My Opinion…..Ok?

If all of our money is gone, not because of anything we did, then haven’t the rules changed completely, too? Are there any rules? 

They used that boring cliche (“think outside the box”) to jar imaginations that had been stilled for years.  I hated “think outside the box”, pathetic.

Doesn’t it make more sense to completely forget “what was” and start all ovr and do it your way this time? I keep saying this Coastside is so special and has so much to offer, in many ways, not just to lucky us who live here but the tourists, sure, but we can also grow food  for ourselves here. We can eat.

Do you think those folks stuck in the suburban tracts have agricultural land around their homes? Do they have the ocean? Do they have apple tree orchards? Do they have people who make cheese and cow’s milk? 

If things get worse—-and from what I understand all those people who could not pay for their homes cannot pay their credit cards either. Guess what? We are a consumer economy. The last frontier before….I hate to say it…..

But we’re on the Coastside. We really don’t have to have the same problems. We still have cows and goats and beef and fresh veggies.. We can grow food here if need be. Not just Victory Gardens, I mean real food for Coastsiders.

I cannot think of another place to live that is better during what could be toughER economic times than the San Mateo Coastside. There are plenty of natural leaders here–you may not like who they are, but they are leaders. They can make decisions, good decisions.

Even President Obama has been hinting at this last disaster—-the default on the credit cards. He knows exactly what that means, that it could get a lot worse. Try to buy stuff here so our business people can stay in business. Let the “over the hill” folks support their businesses. 

Coastside: it does not have to be “worse” for us. We have all the natural resources and the best people and the farmers and the restaurateurs and on on.

The Coastside Thrives…..New Ideas New Ideas New Ideas The Rules Have Changed There Are No Rules

We still have a lot to fix up, and are getting small jobs already. Tammy Trejo is one of our best clients, and was thrilled to learn that we are now right down the street from our gallery.  We had a couple of other jobs. Michael shot a wedding today, and has more for the year.  He takes a break from everything when he goes on his climb in September (Yosemite’s Matterhorn, and Whorl Mountains).
 
I have continual eBay and Amazon sales, and just completed a job doing 90 scans for a photographer that he will use for his own note cards.  I still have ongoing website assignments, one with Tom Monaghan, whose Golden Gate Abalone is getting more business – many restaurants are now serving his product.  I am also doing a website for Half Moon Bay photographer Bill Rhodes (just started that one).  So, we are paying the bills, but it has been slower than usual, due to the economy. We’re not alone, in other words.  We really appreciate your publicizing our new location. We were also surprised to learn that the Review had a bit about it in the paper. We’ve had a lot of visitors so far.  Apparently, it is easier to access our Main Street location than Shoreline Station.
 
This move has consumed us, and will continue for another couple of weeks. We had SO much to do – put up frame samples & photos. We still have to clear a few things out of the old location.    I posted a bunch of photos of the Past & Present of Spring Mountain Gallery on my MySpace (I am on there, at the invitation of my niece – it’s how many of my family & I communicate). I sent you an invite via MySpace. 
 
More later – Michael just finished working on the wedding photos. Now I make the CD label, & add a few to the wedding site.

Kevon & Karen Cottrell: Karin is on my left and Sharon is on my right; you were wrong Peter Adams!

Story by Kevon Cottrell, Musician, El Granada
Email Kevon and Karen Cottrell: ([email protected]
Hi June, I see Peter [Adams] is a busy boy. (Saw him last Sat. at the HMB Brewery when I was playing w/ the successor to “Free & Easy”: “Blame it on the Dog”)
Just a clarification. The photo of F&E playing Peter’s Dad’s BD party is captioned incorrectly.  (“1970s: Coastside musicians….”) That is Karin on my left and Sharon on my right. (From the viewer’s prospective). Karin did not play guitar.
Love your site. So many memories. (Duh) Kevon Cottrell
———-
Original email from Peter Adams
     

kevonsharon-karinkevonsharon-karinkevonsharon-karin
About the image:L-R: Sharon Zugay, Kevon Cottrell, Karin Zugay. Peter Adams says the pix was shot at a ceremony celebrating the renewal of his Mom & Dad’s marriage vows. The beautiful Zugay twins once posed in Playboy. (I gotta say, I can’t really see Kevon, Sharon and Karin in the pix…but they are there, in the background playing guitar and singing. All I can say is: Look hard!)

peteradams2Says Peter Adams: Did you know kevon cottrell –he was with sharon zugay (free & easy band) while i was with her twin karin? kevon and his wife, karen, stayed over on their way back from their annual windsurfing session in baja.

 

 

 

 

 

Deb & Mike Wong are Moving to New Image Digs

dm4

 

 

Hi June,
 
We didn’t know about Burt’s passing until I read your blog. I am so, so sorry!  I have no doubt that you lose a part of yourself with your loss – how can you not? I would be lost without Michael, completely out of commission., forget it, no way to cope.  There should be more support systems for those left behind.
 
Can we call you sometime, take you out to eat, visit, anything?  Even though we are in the midst of our move, we can take some time out.  When you are up to it, come by the new gallery at 790 Main street (maybe when we’ve cleaned up – the place is a disaster right now).   Here we are with our newly installed signs:
dm1
I agree with you about the t.v. news, by the way.  Mostly bad stuff, how terrible the world is (with a few light moments).  I don’t think that it is natural for us to know about what is going on with people around the world in such a way.  George Carlin called the news: “Gossip Gone Wild”. 
 
Ahhh, Burt. What a cool guy.  Such a character.  One of those “big spirits”.   Tom Monaghan called me last week, asking about you, and I said that your partner was ill, and that you were taking care of him.  
 
We have to go now – clearing out the rest of the old gallery, & setting up the new one.  Please take care of yourself, and give us a call when you are up to it.  No pressure.  Love, Deb & Mike
dm2

Coastside Artist Susan Friedman: Did she follow me? Or did I follow her?

equus1

 

To get some much needed rest and a massage, I drove alone to Napa (and got lost; I just can’t multi-task yet, ((the much ballyhooed talent, multi-tasking, attributed to women, well isn’t that phrase  becoming tired and old, don’t you think? Even if it is true?) 

 3 nights in the Napa Valley in the 90- degree heat. My gift to myself.

Don’t be jealous but I stayed at the upscale Auberge Soleil which had a gallery the last time I visited several years ago. Since, it has moved. 

Why the Auberge? Because I had been through hell (my Burt’s death) and I didn’t know it but I desperately needed a getaway. For a woman by herself the security at Auberge was excellent.

But I also like Rockaway Beach (in Pacifica).  Sensational ocean views, wonderful walking trails. It’s not 1900 when nobody lived on the Coastside; it’s 2009, when there are zillions of people (who have heard of the wonders of freedom in the USA)  and want to experience the fresh energy of the  Pacific Ocean and the waves. 

Once I found Napa, I also recalled that our own very well known artist, Susan Friedman, (one of those artists who can do everything top- of- the -line: movies, photos, paintings, etc) had some lovely pieces for sale at the same gallery where I was staying.  But I. Wolk Gallery had since moved  to St. Helena.

When I discovered that the gallery had moved, I called and asked if Susan Friedman’s pieces were still there.

 Yes, the owner said as he described several of her works. I bought an unusual piece she had painted two years ago called “Water.”  Because I could not multi-task, drive and look at directions at the same time, “Water” was delivered directly to me.

Onward. (This whole experience was very special for me, really, which is why I am sharing it with you. It’s the adventure and the experience that’s important.

Next day Susan Friedman, the artist (she used to work out of a wonderful, weathered barn south of Pescadero, and still lives somewhere on the Coastside or on the mountain.)  That’s (the barn) where I met her for the first time; she was busily working and chatting in the natural studio located somewhere near the mushroom farm on the South Coast. John Vonderlin territory.

Turned out she was in Napa  because she was opening a new show at the same gallery I had called the day before to purchase the fascinating “Water” piece.

The NEW show is based on her sensational photography book called Equus. 

Beautiful images of horses, many from around here, the Coastside. And Woodside, etc.

Meanwhile, the owner of the gallery was telling Susan that this lady called June bought “Water.” And then as he’s telling her the story, the phone rings and it’s me on the other end. I had a question.

I do not know Susan well; I met her in that barn 30 years ago, but, of course,  I know of her fame. Didn’t her movie about Pescadero show at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco? 

There are a lot of seats in the Palace of Fine Arts originally built for the Pan American International Exhibition held in San Francisco in the Marina District. I think it was 1915. A purpose for the international exhibition, with the Palace being one of the remaining original buildings, was to show the world that San Francisco had survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. To show off  the beautiful  NEW city of San Francisco.

Susan did remember me and we talked briefly via the gallery phone. She was with another artist but the connection was poor and I could not hear his name clearly. She believed I knew him, but if you can’t understand the name, well….my apologies.

The sequence of events were truly extraordinary for me, the “Queen of the Eclectic” as John Vonderlin has anointed me. Remember, I am also the female version of Hunter Thompson…..And sometimes, according to Terry Baldwin of the incomparable Mill Rose B&B in Half Moon Bay, I am straightforward. That is certainly Burt’s influence. 

The final question remains: Did Susan Friedman follow me to Napa? Or did I follow her? 

Congratulations, Susan,  on your new show, called Equus. I wish I could have stayed one more day to attend the opening.

The information re: Susan’s new show is below. It’s worth a day trip; you can visit the wineries and the gallery during the week when driving is more pleasant. But go anytime. Go today. Be adventurous. And send me a photo of Susan!

 

 

EQUUS
Photographic Images by SUSAN FRIEDMAN  
April 24, 2009 – July 24, 2009   (click here)
Opening Reception
Saturday, May 9, 2009
4:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Curated by
I . W O L K G A L L E R Y
T E L 7 0 7 – 9 6 3 – 8 8 0 0 • I W O L K G A L L E R Y . C O M

I Rarely Watch The News Anymore

All  I hear on the good old tv is:

abducted, mistreated children (usually dead)

Somali Pirates  (from some other century.When was the last time you honestly heard the word  “pirate” used?  In the USA we use George Orville’s description of  Soma and big screen tvs; that keeps everything under control. I suggest we give the same to the “pirates.”

Chris Matthews, whom I once truly admired,  is really losing it. What is going on with him, anyway? Many of his co-workers are Irish. When is somebody going to write a book about it? Why are so many of them Irish? And do they have a personal agenda? And if so, what is it. Why don’t they tell us.

 I have nothing again Irish journalists but he has an awful lot of them on their show, MSNBC. And the questions they ask. Usually the person interviewed has already answered the question and the “journalist” asks it again. So embarrassing when you catch it and it happens all the time.

I have no comment on Fox. Other than their political differences there’s not that much to make them any different, although they do point out things that MSNBC forgets about.

Here’s another one: President Obama traveling in his fancy jet all over the world so he can see every country he has never seen before (can I go?) Can you imagine what the inside of that plane looks like? Air Force One? The bed sheets must be made of the finest silk, certainly the best material available. Everyone on board can walk about at will while we poor souls have to take our SOMA and remain strapped in.

I am so sick of the news. And the same old news people. No originality. Or very little. They don’t even ask important questions. We are in big trouble. Lives are being ruined. Businesses are closing down. And what do they talk about? Car companies going belly up. What about the stage coaches? Did they make such a fuss about that? 

I am just not sure that visiting foreign exotic countries is going to help our real economic problem. 

I do not have the answer. I don’t. But we need a new media.

I am a GREAT ADMIRER of Really Good Design: The Food is So Good,,,, It’s Hard to Get a Table Good thing they’re growing

You all know Sushi Main Street (on famous Mill St. is going through a metamorphosis, a major remodel to enlarge what is already one of the most popular restaurants on Main Street  in HMB (Half Moon Bay). Just across across the historic concrete bridge, turn right at Mill, the next street.

Apologies if I got her name wrong, but I believe it is the talented “Sharon” who worked on the special decor of the  original Sushi Main Street, and who is now running the show which will expand the bldg to Main Street front and center. She creates wonders. She creates beauty. It will affect your take on life.

“Sharon” also did the smaller venue, the one which is expanding. I liked it small but wish them all GREAT SUCCESS on the new addition. Sushi Main Street is like no other Japanese restaurant I have seen. The care, the creativity. “Sharon” knows her craft. She’s visited Asia, all of the countries and she as the “The Eye “we al wish we had.

. And the food—well, every night the place is packed. So they’ve got a winner.