http://www.wstrncv.com/magazine

It's edgy, raw and true to highlighting the subcultures of western civilization. Enjoy the grunge people.

Skateboard pro, Danny Way (best known for jumping the Great Wall of China (four times)), elaborates on how he views skateboarding as a way for children to understand sustainability and appreciate our environment.  He has partnered with the Action Sports Environmental Coalition (ASEC).


"It was more or less my escape vehicle from some of the issues I was dealing with at home as a child. At a young age I didn't really have anything more than a skateboard to get me from point A to point B. As a result of the time I was spending on the board, my skills progressed pretty rapidly."



In a career that now spans twenty-two years, pro skateboarder Danny Way has accomplished some gravity-defying feats. He's jumped the Great Wall of China (four times), set the Guinness World Record for speed on a skateboard, taken three straight Gold medals at the X Games, and has been immortalized digitally in his own video game. Often called the best skateboarder in the world, he was also one of the first pros to support the Action Sports Environmental Coalition (ASEC).

GOOD: Why become a pro skateboarder?
Danny Way: It was more or less my escape vehicle from some of the issues I was dealing with at home as a child. At a young age I didn't really have anything more than a skateboard to get me from point A to point B. As a result of the time I was spending on the board, my skills progressed pretty rapidly. With skateboarding, I feel like the possibilities are endless when it comes to exercising my creativity. With my [type of] brain, I need a new canvas every day.

G: How did you become involved with ASEC?
DW: I’ve been friends with Frank Scura [the founder of ASEC] since 1995. His vision and ideas are amazing. I represent ASEC because I believe in the cause and what it represents, and I do what I can to support it.

G: Why do you care about the environment?
DW: Nature plays a part in everything I do. Surfing is a dance with Mother Nature and the energy that’s being organically generated by the ocean. With skateboarding, you’re feeling the sun outdoors. You’re enjoying the mountains when you snowboard. I love the planet and everything in nature we’re so blessed to borrow and use, and I’m not okay with what’s happening with the environment. I support helping reverse the damage being done to our planet.

G: What do you find most compelling about ASEC’s goal for action sports athletes to serve as eco-conscious role models for kids?
DW: Kids have a lot longer on the planet than most of us, so we’re using the ASEC platform to plant the seeds of sustainability and grow a bunch of conscious minds. ASEC represents the strongest, gnarliest athletes on the planets and a lot of us care about the planet. If we’re recycling and eating organically and thinking about what kind of gas mileage our cars are getting, then kids see it’s cool to care and think about sustainability as a way of life. Kids look up to us; they follow what we do.

Screen capture from Way's video game, Skate 3

G: What do you enjoy most about being involved with ASEC?
DW: I get to go to cool places and talk to neat people and share in great knowledge from ASEC panels and seminars and events. It’s always a pleasure to be part of it, because there are so many people who care and so many conscious minds.

G: As someone who’s achieved some incredible skateboarding feats in your career, any goals for the future?
DW: I appreciate what I’ve accomplished, but there’s a lot left to do. It’s not about winning championships and getting points anymore; I’ve done that. To keep the fire burning for me, I need to create new challenges. It’s about creating new tricks and maneuvers. And I’d like to break all the records I have right now—by a significant degree.

G Why do you think ASEC is so important?
DW: In the last ten years, sustainability has gotten so mainstream, with the distribution of organic products in every grocery store by brands that used to be only in tiny hippie health food stores. ASEC has played a big part in turning on big industry to the concept of greening businesses and using cool sports to market eco-products and ideas. It’s a hub we all use in action sports to keep connected and to go out and articulate our vision of sustainability. Really, it’s just a community of people trying to do good for kids and the planet while being cool and having a ball.

L.A. Day/L.A. Night: Slideshow: Places: Design Observer

Photographer and pilot Michael Light sores over the coastal west, snapping shots for a series of eight books. "In his photos of Los Angeles, he focused on its extremes, contrasting the land of perpetual sunlight with its deep, expansive darkness. Now Light (a fantastic name for a photographer) has collected the photos in L.A. Day/L.A. Night, a beautiful 72-page book featuring 30 images of the city captured from above."

Check it.

Yesterday was 65 and sunny.  Contrary to belief, Los Angeles is not always so; I'm pretty sure it has rained every weekend for the past month.  Not feeling quite right about having to sit in an apt with my newly washed canine, I called up my friend Ashley, grabbed my longboard and head out to Venice Beach.  Most of my close friends are familiar with hobbies.  Cycling, skateboarding and photography tend to be topics of conversations when in Venice.  I find it particularly easy to talk about cycling, skateboarding and photography while in Venice because that usually means we've been hanging out at the beer garden or taking shots of tequila on the outside deck of The Whaler.  Needless to say, both liquids spark my excitement for these hobbies.

Bicycles and skateboards are wonderful means of transportation.  You save money on gas, lower your carbon footprint, and have an opportunity to more closely discover streets.  My bike's name is red.  My board's name is Mo (short for Sector 9 Mokase).  I am undeniably almost always equipped with a camera or two.  Can't say I enjoy being in pictures, but I certainly enjoy taking them.  Every time we skate, cycle or walk by a wall covered in what others would call "just graffiti", I say, "Check out the art!"

Guess what.  Sometimes girl friends are better at putting two and two together for you.  Lo and behold, the conception of "Lo and Mo", my new blog dedicated solely to my photos of street art discovered while skating or cycling around.  I'm still working out some kinks before I start uploading more photos.

Check it out and let me know what you think :-)

I KNOW I somehow have connections to this but I can't for the life of me remember what they are and who they are with... :-(

Production Starts on Sustainable Bamboo Bikes in Ghana - The Earth Institute, Columbia University

purse 'n boots: malibooty: Love the photography, love the art (clothes). Getting my booty to malibooty in 2 days. Inspiration served.

Just to clarify, I decided to get into photography because of this guy...

Germinal Roaux.

Check out his music video photo montage to "Rome" by Phoenix.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sQdED3tpeo

THEY SHOOT FILM: A PHOTO COLLECTIVE

They stand firm in their love for film photography.  Everything is shot in 35mm film in spite of the growing digitization of all things art.  Here's another plus: they're from San Francisco and Los Angeles.  (Sweet!)  Check out their photos.

The Big Picture is one of my favorite photography blogs out there in the blogosphere. It's the official photoblog of the Boston Globe and one of the most important outlets of professional photography. The photographs featured come from the world's top news agencies such as AP and Reuters.

Check out this photo that perfectly depicts the Ivory Coast election stalemate. With two opposing governments, one in power while the world insists that it must fall, the other, fully supported by the UN (does that even say much?). When you look at the photo, focal points arouse intense emotion. You can see struggle, you can see a reach for hope, you can see a future as Cote d'Ivoire catches up with western world technology.  Attention on the people.  All hands on deck.

http://vimeo.com/8113101

Note: The resolution is horrible. 

I thought this was sweet.

I'm actually hesitant to even write about Jack Kerouac, let alone write out his name.  I feel as though words in any relation to his own simply won't measure up to the genius of his voice.  Unfortunately, or fortuantely, I've been "lost" in his rhythmic lines of winding prose, so I can't help but provide my two cents on the light-headed rush I feel when I can finally peel my eyes away from these pages.

In "Retracing Kerouac's Rocky Road", Lynell George describes why people, like me, enjoyo getting lost in Kerouac. "There are those who return to Jack Kerouac just to get lost in the ride. Not across lonesome America but in the serpentine locomotion of his prose."  On the Road  is eccentric with obvious attempts of experimentation to devise an unconventional tone in writing.  The characters are not unlike people most of us know on a daily basis (especially those of us living in Los Angeles).  Characters are pathologically given to aimless travel, women, car stealing, reefers, bop jazz, liquor and pseudo-intellectual talk, as though life were just one long joy-ride that can't be stopped, and probably shouldn't be.  Although Sal Paradise knows to perceive that kind of life as stark-crazy mad, he for a while submisses to it and later becomes quite sympathetic toward those to frenetic to realize it's stark-crazy mad.


If you can't afford to get "on the road" in pursuit of kicks, purchase this Kerouac device and join the ride.



I'll admit, with a good amount of hesitancy, that yes, I am a complete and total nerd.  I think my bibliophilia gives that away, if not my love for classical music and on/off again relationship with Call of Duty.  I've read so many books that I simply cannot name just a single favorite, nor can I list off the top of my head, more than 10 great books that I've already read.  There must be something a bit old fashioned with me--I see no attraction in the kindle of the iPad.  If you want to read book, guess what!  There's a book for that. I'm a Generation Y specimen living in a time of relentless technological creative inventions created to offer us efficiency and instant gratification.   Realizing that I must read a book means I instantly head over to Skylight, the neighborhood Indie bookstore, and nab whatever copy I can get, even if in horrible condition.  I briskly read and then admire the collection of books collecting dust in my quaint Los Feliz studio apartment.  Every weekend I add "Buy new bookshelf" to my To Do list (I also love To Do lists besides my inability to actually complete them).

I've heard of virtual bookshelf apps for Facebook and recently added a virtual bookshelf widget to my blog (see right).  I've always been one eager to share my excitement about even the littlest things.  And I'm never shy to share my thoughts on a book I've read.  Check out my collection of what I can actually recall reading off the top of my head without looking at what's sprawled between my bed, dining room table and kitchen.  You can only see three novels here, but visit Shelfari for a more extended list of great (and one horrible) reads.  Let me know your thoughts, and based on what you see, I welcome recommendations and review.

WORK HARD, PLAY HARD is my motto.  After working 12 hours days every day this week, I'm excited to enjoy this weekend (and the beautiful weather) to the absolute fullest!

Friday: Play date with the lovely Ervina.  She's dragging me out to a swanky Hollywood spot where we can dance the night away with close friends.

Saturday: 4.5 HOUR hike.  Bridge to Nowhere.  I've never been, but heard the trek is beautiful and quite challenging as the trailheads aren't always apparent and getting lost is an expectation bound to be met.  After that, E and I will ehad over to the Los Angeles Art Show to satisfy our artistic appetites.  I plan on completly immersing myself into the creativesphere.  Hopefully I'll get more shots on film.

Sunday: Time to hit the waters baby!  Lobster hunting/spearfishing/sailing.  Point Dume in Malibu.

Will I be in trouble if I don't show up to work on Monday?

Los Angeles has been blessed with more than 7 days worth of beautiful summer weather...in the middle of January.  So beautiful that when I logged onto Facebook before hopping into the truck to head out to Malibu with the boards, bikes and dog, every post showing up on my feed was of my friends statusing about their status being stuck in traffic heading out to Malibu with their boards, bikes and dogs.  Sitting in an hour traffic on a blessedly warm, sunny day defeats the purpose of enjoying warm, sunny days.  Thus, this Angeleno explored more of the lovely neighborhoods within Los Feliz and Silver Lake. 

Some lovely things I re-discovered about Los Feliz and Silver lake:

1) The architecture is so unique, and no other neighborhood in LA will compare; I don't care what anyone else says.  You don't see too much of the modern, "Hollywood" style in Los Feliz.  LF is about Spanish flare, the 1960s neighborhood feel and a splash of modern functionality.  HIgh vaulted ceilings, archways, wooden floors and exposed (real) brick.  Some houses look like cottages from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  Some shadow Mediterranean facades or Asian, linear simplicity.  A few look like malibu modernization. 

If you consider Santa Monica or Beverly Hills, the neighborhoods all look the same.  Every street has similar looking (or same looking) apartment buildings and the same palm trees.  Los Felizis all about ecletic styles.  Ecletic culture.

2) The carpaccio at Figaro has a delciously clean taste.  It's got an old school, NY style bistrot feel.  It's a well known Not in Hollywood, Hollywood hot spot with appearances in the State Farm Insurance commercial and Madonna's Louis Vuitton Making of 2009 Spring Collection video.  The Happy Hours there are worth racing out of the office promptly at 6PM.   Both the escargot and the carpaccio are $5 a pop. 

3) Vintage shopping never gets old.  Remember, if you bring cash, you'll get a better deal.  I found an amazing dress at Squaresville.  It's a long lavender gown with a deep, low cut V in the back.  It's simple. Elegant. $10.  Yes, $10.  It reminds me of the old Donna Karan gowns.  I have nothing to wear it to but really could not pass up the sweet deal.

4) Coffee can get snooty, but it's even more enjoyable at intelligentsia coffee in Silver Lake.  If you are a man, and you'd like to grab a good cup o' Jo, skinny jeans will be a must.  There's a comfortable outdoor patio with heating lamps and several long wooden bars to set up camp.  It's a perfect casual reading place.  If you intend to get some serious work done, I do not recommend coming here.  People watching is too tempting.  Take a picture of your coffee cup before taking a sip out of it.

5) Longboarding is addicting.  And the Los Feliz streets are perfect for it!  I had friends who literally had to drag me away from neighborhood this past weekend.  I would spend hours riding around on my new longboard (her name is Mo) without saying a word to anybody.  When my lovely Ervina called to invite me to a house party, I realized I had not spoken to, let alone socialized, with another human soul since early the previous day.  Katie and I have a day date for next Sunday: Farmer's Market, Longboarding, Acro Yoga, Beer, Sunset.

I honestly thought I'd be sick of Los Feliz by now.  I'm 100% California girl and love being outdoors.  Could've sworn the itch to live by the beach would've kicked in by now, but fortunately, it hasn't.  The personality of this lovely neighborhood has led me to become less narrow-minded, and maybe even, more eclectic.

Peace,

LV.

I heard love is blind so I write all my poems in braille...

2011 Showcasing Acts | SXSW.com

I shall fulfill my musical appetite this year at South by Southwest. And other appetites just by being in Austin. Most excited about seeing The Head and The Heart on the set list! It's only going to get better!