The Bloated Penguin

As most of us Canadians were forced to endure the terrible introductions of Brian Williams and his ragtag team of bad broadcasters, old people and socially inept morning hosts, I did notice a few things that could have made things more enjoyable.

10 – Dude drinking beer through Whistler village.

CTV completely missed the boat on this one forgetting to mention that the beer was most likely locally brewed.

9 – Loooouuuuuu is not Booooooooo

I get that CTV and TSN tried to explain that us Vancouverites were not booing, but why not actually ask someone who doing it?

8 – The Houses

Other than constant shots of Canada Hockey House, CTV never really showcased any other house. Wasn’t Holland house bangin?

7 – From Dives to Presentable Venues

This is more of a tip of the hat to the people of VANOC who turned dives like the Pacific Coliseum and BC place into world class venues. CTV decided not to show how much work was put into these places to make them look the way they did.

6 – How Did Brian Williams Stay Alive?

I’m sure that Brian Williams has since returned to his cryogenic chamber that keeps him preserved for another four years, but I would have liked to see someone analyze his day like he did will all of the speed skaters.

5 – How were all of these red mittens produced?

I’m not being critical, in fact I think it would have been a great segment to have. How did The Bay manage to turn everyone’s hands red? Come on, wouldn’t you have rather seen that than another segment of Michael Landsberg walking through Whistler village?

4 – Athlete’s Village

What went on in there? Fans partied outside, but weren’t there some kickin’ parties going on in the Athlete’s Village? It was like CTV tried to get in the door, but the bouncer said no unless he brought 6 hot friends.

3 – What happened to those tards who broke shit?

It would have awesome to show what happened to those guys that went around smashing shit. Like a 5 minute segment on a VANOC van dropping them off in Hope or something with a bunch of the mascots waiting to pound on them.

2 – Russian Disappointment

Okay, maybe this would have been a bit much, but as we passed the Olympic flag over to Sochi, would it have been cool to challenge them personally? Like “Let’s see if you can do it better, even though you’re all considered failures already by your leader.”

1 – Danny Chan’s Olympic Photography

Again, probably not the highest on everyone’s list but Danny Chan had some of the BEST images of the games I’ll ever see. It was a privilege to follow him on FB and got me thinking about why CTV didn’t focus a little bit on the personal creativity of the locals.

Don’t know if Danny will have his albums public, but I think everyone should be able to enjoy them.

This is my favorite, but he's got tons more.

Anyways, if you thought this was lame, go download Silverlight and watch CTV’s coverage on your own time.

OUT.

I missed yesterday cause well… It was so damn nice out and I tried my hardest to stay outside. For all 2 of you that are actually interested in my daily life (thanks mom) I apologize. Now, back to the Seattle recap.

The final day in Seattle we reserved to be complete tourists. I’ve done this before in other cities, but knowing myself all too well, I knew that I could really only take one day of it. We woke up pretty early and headed down to Pike Market again for our daily brekky. Nothing beats fresh baked goods and the smell of freshly caught fish in the morning. Awesome… Then we boarded the tram (a lot like Vancouver’s Skytrain but with only one stop) and headed over to EMP and the Sci-Fi Museum. I was actually pretty excited to check out the Sci-Fi Museum cause I’ve read some pretty good things about it.

EMP is the Experience Music Project set up by Paul Allen. He combined this with the Sci-Fi Museum to basically show off to the world how awesome his collection of memorabilia is. I attribute this to like the ultimate basement collection of junk my mom would through away having not know what it all means. First up was EMP and the gf and I checked out the history of music promotion posters. This was amazing as they had old printing presses on display and showed some original posters promoting acts like Buddy Holly and Elvis. Next up was the Jimmy Hendrix Experience – an exhibit devoted entirely to the Afro legend himself. They were displaying some of Jimmy’s guitars and jumpsuits as well as some personal belongings like post cards from the army and his first notebooks that included song lyrics. I wasn’t a huge Jimmy Hendrix fan, but after EMP I’m starting to convert. The Sci-Fi Museum was a bit of a disappointment though. When I go to places like museums I like to “do” things. I like to interact with exhibits, learn more about what I’m looking at and generally do more than just stare. At the Sci-Fi Museum, everything was behind glass. This meant no photos at anytime and no touching. They did have some pretty cool memorabilia like Captain Picard’s Borg suit and an original Donatello Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle from Jim Henson, but like I mentioned earlier, everything was look but don’t touch.

After the Seattle Center experience we trammed back to the hotel to chill out for a while. We wanted to stay in the Sci-Fi mood because we were a bit disappointed with the museum so we decided to watch Star Trek… Again. I’ve reviewed Star Trek already so if you want my take on it you can go check it out. But this time wanted to see the flick on the biggest screen possible – and we did.

We ventured over to the Cinerama in downtown Seattle and sat in the balcony. I’ve had balcony seating for a movie before, but never at this capacity. As expected, the flick was awesome, but it was the sheer size of the screen and the fact that going to the movies was an event, not just something to do that was really great. I wish we had more theaters like that in Vancouver. They make going to the movies a lot more fun.

At night we met up with Dr. Lee again and he took us for ice cream in the Hipster District of Seattle. He took us to a place called Molly Moon’s which we were the very last customers. I pleaded with the people inside to let us in cause we were from out of town. I was ready to prove it with my ID, but I think they saw how desperate and kind of pathetic I was being so they let us in at the very end.

The next morning we prepped for the drive home, stopped off at Target and bought some DVD’s and landed back in our apartment for dinner. Great trip, great Birthday gift and great times.

Finally, another Dr. Lee Quote: “Everyone in our crew eats fast… Except for Tommy. That kid likes to look at his food before he eats it. That’s weird man…”

One of the main reasons I wanted to cross the border and go check out the Emerald City was to really experience Pike Market to its fullest. I’d been before, but this was a long time ago and I had forgotten what it was all about. Staying only about 4 blocks away from the market was a treat as the GF and I walked down to the market every morning for a cup of coffee and some brekky.

The first time we ventured down we made sure to see every knick knack and explore every corner. The Pike Market has everything you can imagine from fresh fish to comic books so I experienced a bit of sensory overload to begin with. Obviously we watched the fish tossers for a while, smelled the fresh baking and had ourselves nice walk through the place. Come to think of it, it felt like we were this old retired couple checking out the sites for a little while…

After the market we took a walk through downtown to go meet up with Dr. Lee. We were actually staying about a block away from his chiropractic office so it wasn’t hard to find. We went up the elevator and to our surprise found the title “Dr. David H. Lee” stenciled on the door. I guess you had to have grown up with me to really understand the irony of this, but to see a childhood friend’s name with the title Dr. in front of it was a bit of a trip.

Dr. Lee works at Dynamic Chiropractic in downtown Seattle and to my knowledge, this is the absolute best chiropractic office on the west coast of… the world. Okay so I might be slightly biased, but you gotta support. He showed us around for a bit, we went to lunch and then the GF and I headed north on Pike to check out some of the boutique shops.

I’m not a shopper, in fact I kind of hate it. The process of looking, trying things on, then spending cash just baffles me – good thing I had a professional with me and she showed me the ropes. Dr. Lee’s friend dropped us off at the top of Pike and we walked back down towards our hotel. This allowed us to check out some of the sneaker shops which is my only saving grace when it comes to retail therapy. I picked up some shirts and another pair of P-Rods from a place called 35th North; we also checked out Rock Paper Scissors and Goods. Seattle’s got a nice sneaker scene; they know their way around a skate shoe, but that isn’t surprising.

The evening brought us back down to the market where we dawned bibs and hammers and smashed our way through a great Crab Pot dinner. I recommend this place to anyone looking for good shell fish and good times. There’s nothing better than taking a hammer, smashing your food all over the table, then eating it.

Even though my post-birthday trip to Seattle was only a few days, the GF and I accomplished quite a bit. Because of this, I’ll split this post up over a couple of days so nobody gets too bored reading through it.

The drive down was amazing. The sun was out and I actually got a terrible T-Shirt tan through the moon roof of the boat we call a car. As with many border crossing travelers, my main concern on the way down south was passing trhough American customs. If you’ve followed my adventures with customs then you’ll agree, that these people generally don’t like me very much…

Until now! Crossing from Canada into the US on Thursday was probably the most pleasent border crossing experience of my life. The couple in the car behind us were screaming at each other with the windows down so I made up their conversation. It was similar to the way John Conner yells into the HAM radio in Terminator Salvation, “WE’RE DEAD! WE’RE ALL DEAD!!!” But my experience when we got to the customs agent was amazing. Dude loved me for some reason and even did a little jig in his booth when I answered all of his questions. Okay, I guess you really had to be there.

We checked into the Sheraton on 6th and Pike and looked out onto Pike Market which was amazing. When we arrived it was too late to explore, so we set up shop and took a walk around town. We found a downtown theatre showing UP in 3D so we had to check it out. Here’s a quick and dirty review:

AMC (the theatre showing UP in 3D) gave us re-usable 3D glasses so we brought them home. The flick started off with a great little short called Partly Cloudy or something of the matter. As always, Pixar goes above and beyond many expectations with their detailed work and their attention to emotion and character. The then continued into UP which had one of the best beginnings to a film that I’ve ever seen. If you know the plot of UP then this won’t be news to you, but for those who don’t you’ll learn to appreciate the pace of a flick and how to present an amazing back story before the film begins. Once the actual story got started, we were all smitten. The GF cried like crazy throughout which is always a good sign. I saw Russel – my 9-year old alter ego and watched as Pixar through amazing visuals wrapped around a touching story once again. I think UP ranks just behind The Incredibles and slightly ahead of Wall*E.

So that was the first night and I’ll cap it all off with a quote from Dr. Lee: “Dude. You came all the way to Seattle to watch a movie?”

Yup!

Hello World,

Horiyoshi The Third Long Sleeve

Took the weekend off from recapping to check out some movie trailers. I’m back now though and ready to let everyone know about the conclusion of the trip to California for Stone Corporation and their clothing line Horiyoshi The Third.

So when I left off the first night of the Canvas Gallery event has just concluded. Friday night was the VIP Event meaning we were only permitting invited guests from around LA that were some way involved with either the tattoo industry or fashion industry. On Saturday night, the flood gates were let loose and the general public were invited in to check out the legendary art work of Horiyoshi III. Since I knew what to expect for the second night it allowed me to set up my shots and plan my shooting schedule for the night (for those of you wondering why I was down in the LA, I was sent in to get some exclusive video content). On the second night I got to work with Nausheen, a recent film school grad with a specialization in Cinematography. The two of us had cameras so we planned to make sure we shot everything from the public event… and we did.

Horiyoshi The Third T-Shirt

When I got home on Sunday I captured all of the footage and I think it totals over 8 hours for the entire trip… Couple that with the fact that it was all shot in HD and I was begging for hard drive space like a squeegee kid on the corner of Main and Terminal.

Anyways, the public event was HUGE. We were lined up for most of the night and actually had to run the video message from Horiyoshi III twice to accommodate all of the guests. Everyone who walked through the gallery to show their respect for the master’s work stopped at least once to check out the new line where both Mike and Dr. Lee showed them the samples. Exposure-wise, this was very important. Although the official invite mentioned the clothing line, for most guests, this was their first time seeing it all. The schedule was much in the same as the night before, just with a massive increase in people traffic.

The Japanese were in and around the gallery showing off their full-body tattoos and Kazu once again did his thing in front of the crowd. In my opinion, he’s a bit of a crowd favorite and he’s got a great career in front of him. Not only does his age appeal to a younger tattoo culture, his traditional upbringing coupled with his attention to detail really make him unique.

Kazu's Performance

When the final event finally closed up shop we had an attendance of over a thousand people. Knowing the size of the Canvas Gallery, having a thousand people in and out of that place was an amazing feat. Not to mention the buzz around the city we created. The after party was to follow, but because my flight back to Vancouver was scheduled for 6:30AM, I really didn’t have a lot of time stick around. I crawled back to the hotel room, crashed for a couple of hours and headed for LAX.

To close this segment I should probably mention that none of this would have been possible had it not been for the support and encouragement from the Stone Corporation and their affiliates. The crew down in LA treated me like one of their own and after looking at some of the footage I can honestly say that I will never again in my lifetime be able to capture those images on film.

I’ll be back to my regular blogging schedule of ridiculousness and trivial facts as early as tomorrow.

Yesterday we left off after the photo shoot day. I should probably mention that I arrived in LA after the entire group. They had actually spent a day prior exploring the city and checking out spots like Fred Segal and a bunch of areas in and around Beverly Hills.

Not sure if this is something that should be advertised...

Anyways, the next morning I woke up pretty early and went out to shoot some B-Roll, environment shots of the city. I’m used to getting up early and starting something to get the brain working (Hell even today I’m up and writing and it’s only 7AM PST!) but it seems like weekday mornings in LA are a ghost town. Nothing was open before 11AM so I walked around a lot and actually got quite lost. I didn’t get anything good on camera which was really disappointing, but after a while everything opened up and I was able to take some time to check out some spots that I’m interested in.

I went to the La Brea area and had some coffee at Milk which are two pretty well know spots in Cali. A little hipster I guess, but nobody can deny that sometimes a little hipster can do the heart some good. La Brea was alright, I got to check out Undefeated and Stussy, but overall, I was pretty disappointed with the shoe selection. I hear a lot about the California sneaker culture, but judging from the few places I hit up, there wasn’t a ton I liked. Maybe I was sent to the wrong spots.

Stussy wants everyone to "spread the love."

I got back to the hotel and met up with the Japanese pretty early. Then we hopped in the limo and headed to the Canvas Gallery on Fairfax. The Canvas Gallery is an art gallery dedicated to showcasing brilliant works by tattoo artists specifically. They sell some clothes, but it’s mostly there to show respect for an art form that is quickly becoming recognized as one of the most popular in the world. Horiyoshi III was being honored and the gallery was presenting some of his amazing work from over the years. Not only in print form, but in human form as well as we were traveling with 8 full-body tattooed Japanese men that Horiyoshi III had sent. The kicker, which to me was a surprise, was that Horiyoshi III’s son Kazuyoshi was going to be tattooing one of the Japanese models live at the show.

The Horiyoshi The Third Clothing Line was also being premiered at the event. Although a lot of people already knew about its existence, it was the first time people were actually able to see some of the samples. I would show some here, but we’re still waiting for the final photography to be sent in and it will most likely be shown on the Horiyoshi The Third website later on.

Kazu doing his thing at the Canvas Event

We set up a few hours early and I went to grab a bite to eat at Cantors (a pretty famous Jewish diner). I now have a new found appreciation for mustard selection. The waitress educated me without any question and I walked away a much smarter boy….

This night was the official opening of the show – meaning only VIP guests were invited to join. I think by the end of it we had a count of over 300 people show up. During the show Horiyshi III himslef made an appearance in video message form. He thanked the Stone Corporation, Canvas Gallery and told everyone there to take care of his son Kazu. It was pretty inspiring to watch him speak even if it was just in .mov form.

When the night ended I got word that Dr. Lee would be landing so I left the event to go meet him back at the hotel. When he finally arrived it was too late to go out and do anything spectacular so we just stayed at the hotel and had a couple of drinks. The first night wasn’t just a huge success by ways of exposure, it also prepared us for the public opening the following night…

So when we left off, the group had just finished eating at King Taco on East LA. Not exactly the friendliest neighborhood unless you roll with a local, which we did. A group of them in fact. Here was the deal. The Stone Corporation imported 8 full-body tattooed Japanese models to photograph wearing the Horiyoshi The Third clothing line as well as show some of the tattoo community in LA some of the amazing work coming out of Japan. Kind of an East meets West thing. Because of this, a lot of local tattoo artists and aficionados caught wind and decided to support, which was great for me because I’ve got some once in a lifetime footage of it all.

Image Source: Bad Cop No Donuts

The local tattoo community was kind enough to offer their support and escort us through East LA, more specifically Estrada Courts. I’m guessing it was kind of a shock to the community when 8 Japanese dudes walked out of a Hummer Limo and took off their shirts to pose in front of some of the great art work presented around the area. We generated quite a crowd, but it was all about respect. We didn’t shy away from anyone that wanted a picture with the Japanese because we knew we were there on someone else’s terms. In fact, I later found out that our escort Adrien was once a resident of the area and he himself is now a flourishing shirt designer. Our first destination for photos was underneath the famous 6th Street Viaduct. Some notable titles filmed there would include Terminator 2, Grease and recently Kanye West shot a music video there. And now, Horiyoshi The Third was going to premier the line with images from the same spot.

Image Source: Bad Cop No Donuts

Like I mentioned last post, my images are currently in the Photoshop stage so what  you’re seeing here has been provided by John over at Heavy Hitters Magazine.

After the 6th Street shots we ventured into the suburban areas of Estrada Courts where we met some of the people and took some shots. Highlight of day: Taking some amazing images in front of a monumental mural of Che Guevara – one of the all-time greats.

The day was long, but extremely rewarding. We all went out to grab some food near the hotel afterwards and I ran into NBA legend Cliff Robinson. That was pretty cool too. The conversation went something like this:

“Hey Cliff, what are you doing in LA?”

“Who are you?”

“Cool man, I’ll catch you later…”

Anyways, that was the day of the photo shoot. As you can probably tell, it was inspiring. I got to do some things I’ll never again be able to recreate in my life. Tomorrow’s post will be focused on the Canvas Gallery Event itself where Kazu put his skills to the test and didn’t disappoint.

Like I mentioned yesterday, I’m going to take the next few days to post about my trip to California where I shot video for the Stone Corporation and the Horiyoshi The Third mens clothing line.

Check out my previous post about Horiyoshi The Third to get an idea.

Just as a side note, the Stone Corporation flew 8 full body tattooed Japanese models into LA to help launch the clothing line. All of them currently sport head-to-toe tattoos done my Horiyoshi III himself.

We had a bit of an early start on Thursday morning with a scheduled photo shoot for about 10AM. This was also my first exposure to the Hummer-Limo I’d be rolling around in for the next few days. The evening before I had the opportunity to meet with some of the Japanese models who sport full body tattoos. I also had the pleasure of meeting Kazuyoshi (Kazu), the heir to the legend of Horiyoshi who will essentially be taking over one day. In the morning we all met at the limo and hopped in for a ride to the photo shoot.

Photo courtesy of Bad Cop No Donuts

When we arrived it became obvious that the studio we were going to wasn’t a normal photo studio. Nothing shady, but the parking lot had this crazy lowered G-ride parked in it and the studio came fully equipped with a working garage. We were shooting in the studio where photographer Edgar shoots those amazing images of cars and bling for Lowrider and Heavy Hitters Magazine.

After some quick setup the crew brought in some Micky D’s and we all joked how having 8 full body tattooed Japanese guys munching down on an egg mcmuffin would probably be an amazing commercial. Hell I’d eat a hash brown after seeing that.

In the first segment Edgar was going to shoot the models wearing the clothing – my personal favorite moment of this was our translator and resident female representative Judy trying to get Kazu to improvise some poses. Its hard enough getting in front of a camera and standing there, it’s another to do something interesting, and it’s even another to do something when you have no idea what people are saying. Kazu, along with all of the others did a pretty nice job though.

Next up were the tattoo shots (images are currently in the photoshop stage undergoing some color correction surgery) and we were greeted by some of the LA Chicano community’s finest when famed tattoo artist Chewy arrived with some of his work. The Japanese guys posed with them for a bit, we took some group shots and headed out for some non-studio pics.

Photo Courtesy of Bad Cop No Donuts

But not before some good eats – and this time it all came in the form of some authentic Mexican cuisine from East LA’s infamous King Taco. Walking around a Mexican restaurant with 8 full body tattooed Japanese guys sounds less startling than it is. At this point I found out where we were going and how we were going to be able to do this.

But ya’ll are gonna have to wait cause this post is getting long and your gonna have sweat it out like me at customs… Until tomorrow at least.

Gotta give a shout out to John over at Heavy Hitters Magazine who put together these images for his blog Bad Cop No Donuts.