Hogan's Family Heroes

Even though the entire family fell off, you can't disrespect Brooke Hogan's shoe game. I randomly came across this photo of her, with her brother Nick, rockin the Nike SB "Unkle" dunk, which came out in late 2004, that's now hard to find at a reselling price average of $500. Lets hope her pops doesn't conceive another child with his newly just recently married wife, Jennifer McDaniel, who looks JUST LIKE his daughter. Take a look at the photo below that proves my point.

Brooke is the one on the left to avoid confusion.

I'll believe it when I see it

Fuck, that shit looks so tight.

These are proposed rendered drawings and architecture for a new stadium built in the L.A. Live complex district next to Staples Center, Los Angeles Convention Center, and the J.W. Marriott/Ritz Carlton Hybrid Hotel. This shit is gonna cost 1 Billion dollars to construct in under a year. I think they should have the big wig corporate fat cats fund for this, just like they're doing with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Another thing. If and when we're going to get an NFL team here, why can't they just play at the Coliseum or the Rose Bowl instead? Saves alot of time and money. Wait, its because Tim Leiweke, the Chief Executive Officer of AEG and the mastermind of LA Live, is doing whatever he can to turn Downtown LA into an offspring of Manhattan and the Las Vegas Strip in Southern California, in which we taxpayers have to chip in due to the city's troubling budget problems. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it was fine back when the Raiders played in the Coliseum, minus Al Davis' numerous dates with the Los Angeles courtroom judges.

Damn, no wonder Ervin "Magic" Johnson sold his stake of the Lakers to help AEG bring and possibly own an NFL team in Los Angeles. I remember when he owned 30% of Los Angeles. Dude has his own movie theaters, a franchised 24 Hour Fitness, and a franchised Starbucks coffee shops among other things. The first of many times I met him was at his own theater next to the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza back in 1999. My siblings and I just finished seeing Toy Story 2 there and Magic was there to meet the kids who were attendance. It was something my mom's job sponsored then during the holidays that year, and the did this thing where employees with kids can take them to his theater to watch Toy Story 2 for free, meet Magic Johnson and get a bunch of free Christmas gifts. I didn't want to meet him because I wasn't into the NBA that much then, but my moms got very pissed off and forced me to. So I went and shook his hand and that's all I can remember. Went by very fast.

By the way, the city is doing fine without an NFL team, but it be nice to have one just so that all the critics and the media jerks can shut the fuck up. Lets hope this next NFL franchise learns it mistakes from the Los Angeles Xtreme, who were owned by Vince McMahon's XFL league, and the Los Angeles Avengers, in which the Arena Football league got affected by the recession, and also, I'd like to see a very catchy name and some dope ass colorways for this NFL team, if and when we get one here.

Pulling Some Roots Over The Weekend

I had a rags to riches type weekend. It started out stale on Friday. I was supposed to go to my friend Joanna's graduation in Hawthorne that night, but my uncle and my pops wanted me to cover a wakekeeping event... in Hawthorne. Weird coincidence. So I rode with my family to the event and its been a long ass time since I rode in the backseat with my little brother. I remember when this was a frequent thing everyday back when we were kids, with me and all three of my siblings being squished up in the backseat in every car my parents owned, regardless if its a compact of a full size sedan.

When we got there, my uncle said that I was going to work with these two other Nigerian photographers cause he has to be at another wakekeeping in Torrance (yeah, too many people died recently). I worked with them twice before, but this time, one of the guys wants me to videotape it and he had the other guy take some still shots of it. It should've been the other way around. Throughout the whole time, my back was starting to ache cause I was holding the camera, which is the same exact Canon XL-1 that my uncle has, for almost 4 hours. I had to take quick breaks by sitting down on a chair. At the end of the night, I was compensated $10 for all that work. I'm not complaining. Money is money. I could've let that Ten Dollar bill grow or something, but I needed it for fuel unfortunately. I wouldn't say the event was great, since it was for one of my parents friends who passed away, but the people there, including my pops, were dancing non-stop for almost three and a half hours like an unorganized high school homecoming dance.

Saturday was just nothing. I missed out on my friend D'Ana Spencer's birthday party in Studio City cause some other last minute shit came up. That got me very upset. These things went from driving all the way up to Westfield Valencia Town Center to test drive some cars that Toyota had in their lineup, which was a 2011 Sienna, the new Highlander Hybrid and this Toyota Prius Prototype in which they claim that its a Plug-In electric that has added two Lithium-Ion batteries to give the car more range after one power charge. Its still a regular Prius to me. I've been to many, MANY test drives throughout the year, but this one wasn't like any of them. The test drive for each car lasted for less than 45 seconds, with the total experience turning out to be 1 minute and 35 seconds for all three Toyotas. I could've done that time in ONE car. And what's more worse was that they gave me a free movie theater voucher for the theater right next to the mall. I wish those fuckers knew that I don't like to go to movie theaters so they could give me a gift card to the mall at least. That shit was a waste.

I also gave this one girl a ride to her place in Sylmar when I was there pumping gasoline in my car. It was her and her husband that needed a lift, but all of a sudden, her husband started going postal and say all kinds of mad shit to her. Hell, he even broke up with her RIGHT ON THE SPOT. The girl told me that she's moving to Washington D.C, the nation's capital. I thought she was attractive, well, not too attractive. Just trying to be nice. I wish I was at D'Ana's party instead of doing all that other stuff on that day.

On Sunday, I drove all the way up to the Antelope Valley to help my uncle cover an event at a Nigerian church in Palmdale. One of the members there was getting ordained as one of the Pastors of the church. It was decent, minus all the little kids making a lot of noise. I spent the night at my uncle's place to help him edit some videos and photos.

When I woke up the next morning, my car was all iced up, since I was at the High Desert, which gets really cold during the winter. As I got back to Valley, I decided to go take my car to get it serviced at the Pep Boys in San Fernando since it was the closet on in Sylmar. While I was waiting for it to be worked on, I decided to stroll around the San Fernando Mall. The stores were open, but the strip itself was dead. There were no cars parked and there wasn't that many people walking around. Plus, literally every store was the same thing, selling prom/Quinceanera dresses and tuxedo rentals. That's REALLY competitive. Also, the economy isn't that well, so I can understand why there aren't a lot of people there. I guess it gets jumping during the spring, since most weddings and school dances are around that time. After that I rode to Northridge to go do some Christmas shopping for myself. Just got some shirts and a new electric trimmer.

Later on that night, I rode with my pops to go visit his brother who just came back from Nigeria over the weekend. During the ride, we spent the whole time just looking back and reminiscing when everything was perfect before he split with my mom. I used to ride to church with him back when I was in ninth grade, and we would always have these discussions every week, but that night was the first time we had that in, shit forever. It acted like nothing ever happened, even though I had my differences and constant disputes with my parents for the past few years, but that shit typically happens in families. Its hard to control but you learn from it. Probably the only true meaning of the holidays, not the whole "buying gifts and having that person returning it the day after Christmas" bullshit.

Yeah, I know, a late weekend review. I'm not lazy, but I have to find the right time to type the recap. Speaking of blogs, there's a sure chance that I might be re-starting my website again, only using a different service. That means I'll be typing my posts there and showcasing my photos on the site just like I did when I had my website with iWeb and MobileMe two years ago. I might even have to retire this site also. It'll still be up, but I won't be writing on here. This is still in the works and we'll see how it turns up. My projection date to launch it is in New Years Day 2011, so I'll have plenty of time to map this out.

Oh yeah, before I forget, FUCK YOU TIME MAGAZINE FOR MAKING MARK ZUCKERBURG PERSON OF THE YEAR! And fuck that rich billionaire bastard Mark Zuckerburg. I'd rather see one of the Kardashians or some annoying Youtube breakout sensation win that instead of him. Shit, I might quit Facebook to focus on the site I'm working on more than that social networking piece of shit. That's something Taylor Swift could've pulled off last year. Man, I totally ran out and can't think of more cuss words for this.

There's a lot of Birthdays in December

Yeah, so many of them, including my moms, my little sister and Jesus Christ. No problem with that, but its the same thing with November and March. But today I just wanna recognize two females, Candace Cootz And D'Ana Joi Spencer, as they celebrate another year of life today. To me, they're such very awesome women to get to know.

Candace's birthday last year at Manna Korean Barbeque in Los Angeles holding the presents I gave her.

One of the first of many photos I took of D'Ana when I met her back in September. I'm glad she's still here.

Well, back to work for me on editing photos as usual and to get ready for some gigs this weekend.

C.H.i.K.S.

Barack stays ballin' on his second half of his term. 48 more states to go (excluding Alaska since they have no highways)

Music makes you use control

Tom Scott's saxophone piece from his 1988 album Flashpoint is the fucking shit, and Rick Ross is an entertainer spitting lyrics that makes you pray for a remake of Scarface, which I doubt will ever happen. If it wasn't for playing both of their albums on repeat today, I would've been lagging more on editing photos, re-considering getting a TV for my room in Sylmar and started getting used to enjoying bullshit 30 second ads on video streaming sites.

By the way, not having a decent job, aside from photography gigs, ISN'T pleasing at all obviously. I mentioned about this on here several times, so its best if you read the previous posts I typed earlier this year that covers the topic more in depth. I'm not incredibly lazy, but if someone tells me to go apply for one, I'll just laugh my ass off. If they, or yourself, ask why, I'll tell them, and yourself, to go talk to my ex job agent, Jackie Bernstein, about all the places around the San Fernando Valley she took me to last year for six months. She'll tell you.

From getting what you came for, just because

Fuck, its already December, the last month of 2010.

This past few days have been absolutely crazy in terms of being busy. I haven't gotten a chance to stop and relax for a bit. I even tried to be internet sober for 12 hours last Friday, but instead, I winded up doing some work at my Pops house in Granada Hills by cleaning the yard and some interior housework. Later on, I spent the rest of the time to kill by finishing up the Toy Story 3 DVD that Pops got the week before to play for the kids at his Thanksgiving party.

After watching the film, I gotta admit, that shit was VERY funny. Yes, the ending was kinda somber for those who've seen and understand the first two films in theaters like myself, but I DIDN'T SHED A DAMN TEAR LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE DID. The film was pure comedy. Hell, I was laughing throughout some, if not, most parts of the film. Now I totally regret not watching it in theaters this past summer, especially in 3D. But at least I didn't have to deal with the fucking kids screaming and the high school dipshits talking/texting inside the theater during the screening, another reason why I don't go out to cinemas that much.

Speaking about nostalgia, Facebook is now having this weird cause where you have to post a cartoon character to raise awareness for children who are victims of child abuse. Here's the exact quote of this whole shit.

"Change your facebook profile picture to a cartoon from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same. Until Monday, there should be no human faces on facebook, but a stash of memories. This is for eliminating violence against children"

To me, that's just an excuse to let everyone in the whole world know what guilty pleasure animated show you used to watch back in the day without being totally embarrassed. Plus the whole cause makes no sense at all. Whoever started it needs to get their ass kicked, or has gotten their ass kicked in the past which him or her create this awareness cause. I mean why cartoon characters? Why not just post up baby pictures of ourselves instead, but that won't happen because at least half of Facebook's demographic are too lazy to scan pictures. I don't like to be biased, but I've seen it happen. This thing is supposed to go on until the end of tonight, but I won't be surprised if people kept their favorite cartoon characters up after the end of this month. As much as I love to bring up the past many times, you can't always live in it in the present. Once it gone, its fucking gone.

So y'all wanna talk about animated nostalgia, all right then. Here's my throwback profile picture for this ridiculous cause that I put up for a few hours.

Original 1991 Jetsons: The Movie VHS. You can't find this videotape anywhere nowadays, except a used copy on eBay. Way long out of print. That, along with The Flintstones were one of THE BEST cartoons in the history of the world, and its a fact. They were what The Simpsons are today back when those two shows debuted, by airing on Primetime television after dinner. Hanna-Barbera owned the entire Saturday Morning industry by shitting on Disney and Warner Bros. (who were also decent) back in 60's, 70's and 80's. I did it for the hell of it just cause everyones profile pictures kept grewing on me, and to use as an excuse to not feel embarrassed. But in terms of child abuse, sadly, nobody in this world is perfect and everyone was raised differently, otherwise I'd use this unorthodox photo of Dr. Phil McGraw as my profile picture instead.

Alright, enough about my childhood before I get too caught up being stuck in the 1990's again (which I don't really mind that much). I just wanted to get that out of my mind. Twitter is doing the same shit with celebrities abandoning their updates on their profiles until the cause that they're supporting raises One Million Dollars to fight and prevent AIDS being spread in Africa and India. Now, at first, I'm all for that and shit, but did they REALLY have to go as far as having popular A-list celebrities "dying"? Haven't we learned something from 2009?

Everywhere I go in conversations, people say that so many celebrities that year has passed away than any other year. You're not supposed to fuck with death, or pretend with it. I was surprised that movie Death at a Funeral was premiered at the beginning of this year. I'm sure the movie must've been green-lighted prior to 2009, but they should've at least re-wrote the script or changed the title. Then again, its a recession since movie studios can't afford to do production all over again and controversy creates cash. Why can't each of the stars just used their millions of their own money? Or hell, even most of the bankrupt-proof corporate big wigs and that rich asshole Mark Zuckerburg just donate to that cause in which the total amount will QUADRUPLE, TRIPLE, DOUBLE the amount totaled that buyalife.org, the site running this cause, will reach. Here's one of the advertisements for this.

Looking at this really gives me the chills. Speaking of Kim Kardashian, I met her again for the ninth time last Thursday.

First and foremost, MAJOR thank you shoutout to my homeboy Ryan Castro for hooking me up with this again. I was gonna skip this, but apparently he managed to tag me along with him. It was a book signing event for their book Kardashian Konfidental at the Borders at Westfield Century City mall. I saw Kim there twice earlier this year, but I think they should've held this at a larger Borders like the one in Westwood just a few minutes northwest of Century City, or even the one at Northridge, or shit, even at the Barnes and Noble at the Grove, where alot of famous people go to do their book signings which take place like almost every week. The line for this event was, without reason, the LONGEST craziest motherfuckin' line I've ever seen, for a book signing. The line was so wild, that they had to make four different lines just to get their book signed. There were people who stayed since Borders closed the night prior to this so that they can be the first ones to meet her and her sisters.

When we got there, there were a lot of people in line that I recognized and remembered from previous Kim Kardashian meet and greets, lots of people. Shit felt like a class reunion. Plus I met some new people and left the mall with a lot of contacts from some hot females as usual, including Cindy Martinez from Channel 22, a Spanish television station here in Los Angeles. Damn, she is FINE as fuck, and I hate to say it but she outdid the Kardashians in looks and attention that night. There were like three media photographers at least hitting on Cindy Martinez while Kim, Kourtney and Khloe were posing for the camera as they came out. Again, another terrific night. Here are some photos.

Cindy Martinez could easily be the fourth lost Kardashian sister. I really wanna do her.

Despite what their book states, this is what made Kim and her family famous. Nothing absolutely wrong with it.

Money shot of the night.

what 1,400 people skipped class and work to stand in line for that day.

Anyway, I gotta get back to work editing more photos. I really don't wanna stop blogging and writing more posts. By the way, shoutout to the USC Trojans football team (who, according to the book that Kim's father went to school at and their family friend OJ Simpson played at, but I knew that the whole time) for creating an upset at Pasadena against UCLA last night and also by going through another unusual season. One more to go by in 2011 and after that, its back to the BCS again.