(*PLA is Public Lands Alliance)
(**Picking up where I left off in Tucson.)
My last roadtrip is San Francisco. The National Park Service holds an annual trade-show and I wasn’t able to attend last year…..because Amtrak broke down in the Arizona desert. Although this post should be before the “Map” post, here it is. My modest booth is below–this costs me nearly $4000! The hotel (Hilton Union Square) charges $24 for a well drink at the bar and $65 for their buffet breakfast. I walk a half a block to a convenience store to duck these outrageous prices–and it is being robbed–a woman–arms full of unpaid items–screams at the security guard that she is a minister and deserves free stuff! Serious–shoplifting in SF is now legal.
Back to the trade show…… So I economize and bring my single banner and a half dozen posters……and my book! I put up my “Made in USA” sign to mock all the off-shore junk that the NPS now allows in their bookstores….and my ‘snarky’ sign; “The more they publish, the better we look.” I’m getting copied to death. In the “Old Days” the NPS wouldn’t even allow t-shirts in their bookstores. Now the floodgates are open simply because the NPS is so poorly funded by Congress, that each park has to raise it’s own money selling…..well, cheap, offshore trinkets. Bernie Sanders even sponsored a bill before Congress to prevent this–it went nowhere. I’ve tried to hold the standard and for 32 years now, have manufactured solely in the United States and expanded this unique art to another 50 National Parks. Quality is king at Ranger Doug’s Enterprises.
Now, while I have to be a little discreet here, I’ve never been one to hold back on justifiable criticism. I think it’s time for 1.) Congress to fully fund our National Parks and 2.) offer only locally made products in their bookstores (like books!) that interpret and enhance the visitor’s experience. OK–and 3.) they should be more selective about innovation and not buying redundant products. Meaning……a lot merchandise is starting to look the same……and like my product line.
To wit. Five out of these seven books shown here are…..WPA posters. And this tee. (I helped this person set up her business a dozen years ago). C’mon folks. This font (Bauhaus) has been put in a font program and is free on my website here (midway down from WPA heading). There is a website that actually charges for this same font. This is public art.
Here’s another example–stuffed teddy bears (apologies to Theodore Roosevelt). For one dollar you get three baseballs to try to knock these off the shelf…..no, no, just kidding, these are standard items now in National Park bookstores. What a carnival–this is not what our National Parks are about. When I talked to one park that purchased these–I was told that these are recycled plastic!! ……and they made in China……. We can do better.
One of my competitors. They bought out the “Retro Ranger” line that photoshop-flipped my designs and sold them to Bryce Canyon (they’ve been taken down). Here are some of the forgeries, counterfeits and knock-off’s. (My Hawaii is on the right–I don’t put dogs in National Parks)….
Look familiar? Rob Decker’s Crater Lake–compare the sky. If imitation is really a sincere form of flattery, I should be very flatteried, but I’m not. And…… This Badlands is so bad and also a knockoff. The Jewel Cave is a ‘not-so-clever’ copy–thank you Rob Decker! You are really starting to get under my skin with these–not so much that the art is bad (it is), but you really mislead the public with all this Ansel Adams–WPA stuff. Adams was not a WPA artist, and BTW: Whose products does the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite National Park carry? Ranger Doug’s, of course!). Quality is King!
Beware of these imposters, folks. Usually bad art, sometimes printed offshore and not very original. And, I’m the only one who is silk-screening this art as it was originally created. And I can now say “I wrote the book on it.” Grrrrr!
Well, time to take a day off from the trade-show and let my blood pressure return to normal. The Coit Tower WPA murals are top of my list. For those of you who don’t know this tower, it sits prominently on Nob Hill in the North Beach area of San Francisco. It was built by a cement contractor prior to the WPA era but the interior walls were adorned with beautiful WPA murals–it is worth a visit to San Francisco just to tour this one building*:
*actually, there’s another: the Milleneum Tower which is now leaning 29″ and continues to move after stabilization efforts.
It’s 13 flights of stairs (the elevator was out of service) and frankly that gave me a good huff and a puff at almost 78 years, now. But the murals were worth it:
The WPA artists painted the proletariat. I would not like to meet this guy in a dark alley nor his wife.
Elvis again…..or perhaps Michael Cohen, TFG’s one-time fixer, now felon? The murals spiral upstairs where they describe daily life of the working class:
Huff, puff, huff, puff……. No one is smiling in these murals and I’m not either–the elevator is broken.
And looking back downstairs.
And one of my favorites on the upper level…..with a piano, of course.
The architects, builders and even Elenor Roosevelt had their likenesses painted in. A must visit! And the view from the top is spectacular. PWAP (the map in their hands) was Public Works of Arts Project where artists were paid by their abilities and need for work. Thirty percent of PWAP artists were in their 20s an 25% were first generation immigrants. The program lasted less than a year but 3700 artists produced almost 16,000 works of art.
The kernel idea for this mural.
From the top, one can see the San Francisco Maritime Historical Park. Why Seattle doesn’t have a similar presence is beyond me and I’m going to do something about it! (to be posted in August–I’m working on it…..) The familiar Alcatraz Island is in the center of the bay. Let’s zoom in on the Park first.
Right is the C. A. Thayer, a three master lumber schooner fully restored and sailable (she currently does not have sails). Seattle got one also–the sister ship to the Thayer called……the Wawona. But NW Seaport Chief Shipwright, Bill White, one Saturday morning, took a chainsaw and cut not one, but all of the deck beams splaying the ship 3′. And that was the end of the Wawona. Thanks Bill. We need better supervision of Seattle’s historic fleet and that’s my new mission.
The Hyde Street Pier–beyond is moored the largest wooden ship in the United States–the Eureka–a steam sidewheeler replete with a car-deck full of period automobiles and trucks:
She still sports a functional walking beam steam engine and is the only engine of this type still afloat. Eureka was the largest wooden passenger ferry ever built (by 3′!).
Can Do–my Seabee spirit is, well…..The theme of this trade-show is “Rosie the Riveter.” Three days of trade-show and I’m all tuckered out but made it through another one……thanks to help from Olive, my newly adopted daughter. We had a blast–she follows me around the country and works for maritime history also. Her boyfriend is an Alaska bush pilot and marine engineer who loves antique engines and…..lives on a tugboat with a piano. I must have raised this kid right…. Stay tuned!!