viejitos in a row

disneyland...pfft, you charge too much. early morning in anaheim isn't so bad, when there are cars to be seen. i see it as somewhat of a challenge to make a pretty picture from an ugly parking lot. not that hard really, when you have lights, camera, trees, and old cars. pavement cracks to add some character or sense of time passing.

caught this line up of viejitos' cars along the fence, amazingly without people or other cars passing in front of me during the five minutes or so that shot this. well, there was one guy walking behind the cars, but he's mostly a blur, so he doesn't count.

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got home from work yesterday, and was totally going to go to ruby's. had passed a few old cars heading in that direction, a couple that i'd never seen before. 

but then i got home, and started talking to my better half. i kicked back on the bed, which was a mistake, cuz i started feeling sleepy. so i never did end up at a show at all.

then i didn't get up for a show today. i suppose i could go now, high noon light and heat. ick. supposed to get hotter this week, so yay.

have plans to go out with my better half tonight, which really haven't done since at least before february. as ferris bueller said, "life moves pretty fast. if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

waiting on that change

1937 buick special

waiting. right now, for lunch.

things changing at work. tis the season for reorganization. sidesteps, but mostly day to day things will continue unchanged.  

life at home has been and continues to be hectic as well as erratic.  

my dad out of the hospital, but they really haven't fixed him. so more to worry about there. 

right about now, i'm thinking about vacation. wondering if better half will take a ten year anniversary trip with me, or if i will go solo or with my bro. happy to just get in the car and drive, but probably will fly somewhere, anywhere really. 

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another car from the front street show. don't see too many of this model around, and it's beautiful.

i was told the city did not allow them to use the streets for the show this year, and just kept them only in this parking lot. does explain why there weren't so many cars there. but on the plus side, i found close parking easy. 

lico

1954 chevy bel air

got chatted up by a very friendly viejito at the bomb life show in santa ana yesterday. two shows in one day, just like old times, right?

i'd seen a picture posted on instagram (hey slick51), and recognized the location. i inquired if it was from today, because i know he travels around from show to show a lot. he said it was.

i just happened to have to be in the area, so drove a little further down the street to see what might be there, though i was running a bit late for a show.

sure there probably weren't as many cars left in the lot as there might have been earlier, but plenty to shoot. i did have to get back home, so i just did a relatively quick run through.

i'd taken a picture of this freaky, different doll and the front of the car already. then a bit further down, was the viejitos tent. there sat raynbow and some other guys.

one of comes over, introduces himself and asks if i'd shot his car. says they call him lico, and then tells me the story of why. i hand him my card, he notices the back end of the fifty-nine on it, and some other car on the back of the card. then starts talking about how i should shoot the back of his car like this. has a wheel package on the back. 

so he walks me over to show me what he's talking about. keeps talking while i proceed to shoot a few angles. was kind of a tight spot, against the hedge, so i sort of squish in a gap, and took this shot.

liked the little homie head on the placa.

was nice meeting you, lico.

bucket

another one the owner hoped to see.

i had arrived early, parked in the designated lot, on the gift shop side of the mission. did not see any old cars. did not know where they were going to park them. sat in my car, listening to the radio.

then a big truck with a trailer pulls up in front of me, with this car on the trailer. i watched him unload it, and watched where he went with it, down an alley or was it a street?

shortly after, the los angeles bomb club cars drove in the lot, behind my car, and went down the alley as well.

i figured they must be between the buildings, but i didn't want to walk down the alley and around. so i wandered over to the church building, and down a small walkway past the cemetery. came up to what was a locked gate dead end, but a janitor had propped it open with a broom.

through that, around another building, and found the cars.

not a whole lot there early. the owner had parked his ford and was sitting with a guy who had brought in a military jeep.

i'd seen him watching me shoot some fleetlines, just out of the picture here. as i turned around and walked toward the green truck, he came over and inquired. told him i'd post a shot, so there you go...

mission possible

1951 chevy deluxe

made it out to san gabriel today. never been there, not even as a tourist. i did not visit the gift shop.

blessing of the cars. didn't get to see that—i had places i had to be at a certain time. so i got to work shooting the cars that were there early. two and a half hours, and i got most of them, at least the ones i liked.

chatted with other photographers that i run into all the time. i chatted with owners of the cars. i was just in a good mood, i guess.

owner of this car asked for a card. went over and took a picture of it before i got distracted by all the shiny, shiny chrome. told him i'd post the picture...

turvy

1946 chevy fleetline

my day started with a swollen eye at my mom's house. must be allergic to a new detergent on her sheets or something, but then, why only one eye, and not the other? and i don't have allergies anyway, so maybe a spider bite, but no sign of one...

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so i had just driven the daily hour and a half home to whittier yesterday after work, when i get a call from my brother. he's visiting our parents, so not completely weird, but then he says dad's in the hospital. he's talking quickly and quietly, telling me what's happened to get him to the point of agreeing to go...dad has a big dislike for hospitals, kind of like it would be admitting to a defeat or facing his mortality.  

the gist of the convo, before my bro said he had to go and quickly cut off the story: dad had been to a regular doctor's appointment in the morning. doctor checked his stats, did a routine blood test and told him he needed to go to the e.r., like now. 

my dad instead went home. figured if he went directly, they wouldn't feed him, and he'd been fasting. made himself a tuna sandwich, washed down with a diet coke. finally mentioned to my mom and bro what the doctor told him, and that he was short of breath. joked about having his last meal first. dark humor...wonder where i get it from.

starts telling them to find this and that to take with him. he huffs and wheezes up the stairs, only to not be able to find whatever it is either. 

supposedly my mom is running around stressing out, and a few curse words are heard by my bro...and my mom so very rarely uses them, so it's like, oh! 

anyway, they got him there, he's in the e.r., he's cranky, and being one of those old crusty a-hole types because he doesn't want to be there. i suppose he's mostly scared is all...thought he was having a heart attack. i'm picturing fred sanford..."i'm coming elizabeth...," while clutching his heart.

that's where my bro left me hanging in the story... 

what to do, what to do. just got home, and it's rush hour traffic. made up my mind to turn around and head back to where i'd just been two hours ago.

so i packed some clothes in a bag, told my better half it was nice sharing these ten minutes with you, and he walked me back out to my car. 

there's a car parked in front of mine on the curb. we see a can of some type of drink fly out the passenger window onto the sidewalk. wtf.  

better half stomps over to the passenger side, picks up said can and asks the person if they want this back. i heard some sort of expletive answer, and they begin to pull away. in a fit of pent up exhaustion, and the sheer nerve of the person, my better half lightly tosses the can at the back of the car.

it connects. the car quickly goes in reverse. 

i don't know who's in that car yet, and was expecting some shit to go down. 

this scrawny, chola girl hops out and starts a shouting match with my better half, who is having my worser half moment. "don't you be throwing shit at my car! i'm gonna call the cops!" to which my better half said, "i'm going to call the cops!"

at that the little beotch jumped back in her car and peeled outta there, through the stop sign, without stopping. better half tried to take picture of her plate, but it was a new car, and had paper plates. 

i told him i'd seen the same car around a few days before, must be visiting the neighbors'. i'm sure he'll be watching out to have another delightful chat with her. 

he said it didn't do anything to her car. he was fuming about why people go to someone else's hood and throw their trash around. 

so that was an exciting send off. 

half an hour later, i've made it to the freeway and enjoying an actual ok speed of fifty miles per hour, when my sister calls to find out if i'd heard anything...tell her the little i know, and promise to call back. 

ten minutes further down the freeway, my bro calls with an update. not a heart attack, just severely anemic. passing along my mom's message that he seems to be ok, not an emergency, and don't be rushing down. 

keep in mind that if his arm was falling off, and he's bleeding out, she'd still say everything is ok, so as not to alarm anyone, and not disturb their sleep. 

i'm tired, my bro is there with them. he agrees he seems to be perking up with a transfusion. so fuck, i decide to turn around and head back to whittier, since i hadn't hit the halfway point yet. figured i'd stop by at lunchtime tomorrow (today as i type this), since it's not far from my office.

got home, ate dinner, took a shower, worked on this picture while my hair dried, then went to bed. 

simple lines of a fleetline, soothed me, slowing my churning thoughts enough so i could get some sleep.

explains a lot about my late evening posting, doesn't it? 

lick it

1948 chevy fleetline

i think this went way more shiny than it actually was in person. too much spit, maybe.

i do love the lines of a fleetline. i have a couple of shots of this car. i liked this vertical version better, probably because of how the tree frames it versus the other...more of a typical shot, not as interesting, comparatively.

on the front

1963 chevy impala

made it out to the historic front street car show yesterday. had never been, but have seen pictures from past years, showing an impressive assortment of cars.

i was somewhat underwhelmed that there seemed to be only a lot full of cars. sure i can understand that there were more than a few other shows going on, and i was there earlier than move in was really expected, but still. other streets were not closed off for the show, as should have happened per past expectations.

well, fewer cars, fewer people, this early. i had time to shoot what i wanted, without much problem. i did have a minor problem, with a particular person who'd pissed me off in the past, so i mostly skipped shooting any of his club's cars. petty, perhaps, but i remember, even if he didn't.

found this impala toward the far corner of the lot. owner, and i believe his son, sat behind it, and i hate to inconvenience people, so was just going to shoot without disturbing them. when the owner asked to see what i was shooting in the camera, i took it as an ok to move in closer. 

opted not to show him the camera images, as i happened to have a book of old prints with me. let him look through that instead.

anyway, nice chat. so i'll post this shot, with the presumed son standing in my shot.

backup

i have so many new pictures to play with. i even went to the historic front street show today. but my internal hard drives are both absolutely full. so i can't even download today's pictures yet.

first one, with last year's second half of stuff on it, about a terabyte, will take nine hours to move files. the other, with this year's files, has even more on it...

so i'll just post one of the pictures that have been sitting on the back burner. i keep seeing this truck recently.

here's practically the same version of it from the adventure park concert series show.

saw it today, and hopefully i took a different viewpoint of it. i think i shot it from the back.

it's pretty and shiny, so i'm sure i'll keep shooting it when i see it.

fiddlin’

i need to get to bed, but i was messing around with this picture. still needs some tweaks, but i wanted to post something. my hard drive is almost completely full, so i'm surprised i got it to do this much.

saw this rivi at los boulevardos show last week. i should really post some other point of view of it, so you can see the really interesting paint job on the roof.

there are a couple of shows to choose from tomorrow, and i've never been to either one, so don't know when to go or where to park. i think they start later, so no point at beating the sunrise really. wait too late, no parking and i can't take the heat.

stayed at my mom's house last night. woke up this morning with half my cheek puffed up a bit, and my eye sort of squeezing shut. guessing something bit me in the night, otherwise i have no other explanation. kind of calmed down to mostly normal by the end of the day.

if it had turned red, into pink eye, i would have blamed my brother...maybe he let one go on my pillow when i wasn't looking...