Coming Herself (Web Cam Girl)
Coming Herself
Source: edstrong.blog-city.com
Flashing Her Arse
Source: edstrong.blog-city.com
40 years and a glass of wine
Dave Matthews is on the bill at the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival.
Woodstock, for all its muddy, revolutionary glory, was missing a few things. Like oysters on the half shell and wine seminars.
Outside Lands, the giant rock festival running Friday through next Sunday in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, encompasses seven stages and 65 acts. It also refines the idea of festival food and drink by featuring Hog Island oysters, Cowgirl Creamery cheeses and a tent area called Winehaven where 25 wineries will offer products and advice.
“It’s not like (other festivals), where you can only get a hot dog or a piece of pizza,” says Rick Farman of Superfly Presents, which is co-organizing Outside Lands, now in its second year. “(And) it’s unique for a festival to have really good wine.”
Outside Lands’ focus on food, wine and technology (via the social media platform www.CrowdFire.net) represents the Bay Area of 2009. Yet its setting harkens back 40 years, to a time when the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane held free concerts in the park.
Outside Lands, by contrast, charges $89.50 per day or $225 for a three-day pass (if tickets are purchased in advance). Last year, rock fans were happy to pay, with the inaugural festival drawing a total crowd of 130,000. Nearly 60,000 people showed up just the first night, when Radiohead and Beck shared a bill.
Headed by Pearl Jam and the Dave Matthews Band, this year’s Outside Lands lineup doesn’t immediately impress as much as last year’s. But it runs deep.
Jack Black (Tenacious D) and Jack White (the Dead Weather) both are reporting in, as are the Black Eyed Peas, Incubus, Ween, Modest Mouse, Lucinda Williams and the darlingest of today’s critical darlings, TV on the Radio.
That Tenacious D – Black and Kyle Gass’ rock/comedy duo – gets top billing Sunday night (Pearl Jam heads up Friday; Dave Matthews, Saturday) seems a bit curious at first. But the band was an 11th-hour replacement for the Beastie Boys, who dropped out in July after band member Adam Yauch was diagnosed with cancer.
“It was a difficult situation, obviously,” Farman says. When the promoters began sussing out available replacement acts, Tenacious D just seemed like a good-time fit.
“We thought the same kind of people who were into the Beastie Boys would be into Tenacious D,” Farman says. “That it’s a similar sensibility.”
Presale tickets haven’t moved at the same pace they did last year, Farman says, but sales are building as the event nears – an indicator that “people want to hold on to their money a little longer” in the recession.
Ticket sales for festivals are holding up well in general, Farman says – with Bonnaroo, the Tennessee festival that Superfly co-presents each June, even improving on last year’s attendance. Fans are opting for the “better value” of a multiact event, the promoter says.
For the price of a decent seat at a show by a single marquee act, Outside Lands festivalgoers can sample several bands, upload photos at the CrowdFire station or hang out at Eco Lands, a designated area where Earth-friendly organizations will seek out new ways to preach to the Bay Area choir.
Among those roaming the festival grounds will be the good-natured Matthews. Before a show, the singer likes to move among the throngs and “smell the people,” he says during a conference call. To do so, he usually dons sunglasses and a baseball cap.
“If I don’t show my receding forehead, I don’t really stick out at all,” Matthews says. “So I can just wander.”
Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) is on the bill at the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival.
Source: www.sacbee.com
Photo Gallery [12.01.09]
Source: edstrong.blog-city.com
Sex Seen: Would You Fuck a Mannequin?
Source: edstrong.blog-city.com
‘Nite Tales’: From Delta to a series on WGN
An episodic TV series shot in the Sacramento area will make its national debut this weekend.
“Nite Tales,” a horror anthology series created by local director and producer Deon Taylor and hosted by Flavor Flav, starts a 13-episode run on Chicago-based WGN America (available in Sacramento through SureWest cable and the DirecTV and DISH network satellite systems) at midnight Friday.
An offshoot of the two-part “Nite Tales” movie that aired on BET last fall, the series will feature a “Twilight Zone”-like twist in every episode. But it will contain more humor than “Zone” did, Taylor says. “It’s tongue in cheek. … It’s not bloody, and not really horror, but more thriller.”
The first episode, shot on a soundstage in the Delta community of Hood, stars comedian DeRay Davis (the “Barbershop” films) as a night watchman in a mannequin storage facility. Episode 2, shot primarily in a private home in Elk Grove, features former Flav flame Brigitte Nielsen as a suburban mom with a secret.
Taylor says he has funding for 50 episodes. He anticipates that the production eventually will hire 300 local cast and crew members.
Each episode will feature a recognizable name in the lead role and lesser-known local actors in supporting and/or background parts.
The series is coming to the air in a somewhat unusual fashion: CAF, a production and advertising company, brokered a paid-airtime deal with WGN America for “Nite Tales,” complete with its own advertising, on behalf of Taylor and the show’s other backers.
The deal, Taylor says, allows him to maintain greater ownership of the show.
Source: www.sacbee.com
Spotlight: Calling all Clash fans: Old Ironsides tribute will convene local bands
The Clash’s “London Calling” was a landmark album for its blend of punk, ska and reggae.
Each week, Spotlight focuses on something – props, lighting, makeup, costumes, etc. – that’s essential to an arts or feature presentation.
In 1979, English punk band The Clash incorporated ska, reggae and politics into what would become its signature album, “London Calling.”
For Sacramento rock promoter Jerry Perry, then a teenager living in what he calls “the land of ‘Dazed and Confused’ ” and 1970s rock ‘n’ roll – a.k.a. Rancho Cordova – the album served as a nice bridge between genres.
” ‘London Calling’ had the punk-rock attitude, but it was also just a great rock album,” said Perry, who organized a tribute show Saturday night at Old Ironsides during which local bands will play “London Calling” from start to finish.
The show will feature obvious punk-rock fits The Secretions and The No- Goodniks along with acts that seem less likely to cover The Clash, such as rockabilly band Stars & Garters and the young, blues-inflected indie trio The Kelps.
“London Calling,” which includes the irresistibly poppy “Train in Vain (Stand By Me)” along with harder, politically charged tracks, lends itself to varied musical interpretations, Perry says, and therefore makes a good subject for a tribute show.
An album “has to not be too much of one thing” to stay dynamic when performed by a series of bands, said Perry, who previously staged a tribute to the Beatles’ “White Album” to mark that landmark disc’s 40th anniversary.
Source: www.sacbee.com
Porn Clip: Young Woman Plays with Her Rabbit Vibrator
Source: edstrong.blog-city.com
Movie Review: A fitting tribute to the late King of Pop
The mesmerizing “This Is It” pays tribute to Michael Jackson as a singer, dancer and, most strikingly, as the guy in charge.
Judging from the behind-the-scenes footage contained in this concert film (or more precisely, rehearsal film), Jackson still possessed, at age 50, the moves, the pipes and the ability to command the camera’s and audience’s attention.
More illuminating, however, is the way he commands the whole show in “This Is It.” Though always polite in interacting with musicians, dancers and lighting people, Jackson comes across as an exacting boss.
It is an idea somewhat at odds with the demure manner Jackson exhibited in interviews. But maybe the key to why he compels so fully in this film is that he isn’t interviewed. Rather, he is simply observed in his element – performing on stage or explaining to music supervisor Michael Bearden, during rehearsal, that the intro to “The Way You Make Me Feel” needs to “simmer” longer.
The Jackson of “This Is It” knows how to combine, for maximum effect, his own talents with those of top-tier background dancers, musicians and singers. He also had a strong hand in producing the sophisticated music videos made in conjunction with the 50-show London concert series for which he was rehearsing at the time of his death in June.
One gets the feeling the Jackson we see on screen would not fully approve of the movie he’s in. Not because of its content, necessarily, but because his perfectionist tendencies might cause him to blanch at director Kenny Ortega’s occasional use of out-of-focus or otherwise raw-looking footage.
On the whole, Ortega (who also appears in the film, as Jackson’s creative partner in planning the stage show) did a wonderful job in putting together “This Is It” in only a few months. Working with footage never intended for the big screen, Ortega succeeds in showcasing not just Jackson but the process of mounting a behemoth stage production.
When a background dancer pops out of an opening in the stage floor and into the air, toaster-style, it gives us insight into the intricacies – not to mention athleticism and hydraulics – involved in such a huge show. Though a concert that is choreographed within an inch of its life can give one an empty feeling in its final form, seeing the genesis of such a show fascinates.
How Jackson’s stage show would have been received never will be known. But “This Is It” strongly suggests he would have surprised people with the degree to which he had retained his onstage magic.
As Jackson performs “Billie Jean,” the years seem to fall away. Even during slower numbers, Jackson brims with an energy that tends to snake up his torso and flick out his hands.
At some moments, however, he looks exceptionally thin, even frail. The film doesn’t indicate its scenes’ chronological order (the footage was shot in the four months before Jackson died), but one can assume that scenes in which he looks thinner were shot later, after months of strenuous physical activity.
Or rather, one is forced to assume, because “This Is It” puts nothing into context beside Jackson’s talent and professionalism.
A safe approach, to be sure, but ultimately a smart one. If the filmmakers had attempted to frame the rehearsal footage within the context of Jackson’s offstage life, it would have seemed rushed or distasteful, given the movie’s release just four months after his death.
The glimpses “This Is It” allows into Jackson’s professionalism and the long stretches it devotes to his magical stage presence do not feel like exploitation. They feel like gifts.
Source: www.sacbee.com
Davis’ Christopher Koehler one of 31 men writing in ‘The Good Men Project’
Christopher Koehler, who made a positive decision in a time of crisis, is one of the essayists in “The Good Men Project: Stories From the Front Lines of Modern Manhood.”
It was Christmas Day, and Christopher Koehler was in the throes of the depression that had plagued him for much of his life.
He thought about suicide. Then he considered what that would do to his 5-year-old son, who was in the house with him.
“There are few times in this life where I have found we are given to understand something very clearly,” said Koehler, sitting on a sofa in the Davis home he shares with his son and husband. “And that was one of those moments.”
Koehler, 39, a freelance editor and writer and stay-at-home dad who had been on and off medication, made a decision for the sake of his son. He would try to work through his depression on a daily basis, even if that meant a “fake it till you make it” approach at first.
He and his son since have grown closer, Koehler says. He hopes his essay describing that Christmas Day, part of the new anthology “The Good Men Project: Stories From the Front Lines of Modern Manhood,” will speak to people with depression, gay parents – and any parent who can appreciate his exceptional candor in discussing the challenges of interacting with a small child.
“People don’t talk about how hard parenting is,” Koehler said. “And I think if more people admitted that, maybe we would be a lot happier as parents.”
Composed of 31 essays by men from around the country – gay, straight, married, divorced, devoted to their families or regretful about their absences – the “Good Men” essay compilation and its accompanying DVD, out Tuesday, chronicle life-changing and life-affirming moments in men’s lives.
Part of a nonprofit aimed at at-risk boys and men, the “Good Men” compilation is the most prominent of several current books targeting issues affecting males.
“More is expected of us as fathers, more is expected of us as husbands, and we are still trying to be a provider at some level,” said “Good Men Project” co-founder Tom Matlack. Though conflicting expectations for men have existed for some time, Matlack says the issue has crystallized amid wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that are being fought primarily by men and, more pointedly, by a recession that has hit male workers hardest.
Insecurities about employment have “catalyzed these issues that have been coming the whole time” about men’s roles, Matlack said.
Offering essays by Wall Street power brokers, a war photographer and a former inmate at Sing Sing prison, the “Good Men” essays share a humility, a bracing honesty and a willingness to reveal the male mind-set without trying to defend it.
“We don’t make the argument that men are oppressed,” Matlack said. “From our standpoint, well, men certainly do have more power than women. (But) women have spent the past 25 years liberating themselves to come to the point where they have a well- defined emotional vocabulary and are able to talk about conflicts and roles that they are trying to maintain. … Men are just kind of getting to that point.”
The project started with Matlack and James Houghton, former partners in a Boston venture capital firm, discussing the sometimes stark contrasts between men’s personal and public lives. Matlack, for instance, had as a younger man been wildly successful in business but also hard-drinking and emotionally distant from his family – a state from which he emerged only after his first wife left him, taking their two children.
Matlack, 44, who writes about his own journey in the essay “Crash and Learn,” found that he and other men in his circle wanted to overcome the reticence many men feel about discussing their interior lives.
“But we were a bunch of 45-year-old white guys, and that is not very interesting,” Matlack said. So he reached out, through friends, associates and contacts in the publishing industry, to men with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
The “Good Men” founders also held an essay contest, which is how Koehler, who read about the project in a rowing magazine, became involved.
“In our very diversity as men, the commonalities become even more resounding,” Matlack said.
Whether set in prison or in suburban homes where brothers settle differences by duking it out, the essays explore aggression as part of the fabric of the male experience. If there is a prevailing theme to the content, however, it is the difficulties men can experience in adjusting to fatherhood.
“A woman carries a child for nine months, so she is used to living with a third party” during her pregnancy, said Rolf Gates, a Santa Cruz yoga teacher, entrepreneur and former Army Ranger who contributed to the book. “The guy’s life doesn’t change during that time, because his wife can still go to the movies with him and to dinner with him.”
Then, suddenly, a baby arrives and promptly bonds mostly with the mother.
“The guy goes through a hard time that first three years” of a child’s life, said Gates, 45, who recalls feeling guilty that his wife had to get up with his two children when they were babies, even though he needed to sleep to be able to function at work the next day to provide for his family.
As an African American man who had been adopted, along with two Korean American siblings, by white parents, Gates also had to acclimate himself to unexpected aspects of family life.
“This was the first time anyone in my family looked like me!” he said of his daughter’s birth – a life transition he embraced fully with the help of meditation.
It is the emphasis on transitions, rather than the “men” aspect, that Gates appreciates most about the book. Indeed, the touchstones of his poignant essay “A Death and a Birth” involve females – the suicide of his beloved elder sister and the birth of his daughter.
“There is an unfolding into a person’s potential” whether that person is male or female, said Gates, who details how the death of his sister, who had addiction issues, inspired his own commitment to sobriety.
Another unifying factor in the essays is straightforward, unfettered language that separates the “Good Men” compilation from books in the self-help genre.
“Men stay silent because they are afraid they are going to end up on Oprah’s couch crying their eyes out,” Matlack said. “That would never work. … Our answer is we need to develop our own vocabulary. … It is really about men telling hard-hitting, brutally honest stories about what is really important to them.”
Source: www.sacbee.com