My friend and neighbor back in Houston, Shane Patrick Boyle, died in 2017. His death was highly publicized because he started a GoFundMe to raise funds to buy insulin, which he couldn't afford at the time. He rationed the insulin he had and then died before he could buy more. This is what most articles online will say about him. But I'll always remember him as the founder of Zine Fest Houston and as an artist. Here's a comic of his that I've had for over 10 years now called "Happy New Year". It was published in his zine, "Shane (#8)", and only low-resolution scans of it exist on his private Facebook page. I always thought it was so beautifully...
This past Saturday, I won the Los Angeles Mahjong League Tournament at Chifa out in Eagle Rock. It was totally unexpected, considering I've only been playing mahjong for about 4 months and I played against a few people who had regularly kicked my ass at other mahjong dens around town. Next month, I'll be competing at another LA mahjong tournament for a $1,000 prize. Getting into the LA mahjong scene these past few months was incredibly fulfilling because I had been looking for some sort of game to get into my entire life. I'll play a game of chess every 2 years or so and have been doing so since I was in 2nd grade (1997), but I never had an...
On the west side of Los Angeles sits an infamous billboard on Santa Monica Boulevard above a YWCA. The billboard features a seemingly live digital numeric readout which displays the number of people who have died of smoking related illness and lung cancer in the United States of America. Every year on New Year's Eve, a group of Angelenos congregate beneath this sign and count down the seconds to New Year's Day as they all witness the billboard reset to zero. This video features their stories about what drew them to this location. This billboard has been displayed and updated since 1987. The first story from this video mentions Eric J. Lawrence, the local Los Angeles KCRW radio music librarian...
Taylor and I planned weeks ago to grab drinks at the bar inside Gelson's grocery store in Silver Lake and that was the only thing on my calendar since I put it in. The day before we were supposed to meet up, I get word of a couple of events all one after the other so my day was gonna be PACKED. I woke up around noon to see Tori premiere her Endings physical shop at BAD Showroom. I was in the elevator at Apparel Mart and a person holding two coffees walked in. They saw me press "2" and asked me, "Can you visit my shop?" I asked, "Where's your shop?" "The end of the hall, in the corner unit. We're called...
