The F Market car travels up and down Market Street all day long, also bringing folks to Fisherman’s Wharf. We never go to the Wharf, because its kind of retarded. And if we are traveling on Market Street, the underground train is much faster.
Regardless, we love these colorful things.
As if being a crackhead doesnt cause enough day to day strife, you gotta worry about these overweight dudes rolling around in red berets and camo cargos sweatin you for walkin down the block.
Resorting to medication can sometimes relieve this day to day stress, but how do you explain why you possess three different bottles of pills in someone elses name?
In 2004, The City was blanketed in five foot painted hearts, each done over by a different artist. They were sold at the end of the summer with the proceeds going to benefit San Francisco General Hospital.
The hearts were everywhere that summer and I found and fotographed each one. I dont have the time or the bandwidth to post all 130 of them, but this is one of my favorites:
Hes been doing it for 17 years and copied/mimicked a hundred times over, but we never get sick of seeing the brainchild of Shepard Fairey.
6th & Folsom
7th & Harrison
This first foto is a street memorial for a Mission kid who was shot and killed last year off 7th Street. These are quite common in the inner-city. Ive seen them for homeless kids and gang members. Often there are empty packs of cigarettes, empty 40 bottles and flowers placed around the base of the pole.
This second foto is on the Mariposa Street overpass over 280. One weekend a drunk driver struck a mini van and killed the small family inside. The next day these flowers were placed along the railing in their memory.
Dont know too much about the SFFD, except that they put out a lot of fires and the oldest station in town is on Mission at 3rd Street.
Drove 30 miles south down to Half Moon Bay and took a look around Smallsville.
Of course, there was a postcard perfect sunset:
Plug2’s little bro came up to visit for the weekend and brought some fotos he took from the airplane. If you look closely, you can see Golden Gate Park towards the center of the second pic.
The Town:
At the intersection of Kearny, Columbus, and Broadway streets is The Coppola Building — also known as the Sentinel Building. It is made entirely of copper and has the same green appearance as the Statue of Liberty. It is one of the few buildings in the area to survive the 1906 earthquake.
We hate hippies, but this hippy was actually doing something constructive with his time:
We went down to the Mission last nite and had tapas at Cha Cha Cha. This is one of the oldest whiskey bars in The City. Formerly known as McCarthy’s, the actual bar and much of the decor is original.
Ive heard from numerous sources that this is one valuable wall clock, an original from Ireland.
We then headed over to Little Baobab for some dancehall courtesy of the homey Madison. Check him out on the 3rd Thursday of every month there.
At the southwest corner of 6th and Howard streets lies one of The City’s most fascinating buildings. On the top half are some very strange art-like pieces of furniture fastened to the structure. On the bottom half is some of the best graf in The Bay Area.
Ive long tried to come up with info on the building history and the little I could find out is this: In the late 80s, the building was abandoned and taken over by squatters. The City “evicted” the illegal residents and a local art organization asked if it could use the building as an installation piece for ‘found art’. Fast forward twenty years and local graff kids have repainted the street level bottom half into what you see today.
It is literally a building that bridges two generations of local artists.
One of the illest skaters in SF is Joe Valdez. What makes him so great is the fact that he has no fear, for lack of a better term. Joe will skate off of anything. Including a 3 story building or a flight of 20 stairs, and ride off like it aint no thang.
Meet Joe Valdez:
101 California Street has some HUGE ornaments out in the plaza.
Neiman Marcus has the biggest tree in The City:
After work, we went down to Union Square for some last minute shopping and got another dose of holiday cheer.
Put on one of these pairs and there is no way you can not look like money when you step out to the street….Frisco Fresh!!
Every morning on the way to work, we run into Frank Chu at the corner of Market and Montgomery Streets. Frank has been protesting in SF for almost 20 years pissed off because the government owes him money (?) and Tom Brokaw stole his job (?). Say what you want about this guy, but hes super nice and is always on his grind.
Meet Frank Chu:
One day we saw him outside the crib and yelled “Heeeeeeeeeeey Fraaaaaaaaaank!!” He was headed down to Baker Beach, but wasnt quite sure how to get there. So we showed him the way and got to take this foto on the walk there — Im the one on the right.
Near Alamo Square you will find six houses called “The Painted Ladies.” One of these houses is where 0 time Emmy Award winning actor Bob Sagat got his start filming the TV show “Full House.”
In the mid-90s, students were cutting class to wait in line outside of Niketown’s nationwide to ensure they would get their new kicks first, thus making them the coolest kids in school. After some hoo-haa from local parent/teacher groups, Nike agreed to push these release dates to Saturdays.
I took these today at lunch, Im sure the line got much longer as the day wore on. I believe they are waiting for the Jordan 5 re-issues.
Went down to 111 Minna tonite to check out Kleome’s trunk show and saw thier fresh new handbag line.
(Pics by Plug2)
Before we left, we set the homepage on all the Macs’ to your favorite new website:
Fishermans Wharf is for tourists, straight up. Its corny, crowded and they sell stupid stuff like “I Escaped from Alcatraz“ shirts.
But the acutal functioning wharf part is pretty cool because a lot of people keep their boats tied up there. And you gotta love the sea lions laying around in the sun all day.
I know we are supposed to be calling it SBC or AT&T or whatever, but I prefer to keep calling it Pac Bell park. The garlic fries here are off the hook.
Went down to Union Square to check out all the holiday hub-bub today.
This ones for you, Adam & Seth:
This is funny because it says “Port of…” in front of a bunch of port-o-potties.
These things are disgusting. I once saw a group of pigeons eating McDonalds scrambled eggs. This would make it a full circle on the food chain, no?
I sent out an email today announcing to friends and family the launch of our foto blog and included Mayor Gavin Newsom on the distro list. He wrote back to thank me for the invite and let me know that he will read and consider my invitation when he has some free time.
Im keeping my fingers crossed.
A few months ago, workers from almost every major hotel downtown went on strike. They picketed in large numbers 24/7 for almost 10 weeks. It was pretty moving to see the solidarity uniting these people for the common goal of having health insurance at a reasonable rate for them and their families.
Butter has been bombing SF for almost 15 years. Hes truly progressed as an artist, moving from illegal street work to comissioned pieces that span an entire city block.
This pic is circa 1996.
When Barry Bonds hit career homerun #700, the whole city celebrated — including City Hall who hung an honorary flag on the front steps.
We didnt have these size bridges where we grew up in the Midwest. We had corn fields, gravel pits, and track housing. So to us, the bridges of The Bay are beautiful things that never cease to amaze.
I cant figure out how this happened, but check out the left side of the bridge hitting Treasure Island:
Plug2 and I sat at the Powell St station one day and started playing with the continuous shot feature, producing some interesting results:
Saw this house on Green Street, in Cow Hollow. These fotos are from two different days. Same house, but different weather.
