Venice's persistent hippy-trippy rep and new life as a yuppie tech-worker haven is no excuse to forget its past as Muscle Beach, a bodybuilding hub for buffed-out dudes to come and pump up. The ultimate guide on this tour would be action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who came to Venice back in 1968, as a ripped 21-year-old from Austria, and worked his way up to become the governor of our fine state. (Still hard to believe!) Roll through the narrow thoroughfares of the beachy bodybuilding "mecca" with Arnie telling you the best place to work your quads or do pull-ups. The Muscle Beach workout area on the sand also holds the secret to getting the best, most even tan—just work out on the weight-lifiting platforms. The result: "It was not the kind of a tan that sucked. It was the kind of tan that you could use in competition."

See the first wall Schwarzenegger ever built (still standing!) when he was working construction to make ends meet in those early years, as well as the giant mural of him striking a pose in his Speedo on the side of a building near his old gym. It's a look at Venice that you don't often see anymore, and it's fun.

· Video: Arnold Schwarzenegger Gives A Tour Of His Old Venice Stomping Grounds [LAist]

Click right here to watch a sneak peek clip from Veronica Mars in which Veronica makes some great lawyer jokes. Below, Jason Dorhing and Kristen Bell re-enact that "I thought our story was epic" scene — with a twist. Also: Marshmallow makeout.

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I am visiting a farm, as I do frequently for my job.

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Billy Ray Cyrus Just Dropped A Hip-Hop Sequel To ‘Achy Breaky Heart’

You will see hookah smoking, Larry King, semi naked aliens ladies, Mileys dad and line dancing… W.T. H.

The post Billy Ray Cyrus Just Dropped A Hip-Hop Sequel To ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ appeared first on HelloGiggles.

[Photos by Elizabeth Daniels]

Leonard Knight, the man who built a mountain for God in the middle of the Colorado Desert out of adobe and hay bales, died last night in San Diego at 82. His Salvation Mountain, near the Salton Sea and the notorious Slab City squatter outpost, was famous enough by the end of his life that it ended up in last year's biggest video game. According to a 2013 story in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Knight, a native Vermonter, first came out to California in the early '80s hoping to launch a homemade hot-air balloon—with the words "GOD IS LOVE" on it—on a cross-country flight. "But the thing just wouldn't lift." So he prayed and God told him to build a mountain instead.

Knight spent the rest of his life building that mountain, living in "a broken-down fire truck covered in Scripture" at its base (until about two years ago, when he moved into a convalescent hospital, according to the LA Times), and spending his days building and giving tours to anyone who stopped by. (As Gizmodo notes, he had a donation box and admirers often left supplies, but Knight didn't charge.)

Salvation Mountain became a National Folk Art Site in 2010 and, since Knight left in 2011, has been cared for by a very dedicated group of volunteers. The land under it is state-owned, but "efforts to oust Knight have long since been abandoned," says the Times. Still it's unclear what will happen to the mountain in the long-term.

Intrepid Curbed photographer Elizabeth Daniels was out at Slab City recently and took these photos of Knight's life work. In his own words: "If somebody gave me $100,000 a week to move somewhere and live in a mansion and be a big shot, I'd refuse it ... I want to be right here. It's amazing, isn't it?"

· Leonard Knight's Salvation Mountain [VQR]

Kevin Roderick: Leonard Knight spent almost 30 years building a colorful mountain of adobe covered with donated paint in the Imperial Valley desert near Salton Sea. Knight and Salvation Mountain were featured in the film "Into the Wild."

James Franco is making a movie about The Room. He recently required the rights to The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside the Room, Greg Sestero's book about working with Tommy Wiseau on the beautifully terrible film. In Vice, Franco compared the book's story to Boogie Nights, The Master, Sunset Boulevard, and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Franco will direct and produce, with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg also on board as producers. Franco implied on Instagram last month that he'd star with his brother Dave Franco. They're already photographing spoons as we speak. 

Read more posts by Jesse David Fox

Filed Under: oh hi mark ,the room ,james franco ,the disaster artist ,movies ,adaptation

Stefhanie Meyers is no longer the executive chef at Bow & Truss in North Hollywood. A representative for the restaurant says she has "moved on to pursue other opportunities," meanwhile Aaron Grissom of Dirty Oscar Annex in Tacoma, Washington steps in with this new Latin/Spanish menu. [EaterWire]

From A Hamburger Today

The taste of despair. [Photograph: Dimly Lit Meals for One]

In all my years of burger blogging, this might be the saddest "burger" I've ever seen. If you've seen worse, do share. We shall race to the bottom in our search for the most pathetic burger on earth.

This is just one of many gems you'll find on Dimly Lit Meals For One, my new favorite food blog.

Related: Video: Henry's Kitchen: How to Make Henry's Anytime Chili for One

About the author: Robyn Lee is the editor of A Hamburger Today and takes many of the photos for Serious Eats. She'll also doodle cute stuff when necessary. Read more from Robyn at her personal food blog, The Girl Who Ate Everything.

As Black History Month rolls on, The Throwback revisits an epic mishap by the Los Angeles Clippers, shortly before they became one of the NBA’s best teams.

By Arturo R. García

If you’ve ever wished black history could be celebrated every month, the L.A. Clippers are feeling you – sorta.

No, that picture (via Ball Don’t Lie) is not a fake. It’s a real advert the Clips paid for and ran in the Los Angeles Times this past Sunday, promoting their Black History Month “celebration” … on March 2.

It’s tough to say what’s worse: that the Times would run this ad, or the fact that the typo isn’t even the worst thing about it.

Let’s start with the picture. Putting Blake Griffin in the ad? Okay, that’s a good call. If you’re not following basketball, the video below should explain why.

From there, things start getting problematic. It’d be interesting to know how the team plans to screen the 1,000 “underprivileged children” who will get into the game for free, because Clippers fans are a disenfranchised population all their own. But the “two tickets per ad/two ads per family” clause hints at the worst instincts of the team’s owner, Donald Sterling.

Including Sterling’s grinning mug in the ad crosses the line from incompetence to downright ignorance, if not arrogance. Sterling isn’t just widely known as the worst owner in the NBA, but he was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice not even five years ago for discriminatory housing practices, in violation of the Fair Housing Act. And, as ESPN’s Bomani Jones noted at the time, this wasn’t even Sterling’s first offense:

Sterling was sued for housing discrimination by 19 plaintiffs in 2003, according to The Associated Press. In this case, Sterling was accused of trying to drive blacks and Latinos out of buildings he owned in Koreatown. In November, Sterling was ordered to pay a massive settlement in that case. Terms were not disclosed, but the presiding judge said this was “one of the largest” settlements ever in this sort of matter. The tip of the iceberg: Sterling had to play $5 million just for the plaintiffs’ attorney fees.

Sterling’s insidious practices and prejudices were spelled out more clearly by ESPN The Magazine’s Peter Keating in 2009, as he wrote about a conversation between Sterling and Sumner Davenport, one of his property supervisors, after Sterling had acquired the Aardmore Apartments in Koreatown:

When Sterling first bought the Ardmore, he remarked on its odor to Davenport. “That’s because of all the blacks in this building, they smell, they’re not clean,” he said, according to Davenport’s testimony. “And it’s because of all of the Mexicans that just sit around and smoke and drink all day.” He added: “So we have to get them out of here.” Shortly after, construction work caused a serious leak at the complex. When Davenport surveyed the damage, she found an elderly woman, Kandynce Jones, wading through several inches of water in Apartment 121. Jones was paralyzed on the right side and legally blind. She took medication for high blood pressure and to thin a clot in her leg. Still, she was remarkably cheerful, showing Davenport pictures of her children, even as some of her belongings floated around her.

Jones had repeatedly walked to the apartment manager’s office to plead for assistance, according to sworn testimony given by her daughter Ebony Jones in the Housing Rights Center case. Kandynce Jones’ refrigerator dripped, her dishwasher was broken, and her apartment was always cold. Now it had flooded. Davenport reported what she saw to Sterling, and according to her testimony, he asked: “Is she one of those black people that stink?” When Davenport told Sterling that Jones wanted to be reimbursed for the water damage and compensated for her ruined property, he replied: “I am not going to do that. Just evict the bitch.”

Repairs never came. The shower stopped working, and the toilet wouldn’t flush; Jones needed to use a plunger and disposed of waste tissue in bags.

Kandynce Jones departed the home she loved but that caused her so much grief when she passed away, on July 21, 2003, at age 67.

Ultimately, Sterling paid the DOJ 2.725 million to settle the case against him. But if you thought Sterling kept his idiocy off the court, you’d be mistaken. A wrongful termination suit brought against him by his former longtime general manager, Elgin Baylor, is still pending. In court documents cited by the Times, Baylor accuses Sterling of maintaining a “plantation mentality”:

In court papers, Baylor said that Jim Brewer, then an assistant with the Clippers, wanted the chance to interview for the head coaching job after Bill Fitch was dismissed following the 1997-98 season.

“I believe he [Sterling] was a little reluctant at first but I said, ‘We owe him that courtesy.’ So we go there and we sit down and Brewer starts talking about his qualifications, that he believed he could do the job of being the head coach,” Baylor said in court papers.

“And when he finished, Donald said something that was very shocking to me. He said, ‘Personally, I would like to have a white Southern coach coaching poor black players. And I was shocked. And he looked at me and said, ‘Do you think that’s a racist statement?’ I said, ‘Absolutely. That’s plantation mentality.”

Baylor’s suit alleges that Sterling’s refusal to pay market value, on top of his attitudes, has cost the team numerous top-level black players over the years. But it didn’t stop him from objectifying them. As J.A. Adende reported on TrueHoop, court documents revealed several more disturbing stories of Sterling’s behavior, including this one:

“While ignoring my suggestions and isolating me from decisions customarily reserved for general managers, the Clippers attempted to place the blame for the team’s failures on me,” Baylor said in the declaration. “During this same period, players Sam Cassell, Elton Brand and Corey Maggette complained to me that DONALD STERLING would bring women into the locker room after games, while the players were showering, and make comments such as, ‘Look at those beautiful black bodies.’ I brought this to Sterling’s attention, but he continued to bring women into the locker room.”

And this team once thought it had a shot at signing Kobe Bryant? Does anybody think Blake Griffin is going to be happy being Sterling’s show pony?

But the oddest part of this story is the silence from on high. In a league where there’s a strict dress code; where criticizing referees gets you harsh words from league commissioner David Stern; and where there’s a continued insistence that said referees aren’t informed by their own prejudices, even if they might not lead to incidents as egregious as Sterling’s, the league and Stern have said absolutely schtum on the matter of Sterling. Not even after Sterling reportedly told Stern, “I would fire you.”

It’s not like there’s a lack of precedent for leagues stepping in to clean an owner’s mess: Major League Baseball famously stepped in and forced Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott out of the game. And the NBA’s rule forbidding teams from trading away their first-round picks in consecutive years was instituted to protect them against meddling executives. Will Sterling’s latest faux pas finally force the league’s hand?

Thanks to Kevin for the tip!

[Top image via Los Angeles Clippers Facebook page]

It's official: Los Angeles's weather is awesome. According to data from the last 23 years, compiled by software engineer Kelly Norton (via The Atlantic Cities), the three cities with the most "pleasant" weather in the nation are, in order: Los Angeles, San Diego, and Oxnard. Follow the coast between San Francisco and San Diego and find a jagged line of great weather, averaging about 100 great days a year based on Norton's criteria: The most days a year when "the mean temperature was between (55° F and 75° F), the minimum temperature was above 45° F, the maximum temperature was below 85° F and there was no significant precipitation or snow depth." Los Angeles averaged 183 days a year within those boundaries. The top five cities were all in California, but the big surprise? Drizzly, gray San Francisco was number five. (Maybe that rep needs to be put to rest?) The least pleasant place in the US is also in California, east of Cedarville in the far northeast, where they average only 16 days of nice weather a year. Go explore the interactive map on Norton's site for more.

· The Pleasant Places To Live [Kelly Norton]

George Clooney is a prankster. It's the third thing people say about him, after noting how charming and handsome he is (not necessarily in that order). It's a reputation he relishes, partly because he loves practical jokes and partly because it gives the press something to talk about instead of his personal life. Sure enough, a new Clooney prank has been revealed (victim: his dad) while he is promoting his fifth directorial effort, The Monuments Men, which comes out this weekend. It is about time someone made all of his pranks available in one place for prankstorians, so here they are: From tricking customers at his high school job to fooling Matt Damon into thinking he's getting fat, to the many dupes suffered by friend Richard Kind and producer Jerry Weintraub. Enjoy and make sure, if you ever encounter Clooney, not to get so lost in his dreaminess that you forget to check his hand for a joy buzzer.

Seventies
• Clooney started pranking young. When he had a job selling shoes, he would write his initials and draw a smiley face on every pair of shoes he sold. (Kentucky Monthly Magazine)

Eighties
• Clooney would steal friends' cameras and take pictures of his genitals wearing glasses. He called it "Mr. Face," telling Esquire, "You put sunglasses and a cigarette, and it actually looks like a person." Victims included pop singer Pat Boone. 

1993
• The famous kitty litter prank. After his divorce from Talia Balsam, Clooney moved in briefly with good friend Richard Kind. Kind kept his cat's litter box in the guest bathroom. Clooney cleaned out the poop, but didn't tell Kind he was doing so, leaving Kind to think his cat was terribly constipated for weeks. Clooney kept it up, even after Kind took his cat to the vet. Finally, Clooney took a large human crap in the litter box. (L.A. Times Magazine) 

1994 (ER)
• Stephen Spielberg was a producer of ER. Though he didn't have much involvement with the day-to-day goings-on of the show, he did send Christmas gifts. Clooney and Noah Wyle had heard that Spielberg had given the cast of the movie Always Mazda Miatas as a wrap gift a year earlier. When Spielberg got the cast of ER cell phones for Christmas, Clooney convinced Wyle that they should write thank-you notes to Spielberg that read, "Dear Steven, Thank you for the Miata cell phone." So, Wyle did. Clooney, however, did not. Spielberg never sent Wyle a Christmas gift ever again. (Conan)

• During the first season of ER, Julianna Margulies was booked on The Tonight Show. Unsure what to talk about, she went to Clooney for advice. Clooney gave her an anecdote that supposedly happened to his mother, involving a doctor's office and the line "I’m not a gynecologist, I’m a podiatrist.” Margulies told the story. What Clooney didn't tell her was that years prior, he convinced his then-girlfriend Kelly Preston to tell the exact same story for her Tonight Show panel. Clooney did nothing with this for eight years, until, years after he left ER, he and Margulies were booked to appear on the same episode of The Tonight Show. Clooney had Preston and Margulies's appearances cut together, with each finishing the other's sentences. At the last minute, Clooney decided against showing it, feeling that it would hurt Margulies too much. (L.A. Times Magazine) 

• One day at lunch, an ER co-star went up to Clooney and asked, "Does my pasta smell funny?" and then pushed the plate into his face. Clooney waited. Then, on the actor's last day, Clooney put a license plate frame on the actor's car that read, "Honk if you like pussy." The guy thought everyone was honking and waving to say good-bye. (LA Times Magazine)

1996
• Clooney saw a giant awful painting in the garbage and decided to take it home, frame it, and sign it. Then for about a year he made Richard Kind think he was taking art classes. Then on Kind's 40th birthday, Clooney gave the giant painting to Kind, calling it the first painting he and his art teacher were both really proud of. Kind hung the painting for two years without knowing. (Next Movie) 

• One more prank on Kind. Clooney was at a birthday party for Harry Hamlin. Hamlin was an acquaintance at best, but Clooney was invited through a mutual friend who was hosting the party. Hamlin had put his camera down, so Clooney picked it up and tried to get people to take pictures of their butts with it. Everyone said no. But then when he saw Kind, Clooney told him that everyone was taking pictures of their butts and he should, too. Kind said sure. Clooney told Kind he would crop it so you'd just see the butt, but he actually shot it so you can see Kind looking over his shoulder, smiling. A week later, Clooney's friend played him a message from Hamlin: "I want to thank you again for a great birthday party. Could you explain to me why Richard Kind is showing his ass on my camera?" (Esquire)

• On the set of One Fine Day, they were using a $7,000 fake kitten to pass as a real cat. Clooney would have Mae Whitman throw him it, only for him to miss it and it to drop on the floor. Onlookers were horrified because they thought it was real.

1999
• One day, while filming Three Kings, co-star Nora Dunn started heckling Clooney from 25 yards away. So Clooney took an apple, speared it on a car antenna, pulled it back, and flung the apple at her. It hit her square in the forehead. He called it the ''greatest shot in the history of shots." (Entertainment Weekly) 

Year Unclear (Seemingly the Nineties)
• Clooney was at a dinner party with Sandra Bullock. Bullock saw Clooney with his shirt off by the pool, and he said he was going to jump in. So, Bullock, Clooney, and another guest held hands, and Clooney said on the count of three they'd all jump in. On three, only Bullock jumped. Her expensive dress started disintegrating. (The Tonight Show)

2001 (Ocean's Eleven)
• Clooney can do a perfect imitation of Ocean's Eleven producer Jerry Weintraub. Clooney used it to request a 4:30 a.m. hotel wake-up call for Weintraub.

• Weintraub had an expensive gold silk shirt that Clooney hated. One night, Clooney snuck into Weintraub's closet and stole the shirt. Clooney proceeded to draw a giant penis on it and have it signed by everyone who was participating at a Las Vegas charity golf tournament. There were 30 signatures, including those of Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Wayne Gretzky. Clooney then gave Weintraub the shirt for his birthday. (L.A. Times Magazine)

• He'd put Vaseline over Weintraub's doorknobs. (People)

• He once put a bucket of water over Julia Roberts's doorway, so when she'd open it, she'd get drenched; however, a bellman got it instead. (People) 

2003
• An unnamed friend — whom Clooney calls "Frank" in this story — jokingly left Clooney a voice mail saying, “It’s Frank, it’s eight o’clock, and I like cock! I just like it!” This was right before Frank, Clooney, and some friends were supposed to go on vacation to a remote Hawaiian resort. They had agreed not to check their messages for a week. So, right before leaving, Clooney got the code to Frank's message center and replaced the greeting with the "eight o’clock" message. For a week, that's all anyone calling heard, including Frank's mother, who remarked, “That was a weird message.” (Vanity Fair) 

2004 (Ocean's Twelve)
• Clooney would leave potted plants outside the door of Julia Roberts's trailer, so she couldn't get out. (In Touch) 

• Bernie Mac on Clooney: "Clooney always plays. He [plays] too damn much. You gotta watch Clooney. You come in the door, a bucket of water [will] fall on your head. He got it propped up at the top. You got tacks in your seat, all that kind of bullshit. He found a rabbit cage and let it loose in your room. You gotta watch Clooney." (About)

• Clooney assembled a crowd of fans outside Brad Pitt's hotel window. When Pitt appeared, they went wild. However, Clooney had them chanting, "George! George! George!" all night. (Next Movie)

• After Brad Pitt sent out a memo to the Italian crew that said Clooney wanted to be referred to as "Danny Ocean" and that they could not make eye contact with him (the Italian newspapers eventually wrote about it, as if it were true), Clooney started putting bumper stickers on Pitt's car. The first read, "I'm gay and I vote." The second read, "Small Penis on Board." (IGN)

2005
• Clooney threw a fake wedding for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to prank the paparazzi. He ordered high-top tables and put them on his lawn, so helicopters would see it. For two weeks the press believed it was happening. (Today Show)

2006
• At a party for Scott Caan's photo exhibit, Clooney reportedly told Bruce Willis that many middle-aged men were hitting on Willis's then 18-year-old daughter, Rumer. Clooney was pointing out the men one by one, and Willis got more and more angry. The joke was foiled when Rumer flubbed her part in the prank. (New York Daily News)

2007 (Ocean's Thirteen)
• On a flight to LA, Clooney and Pitt challenged Weintraub to a vodka-drinking contest. Clooney and Pitt, however, were drinking water. When Weintraub passed out, they filled his underwear with M&Ms. (Fora.TV)

2008
• After Hugh Jackman won Sexiest Man Alive, Clooney called him at 2:00 AM, shouting, "Shut up, Jackman! I know what you did! You started this big campaign that's been going on and [you] took the title away from me." (People)

2011 (Ides of March)
• While giving Ryan Gosling directions, Clooney would slowly spray Gosling's crotch with a water bottle. (LA Times Magazine)

• Clooney got Evan Rachel Wood to dance and sing along to Justin Bieber's "Baby," not telling her cameras were filming it. He joked, "Enjoy the DVD." (LA Times Magazine)

2012
• At a date with then-girlfriend Stacey Keibler, Clooney hid an air horn in his hat. He blasted it to startle the waiting paparazzi. (TMZ)

2013 (Monuments Men)
• After staying at Clooney's place, Bill Murray was leaving and noticed his bags felt heavier. He opened them up to realize that Clooney put eleven pounds of gravel in the bottom. (Yahoo)

• Matt Damon was staying with Clooney; knowing that Damon was trying to lose weight, Clooney had a tailor take Damon's pants in an eighth of an inch, every few days. Damon could not understand how he was gaining weight. (The Tonight Show)

• Clooney had his father, Nick, over to watch a rough cut of Monuments Men. Nick plays George's character as an old man in the film, which ends with a shot of Nick walking into the distance. In the cut George showed Nick, it then fades to black and the screen reads, "In loving memory of Nick Clooney." (Access Hollywood)

2014
• After Tina Fey and Amy Poehler told a particularly cutting and funny joke about Clooney at the Golden Globes, Clooney promised retribution. First, he sent Tina and Amy a letter from Matt Damon that said, "Look, it sounds hypocritical because I laughed at the jokes about George and Leo, but you know, that’s sort of what people think about them. But when you called me a garbage man, it just seemed like low hanging fruit, it just seemed like an easy joke. And you know, I don’t want an apology, I don’t want anything else, I just want you to know that my kid now calls me the garbage man.” Damon, however, didn't learn Clooney sent this letter until he got two giant fruit baskets with two letters from Tina and Amy. The first letter was an apology. The second, which he read on Letterman, said, "If your note is part of some George Clooney prank, as I very strongly suspect it is, you A-list amateurs are going to have to step it the fuck up. We are not some easily confused starlets here. We are grown-ass, professional comedians. Please accept this fruit as a token of our sincerity. Best wishes, Elizabeth Tina Fey, Amy 'Boston' Poehler." Clooney brushed off their seeing through his prank: "And I just said, that’s the appetizer and what’s coming now, the main course, it’s pretty brutal." (SiriusXM Town Hall)

Read more posts by Jesse David FoxBrennan Carley

Filed Under: pranksta's paradise ,pranks ,practical jokes ,george clooney ,movies

If you've found yourself helplessly, horribly enthralled by the Ke$ha and Pitbull collaboration "Timber," then you're going to love this 50s-style doo-wop cover, featuring the Tee Tones. It's the work of arranger Scott Bradlee and his Postmodern Jukebox, who previously turned "Just Dance" into a swinging jazz tune.

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[Images via the Bureau of Street Lighting]

Last year, the city of Los Angeles finished the "largest LED street light replacement project" in the world, as Forbes reported then, swapping 141,089 streetlights in what's just the first phase of a full switchover from sodium lighting. (LEDs are more efficient and last much longer, so the city will save massively on both electricity and maintenance costs.) But LEDs, which cast a bluish light, look radically different from the old, yellowy high-pressure sodium lights, meaning a pretty straightforward municipal decision will translate into a completely new film aesthetic in one of the most-filmed cities in the world. (New York is planning on switching its lights out for LEDs too.) At No Film School, Dave Kendricken writes that "In a sense, every night exterior LA-shot film previous to this change is rendered a sort of anthropological artifact, an historical document of obsolete urban infrastructure."

Kendricken explains that non-tungsten artificial light sources, like LA's new streetlights, "produce a non-continuous or incomplete spectral output," so some colors just won't show up at all in anything filmed (or, more accurately these days, shot on digital video) under those lights (even with gels or post-production color correction).

High-pressure sodium, on the other hand, is pretty much monochromatic, producing light in only a very narrow part of the spectrum (the yellow part). That's much worse for lighting a film shoot, of course, but it does have a "starkly unique, artificially lit recognizability." (Kendricken has clips from Michael Mann's 2004 film Collateral to demonstrate this "before" look. Someone tell us, though, how PT Anderson got his beautiful blue nights in 2002's Punch-Drunk Love, which was shot in the Valley.)

So both types of streetlights have their aesthetic benefits, and certain filmmakers may prefer one or the other, but the difference is obvious (see the before/afters) and at this point pretty much a done deal; the way the world (and LA) will see Los Angeles at night has changed forever.

· Why Hollywood Will Never Look the Same Again on Film: LEDs Hit the Streets of LA & NY [No Film School]

I have been known to turn up the song Timber when it comes on the radio.

The inner workings of Scientology meetings have pretty much been word of mouth up until now. A reporter has finally managed to do what many have tried in the past to do but failed. He put a camera inside a meeting of the Sea-Org. In the meeting the speaker talks about battles being weighed against Scientology. The speaker also talks about the need for money to fight the battles against people trying to bring Scientology down and says the organization needs to raise $3.5M immediately. I'm not sure why they need so much money if they are doing as well as they claim to be doing. I'm also not sure how Sea Org people are supposed to contribute considering they have already agreed to give the next billion years to the cause.

When eating fish, I generally have it fried if I am hungry and grilled if I ate something a few minutes before meal time.

[Note: Viewers of "Deer Fart" are contractually required spend a minimum of (15) minutes reading about the resignation of Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.] (Via ViralViral.)

Star Trek: The Next Generation had a huge legacy to live up to. Not just the thought-provoking storytelling of the original series — but also the amazing insane costumes. But TNG rose to the challenge. Here's our roundup of the most epic costumes in the Next Generation's first few seasons.

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New rumors have surfaced from law enforcement officers who raided Justin Bieber's house. The mansion was reportedly "strewn" with drug paraphernalia, including bongs, hookahs, empty codeine bottles, and custom hand-decorated Sizzurp cups. Cops didn't seize any of the items because it would have "exceeded the scope of the search warrant."

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Today, a blog run by a "street style star" featured an interview with a Russian socialite with just about the worst accompanying imagery possible: said socialite perched, carefree and barefoot, on a chair comprised of a bound black woman. Is it me, or is Martin Luther King Day fuckery especially rampant this year?

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According to Dana White, the new season of The Ultimate Fighter Brazil is so intense that the coaches Chael Sonnen brought with him are afraid for their safety.

Everyone expected that the bad blood would be boiling when noted American xenophobe Chael Sonnen traveled to Brazil to coach the third season of Ultimate Fighter: Brazil opposite Wanderlei Silva. Well if you can trust UFC president Dana White, things are already heated up way past simmer.

Here's what he told Fox Sports 1 (via MMA Weekly):

"From what I have heard, the first day of filming was absolute insanity. Basically, it's so crazy down there that the guys that are coaching on Chael's team are scared to be there. That's how insane it is inside that gym.

"I think this season is going to be explosive and crazy," added White. "From what I’m hearing, the things that went down, Wanderlei is 100-percent being Wanderlei and Chael is being Chael."

Chael added:

"The threats are very real, and we downplay them if anything. They’re real and genuine. Attempts have been made. It’s just the way it goes. I’m not going to live my life in fear. I don’t live in fear," said Sonnen."I don’t think about it a whole lot. Again, it’s a real thing. I recognize it. That’s it."

What do you think? Has Dana burned us one too many times?

Sonnen and Silva are expected to fight after the season is completed.

[Image via Chris / Curbed LA flickr pool]

West Hollywood may have rainbow banners flapping in their traffic medians and rainbow crosswalks, but it's now drawing the line at flying a rainbow flag at city hall. The flag, which flew for about seven months, was taken down after the city council's unanimous vote a few months back to fly only the US, California, and West Hollywood flags, reports the LA Times. Doing so is supposed to serve as a reminder that, while a significant portion of the city identifies as gay or lesbian, WeHo "belongs to heterosexual people as well, and City Hall belongs to everybody in this community, gay or straight," Councilmember Duran said at one of the many meetings to decide the flag's fate. (Duran has previously spoken in favor of rainbow flags and crosswalks.) Some feel that the flag takedown symbolizes West Hollywood's movement away from its identity as a gay haven, but it's hard to see that happening any time soon. Meanwhile, the guy who donated the flag to the city is asking for it back.
· Rainbow flag removed from atop West Hollywood City Hall [LA Times]