Back in the Day
One of my favorite things on the internets is when old dudes upload a few hundred classic shots of San Francisco to Flickr so I can squander a few hours looking at them. This afternoon, I had the good fortune of noticing that "petespix75" put up a gang of pictures from the 1950's to the present day (side note: Pete has traveled the world by bike, plane, train and boat and never stopped taking rad pictures). I particularly dug all his photos of the J Church rolling through Dolores Park because 1) it's always neat to see a bunch of Muni shots from the same location, 2) I spend a mess of my free time in DP already and 3) it amuses me to see that throughout history, the city actually used to maintain Dolores Park. I mean, fuck, look at that grass! And flowers! Hell, there is even a picture of a gardener watering the grass. I cannot remember the last time I've seen liquid that wasn't piss or Olde English get dumped on Dolores soil by man. Anyway, if you like what you see here, be sure to browse through his other SF photos (also, he's got some mean Boston photos too):
June 1963
June 1963
Mission Dolores in May 1963
Oct. 1981
June 1983
June 1983(all photos by petespix75. Each photo linked directly to its Flickr page)
Imagine this: a grassy bike ride all the way to work*, the neighborhood name NOPA doesn't exist and SFPD wouldn't be able to ticket cyclists at the ARCO station. Well, apparently back in distant year of 1928, the city could have made this a reality. The plan was to extend the panhandle all the way to Market st. along The Wiggle. The plan called for demolishing housing along the route, indicating our politicians of years past actually had a spine.
I have no idea why it never happened, but I bet that Great Depression thing had something to do with it.
(via Wikipedia)
* a grassy bike ride to work for people who actually live in the western part of the city... and work.
Previously on Uptown Almanac
Support brutal dictatorships in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia? Create homelessness at the astonishing levels we see today? Triple the deficit? Ignore the AIDS epidemic?
Spotted somewhere around 3rd and Brannan.
In high school, Royal Ground on Fillmore Street was my go-to spot to meet up with flanneled friends to drink lattes and smoke cigarettes (indoors!), but apparently all the real action was going down at the Polk Street location.
(awesome find via yr momma)
John Waters, Hollywood Smile Train, 2009. C-prints, edition of 5, 26 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches framed. Courtesy of Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CAJohn Waters' fourth solo exhibition at Rena Bransten Gallery entitled, Rush, is now on view through July 10th. The exhibition, aptly titled after Rush liquid incense, the alkyl nitrites inhaled for recreational purposes (more commonly referred to as "whip-its" by the kids I roll with) gives you just that.
Rush boasts a comical fiberglass mixed-media sculpture of Ike Turner forcing his puppet, a fur coat and pink dress clad Tina Turner to perform a sassy dance. Other memorable works are the film stills of Hollywood stars appropriated onto butts, poking fun at the filmie technique of Rear Projection (the works title) and appropriately finishing the sequence of photographs with "the end," a perfect double entendre! The piece, Hollywood Smile Train, is composed of images of Tom Cruise, Hitchcock, Meryl Streep, and other celebs with harelips, and not in that hot Joaquin Phoenix kind of way.
The exhibition also incorporates a series of photographs taken from the movie set of Pecker, the 1998 comedy written and directed by Waters about a young photographer plucked from Baltimore and promised to become a New York art star. The stills challenge the contemporary idea of the art worlds relationship with celebrity, its obsession with the next big thing, and the excitement and sadness it all incorporates.
The exhibition is an insiders peek into the film and art world as seen by Waters, but manages to keep outsiders in on the joke too. The exhibition ends July 10th.
With all the recent interest from straight people about the Mission's queer past, I figured I'd jump in the mix. This post popped up on Valencia few weeks ago, equipped with a great drawing, epic logo, a bit of history and some Bic pen haters: "Yeah, I remember when the Mission was queer. It ain't now." Not sure if I really have the grounds agree or disagree, but Mission Loc@l produced this handy little map so you can make your own call / get nostalgic for the days of S&M fisting clubs off Valencia:
Previously on Uptown Almanac
One of my favorite shitty lines is from the movie The Sum of All Fears. My paraphrasing here, but basically a girl is describing her new love, Ben Affleck, to her friend:
Girl 1: On a scale of one to ten, how hot is he?
Girl 2: One to ten? A thirteen.
That quote perfectly sums up this clip. First, if I had to rate this clip, I would give it an enthusiastic 13 OUTTA 10. Second, the narrator is such a dork about his love of bike messengers, you can't help but think they are the Ben Affleck of San Francisco. Enjoy:
(Thanks to commenter cat for the tip!)
Found on Modcult
What's also great about this is you know that this event was put on by a bunch of hippies, just as today a funeral for the hipster would be put on by a bunch of hipsters, and a funeral for the douchebag would be put on by me.
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