Not sure why

I just love this image:

Garage-A-Delic Mix

Can Be Heard HERE!
Stream it HERE!

Playlist:

Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl -The Barbarians
Heart So Cold - The Thunderbolts
Hold Tight- Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich
Shattered- The Good Feelings
Making Time- Creation
Bera I Isoge- The Mops
I Never Loved Her- The Starfires
Last Time Around- The Del-Vetts
Hey Mama- Peter & The Wolves
Little Black Egg- The Nightcrawlers
Sinnerisme- The Sinners
No Correspondence- The Beckett Quintet
Loose Lips Sync Ships- The Hogs
Better Days- Thor's Hammer
Too Many People- The Leaves
She's Just Not Anybody- The Dovers
Out Of Our Tree- The Wailers
I Can't Seem To Make You Mine- The Seeds
Bottle Up And Go- Mile Ends
I Want Candy- The Strangeloves

Sketchbook 7

It's important to always keep the hands moving,so here's some sketches from the book. Some of these date back almost 20 years, to the NHS days, when sketching in books was my occupation!!

Tracy 168!

Ah, Facebook. It's brought all sorts of folks together, some good, some bad, at the touch of a key. I started to notice some heroes of mine were popping up on FB as well, and accepting my friendship. One such name was Tracy 168, one of the original subway graffiti writers. And every once in a while, he posts old photos, which for me are just pure gold. Representing a time long gone. Check em out:

South Bronx 1972

Garfield High School

In East Los Angeles, Garfield High's claim to fame was it was where Jaime Escalante taught math. He was lauded for his efforts to challenge his students, and ultimately had a film made based on this called Stand And Deliver.

When I first moved to Los Angeles in 1998, I worked at a small company that produced somewhat low-budget shows. One of which took place in East Los Angeles. One saturday morning I found myself at Garfield High, drawing fake gang graffiti.

The actual school had barely any real graffiti surprise to say. We drew ours on with hair-care products which could easily be washed off. It was a bizarre experience to say the least. Here's some still of my handi-work:

Sketchbook 3

And some more sketchbook examples. Some of these are reach back to about 10 years! A great thing about having one of these is to give yourself a chance to draw things and subjects you normally never would, (as demonstrated below!)

The Skyview Flea Market

One of the perks for growing up in Santa Cruz was having the Skyview Drive-On theater. Going to the drive-in was a real treat. Not so much to see the movie, but to hang out with everyone in this giant parking lot, hearing the movie sounds echo from all of the speakers.

 

One of the other facets of the drive-in was that it became this giant flea market on the weekends. Endless rows of stuff, and crazy greasy food in the cafeteria. It was the most awesome place in the world for a 12 year old. I would go first thing in the morning with my friends, and dig around for comic books. Some random people would have some great stuff, and sometimes collectors would go there to sell.

 On one such occasion, there was a pretty grumpy old guy who had large boxes of comics, not in bags, all 25 cents a piece, and in decent condition. In one of these boxes, I discovered a copy oh Hulk #181 from 1975. This was 1982, so, the issue at the time was valued at about $30. For me, it was a big deal because this was the first appearance of the character Wolverine, who was my favorite. Little did I know that the issue would go to be valued at more that $1,500 (thats mint condition prices. Mines a little worn, but nevertheless, valuable!!)

Sadly, times have changed. The drive-in is no longer there, and it's been replaced by a large hospital parking lot (which is evident of our aging population, thats spending more time in convalescence, rather than leisure time), but, it's a place I'll never forget!

Beautiful CFP Commercial!

I'm not even sure what these guys do, but it's one of the sweeter animated ads I've seen lately:

Boots n Booze 2

Here's some more scans from the zine Boots n Booze which was a folly of a group of friends during my wonder years. It was a semi-quarterly, or basically whe we felt like it, publication, but, a total of about 12 issues over the course of 5 years.


I'd always thought every town had their 'skinhead, ska, oi' magazine, but it turned out, ours was the exception, and people from all over were asking for issues.

1985 Display #4

Mailer For Mayor!

Amazing Norman Mailer for Mayor poster dug up from 1969!

Boots 'N Booze

In keeping with the 'zine theme', it seemed fitting to post these old relics of yesteryear. This was Boots N Booze from 1987. It was a skinhead zine published by a handful of friends. And I shouldn't have to explain that the skinheads we're talking here aren't the chair-throwing, Geraldo ranting, racist rich kids we hear so much about. This was all about the Spirit O' 69, original skinheads. Guinness drinking reggae listening toe-heads.

It was a great collaboration for about 6 of us, and though in keeping in Santa Cruz tradition, we barely got 2 of these out a year, it was a great distraction from high school.





This was basically the baby of Joel Loya, who has all of the artwork, and got us off of our ass' to contribute. He really did 90% of the artwork and writing, though, when we contributed a mere record review we felt like we were in charge. Joel kept is going for about 6 years and 12 issues until hair started to grow out, and boots were wore less often.

Also, an interesting schism happened within the magazine in 1989. Some folks had moved in from out of town, and due to the increasing violence we'd been seeing with racist thugs, the purists of the team decided to weed out the moderates. It was now going to be 100% soul and reggae, 'traditional' and discarding any veering we might have done to other music or subjects. It broke the team up a bit, but, we all kept contributing for years to come. Viva La Oi!

Dang, Burger King....

New hello Muller™ Poster!

Check it out here: