meerkat products ltd.

Last Thursday in Dublin

R.I.P. Don Cornelius: Peace, Love & Soul.

Disaster

My roommate and I rented "Friends With Benefits" off his iTunes account and couldn't make it through 15 minutes of the flat attempt at modern day Howard Hawks-style banter. Couldn't even make it to the scene with JT's bare ass and now I'm not sure I even want to see it. That's how unlikable the film was. Roommate kept saying "You owe me $5," the price of the rental--it had been my suggestion. So I taped some money to our chalkboard wall and sent him this photo.

Australia Day 2012

Just some shots from a couple trips over the past few years to my favorite country. This batch from the rock pools at Wollamara.

Surfing N.Y.C.

Interviewed and photographed Mike Hartwick, the founder of an ingenious dry-land surfing program--well, not surfing, but it's on a surfboard and it's similar in it's physical benefits. Full story at NewNowNext.

Weed Boner

Saw this is the men's room at Yellow Jacket Social Club in Austin. What's a weed boner? Urban Dictionary defines it as "when you blaze too much, and lost control of your penis. 2 Getting too horny and high at the same time, and poppsing some massive chub." Note also the reference to Austin's cinematic ringleader Richard Linklater in the upper left. Busy restroom.

Most Excellent Hurricane Related Graffiti

In 2001 Hurricane Michelle was bearing down on Key West and the town was boarded up and evacuated, except for a few hardy and often drunken souls, including me and a bunch of friends. As we drove down a deserted Duval Street we passed a store with a giant sheet of plywood over the window. Some clever and impudent sould had spray painted the wood with the taunting "Ooooh, Michelle!". It was a welcome expression of exasperation at the Cone Of Anxiety, the 24 hour news cycle's asnine, fevered graphic projection of where a storm might hit. This became an all-purpose rallying cry for us over the years. I think this Ghostbusters-referencing hurricane graffiti I spotted in Brooklyn is a worthy heir and I hope to see it enter the lexicon. And fun to say in a growly, possesed Sigourney Weaver voice.

Cocktail World Cup Postcards 1

The dust is settling and the sleep patterns are beginning to return to normal after the balls-out marathon week of competitions, seminars and truly epic revelry that is the Cocktail World Cup. When 21 bartenders from around the world, assorted cocktail writers and media and a ton of brand folk get together the game is changed, party-wise. An interesting thing though--there was a real fraternal aspect to the late nights, of bartenders coming together through some real shared sensibilities and passions. And almost inhuman stamina. Which you needed to get up in the morning and listen to people like David Wondrich and Salvatore Calabrese drop knowledge. Sensory overload all around. Above, a shot from behind the judges at the final competition in the Cup, held in a giant circus tent somwhere in the wilds around Queenstown.

Team Italy's Daniele Dalla Pola brandishing bitters (Brooklyn Hempispherical Rhubarb Bitters, to be precise) at one of the highlights of the week. After a punch competition (dauntingly judged by David "Punch" Wondrich, the man who knows more about the stuff thatn anyone else) the teams of bartenders took turns behind an incredibly well-stocked bar and made cocktails for the assembled, who included actual real local folk, not just the ingroup of 60 who traveled as a pack all week. it was great to see the bartenders just freehanding cocktails and making drinks to order, and making drinks up.

3 of Daniele's creations from his turn at the bar, all employing rhubarb bitters. I'm particularly proud of being able to carry 3 drinks in one hand.

At the punch challenge, Team New Zealand rocked a punch served from a gourd.

For this challenge teams had to build a cocktail around wine, wine from the very vineyard we were at, the very beautiful Peregrine.

Bartenders and media.

The Peregrine tasting room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

R.I.P. The Lady T.

"365" is a great summer jam that didn't make it onto many compilations of the late Teena Marie's work.

Who's That Bird

Spotted this out-of-place looking bird on the pier around 14th Street, wrote to my birder friend Mark Hedden to see what it was. "It's a Canada Goose. It's looking for bread crumbs and what not. They're a pretty people-friendly species. They really thrive in urbanized habitats, though what they really like are the grassy open areas in all the corporate office parks on US1 in North Jersey. There's tens of thousands of them there. They like it there so much their populations are exploding and they no longer bother to migrate to find food, so they fly around airports in winter and make the occasional US Air flight land in the Hudson.

Hasta.

M."

Return To The Rock Pools Of Sydney

Sheer Buterbaugh

 
Shot some photos for "Shear Genius" competitor Brian Buterbaugh's website. The blood and scissors were all his idea--a good one.

New Sade Album Drops. National Holiday.

Give This Man A Leica!

After my review of the Leica M9 went live I got this great letter from an enterprising soul and a true camera lover. Check out his site leicadream.com for some sweet Leica gear....

Hi Jason,

Read your M9 review with great interest.

Shortly after its announcement in September 2009, I was lucky to spend a few days with one of the first production cameras to get out of the Leica factory in Solms.

 

Sadly, I had to give it back. Now I want one, and I want it bad. Unfortunately, it's a ridiculously expensive tool, and I simply can't justify the hefty price tag. I guess I could sell a kidney or something, but I'd still have a hard time convincing my wife that I really need another camera.

 

I set up this site in a desperate attempt to fund one. Ok, it's not as desperate as it sounds. It's all done tongue in cheek and with lots of humour, realizing that I'll probably have to start saving like everyone else.

I don't expect to make a lot of money, but initial response has been overwhelming. People are buying T-shirts, SIGG water bottles, thongs (!) and other stuff, and even donating money without asking for anything back (and not just pennies, either). Needless to say, I'm both grateful and humble.

More info: http://www.leicadream.com

I've already had some cool write-ups in places like WIRED, Amateur Photographer, CNet, PhotographyBlog.com, etc. but I wouldn't mind another one :-)

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Jarle Aasland

Leica M9: Believe The Hype.

 
My hands-on Leica M9 review just went online over at Switched.com--check it out here. I won't reprise my gushing piece other than to say: next spare $7,000 is dog-eared for this camera. I'm posting some shots I got with the thing--I think the images speak to the incredibly rich image quality the Leica lens and full frame sensor deliver.

 

 

 

Brak Friday

I Want To Believe

Friday Music Cue: Big Baby

Just interviewed the rapscallion Liverpool band The Hot Melts over at Embury Cocktails about their drinking habits on and off the road. I learned that gin is made from the tears of widows and divorcées, 3 beers is the optimum number to consume before performing, and that a day in bed with a spliff and a copy of The NeverEnding story is the ideal response to a hangover. These guys rock.

"Buy me a drink and we'll talk about it."

Something about the tagline on the teaser one sheet for Spike Jones' adaptation of "Where The Wild Things Are" struck me as odd: "There's one in all of us". My slight sense of unease turned into weak-kneed laughter when I saw it written up on my pal John Walsh's blog, You Are Hated. His headline with the poster reads "Not sure how I feel about this tagline". His copy: "I dunno. Buy me a drink and we'll talk about it."
 

St. Patrick's Day Special at Embury Cocktails

Over at Embury Cocktails we got a chance to sit down with Paula Reynolds, brand ambassador for Jameson, and talk Irish Whiskey for St. Patrick's Day. She made a Jameson Whiskey Sour for us that was really quite good-I say that having never considered using Irish Whiskey in a sour. And here she answers some burning questions on whiskey including: what's the deal with whiskey/whisky? Also, for the forward thinking drinker, check out our hangover cures from Josh Condon--and please, add your own--share the knowledge.


4 Questions for Paula Reynolds from Embury Cocktails on Vimeo.

Empire State

Dusk, yesterday, looking north from the Thomas Collective, where we were shooting the Jameson brand ambassador for Embury Cocktails. Some view, huh?

Friday Music Cue: First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Play Misty For Me Version)

The French online radio station "Play Misty For Me" is a tribute to the Clint Eastwood film and plays all kinds of jazz and mellow tunes for, as Eastwood's DJ character says in the film, "Lonely lovers on a cold, cold night". It's been keeping me on track over here at Meerkat during a cold, cold winter and a hectic time. A radio station that is an homage to a movie is the best idea I've come across in a long time--it would be tremendous if there were a wave of these little fan stations. You can listen to it directly from the website playmisty4me.com or go to Jazz on iTunes radio, where it's listed. Here's the pre-music video sequence from the film with "The First Time Ever I Saw His Face".

This Photograph Made Me Decide To Shave This Morning

I can't be part of the artfully bearded and stubbled ranks any longer if it's this much of a uniform. Still, the accompanying article did make me glad to live in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn's New Culinary Movement [NYT]

Secret to Succesful Drinking Revealed: Eating Beforehand

Over at emburycocktails.com we've debuted a new feature: Cross-Training Mondays, devoted to the rest of life outside of drinking, and how to best  manage and enhance one's imbibing. Wellness strategies (raw vegetable juice, y'all!), ways to maintain while partying and actual food will be explored. Our associate Stuart Krimko (right)contributed the first piece, about an egg & cheese sandwich that made a party we threw a whole lot more enjoyable for us.

Friday Music Cue: 15 Steps (live with USC Trojans)

After repeated posts of live clips of Radiohead's live-wire performance at the 2009 Grammys were repeatedly taken down from YouTube, sgtpopoy posted a cool hybrid clip that seems to be staying. An excellent audio recording made during the performance plays over a montage of HD stills from the broadcast, and the visuals-to-music ratio is leveraged surprisingly effectively-something to look at, but you're really listening. Very rich sound, something that was missing from compressed YouTube clips before. And the video kinda just made you want to be there, teased you to further imagine the in-person experience. This slideshow gets the ambience down, while letting your mind wander with the music.

Was that marching band chuffed or what.

In Defense of Nervous Breakdowns

From Alex Witchel's Sunday brunch discussion-ready piece on Rupert Everett in the Times Magazine:

"It would be nice to see him work more, though he wasn’t convinced of this. “You shouldn’t work much more than every six months or so as an actor, he said. “People get very bored of you — all those people who do four movies a year. Barbra Streisand didn’t do four movies a year. Dustin Hoffman never did four movies a year until recently. They kept amongst themselves. I think you should do that slightly. You should be able to putter off and have a breakdown or a heroin addiction, whatever it is, your particular problem of choice. That’s what makes you an interesting actor, anyway. We’re more interesting if we are dysfunctional.”"

John Jay's Real Time Blackberry Trailer Reviews: The Wrestler

At the Wrestler...back in Portland

8ish people in theater

City, atm, people, corruption, clive owen, bank, ended up dead or dissapeared, can't allow anyone to put our agenda at risk, has to be a way to bring down this bank, naomi watts "The International" - looks like one gigantic cliche

Ruins, year 2018, judgement day, machines, outnumbered, running, this isn't the future my mother warned me about, at war, explosions, win or lose-this war ends tonight - Terminator Salvation - Bale's an ass but movie looks good.

Guy thrown out window, visually stunning, superheroes, one of us died tonight, maybe someone is picking off costume heroes, dude with sock over his face, we can save this world, why would I save a world I no longer have any stake in, producer's of 300, hell of a lot going on - "Watchmen"

Huge jackman, all the horrible things in your life, father, war, helicopter, special team special privildges, embrace the other siden killing, explosions, bullseye? Liev schrieber some animal guy, motorcycles - "X-Men Origin - Wolverine"
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AFTER:

A bit contrived. I'm in the Penn camp.

Friday Music Cue: Stardust

Like Thomas McCarthy's 'The Visitor', Neil Jordan's 1991 film 'The Miracle' is bursting with unspoken feeling and intense yearnings, and traffics in a kind of emotional currency that's too uncomfortable, or perhaps just too subtle for a lot of people. And like 'The Visitor' few people actually saw 'The Miracle'--now the film isn't even on DVD, a real shame--this is a perfect candidate for the Criterion Collection treatment. It's not a film that should be encapsulated but rather experienced--I will say it's about the pull and danger of imagination and storytelling, and the pain and liberation of discovering, at last, the truth behind deeply buried family secrets. It's also very much about music as a potent communication of things unspoken, as in this scene with a luminous Beverly D'Angelo singing 'Stardust'.

Key West in Next

Some of my photos from 'return to key west' showed up in a travel piece in Next Magazine--no photo credit in the print version, oddly, but they added it online. Not a bad little clip.

Seen Around Town

A few images that have been sitting on a 16 GB SD card in my Canon G10 for the last month--I've been so busy working on Embury Cocktails I haven't had a chance to download anything for a while.

Taken during that halcyon period between election day and The Inauguration. I still find myself giggling a little when I hear or see the word 'change' after watching South Park's irresistible satire of Obama mania (clip here, full episode here).

I've been watching this giant ramp as it's been built in the East River Park in preparation for a giant snowboarding/sledding/X games demo/Red Bull marketing opportunity this Saturday, February 7th. Shot this from the J train while crossing the Williamsburg Bridge.

The Manhattan Project

 
Things are starting to jump over at Embury Coctkails, my relaunched drinks blog. We've got a how-to video from Jim Ryan, brand ambassador for Hendrick's Gin, some awesome recipes from my girl Alberta Straub and an article about the quest for the perfect Manhattan from my new contributor Joshua Condon. Josh and I go back to the Cargo Magazine days-since then he's written for most every straight men's magazine while I've written for every gay one, so between us we've got the men's thing covered. I'm very excited to have him on board-check him out over at Embury.

John Jay's Real Time Blackberry Trailer Review: Slumdog Edition

Live from San Mateo, Ca, where he's on a job-whatever it is he does when he's not catching matinees at malls--it's the triumphant return of John Jay's incisive reviews of the comedy manna we know as movie trailers.

20 people in theater

On with the reviews...

I like that Danny Boyle mixes things up

Audio is fucked up for Wolverine trailer huge jackman, scientist, he's ripped for film, can't hear a damn thing, the origin, looks like daredevil and electra are in film.

Still nbo audio

Huge stadium. Millions of people, tom hanks, angels and demons

Still no sound

Kid I like from bad wearwolf movie and roger dodger, early '80s, funny cop from Superbad, nerds, ryan reynolds (who's gotten too good looking) , from director of Superbad, the best times of his life " Adventureland"

Old people getting in uproar about no audio

Chick ish flick that already came out - anniston, affleck, scarlett looking really blonde, barrymore, long, sound came on "he's just not that into you"

Movie's starting.
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Tracey Thorn on John Martyn

I'm "friends" with Tracey Thorn on her MySpace page, which has been pretty great as she's written about production on her new album (bit more folky, less electronic, much of it recorded in Berlin) and she's quite frank and real-not surprisingly, but still. And she posts new work there from time to time. Just got notification of a post from her on her thoughts on hearing of English singer-songwriter John Martyn's passing today, and it's a simple, evocative piece that recalls her first exposure to his music with a bittersweet beauty. As Thorn has talked about her inspirations on MySpace I've checked them out and it's been a gift to be turned onto artists I'd never heard of. Knew a bit of Martyn's work, but not well. Very inspired to explore that now.

.....was just in the kitchen at lunchtime eating a sandwich with ben, when the news came on radio 4 that john martyn had died today....now this couldn't truly be said to be "shocking" news, in the true sense of the word, but still, what a sad day....i remember the first night i met ben, over in the student union building, and we had a few drinks in the bar and then went back to his student bedroom....and of course the first thing i did was to rifle through his record collection, and discovered that we had precisely TWO records in common (vic godard, and the durutti column)....at which point he pulled out an album i had never even heard OF, let alone heard, and it was john martyn's solid air.....ben had only arrived in hull earlier that afternoon, same as me, but he'd already re-arranged his room to suit his preferences....the desk, that item you might imagine being central to a student's bedroom, if not very existence, he had stashed away safely out of sight on top of the wardrobe, and in its place now stood an old, battered trunk with a record deck on top, and to either side a huge pair of speakers, the like of which i hadn't seen before....on went solid air, and it filled the room, and that was that.....the first record we listened to together, cheers to you john martyn, bless you and the weather....xx

TRACEY THORN MYSPACE PAGE

Ultimately Meaningless As Always, Awards Season Reedeems Itself.

Popularity contests applied to art are appalling, in my book, although now and then I get sucked in at this time of year-I am American, afer all. "Oh, Penn really deserved it." Sure he did, but so did Richard Jenkins--The Visitor was the most subtle, authentic film I've seen in years and Jenkins' performance was so deeply felt that I've been quixotically rooting for him and growing ever more bitter as he is, quite predictably, overlooked. But Poehler and Krasinski at the SAG Award make me forget the grating hype cycle and red carpet static--and, for a moment, I almost dare to open my heart, just a little, and maybe, just maybe, I can learn to love again.

Photo Portfolio Launches

Well, "launches" might be a little grand given the chilly climate for marketing expenditures, but I've just put an online photo portfolio up at jasonrowanphotography.com. The other day a friend who is a menswear designer launched a new website the day after one of the apocalyptic congressional hearings (Banks? Cars? Hard to keep track anymore.) and we were laughing at the non-event of it, contextually speaking. Funny thing is, the site has done well, and despite the slew of layoffs and cutbacks sweeping the nation I keep getting little flashes of sunshine--another friend who works at a major Chelsea gallery said that the day after the inauguration the art was moving.  So anyone who wants some softcore lifestyle porn marketing campaigns conceived for their destination or hotel, check it out! I also shoot cocktails. But only if I'm able to drink them after. Many thanks to my guys John Hunt and Greg Needham for putting this together for me, and thanks to Carolina (above) and Ben (below), recent subjects.