Photographer Dave Glass, Part 2 (S9S1)

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1, with Dave's time in Europe to get away from being drafted to fight in Vietnam. By that time, with a couple years at City College taking photo classes under his belt, Dave had built a portfolio. He took all his gear with him because he didn't know whether he was ever coming back. His French cousin had a friend whose mom worked at the US Embassy in Paris. Dave got about a dozen photos into a group show at the American Culture Center there, his first public showing. Through another connection, he was able to print photos for the show at the Sorbonne. The National Library of Paris ended up acquiring all of Dave's photos from that show, and they're still there today. Lodgings with his French family were barely adequate, and definitely crowded. He had a friend, also a draft dodger, living in Scotland. And so Dave decided to move to the UK. He and his cousin had bought a car together, and he ended up taking that car to Leeds in northern England. Locals there took Dave in, and so he stayed there, rather than Scotland, for another half-year. We go on a sidebar thanks to my out-of-left-field question about Dave smoking cigarettes when he lived in Europe. We also talk about partying as a young person over there. At the end of 1971, Dave returned to The Bay. It was safe by then, he says, because there were so many other draft dodgers. He shares a tidbit about how, before he left, if you had gone to the intersection of 19th Avenue and Lincoln, you would see at least half a dozen young men holding hitchhiking signs that said, "Canada." A few years down the road after Dave's return, Jimmy Carter granted amnesty to all the draft dodgers. At our live event, he next showed a photo from Mission and 18th Street that shows, among other things, Lakeside Liquors, Dave's family's business back then. His dad and a partner owned and ran the place, and Dave worked there. His dad also owned a laundromat on the block. His dad claimed that his was the first full-service, coin-op laundromat in The City. It was 1957, and we'll just go ahead and take his dad's word for it. As a young man, Dave learned to fix those washing machines and dryers, which he says "were always breaking down." And that's how he got his first taste of appliance repair, a career he spent 25 years in. When his dad retired in the Eighties, Dave opened his own joint—Little Hollywood Launderette on Market near Laguna. But by the time he opened Little Hollywood, unattended laundromats were fading in popularity, for various reasons. So Dave included attendants and wash-and-fold service at his place, as well as a dry cleaner next door. He ran Little Hollywood from 1989 until 2007. Dave shares the story of a music video that was shot mostly inside Little Hollywood. A then somewhat up-and-coming artist called Del the Funky Homosapien shot the video for his song "Made in America," directed by Michael Lucero, in a funky laundry spot on Market. Read all about that in this story from Hieroglyphics. Dave's behind-the-scenes story of that video shoot is fun. Back in his repairman days, Dave would travel from the Mission to the Western Addition regularly, as well as trips out to the Sunset and Richmond districts. He got to know his city even better. He knew all the laundromats, including the spot that would eventually be his own. In 2007, Dave decided to retire. That gave him more time with his cameras. Three years later, his parents really started aging and needed more and more care. To help out, Dave took over running his dad's businesses when he was no longer able to. He did continue taking photos during this time, though. In fact, he'd been taking photos since his return from Europe back in the early Seventies. Photographers from