Actors want to be rock stars. Rock stars want to be actors. But when comedians decide to record pop dance hits -- well, that's a party all the time.

Guest Day Editor Carolyn Kellogg joins LAist with a few posts throughout the day. Read the introductory interview and check out her litblog.

Few directors are more well suited to 4:20 Video Time than British auteur Chris Cunningham. His work with both Squarepusher (here), Bjork and Aphex Twin have set a high bar for weirdness and imagination in the area of music video.

Enjoy! ©

Guest Day Editor Zuma Dogg will be joining LAist with a few posts throughout the day. Read his introductory interview here and check out his site as well as Mayor Sam where he contributes. He also wrote an article in the current edition of the LA Weekly

This where ZD got his start! Public Access Adelphia/Time Warner! Whoooooo!

Local video blogger and LAObserved contributor Jacob Soboroff was featured last week on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360. Jacob is part of the the Why Tuesday? campaign:

American voter turnout is so low that we lag behind almost every nation on Earth in voter turnout. So, in 2006, we set out on the road with a video camera to find the answer to a simple question: why do we vote on Tuesday? We asked dozens of American politicians - from Hillary Clinton to Arnold Schwarzenegger - and most didn't have a clue. The way and day we vote was set in an outdated 19th century law passed when 80% of Americans lived on farms and people travelled by horse and buggy. Isn't it time for an upgrade?

More info at www.whytuesday.org

A park doesn't have to be hundreds of acres. It could be 100 sq. feet.

A park doesn't or shouldn't have to have parking spaces available for people to access it. A park could be literally be in a parking space.

And that's exactly what a group of Los Angeles activists are doing on Friday, September 21st along Wilshire Blvd. and other locations around the city for the first annual Park(ing) Day LA.

Despite being home to one of the largest urban parks in North America (Griffith Park), Los Angeles significantly lacks adequate & accessible open space, urban parks, plazas and civic centers.

‘Historically, civic leaders had the mind set that Los Angeles was a city of single-family homes each with their own private backyard and there was no need for public open space, parks and recreation. This oversight, coupled with an increased population growth has left the City of Los Angeles with only 10% of the recommended 8-10 acres of parks and open space for every 1000 residents.’

If you want your neighborhood to have one, more power to you -- make it happen with support from the community.

Even if you cannot host your own park, they will be accepting donations starting at a quarter. Maybe a quarter is too much, but using your bike to transport trees, plants and dirt is not. The fact is that everyone can participate in Park(ing) Day LA, even if you happen to wonder upon it on a random Friday in September to take a 5-minute breather on some grass on a Wilshire Blvd parking space.

This 'tube is an oldie, but goodie (now repackaged with the soundtrack of Move Bitch by Ludacris) brought to you by the War in Iraq. News Sophisticate a political news blog, is shocked:

No wonder the people of Iraq see US as an occupying force. Could you imagine if someone drove through the streets of L.A. or D.C. like this? If the police would not shoot them, a citizen sure would. Watch as pedestrians run out of the way of the on coming Humvee. The driver dangerously plays 'bumper cars with traffic during the middle of the day on a busy street.

[snip]

Now don't get me wrong...I understand the dangers of waiting in traffic for the U.S. military, but come on. This is no way to win the 'hearts' and 'minds' of the people. There has to be a better way. These very actions are what the average Iraqi views of US everyday. This is not an image we want to portray.

'SUP CLUB #1 from Hot Knivez and Vimeo.

We're totally digging LA food bloggers Hot Knivez, not least of all 'cause they're getting into it with the "food bloggers" over at the Los Angeles Times. They are vegetarian, beer-loving former line cooks who "believe in cheap groceries, cooking with high alcohol content beer and free leisure." We're thinking of asking them to our next LAist barbecue. Check out this clip, in which they prepare a four-course vegan meal, hopefully while under the influence.

And thank God that The Onion is on this Breaking News.

However it is sorta weird that it was a Mac that brought it all down. We thought they were reliable and stuff.

We didn't know how lucky we had it when the White Stripes came to Hollywood last month and took over the location formerly known as Tower Sunset and turned it into Icky Thump Records.

OK, yes we did.

But we had no idea how much more White Stripes love we were going to get compared to the other parts of North America in regards to these "secret shows". For example on their tour across Canada, Jack and Meg played a secret show in a moving bus - which is fine if you're one of the few dozen people in the bus, but for the rest of the town, not so much.

Now Stereogum is reporting that the White Stripes have completed probably the greatest secret show spectacle of all times - a one-note "concert" to conclude a tour across every province and territory in Canada.

As cool as that is, we're sorta glad we got a full show here in LA.

We're not exactly sure what is happening here (that is until we read the synopsis), but it does have a good number of beautiful LA River shots (did they location scout with us back in March?) and seems to surround the unofficial LA neighborhood of Frogtown.

They called it the SORCERERS, WITCHES & GOBLINS Ride but we only saw one dude with a skull n ' bones flag. The best part of the video is seeing the dog enjoying the ride (or is it about to have a heart attack?).

Next Midnight Ridazz: August 10, dubbed as The Clown Ride

The true nature of this contest is found at the end of this video, but have fun trying to beat Charles Trippy at this staring contest.

You know David Beckham arrived today at LAX, but this is one of the many things that happened behind the scenes. And an interesting one at that. The motive behind this video is American Beef, so welcome to America you Brit!

A&W Restaurants recently launched its Moove to American campaign to support 100% U.S. beef.

Thirty all American cows traveled by barge to the icon of America -- the Statue of Liberty -- to launch the campaign on June 28 in New York City.

Americans can show their support for 100% U.S. beef by visiting a campaign web site -- www.MooveToAmerican.org and signing a petition. The petition will be online for signing until July 31. A&W will deliver the petition to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association as a show of support for U.S. beef.

We hear David Beckham might be importing his UK Beef to keep the Mad Cowiness in his system. But that's how rumours get started.

Her music has been called haunting and timeless, and the new Bat For Lashes single "What's A Girl To Do," certainly falls under those descriptions. If Dario Argento directed music videos, this dark, ethereal promo for "What's A Girl To Do" could be it.

In an amazing feat, LA's cutest and greatest YouTuber out there, LisaNova has brought some of YouTube's stars together in a fun and odd little film about spamming YouTube for domination (directed by Danny Diamond). If you have no idea who DaxFlame, Smosh or Thewinekone are, you need to know about a fascinating subculture of YouTube stars, some of who get higher viewership than Cable TV shows.

The video also features BigRedAfro (he has a great local band too), Perez Hilton (who now does YouTube in addition to his blog) TheHill88 and boh3m3. Disappointedly, the first star of YouTube and friend of TheHill88, Brookers, is not included.

Looks like they cut the budget at Dancing With The Stars again.

Thanks to ESPN Classic for bringing back American Gladiators. This clip, from the show's first season, may go down as one of the greatest moments in Gladiator history. Watch Malibu, who went on to put together quite the career as a thespian explain the healing powers of Mother Nature after taking "the most excellent hit" from a Human Cannonball.

For a tv show thats been around forever, and no longer relevant (some say) thanks to the likes of Adult Swim and The Family Guy, The Simpsons still got it, as evident from the raging success of the various 7/11s that were transformed into Kwik-E-Marts.

According to this Fox 11 report people were buying up as much Buzz cola, Krusty-O's, and Squishees as possible. And we also hear that Kwik-E-Mart uniforms are being sold on eBay.

The Michael Bay-directed, gigantic budget, summer blockbuster comes out today, but some may remember the 1986 animated feature Transformers: The Movie. Released the same year the current film's star Shia LaBeouf was born, the animated classic cast the vocal talents of Orson Welles, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Idle, Judd Nelson and Casey Kasem. The movie also featured the song "The Touch" by Stan Bush. Director Paul Thomas Anderson gave a tongue-in-cheek nod to the anthem when Mark Wahlberg's character performed the song in Boogie Nights.