Part 4 of a 4 part series exploring Alcatraz Island….
Alcatraz, (loosely translated in Spanish) means pelican, but the only birds we saw on the island were Western Gulls. Flocks and flocks of them. And not one pelican.
Whatever, theyre better than pigeons.
Part 3 of a 4 part series exploring Alcatraz Island….
During the days of Prohibition and The Great Depression, crime and the criminally minded were out of control. The Bureau of Prisons needed a place to isolate these gangsters, monsters, animals and lunatics. “Hellcatraz Island” — surrounded by icy, shark filled waters — discouraged escape. It was the perfect location for this situation.
Each cell was 5 ft wide, 10 ft long and 7 ft high. Each cell housed 1 cot, 1 shelf, 1 sink and 1 toilet. The day began at 6am.
A view from the inside looking out at The City:
Part 2 of a 4 part series exploring Alcatraz Island….
To protect The City from foreign invaders, The Army converted Alcatraz into a military base in 1850. In 1907, the fort was turned into a prison for military personnel.
In 1934, The Rock became a maximum security penitentiary. Over the next 30 years, it became a home away from home for almost 1500 criminally minded men. Famous residents included infamous mob boss Al “Scarface” Capone, bank robber George “Machine Gun” Kelly, and Robert Stroud aka The Birdman. In 1963, when the joint became too expensive to operate, the prison closed its doors.
Part 1 of a 4 part series exploring Alcatraz Island….
Long before Spanish and Portuguese explorers discovered NorCal, thousands of indigenous folks lived on the coastal area between Point Sur and The SF Bay.
According to Indian oral history, Alcatraz was first used as a place of isolation for ostracized tribal members. The island was also used for camping, hunting and fishing. The Indians later used the island to escape from the California Mission system.
Local Media Assasians, Politcos, and a few hundred regular folks crowded into Justin Herman Plaza on Friday to celebrate Barry Bonds Day.
Holy moley, check out this roll-call….
Pictured above from left to right: Lou Seal, Senator Carole Migden, Rich Aurilia, Omar Vizquel, the Bonds family, Mayor Newsom, The 3 Willies (Brown, Mays, & McCovey), Peter MacGowan, Larry Baer, ???, Bruce Bochy, The Kruk, KNBRs Dave Flemming, and another ??? — with Renel “In The Morning” Moon as the hostess with the most-ess.
The Mayor gave him the key to The City, after Giants VP Larry Baer presented the home plate from the August 7th game. Announcer Mike Krukow reflected on 15 years of baseballs flying off The Golden Bat of Mr. Bonds.
Barry thanks his fans:
Fireworks and orange confetti followed, to the tune of The Mighty San Quinn tribute track, “Knock It Out”.
UPDATE: Thanks to our friends at SFist for the shout out!! (bottom of post)
Rap legends Public Enemy brang the noize at The Apple Store on Stockton Street Monday nite. Professor Griff even made an appearance along with one of Flav’s seven kids and three S1Ws.
The only thing better than meeting Flavor Flav is meeting Flavor Flav in The City That Im Claimin.
34 seconds of Flavor:
A 60 foot “Super Crack” is very visible in the center of Union Square as of noon yesterday.
The giant crack shows the potential destruction that will follow The Big One, not if but when it ever hits. The top foto depicts the damage done to the parking garage directly below The Square.
We recently checked out a loft/gallery show for “IN TIE ONE WE TRUST” in The Mission Sector, installed and exhibited by Jocelyn Superstar, a friend of TIE ONE.
18-year old graf artist TIE ONE (aka Jonathan Lim) was murdered on March 18th, 1998 while climbing a Tenderloin fire escape attempting access to the buildings roof. A man on the second floor mistook Lim for a burglar and sent a .38 slug into the back of his head — in “self-defense”.
The summer before his death, you couldnt walk one city block without seeing those 3 letters on a SF Weekly box, rooftop, bus stop or liquor store awning. The Kid truly was All-City — paint and ink flowed in his veins.
Excerpt from Piece by Piece:
Yesterday we headed South — deep into The Santa Cruz Mountains — on our search for The Great Outdoors, and found ourselves at Big Basin State Park, the oldest around.
After dropping $6 for parking and $3 for a map, we ventured out on the trail in search of a waterfall and some really big trees.
We soon realized that the map read useless without a degree in cartography. The signs were even more confusing with some arrows pointing not left or right, but up to the sky.
While walking in circles for two hours, we saw lotsa trees — big trees and even bigger trees. But finding the waterfall was proving pointless, its location was a mystery wrapped in a riddle.
An important realization was realized this day. Nature is hard to shoot with a camera. I really appreciate our friend Don’s work @ A Photo A Day as he has a great eye for this nature stuff.
Cityscape Madrid by Gerhard Richter, 1968
256 Colors by Gerhard Richter, 1968
Untitled by Cy Twombly, 1971
James by Chuck Close, 2002
Gap founder Donald Fisher has more art than he knows what to do with. But, he doesnt want to sell it — so hes offered to build one very large museum in The Presidio to showcase his treasured treasures. Since founding The Gap with his wife Doris in 1969, The Fishers have put together one of the largest Western contemporary/modern art collections in The World. Besides what has been lent to other museums from time to time, most of this collection has never been viewed by the public.
Live Ammo & Nude at Vanity by Roy Lichtenstein
The building is set to cover over 100,000 sq feet and house over 1000 pieces of 20th and 21st century works of art. Construction of the museum is set to occur at The Main Post, land currently occupied by a bowling alley and tennis courts. The museum will simply be named C.A.M.P. or Contemporary Art Museum of The Presidio.
Triple Elvis by Andy Warhol, 1962
10 Brillo Boxes by Andy Warhol, 1968
Jackie O. by Andy Warhol
Chairman Mao & Joseph Beuys by Andy Warhol
It is The 8th Wonder of The World. And it is the 1st most popular suicide destination in The World.
Ive driven over it hundreds of times. And from it, hundreds of people leap to a most certain death each year.
These two very different experiences have never crossed paths — or my mind, for that matter — until viewing The Bridge by Eric Steel.
The big jump, the most final of all decisions. And it happens all the time.
Located at 250 Brannan Street near 2nd is the 70 year former home of Gallo Salame Company. The plant closed its doors in 1998 and sold the red brick building to developers looking to convert the space into lofts for a meaty $32 million.
Part 2 of a 2 part series on The Sneaker Pimps shoe show….
Dave White:
In addition to the 1000s of sneakers, a gallery of art revolving around sneakers was snuck onto the evenings lineup.
DJ Kid Capri:
Too $hort:
“Whats my favorite word?”
Part 1 of a 2 part series on The Sneaker Pimps shoe show….
“Is it the shoes? Its GOTTA be the shoes!!” — Mars Blackmon
We ran thru the Sneaker Pimps traveling shoe exhibit at Club Mighty on Sat nite, sponsored this year by K-Swiss. There must have been at least 1000 pairs of custom kicks, hybrids and artist collabos.
Special makeups:
Artist collabos:
Lots of laces:
From 1910-1940, Chinese immigrants were detained and interrogated at the Angel Island immigration station, located in the SF Bay.
Men and women were housed separately. The detainees spent much of their time in the barracks, angry and bored.
The immigrants expressed their fears and frustrations thru stories and poems written on the building walls.
Immigrants were detained here for weeks, months, and sometimes even years.
A 1940 fire destroyed the Angel Island administration building, and The Feds closed the immigration station, aka The Ellis Island of The West.
Another trip in the Way-Back Machine, this time our destination: Mission Bay Golf Center, 2003.
Nestled snuggly along the West side of 280 in SOMA — for 8 bucks you could get a bucket o’ balls, a beer, and aim for the freeway.
This sign is the last remaining evidence of what once stood here, before real estate speculators started lurking about.
Spotted this in The Palace of the Legion of Honor parking lot. It runs off B20, which is an 80% petrol/20% biodiesel mix. The goal is to have the entire fleet operating under these standards by 2020. For the time being rides are FREE — not hop the back door in Chinatown free — but FREE the legal way.
The outside advertising wrap is a little suspect with all the sunflowers — looks a bit hippy-ish. But the inside is nice and clean, like that shuttle you take from the Coliseum BART when x-ferring to OAK.
If youve come here for play-by-play coverage of Mr. Bonds smacking #756 into the right-centerfield stands, well, youve come to the wrong place.
We do, however, offer this coverage — live from our living room….
Fox Sports screen-in-screen action of Barry warming up, during a Jack-In-The-Box commercial.
Barry thanking The Fans and his father after he rounded the bases.
Mr. In The Right Place at The Right Time, escorted out after making the golden catch.
The arsenal of fireworks let off after the HR:
I cannot confirm whether or not Mr. Bonds reads this blog. Either way, a “Thank-You” is in order.
Thursday nite the ish went down @ 111 Minna — Fecal Face threw a $2 arty party. Some folks we’d heard of, others we had not.
City Hall is glowing orange until Mr. Bonds knocks two more out. But City Hall cant glow orange forever, Mr. Bonds.
View from Fulton Street
View from Polk Street
Plug2 is always ribbing me about my endless “Those Were The Good-Old-Days” rants that usually occur on one of our daily walks.
But still it happens, now and then, like a wave of anxiety and heaving frustration — that The City I once knew is disappearing right before my unsuspecting eyes. My gritty metropolitan neighborhood is currently being reconstructed with a subtle — yet concrete — mix of progress and gentrification.
Is it time to go elsewhere, I wonder? Because Ive hit a very awkward crossroad, where I decide either to suck it up as a necessary evil and accept the trade-off of calm and new for Inner City Pressure — or do I think about getting the hell out and moving back to The Filthy Midwest?
This, my 8 loyal readers, is the big question. Because a city like This City, well, it gets into ones blood. It is difficult to to get rid of. No other place that Ive been offers the walkable and historical urban jungle that we call our home.
Most likely Ill stay. And continue to walk These Mean City Streets, trying to capture as much as I can before they take it all away.
For the time being, Id be happy enough if Barry would ever get to that elusive magic number of 756. Or 755 for that matter.
This Saturday, a gang of Do-Gooders will clean, buff, and re-paint one of the Eastern Waterfronts only public parks aka Concrete Beach.
Located near the dead-end of 24th @ Michigan, it is one of The Citys best Known-Unknown graffiti galleries.
Galleries of this type have been disappearing faster than you can say “T-Third” in our neighborhood of late, so we decided make our way East and document history.
It is unfortunate that Newcomers to The City feel uncomfortable in an urban landscape and wish to re-paint the scenery in a bleh-grey tone.
All in the name of progress, I guess….whatever that means. So re-paint Do-Gooders. Do as you will. But in effect, you are vandals — by whitewashing some of my good friends work.
And in the end you are not only re-painting over someone elses work — but giving them a spank, blank canvas….to re-re-paint.
Video of The Wall of Fame:
