ONLY KNOWN FOOTAGE

As pictured in the above screen capture,* offered below lies the only known film footage of me before assorted 2002 horse shows (representational still photo, right.) Timings of same are as follows, since the appearances are limited to mere seconds. This 1975 post-student film epic opus paean to Bruce Lee "The Adventures of Ozzie Twightly" stars a future network television director alongside his future ex-wife (portraying "Granny") with, as "Twang" in the flowered kimono, a future tv horror show host (and bane of my adolescence LINK) alongside his first wife.

8:46 (me- long brown/black hair, sitting on the floor in black Glam trouser outfit)

9:03 (me- wearing then habitual platform shoes)

Today all I have in common with this person remains status as a female carbon-based life-form...
*Thank you Tim Weston for the proper nomenclature denoting my "Mimsy Farmer/Riot On Sunset Strip scowl" seen in screen capture.

NOTE: link directly back to http://fastfilm1.blogspot.com if all elements such as photo layouts or videos aren't here.

Fashion: 1960s cool- BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD and 1970s "SUNSET STRIP"

My above photos of Buffalo Springfield (one third of the trifecta of the best 1960s players live along with Moby Grape and The Jeff Beck Group. Few others could duplicate their complex recorded sounds effortlessly) in action were shot in 1967 at the Shrine Auditorium (which later helmed the Academy Awards/ Oscars Ceremony.)

Bolstering my contention that the best place to spot rockstars (accompanied by their tailors/clothing designers) in the mid to late 1960s in Los Angeles was Home Silk Shop, domain of exotic fabrics, it's representative of what cool rockers wore to be cool: custom threads. Richie Furey's (far left) Nehru-collared, paisley-patterned frock coat appears to have been made from a contemporary cotton Indian bedspread; in those pre-diversity days some domestic artifacts but little clothing made its way to our shores from India.

Stephen Stills' leather jacket was an unusual choice at the time, as was Neil Young's Native American suedewear with long beaded fringe, perhaps purchased at a reservation store in his Canadian homeland.

The costuming ideas may have originated via the burgeoning young rock stylists of the era such as Genie the Tailor, a popular young woman who died young in a auto crash with members of the band Fairport Convention (which at least spared future stars Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny.) She is fictionalized into the character "Tammy" in the film in the trailer below, a fascinating, unheralded movie depicting our regional Hollywood music scene of the early 1970s.

"Sunset Strip" should be viewed as a character study companion piece to "Almost Famous" with far more accurate verisimilitude. "Famous" is a wondrous pastiche, lotsa entertaining bang for your buck. But "Sunset Strip" represents the real shit. I know. I was there. And here's why you should take my anonymous online word for it.

When I first saw this movie I was astonished that I didn't recognize the name of its writer, for I recognized every one of the personnel depicted, literally as well as figuratively. The writer obviously was exactly the same age I was, worked in the exact aspects of the entertainment industry that I did, at the exact same time in the early 70's at the exact same spots in Hollywood and knew the exact same people I did (or knew of.) Anna Friel portrayed Genie the Tailor. The geeky manager was seemingly an early Geffen-esque clone. The dissolute songwriter was a Warren Zevon-alike, while Jared Leto became, dare I say, a completely interchangeable popstar type of the era. My own future better half, rockstar of that era himself, lived in the exact same Laurel Canyon mountaintop aerie depicted in the film (replete with benevolent landlord), while I worked as a music photographer amongst the scene of the main protagonist's doppelganger. And I did know who he was. He was one of the names you'll recognize on photo credits of the era, who now owns a major restaurant here. But he didn't want his name on the writing credits, so I'll respect that.

"Sunset Strip" remains a highly entertaining ensemble depiction of souls on the perimeter or the earliest stages of ascent of the music scene in Los Angeles in the early 1970's. It's all true. And we did go out there every night. . .

NOTE: link directly back to http://fastfilm1.blogspot.com if all elements such as photo layouts or videos aren't here.

Fashion: GLAM ERA SURF REVIVAL

photo (C) 1973 Heather Harris

Dick Dale and the Del-tones, The Surfaris, Jan & Dean and GLITTER? Yes, I took this photograph in 1973 at the First Surf Revival at the Hollywood Palladium featuring the above artists during the original era of Glam in Hollywood. I remained impressed with the juxtaposition of the correctly trendy couple versus the genuine surfing accoutrements (my pics of Dick Dale leaping a piano at that very show here LINK.)

The trendy young lady sports a smart suit, Art Deco accessories and the latest perm as popularized by the nascent Bette Midler and assorted Rocky Horror Show (pre-film) characters, and quite the sea change from long hippie tresses and dresses. The young gentleman proffers the proverbial perfect haircut of the times, then known as a shag (see Rod Stewart and Faces, #9 at LINK.) The contingent at the surfboard table evinces looks more popular with those immune to what's now termed Glam but then was Glitter (which is to say the rest of the world save nano-portions of L.A., NYC, London and Paris) during the early to mid 1970s. Notable here is the fluidity with which all musical, fashion and lifestyle mindsets intermingled in 1973, unlike, say, today.

KYLIE MINOGUE OPENING NIGHT APHRODITE LES FOLIES 2011 TOUR, HERNING, DENMARK...

KYLIE MINOGUE APHRODITE LES FOLIES 2011 TOUR, IN  HERNING, DENMARK...

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Cloud Attributes Apply Across the Stack

My “aha” moment here at EMC came during my first week when I was asked to describe the generic attributes of cloud infrastructure. Here I was, in an organization that’s made billions on storage, and I was about to talk about cloud attributes solely from a compute perspective.Was I missing something?

I then realized that I’d always related to storage as a “big, fat, dumb disk in the sky”, and assumed that it was merely subservient to the compute stack.

Well, not exactly.

My re-think was that attributes of Compute, Storage, and yes, Network, all had to be reconsidered in the context of a holistic cloud-based infrastructure.

Cloud Attributes:

Most will agree that the following attributes describe the operational profile of a generic cloud: (HT to IDC)

• Shared, standard service. Built for a market (public), not a single customer
• Solution packaged. A “turnkey” offering, integrates required resources
• Self-service. Admin, provisioning; may require some “onboarding” support
• Elastic scaling. Dynamic and fine grained
• Usage-based pricing. Supported by service metering
• Accessible via the Internet. Ubiquitous (authorized) network access
• Standard UI technologies. Browsers, RIA clients, and underlying technologies
• Published service interface/API. Web services and other common Internet APIs

 I’ll add a few functional attributes as well:

• Consolidation: ability to make optimal use of lower-level resources
• Automation: ability to self-configure to provide the required service
• Self-healing/failover: ability to correct for failure with little or no service interruption
• Multi-tenancy, Multi-tiered-SLA: ability of resources to securely house individual services & service-levels across a shared infrastructure
• Global availability: ability to provide a shared service across multiple availability zones

Attributes in a Storage Context

The first assumption most make is that these traits apply exclusively to the compute layer (physical servers, VMs and the like). But pause and consider the storage (and network) facilities need to embody most, too.

But consider this: In a virtualized world, servers are files, and files are just data.

So, when we talk about cloud-related scaling, service migration, server fail-over etc., we must also implicitly speak of managing data dynamics, data replication and data mobility. When we talk about automation, self-service provisioning and service elasticity, we’re implicitly talking about dynamic data/storage provisioning and expansion. When speaking of multi-tenancy and tiered SLAs, we’re also speaking of shared storage facilities performing identical functions in lock-step with the compute facilities.

From a broader perspective , begin to consider implications of global availability and hyper-scale. The terabytes of data that embody virtual servers and their data might need to be migrated to (or duplicated in) multiple hemispheres- not a trivial task from an integrity and latency perspective. We can know (or hope) that the physical servers will be there… but it’s the bits that still have to travel.

The next idea these observations triggered was the need to keep compute, network and storage stacks in lock-step when rolling-out cloud services. The answer (not surprisingly) is converged infrastructure... An approach where the desired cloud attributes are assigned to the 3 stacks simultaneously. More about that in a future Blog.

But I'm now encouraging everyone to view storage of bits in a completely different light – one where the functional and operational attributes of storage must be architected to embrace the core attributes of cloud computing. For without the bits, there can be no servers, no data, and no services. More about that in a future post as well :)

Elizabeth Taylor...The screen legend runs out of steam...

The American actress Elizabeth Taylor was hospitalized Wednesday in Los Angeles for "heart failure", said his press secretary.

 Elizabeth Taylor was hospitalized Wednesday at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for a heart problem, said in Friday night to Saturday's press secretary.

"The problem was treated, said Sally Morrison. It is currently under observation in hospital.

"The representative of the actress 78 years has refused to comment further on the news, showing not know when the star was returning to his home.

"His family and close friends appreciate the interest and all the warm wishes of support that fans have sent to Elizabeth Taylor and demand respect for their privacy to allow the medical team to better focus on his recovery "she added simply.

The Oscar-winning actress was attending Wednesday at amfAR gala-American organization which fights against AIDS to New York to be honored for her ongoing commitment by the former President of the United States Bill Clinton. Having missed the event, the award was made in his name to Elton John.


The health status of divine interpreter of "Cleopatra" worried for several years. In November 2004, Elizabeth Taylor suffering heart failure revealed.

In October 2009, which had shone in "Butterfield" in 1961 tarnished the Web by the terrible news. "My dear friends, I would like to announce before this appears in print, I'll go to the hospital for heart surgery," she wrote on her Twitter account.

The actress-whose last appearance in film was in 1994 with "The Flintstones" - had been asked a device intended to regulate the heart beat. The operation does not require open heart surgery, had been a success.

In 1961, the actress had miraculously survived pneumonia. In the early 1990s when she began a retreat on a small screen, Elizabeth Taylor had to cancel any professional commitment, having contracted another respiratory infection.

After having stayed twice in detox to get rid of his addiction to alcohol and drugs, those who played in fifty Hollywood had been operated three times in the hip. Suffering from a deformation of the spine, "violet-eyed beauty" was moving from a wheelchair.

The star had also survived a brain tumor in 2004, and a skin cancer. The many rumors regarding his health had forced to announce publicly on CNN in 2006 that she was not suffering from Alzheimer's disease.


Elizabeth Taylor, also famous for his tumultuous love life, have had great difficulty accepting the death of Michael Jackson in June 2009.

Godmother of his children Prince and Paris, the sexagenarian married eight times, including twice to Richard Burton, had told the "National Enquirer Magazine" his wish to be buried alongside the King of Pop, at Forest Lawn Cemetery, in Los Angeles.

The day of the funeral of Michael, she said: "My life is so empty now. Nobody can imagine how much we loved each other. "Hopefully the star overcomes his sore heart.
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Belinda Carlisle...I'm surprised to still 'have a nose' after 25 years of cocaine abuse...

Belinda Carlisle, one of the biggest female singers of the 1980s, has admitted that she is surprised to still "have a nose" after 25 years of cocaine abuse.

The 52-year-old singer also revealed she dated Aussie rock star Michael Hutchence, describing the INXS frontman of having "a charisma I have never really seen in anyone else".
Carlisle, who is touring Australia for the first time in eight years, performing at league and RSL clubs, said drugs, parties and endless debauchery became the norm.

"I'm surprised I have a nose, honestly, and a brain that actually works most of the time," the Daily Telegraph quoted her as saying.

"For me, it came down to a matter of life and death. I'm surprised I never ended up in jail, because I really should have been quite a few times with the things I did, which aren't revealed in the book," she said.

The singer gave up cocaine six years ago and last year wrote about her superstar lifestyle in the autobiography Lips Unsealed.


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