Category Archives: San Francisco

Robert Stark talks to Kevin Lynn about his Ad Campaign against H-1B Visas on SF’s BART

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kevin Lynn is Director of Progressives for Immigration Reform which is sponsoring adds against the H-1B Visa Program on the Bay Area’s BART System.

Topics:

Bay Area Campaign Targets H-1B Visas, Asks Congress to Fix on Americans’ Behalf
The campaign’s message, “Your companies think you are expensive, undeserving & expendable. Congress, fix H-1B law so companies must seek & hire U.S. workers!”
Bay Area media responses including the San Jose Mercury News which first reported on the campaign
The overall reaction from tech workers was positive but with hesitations due to fear of backlash
The goal of the campaign is to to foster a movement to unite tech workers politically against exploitation
How for every two students who graduate with STEM degrees, only one is hired into a STEM job
How Foreign workers account for about 70 percent of the tech workforce in the Bay Area
H-1B Visas as Indentured Servitude
The myth of innovation from H-1B workers
Fearing H-1B Tightening, Tech Giants Ramp Up Lobbying
How Trump has accomplished very little on immigration
The impact of immigration on the environment and carbon footprints

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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings and his novel Journey to Vapor Island




Robert Stark interviews Dain Fitzgerald

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Joshua Zeidner talk to Dain Fitzgerald. Dain works in the Silicon Valley, is based in Oakland, blogs at Dry Hyphen Olympics, and writes for The American Spectator and Secular Right. He is also on Twitter.

Topics:

How Robert met Dain at a Bay Area futurist meetup
Growing up in Sacramento, CA
Life in the Bay Area
The Bay Area’s economic situation and housing crisis
Dain’s political views, how he is fairly centrist economically, and opposed to SJW culture
The Grey Tribe
The Culture War; the humanities vs. the sciences
The political climate of the Silicon Valley
The firing of James Damore from Google
Neurodiversity 
Dain’s article Asian-American Leaders Are Scarce in Silicon Valley. And?
Dain’s article Meet the New Boss about how well behaved Millennials are
Futurism and science based politics
The Harvey Weinstein Scandal(note: the show was recorded before the recent SNL)

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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!




Robert Stark talks to Robert Brenner about HBO’s The Deuce and 1970’s Time Square

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark talks to Robert Brenner. Robert Brenner runs the Remnants of Gritty Times Square Tour hosted by Untapped Cities and has his own tour company Pig Feet Walking Tours.  Check out Robert Stark’s first and second interview with Robert Brenner about bout his Time Square Tours.

Topics:

HBO’s “The Deuce” Resurrects Gritty Times Square
NYC Film Locations for The Deuce about Gritty 1970’s Time Square on HBO
Robert Brenner’s upcoming tour on October 22nd which will incorporate locations from HBO’s “The Deuce”
How the locations for the show have been re-created from scratch in Washington Heights
42nd Street which was once known as “The Deuce” and was a hub for adult venues
Remaining adult venues on 8th Avenue including Show World and The Playpen
Theatres retrofitted into Broadway venues including the The Victory, The Empire, The Lyric, and The New Amsterdam
The Condor and Big Al’s being retrofitted from adult venues in San Francisco
Defunct theatres including The Pussycat Cinema, The World Theatre, The Rialto, and The Apollo
Adult Films Beyond the Green Door and Deep Throat
The history of Broadway

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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!




Robert Stark interviews Hank Pellissier

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark, Sam Kevorkian, and Joshua Zeidner talk to Futurist writer Hank Pellissier. Hank Pellissier is an advocate of Transhumanism, director of the Brighter Brains Institute, and the former managing director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

Topics:

Hank’s fund-raising for numerous projects in Uganda via the Brighter Brains Institute including clinics and aid to schools and orphanages
A Transhumanist Wants to Feed DIY Soylent to Starving Children
Transhumanist Hank Pellissier on Being an “Atheist Missionary
Trans-humanitarianism
Hank’s book Brighter Brains: 225 ways to elevate or injure IQ
Hank’s book Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so high?
China’s Meritocracy Vs. Western Democracy
The effects of diet, lifestyle, education, and trauma on IQ
Raising IQ via cybernetics and gene editing
The Basic Income and Hank’s hesitations
Support for Democratic Socialism
Hank’s book Invent Utopia Now, Transhumanist Suggestions for the Pre-Singularity Era
In-vitro meat and “Farmscrapers”
Wilderness and Rain Forest
Sex Robots and Artificial Wombs
Public Nudity

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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!




San Francisco Bay Area Trip Photo Album

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Album includes:

Mount Diablo
Walnut Creek
Lafayette
Orinda
The Caldecott Tunnel
Oakland
The Bay Bridge
The Downtown Skyline
Alamo Square
Lombard Street
Coit Tower
Fort Mason
The Palace of Fine Arts
Nob Hill
The Fairmont Hotel
North Beach
Fisherman’s Wharf & Ghirardelli Square
The Mission District
The FM-84 Concert at the DNA Lounge
The John C. Portman designed Embarcadero Center
The under construction Transbay Transit Terminal
Union Square
The SF Chronicle Building
The Tenderloin

Check out Robert Stark’s podcast and album from his last is trip to the San Francisco Bay Area
Check out Robert Stark’s Artwork




Continue reading San Francisco Bay Area Trip Photo Album

Robert Stark interviews Old Urbanist Charles Gardner


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Sam Kevorkian talk to James Gardner. He is an Attorney based in Stamford, Connecticut and blogs at the Old Urbanist.

Topics:

Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities
The Curated Landscape  and how European towns and cities have starker divides between urbanized and undeveloped land than those of the United States
The Streetcar suburb model and Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise And Fall Of Suburbia: Robert Fishman
That 70s Urbanism, 70’s Urban Renewal projects(ex. the Embarcadero Center in SF and the Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia), and how those projects are underappreciated
Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti
Cruise Ships: The Densest (Urban) Environment in the World
Disneyland and Urbanism
Heroic materialist
Green Urbanism, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, and the Garden City movement
Rehabilitating Walmart
The European Arcade and the Middle Eastern Souk as a model for retail
Height Acts and Restrictions
Narrow Streets
Vancouver and the Zoning Straitjacket
Lot Sizes: Regional Trends and Causes
NYC Suburban Demographics: and the  demographic collapse among the young adult population in wealthy suburbs
Urban growth boundaries

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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!




Robert Stark interviews Korezaan about Transit & Urbanism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Sam Kevorkian talk to Bay Area based blogger and illustrator Korezaan. He blogs at Rezzealaux and has a Facebook Page.

Topics:

Korezaan’s political views, the Euclidean vector towards Giovanni Dannato, and the Alt-Center 
Korezaan’s article BART, Americans, and Attitudes, vs The East which has maps of land use around the BART Stations
Robert Stark’s recent meeting with Korezaan in the Bay Area and some personal observations from the trip
Transit Oriented Development and the lack of housing density around BART Stations
The importance of having retail in or near transit
The importance of pedestrian friendly development
NIMBYism, density, parking, and height limits
How suburbia makes it difficult to form communities and contributes to social isolation
Ethnoburbs
New Urbanism
Housing Crisis: Razib Khan on how $100,000 in Palo Alto is equivalent to $16,000 in St. Louis 
The misconception that suburbs are necessary for family formation
The Upscale East Bay towns of Lafayette and Orinda and Korezaan’s point that these are places where ex-urbanites bring non-suburban culture to the suburbs
Bay Area Greenbelts and Conservation in Hong Kong
Self-contained urban structures, urban oasis’s, the Embarcadero Center, and Elements, Hong Kong above the Kowloon MTR station
The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, Blade Runner, Ghost in a Shell, and Western vs. Eastern Cyberpunk
Korezaan’s artwork featured on his blog Rezzealaux

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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!




Thomas Rinaldi returns to talk about Neon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Pilleater talk to returning guest Thomas Rinaldi. He is the author of New York Neon and blogs at nyneon.blogspot.com

Topics:

Thomas’s Tours of West Village’s Vintage Neon Signs, his Greenwich Village Neon Walking Tour, and how those areas have the highest concentration of surviving Neon in New York City
Thomas’s observation that Neon has declined in both corporate chain dominated, as well as lower income communities
How ironically in the 60’s Neon was synonymous with commercialization(ex. Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence)
The association of Neon with 80’s Retro-Futurism(ex. RetrowaveClub NEON) and the irony that Neon hit rock bottom in the 80’s
The decline of Neon in Time Square, Robert Brenner’s Gritty Old Time Square Tours, and the few remnents including the West 43rd Garage and the McDonalds from the 80’s
Lights Out 2016: Signs We Lost That Year
The Colgate Clock in Jersey City, which has been LED’ed
Clock Towers Signs in New York including the Paramount Theatre, the Consolidated Edison Building, the Met Life Tower, and the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower
Soviet Neon Stars at the Kremlin and Neon in Communist Cuba
Williamsburg’s Domino Sugar Refinery redevelopment; the outlawing of waterfront signs in New York City
The C & H factory Sign in Crockett, California
Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco as one of the best examples of a renovated former industrial site
Georges Claude, the father of the commercialization of Neon
The popularity of Signs Inside
Fake Neon
Animated Neon Signs, the peak in the 50’s, and San Francisco’s “Coca~Cola” Sign
Bulb Signs which were proliferate in the 1920’s, and Robert’s observation that they were also popular with 90’s era Las Vegas Casinos
Wildwood, New Jersey Neon
Mid Century Road Signage; Route 66
Downtown LA; The LA Museum Of Neon Art
Neon in Buenos Aires, Argentina; The Art Deco Kavanagh building and Estadio Luna Park
Thomas’s observations from Stockholm and Amsterdam
How Neon is declining in both Mega Cities such as New York and London as well as the poorest cities in the developing world
Hong Kong Is Slowly Dimming Its Neon Glow


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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!




Robert Stark talks to Greg Johnson about the Alt Left Dilemma

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark, co-host Pilleater, and AltLeft blogger Rabbit talk to Counter-Currents editor Greg Johnson.

Topics:

The Concept of the Left Wing of the Alt Right; The Alt Left
Greg Johnson’s essay on SWPL Identity and Rabbit’s Alt Left Manifesto
Millennial Woes’ talk with Rabbit and Greg Johnson about the Alt Left
The 60’s Left Counter-Culture as a fusion of Tolkien and Marcuse, and the need to reclaim the positive attributes of the left, such as ecology, historic preservation, and anti-consumerism
The Alt Left dilemma identifying with SWPL Culture, and urban aesthetics, while supporting forms of identitarianism that often lack strong aesthetic visions
The lack of cultural sophistication among conservatives, and the left’s monopoly on cultural institutions
Suburbia as a by product of the middle class being cleansed out of cities, and the need to sustain a strong urban middle class
Affordable family formation
The Basic income, how it should be implemented, and who it should favor
Putting caps on high incomes with the exception of artist and inventors
The Nietzschean concept of the artist as the ruler
The conservative outlook that judges people on their material wealth over their aesthetic taste, and creative potential
Overpopulation, and how the ideal is to have immigration reduction with a stable or slowly rising birthrate
Greg’s experience living in San Francisco and Berkeley, San Francisco as a SWPL Utopia, and the aesthetic and ecological attributes of the region
The Transamerica Pyramid and Embarcadero Center in San Francisco
Rabbit’s interest in Mid-Century Space Age aesthetics, and his observations going to Mid-Century Modern home tours
Frank Lloyd Wright
Art Deco, which was a heroic vision of the future with respect for tradition; Art Deco in New York and San Francisco
Film noir, and the Blade Runner
David Lynch’s Archeo-Futurist aesthetic in Dune, and ruin porn
The tradition of right wing modernism; Italian Futurism which captured the vitality, optimism, and new possibilities created by technology
The concept of degenerate art, distinguishing between modernism and postmodernism
Defining what is degenerate; Robert and Pilleater’s show on Avant Garde Film

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Check out Robert Stark’s Paintings!




Robert Stark interviews Bay Area Guy about our Rigged Economic System

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Pilleater talk to Bay Area-based blogger  Bay Area Guy of Occident Invicta

Topics:

Bay Area Guy’s review of Dean Baker’s Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer
How Baker along with Michael Hundson, were some of the few economists to get the housing bubble right
Why Baker does not praise of Bill Clinton’s budget surpluses, and his critique of conservative fiscal hawks
Rules and regulations are what make the market, and how America’s current inequality was caused by deliberate policies designed to redistribute income upward
Using Free Market talking points against apologist for the plutocracy
Professional Protectionism(ex. Nurses and Paralegals being barred from performing tasks of doctors and lawyers)
CEO to worker pay disparities, and Baker’s proposal that Shareholders should vote on CEO compensation; German and Japanese Stakeholder Capitalism
Copyright and Insurance Monopolies
How to rig the market in our favor
Zoe Lofgren and the H-1B Question
Winston Churchill on Land Monopoly
Michael Hudson’s article Trump Infrastructure Plan Is Developer Welfare
Robert’s point that cohesive urban mass transit is necessary, but must be funded by either taxes on the FIRE sector or a Public Infrastructure Bank
The importance of sustaining an urban middle class
Scattered Thoughts on Political Violence


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Check out Robert Stark’s Paintings!