This is the event that I am judging. Enter and you can win a 13" macbook.

Hedges, and more neighborhood observations

Ok, this is out of control. I saw this while walking down the street. I wonder how connected these two trees are. The branches much go across the top, intertwining with each other, but I wonder how far they go? To the bottom of the other side? Who thought of this thing and who maintains it? I'd rate this a 9. It's brave and ridiculous.

I have no idea what the point of this lame bush can do for a yard. Inches tall, but super wide and deep, it's like a front yard muff. I rate this a 6. It's actually pretty huge, but it's cowardly and does nothing. Is this decor?


If you can't afford rocks, grow some! This house has boulders of bushes all around. The path cuts through what looks like a fat meat loaf. If you play hide and go seek, or paint ball, this would be the best terrain for the game. An 8. You have to be brave to grow and maintain these, or else you have to aiming for a war, these are like "gook" bunkers.


Who is Andy Gump? The metal sign is great. I wonder if there's a t-shirt. If so, I want one. What font is this anyway?

Is this graffiti? Or is it a social commentary? What was once a $3000 TV, is now a billboard for taggers. Very nice green and nice block lettering.

This must be 7 feet tall, and at the top is a weed. Why does the city make these perfect for weeds? Shouldn't they just plug the bottom? Why does the pole need to be holey at the bottom? Signs for mini-Me?

Mom's birthday at Torafuku. Famous for their rice, which is cooked the old fashioned way, the meals are good. I ordered chicken and it came with a medley of onions and mushrooms. We all ordered dinner specials. The rice of course tastes like rice, but it's special flavor is subtle and classy. The appetizers that come with the special makes the meal. For the lighter eater, that's actually enough! Happy Birthday!

That's Musashi, the hyper Shiba. Musashi will chase the light from a flashlight. In this pic, Musashi was chasing the red laser light from the camera.

Sawtelle drama from Saturday. All were fine.

In the wake of soondooboo bowls, kimchee plates, beef dish, rice from the stone pots, Mike, the one armed swordsman looks puzzled.

Here's something guys can do, and women, well, maybe not so good. I never thought of it until someone at our dinner in upstate NY brought it up.

Can you ladies make machine gun sounds like a dude? It's not like we went to class for it, but I've never seen a woman rock that sound like a dude. Can you?

You never learn anything from blogs? Today it may change.



I wanted to share some great info I learned yesterday. Unless Greg at Safe and Save was messing with me, he showed me a trick on how to count coins. Did you know that Quarters are $20 a pound? Digital scale, a big handful of coins, just punch in $20 a pound and see how much it weighs. Yesterday the coins were $18.25 As for dimes same $20 a pound. Nickels $4 a pound! Unless you have some old coins that are maybe made partially out of silver, it should be spot on.

Eman is back. MTV! Thanks to the lounger who posted this...

Here's the flyer for the talk. It's a day before the cut and paste event. I'll be judging that. Anyone going to enter it? Check out the link, it's a hot event building momentum.

Oops, I was told to take down the flyer. however, this check this out. It's a video.

Watch for the dildo.

The police guy knew wtf he was doing. What a guy.

I thought I'd post this real quick. A e-flyer will be made. It's coming up soon.

Unbound: How L.A.'s Art Magazines Are Changing The Face Of Popular Culture
Featuring:
Shepard Fairey, Swindle
Amir H. Fallah, Beautiful/Decay
Tracy Forman-Snyder, Arkitip
Brendan Fowler, ANP
Eric Nakamura, Giant Robot

Moderated by: Carlo McCormick, Paper Magazine
6 PM, Friday November 10, 2006
5500 Hollywood Boulevard, at Western Avenue.
This is free and open to the public.

Our panel will be followed by a special Presentation sponsored by Andy Spade of
The Neistat Brothers, showing their amazing films and taking questions.
After 8 PM the space will be turned into a party, with the requisite booze and music, etc.

Remember that guy on our softball team, Sky Tetsuka who went to Nepal then stole the Ms. Nepal from the locals? Here's an article on him in the Rafu Shimpo. I was at my parents house, flipping through newspapers, then boom, there's Sky smiling in color with a big ass article. This guy is on fire and should buy a stack of lotto tickets.

19-18. (oops it was 20-19. We played the other Asian team who won first place last season. They're a bunch of lawyer/athletes and from top down, they might be faster and for a lack of good words, more athletic. We played tough and went ahead in the early innings. We took advantage of a ton of walks by the opposing pitcher, and played some tough defense. As soon as I stepped into the game, the other team started hitting, and our team made error after error. They went ahead. Another inning, and again, they piled on more runs. They were up by 7. We were down 18-11... and the other team was looking strong. We were stunned. Gloves were being thrown. I came up to bat, and poof, I drew my third walk of the game. Their pitcher was falling apart again, and with a few hits, more walks, we got within a run. 18-19. With two on, and Hap batting, I figured he'd take a walk, but instead, he hit a clean basehit.



In their haste to try and preserve the lead, they never gripped the ball right, and it was bobble city. The winning run scored, and the game was over. Even though we were ahead, then were getting our ass kicked, we played through our bad times, and kept playing through the small good times, one base runner at a time. It was actually amazing. Sometimes, you can play super ugly and still preservere. Winning isn't always pretty. With this self indulgent blog, what do you get out of it? I don't know, maybe nothing.

Cousin Dan and cousin Larry visited Sawtelle today. Dan was in town to see a show at the Wiltern. He's gonna play a show in December in LA, and Martin, you missed his show in Hawaii for the film fest. It's weird, Dan always gets an allergy in GR1. That's why we're outside.

APB - Fabian. Where have you been? Birthday boy to MIA. Hope you're having fun with the goodies you got.

Courtesy of friend Noriko, here's an image of the Chiho art in the Gloucester Road station of the Circle Line. 25 July 2006 -25 Jan 2007. "Mountain Whisper"
No wonder people dig Chiho in England! The pound is twice at strong as the dollar, and even more compared to the yen. It's a great place to be earning money.

It basically looks like "City Glow." I wonder what Chiho will do next... Handpainted work? Speaking of which, while at the Murakami gallery...

Yes Chiho does draw. Here's proof.

Michelle is the manager of the store. You might know what she looks like. Can you find her in this You Tube video? I have no idea what this video is about, but oh well, it's weird.

Sawtelle Neighborhood minute. There's a lot of development in the West LA area near the stores. Some of it is nutty, and some of it is / will be historical. Let's go on a tour!

This house or duplex is looking like the ship the Jawas rode in. Before this was being built, it was the home of this guy named Lou who was an ass. He often stood outside of his house at the gate so he could try and talk to Japanese kids (girls) as they walked by. He's passed away now. I remember the minute we heard of the news of his death, my cousin Mike said, "I'm not going to say anything bad," which meant he had a lot of thoughts of this dude, but was being respectful. Me on the otherhand, I didn't care, and gladly said he was a dick (because he was). I'm not glad he died or anything, but he was a dick. This new building might end up looking cool. It's a behemoth for sure.


Architect David Ming Li Lowe designed and works out of this spot. He owns the front and back, and the red is "Forbidden City" red. It's a big studio and it's a building that you either like or not. I've grown to like it.

A detail of the dragon that's near the back entrance.
David Ming Li Lowe also designed this building/house/studio for a private party. It looks rather simple, but this runs the length of the lot. So it's a long, long house. I think it's broken in two, the artist studio is in front. Now next door to his "Forbidden City" red house, he's building another home for his brother. There's one in the front and one in the back. 3 green roofs in a tight area. It's crazy. David once said he wants to develop this area, and he's definitely doing it.

I don't know why this pic is in, but look at the roof! It's very similar and I'm 99% sure it's not by David.

David also designed these homes. There's two of them, one up front and one in back, and they're a local landmark. They're built on springs or something, and can withstand earthquakes.
The trees have grown to almost cover the facade of the homes. It's like they're on an island to themselves. David lives in the back unit.

This is next door and it's an unfamous Frank Gehry home.

This home is on 2 lots. It's a behemoth. The guy who owns it supposedly once lived in the front of the two David Ming Li Lowe home. It has a crazy yard around it with trees, plants, and design. Inside from what I can see has huge roll up doors, and actually seems sort of small, although you can tell it's massive. No expense was spared here.

So this leaves this spot. You can see the arched roof David project in the background. Is David going to make more? Will this be a "small" behemoth? The lot isn't huge, but with these new buildings, my house slowly becomes the shittiest on the block! Tour's over, don't forget your things and be careful on the way home.

The webstore and it's components. We're adding more shelves and it's looking good. Part of the bad, is that I have to clean my stuff out of the webstore area.

This is Michael he's camera shy, so I pixeled him out.

Tons of books. Shelves and shelves of books.

More good stuff like toys, vinyl dolls, shirts, etc on more shelves.

Keenan with that stash...

I met Ted Fang from Asian Week for lunch. He's a good guy. If you read up on him, there's crazy drama, but know he's a grounded chill dude with a lot of knowledge. He once owned the SF examiner!

Dinner with Mr. Horvath who's sitting in his new ride. We're planning Uglycon, their art show at GR2, which will be in December, it's going to be a great thing involving GR2, gr/eats, and who knows what else.

Whoa, t.m.i. Takashi Murakami is doing body painting for his show that just started last week. It's in Paris! Buck naked, he's smearing himself to make art. What do you think?

Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin
76, rue de Turenne 75003 Paris France
www.galerieperrotin.com

Giant Robot podcast for issue 44 is up. You get the goodness of hearing us talk about the issue. Bird carving, Donutman, Pete Fowler, Buddha Machine, and herbs from Chinatown. Podcasts are fun and simple, and for some reason there's a little bit of background noise this time. I don't know how many of you check out our podcasts, but I do hope you enjoy them. Our friend Dan Wu, listens to them on his ipod while he's getting film make up put on. It's sort of a bummer, we merely have only 1 podcast this time.

Zhang Yimou's "Curse of the Golden Flower" with Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li. I had all weekend on think about it. Chow Yun Fat's first appearance is hilarious since he had a beard. There's lavish battle scenes with techniques I've never heard of, and I was an East Asian studies major!



The flick is basically a period piece depicting the 10th century reign of an emperor who wore Liberace beating blinging gold in each scene with the backdrop of drama between he and his family. Stripped down, Zhang Yimou is up to his same tricks, it's a historical drama with characters who are being sneaky and jealous of each other. Zhang's muse continues to be the depressed looking Gong Li. But what brings this one up is Chow Yun Fat, and the insane battle scenes and techniques, incredible ninjas, and the insane armor. Gladly the sword play wasn't overbearing, since we don't need that anymore... See this one for sure.

Lana Kim's Birthday party. The cake came out, the birthday song was going on and she was on her cell phone!

Ely, her brother wants none of the blown flames.

Tim Biskup - wtf!?

Cousin mike got an operation on his arm after years and years of talking about it. A funny story is that right when he came back into consciousness, he started throwing punches at the nurses and spitting. I guess he clocked some nurses but has no recollection of it, it was just a natural reaction of some sort. Throwing punches can make you the talk of the post-op room and you can get away with punching a nurse. What can you say? Sorry? That story is just the warm up. We watched PRIDE which made it's debut in Vegas. What a great production and show compared to the UFC. It's a huge difference in talent, and production budget. In the end fighting is fighting, but seeing the Shogun (GR's 2005 fighter of the year) vs Randleman and Fedor vs Coleman among other great fights made this a great time. It ran about 3 hrs+. A great night for mixed martial arts.

Ikea has small business supplies. I guess making shops these days have become so common that even Ikea has picked up on it. They sell shit you can use for your shop/boutique/etc. What's next? Sections in Ikea that depict your special room for making your vinyl doll kit, DJ room, crafting workshop, or t-shirt design studio?

Uglydolls are so ugly, they broke the window!

The old man, 89 with a murder rap, might not get much prison time. Who knows, but either way, I think he and his family may be screwed, who knows what kind of lawsuits will happen. I heard there were 70 injured! I know one killed was a homeless guy.



I once talked to a guy who has a space right near the beginning of the crash site. He told me the first person get killed was a homeless person. Did that person have a family who had an opinion on whether this guy should go to prison or not? How about any restitution payments? I'm still not sure if prison is the way to go for this old fart. But all I know is that if I did it, I'd be in prison.

I remember when this old dude killed 10 people. I wasn't there, but it must have been a sad day. I used to go to the farmer's market often, but since this happened, I seldom go. Do I think it's right that he's going to prison at 89 for this "accident"? At first I thought he should burn at the stake, but for some reason, since it's been years and this dude is totally fragile, I almost think he should have some other penalty. But what use is this guy?

Fabian's birthday! This is the black mask version! We all had a blast at gr/eats for Fabian's 21st. He had a full house.

Fabian ate some cake, ate a veggie burger and a chicken sandwich!

Cybelle Tondu eats dinner #2. She does not look like this.

Hoody #3 - Fabian got 3 hoodies! I guess everyone thought it was funny.

Fabian and his dad, Moses

I think Fabian liked the cake. It was funny, when I took it to the kitchen, nelson the gr/eats chef, looked at it, and said whoa, Back to the Future! Fabian did the same thing. The first thing I told him is the clock, is it the right time? He said yes.

Desperate Sculpy Times! It's Fabian's 21st birthday, you probably don't know him, but he's this dude who comes by our shop maybe four times a week. I think he's bought something once, but enjoys hanging out with everyone. He likes anime, Japanese anything, Asian girls, Duck Tales, Ninja Turtles, talking about anything, drawing pictures, Back to the Future... He doesn't like bad words, saying bad things about anything, sweets since he has braces, changing his hoody, walking without a backpack on, and uncomfortable silence. So here's a cake, I just finished making for him. It's the pivotal scene where Marty needs to get back to 1985. The Flux Capacitor works!

Lightning strikes at 10:04pm! Doc hangs from the clock and conducts the electricity. He was wearing a grey overcoat with black gloves and a white patterned shirt.

Through the "wire," the "DeLorean" speeds up and fire blows out of the wheels.

Home to 1985! Cue in the Huey Lewis music, and you know what? I'll add a big fuck you to Biff too. He can wash my car when he's done with everyone else's.

That's Fabian. He wears that Hoody everyday. But where's his backpack?! What's in that backpack? One day we'll find out. Btw, like my Kaws shirt?

Here's a few more shots of the show. The outdoor shot is in Potsdam. It's about 10 miles away. There's a lot of nice bridges and rivers in the area.











That's Cathy from St Lawrence who is half of the duo who helped set this all up.

I got to curate a show outside of GR! This is the show, Heavenly Friends is on the campus of Saint Lawrence University. Today we did a talk for those who came. The trip out was hell. 2 planes to Syracuse, then a rental car for 2.5 hours to get to Canton. It's a nice small town. Potsdam is a larger and maybe nicer and about 10 miles away. One subscriber came and she taught class in a town that's 1 mile from the Canadian border. She brought about 10 high school students. Totally cool. It's a shame a lot of you won't be able to see this show. It's a pretty cool mix, and I think it looks good. It's also great for the artists who are getting to show at a nice gallery space, and in an area that's totally new.

That's Saelee at the podium, and the room was decently full. SLU also made the show pamphlet booklet, and that's cool too.

In Canton on the campus of St. Lawrence University, the trees look nice. It's fall foilage time. That's Saelee walking down the road.


If we were American Apparel, I'd use this image for my ads. Check out Caroline Hwang modeling the We Were Young and it Was Summer shirt.

The inventor of the Lifesaver is from a town nearby. This thing is gigantic.

This is Saelee at LAX.

That was yesterday evening at 6pm in West LA. The sun and the rain.

Our podcast system isn't up to par yet, but I put up a bunch yesterday. I'm not that up on the mp4 deal, but these are ones you have to download. I hope that's ok. Keep me updated if it works or not. Mp3's are twice as large for some reason, so I'm just doing this as a test. We have a short interview with Doug Kim who shot photos are Talledega, we cover gr43, from Seam, Jeff Staple, Ed Hardy, Alive, and more. These are pretty fun if you're into the issue.

Anyone been to Canton? I'm not talking about China, but New York. It's upstate sort of near Syracuse. That's where I'll be from Sun - Tues for an art show I curated for St. Lawrence University. I'm speaking there with Saelee Oh and Caroline Hwang.

Thanks Mike.



This is the special box set Crylon that Michael Lau did with Nike for their special opening in Hong Kong. Little spraycans, an extra outfit, two figures, a big ass tin spray can, good graphics, and a signed box. I definitely want to be like Mike. Thanks Prodip.

Seafood Yosenabe sure is good at gr/eats. It's in a hot fucking pot. You dip it in the ponzu sauce, and have it with rice.

That's our umpire from the softball game last night. We were doing pretty well, and I was doing alright, especially after not playing for a few weeks. We were up and scoring more runs, and the other team just got another run scored on them. I hit the ball to first base fairly hard, the guy bobbled it, threw it home, and Bill scored, and I hear ran into the catcher. The run scored. And then there was an eruption. White people angry everywhere. We were just watching. The umpire is in light blue, the others are on the other side of the fence arguing non stop, the game got called off early. We got the win.

Earlier in the game, there was a disputed call. The bases weren't loaded, and the other team had a dude on third. A weak hit went towards third base. The runner on third took a step or two inside the line towards the ball which was slowly rolling to third base. He saw the ball coming and got in the way. Whether he did it on purpose or not, it doesn't matter, he was called out. Since it was 2 outs, the inning was over. Actually, in softball, this becomes a double play. It's in the rule book which was pulled out. Had the runner ran in a straight line from the bag to home, he would have been fine. He had a clear lane. I was playing catcher and watched this play from a great vantage point. Don't fuck with me. Because of this, our opponents argued the whole way, until the next issue happened, which led to the first photo above. Below is the umpire explaining what the heck happened, and he's actually a good umpire. He sounded like Vin Diesel, but he rode a scooter to the field. I hope we see him again. Meanwhile, the other team might get booted (at least that's what the umpire was saying).

This is Sky Tetsuka, he used to sell life insurance, but a weird thing happened. He joined our softball team. Then another weird thing happened, he went to Nepal on business (yea right) then met a Miss Nepal honey, and got engaged to her. It's all documented on this website. So a recap. Flew there on "business" and stole the local girl that the local dudes were aiming for, and now is engaged. The local dudes hate him, really.

blogger is still fucked up.

The past weekend, we had the Evah Fan Show. Evah's gone from being an awkward little lady to being a awkward adult. It's great to see her art and her personality all come together into one. I'm a huge fan and she's great. She's 26! Is that a secret? Looks for her work to pop up online at the gr2 site.

Brendan Monroe and Evah Fan

While in Newcastle, I got to do a lot of cool things. And part of being able to go places and do things is having access, and with time, making good personal relationships with great people, I guess I'm fortunate to be able to get to see and take part in great things. So below is an example of that... in a tunnel in Newcastle.

Barry McGee and OsGemeos

So it's blog time again, and blogger is acting weird. Why won't the pic load up? What's wrong with them? I have a juicy post to show you, but you can't see it. I swear, I photographed an alien. It abducted me and I went into the ship and I shot pics the whole time and they really came out. But blogger won't let me upload them right now. Why is it that I upload them, and no image comes out? I guess maybe it's because it's pictures of aliens and their ship? Anyways, so I got beamed up and it was amazing and colorful, the shots look great. After I went inside, I hung out with these people, and their food was a spectacle, it tasted great, unlike anything ever, and the female-ish aliens, super hot, and they're even naked, I'd really like to show you. So then I saw the control room, fantasy playroom, game room, art, and even the jail where the misguided are, and I shot pics of everything.

gr/eats. a lot of food makes it onto my blog and maybe that's because we have a restaurant, and I like to check out different kinds of foods. I'm biased, and I swear we do a pretty good job with the cooking.

tilapia pesto - did you know tilapia is among the lowest mercury content of fish that we all eat? This has to be one of the best things at gr/eats

Udon rocks too and we serve it in a pot. It stays hot.

Being in the midwest which isn't known for it's great veggies, I had to have a steak. So the spot to check out isLindy's steak house. It's a well known for it's steaks and nothing else. The menu is simple. Just three types, and it comes with a iceberg lettuce salad although the dressing is 1000 island and actually something I like but don't eat, potatoes (like hash), sweet pickled watermelon rind to cleanse the palette after a steak bite.




This is the Lindy's special steak. That's a serving for 3. Mine is the one in the foreground, a bloody mess but quite great. It looks small, but in the end, it's the right amount.

Giant Robot at the Walker, this is our view.

Check out Joe from the message boards... He posted a journal entry on the night.

Ok so I should update folks on how the night went. We did the radio interviews, got to the Walker, met the kids who are part of the Teen program there, ate some food, met the band members from Birthday Suits, then sat backstage. It wasn't too interesting, but it was a rockstar minute. We should have broke something, made a mess, had groupies, anything... but in the end, we just sat there and waited for the clock to tick down.



I don't know how many people came, but it was a decent amount. We did our talk, fielded questions and answers, and then hung out with folks who wanted to say hello. I think the best part is when the kids come up and compliment us on what we've done, and how they feel good about what they may be able to do, since we were able to make things happen. We got a lot of that, and I hope we inspired some kids to fuck shit up. For the non kids, I hope they got something out of it too. I'm sure some came just to hear our story, how we did/do things etc, and maybe some just came because of the name, Giant Robot.




Thanks for Christi and Witt from the Walker for the hospitality. They make Minneapolis a cool place.

Michael Drivas from Big Brain comics
If you live in Minneapolis and don't go here, you should. This comics store isn't the largest, but houses a great collection of comics. Big Brain is a throw back to a time when comics stores were pure. This was late last night. He opened up so we could check it out.

I posted pics of the Evan Hecox and Deanne Cheuk gear from Target in the past, but then while thrifting today, this stuff was seen at Salvation Army in Minneapolis. Evidently, this SA gets gear from Target and sells it somehow. Target is based here, so maybe they have an agreement of some sort.


Deanne Cheuk at the Salvation Army. But a $5 price tag! I think it might have been $2 retail!

Hecox board. I think you can put pushpins in this one. If not, it's just a panel of art.

The weird rubber band message board thing. I never understood this item, so here it is, next to more junk.

Evan Hecox clock. I think this one had a $15 price tag on it.

Mary from the Current. KCMP. We should be on this unless we got zapped. She's cool, smooth, and has her shit together.

Shopping in Little Persia. Kidding, this is some art depiction of a Persian market we saw at the Soo Visual Arts Center.

Buffalo Sausage tasted like Slim jims

Green Earth Hash - potato, egg, tofu. Why does tofu scramble have eggs in it? Isn't tofu supposed to sub for the eggs? We got this from the Seward cafe.

Rad albino grasshopper

Thomas from Radio K, we'll probably be on it on Friday.

Wes from Lifesucksdie and now Burlesque design is holding down the silkscreen concert poster thing in Minneapolis. He's working with great folks, and has a nice space. The last time I saw Wes, he had more smiles, now it's all business!

This is Wes's space. They're throwing down art shows too.

I ate Pot Roast at Modern. This was good, that white shit is horseradish. I had to leave a lot of it.

Murakami everywhere. I'm going home with one of these.

Murakami wallpaper. It's like the issue of our mag, but a lot of it.

We'll be talking on The Current radio show in Minneapolis live at 2pm tomorrow! I think you can hear this on the internet. We're also being interviewed by Radio K. But that one isn't live.

The Twins Metrodome. People say this place is the worst in the league.

The puffy roof... people lose balls in the roof. White ball, white roof,
the players hate this place too.

Back to back homeruns tied the game at 2. That's a desperate rally cap.

Martin cheering for the Twins. I thought he liked the Dodgers.

Whoa, I see a swastika up there looking down on everyone. Frown town.

Third shooting in a week. What does Wayne Lo have to say about this since he sort of started this in the early 90s? We'll find out. I just asked him a few questions.

Here's an interview. We're going to be at the Walker in minneapolis this week, thursday october 5th. Any of you coming?