Blog

Hyperbole

This is a little deviation from the Loves serialization. Though the subject does relate. The other night, I got roped into doing something I rarely ever endeavor. My son invited me to a “dive bar” to see him play. He had been working on creating a band to perform his music, and the never visited “hole in the wall” on a section of Ventura’s Main St, was to be ground zero for a shake down performance. Josh Slavin is the stage name for Joshua Pu’u by the way. (People keep asking me.) I usually sort of just smirk. Hyperbole is

Sliding into 2011: Year in Pictures

Golden Reflections This link is to a new piece by Zuri Star called Keep Holding on. It fits the New Year quite well. It seems that all around us this past year there was friction. In fact, I found myself enmeshed in three massive battles, all at the same time. I did not author those. I simply said “no” to three entities I saw as abusive of my fellow man, community and Ocean Environment. friction |ˈfrik sh ən| noun the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another : a lubrication system that reduces friction. • the

The Zuri Files: Westside Ventura

I have a unique job, in that most of the time, I am drawn to subjects and they to me, not unlike a moon to a planet. I have never been able to figure out who is what in that constellation. But it probably does not matter. This week saw a LOT of computer time as I worked on wrapping my commercial work for the year. As I plowed the pixel fields of my hard drive borne library, I came across a project I had shot with Zuri Star as a collaboration of sorts. Zuri is a pretty remarkable recording

The Big Nevermind

The City of Ventura is my home. I have owned a house and various other properties and leases here for 30 years. Communities are pretty simple really. Generally they are composed of diverse components, all assembled in a willingness to live and work in a place that they find desirable. The willingness to contribute, is directly proportional to establishing a  sense of forward motion. Effect must equal cause. Benefit is weighed against cost. So onward the ship sails with all of us aboard, planning, building, laughing, crying, fighting, healing, birthing, living, dying: together. For any of this to occur, the

Be Brilliant

There is quite a gap between being good and brilliant, between high art, and low. Brilliance and high art, will take one right into the throne room of God. You come away from the experience, knowing that something special has occurred: you have been touched by Creativity. Watch this if you have ten minutes. This is how it feels, when the realization hits, that I am on to something great. There is an incredible example in this performance, of where an artist can take a person with music and brilliance. Steve Vai. His lengthy Wiki page says it all in

An Independent Nature

The United States Of America is founded on the tenets located in the US Constitution. All laws and the people who preside over the law, are based on this document. All Municipal and State laws are superceded and presided over by the Federal laws, based on this document. So no entity may pass a law that is not in accordance with this document. If you find that someone has. You not only have a right, but a civil responsibility to inform and if necessary, litigate that entity. That is what is meant by the legal tort of Rule of Law,

Hybrid Vigor

n. Increased vigor or other superior qualities arising from the crossbreeding of genetically different plants or animals. Also called heterosis. Typically the term is reserved for describing the increased performance of a species. But in Ventura California we have been seeing our fair share of the above described noun more in the form of a verb. Verbs denote action. When a person and in turn a community, becomes insular, the processes of growth cease. Of course growth has many forms. But the one we all ought to be after, is sustainable personal and community growth. This sort provides a stable

Song of the Chumash

We just finished the Ventura Artwalk 2010, in my little town. The entire Downtown of Ventura California was turned into a living canvas for forty eight hours. The event was a benchmark of sorts. benchmark |ˈben ch ˌmärk| noun 1 a standard or point of reference against which things may be compared or assessed : [as adj. ] a benchmark case. 2 a surveyor’s mark cut in a wall, pillar, or building and used as a reference point in measuring altitudes. How did this happen? Not overnight. It was the result of seed sowing by a huge number of artists,

Model Models

Recently, NYC based production company Silent Crow was in Ventura. Two writers with the company happened to have connected with Donna Von Hoesslin of Betty B and learning a little bit about her female inspired Eco Fashion line. They came up with an idea. Producer Matt Bennett showed up to do a little bit of discovery work, and honed a reality show concept that deviated from the norm, in that it endeavors to look at the personalities and lives of the women in both my and Donna’s lives. Silent Crow named the show Bonafide. Donna and I have long exchanged

What is Surfing: Fifty Views

Each day lately, begins with me wading though the e mail file. Today I opened a newsletter from an organization which I support, by lending them usage of some of my images. The subject header was “International Surfing Day”.  A “Cool, we have our own day”  impulse when I pressed the “read” icon, rapidly transitioned to less than kind  post read thoughts. The newsletter yielded the cyber floor to a new surf magazine editor from Orange County who I had never heard of, and who communicated his chronologically and geologically biased adolescent view of what Surfing is. But it occurred

Categories

Hyperbole

This is a little deviation from the Loves serialization. Though the subject does relate. The other night, I got roped into doing something I rarely ever endeavor. My son invited me to a “dive bar” to see him play. He

Sliding into 2011: Year in Pictures

Golden Reflections This link is to a new piece by Zuri Star called Keep Holding on. It fits the New Year quite well. It seems that all around us this past year there was friction. In fact, I found myself

The Zuri Files: Westside Ventura

I have a unique job, in that most of the time, I am drawn to subjects and they to me, not unlike a moon to a planet. I have never been able to figure out who is what in that

The Big Nevermind

The City of Ventura is my home. I have owned a house and various other properties and leases here for 30 years. Communities are pretty simple really. Generally they are composed of diverse components, all assembled in a willingness to

Be Brilliant

There is quite a gap between being good and brilliant, between high art, and low. Brilliance and high art, will take one right into the throne room of God. You come away from the experience, knowing that something special has

An Independent Nature

The United States Of America is founded on the tenets located in the US Constitution. All laws and the people who preside over the law, are based on this document. All Municipal and State laws are superceded and presided over

Hybrid Vigor

n. Increased vigor or other superior qualities arising from the crossbreeding of genetically different plants or animals. Also called heterosis. Typically the term is reserved for describing the increased performance of a species. But in Ventura California we have been

Song of the Chumash

We just finished the Ventura Artwalk 2010, in my little town. The entire Downtown of Ventura California was turned into a living canvas for forty eight hours. The event was a benchmark of sorts. benchmark |ˈben ch ˌmärk| noun 1

Model Models

Recently, NYC based production company Silent Crow was in Ventura. Two writers with the company happened to have connected with Donna Von Hoesslin of Betty B and learning a little bit about her female inspired Eco Fashion line. They came

What is Surfing: Fifty Views

Each day lately, begins with me wading though the e mail file. Today I opened a newsletter from an organization which I support, by lending them usage of some of my images. The subject header was “International Surfing Day”.  A