monaco v. marseilles

so today was a nice surprise. mack and i went to monaco to hang with jules, and as we drove into monte carlo the announcement board read that the monaco/marseilles footbal match was tonight. we go to the stade to check out the prices, and we end up buying seats. stoked. without getting into it, the game was a big deal to both teams. the rivalry alone was a huge deal. so it was a lot of fun. monaco won. check the photos. needless to say, they're blurry as was my vision that night.

buying tickets, originally uploaded by mjane.

allez monaco, originally uploaded by mjane.

barthez kicks, originally uploaded by mjane.

roma & sugar daddy, originally uploaded by mjane.

the fans and fireworks (monaco scores again), originally uploaded by mjane.

hello big boys, originally uploaded by mjane.

gangsta cooking

the steez: g'd up oven mitts, low-ridin' jeans & faux-fur-lined minnetonka slipperz, originally uploaded by mjane.

the stance: lean'd back, originally uploaded by mjane.

g'd up dinner menu: broiled chicken wings and rice. g'd up method: stand on a stool to reach oven and flip them chicken wings until golden, greazy, and crispy.

the recipe***:

the kitchen, originally uploaded by mjane.

three friends
a wifey
one dead hippie
the birth of hot rod's sister
cote d'azur
and great style

***very, very spicy

cause & effect

the 3 kings of dreamland, originally uploaded by mjane.

julien and his girl laura from italy stayed in st. paul for the weekend. this is what happens after many bottles of red wine, lots of pizza, grey haze spliffs, drum-playing, a bottle of champagne, the simpsons complete fifth season, attempts at speaking italian, and beaucoup des "merdes" et "putains" from the spirit-filled boys.

zissou saves

l'affiche pour la vie aquatique, originally uploaded by mjane.

the life aquatic opened in france today. there's a different version of this poster i saw on the back of a bus a couple of days before the opening while i was in the car. i was so excited, i started screaming. and, of course, i found the movie to be so beautiful, i cried. amazing.

anyway, took some photos while we were in nice for our little premiere. enjoy.

the rialto... out of focus, like my vision that night, originally uploaded by mjane.

nice at night, originally uploaded by mjane.

sea-front benches: theater for the real life aquatic, originally uploaded by mjane.

l'hotel negresco, originally uploaded by mjane.

crainte et déteste à cote d'azur

for every day that i'm not learning french, i feel like i'm losing all that's left of what i already know. i've got five weeks to find another french teacher and get my ass fluent. after that, it's eight weeks of "tanglish" (tagalog & english) until i get back to the old country for all the french i can handle. once i get the handle come july, well my friend, then it is on... and up.

j'adore monte carlo

castellini & eisenhour near place du casino, originally uploaded by mjane.

people in the south of france can say what they want about monaco, but it will never change the feeling i have for the place. it was love at first sight when mackenzie introduced me to the principality in the summer of '01. and every time i come back to the cote d'azur, i'm in hot pursuit of getting sweet, beautiful monaco to love me back. well, today, it happened. while spending the day there with mackenzie and julian, i whispered "i love you" to its charming streets and deep blue waters. and by the time we were in the car on the way back to st. paul de vence, she finally said it back. now i'm hooked - and if cote d'azur is the place i'll be calling my second home in months to come, be sure of the fact that a spot in monaco is the first place i'll be working my ass off for in order to do so.

it's worth every penny earned and saved even if just to feel closer to my roots every time i walk along the port.

In 1988, when my grandfather passed
He left me a Monte Carlo and a large amount of cash
It was, bubble gum blue with the leather plush seats
And I just can't thank you enough for all the stuff that you done, G
See my grandmother told me take care of the ride
And always do your best to keep it clean inside
So I just past the go and get the candy paint
Leather white, outta sight, that made the girls faint
See my partner, Eric, he got stereos
And my partner, Steve got true and bolds
And my dog, Black got european fronts
And this nigga named Duke hook up all the humps
~ cutlass, monte carlo's, & regals, big tymers

hybernation

i caught the flu last week, what i call the limone party effect. except i haven't been to limone this season, and the most partying i've done down here is splurging on a joint while sipping a small glass of amaretto. in any case, it all started with the sneezing two weeks ago. i thought they were just allergies, a possible sign that spring was going to bless the cote d'azur early this year. bikinis started appearing in my daydreams - me wearing a new one, sitting by the pool in the middle of february on an unusually hot day - and i started going through my closet to find more sun-friendly clothing to wear. but reality hit one day, sunday, and i woke up with mucous backed up from my nose all the way to my brain. meanwhile, hail and snow were coming down hard. so hard that the roads in monaco were closed. it marked the beginning of this so-called Turning Point i am currently experiencing.

boredom settles in quickly when you're sick. in between sleeping and blowing my nose, i found myself surfing the web intensely until i reached the point of having read and skimmed every website i could think of, reading variations of the same news over and over again. i got hooked in with the jeff gannon/jim guckert story. and once i was over that, i remembered that i had a paypal account. i wondered, is it still active? well, sure enough it is... enough for me to be curious of how the ebay market was doing these days as it had been over a year since i quit the racket of rummaging through pages of pages of women's vintage items (clothing, shoes, handbags, and jeans), "watching" items, and getting off on strategically placing my so-close-to-winning bid at the very last moment - according to the speed of my internet connection - before the bidding ends with not enough time for my competitor to place their counter bid and click the "confirm" button only to find out that their page uploaded too slowly, and yes, the bidding has ended with their being "outbid." needless to say, in the past week of "watching" items, i've won a pair of gloria vanderbilt heels, baby phat shorts, and a pair of jeans. so far.

aside from finding me staring at my iBook, i decided that i was finally ready to start reading fear and loathing: on the campaign trail '72. mackenzie had it in l.a. i remember him starting the book during our last days there. it took him a while to finish it. i think he finally did right before we took off for paris. anyway, the cover of the book is very distinct, and considering the subject of the book, the stars and stripes that decorated the skull on the cover haunted me: in one sense, i wanted to read thompson's take on the situation; but i didn't know if i was far-removed enough from our current situation to read it without sinking back into another one of those "depressing political trips." that was sunday night. the next day i read on yahoo, hunter s. thompson committed suicide. and now i can't seem to put the damn book down.

meanwhile - i mean, Meanwhile, i'm equally involved in observing the 101s of business a la mackenzie eisenhour. i call it a few things, like the rebirth of the french riviera, or bridgin the gap. but its real name is dead hippie.

and now, for now, it's the beginning of march. still rocking the kleenex, but it's hopeful. god bless the idea that one day it will be warm again, that the thought of thick, warm socks and long johns will be far gone, and i'll once again have my beautiful, soft, deep brown skin. i realize now that i never wondered what it would be like to know the true "winter." to actually experience it, (having limp hair, dry and pasty skin and being the source of non-stop static electricity - with no chance of having one of those hot days in the middle of a so-called winter, ditching work and hitting the beach) is a very depressing reality for me to discover. forever more, the key to my happiness will be to live in a place where the sun shines all day, and the temperature drops to nothing less than 60 degrees at night on any given day.

Our trip was different. It was to
be a classic affirmation of
everything right and true in the
national character; a gross,
physical salute to the fantastic
possibilities of life in this
country. But only for those with
true grit... ~ r. duke