Woodstock

We took a trip to Woodstock in upstate New York over labor day weekend.  Yes, that woodstock, of the famous hippie music festival in 1969

The Pheonicia Diner is good stuff

There are a bunch of swimming holes in the area and we checked out all the major ones.  On the way to fawns leap we heard latino music coming from the river bed

It turned out to be Latino river party USA.  They had tables chairs, dominos games going on and of course tunes.  They were really goin at it.

we decided to walk up the river to Fawn's leap.  had to hold your possesions over your head at some points because you're stuck in a canyon.

steven fell in the water and i missed it

this girl kept on sliding down these jagged rocks.  wtf

fawn's leap is a 24 ft drop, although maybe a little more since the river level was so low at this point.  It doesn't look so bad in the photo but in real life it looks pretty high.  and when people hit the water it makes a big boom.  If you don't keep your limbs in they'll hit the water and sting and turn red.  Steven jumped.  Steven's biggest disappointment was the large amount of rednecks here.

Steven Drops from Jason Raish on Vimeo.

watermelon helmet.  

steven got assaulted by a bug and some old woman who wanted him to get a move on up the hill told him it's because of how he smells.  zing

The Commune Saloon is a pretty cool place.  We had dinner and drinks at Shindig and one of the girls told us her boyfriend bar tends here and its the best of the 3 places that are open after 10.

The bear cafe and the little bear are all in this commune like space.  Yes someone had an occulus rift or some kind of virtual reality headset thing that everyone was trying.

s'mores time

There is no Uber in woodstock and the one taxi service in town probably run by one guy wasn't answering the phone and the next closest taxi is in Kingston 20+ minutes away.  That means if you all want to have fun at the bar you have to walk home for 1 hr.  We got bartender to sell us a bottle of wine for the road and we had a lot of fun on that 1 hr walk

good ol steven headly

pretty much the only thing cool about our airBnB.  I guess it did the job, all we did was sleep there.

chipmunk

there he is again he just won't go away, it's almost like he's having a laugh

lots of hippies of all ages around.  This guy was just draggin' a stick along the ground at 9am.

cool story man

some glassware seller who set up a sign facing out towards the river so swimming holes peeps can slosh ashore and fulfill their glassware needs.

Millstream was the best swimming and it's right at the edge of town.  Granted it was like 10am but there weren't that many people and it had a cool layout and wasn't all about people getting psyched up to do a big jump and onlookers watching.  This was was about just chillin

it's been 2 weeks now so it's safe to say no one got a brain eating amoeba.

This is Big Deep swimming hole.  The worst of the 3.  no real redeemable qualities here unless you like to skip stones for more than 3 minutes.  It was NOT deep and steven especially enjoyed the obese woman who set up shop in her chair right there.

plenty of aging hippies.  Dude started playing his didgeridoo

on our way to Kingston.  Really screwed us

Kingston is a cute town.  Not pictured is how we hightailed it out of here after lunch, went to that park with lake beach in the middle of it, Clarence Fahanestock state park, slept on the beach for a while, and then went home to cry because our great weekend was over.

bonus, we got a ticket when we parked alongside the road by the first swimming hole.  50+25$$?????!!!!!! those a-holes know they can write anything they want and we'll pay it.  To be fair there was a sign that said no parking but everyone was parking there and there was no where else to park that didn't mean having to walk miles.  That must be a nice chunk of change for city hall driving around there every summer handing out tickets.  Shooting fish in a barrel.  While they're away at the swimming hole

Last Assault on Summer

Summer is almost over.  It's September

2 beauties on their way to the US Open

Willets Point and all the 7 trains.  Billie Jean King stadium in the back

Venus Williams vs. Falconi

One of Jen's clients is Citizen watches who are the official time keepers of the US Open so we were hanging out in their box with free booze and food and lobster rolls.  The lady said the celebrity box was right across from us and she saw Tony Bennet over there earlier.  We didn't see him though

Venus crushed.  She's like 2 feet taller than the other girl.

that camera that glides around the stadium on 4 cables.

The men's games are so much faster, look how far back they have to stand.  Djokavic Vs. Haider-Mauer.  Djokavic won the US open once and he crushed here.

Brooklyn Social in our neighborhood has the best jukebox and I never knew!  They have some serious unknown and unpopular to normal people stuff in here.  I've never seen so much ska, jazz, and even italian for the italians in the hood.  They even had a Pavaroti album in there.

out with the old in with the new.  conservative estimate is these shoes have done 240 miles.

The Great Lawn, Central Park

nice job on the photos mike

sunset looking to jersey on jill/bob's roof on 81st and columbus

goodbye summer.  It was another one for the history books.

East Coast Somewhere

NY and DC

happy hr drinks at Holiday Cocktail Lounge on st marks which just re-opened recently.  Looks like an old social club inside

saw this place once when looking for apartments and finally got to try it.  Umi no Ie, homestyle japanese cooking on 3rd st between 1st and 2nd ave.  delicious, kinda expensive, and small portions, just like japan.

so turning a big street found frame into a chalk board worked!

word of the day:  Chuffed (Brittish) ex: Jason is pretty chuffed with himself and his new chalkboard.

going to DC for Zachary's 4th birthday, he gets 9 original hims and 9 in color.

he's like a whole new kid since last time i saw him.  he's talking and lucid and more into my foolishness.

is this really what we (Americans) and they (the Marines) want their public face to be?  I mean I know sometimes sh!t has to be absolutely positively destroyed overnight but everyone knows we're already the biggest military superpower in the world.  This sticker is like putting an adhesive muscle shirt on your car.  At least it wasn't on an H3 Hummer.

Like a scene from that cartoon Bobby's World.  Z's bday went down at Fort Myer Bowling Center.  Ft Myer is next to Arlington Cemetery so they handle that mostly.

Jordan, Will, Pari and Jen why do you have to do that.

Nice form.  Ivan and Pari have a kid now.

National Building Museum.  These white balls are supposed to be part of this beach.  A beach that costs 20 dollars to get into and an hour wait.  We are outta here.

72nd and Broadway

Hayden Planetarium from Jill/Bob's roof.

Fushimi Inari Taisha

This piece will be on display at the Society of Illustrators New York from September 8th to October 31st as part of the “New Visions” show.  It’s big, 24″ x 36″ so if you want to see all the detail you’ll have to see it in person.  This big poster size illustration has been a long time coming.  I’ve had the good fortune of going to Kyoto over 10 times in my life and Fushimi Inari Taisha is my favorite shrine there.  It’s a Shinto (sacred essence, spirits exist within everything is a big thing) shrine with Inari being it’s patron god.  Inari is male, female, or androgynous but I usually see her depicted as female.  She is the patron of business and fertility and rice.  Each Torii gate is donated by a business.  Foxes are Inari’s messengers.  The first time I went I was blown away, it felt magical, like much in Japan does.  Combine this with seeing Hiroshiges Ukiyo-e art “New Years Eve Fox Fires at Changing Tree Oji” and this image has been in my head for 6 years.  It was such a big undertaking that I didn’t start and finish it until this year.  This piece now takes the crown for most time spent on an illustration.  Japan has such a deep culture that there are so many details to point out:  The mask I bought for my brother, the small porcelain figures now sit above my doorway.  I put in an offering of Inari (sweet tofu pockets with rice in them) on one of the alters, I took home one of the uniquely shaped ema (votive tablet) that you write wished on and hang up at the shrine.  I imagined if every fox statue, porcelain figure, and image came alive at night.  Many wear red bibs and have the key to the rice granery or rice stalks in their mouths.  The rope and white paper hanging up denote a god lives inside.  Sadly this is all digital and I don’t know if I could have done it in my lifetime traditionally.  I tried not drawing with line and drawing with shape.  Legend has it the more tails a fox has the older, wiser, and more powerful it is and they can have up to 9 tails.  One story is that the flames are their souls.  Foxes can shapeshift into female humans, and can be portrayed as trickers or wives or lovers.  There is so much folklore on this subject that you’ll never know all of it.  

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