re: Black Friday

I love that the one holiday we have built 100% around being thankful is followed by a day built 100% around consumerism – Black Friday. Despite this alleged recession, the stores I saw were brimming with people and credit cards.

I don't know if you can see it very well, but this is a shot of about 10 dudes just hanging out in front of Jeremy's, waiting patiently for their girlfriends to get finished clawing some other girl's eyes out over a discount Marc Jacobs overcoat and standing in line for over an hour to check out.

This is Emily, after having clawed some girl's eyes out over a tee-shirt. She still had to stand in line for another 30 minutes.

Years ago I swore to never enter a mall on Black Friday if I could help it, regardless of the sales and slashed prices they try to entice me in with. This year I decided to make a tiny exception – my neighborhood Thrift Town was opening an hour early and offering $5 off to the first 100 customers in line. This is awesome, because $5 can buy you a lot at a thrift store, and I don't really put thrift stores in the same category as mall shopping at all.

Of course, when Emily and I showed up bright and early on Friday morning, this is what we saw:

What? A line around the block for Thrift Town? No one stands around the block for Thrift Town. All it took to turn my favorite thrift store- which is normally a very casual shopping experience- into a frenzied mess worthy of Black Friday was a $5 gift card. There were people elbowing in front of one another at 7:45 am, and once we were inside, dresses were being ripped off racks and the line for the dressing room was longer than I have ever seen it. I blame the free gift card.

To top the day off, Emily and I were standing in line to check out, when a woman grabbed for the large roll of gold wrapping paper in Emily's hands, and accused her of having stolen the paper from out of her cart. We were totally baffled – we had been walking around the store with that paper for at least 20 minutes, and had certainly not intentionally taken it from anyone, but the woman stood there yelling “How DARE you” at the top of her lungs until she had wrenched it from Emily's hands and walked back to her shopping cart.

Aside from that incident, we escaped mostly unscathed and with a few treasures of our own to show for it, but I have yet again resolved to never go shopping on Black Friday. No slashed prices are worth that kind of crazy.

re: LA stereotypes

We were all eating breakfast at Swingers on Beverly, and we were delighted that our waiter was so good looking that he was obviously living the stereotypical 'actor-working-at-a-diner-while-he-tries-to-make-it-in-LA' life.

Just being served by such a perfect broad shouldered stereotype made my homefries even tastier. I hope he gets discovered soon.

Thanks, Stephen, for the stealth photo.

re: True Love, part 2

I went to LA last week to celebrate the fortuitous union of Keith and Leslie.



(Aptly named and illustrated in this welcome sign by jared p.)


The wedding was held at a lovely little place called the Victorian in Santa Monica. And, yes - the event was just as special as the sign promised it would be.

Keith and Leslie are pretty popular, so there were a lot of beautiful people at the wedding to talk to and I didn't take as many pictures as I should have. Luckily Dave was carrying around his Super 8, capturing all the special moments. This is how you knew something good was happening - you would hear the loud 'whir'click-whir-click' and know to look for Keith and Leslie kissing or saying "I do" or something. (This picture makes it look like Dave is taking sneaky perv shots of people without them knowing. And. Well. Maybe he is).

They also had his really cute candy bar set up, where you could take a bag and fill it with swedish fish and rock candy and all sorts of other sweet stuff, as if all the cake they had on the table wasn't enough.

I don't actually know if the other candy was any good. I could only eat the watermelon one, since it matched my dress.

Also, I am speculating that maybe they got an embroidery machine for their wedding?

Because I noticed that the large doily where they stood to get married was clearly labeled with their names in large, embroidered letters. (Maybe this was just in case they got the wedding jitters and forgot where to go stand the way down the isle? )

And Keith had his cuffs done up all fancy.

They seem pretty big on putting their names on stuff, and are probably going to monogram everything they own, so don't try to steal anything of theirs.

I always like going to weddings of two people that I like so much, and this is one of those weddings where you just believe in two people being so perfect for eachother.

Of course, weddings are also a good time to be reminded that either you do have someone else to ride the proverbial bicycle built for two with..

...or if you don't.

Here's to true love. Congrats to the cutest ever K&L.

re: True Love

I am at home in LA for a wedding this weekend, and I just want to report that my mom secretly practices Rock Band when no one is around so that she will be good enough for her kids to want to play with her when we come home.

She is actually pretty good for being a mom. I am going to make her try vocals tonight.

re: Animal Head Vintage

My obsession with vintage things has been no secret, so it shouldn't be a surprise that eventually I would try to turn my thrift store shopping obsession into something constructive.

So, Emily Cox and Aubrey Trinnamen and I put our heads together and came up with Animal Head Vintage. We are selling vintage clothing online!






Best of all, we just got all of our cute friends to play dress up with us and model our clothing.

Thanks to Tiffany, Nikki, Juliann, Claire and Jane. It is truly a shame that we covered your lovely faces with animal masks.



(Go check us out! We will be putting new stuff up as often as we can)

re: Baby, I'll make you a star

My birthday is on November 30, and since I am a shameless Sagittarius, I am throwing myself a "Red Carpet" birthday party in which I will be screening short films made by anyone I have ever known.

This, of course, is where you come in.

I want to screen a short film made by you! "Short" is around 5 minutes or less, and the deadline to send me your film will be Dec 1, 2008.

I know most of us aren't professional movie makers. Don't worry about it. These films don't have to be anything fancy. We'll accept your music video. Something awesome you come up with in your bedroom late at night. Secret confessions of love. Anything you've got. I cannot emphasize how non-professional these are allowed/expected to be. Just email me to let me know that you are planning to send one in. (rgholdston [at] gmail).

I am serious about wanting films from anyone and everyone that I have ever known, so if you want to spread the invite to anyone that you know that I know...please do. We only have a few weeks left, so maybe you should quit reading this and go make a movie or something.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Red Carpet Birthday FAQs

Is there a theme that I should work with when coming up with a film?
Nope. If you need a theme, do something with the number 30.

How long should my film be?
Try to keep it around 5 minutes or less. If you have something longer, lemme know.

Screening Format?
DVD, baby. No title menu. If you can burn your DVD so that it just starts your movie when we put it in, that would be the best.

Where do I send my DVD?
Straight to me. Email me for my address (rgholdston [at] gmail).

OR. If you don't have a DVD burner or don't want to bother intrusting your film to the USPS, I can have you send your movie to me electronically and I will take care of putting it on DVD. Just email me (rgholdston [at] gmail).

When is this due again?
We want to get all the DVDs to compiled by Dec 1 so that we have time to review them and make sure that everything works.

Do I have to make a film specifically for this party? Or can I send you a film that I already had made?
We'd prefer original work for the party, but are not too picky if you have something brilliant to share.

Am I invited to watch the screening on the night of the event?
Yep. Save the date - December 9, right here in San Francisco at the Victoria Theatre. I will force you to wear fancy clothing and come enjoy yourself.

What if I don't live in San Francisco?
Well. I want your movie, even if you can't be here to watch it with us. But, seriously. This is why God invented airplanes.

re: My Pants

I have a confession to make: The "pants" that I am wearing right now are not actually pants. They are leggings. Stretch pants, if you will, but not allowed to actually to be called just plain ol' pants without some sort of qualifier. I love them, and am so glad that they have been made socially acceptable, and even stylish, for this season.

Warning: I am probably going to wear my stretch pants every day for the next 4 months. They are just so comfy! I walk around tricking everyone into thinking that I actually got dressed for the day - stretch pants are like getting to hang out in your pjs all day long. They are warm and comfy and I could probably do the splits in them (if i could do the splits). And they have an elastic waist. How great is it that I get to wear pants with an elastic waist before the age of 80?

re: a New President, with alot to do

We have a new president!!! It makes me kind of excited for the future. I wonder if Obama woke up this morning realizing all of the things he had to do, and if he made a "to-do" list anything like this one that I found out in the hall of my apartment building.

You don't really think he got to be president by forgetting his chapt stick do you?

re: Voting

When you go to the polls this morning, it is important to remember ..

Thank you, San Francisco.