Evel Knievel RIP. I've seen him to do the Snake River jump, seen him do some Las Vegas jumping over cars stunt where he wiped out at the end, he's a modern stunt man hero. Although in his later years he became a small figure and almost out of people's memories, in some ways, the BMX'ers put him in hero status. Somehow the crusty Neil Young got the godfather of grunge status and Evel got the OG X Games status. From Vintage BMX, here's an image of the bike. The site says something about 2007, but I think this bike came out in 1999.
The man who's behind Hook-ups makes a video in Japan. He still skates like a mother, and does some funny stuff. "I'm tired." Remember that, it's the funniest part. I can't believe he pulls that off. Would he dare do that in the USA? That's the thing about a lot of things people do when they travel. It's sort of like graffiti, you wouldn't do it in your house or if a camera wasn't on you. But the skate parts are impressive, the man still can do it right when you think he couldn't. But that burly hair and glasses... he's awesome.
Prison friend, Wayne Lo wrote and said he hasn't received the latest GR. It never occurred to me that something could be wrong with the content until I got a GR back from a different prison in Oregon stating that there's some article that's possibly harmful.
I'd usually assume it's the mail carrier not doing their job, or a prison guard getting off on some photo, but instead, I think it's because of this issue's fight back article. Using what every prisoner probably already knows, we showed some easy ways to make weaponry out of typical items. More in fun and theory than reality, this article might stoke some prisoner's imagination at the wrong time. So yes, issue 50 is definitely not prison friendly. Sorry Wayne, issue 51 will be fine.
I decide at the last minute to run down to the farmer's market. First person I see is Jake Yasutomi, from Yasutomi farms. They own Momotaro tomatoes in Southern California. Persimmons.. I dig the smaller kind, not the one like looks like a boob. Lettuce is all good. Butter lettuce is supposed to taste better. I'll see. Winter doesn't have the kick ass good tasting fruit, like the summer.
Paso Almonds... I thought the guy who runs this shop died when the car came barreling through the farmer's market. He's very much alive and this stuff is good.
Click the pic to see this big enough to read. You may have to click it twice to make it zoom in.
George Johnston was one of the first person to write about GR. He could have actually been the first. It's in the same outlet, the local LA Japanese American paper, The Rafu Shimpo. Quite a nice column, and it's rad how he started writing about GR, probably at our first issue, and his latest is one of the nicest articles to come out in a while. You won't get drama or intrigue, and it might not be sexy, but it's in a nice spirit. The Rafu has been good to us since day one, and George has been there too. We've grown up a bit, and I do see him at the local market sometimes, the last, he had a baby carriage. As he got off the phone from interviewing me for this column, he was picking up his kid from pre school.
Stephane Gauger is rolling along with his first feature Owl and the Sparrow. The Spirit Award is for films under 20 million dollars, which hardly sound indie, but oh well. Gauger's film actually is in a special categories for features under $500,000 (how much did it cost in Vietnam?). A good natured guy, I'm sure he's being hit by projects left and right, and he deserves it, his film is amazing.
Do, or do not. There is no try. Says Yoda and other people who love to quote the troll. I always say, "I tried" or "I'm trying." And people love to give out that Yoda quote. It might be easy when Yoda sits around all day, talks nonsense and has to teach a young Jedi some tricks. That's not hard. He doesn't even have to walk since Luke carried him around like a backpack. Today someone said, "you're a do'er." That's nice, but to do, I still have to try. And try sometimes, means a lot of things. It means, I'm trying to do more than most people in a day. I'm trying to accomplish a task list that's 50 items long in a day. I'm trying to work 3 times as fast as the next person. I'm trying to work with people who aren't on the same page. I'm trying to stay focused. I'm trying to be sane, calm, and cool, when there's pressure. I'm trying to have a life at the same time as I try to do these other things all at the same time. So fuck yeah, I try everyday. The question is for those who only "do" and do not try. What are you doing that's so easy?
I don't know if this article does it for me. I'm quoted in it, which is one of those things that I get to do. It's tough when you have no idea what direction an article is going to be go in, but here it is. Do I agree with it all? I guess, but at the same time, I don't really care. Do I agree with all Asian males are angry? No. But do I care? No. CBC published the article. And I don't think it really goes anywhere. It sort tells you that Asian males are angry, but really, it's the same situation that's been around for decades. Maybe it's different in Canada. Either way, by doing GR, and the many other projects, I hope I don't come off as being "angry". I figure, controlling our own form of media through paper and blog keeps me sane.
Yeah, sometimes, I can do this too. On the left is simple. Brussels sprouts and carrots. I buy a bag of sprouts, but really, I don't like them in a big chunk. I grew up hating to eat these, so I slice them thin as if I were putting them on a pizza. I've seen it on a pizza before which gave me the idea to cook them thin, since I liked them that way. The carrots are just a bag of peeled small carrots which I eat raw, but also chop into veggie mixes. I have to go a bit well the sprouts to get rid of the bitterness. I cook them with salt and pepper and cooking sake. The Mahi Mahi filets, same thing, with salt and pepper and I actually have this crappy salad dressing that I can't stand. I drizzle that on the fish on both sides, and I let it rip on the grill. The larger piece was thicker, so I cooked it for a few minutes extra. Take them off early, since they seem to cook a bit more while they sit. Seems easy, and it is.
So it's for real. It's a cover image, the article is pretty short, and I think there's a couple of quotes in there. That's a huge image and big text. The article doesn't talk much about the mag, but it's our second cover there. Thanks AsianWeek.
This is a sad ad. I'd never think that Charmin would do an advertisement like this, much less advertise much at all in a newspaper. But it's an ad for Dick Wilson, Mr. Whipple, the face of Charmin toilet paper. He made over 500 Charmin commercials and I guess an ad like this is his send off. Maybe they'll do some retro commercials. I'm not sure what a company can do to honor a guy who's been their main man for so long, but I hope it's more than this.
This is the inside of a switchblade. It's not working right, so we were playing with it for a couple of hours to try and figure it out. It turns out the problems are the pins that hold one of the springs in place. Tiny, but they keep coming loose, so I'll need to epoxy them to set em in a spot. My friend Shinya went to Mexico and I asked him to get me a bunch, so I think he picked up 20 pieces. As he walked to the border patrol, they were checking everyone. He was sure he was going to get pinched, but right when he got there, the border guard all of a sudden was busy doing something, so he waved him through.
Rambo, for Oscar consideration in 2008. The 2007 pictures are breathing a sigh of relief. Check out the spray paint graphics. You can have street cred with the aerosol and stencil look, the "crate" font makes it look military, and Stallone's age is hidden!
Turkey ala King is one of those things Asians do with leftovers. Basically, it's pieces of turkey, vegetables like peas, corn, and mushrooms, leftover gravy, and if you need, add some water to thin it out. It ends up being thick, and tasty. Let's say you don't want to use gravy, you can always use mushroom soup as well. Serve it over rice. It's a great treat. If you added curry, this easily becomes a curry dish. Turkey curry? Sure, why not?
The Buddhist altar. There's a mens and womens side to this. It's for the past generations of your family. Notice the Almond Joy as one of the "offerings." My aunt Kay liked Almond Joy candies, so without fail, my cousin Jon will put one in there. The dope thing is that Jon is a pretty different guy. He'll not care about most anything and everything. But when it comes to something about his late mother, he'll care in his own ways. I remember my mother once asking him, if he wanted to come to the temple for some reason or another. I remember him asking, "does it have anything to do with mom?" My mother answered, "no." He then said, "In that case, no."
The Almond Joy sits there as a funny reminder, not just about my aunt, but about Jon. When I see that candy sitting there, that puts a smile on my face and it makes me quickly paint a mental picture of good times past. That's half of her photo on the left.
My cousin Roger lives in San Diego with his wife Sai, they own Baiyook restaurant in the Hillcrest area. Before you think, "a Japanese family owns a Thai place?" No, Sai is Thai, and I hear she cooks there on sunday. These are their two kids, Shina and Iris. They have a lot of energy, and I think they outlasted Musashi.
My dad likes his smoke. His Giant Robot cap looks good to me.
Spicy tuna and Futomaki. California roll came later on. Those three are like the triplets of sushi rolls.
The mixture of the traditional American food, and the Japanese food make for one of the better Thanksgiving meals. Sashimi and sushi beat Turkey any day. One of the best things I heard repeated all day was, "where's the wasabi?"
After a Thanksgiving meal, the gambling begins. Poker chips and everyone sitting around watching sports highlights in between hands. I have no idea why I don't care about cards when everyone else does. My interest in football is social while theirs is quite serious. Most smoke or drink, I do neither. Hate to say it, but when the cards come out, I usually go home.
About 2/3 of the class came the evening before Thanksgiving at UCI. I was aiming at around 12 people, but it was a lot more. Maybe near 40. We talked about about an hour did some questions, watched a couple of people sleep. I think we can revamp our talk, and we'll do that soon. I don't know why the photo is out of focus, I swear I'm not that bad with a cam, but that's about how I remember it all. We didn't do as many talks this year, although we his 2 places in Chicago and the Walker Museum - and now UCI - we passed on another Chicago one because of deadline, and I missed the CCA one because they thought I lived in SF (it was publicized for months too). Any new questions? I guess one person asked, "what hinders us?" The quick answer is Time... is it Money? For the most part, no. Is it the lack of having 30 great staffers instead of just 15? Is it proscrastination? Is it being naturally shy and working around that? So many possibles, but I don't feel too hindered as it is, so maybe it's a moot point.
Wow, this is a cool shot, one of Martin and I in a suit. It's rad how it's on the middle of the cover of the Rafu Shimpo. Ok, so when do I stop this nonsense of showing you the press we keep getting thanks to the 50 issues and the JANM exhibition? Hope you're not too tired of it, it's still just an honor. The Column on the right, Sex Slaves. That's big news, to the left, a wartime documentary, more big news. But popular culture gets front and center. Sure, ok!
Also in a quote or something in a Daily Bruin article.
Issue 51 just went to the print shop. Proofs and all. That should shave days off the printing schedule. Now it's up to the wealthy Canadians to get it all done.
It's that time where we speak at UCI. It's bolder, better, more exciting. See an exciting Powerpoint, or is it Keynote? Watch some students maybe sleep through it. See drool, tired eyes, people in pre-rage mode for Thanksgiving. You're not in this class? Who cares, just come, it's totally fine. Each time we speak there's always people from other classes sitting in. Ask questions, make us think.
Nov 21 - 4:30-6 pm, 110 Humanities Instructional Bldg. (HIB)
The Insider. This is a column type of article that runs in Nylon. It's new to me. Nylon is one of those larger mags that a lot of Giant Robot readers seem to read. We did a survey, and Nylon comes up a lot. That's pretty cool. If we had a sister magazine that was huge, I guess Nylon could be it... right? It's an honor to be in Nylon.
Wow, an interview on Hypebeast. Another honor. First I blog there, second, they interview me and take pics. Then it gets published. Hope people read it and
Could it really be? This would be odd since I don't think I talked to anyone there about this. We did send them images of GR covers. But either way, it's pretty insane looking on the cover. I wondered if they do this for every article, but I don't think so. Masakatsu Sashie's art.
This is what a bunch of dudes playing cards looks like. A sausage party of epic proportions. Some softball guys, some family, and their friends. I think this is the stuff that's missing these days with so much internet, so many glitzy casinos, and hipster bars. Imagine, substitute KFC with stir fried tofu and braised green beans, get rid of the candy and add tiramisu and maybe Scoops ice cream, and beer for fruit smoothies, then get rid of the cards altogether.
Substitute cards for board games like Scrabble or Risk, or better yet D&D, and that's how people used to do it way back in the day. It's all cool. Dude time counts too. There was also a UFC being aired earlier in the evening.
Latest Biennale News write up. I'll keep posting stuff until I can't handle it anymore. I guess! There's more coming, I'll be putting that up too when I get a chance. It's cool they quote JANM art director guy, Clement in it, and it's cool how we got on the same page first before doing any press type stuff. He called and casually asked me some questions first, then he got set and did some talking. That's smart prep.
So this comes up in the news. It's an old photo, and supposedly in the background is Lincoln riding into Gettysburg to make that speech. He's sporting that top hat, and looking good. But is it him? Well, let's just zoom in, of course, we'll be able to tell. Every time I watch a cop show, they can zoom into a corner of a shot and then they'll say, "ENHANCE". So with that, they can sharpen anything and make it tack sharp so you can see what's going on. It should be clear. Well, the technology blows... See the below. Is it Lincoln? He's as small as a pinhead in the above photo... and well, "ENHANCE, motherfucker, ENHANCE!" No dice, that's not Lincoln.
Led a tour today as a curator. That's something new. Glad I had something akin to a bullhorn to power my way. Thanks to the Intertrend crew who made it out. It was like 50? It's hard to know what to say about each artist. I know each fairly well, some really well. Do I give out a morsel of personal information? Do I embarass them since they're not around? I try and do a little of each but not enough to bum them out. Gary Baseman is the easiest target and I don't think you can ever say too much about the dude. Why is that? The photo above is a shot that I wanted to get before. All 50 mags in one place. It's neat that way.
You know your show works when it's on fecalface. Biennale is up there. It's all of my stuff, they did a good job making me look good. But I'm excited for Uglycon and Hidden Habitats coming to GRSF and GR2. The postcards will be up real soon and these should amaze! See fecal here.
I'm scared of the video, since it's really hard to watch yourself, but maybe one of you will find humor in it. I promise I won't watch it, ever.
Artillery magazine recently published an article on the toy show at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. It's great to see toys getting some exposure. We've been covering toys for ages, and it's almost passed us by, it's up to everyone else to pick up the pieces these days.
The show is done by LATDA who are a new group who are celebrating toys! What can be better? It makes mention of our first foray into designer toys thanks to Michael Lau. But do check out the show if you can. It features a lot of our friends. If you want to read it, click on the image. I think it'll work.
Martin Ontiveros came through to GR2. His paintings are large and vibrant, and this patch is too cool. It's hard to describe how he gets to his final image. It's as if he's using simple geometric shapes and connecting them to create another. I'll post more images, but a simple patch in my hand, and I'm happy.
Paper Mag L.A. Project 24 Hour Department Store at 9am
Yes, Paper Magazine is here again. These pics are from this morning at 9am. I wanted to see what the hipsters looked like tired. I'm sure they look better by night. Juiced up, happy, and raving. A few booths were unpersoned. I suppose they crashed out. Undefeated had no one. Ooga Booga? No one. A couple of others, no one. This is all happening on La Brea, and after a long night, the 24 shop needs to roll on. This is the first thing you see when you walk in. I wonder if they wanted to be seen sleeping to be the perfect blogger fodder.
The place looked alright for a make shift shop. The scaffolding was a great idea. It's plastic wrap around it, so in the end, it looked like a nice structure at a low price. Pretty smart design.
Orange 20 was there and had a bike hung up. They people working there even wore their bike helmets. Bike geeks are cool. Scaffolding offers a lot of opportunities. It was quite clean though, unlike the scaffolding my dad owns that are pretty grimey.
Another cool thing about scaffolding is it's super strong, you can lay down planks and create a second floor.
One shop sold Tobias Wong's products. Matchbooks $3. Box cutter $95. He even has the $2000 iphone Citizen product (ed. 50) that doesn't seem to do much. But it's art. Tobias Wong is a trip.
Cybelle from Family. Ex-GR. We will never forgive her. She was the only chipper looking person at 9am. She deserves a prize.
Polaroid station. Do it framed.
Colette was doing their thing. The person working there was a kid from Paper magazine. He didn't quite know about prices on anything, but he had some NYC style. I think. How much was that KAWS collab deck anyway? I never found out.
Being near the synagogues brings out the kids. Think a shop called Cin-a-gog is a good idea? I just thought of that.
Geoff McFetrdige did some drawings on the plastic.
It was the coolest thing there.
I bet no one saw it or cared.
The plastic became worth more than the scaffolding.
A suited security guard stood his ground in the front. I didn't buy anything, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't. Should you?
In this installment of what the f*cks... the un useless inventions topic comes to some press. One of the funnier books, It's been written about a bit, but still the question remains, why?! Why do the weird inventions keep popping up? CTV did a short feature story and asked me some questions and brought the idea of "chindogu" to light. Yes, I'd eat that bowl of rice and the miso soup on the other teat too. But you can't mix these together to make neko meshi or "cat food" or can you? The chopsticks aren't disposable, they fold into the bra. There's men out there who need this outfit too.
A box, what's in it? HF All Stars. Was I surprised? Yes. Are they really nice? Yes. If I could design a Chuck would it be just like this? Yes. Do I want a second pair since these look like shoes I'd wear daily to death? Yes. Where does this blog best work?
The best Thai food around. Long Beach Thai Restaurant. Only Thai Town can touch this place, and that's a maybe. It's not like those Thai take out places you go to. This is where Thai people eat.
Last stop for now, Martin Ontiveros who has a show tomorrow night at GR2. Don't deny the man, till you see the work. He's amazing.
Joe and Sandra Escalante. You've read about him on Martin's blog. He's really great and they know about this little eatery in the middle of Culver City that's totally hidden. They're new Culver City folks, and won't hesitate to admit that they thought it was neat and so they moved there.
You may have heard him on radio on 103.1 where he gives legal advice. Tokyo 7-7 is the coolest spot around.
I think they said her name was Ryuko. She cooks and seems really cool.
I ate the Portuguese sausage Royale. It's called gacha as well.
Today, I was supposed to speak at CCA. It's an art school in SF, where David Choe, Deth P. Sun, Rob Sato, and a bunch of other artists graduated from, but I won't be there. Funny how many think we're SF based, so in this case, I was supposed to get myself to the campus and do a talk. But after some emails, and maybe some confusion, the talk got cancelled, but not after a couple of months of publicity was done. It's weird how people think we're from SF. I have no idea why, and inside of each magazine and on the site, our address says LA. I was willing to do the talk, but then they wanted me to do studio visits throughout the day. Fuck that, I thought. I got a life to deal with and I can't do private tutoring for students who probably draw better than me anyway. I did get a w-9 for an honorarium, but they never talked to me about that either. I was supposed to get one? I hope they found a replacement to talk about publications, shops, and art. I heard a student recommended me to speak there, I hope they're not too disappointed that it didn't work out.
notcot.com posted about the Murakami show and if you look at the fine print below at who went, I get mentioned in the same sentence as guys like Cindy Crawford, Pharrell... and so on. Of course, this is notcot humor, and I check this site out often. Some of my quick photos made it in, which is cool, and I guess it's quite a story when you add up all the pieces of the entire show. Click on the image below, if you want to see it bigger.
I went to the 10th street market in downtown on Central, and guess what? It's owned by a friend from junior high school. I was just kidding around recently with a friend who talked about Derek Strong who played in the NBA. He's 6'10" and ended up with the Lakers. In junior high school, Strong was a 6'2" and skinny and weak. I remember telling the person, "remember Todd Kuwata? he would have posted on Strong all day". Todd was a big dude, even in junior high he was probably about the same size and athletic. Think Asian Barkley. Baseball, basketball, whatever it was, he had power and had speed. He's a good guy, and the sandwiches there are good too.
Two people, Mike Bradley and Jason Paul are from Canada, they're out printers. They're here to show us how to make proofs of the magazine using the new gear. Of course, we're going to make prints with the printer, but for now, we have to act like we're using everything for the right purposes. They're here today and tomorrow. Anyone want to meet them?
The story is is that David said he was going to put a few throwing stars in one area, but somewhere around 3pm on the day of the opening, he threw 50 into the wall. These are sharp! So what happened? See the bottom right? They had to add the white platforms, and set them up at the last minute which meant, paint, label, and set up so no one would get injured. Imagine leaning, or even getting bumped into a star? On the positive note, it made the mural look great.
A line up! Believe it or not, by the end of the evening 2700 came though. That's a hefty art opening, and might even be a record at the museum. I saw a lot of new, old, and familiar faces. After a solid week of being there a lot, and making sure everything was running alright, it was a great payoff. I expected a lot less, and frankly was surprised at the high number. Imagine, there was a line to get into the gallery where the art show was at, and being inside and using the back ways to get from one place to the next, I never really saw the line until much later. The galleries only allow 150 people at a time. Come and check it out later on.
Mom, Angelyn, and Lucia (The Eames's daughter is also named Lucia)
That's John Sayles!
Scrabbel played in the main hall. The cool thing, food never ran out and I saw a lot of people eating the tamales.
Michelle B and Christian who has an insane hairstyle. He has more style that everyone combined. It sort of has the Vanilla Ice but retro 50s thing going on. The Vanilla Ice doo never really caught on.
Pika Pika and the I&I sound truck in the background.
Seonna and Saelee. While they stood there for my photo, others took pictures of them too. It had a paparazzi feel for a second. I'm not sure how often they've shown art together, but they currently share the same studio with many other great artists.
This is the most valuable photo in the bunch. This is Clement, the hardest working guy who helped make this show happen. I told him that we'd be wearing suits, and he said, "are you serious?" and lo and behold, he did too. I've known Clement for a while, and it was great to work with him, and we'll do it again. I hope this show didn't age him too much, we have a lot of work to do.
Souther Salazar, me and Pryor Praczukowski.
People are allowed to get close and shoot pics. They don't normally allow pics, but not at this show, you're allowed to shoot pics and hopefully get inspired by them.
David Choe signs autographs. People love Dave.
Ayumi with a big smile at the Standard.
Choe and Eishi. The room is starting to look a little messy.
That's Pryor Praczukowski. One of my oldest friends. He got a fancy haircut which makes him look even taller. That's Myleen on the bottom left corner. Her smile is the best.
Nothing left to say, but thanks for coming out. It means a lot to me.
So yeah, that's my looking really bad on The Hundreds site. It's funny though since in the end, I was trying to make a face that Bobby would do. Not hard, not stylish, not Marky Mark, but yeah, I took like the Fairfax freak. The best thing about Bobby and his faces is that it's all about humility. Laugh at yourself? Make a funny face even for the cover of a magazine? Sure. Why not. Only a parent would ask, "why?!"
Remember those Murakami place mats that were made of plexi glass that I mentioned a few blogs back? Today's LA Times online mentions this entire incident and I like how they refer to some as "thieves." I saw this plus sized lady (and trust me I want to say the b word) come to our table to take the place mats from the empty seats. She had 5 under her arms already and was trying to get more. I should have taken a photo of this greedy ho. Anyways, I'm sure she read the article, and hope she feels like a larger glutton than she already was. I feel bad for the folks at our table who didn't get one as a result and there's an article now dedicated to her.
Putting up Saelee Oh work, that's really amazing, Clement is the man. In the end, they use the same ass techniques we'd use to put up art. It's just elbow grease, a level, and a ruler. Nothing more. But where's his gloves, this is a museum isn't it? And is that a half eaten cookie on the ground I see? The museum galleries can't have food, it's a serious place. Make sure you all remember that.
Base for your face, LA.
Eishi the Genius He assessed some of his older work, and said it's not that good, and he needs to re do it all.
But starting off the night was a moderately ok softball game. We lost, but hey it was Martin's birthday. Pie from Bill via Marie Callendar's. Photos at the softball field never look good.
The great Pryor Praczukowski is working on his display. Imagine, we've worked with Pryor since way back. GR1 probably. He's always been around to help. I've actually known him since I was probably 18 or so, and it's great to have him really show his work in a proper setting. His photos look brilliant on a huge space. In the background, I see some red... is that Eishi?
Don't forget you don't have to RSVP to come. You can, but you don't have to. Just show up and we'll see you there.
Looking good.
David Choe
A little Youtube never hurt anyone. Music by Explosions in the Sky that we were playing in the background. Here's the link.
