Is it that time of year again? The winning bridge held almost 25 pounds with 25 pieces of pasta. And I haven’t even taught these students anything yet.
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If somehow the streets of San Francisco could be in the throes of euphoric riot over its baseball team the night before an imminent Republican takeover of Congress, I would be proud. Behold Mission and 20th at approximately 8:45pm on Monday night:
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What a great American city.
The restaurant is opening this week!
The wall is installed and fully vertical!
The toilets are flushing! (You only make that mistake once)
Understand how famous I am by clicking the video to life. Damn I need a haircut.
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So instead, I’ll leave you with my five favorite photographs from this weekend.
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Earlier this week, the 24th Street Project was finally ready to be installed at the new Local Mission Eatery. So I bought a 6 pack, rallied some friends, and we spent six hours fastening a grid of 350 wood tiles to six enormous slabs of MDX. Three days later the industrial grade glue still hasn’t come of our hands, but I have a warm feeling from knowing how dedicated my friends are in my time of need.
Thanks to:
And now you shall witness the proceedings on this third rate video I made. (Pay attention to the second part of the time lapse and you can see the inimitable Phil–proprietor of the legendary Philz coffee shop two doors down–look on with questionable approval)
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You know how Joe is a editor for television in New York? Well from time to time he surprises his friends with little easter eggs that we would have to be watching the Home and Garden Channel very attentively to notice. Luckily he occasionally passes them on and for my own selfish reasons, this is my favorite one yet. If you are really too bored with life to be reading this lousy website, activate the video. You will probably see where this is going very quickly but start paying attention at the 13 second mark.
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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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Last week, a few people held a belated surprise birthday party for To-Shi-O, who is my beloved roommate of lo these last three-and-a-half-plus years. By complete coincidence I also happen to be To-Shi-O’s beloved roommate of lo these last three-and-a-half-plus years and so I was invited. To the best of our combined ability we dressed in costume as Him, transcribed His paper crane tattoo upon our forearms, and greeted Him in the way of his own tongue, thus consummating the cult of To-Shi-O. And the good thing about belated surprise birthday parties is that they are all the more unexpected.
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The principle printing for the 24th Street project is in the books. Oh my god! I didn’t think it was possible. Yet tonight at 9:22 pm PST, the following took place:
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That’s right: the final pull of the final piece. If you thought that was boring, imagine setting up one hundred and four of those screens and watching the video seven hundred and sixteen times. Okay so it wasn’t the biggest project in the world, but at least I can show up at my day job now.
Here’s me and new roommate Aron as we survey the scene at our flat before the big art show this weekend. After reflecting on this video, I think everything I say in life would be improved with a one second delay.
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The screen printing workshop for kids was not a complete disaster. I’ll be damned if every kid in that whole school didn’t get to make a print. Some of them didn’t even hate it.
Here is a somewhat painful excerpt from the into to one of the last sessions. I think I make five assumptions before the first three seconds are up. Teacher of the year right here.
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Today my job was to operate a jet engine. Then I went home and took a nap.
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For reasons too boring to get in to, I ended up arranging a weekend field trip with a handful of my students. They drove from Vallejo, I biked from the Mission and we rendezvoused on a unusually wet and gray Saturday morning. The destination in question: Candlestick Park, ex-home of the San Francisco Giants, current home of a stray cat colony. As we poked around behind the scenes I was struck by how decrepit the place was. For example, the entire lot under section 25 is filled with junky old wooden tables. According to Wikipedia, “Candlestick is currently the only NFL stadium in which upper-deck supports obstruct sight lines from the first-deck seating.” And apparently, it’s currently the only NFL stadium with it’s own self-sustaining ecosystem. The cats are tolerated because they eat the mice. I asked our tour guide Dave what eats the cats.
“The barn owls,” he answered un-sarcastically. “They’re like this big” (chopping at his neck).
Anyway, I’m making fun of Candlestick, but it was pretty cool. Plus, the tour gave me pause to appreciate my job, which is essentially to always amuse 19-22 year olds one way or the other. That is pretty good as far as jobs go. If I were a research technician, I might not be holding a fake press conference in the 49ers home locker room.
