Wednesday, November 29, 2006

from lax to santiago

santiago day one: November 29, 2006

Chile has the oldest mummies in the world, John says. He's reading the Lonely Planet like it's the Bible, and we're hovering somewhere above the Chilean Andes on our jumbo jet filled with a mostly senior citizen-contingent of travelers, looming high above the clouds of South America, on our way to Santiago, Chile's capitol. As we descend, the pressure in the cabin plugging up my ears, John reads travel tidbits. I am listening to Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" on headphones and tap-tap typing for I can no longer sleep on this plane. I'm sitting between John and an older Chileno lady traveler. She has been awfully quiet during the entire trip---no chitchat, no 'How do's' or 'Where are you going, where are you from?' inquiries. Most people don't want to be bothered, I've noticed, on planes. But then again, neither do I.

They've just roused us from a fitful, stuffy pressurized night of overnight sleep on this flight from Dallas to Santiago and we've just finished breakfast---microwaved croissants, orange juice, jam, margarine and weak coffee. The pilot announces that the Santiago airport is a mere 25 minutes away from landing, and that it's a "nice day" today in Chile. I look over and see a lake of clouds floating beneath the plane's wings.

I can wholeheartedly say this trip began with me missing the dogs, Django and Sophia, and my cats, Mango and Deniro terribly and feeling torn up about leaving them. We emailed dog-walker Lance instructions from the terminal at LAX. I can already see Django waiting by the door for us to arrive and Sophia, she's sitting like a queen on the sofa, curled up into a ball on the chaise with the blanket at her feet. I am just a softie when it comes to my pets and animals---yet hoping with all my might that my very white couch remains just so and unsoiled when we return.

John is filling out his customs card as the plane gets ready to land---when the smell of the breakfast cart hits, it's really amusing to see everyone being roused from their slumber by that fresh-from the microwave scent of yeasty croissants---bread has a strange power to get people up. We sit up straight, smooth out our mussy hair, and await breakfast. I have been reading Pedro Neruda's Memoirs, off and on, during the fitful night and feel inspired. Even before we land in Chile, the pages of Neruda's thick memoir open up the country and evoke the landscape: isolated, desolate and impoverished, harsh, windy and brutal yet full of poetry, yet lovingly hopeful toward his fellow man. Most touching are Neruda's descriptions of his wife, Matilde, digging in the garden in their home at the beach town of Isla Negra, where the waters of its shores are, Neruda describes, cold and fresh.

"It may interest no one else, but we are happy. We share the time we have together in long sojourns on Chile's lonely coast.......Now I'm watching her sink her tiny shoes into the mud in the garden, and then she also sinks her tiny hands as deep as the plant has gone down. From the earth---with her feet and hands and eyes and voice---she brought me all the roots, all the flowers, all the sweet-smelling fruits of happiness." (from Pablo Neruda's Memoirs)

Monday, October 23, 2006

more weekend........


magic hour shots on diana's favorite 'backbone' trail at griffith park, sunday afternoon.






























diana models the park.








....and everyone's favorite jindo, hutch, sits down for a treat... Posted by Picasa

weekend!


sophia, running at griffith park.



















kathy and wing, griffith park, hike, friday at dusk.


dinner at la buca with minjohn. very very good italian food, very authentic; the service, well, it is not so good, no? i highly recommend a vist, but make sure you go on a weeknight.
Posted by Picasa

happy halloween!

LOVE,
me and pammie, pictured here in front of the inflatable plastic halloween display globe at rite aid. Posted by Picasa

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Ice Kiss, Part II

Me and Vivian, a couple of giddy Korean schoolgirls.
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Ice Kiss: A visit to K-town for ice cream sundaes....ass-su-kee-su

Vivian, Wing and I took a jaunt to Ice Kiss on 6th Street in K-town Friday for lunch.
 
 
 
  Posted by Picasa

Friday, July 28, 2006

LA Times Calendar, "Get Past First Stop" Dec. 23, 2004 article





I started writing for the LA Times back in September 2000 after a horrible stint editing websites for a major studio in town (you know the one). This story is one of the last articles i turned in to my editor, a piece for the Calendar section's 'Tell' (LA Times' version of a "Sex and the City"-ish column). I'm proud of this story---it was 'effortless'---not an ounce of deadline panic, worry, writer's block or pressure to produce for a major daily with little time for perfectionist tendencies--it came as easily as the conversation I had with Vivian that day back in December.

The story details how I met John (aka "Josh"), but really, it's an ode to the wisdom and wealth of hilarious material my girlfriends bring to my life. Vivian (whom I've nicknamed Bibimbap, pictured here) in real life is as cheeky and wizened as she seems in the story below; yes, she is ravishing, delightful, talented, intelligent, stylish, child-like and also laugh-out-loud funny. I owe this story to her. Thanks Viv!



December 23, 2004

Get past 'First Stop'
First Stop is the pseudo-campus for scores of the post-college actor, comedian, model, Midwestern set, who arrive in the city not knowing any better.

By Heseon Park, Special to The Times

Sitting under the hazy West Hollywood sunlight, my Italian friend Michaela, a well-traveled expatriate, broke out the reason for our meeting under the soft filter of cafe umbrellas and the glints reflecting off everyone's dark Pradas: "You have to meet Josh," she said, stirring her café au lait.

"Well," I replied — sipping my soy chai and looking at the parade of hip-hugged, spiky-haired, denim-clad Eurocentric types (Valley residents, for all I knew) — "describe him."

"Josh is not your typical L.A. guy," she said in her ennui-inflected European accent, "but he is not a nerd, either."

Meaning: Josh didn't have a screenplay, novel or film in the works, nor was he in a band, AA or Scientology, nor did he regularly employ an agent, manager, publicist, hairstylist or yoga instructor. He had neither head shots stashed in his trunk nor five new premises for the next reality show. Josh, according to Michaela, didn't seem to be suffering from any of the neuroses afflicting residents of this helium-filled "America's Next Top Model" episode of a city.

What sold me, though, was that Josh was not a resident of "First Stop, L.A."

My friend Vivian, herself a First Stop resident, was the first to coin this term. It refers to the area bordered by Santa Monica Boulevard to the north, Wilshire Boulevard to the south, La Brea Avenue to the East and La Cienega Boulevard to the west, populated by industry types and first-time Angelenos.

First Stop, L.A. is the pseudo-campus for scores of the post-college actor, comedian, model, Midwestern set, who arrive in the city not knowing any better. I myself was a victim of First Stop, L.A. After graduating from UCLA, my first real place was a chockablock rental located squarely off Melrose. The area is hip, young, fun. With its revolving door of new entrants and streets teeming with car washes, coffee bars and trendy urbanized joints, First Stop, L.A. represents not only the hopes and aspirations of a legion of transplants but also a segment of dating that gives L.A. a bona fide bad-hussy reputation.

"The area around Urth Cafe is First Stop, L.A.," Vivian says. The Coffee Bean at Fairfax and Sunset is, according to Vivian, "Sooooooo First Stop, L.A.! That whole Virgin Megastore/Crunch area too."

Dating in these parts is all about "eye candy, all image and 'what you can do for me,' " says Vivian, a transplanted New Yorker who aspires to move out of First Stop. "Dating revolves around career. You're either hot and young and look good or a studio executive."

Most people who come to L.A. aren't focused on settling down, says Vivian. "Either you're a writer who's developing a sitcom or you're a producer, director, actor; it's all about what you do." If L.A. is such a toxic dating vending machine full of quick snacks, a city that exists more in the pages of InStyle magazine's list of ins and outs, I took the idea of area and identity into consideration.

Meanwhile, my friends' relationships have migrated eastward. Girlfriends of mine are dating boys who are decidedly outside of First Stop. They reside in the up-and-coming and affordable areas of Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Pasadena and even the South Bay — First Stops for first-time home buyers intent on building nests and not, say, relationships with the doormen at Miyagi's.

"He lives in the 'hood, Lincoln Heights," says my friend Minnie, who's just started seeing a guy named Joe. "He does what he wants, and not just because everyone else is doing it."

That Michaela's available bachelor, Josh, actually lived outside First Stop seemed a refreshing thought. I was curious: He sounded like the kind of guy I'd like to meet. But Michaela warned me, "He is not trying to be cool. He's not trying to look like an actor or anything either."

As in, so Josh probably wasn't the Jude Law look-alike bartender working at Formosa Cafe (a First Stop watering hole), nor was he trying be anything he's not.

Iquickly made a mental log of disasters in my recent dating past: the indie musician living in K-town without health insurance; the artist/painter living in First Stop, L.A.; the aspiring actor from New York City whose greatest role yet has been as a stand-in in a made-for-TV film; the aspiring novelist/barista/future unemployed schmo. Hmm. What did I have to lose?

I guess the parable here is that most guys would score points just by being themselves — to have the courage to live in L.A. and not be sinkholed in someone else's idea of success.

Dating outside of First Stop, L.A., would mean meeting guys who use less product in their hair than I do. Imagine that, a man who doesn't call hair product "product." I told Michaela, "Give the guy my number."

copyright 2004 heseon park

Thursday, July 27, 2006

deniro, my superstar cat

seen on the pages of apartmenttherapy.com is my supercute kitty, deniro. he's the spokespet for a pet decor contest the site is running...if you or anyone has got cool pet digs, enter at the link.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

another obsession

good friend and tastemaker gregory sent this link, and i'm now a big fan.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

my recent obsession

sad to say, this to see what i've been up to at work. this is what happens when you work in 'tween music.

what's become of me. i think i was cool once. not anymore!!! ha ha ha. have a good laugh.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Goal!!!

Another shot of the recipients of John's "Soccer Balls Around the World" project. Larbanga, Northern Ghana. Posted by Picasa

Larabanga Village Kids

John just got a letter in the mail from the teacher we met on our February trip to Ghana. Obusco sent along photos of the kids wearing the t-shirts we sent. One of the kids is holding the soccer ball, in the middle.

He was part of a teaching program that re-integrated kids who had never been in a classroom with English classes so they could start at the official school. Obusco was nice enough to invite us into his classroom. We sat at the desks with the kids in that hot classroom, and we became part of the English lesson. "Nice to meet you, my name is ..." and back and forth. The kids were adorable, and they broke my heart. We wanted to stay longer, but class was getting out and I was getting so hot in that room. But it was good to see what a rural village classroom was like--they didn't have much in the way of school supplies or paper or books. Most of the parents of these kids kept them from going to school and now they were behind. In Obusco's letter, he proudly states that about 50 kids would start at the regular school in August. Calling us the 'mother and father' of the school, he also said that we were the only foreigners to visit the kids at school and that we were the only ones to help sponsor them. That really affected me and made me believe that every little bit helps. Even some school kids in some way-off village in Northern Ghana, in Sub-Saharan Africa. You'd like to believe that somehow it can make a difference in this vast world. And perhaps it did, judging by that letter. We're no Bill and Melinda Gates here, but that care package, which I had thought wouldn't amount to much, with its t-shirts, school supplies, and the soccer balls, did somehow get halfway around the world and it did land, and these kids are somehow benefitting. It somehow takes the edge off the feeling that one gets that the world's problems are immense and the overwhelming 'what can I do' conundrum, every time I read about drought, poverty, civil wars, strife in the news. I'm somehow heartened by the fact that if people need help, one needen't turn a blind eye.

I'm glad we did it and in the future, I'd like to visit the kids again one day. They were truly precious. A big thanks to everyone who participated in John's "Soccer Balls Around the World" t-shirt project: Diana and Sarah (Caro Marketing and Gotcha). Fashionistas unite!

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

weekender: san fran!

this weekend, we're headed off to that misty, romantic, rolling city on the tip of the bay, san francisco. we'll be traversing the entire span of the city, john and i, as we'll be walking/jogging/running/panting for 'bay to breakers': the yearly amped-up costume party cum walkathon/fun run. i love the city. it's more of a glorified theme park at times, but i do feel that it's a great place to absorb city life in california, as los angeles doesn't have those intimate, intricate, charms of a european city that san francisco definitely has.

Dreams
i had a dream about sophia, john's dog, last night. it was a happy dream. dreammoods.com:

Dog To see a dog in your dream, indicate a skill that you have ignored or forgotten, but needs to be activated. Alternatively, dogs may symbolize intuition, loyalty, generosity, protection, and fidelity. Your own values and intentions will enable you to go forward in the world and succeed. Also consider common notions associated with the word dog, such as loyalty ("man's best friend") and to be "treated like a dog". To see a happily barking dog in your dream, symbolizes pleasures and much social activity.

Monday, March 27, 2006

French Potluck


French Potluck
Originally uploaded by TypeFiend.
we potlucked a la francaise at gregory and emily's house: all sorts of frenchified eats like kathy's salade nicoise, my ralphs'-store-bought rotisserie chicken aux herbes de provence; vichysoisse a la wing; min's cannellini beans with duck sausage, emily's tarte tatin (photo) and lots of happy relaxed people gathering for sunday dinner.