on yer bike

May 21, 2010May 27, 2010Leave a comment

The Amgen Tour of California, the state’s biggest cycle race, is currently wheeling around the Golden State to much fanfare. I didn’t see any fanfare when the Tour came to Davis – starting one section here and ending in Santa Rosa – just a few TV vans left over on my way home.

But as I was having dinner downtown anyway, I decided I would draw the latest national tourist attraction to appear in Davis: the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame, which occupies this building on B and 3rd. I haven’t been in, but I’m sure it is enormous fun. I imagine it’s like the Guinness World of Records, with exhibits such as the Cyclist Who Could Text and Cycle for Three Whole Miles Without Getting Into an Accident (lots of people try for this record in Davis), or the Completely Invisible Stop Sign (actually most of them are, apparently), or the Severed Head of Whoever it is Who Thinks Stealing the Light off your Bike is Funny (seriously, what low-life nicks a cheap bikelight?). If I ever go in, and find out that it’s not like that, I’ll be seriously disappointed.

leave me hanging on the iPhone

May 20, 2010May 21, 20102 Comments

I have told you I’m sure that UC Davis has some old things that used to live in London; some old double-decker buses, a couple of red phone booths, and, er, me. I’m not that old, but I do remember when people actually used phone booths, ah yes them were simpler days, 10p a call, with those big heavy phonebooks and the odd, ahem, business card stuck to the window. Phoneboxes. Remember when you had to queue to use one? People just don’t any more, now they carry the latest personal holographic cyber-communication devices from apple or orange or some fruit or other. Me, yes i have a cellphone I hate using, but I haven’t joined the iPhone age yet (never understood that name, wouldn’t an earPhone be more useful?). I can’t quite bring myself to join the Church of Apple, and become a devotee in sleek white and make annual pilgrimages to Macworld and worship the word of Mr Jobs. Then there is the iPad… when I first saw it I thought it was a joke iPhone, like the ‘HELLO?’ guy Dom ‘Triggerhappy’ Joly. ‘YEAH I’M IN THE APPLE STORE IT’S RUBBISH!’ What is the small ‘i-‘ prefix all about anyway? Apparently it makes things cooler. If they got rid of the nuclear deterrent and replaced it with iBomb or iNuke, CND would be finished. Countries would only stockpile them to make other countries jealous (hang on, that’s what the Cold War was all about, wasn’t it?). But that ‘i’… it’s a bit self-centered isn’t it? There’s no ‘i’ in ‘team; ah but there is in ‘iTeam’.

Ironically enough, this old booth (drawn at the MU bus terminal, in micron 1 pen) has no phone in it. It’s just there to look cool. Which it does.

sc27: joined in the race to the rainbow’s end

May 19, 20104 Comments

Keep on ‘crawling.the meeting end-point was at Union Square, but that was many blocks away from the Financial District where I was. I really had to draw some newspaper boxes. Being from the UK these boxes seem so ‘America’ to me. I don’t mean the ones where you get the free paper, like the ones in London that stock all those Aussie magazines like TNT (do they even still have them?), but the ones where you put in your money and take a single newspaper (even though any thief could just nick the lot). I think of Superman, with Clark Kent getting his tie caught. But with newspapers closing nationwide, these things could very well be a historical relic (like the phonebox…)

Something else you don’t see much in American cities these days are streetcar cables, hanging over the traffic. San Francisco still has lots of them; I drew some on the corner of Post and Kearny. These cables remind me of Europe, but not London, where we haven’t had them for donkey’s years (incidentally, if you ever buy a donkey calendar they are incredibly good value because donkey’s years are very long. Never, ever buy a dog calendar though.)

Fire hydrants however will never go out of fashion (at least I don’t think so). I love them, another reminder of ‘America’ (and possibly a Superman film again). We don’t have them like this in the UK. Did you know it’s illegal (or at the very least a bad idea) to park in front of one? If you do, fireman can smash your windows to run the hose through it, I am told. Seems like a bit of an effort, while rushing to put out a fire, threading the hose through the car, squeezing over the seat, meanwhile buildings are burning down. Think about that before parking there next time.

And so the final meet-up in Union Square. I ambled in, saw the sketchers plotted about in clusters, didn’t see anyone I recognized, so sat and drew Union Square’s palm trees. Eventually sketchbooks were passed around and I spoke to some other sketchers, including Enrico Casarosa (Sketchcrawl’s founder), and met fellow Urban Sketchers correspondents Gary Amaro and Marc Taro Holmes, among other very interesting artists. It’s always a big learning experience to meet other sketchers all with very individual styles.

It got cold, as the fog was rolling in, and so after a little while I called it a day. Well nearly a day, still had just a little more sketching to do before going home. More to come…

sketchcrawl 27: down by the bay

May 16, 2010May 27, 20104 Comments

I took the Amtrak down to San Francisco to join the popular SF crawl. It was an early start for me, the 7:55 Amtrak that I’ve taken many times before. Naturally I just had to draw a quick sketch on the train, while reading the excellent graphic novel Preacher. I wonder if there’s a Saint of Sketchers?

The crawl officially began at around 10:30 by the Ferry Building. Enrico, the Sketchcrawl founder, came by to say the end spot would be Union Square, not Vesuvio – a good decision as there was quite a crowd. (I wished I had an iphone to update the forum, in case latecomers went there). It was a grey and foggy morning; no need for the colourful paints just yet!

There were a few familiar faces there, and I sketched while munching a chocolate walnut brownie bought from the Farmer’s Market (oh man they’re good). An annoying clarinetist provided ‘entertainment’, but seemed unable to ever get past the first bar or so of ‘old macdonald’ before calling out to passing tourists. He was incredibly irritating.

sc27: at ferry building
As sketchcrawlers started to disperse, I headed off, accompanied by fellow sketchers Jana Bouc and Sonia. I wanted to go into the Hyatt and go up to look out of one of the high-up windows. We cheekily managed to get to the members-only top floor regency club, where the staff very nicely allowed us to sketch from their 360-degree window. The view was incredible, and the sun was burning the fog and bringing out the colour.

More to come!

beer and wine, i’ll be fine

May 14, 2010May 14, 20102 Comments

UC Davis does wine, I mean really does it. No, they’re not all winos, there aren’t lots of expensive fancy fashionable Napa style wineries around here, but this is the place where those vintners come to learn what the hell is going on with those grapes. The viticulturalists and enologists here are the top of the game, and they know their stuff. So now they have a shiny new complex and vinyard on campus to work with, the Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine Science. I sat out there yesterday lunchtime and sketched inside the courtyard’s Good Life Garden. More new additions are being, er, added to this complex, including facilities for the study not just of winemaking but beer-brewing too (I’m sure a few frat houses have their own micro-brew facilities already set up).

“Beer and Wine, I’ll be fine“, that phrase comes from a friend of mine who vehemently claimed it to be true, and then after downing a bottle of red plonk and a few pints of amber nectar, spent the rest of the night disproving his theory in the toilets of the Dublin Castle in Camden Town. Don’t mix grape and grain. I wonder if any of the high-tech labs are working on similar experiments. No need, mate – just go down Camden, innit.

gordon is not a moron

May 10, 2010May 11, 20103 Comments

What an interesting few days! A week really is a long time in politics. The first general election to end in a Hung Parliament since 1974. The Conservatives won an extraordinary amount of seats, but not enough to gain a majority and legitimately form a government. To explain, this means that the party that came second, Brown’s governing Labour party, remain as government for now, until deals can be made for Labour or the Conservatives to form some sort coalition with the smaller parties, meaning all those that lost the election are allowed to govern rather than the party that ultimately came first, or failing any agreement, allow the Conservatives to form a minority government with Cameron as PM. Got all that? Don’t worry, I don’t think even they get it.

So amid the wooing of the Liberal Democrats by both parties, Gordon Brown offered his own head, and committed to stepping down as Labour leader. It was inevitable, of course (and he was constitutionally correct to remain in office while a new government is formed, despite Murdoch’s media arm of Sky News, The Sun et al trying to force him out in favour of their bloke).

The Liberal Democrats’ situation is wierd, isn’t it? The nation was so gripped with Cleggmania before the election that they forgot to vote for them – the Lib Dems ended up with fewer seats than in the last election! Even Lembit ‘Mr. Cheeky Girl’ Opik lost his seat to the Tories. But that doesn’t matter – despite such poor results, they now hold the key to deciding the next government, because it’s Clegg that Brown and Cameron are courting. Now explain that to the aliens from outer space.

I was thinking of that song Jilted John, and thinking of David Cameron. Listen to the lyrics and replace ‘Julie’ with ‘Clegg’, and imagine Clegg ditching the possibility of alliance with Jilted Dave and going off with Gordon. “And they were both laughing at me! But I know he’s a moron, Gordon is a moron…” It could still happen. One can only hope.

The election was fun though. I always used to stay up all night for elections, getting excited as they called such exotic places as Ceredigion and The Wrekin. This time we were treated to no ‘Portillo moment’, but watching Jacqui Smith lose her seta while dressed as No. 6 from the Prisoner was amusing. Paxman was a relative gentleman, while Dimbleby was getting tired of the shots of cars going down motorways. Bill Wyman showed up at one point, apparently dressed as Worzel Gummidge, declaring that basically he was working class but Labour did nothing for him, now he’s rich so he votes Tory. I didn’t even have to watch the sun rise; the great thing about living in California is that, being 8 hours behind, I could watch it all and see the new PM ‘crowned’ before bedtime. Well that didn’t work out! Several days later, it’s not done and dusted yet.

In other news, Chelsea won the Premier League, by a single point. Which presumably means that second-placed Manchester United can now do a deal with Arsenal and Spurs to become coalition champions instead. What? That’s not how it works? I’m so confused…

whole wide world

May 7, 2010Leave a comment

The day after the General Election… more on that later. I decided to brave the pollen this lunchtime and get out and draw something. The Whole Earth Festival was going on, with its hippy sensibilites and world food, so I avoided that colourful bonanza and drew something else. That was silly of me (I had actually forgotten about Whole Earth, despite the tie-dye shirts and VW vans that were grooving around the skirts of the university). Then again, I don’t like drawing crowds. I drew part of the ‘Death Star’ building, Social Sciences, from the corner of 3rd and A streets.

I won’t be drawing any of the Whole Earth Festival this year I’m afraid; we’re going to the beach instead. However I did do a very quick and quite intimate sketch three years ago of my wife’s friend’s son’s band (Sholi; they’re very good) playing on the Quad in front of the hippies and their kids. There it is below. I like it.

no time for losers, cos…

May 6, 2010May 6, 20102 Comments

We’re not Champions, no, but it feels like it. Spurs, my team, beat Manchester City (again; sorry City fans) to guarantee fourth place and a spot in the Champion’s League for the first time. Peter Crouch (a man so tall he has to, erm, crouch to avoid volcanic ash) scored the winner; that is supposed to be him above, drawn in my football diary. I’m recording football events. I enjoy doing that; now I’m trying to draw some of the people involved. Hopefully I’ll see an improvement as I go on.

As I write, I’m watching the BBC online, the tail end of Election Night, and no clear winner; a Hung Parliament beckons. I’ll write more about this some other time. Perhaps it will go to penalties? Maybe even a replay (as they did in 74)? Or maybe, just maybe, football can learn something from politics. Get rid of penalties, spoiling World Cup Finals, and have a system whereby the team that comes second can do a deal with the team that comes third to become coalition world champions; of course to come second you’d have to lose, so that analogy doesn’t work.

Anyway, I’ll leave politics for tomorrow. For now, come on you Spurs!

suspicious coffee

May 4, 2010May 5, 20102 Comments

I’m no coffee drinker as you know. Nonetheless I was shocked to learn that one of the popular coffee kiosks on the UC Davis campus burned to the ground in suspicious circumstances last week. There is nothing left but a taped-off charred mess, and a lot of law students going without their coffee.

I got outside today in an attempt to draw it, you know, sketch-reportage. As you can tell, I had to keep it quick. My nose and eyes are struggling to fight the pollen these days, as allergy season hits its zenith in the Central Valley.

As if this fire wasn’t suspicious enough, I saw on the news that a suspect package, apparently containing a ‘device’, was left on campus near another coffee kiosk by Olsen Hall. After recent events of hate-motivated vandalism and picnic-day ruckuses, suddenly leafy UC Davis is becoming a suspicious place.

much more important than that

May 1, 20101 Comment

I never thought I’d see the day. A couple of weeks ago, I bought the England away shirt, the new Umbro ‘tailored’ kit in red. I’ve never bought an England shirt before, but this one is nice. I live in America now, so I can wear it without getting the urge to throw chairs. I am getting ready for the summer, when I will be following the South Africa World Cup. For those who aren’t aware I am World Cup crazy, and have been since I was a kid. I watched the last one on the Mexican stations, but this time I have upgraded to the English-speaking sports channels, which means I’ll nderstand when they talk stats, but will have to provide my own exclamations of“goooooooooooollll!!!!!”.

But before the summer of World cup, there’s a week of highly exciting Premier League left. It’s between Man U and Chelsea for the title, but for me it’s all about my own team Tottenham, and that fourth Champions League spot. If you’d have told me at the start of the season that Spurs would be in fourth place with a week to go I’d have said you were nuts. Well we have to thank that guy on the left there, Harry Redknapp, Tottenham’s manager (drawn in my football journal-cum-sketchbook). That could all change in the next couple of hours of course, and we have to beat (or not lose to) Man City, so I am still expecting us to throw it away again. Even if we do, we haven’t been below 6th all year and that is incredible. Come on you Spurs!

Over in France meanwhile, the team I followed when I lived there, Olympique Marseille, are set for their first title since the early 90s when they dominated and then exploded in match-fixing disgrace. Again, I’m still expecting that familiar capitulation but I’m hopeful for l’OM. Besides, my other old favourite equipe, Auxerre, are right behind them. Lyon’s time is over, and Bordeaux have lost it. Allez allez!

“Football football football football football. What you men see in it I don’t know. A load of men kicking a bit of leather around a field. You men, the things you think are great fun.” (Mrs. Doyle, Father Ted)