» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

Conservatory for Coffee, Tea, and Cocoa

jelewis8 — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:33:23 +0000

Fringe Design was contracted by this popular family-owned coffee and tea spot in downtown Culver City to redesign the shop’s website and offer the ability to place bulk orders online. Governed by a sense of place and time, the new design incorporates the exotic with an Americana flavour that invites and welcomes visitors–much like the cozy shop itself.

Seven Steps To Total Search Engine Domination – Introduction

jelewis8 — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:25:42 +0000

For those of you who aren’t aware, I work as an SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) for a breast augmentation internet marketing firm in Southern California, Los Angeles (specifically Culver City) called BreastImplants411.com. It’s good work, mostly fun. I work in an office full of guys, which makes looking at women’s breasts quite a bit less awkward than it might be if it was an office full of women. Believe it or not, the work is not titillating (forgive the pun). I work with words, because that’s what search engines want and need.
Breast augmentation and breast surgery is a very competitive field in the online world. Especially in Southern California, where the percentage of women who have breast implants is higher than the percentage of Hollywood marriages that end up in the tank. Breast augmentation, plastic surgery, and just plain cosmetic body work is something almost everyone has considered at one time or another. It’s a huge market, but breast augmentation, breast implants–these are the money makers. In 2006, more than 300,000 women underwent breast lifts, breast augmentation, breast reductions, or some other cosmetic surgery to improve the appearance of their breasts.
So it’s not surprising that it’s a highly searched term, and highly competitive. My company competes with several dozen other companies, some ranging from small, localized search directories to nationwide services that offer a host of other procedure searches, such as body contouring, liposuction, botox, and other aesthetic surgery. However, I’m proud to say that we rank #1 on Google for more terms than our top three competitors combined.
This is an introduction to a series about search engine optimization for this highly competitive field. In this series, I’m going to talk about methods I’ve used to keep us at the number one spot for highly competitive search terms. The last article will actually have a surprise, a twist, like a Hollywood movie, a blockbuster, ball-busting SEO enchantment that you won’t want to miss out on. You’ll want to read each one, as I offer secrets and advice on how to boost your search engine rankings in any competitive industry using minimal effort.
Come with me, and discover how BreastImplants411.com became the number one searched site on the web for competitive terms within the breast augmentation and breast implant industry. I will post a new article every other day for the next two weeks, which will contain the Seven Steps to Total Search Engine Domination.

Jeremiah Lewis is the Search Engine Optimizer for Breast Implants 411, a marketing firm for plastic surgeons across the globe. He lives in Los Angeles, California, the breast implant capital of the world.

Credit Fraud

jelewis8 — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:00:46 +0000

I had my first experience with credit card fraud this morning. Some tricky prankster charged over $1300 to my American Express account in a Las Vegas leather shop on Saturday, just over two hours after I spent just over $100 on groceries at Ralphs in Culver City. It may not seem like a frightening thing to you, but think about it: if the charge had gone through and AMEX hadn’t suspected it was a bogus purchase, I’d have almost a grand and a half worth of leather goods in my name and nothing to show for it. How disappointing would that be? I guess it would be pretty difficult for me to be in Culver City and then in Las Vegas two hours later, which might be how the charge got flagged. That or they realized I’m not gay or female. But mostly not gay. Er…or female.
I’m pretty conscientious about my accounts. I check them constantly for unauthorized purchases, and in fact have been dealing with one merchant who keeps charging my card even though I canceled my account with them. After four months of negotiating with the merchant and credit card company, I finally got the account closed and a new card issued. Better luck tomorrow, stupid unresponsive merchant!
In the meantime, I am in talks with a guy, we’ll call him a Producer, about writing a sitcom pilot. The good thing is I’ve been writing my own sitcom show, so I’ve got the basics down, plus I like to think I have something funny to say about 85% of the time I’m breathing, not factoring in sleep, though I understand that I occasionally talk in my sleep. Who knows what gems are popping out of my subconscious. Actually, I am not sure it’s such a good idea to find that particular information out. My philosophy is, never wear spandex and never visit a dream therapist. Together, these two activities can form a lethal band of suckitude around your very existence, eventually rendering you a stocky, balding, occasionally funny man.
Anyway, sitcom. I have no doubt that I could write a decent sitcom script, given a few weeks and some Mountain Dew and chocolate donuts. Not that I watch much television. I feel my life is better spent watching DVDs of TV shows, which actually reduces actual television watching time by about 22%, since one is not made to sit through commercials. I’m hopelessly attached to the screen once a show is on, though, which is why it’s very bad for me to start a new disc of a boxed set–I’m liable to watch every episode on that disc straight through. I recently experienced this phenomenon with Season One of Arrested Development, which was provided by Greg Piper in a dutiful and capitalistic exchange of goods for services. You’ll notice his website is now completed (a few tweaks aside, it’s done).
So I’m hoping that becomes a reality. In the meantime, progress on Book 2 of The Cold Goodbye continues. It’s really become a rock solid story, much more so than Book 1, which was more setup than anything else, and it requires a lot of wading to get to the good stuff. But taken together (once complete), I think the book will be like a full meal, with an appetizer and some bread to start with, leading to the exquisite main course, which involves hypnosis, parasites, earthquakes, and futuristic video detective work. I think you, Yes you!, might even enjoy it.
Onward and upward, I always say. See you tomorrow.

Christmas Jade

jelewis8 — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 19:45:29 +0000

I’m actually going to decorate for Christmas this year. And by “I’m”, I really mean we, and by “we” I really mean Joe. A couple of strings of white lights from the $.99 store (yes, we really have one, as well as a $.48 store…and a Sheetz), maybe a tiny electric tree that spins on a ceramic pedestal and chimes “Here Comes Santa Claus” in a warbling electric tone until it loses a circuit, whereupon it will slowly grind to a halt and start demanding your change in a low, robot voice as you pass it by…yeah, I think we’ll have a pretty little Culver City apartment when we’re through. I might even try and buy a flag pole so I can post my huge American flag from the balcony. Piss off all the local liberals. That’s pretty festive.
It’s been seven years or so since I last decorated with any enthusiasm. When I was a kid I kept a box in my closet filled with that white stuffing you put in couches. I had strips of it that, when placed in a configuration that resembled a drunk Kelsey Grammer’s tire tracks after bouncing home from the strip joint, simulated a snowy surface upon my inner window sash. I would then make paper snowflakes and tape them to the different panes, stick my crochet’d jolly snowman in the middle, and line up the custom-designed oven-baked dough letters I had made when I was ten (painted in alternating green and red). When I stepped back, what was displayed was a beautiful tableau of faux-Christmas spirit, proudly whispering “Merry Christmas”, illuminated by electric window candles. Yes, those were the good days.
Since then I’ve grown cynical and lazy. And by “cynical and lazy” I mean I went to college. Which is really all college truly teaches you to be, anyway. If you happen to come out with a degree in something other than a B.S. in Jadedness & Despair, then you’re considered marketable. I’m not sure what left me more jaded about Christmas though, my college days or my parents splitting up just after Christmas of my freshman year. That was the year that mom left and never came back or called. We called the police thinking maybe there’d been an accident. But she had just vanished like tupperware on the day after Thanksgiving sale.
The very next year I declined to even go home for Christmas. I spent Christmas morning at my then-place of employment, the Veterinary Hospital. It was sunny and cold, and flurries were falling, and it was probably the most miserable I’d ever been since beginning the old college try.
So you might say, my college years were formative in shaping my Christmas humbuggedness. I always did cry at various Christmas movies though. A Christmas Carol (both the George C. Scott version and the Muppets one) always started the salt water flowing, but of course the big one was It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s funny, I often hear how people are tired of that movie, probably because it comes on network tv and plays non-stop for a month. But I own the DVD, and not the crappy colourized version either. I’ll watch it again this year, and cry when George Bailey comes back to the land of the living. *Sniff!*
I finally received the script for the film I’m editing, 13 Months of Sunshine. I read the script last night, and it’s as good as I hoped it would be. With good actors, it shouldn’t be too difficult to make this film go places. It will be a good date movie, and not just for Ethiopians.
My book is barreling along nicely now. I’m getting to the exciting payoff for all the buildup, and I’m finding my pace, learning to write action scenes with a little more excitement than I’m used to describing, but also building up suspense, so that when the big climax comes, it’ll be like I’m punching you in the face. But not literally.
I’ll have a post up soon about my personal peeve with the use of the word “literally” to describe something figurative, and I’ll call out one of the English language’s celebrated literary geniuses in several shady, if not outright incorrect applications of the word. Like, literally dude. Peace out.

The Teeming Streets

jelewis8 — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 19:13:41 +0000

One problem with LA is the traffic never really stops, it just subsides. It goes in patterns, waves, and occasionally spurts. But never is there a complete emptiness of the streets. Even in Culver City, where life moves pretty slowly compared to the downtown and Westwood areas, Washington Boulevard is a never-ending stream of workers in Mercedes and Beamers, Venice Beach buses, police and emergency vehicles, slack-jawed tourists with their rented Kias and Hyundais, and lately, skateboarders. If it’s got wheels, eventually it makes its way along the two lane city bloodstream vessel. And at all hours of the morning too. Just when it seems quiet, a Harley with an engine so loud it causes eardrums to spontaneously burst into bloody pulp roars by.
That’s the other thing. This isn’t traffic with ordinary volume control. Well, it is–here’s the problem. Sony Studios occupies the entire block across the street from our apartment. It’s a grand facility, and we can sometimes spot studio parties taking place on weekends. One of these days we’ll set up a zip line in, but for now, we must simply watch and wonder. But the Sony structure, like all studios, is enclosed in a huge wall of stucco and bricks and is a perfect reflector of all the sounds on the street. Everything that happens streetside is amplifed and bounced up to our apartment, like we’re our own dish receiver.
This explains the strange buzzing I heard last night as I was reading in my room. It sounded like a tiny electronic device, like an alarm clock whose alarm has been turned on but the volume turned very low, and instead of beeping, it was one sustained sine wave. It took me moments to determine it wasn’t either my or Tim’s alarm clock, both lights in the room were operating normally, and Tim’s cell phone wasn’t going off. Then it hit me; it was coming from the wall!
I cocked my ear out the patio door in our room and voila! the electronic buzzing had taken on a fuller nature, and it was clear the source of it was emanating from the auto body shop just below us. Another audio mystery solved by the sleuth of Vinton Villas.
For the most part I don’t mind it. You get used to the traffic sounds at night; the scraping; the metal screeching; the ticks and taps of construction; the morning garbage man who thinks that banging the dumpster against the sidewalk repeatedly with force will somehow loosen that piece of tissue paper from its bowels; the morning street cleaners (Bah!); the ever-present din of a city so huge Atlas shrugged in weariness when he saw the work cut out for him.
I haven’t had trouble sleeping above the fray. It’s waking up to it that is more difficult. It seems, philosophically, that mornings are meant to be peaceful just as night is peaceful. The idea behind a morning in solitude and silence seems nearly impossible here. To shut out the din is not in keeping with the wholeness of the city. Something else must be done. It’s become my tradition to shower and then walk to the coffee shop a block away. The din of a coffee shop is more than bearable, especially with a cup of joe in my tired hands.

Regional Division of Hell

jelewis8 — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 00:33:26 +0000

I spent part of the morning at one of the regional branch offices of Hell, which of course was incorporated sometime back in the early 80′s. Well, technically, it was a separate company owned by Hell. No, not the airport. Yes, I’m referring to the DMV, or Devil’s Motor Vendor, voted 2nd Most Likely Place to Get Mugged Whilst Standing In Line (the first was a back alley called Shank Ya Avenue in Compton, for comparison). Actually, the branch I visited is in Culver City, which is like the Des Moines of Los Angeles proper. Except more Hispanics. Still, as safety goes, Culver City rates much lower on the murder/burglary/mugging scale than, say, Hollywood. On the other hand, rapes are apparently more popular here than elsewhere, so it depends on your perspective (and your gender).
It is astonishing to me that despite being in a city of 10.2 million people, every single person in the DMV looks exactly alike. I’m not talking about race or class here. It’s the cell phones. Everyone has one. Or two. I saw one businessman with an earpiece attached to a Sidekick (which has cellular capabilities). Then his other phone rang. Another thing: people seem to think that having a cellular phone is a free pass for ringtones with subwoofer-shattering volumes. This isn’t the Hollywood Bowl orchestra–it’s your phone. Despite what you may think, it is not the pinnacle of cool to have L’il Kim suddenly assaulting your ears from four seats away.
There’s all these subtle insults at the DMV. The ticket system is designed to reduce you to a compliant, docile creature, whilst the atmosphere chokes you with an intensity of white space. It’s a place you would send your hated in-laws if you could, a building without charm or grace, just straight white lines and a monotonous automated computer reading out ticket numbers. The process guarantees you will be a long term resident if you do not comply. Even anarchists follow the DMV rules. The lines dictate you do so. And that grim voice gives you hope, like a prisoner approaching parole, that perhaps, it is all soon to be over. And the ticket system is master over all. If you don’t have a ticket, you can’t move. Without a ticket, you are nobody, and that’s less than the no-name nobody who holds F072 in his hands. You have a ticket; you may not have a name, but at least you have a number, and that means that one shining day, your number will be called. You pity any fool who tries to buck this system. The system revels in conformity, delights in obedience…no, that would be giving it human qualities, and this is a place with less heart than a glass of water.
Ticket systems are usually designed around a combination of a letter and then some numbers. For instance, I was F072. Doubtless fulfilling one of the more obscure Murphy’s laws, your ticket is never on the “fast track”. The B tickets were flying by. G tickets were a little less common, but had a steady flow. And F? Of course, F was called a scant three times during the hour I was imprisoned. I suppose that makes me “special”. Not unique, but at the DMV, special is still a treat, except in its scarcity.
Once I finally got to the counter, my experience improved dramatically. I was treated with courtesy, shuffled through like any normal good citizen, and passed my test without studying, though I missed four questions. Why do I need to know what the speed limit is for vehicles carrying hazardous materials? Still, I have proved my driving worth to the State of California, and eagerly await my plastic laminated identification in the mail. And at least I don’t have to go stand in line at the post office to get it–that’s another essay altogether.

Mr. Slick’s

jelewis8 — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 09:57:07 +0000

Is there any reason you can think of to name your automobile repair shop Mr. Slick’s? Neither can I.
And yet a place right here in Culver City exists with that very name. And apparently is doing quite well, based on the number of referrals to the place I’ve heard since arriving. I myself have not been, having no desire to willingly hand over any portion of my bank account or credit card number to any business or individual who goes by the eponymous Mr. Slick, as upright and trustworthy as he may be. But the reason I know about it, other than hearing Mr. Slick’s praises sung from the lips of slack-jawed customers from near and far, is from my roommate John, whose 1997 Ford Taurus experienced what could be termed an “engine compression failure”–in Nick Hornby’s inimitable style, “half a broken heart”. It seems traveling up and down eight and ten degree vertical planes dragging over four hundred pounds beyond its max capacity will tend to rupture the various compartments and seals that make up the complex engine of the automobile. Sustained travel in this manner is incalculably bad (actually, it’s not incalculable–$1800 and change, according to Mr. Slick).
Still, the question still floating in the ether is similar to the query of “Why does Charlize Theron continue to get acting jobs?” Well, slightly different, I’ll allow. It is this: If you are a smart person (and I assume there are smart people here), why would you willingly choose to submit your sick vehicle to a place whose name conjures up images of poncy-eyed shoe salesmen from the 1940′s who wear Fop as if it’s a second skin? Is it morbid curiosity? Self-destructive impulse? Sleaze factor? Is it a rubbernecking phenomenon, or better yet, is it like watching a nature documentary on TV, only instead of the fruit-eating habits of the ring-tailed lemur, it’s the money-sieving ability of the local automobile scam artist?
Of course, this could all be considered slander, as Mr. Slick’s has never, to my knowledge, been guilty of anything untoward, least of all bilking hapless customers out of their hard-earned simoleons. Though technically, I’ve never accused Mr. Slick of anything other than having an unsavoury sounding name. And I think I’m well within my right to criticize such a poorly chosen name, ‘specially for an auto body shop. Imagine if you will a greasy-handed wrench jockey, a half a day’s worth of chewed gum schlocking around his mouth (which sounds like a wet dog jumping into a pool of custard), hair slicked back–the John Gotti of the auto repair world–and his grin, a gold tooth glinting out from around slightly pointed teeth, that only reminds you later of that fairy tale involving a cute debutante and her encounter with a forest lycanth. Do I paint a picture that’s at least mildly disturbing?
This was my very first picture when John announced he had taken his car to Mr. Slick. At first I thought it was a joke, because no savvy businessman would name his business after such a slimy name. And I have political precedent to back up my claim. Remember a guy named “Tricky Dick”? Or does the name “Slick Willy” ring any bells? Not for nothing were these men given monikers that reflected their particular nature. Not very flattering, are they? There’s just something repulsive about the adjectives, as if some viscous, slimy fluid were permanently part and parcel with their person, and if one were to touch them, they would be reduced to the self-same goop that besotted these political paramecium–or, they would be engulfed, nevermore to emerge.
Except perhaps as lesser politicians or auto body specialists…