[applause] >> joseph hsu, ladies and gentlemen. joseph hsu. now, all those six men are competing against this man, ladies and gentlemen. we left him for last simply because he was the 46th annual cable car bell ringing champion. ladies and gentlemen, he's been with muni for nine years, eight years on the cable car. let's hear it for two-time winner mr. leonard oates. [applause] go -- good to see you, leonard. up got the gloves on. i see you are ready. you and i have a city in common. where were you born? >> new orleans, louisiana. >> new orleans, louisiana the yeah, let's hear it for the 504. how do you prepare for this whole darn thing here? >> practice.

>> ok. that will get you to broadway but here you are in union square. ladies and gentlemen, two-time winner, mr. leonard oates. >> this is what i do every day. [ringing bells]

>> leonard oates, ladies and gentlemen, reigning two-time champion mr. leonard oates. that completes the entire competition, ladies and gentlemen. let's hear it for everybody you heard today. the votes from the judges will now be tallied. that means up guys actually have to go to work now. we're going to name the tom three winners in the amateur and professional categories. the first place winner of the professional competition will take home a beautiful cable car bell with -- made by gilberto at the frens of the cable car museum. every year this man makes a beautiful cable car bell for this competition the mr. gad oy is pretty shy, he won't talk about his work but the craftsmanship speaks for itself the every bell every year is individually made by this man. it's a craft. you will see him a little

later. while we're waiting for the votes to be tallied though, you're not going anywhere. i'd like to introduce some of the city's top choreographers from the epiphany production, the san francisco trolley dances. it's recognized as a wonderful way to connect the san francisco neighborhoods together by performing on the trolley lines. this year they'll be core i can't graph -- choreographing dances on the church line. let's welcome the san francisco trolley dancers. >> hi, there. [bells ringing]

[bells and chimes ringing]

[music continues]

♪ ♪ [singing in italian]

♪ santa lucia ♪ santa lucia

♪ santa lucia >> fantastic! wow! let's hear it for them. ladies and gentlemen, epiphany productions sonic dance theater, san franciscoance theater, san francisco trolley dancers. you will see them on muni jay church line. they'll be there all year. fantastic. nice work. well done. and now while we're still tallying our scores, our band today is called the slot blades but i bet you didn't even know what a slot blade is, do you? it's a piece of machinery the

cable car operator uses to stop the cable car. it's a very important piece of metal. it's the official emergency brake that drives a metal wedge into the ground and pushes the blade and imbeds itself for a quick stop. but these slot blades keep us going. ladies and gentlemen, once more, the slot blades! [applause] ♪ ♪ oh, go bop

♪ go bop, bop, go bop, bop, go , go bop ♪ ♪ go jingle bop ♪ go bop

>> the slot blades, ladies and gentlemen! >> thank you. >> is everybody ready? is everybody ready? to announce the amateur third place category in 2009. tom sweeney. third place, amateur category. tom? >> third place winner goes to kblx. let's hear it for kblx. right. congratulations. congratulations. thanks, tom. >> go away. now second place, ladies and gentlemen. from triple-a. matt newcomer. all right, matt, who is our second place winner in the

amateur category? >> our second place winner is the team from abc 7. >> abc 7 come and get it! couple of words? >> thank you so much. if you watch abc 7 at 3:00 p.m. um see this trophy on tv. >> ok, excellent. all right. and to announce the first place winner, mr. wes tyler of union square. wes? big mystery. who's the winner. >> by the process of elimination, it's koit! >> koit. mr. scotty bastopol for the third year in a row. love this city. thank you. >> runners up. the 47th not -- annual cable car bell ringing competition, no particular order, mr. trini whitaker.

sullivan philips. ken lunardi. and joseph hsu. come up and get your trophies. thank the judges. [laughter] now it's time for what you've been waiting for, third place, ladies and gentlemen, mr. howard woo. howard woo. again, they're not booing you. all right. mr. ken mcdonald. chief of muni operations officer, please come forward to help me present the second place trophy. second place, ladies and gentlemen. mr. frank ware.

and before we announce the winner i'm going to drag this out even longer. i'm going to take a moment to thank the kind people who made the 47th annual cable car bell ringing contest possible the the vice chair of the sfmt board of directors. and friends of the cable car music, union square association, trophy masters shanghai restaurant, ghirardelli chocolatesing, and the american automobile association and the $250 cash prize, deluxe sightseeing. let's bring up gilberto gad oy with the hand-crafted bell. and the winner is -- >> mr. leonard oates.

congratulations. >> leonard oates. he retains the crown. [applause] that concludes the 47th annual cable car bell ringing contest. thank you, everybody, for coming. don't forget next year the 48th annual cable car ringing contest. stay tuned for details. >> welco"

today we are visiting southern exposure in san francisco alison prepares to launch a fantastic new project called beautiful possibilities. we will send them on a two-year adventure crisscrossing the united states to investigate american history and contemporary culture. it is using a traveling road show as inspiration. she will sit down and talk with residents in search of stories and experiences that reveals exactly what makes us americans. >> beautiful possibility is a traveling research project that i will take on a five-month journey across the united states and lower canada. i document this tore on a map that i painted for the project

and also from previous projects called the road map to lost america. on the map i have taken all of the contemporary borders off the map and replaced them with native territories, and then overlaid it with contemporary highways. i have scheduled venue stops at different areas along the tour, from california to south dakota, that will serve as headquarters for my local research. when i was researching the traveling medicine show, i came across this. they had put out an elixir, and it referred to the elements that came out because of the high stress, high-pressure life, mostly because of the industrial revolution. anyway, i was fascinated by the term american-itis, and i thought it did a lot about the stress-related illnesses, and i

was impressed that they picked up on that and the 1800's. i did a survey to see if it was irrelevant element today. i have a series of eight painted banners that are retellings of american history. i am particularly interested in transition history between native and european histories and retelling them as if they were a popular myth. there is a mix of eras and characters and times drat these banners. -- and times throughout these banners. i use the olympics and the melting pot, or things reduced down, and come out of this reduction. and something else transforms out of it. they had this strict code of who we should be as americans, and then i had andrew jackson fanning the flames.

this first contact, down to george bush in 2008. all of the characters that appear are real characters that are taken from my research. we are an interesting mix and i want to provoke wonder about who we are. every one of the characters are taken from actual photographs or documents that i found in my research on american history. in a lot of my banners, you conceal -- uc the melting pot, the imagery and myth that we use in our culture. talking about these reductions of all these different mixes of people, how you distill the experience. that is something i want to think about, collecting the ideas and ingredients, and i wanted to do the san francisco de lexie. -- elixir. we found a spring water

underneath a church in cow hollow. we put rosebuds in the water to attract peace, and it made a meade. it was sitting in the gallery. we distill that through local herbs. it was really surprising how delicious it was, because we were mixing a lot of seemingly in congruent ingredients, and it was delicious and different from anything you have ever tasted. i would have been happy if it was medicinal. the idea was more important to me. but it was very good. it is something i think a lot about, especially transition history, native americans, how they have this combination of dress, from the clothing from trade companies, mixed with traditional dress. i love how reflective it is of who they are, and also the

merging history's coming together. what would we look like if we carry our history with us? all of the merging of cultures, reflected in our address? i am thinking of my own history with early europeans coming in and intermixing with native cultures. the one thing i would like people to take away from after seeing my work is a sense of wonder and who we are as americans. that we are really these beautiful mixes of people and we should really be looking backwards at who we are. i think we are all kind of historians in our own life, and there are great presidents behind us -- president behind us that could give us insight into who we are. >> oliver road trip on her website. check at often. new experiences will be added after every stop.