Life In Bushwick | Jun 15th

Two hours ago I was sitting in my Brooklyn apartment trying to answer e-mails. I have about 150 in my “Answer Me” folder left. I am trying to stay on top of it because tomorrow I fly to Las Vegas to shoot a last minute job that came up. I open an e-mail from a contact about a trip I have coming up to Indonesia this August. I try to read about the epic adventure I am planning, but couldn’t concentrate- ridiculousness is ensuing outside.

I poke my head out the window. There is music blazing, horns honking, children cheering and Puerto Rician flags waving everywhere. Oh, of course… Today is Puerto Rican day! What a good day it is to live where I do…

I moved to Brooklyn 4.5 months ago to be in NYC, I suppose the hotbed for commercial photographers. I purposely chose my area Bushwick (16 minutes to Union Square on the L train on a good day) of course for the dirt cheap rent but mainly to have that taste of culture shock. Every day when I leave my apartment, it is like being in Mexico or Puerto Rico. There are little market vendors selling fruit, families playing dominoes on the streets and groups of latino girls sitting on the stairs outside their houses with boomboxes. I hope to find the time to go and take some proper pictures soon.

(View from my rooftop)

(Divorce- only 399$)

In Bushwick, you don’t see many white people around. Sometimes you can spot a hipster or two, and I’m sure a lot more in the next few years as the city expands outward. I am not really a city boy, I come from a small town and prefer when all the grocery store girls know your name, the laundry matt workers laugh at how funny your clothes are and the take out chinese food is $5. I love Bushwick.

So why spend so much time figuring out travel information, when I have an experience right outside my door? I go outside…

The noise doesn’t bother me at all anymore. There are kids jumping on cars that drive by and yelling fanatically. I join them and scream “PUERTO RICOOOOO” at everything that goes by. I don’t know any Spanish. For a moment, I lose all concept of time and just dive into the interesting culture around me. I don’t need to travel all the way to the other side of the world to do that. In fact, I can do that in my home town of Lindsay Ontario if I tried hard enough. The experiences will always be in front of us no matter where we go as long as we become vunerable and open ourselves up to them. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

I figure if you can’t beat em, join em. I have answered no e-mails tonight, and I am very happy about that.

(Me with awesome kids)

JL @ 11:41PM