For a 22 years-old, Simon Lunche (as in just plain, "lunch") packed in a lot of musicianship experience in twenty-two years.
As a "boy band-er" in "The Blondies," wrote songs and fronted since he was 13 years-old.
As the rest of "The Blondies" decided to derail their music careers for college, 18 years-old Simon decided it was time to strike out on his own.
Four years later, he's striking out with his first solo cd, "Never Knew the Night," https://www.simonlunche.com/
His singing and song-writing is reminiscent of John Mayer, melodic reminiscing of romance and relationships and yes, yearnings. Sean Hurley, John Mayer's bassist, is helping guide Simon in that area.
Go to https://www.simonlunche.com/ to hear his rich, deep, and full spectrum of love, romance, and limerence. As a 22 years-old, Simon Lunche is coming unto his own.
This COVID-19 quarantine shows Hollywood hospitality as its best.
What is usually exclusive is now inclusive.
To avoid virus spread and outbreak, Hollywood's best gifting suites and lounges are bringing the best in makeup and skincare home to the few Oscar televised nominees, needed for that exclusive audience attendance or at home Zoom during the actual awards show.
EcoLuxe Lounge boxed it's awards shows' brunch, in a take-home package, at it's socially-distanced, drive-thru gifting lounge. It's very considerate. Champagne, brie, parmesan, pasta, tomato sauce, baguette sandwiches, cannolis, gourmet nuts, and craisins. That's your Sunday Oscar Night spread in a box!
Can't forget dessert, https://lianatreatandberry.com/, Liana Treat & Berry, provides Oscar-worthy desserts in edible rose-gold glittered chocolate-coated strawberries and pretzel-sticks.
Debuting at EcoLuxe Oscars Drive-Thru is Reveal U Skincare's Gold Line. Gold Face & Body Gel Moisturizer, spring-water based infused with platinum, gold, copper, zinc, and magnesium. Actually, oily-complexions need light-weight, water moisturization so the oil glands wouldn't over-produce due to compensating the lack of moisturization from overly drying the skin.
REJUVE GOLD Mineral Rich Hydration Mist is portable, anywhere, and anytime platinum, gold, copper, zinc, and magnesium and mica mist you can spray to calm your skin and nerves.
In an homage to Old Hollywood of silent film Egyptian-vamps and Cleopatra-Elizabeth Taylor and the fact we're still masking, time to big on the eyes with Ace Beaute Quintessential Eyeshadow Palette. Bold and sexy for those Zoom presentations and telecasting.
For your fur baby and perhaps, for your own stressed-out tresses, daddy/mommy and fur baby Paul Mitchell Lavender Mint Detangling Spray for salon-neglected hair.
We all could use some civility, common courtesy, kindness, and compassion now a days.
Sesame Street has been doing this for fifty long years and we still very much need this.
ABC presents Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days, a two-hour special on the legacy and impact of the beloved global phenomenon, airing Monday, April 26, at 8|7c. The documentary special chronicles the creation of a Black family of Sesame Street Muppets as part of new racial justice initiative. Homelessness, multicultural representation, autism, refugee crises and addiction are just a few of the social issues fearlessly tackled by "Sesame Street" for over a half a century. On MONDAY, APRIL 26 (8:00-10:00 p.m. EDT), ABC presents "Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days," a two-hour documentary special produced by TIME Studios, highlighting the 50-year impact of this iconic show and the nonprofit behind it, Sesame Workshop. The documentary features special guests including W. Kamau Bell, Gloria Estefan, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Whoopi Goldberg, Christopher Jackson, John Legend, Lucy Liu, Olivia Munn, Questlove, Chrissy Teigen and Usher. Additional participating celebrities to be announced at a later date. The special can be viewed the next day on demand.
For over 50 years, "Sesame Street" has addressed and explained diversity, equity, and inclusion around the globe by using the universal tools of music, empathy and celebrity. Through its iconic shows and targeted outreach, Sesame Workshop has found ways to make these daunting and seemingly impossible conversations accessible to people of all ages, usually delivered with the help of a furry friend. "Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days" reflects upon the efforts that have earned "Sesame Street" unparalleled respect and qualification around the globe, including addressing their responsibility to social issues that have historically been seen as taboo such as racial injustice. This special also chronicles the creation and introduction of a Black family of "Sesame Street" Muppets, Wes and Elijah Walker, a father-and-son duo who are at the heart of Sesame Workshop's new racial justice initiative Coming Together.
STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET takes audiences inside the minds and hearts of the “Sesame Street” creators, artists, writers, and educators who together established one of the most influential and enduring children’s programs in television history.
Inspired by the activism of the late 1960s, socially conscious television executive Joan Ganz Cooney and Sesame Workshop co-founder Lloyd Morrisett conducted a revolutionary experiment: to harness the burgeoning power of television and create an educational, impactful, uplifting and entertaining show that could reach children nationwide, especially those living in urban areas. Cooney recruited trailblazing Muppets creator Jim Henson and acclaimed children’s television writer and director Jon Stone to craft the iconic and beloved world of “Sesame Street.”
STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET reintroduces this visionary “gang” of mission-driven artists, writers, and educators that audaciously interpreted radical changes in society and created one of most impactful television programs in history.
With more than 20 interviews with original writers, cast, and crew, and never-before-seen behind the scenes footage, STREET GANG is told from the inside with humor and emotion, weaving together personal narratives and eyewitness accounts. The film explores the original mission of the “gang” that created this cultural phenomenon, now spanning 50-plus years and reaching more than 150 countries
CITIZEN PENN chronicles the moment Penn and his team of volunteers landed in Haiti, just days after the earthquake struck, and the ten years since. The film offers viewers an intimate, honest, and self-reflective look into the triumphs and challenges of those who decided to do something. For Penn, Haiti changed his life. He went there for what he thought was a two-week aid mission to drop off supplies, help doctors provide immediate medical care, and then get out and get back to his normal life. Instead, he stayed and created an organization called J/P HRO (now CORE) that took over management duties for the largest camp for displaced people in the entire country. Over the past few years, CORE has expanded its efforts across the United States, most recently organizing free COVID-19 testing sites across the country and running the nation’s largest vaccination site at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles. CITIZEN PENN highlights the team and their current projects in the U.S.
Canadian Country-Western chanteuse, Kimberly Dawn returns to The Mint to promote her upcoming, ‘93 single set to drop on September 24th.
Lucky enough to catch her in an intimate set, Kimberly is country-western soul, opening about the country-western industry of being still "a boy's club" when the country-western music market is bursting with female talent while the public has always loved, adored, and support country-western women legends, such as Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Patsy Cline. But, Kimberly still sings, "Let's the Girls Play."
She even did her take on Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams," showing Fleetwood Mac's adaptability to Country-Western heart and soul, making it timeless as new and upcoming generations spin their take on it.
Get a daily dose of Kimberly Dawn now on Spotify and follow along with 50,000 fans on Instagram @OfficialKimberlyDawn.
The alternative to the Oscars, Film Threat's "Award This!" award show showcasing then awarding this year's best alternative and independent movies and rising talent.
Yes, it's driven by Gen-X ingenuity in coping during 2021 quarantine, this year's awards show was a drive-in, where everyone is encouraged to honk their horns and flash their headlights, civilized rowdiness.
This is awarding all the nominees, winners or not, at the after-party at Drink Bar OC, https://drinkbaroc.com/, celebrating and sipping on the best cocktails in the OC, Orange County to be proper or "The Orange Curtain," if you want a life.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CNg8DA3DBGd/ Drink Bar OC whips up the vintage egg white foam cocktails into the 21st century creaminess with Raspberry Crane and Sharp Sour.
See, what being independent alternative does for you, it makes one think out of the box into something better.
Award This! Pop Culture Documentary winner, The Last Blockbuster.
There were way too independent categories in the indie universal but Award This! Independent Romantic Comedy Category is the most ironic which makes it the most intriguing category. Independent romantic comedy is a juxtaposition of what romantic comedy, that the studios, think should be. Being indie busts through that stereotype that actually bores the hell out of the majority of people, knowing it's a falsehood that most can't experience or relate to.
Whereas in the independent world, it gives the freedom to fully explore all sorts of relationships that people did and are experiencing, which makes indie rom-com even more relatable and more relevant.
Striking against the stereotypical studio formula of pairing brunette man with blonde woman, Award This! Independent Romantic Comedy nominees show that there are many types of relationships, sex at any age and never too late, with "Senior Love Triangle," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUFO_0eYdT4
"Rent A Pal" film makers, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Yp4PhVsZA say you have more leeway to explore the different aspects of relationships or seeking relationships, which sometimes, means going dark in order to go deep for meaningful, mature angle on relationships. In the independent film market, it's okay going against the grain of studio rom-com's ethos of "one size fits all." In the indie rom-com market, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uWIt_2JxpE "Rent A Pal" explores a deeper, more realistic aspect of loneliness and search of connection that's more relatable than the hetero-brunette male-blonde female studio couple "meet cute" illusion.
Award This! Gen-X organizers welcome and encourage, up and coming Millennial film-makers, especially women film-makers.
says that "1 Night in San Diego" is about female empowerment.
Why San Diego?
According to Brooklynite Penelope, San Diego is her idea of somewhere exotic and different from the Hollywood/Manhattan spectrum. San Diego is a good locale to explore Millennial women finding themselves within a Millennial female friendship.
Penelope's boyfriend, actor Jonathan Lipnicki, said he likes "1 Night in San Diego" because it's free of gratuitous sex and violence.
Being in the independent romantic comedy market gives you the freedom to wipe away being dependent on someone to find happiness. "1 Night in San Diego" is about finding acceptance and happiness within one's self or the freedom to explore friendship sans sex or violence, exploring individual personal growth and progress, i.e. maturity, which "1 Night in San Diego" is all about.
"Limerence" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziODZuzKCTo is very much mature, adult, Millennials in their thirties and Gen-X as the new establishment. Set in Venice, California's upscale hippy-artist, "Bobos in Paradise" Abbot Kinney neighborhood, it's an insider peek into that neighborhood's culture and mentality through a New Yorker transplant's pov.
It won Award This! Romantic Comedy category.
In the independent romance comedy's more inclusive and diverse market, it's everything and anything for everyone and anyone. It's okay to be you by doing you, and there's nothing wrong with that.
From what became photographing disadvantaged Bronx kids suffering from urban neglect to a worldwide art, social, cultural, and worldwide phenomenon, that's only getting stronger. We all have to point to an unassuming photojournalist who still can't believe what she started, Martha Cooper.
When Martha first published then try to sell it, it was too way ahead of its time. Shrugging her shoulders in her documentary, "Martha Cooper, A Picture Story" https://www.marthathemovie.com/ literally poor Martha couldn't see the first hundred prints of her photojournalism/sociology book of subway art/graffiti art reflecting Seventies and early Eighties sociology among disadvantaged youths
She had no idea that her first photography book, Subway Art, would become a style bible for the emerging league of global graffiti artists that would morph into worldwide street art for thousands of street artist and muralist who, still today, uses "Subway Art" as a template and education for their own take on street art. Trains and subways still the preferred canvas.
Martha's "Subway Art" and the copied knock-off of it, was and still passed around as a scared torah and bible among tweens, teens, and adults spray-painting and magic marking all over buildings, walls, trains, subways, and anything, as proved by the OSGEMEOS (also known as Os Gemeos or Os Gêmeos, Portuguese for The Twins), identical twin street artists Otavio Pandolfo and Gustavo Pandolfo.
In the Martha Cooper documentary showing her influence, the OSGEMEOS, in their mom's kitchen with their patient mom, the Brazilian twins talk about how they got their hands on a photocopied version of Martha's "Subway Art" book and treat it as though it's the Bible; and they still do to this very day as very successful artists, street artists, and graffiti artists and commercial artists who, also, for thousands of dollars in high-end influential art galleries all over. They owe their success to the unassuming Martha Cooper.
"Martha Cooper, A Picture Story," Questions & Answers by MOCA's Jeffrey Dietch
Martha Cooper's influence is now currently so strong, that the original first hundred books from 1984, are now priced in the hundreds. Today's emerging kid street artists are still making photo-copies of photo-copies. Today's successful and established Gen-X and Millennial artists are able to buy the originals or the second printing then personally pay homage to Martha's art galleries' signings and promotional tour.
Right now, the much honored, beloved, and respected Martha Cooper is overwhelmed by today's art world. In the documentary, "Martha Cooper, A Picture Story," she still shoots among the more aggressive and younger Getty photographers yet gets pulled up onto stage by today hottest contemporary artists, as the mother of all street artists. She's not used to this fame and attention.
The kids, she first profiled way back in Seventies blighted Bronx, are now well-established artists being sold for hundreds of thousands in high-end international art galleries. They all owe their current careers and success to Martha shining the light on them, when they were juvenile delinquents.
Those first-generation street artists and Martha, herself, cannot believe that a collection of their graffiti art, used to get them arrested back the day, would be promoted and sold in MOCA by Jeffrey Dietch; and that their show would be a blockbuster! Unbelievable to them.
This electric art current still continues to course through these street art kids' veins through first, second, and now third-generation street artists who are today's Gen-Z. Guess what?! Martha, her in seventies...in her jacket and sneakers, is still climbing over fences with these kids, in the middle of the night, photographing and documenting the action. But this time, today's or tonight's street artists are happy and proud to invite "the Martha Cooper" along for the run.
This is where Martha is at her happiest and most comfortable, down with the kids in the middle of the night, where the real art happens.
Founded and Designed by Celebrity Stylist to Demi Lovato, Charlotte Lawrence and Addison Rae, Siena Montesano, in April 2021, Dad’s Closet is a Lifestyle brand to be worn in comfort and style, day-to-night. Launched with four unisex SKUs of sweatpants and sweatshirts, the pieces retail between $150 - $175 and are immediately available only on the brand’s e-commerce channels, www.dadsclosetus.com/@dadscloset.us.
For this Gen-X scribe, who formed fashion sense during the unisex Eighties, these comfortable, retro sweats are adjustable for 2021's quarantine lifestyle and the sharing budget for couples, whichever they may be...Share and share alike....
Dad's Closet is an ode to Montesano’s dad, Gene, the Founder and former CEO and Creative Director of Lucky Brand. Dad’s Closet will feature limited edition drops happening every 3 months, offering complementary styles, colors and prints to the previous drops, enabling people to build an entire wardrobe of Dad’s Closet over time. The launch features a Unisex Chinese Horoscope/ Original Newspaper Print and an Electric Green Clover set.
All pieces are made in Los Angeles, CA.
Inspiration Behind Dad’s Closet -
"Growing up, I spent a lot of time in the factories of Lucky Brand with my dad (Founder Gene Montesano). I knew from a very early age that I wanted to work in fashion and be a designer like my dad. He’s been my biggest inspiration, I’ve learned so much from him over the years; he’s the first person I call when I wrap a long workday, or need advice and support.
As a stylist, I get asked where I buy my clothes from a lot. And my honest answer, it’s from my dad's closet... most of the time. I’ve been stealing art and garments from my dad my whole life. I grew up with a strong Chinese mother and grandmother, probably two of the fiercest women I know. I’ve always loved Asian culture and had a strong sense of pride being half Chinese. I’m so thankful to have had such a strong sense of Chinese art and culture through my parents. As I build out my collection, I think you will see my strong ties in men’s silhouettes with a touch of Chinese inspired edge.”
- Siena Montesano (Founder + Creative Director, Dad’s Closet)
