Valentines day was awesome, which is strange to hear coming from a person who has always despised it for being a corny and lousy-excuse-day to ask a girl out, yet realizing that these weak excuses are good pick ups for the everday lonely admirer. Sadly, I had no date, no one asked me to be their valentine, and yet I saved a lot of money for doing none of the above (there's always a plus side!). But I made this day into one of my best days of February, and I'm expressing it in a mess of photos and words.
For the last several days i've been pretty bed ridden with this terrible cold; it's prevented me from going out and enjoying my spontaneous adventures. I think I caught it through one of my kids at work when I was teaching. He coughed in my face a bunch of times while I was trying to teach the kids how to weave yarn bracelets, but it's koo because I took revenge by enforcing child labor for the 1.25 hours I had them (no seriously, it's a lot of fun and energy working with kids. I enjoy it a lot.)
Today, I woke up at 8am, thinking about all the things I had to do, which were: (1) pick up air hockey table from the hedda house (RIP), (2) have lunch with folks, (3) DJ at artwalk, (4) whatever else... (and yet everyday I make a failed attempt to study for school... oh well; enjoying life.) Fell back to sleep and woke up from a phone call from my parents around 11:30. Left the pad by noon.
Before I picked up the air hockey table, I decided to pass by the Beatrock store to say hi to some KMB peeps who were planning their 3rd Filipino ED of the three part series.
John Eric setting up the projector.
Kala and Kristine
I couldn't stay long or stick around for the actual ED to start; I had too much on my plate and was running on a strict schedule. I was hoping to hit up some thrift shops in the latter part of my day but I ended up butchering those plans due to limited time. I was able to squeeze some time and stop by my old work at the grocery drive-thru, Milk Barn, and was able to catch up with an old friend.
After having lunch with the folks I headed back to downtown LB to DJ with my friend paul at the 2nd st. art walk, which is every 2nd Sunday of every month. I first headed home, picked up my backpack of records, hopped on my brother's bike and pedaled my way through downtown, which was literally a 2 minute ride.
nPrevail out in the open.
DJing was okay. When I DJ, I usually mix with a reverse crossfader yet Paul's mixer only did regular style, which I struggled with getting my tracks on point. Plus my playlist was pretty scattered; I had no time to pick and choose my selections before getting to the gig and so I was somewhat trainwrecking genres into one another. Although not the worst gig, it was nowhere near my best.
Paul Domiguez doin' his thing
Artwalk on 2nd st.
As you can see the art walk isn't the most poppin' thing in downtown, yet people bring their families here and manage to have a good time. For me, I like the fact that I'm able to play music outside rather than indoors and that this place is literally two blocks away from my pad on Lime ave. This year I'm taking my art in photography and music to the next level and that taking any opportunity that allows me to express my work is the first step.
What I love about downtown Long Beach is that everything is practically within short walking distance. It definitely helps to have a car, but when you live in a downtown where bus fares are free for CSULB college students, where bicycles zoom from street to intersection and where the beach breeze burns your face with ocean spray, you can't help but to enjoy walking.
June talking with Eduardo and Jamal about the cafe's history of employees.
Home girl June then rolled through and met up with me and Paul. June and I walked to Good Vibes cafe in hopes to find her a quiet and warm place to study, and as usual, we did everything BUT study. We made casual talk with the manager of Good Vibes. June was able to jam on the piano and sing with a new cafe artist named Rags, and I landed an opportunity to do a monthly gigs DJing at the cafe on every first Sunday. Although due to the lack of customers/audience, I'm debating if it's worth my time and effort (It's not my first time there to realize how dead business is at the cafe. I know I should push for gigs to attract audience/customers, but I need to keep my project priorities in line. Committing myself to this blog is pretty much a record of my artistic side of life, but also consumes a lot of time and is officially one of my priorities).
June jamming on the keys
June and Rags
After the gig ended, June and I split and I went on biking around the city. I passed by the Americana and bumped into some people I saw while DJing the art walk; I decided to sit with 'em and hang out for awhile. Americana is a restaurant that has huge $1 glass beers of blue ribbon and a $5 dollar pitcher (not bad when you're budgeting with pennies and nickels).
MC Danger standing in front of Black Market
I met up with Paul again and he invited me to an mc session at the Black Market store, one block away from the art walk. I ended up missing out in the mc session due to my run in with DJ Abel at Alpha Cult (just across the street from Black Market). He was DJing an art gallery at the store and shared a funny story about some unfortunate venue manager and his "DJ-less" valentines event. We also conversed about our history of DJing, how we got into it, music influences that led up to it, and shared old stories from back in the days of being young snotnosed tikes.
Alpha Cult.
dj Abel.
i'm a pizza.
After a long day of adventuring, I headed home. Surprisingly I bought a ye olde english Dunny from Alpha Cult. I not big in buying these toys but I figured that I'd be a nice addition to my small collection of kidrobot characters chillin' in my front window sill.
Rain man.
I also figured that since it's been so rainy lately that it'd be a reasonable purchase to symbolize the weather.
Stay tuned for pt. ii of my valentines day adventure. It would have ended here but the night still continued, following with chicken n waffles and an Asian gay bar (exciting huH!?)
Below is the link to the gallery:
Valentines Day album 2.14.09
