More blurry shit.

I recently started taking blurry photos.

When you show photo people a photo that is ‘defocused’ they will tell you, “please, blurry is so overdone.” and I have to agree, you can’t really make a photography career out of it. It’s not a style. However, I’m not trying to do that. I actually was seeing the world like this when I took these pictures and I honestly couldn’t see if they were focused or not so I just racked the focus back to macro distances on every shot. I also began to actually appreciate blurriness for its own sake and my photographic intent shifted away from narrative to the quality of the ‘bokeh’.

I put up with Lyndsey shootin' the hell out of me at the Planet opening last night and today she delivers. Big Time. I don't really like having someone take a picture of me, but this one justifies all that squirmy awkward feeling.

4th of July

I took this years ago and I look at it every day as I lay in bed but it was never on the web so here we go. A little girl crying in McDonalds.

This is Micah. We're working together. I'm going to take pictures and she's going to style / art direct and hopefully we'll make some stuff that could be the start of a fashion photography portfolio. That's the idea anyways.

Clarion alley

Pete's Bar-B-Q

I just love this picture. Love it. I think it reminds me of Herbie the Love Bug. Shot it last night with Lyndsey down by hwy 101 at Ceaser Chavez.

Shit, I missed a day. I was at the Mountain Goats show (they have a new abum on 4AD) and then the game (woudn't that be something if it was a close play and they ran over Dusty's 3 year old kid at home plate instead of snatching him up by the jacket?) and Dennis's birthday party and I just missed posting so here's the picture. The reason I'm saying I missed a day is that I used to post a photo every day and I was trying to do that again.

I don't know if this officially counts but I rescanned and "reprinted" this photo of a stairwell in Chinatown as the first one was only a quick proof. So here, I present to you, a stairwell in Chinatown, San Francisco! Thank you.

Outside 111 Minna. Goes with this shot.

I watched "Iris", that film about Iris Murdoch and her husband and how they deal with her getting Alzheimer's and it seriously fucked me up. Because she was so cool and smart and he loved her so fucking much and it sounds corny, but I miss my brain-addled mom, so I cried a helluva lot. I just couldn't help it. I didn't know why I was crying and I wanted to see the movie so I wasn't really "goin with the flow" and I kept choking it back but it was going to come out no matter what I did. Then after it was over I really felt like writing something, being all emotional and everything. I got up and sorted through my old bills and made sure they were all paid and then I clicked on some Belle & Sebastian mp3's and while I was digging around on my desk I found some old film that I never scanned and this photo was on the end of the roll. That was my Canon P coming to the end of a roll and not letting me advance the film all the way but still letting me cock the shutter. Well, that emotional stuff was over an hour ago but I still feel all raw inside. I'm glad it's a good photograph.

There are so many stairwells to take pictures of in chinatown. With a 4x5 view camera you can get the entire set of stairs to line up along the focus plane. You can also mess with how the lines of perspective converge. I can't do any of that but I'd like to learn.

I decided I wanted it crooked. Chinatown is my new favorite place to take night pictures.

I have a new friend named Lyndsey Hawkins and we are gonna take photographs together. She likes to take night photos. She has 2 big 4x5 cameras. We have to work on our Scheimpflug Principle but I think we'll get there. We have dual credit for this photo. I chose the lighting but she chose the subject and showed me how to do it. We'll have to figure out who's pictures are who's because we're gonna make some good ones and people are gonna ask.

Oh boy...and girl. These kids will not stop fuckin dancing! Must be the Coachwhips going "Baa Baa Bom Bom Baamp...Chucka Chucka Chucka" over and over. I'm told the feller with the gold fronts is Keeegan. Anyhow. this was the fashion in which they were rocking at the BART plaza on Friday. Sorry you missed it.

I didn't say anything about last Thursday and it's kind of late now but I did take this picture on the roof of the Grotto. And, I was truly impressed with the performance at the library. The reading and photos were fantastic and as the night wore on the party on the roof got fun for me. With so many rich and successful people around I admit to going into a corner. I'm not afraid of crowds of people but there was only one guy who even looked like a writer there and he was French. The party was exactly like the old dot-com catered bashes of a couple of years ago. There was a pro videographer and a photographer documenting it. You could either say these guys know how to work it or that they're pompous bores. It's too easy to accuse these guys from my perspective. They're probably both. I hope someone stops me next time I go on about how many thousands of dollars I left behind to go make art. I now know how bad it sounds to someone who doesn't make shit. I think the hardest thing was seeing myself in all the schmoozers. I felt repulsed by everyone except my close friends. Mental illness or a moment of clarity? Hmmm. Seems I've asked myself that question on more than one occasion.

Juniper trees. Florida street.

I was trying to shoot the happy hour of the beautiful people. The idea was to go down there (111 Minna) during the daylight and shoot the hipsters hanging out on the sidewalk. As far as I know, it's the only daylight disco scene around. I got too busy and it got too dark and I was racing around malnurished but I did get off a few rolls. Here's another Holga double exposure mistake. Adrian Chan and Jason Lewis.

Hoff Street, San Francisco. I wish there was a dentist's chair in the middle of this parking lot.

New Montgomery

Treat Street. Cristina's fire escape.

18th Street. Across from Bi-Rite. 3:30am

I've listened to Desolation Row by Bob Dylan about 40 times today. I got my projector. It's a Sanyo XP21N. Now it's sunny and a little windy. Don't know if I'm gonna play softball or watch the NBA tonight.

dave@desolation.row

Leavenworth street, SF.

Noe Street and 14th, San Francisco, where they park 'em diagonal.

"They're selling postcards of the hanging...."

This is Ellis street and Leavenworth -- as if it matters.

Recycle Bins on Valencia. Bins will be bins.

Party people say hoooh. It's the 5.

David and Adam and I couldn't think of a thing to do Friday night but we shoulda gone here. We went to Magic Donuts instead, which used to be Hunts Donuts -- and used to battle for best sign in the Mission with the 5. Now it just battles the city to keep from getting shut down. The city actually threatened to confiscate their business because they were considered such a nuisance and safe harbor for vagrants and criminals. Straightup confiscate their whole business. Like they were terrorists or bootleggers. Can you believe it?

At 5th and Bryant, blowin' the last few frames off a roll before going into The New Lab.

With the sun all shinin' an everything lookin' beautiful, I wanted to put my skate back in the limelight. MMMM, limes and light: two of the most important things in my life right now.

Damn. I missed it today. This is supposed to be Wednesday's photo. That's the first time. I had a perfect record until I actually had something to do and somewhere to go. Oh well. Luckly I can postdate it.

This is a nice smokestack, eh? I think it's at the end of 19th off 3rd street.

Haven't been outside my house in a while. What better to do than post a photo that would make anyone scared to go outside.

I downloaded almost all of the 3 CD Xen Cuts compilation from Ninja Tune. Forking Brilliant.

New Montgomery and Mission. Poor guy couldn't hold his tongue in his mouth. What's that called? I know, I'll search the WEB! Well, it seems this affliction is common artistic inspiration. Let see now, he could have Geographic tongue...but I doubt he has the dreaded Scrotal tongue or Kawasaki tongue. (Bless his heart, aint that Kawasaki kid cute?)

It's always tough to select a photo for the day. I want to put them all up at once but I'm going to pace myself. Come to think of it, I have a photo that seems to echo the sentiment of the second sentence in this post. So, boys and girls, the theme for today is "one at a time."

Toll taker. GG bridge. Friday evening sunset on his face.

Worked all friggin night on a slideshow feature for this blog. Of course it doesn't work with Netscape 4. Of course. I still get 15 percent of the people who hit my site identifying themselves as being NS4. That's an awfully big thorn in my side. I'm sure you're not using that old stuff.

Forget it. Here's another picture. In honor of my stove. Since I just used it to heat up soup.

In case you're curious about the popup window, the code is from CodeLifter.

I rested my poor head tonight and missed the softball game with the architects, that was too bad. Ted said I could come as long as I didn't get as wasted at the afterparty as I did last time. He's still buggin that I killed him in ping-pong.

I fixed the youthilne.org website today. The agency details page had been broken for more than a month and nobody ever told me.

This is the BART station. I think it's New Montgomery. Isn't it nice?

How do I make a 5.1 surround sound theater system that is portable and can be used outdoors? This can be sorted out later, of course. But I just don't want to buy a non-portable system for my microcinema and then have to use a separate one when I do outdoor shows. I've been looking at DJ equipment but it's all 2 channel.

I thought I'd either buy the Sanyo XP18n or XP21n. And I'd do it quickly. Silent projections on a wall down near 16th and Valencia on the weekends. I have hours of footage of India -- street scenes and the like, that don't make compelling narrative but in the context of all those drunk people stumbling around in their black clothes I think it would be interesting. I'd like to sit out on warm nights with friends and drink beers and watch the people go by and just shoot pictures up onto something. I could combine all my favorite things in one activity.

On the subject of street art, here's one hand-dandy piece of information: free street power. In every Muni bus shelter there are regular power outlets. I found this out when I was watching some punk bands play in front of the Bart entrance at 16th and Mission. After shaking off the surprise of their presence, (Why have I never seen this? Why always preachers with bullhorns?) I looked for the generator but there was only an orange cord taped to the red bricks. I followed it incredulously to the bus stand. It snaked up the black pole next to the street map and up over the crossbar. On top of that metal bar running from front to back under the arch, there's a little metal plate that you can remove and expose the outlets. They played for hours and the cops never did anything.

I listened to a great rant about art by Billy Childish where he throws poop on the critics and says "the lie of originality, the ignorance of its champions and the intrinsic honesty of plagiarism." I just want to say that I'm through with originality. Go Billy.

I was sitting on the corner of 18th and Valencia under the Cherin's Appliances sign waiting for my Ricas Pupusas and feeling like the chain-link fence that my back was leaning against might be a little to springy for good chain-link fence leaning when a guy on a skateboard comes whipping down the street and barely steers his board up the wheelchair ramp onto the sidewalk where I was sitting. He made the daring maneuver because he spotted me sitting on my skate and wanted to come and sit with me.

He had blue pants on that were cut off below the knee. He had blue Nike basketball shoes. He had a blue poly long-sleeved dress shirt that was really tight and unbuttoned at the cuffs. It was Gary. We've talked that sorta witty, seat-of-your-pants banter off and on at parties and bars for the last 7 or 8 years. That's about all we've done with each other. Well, bumbed cigs and drank too I suppose. We saw each other at Amnesia last Sunday and managed to break through the odd "I probably know you, or I think I did 3 years ago" thing and had a nice little chat and I realized that he's got a thing about him that I like. I can fairly say that he possesses a mind which is freely-associative and quick witted without the nagging dementia that can set in once you cruise past your 20's. Boys like him are becoming rarer these days.

So we looked at the various foxy hipster girls walking by and I explained what a pupusa was and he decided to eat some.

While we were in Ricas Pupusas Gary looked toward me in a sincere kind of way and said, "I think we should be friends." I was kind of shocked but pleasantly surprised. I liked his delivery. It occurred to me that I was interested in just that sort of thing. Already accepting the idea that we were gonna try to be friends, I said, "What do you wanna do?" And he said, "Well, it doesn't really matter, I just thought...." And I immediately reassured him that the answer to my question was not a condition upon which I was going to base my response. I indeed wanted to be friends with him. No male has asked me to be friends in years.

There was long grass coming out of the chain-link fence and tickling my back so when our pupusas were ready I suggested that we go to the other side of the street and eat them. Gary liked the pupusas. He likes kim chee and the cabbage stuff on top is kind of similar. The chain-link fence in front of the used car lot was much more supportive.

When we were done eating I brought up the subject of being friends again and we shook on it. I put his digits in my cell phone but we didn't make any plans. I'm sure he likes surprises as much as I do. He skated off up Valencia and I skated down 18th.

I'm going to include photos. I just decided. Not like I have any big traditions to go back on. This is my first online writing in a year. Ok -- six months. I did do this a while ago. At the time I had a long way to go to getting further away.

I have the urge to put in all kinds of wack crap that will get my page listed in fucked up web searches. When someone searches on the Internet and then clicks on the results they get from google, the keywords they searched with end up in your website logs. It is one of my favorite pastimes to find the paths that people can dream up to get to my web. 99.999 percent of them would naturally have NO interest in my site.

I've had people directed to primco.org after searching for "bowling alleys for sale" on google and you don't wanna know what else. OK if you do, go to the Disturbing Search Requests weblog and see if the whackos have come up with anything new since "translucent hindu shepherd flyboy porn"

Here's my photo for the day. It's a picture of a diorama in Mission Dolores. I took it while the glass was reflecting the figures of some people looming over the little pastoral indian figures. It's a nice reminder of what used to be my neighborhood.