Activism

The Everyday Horrors of Minna Street

I've developed an unhealthy obsession with reading NIMBY blogs lately.  Not that they are captivating read or anything, but I too will be 40 one day and I'm hoping to get some pointers for how to most effectively waste City Hall's time by having them deal with my petty troubles.

One such blog is Old Dirty Alley, a blog dedicated to a small stretch in SOMA's Minna Street, where every single day is full of shocking monstrosities such as having to call the police on people with their pants around their quads, a completely naked recycler laying in the street with a wine bottle shoved up his ass, pooping on Toyotas, and being forced to scold people for not peeing in a portapottie.  Just awful!

But the photo above shines the brightest.  What could possibly be going on here?  Hemming pants?  Fun with silly string?  ODA has the answer:

weird of the day: a woman getting the bandage on her buttock changed. pants ankle-high. on the street. in public. and not in the most sanitary place in town. said damage was probably caused in the first place by shooting up, or is something meth-related. i did have a moment of guilt where i wasn’t going to put up these photos. but that vanished as soon as i saw the lighter in her hand and realized she was high as hell. i know, i know, gross assumptions. but i’ll bet dollars to donuts …

420 graffiti, a sewing machine, a buttock wound and a poo stain running down the wall all conspired to create this weird of the day.

Weird indeed!  Almost as weird as posting a 23-picture deep slideshow of the occassion.  But I understand, outraged requires evidence.  A single picture can be misleading, but an entire photoset is damning.  If you're swirling that glass of merlot while scribbling an email to your supervisor, you better be sure to have an incriminating shot that will convince them to clean up the bandage-changing epidemic that is choking the life out of our city.

Help Bring Bike Lanes to Folsom St.

If you're anything like me, you only ride Folsom when coming back from SOMA, even though it's fairly sketch riding compared to Harrison.  Well, it looks like our days of having to go an entire block out of the way for safe riding might be numbered.  Reader Brian C. hips us to the SFMTA Public Hearing happening TODAY at 10am to establish more bike lanes in the Mission:

I noticed one of those “SFMTA Public Hearing” notices near my house at 24th and Folsom today, and the item that caught my eye was:

“ESTABLISH – BIKE LANES

Folsom Street, northbound, 14th Street to 24th Street
Folsom Street, southbound, 13th Street to 24th Street”

I hadn't heard anything about this until I saw the sign, but that would be pretty great for the cyclists in the neighborhood. So the hearing is Friday, Feb 4, at 10 am, in Room 416 of City Hall. We should really get people out there to support this, because almost certainly there will be car/NIMBY types there to try to shoot it down.

Not only will you be able to ride your bike all the way from Philz to the Embarcadero without having to make a turn, but they are also planning other pedestrian-friendly improvements to Folsom such as additional “bus zones” and sidewalk extensions.  So give your boss a good excuse to skip work and head over to City Hall in a few hours to slap down those NIMBY's, fulfill your civic duty AND spend the rest of the afternoon at Dolores Park.

(photo by ravengirl1220 | PSA - Don't search for “Folsom” on Flickr unless you're ready for your screen to fill up with hella naked man.)

Tall Bike Has its Day in Court

Rock the Bike's Fossil Fool, builder and owner of the bizarre tall bike/sound system/mobile art project/Burning Man homing beacon that can be seen rolling around SF, was recently taken to court over the bike.  Apparently the fine state of California's Vehicle Code makes tall bikes illegal, as a rider of a bicycle must be able to stop safely while upright with “at least one foot on the ground.”  So to get around the law, FF built two stabilizing bars (called “roots,” because the bike is named “El Arbol”.  GET IT???) that can be deployed with a pull of a lever from the top of the bike, thus preventing the inevitable tipping-over that happens when stopping a tall-bike in traffic.

Of course, the safety measures were not good enough for SFPD.  FF explains:

Even though San Francisco is a pretty liberal city when it comes to enforcement of bicycle related offenses, I did get pulled over at Critical Mass when I drifted to the back of the group, where the motorcycle cops ride. I deployed the roots, climbed down and talked to the officer, pointing out the safety features, how I am able to keep both hands on the handlebars, how wide the roots are, etc. He thought that the rig was illegal due to its height, but couldn't recall the tall bike statute by heart and wrote me up for no front headlight instead. I thought that was odd considering how bright the Down Low Glow was shining, but he had to pick something, i guess.

  

Fool paid that ticket and kept on pedaling, but the same officer apparently obsessed a little too much over the bike:

So I was riding El Arbol to [the Fix Fell] protest. I was rounding the corner at Dolores Park when the I saw the same officer talking to a couple other motorcycle cops on a break. He smiled and gave me a hand motion to come over, and I think he said “I have something to show you.” It was unclear whether I was getting pulled over, and I was running late for the protest, so I gave him a shrug and kept riding. I guess in retrospect it was pretty obvious what was going to happen next. He caught up to me on Church St. and pulled me over. This time he had researched the tall bike law and cited me for it. My arguments ranged from “C'mon man, I'm not hurting anyone” to nitpicky.

So FF, feeling his ride was perfectly safe, took his ticket, rode the bike to court with some pictures and sketches of the bike.  The judge looked the bike over, asked him about how one gets on and off the bike, and simply dismissed the charges, noting that the bike and it's deployable roots were “novel.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how to beat California's tall bike law.

(Read the whole thing and see lots of construction shots of El Arbol over at Rock the Bike)

Eddie Colla Addresses Concerns With His Sarah Palin Street Art

Last week, Eddie Colla went around town pasting up posters of Sarah Palin with the words “enrage them with fear until they feel justified in their violence” laid on top of her.  Of course, everyone in SF thought this was the best thing ever, but Palin's flock of failures took issue with the fact that she never said those words and the poster implied that she had.  So Eddie came up with a compromise:

To remedy this, and to show that I am open taking constructive criticism, I re-worked the original poster and used an actual quote from Palin. [Above] is the new version, which should put an end to any talk implying I haven’t been fair and balanced.

Crisis adverted.

(link)

Doc's Clock Turns Their Back on Olympia

I stopped into Doc's Clock yesterday for a quick pint and round of pinball and this note was passed to me from down the bar.  Yep, some guy tried to order an “Oly,” as the bar formerly referred to the beer, scribbled this note in protest of their decision to stop carrying the beer, and bounced.  Now, Olympia might be the highest-rated cheap beer by Mission cool kids, but I really think you're splitting hairs when it comes to comparing Hams [sic] to just about any other beer that costs two smacks at a bar.  That said, I can only think of two other Mission bars that still carry Olympia (Gestalt and Homestead) soo…… market opportunity!

San Francisco Sketchfest Happening Right Now

Laughing is a way better drug than whatever you're railing.

The San Francisco comedy scene is small and tight. A couple of times a year it expands, welcoming some special guests [obvious vagina references removed by editor.] Kicked off on the 13th, the month long San Francisco Sketchfest is happening right now. It is a golden opportunity to go laugh at something other than your drunken friends' failed triple piggy back ride.

You can checkout the full schedule right here, but a couple of shows that I can recommend:

1/17 - 10 Year Reunion Show w/ Kasper Hauser
1/19 - Kasper Hauser: Time Machine
1/20-1/23 - Mike Birbiglia
1/20 - RiffTrax Presents Night of the Shorts
1/21 - WTF with Marc Maron
1/22 - The Sound of Young America Live
1/29 - Whose Live Anyway (for those of you who like safe comedy)

And if you you're in the Mission, the Dark Room has shows every Thursday thru Sunday as part of the fest. They're small, intimate shows like a baptismal or lap dance.

Sketch comedy isn't just for personal enjoyment, either. It provides a service to the community. For example, The Midnight Show out of LA has a practical solution for your pet related fears:

So, stop being boring and go see some live comedy. It's festivals like these that make SF feel like a big boy city. Your $1 PBRs will still be at the bar when you're done.

'Enrage Them With Fear Until They Feel Justified In Their Violence'

It's working…

These were spotted in Hayes Valley by iPhone photog Brian Reynard, who believes they were posted within the last 24 hours.  

In related news, Brock @ SFist shared Dan Savage/The Stranger's satirical version of Palin's now infamous 'Crosshairs Map', equating Palin's map to a politicized death list by populating the The Stranger's version with the assassinated martyrs of American history.  'Surveyor's marks' my ass. 

(Hat Tip to Ben R for the Palin posters)

San Francisco's Arts Centers Unite Against Censorship, But Where's the SFMOMA?

On December 1 (World AIDS day of all days), this 1987 film piece, A Fire in My Belly by the artist David Wojnarowicz (who died of AIDS) was removed from the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery exhibition entitled Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. The publicly funded Smithsonian Institution was politically bullied by Catholic League president William Donahue, who called the film “hate speech” when he misinterpreted a shot of ants crawling on a crucified Christ as anti-Catholic. On December 3rd, on behalf of the estate of David Wojnarowicz, P.P.O.W. Gallery released an official statement addressing this controversy in order to illuminate the artists original intentions. The statement reads:

In a 1989 interview Wojnarowicz spoke about the role of animals as symbolic imagery in his work, stating “Animals allow us to view certain things that we wouldn't allow ourselves to see in regard to human activity. In the Mexican photographs with the coins and the clock and the gun and the Christ figure and all that, I used the ants as a metaphor for society because the social structure of the ant world is parallel to ours.”

Further, adding more hate than Serg's war against burritos are top GOP House members John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Eric Cantor (R-VA), who threatened the Smithsonian Institution's finances by cowardly flexing their political muscles if the Institution did not remove the film from the exhibition. Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said, “Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake and correct it, or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January when the new majority in the House moves [in].”. Cantor, the #2 Republican in the House and the #1 little bitch labeled the exhibit “an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season.” Unbeknownst to Cantor, he is actually offending every single gay and straight allied person in America by furthering the hatred and misinterpretation of Wojnarowicz's work.

Seems like a lot of bah humbugs going on from the right-wing these days, and the political censorship of the freedom of speech/expression must be stopped. Starting this Friday night, two arts organizations in San Francisco will join the alliance of museums and arts centers around the country for a national protest over the removal of Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly. SF Camerawork and the Queer Cultural Center will present a 7 p.m. screening of the film, followed by a presentation by art historian, writer, and activist Robert Atkins. Atkins will then provide historical background concerning political censorship and lead a panel discussion that will include queer activists, scholars, and artists. The discussion will culminate with Jonathan D. Katz, curator of Hide/Seek, joining the discussion from New York via Skype. The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts will also screen this film Friday night continuously from 11pm until 2am in YBCA's Screening Room.

David Wojnarowicz, Untitled,1988-89, drawing/ gelatin silver print and acrylic on paper

But what is the SFMOMA doing to acknowledge their support of Wojnarowic's work as the only museum in San Francisco to own a work by the artist in their permanent collection? On Tuesday I was at the SFMOMA when I came across an exhibition entitled, The More Things Change, which opened just 10 days before Hide/Seek. The exhibition's mission statement reads, “revealing the museum's collection as a seismograph of shifts in contemporary culture, this continually evolving exhibition considers how the past persists in the present and how art engages with the world at large.” The work seen above is the Wojnarowicz from SFMOMA'S collection. Untitled is a piece that depicts a film still of a Mexican man missing the bottom half of his legs and the image on the right of the piece is a small drawing that Wojnarowicz did of legs to give to the man. Most of the footage in A Fire in My Belly was shot in Mexico on a trip Wojnarowicz took there, and it has been confirmed by the people of P.P.O.W. Gallery who represent the estate of Wojnarowicz that the still in Untitled was most likely from that time in Mexico.  I realize that the goal of The More Things Change is to use works made in the last decade, however, what better way to acknowledge the fact that their collection really does persist in the present and engages with the world at large than by adding Untitled to that continually evovling exhibiton? What about placing that piece in the show accompanied by A Fire in My Belly to contextualize the works importance with a statement by the curators explaining why Wojnarowicz is relevant to the present as his work is once again in the spotlight of a major national debate?

I'm extremely happy to see so much support from the San Francisco community against the censorship of artistic expression in the United States, but SFMOMA can do better. If you cannot make either of the screenings this weekend, you can watch the vimeo of A Fire in My Belly at the top of this post.

  • UPDATE: SFMOMA is set to provide the public with a free screening of A Fire in My Belly on Tuesday, January 4th at 5:30pm with a discussion to be held directly after. 

To learn more about this work, the artist, and the controversy surrounding the film and exhibition please check out the links provided below:

More WikiLeaks Street Art Going Up on Valencia

This is easily one of the smartest wheatpastings I've seen on Valencia in some time.  “Sandwich” took stills from the leaked video of two Reuter's staffers and numerous other unarmed civilians being murdered (commonly named “Collateral Murder”) and overlaid gameplay from Halo 2 on top of them.  Surely a commentary on the soldiers featured in the video, whose impatience while waiting for orders to open fire displayed an utter contempt for human life, as well as modern warfare in general.

As this is Sandwich's second piece of street art to go up this month, it looks like we have a new political street artist roaming around the Mission who is quickly upstaging the more imfamous figures out there.

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