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Geneva 4 Drive-In Urban Scrabble

While recently looking for a nice location for an afternoon hike with a friend, we stumbled across the remains of the Geneva 4 Drive-In movie theater in Daly City. What first caught my eye was three old lightbox signs atop polls with changeable marquee letters.

Geneva Drive-In

Cinema Treasures tells us that the Geneva was a 4 screen multiplex that opened in 1950 on an abandoned dog racing track. It had west facing screens positioned at the bottom of a gentle sloping grade with a mesmerizing view of the infamous aptly named Cow Palace. “Great place for taking dates in the 50’s and 60’s.” Apparently Hunter S. Thompson was a frequent visitor and wrote about his experiences there. One can only imagine the freaky shit that must have gone on during its 50-year history.

Geneva Drive-In

This required further investigation. We wandered around the grounds and soon discovered a cache of leftover marquee letters strewn about.

Geneva Drive-In

With darkness coming on fast, we quickly went about to use our collective Scrabble skills to come up with this solid 17 point word score.

Geneva Drive-In

I get the feeling this place doesn’t get a lot of visitors, as the marquees hadn’t been changed in over a year as evidenced by photos on the SF Gate’s The Poop blog.

Think you can do better than QUEEF? Post links to pix and prove it.

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Me and Christopher Coppola, sitting on a panel, M-O-N-D-A-Y

I was invited by the fine folks over at Social Media Club to participate on a panel about mobile video creation this Monday night in San Francisco. I guess my experience as an “assistant director” on the collaborative Spike Lee movie that Nokia Productions organized is what peeps want to hear about. Also on that panel will be Christopher Coppola, nephew to Francis, brother to Nicolas Cage, and also a director in his own right. He’s got a pretty cool thing called Project Accessible Hollywood that he’ll be talking about. Should be a fun night. If you’re in SF, stop by. Tickets are still available.

Here’s the official blurbage:

This month Social Media Club San Francisco / Silicon Valley chapter digs deep on the subject of mobile video. How it’s created, strategically deployed and consumed. The program will be divided into two separate, but related discussions:

Part one, moderated by Chris Heuer, will feature representatives from Qik, Justin.tv and our sponsor Real Player SP leading a discussion on how mobile video is really being used. Working to go beyond the hype, the panel will be turned, with the panelists asking questions of the audience and of each other. Getting beyond the hype to what’s really happening and what we really wish was happening. Together we could help shape our own future, collectively discovering new possibilities and exchanging stories of how people are really using mobile video.

After a 15 minute break, Jennifer Lindsay will facilitate a panel of creative video all-stars discussing how they are approaching the changing digital video landscape in an always on, always connected world.

During the second half, our discussion will focus on hearing some stories from the front lines of digital video. Eddie Codel is a pioneering vlogger and producer for Geek Entertainment TV. Eddie was one of five (5) people chosen from around the world to work on an innovative film project with Spike Lee entirely shot on mobile phone video cameras. We will hear what it was like to be a part of such a ground breaking project and what lessons he learned that we can all apply when thinking about our next mobile video shoot. We will also be joined by Christopher Coppola, a seasoned film and television director who is also founder and chairman of Project Accessible Hollywood (PAH), a non-profit organization that brings digital empowerment to underserved communities and individuals worldwide. Christopher will discuss PAH Fest, mobile phone films and Cellunovellas and the Latin American market.

Audience members will also be encouraged to share experiences and use cases.

Please note tickets are $10 in advance, or $20 at the door. Tickets are non-refundable, but may be transferred to another guest to attend this event.

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The Atomic Level of Porn

At monochrom‘s Arse Elektronika conference last week in San Francisco, computer historian and agitator of Internet trolls everywhere, Jason Scott gave a brilliant in-depth look back on the early days of computer rendered pornography. From early line printers generating monochromatic pinups with X’s to blocky pixelated 80’s video games with box covers much more alluring than the game play, Jason runs the gamut. Here’s the video I shot of it with Jason’s slides inserted.

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Littlefield Tank Tour + Oilpunk Boiler Bar on BBV

Two more fun videos I had the pleasure of shooting for Boing Boing Video went up recently. First is a tour of the amazing Littlefield tank museum. From BB:

In today’s edition of Boing Boing Video, guest-host Todd Lappin explores a massive collection of historical military vehicles tanks collected by an eccentric Silicon Valley multimillionaire. The recently-departed Jacques Littlefield amassed one of the world’s largest and most significant collections of this type, and his collection is now overseen by the nonprofit Military Vehicle Technology Foundation.

The second video is of Jon Sarriugarte’s sexy burlesque and oil and fire fueled Boiler Bar event. Includes a great interview and demonstration from old school blacksmith Shawn Lovell. The video really has it all: sexy burlesque dancers, fire, steam powered car, blacksmithing w/lots of fire, snail car w/fire and fireworks w/more fire.

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Timothy Leary videos on Archive.org

Timothy Leary lives on the Internet

Last week, I popped by a party for the launch of Timothy Leary‘s digital video archive on Archive.org. Leary, who passed away in 1996, had always wanted to be immortal in “cyberspace”. Now with an extensive video archive available to anyone with an Internet connection and an ongoing project by his estate to digitize all his physical assets, he’s close to achieving that goal.

Timothy Leary lives on the Internet

Timothy Leary lives on the Internet

San Francisco’s historical tripper elite were in attendance including John Perry Barlow, John Gilmore, Joi Ito, Brewster Kahle as well as a long time friend and collaborator of Leary’s from Harvard, Ralph Metzner. Here’s some more photos I took from the party:

Do check out the video archive, there’s tons of fun stuff to be distracted by.

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My RoboGames piece is live on Current TV

Many moons ago, I was commissioned by the fine folks over at Current TV to do a VC2 piece on RoboGames, the annual event for all things related to robot fight competitions. The piece follows the team behind Beer Bash, a “special” kind of robot, as they prepare it for competition at RoboGames. It’s airing all week in heavy rotation I’m told, so lemme know if you see it. It’s also on Current’s site and embedded below.

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Burning Man on the bay

This is freaking pimp. The White Holly, a boat normally used for research did a bit of Burning Man style research on the high bay waters off Sausalito this past weekend. Fire art, blinky lights, a pulse jet, Dan Das Mann sculptures, fireworks, a loud ass Victory Siren and an upside down Telsa coil! From Megavolt2‘s description of the video below.

On Saturday December 13, 2008 the former navy ship White Holly, now a privately operated scientific research vessel run by Captain Vince Backen, was entered into The Sausalito Yacht Club “Parade of Lights” held in Sausalito, California in the San Francisco Bay. Boat parades will never be the same… the event was organized by Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito in collaboration with Jack Schroll and Black Rock FX (El Diablo – jet engine fire effect, Chrysler air raid siren, smoke generator and methanol mines,) John Behrens and Omega Recoil, (upside down Tesla Coil,) Epiphany by Dan Das Mann, Karen Cusolito and Pyrokinetics (Danya Parkinson and Jo Bard,) Headless Point Studio, American Steel Studios, Flaming Lotus Girls (Mini Mega Junior – fire poofer,) Camron “Teiwaz” Assadi and The Crucible of Oakland California (flame cannons on the upper poop- deck,) Bonefire Bob and over 150 others! All of this so they could have a good time for approximately two minutes…

Burning Man long ago escaped the playa, so it’s no surprise to see some of the best stuff make it out the serene waters of the bay. I hope I don’t need to buy tickets next year.

You need to watch the above video in HD. Then check out this other great video of the action. Geeked.info has some more info and links to other videos and photos.