Eric Nakamura

Fish and Chips + Sawtelle times.

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:35:00 +0000

Fried and fried. Fish and Chips gr/eats. Beer battered cod, so it's actually light and crisp. The malt vinegar is a nice touch, and I ate this entirely with my hands. We've been running this special lately and it's been quite fun to have. I can't eat this one too often, but it's good and filling.

Anne Matsuyama and Alex Chiu doing the gr/eats. They do a bunch of indie projects, zines, art, and are making a collective of artist on the westside of LA. Motivated! They also dig doughnuts.

It's that season. Cherry Blossoms on Sawtelle. It's awesome how pink they are. I'd get out to the street this weekend to check on them.

A ton of images of Patchwork show at gr2. Tons of great art by great folks.

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:14:00 +0000

Crying crying. Babies crying. Wah wah wah... "I'm so hurt! Carry me. I'm not getting what I want! Where's my toys. I'm so tired. I want what that guy has in his hand, even though I don't know what it is. I just took a crap and it's running down my leg! Where's my mom? I'm hungry, where's my candy? I'm special though cuz I eat veggies! Who are you taking my photo?"

"Ok, mother fucker. That's enough! I'll remember you when I get big.

I'll crush your skull, while you fart dust."

Fruits of Labor? The Giant Robot Car

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:24:00 +0000

So this is all I can show of the car right now. It's the custom Scion art car. I won't get into the concept, so you'll have to wait on that one, but this is the Giant Robot car that I designed. In the end, I'd say to concept is tight, and it's not just a Pimp My Ride car, there's a meaning and backbone to this. You'll see when it's done. I'm proud of it and it's still a work in progress.

Here's the fruit part. I show up to the shop, and there's fruit. People are so obsessed with truck food. This too is a truck. Is it any less valid?

That's Len holding a coconut. Drink the juice, then they'll cut up the fruit... I prefer a coconut bra, but oh well.

It's on like Donkey Kong!

The Hundreds

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:07:00 +0000

When times are tough, it's great when a package of love shows up. Bobby Hundreds asked me for my sizes, and just a week later comes a box of goodies. First an apology. These are the worst shots possible. I didn't do it on purpose, but my camera battery was dying and I rushed through it. Three shots and it died. The Michael Lau figure above is awesome. I never thought I'd get one of these. I thought they were gone by now! The plastic on the hands are still on there. I guess you can call it Chinese Opera version.

I got three T shirts. I'm trippin on the middle one. The detail of their spoofs are insane. What fun it would be to design that shirt. I'll wear that one. The logo one is a no brainer. I think I have 3 or 4 of these now.

To sort of quote a song by the Untouchables. I Spy for the FBI.

one for when you go out, and another for everywhere you go.

Again apologies for the bad photo. These shoes are a lot nicer than these shots. I need some new shoes for when my Vans keel over. These are perfect.

Film Fest and Yoshi's in SF

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:26:00 +0000

Terence Yin and Daniel Wu have the sunglass thing going on near the Japantown Plaza. Terence Yin and Eugenia Yuan are in a film called Fog. I didn't get to see the film yet, but it showed in SF for the film festival. This year, I wasn't there for an official project as in the past, but instead, there was plenty more to do. Visits to GRSF, hanging out with tons of folks who are friends or who have helped GR, and more. I didn't see any film festival folks however, I didn't know where they were. At the same time, I feel like GR and the fest are far apart these days. Maybe we'll close the gap one day.

Here's an example of Automator's music and towards the end there's Emily Wells singing. She's quite great and is part of a future project together.

Eugenia Yuan holding a pooch.

Patrick Lee doing the AnD merch section at Yoshi's. Big smiles, and he should have one.

Game Over! SF.

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:00:00 +0000

The Game Over 3 show features some great art. Check out this Team Macho cartridge! It's carved from wood, and painted in the coolest way. There's three versions and if you're a true game fan or game executive, this is a must have. There's plenty of great art on the wall at GRSF and the fans and friends from GDC were there in force.

I dig the pencil sketch mature Mario by the guy pictured: Jake Gillespie!

Ferris Plock and Kelly Tunstall

Petri, a game maker from Europe!

LA in the house. Souris Hustler of Culture, Lulu, and Silvio Porretta, game maker and artist, and their friend Wayne.

Aww blurrrr. Can't recognize them? Han Wang, Melissa Hung, and Vincent Pham.

filmmakers Jessica Sanders and Suzi Yoonessi

Goh Nakamura and Joe To

More game art

More Team Macho art!

The best BBQ marathon ever?

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:17:00 +0000

Backyard BBQs are usually about hot dog, hamburgers, and maybe chicken. That's what you do on the bare minimum. Sho from Yoshi's in San Francisco does things differently when food is involved. He goes all out. It's not an event to miss. Here's Sams hands making toro sushi. It's obviously amazing. Look at the pink color. Sushi was being made inside the house while a BBQ of amazing flavors happened outside.

Look at the rich orange color of this uni from Hokkaido. The label is below. The package it came in still had the shipping labels from Japan. Uni is usually a lighter orange, this one possessed a deep, rich color and tasted that way too.

The kitchen arena

The ikura was also a deeper orange than what you typically see.

Sam dealing with the ikura

Miles Nakamura and Daniel Wu. What kind of kicks are those?

Sho with the straw hat holding a bag of marinated tongue which was amazing.

Dan Automator on left, Sam the sushi man and friends

Intestines in two flavors and organic chicken.

a larger crew

Dan and Dan

The uni

The Courts

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:15:00 +0000

The tennis courts... I step onto a court and some guy says, "are you good enough to play here?" He then he points a finger on my chest to slow me down from getting on the court. I tell him "don't touch me" and he remarkably says, "I'm not gay!" I keep walking through it and I tell him, "I'm a terrible player." I hear people saying, "don't touch him." I walked through it. Then while I was on the court just a few minutes later, the guy walks onto my court area and starts babbling or something (it wasn't an apology) and I told him to leave my court with some expletives and then he kept coming forward. That's when it got ugly seeing a bunch of people running around to stop this. Yes, he got pushed a couple of times, and I remember him saying, "you can't say that to me, I'm going to call the police!" and then it was more mayhem. I just remember people holding me back, holding back my cousin, holding back that old man, and a lot of words. It turns out the guy has complaints against him. One person showed me a document that he filed to the police and park director from 2006 including the guys photos. That's life on the public courts. It's best to ignore it. Can you believe tennis can be like this? It's honestly not worth this blog entry, sorry to waste your time.

Yoshitomo Nara videos - Too Cute! Princeton

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:32:00 +0000

Here's some video I shot at the event. Nara's talk was fun and inspiring. I enjoyed how he intro'd himself by telling the tale of his youth. From being a latch key kid and having no neighbors and enjoying the company of animals, to then growing a bit older, getting a bike, and having friends. It's a fun talk, and his work is always cool to see. The talk went well over an hour, and this is just some excerpts I took in with Flipcam. Luckily the translator enunciates well. My talk will eventually show on Princeton TV... I was told. Hope someone points that out to me when it's up. This talk wasn't streamed and I'm not sure if it's going online at all.

Travelin' With Yoshitomo Nara

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:54:00 +0000

I was trying to help Yoshitomo Nara set up his computer with the system in the lecture room, McCormick 101. I had spoken the evening before without a hitch, and the system and his computer weren't talking to each other the next day. It took a while, but we got it going. I was hoping Nara would do the presentation in English, but he opted to go with a highly over qualified translator - the Head Chair of East Asian Studies. David Howell.

His katsu sweatshirt was too cool. Yabaton. They make their katsu with a miso sauce. It's in Nagoya.

This is more adjusting of the projection. I like how the light hits his face from the projection screen along with one of his paintings. It's a cool shot.

Nara points to the sleeping Tomio Koyama. After getting so excited by the Norman Rockwell painting in the Nassau Inn bar, he crashed out.

Which one did Nara draw?

The snow slowly melted away, and it actually wasn't that cold out.

This is dinner at a campus related place. Good food actually. The Too Cute! conference was coming to a close. The woman, Anne, who did a lot of the work to get the conference going is slightly pictured. I regretably didn't get a photo of myself with her. She's cool.

The group of photos is done until there's a food image. It was quite good.

Princeton Day 1.5

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:32:00 +0000

Hail Satan! This is an amazing detail from old art. All of the kids who are doing metal looking art, check this one out. Done hundreds of years ago. The guy who did this was probably possessed and now it's all metal album covers and t-shirts. How many mouths does Satan have? That one near his crotch isn't the one to be near.

I see it. I'm bad with names sometimes, and this painting is evidence of that.

Modigliani

This one is awesome. Nara described one of his works in the same way as I'd describe this one. There's a line that comes from that girl that goes through the painting.

The Princeton University Chapel here's a link. The building looks amazing, and when I walked in, someone was practicing the organ which resonated throughout the building. I was hoping to hear a Star Wars theme, but it didn't happen. It's an amazing building, but it's from 1924. I thought it would be a couple of hundred years old.

Princeton Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:47:00 +0000

The plane ride was normal, until the white snow beneath. It's probably nearly all melted, but NY had something like a foot of snow, but an hour away, they hardly got any. I'm at Princeton, NJ, and did my talk which was streaming on the net and went actually pretty well. It was a new talk and I worked it over many hours of image searching and more.

This is a Rockwell painting that's hanging at the bar at the Nassau Inn. It's an original and was commissioned long ago, and sits where it's supposed to be. It might be the most expensive piece of art hanging at a bar. Someone should make a list.

Jimmy Stewart went to Princeton

Michelle Obama

Ralph Nader

Brooke Shields

Whoa! Patty and Karen, both of USC. They'll all be mad that I took sneak photos.

Joon Lee RISD, teaches English to art school kids.

This is a closeup of a piece of stained glass at the museum on campus at Princeton. Dogs and deer, a great combination. The stained glass is hundreds of years old and it's neat to see dogs depicted for some reason.

Jimmy. Everywhere I go, he happens to be in town. Japan, LA, and now Princeton. He too is a grad student, so he had some interest in being there, but bailed me out on an anime question from a student at the very end. Jimmy writes occasional reviews for GR, but the coolest thing? He set up an anime club for his fellow soldiers in Iraq when he was deployed there.

I'm speaking at Too Cute!

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:30:00 +0000

I'm speaking at a conference called Too Cute! at Princeton University. It's going to explore Asian popular culture and more. I speak on Wednesday at 4:30pm and Yoshitomo Nara speaks on Thursday at 4:30pm. It's supposedly all free and quite an honor. I've spoken so far at Harvard and Brown, so this will be Ivy school #3. This topic seems to come up annually in some form, and here it is for this year, but in a more academic setting. I hope I don't disappoint, especially since myself and probably Yoshitomo Nara will be the lowest SAT scorers in the house. I'll be working on my presentation over and over to get it decent. I've heard I get to do a Q and A as well, which is always fun.

Here's the schedule pdf link and here's a link to a news release.

Here's a link to a previous blog post about a Nara art opening.

I wish I had a larger flyer to show you, but this is all I got.

Sushi Sake and Shibucho

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:27:00 +0000

Sashimi at Shibucho in Orange County is an amazing ride. Take a look at the quality. First off it's far. Costa Mesa from LA isn't a laughing matter to eat dinner. The spot isn't in the most remarkable place. It's next to a cell phone shop that's open late, and a liquor store. But what they serve is top notch. I'm not going to say, this place is better than that, but this one ranks high. The difference regardless? It's cheaper.

The red in the upper left corner is Sujiko. It's Ikura (fish egg still in the membrane sac) and soaked in soy sauce.

Nikogori is fish jelly! Totally good and a tiny snack.

Shiokara is a salty squid.

Uni Kasu Zuke

Kazunoko Kombu! The few things listed above, are what you may get when you have a good relationship with the chefs. They start bringing out their home brew. It helps to drink a ton, because if you're drinking a soda, they won't bring this stuff out. It's reserved for sake drinkers since these small snacks exists to taste with sake.

Ayako F. samples a sake.

Abalone

Geso sushi. How often do you even see this?

Shibucho is no nonsense. If you look confused, the main chef will say, "No California Roll, no spicy tuna roll. This is sushi." It may seem condescending and plenty of people write bad reviews on the place, and it's not because of the quality, it's because there's no "Avocado covered rainbow, mixed with shrimp tempura upside down with Sushi paper roll". It's serious and how you might find sushi in Japan.

Tamago sushi - notice the rice, barely under this brick of egg?

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:12:00 +0000

Aki Goodsmile takes aim. Definitely militia. The glasses is definitely a giveaway that he's hiding something grim. Glasses in the day, militia at night. Below is Black Rock Shooter Huke who's definitely dangerous. When it came time to shoot the assault weapon, he started laughing like a mad man. In Japan, it's only co2 cartridges so shooting something real is the way to go.

You'll be seeing Huke art on the cover of Giant Robot 64. It's a little different than what you may expect, but that's what we wanted to do.

Estevan Oriol is a nice practical guy. He doesn't look like it, but I swear he is. Yeah I botched the focus on the shot below, but it's ok. He shot at the target point blank with an elephant gun type of thing and it made a huge rip.

That's how dumb we all look. Estevan is the only one to worry about.

Additional for you Maywa Denki fans.

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 04:33:00 +0000

Exhibition "Gadget OK! Artworks and Gadgets from Japan" includes the whole series of gadgets by Maywa Denki, including YUREX that visitors can try. A wide variety of latest Japanese gadgets are also shown.

The exhibition is until Feb. 24 on the ground floor of Broad Art Center, UCLA.

This link has plenty of other photos of near objects. But get there, it's ending soon!

Exhibition "D|MA2 – Device | Machine Arts X Design | Media Arts" features works by young UCLA artists in "Device Art" style. The exhibition is a part of Gadget OK! and is open until March 4, at CNSI (California Nano Science Institute), UCLA.

Otamatone - GR2 demo!

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:47:00 +0000

Tosa Novmichi From Maywa Denki demo's his Otamatone. It was fun and exciting to see the creator of this toy instrument give a fun demo to the folks at GR2. We've been carrying the other products like Knockman, Coron, and the rest of their products practically since we opened and then here he was in the flesh rockin' out. I took him to drink beer and eat a burger afterwards. I'll see him in Japan probably soon.

The Crepe Nazi of Sawtelle is closed

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:26:00 +0000

I didn't get to know the Crepe Nazi too well, but his shop on Sawtelle is tiny and recently, it closed down. He's a character, and known to be harsh, not care about customers, but for some reason, people loved the crepes. These are just some of the signs from his shop. Imagine the guy behind these signs.

Ok, I won't!

I guess that's me.

Now we cater!? Only if they bring these signs!

Ben's Jewelry GR2 Sawtelle

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:41:00 +0000

Ben's Jewelry! This is the front of GR2. Believe it or not, it was a jewelry store way way back when I was little. I actually remember the place. The facade got removed today and we found out, there's actually really nice architecture to the building. We got columns! So now it's up to figuring out a design for our space. What will we do? How will we not mess it up? Are you a designer with ideas? Hit me up quick. We have a cat and dog adoption about to get underway!

So the dudes are ripping stuff down and then this cans falls out of the front facade. Why is a beer can even in there? Look how old it is. 88 Olympics - Seoul - which Bud commemorated. Check out the Budweiser font. Classic.

Last day Japan

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:09:00 +0000

I didn't quite finish telling my trip story. The last day, it's a day when my plane is taking off. Luckily it's at 6:30pm, but the train takes off at 3:30pm. So what do you do? I tweeted it, and I got some condolences. Yeah it's a tough thing to figure out. You don't want to waste a day, but at the same time, it's not quite enough time to do a lot of things. Some of you said, have a good meal, or get stuff for the plane ride. Here's what I did. The shrine you see above. I went there. But that was quick and a diversion.

I met with the king of turtles. Dr Koieyama. This man knows how to operate on turtles! I asked if he went to school for it and he said no, he learned it on his own and is the only doctor of his kind in Japan. That's amazing! See the turtle in the tank? So rad. If you bring a turtle in, he puts on that metal tray and gets busy.

We're at a little sweets shop next to the shrine. That's Kohei again. Yes, he and my friend Nao, ditched their work to hang out with me for just a bit. This shop is quite old and cool. I liked how Nao said, "I'm going to use it." Meaning he's going to use the spot to take a companion friend as a cool gesture and to look cool.

That's Nao eating some mochi balls in red bean.

This is amazake. It's non alcoholic and it's a sweet rice drink that's fermented, and sweet but without the use of sugar! Amazing. The bad thing about the last day is getting into a rush. So doing all these cool things, and then going to a camera shop made the time fly by. We weren't in the right area where my train was taking off to the airport. We had to get on a train, then transfer and then I had to retrieve my luggage from the locker! We were scared. Luckily the Rapid Express came and it stopped only once. We were timing that fact that I literally needed to run to the locker then run to the platform, and I might make it within literally a minute. Trains aren't late in Japan unless there's a suicide on the tracks.

The quick ending. The train pulls up, Nao flies out with the key to the locker and Kohei meanwhile figures out where the platform is at. I'm trailing behind running. By the time I catch up, Nao is already being a Samsonite monkey and is ripping by barely fitting bags out of the locker. Lightning fast and a funny sight! Kohei is helping and then we all run to the platform. We get there with three minutes to spare. I get on my train and my trip comes to a close. Not so exciting, but it was stressful at the time. Lesson? Don't pack too much fun on that last day.

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:43:00 +0000

When I take the train ride from Tokyo to Narita, I always think these things: I'd like to live in a place like the above photo. A rural place, with rice fields, that looks hundreds of years old, not too many people around, a river, and a river bank to walk on. Ironically, there's a dude in the photo perhaps walking his dog doing and living the exact thing I just mentioned.

I want to live in a little hamlet village adjacent to this rural place. It's 15 houses deep. We might know each other, but that's how it is. To survive, we have to be good and fair to each other. We might need to share things. There might be a tiny shrine in the area. A store might be sort of far away, but not too far. There are other hamlets like ours and we know them, and are courteous. Once in a while, we all hang out together, perhaps at a festival. The train that flies by, those are the people who have places to go and are super busy. We're not like that. We have a rice field and it gets us by.

Not too far away is this temple. It's big and sticks out among the tall trees on a hill. Everyone in the bigger town is shadowed by it. It's as if it's a beacon watching over everyone and keep people in check.

cosplay wonderfest

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:33:00 +0000

Yeah Cosplay at the Wonderfest happened. But I guess I got tired or something. The photo below tells it all. The girl though looks tired too. Compared to the rest of the folks who wear mostly black on black, I stand out. I really should pay attention to blend in better. Maybe for next time.

Here's a bunch of tweets in support of GR.

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:27:00 +0000

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The last

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:01:00 +0000

Poor shrimp! Ahhhh. They were on their last legs anyway. I swear I do more than eat when I go to Japan, this is just what happens at the end of the day, after running around, meetings, and so on. There's this place in Nakameguro that's sort of a new seafood type of place. It's built to resemble a fish market, and I swear it would go up in flames in a minute if something went wrong. It's all raw wood and there's tons of it. This spot is close to the station and amazing. I went with the ladies from Dicokick jewelry.

Crab miso. Tasty with that quail egg.

That's a tuna collar. It's huge and might be the best part. Notice is cross over?

I'd like to see if anyone can make this pass in LA.

3 floors cavernous and cool.

This is the poo looking part of a sea snail. Look at the bling!

People in Japan can drink a lot! We were debating from where her outfit comes from.

Ping Pong Playas... There's a secret underground spot in Nakameguro. It's way off the street, and you have to know it's there to know about it. Even the locals don't know. The people who work there shred.

I've been hearing a bit about this place called Afuri. It's a ramen place in Ebisu which is a great food town. It's open until 4am, so it's obviously a dry

That's the simple kitchen. The cool thing is that they make great ramen and their clientele ranges from the dirty and drunk to the fashionable. They make shio (salt) ramen so it's easy for anyone to eat.

From Eel to Chinatown again

noreply@blogger.com (gr) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:30:00 +0000

That's Nao below, he's been here and there on this blog. But he took me to a place that has perhaps the most celebrated eel dish ever. It's a small spot and they specialize in just eel. Nishimura... It's well known. It even comes in a lacquer box. It's amazing and not as sweet as what you'd get in the US, which makes it a lot more delicate and fresh. In the US, we get eel in a vacuum pack.

We're a temple close by

That's what the front looks like of Nishimura.

This is Kohei and he's got a car. We took a nice drive to Yokohama - Chukagai

We walked by Fukken Ro. The greatest street ever. It's name is to the point.

Then ate at a tiny Chinese place. I want to say tiny and dirty, but Chinatown in Japan is clean as can be.