Something I don't quite understand

How is it, according to conservative minds, that welfare - supporting individuals who have failed in the marketplace, who can't take care of themselves and need the government's help - is a dirty word and an execrable practice, while large-scale bailout - supporting corporations who have failed in the marketplace, who can no longer handle hteir own affairs and need the government's help - is a necessary, requisite, and even noble part of the economic machine?

On the road to break

12/3 - 12/5/2008

Wednesday12.3.2008


Kobe beef!

Thursday12.4.2008


Thanks to Vic.


Gorgeous enough to be outside - to seek the outdoors, even - for
extended periods of time.

Friday12.5.2008


TEMOK on Wall Street outside Naples.


Morse dinner with Ray: holiday spirit.


Some of the boys waiting around to head up for MAN NIGHT
at my place.

More bailing failed-outs out...

courtesy Don over at blacklodges.com

Friends in NY / Children's Church

11/28 - 11/30/2008

Friday11.28.2008

After almost getting snowed into our Thanksgiving
rental in Chautauqua, I boarded my $1 bus in Buffalo
at literally the last minute.

Eight hours (mostly spent in fitful sleep) later, I was
disembarking in the New York bus terminal. I was
almost set to head up to Harlem and kick it with
Lukwong, but first (it being Black Friday and all), you
know I had to swing down to SoHo and see what there
was to see.



After hitting up Union NYC (play cloths in stock, but
only L and none of the pieces I been had my eyes on),
busy works shop NYC (Bape), reed space annex (Buy
1, Get 1 Free), Uniqlo, and H&M, I headed uptown to
link up with Luke.


One of my older brothers at UCW, Lucas and I hadn't
really caught up in a year - I just missed him in
Korea - and so I was looking forward to crashing
with him in his new grad student digs at Columbia.


For dinner, Luke and I rolled to a little diner nearby...
heads might recognize the exterior.


Tom's was the diner used for the exteriors in Seinfeld (a/k/a
Michael Richards' thinly veiled racism... nah, right?)


After dinner, we kicked it around Columbia's campus
(historic, small) and caught up on life.

Saturday11.29.2008

I stayed up late Friday night catching up on the
internets, while Luke headed to bed early. When I rose
around 11 AM, he was already hard [||] at work on
one of his many term papers coming due. He and I
rolled out around noon - he to lunch with a friend and
me back down to SoHo (returning a joint I purchased
at H&M that was just not working... long story short,
H&M is highly inadequate in comparison to Uniqlo,
both in terms of design and material quality. Uniqlo,
alongside Staple Design, is quickly becoming my
clothier of choice).


Son on the train was keeping it straight one hunnid with
his North Face. I have seen many people do North
Face but very few do it proper... I have to give props to
subway homey for keeping it simple and clean.

The night before, at my first stop in SoHo - Union NYC -
I ran into a bunch of current Yalies: Christina Park, Joe
Lee, Jerrold Lee, and Teddy Kim. So it wasn't a surprise -
though still pretty dope - when I ran into another
familiar alumna face on the way up the stairs in Uniqlo.


Anna and I kicked it for a brief minute and kept it
moving.


Uniqlo is quickly becoming the spot to head for the
basics. No matter how fly the rest of your gears might
be, Uniqlo has something for you. Peep sonn above
rocking the SBTG SB lows in the waiting line. Fly.

I copped another pair of the Uniqlo S-001 indigo
selvage jeans, marked down from $80 to $50 (i.e. the
most quality selvage denim for your buck), and headed
to Grand Central for the next train back home.

As I situated myself in the compartment, the third run-
in of the weekend came through:

Duck Ju and I met through a mutual friend back in
Korea during the summer.
Or, rather, James gave me the wrong number, so I
called DuckJu by mistake and he was cool enough to
pass along James' cell number. After getting back to
the States, Duck and I have kicked it a few times. It
was providential that we got to have some time
catching up on the train back in.


After arriving back in the city, Duck called a Yale minibus for us.


While waiting 20 minutes for the minibus to materialize,
we saw Dana.

After getting back home and unpacking, Vic hit me up on AIM, so Josh
and I headed downtown to kick it at his place for a few hours.

On the way up the hill, heading home.

Sunday11.30.2008

UCW Children's Church.


These kids are so dope!!


Son was acting up throughout Sunday School, but
afterwards he and I got to politick a minute and he
shared about the life of a 6 year old these days.

It's hard out here for a kid.












chubby baby.


James and chubby baby.


CHUBBY BABY!

SFU Recap up on DP dot comm

Dallas just cross-posted my recap of the SFU NYC November edition tour, complete with higher-res pics than I upped. Challah back at'cha iC fam.

Man beaten in Shreveport, LA, for wearing an Obama shirt

This shit is ridiculous... I could comment or say whatever, but the pictures and his account below bear witness on their own. All I have to add is that this story needs to be told... the word needs to be spread. Right now, a google search for "Kaylon + Shreveport" turns up no stories on major news outlets. Go here for more and the latest info, and blog, IM, email, and otherwise share what's going on.





















Local Man Wearing Obama Shirt Beaten By Group of White Men

information from Mr. Johnson's family:

Kaylon was on his way home around 11 p.m. Saturday night (12/6). He was returning from a trip to the Natchitoches Christmas Festival where he was selling items from his newly opened Obama Shop.

Kaylon stopped at the Citgo station off I-20 and W. Bert Kouns (near Greenwood) to fuel up. A witness says the truck drove then came to a stop. The occupants of the truck were White men who shouted at Kaylon "F*** Obama" [I note: other accounts report racial epithets also being used] after noticing his Obama shirt.

The men got out of the truck, approached Kaylon and proceeded to attack him ... breaking his nose and seriously injuring his eye. Kaylon will have to have surgery later this week as a result of these injuries.

No other description is given other than they were "large" White men. The clerk in the station apparently was able to get the truck's license plate number.

Kaylon was not only assaulted, he was robbed as well. The suspects took his wallet before they fled.

***

"Kaylon was a key coordinator in the Shreveport for Obama campaign."

***

Downshift Session 2008 gift bag

Back in October, homeboy Dallas Penn threw down at the big Gran Turismo x Staple Design party, Downshift Session 2008. Held in conjunction with Lotus to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Gran Turismo franchise, it sounded like a straight gala affair. Regrettably, living about an hour and a half away from the city, and it being held in the middle of the week, i was unable to make the 3-hour roundtrip necessary to put in an appearance and donate some face-time to the event.

But in mid-November, on the final leg of the epic Sneaker Fiends United! NYC Tour, as we moved through the LES, from Richie's on Delancey towards Premium Laces in NoLiTa, we dropped by Reed Space, Staple's retail location. Despite keeping it moving - not stopping and copping - that day, i did mention to Dallas that staple is one of the few companies that i am constantly checking for - from the fly and well-made varsity that i saved up and waited a year to cop, to their 10th anniversary collab tees, to their recently expanding ventures into cut-and-sew outerwear, i have come to look up to jeffstaple's personally-directed and -designed brand as tracing the fine edge between being immensely wearable and playfully edgy.

Anyways, Dallas happened to have an extra Downshift Session gift bag lying around his crib, so, after some false starts and his return from a quick jaunt down to the A, I returned to my place after a Friday afternoon staff meeting to find a large brown box waiting downstairs. After some quick key work, I was opening the trademark Reed Space brown shopping bag (how dope is it that even their disposable bags are specifically designed and manufactured for them??) and found the following goodies (no CIARA) awaiting.

1) Staple Design "Alphabeta" scarf (Yellow/Brown). This joint from Staple's F/W 2008 "Only the Educated are Free" collection (the same drop as my varsity) is easily the thickest and most carefully-knit scarf I have seen on the skreets.

The scarf is a double-sided knit, in two colors, displaying all the letters of the alphabet as well as the 10 digits, with the letters S T A P L E and the numbers 1 9 7 5 (jeffstaple's birth year) picked out in contrasting colors on both sides.


Football helmet embroidery... Wish I had this two weeks ago at the Harvard-Yale game... maybe i coulda kicked it outside a little longer before finally succumbing to the cold... egchk. I am for sure packing this today when I head out for a conference in Colorado this week.

2) Downshift Sessions 2008 tee.

A tee specially printed up - designed to look like a racecar hood - with the logos of all the sponsors for the event, including Sony/Polyphony, stpl, and the Gran Turismo team. It is an American Apparel L, which means... not something I'm going to be able to pull off given my stature. But I'm sure this will come in handy some day...

3) Staple Design "Positive" beanie (Purple/whi/blk). The purple on this joint matches our bustout Season 2 Man Vs. City tee as well as the black/white/purple colorway of the Staple varsity that I copped. Similar to the scarf, this is some heavy-duty winter gear; I was rocking through the day and (even given my current depilated state) never felt the wind blow through the window.

Stay positive. +

4) Lotus booklet. Not gonna front, I am never going to own a Lotus Exige. But now I got pictures of one, and a picture is worth a thousand words...

'nuff said. - Stan Lee


Big ups to Dallas for putting me on, the Staple Design collective, and the USPS for moving packages [||] with ease and speed.

a thought at 6 AM...

i got some of my younger homeboys from church over tonight for an end-of-the-semester sleepover, and we were going over some of the tales, exploits, and journeys of their (only recently abandoned) halcyon high school days. i was reminiscing as well, and it brought up heck of old memories, like when my car got broke into in the parking lot senior year, or that time that I got detention for disrespecting our (ex-cop) driver's ed teacher, or going to Six Flags for those physics/AP physics field trips (holla @ Tim Serge)...

then i was just looking over some facebook profiles, kids who graduated with me from high school, seeing what they're up to now. i still retain reasonably close relationships with a handful of them, but especially for those guys and girls that i havent seen since graduation, or maybe only at the occasional party/get-together at Jackson's place or with the px crew, it's real interesting to see how our lives are going. in some ways, we're pretty much the same as it ever was: i don't feel surprised to see my peer group expanding our range of roles. but, at the same time, it's incredible to think that we've left high school so far behind, so far in the past... it feels like it's been forever since we've been gone. what happens when more of our lives have passed since high school than before it? we look back on grade school now and think, we were so very young - but my generation is starting to move on to the point where even high school is surrounded by the same air of wistful disdain.

what happens when bright college years pass the same way?

some of these kids i've seen as recently as last March; for some of them, our graduation was the last time that i've seen them in person. the one thing that we have in common, of course, is that we all spent four years in the same tiny social pool, streaming around and over and just past one another. in ways, it's not surprising to think back on them and - despite the distance between some of us - fondly recall those hours, days, weeks, and years spent, more fondly even, in ways, than those spent in college. College, after all, is precisely the experience of emerging into a larger, less personal, community; the close bonds are all the more tight-knit for it, but those who are the Other are distinguished, set apart, far more so. In high school, especially one so comparatively miniscule as ours, we were, for better or for worse, in it all together.

hey, guys.

what up?
















































































([||] on this picture)

(also incredible: all these pictures together are smaller than 3 of the pictures taken by my current camera[phone])