San Francisco Arts Commission - Street Artists

About 25 years ago, somebody gave me a cup that said 'The Whole World is Crazy but you and me".

I have a lot of vendor friends and one of them told me that he sells a couple of his products as a Street Artist in San Francisco. To get approved you have to submit your application and you then are put on the list to be reviewed on the 4th Thursday of the month.

Today, we went over to The City, drove around, paid $12.00 for a parking spot and then hauled my wife's shell creations and jewelry across the street, into the building and then downstairs to their room for review. When my wife's name was called, I assisted her in setting up her things. I arranged her shell creations on the table and she did the jewelry. I then walked over to the rest room and came back. The judge, jury and executioners were talking to my wife and she had handed over one of the catalogs to them, showing where we order our shells from. They wanted to know. They start telling us that they will not approve my wife's shell creations (handmade with shells....picture frames, flower pots, etc.) because of the way they suspected that the shells were harvested. They mentioned that these shells are obtained by dynamiting the ocean floor and scraping the bottom of the water collecting the shells. I showed them an email I received from the company where I purchased the shells saying they were obtained safely, etc. Then one of the ladies said 'that will not do...anybody can type this up.' Another lady was looking through the catalog and saw some shell necklaces similar to the one's my wife makes...... 'oh look at this, this looks just like the one over here (pointing to one of my wife's)... look...same type, same clasps. You got this from here. You didn't make these.'

I looked at her. Wow. What a bitch. How could you tell me that my wife did not make that? I was pissed. This lady has no consideration for people's feelings. Judge, jury, executioner. "I'm sorry...my wife made those necklaces. You are so wrong.' What a bitch!!!

I will tell you that the picture that she was referring to was one of a clam shell necklace in the catalog. The actual necklace that she had in her hand was a '70s Style Puka' and was not the same. Same clasps...barrell clasps, which are standardly used in making a huge percentage of necklaces. Wow. How could you make a fool out of yourself like that? My wife and I laughed at her all the way home.

The two ladies then paged through the catalog making one negative comment after another about the shells which were being sold by the company. That really made me feel offended and they made me and my wife (who put in many hours on her creations) feel so small. Do they do this to other people? I am sure that happens. You can tell when a person has had a job or position too long.

I returned to my seat and I heard my wife say something to them. I looked over at my wife and commented..."well...it looks like it's one of those times when you are guilty until proven innocent'' One of the ladies (ladies?) then commented about protecting the environment, etc. That's fine with me. But don't treat us so brutally. We are retired and trying to make a living selling our products and were under the mistaken impression that we would be allowed to sell our products. We didn't realize that these snobs would dump on us like that.

My wife was so disgusted at these people that she felt like just packing up the jewelry and leaving. I had already packed her shell creations. Okay...so we got around to the review of the jewelry. My wife set aside the shell necklaces, etc. and just showed them the semi-precious ones. They held up a turquoise necklace. "Where are your pieces to make this." My wife pulled out a bag that she had her turquoise nuggets. Okay fine. "Where are your receipts?" We didn't have any, but it was obvious that my wife had made these herself. They picked up more necklaces....'where are your receipts for these beads' she was asked again. We explained that we did not have the receipts as we purchased our beads, stones, etc., at different times over a period of years. "Well...that's no good. Need receipts. You have to match up every necklace with the loose beads and a receipt." Talk about frustration. You know, I really don't mind this part about the necklaces. At this point both my wife and I had give up hopes of getting an 'artists permit' and they could take it and stick it, as far as we were concerned. Damage done. It is what it is. You do what you do. My wife made the stuff, period. Come on ladies (ladies?), lighten up.

But I just don't like the way we were treated. These people are so against individuals using any type of shell. But, my wife pointed out after we left that one of these ladies (ladies?) was actually wearing a shell necklace. Hellooooooooo! You are here condemming things made of shell but you are wearing shells?

About 15 minutes prior to my wife's review, there was a guy that was going to demonstrate how he drew his caricatures. He came alone, so he would need somebody. So one of these ladie's (ladie's) looks at me points her finger at me. "How about you....you aren't doing anything?" I guess I volunteered, huh. I had no problem posing for the guy whatsoever, but I do not like the way the lady (lady?) told me to do it.

You say that these ladies are part of the S.F. Arts Commission? I think you are missing an 'f' before arts. I am sorry. These rejects are lucky that they have jobs. Jobs? Well, actually I don't think that's really a job...... that's not a job. Can you prove that's a job?

I feel very sorry for my wife who worked so hard on all this stuff and I am proud of her. She did a fantastic job. I don't want any part of SNOB, USA.

Mar 27. I am most appalled that the City condones their behavior. These ladies (ladies?) were very abusive and an apology would never suffice. They overdid it and I am sure a lot of other individuals who have gone before them have suffered what constitutes verbal abuse. Moreover, I have checked through the ordnance and have seen nothing about shells not being allowed.

Chabot College Flea Market

Come on down to the Chabot College Flea Market on Saturday, March 21. Looks like the rains will hold off until the evening time. We are DandL CREATIONS and are located in spaces B-397-399. We will be selling our shoulder bags, fannypacks, shell creations and a whole lot more. Check out our website www.dandlcreations.com if you wish to order custom-sized, hand-made shell necklaces. Great buys.

Alameda for Lunch - Dimitra's Sandwiches

Took a spin over to Alameda today and picked up some sandwiches at Dimitras on Park Street. Been getting sandwiches from there now for 35 years. Still around. At one time, there were at least 3 Dimitra's around, but they closed two of them. The owners have retired and sold the one on Central Avenue a while back and it's now a pizza place. After getting our sandwiches, we drove through South Shore, which was renamed 'Town Center' a couple years ago. Construction continues there as several new stores have opened up. It's one of your better 'open-air' malls around. Drove over to the old Naval Air Station, where I have loads of memories from my 'squid' days. Parked near the water and looked across the Bay, etc., and had our lunch.

I read a bunch of Yelp reviews on the place and there are mixed feelings about Dimitra's. I think that the sandwiches are pretty decent...Hungarian, Texarkana, California Split, Dimitra's sub, the Grecian, and of course, the O.D......I've had a bunch of them through the years. I think that they were a little tastier back in the 70's, but still okay.

click here to read the remainder

Top 10 European Flea Markets

Came across a listing of the 'Top Ten European Flea Markets'. Thought you might be interested.

1. Waterloo, Belgium
What a great market this is. Held every Sunday morning in the car park of the Carrefour supermarket in Waterloo, there is plenty of parking, and a good fast-food restaurant. The 300 or so stalls are all laid out in an orderly grid so it’s easy to cover the whole market and not get confused about the location of a particular trader.

2. Turin, Italy
Carmagnola market is about a 20-minute drive south of Turin and held every second Sunday of the month (except August). Be prepared for a trek through this one: there are over 250 stalls laid out in the main square and winding pedestrian streets of the pretty town centre

To read more about the Flea Markets, please click here.

Very Funny Price is Right

FUNNY ON PRICE IS RIGHT. I am rolling over laughing at this lady. Just before she placed her bid, her glasses fell apart. She had the best bid and ran up to Drew Carey and her lens fell on the floor. I'll bet she bought them at Lenscrafter's. The same thing happened to my wife and the same thing happened to me. Lenses popped out of both of them. Lenses popping out all over the place. Their quality really sucks.

One time when I went for new glasses there, they gave me a bull shit story that they could not use my old frames AND I WOULD HAVE TO PURCHASE NEW ONES. However, the next time my wife needed glasses, we went to Kaiser and NOOOO PROBLEM. They used her old frames. Lenscrafter's really is bad. Cheap. Bad Quality. Liars. They try to sell you their most expensive lenses. I have nothing good to say about them. NO...THE PRICE IS NOT RIGHT!!!

Riconada Hills Bazaar

Going to do the Riconada Hills Bazaar in Los Gatos. I guess this is a new location for this promoter's show and is held the last Saturday of the month from 9AM-4PM. Located at 1500 Pollard Road at the shopping center. click here for more info. Alpha Zeta Events.

Evidently, this show was held at a different location previously. Can anybody give me some info about it? Thank you...dave

check out Starving Vendors where you can see reviews from many of the events we have done. Also listings of European, Philippine Festivals and a whole lot more. Great site!! You'll love it.

American Idol 13 Finalists

Voting for Idol No. 13: The Call of the Wild. Back when Fox executives were high-fiving each other for deciding to turn "American Idol's" traditional top 12 finalists into the top 13 finalists -- to really shake things up on the singing competition -- no one thought to send a memo to the Senior Executive Vice President for Reality Series Viewer Voting Phone Number Checking. That is too bad, because then they might have found out earlier that 1-866-Idols13 is a porn number. I'll bet that a lot of people will now dial that number out of curiousity.

For all these Idolettes, the show continued to assign the traditional 1-866-IDOLS01 through 1-866-IDOLS12 phone numbers via which viewers got to vote. The 13th and final performer Alexis Grace got a distinct phone number. Click here to read more and Idol's Busy Circuits (from Feb, 2007)

ADAM LAMBERT gave another strong performance. Excellent. Lil Rounds did good also and it looks like they are the two best and I expect to see them in the finals. However, it looks like Danny recieved the most votes, or should we say the most busy signals on the phone. He was excellent. Scott, the blind performer is a front-runner also and look for these four contestants to be in the Final-5, along with a 'darkhorse' who improves down the stretch.

Info on Global Positioning Systems (GPS)

Did a little research on GPS and thought I would share this with you.

What's the signal?
GPS satellites transmit two low power radio signals, designated L1 and L2. Civilian GPS uses the L1 frequency of 1575.42 MHz in the UHF band. The signals travel by line of sight, meaning they will pass through clouds, glass and plastic but will not go through most solid objects such as buildings and mountains.

A GPS signal contains three different bits of information — a pseudorandom code, ephemeris data and almanac data. The pseudorandom code is simply an I.D. code that identifies which satellite is transmitting information. You can view this number on your Garmin GPS unit's satellite page, as it identifies which satellites it's receiving.

Ephemeris data tells the GPS receiver where each GPS satellite should be at any time throughout the day. Each satellite transmits ephemeris data showing the orbital information for that satellite and for every other satellite in the system.

To read more, please click here

Bok Kai 2009 Parade and Festival

Feb 28, 2009. Marysville, CA. Just returned from doing the festival up in Marysville. It was nice and the weather was great. Temps in the mid 60's and a few clouds here and there.

We spent Friday night in Motel 6...a very noisy place, to say the least. We began setting up for the festival around 6:45 on Saturday morning and by 9:00 we were ready to 'rock n' roll' or whatever you want to call it. People began arriving around then and most of them, were positioning themselves for the parade that would start around 11:00AM.

click here to read the story about the Bok Kai Festival and our review of the event