East Bay Express Arts & Ads

During the five years (already!) I’ve lived in Berkeley, I’ve always be faithful to the East Bay Express (EBX), which stayed strong when the Bay Guardian went down. I have great memories of columns from Anna Pulley, the culture notes from Sarah Burke, and the movie critics from Kelly Vance.

In these years, I’ve collected a cuts from the paper, which I believe capture the atmosphere of the East Bay ca 2015. Here’s a few:

Missouri Lounge

Missouri Lounge is a dive bar in Berkeley on San Pablo avenue, and every single week the run an advertisement. While they are not always original, they’re often pretty interesting.

And of course they got punked by their rival, Acme Bar

Both bars however are hipster taverns…

Studio Pigli

For short period in 2015, there was an apparent lapse in advertisement (maybe owing to the infamous pivot to video), and in the empty space flourished drawings that I found adorable. Here’s the one I found.

I believe the tram behind these picture is “The Ghost Below”, but I could never tell.

Earth’s Mightiest Gerbils: Avengerbils

Approximately at the same time, another series of drawings were there, featuring the Avengerbils.

Yoga

The Bay Area is a hot place for yoga, and it seems that the habit has spread to many other states and country (at least that’s what I saw during my last visit to Europe, from Cambridge to Strasbourg.)

Briefs

Brief is the Annual Erotic short film competition, organized by Jamie Wolf, who also organized the crazy Tourettes without Regrets every months in Oakland. A few month before, they start advertising the event, and I always found the picture very creative and amazingly sexy. I’ve attended the festival a couple of times, and it had a great impact on my own views on sexuality.

Sinners

Beyond the ads, the newspaper is always filled with suggestive pictures, which usually serve a specific purpose beyond the first look. It’s hard to give the context here, but the issue of gender, race and orientation is very well covered in the publication.

The Bay Area is host to some very strange events, such as the Annual No Pants BART ride. Why not?

Legalization Nation: Advertisements

California has spearheaded the use of medical cannabis, before it was legalized for recreational use. The backpage was always filled with Medical doctors for prescription and advertisement for dispensaries. Now, the industry has settled, and the arts are much better in my opinion. Still, I’ll never be a user!