I love cities that start with San. That would include one of my all time favorite cities San Francisco. I signed up with my friend Rob for something like the Amazing Race in which we were given clues and had to run with a bunch of crazies all over the city. It was so hot and we were on foot the whole day walking up and down the hills of S.F. At one point I almost called it quits but we finally finished. I decided the real Amazing Race would be way too hard and I probably couldn't do it but I still want to be on WIPEOUT.
On my way up through the Golden State I stopped in Huntington Beach. My friend Mr. Mike was Mr. Connections this trip with the hook up at 910 in La Jolla and then he got us all third row tickets to an Angels game from the President himself. (Not Obama President-though Mike really wishes they were tight-but Angels President). There I am. Third from the right. I'm the one whose wearing the sun.
Allison took us to Taco Loco in Laguna Beach (which means Crazy Taco gracias). I can't even look at that picture with out salivating. In Mission Beach I tried a famous fish taco place that was on "Diner's Drive-In's and Dives" and I'm real sorry Guy Fieri but this place was muchos better. Then we went to Magic Mountain with all the vato's and Jr. High kids. We rode all sorts of crazy rides like the one shown below. I'm the one who looks handicap.
San Diego’s Eucalyptus and humming birds. And the ocean breathes salty. In San Diego time moves maybe more like dream time. One day was three weeks. I woke up and it was time to go. Mission Beach and Coronado. La Jolla and 910. Ran everyday at Mission Bay, it was so beautiful it tricked me into liking it (running that is). Made a trip to the zoo. This guy was my favorite, I'm pretty sure he was dancing for me. I could barely take my eyes off my rear view mirror as San Diego faded into the smog of Los Angeles.
Some friends and I found a 4 night Baja Mexico Cruise for only 130 bones! I figured that's about how much it costs for gas and food for four days regularly and Carnival might as well have payed us to board their ship so we all signed up and crossed our fingers we weren't spending four nights on a fishing boat.
Unfortunately, the rendezvous of some poor child and an infamous pig caused something of an epidemic and the cancellation of our Mexico Port. For a mother like my own and a hypochondriac like myself it turned out to be good news.
So we boarded the ship (that's me celebrating that we weren't on a fishing boat)
We went to Catalina instead and drove around the island. Then we took a boat on the water. ...which was terrifying because we were going para sailing. I went through with it... See! There I am nothing but dust in the wind. Soaring 335 feet above shark waters. Hurray for terrifying experiences and almost peeing my pants 35 stories high! And then their was dancing... And yeah I dropped it like its hot.
I had nothing but time and money to kill and an itch to scratch. So I packed up my new traveling companion who had only 43,000 miles on it (I added another 5,000) and I hit the road like a gypsy.
I stopped in a little city where the sun don’t set called The Vegas and visited mi amigo Stephanie, who moves like a jelly fish and used to drink a teaspoon of soy sauce before bedtime. Her roommate Mindy, who called me "Ash" and I liked that, came bearing gifts. All along my trip I filled my car with gifts, collections from my travels and half an Asian market. My car got heavier. My soul got lighter and started to smell like Korea.
I’m in love with the open road. Nothing but dust and burning desert to distract me from finding things I’ve lost, like peace of mind. An abandoned highway and the red and orange of dusk gives me clarity from the jumble and routine of our modern day lives. I'd left behind the numbing of everyday, the red-yellow-green, the assault of irrelevance.
On the road the sunset is mine to own. I don’t have to share it with anyone else, except Earl that creepy truck driver who seriously gives me the willies. Even though Creepster McGee probably had some poor soul duct taped in his passenger seat, maybe he found my same clarity. And so someplace between Provo and Sin City Earl and I shared a fleeting and soon forgotten sunset.
What you’ve heard is true, it rains a lot there. The cities skies are gray, the color of thought and for me contentment, and for some depression. But I love it. It’s unique and it has character. See…
Seattle, where the ground is paved with... Sponge Bob figurines and GI Joes, broken gold watches and heart shaped glasses.
I purchased this gem for $1 from a guy selling his past on the street in Broadway.
Trolls under bridges
and I agree..
[That’s me in my most primitive condition. Living in a cave]
So many days without internet. I know I started devolving. I started communicating in grunts, drew prehistoric elephants on stone in the dark. I’m grateful to be back in the 21st century. For access to unlimited irrelevance. And fire for light and warmth. To walk upright again like the modern woman I am. Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to go find my house on google earth and then tweet about it.
…
“That’s it?!” my internet audience wonders in discontent.
“Think I’d leave you high and dry without updates as to where I have been for six weeks?” I say.
“Don’t flatter yourself. Like we care,” the few occasional readers actually think.
But see, I’m going to tell you anyways because here at Postcardfrommars.blogspot.com we do what we want.
I know you all have been curious about my where-abouts, definitley feening for an update on my life, your fix, because my lives details are a hot commodity. Postcard From Mars might as well be US Weekly. No? Not so much?
Well maybe some of you thought I caught the Swine Flu, or am in Mexico City in the trunk of a Caddilac full of cocaine stuffed toy dolls. Well dry your eyes I just took off with my new wheels on my first grand adventure, in which I'm calling "My Swine Flu Adventure 2009."
Made it to The Vegas, then to San Diego, went on my Swine Flu Cruise (Catalina and into International Pirate Waters) and now off through California... Hurray!
Lots of pictures and stories to come when my adventure comes to a close...but for now...
I’ve mentioned before the Dodger’s days were numbered. Well the inevitable came when The Dodger left me in a cloud of smoke that poured out of its rattling exhaust pipe as Roger the car salesman (and aspiring photographer) stole it away. It took me all morning to clean out my little Neon. When I opened up my trunk I found all the things I’ve been looking for for years. The junk in my trunk could tell the story of my life. As the blue smoke cleared from Roger and the Dodger I was left standing next to my new traveling companion, whose trunk would soon tell all my lives stories, now empty and unwritten. Currently, I feel the Passat is a little mature for my tastes. I almost can’t take myself seriously in it. It has all sorts of crazy doodads I should be super stoked about, like that my engine is as fast as a rocket missile and that these computers on my dash calculate and crunch all sorts of equations things- like how long till I’m on the side of the dusty highway thumbing my way to a gas station. But truthfully, I’m just grateful for the simple things. Simple things such as when somebody outside of my passenger side window wants to talk to me I don’t have to put my car in park, lean across the seat and roll the window down while my arm cramps up. The time is now yours to share a few thoughts slash memories about The Dodger (or claim any of your belongings that may haven been in its trunk)
I've been helping Garrit and Rachel out with their wedding announcements. They wanted them to look like old Film Noir movie posters. We modeled it after the poster "Creatures from the Blue Lagoon." Glad to work on some announcements that look totally different.
Something about St. George makes me act like either a ten year old boy or a 60 year old man, but never my own age..or my own sex? St. George makes me want to hit rock off of cliffs with bats. Or long board down roads I'm usually scared of.
Or rock climb, hike,explore, chase lizards, and play in the dirt.
At the same exact time St George makes me want to hit a bucket of balls, read the morning paper out on the patio with a glass of orange juice, eat breakfast at the local diner, take afternoon naps. (These are all things I decided old people do).
I think me and my old man knees are ready for early retirement right in the heart of old people land!
Shot my first engagement photo's for my friends Rachel and Garrit. They were taken at the old Heber Creeper Train Station in the snow (PS why is it still snowing? My soul's in hibernation right now waiting for warmer climates.) This is what the three of us put together.
I had two really grand ideas that didn't end up happening 1)Garrit and Rach wearing just old wooden barrels and nothing else 2)to dress them up in old B&W striped Burglar outfits. Both would have been so cool around the train station. But where do you find old wooden barrels and burglar outfits?
It started off seemingly innocent, with a harmless little blog called "Postcard from Mars." Four blogs, a myspace, a facebook, a twitter, a youtube, and a flickr account later... That's right FOUR blogs. (How self-indulgent can one person be?!) Yeah, this entry is really just about a new page called "Take Me Away Astroplane." This isn't about an internet intervention. I just want to plug tumblr.com, the site that hosts my page. It's rotten COOL! And easy. I can text blog entries! It posts my twitter account and my youtube account! And if i see a video, a picture, a quote or a link I like I click on it and its posted! Its the fastest, simplest way to express/ represent yourself. Take Me Away Astroplane is more just things that inspire me slash projects I'm working on. Its a quick lay out of whats going on in my life.
I saw Sunshine Cleaning last night and stinking loved it. Both Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are my new favorite. At the end of the movie I felt like maybe we were friends.
The reason this film is so great is because it's both hopeful and honest. Life doesn't always work out the way we imagine and sometimes it gets pretty dark but we can find sunshine in even the saddest and darkest places. When we have no money, no husband, and we clean up after dead bodies. When we feel like a total loser. When someone we love dies. This movie is all about finding hope when terrible things happen and life doesn't provide us with the happy ending we expected. I just loved it, so go see it!
Oh boy oh boy! Stinking excited for this movie to come out October 16th. I know in many ways I'm a child in a bad way. But I'd like to think, maybe sometimes, I'm a child in a good way.
I completed my Fiesta Movement Film. Almost all of the videos I saw that were uploaded looked a lot more like video resumes than anything else. Not really my style. I believe in less is more, (unless we're talking about one of my many indulges, in which I can't help but practice the principle more is never enough).
The dilemma: in a short film how can I prove I have an internet audience, that I know how to put together an entertaining video, and I like road trips without it looking like shameless self-promotion?
This is what I came up with....
The open road, our life journey, all the random, strange people we pick up along the way and the places we go. And the people along the road will do all the promoting for me.
Ford is giving away 100 2011 Ford Fiesta's before their official release in America. The catch is that you promote the Fiesta for six months. It seems brilliant to me that Ford caught onto the potential of the new world wide web (twitter, blogging, facebook, myspace, youtube). Before the internet meant the world was at your fingertips, these days a blogger is at the world's fingertips. And Twitter has allowed anyone to be mass produced and distributed.
I'm sure Ford's marketing department thought, "why put all this money into advertising ourselves when we can have a diverse group of 100 do it for us?
For six months gas and insurance is paid for. You just go on these special trips in your Ford Fiesta, then talk about them to your internet audience. To apply all you need to do is upload a clip on youtube proving you can make a video, you're entertaining enough, and that you have an internet audience. I think it's genius. So I jumped on board immediately.
I told my friend Tyler at work I wanted to win this Ford Fiesta. He paused for a second, looked at me and said, "Why don't you just buy a car?" I felt like a freeloader for a minute... Now I say to you Tyler... "Whats the fun in that?"
This past month I've rediscovered all the things I forgot I loved to do. Been crazy busy working on a short video project (further details on the project later).
My Film in the Making:
That's Paul in my opening shot. Paul helped me brainstorm the idea and is writing an original song for me which I'm excited about.
Justin is my camera genius and pretty much helped me figure it all out from the beginning. That's his battle wound after a tragic barbed wire accident.
These shots we got of Bekah were really incredible and she looks so great.
This shot cracks me up, because I told her, "throw the sign but don't throw it in the lake please" so she dramatically throws it and then watches it till it drops.
Some more shots and people who helped me out.
Found this abandoned road right next to the train tracks. Such an incredible spot. Justin risked his life on a skateboard next to my car for this shot.
I have to have it done by Sunday. So check back in a couple days!
This will be my last blog about WATCHMEN. Cross my heart.
It seems as though a lot of people went into Watchmen expecting another superhero movie, polished and triumphant, those people came out disappointed.
Aside from a few moments, Snyder avoided dumbing down Moore’s masterpiece to win over the public. Watchmen was made for fans.
This isn’t another comic book movie. It exposes the paradox of the superhero genre. In this reality Superman doesn’t care for humanity, Batman’s a nut, everybody else’s damaged, paranoid, narcissistic, sadistic, sexually deviant. Got goosebumps when Dr. Manhattan says if there is a God, I’m nothing like him.
Watchmen imagines a reality universe. It’s the possibility of what could have been if we had superheroes. We wouldn’t let superman just rescue cats from trees or fight crime in Metropolis. He would help us change history! If Superman existed and he was American, we surely would have won the Vietnam War and what would that have meant?
Watchmen was less plot driven and more character based. Generally, the movie medium doesn’t need to worry about character development and they don’t really have time to. The book is addicting and emotional because you get attached to characters, especially Rorschach whose character is heartbreaking.
I think just as the graphic novel redefined the comic book genre, the movie redefined the comic book movie genre. Comic book movies aren’t just for kids anymore. Watchmen hit theatres at a time when superhero movies are growing tiresome. How about something new, refreshing and serious?
I loved the movie from the very beginning when Bob Dylan’s “Times they are A’Changing” played through. It got me feeling all “Watchmen-y” (which is a word, Zach Snyder used it).
So many things I say I'll do tomorrow then tomorrow comes and goes. One of those things was painting. Tomorrow turned into six or seven years with out even picking up a paint brush. Well I dug up my paints and set up a studio down in the basement. Its a perfect set up. I have my record player, my speakers, my studio lights and now my easel and paints.
For a rough and first attempt at painting, I'm okay with it, however its supposed to be Bob Dylan. But maybe it kinda looks like David Bowie? The other work in progress is....THE JOKER. How geeky am I? Did I mention The Watchmen comes out Thursday night?
Glad to know some things never change. Some things stay consistent which is hopeful for a girl as hopeless as myself. I mean specifically my friend Lori never changes. And such consistencies make me happy. What a ridiculous human being. And I mean the finest quality of ridiculous. Last week I participated in a Girl’s-Night-Out, which is a rarity for me. A guy at work once asked me to set him up with my friends, another friend butt in “All Ashley’s friends are guys.” Which is not completely true, however all my girlfriends are in relationships. So Girls Night was foreign but refreshing to hang out with a whole table full of people who had their reproductive organs on their insides. Even more refreshing, spending the evening with friends.
some thoughts…
How underrated are our friendships? Our relationships get put on the backburner for whatever we feel is more urgent. We have resorted to a more convenient way of maintaining friendships, texting, blogging, facebook. There are friends I haven’t seen in years, no worries though I know that “JOE is…just finished my calculus exam!!!” via all the ploys of virtual friendships that make us feel like we aren’t living alone in this world. We have replaced quality with quantity, as our facebook friendships stack up and the intimacy of relationships dwindle. Technology, modernism, self-promotion, individualism destroy intimacy, community, value. And now we wonder why we feel more and more alone when we're surrounded by masses in the Lonesome Crowded West (Modest Mouse).
One of the few things that matter at the end of the day are the relationships we have with other people. One of my fears is that approaching the end of my life I’d look back and regret a faded relationship. And surely when my bones are arthritic (I think they already are) and I have to blend my food up into mush (which I also kind of have to do cuz my wisdom teeth are rearranging my face and I have no dental insurance) it will be the things I cherish most.
NOTE: This however doesn’t mean I’m ready to delete my facebook and surely not my blog. IM JUST A ROBOT IN THE SYSTEM.SYSTEM> STYSME sddkkkkk...a broken system.
