SOCCER!

 

 

What a day it was!

My final post of 2016 was about painted garage doors.

Early in 2017, I posted photographs of painted garage doors taken by Ian Wood.

Ian’s interest in Berkeley’s garage doors started in 2016 when he was walking his dog Milky. He wanted to turn the routine into less of a chore and into something fun – something to get him to look forward to walking the dog.  He noticed an interesting garage one day, and then challenged himself to find more of them.

So – he started driving to random neighborhoods he was unfamiliar with and walked his dog there while I looking for more garages. He started taking alternative walking routes to BART.  Surprisingly, he always manages to find something interesting, even though there is a finite amount of garages here. Why? “Berkeley has a lot of history and quirk, and many of our garages embody both of these qualities.”

He now has a website that is just plain tip top.

He is out there on the street looking and finding and thrilled with what he finds.  He is a fellow traveler.  I can’t say enough good about his quest and website.

He has been out walking, finding things that weren’t there when I walked the city.  I know, I know – I have to get back into walking the streets some.  I’ve been talking about it and even done it a little.

 

I vow to do this.  I really do.  Back to the basics Tom!

With Ian’s permission, I grab here some of my favorite of his newer finds.

An homage to the global protest marches of January 21, 2017 in response to the breathtaking misogyny of newly inaugurated Donald Trump.

Bateman (sometimes known as Batman) was home to several radical collectives 50 years ago.  This painting evokes Keith Haring, but maybe that’s just me.

Actually, this one was there, I just never found it.

In my search for hex signs in Berkeley, I photographed the hex sign here in August 2014.

At the time, the doors weren’t painted.

And – these two looks at bison on Ada.

As a bonus, Ian sent me a photo of his mailbox.

As a bonus, I post it here.  He is definitely letting his freak flag fly, as David Crosby so passionately sang in “Almost Cut My Hair.”

I asked my friend for his take on the post.

Predictably, he first fixated on the mailbox and Hendrix.

 

I say “predictably” because he often strays from the point at hand and because this is what his bedroom at the time looked like in 1970.  He was a big time Jimi fan.  He once showed me a notebook that he kept about Jimi.  “Little Wing : voicing – standard seventh-position Em chord, with the E root note sounded on the fifth string’s seventh fret, Fifth-string-root bar chord. Uses pinkie for higher notes on each of the strings, melodic fills.”

The only thing related to Hendrix that my friend has in his new quarters is a framed copy of the headline from 1967 when Hendrix quit as the opening act for the Monkees, whose music he had described as “dishwater.”

My friend pointed to his poster of the Berkeley Hendrix concerts.  “I went to the concert, both shows.  Knew the roadies and they comped me.  I was packing my bags in case I had to split for Canada after the draft lottery on July 1st.  It turned out being born on July 7th was a good thing.  I was packed and decided to hit the road anyway.  Didn’t come back for a couple of years.”

Understanding that the mailbox is extremely quirky and wonderful, what did he think about the garage doors and Ian’s quest?