God Fires Man!!!

My good friend and Co-worker, Arty’s main project. And he is the legend of HC, if you ask someone from long island who is into hard core scene, he is da man. Well, to be honest, I don’t enjoy listening this kind of music sitting around on a couch, HOWEVER, when you see them on stage, it is totally a different story!!! They will blow up your brain, and destroy your ear drum. Most of all, the energy from the band scramble together with sweaty audience, it is a radioactive reaction. There will be no plants grow for next 70 years so they said…

I love taking pictures of people those who have their own clear idea of how they want to look in photographs. I take this shooting experience as dancing with folks I am taking picture of. I am not a photographer, to be honest, I would rather consider myself as a collaborator using my method, photography, making their dreams come true in a photograph. Without their will, my photo doesn’t look good at all, I won’t be happy and they will never be happy, never. I think this photo is a pretty good example of the dancing process. FYI, I did not dance with them, but I did feel like dancing with them when I looked at them in my view finder, and I am the only one on earth who saw them through the view finder of my old school Nikon.

Thanks for the school. They taught me and taught me how to talk about (bull shit about) my art work. Now you just saw how big my mouth became, didn’t ya? Yes, I’m a little man with a big mouth, that’s all.

A Girl from Seattle

I met her when this world was still peaceful.  I mean before Sep.11th, 2001, in NYC.  After she flew back I sent her this photo and a poem by Richard Brautigan. When a friend of mine saw the photo with the poem, she told me, “Oh, it’s so sad.” And I was, “What? I thought it’s a beautiful poem!” Well, I guess I don’t understand English poem 100%. OK, here’s the poem.

It’s Raining in Love

I don’t know what it is,

but I distrust my self

when I start to like a girl

a lot.

It makes me nervous.

I don’t say the right things

or perhaps I start

to examine,

evaluate,

compute

what I am saying.

If I say, “Do you think it’s going to rain?”

and she says, “I don’t know,”

I start thinking: Does she really like me?

In other words

I get a little creepy.

A friend of mine once said,

“It’s twenty times better to be friends

with someone

than it is to be in love with them.”

I think he’s right and besides,

it’s raining somewhere, programming flowers

and keeping snails happy.

That’s all taken care of.

BUT

if a girl likes me a lot

and starts getting real nervous

and suddenly begins asking me funny questions

and looks sad if I give the wrong answers

and she says things like,

“Do you think it’s going to rain?”

and I say, “It beats me,”

and she says, “Oh,”

and looks a little sad

at the clear blue California sky,

I think: Thank God, it’s you, baby, this time

instead of me.

by Richard Brautigan

R.I.P. WTC, his name is Robert…

“NYC” Copyright 1997-2007

This is a collage I made long time ago.

It was my “homework assignment” for project mayhem, oops, First rule of fight club, you do not talk about it! Second rule of fight club, YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT IT!!!

Well, it was one of homework assignment to get in to an art school in NYC. I showed this art work to the interviewer, only response I thought I got from him was that he seemed very amazed how those pieces were cut-out and glued together nicely…he even did try to feel/peel the edges of the cut-out pieces with his pinky finger nails. I said, please don’t even try. It took me crazy amount of time of meditation to finish this art work.

Well, well, well, Ooooh, well(John Lennon song), what I wanted to express but I couldn’t is my idea behind this work. I still clearly remember when I first saw Manhattan skyline in a cab. I just got off from an airplane at La Gardia in early morning, summer of 1996. It was my first visit to NYC!!! The skyline was not clear, it was smoggy. It was not beautiful at all, but something unexplainable made me so excited, it was a giant space ship landed on earth. And WTC was her main bridge, control towers. So, I wanted to embed the excitement into my work. Back then, people over middle east were fighting around Gaza strip and the fight was heating up quite well. I bought at least 10 newspapers in all different languages. It was so easy, I just went around few blocks from my apartment, dropped by every single deli, found all those papers. Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, French, Polish, Hebrew, some languages I don’t even know… It was all around my old neighborhood, 14th St. and 3rd Ave, in east village!!! The papers is the people who live on the space ship. World Trade Center is Money. The Village Voice had a front page, “Emigrants go home!” with a face of Ms. Liberty with black eye. Who punched her? Anyway, I picked Hebrew for one tower and Arabic for another to express my concern over the fight in middle east. Then all other languages for all over the place. I printed image of bills on the voice cover. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, glued glued glued…

When I showed this work, I didn’t have no idea if WTC would be demolished in such a crazy way. Even after I watched “Fight Club” still I didn’t have no slight idea of what had been brewing in some people’s mind. Then, the morning, I didn’t even think the main bridge was going down. I even thought the damage was not serious, they could fix in few months. I was very upset whoever did that horrible thing to the space ship I love so much. I love her so much that I chose to live on the ship. I still won’t give up believing in Love & Peace!!!

Paris? No, 5th Ave.!!!

Oh, yellow car again!!! Have you seen a bumper sticker, “Loud Pipes save LIFE”? Usually, with Harley Davidson stickers. My little red Honda had after market exhaust pipes and they were pretty loud, but not in a rolling thunder way. It was screaming loud and it did save my life so many times. Yeah, it sounded like I was going supersonic, but actually just 30 mph. People crossing the street would stop and give me a real frightening look when they heard the screaming noise from my Honda, then here I come on a little red Honda a lot slower than what they heard. I always put my fake smile when I get closer to those people.

2,000 lbs Yellow Devil

“Flying on West Side Highway at 70 mph”

“Heading North on 1st Ave. around 14th St.”

Now you know what I was talking about these yellow devils…well, this is my photos, this is my stories…

Westside Hightway is fun to ride, but pretty dangerous. I’ve never seen any accidents myself, but heard lots of stories, I have seen a crash site with a helmet & flowers… Ride Safe & Have Fun!!!

Many cab drivers do drive insanely. But when I imagine that sitting in chaotic NYC traffic all day long behind a wheel, whenever you see open road and traffic lights all green, I would hit gas to the floor!!!

I used to race against them, but not anymore. Whatever it is, when I fall from a motorcycle, it’s gonna hurt so much, and the bike would be fucked up… so I ride like a gran’ma.

Running around, not naked!!!

I miss riding motorcycle in the city. I still remember when I first time rode my 1972 Honda CB350F in NYC. Funny and not funny, because of the stress dealing with all kinds of insane drivers around me, I developed a serious stomach ache. Imagine, being on a small red Honda, big fat yellow cars were trying to run me over!!! (well, they were not!, but I felt they were…) So I had to pull over and went to deli to get a cup of coffee. The coffee didn’t help at all, but a little break did. Then I started ride again, well I wasn’t going anywhere, just riding around. Most of the time when I ride a motorcycle, I don’t really have any specific places in mind, just walked to a garage, kick started a motor, let it idle for a while(oh, I still do index finger check ups around my bike, signals, head light…..), rode around or I could say enjoyed operating the machine, then back to garage, and then Home.