Freeze Your Ass Off BBQ

Last Friday Hugo, Alyssa (and by proxy, Christine) hosted their 5th annual Freeze Your Ass Off BBQ. It was fun! Hugo is a fine burger chef, especially for a vegetarian.

And now, This is my Declaration that I’m officially *done* with winter. I can deal with the cold up to a point…and that point is the last few days of February. I need warmth!

Sunny days can leave a message on my phone!

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Currently listening to Grandaddy Live in Boston 2003

Yup.

Broken Down Comforter Collection

Yippee!!!!

It’s official! My Grandaddy drawing is going to be framed and given to Jason Lytle as a gift before he moves from Modesto, California to Bozeman, Montana. It turns out the guy that has been emailing me to ask for it is the same guy that’s in the suit in the album cover above, (and, incidentally, is also the guy in the cowboy hat on the back of the Sophtware Slump album). I guess he’s pretty good friends with Jason…he was telling me about some of their adventures. He found the drawing on my website, which he got from my profile on TalkScape, the Grandaddy message board.

I am SO SO SO excited. So anyway, Broken Down Comforter Collection guy asked if I would sign the drawing and put something like 1/100 on the print, so that Jason will think he got the first of a limited edition. I think that is SO darling. He also said he would hand deliver a note from me to him if I’d like. Yipe!

Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod! I’m sooooo happy. In exchange, I will be receiving some band shirts, candid shots of the band, and…if I’m extremely clever, Jason’s phone number.*

*Probably not the phone number, sigh. BUT: I will have the satisfaction of knowing that my art will be on his walls!

Ack!

Stalking’s just Talking, when you take away the “s”, right?

RIGHT??

Super, ULTRA-talented Jason Lytle.

Super, ULTRA-gorgeous Jason Lytle.

Grandaddy is my favorite, FAVORITE band ever! This is the coolest possible thing that could have happened!

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Currently listening to You Forgot it in People by Broken Social Scene

Yup.

Dan McCarthy at the Other Side Cafe

Ghostbuds by Dan McCarthy

I woke up this morning feeling awful. I couldn’t talk and I had a hard time walking without getting dizzy. But I’m still gonna get through this day, damnit! I was 1/2 hour late to work and haven’t really had it in me to be super-productive. My boss said I could leave early so I may…

But as the day has progressed I am feeling a little better, and I am happy, because I do have big plans for the evening…I have another meeting with LSE tonight to discuss the changes on my design for the cover of their promo book and the CD jacket art for Jaw’s solo album (guy who runs the company). I’m not sure if they’re going to like the changes I’ve made, but whatever–It’s not like I’m getting paid. I’ll post the results here tomorrow.

Anyway, all that nonsense aside, I’m going with Danny to see the exhibit opening of Boston artist Dan McCarthy tonight at the Other Side Cafe. Some band called Animal Hospital will be playing. Three things I love: Live Music, Dan’s Art, and The Other Side. It’s going to be GREAT!!! And hopefully I’ll be able to purchase a print.

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Currently listening to Z by My Morning Jacket (for those of you paying attention to this little part, you’ll notice that I can’t STOP LISTENING to MMJ. Why? Cause they’re effen awesome.)

Yup.

Oh No…Apollo Style

The Baby Business by Deborah Spar

Hey all…I haven’t posted in a few days so I just wanted to say hello real quick…I’ve been super busy balancing work and some free lance stuff, and feeling a bit under the weather the past couple of days so I haven’t been blogging as much as usual. I am hoping to get back to it soon, tho!

I’ve been having a great week, however. Here are some highlights, given to you in the most-patable form possible; bullets!!

•Went snow tubing for the first time ever on Sunday at Nashoba Valley. Woo-eeee!

•Been catching up with and old friend I haven’t spoken to in a while…Hugs Daniel!

•Have been talking with Two Tone Tommy/Bo Koster of My Morning Jacket, and working on drawing a portrait of said band.

•Finally got my copy of The Baby Business in the mail today from my friend at Harvard Publishing, Zeenat. Awesome Chip Kidd cover on this one! (see image at top of blog)

•Felt better about myself and design skills as I watched my boss nit-pic details on Chip Kidd’s book cover design. Not that I agreed with him at all…(I think Chip Kidd’s designs are brilliant and original) Oh No. I just came to the conclusion that my boss’s ideas on design aren’t quite in tandem with the most famous book designer out there….which means that even tho my boss criticizes my work, doesn’t mean I ain’t talented. I just needed the ego boost, I guess.

•After being insulted with 3 months of utter silence at Kewl Finds, I FINALLY got an email from them today apologizing for their negligence and promising to send out my Panek Tobin mug soon. Thank.You.

•Have been spending a bit of fun time with Danny making amends and hanging out a bit before he heads back to Tulsa in the beginning of March.

•Finally got to go back to Darwin’s Ltd Cafe in Harvard Square. I went there during one of the first few weeks I moved here..and have been dying to go back for the past 1.5 years. They make the absolute BEST sandwiches ever.

•First time ever to really get into the winter Olympics…my favorite event so far has been short track racing…so, so cool. Those Korean guys are amazing.

•Also, finally got to go to Burdick’s in Harvard Square as well…I’d never been but their hot chocolate is fabled. Ari and I went there Monday and we both ordered the “dark” chocolate version. It was like drinking chocolate fondue. Wow. And I had some of their confections. I do believe it was the best chocolate I’ve ever had. And I’ve eaten a lot of chocolate!

•Getting positive feeback from my designs at LSE.

And the best…the BEST….

•I got an email today from someone who claims to be a close friend of Grandaddy’s…said he would like me to send him the poster of my Grandaddy drawing so that he can give it to Jason Lytle as a parting gift before he leaves for Montana. If that is true, it would be SO SO SO awesome.

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Currently Listening to: Some awesome Grandaddy live stuff I got off of FileLodge. Thank you fellow Grandaddy nerds for posting it!

Yup.

S.O.B.S.L.O.F.

Here’s a picture of Danny with the SOBSLOF just moments before we devoured it. Can’t you just see the expression of pure excitement on his face at the gastronomical task that lies before him? I know I can.

This morning Danny and I went to breakfast at Eagle’s Deli. Eagle’s is located in Cleveland Circle in Brighton, and, as the sign on the store-front window tells you: It’s the second best place in the world to pig out”. (So which place is the first best? That’s a mystery, my friends. But one you need not ponder right now.) Underneath this tall claim on the window is a cartoon image of a pig with wings flying around Earth. With a sign like that, you know they aren’t messing around.

At Eagle’s, you order your food in a cafeteria-style line, and they cook it for you on the spot while you wait. Then, you take your plastic tray and sit down in the little seating area they have on the other side of the line. It’s always busy Saturday mornings, because they serve great “hangover food”—and, I live in a neighborhood brimming with college students.

Anyway, Eagle’s has a wide variety of grill food, but they’re famous for two things: Burgers and Breakfast. I’ve never eaten a burger there, but they have a 1 lb. burger called the Godzilla that is their most famous item. If you eat a Godzilla, they will take your photo with a Polaroid Instant Camera in front of a large cardboard cut-out of Godzilla on the wall. Then you can add a caption in black felt-tipped marker and post your picture on the wall to join the ranks of the hundreds–dare I say thousands–of illustrious Godzilla veterans who line the walls of Eagle’s Deli. It’s fun to read the Godzilla Polaroid captions…people say the craziest stuff on them. My favorite caption just said in large, messy letters

MEAT HAMMER

What does that mean? Who knows, it’s just hilarious.

But I’m not here to talk about Godzillas or, the Chillerama, which is Eagle’s largest hamburger, weighing in at a hefty 5 lb that comes with a plastic cafeteria tray that holds a mountain of crinkle-cut fries. It’s $50, and looks like the grossest thing in the world. \
What I am here to talk about is breakfast.

Another thing you need to know about Eagle’s: It ain’t too clean. The food is cooked fast and to order, and you can see them cook it right in front of you, so you at least know if your food falls on the floor, but other than that, you can’t be sure how clean your food is. Bacon, nacho cheese, potatoes and pancake batter are slung everywhere in an attempt to get food out fast, so generally you get a little bit of each of those flavors in your food. That’s all part of the Eagle’s Deli experience, however–it’s all part of the “Eagle Charm”.

Why, just this morning, Danny and I watched the short order cook, who is huge and hairy like a wookie, drop a slice of American cheese on his soiled apron and then non-chalontly return it to the top of a hamburger patty on the grill. In those types of situations, the only thing you can do is shrug and laugh.

Danny and I ordered the S.O.B.S.L.O.F. The letters all stand for something, but I prefer to let that remain a mystery, as I feel it adds to the mystique. What I do know is that it consists of an amazing combination of breakfast foods. It includes: a pile of fried potato wedges, 3 eggs, bacon, sausage, gravy, all topped with a hearty portion of ketchup and nacho cheese. And it comes with 4 pieces of toast on the side.

DEE-lightful, my friends, delightful. We also ordered an order of HUGE chocolate chip pancakes, which were quite tasty.

After breakfast, Danny looked at me and said “Oh God. I need to get to a bathroom right now. I’m about to SOB this SLOF, if you know what I mean.”

And I did.

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Currently listening to Z by My Morning Jacket. It’s all I’ve been listening to these last few days!

Yup.

Reservoir Gulls

Seagulls over the reservoir (that white line near the right bird’s beak is a plane trail…its presence in my photo was pure happenstance)

Here are some photos of Ariana and I at the Chestnut Hill Reservoir by our house, feeding the seagulls. These photos were all taken at the end of January.

Ariana feeds the seagulls (as the poor, neglected ducks look at us with pleading ducky eyes. But still, we do not feed them)

Seagulls diving in close to snatch the bread morsels that we toss into the air

Below is an excerpt from my blog posted on Thanksgiving 2005, another day when we went to feed the gulls:

ariana and i were looking for the swans…but, instead, we saw a pack of seagulls floating on the surface of the reservoir. she opened the package of bread, pulled off a corner of the bread heel, and threw it out in to the water. the birds swam toward it and scrambled for the bread. i took a piece of bread from the loaf, tore it off, and threw it down, too. the birds, imagining they might get a proper meal from us humans, began to take flight. there was about 30 of them or so, and they hovered around us, waiting for the next bit of bread to be released. ariana started throwing little pieces of bread at them, mid-air. the gulls were such adept, agile fliers they could snatch the bread pieces out of the air! we laughed, and started tossing them to the birds, who were amazingly skilled at plucking the pieces out of the air, or diving down to retrieve the ones that others had missed.

we did this for about twenty minutes or so, it was great fun…people who were walking on the trail stopped to watch the show as the birds acrobaticly flew in ever entwining-loops around each other to catch the bread. then, after a few minutes, the gulls lost their shyness and began to fly closer and closer to us, diving and spinning with incredible dexterity and speed, until they were flying just a few feet above our heads.

lithe and incredibly steady, the birds seemed to hover, as if in slow motion, waiting for the food. it was like they were hanging, almost motionless on the air, except for their large wings beating, and their black eyes shining. the setting sun reflected off their white and gray bodies, a fantastic sight, dramatic and brillant. watching them was nothing short of spectacular.

and ariana and i, with full bellies, chilly limbs and warm hearts—laughed, fed the birds, and were happy.

***

Preview! In my next blog, I hope to do a step-by-step process of a freelance drawing I did for Living Sound Entertainment, from start to finish. This will highlight some of the steps I went through to accomplish my design for the cover of their promotional booklet.

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Currently listening to: At Dawn by My Morning Jacket

Yup.

Roy G. B(iv)

Yesterday, during my lunch break, on my way back to work from the post office, I passed a row of newspaper boxes that someone had cleverly arranged in rainbow order-red orange yellow green blue (but no indigo or violet-Sorry Roy). I took a picture with my cellphone camera. The quality of the picture isn’t that great, but you get the general idea.

This is located on Stuart Street in Boston’s Back Bay, near Copley Square. As I was walking back towards my office in Park Plaza, I took some more pictures of interesting signs that I pass on a daily basis.

Viga – Cheap, fast Italian. Pretty good.

Legal Sea Foods – Expensive and considered to be one of the best sea food places in Boston, although I don’t agree. It’s OK, but overpriced and sometimes sub-par. But many other people seem to love it.

Flash’s – Awesome coctail bar that serves delicious lunches.

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Currently listening to Z by My Morning Jacket
I think this was the best album of 2005 – Excellent!

Yup.

The Baby Business

Here’s an ad that my boss and I co-designed for Harvard Business School Press. This ad was placed in The Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s. We’re currently doing a similar version for The New Yorker.

This ad was a lot of fun to do. It was a nice change from the usually-modest design we do for Harvard. The cover and subject of this book beg for an edgier-than-usual ad.

The book cover was created by my design hero, Chip Kidd. See more of his work here, or check out his website, Good is Dead .

I didn’t get to meet Chip, but I am getting a free copy of the book!

I also want to wish my sister Suzanne a very happy birthday!!!
I love you!

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Currently listening to Yes by Morphine

Yup.

Pepe and the Yakuza

Here’s a couple of adorable photos of Pepe the Cat from Shisso. He wishes you love and kitty kisses.

Well, today is Valentine’s Day. This is the first Valentine’s Day I’ve been single for three years, but to tell you the truth, it really doesn’t matter, ‘coz I have big plans to get some freelance work done tonight. I’m doing some trial illustrations for a music production company I jokingly/affectionately refer to as the Yakuza (but I don’t think they really are). Anyway, first met with them a few weeks ago in a tiny production studio in a little part of Boston called Allston (Allston Rock City to those who know and love/despise it well).

The guys who run the studio and I met on Craigslist after I had posted a message advertising my graphic design/poster/rock art stuff with a link to my website, pocheco.us. They responded right away and seemed really interested in meeting up with me to discuss my work. Excited at the prospect of working for a production company, I quickly emailed them back and we set up a time to meet.

The night of the meeting (two Wednesdays ago), I hopped out on the B Line T to Harvard Ave and started walking down the street to where I thought their offices would be located. I had a map and their address, but upon reaching the place where their offices were supposed to be, it seemed as though the building didn’t exist. The number before it was on the corner of the street, and after I crossed the street, there was a church, and then the office buildings disappeared and turned into residential. Scratching my head, I decided get out of the cold for a moment to consider my map and eat some pizza.

The considering didn’t help, and I was running up and down the streets in desperate search of their building as my meeting time with them, 8pm, rapidly approached, but to no avail. Just as I was about to give up, I glanced over at the church mentioned earlier and noticed that some kids were outside drinking beer and smoking. Curious as to what kind of church party allowed getting wasted, I walked toward the side of the church where they were gathered. I heard music coming from inside. It was conspicuously NOT church-type music. I entered the building to a full blown concert on a stage with about 200 people in the room and the lights dimmed.

It seemed as though I had not just stepped into a church, but some sort of rock club! I walked around until I found someone I thought worked there, and asked them about the company I was supposed to meet with. She paused to consider a moment, and then beckoned me to follow her up some stairs. We wove around and around this tiny wooden staircase, up flights and through corridors, and I was beginning to wish I had started a trail of string back to the entrance in case I need to get out of their quickly.

The music became muffled and then faded completely, and we finally turned into a doorway, squeezed pass some sullen-faced musicians crowding around a drumset, and then she stopped and introduced me to a short man with a kind face, before leaving me there with him alone. I was just a bit concerned and skeptic about the whole situation. But he was nice and invited me into a tiny tiny studio, upon where I was asked to remove my shoes, but was given a pair of warm fuzzy slippers. I put them on, and turned to face the two other men in the room.

Both Japanese Berklee graduates, the two guys seemed kind and bright. They asked me to sit down, and then began to tell me a little bit about their studio and the work they did.

With no little bit of dread did I fear that, being located in a church, that they were some sort of religious production company. Thank god they were not, but were just renting out the studio (and the stage) for their business.

After basic introductions, I brought out my portfolio and showed them some pieces not featured on my website. I noticed that they had printed out screenshots of my website as well. The three men then spent the next two hours giving me their full attention as I started talking about my work and my style with art, what I knew about computers, etc. They also showed me quite extensive amounts of their work, and repeated about a thousand times that they were intent on being professional.

Of course that sounded a bit fishy, but upon inspecting a whole line of their products, including highly-saturated girlie photography, glamorous, expensive hip hop videos and glizty, over-produced pop music, not to mention the impressive list of clients they had, I was convinced that Professional may indeed be what they were.

The three guys flashed me a bunch of high numbers and juicy contract proposals, but none of that really got me excited because even though I’m new to this business, I know that like anything, you probably have to work your way to the top. It was quite different than I had expected, I’ll admit: I thought they were going to be a little crappy studio promoting no-name local acts with a small budget. Turns out they have millions of dollars and have worked with Snoop Dog.

And all of this brought to me through the twisted six-degrees-of-separation type action from the Societal Blender that is Craigslist.

Anyway, they seemed to like my work, and asked me to do a few trial drawings for them. Admittedly, the stuff they asked me to do isn’t all that original or interesting (iPod style drawings of a girl with a microphone) but I intend to jazz it up a little in hopes of impressing them. Anyway, I told them I would get back to them in two weeks, and here we are, 12 days later, and I’m just starting the project.

Ty.pi.cal.

Actually, I’m getting better about not procrastinating these days, but seriously, the past few weeks have been sooo busy. Ariana and I have had parties the last four weeks and we’ve been having book club and many other events in between. Plus I keep getting distracted by the Olympics when I’m at home.

So I’ve decided that I’m staying at the office tonight, in hopes of keeping myself focused on getting these sketches ready to present to them Thursday.

Wish me luck!

I’ll post them when I have them done. In the mean time, have a great Valentine’s Day!

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Currently listening to Weather Systems by Andrew Bird

Yup.

Shanghai

Hey all! I’m super busy today at work and probably will be for most of the week, because I have some freelance projects due as well. I probably won’t have a lot of time to post thorough blog entries, but I’ll do my best.

Oh–But I do have stories with which to regail you, about pinatas in the snow, the likes of which will both delight and enchant you. However, those must be postponed until I at least get the photos developed.

In the meantime, please content yourself with this beautiful, hazy skyline of Shanghai, which I found at at-edge, an awesome photography website. Link

It reminds me of some of Wayne Coyne’s* stuff, see below:

*Frontman for The Flaming Lips!

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Currently listening to Architecture in Helsinki

Yup.