when my camera battery died in big sur i started relying on my phone camera as backup. then i remembered the panoramic stitch function on my phone camera which was made for trips like this. click each image for the big picture

sorry i’ve been busy with work. 2007 was one of the best years i’ve had in a while. here’s a retrospective. instead of posting a zillion pic recap, i just threw together a lil slideshow.

damn, so sorry for all these pics. these aren’t even all of them, i uploaded almost 500 to my flickr account. as you may know i was in nyc the past 2 weeks. the first week hermilo and i subletted a studio apartment in the lower east side for a fake honeymoon, the second week i stayed in brooklyn with my friend uyen. saw just blaze, chris rock as a surprise guest in a small comedy club, bobbito @ apt, the natural history museum, ate at difara’s pizza (legendary), danced to danny krivit, ate at red hook, secret key lime joints, went to the DUMBO arts fest, fished in the atlantic. i had a blast.

sfo at the breakadawn

flying over my bornstate

herm & drew at APT for just blaze

drew has a ghostface

these girls were feeling it

senor swanky looks like a vampire

danny krivit @ the hudson hotel

mr. krivit played rackords

this woman in the lobby was wearing a carcass of somesort

hudson lobby chandelier

lynchian escalator

at the museum of natural history

i need chapstick

@ red hook

heading out to matt’s neck of the woods for a fishing trip

ah, the ny post

matt caught a 2-foot eel that was mean

this fish had wings and legs

sandshark!

me being sea sick

me pretending not to be sea sick

preparing for dinner @ matt’s

tom showing matt a pic of him with a black eye

LIRR back to brooklyn

the verizon building across from my friend’s has no windows

i’m scared that when i get back, i’m going to post 500 pictures in one entry so here are more

oh my god. big sur is gorgeous. i could type many paragraphs about how this camping trip was a great and memorable experience, but i want to let the pics speak for themselves. i will however rattle off some bulletpoint highlights

• alexis’ southern gothic ghost story cd for late night campfire lounging. spooky and amazing.
• seeing huge farm workers made of painted wood (i think) in crops on the drive down. one of these workers held 2 cabbage heads in front of his balls. no joke.
• rocky and waterfally swimming hole. majestic and inviting on the surface, ice cold and body numbing once we took the plunge
• ate the most delicious food. i’m lucky our group had some good cooks who knew that quality of grub doesn’t have to suffer without the everyday kitchen utensils.
• go-carts on the way back to the city. after years upon years of video games, i knew how to handle my business pole position-wise (pause). but with a person in the passenger seat AND a fear of going off course and having friends tease me about it, i was apprehensive as hell. my time was pitiful.
• although we spent $300 on groceries, we realized after we didn’t buy enough ice at safeway. then we saw all this freshly dumped ice out in the parking lot because the ice freezer broke. that was for the booze cooler. we’re so tacky.

my pics

leaving the city and saw that someone put walrus teeth on the john mayer gap ad

i love my toast camera case

this guy who sold us wood was a character out of a coen brothers flick

the water looks green here but it was crystal clear. the green is the reflection from leaves

cabbage balls

cutest lizard evar!

canopy @ malibu grand prix

swing down sweet chariot stop and let me ride

young’s pics

we ate brunch at a restaurant on the last day. alexis asked brian to sign for her while she went to the restroom so he signed it with hearts and a smiley face.

p.s. if you like new rap, there’s a new UGK album that you should buy. (yes, i found out from reading the internet) and i finally bought it today. i swear it lives up to the hype and i think i might have to buy the instrumental version when it drops. the remix of “like that” has this sweeping john barry james bond thing going on which i love. actually, i’m almost positive that’s what that chorus sample is. how? barry is of my favorite scorers next to ennio morricone and bernard herrmann (yes, i am serious). and yes i like that talib kweli track and yes i am soft hands and have a backpacker past and what can i say i love earth wind and fire but i think you already knew that. you can’t hide from love haters. yay music!!!

so yesterday when i was going through my photo albums and reminiscing about all the areas i’ve explored in the bay area, i came across this photo i took the last time i was in Big Sur (2004?). we drove past this DONNY DARKO ass llama and were like “what the…?” it was so frightening. i was like I’ve GOT to take a picture. so we back the car in front of the llama and it’s starting to get even weirder, i can’t even describe the noises it was making. i had to get out of the car to get close and i’m freaking out and fidgeting with my camera and the noises are intensifying and it started shaking its head from side to side!! i almost expected some mutant john carpenter craziness to occur, like something out of The Thing. i finally took the picture, unfortunately the quality leaves much to be desired. I immediately jumped back in the car right when it was ready to spit on me. i had no idea. later i told a friend and he said, “yeah, that’s what llamas do, spit.” oh word?

moral of the story: do not fuck with llamas. especially scary donny darko ass ones.

sorry, i am not about to img src that shit because i don’t want to see this thing looking at me everytime i post a new entry here.

hi i love summer. saturday had the most perfect weather, i think mid 70’s? i got up at 9am called young and suggested that we go to st francis fountain for breakfast so i can get my bacon fix on. he was already in that neighborhood meeting with the manager of a community garden he wanted to join. so i biked there to meet up.

after a satisfying eggs sandya (bacon, avocado, poached egg on english muffin with hollandaise) he wanted me to see the community garden he joined so we biked over there. it was on top of a giant ass hill and that kicked my ass having just eaten and being hungover. the garden was cute, lots of heirloom tomatos, eggplant, strawberries, kale, green beans, etc etc. we left and rode around our hood some more. i saw an astrojump in the street and some scary mannequin clowns this man wanted to sell me for $25. i told him that clowns scare me and he was like “come on, just put them in your room” haha. he had a lot of great 1920’s drawings in frames though but i couldn’t have carried them on my bike.

biked back and hung out at young’s place for a lil bit before heading to the mall to see superbad and meet up with francis. it was his birthday and young made some cupcakes and wanted to bring one for him, but didn’t know how to transport it so it wouldn’t be a mess. so he sculpted a bowl out of foil and was carrying it around like it was his baby, trying to protect it from getting smashed. the wind was fierce and i was so waiting for that frosted cupcake to rise and hit him in the face like a cream pie. he’s lucky.

kale is strange looking

he got a labelmaker

he spent $15 on seeds at the mall. superbad was just ok to me.

when i got home, there was this big purple pinata in my living room.

i was so tempted to smash it. my roommate’s always bringing home funny stuff

Later that night…i went to maverick for jason’s 30th birthday and had a flat iron steak with the most amazing cornbread i’ve ever ever had. there was so much comedy at the table. i realized recently that all of my friends are damn funny people. the past 3 days hanging out with any one of them, i’ve noticed myself laughing like every 5 min. after maverick, we went to the knockout for big booty bass nite and my girlfriend kristy was standing outside and i screamed and practically jumped in her arms and she hug lifted me off the ground (she’s tall). shit was hilarious, i have no idea why i was so giddy. she made me do a fernet shot which i have never tasted before. i kinda liked it. we took booth pics (like we often do), i got to meet her new dude who she is so smitten for and vice versa and told her that i better be a bridesmaid. a wedding seems written in stone. i love her

stef and serg got jason a mac dre shirt

i’ve had danzig stuck in my head all day, but i don’t know the words so i’m making stuff up and cracking up to myself like a total ass. motherrrr, tell your children to get off my lawn, tell your children to file my taxes…whoahohhhoh…. MOTHER!

to make matters worst, i see this re-edit and am cackling so hard. it’s a hysterically funny epic. i’m talking beyond beyond!

after looking at the expiration date on some of the film, i’m pretty sure these are from ‘91-92, which might explain the ‘losing my religion’ aesthetic on the first batch i took snaps of? anyway, i attempted to google the person for a contact email but it’s a too common of a name.

while going through the clutter bomb disaster that is known as the back storage room in my house, we came across many boxes of photos, proof sheets, misc. camera and dark room equipment that belonged to a previous tenant. my roommate has no idea who it belonged to, since he’s only lived here since 2001 and judging from the clothes on a lot of these proofs i’m guessing it was around the late 80s early 90s. some of them were really interesting, so i kept like 1/4 of it- about 2 boxes of proof sheets and full size photos, some film that i don’t know how to use and is probably worthless, some alien agfa camera, and a small box of negatives. haven’t had a chance to look closely at the lot, but here is a quick overview. i’ll actively scan and post good ones in the future

agfa pd16 folding camera?

box o negatives

look where his foot is!

if i’m home after work on tuesdays, i listen to The Best Show which is tom scharpling’s radio talk show from 5-8PM on WFMU. the topic this last show was “5 people you’d least want to have dinner with.” this was one i couldn’t resist calling in for since i love to rant. even though i was nervous as hell cause tom is intimidating and yells at callers at lot:

my voice is very nasally. i didn’t hear him say jimmy page in that multiple choice character test. and no i didn’t go jogging right before i called. thats how bad my nerves are with any kind of public speaking

monkeys are not cute, they’re scary. i don’t like them and i don’t understand this tradition of watering down their image to depict them as these cuddly & warm creatures when they’re unpredictable, territorial, and capable of intense violence. in that movie aguirre wrath of god, there’s an infestation scene w/ klaus kinski that makes my skin crawl. i also saw an episode of Nature on PBS where aggressive baboons in south africa mug people in the parking lot for their groceries like total thugs. the people they confronted were stunned and slowly backed away from their bags like they were being held up by gunpoint. i’m familiar with evolution and all and understand we are primates, but it still weirds me out how human they are. i find it unsettling and therefore necessary to talk shit about them

so, one of the ‘highlights’ in the jungle episode of planet earth was a segment on chimpanzees. i thought everything was cool. they were showing the chimps hanging out gorging on figs and it was all so innocent and calm. later, about 30 of them banded together creeping about the jungle in stealth mode and then suddenly declared war on their rivals’ territory, shrieking and wielding branches as weapons. it was insane. then they ripped apart a rival chimp and starting eating it, which was traumatizing. cannibalism is already messed up psychologically but adding more to the inherent mindfuckery of it all, their mannerisms reminded me of people. they weren’t digging into the carcass with their mouths like lions & tigers do. they sat in a circle and shared the entrails and organs amongst each other with their hands. it was like a sit down dinner with the family. one of the chimps held out its hand while the other was cleaning out a skull, and it obliged and courteously passed the skull to him. strange & scary. it’s behavior that seems both civil and uncivil, the civil being the sharing & good manners and the uncivil being the war waging & cannibalism. one minute eating figs and another minute an enemy’s brain? i don’t get it. strange how chimpanzees are our closest evolutionary relatives and yet they get down with eating their own. there’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere.

in conclusion, monkeys are not cute. eating brain is NOT cute. and paul frank is wrong

dogs, turkeys, bunnies, vietnamese beer, flora & fauna, spooky sheds, trout heads, nephews etc

martin short….am i crazy?

biked to the ballpark last night with young for giants opening night, mostly for the fireworks. i always feel that as an A’s fan i have to explain myself when I go to that park, but it is too scenic for me to get all lame sportsjerk about it. met up with my old roommates dave and brice, sat in the upper upper deck and section 333 people were folding up their free “go giants” signs into paper airplanes and throwing them from up on high to the diamond. the ones that didn’t make it to the field ended up hitting people in the head rows below. ours got confiscated by the usher before it even took flight. we rode around after the game and fireworks downtown along the embarcadero and i snapped things i saw.

i’ve been tripping over this since yesterday:

i don’t know christian paine, but i guess he likes the photos and retarded sense of humor on this site. he took this old photobooth snap of me with BFF/#1 enemy Young dorking out bigtime and made it into an awesome poster that i will cherish eternally.

here is his site christianpaine.com. if you want to skip the Ben Gazzara clip (um, 1000 style points for that) and go straight to his art, click to enter and there are all his illustrations, paintings, and films. i hope i didn’t blow up his spot by posting about this, but it is so random & weirdly uplifting that i can’t not post about it. so yeah christian paine dude, i like his style.

I didn’t know about this 2-ton elephant seal Minazo until i saw some amusing pics of him with a bucket and his tongue hanging out that made him look special. He kinda reminded me of a character out of a Studio Ghibli movie, like Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro.

Anyway, Minazo lived in some aquarium in Japan is famous for being the biggest elephant seal in captivity and liked to carry around a bucket of fish, i am guessing for snacking purposes. He supposedly was also very shy which is surprising because I’ve seen elephant seals fight on The Blue Planet series and they get buck wild bloody. He died in 2005 and Merzbow released a two volume Minazo tribute album with artwork of him sitting on a cloud with bucket in hand.

Somewhat related, I believe the same Japanese aquarium that Minazo lived at is where these poor walruses with big mock cellphones currently reside.

last nite while watching lost highway, young said that baretta creeped him out in the same way that killer bob did in twin peaks. i agreed and told him that our friend eugene reminded me of killer bob based on one particular picture that he took of him: