lawyer

#John Law

One of the most interesting writers of the last couple of decades is speaking at the Castro Theater  this Thursday. He s presenting with another author, Lidia Yuknovitch as she unveils what looks to be a fascinating new novel: The Small Backs of Children  They will be interviewed by the always entertaining and often insightful Broke Ass Stuart. Chuck Palahniuk is, in my estimation the closest thing Gen X thru the Millennial generation has to a Kerouac. Palahniuk speaks to the post Baby Boom kids the kids raised by single moms after the demise of the American nuclear family, much as Kerouac spoke to the generation of young men coming back from the Great War wondering well now that we rule all, what next what does life mean?  In Fight Club, the young men were compelled to find out what it was to be a man without having the benefit of any live-at-home role models If you could fight anyone, who would you choose? I d fight Kirk. That was a sentiment any young guy raised by his mom could appreciate.

Palahniuk recently published the 1st installment of the sequel to Fight Club in graphic novel format along with artist Cameron Stewart. I found a copy while touring the Portland Area a while back. It s ten years after the action in the novel and the nameless narrator (played by Ed Norton in the movie) is now a suburban office commuter on lots of prescription happy pills and he s married Marla Singer (. ) AND the have a young son. Oh, the nameless guy has a name now. Sebastian ..

My Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society co-author Carrie Galbraith and had the pleasure to speak with Chuck at an earlier Commonwealth Inforum presentation. We had a blast talking about Cacophony s influence on Project Mayhem in Fight Club among other topics. I won t be able to make it this Thursday, but you should. Oh, and if you get a chance to talk to Chuck, ask him where he got the name for the nameless FC guy!

I m looking forward to reading Yuknavitch now. An endorsement by CP is not to be taken too lightly.

Your life doesn’t happen in any kind of order. Events don’t have cause and effect relationships he way you wish they did. It’s all a series of fragments and repetitions and pattern formations. Language and water have this in common.”

― Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water: A Memoir

There may be a solution for some of us. The amazing P Segal has a plan that might actually work. A plan that would encourage well heeled business types to invest in keeping some (not necessarily web-based) creative types in our fair City. Sounds crazy I know, but hear me out.

Don t jump yet, there may be hope!        photo J Law 1986

Many people I know are already in Oakland or have moved back East and taken over small towns or established themselves in compelling corners of decaying East Coast. South West/East, or Midwest Cities. Places they can afford. Places they can live in and work and create without every goddamn dime they make going to more and more exorbitant rents for closets in poorly retro-ed apartments with eight roommates or greasy cold floor spaces in ramshackle garages. How many would stay here if they could simply afford the rent with enough $ left over to continue creating?

I don t hate the 100k salary  puter kids for coming here and falling for our City. If I were 25 and making that kind of dough, working in a field I enjoy, for a company that doubles as my Mom and lover, I d probably do the same thing they do work 90 hours a week, while snuggly ensconced in the warm folds of Googledom, take a comfy luxury bus ride home to one of the most beautiful cities in the world, arrive around 8PM, meet friends for dinner, drop a C-note apiece at one of the fabulous new restaurants in my fabulous hip neighborhood, bed down around 1AM, then take the comfy bus back to Mt. View in the AM to do it all over again. Then I would save up for my company sanctioned week long vacation/team building exercise at Burning Man©™ every year. That s a pretty killer lifestyle for a young person in the corporate world we now live in; hard to blame them for not really realizing how difficult it is for a painter (art and/or commercial), old school writer or journalist, welder, arborist/landscaper, non big $ earner to continue to live in this special place. The kids might not even realize that these skint bohemians helped make San Francisco the super cool place that attracted them here in the first place.

Well, P. Segal has a dream. Like so many dreams it seems . dreamlike. How can it work? Will investors buy buildings for poor and poor(ish) artists to live in? Why would any one with $ do that? They just might want to consider the scheme that P Segal and the heavy-hitters she has recruited to sit on the board of her CA State non-profit 501 c3 organization have devised. It s pretty tasty.

The plan is simple. Encourage investors to buy a residential or mixed use building already occupied by artist/craftsmen or a building to be converted to artist/mixed use/live work. The non-profit would provide a comfy tax incentive for the buyer, while facilitating artists to live and work in the building for way below market rents. Investors who buy buildings get the tax benefit of nonprofit donations and they still own the buildings and can sell them for a profit (possibly to the tenants) when the 10 years of allowable write-offs end, making a profit on the sale. More traditional nonprofit housing works for general housing needs, but the Art Houses will be residential AND commercial in order to provide a place for the residents to build and develop their art: actual live/work space. This plan could also enable artists to dial back dependency on the conventional art world that is dominated by a few established critics and their gallery owning friends or traditional galleries that take a huge percentage of sales. Common areas in the Art Houses will doubtlessly be utilized as collective galleries, maybe even generating some income for artists. For the investors, well they re doing a good thing with their dough AND buying some good will in our less than huggy San Francisco affordable housing crises. Artists, worker bees and regular Frisco eccentrics, many of whom made SF the interesting place that investors, tech owners and tech workers are profiting from, get to stay and continue working in this amazing place. Win-win.

The first step is a fundraiser for the non-profit that takes place Thursday April 23rd (see flyer above) at 7PM above the Castro. For $25 you can hang with artists, patrons and SF characters in a very sweet location with one of the best views in SF. For $100 you will be able to choose from a pile of original art made by local endangered artists. See Paypal info below and on the flyer above or pay at the door. Please come and ask Ms. P and her non-profit board members just how this plan will work and if YOU can get involved as an investor or as an artist /creative qualifying for inclusion in the SF Art House pool of SF survivors.