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May 8, 2013
Walkn n
02/07/2013
Walkn n
N the morning cool wet streets and pigeons pecking at soggy wet bread in the streets of north beach
The sun is shining today
Dripping wet motorcycle but ots mine! Got it back from sfpd.
A spectacular day
Peeling back the blanket of winter
All the scars and all the scabs of winter painted over in fresh spring makeup
Grizzled men Watering the flower boxes along columbus
Homeless sleep in doorways beneath damp blankets
At transamerica pyramid scaffolding and a chinese beggar pushes before her a
Titanic sized Cart filled with cans
Columbus turns into montgomery
A couple comes down the wet street on motorcycle
Precariously riding the line between death and life
Im at wk :)
02/11/2013
Walkn n
Chinese new year
The year of the slug
Firecracker wrappers cover chinatown
Old broken chinese men smoking
All Red Crackers is the brand of fire crackers
An old woman rushes down steep hill on a walker
Im at work
Mostly takn pics today
02/13/2013
Walkn n
Cool grey low fog skies
I try to shoot the city
So that i might rememder it when i'm gone
So that i might remind my future self what Sf was like
Kids toddle down steep hills babbling like fountains on the way to school
Washing down the sidewalks at broadway
Writing parket tickets
A bus stops spilling asians into the streets
They surge across the street
No crosswalk
No lights
Nada
Theyre writing tickets to a fedex truck n NB
The cable is going nits today
The uphill cable has too much slack in it
Its snapping and popping louder n ever
I wish i could record that sound
Yike
I just realized i dont have my headphones on
Somethin goin on at market/montgomery
Man in loud dooming voice
Baritones "and they shall rise up!"
Like a drum major for the Homeless parade
U might follow him also
Marching along calling the chant
Where is he going
Wearing two backpacks
He is like Captain Homeless
Bellowing and marching
So that you might want to follow him
To see where he leads you
Only i follow him a short distance and he turns around to walk the other way
And you realize hes, at best, a false phophet
But in truth, just another meth addict
Im at work
02/14/2013
Walkn n
In the cool morning sun burning off thick fogs
Im climbing the filbert steps
No jacket today
Im sleeping with the windows open again
Finally got my iphone synced w the macbook air n got some new tracks to listen to on the walk n
Now some tourists from vancouver looking for the parrots
Princess flowers n bottlebrushes n great flocks of robbins pecking at white blooms
Tangled mangled mess of vines choking one another likes city subway vagrants
Some agapantsus beds at the end of montgomery street
A london plane tree slowly cracks out of a planter
The gardens at the foot of vallejo
Crippled pigeons hobble down montgomery
Flocks of pigeons over broadway. I wonder why they form and fold like prayer cloths n split apart again
Boxes of fresh cut flowers
Theyre cutting them open on the sidewalks
Wrapping them in clear plastic wrap
48 degrees n u would never want it any warmer if youre walking
And now the firetrucks screaming down montgomery
Running lights
Everyone diving from the crosswalks
Flocks of pigeons explode leaving behind treasured morning bread heels
The homeless scan the free dailies which is kinda funny
Like i live in the streets but i wonder whats going on in the world
Now screams the ambulance
Racing down market
Hell kill the ceo of a fortune 500 company trying to save a meth addict
Im at work
02/27/2013
Walkn n
The inconceivable madness of chinatown
I bounce down the sidewalks of stockton like a warm pachinko ball
At one point, i find myself on a pallet being lifted into the air as i dodge crates of produce and ancient chinese babbling in cantonese
Fresh fortune cookies from the fortune cookie factory in ross alley
Shattered purple glass sidewalks and hobo feces
A handicapped homeless old black man with a shiny new scooter ripping down the sidewalks
Slowly it dawns on me that the financial district is all owned by the national and international banks
Banks that closed ranks with the repeal of the Glass-Stegal Act.
Both of the cables are popping like mad today
Uphill and downhill
Red said he hangs out at the walgreens on pine n montgomery
But i dont see him there
Im at wk
03/15/2013
Walkn n
Cool foggy san francisco
The queue at mamas on washington square
The asians perform foreign exercises in unison in the park
Service trucks squeak by
They all work together
The asians are all in step
Staying in shape
When have the blacks ever organized themselves to do anything?
Produce distributors unloading produce onto sidewalks
Its easy to see the things you see
Whats much harder is to see the things you dont see
Or to wonder why the things that are missing are missing
Yeah....like when you look beside you why am I not there!? Or in the window reflection peeping around you!;) I am missing!!
The madness of chinatown
Aged men chained to dollies
Smoking in perpetuity
Im looking for a sign
Am i through here?
Or should i dig in deeper?
Its so hard to know
A courier rides a bike up an impossibly steep hill
Its so hard to see whats not here
Where are the jugglers? The street musicians?
I saw a black man in the bart tunnels blowing on a flute
But he didnt know how to play it
A group of homeless people waddels down steep Pine Street
Pushing rolling suitcases before them
Im walking down kearney now
It would be nice to have a break
One post plaza
Office workers mix uneasily with the fields of homeless
A group of first grades led like ducklings with backpacks down brick sidewalks with marble curbstones
The guy that holds the door at 7-11
A firetruck screams down market
Stops at bart
SFFD
Slow methodical
I try to follow them down past all the homeless people living underground
But my Clipper card says SEE AGENT
The kids are all on spring break field trips
Thats the deal
Waves of children now
Guided by frayed teachers
The same girl works the desk every morning
I wonder why
But i do the same thing every morning
Am i any better than her?
Im at work
03/21/2013
Walkn n
Freezn cold n clear
Its so weird to think about leavn sf
Such a beautiful city
Shing pearl on the bay peninsula
The line at mamas is long today
The corner bakery my cab driver told me about
The chinese and their surreal synchronized exercise rituals
But jen isnt here and she needs a father
We are not dogs, after all
A chinese bakery ive never noticed before
I think about all the things ive left undone
A woman rides fixie down stockton
The madness of the produce stands at stockton and pacific
The ross alley fortune company
Fortune cookie company
The tulip trees of portsmouth square
Now the homeless zombies of kearney st
You dont see homeless people in chinatown
SF DPT on bicycles Writing tikets to feed the machine
I try to think about what comes next
Its so hard to predict the future
So hard to see that we create our own realities
Such a hard sell
I hope i dont go back to colorado and collapse into hibernation
I try to think about driving up and down the hill shuttling jen to and from school
Its so hard to think about separating myself from this city
I dont even know if im quitting or being let go
Its so hard to fold this city neatly away like an heirloom quilt into an attic steamer trunk
A homeless boy on drugs walks down the brick sidewalks of market street studying the line of water from the window washers
No socks
Shoes untied
Holding a sleeping bag
He's lost but doesnt know it
Im at work
04/22/2013
Walkn n
Insanely nice morning
Warm clear sunny
Everything fresh n green
Gingko trees with leaves now
Winter peeled back like a grapes skin
N beneath is a raw but delicate spring
I walk to the gardens
I want them to surprise me with something beautiful
Callelillies n white tulips
Fortnight lillies n indian date palm
Purple onions n the purple flowers at columbus's feet
Dark cool shaded brick steps and songbirds calling for a mate
Allium n hummingbirds
Bottlebrush n bees
Now the princess flowers n japanese mapels with pink flower petals
Napier lane but i dont see laurel the garden kitty
Light fog horn calls from the bay
A trawler slips by stunning landscape
And now descending on trembling calves to sansome st
Allium and pride of madiera
Even with no jacket im sweating
Like a raisin in the sun
Now into the deeply cool shadows of the financial district
Young businessmen in jeans wander slowly through concrete sidewalks debating business strategy as they debate football strategy on sundays
And only i think that, if i could coexist with others this might be my fate
I could have been someone if only i'd ever really tried
Now the courriers and squealing buses
The overheadbus lines sparking n pulling
The repeal of glass stegal act financed this nightmare
Collapsible bicycles n new tulips at work
04/23/2013
Walkn n
Insanely nice. Clear sunny warm
Washington square asians swaying in the air
St peter n paul cathedral
I dunno why im wearing my jacket
Ill sweat to death
Toothless chinese bums fishing for garbage
Tortured bananas hung by their throats
Heaps of stuttering green beans n ancient hands searching them for defects
Men drive forklifts up stockton street
As ancient asians hock their lungs into street
Fish gasp for air in plastic bins
Unimaginable graffitied uhaul trucks
Im at work
05/02/2013
Walkn n
Dogs walking near wash square
Raucaus parrots alarm clock
This city so insanely nice
A camera is such a poor tool to capture it all
The scent of fresh bread on th morning air
Kids totter off to school gnawing on loaves of oven fresh bread
Shop owners spray down morning sidewalks
clear sunny warm skies and now th first fortnight lilies bloom and a tiny ladybug finds them
And now th broken homeless people sleeping in storefronts on cardboard mattresses
A homeless man roots through an open dumpster
Maybe he is a ladybug n this is his flower?
Everywhere work crews attacking the city at every orofice
Drilling away at the building walls
Its hard to imagine that all of this noisy chaos makes sense...that theres an intelligence at work behind this madness of scaffolding , traffic cones, and trucks
And now the moon lines up with a spanish cupola n. i stop to shoot
Im fairly pleased with the results but i think no one else noticed
Boquets of fresh cut flowers on a sidewalk stand
Stacks of sf chronicles on th sidewalk
Thr may 2nd? Is that right? Ive lingered too long. Must get to th airport
Th way people dress here its hard to tell the well heeled from the homeless
The best way to tell is to look at their hands
The homeless never bathe
Im at work
Sf airport train
Sleepy frowning commuters schlepping thu the citys bowels
Modern prisoners
Our forefathers rod above ground on fine horses
And we run thru subterranean tunnels like sewer rats
On bart
Im stretched so thin
Pulled in so many different directions
As i float thru the city sewers on bart
Im at SFO
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 8, 2013 at 6:10 PM
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