gr/eats in Rachael Ray

It's been a little since gr/eats got some press, and here's one for the ages. Everyday with Rachael Ray!

Here's a link to a blow up of the article. Visit gr/eats if you get a chance.

I grew up eating tofu burgers thanks to mom and these meatballs are an incarnation of that! Years later, it graces the pages of Rachael Ray.

gr/eats paella

The paella at gr/eats... I haven't had it in a while, and it's a sure winner. Flavors busting out all over, the seafood is almost too much, with a squeeze of lemon, it brings out everything you need. Pretty good commercial... meanwhile, the below is the specials menu. Tons of things to get.

Mike Shinoda - Glorious Excess Dies - JANM

That's Mike Shinoda. I caught him early on checking out his show. He was wondering how everything would photograph, so this was a good first look. He's a nice guy, with a pretty big show at the Japanese American National Museum. He looks proud here, and he should be.


The kids had to wait. That's a hefty line up. I hope we have such a line when the Biennale opens up in October 24, 2009. We'll be sending out information soon. But we have James Jean, David Choe, Souther Salazar, kozyndan, Stella Lai, and many many more.


James Dean, Cobain, Warhol...






DC special edition Shinoda shoes for SURU.




The coffin installation was a strange one.


Parts of this remind me of Murakami.


I'd check out his film, which puts this all into context. It's just a few minutes long and I wish it looped outside of the tiny film room.

Bazaar Bizarre

I'm a judge again. This time along with a few others for Bazaar Bizarre, I'll be checking out entrants and voting for who gets in. The list of who wants in is quite long and there are people who have to wait and wait. Good luck all, and I'll be very partial. I take stuff like this serious since it impacts peoples lives all around. If you pick someone who shouldn't be in, then you're not helping anyone.
Bazaarbizarre

Horn Blowers

This condo apartment behemoth is rolling along. It's near done, and they even put angelichorn blowers to guide you home. It's officially a castle. I have no idea what the folks are thinking building such a thing, but it's an oddity.

Linkin Park Epicenter

Going to see Linkin Park isn't a regular occasion is you're hanging out with Mr Joe Hahn. He rents tour buses to take people to such concerts. The front part looks like below and imagine, a day before we got on this bus, Ice Cube took a dump in it because he was on vacation with his family in this exact ride. Equipt with food, fridge, shitter, cable, wifi, and a driver, the ride to Pomona's Epicenter Concert was luxurious.

Shenanigans

Alice in Chains with their new lead singer. He sounds just like Layne Staley, who died a few years ago.



This is Joe Hahn opening things up for Linkin Park doing a little DJ routine. I like how the end result in people clapping and then runs into the hand claps for their first song.



The sound cuts off so you can hear how off key the crowd is.

Joe getting ready for the show. Band dudes get into the mode of playing gigs, and if you're a friend, you have to let them do that. It's their job. This is the van that takes the band from the parking lot to the concert. Everyone else has to walk. Inside the van, body guards, family and friends.

Stepping on the floor of the show, there's a lot of this going on. Too much everything. Pain, tired, high, drunk, bad trips.

Actress and GR writer, Ayako Fujitani says holy crap. Literally, you can smell horse dung. There were 10s of thousands at the fairgrounds. Linkin Park plays to a closed set, so if you're a close friend or family or anything, you're on your own. Everyone from the bus couldn't find each other at concert time.

That's Mike Shinoda and the back of Bobby Kim. Notice the bomb?

That's Alice in Chains.

Like Mike.

Tons of folks made it to see the bands. I even ran into Lisa Ling, her husband Paul, and Laura Ling and her husband as well. They looked happy to be out. What did I say to Laura? "welcome back."

That's what you see of Joe who hides behind his gear.

More Faces

I've been drawing a bit more as you can tell. These are fun, since I don't know exactly what I'll end up with. Some are supposed to be people I know, some are just random, a few are Eishi heads, and some are people who I look at in a magazine.

Giant Robot on NBC

NBC video on Giant Robot. It showed yesterday at 6pm during that hour, so here it is. A welcomed surprise and actually a lot of fun. I hope this brings more people to Sawtelle area, and maybe to the stores in SF and NYC.



Japanese Pop on Sale in West LA... I wonder if the others on Sawtelle Blvd appreciate this press. The weird thing about being on the street is that, things like this will happen, and we end up somehow getting the blame for too many people coming around. You'd be amazed at the amounts of weird vibes, hate, rip-offs, bad neighbors, and more in the area. GR actually has 4 leases on the street, I'd say we're huge investors in the area, yet people can be very uncool. It's odd, but we're still doing it.

Softball season ends but begins again.

GR plays to a 14-1 record losing in the division finals... After a season going 12-0, GR made it to the finals once again. We've been there before and lost, and it happened again. To win these games, you can't make mistakes and you have to hit the ball. We didn't do enough of either and the game slipped away. 9-4. Obviously the other team didn't make many errors. Their weak infielder (2nd base), did everything he needed to do... So that said, our next season actually starts soon and it happens all over again. It's sort of like an issue of the magazine. It ends then it starts. We're now at 61 ends for the magazine. Softball... might be 16+ seasons. 2 a year and we started in 2001. That number sounds impossible, but I think it's true. No wonder I can't remember each season and each team anymore. The same happens with the magazine too.

I forgot to mention I was co-mvp this year with my cousin Jason. That's the prize. A bat filled with sunflower seeds that has the word DICK prominently in it.

NBC Channel 4 in Socal.

NBC channel 4 at 6pm tonite, supposedly a segment about GR in West LA will show. That's me looking at the mic being held by the great Cary Berglund. You wouldn't believe how beat up it looks! That's Martin below explaining about the magazine! Hope it comes out well.

Kika is Kikaida!

Some people wonder what does Kika mean? I know there's a Latin based name, but actually my cat is Kika for Kikaida. The first thing that I noticed is the half black face. Here's a video clip to get you a better idea. I watched this way back in LA, on a UHF channel. Under Kika's fur is cyborg-like electronics.

GR Yard Sale Note

Kooks... The GR Yard Sale took place on sunday at the GR2 parking lot. It's weird people show up, and that's why I'll probably never do one at my own residence. The guy above proved to be a huge pain in the ass. Imagine, at your yard sale, some guy comes, and hoards just anything in his path. He takes boxes of things and claims it as his... then 4 hours of him picking through other shit later, he discards 2/3 of it and says he doesn't want it. So in the four hours, no one got to see what those items were and on top of that, the guy tried to fight for a deal and claimed that the four hours of his labor deserved him a discount.



A funny moment, Bobby Kim finds a copy of himself also wearing yellow.

40!

That's me blowing out 40. I don't have much in the name of being profound at this moment, and probably won't in terms of what 40 can mean, but it's already a few days later, and the main thing I'm astounded by is how many well wishers I had on Facebook. So much more virtual Happy Birthdays, than in real life. I think that's what it's become now days. Yet, 40 should be better than 30 which was better than 20. 39 was better than 38 and so forth. I'm glad I see it this way. It would suck to feel that high school were my best days, when it fact, it wasn't.

James Jean Mints Coming soon

Coming soon to a Giant Robot store near you. James Jean's Hint Mints. These were in production for a while. The last ones we carried were by Baseman, and they did well, I think these will do even better!

my Junk In The Trunk art

Here's my art for the Junk in the Trunk show. Blogger is still doing weird things, so I'm going to put the photo below and hope for the best. Meanwhile, there's a shit ton of junk for the yard sale on Sunday. I hope to see you out there. 11:30-4pm. Anime, DVDs, books, CDs, and more.

The Yard Sale Aug 16, 2009

I wouldn't dare have a yard sale at my house. Why would I want to show people 1) where I live 2) the stuff that I lived with. Is there any good that can come out of that? On the other hand, I like looking at what other people have... that's a lot of fun. Self help books? Bad records... it doesn't bode well.

So I'm working on getting stuff ready for the GR yard sale Sunday at GR2 - Junk in the Trunk. Years of hoarding and so on... Stuff that we like, but just don't have space for. What's it worth? We're not sure. But we'll find out on Sunday. It's a tough one trying to decide what's totally unusable or something you won't ever look at again. Some things were given to you by friends, and although you want to keep them to not insult them... Is it better to just throw it out and save face, or turn it over to someone else who'll get a kick out of it. I hope it's the latter, and if your item you handed to me is in the piles. I apologize now. It either got reviewed, or didn't make it in print. I'm not quite sure, but I wish you luck in making your next item.

Test

Peaches

Peaches, donuts, and there you have it, peach donuts. It's back in season. The Donutman himself said that it's a tougher season since each peach has to be peeled by hand. So get on it. From my area it's only 45 miles. donutman!

Hiyashi Chuka, Cold Noodles.

That's the hiyashi chuka at gr/eats. Yes, it's good. It's there as a special nearly every day. Luckily, I had it when it was warm out, but it's cooled down just a bit in SoCal, but it's still good in the summer.


That's Mr Romanelli with his 1920 Friendship Quilt Cap. Part of his new clandestine line. Check out the hiyashi chuka at gr/eats while you can.

Blog lag

Post Comic-Con had a bunch of things come up from new GR issue in the works, to a few other projects. Sorry about the blog lag.