I had this thing tonight in DUMBO, and decided to walk back across the Brooklyn Bridge before catching the train. I was rewarded with this sunset. I would just like to iterate that these images are straight out of the camera, with zero editing (enhancement). It was a pretty good one.

So ready for the weekend.

I got the weekend off to a banging start, last night in SoHo. I had the privilege of meeting several professional skateboarders that I looked up to, as a kid, including original Z-boy Pat Ngoho. We kept the weekend in high gear on Saturday, with the arrival of Reagan’s Sister Erin and her husband JR. First we took a jaunt into Westchester to visit the Pipster.

She climbed under a chair, chasing one of her birthday cards that she had dropped on the floor, and had to be coaxed out by auntie Erin.

For dinner, we ordered in. But since it is so bloody hot in our apartment (even with the A/C running full tilt) that we retired to the rooftop for a picnic of sorts. It was breezy and much cooler up there. Of course I couldn’t be on the roof without getting a shot of my favorite buildings, hahahah.

So, break out the coasters.

Starting off a bit random– I have been encountering so many good female DJs lately. At an event Wednesday night, K Styles was spinning. She was actually tag teaming with Miss Saigon, who I saw at a Cavi runway show a couple of weeks ago. Nothing shameful about being told “you spin like a girl!” Anyway, go girl power!

This weekend is set to be a banger. I just landed a gig as a staff photographer for one of my favorite e-mags. I’m seriously insanely (I don’t use those terms loosely) stoked about it. I’ll be diving in head first, Friday night. Here is the agenda for the weekend:

Friday

• Roa has a gallery opening at Factory Fresh, Friday night.
• Afterward, we are going to a super secret Passion Pit show at a location that I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you. It’s kind of like Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist, except without the scavenger hunt, or the relationship drama. Hahahaha.

Saturday

• Morning, we have a club points race 10k in CP to promote healthy kidneys. Amped about this, but lazily unprepared for it. I may as well kiss my 40 min. goal goodbye.
• Afternoon, the usual antics with Piper and her roomies.
• Night, my cousin Tif arrives in NYC for a stationery show, at which incidentally, our good friends Max&Bunny will be hosting a booth. Not sure if we will be able to hang out with Tif Saturday night, but we are going to give it a shot. At the very least maybe we will drop by her room at the Marquis so that we can covet the view from her window.

Sunday

• Tif meets Piper

As if all of these niceties were not sufficient, I have it on good authority that Banksy will be in town (if he is not already here). Double crossing my fingers that I might have a chance encounter with some of his work and get some snaps, before it is ganked and auctioned away. I hope that everyone else also has an amazing weekend!

Thursday afternoon, I decided to stop by the Mural the Shepard Fairey is working on, in the East Village. I had originally wanted to go by on Wednesday, but it ended up raining like crazy. Today worked out well, though. I was on my way through the neighborhood, anyway, for the Earth Day party at Kiehl’s. Fairey was out working on the wall. After shooting a few frames I said what’s up and told him that I had met him at the TS collab with Levis. He said that he remembered me (pretty cool for him say, whether true or not), then wiped the gold spray paint off of his hand before shaking mine and asking me to remind him of my name. We then chatted for about 10 minutes about random stuff including the impending gallery exhibit, before he hooked me up with a handful of stickers, and invited me over for beers. Ok, ok, the invitation for beers was a joke.

The reason that I’m telling this story, is because I think it is so cool that despite being such an icon, Fairey has not let it go to his head. It is true that I was a fan of his art before I knew much about the guy. But the fact that has the personality and attitude to back it up makes me like his stuff even more.

Fairey was even mellow with this little kid (below) who was passing by with is parents. Can’t wait to check out the exhibit next week.

A few more shots over here.

Yes, this makes two consecutive posts with the word “product” in the title, hahahah. Wednesday evening, I shot a bunch of product images for a forthcoming SoJones piece. It was a lot of fun, as usual.

I’m curious to know what other people’s reactions are, to the fact that the collegiate look will be back again this fall for the second year in a row. I mean… I personally thought that the whole caution tape dress-look was going to be predominant for fall 2010. Guess I was wrong. Anyone care to weigh in?

I met some pretty cool guys, this weekend. They are the guys behind the brand Only New York, a local street wear brand. I am going to be doing a SoJones piece on them, and was able to do a quick shoot on Sunday afternoon. They are definitely cool guys. You should definitely check out their stuff. More on Shotbyjake.com

Saturday was the first race of 2010 for me. It was a good one to start out the year with, since the weather was beautiful and it was for a good cause (run for Haiti). It was also pretty cool, because it was the first race that our new team “New York Running Club” was listed correctly on the roster/results.

I tried to charge my Nike+ sportband the night before, only to find that it was malfunctioning, again. The display looked like some sort of alien language. Reagan was kind enough to let me borrow hers, since she was sitting this one out. I will be sending it back on Monday Grrrr. The Central Park Races are normally capped at 5000 runners. But since it was for a charity (I guess), they doubled the cap and let 10,000 participants run. It was crrraaazyy. I wasn’t expecting such a crowd, so I showed up at the 9th hour and barely made it starting grid before the gun. As a result, I was way in the back and had no real chance of making it through the pack enough to get a good time. It was ok, though. My friend Mike ran with me, and we just had a relaxing race, and chatted the whole time. It also made me totally pumped for the upcoming running season and nice weather. Woo hoo!

Our Alaska/Hofstra friends also came to visit us, this weekend. Reagan and I pretty much just tagged a long with them through the village to various thrift stores, before hitting Broadway, in SoHo (pretty much Reagan’s dream day). It was a pretty good time, even for me.

We also saw this guy, playing in Washington Square Park. It is the same dude who drags that busted old piano down to the 4th St. A platform in the Subway on the weekends. Pretty awesome.

Since Piper has been back at Columbia, I have been back to the old car moving routine. I have not enjoyed it. I normally get up at 6, so that I can get it done before there is any real traffic. The sweet spot is between 6 and 7. After 7, there is a garbage truck and a school bus blocking every single street in our neighborhood.

This morning, Reagan woke me up, while she was stirring around. I had one of those sudden moments of panic, like I knew I shouldn’t still be asleep. I had forgotten to take my phone off of silent, and the type of alarm that I had set for moving the car, doesn’t make any noise, when my phone is on silent. It was already 7. I got down stairs just in time for the blizzard to start, and in time to get stuck behind every school bus and garbage truck in our neighborhood, at least once. Hahahaha. I’m ok with that though, because the snow was very pretty and entertaining to watch, while taking breaks from watching the dudes toss garbage into the truck.

At long last, I did find a parking spot in time to make it down to work w/o being late, where I took the above photos of the storm. I know they are kind of boring. I liked these ones much more.

To add a little bit of contrast to the gray photos above, I thought I would post the image below. It has made its way around the internet by now, but I thought it was cool enough to share again anyway.

The image comes from artist Steven Worley’s blog. In his post, he outlines the history of Crayola’s color spectrum, and how the palette has expanded over the years, saying:

Crayola’s crayon chronology tracks their standard box, from its humble eight color beginnings in 1903 to the present day’s 120-count lineup.  According to Crayola, of the precious crayons of my childhood – the seventy-two colors from the official 1975 set – sixty-one survive.

So cool.

Make no mistake, these guys are weird. But, they are also pretty awesome. This week, we are swinging back to the NYC Electronica scene. Fischerspooner was formed by New Yorkers Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner. They got their start performing in the Starbucks at Astor Place. So, you know the’re good. Hahahahah. For real, though, you have to respect an outfit that can make it from performing at Starbucks, to where they are now.

Over the years, Fischerspooner has grown from just the duo, to become a full-on theatre/music troupe (sort of). By this, I mean that they have put together some pretty elaborate stage antics to accompany their live performances, including more than 10 people on stage, at a time. Their sound consists generally of some Matt and Kim-style keyboard, with a technofab beat underlying a barrage of various Depeche Mode-esque samples. The vocals are reminiscent of the performance that Kip gave at the end of  “Napoleon Dynamite,” or what it would have sounded like, if he had a clone of himself singing a duet. Despite the fact that I just made them sound totally lame, I’m really a pretty big fan. I currently have two of their tracks on my latest and greatest workout playlist.

Fischerspooner has released a few studio albums. I think that my favorite Fischerspooner album, track for track, is their 2005 release “Odyssey.” The particular track that I’m sharing, is called “Get Confused.” This song is awesome for many many reasons. The reason that I personally love it, is because it embodies an inside joke that Reagan and I have had forever. I always tease her about being confused and about getting too excited. She does this fake pant-breathing when she pretends like she is getting excited and when she is pretending to be confused. When I first came across this song,  I felt like they were totally ripping off our joke. Ok, so there is that, pluuuuussssss, toward the end of the track, there is a flute solo not unlike something that Ron Burgundy could have composed on the fly, to woo a lady like Veronica Corningstone.

If you are feeling nerdy, don’t be shy about pressing play.