What makes the still popular US pastime of ghost riding the whip so adaptable is that it is the ultimate all-American type past-time that everyone can do, or at least relate to; one that is based around the automobile. The auto, the car, the ride, the whip - which since the 1950's when young rebellious Americans first started getting their own wheels and the automatic freedom that came with it, has become its own subculture. And this auto subculture has been closely linked with music, sex, alcohol, drugs, and (of course) driving stunts. 

And ghost riding the whip, which has been extremely popular the past two years, is the current offshoot of this ever evolving auto American pop culture.  Since last year it has gotten a lot of sensationalist mainstream coverage which has only fueled its popularity and as a result flooded YouTube with lots of "ghost riding the whip" video clips being posted daily.

How to ghost ride the whip:   "the whip" is the car, the ride, and "ghost ride" is how it is driven - by the ghost meaning that the car drives itself and the driver hops out of the driver seat to sit on the hood or run around the car and try not to crash,  and  if so try to remember what type of auto insurance he (a predominantly male pastime) has. He may also need medical insurance.

The soundtrack to ghost riding is Bay Area hyphy rap, which directly helped fuel its current popularity, including such faves as Mista F.A.B.'s "Ghost Ride It" (video below) and of course E40 and the Federation as  featured in the ebaum's world video clip below with the crashes (when ghost riders attack).  These ghost-ridin' songs are the latest in a long tradition of Bay rap that celebrates illegal car activity and is rooted in  the beloved but outlawed tradition of sideshows,  long an ingrained part of underground urban Bay Area culture. with songs such as  415's  single "Sideshow"  (featuring Richie Rich and from the album 41Fiven) reflecting the illegal car activities back in the late eighties.

                           

    The beach on the secluded rural, former hippie, Marin County oceanside town of Bolinas, CA (about an hour north of SF)  is the perhaps the last place where you would expect to greeted by a huge bright display of graffiti. But you are. Lots of it and other public art too. The type of art and graffiti on the walls nearby and along the beach at Bolinas (popular with surfers) varies in both style and quality. Most seems passionately painted, and obviously inspired by the unqiue picturesque setting that the art is created in. Mostly done on the walls it's occasionally - like above - on fallen  or washed up tree trunks.   There's a lot big graf pieces and also lots of small illustrations and tags and images. and paintings. There's even a wall of painted poetry and stoner and surfer doodles. But mainly it's large graffiiti style pieces on the wall along the beach thrown up - not at night but in the daytime and without apparent fear from authorities - unlike in the city where graf artists risk been arrested (as felons) at any moment.

 Below is a group of graf artists working openly with all their spray cans out by one the beach's walls on a Sunday afternoon earlier this year when most of the pics in this AMOEBLOG (part two) were taken. 
According to some artists the lifespan of pieces along the windswept ocean beach (with salt air) is much shorter than usual and hence many pieces are frequently painted over.  What I think makes the art along the beach at Bolinas so cool is the most unique setting that it is so fortunate to occupy - a relaxed open space on a great beach with lush green hills towering behind - ideal for creating art of any kind!

The other day I made a trip out to one of my favorite places in the world: the beach at Bolinas, CA - about an hour's drive from Oakland or San Francisco,  north of SF, just past Stinson Beach on the Pacific coastline - where the beach is beautiful, the surfers many, and the out-of-context yet unobtrusive graffiti along the beach aplenty as usual.  And as usual much of the graffiti & murals along the beach at Bolinas is influenced by its surroundings: IE images of surfers and sharks and birds - as you will see in some of the pics below - part one in this three part series.

Of course this was just the other day, meaning in these immediate post Bay oil spill days. And even though technically Bolinas was not closed off to the public for fear of oil contamination and even though surfers were out en masse, it was still not completely safe - especially for dogs without leashes as you will see from some of the signs below - although that didn't deter a couple of canines that I saw running freely (without leashes) along the Bolinas beach. One of the reasons it was unsafe for dogs was because oil-contaminated birds were still showing up on the beach.

Above and below are some of the warning images from the beach at Bolinas but mostly images of graffiti art (of all sizes and types)  along the beach walls and leading down to the beach - all taken the other day.

This is Part One in a three part series. Part Two in this series will be posted in a few days and Part Three (which will include more big graffiti pieces) in about a week.  Thanks for checking it!  And if you know of any remote rural spots in NorCal where you also unexpectedly find graffiti or murals please share in the COMMENTS box all the way down. 

  















 








The first thing that you notice when you walk through the long dimly-lit tunnels that lead to Battery Townsley that sit atop the hills on the Marin Headlands  is that there something missing: a certain smell.  There is no smell of pee.  Nope, the usual stank of urine - something that I automatically associate with trekking though tunnels to take pictures of graffiti - is noticeably absent there.   So too - not surprisingly - it seems are any signs of any graffiti. Although on one wall of the long tunnel I noticed the faintest trace of a big graffiti piece that looked like it had been painted over years ago..  Maybe, I thought, the no pee stank was because of the two Port-O-Pottys conveniently placed near the tunnel entrance.

But whatever the reason there was also no graffiti here, or so I was thinking until I spotted off to the right near the end of the long tunnel (one of several blasted by dynamite back during World War II when the battery was built)  an opening that appeared to lead off to another smaller tunnel.  I slowly stepped into this unknown darkened space which it turned out was not another tunnel but a low-ceilinged, cement-walled, room.   And it was pitch dark.   Not having a flashlight I slowly edged my way into the dark windowless room.  And once inside my nostrils were awakened to that familiar stench. Piss. And sure enough - graffiti wasn't far off.

As my eyes slowly got a bit accustomed to the lighting I could make out some graffiti on the walls  that surrounded me and on the entrance to this claustrophobic enclosed window-less space.   I couldn't make out much with the naked eye but the flash on my camera lit up all the graffiti nicely as it took pictures - see all displayed below.  Also included in the pics below is an adjacent room plus a couple of low-key pieces of graf outside the tunnels like the R.I.P. on the (tombstone like) rock out in the forest area.

Little did I know that the amazing 12" by Sorcerer that I had picked up earlier this year was by an artist living in my backyard! I had been initially attracted to "Surfing At Midnight" due to its fantastic Prins Thomas remix and the fact that it was on white-hot UK label Tirk (aka the folks behind the highly revered Nuphonic imprint), but I was further intrigued - who is/are Sorcerer? Well, it didn't take too long to find out.



Sorcerer's debut full-length White Magic was released in August and the SF Electronica section has been singing its praises ever since. The album is chock-full of sun-drenched beach vibes, slow tempos, wistful guitar melodies and gentle, rolling beats - basically everything I'm feeling in 2007. I finally met Daniel Judd - Mr. Sorcerer himself - recently, at Prins Thomas' SF debut earlier this month and got to tell him how great I thought his music was. He's a chill, friendly guy, not unlike his music unsurprisingly, and he introduced me to his partner Sam Grawe aka Hatchback, who recently released a fantastic 12" on SoCal boutique label Sentrall Records, and who Daniel collaborates with as Windsurf. Not long after we exchanged pleasantries, Thomas played a tune that was so great I *had* to find out what it was. Lo and behold - it was Windsurf's remix of "Us vs Them" by LCD Soundsystem, coming out soon on the Bunch of Stuff EP on DFA. Awestruck, I walked over to Sam and Daniel. "This is your tune?!", I gushed. They confirmed it, and it was then I knew I had a new favorite artist. I invited the duo to play a DJ set for Mandala, Amoeba SF's weekly DJ series, which they will be doing this Friday at 7pm. In the meantime, I asked them some questions via email; here are their responses: