Terminator Salvation finally wrapped. It was a long, rough schedule, but a complete blast to work on. I took some photos from the final days of the mix that you can check out here.

I was able to go to the E3 Expo again this year which was nice since it’s been virtually non-existent the past few years. It was a good time, but lacked the oomph of 3-4 years ago. You can view photos of the day here.

Memorial Day BBQ over at Hutch and Jesse’s. You can view the day here.

Shell, Molly, and I were able to fly to St.Louis to surprise my dad for his 60th birthday. It was a big success. His folks and sister also came up from Mississippi. You can view a few selects photos here.

Shell and I got a day to ourselves and went to the St. Louis Art Museum. Photos here.

For as many years as I lived in STL I never made it to the Arch. Finally did that here.

Finally, my folks took us to the STL Zoo for the day. Always a rad time. Photos of the zoo here.

First up, I put together a new mix. It’s called “Open Fields” and is sort of inspired by the Fall. It’s not a very long mix, but is nice and chill and has been good background music on my walks to work each morning. You can download it here.

Fashion Dave & Meg got married. Awesome couple and awesome night. FD is one of my oldest friends and it was just really rad to see him get hitched. On a side note, I did a video installation that played throughout the reception and that turned out really well. I will try and get that up online sometime soon. You can view photos of the night here.

We took Molly to her first “harvest festival”. It was at Underwood Farms in Moorpark and was a lot cooler than I thought it’d be. More pumpkins than I’ve ever seen and they had an antique tractor show. You can view photos of the day here.

Molly turned ONE, which is sorta hard for me to wrap my head around. We had a big party for her at Weddington park. She had more people show up than I do for my birthdays and she’s only been doing this one year. Both sets of grandparents came into town and it was a great afternoon. Photos of the day over here.

DJ Lance Rock and Yo Gabba Gabba did a show at Amoeba Records in Hollywood. We were guessing probably 500 people showed up which was nuts. Kids loosing their minds for Plex and Co. It was probably one of my top Molly memories so far. You can view photos here.

Also two weekends ago I got to visit one of my best pals, Banker Jeff, in Nashville. Jeff and I visit a different NFL stadium each year and this season it was time for the Titans. I hadn’t been back to Nashville since leaving college so it was a wild, memory flooding trip. Got to see some old haunts as well as visit what’s left of Johnny Cash’s home. You can view photos of the trip here.

Jerry Reed died yesterday. He was 71. In terms of music, it seems most people have certain artists or bands they can attach to different time periods in their lives. I may have had a few musical chapters through my years (Johnny Cash, The Velvet Underground, Boards of Canada), but I’ve only had two legitimate novels. Artists that slam you in the face and literally alter your life. My entire college experience/time in Nashville was about Morrissey. My post-college/coming into your own years/Los Angeles time was about Jerry Reed.

In December of ‘02 I bought my first Jerry Reed CD, Country Legends, on a whim at a mom and pop country music store hidden in an outlet mall in a snowed over Wentzville, MO. I knew “East Bound And Down” from being a huge fan of Smokey and the Bandit, but that was about it. I was instantly hooked and bought up everything I could find of his soon after. The following summer I actually got to see him play on one of his last tours. It was at the Warren County Fair out in the sticks of St.Louis. It was July4th and the hottest day I think I’ve ever experienced. I remember the concert, while being lots of fun, was also a little sad for the fact that Jerry’s audience consisted only of 40 sunburnt people sitting on hay bails. None of whom seemed entirely interested. None of whom had flown from LA just for that show. Before and after the show I sat on those hay bails talking to my dad about how utterly pathetic my love life was not knowing that within five days I’d meet my wife.

I have often thought about what it is that makes me connect with Jerry Reed’s music so much. How did I get so easily obsessed over some goofy 70’s country icon that picked a mean guitar and wrote just as many bad songs as good ones? The best I can come up with is that he simply reminds me of the South and I discovered him during a time when I was trading the South in for the West Coast. While moving West has been the best thing to ever happen to me, the place where my brain, goals, ambition, friends and career lives, I will always feel like my heart, my family, my heritage and upbringing will always remain in the South. I suppose it’s that part of you you can’t ever fully go back to, even if you moved there. It’s a state of mind more than a street address and a yard full of pine needles. For me, the “idea” of the South is a very peaceful and safe one that is highly valued in the hectic world I live in. Nothing transports me faster to that place than listening to Jerry’s voice. I know I cling to his songs so strongly, not necessarily because they’re the best ever written, but because it’s the musical, almost tangible, expression of my upbringing and that “Southern” ideal. The same reason I flock to deer and tractor paraphernalia when taste clearly begs me not to.

So that’s all I have to say. I’m glad I got to see him play once. I’m glad Jeremy Davis did a painting of him for me last year. I’m glad his music will still be around every time my brain needs a break.

Here is one my favorite songs of his that you can download: “The Likes of Me”

And here is one my favorite Youtube videos of his…

Eades is doing his annual Summer Mix Series and it’s fantastic as always. Had some freetime this weekend to put together my own submission, In Heat, which you can check out over here.

My buddy, Fisher, had his 30th birthday at Boomer’s this last week. You can check out photos here.

This past Sunday we had Molly dedicated at Church and then a big lunch with family and friends afterwards. You can check photos out here.

There is a new site up for the proposed Los Angeles Football Stadium in the City of Industry. I gotta say I’m in love with the “built inside the earth” design.

This one goes out to Blankenship and the design nerds that get their panties in a wad over fonts. They’ve been using the wrongly-dated fonts on the Indiana Jones maps. So now it’s not the 4th movie that ruined the series, it’s the fonts!

Two photographers to check out:
Alexey Titarenko takes some flat out ghostly images, literally. Really mindblowing work.

Catherine Ledner. She’s killing it on the animal portraits. Colorful, whimsical, well composed, thought out backgrounds. She has a massive gallery of every animal you can imagine. Definitely worth your time.

This photo from Eades gets my motor running.

And lastly, I had the chance to see Big Trouble In Little China on the bigscreen during the Aero theater’s John Carpenter festival. They had a 300+ crowd and it was hands down one of the best movie going experiences of my life. Awesome night with one of my all time favorite films.

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Biggest highlight of the trip would probably be my Dad taking me out for my 30th birthday. We started off the day with breakfast at Waffle House, then headed over to Bass Pro Shop, on to Chuck’s Boots in Fenton to buy my first pair of cowboy boots, then on to the John Deere dealership so I could check out the tractors, and wrapped it up with lunch at White Castle. It’s probably going to be one of the top days I’ve ever had with my pops. Really, really fun.

You can check out photos from the week over here.

In related news, apparently Cobra Commander has his own twitter page. I love the interne.t

p.s. They had Downey’s suit (Downey was fantastic by the way) on display at the theater and I was pretty surprised at how small it was. Oh, and stay for the credits for some Avengers goodness.

Joshua Hoffine’s photography is a dark, fairytale-themed wonderland. Yes it’s overtly creepy and you could say it’s weird that I’m posting this since I’m the current proud pops of the cutest baby girl in the country and most of his subject matter has to do with girls (longest sentence ever). However, all that aside, Hoffine takes really fantastic, thought out photos that I don’t think should be taken too seriously. They have a certain whimsy to them and the production values are top notch.

My favorite link of the day though comes from article in Radar Magazine about Bill Geerhart. Geerhart, an apparent “pop-culture historian”, did an experiment in the late ’90’s where he posed as a ten year old boy and wrote letters to various prominent figures asking for advice on whether or not he should stay in school, etc etc. He sent letters to the likes of Dick Cheney and Clarence Thomas all the way down to Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez. The payoff is that they all wrote back and the responses are pretty much fascinating. Manson is decidedly still nutso.