I've taken to eating breakfast at Fred's Place, this diner that resembles the country store from O Brother Where Art Thou in the scene where George Clooney's character finds his wife and his daughters trying to convince him that she's marrying someone who is "bonafide". My first morning there the old men in the corner were all reading the newspaper whilst carrying on a conversation about public radio, their noses still buried in their respective journals. If the counter is full you share the four large oak tables with the other customers. On Friday morning Dave, Jeff, and I sat with a set of odd looking twin brothers and their wives. We didn't say anything to each other but we were talking about roughly the same thing (what it would be like to be living in Brooklyn). Odd right? The coffee cups are made of thick white ceramic. I've only ever seen them at the Miss Albany Diner in Albany, NY. I've taken a few photographs with my new medium format Bronica but they won't be ready for a bit. Need to take them to the lab and get some contact sheets made. This is a poor man's develop. I love hash browns with breakfast because I can smother them in hot sauce. Breakfast food is a vehicle for hot sauce. I don't put hot sauce in my coffee though. Just cream.
The sun has paid us visit every day this past week but the nights are still crisp. There are seals in the harbor which is no more than one hundred yards from the studio. The salt air does wonders for your mental state. We've all been drinking Kombucha. Smells like the bottom of a bar trash can, doesn't taste much better, but does great things for your well being.
We're living in a giant house in the San Rafael hills.
There are three huge sliding glass doors in my room that open to the north, onto the deck and every morning I watch the valley that has filled with fog overnight burn off as the sun slips back into our lives. I won't be depressed when the rain comes, because this is San Francisco, and it will come. It'll be a nice change of pace. I've been feeling under the weather for the past two days. Could this be the old-man-in-the-rocking-chair-on-the-porch me talking?
This morning we all cooked breakfast. I made croque madames for Isaac and myself. Lavery and I picked up Jeff and we drove to the upper Haight where we had coffee at my favorite communist coffee shop. Then I spent $219 at Amoeba Music. My purchases include The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses on vinyl. I've been trying to find this record for six months. Amoeba had four copies.
We all showed up back at the house tonight heavily laden with our purchases, books from SFMOMA, movies, records, new leather boots, and hard to find organic soaps. Our home away from home feels rich. I'm happy.
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Back around Thanksgiving I was hired to direct a short documentary about new Columbia Records artist Newton Faulkner. So I flew over to England where he was on tour and spent 4 days on the road for the piece. Guess the powers that be liked the video so much that they asked me to create a viral video for his first American single, Dream Catch Me. Newton told me while on the road with him that the song is about "waking up one day and realizing how much the person next to you (married to) has become a part of you". My concept was to create a neo-american gothic image of the harsh upper American midwest during the dead of winter combined with the images of a couple that had been married for 54 years. Everlasting love and disappearing America.
We also threw in a few special effects. Kelly helped me create this scene in our studio in Denver. The "folks" in the video are also his grandparents.
Here's what I came up with...
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