strangepulse.com

In pictures.

I went down to Melrose Ave in Hollywood to check out Melrose Alley. Behind the shops on the main streets is an alley, and most of the back sides of the shops are covered in graffiti. It’s really cool. Gotta get down there again soon with Daniel so he can see it.

This was on Melrose Ave:

“I pity the fool!”

I snapped this in the Huntington Beach Library the other day:

A sign for those who can’t read.

This was an American Apparel ad on Melrose:

A graffiti artist called Leba altered the ad. The spray paint is all stuff he added. (Sword, blood)

This is a famous hot dog stand I’d never heard of before:

Pretty awesome, yes?

I visited the Sea Breeze Pet Cemetery recently:

A cat named Spanky, a turtle named Speedy and a monkey named Lisa.

This is on Melrose:

A graffiti artist named Free Humanity made it. Love it.

From Melrose Alley:

I saw one of my fave doom metal bands, Yob, for free the other night in Hollywood. They broke up years ago and got back together recently. I was sooo stoked to see them. Anyway this was during the opening band’s set:

What a stage diver looks like just before jumping over your head and landing on about three people (this show was not really one you should be stage diving at).

Another Melrose Alley shot:

My parents got me a new pinhole camera for my birthday. I’ve wanted one of these for awhile–they’re handmade by a company in China, and really nice–but they’re kind of expensive. I was sooo happy when it arrived! I’ve been having lots of fun with it. Here’s a picture of me and a powerline pylon:

Dillon in Melrose Alley:

I was going to snap a picture of that wall and Dillon said "Wait I have to be in this one!" and hopped onto the dumpster.

Whenever he and Nathaniel come with me when I’m takiing pictures, I always snap a few of them, and Dillon usually puts the pics of himself on his Facebook. He said one of his friends asked him the other day, "Do you just have a professional photographer following you around all the time?" and he said, "Yeah."

Funny.

Me on Melrose Ave:

All of the Princesses of one little corner of the Sea Breeze Pet Cemetery:

Go here to see it really big. (Several frames of a half-frame camera.)

Probably my fave picture I’ve taken all year:

I was testing out the new pinhole at the mall with Elijah. When used indoors or in darker settings, it requires a long exposure. I set the camera a couple steps above me on the escalator and had Elijah stay still a few steps down. This was roughly an 8 second exposure.

I turned 40 a few days ago.

I should do a post about how I feel about it and maybe I will soon. But for now, here’s a birthday present from my 16yo son Elijah. I asked him to write me a doom metal song.

He’s not into doom metal and thinks it’s very simplistic. I told him to listen to some Graves at Sea to get an idea of what I like. So he did, and then he wrote this song.

He said, “The song is 5 minutes long and it took me 6 minutes to write it.” He composes music on the computer. When he made the video, he’d exported the song as an mp3 onto his ipod, which he plugged into his amp and then played along with it. I knew writing a doom metal song would be easy for him, that’s one of the reasons I asked him to.

Of course, it’s not as slow as I really like my doom metal, but I still think it’s pretty dang awesome. (I figured it’d be nearly impossible for him to make it as slow and as simple as I really like.)