I used to get hyped up for that day every year, but for tomorrow's game, not so much. It's somewhat of a rematch of the Super Bowl from 4 years ago, with both the New England Patriots and the New York Giants going against each other for the Vince Lombardi trophy in front of over 800 million something people watching around the world. If the Niners and or the Ravens won on their conference championship games instead, then I'd be more interested for tomorrow. And already websites are playing the $3,000,000 30 second ads that will be aired in-between the games. I only saw one of them and its for the new Honda CR-V crossover featuring Matthew Broderick reprising his role as Ferris Bueller since the commercial satires some of the scenes from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I thought it was another 1980's resurrection "keeping the franchise alive" type bullshit piece, which it kinda is, but I actually liked this ad.
I was a huge fan of that movie back when TBS would play this film every now and then in the early 2000's. I remember reading one of the screenplay drafts of the film on my moms old computer and printing the script which turned out to be about 170 pages! I'd like that more then the film itself but the only difference is that it showed some dark, rebellious moods of Ferris and some of the scenes that were cut off form the final film include him, Sloane and Cameron going to a strip club, visiting a radio station, Ferris going to his pops room to take his savings bond check or something like that and the ending credits clip were it showed Mr. Rooney going on the school bus with the students from his high school was supposed to be somewhere in the middle around the final third part of the film. Plus according to the draft, Ferris had two other siblings instead of just Jeanie, so yeah, the late John Hughes (RIP) cut off alot of shit from the screenplay, even during the principal photography of the production. Bottom line, this is one of the best films made because of the message that it showcase. Its all about just searching and enjoying your life every now and then cause its flies by "pretty fast".
But other than that I'll probably watch the Super Bowl cause everybody else that I know who's never watch a regular season NFL game will be viewing the Patriots V. Giants part II tomorrow, and to watch the ads as well as Madonna still showing that even fifty-somethings (no disrespect) can still be trendy in the "Barack Obama post-recession" era during halftime.
As for myself, I've been more booked and busy since the last time I wrote on here. I did a lot of interesting things, including going to a Burger King which sells Miller Light beer (didn't drink) and taking several photos of attractive female entertainers who fake orgasms, but hey, its my job.
My friend Nicole Stetter threw this one kickback at her place two Fridays ago. I wasn't really gonna attend but then I changed my mind later cause I haven't seen any of my mutual friends in several months including the group Santoros who was performing there. After I heard that they were gonna perform, I thought its was gonna be as chaotic as the last time they performed in Granada Hills, (blogged about here last summer http://justforsneaks07.blogspot.com/2011/07/sporting-entertainments.html)
but it wasn't like that. The crowd grew moderately as the time went by, but it didn't fill up to full capacity like it did last year, and there was nobody swimming in Nicole's swimming pool. When I arrived, I ran into some OG's from middle school and high school that I haven't seen in years and talked with them for a while. Then took some photos of Santoros performing and this one group called Blue Jungle. I've never seen them performed before, but I liked them, especially the lead singer. Never have I seen a female vocalist who would go walking in style onto the crowd and sing right next to the people watching them. Band was terrific and I think they did like five songs. Later on, I chilled in Nicole's room with a few other people as they construct a small jam session. This was one of the best jam sessions that I ever heard, and THIS WAS REAL FUCKING MUSIC RIGHT THERE. Everyone was just brainstorming with different instruments by just playing them with confidence and it was raw. The homegirl D'Ana Joi Spencer (http://awakewithjoi.tumblr.com/) was running things with her ukulele and her fantastic vocal signing skills, with others playing with instruments you would never hear that much in person such as bongos, an organ and the homeboy Victor Diaz (http://victortillas.com/) was strumming along with an Acoustic guitar. A few minutes later, I then passed out on Nicole's couch and somewhat missed out on the rest of that night. I didn't drink but the cold outside her backyard made me tired. Major shoutout to Nicole, Jorge, Uriel Jimenez, Leticia Llesmin, Amanda Welsch, and everyone else that was there that night. That's how a standard gathering should always be like.
I also got a chance to spend some time with my moms and the sisters this past Monday night. Haven't seen them for a month but it was great to catch up with them. We drove around from my sister's work in 24 Hour Fitness in Burbank to Downtown LA near the American Apparel headquarters factory through some neighborhoods in Hancock Park and the Mid-City portion of Los Angeles. Stopped by this joint called Lucy's to get some enchiladas on Pico and La Brea by the suggestion of one of my sisters and I haven't ate at Lucy's since 1996. My family and I used to go there RELIGIOUSLY back in the day and the enchiladas were still made the same after all these years. Finally drove through Century City and I was giving them some brief history lessons and facts about each neighborhood and city we drove by like I was some sort of cheap tour guides. Great time with them. Wish it was like this more often but then again, we're all getting older so its better to do it once in a while.
And if things couldn't get more brilliant, the first day of February started off flawless for me, minus the passing of Don Cornelius earlier that morning. First, I got a chance to do this paid non-photography gig at the Califone warehouse not to far away from my place in Sylmar, where I spent 4 hours unloading boxes from trucks and organizing them in pallets. For those who remember way WAY back in the day at elementary school, before 1994, Califone was this company that made those blue phonograph turntables with the big speaker in front with the words Califone over it in white, and every classroom would have one where the teachers forced us to sing a bunch of songs that we'll never want to sing in the future. But it was alot of work that day. My muscles ached and I had to wear a backbrace which show just how serious the unloading was. The whole process kept me motivated and confident, like I was doing 5 miles on a treadmill. I left with a couple of splinters on my hand from carrying all the wooden pallets for the forklifts. Hopefully they might ask for me again for another gig. Second, I finally got the Adobe Lightroom 4 Beta installed on the iMac at the living room in my place. I downloaded it right after Adobe announced it three weeks ago, but I couldn't complete the installation process cause the passwords were changed on the iMac the week before and one of my house mates misplaced the list. So we finally manage to recover it and already proceeded with installing it. Lightroom 4 looks very similar to the previous version, only with a few small tweaks. I've only edited 2 photos so far cause I haven't got a chance to fully play with it. I'm gonna be using it to edit the photos I took of the kickback at Nicole Stetter's place last week, as well as the photoshoot I did of my homegirl Molly back on New Years day a month ago. The absolute best part of the Lightroom 4 beta trail is that the software doesn't expire until the full final software is released around late March or early April. Usually, Adobe would give about a month for their users to try their software applications, including the Creative Suite package, but for Lightroom 4 beta, its about two months that I get to use this for free. You can't beat that, since Lightroom is the most popular application that photographers use to fix up their work and projects.
Third and finally, I drove over to my friend Tiffany Zhang's place in the Thousand Oaks/Westlake Village area. Haven't seen her in person in a year and a half, which was around the time the week after the Lakers won their 16th title. She wanted me to help her create a listing so that she can sell some of her stuff. Then we talked for a bit and she later made me some dinner straight from China, where she's from. Dumplings and dates with sticky rice wrapped around it. I enjoyed it ALOT, and it made me ask for seconds. Had a fun time catching up with her and its been four years of that day since I first met her at the Apple Store in Sherman Oaks back in 2008. Thanks again Tiffany for the delicious food.
I really wanted to watch David Letterman celebrate his 30th year on late night television that night with Howard Stern as one of his guests, but I was really tired from all that work and driving during the way. Letterman just broke Johnny Carson's tenure has hosting a late night talk show from 1963 to 1992, which was about 29 years. I think David has a couple of years to do this cause I honestly don't see him hanging it up, he's been doing this shit since 1982. Major props to him, and in my opinion, he should've gotten The Tonight Show 20 years ago if the NBC suits haven't screwed him over by picking Leno so that they can focus on the "younger audience". They should've left that for Arsenio Hall cause his show featured all of that and he could've been around for a few more years in the 90's.
So that's what I've been up to these past few days and weeks. Looks like February is gonna be another packed month. The new kid on the music block Lana Del Rey is gonna be performing at Amoeba Records this Tuesday at 6PM. I'm gonna try to attend that so that I can see her in person after watching her on Saturday Night Live last month. It might be tricky cause I can assume that there's gonna be a shitload of people there. Not really alot but a decent amount of people and plus she just got started. I'll take some photos and buy her record, but hopefully, I'll try to score an autograph since Amoeba's website said that the autograph session is "sold out". What the fuck does that mean. Is Lana Del Rey's time very limited or something? If she really cares for her fans, then should just not abide by her publicist's rules (if she's has one) and let her stay as long as she wants. The other most important thing, in my case, is to try to pick up the Air Jordan IV Retro White/Cement colorway that releases later this month. It's an original colorway from 1989 and the Air Jordans that Buggin' out went crazy after that bloke in the Celtics jersey scuffed on it in Do The Right Thing. I might have already talked about this sneaker and I'll probably talk about it again later.
Another thing, well 2 things actually, is some stuff that I wanna spit out from my mind. First is those "Shit People Says" video clips. I live in Los Angeles which is a very diverse city and I seen every different races and culture lifestyles in the 24 years that I've been living here. Same thing from watching the movie Crash as well, which is a must see. Everytime I go on the internet to upload some of my photos on a forum my Facebook or website, I always come across a different "Shit People Says" clip, and each one portrays a different ethnic race or some stereotype being portrayed. Honestly, that shit is played out. It was fine when different comedians used to make fun of their own race a few years ago before 2006 because people can relate to what their saying since their speaking the truth. I'm not a racist and I don't like to bring up that topic that much anymore, cause at the end of the day, we're all just regular people with different backgrounds. I'll do my best just to ignore them cause apparently, its becoming the new "trend" this year. Speaking of trends, fuck that one percenter Jack Dorsey and his Twitter suits up in Silicon Valley. Letting people trend about fake celebrity deaths for more than day and y'all can't have your programmers prevent that shit or make some PSA type notice about it? Shit is totally childish and immature using death as a play thing. That fool and whoever else is in charge needs to do a better job overseeing the content. I seriously think Justin Bieber's and Selena Gomez's publicists should tax him 38% of his earnings, not the companies, for everytime their fans worship the young couple on the trending topic. I'm only on Twitter just to plug my photography, so I have to be on there.
Well, that just show that not everything is perfect. Its a wild and bizarre lifestyle everyone endures every 24 hours. We do things and see things that we don't like in front of us. From that hot girl we think who's with a dude that she doesn't deserve to be holding hands with to long ridiculous lines at the courthouses and the Department of Motor Vehicles only to see two out of the 10 booths open to seeing a group of 15 year old teenagers on the subways during school hours unless if they go to a private charter school with a strange schedule. What's important is bypassing all of that distraction and reaching out to where your goals are targeted every day. Most people will receive free stuff without getting anything out of it whereas some people will earn stuff after putting out everything. Just focus on your best, and fuck the rest. Thanks for your time reading.
