Retroactive Post to June 23, 2007

I've been offered travel jobs in the past that would take me back to California before, and they've all been canceled shortly after informing my parents of the possibility of my arrival in the state of my birth. This has led me to not talk about jobs before they happen, or at least to wait until the very last minute to tell people where I'm going.

In this instance, I got confirmation from Dan in quick order that the job was going to happen, and he had the tickets to prove it. So I called the folks and they drove the hour down to Westlake to see me, and I was happy to see them and we drove another hour south towards Dodger Stadium where it just so happened The Police were playing. This ate up another hours' worth of time and delayed our arrival at Philippe's, purported origin of the French Dip Sandwich (pictured above, with lemonade and pumpkin creme pie). It's a landmark of sorts, and is covered in Dodger memorabilia and artifacts from the nearby Union Station and features $.09 coffee (I like the way nine-cents looks when digitized like that).

The waitresses aren't allowed to handle money, mostly because of disease, though I'm sure at some point someone's pilfered the till -- you put the cash on the tray (left of frame) and they take it to the register (not pictured) and bring the tray back to you. You can see the plastic safety gloves on her hands. The sandwich is turkey (I'd already had a roast beef). The waitress in the picture started crying for some reason after she took my check over to the register. I never found out why. She had an eastern-european accent.

Tomorrow the crew will fly to Denver, weather permitting. So far the actual shooting has gone off without a hitch.

Retroactive Post to June 22, 2007

Hello from Los Angeles. Westlake, actually, which isn't in the City of L.A. at all, just the County. I'm on the road for a Pharma with Dan, who sees fit to throw me work now and again and sometimes, when the moon is full and the harvest comes, takes me on the occasional trip. This one will take me to Simi Valley and Denver -- the former of the two is closest enough to my ancestral home of Santa Barbara that I will get to have my parents drive down and pay for a dinner that I could just as easily invoice the company for. It will also be nice to see them -- I only get back to the West Coast once a year or so, and I rarely schedule a vacation due to my erratic work schedule.

It's times like this where I debate about whether to purchase a laptop -- I already carry so much shit (between gear for work and my camera-toting) that another breakable object seems like an absurd hassle. Then I remember that I'm traveling with only two memory cards and I'd love to be able to do realtime updates from wherever I am rather than post retroactively [as I'm doing now --RG].

It looks like the schedule will grow in intensity rather than soften as it goes on, and downtime will be scarce after Sunday the 24th when we fly to Denver. I'm definitely looking forward to Colorado, though. I've been twice -- once to Gunnison (which is some beautiful country) for a shoot with Preservation Volunteers and again to Estes Park for Knievel's Wild Ride which was a... different... experience.

Updates to follow. In the meantime, there's some action over at the Flickr Site with more pictures from SoCal.

A Plea For Tenderness

MARCIA IS MY FWIEND. ARE YOU MY FWIEND?

So I guess at this point I'm curious as to who's stopping by. Yeah, I've broadly invited most of ILX to visit and Ally (The Schef) is such a social bird that I'm sure some people get forwarded to me from her, but the lack of feedback is a little -- not bothersome -- disappointing. So leave a comment!

I am particularly interested in seeing who's been stopping by from Maryland (no hyperlink. If you don't know where or what Maryland is then... there is no hope for you) and locally in New York City.

Yes, I check my webstats often.

Also, I like the above picture in color moreso than black and white. Woops.

Pitchfork

This is really inexcusable. Over at ILX bagging on Pitchfork is basically a sport, but for some reason I take shit like this personally. How hard is it for the most-read* music review site on the internet to get someone to take quality pictures; or even a notch above amateur. I'm not talking about people like Todd or Kathryn Yu, both of whom are All-City type talents. It's not like this is Podunk, Arkansas we're talking about. This is Chicago.

*This might not be true. File under "Stat-free Analysis."

Anita

If Matt and I go all the way back to the first day of school, the Anita and I go back to the first day of school + 5 minutes. She lived around the corner on the girls' side of The Can with Serena back when there were gender-specific sides of The Can. In truth, I haven't seen her in about a year (give or take. It's been so long neither of us can remember) and I sort of felt bad calling her out just to shove my camera in her face in exchange for coffee beverages.

She does graphic design by training, but has become a little transient in terms of employment and vaguely dissatisfied like the rest of us. She just always seems a little more Zen about it. As for whether that's a fair assessment or not... ...you'd have to ask her.

I'd have to hunt for the negative (or a print) but I have a picture of her that might be the first "good" picture I ever took. We yacked back and forth about what number this was in terms of sitting for a photo; we decided this was the third (after I convinced her) -- the one freshman year, the one senior year and the one today.

Original Artyfacts

Remnants from Coney Island

The Cyclone, Coney Island 5/27/07

 
Snakes, Coney Island 5/27/07

 
Grandma's Prophecies (Arcade Favor), Coney Island 5/27/07


(Let the record show that grandma only communicates in cyphers and Plain English.)
 
Richard and Ally (Photo Booth), Coney Island 5/27/07


(Ally lives on Flickr here.)