Art’s Mobile Revisited

 

davemobile 

Here is the full photo of brother Dave at Art’s Mobile.  I cropped the earlier version to bring out more of the background detail.  Of the earlier version brother Dan wrote:

I think this is the day of or around Dave’s graduation from MVHS which would put it as 71? I graduated in 78 and Dave has 7 years on me. I think that is correct. I recall it was Dave who got sick from eating at The Barrel, if it was from over eating cheap rolled tacos or from the "C" that it had in it’s window as a health rating we can only guess. Looking at this I am reminded of the documentary on Crumb, who paid a photographer to drive around the urban industrial areas and take shots of the material that engenders "blight" of the feeling of it, the wires and poles and crap that your brain just forgets to see after a while cause it is always there and never changes. Crumb captured this in his comix, and who ever took this photo did too.

 Brother Dan remarks on the visual blight—something R Crumb attempted to capture in his comics.  I agree.  It’s a blight certainly—all those wires and cords and gaudy colors and different textures of plastic all of it stuck together every-which-away and willy-nilly. If you think about it, it’s the visual equivalent of litter.

But that was classic early (and still today) California.  No trees to block out the litter.  No zoning at all.  Just every establishment in its own way screaming for your attention.  Ultimately it’s deadening.

 The visual litter is more in the background of the full photo, and brother Dave more framed by Art’s Mobile on one side and the pumps on the other.

I had forgotten that the Taco Barrel had a C health rating.