Tag Archives: west coast

Photo of the Day – Beautiful Foliage

Posted on by

San Diego Bushes

The exact point of change seems to not exist. Maybe it happens in minute evolutions, so pint size that only if you were paying close attention and knew what to look for you’d see it. Trees in the north, grew even larger by Northern California and transformed into mammoth sequoias, muting the light from the sun, a natural roof of green and brown. Wild flowers were more colourful in So Cal, yellow, purple floral lining between the road and the endless stretch of baked white beach. Even bushes, one of the most unrecognized plant for it’s beauty, now grew up the side of steep inclines, A Van Gogh of dotted, precise colours, that as that landscaper could tell you quite frankly, needed constant maintenance or it would burst forward, a continuous growth of foliage, enveloping all living and inanimate things in it’s path, a picturesque, less gelatinous blob. Kudos California bushes, Canadian bushes….take note, that’s how you get attention, not by being prickly.

Not the Way of Seattle – Original Post March 19, 2010

Posted on by

The Main Drag of Port Townsend

 

I am stealing Internet from Quimper Sound. I am a rebel in a red scarf serenaded by a guitar that wales out from a door. Across the street a reputed film house, The Rose Theatre, apparently makes the best popcorn in town. I may have to sample it, since in Coupeville, yesterday, I had the best Cornbeef Coprocon Potatoes, Soda Bread…..and ONIONS in town.

The clock tower welcomed me into the city

I sit on the sidewalk of Port Townsend, the dubbed “New York of the West” in the earlier part of the century. Due to Seattle’s coal, drunken sailors and a lack of railroad tracks, the town is a ghost of what could have been, what should have been. Nestled across from Keystone Point, the town is beautiful, the facades are multicolored sunwashed, the temperature is matched in brightness, the people smile and say hello. Some clickity clack heels of some odd women breaks my thought. I stare at my reflection in the computer screen. Handsome devil on a bike. Love it. I am going all the way…San Diego here I come. I can do it now….not before…but now I have the ball rolling and the inertia will take me there.

Couch surfing host extrodinaire, Andrew

The days are to get longer, harder, faster ridden. Today I will sit and chill with Andrew on his dog farm. We talked about his career as an actor late last night, about the film he had made in Romania called Hideous, about the money he had to smuggle, 20,000, that he was laundering for them into Romania, about the toxic fluid scene he shot with real mercury, about the lover he met, staying 4 extra days in the Ladlmum Hotel in Bucharest to be with. We ate break, drank wine and soup, and laughed. We went back to his farm on discovery road and he showed me into the guest room, a bed covered in flies he wiped clean. His place was a single wide, which is a wheeled in home, which he retorted after I asked, “You really are a city boy, all hicks live in these.” I fell asleep to the sound of his 5 or 6 Turkish pups outside, llamas…..and frogs. Today…biked into town, visited townhall, talked to the curator for 97 hours about town history….now its time to end abruptly to go explore as the bus leaves back to discovery bay at 5:55 and I cannot miss it,

Stay Groovy

Ira

Photo of the Day – The Legend of Crenshaw Blvd

Posted on by

Crenshaw Blvd. Recognize.

Growing up as a big fan of hip hop I recognized the name Crenshaw Blvd as I pulled into the parking lot of a small strip mall on the corner containing a bank, a Chinese restaurant, a KFC and something that was either a laundry mat or an old folks home (hard to tell). The street’s name was synonymous with gangsta music to me with images of 2pac riding by in a Cadillac, screaming profanities at the 5-0 and Eazy-E playing bones on the corner with his homiez. I didn’t relate to that life style, no, and never tried to emulate it all too much (I did have a FUBU shirt, that was multicolored and glowed in the dark…I wore it once). I admired the spirit behind the music, the unabashed enthusiasm, a window into a world I didn’t know. I wasn’t interested in “the struggle”, “the hustle”, “the grind” or anything else political, economic or social relating to the music, I was infected by the fat beats and the stories from a place that was as far away as Mars.

So here I was. After biking through the pretty arty streets of Malibu, and catching the Bohemian vibes and reefer induced rhythms of Venice Beach, 20 minutes or less away, I was smack dab right in the middle of my musical oasis, something I had heard of countless times, but had never thought would ever live up to it’s hype. But with everything, that music describes no just a place, but a time, and a right exact time to be exact.

I had met up with my friend in Santa Monica and she was showing me around the city for a few days. Chance had it that I really needed to use the restroom. My friend spotted the random parking strip and pulled in. As I stepped out into the humid air, the glint of the blue, swinging sign with white lettering above the intersection caught my eye immediately. BAM. There I was. Crenshaw. I took a deep breath. My friend waited in the car, gave me the thumbs up. I looked around. Just an average intersection in a big city, nothing too special. My first choice for bathrooms was the Chinese restaurant.  Nope, no English and no bathrooms for non-patrons. Wasn’t too keen on entering the non-descript purpose buildings, men stood at the window staring out like inmates shoved into a holding cell that was too small to do anything but be squeezed against the caged walls, eyes bulging towards a dissipating freedom. So it was KFC.

And how gangster a KFC was it? It actually was! I entered into a stark room. There was no open counter, no waiters with smiles to greet you, just a two way glass wall with small slots in it. It felt like I had entered the visiting centre of a prison. I approached the glass, not knowing where I was to address, I started into my own reflection…..”Hello?”

“Hello, welcome to KFC, can I take your order?”

“I just need to use the restroom, please”

Click. Click. Clackity. A door, appeared out of no where.

“It’s unlocked”

“Thanks”

I braced myself, I expected a flickering fly filled single florescent bulb highlighting all the murky, gut wrenching details of all types of matter. Quite the opposite, I could eat, say, a popcorn chicken, off the ground it was so clean. Crenshaw, a real mind fuck it was, but I am so glad that the bottomless Mimosas had kicked in and I had to stop and see this shit hole to most, but this childhood fairytale to me.