the pink house roof

this is buzz and shawn on the roof of the apartment where buzz and i lived, along with a revolving series of third roommates, for a couple years in San Francisco after we moved out of Mission Records. it was a faded pink building which jim, the landlord, eventually painted a dull gray. we lived between 24th St. and Cesar Chavez at the bottom of Bernal Hill. every so often we'd head up to the roof and have a few beers and enjoy the gorgeous sunsets. i remember once when the building was being repainted we climbed out of our windows and hung out on the scaffolding and drank beers over the sidewalk. buzz still lives there and every week or so, i wish i did too.

i shot these polaroids on an old Square Shooter Polaroid camera that my friend Sam gave me after i gave her an even older Polaroid Land camera with the bellows. those are a little tricky since the batteries they take are no longer made, but i knew an old Chinese guy at Mission Camera on Valencia who could convert it to take AAs. awesome guy too. i hope the place is still there; if so, buy your camera stuff from him.

mojave desert 2003

someone correct the date if i am incorrect. this is film that i obviously really screwed up. either i did something when i loaded it, or something is wrong with my 12-frame film back and it doesn't advance right because you can see how all the frames double-exposed on each other in those crappy triptychs at the top and the bottom. which is kind of a shame because i think some of them might have turned out quite well if i hadn't fucked it up, especially the ones of krishna sitting on the hill like a Buddha. even still, it's probably the closest thing i'll ever do to art.

i went to the Mojave Desert with my friends Krishna, who is from LA, and Emily, who is from Delaware like me. it's kind of a weird story here because i feel like i hooked them up via myspace or something... i somehow introduced them through the Internet and at that time in my life i had factions of friends on both coasts, and i thought with my best efforts, never the twain shall meet. but one night i got drunk and introduced these two; he liked the Fucking Champs and was moving to nyc, she liked the Fucking Champs and lived in nyc. suddenly they were hanging out, going out, she was bringing him to Delaware and meeting other friends from there and the East Coast. people from Newark were meeting people from LA and vice versa. the gates had been breached. my world, i thought, was collapsing in on me. part of my mission, going there with those two, was to break them up.

instead we all got super wasted on a bottle of absinthe kris's ex-girlfriend had brought back for him from Europe. we split a case of Budweiser and spent the night passed out in a shitty motel room in the desert. then we woke up the next day to a blinding sun, horribly hung over, ate greasy breakfast at a greasy diner, and drove out to some place off the highway and took these photos.

i took a few rolls of b/w film too, which i didn't screw up, but i haven't scanned them yet. eventually i will. kris and emily also shot photos that day; maybe if they see this they will show me some.

soccer sundays

andy


bochay


chris kohler


yuri

once upon a time i used to play soccer in Potrero Park at the end of 24th St. when i lived in san francisco. i used to live on 26th and Florida st. i was super broke at the time. i had figured out a way to live off a few bucks a day, buying $1 pasta and $1 tomato sauce (those little Hunts cans) from the store at the corner of 26th and Potrero. i would eat half for lunch and half for dinner. i'd usually go for some mike and ikes and mountain dew late night, or if i had some money i'd buy some beer. when i saved up some cash i'd treat myself to nachos at el farolito on 24th and alabama and eat half for lunch, half for dinner. it was a miserable existence in a beautiful city and a lively neighborhood. if you read my story in Fanzine then you have a pretty good idea of what i was putting myself through. that also spelled the end of my soccer sundays.

i shot these photos before i got super depressed, so this is probably early 2004 or 2003. i think i had a plan to shoot everyone we played with... there was probably 10-15 of us punks running around the park. most of us never played soccer, or if we did, the last time we played was years ago. for me at the time, it was probably 12 years since i played. it was a great time to be outside back then in SF, and i squandered almost all of it away.

i don't know where any of these people are anymore, although we were friends at one time. Andy i think may live in Bay Ridge, brooklyn. at least he did the last time i saw him at the Lock Inn on Grand St. Yuri used to be Andy's girlfriend, but they broke up and maybe she lives overseas now. Bochay was a great guy who, i last heard in 2004, was living on some island off the coast of Vancouver, and you had to take a boat to get there. Chris Kohler was a crazy kid who lived many years ahead of his time. He might still live in San Francisco.

anyhow my plan to shoot photos of all us soccer players didn't pan out. i ran out of money for film, but there's a chance i have more photos hidden somewhere undeveloped. even these i've never seen before i scanned them, so i guess it's okay to be a little nostalgic.