New from New York:

from QUEENS
click album to download

from BROOKLYN
click album to download
both bands are great. and so are their albums

My weekend home...

riding the salt lake express back home. you'd have to kill me to ever live there, but idaho is pretty to drive through. 

they got overexposed by my crappy camera, but out the window in the photo of me were the tetons. it was good to see them again, and reminded me of a time when my brother and I got to go hot-air ballooning through that valley. thaat was amazing

@ my friend olivia's wedding that night. we were best friends in our toddler years. and then on the right; you know how every family has a crazy drunken sibling.. well ours is ruth. she makes me laugh till my stomach hurts

samuel and hannah (left), with our adopted sister natalie (hannah's best friend) 

the night after that we got to go to ANOTHER beautiful outdoor wedding. the wedding of my aunt, Rachelle, who also looked beautiful. it was really good to see all the 2,000 members of my extended family again. really though.

the whole crew on my last night. we ate dinner at a family favorite, rumbi hawaiian grill.

oh yeah aand i got to meet my adorable new baby brother this weekend.

AND i finally bought a car. after two days of last-minute searching. it's nothing fancy, but i paid for it myself and i like it a lot. AND i didn't have to take the bus back

so it was a big weekend, and a good one at that. hopefully enough to recharge me for a remaining 2+1/2 weeks of crustomer service in good ole west yellow 

Four days

4 days until i take the salt lake express from west yellowstone to downtown SLC. intinerary: 9:00-16:00. that's a seven hour ride.
4 days until i buy a car. my impatience for this event is nigh-unbearable.
4 days until i get a break from both of my jobs. (the 24th was supposed to mark the end of my summer-work sentence in montana, but i was bribed to stay through october by my boss. i fell for it. plus west yellowstone is growing on me - in strange and highly unexpected ways.)
4 days until i meet my new little brother for the first time (i'm very excited for this, but admittedly feel a little weird about it. all of a sudden i have a new relative that everyone else in the family has met but me). BUT..
4 days until this is no longer the case.
4 days until i see the rest of my family -after two months? i can't wait for this
4 days until i hopefully see some friends that i haven't seen in a long time
4 days until i experience warm weather.
4 days until i sleep in my own bed.
4 days until my period starts
4 days until i don't have three middle-aged construction workers as roommates who vomit in the toilet and "forget" to flush.
4 days until that one wasn't a joke
4 days until i find something else to look forward to

WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS

recommended by my brother: a swashubuckling band with a nabshwackling album

From Glasglow -if you like Biffy Clyro, damien rice, or just some general "good sh_t"..
they're good. i promise
Download Here: These Four Walls

in honor of NY fashion week

 

NYTIMES galleries and reviews

 

 about the show 

view gallery

 G-STAR SHOW press_release

VMA'S

  

 in la @ the vma's, the only person really worth noting, Gaga dressed in mcqueen

  and for those of you that haven't yet seen or heard about this juicy little outfit -Gaga branched away from the traditional fabric aesthetic to an equally raw, but less conventional one. I think she rocked it.

awesome

Working front desk..

is so exciting

A Social Tip:

 For those moments when you're really just not in the mood, or when your "irked and annoyed buttons" are being pressed all over and the situation renders you speechless.. Whether it's an exhausting story, an awful joke, an ugly outfit, a bad pick-up line - I've come across a great deflection and response. AND it's only one word.
"Nice."
About a month ago my friend and I were eating breakfast in Jackson Hole at a very busy outdoor cafe. We were watching the young hostess as she was seating the other customers; she was obviously flustered with the large rush and queue of waiting people. One bumbling couple, probably in their late fifties, seemed to be suffering from dementia as they were following her to a table. They were moving at an achingly slow pace and kept changing directions as if they couldn't decide if they wanted to be there or not. The poor waitress had to keep turning around to make sure they were keeping-up and following her to the table. I laughed to myself as I knew the hostess' pain. When the couple finally arrived at the table they both donned absent, bland smiles and the nearly toothless man said, "Do you normally let all these people take up all the tables?! Bahahaha!"
Ope, that was supposed to be a joke, I thought. When I've been really stressed-out serving tables myself and someone cracks a winner like that, I'm almost always at a loss for words. I was anticipating her response to the situation.
The hostess just looked at him with a slight, painfed smile and replied, "Nice."
Then briskly walked away.
Brilliant.
It's the perfect response to a bothersome, uninteresting, or unpleasant person / situation. It allows you to be mildly honest, without being too rude, and end the conversation quickly.  It's come in handy multiple times for me when serving at the restaurant and working my front desk job at the hotel.
Give it a try sometime, and experience the sublime simplicity of it for yourself.

to live by

the good the bad and the delicious

Well.. summer is ending in West Yellowstone. It's already 50 degrees almost everyday. So the restaurant I work at is closing for breakfast/lunch due to low customer traffic. I will dearly miss my grilled breakfast sandwiches on sourdough in the morning.

But on a positive note. Colder weather brings cold-weather food. This was the first time I had ever tried beer cheese soup and it is incredible -to say the least- and I'm not much of a soup person.
aand, I don't have a picture of it, but the cook made a spicy homemade chili the other day with grilled sirloin in it; Jesus was tap-dancing on my tongue.

new mark ronson: BANG BANG BANG

Mixed emotions about the elderly..

As I have the joyous privilege of dealing with customer service at both of my jobs, as you can imagine, I get to meet lots of interesting people. As the tourism season is dying down with the onset of school, our largest demographic and traffic in West Yellowstone has been The Elderly. Before I worked this summer I would have said without hesitation that I love old people (probably because I was gifted with some incredible grandparents). But I must say that my good opinion and well-regard is not only being challenged but violently attacked. Although we all wish the 70+ crowd could be as charming as Betty White, I'll have you know it is simply not the case. According to my experience of approximately 50 "old folk" a day, only about 3% constitute her humorous and cheery type.

A RARE REALITY

As much as I love receiving two-dollar-tips on a 40-dollar-ticket with: five iced tea refills (with lemon), three extra dressings, and ten extra napkins for a spilled drink, I don't know that I can cope with this five times a night anymore.

THE MAJORITY

@ the hotel:

"Hello sir, how was your stay?"

"Well, <with a severely pained expression> let's just say we're glad we're leaving."
"Oh good. You must be going somewhere fun then!"
"...well..uh. Not only was a vanity bathroom light bulb out <out of the ten that surround the mirror>, but we found dust on our toilet seat and our pillows were just plain stiff. It just made it really hard to enjoy our stay. That kinda stuff is downright unacceptable young man."
"???hmm... I can imagine. Well have a good day."
"Yeah right.. we'll be telling all of our friends back home about how terrible your place is."
??
"Okay, have a good day sir."
Sound ridiculous? We are graced with gentlemen like this far too often. Women too.
Another thing. Discounts for the elderly? I'm glad my hotel does not offer these, and now secretly relish the times I get to relay that bit of information. I don't understand them. Why do people get discounts for being old?  Sure, here's a room for 30% off that your going to find reasons to be picky about and unhappy with anyways.

-Okay, okay. I know I'm generalizing and being stereotypical, but I had to vent. I just hope someone gives me a good knock on the side of the head before I reach a good age and start acting "old and senile."
OLDIES: step up your game, cuz your rep be hurtin.

TO: mabrthrfrmthsmmthr

here's to my brother and best friend since i learned how to talk -almost. when it comes to brothers, you're the finest they get. ...

i know it's not much, but i got you this:

i hope you like it. have a good one Samuel

SHOWstudio: 200 Portriats

"To celebrate the 30th anniversary of i-D magazine, Nick Knight mirrored his 1985 '100 Portraits' series and photographed 200 of the most important people in fashion, music and culture today. Alongside the photographic portraits, Knight created a series of unique video portraits of each sitter during this landmark seventeen-day shoot. Each week, SHOWstudio.com will launch a new selection of video portraits captured on a specific date, the series as a whole documenting not only this shoot but a slice of twenty-first century culture."
 If you are a fan of Nick Knight, or just appreciate good photography, these video portraits are really worth checking out. CLICK HERE to do so.

hykoo

i want to be tree
rooted deep under the ground
leaves shaking with joy

I'm being deserted

In the past two weeks three of my roommates-for-the-summer have left. Top left, Rachel, was the first to leave. Top right, Melissa was next. Then bottom left, the other Melissa. Now it's just me and Brooke, "the last ones on the island" as she puts it. I miss them all and am glad they let me be a bum and sleep on their futon all summer.
Oh, and I stole these pictures from Brooke's Blog.