Clawing to escape the belly of the beast here in Hollywood. To commiserate, email my name assistantatlas at yahoo.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Getting a New Job: 6.04

I've had it.

I'm fed up.

I'm getting a new job.

Don't tell anyone.

And I kinda want to move to New York so I don't have to deal with traffic ever again.

They have Hollywood in New York, and it's kinda like here, right?

Gulp.

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Monday, July 02, 2007

Then Posh Spice-Beckham Tore Out This Dude's Eyeball and Licked It: 6.03

I don't usually write about the dreams I have, but I think I absolutely must write about this one.

Because it's totally my subconscious trying to tell me something.

In my subconscious, Posh Spice-Beckham totally tears out this dude's eyeball...and then--well, we'll get to that.

Basically, in my dream, I'm walking past Kitson at 3rd and Robertson-- of course, this is dream 3rd and Robertson, so it's also got tons of Hollywood pimps'n'hos of every color, wearing practically nothing, crazy candy-colored signage in the stores, and paparazzi holding down every advantageous angle...

When who should come along but Victoria Beckham, as she likes to be called? Doting wife to footballer David Beckham, mother of two (three, apparently-- in my dream there were only two), celebrity, and noted fashion icon/disaster.

Which is relevant, because in my dream, I was momentarily bewildered by her outfit. It was something close to the leather jumpsuit I'd seen her in recently, somewhere....you know how media is these days...

So we're on dream Robertson, and Posh is leading one kid by hand, and holding the other. She's in leather, but her kids are dressed like normal kids-- in baseball jerseys if I remember. Improbably, she's just been walking down Robertson for a bit and hasn't been swarmed by the paparazzi, who last I remembered were all vigilant on the streetcorners. Ahh, dreams.

Anyway... suddenly the paparazzi do recognize her, and start beelining for her. About this time, I hear someone behind me say "Oh, she's wearing Karl Lagerfeld." For some reason, this is the key for my understanding of Posh, and I feel less my inner Assistant/Atlas welling up.

Meanwhile, the paps swarm Posh and start snapping away. And at first, everything's cool as she keeps strolling, flashbulbs popping.

Then suddenly, she turns.

She starts screaming: "No stop, my son has epilepsy!"

And indeed, the child she's holding suddenly goes into a fit of shaking, eyes rolling back into his head as he shudders away.

And the paparazzi, they don't stop their flashing bulbs.

Posh doesn't appear to have bodyguards, so apparently it's my duty to spring into action, trying to shield the little guy from the flashes as he foams at the mouth.

I think he's going to die while I try to hold him still, as I suddenly notice that one of Posh's hands has super-long fingernails. Like, talons.

She lets go of Child #2's hand, who then starts to cry. But he, and everyone else, goes silent as Ms. Victoria Beckham issues a violent war-cry.

She swipes her talon, once, twice, and kaws to the heavens. The flashbulbs speckle out and die as jaws and cameras drop, the crowd entranced.

She looks at a photographer who has strayed from the pack, just eversomuch. A particularly noxious photog who attracts disdainful glares from even his colleagues.

She regards him and he's instantly frozen in fear. But she is merciful because she is quick.

That's when she tore out the dude's eyeball. He did not scream.

But she didn't lick it right away. No, she regarded me first, who'd thrown himself to the wolves in an effort to help. She locked eyes with me, deep and dark...

In that void I felt my soul slipping away but I was too drowsy to fight. Fortunately, I was not her prize. If anything, I was a vague memory, shrouded by time, of how human beings might've acted in a world that could only be so good because it was so distant. All this in a dim flicker until she fought herself from the pull of a consciousness so comparatively bright that it registered naught but the shame of her existence.

So she forced herself then to study it, the eyeball with the slightest hint of cord, there on the end of her overlong ring fingernail. She looked at it, then the pap she'd tore it from, then the now-silent crowd of paparazzi, and then she cracks her neck and sensually combs back her hair with the hand that doesn't have five-inch fingernail talons.

"You," she commands, pointing to a frightened pap, "give me your camera."

He obliges, setting it at her feet and backing away, groveling.

"Karl," she calls, and Karl Lagerfeld, as if by magic, steps from the crowd.

Karl comes forward, also dressed in similar leather getup, and takes the camera from Posh's feet.

"Karl will take the picture of anyone who attempts to take any more pictures of myself or my children," she says, practically snarling the assembled paparazzo.

"And now, ladies and gents, I'm going to do a bit of shopping," she says. And with that, she strolls a few steps onward with her children, now apparently recovered, in tow.

"You totally planted Karl Lagerfeld, didn't you?" I asked, incredulous.

She put her finger to her lips: "Shhhhh..."

"You're brilliant."

She turns to me. "I'm going shopping," she says, "Never speak of this again."

She takes Child #2 by the hand, after scooping up the now-sleeping-happily epileptic child, and turns into Kitson.

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Sunday, July 01, 2007

What Will Happen If the Internet Radio Equality Act Fails: 6.02

First off, a special shout-out to my congressional representative, Jane Harman.

You are a corrupt, self-serving, ignorant harpy, Jane Harman. You've been a horrible Congresswoman and if your district wasn't gerrymandered as hell, someone halfway competent might've knocked your self-serving behind out of Congress by now.

And if you think Jane Harman is a nice, harmless old lady, let me just point out a few things. You're right about the 'old' thing. She's 62, almost double the average of those she represents. And not only is Harman a shill for the hugely moronic Recording Industry Association, having taken thousands in campaign cash from them, but she's delighted that the RIAA is suing college kids and teenagers.

She's done stuff that's much, much worse. As the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, she's the primary reason no one thought to really question all of the Bush Administration's obviously faked intelligence.

Ergo, Jane Harman is the reason we're in Iraq, people.
This tanorexic biddy needs to go.

Find out if your representative supports the Internet Radio Equality Act here. I found out mine doesn't, and just looked what it caused me to say about her.

Look, here's what happens on July 15th if the Internet Radio Equality Act doesn't pass. 95%-99% of all American webcasters will be put immediately out of business.

Webcasters outside of the US suddenly find that business is booming, and continue to NOT pay the outrageous rates demanded by the American Copyright Royalty Board. For example, the Economist estimates that only 10% of Russian webcasters bother paying royalties at all.

And as they also point out, people are only likely to buy music they've heard before, so the music industry will shoot itself in the foot (again- remember Napster?) by denying people the opportunity to find and sample music they like-- and treating their own customers like criminals.

So Internet radio may survive- but only abroad, and only where it doesn't have to pay royalties.

This is, quite simply, madness. And almost criminal incompetence. And blatant stupidity.

But really, isn't that what we we've come to expect from the music industry these days?

Visit SaveNetRadio.org today, and see what you can do to help.

SaveNetRadio.org

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