A Funny Thing Happened…

These pieces are inspired by interesting stories and stellar minutiae that have happened in the history of the Bay Area.

Sneakerpimps, 2022

Stoneware inlaid with colored porcelain,

10” x 10” x 14”

This piece commemorates a shooting that happened outside my old studio on Eddy & Taylor in the Tenderloin on January 16th, 2021. According to the reports, 4-5 gentlemen who neither lived with 30 miles of the neighborhood, nor held gainful employment in the vicinity, decided to open fire on each other for some perceived mutual slight. Four of them sought medical attention for gunshot wounds in Oakland afterwards, presumably on their flight back to the Far East Bay. The wounds and damage invasive sneaker pimps like this cause to my former neighbors is less recoverable. Doubly so, since they made the streets unsafe during the statewide lockdown in a neighborhood where the majority of people live in tiny SRO’s.

This piece is destined for a book published by Gnashing Teeth Publishing which will be distributed to Congress in support of strengthening gun laws.

Operation Midnight Climax

Operation Midnight Climax was a covert CIA operation conducted in San Francisco in the 1950’s and 60’s under the MK Ultra project umbrella. The CIA ran a bordello on Chestnut Street, where unsuspecting men were fed massive doses of LSD, and then observed covertly.

Doggie Diner Heads

“Nothing Finer than Doggie Diner”

The Doggie Diner was a local chain of 24 hour a day restaurants started in Oakland, CA in 1948 by Al Ross. They were famous for their chili dog, Western hamburger and other treats. In its heyday, the Doggie Diner operated 22 restaurants throughout the Bay Area, before closing in 1986.

After the restaurant closed, the sculpted fiberglass heads became highly coveted, Suicide Club founder John Law bought and restored three of them and the City of San Francisco restored one and permanently installed it on Ocean Avenue.