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[myspace]http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=28799328[/myspace]

So I originally thought I was going to be gone from NYC on just Friday and Saturday. I figured I would have been back by Sunday night. Somehow I ended up being out of town for a full week. I missed 7 nights of parties and dancing and girls and fun. I replaced it with several days hanging out in Richmond, VA and then three days sitting at my parents house doing NOTHING. I have no idea what I was thinking. Part of it has to do with their HBO On Demand and season 5 of The Wire, but Jesus… I did nothing. I was so unproductive, I just slept and sat on my ass and ate. I have almost no friends in DC anymore and absolutely nothing to do when I am there. If anyone wants to introduce my to some people in DC… girls maybe… that would be amazing. I can’t take being that bored.

Anyway, I am on the way back now. Yes, I am on the bus. I take the DC2NY bus. It has wireless internet, plays movies, and makes no stops from DC two New York and it is only 22 dollars or $40 round trip. You pay more than that in just tolls if you drove. That is China bus prices, and I have yet to see one chicken on the bus, they have air conditioning and everyone speaks English. Truly amazing.

Anyway, I wanted to make a video of me using internets on a bus, because I think it is just another example of how we are living in the future. It is both fantastic and horrifying. Anyway, I tried to film myself with the trees in the background, but because the web camera on my computer cannot handle lighting my face and the background at the same time either you could see trees or you could see my face, but not both. Long story short, I was trying this while listening to music and Tyler Fedchuk’s 1/2 Alive Baltimore Remix of Frankie Valli’s Can’t Take My Eyes Off You came on and I was just outside of Baltimore so I figured it would be appropriate music somehow.

This video is just weird and you probably do not actually want to watch it, but I am bored and reading on the bus makes me sick so I did this instead. This whole post was totally pointless. Sorry. Back to business tomorrow.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH74WF8t8Ms[/youtube]
Frankie Valli – Can’t Take My Eyes Off You Lyrics

Fuck Yes. Human Giant Season 2 is pretty much wrapped up and it premieres March 11th at 11PM. I hope they have even more success than last season… because let’s face it… these guys are the most famous people I know and the more famous they get, the famouser people I know become and maybe they will become so famous that one day I can get laid because I have Aziz Ansari’s number in my phone… or maybe they will just get to make a third season and I will watch it online and laugh a lot. I think the later is slightly more likely.

Anyway, watch this video it is pretty magical, and hopefully very viral which would make everything very meta and just a little bit scary.

Note to self: Stop blogging when high on sleeping pills.

During my recent trip to Richmond, VA I got a chance to hang out with Noah Scalin the creator of SkullADay.com, one of my new favorite websites. Noah is creating a new skull every day for an entire year. He makes them out of everything he can find from thread to pop corn to digital illustration. He told me he spends between 4 and 8 hours every day working on his skulls. I first met Noah after he created a video for The Gaskets using only stock footage. He invited the Gaskets and I over to his apartment to show us the video. I remember being very impressed by all the weird amazing things he had in his apartment. After I found out about his site I sent him an email and found out that he had not yet received a copy of the Gaskets DVD I produced which featured his video. So when I was in Richmond this weekend I stopped off quickly to give him a copy of the DVD on my way out of town. Two hours later we had talked about everything from How She Move to turn of the century web design. We talked about fashion merchandising, Planet Of The Apes as social commentary, and how I could get him a real human skull (I know a guy…). At the end of our exhaustive talk I asked Noah if I could photograph him and his skulls. He graciously accepted. I took photos of the skulls he created for the project, the skulls he has collected over the years, and the countless skulls people just keep giving him since he has started this mission.

So check out all the photos of Noah Scalin and his amazing collection of skulls.

So I ended up staying at my parents house today instead of going back to New York because they have HBO demand and I realized there were 8 episodes of the Wire season 5 that I have not seen yet.  I have just spent the last 6 hours watching the Wire with two more to go.  However, the most recent episode had a special guest appearance of CNN host Nancy Grace.  I haven’t had cable in several years so I am not up to date on my cable news anchors, but something made me google her and I found out why she was so familiar.  It was because of a YouTube clip of her that was making the rounds this summer.  She starts berating one of her staff for putting up a sexy clip of Paris Hilton during an interview about the heiress.  The staff member then gets even live on air.  Also one of the related videos made me laugh out loud so I posted it below.  I rarely laugh out loud when watching the intertubes alone, but I did twice in 5 minutes thanks to this woman.  Nothing says funny like uptight southern elitists.  Enjoy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWPY7b35vF4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDvJB9JoyBU&feature=related[/youtube]

With Fleshbot linking me all the time, I might as well return the favor… Okay, maybe it is not quite a favor since they send about 10x the traffic, but still… some disgusting news from Fleshbot.  Evidently there is a Gene Simmons sex tape out.  It features some Australian chick named Elsa with very giant fake boobs.  In the background they are fucking to Foreigner which is probably the best thing about the tape.  Honestly, the only reason I would ever, ever, want to see Gene Simmons in any sort of sex act would be to see what the motherfucker could do with his 10 inch tongue.  She goes down on him, but he doesn’t even have the decency to return the favor.

The videos are originally from a site called Genessecret.com but I can’t the site to load due to bandwidth issues.   You can try that site for your self or you can just watch the Gene Simons sex videos for free on Fleshbot.   Don’t click either of these links if you just ate or are pregnant.  NSFW. Duh.

This frog is probably the scariest thing that ever existed.  I am so fucking thankful that this thing died off millions of years ago.  I am also glad that I read about it today and not yesterday because I spent last night sleeping in my friends daughters room who is like 4 years old and completely obsessed with frogs.  Her whole bedroom is green and it is like 7′ x 7′ and filled with probably 150 different representations of frogs, the very animal of which I am now terrified.  All fear Beelzebufo, the Devil Toad!

Secondly, I am sort of obsessed with the National Geographic YouTube channel… at least I was until I saw this video of giant cows.  These things are ungodly mutations of meat.  You could get roughly 50 million hamburgers out of each one.  Darwin is rolling over in his grave.  He created this one ton cow.  They fucking shave the cows so they look sexier.  I cannot think of a Pumping Iron joke to go here, but I am positive there is one.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmkj5gq1cQU[/youtube]

 This post just evolved from a 5 minute post linking a site, to a long winded tangent about competition in photo blogging and then into three full paragraphs of ass kissing.  Sorry.

I was just talking to someone about how all the top blogs on the internet all link to each other and the community drives the traffic.  When I ran this site back in 2001 I was part of a community of bloggers that were posting weird videos and pictures and stuff.  We were sort of united by the fact that we were doing the whole blog thing before most people.  I got and sent a lot of traffic from a community.  Most of those people quit blogging or turned their sites in to porn sites.  So these days my site most easily falls into the category of a party photo blog although only about 1/3rd of my posts are party pictures.

The problem is there is no photo blogging community.  Everyone seems so competitive.  I get along with all the photographers in NYC, and I think we all get a long, but none of us is doing anything to support the other sites.  And I think people seem to get the idea that we must hate each other because I have people come up to me every day talking shit about other local photographers.  I hate hearing about it, and I rarely comment on this, but it just makes me think about all the shit that is talked about me and my site.  I think it is bullshit.

In the party blog game there are two big sites and everyone else is playing catch up.  And those guys aren’t linking anyone.  I think of all the party sites on the internet the only one who links me is Clayton Hauck and he is based out of Chicago.  (Jess links me, but he is more of a promoter/dj than he is a party photographer.)  Anyway, these sites are just not designed to be part of a web community.  And that is fine, I am not writing this because I want links, I am just pointing out the issues and my desire for some place to belong.  My only community is the adult networks that I have because of some of the Not Safe For Work nature of my site.  And while I appreciate that traffic, that is not quality traffic.  Those people are coming to jerk off, not to dig on my photos or read my shit.  So, I need to find some bloggers to take me under their wing.

Sorry, this has completely gone off topic.  The whole point of this was that I wanted to plug fellow  party blogger Nikola Tamindzic formerly of ambrel.net.  He is getting out of the party game, which in the spirit of aforementioned competition I guess is good for the rest of us since he pretty much murders everyone in the party blog game.  Nikola is a constant inspiration to me and he has started a new site whos RSS feed is now up at the top of my RSS Reader.   Welcome to the new Home Of The Vain.

Nikola has some times been derisive of the “copy cat” photo bloggers out there, and he certainly does not link other sites, but Nikola has always offered advise and support for what I am doing and I recently read an exceedingly long flickr thread about him in which he explained exactly how he does what he does.  He was giving the “copy cats” exactly what they needed to know to rip him off.  He is more than willing to help people take better photos, probably because even if they could do what he does, he could still do it better.

I think that in the year that I have been doing this night life thing I have gone from taking bullshit party photos, to bordering on something artistic.  In the last few months I have really become proud of the work I am doing, but nearly every shot that Nikola posts makes me jealous.  He makes event photography inspiring, he makes sleazy bathroom photography artistic, and I am glad to finally see some of his photos that weren’t taken south of 14th St.

Longest post ever.

Okay, so as I mentioned in my Style Wars post below, I own like every 80’s hip hop movie. This fetish with these old school movies has led to my obsession with the horrible hip hop dance movies that follow in the tradition of Breakin’. Such films as You Got Served, Step Up and the latest in a the line, the soon to be classic Step Up 2.

I saw Step Up 2: The Streets in Richmond, because my friend Barry is the only person on Earth who would consider watching this movie with me. I have seen the last 5 Martin Lawrence movies with him, I saw Drum Line with him, I even saw Kangaroo Jack with him. (Although even Barry refused to watch Soul Plane with me). Anyway, after some convincing I got him to go with me.

The movie was a way better dance movie than Step Up and it might have had the best dancing in a film since You Got Served, but the plot was completely nonsensical and the acting was horrible. The one interesting thing about the film plot wise was that in the great tradition of films like Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, Honey and Fame the film is set up to end in a big talent show/ fundraiser thing. And then, they totally skipped the fundraiser so they could “take it to the streets”. It totally turned the table on traditional dance films and blew my mind…

But the most noticeable thing about the movie was how completely blatanly racist it was. The movie was about a white girl in an “urban” dance crew who then got kicked out and had to start a crew of art school drama queers. Her old crew, the bad guys, were predominately black or latino. Her new crew on the other hand only had two black people, who both were light skinned with straightened hair and were extremely non threatening. The crew also featured a completely stereotyped version of an Asian who during the final scene actually screams “I love America!” One of the major points of conflict is that the main white girl was in some sort or relationship with a black guy at the beginning, but she never actually kissed or touched him, but then she ended stuff with him for an Abercrombie wearing boy band looking motherfucker. Amazing. The makers of this film are appropriating black culture in order to both make money and at the same time undermine that same culture. It is actually pretty impressive. They are literally taking it to the streets.

So, in summary. Bad acting, good dancing, unapologetically racist.

PS. You would get extremely drunk if you took a drink every time a guy took off his shirt for no reason what so ever.

PPS. I just googled “Step Up 2, racism” and I found this article who describes Step Up 2 as “the single most racist movie that will be released by any major American studio in the first 10 years of the twenty-first century”. So I am not alone.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8P9leqyY20&feature=related[/youtube]
Low – Flo Rider Featuring T-Pain (Step Up 2: The Streets Soundtrack)