Stupid lawmen types noticed that LA was becoming overrun with legal weed spots, thanks to a legal loophole, so they tried to put a moratorium on them, and were sued. Meanwhile, cops are kicking in doors and shutting shit down at weed dispensaries. It's not the Feds, dude, it's the locals; specifically, LA district attorney Steve Cooley, a bitch ass scrub who wants to shut down all the weed shops because they are not technically "legal," in California, allegedly. That's right, Cooley: We called you a bitch ass. It's in the first amendment, look it up.

But meanwhile, you know who is on the side of the weed people? A motherfucking judge!

A Superior Court judge concluded today that Los Angeles' moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries is invalid and granted a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the ban sought by a dispensary that had sued the city.

Follow the law and stop being illegal against weed!
[Pic via]

AM and his girlfriend, Hayley Wood, broke up a little over a week ago, as it turned out. AM had still been experiencing PTSD from the plane crash he and Travis Barker survived a year ago.

Tributes from exes, his music-making partner Travis Barker, and celebrities of all stripes poured out for him over the last few days. And yeah, that's the Palms in Vegas, where he had a residency, dimming their lights for him. 

AM had been working on a show for MTV about drug addiction, something he'd dealt with his entire life. He grew up with it—his father was a drug addict—had been to rehab for it, and finally, was thought to have escaped its grasp. Initial reports are noting that he was indeed found with drugs on him: crack, Xanax, Vicodin and oxycodone. AM had tried to commit suicide once in his life already.

The guy was mostly known for his collaboration with Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker—TRV$ AM—for which they put out mixtapes for free together and went on tour.

AM also made a name for himself mixing rock tracks, earning himself a bit of a cross-over from the pop scene. Here he is, mixing Oasis' "Wonderwall" with M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes."

Eric Spiegelman put together a great time-lapse video of the fires, set to Grizzly Bear's— and really, what's with all the Grizz these days?—"All We Ask." He also did one of the fires at night. Leave it to Angelinos to make great art out of disaster. Most New Yorkers are fine until something bad happens, after which they mostly curl into the fetal position and go think smart deep thoughts about it for $300 an hour. Send me your citizen's reports and photos, or throw them in the comments. Godspeed these fires away, and please keep the Kogi Truck safe.

Time Lapse Test: Station Fire from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Feeling bad for the museum, the Hollywood Foreign Press Time Warner Cable (who's teamed up with Ovation TV) have looked within their entertainment-loving hearts and are each donating give the museum $75,000 to keep the 40-year old program alive. And, as if that's not enough, Time Warner and Ovation are spending $1.5 million to market the program to the masses.

For its part, the Hollywood Foreign Press was "persuaded" by an open letter penned by Martin Scorsese.

So, rest easy, for the program's safe — well, for now: museum officials say they have enough money to last through the 2010 fiscal year. After that? Who knows...

Image via pedrosimoes7's flickr.

YouTube user LosAngelesCot24 posted this video, his or her only upload, in which someone in a white shirt gets out of a coroner's van. And, according to the poster, the van has the same license plate as the one that transported the king of pop. It must be true!

As one friends said, "If Michael Jackon's was secretly still alive, do you think some asshole with a handy cam would be able to catch it?" And that's the truth!

The Beatrice Inn - the Village's cause célèbre amongst pissed-off residents and pissed-off quasi-celebrities/uber-hipsters - was shut down after the neighborhoods residents old fogies complained about the noise, smoking, and general ridiculousness that took place within its confines. This raises the question: is New York getting crunchier? Or more tightassed?

Though the answer fails to surface in today's New York Times article on it - the gist of which is: first, they came for the nightclubs... - they do come up with a plausible solution for clubs like the Bea:

Marilyn Dorato, the director of the Greenwich Village Block Associations, who helped residents near the Beatrice Inn with their campaign, had a suggestion for compromise that helped on her own block: "We used to have a lot of noise problems with the Waverly Inn, and that is why my neighbor bought it."

The neighbor, the Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, enclosed the restaurant's garden, and it now closes at 12:45 a.m. at the latest, said Ms. Dorato, a 37-year resident of the area.

"If there's a Graydon Carter living near the Beatrice Inn who wants to buy it, that would be a great solution," she said. "I recommend it."

Ahoy! Graydon Carter, The Great Negotiator of pissed-off residents and nightlife alike. Get yourself one of those, kids, and you can put all the blow up your snouts you want, as loudly as you can do it. Until then, there's this possibly out-of-proper-context gem, from nightlife impresario, columnist Steve Lewis:

"Nightclubs are now seen as nuisances," said Steve Lewis, a nightclub designer and a founder of the Nightlife Preservation Community, a group started this year. "The attitude is that if clubs just went away, everybody could have a quiet life."

Well, yes. I think that's the idea.

Across the country, the exact same thing's going down. Recent advocate of cultural eugenics and exclusive urban country club SoHo House will be planting their feet on the Sunset Strip after being given the go-ahead by local planning commissions. People are pissed!

The proposal has also drawn opposition from Beverly Hills Mayor Nancy Krasne, who underlined that it does not only affect the city of West Hollywood. "The traffic is already backed up on Sunset to Hillcrest in Beverly Hills and it bottlenecks in West Hollywood. This can only make travel on Sunset much worse," she said in e-mailed comments. "Now we add valets running across Sunset Boulevard to retrieve cars, cars trying to merge into Sunset with heavy traffic, amplified music on the roof of SoHo House on unknown days or evenings ... and the list goes on," Krasne said.

Don't forget the various non-filming permits reality shows like The Hills will use when they turn your backyard into the backdrop for The Drama of Our Time, or Guadalajaran Coke Mules taking refuge at your doorstep after navigating the terrifying masses occupying what's soon to be West Hollywood's most storied cultural institution. Luckily, though, anybody with an aerial view will be in luck:

"A 6 1/2-foot glass wall will enclose the top of the building.."

...and helicopters are the new Vespas. How does the "flyover country" you've been known to make fun of sound now, urban dwellers? Next to the thumping sounds of the latest Lady Gaga remix - below, as a primer - not too bad, right? Turn your speakers up as loud as you possibly can, and hear the future.

Former Village Voice columnist Tricia Romano has a piece in Thursday's New York Times profiling the phenomenon created by Ryan Heffington, a "choreographer, performance artist and designer" who has created something called "Sweaty Sundays," a weekly aerobics, errr, dance class held in a performance space in the heart of LA's very own Williamsburg.

Here, members of this creative class - artists, photographers, fashion designers and screenwriters - dance off the previous night's excesses to a soundtrack of indie rock, techno, and 1980s new wave hits. And they do it while looking fabulous in Jane Fonda leg warmers and belted leotards.

"It's kind of an American Apparel ad come to life," said Terence McFarland, 40, the executive director of the Los Angeles Stage Alliance, who is a regular.

On a recent Sunday, Christopher Kreiling, a 33-year-old visual artist, was among the first to arrive. It was his first time, but he already had the look down: a pair of very short white corduroy shorts, a pink-and-white striped tank top and the all-important headband.

"I just had 10 cigarettes and a coffee," he said. "I'm like, ‘O.K., let's go.' "

Heffington says that the class has become so popular with the local idiots that he's added a second Sunday class as well as a weeknight one called "Wet Wednesdays." And don't fret over not being able to participate in the fun yourself if you don't happen to live in the LA area, because there's a DVD coming soon. Yippee!

Now, the real question the article about this hideous trend brings up is what will the Williamsburg hipsters do to top it? Sorry Williamsburg, but your little kickball and tetherball retro-fitness trends don't stand up against this. You all need to step it the hell up! Surely it's the lack of availability of things such as "Sweaty Sundays" that stokes Tricia Romano's smoldering hatred of New York. Win back her dark, jaded heart! Do it for New York!

LA Times media moralist James Rainey, for one, is outraged. He was forced, for research purposes, to go listen to Reynolds talking to Howard Stern about sexy, sexual things:

Reynolds spared no detail professional or, in particular, sexual...

Particular highlights among the lowlights: Reynolds' description of a celebrity she had "done," others she made out with, and her recollection of fantasy play with her husband, including the time he held a gun to the back of her head. ("I don't even care that it's loaded. I said, 'Don't even tell me. I don't care.' ")

Excuse James Rainey as he wipes his fevered brow, but this is not the "news" he knows. Is this really what people want from their vapid TV personalities? Blatant, lurid, sexy, sexuality, from Barbie-esque women? James Rainey puts the question to the powers-that-be:

Well then, I said to Hale, wouldn't talking about bondage with the aplomb of a porn star at least press the edges of the Fox code of conduct?

James Rainey is coming from a place of caring, Jillian. He cares. A lot. About you. He wants to help you. He is willing to work closely with you. As closely as you like. He is even willing to put it to you in the voice of a finger-snapping "girlfriend," so that you get his message loud and clear:

But, girl, you're middle-aged and expecting a second child (as announced on the air this week)...Isn't it time to grow up, just a little?

Girl, you betta listen to James. He wants to help you, girl. He wants to hold you, girl. He wants to...to love you, girl. Call him.
[LAT]

• The event starts at 10 a.m., L.A. time. Who will be carrying it live? Everybody! Specifically, "All the major networks and a host of cable news and entertainment channels, including CNN, MSNBC, E! Entertainment, TV Guide Network and TV One."
• "More than 1.6 million people registered over the weekend for a chance at one of 17,500 free tickets to the service."
• To make things a little more lively, MJ's dead body will be in attendance! Appearing alongside the corpse: "Mariah Carey, Usher, John Mayer, Jennifer Hudson ­as well as a delegation from Motown, the label that nurtured Mr. Jackson as the child star of the Jackson 5. There are also figures from sports (Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant), politics (Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III), movies and television (Brooke Shields) and the church (the Andrae Crouch Choir)."
• The presence of Michael himself is, of course, driving the TV anchors wild with hyperbole. As well as anyone speaking to the TV anchors. Said Ken Sunshine, PR man for the event: "Michael Jackson is the biggest figure emitting love ever." HEH.
• According to vague "experts" and "analysts," one billion people will watch this thing. Christ. Let's hope not.
• And through all of this madness, reporters won't even be given any food that they can't pay for themselves. Or phones! Sounds nice. From the official media advisory:
  

All night last we were giddy with anticipation thinking we'd definitely get an email from the wacky Charmaine Blake. Unfortunately, we did not. But a "dear personal friend" of hers, a Spielberg no less, did take the time to write in to inform us that some unknown evil goblin recognized Charmaine Blake as she was enjoying a tasty dinner last night with John Ratzenberger at Wolfgang Puck's Cut in Beverly Hills, which prompted the hellion to spring into action with a diabolical plot to destroy Charmaine Blake, expertly crafting a press release that just so happens to read exactly like something Charmaine Blake would write, based on what we've seen of her work, and then blasted it out to slew of press contacts that this rogue rascal just so happened to have laying around.

See for yourself:

From: MelissaSpielberg@aol.com
Date: July 1, 2009 2:07:05 PM PDT
To: melissa.spielberg@gmail.com
Subject: Media Alert: Celebrity News Retraction

To Whom if May Concern:

My name is Melissa Spielberg. I am a dear personal friend of Charmaine Blake's. Ms. Blake is very upset about the email that went out about her and John Ratzenberger having dinner last night. Apparently someone witnessed Charmaine Blake and John Ratzenberger having dinner at Wolfgang Puck's "Cut" in Beverly Hills last evening. Unfortunately, word leaked out and someone emailed a tip from a fictitious email address claiming to be Charmain Blake. The email address CharmaineBlakePR@aol.com and ExclusivePRFirm@aol.com do not belong to Charmaine Blake and have no affiliation whatsoever with Charmaine Blake. These emails does not exist and we sincerely apologize to everyone for this most unfortunate miscommunication.

Please be advised, if you received this email yesterday, you were being deceived.

Charmaine Blake and John Ratzenberger are very good friends and I hope everyone will respect their privacy.

Thank you for your kind understanding with this matter.

Sincerely yours,
Melissa Spielberg

Wow! Such are the perils of being "the most famous publicist" we suppose. Charmaine Blake's enemies are powerful and determined and will stop at nothing to destroy her. This is obviously the work of the Godless, child-raping David Letterman.

Charmaine Blake PR [Charmaine Blake PR]
Charmaine Blake's Blog [Charmaine Watch]

The profile details Ellis' move to L.A. and comes in the middle of his writing the "sequel" to his first book, Less Than Zero (which made him a literary superstar at the age of 20), which is tentatively titled Imperial Bedrooms. The article - which isn't avalible online - paints Ellis as kind of sad and living a very existential, somewhat disconnected life. Also, he thinks The Hills is genius. The full quote, transcribed from print:

He is, however-and on this subject, he is highly animated-a huge fan of MTV's scripted reality series of the young and the monied in L.A., THE HILLS. "I think THE HILLS is the greatest show I have ever seen in my life," he says, sincerely. "It is a modern masterpiece. I think that ADAM DeVILLO is a mad genius. He creates it and controls it perfectly." Mr. ELLIS is very specific about the way he watches THE HILLS. "I'm holding off on Season 4 right now. I started watching a bit of it, but I'm waiting until the DVD comes out because I want to see it all so beautifully mastered. Even if you download the show there is that irritating MTV logo in the corner. It doesn't work for me that way. It has to be on a big screen with the sound right up. It blows me away...I'm sorry, but whoever invented HEIDI MONTAG and SPENCER PRATT are just...nothing matches it. I've never see L.A. look more beautiful in a work of art. There are no movies that are as beautiful as that."

This is why I'm never moving to L.A. Just like The City is why you should never move to New York.

He was also, interestingly enough, called out on a social networking site on a date going out ("BRET ELLIS is not a fan of social-networking sites. He has been "caught out" by someone on a dating site, though understandable doesn't care to flesh out that story. He won't try it again.").

Thing is, this makes an interesting point that I've never really considered before. The Hills is the tame, boring drug-less version of Less Than Zero (note to Hills producers: show them doing blow, and I'll watch). A bunch of severely disaffected brats, fucking around with their parents' money, creating an awe-inspiring charade of lives inextricably tied to the celebrity culture of Hollywood. This raises the question: was Less Than Zero the predecessor to The Hills? Do we blame Ellis for Speidi? Is Paul Telegdy off the hook today?

Meanwhile, Fantastic Man, which could be a test-tube baby between Esquire and McSweeny's, is kind of a fascinating product. It's a giant, pretty magazine with nice pages and a strange sense of humor. It costs $11. And it has Bret Easton Ellis on the cover, drinking a Diet Coke. This should tell you what kind of magazine it is: at once both kind of genius and a complete waste of one's time. I love it.

For example, in one issue, there is:

- A 1,000 word essay from the Editor-In-Chief of Interview on waking up with a hangover in Paris.

- A 1,000 word treatise on the greatness that is toast.

- A designation of the word "Super" as their word of the season. This is written on their masthead.

- A selection of single meals art-world people have had recently (one of them: pervy photog Terry Richardson's meal of a vegetarian burrito from Pinche Taqueria in New York. "For dessert, he had a pack of sour Skittles, also very 'yum yum.'").

- And a cover story featuring Bret Easton Ellis with nothing to promote. Did we mention he was drinking a Diet Coke?

A 35-year-old "Entertainment executive in Los Angeles" posted this listing on Barefoot Student, the already creepy-sounded job site for college students.

You are his dynamic, fun personal assistant. What does that entail?

Tasks: errands like drycleaning, corrspondence, reservations and such. Companion to events around town and sometimes out of town, Hostess at parties, social events and private dinner parties. Extra skills such as being bilingual, great hands for massage are a bonus! There is opportunity for travel, as well — work trips to Vegas, New York and Chicago at least once a month.

Non-smoker is preferred, but attractive young woman willing to escort him to Vegas is required!

The last time suspicious packages diverted L.A. traffic, several sock-stuffed NKOTB members were causing quite a frenzy down by the Staples Center. Let's hope this turns out to be equally benign. [EricGarcetti.org]

Villaraigosa decided to stay in Los Angeles for two reasons: one, Barack Obama is hopefully too smart to appoint this empty suit to any position of real importance, and two, if Villaraigosa left LA now for a national gig, Los Angeles would actually not have a mayor next year.

Villaraigosa faces no strong opposition in the city's March primary election, and the deadline for mayoral candidates to file has already passed. No other candidates would be allowed to run for mayor unless they were write-ins, according to city election officials.

Aside from Villaraigosa, 21 others have filed to run for mayor and have until Wednesday to gather enough signatures from registered voters in the city to qualify for the March ballot. Four candidates have qualified so far: Villaraigosa; attorney Walter Moore; legal assistant Carlos Alvarez; and union meat packer James Harris. Moore, who finished sixth in the 2005 mayoral race and is a regular on local talk radio, said he never believed the chitchat that Villaraigosa was destined for a Cabinet post. "I have more faith in Obama than that," Moore said.

Villaraigosa was the subject of cabinet speculation because he is sort of well-known and he is definitely Latino, and Obama forgot to appoint noted clown Bill Richardson to anything.