feather2pixels

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.

Indian summer is upon us.  It’s the only summer we get here.  This was the scene at 7PM last night at Ocean Beach.

And this was the somewhat exciting scene—it only happens once a year—this afternoon as our training ship made its way back to campus, fresh from a summer in the South Pacific and then in San Francisco for a drydock makeover.  More to the point, this is me awkwardly trying to make conversation with coworkers and it rarely goes better than this:

This is where I spent the weekend. Thank god for Mile Rock Beach.

And thank god for this sandwich.

If you live in San Francisco and agree that a good sandwich is notoriously hard to find, then I strongly recommend making a trip to the nondescript corner store at 17th and South Van Ness for the purposes of ordering “The Triple Decker,” pictured here. Since the beginning of the year, this place has been under the watch of a kindly man who has recently retired from a storied career in high profile catering. Vegas. The movies. That kind of thing.  Needless to say, given some time to kill, a man like this will do the job right and for the right reasons. In addition to this beast, which, amazingly costs a mere six dollars, one can order “The Kitchen Sink,” which costs over five hundred dollars and requires some advance notice. For an additional fee that elevates the cost to well over one thousand, this sandwich will include a kitchen sink. Not really sure if that is a joke, but I kind of think it isn’t.

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.

I am not above web-logging about the weather. It was a real nice weekend. Nice enough to wear shorts to Adrienne‘s house on Sunday morning, where she made:

(a) breakfast.
(b) a laytex cast of my right ear.

Then, by the light of the rotting Cellspace skylights, I finished the principle printing involved with the first of my first large format panoramas. For reasons too boring for even a weather post, this has taken two months! That’s a long time for something so unremarkable. As I was cleaning it all up, I ripped one of my $40 screens. That’s a lot of money for something so unremarkable.

I biked to a bonfire at ocean beach with CW, where the air was much less wet than it was at my last ocean beach bonfire experience and where we witnessed a child double his body weight by eating marshmallows. Totally outdone, I drank merely 1/70th of my body weight in discount beer.

I could also mention bluegrass, thai noodles, and unhealthy amounts of time on craigslist, but I wouldn’t be telling you anything you didn’t already know.

A few notes on the somewhat amazing 2008 Christmas tree burn at Ocean Beach.

From what I understand this was supposed to be a big event, but the rain ended up keeping people away. It wasn’t coming down too hard in the Mission, so I put on my ridiculous rain gear and biked down to the dark diner on Sloat Boulevard where everyone was meeting and everything was a lot wetter. It ended up being about forty-five people, maybe twenty trees. After sharing a joint with an old hippie, a different old hippie began thumping bongos. This seemed to initiate a single file march to the beach.

This dunes on this section of Ocean Beach are decidedly cliff-like and, flanked on the opposite side by the high tide, we were left with very little actual beach on which to start a bonfire. As a result, the combined forces of the surf and the rain set up a death battle of elements. At first there seemed to be no way to stop fire–the pile of evergreen went up in approximately half a second. Every once in a while a wave caught everyone unawares, but this didn’t seem like a group to be stopped by some soggy feet. Neither was fire.

At one point, two firemen peeked at the scene from the street above and seemed unimpressed. I guess they knew what we would find out soon. Fire packs an impressive punch, but there is not much in this world that can withstand the fury of pissed-off, rainy water.

As fire was dying down, a wave much bigger than anything that came before closed in on us. This time there was no escape. And this time the result was more than just soaked feet; I could feel the sensation of what would be coldness on my knees if my knees had not been numb from the rain. Or the fire. Or something. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that the wave carried the still-burning wood into the Pacific. For real: the dying bonfire fire floated into the dark ocean and it was one of the more outstanding things I’ve seen.

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The Mission was in top form for last week’s Day of the Dead. The procession traversed a couple of blocks about twenty-fourth street and there were lots of the following:

-candles
-faces painted white
-drums
-(bacon-scented?) incense

To-shi-o, Corinne and I stumbled down the street to take it all in and I’m now convinced that all parades–even non-occult related parades–should take place at night. The darkness enhanced everything good about it: the intrigue, the seemingly controlled chaos, the sense of the familiar becoming unfamiliar. The brown bagged beer also enhanced these things.

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Oh, and the oil spill. The fucking oil spill. The Chronicle led the next day with a 140 gallon estimate and at an actual figure of 58,000 gallons, as usual, the Chronicle was 0.8% correct. Or 99.2% wrong. Depends on your perspective I guess. Of course, the error isn’t really the Chronicle’s fault (although a six block walk to the bay would have confirmed this number as ridiculous), as everyone is now sorting through the explanation of the USCG’s now famous slowness in getting its story straight (it now appears that at least part of the explanation involves damage to the sounding tubes used to measure tank depth).

Overall it just sucks. Every major beach in the area is closed except Ocean Beach, the greatest of the beaches, and it’s unclear when they will be safe or even if they will ever be truly safe–even small amounts of benzene are enough to can cause drowsiness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, headaches, tremors, confusion, and unconsciousness. Anyway I was on the beach today and it was very unclear what was going on. There were ominous looking signs and loads of workers in white haz-mat outfits picking at the sand, but there were also plenty of surfers, dogs, and general beach miscellany. Are we safe or are we unsafe?

As the media hunts for prey to satiate its never ending bloodlust for blame, the people around me seem to be reacting with varying levels of defensiveness and xenophobia (“Down with Hanjin!”) across party lines. The old boys club at the Maritime Academy (which may actually turn out be the alma mater of the pilot in question) has been decidedly defensive. If you are asking me, they are giving way too much attention to the reactionary nonsense of the first 48 hours, which has included everything from “no single hulled ships in the bay” to “no ships in the bay.” Right. Also, they were really pissed about the front page pictures of oiled birds on day two of the Chronicle’s coverage. One thing conservatives have grown to hate, I’ve noticed, is any level of insinuation that non-human life may be as important as human life. Or human money. Or human jobs.

Wow, for ten minutes I didn’t write on endlessly about myself! (Though you should know I printed some really shitty new postcards this week) Here are some pictures.

I am floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Here are a few observations after two days at sea:

The ocean is huge. I was expecting it to be big, but this is ridiculous. At least one of our two 8500 horsepower Enterprise r5 engines has been chugging away continuously but we have barely cleared U.S. waters. Maybe truly understanding the human scale of the Pacific Ocean requires experiencing the seventeen days it takes to cross it. I am immune to sea sickness. The sway is comforting, like a mother rocking me to sleep in her arms. This is also an example of why the sea is great for people who like metaphors. Or smilies. Anyways, I always feel tired here. And it’s hard to run on treadmills, especially since I am not good at running on treadmills that are not floating over ocean swells to begin with.

Lots of common sayings come from the sea. Like “passing muster,” for example: we all have a muster station on the ship and we take muster every day. It’s just like attendance, but for the sea.

I am the most useless person on board the ship. Except for perhaps the doctors, who have done nothing but treat seasick cadets who should grow some balls and ease their minds a good metaphor–it’s all mental. I have been told that I will become more popular once people get smart to the fact that I am the guy that sends pictures back home. Still, my job is ridiculous and I feel ridiculous taking it seriously. I have been shy about asserting myself in a reporterly type of way. Also, I need a fact checker.

The ocean is blue. Incredibly blue. Like paint.

How do I want you to feel about my life today?

Well, I finally started cranking out some silkscreened postcards. I am still cutting most of them out, but a limited run (of postcard no. 9, out of sequence only because they were the most plentiful) was dropped in the Mission and 24th mailbox on Friday. Prepare yourself.

There are more on the way. I seriously underestimated the issues involved in screening 220 postcards (matching fronts and backs, successfully printing little letters, finding a good halftone but that’s vague but not too vague) but that’s what workshops are for. Joanna continued to crank out some pretty cool stuff too. I grabbed one of her test strips.

On Wednesday, Phanna and I won trivia night with an unprecedented two man team! It came down to a rare tiebreaker question: “what was the average weight, in lbs, of a knight’s armor in the middle ages?” We said forty-five. It’s fifty. Add one Pig Buck to the bank.

Work is so silly. I read about valves and programmable logic controllers and things like that, and the next day I show thirty-five college kids what I learned. Part of their training is licensing as a third engineer (on a ship) and this week Baby Bluehawk and her friend passed the exam requirement. She stopped by my office beaming to deliver the news and it was charming. So that’s a good part of my job, right?

The second Critical Mass of 2007 was much more successful than the first. This time I coralled the Bulldogger and Marella to join me, but we cut it too close and, again, I missed the beginning (do they really start at 6:30?). Luckily, we intercepted a fellow straggler who came prepared with a walkie-talkie and he led us to Fisherman’s Wharf, where somehow the mass had extended itself. After that (and besides a rare Pac Heights excursion) it was a pretty standard ride. The guy with the ridiculously loud speaker cart was there this time, which makes a big difference.

This week, after nine and a half years of post secondary education, Jill started her first job since the ol’ sandwich shop in high school. That’s the kind of irony grad school gets you. But suddenly she’s a development engineer at a fancy biotech company on the Peninsula and I am very proud of her. I still remember first meeting her in Dr. Stewart’s Physiscs class on virtually our first day at Pitt. We ended up choosing the same major (bioengineering) and working together on just about every group project, sometimes against our will. I caught up with her for a rushed Guinness (which she claims to only drink with me) on Wednesday night and asked her how it was going. “Lonely,” she said. She will be fine. Jill is always fine.

Oh Morgan Jameson, what the fuck are we doing? I wrote her a really heartfelt email a little while ago but it was utterly unsendable. So I didn’t send it, we didn’t speak for a while, and now, somehow, I am doing this thing where I write her about every little detail of my madness. And make no mistake, it is madness: we wrote 5,548 words to each other this weekend. It’s helped bring things to a conclusion but now she just thinks I am insane and self absorbed, which of course is kind of true, but I think I regret it. As it stands now, the plan is to not write each other for a month.
I went to an Oscar party at Louise’s tonight. I will say several things about Louise: (a) she throws a damn good Oscar party. Just like last year, it featured her baked potato bar, which is executed with such authority that it transcends the irony that would surely destroy any lesser baked potato bar. This brings up another good thing about Louise: (b) she’s groomed her irony into sincerity, which seems to me like your only viable option if you are going to stick with this type of disposition(At least without becoming an insufferable Mission jerkoff). Louise does karaoke and Stevie Nicks parties and sundae bars because she loves them. We also made buttons, which I realized is an awesome thing to do.

After another Sparky’s breakfast this week, Sadie took Nowell and I to the giant camera obscura at the Cliff House. It was closed (apparently because the day wasn’t “beautiful enough”) but at least it made for a good Polaroid.