Gallery openings at Skullz Press, and Fifty24SFFriday night a couple of friends of mine checked out the gallery openings at Skullz Press and Fifty24SF. We intended to check out Gallery 16 too, but time did not permit us, as we chose to pre-booze our faces before we journeyed onward into the night.
First up was Skullz Press. This was my first time at this gallery, although I've been a fan of Mike Giant's work for some time. The atmosphere was exactly how I like it, dimly lit and crowded with a bunch of boozed up mutants. Ok, so they weren't mutants. In fact they were the type of folks you'd expect at such an event, the old cliched SF hipster, but that's quite alright. Giant's art was great and I noticed a sign on the wall that proclaimed "all posters $40," however I learned that only some of the posters were actually for sale, and not the one that I had my eye on.
I picked up a one of the prints to hang on my wall and VERY briefly chatted up Mike Giant who you can imagine was being accosted every ten seconds by another enthusiast. Anyhow I learned that this would be the last Skullz Press opening at the Divisadero location, as Mike will eventually be relocating his gallery elsewhere in the city.
After Skullz Press we headed back down the hill to see if we could finally get past the large crowd that had materialized outside of Fifty24SF Gallery. It was close to 10pm and there were still quite a few people there, but we managed to squeeze in before they closed for the night. As forecast the show was tremendous. Choe's work is even better in person, and much larger than I had imagined. I was really hoping to get a chance to briefly meet Choe and show him a small unusual painting of his that I acquired a couple years back by chance. Unfortunately at this point in the night he had already taken off. So as we were standing around outside trying to figure out where to go next I noticed a man that resembled pictures I'd seen of David Choe so I approached him and awkwardly asked if he was "the man." Much to my embarrassment it was not David Choe, but instead his brother, I think his name was Jimmy. Oh well, on to Toronado for some beverage.
If you get a chance both of these shows are worth checking out. I also imagine the Maya Hayuk show at Gallery 16 is worthwhile too, but I haven't made it there yet so I'm unable to give you a first-hand report.
SaturdayI spent most of the morning and afternoon as a tourist walking around North Beach, China Town, and Fisherman's Wharf. My girlfriend and friend Bob were both interested in getting some Chinese food, but I have almost nothing but bad experiences with the local cuisine so I was very skeptical on selecting a place to eat. The streets were crowded as usual (or more-so). The annual Chinese New Year festival is going on throughout the month so the streets were blocked off and there were quite a few vendors with nothing of interest to me.
I eventually got a calzone in North Beach and some delicious brew at Cafe Trieste, followed up by several hours of tooling around the wharves and antique arcade.
Sunday
We took a scenic drive around Marin county and ended up at Target, where my girlfriend had been savagely trying to get me to take her to for many months now. No spectacular deals were found.
Later that evening while laying around the house procrastinating a visit to the gym we heard a quite a few police/fire sirens passing by (more than the usual amount). Little did we know, just up the street a 22 Fillmore MUNI bus had struck and severed a fire hydrant at the corner of Haight and Fillmore. Somehow we didn't hear the gallons upon gallons of water shooting into the air a block up the street, so we missed the entire spectacle; but luckily in this day age Youtube was able to provide me with eyewitness accounts of the event. Wow!
