horvaths, my ear, and Juxtapoz Choe

Mexican without Mexicans. Yeah. This place is amazing. Manhattan Beach Mexican food. El Sombrero #2. I hope the #2 doesn't mean anything weird! It's a neighborhood Mexican place that I can tell is well loved. It's packed, it's good, and people there seem happy. That's David and Sun-min. So glad to have caught up with them. It's been ages. Look at their burritos! Whoa. I opted for 2 chicken tacos. Pictured is only 1 taco. All so good.

This was a tough one. It was chef Mina's turn. She cooked us up noodles, chicken in spicy sauce, and ice tea.

I don't know why I feel the need to blog my ear, but see that scratch. Imagine this. My cat, put one claw into my ear. It was stuck. I was trying to get it out and in the process, sliced through my own ear. That line goes through.

The below is my article on David Choe in the current Juxtapoz. I wrote it on the morning it was due. I think it came out pretty decent.

Strangers at LAAPFF

The Strangers Crew at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival. That's Bill Poon, Robert Burke, Michael Aki, Eugenia Yuan, and Pryor Praczukowski. Bill Poon is the Assistant Producer! Robert Burke plays the perfect dirty loser underworld guy. Michael Aki's character is the Asian Kimbo Slice. The master of the gun. A killer. Eugenia Yuan is the subject. Pryor shot it nicely. Strangers screens sunday 9pm at the Sunset 5 in LA.

Instead of watching the opening night movie. I ate dinner with the group.

Eugenia and Michael Aki. The carpet might not be red, but this is the red carpet area.

Amy Hill was there!

Thomas Nakanishi should join Kiss.

The end of Tokyo - great food. Hanaya Asagaya

Neighborhood spots. The tasty of the tasty. I had omakase type of dinner at Hanaya in Asagaya. You get the drift. Great foods, amazing presentation. Nice people. This type of spot has your back when you want something really nice to eat. You can't go there daily, or, can you? It's not out of the control pricey, but at the same time, it's not super inexpensive. There's plenty of nice spots to eat in this area, this is just one of them. Toro and uni above.

a small fish and eggplant dish.

porco rosso

egg tofu and daikon with ikura

This is the drinker set of snacks.

daikon and gobo

The next day. cat #1

cat #2

cat #3. This cat looks really beat up, but I really like the cat's face. I hope this one recovers fully by the time I come back to Japan.

Yasukuni shrine images will end out this blog post.

Except for this image. I really like how the caramel box is integrated perfect into the handle on the train. Someone was thinking.

Donut man - the strawberry payoff...

Every year I post the same pic, nearly. Donutman in Glendora. Yes, they rock the strawberry donut. This time, I put the red colorful and tasty donut at the end. Instead I'll show a pic of the guys making the donuts. See the round rings? Yes, those are going to be good. While we sleep, there's someone there making more donuts. It's to good to know that there are people working while some of us are not.

The long ones are called Tigertails. Not typical of any shop, this is a favorite here. I'd suggest it.

The sugar donut, which was once my favorite fell off the rack. I think I liked the crunch of the sugar.

It's all of it's glory, this is a great tasting donut.

David Choe art lazarides Art shots. A slide show.

I stopped in today since I had a meeting really close by and shot another 40 shots of just the art. Take a look at the figures by Goodsmile. GR will be handling those come July! We're excited to be a part of this. It's something great to look forward to. Meanwhile, do check out the Choe show in person. If you can't, then thumb through the images. These are a pretty good collection of what's there. There are more watercolors, so do check it.



Created with flickr slideshow.

Japan finds

Famicom. Family computer. You'd think you could find this everywhere, but it's really not that easy. It's pretty, red and offwhite and the Japanese carts fit right in. The carts are similar to the NES but it's not the same. You need a converter, which it turns out is hard to find. There's so many little hacks for it, but in the end, it's best just to have the system. I'm playing a game called Super Chinese. It's pretty fun. I'll be exploring the rest of the games I picked up in Japan! Some carts are a $1. Some are $25!

The camera strap from Camera People. "Kame P" It's a small shop in Gakugei Daigaku. I didn't shoot these pics since shooting my own Camera strap on my camera is tough to shoot. But this is straight from their site. Here's their links. They even process film and print it. It's sort of the ultimate camera hobby shop and they even have a small gallery above. The leather straps are my favorite.

http://camerapeople.jp/

http://www.monogram.co.jp/

http://camepstore.com/?pid=13178443

While I check out this stuff, I have two cats sitting nearby. Here's what they do once in a while. Groom each other!

On the flight back from Japan, I shot a pic out of the window of LA. The red dot is literally my house. Below it's zoomed just a bit. It's amazing how much you can really make out of a window of a plane.

Daniel Dae Kim x me?

Do you watch Lost? Know this man? I'm going to interview him hopefully like none other. It's coming up May 15 2010. I'm already plotting my questions. It should be fun in all reality. This dude is totally cool, I don't think people really know who he is and he's one of the larger stars on TV. Want to come? Check out the Facebook link. We have some free slots.

Choe Lazarides Nothing to Declare Beverly Hills 90210

Image: post art show. Family conferences are pretty sacred. This was post art show at the after party which took place at the Soho House. That's the Brothers Choe. Jimmy, David, and Paul in descending age order. You'd like to think they were talking for just a minute about how life has so far brought them to this point. It was perhaps the biggest possible gallery show. Glad I shot this with 1600 iso. I'll bet their mom might want a copy, but there's beer and hi ball drinks in the pic.

Parking attendants, tons of them in front of the gallery. Just walking up, you know this one is special. It's just massive from the front.

This is a weird blow up figure in the window. This must have been a huge clothing shop before hand. The thrift store blankets are awesome.

A few of the smaller works. This art exhibition was huge and David brought his A game. So much art filled this giant room. I didn't think he had enough when I visited him at his studio, but it got done in a fury.

The crates were from JANM show, but they look a lot different here!

Whale guts ala the streets of Taiwan.

David and Nikki. That red scarf looks amazing.

I want this one! Hook me up someone.

Ben and Bobby Hundreds. I like how Ben is really into sports. That's cool. Their athletic based action wear (what a term) still has some athletics involved.

Nikki, Basterd David, Inglorious Eli Roth, and his friend with the fruity name of Peaches Geldof.

David and Bobby Hundreds.

The giant whale floated in the middle. Probably 1000 came through.

Joe Hahn and Heidi Woan.

The watercolors in the back room are amazing.

Michael and Pearl Hsiung

Joe To and Rob Sato

Harry Kim get your movie done. Dirty Hands is starting soon.

Whoa. Jason sports the Jimmy face shirt. See this video.

Another watercolor

The dressing rooms served as tiny art rooms

Matt, Dave, Gary, and Nikki at Norms. We never got a table.

That's her!

Junko, Aki, and this dark sketchy dude in the back. Mysterious.

No matter what, Taco Bell is always there. Great show David! How do you top it?