Here’s a quick photoblog.  We started the day with brunch on the Sunset Strip, and then headed to Book Soup.  The Getty Center was next on the agenda, and it couldn’t have been a more perfect day for that.  Deep blues skies, a nice breeze and 80°.  For dinner we headed to historic Chinatown for its 70th Anniversary party and had a great time.  Tomorrow we’re off to the beach.  Now, I’ll sleep. 

Best of the rest

The Hotel Careyfornia checked in four more guests today.  2 humans, and 2 more canines, making for a total of four dogs and three people in a 900 square foot condo.  (That’s OK, we once slept 21 here!)  My best friend Daniel and his daughter Tori arrived tonight for their annual visit.  For dinner we went to the grand opening of a new “interactive” restaurant at Hollywood & Highland called uWink.  They had a red carpet there that Tori got to walk, which was neat for her.  The celebrities were minor though, to say the least.  The owner of the place is the guy who invented Atari, Nolan Bushnell.  The restaurant lets you order from touch screen kiosks at your table and play interactive games with other tables.  It also features a 12 ft long interactive multi-touch bar that literally brings the bar top to life, letting customers use fingers, hands and drink glasses to conjure up digital flora and fauna, digitally paint the bar top, play a game of pong and ultimately order food and drinks from a digital menu. 

Tori & Dad on the Red Carpet

Interactive touch screen at our table.

Look Ma, I can use a touch screen.

The inventor of Atari

Garbo, Ruby, Abbie, Nina & Daniel

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
“There was an interesting study released today which says that people
who live here in the state of California are less convinced that there
is a God than the people of any other state in the country. On an
unrelated note, more than 800 wildfires here in California are
currently burning out of control.  They were started by a series of freak lightning storms last weekend.”  –Jimmy Kimmel

It’s summer, and the busy season at the Hotel Careyfornia is in full swing.  Daniel & Tori are coming next weekend, and possibly Donna too.  Claudio & Ryan were nice enough to pay us a visit this past weekend.  Tomorrow they’re leaving for Brazil for a month in hopes that Claudio will get his visa to teach at the University of California in the fall.  They will be leaving their car here (apparently the Valet Parking rates at the Hotel Careyfornia are a bit cheaper than LAX), so if Claudio doesn’t get a visa, I guess I’ll finally have a car.    I hope he gets it though; I would hate to see him end up like poor little Elian Gonzalez!

By the way, speaking of “little” Elian, he’s 16 now and just joined the Communist Party last week.  He’s also affecting the Obama campaign!

The trademark Claudio sneer that he developed in the early 90′s as we traveled through Europe together and I constantly asked him to pose for pictures.  It has since become legend!

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My “footprints” (that show who came to my site) had two rather odd Google searches this week (actually one was Yahoo) that returned my blog as a hit.  Someone from Singapore was searching for “sperm + toilet” and was directed to my entry from August 3, 2007 entitled:

Designer Sperm, Toilet Dining, Self Gifting & Rental Goats

and someone from Iran searched for “woman + picture” and ended up here:

Picture Perfect LA, Repulsive Women Drivers, A GLY Visitor and iPhone schmyPhone!

Considering the “woman” in the “picture” in that post was one on the most repulsive I’ve ever seen, Yahoo probably didn’t do much to foster Iranian/American relations.  LOL.

On the way home from the airport tonight, we saw this obnoxious Hollywood wombat, driving with her foot out the window, while smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone! Are you fu**ing kidding me!!??  She barely noticed my flash going offas I took the picture and gave her the most disgusted look I couldmuster.  This girl symbolizes nearly everything I hate in life!  And yes, I know I’m being sexist, but let’s face it, would you ever see a man doing this?  I thought not.

No clues as to why the person in Singapore was searching for sperm + toilet!  (My guess is they were looking for this:  http://www.dearcupid.org/question/can-you-get-pregnant-from-sperm-on-toilet.html) If you’re reading this Mr. (Ms.??) Singapore, don’t be a stranger. 

When Amos and I were told we could not take photographs on “private property” at the Pacific Design Center the other night; the more I thought about it, the angrier I became.  So I did a little research, and as it turns out, I’m not the only one who’s angry or confused.  And even after reading all of this information, I’m still not clear as to whether I have a right to photograph Garbo & Ruby at the Pacific Design Center, or the lawn of Beverly Hills City Hall (another place I was kicked out of by the police for taking pictures without a permit a few years ago.  If you really want to be shocked, take a look at what the city charges for a permit!!), or the subway, or the Port of Los Angeles.  If anyone is interested in reading up on this, here are a few links:

You Can’t Photograph That!!
Taking pictures on LA’s Red Line violates the “9/11 Law”
Orwellian Los Angeles
Two FBI agents just showed up at my door… (I think I’m being investigated)
This is Broken – Anti Photo Policies
Photographer grills security guard about dumb policy
Photography and the Law:  Know Your Rights
Your Rights and Remedies When Stopped or Confronted for Photography

Yet, according to this article in USA Today, “You can take photos any place that’s open to the public, whether or not
it’s private property. A mall, for example, is open to the public. So
are most office buildings (at least the lobbies). You don’t need
permission; if you have permission to enter, you have permission to
shoot.” 

Amos isn’t even allowed to bring his zoom lens to sporting events!  So, if he wanted to get a closeup of David Beckham’s package like this:

He’s have to work for Getty Images!!  (Or Armani:)

Gratuitous Beckham shot that has nothing to do with this post.

So which is it?  Can I photograph the dogs at the PDC or not?  It seems that in just the past week I’ve broken many laws, like:

Photographing the elevated train tracks in Chicago.  Is that REALLY an iPod ad??

Photographing the Port of Los Angeles from the air.  Is that a nuclear submarine??

Fraternizing with known drug users!  (I didn’t inhale during this photo.)

If I don’t blog tomorrow, you’ll know the FBI arrested me, and whisked me off to Guantanamo.  (I hope I can share a cell with Harold & Kumar!).  Do you think Guantanamo has wi-fi?  Before I go however, I’m going to post these illegal photos that Amos took with his penis envy lens.

Even though that’s my watermark, Amos actually took these, and gets full credit.

The watermark goes on automatically when I shrink these for the blog.  The actual photos were about 9 MB each as .jpgs and even bigger in RAW format, but they look amazing.  It’s hard to tell when they’re this small.

Another illegal photograph I took at the PDC in February, of Roscoe.

I’ll end with this photo I secretly took today from my balcony (is that illegal??).  This guy was walking his dog in my front yard, and the dog has a TATTOO!!!!  If you look closely you’ll see a red heart on the dog’s hip.  I’ve heard of tattoos of dogs, but tattoos ON dogs??  I swear, only in LA.  LOL

I started dog-sitting Garbo & Ruby today for the next two weeks while their parents head back east.  Amos came over tonight to show off his new toy and to try to convince me to upgrade to digital SLR like his.  He’s really amazing.  He just took up photography six months ago, and he’s already taken these shots and many more:

I’ve been taking pictures since before he was born and I’ve never gotten shots like these!  Kids these days!

We went out for sushi, and I got to play with his camera a bit.  All I can say is WOW!    The following photos were all taken with my little SD850.  Amos will have to convert the RAW files we took with his camera and send them to me later.  I must admit, getting a camera like that is tempting.  Maybe I should sell my old EOS Elan IIE and AE1 Program?  Then again, judging from my luck with cameras this past year, maybe not!

Amos showed up in his new car, rubbing in the fact I still don’t have mine!

 
Size queen?

We went to the Pacific Design Center to take some photos with Amos’ camera, and after a few shots, the security guards told us that we would need a license to take photos on the property!  When I told them that I had taken many photos there over the years, they told us it was a new policy.  I let them know how utterly ridiculous and greedy this was, and made sure that Garbo & Ruby were partially touching the grass for this shot.  How annoying!

It was a long, hot weekend (100° + today).  Believe it or not,  I’m too tired to write tonight, so I’m just posting a few pics from yesterday and today, and will try to get to bed before 4 AM for once.  I can’t stay up for 29 hours straight like Jad.   (Of course, I’m not 21 anymore either…I’m exactly double his age….we share the same birthday 21 years apart.  The day I turned 21, September 6, 1986; Jad was born.  Kismet?  Ugh.  No wonder I’m tired.  LOL)

Another gorgeous day on Sunset Blvd.

Paul & Matt take advantage of the pool at the H.C.

Arielle soaking up the sun

Hannah & friends

Garbo & Ruby trying to stay cool

Sophia & Daddy

Jessica and her other babies

The most diverse park you’ll probably ever find

No, the bar at The Abbey wasn’t open

    
Sand Castles & Sesame Street.  The perfect end to a perfect day!

When I was in San Francisco the weekend before last, I posted this video on YouTube, that was set to the theme song of our GLY group of friends.  It was a video of the sunset at the beach and of a 3 year old playing soccer with our friends.  The music I used in MY video was from the soundtrack of Rent, a CD I probably bought 5 times before MP3s and iTunes became widely used in the mid 90′s.  I OWN the song….I’ve paid more than enough for it over the years.  So imagine my surprise when, within 5 minutes of uploading the video, I receive the following email from YouTube:

At first, I was pissed off at the intrusion, but when I thought about it, it was pretty cool.  YouTube had actually reached an agreement with a greedy corporate record company, and if they wanted to place a subtle ad on my video page to advertise the “Rent” soundtrack because people liked the song “Seasons of Love” that I put on MY video, then I guess that’s not so bad.  Right? As long as they let me keep my video, I was OK.

When I posted the same video my Facebook page though, it was a different story.  It took them a few days, but today, I got this email, and found this when I logged in to Facebook:

This was my reply to Facebook:

A closeup:

Why do I have a feeling this entreaty will fall on deaf ears?? 

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I had dinner with Seth, Jessica and Hannah tonight.  I’ve been on an Indian food kick of late, so we ate at India Sweet & Spices in Los Feliz.  It’s a gawdy cafeteria style restaurant, that plays Bollywood movies on a big screen all day and night.  LOL.  Good food though!  Look how much Hannah has grown in the past year:

May 2007

April 2008

We took the dogs on a walk and I liked this house :)

Click to view the rest of the photos from tonight.

I Tivo’d Oprah today and tried to watch it tonight, but couldn’t get through it.  The subject was puppy mills and it was SO hard to watch.  I’m glad Oprah did the show though, because it will make people think twice before ever buying a dog in a pet store.  This is “Shrimp”, before and after the puppy mill:

In January 2007, Bill rescued a Maltese-poodle mix from a breeder. The emaciated puppy had little hair and was close to death. Bill couldn’t leave him behind and adopted the little guy, naming him Shrimp.  Today, Shrimp is a happy and healthy member of Bill’s pack—and even wears a red bow in his full mane of hair. “Boy, what a makeover!” Oprah says.

Speaking of cute dogs, my cousin Darlene’s dog Roxy needs a boyfriend. 

Buster, the one eyed horndog, just isn’t cutting it. 

I’ve got a few candidates in mind.  My first choice would be to clone my dog Oreo who died in 1987.

Garbo is also in the running, though he and Ruby are currently betrothed.

I’d love for Chris to bring Gromit out to meet Roxy.  I think they’d make a cute couple!

Of course, I thought the same thing about Gromit & Oreo:

Gromit (L), Oreo (R) – Kindred Spirits

This week however, I met Ryno.  His owner Francis tell me he’s gay, but he hasn’t met Roxy yet, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.  Ryno is a Morkie.  (Maltese + Yorkie, also known as a Yorktese).  Isn’t he the cutest thing you’ve ever seen??  I’m definitely more into big dogs (Oreo was 85 lbs.) but look at that face!!

Have a nice weekend everyone!

What do these four people have in common you ask?  I have NO idea.  But this CRAZY woman’s car seems to make a case for them all being connected somehow.  It was parked on Santa Monica Blvd. while I walked the dogs this evening.  Despite her poor spelling and grammar, I’ve been able to gather she’s bitter about losing her child after reporting some family abuse.  It seems she supports Michael Jackson, as well as a host of other celebrities, from the bitches of “The View” (including Rosie “O’Donald”) to Elton John (all gay people as a matter of fact, including Ellen “Degenaras”)!  I guess if my car looked like this, I’d try to wallpaper it too.

I used the rest of our walk to take advantage of the gorgeous light at dusk.  These dogs are such great posers!

Leona was on Oprah yesterday.  It’s good for her, but sucks for those of us who loved her before Oprah annointed her.  Oh well.

It was a crazy day weatherwise in LA today.  It started out warm and sunny.  I’m still dog-sitting, so I took the pups on a long walk this morning.  We sat at a cafe for a while, and I read some more about my new camera.  It certainly has a lot of hidden features…though not quite this many:

Anyway, here are some shots I took of Garbo & Ruby, and of the storm front that moved through Los Angeles this afternoon.  Being close to St. Patrick’s Day, I was hoping for a rainbow, or at least a pot of gold.

A dreaded sunny day
So I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side

A dreaded sunny day
So I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
While Wilde is on mine

So we go inside and we gravely read the stones
All those people all those lives
Where are they now?
With the loves and hates
And passions just like mine
They were born
And then they lived and then they died
Seems so unfair
And I want to cry

You say: “ere thrice the sun done salutation to the dawn”
And you claim these words as your own
But I’ve read well, and I’ve heard them said
A hundred times, maybe less, maybe more

If you must write prose and poems
The words you use should be your own
Don’t plagiarise or take “on loans”
There’s always someone, somewhere
With a big nose, who knows
And who trips you up and laughs
When you fall
Who’ll trip you up and laugh
When you fall

You say: “ere long done do does did”
Words which could only be your own
And then you then produce the text
From whence was ripped some dizzy whore, 1804

A dreaded sunny day
So let’s go where we’re happy
And I meet you at the cemetery gates
Oh Keats and Yeats are on your side

A dreaded sunny day
So let’s go where we’re wanted
And I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
But you lose because Wilde is on mine