Love Them Chandeliers!
Posted by Dave | August 15th, 2010 | Filed under Culture
I’ve noticed the chandelier motif is very popular – similar to the baroque style wallpaper backgrounds you see everywhere in the design world.
Here’s three recent samples I’ve seen right here in the SF Bay Area.
Citizen Space – a co-work space I’ve used in the South Park area of SOMA.
Beauty parlor in Berkeley’s 4th St. shopping district.
And last, but not least, Pesto Bar Café in Sebastapol. (I’m trying to dig up a photo of their chandelier featured sign.
Oaklavia
Posted by Dave | July 7th, 2010 | Filed under Culture, Oakland
I participated and rode my bike around the streets Oakland – what a blast! Maybe this should become a permanent Sunday event? Downtown Oakland is mostly a ghost town on the weekend anyway.
Adam Curry Offers Stern a 100 Million Dollars
Posted by Dave | June 14th, 2010 | Filed under Culture
Bike Church Photos
Posted by Dave | April 18th, 2010 | Filed under Culture, Food, Oakland
More snaps from today’s Bike Church + some snaps of the cool garden space behind Manifesto/Subrosa.
A little gospel…
Posted by Dave | April 18th, 2010 | Filed under Culture, Food, Oakland, Street Food
Bike Church
Posted by Dave | April 18th, 2010 | Filed under Culture, Food, Oakland, Street Food
Live blogging from 40th Street!
Manifesto Bicycles is starting up its Sunday morning Bike Church again. Featuring bicycles (lots), music and raffles. There is also half off coffee next door at Subrosa Coffee (best in East Bay).
Tags: culture bikes
What’s Happening in Oakland!
Posted by Dave | February 8th, 2010 | Filed under Culture, Oakland
Check out Cool Hunting’s nice video of some of our favorite people and places in Oakland.
SubRosa Café – The Place to See and Be Seen!
Posted by Dave | September 15th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Music, Oakland
My new favorite café is SubRosa located near our neighborhood on Oakland’s 40th Ave between Telegraph and Broadway. This little vibrant spot also sports the excellent Manifesto Bicycles and indie-collectible record shop, 123 Records.
While getting my daily cup today, my bleary eyes noticed this interesting looking guy with spiky gray hair poking out of the bike shop with a folding bike. He looked like he was seeing if it was safe to go outside as he looked up and down the street. As I was thinking this guy looked familiar a woman walking down the sidewalk exclaimed, “are you who I think you are!”, it was then I realized it was David Byrne!
He told me he was waiting for a cab, and I explained that they are pretty pokey here in Oakland. He ended up hanging out where I was sitting the sidewalk benches. He went in a got some coffee and the ladies inside were super happy. Mr. Byrne was gracious and let me take a couple of snapshots with the shop owner’s iPhone.
Tags: 40th st., david byrne, Oakland, sub rosa
David Byrne Designs Bicycle Solutions
Posted by Dave | September 15th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Music, NYC, Oakland
After running into David Byrne yesterday while getting my morning coffee, I was curious to see he was getting a folding bike from Manifesto Bicycles next door. Turns out, he’s an avid cyclist and loves to cycle around his native New York City as well as the cities he visits while he is on tour. He has turned his creative attention toward advocacy of urban cycling as well as urban design.
He’s been designing some urban bike racks as well!
Funny Look At Oakland
Posted by Dave | June 21st, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Humor, Oakland, Politics, Tech
Oakland can be a great place to live – but it’s true, jaywalkers are everywhere and are real, real slow.
Improv Everywhere – The Mp3 Experiment
Posted by Dave | June 15th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, NYC, Tech
Improv Everywhere which brought us Underwear on the Subway and other flash mob participation events, now brings the Mp3 Experiment. Participants started on NYC’s Roosevelt Island, then started listening to programmed set of steps from a Mp3 file on their iPods. The creepy voice and its series of events reminds me of Negativland’s A Big 10-8 Place.
25 Things I Hate About Facebook
Posted by Dave | March 4th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Humor
Funny vid by Julian Smith. I somehow avoided the 25 Things Meme on Facebook as the colossal waste of time to do it would be better spent doing some other inward realization exercise somewhere else.
It’s the beautiful mom’s in their Yoga clothes… A Tribute to Trader Joe’s!
Posted by Dave | February 12th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Humor, Music
Video from Carls Fine Films
What are your favorite things from Trader Joe’s? I hate when I get caught singing along to the 80s songs in the Rockridge store.
Art on the Q Train
Posted by Dave | February 8th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, NYC
Video by Kevin Serra | www.kevchino.com
When Dru and I visited NYC last month, our friend Kevin show us this Zoetrope style art installation from the Q Train while riding between DeKalb and Canal St. He shot this with his G10 through the subway car window.
How the Bush Street Was Renamed Obama Street in SF
Posted by Dave | January 23rd, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Humor, San Francisco
This is a great little video from the team behind the transformation of Bush St. to Obama St. in San Francisco on Inauguration Eve.
Begin Obama!
Posted by Dave | January 21st, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Humor, San Francisco
Photo by Jef Poskanzer
All the street signs on San Franciso’a Bush Street were renamed Obama Street by some Pranksters Monday night – just in time for the Inauguration!
Obama on “Check Please…”!!
Posted by Dave | January 19th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Food, Politics, San Francisco
I just discovered that Barack Obama, then a little known Illinois State Senator, was on a pilot episode of the Chicago [original] version of Check Please… The San Francisco version on KQED is one of my favorite shows. The show features three regular people that share their favorite restaurants and the other two guests check it out and share their opinions.
Bob Wilkins – Thanks for the Memories
Posted by Dave | January 14th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Oakland
Creature Features host Bob Wilkins passed away last week. I finally got around to finding some clips from Creature Features and Captain Cosmic, two of his shows on KTVU Channel 2 here in Oakland.
Bob was quite unique in the horror show host genre. A droll guy with glasses and a big cigar. I saw the very first preview of Star Wars on his Creature Feature show. It was quite a moment and created so much anticipation of the film. They showed that clip over and over in the Spring of ’77. Wilkins sometimes would come down to Santa Cruz and do a meet ‘n greet at the local comics store, Atlantis, then on Pacific Avenue.
Another great memory was when he would feature Williard and show preview clips with all the rats.
No Pants on the Subway a Success!
Posted by Dave | January 14th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Humor, Oakland, San Francisco, Uncategorized
I was wondering if this was going to happen in SF. A lot of Gaza protesters were riding BART to SF on Saturday morning. Seeing the two groups together would have been interesting. I was taking BART from Oakland to SF on this morning so Dru could pick me up at the Balboa station so we could get the heck out of town. Everyone had pants.
Crazy Nights in Oakland
Posted by Dave | January 9th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Oakland, Tech
Helicopter over Oakland - Photo by Thomas Hawk
It has been noisy with helicopters constantly in the air. The downtown streets started filling up with protesters two nights ago. After a grocery trip, I followed one of the helicopters towards Lake Merritt. I turned down Madison and then at the intersection with 14th St., I saw a dozen police cars, and scores of OPD. Smoke was in the air. A dozen or so bystanders were on the sidewalk. I parked and started to check out the scene. I talked to a street journalist guy with pro Sony headphones and a microphone who was interviewing people to see what was going on. He told me it was that this is where the Fruitvale BART protest ended up and that there was rioting.
I went back to my car and sent out a couple Twitter messages. A bottle crashed to the pavement a few feet from my car. Time to get out!
Helicopters circled the city all night. I checked tv to see if there was any coverage. The local Oakland station? Nope. The only station doing some live coverage before 10PM was KRON. The most news I got was from doing searches for ‘riot’ and ‘Oakland’ on Twitter’s summize.com.
Though there are reasons for the community to be upset about the tragic New Year’s Eve BART shooting, trashing the struggling business of downtown Oakland doesn’t seem to be the answer. The businesses and citizens of Oakland had nothing to do with this incident. There seemed to be an anarchist element that came from out of town that helped create the violence, arson and property damage that happened that night.
Smashed dreams? Photo by Thomas Hawk
It was only two months ago these streets were full of joy and hope after Obama was elected. Now there are boarded windows and burnt cars in the streets.
