Caught a case of food poisoning last Saturday, which put the whole day’s plans in the blender.

Ever since a particularly rabid case of food poisoning about six years ago (lasted a week, caused me to lose ten pounds in five days), I’ve been more than a bit sensitive to under-cooked food. As a result, I’ll end up poisoned at least once a year.

Good times.

But this time I refused to let it keep me down. I had a photo shoot to…shoot.

So I went. Met the model and my assistant there. And got right down to business.

The business of lying on my back, damn near delirious, while my assistant did all the shooting.

But I’ll tell ya, the model was going through some issues, and I had all the answers, man. The pain, she really crystalized things for me, allowed me to cut through it all, get to the heart of the problem.

And of course the model didn’t listen. They never do. And I told her that, too, pain having made me wicked honest.

Then I went home and had bread for dinner and slept 12 hours.

Now it’s back to lying and clouded thoughts.

Katie West is a Toronto-based photographer, and one of the first photographers whose work I saw and fell in love with on Flickr. Since that time, two years ago, when I first saw her work, we’ve become great friends, and I thought it’d be interesting to take a look at her views on her art. So here we go: (more…)

Big congratulations to BAT founding member Scott (Danny Eagle) Moe and Jennifer Tuozzolo, who went and got engaged late last week.

All of us her at the BAT would like to offer our condolences, as this is the end of any fun they will ever have for the rest of their lives, as they sink into the black hole of matrimony, where all hope dies.

But hey, IT’S GONNA BE THE BEST WEDDING EVER!!!!!!!!

And I promise not to mention, during my over-long speech that I’m sure you’ll let me give, about that time Scott killed a hooker, or Jen’s short stint as a Taliban training officer.

MAZEL TOV, BITCHES.

I was gonna write up my thoughts on the election, but I’m lazy.

So I asked my mom to do it, instead:

Debra (San Diego)
November 4th, at around 8:40 pm PST, I had an out of body experience. Barak Obama was declared the 44th President Elect of the United States of America.

I am a long-time activist and a proponent of civil rights, women’s rights and human rights. I believed in the utopian premise of one world, one people as a free thinker in the 1960’s and worked to call attention to the cause. I took to the streets to oppose the war in Vietnam. In the 1970’s, I fell in love with a man whose family emigrated from Panama when he was seven and whose roots were Jamaican, Haiitian and African. (more…)

I was gonna write up a piece on how I felt right after the election was over, but I’m lazy.

So instead I went and asked some folks I know. Here’s what they had to say:

Leiana (New York)
“Your President Elect, Barak Obama”….and then we were all suddenly on the street, great masses of us, spilling out of bars and apartments and corner bodegas, cutting through the tense silence with screams and cries. I hugged everyone within arms distance including the crackheads who live on my sidewalk and the gangsters and the yuppies and the hipsters. Tearfully and joyfully we spun each other around and whispered “we did it, we did it” into each others ears. This was my new America. I called my fiance to tell him that we could think about having babies now, this new brave world was finally a place I could call home.

Two hours later, after Jermaine had been aggressively following me around the bar for an hour begging me to go home with him and “make a Barak Obabma,” and insisting that “my man din’t have to know” and the bartender asked me to call 911 cause a “mexican had a knife” outside, I reached into my purse and quietly took my birth control pill. It is my new America, but we have a lot of work left to do. (more…)

Kevin Mason, better known on the internet as Dark Daze, is a UK-based photographer I’ve been following for a few years now. I’ve been reading a bunch of interviews with photographers, thought it’d be fresh to interview Kevin, see where his head’s at, what makes him tick. So here we go: (more…)

Another laid-back weekend, another session of bad movie watching. The question is, are there enough bad movies to keep me busy in the foreseeable future?

I say YES.

First: Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Not goofy enough to be enjoyable. Not spectacular enough to distract me from the mediocre acting. But the thing that really tipped the scales in this movie? The Big Bad. Galactus. Now, in the comics, Galactus is a planet-sized dude dressed in purple. Silly, of course. But he EATS PLANETS. NOM NOM NOM. I don’t care how the guy’s dressed, he eats planets, he’s got my vote for Scary Motherfucker.

But in the movie? Clouds. You heard me. Clouds. Galactus is a bunch of clouds that just kind of…um…surround a planet? make it ’splode? {shakes head in shame} If they’d have shown me a huge dude in a purple suit, I’d have bought the movie. Bought it and showed it to anyone who entered my home. “This,” I’d say, “this is a sign of bravery and spirit on the part of the filmmakers.”

I will not be showing anyone clouds.

Next: The Invasion.

Everyone involved in this movie should be forced to give $1000000 each to world relief organizations. The millions spent on this film were not only wasted, but serve as a big Fuck You to places that could really use that money. It’s not just stupid. Not just bad. It is infused with horrible. Bad movie is in each & every cell of this film. Every frame. Bad writing. Bad acting. Bad direction. Even the costumers. Even the key grips. Everyone in the credits is to blame for this. Except the guy who wrote the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers film, upon which this crap-fest is based. Because he’s dead. Otherwise he’d be on the hook for this, as well.

Things just…happen, in this film. People make stupid choices like it was their job, plot points occur without reason, editing choices are extremely arbitrary. It’s a how-not-to-make-a-movie documentary, really.

And this was the Nice version of this review!

Found myself unexpectedly home all day friday, as there was no work to be had.

Which just shows how cuckoo bananas my life is, when I want to work but can’t.

And so, in lieu of crying myself to sleep and counting all my remaining pennies, I went and downloaded the worst big-budget movies I could find, and initiated the Day Off Movie Marathon.

First up: The Happening.

Oy vey, such a wonderful film. It has been an age since I saw a film that was, from start to finish, horrible in every single way. The acting…well, it’s not acting. It was people who had memorized lines. No, wait, it Was acting. It was robots acting like people, famous people who are actors. It was delicious, that’s the best way to describe it. It was like rolling around in $240 worth of pudding, watching the tone-deaf performances. They were only surpassed by the actual script, which has people attempting to outrun the film’s villain: The Wind. Yes, the wind. And they do! They beat the wind!! Yay!!!!!!! -40 out of 10.

Next: The Incredible Hulk.

I liked when the Hulk beat things up and yelled. And when the Hulk made a sad face. And when the Hulk used brazilian ju-jitsu breathing to defeat his enemy, The Abomination. The rest was a bit dull. But better than the clusterfuck that was Ang Lee’s HULK.

Next: Wanted.

Is Angelina Jolie still attractive? I think, being the Jewish mother I am, she should eat more. She looks too skinny. Oh, and the movie made very little sense. The action scenes were kind of interesting. But mainly I’m worried for Ms. Jolie’s health.

I capped the day off with Doomsday, which can be summed up thusly: Take two tablespoons of The Road Warrior, three tablespoons of Escape From New York, one teaspoon Robin Hood, a dash of Gladiator, sprinkle some Dawn of the Dead, and place on top actress Rhona Mitra, for garnish. Mix vigorously. Do not watch.

I kept watching bad movies over the weekend, made my way through the Bourne Ultimatum (better than the second, not as good as the first) and half way through Speed Racer, which, literally, is a film made for retarded people. It is dumb and shiny and if you say it’s for children I would ask that you show me these children, that I may kill them, thus ensuring our planet’s future is safe from the criminally stupid.

Celebrated my birthday last week.

Wait, that’s wrong. I’ve been celebrating my birthday since last week, with plans to continue celebrating for at least another six days or so.

For the past five years I’ve had a bbq, but this year, turning the ripe old age of 31, the thought of organizing and coordinating and mingling was just a bit too much.

For I am seriously old now. All the classics now refer to me. Don’t trust anyone older than me. In Logan’s Run, I’d be turned to ash. I should have, by all rights, sold out by now.

Back aches, food don’t digest as fast, can’t remember a damned thing.

Today is the first monday of being 31. Jesus was walking the earth, gathering knowledge.

But that’s because the poor bastard didn’t have the internet. So I’m just gonna chill here at the laptop for awhile.

Every once in awhile I come across something that reminds me that everything just might be okay someday. Today it was this:

The power of what we don’t know is infinite.

Yesterday I met my friend Andrew for lunch at the copious cafeteria at the svelte, newly constructed New York Times building. It’s a soaring obelisk of a building that possesses a green design that apparently begs for scaling. I had a mixed green salad with a side of cottage cheese and some tuna for lunch. It sustained me nicely…

Whenever I go there to meet him for lunch I always spend five minutes or so staring in to the Moveable Type art installation that lives in the lobby. I stand there, lost in its algorithmic chance, digesting the informational chaos, completely transfixed. It’s an amazing work—you should check it out…

Every once in awhile one of the screens extracts some random nugget of news that reminds me that everything just might be fucked. Yesterday it was this: “Natural stupidity will always trump artificial intelligence.” And this was selected by a computer…

The power of what we do know is frightening.

Fair or not, there are practically no avenues in life in which pure physical obesity may garnish someone clout, wealth, fame, or sexual opulence. Even football players and Sumo wrestlers must possess some degree of athleticism and strength to succeed. The lone exception to this rule is hip hop, where corpulence is not only embraced and celebrated, but can be used as a platform to catapult one’s self in to mega stardom. Personally, I think it’s awesome. Even awesomer is that you get to select a rap moniker that directly communicates your heft to the masses for maximum impact, making sure that everyone knows you’re large and in charge…

Portly pioneers of this phenomenon include none other than Heavy D (a.k.a. the Overweight Lover), Chubb Rock, and, of course, The Fat Boys. They ate up the competition, and the fitness of their fatness forged the way for future hip hop heavyweights. And, as hip hop grew, so did some of its “biggest” stars. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, you hip hop heads of the blogosphere, who have no doubt “poured a l’il out” for fallen flablayered rhymesayers such as Big Pun and the colossal talent that was The Notorious B.I.G…

The one drawback to exploiting one’s size for fame is that you’re forever beholden to your tubby persona, and probably must take great efforts to maintain your weight. When you sign your record deal, you are likewise signing a deal with the devil’s food cake. It’s shape out or ship out, folks. As they say in the industry—No pain, no gain…

I recently got a first hand look at this dietary regimen upon a visit to the famous Katz’s Deli in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. There I was, slurping down some matzo ball soup, plunging my latkes in to apple sauce, and excitedly awaiting the arrival of my mustardy delicious pastrami on rye. I probably waited so long because a certain someone was hungrily devouring the majority of their meat supply nearby, and that certain someone was none other than one Fat Joe, draped in velvety purple and shaped like a Velveeta Grimace. He was a manatee of a man, and the way he was cramming down that sandwich he must be a butcher’s wet dream. His sausage link fingers were slathered in greasy flotsam, and his heaving mouth hole was at maximum meat capacity. His blinged out Terror Squad entourage seemed Lilliputian by comparison, and even the table seemed toylike before his mowing magnitude…

I was awed by his appetite, and inspired by his gluttonous dedication to his craft. While I know he did not climb the pop charts on cellulite alone (being able to rap helps too), watching him wolf down deli delights like that made me realize that he truly embodied the title of his last album, The Elephant in the Room. It also made me wonder what his Katz’s Deli rap song would be like, and I wondered if it would be like this:

My name’s Fat Joe and I’m not a fat Jew,
But eatin’ some pastrami is what I’m gonna do.
Puttin’ deli in my belly, ain’t a damn thing soy based,
You dudes who is skinny make me wanna say “Oi vei”!

My size 86 waist has a taste for kosher dishes,
So don’t 86 my order, just make haste with them knishes!
I shoulda wore a fuckin bib cuz grease be makin’ me unkempt,
All this meat be a mitzvah and it’s makin’ me ferclempt!

My chubby chasin’ peeps out there—feel free to add your own verses…

First and foremost, let it be known I bailed out before all this happened. I’ve never much enjoyed strip clubs, and in this economy I just couldn’t afford the expense.

But my friends could, and unfortunately they found that, this particular night, the price was far higher than expected.

For our friend’s birthday, the plan was dinner and stripper. Easy enough.

The sushi was delicious, then I dropped the crew off at Crazy Girls, made my way home for an early night.

And here’s where it all went sideways. A man got too frisky during a lapdance, got ejected. Drunkenly threatens patrons with a bottle. Is ushered to the foyer, where he gets in an argument with his friends. And is promptly pepper-sprayed.

Said pepper spray is carried on the air and affecting everyone in the club and forcing an impromptu evacuation.

After everyone gets a good dose of fresh air, folks go back in. Not too long later, a dancer who is obviously drunk beyond comprehension, FALLS off the pole.

And is immediately followed, not by another dancer, but by the owner’s son, who decides to turn the place into a karaoke joint, he and his friends singing along to the music as off-key and unpleasantly as possible. Patrons leave in droves, and thus the night is at an end.

During all this, the manager yells at his bartender, gets himself drunk, runs around the club checking patrons for obvious signs of criminal narcotic activity. Dancers openly complain about the shenanigans.

Now my question is this: how does this not happen every night? For a strip club located right off the Sunset Strip, how is this place not the most torrid scenes from Carlito’s Way on a daily basis? Everyone was shocked at how hyphy it was, but this is exactly what I want from a strip club. I would’ve been in the front row of the stage if I’d known this was what was in store.

Women wearing pasties and dancing as if dosed with quaaludes doesn’t do it for me. When it comes to seeing women nude, if I hear the music, I wanna dance. I see nudity, I’d very much like to have sex. Not sit there getting drunker and poorer.

But coked-up dudes getting maced? Strippers having pole malfunctions? The staff having Boogie Nights-style meltdowns?

This is the Hollywood I love.

I had the distinct pleasure of going golfing for the first time in my life this past weekend. I think my pal Andrew summed it up best for me, “This is awesome, no wonder why douche bags do it!”

(Note: I know many non-douche bags who golf.)

For those who’ve never golfed, let me try to put it in simple terms. Imagine spending an entire day in the most manicured park you’ve ever set foot it; no dog poop, broken glass or hypodermic needles to be found. The park is so big you need a go-kart to drive through it, and it’s encouraged that you drink while driving this go-kart. If you run out of beer, an old man will come by and take beer orders. He’ll magically appear 20 minutes later with a sack of suds. When you’re not driving through the quiet scenery, you’re drilling golf balls wherever they may go, in the vain attempt to get them near a hole that is roughly 6 city blocks from where you are. When you finally get close, skills from mini-golf come into play. If you’re golfing with us, you’ve downloaded Journey’s “Any Way You Want It” to play out of your phone speaker while you re-enact Caddy Shack on that final put. Make no mistake, I will be golfing again.