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
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!
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
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
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!
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…”!!
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
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!
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
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.
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.