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1998

For the Search Engines

Teenage sex, oral sex, big dicks, fuck, fuck, fuck, sex with animals… That should help with the lull in search engine hits this week.

Sunday morning. Eggo Waffles and a big glass of Coke. I guess I’m figuring this quick and strong dose of sugar will frighten my system out of its lethargy.

There’s nothing on TV. Wasn’t Sunday morning once a time of cool old movies? The closest I can find today is “The Ann Jillian Story”. I think I’ll pass. Maybe check out a “Streets of San Francisco” on tape instead.

I have the Sunday paper, but I don’t feel like reading it. I’m midway through that Jim Hightower book, but I don’t feel like reading that either. I could spend some time answering the towering pile of email which is growing on my hard drive. Hmmm…we’ll see…

Maybe a drive…or maybe I could just sit here and write more about nothing…

What Are Words For?

I think I’ve heard quite enough of the word extreme lately. We have extreme sports and extreme soda and extreme fashion, among other extremities. There’s even an extreme sex (trendily spelled “Xtreme”) web site devoted to “poz-hungry men into bareback sex”. The word extreme tops my list of the most annoying marketing terms of the late 90’s. I recently heard a radio ad for some snowboard-skate-bungee-bike demo which must have repeated the word about 20 times in 30 seconds. Enough already…

Coming in a close second is fierce, the marketing term of the hiphop/clubkid generation. Lord Martine, token fluffy gayboy columnist for the SF Examiner, manages to use the word at least twice in every column, it seems. Is it just me, or does fierce already sound about as hackneyed and cliched as groovy did in the Brady Bunch years? On the edge and its cousin edgy have held up a little better, but not much…

Cliches from the corporate world are always an easy target too. One more growing our business or empowering our co-workers might push me over the brink of nausea. Growing a business makes me wonder just which potting soil or mulch I should be using. Empowerment in the 90’s usually involving making workers responsible for implementing and defending policies they had no say in creating, which more or less equals getting yelled at so that upper management doesn’t have to.

Of course, upper management is usually too busy officing, networking, downsizing, ramping up, profit-taking, strategizing, and working on goal-achievement models and paradigms. Or (no doubt) selecting the proper fertilizer with which to grow the business.

These same executives can often be found working the web or cruising the Information Superhighway. The Internet has generated a whole new set of annoying and cliched terms which make me nuts. Of course, there’s obvious annoyance factor of cute misspellings like kewl (which should have been banned by AOL about 1995) and shorthand like BTW, FWIW, OTOH, and IMHO (which I admit to using myself on occasion).

My real favorite is, of course, send me an email. I’ve already babbled about this one. I will send you email. I will send you some email. I will email you. But I will not send you an email. Email is a collective plural (just like “mail” and “food”), so I will also not go to the post office and send you a mail or go to the grocery store and buy you a food.

A close second is our Internet address: Would that be your web URL, your email address, your FTP site, the message ID for your insipid Usenet spam, or what?

Then there are your obvious oxymorons like Microsoft Works and America Online (and maybe high-speed modem connection?)…

Redundancy is a big pet peeve too. My favorite right now is sex pervert. Isn’t the sex part somewhat implied? Do sex perverts eat at “food restaurants” and lurk in “book libraries”?

Other terms no one’s allowed to use in my presence this week:

  • Celebrating our sexuality: What, with cake? or a covered dish supper maybe?
  • The Year 2000: Why not “the year 1998” or “the day Thursday”?
  • I could care less: Well…so could I. What I think you mean is “I couldn’t care less”
  • Irregardless: Check your dictionary…it’s not a word!!!
  • The Gay Community: Just what do I have in common with the yuppie robots and tourists on Castro Street other than a shared passion for sucking dick?

Hmmm…this was fun. Anybody care to add a few?

Slug

I’ve become a slug the past couple of days, being incredibly slow at answering email (and not getting anything else much done either). And tonight, I managed to conk out on the couch and miss a dinner engagement too.

This has to stop.

Maybe as I get closer to the upcoming road trip. Itinerary to be posted soon. It’s hard arranging a road trip around a demolition.

Good news on the trip front: someone interesting to hang out with in Milwaukee, which makes for a nice break between stops. David agreed with all but two items in Holier Than Moi. I’m not sure which two, but it’s still a good enough percentage for me…

All the same, my trip pales in comparison to the idea of Melty in Croatia. I wanna go to Croatia.

Traveling

Still planning the fall road trip to Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, and points related and in between. I’ve narrowed down the dates to something in the neighborhood of 16 Oct.-4 Nov. My fantasy is that this will get me home before the weather gets really nasty, even in Wyoming.

Of course, another trip down Route 66 could be an option if the weather requires.

Current plans call a steamy replay of Vegas ’98 in Minneapolis with Erik (and without the slot machines), plus a few days each in Chicago and Detroit. I may actually arrive in town to see the old Hudson’s Department Store in downtown Detroit become rubble.

Could be a little jaunt down to Indianapolis as well.

And, just in case you were thinking of asking for a report, I didn’t go to the Folsom Street Fair Sunday. Rumor has it you can find pictures at Kweer.com. Enjoy…

Letter from Jesus

I got a letter from Jesus in the mail today.

Actually, it wasn’t from Jesus himself. It was from a group of his close friends who were privy to the fact that he would be visiting my home in the next few days. They’ve offered me the chance to sow seeds for my eventual celestial harvest. These seeds can be sown for as little as five dollars.

All I need to do is place the enclosed purple enevlope under my pillow overnight and then return it to these nice folks in Oklahoma along with my check.

Very soon, I’m told, God will return my seed offering in a most unusual way.

They also enclosed a nice purple and gold piece of cloth. I’m not sure what it’s for. Maybe I’m supposed to use it to wipe up my seed after its sown. I usually use a Kleenex or an old towel. Could be worth a try, though. I need a change of pace.

Fair’s A-Comin’

Folsom Street Fair weekend has arrived. I’m having a hard time deciding if I should leave town Saturday or just wait and flee on the actual day of the event.

Decisions, decisions…

It’s been an incredibly busy week, both at the part-time job and on the web design side of things. My apologies to everyone to whom I owe email. I’m planning to try and catch up today before the exodus and before a possible afternoon “coffee moment” with my pal Mark. I offer no guarantees though, only more apologies if I don’t succeed.

I do, however, promise to write something a little more interesting than quickie journal entries in the next few days. OK…maybe “promise” is too strong a word…

Anybody got any information on weather conditions in the Wyoming Rockies in late October and early November?

RAM and Stuff

Dang…lots of new RAM is a truly magical thing…

My pet irrational annoyance of the day is the phrase “send me an email”. I’ll be quite happy to to send you some email. I ‘ll be glad to send you an email message. But I will not send you AN email. Nor will I go to the post office and send you a mail.

Just call me anal…

Still planning that Great Lakes tour of Michigan, Minnesota, and Chicago in the next few weeks. I’ve almost decided to drive there. Air travel in the 90’s is simply too much of a pain in the ass, and I love a good road trip. Anybody in Omaha or Cheyenne looking for a visit from a bouncing baby webamster? It’s been done before…

Smiley-face du jour goes to Paul in Charlotte, who’s just presented me with a free used Sun Sparcstation. My geek factor increases…

Last but not least, is anyone other than me really excited by the upcoming “All in the Family” marathon on Nick-at-Nite?

Randomly Tuesday

Still working on sprucing up the old web site…

E-mail today about Loftomania suggested that I should stop publishing such “uninformed offensive nonsense” and just leave the city if I’m so “upset” by its ongoing urban development”. Sort of proves my point about the arrogance of all my new neighbors, doesn’t it?

San Francisco: love it or leave it. Couldn’t be that I love the city enough to be concerned about it, I guess…

Frightening realization of the day: until yesterday, I’d never once heard the Maria Carey/Boys 2 Men song which was apparently the longest-running number one song in the history of Billboard Magazine. I have to say I’m not looking forward to hearing it again any time soon either.

On the list for Tuesday: installing the extra 48MB of RAM I just obtained, mailing out some invoices so I can afford to go on vacation, and trying once again to figure out just who watches “Friends” and why I have to be faced with back-t-back reruns at 7:00 every night.

A Quinn Martin Production

Should it disturb me that the biggest excitement of my week has been the fact that Channel 20 has brought back reruns of “The Streets of San Francisco” weeknights at 3AM? And that I’m taping them and watching them in bulk this weekend?

Another TV highlight from a TV weekend: “Yours Mine and Ours” this morning on TNT. Brought back memories of this Deadhead I went out with a few times several years ago. He had an odd fascination with this movie. I never could figure out why.

Friday night’s diversion was Jim Hightower at the Plumbers’ Union Hall with Sarah, followed by a few low-impact moments in the corner bar which included an uninspiring bout of oral sex in a back corner.

Today, I’m redesigning the site. You might have noticed.

Ye Olde Pizza Joint

Sign

What a find!

OK…so I pride myself on having a pretty good eye for noteworthy dives, which seem to be cheap and somewhat supsended in time. But this one is the best one I’ve come across in years. I’ve passed it several times while driving down Hesperian Boulevard in Hayward and filed it away for a future visit. I didn’t realize that Ye Olde Pizza Joynt would be the kind of place I’ve been seeking (without success) for such a long time.

The Pizza Joynt opened in 1958, about the same time all the tract houses were going up on the edge of Hayward. In the early 60’s, owner Carsten Heningsen added an unusual touch: the decommissioned organ from San Francisco’s Warfield Theater. After this, all remodelng seems to have stopped, leaving the Pizza Joynt pretty much frozen in about 1964.

It’s dark, with the only illumination coming from some strange hybrid “western-style” lamps overhead. Wood panelling covers the walls. Dark wooden picnic-style tables with benches provide the seating. An order-taking contraption involving tinfoil and numbered chips evokes memories of long-forgotten “high tech”. And at one end of the dining room, there’s this tremendous organ, illuminated by a spotlight and a candelabra of flickering electric candles.

The Pizza Joynt is not really even campy. They’ve avoided the temptation of plastering the walls with cute old signs (aside from the Wurlitzer neon and two signs reminding parents to keep their rugrats in tow). They’ve managed to skip the trend toward pastels and plants and bright flourescent lights (a la Denny’s) or “instant cute” (as in TGI Friday’s). Were the joynt not located in the Fascist Repulblic of California, one could imagine it filled with smoke, especially around the bar. By the way…there’s a bar…

Big surprise: the place still brings in huge crowds on weekends. Maybe not everyone has fallen completely for the sanitized family restaurants of the 90’s. Even in the age of canned adult-contemporary Muzak, some people actually prefer a live guy sitting at the organ, playing standards and even Christmas songs. A train medely (which, through the magic of theater organ technology, made me think the Wabash Cannonball was about to crash through one of the walls) even included the theme to “Petticoat Junction”.

 

Guests
David, Sarah, Brad (roomie not pictured).

And the pizza is incredible. None of this foofy “feta, tofu, and sun-dried tomatoes on a whole wheat crust” bullshit (although pineapples are offered, for some inexplicable reason). Amazing crust, amazing cheese, and truly amazing prices.

Alas, this kind of place could no longer exist in San Francisco. One of two things would have happened. it might have become yet another trendy California pizza cafe, offereing pasta dishes and individual pans of pseudo-healthy crap. Otherwise, some designer fag might have bought the place, expanded its camp value and turned it into a microbrewery.

We love Hayward, with its tendency to thumb its nose at the pretentiousness of the Bay Area in general. And we really love Ye Olde Pizza Joynt!

Ye Olde Pizza Joynt, 19150 Hesperian Boulevard, Hayward.
Open every night; no organ music on Mondays and Tuesdays. Some credit cards accepted.