524 - Harrison Street
Back at it again. I found a loophole in the system.
Yes, I said in my last adventure I wouldn’t do architecture again. Yes, I said to send help because fungi is probably controlling my brain. Yes, I said the word “shenanigans” four times in the last post.
But you know what? This is my turkey, so I’m going to fry it how I like.
And today that turkey is a bridge in downtown San Francisco. And you know what a bridge is considered?
Architecture, you say? No. It’s infrastructure. In-fa-struc-ture. There’s a difference, mother fuckers. And today I’m exploiting it.
It all began after my buddy got a drone gig for some tech bro downtown. He had all the money in the world, so now he wanted an actually cool job instead of coding 12 hours day. He decided to try his luck producing music.
My friend’s job was to get a drone shot of him standing on his high rise balcony, looking like a badass, for a clip in a music video. Easy enough. I was just there for the free access to a high rise in downtown San Francisco.
So as my buddy and his client are doing their thing, I’m messing with some drone shots. And I ended up getting some sick footage of myself on the high rise. I’ll link it here. Normally I don’t post video clips in these things, but this was so badass I couldn’t pass it up.
Eventually I decided to head down to the street below to see how my buddy was doing. And I walked right into a full blown yelling match.
Apparently some dude a few floors below us saw the drone outside his window, thought we were secretly filming him, and decided to call management. My friend was trying to explain to them that the drone clips were for some tech bro’s music video, but they didn’t believe us.
And yes, I used the word “us.” Because now I was roped into this thing.
Management was your typical boss lady. Early 30s, hair in a bun, full suit, pointy glasses, attitude like a New York fashion designer too short for the job. Her boyfriend was your typical try-hard baldy with mommy issues. Beanie, jean-jacket, scruffy beard, “getting real sick of your shit” type attitude.
I told him all the secret footage we got of him was going to be broadcasted all over the internet for millions to see. He didn’t like that.
After his girlfriend calmed him down, the ultimatum came to this. Delete all the footage in front of them or the cops would be called. And as it turned out, this magically worked. The tech bro was freaked out and told my buddy to delete everything. And he decided to throw me under the bus while he was at it.
“Did you delete the footage off yours, too?”
It should be known that my mini drone was hidden in my pocket the entire conversation, and management didn’t even know I had it. Until now.
She turned to me and said “there’s a second drone?”
To which I replied, “nah, he was just talking about my cellphone.” She squinted at me through those pointy glasses as if to say “I know you’re a lying rat, but I’m not going to check you.”
We walked away into the sunset, deal closed. Ironically I was the only one that came out with good footage, and my buddy still got paid. Win-win.
And as it turns out, just a few blocks away, was an absolutely beautiful composition of the Bay Bridge. Just waiting for someone to snag a photo of it:
“Fire and Water”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM
[ISO 500 ~ 191mm ~ f/6.3 ~ 1/800s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Triple win. The lucky part of that shot was that red firetruck boat parked in the center of it. Is that what you call them? Firetruck boats? Fireboats? Coast Guard? Who cares.
It’s normally not there, and it made a perfect contrast to the mellow blue lighting in the backdrop. CONTRASTING COLORS, FOLKS. Read about it.
Also I edited about 50 traffic light poles out of that shot. It took me way longer than it should have. But I found it oddly relaxing. Kind of like coloring a scary dinosaur.
Anyway. That’s it. That’s all I got today. Shoutout Jasper Properties for the nice footage, and go gobble a dick when you get a chance.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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