sick

1936 oldsmobile

ugh. perfect weekend overcast, lots of car shows running today, and here i sit, coughing up a lung. oh well.

better half took his mom out to downtown disney. don't have passes anymore, but it has been a long time for a disney fan to be away, and she wanted to go shopping. probably better to keep her away from me. lol.

i'm hungry, so i'll probably put on a jacket and zombie walk uptown to find something to eat. don't feel like calling dominos or cooking whatever might be in the fridge or pantry.

feels better to sit up rather than lay down, so i'll probably type up notes from my classes or work on some more pictures. take a wild guess what i'll probably do...killing time until game of thrones is on...

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this pic has been sitting here for a while, so i'll just post it now, then get back to the whittier car show shots.

chicano park show, barrio logan. should they just call it the pachuco car club show? the last few years, they seem to line up all of their cars down this side of the street. it's their hood. they can.

fetal

1951 chevy truck

found this truck tucked up under one of the supports leading to the bridge to coronado, at least i think it is. had just finished taking a picture of a fifty-nine impala, turned, and decided to take this one too. just liked where it was, and the surrounding mural and lines of the overpass.

posting only because when i was done, the owner thanked me and that was all. maybe he already knew who i was, maybe not. and i've forgotten what club it was with, so i can't even give a shout out to them either.

hopefully someone will mention the picture is up here to him...they always seem to find them online eventually.

so many more pictures from that day, i am having a difficult time deciding which to post. better half shakes his head, saying something to the effect of it being a tough position to be in.

might as well begin with the few for those people that spoke to me, as usual. then fret that another show is coming right up, and there will be a whole bunch more to sift through. oh well.

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overcast here, typing at lunch, in the corner of a little café, quietly trying to become invisible. i hope it rains. i'm just in a mood for it... i want to splash barefoot in puddles like i used to, squish mud between my toes; i want to hide under the covers, and listen to it pattering on the roof.

full history

started my day by dropping my pictures off at the oc fairgrounds. fourth year in a row...will it be a fourth honorable mention? seem to be collecting those. it will make me laugh if i do. eh, good enough they will be on the wall.

then a quick run through the swap meet, and out to my condo to grab the mail, without disturbing my kid and his dog there. didn't feel like walking the dog.

randomly, it started to sprinkle. explains the humidity. almost felt like when i was a kid back east, just before the rain comes. almost, but not quite.

back home now. afternoon moving files on my computer, to make room for more. i can fill up a eight terabyte drive like nobody's business. they say all hard drives fail eventually, which means someday, everything i've ever shot will disappear at some point. sad thought. buy a print.

better half just now pointed out six or seven bad ass old chevys driving by the house. can't remember the club, but i've seen them all before. maybe i should take a walk up to the cigar bar with my camera...

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saw this mercury at the chicano park show. i think the simple blackness of the car balances out the busy and colorful mural behind it. i get that it's a historical mural, but do they have to jam the whole history into a freeway overpass?

kinda reminds me of the doodles my sister used to fill notebooks and her bedroom wall with. just not so bright.

valspar

woke up early and headed to original mike's for the pistolero's / viejitos show. was wonderfully overcast the whole time i was there, so i'm hoping the pictures will be good.

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was a bit confusing, because when i got there, the lot was full of porsches, with the cars i was looking for sitting on the street. guys were saying they had double-booked shows.

perhaps it was just their regular saturday morning coffee meeting. if not, it was the weirdest show i've seen...none of them were out looking at each other's cars...they were all inside eating/meeting. it was like a damn porsche dealer lot; full of carreras. all the same, all different colors, all packed together.

i spent the time shooting what cars there were on the street. got some good pictures, up against the buildings, and the fire station.

whatever. my guys started moving into the lot about nine, more as the porsche party broke up and started to leave, one by one. i followed them in. shot them again...different location, different light. 

more cars showed up, plenty to keep me happy. cars reshuffled several times as spots opened up, and clubs parked together. shot them again.

only a couple of guys inquired about my pictures. so i'll start with them.

don't think i've seen this plymouth before. i liked it up against this paint building, the colors matching the car almost like they'd matched paint chips. what is that...PMS 188 or 201?

on my way out, this freaky monkey thing was at the entrance/exit, a bizzare greeting to all those that enter. certainly was creeping out a little girl, who did not want to pose with it for her mother.

milestone

was my birthday yesterday. low-key, cause that's the way i like it. rained...which i love, so i didn't mind that one bit. had dinner with my son and my parents, so that worked out great. got back home just before my better half was getting into bed, having given up on me coming home for the night.

so my thoughts on birthdays: don't care anymore. even if it is a "milestone" in one's life. just a number, so statisticians can keep a tally on life expectancy. i thanked my mom for, you know, squeezing me out...it should be more of a celebration of the one who did all the work that day, right?

now that i've had my kids, and no sign of grandkids anytime soon, save the hairy, four-legged one that sheds a lot, i just see things as ways to fill time until the game's over. and what's with the time-warp? time seems to go by so much quicker the older i get, yet i move so much slower. except when i'm at work; then the day just seems to go on forever.

i remember when summer used to take forever to get here. now all i do is work, and with no real seasons to speak of in this state, if i didn't have a calendar, i wouldn't know the difference. my office cube looks out over the freeway. all looks the same, every day.

so, i fill my free time with car shows. and this is the place to be for those, right? nuff said. birthday done for another year.

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wandered up on the grass in the main section of chicano park, and found these latin bombas cars under the trees.

this one stood out, mostly because it was red, so it just "popped" from the green background. love the chrome and the headlights on the master deluxes. and the evolution of the hood ornaments with each year.

golden slumbers

got there relatively late this time. had to stop at the market to have breakfast, since we pretty much skipped dinner, and i was just gonna faint if i didn't eat.

we decided to start at the back of the park this year, then move to the street, before the crowds showed up.

i liked this plymouth, just sitting there glowing in the middle of the lawn. stupidly, i didn't take any shots of the hood ornament, and i love hood ornaments. oh well. next time.

i suspect there's some custom stuff on the car, since i don't think plymouths sat like this back in the day.

gypsy blue

was lucky enough to catch a few shots of this motorcycle, right after the owner parked it, and before too many people got to this end of the street. really clean, and the muted turquoise and off-white paint caught my eye. little pinstriping detail on the fenders was nice too. i'll have add a few detail shots when i get back home to my computer.

positioned like he had scoped out the location and knew exactly how and where he wanted pictures to be taken. framed by the mural, it's almost like it belongs there, blending in just so.

i've seen a bunch of other people's pics of it, so i'm not the only one that thought it.

walked past it right before we left, and there was no way i could have taken the same shot, with the crowds around and the owner lounging nearby in his chair.

even though my better half had joined up with me and walked to the end of the street, where the majestics were having a mini picnic/party, and then back on our way out, he says he didn't notice the bike or the mural. i guess it can happen when you're on chevy overload. ;)

45th annual chicano park day

took the train down to san diego this weekend. then the red trolley thing down to barrio logan. annual chicano park celebration and car show. 

was supposed to have sold out within two days, but since it had rained the night before, and was supposed to rain at some point saturday, there was a big empty space on the front lawn, where there is usually wall-to-wall cars. they tried to disguise it by making a circle of vendors in the empty space, but still...

still there were many, many cars, enough to keep me in my happy place.

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it's getting late, and i gotta get up early, so i'll just stop here for now, and continue on my next post.

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and it didn't rain during the show after all...

betty boop

hard to pass this plymouth by, it being so red and all. i stopped. i saw. i took a picture. well, actually a few.

i liked this one best. shows the sky, the car, the bridge, the mural...what the show is all about...and the location. or maybe just because it makes me laugh because the guy in the painting looks like he's about to write all over the car. furiously.

magic carpet ride

glad the week is over, but the work isn't done. will probably end up working in between bouts of relaxing, which should cancel each other out. that's the theory anyway. 

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computer is misbehaving too. hoping you can see the pictures and not just boxes with red "X"s.

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wondering the why of the carpet, except that it matches the color palette of the car, and defines the space and environment boundaries. no other purpose really. i see mirrors on the ground often, but there's a reason for them, usually involving a lot of chrome and hydraulics under the car.

i like the simple pinstriping on most of the car, but the big shape on the back wheel probably would look better on the trunk, not necessarily so big, and leave this part clean...if it were my car, as a matter of speaking. but it ain't, so don't listen to me.

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brain is mush. what else can i say about chicano park? let's play bitch and moan / sunshine up your...

• not as many cars as last year / loved the cars that were there
• whose *brilliant* idea was it to move the show to easter weekend? / everyone will be in town to enjoy a day of festivity on a holiday weekend
• "we have a permit for an event" / it's great they want to maintain the integrity of the show rules 
• some people are rude / people were enjoying themselves
• lemme just sneak in front of you to get the same shot you're taking / photography is a great hobby
• it was overcast :(  /  it was overcast! :)
• being facetious / being facetious