Last Choice

As I mentioned previously, I went traveling a lot in January (LA, NY, London, NY, South Africa, NY). I brought my Holga, a recent acquisition, along with me to London and Africa, and here are the results.

London:


Paul (He's the sound guy for Foals)

The Three Crowns on Church Street (in Stoke Newington)

Berry and Georgie

My dear APC. She and Paul recently got married!

Thames

New York (interval):

Double (perhaps even triple?) exposure of Anita

I never claimed to be photogenic.

The album cover for the band that Mukai and Anita don't have.

South Africa:

Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa

The Cape of Good Hope

I rode this elephant. His name is Casbar.

Leopard

Snoozing lions

Afternoon safari refreshment

The pool at Elephant Plains

Johannesburg Airport

I'm not your kind and you're not mine
but for tonight, you'll have to do just fine.

Just Drums

I started writing for The Brooklyn Paper and have already generated some clips!

Here are my first three stories, which is a lot of work considering my first and only day of work thus far was on Tuesday.

Tapes 'n Tapes : Fresh from last year’s new album, “Walk It Off,” the Minneapolis-based quartet Tapes ’n Tapes will slam into Brooklyn with its hard-driving drum-backed twangy indie rock sound for a must-see concert at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Thursday, Feb. 26.

Arborcide : The winds that slammed into Brooklyn last Thursday knocked down a beloved 120-year-old tree in Carroll Gardens — but it wasn’t the gusts that committed the crime; it was arborcide, the tree’s owner claims.

Police Blotter



And here are some pictures of recent events:



Dancing at Marie's party on Valentine's Day. (Oh, the single life.)



I interviewed the boys from Death By Audio, an awesome little warehouse venue in Brooklyn. This is Iran (featuring Kyp Malone) playing there. Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson and The Fakers also played.




This is the back room, or the living room in the warehouse.



I went to Lit Lounge one night, and there were a bunch of familiar faces that night. I noticed that the foam in my beer glass spelled out "LA", which I found fascinating.

Speaking of LA, I'm going there for the weekend. Just to visit and relax. I'm also hoping to get some work done and plan my trip to Tokyo with my brother, which is still pending.

Evil And A Heathen

My next DJ gig is on Friday the 13th, and I am quite proud of the flier I made for it:

(Click on it to enlarge.)

Try Again

I clearly suck because I haven't posted about my life in New York recently. I have been busy with life in general, but I have been updating my Flickr account with the band photography I have done in the past months.

I moved back to my city about a week after LA, and life has been crazy since. I have been traveling like crazy too. Since my last post, I have been to LA one weekend, San Francisco the next, Chicago a few weeks later, LA again, and again, London for New Year's and South Africa. Nuts, I know.

Speaking of San Francisco, I went to cover my time with Foals at the Treasure Island Music Festival, and my encounters with Hot Chip and Jamie Hince from the Kills. (Here's the story I wrote.)


And now, for a long set of photos that (I hope) sum up the past five to six months.














Mukai and I DJ now. She's DJ Homo and I'm DJ Snob.



























Pikkujoulu (Little Christmas) Party in BK.













Dancing onstage with The Teenagers in BK.













A photo Frank took of me on his Holga when I was visiting London last August.













Me at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.


























Nights of drinking with friends in Brooklyn.































Brunch at Lulu in Chicago













CMJ Music Marathon, NYC 2008













Hanging out with Foals in San Francisco













I was Carmen Sandiego for Halloween!


















Brunch and Sunday Fundays in Brooklyn













Visits to Scandinavia House













Election Night!













Snowy days in Central Park



I should just make a separate Africa post because there are so many photos from that.

Hummer

I'm back in LA!

In just less than 24 hours of being home, I have had Mexican food and In 'n' Out (duh) and gotten fed up with traffic. I have visited the beach and blasted music while driving with a good friend. I have basked in the sun and caught up with many friends. There is so much more to come.

This jet lag is killing me.
My cat is in bad shape and it's heart breaking.

LDN

I'm back in London! And it feels great.

I don't even love London, but I have this amazing feeling here.
How will I react to going back to New York? I love New York.

The sun is in the sky
Oh why, oh why would I want to be anywhere else

Today:
Came into town and met my friend at his work. We went to lunch.
He went back to work.
I sat in St. James' Park and wrote a letter to a friend.
I admired life, amidst alternating basking in the sun and shivering.
I walked around to look at old familiars.
I visited the Photographer's Gallery for an interesting exhibit on self-reflection in fashion photography.
And now I am at my friend's work, waiting for him to finish his work.
Tonight, we will go to a pub quiz.
And he will make scones and clotted cream for me!

Oh my goodness, I missed this!

Buriedfed

I'm worried about my baby.

The Debtor

Not sure that I wanna stay alive. It's so expensive; it's cheap to die.

--Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson lyrics



I feel ya, man. I feel ya.

Loud Pipes

Sometimes I think about strange quirks I have, and I wonder if other people have these secret quirks or if it's just me. I like to generalize some of them and just guess that other people do the same things, but I can't be sure.

For example:

I think it's funny how people play music on their iPods as if the rest of the world could hear it. Again, by people, I mean that I do it and I am really just curious as to whether or not others do it too. I was thinking about this during lunch just now, at the pizza place right across the street from my work.

A kind of cute boy walked into the pizza place midway through my meal, and I changed my music. I had been listening to relatively girly music, and then I switched to a more relaxed and cool Ratatat. Or, when I'm in the elevator with a bunch of suits and I look like a ruffian gamine, I sometimes switch my music to classical or jazz or some worldly genre, as if they could hear what was "Now Playing" on my iPod. Perhaps visually, I look one way and that's how they perceive (read: judge) me, so I want to appeal to their perceptions of me aurally.

I don't know why I do it. I know it doesn't work. Even blasting my music through my ear buds won't do the trick. And it's not quite the same feeling as creating the "Soundtrack to your Life", because I don't necessarily pick music that would fit the scene. I pick music, mostly, that I think a person looking at me would least expect. When I'm alone, it's more of a mood thing than a soundtrack thing, though I do have my soundtrack moments.

What a fucking generation this is that these kind of thoughts and actions actually have an effect on me/my life. Sixty years ago, no one ever thought these things. There was no technology to justify having such feelings.

It rather reminds me of silent discos, where everyone is listening to the same music on headphones, so they are all dancing to the same beats at the same time, but it's all silent outside of the headsets.

Maybe my life is just one big silent disco, but I'm the only one with the headphones.


In other news, my dear Ashley is in a music video for a very talented musician:























She's in the baby blue with a headband. Here's the link to the video of "Buriedfed" by Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson.

Enjoy.

Ce Jeu

I have a sudden rush of ambition. I feel like I have been so...not me...in several ways since I have been in Finland. This is not in every aspect of life, mind you. But I feel like I lack creativity and the motivation I usually have for the things I love. Maybe that's just the day job syndrome. I sometimes feel like I write uninspired shit at work. (And that's not because my writing is uninspired shit; some of my assignments are uninspired shit.) When I come home, I make dinner, watch TV online, and, depending on my current supply of booze, I may or may not partake in beer-drinking.

But I suddenly got a rush. I feel like writing something. Maybe it's the fact that I finished my strange episode of binge-watching 30 Rock, the beer I just drank, or the corn I had for dinner that has done this to me -- but I am going to start a project. Let's hope it's half-decent.

Hurrah!