species yawn: mammals, reptiles, birds and even fish. It’s known that human fetuses yawn as early as the end of the first trimester of prenatal development. These facts make it clear that yawning must have evolved quite a long time ago, far back in the evolutionary line.
A yawn consists of a powerful movement of jaw-gaping along with deep inhalation and exhalation. But it involves much more than just that. While yawning, the head tilts slightly backwards, the eyes narrow, the facial muscles stretch. Inside the middle ear, the eustachian tubes open, while the tear glands and salivary glands have increased activity, not to mention a whole bunch of other brain areas, as well as hitherto unspecified cardiovascular and respiratory acts.
In terms of biochemistry, it is not known exactly what triggers this highly complex motor program. Although it’s known that boredom or sleepiness can cause yawning, it has also been documented that certain changing colour patterns can induce yawning. People have also been observed to yawn when they are tensed, like paratroopers before a jump or musicians before a concert. I personally know two people who have a habit of nervous yawning and they say dogs will sometimes yawn when they are nervous or anxious.
Research has demonstrated that the conventional belief that yawns are caused due to a high level of carbon dioxide or a shortage of oxygen in the blood or brain, is completely false. However, after comparing some of the similarities between the physiology of yawning and that of sex, it has been suggested that the two acts might have a common neurological background.
For instance, the facial expression during sexual climax (the "Oh" face) is remarkably similar to the expression during yawning. Furthermore, some of the neurotransmitters associated with sexual activity, such as oxytocin and androgens (HOLLA!), are also connected to yawning.
Chemical agents that induce yawning in lab rats have also been observed to induce penile erection. Hey now! Most fascinating of all, old school antidepressant drugs such as clomipramine and fluoxetine, in some people, have the side effect of inducing yawns that trigger orgasms. Which sounds pretty awesome but actually would totally suck.
One trait of yawning that has so far only been documented in humans, and our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees: contagious yawning. Though yawning itself is an ancient practice, contagious yawning must have evolved relatively recently. Humans are not susceptible to contagious yawning until they are several years old.
We’ve all noticed how contagious a yawn can be. Watching someone yawn can cause us to yawn too. In fact, just thinking about yawning is sufficient to induce a yawn. I’m willing to wager that by the time you finish reading this post, you will have yawned (if you haven’t already done so) or at the very least, felt like yawning.
This property of contagiousness has the potential to give us some insights into the neurological basis of imitation, face detection, and various other such social behaviours. Scientists have found that individuals with disorders like schizophrenia or autism (where the ability to infer the mental states of others is impaired), or even just schizotypal people, are markedly less prone to contagious yawning. It has even been suggested that increased rates of yawning might indicate that a person may recover from schizophrenia. Hmmmm.
Yet another fascinating aspect of yawning is the relationship between yawning and stretching, also called ‘pandiculation’. In humans as well as in animals, yawning is invariably accompanied by stretching upon waking up after sleeping, but almost never before falling asleep.
"Baby, I'm tired, do u mind if we just pandiculate tonight?"In many people who are paralyzed due to brain damage, pandiculation causes their otherwise immobile limbs to rise and flex automatically. This suggests that yawning activates undamaged, unconsciously controlled nerve connections between the brain and the cord motor system.
"Sure, honey"
We had this computer when I was a kid. The venerable Apple IIe. I didn't use it all that much; we had a few games but the only one I remember was Super Boulder Dash and I only remember that title because I could never figure out how to play it. I wish I could recall the other games we had. I didn't do much typing on it, I was young and hadn't become the manic writer I am now. I wish I could find a pic of the Brother wordprocessor we had. I spent so many hours hunched over that thing writing stories and journals and such on this tiny black screen with yellow letters.
A few years after the Apple IIe I got this for Xmas: The "PXL 2000" (didn't you love when sticking a "2000" on the end of something made it seem so untouchably hi-tech?) Anyway, it was a Fisher Price video camera that recorded video onto audio cassettes; the video played back via a 4.5 inch black & white monitor that came with the system. I still come across random cassettes that I must've recorded movies on back then because when you play them through a stereo it sounds like whales bellowing underwater. A brilliant invention methinks. I heard these things got popular again recently too among these quasi-independent, experimental/avant-garde, and underground filmmakers due to its unique low-resolution pixelated black & white image. Whatevs. I got a real kick out of this thing back in the day.
WSJ reporters stage an old fashioned "sick out"
Registering their disapproval of Rupert Murdoch's impending Dow Jones takeover, Wall Street Journal reporters "across the country chose not to show up to work this morning."
A statement from the Newspaper Guild notes that they take this action to "demonstrate our conviction that the Journal's editorial integrity depends on an owner committed to journalistic independence" and remind "Dow Jones management that the quality of its publications depends on a top-quality professional staff."
Read "A statement from Wall Street Journal reporters:"
Frozen non-GMO organic cornmeal ravioli for ALL !
This time it's official. A new Trader Joe's will open at the former Independence Savings Bank building, on the corner of Court and Atlantic. Ooooh and parking will be a breeze!
One of my dogs has always been somewhat skittish ever since I adopted her. Her first phobia was men in hoods; she wasn't down with that at all; probably because whoever abused her as a pup was some plastic gangster from J-City whose friends wore hoodies all the time. Sudden loud noises like gunshots she isn't down with either, but I don't see anything wrong with that; some things should be startling or else we'd all be dead, right?
But over the past year or so she's developed a very intense fear of thunder and lightning and rainstorms. She becomes completely inconsolable from before the storm until the following morning.
I could lay a fresh human femur bone at her feet but if its pouring outside, she couldn't care less. She just paces and pants and her little rabbit heart thumps in her chest. I feel so helpless, its really awful.
She'd taken to hiding in the shower but now even that seems like it isn't working. Last night I made her a cardboard hut which I put it on top of the chaise lounge like a little dry-land fort but she wasn't into that, either. She just hid under my chair at the computer and huffed and puffed her hot nervous dog breath on my ankles.
Today I read that this isn't uncommon and that "many dogs are not afraid of thunder or fireworks for the first few years of their lives and many people report that their dog was not in the slightest bit afraid of thunder until it was four or five years old while others say that the fear manifested in their dog's senior years." I found that very interesting but still puzzling. "It's interesting to note that during hurricanes the experts tell us to go to the smallest room in the house. Perhaps dogs know this instinctively?"
I've read a good bit about animals and their so-called 'sixth sense' and attunement or natural intuition. Many examples of what people call a "sixth sense", are probably just heightened and enhanced versions of the stable of five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell; there isn't anything paranormal about it at all actually.
So when dogs react to sounds beyond those heard by humans they can appear to react with no information but this is not really a sixth sense, but higher scaling in their sense of hearing compared to humans.
"A source of intuition that may be genuine would arise when creatures attune with their environment or niche, so that they become a part of that nature. The gifts would be especially potent if the animal or human could attune to the point of being wild. From such an integrated position within the environment, a person would have more direct linkages with initial and subtle information that an estranged person would fail to notice. The attuned person would have greater perception and wisdom, and apparent intuition, for their surroundings. They might appear to have a sixth sense, and know what was about to happen."
Attunement intuition is not actually a new sense, but a way of gaining extra meaning or making better use of the existing senses. Indigenous people know where to find food, and when to seek shelter because of signs in the weather, better than a tourist. They might be able to sense when a dangerous animal was approaching, by recognising the silence of nearby animals; a sailor can sense the wind direction better than a land lubber, etc.
A book I read, but never finished, not too long ago researched elephants and found they are particularly hypersensitive to seismic shock waves and actually communicate employing this method. Therefore, they appear to detect earthquakes long before many other animals, and flee from their direction.
You may recall hearing in the news when the massive tsunami hit Sri Lanka and the coastlines of India on the day after Xmas 2004, wild and domestic animals seemed to know what was about to happen and fled to safety. According to eyewitness accounts, elephants screamed and ran for higher ground, dogs refused to go outdoors and zoo animals rushed into their shelters and could not be enticed to come back out. We now know what followed but at the time, no one really thought anything of it. It wasn't until much later, obviously, that we put the two things together and they made eerie sense.
So, really its all scientific. Right?
Frequencies capable of being heard by humans are called audio or sonic. Frequencies higher than audio are referred to as ultrasonic; dogs are able to hear ultrasound, which is the principle of 'silent' dog whistles. Take this and the fact that a dogs sense of smell is 50 to 200 times stronger than ours, I would assume our dogs might know something was up before we did because their sensory perception is so much stronger.
If I'm walking my dog and she starts growling or barking at some dude, I usually agree with her choice as its usually some sketchy or shady character looming in the shadows. Chances are before I can even see the dude, she's made her character analysis and when we pass by him, she is going to make her presentation. Lassie wasn't a genius, she was a dog. And dogs are geniuses. It's simple, really.
However this doesn't explain everything. The elephants ran because they knew the tsunami was coming; they knew it was coming because of the oceans seismic rumbling; that's a scientific case closed. My dog is deathly afraid of rain and I'm not sure why but I am certain it has something to do with her acute (and adorable) hypersenses. I think we can chalk her thunder phobia up to something scientific. My dog barks at some sketchy dude because she probably picked up on his shady pheromones before he was even in my sight; and I think we can close that case, too, because the evil dude is there right in front of me giving off the bad vibes. My dog wasn't picking something up on her radar that was unseen and a million miles away.
So can animals sense intangible evil?
On the morning of September 11th I was walking my dog; I only had one at the time and its not the one who's afraid of rain now. Normally this dog was a perfect walker; I'd take her outside, she'd do her biz and we'd go back home. She'd watch Animal Planet on the couch and I'd leave for work. But that morning she was acting very strangely. And of course I only still remember that one walk out of a million walks because of what would happen later that day, but its worth noting.
I don't want to confound this entry anymore than I already have so I won't get into the fact that she made me late that morning and by making me late she very well could have saved my life because the route I took to work back then, had me driving right under the WTC right around the time the first plane hit. So, for as selectively superstitious as I am, I'll chalk that up to coincidence. Whether or not I had to leave for work and she made me late for my commute, she was still acting weird on that fateful morning.
She was whimpering and standing still and wasn't at all interested in taking a dump or peeing on the curb. She was preoccupied with something. And trust me, I take everything with a grain of a salt and I'm aware that with hindsight and with a tragedy like 9/11 maybe our minds want to create these terrific miraculous stories. But I swear to you, I am not. I remember thinking to myself how odd she was acting and I was getting frustrated because I wanted her to do her biz and I had to leave for work; I was running late as it was. It wasn't until later that I put the two things together and realised she was acting odd on that particular morning.
There is nothing scientific about September 11th prior to 8:46 a.m when the first plane hit. This wasn't a natural disaster; it wasn't a tsunami; my dog couldn't have physically felt the seismic rumblings of a particular plane in the denim sky; it was business as usual on a Tuesday morning in New York City.
So I really have no idea why she was acting so strange and nothing to attribute it to other than coincidence, but its such a coincidence that you want to think its something more. I can only think that in some way she was reacting to some unseen bad vibes - just like when they react to sketchy characters on the street - are they picking up on some sort of impending doom?
I can only intelligently assume its a lot like Voltron*; that when an animals standard five über-heightened senses combine they form this somewhat magical and mysterious sixth sense; making them able to pick up on stuff that we can only dream about.
That's as simple as I can put it; coincidentally, that's where it all starts sounding very hokey.
Related: Can Animals Sense Earthquakes? from National Geographic News
*if you were really paying attention, you'd know that was the second time I've mentioned Voltron this week.
Dudes are selling celebrity trash, no, literally; they're selling ish from celeb's garbage cans. I guess they've got a friend who's a garbageman in Hollywood. Right now the site is still in its infancy so all they've got is some garden variety Paris Hilton trash (an empty box of SunMaid raisins, used travel-size Degree deodorant, an empty Guess box, an empty can of organic gourmet dog food, an empty Sierra Nevada Pale Ale bottle, Glacial water bottle partially full with cigarette butt, etc.) Personally, I'm holding out for Selma Hayek's Q-Tips.
Et tu, Brute?
Speaker of the Haus Nancy Pelosi is working hard to make sure that the fiery liberals remember that she is one of them. She's also been going out of her way to reassure opponents of the war that she is on their side. That's not good.
Her efforts are taking place in speeches and interviews off Capitol Hill and away from the constraints and compromises inherent in running the House. Liberal lawmakers and activists accuse Pelosi of being too cautious.
In recent speeches and interviews, Pelosi has acknowledged the left’s frustration with the war and asked it to work with congressional Democrats to help alter the political climate.
More from The Hill
The White House, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege today and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.
President Bush's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor.
Read more from Breitbart
Related: I just posted this like an hour ago... The Senate subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office yesterday, demanding documents and elevating the confrontation with President Bush over the administration's warrant-free eavesdropping on Americans. Oh, hang on, I think I hear a Rage Against The Machine song.
So the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (or S.E.C.) just marched through with lots of blinding white starch, tortoiseshell eyeglasses, clipboards and questions. Naturally, this is what I was working on looking at when they walked by. I've always sorta been into the Beasties but they're instrumental stuff really puts me to bed; so boring. ZZzzzzzzz. And I guess their new record "The Mix-Up" is all of that conga, farfisa organ and tabla jam stuff. Yuck.
Looking back at Wednesday...
Here's a clip of Mika Brzezinski "refusing" to talk about Paris Hilton on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show. This is SO faux.
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Sometimes I come across stuff that I'm so excited to immortalise and share with you I barely have time to wrap my own head around them; my mind is typing faster than my fingers can think and I'm writing faster than I'm absorbing because I'm so excited... Often times, I'll just skim the article, pick up the main points, summarise it and post it here. Like right now, after I'm done typing out this entry, I'll actually go read for myself the article I'm alerting you all to go read. Do you follow? I hope so. Try and keep up. I work fast :)
Ever since I was a kid, well at least since school trips in long yellow buses with hunter green vinyl seats where you were high up enough to see down below over the sides, anytime I drove over the Verrazano Bridge, I've always noted the little unknown uninhabited islands in the water and wondered why they weren't filled with fancy people doing fancy things. The Narrows Yacht Club for instance...
Well, I just stumbled upon an article in New York Magazine about a guy who had also made note of these little egg-shaped islands from his vantage point in a 747 and decided he'd go and visit them; all of them, or at least as many as he could to see what he could see and find what he could find.
Related: Survivor: Brooklyn from Gothamist
Let's check in with the rest of the world and see whats crackin... Shall we?
Paris Hilton got out of jail yesterday and she won't be on the cover of US Weekly on Friday?!
How, barring the unraveling of the Seventh Seal, is this possible?!
"When it came down to it, the staff and I felt what I believe a lot of people in America are feeling. Which is just enormous Paris fatigue," US Weekly Editor Janice Min told AP.
Now, is that something I can call out sick for? A case of Paris fatigue?
As a result of this new phenom of malaise, Hilton not only won't be on the cover, there won't even be a mention of her in the magazine. HOLLA!
That was no easy task, she said, adding US Weekly editors had to comb carefully through every beauty story and every fashion item to make sure there wasn't an offhand mention of the hotel heiress somewhere... hahaha! But, um, isn't there a program that can do that? Yes, there is, but hey, who am I to deny a few already overpaid editors some bogus O.T.?
The Associated Press put in place a similar Hilton moratorium for a week earlier this year, just to see what would happen. Ooh, what a daring experiment. But as it turned out, the celebutante didn't do much that was of interest to anyone that week anyway. AP: Foiled again!
Still, Min expects her magazine will do just fine without Paris.
Hilton, she said, has become such a mainstream media staple "that in many ways her time with US Weekly has moved on." Oh OK, riiiiiight Janice. US Weekly: the bastion of journalism pour le intelligentsia has "moved on" from stories about celebutantes and taints.
So look instead for a US Weekly cover photo Friday of Tom Cruise's baby and, inside the magazine, a dozen pages of other Hollywood babies. Oh, now THAT'S candor! A Hollywood baby gallery? How exciting and different!!
So is Janice Min really becoming Winston Churchill or is "Paris Fatigue" simply US Weekly's clever concoction to distract the fact that People ponied up and beat them to the exclusive with Miss Thang?! Hmmmmm...
Enquiring minds wanna know.
A few details about the incident yesterday afternoon outside Your Baker in Bay Ridge (HOLLA). Reports say that the driver of a Honda CR-V "made a wrong turn" (1010 WINS) and/or "mashed the accelerator" (Daily News).
The SUV jumped the curb, hitting Lance Sevorwell (throwing him 15 feet in the air), and then pinning Lyudmila Piyavskaya, a 53-year-old Ukrainian woman, against the front of the bakery. Piyavskaya was instantly killed and Sevorwell had leg and head injuries. Daily News reports that the driver Lou Lou Sayeg got out of her car, crying, "Oh my God!" and "I killed that lady!" (you sure did, beeotch). Her passenger had minor injuries; Sayeg was not charged. Piyavskaya's upset husband said,
"I was with her earlier, but I had to go to Queens. I wish I could have been with her. I could have saved her. I could have pushed her out of the way."That is f*cking sad. Makes me wanna eat a whole cake and say F it.
It keeps getting more bizarre with every detail ...
Chris Benoit sent a series of text messages to WWE co-workers, some from his dead wife's cell phone. According to WWE.com, all 5 text messages were sent between 3:53 AM and 3:58 AM on June 24. He then committed suicide.
The messages revealed that Benoit distributed information on where to find his remains, and the enclosed location of his attack dogs.
Below are the times and content of text messages Benoit sent to co-workers, as first reported by WWE:
3:53 AM - Chris Benoit's cell phone: "My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane, Fayeteville Georgia. 30215"Now that the authorities have revealed the grisly details of Chris Benoit's final days, the WWE is changing their tune. In a televised statement Vince McMahon made it clear that they will no longer honour the memory of the murdering wrestler:
3:53 AM - Chris Benoit's cell phone: "The dogs are in the enclosed pool area. Garage side door is open."
3:54 AM - Nancy Benoit's cell phone: "My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane. Fayeteville Georgia. 30215"
3:55 AM - Nancy Benoit's cell phone: "My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane, Fayeteville Georgia. 30215"
3:58 AM - Nancy Benoit's cell phone: "My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane, Fayeteville Georgia. 30215"
From exploding hearts to drug use and even to some unsolved cases TMZ.com compiled a gallery of many other pro-wrestlers who checked out either early or mysteriously or both. Read More"Last night on 'Monday Night Raw,' the WWE presented a special tribute show, recognising the career of Chris Benoit. However, now some 26 hours later, the facts of this horrific tragedy are now apparent. Therefore, other than my comments, there will be no mention of Mr. Benoit tonight. On the contrary, tonight's show will be dedicated to everyone who has been affected by this terrible incident. This evening marks the first step of the healing process. Tonight, the WWE performers will do what they do better than anyone else in the world -- entertain you."
Who the F thought this was a good idea?
A new motorized "amphibian touring vehicle travels from midtown 'splashing' into the Hudson River before returning to midtown". Ummm... yeah. Thanks, but I don't want to be splashed on by the Hudson or East River.
This is a photo of a cornfield in the village of Dussen in the south Netherlands.
The driver, high on coke, destroyed the entire cornfield in an attempt to escape from the police. Four police cars were destroyed before the 35-year-old crashed into a ditch and was arrested.
Does this mean all those crop cirlces over the years were just cokeheads doing donuts?
This morning the Gothamist received a small package containing three copies of a small newspaper. On the cover were the words "if we did it, this is how it would've happened" (a tribute to the recent unpublished OJ Simpson book) and a picture of a defaced Shepard Fairey piece in Williamsburg. Amazing... Gothamist breaks it all down for us here.
2 men were injured and a woman was killed when an SUV jumped the curb and slammed into the front of Your Baker on 86th street.
The 40-year-old driver of a Honda CRV made a wrong turn and lost control hitting a man waiting at the bus stop. Then, slamming on the gas instead of the brakes she continued onto the sidewalk where she hit a man who was walking along and then slammed into a woman standing in front of Your Baker with her back turned looking at the cakes in the window. The woman was killed instantly.
The two men that were hurt were taken to Lutheran and their conditions are unknown. The driver of the SUV and a passenger in another car were also injured and taken to Lincoln Medical Center. Their conditions are also unknown.
Dying sucks but if we don't know when its coming, I wouldn't mind looking at cakes before the lights went out.
Pro wrestler Chris Benoit strangled his wife, suffocated his 7-year-old son and placed a bible next to their bodies before hanging himself with the pulley of a weight machine.
Benoit was a quiet, roughhewn figure amid the glitz and bluster of pro wrestling. He performed under his real name, eschewed scripted personas and didn't bother to fix a gap where he had lost one of his front teeth. (According to the WWE Web site, he lost the tooth while roughhousing with his pet Rottweiler, awww monkey)
Authorities offered no motive for the killings, which were spread out over a weekend, and would not discuss Benoit's state of mind. No suicide note was found.
Investigators found prescription anabolic steroids in the house and want to know whether Benoit was unhinged by the bodybuilding drugs, which can cause paranoia, depression and explosive outbursts known as "roid rage." Eh, yeah, but I've never heard of "roid rage" lasting an entire weekend. I think he just lost his f#king mind.
Continue reading..................................
District Attorney Scott Ballard dropped some more knowledge on the bizarre story saying Benoit's 7 year old son "had needle marks in his arms and it was believed that the boy had been given growth hormones for some time because the family considered him undersized." Ballard said it seemed that Benoit was making "an effort to try and get somebody to come find the bodies after the suicide" by sending out several creepy and cryptic text messages to friends and neighbours saying he knew his "wife and son were both sick" and that the front door was open and the pet's were outside.
There was a documented history of domestic violence and violent outbursts; his wife Nancy Benoit, 43, filed for a divorce in 2003, saying the couple's three-year marriage was irrevocably broken and alleging "cruel treatment." Though she would later dropped the complaint, as well as a request for a restraining order in which she charged that her husband had threatened her and had broken furniture in their home.
District Attorney Ballard said that Benoit's wife was killed Friday in an upstairs family room, her feet and wrists were bound and there was blood under her head, indicating a possible struggle; it appeared that she had been pinned to the floor and asphyxiated with some sort of cable.
The 7-year-old son, Daniel, was probably killed late Saturday or early Sunday, the body found in his bed. Ballard indicated that he had been choked to death.
Benoit, 40, apparently killed himself several hours or as long as a day later. His body was found in a downstairs weight room, his body found hanging from the pulley of a piece of exercise equipment. Ballard said that he had used weights, the pulley and cable to choke himself to death.
Ballard said he found it "bizarre" that the WWE wrestling star spread out the killings over a weekend and appeared to remain in the house for up to a day with the bodies; telling ESPN.com that investigators smelled what they ascertained to be decomposing bodies when they entered the home. The varying degrees of decomposition between the bodies helped indicate the staggered times of death.
From ESPN.com: Steroids discovered in probe of slayings, suicide
One of my best friends is one of these Moz lunatics. I think he flew red-eye to Guam one time to see Moz play charity mini-golf so of course he was there when Moz was taping Letterman in his own backyard yesterday.
My boy managed to snap a few (creepy, total stalker, dude in a tree with binoculars) pics of the legend with his trusty Moz-loving Sidekick...
Moz getting back on his Prevost to the next tour stop I guess
Moz with the famous Hello Deli in the background, maybe he was going to get one of those shrink-wrapped corn muffins?
This one confuses me. Is that Moz in the distance? and whats this giant blue thing? A waterslide? Moz likes waterslides and demanded CBS have one installed for him to play on before the Letterman taping?
iPhones go on sale Friday, I'm assuming on tonights local news they'll do the tired story about the dolts who have been camping outside Best Buy since last Wednesday. Wanna make a bet?
I just realised yesterday afternoon when I spied Richard Masur it was the exact same spot where I spied Martin Kove a few weeks ago; 45th and 5th; which is somewhat eerie because Richard Masur and Martin Kove are like rival sublebrities- at least in my mind and for the sake of this article they are.
I think Masur may be slightly more well-respected because he was president of SAG for a few years and I think he won an Academy Award or two, where as Martin Kove played the malicious Cobra Kai Sensei John Kreese in the Karate Kid movies and then, for all intents and purposes, vanished, even though he's never stopped working. For me, Richard Masur played the dad in License to Drive and also vanished, though he too never stopped working.
Now if someone were to tell me Martin and Richard acted in a movie together, I'd freak out and the world just might end. Otherwise that's all I've got for this one. See ya!
I still love New York but pics like this really make me itch and wanna move far, far away.
This particular blog is based on actual events. In certain cases incidents, characters and timelines have been changed for dramatic purposes. Certain characters may be composites, or entirely fictitious.
There was a time when I woke up early, real early. I was awake as the city never sleeps slept. I rode the subway with construction workers and the homeless and that's it. You know that feeling when you've been out all night and you sleep for an hour or two before you've gotta be somewhere else? That's how I felt every morning; that chill; that hot shiver is hard to explain.
Walking down the middle of 57th Street on the yellow stripes like a tightrope I saw dudes on their hands and knees polishing up that gold embedded in the sidewalk outside the Russian Tea Room. It was me, a few circling taxis and the coffee truck guys unhooking their carts from their AstroVans. They all have AstroVans.
I worked for a big time raido guy. BS'd my way into a gig there and showed my face a lot, got known, pitched ideas and they liked me. I was somewhat covered in tattoos before the whole world was so I was still a freak and they enjoyed that, naturally. I got an offer across town at a rival shop but the money was better so I took it; heard through the grapevine that big time radio guy wasn't happy. Hearing that was bittersweet. Who the F was I anyway?
So I took this other gig and it was like summer camp. I busted my ass but it was fun work. I'd BS'd my way into this gig hot on the heels of my gig with the big time guy. The new shop assumed I knew what I was doing since I worked for big time; I didn't; I had no idea, I just made it up as I went along. I can clearly recall one of the interns being quite resentful that I had the gig yet I was asking him how to use the gear. Later that same intern learned what band(s) I was in and everything changed; suddenly he was cool to me and we became bro's.
The gig was a goof. I basically answered the phones during a radio show and screened the callers. I still miss that gig. I loved being the gatekeeper to the airwaves and having grown up making prank phone calls anytime my parents left the house, I was a pro at detecting when someones story was full of ish or when someone just wanted to get past me and on the air so they could yell some B.S. or attack the hosts of the show. I really loved that gig. I miss going to my cockpit everyday.
After the show we'd sit in the back office and brainstorm for tomorrows show: "Hey, how about we have some strippers come in and roll around in kitty litter to win Yankees tickets or we could have people bob for dogsh*t to win WWF tickets?!" Stuff like that. This was work. I got paid to do this ish and all the free swag I could wear or swallow.
It was the hot sauce radio era, circa 2000-early 2001. I say hot sauce because around this time all these hack radio hosts were realising how much fun you could have on-air simply introducing hot sauce to the equation. If there was a bottle of hot sauce in the studio, chances are someone was gonna dare someone to do something with it. Nearly every contest would somehow involve hot sauce; dudes doing shots of hot sauce, dudes putting wasabi on their nuts, dudes pouring hot sauce in their ears, etc.
There were just so many new upstart companies with products to hock to this particular male demographic; this was the dawn of Viagra and all these herbal wanna-be Viagras that promised this or that; it was all snake-oil smoke and mirror pills. But there was just so damn much of it that you had to think up ideas for contests on a daily basis, and it wasn't easy to do something a) funny b) fresh c) original.
Looking back, it was the final frontier for terrestrial radio; the new and final wild west renaissance. There was a window or a vacuum there when the FCC seemed to be busy with other ish. We did stuff on the air then that we might face jail time for today, and I'm not even being dramatic; if not jail time, we'd definitely be fired, immediately.
It was like Las Vegas before they ran the mob outta town and Wall Street before it got hosed down. But just like Vegas and Wall, eventually it would all come crashing and everyone would lose their jobs.
To be continued...
is the Drei Kaiser Bund.
I learned it in history class at Fordham Lincoln Center. This term has stuck with me more than anything from all my schooling and I've no idea why or what I was doing at the time I learned about it that has caused this decade+ fixation. It's quite strange.
Around that time, circa 1996, I was definitely scribbling down ideas for the name of my bands first album as we were being courted by a few labels. Maybe I was interrupted from my back page of the marble notebook brainstorming sesh by a rousing lecture on these three kaisers? I need to see a psychiatrist so they can somehow figure this out and why this one random historical tidbit has stuck with me for so long.
So allow me to school you on the one thing I learned in school for I am the worlds foremost Drei Kaiser Bund expert. I've been all over the world teaching lads about this event and only this even when Kaiser Wilhelm II, Mehmed V, Franz Joseph were the 3 tenors emperors of the Central Powers in World War I, and together they formed a Voltron of sorts naming it the "Drei Kaiser Bund".
France recovered very rapidly from the terrible blow dealt her by Germany during WWI. The French worked hard and saved their money. In less than 2 years, France had paid off the last cent of the one billion dollar indemnity, and the German troops were obliged to go home.
France had adopted the same military system that Germany had, and required all young men to serve 2 years in the army and be ready at a moment's notice to rush to arms. France also began to build up a strong navy, and to spread colonies in Africa and other parts of the world.
This rapid recovery of France surprised and disturbed Bismarck, who thought that never again, after the war of 1870, would France become a strong power.
Otto von Bismarck had tried to renew the old "Holy Alliance" between Germany, Russia, and Austria with the idea of preventing the spread of republics. These were the 3 nations which gave their people very few rights, and which stood for the "divine right of kings" and for the crushing of all republics.
Eddie Van Bismarck called this new combination the "Drei-kaiser-bund" or three-emperor-bond. Bismarck himself says that the proposed alliance fell to pieces because of the lies and treachery of Prince Gortchakoff, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mad aged beef.
And that's what I learned in college. After that I went to The College of Staten Island a.k.a 13th Grade where dudes bought peanut M&M's in vending machines to get their protein for the day before going for a tan. Somehow, I turned out allright.
Part of why I think Mets fans love the Mets with such fervor is because they've never been Hollywood. Even in '86, they were characters, but never intangible comic book heroes.
The Mets have always been the team that even though you know they don't, you can sorta imagine that after a home game they all walk home with their Kahn's gym bags to their humble Corona row houses on Roosevelt Avenue.
I mean, look how excited they are in this picture, welcoming Shawn Green, who hit a walk-off 11th inning home run, to the plate. Only the 1st place Mets get this genuinely excited about a win versus the 3rd place Cardinals at the end of June.
Only the Mets.
I see a lot of celebs around these Park Avenue parts, I usually send my sightings to Gawker because they do that Gawker Stalker thing but from now on, whenever I see a celeb I just know they won't care about, I'll post it here.
So yesterday I saw this dude. It's Richard Masur. Richard Masur is a total "Ohhhhh, that dude". He's a familiar face but he hasn't really been typecast and its hard to recall where the F you know him from. In fact, I realised the only place I truly remembered Masur from is 1988's "License to Drive" with The Coreys: Haim and Feldman. I f*cking loved that movie. He played the neurotic dad and he was great. Now I really wanna go rent that ish.
So yeah, I saw your boy walking down 5th Avenue looking very granola in olive khakis, sunglasses, some sort of linen safari shirt and awful gray New Balance running sneakers, oh and he was wearing a backpack, I assumed it was full of trail mix.
This is from his official bio on imdb:
Versatile character actor whose quality TV movie roles over the years have ranged from playing a Senate investigator in Adam (1983) (TV), to a child molester in the acclaimed Fallen Angel (1981) (TV), to a gay cop in When the Bough Breaks (1986) (TV). He also received an Emmy nomination for his performance, opposite Farrah Fawcett (also nominated) as an abused wife and mother in The Burning Bed (1984) (TV).
Peep his resume, my man has been in 7 million movies and TV shows.
Ok, I'm out.
What is it with the weather and people? MUST you speak to me? MUST you make a comment to me about the humidity or whatever? As a man of larger carriage, chances are if YOU'RE feeling warm, surely I felt warm a few minutes ago. I'm not a meteorologist or a weather forecaster, I just know when I feel hot, its hot and when I feel cold, well, its cold and I just assume everyone else around with me with skin and a pulse feels somewhat similarly. But hey, that's just me, I assume things. The classic "Hot enough for ya?" I haven't heard in a while and I'm actually starting to miss its simplicity because now we've got these rogue bus stop & elevator meteorologists who make remarks about the humidity and the jet stream and all this ish. I'd RATHER a good old annoying "Hot enough for ya?" over these prompts for an early morning round table discussion about the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. YES, IT'S HOT, deal with it on your own, just like I am doing, SILENTLY. You talking to me about how hot it is or how hot you heard its gonna get will not make it any COOLER therefore whats the point of you even SPEAKING TO ME AT ALL?! What happened to talking to yourself quietly? What happened to having a silent conversation with yourself in your head? Step outside and say to YOURSELF "It sure is hot today" and leave it there. I have nothing to add to your observations so why share it with me? I don't need to chill out, PEOPLE JUST NEED TO SHUT THE F UP.
This is one of my favourite scenes from Groundhog Day:
Angela Paton (bed & breakfast innkeeper): "There's talk of a blizzard".
Bill Murray: "Well we may catch a break and that blizzard's gonna blow right by us. All of this moisture coming up out of the south by midday is probably gonna push on to the east of us and at high altitudes it's going to crystallize and give us what we call snow; probably going to be some accumulation. But here in Punxsutawney our high is gonna get up to about 30 today, teens tonight, chance for precipitation about 20% today, 20% tomorrow. Did you wanna talk about the weather or were you just making chit-chat?"
I wish I knew enough about the weather to come back with something like this when some dolt makes a remark to me about how hot it is.
I ain't got no fruit or pat o' butter on mine just some brown sugar and a plastic spoon but this thing is like a seething cauldron on my desk, the spoon is a few degrees away from melting. It's too damn hot! The guy at the place downstairs heated it up with the espresso foamer thing and now, well, its just too damn hot! I got problems...
We missed Fucked Up once again the other night. They passed through town and played Europa while we were busy getting speeding tickets; but getting a speeding ticket is pretty fucking punk so the effort was there. Fucked Up is one of the only bands around today that whets our whistle and I really don't care or need to tell you why, just know and note it, dually if u must. Rumour has it they'll be back in July.... - The 20th at the Knitting Factory, and then the 21st @ Southpaw with Pissed Jeans. Check it out.
You know we love our Winehouse. We're just checkin in and sayin "Haaaaaayyy". Here's Amy rocking Glastonbury. Holla when u get to NYC girl.
Just when you thought the story about Foxy Brown being robbed by her pimp ex-boyfriend's friends couldn't get any weirder, well, it goes and does.
Foxy (real name Inga Marchand) claims she was never robbed and that she wasn't even in Brooklyn at the time of the alleged early Saturday morning attack. She said, "A lot of the time, people mistake me for someone else, or people always call in these false tips." Right, sure.
The po-po said Foxy was robbed of her hair weave, hearing aid, and Louis Vuitton purse. Hearing aid??!?!
We all know Foxy got got over by her old buildin and now she's trying to save face and salvage her cred.
Police said that Foxy even jumped in the back of a black & white, drove around and helped look for attackers after the incident early Saturday morning. That's when Foxy pointed out Roshawn Anthony, a 23-year-old woman who was arrested for assault and robbery.
Anthony's lawyer says his client is being "squeezed by the police" and that Brown is "bringing out a colourful story. But something much more realistic will come out at the grand jury."
The Daily News, which reported that Brown was beaten up because she dumped her boyfriend when she found out he was a pimp, gives an update: On Sunday, Brown had a weave in place, cursed out reporters, tried to drive the wrong way on a one-way street and yelled, "We love the controversy. Keep writing."
Hmmmmm. We don't know Inga but one thing is fo sho, the streets is watchin girl, so u best holla.
The streets be watchin... The Splasher vs. The Shepard Part III...
I love a good old fashioned graff war, especially when the stakes is high.
After months of silence, it looks like Shepard Fairey's recent work on the streets of NY has brought The Splasher out of hiding. We're assuming this is all related to last week's stink bomb incident in DUMBO.
It's clear that The Splasher just targeted the Shepard Fairey piece and left the surrounding streetart untouched. This is looking more and more like a battle-to-the-def beef betwixt the Splasher and Shepard Fairey for control of the soul of the New York City streetart scene.
Oh, dip! The streets most def be watchin and if The Shep wants to show that he's still on the block and he's still street, he'd better step up and answer with the quickness high profile and loudly. Step up Shep!
In a wide-open race, presidential candidates are scrambling to get CEO endorsements... I am available for bribes if anyone is reading... Meanwhile, Forbes declares Hillary their Woman of the Year and now everyone else has to play catsup ketchup.
Word on the street is Rupert Murdoch is stupid close to finally sealing the worst kept secret/deal to purchase The Wall Street Journal even as the jealously merciless NY Times continues to fire away against ole RuMu.
More later, I need an iced coffee... it's just one of those manic Mondays
Wow, it's after 2 and I've yet to check in! I was in a meeting all morning, very hush-hush... wish I could tell you more...can't...Sorry I kept you waiting, though its nice to know you care... I didn't know so many of you came here for the news! Hahaha! Well, I promise next time I plan to be gone that long, I'll call or write or send a postcard... I won't leave my people hanging like that again :) OK, give me a few minutes to get settled and I'll be back with some dish.
Read More
I can't recall how I came across this guys stuff, but its absolutely unreal. You can order prints or commission an original... Either way, he's amazing. Holla. Check him out & contact him here.
More, and more still
I had a wonderful weekend (as of Sunday at 5pm) but I'm worried I'm turning into a real workingman, check that, a real "finance documentation specialist", for this weekend, I:
There were monkeys on the side of the road, hanging out on a fence eating fruit from the trees. Our driver pulled over so we could take a closer look and visit. We jumped out of the car and ran towards the monkeys with our cameras like a bunch of dolts. They didn't flinch. They just kept on monkeying. We were excited and speechless. Light years away from the typical Belt Parkway fauna.
It was then someone noticed we were covered up to our knees in red ants. We'd jumped out of the van into a small patch of grass on the sidewalk and directly into a red ant circus. They were everywhere. I'm getting itchy just talking about it.
I mean literally we were standing around for maybe a minute, not even, photographing these monkeys and all of our legs were absolutely covered in red ants. Some of us were wearing pants, most of us were wearing shorts. It was the summer in South Africa. It was impossible to get these little guys off your body. Soon enough you were panicked because they were absolutely everywhere. And trying to shake them all off and be certain not to bring any of them back into the van was a real trial.
After we landed we soon realised some of our gear was missing. All of our luggage had appeared on the conveyor belts but our guitars were nowhere to be found. Soon enough I was a hauled away by two men in khaki and scary police uniforms. Oh, and they had machine guns. I was told to come with them. I had no idea why.
I followed them through a labyrinth of portals through the underbelly of the airport. I had no idea where I'd ended up. But sure enough I was brought to an office. And inside the office I could see our guitars, they were all there next to a desk. I waited and waited. Some other people turned up, they were waiting too but they didn't seem very concerned. By the power of deduction and assumption I realised these other dudes were hunters and they were online to declare their rifles. They all had various papers and forms with them. It all started making sense.
The rebel guerrilla airport police assumed our guitar cases were also guns for hunting. Fair enough. This was South Africa and bands don't come through here all that much and for the novice airport security chap, a rifle case isn't that much different than a guitar case... but his was only the beginning.
Do you have any idea how hard it was to explain to these machine gun airport guys that there weren't guns in those cases but guitars? They had no idea what I was saying and they wouldn't allow me to open the cases to show them because the last thing they wanted was a guy holding a machine gun in their office. It was very tense. I felt totally alone and had no idea what the f#ck to do.
Finally another a guard came by and understood what I was saying. They all laughed and lead me back to the arrival area, which now seemed like it was just around the corner even though I'd followed the guy for like 10 minutes to get where we were earlier.
I met up with the rest of the band who were waiting for me and seemed relieved to see me alive because they had no idea where I'd vanished to. Then I saw a soda machine in the airport that sold Tab exclusively and that made it all better.
A few nights later we were on the other side of the country and we went to this Indian place for dinner. It was like a British Victorian mansion converted into a restaurant; walnut wood floors were impeccably polished and the linens were so white clean they almost glowed.
Just as we exited the two cars we'd taken to the Indian spot, we heard screaming and some fireworks in the distance... and then we were told to "get down! get down! put your heads down!". OK, we thought. Here's where the sarcastic tour manager f*cks with the "tough guys" from Brooklyn and scares the piss out of us. But, no, it was real.
It wasn't fireworks but a shoot-out at a bar a block away. Apparently some dude walked into the bar, pulled out a big gun trying to hold the place up and the bartender said "oh yeah?" and pulled out a bigger gun and they started shooting at each other. Just another night in South Africa or the Wild West.
The juxtaposition of this trip is what has stayed with me most. The contrast of this serene cradle of mankind beauty of the country with this burgeoning undercurrent of absolute lawlessness and poverty. At every red light people would just about climb into your car trying to sell you everything from melons to batteries to carpets to Hefty garbage bags. It was like nothing and nowhere else before or since.
A day or two later we were on safari, feet away from these massive giraffes running free with rhinos, warthogs, gemsboks, hyenas, impalas and the serious zebras always pensive with suspicious eyes from the side.
I saw a silhouetted tribe of elephants on a mountain top in the distance with the sun setting behind them; like one of those black & white cut-outs. It was too perfect a poem but a few hours away from the shoot-outs and the Hefty bags.
That was South Africa, in a nutshell.
Got pulled over by a total Super Troopers mustache Friday night. Said I was doing 73 in a 50. Yeah, my balls. Whatevs. The bevvy of PBA and Detective's Benevolent Society cards on my dash were useless. This guy was a hard charger, he had the crazy pants and everything, hardcore HPer. Best part was, as my life continues to be chapter after chapter of some coffee table stunt book, that I was listening to one of my favourite albums on cassette and the album happens to be the Minutemen's aptly titled "Double Nickels On The Dime". Ya can't get it more ironic than that. I couldn't have planned it that clever on my best day. Anyway, here's a fun fact, the reason why the Minutemen named their watermark album "Double Nickels On The Dime" was in response to Sammy Hagar's corny stereotypical rebellious anthem at the time "I Can't Drive 55". How's that for a fun fact mofo? The HPer started backing up to return to his little sneaky position up on the grassy knoll, hidden behind some dandelions and tulips when some other speed demon flashed by him. My boy threw that ish in drive and went after him. Like I said, a hard charger. I threw in Erik B & Rakim's "Don't Sweat The Technique", turned the volume as high as it would go and peaced out like I was the man. F the highway patrol. Be careful out there, Warriors. HOLLA.
Arizona has always been a hard-ass state. Anything goes out there, its wild; they don't take any ish in Arizona...
Police arrested 4 people Thursday, a week after a woman reported she was kidnapped, her head shaved and her face branded with the word "snitch."
Police said the woman, 38, was marked with a homemade branding iron as a form of retaliation after she turned in 2 of the people arrested to Child Protective Services in February 2006.
Witnesses found the woman burned, bleeding and stumbling down the street. Wow.
Read more here
Watch the local TV news report of the story here
My new boy Obama was spitting some dope rhymes in Hartford...
Obama told a church convention that right- wing evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division.
Standing before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ my man said, "Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked,
"Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us,"
Read more Breitbart
Hank Medress, whose vocals with the doo wop group The Tokens helped propel their irrepressible single "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" to the top of the charts and who produced hits with other groups, has died of lung cancer.
Medress was a teenager at Brooklyn's Lincoln High School when he launched his vocal quartet in 1955 with Neil Sedaka, performing as the Linc-Tones. When Sedaka departed for a successful solo career, lead singer Jay Siegel joined brothers Mitch and Phil Margo and Medress to become The Tokens.
It wasn't until 1961 that the group scored its singular smash, its hypnotic "Wimowehs" derived from a traditional Zulu melody. The Weavers had made the song a folk staple in the '50s, but The Tokens brought their version to No. 1 on the pop charts.
The band had other minor Top 40 hits but never recaptured the success of its enduring single.
Medress would return to the charts, though, when The Tokens landed a production deal. The all-girl vocal group The Chiffons (HOLLA!) benefited from his studio touch with the classic '60s singles "He's So Fine" and "One Fine Day."
After splitting with The Tokens in the 1970s, Medress worked with an unknown record company executive named Tony Orlando, persuading him to handle vocals on "Knock Three Times" - a move that catapulted the song into pop history.
In the 1980s, Medress helped former New York Dolls lead singer David Johansen reinvent himself as lounge lizard hipster Buster Poindexter, producing his debut album and the single "Hot, Hot, Hot." How u feelin?
Hank Medress died Monday at his Manhattan home, he was 68.
Some more details about the foiled stink bomb incident at the Shepard Fairey show that we reported on the other day.
24-yr-old Alan Cooper of Bushwick was arrested for attempted arson?!, after he tried to set off a stink bomb in a DUMBO gallery. Cooper was acting with "an accomplice", who got away. What happened to the stink bombs you just step on and they shatter and release that rotten egg smell? Who lights stinks bombs?!
Even the Daily News is talking about this:
Cops later led Cooper away in cuffs, but not before the artist, Shepard Fairey, confronted him.
"I put a lot of time and energy into this," Fairey told Cooper. "What's your problem?"Cooper, who works at an East Village restaurant (what a shock!), was also charged with reckless endangerment; his "accomplice" has not been caught. Police say that one of the two was carrying a book bag, which makes us wonder if gallery shows will need metal detectors, bag checks, and cavity searches in the near future. What's not clear is whether Cooper and/or his accomplice is The Splasher.
The bespectacled Cooper, wearing khaki shorts and a long-sleeved pink shirt, put the blame on his friend. Naturally.
"I was with him, but I didn't know he was going to do it," Cooper said, according to the artist.
We were all over the goddamn road today but overall this week was good. Solid. Solid as a rock. Let's review what we learned, shall we?
Maybe the old man has finally lost it. An opera is one thing but Woody Allen directing an opera in Los Angeles?!?!
It's set to happen in September of 2008, according to Placido Domingo (general director of the Los Angeles Opera). Woody is scheduled to direct "Gianni Schicchi" part of a trio of one act operas by Puccini.
“Gianni Schicchi" (sounds delicious!) is set in medieval Florence. It's Puccini's only comedy. Allen says he has "no idea'' what he's doing. But he jokes that incompetence has never prevented him from plunging in with enthusiasm.
Domingo says he's often asked movie directors to try their hand at opera. He says he'd been after Allen for four years. Weird.
If you know me, and I really hope you don't, you know that tiramisu is by far and away my favourite dessert, ever. But it's usually something only eaten at restaurants. For some reason, the alchemy of its components seem to elude even the most agile of chefs. Don't fret, now we can eat tiramisu for breakfast, tiramisu for lunch and for dinner because The Amateur Gourmet sorted out a homemade tiramisu recipe. Get some Cognac and some espresso and then go here.
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From http://www.radosh.net/...
"I just invented the hot new time-waster of the summer: Google Street Racing. It works using the much talked-about Google Street View. As you may know, the new Google Maps feature was created by using a 360 degree camera mounted on a VW Beetle. That means that if you follow the directional arrows on the Street View images, you're really just following the path of a car. And that means that the cars you see on the road with you are travelling at roughly the same speed. And that means: drag racing!
"To play Google Street Racing, you'll need to pick a long straight road, preferably with few exits, and start near one end of it. Hunt around a bit until you're directly alongside another car. Then start clicking the directional arrow over and over and over again. Make vroom-vroom noises while you do it, so it doesn't seem quite as boring. As you gain or lose ground, you may need to use the swivel arrows to keep your competitor in view, but unless he gets off the road, you should be able to follow him for a good long time.
"In my first attempt, I raced the sporty silver sedan above down the FDR drive. I started alongside him at 133rd Street, pulled ahead at 129th and then fell into the rear around 125th before eventually losing sight of him altogether around 110th. I'm sure I can do better next time. Surely I can out run a Mini Cooper, right?
"And, yes, I did check to make sure no one had thought of this before. All I found was some pipe dreamer who missed the existing opportunity right in front of him."
Are we still using the term "jump the shark"? Personally, I think Crocs were over and done with the day those other than devout gardeners and overnight ER nurses started rocking them but now I think they're officially DONE... as your boy George Bush was seen recently in a pair of black socks and black Crocs -- (Cayman style, $29.99 BTW) -- as he was heading out from the White House to ride his bike. The only guys I know who wear black socks and black sandals usually have family in the Emirates. Hmmmmm. Is Bush taking a fashion cue from his boys in Saudi Arabia? Where's Druge when you need him? Ooooh wait, now I'm hearing Bush is actually down with Rick Sharp who just so happens to be the CEO of Crocs AND a Republican fundraising party thrower extraordinaire. Could it be a coincidence that Bush is photographed sporting Crocs around the same time his buddy Rick helped raise $630k? Hmmm. Granted, $630k is chump change when it comes to party fundraising, but I'd be willing to bet the buzz surrounding Bush's fashion choices could have an equal effect to the price of Crocs' stock... Oh, what a tangled web we weave.
Here is the EXCLUSIVE on Bush and his black socks and black Crocs from the highly revered Washington Post. And some more investigative journalism from AOL finance.
Something you'll no doubt be hearing more about over the next few days: Civil rights lawyer Michael Warren and his wife Evelyn were arrested after they allegedly interfered with a police arrest at Atlantic and Vanderbilt.
Warren, who has represented Tupac Shakur, members of the Black Panthers and Abner Louima, said, "I got hit in the jaw, upside the head and on my lip a few times, and you can see that my pants are torn, but I'm fine. I'm great."
The Warrens were driving along and claim that narcotics officers were beating up a man suspected of drug possession and auto theft. The Warrens got out of their car and criticized the officers; Evelyn Warren allegedly scratched a female officer's face. The pair got back into their car and refused to come out, so the cops dragged them out and arrested Michael Warren for obstructing governmental administration and gave Evelyn Warren a summons for disorderly conduct.
A crowd of 200 people waited outside the 77th Precinct for five hours until the Warrens to came out. Warren is also described as a "pal" of the Reverend Al Sharpton and as a lawyer who specializes in police misconduct cases.
Four years ago there was nothing here but unbroken sea. Now there's Palm Jumeirah; £1,000,000 luxury mansions - sitting on a palm-shaped, man-made island.
The first of Dubai's many ongoing mega-projects has literally changed the shape of the United Arab Emirates, re-contouring its coast with a new island mass that has altered sea currents and marred the once unbroken sea view from Dubai's natural beach.
The entire coastal development, led by Dubai government-owned Nakheel, includes 3 massive palm-shaped islands along with a cluster of 300 islets built in the shape of a world map. All are built mostly of bright sand dredged up from the seabed and quarried rock. I've always wondered what it would be like to work at a quarry.
{I'll take that yellow one}
Still under construction are the Palm Jumeirah's 32 hotels, monorail, water theme park, and the Trump International Hotel (of course) and residence tower. The developments are central to Dubai's property boom. Properties on the Palm Jumeirah, the first to be opened, have skyrocketed in value after being sold and resold before even being built.
The luxurious islands are part of a government plan to attract tourists to the Persian Gulf and lure foreign cash into the tax-free economy. Ummm, yeeeaaah about that Persian Gulf vacation...
Not all the residents of the Palm Jumeirah are mega-rich. One section serves as a labour camp for the thousands of construction workers who toil in the baking sun. They will gradually be moved out as the project nears completion in the next 3 to 4 years.
Here's an entire bloated article about this ish
A Bronx teen has been arrested for attacking a 17-year-old Putnam County yoot last month after police used global positioning technology to track his cell phone to Ohio.
16-year-old Joshua Fernandez is being held on $250,000 bail after Kent police picked him up in Columbus, Ohio.
Police "got" the attacker's cell phone somehow and at first traced it to the Bronx. But two weeks of looking there turned up nothing. Police continued to call the suspect's phone number and this week the trusty GPS said it was in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio authorities arrested Fernandez in a motel room and held him for Kent Police.
"Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know... He's in the best selling show: Is there life on Mars?" That whole damn line has been in my head all week and now THIS!! AGGHHHHHHHHHHHH...
One of the largest UFO's ever seen has been observed by the crew and passengers of an airliner over the Channel Islands.
An official air-miss report on the incident several weeks ago appears in Pilot magazine. Aurigny Airlines captain Ray Bowyer, 50, flying close to Alderney first spotted the object, described as "a cigar-shaped brilliant white light", similar to the image supplied by Dennis Plunket of the British Flying Saucer Bureau. They have a bureau for that in England!? That's brilliant.
As the plane got closer the captain viewed it through binoculars and said: "It was a very sharp, thin yellow object with a green area. It was 2,000ft up and stationary. I thought it was about 10 miles away, although I later realised it was approximately 40 miles from us. At first, I thought it was the size of a 737. But it must have been much bigger because of how far away it was. It could have been as much as a mile wide."
Continuing his approach to Guernsey, Bowyer then spied a "second identical object further to the west". He said: "It was exactly the same but looked smaller because it was further away. It was closer to Guernsey. I can't explain it. This was clearly visual for about nine minutes.
"I'm certainly not saying that it was something of another world. All I'm saying is that I have never seen anything like it before in all my years of flying."
The sightings were confirmed by passengers Kate and John Russell. John, 74, said "I saw an orange light. It was like an elongated oval". The sightings were also confirmed by an unnamed pilot with the Blue Islands airline.
The Civil Aviation Authority safety notice states that a Tri-Lander aircraft flying close to Alderney spotted the object. "Certain parts of the report have not been published. I cannot say why," said a senior CAA source. Cue the Unsolved Mysteries theme.
Hey, live by the sword, die by the sword, that's what I say... This dude The Splasher has been going around and well, splashing paint on ish. That's his M.O. and I guess the other night The Splasher (such a comic book villain) and some other dude tried to crash the Shepard Fairey art show in DUMBO and now everyone is up in arms.
But uhh... before Fairey was a revered and respected graphic designer having art shows in DUMBO with dudes in white gloves doling out cheese cubes on toothpicks and bubbly, he was guerrilla just like The Splasher. My boy Fairey practically wrote the book on modern-street-art-terrorism with his Andre The Giant Has A Posse campaign which is what put him on the map back in the early 90's. There wouldn't be a Splasher if there weren't a Banksy and there wouldn't be a Banksy if it weren't for Fairey. Then again, if it weren't for Basquiat I doubt we'd have any of these dudes.
Now I ain't calling what The Splasher is doing "art" but he's getting known just like everyone else gets known and that's how it's done. He wants people talking about him and respecting him, he's gonna go about doing it however he sees fit; whether its setting off stink and smoke bombs at an art show or splashing buckets of paint on ish. And then when The Splasher finally has everyones attention, he'll get known, get his art up there and some other dude will come and slap his stencil over The Splasher's ish. That's how it goes, son.
There aren't any rules to this game anymore.
Here's more about this from The Gothamist
A proposed amendment to the current copy protection license governing DVDs would completely ban all DVD backups, and prevent DVD playback without the DVD disk being present inside the drive.
The amendment would also apparently add hardware restrictions to prevent DVD data from being descrambled and then copied. To date, that provision has been effectively enforced by litigation, which has effectively prevented mainstream software companies from copying or "backing up" DVD movies. A number of independent software developers, however, have published utilities or other applications for "ripping" DVD movies. It would also prohibit software manufacturers to create "virtual drives," running a DVD image from a hard drive. The previous Kaleidescape case touched upon the company's use of ripping a DVD to a large internal hard drive, and playing back the movie on demand without the need for a physical disk to be inserted into the drive.
You can read the entire article here on PC Mag.com
Your boy Bush vetoed a bill last night to fund stem cell research. He then made a statement which is, to be blunt, a lie:
"If this legislation became law, it would compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos."This is 100% absolutely untrue and there is no way to interpret the bill to mean this. The bill would provide funding for additional research to use embryos which were going to be discarded anyway.
If you can survive reading this statement without your head exploding..."We want to encourage science."
The NYPD patrol guide says officers have to be armed at all times in New York City, except:
Police confirmed that a 13-year-old girl's feet have been cut off at Six Flags' Kentucky Kingdom. Officials said they got the call around 5 p.m. Thursday. Both her feet were detached at the ankle.
Apparently the girl was riding the Superman Tower of Power (formerly known as the Hellevator), which is 177 feet tall and drops riders at 54 miles per hour. The girl was injured when the ride malfunctioned.
“We seen the cable break loose soon as it got to the top on the right-hand side,” said Chris Williams, who witnessed the event and saw the teen get maimed.
“The people on the ride just came and hit the ground and as the ride came down, the wire swung left, struck the young lady on the back side of my children,” Williams said. The back side of your what?!
Williams’ daughter Amber said she gave up her seat to the 13-year-old and was sitting on the other side of the ride. Wow. There's fate. Go play lotto, little one.
Williams rushed toward the ride to find his daughter. “When I got up there, the lady, she was just sitting there and she didn’t have no legs.
“She didn’t have no legs at all. She was just calm, probably in shock from everything.” Wow.
Related:
Girl's Feet Cut Off At Six Flags
Teen Loses Feet In Six Flags Accident
Dow Jones' board, frustrated with the pace of the Bancroft family's negotiations with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., said they would take over talks on the future of the company. The move, coming after more than 2 weeks of little progress between the parties, increases the likelihood of a deal to enable Rupert Murdoch's media giant to buy Dow Jones, the owner of The Wall Street Journal.
The Bancrofts, whose far-flung members have controlled Dow Jones for generations but aren't directly involved in operating the business, have been ambivalent and divided about a sale from the start. When the $5 billion News Corp. bid became public in May, family members holding a majority of votes opposed the deal and didn't respond. But within the family there was disagreement, with some members, especially younger ones, arguing to consider Murdoch's offer. Some worried that an independent Dow Jones couldn't thrive on its own.
Anywho, now we're hearing The Times is rushing an in-depth investigation of Murdoch. I guess the editors of The Times are hoping their story will have a direct impact on Murdoch's pending offer to buy the The Times' rival, The Wall Street Journal.
Apparently, The Times is prepared to sacrifice ole Rupert as collateral damage in hopes to sabotage the deal. The 3,500+ word piece scheduled to be published in this Sunday's Times will go into detail about Rupert, his Asian wife and his attempt to own the entire world. It doesn't sound like it will be very complimentary.
OK, now back to my coffee.
P.S. Someday I'll do something cool enough that'll get me one of them WSJ sketches. I love those little things!
From Stereogum: A couple of things worth noting about Jesca Hoop: That dude Stewart Copeland bangs his drums on one track, she'll be opening some dates for the Polyphonic Spree, she's got a slightly left-of-center take on hummable pop, and she took care of Tom Waits's kids. Bloggable by any stretch, that.
During her stint as the Waits clan's nanny, she converted Tom into a fan, getting him to say (we assume under extreme duress and/or at gunpoint), "Jesca Hoop's music is like a four-sided coin. She is an old soul, like a black pearl, a good witch or a red moon. Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night."
Waits passed her demos on to Nic Harcourt (the starmaker from KCRW) who spun 'em incessantly, and now she's hanging with The Police and touring the country with DeLaughter's newly-black-clad cult. Kismet's as good a name for her debut as any. And hey, her tunes ain't bad, either! "Intellgentactile" (which isn't a word) is perfect for the Triple-A set with enough quirks to keep it fresh, and enough charm in Jesca's vox to sound like a four-sided coin (OK we have no idea what that means either, but Tom said it so it's gotta be true).
Listen: Jesca Hoop - "Intelligentactile 101" (MP3)
The 15-year-old son of two doctors successfully performed a filmed Caesarean section birth under his parents' watch in southern India in an apparent attempt to set a record as the youngest surgeon. Instead, the boy's father could be stripped of his licenses and may face criminal charges. Nice one, pop.
Read MoreI'm glad someone else finally noticed this ish!!
Actress Renee Zellweger is wasting away and has been for quite some time... For a while I thought Renee had died and they'd replaced her with some doppelgänger.
Her apparent obsession with being part of the size 0 club, along with fellow actress, Sex in the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, has seen her lose all her good times. What happened to the curvy and voluptuous Renee in Bridget Jones?!?
The evolution of Zellweger's barcode silhouette is reported to be a result of daily 2-hour workouts and 12-mile hikes in the Hollywood Hills. F that noise.
WHERE'S THE BEEF ??
You just know this hack thought he was so f@cking sublime. I bet he thought he'd have to beat all the Mensa chicks off with a cattleprod after getting this sick tat. It screams: "I love to read which I know is normally nerdy but I'm a f#cking wild man because I got a tattoo which is not just the mark of a true rebel but boldly declares to the world just how much I love to read!". Sorry, bro... ain't gonna happen. You're gonna have to learn how to play guitar too, maybe get a motorcycle or a cool car, a decent job and get that ish covered up with a dragon killing a shark or something. But, hey, you gotta start somewhere, right? Check back with us soon!
To celebrate their new office building, The Times takes a quick stroll down memory lane. 
A couple discovered their missing dog for sale on a website which led police to a Medford, Long Island home where more than 50 dogs were living in deplorable conditions.
Police said the so-called rescuers were scammers running an illegal dognapping operation. Some of the dogs had tags and collars and some even have computer tracking chips in them.
The cops arrested 3 people who claimed they were animal rescuers and had 54 dogs in a 700 square-foot home. They ran an agency/website called "Lucky Fund". This fly-by-night operation was stealing dogs from their rightful owners and selling them online for profit. Read the full story here.
Who the F can you trust to deliver the news unbiased and plain, sans slant or agenda?
Can we even trust the self-acclaimed transparency seekers and I.A.D.-esque journalists who act as the whistle blowers? Are they even free from vendettas and agendas?
MSNBC checked the Federal Election Commission records from January 2004 through the first quarter of 2007 and attempted to contact each journalist... but can we trust MSNBC to be guileless and impartial?
MSNBC's Bill "dispassionate and neutral" Dedman compiled a list of 144 journalists who made campaign contributions.
MSNBC limited its search to:
I just got back from my first drug test in many moons. I had to write down everything I'd eaten and any drugs I'd taken in the past 12 hours... haha... Nurse, I think I'm gonna need some more paper...
Coincidentally, I'd done some celebrating last night so the manifest of what I'd put into my system over the past 12 hours read like an autopsy of a drunken sailor on a one night furlough, a suicidal socialite or a bipolar author on a cry-for-help binge - only because, as you'll learn, I end my hedonistic night of Asti, ice cream and sausage with some vitamins. Oh, how utterly 90's of me!
Filling out their form detailing what was in my system, I sort of felt like Richard Dreyfuss making a list of what he'd found in Jaws' belly, except I hadn't eaten any license plates or surfboards.
There was lots and lots of coffee, some Häagen-Dazs, some faux-sausage and peppers (the peppers were real), there was a bottle of Asti... Oh, and I also had to write down all the drugs and vitamins I take or have taken which was a litany of paranoia: multivitamins, detox-oxygen pills, herbal remedies, green tea capsules and of course, psychotropics.
There was enough good times in my gut to throw a decent party or at least a few good chapters of a Bret Easton Ellis novel, and I wouldn't wish to live my life any other way.
Before I left I asked, "What do I do now? Just hope I don't hear from you?" and the nurse smiled and replied, "Yes" to which I said "OK then, talk to you soon!" but she didn't get it.
Peace out.
So I was reading a Farley Mowat book recently where he lived with wolves in the Arctic and had to adapt to their habits in order to co-exist; this included Farley adjusting to their insane sleep habits which took him quite some time to figure out. It seemed to him as if the wolves were always awake but somehow never tired. Eventually he'd realise the wolves never actually stretched out, turned out their little glow-in-the-dark night-light and went to sleep, they actually caught a bunch of short naps throughout the day and that's all they needed.
Which brings us to the concept of polyphasic sleep also known as Uberman's Sleep Schedule where instead of sleeping straight through the night in a big chunk of hours, polyphasic sleep spreads out the long night sleep into short naps of 20-40 minutes throughout the day.
The Uberman sleep schedule is a method of organising your sleeping time to maximise your REM sleep and minimise your non-REM sleep. The goal of the sleep cycle is that you are actively in REM sleep within a couple of minutes of falling asleep and remain in that state until you awaken.
There are praises and criticism on this sleep pattern but little scientific research behind this, probably because them scientists always be sleepin'.
Read more about your boy Uberman's sleep schedule.
A related article on How To Design The Perfect Nap.
Goodnight.
Mike Ryan, a former detective and first responder on 9/11 discusses his experiences after the attack, the toxic dust that engulfed New York, surveys his own medical treatment and the similar conditions amongst thousands of other first responders.
Watch the video here
Hahahaha I think these guys just upped the ante for tough guy bands and their videos. Unreal.
Well, apparently it isn't that much of a mystery at all, it's just a corny Beetle accessory from way back and I'm easily intrigued.
A friend of mine has a classic restored Beetle and he's got the flower vase in there, that's where I first noticed it... then I started noticing them everywhere I looked on the new VW Bugs. I thought maybe it was some shiny happy people cult so I rained on their parade by writing an article about how Hitler basically invented the Beetle.
A simple Google search clued me in real fast. It's not a cult, though it might be, and it's not some sort of secret symbolism, though it could be, it's simply an offered interior accessory; the dash-mounted flower vase...
Though apparently it IS a throwback thing... "the flower vase, a nostalgic accessory from the Beetle era" is how one site puts it... while another describes it as a "quirky delight"... Geez, I guess VW owners are easy to please.
Another website rhetorically asks, "Really, how many automobiles come with an integrated dashboard flower vase?" Well, none, but who the F wants that anyway? "It is equipped with the flower vase so the car becomes a more pleasant place" hahahaha this is just silly now. People are absolutely bonkers for this dashboard vase, sorry, this integrated dashboard flower vase.
"VW Beetle's signature flower vase next to the steering wheel..."
"Replacement bud vases are available in three colors to hold your favorite flower..."
"...quality in a more light-hearted and fun package and ... In case you hadn't heard, Beetles are fitted with a dash-mounted flower vase"
Yes, we've heard, we've heard; we've alllll heard it. OK?
I'll keep my flowers and my vases in my apartment. I like to be able to distinctly differentiate betwixt my house and my car and putting a vase on my dashboard with some lilies in there just won't happen; not on my watch hahaha.
What's next the new 2008 Chevy Malibu with a working fireplace and hand-painted wall sconces?! Or how about the new 2008 Ford Focus with exposed brick and an EIK?
Either way, I don't think der Führer would've been too into all this happiness and lighthearted glee being associated with his Opus magnum.
OK, so I've seen this headline for a few days now and it just didn't interest me enough to share with you. Finally, I was bored enough to click on it... and here's the deal:
Police in Texas are investigating the fiery death of a man who burst into flames after dousing himself in petrol and then being shot with a taser gun.
Officers used the gun after the man had poured gasoline over himself.
Hmmmm. What exactly are the boys investigating? Sounds like an open and shut case to me, fellas.
"We don't know what ignited the fire," police said.
Hahahaha you don't know what ignited the fire!??!?!!!
The dude poured gasoline over his head and then you blasted him with a 50,000-volt electrical charge. Yes, I would assume he would then go up in flames. I think we can call off the investigation. Tell the forensic plumbers and caterers they can also go home.
There is no charge for my services, please, don't insult me... it's a labour of love.
Why, at this point, you would still want to read the full story is beyond me, but who am I to deny you that right? Click here
Have you ever tried reading The Times on the subway, in an express bus seat or even lounging on your Poltrona Frau sofa? Yeah, me neither. It's like wrestling a goddamn octopus and I don't have a Poltrona Frau.
Well say goodbye to the days of cephalopod-wraslin' because August 6 The Times will be downsized.
In production jargon, The Times will be moving from a 54-inch web -- the width of 4 pages -- to a 48-inch web. That means pages will be 1 1/2 inches narrower than the current size. Maybe it'll be more like The Observer then? The Wall Street Journal moved to a 48-inch web back in January. So go look at todays ish of the WSJ and that's how big the new Times will be.
Downsizing the paper will obviously entail a massive redesign and revamping of the paper, they can't simply just shrink everything, so it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.
Here, go read a memo from New York Times executive editor Bill Keller discussing the shrinkage. And see what Gawker is saying. They always have their nose nestled in The Times' bunghole.
I wanted to do a story on why everyone who has a Beetle/Bug often puts a flower in a vase on the dash. Is there a special spot to hold the vase? I don't get it. What's the origin of this tradition? I've seen enough times to suspect something is up that I'm not privy to; and something being up that I'm not aware of is just no good.
So had I done a story on people putting flowers in vases in their VW's, that would be where it would've ended.
Instead I've decided to shed some light on your boy Hitler and a little known fact: Hitler basically invented the VW Bug... on a napkin, at a table in a Munich cafe in the summer of 1932. Not unlike Spinal Tap concocted the elaborate props for their Stonehenge stage set on napkins at that diner.
Sitting at a restaurant table in Munich in the summer of 1932, Hitler designed (read: sketched on a napkin) the prototype for what would become the immensely successful Beetle design for Volkswagen (from German literally, the "car of the people").
In an era where only the most economic elite possessed cars, Hitler believed that all people should be able to own a car and additionally thought that a smart design could allow for reliability, enjoyment, and vacation travel.
Hitler gave his design to the head of Daimler-Benz, Jakob Werlin, and stressed its importance. "Take it with you and speak with people who understand more about it than I do. But don't forget it.
I want to hear from you soon, about the technical details."
Later Hitler would meet with automotive designer Ferdinand Porsche in 1933 and charge Porsche with creating the new car. Adolf required that the Volkswagen carry 2 adults and 3 children, go up to 60 miles per hour, get at least 33 miles per gallon, and cost only 1,000 reichsmarks. Hitler may also have named the car the Beetle.
In 1938, Hitler had the KdF Wagen factory built to produce the cars designed by Porsche. The name Kraft durch Freude or the KdF-Wagen, literally meant "strength through joy - car".
But by the time the factory was complete, Hitler was busy invading Czechoslovakia and Poland. The factory was dedicated to building military vehicles, and the people's car fell by the wayside during World War II.
After the war, the factory ended up in the British section of occupied Germany. The British military re-opened the factory, renamed it Volkswagen, and finally gave control of the company to the German government.
After 1948, Volkswagen introduced new models across Europe. By 1955, over 1 million cars had been built. The VW beetle started selling in the U.S., and in 1972 the people's car overtook the Ford Model T to become the most popular car ever made.
Here's some more links on the topic. I can't speak for or assume the personal political beliefs of the authors of some of these articles, but they do discuss the topic at hand. Enjoy... what is a somewhat intriguing fun fact the next time you wanna bum out your fun lovin' flower vase on the dash friend with the VW.
Read More
Power Rangers Mob Swarms Japanese Man - Watch more free videos
Japan has changed the name of the Pacific island of Iwo Jima, site of the famous World War II battle immortalised by the legendary photograph by Joe Rosenthal of The Associated Press of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on the islet's Mount Suribachi.
The new name in Japanese looks and means the same as Iwo Jima - or Sulfur Island - but sounds different, said a dude at the Japanese Geographical Survey Institute... The what?!
Wait, it gets even weirder... Believe it or not, Clint Eastwood is the main reason why Japan decided to change the name of the famous island.
Still confused? Yeah, me too. Click here.
I really hate politics and talking about politics so I'll try to be as simple as I can with all of this ish. Y'know me and Bloomberg have a very tumultuous thing going, it's a love/hate thing. Today, I love him. I think Bloomberg deciding to donate his 6-year-old Republican peacoat for an unaffiliated one is great. It speaks volumes. It may F things up down the line if he (and we know he's gonna) does finally decide to run for prez (the same way Nader always F's things up) but for 2007 unaffiliated is the only way to go; I've always felt that's where the truth lies; somewhere betwixt Michael Savage and Michael Moore; somewhere between John McCain and JFK; take some from this side and some from that side, take it all with a life-sized grain of salt and that's where you'll find the absolute troofs. Nothing is ever going to truly change if politicians are just playing games adhering to an ideology because they have to. Just as I remarked at dinner with mum last night, politics are just like sports; something for people to follow; something for people to believe in and argue about and be passionate about; right now, its really not much more than that. However, if all these bloated bastards would FINALLY shed their stubborn allegiances and let their real ambitions and ideas shine no matter what, maybe THEN we'd see some light in this here world. And sure enough, it takes a businessman and NOT a politician, it takes a man with money on his mind to make some sense. Isn't it time to stop giving an F about labels and parties and sticking to the tradition of some old blowfarts when its 2007 and we've got new modern day problems?
Anyway, here's what my boy had to say:
"I have filed papers with the New York City Board of Elections to change my status as a voter and register as unaffiliated with any political party. Although my plans for the future haven’t changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our City.OK so my boy gets a little corny at the last line there but what he's saying is totally right on. Especially the part I put in bold italics which should indicate to you that I think it's totally right on haha
“A nonpartisan approach has worked wonders in New York: we’ve balanced budgets, grown our economy, improved public health, reformed the school system and made the nation’s safest city even safer.
“We have achieved real progress by overcoming the partisanship that too often puts narrow interests above the common good. As a political independent, I will continue to work with those in all political parties to find common ground, to put partisanship aside and to achieve real solutions to the challenges we face.
“Any successful elected executive knows that real results are more important than partisan battles and that good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology. Working together, there’s no limit to what we can do.”
This just might be the best thing ever. Usually you'll stumble across these places in Eastern Europe, frozen in time and they are always amazing. But this hotel is doing it on purpose and I think I'm gonna need to go back there ASAP.
The four clocks behind the reception desk of Berlin's new budget Ostel Hotel show the hour in Moscow, Berlin, Havana, and Beijing. Time, however, appears to have stopped here sometime before 1989, when communism was still entrenched in all four capitals. Hells yeah! Bad time for the common folk, good time for fashion and interior design. Holla!
The Ostel offers a renewed whiff of life in the former German Democratic Republic, welcoming travelers with portraits of communist leaders adorning the walls. The furnishings — except for mattresses, bed linens, sinks and toilets — are the real thing, dug up by founders Daniel Helbig and Guido Sand from flea markets, friends, family and eBay.
But Helbig made clear it was not about pining for a return to the police-state. "We had the idea of preserving a bit of GDR culture ... but we are not crying for the East German regime," said Helbig, who grew up in East Berlin and experienced its restrictions on freedom of expression and movement first hand.
The Ostel, which opened on May Day — the traditional worker's holiday under communism — represents a broader phenomenon known as Ostalgie, or fascination with life in the former East Germany. Ostalgie, like Ostel, is a play on the German word for east — ost. I never knew there was a word for this communist chic obsession! How cool!
There are rooms that replicate bedrooms from typical East German apartments, from about $50 a night. At the other end of the scale, $12-per-bed Pioneer Camp dorm rooms feature two bunk beds and spartan living conditions evocative of the summer camps of the Free German Youth, the party youth organization. I've definitely stayed in hostels that look just like this.
Check out the hotel's website where you can view all the rooms and read the full article here.
Control freaks the world over, including most recently Tony Blair (ew! how very un-Bill Clinton of him!), have called for the introduction of a Chinese style Internet, where the World Wide Web is tightly regulated and free speech stifled on the whim of a government censor. Sweet!
Say goodbye to downloading your favorite music or videos in seconds via high-speed cable or ADSL. There is no high speed broadband Internet in China. Since every website you access has to first pass through a government approved list, even the likes of Yahoo and Google lag and stumble onto your monitor, as if you're using dial-up. And if you don't live in a major city then expect your Internet connectivity to be degraded to a speed slower than dial-up.................read more if you DARE
The Communist Chinese government blocks any website that is mildly critical of the state and that even extends to mainstream foreign news outlets such as the BBC. Under the new format that Blair and others are proposing, the function of the Internet as a forum for political debate, protest and freedom of speech will simply cease to exist.
Say goodbye to video blogging - since popular personal video upload sites are notoriously hard to moderate, they too will disappear. Despite the best efforts of Google to cozy up to Red China, Google Video is blocked.
Say goodbye to e-mail as a reliable form of communication. If the person you're writing to has an account with a mail service that the government doesn't like, the mail is simply returned to you and you're informed that the recipient is an "illegal user".
Keyword logging is also employed to block out individual words - if you include them in the e-mail then you've just wasted your time in writing it because it doesn't get through."The Washington Post obtained a list of keywords used by a Chinese blog service provider to flag offensive material. Of 236 items on the list, 18 were obscenities. The rest were related to politics or current affairs," reported the Post in February 2006.
Say Goodbye to Hollywood... Billy Joel once sang.
"Most words on this list can be posted on Chinese Web sites, but their presence quietly alerts editors to examine the messages that contain them and possibly take action. In tests, postings that included long sections of the list were allowed to remain on several sites, but quickly removed from others. One site also blocked the computer used to conduct the tests from posting anything else."
Say goodbye to Googling away to your heart's content. If you input too many sensitive words in one go, as I did with "Bush" and "Taiwan" - google.com ceases to be accessible at all and in some cases your Internet connection is instantly terminated.
My biggest question is, will the gold diggers still be able to play World of Warcraft or will they all be out of a job?
In conclusion, the new Internet will be nothing more than an electronic police state, merely acting as a tool for the authorities to track down and incarcerate dissidents who dare question the government.
Keep in mind I found this article on a website called prisonplanet.com so they might be a bit, well, paranoid and biased. Hahahha
Sir Isaac Newton, the English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist, regarded by many as the greatest figure in the history of science; the man who described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which laid the groundwork for classical mechanics; the man who by demonstrating consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and this system, was the first to show that the motion of ALL objects on Earth were governed by the same set of natural laws... believes the end of the world will come in 2060.
Jump to read more..............
To me, Newton was the man because even though my boy was into God and studied the bible and all that ish, Newton was a rationalist who (arguably) inadvertently debunked and dispelled all those extraterrestrial myths with his measurable and mathematical findings and discoveries. His famously analytical mind worked out the laws of gravity and unravelled the motion of the planets without the biblical comic book heroes and suspension of disbelief. Therefore, I put some stock in my man Newt and his theories... even in a 303 year old letter that's spent the past 30 some odd years locked in a library in Israel.
Sir Isaac was precise and when it came to predicting the end of the world, my man was just as precise. He believed the Apocalypse would come in 2060 – exactly 1,260 years after the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire, according to the recently published letter. Luckily for modern scientists in awe of his achievements, Newton based this figure on religion rather than reasoning.
The note reveals a deeply spiritual side to a man more usually regarded as a strict rationalist. Newton, known as the founder of modern physics, secured a royal exemption from ordination in the Church of England – something normally expected of academics in his day – so he would not have to follow its teachings. But he confidently stated in the letter that the Bible proved the world would end in 2060, adding:"It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner."
Continuing in a decidedly scornful tone, I. Newt calls out all the haters:"This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Read the rest here
From Gothamist: "The Sopranos finale is going to be talked about until the end of time, we've come to grips with that. The open-ended ending wasn't the only mysterious part of the hour long episode, though. In the process of picking apart each and every detail of the final hour, people are now asking: "what about that cat?" Or shall we say, cats...there were three playing that one role of the stray tabby. The Daily News reports that the cat (that was almost whacked by Paulie) "was, in fact, played by three cats - Timmy, Tommy and Terry - 4-year-old identical siblings who were plucked from a California field where they were abandoned as kittens." The trained ferals stole the show, and raised even more questions, as they stared at Christopher's photo. How did the cats take direction?
"In fact, in probably the show's best scene, animal trainer Tasha Zamsky used treats and hand signals, and requested the crew to leave the set, in order to get the kitty to gaze in her direction. To viewers, the cat appears to stare obsessively at Christopher's (Michael Imperioli) photo in the basement of the Bada-Bing. "Cats will stare at something, but if they hear something . . . forget it," Zamsky said..................(Aha! I knew that scene looked sorta weird!)
And when New Jersey traffic outside Satriale's butcher shop proved too loud and dangerous to shoot the funny scene where the cat's lying next to Paulie's table - Zamsky requested that they fake it with a green screen."
"The cat in the episode stared at a photo of Tony's most evil deed - killing someone who loved him. The cat was passing judgment and as such is the poetic presentation of his mother, who often passed judgment, and to her way of thinking, was also killed by Tony."Read More
"Nobody will look at the elephant in the room. In this case, Christopher is the elephant in the room and the cat's their unconscious."
By the time The Times picks up on an urban story, it's usually doomed or dead. Not unlike "Saturday Night Fever" and disco; that movie came out, summarized the era and killed it, all within 2 entertaining hours.
From Gawker: (sic)
"Now that every local blogger (us included) and even The Times has huffed and puffed about the smug, insensitive Virgin Mobile "You Rule" New York neighborhood ads (Murray Hill? No.), it's about time a smug, insensitive ad blogger blustered a bit."
Well, I didn't think they were insensitive, I think New Yorkers should have tougher skin than that, I just thought the ads were cheap and a bit hamfisted. I mean, talking about "baked ziti" in the Staten Island one or tiptoeing around the obvious in the Chelsea ad, it was just so unclever and sort of bargain basement with its lack of subtlety. Whoever designed them certainly thought they had come up with the most clever campaign ever, theres no doubt in my mind, but being smashed over the head with an anvil playing off every single tired stereotype is just so predictable and uninspired. Shame on you NYU grads!
Read on my brother, read on.........................
"Virgin Mobile's campaign—created by a North Carolina ad agency—has managed to piss off people in all five boroughs thanks to copy like this for Staten Island residents:"Thank you for being our down-to-earth, suburban, predominantly Italian-American cousins. To show our gratitude, we've got something for you. No, not baked ziti--cell phone plans without annual contracts..."
And this, for Bedford Stuyvesant inhabitants:"Do or Die is more than a moniker. It speaks to the fact that you don't take crap from anyone. Especially newcomers who want to change Bed-Stuy into some sort of yuppie strip mall."
Also, remarkably, an ad in the campaign extolling Upper West Siders and making fun of the Upper East Side was mistakenly placed in UES locations.
So, yes the ads suck. But even if the Tar Heel copywriter had magically stumbled upon the perfect words that made every Gotham resident perfectly happy, the ads would still suck. Why? Replace Virgin Mobile's logo with a Nike, Chase, Bud, Gawker, Trump or T-Mobile logo and, besides a slight copy tweak, nothing would have to be changed. The campaign lacks anything that ties it inexorably to Virgin Mobile—it could be for anybody and about anything. 'You rule! Buy this ___ to rule more.'
I questioned a couple of ad acquaintances who had seen the ads. One remembered them being for Verizon and the other couldn't remember who they were for. If I had the time and if Gawker actually paid me, I think a larger sampling would be just as telling. Nobody remembers the product. "
Someone got their filthy mitts on Amy's rider for an upcoming gig in Glastonbury. This makes me miss touring a bit. I've gotta dig up our rider from the last time we played Glastonbury.
Amy's backstage rider reads more like a shopping list for her liquor cabinet at home. And if she were smart, that's what she'd be doing anyway. You go, girl ! Make those promoters stock your cellar!
I'm a sucker for a girl with a Marilyn Dot who knows what she wants. It looks gooood onya. Holla.
Only in NYC... A storage place with an agenda aside from simply renting out dank empty rooms to put your cardboard boxes in: Manhattan Mini Storage.
They've moved on from the wacky...
And on to the pungently pervasive...
Whats next?
I was in São Paulo a little over a year ago and before going there I had no idea what to expect; though I assumed it would be all rainforests and tucans and voluptuous mocha skin women drinking from coconuts on desolate beaches; I mean, thats just naturally what Brazil evokes, right? Well, there was all that stuff but you had to drive a few hours to it; the city of São Paulo is actually a metropolis not all that much different than NYC. It's massive. The buildings go on for miles and miles; further than your eyes can see.
São Paulo overwhelms the senses with its sheer size; with just over 11 million inhabitants, it is the world's 3rd largest city and the largest in South America. São Paulo ain't no sleepy tropical beach town, mofo. I was dead wrong. São Paulo is also known for its smog, the sheer size of its helicopter fleet, unreliable weather, and multitude of skyscrapers, holding the 7th position in the skyline ranking.
So now picture this sprawling city, picture Los Angeles basically, with NO advertisements anywhere. No Posters. No flyers. No ads on buses. No ads on trains. NOTHING. It sounds like an Adbusters editorial: an activist's dream, right? Well in São Paulo, the dream has become a reality.
In September last year, the city's populist right-wing mayor, Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called "Clean City" laws. Fed up with the "visual pollution" caused by the city's 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning ALL outdoor advertising.
Amazing. Read more here from Businessweek
A Swedish heavy metal fan has had his musical preferences officially classified as a disability.
The results of a psychological analysis mean that the metal lover can now count on having his income supplemented by state benefits.
Roger Tullgren a 42-year-old dudebro from southern Sweden, has just got a new job as a dishwasher underwater ceramics technician at a local restaurant. Because heavy metal dominates so many aspects of his life, the Employment Service has agreed to pay part of Tullgren's salary. His new boss meanwhile has given him a special dispensation to play loud music at work.
"The fact that I am so into music has affected my work situation to the extent that I have had to quit some jobs," he said.
Roger Tullgren first developed an interest in heavy metal when his older brother...................... came home with a BLACK SABBATH album in 1971. Since then little else has mattered for the 42-year-old, who has long black hair, a collection of tattoos and wears skull and crossbones jewelry. Last year the ageing rocker claims to have attended almost 300 shows, often skipping work in the process. Eventually his last employer tired of his absences and Tullgren was left jobless and reliant on welfare handouts.
But a series of sessions with a psychologist soon led to a solution of sorts: Tullgren signed a piece of paper on which his heavy metal lifestyle was classified as a disability, an assessment that entitles him to a wage supplement from the job centre. The manager at his new workplace allows him to go to concerts as long as he makes up for lost time at a later point. He is also allowed to dress as he likes and listen to heavy metal while washing up. "But not too loud when there are guests," said Tullgren. hahaha
The Local spoke to an occupational psychologist in Stockolm who admitted to being baffled by the decision. "I think it's extremely strange. Unless there is an underlying diagnosis it is absolutely unbelievable that the job centre would pay pay out. "If somebody has a gambling addiction, we don't send them down to the racetrack. We try to cure the addiction, not encourage it," he said.
Tullgren currently plays bass and guitar in two rock bands and says that he tends to get a lot of positive reactions for daring to be himself. "Some might say that I should grow up and learn to listen to other types of music but I can't. Heavy metal is my lifestyle," he said.
42-year-old dishwasher? End of transmission.
Whitney "Pop Candy" Matheson went to the Silverdocs documentary festival in DC and wrote about her favourite 10 films and for the most part we, uh, concur.
1. Big Rig. Doug Pray, director of the DJ film Scratch, delves into the realm of truck drivers in this fest favorite. Viewers get up-close and personal with all kinds of drivers -- young, old, female, one-armed, you name it -- and Pray covers just about every inch of the U.S. Check the website for a trailer.The filmmaker says: "We got out there, and this is exactly what we found," Pray said at the screening. "It went from being Convoy to being Grapes of Wrath."
2. Chicago 10 -- Brett Morgen's movie about the Chicago Seven and the protests surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention mixes archival footage with Waking Life-esque animation. I'm confident you'll be able to see it at some point -- the voices certainly provide star power, and Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter produced it.
Read on my brother, read on...................
3. Kurt Cobain: About a Son -- You don't see Cobain's face in this movie. You don't hear Nirvana songs. Director A.J. Schnack (Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns) combines Michael Azerrad's Cobain interviews with beautifully shot scenes of Aberdeen, Wash., Olympia and Seattle. The result is a unique and moving portrait of the artist as more than the suicidal singer of Smells Like Teen Spirit.The filmmaker says: "It was not an attempt to raise Kurt up. It was an attempt to show that he was just a guy," Schnack said at the screening. "To me, the stars of the film are the cities."
4. A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory. I loved this examination of Williams, a face from the '60s Factory who had a close relationship with Warhol and mysteriously disappeared. Highlights include amazing, never-before-seen footage from the era and interviews with scores of surviving Factory regulars, including Brigid Berlin and Gerard Malanga.
5. The Gates. Albert and David Maysles started making this movie in 1978, when Christo and Jeanne-Claude first conceived of the barf art project in New York's Central Park. The result makes a good souvenir for those who saw The Gates and is almost like being there for those of us who couldn't make it.
6. Frank & Cindy. G.J. Echternkamp turns the camera on his mother and stepfather in this hilarious, horrifying and bizarre doc. You might remember Frank and Cindy from an episode of Showtime's This American Life; if so, you might be surprised to hear they're still together! Several clips are available on MySpace.
7. What Would Jesus Buy? -- Morgan Spurlock produced this documentary about the commercialization of Christmas and Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. It's presented in the similar whimsical style as Super Size Me; fans of that movie will probably like this one, too.
8. Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe -- This is a pretty straightforward, narrated doc of Wagstaff, a photography collector who developed an intimate relationship with Mapplethorpe at the same time Mapplethorpe was living with Patti Smith. Smith is interviewed about her friendship with the artists.
9. Scott Walker -- 30 Century Man. David Bowie, Brian Eno, Radiohead, Damon Albarn, Johnny Marr, Sting ... the list of Scott Walker fans is endless, though this doc about the influential and reclusive musician is more of a love letter than an in-depth examination of Walker's work. Bowie executive-produced the project.
10. Does Your Soul Have a Cold? -- Mike Mills follows Thumbsucker with an examination of depression in Japan. The visuals are arresting and you can't help but stare at the folks featured, though I found myself checking my watch a few times. It's slated to premiere on IFC in October.
The world wide inter-web-net-space is a-buzz with rumours of an über cryptic "Movie Company Set Dressing and Warehouse Sale" posting that turned up on Craigslist today.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm...
Several insiders have informed me that the ish listed on Craigslist is actually a sale hawking all of the props and furnishings and scenery from The Sopranos. For realsies!
The sale starts tomorrow and is in Long Island City (which makes sense since thats where Silvercup Studios is at).
Bring lots o' cash and an affinity for nouveau Jersey mobster chic, oh and a moving van, as "plenty of furniture, lamps, rugs, antiques, books, kitchen and bathroom accesories etc." will be on sale. Holla!
I want Paulie Walnuts' toothbrush and toilet seat !
"Sheer Suckers": A humorous and somewhat creepy article on the naïveté of the corporate summer interns and how this dude likens his interns to a favoured pair of loafers. The comments below the dudes article and the people chiming in are even creepier.
However, the real scary thing is, this blog is probably written by some dude I work with. Oh, and I typed "corporate intern" into my trusty Google images search toolbar and this girl came up so she'll have to do.
Damn, it feels good weird to be a banker.
I am SO incredibly out of the loop with video games. I just never had the attention span for them; I never even finished the first Mario Bros.; y'know the one that came free with the first Nintendo and it had Duck Hunt on it, too?
I was quite content with just playing the first few boards over and over. Then I found the warp zones which was exciting and economical, however I didn't have the necessary skill to fight my way through these higher levels I'd snuck into, so I'd quickly die and return to worlds 1 and 2 where I was happy in my arrested video game development. Ignorance is bliss, can't argue there. I just never had the patience, I'd get bored and move on to a different game and then I'd draw and then I'd go ride my bike and then I'd watch TV. I had serious problems with concentration, but it was just early signs of pure genius.
Oh, I also liked Blades of Steel, Golgo 13 and the Double Dragon II. Oh, Double Dribble was dope, too but other than that, no care. Those games were awesome because they were so simple, you put the cart in and you were ready to play; maybe sometimes you'd have to blow on them or smash them against the console to get them to work, but it was immediate gratification. Turn on, play. The few X-Box games I've seen required you to enter in all this info and pick uniforms and schedules and seasons and promotional giveaways for fans 12 and under and you had to give blood and your mothers maiden name before you even saw a goddamn park or field or rink or court ! F that noise. I ain't got time for a mutha.
But naturally, none of this has anything to do with why I'm here, posting.
I came across this insane article in The Times about dudes in China who work 12 hours a night, 7 nights a week, with only 2 or 3 nights off per month, basically mining gold on video games. What the F is this nigga talkin' about you say? Well, listen up...
I guess there is a game called World of Warcraft that people take pretty seriously; its one of those retarded elf wizards, warriors and dragon role playing games. I've been to my share of creepy net-cafes across the world where they chain smoke, eat stale chips, listen to bad foreign rap and never look up from their monitors, ever. I guess this is the ish they're all playing.
NY Times video report if you're lazy or can't read
These are like real-time games and you need money to do sh&t in the game. So people who are lazy or busy or both will pay REAL money for someone else to earn them the points or "gold" or "coins". There are dudes in China working for these companies who pay them to play for hours and hours on end killing monsters and earning gold coins. Then they sell the points to players across the world. Get it? I hope you do, because I'm still a little foggy.
Instead of some investment banker sitting online for 13 hours to amass 50,000 points on World of Warcraft he can pay some company to do it for him; the companies are in China and the employees "work" 84+ hours a week for 30 cents an hour staring at a computer monitor!!!
Can you imagine?!?!? Video game slavery!!!
Here's how the article starts: "At his workstation in a small, fluorescent-lighted office space in Nanjing, China, Li Qiwen sat shirtless and chain-smoking, gazing purposefully at the online computer game in front of him..." Gross. That sentence truly makes me feel all hot like I was out partying all night and now I'm at work, labouring through it. You know the feeling? It's nasty.
Anywho, you can read the whole article here but do it soon because The Times is mad cheap and they take down their free links after a few days.
We all know in 2009 Conan O'Brien is expected to replace Jay Leno on the never funny Tonight Show. Jon Stewart's deal with Comedy Central and The Daily Show ends in 2008.
We're hearing that NBC may opt to pay out O'Brien $40 million to keep Leno on the Tonight Show, which conceivably would make room for Stewart to take over Late Night.
Leno sux loins. I really hope we don't lose Conan in this power play. I think NBC will be letting the wrong guy get loose here. Stewart and O'Brien = good. Leno = bad.
Perhaps Fox will try to lure free-agent O'Brien and missing in action Craig Kilborn to start their own late night franchises?
I guess we'll see y'all.
They're showing Woody's classic Annie Hall tonight at sunset. The lawn opens at 5pm for blankets, picnicking and kvetching.
Bryant Park is behind the library in midtown, between 40th and 42nd Streets & Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
Hallelujah Hollaback.
I have lost all patience for overly "polite" people; some people just can't shut the F up, they MUST interact at all times, interjecting their dimwitted pablum when they've got you cornered. Talking to my friend over the weekend got me thinking about these people, their incessant chatter and their dopey queries and quips. There is a razor thin line betwixt polite and completely overbearing and annoying.
For instance, when you're walking a dog and the dog is pulling on the leash a bit, they'll often ask, brilliantly, "Hey, who's walking who!?" or if they happen to see two people kissing, which will most likely be the most thrilling thing that happens to them for that entire week, they're compelled to yelp "Hey, get a room!"... There's a litany of puerile witticisms which I someday want to compile, but right now, I'm too annoyed to get into all of them because they'll just remind me of the dumb faces I heard saying them.
So when I'm in an elevator with you and it's stopping at every floor, please, don't feel compelled to remark "heh, must be the local". I don't need to hear your voice.
If we're waiting on a line together at the supermarket or the post office (in the very rare occasion I have the patience and mental aplomb to even stand on a line for more than 2 minutes without losing it) there is no need for you to make eye contact with me and roll your eyes or huff and puff. I have nothing in common with you except that we just so happen to be both be on this same line at this moment in time; however, this gives you no right to try and 'bro-down' with me or empathise with me or whateverthef*ck you're doing.
Also, I am declaring a mandatory expiration date on the bromidic "how was your weekend?" query. It's 45 minutes into my Monday and I'm already sick of it. Some people will ask "how was your weekend?" as late as Wednesday!! I find this abused question completely annoying, unnecessary and trite and I would never ask this of anyone while I realise many people simply adore this question and the prattle that ensues so I won't ban it completely. But I will say the question expires on Monday at 5pm. That's it. Don't waltz in here on Tuesday afternoon asking me how my goddamn weekend was, think of something else to ask me if you MUST open your mouth and speak in my direction.
Can you tell I'm on a short rope today, friends?
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