The benefits of being an Illustrator

I'm missing out on them! I was asked to be a VIP guest at a Tiger Beer party in Beijing, a VIP at a Rides magazine party in Vegas, and the American Illustration party that i've missed every year. I'm continually in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Paris - A visit to the city of light - Partie Six

the 6th and final part of my Paris Visit.



lock on the upstairs bathroom. i love old school european details like this. and its because i grew up American and never seeing things like this.



what looks to be a ham and cheese baguette sandwich being held really weirdly by my grinch hand.



this is the first time i've noticed a place for all the scooters and moto bikes to fill up in all the countries i lived in. this was just on the sidewalk in Le Marais.



that equals $10.12 a gallon. One liter equals $2.67. 3.79 liters equals a gallon. Exchange rate october 27th, 2011, $1 = .79€, or 1€ = $1.39 . really bad if you're holding dollars, probably normal for europeans. can you imagine paying $10 a gallon? i don't know if this is regular gas or some mix for motobikes.



Azag had a lot of cool stuff. i bought a koi nobori japanese style windsock there. they spoke english and told me about a children's book library around the corner. will have to check that out sometime.



Chorizo we love you. yes we do. either this is a tag (a really sh!tty one) or someone just ate an amazing bite of chorizo and had to proclaim their love to all of Paris.



this VW van parked curbside had seating in it as an extension of the cafe.



when i was here on the weekend there was a long line for this falafel. Chez Marianne



5€ ($7) for a traditional falafel. it was good but $7 is a lot for a falafel. I have been getting raped by the pound and the euro.







of course there is a Japanese Harajuku style crepe place in Le Marais. even the girls working inside were dressed up like lolita maids.





don't know what the ABC lights under the taxi sign mean.





now this is a cool graphic stand out poster. take note graphic design dork buddies! but part of the reason may be because a bayonet is bloodily stabbing 3 hats and the word commune is on it



did i already say how its a law that they have to give you a glass of water with your coffee? and that the espresso isn't that strong cuz i usually drink one and am wired cuz i never have caffeine outside of chocolate? I drank like 2 or 3 of these a day.



but its the perfect way to people watch. and capture fleeting parisian beauties on bikes. have i mentioned how i have a girls on bikes fetish? what is it? besides physically being up on a pedestal for all to see i guess it shows motivation, initiative, and guts on their part to ride a bike. which makes them a lil' more special. and initiative is sexy.



coca cola promo girls

the koi nobori i bought. if you're joining us now, these are traditionaly flown in japan around may 5th, which is children's day in japan. they are koi fish windsocks. this was designed by a french person but obviously takes its inspiration from the traditional ones. I love this one. Someday when i have a house there will be a few of these hanging in it. I think in only have 1 other one from japan. there is a madame mo tag on it, i guess that is the artist who made it http://www.madamemo.com/

Paris - A visit to the city of light - Partie Cinq

Part 5 of my trip to Paris my aunt has a bedroom on the basement level of her house and i get to live there! let's go take a look. with a little tidying up it will be awesome. awesome tiling that came with the house in the shower other half of the floor. toilet is separate like in London. this is at like 9:30 in the morning on sunday cuz I went to the market with Josh. people pop into these cafes and throw down a little espresso in like 2 minutes and bounce. when i was there i was thinking what a cool tradition it was. there were also a few people drinking wine already. the market that Josh goes to every sunday near the house. i've never seen so many kinds of potatoes in one place before. that's the spirit dudes. flying high fives. as we were walking down one street Josh said that someone burned a whole row of motor bikes there a while ago. I thought, um ok sure. But then we were walking down another street and I was like is that where a motor bike got burned? He said oh yea, i think that happened around last christmas. What kind of a place is Paris where vehicles get burned out on the regular? that cute mother loving labradoodle. I love when dogs do this thing where they stretch their back legs out. it means he really wants you to pet him. or maybe it means they have phantom itches because you chopped off their balls. ham and cheese crepe. i was with my aunt and she said it was the biggest one she's seen. score! Ernest Hemingway lived in this neighborhood for a bit. street near the house. love the multi chimney architecture that happens in London and Paris. a sampling of what awaits you at the bakery on the corner. croque monssieur is a hot ham and cheese sandwich with the cheese on top for some reason. was it delicious? yes indeed. maybe its just cuz i was in Paris but i thought this was the best croissant i'd ever had. cleaning robot cleaning the pyramid at the Louvre. the line to get in was super long. i forgot to make a panorama shot of how ridiculously long it was and am too lazy to do it now. it only took about 20 minutes to get in though. winged victory. one of the big Paris disappointments. Do you dream of seeing the Mona Lisa and studying it and becoming enchanted by that cheeky smile and trying to find hidden meanings? well good luck because there is a sea of orangutans with cameras mindlessly snapping away that you have to get through first. the closest you can get to it is still too far away to see anything anyway. its so far away there is no point in even trying to look at it. it's like trying to look at an 18"x24" painting standing 15 feet away. it's an absolutely ridiculous scene. i'm assuming these examples are Korean people but i've seen them do this in China too. Why Korean people why?!? it's embarrassing to you and me. a little less crazy at the venus de milo. remember last year when me and bob and fu-balls saw a giant statue of this and winged victory somewhere in Japan? we didn't know what this armless statue was but now you have it, it's the venus de milo. Louie the something's something rooms of decadence. i liked this series of three statues of a guy doing the 3 things that a man juss gon do: 1) wrestling a wild boar and throwing it over his shoulder 2)wrestling a deer 3)wrestling a woman and throwing her over his shoulder. Ingres's turkish bath. pretty sweet. thanks to computers i don't know proper grammar and if it should be Ingres's, Ingres', or none of the above. Jardins de Luxembourg. coolness dudes, keep it up. old guys and middle aged guys and a few younger guys chessin' it up i saw an old dude come and rip this off the side of a bus stop and throw it on the ground like he was looking for all of these specific ads. he didn't put up something of his own or anything he just walked away. I don't know what this says but dude was not happy with it. the view from the Montparnasse tower which has a better view than from the eiffel tour because the eiffel tour is in this view and the ugly tower im standing in now isn't. the service at montparnasse tower is horrible and rude. anyway as soon as you get up there you're faced with this so lots of people end up falling into this "photo" trap there were mad chinese people that had gotten their pictures taken against that green screen in this line waiting for their prints. look at how horrible that looks. are people dumb? the real eiffel tower exists directly outside of the window to the right! i saw these things a lot in paris. i guess they just stay there in areas where they have markets. Josh was saying something about how its a law that they have to have so many markets and bakeries like every 300 meters to keep the quality of life up or something.

at dinner in chinatown which is near the house. a lot of employers give these out and you can pay for certain stuff with them. I guess eventually i'll learn more about how the french system works but it sounds like you pay a ton of taxes but get tons of free stuff and perks like these restaurant cheques and free health care.