wonderful pointy things

here it is. again. little dvill. also from the last uptown show. his club helped out with the early, so freakin early, set up of the show. no crowds. no stark shadows. only thing better than the early morning light would be the misty fog of past years shows.

have always, always been fascinated with this car. all the pointy wonderments on the back. it could take out an eye or a kneecap. or enable self-neutering.

the ghostly flames on the front. the paint so polished, you could stare at it until you felt like falling down the rabbit hole.

he's been hiding this puppy, preferring his shiny lincoln this past year. thankfully, he has people. and those people helped bring it out for the show.

i don't like coffee

can't stand the smell of it. can't imagine how foul that inky molten sludge must taste as it scorches down your throat. flavored varieties just add an overtone to the stench below.

no thanks. i prefer my caffeine cold. gimme a coke anytime. though, if you think about it, is probably just as bad for you. rusts nails and stuff. wonder if it would remove tarnish off of silverware?

anyway, besides the point. these cadillac guys are almost always here at bob's. they play musical chairs with the parking spots. this one got lucky tonight, out from under the roof of the drive-up, and below the neon. and just a hint of the last of the sunset. and the white paint really reflects all of that color back.

haven't been there in over a month. now the time has changed, and it gets dark early. in spite of the longer drive from the new office, i still got there about five-thirty. apparently, still too early for much to be there, but i just didn't feel like waiting. going to "bed" "early," if you can call nine-thirty early.

sun kissed

i am still wrestling with space issues on my hard drive. thinking i'll burn off  stuff back to earlier than 2009, stuff i hardly ever look at. just makes sense.

meanwhile, i was bad and attempted to hit up three car shows today. apparently a mistake, as it being veteran's day, they were mostly canceled. drove out to torrance. cadillac show at the dealership there. they had them parked in the service tunnel, and didn't seem to be much parking nearby, so i didn't stop. i know, i know. probably were more hiding on the inside, but if i don't go looking for other pics online, i won't miss them.

then tried another show that should have also been out there, but nothin was there at all. i did pass a park that seemed to have an informal muscle car show going on, but you know those don't really get me going much, so i drove on by it. fortunately, my backup planned worked out...my little bro lives nearby, so i hung out over there for a few hours.

on the way home, i took a quick swoop by the fuddrucker's in lakewood. must have been cancelled for the day, but there were still a couple of diehards sitting there polishing their cars. didn't stop there either.

so nothing for today, but long overdue family time. so win anyway.

i've been pondering which version of a temptations truck i should post. still haven't decided, so i'll put up this lovely viejitos chevy. probably should have waited until the sun had gone down a bit more, but still nice.

was that your club i saw cruising down whittier blvd today?

look at that, look at that cadillac

so when i was getting my degree in graphic design, i took a few photography classes. both photography and design classes required that you put your work up on the wall so everyone could pick it apart. the theory was that if you knew what wasn't working, you'd know how to do better next time.

you also learned pretty quickly how to defend your work, why you chose to put it up. started to put only what you considered your best, what you were willing to stand by, irrelevant of other's opinions. so there's the reason i never do a photo dump. don't waste space with every little fart in the wind.

i post these few cars up here because they please my eye. they're a record of where i've been, memories of light on that day. i hope they delight you as much as they do for me.

so i've spent the last few times out chasing sunsets. longer exposures make it harder to get shots without some blur of a person walking into the frame. but still having fun, so i'll keep shooting, at least for now.

bitch

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what is it about guys and high maintenance women? you all know the ones i'm talking about—the ones that dress up for a day at disneyland and wear high heels, then spend all day bitching about how their feet hurt. the ones that the guys want to have, then spend the rest of their lives regretting. she's fine as long as she doesn't say anything, but then she does, and has nothing to say. and the claws come out if she thinks you're looking at other chicks.

i wonder if this car is like that. reine has been favoring his lincoln for the last bunch of months. has she been suffering from imaginary aches and pains all year? she's been a kept woman. hidden away in some garage in never-never land, getting nips and tucks, and apparently tipped. on the hubcaps. i noticed.

thanks for bringing her out to play for the day, reine. i did miss her, even if she is a bitch to photograph. j/k.

winning

went to the uptown show today. three times. at 6am-ish, 10am-ish, and 2pm-ish. as i said, it's up the street. got so damn hot as the morning went on, just had to stop and go home to sit in front of the fan for a while. not so bad in the shade, but i still felt icky after a while each time. too hot.

anyway, the so cal tribe guys seem to always be the first ones there, and get their choice of spots. so the group parked it over by that smelly cigar bar. but it did stay pretty shady most of the day for them. reine even brought his bitchin' cadillac, which i have not seen in months—thanks dude. i'll post one soon.

their website says this buick belongs to one of their newest members. my mom had a riviera when i was a kid, and i learned to drive in it. not this model year, but close enough, and definitely not this cool.

end of the day, after the awards had been given out, i walked back past the cars and they were gathering for a group picture under their banner. the owner was there holding a trophy, so i assume he won something for this baby. congrats, guys.

bottle rockets

as long as we're talking '59s and back ends, why not one of these. love'em. those red tail lights remind me of the water rockets my little bro and i would shoot off when we were kids. but on a cadillac, they're just double double awesome. and fins...

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anyone know if the viejitos are doing their monthly show off brookhurst anymore? thinking of stopping by. i could actually hit up 4 shows tomorrow, if i was feeling ambitious, but it's more likely just going to be two. and i'm running out of space on my hard drive. time to burn off past years' images to make some room.

pale whale

it's a big one all right. these old cadillacs are pretty and curvy and big.

finally made it to a regular show, an old standby, my comfort zone. had to go to long beach anyway, and bob's isn't that far from there. hey to angel, who always seems to be there, and doesn't hesitate to come over and say hi when i'm there, as well as the brothers with the old chevy. and then there's richard...who can bite it.

i haven't been in a few weeks, and now that it's warmer and the sun is up later, i am kinda disappointed that there weren't more cars. i think the mercifuls club has adopted this show, as the majority of the cars seem to have their plaque in the window.

the lot just used to overflow with cars, all the way to the back lot. now they've just been all clustered up in the front lot. maybe i just didn't stay late enough. i would have preferred to catch the sunset, but i also needed to eat dinner and have time to play with a picture.

i even decided to leave, thought of going to the show over at the spires, and threw my stuff into the trunk. then got a phone call from my better half. while sitting in the car, an old beautiful original chevy pulled into the space next to me. i was going to get my camera out again after i got off the phone, but he moved it to another spot, and so i didn't.

recovered yet?

  

originally took this picture a couple of years ago. hell of a hot day. somewhere in lakewood. says on the window real small that it belongs to the sultans of long beach club, and also that it's "in recovery." not sure if that's referring to the car or the owner.

been to a couple of shows, briefly, this week. another weekend balancing family time and baseball games. hoping to squeeze in a car show or two, on the way to the field. hoping to see some different stuff. hoping to get some good, fresh pictures to play with.

saw several really nice chevy bel airs driving the opposite direction today. seeing old cars always turns my head, and makes me want to make a quick u-turn or shout "where are you going?" followed by a quick thought of whether my camera is in the car...

hell on wheels

i'm in the mood for a cadillac. ya, a big, elegant tank of a car. so many to choose from... 

take this one. don't think you'd miss seeing this baby driving down the street. it's a bit over the top. don't think i'd have the nerve to cover the classic lines in this loud paint job, but i'm sure the owner doesn't mind the attention. he's screaming for it.

i'm guessing it bounces too. been a while since this show, but i wanna say the owner was here with some of his other homies with similar rides, though the other flamed one is much more subdued, all black, with much tamer airbrushed flames, just here and there.

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hoping the rain holds off until later in the week. i gotta kill several hours after work on wednesday, before heading over to LAX to pick up my better half. hoping to hang out at the broiler. hoping there will be more there than the last time i briefly stopped, and didn't bother to get out of my car a couple of weeks ago. i gave that night a pass, since it had rained earlier, and it was cold and windy. otherwise, guess i'll find me a movie theater and wait for his call.