Kevespada

The chair and its always smiling occupants have been spotted around Sawtelle

Apparently there's a guy regularly scooting around the Sawtelle area of West Los Angeles in a papasan chair mounted to a motorized wheelchair, because when someone posted a picture to Reddit yesterday of the chair on Olympic Boulevard (via CBS LA), the first comment was "This guy again" with a link to more photos of the creative gent and his unusual mode of transport out on the town on Sawtelle Boulevard.

Commentary on the most recent photo, snapped at Olympic and Bundy (not at Pico, as the original post indicated), includes some insight from a Reddit user claiming to be the cousin of the young man who created the wacky mobile chair. The cousin described the papasan driver as a smart guy from "a long line of pranksters with good senses of humor." That explains him performing a few 360-degrees spins in a parking lot for some random strangers:

The papasan pilot and his female companion are always smiling in the candid photos taken of them—and Reddit commenter reports of papasan sightings elsewhere in West LA note the same—so maybe the ride is just as fun as it looks. Or maybe, because it's a papasan chair, they're just stuck and are trying to make the best of their situation in a graceful way.

One Reddit user notes in the comment thread that this guy and his tricked-out chair are "so West LA it hurts," which sounds like a solid endorsement of the neighborhood, for anyone considering moving there.

• Seen crossing Pico [Reddit]

The all-female bike crew Ovarian Psyco-Cycle fights against gentrification

The Ovarian Psyco-Cycle Brigade is the subject of a new documentary that played to critical acclaim last week at South by Southwest. The film, directed by Kate Trumbull-LaValle and Joanna Sokolowski, is called Ovarian Psycos and documents the all-women group of bicyclists that has been riding through the streets of Boyle Heights and East LA since 2010—their faces often covered by black bandanas featuring illustrations of female anatomy.

Working with activist groups within the community, the OPC advocates on behalf of bicyclists without fully embracing the "neighborhood revitalization" mindset of other pro-bike groups. According to the brigade's website, "OPC exists in Los Angeles because LA is dominated by car culture, and bike culture is dominated by middle and upper class white men. We believe that it is dangerous to live in a society that doesn’t cultivate community, sisterhood, brotherhood and compañerism@."

Boyle Heights is in the midst of a mighty struggle with the forces of gentrification, and the members of OPC are trying to walk the fine line between creating a more bike-friendly environment and creating an environment that caters to outside interests. In an interview with Good magazine, OPC founder Xela de la X said that "one of the telltale signs of gentrification in our communities is [the appearance of] bike paths." She argues that, while bike paths make cyclists feel safer, they also act as welcoming beacons to potential gentrifiers.

In a separate interview with Fusion, De la X said that "Coming from working-class, under-resourced communities, we fight back against gentrification, the war that threatens our access and mobility, as we fight against deportation and detention centers."

In 2013, OPC organized a six-city event dubbed Clitoral Mass, which brought together feminist activists and bicycling groups across the country. "Access and mobility is very important to us, because that’s been taken from us," De la X said to Good. "It’s been a very limited experience for most of us growing up. I don’t want my daughter growing up fearful. I want her to fucking navigate. We run this shit. And we have sisters that will run this shit with us."

• Meet the All-Women Bike Crew Running Gentrifiers Out of Town [Good]
• Meet the Ovarian Psycos: women of color building a movement on bikes [Fusion]
• ‘Ovarian Psycos’: SXSW Review [Hollywood Reporter]
• Boyle Heights is Winning Its War Against Gentrification [Curbed LA]
• Will Boyle Heights Be LA's Gentrification Hot Spot of 2015? [Curbed LA]

In Portland, two wealthy people are battling over something exceedingly strange—the right of a mother to be listed as a genetic parent to an infant son they created through IVF and welcomed through a surrogate.

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Have you ever looked at your food—let’s say you’re eating a sandwich—and thought, “Whoa, what if the bread and the turkey and tomato were fucking right now, like having a threesome or whatever? Oh wait, the lettuce is there too. It’s a fucking like, uh, a fucking foursome. HAHAHA WAIT THERE ARE TWO SLICES OF FUCKING BREAD. IT’S A FUCKING FOOD ORGY OH MY GOD,” and laughed so hard you couldn’t finish your sandwich? If so, Sausage Party might be right up your alley.

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The police in the Massachusetts town of Charlton have told residents to keep their eyes peeled for men looking to challenge pedestrians to "rap battles," The Associated Press reports. According to the police, a black SUV full of men in their late teens or early 20s pulled up to three teenage boys last Saturday:

One of the men — described as having brown hair and a pale complexion, wearing a gray T-shirt, gray pants and open-toed sandals — got out of the vehicle and started rapping while the other men asked the boys if they wanted to "spit some bars" with them.

When the boys declined, the SUV drove off. [WCVB]

The police said the incident didn't appear to be an abduction attempt but that the behavior "was suspicious." Anyone with information is asked to contact police, although another advisable course of action might be brushing up on the Nicki Minaj verse of "Monster."

January 28, 2015

This potential future EGOT winner has been eating Ramen the past few days because she could not find a guy to take her to dinner and she can’t cook. Apparently she will not dine alone and all of her friends were busy too.

Kristin Chenoweth

Lawmakers in West Virginia got pretty sick in the days after passing a bill to legalize raw milk — and now some are wondering if there is a relation between the two events. According to an anonymous complaint made to the Department of Health and Human Resources, the lawmakers came down with their illness after drinking raw milk to celebrate the bill's passing, WSAZ reports:

[Pat] McGeehan and some other lawmakers drank raw, unpasteurized, milk to celebrate the passing of a bill that makes it legal before getting sick.

Several lawmakers say a delegate who sponsored the bill, Scott Cadle (R-Mason, 13), brought in the drinks.

"[Cadle] caught me in the hallway, offered a cup to me, and you want to try to be a gentleman," McGeehan said. "I had a small sip and walked away and tossed the rest of it."

"I highly doubt raw milk had anything to do with [the sickness], in my case," McGeehan said. [WSAZ]

However, the CDC warns that "unpasteurized milk is 150 times more likely to cause foodborne illness and results in 13 times more hospitalizations than illnesses involving pasteurized dairy products." McGeehan nevertheless insists that there is a stomach bug making the rounds and the timing of his illness is entirely coincidental. Decide for yourself, and watch below.

Grindstone Island, New York. This three-bedroom house sits on one of the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River. The 9.7-acre property holds a main house that was built in 1900, a covered boathouse with three slips, and a three-bedroom guesthouse.

Additional amenities include an easy-access ramp for boats, a large steel dock, and patios and decks around the property. $1,750,000. Keir Weimer, Select/Sotheby's International Realty, (315) 663-7022.

Hawaii, Hawaiian Islands. This four-bedroom home on the Big Island lies inside Hualalai, a planned resort community. The house has floor-to-ceiling sliding doors, a wine closet, and a master suite with a lanai and an outdoor shower.

The property includes a pool, a pavilion, views of the Pacific Ocean, and access to member services. $5,250,000. Rob Kildow, Hualalai Realty, Inc., (808) 325-8500.

Orcas Island, Washington. Built on the edge of a hill, this four-bedroom house overlooks the East Sound. The home features two master suites, two fireplaces, vaulted ceilings, and French doors.

The 3.5-acre property has a deck, a hot tub, and 1,000 feet of waterfront. $1,750,000. The Gudgell Group, Windermere Real Estate/Orcas Island, (800) 842-5770.

Melody Key, Florida. This off-the-grid private island is a mile offshore. The 6.1-acre key includes a three-bedroom home with an open floor plan, French doors, private balconies, an elevator, a gourmet kitchen, and a rooftop observatory.

The property has a dock, a pool, and a desalination plant. $6,900,000. Bill Hart, Ocean/Sotheby's International Realty, (305) 853-0303.

Jamestown, Rhode Island. Built in 1893, this historic shingle-and-stone house overlooks Mackerel Cove. The six-bedroom home features oak paneling, leaded-glass windows, a turreted staircase, four fireplaces, and a master suite with pencil-sketched walls dating to the early 1900s.

A staircase and level boulders at the edge of the property provide access to the water. $2,950,000. Judy Chace, Mott & Chace/Sotheby's International Realty, (401) 207-9166.

Great Cranberry Island, Maine. This three-bedroom farmhouse was built in 1891. The home includes hardwood floors, a bay window, and a kitchen with wainscoting and a six-burner Hartland stove.

The property has a deck, a garden area, and water views and is accessible by ferry service. $328,500. Harriet Whittington and Tricia Blythe, The Knowles Co., (855) 719-3762.

**Want more? Check out the 6 beautiful mid-century modern homes**

January 16, 2016

This world leader shows photos of former lovers who are now dead to remind current lovers what the price is for breaching confidentiality. The photos are from homicide scenes.

Vladimir Putin

You’re telling me there’s not a member of the Pussy Posse that is solely designated to hold and attend to Leonardo DiCaprio’s inevitable Oscar? Well then, who is their Turtle? Who is their Turtle? Leonardo DiCaprio allegedly reunited with his longtime gang of party bros, which includes Lukas Haas and Tobey Maguire, to celebrate his Oscar victory. For as much as he (read: we as a nation) wanted Leo to win the award, DiCaprio was seemingly playing fast and loose with its safety and well-being. According to "Page Six":

“A couple of the guys kept standing on the couch and lifting the Oscar and passing it around,” says the spy. And rather like a scene from his movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” the crew was howling and chanting, “Wolf pack, wolf pack, wolf pack.”

That quantity of hand oils cannot be good for a statuette! (Also, nice try, guys, but you already have a very well-established nickname.) TMZ later posted a video of DiCaprio leaving the restaurant Ago in West Hollywood and someone runs up to the car to hand him back his Oscar. “Give that to Dan right there,” DiCaprio replies. Why didn't Dan have it in the first place? What is happening? Based on the video, misplacing his Oscar would clearly not have been an issue had Leo been able to vape out of it. A vape-Oscar would not have left his hand. Perhaps "an Oscar you can vape out of" is Leonardo DiCaprio's next "regular Oscar you get for being a great actor."

What's an observation deck without a "thrill factor"?

A handful of the top floors at Downtown LA's US Bank Tower are undergoing a $50-million renovation that will leave the West Coast's tallest tower (for now) with a new, two-floor observation deck with 360-degree views, but apparently that isn't exciting enough.

Bank Tower owners OUE Limited announced today a new addition to the Skyspace observation deck tourist attraction that's guaranteed to give it that "thrill factor": a 36-foot long glass slide that will allow brave souls to slide from the 70th floor to the 69th along the outside of the building.

Called the Skyslide, the chute will be made of clear glass four inches thick, sit about 1,000 feet above the ground, and totally one-up other observation decks that just have that scary all-glass platform that creates the illusion of standing on air (like the one at Chicago's Willis Tower).

A rendering from Skyspace architects Gensler shows a totally calm person casually moving through the slide with arms overhead like this is merely Splash Mountain and not an $8 near-death experience. ($8 Skyslide passes will be sold separately from the $25 Skyspace ticket.)

When complete, Skyspace will have a lobby on the second floor of the US Bank Tower, and occupy various spaceson the 54th, 69th, and 70th floors of the building. (The 71st floor floor will hold a brand new restaurant and the 72nd floor will remain office space.) Previous reports on the US Bank Tower's Skyspace project anticipated a mid-2016 opening, so there are still a few months to muster the courage to ride this thing.

• First Look at Sky-Scraping Observation Deck Coming to the US Bank Building [Curbed LA]
• West Coast's Tallest Tower Finally Getting Sky-High View Deck [Curbed LA]
• All the Fun New Additions They're Making at Downtown LA's Tallest Tower in the West [Curbed LA]

A used car salesman was killed when a red Corvette crashed during a test drive near LA, and the prospective car buyer was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter.

A 28-year-old from Union City, Alex Demetro, was driving the vehicle when the car struck a tree, killing the 43-year-old male passenger, the salesman.

Witnesses said the Chevrolet Corvette was being driven at a high rate of speed, and the driver lost control before crashing into a tree, a police news release stated.

Demetro was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and felony driving under the influence of drugs. Police did not say if he was injured.

The suspect was not believed to have been under the influence of alcohol, but investigators were looking at whether drugs were a contributing factor.

What happens when you hand over a 100-year old church to an artist and give them free rein? A colorful indoor skate park, named La Iglesia Skate is born. Located in the Spanish municipality of Llanera, Kaos Temple, as it’s known, has become a destination for skateboarders around the world with its one-of-a-kind interior painted by artist Okuda San Miguel.

The church had been purchased in recent years by a collective known as the Church Brigade and when they acquired it, it was in dire condition. They launched an online crowd funding campaign to raise money in hopes of rehabilitating it and turning it into a skate park and cultural destination.

Madrid-based street artist Okuda San Miguel visited the church in late 2014 and was impressed with what they’d done with the space. He visualized a concept for the space that included painting the walls and ceilings, which displays a recurring figure, his iconic Kaos Star. The star is a colorful and asymmetric compass that’s meant to say it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, just to follow your own direction to reach your goals. That led to the project being called, Kaos Temple.

Over the course of seven days, the artist (like a modern Michelangelo!) completed the project and The Skate Church was opened on December 10th. The refreshed space is like a kaleidoscope of colors that bring new life to the once rundown structure.

La Iglesia Skate was produced by Ink and Movement and Iniciativas Habitat, in collaboration with Church Brigade. The project was sponsored by Red Bull, as well as Miller Division, Montana Colors, and Socketines.

Photos by Elchino Pomares.

At first glance, you might not suspect that this two-tone vase pulls double duty. You’ll notice its porcelain exterior with a tactile copper band around the neck and the three openings that hold flowers. But this beautiful object, by Castor Design, subtly disguises another use besides holding flowers – it’s also a bong.

Voong (that’s vase + bong) was designed as a limited edition bong for Toronto Design Week, to acknowledge the increase in support for marijuana legalization throughout Canada. With legalization on the way, design-minded individuals might want to seek paraphernalia that pays attention to aesthetics and not just function. Castor Design was inspired to bring a modern twist to an object that’s typically fallen into the craft realm.

Using electroforming, Castor wrapped the neck in a tactile copper band that’s easy to grip your hands around.

Voong was shown as part of Umbra Ltd.’s Compact Living exhibition where it displayed its use for being ‘Home Alone’ (bong) and ‘When the Parents Come to Visit’ (vase).

"Photos fade, books rot, and even hard drives fester," but a new way to store data could preserve human knowledge for billions of years, said James Vincent in The Verge​. Scientists at the University of Southampton in England have turned to the special properties of glass to preserve data virtually for eternity — encoding music, images, and video files using "nanostructures" inside tiny glass discs.

Glass is heat-resistant and chemically stable, giving the discs an estimated life span of up to 13.8 billion years, "more than three times the age of the Earth." A complex method called five-dimensional storage allows each glass disc to carry 3,000 times as much data as a regular Blu-ray disc. Researchers have already made copies of the King James Bible, Isaac Newton's Opticks, and the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We got your F*CK IT Friday right hereee.

Gorgeous views of the enormous and decaying lake

The Salton Sea is such a famous, disastrous mistake that locals who see out-of-towners come through often assume they are making a documentary about the place. But for all the attention and photography, the conditions haven't improved too much at California's largest lake, which straddles the line between Imperial and Riverside counties and is mostly fed by agricultural runoff that is now drying up. Its water has become toxic and it's littered with fish carcasses.

In a short documentary called The Useless Sea, Open Valve Studios explores the incredibly saline body of water and the community around it, on the ground and from above (alert: cool drone shots).

For years, it seemed like everyone had just forgotten about the Salton Sea, or saw it solely as a great place for a post-apocalyptic photo shoot. But grassroots campaigns demanding attention for the site have kept going; last summer, an Inland Empire man walked the perimeter of the lake in the hot, hot summer to raise awareness about the dire situation, especially what might happen in 2017 when the last of the sea's already dwindling inflow of water is shut off.

(Spoiler: the lake will get too salty for anything to live there and as it dries it will introduce tons of alkaline dust into already polluted air.)

More recently, there's been a big push in the state legislature to do something about the Salton Sea, including naming a new Salton Sea Czar and "a new, pressing deadline" to get some restoration projects lined up pronto, says KCET. And while these plans are all still in the works, it's a lot more than has been done for the sea in a very long time.

Here's the whole beautiful, short doc:

• The Useless Sea [Vimeo]
• One Guy is Walking 116 Miles Around the Dying Salton Sea [Curbed LA]
• 9 Apocalyptic Scenes From the Decaying Salton Sea [Curbed LA]
• Why Don't Californians Care About Saving The Salton Sea? [KCET]

Roman Burtsev, a heretofore anonymous Russian man, became a social media sensation when people discovered that he looked a whole lot like the everyman version of Leonardo DiCaprio. And since DiCaprio enjoys immense popularity in the country (some Russians are making him an Oscar), Burtsev has parlayed his resemblance to The Revenant actor into a local TV show, which is called Romance With DiCaprio. According to ABC News, the series is a makeover project that aims to turn the 33-year-old emergency services technician into something more like the the 41-year-old American actor.

In Romance With DiCaprio, Burtsev gets voice classes, sees a dietitian, and gets a new, classier look. In one episode, themed around The Titantic, he learns how to sing Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" and does the Kate and Leo pose with women at the local mall. The show also aims to find Burtsev a date and tries to accomplish this by giving him ice-skating and karaoke lessons.

In other episodes, Burtsev faces "psychological challenges," such as begging on the street in order to attract a Leo-like level of wealth, or trying to pass a Revenant-style endurance test (there's a lot of crawling on the snow, less bison liver eating).

Though he hasn't acknowledged his brother from another Mother (Russia), Dicaprio has shown his support for the country in the past, talking about his grandparents' Russian heritage and meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2010 over a tiger conservancy project. DiCaprio has even said that he'd like to play the Russian leader on film, so if Leo doesn't earn that coveted Oscar for The Revenant, maybe his next movie can be about Russian man who looks like Leo reenacting the movie that was meant to get him an Oscar, in order to finally get that Oscar. Script by Charlie Kaufman. Story by reality.

November 23, 2015

She has been in this situation before but still does not get it. The last time she was in this position it cost her a very long term relationship because she thought is was love and not just the booty call it was. Now, our foreign born B- list mostly movie actress thinks she is in love, but she is just the booty call of this A list mostly movie actor who is an Academy Award winner/nominee.

Freida Pinto/former booty call Stephen Dorff/current booty call Sean Penn

Conan O'Brien recently took a trip to Seoul to film another one of his remote-location episodes (like his trips to Cuba and Armenia), and one of his stops was at the romantic drama One More Happy Ending, currently airing on MBC. He first appears in the hallucinations of Han Mi-Mo (actress Jang Na-Ra), a former K-Pop singer and current consultant at a matchmaking company, as a goldfish. But then he appears live in the flesh like a magical Gumby, dispensing wisdom like "Love overcomes everything."

He Instagrammed his cameo with Jang, writing, "Had the honor of appearing on the Korean soap opera "Happy Ending One More Time" with the beautiful Na-ra Jang. She was great. I was terrible."

A man puts up with a lot to wear a mustache. The Stache Shield ($20), created by three Swedish friends, addresses a handful of such challenges. Made to be strapped under the nose while drinking or eating, the sleek, stainless steel shield keeps whiskers free of grease, crumbs, and beer or latte foam, and it can be worn around the neck between courses. The adjustable shield is also designed to sit snugly atop of mugs, glasses, or steins of various sizes, providing less conspicuous protection from foam mishaps. A sturdy linen pouch helps users keep the shield always ready in a pocket for quick deployment.

Authorities in West Palm Beach, Florida, say an 18-year-old opened his own medical clinic in town, where he performed physical exams and gave out medical advice to patients.

18 y/o arrested for pretending to be a Dr. in WPB. #PBSO: Malachi Love-Robinson was practicing w/o a medical license pic.twitter.com/GaNkHjddML

— Michelle Quesada (@M_Quesada) February 16, 2016

Malachi Love-Robinson was arrested after allegedly giving an undercover officer an exam, and is being charged with practicing medicine without a license. The Florida Department of Health says it received a tip in October about Love-Robinson practicing without a license, and although a cease-and-desist letter was sent to his New Birth New Life Holistic and Alternative Medical Center and Urgent Care, he didn't stop. Sources told the Sun Sentinel Love-Robinson is the same teen who was discovered roaming around St. Mary's Medical Center wearing a lab coat and claiming to be an anesthesiologist in January 2015. Because he was 17 at the time, he was not publicly named, and charges were never filed.

Love-Robinson has a five star rating on Healthgrades.com, and on his website claimed to be CEO of the practice. His grandfather, William Robinson, told the Sun Sentinel his grandson is only guilty of pursuing his dreams — he never said he was a medical doctor, Robinson said, and he received certificates from online schools allowing him to practice as a holistic doctor. His plan was always to run the clinic and bring on other doctors to work there. "He's not out doing drugs," Robinson said. "He's not out trying to rob somebody. He's trying to do something constructive, and if he did do something and the paperwork wasn't right — he can get ahead of himself sometimes and he may have been trying too hard, but he had good intentions."

Pope Francis and the head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, sat down for a historic meeting early Friday afternoon at José Martí International Airport in Havana. The meeting between the leaders of the Eastern Orthodox and Western factions of Christianity marks the first such meeting in history and is a symbolic step in repairing relations between the two factions that split nearly 1,000 years ago.

The leaders are expected to have a conversation and then sign a joint declaration, which will likely focus on their shared concerns over Christian refugees in Syria and Iraq.

Justin Bieber is on the cover of GQ’s March issue, and the interview inside is beautifully, delightfully unsurprising.

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On February 14th, 1920, suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt founded the League of Women Voters. The League would go forward where the suffrage movement left off, thanks to the passage of the 19th amendment granting the right to vote to women.

Before that day, suffragists had used Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to spread their message. This 1915 valentine suggests that there will be no love on Valentine’s Day until women get the right to vote:

This 1916 valentine suggests that women love men who stand up for their right to vote:

And this one from 1918 suggests that if men really loved women, they’d give them suffrage.

Happy early Valentine’s/League of Women Voters’ Day!

Via Ms. Magazine; images borrowed from the League of Women Voters.

(View original at https://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Noela Rukundo is a ghost. Or at least that’s what her husband Balenga Kalala thought when she arrived at her own funeral after he’d been told that she was murdered by the Burundian hit men he had hired to kill her last February.

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