Happy Day of the Dead... literally.

True story, courtesy of Hurricane Sandy. 

Why is Halloween Orange?

No comment. Ask the fucking-ass champs. Being frightened is optional. 

Wild Card-inal Sin Weekend

Thank God in Heaven that October is finished.

It was a D minus month to say the least, but I really don't need to explain more about it cause its already in the past.... well, except the last 5 days of it that I'm going to recap right now.

My weekend actually started on Thursday Night. I went to the DLT's cause my homegirl Tianna Edmonson of the band Aftergloam was throwing a kickback at her place for the first time in, like forever. I remember when that was frequently common around this time last year. She was showing an double feature of a Halloween episode of Freaks And Geeks and this z-list 80's horror flick that I never heard of. I was about to watch it with her, but instead, I found myself watching Game 6 of the World Series between the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals inside my friend Marlene's living room. That game was FUCKING EPIC! The Rangers were two outs away from winning the big dance, both at the ninth and tenth inning, but David Freese and the freakin' Cardinals worked the ass off to demand a Game 7, which they did get the following night. But the whole entire game itself was back and forth in terms of scoring. EVERYONE was talking about it the next day on Facebook, Twitter, the sorry-ass media, and even those who've never watched a Major League Baseball game before. Game six that night reminded the whole world why that sport is still a respected interesting tradition and past time in this country during the middle of the year, cause a lot of people underlook Baseball since they think that there's not that much action and the game takes forever to go on. For me, I've always like that sport, and I used to play it more than Basketball (surprising from a black guy) and Football when I was in Elementary school. But in all honesty, its more of like a social thing when you attend a Baseball game and bonding with you families or friends just to anticipate a surprising homerun.

The next day, I went to the Five Star Bar in Downtown Los Angeles to watch my good friend Nicole Stetter play with her band Darger De Milo for the final time. I was at her very first show, which literally lead to a lot of stuff for me. Been a while since I attended the Five Star Bar. They were showing Game 7 and it was NOTHING like Game 6, cause the Cardinals had the upper hand over the Ranger throughout the whole game which lead them to their 11th World Series title. The last time they won was 5 years ago, when I was taking Broadcasting classes with Mr. Alan Sacks (who's runs a production company that produced Disney Channel films like The Color of Friendship and the Camp Rock films) at Los Angeles Valley College in 2006. I really didn't like both the Rangers and The Cardinals, but for this series, I didn't want the Cardinals to win. I didn't hear the sound from the game cause there were other bands that were performing for the crowd. While I was waiting for Darger De Milo to go on, I spent the time talking with some homeboys and females that I usually see at the Five Star Bar, and I was reading the preview of the Steve Jobs biography as an e-book from my phone.

So far, after reading the first chapter that was only available as a preview, this book dissects the late Apple co-founder's history, even before he was born on how his actual birth parents met, as well as his adopted parents as well. It really made me wanting to read the rest of the book and you're an Apple enthusiast like myself, I totally recommend buying the book. Its addicting and the way Walter Issacson published the paragraphs with so much detail is something you can't miss reading, profiling Steve Jobs' life that nobody else knows, and there were some stuff from reading the first chapter that I never knew.

Now back to the Five Star Bar. As Darger De Milo is about to set up and get ready, I see the homegirl D'Ana Spencer in the building dressed as a hot attractive vampire (it was costume night at the Five Star) and greeted her. The last time I saw her was back in April, which was also at the Five Star Bar. I knew that she was gonna show up, so I gave her an 8x10 of her that I shot of her last year. I was originally going to give her on her birthday last December, but I didn't make it to her dinner party cause I was at Valencia test driving Toyota's new lineup of cars for the 2011 model year. She let me use Nicole's Canon Rebel DSLR to take photos of the band performing, and I didn't plan on covering that night. My homeboy Joshua, the Hear Gallery's and Five Star Bar residential house photographer, was also doing work as well, but it tough for us (myself specifically) to get some decent angles from the front of the stage since the crowd was piled up on the floor. That's no surprise since I used to take photos here alot earlier this year. After their performance, one of the Hear Gallery's other flagship bands, Moondog Orchestra, was the final act and then spent time with the homeboys Frank and Shane, who DJ'd the event, after the show.

There's not reality that much to say about Saturday. I don't even want to mention or bring it up. The whole 24 hours was just too dry and plain. Nothing exciting or noteworthy happened. I even walked to my church and got there at the time potluck started cause I woke up late from last night's show. When I got there, I wasn't greeted by anybody. I even made eye contact with some people and not a single response. I stood in line to get the food, and the Pastor was in front of me, didn't bother to look back. I wanted to say hi to him, but five seconds later, I just dipped the church and went back to my place. I've been attending there for almost 8 years and this had never happened before. I'm not shy or anything. I could've went up to the people myself, but I'm used to receiving attention anytime I enter the potluck room. That moment was just something else. I spent the rest of the day watching random ass documentaries on Hulu, including this one weird bloke who quit his job and sold his house by trying to be famous in 30 days by appearing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. This fool didn't have a camera crew or anything, he filmed the whole thing by himself. If he wanted to be famous, he could've took his video camera and used the money from his house he sold to make a sex tape by paying and featuring the entire strippers from King of Diamonds in Miami, and THEN he'll be famous that way in less than 30 days.

I spent Sunday mostly at Lee's 4 Cocktails in Granada Hills watching some NFL games cause I wanted to step out of the house for once during the weekend. Reason why I went there is that one of my homegirls keeps "checking in" there on her Facebook every Sunday, which makes me wanna try to see what the environment is like to watch a game there. This was my second there since the first time visiting the bar was on her birthday a few months ago, only this time, there was like 5 people in the bar when I entered at Noon, and 4 of them were females, including my friend. That's was rare for a bar on a Sunday, but the Raiders and Packers were on a bye week. More people started showing up later. Aside from losing 50 cents in 5 seconds to a game of pool after my opponent made the 8 ball sink in from the start of the game, I had a good time there. The unlimited hot dogs, interacting with some of the regulars and the Patriots losing to the Steelers on three different flat screen TVs made it worth attending Lee's. Belated birthday shoutout to Dafnee, the bartender there that refill my glass of Pepsi several times.

Finally on Halloween the next day, instead of running into pretend strippers and people dressed as the cast of Jersey Shore and Steve Jobs in West Hollywood, I shot over to Nicole's place for her little Halloween party she was hosting, and its was great to see her kids again. I was the only one there without a costume. Didn't plan on dressing but I wore my black Pierce College long sleeve shirt with my American Eagle jeans and Agassi signature Nikes, so I guess you can say I was dressed up kinda like the late Steve Jobs during his keynotes. The party was awesome to my option. There were alot of kids running around in different costumes, a lot of excellent food was made and everyone there went Trick or Treating for candy around the block. It was the first time in 16 years that I went on a Trick or Treat expedition and this was my third one in my lifetime. The first was in 1994 and my second was a year later back when I lived in North Hollywood. I didn't collect any candy, just pretty much taking photos of the kids collecting the sweets from Nicole's neighbors. When we got back, more of my friends that I haven't seen a a while also showed up and I chilled with them as Monday Night Football was showing on Nicole's living room TV at the same time the kids were consuming the candy they collected. Thanks to the parents of Nicole's kid's father for letting me test drive his Nikon D3100 DSLR with the telephoto zoom lens during the party and shoutout to Jorge and Nicole for the hospitality as always.

So that's the last few days of October I experienced. I don't need to bring up the Kim Kardashian/Kris Humphries divorce cause its not my business and despite the fact that I talk about her and met her many times, I knew that the split was gonna happen. Receiving 17 million from a wedding she wanted for television instead of a marriage, that all I gotta say. Man, she keeps changing ever since I first started to like her four years ago. And I'm glad that Frank McCourt is waving the white flag by selling the team since we no longer have to hear about that piece of shit and his overrated ass ex-wife. I really hope the next new owner doesn't fuck up the Dodgers clubhouse and doesn't rename the Stadium like New Orleans did with the Louisiana Superdome (now the Mercedes-Benz Superdome). Finally, I went to a Sonic Drive-In with my little brother for the first time last night on 15th Street in Palmdale. We were coming from my uncle's place in Lancaster and I didn't want to leave the A.V. without visiting that place. The burgers tasted alot like the ones at The Habit, but delicious regardless. I been driving by that area on the 14 freeway for the past two summers and I NEVER noticed it until last night. This is the closet one to the Valley, so I went there just to say that I went there.

Alright, done talking for now. Thanks for reading and don't shave until the end of the month (females are exempted)

October Month in Review

I want to get this quickly off myself first of all.

Yes I know I'm late on this but FUCK THE NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION FOR DISQUALIFYING THE TROJANS INTO THE PLAYOFFS FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS. I've said this before and I'll probably say it until they make a movie out of this shit which will never happen. Some people here worship the Lakers, some idolized the Dodgers, I'm not sure about those who devote themselves to the L.A. Kings, but for me, its all about the USC Trojans football team. Out of at least 30,000 or more schools in this country, regardless of any division, why the fuck is the University of Southern California the one taking the heat. Oh yeah, its those agents willing to feed and fuel the athletes with gifts to make them play better and feel good about themselves. Its like steroids without the steroids.

Why did I bring this up again? The game against Oregon yesterday made me very upset. I didn't see the game on TV but the only thing I saw was the score online. Shit, this was at the Coliseum in front of a national television audience. If this was 2005, either the result would be the other way around, otherwise if the score was the same, then Keith Jackson would be speechless or whatever just like the 2006 National Championship game, which I don't want to get into. The only thing you would hear after the game is the Ducks fans texting their colleagues outside the Coliseum that their drive from Eugene to Los Angeles was totally worth it. But sadly, the Trojans aren't playing for anything this year, and for some people, there's no point of watching them this year. I just watch them cause they're the only team that I actually liked for a long time. They beat the shit out of Berkley in their previous home game, which really impressed me.

Another thing that I wanna spill out is that I really dislike Halloween and everything about it. The only positive thing about it is looking at the females dressing up like whores and strippers, but its more convenient if your wife or significant other was with you in that attire, otherwise its gets dried out really fast. Again, I do not like Holidays, including Christmas. I say Christmas cause everyone views it as a marketing tool for the corporate "white collar big wigs" in the Fortune 500 companies to generate such extraordinary revenue for themselves. This person form my church said that its all about getting "free stuff", which is... in a sense, true. I wanna go to a church with somebody on that day, regardless of any christian domination and just enjoy the holiday spirit by watching and listening to the choir telling the story of Christ's birth in songs. I could care much less if I get don't anything in December 25th, cause, that's kids stuff.

Plus its amazing how they're already hyping up the holiday frenzy already since last week, and October is damn near not even finished yet. I was at the Glendale Galleria last Thursday to take photos of Cindy Crawford (who looked the freakin' same after all these years) promoting her signature skincare product at JCPenney. As I was waiting, I walked by Macy's and they already had CHRISTMAS TREES up at their fragrance department. I was like shit, why not make Christmas Day a month early? But that's already been superseded with the annual "Black Friday" shopping event, the day after Thanksgiving. I'm surprised that those traditions are still going on during the recession where the unemployment rate is STILL increasing.

I wanna touch up on that real quick. Yesterday, I saw a 60 Minutes documentary on how those people unemployed had 99 weeks to be financially taken care of by getting unemployment checks during that period until they find a stable job. But unfortunately, after 99 weeks, those people are still unemployed , and they can't get unemployment benefits after that timeframe expires. So now those people, who went to college back when compact Japanese import vehicles like Honda's Civic, Nissan's Datsun line, and Toyota's Corolla gain notoriety during the oil crisis, are not working since they are almost close to reaching their retirement milestone. The sad part is that they also can't find work and be hired cause of the younger generation, or those under 25, are pretty much dominating the entry level lower-end workforce. I don't know whether to view this as ageism, which is like racism towards age, but I've seen people who I thought looked like they should be a CEO or an exec of some company in a high rise building in Downtown Los Angeles working in places my little brother should be working at. Very sad to see this and embarrassing if it was one of your parents in those positions or worse. All I can say is that to those fortunate enough to make a decent living at the least, just be glad and blessed with what you have, and hold on to it tight. I mean, VERY TIGHT, with knowledge. Just remember where it came from and how you got it.

As for myself, the past month has been pretty much a whirlwind. More like 50/50 or 85/15. There have been some fractures in my family recently (nobody died by the way) and it got to the point where I HAD to move out. So thankfully, my mom's knows this Filipino lady who I think she worked with a while ago and she lives at a house in Sylmar and taking care of her disabled family, who are all older than me. There were a lot of rooms in that house, so she reserved one for me. I might be there until everything turns out well at my legal address, but from the looks of things, I don't even know when' I'll move back there, or how long I might live here in Sylmar. Its a weird coincidence cause the place I'm residing at right now is less than 30 seconds from my church and my friend Frank's house. Other than that, I'm doing fine here. Spent a month already here, don't have to pay rent cause lady knows my situation with not getting hired for the past two years. Plus they have a lot of great food, and I've been trying out some Filipino entree's that I've never tasted before, which is fantastic to the max.

I've been very busy like a fuckin' beast for the past few weeks also. I've been taking a lot of photos, test driving a bunch of cars and meeting celebrities. I know that sounds like the shit I've been doing every month for the past year, but this was somewhat a premium version of it. I spent a lot of time with my good friend Nicole Stetter and her friend's group Darger De Milo by supporting them in their recording sessions. Nicole had a lot of people she knew who had a number of parties and kickbacks, so I took photos of those and made some new friends/clients/acquaintances or whatever you want to call it. I can't describe all of those gatherings in detail cause there was a different one every other day which made it look like it was 2007-08 all over again. It was very fantastic, including Aftergloam (one of my friend's music group) bassist Cecilia Navaratte's birthday at Universal Citywalk. I've never thought that I would witness a party where they had a surprise proposal, a bachelorette party, and a drunk 40 something woman who would hit on me in front of her husband, who WAS COOL ABOUT THE WHOLE THING from his own words. Like I said, those events were too indescribable to put into sentences.

One of my favorite things I did this month was test driving the all new Nissan Leaf, which is the first all electric car to have absolutely no emissions whatsoever, meaning no smog checks, no gasoline, no CO2's being emitted into the air, none of that shit. It was in invite event which took place at Westfield Century City mall in Century City that was operated by Nissan of North America. We had to be schooled on the origins and the dissection of the vehicle, and it was worth capturing my attention. We even got to drive it around Century City, which made me and those who also attended the first ever people in Los Angeles to drive this car. Keep in mind that this car is not gonna be out in a year and its still going thorough some approval process from the government. To me, when I was driving it, it felt like you're driving a golf cart with options and a body around it, cause like I said earlier, this car is, as Nissan simply stated it, 100% electric with no gasoline whatsoever. Nowadays, people can care less on what kind of car you drive, whereas five years ago, you were doing it if you pushed a Chrysler 300c or a Infiniti G35 or a Cadillac Escalade. But the recent economic recession has changed a lot of people views on many financial aspects, which is why I wrote earlier that the holiday shopping hasn't changed its traditional habits. Speaking of finances, they didn't say what the price for the vehicle is, but I'm guessing its gonna be between 17 grand to $30,000 at the most. I could go on all day with this car.

Yep, its been a stressful, exciting, interesting, useful, decent, and challenging month this year. I did my best to make it full of positive energy. That's how every month should be, minus all the family drama, negative politics and bullshit. I really need to rest and catch up on the NFL. I've been missing watching some games from editing and scanning all the photos I took this month, but hey, I'm a photographer, so I have to maintain my "Ryan-Seacrest-busy-all-over-the-place" grind.

Oh yeah, major shoutout to Cadillac for letting me drive your whips as many times as you let me this month. Even though I'm a Japanese automobile person, y'all are and always will be underrated and I respect your heritage in the American culture. And shoutout to Tianna Edmonson, the drummer for Aftergloam, for hosting all those kickbacks at your place this month. Its always an experience every time I go there. Also, shoutout to Universal and AMC for re-showing Back To The Future in theaters again for two nights. I FUCKIN' ENJOYED IT! I should've brought someone with me, but it selling like crazy and I spent 15 dollars on a Large popcorn and a Large Cherry Coke (they didn't have Pepsi). Yes, 2 of those for 15 dead Washington's. I've never though I'd see this movie in a large screen, but they remastered it and made it look sharper and clearer. Plus I went home with 5 limited edition posters of the movie they gave away. I don't even know what I'm gonna do with them, seriously. Finally, big shoutout to Amber Marshall for letting go berserk in your Mercedes-Benz CLK convertible last week. Damn, I drove a lot of cars this month.