Fungi Fest 2010 in Echo Park
Machine Projects – Los Angeles, CA
1/16 – 1/23/10

With eight to twelve inches of rain in Southern California’s  forecast, now is the time to brush up on your mushroom identification skills.  Mushroom hunting is one of my favorite hobbies.  Gourmet mushrooms are pricey and finding a bag full of Chanterelles is liking finding delicious gold nuggets.  Just make sure you have a competent mycologist properly identify them for you.  There is a  real art to finding mushrooms.  They blend in with the leaves on the ground.  They can be right in front of you, but you won’t see them.  →

Catching the train the other night was insanely intense.  After a languorous day of walking along the Dutch canals, we had some Thai food, drank Chimay with a puff of hash.  Along the way we stared at some purplish veined, aging prostitutes in the windows and then finally made our way into Amsterdam’s Central Station.  →

Interview with Onra
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A Parisian beatmaker and self-proclaimed “vinyl junky,” Onra (birth name: Arnaud Bernard) left France to venture out into Vietnam.   The trip was more than just a casual rediscovery of his grandparents’ homeland; he happened to be on a quest for foreign records from a bygone era.  Riding on the back of a motorbike through the narrow, hectic streets of Saigon →

Chinoiseries (2008)
Bo Bun Records
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Check out this Vietnamese hip hop track, titled: “I Wanna Go Back” from off the album, Chinoiseries on Bo Bun Records (2008). Onra, a French Vietnamese DJ, beatmaker and world traveler visited Vietnam, the land of his grandparents, and collected around 30 vinyls. He took these records to his house, made some cool beats that eventually became this compilation of Vietnamese hip hop. He donates a portion of the money made from this record to “La Goutte d’ Eau” association which helps underprivileged families and children in the orphanages of Vietnam.

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For more info on this DJ and his upcoming projects visit his myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/onra

Harriet Luckman Auditorium – Cal State LA
Live Review: 2/1/09
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With over 10 million inhabitants residing in LA, cultural diversities coexist in a dynamic relationship that is unparalleled in most parts of the world.   If you happen to drive ten miles in any one direction you can pass through Thai town, Little Ethiopia, Koreatown the list goes on and on.  It’s as if we have the entire globe crammed into this vibrant sprawl. This is what I like best about my city. I effortlessly encounter life that is colored with varied cuisine and the chance to indulge in music created from all across the globe.  So it was all part and parcel when Mochilla and ArtDontSleep hosted Timeless, a weekly series of epic multi-culti proportions.

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This performance of the 11-year-old guitarist by the name of Sungha Jung instantly piqued my interest.   Surely covering a Beatles tune is heavily played out, but this young burgeoning talent re-interprets the song with his own style and adds an entirely unique percussive dimension.  None of that gimicky cuteness, nor childishness; just serious musicianship from a rather precocious child.  →

Half salamander half H.R. Puff ‘n’ Stuff, the Mexican walking fish is on the verge of turning belly up and floating down the river of extinction.  Known widely as the Axolotl salamander, these cute little buggers are being seriously threatened by water pollution and habitat destruction.  Another big problem is that they are easy prey, basically defenseless, against the non-native species, like the Tilapia and the Asian Carp, that have been introduced to their habitat by the fishing industry.  →

Kelly Slater
Chronicle Books
(2008)
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With eight world titles under his belt, Kelly Slater is known throughout the annals of history as the greatest pro surfer ever.  He redefined the parameters of surfing performance and basically carved out a new space.  In his autobiography, Kelly Slater: For the Love you get to meet the real Kelly Slater represented in his own words.  The book is chock full of interesting factoids about what he eats, what essentials he carries with him when traveling abroad, and even delves into his spiritual side and his philosophies →

The latest headlines coming out of Papua, New Guinea tell of how women in the  Highland regions are killing their male babies to end an interminable tribal war (lasting more than 2o years so far).  One particular fight still continues that began in 1986 over claims of sorcery!  Yet if you look past the human melee, there is a fascinating spread of mother nature as bizarre as the purported rituals of black magic →

Just in case you missed this classic once in a lifetime ride of Laird Hamilton’s at Teahupoo, Tahiti!  Check out this surf documentary,  Riding Giants (2004) directed by Stacy Peralta (pro skater and one of the original Z-boys.)  Laird seriously risked →