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Thanks to Duanne, Talia, Summers, Mick & Sharon.





Six more (cheating a bit here, since one of them is me), & in less than a week. Full steam ahead, all engines whirring & purring & churning. These big old wheels are spinning furiously, gaining traction, kicking up sharp gravel. Getting on board is really the only safe bet. I'm optimistic that big things await just around the corner.

I don't have any music on my computer anymore, so I've just been blasting "The Basement Tapes" in my car or loudly from the kitchen so I can hear it on the other end of the Peach Pit. I don't need new music right now; this is the soundtrack to my Zeitgeist. This is the background music to the parlance of these times. This is right now. The music is not sad, but it surely manifested itself in the pulling free of the grip of some sadness, as most creative strokes of genius have. Dylan & The Band don't sing The Blues, but it's close enough. Have you ever thought about why people love The Blues so much? If not, you should think about it. Or maybe I'll just tell you what I think. It is happy music about unhappiness. It's optimistic in the face of all mounting evidence in support of the contrary. It screams out CELEBRATE YOUR SORROW! How could anyone not love it? So, I don't dig on sad music because I don't like to dwell. I don't want an excuse to cling to something. That stuff will slam you about unless you let it go. Really, it's on you -- you're the one with opposable thumbs, you're the one who's holding on. Let go. Live. Sing the blues if you have to. There is right now & there is a tomorrow. And with tomorrow, there are endless possibilities.

Some links & shit, a few days in the making.

1. I've seen some shows of late...
a. YEASAYER: They are much more than just a dead-on 100% accurate Talking Heads impression. There's something sinister about this band, & if I were to be looking for a perfect soundtrack to underscore the downfall of humanity, I'd assign that task to Yeasayer, because I know they're going to throw a dash of Hope In Revolution into the mix. I saw them live a few weeks back & they were incredible.
b. DEVOTCHKA: Another great show, this one from last week. Devotchka exists in the little space between heartbeats, especially when your heart is beating slow & heavy. There's no other band out there who can wrap itself so beautifully around forlorn nostalgia.
c. AKRON/DODOS: 3/5ths of Akron/Family playing with SF's own The Dodo's. Considering that A/F & the Dodo's were responsible for the most mindblowing show I've seen in years (at the Independent back in the fall), I guess you might say my expectations were high. So obviously, it was a letdown. That's the way it goes kids.
d. DARK MEAT: An incredibly annoying & pretentious psychrock band from Athens, GA. I saw them earlier in the week & left after three songs. Lots of belligerently drunk southern wanna-be mystics creating a wall-of-sound effect. The problem was that they were pretty good at playing LOUD & not WELL.

2. Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets. The man, the myth the legend. Have you been watching this kid all year? There are some who would make the argument that he's the best player in the league (in this, his THIRD NBA season), & that won't really be much of an argument in the next few seasons once Kobe slows a step. It'll be LeBron & Chris Paul every year in the finals by 2012, mark my words. We can thank him right now for making basketball relevant -- no, IMPORTANT -- in a city still down on its luck. Watch Paul play. He's easily the best pure point guard since Isiah Thomas' playing days, & will only get better from here on out. Here's a great article on CP3.

3. I kinda wish I'd written this, & I don't think I'm out of line when I say that it reeks of trembyle.

4. Check out these newspaper blackout poems. Seriously! Awesome! Stuff!

5. I love the Googley Design Principles. These are directions to live by & to work by. [via Mairdoggie]

6. Man, physics is rad...

7. Here's a tip: If you own a violin worth $4 million, don't be so careless with it. Thank God for friendly cabbies.

8. The oddly amazing (seriously) story of a lightbulb which has been burning for 107 years. Okay seriously? I really wanna go see the bulb & sign the guest book.

9. Sad Kermit the Frog covering Eliott Smith's "Needle in the Hay" [with kudos to Richie Tenenbaum]:


10. PHOTO MONTAGE FROM PETE & ERAY GHOST TOWN ADVENTURE DAY.

( MOREMOREMORE )

I'm feeling an intense pull towards big things & I can't quite put my finger on how to translate that into action. Coffee doesn't help, it just makes me feel spastic. Alcohol doesn't help, it just makes me feel like laughing, like smiling at the friends around me. Running steep hills doesn't help, it just makes me feel safe & warm in this routine I've been building.

But I need to be building a lot more than a routine. I'm an ideas man who can't filter my thoughts enough to the point where I can transform them into Action. It's a blessing to have the capacity for big ideas as much as it is a curse to lack the vision & discipline to turn them into reality. I want to make an impact. I want to help. I want to be inspired to do things bigger than my imagination can possibly fathom.

I'm not a dynamic man, but I think that maybe I have the capacity to become one.

The All My Friends project is still alive & kicking, though the going has been slower than I would like it to be. Here's who I've shot recently.





Thanks to Jen, Nicole, Dave, Victoria, Keller, & Catherine.

Wanna be a part of the project? Drop a line & let's set something up.

$1,275 is the estimate. The deal is that they don't actually KNOW if any of the data is there until they crack it open & extract. So seeing as I can't afford to drop twelve hundred damn dollars, I guess I'll throw it in a drawer for a year or two until I can & then just be pleasantly surprised if I get a return.

Fuck me, 2008 has been a royally shittay year thusfar. And please Gee Oh Dee, no more reminders of "hey it could be worse -- have yoself a familial health scare", cause that's fucked up.

Don't worry everything is fine on that end of things, & no I'm not going to get into it.

I know a lot of people have things a lot worse than I ever have or probably ever will, but I feel like I'm about due to catch a pretty nice break in some respect.

How 'bout it big guy?

When the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan, there is a really awesome ripple effect that kinda spreads across every single element of life. I guess you might call it The Splatter Effect. Sometimes it can really really really really really fuck your shit up on some serious levels.

HEY LOOK AT THE BRIGHT SIDE THOUGH, IT WILL TOTALLY ENRICH YOUR ALREADY DEEP APPRECIATION FOR IRONY. AND IT BUILDS CHARACTER. AND THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL YOU WILL ONLY MAKE YOU STRONGER. AND *INSERT YOUR OWN ADDITIONAL CLICHE CATCH-PHRASE HERE*.

The short of it is that my un-backed up hard drive containing Every Picture I've Ever Taken & approximately 150 gigs of music (significantly less vital than the photos, but still awesome & important) are gone.

Maybe not forever, but I'll have to drop in the neighborhood of a grand (that I don't have) to have some professional hard drive cracker/fixer guy go get 'em back. And yes, maybe forever still.

I'm not gonna lie, I feel ill-equipped to handle this shit right now. I may just be in need of a good night's sleep, but my reserves of optimism which once upon a time seemed bottomless (not too long ago, but it feels like years at this point) are running perilously close to empty right now.

Thank you Michael Hutchence.
1. For dropping this knowledge on the world back in '87.
2. For it being as heavy & perfect & timeless today as it ever was back then.
3. For being the only person ever to seem COOLER for having died by auto-erotic asphyxiation.

I've been slipping a bit lately, & for that I am truly very sorry, so let me make it up to you with a particularly stellar edition (trust me) of the Weekly Links.

ONE. Muxtape is certifiably rad, & one of those websites we're all kicking ourself for not thinking of first. I will be playing around making mixes on this to share with ya'll soonish.

TWO. Another invention to be filed under "Why didn't I think of that?!" is light-emitting wallpaper. It may strike you as a little bit kitschy, & probably won't take off on a mainstream level, but you've gotta admit this is one of the coolest design ideas in quite some time.

THREE. Speaking of wallpaper, I just changed the wallpaper on my work machine. Thanks, Farmidable! And thanks, Mary, for the link! (I used the Lightning Bolt design, FYI)

FOUR. In case more proof was ever needed to vouch for his unbridled badassity, this piece on Ernest Hemingway is a nice overview. He may have been a deeply flawed man, but I think we can all agree that he wrung every ounce of life out of his years.

FIVE. I really, really, really need to read The Last Lecture. I remember hearing about this guy last year. I'm on the market for a harnessing contraption where I can store all my inspiration. This contraption will preferably not only store the energy of my ideas, but will be able to regenerate it at will. Can a book do that? Am I asking for too much?

SIX. World hunger is no match for a stellar vocabulary. Freerice.com is pretty much like prepping for the verbal section of the SATs, but every time you get an answer right, they donate rice to the UN World Food Program. Nerds rejoice everywhere!

SEVEN. A Hi-Res map of US per-capita CO2 emissions. Looks like some places we expected to be bad weren't really all that bad (Los Angeles), while some places we didn't think were all that bad are really pretty terrible (all of West Texas).

EIGHT. You no longer need to pine for rainy afternoon mini-marathons of Major Dad episodes that never were, because now there is HULU. It has a TON of old television shows streaming for FREE. Don't blame me for all the time you waste -- I'm just the messenger.

NINE. The naturalist in me (he's in there somewhere) found these articles equally enthralling & terrifying. Firstly, we have the five deadly critters that might save your life, which is followed closely by the five deadly critters that will just kill you. For good measure, you can also read about the top 10 most evil human experiments.

TEN. I feel like I need to come back off that somehow, so here's picture of a puppy asleep in a drawer, courtesy of Cute Overload.

ELEVEN. Lots of interesting modernish homes on the Dwell Homes page. Most of them are kinda irritating, but there are a few gems.

TWELVE. Heard about Flogos yet? No? GOOD. Let's hope this idea doesn't take off (pardon the almost-pun). Advertising in clouds is every bit as fucked up as shining a logo onto the surface of the moon.

THIRTEEN. The seriously thrilling story of a 'Life Aquatic'-meets-'Armageddon' salvage team racing the clock to save a 55,000 ton cargo ship packed to the gills with Mazdas. No, really, it's so incredibly well-written that Dreamworks is planning on making this story into a movie.

I don't know if anyone has been keeping tabs on the fact that staple food prices have been soaring globally, causing hunger-driven riots among the third world's poor. No? Well, it's been happening lately. Also, in case you haven't noticed, the price of food in THIS country has been skyrocketing, & our own poor are feeling that same pinch (albeit not quite as severely as places that have limited access to things like jobs & clean water). So, aside from inflation, unemployment, home foreclosures, & gas prices are also on the rise.

It ain't pretty out there, people. But there is hope.

BEHOLD, THE MIGHTY POTATO.

Generally, there isn't much of a silver lining to hunger & violence, but I think we can find room to applaud two things. One is obviously the aforementioned Mighty Potato, & Two is Pamela Anderson. Yes! A heartwarming side-story! It would appear that Pamela Anderson has lifted a page from the Brangelina playbook & pulled herself out of Hollywood C-list obscurity in order to take an action step towards solving a very serious global problem. Being the Director of the International Potato Center (based in Lima, Peru) is certainly no cakewalk. I had no idea she was such a Renaissance Woman! She went from a Playboy Model to a famous actress on 'Baywatch' to Tommy Lee's wife to Low-Budget Sex Tape Star to Kid Rock's wife, & now she's doing something even more noble & amazing than running in slow motion on a beach once a week. Simply amazing!

I think we all owe it to ourselves to eat potatoes for dinner tonight.

It was a rare warm night in San Francisco, so we rode out to the beach through the park -- front lights blinking white, back lights blinking red. When we got there, a Latin jazz band was playing on the sidewalk just barely within earshot. Down in the distance where the music was, a crowd of people were dancing, laughing. And probably dreaming, too. The scent of distant serpentine bonfires twisted all sneaky & deliberate-like, slowly mingling with the salty warm night air. This perfect mix of salty smoke (with a hint of burned marshmallows) filled my lungs, & the light that snuck through the thousands of tiny poked pinholes in the sky sent the little hairs on my arms & neck upward like a congregation of unworthy sinners on Sunday morning. For a moment I was floated. For a moment, it was 2004 & this was all brand new again. And that was just Friday night. The rest of the weekend saw other moments of beauty and contentment, which far outweighed the moments of confusion & conflict, rendering them insignificant in comparison.

I need these kinds of moments. We all do. We should never lose sight of them. To be reminded of why I fell in love with this town (though it need not necessarily be a town) in the first place is important. These are things everyone needs to remember. If you can't remember the last time you remembered, you should get to that place as soon as humanly possible. It may feel like it's too late, but it's never really too late unless you're dead. And if you're dead, you're probably not reading this. Go find that place, stand and breathe in the moment. There is urgency in these words. Go.

Back at the beach, I eventually finally remembered to breathe. We rode home & I got a flat tire in the park.

It was the best flat tire I ever got.

I've written ten thousand words or more that I haven't felt fit to share. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I'm completely unable to communicate how I feel with words. My metaphors are all falling far short & ringing shallow.

So, I'm just gonna have to post some pictures I took instead.

Tracy [leaving a voicemail]: "Wow, this girl has 'Three Days Grace' as her outgoing message!"
Heather: "What the HELL is that?!"
Me: "Wow Heather, that was...acrimonious?...of you?...[looking it up on m-w.com]...'caustic, biting, or rancorous especially in feeling, language, or manner', yes, acrimonious is exactly what that was!"

Combine that with the fact that I picked up 26 points on the word "EH" in a game of scrabulous the other day &...well, actually there really isn't a point here besides maybe "I'm a nerd".

I wish I had more to say, but these are strange times in Pete-land. Work time has been busy & personal time has been busy. Oh yeah, happy birthday to Kipp, my super duper awesome big brother, who will most likely never read this.

Today is my four year San Franniversary.

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I messed around with lighting & camera settings, & got some good portraits last night. Nothing on Flickr yet, but they'll be up this weekend sometime. Oh, & I've got a portrait shoot Saturday evening, one Sunday, & one Monday. Possibly another one in there as well. So if you want in on Volume 1 of this photo project, lemme know quick, cause after this weekend I'll be more than a quarter finished with it already.

LINKS
1. ATTN: San Franciscans! The 6th Annual Easter BYOBW (Bring Your Own Big Wheel) race is NOT cancelled this year! Click here for details on this year's race. No, seriously, click there. It's not on Lombard St this year, so you'd better click if you plan on going/participating. I may not be able to make it. We'll see.

2. A fascinating, weird & cool collection of City Slogans.

3. Exploding mega-suns? COOOOOL!

4. Economy stuff: According to Paul Krugman's worst-case-scenario, we may very well be headed for The Great Depression 2.0. As long as we don't hit the panic button & run to the bank to take all our money out, things should be...not terrible? Oh, & FIX THE DAMN BANKING SYSTEM. Almost forgot about that part. Click the link, let Paulie explain.

5. Ed Boyden, a Neuroengineer at MIT, tells us "How To Think in a world where problems are extremely complex, targets are continuously moving, and our brains often seem like nodes of enormous networks that constantly reconfigure."

Now, I'm not a scientist, per se, but SHIT! I needed to read this, BADLY, & didn't even realize it until I started reading it. It's basically a gameplan on how to capitolize on potential of any size, shape or type. Go read that. Follow it. It will be helpful. I just printed it out. It's not exactly the kind of thing you can MANTRAFY or hang on the wall, but maybe something to tuck away somewhere safe & look back on often.

People, it's on for photo shoots, & I need your help for a very important project coming up. I kicked it off officially last night with the help of one Aaron Poser.

I'll put it bluntly: If you want to appear in a book of my photography (which my pal Mary Berkeley has so graciously offered to DESIGN for me once completed), you will get off your ass & make an appointment to come hang out with me & let me take your picture.

This is an ongoing project which will not end until I run out of friends & loved ones to photograph. So, once I either die or become a hermit, the project will be officially over. Until then, it's on. But if you hop to it, you can be in the First Edition. Obviously, I will be offering to sell these books, & you should buy them from me when I do & collect the entire Anthology. When I'm famous, they'll be worth AT LEAST what you paid for them.

Some of the hilights of last night's shoot appear below.






In other news, I've got an Engagement Shoot for Amy & AJ (a really cute, cool sounding coupla kids referred by Cassie) set up for the weekend after Easter, & three other sets of friends I know who have recently gotten engaged, with offers on the table from me to shoot some pics for them.

Dammit, I'm pulling out all the stops to HUSTLE here! Can I get some props already?! And when is the front door gonna blow off the hinges & drown me in an onrushing flood of offers & opportunities? Can that happen SOON please?

If you haven't watched or read Obama's speech on race relations in America, you definitely should.

In my lifetime, this is the first time I've heard Race Relations in America discussed rationally (if at all -- it's usually swept under the rug on account of all the live wires & land mines the conversation itself involves...definitely very tricky territory).

Anyway, it takes a VERY good, brave, smart & well-spoken person to get to the root of this issue without inciting anyone, & he pulls it off with aplomb.

I cleaned the guest room up nice today, acquired a stool, installed a backdrop hanging device & got my lighting back from the Big Blue House. The result is that it is now a Guest Room/Portrait Gallery & I can kick some of these creative projects off, finally.

I obviously need some help with the lighting situation. I've got some very old but good lighting, but I'm in need of a light stand. And probably some MORE lighting. Here's the first test shot.


Thanks for the help, Bosco!

I also made a good Springtime mix.

01. Panda Bear - Comfy in Nautica
02. Faces - Too Bad
03. Peter Gabriel - Modern Love
04. Vampire Weekend - One (Blake's Got a New Face)
05. Yeasayer - 2080
06. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Yeh Jo Halka Halka
07. Bob Dylan & the Band - Yea! Heavy & a Bottle of Bread
08. The Kinks - Death of a Clown
09. Daniel Johnston - The Sun Shines Down on Me
10. Peter Mulvrey - You Meet the Nicest People in your Dreams
11. The Stone Roses - Bye Bye Badman
12. Gram Parsons - That's the Bag I'm In
13. Charlie Rich - Don't Put No Headstone On My Grave
14. Clodhopper - Cafe Joli
15. R.E.M. - Sitting Still
16. Talking Heads - First Week/Last Week...Carefree
17. Frank Sinatra - All or Nothing at All
18. Devendra Banhart - Hey Mama Wolf

When in doubt, sunny Sunday garage sale hopping is almost always the right prescription.

Totally sweet & practically new WAFFLE IRON: $2
Badass HOLGA CAMERA (been wanting one forever): $8
Awesome pair of Ray Ban-style sunglasses: $FREE

Now I can make waffles & take weird cool pictures of it while wearing totally rad sunglasses!

Ah, Life...she can be a pain in the ass. But what a beautiful ride it is, no?

If you haven't heard the heartwrenching story of Jamiel "Jas" Shaw II, a star junior running back from Los Angeles High (with a mom bravely fighting for our military in Iraq) who was gunned down in a senseless act of gang violence, please go read Bill Simmons' take on it. Yes, it's on ESPN, & Jamiel was a football player. But this is not about sports.

By & large, as people we focus on making & maximizing our own lives for ourselves. We don't intend to block out the rest of the world -- it's a natural byproduct of life & plans & aspirations. We just try to do the best we can with what we have. Maybe we step outside the lines of that & do something kind here & there, but for the most part, we live inside bubbles of our own creation.

But when a gut-wrenching story like this comes along -- a story that exposes the entire vicious cycle of violence, poverty, hope & despair in its entirety -- I always try to immerse myself in it, stew in it for awhile. Isn't there some way we can figure out a way to make a better life for everyone?

Yes, humanity is cruel & senseless sometimes (thanks, Jas, for further proof), & so when people talk about eliminating poverty, it just seems like so much wishful thinking. Big talk is just that -- talk. But stories like this can't be pushed under the rug. We can't allow ourselves to read something terrible, shake our heads in sadness & disbelief, & walk away from it all. On to the next hurdle, the next promotion, a bigger house, a nicer car, a better, cleaner, shinier life. We're a culture so obsessed with progress, but we've forgotten that you can really only be as strong as your weakest link.

Making sense of something senseless doesn't work. Many have tried, all have failed. But a community tragedy this large can & should become a foundation for change & a brighter future on a platform bigger that that community. There are hundreds of other kids out there who die every year. Hopefully one day there will be a whole lot less of them, but we need to take something away from a story like this & hold onto it.

I've got a set of shots from Cassie & Brian's engagement shoot on Sunday loaded up HERE. Go look at them!

Below are some of my favorites. Well, the entire SET are my favorites, really, but if you're going to make me pick like...four that might could fit pretty well together on a screen, I think the below four shots should suffice.





If you really really want to help me & see more of this, you can do the following things.
1. Get Engaged.
2. Tell your recently engaged friends to hire me to take their pics.
3. Hire me for stuff. I take pics of everything & I take 'em good.

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, HELP ME BECOME A REAL LIVE PHOTOGRAPHER, OKAY?