gr/eats Sign - handmade - drive by and see it!

See this sign? It looks like something you could buy. But in the end, this was made by my dad. Imagine, he's a semi retired contractor, but he can make just about anything. I know I've written about him before, but he strikes again. The cool thing about doing GR projects is asking him to make something. Check out the rest of these photos. Some of the little details are quite funny.

See the wheel? When I saw the sign, I wondered why is there a wheel there?! I didn't ask for a skateboard.

I got the vinyl letters and put them on using a few credit cards to press them on. I was trying to get them on just right. Even the text was a collaboration by myself and Martin. It sort of tells it all. Where burgers, tacos, and udon meet. Healthy and fresh foods.

That's me lining up the vinyl lettering. Measure twice, cut once. Oh and see that leather handle? It's a piece of one of my dad's old belts! He cut up a belt to make a handle! wtf?! The bungee cord is so we can secure it on around a pole!

That's what the wheels are all about! You can fold this and roll it, so even the weakest weakling can move this around.

Me and Saelee Oh on Vimeo talking about our Scion animation project

Myself and Saelee Oh are on Vimeo talking about our Scion animation project. I guess there's not much more to say than what the title says. It just played in Wichita, Kansas. I don't know anyone in Kansas, but it's cool to have a project that flies around when you're sitting at home. I think there's another stop or two. One will be in Brooklyn, and I'll get to go to that one. It's in June! Not sure where it's going to be at, but it's June 4th I believe and it should be fun. I hope they post our project soon. It's only a minute long!

Eastern District
43 Bogart St.
Brooklyn, NY 11206
http://www.eastern-district.com/

Opening Event:
Friday, June 4th, 2010 7pm-10pm

Here's a vimeo clip! It's Saelee and I being interviewed. Also the music is by Goh Nakamura.

Daniel Dae Kim

Jin! No, it's Daniel Dae Kim! No, it's Jin! The funny thing is when you talk to him, he's definitely not Jin. He's born and raised on the east coast and also plays tennis. It's funny, for a sec we geeked out on some tennis jargon talk. We're going hit one day. But I put him on my blog since he visited gr/eats today. His meal is cut off, that's secret. The Ai Yamaguchi piece is still there. Do know that there's going to be an upcoming event that I'm proud to be part of that involves Daniel. It's not official yet, but it'll most likely be in May and for sure in LA. I'll drop word when it gets set up. Below we're outside getting blasted by the sun. 2050 sawtelle Blvd gr/eats. Come on through.

Giant Robot 64 - Transmissions work! Here's Videocast 2 and photos!

Some of my time at Giant Robot is making content that goes on our respective pages that are all fed at Giant Robot Transmissions. This includes photos from the LA art shows, any video content, yes that's me shooting much of it and cutting it as well. This is the fun part, but at the same time, the stuff I don't necessarily want to lose out on, but little by little it happens. I hope to get more help on this soon, but for now, when you see it, know that I'm doing most of it among my other chores. It's fun, but it has to get done quick. I put most of it on transmissions since they're general Giant Robot stores or mag related type events. That's my personal life too! Hope you enjoy them. There'll be at least two more videos from issue 64 and more photos up soon! Here's the transmissions link to see the video and photos that went up today!

Cherry Blossom thoughts

Sometimes, a tiny twig complete with a few flowers clumped together make their appearance on an otherwise barren area of the tree. Their brother and sister flowers are much higher up among the branches and when they mature, their fall or journey to the ground, depending how you see them, takes longer.

Every year, they fall and get mixed up in the grass. Then after a while, the flowers shrivel up into nothing and slowly end up nowhere.

Here's some past links to Cherry Blossom Posts of the past. 1 2 3

They're blooming right now in Japan.

Dustin Yellin

Samuel Freeman Gallery Bergamont Station. Art by Dustin Yellin. It almost looks like Body World, but this is art. It's actually layer after layer of acrylic or glass and flat art on each level. Some are taken from computer modeling and some are hand painted. The pieces look like a 3d object frozen in ice in the end! The pieces are cool and costs in the five figures. Backlit, the above piece looked great. Here's a link to the gallery.

These are life size pieces with insane detail.

Needless to say, this is a female.

Many of the pieces are nature related. Trees, flowers, and even animals, and collages!

You can't help but want to look at the pieces from the side just to understand how the imagery is messing with your head. They're flat, but they're not!

I tried to shoot these at angles so you can see the layers. This one is the most obvious, and I think it was created to show the layers. Think you'll buy a piece?

Bowling Night - All Star Lanes

Albert Reyes, one of the regulars can throw a bowling ball near 24mph which is faster than most people can run. That score book is amazing. I'll shoot pics of it one day. It's filled with drawings and scores. Notice Albert's CH Sugar hat. In a few years, it'll just be a corn syrup hat.

Michelle's about to bowl! Albert's holding the book.

Leg kick and the bright orange ball! Her delivery is simple and smooth.

John Pham who's showing at GR2 in April is hanging out too. He bowls slowly and surely. I got a 125 and won round 2.

www.giantrobot.com/donate

We're more than halfway on our journey. Little by little, we'll be adding some other PSA's like the one by David Horvath up now. It's amazing how old friends, people who've never read us, and more are coming to the cause. We're also doing the GR videocasts, and you'll hopefully be seeing many more changes. New website too, but that's taking longer since we want to do it right. It would be easy to make the typical blog post site, but at that rate, then just subscribe to our blogs and you have it - just without the window dressing, which if you're fooled by that, then that's too bad. The best sites out there have very little window dressing and tons of content. That's what we strive for with each issue of the mag. The site shouldn't be much different. See the Horvath PSA

Unfun on Blackball Records - 20th Anniversary

It's out! The repress of this great album. Historical and great. Unfun the album that started it all is out on Blackball Records. 20th Anniversary of one of the greatest and more influential bands of our time.

Here's a link to Blackball Records

Fish and Chips + Sawtelle times.

Fried and fried. Fish and Chips gr/eats. Beer battered cod, so it's actually light and crisp. The malt vinegar is a nice touch, and I ate this entirely with my hands. We've been running this special lately and it's been quite fun to have. I can't eat this one too often, but it's good and filling.

Anne Matsushima and Alex Chiu doing the gr/eats. They do a bunch of indie projects, zines, art, and are making a collective of artist on the westside of LA. Motivated! They also dig doughnuts.

It's that season. Cherry Blossoms on Sawtelle. It's awesome how pink they are. I'd get out to the street this weekend to check on them.

A ton of images of Patchwork show at gr2. Tons of great art by great folks.

Crying crying. Babies crying. Wah wah wah... "I'm so hurt! Carry me. I'm not getting what I want! Where's my toys. I'm so tired. I want what that guy has in his hand, even though I don't know what it is. I just took a crap and it's running down my leg! Where's my mom? I'm hungry, where's my candy? I'm special though cuz I eat veggies! Who are you taking my photo?"

"Ok, mother fucker. That's enough! I'll remember you when I get big.

I'll crush your skull, while you fart dust."

Fruits of Labor? The Giant Robot Car

So this is all I can show of the car right now. It's the custom Scion art car. I won't get into the concept, so you'll have to wait on that one, but this is the Giant Robot car that I designed. In the end, I'd say to concept is tight, and it's not just a Pimp My Ride car, there's a meaning and backbone to this. You'll see when it's done. I'm proud of it and it's still a work in progress.

Here's the fruit part. I show up to the shop, and there's fruit. People are so obsessed with truck food. This too is a truck. Is it any less valid?

That's Len holding a coconut. Drink the juice, then they'll cut up the fruit... I prefer a coconut bra, but oh well.

It's on like Donkey Kong!

The Hundreds

When times are tough, it's great when a package of love shows up. Bobby Hundreds asked me for my sizes, and just a week later comes a box of goodies. First an apology. These are the worst shots possible. I didn't do it on purpose, but my camera battery was dying and I rushed through it. Three shots and it died. The Michael Lau figure above is awesome. I never thought I'd get one of these. I thought they were gone by now! The plastic on the hands are still on there. I guess you can call it Chinese Opera version.

I got three T shirts. I'm trippin on the middle one. The detail of their spoofs are insane. What fun it would be to design that shirt. I'll wear that one. The logo one is a no brainer. I think I have 3 or 4 of these now.

To sort of quote a song by the Untouchables. I Spy for the FBI.

one for when you go out, and another for everywhere you go.

Again apologies for the bad photo. These shoes are a lot nicer than these shots. I need some new shoes for when my Vans keel over. These are perfect.

Film Fest and Yoshi's in SF

Terence Yin and Daniel Wu have the sunglass thing going on near the Japantown Plaza. Terence Yin and Eugenia Yuan are in a film called Fog. I didn't get to see the film yet, but it showed in SF for the film festival. This year, I wasn't there for an official project as in the past, but instead, there was plenty more to do. Visits to GRSF, hanging out with tons of folks who are friends or who have helped GR, and more. I didn't see any film festival folks however, I didn't know where they were. At the same time, I feel like GR and the fest are far apart these days. Maybe we'll close the gap one day.


Here's an example of Automator's music and towards the end there's Emily Wells singing. She's quite great and is part of a future project together.

Eugenia Yuan holding a pooch.

Patrick Lee doing the AnD merch section at Yoshi's. Big smiles, and he should have one.