During the 1960s, professional wrestling was huge at the Cow Palace. There are vast websites devoted to the phenomenon, which was part of a circuit that included Sacramento.

Now a new book, When I Shot Good & Bad Guys Who Wrestled at the Cow Palace, commemorates the era. The book collects photographer Jim Fitzpatrick’s work documenting the bouts held by promoter Roy Shire, a former wrestler who became the biggest wrestling promoter in Northern California in the 1960s (scroll down in that page to “The Beginning” for Shire’s story).

You can order When I Shot Good and Bad Guys here.

Anticipation grows for the opening of the San Francisco Garden Show, whose opening night party is tonight. All this past weekend, and for months prior, the bright stars of the Northern California garden design scene have been prepping for the annual show at the Cow Palace. The crews have moved tons of earth & built some beautiful works that last for mere days. Here’s last year’s winning garden designers Organic Mechanics (pictured with Show Producer Kay Estey at last year’s opening night fete’. )

For those interested in a behind the scenes look, one of the designers in this year’s show, Michelle Derviss, has started a Garden Porn blog that details some of the many hundreds of hours of preparation that went into her exhibit, including battling “Bio-Walls”, etc…

The show opens to the public Wednesday morning March 12 and is open everday until 8pm except the closing day Sunday, when it finally shutters in the late afterrnoon…

more info at http://www.gardenshow.com/sf/