I've missed you...

It's been a long while since I've posted on the blog, but I came across this photo gallery on the Nat Geo website and thought it would be a perfect way to get started again. Enjoy!

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photos/life-color-yellow.html

Random Acts......

While moving things around this panda showed up!

Fire!

A yellow doodle while at work!

doodle doodle doodle

Yellow doodles from Hildi on Vimeo.

Jesus: Water-walking, Nazi face kickin' bad ass!

DON'T QUESTION JESUS' TASTE IN FOOD...

A DAY AT WORK.....

A TALLY OF MY WORK DAY:

*NUMBER OF NICE PEOPLE: 8

*NUMBER OF ASSHOLES: 7

*NUMBER OF BANKRUPTCY ACCOUNTS: 7 (NO CORRELATION TO ASSHOLES)

* NUMBER OF SEVERELY PAST DUE ACCOUNTS: 9

*NUMBER OF VOLUNTARY REPOSSESSIONS: 1

*NUMBER OF "FUCK OFF": 1 (NOT THE VOLUNTARY REPOSSESSION)

YEAH THAT'S MY WORK DAY.

He resurrects them just to kill them again.....

This bitch bites!

ZAP!

YELLOW BUBBLES......

Jesus Head Hunter

My pencil saves my soul!

Nothing kills the soul sucking affects of call center work life like doodling. Quite honestly this is my only salvation at work.

Somehow the Christian world and Marketing world compliment each other....

I Heart Film

The first time I fell in love, I was nine years old. I was visiting Cuba for the first time and meeting family members that until then had only existed in delicate black & white photographs, and handwritten charts my mother meticulously drew out for me to study. I rehearsed vigorously the week leading up to my very first anticipated return to the motherland. “Tio Niño is Tia Rosita’s husband and they have two children: Rafael and Ana Eva. Ana Eva is married to Javier.” The visual aids that went with these charts consisted of old-fashioned images of dust-covered relatives dressed in stoic expressions and styles from a bygone era. My nine year-old self found it so romantic that my personal history existed in an antique-finish, when life at the time occurred in Technicolor.

On that first trip to Cuba, I began what would become a family tradition: the pouring over and selecting of photographs for my collection. Tia Rosita was the keeper of all family heirlooms and all photographs were carefully preserved in plastic shopping bags. Piles of fairy-tale snapshots sat neatly, one on top of another, with little regard to rhyme or reason. In any one bag you could find images of my first day at school, sent from Miami, with pictures of my mother’s quinceañera party in front of the ancient house in Vazques. Sitting Indian-style on my grandmother's old stiff bed in my family’s museum, I gravitated towards those beautiful old photographs and interviewed my aunt.

“Who is this young guy standing next to Rafael?” I would ask.

“That is your father, niña… when he used to have hair,” she would reply with a smile.

The bags of inconsistency would morph into neatly organized timelines. Right next to me would sit my most prized possession: the collectables Tia Rosita was allowing to disappear from her life forever. When she had had enough, and it was time to put the bags away, she'd examine the photographs one last time. Slowly sifting through the Miami-bound collection, she would stop for a few short seconds on every single image, burning them into her memory. A small tear would greet the side of her face and she would say:

“Ay niña, I can’t believe you love such old things. Enjoy them, but you better send me new ones!”

Each and every time I returned home from visiting family in Cuba, my mother would reprimand me for arriving with these gifts. It is an unspoken rule that after a trip to Cuba you return to Miami with almost none of your belongings. It was especially embarrassing for my mother to contend with the fact that I even so much as had the gall to ask for something, when my sole mission was to give. But, to my mother’s continued horror, I could never ignore my fascination and love for black & white film and continued to amass quite the series over 7 trips. I recently rediscovered my old flame, after relying on the instant gratification of digital for so long. And this week, I’m purchasing a Nikon FM10 35mm camera to finally send Tia Rosita some new ones. 

ñooo, only in Hialeah....

I wanted to share this advertising banner I saw on the side of a large store building called "ñooo que barato". (Literally translated that means "Damn that's cheap!", or "Daaamn, that's cheap"). This is an Addy Award winner right here....but in all seriousness, I guess what I can say is at least they have a sense of humor. =)

Yellow Power to Yellow People

Jesus Forgives...

Yellow is Freedom

On a recent bike ride through Liberty State Park, I came upon an amazing view of the Statue of Liberty and it got me pondering over the idea of inspiration as a multifarious experience. Although we all understand it to be one noun, inspiration looks, feels and results in an infinite number of possibilities. When you come upon your muse it is one of the most original and intimate events that you can be aware of. In the instance where one shares an inspirational moment, the conclusions remain limitless. And in the very rare occasions where many share a muse and a similar dream, the aha! moment can never belong to anyone but yourself.

The Statue of Liberty, as the most iconic symbol for freedom, has inspired over 22 million immigrants as they passed through Ellis Island. There are very few creative influences today that can claim to have inspired 22 million distinct sensations.

When lightning strikes me, my soul propels upward like the launch of a space shuttle. It takes off from the pit of my stomach and rockets through the center of my electrified heart, warming my inner atmosphere. It all concludes in a brilliant fireworks display that kisses my skin with fading light, as the flash of light simmers down.   

What inspires you and what does that moment feel like?

yellow doodle

The importance of Water.....

TED talk about a portable water filter....

Give me a break......

How can I sin if he's staring at me from my chocolate bar?

Time Doesn't Grow on Trees

I’ve always had a pretty bad perception of time. My friends can all attest to this handicap, having been victims of the many consequences of my tardiness. The older I get, the more philosophical I’ve become regarding time. On the surface, it seems that I just can’t get anywhere on time because I simply take too much of it to get any one task accomplished. But, what is time anyway? These days it seems to escape me even quicker than before.

Days have become mere sighs passing through the portal of a greater unknown macrocosm. On days where I’m running late and have to rummage through my archive for a good excuse – to get me off the hook for being late to what-have-you event, I feel wholeheartedly that I am a slave to a manmade invention.

Immanuel Kant believed that time didn’t really exist but was an exigency of our knowledge. In order for us to understand anything, our sensations had to exist conditionally within space and time. The idea that time is subjective makes the most sense to me. I have my own mind and my own perception, so why shouldn’t time be different for all of us. Your 9am is not mine.

Clearly, I’m not a realist when it comes to time. I don’t believe we move through it in a uniform fashion, nor that time travel is possible. But, I do understand one universal idiom: Time is Money. Over the next few weeks I will be completing a project, inspired by Time, which will take up two adjacent walls of my apartment. I hope to share my progress with you and that you will appreciate the time it will take for me to bring a little yellow into your lives.

Yellow Crafts!

Amazing Pop Up. Unbelievable Easy. Yellow Flower. - Awesome video clips here

a tube of funk

Here is my attempt at mixing ink, color pencils, and watercolors! This ultimately became a journal.

I <3 Mac.

Jesus spotted in West Hialeah...

near Flanigan's. He likes the chicken wings.

Let's paint the town yellow...

While reading an article on Happinomics on Adbusters.org, I came across this little gem:

“Defining happiness is like defining yellow,” explains University of British Columbia (UBC) psychologist Elizabeth Dunn. She’s referencing Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness. “We all know what yellow is,” she continues. “Asked if this is yellow, we can identify it. But asked to explain it, we get a little tongue-tied.”

Whatever yellow means to you, may it inspire you to do great things...

Not all yellow things should be posted...

source:ffffound.com

yel⋅low

 

–noun

1.	a color like that of egg yolk, ripe lemons, etc.; the primary color between green and orange in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 570 and 590 nm.

2.	the yolk of an egg.

3.	a yellow pigment or dye.

4.	Informal. yellow light.

5.	Slang. yellow jacket (def. 2).

–adjective

6.	of the color yellow.

7.	Often Offensive. a designating or pertaining to an Oriental person or Oriental peoples. b. designating or pertaining to a person of mixed racial origin, esp. of black and white heritage, whose skin is yellowish or yellowish brown.

8.	having a sallow or yellowish complexion.

9.	Informal. cowardly.

10.	(of journalism, a newspaper, etc.) a. sensational, esp. morbidly or offensively so b. dishonest in editorial comment and the presentation of news, esp. in sacrificing truth for sensationalism

11.	jealous; envious.

–verb

12.	to make or become yellow

I was recently in New Orleans and had a chance to go to Bourbon Street. I came across this photo opportunity and naturally all I could think was...

"A horse walks into a bar - the bartender asks: 'Why the long face?'"

Jesus is not for the pee shy...

The Siren

More Random Adventures of Yellow Man!

HELLO!

So we've continued documenting the life of Yellow Man and what it's like to be yellow....or just him.

...so Yellow Man recently went to the mall, (he hates the mall) but needed to buy a new blue dot for his shirt...and he almost got run over and stepped on by someone! Now he hates the mall even more.He decided "fuck it", and got in his car and went to hang out with his friends. He arrived and they all just hung out around the block. Shown below from left to right is: Vaseman with the Mask face, YM (short for Yellow Man himself), Kitty Kat, Reddy Round-Up (she's the nicest person) and Pepe Pinguo (he has the purple mask). Oh and the 2nd photo is Machete, (he's the crazy friend).Well, hanging out with his friends was relaxing, but then, best of all, his friend Greenie showed up. They've always had a thing. (She's really hot). And they decided to leave and get away from everyone and go out into the forest. (No you perverts, it's not like that!) They just climbed trees together and laid out on the grass holding hands, (yes they have hands).
Then the coolest thing happened...he unexpectedly ran into his friend, Buddha, out in the forest! Buddha got to meet Greenie and they all ended up meditating together. Buddha also asked YM about his encounter with Jesus last week. It was pretty cool.
Well, now he's off to go make "tres leche". We'll keep you posted with his trips to space, East Hialeah and the beach. Goodbye for now.

untitled

6:00 A.M., and the sirens go off. I mechanically get up and out of bed with no need of conscious involvement. I pointlessly keep my eyes close and try to keep dreaming as I reach the bathroom and relieve 5 hours of immobility. 5 hours is a pretty good amount of rest, usually I get a scattered 3 hours of shattered incomplete dreaming. It’s always been the one dream since I was 12; the never-ending dream. 20 years later and all I want is to finish this damn dream.

I’m young; I’m 12. I’m running and I start to pick up speed. I run faster and faster until I become a flash of light. I elevate from the ground. I keep floating higher and higher. I’m approaching a ceiling, but I become thin like vapor and pass through seamlessly. As I get higher and higher in the sky I begin to expand and spread, always maintaining the intensity of my light speed. Passing through clouds I absorb their moisture. I float out of earth’s atmosphere and towards the sun. As I pass a star I absorb its gaseous components. I pick up as much cosmic material as I can. I am huge, bigger than the earth. I start to absorb planets and dark matter and black holes. But I can’t stop, I continue towards the sun, if possible, moving ever faster. Right before I reach the sun, in what seems to be a catastrophic collision-I wake up. Over and over again I worthlessly attempt return to the impending impact, only to start all over again.

It’s taken me 15 years to get to this point, night after night of dreaming. For the past 5 years I always wake up when I get to the point of collision. At first I had no interest in completing the dream. I tried everything I could to dream of something new. Even in my daydreams I returned to the same scene. Once I realized it wasn’t going away I made an effort to get to the end. It’s the only thing I haven’t tried. Plus, I’ve grown increasingly interested on what will happen if I crash into the sun.

It’s not even that magical anymore, after 20 years of the same image you get bored. The explanations start to become more interesting than the actual dream. You explore every possible hidden meaning behind it. One explanation that seems to stand out among the rest is that an extraterrestrial intelligence has implanted a puzzle in the form of this dream in my head as an evaluation of human cognitive capabilities. Once I figure out how it ends I am rewarded with it’s meaning. This explanation always leaves me a little depressed at the end; they should have found someone smarter. What if I cause the utter destruction of humanity for my lack of ingenuity? Then again, I suppose if some otherworldly creature were to assess the intelligence of the average American person I suppose I fit the description.

6:30 A.M. sitting on the toilet I open my eyes in my last attempt to finish this scene. I get dressed. Brew some coffee and contaminate my body with wakefulness before the subway ride to labor. I have moved passed such emotions as frustration. I try not to be irritable about it. The lack of sleep has been a recent syndrome. I suppose if I can’t indulge escaping reality in my dreams then what’s the point of dreaming. I feel as if I have been robbed of my imagination. I feel grey and lack pigment as I look at myself in the mirror.

7:10 A.M., every morning I step outside and I pause before I’m forced to face the world. I do this same routine in an effort to satisfy this dual existence. To be a functioning adult in this waking life, and still dwell deep into the world inside my head. I’ve never really told anyone about this dream and don’t intend to. This is my challenge, my burden to figure out.

7:26 A.M. I reach the subway stop. This is probably the worse moment for me. I read somewhere that eye contact is the most direct way to connect to people. Every person I see in front of me, I make an effort to engage. I look into their eyes and search for some kind of indication that they will have the answer I need to unlock the riddle that plagues me. I look with desperately hungry eyes; unsuccessfully I try to hold back. I am aware how scary it may seem to a stranger. I cannot contain my desire to resolve this. It hurts when some of the women clutch their bags and scuffle past me at a quickened pace.

7:30 A.M. The train arrives. We are tightly herded in, echoing animal cries of dissatisfaction at life imposing this most unnatural routine. Ay but this is labor. I do enjoy looking at the pack surrounding me. All disconnected from each other, avoiding eye contact while I desperately seek to connect. They can feel my gaze calling at them. It’s drilling a hole at their skin until the invisible line reaches the appropriate place and they link for 2 seconds and then quickly look away. As if I could see them completely bare-naked when our eyes meet. I can hardly see them at all, let alone naked. They can see me completely bare; maybe they think I broke through their barriers since I’m completely exposed.

7:37 A.M., A man walks in with two FootLocker bags and yellow pants on. I can’t stop staring at his legs. As the train vibrates and shakes, his legs become 6 and 8 with the rattle. I shiver. I start to see shapes and objects merging out of his legs’ movement. Bananas, crayons, and albino serpents begin to mockingly extend from his direction. We must be passing a rough tunnel because the train is shaking uncontrollably. I feel a pang of motion sickness approaching so I close my eyes in an attempt to settle myself.

I’m a huge mass of collected material zooming at light speed towards the sun. I feel what I mistake as its warmth increasing my temperature. I soon realize that I am absorbing it’s radioactive fire. I am only fire. I am a giant star speeding towards this universe’s life source. I am fully aware of my power and intensity. I will not stop this time. We collide and we explode and become one. The impact sends an echo of flames across the many galaxies surrounding ours. We create a rip in dark matter and all is sunken into it with a furious intensity. As I emerge out I’m a mere shadow of myself. I am awake and I am 12 again in bed, body drenched in salty sweat. As I wake I forget the nightmare of the past 20 years of that inescapable routine.

BECAUSE YOU GOTTA THINK BEYOND THE YELLOW PANTS...

I WAS TRYING MY BEST TO PREVENT THE IMMINENT MOMENT WHEN I HAD TO RETURN TO WORK BY WINDOW SHOPPING AT OFFICE DEPOT, WHEN I HAD A YELLOW MOMENT. I ENCOUNTERED A FAMILY DOING SOME 2 MONTHS EARLY BACK TO SCHOOL SHOPPING AS MOST DESPERATE -TO -GET -RID -OF -THEIR- KIDS -ASAP-PARENTS WOULD DO. THE FATHER TURNS TO HIS SON AND ASKS WHAT COLOR HE WANTS FOR HIS NOTEBOOK. AND WITH AS MUCH PASSION AS AN 8 YEAR OLD CAN MUSTER HE SCREAMED..."I WANT IT YELLOW". HE SAID IT WITH SO MUCH FEROCITY, HE MIGHT HAVE SCARED THE COLOR OFF THE COVER. I HAD TO ADMIT THAT IT DID SHOCK AND AMUSE ME. I WENT BACK TO WORK WITH A SMILE...UNTIL I SAT AT MY DESK AND CRIED INSIDE.

you are my sunshine...

Found these while going through some files on my computer....

JESUS GOT SOME BLING...

Everyone looks better with a hat!

Maracucho Patacones...

Recently, Karyna and I went to Venezuela to visit our family. We went every summer growing up and now visit periodically. However, the older I get the more I’ve grown to appreciate the yummy food that my grandma and the country have to offer.

Generally, Maracuchos love food filled with cholesterol or food that leaves a trace of grease on transparent paper. In Maracaibo you eat grease at whatever time of day, so it’s not rare to see someone at six o clock in the morning eating pastelitos, or empanadas accompanied with a very cold carbonated cola, ofcourse-since the weather is sooo dang hot.

My favorite of the greasiest traditional Venezuelan foods is the Patacon! These are truly Maracuchos. The patacon is made up of a green or ripe platano (plantain for those who don’t speak spanglish) filled with “heaven” inside. Think of a sandwich, but instead of bread you have a round and flattened ripe or green platano. You can choose between a tostone (green platano) or platano maduro (ripe and sweet plantain). Personally, I lOVE sweet plantains. The most popular patacones are filled with carne mechada (shredded beef) and ofcourse cheese! Cheese is probably the number one ingredient – the cheese is shredded and the softer kind sliced. Mmmmmmmmmm... I love Venezuelan cheese! I even brought a pound back. The other popular kind is jamon y salsa. Salsa to maracuchos is a ketchup and mayonnaise mix. I hope that one day you can enjoy this heavanly cholestrol filled delight.

Love Is The Message

One cold and rainy morning, as I dragged my reluctant body through the herd of 9-to-5 Wall Street commuters, departing the A train for work, I came across this mantra at the turnstile: AMPLIFY LOVE, DISSIPATE HATE. I was having a particularly bad week, as most folks were towards the end of winter, and the tiny cynic in me decided to brush this life lesson off, even though it stared me right in the face. The next morning, however, I could not ignore it as we met again at the turnstile. And the morning after that. And then the morning after the previous. Suddenly, I began to look forward to saying hello to this randomly placed fortune. I began to allow others to cut ahead of me, as we all made our way up the stairs to the exit, by taking slower steps and calculating the turns being made. All this math buzzing through my brain, so early in the morning, had a purpose. My daily primary objective was now to always position myself exactly where I needed to be, to push through the turnstile adorned with my daily horoscope. 

For a very long time, I thought the message was referring to my relationships with others. Don’t hate. Love thy neighbor. But it wasn’t until today that I realized the message was truly intended for my relationship with myself. Admittedly, my reaction to life's misfortunes have been to hang on to some devastatingly painful feelings. It has created a major blockage on the right-hand side of my brain.  I finally get it though. The day that we begin to stop hating ourselves will be the day that love, in its greatest form, will come pouring out of us... amplified. Yes, it’s a very simple idea and it’s been said before. But somehow, it feels new. This poem is the first step towards unclogging. I dedicate it to Yellow. 

You Are My 1999

When I am with you 

I am from cramped backseats

And deserted baseball fields.

It’s humid,

My skin is glowing warm red from the beer.

There is laughter

And the Cure.

I am an impatient giver

On a used apartment floor.

A glimmer of hope tangled in my hair.

 

You are the approaching summer,

Moving through rivers

Birthed by anxious pores.

The wind whips,

Sound flooding fury past diverging flesh.

There is need

And want.

You are a timid excavator

Plunging carelessly through Virgo.

A pedestal at your feet.

 

The Adventures of Yellow Man

Hello!
Today I wanted to share the adventures of Yellow Man, who I've been following around with a camera and documenting his life. So far, for this Thursday, here are pictures of Yellow Man meeting Jesus in Maracaibo, Venezuela, he's also at his grandmothers front yard (also in Venezuela - this is the house where he met Jesus) and he started a painting! (He thinks it's rather unsuccessful but that's okay because now he's using watercolor and inks and loving it!)
ENJOY!

a little sneak peek

I know we agreed not to post any anecdote piece on the blog until the whole project is done, BUT... i had to share a little piece from my latest illustration. Enjoy!

how about this.....

Whose to blame for the demise of MJ?...

Don't blame it on the sunshine.
Don't blame it on the moonlight.
Don't blame it on the good times.....

How Jesus Celebrates the 4th of July

...With a Forty and a Gat G!

Yellow upgrade...

Hello fellow yellow warriors! This week I have decided to give our blog a face lift. i started out by changing the banner... and within the next two days expect a total upgrade. I'm creating and finding appropriate images to aesthetically pamper our blog.

tah tah, till then!

Worry not your pretty head....

This is the WORRY CUBE....got something on your mind? Tell him and see what magical solution he comes up with. But be careful, too much worry is not good for felt.