United Kranes

The logo and design is excellent and I'd say perfectly describes the shoe as being for indoor sports like badminton. A crane sounds like the perfect analogy to use to describe a person soaring high to swat the birdy. The Fred Perry and Cannes style leaves always work to make something look important. I'm not sure if I'm an indoor sports player. I don't do the ping pong, squash, or badminton. Indoors can also mean, basketball, right? But somehow, I have a feeling this show is all about the traditionally Asian indoor sports. It's not about BMX, fixed gear, skating, or just trying to look hard. Check them out at United Kranes.

I'm not a fan of shiny on shoes. Especially the patent leather look. It's just not my style. The stripes are ok. I think it has a feeling of motion, both up and down.

I dig the logo on the tongue.

The sole is all about sticking to the gym floors. Cutting and turning when needed.

United Kranes. I dig the name.

Patagonia Santa Monica store art show

Art show at Patagonia? Sure why not. Shops are doing it these days, and that doesn't exclude a shop as large as Patagonia. How would it work? The art is by Kitty Botke, Jeremy Collins, Chris DelMoro, Peter McBride, Nikki McClure, Geoff McFetridge, Jason Munn, Jason Stowell. Patagonia has the power to actually make this work, even without a real art space. How? Easels, small wall space, but integrated product, a warm and friendly environment, snacks, Honest tea, music, and that's good enough. Yes I picked up a few shirts.

Nikki McClure art. This is an important piece by her.
Recognize it? There were a few Nikki t shirts which are nice.

Geoff McFetridge. He's been doing shirts with Patagonia for a while now, and they're always great, and they're $29 which is a good price for the quality you're getting. No, his art work wasn't for sale.

Another important Nikki piece.

Live Simply by Geoff. Yes I picked one of these up but in Green.

Live music

That's the postcard drawing.

Whoa, that's the cover of his zine book

work by Jason Munn

The window of the shop.

GR X MM

I guess we're guilty of the X thing by neck-deep.com. We don't get press often for our products even though we've made a ton, and keep working on projects. But here's one and it's funny. My friend Kohei is the man behind Mountain Mountain, and I am proud that the shirt came out alright. That's Serina in the photo on left giving the salute.

Take a look at the pic and the link at neck-deep.com

Converse 100 Years Black Fives

In the mail came these. Interesting configuration and style. They're rugged and athletic. They look from the turn of the century, yet with new features.

It has a feel of newer Clark's type shoes. Sort of bootish but not, a little more sporty than in the 70s, and there you have it. A modern classic. When would I wear them in the question. I almost feel like it's for travel, when you'd take just one pair of shoes to do everything.

I put it up on HB blog.

UNIQLOCK

So you might have noticed that little clock thing on the right side of the blog. It's a clock in 24 hour time, and it's set to PST. The video is neat, at different times of the day it does different things. Last night, it had some girl sleeping. Of course, it has some advertising type of connotations and it'll be up for a bit, until either I get tired of it, or you get tired of it, but for now, it's pretty cool. This is UNIQLO's second series of UNIQLOCK. Have a blog? Maybe put it on? The ladies in the videos are wearing outfits from the upcoming season. There's an alarm function version, and I don't know how to use that yet, but figure it out and tell me! The music is actually fun, and changes as well. Turn mine up, I chose to start it off to keep your bandwidth healthy.

Check out the official website
UNIQLOCK go to this page

Soaptopia

One of the coolest shops that I actually discovered a while back is Soaptopia. On Venice, it's a shop that of course sells soap, but they're not just resellers, they make their own. I have no idea how one gets into making soap and doing it in a shop setting, but they have it dialed in. It's been in Mar Vista for three years, and I have no idea how I've missed it for so long. The exterior looks comfortable, and retro. Something like an apothecary or something like that. Check out this little strip of shops, it's looking up.

The official greeter. The dog walks around slowly.

Most of the things here, they don't make, it's the sponges and stuff in the window.

Norma stands proud in front of the soaps, lotions, and bath oils. See the candy cane themed soap? That's special for the holidays. The chandelier is a nice touch. I'd like to learn how to make soap one day, but for now, I'll just buy it.

I like the open beam ceiling. It could have been just a regular low hanging ceiling, but the wood opens it up. Disco ball? I'm not sure about that.

There's that soap again. I'm digging the cake dish.

This is where you buy the soap. Just pick some off and put them on the table. So many styles and scents. They get featured on TV once in a while, and holiday time, it gets packed. They gift wrap with the best of them.

Some places make cupcakes, but they do soap. What are these baking sheets are all about? Or I mean, what do they use them for when it's not soap? Something flat like cookies?

That's where they make everything. The shop is comfortable, the people nice, and this is a true indie business. They ship of course... from their site, here's their info.

Soaptopia, Inc. - 12228 1/2 Venice Blvd. - Mar Vista - CA 90066
310.398.8333 (phone) - 310.398.7949 (fax)
Store Hours - M-F 10am-7pm - SA/SU 10am-6pm

Giant Robot 1, 2, and eats

The stores are doing it's thing this holiday. It's hard to judge how it's going to be, since retail was down for a while, but it seems to have picked up. The small shop does it's thing and people seem frantic and happy. The employees are holding up, and they're being troopers. They're fueled by pizza and soda. I hear it's pretty good. Next year, one of the projects in early 08 is to replace the ceiling tiles. Prognosis is good. I just found the place that has the original molds. They first told me that the mold was no good, but they were anxious to see photos of the shop with the tiles I have. The fella said that the tiles I have were made 40 years ago! No wonder they're brittle. The wind can blow strong, and they'll crack.

Gloomy plastic bears, they're huge ones.

GR2. That one dude with a beard looks like a ZZ Top dude.

gr/eats Nelson holding it down. I ate the special, which was shrimp, vegetables, and rice. It was darn good. Sometimes, the most home style food is the best.

Thanks for the patronage. Don't forget Giant Robot Silverlake. They're doing it too!

Vans Damn

Man I need Proper Vans! I've heard about it, but this looks better than I could have imagined. HB.

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?

Brickwall

Brickwall. They're back... And no, we're no affiliated with the fine folks at LEGO®!

big boxes

Those are big boxes. What's in there a waterheater?

Tekkonkinkreet

Got a sample of the Tekkonkinkreet all in one, thicker, cooler, better, this is a must get when it comes out in September.




I won't tell you how awesome this is and it's great to be part of it. I have a quote in the back of the book and on the DVD. Watch for GR49, there's some Tekkonkinkreet in there too. GR49 is going to be a hot issue.

Tastes like cola

After Louie Cordero's art show last night, which you should all see, we ate, then went to Kwik E mart in Venice. It's already my third trip or so there, and no Buzz cola... But they did say that today they'd have some. I got there and sure enough, they had 'em.



I bought 18 cans, and am trying to share the love.

wii

Wii time. Yes, finally. I have a Japanese machine with bootleg games. I basically only play tennis with it, and now in two days of playing against the computer I'm at 1540 and I just beat two ranked 2000. Anyone else play?

Breakfast of Champions

Simpson's are out of control. Not much more to say, but this makes me hungry.



I wonder if Bruce Jenner, Kristi Yamaguchi, or Lance Armstrong would eat this?

ricoh

So my Ricoh broke down, in a different way than Martin's. I don't wear tight pants, but imagine, a camera in pocket, maybe it zoomed while it was in pocket, which only makes me look good (I think), but the bad thing, is if there's no space for something to zoom, what happens to it. It gets squashed. I'm guessing that's how the servo motor burnt out, trying to zoom, but can't. I read about this online, and that leads me to recommending everyone to have a case for it. I guess the idea for this camera is a quick access, but I think that's how mine broke down.

das boot

A 66! What's this Asian doing in this car?
Didn't he wear that shit the night before?

With his Vegas winnings, Choe bought a car, a big one. A 66 Lincoln Continental convertible. It's dark green, rolls like a boat, and cruises along. People like to look at the car everywhere he drives. It must get less than 10 miles per gallon. The suicide doors are always nice.

Decepticons

Products that caught my eye

The art game is for little kids too. Make your own Play-Doh image, and put a dome on it. Of course, it takes no firing, but the plastic will prevent it from getting messed up. Everyone wants in on Sculpey Kids.


Ribs by Samsonite. The t shirts, that have skeleton prints are over. It's time to take it up a notch to your suitcases. This is the way.


I just bought this bad boy from KB toys. Amazing. This thing transforms your voice to sound like a Transformer. When I get photos of me wearing it, I'll show you!

At first I thought, there's no way, this would fit over my head, but this isn't for kids. It's for adults. Fuck the kids.

Little Bony and Bony Dog

Thanks to mr Horvath for letting us carry these exclusively in America. Watch out for them on Wed at noon! 11:30 if you're at GR store in LA. SF and NY will get them by next week.

Jordan 22

Thanks to Mr Flynn from Super 7. They were in charge of this big vinyl project. Being associated with the brand that changed everything seems like a challenge. These Jordans are size 7.5!

Mirrored heel, that's what people would be eyeing, when I'm at the crest of my windmill 360. But these are 7.5, lucky for the fools on the courts.

The starting 5 figures, I like the blue. If you can customize, go limited kaiju style and fill them with drawn on paper or pellets.

The Bike is back

DC shoes and PK Ripper

Every great thing seems to make a comeback.

This is a bike I wanted as a kid, they weren't easy to find, and now, they're being done by DC. This limited edition version is black and grey, but the one they have to do is the aluminum / chrome version. Mags?! Get rid of those and go back to spokes. The looptail looks great, that had to be done and they nailed it. Too bad they couldn't include the Redline Flights! Supposedly only 150 are being made. What's the price guess? $1000?

Adrian Tomine Short Comings

On the horizon for Adrian Tomine is Short comings. This is just a sample mock up. I guess other sites might show you the latest sneakers, limited edition anything, well, this is a hard to get mockup of a graphic novel.


This means the world to some, and I'm happy to see it.

Caplio gx100

Someone explain this.



It looks like a Ricoh GR digital, probably smells like one, so... what's up with this?

Harajuku in GRNY Printed Matter 2

Forgot. My print is in the GRNY print show 2. I guess like everyone else, I gotta promote my "ART" on my own blog site. Here it is. No photo this time, but I got a compliment on my print from Kelly Lynn Jones. It's my third (correction: FOURTH) time in an art show. Can anyone name the first?



I also forgot. Juxtapoz. The Thomas Campbell cover issue. I sat next to a Clonetrooper (Bret Banta) and had a sandwich at gr/eats. A huge photo spread, I think that's the biggest ever. Good photo Ben Clark.

Bossy Bear

When I see this little dude, I get a small laugh. Bossy Bear? Argh!



Bossy bossy bossy. This will be out soon. Toy2R, hurry your ass up! Glad I got mine.

flash with LEGO®

I just made this for fun. Found a broken 256 and made this. It wasn't as easy as I hoped.



1) I used a dremel and dug all kids of plastic out. That's easy, but hellish too. The plastic kept falling apart, since I used so many pieces.

2) The 256 is old, so it's big, that's why this thumb drive is huge.

3) I had to support the many pieces by adding more pieces. That sort of sucks, but I can do this better with a better thumb drive to start with. The length is actually the size of the thumb drive, the width is right too. But the height, that was necessary to hold this together.



4) I know what to do next time.

Know1edge $ GR back!

Ran em down pretty far. Just got the real shipment of the hat. How can a hat be so interesting?

Fuses history, cultures, brands, as in a cap.

GR2

I got filmed talking about "toy" cameras. Lomos precisely. It's supposed to be a light news piece that'll go to 10 stations in 10 cities at some point. Sort of neat how these little stories are done for slow news days. What did I say? Maybe you can tell me if you ever see it. I don't think it's coming out in my town, but I do remember hearing Baltimore as one place.

If you want to know what Small Michelle looks like, she doesn't have to turn around.

Snotion! Down. Andy Jenkins for a week is next. I hope you come and check his works out. He's been doing Bend Press, skateboard "stuff", and much more for ages. Now... his toy.

Last thing I might say about the school shootings... The only thing I want to do is wait for the best facts possible. The videos and photos that the killer sent in are crazy. Imagine, this guy decided he was going to leave a mark on the world by committing a crime. He even left behind weird religious ramblings, and crazy photos that make him look like one of the most evil persons in the world. Will you forget this dude's poses with the guns? His face and his voice? This guy is a nut, and he carried out whatever he was setting out to do probably to his satisfaction. The news and the coverage gave him probably gave him exactly what he wanted. The fools who are getting interviewed are pathetic. They grieve and some act like they're experts, after the fact. Maybe this just needs to be over quicker.

Brickwall Ring

The day has come. Brickwall Rings (as seen in GR47) are here, soon to be up on the GR site. I'll link it when it is. The rings in the photo are my samples. Silver gets it pretty quick. LEGO® pieces fit just right, and each pack contains some pieces for you to accessorize with. There's an instruction sheet in case you need to know something about it all, and they come in 2x2 or 1x2 all .925 silver.

Knowledge x Giant Robot

That hat, it's out! Look for it on our website very soon. It's at GR2 right now. Brian from 852 shop and Know1edge is a great character, and I'm proud to be part of this project. It blends old world of the Chinese bag, and new but also old world technology of a cap!

32 flat panel

Someone asked me, "why do I do a blog?"

That's a great question. My honest reasons are:
1. I seriously hope that a few words by me, or even by someone else can make a difference. Which for some reason reminds me of the Jawbreaker lyric from their song, Kiss the Bottle, "hey mister, can you spare a dime? Some change can make a change, could buy some time, some freedom..."
2. Sharing is fun and the bits of input and comments are fun. It's just another small thing in a lot of things that I enjoy and don't know why. I don't need a reason to blog, do I?

Guess what I won? A 32" flat panel. Linda chills on it, while Tyler pushes it with all his might. Chinese New Year? I'm in.