Wish there was a good video of this. RIP Michael, Merry Xmas, J5.

Hey! I’m back in my homestate somewhere in middle America and I’ve been hanging out with a lot of people who really want to come visit me on the coast but with money tight don’t really have that luxury. Behold a solution (of sorts)! Lauren Scheff and The Hawk host a show via UStream called The Real Sunset Strip LIVE from The Roxy Theatre. It’s a great chance to see what goes on during a typical Saturday night in the musical heart of West Hollywood that spawned bands like  The Doors, Van Halen, Motley Crue and Guns N Roses.

Speaking of which, former GNR/Velvet Revolver/The Cult drummer Matt Sorum, a regular fixture of the strip, even stopped by a few weeks ago to chat with the guys about the glory days of The Strip (video below). Other recent guests have been Mark McGrath (Sugar Ray), Harry Perry, B-Real from Cypress Hill and Tattooed Millionaire to name very few. Other regular guests and skits from Scheff & The Hawk include bartenders, managers, drunks and misfits from various other Sunset Strip institutions like The Viper Room and The Comedy Store. You’ll probably see me pop-up there every now and then.

Check out the show! Join the Ustream chat sometime and make Twitter and Facebook friends with The Real Sunset Strip!

Read the rest of this entry »

According to Wikipedia, the 12 days of Christmas are supposed to be from Christmas Day to “The Epiphany” and not the 12 days leading up to the Holiday, but I’m pretty sure they made it all up anyway. So here at AvantTrash we are going to instead countdown our 12 favorite Holiday Memes and Videos!

Day 12 = 2002′s Ding Fries Are Done!

This dude always reminded us of our good friend and former roommate Russell.

This is a totally weird video for Bob Dylan’s “Must Be Santa” off of his Christmas In The Heart charity album. For the first 30 seconds I was a bit horrified by Dylan’s awkward movements and straight hair but the song is pretty rad. I like it more than most of the newer Dylan stuff I’ve heard.

I guess Jews have the best Christmas songs.

Proceeds from Chirstmas In The Heart will provide 500,000 meals to school children in the developing world through the World Food Programme, 15,000 meals to homeless people in the United Kingdom through Crisis and more than 4 million meals to 1.4 million families in America through Feeding America.

Bob bless us everyone.

The holidays are a wonderful time to vent the frustrations you’ve spent a year repressing. I think I should release mine here on something that doesn’t really matter instead of on my family today. Here goes:

Read the rest of this entry »

Garfunkel and Oates is Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci and they are great! Check out their other YouTube Videos.

I’m practicing my “Present Face” for this year. I haven’t seen much of my extended family since last Christmas. I gave them a list of used vinyl records that I would prefer over some shiny new piece of junk from Wal-Mart I’ll never use, I can’t imagine that they know what I really want, which is lower rent. And I don’t think they can do that.

6am flights, Ick. LAX, Double Ick. I didn’t go to sleep last night because the airport shuttle came at 3:30am and the flight that I was going to get a good power nap in there just happened to be 2 goddamned screaming kids. One was named Carson and the other Cadence, I overheard their names being announced to no less than 5 other passengers and both flight attendants, and I had headphones on. What’s with all of the “C” names anyway? A few years ago it was all -ayden names (Hayden, Jayden, Thayden-WTF?) While I’m in the Seinfeld spirit, what’s with all of this procreation? What the fuck have you done that you think you should make more of you!? Cured any diseases lately? Made any lasting artworks? I’m speaking directly to you, boring L.L. Bean and Husker hat wearing couple with your parent jeans. If it was summer I bet you’d be wearing Crocs. Does the world really need more insurance salesmen? Sterilization for all. Children of Men wasn’t a warning, it was a utopia, no kids watching Dora the Explorer at FULL VOLUME to stay distracted. (And yes, MaT, I realize they ripped it off.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Today I was working on an Ad that might make it into Playboy. If you’ll remember, this happened a month ago when I had a Sex in the City DVD Ad that was chosen by their art directors, went through revisions, approved to release, went all the way to Mechanical (which means it was prepped to deliver to the printer) and just as I was going to upload it, HBO killed it. They don’t give us a reason when they do that stuff beyond our estimation that they don’t have it in their budget to do so. Wack.  So I was bummed because of course I told everyone to watch for it and counted my chickens before they were hatched and also because I would have actually been proud of the Ad. I received all of these messages saying, “Congratulations!” and all for nothing. The Ad I was working on today is up against 5 other ones and I don’t think I have a real shot. The concept is pretty good but I actually hope it doesn’t make it because tagline they gave us is a lie. Their tagline is, “It’s Juno for the horror set”. Some asshole in marketing came up with it. Its not true because the movie we are making the ad for sucks, a lot. Piece of shit. Seriously. They had us read the script before they even started filming and i nearly pissed myself being incredulous. I thought, “There’s no way a script this bad will actually get made!” But sure enough, I screened the movie yesterday and it was verbatim. Christ. So many good horror scripts out there (Hello, Ali and I struck gold with Dormstalker?) and they have to make that piece of dung.

I’m not going to tell you what the movie is or which studio is putting it out (Straight to DVD of course) because I’d probably get in trouble. But needless to say it is NOT in any way, shape or form “Juno for the Horror set”. There are no pregnant teenagers in it, there are no A-List Actors in it, It is not an Academy Award-winning script written by a former stripper in Minnesota, it will never play in an arthouse theatre, it will never play in a multi-plex, the female star is not the next big thing (she was on Growing Pains) and it will not lead to the rise in sales of orange tic tacs. If this film were reviewed on a Horror site such as DeadLantern.com, it would recieve a 3 out of 10 for looking semi-professionally done for a horror movie on DV Cam with massive points deducted for not being bloody enough nor giving the audience nearly enough of an interesting plot to suspend their bloody disbelief. (And Deejay would deduct points for not showing tits)

Gah. If they pick my design and keep ANY of that Tagline then I am going to barf on my keyboard for knowing that the first large circulation consumer Ad of mine to be released would be for a movie that bad. And so you know, the tagline from the Sex in the City Ad beat out 4 designs was all mine. It was certainly better than “It’s Juno for the Horror Set”.

The other terrible thing that happened today is that I just now finished the screener for Fred Claus. Thats right. I’m working on the DVD design for Fred Claus. I hate working on Christmas films. ESPECIALLY IN MARCH! Can’t I enjoy my Lenten season without Jesus or Santa Claus?

(Hey Ali, I think they filmed some of Fred Claus by where you work. I’m totally sneaking your apartment into the design.)

Ok I feel better now. Merry Christmas everyone.