sightRIZE Questions Fongstarr.

Mr.Fongstarr, is one of the top tier blogs out there. I got the chance to ask Fongstarr a few questions, damn is he witty.

sightRIZE: Your blog, has become quite popular within the culture. How did it come about?
Fongstarr: The story is nothing you haven't heard. Blogs are pretty much old fashion diaries in the digital form since humans don't write freehand no more. To this day, my blogging is like a therapy session on just things I like to keep a tally on in my life. I honestly don't try to advertise it or promote it any more then what it is. I look at it like if you found my blog by accident and happened to enjoy the content, then that's cool beans with me.
sightRIZE: Photography seems to be something you've instilled into your daily life, was there something that made you want to do photography?
Fongstarr: I grew up in a great era where I was exposed to a lot of different genres and fads. You kind of just gradually pick things up if you stick to a general audience like say hip-hop culture. In the 90's you had an era of great West-Coast gangsta beats and cruddy ass East Coast lyrics. In the early millennium, it was all about disco candy shit with raves and scratch DJing techno buffoonary. There's so much more in between but you gradually get into things like skating, turntablism, graffiti, designing, collecting shoes and fixing up bucket ass civics. I think photography is kind of a mature natural progression from all that. I am going to be 29 this year and I am the laziest I have ever been. Photos give me instant gratification in almost 1 second flat. It just makes me feel like I am still being creative in a shitty ass way.
sightRIZE: Your current view on sneakers?

Fongstarr: I am glad to say I am out of the pop scene with shoes. Bobby put up a post on The Hundreds that spoke of my generation of shoe nerds. I was that kid that used to wake up early on release dates but now it's all just silly for me. 80% of the time, I rock $30 Payless kicks at my job, so there is no real reason to buy hyped up sneakers anymore. I have 30 pairs at the moment and at least 20 of them make me look like a tool if I wear them. I do still love my J-Rods though just cause it encompasses such a nice collective of people in the collaboration (Jordan/Tinker and SB/P-Rod). Close second has to be my Vans 3 Feet And Rising pack and 3rd is my tie-dyed HUF hi's SB.

sightRIZE: Complete the sentence. A daily life in the shoes of Fongstarr is...
Fongstarr: ...pretty simple actually. Obviously I don't document my down days so there is a whole lot of nothing going on as well. I am just like anyone else that eats, drinks and shits. I just like to carry a camera when I do it. I do have to give credit to the city of San Francisco though. There are no excuses not to do anything out here.
sightRIZE: What music are you currently listening to?

Fongstarr: I've been out of the loop on new music especially on all those freshman artists like Cudi, Drake and Wale. I have a consistent amount of +6000 mp3s that hasn't really moved in years. I am also heavily influenced by skate videos and music that I definitely would not have been exposed to otherwise. I probably listened to Siouxsie And The Banshees' "Spellbound" 50 times since I saw it on the Transworld vdeo. I did like Q-Tip's Renaissance album that came out last year. Knew it wouldn't make a splash with what people like these days but good to me nonetheless. I just got the new Soldier Of Love album by Sade but can't really put my opinion on it as of yet. Hard to surpass Lover Rock but I am just glad she is making music again. And right now, my iPod is laced with Jeezy, Killa Cam and Howard Stern podcasts.

sightRIZE: When you started the site, did you plan to stick with it for this long?

Fongstarr: It's hard to say. I'll keep updating it as long as this photography craze is still in me but sometimes that even takes a toll. If you think about it, blogs are only interesting if you display it in a fine fashion. Doesn't matter if you document yourself sitting on a toilet or traveling to pick up hookers in Asia. As long as you give some proper information whether with words or photos, people will want to read it. It's February and I have seen The Roots, Pharcyde, Dave Chappelle, a musical, a Warriors game, been to art parties and shows and covered my arm with a huge tattoo. When I am older, will it be "My son isn't my child" or "3 pills of Viagra and still no lift!"? I just don't see myself wanting to put that out on a website.

sightRIZE: Is there anything you'd like to add to the site in the future?

Fongstarr: This is the first time I am mentioning it but the past week, I finally put in some work on the CSS coding on my site. It's hard to get away from the blog look but I minimized it as much as I could. I just like it simple with no banner ads or unnecessary Twitter or Facebook links. It's a photo blog so I don't want to defer from that. So now it is just all the flashy stuff like logos and other digital images to make it more complete. I haven't really designed in a while so hopefully it will put a fire in my ass to do some work. Aside from the site, I also hope to expand on my photography equipment with a new camera and maybe mess with external flashes and triggers. I think it is time to take it to a new level and produce some studio style photos.

sightRIZE: Anything you'd like to end with?

Fongstarr: I'll end it like Wu and say peace to man, woman, child and the small audience that I have that actually enjoy viewing what I post. Respects for the interview and a special thanks goes out to Howard Stern for helping me graduate college 5 years ago when I had an hour commute driving at 6 o'clock in the morning to get to my morning classes. If it wasn't for you, I'd be dead at the wheel instead of taking stupid ass photos of my food. I salute you.