Connecticut Represent

I flew out to visit my Mom at her lovely home in Connecticut this past week. We mostly just sat around and talked for four days straight. I also took the time to clear out a lot of my old school papers and toys and things that she has been kind enough to store for me over the past 13 years. Time goes by so fast. Anyways, here are a few snapshots from the trip:

Artful photography. This is actually a jumping photo.








We went to an art exhibit at the Stamford Nature Center. It was of sculptures by Nathan Sawaya made from Lego blocks. Pretty cool.


Then we checked-out the animals on the farm. From afar, we thought these giant turkeys who were hanging by the Coke machines were made of Legos, too.




Goats!


More wild animals. This time it is the Pudge Master, aka the Varmint Hunter.


That's Pudge on the left and Bobo on the right... ready for some dinner.


This is just a small sample of the many boxes of stuff I went through. Attention members of the Stamford, CT Freecycle: there are some good comic books coming your way!


He-Man and the Masters of the Universe... coming soon to eBay.


Here is a photo from Waveny Park in New Canaan. When I was in high school, I spent a lot of time sitting in this park doing nothing.


On my last night there we had a big fire. I wish I had a fireplace in my home.


The flight home was long and I was super tired but still couldn't fall asleep. I got some cool pictures of "the City" during our descent.

Other events that I didn't get photos of were: chicken broccoli casserole, several dead chipmunks and a dead mole courtesy of Pudge, a picture of me with the Ultimate Warrior when I was about 10 years old, my Mom's awesome bathtub, a pretty awful art show (featuring no Legos), Westy storage, the happy guy who took my old baseball card sets, "The Thieves' Market" by Frederick Grant, and my Mom (she doesn't like having her picture taken).
Thanks for having me, Mom. I love you.

Anniversary in Hell

Narangkar and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary by spending two fabulous nights in Las Vegas. We figured, if you're gonna go to Vegas, don't half-ass it. Vegas is a gimmicky, cheesy, grimy place so we opted to stay at the dumbest hotel/casino we could find... Excalibur. 100% authentic Las Vegas experience, baby. We stayed two nights and left just before we both went crazy from all the noise and smoke and hooker cards and fat people and bad food and video screens and buffet lines and people with their tiny kids (are you folks nuts!?!) and just the whole Vegas-ness of it all. We partied hard, had a great time, and never want to go back.

Here are some photos in chronological order:


The view from our hotel room window. It was just magical.


Damn right.


The New York, New York hotel/casino has a mini Statue of Liberty that plays patriotic country music non-stop. God bless America.


We spent the daylight hours by the pool. There were speakers blaring rock music (not classic rock, but the contemporary shit I've never heard before and never want to hear again) non-stop from speakers mounted in every tree. Time for a drink.


$5.75 Corona "imported" beer. As opposed to $5.50 Budweiser "domestic".


We visited the M&M's store, which was 4-stories tall! Four floors of M&M's merchandise! You could buy a 4-pound bag of Skittles for 20 bucks! There was also a "World of Coca-Cola" pavilion but we skipped it. Time for another drink.


Nearby, on The Strip, they are building another monstrosity.


Our second night we headed downtown where the low-rollin' casinos are.
Our kind of place.


This Queen look-a-like tribute band played a few songs every hour outside the 4 Queens Casino. They rocked me. Then they were the champions.


So much razzle-dazzle.


Then the whole Fremont Street domed light show thing happened and it was like, "What the hell is going on?!?" I think Narangkar summed it up nicely by saying, "They've got the technology, but they don't have the content."


Narangkar jockeys some Wheel of Fortune slots while slamming down 54-ounce footballs of High Life to the sweet smells of fried Twinkies. I think Mermaids was our favorite casino.


Meanwhile, the floor starts to trip us out. Whoa.




The old "Ratso and the Pufferfish" routine.


Glitter Gulch... check your dignity at the door.


So glamorous. So drunk.


I think this sign clearly explains why Excalibur is the best hotel in the world. Ever.


See you in Hell, Vegas.
From, Pete...


and Narangkar.

Lavender Air...

"Lavendair"....

Jacob Tillman pops in and airs out on a quick trip up from Los Angeles. He hasn't skated in many months, slams on his first carve, and then starts responding to onlooker request for a fragrant ollie over the difficult hip. As always, unprecedented. Here's another angle:

Check out Jacob's artwork here (he is currently a painting grad at UCLA): www.jacobtillman.com. Check out a little video edit I did some skating from back in the day over at shredordie.com.

Mess With Texas

Narangkar and I went to Austin for a bit of the old South by SouthWest a few weeks back. It was the final trip as part of my participation in Scion's Easy Ten film series (you can check out the entire 15-minute film I made with David Choe by clicking this link to "23 Short Film" on Scion's Broadband website). All we had were plane tickets, reservations at a shitbox motel a few miles from downtown, a couple of phone numbers, and our laptop. Well, we also had clothes and stuff and I brought my skateboard. I've never been to Texas, let alone SxSW, so I didn't know what to expect. Thanks to some hot tips from the Texan contingent of This Mob and a phone number for Okay Mountain-Man Michael Sieben, we were fully prepared for a drunken good time.

We strolled over to the Mabel Davis skatepark about a mile or so from where we were staying. It's has got a huge, huge crazy bowl. Yikes.


The park also had a really great street course. Backside 50-50.


These fried pickles were not cheap, but I've been wanted to try me some fried pickles for a while so it was on. Tasty.


Sounder plays at the Camel Lounge, where you are required to accept two packs of free Camel cigarettes if you want some free Pabst tall cans. The whole place was all decked-out in Camel posters. Sounder did their best to not look like tobacco-sponsored sell-outs.


While wandering around downtown Austin our first evening there, we randomly ran into JP, who had spent his first week in Oakland (just after his 21st birthday) at Santa Rita jail on some trumped-up vandalism bullshit. JP rules and hopefully he'll come back to Oakland soon.


One of the only shows we actually payed money to see was, hands down, the worst band I have ever seen in my life. The Slits from the UK. "I'll dance reggae, you dance punk. No- wait- you dance punk and I'll dance reggae." I repeat, with all sincerity, Worst Band Ever!


Here is the 10am line to get into the free Motorhead show.


Motorhead was actually kind of boring. Napalm Death (pictured here), going on year number 27, was the highlight of the afternoon.


I'm sure everybody who has ever been to Okay Mountain gallery has marveled at this nearby amazing, muscle-bound, double bicepted, grill master mural. Awesome.


Sunset on whatever the name of the river that Austin is on is called. It was a lovely evening.


The cupcake airstream. Now that's good eatin'.


We began to doubt that we would get to see any really good shows while at SxSW and were kinda caught off guard when Jay Reatard blew-up the outdoor stage at some Scion / Vice gig. It was over 90 degrees on this mid-March day, there was no shade, but the High Life tallboys were on the house so it was all good. Jay Reatard rules live and on record. Go buy their stuff.


Okay Mountain is swell. We dropped fifty bucks on zines, T-shirts, and a beer cozy in their gift shop. Sitting on their grassy yard listen to random art-music duos and sipping keg beer was not a bad way to spend a few hours. Highly recommended.


Big Nate Sieben.


Backyard rampage.


Narangkar drops in.


Mike, Michael, and Alison. They took us to Barton Springs for some fresh-water swimming and then out for some Tex-Mex. It was a good day.


Oakland in Texas! DJ Eleven and DJ Willie Maze! I bet they are texting each other.


Narangkar dropping moves on the dance floor like you've never seen .


Hooray for everything.

Big thanks to Michael, Allison, and Big Nate Sieben for all their help and hospitality. Thanks also to Todd, Steven, Aho, and the Sounder/Volcom crew, JP, all the Austin heads, and everybody else. See you next time.

13' tall by 27' wide

Here are a few pictures of the completed mural. We finished it a few weeks ago but I'm just now posting the pictures. Narangkar and I are really pleased with how it turned out and are contemplating doing a similar mural on the side of the gallery, in full public view. Maybe in the fall when we have a little more time.





Big thanks to Lynn and Siriji over at GWPC.

Pete Picks 'Em

The 2008 Baseball season begin in less than a week when those lovable local losers, the Oakland Athletics, take on the World Champion Boston Red Sox in Tokyo, Japan. Without delay, Fearless Pete is gonna tell you what you'll be seeing when all is said and done in October. You can check the recap of my 2007 predictions at this blog. I also want to reiterate that I successfully picked the Cardinals to win it all in '06.

Let start with the big one: The New York Mets will win the World Series with Johan Santana being the series MVP. Now let's get to the nitty-gritty.

American League East:

1. Red Sox (best team in baseball in 08)
2. Yankees (winning the wild card just over the Mariners)
3. Blue Jays
4. the Rays (the team formerly known as the "Devil Rays")
5. Orioles (worst team in the AL)

AL Central:

1. Tigers (both D-Train and Cabrera rock)
2. Indians (Sabathia wins on 14 games)
3. Twins (3-4-5 teams are all close)
   
4. White Sox
5. Royals (win 73 games!)

AL West:

1. Angels
2. Mariners (1-2 teams close, both rule)
3. Oakland A's
4. Rangers (3-4 teams close, both suck)

For MVP I'm going with Vlad, then A-Rod and Ortiz.
For Cy Young, it's Bedard (on Seattle), Beckett, and Dontrelle Willis (on Detroit)
R.O.Y.: Boston's Jacoby Ellsbury

ALDS: Angels over Yanks, Red Sox over Tigers
ALCS: Angels over Red Sox in seven

National League East:

1. Mets
2. Phillies (wild card winners)
3. Braves (no good)
   
4. Nationals (even worse)
   
5. Marlins (worst in NL)

NL Central:

1. Cubs
2. Brewers (winning but fade in September)
3. Astros
4. Reds
5. Cardinals
6. Pirates (3-4-5-6 teams all below .500)

NL West:

1. Diamondbacks (best in NL)
2. Padres
3. Dodgers (2-3 teams close and good)
4. Rockies (tank in '08)
5. Giants (lose 95 games)

For NL MVP I say D. Wright, then Pujols, then Chase Utley
Cy Young goes to Jake Peavy, with Dan Haren (on Arizona) and Santana (New York) close
R.O.Y.: I don't know... Jay Bruce on the Reds

NLDS: Mets sweep the Cubs, Diamondbacks beat the Phils
NLCS: Mets over Diamondbacks in 5

World Series: You heard it here first, Mets over Angels in 6 games.

I also predict neither Bonds nor Clemens play this year. Also, pitchers Pryor, Wood, Harden, Burnett, Webb, Zambrano, and Hamels spend lots of time on the DL. Oh yeah, Zito is back to form with a low ERA despite the worst run support in baseball.

Play Ball.