Eddie And The Cruisers...

    I woke up at 1 AM last night with the TV on (as I usually do because it's on when I crash out) and the movie Eddie and the Cruisers starring Michael Pare was just starting. Talk about a trip down memory lane. I was living with this girl named Cinda in the mid eighties...

...and she was absolutely in love with Monsieur Pare. We saw "Eddie" and Streets of Fire (starring him as well) at the theatre the day they opened. Neither movie has really stood the test of time (like any movie from the 80's does) but for nostalgia sake they were both fun to watch and relive the olden days ("Streets" was on last week). The soundtrack was performed by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, a kind of  Bruce Springsteen knock-off -- I heard that record ad nauseam. There were a couple of decent tunes on it though--On the Dark Side and this classic...

    It got me to thinking about the rest of Cinda's music. I had kind of lost my interest in music at the time other than the radio so all I remember listening to was her record collection which consisted of ; Eddie and the Cruisers Soundtrack, Burton Cummings Greatest Hits, Prince- Purple Rain and The Power of Love by Jennifer Rush--which she cowrote (not Cinda, Jennifer) and I think still does the best version...

Drunk People Funny, Mm-Kay...

The second guy is the best...

Nana...

     I always found this photo a little disturbing for some reason...

     I'll start by saying my Mom's Mom, Eva Ferbey could be a bit of a pain. She used to pinch my cheeks, lay wet, sloppy kisses on me, heap guilt trips on my Mom, force us to write her letters, tell me she was lonely and nobody ever comes to visit her and then force us to visit, think she deserved to be treated like the Matriarch of the family and never had cable (really bad for the sleepover when you're a kid). But for whatever reason, I could do absolutely no wrong in her eyes. I used to say I could have chopped up a whole family with an axe and she would have said, "I'm sure my Danny had a good reason for doing what he did." Nana would always say, "I remember my little Danny when he was a baby in the hospital," like she knew something about me no one else did.

    All that having been said she was always really good to me even if she seemed a little misguided at times--Mom used to defend her by saying,"She means well." Nana started a coin and stamp collection for me, contributed $500 to insure my first car...


  ...and gave me $500 for high school graduation inside of this letter I found  the other day in my box of mementos. It's weird because it was the only piece of paper the silverfish attacked...

       My Dad and I found her on the floor of her apartment Christmas day twelve years ago. She was 87 and we all thought she was going to live forever but had suffered a massive stroke-- Nana passed in a week. She was old school Ukrainian and her cure for everything was a stiff shot of Vodka and a couple of aspirin. Her perogies and peach pie were legendary... 

    

Documentation of My Education...

    Still sorting through my box of mementos I found these documents. Mom saved my graduating report cards of each year until grade 9 when she gave up, which pretty much coincides with my education. Let's just say the "distractions" started. I'm actually a little smarter than my graduating report card (or not) but by then I was just trying to "get through." Math 11, algebra? I wanted to cry, I just couldn't get it...


















       And right to the school of hard knocks...

Super Heroes...

   Drawing inspiration (no pun intended) from a post by B. Diederich of some drawings she did a few years ago, I decided to root through a box of mementos my Mom had given me. There was everything in there from my childhood, stuff I may post later but I was reminded of the summer when I was 13. My best friend Gene Murphy and I spent two months playing American ping pong, riding our bikes, building forts, reading comics and inventing super heroes--we even made costumes. As you can tell by this artwork I'm no Stan Lee but maybe with the proper training...

I'm Rick James, Bitch...

     I don't know if you've ever checked out the Dave Chappelle show but he has to be one of the funniest comedians ever. He cracks me up every time...

Just Had To Post This...

      ...email I received from Stephanie. It seems she has a new found "edge"...

My Friend Stephanie, Her Lobby And Her Grumpy Cat, Bud...

    F@%king humans...useless...

   What the f@%k are you looking at?

    Had a chuckle at this...

I Got Published!

   Shmaps used this photo I took of the Pan Pacific Hotel...

      Yay, me...

Trend Setting Designer Clothing...

   I'm finding it pretty hard to believe anyone is going to find any in this rack outside a second rate thrift store--as opposed to first rate thrift stores like Value Village and The Sally Ann where the real fashions are...

      There was a time you could find some pretty cool stuff in thrift stores but it seems those days are long gone--and who wants to wear somebody else's moldy old clothing anyway? When I did buy a lot of vintage clothes I would often wonder what may have gone on in these slacks, shirt or shoes... murder maybe?

    This place was great for vintage, a real favorite of mine...

Lonsdale School...

     Walking today I noticed they're about halfway through tearing down Lonsdale School. In the middle of cursing myself for not bringing my camera I remembered I put it in my pocket--good memory, just really short. The whole area was fenced off and as I approached it out of nowhere a dog began barking. Guard dog! I nearly jumped out of my skin. I hadn't even had a chance to take my camera out of my pocket when he came up and tried to lick me to death through the chain link fence. He then retrieved this coffee cup and tried to get at it's contents like an anteater--just a little pupper guy and obviously no real threat... 



       History: In July 1910 tenders were called for the construction of Lonsdale School to serve students in the northern section of North Vancouver. By April 1911 it was sufficiently completed to accommodate the high school class and a class from a rented store on Lonsdale Ave. and 22nd St. The eight classroom school was officially opened April 8, with D.P. Clark as principal. A four room annex was added in 1925. Strange facts known by few...Stephanie said her Dad attended the school--that's some pretty compelling stuff right there, and now the equally thrilling photos...

   

Nikon D40...

    I posted some of these photos on facebook and in a comment Stephanie asked me what settings I had my camera on. If you would have asked me that a few months ago I would have glazed over but now I can say the aperture was set at +1 and the shutter speed was at 15--like I'm an old pro. The only reason it was set at 15 was because earlier I was experimenting taking pictures of moving vehicles. George Harvey told me that if you want to capture a moving image you set the shutter speed to a lower number. It's been just over a year and I'm still learning what the camera can do-- it's been fun, I've never had a hobby. 

   Occasionally the timing is right and nature cooperates...