My colleague at the Los Angeles Times, Ramie Becker, wrote a great short article about the closing of iconic LA nightspot Dragstrip 66, looking back at the club’s almost unheard of seventeen year run. (Make sure to browse through the photo gallery. Some winners there):

Equally inspired by high fashion and lowbrow art, Dragstrip 66 carved out a niche for those who liked their night life tempo somewhere between a John Waters film, a Bob Mackie fashion show and a drunken punk dance party. It became a who’s who of the alternative/queer performance art scene; Jackie Beat, Joey Arias, Varla Jean Merman, Chi Chi LaRue and Jer Ber Jones all graced its stage. A-list celebrities showed up too: Marilyn Manson, Claire Danes, Roseanne Barr, Traci Lords, RuPaul, Alan Cumming, Drew Barrymore and Adam Lambert among them.

Read more: Dragstrip 66: Saying goodbye is such a drag (Los Angeles Times)

Thanks to the never-ending French love of Frank Herbert’s Dune, we’re in store for a new adaptation of the book to film. What is this?

 
(via Super Punch)

 
Remember “The Big Guy”? Mike from Brooklyn (AKA The Kid from Brooklyn and The Big Guy) is an outspoken senior citizen with a penchant for the “F” word who makes his home-pundit videos in his bathrobe (or shirtless) and puts them up on YouTube. Not saying I’m endorsing, necessarily, everything that Mike has to say (he likes Sarah Palin and is vociferously anti-Muslim), but very often he’s bust-a-gut funny and he’s more liberal than you might think at first glance. Here are a few better examples of Mike’s zany, boisterous and LOUD home-punditry.
 

 
Thank you Jesse Merlin!

 
Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something like this comes along:

My New Pink Button (tm) is a temporary dye to restore the youthful pink color back to your labia. There is no other product like it. This patent pending formula was designed by a female certified Paramedical Esthetician after she discovered her own genital color loss. While looking online for a solution she discovered thousands of other women asking the same questions regarding their color loss. After countless searches revealing no solution available and a discussion with her own gynecologist she decided to create her own. Now there is a solution!

They have several different shades—but of course—in their product line.

For instance, there’s “Bettie”:

Think of that favorite lipstick you wear for those dressy black tie affairs and think “Ginger.” This shade blends with a woman’s own skin tones to bring out that “sexy hot pink, I am fired up, look”. Go dancing this weekend and remember to bring “Bettie” along!

“Audry” will give your vagina a ?

 
Coming this Spring, Sir Christopher Lee’s symphonic metal concept album about the first holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne.  If that sounds at all like an odd career move for the knighted actor, consider this:

The Carandinis, Lee’s maternal ancestors, were given the right to bear the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.  Through his Carandini ancestors, Christopher Lee has a direct link to Charlemagne, and has decided for the first time in his life to pay homage to his distinguished ancestor, who is credited as “The Father of Europe.”

 
More on Christopher Lee’s Charlemagne: By The Sword And The Cross

(via YBNBY)

 
More mixed signals from the wild world of Danish advertising.  First came this highly questionable campaign to combat violence against women.  Now comes the video below.

“Karen” is an attractive young mother who’s looking for the father of her child, the product of a one-night stand.  She’s not obsessed, a bimbo, or looking to assign blame.  She simply wants to alert the baby daddy—whomever he may be—that their child “exists.”  But as Sociological Images points out:

The video was actually produced as part of a campaign by Visit Denmark, a Danish tourism agency.  The idea is, apparently, to market Denmark to male tourists with the implication that it?

 
My Gawd! And I thought I was “gangsta” for using Visine. 
 
(via misterhonk)

 
Feeling more than a little torn and frayed from the ‘00’s, Mick and Keith look forward to a brand new decade of Dangerous Minds Rolling Stones posts!

 
“I’m cooking like a man on killing spree, my mom says I’m dating, weird like a thug, I’m in love, ‘cause she’s all cooked up!”  If Mel Brooks did it with Hitler, maybe filmmaker Steve Russell can do it for Plainfield’s most notorious flesh fetishist?  Get ready for Ed Gein: The Musical:

According to the Associated Press, this jaunty-creepy portrait of Gein?