The End of the End

So the other day when we had the final Hella West Coast Report it was sort of the beginning of the end of my time in California. It is now the end of the end. I am in the San Francisco airport waiting for a plane to take me back to the East Coast, and I thought to myself, “Hey, you could put a little post on the blog, like a farewell.”

For the last few days, I was pretty much cooped up at the Long Haul Infoshop (in Berkeley) working with the amazing folks of the Slingshot Collective. Slingshot has been around for 16 or so years, and their “radical organizer” is pretty well known. We have them in NC, and they can be found in most parts of the US, and even internationally. Anyway, I met one of the guys from the collective a while back at a house show, and he told me that they needed some people to help with artwork for the calendar. Naturally, I volunteered, partly because I find it really hard to say no to any awesome anarcho project. So on Friday and Saturday I did two months of pages for the 2011 pocket-size calendar, plus one month-at-a-glance page, and on Sunday I did some editing and doodling for other things. Gonna be working on some possible cover art in the next few days, which is really exciting, as well as some features (for example, a “What’s Your Collective Personality Type” quiz)!

Once I get back to NC I’ll still be in touch with Slingshot, helping however I can from thousands of miles away. I’ll also be staying connected with Rock Paper Scissors, which is the art collective that I worked with for the majority of my time in the Bay. In fact, I’m really interested in doing some collective organizing of my own (well… it will be our own once it exists) in Chapel Hill / Carrboro when I get back. Gotta recruit some folks, but hopefully that will get going in the next few months!

It’s been so much fun doing HWCR for the past month and a half or so. Hope people enjoyed listening or thought it was at least marginally entertaining. I hope to be back on the WXYC airwaves in the Fall semester, so keep it locked to 89.3FM on your radio dial or streaming device of choice. ❤

Finally, I mentioned this in my last call, but there are pictures from the Pocahaunted / Peaking Lights show that I went to on my Picasa page. Link is on the right on the page. I’ll be posting the last of my pictures on there pretty soon, so check it out. :]

HWCR6: July 30, 2010 ~19:40

Hey evverbuddy, I’m just releasing this unfinished blog before there’s anything written so people can find links to the things we talked about… Peter and/or myself will make this more presentable, shortly, sometime over the weekend, I think… Right now the only think in this drop is the Late Young mp3:

http://drop.io/hellawcr6

Featured Bay Area local artist Late Young’s myspace page.

Late Young was one of the opening bands for Pocahaunted a couple nights ago, at Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco.

Peter’s current art project is with Slingshot:
Slingshot!
The Long Haul

HWCR5: July 23, 2010 ~19:35

…and now our penultimate Hella West Coast Report:

http://drop.io/hellawcr5

in which there were no major technical blunders, yet learning of a commercial venue called “Japan Town Mall,” located in some place called “Japan Town” in or near Oakland somehow confused me.  East Coast Richard is just too used to always hearing about China Town when it comes to the Bay Area.  Maybe Peter will edit this entry or add a new one to embellish?  I mean, I’m still wondering if it’s like all Japanese/Oriental owned and operated, if it looks different architecturally/design-wise from the usual caucasian owned/operated malls one typically experiences up and down the East Coast, and does the greater majority of shops feature items exclusively connected to Japanese culture in some way?  Or was it mainly a mall like Cary Towne Mall, but in Japan Town?

Here’s the link to the theatre where Peter went to see Street Car Named Desire,

and as we can see from his photos, The Castro is one of those neat old theaters, like our Carolina in Durham*, but with the interior layout preserved:

       

The local Bay Area artist/tune Peter featured for us, this week from Deep Magic, was *really* good.  If you missed it, you can grab the mp3 from the drop.io link above.  I suppose technically the track would be considered “noise,” but definitely *not* harsh: Overall harmonious, kind of an ambient drony thing, with a shot of gentle percussion as it develops.

 

Next week is our final, so be sure and tune in!  Thanks fer lissnin’!

 

 

*(The Carolina’s interior layout was preserved for day-to-day film screening until it closed in 1989 for the remodel, that presents it as we have it today.  At the Carolina, they *did* do restoration of the interior, but they also broke up the space, and now they primarily use those newly-created, tiny, little rooms for most of their film screening, which for me has been a a summary disappointment.  I know they still screen a film in the actual theater every now and again at the Carolina, but not enough for me to be happy.  Those tiny little screening rooms have been a huge letdown, for me, at any rate.)

20 July 2010… One Hella Busy Day!

So yesterday I didn’t really have plans for today, but then hella things happened. I woke up hella early (for me) to meet Ara (who was my guest star on the last call) at Cinnaholic in Berkeley, which is where our friend Chelsea works. Chelsea’s also a collective member at RPS, and she’s hella fantastic, not to mention a hella great chef! So, this place Cinnaholic just opened. It’s a vegan cinnamon bun shop, and OMG, it is hella great. Check out the website (linked above). Ara had a bun with coffee icing and almonds on top. I went for the almond icing with cherry/berry jam and blackberries on top. I really should have taken pictures, but alas. Anyway, after that I rolled into downtown Oakland to have a meeting, and then over to San Francisco to meet a friend who works at the Exploratorium (a really awesome looking place that I haven’t been inside of yet) to get some lumber for a construction project at the collective. And now I’m back in Oakland, and there a possibility I might head over to the San Pablo Flea Market to rummage around. Later tonight there’s a show at the Oasis (which I’m not really sure about), and then I guess it’s home again to sleep or something. Wow, what a hella busy day, when 24 hours ago I had nothing on the schedule. Also, please notice that I am getting alot better at colloquial use of the word “hella”.

So yeah, what else is up? This past Saturday I went to Point Reyes with some friends. It was really lovely, and I took lots of pictures (which I will post on my Picasa really soon). I got one of the worst sunburns of my life, and I haven’t been able to lay on my stomach since, but it’s getting better. I found on some blog that Vick’s VapoRub is supposed to be really great for sunburns, but I haven’t tried that yet. I guess I’m making myself suffer for my bad decisions. It is, in fact, my fault that I didn’t put on sunscreen and then fell asleep on the beach! Gah!

Upcoming awesome things:

– Going to Kim Nails in Fruitvale.

– Streetcar Named Desire @ Castro Theater.

– Fridays @ BAM/PFA!

– Pocahaunted, Peaking Lights & others @ Rickshaw Stop next week!

– RHPS @ Grand Lake Theater on the 31st.

HWCR4: July 16, 2010

Hey!

Peter here, making my inaugural post on the blog. So yeah, like I said in the last Report, I haven’t been going to a ton of shows in the past week or so, but lots of awesome things have been going on! Lots of work and projects at Rock Paper Scissors, and lots of wandering, hanging out, etc. It was really, really fun to have Ara on the call with me this week. She’s hella rad, lots of fun, and I hope you like hearing her. Check out the recording of the last Report at the drop.io link below, and listen to Shannon and the Clams!!! They’re really great. The track “I Wanna Go Home” should be in the drop, and I’m adding a link for their MySpace below.

http://drop.io/hellawcr4

www.myspace.com/shannonandtheclams

…and Richard dropping (on July 26!) to say the actual Hella West Coast Report has been added to the io.drop link above… mark it down as another Beßer Spät Als Nie Production!

HWCR3: July 9, 2010 19:34

This week Peter told us about the mood in the community now that the verdict on BART police officer, Johannes Mehserle, has come.  Mehserle fatally shot unarmed citizen, Oscar Grant, in the back as Mr. Grant was held, face down on the floor, during an arrest on New Year’s Day in 2009; Mehserle claimed he had meant to use his taser, but he somehow accidentally drew and fired his gun, instead.  The jury delivered a guilty verdict, although rather than convict the officer of murder, they called it involuntary manslaughter.  Needless to say the mood has been tense, but riots were neither as intense nor as destructive as those that took place shortly after the murder happened.

As for music shows, there were several, and he shared an mp3 of gkfoes vjgoaf, whom he’d seen.

He also told us about a new exhibition that just opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, introducing the Fisher Collection.  (The Fishers being the family that opened the first GAP store (!).)

Here’s the mp3 of the call-in (~27 minutes) and also in a separate file, the gkfoes vjgoaf:

http://drop.io/hellawcr3

Be sure to check his photos, linked on the right, for new pics as he adds them!

HWCR2: July 2, 2010 20:20

You can check Peter’s public photos anytime using the link to the right (“Peter’s Photos”) >>>>
but here’s the specific link to the shots he took of Pride Weekend.

He’s got pictures from Friday’s Transmarch as well as shots of Sunday’s mega celebration, including the thrilling climax with The Backstreet Boys.

Every WXYC dj’s dream concert, to be sure!

…seriously, forget the Backstreet Boys… his photojournal is worth the click!

…and while I’m dropping specific links, here’s his Rock Paper Scissors photo album.

I was a little disappointed to learn that Pride Weekend participants in San Francisco were very similar in demographic to the crowds we have around here for Pride events. I was hoping to learn that more random, “typically”(?)-oriented folks would take part. Hearing about the Backstreet Boys performing as the closer for the weekend, however, was …entertaining. For reals.

Peter told us about the AK Press warehouse sale he’d been to earlier, and as he was talking to us he was setting up for an art exhibition…

We ended with a piece by noise artist Sean McCann called Kellogg.

http://drop.io/hellawcr_2

Peter said there were lots of good music shows coming up this week, so that’s what we’re looking forward to next time… join us!

HWCR1: June 25, 2010 19:10

We began our Hella West Coast Report this evening, a little after 7pm, here on the east coast. Peter was on the way out to take part in Transmarch, the first of three marches held over Pride Weekend in San Francisco, but before he left, he told us a little about Rock Paper Scissors, and shared a tune from Bay Area local artist, Colleen Green.

If you missed the segment, or if you want to relive the excitement, we’ll be using drop.io to share mp3s of his call-ins and this week we include Colleen’s “4 Loko 2 Kayla” track in the same drop.

http://drop.io/hellawcr1

Be sure to tune in next week to find out what Peter thinks of Pride Fest, plus check his next featured local artist, to be named… then!

Thanks for listening!