Scion Giant Robot X Scion paper robot contest DUE MARCH 6

I waited to blog this since I know most of you are last minute folks, but this contest looks easy to do and fun. Imagine the robot above will be a pain to do, it's a lot of space, so the contest actually is for the bottom robot (the legs) all you have to do is customize that one, and you're in! Get to it. It's due very soon. MARCH 6. Here's the microsite: giantrobotshin.com

1. Download the blank template.
2. Customize the template with your own designs -- draw, paint, use photoshop -- be creative!
3. Scan or color copy your customized template and save it to upload later.
4. Construct your figure and take a photo of the completed piece.
5. By March 6, upload your scanned template and image of the completed figure using the link below.
6. Upload.
7. Winners will be announced on the site by March 11th.

Prizes

Grand Prize
Roundtrip airfare to Los Angeles, CA to attend the Interactive Paper Art show at the Scion Gallery in Culver City on April 11th
Hotel accommodations for 3 days and 2 nights, April 10th - 12th
Transportation to and from the airport, hotel and art show
Inclusion of the winning entry in the art show, as well as distribution of the template to all attendees
Meeting of the Master of Paper Art himself, Shin Tanaka, at the art show
$500 check
Giant Robot prize package

Viewers Choice Awards
Feature on the website
Giant Robot magazine subscription
Giant Robot T-shirt and sticker packet,
$50 gift certificate to the Giant Robot stores
Scion backpack

THE RULES

Random photos - cherry blossoms, billiards, and 7s.

I can play pool, not with the best of them. Any pool veterans out there? My bridge probably stinks, right? I've been trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do. An open bridge? Is that better? Pool is fun, it uses physics and math, and it's a perfect short attention span game. It's easy to try and play. Sometimes, you'll amaze yourself at how insane of a shot you can make.

Brian Flynn of Super 7. I'm not sure what the 4 and 3 mean. 7? Super 7? If it were me, I'd opt for a 5 and 2 which would look perfectly dorky and innocent.

Ah ha. Swiss Chard done Ohitashi style. Yes, I can make this and it comes out good. I'll practice this a little more and then maybe it'll be a recipe in the mag. Maybe.

You'd be surprised, I think I mentioned somewhere that blooms might last two weeks, but they seem to be going a little longer! Here's those back posts if you're into cherry blossoms. cherry blossoms at night and old school blossoms, and many cherry blossom photos. If you want check out my flickr cherry blossom folder which includes the Uglycon billboard.

David Jien

Met David Jien at Art Center of Pasadena while I was getting my vehicle worked on. Imagine, you drop off your car, and they give you a ride anywhere you want. I chose Art Center to see work. This dude draws like none other. Is pencil work in style right now? I think it is. His work rocks.

Yeah imagine these characters are being reincarnated...

The black one is a bronze and weighs a ton!

Michael Perry - The Patterns Found in Space - Giant Robot NY

Michael Perry sent some of these over. You can't go wrong with a self published zine that's newsprint. It's just graphics and cool. It's not pricey to make relative to offset printing options, but the weird thing about newsprint is that if you make something on newsprint, everyone wants it free. It's like a free cinema advertisement / newsletter. If there was a way to make newsprint zines actually cost even just a nominal fee, it would be a great way to go. Michael Perry's The Patterns Found in Space is part of his Giant Robot NY show that's upcoming. If you go, you can get one of these zines there.

Yelp Issues

A lot of folks like Yelp. As a user, it's probably fun. You can read reviews, get previews, learn the inner secrets of places, and more. In the end, everyone's a critic and everyone's a reviewer, even if they shouldn't be, right? The internet has created overnight food experts, movie critics, and whiners everywhere. Yet Yelp is handy, yet from my perspective, aside from the content issues of Yelp, it's sales folks are annoying. It's great they hustle, and I'm sure it's commission based and we all need more money, but the repeated phone calls, shifty marketing words, and their persistence and a-hole style is just too much. So Yelp... although we thank you for the kind words, the hard sell is always a drag and it doesn't stop. If it's not one person, it's another. If you ask them not to call, they'll still call.

Here's another post I did a while ago about Yelp salesmanship.

I hope posting this doesn't give us more negative comments on yelp. Here's our sites. You can't but help read the negative comments!

GRSF Yelp
GRLA Yelp
GR2 Yelp
gr/eats Yelp
GR Silverlake
GRNY Yelp

Casio G Shock LAX - Life is Tough - David Perez Shadi

Casio LAX. Fred Segal's shops are high end. Walking in, I see Lindsay Price who gave me a big double take. No, I never met you. I was looking for the Casio event at Conveyor store. It's supposed to be a photo exhibition, but I was there to meet some heads that I indirectly helped out. I actually "designed" the LAX edition of the G Shock above. My friend Seven Under Topa, (also see my column on the 7under.net site) called me, and while sitting with him and a couple of others at gr/eats, I came up with a idea, and he sat with his laptop and put the colors in. At the end, and well under an hour, we had an idea and concept. The watch came out shockingly nearly as planned. Perhaps it's exact, it was a long time ago. We were all quite stoked.

LAX (LA) has an eco-vibe as compared to NY or Tokyo (the other two places where special edition watches were made for this project). Snow boarding, oceans, mountains, hiking, it's all close by. Prius, green homes, and solar are cool here since people are building like crazy. So that's why the watch actually makes sense. Of course, it could have been black or something really plain, but this stands out hard, and if you take a quick peek, you'll remember this color scheme.

David Perez Shadi, the photographer who shot the line for G-Shock.

The girl sitting looking at her cell must have been a model or something.

Spicy tuna on crackers. Can any local food heads guess where this came from?

Hirotaka and Akiyuki

KAWS - Natalia Fabia

I knew this painting would catch your eye. It looks almost like a photo and well of course it'll catch your eye. It's work by the woman pictured below Natalia Fabia at the Corey Helford Gallery. The original plan was to see the KAWS show like the rest of the kids in LA. The Culver City bound La Cienega offramp was packed. You couldn't get off from the 10 freeway going south. Driving by the line was gigantic. The same kids who'd wait 24 hours for a sneaker were there. You can't win when that happens.

The Natalia Favia show had a long line as well. Luckily, rolling with James Jean gets you in places. Imagine, all of these glamour folks, and the man who's not boisterous or flashy can paint with the best of the them, or maybe better.

Someone should make a comic and then a movie about this guy.

That's Jessie Mann, my intern from maybe 8 or 10 years ago. Haven't seen her much at all, or maybe not at all, since then. It was nice to see her out.

Umar Rashid. MC Hi-Fidel who's in his new band Friday Night. Here's his music video.

Work from Dave Muller at Blum and Poe. Can't ever go wrong with Snoopy

Harry and James.

Jimmy Smith

Kio of Yellow Rat clothing - Barry McGee t-shirt

I dig this dude, Kio who runs a clothing like called Yellow Rat. He's supposedly a great surfer, and back in 2007, I wrote about him with some photos on this blog when I visited his casa. Here's that post. 

He once made a Kio's Ding Repair shirt using a Barry McGee image. It's looks like this here. Today, he showed me a new design. Here's the backstory which makes this funny. Barry does strange ads sometimes. He pays for the ad, and actually advertises something that's not his own. This advertisement showed up in the Hamburger Ears (their music offshoot of Hamburger Eyes) publication. Kio was shocked to see the ad, and now it's a shirt complete with Kio's home address at the bottom. I'm sure Barry had no idea that Kio works out of his home in Mar Vista. I hope people don't knock on his door. 

That's his assistant. Yes, I forgot her name.

Help Praxis

Praxis... the great dog needs your help.

For the next seven days, you can view and bid on ebay for artwork by some of my favorite artists. They have created and/or donated work inspired by my dog, Praxis. Most of these artists have met Praxis, or know how much he's meant to me, and donated their time and talent to my effort to raise funds to pay for Praxis' chemotherapy and other medical bills after he was diagnosed with lymphoma in May 2008.

I've held on to these for a while, maybe too long, and I only kind of know why. Since the diagnosis, I've been in a strange state trying to wrap my head around losing a loved one to an illness like cancer. You have to accept that there's no cure, and that treatment can buy you time, but there's never a guarantee of quality of life, and certainly no sense of how long that time will last. Engaging in this artwork, all of it capturing some part of Praxis and my love for him, brings that home for me... and I'm not always strong enough to find a way to deal with the loss that's looming ahead. I think part of me also wants to keep it all!! Each piece is so fantastic... truly. This is a talented bunch and I'm incredibly lucky to have these folks as friends. This is an exciting time in my life. This is the first time I've had so many creative friends who are successful in their endeavors and inspire the same in others.

The work ranges from oil paintings to gooco prints and is a diverse collection of talents and styles, and 10% of the proceeds will go to The Magic Bullet Fund to help other pet owners find funds for expensive cancer treatments. It's a terrible feeling to have... to not be able to afford something that can help an animal you've loved and cared for. It made me feel powerless and disloyal. That was afwul, and I hate to think of anyone being in that position.

Check out the auctions on eBay!
See Michelle's original post here.

Geoff McFetridge Patagonia Boxers

I don't normally post pics of my underwear, but this one is special. Patagonia stores had a sale that just ended, and I picked up some underwear. The design of the pattern is by Geoff McFetridge. The material is silky poly material that look shiny like boxing shorts. Not many will ever see me wearing this.

These are brand new. I wouldn't show you a pic of worn underwear. These were $12 and came in two colors. Some people want to wear clothes so people can marvel at it. I'm actually good wearing stuff, full knowing that only I will see it, maybe for all of 10 seconds. I sometimes wear my nicest t-shirts under a sweatshirt that never comes off all day. Who knows that I'm wearing something nice under a plain sweatshirt? Just me. I wear clothes mostly for myself. That's how I do it.

Dehara extras - Deharavath at Giant Robot NY

While Dehara's work is on the walls at Giant Robot New York, I thought it would be cool to show you some goods he's made. Check out his work with Meiji chocolates in Japan. Click around and have fun with it. Would an American candy company ever do this? Here's a link. Dehara gave me a cellphone charm that they gave away at some convenience stores in Japan. The big companies are finally catching on. Check out the GRNY art exhibition goods too. link to the Giant Robt NY gallery.

Then a confection company tapped Dehara to make a Tosa dog themed dorayaki. Tosa's are fighting dogs, and Dehara's Tosa actually bites the kid character! But it still works on this pastry. It's from a lesser travelled region. Ishikawa maybe... I forgot what he told me, and you can get these only there.

This tasted great. I gave most of mine away to people who helped out at Giant Robot NY for the show. David Horvath got a whole box!

Super late Rob Sato Video from Dirty Paper Machines

This one was super late. It's the Rob Sato video from his show at GR2 a bit ago. This one was tougher to edit down because of the amount I shot. If I shoot too much then I'm making tons of extra work for myself, like this one.

See more of his works here in transmissions in case you missed out.

Le Merde videos for Giant Robot 2 show Beaten, Bruised, and Blackened

Le Merde at GR2. Great work, nice guy, and cool family, if you didn't make it to GR2 on Valentine's day, then make it down later if you can! If not, here's what you missed. We did an artist's talk at GR2 during the show, and below are the youtube videos where Le Merde explains how to make a figure. The first video is the install.

The work is now online at gr2.net for sale.
Photos are here in Giant Robot transmissions.

Softball

Pregame. This is what it looks like. People sitting, maybe yawning. It's dude style. Look at the gear, it's all athletic with cut off sleeves. This was Game One for the LA Parks and Rec tournament. The Giant Robot team had a mediocre season in the c+ league, so entering the tournament could be redemption. We were playing a team called GRF. No relation. We haven't played together since December, and for most of us, it might be the first look at exercise since then.

Martin the pitcher in his pregame ritual. That's Bill behind him writing a journal entry. Martin pitched well, we didn't hit well, we made a lot of errors, which is pretty normal actually.

This is Sean. He's a big dude with a lot of power. He always tunes everyone out before a game and listens to his music. That tree is under duress. It's actually a cool looking tree. Sean hit pretty well, did his thing at first base, but in the end, our team lost to GRF who we thought we could beat, but it didn't happen and just like that, we're out of the tournament.

Everyone parted ways. Some went to eat, some went home. I did eventually go home, but I went to 99 Ranch and saw the biggest fruit ever. That's a jackfruit, who I'm sure doesn't give a shit about softball. Instead, I think the jackfruit is laughing at the pineapples who are usually the bullies of the fruit pile.

Blooms

I shoot images of cherry blossoms about this time every year. It's that great two weeks or less when you see the pink flowers that fall and actually look cool on the ground. Imagine the pink on green grass. That contract is amazing. It's a shame it's such a short season every year, and it being short is a reason why it's so revered. On Sawtelle, people just walk on by, probably inebriated and on their way to an amorous adventure this Valentines night.

The new issue of GR is out and unleashed. Number 58!

The Lackness - Street Fighter Event MOCA

Mr Hahn shows his displeasure with the Street Fighter 4 party at The Geffen MOCA spot. The event was huge. It seemed like as many people inside was doubled up with the people outside in line that never moved. Inside, it didn't seem so packed, but what can you do when there's capacities? The best part of the night. 1) Seeing a fairly low budget stage event for a high budget party. I'd have done that part different. 2) A woman we were dubbing as Margaret Cho meeting Divine who was in charge of something freaking out, and repeatedly saying to herself, "I need to make a big decision." 3) Getting in the building after much hell, and seeing Aaron Yoo not be able to get in to the VIP section because it was too packed. 4) Seeing staff who were stuck outside and couldn't get in. 5) A strange array of videogame machines, and pseudo events strewn around the inside of the building. There's plenty of other things I'd have set up differently, but the event is now done.

Chris Klein, Taboo, and oh yeah, that's Joe on the left. He answered a question that went something like this: "I think Chun Li is the best female StreetFighter character". What can you say in times like that?

For the kids.

Action figures galore. I'm not sure if these will be mass market, but there's a lot of figures on display.

Honda!

That's the red carpet area. It's odd how it works. A star has a publicist. The publicist stands there and gets people their interviews. Then it probably gets shelved for soundbites. Where will it really go? But in case of something strange, they roll on it.

Over capacity, this building was governed by fire marshalls. That pissed off plenty. A lot of the stars couldn't even get in. Yet, as with many buildings, it seems like another 1000 could have fit easily.

Yoshinori Ono - Streetfighter 4 producer

gr/eats - Rob Sato

A pensive Rob Sato stares at the gr/eats special. "It's in a box! How do I start eating this? Do I say a prayer?" The half filled glass is green tea lemonade, my favorite. Notice how this drink is getting popular? We use real green tea, that gritty, so it's really good. Also, notice the pen collection in his pocket?

Special 1 Salmon Teriyaki and Seared Tuna Sashimi Combination Seaweed salad, rice, soup, dessert almond jello 12.95

Special 2 Chicken Teriyaki and Shrimp Tempura Seaweed salad, rice, soup, dessert almond jello 10.95

The dessert was cute.

Ex-waitress Chika has a baby. She said she wanted a kid to be just like me. Is that really possible? She asked, "guess what his name is?" She named her boy, Rick. Do I believe this? She swears by it.

Giant Robot SF - Game Over

I got this cooking at Giant Robot SF. We let a little of the news out, and here it is. It's a videogame art show. We did a Game Over show before, but this is something next level. Game play. Read about it here. Check out the above photo. It's definitely Saelee Oh. We'll make this happen for everyone to play at GR in LA as well.

The Hackness

It appears that an autohacker got to us, so for a lot of you, you may have seen this on the site. It seems like Mozilla was the first to put this up, then it was Safari, but the funniest thing is that IE never gave a warning. According to sources, the hack put in was something that does nothing, except make your website look like the above. You can always disable the warning, and in the end, nothing will happen. However, it was a good wake up call to things that can happen. The erroneous code was found and destroyed and we're back up. The Robot Lounge isn't quite back, but the software is completely updated and fresh. Thanks to Aaron Chan and Adam Robezzoli for the help.

Pulled Noodles Fuzhou 1

In NYC, there's plenty of pulled noodle places, but unlike LA, which is heath department conscious with the infamous grades that can shut you down. NY doesn't have this, and I wonder if they even have a health department sometimes. However, if they did, you wouldn't have experiences like the one at Fuzhou pulled noodles. The guy above does this in the eating area. It's grand and cool. It even makes a great slam sound. He does it over and over and it turns the place into a cool environment. You get something like performance art.





The #1, beef noodle is 4.50. It's simple in flavor, maybe too simple to the point that you'd add your own seasoning. It's not the dish to get. Jya Jya Men is the one to get there. #11. I blew it, but I was in the mood for soup. It's cold in NY right now.

That's what the noodles look like. I'm hearing this isn't the best place to get handmade noodles, but at the same time, it's not bad. The broth doesn't match the noodles and that's important. What's noodles without the soup? 144 E Broadway. It's in Chinatown Manhattan. I'm sure an OG Queens native would scoff at this.

Mr Louie Chin

ComicCon comic. It's not by me, but a dude name Louie Chin who's site has tons of comics on it. He's a Chinese dude from Queens. Read this comic, I met him and had no idea he was so timid to meet me. What did I do wrong. Anyways, check out his drawing of me. He got the hat right, some stubble, and arms folded with my eyes shut. Haha. Awesome. Don't be afraid. Here's his site: west-ate.com

Cristina

Long Lost Cousin Cristina... haven't seen her in years, maybe a decade. She's been holed up in Brooklyn. I've been to NY a couple dozen times or something in the last few years, and have never run into her. She's been in the shop, and appears in some photos, but I had no contact info. Facebook works. We ate breakfast at a spot called Brown in the LES. Pretty good, comfortable, and easy. She's a political one, and gets in and out of trouble. Confrontation is her game. Hope she doesn't mind being blogged.

Then afterwards, Beef Jerky time (and Doughnut Plant)

Spicy Pork is the only way to go.

Deharavath Aftermath 2

Dehara's figures look cool. Any way you handle them and shoot them, they always look cool. This photo is post Deharavath 2. See Dehara and Yoko blur in the back ground? It's early still. They look a little bored. Things in this sequence of photos are out of order. This one is at the beginning of spot #2.

This one is really late in the night. Philly cheesesteak on Housten. Dehara was in fine form.

A sake bomb. I caught the bombs going in the beer. This took place at spot #2 in the Lower East Side called Satsko. Strange spelling for a Japanese name. The place is cool, and a Totoro video on!

Monstre Hero from Florida! They make great toys all by hand.

More Dehara shenanigans

Deharavath. David was tired, but you'd never know.

Carlo McCormick, his little man, and Horvath. The little man was in awe that he met David. David look a little tired here. That's what happens when you go across country and work like a dog, it catches up.

Comic Con is vast

It's not like SD which is 4 times larger, but it's not bad. Still filled with a lot of back issue comics dealers, it's not so big that you lose your way. No matter where you are, you're still in good shape. We're opting to be a bit more central next year, so that will help our own cause. It's odd how in 2010, it takes place in October! I wonder if the event will be set on that date from now on... That's our booth btw with Kawah! helping out.

Deharavath 2 - the Horvath Uglydoll part

Check out this jacket. Booya. Leather like a Tom Cruise or Indiana Jones jacket and stitching of Uglydoll... Babo. There's no mistaking what you're into if you wear this. Imagine, it's no louder than a Fat Albert or Spongebob design. David Horvath can make his eyes bug out hard!

The new figures are amazing. Blind box, 6 designs, 2 colorways each, and a mysterious chase figure. Wedgehead with red teeth. These are amazing, and a surefire hit. We'll get these soon.

The message of the day. Open your toys. Then learn to let go of them.

Mr Horvath explains the round tape used on his new mini action figures. These toys are cool.

Deharavath 2 - The Dehara - Giant Robot NY

Dehara and Yoko at Giant Robot NY. I liked her hat. Dehara was last in New York over four years ago, and it's great that he's back bringing a modernized pop culture to the town in the name of Tokyo otaku. 30 handmade figures are on the wall. The show begins tomorrow at GRNY. 437 e. 9th street. But Dehara is also at Comiccon signing at our booth at 3pm.

The underrated items are the poster prints. In an edition of 10.

Menta Ice-Bat - these are amazing and won't last long.

Here's some figures. These are great, then you read the little description and they're even better.

Airplane observations

Swiss Air. Amazing graphics. So simple and so good. I saw this while rolling by. It's not the Helvetica Bold, but it's the tiny text next to it. Four lines that fit just right. The tail has the + sign. It's clean. The engine is another great detail. Two red boxes next to each other with more Helvetica in it.

That's the wing of a Virgin America plane with New York under it. The patterns of the snow are interesting. I'm not sure if it's because people travel and melt it, or if it's just how it melts. I wonder where this is. It's a narrow strip of land with neighborhoods and neighborhood. I'll tell you what I was thinking while we flew over: wouldn't it be cool if I lived down there, and were able to walk across a neighborhood to see water on both ends? You can do it in Manhattan, but this is much smaller.

Presidential artifacts

I never saw what this stuff looked like. Did you? This an orange ticket. Not a fatal purple one which would have left you in the tunnel. Purplegate! This stuff belongs to Cate who was there. I saw this stuff and was amazed at it all. There were about 5 other "ball" tickets that aren't pictured here. You'll read more about her trip there in GR58.

The program. Nice tassle and bad ass seal.

This is the program for the Hawaii party in Washington. Dave Choe art on the cover.

You get two photos. No it's not real autograph.

The inauguration ticket.

Home States ball. This still has that impressive seal in silver.

Facebook scams.

Scams have come to Facebook. They've already been there, but here's a funny one. Read the part about the guy who pretended he was a girl, and got dudes to send naked photos of themselves, and then he tried to extort them by forcing the dudes to have sex with him. He's busted for sexual assault of a child younger than 16... and has more charges. I guess some succumbed. link.

Here's what we should do, so this won't ever happen.

Everyone must have nude photos of themselves online. It's a law. Embarrassment would end. Girls Gone Wild will be out of business. Celeb nude sites wouldn't matter. Are you in?

Club Mumble Interview

Club Mumble Interview. That's a photo by Mr Ben Clark. Yeah it's been used before in Juxtapoz, but not enough have seen it. Thanks Bob Kronbauer (Bob-san). Stormtrooper eating fries at gr/eats, I love it. Interviews get harder and harder. Do you tell the whole truth? Do people want to hear the bad stuff along with the good? Here's the link to the article on Clubmumble.com

Home cooked Korean

Amazing. Home cooked Korean food. A seafood soup stew, sort of like a haemul jungol in the black container. Not too spicy, it was really good. The rice was purple and awesome. Chilis? Just eat those? I don't know about that. Beef, both bulgogi and kalbi. Upper middle on left, is kimchee! Thanks Jane Choe.

David and Harry again.

Scion Easy 10 Los Angeles

BDK. That's Big Daddy Kane at the Scion Easy 10. It was great to meet him. He's one of my heroes among many. All of the work put in for two official Scion events! They should make a tour for the films. One observation, it's weird how some films are hallrakers. It shows, then next thing you know everyone leaves the spot mumbling. Then it's back in. That's the cool thing about this program, people can leave in between. I asked BDK, who's ironically named after Caine from Kung Fu, how about a feature length doc on him. He started laughing in his deep voice.

A dapper Sheldon Candis and Scott Sanders. Sheldon's the one who told me about Black Dynamite, and it's ironic that after seeing it and blogging it, I meet the director, Scott Sanders. The funny thing is I saw him going up the escalator while I was going down. Remember both of these dudes names. Sheldon got into a the Directors Lab which is part of the LA Film Festival. It's quite presitgious. The Dwelling helped!

300 seat theater in the new assign seating style. The new Landmark theaters at the Westside Pavillion are definitely state of the art.

We passed out mags to the people in line. That's Brian Tse on the right. They don't give us enough guest list space!

The film showed in a theater space that seated 300. Quite nice. The film looked great.

Mom and Dad. Check out the vintage LRG jacket.

Black Dynamite

I saw a private screening of Black Dynamite last night. I didn't know a thing about it, except it did well at Sundance. You'll be hearing about it. It's a "lost" Blaxploitation film, so it's in perfect style, perfectly bad good. Michael Jai White was amazing and it seemed perfect. There's everything in it. Pimps, Black Power, lovin', cuss words, Nixon, drugs, orphans, food, and a lot of strangeness. MJW is a humble dude, from his days playing Spawn to now this. His martial arts is a little too good to be from that period, but what the heck. Well done. The Sundance hit is sold to Sony. Sorry about the crappy photo.


To end a night, it's so odd to see this. It's near 2:30am, in front of my house. David Choe and Harry Kim are eating Taco Bell on the hood of a rental car. It's not the food, or the scene, but it's the fact that they were talking about relationship stuff, and from afar anyone can hear the advice going back and forth. "That's not what you should do!" "But, that's what I have to do for her." "Nooo, Harry! that's stupid" in between bites of taco. It reminded me of some scene that didn't exist from Lethal Weapon between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. It was like seeing a buddy film.

BJ Penn Vegas

The pics might be out of order, but maybe not in my mind. That's Dave taking a bite out of a gigantic rib. I didn't know they come out that large, but then again, it's a cow and those are big. We're in Las Vegas. I think by now, we're at the Palazzo Hotel which is near the Wynn, but I ended up calling it the Nguyen. I went to Vegas for less than a day to see BJ Penn fight in UFC 94. The event was grand and fun, even in the nosebleed seats which were going to be four digit money. Last time I was at the Wynn was Murakami's event and I had dinner on Steve Wynn. He said an arms length away, and I swear I thought he was made of wax. He was actually pretty cool.


Johnny Bravo, wait that's not his name... it's Mickey Avalon. That's Mylan on the right, peering out of the car. Yes, only limo rides, buffets, and so on. Vegas is a weird place. Some people have great access to everything. I had that for less than a day.

Lions at the Palazzo. Sucks to be them.

David and Pat from RVCA. If you're rolling in RVCA, then having the Toshiro Mifune hairdo is possible. If you're rolling like David, then wearing an Adidas sweatsuit jacket with a big Vietnam logo on back is possible too. David also walked around with a pillow case with a hand drawn $ sign on it everywhere.

Bets anyone? I lost on BJ Penn, but won on Karo Parisyan.

Part of a buffet at the Wynn. People say that it's the best buffet in vegas. I agree. But of course, you end up overeating and I was in pain for two days. That fat meat thing with pepper on it is bacon. It's very harsh to your system.

Mickey A and BJ Penn art. BJ lost in a harsh way. I wonder if he enjoyed the painting.

Akihiro Gono Entrance!

I'm a new fan of this fighter. He's tiny compared to Mr Jon Fitch, but it's great to see the UFC trying out different people. What the heck, right? You never know who'll knock out who. Gono's quite a good fighter and actually a great competitor. You never saw him get into that much trouble, and he was a good defender from getting smashed hard. Fitch is just too powerful and looks twice as huge. Fitch won in a decision. In a previous interview, Jon Fitch says this dude should be in 155, which makes sense. The sound is pretty low in terms of the music. As entrances goes, this has to be one of the greatest and freakiest in sports. A fighter in drag is out of control. Gono is 34 years old, so he's been around, and entrances like this bring light to the UFC, but he has to win to make it really count. (I'm recycling my youtube text).

The Dwelling - Tuesday Feb 3rd

After a long delay in public filmmaking. Sunsets was in 1997, here's another film. I produced it. Sheldon Candis directed. The screening is tomorrow. It's at the Landmark Westside Pavillion. It's free. For those of you who read this blog and plan on attending. Here's more information:

1) The event in NY was packed. LA, who knows.
2) The films show twice. (9:50pm for The Dwelling (#4 in theater 1) and again at 11:30pm #9 in theater 2) We will be there before and after both screenings. Make sure you say hello. There are two theaters that are 120 seats each. Most films are 15 minutes long.
3) Most people watch 1 or 2 films, then they hang out or leave, so if you hang out or leave and come back, you should be able to get in. I noticed a lot in NYC, took off, then decided to come back to find it was no problem at all. There is also a lobby are for the theaters. It's a multiplex so, there's plenty of common areas for all people.
4) Other things in the area:
a) There's a Barnes and Noble open adjacent to the theaters open until 10pm, so if you come, and can't get in, there's a place to hang out.
b) There's also Apple Pan close by open till midnight! Great burgers, and it's walking distance.
c) GR1 and GR2 are a short drive open until 8pm. Gr/eats opens until about 9:15pm.

FREE RSVP seems to be open still.

It says 21+, I believe that's for the bar area. I'm really not sure how that works. In NYC, it seemed like a free for all, but that's NYC. But again, it's a multiplex theater showing Hollywood movies at the same time, while in NYC, the entire space was rented out by Scion.