From the San Francisco Bay Area

The three pictures above are all murals from a mural-covered alley just off of Mission St in San Francisco. If they don't entirely make sense, they'd probably have a bit more flavor after inebriation takes places.



The two pictures above are from behind my apartment building. The first picture is some three-eyed creature with a two inch head, among the plants behind some thin wire fencing. The second is just another example of a utilitarian use of a vice-grips, and the beauty that twenty-five years of rain have turned it into.


The photo above is from a traffic light pole a few blocks from my house. Some artist put it up, and I was lucky to get a picture of it because when I came back the next week, it was gone. I'm not sure if the picture shows it or not, but right near the top is some text on the pole that says it's against some city ordinance to post or graffiti on things. Actually, Oakland has those ordinances written almost everywhere, and sadly, there is very little graffiti in much of Oakland, especially downtown. Stupid tags and throw-ups I could live without, but it would be nice to have a little more shining counter culture around here. The people who own the poles and the walls want to keep them clean and sterile apparently.... I lightened the text of the placard a little bit and added more contrast using some software, but its still a little hard to read -- if you want to see what it says take a look at the name of the .jpg file.