Last summer I had some free time in Santa Barbara and hung out at the skate park near the pier. I took maybe 200 shots and really didn’t like 99% of them. I think it was my vantage point and the skaters weren’t that good so I didn’t have much to go on.
I often hear skaters cruzing down the street in New York. In Manhattan, most of the skaters I see use the boards more for utility than sport or fun, often using long boards as their vehicle of choice to shorten their trip to the grocery store or post office. I skated when I was younger, however, to say that now, is to say I owned a board and I practiced maybe a handful of times a month. There was one summer in college I rode half pipe enough to complete clean transitions, rail slides or small pop out but there wasn’t much encouragement at the secluded pipe. I may still have my first Steve Caballero board in storage but I would never consider skating for errands in this city. When I’m nearly hit by bike messengers and reckless taxis on a weakly basis, how would I survive rolling unprotected in the streets with this chaos to contend with.
I’m sure it’s only a matter of a few decades before skating is in the Olympics, like snowboarding will be this winter. I’m looking forward to the 2010 games next month.
Trader Joe's Line on MLKThe weather’s brightened up a bit here in New York. Just in time to hear the Southern Cali whiners crying about a little rain and a tornado watch.
With more time on my hands, and this nicer weather enticing me to get out, I’ve been shopping more at our only Trader Joe’s. This Monday, the line was longer than I had ever seen it since they opened in 2006. The last thing I need is to squeeze past unnecessary carts and old people trying to get less than 12 items so I can cut my line waiting time.
Washington Square Dead Zone - Click 2 ExpandI went today and despite the bad economy they still had food to sell me. As I was checking out, the floor manager and I got to talking about the weekend business and I was told TJ’s closed record sales on Monday of $218,000. Over the three day weekend they closed a killer half a million dollars in sales. Maybe it’s a good thing they are still a private company….
On the walk back, I went through Washington Square park. They’ve torn up the whole east and south sides of the park now. It’s horrible to look at and I only hope the city puts everything back just after the spring rain subsides. I still have a set of petanque balls that need tossing.
I’ve been playing around more with Photoshop, taking advantage of some Preset Actions and trying out some different compositions. For the most part, I think they aren’t that successful. For instance the below is a little over exposed and heavy on the contrast so it just doesn’t feel right to me. I gave up tonight as it’s close to midnight and needed to post something and get rested for tomorrow.
On a music note, I found a few data discs my sister had given me several years ago for Christmas. I appreciate the exchange of new choons, but I recall this particular year, I had a stack of over 15 with a mix of Jazz, House, Electronic, Goa, Trance, Down Tempo, Breaks, Psychedelic, Rock and Reggae music. My taste has evolved and I’m not that into the Trance, Progressive, electronic as much anymore so nearly half the discs I’ve grown out of favor. Finally I loaded the Reggae and Jazz which never gets old for me and found a new band I’ve never heard before: Midnite (Roots reggae from St. Croix). Here’s 2 tracks from early in this past decade. One is a shot out to those in Haiti struggling for survival and the other is for those news media outlets that refuse to cover the human suffering because they can’t get past their own political bias to support fellow humans regardless of race, beliefs or political background.
Midnite – Suffa Ra (right-click to download)
[audio:https://austinvegas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Suffa-Ra.mp3]
Midnite – Propaganda (right-click to download)
[audio:https://austinvegas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Propaganda.mp3]
I was on my way to the Whitney to check out the end of the Georgia O Keefe exhibit at the Whitney. The Law and I got a late start on the day but we made it up to the museum around 2 pm. Unfortunately many tourists and locals as well had the same idea and the museum was holding crowds at the door to keep the halls from becoming too crowded. It was cold and we weren’t willing to wait but didn’t want to waste our time with the trip upstate to UES and walked west to the MET.
As we walked up up 75th, I saw in the distance a man quarter bent between a tree and the parked truck at the curb. His pants were down to his knees and I caught a glimpse of stained tighty whities. As we approached we could see he was cleaning himself with hot dog cart napkins while his wife yelled at him in French. I could only hope it was what we were thinking –
“DUDE! Get to a public bathroom to clean your shorts man!”
The show had caught the attention of just about every door man on the row and had successfully ruined my appetite for an afternoon cafe I had been planning at the MET.
Fortunately we caught the tail end of the show, which ended on the 10th of this month, however, our free tickets to the Whitney go back home under the fridge magnets, until the next time we decide to travel uptown for a museum day.
Other notes: I’m still digging this Holy Ghost remix of The Deep end and the foto I took at the flower garden in Central Park, just up the street from the MET:
