Metblogs has been asked to help find a couple to escort Ron Jeremy to the DVD premiere of his latest film, “One Eyed Monster,” Monday night in Beverly Hills. The lucky pair will have dinner with the award winning actor, ride in a limo and walk the red carpet as his eye candy, and gain VIP seating at the premiere!

To enter, simply leave a comment adapting the titles of any 3 recent LA Metblogs posts into porn film titles by this Friday at noon. A secret panel of perverts will pick their favorite, and notify the winner sometime Friday afternoon.

“One Eyed Monster,” an R rated horror parody hitting DVD shelves April 28th, stars Ron Jeremy, Amber Benson, Veronica Hart and a handful of character actors and porn stars “playing it straight.” Click for the NSFW movie synopsis, giveaway details, and comments…

 

As per tradition, this morning’s L.A. Times contains a fold out, full page schedule of the newspaper’s annual Festival of Books, being held next weekend at UCLA (or check out the sked online). Without fail, the weekend itself always falls among other events that I have to choose between, such as The Cowboy Festival’s, but the book fest’s numerous free panels with authors and experts of assorted interests tends to always win out. But the bigger challenge is deciding which of the multi-track panels to pick among others scheduled at the same time.

This year, I’m looking right at the fest’s panels beginning Saturday’s 3 o’clock hour. I’m torn between “History: Unknown Los Angeles,” including panelist D.J. Waldie, and “The Future of News” with Times editor Russ Stanton. Also in the same hour: a California mystery novelist panel with Robert Crais, T. Jefferson Park, and Joseph Wambaugh, and another called “Humor & Race” with Lalo Alcaraz, moderated by Tod Goldberg. Again, all begining at either 3 or 3:30. Decisions, decisions!

Earlier in the day, scheduling picks are little easier, but still some sacrifices need to be made. “Status Update: Social Networking & New Media” at 10:30am is a no brainer – heck, Wil Wheaton is a panelist. ‘Nuff said. Even though it will run through  ”Future of Power & Partisanship” panel with Mickey Kaus beginning at 11:30am.

Fortunately, this still leaves enough gap in my schedule to head over to a “Broken Government” panel pitting Amy Goodman against Hugh Hewitt.

Sunday appears to have less challenges, but your mileage will vary depending on your own interests. (Mine tend to be: 1. The future or current state of news, 2. Anything to do with Southern California, 3. Current issues/politics.) For my heartbreaking Sunday choices, click here to read more.

Local “funny guys” Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel, and Scott Aukerman will be live Twittering the midnite opening of “Crank: High Voltage” tonite at the AMC Burbank 16, and invite you to bring your cell phone and join them, or tweet from the theatre of your choice.

Yeah, you read this right: they’re actually encouraging people to text during a movie! What kind of assholes would do such a thing?

Answer: apparently, assholes with rules. The flier for the “Twitpix” event has a few tips, including sitting in the back row so as not to disturb fellow film goers, and if someone complains to either comply or move. More here.

BTW, the guys behind this are pretty tight with that whole UCB Comedy Death Ray thing, so expect some special guests to show up.

This weekend the LA Convention Center plays host to the 10th annual Fangoria Convention, where stars from horror and sci-fi film and television projects, among other artists dabbling in the macabre, will converge.

Among the festivities:

• Panels and signings featuring (among many, many others): Sam Raimi, Thomas Dekker (John Conner from “The Sarah Conner Chronicles”, Sybil Danning (“V”), John Saxon, Shannon Lark (pictured at right), and, oh yes, ladies,  Corey Haim (the blonde Corey).
• Seminars and workshops including “Writing Horror” with Clive Barker,  ”Low Budget Filmmaking” with Herschell Gordon Lewis, and “Filmmaking 101″ with Tobe Hooper (“Poltergeist,” arguably).
• As ridiculed by Sean, on Saturday morning a zombie walk will terrorize the living attending other conventions being held downtown (including a SoCal Home Buyer’s Fair and the NBC/Telemundo Health & Fitness Expo). This zombie walk hopes to break the world number for largest number of participants, but more importantly is a charity event for the Los Angeles food bank. Details here.

Read the rest of this entry →

Okay, so the headline is only half true.

Blogger Fightin’ Mad Mary writes that she took a co-worker, a dead ringer for Miley Cyrus, to Hollywood Blvd. over the new Hannah Montana movie’s opening weekend. She was immediately welcomed into the inner circle of other costumed characters, complimented by Superman, given tips by Spider-Man on how to get tips, and learned:

Finding a place to hang out as a character is sort of like finding a spot on the beach to claim for the day. You don’t want to be too close to the other characters, so you just kind of find a spot that feels right.

Good advice. Before hitting the Chinese Theatre side of the street, however, they were encountered by less friendly staff at the El Capitan Theatre:

We started on the side of the street in front of the El Capitan theater. Security came out and like a mad hornet they wouldn’t stop buzzing around us until we crossed the street. They claim that the sidewalk in front of the theater is private property and they would call the cops because we were trespassing. That’s a pretty ridiculous claim if you ask me, a public sidewalk is “private” property??? It wasn’t worth arguing with the security guy since the bigger crowd was across the street so we left without incident. 

Mary didn’t disclose how much money Miley made that day, but I’m more curious to know how much the El Capitan Theatre has to pay to own a public sidewalk?

It opens in Santa Monica with blues legend Roger Ridley performing on the 3rd Street Promenade, and ends up becoming something, much, much more.

I strongly recommend cranking up the audio on your computer and putting the video up full screen.

Prepare for chills. Prepare to be energized to change the world. Read the rest of this entry →

If you’re still stubbornly for gay marriage and have no respect for peoples rights, then fear not:

“A rainbow coalition of every creed and color are coming together in love to protect marriage.” 

And this video is their testament.

A California doctor says gay marriage will force her to choose between her faith and her job. A young woman says, “My freedom will be taken away.”

Really, you intolerant, heterophobic bastards, don’t you know that your goals could threaten what happens in straight peoples homes across the United States? (h/t BoingBoing)

Consumerist.com reports that a “card skimmer” was recently found on a local Chase/WaMu ATM.

Skimmers are little doodads that fit over the card slot, look like they belong there, but end up capturing your card number as you slide it into the machine. Some skimmers even have a tiny camera that record the keypad as you enter your pin number. Ahh, the wonders of technology!

Feeling paranoid? You should be. For more on how skimmers work, and how to spot one, check out The Consumerist.

Tomorrow night NBC premieres “Southland,”  a new drama from John Wells (“ER”) that follows  officers and detectives with the LAPD. If you’re impatient, you can stream the pilot via their site (available til Friday), or download on iTunes, as I did a couple days ago.

In the meantime, NBC has an online quiz asking if viewers know what a Code 3 or a 10-98 means. If you’ve either spent a bit of time listening to police scanners, or, ahem, riding in the back of a cruiser, you’ll probably score better than my lackluster 40%.

Check it out here.

My review after the jump… Read the rest of this entry →

Recently, Los Angeles Magazine has taken it upon themselves to crown Tom LaBonge, “Mr. Los Angeles.” No offense, to my City Councilman, but while I’d whole heartedly support him being called “Mayor of Hollywood,” I don’t believe he represents L.A. as a whole.

Apparently, the folks at the magazine had second thoughts, and have now decided to poll their readers on who deserves the “Mr. Los Angeles” title. Unfortunately, while they have a couple of worthy choices, there is at least one glaring omission, but even more WTFs?!

First up, LA Observed’s Kevin Roderick. Indeed, K-Rod, as some of us at Metblogs like to call him, is a blogging God. My daily read of his “Morning Buzz” supplanted my browsing the L.A. Times a few years ago. And he clearly has a love of the city. I’d even call him, “The King of Los Angeles New Media,” or “The Mayor of Wilshire Blvd., ” but not Mr. Los Angeles.

But largest WTF on the list is Wolfgang Puck. Do I even need to explain this? Heck, Bob Baker, of Marionette Theatre fame, a Los Angeles institution, deserves the title 10x more…. and even then doesn’t come close. Read the rest of this entry →

I want to live in Los Angeles
Not the one in Los Angeles
No, not the one in South California
They got one in South Patagonia

The lyrics don’t seem to make sense, and songwriter Frank Black himself said, “I was under the influence of a lot of coffee when I wrote this song, so I don’t really remember what it’s about, but I think it’s about linguistics.” 

But I can’t help think its a personal statement about how Los Angeles, a city where people come to realize their dreams, isn’t always what people want it be. Even longtime residents have an image of what Los Angeles is, or should be, that they have yet to find. Its the “grass is always greener” concept, but that life would be so much different on the other side of the hills, further or closer to the coast.

Whether or not this is the case overlooks that a number of Black’s other song’s make more direct references to Los Angeles in, usually, more tangible ways.

More, including the music video…

The top 10 favorite blogging moments as a Metblogs contributor

Allow me to indulge my reminiscing to celebrate this, my 1000th post with Los Angeles Metblogs. In no particular order:

 

#10: Moments with Barack.
After seeing him speak at the 2004 Democratic Convention, I had a gut feeling about that guy. So I was pretty excited when my first official press pass was for his  first L.A. appearance after announcing his intention to run for the White House. Nearly one year later, in January 2008, I was granted media access to the CNN Democratic Debate at the Kodak (posts here, here, here, here, and here) where my running coverage was even mentioned live on CNN… and then managed to sneak in with the photographers pool as Obama and Hillary Clinton hit the stage. Bringing things full circle, I was proud to be issued a White House Press Pool credential to attend Obama’s first Los Angeles appearance since becoming President at last month’s Town Hall event.
On a related political note, I thought I snagged some decent shots of then Presidential candidate John Edwards as he shook hands with Writers Guild protestors outside of NBC Studios in Burbank to be on the Tonight Show.

Read the rest of my personal greatest hits.

(Los Angeles) Fresh on the heels of receiving a preliminary NC-17 rating, Sascha Baron Cohen’s “Bruno” is having an advance sneak peek at 7:30pm tonight at the New Beverly Cinema. Tickets are $7, cash only, no advance sales. First come first serve!

(while not confirmed, I heard a rumor that Bruno himself and/or the director may show up for a post film q&a).

The internationally shot mockumentary has at least a few scenes reportedly shot in Los Angeles, including footage of the gay title character crashing a Prop 8 rally last November (the protestors were unwitting participants in the filming), or his infiltrating the set of NBC’s “Medium” as an unruly extra (reportedly by claiming to be a cousin of the network’s president).

The New Beverly is at 7165 W. Beverly.

BTW, in case you missed it, my video tour of the New Beverly’s projection booth from Monday.

 

(Los Angeles / West Hollywood) A vehicle struck at least three pedestrians at the intersection of La Brea & Fountain around 6:30pm this evening. A 65 year old woman was pronounced dead at the scene, and man and woman, both 50, are in critical condition, according to alerts sent by LAFD spokeswoman d’Lisa Davies. The driver of the vehicle was mentioned to have minor injuries and was taken into custody.

*Update (11:30pm): LA Now reports that a second woman has died as a result of her injuries, and the male remains in critical condition.

 

KCAL9 reports LaBrea is was closed for a few hours in both directions for several blocks while the accident scene, which involved three vehicles, was investigated.

A brief live shot by KTLA news showed a single body covered with a white sheet on the sidewalk just feet from the front doors to High Voltage Tattoos, the main location of the reality series L.A. Ink.

While there is no indication as to the cause of the accident, this intersection, where a red light camera is installed, is notorious for having several serious accidents in past years. Most notably, last July actor Shia LeBouf flipped his pickup truck after being struck by another vehicle. And in December, 2007, another vehicle smashed into the corner of the same building at the southwest corner of Franklin & LaBrea, which a reader at the time noted wasn’t the first time that corner had been struck in an accident.

Ever since I was given a quick peek inside the New Beverly’s projection booth last year I’ve been wanting to return with a video crew to document one of L.A.’s coolest little nooks. Reels of countless trailers from the past 7 or so decades were stacked to the ceiling, and just about every remaining bit of wall space was covered with every calendar/schedule the New Bev had printed since it reopened as a revival house just over 30 years ago. It was a film geek’s paradise.

I still haven’t arranged the video crew for a visit, but last week, FlipCam in hand, projectionist Adam Trash invited up to the booth for brief tour. Here’s the result:

Read the rest of this entry →