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1999

18 May 1999

Aaahh, Tuesday. Thanks to a lack of new and exciting sweeps programming on Fox, I get an extra primetime episode of The Simpsons, bringing the daily total to four. Heaven…

Sick…

So after threatening to get sick for a couple of weeks, I finally went ahead and did it this past weekend. It’s pretty much over now; I’ve arrived at the phlegm-purging phase now. Sorry if that was a little more detail than you were looking for.

Suffice to say I’m going through kleenex at an alarming rate. And lest there be trademark issues over the use of the term “kleenex”, let me make it clear that I am in fact using that particular product (Kleenex Cold Care with Lotion, to be specific) and not some other brand. This is not a paid testimonial.

Road…

This week I’m re-reading both “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac (in the bathroom) and “Mad Monks on the Road” by the Monks (in the bedroom). I sense a theme developing here. I haven’t spent any time out of the Bay Area since Christmas. I haven’t done a major road trip since last year’s second annual US Tour.

I need to be on the road. Soon.

I’m not talking about a huge road trip here; I prefer to do those in the fall. But Portland and Seattle are coming to mind. It’s been a couple of years. And my spies tell me it’s still raining in Portland. Yes, that’s a plus…

Link…

Link du jour, which might already have been a link du jour, is Nightcharm. It’s sort of a thinking man’s porn site. After all I really DID read “Playboy” for the articles when I was a kid. It’s not as if cared about the pictures…

21 May 1999

My onions have sprouted.

I don’t know whether to be horrified or excited. It seemed to happen overnight. I bought a bag of onions, left them on the counter for a couple of days, and then, this morning, there were these green things shooting out the top. That’s what I get for keeping them out in the fertile ground my kitchen seems to have become.

Can I still use them? Or should I just plant them?

So all kinds of invites have arrived from people to hang out with in Seattle, assuming I can get off my butt and plan a trip there soon. Maybe around the 4th of July would be good: I’ve been informed that it ALWAYS rains then.

About this rain thing: long-timers know that I’m not really happy unless I get a couple of rainy (or at least overcast) days a week. The problem with San Francisco (and most of California) is that it just doesn’t rain AT ALL between roughly April and October. So by mid-May, I already miss it.

Soaking up sunshine is not among my favorite pastimes. Getting a tan? You gotta be kidding. Strangely enough, though, I have always fantasized about owning a convertible. Not just any convertible, but a 1966 Corvair convertible.

Completely unrelated: number one on the pop charts this week in 1966 was “Monday, Monday” by the Mamas and the Papas…

Car Alarms and Such

I laugh when car alarms go off in the middle of the night.

I laugh because the alarm means there’s a good chance that the idiot who owns said car alarm will return to his car and find a broken window, or worse. At this point, he’ll be getting exactly what he deserves.

What the hell are people thinking when they install loud, repeating car alarms? Do they have some fantasy that complete strangers will hear the alarm and immediately run outside and body slam the perpetrator? Here’s a clue: when a car alarm wakes me up at 4AM, the only impulse I have is to go out and finish whatever was started. If the crook broke a side window, I’m tempted to do the rest and demolish the windshield.

Any individual with the paranoia which makes him believe a car alarm does anything but inspire homicidal rage in his neighbors has no business parking his car on the street in an urban area. Period.

That said, I’ll reveal that I actually went out in my neighborhood on a weekend night (again) and had good time (again). Twice in three weeks. Pretty amazing, huh? The crowd at Hole in the Wall was incredibly tolerable. Once again, it seems the tweakers and the slumming yuppies opted for a different scene for the evening.

I’m not about to get my hopes up and believe this is a developing trend, alas. There’s too much potential for disappointment. And too damned many BMWs with car alarms parked in the neighborhood.

Apologies to Eugene for the positive tone of one of the paragraphs here. I hope the others made up for it…

Come Join the People of AARP

I’ve been invited to join the AARP.

This is pretty amazing, considering that (a) the minimum age for membership is 50, and (b) the AARP were early pioneers in the use of invasive, privacy-compromising monster databases, and thus they should realize that I’m not even CLOSE to 50.

I’m torn. Should I lie about my age and send in my eight bucks, so I can get all those fabulous discounts at places like EconoLodge and Denny’s and Wal-Mart? Or should I just hang on to my invitation for fifteen years until I’m really eligible?

In an effort to stave off senility for a few hours, I took a really long walk on Sunday. When I say “long walk”, I mean a five or six mile mega-hike around the city, from China Basin to Chinatown, from the Financial District to Union Square. A couple of realizations in the process:

  • The Financial District is boring just about any day of the week and provides an unpleasant lull to any stroll.
  • A disturbing number of German tourists eat at the Burger King at Powell and Market.
  • An encouraging number of skateboarders still ignore the “no skateboarding” signs along the Embarcadero.
  • It’s damned difficult to find a Coke on certain streets in Chinatown.
  • A mildly sunburned scalp is a very unpleasant thing.

More exciting missives to come, I’m sure…

Yay! Summer!

It’s freezing cold, windy, and foggy. Summer has arrived in San Francisco. I love it.

I can always tell a holiday weekend has arrived. The hits on the web site go way down starting by about 3:00 on Friday afternoon. And by Saturday evening, I’m drowning in spam. It’s a very predictable pattern, repeated over and over throughout the year.

All in all, it’s been a good weekend so far. Had dinner at Tad’s with Dan on Thursday night, followed by a relaxing drive through Bayview/Hunter’s Point (no irony intended). I crammed a lot of work into Friday so I wouldn’t have to think about it on Saturday and Sunday.

After a really fitful sleep of mildly disturbing dreams, I had Saturday morning coffee (OK…I had a Coke) at Brainwash with a gentleman from Todco (a non-profit which builds affordable housng South of Market) and discussed the ramifications of Loftomania.

And then it was off to the Doggie Diner for Sarah’s birthday burger, followed by a trek to The Attic, my favorite junk store in the Sunset. Sarah bought old postcards, and I scored two old San Francisco telephone directories (vintage 1962 and 1978). I can’t quite explain how excited I was to find these, and I really don’t expect anyone else to understand. I’ll expand on it later, but you’re allowed not to care.

Best discovery of the weekend is that Bringdown #5 is now available on a World Wide Web near you.

Feeling suitably bitter, I’m now about to go out in search of some memorable tourist dick to celebrate Memorial Day. Wish me luck…

East to West

Sunburned again. And it seemed so damned overcast when I started. I went on another one of those urban mega-hikes on Monday afternoon. This time, I accomplished something I’d never done before: I crossed the entire width of the city, from the bay to the ocean, on foot.

I didn’t really plan it this way. I just started walking. And I kept walking and walking. Past Union Square and the Civic Center and onward through the Western Addition projects. I crossed Divisadero, where the honey-baked ham store sits across the street from the Jewish mortuary. I wandered past the old Sears store at Geary and Masonic and into the Richmond District.

By the time I hit Green Apple Books at 6th and Clement, I knew I wasn’t going to stop until I hit the Pacific. And I didn’t. I finally came to rest atop a hill amidst the ruins of Adolph Sutro’s mansion overlooking the sea.

Then I got on a bus and came home. I’ve spent the rest of the evening recovering.

Why do I do this? Mainly, because I can. Having a walkable city is one of the biggest benefits associated with living in San Francisco, even for a diehard road tripper like myself. Long-distance walks allow you to see things you don’t notice from a car or a bus. Seemingly dull areas develop unexpected nuances and textures.

I recommend it, even though eight miles may be a bit much. Maybe it was jut frustration from not getting laid this weekend…

Visit Soon

My car is now legal again. I was a little tardy in taking care of my smog check and registration. Please don’t ask me how tardy. All the same, I can once again drive without fear of persecution (or prosecution) now that, as they say, the check in the mail. Not that I really stopped driving anyway. I just stopped driving near cops.

At least there’s now an event which has displaced the final episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the most exciting moment of my week. If you think that’s sad, you should ask me about the runners-up.

Next week will be better. My friend Duncan from North Carolina will be visiting. One of the benefits (and trust me…there aren’t many…) of living in a business and convention destination is that sometimes your friends get to visit and they don’t even have to pay for it.

Duncan and I work well together. We used to do things like leaving the house headed for fast food places down the block and winding up 90 miles away in a cafeteria in another state. This was a fairly regular thing and never seemed too unusual. No telling where we’ll end up while he’s here. I haven’t been to Fresno lately…

The way I’m doing things lately, I may WALK there…

Note to Duncan: you need not feel compelled to go to Fresno…

Note to self: shut up and go to sleep…

8 June 1999

Extremely busy and hectic weekend. My apologies to anyone who’s waiting for me to answer email. Tomorrow, I promise…

Sunday’s “Stop the Hate” rally in the Mission was indeed the put-on I’d imagined. Mind you, it was a serious event and serious issues were discussed and publicized. Essentially, though, it was a brilliant piece of street theatre.

Duncan’s here, I’m playing tourguide, and I’ll have somthing more interesting to say soon. Maybe…

The Great Smoke-free Experiment of 1999

I gave up smoking for fourteen hours today and lived to tell about it.

I’m not sure what possessed me. I’ve been thinking about it for several weeks. So I let myself run out of cigarettes last night. I then managed to get through most of the morning without one. I held out until about 11:30.

It was quite unpleasant, although not quite as bad as I might have expected. I may try it again some time. Maybe I’ll attempt an entire day soon.

I’ve been smoking for over twenty years. I started in junior high, where it caused some problems. Smoking was legal at high schools in Greensboro back then, and that’s where I got really hooked. I’ve never been particularly apologetic about smoking, although I’ve generally tried to be considerate about it. I draw the line, though, in my own home or car, or in bars.

I also draw the line here at Planet SOMA. I’d like to think that if I were to quit smoking, I’d never become a self-righteous asshole like this guy who had the audacity to tell me not to feature pictures of myself smoking on the site.

Anyway, given my chemically-deprived state last night, I didn’t answer much email (I know…I promised…I’m sorry…) I’m not making any promises about tonight either. I also have not added my rally pictures. I may not do so. I fear the time has passed. All the same, feel free to browse the SF Weekly’s admission of responsibility…

Habits

My friend Rae is about to leave on a major road trip as she moves to Chicago. I’m jealous. She’s excited. We shared our respective emotions several times today. We never spoke in person; everything was said via email or voice mail. I’m not sure if this is good or bad.

Bad habits I’ve obtained since I became “wired”:

  • File extensions: Being a Mac supremacist, I’ve never really had to deal with them on a regular basis. But since the internet is a Unix environment (despite what Bill Gates may believe), I’ve had to start. Now I add file extensions to anything I’m working on. It’s like a curse.
  • Saying “directory” rather than “folder”, even when I’m talking to another person using another Mac.
  • Giving out my email address rather than my phone number in bars. This just seems wrong somehow.
  • Using my video camera as a glorified still camera and shooting things more with the assumption that they’ll be used on the site rather than watched on an actual TV.
  • Expecting printed books and newspapers to have a “search” button.

Good (and somewhat anachronistic) habits I’ve maintained:

  • Very rarely, if ever, using the term “wired”.
  • Reading newspapers: somehow the physical article still excites me in a major way.
  • Driving thousands of miles at a time and staying completely away from email for most of that time.
  • Used bookstores: there are still few things I love more.
  • KABL and the sounds of Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Astrid Gilberto, and Louis Prima while I work.
  • Avoiding chat rooms and IRC like the plague (except for that brief and unfortunate period in 1995).

Healthy balance or not? You be the judge. I really don’t care…