hollywood Archive

Time Warner, this is why you suck, Part II

Earlier today, I posted: Hollywood is beautiful when it rains. First comfy lazy day in forever. Coffee, 2 hrs work, hike, pizza, Mad Men, Rubicon, salt bath, nap 🙂

A peaceful mood can change so fast. My day was going really fantabulous and I was feeling genuinely relaxed for the first time in a long time.

So Time Warner phoned a line they shouldn’t even have (it’s like the Batphone for need bail or death in the family), jolting me out of a dozing revery such that I partially broke one of my lower front teeth (ow!), and they were calling to try to sell me digital phone service (when their internet service is spotty and their on-demand is downright defective and they keep claiming they will fix it and don’t *and* when I have told them over and over and over to never make sales calls to me.)

An Experiment in Using the Internet for Real Life Socialization

Tonight, Friday, May 14, 2010, Forrest Black and I and possibly Trent Hahn will be going to see film noir at the New Bev and then most likely eat Thai food at Torung. Pertinent info below. If you plan to come please tweet me or, if you have my cell number, please text me (no voice thanks) and let me know. If you, like many of my compatriots are morally opposed to planning, that’s cool too. Come say howdy if you happen to swing by.

ace in the hole billy wilder noir

Directions to New Bev

Ace in the Hole:
Fri: 7:30

The Harder They Fall:
Fri: 9:40

You can buy advance tickets for the double feature for $7.99 here. Seats are only $7 at the theatre, but that is cash only.

harder they fall noir bogart

Directions to Torung

Fri: 11:30/midnightish

Torung is also cash only.

Don’t Drive Angry

Don’t Drive Angry

by Amelia G : February 2nd, 2010

bill murray groundhog day punxsutawney philToday is Groundhog Day and apparently the current famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow. So that means six more weeks of winter. As I’m in Los Angeles, that means that Hollywood will have more 62 degree days. Angelenos will tell you that it is 72 degrees Fahrenheit year round here and that just is not so. We even had a whole bunch of rain (with bonus flooding!) last week. Not that I’m gloating. I like to visit weather sometimes.</p>

I have to leave the house today. I am thinking about saying, “Ned? Ned Ryerson?” to every person I am asked to shake hands with today. I actually often think of that scene, particularly out at clubs or at professional events.

For any of you who may be so culturally impoverished as to have not yet seen Bill Murray’s starring turn in the movie Groundhog Day, please rectify this failing as soon as possible, but I will now give you background. Groundhog Day is a classic comedy . . .

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Omen and Alexxa Hex Disturbing Tattoo (PICS)

The talented Omen of Bile and Ooze fame gets busy with the disturbingly tattooed Alexxa Hex in this very Hollywood shoot by yours truly and Forrest Black. Yes, her sexy flat tummy really does have just what you think written across it in permanent ink. Free Blue Blood sample gallery of Omen and Alexxa Hex is available and the whole thing is, of course, in the Blue Blood VIP. And, if you all get memberships, I’ll like shoot more work like this, k.

Rooftop Militia (PICS)

I hear Los Angeles has more helicopters than any other American city. I certainly hear the helicopters in Hollywood pretty often. Yet nobody has ever said anything to me about having naked militia on my roof. So Forrest Black and I have shot more than a few of these like this one with Scar 13 for Blue Blood.

Blue Blood SpookyCash Graphics Job Openings

We are looking for two more part time graphics people in the Los Angeles area. These are not on-site positions, but candidates who can conveniently attend in-person meetings in Hollywood, California are strongly preferred. You must have an internet connection, your own workstation with Photoshop, and your computer must be able to read compact flash cards or smart cards from cameras or USB hard drives. You will use company-provided compact flash media, smart cards, and/or USB hard drives.

Entry Level Graphics Production

Publication or Company: Blue Blood
Industry: Photography, Magazine Publishing, Newsletters, Online/New Media
Benefits: permissive dress code, flex time, mostly telecommuting, guest list, swag
Job Duration: Part Time
Job Location: Los Angeles, CA USA

Job Requirements:

Blue Blood, the OG trade mag of cool, has an exciting opportunity for an intelligent, computer-savvy individual with artistic aesthetics. Blue Blood’s company culture has exacting standards for quality and performance and is perfect for the individual who enjoys excelling. Workdays regularly start at noon and the dress code allows and even encourages creative hairstyles and modes of dress. Any on-site production will be from a working location in the vibrant heart of Hollywood, walking distance from coffeehouses and restaurants.

Graphics staff is primarily responsible for processing photographs for both web and print publications. The successful applicant will have comprehension of gothic, punk, body modification, and similar aesthetic sensibilities, as well as a good sense of human proportions. The position requires an individual who is comfortable with adult material without possessing a crude sensibility.

This position requires proficiency in Photoshop for both web sized and gallery print level touch-ups, including standard tools such as clone, sharpen, blur, layers, formats, liquefy, and cropping. Moderate retouching portfolio preferred, but a test can be provided to substitute for portfolio. Web layout skills, including banner design and slicing graphics and animations/mouseovers in Imageready, a plus. Film scanning, Flash, FTP and basic HTML skills also a plus but not required. Ability to use AIM or ICQ or other instant messenger a plus. Use of AIM or ICQ required; training available.

Although Photoshop skills and artistic aptitude are musts, prior professional experience is not required. Some training available for the right applicant. Flexibility of hours lends itself to scheduling around a college class schedule.

About Our Company: Blue Blood is a lifestyle content production, packaging, and publishing company founded by Amelia G in 1992. Blue Blood began as a pioneering magazine dedicated to showcasing the beauty, sensuality, and coolness of the emerging eclectic underground populated by gothic, punk, fandom, and pre-internet cyberculture. The magazine quickly rose to the largest circulation in its niche. In addition to sponsoring numerous successful events, Blue Blood very successfully transitioned to the web. Both the print and digital incarnations of Blue Blood have received press in diverse venues, ranging from HBO and FOX to MTV and Playboy to Penthouse and Marquis to the New York Times and the Hong Kong Sun. Among Blue Blood’s various enterprises are a variety of entertainment publications in both print and digital media, innovation in content-packaging, and the SpookyCash affiliate program, as well as the Blue Blood Boutique, which purveys a signature line of apparel and accessories. Blue Blood continues to set industry standards for innovation and quality.

Contact: Blue Blood
Email Address submit@blueblood.net
8033 Sunset Blvd #4500
West Hollywood CA 90046 USA

Special Instructions: A formal resume is not required, but a skills inventory and pertinent background, including any relevant hobbies, is. A basic Photoshop test will be given to applicants who pass the initial round of selection. Candidates who successfully complete the test will be invited to interview for the position.

Ashes En Pointe

Los Angeles is covered in ash. Where I am in Hollywood, it is at least a fine layer of ash, as opposed to say a raging inferno or one of the areas where it will costs residents thousands of dollars to clean the ash out of their carpets and ventilation systems. Unfortunately I am kind of a delicate flower when it comes to physical adversity and, even running an air cleaner 24/7, my eyes and throat have been burning all week and I’ve felt sick for days.

Getting ready to post the images [info]forrestblack and I shot during Vampire-Con at Vampirella’s Ball. I need to write a short article to accompany the photography, although I’ll have more coverage of the event on video later, so I don’t need to do the full report with this. I think it is awesome that professional event planners put together what I consider more of a proper fandom event in Los Angeles and that they did it on a topic so near and dear to my heart — vampires.

It is probably mostly just the normal biological response I’m having to the endless fires in Southern California, but I keep thinking about the parts which were difficult. I mean, a lot of what I do is really hard. Not like it might be tough for someone else to do, but like it is really a challenge for me personally. I just like to take challenges as head-on as possible. Always have.

I mostly enjoy this. Today I am just feeling a little bit like a ballerina with bleeding toes. But having our city covered in ash is probably supposed to make all Angelenos gothic.

“However, this was before Inigo’s wound reopened; and Westley relapsed again; and Fezzik took the wrong turn; and Buttercup’s horse threw a shoe. And the night behind them was filled with the crescendoing sound of pursuit.” –William Goldman, The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure; The “Good Parts” Version

Do you take pride in doing what you do well or at least trying to?

Do you take pride in doing what you do well or at least trying to?

by Amelia G : January 25th, 2009

starbucks foamSo, Forrest Black and I just went for coffee. Well, it was Starbucks, so he went for coffee and I went for ice water and conversation. I was just reading a thing about how Warren Buffet built his business and wanted to talk about some of the interesting ways he approached things. So we are talking about how insurance companies invest with your premiums and that is where most of their profits come from, and how Warren Buffet’s primary holding company Berkshire Hathaway actually failed at its primary business and no longer actually produces anything to do with what the original brand was about, and various other factoids which are intriguing, if you find business structures interesting.

At a certain point, I noticed some security guards hovering kind of close to me out of the corner of my eye and wondered if Starbucks had any special rules against people with purple and green hair discussing high finance. I couldn’t think of anything particularly awful I was doing, so I went back to my conversation, but there was still this sense of bad energy. The security guards went away, but people started shouting. As some of the people shouting were Starbucks employees, I assume security fled so they would not be witnesses to the people who worked at the shopping center braining someone with a coffee pot, if that was about to ensue. These security guys know where their paychecks come from and it is not making coffee-drinkers happy.

So apparently there was a customer there who wanted foam on his coffee or crema on his espresso or something like that. The chick who took the order didn’t really understand his question, so she answered kind of noncommittally on whether or not he could . . .

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Would you rather date John Cusack or the guy in the Porsche with eighties hair?

Would you rather date John Cusack or the guy in the Porsche with eighties hair?

by Amelia G : January 19th, 2009

Scientology Celebrity Centre HollywoodYou know how all 80’s teen romances featured a girl the hero wanted. And you know how that girl was always romanced by some guy with a sort of overdone Kennedy scion kind of haircut, a Porsche or similar ride, and generally some country clubbish or yacht-person sort of clothing? Well, apparently whoever made the introductory Scientology film didn’t get that viewers were supposed to want to be John Cusack’s Lane Mayer in Better Off Dead and not Aaron Dozier’s ski champion Roy Stalin. It’s like rooting for the nameless college guy in the red sports car over Ilan Mitchell-Smith’s Wyatt Donnelly in Weird Science. Weird Science is apt here. More on this in a moment.

So I went to the Scientology Celebrity Centre for brunch yesterday. The building is beautiful and blocks from my house. (I had a friend pick me up in his BMW SUV because, when it came down to it, walking didn’t feel Hollywood enough for such a Hollywood moment.) Food was varied and pretty tasty. Service was friendly and adequate, but unexceptional and could have been mildly more attentive. I particularly liked the crisp waffles and the smoked salmon and capers. The regular water was excellent for Los Angeles, so they must have a good filter, and the orange juice was good enough. Say you saw the brunch in the internet and it is a discounted $25 a person for all you can eat, rather than the walk-in price of $30 a plate.

I had a good time because I went with friends. I will refrain from naming said friends, due to their general nervousness about the establishment in question. Now I have lived blocks from the Celebrity Centre for years and, after my recent . . .

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