Archive for April, 2006
There’s a horse who lives in the lot next door. He eats the green vegetation and roams around the lot like a king and his wild turf. There is a “fluvial” river that empties out into the lot, the tiny river that dumps raw sewage out into a small gulch and runs out on to the street below, in front of my parents’ house. The fluvial river was what people used to use for a sewer, back before there was a sewer. Apparently, people are still using the fluvial river to dump their sewage and so we’ve been trying to get the municipality to remedy the situation for years now. It’s a loooooooong story.
Anyways, I was taking photos of the “aguas negras” when I turn around and the horse has snuck up at my back and is literally standing a foot away. I talk to him and start petting him. He’s a little shaky at first but calms down and lets me pat his neck, face and mane. I took a few pictures of him, as he played the perfect model. After I was done in followed me around the lot for another 10 minutes or so, until I left. The perfect chaperone. I can’t say I’ve ever met another horse with such manners.
Friday. A day that started out like any other day. A blue sky. A rising swell. A perfect day to go surfing. But this day would turn out to be like no other day.
With the surf report hinting at 6 foot waves and the first real southern swell of the summer to hit Vallarta, Ximena, Salim, Fer, Andrew and I loaded Salim’s pick-up truck with 5 surfboards. To avoid the traffic, we decided to skip Burros and hit up La Lancha. Andrew was borrowing the fun board and Fer was borrowing the fish. We strapped all five boards to the rollover bars in a diagonal position with the noses pointed up. Andrew and I hopped in the back and sat on each side of the large quiver of boards. Lola jumped in the back with us.
On the road up to Punta Mita, Lola was walking across the deck of the truck, under the boards, back and forth trying to find a good standing position to endure the sharp turns in the road. I finally, just grabbed her and put her on my lap, giving her stability and sticking her nose in the side wind screaming by.
About a mile south of the parking spot for La Lancha, I heard a large ripping sound and a big boom and looked over my right shoulder to see all 5 boards flying in the air as if a small tornado had grabbed them. And then they all landed, one by one, sliding across the highway with small bits flying everywhere. The truck screeched to a halt.
Andrew was the quickest to realize what a dangerous situation we were in: stopped in the middle of a recently rehabilitated stretched of highway, with 5 surfboards splayed across a blind curve. He dashed out of the truck and grabbed the first board and brought it to the side, one by one, we all jumped out of the truck as well, grabbing all of the boards and bringing them back to the truck.
We all stood there for at least 10 minutes, taking stock of the situation. I was in shell shock as I checked each of my 3 boards. The only boards I own. Each one totally messed up.
Ximena’s board scored the most damage with a de-laminated and crushed nose and a few deep scratches and cracks. Salim’s board, which had just been repaired, sustained several deep scratches and cracks. My fun board had the fins ripped out, breaking the fin wells that secure the fins. Also several deep scratches and a busted nose. The fish: busted nose, deep scratches, and two busted tail tips, heavy scratches on the fins and a large crack in the bottom. My shortboard: the nose was punched in about 2 inches, heavy scratches and broken fin wells.
After we surveyed the damage, we loaded all the boards back on the truck in a more secure way, with the backsides hanging off the back side of the truck. We had decided to head directly to Sayulita, to Ximena’s friend, Jose Luis, who fixes surfboards.
As we regained our collective composure, it hit us all, one by one, that nothing worse had happened. In a terrible situation, miraculously, no one was injured. Andrew, I and Lola were in the back. We could have caught a board or a fin to the head, a leash or a tie-down could have entangled us as well. The situation could easily have been deadly. There could have (and most surely should have) been a car behind us. One of the boards could have hit the windshield, or at the very least, the boards could have been run over or caused someone to lose control of their car. Like I said, it was miraculous.
As we drove up to Sayulita, each one of us digested the event and as we stood in Jose Luis’ surfboard repair shop retelling the story, each one of acknowledged how lucky we were that it wasn’t worse. Boards are fixable, people are not so fixable.
Jose Luis took stock of the boards, laughing at each one of the repairs, he told us he was just happy to see other boards then the same 15 or 20 boards brought in by the Sayulita locals. All dings, scrapes, gouges, cracks and de-lams were fixable. He made us all sigh in relief. And me, the most, since my entire surfboard collection was now sitting on the floor in this man’s repair shop. A surfer with no surfboard is like well, you make up some colorful simile. I was dejected, but Jose Luis hooked it up and made us all feel better. He said we could come back on tuesday and pick up the boards, but I’m sure it’ll be a few days longer, possibly a week.
And what does a surfer do, with no surfboard? to be honest, I’m not quite sure.
My sister, Beth, has spent the past few years taking photos of run-down motels and the people who live in them. It’s been a long hard process for her. The photos are strong, beautiful and unflinchingly political. Beth has an exhibition in NYC that starts May 4th at the Redux Gallery and the same photos will be featured in the May issue of Fader magazine.
On a personal note: I’m so happy to see Beth’s star rising. She is so talented and has worked for so long to make this all happen. She has never once taken the easy route and gotten a “real” job taking hack/pop photos or some desk job. Beth’s work is gritty, beautiful, political and totally unconventionally her. They are a thesis of everything she is about with no compromises and no regrets. I am so happy to see her work taking on a life of it’s own, getting published and merited. It’s about time people start noticing her work.
Here’s the photo from her flyer and the press release which, I gotta say, almost made me cry it’s so good. It completely sums up Beth’s work and her working relationships with her subjects:
Home Sweet Home
Photographs by Beth Fladung
Exhibition
May 4th, June 10, 2006
Opening Reception
May 4, 2006 6:30-8:30 pm
Redux Gallery and The Fader Magazine are pleased to present Beth Fladung’s first solo exhibition at Redux Pictures Gallery: 43 c-prints from the ongoing series, Home Sweet Home. The exhibition will open on Thursday, May 4th and close on Saturday, June 10th, with a reception for the artist on Thursday, May 4th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
In 1998, Beth Fladung began working on a series of photographs that record the dramatic transition of the American Motel. Once icons of roadside America, motels have transformed into mostly immigrant-owned, low-income housing for the poor. For years, Fladung has traveled throughout the United States, photographing motels and their residents in neglected cities such as Mobile, Alabama, Riviera Beach, Florida, Gallup, New Mexico, and Rahway, New Jersey. Focusing on forgotten routes and local highways where roadside communities and motels were built before interstate construction left them behind, Fladung found scores of long-term residents - some of who were subsidized by welfare, but many who simply had no other affordable housing options.
While these photographs portray a specific niche in American society, they also confront the current state of affairs and the lack of attention paid to the crises of poverty and housing in the United States. Fladung’s passion for social justice and her ability to connect with people become evident through her images, which capture the spirit of her subjects and never downplay the complexity or political overtone of the subject matter. Photographs such as a motel dresser stacked with a GED study book and Dr.Spock’s Guide to Parenting, a father wearing a parole anklet watching TV with his daughter, and a girl playing on an abandoned motel sign convey both sadness and hardship, yet at the same time, hope and resilience. Among motel residents Fladung discovered a common thread: the struggle to make a home and to create comfort and stability for themselves and their families in spaces that signify transience.
Beth Fladung was born in Philadelphia, PA, raised in Westchester, NY, Milwaukee, WI and Berkeley, CA. In 1999 she received a B.F.A. in photography at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles and she currently lives and works in New York City. Home Sweet Home is also featured in Fader’s photography issue this May. Publications in which Fladung’s work has appeared include Wax Poetics, Scratch, King, URB, and XXL.
You can find more of Beth’s work at her website: Mosbef.com
Insane Rorshach video for Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy. wicked. Marcia says that when I sing this song in the shower, it makes her a little scared that I’m going crazy.
Ackkkk! Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team. I love Aperture. It’s got it’s weak points, like speed and agility, but it’s got a great workflow. Please, don’t tell me I have to go back to Adobe Bridge or Lightroom. Would someone please create a “Save Aperture” site?
There, I said it. and I mean it. Now let me explain:
Steve had a good thing with iTunes Music Store. He understood, intuitively, how people like their music and how people use their music. He knew that people would pay a buck a song, with an average album costing 10 bucks. He knew that people liked to carry their music collection with them everywhere. and that they would listen to their music over and over again. The iPod isn’t just about having a glorified walkman, it’s about not having to lug around a bunch of cd jewel cases. To be able to have well organized music at your fingertips, so that you can be sitting out on a rock-jetty somewhere, feeling the salt spray of crashing ocean waves, against your face, as you’re listening to the Postal Service’s glitch-pop remake of Phil Collin’s “Against All Odds” (ok, maybe i’m projecting a bit here).
Steve proposes the same is true for movies. That people will pay to download movies, on a per download basis. That people love to collect their movies and want to have them on their computer, in perpetuity. Steve is throwing his weight behind the download-own model he pioneered with iTunes Music Store, but Steve Jobs is wrong.
Your average Joe/Josie, does not want to download and collect movies to keep on their hard-drive with compressed movies taking up over 350 megs per. Neither do they want to burn movies to DVDs (then you’re stuck with the pile of badly organized jewel cases scenario). Most people don’t even watch a movie more than once. Yes, there are those one or two movies a year that you love to watch two or even three times, but the majority of movies get watched once and returned back to Netflix or whatever video store it was rented from, and promptly forgotten. The repeat viewers are DVD territory.
Movies are different from music.
Music is listened to, over and over again. Albums get a lot of play and that 10 dollars goes a long way. Music is usually a secondary activity. We listen to our music while driving, or riding the bus or a skateboard or while in front of a computer “working”, but rarely do we ever sit in a darkened room, eating popcorn, listening to music. Music is rarely digested in one sitting. It often takes dozens of listens to your favorite pop song before you start to know the words (nevermind comprehending their subversive meanings) ala Belle & Sebastian’s “Dear Catastrophe Waitress” (I’ve listened to that song 76 times). On the contrary, movies are a one shot experience, that’s why Netflix is so freakin’ cool. The subscription service model doesn’t work for music, I think (although that’s debatable). But the subscription model does work for movies and Netflix is a shining example of this. I’d rather pay 10, 15, or even 20 bucks a month to download a la carte from iTunes Movie Store. But what I will not do is pay 30 bucks for a DRM encrypted movie from MovieLink. And neither will Average Joe/Josie. BTW - MovieLink’s service is only available to computer connections inside the US, so I am out of luck anyway (central pacific mexico).
Back to my point, to download movies I’d pay no more than 3 to 5 dollars per movie. Maybe 6 to 8 dollars if the movie was great and I know I’d watch it again and 10 dollars max for a movie I wanted to keep forever. Paying 20-30 dollars for a movie, as MovieLink’s rates are reported to be (that means you are paying 1 buck for every 3 minutes of movie - what are they thinking?!). It’s almost as if they’re saying, “yes we’ll give you downloads on demand, but we’ll make it so cost prohibitive that you’ll want to go to the store and buy the DVD instead, and hey! that’s where we want you anyway!” I’m not even gonna get into simultaneous theater/download releases issue*
Steve Jobs is taking a different approach. He wants to get rid of the ridiculous DRM measures instituted by MovieLink and follow the precedence he set with iTunes (softer, gentler DRM). But at the root of the argument is still the download-own vs. subscription model and Steve is on the wrong side of the fence. What people are really looking for is an internet based subscription service. They want to have movies on demand, that they can download and watch and then (9/10s of the time) erase from their hard drive to allow for more movie downloading. They don’t care about collecting DVDs, that in turn collect dust. They want to have that same iPod experience they had with music, with movies. Being anywhere, watching a movie, on a bus, on a snowboard, at the gym or in bed at home with the lights off and popcorn. If People do hoard movie download files, it’s so they can trade them with their friends. These are the BitTorrent types and represent a small sliver of the actual population, as Steve has said in the past, if presented with a legal option, most people would rather not be doing something illegal, obviously I’m paraphrasing.
What’s the winning formula? Subscription. Do it like Netflix, they have a winning formula, borrow there’s. The only difference is that you are not stuck sending and receiving envelopes. Effectively, it’s easier then Netflix so implement different levels of subscription depending on usage: 5$/month gets you 5 downloads, 10$/month gets you 15 downloads and $20 gets you 30 downloads. My numbers may not be exact but they’re in the right ballpark. The user can then have the same rights that Apple’s fairplay gives your music, with the one added rule that says something like, once you stop your subscription, you can no longer play the movies you have on your hard-drive. Movie studios could even use this “feature” as a marketing incentive “Pay 5 bucks more for this particular movie and get a DRM-free copy”. If you did some polling with a good cross section of people, you’d find that it would fit the consumption of at least 90% of the people polled. Not convinced? Ask the least technologically inclined person in your family about their home movie viewing habits and you’ll see what I mean. They want two things: cheap and easy. Ownership isn’t one of those two things. Your average Joe/Josie doesn’t give two shits about owning a film, they’d just as soon as go to the movies or rent from the local video store. What a subscription download service is offering is the ‘easy’ part of the solution (as Netflix is doing also). Essentially, you are creating permanent customers, ones who keep paying the subscription fees not because they want any-time access to a million movies at once (as with the music subscription model), but that it’s a cheap and extremely easy way to view movies. Unfortunately, Hollywood movie studios over-value their product so much that they’d rather charge exorbitant rates and limit their product’s exposure. What movie studios (and Steve Jobs to a lesser extent) need to get into their heads is that 90% of the movie viewing public don’t care about owning movies as things to collect. Neither in digital form nor in physical form. Sure there are a lot of people out there that collect movies and those people will always buy the DVD versions, from brick and mortar stores, to have as collectors items, box art, dvd menus, extras etc…
It would be great to see Steve Jobs overcome the hurdles of signing up Hollywood for the iTMS, and I’d even start downloading movies on a download-to-own basis, but to get the iTMS really flying, a subscription model is the only way. Even if Steve can get the movie studios down to that sacred 10 dollar price point, he’ll still sell far fewer films then he’d sell with a subscription based model. This view is even heightened considerably when you take the international market into account, so rather then continue on, I’ll stop the conversation there.
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a great little video on what “net neutrality” is and how it effects you: Public Knowledge - Net Neutrality Video. Also read about the looming battle here. get edumacatited peoples.
This guy is an insane designer. His flash skills are great too. I love the hand drawn styles. very organic and deceptively low tech: Justin Broadbent
On the north side of Parque Alameda, is a museum called the Museo Franz Mayer. The permanent exhibition of old furniture, crafts, paintings and such from colonial era Mexico, didn’t move me so much. What did move me immensely, was an exhibit of the work of Clara Porset. A cuban designer of furniture, who spent most of her life in Mexico. The exhibit covered her work from the late 50s and early 60s. Porset’s modernist take on traditional mexican chairs, tables and such, was astounding. Her work is informed by international modernist movements but wholly grounded in mexican materials and culture. Her mid-century pieces would be just as at home in a beach side resort in Cancun as they would in Nuetra/Ains/Schindler/Lloyd-Wright house in Los Angeles. Her work immediately gave Marcia and I ideas of designing our own furniture (or rather Marcia thinks I should start designing my own furniture). I think I will. Obviously I’ve never encountered her work before, I’m sure Porset is internationally influential and notches right up there with all the mid-century modernist heavyweights. It was a pleasure to encounter her work.
Another exhibit at the Franz Mayer Museum that I really dug was the Import / Export exhibit, co-curated by The British Council. An exhibit featuring the work of 14 British and 14 Mexican designers, in all aspects of design: graphic, fashion, textiles etc… Some of who’s work really got me: Ludra Chowdhary’s ceramic tile work, Aboud Sodano’s art-direction for Paul Smith and a 25 year old kid from Coahuila Mexico, José García Torres, whose graphic design work is brilliant, you can see his work in the magazines Baby Baby Baby and Celeste.
As we made our way up Reforma towards Chapultepec, I saw signs for the Museo Tamayo, I didn’t think much of it. Then I saw an exhibition sign for Ed Ruscha (You can take the kid out of California, but you can’t take California out of the kid). Ed Ruscha’s painting are wonderful and I knew going to his exhibit would be a fun thing for Marcia and I, amidst all the mexican history of the day. What an amazing place. The outside gardens and water canal system were gorgeously rectilinear and minimalist, the museum’s architecture was a collection of concrete blocks intersecting as if tossed on to the site by a giant child, beautifully simplistic. The beauty and ideas behind the gardens and architecture were only paralleled by the art inside. We were treated to the insanely beautiful horizontally challenging sky/type scapes of Ed Ruscha, the audio/environmental spaces of Robin Minard, the architectual deconstructionist art of Daniella Brahm and the optical illusion work of Jesus Raphael Soto. Soto’s piece “Penetrable Blue” is beyond describing. An interactive piece, where viewers are encouraged to enter a portion of the gallery where thousands of drinking straw sized blue rubber/plastic cords are suspended from a grid, 20 feet above and hanging to within an inch of the ground. A gridded forest of blue tubes, 3 to 4 inches apart. The experience of being inside the tubes is like flying through 3D space, inside an optical illusion. Like I said, impossible to describe.
In addition to the sights of Mexico City, Thursday was a great day for modern art. I suppose it’s not a stretch to see that Mexico has it’s fair share of modern art museums and galleries, but for some reason i just never connected in to whatever networks are out there. maybe it’s a lost-in-translation moment. It was as if a whole new world had been opened for me, to realize that Mexico City has a thriving modern art scene. My trip through these museums was definitely through the staid/monied part of the scene, so next time, I look forward to getting into the street/hipper side of modern art in DF.
The most slammin’ Argentian food in Mexico City. El Diez is located on “Alfonso Reyes” and “Cosala” in Condesa. I say, go for the Entraña Argentina. It’s the best cut of meat, Argentinian style. Swear to god, the best steak I’ve had in years. years, folks. If you’re in the Condesa, check out El Diez, named after Diego Maradona, the Argentinian futbol player. These folks take futbol seriously. and steak too. the bomb. Wine goes best with steak, so don’t be lulled into a false calm by the beer. go for the wine, the Trapiche Malbec is off the hook, ask for the large wine glasses, if nothing else, just for effect. Stick your nose in, get it in there and breathe in…..
disclaimer: When I wrote this, the wine was in full effect.
This is a note for all tourists visiting DF. Please take caution to be safe. Guard your wallet. Don’t wear flashy clothing or jewelry. Don’t walk around with an expensive camera, unless your dumb like me. Only take taxis from the sitios. Be polite. Try to speak the language as best you can. And be polite.
Ok, now that we got the precautionary measures out of the way, let’s move on shall we?
Anyone who says that chilangos are not nice people, are flat-out wrong. Over the few days that we’ve been here, we have met nothing but nice people. Everywhere. Restaurants, shops, museums. This morning we got on a bus line and took the wrong direction and some guy gave us better directions and actually drew a little map for us to use, once we got to our proper bus stop! I’m sure Mexico City has it’s share of shady, cranky denizens, but for some reason we must have been wearing anti-creep spray or something. We had a wonderful time and a large slice of that had to do with very good interactions with the people around us.
So if you’re visiting Mexico City and you hear that chilangos can be hard to deal with, take the comment like a grain of salt. Just as the people of New York City have a bad rep, so do the people of DF. In reality, they couldn’t be a nicer, gentler people.
If you’re a tourist in Mexico city and your a vegetarian, you are in luck, go to Yug Vegetarian Food and Buffet. It’s just off the Paseo de la Reforma on Calle Varsovia, just north of La Zona Rosa. Skip the upstairs buffet. Stay downstairs and eat off the regular menu. Yug has the most slammin Tacos al Pastor I have ever had. In fact, probably some of the best tacos I’ve ever had, period. and they’re veggie! An order of tacos al pastor and a green salad are perfect for two people. Don’t miss yug. It’s the bomb and you know this, maaaaaaan.
Pretty much echoes my sentiments exactly: Rolling Stone : The Worst President in History? Except I wouldn’t use the question mark, I’d use an exclamation point. But that’s just me.
So at the suggestion of Mariela we took a bus tour of DF called “Turibus“. I was completely weary of riding on a bus from spot to spot, with a bunch of other green-behind-the-ears tourists, somehow my ego just didn’t like the idea. After my initial hesitation wore off, I gotta say, it’s literally the best way to get to know Mexico City. Turibus is about 110 pesos, that’s like 10 bucks. and it takes a loop through the city. They give you a pair of headphones and there’s a guided audio track in 7 or so languages. The tour moves from Condesa to Roma to Reforma then up to the Historic Downtown District known as the Zocalo, back through Reforma, up to Chapultepec, on to Polanco, back to Chapultepec and then down to Condesa again. The entire bus tour is 2:45 minutes, but the cool thing is, you can get off at any one of 25 or so spots, check out a stop like El Museo National de Anthropologia, spend an hour or so seeing the museum, and then get back on the next bus and continue on. You can ride the bus circuit all day and buses come every 20 minutes or so. It’s literally the best deal in the city. Just to get from the Palacio de Bella Artes to Chapultepec, in a taxi, would cost you 100 pesos. Surprisingly I really enjoyed the audio guide, especially in the Zacalo where I learned about the history of all these amazing old buildings. Stuff I’m sure most people living in DF don’t even know. I highly recommend Turibus. It is a must see.
In addition to all the good info, the trip helps you to orient yourself in DF, so that the following days, you really know how to get around. In fact, if I was a visiting tourist, I’d do the Turibus trip every day, just to avoid having to worry about taking shady taxis. On the downside though, the service does not go out to San Angel or Coayacan, two must see spots in DF.
All tourists visiting DF, please report to Turibus, look for the big red signs on the light poles, they’re not hard to find. Turibus uses Paseo de La Reforma as it’s backbone, you can’t miss the signs. Now go!
Saturday, Apr 22nd, 2006
Categories: travels
So I’ve taken 490 photos so far. That’s before I edit them down, by throwing out 90% of them. Still, that’s a lot of pictures. And I take RAW images, so it’s takes a little while longer to edit and process them. So for now, I’m just going to post my entries as I’ve written them and then go back and add photos once I’m back in PV.
In the meantime, here’s a little love, from me to you:
Photo taken at the always excellent Cafe Toscana, on the corner of Parque España and Calle Michoacan in Condesa.
We are staying with Marcia’s wonderful chilanga friend Mariela. She has gracefully allowed us to crash at her cute little apartment. Her pops bought the apartment and renovated it. It is a perfect example of what i call warm mexican minimalism. Red dyed concrete floors, simple white walls and finishings that cross the border to being industrial. very creative yet subtle. From the towel bar in the bathroom, to the light over the dining table, it’s all about the fine details, lack of details and surprising little bits. Mariela’s pops did a great job with this place. It’s a cute little one bedroom apartment in Condesa, one of cooler, younger, hipper parts of DF. Just outside her door are tons of nice little cafes, bistros, book stores, funky clothing shops etc.. heavy on the south american (re: Argentinian) bohemian feeling. If I lived in DF, I’d most certainly live in this area, for sure. It reminds me of New York’s Greenwich Village / SoHo circa 15 years ago. Welcome to Condesa.
Help me! I’m stuck in the airport edition:
dude, that shirt you’re wearing, that disco looking, tight lycra looking shirt? it’s a rash-guard, for boogie-boarding. oops!
Currently listening to: Mala Rodriguez Jugadoras, Jugadores. super nice.
oh and you’ll be listening to Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, all summer long, so get a jump start on it now. hyper buenisimo.
it’s official. my house is for sale. Anyone wanna own a peace of architectural history? It’s really a beautiful place.
Azteca has to be the worst airline ever. Their prices are half what the other airlines are (to Mexico City, atleast). I guess that makes up for them pushing our flight five and a half hours.
Currently reading: Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art. a great coffee-table book written by Sean Cliver. a former Powell-Peralta / World Industries graphic designer. It’s awesome seeing the art from all these skateboards in one place, all the old decks I used to own, but it’s even more fascinating reading about the insiders’ perspectives from Cliver and several other deck designers. Stuff that I was blissfully unaware of, for my 15 + years of skateboarding. Oh and here’s my first deck: Vision’s Mark Gonzalez
Anyways, Marcia wants the computer back so she can catch up to me in our homework (learning to program ruby). so I must go.
Nothing quite like sitting in the airport and syphoning free wireless broadband access. How do I do it? In Mexico, Prodigy has the monopoly on broadband internet access, the service is called “Infinitum”. Prodigy has wireless broadband at a few select airports, malls etc.. through out Mexico. When you sign up for Prodigy and you are at one of these hotspots, like say, the Puerto Vallarta airport, you can use your username (for your home/office service) to log on to the wireless network.
All the business minded gringos keep coming up to me and asking how the hell I managed to tap the network. I smile, give a polite answer, but what I’m really thinking is: “it pays to be a local, bro”.
We’re off to Mexico City today, for a few days of fun and then on to Cuernavaca for the wedding of Marcia’s cousin. We’ll also be visiting Tepoztlán and I’ve never been to either place. I really look forward to doing a little traveling with Marcia. Most of my trips to DF have been with mom, to meet with our architects. This will be a different kind of trip. so very looking forward to it.
In addition to drawing, I’ve decided to teach myself how to program in Ruby. I’m using an excellent book called Learn To Program by Chris Pine, published by the insanely cool folks at The Pragmatic Programmers. It’s a beginner’s book. Great for me, even though I have experience programming php, i am by no means even slightly fluent. Learn to Program is a great place to start.
But what’s better then me learning to program, is that Marcia has picked up the book as well, on a whim. and really taken to it. In fact, she’s whining right now, that I need to get off the powerbook, cuz she wants to do another chapter. There’s nothing quite like seeing your lovely, sweet, funny, sexy, brainiac girlfriend in front of Text mate and Terminal app.
I’m almost to nirvana, now only if she would learn to surf.
Wednesday, Apr 12th, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized
So I have the most ridiculously unreadable handwriting on the planet. really. it’s awful, not in that “artistic bad” sort a way, but in a “geez, you’re a graphic designer, your handwriting should really be more anal-retentive then it is” sorta way. what can i say, my parents were a little late in potty training me. So I’ve decided to bring my art back to it’s essence, a pen, paper and some color, with the thought of re-establishing the skills I had, before I picked up a mouse and a laptop.
While in Los Angeles, I picked up some good drawing books, markers and a rapidograph set with the aim of drawing on a daily basis. My first goal is to get back to drawing what I see: scenes and photos, etc… The next stage would be drawing things that I have in mind. Not abstract things, since most of things I draw from mind are abstract and structured in geometrical form of some kind. I’d like to be able to draw some guy surfing on a wave, from memory. I know, small goal. but a good one.
This image is of Jossy
For the past two days I’ve been surfing at Burros. The waves have been unexpectedly nice, more so on Monday and less so yesterday, but nice enough to enjoy. Monday saw Burros receiving 3 to 4 foot waves with sets of 5 to 6 feet every 15 minutes or so. and the wind, which is usually killer here for most of the spring, had died down. Not so much the quality of the waves, but the quality and quantity of good rides, made it possibly my best day out in 6 months. I easily cleared 15 rides and out of that 15, maybe 5 near-perfect rides. Burros has been very inconsistent lately, not necessarily in relationship to having or not having swell, more that when there are waves, they are a little all over the place, breaking in unexpected ways, sneaking up on you like a silent mountain (or in this case, mole hill). But when the wave breaks in an arc it leads to an excellent ride, I’ve drawn the diagram below to visualize that perfect arc wave:
While in Los Angeles, we got a chance to go snowboarding (sorry, no good pics came of it). One of the great things about traveling outside of the Los Angeles basin, is that LA, for what it’s worth, is a giant desert and the surrounding area is a throw back to what LA looked like 100 years ago. The desert is gorgeous in it’s own particular way, rugged and spartan, I have grown to love it.
Tegan likes Hefeweizen also. Do you see a theme? it’s just coincidental. This photo was taken at a tiny little bar inside the Fairfax Farmer’s Market, where the crew met up for some good ol’ fashioned revelry.
Sunday Marcia, Salim, Andrew and I headed out to Punta Mita to go to the illustrious “El Faro” (the lighthouse). A local surf spot that supposedly has the best break in the area. El Faro is out on the tip of Punta Mita, a private development, on the north side of the Bahia de Banderas. Punta Mita stretches for miles, hence there is no way to approach El Faro by car. There are two routes in to the break. One is by boat, which will average 50 bucks per trip and we’re not exactly rolling in dough, so that’s kinda out. The second option is to walk in, along the ocean. I’d say it’s at least 2 miles. This would be a relatively easy trek if there were any semblance of a beach, but the shoreline is pure rock. Where normally, the beach would be, lies a long, long, long stretch of pebbles, stones and rocks, millions and millions of um. Upon initial viewing it seems easy, but as the trek winds on, you realize that the flip-flops you’re wearing, might not make it to El Faro in tact, never mind the long trek home. In a nutshell, if you can afford, make the trek by boat.
Being the adventurous crew that we are, we decided to huff it by foot. None of us having been before. The trek in was a nightmare. Word to visiting people, never try this walk in the mid-day sun. It’s a killer. and bring sneakers.
As we wound our way up the coast, we noticed that the waves were pretty crappy, as they were in other areas, but we held out hope for El Faro. The swell has been very fickle lately, the bay can look as flat as a pancake and still be throwing up 6 to 7 foot waves, somewhere, in some undisclosed location. We were hoping El Faro was that spot. As we got closer to the tip, we could see what I had heard described as the spot “El Faro”, a long point break, punctuated with a very large rock in the middle. Since the tide was at it’s lowest point, the rock was a good 4 feet out of the water. Big Rock. The waves peeling off the point where about 2 feet tall and breaking perilously close to the rocky shoreline, most likely in about a foot of water. We stopped and surveyed the situation. Definitely unsurfable at the moment, but an amazing break, none-the-less. We decided to continue on, as I knew there would be another break, around the bend, in a small bay called “Bahia”. Sure enough a group of surfers were pounding the 3 foot waves. These particular waves broke in an arc typical to bay breaks, small waves but with some really nice force to them.
As we had been walking for about an hour or so, we found a craggy, leafless tree to give us shade, dropped our things and promptly chowed down on snacks that we had brought for the occasion. I’m glad someone had the bright idea to pack food, that someone was most definitely not me. As we sat, ate and watched the surfers in the water, one by one they all came out, as the waves dissipated and by the time we were done, the bay was flat. We were in paradise and hell at the same time. Our adventurous spirits all felt flagged by the long, arduous trip in and the lack of proper decency on the part of mother ocean. Throw us a bone here, big mama.
Anyways, to make a long story just a bit longer. It was great finding not one, but two new surf breaks. It was a great trek, but next time, we’re gonna use Salim’s jet skis. Now that’s traveling in style. Next time I’ll bring the camera since the point break and bay are both optimal for getting good pics.
What to do when you’re in Los Angeles and you wanna grab breakfast at your favorite whole-in-the-wall restaurant that’s being clogged by young hollywood, hangeroners and the paparazzi who photograph them? Grab breakfast at 8:00 in the am. Cuz everyone else sleeps til noon.
This is The Griddle. They have the bomb lemon-raspberry pancakes, oh and the eggs-benedict (oh my goddess) ‘cept they call it the ‘poached y papas’, throw in a little spanish and i’m all good.
I was going to group Tony’s picture with Jossy’s, since they’re an item, but I decided against it, cuz Tony deserves his own entry. While you are looking at this photo, please imagine yourself listening to Pixies’ Tony’s Theme. And Tony is most certainly a super-hero.
