You're Only Live Once

First off, birthday shoutout to the homeboy Eric Jackson today. Very great person to get to known over the past two years. Here's a Christmas portrait I took of him and his family back in December 2009.

Thanks again to Eric, his brother Steven and his mother Teresa for letting photograph them during that holiday season. 

As for me, last week sucked. Alot of fucking high speed pursuit chases in Los Angeles made the Grand Theft Auto video game series look like a sequel to Gone in Sixty Seconds taking place in the early 90's. There was one in The Valley in which the driver of a purple Chevy Avalance rollin' on dubs (not joking) disappered into someone's random backyard in the Pacoima/Arleta border, like he vanished or some shit cause the California Highway Patrol (not the LAPD since the chase started on the freeway) and the K-9 unit spent the rest of the evening looking for him and they still haven't found the next day, which was the 11th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Also on that day, there was another high speed chase. It had this fool parading the cops all over Los Angeles through Hollywood, the Westlake District and on Figueroa passing the Staples Center and LA Live. The pursuit finally ended when the suspect got out of his white mid 90's Honda Civic and got shot (still alive) by the Police. 

The next high speed chase was by far WAY UNEXPECTED that the other two. A couple of blokes busted into a Bank Of America up in Canyon Country just north of Newhall in the Santa Clarita Valley. Then, like old school stereotypical Bonnie and Clyde shit from back in the day, the took the banks money (which is really other people's money from their savings accounts) and ran off with it. They then sped all the way in their Volvo XC 90 crossover SUV to South Central Los Angeles and did something that nobody in the history of the world would ever do and would never do again... 

THEY MOTHERFUCKING MADE IT RAIN IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD BY TOSSING OUT HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS OF THE BANK'S MONEY OUT TO THE STREETS AND THAT SHIT GOT THE ENTIRE BLOCK OUTSIDE GOING CRAZY!!!!

Now this would be legal if it was their OWN money being thrown away, but since it was the banks and being in other people's accounts, it wasn't legal, which is why the cops were telling everyone in the hood to return the money back to them. It makes sense, but that would be impossible because I assume that most people were already getting set to purchase the new iPhone 5 that was just announced by Apple on that same day. Switching gears to the iPhone 5, that device looks cool. A bigger 4 inch screen and the back is no longer made of glass but with a aluminum finish instead, along with its new A6 processor and the option to use 4G LTE next generation cellular networking which they claim its downloads faster data while using the internet on it. I'm gonna wait till I play with this device so that I can express my full thoughts on it. Right now there are people in New York City who are actually giving up a week of their lives by camping out in front of the 5th Avenue Apple store (the one with the big-ass glass cube that never closes) so that they can be the first ones to cop the iPhone 5. I don't blame them since the pre-order sale last Friday sold out faster than this years Coachella tickets. Very high demand for this device, and Samsung is even playing along, I guess.

The only good thing I did this weekend was driving through Mulholland Drive for some inspiration and clear thinking and I copped myself a couple of vinyls from the 1980's that are out-of-print and extremely hard to find in CD format, as well as a new Primitive t-shirt for the little sister that I'd promised her before her trip to Nigeria over the summer and a lot of stickers. (thanks Ashley and the blokes at Amoeba Records) 

The vinyls are Secret Rendezvous by Cindy Valentine, Strange Language from Romeo Void's lead vocalist Debora Iyall, and a recorded interview of Filipino-American artist Eleanor Academia with some of her songs. I got that record because I couldn't find her Jungle Wave album that I was actually looking for, but this record was good with the interviews. I tired to find Wall Of VooDoo's Call Of The West album, but I was surprised that Amoeba Records didn't have it, since it was as common as the other 3 records I bought. So I went to Freak Beat Records, which is my backup spot in Sherman Oaks, and they actually had it, but it was the very last one and I bought it anyways. Thanks again to Freak Beat for reserving that album. 

By the way, I finally sold the T-Mobile G2 to the little brother over the week, so for those who stay in touch with me on instagram (@justforsneaks07), I won't be uploading that much photos on there that much for the time being, but I'll still be checking and lurking on it thanks to Statigram.com, where you can view a stream of your instagram feed on your computer. What more worse was that they money I got from my phone ($75) was all blown on fuel for the brother's whip and a bunch of magazines for my pops new coffee table, several handsoaps from Bath And Body Works in Porter Ranch (thank you Jackie for the customer service) and other expensive high performance cleaning shit for the two parties he threw at his house. Hey, it happens and I'm already used to it. 

Finally, I checked out the replay of the Season premiere of Saturday Night Live with Seth MacFarlane as the host and Frank Ocean as the musical guest this morning (I didn't see his performance cause I was upset from USC's loss to Stanford and I went to bed early, and the replay cut off the performances). That episode was funny. It had me laughing and MacFarlane was doing a number of voices throughout the show. It would've more interesting and a lot funnier if he hosted around 2005, when Family Guy was back in production and the debut of his other show American Dad. By the way, I once spoke to him on the phone before. I was working at the Apple Store 4 years ago when I was ringing up this lady and she told me to give her a discount since she was Seth MacFarlane's sister. I didn't believe her at first until she whipped out her cell phone and made me speak to her brother, which was really him. Dude did some voices from his show and told me about The Cleveland Show he was working on just a year before everyone else knew about it. After that, I gave the lady her discount. 

Alright, time to survive through another hot-ass week in the Valley and to start looking into my homegirl Vanessa Cuenca's birthday party gathering in Downtown LA this Friday. Haven't seen her in over a year and she's one of the realest persons around my age to talk to about current events and other real stuff. Thanks for your time reading this.

February Month in Review

These past two weeks had alot of great moments. That's the main reason why I haven't been updating this blog in a long time.

Right now, I'm typing this entry from my new cell phone. Yes, I finally got a cell phone courtesy of my ridiculous tax refund, which was the LARGEST I ever got in the past 7 years that I've been working. Last year I did a brief gig as a graduation photographer at USC and Cal State Northridge. I enjoyed it, and I also ran into some old friends, and a teacher I had from middle school, wearing caps and gowns as I placed them behind the school banner on stage for the photographer to get their portrait. That literally could've been me up there if I took the ACT or the SAT in High School, despite that I maintained a perfect 3.6 GPA at Kennedy High.

The cell phone I got is the T-Mobile G2. AND I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS, THIS MOBILE DEVICE IS THE SHIT!

Now on one of my earlier entrires, I stated that I didn't want to get any smartphone that has Android running on it. Well, I lied... but not really. I originally wanted to get the Blackberry Torch after spending the first three weeks of the year deciding on either that or the iPhone 3GS which was being sold for $49, but the AT&T store that I went to in Encino said that I needed to put down a $500 deposit in order to start the service plan. After he said that, I just bounced out of there. I then checked out Verizon to see what they had, but all the good phones were hella pricey. Then later this past week after I cashed in my tax refund check at Bank of America in Warner Center (I'm surprised my savings account is still open since I haven't been doing transactions with them in a year), I dropped by the Westfield Promenade which is a walking distance from the bank and dropped $100 even on two books, two photography magazines, and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

I then walked to the Topanga mall which is a block north, while wearing flip flops. I don't even know what the hell I was thinking when I decided to wear those, and they hurted my feet. I was about to head to the Verizon store to double check on their products, but first I had to buy this cool shirt I saw on Hollister's website. I know Hollister fell off since the beginning of the recession in mid 2008 and that not everyone buys thier products there like they used to 5 to 7 years ago. As I went inside the store, this girl that was working there greeted me like in every other Hollister store. I said hi and then decided to have a second look cause I thought that I saw her face somewhere before. So I went back to her and asked her if she went to the same high school that I went to and that girl turned out to be one of my old classmates. I won't mention her name on here just to respect her privacy, but it was great running into her. In fact, she was the one who got me into Hollister in the first place back when The O.C. was still on TV, since the characters on that show wear those type of clothes.

After I bought the shirt, I saw the T-Mobile store that is close by on the same floor next to the Macy's wing (for those of you who have been to Westfield Topanga before the expansion in 2006, that's where Robinson's May used to be at until Macy's bought them), so I decided to see what they have before I head to Verizon. I asked them about the T-Mobile G2 and they decided to give me a good deal on it. Five minutes later, I walked out of there with a brand new cell phone and a brand new number, which is on the CONTACT column on this website.

I spent the rest of the week playing with this phone like its a Christmas present I got back in the 90's. This device has EVERYTHING. From GPS to continous flash while taking video, which I never saw in any other phone, this thing is totally loaded. It reminds me of the time I got the Motorola V360 a week after my 18th birthday, which was one of top of the line phones for T-Mobile had back in 2006. In the past couple of months, I've said some intolerable shit about all the smartphones. And after abusing the G2 this week, I can see why. The reviews for this device were fairly and generally positive, about 9 out of 10. Yet, the only downfall is the battery life, which goes out very quickly, but hey, the specs are intense.

Other than that, everything else was fun. I met up with one of my old friends from elementary school in Burbank three weeks ago. We ate at California Pizza Kithchen and browsed around the Burbank mall and around Downtown Burbank while I was explaining to her why I didn't want to watch Chris Brown perform on Saturday Night Live that night with Russsell Brand hosting, which I did want to see. That day was great.

A week later, I went to the NBA All Star Jam fest with one of my friend's family at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It was like Fiesta Lakers that I went to in 2009, but only more larger than life. Dwayne Wade was the only "famous person" that I witnessed there, and I managed to get a terrific shot of him coming out to the crowd. They had a lot of basketball related activites there for the kids, which was generous from the NBA. one of the main reasons I went is that stuff like this only comes once in a lifetime, and I wanted to take great advantage of it.

One last major thing before I take off. Great Big shoutout to NBA/Lakers Photographer Andrew Berstein for getting to meet you and autographing my Journey To The Ring: 2009-10 Los Angeles Lakers book today at Barnes and Noble in the Westside Pavillion mall. I've been to many book signings, but not like the one today where Andrew Berstein, along with former Lakers coach Bill Sherman and his wife, took their time to explain about the book and why he chose to publish it. THAT'S HOW EVERY BOOK SIGNING EVENT SHOULD BE LIKE! And finally, major shoutout to my best friend Tina for escorting with me to the event. I had a really fantastic time.