Cafe Bucky

We drove to the City (that would be San Francisco) today to go see the Marc Chagall exhibit at the SFMOMA.

We had a friend of my daughter with us, and she had never been down the Twisty Bit of Lombard Street. That’s excuse enough for me. I am always into the Autocross aspect of City driving, and have actually had some training. I’d only been down that section of serpentine brick about 20 times. It’s beyond me why anyone would want to live there with the constant parade - perhaps they are all extras that are hired by the City.

Lo and behold, it’s Campaign Season … a 60ish male mammal in a Mercedes was driving ahead of us, waving a large political sign out of his sunroof …

… while playing John Philip Sousa’s “Semper Fidelis” at FULL volume

… while holding up a long line of cars that were waiting to go down the twisty bit

… while mugging for a random tourist and their DV cam.

Lost this vote :-) When we got to the bottom, I made a point of going any direction but his. Glad he didn’t show up at the SFMOMA …

… which is my segue to Chagall. I must say that I lean more towards the impressionists, the surrealists and cubists, and all sorts of “ists”. I draw the line at Jackson Pollock. I like representational art, or some good excuse if it isn’t.

Chagall doesn’t really grab me like, say Dali, Degas, or many others, but I enjoyed the exhibit quite a bit (and this is a big one). I think his best work involves someone floating, most often his wife, Bella. It was great to see “Midsummer Night’s Dream” in person (like cow heads? he sure liked painting them)

If you go, tag along with a member (avoid the line stretching down the block), or go mid-week (avoid the crowds). Peter Coyote does a great job on the audio tour, which is well worth the $5.

Oh boy. This being Labor Day Weekend, there are traditions that must be upheld …

Women on the East Coast wear white pants for the last time this year.

Barbeques throughout the land creak and groan under the weight of extra mesquite, as huge hordes gather round for mass ingestion of grilled goods. Yellowjackets throughout the land carry out well-honed picnic attack formations.

Frisbees spin. Lawns slipped and slided. Emergency rooms treat those who have simultaneously inhaled too much whipped cream and sunburned the bejeezus out of their year-round pastiness. Ok, I made that one up.

And it’s time for the Sausalito Art Festival!

I used to live in Sausalito, really close to the grounds. Festival weekend is always a party … one that you get to early in the day. Don’t dilly-dally in the City until 1, and then suddenly get the bright idea that you’ll mosey on over. Take the Ferry. Seriously. Sausalito can’t handle 1000’s of cars very well.

The SAF is the largest one in the country, and for good reason. There’s a lot of depth to it (and did I mention beer, wine, great food, and bands?) We discovered Jennifer O’Meara there (we have a six pane, which are all shots from a Nikon D1). George Summner is always there, making the journey from his studio a block away.

Oh, and there’s little bits of controversy:

Somewhere in the Festival, you’ll see photographers that have little postit notes proclaiming “no computers”, as if it were some sort of badge of honor. You’ll also see photos that are obviously manipulated (to good effect). I think photos that are improved by digital means are A-OK, because all that really matters is the response to the final work of art. (and if I didn’t say this, my Adobe Photoshop Certified Wife would come charging into my study and inflict great bodily harm) The debate rages on, but the Cranky Chemical Crowd will have to give way at some point. Painters came to accept photography, and the Toners & Fixers are going to have to accept the Digitizers.

The Festival will always be like that. At some point 10 years down the road, we’ll have some debate about the validity of virtual 3d environmental pieces (such as a walk-through of something inspired by Dali or Escher). I’m all for it, just so long as we don’t have some stupid Damien Hirst Cow Head rotting away in the Sun!

I’m going to spend the month of October in New York City.

(more…)

Ok, so my wife and I were watching the MTV Video Music Awards last night, and found ourselves rolling our eyes a lot. Some of this can be attributed to age and profound wisdom, but it’s more accurate to say that we are just being goofy.

In the 80’s, I watched MTV because it was fun, fresh, new, and crazysexycool. In the 00’s, I watch the awards out of a sense of nostalgia, and to see if I can spot any highlights whatsoever in the current crop of so-called “talent”. Coldplay is one of the notable buoys rising over the vast sea of musical vapidity.

About the Britney/Madonna kiss: nice to see that Britney has the guts to do something that would have been daring 15 years ago. Maybe some suburban mommies will freak out and get together a good ‘ol church parking lot Britney CD-burning party. They’ll make the 3 block trek from their McMansions in their Ford Excursions, bottles of charcoal lighter fluid at the ready. Now that the 10 commandments have been scooted in Cracker Courthouse Central, they have a new cause that’s been gift-wrapped for them. An open-mouth shiny bow flashing on their living room screens.

The effective kiss of the year was Tatu on the MTV Movie awards, surrounded by schoolgirls doing the same. Engineered, no doubt, by their psychologist/promoter with a knack for pressing buttons. If Madonna was out to copy that, she simply wasn’t paying attention. Nice to see that she’s in such great shape, though.

The saving grace of the VMAs was seeing Coldplay give a performance which actually had some depth and emotion. Nostalgia alert: l’d take Janet Jackson over Beyonce, Nirvana or Pearl Jam (with or without Neal Young) over Metallica, and Rage Against The Machine over some of the no-talent rappers that are stinking up the stage these days. Would have settled for the Foo Fighters or Queens of The Stone Age (just to see Dave Grohl do something) I miss Kurt Cobain - would have been interesting to see how he would have grown into his 30’s. Would he have sold out and guested with the chihuahua on Taco Bell ads?

Geez, I would have even settled for Courtney Love, circa 1997, planting her fishnet leg on a monitor, screaming her heart out (like I saw her do in her SF Fillmore days).

At least Mary J. Blige has that thing I call “presence”.

It may be that I am not paying enough attention, but it’s time for the musical pendulum to start swinging away from all of the commercial posturing crap and fake emotion. Bring back the Monkees :-)

p.s. updated: “nostalgia for what used to be” to simply “nostalgia”.

p.p.s. (March 29, 2004) Somehow I wiped out the original post - kudos to Google for having a cached version!

Good article in today’s SF Chronicle about how businesses are using free or fee WiFi connections to increase foot traffic. Great! I will make a point of visiting Cafe Roma in North Beach next time I’m in the City.

A problem today is that I can think of a lot of things to write about, but they would all take some time to get into. I don’t get writer’s block. I get “what can I write that will get me in the least amount of trouble today?”

So all of you long controversial ideas, get back on the shelf! Go on now. I do have a few art/photo related snippets for the moment….

• If you have seen Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds”, then you have seen The Tides Restaurant in Bodega Bay, CA. Well, no, you haven’t really seen it… they remodeled the quaint, funky place into a generic tourist mass feeding zone. I liked it better the old way. They even made the food worse. But but but! None other than Tippi Hedren will be there next weekend to sign autographs and reminisce.
• I’m anxious to get over to the Marc Chagall Exhibit at SFMOMA.
• FlexiPhoto, my web-based photo db, is coming soon! I don’t want to post too soon, and put a bad impression out there. On the other hand, I want to get it out there so I can tell future employers “hey, here’s what I have been up to recently”. PhotoPlus Expo East is coming up, and it would be great to point some people (like small photo stock agencies) at FlexiPhoto.
• I want to combine travel and work somehow, and soon! I’ll be going to NYC at the end of October for PhotoEast, but would welcome a gig that would get me there sooner.

Anyone following the SCO debacle will chuckle at the latest salvo: that IBM is coercing everyone to “Beat up on SCO”. Hah! As if any of us in the Linux community needed to get our marching orders from IBM, or Red Hat, or any other corporate entity.

Eric Raymond has a great Open Letter to Darl McBride of SCO. He makes the point loud and clear.

p.s. Darl, you do NOT have my permission to use this blog entry in your press clipping binder.

Just saw Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, and really loved it! Very thought provoking. It’s just out on DVD, so go run out and rent it, buy it, or use some other non-violent and legal means to get your mitts on it.

Bowling for Columbine is a breath of fresh air after some of the Hollywood Dreck that’s been released of late. Do check out the flip side of the DVD. Michael explains the Oscar Speech. There’s also a good bit from when he went back to Denver to give a speech that touched on some of the issues surrounding our all too violent society. I’d like to write a lot about that, after I have had some time to reflect. The film was powerful, and certainly deserves its awards. Nice to see Charlton Heston squirm (even though I loved his work in Planet of the Apes).

Great film, Michael Moore!