Thursday April 29, 2010

I drove to LA today to pick my friend Ben’s brain while he worked. He’s the awesome photographer that I had lunch with before my trip and he was shooting some smut today so I went to hang out and talk with him for a bit. I hadn’t been on a porn set on a long time and it was more fun that I remembered He gave me a lot of good advice and information for an upcoming shoot I have next week. It’s a women’s clothing catalogue and I have to tell you I am very nervous about it. I am pretty rusty when it comes to studio lighting and whatnot. But I do love a challenge and this is a paying job, so I gotta tackle it like a pro.

I met up with the gay porn boys that I love so much for dinner and drinks. We ate at Cafe Etoile with a rowdy group of about 10 or 11 of us. It’s a small little French restaurant in the heart of West Hollywood. My favorite funny man Justin Martindale was with us and succeeded in making me giggle hysterically all night as usual. I cannot get enough of him. Next vacation I am bringing him for entertainment value. Every time he calls me it goes like this: “Hi tranny, it’s me, tranny.” I have no idea why but it never fails to get me going. Luuuurve him.

Duck Pate (not a ton of flavor, but edible. Justin called it Fancy Feast lol) And I don’t think I have ever seen pate served at a restaurant with crackers?! Ghetto! Usually they spring for brioche. (little toasted bread for those that don’t know anything about pate)

I also ordered the escargot which were amazing… doused in butter and garlic and perfectly done. It was fun sharing with the brave eaters and then watching the others wig out about eating snails.

And for my entree I had the crabcakes which 818 had claimed were the best crab cakes he had ever had. I can assure you, they were the worst crab cakes I have ever had. Flavorless, over cooked hockey pucks. Obviously they changed the recipe or got a new chef because they royally sucked. 818 even tried adding ketchup to them and that didn’t help at all. I ate like 2 bites.

Tristan Matthews, Trevor Knight, George Jaramillo (standing in back…dreamy!) and Justin Martindale

I desperately want George to not be gay.

And my favorite gay Masshole, Trevor!

We went to The Abbey for a few drinks and then I retired to my hotel room. I had redeemed my free stay at the Standard in Hollywood for this incident. Thank you Jenn for making hotel security believe that you were me.

Wednesday April 28, 2010

I pretty much sat in my house editing the vacation photos all day and had nothing to blog about so I asked Jarin to meet me for dinner so I could chip away at this fabulous list. Lauren had sent it to me a few months ago and I decided that I would try all of the places they listed! For those of you too lazy to click on that link it’s a “50 foods to try before you die” list in San Diego. Some of the items I have had before, some are cocktails and they are all over the county and all sound super yummy. We chose Confidential because it was closest to my place but the menu item they highlighted is seasonal. Ok, next stop was Nobu at the Hard Rock Hotel.

 #15 Yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno. It was pretty tasty, I don’t know about it making this list though. There are a zillion other menu items at Nobu that I would have put on that list. (The black cod for example)

We also had the crispy rice with spicy tuna. They served it a little different. I usually see it with the tuna on top of the crispy rice thingy. I was like, really, you couldn’t have assembled the damn thing for me?

Cod in butter lettuce cups (these are good, but they were a little salty for me.)

Oyster and uni shooter (Fabulous!) I know it looks wretched, but if you love shooters this is a definite must-try.

And the waiter kept pushing us to order the salt and pepper squid so we finally caved and it was actually very good. The best part was that they have happy hour all night on Wednesdays so we got some good deals and remarkably, I did not overeat. Jarin even dressed up because he knew he would be photographed for the blog! haha. Jason also met us out for a beer. He did not dress up.

Becky does my hair and was whining about how I wore a headband the whole time on vacation and why bother growing my hair out if I only wore it pulled back off my face. So here you go my dear, I have blow dried and straightened my hair 3 days in a row now

Meet Jarin’s friend Roger. Roger is a consultant who evaluates companies to see how “green” they are. Hey Roger, marry me! I got the high five for the Earth-Day-Car-In-The-Shop-Due-Dead-Battery-Because-I-Never-Drive-It story. He also loved that I dig through my friends trash and pick out their recycling.

Tuesday April 27, 2010

I don’t mean I had the front desk call me and wake me up.

My brother had a heart attack this morning and had a stint put in. He’s in ICU at the moment and they are keeping him for a few more days, but he is doing ok. You see, we have a history of heart problems on both sides of our family. I used to have ridiculously high blood pressure (like 150/99 was the highest it ever got. I know… that’s crazy.) but I lost 20 pounds and started working out and have since gotten it under control. It’s normal now but I definitely need to watch what I eat and take better care of myself. I might want to ease up on the bacon intake, eh? Good thing I don’t smoke.

I heard this song the other day for the first time in forever and I love it… no relevance to anything, I just wanted to share it. Genesis, “Home by the Sea”

 The last few days I have been chipping away at editing the 3600 photographs from our trip to Australia and New Zealand and it’s so fun to relive it all over again. I have had several people tell me how inspired they were by my updates while we were away so I want to say thank you for thanking me. It was annoying as fuck having to sit in my hotel room and update it. The photos that you have seen here don’t even scratch the surface of what we saw and did, so I am diligently going through them and will be posting them on Pink Monkey Tour as soon as I get them narrowed down to a reasonable amount.

I had 2 meetings today with people that are going to help me with interwebs stuff. I have an addiction to buying domain names and I am trying to sort it all out and prioritize which sites to build first and what they need to look like. (reasontochewyourarmoff.com was definitely in that list and might be moving up to the #1 priority soon.) I forgot to eat dinner so the few glasses of wine I had kicked my ass and I was home in bed by 9pm.

It was a weird day. My mind is racing with “What’s Next?”, my own mortality hit me in the head like a piano falling out of the sky and I was generally just feeling bleah. Luckily I ran into a super cute French Bulldog named Chloe and she put a smile on my face. She belongs to a friend of Michael’s (Tivoli) and I got her info so I can stalk her and her dog downtown. I offered my dogsitting services…

I was waiting for her to so something funny but that didn’t happen so just enjoy her cute little face, and disregard the conversation they are having in the background about Mexican food.

April 26, 2010

It’s time to make my new list of things to do before I die. I decided to link to all of them mostly through Wikipedia, because as sad as this sounds… there are probably a lot of people who have never even heard of some of these places.

In no particular order….

1. Finish visiting all 50 states… The ones I haven’t been to are: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey (HOW THE HELL HAVE I NEVER BEEN TO NJ?), New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming. And I have also never been to Washington DC.

2. Arctic Circle (somewhere where I can see the polar bears, Northern Lights and go run with sled dogs)

3. Croatia (I would like to stay in one of the lighthouses)

4. Galapagos Islands

5. Easter Island

6. Pamplona, Spain (Running of the Bulls)

7. Southern New Zealand

8. El Bulli Restaurant (when it re-opens)

9. I definitely want to hit Antarctica again.

10. Ice Hotel in Sweden (but I will settle for Quebec if I have to)

11. Russia (Moscow? I dunno yet)

12. Gorilla Safari, Uganda

13. Greek Islands (already been to Mykonos)

14. Hot Air Ballooning (I am terrified of fire!)

15. SCUBA (haha! Let’s try this again sometime)

16. Italy

17. Mardi Gras, New Orleans

18. Carnival, Rio de Janiero, Brazil

19. Niagra Falls (I think my parents went here on their honeymoon)

20. Thailand and other places in Southeast Asia. (not sure exactly, possibly Vietnam?)

21. Maldives

22. Maccu Picchu (of course, who doesn’t have this on their list?)

23. Stay in the Treehouses in OR.

24. Sphere hotel in Vancouver.

25. Costa Rica

26. Belize

I am sure more will come to mind. But this is a pretty ambitious start. I have some of these slated for this year already

Sunday April 25, 2010

This morning I headed to the Del Mar Fairgrounds for a small Travel Expo. I had looked at the exhibitor list and it wasn’t that impressive but after a coin toss I decided to drive the 30 minutes and check it out. It was free after all and I wanted to sign up for all of the potential free trips they were giving away. Yes, I realize that they are just going to mail me crap and email me things but if I get a free trip for 2 to Croatia I would be pretty excited! The first place I got suckered into was a Hilton Grand Vacation Club booth promising a trip for 2 to Catalina Island (a place I have never been to despite living in SoCal for the last 18 years!). All I have to do is take a 90 minute tour of their new resort in Carlsbad and I get 2 nights for free in Catalina with the boat ride there and a glass bottom ride once I get there. Sounds easy enough ESPECIALLY since I was very clear that I ALREADY have a time share with Hilton Grand Vacation Clubs! I was totally honest with the guy and told him I had no intention of buying a damn thing and was only doing this for the free shit. I already have 15,000 points stacked up to use (3 years/weeks worth that I kept postponing because I didn’t have the time to use them…but hey, I got nothing but time now!) He also asked if I made more than $75,000 per year. Well no not exactly because I don’t make any money at all right now. In fact, I make $00000 dollars per year at this very moment. But I smiled and said yes. I made my appointment for 9 am on Tuesday. I am heading to LA anyways, so I can just stop off and waste their 90 minutes, get my $20 deposit back and go on my merry way with the Catalina package. This is the new Laura… gettin’ shit for free!

I went back to the house and read Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler (my new idol) while working on my tan and then later attempted to take photos of Lola.

I was able to sneak one with the fish eye lens before this started:

Then it just turned into a game of chase with the soccer ball.

And then it was just “Freak Out and Run”

Casey on the other hand, doesn’t care about the lens or the camera. Prolly because she is too old to move and can’t run away.

My sister Cathy had left me a note with instructions on when to feed them, what kind of meds they get, etc… The last of the instructions went like this: “Casey likes to bring in the mail so she’ll walk out with you and wait for you to give her a piece to carry in. Give her a cookie for that. Lola will do nothing and yet still expects and gets a cookie.”

I spent the rest of the evening doing the first edit of the pics from Australia and New Zealand. I am seeing a bunch of people this week who want the “slide show” but I don’t want to bore them with all 3600 pictures. I would like to narrow it down to about 500. It goes pretty quick, I swear. Add some fine Australian wine and we will be having a blast! It was a painstaking process and it will need to be done at least 2 more times tomorrow. UGH. After I was thoroughly going insane I decided to put Zach and Miri back on. Now that was a waste of time. What a dumb movie.

Saturday April 24, 2010

Instead of spending $25 on a cab home at 3am and then another $25 to go back to the hotel to get my car the next day I decided to sandwich myself in a small bed between Rich and Jeff. This is now the second time that Rich has had to wake up next to the mess that is my hair in the morning. This hair-do, ladies and gentlemen, is what inspired reasontochewyourarmoff.com. Rich sent it to 818 and they had a good laugh. Why did I give Rich his phone number again?

Rich and Michelle headed to the restaurant downstairs for bloody marys while Dusty, Jeff and I tried to sleep it off for another hour. Finally I got up and decided to head home. I stumbled onto the elevator full of people with my outfit from the wedding (including hot pink heels), reeking like vodka, and then proceeded to waltz through the hotel lobby for an epic walk of shame. Too bad I woke up in bed with a gay man and I have no real qualifying reason for the shame part.  Going to bed at 3:00 am is not something I have done in a long time and I was definitely feeling it this morning. I went home for another nap and when I woke up I realized from my texts that everyone from the wedding was boozing it up again at the Catamaran. They had all extended their rooms for another night because there was a massive amount of alcohol leftover. I imagine the hotel was not very happy when they began bringing keg tubs full of beer cans down to the pool. I wanted to show the groom and the intoxicated man from last night the footage so I put on my swimsuit and headed back to the hotel. I apologized to the intoxicated guest and his girlfriend for relentlessly filming him last night and then had a good laugh with the groom and Sully while watching the guest on my easily diguised video camera that looks like a SLR. That was the fun part last night. Not many people actually knew I was recording him because it looks like a normal still camera. Not that he would have behaved any different had he known. lol. He asked that I not put anything up on YouTube so I will let him decide when I can send the files to him whether or not he wants them to be posted. He has the potential to become an internet sensation if I can spend some more quality time with him. HA!

This pretty much sums up the condition of everyone upon my return to the pool. Yeah, he’s wearing a kid’s floaty thing on his head. That makes a lovely hat, Chad.

They were all pretty funny and I would have loved to stay and enjoy the day but I had to get to my sister’s to take care of Lola and Casey. I was going to watch Marley and Me but didn’t want to curse myself so I put in Zach and Miri Make Porno but fell asleep right after the reunion part.

Friday April 23, 2010

Today was Sarah and Marc’s wedding! That meant that a ton of people from Boston were in town and we were all gonna get wicked cocked and act wicked retahded! If you have spent any time in New England you would know that people from Massachusetts are often called MAssholes.

I was not the official photographer for Sarah and Marc’s wedding but Ryan and I wanted to shoot it and get some footage under our belts with the new Canon. I was just trying to get back in the swing of things in case I decide to start shooting weddings again. We spent most of the morning with the bride and groom and got some really good stuff. Around 2 pm everyone piled onto a double decker bus and we were shipped to the ceremony site in La Jolla…a place called the Wedding Bowl. The reception was at Marina Village and everyone did a grand job of getting totally shitfaced and provided me with some fantastic photo ops!

 Here you can see one of the very intoxicated guests on the floor as well as the bride and both of the bridesmaids and another guest in the white sweater. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t even remember taking this photo until I went through the memory card this afternoon.

 I don’t want to post too many of them here because it wouldn’t be right to show them before the bride and groom see them. I can tell you that I was not able to talk Sarah into trashing her dress. In fact I waited til she was well on her way to wasted back at the hotel and she just laughed at me and told me to stop asking. **sigh**

As you can see I was well on my way to being thoroughly intoxicated as well, drinking white wine straight from the bottle.

After the wedding reception we all went back to the Catamaran (the hotel that all of the guests from out of town were staying at) and shut down the bar. Well, actually a fight broke out and they kicked us out. We ended up in someone’s room and about an hour into that room party I was  kicked out for taking too many photos/filming the guy in the above picture. He was out of hand but so damn funny and the other MAssholes were egging him on. His girlfriend was less than thrilled with my ongoing footage of her boyfriend and asked me to leave. HAHA! Making friends!

Thursday April 22, 2010

[went to the gym ... 142 lbs]

You know how sometimes when an animal is really old and close to dying they wait for the owners/family to leave town and then they die quietly in their sleep? Or sometimes they run away to die in the woods away from the house so the family never has to witness their last moments? It’s like they have a sense that it is the time to go and they almost do it on purpose when their human is not around. I know several dogs that have done this. You might think I am crazy for thinking this, but I really believe it. When my 13 year cancer stricken black lab was living her last days I was in LA for work and my niece Nikki had to deal with it. I had been gone for 3 or 4 days and Sierra started having seizures so Nikki and my other friend Noel brought her to the closest vet. I called and spoke to the technician and the woman told me that as soon as Nikki and Noel left she began seizing again. I made the choice over the phone to have her put to sleep right then. I didn’t see any point in having her suffer anymore just so I could come home in the morning and say goodbye. There is a point to my story.

I am dog sitting this weekend for my sister and my niece. This evening I went to the house to get the garage door opener, the keys and to see what all had to be done. Lola is a 3 year old Shepard mix and Casey is a 12 year old Golden Retriever. You see where I am going with this.

Lola is not very thrilled with my lens. This might be the one and only shot I ever get of her. She ran away after hearing the shutter and literally would not even look at me or be near me if I had the camera in my hand. She is quiet skiddish, but I can assure you by the end of the weekend we will have a clear understanding of each other. She WILL be participating in this project.

Wednesday April 21, 2010

[I was back at the gym today and it felt good. I weigh 142 lbs. I will keep you updated on my weight loss/gain because if I can manage to lose weight and still eat what I eat then I must write a book and make millions.]

I woke up today feeling an enormous amount of anxiety about my decision to quit Naughty America. I know that some days will just be like that, but today for some reason it was just really getting me worried. I was second guessing if it was a bad move to leave a steady, secure, well paying job. My vacation is over, I spent a bunch of money on equipment and laptops recently and was freaking out when I checked my bank statement. All day long I was feeling anxious and was consumed with thoughts of doubt. I got a nice email from a someone who has always supported me in this business who thinks very highly of me and I gotta tell ya, the email came on just the right day. I needed to hear the words of encouragement that he gave me and definitely lifted my spirits. (One thing he said was “Please give some thought to self-employment.  It’s not for everyone, but the people who choose this direction in their lives — and do it well — are rewarded with something much greater that the wealth they accumulate.  They get freedom, which is an incredibly exhilarating asset”)  I read a book last fall called “The 4- Hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferriss and he explains that you should imagine yourself in the worst possible situation and then understand that it still will not be that bad. My anxiety problem was not getting any better while I sat and watched 4 hours of Jack Bauer kicking some ass on 24.

I went over to Joe and Vanessa’s for a bottle of wine and to catch up. Vanessa’s dog Kali is not so sure about my lens. Her little tongue is so cute.

Dang look at that beak!

In closing on this fairly uneventful day, I want to share a video that’s circulating around the net right now of a drunk guy at Coachella, a huge music festival in Palm Springs. You might have already seen it. Dear Lord, I hope I have never been this wasted in public and I hope that I never do get like this and end up on YouTube. Watch til the end. (I just realized that they actually have this video on their website, too! I bet he feels like a total a hole. It’s awesome.)

Tuesday April 20, 2010

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the stoners out there that have prescriptions for weed. I mean, seriously, more power to you! Whatever illness or fabricated bullshit story for the reason you need THC is your own creativity and I want to commend you for accomplishing it. If you are still buying weed illegally you must be retarded. This is California for Christ’s sakes. You can buy weed in a store but you can’t have a same sex marriage. Good mother fucking times. Sorry I’m a little wound up today.

I met Stephanie and her Mom for a drink at Mo’s (formerly known as Hamburger Mary’s for those of you just tuning in to this millenium.) I have also progressed onto human fisheye shots. I am so happy about rekindling my love affair with this lens.

I was on my way to Wine Steals to have a quick meeting with Sarah and Marc about their wedding on Friday and to discuss a few important things. Namely: Trashing the Dress. You see, I want desperately to do wedding photography as a career ONLY if the bride allows me to do what is known in the wedding/photography/artworld as “trashing the dress.”  The bride jumps in the pool, dives into the ocean, rolls around in sand, does something so ridiculous and silly that we make an entire photoshoot out of the event itself. I know it’s insane and sounds insane but the selling points are the following:

#1 Why are you saving the dress and spending money to preserve it? Do you really want to lug it around for years?

#2 If you think your daughter wants to wear this 25 years from now you are sadly mistaken.

#3 If this marriage is forever you should have no reason to ever wear this again, right?

Trust me… even though all of those things make perfect sense to us, brides are insanely possessive about their gowns. Sarah is no different. Marc, on the other hand, has an artistic eye, like myself, and is all for this! (Marc and Sarah lived with me for 4 months about 3 years ago when their condo flooded and I invited them into my home with their dog who was boyfriends with Sierra, my beloved lab) Anyhoo, we are still on the fence about this and Sarah was feeling too much pressure and shut down and that was the end of the discussion. (time will tell)

I met Dusty at Yakitori Yakudori for dinner. I had come here on a blind date 2 years ago and had totally forgotten about this gem. We ordered the Golden Sake for starters. It had little flecks of gold, most likely not actual gold flakes like Goldschlager and certainly did not taste like that.

The grill/char broil area/cooker. I dunno what you call them.

Jellyfish/Sea Urchin (too spicy for me, but hey, I am a wimp)

Rolled pork with shiso. (again, if you are too lazy to do anything but read the one line above each photo, it’s basically a minty fennel taste)

I am pretty much in love with this lens for day to day stuff.

Suna (chicken gizzard)

Tuna poke

Pork toro (belly)

Shisyamo (capelin) (umm  gotta admit, pretty nasty especially with the eye balls and the scales and the skewer bits stuck in my throat. Danny, I know you are reading this. Remember? I am sure you remember as does your mother and Tut.)

Beef tongue. AH. MAZE. ING. I will come back over and over (quite possibly this week) for this dish. The most tender and properly seasoned piece of beef in a long time. (Aside from the raw beef I eat at Cut)

Dusty tonguing some tongue. (Am I even spelling this right? You know how sometimes you look at a word and are like huh?)

It was funny because at the beginning of dinner we looked at the empty tin can on the counter and were like “umm, hey try to take out your recycling before the guests arrive” and then realized it was for the dead skewers.

We went next door to Jake’s Wine bar and had a flight of red and white. Thank God Brass Rail was closed or it might have been a real shit show. We ended up leaving after the flights. Phew.

I had the hiccups real bad for several minutes and the bartender taught me a trick that worked almost instantly. Hold a straw in your mouth (think like a horsebit) and drink water over the straw. I swear to you: it went away in 30 seconds. This has been the easiest, fastest, most accurate way to knock them. (in my professional, alcoholic opinion)

The sign near the bathroom, the story of my life.

On a side note: my sister Denise (Nese) sent me a card the other day. It’s not entirely true, but still pretty hilarious.

I checked my bank account today and it’s time to start mooching.