guitar playin' kook

I think I should adopt the nickname given to me when I was a child, and I can use it if I ever join a traveling family band.
"Skinny Bone Jones"

continue

but I have to
continue away from here
away from this idea

A.A. Bondy- I can see the pines are dancing

This is the light that shines
And I can see the pines are dancing
This is the leaving of another love
This is the howling at the moon
These are the arms you fell into
I am a fire and I must burn today

chips and newspapers

Ly and little girl, Oakland Airport, February 2010

ph. mb. pt. six- Roommates and adventures

March 2009

This is the first year Xavier and I lived together, along with three other friends in a two bedroom apartment right by campus. I actually really liked all of my roommates, there were weird times and a few conflicts here and there but overall, we all had good relationships during this time.

Xavier showing off his cookie/milk mustache. I'm proud and happy that we lived in such a clean, tidy, and organized apartment. I'm glad that we all were clean people that picked up after ourselves and that we all did our weekly chores every single week, or at least we were forced to be. That whiteboard behind Xavier was pretty important because we would write down important messages, post up house bills/rent, write love notes and reminders and other silly things. 

I shared a room with Andrew(not pictured) and Xavier. While Chao(pictured) and Stuart shared another room. I thought it was so funny how Chao and Stuart were probably the most incompatible people in the apartment and that they shared a room together. But it worked out just fine, except when any of us weren't talking to the other, then it was weird.

Towards the end of March, Chao, Xavier, and I went on a trip to Santa Cruz to stay with Chao's sister and sisters husband for the weekend. This was my first time in Santa Cruz and the same for Xavier. We spent a lot of time in downtown and too much time at the beaches. That's all I really remember from the trip. Oh and the best part of it all was sleeping in this weird attic and all three of us hit our heads on the ceiling at least once! And that Chao's sister and sisters husband were the nicest people ever.

This was taken from an Egon Schiele book at some random bookstore in downtown. I've always been obsessed with the way he drew his hands, it was always the hands that got me.

On our last day of our trip we decided to travel south to the city of Monterey. Xavier and Chao almost rented kayaks but I remember it being a little too expensive so we just ended up hanging out on these cliffs and looking at this amazing view.

That was such a great year, and such a period of immense growth for me and I'm sure for all of my roommates. Xavier and I ended up going our separate way from the rest of our roommates and found a small place near downtown. It was just as the summer was ending, and there were hard feelings but I hope that those are all gone even though I don't talk to a couple of them anymore. I'll always remember that year, and all the great times that I had with all of my roommates, and I'm so thankful for them and I'm glad we shared so much and learned so much from each other.

End

Back and forth
Emptiness ensues
Going on and on
In until we're done
Nothing in view

Sleep

Bloc Party- This Modern Love

What I've been missing

In Wonderland- The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and The United States

May 4 2012

Planned for weeks, Amy, Abraham, and I finally got to see the "In Wonderland Exhibit" along with practically every other exhibition going on at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art. I asked them if they would want to save the wonderland exhibit for last and they said yes so we went to the other buildings first.

Kathe Kollwitz Das Volk 1922-23

This was one of the first pieces of that day that really resonated with me. While studying relief printing in school, I was always drawn to the negative space in art and especially in printmaking. I love this woodcut by Kollwitz because of all that negative space, the look of agony, the hands, the unmoved face in the center. I thought it was interesting because looking around in the room, there were so many detailed woodcuts, intaglio prints, lithography prints, but this one was by far my favorite.

Morris Louis Beta Ro 1959-1960

I've seen a lot of Louis pieces in big museums and I've never really been a fan but for some reason I really enjoyed this one and I've learned to appreciate this kind of abstract expressionism more in the past few years. I was really excited to see some Richard Diebenkorn pieces but they only had one and I realized, "oh yeah, I'm not in the bay area, of course I'm not going to see a whole room of bay area figurative movement pieces".

Jesus Rafael Soto Penetrable 1990

A sculpture that moves with the viewer. I think everyone loves interactive art pieces. I do, and when I found out there weren't any signs that said "DO NOT TOUCH" I was all over it. I remembering being in the sculpture with a ton of little kids running around and feeling like I enjoyed it just as much as they did.

Happy mistakes are good and overexposing this shot was one of those really happy mistakes. I love this photo of Amy. It's a perfect representation of an amazing woman.

I remember telling Abraham, "look sad!" I like this face better, on the verge of smiling.

Chris Burden Metropolis II 2010

This is by far, in my young life, the coolest kinetic installation I've ever witnessed. Thank you Chris Burden for making a lot of kids dreams come true. It was funny to imagine having this as a child or any child having this in their home. When we got to this piece there were a ton of people surrounding it and the cars were just sitting on the bottom and on the conveyer belt not yet moving. It wasn't until a technician went in the center of the piece and flipped a switch and that's when all the cars started zipping by. And what made it even better was you could go up a flight of stairs that would let you look down at the piece, literally a bird's eye view. Now I want to see an entire building that holds a small/big city by Burden.

Frida Kahlo Frieda y Diego Rivera 1931

And finally, we arrived at the Resnick Pavilion for a very special exhibition. What a wonderful collection of work from so many amazing surrealist artist. The space was so crowded, and people just flocked to the Kahlo paintings. This portrait of Frida and Rivera has always been my favorite, I remember seeing it in an art book once and noticing her feet compared to his. And for some reason I've always hated that and loved it at the same time, and finally seeing it in person was just a very cool experience. I had to get a photo of the feet.

Sylvia Fein The Tea Party 1943

And then I saw all these wonderful paintings by Sylvia Fein and I fell in love again. I think the nice thing about this exhibit was finding out about so many amazing artist. I went into it knowing about Louise Bourgeois, Kay Sage, Frida Kahlo, Lee Miller, Remedios Varo, but I've never even seen a glimpse of these amazing paintings by Sylvia Fien, Dorothea Tanning, Gerrie Gutmann and plenty more.

By far this painting by Sylvia Fein was my favorite, the amount of ghost like detail in the foreground and background was just stunning and made me want to paint more. Absolutely gorgeous.

The walk back to the car, starving and excited for Abraham to take us to the infamous Swingers diner in Hollywood. Amy and I were not disappointed, well I kinda was just because I chose the wrong dish but the vegan nachos, sweet potato fries and bite of Abe's Swinger burger made it a new favorite spot.



























These two, trying to find Narnia.

One of my favorite discoveries of the day was finding out that Abraham is really knowledgable about plants. We officially have a botanist as a best friend, I don't know the name of this flower but I'm sure Abe could tell you. He collected a ton of succulents and brought them home to grow. I picked a rose for Amy and got one of the dirtiest looks from some neighbor lady, she also said some things but I was in the heat of the moment so I didn't hear her.



























And our night ended with the Griffith Observatory. All the years that I've lived in the Los Angeles area I've never been to the Griffith Observatory. Yes, I know, I'm a noob. And what do you know, the moon was out glowing and showing off. The observatory is so cool, there were all kinds of people there, young adults, little kids on field trips, old scientist dads explaining the wonders of the sun to their uninterested children. We walked the entire perimeter and got to see all the cool stuff inside. I liked walking on the scales for each planet to see how much I weighed. I definitely want to go back soon to get a fuller experience. We only had a chance to take a few pictures with Albert Einstein, not even enough time to talk to him!

And here's to Amy and Abraham for being great friends and for sharing such a great day together.
(photo credit- Abraham Jupiter Santos II and Amy Hamburgerler Bones)

Hellhole Ratrace

waiting

Hayward, Ca. 2007

jeh je

Billowing words of influence
Inspiring these fingers to move
Grateful for this unspoken truce

Steady like your movement in this world
Invested so much in this existence
Surround us and protect me from this cold
Thick like these layers of heritage
Every time I hear your voice
Reminding me that I’m loved