Sightseeing in Our Town - Part II

Sightseeing in Our Own Backyard - Part II,
also known as
The Amazing Painted Utility Boxes of San Diego.

San Francisco might have the famous Painted Ladies, Mexico City has the famous Diego Rivera murals, and painting horses is all the rage at fancy rehab hospitals (check out pg. 5 of this article), but none of that holds a candle to the Amazing Painted Utility Boxes of San Diego.

These works are simultaneously transcendent and utilitarian. They transform the typical utility box from an easily overlooked, gray, metal, boxy and forgettable obstacle into an everyman's gallery; a unique canvas upon which the people of our fair city can express their vision, their identity, and their creative prowess. These utility boxes cease to be just a big hunk of city-works stuff that is in your way while you are on your way somewhere else, they instead are a destination in and of themselves.

I apologize for the weird spacing. Keep scrolling down. You'll live. The last picture is of firemen, so it is well worth the extra effort.


This utility box is just fierce. Look at that leopard, so confident and aggressive in temperament. This painting would be perfectly at home on black velvet. Look again. . .it took a moment to even notice it is on a utility box, didn't it? This utility box was photographed in University Heights, near my new favourite restaurant, Chicken Pot Pie Shop (blog post about this starchy wonderland is upcoming).


What are those zebras doing? This utility box is in Hillcrest.










This cloud is crying rain tears. Maybe it is crying about the litterbugs who left trash in the gutter.








Scooby is about to be beamed up by the mothership. On the other side of this utility box, Daffy is riding a magic carpet, and Yosemite Sam is bar-b-q'ing over a wash tub. My instincts tell me that a bunch of stoners painted this utility box. Photographed in Ocean Beach. Yup, probably was a bunch of stoners.


















This nature-scene-themed utility box shows a delicate and sandy environment full of tombstone cacti and Mt. Fuji-esqe mountains. While we are in a drought, and this is the desert, the pictures are more fanciful than they are a true and accurate representation of this area of the country's flora and fauna. I do like the bird that resembles an osprey, and I really love the jackrabbit eyeing the "warning high voltage inside" label. Photographed in Roseville.

















The painted birds of paradise flowers really make this bus stop more scenic and pleasant. They are much easier to maintain than real flowers, too. You almost can't tell they are utility boxes and not real flowers at all! Majestic floral utility box photographed in Loma Portal.









This sunset-inspired utility box is lovely. I like the beach break with 2 lines of white water, and I really enjoy how two of the palm trunks merge and then abruptly end, and how one of the palm tops is magically suspended on no trunk at all. It is as though the brilliance of the sun, or the high-voltage utility box innards seared right through the tree. Photographed near Old Town.





Dr. Seuss lived out his final years in San Diego, so it is appropriate that his contribution is commemorated on this respectable canvas.



More Seussiness, just down the block from the other pic.
















White Rabbit, and next utility box down the block is sporting a Cheshire Cat. Guess the neighborhood. Get it right, and I'll send you some cookies.

















This one is Dr. Seuss meets TeleTubbies.








This whimsical little number has Humpty Dumpty sitting on, well, it doesn't at all look like a wall. It looks like a dirt pile. Humpty does look tense and his legs are all tangled up. There were no king's horses nor were there king's men. Maybe this is just some Dumpty cousin, and not Humpty at all. This utility box gets extra points for painting its protective poles to match the palm trees lining the block. You almost can't tell they are just drunk-driver deflecting bollards!









This beautiful utility box also incorporates its guard poles into the overall design. I enjoy how small the scuba diver is compared to everything else. Maybe he is just far away.













This one is my personal favourite. This huge and well-fed octopod is reading 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. The building behind our octopod buddy is not Atlantis. It is our neighborhood library.















Bringing up the rear in our tour of glorious painted utility boxes is this doozey of a box outside the San Diego Fire Department Station 15. I love how on one side, the fire truck is coming right at you. On the other side, there is a swirling menace of flames and smoke. But, fear not, because on the last face of the utility box there is a strong firefighter, shown in dramatic silhouette, fighting a huge blaze, and, dare I say, winning against the flames because fire fighters are heroes and they save the day.







Feel free to start up a heady debate on the artistic merit and thematic resonance of the work, its multiple dimensions, how pop culture and fine art intersect in post-post-modernist contemporary art, the influence of primitivist stylings in an "anything goes" medium, or if you just like the pictures.

In Case You Were Wondering

In case you were wondering, I am a total bad-ass of home improvement.

In my current phase of unemployment/job hunt/soul searching/sleeping-in/ going to the gym in the middle of the day, I have spending a good part of my time upgrading our shit-hole rental apartment into a more livable and stylish space. If I am not working for money, I might as well be working for improvement in our quality of life.

We moved into this particular shit-hole because it met many of our criteria: lots of windows, few shared walls, space for me to grow some veggies and flowers, walking distance to the beach, and most importantly, affordable in one of the more expensive cities in the US on one paltry post-doc income.

One of the striking design elements of our shoebox by the sea was the liberal use of indoor-outdoor carpet. The carpet not only was ugly, but had a distinctive odor. There is a reason why eau de mildew, pet accident, and old dirt are not used in aromatherapy blends. They are nasty, that's why.

Knowing that our landlord is a very nice and lovely woman who is not the least bit interested in putting any money into our shack, we (meaning just me) decided it was better to apologize for after the fact, like when we move out in a few years, for changing the floor rather than asking her for permission, being told no, and having to live with the carpet that gave me a rash.

One of the benefits of being unemployed is that it gives me lots of time to stalk good deals. The internet is a horn of plenty for those willing to put in the legwork. I found a contractor who installed a laminate floor all over some fancy-pants house in Rancho Santa Fe and had a few hundred square feet left over. Oh really? You don't say! Hmmmm. . .I live in an apartment that is only a few hundred square feet! I bought said laminate floor from said contractor for about $ .55 a square foot. What a deal.

I tore out the indoor-outdoor carpet to find a slowly decomposing, somewhat moist, very sandy carpet pad. Did I mention we are 4 blocks from the beach? Who in their right mind thought carpet was a good idea near the beach? The carpet pad was choc full o' bad smells and about 8 lbs of sand.

After tearing that out, I found underneath the pad some carpet cutting utility blades left over from the installation of said atrocity, circa 1988, some old-school asbestos 9x9 tile, and what was probably once a very decent wood floor. The wood floor had lots of water stains. Let's hope those were water stains and not stains from other wet things. Sanitized the floor with industrial strength restaurant floor sanitizer just in case.

I stuffed as much of the old carpet in our trash bin as possible, but even though our apartment is tiny, our trash bin is tinier and could not hold all our old carpet. I loaded the rest of the carpet into my little hatch-back Toyota. Once night fell, I disposed of the evidence. I drove around the neighborhood looking for unlocked dumpsters behind big apartment complexes, bars, and Jiffy Lube. I would pull up, leave the car running, and unload just one or two strips of carpet into the dumpster, then drive away. This way, I didn't fill any one single dumpster with our detritus, and if, for some reason, our landlady was checking dumpsters, she wouldn't notice the carpet and recognize it as HER indoor/outdoor carpet. "Hey! I recognize that stain! That is from the crummy apartment with lots of potential I am renting to the scientist and his currently unemployed wife!"

The big error in this plan was leaving the carpet in the car all day while I finished working on the floor. The car cooked in the sun for hours and then was thick with dirty old cat-box/mold smells. I don't recommend it.

Installed the foam sub-floor vapor barrier layer thingy. I didn't know which side to face up, and found instructions on the internet saying silver side up, as well as silver side down. Excellent! I am right either way!

Installed the laminate floor, did a kick-ass job, and then put on new molding and quarter round. That's right, I totally installed a new floor and new molding. I know my way around a power saw.

Also found on the internet - several ceiling fans for $12 a piece. I replaced the kitchen light with a little ceiling fan. Check out the film. That is the ceiling fan, totally working, lights on and everything. The house has not yet burned down, as my task of wiring in the fan was not faulty. It rocked.

So, in case you were wondering, I am, in fact, a total bad-ass of home improvement.

That's the Spirit!

Well, at least we are in agreement on the problem.

from SD Weekly Reader, Aug 6, 2009.

Prophetic Lawn Art

Stunning. Just stunning.

Rock n Roll: My Not-So-Close Brushes with Fame

Good job, Team Far Flung! Thanks to many votes from many friends, our little buddies, Darling New Neighbors, made it up to the big show! -or at least to a less bushy bush league. They won the contest! Way to go, Neighbors!

The resurfacing of DNN in my thoughts, and their brush with fame long after I left the band has brought up many a reminiscence about my time spent in bands, in bars, in Austin. These little trips down memory lane into my ill-advised rock n roll history brought to the front of several friends' minds the story of my only other not-so-close brush with fame. Since the statute of limitations on shame is probably well up, and the hilarity of the story outweighs the humiliation, I will now share with you a classic and personal rock n roll moment.

When I lived in Austin the first time, over a decade ago, I was in a band called Superba. Superba the band shared names with my super-hero alter-ego, also named Superba. (This Superba has everything to do with public displays of rock and freedom and power punches and yelling, "GOOD NIGHT AUSTIN!!!", and has nothing to do with the new fangled superba that is some sort of carpet treatment. Don't confuse the two.) Superba the band was an all girl, heavy-drinking, heavy-hitting, mish-mash of little talent and tight t-shirts. We had a few noisy, high-energy train wrecks of a show at a few clubs and opened for some friends' band in Houston, and then I decided to move to San Francisco to pursue my career as a circus star.

Once in San Francisco, I satisfied not only my deep seated desire to study the circus arts, but also to work in the accounting department of JP Morgan Chase. At said job I wore grown-up office lady clothes and occasionally had to run paperwork over to the other office in the other building down the block. Both buildings are in the financial district in downtown SF, where the streets are packed with cabs and bike couriers and buses and cars and more bike couriers and more cabs.

While waiting for the light to change, I stood near a bike messenger who was adjusting his messenger satchel/dispatch radio set-up, and lo and behold, on his helmet, right in front of God and everybody, was a Superba sticker. An awesome, shimmery piece of merch from my band! My band! He had a Superba sticker on his helmet! Right in front of me!

Playing it real cool, I caught his eye and said, "Hey. Nice sticker." In my mind I was already playing out the conversation where he says it is his favourite band, I say I am the drummer, I am showered with fan adoration, both our lives seem so much more glamorous and awesome from our chance encounter on a San Francisco street. How great is that?

Well, reality ensued.

He said, "Yeah, it was this shitty band I saw once. The sticker is really cool, though."

I said nothing. I nodded nonchalantly. I looked at the walk signal. The light changed, I crossed the street, and went back to work.

That, my friends, is my other underwhelming and not-so-close brush with rock n roll greatness.

Sightseeing in Our Own Backyard

While San Diego is not known for its art scene, or its culinary delights, or its job market, or its vineyards or its liberal and tolerant culture, it is known for its awesome climate, historical sites, and military history. As part of my new mission to sight see in my own backyard, Ian and I rode our bikes to Point Loma Lighthouse.

Since the weather rarely varies from its cloudless/ low 80's pattern, it is unnecessary to point out the perfect cycling weather.

We rode from our Shoebox by the Sea out along Sunset Cliffs Blvd in Ocean Beach, then up over the appropriately named Hill Street, and then south on the 209, through Fort Rosecrans, to Cabrillo National Monument. Here's a map of our bike route.

We rode through Fort Rosecrans, which is still an active military site, past the famous and scenic Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, and past some really huge scale models of battleships and aircraft carriers. They were 6'-14' long, and choc full o' details, like little satellite dishes and stairwells and little poles that stick up with wires coming off of them and little portholes and little turrets and little cannons and all that.

For what are these amazing models used? Do new recruits go out and learn their way around an aircraft carrier by moving a to-scale GI Joe action figure around the model of the ship? Is this a Barbie Kitchen for military dudes?

Ian and I are looking into getting this aircraft carrier model and using it as our patio table. I think the bridge would make a great cup holder.

While I failed in my online search to find what these models are and who uses them, I did find this link which is really neat. Check it out.

As it turns out, the most scenic and lovely spots have also been, typically, the most strategic spots to sport a military base (Fort Point in SF, the Presidio in SF, the Presidio in SD, Fort Steilacoom, Fort Moultrie, and Tripler, to name a few) (disregard Ft. Hood). Point Loma is no exception. It is a gorgeous, elevated point that looks out over San Diego Bay, Coronado, and out to the Pacific. Even the "Deliveries Only" door has a great view.

At the visitor's center, I posed with a statue of Cabrillo the Conquistador, and then we watched a short movie in the visitor's center about the biology of the tide pools. As a biologist, Ian was appalled at the inaccurate information and poor/flat-out-wrong explanation of evolution. I took it with a grain of salt and appreciated the effort to educate the vacationing retired folks from Arizona about conservation and stewardship of delicate ecological areas.

After sighing through our noses during the well intended but, ultimately, underwhelming ecology lesson, we got back on our trusty steeds and bombed down a huge hill from the point down to the coast. It was very fast, and very fun!

At the bottom, we were sad to realize our visit corresponded exactly with high tide, so no tide pools for us. We did, however, meet 2 old dudes who were working on a photo project. Our chat about filters and shutter speed and digital vs. actual film was lively and fun. You gotta love two old guys who dork out over cameras and flirt with a married lady half their age.

The huge hill that was a thrill going down was a bitter mistress on the way up. I made it about half way up on my bike before thinking I was going to liberate the sandwich I ate. My handlebars don't need that kind of shower. The rest of the hill was conquered on foot. Slowly. Sans vomiting.

I think we can count the outing as a success.

Your Good Deed for the Day

Hello, and happy summer to you, my beloved Team Far Flung!

Years ago, I was in a band called Darling New Neighbors. I was their less-than-talented drummer. I had the good fortune of playing around Austin clubs and parties, cutting the demo in a moldy sound studio in a building that was condemned shortly thereafter, and going on the magical, mythical Hot Wet Deep South tour with this pack of musical, literary, library and scientific geniuses back in 2004. Here's a picture to prove it .

Since my level of commitment to other non-band things was way higher than my bandmates commitment to DNN, we cordially parted ways and they upgraded to a drummer who can actually keep a beat and learn songs and so forth.

Their awesomeness shows - DNN is a finalist contest to be the theme music for NPR's music blog, which is headed up by the amazing Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney fame!!

If you ever suffered through a show where I played drums and made up entirely brand new and unrepeatable time signatures, if you ever drove to South Carolina from DC to see your daughter's crappy band play in a really seedy bar where people were dressed as space explorers and vampires and vampire space explorers, if you ever saw your friends get better and better at what they love, if you love seeing the little guy win, if you have ever rooted for the underdog, if you have ever dreamed of being a rock star or a literary star or a science star, then you must vote for Darling New Neighbors. They are most awesome.

VOTE FOR DARLING NEW NEIGHBORS

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monitormix/