RAY'S REPORTS

This is Reuben. He was visiting from NYC and is an awesome photographer and regular contributor to Hamburger Eyes. I am bummed this exposure came out so bad. But we had fun going to the Museum of Jurassic Technology. It happens to be 4 blocks from my place and I had never been.

“When we ain’t singing, we bringing drama.” – 2pac

2pac is my favorite rapper and this quote just popped in my head. That’s how these blogs start. It’s actually not a lyric, he just says it all pissed off when he’s threatening all other rappers in the song, “Hit Em Up.”

It reminds me of SF. I’m a super mellow person but I have a rowdy bunch of friends up there. I never thought that we “bring drama” but I overheard in a bar more than once, “How does Ray even hang out with these people?” Meanwhile Hong is getting kicked out, Mike has someone in a head lock, and Monkey is about to take off all his clothes.

It also reminds me of a message I been getting a lot recently. I call these messages “downloads” and they come through my intuition, these messages may or may not be from another dimension.

“Sing your songs. Everyday.” That’s it. I get it usually when I am tripping about life in general. I’m not a musician. I’m a photographer, scratch that, blogger. I interpret this message as, “Quit tripping. Make photos and zines and blogs. Everyday.”

To be honest, I am always stressing on how to sell more stuff per month. This message is basically telling me to quit selling and start singing. Everyday.

It’s comforting to simplify it like this. Go back to the joy of making things. And just assume it will all work out if I write new songs. Everyday. That’s it.

Did you feel the eclipse? I think I did. It is supposed to be a time of transformation, I am feeling that for sure. Just when you think you got it all figured out you gotta pack everything and stuff it into a storage unit. Again. That’s ok though. It’s part of the process. You clean out your locker, assess your grades, return your books, and then come back on another level. I’m ready for graduation.

Looks like I have to move again. I think it will be my 5th time in 4 years. It’s annoying. But on the bright side it’s a good time to get rid of stuff and simplifying. I have always been on the west side of LA while all my friends live on the east side. Doesn’t sound like that big of deal but if you live here you know that traffic is not a joke. So now I’m thinking east side. We’ll see what pops up. Maybe slower updates here, maybe not though.

I missed a day again. “Just busy” is not a good excuse. “I forgot” is probably the worst excuse. I have used that in the past when flaking on people. Part of my transition from derelict to upstanding citizen is no longer flaking. Giving myself daily tasks like blogging is really just exercising a potential higher standard for myself by sticking with a schedule. I know it’s not going to be perfect, just as long as we have some progress.

More talk on productivity. In order to hit some of these goals this year, I got to take inventory on my habits. Going to need some new ones and cut some old ones.

Most of these habits aren’t even conscious ones. For example, I wake up and pee and brush my teeth first thing in the morn. It’s automatic. We have all kinds of these programs and apps running all day long.

Since we only have so much brain capacity to deal with a certain amount of decision making per day, almost all of these programs have to run in the background, in our subconscious. Some of these programs are seemingly small, like blinking. Others are massive, cultural, and ancient, like worthiness.

So how do we access the subconscious to delete certain programs and install new ones?

This is pretty much encapsulates the entire study of personal development, I prefer the term “self-mastery”. I’m going to start sharing these books I been reading because obviously I can’t explain it good.

One thing that is interesting is our brain’s capacity for tasks at a time. Don’t quote me on this, we can only think about and do max 7 major things at a time. Let’s say 5 in average. Since I have been stressing about my health, I am constantly thinking about what to eat, what time to eat, and going for groceries. If I am thinking about these 3 things all day, guess what now my brain is running at less than half capacity.

Obvious “hacks” would be food prep on a Sunday for the entire week and make an eating and shopping schedule. Making these changes is like reprogramming my diet app. I think consciously “sticking to the program” for at least a few months will then make it available for auto pilot and inserted into the subconscious, thus making it a new habit.

Steve Jobs wore the same turtle neck everyday because he knew that was one less decision that had to be made, leaving more brain power to do other things. In other words he had a very beefy priority program and a light weight mini wardrobe app.

So in summary. To crack this nut shell of 2019 goals, we need new habits. To get new habits, we need new programs and apps. To access these program files, we need legit self awareness. That is using our brains consciously to influence the subconscious.

After writing all this I am certain we have programs to resist inquiry and avoid change. It’s going to be a long night.

I been getting questions about if I ever shoot photos in color. So here is a still from The Force Awakens. Nowadays my parents can’t hear that good and English is their second language so they like to watch everything with the subtitles on. Watching and reading movies with them I found out you get way deeper into the story, so now I like to watch everything with the subtitles on too. It also adds another dimension to shooting photos off the tv.

Which came first the chicken or the egg? In my case, the egg would be photography and the chicken would be the zine. And in my case, I started making zines before I got into photography so the chicken came first.

Since zines are cheaper, easier, and cooler looking in black and white I started shooting black and white. The main purpose being to publish it in my zines. Black and white film is also cheaper, easier, and funner to process yourself. By my mid 20s I got a job in a black and white darkroom and that’s when I got deep into printing and processing.

I shoot color for commissions, IG stories, and Youtube. Actually I haven’t shot a roll of film since 2014 so everything I shoot is in color from a digital camera, then I convert it to black and white in Photoshop.

At this moment in time it is not that much more money to publish zines in color. Also now that I’m a “blogger” what would it hurt to post some stuff in color, I do sometimes. But for the most part it’s too late. I’m addicted to black and white photos and stuck in it for life probably. I could go on and on about contrast, polarities, yin and yang, hopes and despairs, illusions and realities, heaven and Earth. But in the end I just like how it looks and it’s a language that I am still having fun learning about.

I missed a day! I was really trying to post something every day but I have an excuse. I was having technical difficulty. Jamie came over and we recorded yesterday for a new podcast episode. I was going to upload it last night but the rendering was going to take over 4 hours.

If you know anything about editing vids, I shot 40 mins on my phone that turned out to be upside down and in 4k. So, in Premier I had to use effects to rotate the video 180 degrees and then resize it which led to insane render and encode times.

It is normally easy. We shoot a video, post that to Youtube, then extract the audio for the podcast. This time around called for a bunch of extra steps.

Anyways, I will post all of it later today.

Years ago, during a morning cleaning up after a long night partying, my room mate got pissed finding a bunch of half drunken cans, “Who’s coming over and sandbagging their beers?!”

I always like when someone uses “sandbag” in a sentence. I understand the sandbag. I can relate to it. Not in the sense of half drinking a beer, but in the sense of just chilling.

When I first moved to LA I remember telling someone that I now only have 2 modes, “chill mode” and “chill mode deep”. I was proud of it.

But now I see that I was trying to be a spectator. We are meant to experience new and exciting things, not just a handful of times but all the time. We are not a bag of sand sitting and watching from the bank of the river, or at the bottom of the river, or trying to dam up the river and steer it in a different direction. We are the river.

This is Fred and Max. They own a restaurant called Burgerlords and they are about to open a second location. Stoked for them.

We talked a lot about restaurant survival in Los Angeles. It is so curious to me how some businesses will dump $1000000 dollars into a new spot and then be shut down 4 months later. This happens a ton in SF too. How could you have that much money and not last at least a couple years? At that point you can buy Yelp reviews. But you can’t buy cool. That’s my take away.

I didn’t tell them my restaurant idea. It would be called “Ray’s Eggs” and it would be breakfast only. No dining area, just bean bags and coffee tables. And lots of books. No wifi.

This is a great movie. I always thought that if I was a film maker I would make sci fi movies. But now I think westerns would be more natural for me.

Since my car died, I been riding my bike everywhere. I went to the post office and noticed this electric bike parked in my spot.

At first I thought about how lazy it is to ride one of these and how it defeats the purpose of exercise, but then I looked this little guy up. Turns out he gets a 15 mile range on one charge with a top speed of 15 mph. That is pretty legit for $500.

I live approx 7 miles to the beach and it’s a nice little exercise mission. But usually turns out to being a big chunk of my day. I go and shoot photos, have lunch, go for swim maybe, then ride back. (I haven’t been doing this much lately since it’s rainy and cold.) This e-bike could cut that time in half. But will cut probably 100% of my exercise, that is if I don’t pedal at all and just use the electric motor.

I probably will not buy this. But taking inventory of time spent, it’s curious to see where I can shave off some time for more productivity.

Another post about scheduling, this will not be the last. LOL.

This is Jimmie. He grew up skateboarding with my cousin in Chula Vista, so I’ve known him since he was little. He still is little to me and now we are in our 40s. He is a talented cinematographer.

Still working on planning out my entire year. I don’t really like it, it feels un natural. But I know if I do stick to a schedule I can make my days more productive. And that’s the point right? Put together some good days, weeks, and months and then you have a good year. Stack a bunch of those together and then boom a great life.

Sounds easy enough, but my life is usually all over the place. Being your own boss you get angsty, like I can wake up whenever I want and do anything at any time and no one can tell me what’s what. But that’s just not productive and some sort of structure is needed. Yes, I am just learning this now. I am a late bloomer you could say.