feather2pixels

Some recent signs:

This one is for Cat

From the Castro

Lost Weekend Video elevating their case against Netflix to the idealogical.

Woah! Today’s stormy morning took down one of Folsom Streets beautiful and humungous Chinese Elms.

It was so big, the entire street was blocked.

Also--not to make everything about me, but the way this tree took down a 1992 Toyota Camry with it was eerily reminiscent of the the way my own was hit by a Chinese Banyan on Hyde Street five years ago.

The aftermath.

This made me think of the Urban Forest Map, which is internet information overload at its best.

Last weekend I drove up to Napa to meet my parents visiting from Philly. Parking was tight but I ended up finding a spot in the lot of an upscale shopping center. I was a little worried that my car might be ticketed because we took off for a bike ride with no intention of upscale shopping.

When we returned, I found this note on my windshield.

Not only had the upscale parking lot managers never suspected my desperate plot to park and dash, but based on the appearance of my car they assumed that the car couldn’t belong to anyone but an employee.

Instead of a ticket I just got a comically threatening note. The Camry saves the day again!

I guess this is kind of insulting, but my car has seen worse.

I guess this might be the last of the February Light, since forecasts are calling for the first SF snow in twenty years.

Cherry Blossom Corpses--they were fleeting this year

The mighty Pacific as a storm clears.

My personal favorite. I tip my hat to the person who wheatpasted this to a wall.

I have been trying to be proactive about documenting this year’s fantastic February light.  Here’s some more dispatches from the winter:

34th Ave.

Lincoln Park

Lincoln Park

Geary Avenue

JFK Drive, Golden Gate Park

26th Street

So instead, I’ll leave you with my five favorite photographs from this weekend.

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It used to be that I was witness to a new kind of sport just about each time I was out at Ocean Beach.  By “new sport” I think I mean things in their garage people found to connect to kites.  You know:  long boards, short boards, card board.

Anyway I still hit up the city beaches on a regular basis, but a long time’s passed since I last discovered a new way that Californians fuck themselves up at the Ocean.  This stirred up wistfulness in my soul that wouldn’t go away.

Until last week:

Yes, that is a chariot and, yes, that horse did freak out and threaten to rear the shit out of me, Spartacus and anyone else in its way when an off-leash dog crossed its path a few seconds after these pictures were taken.

So everything is back to normal here and I love it.

Not only that, but last weekend the surf was crazy enough to kill you if the cavalry didn’t.  Enough, at least, for them to call to session the 2010 Mavericks competition .

I didn’t go to watch those surfers at Half Moon Bay, but EB and I checked out the scene at Baker Beach, where the waves were not as big as I remember, I guess.

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Nicest

January

Ever.

The 2009 Christmas Tree Burn at Ocean Beach.  It was approximately five times bigger and a million times hotter than last year’s fire.  However, I’m happy to report that it still only takes about seven seconds for a Christmas tree to burn.

On Friday I had a very impromptu opportunity, in the form of a CellSPACE Sew-Op benefit, to hang all my panels on a wall. A real one.

Once our renegade sewing group-in-residence, the CellSPACE Sew-Op is undergoing a reboot by Ariel, an energetic newcomer with a decidedly unCellSPACE-like sense of determination.  By sheer will, she arranged a lineup of artists, musicians, and DJs to appear at the warehouse to conjure $10 contributions from visitors.  The night before, she offered me a space to show and so I got the chance to test run this nearly done project.  Of course the wall changes everything, but I thought the stuff looked decent.

I was surprised how little I had show for eight months of printing.  There are four copies of everything, but the project still seemed a lot more ambitious in my head, I think.The next day at the Ocean Beach, I was reminded how a real artist executes the exploration of scale:

“Surfers and dog-walkers heading onto San Francisco’s Ocean Beach Friday found themselves in the company of 100 wooden Indians on horseback, with face-paint and feathered spears glittering in the morning sun. The life-size plywood cutouts lining the beach just below the Cliff House are the work of Western artist Thom Ross, who based the richly colored tableaux on a famous black-and-white photo of Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show.” The Chronicle

This was impressive.  But the the pieces were a lot more interesting from behind.

Summer isn’t dead yet.  (P.S.  I retooled the oft-neglected scraps page with a blogging engine.  This doesn’t mean much for the presentation, but perhaps it will inspire me to add to it more often)

Saturday was good. Me and CW started the day at The Grubsteak, the old rail-car restaurant where dining options fall into two distinct categories: diner food and fine Portuguese cuisine. We got the greasy breakfast. Recently, CW has been revaluating how much of me she wants to see around. It is a complicated question and many factors, such as her new rescue dog who wants to devour my leg, are working against me. For the moment, though, I had the undevoured leg up on the little bastard for long enough for a waterfront ride along the Embarcadero to the Ferry Building farmers’ market, where the determined cheapskate can fill up on locally grown organic miscellany, one quarter of an ounce at a time. And Pier 39. A more determined version of myself would have the energy to explain why the dude who jumps on glass reminds me of myself. Needless to say, there are some good things about Fisherman’s Wharf:

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And later, alone, I rode to the ocean, where it turned out to be one of those days you have to be kind of crazy to be there. I couldn’t keep my eyes open because the entire beach was engulfed in a small sandstorm and later in the shower I was rubbing the California Coast out of my hair for at least ten minutes. I needed it, though, and that’s what I love about cold, slightly disgusting and dangerous Ocean Beach–I haven’t done anything that deliberate in weeks. Plus, there were driftwood sculptures.

I’ll cut to the chase: the most important thing that happened on Saturday was Pitt’s dominating Big East Tournament championship. They were simply unstoppable. It was totally unexpected. Why, it was just two weeks ago that I was sitting alone in the Pinole Valley Applebee’s parking lot, sobbing to myself after a fourteen point spanking by West Virginia in what must be the most pathetic snapshot from the last couple of years of my life.

I’m happy now, though.

One pothole to rule them all.

At one point the city was my best friend. We spent a lot time alone, made each other feel good, and I have many memories of being intoxicated with her beauty. (I think I almost got her pregnant back in the spring of 2004). Now I wake up at five to spend my days in Vallejo and there is the sense that SF and I have drifted apart a little. But it was a sunny weekend of wandering around town around and it felt good to remember that old, mischievous spark.

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And then, while I was wading along Ocean Beach, two tall guys from Amsterdam asked permission to photograph me for their Dutch design magazine. “We take pictures of people in the park,” they said. They had bad teeth. For fifteen minutes I posed.

And then we surprised A-kik-o (trivia team: general knowledge, handicrafts, geography).

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And then Joe and Ana arrived in town for the final leg of their honeymoon.

And then I skipped my open studio show completely because who cares about a bunch of postcards?