Fashion Week San Diego, Allison Andrews, video interview

[Fashion]

Allison Andrews, FWSD

video interview with Allison Andrews, the mind and heart behind Fashion Week San Diego

by Reviewer Rob

Fresh off the huge success of the 10-year anniversary of Fashion Week San Diego, Allison Andrews sat for an interview with Reviewer TV. FWSD was a ginormous event that was met with much media coverage and attendance, and as we found out, her energy and creativity is matched only by her heart and deep understanding for and of the business of fashion. But for her fashion is more than a business, it’s a calling and a lifestyle.

Allison Andrews Talks Fashion Week San Diego from Reviewer on Vimeo.

Bio:

Allison Andrews is founder and director of Fashion Week San Diego® (FSWD),president of APA Business Consulting and executive director of FAB Authority. As well as a professor at Palomar College in the fashion department. A passionate entrepreneur, Andrews founded FSWD in 2007, growing the year-long event to become one of the biggest and most prominent Southern California events, and the only bi-national Fashion Week in the world.

Prior to launching FWSD, Andrews founded APA Business Consulting, a consulting firm that supports startups and entrepreneurs with business, brand development, marketing and sales strategies. She started the company in 2005, at the age of 20. In 2015, she also launched the FAB Authority, a non-for-profit organization, providing resources and events for emerging artists, designers and beauty industry professionals.

Andrews’ passion for helping and empowering others is apparent in all that she touches. In addition to her full-time commitments with FWSD, APA Business Consulting and the FAB Authority, Andrews is an active community member, sitting on the board of several not-for-profit organizations and donating her time to support others. She serves as a Board member and longtime volunteer for Rancho Coastal Humane Society (13 years), and is a volunteer and donor for Love on a Leash pet therapy and sits on the advisory panel of Vanguard Culture as well as the advisory panel for the Palomar Fashion College. A recognized and respected industry thought leader, Andrews speaks frequently at various San Diego events, led by professional organizations, as well as local colleges, graduations, networking events, seminars and other fashion events. In 2013, she was selected as a finalist for San Diego Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business Awards. This is among the over fifty recognitions and awards she has for her work.

Andrews holds an Associate of Arts degree in Merchandise Marketing from Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising and a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Leadership from National University. When she isn’t busy growing FWSD and propelling fashion careers, she enjoys spending time with her husband, daughter and nine rescue animals in the coastal town of Encinitas, California.

Portland, Oregon, World Naked Bike Ride 6-24

[Protest]

WNBR PdX 2017

World Naked Bike Ride Time

The worldwide event comes to Portland again this month on the 24th.

Reviewer Rob

Last year I covered the World Naked Bike Ride in Portland as a photojournalist, and I was thinking about attending this year’s ride as a participant, but it looks like work will be keeping me in San Diego instead. This one will be at an as-yet unannounced location, and if last year’s protocol is any indication will follow a non-circuitous route that will be secret up until the last minute. According to their website the ride will be on June 24.

If you’re in the Northwest you should most definitely try to free yourself from social constraints and be there for this protest event in support of equality and acceptance. I’ve never seen anything like it and the people of Portland are totally The Bomb.

Here’s the photos from last year –> GALLERY.

Riders at the World Naked Bike Ride PDX 2016. Photo by ReviewerTV.

photolog: Meegan’s Ink

[Skin Art]

Meegan Had Some Sweet New Tattoos

Talking ink: Low Gallery in Barrio Logan at a mid-summer show during ComicCon

by Reviewer Rob

I had both my Nikons hanging on my neck this night with the goal of playing around with their capabilities. The D5200 and D5300 were set on their fastest ISOs for a shoot at Meegan’s art gallery/performance venue Low. I’d come to see a couple of bands play, Lisa Carver’s Suckdog and The Vaginals (Vaginals sounded great, by the way). It had been a couple of years since I’d last seen Meegan and I noticed she’d gotten a couple of new tattoos.

Meegan Nolan is the stylish owner and proprietor of Low Gallery. She’s all about art — the appreciation as well as the business of it — and only now while ‘shopping this pic did it dawn on me that she was wearing a stylin’ cartoon t-shirt (is that the Tazmanian Devil?). Classic, it was, after all, the weekend of the famous San Diego International ComicCon. Yes as a fashionista Meegan is also a triple threat. On this night her shiny gold pants were amazing. But these classic-era style tattoos were what I really liked. The symbolic “Black Rose” is on her right forearm and a standing nude ‘a la Sailor Jerry adorns her left.

I shot this while the bands were setting up for the show and Meegan was standing against the back wall of the space. No flash was used, just ambient light, so it’s grainy. Like I said, I was pushing what the low light ability of the cameras could do. I think at 1/100th of a second it’s pretty decent. Photoshop brought out more contrast and color from the original RAW image.

Image file info:
Nikon D5300
Tamron lens 18-270mm F3.5-6.3 DiII VC PZD B008N
Focal Length 18mm (in 35mm: 27mm)
Exposure: 1/100 sec; f/3.5; ISO 12800; Manual; Pattern Metering
Flash: Did not fire

Meegan Nolan with her new arm ink: a black rose and nude in the style of Sailor Jerry. Photo by ReviewerPhoto.com 2016.

photolog: Lisa Carver as “Dying Mother” with Suckdog

[Theater]

Low Gallery, Suckdog, and Alt-Pop

Lisa Carver as “The Dying Mother” with Suckdog at Low Gallery in San Diego, July 2016

Reviewer Rob

When Lisa Carver brought her Suckdog show to town last month I was ambivalent about attending but still probably would have gotten out to see it. Then I got (willingly) roped into driving her and her four-woman band up to L.A. the day after it so that made it required I show up. I took full advantage of the event and recorded Reviewer TV videos and shot photos of the Alternative-Popculture Star because few can argue she is anything but newsworthy. She may not be the Queen Of The Underground as some have accused her but she’s certainly the Dancing Queen.

While waiting outside Low Gallery for the doors to open (I found out later after calling Megan that the entrance was out back in the alley) I set my D5200 on one of its higher ISO setting of 6400 to shoot some photos of the neighborhood in the after-sunset streetlamp light of Barrio Logan with the Coronado Bridge in the background. Then when the show was going to start I began shooting crowd shots of the ten or so spectators that arrived to watch, keeping the settings the same. The idea was to use the camera mounted flash as little as possible so as not to distract the performers or the audience. I ended up using the flash a lot anyways but kept the speed fast. So the two pics below are a bit grainy but I fixed them and to some extent removed noise in Photoshop.

I had the camera-mounted tilt-flash on soft and in these vertical photos as in all of them I angled it towards the roof and used my cupped left hand as a block/reflector held above it to bounce some diffused light towards the subject.

I plan to begin setting up the GPS location info on my cameras because it looks like that’s been left out for some reason.

Both photos below were shot one after the other and were both vertical and full length but the one on top has been enlarged and cropped to reveal detail.

They were shot in quick succession with no adjustment and here’s the recorded image data taken from the bottom full-length photo:

Nikon D5200
Tamron SP AF 10-24mm F3.5-4.5 Di LD Aspherical IF B001N
at focal length 24mm (in 35mm: 24mm)
1/100 sec; f/4.5; ISO 6400; Manual; Pattern metering
Flash: Fired, Strobe return light not detected, Compulrsory flash firing, Flash function present, No red-eye reduction

Lisa carver as "The Dying Mother", crop edit. Photo by ReviewerPhoto.com. — Lisa carver as “The Dying Mother”, crop edit. Photo by ReviewerPhoto.com.

Getting ready to start the show, Lisa Carver seated in position. Photo by ReviewerPhoto.com. — Getting ready to start the show, Lisa Carver seated in position, holding the mic like it’s the handle of a bullwhip or something.
Photo by ReviewerPhoto.com.

Dame Darcy and Tiny Tim

[Showbiz]

God Bless Tiny Tim

A Musical Rememberance

by Dame Darcy (from her Facebook)

The God Bless Tiny Tim record was in my childhood pantheon of records. (Along with Gift from a Flower to a Garden, and Pirates of the Caribbean.) I met him in the airport on my way to Colorado from NYC when I was 23.

We became fast friends because we knew all the same 20’s 78 Victrola record songs. He kept buying me more red wine on the plane and we laughed it up while singing.

Everyone loved Tiny and asked him for autographs and asked me if I was the next Miss Vicky. “She’s Miss Dame Darcy” he corrected them, it was great having 2 (count em!) titles!

Well I let him touch my leg for a minute… let the guy have his thrills, I figured.

For being a dirty old man Tiny was the cleanest man in show biz. He took 15 showers a day and used a bathtub full of lotion afterwards (this is what he said… I didn’t experience that part).

We also had the same red rosary also he always carried hand sanitizer which he used every few minutes.

His hair was dyed purple at the time, and his agent called me and asked if I would like to donate comics for Tiny Tim fan club magazine.

Anything for Tiny. 🙂

A few months later He asked me to perform with him in Spooky World near Boston.

Elvira would also be there, as well as a chicken coop full of bats. 🙂

I practiced some of the 20’s songs we both knew with him on banjo, but he had a jealous guitar lady who kept knocking on the door and interrupting the practice (as seen in this clip) and she demanded that I not upstage her and play banjo, so this dumb harmony and little moment is all we have left.

I didn’t know how to highlight my hair or pluck my eyebrows at the time as you can see.
When Tiny died in 1996 I was so sad. It was an amazing magical blessing to even have known him in the first place.

I think he went to the place where he sings about in “Strawberry Tea” which has diamond skies and butterflies and a never ending tune.

When I die, I hope to join you there Tiny and sip strawberry tea, reading…

Tiny Tim and Dame Darcy performing together. (Screen shot from the Youtube video clip)

the gorgeous Riley Reynolds amid AEE 2016 Vegas carnality

[Hot Women]

new talent: Riley Reynolds

Some of the erotic beauty on parade in Vegas at the 2016 Adult Entertainment Expo was unbelievably outstanding

Photo and video by Reviewer Rob

“Milling around on the last day at the 2016 Adult Entertainment Expo, at Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas, meeting the girls in the big round dome show room, 1-23-16. Reviewer Rob says hello to Riley Reynolds at 6:23 or so. She’s looking HOT…”

I captioned the Youtube video posted below with the above text. Riley Reynolds was a stunning blue-eyed blond I had shot photos of the day before and then i noticed her in the Ex[po floor the next day, not realizing she was one of the girls in the pictures from the day before until after I shot the video. She seemed more poised and well-mannered than a lot of the girls sometimes are. It was almost like, as they say, she comes from a good home, or something. Plus she’s got a glamour appearance about her that a sultry blond only has. She looks and talks like a girl you’d meet in church on Sunday, where she’d sit politely with her family and make sincere eye contact with the Baptist preacher as he warns people to stay away from the works of the devil.

Then I googled her name and immediately found this torture porn video where she’s tied up, fully restrained and being suspended from the ceiling while two guys in medical masks sodomize and mouth fuck her while she intermittently begs them to stop. You can also order personalized videos from her via her Clips4Sale page.

Apparently you never can tell by looks alone, can you.

Riley Reynolds at 2016 AEE, photo by Reviewer Magazine.

James Deen, Fucked It All So Clean

[slow rimshot]

Weathering The Storm

That’s sixty in porno years.

a porn swordsman accused

James Deen, Golden Boy of Adult entertainment, has recently come under attack in mainstream news websites like The Daily Beast, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post with accusations that he has “boundary issues” and likes rough sex with his ladies both on screen and in his personal life. This is from stellar leading-ladies of the adult industry as Joanna Angel and Deen’s own ex-girlfriend Stoya.

Deen replied to the accusations the same day via his twitter account, calling them untrue and “defamatory”. I guess we’ll see how this plays out and if the porn biz is as forgiving as, say, pro football or national politics. Yeah, we’ll see.

So, here’s my pic of the wild dude himself at the 2015 Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas’ Hard Rock Hotel, photo by me, Reviewer Rob, ReviewerPhoto(.)com.

The suddenly embattled porn swordsman is 29 or 30 years-old now, and has been going at it since he was 18. That has to be a lot in porno years. Maybe as a farewell tour he can do a parody video called NO PORNO FOR OLD MEN where he plays a sex-crazed homicidal maniac relentlessly pursuing someone who stole his youth?

Click the pic for the AEE 2015 coverage.

Black Orchid at The San Diego Horton Grand Theater

Black Orchid

House Of Pink Boombox

December 6, at The Horton Grand Hotel Theater.
This should be good.

Lilly and House Of Pink Boombox do a weekly show at Gossip Girl on University Avenue but this upcoming Horton Grand event promises to be in a different league.

According to momma Lilly Holliday it’ll be a production worthy of the famous burlesque traditions of yesteryear.

Lilly says, “…it’s our fancy upscale show so the numbers are bigger more theatrical. There are group numbers. Traveling acts. It’s just really exciting to see burlesque the way it’s kinda meant to be seen.”

You can get more info on their Facebook page HERE. Lilly Holliday’s FB page is HERE.

From Lilly's Facebook page, where it was captioned, something like, "Let's play a white girl game. It's called 'Guess If It's Tan Lines or A White Strapped Bikini'. — From Lilly’s Facebook page, where it was captioned, something like, “Let’s play a white girl game. It’s called ‘Guess If It’s Tan Lines or A White Strapped Bikini’.

Halloween at The Merrow

[Work-Safe]

The Merrow Halloween Burlesque Show

A Not-So-Erotic Preview

by Reviewer Rob

The Merrow is a like a hidden secret spot getting fine use as a fine neighborhood watering hole in the part of town it’s in. Tucked back in away from the street behind one of the many restaurant-hookah bars cluttering San Diego city street retail districts, it’s difficult to see if you don’t know where it is but has a great big stage that can accommodate, and often does, touring and local bands as well as the girls of The House of Pink Boombox burlesque squad that delivered another knockout show on Halloween. Plus the place has two pool tables and, as is de rigueur for a San Diego nightclub, a fine selection of gourmet kraft beers!

They’re performing weekly stints across the street at Gossip Girl on Wednesday nights too but Halloween was different and they made it their night at this dark and intimate venue.

Here’s a preview of photos and a story by me what will appear in print in issue 50 later this month.

Photos by me at ReviewerPhoto.com:

Fashion at Boulevard3 on Sunset in Hollywood

Fashion Isn’t Real

But The Glamour Is

by Reviewer Rob

Camille Wood invited Reviewer Magazine to cover her new line appearing in a fashion show, “Hollywood Legends by Camille”, at Boulevard in Hollywood on Friday night, 10-16-15. Here’s some pics as they came straight out of my Nikon. More photos and videos will come later. I don’t have any CS photo editing apps with me here, but I’ll fix them a little bit for a story in print in issue 50 when back in San Diego.