Living in Los Angeles and not being completely vacuous is an exercise in observation. This city offers some of the most visually stunning, but tragically neglected planning and street art in the world.

From the Compton Towers to the various Banksys all over Hollywood, even Takahasi Murakami himself so admired the graffiti on a billboard to his retrospective, that he had it removed and flown to his studio for display.

We can sit and attack the so-called "Intellectual Establishment" and berate the processes by which great art is evaluated, but how many of us can say they KNOW they would have stopped at Bell and Tuymans? I know i would have. I make an effort to always stop and enjoy public works and performances, but I also know how blind people are to their immediate surroundings.

Maybe i have a different view of this since I work in the entertainment industry, but this is just tragic. By the looks of her, and by her mentions of going to London to revive her career, I would venture to guess this woman was aspiring to a career as either a model, or an actress (Probably both). It breaks my heart to see this, knowing my fair share of doe eyed talented young women who are already exhibiting the sort of desperation that led this particular woman to such a self destructive and sad act. I fear that this may be the tip of the iceberg as i see a constant and ever increasing flow of emotionally crippled youngsters coming to Los Angeles and flooding the acting market with a sense of entitlement and a feeling of overpowering singularity.

I recall a young lady who i met about five years ago when i first moved to LA who told a shocked group "I was the prettiest girl in Alaska.". She was nothing to scoff at, to be sure. However, winning pageants in Alaska and being told you were special all your life did not translate into a career quickly enough for the prettiest girl in Alaska, and she returned to the tundra only a year into her experiment in entertainment.

The story of Blanche Dubois is not a new one, but i fear it will become more frequent as thousands of Ms. Alaskas rain on the coasts with complete certainty of their future.

Incredible. My Great Aunt passed away a month ago, she was a buck, and two pennies. When we visited her over the Holidays, i showed her pictures of my life here in LA on my iPhone. As i was leaving she held my hand and said "I used to ride a horse and carriage to school". To think the dramatic changes that I have witnessed at a youthful an immature 30, it paled in comparison to this bedridden wonderful old woman who had seen carriages and iPhones. A living treasure, Mark.

Oh mercy! The blog was interesting, the pictures delightful, but you try to google JapRock and it makes your ears bleed. Before I write a hasty blog about how awful my jorney into JapRock was can anyone direct me to some good sites? (MP3 links-even better)

I'm not sure what's more disturbing.
The "Crown of thorns" hair,
The Orange goop dripping off their foreheads
Or theterrifying "Pouty" pose.

What the hell is going on in NJ?

I'm reminded of the opening to IDIOCRACY.

He can shoot an intruder 18 times in the head before he even gets near, but he can't choose a salad once in a while?

With the Stan Lee Art, and now, this. Boingboing has tapped a deeply covetous part of me.

Too cool.

Last night my roommates and I came home from a get-together and were trying to find parking on our street. Since today is trash day, everyone had their garbage up on the curb to allow ample parking for everyone. Except one guy who had put his dumpsters on the street blocking off a perfectly good parking spot. We took it upon ourselves to move the bins and park. As I was getting out of the car, I hear a voice coming from the window of the apartment where we had parked.

"You can't do that."

"What?"

"You cannot move the trash cans"

"We just did"

"Do not touch my trash cans."

"uh.. i won't touch your cans again"

What sort of NIMBY dumbassery is THAT? Look around you, friends. Is everyone chill? Then relax, take precautions, but continue to be a good neighbor and a friendly part of an information sharing community.

Sadly, I'm the only one with an unlocked network on my entire block.