Oakland Bay Bridge
27 Sunday Aug 2017
Posted landscape, North Oakland, Oakland, travel
in27 Sunday Aug 2017
Posted landscape, North Oakland, Oakland, travel
in30 Friday Nov 2012
Posted by mtk | Filed under Coastal Cali, photography, travel
30 Thursday Aug 2012
Posted North Oakland, S.F., travel
in04 Wednesday Jul 2012
Tags
Bogart, crime, Dashiell, film, Hammet, hotel, Humphrey, Huston, John, Lorre, noir, Peter, Pickwick, room, scene, statue, The Maltese Falcon, title
We took a room at The Pickwick for a night and streamed The Maltese Falcon online so we could watch it in the hotel where it was filmed.
John Huston’s classic 1941 version of the Dashiell Hammet novel, The Maltese Falcon, was filmed in part at The Pickwick Hotel in San Francisco. The film stars Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade and features Peter Lorre.
The next day we checked out and walked down to AT&T Park to watch the Giants vs the Reds on 2002 Team Bobblehead day – we got two Barry Bonds bobbleheads.
The stuff that dreams are made of …
22 Sunday Apr 2012
Posted Asia, collage, conceptual art, Japan, social media, travel
inTags
age, california, calipan, country, digital, Japan, Karthik, m.t., mtk, nation, new, republic, secedes, tech, utopia
California secedes from the U.S. and joins forces with Japan to become a non-aligned, pacifist, non-nuclear-powered, green, tech-producing powerhouse in global digital and computer science.
Here’s the flag of the new most prosperous nation on Earth.
I hereby announce my Candidacy for General Secretary of The Republic of Calipan to anybody living in Aztlan or the Land of the Rising Sun who agrees Calipan exists.
21 Monday Nov 2011
21 Wednesday Jul 2010
Posted flora, our son, S.F., short film, social media, travel
inTags
2010, carnivorous, Conservatory, exhibit, flowers, Karthik, m.t., milan.omm, mtk, ocean, plants, san francisco, sf
13 Tuesday Feb 2007
Posted Asia, India, performance, short film, Tamil Coast, travel
in16 Saturday Dec 2006
Posted Asia, India, photography, Tamil Coast, travel, vehicles
inTags
2006, 3-wheel, auto, autorick, chennai, Coimbatore, India, Karthik, lambretta, m.t. karthik, mtk, Nadu, rickshaw, rigo 23, tamil, three, Tricycle Museum, wheel
In autumn of 2006, for a traveling project by Rigo 23 that he calls Tricycle Museum, I researched and purchased three-wheeled vehicles from South India and shipped them to Madeira Island, Portugal. Here are some of the best of the many auto-ricks I photographed.
They are arranged in reverse chronological order for the most part and the last one is a 1958 model that was still running on the roads in Coimbatore in 2006!
08 Friday Dec 2006
Posted India, photography, Tamil Coast, travel
in23 Thursday Nov 2006
Posted Asia, journal entries, travel
inNovember 22nd didn’t happen for me.
It disappeared in the space-time void caused by crossing the dateline and traveling for 20 hours on a 777 from SFO to Seoul.
Now it’s the 23rd, Thursday at 315am in Singapore where the airport is pretty quiet. But for teenagers with semiautomatics, managers with clipboards and baristas, pie-eyed at their coffee stands.
A girl slept at one of these – I could have taken anything … from her coffeeshop and she would never have known.
I was tempted. But didn’t.
Landed and watched “Live and Let Die”
In the free movie theater they have here .. what a weird zone.
I can sleep for six hours in a hotel for $40 I have $255. I slept well on the plane and so figure I’ll stay up as long as possible so I can get the most of my six hours sleep time when I finally take the room – if I take the room
I don’t really feel tired. A little hungry … but not for something gross.
Enough about what I am feeling all the fucking time. I feel like Nathaniel Hawthorne.
edits are the slicing away of all that shit toward a clean expression.
Wickedy.
Off to munch.
Next entry will be November 23.
k
23 Thursday Dec 2004
17 Friday Dec 2004
Posted Oaxaca, photography, travel
in29 Sunday Aug 2004
Posted audio, journalism, NYC, protest, social media, travel
inTags
2004, barrier, central, City, Conventiion, Drooker, Eric, great, Karthik, lawn, m.t., manhattan, mtk, mural, National, new, painting, Palestine, park, Republican, rnc, separation, trip, wall, york
I found this interview I did with Eric Drooker on the Great Lawn in Central Park. Before I post it on the date it took place, I’m putting it here – because I think more people will hear it that way. Hope so.
I’ve added it to the Interviews tab as well.
25 Saturday May 2002
Posted artists books, collage, jazz, journalism, Los Angeles, poetry, travel
in15 Friday Jun 2001
Posted artists books, Asia, collage, Taiwan, travel
in26 Thursday Jan 1995
first we choke
we cough and sneeze as poisonous air fills our lungs
in the streets we learn to hold our breaths as buses pass
then we suck
on lozenges and candies hoping to soothe our parched throats
we are tired of tepid, plastic water
then we spend a day with the Indians
we eat fruit
we laugh and barter
but for a few books and a few dollar bills
we see how far we are
from the earth
and soon the agua linda tastes sweet
like strawberries from the California valley
mtk, Quito, Ecuador, January 26, 1995
20 Friday Aug 1993
Posted conceptual art, photography, travel
in21 Friday Aug 1992
21 Thursday Nov 1991
05 Tuesday Feb 1991
Tags
1991, Chung, hk, hong, Karthik, King, kong, kowloon, m.t., mansions, mtk, Nathan Road, Shui, Tsa, Tsim
This story begins lying on its back in a small, one- bedroom hole in a creaking, dripping, grey, 18-story building in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong.
There, on a morning that would turn into a beautiful spring day, I wake up and hear the sound of rats scurrying around in the dark, and the sounds of wheels turning and gears clicking. I hear unnamed sounds.
I get up, pack my stuff, throw it on my back and go down to the first floor of the Chung King Mansions. This volatile, multicultural conglomeration of dirt, sweat and international odors stands just off Nathan Road in Kowloon surrounded by rows of pricy hotels: The Peninsula, The Hilton, The Hong Kong Empire.
The Chung King hostels have been the cheap place to stay for the shoestring traveler since the 1970’s. Other than brief alterations due to fires that have erupted in its corridors over the years, it hasn’t changed.
Out front, there are Indians and Iranians, bearded and red-eyed, sitting on the street railing. Foreigners from every corner of the globe are walking by. The little Chinese guy with the $8.00 USA Todays and Penthouses and Time and Newsweek and Rolling Stone, is unrolling his papers and magazines.
At dawn, the crowd are all hanging around wrapped in cotton, ear-ringed, nose-ringed, tattoed, goateed. They are either leaving for work or just getting in from play. Several of the turbaned Sikhs are asking me if I want a good place to stay or great Indian food or to go to the best restaurant in Chung King. The rest of them hover around the moneychangers offering black market rates. A German couple is buying watches, a Canadian is buying Nikes, a Frenchman is selling perfume. It’s early and a lot of people are just getting going.
Traffic is still light. Light for here. The sidewalks are peppered with people. Bright red doubledecker buses and taxis glide by. There are light, low-lying clouds over the bay. It is a bit dewy, but you can smell the sun behind those drops, burning the clouds away. The blue sky is already cracking through. By 10:00 it will be 30 degrees.
And on this morning, as I look across the street at the Hilton, I see an anachronism. He’s an elderly Chinese man with greying temples under a flat, grey, Maoist cap. His rope buttons are worn and his ancient Chinese clothes are from a time before all of this.
The free port of Hong Kong rises around him. Six major hotels. More foreigners than Chinese. So many shops. Everybody here is either buying or selling. And he, clearly, is not.
He stands in the middle of all this looking completely foreign, and he begins to fight it.
Standing on the corner of Nathan road in front of the Hilton, he is screaming at the top of his lungs probably the only two English words he knows. Probably the two words he learned expressly for this purpose. He is standing on the street corner screaming and throwing his hands up, hitting the sky with his fists and begging:
“Go Back! Go Back! Gooooo Baaaaack! Go Back!”
His voice is cracking now. He cannot keep this up. These two words are booming down the street in the quiet morning calm; kicking back and forth off The Peninsula, off Chung King Mansions, through the corridors and dripping alleyways:
“Go Back! Gooooo Baaaaaack!”
His voice is coarse and harsh now breaking and cracking. And still he screams. It’s been about five minutes and now I’m standing beside him.
He isn’t looking at me. He isn’t looking at anyone. Unfocused, his eyes open and close with the jerking of his head and hands as he puts every ounce of energy into his request.
I stay put and now I am looking at everyone else.
They stare at him, they smile and they continue to walk. Another Chinese man is standing a few feet away clicking in Cantonese and laughing at the old man. A young couple respond to him and they all laugh. A group of white businessmen walks, uninterested. Another man videotapes from across the street.
In front of Chung King, the Indians, Iranians and other foreigners look over for a time and then go about their business. Now they are looking at me. They look long and hard. My pack is slipping. I hitch it up and turn and walk away.