Gina and Friends

So I recently got to go see a band that doesn't yet have a name, but which I will call Gina and Friends. They're really quite good, and I was lucky enough to have the chance to take pictures at the show, I'll post some below. It was at a little place in Williamsburg called Pete's Candy Store, which is a bar with a really interesting train car attached to the back. The train car is sound proofed (relatively) and that's where the live music is. It was a great setting for Gina and her band.

I hate describing music, because I feel like I can never do it justice, but this was great. It was really refreshing to listen to a full band, a lot of the Berkelee kids I know (which admittedly isn't many) seem to take a very minimalist approach to performing, like a guitar and a bass, or two guitars. It may be a matter of semantics, and they always manage to make it sound great, but there's some added weight to a bigger band.
Gina and Friends sounded fantastic, in short. There were three Matts, on drums, keyboard, and guitar. Jeni Magaña on the upright bass and as a backup vocalist. Another girl named Natasha singing backup as well. Then there was a guy whose name was I think Joe, playing various small instruments. They all sounded great, but the real star of the show was Gina.

To stay that she stole it isn't really accurate, it was hers at the beginning and she carried it all the way to the last note. She has a great voice, she obviously is a talented musician, and she's managed to translate life experience into sweet songs without sounding like she's stretching her experiences into song. You know what I mean? I think young artists can feel obligated to sing about things they haven't experienced, and it can sound a little false, but Gina didn't do that, at all. She sang great songs about her family, about her mother, about her experiences. It's refreshing to hear someone sing about what they know.

All in all it was a really great performance, at a fun venue. Gina's family was there, including a lot of her extended family, so it was a fairly packed house.

One other little note though, the performance of Come Together, with Jeni on the lead vocals was fantastic. All in all it was a great performance by a great band, I look forward to seeing them again soon.

Gina and Friends:

So I really like stopping action, and I think the following four pictures are cool in that regard. The first one is obviously a guy kicking a soccer ball around. I was a little far away to catch any of the good juggling, but I like this one.

I caught this Taxi while it was turning. It's kind of blurred, but I feel like the angle of the photo really makes the Taxi pop out of the picture.

This isn't a stop action one, but I thought it was a really pretty view and that the rising pillars really add to perspective.

I really like the blurred subway cars with the sharp pillars in the foreground. I wish I could have exposed the foreground more.

So here are four pictures I took lately, on another photo expedition with Jeni.

The first one is a picture I took on the fly at a bagel shop in Astoria. Jeni and I had a fun day, but we started out sitting in this bagel shop trying to figure out how to thread film in the SLR that Jeni's mom sent her from Bakersfield. It's a really nice camera, and it was really pathetic that it took us two rolls of film and about eight tries to finally get this manual wind camera to accept the film and take pictures, but we did get it to work and had a great day. I like the contrast in this shot, and for some reason lately I've been really into putting the subjects of the photo at the edge of the picture, with blank space at the center. I don't know why, but I like how it looks. 

This picture was taken in Astoria as well, while walking south along 47th something (ave, road, street, who knows). I just love that it's this old run-down rowhouse, that has been converted into several apartments, but still has this pretty sculpture in front. 

So I blew out some highlights in this third one, as you can see in the upper right hand corner. Kind of rough, but I thought it was cool how I actually caught a picture of myself taking the picture on the window of the subway car, that's me on the lower left. 

So when I took this picture I actually had no idea what I would get, because I simply stuck my lens through a hole in a plywood fence and took some snaps. I really like how this one came out, and I think the graffiti on the wall is really cool

So... it's late, but that seems to be when I feel inspired to write, not that I've been inspired much lately. I know, on an intellectual level, that writing is something you need to do often to do well, that if I really want to ever write something good, I should start practicing now. But knowing that and putting it into practice are two very different things. I somehow manage to put off writing in favor of doing other things nine times out of ten. That's disappointing, since I feel like I have a lot to say; instead of writing it down, however, I just let it swirl around in my head until it dissipates.

I'm jealous of people who have done things, I often feel like I'm doing things only to find that there are others who have done so much more than me. The arrogance of youth is so hard to maintain in the face of limited accomplishments, but I manage somehow.

I truly believe that it is impossible to be confident without being arrogant. You really have to believe in your own exceptionalism to be a confident person, because otherwise how can you justify your existence? I mean, everyone exists, and if you're not different, or special, then what's the point? I am firmly convinced that I am the best at being me, but that doesn't mean much does it...

I sometimes forget that I'm only 22, and that it's OK that I still live at home, especially because I didn't pick a moneymaker as a career. I want to write, I want to work on documentary films, I don't want to act (which a lady that I found very obnoxious asked me when I said I wanted to do documentaries). Why would I want to act? I think life is very interesting, I feel no compulsion to escape from it to some other life. 

I was talking with a girl the other night who works as a trader for Morgan Stanley. A few things she said really struck me. First of all, what she does is incredibly easy, compared to most other comparisons, since she can show, at the end of the day, how much money she made for Morgan Stanley. She told me a story about how there's a really backlogged IT department, because the budget isn't big enough and they don't hire enough people. She said it's harder to see sometimes, what an IT guy (keep in mind that all trading is done electronically now) brings in for the company compared to what a trader brings in, because a trader has made X amount of dollars at the end of the day.

It seems to me that this viewpoint lacks imagination. She's absolutely right, but it's the only business in the world (except, maybe, sales) where the amount of cash a person brings in is directly accessible. Value is much harder to define than that in most cases.

It also struck me because it seems to be a metaphor for America, these days. Since all trading is done electronically, IT people are essential to maintain the infrastructure in which the traders work. Without the computers, a functioning network, and the software, there would be no way for the traders to do their jobs. They forget about that, though, in the heat of the moment, and eventually convince themselves that the computers are just there, that they maintain and update themselves, and that they have always been there. 

We haven't been taking care of infrastructure in America, we have taken it for granted. The roads, the schools, the things that make our society function. It's easy to see why. An IT guy, in the example of Morgan Stanley, is a long term investment, you pay him because of the problems he'll avoid, or help you fix down the road. A trader is a quick and dirty short term investment, you know that you can find a trader who will bring in x amount of dollars tomorrow, especially in this economy. We've been doing the same thing with government in this country. We've accepted tax breaks while real wages fell and housing prices inflated. We have invested in wars, but not alternative energy, we have created an H1-B program that allows us to invest in foreigners, but we've completely removed the claws from our schools, and prevented our children from competing intellectually on a global scale. 

I don't know if Obama will change it, a lot of these things are hard truths to learn, so we'll see if things get changed around while he's in office. 

This one and the previous one are both older pictures that I was just really pleased with. They also didn't require resaving as Jpegs or smaller bmp files to post, so that's why they're here.

Here is the east side from 86th street. We are looking downtown.