So yesterday I had 2 photo-shoots, work and a short interview for the L.A. County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s office for the L.A. Census 2010…. basically to everyone who is reading this; the census happens only every decade(10yrs genius’s) and that means all my L.A. folks NEED TO BE COUNTED! If you can’t stand traffic like I do, want better schools for your kids, more money for your city, make sure you fill out that very easy and short form that is sent to you! AGAIN, GET COUNTED!

(candid shot taken by my homey Mark Sudack)

so here’s the letter I received on Behalf of the Mayor Villaraigosa;
Dear Ben Baller,

On behalf of Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa and the Office of Census 2010, we write to invite you to participate in the “100 Voices of the Census” online initiative to ensure an accurate and complete count of people living in the City of Los Angeles.

We must do all we can to ensure that much-needed federal dollars are diverted to our City in order to provide basic social services to the most underserved. In 2000 we had an undercount of approximately 76,000 people, and it has cost us over $200 million dollars! With minimal resources as a result of the economic downturn, we are turning to prominent figures like you for support in getting the message out about the importance of participation in the Census.Our online campaign will feature 100 influential and prominent voices to encourage and increase participation in the 2010 Census. We aim to engage LA’s cyber-community to become messengers and ensure that their networks participate in this once-in-a-decade event that will determine the amount of federal funds the City will receive for social services for the next 10 years.

This is a monumental task that is of the utmost importance to our Mayor and our City.Thank you in advance for your continued support to the City of Los Angeles I look forward to scheduling a time for us to tape these brief Census messages at your convenience.

and then they left even their cell phone # to call me, so I was like DAMN, gotta do this!
the man working for the Mayors office and helping produce this census is a fellow angeleno named Xavier and he was really cool. he grew up just literally on the outskirts of K-Town and I’m glad he reached out to me because this means a lot to me…
(click on images to enlarge them)

(ME AND XAVIER)
meanwhile, while doing this interview for the census, I had the new photog sensation Oleg Kud shoot some behind the scenes footage





I did the Interview at Platinum Motorsport because I wanted to be able to knock out 3 birds with 1 stone and also because Platinum is a landmark to L.A. for me and will be for the people who been running down the Melrose Strip for the last 20 years! (it used to be Atomic Gas, which was still owned by George’s dad) THANK YOU GEORGE AND EVERYONE AT PLATINUM MOTORSPORT! Thank You Oleg for your camera and time.

So I finish off the rest of my errands, ship off some jewels and head home to get some rest as I’m feeling a little cold coming, but I was okay…. get a twitter from my homey Jade Ashley and she’s like “hey ben have you ever heard of kogi truck?” HAVE I? lol. shieeeeeeeut! So I set up for us and our other homies Court and Brittany to roll with us to the Kogi Truck as none of them have tried it before…. I scoop them up and we head out to Venice Beach…. we get there and there’s only 20 people in line so I’m looking at myself like wtf is going on? they think the line is whatever, but it’s usually around the damn block, especially on a friday…. so I’m NOT complaining at all…. we order damn near 2 of EVERYTHING ON THE MENU! and as soon as the food was ready, motherfuckers got quiet! we murked everything in site…. shit was delicious and the girls were happy…. I took them back to their crib and I went home to finish some work….

gotta get my ass in gear and hit this meeting…. gonna sit down with an old comrade of mine who basically was Aftermath/Dr. Dre’s top producer early on there…. he produced almost every major hit on the Westside Connection Bow Down album and mad hits for Dre…. cat’s name is Bud’da and still got crazy talent.

p.s. SHOUT OUT TO MY FELLOW ASIAN KOREAN BRETHREN: FAR EAST MOVEMENT! THEY OFFICIALLY SIGNED TO INTERSCOPE RECORDS YESTERDAY! its on now baby!

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+kogi truck!”