My block is generally bracketed by Russian (or possibly Armenian) gangsters in big black cars. They keep the neighborhood safe. Hollywood is probably pretty safe anyway. I occasionally hear gunshots at night, but never anything like an AK. Today, however, LAPD bookends my street instead.

Rapper Ice Cube has been set up to shoot a music video on my block since 7am this morning. There is at least one guy in a colorful three piece suit who must be suffering in the heat. There are a couple of big fine women in big fine eyelashes and small skin-tight dresses in purple and animal print. Although fewer than you’d maybe expect for a rap video set. But mostly there are a lot of people in muted T-shirts standing around. Today is scorching hot and the afternoon sun was really harsh overhead, so they may be doing a lot of waiting for the light to be right. Mostly the caterers appear to have what to do. One manager type guy is loudly telling two of the police officers hired for the shoot day about how Ice Cube gets death threats. The death threat talker is loud. Maybe to impress the big fine women. But he is suddenly silent when my crew walks past. Maybe he doesn’t know how loud he is or maybe he thinks I’m gothic and, like a bat, use sonar to hear and thus can only make out sounds in my physical proximity.

They did one shot which had an interesting set-up. They have a really beautiful big fine red convertible for the day. They had like four guys in the car, driving slowly up my street. A pair of guys jogged along beside the car on each side, each team of two holding a different reflector. I only noticed two cameras and they seemed to be getting this from the back, but I suspect it will make sense in the final video.

My balcony is pretty much a front row seat to the scene. I considered taking a few shots of the set-up. But then I thought about how many photographers have taken pictures of Forrest Black’s and my set-up, when we were shooting on location. I thought about how Forrest has literally been shown portfolios where someone is showing off having shot over Forrest’s arm. Not that I would, a zillion years, ever consider a snapshot portfolio work, but, upon reflection, I decided not to take any snapshots of the Ice Cube video shoot.

There is something surreal about this sort of thing and something terribly commonplace about it in Los Angeles. Sometimes I love the sense of possibility in Hollywood, the sense that anything you can dream, can be found under the the palm trees. But sometimes I don’t like the sense that, even if you are having a perfectly good day, maybe you should be doing more somehow.

It is really hot outside today, though. So I’m glad I’m not sitting in a red car with no A/C in this sweltering sun.

Read more Blue Blood » | 1 Comment »

There is a sort of school of modern directors who often collaborate and make movies within movies. In the Grindhouse outing by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, Robert Rodriguez had a sort of faux trailer, within the movie, for a movie called Machete. Fans kept coming up to him and asking if this was a real movie he was working on. Caught up in the feedback loop of fan appreciation, Robert Rodriguez assured them that he was totally working on it.

Apparently, as is often the case with creative projects, he sort of was and sort of wasn’t. The writer/director/editor had cast Danny Trejo a number of times and feels he “he pops and has one of the most amazing faces in cinema history.” Danny Trejo has been in approximately a bazillion movies, but often in a more minor gangster/vampire/bad guy’s henchman sort of role.

Robert Rodridguez says he watched John Woo movies early on and they made him (a) want to be Asian and (b) wish there was something comparable in modern cinema with a Latin flavor. I don’t personally totally get that, as those movies make me fantasize about being badass, but not any particular ethnic flavor of badass. But that’s me.

When shooting Desperado in a small Mexican town, Robert Rodriguez noted that the locals assumed Danny Trejo was the star of the movie, even though his part was actually a small role as a knife-throwing assassin …

Read more Blue Blood » | 2 Comments »

The Two-Tailed Dog Party in Hungary is making some mighty attractive election promises:

Eternal life!
Free beer!
Tax cuts!
Money without work!
There’s a 93 percent chance we won’t steal.
You will be happy!
We will promise anything.

In terms of country infrastructure, the Two-Tailed Dog Party favors flooding the roads with beer on holidays, building a spaceport, erecting snow mountains for skiers on flat plains, roller coasters arching over major cities, and existential express buses to nowhere which don’t make any stops. Also more techno music in parliament and free Burn energy drinks.

No word on whether Burn is an official sponsor of the political guerrilla street art the TTDP is doing, but they should certainly consider it. I don’t think we get Burn in the US. Any European readers want to share what it is like?

It might not be fun to be living Hungarian politics. Gergely Kovacs, chairman of the Two-Tailed Dog Party, says, “We just elect these people to represent the gangsters and the rich. This kind of democracy is ridiculous.” I’m just really impressed by such an entertaining and viral way of getting a political message out.

Read more Blue Blood » | 2 Comments »

I really like Eli Roth as a personality. He has a certain wit and charm and unstoppable DIY willingness to just go for it and stick to it, which I really enjoy. I find him most interesting as a writer and have been following him on Twitter just to read his random thoughts in 140 character installments. As an actor, his parts in Inglorious Basterds were definitely some of the most enjoyable.

One of the things I like about Eli Roth is that he seems to be genuinely a DIY guy. He financed student films by working as a phone sex operator and got private investors to make his first film Cabin Fever. One of the things Lionsgate probably likes best about him is that he makes movies, which cost less than two million dollars to produce and gross a gajillion dollars in box office. He makes movies people want to see. The Last Exorcism, produced by Eli Roth, opened — as you probably noted from the countdown clock and banners here — on August 27 last week, and it has already grossed over twenty million smackeroos.

But I digress. The fascinating tidbit of the week from Eli Roth’s Twitter is that Ashley Bell, who plays the possibly possessed Nell Sweetzer in The Last Exorcism, did all her creepy contortions without benefit of CGI. The images in the posters and the clips I’ve seen are really striking and I like Eli Roth’s take on the whole thing, which is essentially that CGI has its place, but sometimes less is more. And he is willing to express actual happiness with his accomplishments on the internet, even in the face of people being what I believe (from my vast education on the subject) the DSM IV characterizes as “jerks”.

I haven’t seen The Last Exorcism, so I’m going to quote Mike McPadden from my Facebook, “THE LAST EXORCISM is my favorite movie of 2010 (so far). PG-13 regardless, I loved it,” Mike McPadden enthused, adding, “The more I ponder THE LAST EXORCISM, the better it becomes. And I loved it immediately. Amidst the affable, thoroughly enjoyable schlock of EXPENDABLES, PIRANHA 3D and (I’m guessing) MACHETE, LAST EXORCISM is a genuine surprise of depth and power—with a socko final wallop right out of a 70s-era 4:30 Movie!”

Speaking of Pirhana 3D, Eli Roth has an acting part in that movie as a wet T-shirt host. Apparently, Joe Francis, of Girls Gone Wild infamy, is really peeved about Pirhana 3D. He says of the character obviously based on him and played by Jerry O’Connell, “I believe Mr. O’Connell may lose more than his penis (i.e., lots of money) if he and the Weinstein Co. choose to release this film and continue to falsely associate me with its questionable content,” Francis . . . I appreciate a good parody as much as the next guy, but to associate me with drugs and the filming of underage girls crosses a definite line.” Jerry O’Connell is probably best known for playing a super-powered teen on My Secret Identity and a time-space continuum traveling dude on Sliders. Joe Francis is probably best known for his legal woes regarding his alleged use of drugs and the alleged filming of underage girls. Also his alleged tax evasion and alleged sexual assaults. I’m digressing again, but I’m just saying Joe Francis should try reading some of his own interviews and not just Jerry O’Connell’s, to find out what he is associated with.

Mike McPadden and I are both veterans of the Desktop Publishing Revolution and zinesterdom. He did a zine called Happyland, under the name Selwyn Harris. He now writes for Mr. Skin and also posts occasionally missives on his McBeardo site. I have to recommend his August birthday entry, entitled Madonna Boots, about how he lost his virginity. I won’t give away the punchline summary, but the tale has a humorous denouement.

Read more Blue Blood » | 6 Comments »

So today is supposed to be Blog Day 2010. BlogDay founder Nir Ofir has been doing this since 2005. The idea is for bloggers to post links to five disparate blogs which are culturally alien reads. Each BlogDay post August 31, 2010 is supposed to be tagged as BlogDay2010. Bizarrely, this year, Technorati shows not one single post tagged BlogDay2010. But I’m still going to post a few blogs I think are interesting reads and not what I would usually post.

Kanye West has a disturbingly high quality blog. It is mostly a picture blog, but there is a seemingly unending stream of pics of visually interesting things, ranging from concept cars to collectible caskets. Purportedly Kanye West blogs himself. If he does, he is committed to it and he gets the photoblog format, and is good about including links for further info. If he hired someone else to do it, he hired someone extremely qualified.

The Wall Street Journal has a Life and Culture blog, which strikes me as rather surreal. The top story on there today is “In Japan, Men Vacation With Virtual Girlfriends”.

Also somewhat in the business realm is Mark Cuban’s blog BlogMaverick. The name is not a political reference; he owns a basketball team called the Dallas Mavericks. He made his money in the dot com boom by selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo for stock and then diversifying before the stock market tanked. Some of his more recent activities include guesting on Entourage and starting BailoutSleuth to cover where our taxpayer money is being funneled to and how it is being (ab)used.

You’ve probably heard of TMZ. They are mostly a blight on society, but they are a hard-working and prolific blight. So, if you hear some random water cooler conversation about Paris Hilton mistaking her friend’s cocaine for chewing gum, you always know you can pop over to the TMZ blog to get the details. You can quickly discover that the gallery of Jesse James and Kat Von D getting in and out of vehicles, riding a motorcycle, holding hands, and swapping spit is one of the most popular. Today, TMZ also helpfully posted a copy Guns n’ Roses guitar player Slash’s divorce papers. Apparently, his address was able to be left “confidential” on the Los Angeles court documents. The Los Angeles form also has checkboxes for reason for dissolution of marriage which include incest and bigamy. Go figure.

Speaking of guns, The Firearm Blog is pretty much what it sounds like. Lots of reviews and images of guns and videos of various artillery being fired.

(Okay, maybe this isn’t totally culturally alienland, but these are all quality blogs, in their own areas of expertise.)

Read more Blue Blood » | Post a comment »

Vaughn Belak just relaunched his art web site. In addition to featuring new work, most of which features naked boobies, so I can’t show it to you here, the site features flyers for past gallery shows and announces his forthcoming show. He will be having a “New solo show of monsters, zombies and undead ladies of all sorts” at the Tatame’ Sake Lounge in Florida.

Read more Blue Blood » | 7 Comments »

It is no secret that I find Vladimir Putin hot. Russia’s best pinup just keeps upping the ante like an 80’s action movie supervillain.

According to Russia Today, the city of Sevastopol hosts a yearly motorcycle rally to coincide with the anniversary of Russia’s, uhm, victory over the Nazis. (WWII buffs may feel free to interject their opinions about who really “won” that war, but that is really a digression.) This year is the 65th anniversary of the end of WWII for Russia and the 14th annual Sevastopol biker event.

This year, Vladimir Putin rode with the bikers. He rode with them, on a Harley Davidson trike, to commemorate the first road which traverses the entire country east to west. From the video, it doesn’t look like a heck of a superhighway, but, damn, Putin looks fine. That scene really would not have looked out of place in The Expendables.

Read more Blue Blood » | 2 Comments »

My fellow Wesleyan alum Jim Vincent posted this demotivational poster today. Not sure where it comes from, alas. He is afflicted with co-workers who play golf and refer to him as a LARP-er. So this was pretty perfect for him.

I wish the SCA — Society for Creative Anachronism for the uninitiated — were less sexually repressed. I’m totally turned on my armor, but so many of the folks who make it and wear it are all oogie weird about sex.

I’m not turned on by golf clubs or even really plaid pants, but I keep meaning to learn how to play golf. I was very bad at it, when I had a few lessons as a child, but I think I have more patience now.

I’d ideally like to learn how to play golf in a plate mail bikini top and leather pants, but that might just be me.

Read more Blue Blood » | 12 Comments »

So Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal is pretty much a genius. He sold an early social network he coded some years back, so I have no idea if he needs to sit at home creating antisocial quizzes and hilarious webcomics. But, need to or not, he does. Today’s entry is Why Working at Home is both Awesome and Horrible, which certainly resonated with me. I found it because it was posted on a forum for internet professionals which I frequent.

So I read the comic strip below and all the others in the Why Working at Home is both Awesome and Horrible. I started writing about The Oatmeal because I really enjoyed it and felt I should share it with the class. Only then I clicked around it a little bit and got kinda depressed. Given that I probably could organize nude laser tag with lingerie models, what do I have to be depressed about?

First of all, I never really made the decision to totally excise cubicle work from my life. For more than a decade, I did contract work via agencies, in addition to Blue Blood and Blue Blood CBLT contracts. There are honestly, like The Oatmeal says, both awesome and horrible things about being answerable to kinda no one. …

Read more Blue Blood » | Post a comment »

I’m pleased to be able to share that Deathrock.org has done a feature interview with Razor Candi. Kate Deathrock and Razor Candi talk about Transylvania, art, and Razor Candi collaborating with and being inspired by Blue Blood. I’m both touched by and excited about this article appearing.

Read more Blue Blood » | Post a comment »