Seattle: Sunset on the Waterfront

When it comes to the Emerald City (in this particular case we're talking Seattle, not Oz), there are no shortages of places to take in stunning views of the varied and vibrantly vivacious greenery, but perhaps the abundance of waterways available would surprise you...or perhaps this abundance of aquatic resources is no surprise- after all, all those trees and gardens need hydration, and Seattle is certainly well-endowed with water. Whether you're taking in the scenic views of the Puget Sound, or enjoying a leisurely picnic at Gasworks Park over Lake Union, or simply taking a stroll alongside any number of smaller or residential lakes, ponds, water constitutes roughly 40% of the overall city's footprint and that's not counting the long months of drizzle or occasional snow. Of course, Seattle is a city that is ever-changing and ever-growing, so that balance of land to water is likely to change as time goes on, and the city's not afraid to utilise the waterfront spaces to reclaim land and literally build their own ground upon the seafloor, as they did around Occidental Square and nearby sports stadiums.

All this water, however, is absolutely wonderful for desert-born and raised weirdos like Antho and I, so we rarely grump about this abundance.  When we had the opportunity to make our way down to the beautiful, scenic walkways alongside the Waterfront, we went for it! You can easily access it from Pike's Place Market, so if you're visiting there you could squeeze in a walk along the water and take in an array of sights, snacks and scenery. Now that the Alaskan Way Viaduct is closed up for good, the Waterfront is going to change and expand immensely over the next decade as an ambitious redevelopment plan sweeps through the area. During this particular visit, however, the Viaduct was still operational, so this preserves a snapshot of a bygone era.  Crazy how these things can happen, one day a familiar icon and the next it's being deconstructed to pave the way for bigger, purportedly brighter, things. Whether all this change will end up being for the greater good, or simply result in the pockets of several developers getting fatter, is up to time to determine, but given that the Alaskan Way Viaduct was a known safety hazard in the event of a serious earthquake, I'm actually leaning towards the former option. I know, a bit of a shockingly optimistic view coming from me, right? I guess all this sunshine has me feeling some sort of way. 

(RIP Viaduct)

Grab your fursuit and get ready, there are plenty more photos below!

Vegas: F*ck you. I'm trying to have a good time

Say what you will about Frank Sinatra and the Rat-Pack, and I don't give a rat's ass what any of those headlining mega-stars that adorn any given showroom on the Las Vegas Strip on any given night might hope to say, you've got to look out to the people on the streets to get the real read on Vegas. What sentence better sums up the ethos behind the city of sin and revelling in hedonistic excesses quite like his sign? Fuck you. I'm trying to have a good time. That could be the advertising slogan for the city, where your entertainment and depravity is of the utmost priority! Behaviors and ensembles that would be considered abhorrent or embarrassing back home are not only given the light of day but a green-light pass as every casino's glittering orifice promises to indulge you in excess, whether your poison be booze, boobs, or buffets. Eat to your triple-bypass-coronary-heart's delight and load up plate after plate with greasy glistening goodies, fresh from the kitchens! You can even get paddled for not finishing your towering portions of food at the Heart Attack Grill, if you're into getting food-shamed in front of strangers, because why not. Not enough alcohol in your Fat Tuesday's tower of neon-colored-oblivion? Get some extra shots in that beeyotch! Because, why not, baby? It's Vegas! If, in your pursuit of having a good time, things might get out of hand, never you fear. That's what it's all about, after all, isn't it? Should you find yourself laying spread-eagle on your belly upon a cold linoleum floor in front of the bathrooms at Harrah's, awash in the highlighter-hues of your drink of doom, security and medical staff will be there to hoist you back up again and jettison you off to a hospital for quick tending to if need be...if you're a tourist, of course. If, on the other hand, you look a bit more like our friend above, a victim of a good time that derailed hard, security will be happy to escort you from the premises expeditiously. Wouldn't want the out of towners to get a glimpse of their potential future, after all, should their good time get out of hand. 

But fuck you. I'm trying to have a good time.

Vegas: Cloudy Strip Sunset

Living in the desert, one becomes accustomed to seeing vast, open swatches of sky peeling out in all directions because most of the things that grow out there are stubby and low to the ground, including the residential houses, typically sprawling single story things, though more multi-story buildings are popping up more and more as the population grows. Generally speaking, though, once you move away from the teeming heart of the city, things tend to get low and long, creating an unobstructed stretch to the horizon. Even on the Las Vegas Strip proper the city has relatively few skyscrapers, and there's still ample room between the towering monolithic structures to keep that view of the sky wide open. There's a lot of open spaces, a lot of long, empty drives through deserted two-lane roads to escape that insane oasis and the horizon can seem an endless, unreachable stretch. It was only after living in Japan for two years and becoming used to the labyrinthine crisscrossing of electrical wires, the shadows of multi-level apartment buildings and business crowding in from all sides, and the comforting blanket of heavy urbanity that I started to realize how an agoraphobe might feel when trying to step beyond the confines of their nest. The first time I drove upon returning to the United States, a stretch from one small satellite city beyond the borders of Las Vegas metropolitan area to the big city proper, the sheer expansiveness of it all hit me. 

 There remains many open, empty spaces still in this country, patches where humanity has barely impinged, which is both gratitude and horror-inspiring.  When you seek to escape from the oppressive needs and rituals of the city, with their taxes and menial jobs and road rage, these empty, untouched spaces symbolize that freedom you're craving, but if you need help or assistance they can be painfully desolate and empty. Strange, isn't it? The sheer power of perception. The city of Las Vegas is kind of like that, too. It's something different for everyone who visits, and just like finding shapes in the clouds, it's entirely up to your own interpretation what you make of it. The expansiveness of it does allow for some nice views of the sunset, I suppose. All that emptiness has to be good for something, after all. 

Korea: 광장시장 Gwangjang market at night (again)

 Gwangjang market, along with being one of my absolute favorite destinations for street food and rubbing elbows with both the local population and tourists alike (whom I would frequently encourage to eat things they might not otherwise brave ordering, like the lovely British duo I encouraged to dive into yukhoe once upon a time), Gwangjang is also exceptionally photogenic, and not just in some of its many corners, but most of them. I've enjoyed trying to capture the complex and often vastly different vibes of some of its many labyrinthine corridors because it is not easy to capture the frenetic, ever-changing energy of the place, let alone the changes of the seasonal shifts and tourist tides. Without a doubt, this is one of my favorite locations in all of Seoul. The energy and vibe of the place is hard to recreate, and I dread the day somewhere in the future when the current-day market building will be replaced with something bigger, brighter, and newer, under the pretense it must ostensibly be somehow better. 

While the nearly endless parade of activity is certainly fascinating to witness, there's something instrinsically surreal and haunting about these typically packed vicinities becoming vacant, quiet, or shuttered. As the night goes on, the crowds do have a propensity towards thinning out and dispersing into other channels, down a seemingly endless artery of alleyways and streets that ferry the strangers away to their multiplicity of unknown destinations. Who knows where they all end up? When these veins of commerce drain and grow hollowed, the remaining lights bouncing off of dark panes of glass, the echoes chasing your footsteps, it's almost like slipping into another dimension altogether.  Seoul is not a city where the trains run at all hours of the day, and as such, there's definitely a late-night rush as the last minute commuters dash off into the darkness, leaving the streets eerily quiet in those tentative moments prior to the limitation of movement and practically desolate after the final train departs the station at that early witching hour. 

Inevitably, this was one of my favorite times to wander. Not easy when living in the suburbs, but I relished in these evening strolls in near-solitude. 

Korea: Gwangjang lights

It's been some time since I dedicated an actual post in and of itself to my time in South Korea, and after unearthing a treasure trove of photos I hadn't even gotten to processing yet, I dove in deep and found lots of material worthy of sharing on this here blog, so if you've been missing the Korea posts you're in luck. I seem to have a propensity towards taking few photos early in my time abroad, whether it was my move to Japan (where I also made a conscious decision to go without a cell phone for the first 6 months, which contributed to that lack of photos) or during the move to Korea... towards the end of my stays, though, the finality of it starts to seep in and I find myself growing more frenetic in my efforts to snap visual reminders of the experience for conservation, like the mad dash to check off the bucket-list when an impending sense of mortality settles in sometime around middle age. Memory is a tricky and fickle thing, so I always find it far preferable to try to capture things in a very literal photographic sense, trying to seal a singular moment in time in pixel form for eternal preservation. 

And I have to admit, there's something surreal about Seoul at night, especially looking back through the haze of nostalgia. Maybe it's all the glittering neon and LED lights fiercely defying the creeping darkness, or the billowing plumes of steam tumbling from the nearest damp place, whether it's a steaming pan of tteokbokkie at a street side food stand or a manhole cover concealing subterranean secrets. I hope these photos can convey a bit of that sense to you, the reader. Whether it's the perplexing button configuration on the elevator I rode, day in, day out, or the color-changing tunnels at Gwangjang market. It's all a bit sci-fi, isn't it? Or maybe that's just me, getting lost in the uncanny valley. Neon, after all, reminds me a bit of home, the bedazzled Las Vegas strip beaming away at night like an angler fish trying to lure in prey. Maybe Seoul has more in common with home than I thought...  

Vegas: People (and pigeons) of the Strip

People in the West tend to talk a lot of crap about pigeons, calling them "rats with wings" (which is in and of itself offensive to us people who've had pet rats before), "vermin" and other unpleasant monickers that the poor little birds have done naught to earn. It's not the pigeons' faults that the relentless spread of human civilization has encroached upon natural lands where wild pigeons would have happily gone about their business far removed from most human activity, though the pigeons in the Americas today are all the descendants of domesticated pets. The original, indigenous pigeon, the passenger pigeon, went extinct a long time ago.  I'm sure the pigeons would rather not have to eat our garbage and instead prefer to feast on fat worms, seeds and grubs out of the grasses and fields, fresh and natural, juicy. Coincidentally, though, the spread of humans was a big factor in why the pigeons (and doves) were able to proliferate as well as they have, due in large part to the aforementioned domestication. For eons they were bred for food, their chubby little nestlings (aka squab) made an easy protein source for the people living in growing cities throughout the Middle East and Europe at the advent of civilization... then they were kept as pets, admired for their monotonous pairings, messenger and navigation abilities, and the simple lives that made them easy to cage. Now, instead of being the food source themselves, pigeons are able to scavenge from the endless detritus that collects around any large human city. In this much, they at least share an obvious kinship with rats, who found their way to the Americas onboard shipping vessels and were not originally native to the lands. They've done exceptionally well and endured due to their symbiotic, or at least reasonably tenable, relationship with humans.  

People without homes, or the homeless, also share this kinship with the misunderstood animals aforementioned. Any large enough group of humans gathered into a township or city will begin to accumulate their own human vestigials, lingering around the periphery of the acceptable spaces to squeak out a living on the remains and shrapnel of others, largely trying to skirt by unnoticed by the masses who would maybe try to stamp them out. 

Vegas: People and pets on the Promenade (part 2)

One of the cheesiest, and possibly also most alarming, things Antho ever told me, was the time he excitedly described to me a homeless couple he had seen- while they were both quite obviously living on the street, destitute and broke, they were clearly and unquestionably infatuated with each other and seemed beyond content despite a situation most of us would never consider a remotely tolerable turn of fate. He saw it as a poetic image, a testament to the undying power of love to overcome any and all challenges despite any situation it might find itself in... I saw it as a bit of a terrifying indicator for just how low he was willing to let his standards of living fall so long as he had me tagging along to bolster him, but I digress. He's a dreamer at heart, a fantastic, whimsical, flashy theatrical type who was raised on a steady and heavy diet of Hollywood films while I tend to be the logistician who grumbles, gets a migraine, and sorts through the realities of the matter like some impression of an adult in an effort to sway the tides of time in my favor. Homelessness, while not something I consider a desirable or even romantic notion, is an inarguable reality of modern society. I've seen, and interacted with, homeless people in Japan as well as the United States, and witnessed their camps while in Korea... Each country approaches things in their own ways, and each homeless person's story is unique, too, so it's not as though a simplistic blanket approach could ever work for everyone. I do have to say that I rather like Japan's approach, which seems a respectful distance and non-interference. When police want to evict a homeless encampment on public land, they're forced to abide by the same procedural processes as in an eviction. Most homeless are left to sleep in peace, and the time I did stop and offer a hot coffee and a sandwich to a homeless man in Tokyo, he was shocked by the gesture and asked incredulously where I had come from. He'd made me laugh on a difficult morning, so I figured it an equitable exchange, but this does make me wonder how far indifference stretches before it turns to a cold shoulder. 

 All photos in this post were taken by Antho! 

Vegas: Ellis Island adventure

This is in part a story about the Ellis Island casino, but also it's kind of not. It's a bit of a convoluted story, I suppose. You see, our good friend Epic Beard Louie recently did a show at the Huntridge Tavern where he and Antho got to hang out and reconnect a bit, and it was awesome! Good times. This, perhaps not surprisingly, lead to them wanting to hang out again in the near future as they were reminded of their friendship from yonder-year, back in a previous tense where they worked side by side (or at least in relatively close proximity) for hours and hours every week as colleagues in a call center. They've hit a couple of open mic nights and things over the years, but it's always nice to catch up with a friend you don't get to see too often, isn't it? So, they agreed to get together and meet for a meal and drinks at Ellis Island, a small local casino just off the strip. It may be attracting more of the tourist crowd these days, but for as long as I've known the place it was staunchly a local's haunt with it's cheap on-site brewed beer, old Vegas steak / rib / seafood dinner specials in their steakhouse, and karaoke I never went to (but Antho was a fan). 

I've always enjoyed their cheap beer specials, featuring the beers they brew on-site with their own small brewery. It used to be $2 or $3 for a pint, I believe, but maybe I'm getting senile in my old age (my birthday is coming up and it's making me acutely aware of my mortality, I'm afraid). And maybe in it's heyday, Ellis Island was the most popping place to be if you wanted to rub elbows with the elite...but these days it's a little more rough around the edges. Last time I, personally, set foot on the premises I found the parking lot nearly unnavigable (in my little Volvo box!) and the proximity to what seemed highly indicative of a hooker-motel to be quite a bit skeevy... but it's hard to resist cheap brews and chews, right? And it had been years! So, Antho happily agreed to pop over to Ellis Island with his good buddy. And he had fun. He got some great photographs. Had an overpriced White Russian.  But, after delivering my 50/50 burger (half bacon, half beef), he walked Louie back to his car and tried to re-enter the casino premises, he was barked at by a gruff security woman who told him in no uncertain terms he was no longer welcome on premises. 

To be clear, Antho is a charming and friendly young man. He tries very hard to be open and cheerful with most everyone he meets. While he does drink, these days, it's rarely more than a single drink or two and he never gets belligerent in public, so there's no reason to believe he acted poorly or out of line. During his time inside the casino, no one ever approached him to say he had done anything wrong either, and he had spent a fair bit of money on food and beverages during his time there over the course of the evening. The sudden turn around of this woman shouting at him to leave the premises after escorting his pal to his vehicle seemed unfounded, and quite frankly upset Antho a lot. He was perplexed, and we had discussed going to the place together to check it out for nostalgia's sake prior to the security woman telling him to vamoose. 

He reached out to Ellis Island via their Facebook page and they got back to him pretty quickly. From there he was able to get ahold of their head of security, who assured him that no papers had been processed that night evicting anyone from the premises permanently and the woman was tossing around her authority without merit. After a brief discussion with the guy, Antho was told he was absolutely welcome back on premises at any time and that if any issues arise to call the head of security directly on his personal cell-phone. So in roughly the course of an hour, hour and a half or so, Antho was unceremoniously told that he was unfairly and unjustly 86'd from the premises of a business he had just given lots of cash, then welcomed back with open arms by the head of security. What a wild ride! 

I'm a bit torn on whether we'll be stopping by now... Nostalgia is great and the 50/50 burger was pretty damn delicious, lukewarm, despite my neurotic preference for scalding hot foods or bust... Such blatant abuses of power are not a nice addition to an evening out, and while we were assured by the head of security that we had his backing should we ever want to give them our cash again, we can't feel confident that we won't run into the same woman and have a negative experience or anything. Bummer. 

At least Antho got some cool photos along the way!