Rich Man Hard To Work With: The Jeffrey Gundlach Story @1:35 PM
Fortune lays out the wild story, which has been hot out in Los Angeles recently, of bond fund manager Jeffrey Gundlach, who made a huge fortune but was something of a annoying person! This happens frequently. He was fired back in November, from TCW, the LA-based, Société Générale-owned money management company, where he oversaw the majority of the firm's money: $70 billion. He was so disliked that 45 of the 60 people who worked for him followed him to a new firm. Lawsuits followed, imaginably! The best part is that when he quit, he walked down 17 flights of stairs, followed by his bosses. That's Los Angeles drama: actual use of stairs. But times are still tough for Gundlach. While setting up his new firm? "He showed up at meetings in January with a black eye and cuts on his face, which he says came from tripping and colliding with his desk at home. On Feb. 1, his wife of more than 20 years, Nancy, filed for divorce." Oh dear. 3
Nina Hartley in the Valley @4:10 PM
Tom Byron, who used to fuck Traci Lords for money and also date her, lives on a nice suburban street in Granada Hills, in the San Fernando Valley. Recently he was directing a scene at his house for the latest installment of Seasoned Players, recognized as "Best MILF Series" at the 2010 Adult Video News Awards.
Nina Hartley was getting into makeup when I showed up. A 50-year-old self-described sex-positive feminist and venerated industry veteran, Hartley was dressed for the shoot in a long black skirt, puffy white top, high heels and Sarah Palin glasses. READ MORE 43
Bed Bugs: Is No One Safe? @12:11 PM
Bed bugs are shameless. They are the pest equivalent of a party guest who comes out of the bathroom and boldly announces that they just snooped through your medicine cabinet and you’re like, “No shit, asshole. You left your fingerprints everywhere.” They have no boundaries. That kind of boldness is not cute in people and it’s even less cute in flesh-eating creatures of the night.
It doesn't matter if you're fabulous or young or in need of a body that men want to touch, because things that lack shame don’t understand the importance of all that. If you live in an area where old mattresses line the street and foot traffic is heavy, you can get bed bugs no matter how amazing you are. In fact, here in Koreatown, I would say that the bed bugs are the only residents who don’t actively discriminate against anyone. READ MORE 68
The End of the 00s: The Hollywood Crowd, by Ken Wheaton @9:30 AM
The year was 2007. Broken-hearted after the New Orleans Saints lost to Chicago in the NFC Championship game, I flew out to Los Angeles to hang out with my best friend from college, Doug. Doug was doing grad work in marine biology at USC. A smart guy, even if he was from Jersey. But even more impressive than his brains and his fancy science trips to Antarctica and his ability to laugh off my global-warming denialism without slapping me, were his drinking and football-watching skills. Also, for a sciency, white-trash sort from New Jersey, he ran with a Hollywood crowd. READ MORE 6
Is Israeli organized crime getting out of hand in Los Angeles? They are kneecapping rabbis. @12:20 PM 3
The California Cougar Convention and "Carefully Regulated Patriarchal Societies" @4:20 PM
"I was told that if I played this song, I'd get a lot of people on the dance floor," said Jeff the DJ. He had been absentmindedly scrolling through his iTunes. The next words came from Gloria Gaynor, proclaiming that she had been, at first, both afraid and petrified. A handful of women came to the center of the dance floor, ignoring the men. This song was for the women. They'd earned it. And you don't have to be a shrink to understand why I Will Survive had a resonance at the California Cougar Convention at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills. READ MORE 25
Where Were You When the Berlin Wall Fell? @11:25 AM
Where were you when the Berlin Wall fell on this fine day in November of 1989? I remember it vividly. That was the year they were playing "Nothing Compares 2 U" all the time. I lived in a one bedroom apartment two blocks off Hollywood Boulevard, in the city of golden dreams, with a nice young former waitress named Dawn, who right around that time received a free roundtrip ticket to Hawaii from the apartment building manager/hooker who lived with his wife and child and sometimes his male lover across the courtyard. READ MORE 85
Super Young Designer Makes Ugly Stuff. Sorry. @4:30 PM
I'm sure Gabby Applegate, the 19-year-old designer of Witches, is a very nice girl. And as an older female I don't enjoy pulverizing the plucky spirit of the youf unless there's a cash prize but I just saw her 2010 spring/summer lookbook hoping to see dewy-skinned, clear-eyed promise and sadly didn't.
This stuff is fugs. And for the most part it's not her fault since it is a very specific Los Angeles flavor of bad. READ MORE 28
Two Weeks Out: The Haus of Gaga, Genesis P-Orridge, Hamlet, Destroyer @12:08 PM
And now, our irregular but handy guide to happenings in New York, L.A. and the rest of the world! Oh hey, remember when MTV's video music awards had some level of relevance in our lives? No? Wait, what about when Jean-Paul Gaultier designed Madonna's colonial orgy for the VMA's. It was such a delicious confection of fashion, pop, and spectacle; everyone was like "oooh, this is pretty AND IMPORTANT!" Has such a theatrical, crazed moment played out on the VMA stage since? Well no. Even when Kanye or Fall Out Angel Waves or whomever does a ditty for the broadcast, it always feels like some afterthought on a publicity tour. But not Lady Gaga. She's set to take the stage on Sept 13th and in her words "inspire a movement." Oh, the Gags. READ MORE 9
A Friendly Chat: Molly McAleer on Blogging, Auditioning, Videoing, Making It and Networking In Los Angeles @12:30 PM
Molly McAleer has about sixty million projects going right now, and one of them is going to lead to something that is going to make her rich and famous-famous, as opposed to Internet famous. Her current renown stems in some part from the irreverent and often bonkers videos she made for Defamer, as their employee in 2008. Her current projects include: her blog (Molls She Wrote), her Twitter (Molls), her web series (The Molls Show, produced by Justine Bateman's FM78.tv), a reality show she is pitching with friend Chuck McCarthy (Boy Meets Blogger), guest blogging stints (including gossip blog Evil Beet), PR work for one friend's makeup company (Marakele Minerals) and another friend's movie (Stuntmen)—and most recently, auditioning for TV commercials (spots she is particularly interested in: personal lubricants, tampons). She spoke to me on a Wednesday afternoon from her new, smaller apartment (across the hall from her old, larger apartment), in Koreatown, Los Angeles. READ MORE 20
At the Forum: the Los Angeles Field Hospital @11:00 AM
The first sound you hear is the high-pitched wheeze of 60 dentists' drills buzzing inside of open mouths. Splayed out on a show floor generally reserved for millionaire athletes and rock bands are: a hundred dental chairs; five RVs filled with X-ray equipment; mammogram machines; a 60-person triage station; rubber gloved paramedics; long picnic tables of surgical equipment; and about 1,000 recipients of free healthcare. Since last Tuesday and until tomorrow, the Forum in Inglewood is the biggest free healthcare clinic in Los Angeles. The bill will be picked up by the Remote Area Medical Expedition, a 1,300-person volunteer effort of medical professionals. RAM got their start treating villagers in the Amazon in 1985. Now they have ventured to the first world—their first time treating patients in Los Angeles. READ MORE 20
"The Rape of Africa" Coming to L.A. @4:45 PM
I got sort of excited when I just now got the invite to the new David LaChapelle show in L.A., at David DeSanctis Gallery next month, featuring his "monumental" photograph "The Rape of Africa," recently shown in Amsterdam. Because I thought at first that they meant Dave Chappelle, and he was doing some very serious branching out. So even though that would be much better, still I guess I would go see it. 0
Nora Ephron Owns New York @9:44 AM
Last night's Sony screening of "Julie and Julia," at the Lincoln Square movie theater, was bananas. It was more like a Woody Allen opening on the Upper West Side, and you know what that is like. People were waiting downstairs in an extraordinary wrap-around-the-lobby-press-line—poor New York Times critic Stephen Holden showed up not at all early and actually did a double take between the press tickets table and the end of the line. (To his credit, he hopped on the back of the line.) There were even people in the line who had been turned away from the last big-theater pre-screening. This screening looked a lot like the one, held in the same theater, for King Kong—a crazy rush of anticipation. Why? Could it perhaps have been… all the pre-press? READ MORE 7
The Lazy Assistants of William Morris Endeavor @10:50 AM
There are a couple of things that William Morris Endeavor clients are hot to buy rights for! Like, someone there totally wants to write a screenplay about Allen Stanford, the alleged total financial crook, and they want to get his life rights. Or get his life rights through the recent Vanity Fair piece on him, if that's easier. And also there is interest in Devin Friedman's GQ article, "Will You Be My Black Friend?" Why do we know these useless bits of information? Because someone in the "story department" at WME will not stop emailing their j-school alumni list-serv whenever this person wants someone's email address. Oh honey, it's a recession! You should work a little harder, since, you know, people are getting laid off left and right, and because it is a "challenging, anxiety provoking and at times nerve wracking" time there? Anyway, here is Devin Friedman's email address! I found it through the Google! 5
The Hollywood Walk of Fame, During the Michael Jackson Funeral @10:00 AM
It's rare that a stroll down Hollywood Boulevard nourishes your faith in humanity. But yesterday, the Day That Pop Died, was nothing special. I was expecting a cataclysmic scene torn from The Day of the Locust: a mob of ordinary folk, gathered as if at a movie premiere, turning violent, trampling each other just to look at stars. Or, you know, dead stars. Or the idea of stars. Carnage, brought on by boredom and disappointment, and backlit by military-strength spotlights. But it was really just like any other day in Hollywood. READ MORE 2
Villaraigosa Not Running For Governor @4:48 PM
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced today that he would not seek the Democratic nomination for California governor in 2010 so that he could better focus on fucking attractive TV reporters his city's financial troubles. 5
Hot For Summer: Burlap @1:14 PM
The way we—well, some of us; no one I know—live now: with the illusion of frugality!
Coffee tables made from barrels. Lamps crafted from brooms. Chairs swathed in burlap and sackcloth. Look at the some of the newest furniture on the market, and the recession appears to have really hit home. But irony alert: This new brand of shabby chic doesn't come cheap.At the Dan Marty showroom in the Pacific Design Center, the heart of West Hollywood's design scene and the place where top decorators shop for their wealthy clients, light fixtures made from old French apple baskets carry $1,600 price tags and canopy chairs upholstered in burlap sell for $3,600 a pair.
You'd better believe there's more! 9
The Rich In Los Angeles Are Suffering! @10:00 AM
Postcard from Los Angeles! "Months before financial markets collapsed in fall 2008, boutique proprietor Lee-Lee Sprenger noticed that her usually free-spending customers were flinching at $900 price tags on sweaters fresh from Italy." 3
Everything Is Rotten In L.A. @7:57 AM
And finally, the ongoing feud between ex-friends Sharon Waxman (late of the Times and now the editrix of Starbucks-backed The Wrap) and Nikki Finke (the blogess of Deadline Hollywood Daily) has exploded. Because, really, how much more time would we have to spend considering ecology or our tiny lifespans if we didn't get to hear about this. It's reality T.V. except no one is filming! READ MORE 3
Kurt Andersen At Work! @10:02 AM
Novelist-radio host-columnist-Random House-scout Kurt Andersen in action in Los Angeles, "providing context" to the young. 0
