Since I seem to have developed a habit of writing a post every Thanksgiving, I figured I'd keep the tradition alive for at least one more year.

( Not a whole lot to report this year, I think )

Long-time readers may remember me talking about my Dad's past life as a painter of scenic drops for Bay Area rock concerts. Well, I semi-regularly peruse YouTube to see if I can find footage of those old concerts and sets, and today I came across a nice li'l gem.

There's a shot of my Dad's set at about a minute in, from a crowd's-eye view no less.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Free Bird" (July 4, 1977):



It was a Mount Rushmore set, seen in full here:



(Peter Frampton was also on the bill that day.)

(As an aside, good Lord--look at all those chicks! I guess that's what they call "pulling pussy," am I right ladies? Eh? Eh?)

Over on Facebook I set my status to "David is inspired." There's a lot to be inspired about these days, it seems.

( I guess this is my 'What I'm Thankful for' post. )

OK, so here's my story of the old man and the Mexican food. Desiree has already recounted how she saw things play out, but for those of you who haven't had a chance to (or can't) read it, I'll start from the beginning.

( Tales of near-death experiences follow... )

On my way home from work on the bus today. Quiet, no one's really talking loudly (a couple people talking softly on cell phones).

Suddenly, this thugged-out guy in the back says really loudly, "GOD DAMN, I am sick of McDonald's! That's all I eat, every day! God damn Dollar Menu! GOD DAMN DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER!"

There's a music festival going on at Golden Gate Park this weekend. We live about two blocks from the Park, so we're going in to the weekend prepared to deal with the ensuing craziness. I thought I'd be able to sneak home after I got off work at 6:00 yesterday, before the madness really got in full swing. I was wrong.

See, I mistakenly thought the music festival was the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass fest, so I didn't think it would be a big deal. Turns out that festival is in October. This festival is the Outside Lands Music Festival, which is considerably a bigger deal. As in, the headliners for Friday night were Radiohead and Beck. Shit.

So needless to say, the two bus lines that I could take from downtown back to my house were PACKED. And that was even with the bus lines running every 2-4 minutes. I knew I had no chance at my regular stop, where only one line comes by, so I walked seven LONG blocks down to the Powell Street stop. There were about 80 people there. I am not even joking. It was like seeing the queue for the last chopper out of Saigon.

Fortune was on my side, as two #21 buses pulled up at the same time and the majority of the people at the station--being out of towners--were waiting for the #5, which is the more direct bus line, so I was able to shove my way onto the second bus and even got a seat! Hurray!

That's about where my luck ran out.

You see, the thing about Radiohead is that in the last few years they've started to attract of cadre of White People as fans. I hate White People. Now, don't confuse that with white people. White People are the Euro-Americans who can identify with the majority of stuff on this blog. And I was surrounded by them.

No problem, just bust out the iPod and crank it up, right? That was the plan--until my iPod immediately took a dump on me and claimed it was out of battery power, even though there had been a little bit of a bar on the battery indicator seconds before. WTF.

So I was trapped on this bus ride, which was about 10-15 minutes longer than usual (for a total of about 35 minutes), listening to inane White Person chatter. Like, as they popped open their Red Bulls, they compared energy drinks. Or how they reminisced in exacting detail about scenes from Growing Pains ("Yeah, Robin Thicke's dad was in that show!") and Family Ties. How "I have little faith in the franchise now that John Favreau is no longer writing the script." I think the best was when the Barbie doll in the seat in front of me proudly announced to her friend that she was getting a tattoo, "but a small one behind my ear, so no one can see it and only I know it's there."

When I at last stumbled off the bus, I had a raging headache. It was just so bad.

In some ways, though, it was illuminating. It coalesced my distaste for White People, which I'd never really been aware of before, not beyond a vague sense of discomfort whenever I was around them. I realized it's the reason I don't like certain people, the type of people who go out drinking on Friday night and then spend the rest of the week talking about how drunk they got; it's the people I found myself amongst at the Wolfmother and Faint shows (in addition to the freaks and weirdos I feel much more kindred with, of course). So I guess in the long run, it was a good thing, this bus ride. Still, it took me all night to recover. We watched Meet the Feebles and it barely fazed me.

Post-script: Like the aforementioned shows, it's not so much the bands playing at that festival as it is the people attending that bothered me. When I got home and checked out who was playing at the festival, there were actually a few acts I found myself thinking, "Shoot, I would've liked to have seen them!" The Black Keys, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Black Mountain, Rodrigo y Gabriela, etc. Ah well.

Post-script the second: After getting home, I stumbled across this cartoon which kind of sums up how I feel about my place in the world:



Post-script the third: For no reason at all, a hedgehog:

My turn for a Dark Knight post, I suppose.

First, yes, it took us forever to see it. We had planned to go to the midnight premiere, but we're just too busy to engage in such frivolities right now I guess. And then trying to find a good three-hour window was next to impossible.

And simply trying to see a movie in SF can be a real ordeal. Which we think is fitting with the smug exclusivity of SF. But whatever. On to the review.

( Honestly, when you're dealing with a movie this good, it's hard not to throw your two cents in... )

We saw The Dark Knight today. And it was as good as I'd hoped.

But our journey, our odyssey, to see this film left us feeling still more alienated from the smug assholes that populate this otherwise wonderful city. We've often joked about running off to live in the hills (or Arcata), since there doesn't seem to be anywhere among humanity that we feel comfortable with.

After coming home from the movie, I ran across this infamous recording of Orson Welles flipping out over having to read stupid ad copy for frozen peas. I turned to Des and said, "This is us in 20 years."

( God help us! )

And now a bonus clip to lighten the mood:

( The Critic was a great show. )

Des will no doubt be posting her usual comprehensive round-up of our trip to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium yesterday (complete with pics), but here's a teaser:

( Read more... )

So Des and I are thinking about taking a trip down to Monterey today, and I wanted to check the air quality down there, what with the Big Sur fire and all. So I ended up on the Monterey Herald website, and was amused by their "Breaking News" feed. Here are the top, breaking headlines in Monterey:

* Arrest for public intoxication.
* Man takes electronics without paying.
* Dog bites boy on skimboard.

Yup, the action never stops 'round there...

UPDATE! A new headline has appeared: "Loose Dog". Is it the same dog that bit the boy on the skimboard? Stay tuned for further developments as they come in to our studio.

On my local PBS station there's a show called Check Please Bay Area, in which three everyday folk are asked to come on and recommend a favorite restaurant. The other two guests then dine out at that person's restaurant, and vice versa and so on, then everyone presents their opinions on the recommendations, so you get three restaurant reviews.

At any rate, most of the time the guests are civil and well-behaved, even if they didn't like a particular dining experience. But occasionally you get someone who gets a little too smug for their own good. (Smug? In San Francisco? Surely you jest!) These smug displays are usually entertaining, but there's this one episode...

I'm using this guest's name, Jewel Wilk, so that this post will turn up if anyone Googles her name, because--really--this woman's statements were just so over-the-top ridiculous I can't let it slide.

Essentially what happened was that one of the other guests recommended an Asian restaurant. He gave his spiel about it, then the other guest raved about it, then the cameras turned to Ms. Welk.

Ms. Welk, who is Asian-American, announced with the most supremely smug look on her face that she was "savoring" the sight of watching "two non-Asians talking about Asian food in front of an Asian!" Like, by virtue of her ethnicity, only she could talk knowledgeably about food from "her" continent.

On top of that, I'm pretty sure Ms. Wilk was Japanese-American (she was credited as being a part-time taiko drummer) and this wasn't even a Japanese restaurant, it was Thai. That's like me saying I'm an expert on Hungarian food because I'm Scotch-Irish-German.

It gets better, since Ms. Wilk's restaurant recommendation was for a French restaurant. I really wish one of the other guests had thrown her bizarre culinary racism back in her face by saying something like, "Wow, it's so funny to see an Asian talking about European cuisine!"

/end public service announcement

ETA: Des found the actual episode up online (if you have RealPlayer...who the hell uses that anymore?) here.

Yes, that's an Ice Cube quote. Take it to tha bank, sucka!

Made it through the heat wave; Des insisted on taking me to the library and I hung out in the trashed, soon-to-be-renovated labyrinth, tapping away on my laptop and staying cool.

After Des got off work we went to grab dinner. I had done some Yelping in between working and discovered a little hole in the wall Mexican place in Daly City, just about 5 minutes away from campus. OMG it was sooooo good! I am still thinking about that burrito I had.

We talked on the way to dinner and through our meal about a certain underlying weirdness that has seemed to be creeping into our interactions lately. And I came to the conclusion that I'm actually dealing with a bit of depression. Which is odd, since I'm actually incredibly happy with my life right now, and where it's going. The long-term picture looks really rosy; it's just the short-term stuff, dealing with being a starving student/starving writer couple, trying to make our way in the world today (it takes everything ya got) that's been a bit draining, I suppose.

At any rate, it was really good to hash things out, and as usual we were able to do it in a non-drama, supportive manner. So I'm feeling better now, emotionally.

We went to Daiso after dinner and picked up some gew-gaws. I'm going to build some cheapo shelves to properly display our minis, and I found good shelf supports for that. We got some other miscellaneous crap; in celebration of my depression realization I bought a notebook that says "I hope everyday will be hapy!!" on the cover. Sweet.

We got home and the apartment was hot, but not too bad--having all the windows covered up kept things down to a bearable 89.5 degrees. The good news was that the cool air has started to move in now, so we set up our Vornado and let it go to town.

We watched some Professor Brothers, then both took a nap since we were planning to head out for a film festival presentation of Cthulhu. We met up with naman at the theater. Des got in on a press pass, since she'll be writing a professional review. La-dee-dah!

At any rate, don't let the low rating fool you--that's just a bunch of reactionary Lovecraft nerds who object to a movie with a main character who is "teh ghey". It's quite good. I gave it an 8/10. If you've seen Stuart Anderson's Dagon, I felt this was a much more faithful adaptation of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", even though it doesn't adhere to the plot as closely. I'll write a full-length review tomorrow (or maybe Monday--I have a lot of writing to finish up tomorrow...).

Oh, and I took a cab for the first time ever--our bus was due to arrive in 58 minutes when we got out of the movie, so I was all, "Fuck that noise" and hailed the first available cab that came by. We were home in less than 20 minutes. And now there's the smell of smoke in the air, like there was last night. Odd. Maybe cultists are performing ungodly Solstice rites in the shadowed glades of Golden Gate Park? I'll be sure to double-lock our door tonight...

So yeah, despite the heat and despite feeling pretty down, I actually had a really good day.

It's forecast to be 90 degrees in our area today. Our apartment got up to 94 degrees last night before our thermometer broke.

Heat waves are bad enough in San Francisco since only about 10% of the buildings here have AC. Our lovely apartment makes things worse because (a) we have horrendous insulation that makes things hotter in the summer and colder in the winter, (b) we have NO cross-ventilation, so even our amazing Vornado fan can't get air moving through the apartment, and (c) the sun directly hits our windows for about 3 hours in the afternoon, turning the whole place into an oven. :/

Des is insisting on taking me to work with her today, so I can do my writing in the cool library. We're then going to eat out to avoid having to cook and we'll be going to a midnight movie tonight.

The apartment is going to be a kiln when we get home. :(

A couple blocks from my apartment a building is being rennovated. They've set up plywood boards to cover the gaps in the walls, and people have started tagging said plywood. Last night, someone decided to, uh, express their secret shame...

( NSFW )

So for those non-Bay Area residents out there, Hunters Point is sort of the Watts of San Francisco, or at least has that sort of reputation. Yesterday, there were two local initiatives on the ballot, both aimed at land development in the area--there are tons of abandoned shipyards and factories down there, and developers have been wanting a piece of that action for a while now.

Prop F would have guaranteed that a significant proportion of that newly-developed land would be reserved for low- to middle-income families. Prop G says it might remodel the existing projects, but it's mainly to build fancy resort communities, shopping centers, and oh yeah: WE'LL BUILD A NEW STADIUM FOR THE 49ERS DUDES!!!! YEAH!!! SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!!!

Guess which one won?

As a co-worker put it, mention the 49ers and you can get San Franciscans to do anything. :/

More details here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/03/BAR51107QK.DTL