the domino

goooooood.

ryan kavanaugh.

Ryan Kavanaugh's office lobby, on the fifth floor of a formerly modern building in West Hollywood, looks like a lot of office lobbies: Under a battered foam ceiling, a receptionist sits behind a high counter, answering a phone that never stops ringing; on either side of her there are some neglected potted plants, dusty in the fluorescent light; in front of her a glass table has been covered with the type and vintage of magazines normally found at a dentist's. The only difference between Ryan Kavanaugh's office lobby and your office lobby is that Ron Howard is sitting in his, in hiking boots, declining politely the receptionist's offer of a bottle of Yosemite water. "I'm A-okay," Howard says. He's come here this afternoon looking for more than something to drink.

The chances are good that Howard has come here, like many of the people who come here, looking for money. For the most part, money has become hard to find in Hollywood, even for men like Ron Howard. Plagued by a combination of rising costs, the credit squeeze, investor flight, digital piracy, the repeal of arcane German tax laws, and too much crap, the usual vaults have gone empty. The Weinsteins have been told by consultants to cut back their slate to ten films a year, New Line has all but disappeared into the maw at Warner Bros., and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, founded in 1924, is on the verge of bankruptcy. No one has any money anymore — no one, it seems, except Ryan Kavanaugh: a thirty-four-year-old onetime venture capitalist and wannabe rock star with messy red hair, a man who refuses to wear anything on his feet but blue Converse All-Stars, even on those rare occasions when he wears a suit. About thirty feet away from the chair presently occupied by Ron Howard, Kavanaugh sits behind a curved zebrawood desk and on top of an estimated $2 billion in liquid assets, much of which comes courtesy of Elliott Associates, a venerable New York — based hedge fund that has $13 billion more where that came from. Which means that if you see a movie sometime in the next twelve months, it's even money that it's been financed at least partly by Kavanaugh through his company, Relativity Media, LLC.

The majority of the movies made by giants Sony and Universal — three quarters of them, in fact — rely on his financing. Warner Bros. has been known to dip into his kitty, and so has Marvel. Atlas Entertainment, where Batman was born, recently struck a coproduction deal with him. Earlier this year, Relativity bought Rogue, Universal's horror imprint, and it will also put out a dozen of its own films — "single pictures," in the local lexicon — next year. All told, Relativity, and thus Ryan Kavanaugh, will produce or coproduce as many as thirty-five movies in 2010.

But what separates Kavanaugh from most producers is not just that he's making movies, it's how he's making movies. Ron Howard has to wait in the office lobby because, at the moment, Kavanaugh is delivering his own pitch to an author who has written a book that a lot of people want to turn into a movie. The author has been making the Hollywood rounds and has spent the last several minutes dropping the names of the famous directors he has met. (Kavanaugh seems unimpressed: He has 10,476 numbers stored on his phone; later, when he goes to the Chateau Marmont for dinner, it takes maybe sixty seconds for Baz Luhrmann to appear out of the foliage and give him a hug.) Kavanaugh counters by telling the author that he, too, knows lots of famous directors — there might even be one waiting in the office lobby — and then he explains to the author why he would be foolish to sell the rights to his book to anyone else. "We might not give you $10 million up front," Kavanaugh says. "But if we tell you we're going to make a movie out of your book, we'll actually make a movie out of your book."

defender.

mean. but cute.

mayer stoned.

"...I remember reading biographies of my favorite musicians [when I was in Atlanta] — Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy — and I always knew growing up, "Let's be really badass and really nice," because if you're badass and you're nice and you're engaging, then no one else has an excuse. It became part of the thing I wanted to do — to be excellent and kind.

It's ridiculous to be able to have a $20 million vintage watch collection, and it's also ridiculous to be able to have somebody climbing the hill across from your house and taking pictures of you. And it's ridiculous to worry about your friends from high school, them getting upset for you not calling enough, then denouncing you. I used to want to repurpose the word "douchebag." If somebody's going to keep calling me one, I'm going to own it..."

It got to the douche point when he said $20 million watch collection. I just threw up on my keyboard.

kid cudi

Find, steal, borrow, hunt-down: Up Up & Away

Early last month, the pressures of the music industry seemed to overwhelm Kid Cudi. On his KidCudi.com site, the Cleveland-born rapper blogged about retiring after the release of his debut album.

"I am falling back on being an artist," he wrote. "The drama that comes with it is more overwhelming than the shit I was dealing with when I was piss-poor broke."

But Cudi's perils were temporary—he retracted his statement a few days later during a South by Southwest performance—and they didn't stop Universal Motown from signing him just last week.

"I was looking at another act on Fool's Gold by the name of Kid Sister," Universal Motown president Sylvia Rhone says. "At the time they also had Kid Cudi, but I thought it was an album deal. We didn't sign Sister, but [Universal Motown A&R manager Nigel Mack] brought me Cudi early last year and I was immediately engaged."

Cudi, who is currently recording with Kanye West in Hawaii, shifted his focus back on his debut album, tentatively titled "The Man on the Moon With the Guardians." It's slated for a late-August release through Dream On/G.O.O.D. Music/Universal Motown.

The first single, "Day 'N' Nite," which Universal Motown purchased from Fool's Gold, is No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has sold 540,000 digital downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Mack hopes Cudi's vulnerability and authenticity will continue garnering fans and selling tracks. "He speaks to the average person," Mack says. "It's not about putting up a front—it's about who he really is. He puts his heart on his sleeve and lets people in his world. People connect with that."

In fact, according to Billy Zarro, Universal Motown senior director of marketing, the album's rollout campaign is based on making similar connections between Cudi and his fans, while linking his online presence with his live shows.

"He has loyal fans throughout numerous genres, and we want to hear from them," Zarro says. "He's real, he says how he feels, and you can feel the genuineness about him."

Cudi recently appeared on DJ Angie Martinez's show on R&B/hip-hop WQHT (Hot 97) New York and will soon visit top 40 WHTZ (Z100) and rhythmic AC WKTU. Also in the works is a partnership with Vibe complemented by dates at Bamboozled, the Rothbury Festival and Lollapalooza. He will appear in a new HBO show called "How to Make It in America," produced by Mark Wahlberg, and wants to do more acting in the near future.

"He has a real relationship with fans that goes far beyond the music," Rhone says. "That's the reason I competed and worked for the deal for eight months. He's the future of hip-hop and the future of music; an artist who has no bounds when it comes to genre, format, race, color, topic or emotion. Those are the kinds of artists I love to be involved with." - Billboard

ben watts photography.

http://www.benwatts.com/

mr. ford

sri panwa: phuket

http://www.sripanwa.com/default-en.html

chuck bass

keeping it in the family.

emma watson's spring/ summer campaign for burberry.

note the guy that looks like her. it's her bro.

cute.

blake mycoskie

Seen the shoes?

I bet the answer is yes.

Did you know that every time you bought a pair of TOMS shoes, a pair was donated to a child in need?

Neither did I.

Blake Mycoskie is a dynamic entrepreneur that has started six successful businesses from the ground up. After being recruited to Southern Methodist University to play tennis, Mycoskie started EZ Laundry, a door-to-door laundry service aimed at fellow college students. The company soon expanded to seven colleges across the Southwest, with 40 employees and 8 trucks.

After selling EZ Laundry to his business partner, Blake traveled to Nashville where, inspired by the larger-than-life billboards in Hollywood, set out to create an outdoor media company aimed at the Music City’s leading country stars. Mycoskie’s renegade efforts soon drew the attention of industry giant, Clear Channel, who purchased Mycoskie’s remaining billboards in Nashville and Dallas.

With two successful companies already under his belt, Blake plunged himself into the world of reality television. Teaming up with his sister, Paige, Blake competed on the second season of CBS’ hit show, The Amazing Race, coming just four minutes away from the $1 million dollar grand prize. This experience inspired Mycoskie to create Reality 24/7, a cable TV channel dedicated to all-access reality news and programming. Teaming up with Larry Namer, co-founder of the E! Entertainment Network, and Kay Koplovitz, former CEO of the USA Network, Mycoskie raised over $2 million dollars for the project from venture capitalists and former reality stars. The buzz for Reality 24/7 was so great that Rupert Murdoch decided to create his own all-reality network, thereby ending Mycoskie’s rogue efforts.

Now living in Los Angeles, Mycoskie teamed up with the creators of TrafficSchool.com to create DriversEdDirect, a behind-the-wheel training school featuring Hybrid cars and hip instructors. To help promote DriversEdDirect, Blake created Closer Marketing Group - a Santa Monica based marketing firm specializing in brand development and viral marketing.

While vacationing in South America in 2006, Mycoskie discovered the Alpargata, a traditional rope-soled shoe that has been worn by Argentina farmers for the last 100 years. At the same time, Blake was struck by the terrible poverty that he saw: too poor to afford shoes, children developed cuts and scrapes on their feet that led to serious infections. Blake returned to Los Angeles with 200 pairs of shoes in his duffel bag and the idea for a new company, TOMS Shoes. The motto for TOMS is “Make life more comfortable.” Mycoskie accomplishes this goal with a unique Argentine-inspired shoe and a one-for-one commitment to match each pair sold with a donated pair to a child in need.

After selling 10,000 pairs of shoes from his apartment in Venice, Mycoskie returned to Argentina with friends, family and his new TOMS’ Family to hand-deliver 10,000 pairs of shoes to kids in need. The trip was filmed by filmmaker Ken Kokin (co-producer of the Academy Award Winning Usual Suspects) and is currently being turned into a documentary for entry into the Sundance Film Festival.

Since the Argentine Shoe Drop, TOMS has moved from Blake’s studio in Venice to a 6000 square foot studio in Santa Monica. The company includes 18 full-time employees focusing on sales, public relations, logistics, production, and graphic design.

Because of its unique one-for-one philosophy, TOMS has benefited from tremendous media attention that has made traditional marketing unnecessary. TOMS has already been featured in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, PEOPLE Magazine, TIME Magazine, VOGUE, Elle, Oprah Magazine, CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donny Deutsche, and is set to be included in the Holiday Gift Guides of a number of leading magazines.

Mycoskie just returned from South Africa where he hand-delivered 50,000 pairs of shoes to children in need. He is 31 years old and lives on a boat in Los Angeles.

Huffington Post

plastic aviators?

Lady GaGa sporting the epic Aviators by Carrera.

Carrera started making glasses, goggles and helmets in 1956.

beer friendly food.

http://gourmettraveller.com.au/most-popular-gallery.htm

courtesy of gourmet traveller.

the heiress

As the fashion-obsessed daughter of Bernard Arnault, chairman of the luxury-goods company LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Delphine Arnault has long had a front-row seat at LVMH fashion shows. But last fall her father decided that the time had come for her to have a front-row seat in his LVMH business dealings too. Delphine, 28, was appointed to the board of LVMH, becoming the only woman alongside 15 men.

Delphine has undergone a quiet fashion apprenticeship over the past three years. After graduating from the London School of Economics, she worked for two years at McKinsey in Paris before joining LVMH in 2000. She learned the business with John Galliano, working on product development and marketing for his label and then switching to Dior. Now Delphine heads Dior's women's shoe division, one of the company's fastest-growing sectors. "She's got a very good sense of product, a very good eye," says Sidney Toledano, chief executive of Dior Couture, who says Delphine is treated the same as anyone else at the company. "Her father insists on that."

The Dior job takes Delphine out on the road frequently, checking in with Dior factories, ensuring that retailers are giving suitable prominence to her merchandise and trying to gauge the public's reaction to new products. People at the company who know her say she can be shy on first contact but that she's a careful observer who appears to have inherited her father's determination to get the job done.

Bringing a young and inexperienced family member onto the board of a public company can be touchy in the U.S., but in France it is common practice, and company insiders say Arnault had no qualms about it. Through a complex holding structure, the family owns 65% of the voting rights and 48% of the capital of LVMH. With Delphine, the family has three of the 16 board seats; Bernard Arnault's father Jean, 83, is the third. If Delphine can prove herself, she could be well placed to succeed her father one day. But Dad's only 54 and shows no sign of relinquishing power to anyone. --By Peter Gumbel FOR TIME MAGAZINE

florence + the machine.

because: you have to listen to this shit.

top shelf: swimming. rabbit heart. cosmic love.