i wanna be sedated

so i get to do this medical thing on friday, and my better half is saying he isn't going to let me get near my tripod all weekend. even though there are big shows out in san pedro and el segundo i was thinking of going to for a change. i suppose i'll spend the weekend sleeping it off anyway. not looking forward to it.

anyway, been a long week at work and it's only tuesday. working extra hours, and then staying up late, is wearing me out. probably won't make it to either bob's or ruby's this week. pooh.

this here is the front end of jack's star chief. really a spectacular car. he's usually there at bob's representing the mercifuls of long beach. even made it to the whittier show last weekend. too bad he usually is parked in the vicinity of richard's car, but you know the saying, "you can pick your friends, you can pick your..."

ps: hey geri, yes, i did tell my better half he can start calling me baroness von jones soon.

bitch

View fullsize

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.

tail dragger

another of the early arrivals at the whittier show. location would have been perfect, if the neon theatre lights were still on.

i think it's a ford. didn't have the entry form on the window this early, and forgot to check it later. what do they call this finish...brushed metal? twisted steel & sex appeal? nah, not twisted, that'd be me. sex appeal, i guess it's interesting enough.

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.

is it a sign?

i didn't sleep well last night, and had a hard time staying awake today. yet here i am posting, early for me anyway.

picked up my pictures from the fair today. only had one offer to buy one, and that turned out to be more of can you take a picture of my car inquiry. about what i expected. oh well, they look ok hanging on the wall here. left the honorable mention ribbon hanging on one of them for now. i'll pull it off before it gets too dusty, i suppose.

here's another lifestyle car. hiding in the shade on a hot day. unintentionally caught a religious symbol by the car. maybe it's a sign?

cha dude

someone explain to me why its some kind of sacrilege for a vw to show up at a car show. they segregate themselves to their own gatherings. i've seen one little posse over at a mcdonalds in downey, shunning the broiler, but that's been a while.

my ex pimped out an old bug once. it was pretty cool—new upholstery, but no seat belts, with lightning bolts two-toned on the inside doors; new paint, which he let me pick the color, kind of a faint wintergreen, which i've seen on some of the newer models. he had a big ass chromed engine installed in the back, that was way too loud, and some big, fat chromed wheels.

he even let me drive it. until the cops pulled me over, not because he'd lowered it too much, but because the windows were tinted too dark. seriously. had to remove it, which he wasn't too pleased about.

he later sold it to some kid, who probably took it to some shows and claimed he'd tricked it out himself.

that was the car project after he'd gone all awesome with a chevy van. he'd just finished it off with some real sweet chrome wheels, then decided to take me to a springstein concert at the coliseum back in the day. never park a shiny awesome car on hill street in LA and expect to find it when you get back. cops found it later, stripped down to the skeleton. he hadn't insured it. duh. he told me he cried when he went to see it.

anyway, most of the vws that do timidly show up at shows are pretty poor examples of the species and should stay hidden away under the rock they crawled out from under.

i made an exception for this one. i'm sure it was the paint combo that caught my eye. my old boss, who was my sister's mother-in-law, used to drive one of these, but she lived out in huntington beach, so i guess that would be a given. hers was all faded, but this one seems to have aged pretty well.

my better half can do a pretty good imitation of a vw bug in a swimming pool, laying on his back on a boogie board. lol.

reflected

i liked the car; hated the rims. loved the reflection in the window.

not much going on at the broiler again. too few cars to keep my attention for long. did see several guys i've gotten to know a little over the past few years. nice to see them again.

my better half came along with the nephew. not sure if he's wanting to spend the time with me or really wanted to take some pictures. they were going to go bowling afterwards, but apparently the lanes were all full, call back in a couple of hours, thanks for nothing. guess after i get this post up, he gets to spend more time with me like he wanted to anyway. >:)

walk this way...

the continuing saga at work of too much overtime, and not enough sleep. today, i'd intended to go to the broiler. left work a half hour later than normal—told them i just was done for the day, i am fried—and headed out.

what a difference thirty minutes makes in the traffic. i was screwed, mainly because someone had decided to occupy the same lane as another car on the freeway in santa ana, so went surface streets. normally it takes about forty-five minutes to get home; took two hours, and after sitting all day, followed by a long ride home, i just couldn't bear to drag my butt to the show. telling myself i'll go to ruby's on friday. most of the work will be done by then, so shouldn't be a problem leaving on time toward the end of the week. and the tradeshow will be over by mid next week, so i can get back to posting more regularly too.

------

here's a beauty from the SFV show. there was a plethora (a plethora?) of cars, and many clubs were represented. i've loved these candy colored lifestyle club low riders since i first saw a bunch at the uptown whittier show a couple of years ago. hoping they'll show up again next month.

they had a bunch of their cars parked under the shade of the solar panels. kinda mutes the colors, but not by much. saa-weeeet. and i'm an id...forgot to note what kind of car this is...lincoln? chevy? buick? whatever.

only got a few other cars—which i'll get to eventually—because of the heat, but i hella wish i'd stayed and got so many more. next time...

hell week

i am glad the week is over. hope the next one isn't so busy. i'm so tired.

started off last friday driving a big ass diesel moving truck. moving the last bits of my life's debris outta my house. you know it's a weird thing to be in a house still full of furniture from your past life, but your personal debris is out. almost like the house is somehow deflated and sad. still my house, but now my son lives there. while he goes to law school.

figured i'd save on paying a mortgage and his rent by moving him in there for a few years. and hey, a unique idea: i'll move in full-time with my better half. married almost five years now, might as well see how much of me he can take. lol.

was fun driving the big ass truck on the freeway. pretty much had to just go for it, once i decided not to stay on surface streets. really hated that this truck had the steering wheel that was more horizontal than vertical, like a car. didn't like feeling like i was driving on the disneyland teacups at 70 mph.

the rest of the week was spent doing several 11 and 12 hour days at work for some annual tradeshow coming up in another week. interesting to see how many people wait until the last minute to decide they need brochures and datasheets.

oh, and then following one of said long days, went to the oc fair for several more hours to listen to the judges walk around and expound on their reasoning behind how they picked images they liked. almost like being back in college, listening to the professors babble on about technique and vision and bullshit.

the group i was in never did get around to where my images were, but i gathered enough to know that someone of them thought enough of one of my pictures that they gave it a ribbon. kind of an atta boy. close but no cigar. my better half likes to break down the odds of entering and even getting stuff selected for display, and so on, so it's ok.

someone even filled out an interest in purchase card. ya, he's interested in the picture, but doesn't really want to pay that much. he also wants me to shoot his car. told him we'll be at the show in uptown whittier next month, so maybe we'll see him there.

anyway, i've been bleeding out money this month, so it's looking like vacation won't be anywhere exotic this year. and that's still several months away. i so need one too. maybe we can sneak away for a long weekend, but we're both so busy, i doubt that will happen either.

looking at the list of car shows, thinking about going to some show in san fernando tomorrow. might as well go to magic mountain as long as i'm up there. i do have other stuff i gotta do, so maybe i'll just end up squeezing in lakewood in the evening instead.

ugh.

cool riv

yeah, i don't usually shoot many models older than the early '60s, but every once in a while, i yearn for something different. this one was quite lovely, in spite of it's simplicity.

so angel tells me the other day (that's his name, not one of the filmy wing-ed ones), that the lot at the broiler was actually very full, even all the way out in the back lot. oh, stick the knife in and twist...i couldn't go to the show that evening due to other commitments. i've been lamenting how empty it's been the last few months. and tomorrow is the 4th of july, so suckage, no one will be there.