This photo was taken a little over a year ago outside the amazing antique mall off of Bayshore Blvd in San Francisco. It's shortly before Christmas. Riya, the better half, and I had bought iPhones that morning. It was a classically rainy and gray day. We found some crazy embroidered vintage stockings, one with a santa and the other with a tree. I was all suited up in my prize $80 three piece I bought from Aubergine vintage in Sebastopol, my standard black H&M shirt, and my prized $3 vintage plaid tie. The overcoat I got a few years ago at Ben Sherman and it's still going strong. I've had all the buttons reattached. Damn ready-to-wear buttons. They suck. On my feet are a Macy's special Calvin Klein wannabe combat dress boots. They have a zipper on the side, which is shameful, but they're black and combat booty enough and so I love them. About the suit: it's totally from the 70's but the lapels still have a the 60's skinny thing going on. Had this not been the case I would never have made the purchase. The pants came with bell bottoms and up top were as tight as all getout, so I had the tailor taper them and take the waist out as far as it would go. Voila. Modern suit. Dark and formal and super powered. A commander of my own real imaginary realm. I remember also that Ceremony was that night, so I just put on my go out clothing first thing. Now, the cars. The car on the left is Riya's old 1973 Agave BMW 2002 that I bought her for her birthday in July 2008. The whole affair was romantic as hell, but I'm not going to tell the whole story here. We just happened to park next to this 1974 Inka of the same make and model. Pop! Damn BMW came up with some kickass colors. Oh and the the cars innerworkings aren't so shabby either. In fact in my humble opinion these are the best cars ever made. It's like you're driving in a fishbowl - no blindspots - and they exude some type of 80's teenager cool that's hard to beat. Why 80's teenager? Because an 80's teenager's parents would have bought one of these in the 70's, graduated to a more "practical" car, and handed the whispering bomb on to their raucous teenager. Hence many ended up totaled or rusted to hell.

A note on the surf racks: these are called Aloha racks and they only fit on cars with raingutters. I think car manufacturers stopped producing cars with raingutters in the mid 80's. It sure made attaching surf racks a gazillion times easier and cheaper. The modern Thule or Yakima racks for non raingutter cars run at least $350. The Alohas are $70. So if you're going to surf and drive a sedan go raingutter. Otherwise do like my friends Barry and Josh et.al. and buy ubiquitous white worker vans and stuff them full of boards. Then drive to the beach and catch all of the medium inside waves that no one seems to care about. Or decide to surf tomorrow, put on a suit, have your girlfriend drive you downtown in her cool car, go vintage shopping, eat veggies at home, load your trunk full of records, head down to the bar, and spaz out all night long. Next morning surf, come home exhausted, put on New Order Movement, read Nietzsche and Plato, write, and do other gonna-die-eventually shit.