scanner down!

i haven't been able to post much lately due to the Brooklyn Fishing Derby, which you can check out here. For the record, I think Wordpress sucks. Also, my scanner has a problem and I have to send it back to get it fixed, so i haven't been able to scan in anything new yet, but i'll dig through the crates to see if i have anything interesting already scanned that i haven't posted yet. on that note, the computer i bought off Shelly is taking major shits all over my life: repeated kernal panics, software repair issues i don't understand, and a major heat sensor hardware problem i have to get fixed. technology is wreaking havoc right now.

mojave two

hmm.... apparently this photo is too racy for Photobucket because they keep flagging it as a violation of their TOS and taking the picture down. so now i'm trying Flickr, which took me a long time to figure out how to link to the full-size image. it's just not as intuitive as they think... i think. anyhow, this is a shot from the Mojave Desert. nice belly. hopefully Flickr doesn't take this one down also; if they don't i'll probably just switch to Flickr full time.

Z

This is a picture I shot of Zarathustra, who goes by several iterations of his ridiculously long name. He's an awesome artist, activist, writer, and all around creator of positive things... mostly. He's also from Delaware and some of the older people from Newark might remember him. I don't remember much about him from Delaware, but I re-met him in San Francisco where he lives now.

I was thinking about Z the last couple days as I've been reading "On the Lower Frequencies: A Secret History of the City" by Erick Lyle (who I knew as Iggy Scam) of Scam Zine, one of the great punk zines about getting over on the man, punk and politics, and in a much bigger sense, trying to create a life you want to live, though that last point probably wasn't as apparent as it is now, when one can read all his zines and see him trying to figure it out, the prevailing direction he was always, still is, and back then probably then a little unbeknownst to him, heading toward. He interviews Z a couple times in the book, about graffiti and activism, and helping create the incredible 949 Market Street community space that the cops eventually shut down. There might be more, but I'm only halfway through the book, though I can wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone, especially anyone who has spent time in SF. Another thing I remember about Zara and Erick is that they were probably two of the top four shoplifters I've ever met.

It was really cool to read Erick's book and see interviews with people I knew back then, the things they were doing before I met them, and how they were living in the city those years ago: living on welfare, donating time at food banks and needle exchange groups, hanging out and meeting the neighborhood and being known by them, really on-the-level kind of stuff. I found his history of Hunt's Doughnuts, a SF fixture on 20th and Mission that became synonymous with all-that-was-wrong with the City, really intriguing and well done. It made me want to re-read that history of Mission Records article I wrote for MRR back in 2005 or something. Two notoriously infamous places only blocks apart with a long, storied, and somewhat lost history. Aside from reading about old friends, Hunt's Doughnuts was probably my favorite part.

I was involved with these people back then. They were variously my friends and associates, partners in crime, though I think back then I was much more into the destructive, illegal side of things than positive activism. It was really Mission Records that brought me into their lives, living with Buzz and in the space. I missed the heyday of the place and only had the ghosts really to experience. But all those friends really showed me that things could be poor and dark, a struggle and great all at the same time.

I took this one outside of, I think, Rachel's house, which was on Capp Street at the time. We may have been doing something for the Anarchist Fashion Show. Actually I wasn't doing anything; I was just wearing clothes Z made.

the april girl

I know it's not April anymore, and I didn't forget about your birthday, but I've been quietly preoccupied over the last few weeks and didn't get around to it. It's one in a long line of excuses over the long and short years of our collective past. Anyway, happy birthday (April 16) and sorry for the emo photo, but it really was the best one out of the bunch, unfortunately. Haha.

SF bound

A couple old friends hanging out in front of Mission Records. Must be the summer of 2003. The girl is Sarah Sparks. I used to know her real name but all I remember now are her nicknames, like Sarita Sparks and Little Sarah. The guy is this dude Ryan, and I just recently learned his full name after he hit me up on Facebook. I remember having a lot of really fun, drunk times with this guy. Lots of memories that only pop in my head when the right Carrie Nations or Bitchin' song comes on unexpectedly for some reason. He won the 21-Bathroom contest [EDIT: shit man, Melissa reminded me it was the "21-Toilet Ride." I knew it didn't sound right...], where a bunch of people rode around the city and had a beer at every public bathroom in the city. I remember we rode in this Critical Mass together and all the PC people were getting mad at us because we were drinking beer along the way and getting drunk and smashing the cans on the street behind us. We all lived in Mission Records at one point, but I think they both might live in Georgia now.

I'm heading to San Francisco for a few days for a wedding. I haven't been back since visiting Susan in December 2006, before we started dating. I'm bringing along my Pen-FT and the Seagull and will hopefully have something to show for it (also bringing my Canon s90, but I'll only post digital stuff on here if it's really good, or really funny). I need to buy some film cleaner—part of the reason I've been so slow in posting more photos is because I hate cleaning the images of all the goddamn dust and shit over every frame. It's a pain, but I'll try to work through it.

mission records part III

sarah sparks


haircut time. sarah and joey alone


double sarahs. sarah sparks and sarah sandberg


sarah sandberg's room


little sarah giving homemade tattoos to tom


ken williamson from philly stopped through


david dondero. i couldn't fit craig d in the frame. sorry craig.


the pine hill haints, this hillbilly/moonshine band from Alabama. They call it "Alabama Ghost Music." i have their record still and it's pretty good.




an adoring fan. i think i know who it is, but i need some confirmation.


TK: i've been digging through the negatives and found a few more band photos. i noticed there's a lot of bands i didn't shoot though, probably because i was too drunk or too lazy or too busy getting down to grab the camera from upstairs. i have a few more band shots for this series of posts, and then some clarion alley photos from 2002. i have a bunch of other photos from hanging out in the record store; i'll try to get most of them in.

"You don't eat the fish out of there, do you?"

polaroid shot by susan


bluefish

Finally posted the article on the Brooklyn Fishing Derby on FANZINE. It's a long piece, but a good read. Ever wonder what you can catch out of the East River, aside from arsenic poisoning? Dark days and hobo fishing at its most amateur, as well as the controversial new saltwater fishing license issue. Read it here.

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.

It's a sad and beautiful world

these are just a few of the many photos i shot on US1 (but i think the only ones with the Hassleblad) on the way back to San Francisco from LA for the first time. i think it was 2003. it took about nine hours total, with all the stopping on the sides of roads and navigating the winding, serpentine turns alongside cliffs that drop hundreds of feet. i remember distinctly slamming on the brakes and skidding off toward those cliffs when i saw something amazing, which was pretty much everywhere. when i got back to SF i started to make a habit of driving north or south on the 1 for hours whenever i needed to get out of the city or was having some kind of mental breakdown and just hang out on a cliff and watch the ocean or read a book or whatever. smoke cigarettes. it all seemed to do me a lot of good since i never took any medication for my mental problems, which were probably just as bad as anyone else's.

i remember doing a lot of driving those days, listening to tapes and smoking parliaments. it was a good car i had: 1988 acura integra special edition, with the ridiculous rear spoiler made of solid rubber which made the trunk hatch weigh like 50 pounds. black faded by the sactown sun. bought the car while i was living in sacramento for $300 off a japanese kid who was moving back to japan. it had 3 different size tires when i bought it.

this whole driving/motorist theme will come up a lot in future posts. this is just a start. also, burning and dodging is a lot easier in the darkroom than in photoshop. still trying to get the hang of it.