diogofalmeida

stukko:

Façade and Inner Courtyard of the History Museum, Tirana, Albania

mikedowson.com

enochliew:

Photographed by Åke E:son Lindman

Modernist architecture in Havana, Cuba. 

This is a video of Boo (solid name for a fainting goat) leaving his favorite gazebo in style (note: fainting goats don't actually faint, they're conscious the whole time, their bodies just lock up painlessly). Apparently Boo loves spending time in his gazebo, but then faints every time he has to make the four-inch jump back to the ground. I don't blame him, I nearly faint every time I get out of bed in the morning. Mostly because I wake up scared the day is going to suck. And you know what? I'm usually right. Keep going for the worthwhile video of Boo doing his thing.

Dave “Noise” James ran Noise Noise Noise Records in Costa Mesa, Calif. for fifteen years, earning him a loyal following of record collectors. Since Noise's closing in 2006 he has held record sales in the driveway of his parents' home in Costa Mesa, worked for another local record store, got clean, and in April 2010 opened up Factory Records in Costa Mesa. 

Factory might be one of the smallest record stores around—about the size of a one car garage—which even Dave will admit. But like anything that's genuine, it's what's on the inside that counts. He frequently has parking lot sales where you can find all kinds of gems for spare change. I've pulled some pretty amazing records from his store and can honestly say he carries a very eclectic mix of music. Like the song goes, “You wanna be where everyone knows your name,” it's nice to walk into a shop and get that Cheerstreatment.  And if you fancy a beverage, there's a bar less than a bottle's throw away.

I chose to interview Dave because, for one, his record store is the closest one to my house, but more than that, he's a good guy. If the person behind the counter has nothing to say about what I'm buying or has that too cool vibe about them, I'm not motivated to come back. Dave genuinely seems to like what he does so it makes for a good experience.

Ryan: When did you open the shop?

Dave: In April 2010.

Ryan: What made you decide to re-open a record store?

Dave: My landlady runs the barbershop here and I've know her boyfriend for years. He came over to the record store I was working at and asked if I wanted to open up my own record store again. I asked him where and when he told me I was like, “No way, that place is too small.” But I ended up going over and poking my head in and started to picture how I would set it up. Also I still had all the old racks from Noise, so that part was pretty easy.

Ryan: What's the best part about owning a record store?

Dave: I get to wear whatever I want, listen to whatever I want, and I get to make my own hours. Which is great during summer because I work six hours, close up, and hit the beach, so that's probably one of the highlights. While other people are stuck in a cubicle all day wishing they were having fun, I'm at the beach.

Ryan: What's the worst part?

Dave: Just all the little stresses that I can't push off on other people, like when something breaks or fall apart. I'm responsible for everything. There's no manager to unload all that stuff on. But there's not a ton of terrible things about doing this, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it.

Ryan: What was the first vinyl record you ever bought?

Dave: When I was a kid, my mom gave me Beatles records and my dad had early Johnny Cash records. Then I started going to garage sales and bought different records. I got a butcher cover—one of the most rare Beatles records—when I was about ten or eleven years old for fifty cents at a garage sale, which later got stolen when I turned into a tweaker. There was a record store across town called Music Market, which was the record store. The first record I remember buying was The Specials eponymous record with money I saved from my paper route.

Ryan: Does your shop specialize in any particular genre or format?

Dave: I do a ton of classic rock, which is the thing that keeps the doors open, like Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Doors, and Led Zeppelin. We've got a really healthy jazz section. But you name it and I'll stock it. I love having a wide variety… reggae, prog, psyche, and dancehall, punk, the weird metal stuff.  I like selling the weirder stuff. You can go into chain stores now like Target and Kmart and buy records, but I want to have the stuff that you're not going to find in there. That's what I've always been about. You go into Urban Outfitters, you're not going to find most of this stuff.

Ryan: A lot of record stores start as labels or eventually become labels to help local bands. Tell me about the records you've put out in the past.

Dave: At NNN, I had a record label called InstaNoise. It was myself and a guy named Lob who used to work at Vinyl Solution. We did quite a few records, mostly 45s. It was a lot of pop punk and some hardcore. We did a Sublime 45 that sells for hundreds of dollars now, and a band called Homegrown. They became really popular. We also did some dub, some funk stuff. Basically, if we liked it, we put it out.

Ryan: What happened to Noise Noise Noise?

Dave: People loved that shop. The last couple of years were just a drugged up nightmare, but, for the most part, it was just amazing. But, basically, I got evicted and the landlady put in one of those massage parlors. You know you're fucking up when you get the boot and they put one of those in. But it had a legendary run. We were the store to go to for fifteen years.

Ryan: What are your thoughts on Record Store Day?

Dave: You know, I always hate it and pull my hair out beforehand because it's such a stressful mess. It's a ton of work, you know. Then, literally, the day after, I count the money, I'm like, “I fucking love Record Store Day.” It's killer. Part of the reason I can have this lazy summer is because of RSD. I've been going on vacations and going to the beach everyday and short hours and it's because of RSD, so it's rad.  It's a month or two before you start stressing, wondering if you're going to get this or that, and I'm screaming at my distributors and they all think I'm an asshole. I think everyone screams at them so they're used to it, but I feel like a dick because I'm not normally like that. I always kiss ass afterwards and they tell me not to sweat it. It's part of the routine. Literally, the last two Record Store Days in April have been the best days ever and I've been doing this since ‘91.

Ryan: Okay, so I have a bunch of scenarios written here and I want you to tell me what soundtrack would best suit the situation. Hype music.

Dave: AC/DC” If You Want Blood.”

Ryan: Scare customers away.

Dave: Usually I'll just go to the industrial section and just grab some weird noise record. Something that I don't even know what it is. I'll just grab something and turn it up. The yodeling records don't work anymore; people are drawn to that.

Ryan: Panty dropper.

Dave: Funk and Soul, but Barry White's probably the dude for that. Nobody wants to hear some skinny white dude singing to them. You gotta get the brothers out for the panties to drop.

Ryan: Dance party.

Dave: The Phil Spector '60s bubblegum stuff works best. Once it's midnight and everybody's liquored up, just throw the basics on and it's a dance party.

Ryan: Knock boots.

Dave: You gotta go back to all the funk and soul stuff.

Ryan: Dinner.

Dave: I don't cook, so whatever's in the CD player on my way to Wahoo's.

Ryan: Make your neighbors think that you're playing Nintendo at full volume.

Dave: Nineties techno records like Aphex Twins or any of the Warp Records stuff.

Ryan: Body surfing.

Dave: Nothing. I go out there to get away from all this shit. I just want the sounds of the waves. I want it as quiet as possible.

Ryan: Who's the most famous person you've had come in?

Dave: I'm horrible at recognizing people. At Noise, Stereolab came in, Jonathan Richman came in; that was pretty rad. Sublime came in. A lot of DJs like the Beat Junkies. They were all just kids coming into the shop back then and now they're doing all these big things.

Ryan: What's the best place to eat around here?

Dave: I always ask what they like, but my favorite place is Wahoo's. I love, love, love Wahoo's. I've been going there since the ‘90s. It's the original. It's still in that old house. Tell em' Dave sent you.

Ryan: What advice do you have for anyone out there who wants to open a record store?

Dave:I think the best thing is—you have to be in business to make money not to be a museum. If you have all of the cool stuff on the wall for a ton of money, it's not going to sell. You have to get a good reputation. My main asset these days is having an amazing reputation—which is weird because I look back and go, “Whoa, I'm this fucked up junkie who ruined this store (Noise Noise Noise).” But, for the most part, people know I'm a polite guy, I'm fair, and I'm willing to negotiate. I get people who saw a review on Yelp and they say they heard I was the guy to go to. You can't get better advertising than that. Reputation is huge. And you have to have the ability to let things go.

 
I’m not going to explain what’s happening here. You’ve seen enough Russian dash-cam videos to know the drill. But this one in particular stands out on its own because, well, something unexpected happens. You’ll just have to watch and go with the flow.

BTW, I’m repeatedly...

The Southern California hardcore punk scene of the early 1980s.

The Thing (1982) Japanese movie poster

This is the happy result of a comment on my last post.  Excellent catch, foldback!

Minor Threat “1-2-X-U” (Wire cover)

pop-up-x:

DBK Department Store, Prague

by Věra Machoninová and Vladimír Machonin

Damn, now that’s a fucking demonstration ad

laughterkey:

zoomwitch:

number-one-mollusc-fan:

snerky:

incredible

holy shit

look at this

I don’t even know where to begin.

FUGAZI

b-a-c-u:

Vrancea County entrance, Romania

rossmcrossadventures:

Академических on Flickr.

Dead Moon “War Baby”

fnhfal:

Ukrainian soldiers taking a break

A BrightSource solar energy farm in the Mojave Desert of California is under fire *pats myself on the back* after it's been discovered that thousands of birds have been set aflame from the farm's 300,000 focused mirrors. Wow, I feel like that's poor planning. Or, sadly and much more likely, not-giving-a-shit planning.

More than 300,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door, reflect solar rays onto three boiler towers each looming up to 40 stories high. The water inside is heated to produce steam, which turns turbines that generate enough electricity for 140,000 homes. Federal wildlife officials said Ivanpah might act as a "mega-trap" for wildlife, with the bright light of the plant attracting insects, which in turn attract insect-eating birds that fly to their death in the intensely focused light rays. Estimates per year now range from a low of about a thousand by BrightSource to 28,000 by an expert for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.

Solar energy: good. Flaming birds: not good. Clearly they need to install some sort of force-field around the facility. Do those exist yet? Those should exist. Maybe we could barter with aliens for the technology. You teach us your force-field technology, and we'll give you, uh, do we even have anything you want? "Zip zap bzzzzrt." Got it, us to die and you take the planet. Not gonna lie, I did see this coming. Thanks to E V I L A R E S, who is so evil he conveniently misplaced the environmental impact report about the facility before it opened.

This kid.

Knowing firsthand that MTV didn’t always totally suck asswater really dates you. When I have occasion to mention how, once upon a time, that justly-reviled network actually played some seriously cool shit, I half wonder if I’m coming off like my grandma used to when she talked about the...

 
Edge City, a/k/a Sleep Is for Sissies, is director Alex Cox’s first movie. Made for $8,000 while Cox was a student at UCLA, the 36-minute picture already includes a number of the distinguishing features of his works. That means a repo man, a Chevy Malibu, and Ed Pansullo; references to Nicaragua...

Whenever I post a list of sexy chicks, it never fails that a worthy candidate is mistakenly omitted.  Mai Miori みおり舞 should have been one of my 7 Hot Japanese AV Idols because her career is catching fire right now and the beautiful, flexible ballet dancer is one of my favorite adult entertainers to watch.

Her catalog is rapidly growing and thus far, every movie she’s done has been excellent.  With her amazing agility, Mai Miori stole the show in Bow-Legged Demon Training Of Dignified Cabin Attendants [DVDES-726], despite a masterful performance by the great Remi Sasaki.  Mai also puts her skills to use in Luxury Slave Secretary – Secret Pantyhose Affair [RCT-603] shining brightly among a stellar cast.

But her latest flick, Elevator Girl Mai [VDD-096] by Dream Ticket, is one of the year’s best JAV releases and raises her game to filthy new levels. This movie should put Miori on everyone’s radar, if she’s not there already.  She gets put through Hell in this hardcore masterpiece; gagged & tied with ropes, gangbanged by up to three guys, deep-throated while in a scissor-hold and has her legs pinned back so far behind her head, a less malleable chick would’ve popped in half.  However, Miss Miori is no stranger to bondage/S&M flicks and defiantly withstands every bit of torture the sadists dish out.  She looks very sexy while taking her lumps (the photo above is from the DVD cover).

Miori has the ability to contort her body into a variety of provocative positions; my imagination runs wild when I see her in photos, twisted up and doing splits.  Years of ballet dancing have strengthened and chiseled her beautiful legs, placing her gams on the top shelf of the AV industry.  Her thighs are healthy, muscular and put to good use in the aforementioned DVDES-726, where she spends a lot of time crouched in a strenuous “crab position.”

Today I saw the trailer for an upcoming face-sitting movie called Bullying Facesitting Domination [RCT-645] where Mai has some lucky guy’s head squeezed between those strong thighs in a submission hold… then she drops down on his face multiple times like a pro wrestler’s finishing move.  That guy was in more pleasure than pain, I’m sure.  Mai’s athletic moves and fitness training also make her perfect for flicks by GIGA, a fetish studio specializing in sexy superheroines.  She’s done plenty of work for GIGA and shows that she may actually have a future in mainstream action movies.

The bustling Japanese porn industry is overpopulated with interchangeable girls, many of whom are chewed up and spit out quickly.  But Mai Miori is a genuinely talented, exceptional adult entertainer with a skill-set that distinguishes her from the crowd.  Not to mention that she goes hard every time and has no problem getting nasty for the camera.  She has a unique, exotic look and on-screen charisma that I find irresistible.  Mark my words, Mai Miori will be a JAV megastar if she so desires.  The potential for greatness is certainly there.  Hope she’s in it for the long haul.

Scroll down to peep the various images and video clips featuring Mai in all kinds of wild positions.  Follow her on Twitter @MioriMai and keep up with her endeavors at blog.livedoor.jp/miorimai.

Montecatini Alto cemetery, L. Savioli, coll. E. Brizzi, D. Santi, 1966-69

 
I’m an avowed atheist, but I have to admit, the recent discovery of a nearly perfect Aphex Twin logo in Jamaican jerk sauce on a plate in a London restaurant has me reconsidering my entire belief system.

The holy plate has

daedalusgroup:

Amsterdam metro line in 1977, going trough Bijlmermeer [1739x1212]